7 Quick Takes Friday

1. Things have been more quiet here mostly because our router died a slow death and I didn't know what was wrong, so connecting to the internet was ...oh how do I put this nicely...not happening when I wanted/needed it too. Now that my brilliant dh figured out what was going on, I'm on an old dinosaur laptop that types at the speed of slugs. What, you've never seen slugs type? Hopefully we'll get another router soon and I can blog while nursing a gymnastics doing toddler for the 7,375 time that day. :)

2. Crossing all my fingers and toes here, but a new house came on the market. It has SO many plusses - it's in our town which is important to dh and the kids, BUT it's on 3.6 acres which is important to me. Finding land like that here in this mighty suburb is a rarity, let me tell you! The bedrooms are big, but the house itself is not much bigger than what we have (that and the fact that there are only 2 bathrooms are the downsides we can tell without having seen it). In fact it's the same size as our house *except* it also has a detached garage and a basement, of which we currently have neither. It's got lots of character - stained glass in the living room! - and is off a long private driveway and next to a pasture! I think I saw sheep in the google maps picture. *swoon* Oh, and what looks to be a cool but old barn that we have no use for other than perhaps photography, lol.

3. Well, I'm obviously obsessing about the house because I'm only on quick take #3 and I can't think of anything else to write about! :-P Oh yeah...

In an effort to streamline our moving process and be able to vacate the house quickly for showings, I took all the girls schoolbooks and put them in tote bags kind of like this one. We have amassed several of them through dh's conferences, etc. Now when we are off to the library or need to drive around so someone can see the house, we can bring our work with us. Go me! Hey, someone has to cheer for me because the girls are seriously going, "Ahhhhhhh! Nooooooo! I don't want to have an easy way to do my work!"

4. In the "everything is breaking at once" category, the router's gone, our first laptop apparently kicked the bucket and we have spent the last 1.5 weeks trying to back it up, Jeffrey pulled an obvious chunk of wallpaper off our hallway this morning while I was trying to help a friend with her homeschooling review, and our vcr broke. Do they even make those anymore? At this point we just want a way to convert our old VHS tapes into something more modern. But cheap. Always cheap! ;-)

5. Have I mentioned I'm trying to slowly change my health habits? I've started drinking water with lemon every morning. I think it's working, because I immediately got a case of thrush. :-P I know, sounds bad, but I've been fighting low grade problems with it for ages. I think the lemon water is trying to actually kick it out of me. Do you ever just have intuition about these things?

6. I realized recently I'm having trouble separating each child from the "pack" and treating them accordingly. For instance I catch myself getting exasperated when the fourth child comes up and asks for computer time. "You've been on the computer all morning!" I want to say....but no, that was Rose, Skye, and Jane...sigh. So the kids have been getting the evil eye for things that aren't their fault. I need to work on that. First thing to do, which I've been putting off until after a move, is to create a better workable schedule of chores and fun things like computer time.

7. Oak Meadow is going well. I'm amazed that for the most part we have done three weeks of work in three weeks! We were always behind when I used other things. I say "for the most part" because my oldest is struggling a bit to keep up. It's more work than she's used to, I think more because it's 6th grade than anything having to do with it being Oak Meadow. She's also spending a lot of time NOT doing schoolwork, so that could factor into it! LOL

For more quick takes, check out Jen's wonderful blog Conversion Diary!