Seven Quick Takes

**1**

In the "there she goes again, is this turning into a gluten free blog?" category...going gluten free this week has been faring better than I expected.  That being said, I need to go shopping and today we are running out of steam.  Dinner is in 3.5 hours and I have NO idea what to make.  Lunch and snacks today were pretty pitiful too.  We've dipped into the expensive GF "substitute" type snacks too much for my taste - you know, gluten free breads, crackers, cookies. Most of which were just kind of "eh" tasting anyway. I was hoping to rely more on meats, fruits, and veggies.    Too bad I don't like meats, fruits, and vegetables, lol.

**2**

Today Jeffrey had to go for more bloodwork.  He garners lots of pity amongst the nurses and nice elderly ladies waiting for their bloodwork, who probably can't understand why I am laughing at his adorable pitiful show.  Part of it is laughing so I don't cry, but part of it is because he has come a long way since last June, when all he would do is scream bloody murder and thrash about.  Now he still cries, but he sists still, and between the gasps and sobs he is yelling things like, "I....hate...this!" and "I....want...this...to...stop...NOW!"   Which is only cute because he is hardly that articulate at home when he is upset. He usually just hauls off and smacks somebody. :-p   Maybe next month he'll be saying things like, "Kind nurse, please remove that blasted needle from my arm, would you, dear? There's a good woman." with a British accent.

**3**

Getting back into the swing of school has been hard.  I lowered my expectations this week, but I still feel guilty.  We read aloud, everyone (but one sneaky child) did math every most days.  We did have a library trip, several children created games and stories, watched science videos, and there was no end to Redwall talk.  Home ec was covered with learning about new foods and cooking (see #1).   I do hope to ramp it up a bit next week ... I still see college breathing down my neck way too quickly.

**4**

"Sneaky child" mentioned above, has been dodging school work since we started this year.  It's truly been worse than pulling teeth. (Really, she did better getting fillings at the dentist at 5yo than doing school, lol).  She eventually does it, but wow.  The first few months of school I tried keeping things easy even though I knew she was bored - I also wanted her to gain some endurance at just *doing it* even though she didn't want to.  But honestly, I think she is just seriously bored out of her skull.  She is smart...and as another child ages and grows behind her, I see how smart she really is.  So starting next week, no more boring "you know this already" phonics pages (I'll only weep a little at how much money was wasted) or math ... I'm going to try to keep school short, sweet, relatively fun, but challenging for her.   *gulp*  She's definitely not the type to slog through the easy stuff to get to the hard, she just wants the hard(ish) stuff or nothing.  Preferably nothing, lol.

**5**

Yes I'm still obsessively searching for houses, because as soon as I decide that we should just stay in this town and wait for the perfect house or build onto our own,  I see another news story about a burglar coming into a house in our town when the people are HOME.  Ummmm, NO.   There are just too many people here for me to protect all at once.  And if the world decided to go to hell in a handbasket in the near future, I see things getting real bad here, really fast. At least a little farther out there are fewer people, and houses have some land for growing produce or housing a goat or chickens or something.  Unfortunately, what we can afford house-wise out there is about the same size as what we are in now here! Just more land to roam on (more being easy when now we have less than a fifth of an acre).  An acre or two would seem like a grand expanse of land.  I don't want to exchange a larger house for my children's safety, yet at the same time, me crabbing at them all the time because we are all on top of each other doesn't do us any good either. 

**6**

A problem that comes from moving farther out from the city, though, is being a good 40+ minute drive from the community colleges, The LDs in my oldest make driving look like something that should wait a few years past "average" to learn ... so I see myself trekking 5 kids 45 minutes each way several times a week ... and then what do I do with the rest of them while one or two are in class? Ugh.   While here, the class is 10 minutes away...I drop them off and am home, or if we stay we are at least not out of the house and "car schooling" half the time.  I am relying on CC (at least dual enrollment if not an AA there first) to get her into a good college, because I don't think going about it the traditional way is going to work for us/her.  I know, whine whine whine, but these things make my head spin.   Not to mention the general lack of homeschoolers out there.  The area where we could settle, not too far from my dh's job, nor too far from my parents, is like a homeschooling wasteland. Not that we are doing much with other homeschoolers NOW, but I was also hoping by moving to get to know new people and get into some activities.

**7**

Seriously, what am I going to make for dinner??  I need to hurry up my plans to buy a side of beef, so that I always have *something* in the freezer.  Moo.

For more 7 Quick Takes this week, join Jen at Conversion Diary!