What I Accomplished Today

Planning to start a new unit tomorrow for school. The digital photography kind of flopped. I knew if it was boring me, Grace probably thought it was torture. I already had on hand an American Government lapbook from Hands of a Child in my computer plus I had some visuals that would make it easier to understand. Grace is not a cut and paste kind of girl so we don't actually do the lapbook pieces, we read the material then answer the questions. This go around I will also prepare a quiz for her to take at the end of the unit. I thought it would be a really good time to study how our government works with the elections coming up. In the fall I have an Elections Unit Study to go along with the Presidential elections.

This afternoon after church I made some gluten-free waffles for breakfast this week. Three days a weeks we go to a Jazzercise class and a piece of toast and banana just doesn't give me enough energy to get through the hour long class. I froze the waffles and will heat them up in the toaster before class. Scott tried them and said they taste kind of gritty, probably from the flax seed. But with butter and syrup I am sure I can choke them down. lol.

Updates From the Homestead

Second seed order has arrived from Seed Savers. Two more to come.

Scott's new endeavor for the spring and summer will be growing mushrooms.

My first gluten-free recipe. Peanut butter granola bars. I am waiting on them to set before tasting. So far I have been impressed with the gluten-free products that I purchased. The cookies, pizza crust and bread taste good. Gluten-free rice krispies was not good, but that may be because I don't like rice krispies anyway. Today is one week without gluten but have not noticed any changes with the joint and muscle discomfort. Two more weeks to go in the trail. I would also like to mention that 8 out of 12 hens are now laying. Hoping to incubate some of Betty's eggs this spring and purchase some ducks. We are already bartering 4 dozen eggs a month with a friend for bread products (now it will have to be rice bread for me) and another friend has approached me to barter also. She normally has a wonderful strawberry patch each year so I am hoping to get some strawberry jam from her.

New Products from Amanda Bennett

We love the unit studies from Amanda Bennett. Last year we did her garden unit study and right now we are working our way through the digital photography. This new series is not a unit study. The Heroes of Today series is actually stories that Amanda rewrote in today's English from older living books. I was thrilled to see these because we do most of our learning from reading and discussing. I purchased the Heroes of American History, America and Inventions to use next year. Go to www.unitstudy.com for special prices until 3/13/12. Normally each unit sells for $10.95 but the special is for $7.00. If you would like to buy the entire set the special is $30.00.

Eggs

What to do with an over abundance of eggs? Now that I have started a three week trail of gluten-free foods I am not baking goodies. That means I have extra eggs. So tonight me and hubby made omelettes for dinner. Most of the omelette would be considered fairly local with the eggs and spinach coming from our garden and backyard chickens. The cheese came from South Carolina. The omelette was very tasty. I will be trading two dozen eggs for gluten-free bread next week but with receiving 5-7 eggs daily (the production will only increase once time changes) I will for sure need to come up with some other uses.

Today's Accomplishments

Scott went down to the garden today to pick clover for the chickens and found so much more. Red cabbage, kale and baby spinach. Now we have spinach in the fridge and kale chips drying. We placed all the seed orders this afternoon and Scott plotted out on paper where we would plant everything.

After church I did the rest of my grocery shopping and picked up agave nectar for my iced tea and truvia for some other uses. Chicken coop cleaning - getting 5-7 eggs a day right now. Went through four gluten - free books from the library and collected recipes that I might need. Prepared Grace's school work for tomorrow. Did two loads of laundry. Brought wood up for the wood stove for the next few days. Discussed purchasing and incubator for chicks this spring.

Guess Where I Went Today

We live in the boonies. Country life is great but leaves something to be desired in the shopping department, especially with food. Today we drove 1 hour and 15 minutes to the Whole Foods that is closest to us. It was like a food wonderland. I had visited another Whole Foods in the past that was smaller and different offer as much variety. The main purpose of this visit was to purchase some gluten-free products to get me through the next couple of weeks for my 2-3 week trail. I was happy to find tortillas, pizza crust and loaf of bread along with some munchies. On the way back home we got to stop at Barnes and Noble (one of my favorite places on earth) and do some book shopping. Scott got three books about herbs and their uses and I picked out to art books for Grace plus a magazine about the new Hunger Games movie. Our last stop was to an educational store, but didn't really find much that I needed. It was a great date day for me and hubby because we went by ourselves. Something that rarely happens.

A Recap of the Week

I have really really neglected the blog this week. My only excuse is a really crazy schedule. So here was my week in a nutshell:

Monday - Slept in due to Grace not feeling great. Did a full day of school. Took Grace to her drawing class in the afternoon. The weather was so pretty that we took a walk before the art class. To kill time during Grace's class I went to Wal-mart and picked up a few items.

Tuesday - We actually got to stay home all day today. Lots of school work accomplished and we both rode our bike for exercise.

Wednesday - Grace stayed with my father while I drove my mom to Emory for a doctor's appt. The previous week we had also traveled to Emory for blood work and a CT scan for her quarterly check up. Grace took school work to do and her computer to keep her entertained. This trip is always an all day affair. Three hour travel time (1 1/2 hours each way) plus a two hour wait to see the doctor for test results. The past year has been really good in that mom hasn't needed any treatments, her tumors were not growing or changing. This time one of the tumors in her lung changed by a few milimeters and her blood numbers went up. The doctor feels in the next 3-6 months we will have to look at another surgery or another clinical trail. Mom seems to be handling it well. This has been a 10 year road with thyroid cancer that doesn't respond to normal treatments.

Thursday - Chiropractor appt for me in the morning. This makes a month of treatments with no improvements. He feels my joint/muscle issues may be from something else. He wants me to try a gluten free diet for 2-3 weeks and see if I have any improvement. I had also decided on my own to try white sugar free also. Maybe detoxing my body will help. We did a little school then another art class in the afternoon as well as drama ministry team practice . I had a headache when I got home from no sugar today.

Friday - Jazzercise in the morning with lunch at Blimpie ( I had a salad for a gluten free lunch) afterwards. Home for a little school (math, digital photography and Bible) then off to drama (Jungle Book musical) practice for 1 1/2 hours.