I Need Soup!

Soup season is upon us, and I need soup recipes! I grow weary of wading through recipe sites; I really do. So I want to know: what are your favorite soup recipes? I know you've probably posted a recipe or two before on your own blog or bookmarked a favorite recipe. Or maybe you've been meaning to post a favorite soup recipe on your blog but haven't gotten around to it. Or, like my friend Laurie and I like to say, "If you can't think of anything else to blog about, blog a recipe!"

So I'm asking you all: give me a recipe or two; I know you have them! You can link in Mr. Linky or post a favorite in the comments. Save me from my endless soup surfing! (And to start things off, I linked to my favorite beef stew recipe. But one can only eat so much beef stew...)

Today in the Smokies

How can I possibly express what it means to live within 30 minutes of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? To head out late on a Saturday afternoon, to leave the busyness of the city for rushing rivers… my heart is happy.









"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail."

~John Muir

Weekly Wrap-Up

This was one of those weeks that, when we finally finished the last Thing at 10 p.m. on Friday nights, Dr. H. and I slumped on the couch and said, “We survived!” This weekend stretches out blissfully empty in front of us.

But back to wrapping up the week. Monday we had our regular co-op classes. We discussed Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in our literature circle. Living so close to Oak Ridge and the home of the Manhattan Project, the kids for the most part were quite familiar with the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is even a model of Little Boy at the science center in Oak Ridge, and nearly all the kids have been there. This books was an awfully easy reading level for them (grades 5-8), but the subject matter was at their level. (I wish the book had been written at a higher reading level, because the subject of dying from radiation is really too intense for K-2.)

We had a good school morning on Tuesday, getting in lots of good reading of The Wright Brothers and tackling a few lessons in math each. Of course we have our trek to Knoxville for dance and drama on Tuesday afternoons, and Jesse had his biology class at the community college. Tuesday evening we had the Cub Scouts monthly pack meeting. In honor of Veterans Day, Randy had two veterans speak to the boys. One is the dad of one of the Cubs, and he was simply fantastic. What a tremendously gifted speaker! I think the boys and the parents could have listened to him for hours.

Wednesday was Veterans Day, and we were so happy to see the sun after torrential rains on Tuesday because we had a parade to march in. Four out of our five area American Heritage Girls troops shared a float in the Knoxville Veterans Day Parade. (Click on the collage for a better view!)

Thursday morning we managed to squeeze in some book learning before flute lessons and AHG/Cub Scouts. We finished The Wright Brothers, which was wonderful and which also means that we get to start one of my favorite read-alouds—Little Britches—next week. Our American Heritage Girls meeting was packed with various activities: the oldest girls learned how to handle knives and axes for their Outdoor Skills badge; the Explorers made lap blankets for a local homeless ministry and made their AHG t-shirts; the youngest girls finished up their Outdoor Skills badge; and the whole troop contributed items to pack about eight boxes for Operation Christmas Child.

I forgot to mention one major part of this whole week: Jesse was writing and revising essays for college applications. I am pretty sure he must have had about five drafts of each essay before he ironed out all the kinks and produced what I think are a collection of pretty darned good essays. Applications for early admission are due by Dec. 1 but his goal was to have them in the mail by this week. Phew! A big, big, big accomplishment in our homeschooling journey!!

So, Friday. I had hardly seen my sweet parents all week, so the kids and I decided that playing cards and having a geography quiz with Oma and Opa was much more important than reducing fractions. We spent a couple of hours just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful morning and the joy of grandparents. That afternoon I gave Part 2 of an exam in my World Lit/Geography class, and then we had a bit of a party, which is always important after finishing up a unit! The rest of the class was so much fun. I split the class into two teams and had a geography bowl, drilling them with all sorts of questions. They were hilarious as they became more and more competitive—in a very friendly kind of way. It was just one of those great classes.

Friday night brought our first Boy Scouts Court of Honor in a long time. Jesse and his friend Everett were the night's emcees—something they needed to do for their Communications badge—and Randy did a fantastic presentation on their adventure to Philmont Scout Ranch last summer. A few months ago we had a split in our Boy Scout troop when the Scoutmaster behaved badly and needed to leave. It was so evident last night what a good thing the split was; there was no underlying tension and lots of laughter. It has been so wonderful to see Jesse take a renewed interest in Scouting under our new Scoutmaster.

This was the last crazy weekend for a long, long time. Activities are beginning to wind down as the holidays approach. Our co-op classes are nearly over until mid-January. I am looking forward to some good family time—and tackling my filthy house.

How was your week? Wrap it up at the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

If You Came To My House Today…

If you came to my house today, you'd probably wonder where you could sit down. You'd probably look around and say, "Holy COW! What a slob!"

It's the end of a very, very busy week. Cleaning has not been a part of this week's agenda. The kitchen counters are fairly clean but only because I had to go through piles of paper to get to find the stapler. Those piles of papers were mostly my son's many drafts of his college application essays. Many, many drafts.

The dishes are mostly done, but only because I had to do them to get to the crockpot at the bottom of the sink. I needed the crockpot for tonight's supper.

There is an ironing board in my dining room. I've never had an ironing board in the dining room before, but the living room was so crowded with laundry baskets that I couldn't put the ironing board in its customary spot. I had to iron my son's green Boy Scout pants and iron on the Life Scout patch that he earned about a year ago. I'm a little behind on that.

The living room, as I said, is crowded with three full laundry baskets. At least I can say that the baskets contain folded laundry, thanks to my husband.

The hallway has a huge pile of laundry and a laundry basket filled with stuff I scraped off the counter 2 weeks ago before our big soup party. I really should go through that and find all the bills that are no doubt due by now.

The bedrooms, well, let's not talk about bedrooms. My daughter's is clean because she enjoys keeping her room clean. Our bed is made because my husband makes it every morning. Yep. That's all I can really say about bedrooms.

I forgot to mention dead flowers in all the vases. Books and papers piling up on surfaces. The hedge-trimmer, gloves, and pruners I left out on the front porch last weekend. The dying 'mums all around the outside doors.

But it's all okay. Some weeks are like that, and the important thing, my husband is actually yelling this moment: "we survived this week!"

Tomorrow I'll begin the process of putting it all back together again. Until then, I'm really, really glad that no one really came to my house today…

What would we see at your house today? La Vida Dulce wants to know!

Wordless Wednesday: Veterans Day

On the weekend before Veterans Day, our American Heritage Girls troops place rose petals on the graves at our local Veterans Cemetery after the Boy Scouts have placed flags at each site. It's a lovely tradition, one that connects the girls to the world in a way that parades and speeches cannot. For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Immersed

No, this post is not a discussion of immersion vs. sprinkling, so sorry if you came here looking for answers on that topic. Sometimes words just pop in my head, and this week I feel utterly immersed in activities. I don't nearly have the drowning feeling, but I feel like my head is barely above water. (I guess the "immersed" analogy just fell apart…)

Nonetheless, I shouldn't be sitting here blogging. I should be doing dishes or putting away laundry or sending out an email about our AHG meeting this week or creating a test for Friday's World Lit class or doing sit-ups or baking cookies or, at the very least, taking a shower to get ready for our day. But sometimes, you just have to blog it out.

This is one of those weeks in which everything and more hits. This week, I am praying for a sunny day for the Veterans Day parade in which our area American Heritage Girls troops are marching tomorrow. For Jesse to get his college application essays DONE and in the mail. For the ability to send out all the right emails with all the right information as we have our last "working" AHG meeting on Thursday until January. (Our December meeting is a Christmas tea.) That I can figure out exactly what it is I'm doing in class on Friday—that I can capture all the ideas running in circles in my head and nail down a solid plan. For Jesse to get those essays done (did I say that already?) and plan the Boy Scouts' Court of Honor which he has to emcee on Friday evening.

And then, of course, I need to teach my sweet children. That is what I am looking forward to most today: heading over to our cozy apartment, wrapping up in fleece blankets next to the fireplace (OK, it's gas, but still...), and reading to my little ones (who aren't really very little).

But what is really, really nice? This is the last officially crazy week of the year. When I come to Saturday morning—just four days away—I can get out my sewing machine and start all kinds of fun projects. And finish one sweet baby's quilt.

What's happening in your world this week?

Weekly Wrap-Up

How I loved this calm, relatively activity-free week!

* Monday we had our regular day at our co-op. We finished discussing Snow Treasure in Literature Circle, added supporting sentences to body paragraphs in Basic Essay Writing, and worked more on rebuttals in Introduction to Debate. Monday evening we had our first official meeting for our chapter of Eta Sigma Alpha, the National Homeschool Honor Society. Yes, it's true: the National Honor Society doesn't accept homeschoolers, so some folks started an honor society for homeschoolers many years ago. Apparently the NHS doesn't think homeschoolers can prove equal academic standing, which is of course ridiculous. Hello, ACT and/or SAT scores? Whatever. Our support group began sponsoring a local chapter several months ago, and we only just managed to find a time to meet and discuss future plans. The first project our kids are going to undertake is to hold a practice session for ACT test-taking. While the kids administer the practice tests, some of us parents are going to hold an information college-prep session for parents.

* Tuesday-Friday: we are in the middle of a fabulous book about The Wright Brothers. This is one of those books that the kids beg me to keep reading. We've also been reading Samantha's World: Growing Up in America's New Century, which is really excellent. While I've been reading, Laurel has been designing clothes with her fashion design kit, and Duncan has been plugging away at Legos. Of course we did all our regular work as well: spelling, math, handwriting, grammar, etc. and the kids did whatever homework they had from co-op classes. We somehow didn't do either art or creative writing this week; that happens sometimes when a book is so good that we can't stop reading!

* Jesse has been working hard at getting his essays done for college applications. The goal is to finish everything this week to submit early next week, although the deadline for early decision is Dec. 1 for the colleges to which he's applying. We're trying to discourage that procrastinator's gene.

* We finished reading and discussing Things Fall Apart in World Lit/Geography today. While most of the students liked the book more as they went along, it was far from a favorite. Jesse really liked it, and a couple others did as well. I still think it was an excellent choice, and I hope it will be memorable for them.

* Tomorrow we'll be going to the veterans' cemetery in the morning to decorate the graves with flower petals, and tomorrow night is our annual American Heritage Girls/Cub Scouts hayride and campfire!

Coming up next week: a crazy, packed week with co-op, pack meeting, Veterans' Day parade, AHG and Cub Scouts, and World Lit/geography class. Thank goodness for a few calm weeks like this past one every now and then!

To wrap up your week, visit Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. You might be surprised at all you've done!

Wordless Wednesday: Mom and Dad

How I love them! For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Tuesday Miscellany

* October is fundraising month around here, and we are soooo glad that it's over! I really don't have a lot to do besides help Laurel sell. We have a fantastic fundraising coordinator for our American Heritage Girls troop. She does all the planning, collecting, and distributing of our annual citrus sale. But Randy, as Cubmaster of Duncan's troop, isn't so blessed. No one has stepped up to coordinate the annual popcorn sales for the past few years, so he does it all: planning, communicating, collecting, encouraging, and adding up all the money and the leftover popcorn. It's a really, really big job. But now it's done for the most part, and tonight we are reveling in a fundraising-free home.

* Our dog got into the Halloween candy. We now have 7 distinct stains on the living room carpet where she had diarrhea. Big stains. And she smells gross. Anyone have a great idea for getting poop stains out of carpet?

* Every Tuesday evening my parents come over for supper. It is impossible to express how much I cherish this tradition. Tonight after supper we played a game of Mahjong, which we are all struggling to learn, and than a game of our favorite card game. (It's called 500, in case you are wondering. You've probably never played.) But best of all, my father told stories after we played. The word "stories" doesn't seem quite right; really, my father tells memories. He is a master storyteller, with a gentle cadence and a penchant for poetry. Tonight he told about a certain "refugee" family from the "Missouri boot-heel" who moved to his small southern Illinois town and worked on his family's apple orchards. The story progressed through years and years, winding through college and the war and back to southern Illinois. I love stories like that. We also visited Omaha Beach, where my father's battalion landed just two months after D-Day. I am so blessed to have this man as my father. It's not just that he is the perfect Dad and a hero and a historian and a brilliant scientist, but he has a poet's heart.

* I love this week. I have virtually no extra activities.

* Which makes me wonder, yet again: why do we do so many things?

Three Beautiful Things: Clean, Food, Husband

1. My house is so clean. We had a really big annual party here this weekend, and I did major cleaning. Loved the party, love the clean house that remains. For a little while, anyway.

2. I went grocery shopping today and got food for the whole week. I have been so bad lately about doing a bit of shopping every couple of days and then running out of food. This week, the fridge is full and the menu is complete. I even found candy corn on clearance.

3. My husband is seriously the best dad ever. He drove our son all the way to Asheville, North Carolina (having to take a detour that doubled his time because of a rock slide) this evening so that Jesse could go see the amazing Leonard Cohen in concert. The concert was mostly a gift from my brother and Jesse pitched in the rest of the outrageously expensive ticket. While Randy would have loved to have heard Leonard Cohen, there was no way he could justify spending that money. For awhile he found a cafe to hang out in, but now that it's closed, he's sitting outside the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium reading a book while Jesse soaks in amazing music. Seriously, who does that? Our kids are so blessed.

Me, too.

What beautiful things have been happening in your world lately?