Currently // Mid-October Edition

drinking coffee with Pecan Praline creamer. May be my new fall favorite.

watching (or rewatching) an episode of The West Wing with Travis in the evenings. The election has gotten us fired up to rewatch one of our favorite series. I think we are somewhere in season six, maybe seven?

laughing at the boy. He is a funny, funny kid.

eating eggs + avocados (when I have both on hand). Cover with lots of salt and pepper and I’ve found mine new favorite. 

needing more sleep. Pulled an almost-all-nighter with the boy on Tuesday night. Not sure what was up with him, but it wasn’t sleep. Last night I was ex.haus.ted and crashed almost as soon as I sat down after the kids were in bed.

thinking about what rejuvenates me. Scrapbooking (or more like Project Life-ing), working in my school room, planning out fun lesson plans and projects, time in my Bible / working on Bible studies, journaling / list making. There hasn’t been enough of any of those things of late, and my creativity is feeling a little dry.

enjoying cooler temperatures, long sleeves, and jeans. Planning meals around soups and cozy pasta dishes (yet trying to keep things somewhat healthy), fall veggies like sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and Brussels sprouts. No one here will eat the Brussels sprouts with me which is fine. More for me. : )

prepping lesson plans. Um, not really. That’s one of my fall break projects … Less winging it, more planning. My new motto.

opening a holiday (Thanksgiving and Christmas) planner that I made last week and starting to jot a few notes. How is it time to be working on this already?

remembering a friend that had major surgery earlier this week in prayer. Plus lots of friends seem to have sick parents or spouses right now.

brainstorming a December Daily album this year. I know – it’s mid-October. But I was looking at something online and it triggered that December (and my annual December Daily album) is not that far off. It’s crazy to think about doing on this year with everything going on (and barely being able to keep up with Project Life), but it’s one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

wearing comfy pants (that I typically don’t leave the house in) and a white t-shirt

making a few PL pages. Wanting to work on this week’s layout. Getting three weeks done last week has got me fired up to work on it.

feeling a little all over the place if that makes sense. : )

loving that as of tomorrow, we are on a short fall break! I wasn’t sure if we were going to take an official break or just have some easy school days, but some official days off won out. We are all passing a cold around (the boy was hit hard last weekend, but seems to be on the mend) and I think some easy days are in order. Plus, our Friday Bible study is on break this week, as is next Tuesday’s normal CC class. It’s back to work next Wednesday, though!

listening to Christmas music (a wee bit) when I’m not playing our Story of the World audio CD or CC memorization work. I was trying to remember a Christmas some from Keith and Kristyn Getty’s album and the whole thing is just beautiful.

inspired by this paper crafts blog (new-to-me). I need more playing with paper. : )

reading I have been making myself sit and read for a little bit in the evening. (Making sounds a little strong; it’s not that bad). There is always work to be done, but my thoughts on rejuvenating myself above means I need to carve out a little time read now and then. I have recently finished the second book in the Wildwood series, Under Wildwood, and enjoyed it, thought not quite as much as book one. I also finished Mark of Athena on my Kindle, the most recent by Rick Riordan. I can’t help it; I’ve been sucked into this series. Truthfully though, this one wasn’t my favorite, but I think a large part of that is that I thought I was reading the last book in the series and couldn’t figure out how he was going to wrap this up in the amount of book I had left. Turns out, book 4 is coming out next year. That makes me be a bit more forgiving, but it seemed to drag more than his other books. Now I’ve cracked the (digital) cover of Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the Reading to Know book club, but I’m making no promises to finish it. We’ll see. I’ve also been gifted a copy of Worldliness by C.J. Maheney that I want to crack open as well as Dancing with My Father by Sally Clarkson. As always, so many choices.

thankful for family, for grace that is new every morning, for coffee in the morning and salty popcorn in the evening, for fall leaves, and flannel sheets. Life has seemed to be a mess of crazy and beautiful of late and I’m trying to keep my eyes open to not miss it. Happy Thursday. : )