Quiet Life Homestead

Thursday on the Homestead

I wish I had Charlie's digital camera here to show you how our homeschool bookshelf looks now.  Yesterday I went through almost all the stacks (I still have foreign language and art to do) and decided what we'd be using and what we wouldn't.  I'm going to have Charlie decide what art book(s) to use since he was the art major in college.  I do have Visual Manna's art curriculum and would like to use it, but we'll see what he decides.  It took me almost all day to go through the math, geography, science, & english books.  I would go to the Lord first for guidance on a subject and He cleared my thinking and gave me a straight path with no second guessing.  Praise be to God!

Bethany really likes the Rod and Staff curriculum and wants to do that for her math - we already have their science and english.  I purchased her their 4th grade math a few weeks ago and once she's done with that I'll get her more.  When we first began homeschooling, we used Rod and Staff, but I quickly got pulled along from one curriculum to another.  My sister stuck with them until she put her children in school.  I do wish I had continued with the curriculum.  But God let us go through all we've been through for a reason.  Now that He's shown me, once again, what we're to do, I will not turn aside.  I've been down that road and don't like it!

Larken, Charlie's bulldog, has an eye infection or something.  We made an appointment (remember when you could just take your pet to the vet?) for tomorrow morning.  This eye stuff is something besides cherry eye.  She's had cherry eye for months.  The vet told us that it wasn't any big deal to have cherry eye so we hadn't bothered to do anything about it yet.  If that makes us bad pet parents, I'm sorry.  It doesn't seem to bother her and I didn't want her to have any surgery before she was one.  We once adopted a dog that was six weeks old.  The pound spayed her before we could take her home, and she had such problems.  Why they made her get spayed so early, I don't understand.  Larken still hasn't been spayed and I don't know if we will get her done or not.  She's already been through one cycle, and that's no fun.  But also, as an English Bulldog there's almost an unspoken duty to see if she is even fertile or not first.  There aren't many of their kind around and the reason they cost so much is threefold (according to my research): 1.Most females are infertile.  2.You have to use IVF because the males aren't able to get the job done the old fashioned way.  3.The pups have to be born c-section because their little heads are too big.  Please don't send me mean e-mails for our waiting and praying about the situation.  And if some of my facts aren't correct, then it would be the reference books' faults.  They are where I've gotten my information, well, them and some breeders and vets I've consulted.

I told ya'll a while back that Charlie was suposed to have a magazine cover.  Well, another issue came out and his pictorial carving was NOT on the cover.  He sent them an e-mail and requested his article and carving back.  No reply from the publishers yet.  I felt so bad for him.  This is the second issue in a row that it was suposed to have been on and neither one had it.  He said he's tired of getting the run-around and I can't say that I blame him.  He's decided to go back to just enjoying what he's doing and not think about magazine covers, art galleries, ebay, etc.  It seems everything he's tried has come up empty.  Actually, each of the things he's tried have been someone else's idea.  Even when we were in Michigan.  He was commissioned to make a whole bunch of leather items for a motorcycle.  It was to be for the Detroit Tigers for a fund raiser.  He was told that he would get compensated for his work from the guy who commissioned him.  The guy was to be donating his work and was going to pay Charlie to do part of it.  Well, he never saw a dime.  Once again, I know God has a purpose in all this and will see it through.  Charlie's been working on an entry to the Sheridan Show for next month and I haven't seen him this happy in a while.  It's just like he's let everything go.  Praise God!

Well, that's all for right now.  We may be going to the zoo this afternoon if it warms up, so I'd better get some work done.

Vicki