What’s going on in My Domestic Church

As weeks go, this one was certainly full of blessings. I think to understand you first must know that both of our vehicles are paid for AND both of them have over 150,000. Of course neither vehicle has entirely that much mileage on it. For example, my front brakes have probably only 20,000 because Mr. Pete changed them when the started making that screeching noise. If you drive a vehicle long enough, and change out enough parts, eventually it’s like having a new car… sort of.

Anyway, Mr. Pete was driving into his favorite service station to get his morning caffeine fix, when the steering went out on his van. He thought he had hit a patch of ice, but when he got the van stopped he saw that the steering chain was broken and dragging on the ground. We were so grateful that it happened when he was in a parking lot going about 5 miles an hour than on the highway going 60! In typical Mr. Pete fashion, while he was under there he saw some other stuff that was close to going (like tirod ends) so he replaced those too.

I posted a picture yesterday of the back window on the station wagon. The kids and I were at the community center for their art show. I decided to go up and pay for their next session so I gave the kids all of their art work and had Gabe take them to the car with my keys. A few moments later Izzy and Noah came running in with a look of terror in their eyes. They told me that the back window of the car had smashed all over the them and that there was glass all over the parking lot. Noah had blood running down his hand. First things first, after wiping up Noah it was thankfully just a very small cut. That’s one things about hand injuries and anything the head or scalp – even very small cuts seem to bleed a lot! With persistent pressure the bleeding stopped and he was fine. The window fell on top of Gabe’s head, but other than some glass parts that had fallen down his shirt collar, he was fine. We swept up the glass and made it home with an open back window. I have no idea why that window gave way and Mr. Pete is still trying to figure it out.

After we made it home Mr. Pete called me and had me look at this. So we talked about it. It would be great to have a better looking car to drive around. It would also nice to not have to make a weekly trip to the auto part store! But a new back window is only about $160 and in the end we decided to just go with than than to try to get a loan and start making car payments again!

In other goings on – Gabe served mass again this week. I always hear from the daily mass ladies about what a reverent boy he is and what a good server he has become. However, twice now some has gone up to him and commented on his foot wear. The first time it was one of the sacristy ladies. Yesterday it was the gentleman who trains the servers.

We had a priest here that everyone loved who always wore sandles in the summer, and reluctantly put on athletic shoes in the winter. I wonder if he got as much grief about what he wore on his feet as Gabe has! Gabe has one pair of athletic shoes that he wears everywhere. Typically for us, dress shoes for the boys has been an extra expense that we just haven’t found necessary because until they hit confirmation in 8th grade, they haven’t really had the need or the desire to wear them! Calvin and Sam have dress shoes, but then they have gone to dances and a lot or places that require full dress shoes. Their feet are also not growing so fast any more (and at size 15 I hope Calvin’s feet are done growing!!) Gabe has never cared about what he wore on his feet, but now this second comment sort of hurt his feelings. Maybe we’ll get him a pair for Christmas.

My new client has been working out. There were some things that required a lot of researching, but overall I think it is going to work out. I’ll know better after the holidays what a “normal” dictation week will look like and whether I will be able to handle it well or not.

We are plugging away on homeschooling and will probably work pretty much through the holidays with time off for Christmas and New Years. I’ll probably do more arts and crafts sort of things and maybe some of those science experiments I have been putting off! We are almost finished with our last Martha book. Since the kids are going to be doing the medieval feast this year, I thought I would introduce Izzy and Noah to the Karen Cushman books to get them into the feel of that time period. Gabe can listen to them again too.

Christmas shopping is going slow but steady. I am very thankful that my kids have very simple wants. They each get 3 gifts because that is what Baby Jesus received, and they have asked for relatively easy things. Probably our biggest expense is Calvin and Sam’s request for MP3 players, but I’m inclined to get them, particularly for Sam since we can put his audio books on them.

Speaking of Sam and books, I am loving his subscription to the Boomerang with Bravewriter! Last month he read the Scarlet Pimpernel, and this month he is reading Call of the Wild and White Fang. Next month it will be the Diary of Ann Frank. He is getting a good exposure to literature and it is making him write more. I had to come up with some sort of a grading system for our homeschooling and I came up with if he reads the book, that is a C. If he reads the book and does all of the copy work or answers the questions that come with the subscription – that’s a B. If he gets all of it done, that’s an A! I think that’s fair.

I’ve got some interesting things for the Domestic Clippings coming up this weekend and some thoughts about the rest of Advent later today hopefully. Off to finish up one of these transcription jobs before the start of our homeschool!

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