Elena 
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- Last week I took Rosie to the dentist and the secretary was very thorough in going over their COVID protocols. When I mentioned to her that we had already had COVID, she very confidently told me that immunity from infection only lasts three months or so. Turns out she might be wrong about that. The National Institute of Health says that immunity from the illness might be much greater than we originally thought.
2. Rosie will be starting her junior year of high school with Physical Science, Biology, and Chemistry under her belt. I am trying to persuade her to take Anatomy and Physiology for her Junior year, but I noted that Apologia has added Astronomy to its high school sciences. That would be something that interests her and would also be a nice science credit for her high school transcript. I guess we’ll have to talk about it.
3. The pastor emeritus from my parish passed away last weekend. His funeral is tomorrow. He was one of the priests that challenged me, literally, when I was finding my own way back to my Catholic faith. His love of America Magazine was a thorn in my side for many years too.
But overall our relationship was pleasant and even fun. He always complimented the food I brought over to the rectory when I was one of the rectory cooks. He took my oldest son and the youth group on long, rigorous bike rides. We called him the Silver Fox because he was so speedy and even faster than some of the kids he was riding with. He opened his doors to Father Chima from Nigeria who was also very kind and played soccer with my son every Friday after the evening mass.
I remember going to Father Karg for my first confession after probably 10 or more years. I had a toddler, a pre-schooler and a new baby. I hoped to take the baby in to the confessional with me and leave the little boys just outside with my door open so that I could keep an eye on them. Unfortunately, the baby was fussy or something and while my attention was turned, little Calvin got into the confessional and started jumping up and down on the kneeler. Poor Father was surprised and said loudly, “Who’s out there?!” I managed to wrangle all four of us into the confessional and then tearfully tell him that I really felt in need of the sacrament, but I had no one to watch my kids and they wouldn’t stay outside without me. Father graciously and very pastorally told me he could hear the sorrow in my voice and he gave me absolution. It was one of my strangest but kindest confessional experiences.
Another time, he saw me playing with my little daughter outside. I guess the light brought out my silver highlights because he opined to me, “You sure are getting grey.” To which I replied, “Do you want to comment on my weight too?”
When Father Karg and his friend Father Yahner decided to give up bicycling, they gave all of their bikes to my family, for which we were very grateful since we had five bike-riding kids at the time.
Maybe what I will remember about him the most was that he always had a smile on his face and I never saw him angry. I will always pray for him and remember him with affection.
4. After a lot of thought, I decided to move Miss C. down to the classroom for her school work. We were working at the dining room table, but as I have adult children who come and go and like to congregate in the kitchen to visit, it was getting a little distracting for her and for me!
My classroom was organized very nicely at the beginning of the school year, but it is now the graveyard of all the projects we did in co-op for Five-in-a-Row. As I was cleaning through the art supplies and papers, it occurred to me that I could save a lot room by just getting rid of my older children’s portfolios for past years. For example, my oldest is 31 Do I really need his kindergarten portfolio binder? Or for that matter, his 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade etc? He has launched his career successfully and is even in a different state. I don’t have to worry about a knock on the door to see if he really did homeschool work. So I am starting the long process of purging those things.
I did find some treasures that I’m keeping though, like this first art effort from Calvin circa 1996.
5. We literally just bought the house next door this week. The owner wants to move to a different state and offered the sale to us. We’ve known the current renter there for about five years and we get along well with her. Since Mr. Pete and I plan to live out the rest of our days in our home, it seemed to make sense for us to invest in this property so that we could always have a say in what’s going on right next door since we share a driveway and our backyards abut.
I’m also thinking down the line, if our renter decides to move on, we would always have a place for the kids or friends to stay when they visit and it could even be a nice Air B and B for visitors to our town. It just has a lot of potential. So now I really an a full-fledged landlady!
6. My son Sam and his fiance invited me to a tasting last week. 15 gourmet dishes were prepared for us to taste and try out. It was delicious and the presentation was awesome.
But it was A LOT of food. So here’s my tip for getting through a tasting if you ever have the chance to do that. Take a small portion, eat half and push the other half to the side of your plate. By the end of the tasting you’ll have a visual of how much food you actually ate and you won’t feel too full! Also I drank three glasses of water during the tasting. I think that helped me keep from getting too stuffed!
7. Productive Homeschool is celebrating 15 years in business with a special sale! From April 28 to 30th, all lifetime memberships will be $25 off. The usual price is $197 but for the anniversary it’s $172.
Customers can still opt for the Annual Membership ($97 for the first year; $29 renewal). The Annual Membership also includes EVERYTHING and will be $25 off during the Anniversary Sale.
If you have a lot of kids this is a fantastic deal! You can print off notebook sheets to your heart’s content. But I am also using this with my granddaughter. Right now we are studying the states, capitals, flags, and state birds and flowers. That’s four pieces of paper I print out for her for each state. In a few years, I can print off the other sheets for geography, topography, resources, etc. So this is definitely a resource that we can use in middle school and high school. I used them for Rosie as well.
