Monday, October 14, 2013

Colds and Flu Virus, Home Improvements, and School

Our family got hit with a bug of some kind a couple of weeks ago.  It is slowly making its way through the house.  Paige started it with a fever, cough and runny nose.  She was out for 4 days before she began to feel better.  I caught it next and immediately shared it with Mike.  Thankfully, neither one of us ran fevers, but the cough, sore throat and aches have been around for 10 days.  Allie and Amy came down with our bug at the end of last week.  Amy had a light case, but Allie's case has dragged on for more than 5 days.  The poor girl can hardly make herself heard, due to her sore throat.

Throughout our sickness, work has continued to be completed on our former home.  The house has come together beautifully.  It looks gorgeous.  Both baths have been updated, all rooms have fresh paint, new carpet has been installed in the master bedroom and on the stairs, the decks and porches have been painted, bushes and flowers have been planted.  I want to do a final clean and polish on the kitchen cabinets, wash all the windows and vacuum or wash all the floors before I consider my contribution finished.  Mike is planning on painting the basement walls to make it bright and fresh.  We have a number of 5 gallon tubs of elastimer  which is used to paint cement or stucco that were left behind when the people moved from our current residence.

The three girls are working hard on their school work this year.  Considering how much time we've spent ill or working on the other house, I'm amazed that we have accomplished so much.  One of the areas that I've let lag a little last year was writing.  The girls are all using different levels of Writing Strands and the results have been excellent.  The lessons are short but meaningful, so there are complaints when we do writing which is always important to me.  No one feels overwhelmed, but their writing assignments are showing real growth in sentence structure. 

We're still plugging away here and things should begin to be a little less chaotic.  I'm looking forward to time to do creative projects, write more frequently, and do fun, memorable things with the children for the remainder of the fall. 

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