A Weekly Rundown: Quarantined

Hey friend. Last weekend, my rundown was super short and sweet, as I was not feeling well. This week looked much the same–in bed for a couple of days, tired, and then dun dun duunnnnnnnn: Jarrod + I lost our smell and taste.

Our family is going on day nine of quarantine, but we are feeling much better. One of our kids had a few symptoms, but other than that, we are good.

We managed to get some things done, read some great books, do some fun things together, and stay somewhat sane.

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In this week’s rundown, I’m sharing all of that plus some things on my heart, some things I’m looking forward to, and more.

WEEKLY RUNDOWN: Quarantined

Two weeks ago, I shared with you how our house is totally upside down right now, so it’s been especially exhausting for me to be home all week, hardly doing any school, not going anywhere, but also not having the energy to get much done. SO much needs to be done around the house–including washing sheets and fold four loads of laundry–but we just don’t have any energy to get it done. It’s ok. It all gets done. My timeline is never reality 😉

MAKING HOME

Even though our bathroom still looks the same…

…I am really happy with what we WERE able to tackle this week, even with being sick.

First off, our dryer stopped working and the dirty clothes were piling up fast. We were about to call someone to come and fix it, but with us being sick, we decided to see if we could DIY it.

After ordering a piece online and many YouTube videos, Jarrod figured out how to completely dismantle our dryer, install a new heat element, and reassemble it. Bonus: it WORKS!

So impressed with his skills!

The Fireplace Project Continues

I am pleased to announce that the fireplace is ONE MORE step closer to being finished! The old tiles are torn off, the new brick is mortared and grouted, AND the shelves are painted Graphite by Benjamin Moore!

We are hoping to get the new mantel installed this afternoon.

You can look back here and here to see some of the process and I will do a full post with all the sources when we finish.

WHAT WE READ THIS WEEK

The girls and I started reading this biography on C.S. Lewis. It’s so good so far! I love to read biographies in conjunction with their works and I plan to start reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity soon!

WHAT WE’RE LEARNING

Another thing we did–before we lost our taste!–was our monthly Universal Yums box. We. LOVE. this so much! Each month we get our box of snacks from a different country around the world. This month was the Netherlands. Universal Yums provides a playlist, so we usually listen to that during dinner. Then after dinner, we try all the snacks included in the box. This has become such a fun monthly tradition!

Cooking for the Family

Another thing that we really had fun with is cooking a bunch of our Raddish recipes! I can’t say enough good things about this subscription!

We are playing catchup with a few month’s recipes. This week, Vera made everyone Alpine Pancakes with an Apple Compote, Chicken and Dumplings, AND chocolate snowball cookies.

I also ordered the Raddish cookbook binder to store all the recipes we’re getting. Putting all the recipes in it made Vera even more excited to make some of the recipes again.

So Proud of My Kids’ Life Skills

Sometimes my kids surprise me with something I didn’t even know I’d taught them! This week, while I was on the couch doing absolutely nothing, Vera announced that she had a big bin that needed cleaning out. I cringed because I know what a 7-year-old’s “organization” project can look like.

But to my surprise, she grabbed three bags and a Sharpie and wrote: Goodwill, Keep, and Trash and sorted out her whole bin!

What a beautiful moment for my organization-loving heart!

NOTEWORTHY

The last 12 months really made me aware of how neglectful I was being with my personal bible reading time. Over the last few months, I’ve been reading through a book per month and studying it. No bible study book, just the Word.

This month though, I’ve been working through the book of Titus with Heidi St. John’s Mom Strong International and it’s been really good!

Also on the blog this week:

If you need writing ideas for your kids, check out this brand new review on Bardsy Homeschool–such a fun way to teach writing!

A brand new homeschool day in the life with Nakia is live too!

ON MY HEART

I will be honest with you: not working out for over a week, sub-tundra temperatures, six people in our house with no space for time alone, feeling tired and rundown from being sick…all of this contributed to feeling really down this week. But to compound it even more, the local news this week has been beyond depressing and makes me deeply question why we live in Minnesota.

First, our fearless leader wants to make masking not just a mandate, but a law before he will give up his emergency powers. Even though states all over the nation are dropping their mask mandates and loosening their COVID restrictions, numbers are dropping all over the place, Minnesota is gearing up to make this arbitrary nonsense last forever— or at least until the CDC drops their recommendation for masking, which is what the law would mimic. And since the CDC is now going full steam ahead with not just one mask now but TWO– I don’t see the CDC dropping that recommendation anytime soon. A local mandate and a law are very different and the idea that masking would be signed into law indefinitely is just insane.

If mask mandates and lockdowns stopped viruses, they would have. There are zero differences in spread between lockdown/mask states vs. non-lockdown/mask states. Individual responsibility has gone completely by the wayside. We’ve happily traded common sense for government control, which is what all of this is about–control.

Secondly, the Minnesota House of Reps presented a bill this week on mandating “comprehensive” sex education for children and I could not be more opposed to this. I watched the hearing where the bill was presented and argued over. Listening to the “for” arguments made me actually sick to my stomach. I’m not even comfortable writing some of the topics that this CSE would seek to cover, but you can read more about it here.

The promoters of the bill were very vague about what curriculum would actually be used to teach sex to children, but one that has been presented in the past was so graphic that Facebook removed photos of the book as being too explicit. Gross.

Why this big push? Why not give parents info to share with their kids if they choose to?

Let me be clear, I believe we should have conversations with our kids about sex and mature topics….when they are ready! But this is SO individual-based. And this is something most parents would never want to be presented by a teacher. This is once again, an example of the school system bypassing parents. It is the task of the school system to teach children reading, writing and arithmetic. That. Is. All. Contrary to what some might think, the parents are a child’s most important influence. Families are the most important influence. Not the school. It’s high time these government schools knew their role and stopped their overreach.

By contrast to the disgusting CSE bill in Minnesota, some of my homeschooling friends in South Dakota helped present a bill to lessen the homeschooling rules there among other things, which is so great!

I’m sure someone will wonder, why do you care what they’re doing in schools? You homeschool.

Because my grandchildren could someday go to school. (I hope not! But I don’t know the future.) Because something could happen to me, and my kids might have to go to school. AND because we should always care deeply about the innocent. We should always protect them and fight to make their future more whole and secure. If God cares about training our children, we should care too.

ON MY NIGHTSTAND

Whew, moving forward on a lighter note…

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a WWII historical fiction. I started The Huntress this week and it’s so good so far!

I’m still reading Live Not by Lies as well and I cannot recommend it enough!

I’M A LITTLE DEPRESSED, BUT I REALLY AM SO THANKFUL…

This week was hard. I let worry take over and depression set in. I doubted God’s sovereignty and pictured the worst case scenarios. Spending time in the Word helps the heaviness to lift.

This has been a hard almost-year for so many of us.

But even still, it has given me so much clarity. I need to know scripture better. I need to train my kids more. We need to work on some things as a family. And I am thankful for the wake-up call.

To conclude, I’ve heard from many that are struggling too. This is a hard time of year and it’s been a long year. But I would encourage you to put down your phone and open your Bible. Even 10 minutes a day can change your life.