Joy to Spare

I guess so many people learned in 7th grade English not to use cliches, but still really wanted to use cliches, that they got ahold of the word "proverbial" and had a party all over all of the books. I normally don't have a problem with non-wrong things in other people's writing. Wrong things like "I could care less" and "tied there shoes" are distracting. "She spilled the proverbial beans" is not wrong, but isn't it really just prolonging the cliche by smashing an excuse-me-but-I-must-use-this-cliche-but-I'm-using-the-word-proverbial-so-you-see-I'm-acknowledging-it's-a-cliche-so-it's-okay extra word into it? If you want to use a cliche, please just use it proudly without adding that pompous extra word to it. If you can't, good! Think of a better way to express your point.

Leftovers get a bad rap. I keep seeing/hearing people bashing leftovers, e.g. "Our family has been battling colds, so we've been eating a lot of leftovers." My first question is, what else would you do with them, throw them in the garbage or feed them to the dog? The second thing I wonder is, how do all these people have the time and energy to make a new dinner every night? Leftovers in my house are the majority of what we eat. Here, we just call them "food." I love food. I really enjoy all kinds of foods from different cultures, prepared in interesting ways. I even enjoy cooking. What I don't appreciate is coming to the end of a long day and having to think of something to cook, using what I have in my fridge and pantry, maybe find a recipe(s), and dirty many pots and pans to create these dishes, all while my oldest son comes in every three and a half minutes to tell me he's hungry. So I don't. I know lots of folks find or create meal plans, w

What did we do today? I got up and did my coffee/bible/devotional time (Oswald Chambers--deep stuff!) and prayed for my family. The boys came out and did their "first things" too. They take a shower if it's their day, get dressed, feed the dog, drink water, and read their bibles. Big bro wrote a prayer/poem of thanks in his prayer journal (This is not a usual occurrence!) while Little Bro did his math workbook. After that, they began their day with Legos as usual. Big bro is really into Shakespeare right now, so lots of his current Lego play revolves around that. He constructed a scene from MacBeth. I got him a set of kid-version books of all the plays, which he's been enjoying. We had breakfast--eggs with butter, onions and green peppers, and a smoothie with lettuce, blueberries, spinach/banana, yogurt, and blood oranges. I read from our One-Year Bible, and the Window on the World page about Vietnam. Then, I read from the Peter the Great book we're reading

Having burnt out a little with "school at home" as our method of learning, the past couple weeks we've been doing "life" instead. The boys and I all learn so much more and are so much happier when we follow our own interests. I thought I'd start recording some of the things we do each day during this relaxed learning phase, with artificially separated academic subject areas highlighted so I realize how much"school" we're actually doing and learning even when we're not "doing school." So here's today: - All four of us read the bible at breakfast - the boys read Psalms and Proverbs, Daddy and I read Matthew. History, Character, Geography, Reading. - Spoke a little Spanish to each other throughout the day. Spanish - Little Bro wrote a(n other) letter to Santa--getting an early start-- and learned to spell "anything" "stocking," and a couple other words he asked me how to spell.  Spelling, Writing, Hand