Full House

Everyone is home now. Lauren, of course, has been home for awhile, but Jenna came home last Saturday. She can do her distance learning as a teacher as well here as there, and since being shut up in a garage apartment ALL day, every day didn’t sound remotely fun, she drove home last weekend.

It’s been great having everyone here. Our biggest issue is juggling four people’s need for internet for school. Rebekah’s CC class meets via Zoom on Monday, mine on Tuesday, Lauren has class at various times throughout the week. Jenna has no live classes, but she has to be available to her kids all day. She also has recorded and posted a few videos. So far that’s all worked fairly well. My last CC class, via Zoom will be Tuesday.

Rebekah’s Sr. year is slowly fizzling out. She finished chemistry, and over the course of the next few weeks will finish everything else. But no graduation, and its looking less and less likely that her senior trip will happen in May. Hopefully, we can make it happen before she goes off to school in the fall—or maybe it will just turn into a freshman trip.

The giant oak we cut down last fall is almost all dealt with. We finally managed to burn all the small limbs a couple of weekends ago. It’s been either raining or windy all winter, and getting wet green brush to burn is no small task. But the neighbors brought over their Christmas tree, and we got a roaring fire going fairly quickly.

And Tuesday a friend came over and loaded up a 6 foot section that I’m gettin milled into boards. So all that’s left is about 6 – 2 foot diameter sections to split.

I’ve been planting gladiolus in the new, larger bed. And I have some caladium bulbs to put in the new, smaller bed. Our hemlock tree has woolly adelgid, so next on the to do list is find a treatment for it. There’s a forest service guy in our church who has pointed me in the right direction.

Everyone is healthy and not completely stir crazy yet. Thankfully, the weather has been nice, so we’ve spent a decent amount of time in the yard over the last several days. Rebekah did school in her hammock most of the day today.

In the evenings we’ve been listening to Andrew Peterson read the first book in the Wingfeather Saga series. It’s been a blast. He starts book two on Monday.

Hope everyone has a blessed Easter celebration.

Some Spring

Flower Bed–Phase 4 and a Music Video

It was a beautiful spring day, and since we aren’t going anywhere, it’s a good day to dig in the dirt. So this bed is a little ways down from the bed we prepared a couple of weeks ago. It’s in the shade, and will hopefully be filled with some caladiums soon. They will be easily seen from the dining room window. When I took this picture, I was standing half way between the bed I dug a couple of weeks ago and this one. The house is to the left.

Lauren’s boyfriend released a video of the song on the EP that is about her. And I just figured out that I can insert a YouTube video on this blog.

I’m learning lots of things about technology. I had a pastors’ meeting with other pastors in our district this week using Zoom. I’m probably going to use that for our Classical Conversations class on Tuesday. We’re also, hopefully, going to use it for part of our Sunday morning tomorrow. I’m also learning various ways to record myself preaching, and I’ve learned the hard way not to use my computer. Let me just say that that is one of the most awkward things I’ve ever done.

Three Instead of Four; Four Instead of Three

The plan for the week was to make four trips to Chattanooga: 1) Last Friday we went to drop Dana off at the airport to fly to Texas to be with her mom, pick up Lauren at Covenant, come back to the airport to pick up Jenna who was flying in from Texas for Spring break. 2) Wednesday night, I went to pick Dana up from the airport. 3) This morning we drove Jenna to the airport to fly back to Texas. 4) Tomorrow, we were supposed to take Lauren back to school.

However, instead, after dropping Jenna off at the airport, we drove her to Covenant to pack up her dorm room and come home for the rest of the semester as Covenant asked all the students to move out by Wednesday. She’ll have a longer spring break and then transition, like most colleges around the country, to an on-line format. We certainly love having her home, but she didn’t even get to say bye to her roommates and many friends. A very bitter sweet weekend. So it was just three trips to Chattanooga instead of four.

But instead of being back to three at the house, we will now have four for the foreseeable future. And Lauren is hoping her internship in Virginia will still be a go.

Jenna’s spring break was extended three days. They’ll have a faculty meeting on Wednesday to discuss a game plan going forward. She was hoping she could get her flight changed and fly back later, but we figured it was probably best to fly sooner rather than later. With all the changes that have happened in the last few days, there’s no guarantee she could get back later in the week.

It was announced today that all North Carolina schools are closed for two weeks. That will affect our Classical Conversations group as the place we meet has followed suit. So sometime this weekend, I have to figure out what to do with my five students. And speaking of Classical Conversations, I will be moving from tutoring 10th graders to 8th graders next year. There was not going to be a class coming up to 10th next year, so it was move down or not tutor next year. So it’ll be like returning to my roots as my first several years of teaching were in 8th grade. Even though a lot of it will be new, I think it will actually be less work than this year.

Finally, I’m finishing up a few odds and ends for tomorrow while Lauren and the two neighbors are practicing for music in the morning. I’m certainly no musician, but I am always intrigued and fascinated by the conversations surrounding the arrangements and who’s doing what. And it’s beautiful music.

And now, really finally: Happy 89th Birthday to Roberta!

New Flower Bed: Phase 3—With Help

The girls are home for Spring Break—but Dana has gone to Texas to be with her mom who broke her arm. But Dana and Jenna crossed paths in the Dallas airport.

Today, one of the only sunny days we’re going to have while they’re here, we got out and worked on the flower bed.

Now for flowers to put in the bed—and then on to the next one.

And if anyone knows what kind of grub this is, we’d like to know.

Lauren’s boyfriend has a new EP that he recorded this past summer on a 4-track recorder while he was in Colorado. You can listen to it here. If you hear a piano in there anywhere, that’s Lauren. Last weekend we went to a house show where he and his brother played.

 

New Flower Bed: Phase 2

The snow’s all gone; the rain has stopped for a couple of days; the sun is shining; and it’s not freezing cold. So it’s time to dig in the dirt since it’s A) fairly soft from all the rain and B) not frozen solid. The space where the oak was is going to be a, hopefully, fairly large flower bed. The first bed will be along a very small ledge of stones that lines that drive way. So today, I dug it out to begin the process of amending the soil.

The whole space:

Yes, the daffodils are already blooming.

View from the end of the driveway.

From from the mail box.

It’s our break week for CC coming up. The extra day—plus the extra time in not having to prepare will be nice. Next weekend, we head to North Greenville for Rebekah’s second round of scholarship interviews. And in three weeks, Jenna and Lauren will be home for spring break.

 

Scholarship Weekend and Snow

We went to Covenant this past weekend for Rebekah to interview for some scholarships (and to see Lauren!). She participated in two group settings (an activity and a discussion) and one individual interview with a professor. As is usually the case when we make college visits, it was cold. It snowed most of the day, but not a lot stuck.

The day before we got lots and lots of rain and there was flooding in various places. The river in town got out of its banks and flooded the park. There was a mudslide in the gorge between here and Asheville that closed that road for the weekend. If it has been cold for all that rain, we would have gotten a couple of feet of snow.

We got back after midnight Friday night and then woke up to snow Saturday morning.

The roads were bad Sunday, so we had no church, but by the afternoon, it warmed up and most of the snow was gone by Sunday night. We’re back to rain again, and it’s supposed to rain all week with more potential flooding.

But occasionally the sun is out around here and there are nice sunsets.