Where Does the Time Go??

Sheesh -- will I ever have the time to leisurely work in my garden, take some pictures, and write a nice blog post?  I guess, eventually.  In the meantime, despite all of the unrelenting heat and drought, it seems like I haven't really had a summer.  TOO MUCH BUSY-NESS!!  Which makes me kind of cranky.  And disorganized.  And discombobulated.

lofting the bed -- then unlofting when she decided it was too high

Got Hannah off to college -- 400 miles away on the other side of the state.  I hope she appreciates how I am not calling her and interrogating her every night.  We have had a lot of texts and emails over the past 2 weeks, and this afternoon a telephone call for me to walk her through printing something out from her new computer and unfamiliar word processing program to her new printer, and lengthy discussions about how to handle the purchase the required Spanish textbook (does the Amazon version that is $100 cheaper than the school book store come with the required computer code pass key, which appears to cost $100 separately, is the book store one bundled . . . ?).

This 1800's farmhouse is next door to her dorm, and is where she will be working as the Freshman Fellow for the Mountain Challenge organization that is headquartered here.  There's a dog and 2 cats, a garden, solar panels, etc.

A view of the (weedy) garden and the mountains beyond.  It was overcast that day -- on less dreary days you can see layers upon layers of mountains.

One of her first tasks was to climb to the top of this "Alpine Tower".  Down below are Mountain Challenge staff, with whom she'll be training all year.

When we got back, it was time for Cree to jump back in to homeschooling.  Here our some of our books for this year:  Civics, American History (Civil War to present), Algebra I, Forensics, American Literature, The Scarlet Letter.

Hosted and taught the first session of the homeschool Civics Class with my 15 paying (yay!) students.

And had a lot of this going on:

Our 3 yr old granddaughter spend an unplanned (as usual, sigh) 3 days and nights (while preparing for the Civics Class -- sure wasn't counting doing my prepping with a 3 yr old in the house -- challenging to say the least).  A 3 year old who doesn't take naps and doesn't go to bed until 10 or 11:00 at night.  I really understand how her mommy needs a break now and then because Ari is a huge handful, but she is hard to have over for that long of a time.  She's cute, but oh my she is so intense and in constant motion!