Our day

This picture just looks like a mess right? Well its not, other than the duct tape I can explain. Okay fine I dont know why Tads jacket is there...
The 2 white boards are what we use largly instead of paper. Saves the earth and what am I supposed to do with all that paper anyways? Burn? Recycle? Save it for years to make myself a more attentive mother? The wipe off boards are great! Used for math drills and other assignments such as copying (in nice handwriting) ones address and phone number several times a wk in order to commit them to memory, oh and handwriting skills are needed.
Next, the cut outs from card stock are our nomenclature. Some of it, we have more. The 2 we did today were months and days. There is a card cut out that says "Days" and one that says "Months" and then all the days and the months are written on their own card. They have to be put in order beneath their word and then said in order and must be spelled out on the white boards on the next day.
You also can see 100 easy lessons, Nathalie is flying through this and reading so well! Easily on a 1st grade level with little struggle and good blending. Love this book... Last but not least you can see a bible, I dont know whom it belongs to. Each child's looks the same but we read a chapter from one of them and pray before starting. This morning, Tad read while I cleaned the kitchen and then we talked, and moved onto school.
Then we were off during break to take in recycling and run a few errands, our garage was impassable, completely. Sorry no before pics!


I have my burner that a very good friend (Bridget) gave me as a gift before leaving Sc. This tart burner made it through the tornado in a room where everything was literally broken and destroyed, God knew that I needed something to hold and look at in that room and feel the comfort of my friend... I have lemon E oil burning in this to help the garage smell nice again!


This is our recycle area, we last took recycle in september. We can wait a long time bc the recycled things are rinsed, or are just cardboard and we have the space. We separate plastic, glass, aluminum, metal cans, cardboard and magazines (junk mail.)


The poor camaro, there are still boxes there. 1 is needing to be unpacked, 1 is documents we have to keep for at least 7 yrs, the big bin and one big box are mil items and the small box are more mil items that didnt fit. The rest of the "stuff" sitting in that area is waiting to be carted to its area (our bins that go to the dump when full, the only items we can recycle) and goodwill. You can see Tad's Wagon, my grandfather made that. He is a carpenter, Tad loves his wagon so much and it is WELL used here. Fridge is open for defrost, we have a fridge inside and in the garage and a full sized freezer. We simply didnt need all 3 so this one was emptied, the foods put into the outdoor freezer (to the right of it a bit) and defrosted.


A further back picture, you see this big neat spot? It was litterally covered with around 70 boxes and lots of stuff mixed in. Non recycleable plastics from x mas gift wrappings, smaller boxes that needed to be sorted, bags of things from "cleaning" out the car, 6 more boxes (now gone) that we unpacked and sorted proper, oh and cat poop under those steps... I mean a lot of it! And 2 bags of trash that had been torn up by barn cats that ended up locked in garage. We dont put food in trash bags, we put it all out to the heap bc something eats it each night but somehow at x mas time, food garbage was put into the bag and then the bag put into garage bc it was dark and cold... So garage was poopy, rotten food, filled with unbroken down boxes, recycle, unpacked boxes, just a general filthy mess. It took the children and me (yes me bc you wouldnt say it took I) 3.5 hrs to clean it! Tad broke down boxes with a razor knife for 2 hrs and flattened/stacked them in larger box. Nathalie and I did the rest of this stuff, and then we had the sorting jobs. Then we swept. Now there are boxes next to the freezer, one for kindling that the kids collect and were dumping in garage floor, one for newspaper and other good fire starter and the other for things we cant recycle but we can burn. When it fills, it goes into the wagon, goes down and gets dumped in burn pit and then box brought back! It was fun and exhausting and wonderful to have it done and so very very nice to be organized again.
Our cat wont use her kitty door bc she gets her butt kicked by barn cats, so we put her out several times a day and let her back in (thus still getting her butt kicked). Yet at night, she either poops downstairs in a corner, on new carpet, or poops in bathtub. Both are gross. So at night, she sleeps in garage and poops under the steps (part of what I was cleaning). I dont get out there every day to clean it up and its nasty, stinky and unsanitary. We dont know what to do with litter, since we dont do garbage in our trash bins, and we dont have trash pick up(very little trash with the recycle and burn, is cheaper to go to dump once every 4 mo at 10 $ a load rather than 40 a mo to waste pickup) we have to carry the litter way out back to dump over the fence. A long walk each day when we are already overwhelmed by getting all of our jobs done. So nathalie fixed this by filling Evil's (cat for anyone new) litter box with dirt. This is easier to dump, or just bury somewhere in corner of yard. She promises to scoop... Hopefully evil will take the bait and poop in this at night as this is where she resides at night. It will make my life easier! Tonight her blanket is clean (I wash it weekly when we do linen wash and she sleeps in camaro) and she has a place to poop! Lucky cat... Oh AND her garage smells fresh!
So that was a long long post on our day, we did school, errands and a huge job weighing on my mind. Now I am off to proofread franks homework (he is in college) and start on custom orders I have from this wk. We are missing daddy terribly, each child is dealing with it the best way possible and prayer helps Nathalie the most. For anyone who knows us, and those who dont, please keep Nathalie in your prayers as she struggles with the loss of her daddy dearly. As does Tad, but he seems to be able to deal with it better. He spends time helping her through it, and seems to be okay but she is really struggling. Many of you know this and have had her in your prayers and I thank you for it.