Action Items

• Make a German quiz for Kelsey
• Make a Geography worksheet for Sarah
• clean the kitchen
• make pasties
  
• muslin pattern for Mrs. Potiphar's dress
• cuddles with Lauren
• pediatrician for Lauren (she's had a barky cough for about a week that just isn't going anywhere, and last night she was crying that her ear hurt)
• listen to Lauren read the next chapter in The Knight at Dawn (Magic Treehouse, yay!)
• go through Sarah's Girl Scout Badge book with her to pick some badges for her to work on independently of her troop (she can put them in Word and fiddle with the formatting, add some pictures to make it a Computer lesson)

Sewing

I have a lot of sewing going on right now. Our church is doing a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Guess who's on the costume crew?

I'm responsible for:

• the Coat of Many Colors--I've already made a test coat from muslin (my mom gave me a ton of it from her stash over Christmas, and I've been going through it a lot). I've got most of the fabric for the outer part of the coat, and I guess I'll line it with gold lame, which I don't have yet.
  
• a dress for Mrs. Potiphar--to be worn by our own fabulous Kelsey, so I want her to look great, but still appropriately trampy. I got a boatload of purple panne velvet, and I picked up the pattern for the bodice tonight, so I'll start the muslin test dress tomorrow, and hopefully I can get it finished by next week.
  
• an Elvis/Pharaoh top--I don't need a whole jumpsuit, because of other costume choices, but this is the one that is stumping me the most. To be worn by my own fabulous husband!

There are other miscellaneous pieces to be made, although we already had a lot of stuff. All the robes for the brothers, for instance, were already in our church basement. I'm incredibly thankful for that--not that basic robes are hard to make, but making 11 of them would certainly be time consuming.

Pictures to follow (hopefully) soon!

Today's List

Looks a lot like yesterday's list. I made progress on everything on that list, but there is still much to be done. Happily, I don't have to leave the house at all, and can be a hermit and work on my chores (anyone willing to bring me lunch?) in peace.

Goals

Today's goals:

1. schoolwork with the kids until lunch (they have a friend coming over after that, so anything left over will have to wait until after dinner)
   
2. get the last of the Christmas stuff down to the basement
   
3. kitchen clean, done, finished. No dishes left in the sink!
4. two loads of laundry
5. garbage off the bedroom floor at the foot of the bed (garbage on the treadmill will have to wait)
6. start sewing
7. post about sewing projects--ok, ok, that one will be on tomorrow's list . . .
   

Why don't these exist?

I was rushing through the grocery store this morning, picking up some things for our first homeschool support group meeting (which went fabulously!), and grabbing a few things for home as well--I knew they'd stay cold in the trunk.

When we got to checkout, the four self-checkout lines were busy, and I was in a hurry, so we went to the express self-checkout. It's only supposed to be for 12 items or fewer, but there was no line, and plenty of spots open.

I realized that the reason there were so many spots is that there is only room for two bags for your groceries. I'd take bags off, or not bag stuff at all (using my own bags), and it would hiccup the system. So it wasn't as smooth as I would have hoped.

What I really needed was a cart that would let me scan my groceries and keep a running tally as I put things in it. Maybe with hooks along the side to hold bags, so the items would all be bagged as I went. Then, all I'd have to do when I was finished was go to the front and pay. Wouldn't that be fabulous and efficient?

Challenger Simulation

Last Tuesday, after three months of science ranging from geology to map plotting to phases of the moon, Sarah finally got to go to the Challenger Resource Center in Ohio for a space shuttle simulation.

It was SO COOL. Jeff said that he wishes he'd been able to do that kind of stuff when he was a kid, but I know that he'd love to be able to do it today if he had the chance.

The group was fairly small, so instead of dividing them up into two groups, they tapped some of the teachers who were there for training to share the mission. First, our kids were at Mission Control. They all had different jobs, from Life Support to Communication. Sarah was Navigation.

Halfway through, they switched with the other team, and went into the space shuttle. We even got to go through an "airlock."

Once there, most of Sarah's job was plotting potential landing sites, using longitude & latitude. At the end, though, all eyes were on her, because she was the one landing the shuttle. Let's say that Sarah is not likely to become an air traffic controller as an adult. She didn't react well to the pressure, but after some reassurance from the Mission Commander, she pulled it together and got them down safely. Whew!

After, we rode back down to Earth.

The whole experience was really cool, and well worth the time and effort we all put into preparing her last fall.

Coming soon: more sewing posts!