We have about a dozen batches of glop around the place. That gooey stuff recipe is SO simple, and really easy to clean up after, that the kids have used up pretty much all the glue in the house, making different colors of glop. Purple, that Katie and a friend made and divvied up; reddish brown so it looked like guts; brownish green so it looked like stomach fluid (according to Robby, who made those batches); teal that Abbie made, and a batch of black to look like tar.

Katie has been very busy with a daily "shop" out front: lemonade and cookies so far, but we'll bake a batch of bagels for her to offer the public ;) She designed a sign for it on the computer, and then executed her plan on a big piece of plywood, and has that propped against the legs. She sold a bunch of lemonade to the migrant workers across the road, on her first day, and a farmer advised us not to try and retire on the proceeds from her shop! L "Don't quit yer day job!" She made $1.60 that day, and today nothing, though not for lack of effort. That's been keeping her busy for a few days.

On Wednesday afternoon, she and a friend went up in the treehouse and painted, and they're heading up there again right now to do some more. On Weds, my hubby also hung hummingbird feeders and I made a decision about sugar water instead of honey water :( but honey is SO expensive. $20 a gallon, and that's before prices started soaring.

Weds night and all day Thursday, I went to SLC with a girlfriend who makes glass beads, to a wholesale show/shopping expo. She wanted company for the drive down, and I wanted a chance to see my grandbaby, so we did that. Wonderful, beautiful Aidan the Perfect!

Oh, I bought a strand of round stone beads, of various stones at the bead show. Lots of potential, in all those different types of beads. Earrings, possibly a simple necklace. Got home really late on Thursday night, and spent the morning reading. Kids slept in, from waiting up for me. And Robby has been gone all day on an odd job with his dad, while the girls and I have been home. Abbie's re-reading Harry Potter IV and I'm reading some Modern Fiction (which I haven't done in AGES: read for pleasure? not in a LONG time).

Today, while Abbie was at Drama, Katie and I played in the park. You know, this group has been good for me, because I'm seeing "say yes to your kids" "spend time with your kids" "be there beside your kids working and playing and talking" I am reading a pretty good novel (Sea Glass by Anita Shreve) and would have been content to sit and read while Katie played. And, while the school group of little kids was there, that's what I did. But then the school group left, and I listened to the Unschooling Yahoo Group in My Head. Got up and slid down the slide with her! It's a very fast, spiral slide, and we did a train SO FAST that we ended up in a pile on the ground. Then we found a plastic dome thingy (like, for a fast food salad or something?) and dug down to find the moist sand, and built mountains. If you put dry sand in the middle of a packed moist sand mountain, you get a cave! and a cave in...

That sand felt so good on my hands. Cool and heavy. I wouldn't have done that if You All weren't there telling me "Play with your kids!" Thanks for doing that!

Me: got up at 5:30 (as usual...early riser) and checked emails and discussion boards. Had a long chat with an online girlfriend. We were the only ones in the room and got a chance to learn a little bit more about each other. Got some laundry done. I've posted baby pics on my yahoo picture album, of my baby grandson to be found at the following link http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/heidic40/ click on baby aidan and say "awwww" ;) When the kids got the puter away from me, they made virtual homes with the punch!home design software and played something online.

played go fish with Katie, read a few chapters from "Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves," explored a very lovely unschooling website http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hollow/1093/unschooling.html and sent an email to Kathy Ward asking about her Christian journey in unschooling, THEN found her essays about that journey and read those; from that site, discovered some links about permaculture and sustainable farming; printed up plans for a pizza box solar oven and downloaded plans for a more substantial solar cooker; played war with Katie while Robby played a computer game; watched the rain fall down. Wished I'd already got worms for the garden plot, and was thankful that we spread leaves out there. This rain will be good for things.

Thought of a possible story plot about intelligent chickens.

Katie rode her bike between wet spells, and got caught out in a deluge. Our spring is making up for a dry winter. She also snuck a baby chicken in under her jacket and set him up in the main bathroom tub. Twisty Toes. We may have to cull him since his feet are deformed. Robby worked hard on his "Top Secret" kit which arrived in the mail today: puzzles, clues, codes to find what was stolen, and whodunnit, and where it was stashed after stolen. Japan is the featured nation for this kit.

We baked a couple dozen oatmeal cookies for tomorrow's fellowship time at church, and I'll throw together a veggies n dip platter tomorrow before we go. Abbie did a volunteer stint at a children's library event, handing out free pencils and balloons and signing kids up for read-aloud after school things, and then spent some time chatting online about Elvish and other things Tolkien. She was laughing, scoffing I say, at some poor sot who didn't know Sauron's name before he started following the original bad guy...Malkor?

Drowsed in my chair until I heard Jim loading dishes into the dishwasher...um...dirty dishes into a washer that had been run, that is. Got up and we unloaded the diswasher and he put the dirties in. Tucked the kids in. And posted this.

Oh, wow. Just realized something: NO TV AT ALL TODAY. wow!