Spring Lenten Daybook

For today… March 30, 2009

Outside my window… It’s a beautiful, sunny morning…although a little brisk. It should be back up to 60 today though and 76 by Thursday!

Our birds are at the peak of activity, darting about gathering nesting materials. Our Eastern bluebird family is nesting in Sparkly’s nesting box in the back along the treeline – exactly one tiny little blue egg to add to their family. They long to take over our Purple Martin house, finding its accommodations vastly more pleasing, but Rob hopes to one day lure Purple Martins there. I think its a pipe dream. My Iris’ are all up, the Pussy Willows have bloomed and leafed out, and everything here is green and flowering. Just lovely!

I am thankful for… planning Teacher Days into my schedule this year! I take one day at the beginning of (or first Monday of a week starting) most months, and today is my final Teacher Day for the year. Teacher Days at the beginning of each month has been a very helpful planning tool this year. I spend the day refreshing my notebook, tidying the shelves, setting up new reading baskets, tweaking plans to fit better, adding/subtracting Montessori materials to my shelves. It’s a very good thing to have punctuate the year.

From the kitchen… tonight, I’m making a roast with roasted vegetables in my dutch oven – we’ll have baked sweet potato fries on the side. It will be nice to start this after lunch and have a warm dinner waiting after the hectic afternoon of out and about…and if I’m lucky – leftovers for tomorrow!

I am wearing… a red dress with a cream floral print, tan flats from Land’s End and a cream sweater…hair up in a clip.

I am reading… a lot right now…mostly curriculum/books for the new year as I peruse them.

I am hearing… the lovely soundtrack to Sense and Sensibility playing through iTunes. There are some happy pieces, and in some places it is a little bit melancholic, but overall very soothing to me. The big kids are out enjoying the sunshine, and Doodlebug is taking her morning nap.

Looking to the rhythm of the liturgical year… One of the great things about having a Teacher Day today is that I can look ahead to Holy Week and set my plans in place now. We do not cover academic subjects during Holy Week. It will be a quiet, reflective week. I am considering some CGS presentations on some of the Holy Week scenes as well as some other CGS Mass lessons, and we always do a lot of reading together coordinated with Holy Week. I’m relieved to have this time to set my plans in place.

In our learning spaces… I’ll be setting out Peanut’s kinder-themes for the month of April…I’m not sure what we’ll go with yet…probably an extension of spring themes. I’d like to read about flowers 🙂 ….he’d like to read about dump trucks. Perhaps some sort of construction related gardening theme? lol!

Around the house… I’ve set my holy week cleaning plan in place. A thorough top to bottom cleaning is in order…

Monday
**vacuum
**polish all wood in the house
**bathrooms scrubbed

Tuesday
**light fixtures in every room cleaned and polished
**ceiling fans dusted – ever look up there…ick!
**refrigerator cleaned (I never got to it earlier)

Wednesday
**finish all closet tidying and purging
**attic trip
**all window blinds out to driveway for scrubbing, rinsing – hang to dry on lines (every time I try to do this on a weekend it rains…maybe there’ll be a sunny day for me next week? If not, I guess God didn’t think my blinds needed dusting this week.)

Holy Thursday
**plan menus for Easter week
**trip to market
**drop off all bags of household goods/clothes to be donated today

Good Friday – SILENCE

I will claim a moment for myself… hmmm…well, Rob and I have been watching the excellent John Adams miniseries from Netflix a little each night. We have loved it so far! We have only one of the 3 DVD’s left to watch. I’m so interested to learn more about the Adams’. Their story is so interesting, and I find that watching the historical story of our country unfold from the perspective of the Adams family is unique and extremely compelling! If you haven’t seen this – you must!

A few plans for the rest of the week… to market today, and then Sweet Pea’s confirmation class, confessions, and Mass this afternoon. There’s a baseball practice every night this week I think, save one…and on that night Sweet Pea has horseback riding lessons. So, if I can gel my plans for this week and next as I plan today, I’ll be able to move through the rest of this week with a rhythm and plan which will be so needed in light of our busy afternoon activities. Opening day of baseball season is this Saturday and I can’t tell you how excited our little Sparkly is!

Here is a picture thought I am sharing…

Isn’t our little 1 year old Doodlebug adorable? She’s such a happy, cheery baby girl who loves to climb in, on, under, through, over everything.

…and she’s just discovered books! She loves to bring us her favorite books and read them over and over and over and over….

Hope these delightful days of spring find you enjoying delicious books, beautiful music, warm sunshine, and all the delights your children bring as Holy Mother Church leads us closer and closer to Our Lord’s Passion.

Visit Peggy at The Simple Woman for more Daybook entries. 🙂