In Our Cozy Home This Week – No. 101

It’s Friday Saturday. Let’s celebrate! LOL! The past ten days have been a total blur. Not in a bad way because they were full of good things. But total blur.

In fact, there were so many thing going on that I started jotting notes in a draft of this post earlier in the week so I wouldn’t forget them when Friday came. And then more things came at me until Friday was gone and here we are on Saturday morning.

It also just took me three tries, three containers of coconut milk, and thirty minutes to make a cup of coffee. That’s kind of a good summary of my week.

I kept telling myself, “Just get through the birthday and then you will have three days to get settled back in with school and life.”

Ha. I should know better by now how life works.

This Week’s Artwork

Today I’m featuring A Quiet Read by William Kay Blacklock.

Wikipedia tells us:

William Kay Blacklock (1872 – 1924) was a British artist in the mediums of watercolours and oils.

Blacklock married Ellen Richardson from Hackney, London. The couple made their first home in Chelsea, London, where Blacklock attended the Royal College of Art. They moved to Edinburgh in 1902, and Blacklock began studying at the Edinburgh School of Art. After completing his studies there, the couple moved again in 1906, to join an active artists’ colony at Walberswick in Suffolk. The colony had been founded by the artist Philip Wilson Steer, who gathered around him a circle of English Impressionists. Between 1908 and 1915 the Blacklocks lived at “The Barn” in Walberswick.

His wife, who was called “Nellie”, modelled for him, as did their daughter Eleanor. Their only child, Eleanor Irene, was born in Chelsea during 1910.

A painter in both watercolours and oils, Blacklock exhibited 17 works at the Royal Academy between 1897 and 1918, and also exhibited his works at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

There is much more to read if you wish to click over.

Birthday

We celebrated Caroline’s 16th birthday on Wednesday. My mom made Caroline’s favorite chocolate cake (very dense and made with sour cream). Caroline received gifts she was surprised by and very happy with so it was a good day overall for her.

She has now come down with her basically annual September cold. I really thought we were going to get through September without her getting sick, but she managed to slip it in on the last two days of the month.

Adapt and advance.

Homemaking

I accomplished a lot in the basement over the period of about a week before Caroline’s birthday. We donated quite a bit so things are out of the house.

As part of that work, I also did some work in the kitchen. Neither one is completely done, but the days where I could just pull everything out of the kitchen cupboards and get it all put back in a day are long gone. In any case, I’m making progress on both and I’m happy with that. Hopefully I can get back to it next week.

I also need to switch out the spring/summer clothes for the fall/winter clothes. Now that the wretched June through September 2-6 p.m. astronomically higher electric rates are done for the year, I can more easily get that project tackled and done.

I spent some time cutting up rags while watching CensorTube videos. There were a number of older clothing items that weren’t decent enough to donate, but were good enough to cut up for rags. So I did that this week.

I also hung a bag’s worth of onions in nylons in the basement. Have you ever done that? I used to do it all the time, but we haven’t used a lot of onions since my diet had to change. I can’t eat them and can barely tolerate the smell. But I did want to have some on hand this winter for David since they do go in some dishes David and Caroline like. If anyone wants to know more details, leave a comment and I’ll explain it.

Homeschooling

Part of what also threw off the past two weeks was Caroline’s sudden realization that she now vastly prefers getting up earlier and doing the bulk of her schoolwork in the morning and early afternoon. This, in turn, has meant I’ve had to change all of my own routines around here.

I had adapted to her need/desire to sleep in more and do her schoolwork later. I’m perfectly fine with getting it done earlier in the day and would have preferred that all along. But after adapting to what we were doing and now having to change, I find myself struggling a bit to get adjusted. So I’ve felt like I’ve been all off and haven’t found any kind of rhythm at all yet. On the plus side, the change has allowed me to be a lot more productive. I know that might sound like a contradiction, but it’s true.

New In The Shop

There are some new items in the shop this week including three labeled Fall Harvest. The Fall Harvest themed printables include journal pages, menu planners, and habit trackers. They are really charming and I’m happy with the 13 designs we put together for each set.

If you already have A Full Year Shopping Pass, you can go in with your code and download all three. Otherwise they are available for individual purchase.

The Truth & Beauty Society

I’m enjoying The Truth & Beauty Society and have been happy to welcome many new members. I send out a separate newsletter and updates to members of the group to keep them informed in a timely manner. (So far I have sent out three so if you are a member and haven’t seen them, check your spam and promotions folders! If you haven’t received at least the most recent one, please let me know right away.)

If you missed the announcement where I explained in a short podcast why I was starting this, you can listen to it here: Introducing The Truth & Beauty Society. There are very specific and important reasons why the posts are mixed in with the regular posts. If you listen, you’ll better understand why I didn’t do it as a stand-alone membership separate from the rest of the site. The posts are marked with gold and so they are easy to pick out from the rest of the blog.

I’m working at finding my rhythm with this as well. I want to provide an excellent value for the members and am working out what that means in terms of delivering high-quality content.

If you haven’t joined, I hope you will!

That’s it for my week. What is up in your world?