I don’t know about you, but this week felt all out of sorts. The holiday on Monday certainly didn’t help. But we got through it and here we are. I just realized that I haven’t responded to comments all week. I apologize for that, especially to the new women who left comments. 

It would be a lot easier to do these posts if I wrote them all week. I know I do things during the week that I could share, but by the time Thursday evening or Friday morning rolls around I struggle to remember what they were. So I should start next week’s post tomorrow morning and make my list as I go.

This Week’s Artwork

Today’s artwork is Fortunes by George Dunlop Leslie. It is an undated oil on canvas.

I’ve featured this artist four other times in Simple Living This Week Nos. 62, 63, 67, and 76.

A snippet from Wikipedia (edited by me for brevity):

George Dunlop Leslie (1835 – 1921) was a British genre painter, author and illustrator.

His early works, such as Matilda (1860)^[2] showed the strong influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, but he settled into a more academic, aesthetic, style of painting with the aim of showing “pictures from the sunny side of English domestic life”. He often used children as subjects and his work was praised by John Ruskin for its portrayal of the “sweet quality of English girlhood”.

Here’s an interesting bit from Christie’s when this particular piece came up for sale in 2019. (It sold very well.)

This is the prime version, unseen since its appearance at Christie’s in 1902, of one of Leslie’s most celebrated pictures which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1870. A reduced replica can be found in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (no. 393). The title of the picture, derives its name from the game, better known to modern audiences as ‘pooh-sticks’, whereby the girls are casting flowers into a stream, to predict their marital fortunes. Some have a smooth course, while others are less lucky. Dunlop Leslie’s aim, however was to ‘paint pictures from the sunny side of English domestic life, and as much as possible to render them cheerful companions of their possessors’. He saw his times as imbued with ‘turmoil, misery, hard work and utilitarianism’ and he believed that images of innocence, joy and beauty were things he could usefully contribute to society.

No wonder I have liked his work so much.

Leslie has an interesting history so it would be worth clicking over to read more on Wikipedia.

Homeschooling

We were off this week and I didn’t do too much in this area of my life.

Caroline and I watched a short video about dopamine and homeostasis. We discussed how over the past few difficult years we have both slipped into technology patterns that probably aren’t helpful or good for us. It was a positive conversation and I think we both see how we can make fruitful changes.

Homemaking

This week we continued to work our way through some different home tasks. The blinds were washed (by David). Caroline did some significant cleaning out and reorganizing of her room and closet (to reflect her teenager status as she described it). I purged some things from my office closet.

Our bucket garden continues to grow well. No pictures this week, but our cucumber plants are covered with little yellow flowers. David went out and hand pollinated them to make sure it happened.

We got the slow cooker out and cooked up some things to freeze in order to use up items that were slightly past dated. Food is way too expensive to throw anything away right now. I was craving roasted chicken and gravy so I made one yesterday even though the temperatures were in the 80s and it made the air conditioning run even more. I didn’t care. I wanted chicken and gravy (plus leftovers for me after I hit publish on this post!).

Work

I deleted both of my Telegram channels this week. I warned people on there that this was likely to happen. They had served a purpose when the mega-purge happened on Twitter in January 2021, but now they aren’t needed. I was also being shadowbanned so the channels weren’t growing. I would rather share in my Forum which is what I have been doing the past several days. If you like it, let me know in a comment here.

I am so very close to getting the rest of the editable homeschool planners in the shop. Hopefully tonight. They should have been in there a few days ago, but I’m struggling with focus, productivity, and finding any kind of flow around here.

I told a fellow blogger this week that I am struggling with headaches, fatigue, and short term memory things. I don’t think there is anything wrong with me except spending too much time in front of a stupid computer monitor and the stress of the world in which we live. My weight also reflects this. I was reminded of the fact that I lost ten pounds when I quit Facebook (and I didn’t change anything else in my life) when I was reading about Alison’s weight loss since a significant stressful life situation has changed over the past few months. Stress is such a weight gain trigger.

I’ve spent the past two and a half years tracking news and trying to help people make sense of things. I am really burned out on it. It’s not just the news, but the horrific nature of the news. There are things I read and watch that I don’t share because they are so dystopian I think hope they can’t possibly be true. And yet I know at this point they probably are. But I don’t share them because… I don’t know. I think probably because I don’t want to be the one to tell people horrible truths. I think that is a lot of it.

Some of us are wired to be compulsive truth seekers and tellers. I’ve heard other people who are speaking and writing about difficult subjects discuss this over the past year or two. We feel the weight of caring for others who can’t see what we can see. It creates a great deal of tension when you know or are very certain something is true, but it’s so disturbing or depressing you don’t want to be the one to tell people. It sets up a lot of internal conflict because you want to warn people and yet you wonder if there is any point. Do you hurt people more by telling them or letting them find out on their own, however that may happen? I’m not obligated to discuss these topics, but it’s difficult to know and not say anything.

We also seem to be in a place in time where closure is just virtually non-existent. For every mental or physical tab I manage to finally get closed, it seems like three more open up. It’s maddening. I don’t even consider my present circumstances to be that difficult compared to so many people in this country. If I’m feeling this way, I can only imagine what others are dealing with. How long will people be able to deal with all of this before they start snapping and taking it out on others? I’m not talking about the looney Leftists. I’m talking about good, solid Americans who have been pushed to their limits over and over and over again the past two and a half years. I truly consider it a gift from God and an act of Divine Providence that nothing horrific has happened to this point in our country from the patriot/conservative/ex-military/MAGA side. But how much longer will that last? You can only push people so long before they snap and fight back. The level of frustration is sky high among a lot of people. That concerns me.

Anyway.

So just like the Telegram channels went away, it’s possible all of the political and current event forums might just disappear one day. There is lots of other content over there that isn’t stressful and is even a lot of fun. We’ll see. I’ve learned to not do anything that involves significant deletions without letting it sit for at least a few days.

I have had many days when I have simply wanted to turn everything off and become a hermit. But I can’t and neither can you. We need to be aware of our surroundings and what is happening. But it is truly exhausting waiting for other people to wake up to the truth that some of us have known for years. Exhausting and at times even physically painful.

Anyway, I’m sure I’m forgetting something I should have written about but I want to hit publish. I want my chicken and gravy waiting for me in the refrigerator to be put over gluten-free penne pasta. Yum!

What have you been up to? I hope you’ll leave a comment. ♥