In Our Cozy Home This Week – No. 90

It’s Friday so that means it’s time for a wrap-up post of the week. Once again it’s been a full one and once again I probably forgot most of what I did. But it was a good week and I’m thankful for that.

This Week’s Artwork

Today’s artwork is The Only Daughter by James Hayllar. (Any idea why I picked this one? Sniff just thinking about it!)

Click over to read his Wikipedia entry, but here are a few interesting bits:

James Hayllar (1829–1920) was an English genre, portrait and landscape painter.

He first became known as a portrait painter but later turned his brush to genre art, often featuring pretty young girls (see first painting); his work became very popular. With George Dunlop Leslie (who also lived in Wallingford at the same time), he painted a large portrait of Queen Victoria to celebrate her Golden Jubilee in 1887 – the painting now hangs in Wallingford Town Hall.along with another 10 of his paintings.

Hayllar had four sons and five daughters, four of whom, Edith Hayllar (1860–1948), Jessica Hayllar (1858–1940), Mary Hayllar (1863–c. 1950), and Kate Hayllar (fl. 1883–1900), became notable artists in their own right; all received their training from their father and exhibited at the Royal Academy.

If you remember, George Dunlop Leslie is the artist I’ve featured five times in the past including last week with Fortunes.

Hermes at the blog British Art has an excellent write-up of Hayllar and The Only Daughter.

According to the painted legacy of his daughters, Castle Priory was the setting for an exceptionally happy family life, filled with innumerable children (he had nine himself, but neighbours and cousins frequently visited) where days were filled with games of tennis as well as artistic endeavour. The house was to provide his family with inspiration, and it is interesting to note how few of them painted after their marriages. Hayllar obviously felt their departure from home keenly, for he amplified the theme in the present picture. The only daughter stands counterpoised between her adored father and future husband, whose dynastic duty is made plain by placing his head between the portraits of past generations on the wall behind him. The interior and the occupations of its inhabitants are described in detail: particularly noteworthy is the inclusion of a sewing machine at the centre of the picture.

The painting last sold at Christie’s in 2003.

I’ve prayed for Caroline’s future husband since she was born. I pray for him and his parents on a fairly regular basis. I know David does as well. I trust God has saved a good young man for her somewhere who we can welcome into our little family when the time is right. The Lord has ordered our steps as individuals and as a family so I believe He will care for this need as well in the best way possible.

Homemaking

Our bucket garden continues to grow. We haven’t reached harvest quite yet, but we’re getting close. We started discussing replanting all of the buckets as they become available again and see what we can grow into the autumn.

We went to Meijer and, like many of you I’m sure, I nearly choked on some of the prices.

Caroline has wanted to make a picnic table for the squirrels for quite some time so I found an easy tutorial on YouTube. She is with David at Lowe’s right now buying the wood to make it. The squirrels, birds, rabbits, and deer are our outdoor entertainment and we enjoy watching them each day.

Homeschooling

Caroline surprised me by putting together a LibreOffice Impress presentation to persuade me of something. My problem-solving homeschooling mom mind instantly saw this as an answer to multiple needs and questions.

So I offered her two more weeks of summer vacation if she put together in the next few days a high-quality presentation of what she learned while watching the new six-part National Geographic series on Rome. She suggested how long it should be and how she would do it. I said great. I told her if she can show me she’s capable of doing some really top-notch work while working independently, I can be more confident giving her more vacation time. (Background if you are a newer reader: Homeschooling a Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities (LBLD))

We can kill two birds with one stone with this – computer science and history. Given her unique learning needs, I’m thinking this might be one excellent way to create projects for her over the next three years.

The project I need to work on is developing my own math curriculum for her for the coming year. There is truly NOTHING out there that works for us due to her dyscalculia. Believe me. I have looked. We have tried. Every year. So I have devised in my head a way to tackle this for the coming year. (Someday when all of this is done, I will write about it. But not while we are in process.) But thinking it in my head and putting together a year-long plan are two different things. But I think I have a plan and that is something.

Work

David and I redesigned the site a bit this week as you can see. I’ve had the blue/green theme for two years which is an ETERNITY for me when it comes to blog designs. I went into the Wayback Machine and looked through all of the different blogs and designs I’ve had over the years. I should do a bunch of screen captures and write a post just as a matter of record. It was interesting to see them all and reflect on why I did what I did. In any case, I normally change things quite often.

Anyway, this header is one I had just before I made that big theme change two years ago. I REALLY liked it and was a bit bummed to give it up to do something that seemed to work better with the new Mai theme.

But I always go back to the red and green and acorns. There is something about it that is just ME. We made some changes to the theme and it was back. I love it and am so happy.

I added more products to Made By Teachers as I slowly work my way though that task. I won’t put everything in my own shop on that platform. I’ll only add things that I think would sell specifically to teachers. We’ll see how it goes when back to school starts to pick up in a few weeks in parts of the country.

I finished publishing my editable homeschool planners this week. BIG RELIEF.

I tried a new way of posting in the Forum this week and it worked well for me.

That’s it for now. I want to hit publish and get this out. I hope you had a good week, too. Please leave a comment and let me know!