Welcome to Friday. I hope your week was a good one. This was a difficult week for our family. Rather than discuss it here, I’ll simply point you to the post I just published this morning: Occam’s Mirror and Surrounded By False Reality.
This Week’s Artwork
Today I’m featuring a new artist. Peasant Girl is by Norwegian painter Hans Dahl.
Wikipedia tells us (edited by me for brevity):
Hans Dahl (1849 – 1937) was a Norwegian painter. Hans Dahl was most known for his paintings of Norwegian fjords and surrounding landscapes.
Hans Dahl was born in the village of Granvin, on the Hardangerfjord in Hordaland, Norway. His talent was already evident when Dahl was 16 years old. However, it was only after service in the army that Dahl received artistic education.
Dahl resisted the transition in art from Romanticism to Modernism. In the 1890s a new school of art arose, and artists like Dahl were not very popular in the leading circles in the capital. He was particularly criticised by the art historian Jens Thiis. He was severely criticized by fellow artists especially by Christian Krohg, who was one of the leading figures in the transition from romanticism to naturalism which characterized Norwegian art in this period. Throughout his life, he increasingly narrowed his range of topics. Dahl often described the scenery of the western part of Norway in brilliant sunshine with smiling people in national costumes. His vibrant colors and charming portrayals of young Norwegian girls in their national costume have always been very popular.
I’ll be sharing more by Dahl in the weeks ahead. He has some beautiful, cheerful paintings.
Homeschooling
I had originally planned to start some things with Caroline this week, but she wasn’t feeling well when the week started and I was all out of sorts as explained in the other post so I decided to wait.
Homemaking
I wrote earlier this week about some of the work I was doing in Make The Most Of Your Pantry. I won’t repeat that here. I will say I’ve continued to work for 20-30 minutes each day on the other parts of the basement after the big slider puzzle and I’m happy with the progress I’m making.
I have also been working on the kitchen. It’s not going as quickly as I wanted, but I’m okay with that since I got a lot of other things done.
The vacuum sealer has been getting a bit of a workout this week. I like seeing the finished product.
David harvested the potatoes we grew in buckets. We got a LOT of them, but many of them were very small. I need to ask my brother what we can do to improve their sizes the next time around.
Work
David and I finally finished updating two products in the shop. It feels good to have them done! If you have previously purchased them, you can get a new copy in your shop account. See the website menu bar for a link.
- A Quiet Simple Life Planner & Guidebook
- A Cozy Christmas Planner
I did write a few posts this week including:
- Simple Living Can Mean Walking Alone
- Make The Most Of Your Pantry
- The Authoritative Source, False Reality, and The Party of False Decorum
- Occam’s Mirror and Surrounded By False Reality
I added quite a bit to the Forum.
That’s it for now. I’m off to send out the newsletter. I hope you’ll share what you’ve been working on in your home. ♥
Make The Most Of Your Pantry
I’m so sorry to hear it was a hard week for you! I haven’t gotten to read your other post, but I will.
I have felt like I was a bit lazy this week, but now that I look back, I have gotten quite a bit done, so maybe my perception is a bit skewed. 🙂 One of the biggest things that I did was to help my parents finally sign the contract with the company to sell their estate and house back in Indiana. It was a relief getting it started and once it’s final, we will all be able to take a deep breath. It’s just been hanging over our heads. It was one of things I expected my brother to be around to help me with, but when he took his own life in October, it all has fallen on me. It just added another layer of emotional stress that I had not expected.
We harvested our potatoes this week too! My husband built a wooden crate for me that was open at the top and bottom that we planted our potatoes in as an experiment and I think it worked rather well! I planted about 10 seed potatoes and I would estimate that we got about 10-15 pounds of potatoes? It’s the first time I have ever planted potatoes, so the harvest was exciting for all of us! I’m hoping to talk him into building a couple more crates for me for next year and expanding the varieties. This year I planted Yukon Gold. I love sweet potatoes, so I’d like to try that next year too. We got quite a few tiny ones, but a good number of big ones too. My cucumber plants were dying off, so I pulled those out as well. Of my 4 tomato plants, one of them has a few fruits that are finally starting to show color. I am impatient for them to ripen! My melons are finally fruiting nicely too. The melons are another new experiment for me. I definitely need to give them lots more room next year! They are trying to take over the back yard and escape the fence!
Since we finished school work this spring, I have just been having E help me around the house this summer. This week, she came to me and said that she thinks it’s about time to start looking for a job, or look into taking a class or 2 at the college my husband works at. She just has no idea what she wants to do, so we brainstormed what she might like to look into and I looked at a list of local businesses and we now have a list of places that I’m going to call to see if we can make a “field trip” to see what kinds of jobs they have. I still don’t think college is right for her, but I’m not going to stop her from taking a class in something she’s interested in, since she can take classes for free (perks provided to employees instead of monetary compensation 😉 ). I guess my teaching days are not quite over, just a different focus.
I hope you have a chance to relax and unwind this weekend. Long weeks can really be exhausting!
Amanda
Reading about your week convinced me to read the post on Occam’s mirror. There were echoes of your post on walking alone.
Maybe seven years ago I was replacing a rusted pipe- a tiny job, but extremely frustrating because if the threads break it grows into an enormous and much more complicated project- and after about 20 minutes of not-so-gentle effort I was able to unscrew the fused part. My coworker (who had been guiding my work) twinkled his eyes at me and teased “somebody up there likes you!”
All I could think was “that’s a really good thing because not many people down here do.” My luck, loneliness, and inability to conform are all given by God; the task is to accept what I have been given and use all it correctly (the second part is harder than the first).
I bought a copy of the BSB and have been finding 15-20 minutes to read it every night- I wish I could figure out how to post the picture of my Bible stacked over the Pie and Pastry Bible because it is very funny!
Blackberries, blueberries, stone fruits, and plums are coming into season; I don’t have time to do much with them, but about 2 lbs of fruit comes with my weekly CSA produce/ I glean what I can. Any suggestions for 5 lbs of apricots? The yield on preserves would be scant…. Maybe freeze a few weeks’ worth then put the whole lot up? Likewise mulberries….
As always Sallie, thank you for sharing your gifts.
Reading about your week convinced me to read the post on Occam’s mirror. There were echoes of your post on walking alone.
Maybe seven years ago I was replacing a rusted pipe- a tiny job, but extremely frustrating because if the threads break it grows into an enormous and much more complicated project- and after about 20 minutes of not-so-gentle effort I was able to unscrew the fused part. My coworker (who had been guiding my work) twinkled his eyes at me and teased “somebody up there likes you!”
All I could think was “that’s a really good thing because not many people down here do.” My luck, loneliness, and inability to conform are all given by God; the task is to accept what I have been given and use all it correctly (the second part is harder than the first).
I bought a copy of the BSB and have been finding 15-20 minutes to read it every night- I wish I could figure out how to post the picture of my Bible stacked over the Pie and Pastry Bible because it is very funny!
Blackberries, blueberries, stone fruits, and plums are coming into season; I don’t have time to do much with them, but about 2 lbs of fruit comes with my weekly CSA produce/ I glean what I can. Any suggestions for 5 lbs of apricots? The yield on preserves would be scant…. Maybe freeze a few weeks’ worth then put the whole lot up? Likewise mulberries….
As always Sallie, thank you for sharing your gifts.