Mess Coming

We're about to enter the messiest part of the remodeling, so I probably won't be posting much in the next couple of weeks. We're planning on lots of fun field trips! Visit the science museums (here and in Salem, maybe the carousel too!), maybe go see the waterfalls in the gorge when the weather is nice (which it won't be next week!), go to the zoo, maybe even go out to the beach. We'll do just a tiny bit of formal learning time, enough to keep up our reading, math, and Hebrew skills. It'll sort of be like a mini-vacation. I kind of wish the timing was a little later in the month because we've been on such a good roll with the learning time and REALLY getting into history... But here it is, and we'll have a good time with lots of adventures.

We've been dumping/decluttering/recycling/selling like mad. Everything stored under the house got infested with happy little mouse families, so it pretty much all had to be thrown out. When we move we want to take only the things we really love and nothing else. We've made a pretty good dent, with more to come. I love decluttering. I love stripping down to the basics. I've been thinking about our next house too and thinking that the living space we have now is such a nice size (1677 square feet). When the kids are older and doing more of the chores we'll easily be able to keep it clean without help, even with a busy homeschooling schedule. I want to do that. More space is more cleaning. The only thing I do wish we had is a room where we could start projects and leave them out for several days. Otherwise, our house is perfect. And will be even "more" perfect after it's all fixed up!

I like keeping our life simple. Our schedule is simple. Our commitments are simple. Our learning is just right. We have nice friends and good food. The one area I want to improve on is an even more frugal grocery budget. I have a friend who feeds her family of 10 (soon to be 11) on $600 per month (yes, they keep kosher). My hero!! I'm working on it...

Better go make that salad dressing...