Working from a checklist

a quickly made card for Debbie at Dr. George's office, as her daughter Bailey goes off to college in PEI

It's Labor Day Weekend which means I'm running out of time to get everything organized and spruced up before we go back to our full lesson schedule which starts the week after Labor Day.
So far I have the books and shelves organized in the kids' rooms and on the main level, which means the basement needs some work since many unneeded books were moved there.
I spent all day Thursday and most of the day Friday writing up a lesson schedule for our first week back and reworking the lessons in Latin to include all three Latin programs. I think we're going to go slower but really work at understanding the declensions and the cases.  I also spent a fair amount of time going over the Classical Composition curriculum since I've never used it before, but I think it is really going to help Seth become a better writer in many areas.

Here's a list of the things I accomplished today(Saturday) besides making three meals, doing the dishes, and helping with the potty-goers.
Laundry, including towels and bedding
Cleaned kitchen sink with CLR
Cleaned little bathroom
Sewed Laura's torn pillowcase
Asked Shane to fix Laura's rusting handlebars which he did
Repaired Seth's watchstrap and one of the doll strollers
Cleaned and organized Laura's room, which took me a long, long time
Continued to work on the cubby bookshelf in the living room, organizing books, cds and other stuff
Made banana muffins to give to the Zinks tomorrow to help as they unpack and settle into their new house on Hope Side Road in Kanata
Froze ground beef into smaller packages and made hamburgers for dinner, salmon for me.
Made carrots for Kate's food
Froze corn off the cob
Cleaned out fridge drawers and used up leftover stuff
Cleaned and organized Seth's bookshelf which surprised him and caused him to declare how nice it looked and that he would keep it that way from now one. I'm a bit too cynical to believe him.
Folded laundry
Gave Kate a bath before bed
Worked on cleaning off kitchen work table which has the wall timeline stuff and paint chips piled on it
Made up our bed, Laura's bed and Seth's bottom bunk

And as I was finishing up the dishes before putting Laura to bed, I told myself to remember days like these, when I am feeling less ambitious.

cardinal watching

I saw a pair of cardinals today in our cedar tree and by the time I had the camera in hand, they were both sitting on the same branch and she was opening her beak and he was placing something in it.  Then as I powered up the camera, it showed an error message and I lost my opportunity. Boohoo.

I have only seen the male cardinal feed her one other time several years ago when they were both sitting on our back fence.  I didn't realize that male cardinals will feed their mate throughout their mating season, so I was surprised to see him feeding her this late in August.  I first noticed them a few days ago when I heard an unfamiliar chirping/tweeting sounds coming from our cedar tree.  So I stood perfectly still by our back patio screen and watched and listened.  A minute or two passed and I could see both of the cardinals.  I only managed to get a picture of him from that day.  But I will keep trying.

After a quick internet search, I found this great image of a male cardinal feeding his mate taken by a photographer from Ohio.