Rainy Day

We have gotten a lot of rain this week. On Monday night we had a torrential storm that dumped a lot of rain in a short amount of time. The parking lot of the soccer field was flooded so much that the large wooden beams used to mark the parking spaces floated out of the parking lot and ended up in the soccer fields and in the area around the field. A lot of the soccer field was also under water and some of the benches on the field were carried to random places as well. I couldn't believe how muddy everything was there on Tuesday night. It was a swamp. It's raining again today, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Normally gym class can be held inside, but the church needed the gym for another event this morning, so we had been told last week that if it was nice gym class would be held outside today, and if it was raining they'd cancel the class today and extend the session by one week. My most favorite yard sales each year are the community yard sale the first weekend of May in Milton and the one in our town in September. I had my list of things I was planning to look for today such as sandals for Nadia and grey pants and summer pajamas for Ian, but it has been raining most of the day. I know some people said their yard sale was rain or shine because they could hold it in their garage, but I am not that die hard of a yard sale shopper that I wanted to get in and out of my van to visit yard sales in the rain. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow morning so I don't plan to go to the yard sales tomorrow, and I'm hoping Ian's soccer game will be postponed. He's the only one currently scheduled to have a game tomorrow.

They have been out of their eggs for 7 days now!

Gym class and yard sales was how we were going to spend our morning, but due to the rain we were home. The kids played, we listened to chapters 21-25 of Isaiah, the kids read, and I helped them finish an art project Paul started with them several months ago. I think Paul has a lot more artistic talent than I do, so I had been hoping he would do some art projects with them, but I need to get it in my head that I am their art teacher even though I feel very unqualified in that area. Nadia told me that I am a better artist than they are, and that is a true statement. I can follow the directions that Sharon Hofer gives (via video) better than they can at their ages. We did three projects from start to finish this week plus finished a fourth project. We did a lot more art this week than we usually do in a month! We have two projects left, and we'll be done with art for the 2016-17 school year. Nadia and Ian will be doing five days of a painting and drawing class at the Children's Museum in June. Of the projects they did this week, the peacock feather one was my favorite. We used a black Tombow pen and Bombay inks for that one. Another project didn't turn out quite right because I didn't understand that rubbing alcohol wasn't the right kind of alcohol to use for the project. Turns out we needed ethanol. Oops!

Usually I enjoy seeing a picture or post that Facebook shows me that I had posted on this same day in a previous year. That wasn't the case today. Facebook decided to remind me that it was on this day four years ago that Paul graduated from Penn State with his Ph.D. That was thrilling news four years ago. It makes me want to cry my eyes out today. I would never have guessed in a million years that three years after he graduated he would have gone back to working at the family concrete plant.

Nadia and Ian have been doing really well with their math flashcards (all four operations); so I said they could finish watching the second Star Wars movie tonight (Attack of the Clones). I also checked out Revenge of the Sith today at the library, but Ian needs to learn to tie his shoes before we will watch that one. Nadia started teaching his this evening. Paul and I saw a good movie this week(Lion). We get all our DVDs from the library - just one more way of saving a little money as several years ago we used to get DVDs in the mail via Netflix. Although I have taken steps to live on a smaller income such as refinancing our house and staying with relatives on our vacations this year, I have loosened up a little in some other areas. When we were trying to live on an adjunct income, I was trying to spend as little as possible thinking that it was a temporary situation and Paul's salary would gradually increase back to what I had been making as a professor, but once I realized that his salary was actually going to be smaller as he left the field of higher education, I decided it was impossible to stay in this "try to spend as little money as possible" mode for years on end. For example, today I bought myself an iron. Ours has been broken for more than a year. Granted I don't use it very often, but it was very frustrating when I did need to use it. I thought I might get one as a Christmas or birthday gift, but since that didn't happen I "splurged" and bought myself a new iron at Walmart today. If only I had inherited my mother's skill with ironing, but I didn't. I did iron a patch on Nadia's AWANA uniform today though.