The Things We Want to Do

As I've been plugging away at putting our Sonlight Core into Homeschool Tracker, I am struck by the feeling that summer is passing very quickly, and will soon be gone.  Lesson planning takes hours and hours of work.  But it also saves hours and hours of work during the school year, when I can simply plug the day's assignments into the plan for the day without having to enter books or type everything out.  When one is trying to school, keep up with meals, and do the laundry--in addition to all the other mundane (or not so mundane) details of daily life--it has been a sanity saver for me to have everything planned out.  But as I look at my two remaining weeks of summer, I also note that I have nine weeks of Read-Alouds to plan, and twelve weeks of History.  There is a fair amount of work left to be done.

We are hoping to start our year at around August 19.  So far I think the busiest part of this week is over (at least one can hope), so I should be able to get done with the Read-Alouds at least.  That leaves History, and Dad is coming up next week for a visit.  I know that I won't want to be spending all my time lesson-planning.  What I am going to do about that remains to be seen.

But one cannot spend all of the remaining summer break lesson planning.  So I thought I should make a list of things we still want to do.

First on the list, but not necessarily first in the matter of importance is to finish weeding the driveway.  Actually it is a job that is never really finished.  The gravel on the driveway is mostly gone, washed away by the combined effect of rain, snow-blowing, and the slightly downward slope of the driveway.  But if we can get enough done that it looks better until the snow starts, I will be happy.

Secondly, I would like to weed around the dining room window.  That is at the back of the house, and isn't really seen, but I've been gradually working around the deck and the garage this year, trying to pull out the maple trees before the forest grows.

That's the yardwork.  Another thing on my bucket list for the summer is to visit the cemetery about 25 minutes away where some of my ancestors are buried.  When considering that I grew up in five countries on two continents, and never really had a place to call home--except where we were living at the time,  I think that it is really cool that we have now lived for nearly ten years in the area in which my great great grandparents lived.  I have never been to this cemetery, although some of my siblings have.  I am sort of hoping that this is something we can do with Dad next week.

Another thing on the list is to go on at least one more bike ride with the children.  We went in the spring, but haven't even had the bikes out this summer.  It has either been simply too hot, or too wet.  And I'm not one to ride a bike down to the park, or to the grocery store.  I want to ride for fun.  This is one thing that we still may be able to do on nice evenings after we start lessons.

It would be fun to take a day to do something "touristy" in one of the nearby towns too, but I don't know if we will have time for that.  I was chatting with my daughter last night, and we had to laugh about the fact that though we travel a lot, we tend to be real homebodies when we aren't travelling.  We haven't seen a lot of our own area!  I would like to change that, but that may have to be a longer term project.

That's all I can think of at the moment.  We have had more times when we played games together or made beads together this summer.  That has been really fun.

What is left on your bucket list for summer?

In which my floor erupted...

....and I had to get a new one.

A week or so ago, I noticed a change in the kitchen floor.

It seemed to have raised slightly near the stove and dishwasher, and was a bit soft feeling around the raised bit.  By Sunday morning there was a noticeable change.  By Monday morning, I was tripping when I walked around in the kitchen.  It was clear that something had to be done.  We were confused, stymied, unsure as to what would be causing the shift.  There was no sign of leaking around the dishwasher or water anywhere else.

So we made a phone call.  The result of that call is that a couple of the floor boards came up (we have laminate flooring in the kitchen, so it was relatively easy to remove the boards).  Underneath the laminate, we found the foam underlay, and under that, we found first...disintegrating linoleum, and then...hardwood.  But the hardwood looked like this:

It may be difficult to see, but it was obvious to us that the boards had buckled.  Something had to be done.

I was headed to the city the next day, to see my Dad, and help him pick out a memorial for my Mom's grave.  It was decided that work would begin Tuesday morning, and hopefully would be completed before my return.  Seems to me, we've been there before.  At any rate, the plan was to pull up the damaged hardwood and replace it with plywood, and then install the laminate.

Under the damaged hardwood, they found this....(will wonders never cease?) 

 I believe it is an early type of linoleum, that had to be waxed?  If anyone knows better, I'd welcome comments.  (With floors like this, it makes me wonder what colour the walls were!)

The hope was to be able to patch the areas that needed work, and not have to completely take up the old floor.   Well...as times change, so do products.  Not only did the new boards not match the colour of the old ones, but the tongue in groove system had also changed, and no amount of effort was going to make the old tongues fit into the new grooves.

So while I was blissfully away in the city (sort of)...my family was hard at work doing this...

And then 

And finally

It wasn't all done before I came home, but it was mostly done,  and I was home in time to help move everything back into the kitchen.

What caused the problem?  Water. But not from inside.  Somehow, somewhere it is coming in from outside, and going under the floor.  So that is the next project.  And I am glad it is summer and there is no snow to melt and ruin my new floor.