Home Happenings and a House-iversary

I could totally repeat the words I said a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of my post on Catching Up.

I won't, but I could. 

Today was the first day in over a week that I did not have an outside appointment (or two or three!), nor was I hosting anything. Rest was the first order of business! I rose at my regular time, but it was a slow, meandering, sipping-coffee-in-my-nightgown kind of morning. Just before lunchtime, I decided that I needed to vacuum after yesterday's gathering and then I mopped the kitchen floor. I told Bekah to go ahead and eat lunch while I took a leisurely bath. This afternoon, I did some school work with Bekah, and made spaghetti sauce because comfort food was also a part of this day of rest. And I was back in my nightgown before I ate my plate of spaghetti. Luxury! 

Between lessons and classes and grocery shopping and laundry, here are some of the happenings in our world this past week . . . 

Bekah celebrated her sixteenth birthday one last time. We had a family party earlier in the month, and we went out to dinner on the actual day. But on Friday evening, friends gathered to play games and celebrate with her. 

Family gathered at a local restaurant to celebrate another birthday . . . that of Ron's youngest siblings, twins who turned 50 on Sunday. 

Fourteen homeschooled students and moms gathered at our home to read aloud The Taming of the Shrew. We have hosted several of these Shakespeare Reading Days over the years, inspired by the ideas of Karen Andreola as shared in A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning. 

We begin by reading a "retelling" of the tale from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.  to familiarize ourselves with the story and the characters. After we assigned roles, we read the induction and all five acts of the play, stopping only to eat our brown bag lunches or to answer questions. Our students met the challenge! They did a fine job of reading and they were engaged in the story. We all laughed at Katherine's wit and her sharp tongue and we cheered on Petruchio as he "tamed" her. 

We have lived at Pineapple House for one year . . . our "house-iversary" as my friend Joanne called it. Although we loved The Farmhouse, our home for thirty-five years and the place for so many memories, and we could hardly imagine living anywhere else, I can honestly say that this house feels like home. 

We have made so many new memories over the past year! We have now celebrated every holiday and every birthday here. We have completed a school year and begun another. We have enjoyed the happy sounds of children playing. We have given out Grandy at the back door as they were leaving for home. We have had parties and guests and homemade ice cream. We have all had the flu. We've decorated for every season. We have made countless pots of coffee. We have done house projects. We have lived.

And it is home.