Well, this wasn't exactly what I was expecting from my week off. My work schedule allows me to be off for a week and on for a week, but my weeks start on Wednesday. So, last Wednesday (April 29th) was my first day off. I was doing something on the laptop in the living room and suddenly I heard a loud CRASH that sounded like glass shattering. My first reaction was I yelled, "Are you alright?" There was no response. So, I ran to Penny's bedroom, where the sound came from and found her frozen in place with her left hand in the middle of a broken window. It was a really good thing that she just froze, because she didn't catch her skin on any of the jagged pieces of glass sticking out. I very carefully helped her remove her hand and then several broken pieces fell down. But, her hand only had little pin pricks from tiny shards of glass. Here's a picture of the window, after I had removed the pieces that I could.
And why, you may ask, did this accident occur? Well, that morning, I was very ambitious and had planned to wash everyone's sheets. So, when I stripped Penny's bed, I left the top covers at the foot of the bed, while I took the sheets down to wash in the laundry room. Meanwhile, do you see the bird feeder hanging outside Penny's window, under the fake owl? Well, she LOVES birds! She was so excited for all the birds that were coming back to the bird feeder in the Spring. But, she was very upset when she saw a squirrel, trying to steal the birds' food. So, she ran towards her window to try to scare the squirrel away. Unfortunately, she did not look down and notice her bedcovers at the foot of the bed. So, she tripped over them and flew towards the window. She doesn't really remember what happened, but she must have instinctively put up her left hand when she went sailing towards the window. She was so blessed to not have gone head first through the window. It was amazing that she wasn't hurt worse than she was. Here's a picture of her hand.
We took her to the doctor the next day just to make sure nothing was broken, since she was complaining about some pain. But, as it turned out, she only had some bruising from "karate-chopping" the window. We were also fortunate that it was only the inner pane of glass, which we were able to get repaired the next day for under $100. But, unfortunately, the squirrel was only scared away for one day. But, I think that Penny will refrain from chasing squirrels inside her bedroom from now on.
The one other thing that she has been working on a lot, lately, is writing her essay. This had been my goal for her throughout the homeschooling. I wanted to gradually help her learn more about writing sentences, then paragraphs and now essays. Writing has definitely been the most challenging part about learning English. But, she has actually been progressing well and is actually enjoying writing her essay about Mozart. The topic was her choice. Here she is attempting to work on her essay, while the cat is attempting to disrupt all of the hard work.
In the second picture of the cat, you may have noticed my pant leg, which is covered with paint. Yes, I have started another painting project. I didn't finish before I had to go back to work. But, I have begun to finish up painting the doors inside the sun porch. I also got busy cleaning up the sun porch, since we'll be having a graduation party here in four weeks. Yikes! That means it's only one week away from Penny's actual graduation ceremony. I can't believe it! Well, here are the pictures from my latest painting project.
And here is a picture of my tidied-up sun porch. I made a little makeshift coffee table using the plastic tote that Jay's mom gave me, which is full of baking pans, especially for the cake that my mom is planning to help make for Penny's graduation. On top of the tote I place a piece of wood that was in our shed. And over that I placed a folded table cloth. A very nice way to hide my "junk" and create a little table at no extra cost.
You may notice the plastic bowl sitting in the corner of the sun porch. We still have a leaky roof out there. I'm hoping we can get it fixed before the graduation party. But, it's been raining and raining practically ALL week! And just last weekend, we had another unexpected surprise. I went downstairs to do laundry and the washing machine wouldn't turn on. "Now, that's odd!" I thought. "We just bought that washing machine in August!" But, then I thought, "Perhaps it's the electricity." I went upstairs and looked in the breaker box and, sure enough! There was one fuse that was tripped. I called our electrician and he told me to try turning it all the way off and then on again. Well, there was a stange buzzing sound. He told me that it meant that something that was plugged into that outlet must have shorted out. Well, as it turns out, it was NOT the washing machine. But, it was the sump pump.
Here you get to see the "lovely" old rusty cover to the sump pump pit. Too bad we had to replace it, when the last pump was, supposedly, only six and a half years old. But, with all of the rain in the forecast, we went ahead and had a friend, who is a plumber, come over and replace it on Monday, just before our very soggy week. We had memories of the Colorado flooding that occurred back in 2013 and didn't want to risk having a basement full of water.
Speaking of water, the best thing about last week was the fun we had with framing and hanging Penny's original painting of a water lily. Don't you think it turned out beautifully?
She did this with oil pastels when we were studying about Monet. I think this is definitely her master piece! She is presently working on a picture of a rose, which I can't wait to see when it's complete. I'm so proud of my budding artist and how she's working hard at trying to learn to become a writer, as well.
