The cupboards are done done done!!!

My Cupboards are DONE!! After many trips back and forth to and from the hardware store(s) and quite a bit of figuring and painting - we are finally done! I am so grateful that my husband - once I was done doing the painting which he detests - pitched in and gave me a hand! I really can't believe it's my house. What do you think? I would love your feedback - now to choose the colour for the walls - I am thinking of staying with the yellow but going a little more "dijon" coloured - the tile behind the sink have yellow and beige in them so I am sticking with that kind of idea, though when I see how very white this looks in the pictures I wonder if I need something bolder!! I think it is hilarious the way that even when I am cleaning up my house for a photo shoot there are still lots of little things left in and around the counters - can you see that? I am amazed at how some people really know how to keep their home tidy. My house never looks like this! A dream I have some day is to wake up every morning for a week to it looking this tidy - maybe it will be sooner rather than later - more on that to come...

I love this shot - I am actually able to see all this from here. Just two weeks ago there was a big ugly brown cupboard in my way - and I really don't miss the cupboard space.

So right here is where I do plan to put either one or two shelves with baskets on it just to hide some items and use that very empty space. My sister says I need new curtains too - more work. sigh. we shall see :)

The ladies are coming tonight - I am bound to get more inspired about another homeschooling topic so stay tuned...It has been another whirlwind week. My middle girl was gone at my brother's and my little nephew came - maybe I will post some pics of that soon - we had a really good time but busy too - I worked 16 hours this week too - how did I fit that in? (yawn)

Homeschooling and Why

No, I am not going to explain why I am homeschooling - not tonight anyway. (did you check the clock? - okay it's wrong - it's actually 11:28 pm) But I will say that I am once again very excited about educating my children at home! I just had a few ladies in and we watched a video about Charlotte Mason - relearned some fundamentals about "The Gentle Art of Learning" - Charlotte lived over one hundred years ago and was a big influence in changing the way they were doing school at that time (in England) - before her time they were very much about the drudgery of school - math drills, grammar lessons, memorization - and she would say that none of these things are wrong in their own rites but she would introduce things like math manipulatives, reading "living books", narration, nature study - helping the child to really gain a love for learning by having the opportunity to connect with some of the "Great Minds" - the greatest Mind being God (the Bible) and then from there writers like Robert Louis Stevenson or Charlotte Bronte, inventors like Bell and Einstein. Nothing grieves me more than the tendency for any child over grade 1 or 2 telling me that their favourite subject in school is Gym or Recess - WHAT??? What happened to that love for learning that they had in Kindergarten??
That is just one reason why I homeschool.

My new cupboards

This is the big excitement in my life right now. My sister came for a week last week and said - hey - let's paint your cupboards so - that is what we did - I am exhausted still from this ordeal but am excited to see the results. Here is one picture of the process - look at those ugly cupboards - she hates this picture but I love the action in it. :) You go girl! We started Tuesday night and were not done until Friday evening. The cupboards still need to be put back on and now I have the dilemma of trying to decide on which hinge and which handles. but in the meantime Bill and I removed that large cupbard you see on the right that hangs over my counter space. For 6 1/2 years I have had to crouch down to see people sitting at my dining room table - or wack my head on the cupboard while I try to bake bread or roll out pizza dough (every Friday night!!) - NO more!!! YIPPEE!

Just LOOK - I can see through my kitchen!! In this picture I am actually standing beside my sink - this is way too cool - I will post pictures of the redone kitchen soon - just want it to be a little more done before I post it on my NEW BLOG!! Too funny...I heard a blurb on CBC the other day about the proper rules and etiquette with Blogs and I am pretty sure I am breaking every rule right now...don't worry - I'll get better :) (That's my big 9 year old peeking around the corner on the left - waiting for me to read Little Men to her before bed - nice book...

Wow - did I just set up a blog?

Okay - I am not sure what I am doing but here I am and I am blogging?? My dishes are piled high in my sink, I desperately need to find hinges and knobs for my cupboards but here I am starting a blog?? What is wrong with me - where is my sense of priorities and responsibilities? Okay - well here I am anway...this all started when I wrote a blurb on my facebook page and a couple of friends (Khantavy-oh so beautiful and pregnant - and Ruth - oh so beautiful and Pakistani) said "Sarah - YOU should have a blog - it would be REALLY great!!" Really? Who is going to read it? Who cares about little ole me - struggling to raise 5 very crazy and lively children in this oh so messed up world? Well, here I am anyway. Day one of blogging (I was actually just trying to start a Google Account so that I could leave a comment on a friend's blog (Matt Cook http://www.theilliteratescribe.com/) and I just ended up here - true story) I am going to start this day by ending here - before I babble the life out of my first blogpost. I will go, put my kids to bed and wash my dishes. I may be back!!!