The Pickles: tfw...

...almost all the schoolwork is done, the standardized tests have been taken, there are no more recitals/performances coming up, all summer plans and camps have been arranged, all doctor appts have been scheduled, and everyone has clothes to last the summer.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Also, I feel totally lost. What the heck am I supposed to be doing with myself now??? It feels very unnatural to be able to sit on my deck and sip iced tea and read a novel in the middle of the morning!

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So, what are we up to? This week, blessedly not much. This is the first week of our sort-of summer break, inasmuch as those who haven't finished all their schoolwork yet have a much lighter load, and there aren't any places that people need to be driven to (at least until the camps start).

Miriam just completed performances of The Music Man this past weekend. It was an intense week, so I gave us all permission to completely veg out afterwards. The actors spent pretty much all day every day in rehearsal until the performances started, and then those were twice a day for 4 days straight. Everyone was pretty tired by the last day -- although that didn't stop the kids from wanting to go out to IHOP after set strike and hang out until well after midnight. :) I think that's tradition -- as is all the weeping backstage after the last performance.

The performances were all very well done. A friend admitted that when you're going to watch a musical done by a bunch of homeschooled kids in a black box theater with a bare-bones set, you never really know what you're going to get. ;) So it's nice to be pleasantly surprised by all the talent and professionalism of the actors! I wish we had been allowed to take video, but the licensing company was very strict about it.

So here's Mrs. Squires. You'll have to imagine her singing "Pick-a-little talk-a-little."

cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep....

The director told Miriam to grow her hair out as long as she could, since a stacked bob wasn't exactly period appropriate. Her hair wasn't quiiiite long enough by performance time to get into an elegant twist (which would have been more period appropriate), but we did manage a french braid. We had to mousse the heck out of that sucker, though, b/c her hair was still so short.

afterwards, with all pins and elastic taken out -- that thing's not going anywhere!

Ah, that's what I should be doing! Scheduling haircut appts. I knew there was something!

So this homeschool production was with a different group from those Miriam had done before. It was interesting comparing the two groups. At first she wasn't sure if she'd want to audition for this group again -- she didn't feel the same camaraderie as with the other group, but after tech week any feelings of strangeness evaporated. Nothing bonds you together like a week's worth of 10-hour days. (After the last performance, over half the cast was in tears at the thought that that was The End.) Miriam says she'd definitely like to try out for this group again. We'll see what next spring brings!

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So for whatever reason, the director (who is a Catholic homeschooler) scheduled the performances for the same weekend as the local Catholic homeschooling conference. Rrgh! So Mr. Pickles, bless him, took a day off work so I could have a professional development day. :) All the talks I went to were amazing and affirming and uplifting and I took copious notes which, let's be honest, I probably won't ever consult again. And of course I spent oodles of money on books, but also heroically restrained myself from purchasing several others. (Thankfully, a few years of homeschooling experience -- particularly fails -- have enabled me to be able to assess honestly whether I will REALLY have the time and energy to use whatever pretty shiny thing is tempting me. Most of the time the answer is no.)

I try to buy presents for everyone at the conference -- spoiler alert, it's usually books. For the younger ones I sometimes pick out an educational toy (I have to be very firm with myself at the Discovery Toys table). This year it was their mosaic puzzle thingy. I spent HOURS with this kind of thing when I was a kid. I was gratified to see that Andy in particular seems to love it as much as I did.

I think it's our mutual OCD-ness -- when every little piece is in its proper place, you achieve beauty and perfection.

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Now that summer is here, I've been shearing the boys' heads. This year they're all requesting super short cuts, like the neighbor boys across the street. It's nice and cool for them now -- they were getting pretty scruffy. The only problem is that now I can't tell the big boys apart from the back!

which one is which??

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Speaking of scruffy boys...

They've taken to "helping" with breakfast in the morning, which usually translates to "sit in Mom's workspace and generally get in the way as much as possible before Mom's even had her first cup of tea for the day". It's a good thing little boys are so stinkin' cute. (sometimes that "stinkin'" is meant literally)

Cute AND deranged.

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And barbarians.

The other morning Soot Sprite caught a sparrow and proudly brought it to the back door, I assume as a votive offering. Of course I wouldn't let him in with the thing -- especially since it was still partly alive. But I told him through the window that he was a clever, brave hunter. And then he proceeded to play with the poor thing for half an hour before it finally perished.

And then he ATE IT IN FRONT OF THE DINING ROOM WINDOWS.

DURING BREAKFAST.

The boys were watching through the window the whole time, too. I thought they would be traumatized, but no. Andy was giving me blow-by-blow descriptions of Soot Sprite's toying with the bird, even imitating the bird's broken-winged flapping and terrified panting. And Dominic asked me, "Nicky eat cheep-cheep?" (One of his favorite games is pretending he's a kitty.)

Maybe it's not so much that they're barbarians (although that is still true), but that their instincts as hunter/providers prompted them to admire his prowess and skill.

I was just grateful that he cleaned up after himself and left the deck clean (aside from a few random feathers).

I did NOT take a picture. You're welcome.

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Speaking of the four-legged barbarian,

My parental involvement for Miriam's musical consisted of making some black curtains to cover part of the walls and stage doors. Since the "Black Box Theater" was just one of the art school's dance studios, they covered the walls with velvety black drapes to make it a literal black box. The director gave me a giant roll of black fabric which weighed about 3 tons and a very professional-looking spec sheet (her husband has a degree in production design).

Soot Sprite was extremely helpful while I was cutting it all out. And by "helpful" I mean "sitting right in the middle of where I wanted to cut and repeatedly trying to attack the scissors".

you tan't see me! I's inwisible!

It was kind of fun -- for one thing, the fabric was a dream to work with: I'd press it with my fingers and it would stay creased (although it DID turn my fingers black -- I'm guessing it's not washable at all), and it didn't slip around while I was sewing it. For another, when else are you going to get to make something that's 10 feet by 7 feet?? I had to use Mr. Pickles' 25' tape measure to mark the cutting lines.

Of course, when I brought the drapes to the theater, it turns out the specs were wrong and my beautiful drapes for the doors were 8" too short.

Which is not very effective for not letting outside light in.

(So I took them home and added in panels to lengthen them, forgetting to add an inch for one seam allowance, doh! Thankfully they were just long enough, and performed admirably. Phew!) (The director even gave me a credit in the program for "Curtain Construction". lol!)

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We got a sand box!

So a couple summers ago Mr. Pickles ripped out a bush-tree thing whose only purpose seemed to be to attract bees, not something I wanted right next to the deck. So he cleared out the bush-tree thing and dug up the root and I put down some landscaping fabric to prevent weed growth... and then ignored it for a long time. Last summer I went so far as to purchase a tarp to cover the future sand box and ignored it some more. But this was the year! Desperate to find something to make the boys go outside and PLAY already, I finally went to the Home Despot and got several bags of sand. The boys LOVED it.

For about 3 days.

I think I need to get some cheapy beach toys to entice them back out again. Thankfully Soot Sprite hasn't discovered it yet, thanks to the tarp.

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So next to the sand box ...box, is another planter box which was Soot Sprite's personal jungle. He loved hiding in the weeds to stalk his prey. But it was getting really overgrown and ugly so Mr. Pickles cleared it out. Guess what was in that planter box!

Poison ivy. Lots and lots of poison ivy.

in just 24 hours, my reptilian transformation will be complete! mwa ha haa!

I was able to wash off right away and prevent a reaction, since I was the one who recognized it first, but Mr. Pickles got it really bad. That was an itchy, oozy two weeks for him.

He kind of hates yard work now.

Also, it's miraculous that none of the rest of us ever got a rash from petting Soot Sprite, considering how much time he spent crashing through the poison-ivy-ridden underbrush.

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So, that's some of what we've been up to, at least in just May and June.