Friday, March 13, 2015

Almost Spring

Deep breath.  It's Friday.  Made it through the week.  I wonder if it's just the season.  Since there have been no breaks since the New Year, the long string of teaching weeks seem to get longer and busier as we approach Spring Break.  The Professor has next week off, as does our son the Chaplain's wife (more on that in a minute), but I have two more weeks until my break.  For whatever reason, the week just seems longer.  And busier. (I just said that, didn't I?) I didn't even get around to read others' FFFs and I really missed that.  [insert large sad face]  Due to a suspected cold coming on, I am taking today as a rest day.  I need it to catch my breath.  And I need to look back and remind myself of the blessings of the week.  Here are my chosen focuses for Friday Fave Fives.

1.  Sometimes I just have to stop and smell the roses.  These are the first two blooms in my garden.



2.  I have a new addition to my garden which came with a new visitor.  The monarch butterfly consumes only one plant--the lowly milkweed.  My arts group friend gifted me a small milkweed plant.  I have been carefully tending it, faithfully watering it.  It just wasn't thriving.  I couldn't understand why.  Oh.  Look!



 A caterpillar larva!  Evidently, the milkweed arrived complete with an egg.  I had been told by someone that it may look like the milkweed plant is dead, but it's not.  It's just being eaten down to its nubbins and will grow back its leaves as soon as the monarch larva enters the chrysalis stage.  I hope it's soon.  There's not much left of my milkweed plant.  That one little larva has a voracious appetite.

3.  One reason the week may have seemed so busy is that we started out busy on the weekend.  The Professor and I joined several hundred people at a local conference where Kay Arthur of Precepts Bible Studies was the speaker.  I've been a student of Kay's through her Bible studies since 1994, but this is the first time I had heard her speak in person.  It was amazing.  And I shared it with many friends.

4.  Then, to top off the weekend, on Sunday evening, we attended a choral concert by Los Robles Childrens Choir.  At first, I figured it would just be the normal kids' choir. But.  W.O.W.  I was impressed.  (It's a bit hard to impress me with children singing because I began singing in choirs when I was seven and continued until I graduated from college.)  They sang "An American Patchwork" and tenor Ross Hauck sang with them as a guest performer.  Added bonus:  some present and former students were in the choir and audience.  That's another fun part of teaching homeschool kids!

5.  Remember that I mentioned spring break?  We are anticipating the arrival our Princess from Phoenix!  She will be accompanied by The Chaplain and his wife, her parents.  Four days of loving on our grandgirl!

So that was Willow's Week.  We're heading in to hot and windy weather this almost spring weekend.  Is it warming up or cooling down for you?

12 comments:

Julene said...

It is a lovely feeling to have a few days to just be!
I love the new visitor! A wonderful gift!
Today we have 71 degree weather with full sunshine! Tomorrow it may be the opposite but that's ok. We need rain.
My day will be similar to yours.
I am also looking at a Lentil salad to throw together! Doesn't that sound good?

Jill Foley said...

I'm so jealous of your caterpillar!

Jerralea said...

Yay for 4 days of loving on the grandgirl! Nothing better than that.

Barbara H. said...

What pretty roses! And how fun to have a guest who came with the milkweed plant. The conference and concert sound fun!

Do you think the transition to Daylight Savings Time affected you at all? I was dragging at the beginning of the week and it didn't hit me til later that was probably part of it.

ellen b said...

hooray that your little princess is coming to visit! I'm sure you'll enjoy all three of your visitors! That is one impressive larva! Hope it sticks around in it's pretty Monarch form! Have a wonderful weekend.

Mereknits said...

I love that little caterpillar, I would grow milkweed plants just to have them eaten by cute little guys like that. Sounds like you had a great week, Meredith

nikkipolani said...

Ah, yes, those hungry hungry pre-butterflies! I've heard of a fellow gardener who bought one asclepias after another as the larvae in her garden stripped them bare. And, yes, the plants survive the mauling and bounce right back ;-)

Enjoy your granddaughter! And the well-deserved break to come.

Karen said...

Love the first roses in bloom. It sounds like the milkweed plant is doing its thing. How nice that you have a resident already:)

It's getting warmer here in Colorado, but April is our snowiest month, so I'm not holding my breath. Just enjoying the nice days.

Faith said...

oh yes, the weeks in March with no school break. We did have Winter Break the 3rd week of February and our Spring Break is between Good Friday extending for the entire week after Easter. I'm looking forward to that as is my teen! Love those roses!! and how fun to have your son and his family. LOVE milkweed and the whole butterfly cycle. We have many fields near us with milkweed. Enjoy the weekend and I hope you are feeling better after your rest day.

Susanne said...

Look at that caterpillar! His coloring is so lovely! And roses...sigh we are so far from that yet. How exciting that you finally got to see Kay Arthur live after studying from her books for so many years. Enjoy that visit from your family!

Susan said...

Sorry you are not feeling well. I hope your day of rest enabled you to beat the cold.

The mind (at least mine) can be influenced so easily, when I saw the lovely photo of your roses I really thought I smelled them too. Crazy.

How cool to be able to hear a speaker/author that you've enjoyed for many years. And it is an extra blessing to do so with friends.

Gattina said...

That's a long time without break for a teacher ! We at least had one week in February for Carnival and now the Easter holidays are coming !