The last day of vacation....

So, tomorrow is Labor day and the last official day of summer vacation.  I have been spending my time resting, reading and in between trying to do a few things toward more home-cooked meals again.  I managed to get some new sourdough cultures and got them all activated.  I bought a couple of Julia Child's cookbooks, and some of the ingredients for some yummy sounding but not to strenuous dishes.  I even made cream cheese with some cheese-making cultures I had in the freezer and an extra gallon of milk that we had accumulated.  I discovered that it is cheaper for me to buy the raw organic milk and make my own cream cheese than to buy the processed philly cream cheese. I even experimented with making some flavored stuff, it turned out not half bad.

I have just been so tired of all the processed food and I hate eating fast food and sandwiches all the time.  I figured I would spend my rest time reading cooking books and deciding which things were not to hard for me to try and planning on doing a little bit here and there during the school day as I am able.  I don't feel like I am doing all that much more I am just channelling my time differently than I have in the past.  I go nowhere, and do very little outside of the house, but it allows me to do more inside.

It's hard for me to do nothing, everyone thinks I have it made and I am lazy and eating bon-bons and watching TV all day, but I am not that type of person.  Resting makes me feel unproductive and useless.  So even if I do not do a whole lot at least I feel as if I am using my time wisely!  And I am learning a lot just by reading cookbooks and making plans to do something bigger here and there.

I have been dying to make liver pate and beef bourguignon and neither one seems too strenuous though they do take up time.  Fortunately, time is something I have in excess.  Also both of them store well and make great leftovers so I can make a big batch and we will have food for a while.  I put all my food prep machines on one counter so they are easy to access and use - making me much more likely to be able to make stuff again and eliminating one step of digging out everything that I need to use.  Now I need to clean my kitchen up a bit so I have more room on the counters to work and I will be all set to go. Then thaw some meat so it is available and think about dinner at 3pm instead of at 6pm and hope that 2-3 days a week I can actually make something new and good.

School is ready to go, I have been working on the curriculum here and there as I feel motivated.  We will probably spend the first part of Tuesday organizing and just getting ready, then an hour or two of actual school before all their friends start showing up and wanting to play.  Wednesday is my first planned full day of school, which gives us one day of goof-offishness to get out of the way and allows me to be lenient and have a not so stressful first day.

I have to remember to go pick up Pierce's trombone from the school, he will be taking private lessons from a friend of ours.  I am also adding in some domestic arts to their learning, but not during the day and they do not know I consider it part of their education LOL.  I just think teaching them some of the things I have learned about cooking and food preparation over the years is a really good idea.  Plus they love to help me in the kitchen. 

All in all I am looking forward to the school year, more so than I have in a while and I feel ready and mostly on track.  I am happy to be able to homeschool and not have all the back to school issues I have had over the past 2 years.