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    Seven Quick Takes: In Which I Ran a Short Distance, and Other Stories

    April 4, 2014 by Brandy Vencel

     

    — 1 —

    I started the Couch-to-5K plan on a whim yesterday afternoon. My cold suddenly felt better, the 4H rabbits meeting was cancelled, and the children had gone to visit my dad. The danger of deciding something like this on a whim is a lack of determination to follow through. The up side is that I was pleasantly surprised: I am, it seems, in better shape than I thought. I am not saying that jogging for a minute alternating with walking for ninety seconds is difficult, but that I really thought it would wind me. Instead it was…well, don’t tell my husband I said this, but…I actually thought it was fun.

    I really credit my treadmill with this as I would never, ever run in public. In fact, I ran the other day in the backyard {while chasing a goat}, and one of the girls commented on it. She said something like, “Wow, Mom! So that is what it looks like when you run!”

    I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

     

    — 2 —

    In case you didn’t notice my mention of this earlier in the week, I just think you should know that there are eight goats living in my backyard right now. I am sure the neighbors love me, right? That second set of triplets was music to their ears, I’m sure.

    The good news is that they are basically all for sale, though the keeping of Pepper is still under consideration. This means that I have a whole bunch of kids to sell, and since I need to buy a gate and put in a walkway for the guest house, I consider this a really noisy version of the-Lord-will-provide.

     

    — 3 —

    Did I mention I switched the girls over to MEP math already? I think I said I was going to do this this summer? Well, I decided to just take the plunge and do it now. Neither of them were thriving on Math Mammoth. My oldest is more self-taught when it comes to math. If I explain it too much, it isn’t helpful. If he tries to figure it out and comes to me with questions, it goes much better. I’m not suggesting this as an approach to math, but it is what works with him.

    The girls needed math to be more teacher-intensive, and yet Math Mammoth doesn’t seem to lend itself to that. MEP is scripted. I’m not necessarily following the script, but, since I have never really taught math before, it is helpful to see what teaching math might look like. I feel like I’m in Math Teacher School or something.

    Anyhow, MEP is what they needed, I think. They are both doing well, and since I restarted them at the same time, I’m teaching them together, which has actually been a lot of fun.

     

    — 4 —

    E-Age-Eleven is running for an office at 4H. This is sort of shocking to me, for some reason. But he’s running for Reporter, which means that, if he wins, he’ll help make the monthly newsletter. I told him he could do it all on the new laptop, which is a big motivator, of course. I think he’ll be great at it, so I hope he wins.

     

    — 5 —

    I was going through some photos and thought you might be interested in what misery looks like. This is my beloved Charlotte trying to get comfortable just two days before giving birth to her triplets.

    At one point, I really thought she might die. I think she thought so, too.

     

    — 6 —

    If you read this far, then you deserve to know that I have a big, Top Secret project upon which I am working. (How’s that for excellent grammar?) I can’t tell you what it is yet, but I am really excited.

    Ooh! If I say more, I’ll say too much, so That is All.

     

    — 7 —


    Because of my no good, horrible, very bad week last week, I didn’t post a photo of the guest house. So this photo shows a two-week difference. As I type, the cabinet makers are working away in the kitchen. I can’t wait until it gets a front door because I’m quite over chasing the goats out of the house. For a long time, they were afraid of it and so they never went in. Now they are a Problem and I’m back to locking them up for hours each day.

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