random

• Figs R Us. The glorious and enormous fig tree we inherited with the Suburban Ranch is providing a bountiful harvest this year. The fruits are a bit smaller than some years, but there is a lot of it. The Prof made his famous Fig Newtons today as well as batches of Strawberry-Fig Sorbet and Strawberry-Lime Sorbet. Earlier this week I canned several pints of brandied figs and tomorrow it is straight up fig preserve canning. In addition, Firstborn dried enough figs for Daddy's Christmas Figgy Pudding and I think there will be more dried tomorrow for just plain old snacking purposes, 'cause I am told they taste like candy. Which, incidentally, explains why we have to hide The Prof's Figgy Pudding figs off-site until December.
• Still somewhat pre-occupied with trying to intervene before our computer crashes. I picked up an external hard drive at the point that our memory was completely full. I mean Completely. Full. Then we started transferring photos over there, but for some reason in the transfer quite a few lost the "jpg" tag. Turns out it was quite a few more than I had realized. I offered to pay Firstborn a nickel per picture for typing the tag on there and, umm, he figured out I owe him $65. Ahem. He kindly offered to lower the rate to a penny per pic. Nice boy, eh? Anyway, I just haven't been able to post pictures here and I so miss it. Soon, very soon.
• Tonight I am all sentimental and sappy--no, not from the intoxicating aroma of fermenting figs--but because I always get a little sad on the eve of any of my children's birthdays. Another year gone. A wonderful, rich, embraceable, but fleeting year passed that I can never get back. Of course I am proud as anything to see each child flowering and growing, expanding their worlds, but still. Tomorrow a certain little girl will be FOUR years old. How can it be?
• I really must write a post soon about retirement. (Yes, my retirement.) And choosing a simpler life. What is a simple life anyway?
• Did I neglect to mention here that Baby O is starting to walk now? Yes, I did and yes, he is. So very exciting, even the fifth time through. The siblings are absolutely delighted. He also says "dog" in his own little way and accompanies it with a series of barks. Charming. And he says "Jesus" and, of course, "Uh-oh"--but with an alarmingly dramatic (and amusing) delivery.
• Lastly, I thought I would mention that we have started our first term of school work for the year. We started a couple of weeks ago, actually. It is so dang hot that everyone was plagued by afternoon lethargy. So, now we do our bookwork in the afternoons. In a moment of panic, I decided to impose a bonafide curriculum upon the Little Scholars; we are trying out the Charlotte Mason based Mater Amabilis and so far, it is a great success. Firstborn decided to dive in with the more intensive course of Latin study (Yikes for me!), Sunshine is L-O-V-I-N-G ancient Greek history, Rosebud thinks family history is pretty cool, and I am surprisingly enjoying the structure of the whole thing. If we stay on track, we should finish by early spring when we take a break to enjoy actual nice weather.