A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Home Maintenance

Learning Household Management

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One of the things I’ve been pondering as my lad gets older is learning to manage a house.   There are things as natural as can be to teach him…. like sweeping a floor, taking out the garbage, doing dishes and what not.  These are jobs easily shown and given to a lad to do. 

Not all jobs are like that though.  Cleaning toilets, cooking complete meals, understanding personal finance, maintaining things like furnaces and appliances, and so much more.  Sometimes I wonder how to do it all.  I don’t think I’m alone in that. 🙂

learning household management

Learning to Let him Learn

Today I felt a bit of an idiot you know?  🙂   My son was going to make homemade mac and cheese, the oven baked kind.  I found him a recipe and then I started remembering how hard it was for me to make a white sauce….and I shouldn’t have….but I did.  I kinda took over the “how to make a white sauce part.”.  What I SHOULD HAVE done was wait and let him figure it out or ask for help.   Why I didn’t?   I don’t know.  

The lad and I were talking about it. He had a recipe and he knows how to follow one, and here I kept messing around with him and it.  He couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just let him do it.  In the end we basically decided that I was just being a mom learning to let a capable teen learn skills on his own.  I haven’t done this before.   He’s my first ever teen so I’m bound to make mistakes. 

We’ve agreed.  Next time I’ll find a recipe for him (until he’s comfortable finding his own) and then just let him run with it. 

learning household management

Plans Moving Forward

In a household there are many chores, jobs, duties that need doing to keep the household running smoothly. I broached the idea to my lad that I’d make a schedule and we’d switch routines every week. That, didn’t go over well. He’s a routine oriented young man so switching things around causes too much stress.

We decided that one day every other week he’ll cook supper. The opposite week I’d pick a chore and say, today can you do the laundry, whatever bin is full. We divide our clothes in black, medium, reds and whites. I do a load whenever a basket is full.

I’ll do the same with other tasks like cleaning the bathroom… toilet and tub not just the counter tops. Weeding the lettuce patch. Trimming back the grass from the sidewalk, and all the mirade of things that need doing. By the time he is 18 he won’t be wondering how to maintain a house any longer, and will have had exposure to everything that needs to be done.

learning personal finance

Personal Finance

Two months ago he opened a bank account. We had thought about just doing on-line banking with him, but reconsidered knowing the benefit of a personal touch when learning new skills. It was great decision since this past week he deposited all his savings. He learned that putting all the denominations together is better than dividing all the money into groups of $50 regardless if bill or coin. The tellers took their time explaining why group denominations and coins by type/amount is preferrable.

Over the summer I’ll be walking him through how to keep to a budget. We’ll do one month together of this is what we spend money on, this is what we have to spend, how can we make our dollars count best? Hands on, walking side by side learning, it’s the best way you know?

SchoolhouseTeachers has a personal finance course that we plan to take as well. Making sure I cover everything that needs covering. There is so much goodness on SchoolhouseTeachers, they are getting better all time time. Take advantage of their offerings if you haven’t yet!

Pruning and Moving Fruit Trees

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My brother was a total sweetheart.  Remember I got the hedge down but we had this stumps sitting in the way?   With no chainsaw at hand I didn’t know how to get them out other than let them rot out (takes about six years) or maybe use an ax (uh no) … this was strongly discouraged by my mom-in-law who said that was bear of a method.   Anyways, my brother says “sure, I’ll lend a hand” so I am indebted to him for his kindness.   I’ve told him when he’s ready for hostas to come and get the ones he wants. 🙂

pruning and moving fruit bushes

The two boys (after hearing gramma says “I’m going to get changed and move those logs”, got grins on their faces and hurried to beat her to the punch.  You should have heard them chortle when gramma came out to them all mow.  “YOU BOYS!  I needed something to do!”    Honestly, I laughed to… the look on her face was priceless and the boys… Just fun! 

BUT gramma needed a job so I set her and the boys to digging holes for me.  I marked them off with a big X and gave them general dimensions.  My son learned accuracy with an axe (needed for cutting through roots), and continued community with a non-native English speaker.  My visiting son learned new words like hole, bush, axe, “x marks the spot”, pruner, shovel and more.   Gramma learned to ASK for the best shovel and to accept help from two eager boys (this is hard for her).

digging holes for fruit treesThe lad asked questions like “Why are the holes so far apart?  Why do they need to be so deep?  How do you know how much to prune them back?” and other such questions.  It was good to take the time to help him learn. It’s fun you know?  The holes were 5-6 feet apart so they have room to grow and I can mow around them.  They needed to be bigger and wider then the rootball of the plant you were putting in so the plants roots have soft soil to grow in so they can reestablish themselves.  And see below for how I knew how much to cut them back.  🙂

I headed off to trim my gooseberry bush.   When my brother was here he walked me around our property and said “cut this one down to here, cut this one here, cut this one back hard, and so forth”.  I listened intently and cut the bushes after he left.  He’s more brutal than I am comfortable with but… I did way more than I normally would. I still have some trepidation about it all though.  🙂

Look at the piles of stuff though eh?

results from pruning bushesIn between our work done we had our thanksgiving meal.  It was very good.   Mashed potatoes, chicken, biscuits, cranberry sauce, rhubarb sauce, beets, and peas. Gramma brought dessert of pumpkin pie and orea dessert. 

thanksgiving meal 2018

Even though everyone just wanted to rest I had a burn inside me to get those bushes moved so I left the gang in the house, watching TV and chatting, while I disappeared to the backyard.   My 13 year old attempted to say “Mom, you don’t have to do this” but I put him off saying “I want to be out here working, I want to muck about in dirt and with shovels”.  Appeased he headed back in the house saying “Call me if you need me for anything”. 

bushed movedLessons I learned.  Goji bushes are SUPER easy to move!  OH MY!  Gramma said it was super easy to prune back too!  (I told her how much to cut off).   Gooseberry bushes prolificate (we have two babies to find homes for) and very hard to prune with all the thorns they possess.   They come out easily enough once you get past the roots.   Black currants have spindly roots, which you just have to follow (wet soil is a huge boon in this). 

I trimmed back the Rose of Sharon and moved it to a spot where I could mow all around it.   I really like this bush as it’s white with red centres in the flowers.  Very striking.    I discovered it was growing on a slant so when I replanted it I tilted it before I tamped down the dirt.   The lad held it steady for me.

rose of sharon

Once I had them all in, I gave them all very thorough watering.  Plants love water and it helps them not to be stressed if they get a good watering after they are moved around. I remember as a child watching my dad (who loved planting trees) carry out buckets of rinse water from the milking machines to pour over the trees he’d planted. 

 

 

Garbage Can Base In

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One of the things I’ve longed to do is to build a base for our garbage bins.  We have these big rolling carts which I thoroughly enjoy having.  No more smelly garbage in the house (or having to put it in the freezer in the summer).   I can just bring it outside and be done with it.  HUGE YAY!

Anyways, since we thought we’d be moving eventually I never bothered with my wish to put a base under them (as I’d just have to dig it up again), but since we now own the place it was like.. okay.. NOW we can do this.   I backburnered the idea while I worked on removing the hedge and keeping up with the house over the summer. 

The day arrived.  I wanted to use the patio stones from around the back yard bird feeders that we had up.

I raise rabbits and one year I got INUNDATED with rats.  Having the bird feeders didn’t help the problem.  So as much as I hated to do so, I stopped feeding the birds and went on a rat rampage.   The rats were caused to stop hanging around the place but I just haven’t had to nerve to try feeding the birds again, rats and rabbits are SO not a good combination. Rather than feel bad about having empty feeders up I decided it time for them to go.  The lad was a good help. 

We took the stones (well only three of them) from around the bird feeders and brought them around front where the lad dug out an area for them to go.  I helped him get a straight edge but he did the work.  So pleased I am to have a helpful lad. Anyways, we got the bird feeders out.  I don’t know if you can see it, but they have suffered some damage.

Bird feeders pulled out

And then into the bin to soak for a while.  We’ll put them into storage for if we ever get rid of the rabbits and decide feeding birds again would be a good thing or not. Or if we decide to sell them, they at least will be in a clean condition.  🙂

bird feeders soaking

To dig out a spot for them we first leveled the ground, tossing the loose stuff under the shrubs, I then brought the wheelbarrow around for loading the better dirt into it.   We’ll use this dirt to fill in the hole from the tiles.  

dirt back filled

We measured the depth of the tiles and dug the dirt deep enough to hold them well.  I showed my lad how to level the ground as best we could and talked about if we were going to do an important job we’d use sand and gravel as a base, but since this was for the garbage cans we didn’t have to worry about perfection. 

almost done putting tiles in

We talked about the differences in shovels, how some have a curved end and others are square, and how the square ones can give you a nice even edge for putting tiles or wood into place.   He seemed surprised at this, so its good learning eh?  See the good job we did making a straight end for the patio stones?   We had to dig the third tile down deeper as it was almost a full inch deeper than the other two.  That had us running into the clay base we have and that was tough digging. 

We leveled the tiles by standing on them and shifting back and forth, finding the low points and then adding dirt to them. First the lad, and then me as we weigh different.  This was a good science lesson for the lad and he could see the math application easily.  🙂 

We were so pleased to have this job done and a week later it’s still working well!  YAY!!!!

tiles in under garbage cans

 

A Week In Pictures (and words)

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This isn’t going to be a long post as a migraine is still beating it’s way through my head.  Better than yesterday, but still there making me light sensitive.  The brightness on my computer is turned WAY down.  Sunglasses are my friend.  🙂  This week will be a week in pictures.

week in pictures

Did you know that this week my lad learned how to use a Sawzall?   I KNOW…. he was rather keen on it too. 🙂  Between Dad and the lad this is our final result (yes we need to get the stumps out).  I admittedly helped as well, but the lad did a lot of the shortening down of branches to take to the dump.

We also used a block and tackle method to get a couple of the smaller trees down.

block and tackle to take down trees

Our Rose of Sharon came out in Full Bloom this week.

Rose of Sharon bushBunnies!

litter of holland lop bunnies, variety of colours

We worked at the Foodbank this week.  It was delivery week which meant lots of sorting, storing, packing.  It was a good order in this week so that worked out well.  Served clients.  Busy morning.   This is an older picture but it works. 🙂  The lad is still learning to not take fuzzy pictures. 🙂

foodbank shelving with foodOH, we finally caught mystery flower in bloom.   I thought we were moving this spring so planted a whack of flower seeds around the place.  Many didn’t come up and others did and I don’t know what most of them are.  These ones have shown a white colour but we never see them bloom.  Went out early one morning (like 7ish) and they were in bloom, they closed up by 8.  Bonus points if you can tell me what it is.  I’m going to keep seeds as I find it quite pretty though it’s totally overwhelmed my other flowers….

white flower

Headache hit (migraine actually) the lad did some cooking for me.  When the lad says, can I make something for you and you mumble sure, whatever…. you get treats instead of meals. 🙂

mug cake and reeses barHomeschooling.

We gave GrammarPlanet another go.  We won’t be doing a review for this one, but a number of the crew will be.

grammarplanetHe happily worked on Picta Dicta Natural World a few times and enjoys it immensely.  A review will be forthcoming.

Picta Dicta Natural WorldWell, that’s all my head has patience for… I feed a strong need for a nap.   Toodles!

 

Linking up with Kym before I forget.

Home Maintenance Skills

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One of my goals is to have the office, now turned guest room, finished by the end of the week.  I want to have this done and off my mind.   This meant that this week we needed to get the room painted, clean out desk drawers, dust, wash the floor, pick up a new-to-us dresser, make a bed, bring up a wardrobe from the basement, and rearrange furniture.    Could we get it done in five days?

Home Maintenance skills

Since this house is now our own, part of my goals is to teach my lad house maintenance skills.  It’s important to know how to take care of house, so my son has been swinging hammers, cutting wood, learning to spackle and this week learning to paint and to put up baseboards.

Mom-in-law was a doll and came up last week and washed floors and walls for us.  She was impressed with the cleaning we had done already, but like always, when she was done it just looked better.  I DO NOT KNOW how she does it, honestly….. this lady has SKILLS.

The Dresser

I picked up the dresser on Thursday.  It needed to be thoroughly cleaned and the previous owner gave us the oil for polishing it.  She gave us a tremendous deal AND threw in the oil too.  Isn’t God gracious to us?  I’ve not owned GOOD furniture before so it’s kinda neat having a pretty dresser in the house.  Polishing it wasn’t very difficult either. Hopefully any tenants or guests we get will like it.

teak dresser

Painting!

My son did an excellent job of painting.  He did his research about how to paint (need to learn those research skills as well), for this it was easy, he talked to his dad who spent a few months painting apartments and learning to paint well.

learning to paint

Putting up the baseboards turned out to be an experience.  Neither of us has ever tackled baseboards before and we were tired of mom-in-law commandeering tasks that we knew we could do.  So we found out where dad stored them and then the lad set to work.  I left him to it as he assured me he could figure out it out on his own.  He learned an important skill.  SOMETIMES the work teaches you as you go!   Just so you know, when you put in baseboards you have to put the nails in at a bit of an angle.  If you don’t, the board will pop out of the wall again!   I was glad I was down in the basement to avoid those sounds of frustration!  🙂

The Wardrobe

While he did that I tackled another project… getting the wardrobe cleaned out, and path made to the basement steps.  Not so easy to do when the basement holds much of what the office used to hold!   On a positive note I finished listening to Dragonvein: Book One.   I enjoyed it enough to get book 2.


It took the two of us (using Mom-in-laws .. the thing that you use to move furniture!  trolley?) to get the wardrobe up the stairs.  I have to admit, I almost lost it on one step and was scared to death I’d drop it on the lad, but WOOT WOOT I held on and we got it up the stairs.   I was so pleased with the lad’s help and determination to assist his momma. 🙂

He helped get the sticky tack off (I used to use it when the lad was little for pinning up charts for him when we played in the basement).  Then we set it up in the corner when the old router cables used to be.  Good to cover those up eh?

wardrobe

Finishing Up

We managed to get the bed made, floor boards on, floor swept and the teak dresser all oiled.  I also got all the desk drawers emptied and dresser moved to a new location.  The only thing I have left to do is find a home for the things on top of the desk!  On a positive note, the room is basically done and I’ve almost met my goal.  

desk

I have to admit, we laughed at the cats.  Literally as soon as we left the room, in they came, wanting to make themselves at home.Milo creeping up on the just made bed (how do cats know?) and Lizzie sniffing around the corners (checking for mice maybe?) I nodded at the lad and pointed and BOY did those cats move!  The lad leapt up hollering at them, he does have his grandmother’s genes in him! They scattered.  The door was shut.  We want the room to stay clean after all that hard work.  🙂 

Another thing we started this week was talking about monthly finances, things like how Dad is responsible for paying the mortgage, hydro, cable, water and all that.   We talked about I am managing the groceries, household and rabbit expenses.   This led to us talking about ways we can cut expenses, how to plan out expenses, and using the sales flyers for good (instead of just liners for the bird cage).

I think, as we go through our studies this year, I’ll be adding Money 101 from SchoolhouseTeachers.com into the repertoire.  At least I’ll use it for ideas as we go through our World Wars Studies. OH, and speaking of money, guess what?  SchoolhouseTeachers is on sale.. by one year, get the next for free.   HUGE savings that eh!  On til August 31.

Money 101

Linking up with Tots and Me.