Yesterday, these two, ages 17 and 19, headed off for their second first day of school, this time to Blue Ridge Community College.

Their first first day of school was ten years ago when we were in Guatemala and they attended Colegio San Francisco Javier de la Verapaz.

That time they were (almost) 7 and 9, and their private school classes were conducted in Spanish.

So this time, the day before their college classes started, my husband said, “Oh yeah, we forgot to tell you, they only speak Spanish at Blue Ridge,” which made me bust up laughing because my husband and I are still shaking our heads in amazement at how we threw out kids into not just school, but an all-Spanish one, cold turkey. But the kids didn’t even get the joke, so I guess they weren’t too scarred by the experience…

Anyway, now after a lifetime of non-traditional education, they are finally heading into the classroom where they’re gonna learn to juggle backpacks, note-taking, textbooks, and lectures. I’m so excited for them. I think they’re gonna love it.

And then my daughter-in-law joined the photo shoot because she is also heading back to school — for nursing!

And so the learning continues…

This same time, years previous: it’s what’s for supper, sundried tomato and basil pesto torte, bruschetta, stewed greens with tomato and chili, grape jelly, photo shoot, this is what crazy looks like.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

How many faces do you see?

Peach: brown sugar and bourbon.

Like a rock.

Sour cherry mead sampling: bone-dry. Next up, back-sweetening (but how?).

Getting educated so he can help me troubleshoot.

Matchy-matchy.

Trying not to blow-torch his fingers while also kinda wanting to.

Deflated: and just like that, the show is over.

This same time, years previous: the dairy and cheese report, the coronavirus diaries: week 76, peach fruit leather, the quotidian (8.20.18), the Peru post, a new room.

My older daughter always said she’d never work with my husband. She didn’t want to do carpentry. She didn’t want to work with him. She just didn’t want, period. And then she returned from two years in Massachusetts and decided to work with him part-time, just for a few months to earn some money.*

And you know what?

She loves it. 

I mean, not loves it, loves it, but she enjoys it enough to step in and say I wanna learn to do that. To tell my husband to bugger-off when he meddles or hovers. To subscribe to Instagramming female electricians. To work independently for hours at a time. And to carry on, all by herself, when my husband throws out his back. 

stopping in to inspect the wall she parged
^{(electrical tape on her fingers to cover concrete burns)}

She’s making good money, and gaining a whole heck of a lot of skills to boot. My husband is thoroughly enjoying working with her. He had about five years of working with our older son, and then when our son switched over to nursing, he missed him something fierce, but now he’s getting to work with her. 

He marvels at how he explains things once then she gets it. At how steady and focused she is. She has a long way to go, of course — she’s still new at it — but that she’s owning the experience and not just tolerating it makes it fun, for both of them.

That none of us anticipated this development makes it all the more special. 

***

*She also washes dishes for Magpie one day a week, as well as does some riding for a few horses, farm/house sitting, sewing, and other random jobs.

This same time, years previous: summer evenings, physical therapy, the quotidian (8.17.20), a bloody tale, a little house tour, bourbon and brown sugar peach pie, in progress, the quotidian (8.18.14), from market to table, garlicky spaghetti sauce, drilling for sauce.