Vignette of a Day

I retired late yesterday evening, so this morning I had to content myself with rising at the modest hour of eight to avoid the consequences of sleep deprivation. I spent the first waking half hour in bed, puzzling over the dream in which my complicity was requested in the mass execution of a number of my friends, I declined direct involvement but stood placidly by as their demise was plotted, and at the last minute roused myself to warn one of the wiser friends of the scheme via Facebook. Despite the morbid nature of the dream (or perhaps because of it?) I relished its memory as I would a poignant novel, turning it over on my tongue like hard candy until the potency of the feelings dissolved and their lingering tang faded away. I haven't remembered my dreams lately, or else they haven't been so interesting, so it was a treat to have such a meaty one to mull over. And at any rate, the darkness of that dream was countered by bright giddiness of the night's other dream in which some other of my friends moved to my street, and I delightedly declared that I should have to introduce them to my other neighbor-friends.

I dream a lot about my friends.

Once I'd pondered these things my thoughts began to descend into inane things, so I forced myself from bed and turned off my iPod-alarm, set to play my 'lively strings' playlist. I paused just after a stirring opera selection of Puccini's (I'm not quite sure why I put that one on the list, but I suppose it does feature strings). Stretching, I uncovered my bird, read the analogy of the hard-working farmer from Second Timothy, and set about to make tea. I realized after I returned to my room to practice piano I hadn't stirred in quite enough honey, but drank the tea anyhow between Reverie, Rondo Alla Turca, and a somewhat charming though inane little modern piece. (And now I've used the word twice in one paragraph. Oh well.)

When I'd practiced an hour the clock struck ten and my family was just rousing themselves. It was too late and the sun too strong to embark on my custom morning walk, so I settled down in the sunroom to chemistry, propping open eight of the fourteen windows round me to let in the morning breeze and wren's song. At some point I remembered to open the garage door for the wren family who undertook to nest in a basket perched atop a stack of boxes inside. The fledglings scurried away from the opening door.

The afternoon passed in a pleasant blur of studying and chores. I read selections from a missionary diary, an apologist text, a defense of the under-credited scientific advancements of the middle ages, and meditated on my Old Testament reading. At three-thirty, after we hastily tidied the house, a nice lady stopped by to purchase the remaining two chicks of the clutch I inadvertently allowed the silkie hens to brood. When it was ascertained the king snake or like creature who greeted them had vacated the driveway, her three-year-old son came out to play with Christian.

As the evening shadows lengthened I picnicked cross-legged on the front lawn with a biography and some celery sticks. Then finally I walked--walked down the meandering country lane laced with wild roses and Queen Anne's Lace and irises and aster and creeping purple vines and a profusion of dandelions spangling the countryside like stars in the sky--and let my mind wander.

I returned, refreshed, to finish chores, surf the web, and write a blog post. And remembered, yawning, I completely forgot to get around to math and music theory today.

And now I've described the stereotypical day in the life of a homeschooled girl.

(Unfortunately such a degree of productivity is not yet typical for me--don't think all my days have been like this! especially of late--but I'm working diligently to change that.)

I'm not really sure why I wrote all that, but some of my loyal readers (coughDonnycough) have prodded me to post for the past year and a half, and, when put to it, it's hard to think of something interesting to say.

And now the hour grows late, so I leave you with a cursorily edited blog post and a random picture of a chicken.

This is my pet rooster, Blue. He follows me everywhere and likes to be held.