Homeschool Co-op

Today was homeschool co-op day at church. This was our first day of classes since Christmas break. It is always hard for this family of night-owls to wake up early and get going, but once we do, we thoroughly enjoy it. This is Maggie teaching our small class of three girls. Our class used to have about 10 students, but it was too crowded. So today was nice even though one of our students was missing.

Today's cooking class made potato gnocchi (pronounced know-kee) and spaghetti sauce. It was yummy. I don't think anyone in the entire co-op had ever heard of it much less eaten it.

This is Ruthie's gym class. We are always adding more classes...and more folks. I learned today that we have a waiting list. Our classes now include ukelele, chess, logic, English Comp, science, art (different levels), Bible, and gym (different levels). We are soon adding quilting and woodworking. It's exciting!
Here is Lizzie holding Peyton at lunch break. Lizzie thought she had died and gone to heaven!

On Tuesday I had my annual checkup which included bloodwork. Fortunately my numbers are good. While my blood pressure is still lower than normal (inherited family trait), I wasn't surprised that my cholesterol is up to 164 from 144 of 2 years ago. It was about 2 years ago that we started eating meat again. So I guess I need to be better about eating celery and cinnamon since we've gotten used to eating meat at least once a week. (Good cholesterol should be no more than age+100.)

I was concerned about diabetes because of family history and being overweight, but the midwife says I have no sign of that. PTL (But I still got the lecture to lose weight:-)

Speaking of heart issues, ever since I read an article last year extolling the merits of dark chocolate, I've been wanting to add that to my diet occasionally. But it was too hard to find the appropriate dark chocolate. According to several websites, the chocolate should have at least 70% of cocoa content. But how do you figure out that!?

So imagine my surprise when I walked into our health-food store yesterday and found a huge, new display of many dark chocolate bars with the cocoa content listed right on the front (and they're vegan)! I chose these two to try. I'm not a chocolate lover or even liker, so this is not something that I enjoy much.

One bar is 71% cocoa and is good. The other bar is 88% cocoa and wow, it is dark (or as my children say, bitter). You can just feel those antioxidants working:-)

After homeschool co-op, we went to the Walmart near church and bought 75 yards of wonderful fabrics! Some of the prints are hard to find, so Anna and I were thrilled.

No rain, but many blessings. Maybe tomorrow.

Many blessings ~ Kathie