I'm not sure why my kids have to grow up so fast!

But there's one thing I AM sure of, and that is how lucky I am to be a mom. OK, two things I am sure of. How much I'm enjoying my dd10...at least when she's being her sweet, pleasant self (not the pre-teen with attitude!) I remember being 10. I remember having FUN with my mom. I remember cuddling together and talking, and her just listening to me. I think 10 is a cool age. So now I'm the mom, and I've got this 10 year old girl, and all of a sudden we're seriously friends. We cuddle and talk. I listen. We like being together and having fun. How did I get to be so lucky? I wouldn't want a clone of myself but I think we're going to have a good relationship just like my mom and I have. Hurray!

"12 Blogs of Christmas" Contest

Just Some Stuff is hosting a contest. The prize is a $50 gift certificate to HomeschoolEStore. Here are my answers :-)

1.How many children do you have / homeschool? 2
2. How long have you been homeschooling? I've homeschooled my kids since birth (so that makes it 10 years) plus I was homeschooled grades 9-12, so really I've been homeschooling since I was 16 because I planned this for a long time!
3. Have they always been homeschooled, or did they ever go to public/private school? Always been homeschooled.
4. Do you plan on homeschooling until graduation? God willing, yes
5.Do you belong to a co-op? Yes, we participate in a middle school service co-op. Each month, 5th-8th graders (and their families) choose a project to do together. So far this year we've sorted winter clothing for a charity clothing give-away, cleaned up a local park, and sang Christmas carols at the Veterans Hospital.
6. Do you school all year long, or use some other schedule? We school year-round.
7. Do you use textbooks only, or do you like to supplement with other materials? We try to avoid textbooks, choosing instead to use living books with a few workbooks and fun materials.
8. Are field trips included in your school plans, or are they just family time? Usually they're just family time, although early next year our local museum will have SEVERAL exhibits that all seem to tie in with this year's learning, so if we call visits to the museum "field trips" they'll tie in nicely to our school plans ;-)
9. Do you and your kids do crafty stuff together for school time? My kids like to do craft projects while I read to them, so other than providing assistance where needed, I'm not usually directly involved in their endeavors.
10. Would you consider everyday household life stuff ‘home ec’? Most definitely!
11. Do you have any advice for new homeschoolers? Homeschooling is a way of life. It will permeate your family and everything you do. That's a good thing! The longer you homeschool, the better you'll get to know your kids, and the better they'll get to know each other as well. Don't panic if things don't go as you'd dreamed they would initially. Kids need time to destress if they've previously attended school. You need time to discover their learning styles and how best to help them learn. You may need to make changes in the materials you use. What you thought would be the ideal curriculum may end up being a bad fit for your kids. Don't be afraid to change!
12. Do you have advice for homeschoolers with little ones under foot? Little people are going to think they need to be involved, so you need to have a plan! First of all, take advantage of nap times to give your older homeschoolers individual attention. If nap time doesn't work, have some special activities for your little ones to use during school. Make simple worksheets for them if they want to "do school" like their older siblings. Have one older sibling amuse the little one while you work with another. Don't be afraid to use videos for entertainment once in a while, either. And on the worst of days, remember--they'll grow up and not be underfoot, and you'll miss those days like crazy!

The ponderings of a 5 y/o's mind...

Can anyone figure out a 5 year old? I doubt it, LOL!

Yesterday we attended the local theatre group's performance of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." Love this show, btw--why haven't I seen it before???? Anyway, ds5 wanted the cast autographs, but he was worried that if they were written in cursive, he wouldn't be able to read the names, so he wanted to ask if they would print their names. I persuaded him to forgo that plan! Fast forward to after the show--he gets his autographs and then inquired of me why "Linus" printed his name instead of writing it in cursive. I pointed out that Linus is really a little boy, and he probably didn't know how to do cursive yet, to which ds5 replied "Mommy, I know he's at least a teenager--he's a big boy!" ROFL, you just can't win, can you? (He also had difficulty figuring out why Linus was taller than Lucy but he was the "little" brother ;-)

Missing my sister

Sylvia Lee

You never got to have a first Christmas

No first babbles or coos or smiles

No first steps

I miss you so much, little sister

In heaven, every day will be better than any Christmas here on earth.

What a great day to look forward to.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Virtual Cookie Decorating

Well, here's a nice, calorie-free way to waste a few hours. Create and email virtual cookies to all of your friends ;-) Hmmmm, wonder if my kids would go for this instead of baking and decorating cookies like they make me do every year????????

(Oh, and for every cookie you create, a $0.10 donation is made to Toys for Tots. It's definitely a win-win :-)

Holiday Music

DD10 is in her third year of singing in the Youth Honors Choral Program for 3rd-8th graders in our town. She moved up to the middle level choir this year, which means she gets a bow tie and cummerbund, along with more preformance opportunities and harder music ;-) Here she is with her friend, prior to singing at the annual Love Light Ceremony at the hospital. Funny camera angle is because I gave the camera to ds5 and told him to squeeze thru the mob of kids and find his sister and take a picture of her, LOL.

Here they are singing--DD10 is at the end of the front row.

New family member!

Look, we've adopted a new family member. Isn't it cute?

Here it is, posing with its creators--
Hope it likes us and decides to stay awhile!

Another December Goodie...

This Online Advent Calendar always looks so nice--and then I forget to go click on each day! Maybe if I send it to my kids, they'll remember for themselves ;-) Anyway, thought I'd share it with my blog friends.

Awesomely Cool Website!

I have a recently found interest in origami. DD10 thinks it's not a "proper pursuit" for someone my age. Ahem, sorry chickie babe, but LOTS of old people fold paper, hee hee ;-) Anyhow, check out the Origami Club. The site is a Japanese site but there is translation available. The origami on the site is waaaaay cool, and the best featuer is that, for dummies like me, there are animations you can play so you can see how to fold that @(*#$&)(% little square of paper the right way the first time ;-)

A Police Officer's Christmas

In honor of my LEO hubby....

A POLICE OFFICER'S CHRISTMAS
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the streets,
not a person was stirring, 'cept an officer on the beat.
As he quietly patrolled the town with great care,
children and parents slept peacefully there.

The officer was clad in his blues and his vest,
gun on his hip, always looking his best.
He'd just pulled aside for a quick bite to eat,
When all of a sudden, out on the street,

A bright light appeared from out of nowhere,
He shielded his eyes from the brilliant glare.
'Twas an angel of the Lord at the squad's rear,
He smiled and spoke, "Dear Officer, don't fear."

"I've been sent by God with a message for you
who faithfully serve while wearing the blue.
He wants you to know He loves you all,
He's pleased with the way you've answered His call.

"To protect and serve others, so selfless you've been,
Your bravery and kindness have known no end.
Even in tragedy, when nights became long,
You've helped countless strangers by being strong."

God sees your heart, the joy and the pain,
He knows the profession can often bring strain.
So he sent me here to let you know,
That as you patrol, He goes where you go."

As you protect others, your Father protects you,
His angels go with you, His Spirit does, too.
No bullet too fast, no bad guy too strong,
I'm sent to make sure that your life will be long.

"So fear not the night, and fear not the day,
fear not the threats that might come your way.
I'm sent to accompany you on your beat,
There's not one moment you're alone on the street."

The officer sat stunned by the love of His God,
He bowed his head, with a tear gave a nod.
As the officer said thank you, the angel took flight,
"God's got your back, carry on, and goodnight."

It's 1 am...

Do you know where YOUR kids are? I do! They're sensibly tucked into bed, slumbering peacefully. I sure wish I were! Only one more midnight shift, yay, and then I have a month of struggling out of bed when it's still dark out and the birds' beaks are soundly tucked under their wings. Am I sure I want the trade-off?

Well there, now you know...

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Fresno Dating

Fortune Teller

I persuaded DS5 to read his own fortune from his fortune cookie yesterday! It read, "Your name will be famous in the future." Ummm, yep, no doubt about that one, LOL. The words "name," "famous," and "future" were all new to him. He stumbled just a teensy smidge over "famous" and "future" but he almost had them! He's starting to gain reading fluency that he didn't realize he had ;-)

Cappucino, anybody?

OK, I don't know about you, but I find a warm, creamy, soothing beverage just sooooo addictive, especially since winter is rapidly descending upon us! But yikes, the thought of the money some people spend at the coffee shops every week just gives me the chills, to say nothing of the liquid calories ingested, etc. Anywho, so I bought me a stovetop Espresso brewer and I've turned into a pretty fair amateur barrista, if I may say so ;-) I've also been trying out the recipes at Vegweb.com. I even got me a little leak-proof 16 oz container so I can take the needed ingredients to work and heat up a soothing beverage in the middle of my shift. Yea, I'm addicted--but at least not to having to run to the coffee shop all of the time!

Here's one of my favorite recipes, concocted by a friend from church. I'm quite sure it gives WaWa's Maple French Toast cappucino a HUGE run for the money, all around!

Mary's Cappucino

2 cups soy milk

2 Tbs maple syrup (the real thing, if possible!)

2 Tbs instant coffee powder, or Roma or Postum powder

2 tsp vanilla

Stir well and heat on the stove until it is hot and steamy. Enjoy :-) Even my ds5 loves this stuff!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm embarking upon my 39 journey! This is the first year I'm 39, but it's not the last, LOL ;-) I do have a birthday gift for my blog readers, however. I'm offering you the unit study I've put together for my kids to learn in December--Christmas Traditions Around the World. I hope you find it enjoyable.

Pocket full of Kisses

I got myself some new PJs a couple of weeks ago. They happen to have a little tiny pocket on one of the arms. DS5 wanted to know why there was a little pocket there, so I told him it was so he could fill it with kisses for me and if I missed him in the night, I could pull a kiss from him out of the pocket. He proceeded to fill my little pocket for him. Now, every evening when I'm leaving for work, he wants to know if I have a pocket on my shirt (NOT my PJ shirt, thank you, LOL!) and then he fills my pocket with kisses to take to work. Awwww, now isn't that just sweet????

Scattergories

I found this on what she said too. Sorry elena--but you know that imitation is the highest form of flattery ;-)

Scattergories
Choose an answer to each category. It must begin with the first letter of your name

1. Your name: Sue
2. Famous singer/band: The King's Singers
3. Street name: Schade West
4. Color: Sky blue
5. Gifts/presents: skates
6. Vehicle: station wagon
7. in a souvenir shop: settee
8. Boy Name: Seth
9. Girl Name: Sylvia
10. Movie Title: Somewhere in time
11. Drink: soda
12. Occupation: sociologist, speech pathologist
13. Flower: sweet pea
14. Celebrity: Sidney Poitier
15. Magazine: Sports Illustrated
16. U.S. City: Sanford, MI
17. Pro Sports: Seahawks
18.Fruit/Vegetable: strawberries/sugar
19.Reason late for work: someone forgot to set the alarm!
20. you throw away: shoes
21. Things you shout: somebody please help me!
22. Cartoon character: Superman

More vegetarian Thanksgiving stuff!

OK, I couldn't resist. I keep finding more good recipes and info. I think we could feast for a month and not eat the same dish twice, LOL.

Tofurkey vs Unturkey comparison of several commercially available mock turkey products.
Vegetarian Gravy Recipes
More Vegetarian Gravy Recipes
Turkey Add-ons Ideas for spicing up a faux turkey
Tofurky Recipes
Vegetarian and Vegan Thanksgiving recipes, from main dish to dessert. Includes several stuffing recipes.
Pie Crust recipes, including vegan and gluten-free recipes.
Tips for enjoying a low-fat Thanksgiving (just disregard the first bit, about the turkey ;-)
Hungry Girl's Too-Good-To-Deny pumpkin pie (have I mentioned how much I heart Hungry Girl?

Guess what we saw!!!

A bird hit our window today while we were reading together. (See, there's another reason to hs--it keeps you sitting in one spot for long enough to see interesting stuff, LOL!) Anyway, it was a medium-sized reddish-brown and white bird with a white head. Didn't quite look like a hawk. After perusing the birdbook, I decided that it was a bird we don't usually see in our parts. In fact, if this is a hint at all, it's the Alaska State Bird! It was a willow ptarmigan in the midst of its fall moult, hence the brown/white of the bird but the white head. Nothing else in the birdbook even came close to matching! There are more photos here. This bird normally lives much farther north, in the arctic tundra areas, and summers into northern Canada. It is occasionally seen in the US, in North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine.

Oh, and did it hurt itself when it hit our window? Not too badly, I'm guessing! It flew across the yard and landed on my parents' porch roof, where it sat for a minute, then it flew back toward our house. I thought it was going to give that window a second try, but it veered at the last second and flew on past the house.

Say WHAAAAAAT?

Saturday at work, my work partner took one of the more bizarre 911 calls I've ever heard of. (In case you don't know, I'm an EMS/911 dispatcher.) Anyhow, she got a call from a person who said they were outside the hospital after being at the ER, and wanted an ambulance to take them home. Yes, they called 911 for an expensive taxi ride! When my partner questioned further, and also pointed out the obvious, that 911 is for emergencies and this wasn't an emergency, the person seemed vague about where they were exactly. My partner called the ER to see if they knew where the caller might be, thinking they were outside ER or had recently left. ER finally located the caller--still IN the ER. The person was still in the ER bed and had used an ER wall phone to dial 911 and ask for a ride home!

Class Privileges meme

I saw this meme on speakinglife blog, and thought it interesting. As Americans, we tend to compare ourselves to those in the social class above us, which can blind us to our own class privileges, especially if we grew up of modest means. This exercise provides a way to think about our privileges in a more objective way.

Speakinglife found it on the Friendly Mama blog. Anyone who wishes to participate is encouraged to do so. Just leave a comment on the Social Class and Quakers blog and include an acknowledgment that the meme is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University

I've bolded the statements that are true for me.

Father went to college Yes
Father finished college Yes, and graduate school
Mother went to college Yes
Mother finished college Yes, and graduate school
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor Distant cousin is a doctor, also a cousin who is an attorney but he somehow became higher and mightier than the rest of the family so I haven't had contact with him in years :-(
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers Well, duh, I was homeschooled so we were definitely all the same class ;-)
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home Yes
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home Ummmm, maybe--I never counted them!
Were read children's books by a parent Definitely
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 Yes
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 Violin, piano, and cello
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively And who exactly would these people be????
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 Yes
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs No, I paid for the classes I took myself
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs I only have a few college credits--I never attended full-time
Went to a private high school Yes, exclusive! I was homeschooled :-)
Went to summer camp Twice. I think it's overrated!
Had a private tutor before you turned 18 Yes, but only because my state forced us to because we were homeschooling. Thank goodness THAT law got overturned and the homeschool laws became MUCH more friendly!
Family vacations involved staying at hotels Only rarely--we usually camped or stayed with relatives
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 Yes
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them No, I bought my own car
There was original art in your house when you were a child Yes--my grandmother is a watercolor artist and also did ceramics for a while, and my father dabbled in artistic photography and printing and framing his own pictures. We never had art that we bought, tho!
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 Nope
You and your family lived in a single family house Yes
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home Yes
You had your own room as a child Yes, but not by choice. My sister passed away at the age of three weeks. If she had lived, we would have continued to share our bedroom. I could have had the option of a room in the basement but I never chose to go there. I might have if I'd had to share tho, LOL.
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course No
Had your own TV in your room in High School No--we didn't even have a TV in the house at all
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College No
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 Yes, several times
Went on a cruise with your family No
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up Yes, at least occasionally
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family I don't recall ever knowing.

Scribblings from a 5 year old

My ds5 and his phonetic spelling just cracks me up. He loves to write and we're left deciphering because sometimes even HE can't remember what it was he wrote, LOL. Here are two very recent examples:

My mom handed me a piece of handwriting paper tonight with his squiggles to decipher. He'd written:

ohiyo
pensuvany
noojrsey
nooyory

Each word was followed by a check mark. I'm informed that it was his itinerary for an imaginary cruise he was on, hee hee. She said he spelled it all himself, except for needing help with the Y in New York. Funny thing is, this is the exact order of the states thru which we travel when going to visit relatives! Except we do it in a van, not in a cruise ship, ROFL ;-)

Today, he wanted an email, so I quick sent him a little note so there'd be something in his inbox. This was his reply to me. It took him a good 1/2 hr to type it but he stuck with it, bless his heart, LOL. He was so funny--he'd come running and want to know if the "k" sound was a "c" or a "k" but he wouldn't tell me what word it was to be in--or he'd want to know what letter makes the "ng" sound, etc. I was just afraid he was going to hit the wrong button and end up closing it before he sent it, after all that hard work. Whew!!!

"mom i luv you yoo r the best mom evr i hop th et y oo r god i hop th et yr brth day iz grat [types his name at this point] hal a muce dans h er ez a nutr wun hal can jup 100000000000 fet hal can a mukey jup on ho ez hed hoo hoohoho hoo hooho ho hoo hoo ho ho wutu mup i am hoo hooho ho her iz a fact uv a mukey cen a mokey th et bnan uz end hang on bran chiz
hoo hooho ho"

Now for the interpretation, hee hee ;-)
Mom, I love you. You are the best mom ever. I hope that you are good. I hope that your birthday is great [mind you, it's two weeks away ;-)]
How a monkey dance here easy a nature one [huh, lost in the interpretation--he couldn't even remember what he typed to help me out, ROFL] He can jump 100000000000 feet. How can a monkey jump on his head ooo ooo aaah aah ooo ooo aah ahh. What am up. I am hoo hoo haa haa. Here is a fact of a monkey, can a monkey eat bananas and hang on branches. Ooo ooo aah aah.

What a crack-up. In fact, he IS a little monkey at times. The sweetest little monkey I know. I love him to bits and relish every baby snuggle I get from him because I know all too soon, he won't be my little guy anymore, nor will he think snuggling with mom is the best thing to do in the whole wide world.

Cool end to the battle of the mismatched socks!

According to the site, Little Missmatched, these are the perfect foil to the sock-eating dryer. They're sold in sets of three, and none of them quite match anyway, so who cares if the dryer eats one???? ROFL, I could get lost on this site!

So, what DOES a vegetarian eat for Thanksgiving?

Thanks to our lifestyle choice, the 50 or so turkeys

who roam thru our neighborhood (ok, this isn't all of them!) are safe for another year. Aren't they lucky, LOL? So, since a dead cooked bird is never the centerpiece of our holiday table, how will we keep from starving, you ask? Here are a few interesting sites/recipes for your perusal.

http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/vegetarian-thanksgiving.htm
http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=304.0
http://www.boutell.com/vegetarian/Thanksgiving.html
http://allrecipes.com/Search/Recipes.aspx?WithTerm=vegetarian+thanksgiving
http://members.tripod.com/~hannahdayan/Thanksgiving.htm
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/thanksgiving/vegetarian.html
http://www.theveggietable.com/recipes/thanksgiving.html
http://www.gentlethanksgiving.org/guide/recipes.htm
http://food.ivillage.com/holiday/thanksgiving/0,,blhr-5,00.html

If your traditional Thanksgiving feast will be attended by one or more vegetarian guests, the following article may be helpful:

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/specialoccasionrecipe1/qt/vegguests.htm

Hmmmm, I'm hungry! Think I'll go cook me a feast ;-)

Answered Prayer

I just have to share how God listens to even the smallest of his followers. Sabbath at church my ds5 managed to pick up a small sliver on his pinky finger. Of course, it was right during choir rehearsal, which resulted in his being greatly distressed for the rest of rehearsal, and of course distracting me! The anticipation of tweezers just didn't set well with him, even tho it was going to be an easy removal as at the right angle, the end was visible and would be easy to grab. We always conclude rehearsal with prayer. DS5 didn't want to pray, so when it was my turn in the circle, I said "This is ds5's prayer and he is asking that his sliver will come out very easily so his hand doesn't hurt" and then continued with my own prayer. Then we went and found Poppa, owner of a very handy-dandy Swiss army knife complete with tweezers. I took ds5 and got him where there was good light...and couldn't find the sliver!!! I looked both pinky fingers over from every angle, and even pressed on them to see where the owie was. There was not even a scratch--no sign that he'd ever had a sliver in his finger at all! Wow, talk about the way to answer a prayer :-)

Duo in Disguise

Nope, you can't tell at all who these darlings are ;-) Why, Thomas and his girlfriend the Hippie, with Flapper Daughter in her arms, right? Whew, I'm glad you got that all figured out. I was beginning to worry that you'd never guess, LOL.

Tweaking the curriculum

Again. We can never quite leave things alone, can we, LOL?

Well, we're making a curriculum change. A slight one--not the whole thing, LOL. In fact, I mis-stated it to DD10 and she thought I meant we were going to change to something other than Sonlight--talk about a panicked look on her face. It was tooooo funny! The change will be in writing. The new Sonlight LA is great--it's just not at the right pace for us. So we will keep what we like of it (they have good ideas for brainstorming and visuals, we may do the research paper steps but slowed down to our own pace, and their day 5 optional activities are usually pretty fun) but for creative writing, we need something that won't make us forever feel "behind." We couldn't decide which we liked better, so I ordered both Wordsmith Apprentice and Apologia's new Jump In writing curriculum. I figure we'll intersperse the two and make it fun. DD10 was totally on board with that plan. I just want her to enjoy writing, somewhere, somehow. I hardly recall writing at all when I was in school. I know I was not exposed to the different types of writing at all. I remember doing reports and a few book reports, and that's about it. I know I wrote letters to my grandparents and a few friends, but my parents "made" me do that ;-) I had a hard time writing when I hit high school age--I just hadn't had the instruction. I don't want it to be that way for DD10!

Scrap layout I did yesterday

I thought this so cute. I tweaked a lot of the colors and made it suit. I love digi scrapping! If you like this scrap, check out my new "other" blog, Vegiemama's Digi Scraps

Krazy Kat

OK, some of you know we adopted a cat in April. Yes, me, the sworn cat-hater. OK, really I didn't HATE cats, as long as they were someone else's cat and they weren't trying to eat the wildlife around my birdfeeders. I just didn't want to be owned by a cat myself! But, after much prodding, whining, and cajoling from my beloved offspring, I gave in to their desire to be pet owners. Having been down the dog ownership road before(kennel fees when we went on vacation, dog hair everywhere, dog lying on the floor waiting to trip me in the middle of the night when I got up to tend to babies, falling OVER dog on floor with baby in arms, being awakened to let dog out to use Mother Nature one too many times!) I really had no desire to repeat that experience any time soon. Sooooooo I gave in and we are owned by our cat, Butterscotch. And I love him to bits. Some days he's almost like a dog, even ;-) Except he never begs to go outside. Well, almost never. At least not at Dark-thirty o'clock ;-)

Anyway, the whole reason for this long-windedness is to say that he's silly. I know cats are supposed to like bags to be in. Butterscotch mostly prefers boxes. And the tops of chairs, preferably if you're sitting in said chair so he can thump your head with his tail a time or two ;-) Last night ds5 and I were snuggled in my bed reading stories and I kept hearing the rustle of a plastic bag. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, until I finally discovered Butterscotch in the corner in a plastic garbage bag where I've been collecting outgrown clothing to be donated! When he discovered we'd spotted him, he just stopped and sat there so cute with his little face peaking out. The kids were in stitches over his antics. Guess next time we can't find him, there'll be yet another place to look ;-)

A mom's peaceful morning

Oy, a mom can't even get peace for her morning shower anymore. I was basking in the warmth and heard the potty in use. Got out, the door was wide open (this was at 6:20 am, mind you) and #2 intruder, the cat, was walking in. I closed the door to a fashionable crack that cat could still get out of (and heard the micro going so I knew who intruder #1 had been because he was now procuring warm coffee ;-) Meanwhile, #3 intruder walked in as I was drying off and used the potty as well. So when I left, #1 & #3 were going to snuggle on the couch and read. #2 had finished his morning soft kitty food and was probably going to find a perch from which to rule the world. I told all three to let #4 sleep until a fashionable hour, on pain of death, ROFL ;-) I'm told that the snugglers read and dozed on the couch, then went and dozed in bed, where they were joined by #4 for a giggle/tickle session in which they beat up #1, as usual. Poor #1, he always gets the brunt of it. He claims he enjoys it, tho ;-)

I'm tagging myself!

Is that legal? I don't know, and I don't care. I liked this tag on Elena Jane's blog so I'm stealing it for myself. If you read this, consider yourself tagged. Post me a coment so I can come to your blog and read yours!

1. Your rock star name: (first pet, current car) - Ami Uplander (huh, that'd draw the crowds!)
2. Your gangster name: (favorite ice cream, favorite cookie) - Mackinaw Island Fudge Oatmeal (whaaaaat? That's about like Bozo, rofl!)
3. Your fly guy/girl name: (first initial first name, first 3 letters last name) - smer
4. Your detective name: (favorite color, favorite animal) - red giraffe
5. Your soap opera name: (middle name, birth city) - Marie Midland
6. Your Star Wars name (first three letter last name, first 2 letter of first name) - MerSu
7. Superhero Name: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink and add "the") - The Pink Root Beer (??????????)
8.Nascar name (first names of your grandfathers) - Robert Harold, or Harold Robert, if you like that better ;-)
9. Stripper Name: (favorite perfume, favorite candy) - Vanilla Musketeer
10. Witness Protection Name: (mother's and father's middle name) Elizabeth Glenn

Plans awry

Did you ever have one of those days where everything you'd planned just doesn't happen? Or at least, it doesn't happen the way you'd envisioned it happening! I'm trying to learn to relax and let life happen. Really I am, I'm trying! So, here's how I envisioned my day today.

• Wake up around 2 pm (I worked last night)
• Shower and have a light snack
• Get together items needed for Adventurer Club Monday, so I don't forget anything!
• Do school with dd10 (and actually FINISH!)
• Make dinner and eat with my family before going to work

Sounds nice and easy, right? But no, I got up and nobody was even home! DH needed to get a prescription filled and even tho dd10 kept telling him they needed to get going, he procrastinated and put off going. They got home about the time I was getting out of the shower. And they were hungry because it was 2 pm and they hadn't had LUNCH yet. Bye bye nice easy "mom plans!" Here's how the day actually went!

• Woke up about 12:30 and couldn't sleep anymore, argh!
• Got up about 1:20 after tossing and turning for 50 minutes
• Informed by family that they need lunch
• Got together Adventurer items, so I don't forget anything!
• Decided to make a late lunch/early dinner, so we can at least eat together!
• Cook my famous mac 'n cheese casserole and make salads and we finally sit down to eat about 3 pm
• Phone rings while we are eating, with an invitation to meet a friend from church at the nearby beach if we're available
• Throwing caution to the wind, I decide to be spontaneous and accept the invitation
• 3:30 finds us on our bikes heading to the beach
• Weather was absolutely gorgeous. Water was brrrrrrrr chilly ;-) I laid on the beach while friend played with my children. She really needs grandchildren, LOL.
• Back home about 4:45
• School started at 5 and ended at 6:30, just in time for me to leave for work

There, now didn't that just fit in there nicely???? I told my dh that if things had gone according to MY plans, we'd have been right in the middle of school and I still would have had to fix dinner, so I probably would have turned down the beach invite. As it was, I knew we'd have time to fit everything in, so it all worked out perfectly.

Lesson learned--be flexible and have fun! Should I make that my new motto?

Yummy supper

I made a yummy supper last night. First of all, I had a nice big winter squash from my grandparents' garden, so I cooked that. Yummy, was that good, just mashed with a bit of butter and salt. It's one of my favorite "fall foods." Then I made this super easy layered eggplant & noodle bake. I'll try to reconstruct the recipe below ;-)

1 eggplant, peeled and sliced in 1/2" thick slices
4 oz uncooked noodles
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried basil
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese

Cook noodles according to package directions; drain.

Place eggplant slices on a baking sheet and broil 6-7 minutes; turn and broil the other sides 6-7 minutes, until browned and tender. After the eggplant broils, turn the oven heat back to 375 degrees.

Stir the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, garlic, basil, and salt and pepper together in a bowl.

Spray an 11 x 7" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Put 1/2 of the eggplant slices in a single layer in the pan. Top with 1/3 of the tomato sauce and cheeses. Cover with all of the cooked noodles. Top with 1/3 of the tomato sauce and cheeses. Place the remaining eggplant slices in single layer in the pan. Top with remaining tomato sauce and cheeses. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

All about 5 year olds

Well, not ALL about them, but I've got one so I'm getting to be quite the expert ;-) He's just so cute and smart and I love him to bits.

His latest career obsession is that he wants to be an archaeologist. I suspect this may be because he's discovered there are people who get paid to dig in the dirt ;-) LOL, j/k. I'm not sure where his interest came from, but I love it, because I love ancient history and hearing how they piece together the clues to learn about earlier civilizations. We currently have a large stack of library books on archaeology that we are reading our way through.

Evidence that he listens and thinks when I'm reading. Other than the constant interruptions to ask questions or comment on something I read, LOL. I am reading Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze to my dd10. We just started it yesterday. It mentioned that (100 years ago in China) rural children didn't receive any formal education because rural boys worked alongside their fathers, learning to farm, and why waste money on educating the girls so the girls didn't get education either. My dd, of course, protested that this wasn't fair. DS5 stopped my reading so sister could "get this straight" and proceeded to enlighten her that back then, the boys had to work with their "fodders"--"boring" as he put it. I asked if he didn't think it would be interesting working with his police officer father, and he replied that that would be, but being a country boy would not be ;-) Interesting dialogue aside, I thought it interesting that he caught the subtleties of the plot and was able to distinguish between the country and city child's life.

One other "new" thing in his life--he's singing in our little church choir! Grandma, the choir director, works with him almost every day, teaching him the songs we'll be singing. He made his debut last Sabbath and he was just so cute! He really knew the song, too. It was spritely little tune and he spit out all of those words. He even did well when we sang in parts. He can't hold his own yet one-on-one (he's only 5, after all!) but in the group, he even hung in there when we split into a 4-part canon. I was amazed!

Lest it seem I only brag about my ds5, let me mention dd10. She's a sweet, sensitive, caring child. At least the past couple of weeks she has been. I'm not sure why, but she's decided that I need to be appreciated and praised and I love it! She is sincere in her compliments, and thanks me for even the little things I do. Maybe I'm being buttered up for something, but I love it. She wrote me a little "I love you, Mom" note on the top of a math page, so I replied that I love her too on the next page where she'd see it when she went to do that page. She's been offering her help in little ways, without having to be asked (at least sometimes!) She's been pleasant to talk to. Her hand is still hurting a lot and she needs help with her writing still, but she's appreciative of the extra time I spend with her. Wherever the aliens got this child, I'm thankful they brought her to my home. They can leave her there for the next, oh, 100 years or so, and I won't complain a bit ;-)

Wrist update

We finally know, after two doctor visits, that dd's wrist isn't broken and she has no torn ligaments or tendons. She does have a whopper of a soft tissue injury, which could be another 2 weeks or so in healing, unfortunately. She's a trouper tho. She's taking her pain meds and exercising the way the doctor instructed her and we're going to get this thing well!!!

Wounded in action--still

A week ago we were at a hs group social event, and dd10 was playing a game with other kids and got plowed down and her wrist was stepped on. I didn't think it was broken but it's still hurting a lot and she's guarding it and not using it fully even when active, so I finally took her in yesterday for x-rays. I was right--no fracture. I'd have felt like a heel (and had to listen to dh harp on me for not taking her in earlier, LOL!) if it was. She at least has a rigid splint now, instead of the soft wrap I had her using, and they said to follow up in a week for more x-rays if it's not feeling better. Of course, this was her right arm, so her writing ability is limited. DS5 has become her scribe! He can write her math for her, and circle things, etc. Sentences I have to do or she'll never get done because he writes BIG and S-L-O-W ;-) Thank goodness for Sonlight and literature-based learning. I can't imagine having to help with all of her schoolwork if she had more writing and workbooks to fill in!

Homeschoolers don't need lunchbox notes!

You know. Those clever little books you can buy, and you tear out a note each day to put in your child's lunchbox. Totally not needed in our family, right? Well, dd10 wants a daily note. Typed at the bottom of her schedule. That custom-created-in-pink-and-purple-with-a-bit-of-yellow paper she gets each day, with her assignments on it. She liked the note I had on it this week that said "Enjoy doing some origami, using your special papers." Haven't had a bit of problem getting her motivated to do THAT part of the assignments! My house is now wallpapered with folded bits of colored paper. I do have to admit that the penguin she made me from black paper (it's white on the "wrong" side of the paper!) is pretty cute. And the piano she made from zebra striped paper for Grandma is just--well--I want one like it. A full-size one ;-) And the oblong boxes were perfect for holding a bit of candy, mini cards, and bookmarks--you DID remember that Grandparents' Day was last Sunday, didn't you? So anyway, I digress. When I run out of ways to say "I love you" or "You're terrific" I guess I'll have to peruse those scrapbooking sites with bazillions of quotes. Oh ha ha, here's an idea! I could spread a "knock-knock" joke over 4 days! Or give her a riddle, and the answer the next day. Hmmmm, this could turn into something fun!

How to dazzle your family in the culinary department!

Fix 'em some lentils to eat. Yep, that's easy, huh? I had this recipe for Mexican Lentil Casserole that I used to make sometimes BC (before children) but haven't made in--oh--forever. 8-10 years, easily. So the other day I ran across some lentils and decided to make it today. And my kids LOVED it. Talk about a shock--I figured they'd barely touch it!

OK, so here is the recipe, now that I've tickled your tastebuds.

4 cups water
1 cup lentils
1-1/2 cups uncooked brown rice
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced

Bring to a boil in a saucepan and cook until the lentils and rice are done. Stir in:

1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 tsp chili powder

Pour into a casserole dish and back 25 minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven and cover the top with shredded cheddar cheese; let sit 5 minutes. Serve as a main dish, or as a yummy dip with tortilla chips.

Date with my hubby :-)

We had a cheap date today! We both worked last night, so when we got up this afternoon, we went for a nice walk together, just the two of us. With my parents next door, we can safely leave the kids home, since they dislike walking with us! Anyway, for a change of scenery, we walked in a nearby park instead of walking just on the Rail Trail. We'd not explored the 2nd (longer) trail in this park, but we did so today. Lemme tell you, friends, the woods is FULL of red berries. Pixilated Mum, I thought of you. There were clusters of red berries on one plant, single berries on plants that looked like wintergreen but aren't, purple berries on stalks in the middle of flat clusters of broad green leaves--all sorts of thingies like that and I have NO idea what the plants were! They were pretty tho.

I think my dh is getting addicted to exercise--especially when he stepped on the scale and it said he'd lost a bit of weight! For some reason he'd plateaued and hadn't lost anything since we got back from vacation, but this last week he's been exercising more than he had and he's making progress! Anyway, he commented on how good the walk made him feel, and how nice it is to walk together, and how he noticed that a certain dress of mine fits better because I've been walking with him when I can.

Oh, and anyone interested in some motivation to move--check out iVillage's Walk On, Rock On to a New You: A 6-Week Walking Program for Better Health. It starts October 1st. I've already signed up, and when I mentioned it to my dh, he asked if he could do it with me. OK, first pick me up off the floor. This is NOT the man I married! He's ASKING if he can exercise? With me???? Yay, hurray, yippee-kiyee, rock on Mr. Hubby!

Your chance to contribute to research!

Researchers at the UCSF are conducting a study on the Genetics of Absolute Pitch, for which they invite anyone to participate. My mother had perfect (absolute) pitch, and she identified that at a very early age I also had it. It can be a boon or a bane, depending on the setting. DD10 has yet to learn that she shouldn't argue with me over what note she has just played on her flute, ROFL ;-)

5 year old in 5th grade!

Eeks! Well, ok, not quite. But ds5 sure thinks he should be included in the school of higher learning! So today, dd10 was doing some mapwork of Japan. Ds5 needed his own map, so I quick copied the map before she started writing on it. Then he wanted to know what to write! Thank goodness for answer keys, because I was working with HER and didn't have time to sit and spell out words for HIM to write. I just vaguely pointed in the direction of the map key in my notebook, and said "just write those words on your map!" Well, that kept him very busy and very quiet for quite some time. When he tired of writing words (little words like Hiroshima, and North Pacific Ocean, etc) I pointed out the symbols on the map and he drew those (triangles for mountains, anchors [which flummoxed him a bit, LOL] for seaports, and fireworks for Hiroshima and Nagasaki) plus filled in his map key. I dare say, his map looks almost as good as dd10's with the exception that his letters are bigger so he couldn't fit quite as much on ;-) Oh, and he also insisted that he needed to draw the Japanese flags. He was quite dismayed to find out that it was just a red circle, LOL, so he drew the rectangle around it "because sister's has a rectangle around it too, mommy" (that would be the box she was to draw the flag in on her worksheet, but hey, I'm not a stickler for detail ;-)

Anyway, in case you were worried LOL, he's just as cute and smart as ever!

God's Beauties

Last weekend, we spent the weekend at a church retreat. I always like...no, make that LOVE...this retreat, because for $120, we camp and eat. No cooking!!!! The food is always varied and delicious, too :-)

So anyways, I walked around the lake on the boardwalk every single day that we were there (in addition to back and forth to the camper zillions of times a day, plus riding my bike around!) Sunday morning dh walked with me, and we were blessed with a real NATURE walk. First, we came around a bend, and there was a doe 15 feet ahead of us. We stood and watched each other, and she finally crossed over the boardwalk and into a more brushy area where she watched us slowly pass by. Guess there were some good eats and she wasn't going to leave them! Then, further down the boardwalk, we encountered a hummingbird. Now I don't know about you, but I love hummingbirds. They're just so cute and tiny and active. This one was definitely active! So active that I'm not sure she knew we were there. She was enjoying the purple thistle flowers clustered next to the boardwalk. It was neat seeing her circle each flower, then flit to the next flower and circle it. Then she found a stand of wild snapdragons. She buzzed several before she found one that was full of nectar. Then she quazi-perched on a blade of grass as she drank and drank and drank from the snapdragon flower. She finally got her fill and went up into a pine tree for a bit of a rest. We probably stood watching her for 5 minutes before we finally moved on. My dh even commented that we'd had a REAL nature walk ;-)

Today's Praise!

My dh is going back to work tonight! You may remember, he had a heart attack Memorial Weekend, and he's been off work ever since. Off work means no incidental income because he's not technically f/t, so he doesn't get paid sick time, or benefits. No biggie, except when he has to be off ;-) Anyway, he's doing really well--he's building good exercise habits, and he has a stash of healthy foods ready to take and squirrel away at work instead of eating pizza and junk food all the time.

One other great piece of news. He had a lipid profile drawn last week, and his cholesterol dropped from over 300 when he had the heart attack, to 147 now! That's >50% in 2 months! A bit of the credit can go the medication he's on, but that would only have dropped his level 20%--the rest of the credit goes to his exercising and eating a vegetarian diet. Rock on, hubby :-0

Such a flunkie mom

Some days you just don't have a brain ;-) DD10 was at her art class this morning, so I did school with ds5 while she was gone. Got all done and started to fix lunch, when I realized we hadn't touched his math! Bad mom!!! But thank goodness for www.rainforestmaths.com! I brought my computer out to the dining room table and got him going on that site, and I think he played there for nearly an hour! He loved it and wants to do his math there every day. I suppose now I've created a monster, LOL ;-)

Things that don't go bump in the night

Good thing we don't go to bed very early--you miss so much if you do ;-) I was just ready to read to the kids before bedtime last night when my mom called and said it was party time--the Night Blooming Cirrus was blooming. If you have never seen a night bloomer, it's a cactus plant that has the most spectacular, huge, fragrant, white blooms. Each bud only opens once, after dark, and it will be closed by the time you get up in the morning. Mom had been at my house, and when she walked back in to her house, she could smell the flower. Actually, we found 3. Nothing like pictured in the above link--can you imagine THAT many??? The most we ever had at once was 14, when I was a teen--we had a big party that night!

As we were heading back across the lawn to our house, the International Space Station passed right over our heads. I read on Friday that it's supposed to be visible a lot this month--that was accurate info, evidently ;-) I see that if we go out a bit after 10 tonight we should see it again, so maybe we'll give that a try. We have a lot of tall trees around our house so it has to be directly overhead for a good view. To see when it might be visible from your neck of the woods in the next couple of weeks, check the Human Space Flight Orbital Tracking page.

So, my word of advice for your Sunday is: go out after dark, you never know what you'll see ;-)

We're home from vacation!

I know, I'm neglecting my poor blog again ;-) So here's the long-awaited photo update to show a bit of what we did on vacation.


Here's ds5 playing Legos with Auntie (dh's younger sister, with whom we stayed)

And here he is, sleeping. I went to wake him up one morning and couldn't even find him--there was just a pile of blankets on his air mattress. I thought he was in bed with Auntie, but he wasn't. Finally I found him under his pillow and blankie--he was so zonked he didn't even hear me take the picture!

We got to visit dh's two sons who live on the East Coast, and meet the rest of the family that we hadn't met yet. Here is oldest brother with his 3 y/o twins, and of course my kids.

One of the highlights of our trip was attending one of the last performances of Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. The show ended a week after we saw it! DS5 professed to not like the show--except of course when Gaston met his demise--but every time some techno-trick happened onstage, he was all eyes and ears and wanting to know how they did that, plus counting how many spotlights might be shining on a particular actor at a particular time, and of course, figuring out all of the colored lights! He didn't wiggle and squirm a whole lot, so I'm thinking he enjoyed it more than he let in ;-) Here are my kids and their little cousins in front of the stage door with the poster.

Another highlight was the trip dd10 and I took to American Girl Place, on her 10th birthday. We even did it all by ourselves--no daddy, no other relatives! We took the bus into the city, and then walked the 10 or so blocks from the Port Authority bus station, over to the store. And it wasn't even scary for us country bumpkins ;-) DD got her doll's hair styled, and bought a couple of small things for ds5 (lip gloss and a bath puff) with her money, and then I spent money on her for her birthday. She bought 4 outfits, 2 pairs of shoes, and a few other things--and then dh called and said to spend a bit of money on his debit card as well, so she got to pick out an outfit for herself to match what she'd gotten her doll. We attended "Circle of Friends," their stage-show musical, and also had lunch in the cafe. It was a wonderful, fun day. Here's a pic of us at the cafe.

At the Ben Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, there were many learning experiences, including a huge model of the human heart that you could go through, a lifesaving trainer, dissections, and lots of other fun stuff. There was also an electricity exhibit with lots of self-powered generators. Here ds5 is turning one of the many cranks he turned that day, to make something light up or move! After that, is dd10 in her new job. She's been hired as a telegraph operator. Now to brush up on those Morse Code skills ;-)

The King Tut exhibit was in this same museum, but of course, you can't take any pictures there--what a shame :-( I'll have to steal my grandpa's DVD of the exhibit when I want a refresher. Suffice it to say, the exhibit is fabulous! What a wonderful collection of antiquity. The displays were labelled well, so I could explain even to a 5 y/o what most of the artifacts were. He was most interested in anything that had gold in it ;-) He also was impressed by the two oldest trumpets in the world. And, having just read the Biblical account of Moses and the 10 plagues, he liked seeing Pharoah's sword and imagining that it might have been like what the Pharoah in Moses' time also had.

We visited the ocean one sunny warm afternoon. Gorgeous day but the surf was high--probably 4-6' waves breaking at shore, and the rip tide has been dangerous all summer. SIL actually broke a bone in her foot! A wave knocked her down, and as she was trying to get up, another wave hit her and hyperextended her foot and cracked a little bone behind her 3rd toe. Ouch! So now she's in a cast and her summer in the pool isn't happening the way she intended ;-)

Another day on the water was spent visiting the Statue of Liberty. A word of warning--you can't just go to the island and go into the Lady anymore! You have to have a pass to get in to her, and that pass has to be reserved 2-10 days prior to your visit! We didn't know, so we didn't go in. Oh well, it was a nice day for a boat ride, and we had a great walk around the island.

I don't have pics of our messed up hotel reservation, but a word of warning to the wise--don't book if you're talking to an operator in a Third World country!!! I booked thru Yahoo Travel, which uses Travelocity, and they booked me into a hotel 1.5 hrs away from where I wanted to be! Needless to say, we were NOT happy campers over that screw-up. Added to that, when we got home, I discovered that they charged me for cancelling the reservation, even tho it was their mistake, so I now have to wait up to 14 days to get my money back! You wouldn't need a pic of that--just think of a teapot steaming, that would be me, LOL. And now you've been warned.

That's the nutshell version--the rest would be way too long for a blog. Maybe next time I'll blog daily, LOL.

Not officially 10, yet!

But the big birthday party happened. If you ever wanted to know how a girl reacts to the surprise revelation that she's going to the American Girl Place for her 10th birthday, you can see an example on this video, so you'll know what to expect should it ever happen to your girl ;-)

Here are pictures of the cool arm (and back!) paintings--dd's art teacher came and painted the kiddos for us. Neat party activity, and only $15. Well worth it!

Birthday time

DD9 is about to become DD10. Yep, the double digits are about to hit! She has a few more days before her actual birthday, but her party is this weekend. She's having a tropical tea. She pilfered flower leis and hair clips from a tropical wedding recently (with the bride's permission, LOL) so those are the mainstays of her decor. We found the neatest tropical stuff at a paper goods store today, so we now have a tropical serving platter and table cover. She already had plates and napkins. Lots of flowers on everything. You'd think she had this girlie thing going, or something ;-) She has three friends coming, with their American Girl dolls of course ;-) They will dine on egg salad cups, tortilla roll-ups, tropical fruit served in orange skin cups, and tropical fruit punch (should I point out the obvious, that the TEA is missing from her tea party, ROFL?). Their craft activities will include making sand-art bracelets, and decorating flower pillows to take home. DD's art teacher will be coming and doing face/arm painting for the girls. We'll also have a cookout for the families, so it should be lots of fun. The weather is even going to be very very nice :-)

Her big gift is that I'm taking her to American Girl Place in NYC on her birthday! I'm so excited that I get to do this with her. She'll find out at her party, so if you hear some screeching at party time, don't worry--it's just her, LOL.

Happenings in our neck of the woods

• DS5 voluntarily read a book the other day--while walking around the library.
• He thought he had to read in order to color a baseball on his summer reading program log.
• I didn't correct his impression ;-)
• DD9 is in for a TREAT on her birthday
• She's going (with me!) to the American Girl Store in NYC
• On her birthday :-)
• Won't that be fabulous????
• DH is doing really well after his heart attack
• He walked over 3 miles yesterday!
• On purpose!
• In fact, he walked to the barbershop and the post office :-)
• I can tell that he's lost weight
• Woohoo!!!

God speaks in mysterious ways

Oops, my poor neglected blog. It's been two weeks since I was here . Well anyway, we've had a life-altering occurance in our family and I'm here to share my thoughts about it.

My dh is almost 30 years older than me. He's overweight and doesn't take care of himself. Well, ok, he did quit smoking 4-1/2 years ago (yay!!!) but he rarely exercises and he is clueless about good nutrition. I've been praying for a long time that he would take better care of himself. And for a few years, as he has gotten older, I've prayed that something would wake him up but that it wouldn't be something catastrophic because I didn't think I could handle catastrophic illness. Well, God knew better. He knew my dh needed a good sharp rap upside the head. My dh had a heart attack early last Friday morning. He experienced some chest pressure/pain and numbness in his arms while on patrol, so he drove to the EMS station in his town to have them check him out. The 12-lead EKG didn't show a significant change (it was actually a very small change that the doctor picked up on in ER) but a nitro did give him some relief, and they persuaded him to go get checked out. So, I got the dreaded call at 11:30 that he was going to ER, and away I went for what I can truly say was a night, or maybe a weekend, from hell. The good news was that they gave him retavase, a clot-buster drug, in the ER and stopped his heart attack in its tracks. While he had a 90% occlusion of his Right Coronary Artery, which they opened with a stent when they did his cath, he had no tissue damage or death. Thank God for that. He spent the weekend in the hospital and came home on Sunday.

So what's so good about all of that, you ask? Well, first of all, he's alive. And second of all, he answered the wake-up call and is taking seriously the fact that he needs to make changes, and make them NOW. He was absolutely terrified that he'd never see our children again. That is the motivation he needs. He's listening to me, unlike before when I got the "yes dear" response and he kept at his old ways. And he's apologized for not listening because he's discovered that I was right all along and that I really wanted to help him change his lifestyle. Before this, he'd preach lifestyle change to other people, but not apply it to himself. Now he's saying he knows he needs to do it. He's got a 3-person cheering team right there with him all of the way.

So, this week I'm thanking God for the heart attack he gave my husband. Bizarre as that may seem, HE knew all along what he was doing. It's just up to us to follow and see where HE is leading us.

Bounty from our yard

A close look reveals 3 morel mushrooms growing close together. They were actually 3 of the 29 we harvested from our yard, with more to come!
The bounty spread out to be viewed by all.
My little man was absolutely CHUFFED because he found his very first morel mushroom by himself, before anyone else spotted it! And it was the biggest one we harvested. (They grow pretty fast!)

If you don't know what a morel mushroom is...well...you just haven't lived! They grow in just about every state, in the spring. They're elusive and hard to find, but oooooh so worth the time spent searching. (I saw that they're selling for $24.95 a pound this season--our dinner last night was gold-plated, LOL!)

You can see more info about morels here.

What's spring like in your neck of the woods?

Spring is a multi-sensory experience this year where we live. It has arrived quite quickly, because April was so chilly and damp, so it's a more compressed season this year, I think.

Sight

• baby squirrels basking in the sun on tree limbs
• turkey toms but no hens
• birds pairing off and even mating activity
• an explosion of bloom
• brown kids already because they've been outdoors so much
• morel mushrooms popping up in special spots in the yard

Scent

• blossoming trees...our flowering crabapple exploded into bloom and the scent is intoxicating and can be smelled all over our yard
• fresh-cut grass

Sound

• Buzzing as I stand under the flowering crabapple--the tree is FULL of bees and you can hear them buzzing loudly!
• kids playing
• lawnmowers running
• happy bird songs and mating calls
• squirrels chattering at each other as they play
• ripples in the river

So much for having a break!

Today is BOX DAY! Or it will be when Fedex shows up with our BOX! You know what this means if you're a homeschooler ;-) The BOX will contain Sonlight's core 5 and science 5 (lang arts 5 came 2 days ago). DD9 told me yesterday that she wished she had her new books so she could get started on them because "she's tired of being on break." ROFL, she's only been ON break for 12 days! And it's not like she's been sitting around twiddling her thumbs--we've been on the go a lot. But hey, who am I to say she can't start on those new books and be an official 5th grader???

Introducing Butterscotch

Here he is! Mr. Butterscotch, our new kitty. We adopted him yesterday at Petsmart. He's probably about 5 yrs old and was rescued from the Clare County Animal Shelter, after being turned in there because some really nice person moved away from their home and left him behind to fend for himself. Isn't that just sad??? He's a really nice, soft, fuzzy kitty. Spends most of his time sleeping but he's using his litter box well and eating well and he comes out and hangs out with us sometimes too. My kind of pet...at this rate I won't be tripping over him, ROFL. He tolerates the kids dragging him around. They picked out a kitty play structure for him and put it together themselves and he pleased them by spending a good portion of the afternoon napping in it before he disappeared back to DS5's bed to sleep.

I'm So Happy...

I'm so happy...I'm so happy and...can you hum that tune? That's cuz one of my dearest friends, A Little Slice of Heaven just emailed me that they've made the decision to us Sonlight Core 5 for their boys. Wow, I'm just so excited :-) We'll be using the same curric, and the exact same materials, for our kids. How fun will that be???? Course, we're too far away to get together and combine learning, but we can sure email back and forth and chat, and our kids like to talk to one another on the phone as well so now they'll have one more thing in common. I'm jumping for joy here :-)

Birthday MeMe

From Elanajane's blog
1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only November 24
2. List 3 Events that occurred that day
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain - Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant
capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.
1917 - Nine police officers and one civilian are killed when the Milwaukee, WI police headquarters building explodes due to a bomb
3. List 2 important Birth days
1868 - Scott Joplin, Ragtime Composer (d. 1917) (exactly 100 years before my birth!)
1690 - Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German composer (d. 1750)
1787 - Franz Xaver Gruber, Austrian organist (d. 1863) (composed Silent Night)
4. List 1 Death
1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of John F. Kennedy (b. 1939)
5. List a Holiday or Observance. (if any)
Well of course--Thanksgiving :-) Once every 7 years or so, I'm a Turkey Baby :-)
And then, well, I just can't resist the irony--it's Teacher's Day in Turkey!
6. Tag 5 other bloggers --Consider yourself tagged if you've read this!

We're going batty!

Tuesday we had an "up close and personal" nature lesson. DS5 wanted to do his school outdoors since the sun had actually decided to appear for a change, so he and I put our chairs out under the "school tree." I went back in the house to get something, when all of a sudden, DD9 came in hollering that I needed to get out and see her chair RIGHT NOW! I went out, and there was a bat snoozing on her chair. It had crawled into the chair, inside its canvas storage bag, and when she opened the chair, she discovered our little fuzzy friend. So we had a wonderful close-up look at him, and then carefully folded the chair and carried it back to the porch so as to not disturb the bat boudoir. Oh, and we didn't tell daddy! He'd have probably come out and whacked our furry little mosquito-eating friend ;-)

I've got the proof!

I know you've wondered what happens when you kiss a frog. Well, I've got the proof--you need wonder no longer.

OK, I succumb

My children have been begging for a pet. Apparently the fish that they begged for aren't good enough. I think they are. They come when they're called. They don't make messes in the house. They love me very much, as evidenced by their wriggling frantically every time I walk past the fishtank, LOL. But that doesn't matter to children, I guess.

So we are about to embark on the adventure of pet ownership again. We are going to adopt a kitty. Or two, if the children have their way! I do like that PetSmart helps cats and dogs find new homes, so that's where we'll be doing it thru. So now we have to go there at least once a week to see if there's a cat (or cats) that we like yet. They have a pet adoption weekend the first weekend in May, and I've talked to the cat lady already, and she says she'll have lots of cats there then, including kittens. The good thing is, all of the cats are already neutered and up-to-date on their shots and stuff, and the price is definitely MUCH less than if we were to procure free kittens from my dad's friend and then have to take them to the vet to get that stuff done (YIKES!!!)

Will post feline pictures and updates when the grand adoption happens. I'm already, a little bit, getting anxious. I think it's going to be fun .

The new kindergartner on the block!

DS5 started kindergarten yesterday. Now mind you, along with pre-K he did kindy lang arts, and maths already into 1st grade...we just haven't told him of his asynchronies for fear of his getting a big head or some such awful thing ;-) Anyway, he's not "officially" a kindergartner. He has been quick to tell anyone that listens that pre-K was "boring for a 5 year old" ROFL. (If you don't know, we're using Sonlight curriculum.) So on our first day, we started with Bible stories and a new memory verse, then we read a story about Martin Luther for history, put timeline figures of Adam & Eve, and Martin Luther, into the brand new timeline book, wrote the dates into our new create-a-calendar and put a few important stickers on some days, talked about the water cycle and rainbows for science and did a worksheet related to those themes, did a page of multiplication in Miquon and explored numbers between 10 and 20 in Singapore, he read to me his first story from the I Can Read It book, he wrote a simple sentence for dictation, did the first two pages of ETC, played the "jumping capital frogs" game in his HWT book, and we read chapter 1 of The Boxcar Children. I think that was all, LOL. He says it was fun...I thought it was fun...maybe revisiting kindergarten won't be so bad after all, says the mom who sometimes dislikes doing the same thing twice in a row, hee hee.

Random musings on life and death

Personal actions that cause life to cease
The 911 system springs to action
For once, early CPR and field interventions are effective
Life once again exists
Victory, but with a hollow ring
Doctor's advice is ignored
And for what?
To go back to what caused life to cease in the first place?
Such a sting, to those who should feel triumphant over a job well-done, when such triumphs are rare
Where are the thanks?

Parental activities reflected in the children?

Ha, do you think my kids hang around me and my job too much? This afternoon they were playing ambulance. Very creatively. If I hadn't been so tired I'd have gotten my camera...I really really should have. They had brought my dh's work dolly (you know, the thing you lie on so you can scoot under your car to work on it!) out and tied it to a bike. Ds5 was lying on it with his leg all tied up, and dd9 was pulling him down the sidewalk to the "hospital." Kicking myself for not taking a picture because it was so cute. And creative. And imaginative!

Jury duty

Yay, lucky me. I've been summoned for the month of May. At first when I saw the letter, I thought "oh no!" but then as I've thought about it, I see God's hand in this. My biggest worry about jury duty has been that it would make it difficult to continue with our usual school routine. Well, guess what? We'll be done with our school year in April, so we won't have to worry about May at all if we don't want to!

I still feel like I'll be wasting my time having to do this, tho. I've been summoned for jury duty once before (federal jury duty, even) and I was the 3rd juror dismissed, right behind two cops. I have two strikes against me...cop's wife, and EMS employee. So they could have made my life a whole lot easier by just not calling me at all...save me the bother of showing up only to be rejected once again, LOL.

Obituary of Common Sense

My dh forwarded this to me and I thought it was too good not to share:

Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6 -year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Calpol, sun lotion or a band-aid to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 3 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

A word of comfort

Well, tomorrow I won't have a ds4 anymore. Yep, he's having a birthday. Again! Anyway, today I picked him up and was holding him close and I told him I was going to miss having a 4 year old in the house to snuggle with, and he reassured me with "Well, I'll be 5, but I'll still be in the house." ROFL, silly kid. That dried up the tears that were threatening to overrun at the thought of my baby growing up. 4 has been such a great year (well, most of the time!)...I hope that 5 is just as enjoyable.

Savoring the scent

My yard smelled so good yesterday. The smell of my dad's maple syrup cooking over the fire wafted over the whole 3 acres (and probably beyond!), making our yard smell irresistably sweet. I could have stayed home from work just to inhale ;-)

Reminds me of 2 Corinthians 2:15 "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish" and Psalm 119:103 "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" and how all throught the pentateuch, it is stated repeatedly that the sacrifices made to God had "a sweet savour." Now while I don't believe He intends us to now kill animals and burn them up in His name, I do see that the things we do to show our love for Him definitely are pleasant to Him, just as the syrup fire had a most pleasant scent that overspread the neighborhood yesterday.