3 More!

Just when I thought morel season was over--I found 3 more. Two were very nice sized--a bit dry, but a debugging soak took care of that. I'll be out looking again tomorrow, since we've had such a strange season and we're finally getting some warmer weather. You never know what'll pop out of the ground unexpectedly ;-) Oh, and what did I do with the 3 treasures? They made a delicious mushroom topping for homemade vegie burgers :-)

Q&A Image MeMe

Here's how to play

1. Go to photobucket.com, and don’t log in

2. Type your answer to the question in the search box

3. Copy and paste the URL of the image for the answer!

Sounds easy enough, right?

1) What's your first name?

I have yet to figure out the connection to me--oh, wait, I love cats! This isn't my cat tho ;-)

2) What is your relationship status?



3) What is your favorite color?



4) Who is your celebrity crush?


5) What band are you listening to right now?


6) What is your favorite movie?



7) What is your favorite Disney princess?



8) Name your favorite beverage?


9) Where is your dream vacation?

If that appears to be chilly, you're right. I would love to go to James Bay, Ontario, and explore the sub-arctic remoteness of the area. And go whale watching!

10) What is your favorite dessert?

Mmmmm, peanut butter pie!

11) What do you want to do when you grow up?



12) What do you love most in life?

Do homeschoolers get a school picnic in the spring?

You bet we do! We had ours in a swamp, in fact ;-) DD10 got a brand new bicycle that she was just dying to try out, so we packed a picnic lunch and rode to a bog overlook that, as you can see, has a nice deck and picnic table. Since her best friend was having HER school picnic at school that day, we got silly and decided we were having OUR school picnic too. Hey, why not? We even get more than one picnic a year, and it doesn't have to be at the end of the school year ;-)

The Ultimate Heart Attack

One year ago today, my dh had a heart attack and had a stent put into his heart to open up a nearly blocked artery. The experience gave him a lot to think about, and a lot of time to think while he recovered. I've been so proud of the changes he was willing to make in his life. He started by giving up meat and following the kids and me in our vegetarian lifestyle. He's even willing to try new things (as long as it's not tofu, LOL!) and we've found some new tasty food items as a result. He's never been one to exercise, but he's been trying, and we've been able to enjoy many walks together. The experience drew him and our children closer together--he realized that he might have never seen them again had he died, and they realize that they came close to losing their daddy. My heart swells every time I see them enjoying each other.

The biggest change is his Ultimate Heart Attack, however. He began thinking about God more after his heart attack. He even got a Bible of his own--the first one he'd ever owned. I'd catch him reading it sometimes when he thought I didn't know it. He became more serious in attending church with the kids and me, and for the first time, was interested in participating in Bible study. For the past few weeks he's attended Bible meetings--his choice--and he's made the decision to follow God, and to be baptized and join my church. Today--the anniversary of his heart attack--is his big day. I'm so happy, to think think that the man I love will be following the Jesus I know and we will be walking together after all of these years.

Nuts abound!

At the dinner table tonight:

DD10: I have "Betty Grable" [the song] running through my head.
DS6: [always the helpful child] begins loudly singing HIS favorite song, "Joy to the World," to help rid her mind of "Betty Grable."
After he has completed belting out the song.....
DS6: There, did that get rid of the Betty Cracker song?

ROFL, Betty who????????????? Methinks he's been hanging around people who hang around cooking websites too often, tee hee.

Morel harvest

We harvested our morels on Sunday. It's been a slow year for them because of the chillier than usual temps this month of May! Still, we got 21 mushrooms, and most of them were a nice size. When it was warm, they grew! They made a delicious side dish to our dinner (asparagus quiche) and we're already looking forward with relish to next year's morel season!

Free elementary science curriculum!

Elementary Life Science is offered free for download from eequalsmc.com. It looks interesting. It's designed for 6-9 y/o's to use. The format is one day of reading followed by 2 days of discovery-led experiments.

New bridge

I've been promising ds6 that we'd go check out the new bridge under construction a couple of miles from our house. We finally made it today! We took a bike ride down the rail trail, went around the barricades and onto the "closed" portion of the trail, and got up close and personal with the construction site. My favorite part was how pretty it looks already! The rail trail will be routed underneath the bridge, and that portion has a pretty white stone facade with a nice arched "tunnel" for the trail to pass through. DS' favorite part was the fact that there are two cranes, one on either side of the river, and one of them was working! I'd love to be able to watch when they lift the segments of the span and put them into place, but that's probably a slow process and who knows when it will be. We'll have to ride down and check it out every now and then, anyway.

My yard smells so good!

I wish trees bloomed all summer! Spring smells so good. The crabapples are in full bloom, the lilacs are just sprouting out, and I have no idea what the other trees are (they're in neighbor's yards) but they just smell GOOD! Makes being in the yard a total pleasure. And speaking of being in the yard, I picked the first 3 morel mushrooms today! I didn't want them to go bad on me. I'll probably pick more tomorrow. We're up to 19 so far. Yummy!!!

Very pleasant surprise

This weekend when I arrived at work to begin my night shift, a very pleasant surprise awaited me. I still have a job! LOL, j/k ;-) A couple of weeks ago I gave very brief assistance to a doctor who stopped needing assistance in locating his wife, who was experiencing a medical emergency at her workplace. He needed to know if an ambulance had been requested, and if not, what facility she might have been taken to. I rendered assistance, his wife was located at the ER, and he took off to be with her. I mean, if he was there 5 minutes, I'd be surprised.

Evidently he and his wife appreciated what I did, tho it felt like I did nothing! She brought me a very nice gift basket and thank you note. The basket enclosed a beautiful coral pink azalea plant, a spring-print dish towel and oven mitt, and my favorite kind of chocolate (how did she know!!!) This job can be such a thankless job, so it felt very nice being appreciated--even if I did nothing, LOL.

Spring Flowers

Yay, the trillium are blooming! They are my all-time favorite flower. We went for a walk in the woods, and there were whole hillsides just covered with beautiful white blooms. I'm so glad to see the best sign of spring!

Morel Math

6+10=16. Yippee!!! Even tho it's cold, they're popping up and growing. DS6 is the eagle-eyed boy--he spotted two all by himself, and they were small and not very visible! The first ones we spotted are getting close to picking size--they'll be small picks but as cold as it is, they're not going to grow very much bigger and still be good to eat.

And in our yard...

We now have 6 morel mushrooms. 6 morels! Yippee. If we had some warm weather, we'd have more than that. Our neighbor has 28 marked in his yard, so I'm hoping ours will catch up, and soon!

Proud Mom!

Last night was the Youth Honors Choral Program spring concert. This is my dd10's 3rd year in the program--1st year in the middle group. Her group sang 4 songs, and then the 3 choirs also sang 3 songs as a combined group. Each group has 30-50 members, so that's a pretty large group of 3rd-8th graders! All of the choirs sang really well. They had a nice mix of music, from introspective to folk/traditional songs, to gospel and "happy clappy" songs. My favorite song was the one that dd10 played her flute on. It was NOT an easy song to play--very slow and lots of long sustained notes--but she played it just wonderfully. I was so proud that she was able to learn it and play it well. It's not easy to get up there on the big stage in the big auditorium with the big hot lights shining on you! But next time it'll be easier ;-)

Book Tag

The rules for Book Tag are simple.

• Pick up the book nearest you
• Turn to page 123
• Post the 5th sentence
• Consider yourself tagged if you read this
• Leave a comment so I can come read what book you posted from!

The book closest to me is "Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary" (I'm not joking--that really IS the closest book to where I'm sitting!)

"opisthion by the intersection of lines"

Yea, I'm sure that'll make more sense when I'm not exhausted from being up all night, LOL.

No Fair!!!

Grrrrr. My neighbor has 18 little flags in his backyard. Those flags mark the position of 18 morel mushrooms that popped their wrinkled little heads thru the soil! Are there any morels visible in my yard???? Nope! Zip! Zero! Zilch! Nada! No fair! *sigh* Maybe someday today I'll find some. A girl can dream, can't she?

Where are my morel mushrooms????

I'm officially jealous. The neighbor's yard has 2 (teensy tiny) morel mushrooms in it. I have none. Waaaaah, this is no fair! (That picture is from a couple of years ago--just wanted you to see what they look like.) Maybe today?????

Why the grass dies in wintertime

I'm certainly glad we have a scientist in the family, even if he IS only 6 years old! He informed us today that the reason the grass dies in winter is because it gets hypothermia and doesn't have anyone to keep it warm ;-) ROFL

Cooking Day!

I'm in love! I spent the afternoon cooking, and it all tastes good :-)

For breakfast, we enjoyed Cinnamonlicious French Toast
Lunch included Bake-tastic Butternut Squash Fries

Dessert after dinner was Cheery Cherry Cobbler

For potluck, we made I Can't Believe it's not Sweet Potato Pie
and lurking in our freezer are Chilly Chocolate Cheesecake Nuggets It ALL tastes good! Thanks,Hungry Girl! You've totally awesomely outdone yourself.

What a difference a year makes...

At least when you're a little boy. We got the Speedminton stuff out for the first time this evening. You wouldn't know ds6 was the same little boy we played with last year. His hand-eye coordination has improved magically over the winter! He managed to return quite a number of hits, which he never did last year at all. His serves were much more accurate, as well. Last year he swung his whole body around and you had no idea what direction the speeder would fly, until it was in the air. Now, if he wants it to come to me, it comes to me--if he wants it to go to dd10, it goes to her. I was amazed! It might actually be fun to play this year ;-)

Poppa came over so we had two games going--Poppa vs dd10, and ds6 vs me. Lots of fun to be had by all!

May Day, May Day!

OK, no, I'm not having trouble ;-) Just had to do that. You know, kind of like saying "The person has fallen and can't get up" when you're dispatching an ambulance somewhere. But that requires having been alive a few years ago so you get the joke ;-)

Wow, I'm slipping. My lunacy has finally surfaced. Maybe it was the sight of the mallard duck quacking up on the Pere Marquette Rail Trail this morning. OK, it didn't quack up really, but the thought of it deciding to take an early morning stroll tickled my funny bone.

Maybe my problem is that my new Hungry Girl cookbook arrived. Hot off the presses, in fact! So hot that I haven't seen one in the stores yet. But I have my very own copy. My family is going to eat well this weekend!

Maybe I'm just stir crazy because spring weather is coming back so slowly--and the forecast for my weekend off is rain. Argh!