This must be the binge and purge method of blogging.....

Some days you get 4 or more posts, other days you get none. Huh.

Well, I'm not so sure I have anything truly worthy of blogging about today, but I feel bad for you lovely people who come on over here to see what's going on and find no new posts for several days. So I'm trying to crank something out here. It beats cleaning the kitchen, anyhow....

Well, the kids had their first day off from school yesterday for their fall break. It was SURE nice to not have to get up before the crack of dawn and put kids on the bus in the dark. Yukk! We had a fun day here just hanging out, playing outside, and watching the final disc of Survivor All-Stars.

Plenty of you are probably wondering why I'm watching Survivor via DVD rather than on TV. We don't "do" TV here, believe it or not. We had a TV for a few years and what we found is that we were way too easily sucked into watching stuff (even stuff that we didn't enjoy!) and just couldn't get a handle on it. For several years we had no TV OR VCR, but broke down on the movies back when I was on bed rest with my 4th pregnancy and had to have some way to entertain the kiddos. So now we have 2 TVs that don't actually get any channels. We have videos and DVDs and a PS2, and those are what we watch if we watch anything. We love our Netflix, as I've mentioned before, and are able to get the fam plenty of good things to watch, but leave lots of time for non-TV living.

There are lots of TV shows we can borrow from Netflix. Little House, Arthur, Blue Planet, Crocodile hunter, Friends, Survivor, and lots of other stuff I don't watch or don't even know what it is. Eventually I may find out!

We're on a hunt for a van. We've got a tried and true 14 year old, nearing-200,000 miles van that we drive right now, but, alas, it's days are numbered. I've been looking on ebay and locally. it's not easy to find something for 8 or more passengers. Having Squiggy Magoo along for the ride through life is well worth the extra effort required to find a suitable vehicle, though. :) To make matters somewhat more complicated, the hubby really doesn't want a full size fan. Although he's a champ at driving fire trucks, he doesn't want to feel like he's driving one every day of his life. The kids and I suggested a limo as a possible solution to our need. At the age our kids are now, they think this is an awesome idea. Riding around town with people turning their heads, thinking there must be somebody rich and famous inside. And of course, the idea of having a TV in the car is a Big Plus for kids. Having a limo could truly be a hilarious family memory. But, I'm not sure that we want to be "those people with all the kids that drive a limo" around our modest little town of 4000 people. Picking up kids at school in a limo. Going to get groceries in a limo. And at what age do you suppose that kids would start to think that the whole limo thing is terminally embarrassing rather that super cool? What do you think? Limo for us, or what?

There are a few 8 passenger mini vans on the market right now. We're checking into the Pontiac Montana. Anybody got one or anything useful to tell us about it? I read what consumer reports had to say, but the reality is the there is nothing that can fit my family that CR thinks is a great thing to buy, so I'm going to have to get past that. Eh?

Today Sullen, Booboo, and Jake the Great have been forced to participate in a kid's thing for church. It's a Bible quiz team that they have sort of been a part of and sort of not. When we started going to this church they went to the practices, but then didn't like it and stopped going, and recently got back into going. So today is a tournament for this thing and none of them wanted to go. They have never been to one of these events so they didn't have any idea if it would be fun or not. When it came down to it we told them that we wanted them to go (this is the first tournament of the season) and see if they like it. If they don't like it and don't want to go back, they don't have to.

There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth both last night and especially this morning when they had to get up at 7am to get ready for this thing. Believe me, it wasn't my idea of a good time to have to drag them out of bed this morning either, particularly with all the declarations of being deathly ill and not wanting to go and begging me to reconsider. Hubby was gone to work so I was on my own to stand strong against the tide of indignation. I just love it when the kids look at you with those big eyes and say stuff like, "So, let me get this straight. You are forcing me to go to this thing against my will. Right?" Right. Sue me, kid.

So, at about 2pm I can look forward to them coming home, probably to tell me how stupid and terrible it was and how it would have been so much better if they could have just stayed at home and zoned out in front of the playstation. Too bad, so sad.

Tonite there is a fundraiser for the police dept. and it is a family dance. I guess what this means is that kids are encouraged to come along, and there will be all kinds of music to dance to. Hubby is working, but the event is happening in the city where he works, so I think he would be able to come over there and dance on duty for a little while. So, crazy me, I'm actually considering taking 6 kids out to dance tonite. Do you think I'm certifiably bonkers, or just a really fun mom? Or just really desperate to get out of the house and do something? Possibly a little of both.

I did not achieve my goal of getting my bedroom totally spiffed up this week. I did make progress on it, though. I'm just going to keep at it until it's done and I can move on to some other lucky room.

That's the news til now, faithful readers. Thanks for tuning in!