Ultimate Blog Party!

It's time for another blog party! Welcome to the fun!
I've been blogging here for years, and basically use this spot as my place for random ramblings about life as a mom to six kids, entrepreneur, books, movies, and whatever else pops into my head. :)

I'm going to give one lucky winner a $20 gift certificate to one of my businesses (see the sidebar for my other blogs and business sites). (The winner will get to choose which one.) All you have to do to to enter is just leave a comment here telling me which business you would like to use your gift certificate for!

I am also hosting a great sale on my two healthy eating books right now, with 50% of the proceeds going to Zoe Children's Homes, which is an organization that rescues children from the evils of human trafficking. You can read more about this here.

Enjoy the party!!

"I Knew It Was Coming!!!!!"

*famous quote uttered by my son, 25 minutes ago as he was hanging his head over the toilet bowl...

You know that blogging is a real lifeline for you when you've been awakened from your slumber by the sounds of splashing and splatting noises and calls from your child, only to discover the most nose-hair-burning-vomit spewing forth from your child onto the bathroom floor.....and between your gagging, and sticking your head outside the bathroom door to get somewhat-fresh gasps of air while cleaning it up, you're figuring that now that you're up you might as well turn the computer back on and blog about this magic moment.

(Now that you've listened, feel free to head back to bed. Personally, I'm feeling very, very queasy. I took one of my magic Ultra Immune pills and am hoping that nobody else here will try to top their brother's amazingly-ferocious-smelling-vomit-spewing tonite. Most especially I do not want it to be me....)

~Dollymama, 12:55am

Book Group 2008

Yesterday I met with my book group and we planned out our schedule for the rest of the year. For the rest of you voracious readers out there, here's the list. Want to read along with me? We discuss each month's book on the first Wednesday.

April: Raney and Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton
May: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (the two stories are related, so we are reading both so that the second book makes more sense to us)
June: Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline
July: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
August: God's Politics by Jim Wallis
September: Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
October: Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
November: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
December: Body Surfing by Anita Shreve

Timely Words from Searching For God Knows What

I've been slowly working my way through Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What. He has so many good things to say.

In the midst of all the political stuff going on right now, I wanted to highlight a few things he says in the book:

"In my opinion,
if you hate somebody because they are different from you,
you'd best get on your knees and repent
until you can say you love them,
until you have gotten your soul right with Christ.

I can't say this clearly enough:
if we are preaching morality without Christ,
and using war rhetoric to communicate a battle mentality,
we are fighting on Satan's side.
This battle we are in is a battle against the principalities of darkness,
not against people who are different from us.
In war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage."



"The reason I bring this up is to plead with evangelicals
to return to the sort of call Christ has given us,
to obey Him
and experience intimacy with Him
through sharing our faith,
loving our enemies,
serving and feeding the poor and hungry directly,
and to stop showing off about how moral we are
and how that makes us better than other people.
I assure you, once we leave the fight over our country's future
and enter the spiritual battle for the hearts and souls of the lost,
the church will flourish,
and the kingdom of God will grow.
God is not in the business of brokering for power over a nation;
He is in the business of loving the unloved
and pulling sheep out of crags and bushes."

Free Homeschooling Ebook

I've never been able to slog my way through any books by Charlotte Mason, but every time I hear some snippet of information about her educational philosophy, I see that my ideas dovetail nicely with hers. I was excited today to get a link to this free ebook, Education Is An Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life. You can follow the link and get one for yourself. Also, lower on that page is a spot to sign up for their Charlotte Mason Education Newsletter. It has been forwarded to me several times, and I usually find the ideas in it really helpful, so I'm looking forward to getting that.

Organizing Book Freebie

Hey all--this week you can get a free ebook called Organizing 101 by going here. I know that a lot of us love organizing projects, or at least we love reading, planning, and making lists about organizing. ;) With this ebook, you won't even have the clutter of a physical book out on your table....

My Weekly Cry

I already cry at least once a week, thanks to watching Extreme Home Makeovers. Now, I've got something new. Oprah's Big Give show just started yesterday, and the first episode had me boo-hooing first thing this morning. (I watch it online)

Honestly, The Big Give seems like a scarier challenge to me than Survivor does. Having to face people with such big needs, and have to figure out how to help meet those needs in such a short period of time would be A LOT of pressure. Still, I love it, and love the idea of another way to inspire people to make a difference in the lives of others. Looks like it will definitely be worth watching.

Here's What's Going On At My House Tonite

That's right, baby. Connect Four. We are having lots of fun. My husband claims to be the King of Connect Four. We shall see.....

Who's Lovin' Lost?

I just loved this week's episode of Lost. For awhile now I've thought that time travel or an alternate time continuum would be a piece of the puzzle in the Lost story. Very fun and interesting! I was reminded of Audrey Niffenegger's book The Time Traveler's Wife, and my favorite, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Both books explore time travel and related issues in an interesting way.

The story just keeps getting more interesting, doesn't it??

Jackpot!

Twice a year I got to a children's clothing consignment sale where I try to purchase any clothing and accessories that my kids need for the upcoming season. Today we got there bright and early, right after they opened, and boy did we hit the jackpot! Although we didn't find many of the clothing items that we were looking for, guess what I did get?


Yes, I got a nice Leap Pad AND a Quantum Pad, plus 7 of the activity books/cartridges to go with them! I got a couple things that will be perfect for my third grader, and several more that will be great for my young kids.



We've never had these before, so I didn't know that much about them. Fortunately my friend Amy was with me at the sale and she was able to assure me that I was getting a very good deal. As it turned out, as I've looked up prices on the internet, I see that if I had purchased all of these items individually it would have cost around $150. My price? $30!!

I think these will be great for creating some learning centers for my younger kids to do some independent activities. I'm very excited!!

Other good finds:
A baseball bat for my 9 year old who will soon be playing baseball on a team for the first time ever.

Connect Four, which I've been wanting to get for a long time and was actually going to pay full price for pretty soon.

Guess Who game--a fun one I remember from my own childhood.

And quite a few clothing items and accessories. Yay!

Warning! Danger!

Warning!! The new Flavor Blasted Goldfish are extremely addicting. They are so good that it is entirely possible that you can suddenly find yourself eating most of an entire bag of them all by yourself....thus undoing the two days of walking that you might have managed to do this week.

They are veeeeeerrrrrryyyyyy yummy...just be careful!

(slinking off to find some carrot sticks.....)

Another Tip for the Reluctant Mathematician

Amazingly, in 15 years of parenthood, it's just been this year that we've used an abacus to help with math. In the past I guess my kids just learned fine with the Base 10 blocks that we have, or other handy around-the-house manipulatives (cheerios, pretzel sticks, mini marshmallows, etc.).

With my reluctant mathematician, though, these things weren't working too well. So I pulled out our handy dandy Melissa and Doug abacus. (you can find these online, or at parent-teacher type stores. They are very well made, and not expensive.)

This abacus comes in super handy for just about any kind of math we do. It helps my son see for himself how addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division work, and also how they are interrelated. One big plus (that I would have done well to appreciate in my earlier years) is that there are not removable parts. Major helpful when your house is already strewn with parts and pieces of all manner of educational (and otherwise) items.

Leap Day Prizes!

Garden Goose is hosting some Leap Day fun over at her blog. If you don't know her, not only does she have a cool blog, but she also is involved with an etsy shop, has a garden market where you can buy stuff, AND puts out the very cool Small Town Living magazine that's FREE online.







What I'm interested in winning for Leap Day is this book:


Go visit Garden Goose to get in on the fun! :)

Two Whole Days

Of what? Exercise! That's what.

You see....I got some yoga pants. And they aren't the kind of vanity knit that helps push things back into good places and allow you to continue to pretend like things aren't that bad. No sirree. They are the kind that just lets your bad bulges flop around in all their glory and badness. The kind that say, "Don't you go trying to wear yoga pants when we can all SEE that you have never, ever set foot in a yoga class in your entire life!"

And so, between the yoga pants and the knit tunic shirt, the truth is hard to deny.

And then my husband came home after going to the doctor and found out that he gained 8 pounds.

So, yesterday we hit the road, going for a walk at the cemetery down the street. Just an ordinary, almost-middle-aged-overweight couple out for a walk.

How did I get here??

Today he was at work, but I went to walk on my own. I have a little window of time in the early mornings, if I want to take advantage of it. If the weather, and my resolve, hold, maybe I can stick with it. Because I sure don't have time to go to the fitness center any more. And my kids laugh at me when I do my rebounder routine at home. :)

A Little Tip To Help The Reluctant Mathematician

My 9 year old son is easily intimidated by math. When he opens his math workbook each day, he usually looks stricken with confusion and frustration, even though 90% of what is on the page is a review of the previous day. He cries. He carries on. He is sure that he cannot manage to understand what on earth he is supposed to it.

In short, it's a little maddening. (is that supposed to have one D or two? oh well. this is about math. Not spelling. or grammar.)

My friend Sooz mentioned an idea to me that she thought might help with Jake's math-a-phobia. A simple dry erase board.

Here's how it works. Basically, just get a smallish dry erase board. The one we started out with was from my office, and it's about 12"x24". Rather than doing the math problems on the workbook page, we do them on the board. This does a lot of good things for my kiddo:

-He's only looking at one math problem. Not the entire page's worth. I think that a lot of his problem is just feeling overwhelmed by all those numbers.

-We can make the numbers bigger, and have a lot more space to work out the problem. Much better than trying to do all of that figurin' in such a small space

-I can help him easier if the number are bigger and we have more space to work. He's not confused about what I'm pointing at or which problem we're working on.

We've been using the dry erase board for a couple weeks now, and math is going much, much better. He actually told me, "When we do math like this, it's really fun!"

Since I needed my dry erase board back in my office, today we purchased a smaller one. It's the size of a piece of paper, so have the feel of an old fashioned slate. We were able to get one with a colored frame that he was excited about, so that made it extra fun. Our board can also have magnets so we can stick it on the fridge when we're not using it, plus it's magnetic itself, and came with a few strong magnets to use with it. The pen has a built in eraser which is another plus.

If your kiddo is struggling with math, why not put a modern spin on the old fashioned slate idea and see if it works for you? (Because, really, isn't $5 a bargain compared to having your kiddo cry over math every day?!)

Investing In Our Children

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that the children have enough time to come up with their own interesting things to do. Not everyone has the slow pace of life that my family enjoys, but for us, having large periods of time that are not scheduled is a really great thing. I get to enjoy seeing my children put on shows (which usually feature costumes, singing, dance routines, and their own plays that they wrote, directed, and act in), see them play "town" (where they make their own money, jobs, rules, etc.), make up games, create things, and a lot more.

Today we were at Walmart to get some groceries, and my 3rd and 5th grader reminded me that they needed more fabric. And duct tape. And a few other things. They love to make their own costumes and clothes. We have an old sewing machine that was given to us by a friend years ago, and sometimes they can use it, but oftentimes they just hand sew. They have made some pretty cool stuff, too. My daughter (11 years old) makes clothes for her American Girl Kaya doll, and my 9 year old son has made some excellent loin cloths for himself and his brothers to dress up as Indians in. :) Today he needed more white fleece material, plus some leopard print fleece, in order to make more Indian clothes. My daughter found some silky pink fabric that she fell in love with, and believed she needed two yards of that. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were looking at patterns, and then purchasing one, plus all the fabric and notions so that she can sew more clothes for Kaya. (Although I'm not much of a seamstress, my mom used to sew for our family all the time when I was a kid, so I do actually know how to read the back of the patterns and figure out what we need to buy. Thanks Mom!)

I was working with a budget for this week's groceries, as usual. I saw these fabric purchases adding up. But I saw how inspired they were getting, and I knew that I didn't want to say, "sorry....we are only going to spend $X on this right now." I did put a few limits on things (what they REALLY got excited about was a new sewing machine!), but overall we were able to get what they wanted.

Now that the groceries have been brought in and put away, they are already at work creating. My 9 year old just came in to show me his leopard print outfit (loin cloth and arm bands--it looks very good!).

Know what? We got everything we needed, plus I was able to invest in my children's creativity and enthusiasm. We never know what that might develop into in their lives, plus it makes for some sweet memories. And, know what? I only went $4 over my budget. :) No prob!

Great Homeschool Videos

I'm having fun adding widgets to my new sidebar. The new way that the layout works in blogger makes it very easy to make up all the lists you like. Today I added a list for homeschool/educational links we enjoy here. One of our favorites is Great Homeschool Videos. They have a really nice collection of fun, interesting, and educational youtube videos that we have really enjoyed. They are always adding stuff, and I have often been able to incorporate their videos into something that we are learning, or expanding it into a bigger learning opportunity. Check it out here.

Staying Out of the Rut, and Keeping the Spark Alive

My fireman hubby works a lot, and when he's home we've got six kids clamoring for his attention. His little girl wants a date with her daddy. The little boys want to wrestle with him. Every now and then the teenager comes out of his cave to talk, too. :) Somehow my husband manages to hang out, wrestle, and spend time with all the kids, plus pay a lot of attention to me too.

When we were poor college students back when we first met and were dating we never ran out of fun stuff to do. I can remember going puddle jumping in the rain, taking a walking picnic as we ate food out of a care package my mom sent to me (I'm pretty sure the box include rice crispy treats. Thanks, Mom!), jumping in piles of leaves, and a zillion other totally free and fun things that occupied our time together. This quality in our relationship was one of the things that made me think we could survive getting married when we were still poor college students. If we could be happy and have fun on no money, we were pretty well set for life!

Well, as time has gone on, we've gotten into a little bit of a rut. Our usual routines includes watching a movie after the kids have been put to bed. This started back when we had a bunch of littles and needed a way to feel like we were doing something like a date, without having to hire a sitter. Now that our oldest is 15 and the youngest is almost 5, we're pretty stinkin' spoiled because we can drop everything and head out the door and let the oldest one handle the childcare issues for awhile. The trickier part now is that we live someplace that has very little (possibly nothing) to do as far as entertainment, eating out, parks, or anything else that would be conducive to a date night. We often drive farther away in order to do some more interesting stuff, but it would be a whole lot nicer to have some fresh stuff to do near home. Frankly, we can use some fresh ideas for a happy medium so that we can have some fun, special times together without having to drive all over tarnation or spend a fortune to make it happen.

I found out about this fun site that has a bunch of romantic ideas that we can definitely use. A lot of the ideas are really simple ways that you can increase the specialness of an ordinary event, like holding hands while you're at a restaurant. Some of it is a new idea, but a lot of it is stuff that it just helps to be reminded of every now and then.

Another idea I can definitely use is to simply write an I love you letter. My husband and I used to write letters to each other daily, back before the internet, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Now we don't do that, but I could easily send something to his work to surprise him, or tuck a note into his bag that he takes to work with him. I've mentioned before how much I appreciate the concept of telling people how much they mean to you, and it seems to me that a spouse is a pretty important person to do that with. Yes?

What do you do to keep the spark alive and keep things fresh in your marriage?

Exciting Possibilities

Yesterday I was invited to speak at an upcoming online homeschool conference! Although my business isn't directly related to homeschooling, I am finding that a whole lot of homeschool moms are interested in my books and products. I have had people ask me before if I would consider getting a booth at a homeschool convention, but I felt like the expense and time involved wouldn't be something I would want to do right now. I have done a few booths at events and have found that it takes a ton of energy and is quite exhausting. Yes, I sell stuff, but I'm not convinced that it's worth it to me.

This opportunity, though, is perfect. I can record my sessions ahead of time and set up a web page that will serve as a display where people can check out the stuff that I have to offer. Now I just have to figure out what to speak about. True--I rarely run out of things to say. :) I've just never done a specific talk about healthy eating before, and doing the speaking without an audience to interact with sounds kind of....blah! I may go for an interview format instead of flying solo. I'm still thinking it through....

There is a lot of good business stuff brewing right now, so it seems like this might be a very good year of growth for us. Yay!

Time for another battle....

To my longtime readers...

You've been with me through The Potty Wars.

You've been with me through day and night weaning.

You've been with me as I've gotten kids to sleep in their own beds.

Now, the time has come. It is time for my youngest child....

to learn how to wipe his own butt.

I've been wiping butts (and noses, and chins, and faces) for fifteen-and-a-half years now. The youngest kid in our tribe is about to turn five. It's past due. Time to end this once and for all.

I made some attempts to sell him on wiping his own butt by the time her turned four (oh, about 11 months ago), and then when that didn't fly, the deal was that he had to learn to wipe his own butt before school started last August. (you don't want to have to ask your teacher to come wipe your butt, do you? He simply vowed to never, even poop while at school. I suspect that he has been successful with this resolution.)

Well, I'm done. I'm ready for this to be over.

So today while he's perched on the pot, he calls to me to come help him with the aforementioned wiping. I went in and handed him some toilet paper. He objects.

Kid: But I want yooooooooou to do it!

Me: Nope. It's time for you to wipe your own butt. You're almost five, for goodness sake. You can do this yourself.

Kid: (sighs. rolls eyes. knows I am right but doesn't want to admit it.)

Me: (hands him some toilet paper)

Kid: (refuses to take it)

Me: (trying to be jovial) C'mon buddy. What are you? A man, or a mouse?!

Kid: (sensing which answer will lead to which conclusion) A mouse.

Me: (takes one square of toilet paper and folds it neatly until it is about the size of a quarter) Here you go. Use this to wipe your little mouse butt.

Kid: (smiles) I don't have a mouse butt! I have a human butt!

Me: Ok then. Here's a human butt amount of toilet paper. Get crackin'. (pun intended)

Kid: (wipes butt. does just fine. tells me that he's still rather have me do the deed for him. too bad.)

Only 303 Days Til Christmas!

One of my goals/hopes for Christmas 2008 is to help keep it simple by making some things easier, and by being able to save money.

I hate to shop, and don't live very near any malls or cool stores. I usually do most of my holiday shopping online, which is a simplifier for me, but then I never get to take advantage of all those amazing Black Friday deals (you know--the day after Thanksgiving!) that people get in line for before the sun's even up, so it usually ends up costing me more than it might have if I'd gone to the store in person.. I've considered it a few times, because some of those deals are absolutely amazing!, but have never had the desire to race up and down the aisles of stores, loading TVs and the hottest toys of the year into my carts, while dodging the stink eyes of less fortunate shoppers. I've got better things to do a 5:30am. You know?

Well, I have found a web site that I dearly hope to make a part of my Christmas shopping next time around. Black Friday is a site that brings all the deals of Black Friday -AND- Cyber Monday to us through their web site!

To put it simply, this site makes it possible for shoppers to save money by taking advantage of Black Friday deals without having to suffer the miseries of doing your shopping in person. You can register for email alerts to keep you up-to-date on the latest sales and specials being offered at the stores you're interested in. They've got it all here--Toys R Us, Wal Mart, KB Toys, Circuit City, Office Depot, Best Buy, Target, and a whole lot more.

It's super easy to make sure that you don't miss out on using this resource. Just enter your email address in the sign up box on their home page, and they'll take care of the rest. I just did, so now I can feel oh-so-very-organized and thrifty, because I've taken the first step in making next Christmas a little easier.

Embarrassing Moments?

Several days ago The Pioneer Woman had a contest at her blog, asking people to tell what their most embarrassing moment was. She had thousands (really) of responses, and I've had the page up for all these days, reading a few of the comments every here and there when I needed a laugh. She opened the contest at 5pm, and I'm only up to 5:50pm. There's a lot of material here. Definitely enough to write a book.

As I read through the stories, there were a lot of them in common. Many potty accidents and surprise menstruation. Lots of farting at inopportune times. Tons of women accidentally exiting the restroom with their skirt tucked up into their pantyhose, or with toilet paper stringing along behind them like an unfortunate birthday party decoration. Thankfully, I don't have any of these on my "record."

When I try to think of embarrassing moments, I can think of things that a lot of people would have found embarrassing, but don't really feel that way to me. I guess I was probably embarrassed about some things when they happened, but either I have a great ability to laugh at myself and put things into perspective, or I have a very strong tendency to block out unpleasant memories.

There was the time when I was a high school senior and I purchased what I thought was an absolutely awesome dress for my Christian school's version of the prom. (The danceless prom, I guess you could say, LOL) I was so thrilled with my choice, and wanted to really make a splash at the event, that I wouldn't even tell my closest friends what the dress looked like. It probably only took 2 weeks before I was sitting in art class with my friend Marla, when she told me about the awesome dress she had purchased for the big night. As she described it, it became quite obvious that she had managed to buy THE SAME DRESS! All I remember about this was being about to fall over with shock, telling her, and then the two of us deciding that neither of us wanted to take back the dress we had bought. The dresses were back with white trim. So, we agreed to accessorize differently. I went with black pantyhose, she went with white. LOL Marla was attending with my brother as her date, and the four of us were part of a larger group of kids that were hanging out that night. We played it up with lots of pictures of the two of us sporting identical dresses and had a good time with it. :) ( just went hunting through my old photo albums in my cedar chest to find it. it's there alright. Unfortunately, it's not a clear enough picture that you can really appreciate it fully.)

Once I went swimming with a guy I was dating, and when I came up out of the water and was talking to him, he had to tell me that I had a big line of snot hanging out of my nose. Oy vey! That's a painful one. That's what you get when you blow out of your nose when you swim under water, I guess. Go ahead and learn from my mistake, will ya? I never swim now without constantly making sure that there's no snot viewable to the general public. (He had a great, goofy sense of humor, so it was really not a big deal. We laughed and he got to pick on me about it.)

I have already shared two of my best funny stories from childhood--Farm Fresh Eggs, and Four Foot Eleven. Both were awkward situations, but man-oh-man I have gotten a TON of laugh mileage out of those over the years. Well worth the embarrassment at the time!

An Uneventful Night

Thankfully, we had an uneventful night here. Nobody threw up, cried, got up, or changed their sleeping locations. It was just a good night's sleep. Boy was I glad! My husband was at work, and it does often seem like the worst sicknesses happen when he is away and I am stuck dealing with all of it on my own.

Now we are expecting some snow and ice, so the schools have closed early and I went out to the store where I purchased the last two bags of rock salt. We should now have ice-free steps and deck, and we have plenty of food, family, and fun inside to keep us cozy for the duration. :)

They're Dropping Like Flies.....

Not only is the 9 year old still not feeling well.

My 6 year old came home from school with a fever, and put himself down for a nap. He is still quite warm and not feeling well.

And my 7 year old is also getting warm and not feeling well.

Yee haw! I sure hope I'm not next. I'm drinking my healthy lemonade with Berry Well in it, and will be taking another Ultra Immune capsule tonite before I go to bed. Please, Lord, not me!!

The Eclipse is Starting!

Who's going to be watching it tonite?

Since I've got better things to do with my time, I won't be sitting by my back door watching the eclipse happen over the next three hours. Instead, I'm going to set my timer and then will round up the older kids to take a peek every 15 minutes or so, until we go to bed.

Astronomy is on my list of things we're going to study this year. We have such beautiful, clear skies out here, and we can see so many stars, it would really be nice to know more about what we're seeing on a regular basis. I figured it would be most fun to work through our Classical Astronomy book once the weather is warmer and we can enjoy hanging around outside at night.

Another Option for Homeschoolers

I get asked about homeschooling pretty often. Since I'm in the unique position of having some of my children enrolled in school, and some of my children being homeschooled, I probably have more opportunities to talk to regular moms who don't have any idea how a person gets started with homeschooling or how to make sure you're doing all of the things you need to do to educate a child.

Pretty commonly I have mothers tell me that they are interested in homeschooling for various reasons, but they aren't confident that they would know how to teach, what to teach, or if they can handle high school courses. (Moms seem to even worry about this when their potential homeschoolers are in kindergarten. :) )

I found out about an interesting option for homeschooling. It's St Gabriel's Catholic Academy, which is an internet-based homeschool option. This school offers complete course selection for preschool through 12th grade, with very reasonable tuition rates of about $1000 per student. Amazingly, this price INCLUDES the child's textbooks, DVDs, CDs, grading, progress reports, and oversight by their academic counselors! Honestly--that's a lot of good stuff for that price. I know that a lot of the women I talked to would especially feel happy to have the teacher oversight that St. Gabriel's provides, and honestly, for the total beginner that does not have a lot of opinions about educational philosophy, to spare yourself the pain and agony of sifting through dozens of homeschool websites and catalogs trying to figure out exactly WHICH math/handwriting/science/history/Bible/grammar curriculum will be right for YOUR kids. THAT stuff is the stuff that makes homeschool mommies everywhere want to run and hide in the corner, me included. If you don't know what you want--why not start with something like this, and tweak from there?

I was glad to see that St. Gabriel's offers a lot of flexibility. You can change courses for a small fee if you find that it isn't a good fit for your child, or you can drop a class for free if you need to. The educational philosophy of the academy seems very reasonable to me. They have a nice emphasis on children learning at their own pace, and supporting parents in their role as well.

For those of us not Catholic, you might be curious if St. Gabriel's offers teaching that is compatible with your own beliefs. I did not see anything in the statement of faith that would not be acceptable to every professing Christian that I know, regardless of their doctrinal beliefs or denomination.

Lunar Eclipse Wed. Night!

I subscribe to an astronomy newsletter (you can sign up for it here) and today for this news that I wanted to share with you. We'll be watching (I hope we don't have a cloudy night!!). Will you??:

Total Lunar Eclipse - February 21
It's eclipse time again! If you were reading the Update last summer, you'll remember the eclipse report from August, and all the wonderful pictures sent in by Update readers. On the night of Wednesday, February 20, there will be another total eclipse of the Moon favoring North and South America and also western Europe and Africa.

As we've seen in previous eclipse coverage, a lunar eclipse occurs when the Full Moon lines up with the Earth and the Sun in such a way that the Moon passes behind the Earth and into its shadow.

The first stage of an eclipse is the penumbral stage, when the Moon passes through the Earth's "penumbra" or partial shadow. This stage is not very noticable since only a subtle darkening of the Moon occurs.

The next stage is the partial stage, when the Moon begins to enter the "umbra" or full shadow of the Earth. At this point, the curved shadow of the Earth can be seen to "take a bite" out of the Moon's face.

Totality begins when the Moon fully enters the Earth's umbra. During totality, the Moon can look very dark. At other times, a ruddy glow can be seen on the Moon's surface, as red sunlight filtered through the Earth's atmosphere shines onto the Moon, giving it a reddish-orange color.

This total eclipse is very well placed for observers in North America. The penumbral stage will begin at 7:34 PM eastern standard time (EST), and everyone east of the Mississippi will be able to see the entire eclipse. The partial stage will begin at 8:42 PM EST, and the Moon will be slowly gobbled up by the Earth's shadow until totality begins at 10:00 PM EST. This time around, totality will only last until 10:51 PM EST since the Moon is only grazing through the edge of the Earth's shadow. After totality, partial eclipse will past until 12:09 AM EST as the Moon leaves the Earth's umbra.

Observers in western North America will see this eclipse at earlier local times. The Moon will rise in the penumbral stage as seen from west Texas through Alberta. People on the west coast in northern California and Oregon will see the Moon rising in partial eclipse.

The eclipse will be visible over Europe and Africa and western Asia, but this will be more for night owls and early birds! Totality begins at 3:00 AM on Thursday morning in the United Kingdom, and even later at points east. The Moon will be setting at various stages of eclipse as seen from as far east as Afganistan! So if you or a missionary friend is in that part of the world, be sure to wake up and check out this eclipse before sunrise on Thursday morning, February 21!

Be sure to catch this one folks, this is the last total lunar eclipse visible over North America until 2010! As before, if you have a nice view of this eclipse, please send along a detailed report. We're looking for colorful descriptions folks, so please, tell us a story! Also, please share any nice pix of this eclipse and we'll include them in the next Update. I'm expecting solid clouds over Cleveland, so this is the most our family might see!

On Today's Agenda: Stomach Flu!

My husband was not feeling too well last week, and today our 9 year old is now down with the creeping crud. All the joys of a stomach flu are his....and mine to help clean up. Happy Wednesday! We were supposed to be going with my preschool son's class to a children's museum tomorrow, but it looks like we may have to miss it. Not too many people want to shlepp around for hours on the day after their stomach revolted, do they? (Notice how optimistic I am that this will only be for today. Impressive, no?)

New Baby!

Did you hear the good news? Wood and Dutch over at Sweet Juniper welcomed their new son into the world yesterday! Go check it out here.

In other baby news, two of our friends that were here Saturday night told me that they are hoping to get pregnant this spring. For one couple it will be their first child, and for the other couple it will be their second child. It's fun to know younger couples that are just getting started on the adventure of parenthood. :)

Fun Weekend Happenings

We enjoyed a fun weekend here. Saturday night we had 8 of our friends from church here to make homemade pizzas, watch Tim Hawkins, play Dutch Blitz, and to play Guitar Hero. I also made Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever, which is now going to be a regular attender in my hospitality repertoire. It's really easy to make, and everybody oohs and aaahs over it.

I managed to defend my honor by winning Dutch Blitz and several rounds of Guitar Hero. :) Can't have people coming over and beating me at my own games, now, can I?

One of the coolest things on Saturday night was the moon glow. Did you see it? We went outside around 10pm (eastern time) and when you looked up at the moon, you could also see a beautiful white circle of light around it in the distance. (pretty far away--not right up close to the moon) I've heard about that before, but never saw it in person. It was really kind of magical. Those of us that were still here partying on went outside to look at it, and ended up staying outside, building a camp fire, and popping popcorn over the fire. It was really pretty special.

What did you do this weekend?

Adventures With Teenagers

OK, first the back story:

My husband and I got cell phones awhile back, after doing without them for a few years. (yes! it's true! You can truly survive without cell phones in the 21st century. Who knew?!) Then after several months of the two of us having phones, my husband decided to take advantage of a free phone offer if we added another one to our account. We gave this one to our 15 year old son to use. It has come in very handy so that we can know when to pick him up from school activities, find him when we are in a large, crowded place, or if I'm just too lazy to walk down the stairs to tell him to do his chores. Most, if not all, of his friends, are on this same cell phone plan, so they can all talk to each other without it using up any of our minutes. Plus we have minute rollover, and we never use all the ones we have. So, so far, so good.

About a week ago he comes to me, delighted!, because he has discovered that he can do text messaging on his phone. I told him that I know he can text message, but we do not have that service on our plan, so he should not send text messages or they will cost us lots of money. (I know it probably wouldn't cost very much to add text to our service, but really, honestly, we just don't care about texting. I have no interest in it and don't need it.)

He had sent the first text message and then checked our account balance through his phone (which, I believe, requires the company to send him a text message, which we would then be paying for). For several days he would check (after texting), and find that no additional charges had been placed on our account. So he's been texting. Quite a bit. And today was his day of reckoning. Because he found that SURPRISE!!!! there were now some charges for the texting. As in, like over $100 worth.

Ha! Aren't teenagers fun?!

Like the good kid that he is, he came to me to tell me what had happened. He apologized and told me he would work for us to pay off his debt. Ironically, I had just trained him on how to do some business work for me and he had already been doing that, so he was well on his way to making his first $10. (it is now up to $20, I think, so he's actually doing pretty well)

So now I have an indentured servant! My businesses are getting busier all the time and I have been badly in need of an assistant, so now at least I've got him doing quite a few tasks that will be a help. Plus, I'm having him clean obscure areas of the house that really needed attention, but simply won't ever be likely to reach my top 10 list of things to try to get done in a day.

Honestly, he's a good kid, and I know he'll learn from this. If a $100 mistake is the worst thing he does, I'll consider myself very relieved.

What's for Dinner?

Out of the mouth of babes:

4 year old: Mom....what's for dinner?? Leftovers?

me: Hmmm.....no, I don't think it'll be leftovers......

4 year old: Please don't say casserole. And please don't say chili. Ok? Please don't say that we're having those things......

No casserole. No chili. Got it.

I still don't know what we're having, though.

On Tonite's Agenda

Making Dinner! (or, What The Heck?! I Have To Feed These People AGAIN?!)

Putting people to bed (aka Whack-a-Mole)

Climbing Mt. Neverrest (aka folding lots and lots of laundry)

Trying to go to bed early (aka HAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

If It Wasn't So Outrageous, It Might Be Funny

It has been many weeks since I contacted DHL's Office of the President to try to resolve my shipping disaster with them. I received an email from a customer service person telling me that she would contact me within 24 hours to discuss my situation.

And then she didn't contact me.

And then FINALLY, after MONTHS of aggravation, someone was able to determine that I had, indeed, had the entire process bungled, and they sent me a refund check for almost $400 that they had overcharged me.

And TODAY I get an email from the customer service person. She was writing to tell me that she had checked with her research department and determined that I was not going to be issued a refund. Also, she wanted to let me know that DHL values my business and hopes I will give them another opportunity to let them give me a positive shipping experience.

NOT!!!

I wrote her back to let her know how disappointing it was that DHL is clearly SO completely disorganized and incompetent. She has done nothing but confirm for me that there is nothing positive to be had by dealing with DHL. I can assure you that DHL will NEVER get any business from me in the future, as long as there is any way to avoid it.

What a bunch of nonsense.

And So, the Firemen Were Fed and Everyone Was Happy

All of the kids got involved with the project of preparing for and taking the lunch to the firefighters. Little boys cleaned out the Burb and helped load up. Then we drove out to the boonies and made a little assembly line, preparing to feed the guys tailgate style.

It was super windy and very cold, but the kids were real troopers. At the front of the line I had one little kiddo handing out spoons and holding one of the back doors open. Inside the back of the Burb we had crock posts full of chili, bowls, and a ladle. After the men got their chili, I had another child holding a basket full of little baggies of oyster crackers and sharp cheddar cheese (and keeping the other door open, thanks to the wind), and the next two kids held containers with individually wrapped pieces of The Pioneer Woman's "Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever." One container was with nuts, one without. Although the cake is very yummy, it was also less than half the thickness that I would normally consider to be cake, so we called 'em brownies as we handed them out. They were easier to pass off that way. :)

I learned from the guys that at training events like this they are usually only fed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I guess is because there are so many guys, and they are usually in a somewhat remote location with no electricity available. They were really thrilled to get a hearty, hot meal, and they thanked us again and again. It was so nice to be able to do that for them.

After we served the lunch we got to hang out and watch the training, which featured lots of smoke, a little fire (that we could see), and many firefighters in full gear doing many things that we may or may not have understood. I will say that my husband was looking very handsome in his gear... :)

From there we went home to make the soup to take to our friends from church with a newborn baby. I got to hold the little sweetie--so small! Her parents were tired but happy with their third little one (in under 3 years!) and they seemed to enjoy telling me about their wonderful home birth.

Sunday our friends came to visit and that was very fun. We had tomato bisque soup and pulled pork sandwiches, courtesy of my husband, the manly chef. We watched our Tim Hawkins DVD and laughed our heads off (it's even funny after having watched it before). Good times!

Today it's back to the grind. I'm still trying to get on top of some things that I've fallen behind, trying not to drop any plates. It ain't easy, I can tell you!!

Good school day today, for the most part. My first grader was home today because he wasn't feeling well. He ended up joining us for some of our school stuff and he seemed to really like it. Keeps my wheels turning.....

Rainy Day in Fiji

An online friend of mine is a missionary in Fiji. This video shows her adorable children enjoying their backyard mud slide!

This movie actually made me cry this morning. I think it was just the beauty of the children having such pure delight, and the fact that their mom caught it all on camera....

Watch it!

Need a Laugh? Look No Further....

(or is that Farther??)

Pioneer Woman had a contest at her blog the other day, and the entrants had to tell about their most embarrassing moment. There were almost 3000 entries, and there's some mighty fine laughing to be had if you go check it out here.

You Can Find Me In The Kitchen

I have a couple busy days of fancy footwork in the kitchen coming up, starting now.

Tomorrow my husband will be leading a training burn for his fire department, which means they will be using a donated house to burn, and then they do drills to practice rescuing and other things that are best practiced with real fire conditions. These hungry firemen will need lunch, and when my husband asked me to pick up some bologna and cheese to make lunches for these guys, I just couldn't let it go down that way. Cold, nutrition-free sandwiches for a bunch of hungry, tired, cold men? I don't think so! So I volunteered to make a bunch of chili and Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever. And my husband was delighted.

So today I took three kids off to the grocery store, both to purchase our two weeks worth of household groceries, AND the groceries for the firemen. It took 3 carts to get out of there with everything.

Now I've got 3 pounds of ground beef and a pound of sausage in the crock pot, along with a chopped onion and two chopped bell peppers. That can cook while I do more important things, like blogging...and making cake!

The cake is about to get underway so that it has time to cool tonite. In order to keep things simple for the guys, and to work with the situation they'll have out at the burn site, I will be cutting the cake into pieces and individually wrapping each one. I'll also be making little snack-size ziploc bags of oyster crackers and sharp cheddar cheese, so that they can get a grab-n-go meal since they won't have tons of time for eating. I'm excited about the project. In the past there have been older ladies that were wives and mothers of firemen that did these sorts of things. However, a lot of these ladies are getting quite old or are in poor health, and a couple of them have died recently. So, I guess it's time for a younger gal to step up to the plate. I think it will be fun for my kids to help with this, see where the burn is, and have an opportunity to serve.

In addition to this exciting project, I also volunteered to take a meal to a family from church that has a new baby tomorrow. I was planning on making my Tomato Bisque Soup for them, and also planned to serve that for lunch on Sunday when some friends of ours come to visit. So I'll make all of that tomorrow so it'll be done for one and all. After we serve lunch to the firemen we'll be heading to drop off the soup to that family, plus take my oldest son for an eye exam, plus visit the library in that town. (about 30 minutes from here)

Sunday we'll have soup in the crock pot, as well as Pulled Pork Sandwiches that my husband wants to make. So, again, both of our crock pots will be employed. Thankfully, I decided to take the easy road by purchasing a ready-made veggie tray today, so that'll be ready for Sunday as well.

Adventures in Cooking

So I may or may not have mentioned here that I am trying (mildly) to come up with more Very Well Loved Recipes in order to revolutionize my outlook on cooking. I would like to have a trusty supply of recipes that my family enjoys so much that I don't even mind making it. Up until now my children have sometimes been so picky and unhappy at meals that I have considered the virtues of tossing each one a sleeve of Saltines and sending them out into the backyard to munch as they play. (and drop crumbs)

But, you know, man does not live on Saltines alone, and neither should small, growing children.

My Tomato Bisque Soup is already on our Very Well Loved list, and lately I've turned to The Pioneer Woman to help me find some new favorites.

Last Saturday night I had the Olive-Cheese Bread for a ladies' craft night that I was going to. It was very easy to make, especially since I chopped things up using my food processor. Everyone liked the bread very much, but personally, next time I will make it with mozzarella cheese instead of Monterey Jack. To me, the jack just didn't have the pizazz that I like in cheese. The nice thing about making this is that when you cut your big loaf of bread in half, for a lot of situations you will only need one half for what you're doing right now, and the other half canjust slide right back into the plastic bag it came from, and go live in the freezer for sometime in the future. I love having stuff ready in the freezer, so every time I see that Olive Cheese Bread in there I feel a happy little glow. :)

Recently I used leftover spaghetti to make PW's Chicken Spaghetti. It was also quite easy to make (way easier the way I do it, as compared to the way PW does it) and everyone (except my ultra-picky eater daughter) really liked it. Some things that I did differently:

-I always buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cook a whole bunch of 'em at once in my crock pot. Then I freeze the pieces of chicken and just grab what I need when I want to make something using it. So, for this recipe I just thawed out approximately 2 cups worth of pre-cooked chicken.

-I used one can cream of chicken, and one can cream of broccoli instead of the cream of mushroom that she recommends.

-I left out the pimientos and peppers.

-The spaghetti was plain old leftovers, not cooked in chicken broth

-I was too lazy to chop up an onion

Otherwise, it's the very same idea. Mix all the stuff together. Put it in a 9x13 pan. Throw some more cheese on top. Bake. Enjoy!

Next time I make this I plan to tweak it a little more. I really prefer to make my own cream soups, because then I can have stuff without MSG and all that garbage. Also, this casserole would be great, and a more complete meal, if you had chopped broccoli or some peas thrown into it.

My teenage son said that the cheese on top was overkill (but hey--I kinda like cheese overkill) so his suggestion was to top this casserole with french fried onions, or chinese noodles. I think the onions would be very good. Add some cheese on there and it would be even better!

In short, the chicken spaghetti recipe is a keeper.

Last night I made Twice Baked Potatoes, which I have done many times in the past, though not recently. I like the way TBP look, and I guess that makes them nice for a meal where you are trying to be impressive. Personally, though, I was reminded that it would be a lot more expedient to just make mashed potatoes and put lots of good stuff in there, like the sour cream, etc. (which is always do anyhow) My kids had a bit of a hard time with the TBP, but can always chow down mashed potatoes like nobody's business.

If you have any family-pleasin' recipes, do tell! I would like to have 14 dinner recipes that everybody flips over, by the end of this year. Think I can do it??

Eeeeew-weeeeEEE! Or, Why It is Very Stinky to Keep Chickens in your Bathtub

So we got through the night, with my raining and blowing outside that was very noisy, and a 4 year old waking up crying and screaming because he had a stuffy nose, and an 11 year old waking me up to ask, "What's that noise?!" when there was so much noise from the wind and rain that, really, it was anybody's guess which noise was bothering her.

And then, a phone call from my husband around 2am. He was at work, waiting to be called out with his fire dept. to help with the various emergencies that always erupt from violent weather. He just wanted to make sure we really were downstairs, because tornadoes were touching down nearby. Goodie!

Morning came very early after such a sleepless night. And then I got to deal with the amazing STINK of the bathroom, courtesy of our four chickens. I did not realize they poop so much in their sleep. W-O-W! At least they did stay in the tub, though.

I escorted my four house guests outside, fed them, and then got to work cleaning out the bathtub. While getting 3 kids ready to go to school. And making breakfast. And a few other things. No worries, though! It's all done, the stink is gone, and the chickens live to see another day.

Let it never be said that I don't care for animals....

Why?

Because right now there are four chickens in my bathtub.

Why?

Because we are expecting 85 MPH winds tonite, and I just didn't have the heart to make them weather the storm in their little chicken coop.

Chickens sleep like the dead, so I knew they wouldn't be any trouble in here. I carried each one in after they were already asleep. They are still a little dazed about their change in accomodations, but haven't left the tub and I don't expect they will. I'll be up before they will in the morning, so I'll just put 'em out dark and early.

All of the human inhabitants of my house will be sleeping downstairs (mostly below ground level) tonite, just to be on the safe side. The storm is supposed to hit around 3am, and I'd just rather not try to relocate all of us at that hour.

Lots of bad storms and tornados all over the USA tonite. Pray!

Ooooh Lookie!

Finally, my blog is pretty again. Yay! Will be working on the sidebar, etc. as I have time. (did I mention that I've been sick this week too??)

Guys--This is What To Get Your Best Gal on Valentines Day

So who's watching LOST tonite?

I'll have to wait til tomorrow to catch it online, since we're TV-free here. Just to catch myself up, I'm planning to watch the season 3 finale tonite. LOST: Bring it on!

A Heart Attack a Day Keeps Tranquility Away

I had a major stressful scare today.

Four days a week my youngest child goes to morning preschool, and every day I pick him and his friend Camila up after school and we drive Camila home. She lives about 5 houses down from us. Her parents both work full time, but she has a babysitter at her house. My son is very chivalrous and loves to walk Camila to her door and drop her off every day. So that's our routine. I pull up in the driveway, Camila and my little guy get out and he walks her to the door, the babysitter lets her in, my kid gets back in the car, and we go home.

So today we got there and there was a different car in the driveway, but it's one I've sometimes seen there. So, no problem. The kids get out of the car and walk to the door that she usually goes in, and nobody comes to it, so they go to a different door. The door opens, Camila goes in, my kid gets in the car, and we go home.

And an hour later Camila's babysitter is at my door to pick up Camila.

And I don't have Camila, because I took her home.

And assumably left her with her babysitter.

Who now tells me she had not been there.

Because she was at a doctor's appointment.

And supposedly Camila's mom was going to call me this morning to ask me to keep Camila here until the sitter could pick her up.

But she didn't.

And so I ask my son, "Who was at Camila's house when we took her home?"

"Her visitor."

"What visitor?"

"I don't know. Her visitor that's always there."

"You mean her babysitter?"

"Yeah, I guess."

So I tell the sitter that someone was there, and she figures that maybe Camila's mom just called someone else to hang out at the house to take care of Camila until they could get there.

I mentioned that a red car was there. The sitter says that yes, that was her car, but she had left her car there and taken a different car to the doctor's appointment because it had more seating that was needed.

So she leaves, and I'm left wondering, If the car that was there was left behind by the sitter, who on earth was at the house? Because there was only one car in the driveway.

And I start asking my four year old the same questions in different sorts of ways.

"Was the person at Camila's house a woman?"

"yeah."

"What color hair did the person have?"

"Maybe kinda like yours."

And eventually I hit on the most important question:

"Did you actually SEE a grown up at Camila's house?"

"Um....nope."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm starting to feel a heavy sense of dread.

After a couple minutes I call over there to make sure that everything is ok with Camila. But that's not what I find out.

"Camila's not here! We can't find her anywhere. We are looking under all the beds."

I felt like I was going to faint.

Had I managed to drop off a five year old at an empty house?! Or with a stranger? Just today a story came out in our local paper about Camila's family, and there was a picture of the girls. Had some creep broken into their house and taken off with my son's best friend?! My friend's child?!

I just about burst into tears, threw on a jacket, grabbed my keys, told my older kids that I had to go over to Camila's real fast because there was an emergency. I felt like I was going to die from stress overload.

I got there in a minute to relaxed faces telling me that everything was ok, that Camila's mom had come to pick her up, and all is well. Phew!

Which was great, except, Camila's mom's car was not there when I dropped Camila off, which left me wondering about that small detail of Was There An Adult At The House When I Left Camila?

So all afternoon I have been stressing, waiting until I could see Camila's mom when she brought two of my children home from school. Her version of the story was very interesting.

At about 11:10 she was in the middle of working when she said, "God beeped me, and I just knew that I needed to call home." So she called, and Camila answered, in tears, because she was all alone and didn't know what to do.

Fortunately, her mom works about 3 minutes away from home and was able to drop everything and go get her daughter, while talking to her on the phone the whole way.

What time had I dropped Camila off? 11:05 or so.

And why was it at 11:05?

Because the clock in the preschool class was messed up, and so the preschoolers didn't get out to the cars until 10 minutes after they normally would have been.

And so, those are a couple of pretty nice coincidences, eh?

Interestingly, whereas I've been about to die of stress all day, Camila's mom was very relaxed about it. To her, it was pretty simple. God was helping her, nobody was hurt, and she realized that they should get a kid-friendly phone list on the wall in case Camila or her little sister ever needs to make a phone call. We will also make sure that either I always take Camila to the door and do a fingerprinting and retina scan of the person I leave her with oops! I mean I will make sure that I get visual confirmation that a responsible adult caregiver is there.

To those of you that would like to turn this into an example of why mothers should never work and all that jazz, just. don't. I know what you're saying. But I'm not going to bash my friend for her situation or decisions, and you aren't either. Not here, anyhow.

If you want to bash me, well, you can't say anything worse to me than I've said to myself today. Live and learn, they say. And I will.

The Pioneer Woman Comes to My Rescue!

Not ONLY does The Pioneer Woman have her regular blog, but also a cooking blog. A beautiful, wonderful cooking blog, where she dazzles you with umpteen photos of every glorious step in every single scruptious-looking recipe.

I may have told you before that I do not like to cook. I have been thinking that it would sure be nice if i could figure out a way to reprogram that part of myself, and somehow become a person that does like to cook. I noticed, the other day, that now that I have my glorious Tomato Bisque Soup recipe, I enjoy making it even though it is not quick and takes several steps and dirties up several large bowls. So, if it's worth it to me to make THAT, maybe all I need to do is find enough truly inspirational recipes, that maybe I'll be sailing with glee through my kitchen every day, loving to cook each and every meal.

What do you think? is it possible?

I have just found some serious inspiration at the Pioneer Woman Cooks. On my list of things I hope to make sometime soon:
Olive Cheese Bread (I may just run right out to the store and buy the ingredients right. this. minute)
Quesadillas
Chicken Spaghetti
Twice Baked potatoes (which I have made several times, but she makes it look like it would be worth doing again. AND, I hadn't really considered the possibility of freezing these, which really makes it sound great for having on hand....

Do You Know About The Pioneer Woman?

A friend of mine at church told me about one of her favorite blogs, The Pioneer Woman. I got reading over there and couldn't stop. I think it's one of my favorites now, too. It's the tales of a gal who went from being an LA City Slicker to the wife of a rancher, living in the boonies, and loving it. She tells their love story "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" here. I have loved reading it. Go check it out.

Working on the Phooey

Hey all--I have been in contact with the designers. Although I have not named them here, they seem to be concerned that I have misrepresented the situation with my blog design, and that they somehow will be damaged by the information I shared. I specifically did not mention their names because I was simply venting my frustration, not trying to damage them.

Apparently, through having them design 5 web sites for me over the course of over 3 years, I missed the little detail that the images used and installed by them through their photobucket account were only guaranteed to be left that way for 6 months. So, unfortunately, now I will have to hire them to redesign my sites again. But, the good news is that I now know that I need to go and get all of my web images safely onto my own photobucket account. I would strongly recommend that any of you with custom designs on your blogs or web sites check on this issue before you find yourself with a naked site. :) Hopefully in short time Dollymama Strikes Again will be looking pretty, as usual.

Oh Phooey!

You know, since I don't have much time to come by this here mighty fine blog very often, it had escaped my attention that my blog design is GONE! Gone, as in, no it is not because my computer is going slow on loading up the page--it's just gone. Because the designer that I used let her photobucket account expire....and all my design images are down the tubes for this blog and for my business site. I am Not. Happy.

So now I am scurrying around trying to contact this person, trying to back up all the images for all of my web sites.....ackk! Thankfully, I at least know how to do this. (If only I had known that I was going to have this problem--I would have been happy to handle all my photo hosting on my own.)

So, that's why my blog looks sad and plain.

A Perfect Unschooling Day

Yesterday was just the kind of day that I love. My 9 year old son woke up full of ideas about a story he wanted to write. I set him up on Word and he got to work, writing his story of Paulie's Adventures. Paulie is a penguin who finds buried treasure! My 11 year old daughter got into the act, helping him with some of the typing and spelling, and then she started making illustrations on Paint. She did a good job, too!

Every now and then they would come out to ask me how to spell something, or how to make their pictures turn up where they needed them to in the story, etc.

By the end of the day they had two finished books (the other was a cookbook by my daughter) and they were just beaming with happiness. My daughter told me that she knew she had really learned a lot about how to use the computer and the programs. That was especially encouraging to hear because up til this point she has really had a hard time understanding that she is learning even if there isn't a number grade or a star sticker to prove it. I have tried to explain to her many times that you don't need to be graded to prove you know stuff, but it sunk in on it's own when she could experience it in that way.

Later in the day my daughter got out a drawing program that we had been given, and started working on drawing with charcoal. She really loved it and did quite well.

Overall, the perfect unschooling day. If I had said, "Today for Language Arts you have to write a story" it might not have come at a time when they were inspired. By allowing them to run with the winds of inspiration they got so much more out of the experience, and are still writing books today. I love that.

100th Day

Bad Mommy. Bad Mommy!

I just dropped my kiddos off at school this morning, and then came home and looked through the papers that I had just taken out of their backpacks. (They had a lot of extra papers because they missed two days of school last week because they were sick.)

So what did I miss? Sending something for 100th day, that's what.

And what's 100th day? It's the one hundredth day of school. The kids in most classes are supposed to bring 100 of something. Like, 100 stickers or goldfish crackers or pieces of rice or crayons or whatever. They count and sort and compare and good educational stuff like that.

And now my kids are without a contribution to 100th Day. :(

Weight Loss Can Be So Easy...

Would you believe that I lost 50 pounds over night?!

Yeah, me neither.

The new scale had some accuracy issues. We would step on it and get one weight. Step off and let the thing go back to zero. Step on again and get a weight 4 pounds heavier than 10 seconds before. Get off and let the thing go back to zero. Step on again and get a weight 2 pounds less than the first weight. This morning I stepped on to find myself roughly 50 pounds less than yesterday. My husband also experienced an amazing weight loss of 40 pounds. Some of the kids lost 10 pounds within a day! Whatever we ate yesterday, I guess we need to do more of that.

In short, not exactly a helpful gadget for someone trying to lose just. one. pound. Right?

So back to the store it went. Not sure what I'm going to replace it with yet. I don't have the time or energy to keep buying and returning quirky scales.

In the meantime, I used the refund money to buy cookies. :) NO, not for me. (Well, I will confess to eating one......or two....) We are going to a church chili cookoff tonite, and we are taking cookies. (not chili) I will be a judge for the chili, so that should be fun. I've never gotten to judge a cooking contest before. :)

Already thinking about next year's schooling options

This has been an interesting school year. I've had the pleasant surprise of discovering that, although not easy, I am not hating homeschooling. In fact, I think I could safely say that I am enjoying it! I'm enjoying having my two homeschoolers here every day, and we've had many good conversations and enjoyed many good books together.

It's also been harder than ever to send my youngest three kiddos to school. In years past when I so desperately needed to NOT be homeschooling, it was a blessing that my little guys absolutely loved to go to school. At night when I would tuck them into bed they would ask, "Is tomorrow a school day?!" and when I would tell them yes they would smile and cheer. They ran out the door each morning so happy and looking forward to their day.

This year I still get asked, "Is tomorrow a school day!?" except that when I say yes they pout and cry and say, "I don't want to go! I don't feel good! When do we get some days off?"

I'm not a big believer in formal schooling for younger kids, especially boys. The only way I was able to have them going to school so far was because they enjoyed it so much. Now that I have little boys consistently not liking school, I feel like I'm no longer doing what I feel is best for them.

I've learned from past years to never make big decisions about school in January. The cold, dark, cheerlessness of the month never seems to do any of our outlooks much good. Unfortunately, I can't blame this on January. This has been going on for the whole school year. I even talked to my son's kindergarten teacher about how unhappy he was at the first 9 week conference.

So, I'm watching. And I'm thinking. And I'm wondering--what about bringing the three younger boys home for school next year?

I've noticed that I've enjoyed having all the kids home on weekends and breaks. For awhile there it was kind of overwhelming for me to have everybody home. Partially it helps that they're older, partially, I've done better and better at working on behavior stuff and helping them keep their energies moving in a positive direction. I love seeing the creative stuff that they come up with. I buy them fabric and they design costumes. They make play money and stores and play "town" complete with bankers, businesses, keeping track of their money, etc. It's pretty fun to see what they come up with on their own.

My wheels are turning. I'm taking stock of what I would need to change in order to take on three more homeschool kids. I'm thinking about how it would work to homeschool 5 kids at once. I'm thinking about what each kid needs and wondering how I can best offer that to them. What would it look like? How would it work? So far, I'm optimistic.

Today I did something that I always said I would never do.

I bought a bathroom scale.

I've been thinking about this for awhile now. When I was younger I hated getting weighed because even when at a perfectly normal weight and even able to wear a bikini without shame as a 19 year old, being a six foot tall woman comes with weight numbers that are considerably higher than most teeny-weeny teenagers have.

Then for all the years when I was pregnant, I felt like it was just pointless and depressing to know my weight.

And now my baby is almost 5. I've got to lose some weight, and that's hard to keep track of if I have no idea where I'm at.

I really like the idea of just losing one pound at a time. I got this idea from some interview with Cheryl Tiegs quite some time ago. Basically she said that every morning she steps on the scale, and if she has reached her weight limit, she immediately exercises a little more and eats a little less, and keeps doing that until she beats back that one pound. Although I have far more than, ahem, one pound to lose, one pound I can lose. And then I just keep losing one more pound. And another one. And another one.

So that's why I have a scale now. I didn't want to get a depressing one that would remind me of what I weighed yesterday or last week, or one that would calculate my body fat index. I just got a plain Jane, no-reminders scale. It'll get the job done. Hopefully I will too.

Sad news: Heath Ledger has died

My husband has just called to tell me that one of my very favorite actors, Heath Ledger, has died today. Just yesterday I was talking about how much I enjoy his work. I've admired Heath's ability as an actor who plays so many different types of roles so skillfully. I'm really very sad about this. What a terrible, sad loss, and what a sad situation that his life had gotten to the point where he has had either an accidental or purposeful drug overdose. Only 28 years old. What a waste. And now his daughter has to grow up without him. Sad, sad stuff.

Snow Day

No school today thanks to a small amount of snow and ice that made morning driving slippery, but was all melted away by noon. :) My kids are hunkered down watching a stash of kiddo movies while eating PBJs. I have all this quiet-ish time that I could be getting stuff done, yet I'm just kind of hanging out here avoiding turning my head 45 degrees to see what's on my To Do list.....

Happy Dance!

I guess I should have asked you all to pray for me months ago when I started this whole thing with DHL…because a few minutes ago I received a phone call from the same woman I spoke with yesterday, and she told me that I will be getting the refund!!!

I asked her some about what happened and found out that she did not speak to my driver, but did speak to the manager of the DHL station in this area. Apparently there were even more messed up things about the shipment than I was even aware of. I’ll spare you all the boring details. But, the point is that they were able to determine that both my driver AND the station personnel messed up. So, they agreed that I did not get the service I was wanting, and approved the refund. Supposedly (pardon me for being skeptical!) I will have a check by the end of next week.

Sadly and interestingly, the refund isn’t coming because of anything I said..it’s only because of other things that I couldn’t have even known about. I’m glad it worked out, but sorry to learn that DHL has so little regard for the word of their customers.

I did email the president of DHL this morning, and rec’d an email this afternoon saying that they would contact me within 24 hours. Although my own case is resolved, I do hope that I get to talk with someone so that I can let them know how many steps along the way were messed up. I am actually thinking of making a list, because it’s mighty spectacular! There is seriously not ONE person that I have dealt with during this process that has not messed up in some way. I cannot imagine how a business gets to be as big and well-known as DHL when they are so disorganized and don’t believe in real customer service. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ever treated a customer so poorly.

You can be sure that I will never use DHL for any shipping in the future, and will go out of my way to try to avoid receiving anything from them as well. They have lost my trust and have showed me far too many holes in their system that cause me to have absolutely zero confidence that my account information or packages will be safe with them.

So, THANK YOU for praying and for caring! I was able to have a pretty good day without too much stress, and now I will just be praying for the refund to come without any problems.

Old, Tired Dog

An old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard.

I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home.

He followed me into the house, down the hall, and fell asleep in a corner.

An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, resumed his position in the hall, and slept for an hour.

This continued for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar:

"Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar:

"He lives in a home with ten children -- he's trying to catch up on his sleep.

Can I come with him tomorrow?"

I could use a little prayer about this

This is kind of off topic, but I could really use some prayer support. Back in October I sent a large shipment of my product to a vendor in Texas, using DHL. They completely messed up my order by not giving me the proper paperwork for the shipping I wanted (slow, ground, cheap), and instead I ended up accidentally getting overnight air delivery (fast, air, over $69 per box!). I was charged over $400 more than I was planning on. Needless to say, this has been annoying.

Since that time I have been going through the channels to try to get this fixed with DHL, and I have asked for a refund for the overage I was charged. I have had one problem after another with them messing things up, and I have been working my way up their chain of command. Yesterday I had a particularly upsetting phone call with a person in middle management. She basically told me that I was stupid to have trusted them with my credit card information (I had no choice), that I should have known all the ins and outs of their paperwork myself so that I could have prevented this myself, and that she thought I was lying. It was very frustrating. As we left it, she said she was going to try to talk to the driver who picked up these packages to see what his side of the story was.

I would like prayer that this man, if she gets to talk to him, will remember what happened and be honest about that with her. I am not sure if he would be in danger of losing his job or some other penalty if he admits that he did not handle my order properly, but I would also like protection for this guy. I’m sure he needs his job just like everybody else needs theirs.

Also, I need prayer that DHL would give me some good customer service and give me the partial refund I am asking for. Thankfully, because I run my businesses debt-free, this hasn’t been the huge blow that it could have been, However, it is very discouraging to have an extra $400 taken from me and kept away from me for months.

Last, I could just use some prayer that my spirit could be peaceful while I wait and walk through this. I have not been so upset about this situation until yesterday, because the person was so rude to me. I do not do well with things like that, and tend to have stuff roll around in my stomach and head, stressing me out. My family and I had a fun stress-buster evening last night, watching our new Tim Hawkins DVD. He is the comedian in the video clips a few posts down. It felt good to laugh. But, this morning I’m up early and am already feel that stress creeping up on me…

Go Tell Alana Happy Birthday

It's Alana's birthday today. They've been having a tough time. Go leave a comment on her blog and spread some birthday cheer.

Funny For You

I always found it funny that Christians pray for food to be blessed to their bodies, even when they are eating total junk. Tim Hawkins has a funny comedy shtick about this. This video takes a little while to load up, but totally cracked us up.


I also thought this was was hilarious. My kids and I were about doubled over laughing over this one:

Ready to get lost?

Lost returns on January 31. YAY! I am really looking forward to it. If you failed to get into Lost right from the start, or if you missed a significant portion of the episodes, good news! You can now watch seasons one and two at abc by going here. There is so much back story for the characters in each show, it's very helpful to see each one in order to understand all of the six-degrees-of-separation things going on.

Once Again Contemplating the Merits of Becoming a Super-Early Riser

For whatever reason, I was unable to sleep last night. I had a hard time falling asleep, and was easily awakened several times, until I finally gave up and just got out of bed. It was a combination of sleep not coming easily, ideas and concerns swirling through my head that wouldn't quit, and plenty of energy to go-go-go! I've been taking some new supplements and I have had SO much more energy than usual--it has been really wonderful. But, maybe I took something too close to bedtime last night or something.....because energy isn't something I need in the middle of the night. (unless somebody has thrown up or wet the bed)

Anyhoo, I got up at 3, ate breakfast, did some work on the computer for my businesses, blogged (twice now), emailed, folded 3 loads of laundry, put away 6 loads of laundry, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cooked breakfast for my husband and then for 3 of my kids, started another load of laundry, made my bed, got dressed not just to my shoes--but even to my BRA!! (an important detail that I've not seen Flylady address!), finished organizing the coat closet (a project started before bedtime yesterday), put away a bunch of stuff, straightened and generally tended to several areas of the house, got three kiddos up and fed and bundled and out the door to school.....and probably a couple more things I am not thinking of right now. 1 more kid to send to school, 2 more to get homeschooling with.....

It feels so great to start a day with so many things already done. (and hey--4 hours of work done right off the bat!) So once again I wonder if I should just go to bed once I put all the kids to bed, and just get up early and get everything done that I want to do without interruption. Unlike evenings, in the early morning nobody comes around to see what I'm doing, ask for another snack or drink, tattle on one another, or try to see what movie I'm watching.

I'd like to say I'll try it for a week, but I don't know how realistic that is. At the very least, it's been a good start to today.

Slow Down

Do you ever catch yourself rushing from one thing to the next, or even hurrying through a task when you don't actually need to be hurrying? I have experienced a lot of that, but have been trying to be mindful to s-l-o-w down in the past few months. I want to be a person that, as much as possible, has time for the important, time to enjoy the moment, and time to enjoy serendipitous opportunities.

Today was a perfect example. On my way around town I had to drop off our water bill. Once there, I realized that I was right next to our local nursing home. A gal from church is temporarily living there, so I decided to pop in to see her. I had never been in the building before, wasn't sure where I was going, but knew I'd figure it out once I got going.

I was able to surprise this gal, and brighten her day with a quick visit. She had a few things she was wishing she had, so I went right over to the store and got those things for her, and then took them back over to her. She seemed really surprised and pleased that I had stopped by, gotten her the things she had wished for, and come back like I told her I would.

The whole thing probably took less than a half hour, but I bet it meant a lot to her. I was just glad that instead of feeling rushed, I was able to take time to reach out to somebody. We miss so much when we're driven by the hurrying forces in our life.