New Art

I've been a fan of Sweet Juniper for years, and have often enjoyed the photography that Dutch shares. Just recently he opened an etsy shop since people were often asking him if they could buy prints. Tonite I wandered over there to see what he had, and found this cool shot of some discarded paint cans.

What can I say? I love it. I bought it. And I got the last one!

Project Complete!

In a breathtaking display of accomplishment, I actually finished all five of the chairs today! (If you knew how rare it is that a project get all the way completed at my house, you would better appreciate my comment.) Like I said, I'm not in love with the fabric. It looked so fun at the fabric store, but once I got it home it looked kind of old fashioned, in a dowdy kind of way. And adding that plastic over it just totally smacks of grandma's houses that still have the plastic covers over the couches and chairs. But, hey--that's the price you pay for having no less than six mess-makers at your dinner table at any given meal.

In another exciting news story, I bought myself a new digital camera tonite. My mom got me my first one quite a few years ago, but it died somewhere along the line. Then my husband bought a digital video camera which supposedly takes photos, but so far I find it less than user friendly, and the photo quality totally stinks. So now I have a handy dandy pink Kodak Easy Share, which is by no means a fancy camera, but at least I can make it go without any trouble at all. Yay me!

(now that I have a camera handy, maybe I will start taking horrible, embarrassing photos of the worst parts of my house, and then maybe motivate myself to clean those up so that I can take a great AFTER picture..... You know--if I even got marginally inspired to do some of that, it would be well worth the price of the camera.....)

Today: Getting a Project Done

Our dining chairs have been in need of being recovered for quite awhile, and about a week ago I purchased some new fabric for that. I also got some clear plastic to go over the fabric so that it's kid-proof and can be wiped off. After some ado this morning trying to get set up, I've now completed two of the seats, with three to go. I don't like the fabric as much as I did in the store, but at least it's clean and fresh. That counts for a lot around here. :)

I Made Cheese

If you want to read about my recent adventure in cheesemaking, you can go read about it here.

More on the FLDS Children, and a few thoughts on our rights...or lack thereof

My mom sent me the URL for this site which offers a timeline of what has happened with the FLDS children in Texas, as well as photos and videos--including videos of the children being herded into buses to take them away from their home, and the conditions that these children and some mothers were held in. Tonite the news is that the children have been moved to foster care. The article I read made it sound like they would be in state "care" until at least early June. I just pray for these children and families. It must be a very painful situation for all of them.

I am still just shocked and outraged at how this situation is being handled. Swat teams with guns coming into this community to take away children. Armored vehicles. If the concern was that underage girls were being forced into marriages, THAT should have been handled. Nursing babies and little toddlers and school aged children were not included in that group of concern. Removing these children from their parents IS abuse, and placing them in state care is to place them in a situation that certainly has the potential for abuse. This type of huge influx of children into the state foster care system cannot be handled wisely or safely, I fear.

I hate to think what kinds of questions and tests these poor children have had to endure. No doubt what they have gone through IS abuse and is extremely tragic and will have long term consequences in the lives of these families. So, while there may be a problem with underage girls being married off, which many people would consider abuse, now 100% of these children have been abused and traumatized, courtesy of the state of Texas and all of the taxpaying citizens of Texas.

It is easy to think that this sort of thing could only happen to other people. Unusual people with lifestyles that are outside the mainstream in America. Yes, people in those categories are more easily mistreated, but it could certainly happen to any of us.

Back in October 2007 a woman on one of my egroups, Mary Anaya, has police burst into their home and snatch away her newborn baby for a state mandated blood test that the Anayas objected to because of their religious beliefs. These people came into their home with guns, scared all of the family including their many children. Not only were the Anaya's sincere religious beliefs ignored and violated, but their baby was taken into foster care, Mary was prevented from easy access to her son to be able to breastfeed him as she normally would, and I believe that the baby was not released from foster care for over a week. You can read more about this case here, here, and here, as well as google Mary Anaya for more information.

You may not agree with the relgious beliefs of the Anaya family. You may not have made the same choice that they made. That's fine. What you need to understand is that at some point in the future it might be MY beliefs or YOUR beliefs that become an issue big enough for the police to come barging into our homes with guns. I don't know what the answers are, but I think that sitting up and taking notice and asking questions and expressing our opinions about situations like this one in Texas is a place to begin.

It Wouldn't Be The Weekend Without Some Music, Right??

I've got this player shuffling at random, so who knows what fun Classic Rock Fave you will get next! (the anticipation! It's killing me!!)

YFZ Ranch Video Interviews

You can go here to see several interviews with men and women whose families have been torn apart in this situation.

Go, Me.

I would just like to say that I have not been watching the current season of The Bachelor. The past two seasons were enough befuddlement for me.

Thank you. And, good night.

Texas Polygamy Situation

Am I the only person looking at this polygamist situation and feeling truly grieved for these children and mothers?

I watched an interview with some of the moms, and although I do not wear prairie dresses or wear my hair in a bun, I could see that these are women are just as I would be---truly heartbroken and concerned about their children.

Certainly I am also concerned about the alleged forced marriages and sexual abuse, and in no way do I support such a thing. However, it seems to me to be a very complicated situation. Children who have been raised in as insulated a way as these children seem to have been are not likely to do well in foster homes or regular school. Even if placed in a foster home as compassionate and sensitive as my own home might be, I am sure that probably much of how we live here would be considered wrong, sinful, or frightening to children who have been sheltered so much. Regardless of our opinions about whether or not it is wise or necessary to raise children under such sheltered conditions, it is surely a scary and confusing situation for these children right now. And even if we think it odd or overkill, it is not against the law to wear prairie dresses, never watch TV, go to church a lot, or in general close out the rest of "normal" society.

I do not understand why the mothers have been separated from their children. Why couldn't they set up a way for mothers to care for their own children while being supervised in some way, if they felt that the mothers were a danger to the children (which I do not think is the concern). I cannot imagine that keeping these children in an already overburdened foster care system is necessarily safe or wise. I am not so optimistic as to believe that no harm will come to these children while in state care.

Yes, certainly the anonymous phone call needed to be checked out. Yes, we do not want young girls forced into marriages and turned into baby-making vessels. Yes, we want to protect the innocent. I am just not convinced that this is a good way to go about doing that.

I Stomped Last Night!

After hoping that my husband would get my Stomp tickets to the point where I doubted any decent seats were left, and once I learned that the show was probably the very same one I saw 9 years ago, I decided to switch my birthday request to something else. As it turned out, I didn't get my new request either. You know, I am about to just swear off any gift-giving occasions in my future, because although I am not a materialistic person, nor do I care that much about what I GET, I do care about feeling loved and cared for. I thought I already had low expectations, but alas, they are now going lower. (**Alternate plan: Purchase gifts for myself for Mother's Day. Give a box full of gifts, wrapping, etc. to one of the older children and let them help the younger ones wrap and decide who gets to give what. Pretend to be surprised when they make their presentations.)

AnyHOOO, yesterday evening as I was still feeling down from the unBirthday, I got a phone call from my son's girlfriend's mother. She had an extra ticket to see Stomp and wondered if I would like to come with them.

Yes! I would. Definitely. Just let me get out of my PJs (that I've been wearing all day even though I had to drive to the school three times today) and try to find some clean, unwrinkled clothing, and do something with my hair.....and...how much time do I have to get there?!

We had fourth row center seats, which were awesome. And the show, while having many of the same elements as I remembered, still was very fresh and fun. I had forgotten how much comedy is woven throughout the show. There is a lot of laughter and SO much energy--if I could find out what vitamins those people take I would definitely be taking them myself. :)

It was a redeeming two hours. I will not hesitate to see Stomp again. And it put a smile on my face for awhile, which was needed.

A Little Meme

I got this from Morning Coffee. Want to play? Copy and Paste your answers to these questions onto your blog.

Four Things about Me (or Three, if I couldn't think of a fourth)

A) FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: My children's schools, the grocery store, to the computer, to sleep.

B) FOUR PEOPLE WHO ENCOURAGED MY FAITH ALONG THE WAY: The environment and people at my Christian school (Faith Heritage School in Syracuse, NY--Woot!). More than four there for sure.

C) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS: pizza, Chocolate Mint Jocalat bars, fruit smoothies, Italian chicken and rice.

D) FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW: Sleeping, someplace quiet and alone, visiting my mom, on a beach.

E) FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER: Sweet Home Alabama, Meet the Parents, The Patriot, Dan in Real Life.

F)FOUR THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY CHURCH: The mindfulness to not burn people out on attending church constantly, people that know how to both love Jesus and have a lot of fun, being at a place that's not afraid to ask questions instead of give pat answers, the people.

G) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE HOBBIES/INTERESTS: reading, having meaningful conversations, doing any project that is likely to improve my life or stay put for awhile, and....??not sure.

New Blog Design for the Hubby

My husband is very excited because I bought him a design for his firefighting blog. You can check it out here. Quite manly, eh? We hired Heather from Goofy Girl designs, and she did a great job in a very short amount of time, at a rock-bottom price. I highly recommend her!

Conundrum

I've had a conflict with my oldest child tonite. He had done wrong to someone and I told him that he needed to apologize for it. He felt justified in his wrongdoing and does not want to apologize. "It would be lying to say I'm sorry." I suggested that he could honestly say, "I want to apologize for my behavior. It was wrong, and I will not do that again."

On and on the conversation went. I calmly expressed to him multiple times that feeling justified does not make our wrongdoings less wrong. He is a fine young man and I am not going to just let things like this slide by. I believe that by requiring him to make an apology it will make an impression on him, and hopefully in time he will appreciate something meaningful from the experience.

He was quick to tell me that by requiring him to apologize for this thing he has done, he would avoid telling me stuff in the future. I realize that he can certainly do that. Of course, I do not want to do anything to get him to talk to me less. But, I'm not going to let his threat intimidate me out of doing what I can to help him do right and be a good man.

At this age, nearly 16, I realize that the bulk of my ability to teach and guide him is done. I cannot control his thoughts or beliefs, nor would I truly want to. But there is something quite difficult on days like today when you see your child resisting doing right. Although you can require right behavior, you do not have the ability to make their heart or mind embrace it. These days are just a huge faith walk--I hope I've done enough. I hope he has a good enough foundation. I hope that his spirit is tender enough to be open to the humility required to be teachable and make changes.

The wild love I have for my children seems both amazing, and completely inadequate.

Guess What Day It Is?

One year closer to middle age. Wowza.

Join the party and make a donation over at one of my very favorite organizations, Zoe Children's Homes. This wonderful group rescues children from the horrendous practice of human trafficking and gives them a life with safety, love, an education, health care, and everything they need--until adulthood and beyond. Zoe is committed to their kids for the long haul. They are amazing.

Happy Weekend!

Got anything fun lined up this weekend? My in-laws are coming to visit us, so from here on out I'll be working on my Hostess With The Mostest routine. :) They are getting ready to move to our area from 14 hours away. My kids will love having grandparents nearby.

I've got some fun music for you to jive to through your weekend. I just picked a few fun ones that always get me up and dancing. Or at the very least, laughing.

A short history of the songs on this playlist:

Love Shack: Came out right around my freshman year of college. I can still see my friend Ron Gardner singing along to this. He had the perfect voice for it too. Anytime I'm in the car and this comes on, I crank it up and SING. Loud.

Play That Funky Music: I know this isn't the original, but it's a fun one. My husband and I had a mighty good time dancing to this one (and Brick House) at our niece's wedding last summer. After we busted a move on the dance floor, I asked my incredulous oldest son (then 14 years old) how it felt to have the coolest parents in the joint. His response was, "Mom. There's a fine line between being the coolest people here, and making a fool of yourselves. You two are flirting with that line." I could live with that. I kicked off my shoes and we kept dancing.

Brick House: Another favorite of my husband's and mine for groovin on the dance floor. it's great especially if your dance moves involve a lot of hip. Which mine do. (in case you wanted to know) Our family loves when this song comes on because my son Jake the Great thought that "shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now" was actually, "shake a cow, shake a cow, shake a cow, now!" So we all make ourselves shake and moo at the same time and laugh our fool heads off. You should try a road trip with us sometime. We're hilarious.

Pump Up The Jam: What can I say? This was one of the main songs played in dance clubs back when I got to go to some when I went to college. Get yer booty on the floor tonite and make my day, yo!

U Can't Touch This: My college friends actually went to see MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice in concert. Not being a huge fan of either, I skipped it. Never have regretted that decision, either. This song is, however, excellent at weddings where you are looking for a grand opportunity to use all of your geeky dance moves like The Sprinkler. ("Break it down now. Stop! Hammer Time!")

Ice, Ice Baby: What can I say? How can this song fail to make you roll your eyes and laugh (While tapping your toes) ("Yo! Vanilla! Let's kick it!") I'd like to report that, by complete coincidence, I just saw that Vanilla Ice was just released from his quick stay in jail for pushing his wife. congrats, loser!

What songs have fun memories for you? Maybe I can make a playlist for you, so you'll feel more at home when you visit me here. :)

New Blog to Add to Your Daily Rounds

My dear from Sooz is FINALLY following my good example of the last four years by starting her own blog. She has five kiddos and homeschools, and has been on a wild ride decluttering her house to the MAX. You can check it out here.

Prepare to Laugh

This made me laugh so hard that my kids came running from all directions, thinking something was terribly, terribly wrong with me. I shrieked. I cackled. I screamed and cried. (disclaimer: I didn't think the clown car comment was funny)

Foiled Again

So last we night we set our alarms with a backup plan in place so that we didn't oversleep twice.

Ha.

Leave it to us to find a new way to screw things up.

This morning the alarm went off just fine. Instead of doing what he normally does, which is turn off my pocket pc and put it right back down next to my side of the bed, he took it with him to the bathroom.

and left it there.

And went away to work.

So I woke up on my own at 6:52am, and got to do the "Hurry-Hurry-Hurry Shuffle" with my three little guys to get them to school on time. Thankfully, I have them sleep in their school clothes, so all they have to do is roll out of bed, go pee, and put their shoes on. We even had time for breakfast before I drove them to school! Just think what I could accomplish if I was actually organized!!

Technology Failed Us

Last night I set my pocket pc alarm for 5am (and 5:30am......and 5:50am) as I do every "school night." My husband usually gets up at 5 or 5:30 to go to work. I sometimes get up at 5, but in cases where I had a late night (like last night) I might delay getting up until 5:50.

So this morning I hear my husband hurrying around and I wonder why, since the alarm hasn't gone off.

A few minutes later there's the alarm. I look at it. It's the 5am alarm. But it's 6am!

Never had that happen before!

So we were both running late thanks to failed technology.

I guess my pocket pc was out of practice since the kids were on spring break last week.

Must Visit This Blog

I recently discovered this very clever and funny blog, Stuff Christians Like. If you're open to laughing at yourself, go visit. It cracks me up.

12 years ago

12 years ago....

I started my day with a brand new baby girl in my arms.

She was my first home birth.

It took 36 hours of real, live, miserable labor to bring her into the world, thanks to her posterior position. Most people would have ended up with a c-section for that birth, because a lot of doctors think that it just isn't possible for women to birth posterior babies. Thanks to the quiet, calm support of my midwife I was able to preserve what little strength I had left for the job at hand. If I had been in a situation where I had to use any of that energy for anything else, I doubt that I could have done it. By the time my daughter was born, I had experienced fatigue so great that I literally didn't know that it was possible to be that tired and still be awake.

Just to show you how horrid the entire labor was, when I was maybe 2 or 3 hours away from the birth, I tried to pep myself up by looking at my firstborn and asking myself, "If you had to go through all of this in order to get him, you'd do it, wouldn't you?"

And the answer I came back with?

"Nope."

It was that. bad.

In natural childbirth books that tell you ways that birth can be almost painless, the one exception is always..posterior position! Yeah--it's a toughie.

Fortunately I lived through it, so did she, and now I have this special girl--just the two of us ladies in a household filled with boys. She gave up wishing for a sister 5 years ago after she got 4 little brothers in a row. Now she's just content with the way things are.

8 Years Ago

Eight years ago I was in the hospital with my belly feeling like someone had a blow torch going across it, and my fourth child was a 2-and-a-half-pound NICU resident. Today he is a bright and energetic little boy who was able to sound out "satisfaction" on the front of Walmart yesterday. You can read what I wrote about his birth and our experience here. I'll be making a Darth Vadar cake today. How about you?

Aimless

A little Jack Johnson playlist for you all today, reflecting my lazy day mood.

Not that there's an absence of stuff to do. It's just that nothing is grabbing me as especially urgent. I've looked at my remaining items on the To Do list that I started two days ago and none of them seem like they need to be done right now.

The kids are on spring break for the next week. I am looking forward to sleeping in every day.

Just in case you wanted to know, my butt muscles are mighty sore today, thanks to doing a Leslie Sansone walking video for the last two days. I have heard about these for awhile and finally decided to give one a try. It's really fun, easy to follow, etc. Between getting off my keister and watching what I'm eating, I've lost about 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks. Yay! I'm going to get some more of her stuff on Netflix and try to keep it going. She has a ton of videos, with workouts ranging from 1 to 5 miles. I don't really enjoy exercise, but have been hoping I could find something that I could like enough to look forward to getting it done. For this week, at least, this is the thing.

On today's Wish List of things to get done:

do the walking video at least once (did it!)

juice a bunch of the organic spinach and lettuces and make into a smoothie with banana, apple, and strawberries (did this too)

do some reading just for fun (if I can remember how) (yep)

take a shower (yep)

take a nap (doesn't look like it's happening)

Do you think I can manage that? I sure do need a low-key day and am looking forward to this. bye!

Kroger Fun!

I sometimes see other bloggers talk about the amazing deals they get while shopping, usually using lots of coupons and a serious strategy while shopping at CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, and other places.

Well, I hate to shop and don't live close to many stores. When I do my "big shopping" which is usually for two weeks, I go to Walmart where I can get everything and the prices are low.

Yesterday, however, I had several errands to do and then had to stop by the store to get at least some essentials to get us through the rest of the week. I was near a Kroger and would have had to go several miles out of my way and farther from home in order to go to Walmart. So, Kroger it was.

I figured that I could get the essentials and avoid buying the stuff that is much more expensive than I usually pay for it at WM. Basically, sacrificing price for convenience and speed.

Well, was I in for a surprise!

In the produce department I wanted to get some salad stuff. I really wanted organic spinach and lettuce, but was not too excited about the price. Then I found big one pound containers of each (and organic!) that were marked down to $3.99 because they were close to the expiration date. They looked like they were still in good condition, so I bought those. Then I found broccoli slaw marked down to 99 cents. And cherry tomatoes marked down to $1.29. And celery. And a bunch of other stuff. Yes, I'll be eating a lot of salad in the next few days, but my weight loss efforts can use that motivation. (hey--I've lost three pounds recently!)

When I walked past the organic dairy I wondered how much the gallons of Horizon milk would be. My friend Sooz told me that she pays over $6 for this in the Cinci area. Well, the regular price here was $5.49 or something like that, but two gallons were marked down to $2.49--and you can't even get regular milk for that price any more! I got both gallons, planning to freeze the extra.

I used to only buy dry milk and use it in baking and cooking, because we haven't really been milk drinkers for over 9 years now. But recently the price of the dry milk jumped up to double what I had been paying, so I decided to see how it works for me to get regular milk again. So far, so good!

I found bags of marked down grapes for only 68 cents a pound. My kids eat grapes so fast that I figured that even if they were getting close to the end of their best-used-by stage, they would be ok. I was right. One bag was for a snack yesterday, and one is for today. There were probably less than 5 grapes total that were yukky and got thrown away.

Cheese was also on a good sale, so I took advantage of that as well.

I found organic yogurt marked down to cheaper than regular too.

Overall, I was very excited about my bargain finds, and am thinking that I will need to at least cruise the produce and dairy areas of Kroger whenever I get a chance. For the size of my family and the speed that we can eat stuff, there is a whole lot of stuff that we could enjoy buying at the marked down level.

On the way home I called my mom and told her about my bargain finds. We talked about how funny it is to get to the stage of life where good prices on milk and salad makes your day. :) It's some kind of glamorous, the life I live. Yessirree......

Dinner Plans

Too often lately I've not had a real dinner plan. Around 4 or 5 o'clock I start thinking that I better come up with something to feed these people....

Well, today I took a few minutes and put a simple soup into the crock pot that my kids love. Here's the recipe:

Crockpot Potato and Corn Chowder

6 potatoes-cubed
1 can of corn undrained, or the equivalent in frozen corn plus a little water
1 can creamed corn
1.5 cups milk
1 medium onion, chopped
some chopped up cooked ham or bacon (maybe a cup or two of this)
half teaspoon worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Throw it all in the crock pot and cook on low 6-8 hours.

My husband says this doesn't have enough flavor if you leave out the ham or bacon, but my kids like it either way. And THAT, my friends, is golden.

New Blog You Should Check Out

I can remember being maybe 10 years old when I got to read something that my mom had written. I guess it was a creative writing piece. At that point in my life I had no idea that my mom had other talents and abilities outside homemaking and mothering type things, and I remember being quite impressed at what a good writer she was. It gave me hope that maybe I could be a good writer someday too. :)

Well I am happy to say that my mom is now blogging. Her new blog, Ma Is Losing It, is her spot to talk about the journey that she is on with her own mother having Alzheimer's. I was just reading her first two posts and was reminded of my childhood appreciation of my mom's writing skills. She's still got it!

Alzheimer's may be one of the cruelest diseases. I remember years ago I used to give a ride to an elderly lady in my town every now and then. Her husband had died after a long illness with Alzheimer's. Her comment on the illness was "Some things are much worse than death."

My mom and grandmother are way down in North Carolina and I'm in central KY, so I don't get to witness much of the progression of the disease. However, the other day my grandmother sent a birthday card to my youngest son. It included a check, since she had traditionally sent money for all gift giving occasions. I've been shredding her checks for awhile now, because her financial situation is pretty terrible now that she requires special care all the time. But, she likes to send gifts, so she does, and we thank her, and never spend the money.

Well, I was about to take the check to the shredder when I took a look at it. She had gotten my name right, and her signature. The rest.....was a mess. The date was for May, with no year. In the $_____ space she wrote my town name. In the space where you are supposed to write out the amount of the check, she wrote my son's name, and part of our address, plus some other stuff I couldn't make out. My mom told me that it took Gram over an hour to write out that check.

Physical evidence like that really hits me differently. She's really struggling to hold on to the bits and pieces of information that make up a person's ability to "do life." It's a hard thing to see. And I know it's a huge, painful, difficult thing for my mom to live with every day. The pressure that caregivers are under is enormous.

Go visit my mom's blog, and spread the word if you can. She's a mighty funny woman once she gets going, and laughter sure does make the craziness of Alzheimer's a little easier to deal with.

Just 15 minutes

Flylady is all into the 15 minute thing. You know--spend just 15 minutes picking up an area or your room or whatever. Well, my bedroom has turned into a cyclone recently, so this morning I decided to spend *just 15 minutes* on it. and...wow! I'm always amazed at how much can be done in that amount of time. No, the room isn't perfect yet, but it looks a whole lot better than it did. And if I can manage to do 15 minutes on it two more times, I bet the whole thing will look perfect.

Here's a challenge for today: Pick the part of your home that is bothering you the most because of the mess or need for attention. Take 15 minutes and see what you can accomplish. I bet you'll be surprised!

Happenings

Just got home from visiting my kindergartener and first grader during their Easter parties at school. I am always horrified at the amount of sugary junk that is given to the children during these parties. Unlike the first grade teacher that had a very sensible party that included vanilla ice cream and a few topping choices, the kindy class had frosted cupcakes (both large and mini sized), frosted cookies, peeps in various colors, SODA, doritos, cheese puffs, plus a ton of candy. Thanks to one generous and misled father, my kindergartener came home with ---no joke-- about 4 pounds of candy. This man and his wife and their little kindergarten-aged daughter are all obese. Apparently he doesn't know that candy might just help create that problem. yikes.

In fun stuff, I got to teach my daughter how to shave her legs today! Growing up around here, I tell ya.

And, the same daughter also won a local art contest, so she now has an entire basket filled with seasonal goodies as well. Thankfully, it's not all candy.

We have a winner!

Tammy is the winner of the $20 gift certificate from the Ultimate Blog Party. Thanks to all of you that stopped by and joined in the fun. :)

Homeschool Resource: Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing

Hey folks!

I found out about this nice resource online that is FREE! It's the Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing Workbooks for grades 1-6. Check it out here.

Moments in Parenting When I Should Not Laugh, But Want To

Email send home from school today:

From: Gym Teacher
To: My 1st grade son's teacher
Subject: Gym

"Izzy Man wasn't listening so I sat him out intending for him to only sit out for a few minutes. He kept talking to people as he was sitting out and I told him not to speak and he stuck his tongue out at me so he sat out the whole gym time."

5 Years Ago Today

I woke up and hauled my largely pregnant self out of bed around 5am. Time to go to the bathroom....again!

I stood up and....sploosh! I felt a warm, wet sensation traveling down my legs.

Oh my goodness! My water broke! (I had never had my water break before being in active labor before.)

I high-tailed it into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the light. And then I looked down and saw that I was wrong. My water hadn't broken. I was bleeding. All over the place.

You know how disorienting things can be when you first wake up? That was me. Standing there looking at my bloody footprints that lead into the room, and the bloody puddle I was standing in, I was scared to death and just kind of frozen for a minute saying ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmyGOSH ohmygosh and then the crying started, while I decided to try to get cleaned up for a second.

Things started moving pretty fast at that point. I woke up my husband. (hissing into the darkness of our bedroom: "Dave. Wake UP. NOW." The tone was enough to tell him that NOW it had to be.

I knew we were headed to the hospital, no doubt. I called my midwife to tell her what was happening. I called my best friend to ask her to pray. (I didn't call my mom. Sorry, Mom! I thought it would be better to tell her what was happening when we had more answers than questions.) We called an ambulance because we had 5 children ages 10 and under in the house, and didn't know who we could get at 5am to come help us. (We have no family members in our area)

The scariest part of this whole thing was that my usually extremely active baby was not making a move. As I sat in a chair waiting for the ambulance, I gently prodded my belly, hoping to get some sort of reassuring poke or kick back. I got nothing. I didn't verbalize my fear because I knew I would start crying. So I just prayed, both asking God to save my baby, and asking for whatever kind of hope it is that mothers get when their babies are born dead. I had no idea what the ultimate result of that day would be, but I knew there was no getting around facing it.

Thankfully, the hospital we were headed to is only about 7 minutes away. Our kind family doctor who is also an OB was there. He's the kind of doctor that loves to help families and deliver babies, and isn't against home births. (which is what we had been planning) The best news he had for me was a quick ultrasound which showed my little buddy alive and well inside of me. After that, all the other decisions seemed less difficult.

(Somewhere during this time my husband arrived. Before I left in the ambulance I had suggested that he check and see if our neighbor was awake and willing to come help us. He walked across the street and saw their kitchen light on. Our neighbor and his teenage daughter that often babysat for us came to our rescue, while my best friend was packing up her own four kids to drive three hours to help us as well.)

We couldn't figure out why I was bleeding, but it wasn't stopping. He offered me a couple of options. I wasn't very dilated, but I could continue to labor while they monitored the bleeding, the baby, and me, and see if we could end up with a regular birth. Or, we could do a c-section while things were stable and there wasn't any big dramatic rush for it.

Considering how miserable it already was to try to labor in that bed all hooked up to stuff, I didn't think labor was going to be very quick. And knowing that at any minute during the misery of labor all hell might break loose and I would have to be rushed into the OR, and then who knows what kind of outcome we would have, we picked the c-section. I had already experienced a placental abruption with my 4th child and knew what the risks were of bleeding to death for both myself and the baby. We weren't interested in playing with fire for this birth. Yes, a c-section has a lot of risks. But, when a pregnant woman is bleeding like crazy and you can't figure out why, it's not exactly a scenario where you think that you're going to roll the dice and see if you can pretend that a normal, healthy birth is the likely outcome.

Because of the bleeding it was considered too risky for me to merely have an epidural for the surgery. I had to have general anesthesia. Thankfully, we negotiated for my husband to be in the OR with me.

Being put under was horrible. The stuff they pump through the gas mask made me feel like I couldn't breathe, and I was terrified.

During the operation I was having a dream. I was a water bed, and all of my kids were jumping on my stomach. I was telling them to stop and to be careful of the baby, but they kept going.

Outside of my subconscious, in the real world, my belly was a water bed, and two doctors pushed, pulled, and went all out trying to extract my big 10 pound 5 ounce baby from a 7 inch slit in my skin.

When I woke up in a grog my husband was standing where I could see him, with a chubby baby all wrapped up in a blanket. Here's our little boy! I held our little sweetie for a few seconds before slipping back out of consciousness. Good thing hubby was spotting me.

I don't know how many hours I was asleep before I was able to rejoin the world. I guess our new son and his daddy had some good bonding time without me. :)

While I was sleeping, my husband had done all the phone calls, letting everyone know that our son Levi had been born. All I had to do once I woke up was deal with the pain, and enjoy this plump bundle of love. :)

That night, as I held my baby in bed and just drank in his sweetness, it hit me that there had been a mix up about his name. Although we had Levi at the top of our list for boy names, we had also started to like the name Aidan. Up until this point we had four boys and one girl, and people seemed especially focused on us "getting another girl." When we were hunting for a middle name we came across Aidan, which means "warmth of the home" and we just loved that. We started considering using Aidan for the baby's name instead of Levi, but so far had just kind of left it that if we had a boy, we'd get to know him a little bit and see which name seemed to be a fit for him.

After the experiences we had had that day. After the scare of not knowing if I was even going to end up with a baby in my arms. After the unpleasantries of a surgical birth. It suddenly seemed fitting to me that our little boy have a name that conveyed our wholehearted welcome of him into our family, and the idea that he was very special to us---not "just another boy."

So the next day when my husband came in I mentioned this to him. I wasn't sure if he had started telling everyone that the baby's name was Levi because he really felt like it was a fit, or just by accident. He told me that in all of the stress and craziness of the day he had completely forgotten that we had considered another name. He agreed with me that Aidan was the right name for our little boy, so then we got to tell everybody about the change (including siblings, grandparents, coworkers, and everyone else). :)

Here is my favorite baby picture of him













and this photo from when he was three totally captures one of his most common facial expressions of age three. What. A. Hoot!


Now I am going to go make the Pioneer Woman's Best Sheet Cake Ever so that I can take it in to Aidan's class this morning for a little birthday party! :)

Oh, Happy Day!

I tackled the BIGGEE from my Plagues and Nuisances list!

What was it?

Taxes!!!

With my business growing about a zillion percent over the previous year, I was dreading trying to figure out all the tax information this year. Unlike many organized business people, I do not have Quickbooks or any other wonderful system for keeping track of all of my money. Instead, I have email files, and a large pile of receipts and printouts to sift through. It took me most of yesterday, and probably an hour and a half tonite, but now I am DONE! FREE! Oh glory, glory! I am so glad to have that behind me.

Now we will be able to get all of that turned into the accountant later this week, and hopefully then spend the next 3 weeks or so looking forward to a fat refund. (I hope, at least)

(Yes. Did you catch that? All of my hours and hours of misery and dread were only to get the numbers ready to go to the accountant. I wasn't even actually doing the tax paperwork myself. Lovely, eh?)

Next up on the P&N list:

-Hire a bookkeeper ASAP so that I don't have to go through this next year.

-Come up with a better plan for shopping and meals. I've totally fallen off the edge of the earth and things are not functioning very well in this area recently.

-Improve the current chore system here. A lot of stuff is falling through the cracks around here, and with six able-bodied children in the family, it really shouldn't be that way. The three older kids have regular jobs, but the three younger ones were never really assigned jobs, and they should have some. They do help, and have learned how to do a lot of things. I just haven't taken the time to really teach them how to do regular jobs, or enforce any of it. My hope is to get it all planned out in time for June when they will be out of school.

Current Pats on the Back that I'm giving myself:

-Despite my fears, I have really been enjoying homeschooling this year, and I am not stinking at it. We have had some challenges, but overall I am seeing many good things and feel like I've been able to make some really positive progress toward getting back to some of the things that I really wanted to be able to do with and for my children but wasn't able to for awhile. I am looking forward to our continuing adventures in homeschooling. :)

-Business is good and growing, and this is exciting.

That's all for tonite. I'm wiped. And morning will be comin' 'round an hour early... ugh.

Birthday Gift Crisis

Would you believe that my BABY is turning 5 in a few days?! Yeah, me neither. After all the years I spent with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers running around here, it's a whole 'nuther ballgame in this house when the baby is about to be kindergarten age.

Well, we have this little problem. Thanks to the fact that my kids don't watch TV or commercials, and we don't go to the mall or whatever, the child doesn't know what he wants for his birthday.

His only suggestion was a red power ranger. So, yes, I'll get him one. I had offered that to one of the grandparents that was asking for suggestions, but just found out that they decided not to buy that. So now I'll have to scramble around trying to get my hands on one of those by Wednesday.

But, really, I would like to get him something nice. And not just one power ranger. But I really have, like, no idea. And because I've been in the midst of this, that, and the other thing, now I'm too close to the birthday to order things online. So, Monday will find me trudging to the Big City in search of gifts for my favorite soon-to-be-five year old.

Any ideas of fabulous gifts for little boys that are five? Save me!

Got a Bargain!

This evening I went out to the store and stopped by Dollar General. They had a big box of knit winter hats and gloves marked down to 70% off! So I ended up buying a whole bunch of 30-cent hats and gloves to have on hand, since my kids are constantly unable to find their stuff. This should help us make it through the big snow we're supposed to get here in KY this weekend...and maybe we'll even have some of this stuff left for next winter!

If you have a Dollar General in your area you might want to check it out. I am always amazed when items that are still in-season are marked down for clearance, but it seems to happen a lot.

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?)