Scratch and Sniff

Is there any garden scent better than that of a tomato plant while being watered? I doubt it!

So True

I got this quote in an email I received today. I thought it was worth sharing.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

Author Unknown

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil

Doing Nothing?

On a blog I sometimes visit a woman commented about women that stay at home full time. Particularly in the case of single women or childless women, she seemed to think that staying home was "basically doing nothing all day long." Wow! I think this woman is not alone in that assumption. Here were some of my thoughts on the subject:

I have been a stay at home mother for the past (nearly) 14 years. I have never been accused of basically doing nothing. :)

I think that today many people do not realize how many things of value and beauty are done at home.

If you homeschool or have small children then that takes up a ton of time and energy. If you don't, there is still a ton to do if you are industrious. Here is a list of stuff that I have done from home other than homeschooling:

Baked homemade bread and other baked goods (my husband is sometimes the "envy" of the men he works with because not too many women do such things)

House projects such as painting, sanding, gardening, canning, learning to make healthier foods, organizing, and so forth.

Personal interest things like reading, exercise, visiting with friends, hospitality, serving others with meals or help when in need.

Money making ventures such as starting and running my own businesses, writing (both for fun and profit), selling things on ebay, etc.

Learning things: I have learned so much over the years because of the time at home that I've had to read and study. I have tons more I want to learn, too. Almost all of it can be done either from home or because of my schedule because I am home.

Certainly the making of a home to be cozy, welcoming, warm, and well kept is not easy. It takes skill, thought, and hard work. I have far to go.

I have TONS more that I look forward to doing as a homemaker. Some of my current wishes include:

Writing books, learning to stencil and then using that skill around the home, improving our garden and therefore saving us money and increasing the healthfulness of our food, learning more about natural health and eventually becoming a doctor of naturopathy, then using these skills both to benefit my own family and teach my children but also to help others with their health needs.

I have so many ideas and projects I am looking forward to do, and none of these even mentions all the stuff I do and want to do with and for my children. (I left those out since the question was more about single women)

I am not of the mindset that young women need to always stay at home, but I think many people have no idea of all the useful, interesting things to do from home, so here I am.

Recently I was talking to my younger sister. She is in her late 20s and is single and has a career. She worked hard to get through college and earned two master's degrees. This is her first big career job and she is extremely busy with it and travels half of the month, etc. It is a real, big time career.

I was talking to her about our current very strained financial situation and how my husband and I had discussed the possibility of me needing to get a job, and how we decided to try to put more energy into some of my current home business and other enterprises instead. It was interesting to me that her comment was something like, "If you don't have to get a job, DON'T! It is so hard to have to do what your boss wants you to do and have to play games all the time and jockey for the right positions in the workplace." She went on to tell me many unglamorous aspects of her career and how disheartening it can be.

Interesting.

At home I'm the queen of my castle and have so many opportunities to bless and be blessed. I am sure that if I had to work outside the home there would be different opportunities also. I am not doubting that. I am just thankful that so far I can be at home, and I am trying to be as resourceful and industrious as I can be while I'm here. I love being home and feel rather spoiled to be able to do so. Very few women I know are able to do it. I am blessed.

Busy Day

Life Is A Beach II
I have a very busy day here. Errands, more bread to bake, housework, a party for a friend that has overcome breast cancer!, and small group. Have a great day!

War-Time Morals and Ethics

I'm currently reading A Woman in Berlin, which is a diary written by a woman living in Berlin at the end of World War II when the Russians invaded.

Apparently this book was published right after WW2 but was so scorned for it's contents that it disappeared for about 50 years. Now it's making a resurgence.

The anonymous author was a 30 year old single woman without friends, family, or many connections in Berlin. She describes the way people banded together out of desperation and need. She tells of starvation, nights spent in bomb shelters, and then of the Russians coming, and how every woman knew that her body would be considered spoils of war.

After the first horrible day of violence and rape she realizes that her best chance of survival is to find one higher-ranking Russian officer to attach herself to, hopefully making herself taboo for the others. She uses her wits and rudimentary knowledge of basic Russian to accomplish this, thus providing herself and those she lives with some measure of protection and provision, all bought with her body.

She discusses her feelings about having traded in being raped at random, to being a whore. (her words, not mine) She is not sure which is worse. All of the lines have blurred, and all she knows is that with the latter option, she is safer and better fed than she's been in months while living on war rations.

This issue reminded me of the movie Paradise Road. Glenn Close stars in it, as one of a group of women who end up in a Japanese concentration camp in World War I. As we watch the lives of these women we see them starving, sick, cold, beaten, terrified. They witness one of their own being burned alive by the Japanese soldiers. They are suffering incredibly.

One day there is a list of women that are to report to a truck. The women get on the truck and are taken to a beautiful house away from the concentration camp. They are ushered into a room with a large dining table spread richly with all manner of foods. These women have no idea why they are there or what the food means, but of course they are hoping they get to eat.

So, what's the catch? They are being offered a job! This place they are at is an officer's club. Any women willing to stay there and work as "hostesses" for the men will get plenty of food, water to wash with, toilets, silk sheets on their beds, and will not have to do manual labor. What a deal!

Many of these women were married, mothers, some of them had husbands fighting in the war. What were they to do? Stay in the work camp and hope not to die there, as they were very likely to do? Take the job at the officer's club and live, but at the cost of knowing they had sold themselves?

Both of these dilemmas are interesting to me. So often we might say, "Oh, I would only do what's right no matter what!" Yet when you use some of your imagination to envision yourself in one of these situations, can you be sure of what you would do? Can you even be sure of what is the "right thing" any more?

I remember telling my husband about Paradise Road. I asked him, "If I were one of those women who had that decision to make, which choice would you want me to make?"

I think I won't tell you his answer, nor my feelings of what I would do. I just think it's an interesting concept to think about and discuss.

Outing for little boys

We have a lovely little winding creek across the street from our house. My older children get to go over there a lot, but the little ones can't go without supervision. So today I thrilled them by taking them over there.

The whole thing probably took 20 minutes and was very pleasant since it's not too hot today. The boys loved it so much, and I had to ask myself why I don't take the time to do this for them more often. I couldn't come up with a good reason, so hopefully this will be a regular outing for us.

A favorite

My Sweet Rose

This is one of my favorites. I love the way she has the beads in her hair, her flowing clothes, and how she seems completely in the moment of enjoying the scent of this rose. Wouldn't you love a wall of climbing roses like this one?

Daily Bread
Yesterday I baked homemade bread and then thought of this art that hung in my grandparent's home for as long as I can remember. You can get tons of "blogable" art here.

Pressing Onward

I have had the "funny" realization that last June I was writing about blooming where you're planted despite financial troubles. Here I am again, same song, next verse.

Anybody who tells you that you can live on one income if only you're willing enough is.....only partially correct. We have lived off of one income for most of our nearly 15 years of marriage, and it has always required sacrifice, creativity, and thrift. In the past year or so it has gotten even harder, without us having made any major mistakes. It's so hard that at all times we are just one small step away from not being able to survive on one income. It's ridiculous how small the margin is.

My husband is no slacker. He works hard at two jobs and I do what I can to make the dollars stretch, plus whatever I can do here to rake in a little extra money on ebay or whatever. Lately I've been working very hard writing a book (got my rough draft finished!), working on writing more books, and building my business. Hopefully all of the many, many seeds I have been planting along the way will start to grow an income for us....soon!

In the meantime it can be disheartening to not have the money to do the things we would like to do. By this I do not mean "We cannot go to Disney for vacation." I mean, "We do not have the gas money to take the kids fishing 25 minutes away." When I say we live thrifty I am not kidding.

It is fortunate, I suppose, that it comes fairly easy for me to look around and see what I have rather than what I do not. I have a nice, comfortable home with air conditioning. I have the best backyard of anybody I know of. We have one nice vehicle that gets us from A to B, usually without too much trouble. I live in a lovely, quiet town where things are simple, and I like that.

My husband was feeling low about having to not do so many of the even simple things that he would like to do for me or the kids, but I encouraged him about all the good, fun things we have to do around here that are FREE.

So far this summer we have had FUN getting our free bricks, and my husband just last night completed our lovely new patio. It didn't cost us a penny! We worked together, taught the kids how to do something new, enhanced our yard, and it was great. We even used the sod clumps that we dug up to cover bald spots throughout our yard! We felt very resourceful and proud of ourselves.

We set up our tent in the back yard. The kids have enjoyed having it to play in and to get shade while reading or laying around outside. If you move it to a new spot every couple of days, it won't kill your grass.

We've used our slip-n-slide. All it takes is some medium weight plastic or a tarp. Lay it on your grass, hopefully going downhill. Use some dilluted liquid soap to squirt on the tarp, and keep a sprinkler going to keep the tarp wet. Slip and slide to your heart's content!

We're all enrolled in 2 library's summer reading programs, so we have those reading goals to work toward, plus have the activities to attend. Lots of free fun there.

We have many home improvement projects that we can work on. I think most people do. It can be as simple as needing to reorganize a closet, or it might be something like painting. We've got plenty of both of those plus some. I love to do home improvement projects of any type, and always enjoy the rewards of having things nicer afterwards. Why not put our energy into making our home nicer? Why not use up the paint that is waiting to be used, the flooring that still needs to be put in the unfinished areas, and so forth? Get it done! Most of our projects have already been paid for, and are now waiting for us to get off our rears and complete them!

Enjoy the outdoors! We have a beautiful, big back yard with a big hill. Our kids run up and down the hill, climb trees, ride their bikes and big wheels, play in their tree fort, and tons more. My husband and I like to go walking through the yard and talk about ideas we have for things we could do to enhance it in the future. We also enjoy checking on the progress of our various fruit trees, grape vines, berry bushes, garden, and so forth. Get a little fresh air, take a little walk, see what's going on around you.

Read! We read a lot here and enjoy it so much. I have some audio books for the littler ones to listen to, or sometimes even the older ones enjoy those if they are tired after playing outside.

So often people today get stuck thinking that they have to GO all the time in order to do something worth doing. That is so wrong. I am convinced that the richest moments come from being home as a family, and by being engaged with each other so that when the special moments arise, we are there to experience them together.

The other day I got a lovely picture drawn by my daughter. She had drawn the two of us dressed like princesses. She had written, "Mom, you ROCK! Thank you for playing games with me. When you spend time with me like that it builds a great fellowship!" Somehow I don't think I'd have gotten a note like that if she'd been getting carted to activities in all of her spare hours.

Be there. Be thankful. Life is full of so much good.

The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands

Yesterday, amidst a thousand other things, I made the time to read this book from front to back. I think this book gave me the kick in the butt that I needed this weekend.

Dr. Laura uses common sense and examples from her call-in show and private practice experience to teach women the simple things that need to happen to take care of their husband. Basically: feed 'em, respect them, take good care of their kids, and give 'em good lovin'.

She talks about gratitude and selfishness, and about the destructive messages that feminism has brought to women that cause them to mess up a good thing.

There wasn't a lot in this book that I haven't heard before, but it was a powerful reminder that I needed. I recommend it heartily.

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I Know This Much is True (book review)

A couple weeks ago I picked up this book at the local library's used book sale. The two things that caught my eye about it were the cover art, and the fact that it had an "Oprah's Book Club" sticker on it. I snatched it up thinking I would either read it or resell it or send it off to paperbackswap. As it turned out I read it....and what an awesome book!

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This book is one that grabbed my attention and kept calling me back. The characters felt very real to me. The honesty of the narrator brother was excellent. Definitely worth reading!

Busy, busy, busy!

We had a fun weekend at home. We got inspired to begin working on some projects with our free bricks, so we worked on making a patio that is looking very cool! All the kids helped and my husband worked like the mighty workhorse he is. We chipped away at the ground to make it level, moved dirt around, and placed the bricks in a nice design. We made a lot of good progress on it!

We also started working on a raised garden bed for a square foot garden, and my 7 and 10 year olds made an outdoor grill area out of the bricks as well. We are all feeling very resourceful!

We have decluttered and organized many things in our home as well. We love to weed out the stuff we no longer need!

I have also had a ton of new possibilities coming at me for my business. I recently joined a fabulous egroup called The Mom Pack that has given me so many ideas, opportunities, and new sales leads that my head has been spinning. I have had so many things to work my way through and consider that it has been very exciting but also overwhelming. I am trying to figure things out, plan, set goals, and prioritize. It is harder than I expected, because I keep finding out about more stuff to factor into everything! My great hope is to be able to use my ideas and abilities to create a decent supplemental income for my family this year. I always feel like I have great ideas, but with the needs of my family, I rarely have the time to get my ideas into action. With all six kids being in school come August, I will have a little more time to get moving. I am trying to get my head together and learn all I can between now and then so that when the iron is hot...I can strike! :)

The kids are enjoying their break from school. They have been playing outside, having fun with our homemade slip-n-slide, making things, and so forth. Good times!

Many Hands Make Light Work

We've been wanting bricks for several back yard projects, and recently my husband found a huge amount of bricks that we could have for FREE! The following day we loaded up all the kids plus two of their friends and went to load up these free bricks, bring them back to our house, and unload them. The kids were totally into it--cheering each other on and begging to go back for more loads of bricks. It was really fun. Now we have more than enough bricks to build a patio, an outdoor grill or over of some sort, plus make pathways and garden borders!

I finally caved--All My Kids Have Cell Phones Now

This morning I woke up to a bunch of kids that had created their very own cell phones out of construction paper (the boys have Razor phones and my daughter has a Motorola, LOL), plus they had written two plays that they performed for me while I ate my breakfast. I love the imaginations of my children!

Chore-a-Rama

So the other day moe left this comment:

First, let me say I am impressed. I can't figure out how you manage to do what you do. I don't mean having 6 kids, I have 5. Homeschooling, and keeping your kids organized and doing chores, that is what I dream of. Can I ask how old your daughter is? (the one doing the bathrooms) I would love to hear your whole kids chore plan. I'd use it as evidence for my kids. See other people get their kids to clean bathrooms too!

Well, moe, let me tell ya, I think it probably sounds lot more impressive than it is in real life. Nevertheless, I shall indulge and answer your question about the chores.

We started having our kids do chores in earnest 6 years ago when we moved to this house. My oldest kiddo was 7, the second child was 4. I assigned each of them an area of the house that was their responsibility to clean up every day. They kept the same area for many months which helped them to learn to really do a good job on their area, and kept it simple for me. "Go clean your areas!" is simplest if the areas are known to all.

Eventually we added in the third child with an area, and now we are trying to teach the three youngest ones to do a chore area as well. (the children are now 13, 10, almost 8, 6, almost 5, and 3)

The chore areas for the oldest three kids have been (until recently):

Upstairs floor (which includes kitchen, living room, and hallway, sometimes bathroom): The person that does this area is responsible for picking up all the rubble that accumulates on the floor each day, plus vacuuming or sweeping as needed. My third child had this area during the school year so that I could supervise him and teach him easily since I am usually in the kitchen. Before this year he didn't have very good chore skills and tended to be lazy. This year he has become a very good cleaner and has a great work ethic. This child now begs to mow the grass and weed whip! He has come a long way.

Stairs and downstairs hall: This is a small area and was my daughter's during the school year because she was gone to school and had homework every day. Basically it's just to pick up and put away stuff in your area that doesn't belong there, plus vacuum the area when needed. (which we normally only had her do on Saturdays since she was busy with school during the week)

Family room: The person doing this area is supposed to pick up the items on the floor plus vacuum, but also straighten up their entire room including all surfaces. Our oldest child had this area during the school year since he is old enough to have a little more responsibility.

Now that I have added three more kids to the mix, I have changed up the areas plus added some new ones. Now I have my 10 year old daughter handling 2 bathrooms (one is also the laundry room), and have added someone to do more kitchen work. I am still working out the kinks in my new system so can't really claim any success on it yet.

The way our chores areas have worked best was when we homeschooled the whole crew. Everyone ate breakfast together, and then spent about 15 minutes or so cleaning their areas. (If you do it every day, that's all it takes) After that they spent 15 minutes straightening up their bedrooms, and they got dressed. Then we started school, and the house looked good in case anyone dropped by. It was fairly easy to do this routine.

Now that some of my kids have been in school it's been a little more hit-and-miss. I am actually toying with the idea of getting the kids up a little early for school next year so that everyone can do their 15 minute chore areas before they leave for the day. Realistically, I hate to get up early, so I don't know if we can pull it off. Still, the idea of having the house spiffy before the day starts is quite appealing to me.

Some people would do better with the chores getting done at night before bed. I think it's a lot nicer to wake up in the morning to a clean house. However, evenings have always been the worst for us and it was not workable for us to handle cranky babies and toddlers, plus get everyone doing their chores at bedtime or whatever. So, we wake up to a messy house and conquer it quickly. We just do better that way.

One thing I am considering is increasing the amount of chores my older three kids do. 15 minutes isn't very much, and there is still plenty to do around here. I haven't decided what all to have them do extra, but am planning on teaching them all to do their own laundry, and getting them helping in the kitchen more. For a short time I used to have a night of the week when one of the older kids planned and prepared dinner. That kind of fizzled out but is still a good idea.

So there you go. Does that help, moe?

I. Am. So. Tired!

So today, first day of summer break, has already been successful and productive. And exhausting!

Since this was the first time for on-the-job-training for the new chore areas, that took a lot of time and patience. My daughter is fairly well devastated that she has been reassigned to clean both bathrooms. She feels that since there are 5 messy-in-the-bathroom boys here that one of THEM should have to clean up with own puddles and drips. I can understand her unhappiness, but we all have to learn to do the job, and she's the one getting that opportunity right now. Luckily for her, I did devise a plan to give her some relief: she only has to do the bathroom job while her older brother is here. He has been given one of my usual chore areas: the kitchen. However, he will be gone for a week in June and for most of the month of July. So she will get to do kitchen duty when he is out of town and I will take over bathrooms. Somehow, this plan didn't make her feel any happier this morning.

My 3 year old surprised me today but begging for a reading lesson. He has been watching me work with his 7 year old brother all year long, and now he has decided it's time for him to learn to read as well. I started out with the Leap Frog toy, but he told me NO, he doesn't want to play with the frog! he wants the reading book! :) Out came the 100 Easy Lessons book, and we did the first lesson. Then Doodles came along and also did the first lesson, and then Izzy Man did the same. jake the great followed up with his lesson, which is far, far past lesson one, thankfully! The boys were all really adorable and loved the time to do something like that. I will try to continue with it if they continue to be interested in it. Since each lesson only takes about 5 minutes or so, it's pretty doable.

My daughter got into a decoupage project, and I decided to pull everything out of the pantry, clean it out, and reorganize. It really needed it.

Since I was then on a roll I decided to also clean out the refrigerator, since it was badly needed. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, so this is the perfect day for cleaning the fridge and pantry since we're at our low point for supplies.

Now it's only 3:30 and I'm *tired*! But I'm glad we've had a good day so far.

Miles to go before I sleep.......

So when August comes don't act like I didn't earn it....

My children are officially on Summer Break now. Today was their last day of school. Although I know it is popular to act like this is a horrible turn of events, I will swim against the flow as I love to do and tell you that I am looking forward to this break.

Not only will I no longer have to arise at 6am, but I have great things planned. We will be doing summer reading programs, I will be working on reading and phonics with 2 or 3 of the kids, the two oldest kids are going to camp for a week each, we have a trip planned, and I am going to be teaching the three youngest kids how to do chores. Soon I will have six good workers to delegate household jobs to, which is a very good thing. The younger ones love to be with me and help with almost anything so I know they are ripe for some responsibilities. The trickiest part of making this happen is....me! Teaching them chores means that I will have to stop what I am doing and take the time to go over and over and over the tasks that they need to learn. Sometimes this is really hard, but I know from having 3 other kids that help around the house that it is going to be worth it. My goal is that by the end of the summer all 3 of the little boys will be able to clean their chore areas responsibly. Almost all of the kids are going to learn to do their own laundry this summer as well.

I have some ideas jotted down for setting up an actual schedule for our summer break days, because without one I tend to forget what to get the kids busy with, certain things are never gotten to, and I spend too much time on my own pursuits. With a schedule you can be more sure that you will get to do all of the things that you wanted to do. We will not get to the end of the summer and say, "Oh no! We hardly ever played any games together!" or "We forgot to have campfires and make smores!" Although some people have schedules that become a burden to them, most of the time I have found that a schedule can be a really helpful tool for creating a routine and rhythm for our days. Managers of Their Homes is the best resource I know of for learning the whys and hows of creating a schedule for your life.

We have already been having fun working on our summer reading goals and playing with a Leap Frog item that we were able to borrow from the school for the summer. Although some of those Leap Frog things can really be annoying, this one seems like it will be valuable for my younger guys.

Izzy Man is reading many basic sight words, and is showing a lot of aptitude for sounding out words. I hope to work through Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons this summer. (Jake the Great has almost completed the book)

Our little tiny garden is doing it's thing, and I've already had a nice amount of spinach from it. What I am looking forward to more than anything are the red and orange sweet peppers. I love them more than the green peppers but hate to pay the crazy prices for them at the store. I hope to get things in order this year so that I can have a bigger garden next year.

So those are just a few of the things we've got planned for our summer. Since my kids are out sooner than most, they will also be back to school sooner than most. Just remember that I'll have had my kids home just as long as you, missie! Hopefully we'll both have had a lot of fun with our kids. :)

You know, I was thinking about the surprise party on Tuesday night, and how most of the people from church were able to attend. I was realizing that a lot of people would not have that response. In today's go-go-go world, most people seem to have every night of their week taken up with some sort of place to go and thing to do.

Two of the things about our church that we really value are:

1. That there is a strong emphasis on families not getting into the crazy grind of running all the time. We only have Sunday morning church because we do not want people's entire lives taken up with running....even to church!

2. There is a strong emphasis on relationships. Not just "Good morning, how are you? nice to see you!" church foyer relationships, but actual getting to know people and caring about them.

I realized that our church friends were able to come because their schedules weren't clogged up, and they took the time to add something to their schedule because they care about us.

That rocks!

Throwing a last-minute surprise party

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. He was working at the fire station, just as he had been Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Poor guy! On Monday I was deciding about going to visit him on Tuesday, which would be an obvious OF COURSE if it weren't for the fact that gas is so expensive, we drive a big vehicle, and it's 30 minutes away.

And then I had a brain storm. I could set up a little surprise party for him at work!

After a few minutes of thinking it through, I put my plan into action starting at about 9pm on Monday.

I emailed some friends from church to invite them to stop in for the happenin's. On Tuesday morning I got ingredients to make his favorite pie, plus ordered a cake, and bought drinks, cups, and plates.

During the day I called the firemen on duty to let them know what was going on. I made the pies. And I picked up the cake and balloons. I cleared out the back of our Burb and used a fire truck blanket as a tablecloth back there.

We went to one of the fire stations that he was not at and set up a little tailgate party. The firemen helped us a bit. We wrapped the balloons around the side view mirror. Then people started to arrive and we had one of the firemen call to the other station to ask my husband to come down there for something.

By the time he arrived he had a nice group in the parking lot waiting to surprise him!

Lots of people from church showed up and so we had a really nice turn out. My husband was really surprised and it gave him a much-needed lift. It was really easy to put together so I will not hesitate to try more surprise parties in the future.

You, too, and put together a surprise party in less than 24 hours! :)