New Baby!

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

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

Fun Weekend Happenings

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

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

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

What did you do this weekend?

Adventures With Teenagers

OK, first the back story:

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

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

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

Ha! Aren't teenagers fun?!

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

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

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

What's for Dinner?

Out of the mouth of babes:

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

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

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

No casserole. No chili. Got it.

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

On Tonite's Agenda

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

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

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

Trying to go to bed early (aka HAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

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

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

And then she didn't contact me.

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

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

NOT!!!

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

What a bunch of nonsense.

And So, the Firemen Were Fed and Everyone Was Happy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rainy Day in Fiji

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

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

Watch it!

Need a Laugh? Look No Further....

(or is that Farther??)

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

You Can Find Me In The Kitchen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adventures in Cooking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-I left out the pimientos and peppers.

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

-I was too lazy to chop up an onion

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

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

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

In short, the chicken spaghetti recipe is a keeper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

Because right now there are four chickens in my bathtub.

Why?

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

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

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

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

Ooooh Lookie!

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

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

So who's watching LOST tonite?

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

A Heart Attack a Day Keeps Tranquility Away

I had a major stressful scare today.

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

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

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

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

And assumably left her with her babysitter.

Who now tells me she had not been there.

Because she was at a doctor's appointment.

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

But she didn't.

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

"Her visitor."

"What visitor?"

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

"You mean her babysitter?"

"Yeah, I guess."

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

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

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

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

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

"yeah."

"What color hair did the person have?"

"Maybe kinda like yours."

And eventually I hit on the most important question:

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

"Um....nope."

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

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

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

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

I felt like I was going to faint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And why was it at 11:05?

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

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

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

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

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

The Pioneer Woman Comes to My Rescue!

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

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

What do you think? is it possible?

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

Do You Know About The Pioneer Woman?

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

Working on the Phooey

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

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

Oh Phooey!

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

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

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

A Perfect Unschooling Day

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

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

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

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

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

100th Day

Bad Mommy. Bad Mommy!

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

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

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

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

Weight Loss Can Be So Easy...

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

Yeah, me neither.

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

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

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

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

Already thinking about next year's schooling options

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I bought a bathroom scale.

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

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

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

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

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

Sad news: Heath Ledger has died

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

Snow Day

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

Happy Dance!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old, Tired Dog

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

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

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

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

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

This continued for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar:

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

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

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

Can I come with him tomorrow?"

I could use a little prayer about this

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

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

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

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

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

Go Tell Alana Happy Birthday

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

Funny For You

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


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

Ready to get lost?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slow Down

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

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

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

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

Something to think about

I was talking to a friend the other day and she said something that has really struck a chord with me. She was talking about an opportunity that she had been offered to make some money from home. Most of us would jump at that chance. The thing is, she's a very busy woman and a very smart one too. :) When she got the details of what the work would entail, she found that it was ultimately lacking in value--to anyone. And she asked herself this question:

Do I want to give up any hours of my life to do this?

Wow. That really struck me. The importance of realizing that we are trading a limited commodity (the time we have in Our Life) for anything that we choose to do.

A good question to start asking ourselves as we make decisions about how to spend our time in the year to come. Is it worth giving up hours of your life?

Womb for Rent

I read this interesting article today. What do you think?

For me, cooking is a means to an end. A necessary evil in daily life. I don't look forward to cooking anything. If I could hire a cook I would. The funny thing is...mealtime just keeps coming around and I'm still here with 8 people to feed. (I may not like to cook, but I do enjoy eating, as does the rest of the family.) I have this crazy idea: Maybe I could learn to like to cook. Maybe there is some other approach or perspective that I could grab ahold of that could transform cooking from a chore to an enjoyable pursuit of some sort.

So tonite I started looking on the internet, and decided to check out what Rachael Ray might have for me. She has a nice web site full of fun, good stuff. One jackpot I've just hit on is this page where you can specify what type of meal you want to make, what main ingredient you want to use, and the method of cooking (including your choice of 15, 30, or 60 minute meals). This looks like a great resource for somebody like me that often gets to 4 or 5 pm and is thinking, "Well.....I have chicken.....what could I make???"

This pursuit may die off before the first "inspired" meal makes it to the table. But, something needs to change here, sooner or later. It'll be years and years before I'm to the point where there's nobody to feed, so I can just eat a Larabar for dinner. And, there aren't any $3.99 Senior citizen Early Bird Specials anywhere around here, either.

I will tell you that I have a wonderful recipe for a Tomato Bisque soup that I have on my health and wellness blog. It's pretty easy to make, but my favorite thing about it is that I make it once and have it available to eat all week long. That's one kind of cooking I can get into. :)

2007 End of the Year Meme

This is my fourth year doing an end-of-the-year meme!

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before? Opened my health and wellness business,and self-published my first two books.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I kept my resolutions. I lost and kept off approximately 20 pounds. I met and surpassed my business goals. Definitely have more goals for next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes! A dear friend just had her 5th child, and first son, on December 15, all the way on the other side of the world! And, my niece had a baby girl, making me a Great Aunt.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit? None.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? There are lots of things I would like to have in 2008, but not because of a feeling of lack. I'm pretty satisfied with most things from this year.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I don't know the exact date, but reconciling with my best friend after more than a year of estrangement was definitely a highlight.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Relational reconciliation, authoring the books, and going back to homeschooling some of my kids.

9. What was your biggest failure? Can't think of any. It's been a good year for the most part.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not that I remember.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I didn't really "buy" this, but have received it because of some decisions I have made: Financial peace for my business, because of how I run it debt-free. It is giving me a wonderful new experience with money, which in turn is giving me a new motivation and vision for our regular finances.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and disgusted?

14. Where did most of your money go? The usual places--bills. But some got to go into expanding my businesses, and a couple fun things too.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? My books and my businesses.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? Better Together by Jack Johnson

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier!
b) thinner or fatter? thinner!
c) richer or poorer? richer! (slightly)

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

20. How will you be spending New Year's Eve? Probably sleeping.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?

22. How many one-night stands? What a stupid question.

23. What was your favorite TV program? Brothers and Sisters, Kid Nation, Survivor, Big Love.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? I don't do hate.

25. What was the best book you read?

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Jack Johnson

27. What did you want and get? a Bodhran

28. What did you want and not get?

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 36 this year and don't remember much about it.

31.What one thing would have made your year measurably more satisfying? Having a live-in cook and housekeeper. :)

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? The smallest wardrobe known to North America.

33. What kept you sane? Running my businesses, and achieving some goals. Also, keeping things simple.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I don't "fancy" too many celebs. Reece Witherspoon is still a favorite, though.

35. What political issue stirred you the most? I'm not stirred by much, politically.

36. Who did you miss? I've missed being able to call my grandfather. He died a few years ago and I still think of things that I would like to tell him. I also always miss my mom and siblings. Don't get to see them often enough.

37. Who was the best new person you met? Probably Kim and Claudia.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. Take chances.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Energy!

Yesterday I had energy like I haven't had in probably more than a year. I changed an entire room from an abandoned bedroom into a playroom, I caught up on laundry, tackled mountains of clutter, did a somewhat heavy chore, vacuumed, moved things, reorganized, and purged for probably 12 hours yesterday. (seriously!) I was On. Fire. It was awesome. I'm feeling pretty good this morning, so am hoping that my energy whirlwind will keep going.

The only thing I can think of that might have caused my energy to increase so much is some new vitamins and supplements that I started taking the day before. They are items that I am considering selling at my health and wellness site, but I like to try things out first and see if I think they are worthwhile. I think we have some winners here! (**You can now buy them here and here)

Despite healthy eating (even to the extreme), working out (when I was), various vitamins, etc. I really haven't felt good for a long time. I always feel tired (nap time!) and about one step away from getting sick. Some things that would supposedly help me feel better (eating more protein and less fruits and grains, exercise, taking a vitamin that other people raved about) actually made me feel worse--and not just for a day. I mean that even after weeks or months of consistently trying to give it a chance. So, this is very fun to have felt so good yesterday.

We will be celebrating Christmas tomorrow since my husband has to work on the 25th. Of course the children are very excited, and I guess the parents are too. :)

When I was growing up we knew a family whose mom had an unusual way of handling Christmas gifts. I don't know if her husband really stunk at choosing gifts, or if he didn't get any at all. Either way, she ended up buying herself the stuff she really wanted, and would then nicely wrap the stuff and sign the gift tag, "To Marsha, with all my love, Jack." I guess it became a family funny--I don't think her husband had a problem with it.

Although I haven't gotten desperate enough to have to do that, I did order some books for myself for the kids to give me. (they didn't know what books, nor how to order. I saw them on sale and asked my husband if he wanted to get them and he said, "Yes! Order your Christmas gifts!")

One thing I did this year was I bought myself a gift. I guess I could have heavily influenced my husband to get it for me, but I knew what I wanted, and in the spirit of trying to be kinder and love myself more, I decided to give myself this gift, with love. It's been wrapped and hidden away for weeks now, and I am really looking forward to opening that tomorrow.

I almost freaked out and sent it back twice, because it's not a necessity, and because I wondered if I had spent too much money on myself. (which was ridiculous because it wasn't really that much, AND I used money from my business account to get it) The thing that caused me to keep it was realizing that if my husband had shown an interest in this item, I totally would have bought it for him. So, if it would be ok to buy it for someone else, why would it not be ok to buy it for myself? Surely I'm as deserving of a special gift as anyone else.

So, there is my Love Yourself holiday story for you. :) I hope you all have a great Christmas.

I found out about this funny homeschool family video today. Very clever. What a hoot. Be sure your speakers are on.

Jack Johnson: Better Together

Another recent discovery that I loooove!

Random

Maybe I should just change the name of this blog to 'Random' because it seems that's all I do here these days.

First up--Creed. I've heard about them for years but never listened to their music. Discovered their song Lullaby and really love it. This video isn't worth watching, but at least you can get a feel for the song. Just. Beautiful.


Other than that, things are marching along here. Homeschooling has it's daily ups and downs. Fortunately, it seems that we mostly have ups, or at least even days, so that's something to be thankful for. Now I'm thinking about "what-ifs" for next year and my other kiddos...

While some of the country was buried under snow and ice, we enjoyed a gorgeous 78 degree day here this week. What fun!

I've been thinking, again, about our ideas of how God is involved in our lives. Here's something I don't understand. Let's say that something terrible happens to someone. As they walk through this difficult thing, they may say something like, "But I'm so thankful to God for helping us because if this had happened (earlier/later/last year/next week) it would have been so much worse." Now, explain this to me. We're supposed to believe that God got involved to the point where the event was scheduled in a somewhat helpful way (as if tragedies ever are....), but didn't get involved to the point where the tragedy was avoided? I guess God can do whatever He wants to. But, honestly--when crappy stuff happens, why would we think that God got involved only to an extent, but otherwise chose to leave us with a bad situation?

It's stuff like that that boggles my mind.

My own experience with bad things happening caused me to feel almost like I had to attribute any ray of sunshine, anything helpful or encouraging at all, to God. I think it was partially out of shock (and therefore habit), and partially out of desperation to not feel alone, and perhaps even superstition that a bad time is not the time to start questioning God (might get zapped!!). I understand that we grab ahold of whatever brings us comfort, and that's worth something. It just doesn't seem really honest, though. (for me) I'm still searching for answers--I'd honestly like to get to the point where I can feel an honest satisfaction about my beliefs. Otherwise I just feel so inauthentic.

Christmas plans are coming along. We made the tough call to not travel to my mom's this year. It's a 12-hour trip that would have to be sandwiched in between almost no time off for my husband. He's been working 3-6 24-hour shifts weekly since May of this year, and the poor guy is just wiped out. Between his own need for a restful break, and finances, staying home was the more reasonable choice for us. But the closer we get to Christmas the more sorry I am that we won't be seeing everyone. :( (boo hoo!)

I spent last evening wrapping gifts after the children went to bed. It is starting to look like we will have quite a large avalanche of gifts here. I guess with 8 people in our family that's kind of inevitable. The children are getting very excited, of course. Less than a week left of school days, too!

We still need to go to The Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park. This magnificent drive-through Christmas light display has become one of our favorite family activities for December. After we drive through and see all the lights, we get to walk through the petting zoo, the model train exhibit, and see lots of other neat things there. Very fun!

We will also be going out to purchase ornaments for this year. Before we were even married, my husband and I decided that rather than just purchasing boxes of ornaments, we would just accumulate ornaments that had special meaning to us. So, on our first Christmas we got "Our First Christmas Together" type ornaments, plus "baby on the way" ones too. :) Since then, each year we get each child a special ornament that they like. We all look forward to this, and it makes decorating our tree really special. The kids love being reminded of what they picked in years past, and we remember trips we've taken (we buy ornaments or souvenirs that can be made into ornaments when we go places) and so on. it's really fun. Our tree is really getting full now, with so many kiddos. I can remember when we only had about 6 items on our tiny little 18" seedling tree. :)

The parties have begun. Two of my kiddos will be attending a party tonite, we have 3 different places for family members to be tomorrow night, and there is an open house for my husband and I to attend on Sunday. Monday night is my oldest son's band concert. Tuesday is school parties. :) I'm not ready!!

Good news--Big Love Season 2 is now out on DVD! I was delighted to get the first disc here on the day the series was released, and it was very fun to get to see what was happening since the big cliff-hanger from the end of Season 1.

Now I'm off to do grocery shopping and get ready for my busy evening. I think hot cocoa may be in our future as well....

Help this little girl get a liver

It's not every day that we have an opportunity to save a life, but today is one of those days. Jessica is a little girl in need of a liver transplant. An online friend of mine is spearheading a benefit sale to help this family with their medical expenses. Lots of great gifts for you if you participate, and of course a wonderful thing to help with. Check it out here.

Random Update

So my blog has become sorely neglected. What can I say? My blog is mainly a tool for me. It's not a job or a responsibility. So, although it's nice that a few of you stop by every now and then to see if I'm written anything new, life tends to crowd out blogging these days.

Updates:

Back in August I wrote about my feelings about a lost friendship. Within about a week of writing that post I got a letter from that lost friend. It wasn't a good letter, but it prompted a painfully honest and raw reply. Communication happened. Apologies were made. Miraculously, a restoration has taken place.

For several months now I've thought about posting something to let you know about this, since so many of you emailed me privately to tell me how sorry you were to hear about that loss. I've tried to form some deep, meaningful, profound post in my mind, and even sat down to write it a few times. It has never really flowed out of me in a way that seemed fitting for the depth of the experience. So, tonite you get this understated announcement to let you know that miraculous redemption is possible. (saying it that way seems almost ridiculous, except that I really did not think this could or would happen) It's a good thing.

A month ago I told you that I'd started taking cello lessons. Well, it was a short experiment. I decided not to continue. Driving 60 miles round trip for the lessons and worrying about a $1300+ instrument in a house full of kids turned out to be the straws that broke this camel's back. However, what I learned was that I still do love the cello, and that I will still be looking forward to finding the time in life when I can more comfortably and realistically pursue that.

I finally had my quiet retreat! I started planning it back in September, and it finally happened. I had 5 days of solitude here at home while my family went on a trip without me. I had really been looking forward to it. But, what I felt about it was different than I expected. I wouldn't call it a great experience. I wouldn't call it a bad experience. It was something that I felt (and still feel) mostly ambivalent about. I did enjoy the quiet (although not as much as I thought I would), and I did enjoy getting to do whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to. However, I missed my kids more than I expected that I would. And I didn't want to do anything productive at all, so I didn't.

I think it was good for me to take the opportunity that I had to do this, both to satisfy my interest in what that would be like, as well as to let the rest of the family see that they can survive without me for a few days. :) But, I don't know that it was an experience I'll be craving to repeat for awhile. Just...kind of a quiet shoulder-shrug kind of a response to the whole thing. Which is surprising to me. :)

That's about the size of it. :)

Swap your DVDs

If you've read here very long you know that I just looooove Paperback Swap. We've also enjoyed using SwapACD. Now they have Swap-a-DVD too! How fun!

Freedom Writers--Movie Review

Tonite I had the pleasure of watching the movie Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank. I always love inspirational stories about educators that inspire kids that would have otherwise gone in a bad direction. This true story is one of those, and I loved it. Highly recommended, though not for young children.

So I FINALLY got the satisfaction of seeing SOMEONE on The Bachelor be realistic! Bachelor Brad ultimately decided to choose neither woman at the final rose ceremony. Thank you, Brad, for having the integrity to not make false promises.

But the audience of women at the After the Final Rose show.....what a mess! Here's a perfect example of what's wrong with women today. They don't get it that it's BETTER for a woman to be alone than to be with a man that isn't wholeheartedly wanting to be with her. What is UP with that?!

Gardener Follow-up

Two months ago I told you about The Gardener in my community and how I wanted to somehow say thank you for the way his garden has filled my all-around-town drives with beauty. Well, yesterday was the magical day! During preschool pickup I saw both of the guys out working on their yard (putting up tall, skinny artificial Christmas trees in white, pink, and purple! what a hoot!) so I decided to take the opportunity. I raced home and put together a bag of sample sized Larabars, wrote them a note, and bravely drove back over there. I was feeling pretty nervous about it because the one guy does look very intimidating, but I felt strongly that their garden was also a true reflection of the people they are, so who wouldn't want to meet people like that?

They were still out in their yard when I came walking down the street. I introduced myself and told them how I had admired and been blessed by their beautiful yard all year long, and I gave them the gift. They seemed very surprised and appreciative that I stopped by. I got to learn some about their plants (many are transplants from the intimidating-looking man's grandmother's house, which is also right in town--she no longer lives there, but the plants have deeper significance for him than just garden store purchases), how they find time to do such extensive gardening (intimidating-man is currently out of work on disability, the other man is a student and takes classes on the internet, so they are both home a lot), about their careers (intimidator used to be a school teacher! The other guy is getting a social work degree), and their five dogs. (I had since realized there was more than one dog, but did not notice so many!)

Overall, they were very warm and friendly, very kind and appreciative. The intimidating looking man was very well spoken and gentle in his speech, and I felt so glad that I had been brave and followed my heart on doing something so simple as letting a stranger know that they have made a difference in my life. They invited me to stop by anytime. :) It's definitely on my list.

Guitar Hero

Just in case you're wondering what I've been doing tonite--I'm playing Guitar Hero with my kids. They have given me the "Very Cool Mom" award for learning to play. It's quite fun once you get the hang of it! :0

What are you doing this evening?

Catching up

I've been busy lately....my new books sold well on the official opening day last week, so that was exciting! Unfortunately I discovered that my web site is not working as it should be, so the process was not as reliable or simple as I expected it to be. Of course we always find these things out on the day when we have more sales than ever before! ugh. Nevertheless, it will get straightened out eventually.

We had good news this week. My grandmother had been given a preliminary diagnosis of breast cancer, but the biopsy results came back negative. Needless to say, the entire family is very relieved about that.

In the past I mentioned my desire to play cello again (I played for 2 years as a child). Well, the opportunity presented itself recently, so I have decided to give it a try. I got "my" cello this week and have had fun practicing and getting reacquainted with such a wonderful instrument. I'm not entirely confident that this is going to be the best opportunity for me, though. The timing for the classes is not turning out to be very good, I am not feeling very sure that the teacher is going to work out well for me, and I am having some pain in my hands that I have struggled with for probably 10 years. Glucosamine sulfate has helped the pain in the past, so I will try it again. Right now when I use the bow my hand starts to hurt and cramp up. It may be related to the way I'm holding the bow (possibly not doing it right) but it's a familiar pain that I also get if I have to grip small objects and so on. I have paid for the month of November so plan to at least stick with it for these weeks and see how things progress and how I feel about the entire situation by the end of the month.

My next musical adventure that I am looking forward to is playing the bodhran. I first learned about the bodhran by reading about it in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and then got to watch and listen to a bodhran in a video that we have, and then live at the Glasgow Highland Games in June. I have fallen in love with this drum! Here's a sample of bodhran playing:


If this 10 year old can do it, surely I could learn. Right??

Today at church I had the funny experience of finding out that
1. a friend there had also just gotten a cello this week (I had no idea he was interested in cello)
and
2. another friend there has taken bodhran lessons while in Ireland for a semester in college. How fun!

Bodhrans aren't expensive and I've been told by my friend at church that it's not difficult to learn the basic techinque. I am thinking about buying one this week and giving it a try. I have been dreaming of this for months and it seems like a fun thing to work on during the winter months. My businesses have actually been profitable for the last couple months so we've not only reaped some financial rewards for our family, but I have some wiggle room to enjoy these little musical bonuses as well. What a nice feeling! And a good experience for me, because I often have difficulty spending money on non-essentials.

I read this interesting article about a couple that is married but chooses not to live together. I haven't heard of many people that do this, but honestly--I kind of like the idea. What appeals to me about it is the ability to maintain a little more mystery in a relationship. Sharing the bathroom and hearing somebody fart just doesn't translate into romance...you know? I have imagined that once the kids are grown it might be kind of fun to have my own apartment someplace else. The idea of having my husband pick me up for a date, come over for dinner, or get a sexy invite to spend the night sound like very appealing novelties to me. Of course, the fun might wear off after a few months, but the idea of an experiment like that interests me. What do you think? Can you imagine a scenario where you might enjoy being married but not living under the same roof?

Two Books Down!

I found my groove and got two of the books done!! Yay!

Now I have to peel myself off the computer chair and go take a shower....

Gathering Wool....

In her book Bird by Bird, writer Anne Lamott talks about her practice of forcing herself to do some writing each day, even if she doesn't feel like it, and how a lot of the time she gets started by "gathering wool" This, of course, is a cute way of explaining the random stuff we do when we are supposed to sit down and do something, but instead go off on tangents, trying to avoid the task at hand.

And that's what I'm doing right now.

A couple weeks ago I enjoyed the thrill of having completed my first ebook...for about a half hour. And then I discovered that the file was too large to upload anywhere. So I spent hours resizing all the graphics and photos and tried again. No dice. So then I decided to break the one large book down to several smaller books, which in theory would work out well. In reality, though, I'm struggling with it.

I didn't want to just chop up the book into smaller sections as sell them that way. They need nice covers. And introductions. And if I'm going to break them into smaller books, I have to decide which sections get which essays that I had sprinkled throughout the big book. And, some of the smaller books made me think that I could actually add one or two or three or more additional items to them, because, you know, who wants to sell a dinky ebook that's only 10 pages? Some of the books would require quite a bit of rewriting because of the way I would market it.

So I'm sitting here with so much hard work done, but needing to press through to finish. I have some good marketing opportunities open to me if I can finish any of these before the end of the month. Ideally, I would finish them by then. My second choice deadline would be to finish before I have my quiet retreat in a few weeks, because I don't want to spend my retreat feeling like I should get stuff done that's on my To Do list. The third choice deadline is that this simply HAS to be finished by the end of the year. I'm sick of having this hanging over my head, and have a lot more projects I want to get to. These have to get done.

And I'm sitting here at the computer in my pajamas, with a child watching a stupid Thumbelina video a few feet away.

As I'm said before, I just don't do well at tasks that I don't feel inspired about. Sometimes if I just get started on something, the inspiration comes and I get on a pretty good roll. I'm hoping for that today. So far, though, I'm just gathering wool....

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

I had never heard of IBC until today when my mom sent me this link. Later today, we found out that my grandmother very likely has it. Tests will be in next week.

Until then, please take a few minutes to watch and learn. Afterwards you can learn more at this site.

Marching Band Excitement

I had a busy weekend attending my son's state semi-finals and finals for marching band. It was a gorgeous day--not a cloud in the sky, perfect temperature...flawless! Our band got their highest score ever during semi-finals, and then beat that score in finals. Very exciting. They came in 3rd in their division and 6th in the entire state. A good day. Glad I could go. But today, it's nice that there's no band practice after school. :)

Benefit Sale

A gal on one of my egroups is a farm owner, and their family and farm has really suffered this year because of the drought. They have put together a humongous benefit sale to help save their farm. They have tons of cooking resources, some amazing looking real estate/repo information for people that are interested in good properties to flip, and lots more. You can check it out here.

Media Roundup

I keep thinking of various books, movies, or TV shows I've wanted to comment on, so today you get the hodge-podge.

In homeschool today we finished reading The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, which is my favorite book so far this year. It is the story of a 12-year old Matt who is left in his new cabin in the wilderness of Maine while his father goes to bring the rest of the family to their new settlement. Matt has to overcome many obstacles while surviving alone, and becomes friends with some local Indians. Much time passes, and Matt's family is long overdue to arrive. Winter is setting in, and we have no idea what has happened to Matt's family, and what his fate will be. There is a lot of neat information woven into the book about how survival can happen without guns or metal tools, and there are a lot of things to talk about with your children all along the way. The ending of this book was just what I love about so many of the books in the Sonlight curriculum. I was all choked up crying toward the end--it was really a moving, emotional end to the story. I highly recommend it.

Anybody else here been reading the Twlight series by Stephenie Meyer? I finally got ahold of Eclipse (the third book in the series, and last one available while we wait for the next two) and gobbled it up within a few days. If you haven't read it yet and don't want a spoiler, skip the rest of this paragraph. I finished the book with the opinion that I think the story is good, but I don't think Meyer is a very good writer. She fails to give the reader the visual cues that would help the story come alive in the imagination, and she fails to make her main premise of the story (that Bella and Edward can't live without each other) believable. However, the story has several interesting twists, turns, and layers that I enjoyed. (I love a book that can surprise me...usually) I finished the book in tears, bitterly disappointed that Bella would not leave Edward and go be with Jacob instead. Vampire life is boring and pointless, and I no longer believe that Edward and Bella need each other as much as we're supposed to believe. Jacob has so much more to offer Bella, and it's only because she's young and stupid that she has chosen Edward. Sucker. I'm hoping this travesty might be corrected in a future book, but I'm not counting on it.

If you've already read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and need a little something to take that idealistic edge off of your thoughts, go read The $64 Tomato. What a funny, witty book! I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm loving it.

I missed commenting on the new season of TV shows. Although we don't have TV service here, I do manage to watch some (many) shows online thanks to ABC and the like. I need fewer Netflix, since I can watch many of my favorite shows at my whim from the computer.

Although I was thoroughly annoyed by Andy and the last shmucky season of The Bachelor, it's like a car wreck--I just can't take my eyes off of it. This season's bachelor is less annoying than Andy, but I still find myself puzzled about the mindset of these young women. I had no idea that so many beautiful, educated, employed young women were so desperate as to go on national TV with the hopes of falling in love and getting married. These girls are so into the "Pick Me!!" mentality that it seems they haven't even considered that they might not be interested in picking this guy. What. On. Earth?! Do they really think that they are going to learn anything important about this guy under the nonsense circumstances they are living in? Don't these gals know that there is more to marriage than "I just want someone to love me"? I don't understand this. Absolutely ridiculous. And, honestly, girls....WHY ON EARTH would you want to be with a guy that doesn't know for sure that he wants to be with YOU? I would NOT want to end up with a guy that had to go off and cry and get special counsel from his best friend in order to decide between me and some other girls. If you don't know you want me, you don't want me enough, bub. (Insert everything else I said about how aggravating I found The Bachelor last season) My suspicion is that Brad and Jenny have the best connection, and it would be nice to see a clear front runner emerge solidly and have him just send all the others home. Playing that show out to the end is just....gross. (but I'll be watching every week)

The new show Pushing Daisies is very interesting and worth a look-see if you like quirky and fresh shows. It's got an interesting premise, is visually fun, and I like the actors. I think it has potential.

Private Practice is the new spin-off show from Grey's Anatomy. Addison Sheppard has a new life in LA, and aren't we all so glad that she's not moaning about McDreamy anymore and getting a real life? I hadn't planned to watch this show, but gave it a shot and like it. The medical practice that she works in is very interesting, since they take a more holistic approach to the patients. The combination of high-tech medical, mind-body connection, midwifery, surgery, psychology, etc. makes for an interesting and entertaining show. It's much more interesting than the usual medical/hospital drama. And the characters are evolving in an interesting way as well. Check it out!

Brothers and Sisters is one of my favorites. The combination of a big, close-knit family, the political issues (on all sides of the spectrum), current events, and various issues is interesting. And with the exception of one actress (the one that plays Rebecca--ugh. Unless, of course, Rebecca is meant to be so annoying, in which case she's a brilliant actress!) they are excellent and convincing. Many more adult issues in this show, so some of you may not appreciate it as much as I do.

That's all I've got time for today. What have you been reading/watching?

Maybe a change is needed....

Every night I try to get my younger kids to bed around 7pm, and my older ones around 8. (not counting the 15 year old, of course) what usually happens is that they goof around for awhile before I finally get them tucked in, prayed for, with drinks of water given out. And then they goof off some more and basically ruin my entire evening's plans of watching a movie, folding laundry, or getting any work done. Most nights I go to bed at 10, frustrated that I wasn't able to get more things done.

Although bedtime is running a little more smoothly now that it's getting darker earlier, I'm wondering if maybe I should just shut the whole house down around 8pm and go to bed then myself. I could get 8 hours of sleep and manage to get up at 4am, and then get up and do all the things I would like to get done while kids are asleep.

Years ago I read about "super early risers" who did this sort of thing as a normal course of events. One interesting thing I read was that for every hour of sleep you get before midnight is twice as restful as every hour past midnight. I have no idea if that's true, but it sure sounds cool, eh?

Quick -n- Cute

Said by my four year old the other day:

Mom, my nose is leaking!

Hurdles

And just as soon as I declared my book written, I was back to the drawing board. :)

First my file size was too large to send or upload. So I spent several hours resizing photos and reducing the resolution. All to end up with a file size that was still too large.

And then I decided to try another idea I have been considering for awhile, which is to make several smaller books in a series, rather than one large book.

So tonite I've taken notes and worked on moving some things around. It's not too hard, since the book definitely does lend itself to some obvious divisions that will work well for several smaller books. But, this process also reveals some gaps and needs that I will have to work on.

I'm not discouraged about it. Actually, once I was able to see the book process a little differently, it felt pretty easy to finish it, and I don't feel intimidated by the process any more. So, a hurdle has been jumped, and it feels great.

It's 1am. I've been waiting up for my oldest to get home from a school dance. I guess I have a bunch more years of that to look forward to, eh?

Big News!

I just.

Finished.

My book!!!!!!

Free Halloween eBook

You can get a really cute and fun Halloween eBook that features lots of fun recipes, games, and activities here. You can feel free to spread the word.

Free Netflix

Hey!
If any of you are interested in getting a free one month trial of Netflix, let me know. (send a comment with your email address. I won't publish it, so nobody else will see it.) I've got 3 coupon codes to share that expire at the end of this month.

One nice thing is that netflix now has instant viewing available for some movies, which means you can click and watch right on your computer. It's not their entire collection that's available, but we have found some educational stuff on the spur of the moment when we wanted to learn more about Christopher Columbus, mammals, etc. You get as many hours of instant viewing each month as dollars you spend. (so, $19 per month=19 hours instant viewing, in addition to your regular movies coming to your home).

By George, I think we've got it!

So my preschooler continued to be unhappy about going to school. His reasoning was that he was too tired at school. I believe him about that, because he almost always falls asleep when he gets home from school, and on non-school days he typically takes a long nap.

I talked to his teacher about it and she gave me a great idea--switch to the morning class!

We've had 1 or 2 kids in this preschool class for the last 4-5 years, and the morning class has always been filled to capacity, so I hadn't even considered that as a possibility. Wow!

So today was our first day of morning preschool. He had to get up dark-and-early, which wasn't too great since we had a church party last night that made all the kids late to bed. He complained a bit, but was out the door quickly. We started school very early and are already done at 10:30! Yay! Seems like a perfect solution from my point of view. In a few minutes I'll go pick him up and see if it worked out as well for him as it did for me. I hope so, because this schedule will be wonderful for the rest of us.