Year-In-Review

Look what I found on SmallWorld's blog!

As the year winds down, it's always fun to go back and scan the year in blog posts. Today I'll be playing the "First Sentence" meme. Tomorrow, I'll be doing the "Favorite Posts" post. Join me if you want! Here's how…

How to Play.
1) Look back to your archives for 2008.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year. (This doesn't have to be the literal first day of the month--just the first post.)
3) Entertain us on your blog, link back here, and post a comment here with the link to your blog. (And if you're blogless, just remember the first sentence you spoke every month for the whole year and post it here.)

I'm not quite sure what she means by "post it here." Maybe that means Smallworld's blog. Maybe it means something else. But, you can go to her blog and read it and see what you think. You know what a rebel I am when it comes to following the rules.

At any rate, here are my sentences....

January
Today is the first day back to school after a three week Christmas vacation.

February
null

March
The snow is blowing.

April
Yes, it's been eons since I've posted.

May
You all know I'm the queen of good intentions.

June
null

July
null

August
I'm never a huge fan of mornings.

September
Now, those of you who know me know that Routines and I don't always get along.

October
1. October is a perfect fall month.

November
The first of what I'm sure will be many pieces of humble pie has just been served up to me, courtesy of NaNo.

December
I'm sitting in the rocking recliner in my in-laws living room.

On the First Day of Christmas

....my true love gave to me.

If I were really clever, I'd try to follow up on that. Clever, or perhaps annoying, take your pick.

Here goes...

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....(and already this has become misrepresntational, since I'm making a list up about my family's Christmas and not about the gifts I personally received. Hey, this is my blog, and Sweetling isn't even here to try to keep me on task, so nyah and all.)

....a large tub of Heggy's hot fudge.

....two fuzzy webkinz, (two that I personally received, the kids got five more. Not five more each. Just five more in general.)

...three (and a half) hours at COSI (ok, maybe four, but I've already got something in the four slot, see?)

...four brand new Wii games (Mario Galaxy, Paper Mario, Wii Music, and Mario Smash Bros)

....five days in Canton (Tuesday the 23rd through Saturday the 27th)

....six Christmas dances (in our annual Christmas Reflections program. I'm not cool enough to know how to put any of them on YouTube, so don't ask.)

...seven long-time friends (whom we visited in Canton. Counting their children would make it 19, but that doesn't fit in the song now, does it?)

...eight loads of laundry (the last load is in the dryer now. How is it we can generate more laundry when we are gone for a week than when we are home for a week? That makes no earthly sense. Even Einstein himself would be baffled by this one. Oh, and I think the spin cycle on my washer is dying. It certainly isn't draining.)

...nine sets of jammies. (Sadly, none of them are for me. And two of them we still have to find. I spent hours, literally hours, getting run around at Walmart cause they *had* Mario jammies in a size for Toa of Boy, but not for Sweetling. The store that I was at called another store, who said they had them in the Sweetling's size and would hold them for me at the fitting rooms. I drove to that store, and guess what? No jammies in the fitting room. No jammies in her size on the rack. No jammies at the customer service desk, no jammies in the back. No jammies at the walmart down the street, so the call wasn't made to the wrong store. No jammies, no jammies, no jammies anywhere. In the meantime, we lost Toa of Boy's "Tigger" cat webkinz. I called all the Walmarts when we got home, but they couldn't find Tigger either.)

...ten bags for co-op. (We're beginning our research paper. I want them to do the actual research over Christmas break. Yes, I am that evil, thank you. But, I had a twinge of guilt, so I thought, I'll make them research goodie bags. And yes, I'm also that much of a dork. I put a candy cane pen, a happy holiday's pencil, a baggie of M&M cookies, a pouch of hot chocolate mix, and 50 colored index cards--ten in each of five colors--in each bag. They were happy with the bags, and surprisingly excited about doing a research paper.)

...eleven and 12 more cupcakes. (Yeah, I had nothing for this number. I did bake 23 cupcakes for the "Happy Birthday Jesus" party the pre-school and kindergarteners had a church. This is really only significant because Toa of Boy was doing a count down to this party all during December. He wasn't counting down to Christmas; he was counting down to this party.)

...twelve dozen and more cookies. (Really, I lost track of how many dozens upon dozens upon dozens upon dozens of cookies I made. More this year than any other year for sure. I put the cookies in this slot cause it was the biggest number in the song. Just so you know, I baked a lot of cookies.)

AND,

....many, many paid vacation days for the Jedi. He has been off every Friday since the Friday before Thanksgiving, plus from December 19th through Jan 4th. Hooray!

Honest Scrap Award

"Scrap means left over, fragments, discarded material. Many times truth and honesty are discarded material, considered fragments and left over. People like us need to tell it like it is, and let the scraps fall where they will. There are 2 guidelines for receiving this award. One, you are to list 10 honest things about yourself. Make them interesting, even if you have to dig deep. Two, present the award to 7 other bloggers."

1. I actually posted the guidelines. That's unusual for me since I don't ususally follow the guidelines. In fact, sometimes in Bible study the leader will ask me, what did you write for question such and such? And I will answer, "well, I didn't really answer that question as it was asked per-say, but let me tell you about the question I came up with that I did write a response to." But now you know what the poor Sweetling is trying to work from.

2. I think if I've already confessed that I often buy my underwear in the little girl's department and that I would want a belly button ring if my stomach didn't resemble elephant hide, I don't have a lot of other unconfessed loose ends to hang out here.

3. When I think I've done something really, really well, no one seems to notice it. When I've done something that I think is mediocre and fell well short of my ideals, everyone raves about it. (Sweetling says, "Is it because she's crazy?....Maybe!")

4. Every year at Christmas we take turns letting each family member decide on the theme of the Christmas tree decorations. Last year, we had a Webkinz Christmas tree curtesy of Toa of Boy. This year we had a "unique" tree courtesy of Sweetling (everything that went on it had to be a one of a kind item. The exception made was for the barrel of monkeys. Several red plastic monkeys hung in chains from the light strings.) What I'm not sure if i've confessed before was that this tradition started because when I was growing up, the tree in our home always had to be done JUST SO. The lights, the garland, the ornaments, all had to be put on in just a certain way. It was the same stuff every year. And no one in the family was able to give any input or voice into the process except Dad. He had picked out and dictated every last trimming. One year, I begged and begged and begged for popcorn strands. Mama somehow convinced Dad to let me add that one item for just that one year. And so I threaded popcorn till my fingers were numb. It was such an empowering feeling to have made a contribution to how the Christmas tree was decorated. I'll never forget that feeling. So, that's why in my family every year, a different person in the family is the absolute complete author of the Christmas tree.

Sweetling is watching Toa play MarioKart. I don't know what number I'm supposed to be on. You know what that means? It means I get to make something up. (Sweetling glanced over and said, "Just look at the last one.") Silly Sweetling. That involves scrolling up. (she says, "And scrolling up is bad, how?")

Mu hahahahahahaha. There's no stopping me now. What? What? There is no proper spelling of "Mwah hahahahahah." I can spell it any way I want. So there, Sweetling.

We had to pause for kisses.

And Sweetling dear, it happens everytime I try to number a list, whether or not your watching. maybe it has something to do with brain hemispheres. My language side of my brain isn't speaking to the math side of my brain. I think it's because the math side of the brain is such a stickler about how cookies are shared.

5. I think I'm on fivish now. I've stopped playing on webkinz when they took away my ability to name my new rooms whatever i want. There's a difference between "My Kitchen" and "The Smoothie Shop." My Kitchen is allowed. The smoothie shop is not. I don't want to design a smoothie shop and then not be able to name it. Also, my strawberry patch keeps dying because I'm not online every day to rake the weeds under. That's just way to much like my real life gardening efforts.

6. I won't scroll up to check out what number I'm supposed to be on. I will, however, flip up to add a pronoun I realized I missed. (Sweetling says, "I'm right; you're nuts.")

7. I don't have a research topic picked out. My co-op class likes it when i do the writing assigments with them. They are so excited about doing their research papers. Honestly they are. I'm flabbergasted. But I have nothing for my topic. I wanted to do chipmunks, but its going to be way to much work to try to track down five decent sources. What else do I want to read about? I want to do something I'm interested in, but haven't done a lot of reading about. (Which rules out backyard habitats, which was my second choice.) It also rules out the Oregan Trail. OOoooooOOOoooo.....maybe I could a paper on the Underground Railroad and the homes used as waystations. I like this idea. How did I get there from chipmunks? Probably a question best left unanswered.

8. I don't like cherrys. I don't like chocolate covered cherries. I used to. When I worked at a chinese restaurant during college, I used to sneak cherries out of the big jar in the bar. And I would share them with the bus girl. She spoke no English, but we were fast friends bonded together in our pilfering of the cherry jar.

9. I've decided that I might just dye my hair on my 40th birthday. Note that I just used "decided" and "might" in the same sentence. I have a few grey hairs. I also have a few wrinkles on my forehead. I'm not ready to look middle-aged yet. But no longer to people ask me what highschool I attend, so I believe I look middle-aged.

10. I play, gasp, D&D. This is the big, dark secret of my life. But contrary to popular Christain belief, the game does not promote idolotry, witchcraft, or the occult. However, I'm running an adventure for the Jedi, and I think its very very likely that his paladin is not going to survive the upcoming encounter. So, it might be fair to say that the game does occassionally lead to marital disharmony. (Curiously, he just had some horseshoes made and imbued with magic that might make the difference between life and death for his character. He's going up against an evil wizard who weilds ice and cold magic. Key to the wizards' tactics is immobilizing his victims by freezing their feet in ice OR causing a sleet storm that makes the ground underneath so treachorous that their ability to move and to engage in combat is seriously impared. The magic horseshoes will protect the paladin from both of those attacks, so the Jedi's character now has a fighting chance. Get it? get it? I'm so funny. Sadly, Sweetling has wandered off and so isn't here to appreciate my sense of humor. I'll show her....I'll include her in my tag list.)

Which brings me to the part that everyone dreads (or just ignores). I need to tag seven people. this is complicated by the fact that I haven't been conected to the blog community in two months. But I'm tagging people anyway. What's the worst they can do? Ignore me?

I tag Sweetling, Christopher Robin, Holly, Susan Marlow, that's four...dare I tag the Maven? I feel unworthy to do so ;) I might just tag Violin Mom. I don't leave many comments on her blog, but I like reading it. Oh, and Mango of course, if she can tear herself away from curriculum reviews ;) Oh, and my twin, whom I just barely connected with before falling out of the blogworld. Ha. That's like seven or eight. Now I have to go get a shower. Later I'll try to read and catch up and post replies on other people's blogs.

OH!!!!! OH Oh OH! And I have to grab the cool button from Nora's site. It's all about the buttons baby.

After the Long Dark

I'm sitting in the rocking recliner in my in-laws living room. Sweetling and her new Squirmle is snuggled in beside me. We have been discussing the Squirmle's name. Which shall be Fuzzy, of course.

I've been struggling with how to squirm my way back into blogging after dropping out of the NaNo project. (Sweetling says, "I'm sure Fuzzy can help you with the squirming part.") I have somewhat to say about the NaNo, but haven't felt like hashing it out on the keyboard. Instead, I'll just drop in one cryptic sentence. No, I lied, I'm going to hash it all out.

The first weekend in November was our Women's Retreat at church. On Friday night, I was sitting at the campfire, debating whether or not I was going to return to my hotel room and get out my laptop to slap in a couple thousand words. And I sat staring at the fire sparks dancing upward into the night sky, I was contemplating why I was doing this, and whether it was worth the sacrifice of time away from the rest of my life to get the words out each day. Because it would be a sacrifice. Even when I wasn't sitting at the computer, that what my mind was focused on. And to meet quota each day, time from something was going to have to go. The way I was approaching it, a little here a little there, then a big push to finish up in the evening, it was family time or time with the Jedi that was going to be the sacrifice. So, why was this so important to me that I wanted to sacrifice a month of evenings with my husband and family?

Because I needed the self-affirmation? Maybe. And sitting at the campfire, I was also remembering the written words I had fed to the flames when I had sat near that exact same fire-ring two years ago. I sat and I thought about the past two years of my life. And I licked the chocolate and marshmallow goo from the s'more off my fingers. And I knew I wasn't going to go back inside to pull out my laptop to write. I was going to take the weekend as a retreat. And it was going to put me hopelessly behind on my NaNo. And I wasn't going to try to get caught up when I got back home. I was going to spend my evenings playing Wii with the kids and watching Ghosthunters and Mythbusters with the Jedi. NaNo just wasn't going to fit into my life.

But I didn't give it up gracefully. I must admit. I went through a serious pity-party pout fest. Because I wanted both. I wanted the NaNo label on my blog. In fact, I wanted a NaNo button I could wear on my person. Look at me, the button would say, see what I'm doing. But I wanted my evenings free. And I wanted to keep school on track. So, two new blog entries about where I was spending my time went up. Because I didn't want to take away from my life and family to do NaNo, but I also couldn't give up NaNo without feeling a little matyrdom festival going on.

I was hashing this all out in Sunday school a week or two after the retreat. One of the Dear Sisters said that she thought keeping track of my time was a good idea. She thought perhaps if I did that I would be able to find the time I wanted to do NaNo. I said, in a rare flash of insight, that I didn't think this was a time-management issue so much as a heart management issue. I still feel that this statement is the best single description of my short-lived NaNo journey.

And Nora said she'll make me a NaNo drop out button for my blog. A NaNo drop-out button will make it all better.

In the meantime, Nora tagged me. So I'll scoot over to her blog and see what the tag is. Sweetling can help me generate my list of miscellania. She'll, of course, try to get me to follow the rules and guidelines of the tag. Silly Sweetling.

Second Verse, Same as the First

7:27am--you know, I feel strongly motivated to do this again today. I won't say "led", because I don't think its the same thing at all. But I think I'm working out a few things about my self and about my daily life, and writing my time log is helping me on that. Granted, I haven't gone into any deep philosophical thoughts, but I'm working my way there, oh yes, I am. My recommendation to any blog reader that happens by is to just skip this posts of self discovery and come back when, I hope, I cut to the chase.

Got up this morning slightly before 6 when I thought I heard Toa calling for me. Sweetling had been up at 12:20...cause we heard her little voice over the new monitor the Jedi got for her room. (The Jedi is worried that Sweetling will get sick in the middle of the night and need us, and we won't hear her call from downstairs.) Plus, before that, I had had a really, really disturbing dream. So, not a lot of sleep, but up at 6. Toa was out cold of course, but if I went back to sleep, I'd oversleep and be late for co-op. Instead, I got my shower early so I wouldn't be competing wiht mama for shower time.

I picked up "Simplify your Space" again. I'm going to give that a whirl. More later.

I surfed blogs I've been neglecting and hope to have time to really read and leave comments later.

And I despise the "later" theme that seems to run through much of my intentions.

I have three or four emails from friends tha I need to respond to "later."
I have housework to get to "later".
I have decorating ideas that I'd like to try "later".
I have clothes that I want to shop for "later."
I have yardwork that didn't get done in the fall cause everyday I would just have to do it "later."
And now NaNo has been put in the "later" folder as well.
See the pattern?

7:38 Enough of the pity party. I'm hungry and I'm going to make breakfast and sit down with my devotions. Need to get Sweetling up by 8.

7:45 I didn't make breakfast or sit down with devotions. I went to the understairs storage and pulled out a candle holder a secret pall gave me several years ago. The votive candles sit behind painted metal letters which spell autumn and are decorated with pumpkins and apples and gourds and a scarecrow. Its sitting at one end of my kitchen table. Of course Sweetlings King Boo is sitting beside it.

Where does the time go?

7:22 am--wake up, pull on robe, pull poor mangled crumpled clean clothes out of basket+spread on bed, boot up computer, go potty +walk past second laundry basket of clothes, try to chase Mama into the shower for the day so that I can get my shower too, drink a glass of water

7:33am--start post. need a running record of my daily time to convince myself that I'm not crazy. To do list includes:
--fold or hang and put away three baskets of clean laundry
--get shower
--have breakfast and devotions
--do dishes throughout the day
--clean bathroom
--sweep kitchen floor
--put away yesterday's groceries
--do a day's worth of schooling with each of two children in half a day's time
--have lunch
--call around to find who's giving flu shots on Friday
--clip and file coupons
--enter receipts into my excel worksheet
--go to CVS, Walgreens, Biggs
--pick up Pinky if she has a ride home from church tonight
--email BA about not being in children's church tonight
--put away cvs, walgreens, biggs groceries
--post about why I'm not doing the NaNoWriMo this year
--give Toa of Boy a bath
--get apple and caramel snack ready for Toa of Boy to take to church
--make dinner
--leave at 5pm to go to a presentation about dyslexia 50 min away in Miamisburg
--come home
--get packed for co-op
--enter two weeks worth of Sweetling's attendance logs in the on-line school
--get nightsnack for kids when they get home
--help kids get their backpacks and lunchboxes packed for coop
--get Toa of Boy tucked into bed
--get adoption letter for Irish ready to put in tomorrow's mail
--get Sweetling tucked into bed
--finish laundry

7:42 am--am told by mother that we are out of toilett paper. had plenty when i used it ten minutes ago. hop on grocery game to see if cvs or walgreens has a deal on t.p. Wonder if Scott was the brand that I got on sale a couple of months ago that everyone hated. put it on the cvs list anyway. i think we go through a roll a day. it didn't used to be that way. i have my suspects.

7:48--mamma still isn't in the shower. go put away a load of laundry.

8:04--one load down. three more to go. I miscounted earlier. head upstairs to clip and sort the coupons that are all over the kitchen table. mama just started the shower.

8:33--heading to shower. coupons are still on kitchen table, but I found the ones I needed for today's shopping. discover that both of the two bras that I own are still wet. take everything out of dryer, put one bra back in. go hang up what I pulled out while bra is drying. Mama asks if she can invite her Saturday night women's Bible study over. I say sure, but not this Saturday, cause this saturday we're housing two members of the Anderson University String Ensemble.

8:44-some of my jammies were damp too. I spread them out on the bed to air dry during the day. stole hangers from the jedi's closet cause my hangers were hopelessly tangled. I hear a child awake and about upstairs. taking my wet bra out of the dryer and heading to the shower anyway.

9:17--out of the shower. lotioned (all except the itchy spot in the middle of my back.) dressed. hair dried. was supposed to start school at 9am. will do make-up later when I (ha ha) have more time. starving. making breakfast for Toa of Boy. will make breakfast for me and start school with Sweetling while I eat. Sweetling is sitting at the table right now eating her breakfast and reading her devotions. will edit to update this list through the day.

9:39--waiting for sweetling to come down for school. made peanut butter and banana sandwich for Toa of Boy's breakfast. loaded dirty dishes into dishwasher, put in detergent, remembered to turn on (major victory there). make my breakfast. wondered how toa of boy got peanut butter in the hair on the back of his head. helped him feed his crusts to the birds. cleaning Toa's letter tiles, sight word cards, wooden 3d solid shapes, poetry book, dragon boat, webkinz, and foam airplane off school desk.

9:42--sweetling's here.

10:11--Sweetling took away my teacher pencil when I tried to make my algebra explanation sung to the wonderpets theme song. Toa of Boy is here for school now. I bet he won't let me sing either.

11:04 Toa of Boy thinks kisses and chicken dance are not part of school. Where are these children getting these absurd ideas?

11:28 Toa of Boy just finished phonics and is going potty. I'm left wondering, will this phonics program do him good in the long run? Sweetling just picked up reading on her own. Should I have used a more whole language program with Toa's reading? He's doing great with the phonics. He's reading short, controlled sentences like "The cat is at the mat," and "The bat is fat." Will that eventually translate into a literate individual with a love for books?

11:46 Sam has yellow skin and a red hat, according to illustrator Toa. We don't know why he sat and sat. Toa of Boy said Sam wasn't in trouble. His mat is red too. Sam is a theme in red and yellow. On the last page, someone came along and painted Sam orange.

11:52 Toa of Boy is finished with school for the morning. He wants to do history after lunch. I need to check on Sweetling's progress. She's upstairs writing sentences about the Puritans right now. We need to check her algebra problems and read geography together before lunch. After lunch, she needs to make a comparison chart for comp, do a vocab lesson, and in theory, take a unit assessment for literature over the greek myths. This involves a short essay. I'm not sure if the essay is getting done today. I think I'll clean the bathroom, put away a bag of groceries, and clean the kitchen counters while she finishes her sentences.

12:38 Sweetling is finished with her sentences. I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, swept the kitchen floor, emailed ba, did makeup, clipped more coupons. Lunch time. Sweetling and I are going to take a working lunch. Sweetling doesn't know this yet.

1:26 yummy lunch of an eggroll and potato wedges. Toa of Boy had grilled cheese and grapes. Sweetling had pb+j and grapes. I'm having milk and a chocolate chocolate chip muffin while Sweetling does some algebra corrections. During lunch Sweetling and I studied a map of the fall line of the us eastern coast and how differences in the width of the coastal plain effected the lives of the settlers and the economics of the different regions.

2:10 Wanted to leave at 2 for the stores. Sweetling is finishing up her composition chart. Toa of Boy did handwriting (letter F) and history (found and colored Italy on the map and painted Italy's flag). Entering receipts into excel while waiting for Sweetling. Also had Toa clean squished grape off floor and red watercolor off wall. Threatened him with a loss of Wii until saturday the next time he whined about not wanting to go to the stores today.

5;20 Just finished making dinner. Not making a 50 minute drive tonight. I'll get a book on dyslexia from the library.

5:39 Nearly 10 hours since I got up this morning. Now my to do list looks like this:
--put away leftovers and clean up kitchen
--unload and reload dishes
--fold or hang and put away three baskets of clean laundry
--put away groceries from 3 different stores
--call about flu shots for friday, if anything is still open
--clip and file coupons
--have hot chocolate and devotions
--have sweetling finish her chart for comp after church
--post about why I'm not doing the NaNoWriMo this year
--get packed for co-op
--enter two weeks worth of Sweetling's attendance logs in the on-line school
--get nightsnack for kids when they get home
--help kids get their backpacks and lunchboxes packed for coop
--get Toa of Boy tucked into bed
--get adoption letter for Irish ready to put in tomorrow's mail
--get Sweetling tucked into bed
--have hot chocolate and devotions

I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference between the two lists. Toa of Boy never got a bath today. I'm playing hookey from church tonight.

6:45 Family just walked out the door to church. Prior to that, the Jedi, who hates to be late, raced 1 cup and 4 time trials on mariokart, went downstairs and did something on his computer, then expected the kids to be out the door in two minutes. Plus he has to walk them up to children's church and preschool church and drop off snack for preschool church. I don't think he was taking the kid factor into his equation of it taking 'only 14 minutes' to drive to church. In the meantime, all my groceries are away, my dishwasher has been unloaded and reloaded, the leftovers are away, and the pans are soaking. AND I sat down and watched the jedi's race. Going to have hot chocolate and do the devotions that I never had time for this morning. And call about flu shots. I think I'll do that while the Jedi is gone so he doesn't know I didn't do that on Monday.

7:15 I just got off the phone with the last pharmacy. No lie. I called three places and was on the phone for 30 minutes. making hot chocolate and sitting down now. If I can have the laundry put away and be packed for co-op before family gets back, I'll be happy. Oh, and Sweetlings attendence.

7:30 i'm rather ashamed to admit that my devotions only took 15 minutes. So, why couldn't I have spent 15 minutes on them earlier in the day? I was thinking I needed at least half an hour of uninterrupted time.

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers
harm.

--Prov 13:20

8:11 pm --I put on Celtic Christian Spirit and got all the laundry folded and put away. So lift your voice, its the year of jubilee-- (well, technically, Toa's laundry and Jedi's laundry isn't put away, but they are both in charge of putting them away. I folded them. Sweetling only has a couple pairs of socks, a turtleneck, and a sweater, so it didn't really bear mentioning....but i could tell you were wondering.) More evidence that I should have been a hippy came forth. Cause flowers bloom where love is green.

8:40pm--*nearly* finished updating Sweetling's attendence. Discovered she didn't mark down one, not one, start or start time for her subjects for the day. Trying to reverse engineer her day based on my blog posts.

8:44--did that. but now I still can't update her day, cause she isn't finished with her comp chart and I want to add that time in. In the meantime, I'm packing Toa and I up for co-op.

8:46--family's home :)

9:09--tucked Toa into bed. realized afterwards that we hadn't packed his lunchbox for the morning. that will suxers in the morning. may as well go for broke and not pack any lunchboxes. Going to make a second cup of hot chocolate and watch ghosthunters with the jedi.

10:20 going to bed. will pack lunchboxes and sweetlings backpack tomorrow.

A Little Cheese with My Whine

So, apparently this shall become my major source of venting during NaNo, and Eyes to the Hills will be where I'm actually productive. That said, feel free to skip this particular pity party.

We got up today and needed to be in Columbus by eleven. Mondays are usually a jammie day for us, because none of us can get our act together on Monday morning, so we just do school in our jammies rather than frustrate ourselves and not get school started till eleven. (No, sadly, I'm not exagerating. For some reason the act of getting changed from jammies to clothes delays our school start time by two hours. Einstein himself probably couldn't figure out why.) So this morning, we not only have to *gasp* put on actual clothes, but we need to pack snacks, grab books and such for the car ride, gather library books to drop off cause they are due today, print out maps from google, pull copies of files from the International Adoption Center for Toa of Boy, and get out the door in time to make the drive to Columbus, park the car, and get into the Columbus main library third floor meeting room by eleven. It went as smoothly as any rational being could have predicted. Sweetling, who does not hurry well, was in tears three separate times before we headed out the door. (Oh, and we needed to stop by the bank for money for parking).

We got out the door at 9:25. It takes 1 hour and 50 minutes to make the drive, according to the Tom-tom, not including the parking and such. You do the math. Miraculously, we were only 15 minutes late, and I called ahead to let her know we were running behind. (oops, minor detail missed, see what happens when the exposition gets skipped?) We were meeting with an OHVA (Ohio Virtual Academy) ESL (English as a Second Language) speciallist to have Toa's speech evaluated so that we could plug him into some speech therapy, hopefully. Now, those of you who know of these things are wondering, why ESL if its a speech problem? Because we can't get him plugged into speech therapy until they have evaluated his language to see if its an ESL issue.

Anyway, columbus, fifteen minutes late. We send Toa in, who is delighted to meed the specialist since her first name is the same as his Tia's first name. (Tia and Toa are similar, but not the same. Tia is Spanish for aunt. If it weren't midnight I'd link that to the relevent blog entry.) she said they would be about an hour, so Sweetling and I found a nice window with a table nearby and an all important outlet for my laptop. An hour, i should be able to crank out some progress, right? Less than an hour goes by before my cell phone rings to let me know Toa is all finished. I have 600 words. 1400 shy of my personal goal for the day.

We collect Toa, chat with the teacher, get in the elevator, go down. Go back up, go back to the meeting room, retreive Toa's webkinz, go back to the elevator.

The lunch plan is Wendy's. Sadly, they've closed the original Wendy's, which was our traditional lunch haunt for several Columbus trips centered around adoption paper work, but that's ok, because I have googled another wendy's that should be easy to get to. Google maps tells me seven minutes from the library. Have you heard the phrase, said in jest "Can't get there from here?" That completely discribed our miserable efforts to get to this Wendy's. Thirty or forty minutes later, we've finally broken free of the fruitless patterns of one ways, no turns between 7am and 6pm intersections, construction, dead ends, etc....and have found our way into the german village. Which turned out to be a really interesing side trip. I think I can definitely use some of those images for my nano novel. (And no, I don't care if nano novel *is* redundant. Its all part of silencing the inner editor. Notice the lack of caring about spelling errors as well).

We reach Wendy's, and despite the 12-hr decongestant I took that morning, my nose is both completely congested AND is dripping nonstop. How it can do both i don't know, but it was. What I really, really wanted was a couple of tylenol and a blanket. But we sat outside on this little patio area not far from the german village and had a nice lunch.

COSI was next, and was amazingly easy to get to. We got to travel on Marconi street, which I first misread as 'maccaroni' street. Sweetling corrected me of course, saying "Well, it makes more sense that they would name a street after Marconi, after all, he invented the radio." Of course. how did that slip my mind? we pull into cosi's parking lot, which isn't packed but has a fair number of cars. we luck out and get a spot up front. there are several spots up front actually, but we're getting there later in the afternoon, so i figure those were left open by the morning birds who left for naptime. We store the laptop out of sight in the cargo hold, and head up to the doors. Sweetling is so pumped and is busy explaining to Toa of Boy that no, cosi didn't have animals like the zoo. It was a museum. No, it didn't have a slide like the children's museum, it was a science museum. "It have planets?" asks Toa.

We get to the main entrance. I pull on a door, but it doesn't open. Well, it must be a slower day for them, and they don't have all twelve sets of doors unlocked. I try a different door. Nothing. On the third door I notice hours. Mon + Tues: closed.

I think I'll skip the shocked blank stare, the tears of the girl, the incessent why's of the boy, the immediate email to the Jedi (like he's going to fix this whole situation from Cincy). We head back to the van. I tell the man in the parking booth our sob story. He doesn't charge us. We go down a little side street and end up in the parking lot of the Spaghetti Warehouse. I thought, perhaps I can use my phone to hop online and find something else to do, so that the afternoon isn't a complete bust. My phone takes forever to load any webpage. Toa of Boy has to go potty. Sweetling lays down in the back sleep and seems to be silently crying herself to sleep. I feel like crap in general. "How about," I suggest, "we just head back home and hit the library and get a movie?"

So that's what we did. By the time we got home, I had spent four hours driving, I didn't feel well, I had a sink of dirty dishes waiting for me, and 1400 words to write. and a movie to watch with the kids (we swapped out the movie in favor of marioparty wii). At that point, I was seriously considering having a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater swoop in and eat all my nano characters. or just throwing in the towel. But a cup of hot chocolate and some cinnamon toast, some mythbusters and some ghosthunters, and I'm a little past 5,000 words. Not quite as far as I want to be, but enough to keep me in the game.

I think i'll take the calendar function off, though. I couldn't log on to update in a timely fashion saturday or sunday, and I don't like the red squares staring at me. They're discouraging.

Oh, and I'm supposed to write a skit for the fall womens' retreat this weekend.

Wrong Story

I thought, I really did, that my story was going to be about a young woman journeying west as a mail-order bride. Instead, I think my story is about the young woman. I think journeying west is only a chapter or so of the story. I'm writing pages of exposition that really are a story in their own right. Boo and hoo. What do I do? Keep writing expository style? Stop? Back up? Grrrr. Grrrrr. Grrr. Get the expository stuff out of my system?

Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

I hate expository writing. Its boring. Well, my expository writing is boring. Its like a poorly written textbook that I'm having to wade through before I can get to the story. Grrr. Grrrrrrrrr. GRRRRRRRRRR.

I have a brownie upstairs on the kitchen counter. Brownie, you are mine.

Humble Pie

The first of what I'm sure will be many pieces of humble pie has just been served up to me, courtesy of NaNo.

It's surprising really, how completely double-minded I was (and still am) about this undertaking. On the one hand, I need to convince myself I can absolutely do this, or I won't try at all. Thus the thought that one hundred pages wasn't too difficult. On the other hand, I was up from 12:30 to 3am Thursday night/Friday morning, too nervous and worried to sleep because the undertaking just seemed so grand.

And yet, despite the sleepless night, I really had myself convinced that I might be able to pull off four to five thousand words today. After all, I told myself, I had an extra tae kwon do class in the middle of the day, and I have friends coming over tonight for game, but didn't that still leave a lot of empty Saturday hours? If I could do 4800 words, that would be three days worth of writing. I'll be out of town next weekend, so getting three days worth of writing done would really, really keep me from getting behind. (And if I get behind, it will just be all over. Time to throw in the towel.)

I sat down a little after ten this morning. I was terrified of starting. I managed to get 1772 words out in about an hour. Then it was time to go change for Tae Kwon Do. Now its 3:20. I'm so tired I can't spell "wasn't". I'm beginning to think that I'm not going to have 50,000 words in me. Ever. 50,000 words is a butt-load of words.

What was I thinking?

I'm going to take a nap. I'd really like to get another 1600 words out before this evening. But I know I'm too tired to be productive right now.

Oh, and, guess what? The dryer has been busted for nearly four weeks. It busted on Sunday. On Monday I scheduled a repair. The earliest they could come was Friday. So, on the first Friday, the repair man came. He didn't have the right component. It needed to be ordered. It was supposed to be mailed to my house. He would come back on Friday to fix the dryer. I went to the laundrymat on Sunday.

By the second Friday, the part hadn't arrived. We had to reschedule for the next Friday. (The part finally came at 4:30pm that Friday.) I went to the laundry mat that Sunday, again.

So yesterday, the repair man was back. He said it was fixed. He tested it. He said everything is shutting off just fine. He was wrong. Everything is not shutting off. The heating element stays on after the dryer is turned off. We unplugged the dryer. Tomorrow I get to go to the...guess where...laundrymat. And Monday I get to call for a repair. Its like the dryer twilight zone over here.

ok, nap. for sure nap.

Field Trips!

Ah, field trips. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My weary teaching heart can reach, for thou doest
Energize and inspire me.
I love thee for the excuse of skipping school,
Leaving dishes unwashed and carpets unvacuumed
While those weary of everyday chores load up the van
And voyage out.
I love thee for the smiles and the memories and the dreams
Thou doest inspire.
I love thee for the memories thou doest make
And the stories thou does generate.
I love thee, O field trip, in the winter
When the skies are grey and the weeks seem long.
I love thee, O field trip, in the spring
When the days are warm and our hearts sing songs.
I love thee, O field trip, in the summmer
When our bookwork is done and we're free to roam.
I love thee, O field trip, in the autumn,
When pumpkins and crisp fall leaves lure us from home.
I love thee, O field trip, at any time.
I love thee, O field trip, for escape, thou art mine.

Coincidentally, we are heading to the zoo today! Nora gave us two free tickets on Sunday. They expire this Friday, so to the zoo we will go :)

The zoo is a favorite field trip destination. Now, our world-class zoo is rather expensive usually BUT if you call in advance and make reservations as a homeschool family, you get the school group admission rate... which is $1.50 a child, free parking, and one free adult. This is a big savings over the regular $8 per child, $6.50 for parking, and $14 per adult. The catch is, you have to make your reservations 2 weeks in advance....which makes the weather a bit difficult to call. For a few years, it seemed Sweetling and I were doomed to rain on the days we have made our reservations. Rain and zoo field trips were just an ongoing tradition.

Our field trips do seem to be seasonal, so I think I'll group them like that.

Fall--

Fairy Houses: We started a new tradition this year. In september, we hike into the woods and build fairy houses. You see, fairies are flighty creatures. They frolic in the forest all summer long, with never a care for winter. Come winter, they are often left finding any old log or hollow tree they can to live in, but it hardly has the comforts of home. But, if you go in the fall and build them a house, and furnish it with bright leaves, white rocks, and acorn caps, then they have a happy retreat in the cold winter months. (They can, of course, use their fairy magic to seal up the gaps and cracks left in houses built with sticks by children's hands.

Leaf Hunt: One has to go on a walk through the park to pick up leaves (and other small items.) One brings them home and presses them in the phone book, with the intention every year of making a fall collage. Really, they just stay in the phone book all winter, and annoy the Jedi.

Pumpkin Patch: No fall is complete without a trip to a pumpkin patch for a hay/wagon ride and assorted other fall activities. This year, there was a small, very child-friendly corn maze to enjoy as well. Next year, I want to go to one of those hope-to-see-you-again-in-a-few-hours types of mazes.

Winter:

Children's Museum: This is a, no one can work any more and we need to get out and play, destination. We keep a museum membership active and we use it in the winter.

Sledding: Oh yeah baby. We only get one or two really good sledding days each winter. We bundle up and head to a local park that has a great hill that isn't very crowded during the day.

Train Exhibit: Every holiday the Museum Center has a large train display. We get in free due to membership, and its a fun little trip.

Krohn Conservatory: This is a Mommy sanity pill. After so many days of cold, grey, rainy, nasty days...I need a little warmth and light and beauty or I'll crack. So, to the conservatory we go to wonder around beneath the canopy of exotic plants, watch the waterfall splash over rocks, study the koi in the stream, marvel at the bonzai, and so forth.

Spring--

Park, park, and more park: Lets face it. Mommy is done with school. I'm tired of being indoors all winter. As soon as the weather breaks, we're gone. Bike riding, hiking, playgrounds...any destination under the yellow sun is good with me.

ZooBlooms: oh yeah. Tulips and sunshine and peacocks, oh my! We used to do the ZooMath days...but I decided the zoo is more fun when we just go.

Butterfly exhibit: Another Krohn trip, this time to see the butterfly exhibit in May.

Gardening projects: Every spring I have the best of intentions. We'll spend several day outdoors trying to make my dreams a reality. Negligence takes over during the heat of July and August, so these projects never take root. (ha ha)

Summer--

Park Programs: The local park board does an amazing job of putting on free summer programs. We usually take advantage of them on a weekly basis. Creeking is an all time favorite.

Library Summer Reading Club: Not quite a field trip, but we do it every summer, and head to the library at least once a week. Plus, the local libraries put on fun programs that we like to participate in.

Movies: Either at the $2 theater or for free at the main theaters as part of their book club (bring a book report and come to our free showing at 10am on Wednesday), going to the theater isn't a treat we take advantage of often, but during the summer we'll do so about once a month.

Drive-in Movies: We did this for the first time this summer. I'm not sure how much the Jedi enjoyed it, but the kids and I had a blast. I'm hoping we can talk him into it again next summer.

Swimming: We mooch off of friends who have pools. Or friends who have family members with pools. Or friends who's family members have friends with pools. We're big pool moochers in the summer.

Childen's Museum: Come August, it's too hot and humid to do anything outside (unless we can mooch a pool day). So, back to the Children's Museum we go.

Road Trips: Every summer, I have great plans for daytrips. We manage at least one, sometimes two of them. This past summer, the most memorable was the trip to a nearby sculpture park. There was a lot of walking involved, some really great pieces, a tree that was nearly hit, a van that was nearly stuck, a little bit of drizzling rain, a sharp spike in the humidity after the almost rain, and some drive-by art viewing from the air-conditioned van at the end of the long day. "Look kids, art," became the catch-phrase of the visit.

School again, school again, jiggity jig: Not a field trip. But by the second week of August, we hit the books again, breaking up our first couple weeks with a trip or two to the children's museum. Its too hot to do anything outside, and kids cooped upside with nothing productive to do get bored and cranky and whiny. Besides, getting an early start helps justify field trips and sanity breaks needed in the middle of winter. This August was an exception because in the first place, our books didn't ship until September. In the second place, we got a wii. For a week, there was nothing but a solid wii party with many different friends going on at our house.

And now, I'm off to pack lunches for the zoo. I should also check to see what time it opens. Thanks for reading my1,334 words. No, I'm not neurotic. I'm psyching up for National Novel Writing Month.

Pages and Popcorn

After school and a quick trip to pick up milk and eggs, I talked the children into watching Speed Racer with me. Meaning, of course, I stood in the living room and called, "Who wants popcorn and a movie?" It's like a magic child summoning spell. As opposed to the non-magic kind of spell I suppose. Sweetling started getting the movie set up while I went into the kitchen to make the popcorn.

Yes, we have bags of microwaveable popcorn, but for some reason, I wanted to make it. I put the butter in the microwave, trying to ignore how much butter was soon to be poured over our snack. I got down the Whirley Pop pan, put in the tablespoon of oil, and poured in the 2/3rds cup of kernels. While I was working, I was thinking. How many typed, single-space pages is 1667 words anyway? Five hundred words per page seemed like a reasonable estimate. So, 50,000 words is like, what, 100 pages? One hundred pages is a completely obtainable goal. It didn't even sound like that much. Surely I did some math wrong.

I stood there, redoing my math in my mind and twirling the handle of the whirley pop. And, in fact, I did do some math wrong. The Whirley Pop takes 1/3rd cup of kernels, not 2/3rds. I became aware of this fact when the kernels were well into their popping process. Suddenly the whirley pop handle would no longer turn. The whirley pop lid opened of its own accorded and began spewing out popcorn. I very sensibly shrieked, and then turned off the heat. Did you know that popcorn in a hot pan will continue to pop even when the gas flame is extinguished? I grabbed a bowl to pour the excess popcorn into...and discovered that the popcorn, while quick to spill over the pan, onto my stovetop and onto my floor, was strangely resistant to being poured out of the pan. Contrary stuff. Apparently, before the popcorn pushes its way out of the pan, it first fills up every available space inside the pan. I had to pry the popcorn out with the end of a spatula. (And yet, once out of its confinement, it was once again fluffy.) I poured more tablespoons of butter over the popcorn than I want to own up to, and headed off to watch Speed Racer.

Despite the fact that we had two large bowls of popcorn (there was too much to fit in our normal popcorn bowl), Sweetling wanted a cinnamon roll mid-way through the movie. Noticing that it was nearly 5pm, I told Sweetling she needed to have dinner first. Cause, you know, responsible parent and all. But cinnamon rolls sounded really good. So, still being the responsible parent, I made us some scrambled eggs and we had cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs for dinner while we watched more Speed Racer.

The Jedi came home at about half-past five. He said, "It smells like popcorn in here."

"Yes," I agreed. "I made some."

"For dinner?" he asks...and for some reason looks puzzled.

"With cinnamon rolls," I clarify.

"Ok, Charlie Brown." And the Jedi headed downstairs to his computer, which is so much more logical than his wife. (I later offered to make the Jedi some scrambled eggs too; he elected to eat cold leftover chicken instead.)

I decided that this was probably not the best time to ask the Jedi what he thought of National Novel Writing Month. I saved that discussion for after Tae Kwon Do. It went like this...

"So, there's this...thing...called National Novel Writing Month."

Blank stare.

"And the goal is to crank out 50,000 words in a month."

"To write a book in a month?" comes the incredulous clarification.

"No, no, no. Not a book. Just 50,000 words of a story. Not in a publishable format. Just a free-writing, really."

"How many college papers is that equal too?"

"Well," I say, impressed with my mathematical foresight, "a doublespaced page averages about 250 words. I'll just be single spacing my writing, so that's about 500 words a page I think."

"So, about 100 pages."

"Yes!" I'm thrilled that my math wasn't completely off. But I'm more thrilled with how easy that goal sounds.

"That's like 3 pages every day."

"Uh-huh," I agree, still happy.

"Every day," stresses the sensible Jedi.

"Well, yes, it will be the every day part that will be difficult, but I can crank out that much writing for any of my little board rps when I'm involved in them." (This isn't quite true....just ask Christopher Robin how many days it takes me to get around to posting. But, the Jedi doesn't need to know all the nitty gritty details. After all, reality is already on his side. Sooner or later it will swing around and make his point for him.)

Here's my bio from my user profile on the NaNoWriMo site:

This is my first year attempting the NaNo. I think I'm doing it, just to know that I have done it. I attempted natural child birth for the same reason. There are just times that I need to prove to myself that I can do it. I'm strong enough. I'm capable enough. I started Tae Kwon Do in August for a similar reason. I needed to know that I was tough enough to spar with the men who were double my weight, that I could stand my ground against a bigger, stronger opponent.

That makes me sound like a tough, determined individual. The thing is...most of the time I'm soft-spoken, gentle, fun-loving. I teach preschool and walk through the halls of the church with a chipmunk puppet. I participate in praise dance and wear a flowing white dress. I throw the crusts of my toast out for the birdies. I pick up fall leaves and press them in my phone book. I spend my day homeschooling my two precious children.

I'm not a hard, do-or-die type of person. But every now and then, its good to know that I can kick through a board. (Even if I did kick the instructors three times before I nailed my board.) And so....50,000 words. Here I go.

Now my question is....do I want to make a separate blog for my NaNo story? I'm never going to actually get this writing in any shape to submit to a publisher. And I'm missing a few critical elements, like, you know... a plot. So, I'm not writing with the goal of maybe polishing it up and selling it. But, if I'm going to write 50,000 words, I'd like someone to read them, maybe. So, should I post my story on a blog? What do you think?

ps...all of that was 1,123 words.

How to Write a Novel in a Month

This is copied from NaNo's website. Nora isn't even home for me to rail at her. Rail and wail. Both.

1) Sign up for the event by clicking the "Sign up Now" link at the top of the site. It's right at the tip of the runner's pencil.

2) Read the ginormous email our noveling robots send you. It will have "Love" in the subject line.

3) Log into your account and use the links on the My NaNoWriMo page to set your timezone, affiliate with a region, and tell us a little bit about yourself.

4) Begin procrastinating by reading through all the great advice and funny stories in the forums. Post some stories and questions of your own. Get excited. Get nervous. Try to rope someone else into doing this with you. Eat lots of chocolate and stockpile noveling rewards.

5) On November 1, begin writing your novel. Your goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, local time, on November 30th. You write on your own computer, using whatever software you prefer.

6) This is not as scary as it sounds.

7) Starting November 1, you can update your word count in that box at the top of the site, and post excerpts of your work for others to read. Watch your word-count accumulate and story take shape. Feel a little giddy.

8) Write with other NaNoWriMo participants in your area. Write by yourself. Write. Write. Write.

9) If you write 50,000 words of fiction by midnight, local time, November 30th, you can upload your novel for official verification, and be added to our hallowed Winner’s Page and receive a handsome winner’s certificate and web badge. We'll post step-by-step instructions on how to scramble and upload your novel starting in mid-November.

10) Win or lose, you rock for even trying.

Blame Nora

That could almost be a song title. Almost.

Now, I had heard of National Novel Writing Month before. I quickly concluded that those who participated in it were either a) crazy or b) extremely talented.

Sunday at church Nora came over to me before the service started. She's just a few pages from finishing the first draft of her first novel. She is so excited...and justifiably so. She has started a blog, and wanted to share it with me. I open up my way cool phone (thank you, Jedi) and zipped an email off to myself with Nora's blog address.

And then Nora tells me that she's going to participate in this National Novel Writing Month. Only she doesn't say that. Oh no, she uses some crazy combination of letters a mildly dyslexic person can't hope to unscramble without the help of a secret decoder ring. Oh yeah, says I, after she had translated her gibberish, I have heard of that. I'm not sure what else I said, nothing intelligent I'm sure. And then an excited Nora flashed away to go rehearse with the worship team. Having emailed myself her blog addy, I was certain to remember to go check it out later, and I forgot all about the NaNo..something something something.

At this point, I feel like I should explain why Nora doesn't have a cool blog name. I figure since the aspiring author posts on her blog with her full name, I can use Nora on mine. Plus, I can't spell Aspiring Author. Spell check tells me its corrrect, but it just doesn't look right. I'm sure I can spell Nora.

Toa of Boy is playing on Webkinz. Sweetling is working hard on schoolwork. I was updating their attendence online, and checking and clearing out my email. And I came across Nora's blog. So, productivity fell by the wayside while I went to go check it out.

Fifty thousand words in a month is 1667 words in a day, says Nora. Hmmmm. The point isn't to put out a polished, finished, perfect manuscript. Hmmmm. The point is to spill the words onto the page without worrying about the results. Hmmmm again.

So, how much do I write when I put up a blog entry? (Too much, I know. Those brave few who read my blog can attest to how much excess keyboarding they have to wade through to get to any point of almost interest. It's like panning for gold. How much silt and gravel has to be slurried around in the hopes of a fleck of something shiney.) Right now I'm at 433 words in this entry. That's still a long way away from 1667. I pulled up Fawn and Richard. I have 5 pages typed up for Aztersil. That's 2566 words.

Do I want to write 1667 words in a day?

Those of you who know me, aren't real worried. Ah, you say, here she goes again. A few of you are taking a pool. Lets see how many days this lasts. And you are right, you are absolutely right. There is no way I'm going to find time to write that much every day. No way.

And yet. Hmmmm.

I'll let you in on a small secret. I started, and never got back to, a blog for a character concept I had. You remember the dresses I was looking at and the character pics I put together. I had been considering trying to tell a story from a first person point of view, in a journal, or diary format. Vaya's husband, the Gentle Giant, did a little banner for me in photoshop. The problem is the word count. There's no way I'm outputting 1667 words a day. Plus, I don't want to wrap up her story in a month. The point of the blog was to give me something to daydream about. If I just hack through a word count, what do I have to keep my imagination active through January and February? So, hmmmm, maybe not.

You know what I've concluded? Friends don't tell friends about National Novel Writing Month.

Ten Timely Facts

Yes, after a long absence, I'm back to the Homeschool Memoirs Assignments. Why? Cause this weeks assignment involves no computer or technical ability for posting photos. Nor does it require creative clever rhymes. And its all about me. So, low effort, ego-centric... right up my alley.

Ten, or so (cause you know counting and trimming would be work), fun facts about me.

1) Math is not my friend. Oh, it tries to lure me in, but in the end I always want to know more about the little squirrel's story, and have lost interest in the exact count of his nut collection.

2) My hair is frizzy. It shall be forever more frizzy. It defies the straightening iron. It will, however do neat little ringlets with the curling iron. You know, the kind of ringlets that were cute and popular in about 1840.

3) I shall never master the chokehold in Tae Kwon Do. If I'm ever assaulted, and my survival depends on trying to get my attacker in a chokehold, I'm done for. In fact, we were taught, and supposed to practice this move last night. I got dubbed "Charmin" by the other ladies in the class, cause they said I just looked like I was doing a teddy bear hug. You figure out the logic there on your own.

4) No amount of crunches in the world is ever going to reverse the effect pregnancy had on my stomach. An extensive amount of plastic surgery, and the elimination of all things chocolate, might be a start. But if two months of TKD haven't done it yet, its just not happening. My tummy will be a misplaced piece of pudgy elephant hide forever. If I had a trim tummy and a cute belly button, I would be tempted to get a little tummy/belly button ring. Since I'm allergic to 99% of every earring I've put in my ear, this might be a bad idea anyway.

5)I've never been tempted to get a tattoo. a)this involves needles. b) this involves making a decision I'd be stuck with forever. BUT, I noticed a lot of the American olympians had tatoos of the olympic rings. If I were ever in the olympics, I'd totally do that. So, you see how likely a tatoo is in my future.

6)Despite my pudgy belly, I can buy my underwear from the little girl's department, cause they are cheaper there.

7)It looks like this list is not going up on the blog I keep with my co-op students.

8)The only "favorite" thing I've had for any amount of time is a favorite color, yellow. (Is yellow an appositive in that sentence? I think so.) All my other favorites, books, movies, songs, etc...phase in and out.

9)I live and die by spellcheck.

10)I'd love to dress in ethnic and eclectic clothing, but settle for jeans and tops off the clearance racks.

11) Just as well, since I would quickly get tired of some of my eclectic choices.

12) Sweetling is here to inform me I am no longer in keeping with the ten timely facts. Sweetling, bless her heart, does her best to keep her free-spirited mother on the straight and narrow.

13) Practically any sweet and delectable item can be made a breakfast food if one serves a side of scrambled eggs and cheese with it.

14) I love the flute, the hammer dulcimer, and the harp. I can play none of these, despite the fact that the Jedi bought me a flute many years ago for Christmas. Musical instruments require consistency and hard work. Not two of my better qualities.

15)Gardening also requires consistency and hard work. Despite the lies printed in books with deceptive titles like "20 minute gardening," "the low maintenance garden" and "the weekend gardener".

16) From October to March, my hands are perpetually cold. I keep a pair of thin gloves in a drawer by my desk to wear when I'm typing and doing school.

17)Flat surfaces are clutter magnets. Jimmy Hoffa might be hiding in my hall closet.

18) Maintaining any degree of artistic ability requires regular practice. Why are the loveliest things in life so demanding?

19) I can memorize entire psalms, a part in a script, or a lengthy monologue. These things stay with me for a day or two after I present them, then my brain, without any conscious direction from me, does a memory dump.

19) Sweetling is now objecting to my numbering scheme.

12b) Take that Sweetling ;)

8a) Sweetling says, "What?!?"

20) Sweetling has concluded that she has a crazy mother. And yet, your father married me anyway :) Sweetling thinks that this is because the Jedi is silly too. This was actually brought up in a Father's day sermon our pastor gave. His wife was Sweetling's Sunday school teacher. She had, a few weeks before, asked the children for some adjectives that described their fathers. Sweetling said her Daddy was "silly". From the pulpit, the pastor related this story and said, "Now I don't know if you know Mr. Jedi personally, but if you do, I think you'll agree with me in saying that 'silly' is not a word that I would have ever picked to describe this brother." (He went on to talk about how important it was for a father to laugh and play with his children.)

21)I want to end this list on one more thing. Oh, I know. I want to take a family vacation this summer. I don't know if that's going to be financially manageable. And certainly, of the big 'three' family vacations, none are happening. One of the big three would be to DC, one would be along the Oregon Trail, and one along RT 66 (for Sweetling). None of those are likely, but I really want to do something. Caves are out, the Jedi hates them. So, where could we go from Cincinnati, Ohio? We like nature and we like history, and we wont have a big budget. We also don't camp. Any suggestions?

Show Me the Music

For those few of you who happen by and are wondering, where is her song? Let me say, I read the Homeschool Memoirs assignment *right* before going to bed. I was *so* excited about it. I laid there, wide awake, putting together witty rhymes. When I finally drifted off, I had the beginnings of a masterpiece. After all, I had set a precedent.

Come morning I could only remember the first verse:

Some people say we're zany,
A few think we are crazy,
All agree we're brainy,
A homeschool family.

And it doesn't even follow the a,a,a, repeat final line scheme.

When I'm feeling more enthusiastic, I'll try to figure it out....again.

In the meantime, have a little fire scarecrow. (Yes, this is why I shouldn't write anything after midnight).

In the meantime, here's a picture of Toa of Boy at co-op yesterday. This, obviously, is science:


And here's a picture of Toa of Boy AFTER co-op yesterday:

Submission

Smurf, you may as well just stop reading here. You'll have a much better day if you do.

So, Holly@AimingHigh got me started thinking about this topic. (Not that she's considering me for her cool Visa graphic. No, no. That's ok. I plan on whining at her bitterly over this slight.) But since submission is often the dirty S word of the Christian doctrine, I want to take a moment to talk about, in my own fashion, what it is and isn't. Now, if you want to read a more, um, mature, rendition of the definition of submission, here's the link Holly posted.

Here's my interpretation. Submission is NOT being abused, taken advantage of, treated as inferior, being a doormat, being apologetic all the time (which I struggle with), putting up with snide sarcasm, cruelty, emotional degradation, or any of a host of ills and evils that HAVE NO PLACE in a loving marriage. The scene that pops immediately to my mind is from the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The two main characters are getting a ride to a train stop. The driver pulls up in his beat-up pick-up, jumps out all scruffy and nasty looking, makes a grotesque snorting sound to clear the snot from the back of his throat, and then bangs on the truck's passenger door. "Get yer lazy butt out here and help these men with their trunk!" He hollers at the little woman. She puts the baby she's holding on the bench seat and silently comes to stand at his side. "She may be small," he brags, "but she's strong. Her first kid came out sideways; she didn't scream ner nothin.'" That is NOT submission. And yet that sort of degradation and bleak existence is what comes to most modern women's minds at the term submission.

The great controversial passage on submission in the Bible begins with the injucntion to 'submit to one another in love.' What then, is my interpretation of submitting? Prioritizing the needs and desires of another. Not to the exclusion of your needs and desires. But its doing something for the other person even when you don't want to. And let me say, as a mother, this is not a foreign concept. Really, when I started thinking about it, I do this everyday. Everyone does. Not many people really get up every morning excited about doing laundry. You do it, because your family needs clean clothes. Even if you yourself have enough underwear in your drawer to go another couple of days, you do the laundry. Or the cleaning. Or the cooking. You change the diaper, you wipe the snotty nose.

It breaks down more often when its our spouse in question. The thought is, you're a grown up, wash your own dirty socks. I'm tired, my sock drawer isn't empty, and I want to read a book. (And I'm picking laundry as my example, not because its a traditional woman's role, but because its one of my least favorite household chores.)

So, I'm not that great at submitting when a child is not involved. And to be honest, I'm not that great at submitting even when a child is involved. You can ask the Sweetling how often school has gotten canceled cause Mommy really really wants to read her book.

And no, my goal is not to become a doormat. My goal is to be more considerate, to be more compassionate, to be more responsible. To be a little less like Veruca Salt.

I read Holly's blog last week. I still maintained I got tricked into reading something thought provoking. She titled her entry "Let's talk dirty." That immediately caught my attention. And then comes this entry about submission.

Sunday, we sang 'sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow," which brought Holly's blog entry back to mind. I prayed specifically for an opportunity to submit. To honor the Jedi's request even when I didn't want to, even when it conflicted with my own plan. Lo and behold, the opportunity was given to me as we were walking out of church. "Let's go," said the Jedi when we were all gathered. "Dolphins play at one." And there sat a snack table. So, I got to the door, and turned around and headed back to the snack table. We got outside and the Jedi asked, "Did you head back, or did Toa of Boy." Indignant, I announced that I had headed back, thank you very much.

And realized I had blown it. My next prayer was for an opportunity to submit, and the wisdom to recognize that opportunity when it came.

Character Concept, Part 2

Now, before you start looking through my blog for a part one, there isn't one. How can I have a part two before I have a part one? Cause I'm random, remember? (The part one is actually found in the post Dresses or some such. If I were a friendly helpful person, I'd link it for you, but right now, I'm busy typing and stuffing my face with chocolate cake.)


So, I spent at least two hours today looking through images on deviantart. I could spen all day looking through images on deviantart and loosing myself imagining stories behind the artists' visions. There are a few images that each have a character quality that's relevant to my current daydream. (Christopher Robin, this is for my chickie in a box. I'm justified in spending time on this, cause I don't yet have an aztersil post to reply to.)

Many of the artists on deviantart sell their prints. So, if you like something, by all means go check out the artists and their work.



(computers hate me. It took me ten tries to get this post even legible. This is why I skipped the homeschool memeoirs assignment to share summer photos. AND, to add insult to injury it ATE, yes ATE three of the five comments I had to the memoir assigment I did do. They were there. I selected them. I hit publish. It published two of the five. It ate the other three. Have I mentioned that? It ATE them.)

Study Spots

I see no point in tiring anyone with my inventive excuses as to why I haven't done the homeschool memoirs in oh, what, three weeks? Or why its Saturday before I even start Wednesday's post. Those of you who know me know that this is just par for the course.

My favorite spots to study. (The original assignment, which once again I haven't read fully, was probably for a single spot...but I'm a rebel. See Holly, I told you that submission was just not my strong point.)


In no particular order--

The armchair by the big picture window in the living room. I sit here, all by myself and read a book. Reading does so count as studying. If I'm reading aloud to a child (which Toa of Boy is just starting to be interested in and which Sweetling outgrew about five years ago, much to my dismay), there is just room enough for a little body to squeeze into the chair next to me. The windows look out into all the mature trees of our backyard where squirrels race and play. Sunlight and fresh breezes stream in.

The waterbed. This is great for sprawling to read aloud or to help Sweetling organize her thoughts for an essay. We haven't tried doing Toa of Boy's phonics lessons here yet...but we might, oh we just might.

The kitchen table in the morning with a cup of hot chocolate. Please note that this location only rates as a favorite study spot if a cup of hot chocolate is involved. This is where I sit and do my devotions. It used to be that Sweetling sat and did hers here at the same time, but now she's off on her own (most often in the armchair by the living room window.) This is also where we have snack and devotions for Sweetling's "God's Girls" club.

For Sweetling: the backyard. This doesn't work as a study spot for myself or for Toa of Boy, cause neither of us can stay focused. But on nice days Sweetling takes her algebra out to the little plastic picnic table and works. Or she takes her literature selection out to the swingset and sits in one of those double bench seat swings to read.

Our school room. I'm actually not sure this rates as a favorite. I like it, and I want to talk about it, but its not actually a favorite. Its just on the list cause this gives me an excuse to talk about it. Our house is a bi-level or a split level, I always get the two confused. You walk in, and are immediately on a little landing. Up half a flight of stairs is the top level that has a living room, a small eat-in kitchen, three little bedrooms, and the only bathroom. The lower level is walk-out along the back of the house, and below ground along the front of the house. It has four rooms. The computer/school room and the master bedroom are along the back, ground level. In the front, below ground, is the laundry room and a closet/storage room that was going to be a master bath when we first bought the house, until we actually got some estimates from a plumber. That plan went quickly down the drain. (Ba dump dump.)

The computer/school room is the largest room in the house and it is roughly divided into two sections. Along the short exterior masonry wall are two corner computer desks set up to make a fat t. The Jedi's computer is in one corner and one half of the T is his domain. The other desk holds two computers, one on each end of the right angle. They are used mostly for playing Age of Empires and other network computer games. Sweetling also occasionally uses one of these when she needs to get online during school, and going all the way upstairs to her bedroom is so far away ;)

The interior wall that separates the schoolroom from the laundry room is dark faux wood paneling, and it has two bookcases and some shelves holding our reference books as well as some vintage 70s fisher price little people toys for playing between lessons. The other long wall, across from the paneling, is also an exterior wall. My computer table juts outward from this wall to divide the room in two. It is the line of demarcation between the Jedi computer zone and the school zone. My computer desk sits on one sude of the table, by the wall, and the other side of the table is open for a working on a lesson with a child. (Open, if you don't count the various stacks of papers, books that didn't get put away, stuffed pencil cup, one or two webkinz, and overflowing desktop organizer.)

The school room side has a large glass double patio door that lets in a lot of light. The short masonry wall and the other long exterior wall are both painted white, so that helps offset the faux paneling as well. Sweetling's little desk sits in front of the non-opening side of the double door and faces into the backyard. *Right* next to her desk in the corner of the room is a tall bookcase which holds her school books and supplies, and the top shelf of which holds teacher books. Two low shelves, each about two feet high, are placed together to make an L and corner off Sweetling's 'area'. In front of this L, and between it and my table, sits Toa of Boy's little desk. All of his books and supplies as well as some games and puzzles are stored on the low shelves. Both desks were ordered from a school supply company online, and are the traditional lift lid student desks.

Tomorrow is our weekly home blessing. After this happens, and the school room is tidied up, I'll take some photos to post. Right now, the school room is very untidy and not wanting to have its picture taken.

Hymns for a Kid's Heart

Sweetling has a girl's club that meets at our house every other Friday. We started this last year, when we could no longer participate in American Heritage Girls (which is a great program and we were sad that it no longer was fitting in the life of our family.)

The girls call themselves "God's Girls" and they do a brief Bible study/devotion, work on a project or learn a new skill, and then have some time to play and hang out. I was a little stuck on what to do for our devotions this fall, and then the Wednesday before the meeting, this came in the mail (check out my cool linking picture)...



I flipped through it, and it seemed perfect. It has a short story about the childhood and life of the writer of a time-loved hymn. It has a reference to a scripture passage that goes along with the hymn. It has the lyrics of the hymn, and a CD. And Joni Eareckson Tada is one of the authors, so you know its good. (And yes, I had to go look up how to spell her name.)

I showed the book to the girls, and read to them some of my favorite bits of the introduction. They were interested in reading the book and using it as a basis for their devotions. So, we started with it that Friday.

The first vignette was about Reginald Heber, who lived from 1783-1826 and who wrote "Holy, Holy, Holy". The book begins its story by saying, "Two wonderful things about a young boy named Reginald Heber amazed everyone who knew him. First, he just loved books." Immediately, the girls, who all love books, were right there with Reginald. The story painted a fleeting picture of his home in England in the late 18th century. "The other special thing about Reginald," continues the story, "was his love for God." The girls were completely absorbed.

Our first devotion activity was born from the following passage: "There was a contest at Reginald's school one year, and he wrote a poem that one the top prize. He knew that God had given him the ability to write. After the ceremony, Reginald decided to go back to his room to thank God." We stopped and discussed what abilities and gifts we had been given. The girls each took a moment to write in their journals a brief prayer thanking God for the unique gifts and abilities He has given them.

We finished reading the story about Reginald, and we read how in his hymn, he used the words the Bible says the angels sing when they worship God in heaven. We read a short devotion by Joni Eareckson Tada about the throne room in heaven, and we read a few verses from Revelation 2. We read and discussed the lyrics for "Holy, Holy, Holy," and we ended our devotions in Sweetling's room singing the hymn along with the CD. (With Sweetling climbing up on her loft bed to operate the CD player.)

It was perfect. The girls loved it, they read a section of scripture that they hadn't before, there was a practical and personal application, and we had a sweet worship time with the music. (And we still had plenty of time for a project *and* to play.) This Friday, we'll be doing the section for "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

Two of the girls gave me permission to share (anonymously) the prayers they wrote in their journals:

Dear God,
Thank you for all the talents that you gave me and all the gifts that some people can't do. Thank you for the abbility to read, write and speak to my friends. Thank you for making me be myself. Amen

And...

Lord, thank you for everything. I know that sometimes I call myself stupid, Dum, and horible, but I know that I am Your creation, and You Love me. Amen.
PS. if blessed be your name would show up in my life, I would love it.
I Love you
Amen.

Dresses

I have no one to inflict my pictures on anymore, so I inflict them on the web at large. Its like random acts of violence, except it random acts of costuming...

Anyway, I'm looking for arabic wedding dresses for a character concept. The top one is my favorite.

Friday Fill-In

1. October is a perfect fall month.
2. Things with lots of little legs scare me!
3. Leaves are falling all around, it's beautiful to watch and lovely to crunch them under foot.
4. My favorite horror movie is "Aliens" because I managed to watch it almost all the way through...there are still some scenes that I have to close my eyes.
5. Long walks in the woods = good memories.
6. It was a dark and stormy night, so I made a cup of hot chocolate and snuggled up in a blanket to read a good book.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to taking my first belt test for Tae Kwon Do! Tomorrow my plans include kicking through a board (I hope) and Sunday, I want to finally get around to making cupcakes to take to the local fire station!

Little Women (My Own Meme!)

Last spring, Sweetling read some excerpts from Little Women in her Classics for Young Readers anthology. I remember, vaguely, reading the book sometime around 4th or 5th grade and not being impressed. In fact, I remember finding it rather dull and tedious to read. And Sweetling wasn't that taken with the excerpt she read either. But Mommy, who read the excerpts so we could discuss them, fell in love with the story. I told Sweetling how I hadn't liked it when I was younger. I explained for her, in more modern language, why Jo's sacrifice of cutting her hair was such a huge sacrifice for the time. I talked to her about how she would feel if her Daddy was gone for a year, and then became very, very sick. That perspective seemed to help her appreciate the story some more, but the original language and writing style still wasn't something that interested her. I, on the other hand, decided I really needed to reread Little Women. And then I never got around to checking it out of the library.

Last week at the library, I stumbled upon the volume by accident and brought it home with me. The edition I came across is called "The Whole Story" and has historical and cultural notes and illustrations in the margins to help a younger reader understand the context of the story. (Smurf, I would fail at the "More Victorian than You" game. I still had to look up "dress-circle" and "poplins". I can't find "tarleton" other than it being, i think, a kind of fabric.)

Yesterday afternoon I read the chapter "Jo Meets Apollyon". (And I also now need to read Pilgrim's Progress.) Some words that Mrs. March speaks to Jo really made me stop and think. Speaking of learning to overcome her own quick temper and hastily spoken words, she says, "I must try to practise all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example."

And I was forced to wonder, what example am I setting for my own children. What do they learn from watching me? And what do I daily model for them?

If you are a mother, and you are reading this, I'd love to hear your own reflections on this topic. Would you be so kind as to take a moment to write about this in your own blog, and leave me a little note to let me know you have done so? If you're not a mother, but have some thoughts either about what your mother modeled for you or what you might like to model for your children someday, I'd love to hear those as well. My own reflections are rather long, because I lean towards the verbose, but I'd love to read some other entries about this, whatever length or format suits you best! (I'm not clever enough to make a linking graphic for you to copy, so sorry! But you're welcome to either use my graphic or none or your own, or whatever.)

My first inclination is to dwell solely own my own faults and follies. But I want to be honest and productive in my answer. Though everyone has shortcomings, to take this as an excuse to beat myself up for what I am not doing, would be to miss an opportunity for true self-reflection. So instead, I'm going to begin with the beginning of our day, and think carefully through what I do and say.

First, I know I'm not the best at getting up in a timely manner. But, despite this, I usually have myself ready for school on time and have the basics of my morning housework done as well. Yes, there are exceptions to this when I'm sick, or when we all stayed up late, but those are exceptions not the rule. More importantly, my children now get up and start completing their morning lists without needing reminders. They are usually ready to begin the school day on time. So, I think I can say that I'm modeling the importance of getting up, getting ready, and getting basic responsibilities attended to first thing. And, on those days we fall short, we still get up, get ready, and get our basic responsibilities tended to and start school as soon as we can.

Sweetling and I both do our devotions in the morning. We used to sit and do them at the kitchen table together as we had breakfast. But now that Sweetling has decided to read through the Bible a chapter at a time, she takes her Bible and curls up on a chair in the living room to read her chapter. I still sit at the kitchen table with mine. I start my devotions by writing a list of seven specific things I am thankful for that day. Sweetling still loves to come and read my list each morning. Then I write down which scriptures I am reading, and I jot down a sentence or two about how the scriptures spoke to me specifically. Sometimes, I'll write a verse on a yellow post it note and stick it to the bathroom mirror, so that I can remember to reflect upon it during the day. I think I've set a good example for Sweetling, but I know I need to be better at helping Toa of Boy with his devotions. I need to find some way of working devotions for him into the busy morning.

I know during school that I model many different qualities. Independent learning is a big one on the list, and it is something that Sweetling has nearly mastered. The importance of reading is clearly evident in our house, not just during school time but all the time. And both Sweetling and Toa of Boy are blossoming in their love of books. Writing is likewise modeled and valued. I spend time on blogs and on creative writing projects of my own. Sweetling spends hours writing her own short stories and participating in discussions on Webkinz Insider. Toa of Boy keeps his own journal (with Mommy's help. He sounds out the first letter of each word, and I fill in the rest of the word.) Even though his last two entries were, "I D[on't] W[ant] T[o] D[o] S[chool]," and, "I D[on't] W[ant] T[o] D[o] J[ournal]," he is delighted with the ability to put his thoughts and opinions in writing.

Creativity and self-expression are valued, praised, and encouraged in their development. Toa of Boy will be the first to tell you that he is a great artist. Sweetling will agree that she is creative and unique and that she has her own style. And of course no one who has ever met me even in passing would deny that I'm one of those "creative types." Spontaneity, joy, and playfulness are also qualities that I readily, easily, and daily model. In fact, I asked Sweetling last night as I was brushing her hair after her shower, what sort of qualities she thought I taught by example. Her first response was, "that it's okay to be silly sometimes."

Thankfulness and recognizing the blessings in our lives is another lesson I think I'm managing to hand down. Yesterday morning, I was on the phone with Vaya. We were discussing how long we each had been without power after the windstorm last weekend. Vaya had gone without power for a week. I said that we had been very fortunate in that our electricity was only out for 26 hours or so. "Yes," added the Sweetling, who was as usual listening in, "and even then we still had a gas stove to cook on, and a phone that didn't need electricity to work, and hot water." I am pleased that rather than dwelling on the crisis of the storm, Sweetling immediately recites the many ways we were spared. It is our practice as a family, before each meal, when we give our thanks, we each find one new, specific thing to thank God for. I think there is great value in focusing on the many gifts we have, rather than dwelling predominately on what we have not.

Which then leads to how we share our blessings, and how we demonstrate compassion and kindness to those in need. This is one area I wish I was doing more regularly. It isn't that we don't do this at all. We pray for those who are going through hardships. Both children help select clothes and toys to put in give away bags when the charity trucks come through the neighborhood. Anytime I make a dish to take to church for a funeral, or a meal to deliver to a family who's experienced a birth or a serious illness, I try to have the children help in the preparations. When we're at the grocery store, there are specific deals I take advantage of just so that I can take the items to the church food pantry...and I'll ask the children to find the item on the store shelf, telling them why we are getting it, just so that they are participating in the sharing. Still it seems like all these ways are sporadic and infrequent. Not regular or routine.

I'd like to say I demonstrate good sportsmanship. And that's true to some extent. We are very conscientious about telling each other 'good game,' and meaning it, whether we win or lose. We congratulate each other for our successes, even if we haven't shared in the victory. Watching the Olympics, I made sure to point out to Toa of Boy how the athletes shook hands after the events, no matter how they had placed. And yet I also do dances of victory when I beat the Jedi in Wii Mariokart. So, still an area I can improve upon I suppose.

And sadly, there are many areas in which I demonstrate lack of follow through. Every summer, I give my children the chance to witness first hand what becomes of a garden when its neglected. And at least one week out of the month, my children have to go rescue underwear from a laundry basket downstairs, because I never got around to getting the clean laundry folded and in baskets to its respective owners.

Neither do I demonstrate punctuality. Oh, I try, but I'm also well-known for my perpetual tardiness. (I think I'm getting better, but I'm no where near consistently on time. Its so sad when as we leave the house, the five year old always asks, "We late, Mommy?")

But I overflow in demonstrating love for my children and my husband. I'm free with my words of affection and with gentle hugs, quick kisses, and playful tickles. We will never be the most punctual family, and we don't have the tidiest of homes, but we have a very caring family and a loving home.