Facebook Friday

June 22
I'm serving hot fudge banana splits at Sweetling's sleepover because i thought these would be a yummy summer treat. The girls, however, only see these as a means to get, and i do quote, "ALL SUGARED UP".

June 23
a nap is happening today. Thus it has been written; thus it shall be done.

June 24
Me: I'm so tired. I need to be able to tap into Toa's energy reserves. Where does he get all that energy?
Toa of Boy: Meat!

June 25
Today's shout out goes to my Friend in the Trenches who found us a great electric keyboard for school! Toa is so excited, he wants to start his homeschool music lessons *today* rather than wait for the 'official' start of school!

June 26
We went to Farbach-Werner Nature Preserve to see their owl display and go on a short walk. We came home with--- two ziplock bags, one with small rodent and bird bones, the other with the rest of the dissected owl pellet; one bent stick which shall be painted brown and strung to become a bow; a roll of paper sycamore bark; and a few scratches from tree climbing.

June 27
I like hanging out with other mothers with boys, just to know I'm not the only one who has to say things like, "No breaking and entering!" and "No, get down! You may not ride on your brother!"

June 27
Theology according to the VBS preschoolers:
Q: Who did God send to Earth to save us?
A: Reese! (The monkey puppet)

June 28
Goal for the day: have the kitchen floor swept and mopped, the bathroom clean, and the house vacuumed by 10am. It's not a very exciting goal I know, but I'll be happy when I've completed it!


June 28
Rewriting is hard work. why did I pick this as my reward for getting the house semi-clean?

June 30
Call me crazy, but...I can't find a zucchini pasta salad recipe that cooks the zucchini. Isn't raw zucchini a bit hard and tough for a salad?

June30
Oh NO!!! I forgot to do the baking/cooking for the church picnic tomorrow!

July 2

I love technology...I can stalk my daughter from across the country!

July 3
My Sweetling called me!!!

July 3
The group in Denver

July 3
I took a reality pill and realized that going bookless for math was going to be a *whole* lot of work. So, plan B. Anyone have experience with the series "Key to..." I'm looking at Key to Fractions and Key to Percents in particular.

July 5
Did you know that vampires see everything in shades of red? It's true; Toa of Boy told me so.

July 5
Sweetling on a service project in Denver. Her hat says "Daddy's Mini-Me"!

July 6

July 7
Yay! She's on her way home!

July 8
within minutes of waking up, Toa of Boy was telling me all about the things he rolled up last night in Katamari. Thank you Christopher Robin, you've made a young boy very happy this weekend!

July 8
Today's conversation--
Sweetlng: Hey, are those my shoes you are wearing???
Me: Yes. Think of it as rent for feeding your fish while you were gone.

July 8
portfolios written for both kids, now I just have to assemble the work samples to scan or photo graph

July 9
Last night I jotted down a to-do list for today. It reads, "tub, laundry, dishes, kitchen, sweep, ticket, plants, games, hair." This morning I have *no* idea what 'games' is doing on the list or what it's supposed to mean.

July 9
Second to-do list for the week. Yes, the Facebook world does need to know this.
--round up Sweetlings's work samples
--photo/scan work samples
--finish letter of intent
--clean out school shelves
--clean out file cabinet
--purge stuff from under the stairs
--box up last year's curriculum to be stored in garage
--make Logic of English game cards
--set up this year's school books and materials
--clean Toa's closet
--go clothes shopping with Christopher Robin
--go to game week at Farbach Werner
--find a gaming snack that can hold its own against Munchkin dip

July 9
My children have added "defeat the final boss in Zelda:Twilight Princess" to my to do list for this afternoon. Being the loving, selfless mother that I am, I shall have to honor that request.

July 9
What I should be doing...getting ready for school or defeating the final Zelda boss. (It's a toss up between those two.)
What I am doing: checking out potential homes for living in through a zombie apocalypse

July 11
I have been informed today that we have *not* had a summer unless we make homemade ice cream. Friday afternoon grocery run had better include ingredients for ice cream!

July 12
Drove down to get gyros from Sebastian's today....and they were closed for a two week vacation! We went to Golden City instead which had some of the best egg rolls ever :)

July 13
It's quarter till 2 a.m. I was asleep, but now I'm wide awake. any decent suggestions on what to do with myself?

July 14
judging BBQ in Kettering :)

July 15
conversations--
Toa of Boy: do do do do do do do
Sweetling: ---
Toa: do do do do do do do
Sweetling: --
Toa:  Sweetling! It's the chasing music!
Sweetling: ?
Toa: Do do do do do do do
Sweetling: ?
Toa: You know the music where you are chasing baby ducks!
Sweetling: ????
Toa: do do do do do do do
Sweetling: I'm not even going to ask.

July 15
conversations as we wait for the homemade ice cream to set up--
Me: What about some ham and cheese quesadillas?
Toa: No, that's too much like a meal.
Sweetling: Well, we still need to eat something for dinner.
The Jedi: Really? I thought that was what the ice cream was for.

July 16
Compliment of the day (from Sweetling) :
"I really like the direction you picked for history this year."

July 16
First day of school--all subjects and assignments complete, laundry down to the last load, kitchen-living room-dishes-bath all clean. BOOYAH! Who's the woman!

July 17
Just found a pair of black bionicle bat wings in the dryer with the socks and underwear.

July 17
The Jedi's compliment of the day:
Toa of Boy: Daddy, what's the elven word for mountain?
The Jedi: I'd have to look that up.
Toa: Ok, I thought I'd ask cause I thought you might know.
Jedi: I love that our family needs an elven dictionary.

July 18
at 9:30 on the third day of school, I have three things to share:
a) I hate modeling clay
b) Tears have been shed
c) If two trains enter a tunnel, I don't care what their speed is, there is going to be a big explosion in the tunnel.

July 18
Toa of Boy named his skeleton lego "Vecna."

July 19
New measure of pathetic: waiting till your daughter leaves the room to sharpen her pencil so that you can cheat off of her algebra work

July 19
What i learned tonight at tae kwon do--- Iron Butterflies are every bit as evil as they sound

Facebook Friday

5/11
I have a list of stuff that I need to do this afternoon, and none of it sounds fun or interesting. I thought that there must be a word to describe this situation, and then I remembered, oh yes....it's called "work".

5/11
The last homeschool day of the year was brought to a close with a sneak super soaker attack!!!

5/12
I dislike measuring out shortening. So, I gave the job to Toa of Boy instead....thinking that this would let me avoid a shortening mess. Um, yeah.

5/14
I just STEPPED on Toa's fish. One of those smooth moves that puts one in the running for worst mother of the year award. :(

5/17
Making birthday pinatas today. Toa of Boy wants a fish pinata. Great! No problem! Sweetling wants a lazer tag gun. Really?

5/18
Second layer going on the pinatas right now.

5/20
Quarter till 9 at night. I am literally waiting for some paint to dry. Then I'm covering two pinatas with fringed crepe paper.

5/24
What I should be doing: Baking and decorating 24 to 30 puffle cupcakes.
What I'm really doing: Wondering how difficult it would be to turn the old sand box into a frog pond.
The moral of the story: Homeschooling friends shouldn't share their tadpoles with other homeschooling friends.

5/25
And now the rest of the morning's to-do list goes like this: dishes, cupcakes, pinata, lunch. Sadly, it does not quite fit the meter of the Dora the Explorer chant.
......>>I don't know...it kind of fits the meter as I run it through my head! Dishes, cupcakes, pinata, lunch...dishes cupcakes pinata lunch...d-d-d-d-d-dora, d-d-d-d-d-dora

5/25
Thirty-three Puffle cupcakes boxed up and ready to go!

5/26
How fun was the birthday party? It was five shaving cream cans worth of fun :)

5/28
Conversations I just don't understand--
Me: Go brush your teeth.
Toa of Boy: Awwww...Do I have to?
Me: Yes.
Toa: Awwwww.....
Really? This isn't a new or unusual requirement

5/28
Turned down the blankets tonight to tuck Toa into bed and discovered a lego man graveyard. Clearly, a great battle had taken place there

5/29
Dear Wii Fit,
Before you get all snotty about how many *months* it has been since I used you, I would like to remind you that your cute little balance board lives within mere feet of a second story window.
Thank you, that is all.

5/29
Dear Wii Fit Balance Board,
I'm so sorry. I didn't really mean it. Please come out from wherever you are hiding.

5/29
Tonight's conversation:
Me: Ok, time for bed.
Toa of Boy: Awwww.....I wish I was a dragon. Then I wouldn't have to go to bed.

5/30
Guess what I'm doing at quarter till midnight on a weeknight? If you guessed making another pinata, you'd be right!

5/31
This morning's conversation:
Toa of Boy: So, what's your craft at babysitting today?
Me: We're making suncatchers and blowing bubbles. Fun summertime things.
Toa (excited): ooooooo! What's a suncatcher??
Me: It's just something pretty and colorful that you hang in a window to let light shine through it.
Toa (disappointed): Oh, I thought it might be something that would trap the sun and destroy the world.
Me: No, it's not that.

6/1
Pre-seven this morning found me outside in the pouring rain, huddled under a gulf umbrella, scooping water out of the frog tank because both their large rocks were completely submerged and I didn't want them to drown!

6/2
T minus 11:50 until my niece's birthday party, and I *just* finished the pinata!

6/4
i am a google map addict. I practically can't go anywhere without first printing out a google map!

6/4
A final farewell to our sweet amphibian friends. You go on to a fuller life in your natural habitat, but you leave behind a nine year old boy who will miss you dearly.
.....>>Dear skinny lady, we, the native amphibians want to thank you for sending bob, kevin and tammy back to live among us, however, they now seem to expect people to hold umbrellas over them on rainy days and they think food just drops to them from the skies. they are creating a terrible new religion based upon these outlandish ideas and supplanting our true gods. You have ruined our world forever.

6/6
Snack time for me---bring on the nutella!

6/7
A successful boys' playdate ends with the quote, "Do not get blood all over her bathroom."

6/11
This morning's conversation--
Toa: Do I *have* to sort my laundry?
Me: Do you want clean clothes?
Toa: Um.....
Me: Do you want to go naked to camp?
Toa: Um......
Sweetling: Just go sort your laundry.

6/11
One of the many reasons I love my family: we can have a debate in the van over whether the Tardis should count as an animal, vegetable, or mineral for a game a 20 questions.

6/12
I snuck in two goodbye kisses while we were standing in the line to sign Toa in for camp. He made a face at me both times, but none of his friends were around to see, so I think I didn't violate any serious Mommy-behavior rules. ;)

6/12
What I have learned tonight: deleting large blocks of emails absolutely must be done with "pa-chow" sound effects.

6/13
How is it that *decades* after we put a man on the moon, we still don't have house-cleaning robots? Clearly, this is an inexcusable oversight in our technological development.

6/15
Two hours till I leave to pick up my boy. Not that I'm an anxious mommy counting down the time....oh wait, yes, yes I am!

6/15
some unnamed person left her clothes on the floor of the bathroom after her shower. I think the only reasonable response is to send me, um...her, strait to bed for the afternoon. that's justice, right?

6/18
This morning's shout out goes to our wonderful neighbors who were kind enough to give us some 500 piece puzzles a while back. I keep them in my game closet for times like last night. At 12:30 in the morning, Toa of Boy is standing at the side of my bed, because he can't sleep. I got up, assessed the situation (not sick, not scared, not sad) and let him pick out a puzzle to work on the kitchen table. After he was all set up, I went back to bed. He stayed up for another hour, then went to sleep on the couch. Happy, easy solution for all :)

Tuesday
Hmmmm....fold laundry OR create a penguin scavenger hunt? Decisions, decisions.

Wednesday
I took all the drawers and shelves out of my fridge and gave everything a good washing. the fridge hasnt' been this clean since it came home. Now, anyone wanna lay odds on whether or not I can get the drawers and shelves back *in* the fridge?

Friday
Somewhere in America, people find loose change when dusting. In my house, I find five legos, a bionicle mask, a nerf gun bullet (though we don't own a nerf gun), Rory the Beetle, a planet Mars bouncy ball, Haruhi's plastic stand, a 1970's fisher price person, a Canadian penny, and one thin dime.

Facebook Friday

If you're just tuning in, one of the functions of my blog is to serve as a way to document my life and my family. I'm trying to remember to grab a few of my facebook updates and collect them into one post once a week. "Trying" is, of course, the key word in that sentence.

Here we go, Here we go, to Camp Wallaballa.....

ok, I'm sewing this beautiful elven dress. (I'm using view A, the dress itself is cream crushed panne, the sleeves are a glimmering spring green netting). Here are my options, I can cut the sleeves out WITH the grain of the fabric and cut two pieces, front and back. This then leaves a seam running down the shoulder and top of sleeves. OR I can cut the sleeves out in ONE piece running AGAINST the grain of the fabric. This means no seam, but the sleeves don't drape as nicely. (The fabric isn't wide enough to cut the sleeve in one piece running with the grain.) Thoughts?

1. i think i hate sewing.
2. I cut *against* the grain, despite everyone who knew better telling me not too.
3. I am dreadfully, and for the first time ever in any sewing project, worried that this entire dress is going to be way too small when it's finished.

it's five till ten and i'm redesigning a dress pattern

most of my dress requires the use of cream colored thread, but parts require the use of a leaf green thread. over the past 24 hours, i have changed the thread in my machine more times than I can spit.

zippers are the spawn of satan. no wonder the amish shun them.

my bleepin zipper is bleepin backwards.

i ws going to leave it, but it looked terrible....it's an invisible zipper, so the invisible part wound up on the inside, and the outside was a bunch of ugly zipper. Look like I was turning into the abomination.

I just found a Ghiradelli "Intense Dark: Midnight Reverie" bar in my fridge. Got dark chocolate and a seam ripper. My evening is looking up.

you know, elmers glue-all fries clear, and i am good at paper mache. surely theres some sewing application in there....

Zipper attempt number three. The only thing holding my sanity together (by a thread--ha ha), is that my mom used the seam ripper and carefully removed the zipper for me both times.

Ok---I'm hemming!!!

You all know I'm time challenged. Let's pretend I just put dough in the bread machine to make cinnamon rolls for tomorrow, and then realized that the dough will be ready to come out of the bread machine just as we need to leave for the Avenger's movie. Can I put the dough in the fridge? Should I just let it sit on the counter? I won't be able to roll it out and bake it till we get home.

Dress picture...as promised! After all that worry about it being too small, it wound up being a bit too big, but I didn't have time to take it in to get a perfect fit :(

it's 10:15. I'm too tired to do anything productive, but am waiting on bedtime till Susan and Ed are finished picking out their convention schedule. all i've sat here and done is click "like" on several status updates. i feel old. I should go play a game of solitaire next.

I'm too tired to do much of anything....except apparently look over the curriculum we'll be using next school year in eager anticipation! Here's a question, some of the curriculum we will be using is designed for a five day school week. We have a four day week at home, because Monday is a co-op day. I don't want to cut out a day of lessons every week, and I don't want to have one day of double-long lessons, AND I don't want to do just make up those co-op days earlier or later in the school year....because that drags our school year out WAY too much. Essentially, I want to have my cake and eat it too! How can I make that happen?

printed and am filling in the summer schedule. I've been told, in no uncertain terms, that our summer break has only 65 days....not the requisite 104 days of summer vacation!

What I learned tonight at Tae Kwon Do:
"Duck and cower" does not count as a trained combat reflex.

I have just unleashed a boy with a butterfly net upon the innocent and unsuspecting nature in the back yard. Forgive me, nature.

Tonight at Tae Kwon Do, I kicked the polish right off my toes!

Facebook Friday

Facebook Friday....it's almost like "flashback Friday", since it's been so long since I've done this.

Once again, the point here is that I do reread my blog, and grabbing a few of my Facebook posts for the past couple of weeks lets me revisit some of those memories. I'm going to leave off the post date. I think that was just unnecessary work I made for myself.

• What's a good post-gardening snack? (Hint: it is NOT a salad. I'm all done messing with green things.) 

•  Dear Student Ministries, Toa of Boy was very disappointed that bags full of live earthworms were not sent home as party favors. He would have given some of them a good home. 

• There is, apparently, a big difference between baking soda and corn starch....even though they both live in a yellow box on the same shelf of the fridge. When one is cooking a pancake dinner and talking on the phone at the same time, one should pay better attention to which box one is grabbing. Just an FYI. 

• Even though I'm not prone to notice which yellow box I've grabbed when distracted...I *CAN* make corn muffins without eggs! Boo-yah!!! 

• My life in the kitchen is such a roller coaster of highs and lows. The terrible cornstarch/backing soda switch was followed by an egg-less corn muffin victory...and then I forgot to add the yeast to the scrumptious homemade wheat hamburger buns. Ah well, if the London Olympics needs a few extra discuses, I have them.

•  I know what we're doing for the first three weeks of the Amazing Race at Learning Tree next year!!! So pumped about this class!!!!!

Curriculum Choices

You think its too early to be picking curriculum for next year? Think again!

The biggest problem with picking curriculum for next year....is that I want to be finished with the ones we're using now! Still have a few weeks to go in this school year though!

Sweetling's possible courses for 2012-2013

•  One Year Adventure Novel
(Sweetling found this one herself at the convention and is excited about it. We bought it, so this is a "for sure" for next year.)

• Formal Logic

(For Sweetling's high school years, I want to incorporate some elements of classical education. Sweetling spoke to the author of this book at the convention and is excited about doing logic next year. We're going to hang out on the waterbed and read this book together.)

• Japanese
(another awesome Sweetling find at the convention.)
• The World of the Bible: Matthew-Acts
• American Literature (yeah, we don't have a curriculum or a reading list yet. I'm working on it.)
• American History (led by the Jedi.)
• German (with the Jedi)
• Shakespeare (at co-op)
• General Science (at co-op)
• Spanish 3 (at co-op)
• American Sign Language 1 (at co-op) 
• Drawing (at co-op)
• Vocabulary from Classical Roots (We need to get back to this. I think I'll do this course with her, so we can try to use the words in our regular speech more often.)
• Algebra 2 or Pre-Calculus (I'm going to look for a decent, used Algebra 2 text. Then, with each chapter, we will pretest. If she already knows it, we're not doing it again. If she doesn't know the chapter, or is missing pieces, then we'll just do those sections. The Algebra 2 book I saw from A Beka primarily contained material Sweetling already mastered a few years ago.  I'm going to look at some books from Holt McDougal as well. We might need to go to pre-calculus to find some new math concepts for Sweetling.)

Sound like a lot for a Sweetling? Maybe. But some of these won't take much time per day or even much time per week. I think she can handle it and we'll scale back if need be. The important part of this curriculum is that she picked out most of it herself. She loves languages, and is so quick to pick them up, so I'm letting her run with it!

Toa of Boy's possible courses for 2012-2013

• Logic of English 

(I bought a course which includes spelling, handwriting, grammar, light vocabulary, simple composition....with exercises and directions geared toward the kinesthetic learner. The presenter sold me when she was incorporating relay races, scavenger hunts, and nerf guns into spelling lessons. )

 

America the Beautiful

 (This is designed as a one year history/geography curriculum....but I looked at it and we're going to do it over two years to give us time to read historical fiction and do cool hands-on projects. I like how each small unit includes a lesson overviewing that particular period of history, a lesson on a natural landmark, a lesson on daily life at the time, a brief biography of a noteworthy American, and a lesson on a man-made landmark. Each unit also has a hands on art, cooking, or building project as well as mapping and timeline activities.)

• The World of the Bible: Matthew-Acts
(Sweetling, Toa, and I will be doing this together.) 

• Finish off Elementary Math. (I'm going bookless for this one. I can't find a fifth grade math curriculum worth our time. I think we'll take half a year to finish off fractions, decimals, ratios, probability, and geometry. I'll use my Teaching Children Mathematics textbook from college to help me cover all the concepts in a reasonable order. Then we're moving on to fun math....like "It's ALIVE: Math that Makes You Squirm!") 
• Reading (Toa of Boy wants the opportunity to throw a pie in my face if he reads a certain number of books during the school year. Lovely.)


• Mythbusters: Don't Try This at Home (Unless We Tell You To) (Cause what is cooler for science than watching a Mythbusters episode, then reading a bit about the science behind the experiments, AND THEN TRYING ONE YOURSELF).
• EDIT TO ADD: Toa of Boy just told me he wants to learn about the human body...so we might be doing Apologia's Anatomy and Physiology instead. 
• Art by Deep Space Sparkle. (I just love this site. I want to be a bit more intentional about Toa's art, because he is so gifted. I found a great curriculum at the convention, but it was a bit pricey...and I think that I'm going to wait one more year before going more 'formal' with Toa's art instruction. Meanwhile, Deep Space Sparkle has lots of terrific lessons which showcase important 'building blocks' of good art.)
• Chess (at co-op)
• General Art (at co-op)
• Travel USA (at co-op)
• Phys Ed (at co-op)
• Lego Creation (at co-op)

 Looks good, doesn't it?

And finally, for the mom...(that's me, by the way)...I found a really interesting planning site at PlanBook.com. Now, if only I could find myself a robot, fairy, or brownie that would do most of the housework for me, I'd be set to go!

Facebook Friday

Once again, don't read if you're already on Facebook. 

Jan 29
Many, many books are leaving my house. The Jedi is organizing and reshelving what is left (which is still, many, many books.)

Jan 29
Pop quiz.....what delicious chocolate treat do I want to make?
>>I went with whole wheat brownies. They need chocolate chips in them, but are still pretty yummy.

Jan 30
GOOO MEEE!!!!!! I made a blog banner ALL BY MYSELF! I didn't get help from Sweetling or the Jedi or anybody!!!

Jan 31
Dear Facebook Friends--
In the midst of all your preparations for the upcoming winter storm, let us not forget that Groundhog's Day is on Wednesday. It is not to late to mobilize! If we all work together and do our part, we can go a long way to ensuring that no groundhog anywhere sees its shadow.

Jan 31
Grocery list finished for this week. Thanks for all the tasty recipe ideas! I'm planning on making a new soup each week through the duration of winter. Take THAT nasty weather!

Feb 1
4.784 but i keep forgetting to stretch before I run.

Feb 1
I just want to point out that "Winter Weather System" and "Wintery Mix" seem far too benign to actually describe the frozen nastiness they usually contain.

Feb 2
ARRRRGGGG!!!!! I can't READ the crappy word verification letters!!!! ARRRGGGGG!!!!!

Feb 3
Very difficult to type status updates when one hand is clutched tight around a fistful of peanut m&ms.

Feb 4
Who can cook curry? I picked up vanilla yogurt from the store by mistake!!! If i use the vanilla in my chicken curry, how badly will that mess it up?

Feb 4
my curry was GOOD!

Feb 6
We aren't going to be packed for co-op cause I'm watching the superbowl and don't want to have the chaos of packing going on during it. Will I regret this tomorrow morning? yes. yes I will.

Feb 6
The Monday after Superbowl Sunday should be a national holiday. Just saying.

Feb 7
someone in this house needs to take one for the team and eat the last piece of chocolate pie. I guess it will just have to be me.
>>You know what I love about you? The way you are always sacrificing your wants and needs for your family. I admire you, my hero!

Feb 8
I have no clean dishes in my house. I have no clean dishes in my house, cause I have no Cascade. I have no Cascade cause even though I went to Walmart JUST FOR CASCADE yesterday i walked out with a $35 bill and NO CASCADE. I have no breakfast, unless I want to wash dishes by hand. I have no sink to wash dishes, cause both my sink and my dishwasher are full of dirty dishes. Here I sit, hiding in the basement, hungry.

Feb 8
Guess who just took the LAST box of Cascade off the walmart shelf? Oh yeah. I'm that wicked.


Feb 10
It's 12:30, and i'm still in my jammies. Hooray for Thursdays!

Feb 10
My roast beef is really tough. Do I cook it longer? Does it get more tender with more oven time?

Feb 10
Toa of Boy really thinks "burnination" is a word. I don't have the heart to tell him that it isn't.

Feb 11
I don't want to do either school OR laundry today, but guess what?


Feb 11
3pm, and only three large baskets of laundry stand between me and my weekend.... as Toa of Boy would say, "you are going DOWN, laundry!"

Feb 12
One can tell it's saturday by the collection of hot chocolate mugs near my desk

Feb 12
cannot get past annoying red hand of doom.....Curse you Link, move faster!

Feb 13
I have chocolate covered strawberries for my French class tomorrow. I don't have a lesson plan yet, but I think the kids will overlook that little detail.

Feb 14
From sunshine and no jackets yesterday, back to winter coats today. Boo hiss.

Feb 15
He is jealous for me, love like a hurricane, I am a tree.

Feb 15
Who has a t-shirt with a brain on it which I can borrow for game night tomorrow night?

Feb 15
here I go to make a t-shirt. Wish me luck. And, you know, tell me it looks like a brain, a cool brain.

Feb 16
Space Chimps 2 is like a train wreck....its aweful, and yet I can't see to stop watching.
--Just so I'm not alone in this....the movie ended with a time reversal, followed by a circus performance, followed by a dotson and guinea pig in a space suit chasing a miniaturized alien around a front lawn in Florida.

Feb 16
New word for the day..."adorkable" as in "you look adorkable". Thank you Sweetling.

Feb 17
What I've leaned in school today: Camels have *nasty* teeth.

Feb 17
I just poked out the bottoms of all the valentine's chocolates to find the one I wanted.

Feb 18
Guess who spent the afternoon at Krohn conservatory playing SuperMunchkin?

Feb 20
Once again, I am defeated by the computer. It's not enough to tell it to print and walk away, one must also tell it "ok" after it has just been told to print.

Feb 20
We were discussing how many languages a woman at our church can speak. This led to what I thought would be a touching, teachable moment. So I started talking about how God gives each one of us special gifts. Toa of Boy, very enthusiastically, interrupted me to exclaim, "I can play MarioKart Wii with ONE HAND!!!" Yes, onward Christian soldier.
--Toa of Boy is cool, too many people with gifts say they don't have any. Even the smallest gifts can be used by God in great ways. Ways no one else can.

Feb 21
Our Monday morning started out with no toilet paper in the house. How is everyone else doing?
--Is it with the Cascade?

Feb 22
DAFFODILS!!! That's right! The green leaves of the daffodils are up all over my backyard! WWWOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

Feb 23
if i had any spaghetti sauce, i'd make bake spaghetti for dinner.

Feb 23
There needs to be a new word for tired. None of the words I can think of will fit my current state.

Feb 24
5.438, not good enough to overtake Toa's first place of 5.596. Toa's little legs go so fast on the trampoline that his Mii trips up and goes bouncing down the "road".

Feb 24
We're going to a friend's house to watch the first episode of this season of the Amazing Race. Toa of Boy is *complaining* that this is cutting into school time. Seriously??? Where did I go wrong with you, boy?

Feb 24
What evil person hides a lemon filling in the middle of a dark chocolate? Really, tha'ts just sick, twisted, and cruel. It was the last of the valentine's candy too :(

Feb 25
First sound I hear when Toa of Boy wakes up...the monkey scream of the flying monkey of justice.

Facebook Friday...on Saturday (again)

And again, don't bother reading this if you already follow me on Facebook.

Jan 8
I'm feeling singularly unmotivated to run on a trampoline this morning.

Jan 9
Toa of Boy used his half of an Amazon Christmas gift certificate to buy "Worms: BAttle Island" for the wii. This afternoon he made his first custom weapon and named it "dead ray". Peace on earth indeed.

Jan 10
3.565 today. Things I have learned 1) I just need to suck it up and run on saturday, no matter how lazy I feel. 2)Eswin stands secure in his family distance record. 3)My status updates were more enterntaining before I stated running.

Jan 10
Does anyone know if Jungle Jim's sells ostrich eggs?
--Yay! So far our African menu has ostrich egg omelet, meat on a stick, samusas (ground beef pockets), luku (chicken and hard-boiled egges in a tomato base sauce), and sweet balls (like donut holes). No, we aren't going to make this all at one sitting, but spread out over the next two weeks. Assuming that there is a time when the road are clear so I can go get the groceries we'd need for it.

Jan 10
I'm not really sure why cleaning up a bedroom and getting jammies on should involve battle noises and combat sound effects, but it still got done in a timely fashion, I'm not going to worry about it.

Jan 11
Check out what's for lunch today. I'm using colby jack instead of cheddar and velveeta, cause I need to use up some of this cubed colby jack.

Jan 11
I'm snuggled under a penguin blanket and I'm not coming out till bedtime!

Jan 12
It's 12:30 and we are all still in our jammies. Also, my little boy seems to think its lunchtime. Huh

Jan 13
We left meijer this afternoon and I happened to look down and notice that Toa of Boy was wearing one brown boot (his grandma's) and one black boot ( which turned out to be his sister's). Where were Toa's boots? In Sweetling's closet, of course.

Jan 14
Going to the Jungle. :)

Jan 15
Sweetling and I ate dragon eyes at Jungle Jim's yesterday. I'm still waiting for my new special abilities to kick in.
--dragon eyes are a fruit, about the size of a grape, with a hard outer shell. you peel off the shell, and are left with a squishy grey juicy thing, a little like an unpeeled grape, with a large black pit in the center of it. I found it a little less sweet than a grape, and not worth the effort of extracting it from its shell. Susan found it, and I quote, "disgusting" because of its color, texture, and general aptness of the name.

Jan 16
L-A-Z-Y spells LAZY

Jan 16
"I'm going to sleep now, Hazel-rah, and Frith help you if you say I'm not." --Bigwig from Watership Down by Richard Adams.

Jan 17
SmoQ doesn't have a combo platter. That's OK, we solved that by ordering FIVE entrees for 2 adults and 2 children.

Jan 18
Haven't read the last couple chapters of our Beth Moore book BUT I do have a cup of hot chocolate so....to Bible study I shall go!

Jan 18
Can someone please tell me how it is I can go into walmart to get TWO things, and walk out with $60 cart of stuff?

Jan 18
Last night, I solved a medium sudoku in about 30-40 minutes. Today, I've been spinning my wheels on one puzzle. I have 11 number solved, about 40 unsolved, and I'm wondering why I ever thought this counted as "fun".
--HA HA! I did it. I can now go to bed and rest easy, knowing I have defeated another sudoku.

Jan 20
4.048 this morning. I called Toa of Boy in so that he could see how close I came to his record of 4.140. Toa's response, "Not close*enough*, Mommy."

Jan 21
4.215 Beat THAT, Toa :)

Jan 21
Dear Cincinnati drivers, please do not stop halfway up a snow and ice covered hill. It took me an hour and 45 minutes round trip to take Mom to work this morning in Blue Ash. AND I get to to it again this evening. Joy.

Jan 21
I shall have to paint my fingernails before church on Sunday in order to disquise what a terrible 'bruised' color I have just dyed them

Jan 22
The top of my toaster oven is just slightly convex. I'm sure it was designed this way to make it impractical for the consumer to store items on top of it. What the level-headed engineers failed to understand was that tired clutter freaks such as myself don't really care about practicality when desperately searching for a spot to stash a dirty casserole dish when the sink, dishwasher and stove top are already full.

Jan 24
stuck at waiting for the van to be done and I forgot my soduko book :(

Jan 25
I've noticed that Window's Office has completely hidden the "help" menu in their applications. Granted, it was only dubiously helpful before, but now its completely hidden

Jan 27
Our school day has been interrupted because the large number of plush students are having difficulty settling down and focussing. They are, in fact, currently debating who can "count to purple backwards."
--Ah the joys of active children. Last night during homework time dd had to set up the dining room like a classroom; complete with a white board to write on. And we had to go through all of her assignments like she was the teacher.
--I can count to purple backwards. 635nm, 615nm, 580nm, 535nm, 488nm, 463nm, 415nm. That would be the wavelengths of red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple (as seen in any rainbow).

Jan 27
Here are my options for this evening--1)blog about homemade gift exchanges 2)fold laundry and watch extreme makeover home edition. Decisions....decisions....

Jan 27
Every year I lose a pair or two of stretch gloves somewhere in my house. Where do they all go?

Jan 28
4.676 WOOT!

Jan 28
has anyone made soda bread from scratch? I want some homemade bread to go with dinner tonight and I'm out of yeast.

Jan 28
It has been determined that Irish soda bread might be an acquired taste.

Facebook Friday

AND its actually Friday, for 15 more minutes, booyah! (Once again, don't bother reading this if you already follow me on Facebook. I'm not *that* interesting.)

Dec 3
Sadly, the Christmas elves did not come and clean out my under-stairs storage while I slept. Sweetling says this is because the elves are too busy making sure the reindeer don't have a nervous breakdown, but she did volunteer to help me get the storage cleaned out so we can get to our tree decorations.

Dec 3
The good news is that we can now easily get to our Christmas decorations. The bad news is the entire office/school room downstairs is full of piles of junk I pulled out from under the stairs.

Dec 4
I can't find my pickle ornament. When I brought it home from amish country last spring, I couldn't get to the Christmas boxes to put it away, so I put it somewhere "safe". Now it's gone forever :(
---Sweetling made me a new pickle ornament, so now Christmas can proceed as scheduled.
---we do the person who finds the pickle gets to open the first present :) I told the kids that if I couldn't find the pickle ornament, no one would get to open presents....but no one believed me. And someone told me it was a German tradition, but I can't verify that.

Dec 5
Spent several quality hours with the toilet bowl last night. Aren't you grateful for the social media that lets me share these things with you?

Dec 5
Soda crackers are, in general, useless EXCEPT that I am extremely happy to be able to hold a few of them down.

Dec 6
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. I'm doing better, but now Sweetling has it :(
Besides soda crackers, jello, dry toast, and chicken noodle soup.....what can I safely eat? I'm *hungry*

Dec 6
New rule of thumb, if I'm too sick to drink hot chocolate, I'm too sick to leave the house. That's sound fair and reasonable, right?

Dec 6
I ate dinner, like a real, honest to goodness dinner!

Dec 8
who knows the lyrics from "Mystery of the Manger"? How does this end? "Matthew quoted prophesies that Jesus did fulfil. Mark wrote of the servant king who did the Father's will. Dr. Luke gave us the details of our Savior's birth. John would prove the Son of God would come to save the earth." And now here's the part I forget:
---The Gospels of Jesus were written down for me. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John just read them and you'll see. They're very different yet the same, united they proclaim, _____ ______ ______"
(Note, a good friend called me with the lyrics, but now I forget them again.)


Dec 10
Ah weekend, I love laying in bed till the sunlight is streaming in through the window. And yes, my weekend get to start a day early. Nyah, nyah :)

Dec 11
I want a bird bath. And a bird feeder. And an attractive lanscape for them to sit in. Also a labor-free vegetable garden and a greenhouse. And a gardener to keep it all looking nice. Got that, Santa?

Dec 12
No matter how many Ls I put in the word "chili" it never looks right. Chili, chilli, chiiiiilllliii, chilililee.

Dec 12
I cut a brownie, put it on a plate, hand it to Toa of Boy. He shakes his head no. I ask, don't you want a brownie? He shakes his head no. I put away the pan of brownies, put away the 2nd plate (for me), take the rejected brownie and go sit down. Toa says, "snack!" I ask what he wants. He says brownie. Is this just a plot to sabotage what little sanity I have left?
---Sadly...no. He honestly didn't want a brownie, until he saw you about to enjoy one, and this provided the reminder that, "yes indeed, brownies are good." It's the same sort of distorted human logic that dictates if you can't decide between 2 movies, and your spouse finally chooses one, instantly you will want the other. I think we're all just a wee bit contrary by nature, and have to fight against it to even survive as a species ;)

Dec 13
And a HUGE thank you to all who were out doing their "snow day" dance last night. No co-op for us.....sledding instead!

Dec 14
I'm thinking of taking a flame-thrower to my to-do list.

Dec 15
By 8:15, I was up showered, dressed, and had eaten breakfast, done my devotions, shined my sink, wakened my children, and had practiced my scripture passage and my dance for the Christmas presentation. My reward for this industrious now is folding laundry and doing school. Somehow that doesn't quite seem right.

Dec 15
Ok, my morning is now looking up. I got to put a banana sticker on Toa's forehead (I told him he had to wear it if he was eating the banana and that this rule was in the US Constitution and probably in the Bible too) AND I put an empty tissue box on his head as a hat. Life is good.

Dec 15
There is just one moon and one golden sun, and a smile means friendship to everyone! There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware, it's a small world after all! (You may begin leaving your comments of thanks and appreciation now.)
---I' had forgotten abut that song! Thanks!
---This is when... you hug Uncle Al & Captain Wendy before you go through the gate & wave good bye!
---Thanks a lot. Now, I'll be hearing that song in my head for a week (at least)! ;0}
---When your kids are ready for YA novels.... there's a great scene in "Going Bovine" by Libba Bray where the characters become stranded inside the broken-down Small World ride at Disney-World-Land. Very Funny. But-- Your. Kids. Are. Not. Old. Enough. To. Read. This. Book. Yet.
---I don't know that song and I'm glad I don't because I'm pretty sure I hate it.

Dec 16
After baking cookies, pretty much continually since I got up this morning till around 11pm, I can totally understand why some people snap and start writing songs like "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."
---We found her huddled in a corner, clutching a spatula, and endlessly repeating, "The chips... the chocolate chips... so many chips..."

Dec 19
Food highlights of the weekend: homemade Cinci-style chili, served w spag n cheese; Christmas cookies galore; The Jedi's pepperoni cheese ball; oranges; and, to top it all off, The Jedi's delicious baklava :)

Dec 20
Thank you for the beautiful annointed dance today. The Lord used you to do an amazing job!

Dec 21
Ah, my home is full of the blissful banter inspired by Nintendo's "divorce mode", which they maliciously hide behind the marketing label "multi-player".

Dec 21
forgetting to rinse conditioner out of hair does not result in a good hair day....just an FYI

Dec 22
Packing is no fun. Unpacking is even less fun. But road trips ARE fun, so......a packing I shall go.

Dec 23 (from mobile)
Rollin' rollin' rollin' ...my sanity is stolen, but all the gifts are loaded, up high. Rain or wind or weather, we're trapped in here together....

Dec 23
Lunch in Columbus, our fortune cookies read: Be daring-try new things. You will attract artistic and cultured people to your house. You can always trust your friends. And, Your home is a pleasant place where you draw much happiness.
FB friends, can you top those? I bet you can be more creative and more personal :)
---My friend John got one that was cut in half lengthwise. All it said was "cant win."
---I actually got one that said "Never smell the inside of a hat."

Dec 24
I'm super excited about Norad tracking Santa....the kids, not so much :(

Dec 25
Toa of Boy got a can of silly string in his stocking. Sweetling said, "Seriously???? Who's bright idea was THAT????" Nana's backyard now looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book.

Dec 26
Cold Stone for dinner: Hooray for Christmas gift certificates!

Dec 27
I was hoping on FB to whine about all the laundry that needs done. Instead, I'm stealing a quote a friend had up on her status.--
"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others;
for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness;
and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."
-Audrey Hepburn

Dec 27
must put down the sudoko book. Must get dressed, do laundry, vacuum and figure out what's for dinner tonight.

Dec 28
Today, laundry and art. That's right. I'm getting out my sketchbook and my chalk pastels :)

Dec 29
Ah, let the torture of haircutting begin. Anyone who feels inclined to call child protective services, now is your chance. Judging by the whines of protests coming from my little boy, an intervention is clearly justified ;)

Dec 30
Things that have puzzled me today--1) where sleepovers got their name, when so little actual sleep occurs. 2) How a rainy 42degree day in Dec seems balmy and to warm to wear a coat. 3) Just where did my Christmas vacation go? I need another week!

Dec 31
Sunny and 62....can it just stay this way till April?

Dec 31
Lucky you... I had one more shirt left in your size for the New Year's Day Virtual Race. Have fun!

Dec 31
Nothing says Happy New Year like deep fried Snickers Bars.

Jan 1
Toa of Boy has set a goal for himself for the coming year. His goal......to turn 8. We're rooting for you, buddy.

Jan 1
New Year's Day, Chinese for lunch. Our fortunes were: Mama-to remember is to understand. Toa-Today is a great day to learn something new. (His comment, "It's not even a school day!") Sweetling-Effort and courage are not enought without purpose and direction. Mine-Even as the cell is the unit of the organic body, so the family is the unit of society. I like mine the best.

Jan 1
Congratulations on your first run! You did great in the New Year's Day Virtual Race. Here's your medal... hopefully your first of many. Happy New Year!

Jan 2
Conversation I overheard earlier today:
Toa of Boy: I'm winning!
The Jedi: Really? What's the context?
Toa: Try to make Daddy not move.
Toa: Noo--ooo! Whooaaa!
Jedi: How's it going now?

Jan 3
wii fit says 2.801 miles in 30 minutes. I'm going to have a hard time giving up the tramp and hitting the pavement and the cold cold air. Plus, I like my virtual numbers. I'm sure my real numbers won't be nearly so encouraging.

Jan 4
‎3.364 If I geet a pair of running shoes this week, I want to go to Winton Woods and try the Harbor Loop Trail. I want to know how the Wii numbers will relate to actual numbers.

Jan 4
Sometimes I wonder if my left hand gets jealous of my right hand, cause my right hand gets to do so much more. Then I wonder if my right hand gets jealous of my left hand, cause my right hand has to do so much more.
---And both of them get jealous of your tongue because it gets to taste chocolate!!

Jan 5
A) 2.833 mi today. Strange, I feel like I pushed myself more yesterday. B) I like clikcking the "like" on others' status updates. C)Just finished watching "Expelled." Very well done.

Jan 5
Toa of Boy quote of the day: "That (referring to a story he was relating) makes Daddy 15% silly. I'm adding it up."

Jan 6
Kitchen tip for the day: If one forgets to mix the dry ingrediants into the wet ingrediants, one's pancake batter will be pretty runny.

Jan 6
Today is on the running schedule as "rest or cross-train". I think given those parameters, Zelda Wii counts baby.

Jan 6
One word game, cause I'm bored. Here it goes. Each person who replies can only add one word to the sentence(s). It should make some sense. Sweetling and I will start it. (we'll put an astrik in front of her word to keep it separate from mine.) First word--
Good
--‎*flowers
--bloom
--*during
--any
--season
--Of
--the
--year
--if
--because
--nothing
--else
--is
--good
--besides
--God
--who
--loves
--us!

Jan 7
3.489 thi morning. See, playing Zelda did improve my running. Toa of Boy racked up 4.140 mi in 30 minutes on the wii fit yesterday. He announced his numbers and called, "Beat THAT, Mommy!"

Facebook Friday

11/13
arg. I put my cup of hot chocolate down somewhere, and now I can't find it. you know who is going to find it sometime tomorrow? The Jedi :(

11/13
So, Facebook tells me someone in Texas is trying to log into my account. Really? Cause my life is that exciting?

11/13
Why do people three and under fight so valiantly against taking a nap?

11/13
ARRRRGGGHHH@! Computers are just so bleepin evil!!!!

11/14
‎1)It has been decided that I am a "squipmunk". 2)The Jedi has been watching the Dolphins game in Danish. 3)The leaves in my yard do not get raked, unless its to make a leaf pile to jump in.

11/14
I called the computer a dork, but it neither cared nor changed its behavior.

11/15
Why does my to-do list keep growing faster than I can check stuff off of it? I'm sure Facebook has nothing to do with this problem.

11/16
Favorite quote of the day, "It's hard to focus when you look outside and see that the branches of trees are forming eyelids."--Julia from _Love in a Time of Homeschooling_ by Laura Brodie.

11/16
We watched Cats and Dogs tonight cause Mommy picked the movie. Mommy might not get to pick the movie again for a long time. We did, however, encounter several teachable moments re "suspension of disbelief" and "plot hole".

11/18
Old mother hubbard went to the cupboard, and realized what a bad grocery shopper she has been the past couple weeks.

11/19
It's nearly 8:30. Am I packed? no. Did I eat breakfast? no. Am I dressed? no. Have I even figured out what I'm going to wear? no. Is Telephone going to kill me? maybe.

11/24
So, if a 12-hr decongestant goes through the washer and the dryer but is still in its little foil packet, think its still good? And, on another topic, can I freeze heavy whipping cream? I only needed half a cup, and it seems a shame to waste the rest of the carton.

11/28
pumpkin bread counts as a vegetable side dish, right?

11/29
Today, I tried to explain to Toa of Boy what a wedgie is. Homeschooling at its finest.

12/2
a blogging we will go, a blogging we will go, hi ho the derrie oh, a blogging we will go!

Facebook Friday... um.....

You know, I knew I was a little behind with copying my Facebook updates into my blog....but I didn't know I was THREE MONTHS behind. (And I do this, cause I do go back and read my blog sometimes, and I never go back an read my facebook.....and cause there are little things i put in my updates that don't warrant a whole blog, but I don't want to forget them either.)

So, since I'm THREE MONTHS behind (i still think that's wrong. Maybe i forgot to label them. hmmmm....No. No. It's been three months. I just scrolled through all my blog posts to verify this.)

 So, since I'm THREE MONTHS behind in Facebook updates, I'm just going to put up my keepers from the past three months. The ones that capture a moment in our day that I want to look back at and laugh about later. (And yes, this is the trimmed down, thinned out version, thank you.)

8/14
After listening to half of a phone conversation between me and Telephone, the Jedi is of the opinion that it should only take one word to describe the color of a dress ;)

8/17
It's 76 degrees; I'm wearing a banana sticker on my forehead; I had to step over four paper airplanes to get to my computer; and, I don't want to stay inside doing school this afternoon. Where can we escape to?

8/19
things that we learned while reviewing the Pledge: Sweetling knows how to spell indivisible. Mommy does not.

8/19
Today's Asimov quote. After 20 minutes of reading about, discussing, and working with a trillion based number system, we get to this quote: "What then, is the good of a googol, if it is too large to be useful in counting even the smallest material objects spread through the largest known volume? I could answer: For its... own sheer, abstract beauty --- But then you would all throw rocks at me." Sweetling cracked up.

8/20
we need shoeboxes. I danced in Sweetling's room. by Toa

8/21
Two things I learned today, while painting little boy faces (and arms) at Children's Hospital. 1)yoda's light saber is shorter than Darth Vador's lightsaber. 2)Spiderman has tall blue boots. If you paint him with red boots, he suddenly becomes the EVIL bad guy Spiderman.

8/25
What my children learned in school so far today: No matter what Mommy says, El Salad-or is NOT a garden nation known for its wonderful vegetable crop which gives out free salads to tourists upon their arrival at the national airport. It is just a Mommy misspelling of El Salvador.

8/28
keep your fingers crossed for me. i'm trying to make hot fudge sauce from scratch. if I'm successful, it will be sundaes for dinner tonight. (no, I'm not joking.)
>>I am the oracle of hot fudge! woo hoo! Here's the recipe I used

8/29
The Great Wall of Chocolate at PF Chang. Why? Because my husband loves me a lot :)

8/30
circular floor plan + boys = gun chase scene

8/31
Did you know rabbits are not officially classified in the rodent family?

9/2
i've been hungry all morning. Toa of Boy says I'm turning into Winnie-the-Pooh.

9/3
Hey, guess what, there's a HUGE difference between corn flour and corn meal. I have no idea how to salvage these tortillas. I'm considering adding an egg to help hold the crumbly mixture together.

9/4
The weather is nice and cool this morning. I feel like doing some baking. I'm making cornbread for our cookout, banana bread (cause the bananas are getting old) AND maybe chocolate chip oat cookies. See, I told you I was in a baking mood.

9/8
chocolate chip cookies and milk in a cookie monster cup :)

9/9
the phrase on Toa's spelling list is "Nan's man." I gave him the phrase and used it in a sentence. "Nan's man is Fred. Fred is Nan's man." Toa looked at me and exclaimed, "What?!? Fred doesn't even know her!!!!"

9/11
Apparently, updating the look of my blog isn't on the list of things to do today. i'm not clever enough to figure out bloggers new easy "design your own template" feature.

9/13
There are families who do this whole "get ready and get out the door for school" thing every day, right? So why is it that getting to co-op at the crack of ten seems so stressful?

9/13
Toa's truism for the day: Hamsters don't need gym shoes to run really fast.

9/14
World's Largest Ball of Twine (though there is, apparantly, a hot debate over the claim.) Sadly, it is way too far off of our driving route through Kansas to see it.

9/15
What I learned at church tonight---- Sha-zaam!!!

9/16
We're at ColerainPark...not because the kids wanted to come to the park, but because Mommy wanted to go to a park :)

9/19
I found a recipe for muffins that taste like donuts! Too late to make them tonight, but soon they will be all mine! (of course, they lack the whole wheat and rolled oat goodness of the muffins I made tonight.)

9/20
I'm posting this here, because there are other women out there who will understand this. I have put on three different pair of socks this morning, and can't find a pair that's the right shade of blue to match both my periwinkle blue jeans and my blue and green plaid mary-jane slip ons. White doesn't work. Navy doesn't ...work. Muted blue doesn't work. I'm going to co-op, unhappy about my sock choice.

9/21
The universe has punishe me for sleeping in by having me wake up to the words, "Mommy, I lost my hamster." Sadly, he was not refering to his Webkinz hamster.

9/22
The escaped hamster came back at some point during the night, collected the seeds which had fallen on the living room carpet, and went back into hiding somewhere. The lure of the wonders of the hamster wheel did not prompt him to go back into his open cage. It's Wild, Wild Hamster Kingdom at our household.

9/22
We now have three hamster catching devices set up on our living room floor, but you all will have to wait until Friday night to see if they work, because my small group starts our media fast tomorrow.

9/25
It's nearly noon on Saturday. I got up at 8:30, had breakfast, did my devotions, and was ready to go back to bed! For those of you worried about (or amused by) our escaped hamster, he was safely returned to his cage at 12:20 am Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Mommy stayed up and waited for him to show his furry littl...e face, then trapped him in a paper towel tube and returned him to his cage.

9/29
There are some mornings where I just need an extra dose of patience. Maybe even a double dose.

9/29
Colds and the commencement of lifestyle changes do not mix. I was all set to start cooking from scratch and eating healthier, but now I have a headache and a cold, and I say, bring on the KFC!!!

9/30
I love my husband for many reasons, among those being that he can come home and ask, "Are those.....acorns?.....in....the toaster oven???" And when I say, "Oh yes!" He just nods his head and walks away without comment.

10/1
I am a technological power house! Just now I.... 1) replaced the camera batteries and reset the date/time. (hush, it counts as an acheivement). 2) outwitted the computer and made it do a search for the fuji camera manual, even though the first time it did the search, it only looked at the local hard drive and told me that no such document existed.

10/3
Today, a double layer chocolate cake with fudge frosting AND pumpkin cinnamon rolls made from a fresh pumpkin AND cheesy chicken bake AND sweet potato casserole. Tomorrow, .....the world!!!!

10/4
It's crazy hat day at co-op. I really want a King Julian crown. I have no crazy hats. Something is not right with the world.

10/5
I want to know why, all of a sudden, the google map on my phone can't figure out where on God's green earth I am. Sweetling says its because I'm a fairy that the satelites just can't find me.

10/5
A) the jedi has gotten me my very own Zelda game. Can you say "teacher in-service day"?
B)In the excitement of A, I forgot what B was. If I remember later, I'll post it then.

10/6
Things the hamster book doesn't cover...."How to get Elmer's glue out of a hamster's fur." And thank you, no, the hamsters in our house do NOT have Elmer's glue in their fur. You can hold off on your phone calls to PETA. We were just discussing the importance of letting the glue dry completely before letting the hamsters play in the homemade cardboard hamster maze.

10/7
You know you are getting old when a sneeze results in a small neck injury. Just saying.

10/7
Yay! Jake Sweeny gave us a free rental car to use while they did the two hours of regular maintenance the van is due for. The rental car's transmission stick thing has a P, an R, an N, and then it has +, S-D, and -. You can move the stick thingie to one side for the S and the other side for the D. I put it in D, for drive, right? What do you think the S is for?

10/11
Ah, magic housecleaning fairy, how I pine for thee......

10/11
Someone tell me why I have to say things like this, "Don't stick your head down there. If your head got stuck there, you'd be really sad. Don't stick your head down there again."

10/13
things that puzzle me today: 1) why do I have 7-8 overflowing loads of laundry this week when I usually have 3-5 medium loads? 2) why am I still very hungry when I just finished the same breakfast I always have? 3) what yellow SHA-ZAAM outfit do I want to wear to game night at the Brink tonight?

10/13
I just told my seven year old that he could turn into a zombie without the proper vitamins. I think on that successful parenting note, I shall go have an apple fritter and a second cup of hot chocolate.

10/13
I found my yellow warrior outfit for game night at the Brink. Sweetling very politely told me that I looked stupid. But I know how to fix that, by making myself a lightning bolt coronet out of aluminum foil. Cause then I won't look stupid at all!

10/14
Everyone's at Tae Kwon Do. Which means nobody is home except me......and Zelda.....

10/18
I've been awake for an hour, and other than hitting "like" on a few status updates, I dont have much to show for my time. You know what lesson I have learned from this? That I might as well sleep in. I don't get anything productive done from getting up when the alarm goes off anyway.

10/18
the real reason i like clear fingernail polish is cause its hard to tell wht a crappy job i do slapping it on AND its harder to notice when it starts chipping off

10/18
Guess what I found stuck in my hair? A glow-in-the-dark star....like the kind you can buy in a museum gift shop to stick on a bedroom ceiling.

10/19
The library had four veggietale dvds which I have never seen. I feel cheated somehow. They all four came home with me.

10/20
The school day is being delayed for the watching of new VeggieTales.

10/20
Sweetling just lost a tooth. The tooth fairy in our house doesn't bring cash. No, long ago the tooth fairy decided she wanted to be more unique and creative than that. Now the tooth fairy is wondering why she started that tradition, because she has absolutelt no idea what to leave in place of this tooth.

10/21
My dishwasher is temporarily out of commission. That's all right, because i'm sure doing dishes by hand builds character. In fact, I am so sure of this, that I am going to let my children reap the benefit of this wonderful character building opportunity.

10/21
Toa of Boy and I went outside to bring in the garbage cans and the recycle bin. Toa took his plastic sword with him "just in case". It was a good thing he did too, because there was a mighty ferocious drift of leaves at the top of the driveway.

10/22
Why is cleaning house suspiciously like shuffling things from one pile to another? I'm sure it has nothing to do with my organizational capabilities.

10/23
Today, I have come to the terrible realization that unless I clean out the under stairs storage, I will never ever be able to get out my Chirstmas decorations.

10/23
Contents of my kitchen table: playschool sword, Corduroy Makes a Cake, 2 rock+mineral kits, plastic organizer w rocks, 3 wendy's salt packets, webkinz snowman, green washcloth, xmas jar of coins, bell peper, advodado, 3 tomatoes, plant, tkd headband, napkin, plastic knife, plastic salad lid, medicine bottle, plant (which got watered yesterday--finally)

10/25
If I were to write a list of top ten things NOT to do at 3am, plucking your own eyebrows would be on it.

10/26
Mommy's words of wisdom for the day: "If you squish the two halves of your slinky together, its going to get all tangled and messed up," and, "If you stretch your slinky too far down the hallway, its not going to go back together again."

10/27
‎.....another slinky bites the dust.

10/28
The early bird gets.... a cup of hot chocolate of course! Why did you even have to wonder?

10/28
I think after several days of being revved up on a decongestant 24/7, I am beginning to turn into the Wicked Witch of the West. "I'll get you, my pretty.....and your little dog too!!!"

10/29
I am now going to go bless the good people at Meijer with my decongestant enhanced mood ;) --and yes, I caved after a night and an hour this morning without and decided oxygen and a release of pressure was worth the snarkiness of the psuedophedrine.

10/29
23 paper sacks full of groceries (plus 10lb potatoes and laundry detergent that didn't fit in a bag)---$211

10/30
Sweelting is warming up for her jr black belt test. She broke a board with a flying side kick diring practice Thursday :) Prayers for her test today please!


10/30
Her forms looked good, her kicking drills were good, her 360 crescents were sharp, she got in some nice high kicks in sparring, and she broke 1 of her 3 boards. She wasn't the only one not to break all her boards, but she was really disappointed not to do better on her breaks. I think she's going to mske a 2nd attempt ...on her breaks at class on Tuesday. Toa of Boy tests for his yellow belt next.

10/30
Sweetling broke her other two boards at the end of testing today :) Now I just need someone to tell me the hat I just made for Toa of Boy looks like a Pikachu hat and not a strange bunny duck. This is a feelings-based conversation, so the fact that you can't see the hat to know what it really looks like is completely irrelevent. Just tell me it looks like Pikachu anyway.
>>Congrats to Sweetling! I have a board breaker myself. :) And the Pikachu hat...I still have my whale shark you made, so it's a possibility that it looks like a bunny duck.

10/30
Pikachu's tail lasted exactly 15.2 seconds in the bounce house. 8ow he is tailless.

11/1
jammie day at co-op today. Now, the trick is to convince myself that we still need to get up and get going to co-op. Otherwise jammie day will turn into being late for co-op.

11/1
Toa of Boy made an African lion mask at co-op today. So far his favorite activity of the evening has been to hold the mask in front of his face, and follow his Daddy through the house while giggling.

11/2
Never seen the polling place that crowded in the middle of the morning. :)

11/2
ice cream is like a reboot for a homeschooling day.

11/3
Toa of Boy is voting for no school today. Sadly, despite the fact that America is a republic, Toa's home is not run as a democracy. Oh the tyranny

11/3
Did you know that ghosts can't do math? its a true fact. I learned it from the green ghost who suddenly appeared in my living room when it was time for math.

11/3
Jokes by Toa of Boy, "What did the witch say to the talking broom?.....Witches' brew!!!" And "Why do you not put a lid on a pumpkin?.....It's so ooooooo scary!" And, "What did the squirrel make the bird so laugh that the turtle couldn't sleep?.....The squirrel want to squirrel chat, but the turtle want some sleep."

11/4
Give it up for the two jr black belts in my house!! Woot woot!

11/5
I refuse to start my weekend with two loads of laundry still to be folded.

11/6
I have bunny slippers, and their names are Flip and Flop :)

11/7
‎1)Found a mini-hershey bar on the floor of the passenger side of the van. Don't know *who* could have dropped it. 2) Toa of Boy, who loves eggrolls, has just learned they are stuffed with cabbage. He is quite shocked and disillusioned by this treachery. 3) After a discussion on the importanence of calcium, Toa thinks oste...operosis = zombism. 4) Facebook needs spellcheck.

11/8
Another sock crisis. Dark navy jeans and dark brown mary janes. Sock suggestions?

11/9
There is a huge preying mantis perched on the back of our scarecrow's head. I can't decied if this is really cool or really creepy.

11/9
Sweetling is chasing Toa of Boy around on the church lawn. Sweetling pauses to bring me a yellow dandelion. Toa of Boy pauses because he just ran out off both his double tied gym shoes.

11/10
two loads of laundry folded, two and a half to go.....and life is too short to fold underwear.

11/11
I don't know what we're having for dinner, but I've got butter set out to soften for cookies :)

Facebook Friday: month of catch up

Again. Cause I never do anything regularly.

Fri/Sat, July 17th 12:44 am 
Tomorrow I'm blogging my little heart out :)

Sat, July 17th, 10:31 am
Which topic should I blog about first today... other stuff we did this
summer in general, letterboxing, or how to make a supercool pinata?

Sun, July 18th, 11:11 pm
Any tips on FINDING and then catching an escaped dwarf hamster?

Mon, July 19th, 7:51 am
Yay! Two hamsters safely back in their cage. I woke up this morning and the escapee was outside his cage, trying to climb the bars to get back in because his hamster brother was inside the cage running like mad on the wheel. What is freedom compared to the glories of running on the hamster wheel?

Tues, July 20th 11:55 am
We should have named Toa's hamsters Cain and Abel. After having the hamster cage to himself for a full night, Cain is unwilling to share with his brother. Abel had blood on his back this morning. After a $30 trip to petsmart, Abel now has his own cage.

Wed, July 21st, 8:59 pm
Things Toa learned at VBS tonight---1) Mummies only walk around in the movies. 2) If you harass teenage boys, they might just pick you up and put you inside the girls' bathroom.

Sun, July 25th, 4:16 pm
My kids had pizza for lunch and dinner on Friday and for lunch again on Saturday. Now its about time for Sunday dinner and I find myself thinking, if only we had some pizza....

Mon, July 26th, 8:40 am
I am now only one day behind with B90 (instead of three) and I can see the surface of my desk again. Things are looking up! Much better than waking up and realizing I had forgotten to turn the dishwasher on before I went to bed last night (AGAIN), trying to make toast without plugging in the toaster (AGAIN) and discovering I was 3 days behind in my reading.

Mon, July 26th, 10:56 pm
I remembered to turn my dishwasher ON!!!! Yes! I am THIS cool!

Tues, July 27th, 8:07 am
Jeremiah is a loo-ooo-ng book, but I finished it this morning :)

Wed, July 28th, 7:19 am
Why is it that whenever I put something "in a safe place", its pretty much guaranteed that I will never be able to find that item again?

Thurs, July 29th, 7:41 am
Guess where I happened to find my cordless kitchen phone this morning? In the hall linen closet, on top of the sheets. Hmmmmm..... (Yeah, its not really I mystery. I put it down there when I was grabbing sheets and blankets for our camping trip. But the good news is that I found it before we left the Jedi with a missing phone while we were gone.)

Sun, Aug 1st, 6;25 pm
uh. laundry (tons of it), homeschooling notifications to write, a day or two of B90 readings, school lesson preps for tomorrow and next week....and guess what I'm going to do tonight? NOTHING.

Mon, Aug 2nd, 3:59 pm
Olive Garden give away is a trap. If I could do an Admiral Ackbar voice for this, I would.

Thurs, Aug 5th, 10:16 am
I put money in the wrong meter this morning. There wasn't a ticket on my windshield. Does that mean I'm safe? Or will they do something sneaky like mail me a ticket?

Fri, Aug 6th, 2:43 pm
Someone snuck the book of Haggai in between Zephaniah and Zechariah. So, instead of only having three books to read in the old testament, I had four. Sneaky people.

Sun, Aug 8th, 3:08 pm
The problem with healthy sancks is that the aren't full of sugary chocolate goodness.

Mon, Aug 9th, 11:13pm
I got a *beautiful* aoelian harp for my anniversary :) !!!

Tues, Aug 10th, 1:03 pm
Apparently, if one does not rinse out one's straw after having a juice shake so that the straw doesn't get nasty...."nasty" does not mean that the straw comes to life at night to crawl around and hunt us down while we're sleeping in our beds. It sounded like a plausible explanation to me, but Sweetling said, "No, Mommy."

Tues, Aug 10th, 11:22 pm
Ta da! Homeschool notification ready to be taken to the post office tomorrow :)

Wed, Aug 11th, 12:50pm
adjective contest: best adjective to describe the heat is_______?? Winner gets, um,....to be "cool" of course!
>>>Oppressive! Stifiling! Unbearable! lol
>>>Hot! LOL
>>>Stultifying. (I think that is a word. If not, it should be.)
>>>abusive
>>>energy-draining
>>>firely. Actually, the adverb is really firelike, but I like firely better.
>>>In retrospect, fiery is the word. I just typed in "fire" and couldn't figure out how to turn it into an adjective. Blasted English spelling.

Thurs, Aug 12th, 7:52 am
I'm just here to preen my feathers and say that at 7:30 this morning, I had two children in their pjs on the living room floor looking through and discussing library books about the 50 states....(ta da.....) ....on their own initiative.

Thurs, Aug 12th, 11:57 am
Doing more trip planning today. There is a whole lot of nothing in central Kansas.

Fri, Aug 13th, 8:45 am
We're tired of being cooped up inside. Who's up for an outing to parky's ark today?

Fri, Aug 13th
parky's ark this afternoon....going once.....

Fri, Aug 13th
At home on a Friday night with no electricity. Time to break out the glowsticks and board games.

Facebook Friday

Yes, I know its really Saturday. Too bad. Today is my day to do whatever I want. Neeener, neener.

Friday, July 9th, 5:24pm
I finished EVERY SINGLE ONE of the items on my to-do list today before five AND I went bowling. As a reward, I should get lots of chocolate. Instead, I'm going to a Children's Ministry meeting at church. There better be chocolate at the meeting. (Hear that, oh organizers? The Xuan needs chocolate.) In other news, do I ...want to know what the cold wet spot on my living room carpet is?

Saturday, July 10th, 10:11am
the Jedi is at a bbq contest today. I was going to go to Pioneer Days at the Sharon Woods Historic Village but its hot and I'm feeling lazy. I therefore declare today Chick Flick Day. I'm goiong to go get The Time Traveler's Wife from Blockbuster.

Saturday, July 10th, 12:21pm
And the blue ray player, like all technology, hates me. Now we're watching Jackie Chan in the Spy Next Door instead of Mommy's chick flick.

Sunday, July 11th, 2:22pm
My most talented computer related accomplishment this week....pressing the power button with my big toe.

Sunday, July 11th, 3:29pm
I bet we're one of the few families that have "colored duck tape, green and blue" on our general school supply list. Though, Christopher Robin might also have blue duck tape on her list, cause she has the same trampoline in her living room that we do.

Monday, July 12th, 10:30am
I can run up to walmart, be back before eight, and never, no never, forget the krispie kremes, cause I'm a woman...W-O-M-A-N! And while I'm crowing, I also made cheesy scrambled eggs for 3 young ladies, folded the laundry, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, straightened my hair, and I'm now off to play wii with Toa of Boy.

Tuesday, July 13th, 9:28am
It's official. We're starting school on Monday, taking a 3 day camping trip at the end of July, and taking another week or so of vacation time in the fall. Go us!

Tuesday, July 13th, 9:43am
Would anyone familiar with speech therapy take a look at this and tell me what they think? I'm considering one for Toa of Boy. Its a pretty cheap device, so not a huge loss if it proves useless to us.
>>>I've never tried anything like that for any of my kids but from what I've read I can see why it would be sucessful :)
>>>I've not heard of this before. Have you talked with the Hamilton County Educational Services Center? As a student, he might qualify for free services through the School District. The speech therapists I've encountered there are top notch.
>>>I am a speech/language pathologist. I have heard of these devices but have never used one. How old is Eswin? I would think that he would need instruction in how to produce the correct sound before the device could be useful for him. Also, Nora is correct - if he qualifies, your district would have to provide services for him. The trick is in the qualifying.
>>>I'm interested in the feedback too. One of my sons isn't quite speaking sounds correctly. I understand him no problem, but others have "complained".
>>>I recommend checking out the school system. Being a product of public education speech therapy, with home reinforcement, I think it worked good. I am very grateful for the 3 years of speech therapy I had in K-2 grades.
>>>ME: We did a summer of speech therapy last summer, and did pursue trying to get him evaluated through a school district (they wanted to label him as an ESL student, despite the fact that he doesn't speak any spanish). When I call his attention to the sounds he worked on last summer, he can take the time and make the effort to make the targeted sound a little more clearly. I dont want to be constantly correcting his speech. I just want him to be more aware of the sounds he's using.
>>>If you are absolutely sure that he knows how to make the sounds correctly, one of these devices can't hurt and might help make him more aware. If he is not sure of how to produce the sound, the device will just be reinforcing the incorrect production.
>>>Thanks for everyone's input! I know he knows how to make s and th ....those are the ones they really focused on last summer (plus a few consonant blends with l). After a year of no therapy, he only forms them correctly when someone else calls his attention to it. He doesn't self correct. I thought if we spent five minutes in the morning doing the ... See Moretonge and lip exercises the speech therapist taught us, and then practiced reading a few words or a single sentence with the tube later in the day, that would help him become more aware of his speech again.

Wednesday, July 14th, 10:18am
There was a woman on KLOVE this morning who claimed the title "professional fun consultant."

Wednesday, July 14th 1:19pm
Google medical text search....good. Google medical image search....BAD.

Wednesday, July 14th, 4:26pm
Does Learning Tree co-op take off the monday before Thanksgiving?
>>we have no mercy, LOL. We also don't have President's Day off.... Barb always said she thought the Presidents would like us going to school on that day, LOL!

Wednesday, July 14th, 9:00pm
I was telling the Jedi that I needed the jars beside the sink saved for school next week. Toa chimes in, "Can we make jet packs???"
>>I hope you said yes! :)
>>What were your plans for the jars next week?
>>Me: While I am a super-cool Mommy, I am not cool enough to say yes to homemade jet packs, despite the fact that Toa had their design all worked out. (You glue the jars together, put the fuel in, tie them on your back and go! Also, there should be a stick for steering.) The jars are going to meet the much less exciting fate of being an earthworm habitat (1 this week), and pond water collection containers (4 in a few weeks from now.)
>>Maybe he'd settle for this.
>>Me: I showed Toa the link and he said, "Can we make it?!"

Thursday, July 15th, 3:26pm
VBS is next week and I'm looking for...a fedora hat, a small ladies trench coat, and a yarn wig (like raggedy ann style, not big clown loops.) Anyone have these items that I could borrow?

Friday, July 16th
hey homeschoolers, do i need to send a separate letter of notification to my school district for each of my children, or can I send one letter and attach a separate intended curriculum and course of study for each child. (Yes, I'm getting my legal advice via Facebook.)
>>Yes, you can send one cover letter and then attach for each child separately your course curriculum, course of study and then the test score results or written narrative proof (whichever route you took if you homeschooled last year).
>>Opps forgot one thing - after your cover letter place your Ohio notice of intent to homeschool, there's room on there for both kids and then the other paperwork which I mentioned. I guess you've got yours all ready to go. I need to start working on mine. I love homeschooling, but for some reason I hate this part! Pray for me!!!!

Friday, July 16th
Tomorrow I'm blogging my little heart out :)

Christopher Robin and Facebook Friday

No, those don't go together. But in true Me fashion, I'm sticking both of them in this post anyway.

I went bowling today (look, a third topic) and a friend asked me what sort of responses I was getting to my scheduling dilemma. (On a forth unrelated topic, I'm such a pathetic speller, spell check can't even offer any helpful suggestions on some of my misspelled words.) Speaking of pathetic, I am, in fact, the Gutter Ball Queen. I did moderately well the first game, scoring 100....which for me is reason to celebrate. The next game I bowled four gutterballs in a row, plus a few others here and there, to score a dazzling 65. Sweetling bowled one strike and three spares during her second game for a score of 116. Toa got three spares during his second game for a score of 94.

But, one of the other moms asked me about my scheduling. I shared with the other moms the idea of project week, which I was seriously considering. But, we don't do school year round, and I would have a mutiny on my hands if I took away summer vacation. And I shared that my friend Christopher Robin called and chatted with me for an hour, and then put together an excel spreadsheet for all the stuff I was at a loss about. It was requested that I post the spreadsheet, so I am. Check out this follow through. Click on the image if the blog column cuts some of it off.

And now for the Facebook Friday part of my post, cause I'm self-absorbed this way.

July 3rd

Make a commitment to read and discuss the Declaration of Independence with your family this weekend. Also, check out the prayer of the First Continental Congress

July 4th
What color do I want to paint my toenails today? Sadly, I have red polish, but no white or blue polish.

Tuesday, July 6th
I'll take good music and a little movement over caffeine any morning, thanks :)

Thursday, July 8th
Eswin is vacuuming the living room, hallway, and his bedroom all by himself. He's very excited to get to run the vacuum cleaner...which makes me wonder, what else can I get him excited about doing?

Thursday, July 8th
Hmmm...dishes done, kitchen clean, house vacuumed (thanks to Eswin), laundry all done and folded. I'm caught up on B90 and I read a children's novel today. (Curdie and the Princess by George MacDonald). I have about 45 minutes. I could sort coupons, clean out the Bermuda Triangle under the stairs, ...OR???

Friday, July 9th
Lo, I am Queen of the Gutter Balls.

Facebook Friday

yes. It's Thursday, not Friday.

But I just ordered my curriculum (well some of it) for next year. And I need something to keep me from second guessing myself.

Here's what I ordered--Exploring Countries and Cultures from My Father's World. I ordered the basic package and tacked on extra student pages, an extra passport, an extra sticker book and Writing a Country Report and World Facts and Landmarks flashcards. This is our core curriculum and should include Bible, history/geography/social studies, science for Toa, reading, art, and music.

I already have a Exploring Creation with Biology for Sweetling. (I found a 1st edition at a used curriculum sale for $10.) My math goal for Sweetling this year is to reawaken her enjoyment and enthusiasm for math. So we're reading Asimov on Numbers and I picked up a couple fun looking math puzzle books to reengage her creativity. We're finishing up last year's vocabulary from classical roots book, and then we'll order the next book in the series. Tia Smurf doesn't know this yet, but she's going to help me come up with an answer key for both books, cause I'm not shelling out the extra dough for a teacher's edition. I still need to track down a Writing Strands 5. And at some point during the year, we'll order a couple of literature study guides from Progeny Press.

For Toa, I've already got (again, at a used curriculum sale) Singapore Math 2A and 2B. We'll be doing a lot of read alouds together in addition to a daily guided reading time (using library books) and a daily journal/free writing sentence. I'll be ordering the first of the Sequential Spelling series at the beginning of next month. In addition to the hands-on projects in our main curriculum, Toa wants to learn about animals. So we'll be using library books to study animals that live in the countries we're covering in our core curriculum. He's also picked out some animal workbooks at a used curriculum sale and he found My Nature Journal at the same used curriculum sale. Also, he wants to learn cursive, so I'm ordering Cursive Handwriting from Handwriting without Tears.

Sweetling's taking Jewish dance, Beginning Guitar, Discovering Artists, and Introduction to Sign Language at co-op. Toa is taking Country Studies, Exploring Science, Gym, and Art at co-op.

That covers everything, right? So I can stop fretting over this and go to bed, right?

Oh, but first, for my own amusement...

June 4
Lunch today, a salad of fresh greens from my garden and a slice of beef brisket. Why? Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, dog gone it, people like me. :)

June 5
Two used curriculum sales, spent a total of $60, $19 of it on two books that I don't need after all, but saved $65 off of the totoal cover price for three books which I do need.....so I'm still up overall, right?

June 6
So, who's going to which daytime VBS's this year? We're looking for some VBS's to visit!

June 6
Tomorrow morning we are hitting the Parcours Trail in Winton Woods if anyone wants to join us. We are planning on getting there between 9:30 and 10. Give me a call on my cell if you can make it. (PM me if you need my cell phone number.) Wear exercise clothes and bring a water bottle.

June 8
you can offer me some cheese to go with my whine. Woke up at 2:40 am, was awake till 4:20 am. woke up at 7am. Got out the box of 12 hr decongestants and a glass of water. Sat down at the table, flipped open Susan's biology book....and couldn't remember if I actually took the darn pill or not. So now....risk a double dose or just be miserable and wonder?

June 8
Ok, second question of the day. I'm working on Susan's biology lesson plans. i have her biology text book, questions, labs, study guides, and tests all broken down into 148 lessons....which is about 8 more lessons than i really want. I counted it out, and we would have exactly 148 days of school in our school year (not... including co-op days.) So, should I leave well enough alone?

June 9
What can I serve with my homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to make them a nutritious breakfast item? Ah....canteloupe!

June 10
I need new shorts. I don't want to pay more than $5-$7 a pair. Suggestions?

June 10
Shame on all y'all who told me to go to Good Will. You should have just offered me some crack cocaine while you were at it. it would have been just as addicting. The only reason I got out of there at a reasonable time tonight was because the store closed at 8:30. I got home with 8 purchases....and realized not a single... one of them was the shorts I went into the store for!

June 11
I'm on the road and I forgot my B90 bookmark. Can someone tell me what todays reading is?

June 17
2 gripes tonight. 1-two days w/o internet cause Duke couldn't make an 8 hr maintenance window. 2-why does a mail-order flower co think that badly photoshopped images sells plants?

June 18
I have nothing to note today....except that after my shower this morning, I noticed one of the living room chairs covered with paper towels. When questioned, one child admitted that the chair had "accidentally" been squirted with a super soaker.

June 19
The cure for spending too much time out in the sun is double chocolate chip ice cream from Graeters. Its a well known medical fact.

June 20
Could someone please tell me how and why I keep finding bits of hot pink feathers stuck to my black pants? There is no item in our house which has any form of hot pink feathers, and yet, here they are all over my pants.

June 20
Parcours trail in Winton Woods Monday sometime between 9:30 and 10. Call my cell in the morning if you're coming.

June 21
The shady trees along the parcours trail provide releif from the sun, but not from the humidity or the mosquitoes. We did the short trail, and I think today was our last trip of the summer. On to air conditioned bowling!

June 21
spent a little while today trapped in a walmart with no power. We played I spy while we waited for the storm to pass so we could go out to our van and go home.

June 23
What can I make for dinner that doesn't involve an oven or a grill? I have ground beef and some chicken. Eswin is voting for ice cream sundaes for dinner. If I had any Heggy's hot fudge sauce, I'd totally serve up ice cream sundaes for dinner.

June 24
Why did I say I liked summer? It's too hot to do any of our fun field trips. If I had my curriculum already, we'd do school through July and August, then take the month of September off to play and have fun outside.

June 24
Ok. I take back my whiney post. It actually isn't too bad today. We went to Farbarch Warner Nature Preserve and found a red mulberry tree to climb. (After all, I had to do something to distract my kids from their plot to kidnap the sweet baby Katie-pillar we visited with this morning.)

June 25
I just did irreparable damage to the bottom four inches of my hair. Now, to grab the scissors or not to grab the scissors....that is the question.

June 26
Caught up on my B90 reading. :) It's too hot today to talk the kids into another letterboxing adventure. The Jedi is helping a friend with yard work. What else can I do with my Saturday?

June 26
Ah, disillusionment. I just got my Neilson scanner in the mail. I logged into their members only section to see how many points I could earn, and how many points the items in their reward catelog are worth. (Cause that's how they compensate their home panelists.) If I scan my grocery and other purchases every week, I'l...l earn 14,300 points my first year. A lousy dual charging station for the wii motes-32,000 points.

June 27
One should not attempt a super-glue repair od a church strap while in the car on the way to church. See, I do have *some* sense. (Apparently, one should also not attempt to facebook on one's phone in the car on the way to church. That sentence should read 'One should not attempt a super-glue repair of a purse strap...' See how much more sense that makes?)

Monday, June 28
True confessions of a slacker....I only skimmed the first 9 chapters of Chronicles. Nine chapters of geneologies was a bit much for me.

Tuesday, June 29
The sell by date on the end of this can of crecsent rolls reads 20JUN10F22. How would you interpret that?

Tuesday, June 29
Second food question of the day: I'm sick of packed lunches and of pb&j. We have to pack lunches twice this week. What can I pack that isnt a sandwich? (I do have two more rolls of crescent rolls that I need to bake soon.)

Thursday, June 30
you know, i'm pretty sure i've never done anything to deserve such scorn from my computers.

Thursday, June 30
This is a feelings based conversation. I'm about to order $320 dollars worth of curriculum, and I just need someone to tell me that they are sure I'm making the right choice.