Queen of Good Intentions

You all know I'm the queen of good intentions. What I lack is follow through. Nough said.

Perfect 10....My Sweetling turned 10. She is my Perfect Ten.

Not to be outdone, Little Guy is 5.

I could write for a long time about my children and their parties. But, then I'm back to being BEHIND in my blog. And then I'm discouraged. And then I don't get started cause there is way too much to write and I'll never get caught up. So, I'll just move on to my next Good Intention.

We sat around the kitchen table this morning and took turns making a list of summer activities. Here is our list:

--swimming pool
--nature hike
--creation museum
--make signs
--Parky's Ark
--zoo
--sculpture park
--kite flying
--Gorge Trail
--acorn hunt
--children's museum
--buffalo in KY
--pick apples
--go to playground
--park programs
--piggies
--bike ride
--scrapbooking

Now, my perfect summer day, cause i'm the queen of good intentions, would look like this....

First, all the miscellaneous stuff on the fridge would all be cleared off. The front of the fridge would be decorated with space shuttles, planet pictures, etc (with matching magnets of course) to turn the fridge into "Mission Control". One of the things on the fridge would be "Morning Flight Routines" for each of the three of us. We'd get up, have breakfast and devotions, and then race through our morning flight routines. We'd have some neat sticker chart or something for our flight plans.

Second, each week we'd have a schedule "This Week in Space Camp" or "Shuttle Destinations for this Week", or some such snazzy title. We'd have park programs, library trips, playdates with friends, weekly cleaning tasks, activities from our list, and scrapbooking/journaling all organized into our Weekly Flight Plan.

Third, once a week one morning or afternoon would be "Launch Pad Repair" or "Launch Pad Maintenance" and we'd work together on Repair and Maintenance of our Launch Pad. (shhh...cleaning our house)

Fourth, when we'd get home or finish our Daily Mission, we'd zip through our "Landing Procedure" (put away lunch boxes, water bottles, clean up any messes we'd made during the day). Part of our "Landing Procedure would be a page in cursive, a math skills update, lowercase letter matching, or some other needed school review.

Last, once a week, we'd schedule a Missions Log, for scrapbooking and journaling about our summer.

Isn't that such an awesome idea??

Sweetling is, by the way, at her 90% completion marker in all of her core subjects (except language skills). We're continuing on in a few subjects anyway, because I want to finish the last History unit (the world post WWII) and the last pre-algrebra unit (Statistics and Probability).

Speaking of which, I have to share an email I sent to the Jedi:

Check out one of the “pre-algebra” problems Sweetling worked today:

In a class of 24 boys and 16 girls, the class mean was 75 and the mean of the girls’ scores was 72. What was the mean of the boys’ scores?

Yesterday, one of her problems was:

Find the value of x such that the mean of the given list is the specified number.
8, 14, 16, 12, x; mean = 15

Sweetling said, “I just solved that like I would solve for any variable.”

Toe Rings, Secret Bookmarks, Love Whispers

Smurf's friend, the Guinea Pig Mama, gave me a little box of jewelry...including a toe ring. I cannot tell you for how long I have longed for a toe ring. I have looked enviously at the toe rings adorning the dainty, pedicured feet of other women stylishly displayed in cute summer sandals. And most of the time my own feet were shod in five dollar walmart sneakers which I wore till they fell apart with the blue gel insert wrapped around my heel for the extra cushion. And I would just gaze longingly at toe rings, sandals, and painted feet. Last summer, the Jedi and I had a brief falling out. I, being a woman through and through, consoled myself by going out and buy a thirty dollar pair of croc sandals. (The crocs were able to support my heels without any pain, where most sandals, even expensive ones were to flat and thin for me to wear for a day.) I kept my toenails painted for most of the summer too. And now, now I have a toe ring too. No one but other women will understand how significant this is for me. I got to wear my toe ring for the first time yesterday. I was like a woman with a new engagement ring, I had to keep looking at it.

Also yesterday, we went to the library. I usually grab a book or two from the children's fiction department. Yesterday, I pulled the book Willow Run off the shelf. I opened it to flip through the pages, and found a beautiful, hand colored, Egyptian bookmark in the book. In retrospect, I should have turned the bookmark in at the circulation desk. I left it in the book, so that whoever forgot it could come back to get it. But I thought to myself, how neat would it be to intentionally leave a little bookmark in a book I especially enjoyed for the next reader to find? I won't, because I'm sure I won't get around to it, but just the thought is interesting. It wouldn't have to be an expensive, or an elaborate bookmark. Just something printed from the computer and colored in with pencils would work. A secret bookmark agent.

Lastly, this morning, the Jedi woke me up with kisses. He wrapped his arms around me and held me for a while and whispered lovely thoughts in my ear. Among those whisperings was that he was created for me, created to love me, and that I was deserving of love. I'm still trying to absorb that.

Day 9 of I Can't Grow Grass

Last Tuesday it was beautiful. I drafted my child labor force and went out to the back yard, which had literally received no attention at all last year. We cleaned out last years dead stalks, raked up fallen leaves, collected sand box toys and threw out broken sand box toys. I dug under the corner of the butterfly garden that had gone to weeds. I transplanted the purple coneflowers and and the sedum autumn joy and some of the daylilies into the corner and around the border of the garden. The island bed that they had occupied became the new strawberry patch, and we dug up the strawberry plants and moved them there. We made a neat stepping stone path between the two. Where the strawberry patch was, we pulled out the sundial markers and turned over the soil. We scattered grass seed and laid some of the dead stalks and grasses over the seed to keep the birds away. It rained nicely on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. By yesterday, it hadn't rained in a couple of days, and I wanted the seeds to do well, so I dragged the hose out of the garage, hooked it up, soaked my feet, and gently watered the area. This is day 9. Still no signs of new grass. Now, in my defense, I have no idea how old the grass seed was, but still, I'd think *some* of it would sprout.

Why do plants hate me, when I love them so much? well, ok, I neglect them pitifully in August, but I love them in the spring time. By August I'm jaded. And yet every spring, I'm full of hope.

Monday night at dinner, I put three green beans on Sweetling's plate. She asked why I did that when I know she doesn't like green beans. I told her I was an eternal optimist. We had a brief discussion about what that phrase meant. The Jedi piped in with that I expect the best possible, regardless of whether or not it lined up at all with reality. Under his breath he muttered that it was a wonder I didn't vote as a liberal.

Aperture Easter

Yes, it's been eons since I've posted. But, two things are going to contribute to me being more regular with this blog, again. One, I've quit my rp site. Mom had a herniated disk in her back, she was in pain, couldn't walk or do much of anything for herself, and needed three trips to the er, four trips to the chiropractor, one trip to the family doctor, three trips to the specialist, and one trip to outpatient surgery (for an epidural cortisone shot done under fluroscopy), plus multiple, multiple trips to the pharmacy and a never ending stream of phone calls to set up all these appointments. In my free time, I had no brain cells left for writing an rp. So, no rps means more time for the Me to write in her blog. And two, I've quit my rp site.

On to the topic of this post. Each Easter we decorate our eggs a bit differently. This Easter, I cheated a bit and did a tried and true method, that I thought Little Guy could do easily. I sat on the living room floor and cut little tiny squares, rectangles and triangles of tissue paper. I put said pieces in a divided vegetable tray, sorting them by color to make a beautiful wheel of pretties. It being Easter, I did not include any brown or black, just lovely, uplifting colors. I set up the kitchen for the art project (because in my house, even Easter eggs become an art project.) I cut little cardboard circles from paper towel tubes to be stands for the eggs, so that each little masterpiece had its own easel. Then I gave the children paintbrushes and a few drops of water in a milk jug lid. One is to arrange the pieces of tissue paper, gently brush the mosaic with water, and then allow to dry. The dye from the wet tissue paper seeps into the eggshell, staining it with a lovely pattern of color.

We had each done several eggs (ok, the kids did several eggs, I was on my second), when Sweetling asked...do we have any black? I told her of course not. We had Easter colors. Bright, vibrant, beautiful symbols of the Resurrection. She said she needed black because she was going to make her egg look like the shooting robots from Portal. Black tissue paper then had to join our collection. Little Guy proceeded to make a "bad guy" egg named "Master Egg". The Jedi busted a gut laughing.

Top Ten

The snow is blowing. Again. In february, we went kite flying one Saturday, then sledding that Tuesday. Since then we've gone sledding again (in February) two more times. Last Friday, we went to the park and last weekend had the windows open. Now the snow is blowing, blowing, blowing past my window pane.

Someone should have put a blindfold on the groundhog.

Been meaning to do this for a while.

Top Ten Things I've Said to My Son (age 4), Which I Never Had to Say to My Daughter:

10. Honey, you and your friend need to take turns hitting each other with the light saber.

9. If you keep smacking yourself in the face like that, it makes your nose bleed. We don't want your nose to bleed. Don't do that anymore, ok?

8. Sweetheart, if Mr Turtle's arms and legs are falling off, the game is just a little too rough on Mr. Turtle.

7. Wow, look at that cool Lego gun you built!

6. Puh-puh-puh--poop starts with the letter P. P says puh.

5. No, there aren't any robots in the movie. No, there aren't any big spiders either. No, there isn't anything that blows up. This is Mommy's movie.

4. Yes, the tube does look like you have a big pee-pee.

3. Ok, bring Mommy the bear. I'll try to sew her head back on.

2. You need to get the pee in the toilet. Aim, aim! Aim!!!

1. Now, shake. Good job.

Cheating

Smurf sent me this email. It was far too funny not to put in my blog. Of course, the only people who read my blog are already copied in the email (with the exception of Vaya)....but that's just too bad. My blog. Mine. I post what I want and I don't have to answer to you poeple. Mine. Names have been changed to protect the innocent....not that they were either innocent or protected themselves...

I was looking through school stuff this morning, and the following e-mail was in my inbox via blackboard:

"Hi Smurf

my name is S---- and Im in your philosophy class with Prof ____. The material is bullshit and you are the only person who understands whats going on. Ive never had to write a paper in philosophy before. Can I pay you to do mine for me? Its my only chance of passing. Please be discrete."

This was my response:

"Dear S-------,

I'm sorry you find the course work so difficult; it is very challenging, which is why I spend so much time asking Prof. G_____ questions about the readings in class. I sincerely wish you had been seeking tutoring instead of outright academic dishonesty. However, since help understanding the material isn't what you're after, I'm afraid I won't be able to help you.

Additionally, I am equally sorry to have to tell you that while I'll be perfectly discreet regarding your request, you yourself have not been. Blackboard copies all student emails sent through the class roster to the professor of the course. This was, perhaps, not your most ingenious move. The plus side is that you can probably evidence your foolishness here as proof that you haven't tried to cheat before (given how easily you are caught).

Hi Prof. _______!

Sincerely,

Smurf"

My professor should be highly entertained. ;P

Chocolateer is "Wierd"

We went to the park today. It was 60 degrees this afternoon. Christopher Robin and her boys met us there. And we picked up Pinky on the way. (I've been a bad, bad friend to Christoper Robin. Horrible bad.)

Christopher Robin was filling me in on all the latest little anecdotes in her life. (Yes, that's misspelled, I'll let Smurf post with the correct spelling in the comments. It'll give her smug self something to do. )

Here's one of my favorites of the stories. Cause it involved me of course. I'm just that self-centered.

Pinky has three older brothers. I was going to name them after the Billy Goats Gruff, but I'll go with ...Punching Bag, who's the oldest and takes the brunt of my teasing when I'm around them. Goth, which is a self evident name, and gets teased mercilessly from me about his ripped up pants that so don't qualify as a fashion statement. And...hmmm.... I'll have to think on the third. He's not in this story anyway. Darn. Pinky's Mom needs a name. Now, several weeks ago. I confessed to Songwriter at church the first name that popped into my mind for Pinky's Mom and she highly encouraged me to pick a DIFFERENT name. Let's just be unoriginal and go with Pinky's Mom.

Punching Bag, whose 17, was complaining that he doesn't have a girlfriend. Has never had a girlfriend, was doomed in fact, to a life devoid of female companionship. No girl was ever, ever, going to like him. He was going to grow old alone.

Pinky's Mom, trying to be a voice of reason, pointed out that Uncle Bear was a nerd, and look, he's happily married.

Punching Bag was neither convinced nor cheered.

Pinky's Mom pointed out that the Jedi was an even bigger nerd. The biggest nerd she knew, and look...he is married too.

Yeah, Punching Bad admits, but that's only because Chocolateer is weird.

And, says Pinky's Mom, there's the right weird girl out there for you too.

Doesn't the whole story just warm your heart? I repeated the story after dinner tonight. The Jedi was flattered to be called a bigger nerd than Bear. Score one for the Jedi, in fact. And before I could get to Pinky's Moms last reply, the Jedi said "See, and there's a weird girl out there for him too."

I feel so loved.

8 Minutes in the Morning

Yes, I'm trying *another* program. Why? Because I'm an ENFP, and I start multiple projects a day, that's why. So, here's the newest thing I'm trying.

It's a fitness program called 8 Minutes in the Morning. I'm thinking, surely, surely, I can do just 8 little minutes in the morning. Surely I can. The kicker is that I need to do 8 minutes _every_ morning....and thats where the ENFP might fail. But I'm going to hop on board and give it a whirl. Why? Cause I'm an ENFP, that's why.

So, part of this new venture is that I'm supposed to sign this contract and write a letter about why I'm starting. I, you know, skipped the contract, cause it involved weighing myself...and that involved finding the scales and what not. Plus it was boring. But the letter to myself about why I'm doing this sounded interesting, so that's what I'm doing.

Dear Self,

You used to be fun and adventurous and active. You used to bike or walk everywhere, cause you didn't own a car. You used to love being outside and immersing yourself in nature. You used to take ballet classes through Evening College. You used to abhor sitting still, and the idea of sitting at a computer for hours would have been sheer torture. Where have you gone?

Now, I glimpse you in the bathroom mirror and wonder, who is that middle aged, pale, flabby, dough like person? What albino elephant contributed a piece of hide to make that belly? Who is THAT? It certainly isn't me.

And then I go make us a mug of hot chocolate and turn on the computer.

Dear self, we can be active again. No, not like we used to be. Lets face it, our lives have changed now. The changes are good ones, but they necessitate a less active life. And, lets face it...we will never be interested in going on a walk in the evening, by then we're tired. And we certainly aren't hauling our sorry selves out of bed to go for a walk in the morning before the Jedi leaves. That's just insanity talking there. Exercise machines are boring. The very word exercise makes us groan and pull the covers back over our heads. Diets are evil, evil things. Besides...we don't really need to lose a ton of weight, we just need to tone up and kick our metabolism back in gear. Exercise fitness tapes are dorky. Especially the Jazzercise VHS tape from the early nineties. We still have "better butter burner" song stuck in our brain. We're so sorry brain. We'd erase it if we could. We're never, ever going to get our act in gear enough to join a club that we'd not go to. Or carve out the time to do a ballroom dance class, or any of the other options like that.

But, dear self, we surely, surely can do 8 lousy minutes in the morning. That doesn't even involve getting up early or anything. Just 8 simple minutes. 8 simple minutes, and all we need to do is tone up a bit. We will feel so much better for it. We will look so much better for it. No, we still aren't going to get our belly button pierced, even though we want to. You know we can't wear earrings without our ears turning red and itching...belly button piercings would have the same results. But we'll at least be able to wear a pair of jeans without a roll of flab popping out over the waist line. That'll be a nice change, won't it dear self? And we'll celebrate our first four weeks by going out and buying two new pair of cute paints.

See, dear self, this will be easy. And we'll get a cute little notebook for it. That'll make it fun. Maybe a purple pen and stickers. We love purple pens and stickers.

Barefoot in the Snow

Today is the first day back to school after a three week Christmas vacation. Why a three week vacation? Because Mom moved in with us. This involved the school room becoming Mom's bedroom and the downstairs becoming the school room and Sweetling's room getting a loft bed and being repainted. One Thursday night, the Jedi came home and decided it was time to get the school room out and a bed in. Mom had been sleeping at our house since that Monday on the little loveseat couch. So, Thursday night began the Great Shuffle. I took Sweetling to Tae Kwon Do so the Jedi could dissasemble, move, and reassemble two beds. (The loft bed and the large captains bed weren't going through doorways as a unit. They had to come apart and be put back together.) Stuff got stacked in the LR, stuff got stacked in the new school room. Stuff got stacked in the hall. I looked at Sweetling and said "Merry Early Christmas, we're not doing school in all of this."

So, today was our first day back. Sweetling was tired this morning. Far too tired to do pre-algebra. But maybe not too tired to do science. Being a heartless Mommy that I am, I told her to do some of her basic forms for Tae Kwon Do to wake her up. I offered to send her outside, barefoot in the snow to practice her forms for that real 'Kung Fu' feel. She opted for the indoors instead. Go figure.

Little Guy, on the other hand, would have done it. Little Guy has said that snow is his favorite weather.

In other news, we had a great break. Sweetling's new room is awesome. She painted a lot of it all by herself. We drove to Canton Sunday before Christmas with three cats, three cardboard boxes, and two rolls of duct tape. We hit a white out north of Columbus. We left our driveway (the first time) at 3 pm. We drove five minutes to Mom's apartment for the great Boxing of the Cats. We left our drive way the second time around 5pm. We arrived at the Jedi's parents (the first time) at 11pm. We took the children in and tucked them in. We left to drive to East Nowhere Ohio where my brother's house is to drop off the cats. One cat deboxed itself en route. We arrived (the second time) at the Jedi's parents' at 1:30 am. I count it as an Experience. The Jedi counted it as an ordeal.

Sweetling's favorite part about Christmas: "I like getting Webkinz."
Little Guy's favorite part about Christmas: "Choo choo train" (quickly changed to Webkinz cause that's what Sweetling said.)

If I weren't so lazy, Id move the pics to the end of the blog. But that involves editing the Html page. And you and I both know that isn't going to happen.

Tune Twisters

(to the tune of..The Eensy Weensy Spider)

The fuzzy, furry Webkinz
Went to the Wheel of WOW.
It likes to play,
Whenever it is home.
Don't call it Zango
And try to shake its W-globe.
Cause it will start to scream like a girl
And say, "Cut that out!"

(to the tune of Frere Jacques)

I'll wear goo-goo goggles
To the spelling bee.
You'll wear wings
With some antennae.
Everyone will laugh a lot
When they see us spelling.
We'll look loquatious.
Quick lets sub-verbalize.

O-N/O-F-F Indicator

The Maven, font of wisdom that she is, wrote once "I am both overwhelmed and underwhelmed." Underwhelmed in the sheer mediocrity of the daily, repetitive, thankless, unnoticed tasks that make up such a large portion of my everyday life. Sweep the floor and one meal later, it needs swept again. Dusting the school desk takes 15 minutes, but who notices when it gets done. Dusting the miniature shelf takes even longer. Laundry--sort wash dry fold hang. Clean behind the toilet, every day, because Little Guy's aim still needs work. Come check the toilet every time Little Guy pees, because if he gets it all *in* the toilet, he gets a popsicle stick in his cup. Four popsicle sticks equals a Webkinz special recipe food item that he gets to pick out, sit on Mommy's lap to make on her account, then mail to his account through kinzpost. Fuss at Sweetling who is reading over my shoulder and not doing her vocabulary....

These are the things that consume my day.

And I love being a stay-home mom. And I love being a homeschooling mom. LOVE IT.

But every now and then the "underwhelmed but overwhelmed" thing really bugs me. Especially the overwhelmed part. Yesterday the mediocre housework just didn't get accomplished. Very little in school got accomplished either. Why? I have no idea. It wasn't because we had a Webkinz holiday. Or a playdate. Or errands to run. Or fun phone calls with friends. Or a good book to read. No. It just didn't get done. We were home all day. We were *trying* all day. The gears were turning, but the train was in neutral. And nothing got done. So, overwhelmed because I can't get whats on my plate done.

Foremost among these frustrations was the dishwasher. One puts the dirty dishes in. One puts in detergent. One turns the dishwasher on. One goes about ones happy little life until some later time, when one comes back to take the dishes out. It is NOT that difficult. So, when one continuously, continuously misses one of these ever so simple steps and comes back to find that the dishwasher is still, in fact, full of dirty dishes and now so is the sink....one becomes frustrated with oneself. One rants at one's husband. One rants at one's Sweetling. One rants at one's mother. One rants at one's Mango on the phone. One rants on one's blog.

Then the next day, when one is ever so proud at one's clever self because she did indeed remember to run the dishwasher, only to go downstairs to discover that the dryer is still full of wet clothes because one forgot to push the start button....well then one is completely justified---completely justified, in ranting some more.

Sweetling suggests that I should reward myself when I remember to run the dishwasher by giving myself a piece of chocolate. This positive reinforcement should better train the Mommy. Sweetling doesn't know that Mommy has a brownie mix in the pantry that is going to shortly become Mommy's consolation prize.

Its beginning to look a lot like

We take turns each year deciding how we should decorate our Christmas tree. The Jedi decided that this year it should be Little Guy's turn. Little Guy, when asked what should go on the Christmas tree, said, "Fragile things and lights and a birdhouse." (Later he added candy canes to that list). Then Berean put up a Christmas tree and covered it with Webkinz. So we start putting up our tree yesterday. Little Guy decides that our tree should also have Webkinz. Lo and behold, Christmas tree with Webkinz.






We added candy canes this afternoon. Since children would be taking Webkinz on and off the tree all month, Mommy decided it was best to skip the fragile things. The Jedi suggested my pegasus should be our tree topper this year, cause you know, wings and all. You cant see it in the pic, but there is indeed a pink pegasus serving as our tree angel this year.

Three Cats

Oh how descriptive and inspiring my blog titles are.

Mom has three cats. Mom needs to have zero cats. Mom is allergic to said cats and the medicines she takes for her allergies is giving her high blood pressure. If Mom goes off her medicine, she gets sick. If Mom doesn't go off her medicine, she risks a stroke.

Bottom line, three cats need a new home. I'm thinking my brother the Tornado has three kids. These children need Christmas presents. Three kids who need presents....three cats who need a home... It's a genius plan.

Nine and nightgown

Its 9:07 and I'm still in my nightgown. My children are both bundled up playing in the snow in the backyard. Little Guy cannot get enough of snow. He loves it! We got a couple of inches overnight on Tuesday. The Jedi had arranged with work that if it snowed, he wasn't coming in till 9, so that he could be home to take Little Guy out in his first snow fall. I had been assuming that Little Guy would love the snow, up until it touched him and it was cold. Little Guy went out in the snow, with Sweetling right behind him. He quickly discovered that he could make footprints, and this was very cool. Then he discovered that he could throw it. This was also cool. Sweetling proceeded to demostrate how to make and pound a little brother with a snowball. A skill which she executed with remarkable accuracy. Remarkable, hit my little brother right in the face, sort of accuracy. Little Guy stood there stunned and horrified. The Jedi came to a quick rescue and got the snow off of Little Guys face and out from down the neck of his coat. Little Guy made a swift recovery. The Jedi pulled both children around the front yard a few times in the sled, and then was off to work. We stayed out for a little longer (more snowballs were thrown, snowangels made, and big, big snowpiles full of brown leaves were scooped together by Little Guy.) Then Mommy got cold, and it was time for breakfast, so in we went.

Little Guy played in the snow outside of church on the way into wow. He played in the snow on the way out of wow. He stomped on the groundcover outside of Berean. He got out of the car and stomped around in Pinkie's front yard. We all went to Telephone's house. Telephone and I worked on a dance for Saturday and all the children (hers were off cause school districts down here are wimps) went outside to play for about an hour. Her front yard has a little hill, so more sledding was done. We had hot chocolate at Telephones and came home. Little Guy wanted to go back in the snow. We didn't, because we had to get ready for church. We went to church. More footprints were made. We came out of church. Footprints.

We woke up this morning, staggered into the school room where Mommy was reading a weeks worth of emails she hadn't had a chance to read yet. We said "wanna play in the snow Mommy?" before we were even awake enough to have our eyes fully open. Mommy, being mean like she is, made us eat at least a banana first. Then both children got bundled up and out they went. Sweetling is now standing on the edge of the snowcovered cliff that is our backyard thinking about it. Little Guy told the Jedi last night that maybe we could get a hill in our yard for Christmas, so we could go sledding all the time. The Jedi told Little Guy "good luck with that one." In the meantime, Little Guy is out there contenting himself with making snowpiles. And has found a bucket. Snow can go in buckets. Its an amazing thing. Snow in buckets can be dumped on unsuspecting sisters. This is even better. Snow is also edible, despite how many times Mommy has tried to explain that after the snow has been walked in and has laid on the ground all day, it is no longer clean.

Zero schooling has been done all week. Which isn't completely accurate. Sweetling did one morning devotion and one history lesson. Little Guy has insisted on doing calendar. And spent one evening while I was making dinner arranging his magnetic letters on the fridge in ABC order...a task which involved frequent running trips to the school room to check the alphabet on his desk to find what letter comes next. And Sweetling has been playing Quest for Glory. I'm not sure how that can count as an educational experience, but in the middle of December, it does somehow.

We took Monday off for Mommy to recover from the Children's Musical, which was wonderful. We made a go of it for an hour or so on Tuesday, then went and picked up Smurf. Wednesday was a snow holiday. Today there is no good reason for us not to be doing formal school lessons...except that its Thursday, its 9:29, Mommy is still in her nightgown and children are outside playing. There is a weeks worth of laundry that needs folded and put away...and we have tomorrow off cause Daddy's home. We will make a nod at getting a few lessons in, but in general, this week is a wash when it comes to progress on the K12 curriculum.

If its a measure of how little time we've had for seatwork, I didn't even log on to webkinz once yesterday. And I missed the dragsters in the curio shop. Boo hoo.

My life is measured by lessons completed and webkinz events. I can also sing the Super Why theme song as well as the Word Girl theme song.

And I need to come up with nearly twenty fake poinsettia flowers between now and Sunday without spending any money on them. Its only the first week of December, and I have seriously, dangerously, overspent my 'freespending' allowance. Without the Jedi's knowledge. But the good news is that my ultracool phone is NOT lost at church as I feared last night, but merely left at Telephone's house. A rescue mission before the Jedi notices its absence is in order today. And no, the Jedi doesn't read my blog, so I'm totally safe in writing this here.

But for now, I shall retrieve children from the wintery wonderland and feed them breakfast, take my shower, and start school.

There's one tree, a little one, in our backyard that still has green summer leaves all over it. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one unprepared for December.

Quinlan the Penguin

I have a cookie update, that I'll make as soon as pics are downloaded from the camera. (Ok, short version...we got the cookies done and delivered Saturday! Sweetling, Little Guy, and Sweetling's good friend, Pinkie were a HUGE help!)

Second update, our Christmas musical, The Mystery of the Manger, was on Sunday and it went REALLY well. Sweetling and Pinkie both had speaking parts and Little Guy was a shepherd. The Jedi was put in charge of the camera, because I was doing leading the choir's choregraphy. ( Side note, why is spelling so evil?) Anyway, I'm hoping for some pics of that to share as well.

In the meantime....I shall share screenshots of Quinlan the Penguin. I have shared his story on WI, and now I'm sharing it here. By copying and pasting my WI post of course.

First of all, my husband came home on Monday night with new Webkinz reindeer for each of our two children. He was supposed to just stop on the way home and get milk and bread. Instead, he walks in with the grocery bags, asks how everybody's day was...did they listen, how was school, etc. After listening to me talk about our day....he reaches into the grocery bags and pulls out reindeer! There was much rejoicing :)

Then, on Thursday, I walked in and found a Webkinz penguin sitting on my keyboard :) I had been not so subtly dropping hints about wanting one for Christmas for a while. My Christmas started early. Everyone gathered round to watch Mommy adopt her new penguin and decorate his room. (After I had agonized for a day picking out his name. A name which was finally found by my daughter, who got online to find cool names for me.)

THEN I thought Quinlan the Penguin's room needed some decorations. So I got on WI to look at how other winter themed rooms were decorated. I kept calling my daughter in to ask her where I could get the items I was seeing. It turns out the things I wanted were exclusive items. (A sparkle plant and an arctic window...PSI for the polar bear.) This morning my daughter told me I should log on to my account, because she had sent me a present. Let me say that I had many things to do, and we were running late for a dress rehearsal for our Christmas musical...but I hopped on because she was so very excited. AND OH MY GOODNESS! She sent me a sparkle plant AND the arctic window!!!!! She had a polar bear, and she sent me his PSI. I about cried.

I told her I couldn't take Frosty's window...so we agreed that I would decorate my penguin's room and do a screenshot, then send it back. Well, this evening, my husband calls me downstairs to look at his computer. He bought a polar bear code, just so he could get the arctic window and send it to our daughter...so we both would have our own.

Isn't that just awesome??

BFS--Cookie Exchange

Part A: Please share your Favorite Christmas/Holiday Cookie Recipe(s)!

Part B: Share a memory, story or tradition about baking any Christmas/Holiday goodies.

Part C: Share a verse that is upon your heart this week.

Hmmmm....cooooookieeess. We likes the cookies.

So, I have three recipes that I try to make each year. They are:
Chocolate Rolo Cookies
Applesauce Jumbles
Chocolate Chip Spice Cookies

The Jedi's favorite cookies are Caramel Pecan Dream Bars....but the force is not with me, and everytime I've tried to make these cookies, I fail miserably.

Almost every year, I make dozens of dozens of dozens of cookies. No lie. I put them in containers. We get some, mom gets some, Smurf gets some...if she's been an especially smurfin smurf and gets her little body over to my house before they are gone. But the real reason I make dozens of dozens of cookies, is that I put them in containers to take to the neighbors. Typically, Dayspring has a little printed bookmark with the list of the times and dates of all the special Christmas activities and services. I put the bookmark on the cookie containers, and I take it to the neighbors.

I had just decided that I was going to skip that tradition this year. I'm tired. The first Christmas activity is *this* Sunday. There is no preprinted bookmark. I have to do my monthly grocery shopping on Friday, we have Sweetlings girls club Friday afternoon, and I'm going to the Melting Pot Friday night with Telephone and our children's pastor. We have a rehearsal for the children's Christmas musical Saturday from 9am-1pm. There is no way, no way, no WAY I can get dozens of dozens of cookies made, packaged, and delivered by Saturday night.

And then the darn BFS assignment is about holiday cookies. And the family across the street lost their father this fall. And my one neighbor comes to almost every special musical or church activity I invite him to.

Maybe instead of all my fancy cookies, I could find a few nice, simple cookie recipes that we can do together. (Cause having Sweetling and Little Guy helping in this process is the definition of streamlining). Maybe the Jedi will make some bookmarks for me. If I just do three houses (instead of the six I usually do), I can do this. Surely I can.

And the verses that immediately pop into mind are...
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Mt 19:26
and...
I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Phil 4:13

Six Months Later

Six months and a few weeks later....and I finally have the second half of my Guatemala blog put up on our share point site. I'm sending out an email to a few people. If you read this, and you don't get an email...and you want one...I didn't forget you on purpose. I'm just me. You should know that by now. If not, the fact that it's taken me 6mos to get around to doing this should clue you in on my lack of organization.

A little lighter now...

So, Smurf's response to my last post made me cry. She was even nice enough to call my weed patch a garden. I want to take a break from deeper topics, so I'm leaving you with this photoshopped picture. Later I'll post my perfect weekend and the next BSF assignment, which is all about Thanksgiving.

BFS #8-Dirty Laundry

BFS stands for Blogger Friend School. See the blinky link on the right. So, here's the assignment:

Part A - Share about your family’s laundry. Where is it kept? Who does it? How does your family sort it? Do you wash by hand? Hang clothes on the clothesline? Make your own laundry soap? How often do you do laundry? How many loads each day/week? Indoor laundry room, in the garage, or laundry mat? Even more fun…share a picture!

For those of you who have known me for a while, you know that laundry is the bane of my existence. I have lamented about laundry more times than I can count and here's why... ITS NEVER BLEEPING DONE. Those of you who are born organized (which of all my friends would be Christopher Robin and Telephone) keep trying to come up with helpful comments by sharing your system in the hopes that I'll get my act in order and quit whining you you about it. Foolish mortals.

Here's my "system". On Sunday, we come home from church and have lunch. Then its time to sort laundry. Little Guy grabs his laundry basket, which has wheels, and pushes it like a madman down the hall, thumps it down the stairs, and goes careening into "the closet room". (The closet room, when we bought the house, was going to become the master bath since its right off the master bedroom. Then the plumber came out and gave us the estimate, and the room has become half walk-in closet, half storage for crap, half a computer desk with three servers sitting on it. Yes, that is three halves, and it gives you an idea how cluttered the room is.) Sweetling's laundry basket is a fold up nylon mesh cube in primary colors with two nylon handles which she lugs down the hall, down the stairs, and to the closet room. She has learned to go *after* Little Guy if she values her heels. I grab the towels and the fifteen wet washclothes from the bathroom and head down. Then the three of us sort laundry together. Here's the picture of the closet room, taken Sunday evening after the laundry had been sorted and cleared out. Ok. Maybe not. I took a picture, but I can't find what folder its sitting in. There are the other two pictures I took, but not the closet room. Those three servers that sit in the closet room? They look for ways to laugh at me. That's their full time job.

Once the laundry is sorted, I start running loads. This is the part that never gets done. Loads take two drier cycles to dry, because the dryer vent tube (that big round silver thing that leads outside) needs cleaned out Im sure. Anyway, done loads get either a)dumped on the bed to be shoveled back into a basket later because I never got around to folding them; b)left in a basket at the foot of our bed or on the floor of the laundry room; or c)left in the dryer while the load in the washer sits and gets that nice mildew smell. Here, this time for real, is a picture of the laundry room. Now Mango in her blog calls her laundry room the dungeon. I totally disagree. I totally win the dungeon competition for laundry rooms.

Oh, and here's the picture of two laundry baskets hanging out at the foot of our bed. This is taken before the great laundry pile up begins to occur. (Not because I'm hiding the great laundry pile-up, but just because thats when Mango called me about BFS and that when I read the BFS home page and then went running around the house with a camera. The Jedi wisely had no comment.)

The great laundry pile up is why I hate laundry. Remember the a, b, c options for what happens to the laundry when it finally comes out of the dryer? That's the beginning of the great laundry pile up. The great laundry pile up usually gets sorted out by Friday afternoon, just in time to start laundry again on Sunday. So, basically, all through the week there is unfinished laundry and finished laundry waiting to be folded. And several times I dump the laundry monster out on our bed to try to make some headway, get a few minutes of work done, and then get called away to some other task, and by bedtime the unfinished laundry has to be shoveled back into the baskets, often on top of the few things I did get folded. And this is why laundry is the bane of my existence. Every week I start it with the best of intentions, and every week the process gets derailed and becomes a mess that I have to try to live through and function through and tell Sweetling to just wrap a towel around herself and go look for a pair of underwear in the baskets at the foot of the bed. These sorts of things. The stuff that dreams are made of.

By Friday, the laundry is folded, finally, and baskets are lugged back up the stairs. Little Guy helps me put away his own laundry (which is in one basket) and Sweetling puts away her laundry on her own (which is in another basket.) I usually carry the stack of towels up by hand and put them in the linen closet.

And the broken system begins again on Sunday.

Part B - Do you have an area in your life that you know that the Lord is tugging at some heart strings that needs to be cleaned up? Have a testimony of your past struggle(s) that might help another homeschooling mom? Share a piece of your heart (dirty laundry) that you are seeking a good washing or how it got cleaned up. Sharing with one another is a great way to have your post feel human and real.

Grrr. This is why I've not yet done this assignment. I was just going to say that I've been having a really difficult time being motivated to spend time in prayer and in Bible studies and keeping my prayer journal. Oh, I've been doing it, sporadically, but I've just been going through the motions and not reaping any spiritual growth or benefits. But really, I think I know exactly why I haven't been motivated.

A year ago, my women on wednesday bible study (wow), read and discussed the book Captivating. It was an awesome experience for me in so many ways. There was a hurt done to me when I was a child, that I had never really admitted, never faced, never worked through. I blamed myself for what happened, and just felt broken beyond all repair. In the process of reading that book, God helped me to see how what had happened was NOT MY FAULT. He showed me how he saw me, an innocent little girl. Innocent, innocent. I loved the sound and feel of that word. I still do. He started me down the long road of healing, and he was faithful to give me just what I needed when I needed it.

But the road of healing was long, and the landscape of the journey often looked the same, and I was impatient to reach the destination. And I began to doubt that I ever would reach the destination. And I might have been in slavery in Egypt, but I started remembering the banks of the Nile as being so much more lush and refreshing than the wilderness I had to cross to reach the Promised Land. And so I turned around and headed back towards Egypt. And I wondered why the road back seemed darker and colder without the pillar of fire going before me. And I stagnated on my prayer life, on my Bible studies, my journaling.

Mango on the phone with me last night said, "You're so nice. You probably never have to look in the mirror and see something ugly." Oh Mango, I said, you have no idea. There's a room in my heart where I turned all the mirrors to the wall for the longest time, because I couldn't bear to face what was reflected there. But its time to pick up the polishing cloth and get back to work. Because God is telling me, it isn't me who is ugly and distorted. He made me beautiful. But the mirror got warped in my childhood, and the image its throwing back at me isn't what he created me to be. And its going to take some hard work to polish the mirror and to let him bend it back into shape. And its going to take a long time. But we are heading in the right direction. Be patient. Follow him through the wilderness. We aren't out here wandering in circles. We are making progress.

Part C - FIND a scripture this week that pertains to this assignment to help you with your laundry and share it this week.

The Biblical woman I identify most with is Sarah. I want to be like Ruth, but really I'm like Sarah. She had the promise of God, but when it was taking a long time to be fulfilled, she decided maybe God's plan was for her to be more proactive in fulfilling the promise. Rather than stay on the journey God called her to, she wanted faster results, and found a way to "get" God's promise on her time table. It's the impatience, the desire to be in control, the need to know how and when, the frustration and doubt generated by the long journey, all these things I detect in myself.

So, my scripture is both for the laundry in my house, which never seems done...yet really it does get done every week, just not on my time table, and not without some mess and frustration in the middle of the week. And its also for the healing journey that never seems over...yet really I know how far God has already brought me, and I know how much he sustains me, (but the wilderness does seem barren...and there's a lot of murmuring from me along the way).

So my scripture is...Philippians 1:5-6: Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on in completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Happy Halloween

Sweetling is WordGirl. Little Guy is Captain Huggyface.