A walk in the park...

Today we took advantage of the fabulous weather with a walk in the park near our house.


It's a state park, which means a lot of trees and no playground equipment. My kids never miss the slides and swings because there's a gob of way more interesting stuff down there. Thick woods around a creek. What more could a kid ask for?


While wandering the woods, we found a tree awesomely chewed to pieces by a beaver:



And the beaver's equally awesome home:



We passed a dead and mostly eaten up dog on the way to the creek, but I'll spare you the pictures of that thing. It wasn't pretty. The people-beaten path leads to a sand bar under this very cool old train bridge:

Chad got busy building a dam, one of his favorite things to do with water:



Cadence hunted for frogs:


Riley played in the mud:


After we got good and dirty, we trudge up this treacherous incline to the top of the train bridge:
..and went across.

I was having flashbacks of Stand By Me and made the kids hurry across for no reason. We've lived here 7 years and I know perfectly well the only trains that run on this track come through at about 2am. That's paranoia for you. On the other side of the creek, Cadence caught her much-coveted frog and I got some great pictures of the water..


..along with some other pretty silly things to take pictures of. Grass? What kind of weirdo takes pictures of grass? Uhh, that would be me.


It was a great way to spend the afternoon. We're all waiting for slightly warmer weather that will enable us to wade the creek. The bottoms is covered with mussel shells, sparkly rocks, and all kinds of other treasures.

"Fishing" for frogs...

Last night, Chad stayed over with a friend of mine so he could attend a farm equipment auction early this morning. This friend has several acres of a really great yard with lots of trees and a little pond out back. When we picked him up this afternoon, Chad was in the back lot scanning the pond.


I asked what he was doing. "Fishing for frog eggs," he said. I make a joke about frogging instead of fishing, but he was too absorbed and didn't even hear me. I tell ya, nobody appreciates a good smart ass anymore. I guess there's supposed to be some eggs in there. Eggs from some frog my country friend calls Spring Peepers. Looks like a bunch of slime and muck to me. Chad was determined to take some home. He carefully inspected the slime.


After deciding the good stuff was out of his reach, he hunted up an old jug to stand on.


After all that hard work, Chad had a baggie full of pond water and slime, and possibly some frog eggs. As soon as we got home again, he realized he'd left the baggie on the counter at my friend's place. Figures. Tomorrow we're going back with all the kids to fish for some more.

Confessions of a skinny woman...

I'm a thin person. I'm currently at the heaviest non-pregnant weight I've been in my life, at 126 lbs. I'm five foot nine. My pregnancy with Chad was the biggest weight-gainer, and the day he was born I was 24 pounds heavier than my 4 week OB appointment. You can count all my ribs and my collarbone is clearly visible from shoulder to shoulder. I'm sayin I'm thin.

When I was a teenager, my doctor said I was underweight. I was the same weight I was the last time I'd visited, and no thinner than I had been the rest of my life up to this point, but he insisted I go on a high calorie diet. So I counted calories. I drank Carnation Instant Breakfast with my breakfast. I ate until I was overfull and snacked between meals on high calorie things like cookies and candy bars (I was a teenager, that's about all I could think of). Calorie counting, as anyone doing so to lose weight will tell you, is just plain exhausting. All I did for two straight months was think about food. Overeating had made the very idea of my next meal nauseating. For the first time in my life, I was aware of how thin I was compared to everyone else. Before, I knew I was thin, but now the doctor had confirmed that something was wrong with me. I was embarrassed by my bony shape. I started wearing loose-fitting clothing, sometimes in layers, to reduce my skinny appearance.

After two months of this kind of eating, I'd gained a whopping 2 pounds, and the doctor frustratedly mumbled it could be water weight since I was having my period. We spent a really long time discussing what I ate, how often, and what kind of exercise I got. He accused me of not sticking to the diet and insisted that my being underweight was unhealthy and that I needed to take it seriously. I cried and insisted that I really had tried. I left his office with a scribbled list of suggested meals and the name of a weight gain product made for bodybuilders.

After a week or so of self-hating, I threw that doctor's list in the garbage. I'd spent my entire first 15 years not worrying about my body, and the last two months had brought me lots of misery and worry with no results. I'm doing nothing wrong - eating properly, getting the right amount of exercise, getting enough sleep. No amount of prodding or force can change my weight much. I'm just thin.

People often speculate on why I'm so thin. Maybe it's because I don't eat much sugar? Maybe I'm under a lot of stress? Maybe I get more exercise than most? Everyone assumes there must be some sort of secret to my thin figure. My grandmother would call me "bony," since she's a believer in food curing all that ails you. Bony. Skinny. Underweight. Skin and bones. A lot of women, often "overweight" according to the charts and maybe only a few pounds in that direction, call me "skinny," and always in that snotty way that says they hate me for it. Actually, I've been told more than a couple of times, "You're so skinny. I just hate you." This pisses me off. Think about that. You're _____. I hate you. Would it be okay for me to say, "Gee you're fat. I just hate you." Of course not. You don't hate someone because they're thin. You hate them because you're not, and you hate yourself for that. You hate yourself because you don't fit into that little imaginary box called Perfect.

I'm done hating myself. Beauty should not be measured in pounds. My body wants to be this weight. And I'm okay with that.

When Dad is home...

It amazes me how our home routine is so delicate. It's not much of a routine really: get up, eat, get dressed, do some schoolwork, throw in some laundry and vacuuming here and there. My husband has been home this week because of our crappy cold weather. He was supposed to be doing some excavation work, but the ground has either been wet or (gasp) snowy all week. So he has sat around here, stir crazy with his claim of nothing to do. I have plenty of suggestions, but they're not received well. In the meantime, our simple little routine is all out of whack.

The kids are demons, taking advantage of Dad's lack of knowledge about household rules. Ignoring the box full of legos and other suitable building materials, they made huge castles out of videos and dvds. I walked into the room just in time to stop a bombing of the castles, and when I reminded them we don't play with videos, Cadence said, "Daddy helped us build them."

Vic tries to help around the house, but I'm so crazy about how I do things that I don't really want help. I've already doled out all the things I'm not so particular about to the kids. There's nothing left for Vic. Not to mention the fact that he can't find anything. "I'm changing the cat litter. Where do you keep the new bag?" Ugh.

I'm going insane. Please for the love of Bob, somebody send some warm sunny weather.

Giddy book geek...

Look what was waiting for me at the post office this afternoon!

Saxon 7/6 homeschool set for Chad next year. Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and The Story of Mankind to go with the History Odyssey I just ordered. Spirit Walker by Michelle Paver, part of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series that Chad started reading and really enjoys. Packages! And it's not even my birthday yet.

When Vic got home I excitedly showed off my booty (and the books too *wink*). "Look at how awesome this Usborne book is," I said. "Check out all the great pictures! The kids are gonna love these! And look! A whole math package for 6th grade, can you believe it? Oh I can't wait to start using these!"

He scanned the books. He listened to me ramble and carry on. Then he said, "I love you, honey. You're a geek." He went outside to do some manly thing and left me alone with my books.

A while ago, I mentioned my pan cupboard and how disorganized it is. The pans seem to follow a general theme of disarray flowing through the whole house. This is why:

Riley decided to organize everything for me. Nice of her, eh? She is just small enough to examine every corner of the cupboard closely and make the most of the space, which I could never do.

My dirty little cooking secret...

My dirtiest cooking secret is this: I can't. Cook, that is. Not well anyway. The day I got married I had never cooked any kind of meat except ground beef, tuna, or hot dogs. My ground beef experience was limited to Hamburger Helper. I'd never made cookies or any other treat food, not even instant pudding. I cooked plenty of meals growing up, it's just that all of them came in a box. Imagine my dismay when our grocery budget left me with no choice but to buy things I had to actually cook. That first year I called friends and family members at least twice a week with some sort of crisis. I'd forgotten the tomatoes for the chili, could I still make it? What the hell is buttermilk? Baking soda is the same as baking powder, right?

This may not have been so bad, except I always waited until the last minute. I've never had any trouble doing anything I really tried to do, so I assumed cooking would be the same way. I assumed I'd have everything I needed, not really knowing what I needed in the first place. I was unprepared 99% of the time. Most of our meals for the first couple of years had ingredients varying from the recipe and were eaten at 10:00 because I didn't realize how long stuff took to cook. It may have been easier just to let Vic cook, but he was raised on meat, potatoes and starch, all of them fried in about 3 inches of oil. I refused to eat like that.

So I learned. I burned stuff. I returned meat to the pan over and over because it was underdone. I scorched stuff. I curdled stuff (who knew you couldn't add lemon juice to cream sauce?). Slowly I learned which flavors complimented each other. I learned recipes are important when you haven't made something before. I'm proud to announce that after almost 11 years of barely passable cooking, I can finally cook a steak that resembles neither a leather sole or fire log. I've learned to make things I never thought I could. And while I'm still not ready to try souffle, I'm confident I can produce a meal with great flavor that everyone will love.

I still can't bake a cake without having it stick to the pan. I still can't time all the parts of dinner so they'll be ready at the same time. But I'm learning. Tonight I'm typing this while waiting on baked potatoes in the oven. Not sure how long they take to bake since I've never made "baked potatoes" in anything but the microwave. It's 8:00 and I'm hoping we'll have time to eat dinner without the kids being up past their bedtime. Again.

Yay!

I just got myself a new Canon PowerShot A560. That name might mean a lot or a little to you. To me it means I can now take pictures of our daily life, our learning and who knows what else. I can print pictures of projects right on the pages of detail for our portfolios. I can email pictures to family members. Most importantly, I can know exactly what my picture looks like the second I take it. How cool is that? And I can add some awesome pictures to my boring blog to make it slightly less boring. I'm so excited!

I went a bit overboard today, so the pictures I have to share are silly and unrelated, but hey - I needed to test out the camera right?

This is Cadence happily plugging away at her math workbook. I don't understand it; I've always found workbooks dry and boring. She loves them.

This is the painting in my bedroom. (Yes, that gosh-awful pinkish paint is my bedroom wall.) I'm taking offers if anyone's interested. It's a Christian-symbolic painting by Somebody Jensen (I think). I hate it, but keep it because it fills that empty wall. And it's ... you know.. interesting.

This is the shower wall in my bathroom. Vic tiled it with some leftovers from tile jobs he did a few years ago. The floor is pretty cool too, but it was way too dirty for pictures today.

Hopefully I can find way more interesting things to take pictures of. But I had to test the camera right? Yeah, that's it. This is a test. I had a lot of fun playing with it. I'm really looking forward to all the great stuff I can do now that I've moved into the world of technology.

Is there an echo in here?...

You know you've said something a million times when you hear it coming from the mouths of your children. This is usually funny, like yesterday when Riley asked Cadence to leave her alone in the bedroom because she needed "a piece of quiet." Not so funny when I hear myself saying things my mother said, but I catch those phrases and weed them out as often as possible.

Today I accidentally deleted the recycle bin from my computer desktop. Not a completely uncommon thing, and I'm wondering why an operating system that's supposed to be so dummy-proof even allows you to do something like delete your recycle bin. I'm not a computer idiot, but I've screwed up my computer more than a couple of times with an accident. One click and your computer no longer works properly. Nice programming.

Anyway, I deleted the recycle bin and realizing what I'd done and that I wasn't sure how to fix it without looking it up, I said under my breath, "Well that was good, you dumbass." I thought I was quiet enough, but Cadence heard me and began the lecture. "You're not dumb, Mama. We don't say bad things like that about anyone, even ourselves." I don't know how many times I've said that exact thing to my kids. It was funny, but it also made me proud that my little lessons about life aren't falling on deaf ears.

10 Things My Kids Learned From Dad...

.. or "Reasons Not to Leave the Kids With a Redneck Ex-Marine Dad All Afternoon" :

1) Hogtying is an art.

2) Old bike innertubes make great slingshots.

3) Cats do not like duct tape.

4) Grubs are abundant when you dig.

5) Grubs make good bait and keep a long time in the refrigerator.

6) Napalm is easy to make.

7) Anything burns with napalm.

8) An air-powered pellet gun produces enough force to penetrate a metal car door.

9) Three sheets of 1/2 inch insulating foam board will support a child's weight in a pond.

10) Coca Cola makes the best burps.


Gotta love dad :)

While I'm in online ordering mode...

I've been hunting around online for a history/social studies curriculum for the kids. We've been ignoring the social studies books so far because they're lame and I have issues with the subject matter. The district curriculum starts in first grade with cities and road signs, then moves through the next four grades with states, government, the revolution, then the Roman Empire. Anyone else see a huge flaw in order here? I get the idea of starting with where you live and moving outward, but wouldn't it be easier to learn history chronologically?

For example, I'd rather my kids learn about government AFTER they understand why our government is structured this way. I'd rather save the revolution until they can read and comprehend the constitution. There are way too many people in America who are content to bend over and take it from the government because they don't understand in the slightest what the government's role is supposed to be. I believe we would not be where we are if more people understood how little England had to push before we told them to piss off. Most people have no idea at all the real meaning of words like "freedom" and "liberty."

Whoa, I digress. A lot. Anyway, I'm looking at chronological history. I've heard good things about Story of the World, and while we're quite capable of supplementing text with books from the library, I get the idea that's all this program is based on. Here's the general idea, now go learn about it somewhere else. Honestly if I was going to do that, I don't even need their "textbook." Since I'm really after an unschooly approach to history, it would probably be better if I did that anyway. I'm also concerned about religious material worming its way in. Religion is a big part of history and I'm okay with that, but I'd rather not have a Christian biased history. I guess I'll keep looking.

In the meantime, I'm ordering Saxon math materials for Chad next year. I'm debating on Cadence's math curriculum because I think she'd be bored and burnt out with the constant practice that Saxon demands. But right now she's using a program based mostly on manipulatives and workbook pages, which she just zips through and asks for more. She enjoys this, but I don't feel she's getting a lot from it. It takes her a bit to understand new concepts, so I'm reluctant to just move her ahead.

All this would be no problem whatsoever if I wasn't so terrified to design our own curriculum. I really want to homeschool in a relaxed and guided (rather than structured) manner, but I'm afraid I'll screw it up. I don't know everything. I'm a disorganized mess and have a lot of doubts about my ability to research the necessary stuff and present it to the kids. And I'm worried about the whole portfolio thing and how that relates to a non-text curriculum. Am I seriously supposed to list every friggin online resource, library book, workbook or project we've used the entire year? I'm afraid of the kind of organization that would require. I know I can do it, but it scares the crap out of me.

So, until I get the balls for that kind of schooling, I'll just keep looking for the right curriculum.

What I was gonna do today...

Things I was going to do today:

1) Clean off the computer desk, throw out old mail (yes, I'm one of those people), move out desk and everything on it, vacuum.

2) Go shopping for new desk, most likely the cheap kind that will fall apart in a few years, that way I'll be sure it matches everything else in the house.

3) Visit the library. It was Tuesday after all.

4) Organize my pan cupboard. The weirdest thing happens to my pans. I put them away in nice little stacks and after about a month it looks like an oversized junk drawer. Like that closet on Zaboomafoo, you open the door and tons of stuff just falls out everywhere. Ridiculous.

5) Measure the girls' room, design a bookshelf/toy cupboard, and compile a list of supplies needed. Make Vic build it.


Things I actually did today:

1) Caught a stomach bug, or something, complete with massive headache and overall ickiness.

2) Got an early visit from Aunt Flo, who was almost a week late last time. This kind of inconsistency has never happened before. Since I was 11, excluding pregnancies, I've been 28 and 1/2 days. Almost to the hour. I'm not sure what to think of it. Add some cramps and some more ickiness.

3) Lounged on the couch and whined a lot. The kids made their own dinner of pb&j and I didn't even feel guilty. I don't know what Vic ate, nor do I care much. I slept through dinner.

Now I'm awake at midnight, having slept most of the evening. Yuck. I'm hoping the stomach thing might actually be a menstrual side effect so the kids don't come down with it. I'm feeling a lot better now, after my stomach has settled and I've chased the cramps away with Merlot and about half a bottle of ibuprofen (ow! my liver!), so I'm hoping to attack all that stuff tomorrow. If all goes well, I won't have to add "Clean up kid vomit" to that list.

My seed order is in...

I just finished ordering seeds from High Mowing Seed Company. I'm excited about trying a new tomato this year and very much looking forward to the awesome lettuce I've become used to through the summer. This is the third year I've ordered from them, and have always been quite satisfied with the number of viable plants and the quality of the produce.

Well, that's not entirely true. Last year I ordered corn and was pissed when the plants only grew about 5ft tall, with about 1-1/2 inch stalks. We had a wonderfully sunny summer, which corn loves. I'd fertilized and adjusted soil pH in my terribly acidic yard. I watered every other day. We got plenty of corn, an average of 2 ears per stalk, and it tasted wonderful, but I was positive it would have been so much better if it had grown properly. When I visited their website to order my seeds this time, I intended to get a different type of corn and read each description carefully.

Turns out I'm just too used to Iowa. Most of the corn we grow here is feed corn for animals or "factory" corn for things like cornmeal, oil, syrup, etc. I was unaware that the corn I got last year was only supposed to get 5ft tall, not 6-7 like the corn around here on a good year. Not all corn grows like Jack's beanstalk and gets a whopping 3 inches thick. Who knew? So I went ahead and ordered the same stuff as last year. It did have great flavor after all.

Chad is a soil hound too, but this time he's getting his plants from Four Seasons Nursery. I'm trying to talk him out of about half his list, since they're trees or bushes and we just don't have the yard space. He's planning on getting a dwarf blueberry bush, supposedly able to live in a pot. I'm really really hoping that's true. I'm not a fan of peppers or onions (or lots of other icky crunchy vegetable-y things), so I only grow boring predictable stuff. This year I'm planting the corn of course, and slicing tomatoes, leaf lettuce, pie pumpkins and basil. I actually have tons of dried basil from two years ago, but I love the smell of flowering basil. It's a wonderful, thick smell but hangs only near the plant, so it doesn't overpower the whole yard. I plant it all along the border of my porch and along the side of the house. I also ordered some flowers for the front yard. Anyone else have a garden? What are you growing this year?

More backyard wildlife...

Last night, Chad came in the back door excitedly telling me there was a huge animal that had walked through our back yard into the nieghbor's yard. The last time he saw a "huge animal," he claimed it was a bear. No, insisted it was a bear, even though I was pretty clear about where bears live, which isn't in little towns in Iowa. Not even towns as little as ours. The last time, it was just a raccoon, and we've become pretty acquainted with them since then.

So, wondering which neighbor's dog had escaped, I took a flashlight and went out back. Nothing in our yard. Nothing in the neighbor's either. We walked around the front of the neighbors tall wooden fence and there around the corner was an animal alright. Its eyes were reflecting the light from the flashlight, but that's all I could see of it. I looked at it. It looked at me. We stood like that for a long time until I finally sent Chad in for the big Maglite. I'd probably been standing there, 20 feet from this thing for 5 minutes by the time we got a good light on him. And it wasn't a neighbor's dog.

It was a bobcat.

I backed up a bit, but not far. It was really exciting and the kids were crowding in behind me to get a better look. While bobcats aren't outwardly aggressive, I didn't want to give it any reason to feel threatened. After a few minutes, it finally got bored and walked away. I'm going to keep an eye out for it the next couple of nights. I'm hoping I can get a picture!

Four is a magic number...

There's a Bill Cosby comedy bit, I think from Himself, that describes a very long flight with a little boy named Jeffrey. Jeffrey is four years old and tells everyone on the plane, "I'm four years old." During the wedding rehearsal a few weeks ago, the adorable little ring bearer stood shyly by his mother eyeing Cadence by the snack table. Finally he mustered enough courage to approach her, but instead of introducing himself or even saying hello, he said, "You know what? I'm four."

Four is apparently a very important age. Most four year olds will tell you their age repeatedly, in case you forgot. Riley turned four yesterday and spent the entire day saying, "Now I'm four." Not, "It's my birthday," nothing about presents or cake - other than to ask when we'd have them, and only once all day - nothing about being bigger or asking when others' birthdays would be. Nope. Just, "Now I'm four." It's a big deal.

We never make a huge deal out of birthdays here. No Chuck E Cheese or rented hotel rooms or parties at the water park. The presents don't total more than $50 usually. Thankfully this time, the idea of turning four was way more important than presents anyway. Next month, I'll be 30. You can bet your ass I'll be counting on some presents. ;)

Digital cameras...

I mentioned before that I'm planning to buy a digital camera. I had one picked out, but now I'm starting to wonder if I should be more careful in my choosing. Does it matter how many megapixels it has? Is price just a matter of brand or does it reflect quality? Are there brands I should avoid for some reason? If my new computer is an HP, and the photo software I have is HP, should I get an HP camera too? This is becoming a bigger decision that I would have liked.

I really just want a stupid camera. Is there anything that fits just what I'm looking for?

-I'm not planning to submit anything to National Geographic. I just want to take pictures of my regular life.
-I don't want to email pictures the size of Canada to all my family members (Hello, family members and friends? Do you know how annoying it is to have to scroll down and over just to view pictures of your cat?), but I also don't want the picture quality to entirely suck.
-I don't want to hold the button down for 10 seconds before the camera takes the picture, and some sort of motion-correcting capabilities would be nice.
-I don't need to take thousands of pictures before I empty the memory, but it would be nice if I could take more than 50.
-I don't want to spend more money that I have to, but I also don't want something that will break by the third time I use it.
-I'd rather avoid a camera that requires a bunch of attachments to get the pictures from the camera to the computer, or anywhere else.

Any ideas?

The strangest thing happened...

We took the kids to a Des Moines restaurant called Ohana, a teppanyaki restaurant where they cook your food on a grill right at your table. You share a table with other diners unless you have a really large party - I think each table seats 10. They flip knives around and throw stuff, it's very cool. Until this time, this restaurant has been "our" place, meaning neither Vic or I have taken a date there before we were married. Silly, but sometimes silly things are still special. Finally though, our desire to share such a neat place with the kids overcame our silly possessiveness of the restaurant.

While we were waiting for our table, we sat in the lounge next to a biker-type guy with a bandanna on his head, his trashy looking female counterpart, and two young girls. When my daughters crowded around Vic for hugs and kisses, just because, this trailer park family giggled and whispered and hung all over each other saying, "Oh I LOVE you!" in mockery. I guess they thought there was something weird about parent/child affection? When they called our names, we learned we would be sharing a table with Trailer Park Family, and the mom whispered (loudly) to the biker dude, "Great, we get to share a table with the happy family with their little kids." (Hello, Bitch, I can hear you.) I centered myself and refused to let them ruin our meal, even though my first impulse was to punch her.

Vic and I had just been to this restaurant last weekend while the kids overnighted with Grandma and had been disappointed with our chef. He was kinda boring and his jokes weren't very funny and well, he was kind of a jerk. There was a drunk lady harassing him, so that may have had something to do with it. Either way, you can imagine how I felt when I saw the same chef pushing his little cart our to our table on our kids' first trip to this really neat place. Throughout the introductions and preparation of the appetizer, we learned Trailer Park Family consisted of Mom and daughters, 10 and 12, and stand-in boyfriend biker guy. The chef asked some I-really-don't-care questions about school and classes and stuff and the girls responded in the normal way: school kinda sucks, favorite "classes" are recess and lunch, not very good at any subject, etc. Then he turned to my kids and asked what grade they were in. "We homeschool," I told him. He looked uncomfortable, and I almost cringed when he said, "...Oh."

He said, "Um.. I don't want to be rude or anything, but.. well.. are you homeschooling because you don't believe in evolutionary theory?" I almost laughed. "Oh no," I said, "We're not homeschooling for religious reasons if that's what you're asking." He smiled and said, "So you homeschool because the current school system, based on an outdated institutional structure, fails to produce anything but moderately literate individuals incapable of independent thought..." he went on and on like this. I was dumbstruck. "Yeah, that's the one," I said finally. He asked my kids a thousand questions, and when Chad told him his favorite subject was science, the chef turned his cart sideways to show us a sticker that said "Talk Nerdy To Me," and rattled on about the best science magazines and books. He was delighted that we owned some Azimov and told us to look for some of his non-fiction publications because they were fascinating (which I will definitely do). Trailer Park Family squirmed a lot and chatted amongst themselves, and finally started making rude comments like, "I think I fell asleep for a second there." The Chef ignored them and continued serving food and chatting with us. He even went into significant detail about a teaching theory he'd read about, the name of the book, and the basics of the theory, finishing with, "See, I'm homeschooled too, only I'm homeschooling myself."

When we left our table, Chad and Cadence had to stop at the bathroom and Vic took Riley to get the car. I stood at the bar waiting for my older kids, and our chef was there talking to some of the other employees. He told me to keep up the good work, that what Vic and I are doing for our kids is a great thing, and that he doesn't often see such well-adjusted, intelligent kids as ours. I felt so great when we left that place. I know I'm doing the right thing for my kids. I know they're well-adjusted and intelligent. But since most of the feedback we get from family and people we come into contact with every day is negative or completely uninterested, it's great to get some compliments sometimes. We'll be returning to this restaurant with our children, and we might just ask for this chef again.

Ahhh...

Well it finally happened and my barely-hanging-on computer went caput. I was checking some blogs and mail with an old computer, but the keyboard port is broken on that one so no typing for me. Why do I have all these broken computers???

The tax return I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for finally came on Friday, so after the major bills and stuff were paid, we went computer shopping. Now I'm typing this on a brand spanking new keyboard with no missing keys, attached to a brand spanking new computer with Windows Vista. I'm having a hard time adjusting to Vista, but I think I'll live. I've never had a new computer before. Every computer I've ever owned has been either a hand-me-down from a friend or relative who replaced theirs or a discount rebuild from one of those shady rebuilt computer places. I can't even tell you how excited I am!

It's reeeally late here and I should be in bed but couldn't resist the peace and quiet of sleeping family members enabling me to type without distraction. I've been using that laptop with missing keys for so long I actually had to re-learn how to type properly. The space bar on the laptop was just a tiny plunger thingy, so I had been pushing it with an index finger - hard- for every space. It's a miracle I ever typed anything at all really. Now I'm having to train my index finger away from the space bar and teach my thumb to find it again. Funny how a few months of impairment have screwed up years of 70+ wpm.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping for a digital camera. It's like Christmas, only better since most of the new stuff is for me instead of everyone else. Hope everyone had a great weekend

Grandma's Spaghetti Sauce...

Tonight we had the rare treat of Grandma's Special Spaghetti and Meatballs. My grandmother made the best spaghetti sauce ever, and I've spent the last 10 years trying to recreate her "secret" recipe. It's still subject to some tweaking, but here's my base recipe:

2 quarts tomato juice
2 cans (14.5oz) diced tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onions
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 tsp each- basil, oregano, salt and rosemary
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground breakfast sausage
1 cup cracker crumbs
2 eggs
2 tbsp cooking oil

Dump the tomato juice, diced tomatoes, spices, onions, garlic and brown sugar in a large pot. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat and simmer (here's the kicker) 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally. When the sauce cooks down to a nice thickness, mix the ground beef, sausage, cracker crumbs and eggs in a mixing bowl (use your hands, it's more fun). Preheat a skillet with the cooking oil on medium heat. Roll meat mixture into 2 inch balls and fry, rolling around often to brown all sides, until cooked through. Drain off grease and dump meatballs into the sauce. Simmer another 15 minutes while you get your noodles together. By the time this cooks down, it's about 8 pretty generous servings. (?? I really have no clue??) We always have seconds.

I always add things every time I stir this sauce, mostly salt and brown sugar. However I'm a salt-hound, and a lover of sweet sauces, which may not apply to everyone. We scraped our leftovers into the bowl outside for the critters. Skittish was here early tonight and got the best of the offering, and let me tell you there's not much funnier than a raccoon eating spaghetti.

I'm an UNschooler...

Ok, I'm uschoolISH. Don't ask for a definition, I just don't have one. We dual-enroll, so we have books, we just don't use them much. We do book work for math and we read, read, read and we watch lots of educational programs and we learn from lots of other areas. A few weeks ago, I bitched to a local homeschool group about our reviewing teacher. When we started out, our choices were slim and I didn't know how to find a supervising teacher. An internet search brought me to the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, or NICHE. Great and all, but we're not Christian home educators.

I was clear with the teacher I chose that we were secular and unschool-leaning. She assured me that she'd worked for many years with many different types of homeschoolers. That first year, she suggested several religion-based homeschool textbooks, saying, "I know you're secular, but..." The second year when we decided to use the portfolio option instead of testing, she lectured me about including something that proved my son had learned grammar and sentence structure, proper writing technique, and a tape-recording of his reading. We hadn't studied sentence structure or grammar outside of the normal common-sense stuff. Most people speak with correct grammar by the time they're five, so writing this way is not difficult. Do we really need to break it down to nouns, verbs and adjectives, and discuss the proper tense? Do we really need to learn things like subject and predicate? I can honestly say in my entire adult life, I've never used the word "predicate" until this teacher required we include it in our portfolio. Chad is a reluctant writer, and pushing and forced writing activities only strengthen that reluctance. And what the hell does reading aloud prove? I can barely read Dr. Suess aloud without stumbling a bit, and saying "the" instead of "a" or something similar. He would lose points for every misread word, and he was then at the point of reading several 5th grade level books per week silently - big words and all.

So I cheated. I printed a couple stupid worksheets about parts of speech and subjects and predicates and I actually stood over my son while he did them. I briefly explained each worksheet and then asked him to answer aloud before writing the answer. If he was wrong, I simply told him the answer and we moved on. These cheated worksheets were my examples of his grammar lessons, and if he remembered any of that stuff longer than five minutes, he's doing better than most kids in public school as far as I'm concerned. Considering newspapers and the like are written at a 4th or 5th grade reading level, the fact that anything harder shows up on his reading list is a pretty good example of his reading progress. We picked a reading selection without too many multi-syllable words for him to read aloud, and I let him practice reading those two pages for almost half an hour before we recorded it. When we recorded, I let him run the machine, and if he misread or didn't like the way something sounded, he rewound and recorded again. The whole thing left me feeling icky and wrong, but it satisfied the teacher, and I was hoping once we were past all that silly grammar stuff it would not have to be repeated this year.

I was wrong. I just received a letter from our reviewing teacher, sealed with a sticker showing a sweet little boy praying and the word "Faithfulness" across the top. Ugh. The letter states her requirements for portfolio content as:

1. Results of baseline tests (this doesn't apply to us)
2. lesson plans, diary or written record of planning overview. (we don't plan, we just learn)
3. Outline of curriculum used (umm...)
4. Samples of work in each subject area: Reading, Math, Language, for grades 6+ add social studies and science (we have a reading list and math work, but language? .. I'm also concerned about next year and how the hell I'm supposed to prove he learned social studies and science? A list of videos and field trips?)
5. Any grades, assessments, written reports, test results, etc. (we do none of this)
6. A list of books read (covered)
7. A cassette tape of the child reading aloud (wtf? Why?!?)

I'm starting to think this woman doesn't understand the meaning of "unschooling," nor does she appreciate the benefits, obviously. I'm shopping for a new reviewing teacher this week for the next school year. I'll also spend the week making a fake lesson plan for the year and pretending I have a clue what days we did or did not "do school." Traditional school uses the same methods to prove learning as they do to teach. I'm not teaching my children to pass tests, I'm teaching them what they need to learn, in any way they need to learn it. So how the hell am I supposed to prove learning that isn't done simply to pass a test? I do not want to misrepresent my kids' progress and feel like a huge cheating loser for this, but I'm at a loss on a better way to handle it at this point.

The Princess and fifteen minutes of fame...

I'm late posting this because of the crazy week we've been having, and because I'm apparently too dumb to figure out how to get pictures uploaded to blogger. I think I've finally mastered it now, thank goodness, so I can finally share more than boring stories with you nice folks. I digress.

The wedding went completely without a hitch, aside from the nasty weather we had. The crazy photographer insisted on getting a few outside pictures, with the poor bride and her seven bridesmaids suffering sleeveless in 30 degree temperatures. Cadence got to wear a tiara and said, "I look just like a princess!" She was so excited and went about mothering the ring bearer, something she does with everyone smaller than herself, telling him where to stand and holding his hand right along with her basket as they walked down the aisle. We had to be at the church early to get ready for pictures, and there were some incredibly sweet shots of Cadence and the ring bearer exchanging cheek-kisses (which were quickly wiped off, of course) that I can't wait to get copies of from my friend.

Here's Cadence before the wedding:

You can't really see the pretty beading and lace on the dress because this was a disposable camera, and I'm still using my scanner, but you can believe it was gorgeous. Her hair is incredibly fine and is normally straight as a stick, so she wore about half a can of hair spray. Here she is waiting to go upstairs for "the show.":

I didn't scan any pics including the rest of the wedding party, since I have no permission to post pics of anybody but my own little family. I'm so proud of my beautiful little brown-eyed princess, and we had a wonderful time with lots of wonderful memories.

The drive home was treacherous and crazy, with sleet and snow and about 4 inches of slushy slick stuff all over the roads. This was the worst storm in several years, but we made it home ok and all got to bed on time - a blessing since the lack of sleep the night before made my kids all a little crazy (and me along with them!).

The Flower Girl and the Rehearsal...

A few weeks ago, I got a formal invitation to the rehearsal dinner following my friend's wedding rehearsal. I've been a bridesmaid in two weddings, but had never gotten an official invitation before. I was impressed.

The rehearsal took way longer than it should have, and poor Cadence was a nervous wreck wondering where to stand and when to walk and how fast. The ring bearer is four, cute as a bug, and he loved Cadence from the second he saw her. He insisted on holding her hand, even though during the actual wedding, Cadence is supposed to hold a basket.

SEVEN bridesmaids and groomsmen. Seven. There was barely room at the altar.

The whole time I felt completely out of place. I had every right to be right where my daughter was, yet I'm not part of the actual wedding party this time. This is Cadence's glory, but it's not really HER wedding. Is it ok to let her think it was her special day anyway? I've been telling her things like, "It's A's wedding, but you're gonna look like the princess and everyone will talk about how cute you are." I'm trying to psyche her up a bit. When she was asked to do this, she agreed but wasn't excited - I discovered later she just had no idea what a flower girl IS, so she didn't know how neat it was. Or how special to be asked.

The dinner was at a pretty nice restaurant and Cadence ordered a burger that was so huge it had to be smooshed to fit in her mouth. When I asked if she liked it, she said, "It's okay. Not at all like McDonalds." She didn't eat much of the burger because this alien child of mine likes salad and had filled up on her first course.

All the kids were up well past their bedtimes tonight. We're supposed to get a bunch of snow tomorrow, so I hope we can make it to pictures on time. I'm so excited for Cadence and can't wait to get some great pictures of her and the wedding tomorrow.

My wedding...

Over the summer, a friend of mine asked Cadence to be the flower girl in her wedding this spring. Cadence has been so excited, asking almost every day how many days were left until the wedding. Our part in the planning has been very minimal: we showed up at the dress shop, Cadence tried on dresses till she found one she and the bride both liked, we went home. We bought some shoes at Payless last month and they've sat on a shelf since. Easy peasy. I'm hearing the usual stuff from the bride, like messes with caterers, arguments with people, dresses and tuxes and all that. I'm telling you all this because the wedding is this weekend, and today I've been thinking of my own wedding.

Vic and I were on again off again the entire time we dated. We were currently broken up when I discovered I was pregnant, and fought for almost two months over whether we should be together. Somewhere we reconciled, and I really can't even remember the details, but I moved in with him and his parents. (About the dumbest thing I ever did.) We got engaged, mostly because that's what his parents thought we should do. We applied for a marriage license. I bought a wedding dress from a second-hand store. We bought a bridal ring set. Then we decided to wait until at least after the baby was born. What if we didn't love each other at all and just wanted to get married because we "should"? I really loved him, but with all those breakups and makeups I wasn't sure marriage was a good idea. He wasn't sure either, and by the time I was 4 months pregnant, he'd signed up for the Marines and shipped off to boot camp.

Now it might have seemed like a terrible situation doomed to fail, as many stories we've all heard. Sure, he'll marry you when he comes home. Sure, you'll wait for him. Whatever, right? He DID write a letter to an ex-girlfriend while in boot camp, saying how "confused" he was. I DID have lots of fun with my friends and very much enjoyed being away from him. But I loved him, and the longer he was away, and the more letters we exchanged, the more I missed him.

Chad was due two weeks after Vic's graduation, but decided to come early - a week and a half before he left boot camp. When I met Vic in the airport with a tiny bundle of baby, he declared he wanted to get married in his two weeks of leave before shipping off to more training. I was overwhelmed, but also completely swept away with love for him and our new son. I was 19 and immature and knew nothing of the world, but I wanted to marry this man.

That afternoon, a call to the courthouse told us our previously-applied-for marriage license expired in THREE DAYS. It was Thursday. If we reapplied, we'd have to wait two weeks for a new one, and in two weeks Vic would be flying to North Carolina. We frantically called every minister we could think of, but they were all booked. Finally we found one, a kindly older pastor who had also married both my brothers-in-law to their wives. He had church service on Sunday and a funeral on Saturday he said, "But I can do it tomorrow." "Umm.." I stumbled, "Well, that will have to do." It was 6pm. Our wedding was scheduled at 5pm the following day.

The wedding dress I'd held on to since we got engaged no longer fit, since when I bought it I wasn't planning to wear it 11 days after giving birth. I borrowed a nice white dress from my (very)soon-to-be mother in law - one of those she'd kept since she was 20 for the day she's skinny enough to wear it again. It wasn't beautiful and was slightly out of style, but it did just fine. We had no caterer. No flowers. About 50 guests we'd called that night. ("Wanna come to our wedding? It's tomorrow.") We bought Vic's wedding band from a department store. My uncle made a cake and my grandmother cleaned out her basement for the reception. (Pretty good for Betty Crocker, some food coloring, and decorations from the party supply store, eh?) We had no bridesmaids or groomsmen and Vic wore his dress uniform, convenient since he didn't own even a nice suit. Isn't he dashing?My father was out of town working, so my father-in-law walked me down the little aisle. It was windy as hell, my mother got embarassingly drunk while I - nursing a newborn - drank 7up, and it rained all the way home. There was no fun wedding night sex, since we were sharing a twin bed in my mom's house and with Chad's birth and the subsequent 6 stitches, I was in no shape for it.My friends have expressed sympathy for not having a dream wedding, but I could not have asked for anything more special. My family came together for me, preparing the reception with food and cake and plenty of champagne. The wedding gifts were numerous and fantastic, despite the short notice. Our entire wedding cost $375, not several thousand. I still got married, which was the point, and it didn't have to cost a lot. Considering the length of the average marriage, I don't know why anyone would want to spend thousands of dollars anyway. Ten years later, my $375 has been a wonderful investment.

Wildlife in our yard...

If I had that digital camera I'm jonesing for, it would be a lot easier to share pictures of our little world. For now, I'm stuck with scanning pics with my crappy printer/scanner. Bear with me on the photo quality, but I wanted to share our outdoor pets with you.

A few months ago, we spent every morning cleaning garbage up in our front yard because neighborhood animals got into our trash can. Since we couldn't get out right away to buy a garbage can with a lid, we decided to bribe them away from the can with readily available food. We placed a large plastic bowl outside the back door and started filling it with food items we'd normally throw away. Pizza crusts, melon rinds, egg shells, stale bread and crackers, etc. Not only were we helping out some animals that would normally be hard-up for food this time of year, but there was no longer food in our garbage can to tempt them into ripping into the bags. It's all in the bowl.

It took only two nights before the animals found it, and started making a nightly trek to our back door. It's a sliding glass double-door, so we get a fantastic view of the animals when they visit. Vic started putting a bowl of water out for them too. Within a week, we had a pair of opossums and a pair of raccoons visiting nightly. As is traditional for children, mine named our new "pets." The opossums are Hammer and Bob. We have no pictures of either, and they've recently stopped visiting since it's been so cold.

This is the larger raccoon, Scruff (with a nice reflection from the back door glass):



This is the smaller raccoon, Skittish:



Scruff posing for the camera:



This morning we had a new visitor, a squirrel that's missing a large amount of fur on his back. He will henceforth be known as Baldy the Squirrel. Baldy has altered many of my beliefs on squirrel diets by happily munching on rice and french fries. I'm looking forward to this summer and what new animals might find their way into my back yard.

Adventures in cooking...

I've recently become addicted to Eggs Benedict. I decided to try it a few weeks ago while out with my friends for breakfast. I can't believe I never ate eggs benedict before. I wasn't too impressed with it, but I was convinced it was the hollandaise sauce. Cheapo restaurant hollandaise comes frozen in a box and is thick and orange with very little flavor. Some people think hollandaise is a cheese sauce because the only exposure they've ever had was the thick orangey stuff. There is no cheese in hollandaise sauce. If you've never had it at an upscale restaurant or made it yourself, y'all are missing out.

I happen to make an awesome hollandaise sauce, despite the fact that I have so many cooking shortcomings. Recipes vary, but this is how I make mine:

8 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
dash red pepper flakes

Melt butter in a stainless steel saucepan. Add lemon juice and heat until steamy but not boiling. Remove from heat. Whisk in egg yolks in very small amounts, about a tablespoon or so at a time. Dump, whisk, dump, whisk, until all egg yolks are combined. Return to very low heat and whisk constantly until slightly thickened. You don't want it to clump because the egg yolk is what holds it all together. If the egg starts cooking and clumping, you'll end up with egg clumps and oil, instead of a smooth beautiful sauce. Serve immediately, garnished with a light sprinkling of red pepper flakes. This sauce is great on eggs of course, the traditional steamed asparagus, and just about any other vegetable.

Through my internet wanderings yesterday, I stumbled upon The Science of Cooking, where the process of emulsification is explained with this sauce. This website also has lots of other great experiments with food to explain other scientific concepts. I can see this being a great resource for us in the future.

Looking forward to a change...

Today schoolwork has been light. I must have slept in a very strange position because my neck is stiff and sore today. I find it difficult to look down to the desk or my lap, so I didn't write any lesson plans or read a single word from a book. Since the computer screen is level with the eye, I did finish some worksheets and test forms I'd been working on.

We've been dealing with a lot of tax issues lately. Somehow, the state claims they've not received taxes from us since 2002 - for the 2001 tax year. '02 and '03 we used a tax service, so they were no-brainers and unless there's a mail goblin eating mail for the last several years, I don't understand why they don't have anything. The guy I talked to on the phone was a jerk, and he suggested refiling. So we got to file 4 years of taxes. Again. Luckily, we still had our copies, but since I didn't want to send them copies of our copies, I printed the old forms from the internet and filled them out all over again.

We are expecting a rather large tax return from federal this year, which ought to cover some other past-due taxes and penalties for "not filing", and give us money left over. I hope it's not the source of an argument, but I had plans for a new computer, a digital camera and a vacuum. Vic plans on getting new tires for the car and a new window for our bathroom. He'll win, since his plans are for more important things. But I'd really really REALLY like to stop using this POS laptop that's missing three keyboard buttons.

New blog in my blogroll...

Following a lead from COD, I found Two Know It Alls blog.

They're homeschoolers, atheists, and libertarian.

I can already tell they're brilliant.

Violence in schools...

The occurrence of school violence is not at all uncommon knowledge, certainly among homeschoolers. The reaction from the parent of the public schooler is probably different than that of the homeschooling parent. While my public schooling friends would shake their heads and mumble, "What is this world coming to?", people like me shake our heads and say, "Thank goodness we homeschool."

A news report (albeit badly written, as always on this particular news website) I read this morning got me thinking. Particularly this part:

Although incidents of deadly school attacks have gotten a lot of media attention
in recent years, assaults like the one at McCombs middle school have not.
Victim advocates say they happen more often than people think.

So, what you're saying is, we hear all kinds of horrible stories about violence in public schools, but only when someone is killed? What we're not hearing are stories of thwarted murder attempts, students who are simply injured by weapons, sexual assaults and rapes in the locker rooms, or physical assaults resulting in only bruises or possibly a missing tooth or two.

So what are we really dealing with here? A deficient society that is numb to violence? A deficient school system unwilling to handle discipline issues? Maybe even a conspiracy to keep the public unaware of how bad that system has become? A combination of things?

*shakes head* Thank goodness I homeschool.

Goodbye Welfare...

I'm officially off welfare, woohoo! As you may remember, we had an exhausting job-hunting requirement in order to get state aid. Sign a contract every 30 days. Turn in 20 job applications each week and supply a list of everywhere we applied every Friday. Well, since our dental work is now done and Vic is working steadily (still for cash, but it's work), last month we just skipped the applications. We didn't turn in any job logs, so we didn't get a check this month. We still have food stamps, but since I never returned the review call last week, we won't get those anymore either. The best part? Even without the extra money from the state, we paid the bills and still bought Christmas presents this month.

Vic is waiting to hear about a new job opportunity in a week or so. Hopefully it will work out because it comes with a lot of benefits, but if it doesn't there are still lots of options out there. I can't believe we had to go on welfare just to get back on our feet, but I'm so glad I live in a country where a person can get help when they need it. We're not a whole lot better off than we were before this whole ordeal, but I'm hopeful that one day we can look back on this knowing it was the best thing we could have done.

Thank goodness it isn't permanent...

.. the brain damage I mean. We were right back in the swing of things today. Chad plugged away and finished his math in less than an hour, which may be a new record. Cadence happily read (correctly) everything she could get her hands on. Riley not only practiced letters, but did so entirely without my interference. I didn't even give her the crayons.

Nobody cried. Nobody said something was too hard or they were too stupid. Science reading led to an interesting discussion, which even carried over to this evening with Riley "teaching" me about what's inside your body. ("Your brain is special. It makes your teeth chew.") This afternoon, Cadence decided to write a poem (the word "fart" was used only once), and Chad read his new book Wolf Brother. He even begged to stay up late to read just a little bit more. It was a homeschooler's dream.

Now if I could just get them to do anything else (eat, dress, bathe, play) with such ease, my home will be a very pleasant place indeed.

New Year's Resolutions?...

Anyone have any resolutions this year? I have never made a New Year's resolution that I kept. This is a common confession really, but most are probably like me and only making the resolution because they're supposed to and not because they want to. So I don't really practice New Year's resolutions. My resolutions come in the form of a wonderful idea, which grows for weeks before coming out in the form of a declaration. Something like, "I am no longer wearing thong underwear. They chafe and don't fit right and I hate them. Monday I'm taking every pair I own and donating them to the Goodwill, and buying three new packages of bikinis instead."

I have an insatiable need for change. I rearrange furniture at least once per year. I buy/make new curtains. I paint. I replace rugs and drawer liners. I can't afford to buy new sheets and blankets every few months, so I keep several sets and swap them out every so often. I plant different flowers in the yard every spring. Outside of my home and general surroundings, I frequently re-invent myself. I don't know who I am and I don't want to. Since high school, I've been grunge, punk, feminazi, soul-searching bible-reader, naturalistic attached parent, sexy strip-club-hopping party girl, laid-back and spiritual, and most recently, home-centered seamstress and worker of fibers. There are other categories I could have fit into and most of those alter-egos still live inside me somewhere, but at the time I never thought of myself with any of those labels. I was just being me. The constants among all the changes are what make me who I am. I have always loved my children and put them first. I have always been a redneck and prefer fishing and beer to operas and champagne. I have always been more concerned with how much fun I was having than what others thought of me. And most importantly, I'm determined to be myself - being who I am, unaffected by what I do.

This constant changing is my way of dealing with the monotony of normal life. I would be truly happy to move to a different house in a different town every two years, but I will live in this house until we can afford to move (or rebuild, whichever comes first - 7 years and counting). I have no control over where I live or the layout of my home and yard. But I can control the placement of my furniture, the paint color in the bathroom, which flowers I plant and where, my clothes and hair, and what I do for fun. Since my husband and family undoubtedly could not handle moving as frequently as I'd like, I'll settle for changing what I can. My changes keep me happy, and although Vic shakes his head after every declared resolution ("I hate this shower curtain. I'm going to make a cover for it tomorrow with that leftover fabric."), I don't think he'd be happy with a boring old "normal" woman.

Whatever your resolutions, make them something satisfying. Happy New Year to everyone!

Miss a day, miss a lot...

Ok, it was technically three days of schoolwork missed for the traditional holiday celebrating, but apparently chocolate and candy canes destroy brain cells. Incidents during school time and the playtime (I call it "unstructured learning - it soothes the control freak in me):

Chad: Which of these states is Montana?
Me (rolling eyes): The green one.
Chad (pointing to California): This one? No, wait. That's Indiana isn't it?
I passed him the U.S. Atlas.

Cadence constantly reversed entire words while reading. Small words like "mot" for "Tom", as well as big words like "please" instead of "sleep." I don't know what the deal is with that. Chad, normally fantastic at reading aloud, could not for the life of him read "Apollo." He kept putting an R in it. Aprollo. Arpollo. Apollro. I'm still scratching my head over it.

Nobody could remember how to do any of the math they were doing without trouble just days ago.

Riley, who knows all her letters and had happily practiced her name all Christmas day on her new Magnadoodle, insisted she didn't know how to write her name. Her writing "lesson" consisted of throwing crayons on the floor and stomping on them. Hey, I'm not pushing her - she asked to "do school" and then acted that way. Sheesh.

Dump it in the crockpot...

I love my crockpot. There are lots of folks who think it's cheating to dump stuff in a slow cooker, leave it until evening and call it a home-cooked meal. I figure if I cooked it in my kitchen, it's a home-cooked meal. I'm not too proud to use break and bake cookies. I've used the breadmaker to kneed dough for cinnamon rolls. And the crockpot is my best friend some days.

Tonight we're having chicken-chili tacos. The recipe was just called "Chicken Chili," but my family doesn't go for chili in a bowl. In my house, chili is for topping a burrito or a hot dog. Anyway, here's the recipe:

3-4 large chicken breasts (we use the frozen-in-a-bag kind), cut up into small pieces
2 cans diced tomatoes DRAINED
1 large can or about 2 cups cooked pinto beans
1 packet taco seasoning
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup each of chopped onion, sliced black olives, and green peppers (in my version I use onion powder and omit the rest)
2 Tbs tapioca (dry, from a box)

Dump into crockpot. Stir. Cook 4 hours on low setting. Scoop into flour tortillas, sprinkle with cheese, wrap it all up. Eat.

If you really are looking for chili, you can use petite diced tomatoes instead and add without draining. Super easy. My kind of meal.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Just in case anyone subscribes to my blog, I thought it best to warn you I've been making some changes. I just figured out the labels on blogger beta, and since I had nothing better to do at the moment, I've been going back and adding labels to all my old posts. The new labels will be a huge help to those of you interested in what we're doing for schoolwork but don't care about my measly little life. Or for those of you interested in my goofy obsessions but not our homeschooling. Whatever trips your trigger. However, I just discovered this will list every single post as new on bloglines. I realize suffering through my blog posts is hard enough without having to rehash my mindless blabberings for the last year or so. In any case, disregard all the "new" posts, as they aren't new at all.

Six Weird Things About Me...

Thanks to Bobbi for this meme. Everyone has their quirks right? I'm hoping mine aren't weird enough to drive away the few readers I have.

Six Weird Things About Me:

1. I cannot sleep without my hand on my neck. Not in a strangle-hold, but carefully curled under on the right side. Right up next to the tendons. I've tried to break this habit, but without my hand protecting my neck in this exact spot, I can drive myself to panic. I lay there with my eyes closed, noticing it's not covered until eventually the only part of my body I can feel is that spot. When we were first married, Vic joked about this a lot, saying I must have been beheaded in a previous life or something. Whatever it was, it happened in my sleep.

2. I love onions / I hate onions. I love the flavor of onions. The smell of onion rings makes my mouth water. My very favorite food smell is potato soup loaded with onions. But I will not eat onions. I don't like the way they crunch, even when they're cooked, and ever since 4th grade science class and our unit on parasites, I can't shake how much cooked onions resemble tapeworms. I buy lunchroom-sized cans of onion powder, and use it relentlessly in my cooking. I'm also quite picky about peppers, olives, and mushrooms, but for different reasons.

3. I have some serious texture issues. This is sort of related to the onion thing. I don't like vegetables that crunch when they're cooked, unless they're breaded and deep-fried. I don't eat tomatoes by themselves because they're slimy. I can't stand even the idea of fabric on my teeth. I won't eat anything that squeaks when you chew it, even a teeny tiny bit. The squeaking of styrofoam drives me over the edge, and I don't like to touch anything made from it; same goes for cardboard. There are lots of fabrics I won't wear simply because I don't like the way they feel on my skin. And I'm not talking "I don't like this, it's itchy." I'm talking, "Eww, this is tight and scratchy and.. get it off! Get it off!" I can't get it away from me fast enough. I have numerous other texture issues, I just can't remember them all right now. I'm sure I should see a therapist for this.

4. I only wash my hair once a week, sometimes longer. I'm including this not because I think it's weird, but because I'm sure a lot of other people will. My hair has always been incredibly dry, and after my second child was born it started falling out or breaking off by the handfuls. After several different anti-breakage shampoos and stuffy know-it-all hairdressers who apparently don't know it all, I decided on my own that frequent washing was damaging my hair. Now I only wash it when it's greasy or dirty. More in the summer, way less in the winter. And it no longer falls out like I'm on chemotherapy.

5. I love to narrate my cooking in a Julia Child voice. This started as a goof around thing with the kids, but sometimes I do it when they're not in the room. Sometimes when they're not even home.

6. I still imagine monsters in closets, dark hallways, and basements. I KNOW there are no real monsters, but imagination always wins. We don't have a basement, but I grew up with one. My grandmother has a basement and keeps all her kids' toys down there. When we're visiting, I'll go down to tell the kids we're leaving or call them up for dinner or something.. and I always run back up the stairs. I'm not getting exercise or saving time. The boogieman is at my back.

Wow, I could probably think of a lot more than six things, but I've probably said too much already. I'm supposed to tag 6 people, but since I barely know that many and I've already tagged a few with a meme the other day, I'll leave it up to whoever wants to play.

Good Morning!...

It's 2:45am. I'm apparently up for the day. I went to bed last night at 8:30 after almost falling asleep in the bathtub. My girls weren't even asleep yet when I crawled into bed. Vic woke me about 9 to ask if I was ok, since the idea of me going to bed before midnight is just plain ludicrous. I woke just after 2am with Chad sleeping at the foot of my bed like a collie. To avoid going into a mindless rant about this, let me just say this is an issue we have discussed a million times and is a source of great irritation. After sending him back to his room, I was unable to go back to sleep. I guess my body decided 5 hours of sleep was close enough to a whole night. So here I am.

Yesterday was a long day, which is probably why I was so exhausted. I woke to the telephone ringing and my mother in law on the other end telling me she'd be stopping by "in the afternoon." I hopped out of bed and started cleaning. What strange instinct drives this behavior? Why do I care more about the condition of my house with visitors I don't like than with visitors I do like? My mother in law hasn't cleaned her house in.. well maybe ever. There's a literal path through to various rooms in her house, and some rooms are completely inaccessible. Why should I care if my carpet hasn't been vacuumed or my counters not wiped down? Either way, there I was cleaning 45 minutes later when she called to say she was on her way. It was 10:30. So much for an afternoon visit, and so much for getting my house clean ahead of time.

Thankfully it was only a short visit, as always, and the kids didn't even drag her into their rooms to show off some new thing. When she left, we set about finishing the housework. The kids fought. The vacuum had to be fixed (again).Things were spilled and clothes were changed. Vic was having some kind of nervous episode I guess, because he constantly snapped at the kids and I constantly apologized for him. After about an hour of that I finally asked him, "What is wrong with you?" Turns out the car he's supposed to be fixing for my mom has some rusted bolts and he'd already had to cut off three. He mumbled something about an impact wrench and $50. Whatever.. I just want her car fixed and out of my driveway. We all ate peanut butter and jelly for lunch since we're all out of everything else.

After lunch, Chad started nagging to go to the dollar store. A couple days ago, he decorated his bedroom with a spare set of Christmas lights, and had been asking to go somewhere to get another set or two ever since. I finally caved and just as we started heading out the door, Cadence and Riley were begging to go too. I asked Vic to come along, just to help corral them around all the breakables. Even in a store where everything's a dollar, you can spend a lot of money paying for an entire display of wise men knocked to the floor. Turns out the cheapo lights at the dollar store only have a plug on one end, meaning all strings have to come from their own outlet. That might have still worked if the strings were longer than 5ft. We decided to try a different store.

File back out of the store, pile everybody in the car, break up a fight about who sits in the middle, and we're ready. Except the car won't start. After a brief once-over, Vic announced the fuel pump isn't working. Ugh. We just replaced the stupid fuel pump a couple months ago. It's still under warranty, but it doesn't help much to know that when I'll still be without a vehicle for a few days until it's fixed. I ended up walking up the street to a pay phone and called a ride. My car is still sitting outside the dollar store. I hope they don't tow it.

Considering how yesterday went, it's a good thing I'm up early today (although I'm not so sure I need to be up this early). I still have to figure out how we're getting my car home, and how I'm going to get to the store for some groceries. I've got a big pot of coffee brewing for brain fuel, and as soon as 8am comes around I'll be making phone calls. And that's only 5 hours away!

Wow a meme!...

I was tagged! I've never been tagged before. I feel all warm and squishy inside! Thanks to Bobbi at My Little Soapbox for passing it on. Here goes:

1. Explain what ended your last relationship? Umm.. I'm having a hard time remembering my last relationship (the last one that ended anyway). Vic and I broke up frequently and I dated 3 or 4 guys in the spaces in between. I think it was that geeky college kid, who dumped me because he thought I was taking the relationship too seriously. Joke was on him though, because I wasn't taking it seriously at all, and when he suggested that we "just be friends" I laughed out loud and told him I didn't like him enough to be friends with him, I was only hanging around for sex and free beer. And the sex was hardly worth it. That was an uncomfortable ride home, mostly for him. Mawhahaha.

2. When was the last time you shaved? Sometime around Mother's Day. I don't remember the reason, but after shaving bumps and dry scaly skin, I remembered why I hadn't before. I shave underarms every day or two though, otherwise I sweat a lot, and I don't care for that.

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? Rushing around like a crazy person trying to get myself and three kids ready so we could take Vic to work and have the car today.. all while Vic stood around complaining about how long it was taking but not helping in the slightest to get anyone ready but himself.. even though he was already ready to leave and there was no reason he couldn't have helped out. Wanna guess what I was doing at 8:15? If you guessed having an argument, give yourself 10 points.

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Reading blogs and eating pizza. Yelling for someone to please close the friggin door for the millionth time so we're not heating the entire outdoors (was that my mother just then?). Reminding Riley the presents don't get opened until Christmas.

5. Are you any good at math? What do you mean by "good"? I can do basic math in my head. I can make change. I understand enough to teach algebra and geometry. Higher math completely eludes me, and I occasionally have trouble multiplying 7's and 8's.

6. Your prom night? Which one? I went to prom as a sophomore with a junior boy. That was highly supervised and therefore, lame as hell. Junior year I went with Vic. He drove a huge green piece of crap van which broke down on the way. The dance was uneventful and I don't remember much of it. Senior year I went with a male friend. The dance sucked so we ditched early and drove around all night. Never a hotel room or a drunken afterparty or anything really interesting.

7. Have you had to take a loan out for school? Nope. I never did git no edyoocashun. My grandpappy didn't go to no fancy college and I didn't need to neither. Honestly, I have plans to go to college, just as soon as I figure out what I want to accomplish there.

8. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile? There is no song on my myspace profile. As a matter of fact, there has been no activity on my myspace profile for six months or more. It was fun for about five seconds, now I'm over it.

9. Last thing received in the mail: Some bills, some ads, and an invitation to a baby shower coming up on Saturday. I'm supposed to RSVP. Can we say "procrastinate"?

10. How many different beverages have you had today? 5: Coffee, tea, milk, water, cranberry juice.

11. Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine? No. I have left messages on voice mail at an office, but only after at least two tries to reach an actual person. Most of the people I call have caller I.D. anyway, so they know I've called even without a message.

12. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Promise not to laugh? Nelson. You know those twins with the super-long blonde hair who claimed to be making their way in the entertainment world on their own accord, despite Ricky Nelson being their dad, even though they opened every concert and interview mentioning who their parents were? Them. Some opening band called Tyketto, which was better than the headliner. I think I was 13.

13. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? If I'm not in the water, I'm visiting the bathroom or chasing a child. I don't even notice the sand till the ride home when it's stuck in all the worst places.

14. What was the most painful dental procedure you have had? I just had a tooth pulled a couple of months ago. Not a wisdom tooth, but the next molar in on the bottom. I guess it was really stuck because the dentist spent like 20 minutes pulling pushing yanking while the tooth cracked and snapped and made all kinds of gross noises. I'd had 3 Novocaine shots because each time they came in the room I was still not numb. While the dentist was pulling the tooth, I complained of pain, but he insisted it was just "pressure." My jaw hurt for 3 weeks.

15. What is out your back door? Relatively normal-sized yard full of redneck stuff: kids' clubhouse, old falling-apart swingset, several lawn mowers in various stages of disrepair, trailer full of junk parts and broken things, etc.

16. Any plans for Friday night? If all goes well, I have no plans. If it doesn't, I'll be babysitting while my friend goes out to have a life.

17. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? I'm terrified of the ocean and the one time I went, I didn't get in water above my chest.

18. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Never received, but I've eaten from others' popcorn tins. The cheese is definitely the best.

19. Have you ever been to a planetarium? Not for a long time. I think I was a kid on a field trip the last time I went.

20. Do you re-use towels after you shower? Used for wiping clean water from my clean body? Duh, of course I do. Not that it matters much because bathroom towels are the first to grab when something gets spilled, so they get replaced every day anyway.

21. Some things you are excited about? The idea of getting a pt job. The Scholastic book fair this weekend. Paying off my car finally.

22. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO? Umm... orange? I don't really eat a lot of jello.

23. Describe your keychain(s)? A Miller Light keychain I got as a freebie at the bar on New Year's Eve about 4 years ago. A keepsake picture keychain of Chad from the company that did school pictures his last year of public school. A library card keychain thingy. A Progressive insurance card thing, and we haven't used that company for at least 3 years.

24. Where do you keep your change? In an old fountain soda keg in my bedroom.

25. What kind of winter coat do you own? I actually don't own a winter coat. My winter coat was retired 3 years ago, and I keep saying I need to get a new one but for some reason I never do. I wear a heavy jacket all winter, and on the really cold days I wear one of Vic's coats.

26. What was the weather like on your graduation day? I dropped out of high school. It was cold and snowing when I took my GED test though.

27. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? It's always open, sleeping or not, unless we're doing "married people things." Our bedroom door is the only one in the house with a lock, and only because I'm paranoid that even though the kids have been asleep for hours, they might wake up. Otherwise, my bedroom is a common room.

28. Tag three people: Heads up Ave at School of Thought, Deanna at Growing Warriors, Gail at Life A La Carte. Tag. You're IT.

Kids are great...

Aren't kids just the most wonderful creatures in existence? I mean, sure there's the occasional stress, but overall they're just a hoot.

Thursday, the girls raced each other to the kitchen where I was making lunch to tattle on each other. Because Cadence was able to talk faster and get her side out first, Riley promptly turned and punched her in the mouth. I checked Cadence for injury and reminded them both that their issues could be worked out without my support. I released Cadence and turned to Riley for a chat about hitting. I had no more than gotten the words, "It's fine if you're angry but you may not punch people," out of my mouth when I heard Cadence's angry screams and the sounds of shuffling in Chad's room. Let's all just roll with laughter, shall we?

Yesterday, a still-unknown source started an argument between my oldest two in the livingroom. I popped my head in just in time to see Cadence take a swing at Chad's head. (I wonder where Riley has learned such behavior? hmmm) He deftly dodged the blow, and being mature enough to know hitting doesn't solve problems, wisely chose instead to shove his sister to the floor. This gave Cadence a nice angle to kick from, and while my son is apparently very good at dodging, I got a few good bruises in transferring Cadence to a quiet place where she could calm down. I'm still chuckling over the whole incident.

My son has become an avid joke-teller. Today his joke was, "HONK!" This was of course told loudly and punctuated with the poke of a finger, often on the buttocks of the person being told the joke. The girls laughed hysterically, but unfortunately I lack the proper sense of humor to appreciate such obvious comedic genius. I must be too simple-minded for my brain to grasp the joke, as I acquired a monstrous headache which became worse every time it was told. I'm sure, despite my failings, it was indeed a most excellent joke.

Tonight's bedtime ritual was the same as usual, with Cadence first in Riley's bed until their bickering drove her to her own. Riley swore she wouldn't bother Cadence anymore, but I interrupted to tell her that this nonsense had gone on long enough and they both needed their sleep. Riley angrily interrupted me right back with, "Mama, I'm talking to you, and you don't talk when I'm talking!" Brilliant at three, isn't she? Most parents don't have to deal with serious backtalking until their children are teenagers. But my Riley, she's advanced. One might even say she was a prodigy. Ahh.. I'm just so lucky. ;)