The Second Hour: None of them are adopted

I've barely left my bedroom.

I'd like to say that this is not a normal occurrence in my life, but it's true that by 11:38, unless there is a fire or an Amish neighbor has called me for a ride, I'm still in my room, making my bed, doing laundry (which is never, ever done), and reading my favorite blogs.

Today is no exception.

And here's the thing. I actually LIKE it this way.

So, this morning I've been visiting all of my most inspiring bloggy friends and hoping for a little treat from the wisdom that is in their heads.

As I mentioned, I popped over to Guilt-Free Homeschooling, and then I made my way down my blogroll.

Confessions of a Happy Houswife. This is a blog by a gal that happens to live about forty-five minutes from me, and she found my blog in this great blogging universe. I've come to realize that we are twins separated at birth. Hi, Shannon!

I skip the next couple, because I've read all of their stuff, and I'm in a hurry today, but Real Live Preacher is one of my favorite reads. I usually save him for after midnight, though.

I keep going to The Happy Homeschooler, but the blog is never updated. Am I missing something? I consider taking the link off of my blogroll, but I'm too lazy and too optimistic.

I skip down and just read the ones that have been updated, like School @ Home. I'm touched by Tenn's realization that her family's nutritional intake is slipping a bit. I can totally relate. We've been on a mission to change our eating habits. So far, so good. I say this even though I have not yet had breakfast this morning. It's in process, though. I promise. (Side Note: I just went to Tenn's Site again to link the above and I see that she has linked to my audio blog by The Baby. Thanks, Tenn!)

I skip on over to The Big Yellow House. Chris is one of my favorite bloggers. She's funny, she's smart, and I'm still waiting for my half of the best friends necklace from Target. Chris, did I ever mention how very young and thin you are?

And then (and here's where it gets very pitiful), I spent a good fifteen minutes shamelessly plugging my blog. I sent an e-mail to all of the people I love telling them to check out twenty four hours in the life of me. I only wish I were kidding.

Bard, my fifteen year old daughter, came in to say good morning. She insists on her twice-daily hugs, and many daily hugs in between. I love them. Every one of them. They remind me of something...ah, yes. Motherhood.

My dear fifteen-year-old daughter reads over my shoulder, and I explain what I'm planning to do today. She disappears for a while. When she returns, she announces, "I commented on your blog." She then chastises me for the misuse of the word "nonplussed."

"It means bewildered, at a loss for what to say, totally perplexed. Geeze, Mom. I'm surprised at you."

"Well, I meant it to mean that I didn't respond."

"You used it wrong. Might as well say, 'bemused' instead of 'amused.'" She rolls her eyes at me.

Bard helps me make my bed, reminding me that she'll be gone on a campout with her friend Kat starting tomorrow morning. She also mentions that she'll miss The Baby's birthday and asks if we can postpone it. Given my current financial state, I tell her, I may not have a choice.

Houdin comes in to harrass Bard. They run out of my room throwing good-natured insults at each other. I can tell that these are good-natured insults because they are both laughing. When the insults are bad-natured, only one of them is laughing. Moments later, she comes in and begins to questions Houdin's legitamacy.

"Did you *mean* to have Houdin?" She asks, her eyes narrowed with skepticism.

I laugh out loud. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the way he is, it's like you didn't really mean to have him. I mean, look at him. He's nothing like the rest of the family. Are you sure he's really yours? Were you awake when you had him? Are you sure they didn't switch him? I mean, look at that weird eye thing that he does."

"What are you talking about? What weird eye thing?" I look at Houdin, who has just walked in the room.

"That weird eye thing. That thing where he opens his eyes and mouth really wide and the eyelids actually separate from his eyeball." Houdin demonstrates.

"No, he's ours. And yes, I did want him. I didn't mean to have him, but I wanted him."

I brush my teeth. I wash my face. I braid my hair and put on makeup. I don't do this every morning but, hey, I'm being watched today. The entire time I'm getting ready for my day, Houdin and Bard are sitting in my room, exchanging clever comments. Eventually, as it always does, the conversation turns to Homestar Runner. I actually snort a couple of times while I listen to their re-enactments.

I finally have had enough. Which really means that it's time for me to blog again.

"Go make some toast," I say.

"He should have to make it. He's the Cinderella," Bard says, pointing to Houdin.

"That means you're the evil stepfamily. All of them."

"No, not, because, see, it's backwards. He's the step-person and he's evil."

I actually have to count to three to get them out of my room.

The First Hour: The Biggest Challenge

I awoke to my husband Bo standing over me, dressed for work and smiling.

"Good morning, Beautiful." I'm totally not making this up. This, God knows why, is how he wakes me up in the morning. Looking down at me, smiling, and addressing me in some flattering way. I've seen me in the morning. I don't know what the heck he's talking about. Maybe his eyesight's not so good before 10:00 AM

"Good morning," I answer. I ask him about his neck, which has been stiff since he woke up yesterday. I ask him what he's going to do for lunch, since I didn't make him one, there are hardly any groceries, and everyone ate the Toll House Cookie Bars I made last night.

"I'll get a chili and baked potato," he answers.

"Okay," I say cautiously, "but NO POP!" This is because we have cut all soft drinks out of our diets and are trying desperately to drink only water.

"No pop!" He says. "No pop! No pop! NO POP!" He repeats this over and over in a thick commie accent as he makes his way down the stairs. I hear the basement door open. I hear the garage door open. I hear the car start in the garage.

I't's 9:25 AM.

I lay in bed for a few minutes, thinking about the best way to spend my day. I think about spelling. I think about reading. I have one child whose spelling is just atrocious (did I spell "atrocious" right?). Then again, Bard, my 15-year-old had atrocious spelling until I threatened to send her to boarding school. Her spelling drastically improved when she was about thirteen.

Still, I figure I should spend some time trying to figure out how to approach spelling with Houdin, my thirteen-year-old spelling-challenged child. I figure a good place to start is reading Guilt-Free Homeschooling, so I decide that I'm going to get up and start my computer, which is about three feet from my bed.

I can hear the garage door closing, and then opening, and then closing, and then opening. Bo is battling with the dogs and cats who keep running in and out of the garage, tripping the motion sensor on the garage door. I look out to see all four dogs romping around in the snow of the front yard. I see Bo's Jeep sitting in the driveway, and I watch to see if he'll look up at me. I send him a silent, telepathic message telling him to look up. "Look up here!" I think. "LOOK UP HERE AND WAVE AT ME!" I can tell from his hand motions that he's messing with his hair. He doesn't look up. He drives away. I say a silent prayer for his safety.

Speaking of dogs, I have to see a man about a horse. I only mention this because I have to tell you that the view from my toilet in my bedroom is so very awesome. I swear that I can see across three counties from my bedroom windows. As I sat there, I thought, "I wish my blog readers could see what I see." Ahem. I don't mean I wish they could see me sitting on the toilet. Oh, gag. What I mean is that I wish they could see these rolling hills, serene, peaceful farms, winter-bare trees. I think that's when I decided to do the 24-hour blogging thing.


By the time I finished my business, the computer was up and running. I'm so egocentric, my start page is Today's Lessons. I check last night's entries. No comments. Drat.

I navigate to Guilt-Free Homeschooling and read a few entries. I like what she had to say about having the kind of house where people actually live. I have to admit that I really struggle with this. Especially living in an Amish community, I feel like my home should be neat and clean at all times. It's not. Ever. This is when I decide to take pictures to go along with my twenty-four hour blog.

I head downstairs for the camera, and I find that Dog #4, Lewis, a one-year-old black lab, has made his way through dog #2, Jack's, tiny dog door and is hopping around at the bottom of the steps saying, "Check me out. Ain't I cool? I'm the man. Hey! Pet me! Love me!" I unceremoniously open the front door and tell him to go out. I see that one of the dogs has brought me a gift. On the front porch lies a frozen rooster. "Go play with the dead chicken," I tell Lewis. He goes out.

I grab my camera and make my way back up the stairs to my room. On my way, I turn off the light in the kids bathroom. I predict that I will be doing a lot of this today. You just wait and see.

Once back in my room, I take a few shots of my computer, my unmade bed, etc. And then I feed Wilma, my one-eyed chameleon who lives
in a ficus tree on my tub deck. She eats live mealworms, and I keep them in the top drawer of my oak wardrobe, right under the computer I'm typing on this very second. Isn't that disgusting? Yeah.


Houdin walks in. He's disheveled and bleery-eyed with sleep. I get up and hug him to say good morning, an act I've committed to doing every morning for 1,001 days.

The phone rings. It's Bo. He's calling to tell Houdin to gather up the trash. The trash man might actually come today.

"Hey, did you get my secret, telepathic message?" I ask.

"Uh, I...yeah. Yeah! I got it! But what can I do about it when I'm driving?"

"You could have done it," I answer.

"Really? I can do that? While I'm driving?"

"You didn't get it," I answer, nonplussed (what does "nonplussed" really MEAN, anyway."

"Awwww...what was it?"

"When you were leaving," I tell him, "I stood at the window and sent you a secret message to look up. 'LOOK UP!' I said. You just fixed your hair and drove off."

"Awwwww..." he says. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay," I say. I don't believe in telepathic messages anyway. Not really. I think.

I've spent a half hour writing this post. If this continues, I know what I'm going to be doing for the next twenty-four hours.

A Day in the Life

Everyone's just pounding on my door asking me how I do it. "If I could just live with you for one day, Thicket Dweller, I would be the smartest, most creative, easy-going, wisest homelearner in the whole world! Please, please be my friend!"

Alright. So that was just a fantasy. The truth is, I just thought it would be way mobie cool to blog through the day to keep track of what I do in a twenty-four hour period. So I plan to come in once an hour for twenty-four hours and give a quick blogging of what I've done that hour.

IF I remember to do it.

The next post you read will be about what I've done for the past hour. And then, I'm setting my timer, doggone it! :-)

Ice Castles

"I'd say, let those kids play as long as they want..."

These were my husband Bo's words as he was leaving for work this morning. It was a wonderfully freeing suggestion and I was all too happy to comply.

He was referring to the fact that three of our five children had awoken early, eaten breakfast, cleaned up after themselves, dressed to go outdoors, and were in the yard making snow forts before he and I even opened our eyes to the new day.

So, I did just as he suggested. I let them play, play, play. They were being productive. They were getting along with NO arguing at all. In fact, Houdin and Monet were actually--GASP--cooperating!

I stood at our second floor window overlooking their work-play, afraid to move too quickly or make a sound for fear they'd see me and it would break the magical spell under which they were operating.

I watched Houdin fill plastic box after box with snow, pack it down with his gloved hands, and stack block after block to build his fort strong and high.

I watched Monet replenish Houdin's materials supply, pushing large boulders of snow uphill to the site of the fort so that Houdin could use his shovel to slice off bits of the snowball and pack them into the plastic boxes.

I remembered yesterday's promise that I would not only look at their creation, but that I would photograph it. So I went for the camera, pulled the screen out of Houdin's bedroom window, and started snapping photos. Monet eventually heard the whirring of the camera's lens and looked up.

"Hi, Mom!" he called, waving to me from his castle-like creation.

"Hi," I returned. "You know, you could make that fort really strong if..."

"If we spray it with water. I know. Dad told us already. About a hundred times."

"Oh." Well, I guess I don't have such original ideas, then. I guess I should just stick to taking photos.

"Let me get one of you together," I called down. The boys edged closer to each other. They were proud of their work. They looked handsome, healthy. The air was chilled, but they were warm. So very warm.

Their faces smiling, the camera clicked. This is what I live for.

My Baby Genius

This audioblog is of The Baby, who will be two on Friday. In the audioblog, you can hear her count to ten, and then she TRIES to count to thirteen, but she's a little distracted by the phone and carrots and other important things.

I'm still amazed that she's not even two and can already count to ten. Someone tell me my child's a genius.

Identity Theft: One Blogger's Story...

An excerpt from today's post over at Quiet Life: "The bookkeeper pulled out a stack of about twelve checks that had my name forged at the bottom and our routing number and our address at the top.

These were not my checks. These were fake checks with fake ink made on a computer with all of our information.

This first batch of checks totaled over $3000.00."

The quoted post comes as a warning. Donna's blog entry for today carries with it a caution to mail your bills only from a post office dropbox, not from your own mailbox. Go to her post to read more.

Today's Thank You Awards

...go to:

Bard, for straightening the kitchen without me having to ask twice, for being patient with me while I had a downer day, for laughing with me this morning, and for writing in our journal.

Monet, for doing such a wonderful job of cleaning his room, and for working very hard to control his temper.

Sweetheart, for trying to settle an argument with her friend with calm words instead of crying or yelling.

Houdin, for making a really cool fort that I promise I'll look at tomorrow, AND take pictures. REMIND ME!

Bo, for taking the baby when I needed to be alone for a while, finishing our taxes, and for making that nifty rechargable battery holder.

In response to Donna over at Quiet Life, I'm posting my blogging spot. This is where I blog...my bedroom. There's a computer inside that wardrobe, which I'll post a photo of when I can get my dear husband to make me a disc. .  

January Reading List

Currently Reading:

Current Bedtime Read:

Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards

Me:

Eve's Daughters by Lynn Austin
Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith
Haircut and other Stories by Ring Lardner

Houdin:

The Buck Stops Here: The Presidents of the United States (Updated Edition)
by Alice Provensen

National Geographic Eyewitness to the 20th Century
by National Geographic, Scientists, and Explorers Renowned Historians

Monet:

Polar Bears Past Bedtime (Magic Tree House 12, paper) by MARY POPE OSBORNE

Quick List of what we've read together:

Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes by Phyllis Krasilovsky
Once Upon a Potty by Alona Frankel
The Skip Rope Book by by Francelia Butler
Richard Scarry's Big and Little, a Book of Opposites

I'll have Bard add hers later.

Learning in Spite of it All

Because I've been inspired by Tenn over at School @ Home, I've been spending more time reading to my children, and encouraging more reading as well. Yesterday, in spite of the bookshelf organizing project, my kids were learning.

Maybe it was *because* of the bookshelf organizing project.

Have you ever noticed that, when you clean a room, everyone suddenly wants to be there? All of the other rooms are available to use, but somehow everyone gravitates to the clean room. They're comfortable. They're relaxed. They feel at peace.

I suppose, because my bookshelve were becoming more organized, everyone wanted to be there. Houdin was reading about presidents, specifically about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his love of dogs. He's reading up on presidents so that he can write a 200 word essay about his favorite president for the local paper. If he wins, he gets his essay printed in the paper and a $50 savings bond. He also spent some time looking through our presidents flash cards and reading Sweetheart was looking at art books about Mary Cassatt, and we even pulled a few favorites in between the sorting, cuddled up on the couch, and read. I couldn't resist reading The Man Who Wouldn't Wash His Dishes and The Skip Rope Book. While I read the latter, Sweetheart grabbed the jump rope and jumped to the rhythm of my words.

I read Once Upon a Potty to The Baby--twice. Both times, I lost her at the part where Prudence sat, and sat, and sat, and sat, and sat...

About early afternoon, Sweetheart and Houdin went with Grandpa to the library. While they were gone, Monet and I sat at the quiet kitchen table and read. I'm still reading Eve's Daughters, which, so far, is an awesome book. Monet was reading Polar Bears Past Bedtime, a Magic Treehouse book. While he was reading, he asked about gazelles and igloos, so we did a little mini-research on both. My only regret is that he wanted me to come outside and see the igloo that he built, and I didn't. I'll do that today, Monet. I promise. I'll even take pictures.

Edison recieved a magic video from NetFlix, so he and the kids sat down for a while to watch that. After that, it was just too much to take. The snow is so thick, they just had to go out and play in it.

Last night, I just let them watch the DVDs they brought home from the library. Sweetheart finally got her own library card on Saturday, so she is now very excited about going to the library. It was a great amount of fun listening to them laugh over old Bugs Bunny cartoons. "Ha! It's nitroglycerin!" I hear Bard laugh.

It was good to have Bard home. She and Bo had been gone all day because, well, because Bo has to do that really awful work thing. Bard had choral practice, so she took her schoolwork with her, and she also worked on the Favorite President essay. Bard's choir will be going to China in a few months, so they've been working very hard on their pieces.

And, as a little side note, I've decided to give daily Thank You Awards. Just my way of letting people in my house know that I appreciate what they've done. It might blow up in my face, but I'm going to do it anyway. So there.

Today's Thank You Awards

Today's Thank You Awards go to:

Bohemian, for taking Bard to choir practice, grocery shopping, and picking up the couch and TV bracket from Freecyclers. I know you were exhausted by the time you finally got home.

Monet, for wrapping N.L.'s birthday present.

Edison, Monet and Sweetheart for cleaning up when I asked you to without arguing or complaining.

Bard, for being dedicated to your choral group and always taking your music without being reminded.

Feeling Rather Bookish

It started out innocently enough.

I just wanted to pull a few books off my shelf, blog some titles of books that will help me get ready for the coming spring like I mentioned in my post about getting the planting itch. I grabbed a handful of gardening guides and started typing. Then I remembered, "Hey. I think there are more gardening-type books in the basement from when we were still living in the cabin," so I trek down to the fruit cellar to get them. While I'm down there, I find a few boxes of books that made it out of our storage unit when we moved into the new house, but didn't make it onto actual bookshelves, unless you call the fruit cellar shelves bookshelves. I don't.

While I was at it, I figured, I may as well go ahead and grab the books I'd stuck in on the storage shelves in the basement laundry room. Wouldn't hurt to just round all of 'em up and put 'em where they go. Right?

Right?

I started this project this morning, organizing my book shelves. I felt good about getting started, because it's on my 101 in 1,001 list. Get the bookshelves organized. All of the math books in one place, all of the language books in one place, all of the classics in one place, all of the birth, NFP and midwifery books in one place. Sounds so good. So tidy. So organized. So, yes, I decided this morning was the time to get it done.

Early this morning.

And, go on, take a wild guess. Do you think I'm done? At 8:32 tonight, do you think I've finished? Did you answer a big, fat, "no?"

Well, you were right. I'm sitting in this room surrounded by books. It's not as easy to organize these as I'd hoped. After all, how does one categorize a book titled How to Teach Your Dog to Talk? And where, exactly, do I place our single picture book about Trucks? After all, I'm already feeling guilty about the big box of books that are going to the second-hand store just because I don't know where else to put them.

And what, exactly, do all of you homeschooling moms do with the workbooks that have, like, five pages finished and haven't been touched in twelve and a half years? Do you throw 'em out? Does your inner optimist believe you'll make one of your kids finish 'em? Does your perfectionist want the kid that started the workbook to finish it? Even though she's almost fifteen and already knows her ABC's? Does that same perfectionist feel it's unfair to give the workbook to the child who's still learning her ABC's because A through E are already completed? Does your inner pessimist cringe at the sight of a stack of fifteen workbooks, each with five pages completed, and judge you for being a bad homeschooler who doesn't follow through and whose children will not know their ABC's when they grow up? Does your inner financial advisor chastise you for spending all of that money on curricula that you know you'll never use because your kids would rather learn how to make igloos and measure rice into a balance scale? Or does your inner sentimentalist packrat want to lovingly cut out each completed page with a pair of pinking shears and file them in the child's portfolio or scrapbook?

My inner psychopath is ready to build a nice, big bonfire and burn every book she sees for the next twenty-two years.

I think I deserve a bowl of ice cream. Or at least a book about one.

Bring on the Snow--I've got Jane Brody to keep me company

There's nothing like a good snowstorm to bring a family together.

We had the usual busy-ness planned for the weekend. I was supposed to fly out to Chicago for a baby shower (my gift to my lovely sister-in-law was the poem Stretch that I posted a few days ago, which was read yesterday during her Blessingway) but the flight was cancelled due to the snow. The kids had been invited to a birthday party about an hour and a half away, but there was no way we could take our big ol' van out on these country roads, so we regretfully declined to attend. As it was, Bo and I had to run out for milk, eggs and butter and our 4-wheel drive Jeep barely handled the journey to the local IGA, the library and back.

So, we were officially snowed in.

What's the best thing to do when you're snowed in? Okay, other than do laundry. Eat, of course!

On Saturday, I made biscuits and lentil vegetable soup, we read books and blogs, and I caught up (mostly) on my laundry. Houdin spent most of the day sledding with his friend, our neighbor C.J., and then shoveled sidewalks for C.J.'s grandmother's neighbors.

On Sunday, I did more laundry. And more laundry. And more laundry. Somehow, even with doing two or three loads of laundry a day, I can't seem to catch up completely.

The big thing, though, was that I decided to spend the day baking cookies. When the kids asked if C.J. and his sisters Cat and Beth could come over, I figured that it sounded like the perfect winter activity--playing with friends and eating cookies.

While the kids flung the Playmobil toys all over the Big Room, I baked Toll-House cookies, which, I'm sorry to say, are the best chocolate chip cookies that have ever existed. Please, prove me wrong. I say that I'm sorry to say that they're the best, because I avoid buying Nestle products at just about any cost because of their production and distribution of baby formula and the Nestle boycott. So I'm left with a moral dilemma. Buy Nestle chocolate chips and break my boycott, or buy Hershey's chips, which aren't made available in the big bags at my grocery, and feel guilty about using them to make a Nestle recipe. I normally opt for the Hershy option, or, if available, Ghiradelli. But I had Nestle in my pantry, so Nestle I used. Please forgive me, breastfeeding zealots. The snowstorm made me do it.

I baked lots and lots of cookies. I baked two dozen for my Amish neighbor's, Kate and Dean, who just had their fifth baby--a girl. They now have five children who are age six and under. They need all the cookies they can get.

I also baked a container-full for my dear, dear friend P. who recently had surgery for breast cancer, and, thank God, had a very successful operation and is currently undergoing daily radiation treatments and amazing me with her good spirits and unquenchable energy.

I decided, too, to try using the dough to make Toll House Cookie Bars. I spread them very thickly into my Only And Very Pampered Pampered Chef Baking Pan. Ooooh, boy. I do think that's my favorite way to have chocolate chip cookies, now. It makes it so much easier to justify eating Breyer's vanilla ice cream.

Speaking of ice cream and other yummy foods, we have recently, and very successfully, made major changes to our family's diet. As part of my 101 in 1,001 commitment, I swore off of fast food as of January 9th. Since that time, I've completely avoided fast food. And then, when we watched Super Size Me, on January 19th, Bohemian and I decided to radically change our diets. Since then, we've increased our intake of salads, eliminated all sugary drinks (though Bo is still indulging in his coffee--just not as often as he'd been) and have created a system for having cold, convenient drinking water available to everyone at all times. Amazingly, it's working. In fact, Bard, who had been considering vegetarianism, finally made the switch and has been eating much healthier and being more active since the 19th. It's only five days, but we all feel a big difference already. I allow things like ice cream and homemade cookies so that my family doesn't completely revolt. Then again, what would they do? Start cooking for themselves? Guffaw!

I even serendipitously found my copy of Jane Brody's Good Food Book (it was on a bookshelf. Can you imagine?) and have been re-reading it for tips and recipes. Brody insists that carbohydrates are GOOD for you--imagine that! People should actually eat energy foods and then be ACTIVE! GASP!

But Brody's book is more than a cookbook, but also offers background information on pastas, beans, grains and even suggestions for stocking your pantry. It's actually more of a course in nutritional cooking than a simple cookbook. Brody's recipe for My Favorite Lentil Soup is so awesome. It really is my favorite lentil soup!

My Favorite Lentil Soup

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2-3 medium onions, chopped
(about 2 cups)
3 carrots, coarsely grated
3/4 tsp. marjoram
3/4 tsp.
thyme
1 28-oz. can tomatoes with their juice
7 c. vegetable broth
1-1/2 c. dried lentils, rinsed
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 -1/2 tsp. freshly
ground black pepper
6 oz. dry white wine
1/3 c. chopped fresh parsley or
2 Tbsp. dried
4 oz. cheddar cheese, grated (optional but oh, so yummy)

Preparation:
Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and sauté the onions, carrots, marjoram, and thyme, stirring the vegetables for about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, broth, and
lentils. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer
for about 1 hour, or until the lentils are tender. Add the salt, pepper, wine,
and parsley, and simmer the soup for a few minutes. Serve with cheese sprinkled
on each portion.

Source: Jane Brody's Good Food Book

So, eat and enjoy.

Ah! It's snowing again! Time to make more food--and do more laundry.

Itching

Heavens, it's not even the end of January yet.

I can't help it. I'm itching to start planting.

Last year, we achieved a lifelong dream of building our own home. This came after thirteen years of living in a small house, and then in a tiny two-room cabin (think Little House in the Big Woods) without an indoor toilet or electricity. We spent a good part of the past three years planning, preparing and building our farmhouse...but we didn't even begin to touch the yard and gardens.

I'm very much looking forward to focusing on that aspect of our home this coming summer.

I suppose my itching has something to do with beginning to read Mandy to the kids tonight. It also has to do with recalling the gardens of my youth. It might also have something to do with seeing strawberries for $4.00 a quart at IGA and knowing I wouldn't buy the flavorless, rotten things anyway. I'd rather wait and grow my own.

So I'm thinking about pulling out the garden inspiration. Tomorrow, I'll make a list of the reads we'll savor to get psyched for spring planting. Oooh, I can feel the mud between my toes already.

Bring on the seed catalogs. I'm ready to plan.

Living Off The Land

There was no question in my seven-year-old mind that I could do it.

I sat in the back yard, behind the dog pen, hunched inside of a makeshift tent that was constructed out of heavy poles and a big, black tarp, something my dad had brought home (read: stolen) from the rubber shop where he worked. I had in my hand a jar full of ripe red raspberries, picked only minutes ago from the row of bushes that ran along the north side of the dog pen. I was attempting to make raspberry jam, using a spoon and smashing the raspberries into a thick, gooey pulp. No sugar needed. These babies were plenty sweet. And who needed toast? It was a jam good enough to eat right out of the jar.

This was all part of a plan to prove to myself that I could live off of the land.

It seemed to me, even then, that it wasn't completely necessary to have grocery stores. After all, everything that you could buy at the store could be made or grown at home. Well, with the exception of bananas. But I could live without bananas.

My thinking was this: I really needed very little to survive. First off, I was pretty skinny. I had been a skinny kid since the very beginning, and had worried my parents because I "ate like a bird." They would take me to the doctor, who would assure them that I would eat when I was hungry, and then he would assure me that he would marry me someday, and let me choose a reward from the treasure chest (I always chose a ring, so I could say that it was from the doctor who was going to marry me someday). My great-grandfather, who we called Big Grandpa because he was very tall and was married to Little Grandma, who was very short, would shake his head at me at every family gathering. "You look like a bird! You're going to dry up and fly away!"

But I really don't think it's fair to say that I didn't eat, because I certainly did. I loved fruits, vegetables, bread and bacon. I ate a lot of stuff. And I ran around a lot. And I think it's because of the things I liked to eat that I came to my conclusion that I could live off the land.

After all, what could be better than a fresh carrot, straight from the garden? Well, a tomato, of course! A red, sun-warmed, juice-drips-down-to-your-elbow tomato is one of the best things that can ever happen to a kid. There's no store-bought tomato that could even pretend to be more than a tasteless water balloon. And corn! Well, if a kid could start a fire and boil some water, corn would just be the best thing in the world to eat! And since I was such a dairy addict, I certainly had to have a cow. And what did cows eat? Grass! How hard could that be to grow?

Given all of this staggering logic, I knew that I never really had to have a job. I could eat fruits and veggies straight from the garden, sleep in my tent, and drink milk and make butter from my cow who only needed to eat grass. It was a flawless plan. Sometimes, I still pull elements from it. This is why I needed to know how to make bread from scratch, or how to knit a scarf, a hat, or a pair of mittens. This is why we have goats and chickens, and why things just don't feel right if there isn't a garden filled with herbs, veggies, fruits and weeds in our yard. This is why I've made homemade horehound drops, why I read books by Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry, why I get so excited about mulberry season, and why I have a get that goofy nostalgic look on my face when I see a row of red raspberries. Because when I was seven years old, I had a plan. And I was sure that I could live off the land from that moment on.

As long as it stayed summer all year 'round.

This Conversation Actually Took Place...

Sweetheart: Can I have more cake?

Loving Mother: No.

Sweetheart: Grandpa eats more bad food than I do.

Loving Mother: Not true. You would eat a lot of bad food if I didn't follow you around the house saying "No, no, no."

Sweetheart: He does too eat more bad food. That's why his teef are rotten.

Grandpa (who was not in any wars): The war did this to my teeth.

Sweetheart: You didn't have any wars.

Monet: Yes, he did, too. He was a submarine.

I kid you not.

::stretch: for my pregnant sisters ::

It was the first thing I noticed.

Pink lines marched along my skin as my body made room for each pound that I gained.

Everywhere.

My thighs,
my breasts,
my butt
and my stomach.

The pregnancy books talked about these lines, these marks that would never tan and would never go away. My body was changing,

and it would never be the same.

My tummy was bigger now, bigger every day. Yet it never seemed big enough for that life inside of me.

Sitting on the couch, I would feel the pressure--
a foot jabbing into my ribs, kicking me from the inside out,
or a shoulder rotating against my hip bone,
or an elbow poking at my side.
I could recline,
reposition,
realign.

There wasn't enough room in there. No matter how much I would stretch myself.

The pains crept in--those crampy, achy, here-it-comes pains. I could close my eyes and try to envision it--
the stretching that would bring this sweet, new life into the world,
into my arms,
the stretching that was going on all through my body.

It was only through that stretching that my little girl child would find her place, cuddled in the safety of the family bed,
a little nursling at my side.

Sweet, sweet baby, with rosebud lips and glowing cheeks.
I know you.
I know who you are, as you've grown inside of me,
built me up,
and helped me to grow.

You're the one who has changed me from a selfish girl into a hopeful mother. I want to be more for you, better for you. I want to be the very best you could ever have.

No one has ever made me feel this way, though many have tried.
Teachers,
parents,
friends,
preachers,
lovers.
No one has caused me to want to be as much as I want to be for you.

Sweet, sweet baby, I watch you sleep for a moment, and then, blinking your eyes, you look at me and lift your little balled hands high above your head, pushing your toes as far as you can push them from your fingers...

And you stretch.
You stretch.
You stretch
me.

Each day, child, you stretch me. There's more of me than I ever thought there could be.

I am more flexible,
more pliable,
more malleable than I could have forced myself to be.

I stretch out my hands to hug you after you fall.
I stretch out my mind to understand you when you're so very teenaged and I'm so very not.
I stretch my love to add another child.
And another.
And another.
And another.
I stretch out my trust in God to protect you when you're away from me.

My body will never be the same. The silvery-gray lines that will never tan--they were just the beginning.

You've stretched me, Child
--my body,
my heart,
my mind,
my spirit.

It was the first thing I noticed...

Finished!

We finished reading The Boxcar Children yesterday. It was kinda sad to see it end, but I really, really enjoyed it while it lasted.

Monet and Sweetheart have been playing Boxcar Children ever since we started reading. Today, while they were playing with the treehouse thingy they got for Christmas, they were looking for Benny. Monet, being Henry, asked Sweetheart, who was being Violet, if she'd seen Benny lately. Sweetheart, being Violet, said, "No way, Jose!" Bard and I verbally doubted if Violet would have said such a thing, but Sweetheart insisted she would have.

So, what to read next?

Trouble Posting...

I've been experiencing some server troubles, which are driving me nuts. Quick notes in case this is the only post I can make for a few days (these notes are mostly to remind me what we've been doing, so don't blame me if they bore you).

Bard had her hair cut and colored. Pics to come
Houdin did a magic show at the nursing home. Prep was a nightmare. Show went fine. They invited us back every two weeks.
Bard is going to start a poetry reading group at the nursing home. She starts in two weeks.
The Baby, who will be two next week, can count to 13 by herself! The laundry awaits, but my child is a genius.

More as I can connect.

Changed. Forever.

Okay, I know it's banal, but I, too, have watched Super Size Me.

Things are gonna be different around here from now on.

Searching for Answers in a Pile of Laundry

Again, I'm wondering about the wisdom of focusing on just one area of one's life. It seems that when one does that, one ends up losing control of every other area. Big time.

Yesterday was my "clean the bedroom/get laundry done" day. Except my "laundry day" takes about a week. I spent the majority of the day upstairs, and in spite of the jug of laundry soap and the amount of time I spent, I didn't get all of the laundry done.

It. Just. Keeps. Coming.

So, today, I'm doing laundry AND cleaning out my pantry, which contains about fifteen opened bags of chocolate chips (NOTE: It honestly was NOT me), twelve opened bags of chips, six opened sleeves of crackers, seven opened bags of nuts, and three opened bags of sugar.

I did not do this. I did not open all of these bags. But who is cleaning up all of the spilled contents? Who is trying to figure out which ones are stale and which ones are edible? It ain't the opened bag fairy, I'll tell ya that.

It's me.

And so, I'm a grump. A total, honest to goodness grump.

In addition, Monet has decided that he's going to pull out his "I can't do anything and I don't remember what you just told me to do" routine. I've told him six times to load the dishwasher, eight times to put away the groceries, fourteen times to sort the socks, and five times to put away his jacket.

These are the days that make me want to run screaming to the local public school and demand that they take my child. Now.

The worst part about my frustration is that I feel like there should be SOMETHING I could do about it.

Am I using the wrong educational approach? Did I have too many kids? Am I disciplining too much? Too little? Expecting too much? Too little? Do I try to hard? Not hard enough? Is it their diet? Is it allergies? Is it too much sugar? Too much wheat? Too much caffeine? Too much white flour? Too much TV? Not enough reality? Do they need more hobbies? More chores? Should their dad be home full-time? Should I go to work full-time? Should they be in school? Should I unschool more? Is their life too structured? Too permissive? Am I too demanding? Too relaxed? (Nope. That's not it.) Do they need more friends? More exercise? More fresh air? Do they need better vitamins? Do I need more vitamins? Do they need Ritalin? Do I need Prozac? What am I doing wrong? What? What??? WHAT???

God, can you just give me an answer? A symbol? A sign??? Anything?!?

Ah. There's the dryer buzzer. I see that God has a sense of humor.

Maybe he'll share.

Our First Cache

Get this:

You tell a bunch of kids that you're going on a treasure hunt. Suddenly, they're jumping up and down, they're all excited, they're ready to get out in the cold, winter air and get some exercise.

And then they stop and stare at you with that "What are you trying to pull?" look on their faces.

"What are you trying to pull?" They ask.

"Nothing," I say. "Absolutely nothing. It's a wonderful Sunday morning, and I think it would an excellent day for a treasure hunt." I look at my husband.

"Don't you, Bo?" Aforementioned husband nods.

"So we're going out in the yard to find some treasure you buried. Is this like the time you hid our christmas gifts in pirate chests and told us that Black Beard the Pirate left them behind?"

"Um, no," I say. "It's not at all like that. We're not looking in our yard. And I didn't hide the treasure. In fact, I don't even know exactly where it is."

"Is this like the time that you hid the dollar bills in the yard so that we would be motivated to pull weeds, and you told us that Black Beard the Pirate left them behind?"

"Um, no," I say. "This actually has nothing to do with Black Beard the Pirate at all."

"Okay, then what's the catch?" They ask, their eyes narrowed in disbelief.

"There's no catch. There's only a cache," I say, trying to be clever.

"A what?"

I point Houdin to the computer, where I have pulled up the FAQ for Geocaching. "Read," I say.

Before long, Houdin and Bard have read about geocaching, and we're in the van and on our way. Our whole clan went, including The Baby, Sweetheart and The Grandpa, which is unusual because The Grandpa doesn't go very many places.


We head to the first cache of the day, and Monet immediately takes to the GPS, letting us know how rapidly we're approaching the cache. It's not far from our house, so we don't take a long time to get there. It's a good thing, with all of the "Are we there yet?" and "It's my turn to hold the CPR!" "It's a GPS, Silly!" "Whatever!"

We're looking for a mini-cache, hidden in a tiny painted Altoids tin, and we've looked all over the destination. The kids are about to give up, but I'm not. I look over there. I look under that. I look up there...AHA! I walk away from the hiding place.

Bard catches the goofy grin on my face.

"You found it, didn't you?" She asks. I nod.

"Where is it?" She asks. I shrug.

We play a game of "hotter/colder" and, soon enough, everyone has found it.

Everyone, except Sweetheart.


Sweetheart wasn't very happy at all. As a matter of fact, I think she was about as unhappy as a treasure hunter can be. Even after we gave her the cache tin to open, she cried. She was, in a word, bummed.

We replaced the cache exactly where we found it (and I'm not tellin') and set the GPS for the next cache search. This time, the cache was along a walking trail, so we got a nice little hike. This time, Houdin was the first to find the cache, hidden in an ammo box. We sat at a picnic bench, read the log, and looked through the treasure. The premise of geocaching is that you can take something from the cache box, but you have to leave something behind. The kids had all brought a little something to leave, and they each took something that connected with them: Sweetheart and Houdin took fishing lures, Monet took a baseball. I can't remember what Bard took. What DID you take, Bard?

Night was falling, but we still had enough time to place our own first cache.

Today's Lessons: Mapping coordinates, hiking, visual observation, latitude and longitude, following directions, reading, writing and sharing.

The Queen of Our Village

Silly me. I opened the bottle of frozen Cherry Coke (What? Cherry Coke? Who was drinking Cherry Coke? Not me. Huh uh. Not after I resolved to replace my daily Cherry Coke intake with water).

The Cherry Coke that I wasn't opening not for me overflowed all over the counter.

Sweetheart: Mom, why did you do that?

Me: Because I'm not very smart. You should know that by now.

Sweetheart: Yes, you are. You're very smart. Because you're the mom.

Me: Is that so?

Sweetheart: Yes. You're like the queen. The queen of our village. And you teach us, so you have to be smart.

Me: Aha. I'll remember that next time I try to do something stupid.

Dangerously Beautiful...

This is a photo from my front porch of the ice storm of 2004 that I talk about in my Broken Branches, a Plea to All Fathers essay. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Unfortunately, thousands of people went without power over the Christmas and New Year's holiday anywhere from a few hours to almost two weeks. We were without power from the day before Christmas eve through the day before New Year's Eve. Now the area is dealing with massive flooding and evacuation from their homes. Since we're up high on a hill, and we don't live in a valley area, we're not affected, other than a change in certain driving routes.

Going on a Treasure Hunt...

Last Sunday, we made our first attempt at Geocaching. We both found and hid treasures, and we all had a lot of fun. Plus, it was great exercise!

We plan to go again today, and then we're taking the boys to see, what else-- National Treasure!

I hope to post some photos from our last hunt and today's hunt later on this evening.

Pottymouth downgrade...or upgrade? Not sure...

If you look at my blogroll, you'll see that I have an asterisk beside each blog that I know to contain any four letter words (actually, four-letter-word is an archaic term. Dooce can turn out some pretty creative fourteen-letter-words). While I believe myself to be forward-thinking, I cringe when I hear a woman swear. Must be all of those years with my pottymouth mother are embedded in my brain. Plus, I think it's only polite to warn my friends and family about the language rating of the blogs I recommend.

Chris just appealed to me from her Big Yellow House . She says that she's not actually a pottymouth. She believes she's more in the bathroom vicinity and not in the actual toilet. I agree.

Therefore, I'm downgrading (or upgrading?) her pottymouth status. I suppose the only fair and right thing for me to do is to put a number of asterisks next to a blog based on how much...um...colorful language the blog contains.

For what it's worth, I think Dooce is absolutely hilarious, but I guess I'm a bit of a prude (or still have very clear visions of my chronically depressed, manic depressive, abusive mother and her derogatory vocabulary)...I can't in good conscious recommend Dooce's site because of her prolific profanity, no matter how creative.

Sorry, Dooce.

Besides, I can only imagine that my little voice won't in the least detract from your massive place in the blogosphere anyway.

You expected oatmeal, maybe?

I thought about this. I really did.

See, I read recently that it's very important to eat breakfast, and that a lot of weight problems stem from not eating breakfast. Skipping breakfast lowers your metabolism, then what you eat later just converts to fat. I can't find the article, so if you read it, too, remind me where it is.

So, I've been making a point of eating breakfast. Some protein, some grains, a big glass of water or a little glass of juice. I feel better. Honestly. And I've even been taking my vitamins every day, just like I promised.

When I awoke this morning, I started thinking about breakfast before I even got out of bed. I knew just what I would have. Mmm. Yummy. Pecans...Milk. Protein. Calcium. And best of all, no cooking necessary.

Breyer's Butter Pecan. It's not just for midnight snack anymore.

This was written for me...

Okay, maybe it wasn't. But it certainly could have been. Thank you to Lonna at Mom and More for posting this wonderful affirmation.

"They may see the good you do as self serving.
Continue to do good.
They may see your generosity as grandstanding.
Continue to be generous.
They may see your warm and caring nature as a weakness.
Continue to be warm and caring.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It never was between you and them anyway."

Author Unknown

Should I or Shouldn't I?

It's 1 A.M and Sweetheart just asked me to read a chapter of The Boxcar Children. I told her that we got to stay up late, eat subs and watch movies, to which she replied, "But you read to us EVERY night."

"We'll see..." I said.

So, what do you think I did?

A Date with Bard

What's more wonderful than spending a day with your daughter? Spending a day with your daughter, who you think is REALLY cool!

Bard and I headed out for our date on Thursday, and I have to say that she looked stunning. I couldn't believe that she was really my little girl, this tall, beautiful young woman. I know it's banal, but I'm saying it anyway. She's becoming a lovely young lady.

Our first stop was to be lunch at the newest Chic-Fil-A in our area. On our ride there, Bard gave me a book report about her new favorite classic book--To Kill a Mockingbird. She decided to read it because a group of bibliophiles were discussing whether their favorite book characters wore boxers, briefs, thongs or went commando and one of the girls said, "Atticus, boxers or briefs," and no one knew who that was. No one, out of the 20 or so avid readers, had read To Kill a Mockingbird. Bard decided, as part of her 101 in 1001, to read one classic a month. To Kill a Mockingbird was the first one on her list.

We arrived at Chic-Fil-A on their opening day and were greeted by our good friend and fellow homeschooling parent, Dr. Don Bartlette. Don was handing out samples of Chic-fil-A's delicious brownies! It was a wonderful surprise to see him, and we had a great time catching up with him. He reminded us what an adventure, what a miracle it is just to open your eyes every morning to a new day!

After Chic-fil-A, we headed to the movie theater, where we eagerly bought tickets to see Finding Neverland. It was very moving, very magical, and managed to make me cry. I hate it when the last scene in a movie is a tearjerker, and is immediately followed by a HUGE, WHITE SCREEN so that EVERYONE in the theater can see what a BIG BABY you are. Sheesh.

We ended the evening with a visit to a friend's scrapbooking party. I'm not a scrapbooker (GASP!) but I knit for a while and helped Bard with her scrapbook pages.

Bard spent the night at Kat's house, so we gave our hugs and parted ways. I then headed to Borders to drool over the knitting books, look, with no success, for a good family Bible Study guide, and to find journals for each of the kids for our co-journaling project.* I found a really awesome one for Monet, one with a marble-looking cover, irridescent page edges and a ribbon bookmark built right in. He loved it. For Houdin, I found one that looked a bit more bookish, and we immediately began to co-write a fictional story.

I miss Bard, as she's still not home from Kat's house, but I look forward to seeing her tomorrow. She's an awesome girl and a wonderful friend. It's a miracle to behold her face each day.

Thank you, God, for my daughter Bard.

*The journaling project is that I write them a letter in their journal each night and put it on their beds, and they write a return letter to me, and put it on my desk. Houdin and I are writing a story instead of simply writing letters.

The Boxcar Children

This was one of my very favorite books as a child. When I found it again as a parent about ten years ago, I had to have a hardcover copy, so I ordered one immediately (a very special treat for myself) and insisted on a copy with the original cover. Bard read the book as soon as I brought it home, and then I placed it on a shelf with my "special" books. It hasn't been touched since.

I know this is very wrong.

Two night ago, Sweetheart was having a hard time sleeping. Usually, Bohemian does all of the tucking in and reads from What a Fourth Grader Needs to Know. On this particular night, I decided to read to Sweetheart and Monet while they were waiting for Bohemian to arrive.

"How about The Story of Ping?" I offered.

"Sweetheart doesn't like that one," Monet answered. "She thinks it's too sad." Sweetheart nodded in agreement.

"Okay, then how about George Washington's Mother..." I began to regret my choice as soon as I said it, flipping through the pages and remembering that it's not exactly a short story and maybe a little over the head of a five-year-old.

"I don't like that one, either," Sweetheart announced, saving me from some exhausting reading and certain doom.

"Ah!" I saw it sitting there on the shelf--the wrong shelf, as it wasn't supposed to be in Sweetheart's room at all--but there it was, nonetheless. "How about THIS one?"

"Uhhhh..." Sweetheart moaned. "Not THAT one."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Have you ever listened to this one before?"

"Nooo," she admitted, "but it LOOKS boring."

I'll show her, I thought. "Oh, but it isn't boring at all. This was one of my very favorite books when I was a child." With that, I turned to page one and began to read.

As soon as Sweetheart heard about the baker's wife who didn't like children OR doing dishes, she broke the silence. "I think I'm beginning to like this book!"

It's just magical. The milk and blueberries. The salvaged dishes. The motherly way Jesse cares for her siblings. It's just simple and inspiring.

Now the whole family is hooked. We've been reading two chapters nightly, and not one person is bored, from Bohemian down to The Baby.

This just proves it. Classic literature rocks.

Welcome to my home gym

What this house needed was some good, old-fashioned exercise. And where in the world but Wal*Mart to buy it?

I found a mini-trampoline or rebounder for $19.99 and a jump rope for $2.94 (the kind in the sports department, not the kind in the toy department). I could have splurged for the $4.96 model, with ball bearings for faster, more fluid movement, but I chose the budget route.

Add a book of jump rope rhymes from the library, and VOILA! Home gym! As in, this is my home, AND it's my gym!

The kids have been jumping and hopping and bouncing for three days. They were actually sore when they awoke this morning! Houdin is the sports-oriented guy, and the one most prone to competition, so he challenged everyone to a competition to see who could jump rope the longest. Currently, he has me beat...55 jumps to my 39.

With all this jumping, I hope my bladder holds up.

Here's a bad idea...

Eleven boys.

A sleepover.

Lots of sugar.

Just wait. I haven't come to the bad idea yet.

No, I'm not kidding.

Here's the bad idea. Maybe the very best bad idea I've ever had. Give each of the boys a disposable camera. Tell them to take pictures of anything they want. Here's what they take pictures of:

Me waking up in the morning.
Me in my pajamas.
Me without make up.
Me giving my husband a stern look.
The backs of my arms. I didn't know they were that fat.
Me, from behind, from the waist down. Just my butt and the backs of my legs. I didn't know they were that fat.
A very closeup picture of the back of my waist. I think you know how I felt about that.
Fourteen pictures of the baby chicks. From 15 feet away. I got doubles.
A picture of my very messy pantry. Seven times.
Me with my mouth hanging open. Wide. Just like the closeup of my waist.
Thirty-two extreme and very blurry closeups of each boy's ice cream sundae creation. Again, doubles.

I did get several pictures of both of the birthday boys blowing out the candles of their cakes. Several, because I got doubles.

Amazingly enough, I did not end up with a single picture of any boy's private parts. Not enough sugar, I guess.

A Natural Interest

Monet is 9. He's the first child I've had who I didn't insist on "teaching" him to spell. But somehow, he has this natural interest in spelling that amazes me. Right now, he's writing a miniature book about Christmas, and as I sat across from him, eating my lunch, he asked me to spell some of the harder words for him.

"How do you spell "straight?"

"S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T."

"I know how to spell 'said.'" He says.

"You do?"

"And I know how to spell 'by,' like 'by Monet,' and 'bye' like 'goodbye,' and 'buy,' like 'buy something.'"

"You're very smart!"

"So are you. You're the one who taught me."

Awwww. :-)

Hit the Ground Running

There are days when you wake up and you hit the ground running. Today is one of those days for me.

It's amazing how fast things can pile up. It seems that everywhere I look, there's a reminder of what I didn't do, can't do, should do, must do. For some reason, no matter how much I DO do (did I just say do do?) it's not enough. I go to bed exhausted every night, and I wake up exhausted every morning. Sometimes, I wonder if sleep is real, or if it's just an illusion and cruel joke that gives mothers hope for rest.

Yesterday, I spent the day working towards fulfilling one of my 101 in 1001 goals, to clean my room to my satisfaction once a week. I like the fact that it's to MY satisfaction, because that means I can stop whenever I'm satisfied. That means I can clean it until all of the underwear is ironed and folded, or I can stop when I've cleared a walking path to the computer. Since I worked at the local cheesehouse just about every weekday from early November on through the first of this year, and since we went for a week without electricity over the Christmas holiday, I haven't had a chance to clean my room to my satisfaction in about two months, even if that means clearing a path to the computer. So I put it on my list of things to do consistently for the next 1001 days.

I can't believe it's taking me so long. I worked on it on Monday. I worked on it most of the day on Tuesday. It's still not done. What are the main culprits? Laundry. Clothes that need to be stored. Even in this big, new house, I don't have enough storage, and the storage I do have isn't organized well enough to be perfectly useful. Don't let anyone fool you, even those slick "101 Tips for Organizing Your Life" magazines at the Wal*Mart checkout. There is no perfect storage solution. Well, there IS one. Don't own anything.

After lots of Windex, vacuuming, folding laundry and dusting, I finally got the majority of my bedroom clean. It's not to my satisfaction, yet, but I still have a few more days before the week is over. Besides, if I wait until tomorrow, my standards may have changed, and it may be just right.

In the mean time, the rest of the house is coming tumbling down.

Do you ever feel like you're just struggling to keep your head above water? Do you ever feel like you're constantly just trying to catch up?

Granted, I spent a lot of time yesterday just playing and laughing with the kids. Bard, Houdin and I spent a good hour just laying on my bed and laughing, laughing, laughing. I spent a lot of time working on my blog and updating my 101 in 1001 list. But not so much that I should have a sink full of dishes, a stack of laundry ten feet high, and a bed that STILL isn't made at 3:00 in the afternoon!

Sigh.

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who made a list of things he wanted to do to better himself? Wasn't he the one who found that, no matter how hard you work to perfect one area of your life, another area suffers?

My bedroom is (mostly) clean.

The rest of my life is totally and completely suffering.

Maybe I'll spend the rest of the day in my room. Or at Wal*Mart. I could always use some more stuff I can't store. Or right here in front of the computer. Maybe I should have put that on my list. "Sit in front of the computer for six hours straight every day." I bet I could have met that goal easily. But then...

How long do you think it would take before my family actually got sick of the messes and cleaned them up...[gasp]...INDEPENDENTLY?!? Without being told?

::Looks around the computer room:: I don't have enough food and water in this room to survive that long. I'm not sure I have enough food and water IN THE HOUSE to survive that long. As a matter of fact, I don't know if there's enough food and water AT WAL*MART to survive that long.

Maybe I should just go back to laughing with my kids.

Houdin's First Gig

Today, I talked to a woman at our local senior center who was very thrilled at the prospect of having my 13 year old son, Houdin, perform magic tricks for the residents. We have an appointment for him to do a 1/2 hour or more performance next Thursday afternoon.

Houdin is way excited.

Broken Branches--A Plea to All Fathers

Broken Branches 

The Wednesday before Christmas, the weatherman promised sixteen to eighteen inches of snow. I was working at the local cheesehouse in the mail order department when the first few inches started to fall. Shortly after one o'clock, I put on my coat, gave a few instructions to Ashley and Ursula, and made my way down the spiral staircase that separated my little office in the tower from the rest of the building.

I was off to a hauling job.

About two months ago, I started taking appointments to haul Amish. To the doctor, to the grocery store, to their sister's house to make cookies. Wherever. I charge per mile with a small fee if I have to wait while they shop. Usually, I just shop, too. On that particular Wednesday, the young Amish mother that I would be hauling was taking her baby girl to the doctor.

It wasn't long after I had dropped Rachel off in front of the doctor's office that the snow really started to fall heavily. I hadn't seen a snow like this in many years, and it was as exciting as it was scary. A white Christmas! I thought. As long as we could get home in one piece, I might even look forward to being snowed in with my family for a few days. When the young Amish girl finished her doctor's appointment, we both headed to the local grocery store to stock up.

Before we had even driven the few miles from the grocery store to my passenger's house, the snow had completely covered the roads so that they were barely visible. People were creeping along in their vehicles and there were already several cars on the roadsides, stuck. Even my attempt to get home was thwarted. I had to park in a nearby driveway because I just couldn't get my van up the hill of a local back road. Thank God for a co-worker, who just happened to be going my way and stopped to give me a ride in his 4-wheel drive truck. I told him not to try to make it up my steep drive. He dropped me at the end of the long lane to my house, and I walked the rest of the way, the snow turning to sleet and pelting me hard in the face.

When I awoke the next morning, there was truly a winter wonderland glistening outside my bedroom window. It was a dangerously beautiful scene, and, before long, it became apparent that not only would we be staying home for the day--maybe even the weekend--but that we would be fighting to stay warm. Sometime in the night, the power had gone out. After listening to the local radio station, we found that the continuing ice storm had left most of our county without power, and that the problems were only increasing.

I made my way to the couch, snuggled under my grandmother-in-law's thick comforter, and I looked through our windows over the gorgeous glimmering countryside. Every branch was covered with a thick layer of ice, and the heavy sleet continued falling. When all was quiet, you could hear the limbs and branches cracking, breaking, falling all around the house, all through the woods. As I sat, I watched my oldest daughter Bard's favorite tree sag under the weight of it's burden. One by one, I wagered with myself over which branch would crack and fall next. Before it was all over, dozens of once-strong limbs lay on the ground around the roots of what had been a full and sturdy tree just two months ago.

I recalled these moments today, two and a half weeks after the power had gone out, a week and a half after it had returned. What brought the scene to mind was a single comment that my father made, something he undoubtedly thought was very funny.

Being the butt of the joke, I didn't find it funny at all.

My father's kind of amusement--this brand of comment--isn't knew to me. When I was a child, I heard my father shower his icy comments onto my mother's branches for many years, many times, and I watched as her strength gave way and her limbs broke under the weight of his words. It was all a game to him.

"Are you eating again? Neice! You'd better hide the fridge!" The branch bends.
"Where'd you get that outfit--Akron Tent and Awning?" The branch cracks.
"Don't make your mother mad. She might sit on ya." The branch falls to the ground.

The comments weren't always directed at my mom, either. My father would make remarks about other women, and he just couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut or supress a smart-alek comment if an overweight woman was in view.

"Woohoo! Did you see that big lady? Wouldn't wanna make her mad!"
"Wow! Look at that one! Hea-ea-ea-vy!"
"Get a load of Big Mama!"

I grew up listening to, embarrassed by, these demeaning comments almost daily. I never saw my father give my mother affection. I never heard my father speak about women with respect. Instead, every woman was either "kinda pretty" or "really heavy." Every woman, no matter her occupation, personality or lifestyle, was very verbally judged based on her appearance. She could be the first female president, the inventor of a life-saving vaccine, or the first female astronaut in space, and his only comment would be either, "Kinda pretty," or "Big Mama!" And while his comments were never directed at me--only because I was always grossly underweight, bordering on anorexic--it was very clear to me that being overweight was a condition for which to be demeaned and ridiculed by men.

Now I'm grown, my parents have long been divorced, and my mother is no longer living.

And I am no longer grossly underweight.

I've struggled with being overweight since the birth of my first child. Looking back on my postpartum body of 15 years ago, I realize that I was perfectly healthy. But being anything over 100 pounds, to me, was unacceptable. Instead of getting involved in a healthy lifestyle, I began to fast and binge. Now, after five children and fifteen years, my body is showing the consequences of my choices. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't worry about my health, my energy, but, most of all, my appearance. I can't help but think that my unhealthy body image comes greatly from my father's careless comments. Now that he lives with me, I hear them on a daily basis. He has never directed them towards me.

Until today.

This morning, an Amish neighbor called on the phone for me to discuss the details of the ride she needed for this evening. My dad answered the phone. There was a brief exchange that went something like this:

"Hello? Oh, hi Laura! Yeah! You want Denice? Boy, is she ever! Ha ha! Don't tell her I said that! Boy, would she give me heck!" My dad handed me the phone, laughing. I knew he had ridiculed me. He often makes fun of me for my child-rearing, my decision-making, my housekeeping...whatever he can find to jab at me. I took the phone and spoke to my neighbor, but I was instead distracted by my dad's voice as he bragged to my husband, Bohemian, about his juvenile comment:

"Ha! Laura asked if Denice was 'round! Ha! I told her, 'Boy, is she ever!' Laura said, 'Don't you tell her you said that!' Ha! Ha ha!"

I was crushed. I could feel my limbs sag under the weight of his icy words.

The amazing thing about ice storms is that it really doesn't matter how strong are the roots of the tree. It doesn't matter how much nourishment and rain it received through the spring, or how much sun and warmth it received through the summer, or how much mulch and protection it received through the fall. When the weight of an ice storm comes, the tree simply can't stand the stress. One by one, the branches bend, crack and fall. I even saw several that were completely uprooted, literally torn from the ground as if by a tornado.

My husband compliments me on a daily basis. He tells me that I'm beautiful. No, I'm not, I retort. He tells me that he loves me. Why? I challenge. He tells me that he finds me desirable, sexy, attractive. Yeah, right, I scoff. He showers his nourishment, his sunshine, his protection on me. And yet, it's the ice storm that my father brings that keeps coming to my mind every time I look at myself in the mirror. It's the chill and the sleet and the burden of that ice that weighs down my branches. I can't accept compliments. I can't believe that a man would love me. I reject my husband's compliments and his unconditional love, because I'm so certain that I'm not worthy of it. Intimacy, for me, is a constant struggle.

Fathers, don't kid yourselves. Don't underestimate the role you play in your daughter's growth. Every word you speak, whether to your daughters, your wives, or even about the people around you, soak directly into your growing child's roots. You have so much power in your words! You have the power to grow a strong, sturdy oak with a firm foundation and a beautiful crown, flourishing under a canopy of love and encouragement. Or you can produce or a deeply burdened, sagging, broken form whose roots simply can't bear the weight of winter, no matter how much others nourish and protect it.

I beg you, fathers. I beg you to reject the temptation to tear down your family with mockery and hurtful jesting and to instead choose wisdom and encouragement. Your children will flourish with your love. Your actions will matter for eternity.

And your family tree will thank you.

Books Bard has Read Recently

This is actually Bard posting at Mom's request. So hi everyone.

Trickster's Queen, Tamora Pierce,
Candle in the Darkness, Lynn Austin,
Fire by Night, Lynn Austin,
Secret of the Indian, Lynne Reid Banks (re-read),
Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis,
Messenger, Lois Lowry,
Steven Spielberg, biography,
Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchet,
The Middle Moffat, Eleanor Estes (re-read),
Dragons in the Water, Madeline L'Engle (re-read).

I think that's pretty much it, though I may have forgotten a few re-reads. I'm about to read The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, and listening to The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun while I cross stitch.

As American as a Food Allergy...

This article , referred by MamaGeph at Still Odd, discusses how one school is handling a child's severe peanut allergy by segregating to one table all children who bring peanut butter sandwiches to school. Apparently, the child with the allergy is so deathly allergic that he doesn't have to actually ingest the peanut butter to be in severe danger. As a result, all of the other children in the school must be screened for peanut butter and made to sit in the "Peanut Gallery" if they are bringing PBJ in their lunch.

The parents of the child with the allergy issued the statement that ""he does not have to ingest it for his air to constrict and he loses the ability to breathe. We have the medical evidence that shows that our son has one of the worst allergies on record for this food."

First, this makes me wonder...if just sending your child to the lunchroom each day is a hazard to his health, why not keep that child out of the lunchroom? Why ostracize all of the other children because of one child's allergy?

Better yet, why not control the child's learning environment completely? I think you know what I'm getting at here. I know that many homeschooling parentsmake their decision to homeschool in part because of the potential dangers of some of the public school systems. So, if your child is highly allergic to a substance commonly found in his learning environment, a substance that could very well end his life, why not...ahem...change his learning environment? It seems like a perfectly reasonable option to me.

But the part of the article that caught my attention even more was this part:

"Food allergists say peanut allergies (search) among school-aged children have doubled to 400,000 over the last five years. They can't explain the spike but said it has caused more schools to creatively accommodate allergic students."

Doubled?? In the last five years, there are TWICE as many school-aged children allergic to peanuts? Food allergists can't explain the spike. It makes me wonder...what kind of research has been done? Has there been any extensive research on the kind of chemicals--herbicides and pesticides--that have been used to grow peanuts in the past, say, twenty years? After all, a peanut is a root and I would imagine that any chemicals they receive are systemic.

The sidebar of the article states that "C-Section babies are at risk for food allergies." Higher risk? Or just risk?

Now...get this: there is a possible cure for peanut, milk and wheat allergies. It's based on a foodborne bacteria called (pregnant women, hold onto your seats) Listeria. Listeria is one of the baddy bacteria we kill when we pasteurize milk. Huh. Imagine that. A cure for allergies in real, honest-to-goodness, raw whole milk.

The Weston A. Price foundation must be beside themselves with triumph. Not familiar with that organization? Check it out. And then find a raw-milk producer in your area and star t drinkin'!

Can YOU?

The HH's 101 in 1001: My 101 Things to Accomplish

The Happy Housewife did it! Can YOU?

Times Trials...

We're working on quick memorization of multiplication facts. Tonight, we did a time trial for our nines facts. Here's how it worked out:

Bohemian: 17 seconds
Me: 21 seconds
Bard: 52 seconds
Houdin: 1 minute, 7 seconds
Monet: 6 minutes, 32 seconds

Pop Quiz: How fast can you write your 9 times facts? Have someone write them in random order and time you!

Happy, Happy Anniversary

Today is my Crystal Anniversary. Yep, that's right. Fifteen complete and total years of marriage to my beloved Bohemian.
Since we didn't buy each other anything for Christmas, we're planning a romantic shopping trip for two. With no money.
Ah, well. At least we have each other.

Pop Quiz: If it were your Crystal Anniversary, what would you do? What would you buy for your beloved? What would you buy for yourself?

Pa is *SO* Hot!

I'm pretty amazed by the popularity of one of the Christmas gifts I gave my oldest daughter, Bard, this year. And it's not just popular with her...the whole family's nutty about it!

Earlier this year, we began reading the Little House on the Prairie books. Finishing them is on my 101 in 1,001 list. I told my kids how much I used to love the television show, starring Michael Landon. I looked up the series on NetFlix, and, sure enough, there it was. Before I could even get it on my queue, the kids had brought one of the DVDs home from the library. We watched the first show in Series One and they were hooked. I have to admit, I was hooked again, too. I had forgotten what an awesome show it was.

The problem came when my dad, who's not very particular about the movies he chooses, brought home a disc from Season 6. I laid down the law. No watching the series out of order! After all, what impact will it have when Mary goes blind? Or how can we fully appreciate what a scoundrel Nellie is when Laura pushes her down the hill in a wheelchair unless we watch all of the awful things Nellie has done to Laura over the years? No more Little House DVDs from the library, I said. You simply must wait until they come from NetFlix. My motivation was to get through the books first, so that they children could see that the television series really wasn't much like the book series at all.

What I didn't expect was how eager the kids were to get their hands on the rest of the DVDs. Bard, for one, was totally into Pa. "You didn't tell me Pa was so hot!" she said. To be honest, it never occured to me. I mean, when I was a kid, Pa was just...Pa. :-/ I wouldn't have minded having him for a dad, to be sure. But that's just because he was warm and loving and wise, which was, ahem, in stark contrast to my own father.

I did the bulk of my Christmas shopping in three places this year. I shopped at Toys R Us for a doll, stroller and play food for the little girls, a local educational toy store for Playmobil stuff, and Sam's Club, because they're so awesome. I bought the kids a cool treehouse playset there, as well as all of my wrapping paper and most of my holiday foods. When I walked into Sam's Club to do my shopping, I decided to check out the DVD aisle. Bard wanted Pirates of the Carribean, so I thought I'd see if they had it.

Nope. No Captain Jack Sparrow here. But, Aha! They do have some good ones.

• Elf, which is a new surprise favorite of mine ("I like smiling. Smiling's my favorite!")
• Miracle on 34th Street, the newer one with Richard Attenborough and that adorable Mara Wilson
• Christmas Classics, with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Frosty Returns, The Little Drummer Boy and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
• And...oh, what's this? The Little House on the Prairie series! Awesome! I buy Series 2 (about 18 hours of shows) immediately because they don't have Series 1 in stock. I find Series 1 later and buy it, too.

I'll tell ya what...these kids, from 15 year-old-Bard all the way down to almost-two-year-old The Baby have just LOVED these shows! I can totally not remember a time when my children literally CHEERED at the TV like they did during Founder's Day or yelled at the screen like they do at the love-to-hate-her Nellie Oelson.

That was awesome programming, don't you think? I'm not a big TV fan. In fact, we don't have cable, satellite or even television reception. Maybe I'm just being overly nostalgic. Are there ANY shows being produced currently that are as awesome and inspiring as Little House?

I highly doubt it.

What Is 101 in 1001?

What Is 101 in 1001?

I finished my list of 101 goals for the next 1,001 days, as I read about here and here. I'm keeping a blog of my progress here.

Wanna join me?

Who ARE you???

Chris, over at the Big Yellow House says that today is Delurking Day. So, heavens to Betsy, stop lurking around and POST something!

Well, maybe not EVERYTHING...

Last night, while we were playing the game of Life, I was lamenting the fact that I have to cook, clean, teach, do the finances, blah, blah, blah. Bohemian was rolling his eyes.

"Look," I said, "It's totally true. I have to do EVERYTHING!"

Without looking up from the Life gameboard, Monet said, "You don't brush my teeth. Or pick my nose."

Ah, but if they could think of a way to make it possible...

Bard's Handwork

While my in-laws were visiting last week, we went shopping in one of the little touristy places in our area. Bard accidentally found a stash of really yummy yarns in one of the shops, and we both drooled over all of the possible projects we could start, but I restrained myself and told Bard that we have enough of a yarn stash to complete several, several, SEVERAL projects!

A few shops down was a cross stitch shop. While I have a bunch of cross stitch patterns in the basement, most of them are patterns that don't really interest me anymore. They're so hopelessly country, with cows and ducks and bunnies and things I see die on a regular basis that I just don't to spend hours stitching them or decorating my house with them. As we were walking out, we saw a framed work that Bard couldn't resist--a beautiful fairy adorned with metallic threads and glittery beads. I figured, since she has that bohemian blood, like her dad, it would be good for her to add to her repetoire of insomnia remedies. She reads, she knits...now, she can stitch.

She started the project today. It's on 32-count linen and has a billion colors. She says I've threatened her with her life if she doesn't finish it, but I really didn't. I didn't say anything more than, "You'd better finish this, or else..."

And this is a Sting Ray...

For Christmas, my father-in-law bought Monet a notebook-type drawing book called Draw Really Cool Stuff. It has six tabbed drawing sectionsand boasts that there are "hundreds of exciting and fun images to draw." It wasn't the first thing he attacked when he opened his grandparents' gifts (it's hard to compete with a HoverDisc and a HoverCopter) but in the past two days, both he and Houdin have been drawing like mad. They seem to be especially drawn (no pun intended) to the ocean animals and the cars.

Yesterday, Houdin went to the library with my dad and while he was there, asked if they had any drawing contests coming up. They actually did! There was a contest for drawing superheroes, so Houdin drew some kind of blue superhero and turned it in before he left.

Thanks for the book, Grandpa. ;-)

Houdin's Math

Houdin is working on his multiplication tables today. He's trying to memorize his 9s. I gave him the little trick that every product of 9x any single digit will have a sum of nine when added together. He thought that was pretty cool. Now he's working on a 9x time trial. His first effort gave him three wrong and it took him over three minutes.

Pop quiz:

Do you have all of your multiplication table memorized?
How old are you?
How fast can you recite your nines?

Triplux - 101 Things To Do in 1001 Days

Triplux - 101 Things To Do in 1001 Days I found this site through another site which had me on their blogroll. This looks very inviting, and I just may do it. What do you think?

Strong Coffee's Mondo Beyondo List

Strong Coffee

When I have time, I want to do a list like this. Have you done one? If you do, will you let me know?

Smarty Shots...(AKA Dixie Cup Learning)

I came up with a fun little reading practice game today. Here's how it works:

Get some little Dixie Cups and a permanent marker. Find a kind of little candy that makes your kid weak in the knees. I used Smarties. You could use M&Ms or Skittles or whatever you want.

Write a single letter on each cup. Label enough cups for you to be able to make words with the cups. For instance, label one cup "C," one "A" and one "T."

Make as many cups as you think your child can sound out. This can work with younger kids OR with older kids.

Arrange a series of cups in order so that they spell a word. Place a Smarty, M&M or whatever in each cup. If it's a hard word, you can put an extra piece of candy in one or two of the cups.

Have the child read the word. If she reads it, she gets to put the candies in a cup with her name on it. Alternately, you can just let her have the "candy shot" right then! It's funny to see them "drink" the candy out of the cups one right after the other. If you'd rather, they can save all of the candies until you're done with the game. If they read the word incorrectly, the candies stay in the cup. The next time that letter is used in a word and the child reads the word correctly, she gets all of the candies in the cup.

VARIATION: Write "Beginning," "Middle" and "End" on the cups. Say a word, and then say a sound. Ask if the sound is at the beginning, the middle or the end of the word. The child puts the candy in the cup she thinks is right...the beginning, middle or end. If she's right, she keeps the candy. If she's wrong, the candy stays in until she gets the answer on that cup right.

ANOTHER VARIATION: Write letters on the cups. Say a word that begins with one of the letters. Have the child put the candy in the letter whose sound begins the word. If she's right, she gets the candies. If she's wrong, it stays until she gets an answer right that begins with that letter.

I'm sure there are a bunch of variatons that can be used with Dixie cups and learning. Do you have any suggestions? Tell me about them!

Reading and Math

Last night, Sweetheart and I worked on her math facts. She has her doubles through six just about memorized.

Today we're working on reading and letter recognition.

Later today, Monet and I are going to make muffins. He's at the library with Houdin and Grandpa right now.

That About Says It

The Big Yellow House: So What Have You Been Up To?:

"In my dream the house came with a maid and the children were better behaved. "

Unaware--a Poem Ode to Winter in o-HI-o

Unaware

by Thicket Dweller

The garden hose and
leaf rakes are still
lying in the driveway
And up against the house
the bike rack leans
The cooler from
the picnic is still
Camped out of the front porch.
I'm afraid to look inside...
It might be filled with old
Baked Beans

There's a soccer ball,
deflated, resting lonely
in the front yard.
Someone left their old sunglasses
tarnished, on the still porch swing.
Beneath that sits an dry dead plant.
Seems that I forgot to water
it--had good intentions when I bought it
at the nursery this Spring.

Winter took me unaware again.
It was falling into Autumn, into blazing leave and then
One morning I woke up and the snow was in a spin.
How'd it take me unaware again?

There are boots beside the sandals
In a puddle in the hallway
and a bathing suit's still hanging
from the shower curtain rod.
Look! That calendar is showing that it's well into December!
Yet I don't remember turning it.
That thing must be a fraud.

Winter took me unaware again.
I was falling into Autumn, into blazing leaves, and then
One morning I woke up and the snow was in a spin.
How'd it take me unaware again?

Huh. The temp is 55 now.
Well, that's winter in Ohio.
If you don't like what the weather is,
just stick around and it will change.
Or just wish for snow at Christmastime
While you're gayly whistling "Greensleeves"
And setting out your manger.

Still, I can't imagine weather
warm as this in January
Well, I'd better get to work
since I've been given a reprieve.
Guess I'll go clean out that cooler,
Use that rake for what it's made for.
Glad the trash bags aren't paid for
by each pound of sopping leaves.

Sheesh! It's getting kinda chilly.
Maybe I should put my coat on.
Oh, Good Lord! Is that a snowflake?
It was just as warm as May!
Sure enough, here comes a blizzard.
I should go shovel the sidewalk.
But I didn't dump that stuff there.
Nope, it's gonna have to stay.

Winter took me unaware again.
I was just falling into Autumn, into blazing leaves and then
One afternoon I look around, and the snow is in a spin.
Winter, how'd you take me unaware
Again?