I seem to be hitting this blog about the same time every month, and it is not intentional! Our nice weather is so short; my computer time is really limited now as I spend almost all my spare time outside working. I have been horse training and we have baseball until mid-June.

We got word on the trial and it will begin September 8, 2008 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It will be every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for about 5 weeks.

My niece is getting married! It’s a June Wedding in New Jersey!! We will all be attending. She has asked my husband to read their vows for them and stand in the place of officiate.

Our grass is turning green but the tallest mountain still has snow on its peak.

After June we are planning on a week at Virginia Beach with my family at the end of August. Then it will be a short time until I head back to NJ for trial.

For now I am focused on the children and the horses and making the most out of spring. I still feel a piercing pain most of the time, but I think you learn to live with it rather than it just going away. I am definitely changed as a person: more assertive in many ways, and much more laid back in others. Priorities have changed.

Hello! Just want to pop in and say our trial date was rescheduled, with no new date in sight, so I'm home. 

My days are a plan of: 1) Feeding horses, 2) Homeschool, and 3) Painting my downstairs, including my kitchen cabinets.    Fortunately, painting is a long family tradition, and I have all the support I need in getting questions answered.

I hope all is well with you and all your families!! 

I am an embarrassment to a long line of impeccable, capable homemakers.
 

Then again, I don't think they homeschooled.

Ok, they had to churn their butter and milk a cow before getting certain items into their kitchen. They didn't have a washer or a dryer.

When we had 3 babies, I could see this coming. I told my husband if we are going to homeschool, this day would come. And it has. It is 11 years late, if you ask me:

I HAVE HIRED HOUSECLEANERS!!!

I can't take it anymore. I have humbled myself and learned to live with dust. I have trained my boys to sweep, vacuum, and do dishes. They take over their own laundry at age 12 1/2. Still, it is not enough...

Here is a proposition for any mother: how about you leave your house for an average of 6 hours a day, leaving your kids at home the whole time you are gone? Then when you return, you have that whole mess to deal with, as well as dinner, laundry, and quality time with your husband. You must wrap it all into the few hours left at the end of a day.

Of course no mother would take this up and few, if any, live it. That is because most children are away at the government institution all day while mom and dad are out or at home cleaning, etc. Nobody is home making a mess all day.

The scenario above is what we sign up for by homeschooling. We are home, but we are teaching. I am unavailable for anything else, on average, 6 hours a day.

I know other moms and other families have found other answers. We used to do the big Saturday cleaning, but my husband has his own projects (related to a family farm life) to do in the little time he gets on the weekend. My Saturdays are pretty devoted to interior painting our home, and Sundays are for training the horses. Nobody has time to clean.

I found a very affordable, flexible service. I figure if they help with my regular cleaning, I'll get to the project cleaning, like my oven. Or vice-versa: they will do any job with the time I pay for.

It felt good to get the unreal expectation off myself: homeschool, horses in training,  husband starting a company, and a house I can live in. I don't see dust as a blessed, temporary condition anymore. I'd rather be blessed in the tightening of a budget and pay for housecleaners. I don't have what it takes right now to get my sons dusting or vacuuming blinds, etc. Also, they're busy, too-- they are getting older, and they have lives. It is a blessing to free up my husband's time and worries about me and the house.

And I'm not too proud to get help in my home! After all, we are homeschoolers! Why live with the craziness anymore if we can do something about it and get some real help? Teacher + housekeeper = two careers. I have read the books: there are many of them telling homeschool moms how to do it. Well, you know what my answer is...an affordable cleaning service. They're out there!

And the money we save on gas by being home all the time will help pay for it.

Think about it, ladies!
Allison

Soon we will begin work on adding bedrooms into our upstairs loft. We need to knock down a wall in the house and put rooms in on the other side. First, the foundation has to be strengthened. This room I’m sitting in will be torn apart, and the ceiling lowered.

I’ll be spending most of my spare time on photos and scrapbooks.

Have a blessed day!

**Update: No need to drop the ceiling over my computer! Yippee yeaa! 

Well our guests are all back home again; we had a wonderful time!

I had to write a Victim Impact Statement for the prosecution and judge.

In 2 weeks or so we have to write the Commissioner of Education- again.

I am thankful for times sitting at the table with the children.

We have guests from NC, happily snowed in. Scott’s brother & family including a little boy who’s never seen snow before, plus a friend from NJ are visiting. The kids (big and small) are all having a blast. It is such a blessing.

We expect “ a very significant winter storm…of historic proportion;” we are under a blizzard warning. I expect to lose electric for a while later today into tomorrow morning.

How often does this happen to you? I am completely alone in the house I work in. My husband has taken all the children on an errand. Since one has to leave our town just to get gas, they are going to be a while.

How was your Thanksgiving?

I love the holiday. It is so theologically easy- no pagan symbols to omit, integrate, explain, or just plain ignore. No guilt! No compromise! Just food and thankfulness, so pure and natural.

We had a homeschool family with six children up to share dessert with us. Even in a town where cows outnumber people, God has placed us together, something I am very thankful for.

I have been receiving very beautiful photos of my new nephew. I have a week of lessons, then a week of ½ lessons and ½ preparations as we get ready to go down and meet him.

Have a blessed day, all.

This is a response to a tag from friend Stepping Heavenward.

9 Weird Things About Me:

1. I hate sandpaper and paper emery boards (I use metal.)

2. Some people stopped smoking marijuana after they met me.

3. I do natural childbirth, but need drugs at the dentist.

4. I can’t bear to see my daughter in boy clothing. I’ve tried it several times just to see if I can get over it. I lasted only a few seconds.

5. My scissors are chained to my desk. (Some of you already know this.)

6.  Racehorses make me cry. (You know this, too.)

7. When I get on the computer I go deaf. (That one is from my husband.)

8. I don’t like video games. (That one is from my oldest son.)

9. The ultimate weirdest thing about me is a grey sweater a midwife (whom I love) left at my 4^th child’s birth in North Carolina. I have been using it since, about 9 years now, and I think it is turning into a security item. I once thought I’d lost the sweater at my daughter’s ballet. I couldn’t believe my reaction, because I was unglued. After it turned up, I stopped taking it out of the house and named it in recognition of my problem.

I once got too close sitting next to the woodstove (my back hurt) and set the back of the sweater to smoking a bit (it was on fire.)  I didn’t realize it, so I said to my kids, “What’s that smell?”

They said, “Mom, you’re on fire.”

It’s only a little singed in the back on the bottom, but I still wear it.

My friend calls that our fire safety & awareness day.

I hope someone else laughed as much as I did writing this!

I am bringing our children to the University today to do a bug parade with their Dad. They parade with a large caterpillar and hand out info on my husband's entomology class.

There is good thought provoking reading here from The Anchoress about the shift to the 60-70's some sense, and a whole lot of other things.

There was a Bible held up by a sword of glass called Truth. Fighting broke out in the land and that sword left. It was replaced by a thin, dark, deceitful sword called Humanism to hold up the Bible.

(That's a dream I had last night.)

I was talking about humanism at our the dinner table, with this quote from Shakespeare:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!”

(Don't you just love Shakespeare?)

At this house, we are going to read our Bible in truth. That dream reminds me to not slip in to explaining the Bible in humanist terms. I can also of course see the ramifications of this dream in what has already taken place across this country and in our churches.

The little old ladies who run one of our town’s political parties nominated me for Justice of the Peace at their meeting. They got their wires crossed and none of them ever notified me.

I went to vote (I think it was 2 years ago) and there was my name on the ballot! I let out a gasp which made our Town Clerk roll her eyes…she had asked those ladies if they were sure they had contacted me!

I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t I just look like some out of town upstart? I did not want to be classified as a homeschool mom of 6 young children with any ambition outside the home!

I didn’t even vote for myself, but my silly husband did. He thought it was a riot. Sure, I am busy enough, just justifying peace in my own living room!

Luckily, I lost. How embarrassing! To undo any misconceptions, I sent a note to another little lady who writes our town newspaper column, describing the misunderstanding. (The nice ladies did apologize to me for the mix-up, but it wasn't necessary.) 

It makes a great story, and we still love to bring it up and laugh about “the time Mommy was on the ballot.” Hahaha   It really is funny (anyone who knows me knows how ludicrous the idea of my being in politics is. Let’s just say my husband is the diplomatic one, not me.)

Piles! I have just been in piles of everything. Fall and getting ready for winter seems to involve lots of piles of items: wood, apples, winter clothing. It’s all a tremendous blessing, and also a good amount of work.

My main assignment is the winter clothing. I’m just about finished. It costs me about a week of work altogether. Some days are wholly dedicated and others are half days. Still, if I were shopping for all this stuff, it would take much longer!

We get free gently used (“school” clothing) from a few sources. It has been wonderful. I just shop through the bag we receive. If I don’t like it, it goes. I don’t feel obligated to keep a piece of clothing just because it’s free.

Our attached work/wood shed has an upstairs loft (soon to be bedrooms) where I keep the boxes of clothes. All my boxes are separated by size, gender, and season. They are labeled from Newborn right up through size 18 (so far.) When I say gender I mean only the ‘girl’ things say ‘girl.’ The rest are all boy!

The clothes are folded inside of trash bag bags inside of cardboard boxes. Our cats keep rodents away, but I may be moving my favorite things into Rubbermaid next year when all these boxes have to go into the storage barn.

First I do the laundry of the next person in line for needing a new set of seasonal clothing. All of the out-of-season things (like shorts) I pack away into its box in the loft. Then we find the ‘shopping boxes’ for that person, like ‘Boy, size 10-12, Winter.’ Someone carries them down for me and we go shopping! Whatever the person doesn’t like, we return to the boxes and put away.

At this time I also figure out what we need for that person. More jeans? Raincoat? Winter coat? Snowpants? New gloves? Any special favorites? Requests? It all goes onto a shopping list, and I can watch for sales. Over time I learned to recognize a good price as well as which items were quality and worth a certain amount.

I can usually keep track ahead of time of certain more costly needs, like the winter coat or winter boots, so that I can buy them at lower mid-season prices. I have learned not to wait until the prices are rock bottom, because by then, stock is extremely limited, and I am unlikely to find the size I need for next year.

With 5 boys and temperatures that can reach a -40’ F with wind chill from time to time, where during the middle of winter the 20’ F temps feel not too bad and 32’ F or above is balmy and call for celebration, we don’t mind paying more hefty for a good winter coat and real sub-zero boots which will last many seasons. The boys move through each other’s outerwear as they grow. As Will said at his last post, “ [Al] has the biggest feet so he gets the new stuff first."

 My Mom got to experience all the children getting their winter boots from the loft when we had our first snow while she was here. She said, “It’s like being at Wal-Mart!” as she saw different sizes of boots lined up across the kitchen floor and children trying them on.

Every Spring the children also have to go through their shoe boxes (in their closet) and bring me all shoes that are too small. Good shoes are packed away into my shoe dept. upstairs in the loft as well. All of my daughter’s shoes are packed with her clothing, so my shoe dept. is all male shoes, except the Baby shoes, which are packed with the clothing.

Sound manic? Not yet. Mothers, you know you have to be systematic and organized to keep up with the demands of rapidly growing children. 

So far over the years our major purchases have been under things, boot & coats, dress suits, shoes, and new baby clothing items. Everything girl needs to be purchased. I have no back log of those items! (It sure is fun shopping for her!)

Doing the seasonal change twice a year is time consuming, but I know God is providing for us with mountains of clothing, and my husband is blessed, too.

I save everything good so that one day, I will be able to bless others.

My 2nd son's pet rooster died today. He had him since he was 6 years old, raised from a chick. The rooster was 6 1/2 years old. James the Gentleman was at the fair 3 times, once winning the Grand Champion.

I would really appreciate it if any one of you could leave him a note at his blog. Magnanimous is just what his name says: unselfish and noble. He always puts others before himself, and it would be so nice for him to hear from you.

(He hasn't written about James yet so you could leave a comment at his last post.)

Thank you to those of you who have taken the time!

Blessings.

Oops- add first power outage of the snow season to that: heavy wet snow breaking limbs onto lines. My Mom arrived just in time for the outage.   I love writing by candlelight! I feel so- Thomas Jefferson. My kids love the candles and oil lamps. Obviously, our power is back on.

Thank you for your encouraging responses to the "Daddy pile" idea. It is a blessing to be told something that works for you can help others.

Our "Daddy" is late tonight; the children are giggling because he's out buying me a birthday present (I think.)  Aren't families wonderful? We call these the only kind of secret that's alright.

We have had an explosive Monarch butterfly season. Last weekend at least a hundred must’ve flown through our yard. We had them 4 at a time in clover patches, and you could go right up and touch them gently (only on the wing edges, or the microscopic scales on their wings come off, which hurts them- like peeling off skin- and disables their flying ability.)

SO- if you want to read about what the Monarchs do after their migration, it’s here. There is also a handy map which will show the migration path of Monarchs in your area.

They are going thousands of miles to someplace neither they nor their parents have ever been!  Can it be explained? Not by man!

My eldest enjoys insect photography, and this Monarch photo is from him:

              photo copyright Saul Costa

You probably already know it's his Entomologist site I'm sending you to.

Have a nice day!

Last week I fought back against a family cold. My herb entries are here.

Herbs have saved two of my chidlren's lives. One when the doctor couldn't help him. I will be writing those testimonies.

I am like a kid in a candy shop. Today I have moved all my digital photos and half of my trip (July 2006) images onto discs for printing. I know many of you have been doing this for years, but my new computer is just coming up on one year old next month, and this is all wonderfully new to me. (My digital camera is 3 months old.) I love the flexibility of doing photos this way. It just makes my heritage work so much easier!

I have harkened unto folks who've said DO NOT trust your memories to discs. I am happy to have a good reason to convert my favorite images into pictures I can see and hold. I maintain albums, and as I've always said, until EYES THEMSELVES become outdated, my way of presenting the photos will not become obsolete. Photos may fade, but many will and do make it.

Besides, sitting down to flip through an album is so different than sitting at a computer. I am excited to be getting the trip pictures printed. We did about a bazillion things on our trip, and the little ones need to be able to sit down, flip pages, and remember their summer adventures this winter by the woodstove fire.

That is, in the brief amount of time we will have between winter adventures!

How is it going with your digital archiving? Do you have a handle on all that stuff? My oldest son has taught me (and is still teaching me.) I still use my 35mm camera when the mood strikes me. I also buy disposable cameras for adventures of ocean, sand, water, river, snow- places where I would never bring out a 35 mm or a digital piece of camera equipment!

Camera shops will tell you: one ocean breeze full of sand, and your equipment is compromised. Does anyone know any other enemies of our cameras?

Have a great evening!

There can be few things as wonderful as watching your children watch Wizard of Oz as if the very first time. We rent it about once a year. I must admit this is when I really enjoy something like a video monitor and a commercial-free movie.

When I was a child, the Wicked Witch was the scariest thing I saw on television. She frightened me throughout my entire small years. What a wonderful tradition to hand down!

My little daughter ran into the kitchen, closing the swinging door behind her, every time the movie even approached a Witch scene. This girl has (I admit to my shame) with her brothers watched Orks getting theirs in The Lord of the Rings. We'd cover her eyes a lot but the point is, she didn't really have a problem with Orks.

There is nothing like a good old fashioned green skinned, broom riding, fire throwing, screeching old witch to throw a genuine shiver into a young one.

I am not one who likes to scare children. I just thought I'd mention this. There are several wonderful parts of the movie, as you know. I loved watching my children's faces as they took in The Lollypop Guild, all of the wonderful songs, the Good Witch, the first meeting of the Scarecrow, TinMan, and Lion...

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," has become part of our cultural heritage. I really enjoyed sharing this movie with a new generation. It's priceless!

p.s. Another priceless interlude: my children are right now laughing over the (rented) antics of BugsBunny, DaffyDuck, RoadRunner, etc. I don't remember laughing at them: then again, I was probably desensitized after days and weeks of viewing. My children think the old cartoons are hilarious! Now I am laughing with them.

I could listen to this song for the rest of my life.

Chris Rice

Untitled Hymn

(Come To Jesus)

Lyrics

Weak and wounded sinner

Lost and left to die

O, raise your head, for love is passing by

Come to Jesus

Come to Jesus

Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted

And carried far away

And precious blood has washed away the stain, so

Sing to Jesus

Sing to Jesus

Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby

Don't be afraid to crawl

And remember when you walk

Sometimes we fall...so

Fall on Jesus

Fall on Jesus

Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely

And steep and filled with pain

So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then

Cry to Jesus

Cry to Jesus

Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over

And music fills the night

And when you can't contain your joy inside, then

Dance for Jesus

Dance for Jesus

Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat

Kiss the world goodbye

Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and

Fly to Jesus

Fly to Jesus

Fly to Jesus and live!

(A) How to Make Sure He Doesn’t Come Home Yet:

1. Start mopping the kitchen

2. Begin folding laundry

3. Start cleaning out the garage

4. Start baking a cake or a pie

5. Begin any unpleasant task that’s been waiting on the “list”

As soon as I have the kids settled quietly and am looking at maybe 5 minutes for ME, I know he will be home.

(B) How to Get Him Home Immediately:

1. Curl up with a book by the fire

2. Curl up with a magazine on the bed

3. Make a cup of hot tea

4. Head for a bubble bath

5. Begin any pleasant task that’s been waiting on the other “list”

I like when my husband is home. I just think it’s uncanny. If I need him home really badly, I can just do something on the B list. If I stop working, he’ll come home. If I have a project, I can rest assured that he had to work an extra 45 minutes that night, anyway. It just works perfectly. 

I have found one activity which is perfectly neutral in either direction:

Blogging!

It is so fun to be one of our kids. Here they are, roofing.

If that’s not enough, read here.

Or you could always go to work with Dad.

This afternoon my daughter and I are making linzer heart cookies. After a week of taking care of 6 man-boys, we need to do something special together. I appreciated my husband’s intuitive understanding in this area. He fully supports all of our ‘special’ time (even when it includes shopping.)

Today my daughter is dressed in this skirt I made. At this post I said:

A wise woman told me, “It’s a good thing you are learning to sew. You won’t be able to find any modest clothing for your daughter.”  Isn’t that true?

Here is a site trying to do something about that.

Do you agree with their mission statement?

Moms for Modesty Mission Statement

• As a Mom for Modesty I believe in common-sense modesty for girls and young women. 
• I believe in refraining from sexualizing our girls and young women. 
• I believe that it is unwise and unfair to taunt boys and young men by permitting my daughter(s) to dress in an immodest manner.
• I believe that true beauty comes from within and I strive to teach my daughter(s) this truth.
• I will loyally shop at retailers that provide girls' and young women’s clothing that is modest, affordable and stylish.

The Moms for Modesty Blog Team thanks retailers such as Lands' End, Gymboree & Old Navy for their efforts in offering stylish and modest clothing for girls.  We urge the other nationwide retailers to look more closely at their product line.

… it’s  not only Moms who support modesty.  Dads want to be heard, too!  I'd like to invite the Dads to spearhead an effort in this same vein.

Thank you for your participation. 

If you agree with this mission statement you can go there, sign your name, and help spread the word.