Posted in The Daily Grind

Because I'm not technologically savvy, what I'm about to share with you may elicit yawns and quick clicks to a far more interesting post.  I won't take it personally if you are light years ahead of me on the Internet.  But somewhere out there, there are women just like me.  We yell at the computer because it can't read our minds, we pound on the keyboard when trying to make ourselves understood (which has the same effect as pointing out a direction to a blind person), and we get excited when we "fix" the computer by turning it off and then on again.  Just because we're not up on computers doesn't mean we don't appreciate a wonderful tool (if we can get it to work right).

All this being said, saving time is far more important than saving money, and it is here that I can help my technologically-stunted sisters:  spend 15 minutes signing up and setting up an account over at bloglines.  You will not regret it.  You put in the URLs of all of your favorite blogs, and they gather them for you in one spot!!  No more bopping around from one page to another, waiting for a page to load, and then when it does, you realize the author hasn't updated it yet.  They highlight the blogs that have new posts - I know, take a breath.

Always one to come slowly to new things (blogging is pretty much enough for me; hubby's and my Facebook page sits there only for contact purposes anymore, and I cancelled my Twitter account yesterday because every time I brought it up it caused my computer to seize up like an arthritic woman in sub-zero temperature grabbing for her aluminum cane), I ignored the subtle clues I was reading in others' posts.  You know, the talk about RSS feeds, reading a post through their collector, etc.  I'm not sorry I did, I'm just glad that my naturally technologically reticent side finally caught up to society.  Now watch, they'll be obsolete inside a month.  *sigh*  Oh well, it'll be great while it lasts.

Posted in The Daily Grind

My apologies for the lack of any new content, but we are currently experiencing frustrating technical difficulties... If you see a laptop flying overhead, nod knowingly at its reason and source.  Be back as soon as I can.  Have a wonderful April and Easter holiday!!

Posted in The Daily Grind

Good Morning, everyone!  Please excuse my post title; I think that Bethany is influencing my style somewhat.  I always enjoy reading her titles, and felt the spirit move me today.  *grin*

I hope this finds you all well and enjoying what's left of January.  I truly am appalled to realize that it's been THREE WEEKS since I've last visited HSB, but when you're done reading my 'little' recap, you'll see why.  Oh, how I have missed you all!!  I'm so relieved to be getting back into our routine and entering a 'slower' period.  *sigh*  This feels like the first time I've had to breathe in months.

Of course the holidays have come and gone, as has the sickness that compounded that time of year.  In spite of the stomach flu, we enjoyed a lovely Christmas.  Here are a couple of photos from that time:

After Christmas, New Year's, and Epiphany, we celebrated our anniversary and then my mother's birthday.  Each year for the last 3 years the boys have gotten up early, dressed appropriately (kilts), and then we head over to my parents' first thing in the morning whereupon the boys pipe and dance for Grandma.  The first year they were living in an RV park, so we parked up the street and Piper played 'Amazing Grace' (her favorite) as he followed Jigger to their site.  Last year they were out and about too early, so we tracked them down in a strip mall (*grin*) where the family business is located and they performed on the sidewalk.  Brought everyone out that day; Piper still regrets not putting out a tip jar.  Ü  This year, Mom and Dad have been building a house and are staying on the property in their motorhome, so Piper played/blessed the new home with 'Amazing Grace' while Jigger danced on the expansive front tile porch.  It was fantastic.

After my mom's birthday, we had Jigger's school's Feis (Irish dance competition).  Several are held in each city throughout the year, and a different dance school sponsors each one.  January is our school's, and I happened to wind up as a co-chair for the Raffle table this year.  Not quite sure how that happened.  (still scratching head)  It is a three-day event for volunteers, so Friday found hubby and the boys assembling stages, Saturday a.m. found me and boys rising at 5 and heading out the door at 6.30 a.m.  Piper opened the event, and we manned the raffle table all day.

At noon, Piper headed across the street to a Multi-Cultural Festival that was going on, where he escorted the mayor along with a couple of dancers from our school as the mayor walked about welcoming people from stage to stage.  We continued to run the raffle table for the remainder of the afternoon, and Piper closed the event for them once again.  He had the crowd on their feet clapping in time to the music with a Polish polka on his Scottish Highland bagpipes at an Irish Feis.  Multi-cultural, indeed.  *grin*

Sunday found us arriving back at the feis at 7.45 a.m., whereupon Piper tuned up once again to open the second day of competition.  Jigger stretched out and then began running through his dances.  His first two were ceili (kay-lee) dances, which are group dances.  His 4-hand (4 dancers) took second, and his 8-hand took first.  (I don't normally post pictures of other people's children, but I can't resist today- I want you to see how cute his 8-hand team was.)

He then went on to compete in 6 solo dances, and we were so pleased with his results.  He did a fantastic job!  Piper and Jigger did us proud that weekend, and the raffle table brought in around $700, so a good weekend was had by all.

After clean-up on Sunday and stages were disassembled and back on their way to storage, we headed home at 6 p.m., more than ready to put the weekend behind us.  It was a bittersweet weekend, as Jigger has decided to put up his dance shoes indefinitely.  He's burned out, and after dancing for almost four years straight, he's ready to take a breather.  This has been a long time in coming, and while the decision was an extremely painful one for him to make, he's happy with his decision.  Should he want to go back, the door is open, but I'm not sure I see that happening.  I do see him finding the joy in the dance again, though, which is something the fierce competition killed, so all is right with the world.

After the feis, exhaustion and more illness set in.  We sped our recovery along with an herbal concoction, which I will share with you next week, for we were headed out of town last Friday and wanted to be healthy.  We headed up north for my birthday weekend, and stayed in a B&B.  We had such a wonderful weekend!  The town we stayed in is at about 6300', with our sledding taking place at about 7200'.  The snow and grey skies were beautiful, and it really hit home how much we miss and need the four seasons.

On Friday we took the boys sledding, and of course a Snow War erupted!  Everyone had a ball (pun intended, of course :).

During our visit, we took a walk in a city park for a very brief time, lol, for it was coooold!!  I got some great photos, though.

So, as you can see, things around here have been crazier than usual.  I'm so relieved to say that it looks like we are done with the chaos and can get back to our quiet routine.  We began doing just that yesterday, and I can't tell you how at-peace I feel.  Aaaahhh...  *grin*  Plus, now that we have fixed our computer (yay!), I can visit everyone much more often now!  I have posts lined up for every day this week, and have begun thinking about next week as well.  I have so missed my fellow blogging mothers!!!!  I'm so glad to be back!  Now, I'm going to grab a cup of coffee and a cranberry muffin and come visit you all.

Posted in The Daily Grind

In an attempt to ascertain why Jigger has been avoiding practicing dance, the following conversation took place:

Mom:  If you don't practice, you won't get better.  If you don't get better, you won't move up.
Jigger (pouting):  I know.  But maybe I will get better.
Mom:  Without practicing?
Jigger (defiantly):  Yeah.
Mom (snort):  Really?  How?
Jigger:  I don't know.  Maybe there are 1 or 2 ways I could get better.
Mom:  Yeah?  Name them.
Jigger (in all seriousness):  I don't know.  The first is a miracle, the second is maybe I practice.
Mom (dissolved into laughter)

Posted in The Daily Grind

Once upon a time, there was a home educating, blogging wife and mother.  She enjoyed blogging in her spare time, and always had dozens of posts swirling about in her mind.  Due to the busy-ness of the holidays, however, she had no time to post even one of those fascinating posts.  She was very sad.

One day, our mom finally decided to eke out a meager amount of time and sit down and post at least one of her by now hundreds of stories.  She sat down in front of her computer and stared at the screen.  Her fingers rested lightly upon the keyboard, but to her dismay, nothing happened.  Not one of those truly wonderful stories popped in to her head.  She sat in the still of the early morning, and was at a true loss for words (if you knew our mom IRL, you would fall over with shock at this).

"What could I write?" she wondered.  "What do people want to read?  Surely they don't want to read yet another excuse on why I wasn't here, or yet another recap of my time spent away.  So what do I do?  It's a bit abrupt to just jump in and act like I was never absent, isn't it?  Hmmm... maybe it's not."  And so our busy wife and mother decided to just jump in right where she was, and hope that all the other wonderful wives and mothers out in bloggyland would understand that the season, this wonderful, magical time of Christmas, has her putting home and hearth first, as it should be, and that when a less busy season of life comes along she'll be back blogging with the best of them.  Because family, that precious gift from above, must come first.  Always.

And of course, her fellow bloggers understood completely, because it was a magical time in their homes as well, and bloggyland had already begun to quiet down as it always does at this wonderful time of year.  And just as sure as the sun rises in the east, after the holidays moms will focus on starting their little home schools back up and bloggyland will be a quieter place for just a bit longer, until.....

Until bloggy moms are confident that their homes and schools are back on track, and need the company of other mothers before they lose their minds.  Such sweet cycles life has.

To be continued...

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Thanksgiving was a peaceful, enjoyable day here - I hope it was for you all as well.  We had 12 in for dinner, and lots of leftovers (the best part, right?).  Life is, as usual, full, which I assume is holding true for everyone.  Gifts are being made, cards are being made out, and holiday baking is just around the corner.  Life is so good, so full, and such a blessing.

It goes without saying that while I will try to be a little better about keeping up with everyone, I will still be absent more than I am present.  I am enjoying this holiday season in spite of myself, and determined to make it a lovely memory for my family.  I expect you all have pretty much the same intentions, and look forward to catching up with everyone!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Posted in The Daily Grind

Well, I'm finally back.  I could wax poetic on how life takes over and you realize what's important and how the family misses their wife/mother, but I could just as easily type blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and you'd get the same idea.  So, I'll spare you.  Instead, I'll regale you with stories of my adventures during my absence from, well, HERE.

Aside from the household chores that have been accomplished, life has been very busy outside of the home lately.  Jigger had a Feis (pronounced 'fesh'; meaning Irish Dance Competition) a few weeks ago, and that consumed an entire day.  Results were abysmal, and a re-thinking of purpose in this particular direction was much needed.  Improvement is gradual, but the direction is much better now, so we'll see by and by.  (Sorry, no photos of that day; would rather forget it, to be honest.)

Ummmm.... the following weekend we had Halloween.  Yes, Dear Reader, we're heathens who celebrate Halloween.  There goes half my readership.  *sigh*  LOL!  Halloween preparations included a costume-making day, a pumpkin-carving day, and a candy-shopping expedition. 

 All told, 15 bags of candy lasted the requisite two hours (thank goodness; last year we ran out at 1 hour, 20 minutes- talk about embarrassing!!), so it was a success from that aspect.  Piper decided he was done with Halloween (a decision I had always looked forward to, but when it was actually upon me made me very sad - how much do I *hate* that time won't stand still?), and that he wanted to hand out candy instead.  That he did, all night, with a chicken hat perched upon his grinning head.  Here he is with his jack-o-lantern:

Jigger decided he was going to be a Templar Knight from some Crusade to recover some thing or other (yes, I teach history as well, LOL), so I had a costume to make.  Jigger pulled out his Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, I grabbed some fabric and my sewing machine, and two hours later we had a knight worthy of service.  See for yourself (with his jack-o-lantern):

To celebrate Halloween, we also made up (a day in advance) Tina's Pumpkin Spice Bread recipe.  It was delish!  Go get it and make it for your family for Thanksgiving.  You won't be sorry.  Here are our loaves (just a memory now - but I did stock up on pumpkin last week when it was on sale, so I'm gonna make me us some more!).  We made them up, threw one in the freezer, and ate the other the next day.

The day after Halloween Piper had a competition in Tucson at a Celtic Festival.  He took 3rd out of 6 - whoop, whoop!!!  He did medal, and we were thrilled.  Here he is playing his first of three tunes that day:

If you've never gone to a Celtic Festival or Highland Games, we highly recommend that you do so when the opportunity presents itself.  Here is a (admittedly lacking in detail) photo of the games (caber toss, etc.) that were going on while I was resting in our spot. 

This is only a small portion of the games.  Tell you what.  If any of you are going to be in or around Phoenix towards the end of February, we'll take you to the Highland Games and you can experience it with us.  How's that?  *Ü*

Yesterday hubby had an unexpected day off (for Veteran's Day), so we spent an entire day geocaching, for which Mary reminded me to take pictures of - too late.  I didn't get her reminder until we were home.  So sorry.  Will take the camera next time.  The memory stick is full anyway - I've *GOT* to get those photos printed!

So, that is just a little of what has been going on around here.  I'd like to launch into a huge discussion on blogging vs. family time, what suffers, etc., but since you all probably feel guilty enough at times, I'm not going to do that to any of us.  Why end such a nice post in such a boggy fashion?  No sirree.  What I *will* say is that with the holidays coming up, gifts still needing to be made, baking to be done, etc., my blog time will be severely shortened.  I will make a much better effort to keep in touch, but I need to get on a schedule that works for me.  Just through the holidays.  Because as a dear friend reminded me, the blogging needs/time I have right now will not stay the same from season to season.  And she's 100% correct.  Just last month I was blogging almost every day; this month?  Not so much.

I look forward to catching up with all of you, and am interested in seeing how the holidays are affecting your blogginess as well.  I want to enjoy this season tremendously, in spite of normal extended family angst at this time of year, and I encourage you all to begin the preparations now to have a month of Christmas without stress.  *That* is a subject that is forthcoming.  Along with many others.  Because while you can take the blogger out of bloggy-land, you can't take her posts (piling up) out of her head.  *grin*  Stay tuned....

Posted in The Daily Grind

A Happy Monday Greeting to you, my dear friends!  I took an unscheduled blogging break last week when push came to shove around my home, and I am so much the better for it.  Thank you for all of your well-wishes and warm comments while I was gone.  They were so nice to come back to today.  I have missed you all, and look forward to catching up with everyone.

While I was gone, we went to library twice (where I got a smoking good deal I'll share with you later), we went to dance and pipes lessons, we caught up on things around the house (cleaned out both freezers and took inventory, thankyouverymuch), a Halloween costume was made from scratch (no pattern, thankyouverymuch) in under two hours, we made Tina's pumpkin spice bread for the first time and drooled over the smell as it was baking (it's delicious, and we heartily recommend you go make some), we did the mundane (groceries), caught up with some wonderful friends at the park for an entire glorious day, drove down to Tucson for the Celtic Festival where Piper competed (pictures and results forthcoming), and spent a restful day yesterday gearing up for the week ahead.

I hope you all had a wonderful week last week, and that this week has begun on a cheery note for all.  I'll see you all soon!

poster courtesy of allposters.com; "The Mourne Mountains, County Down, Northern Ireland" by Kindra Clineff

Posted in The Daily Grind

   10 Things I Learned This Week:

1.  There are 12,000 bees in 3 pounds.
2.  King Tut is buried across the Nile River from the city Luxor.
3.  The Luxor hotel in Las Vegas, shaped like a pyramid, was obviously named after this city in Egypt (that I didn't learn, I made an educated guess*).
4.  Mini chocolate chips are SO much better to eat straight out of the bag than normal size ones; it's like they're pre-chewed.
5.  Avoiding school lessons to get 'caught up' on housework just makes you feel like you're behind on school lessons.  *sigh*
6.  100° on the 8th day of October is depressing.
7.  Letting your bangs grow out is frustrating.
8.  Husbands don't have a lot of patience when you are trying to type up a blog post and they're sitting downstairs with the t.v. paused on their favorite show.
9.  In order to get the smell of spoiled French Vanilla coffee creamer off your hand, you must take lemon juice and scrub - hard.
10.  Having breakfast prepared the night before makes your mornings run SO much smoother.

* an educated guess by a homeschooling mom is a tried-and-true method of passing so-so information off as fact.

Posted in The Daily Grind

So there I was, going to visit my friend Tina (solidrock) last week, just like any other ordinary day.  Except, as I skimmed down to find her cbox, my name caught my eye.  It's always fun to see your name on someone else's blog; that means they were thinking about you, or had a story to tell about you, or just made reference to something you passed along.  Either way, it's always such a nice thing, don't you agree?

Anyway, I forgot the cbox for a moment as I re-focused and searched for my name again.  And found this:

A Friendship Award, to me!  Me!  It was such an honor, and such a huge surprise!  I thank you, my sweet friend, and want you to know that this means so very much to me.  You are such a source of inspiration to me, and to know that I can bless you in any way brings me joy.  I tag you back with this award; your friendship is precious to me, indeed.

Now, I'm to pass this along to one other person, and I have thought about it at great length.  Who to pass this along to?  This award should go to someone who touches me, deeply and frequently.  For that reason, I award this to Mary, over at Canadagirl.  I fought with myself over this, as Mary has received this award from others already, but in the end, I don't think that matters.  In fact, I think it only serves to solidify my choice.

Mary is generous, kind, loving, and encouraging.  Never once have I brought something to her but that she hasn't sent me off with a new outlook, filled with joy and strengthened resolve.  She works tirelessly for her family, she shares her knowledge with us, and she is one of the most selfless people I know.  It is amazing to me, but in this world of Bloggyland, you can develop deep friendships without ever laying eyes on someone.  She is amazing to me, and I am proud to call her my friend and sweet sister.

Posted in The Daily Grind

It is with great humility and equal pleasure that I have been named a recipient of this newest blog award.

Both Mary (Canadagirl) and Sandpiper blessed me with this award yesterday, and now it is my extreme pleasure to pass it along.

So, without further ado, here are *some* of my favorite blogs to visit (in no particular order):

Alyssa, of crazybusy.  She not only takes some of the most spectacular photos I've ever seen, but her subject matter is adorable as well as being entertaining.

Bethany, of 40winkzzz.  Bethany has a gift for telling stories, and can spin an entertaining yarn out of the most mundane day.

DeeDee of deedeeuk.  Dee is a wonderful bloggy friend to have, and is a kindred spirit.

So, thank you again for this lovely award, and I hope I can continue to be worthy of it.