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My weekend … a filled pantry, migraine headaches, sprouted wheat, sickness and cross stitch baby bibs!

Posted on Oct. 23, 2006 at 4:21 PM

~ My sweet husband got almost all of the shopping done on Saturday. The only place left on his list is a quick trip to Lowe’s for an a/c filter. It is such a relief to have it all done and the house stocked with the things we need.

~ We did not get to go to church this Sunday as two of us have coughs and some others of us have the sniffles. We did not think it would be wise or loving to go to church and cough and sniff and drive everyone batty listening to us! Nor did we want to share our germs.

~ It turned out to be a good thing I was at home … I had a migraine. I went into the kitchen, as I  was stirring some scrambled eggs I realized I could not see all the eggs. I kept tilting my head trying to see the eggs and then I looked up at my daughter Bethany. I could only see one of her eyes. Everything was blurry and strange. A large kind of arc shaped “thing” lined with flashing lights was in my site. It was rather a surreal experience. I quickly took some caffeine and advil.

It is so strange to have something in your line of vision that you cannot see around. AND it is still there when you shut your eyes too! The visual disturbance lasted about a half an hour before my sight starting clearing up. Then came the headache. It lasted most of the day and I was soooo relieved when it finally started to fade.

This was only my second “classic” migraine complete with flashing lights in a kind of geometric pattern. My first migraine of this sort was this Summer. The flashing and visual field loss was much smaller than what I experienced yesterday.

I thought that I would get a reprieve and hoped that *if* I ever had another migraine of this sort that it would be *at least* a couple months from now. Nope. This morning as I was writing a check I noticed that I could not see all the numbers I was writing down. I tried to dismiss it as being tired or tears in my eyes from yawning. Nope. My hard to see numbers were quickly followed by a flashing arc shaped disturbance in my sight. This time is was small, like the one I had this Summer. I took medicine again and the headache that followed was mild (compared to yesterday) and did not last but a few hours.

I am not sure if my experience from yesterday and this morning would be considered two migraines … or one, since they were so close together. I did not know that these could come so close together. Ugh. I did not need another type of headache. I already suffer with headaches much of the time. :(

Just a note to say … that coughing with a migraine headache makes one’s head feel like it is about to explode!!

~ I finished a cross stitch bib baby gift … working on it before and after my migraine. My two oldest girls also each made one. We are giving them, as a set, to a mother and her sweet little baby girl at our church.

~ One of my daughters made biscuits with sprouted wheat. I will have to write a recipe review!

-- I have noticed a couple questions/comments about sprouted wheat and gluten intolerance/gluten free eating … I am working on an entry about this. I hope to post it this week. :)

No Right Click Zones!!!

Posted on Oct. 17, 2006 at 8:59 AM

I have decided I really, really dislike no right click zones! They make blog reading much more difficult than it ought to be!!

Imagine … here I am reading someone’s blog. I laugh, I might even cry as her words come to life in my mind. Then I come to a link. The author wants to share what a sweet friend said or where she bought her beloved book so she puts in a link. I go to open her link. I do not want to lose my place in my current reading so I right click to open the link without losing the current blog. What do I get when I dare to right click? Function disabled or something about the magic word or be honest or nothing! I wasn’t trying to steal or be dishonest … I have Mozilla Firefox!!!! A wonderful browser that opens in tabs. I can have 30 (or more) tabs open in my same browser window. It sure makes for fast reading when I am able to use it.

Soooo, I did a little research. It seems that many people in the technical world recommend that right click disable should not be used. It automatically assumes that one’s readers are out to steal ones’ word, art or photographs and that is rather insulting. I also learned that even if one has the right click function disabled that by typing a string of code into your address bar, it can immediately be re-enabled. I tried it and it does work! I would think that if someone is out to steal our words, art or photographs that they probably already know this and steal anyway.

Please, please reconsider the no right click zones that seem to be popping up all over HSB, they are soooo frustrating! I even had my blog a no right click zone for about a day! Not being able to open up my friend’s blogs in a new tab about drove me batty, so I took it off and then did some research.

No right click zones … my frustration of the week! lol :)

A Bit About Me

Posted on Oct. 11, 2006 at 3:50 PM

My name is Rachelle and I am 37 years old. I have been married to my sweet husband for 18 years. We were married at the tender ages of 18 and 20 … no regrets at all! We have four daughters ages 16, 14, 8 and 5. We have homeschooled the girls from the beginning and cannot imagine living any other way. We live in Arizona where the Summers are miserable with 24 hour a day hot but Fall, Winter and Spring are wonderful!

Why did I start blogging? My heart’s desire is to help and encourage women in their role as a wife and mother. I want to share the things I have learned over the last 18 years as a wife. Now that my children are older, and I can see the good fruit of our family ways, I want to share the things we did/do in our home and homeschool. I have had my blog for awhile now and I am still struggling to find my voice and share from my heart. I can think of so many things to write late at night in bed or in the shower but put me in front the computer and my mind draws a blank!

Adding Spice to My Life

Posted on Oct. 11, 2006 at 11:35 AM

Yeouch! Oh NO! Yell! Cry! Cry! Cry! That is close to what I did just a little bit ago after I broke one, possibly two, toes. My Bethany grabbed my arm and tried to steady me. My Rebekah got me a chair and made me sit down. My two youngest giggled at their Momma loudly crying and moaning. Poor girls they were not being rude or mean, I know they were just reacting to my *slightly* melodramatic explosion of emotion! lol Of course the toe, and possibly second toe, is not a baby toe but those right in the middle. The ones that help a bit with balance. Bethany found our official family cane and I am hobbling around the house.

I am soooo bummed though as I have a new pair of shoes coming today via one of the wonderful trucks that drops stuff off at the door. I have never had a pair of Birkenstocks before but have read they are really comfortable. I got the clog model with a soft footbed. I hope they will help my troubled and hurting feet. Is it too much to hope they will even be wearable with broken toes?!

Wednesday’s To Do List

Posted on Oct. 11, 2006 at 9:12 AM

- Queen Nerfertiti is finally painted and dry (my daughter finished her yesterday) … soooo now I need to take pictures of all our finished Egyptian inspired creations to post here on my blog.

- We have a bit to do in the kitchen today. We have beans soaking for chili and refried beans, wheat soaking for bread, yogurt dough soaking for pot pies, and wheat sprouting destined to be dried and ground for flour. I am sooo glad my older girls love to cook. :)

- Hand water all the spots in the lawn that do not get watered by the sprinklers. We have winter grass this year, for the first time, in both the front and back yards. Usually we just do the front and wish we did the back! Most of the grass is up and has already been mowed once but a few spots are poking along for lack of water. I have been drowning those spots since Saturday … they will, I hope, soon no longer be bare.

- Call a friend to see if she is able to come over tomorrow night whilst our husbands fellowship over coffee (soda, tea, ?) somewhere. If she and her children are able to come, I am hoping to have a drawing class for all the kids. We have several wonderful drawing books, lots of drawing paper and pencils.

- School with all four girls. Those five words sound so small and simple. :)

Have a wonderful, blessed day everyone!!

Did I really just do that?

Posted on Oct. 6, 2006 at 4:04 PM

Have you ever deleted a bunch of emails in your inbox thinking that they are aalllll yahoo group emails and then you realize ... oh no!! I really did not look through those very well! Important and friendly emails might have been hidden in that large batch of take'em or leave'em (they are preserved on the yahoo groups website fooorrreeevvveeerrrr) emails. Ugh. :(

A Most Wondrous Thing

Posted on Sep. 20, 2006 at 5:12 PM

Two days ago, in the morning, I went into my backyard with my oldest daughter R and our dog Amos. I was the last one out and got to shut the screen door. As I grabbed hold of the handle a wondrous thing happened. The handle was not hot, not warm, not even just cool. The handle was … cold! WhoHoo! I made it! I maaaade it! I made it through another Summer! The days are still getting pretty hot (in the 90s) but the mornings and evenings are lovely. Now through May is my favorite time of year! :)

Air Conditioning

Posted on Aug. 25, 2006 at 11:50 AM

Air Conditioning is such a necessary thing! I live in AZ … in the desert … air conditioning is necessary, needed, more than a luxury. Sooooo, it is a very bad thing when your air conditioning, in addition to cooling the house, is leaking water down into the wall and causing water bubbles to form in the semi-gloss paint. :( This is the second day in a row that I have had to call my sweet husband home to put pans, pots and container under the silly thing to catch all the drips until the a/c repair man can come. Hurry a/c man, hurry!
 

P.S. Big plastic under the bed storage containers work very well to catch drips under an a/c unit. Why didn’t we think of that yesterday?!

Sickness … six for six

Posted on May. 29, 2006 at 9:30 PM

When I posted my last entry on Friday my family’s sickness count was three sick and three thought to be well. Not long after my posting my entry, and sending out a prayer request email, my throat began to hurt. Later in the day I talked with my husband on the phone and guess what? His throat hurt too! My one lone hold out, my 16 year old, finally became sick on Sunday! Poor thing, she soo wanted to not join the rest of us in our misery if at all possible. This was an odd illness, thankfully the worst part not lasting long - I can hardly wait to be completely rid of it!

Sickness …

Posted on May. 26, 2006 at 9:19 AM

I soooo dislike my family being sick! Right now my three youngest are sick with colds. My oldest daughter has been such a wonderful blessing this week, she has worked very hard taking up where her sisters were unable to do their part. She has had such a cheerful, helpful attitude. She is such a blessing to me! I am soo pleased and proud of her. AND she has been doing some gluten free experiments in the kitchen too!! :) My 14 year old had two days of feeling rather rotten but is now up and about but still cannot help in the kitchen, that is driving her a little crazy as she is wanting to cook! We are trying to keep the three of us who are not sick … well, not sick. So, no breathing cold germs on our food! :) You should see our pathetic version of a hug for the sick ones!! Kind of a air hug with very little touching. Haha! Please pray that my girls are well soon and that the rest of do not get sick. Thank you!

Spring cleaning, collapsed shelves and a desire for order ...

Posted on May. 25, 2006 at 11:21 AM

 My girls and I have been doing a bit of cleaning and organizing. While I was sick earlier this year certain areas of the house got a little messy. My daughters tried to keep things tidy but did not know where to put some things (papers, mail and magazines especially) so they piled them in neat little stacks along the wall in … my room! Bigger things that had no home of their own were put in the garage. My poor sweet husband kept trying to stress that you have to leave paths, you cannot fill in everywhere! I am so thankful for their attempts at cleaning up and for their willingness to work at getting our home organized again.

A couple of years ago we spent several months organizing just about every area of our home. Closets, bathroom, bedrooms, the school room and the kitchen were cleaned and organized. We did pretty well at keeping it that way until this past Winter/Spring. When I started feeling better (after going back off gluten!) I starting looking around and was shocked at the disorganized mess some areas of our home had become.

Over the years I seem to have developed a liking for empty surfaces and no stacks of paper in view if possible. I want to be able to open a drawer or closet and find what I was looking for. A place for everything and everything in it’s place! Soooo, my girls and I have been working to get things back in order. My room is now pileless except for the one on my hutch but that is the official home for any papers the girls find laying about - so it is okay! The rest of the house is in pretty good shape now too. Some closets need a little tweaking and another bunk bed is on the “hope to get soon” list to open up more space in the girls room. It feels soooo good to have things in better order. Now that I am feeling better we can get back to doing some of the things on the “house fix up” to do list.

The house is in better shape but the garage is still a place in which one could get lost! In addition to stuff being put out there, we had a shelf disaster. Two long shelves that hung on the garage wall, and were filled with organized boxes, collapsed. My husband found the first hanging in the air with boxes on the ground one night before bed. It never occurred to me that another shelf would fall too … well, it did. What a horrible feeling to look upon these piles of boxes that should not be there. Some were upside down, some sideways, some with lids still on and some with lids off. A few items had fallen out and were scattered about. My wedding things, books, papers, keepsakes of different sorts … :( . I could not bring myself to look at it all but for a few minutes. My second born daughter, who has such a sweet sensitive spirit about her, picked up the boxes, retrieved and replaced items and stacked the boxes. Most of the things she examined were not damaged and that is a wonder. There is much to do in the garage but now that we have days in the 100s it just may have to be a Fall project.

I function sooo much better with order around me. I spent much of my life as a disorganized perfectionist. I could make up beautiful plans for organizing my whole house but could never seem complete the whole project or follow through with the upkeep. As my first two daughters got older I found I had help in keeping things better organized. I have grown to really love having order about me.

And since this is a blog on homeschoolblogger, I can say that I do feel that home organization is a valid school subject. My girls are learning skills that will be helpful for the rest of their lives no matter what the Lord has planned for them. :)

May’s Blessings

Posted on May. 21, 2006 at 5:49 PM

May has been such an incredibly busy month for our family with several special days. Here are some of the highlights …

My first born daughter turned 16! My baby is 16 and I can hardly believe it! She is such a precious young lady and I so very thankful that the Lord gave her to me. 

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My sweet husband and I celebrated our 18^th Wedding Anniversary! How very blessed I am. I am married to my best friend and thank the Lord for giving me such a wonderful man to spend my life with.

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We found a church home. We have been praying and searching for some time. We found this church on an online directory and it is so incredibly close … it is just amazing and an answer to prayer. We were blessed to be invited to dinner at the Pastor’s house, it was so nice to get to know them better. They are a very sweet family. 

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Mother’s Day. I had lovely day with my family and then we took my mom out to dinner at IHOP … we all had breakfast for dinner! I am so blessed to be mom to my four incredible blessings.

Soooo … big special days have been happening at our house and I am exhausted! Here are some of the less important things that have also happened during the month of May: 

It hit 100* this month … more than once! It is downright hot in the afternoon. I love my air conditioner!!

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The peaches on our peach tree are ripe and ready. My daughters, the birds and our dog are all getting their share. I really want to make peach jam this year. I have never made it before. I know it cannot be that difficult, it is just a matter of doing it before the peaches are all gone. 

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The onions we planted last Fall have bloomed. Onion blooms are a big fluff ball of little white flowers. They are very pretty and neat to study. Some are really big and droop to the ground and other are smaller and stand up straight and tall.

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17 days since I blogged ...

Posted on Apr. 27, 2006 at 4:55 PM

It has been 17 days since I blogged last! Ugh! I was trying to post at least several times a week. I often think about blogging and that thought is followed by the one that says my life is not very exciting, who would want to read about it?! lol Anyone else suffer from lack of blogging confidence? Is it a disease? Is there a cure? Can I get over my blogging fears?

Hmmmmm, life at my house … My girls are all outside enjoying our absolutely beautiful weather. It is just lovely out and windy too. My sweet husband heard that it might rain. I have been letting chores and school slide a bit since I know we will have ample opportunity to catch up when summer comes. Who wants to be outside when it is 110* or more?

Yesterday was fun day at our house. It is a fun day but that really does not describe what the day really is. Each Wednesday we break from our normal schedule and let our creative sides out to play. This is a day to work on our hand work (crochet, tatting, knitting, sewing, drawing), work on the computer or have company over for tea/lunch. I really need a new name for the day!

~ Some highlights from yesterday ~

~ We had iced peppermint tea in our lovely pink glass teacups. My oldest daughter made a really yummy gluten free spice cake to eat with our tea. It was a prepackaged mix by Namaste Foods. I was really impressed. It can also be made into a carrot cake and could be used for birthdays!! We have a long standing tradition of carrot cake for birthdays. Not every birthday but often enough. We also have a special wheat flour carrot cake recipe we have been using for over 16 years.  This cake really was good enough to take its place. I would rather use a scratch cake but I am not up to experimenting right now so this bagged one is great!

~ My two older daughters and I are reading Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen in 10 chapters a week segments. This was our first week to discuss what we have read so far. Even though they have seen four different movie versions of P&P, I think both girls like the book best. They are both already done with their 10 chapters for next week’s discussion ... I have not even started yet! It is a good thing I am a fast reader because I will probably wait until the last moment just like I did this week!! :)

~ My oldest daughter posted a new picture on the girls homesteadblogger blog …  Rambling Thoughts of Two Sisters ...  .

~ I read Caterpillar Green to my two younger daughters. We bought this book a couple years ago and I forgot we had it so it had not yet been read. It is kind of an odd book, going from poetry style verses to narration to the quoted words of the characters. We will finish it next week.

~ My older daughters crocheted while I read to the youngers. The younger of the older two is making a shawl and the oldest is making an afghan. They are using cotton yarn and are both doing new patterns that they learned out of a crochet book I have had for years. Both are doing a great job!

Now, I am drawing blank and cannot even remember the rest of yesterday!! That is probably a good thing or this entry would end up reallllly long!

I will hopefully be back again before another 17 days has past … :)

A bicycle with four sets of pedals ...

Posted on Apr. 10, 2006 at 9:57 PM

Have you ever suffered from a temporary lapse of common sense that helped you to decide to do something that you immediately knew was not a good idea? This weekend we went to the zoo. We had a lovely time but I was not doing so well with walking and we wanted to go out to see the lions (I write out because they are waaaaaay out). We saw a couple of families on multiple seat bicycles and thought that looked like a fun and easy way to go see the farther parts of the zoo. We ended up renting a many seat bicycle thing with four sets of pedals. I write thing because it really was no longer a “bicycle” but more like a pedal powered car.

My brain came up with the ridiculous notion that my sweet husband, our soon to be 16 year old daughter, our 14 year old daughter and myself could pedal this thing with ease. I need to interject that our zoo is NOT flat. I should also add that neither my sweet husband nor I had ridden a bicycle in many, many … many … years and we not in the greatest shape. I think going up hill about killed us. Well, maybe not killed but it was extremely difficult. Did I mention there were not only four passengers on said bike but six … our 7 and 5 year old daughters were on there too!

Going downhill was a blast! The only thing that kind of ruined the fun of going downhill were the people who were very slow to get out of the way even with a loud bell ringing … hitting someone would not have been fun at all. We rented the bicycle for an hour, the man said we could have it for an hour and a half … we took it back after about 40 minutes!  My daughters were a little disappointed to take the four pedal torture machine back so soon, they could of pedaled on for a lot longer but wimpy people that their parents are … we could not. :)

Here are some pictures from our visit.

Rambling Thoughts on a Tuesday Afternoon

Posted on Apr. 4, 2006 at 3:20 PM

It is amazing what a short time it takes for the ground to dry and crack after a good soaking rain. We are in need of rain again and since it is overcast today, I am feeling hopeful!

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I have been doing some curriculum research and will soon be placing some orders. Exploring America: History, Literature, and Faith by Ray Notgrass and Apologia’s Biology are two of the things on my list. I love getting new books, even if they are not for me!

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Our puppy is doing well after having been “broken” last week. Since we decided not to breed him, it was time. The vet wanted us to keep him calm (hahahahahaha, he is a 7 month old Beagle! Calm is not in his nature!) for a week. We made it five days. I had to let him free yesterday as he was starting to go a little crazy. He ran around the yard about 15 times before he stopped. It was really funny. He was sooo happy. Tail wagging, tongue hanging out, ears flying. He is a lot of work but really is a sweet good natured dog.

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Tomorrow is fun day at our house. I am not sure what we will do. Sew, cross stitch, tat? I know we will have tea and gluten free cookies. My second oldest will decorate with flowers … she loves to bring in flowers. Ooohhh, I should have bought snaps this weekend at JoAnn so we could finish our doll dresses. They have been done for a long time … except for snaps! I did remember to buy serger thread so now we will have two sergers with useable thread in them, that will be nice.

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We still need to do our taxes. I cannot believe we have not done them yet! We usually do them as soon as possible but this year I keep forgetting about them.

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Today is Tuesday but for me it is more like Wednesday. My sweet husband has Friday off sooo it seems like it bumps the days up one. Yay for a three day weekend! :)

Friday …

Posted on Mar. 24, 2006 at 4:24 PM

Friday already! My, how time flies. :)

We have been working in the school and sewing rooms today. They are alllllmost done. We could sew now but there are still a few piles on the floor that need to be dealt with.

All this moving about has shown us what a mess some areas were. My girls have been going through their keepsakes, old school papers and records, and clothing. Some of the stuff they kept is rather funny but I feel that way about things I find that I kept too! They will have a lot more room when they are done and that is a very good thing.

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Tonight is movie night at our house. A kind of stay at home date night for me and my sweet husband. Our girls have a picnic of sorts in the school room and watch a dvd on the computer (it has a big screen). My husband and I watch a dvd and eat in the livingroom. We have walkie talkies to talk back and forth with the girls and they get used often! Lol

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The mutt … well, uh he really is not a mutt, he is a pure breed beagle with a name and everything … and I spent some time out back today. We have four trees in bloom. All three citrus (lemon, orange and tangerine) and the apple tree. The peach tree has been done blooming for some time and has little bitty peaches all over it. The plum is just now starting to get buds. Maybe it will be in bloom by next week.

With blossoms comes bees and we have plenty of those!

We checked on the garden and all is well. I watered the areas where my girls planted seeds yesterday … gotta keep that soil moist! I think we are getting up around 80* in the afternoons now. It was quite warm out there today.

My girls are going to be writing about our gardening experiences this year in our garden journal. I think it will be fun to have several of us making entries.

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Not much else going on here today but I am trying to become more regular in my posting so … some days rambling on about mostly nothing it will have to be!!

Have a blessed weekend everyone. :)

Wednesday's Ramblings

Posted on Mar. 22, 2006 at 5:11 PM

Today is a fun day at our house! What does that mean? It means we change around our schedule a bit and do something different from the rest of the week. We have made Wednesday our official fun day. We have tea and decorate with flowers. :)

Two weeks ago we had a sewing day and worked on doll dresses. Last week we had to swap Wednesday with Friday, we had a dear friend over for lunch. Today we worked a bit in our new sewing room. My girls decided to try a dormitory style bedroom so we can have a sewing room! Soooo …last week we moved the school room to an old bedroom and turned the school room into a sewing room. Things are still not quite organized. The sewing room is not yet useable but it is getting there. We are a bit slow, hopefully we can get it all done by the end this week.

I have been trying to teach my girls to sew for a handful of years. They started out using donated machines from other family members. It was such a sweet gesture but I found that we were spending a lot of time trying to understand the quirkiness of all these different older machines and not so much time sewing. I have a strong desire for my girls to learn how to sew well but was making little progress. We decided to buy the girls some new machines and it has been a very good decision. I bought my machine about 6 years or more ago, it is no longer made but they did have an updated model that is basically the same in operation but styled a little different on the outside. My girls do have more decorative stitches on their machines than I do but I can live with that!

It has been a lot of fun being able to just let them sew without having to do a lot of adjusting, rethreading and trying to get things to do what they are supposed to. The new machines came with free “get to know your sewing machine” classes. Since I also bought my machine from the same company, and never took my classes, I was allowed to take them with my girls. We had a lot of fun in classes one and two, we were not able to make class number three and will have to make it up later.

Right now I am sitting outside on my back patio. We recently went wireless with our internet connection … what freedom!! I am out here in the lovely weather typing about my day while my two youngest are playing and my two oldest are planting herb and veggie seeds in the garden. Chili is cooking in the crockpot and my sweet husband should be calling any minute to let me know he is on his way home from work. I am blessed. :)

A Little About Me and My Family :)

Posted on Mar. 21, 2006 at 11:05 AM

My name is Rachelle and I am 36 years old. I have been married to my sweet husband for 18 years this Spring. We have fours daughters, ages 15, 14, 7 and 5. We have homeschooled from the beginning. Depending on your philosophy of home education that could be for soon to 16 years if counting from birth, 10+ years if counting from my first born being 5 upon entering kindergarten or 9+ years if she was six! Maybe you can tell by such a statement that I believe Homeschooling is life and don’t put much credit in grade levels? :)

My sweet husband, and yes he really is, is a wonderfully sweet, easy going man. If you have read a currently popular book, my husband fits Mr. Steady to a T … or is that an S? He is a very dependable man who loves his family and desires to support and care for them to the best of his ability. He loves not only supplying our needs but many of our wants too. I am sooo very blessed to have him as my husband.

My oldest daughter will soon be 16. She has dark blond hair and blue eyes. She is very, very intelligent and has a memory close to photographic when it comes to what she has read. She is very serious and very literal. She loves writing poetry and stories, playing the violin and piano, and gardening. She could read all day long without a break if hunger and potty breaks were not such strong urges.

My second born is 14. She is taller (!) than me with green eyes and brown hair. She is filled to overflowing with compassion. She is my social butterfly! She plays the piano, is learning to play the celtic harp and loves to draw.

Number three is seven. She has medium blond hair and blue eyes. She is a sweet, cuddly girl who is very interested in all the things going on around her. Questions, questions, questions … being inquisitive is a good thing!

My youngest is five. She has reddish, blondish, brownish hair with blue eyes and way too much energy. She is almost always moving and doing something … sitting still is not her favorite thing to do.

Since four children barely take up any room at all we have a small zoo to fill all the extra space! lol

We have a six month old Beagle. He is a very sweet, good natured dog but he is a puppy. He is more trouble than all our other animals put together. I cannot wait until he is older and calmer and will just lay around and be still!

Cats. We have three. A girl and two boys. The first two are older, they basically eat, sleep and eat and sleep. Every now and then they will play … briefly. The last one is 1.5 years old. We thought it would be a wonderful experience for the girls to have a kitten and see what a young cat is like. He has been a lot of fun for them and ever since he got out of the destroying things stage, we have not been sorry we got him.

Next in line is a desert tortoise. He is about 11 years old, we have had him since he was two. He hibernates for several months of the year and wanders around the yard, eating grass, weeds, produce offerings and fruit that has dropped from our fruit trees, the rest of the year.

Last on the pet list is two surviving zebra fish. We just had a fish and water snail death epidemic … so sad.

I am back!

Posted on Mar. 21, 2006 at 7:43 AM

I have not posted here in quite awhile … but I am back! I have been thinking a lot about exactly what I want this blog to be about. When I first started blogging I wrote about a bunch of different topics, no real theme and very little about homeschooling.

Then I started a blog at homesteadblogger! What a fun place that is. If any of you are more inclined toward the “do it yourself” side of life, you should check it out. Some many wonderful, informative topics are posted on every day … gardening (veggies, herbs, fruit trees, flowers), cooking and food preservation (canning, drying), animals (farm and regular old pet types), herbs and herbal medicine (growing, treating), sewing and handwork. Many other topics too. There are families with lots of land, a little land, in the city, in the country and even apartment dwellers. Homesteading is mostly about doing it (and the definition of “it” is huge!) yourself if possible.

So … back to this blog. I think I have a plan and I think I have a theme. It is soooo original – homeschooling!! I think I will just talk about our days and what each of my daughters is up to. And since I love to learn too … I will also post about my self directed continuing education.

My first post, after this one, is going to be a get to know my family and I post. I have never really written much about my family so that is the first thing on my blog “to do” list. :)

Something to think about ...

Posted on Jan. 21, 2006 at 8:13 AM

Last Summer I read the book "Pocketful of Pinecones" by Karen Andreola. I really enjoyed the book and felt encouraged in my job as a homeschool mom. One of the things that has really stuck with me was not part of the storyline of the book, it was the dedication. It seems a very simple little dedication but those few words have really been a challenge to me. Here is the dedication:

"This book is dedicated to my fellow homeschool mother. She has taken the step, with her husband and children, to live the life she has imagined."

Am I living the life I have imagined? Am I doing all that I can to live that life? Have I gotten lazy or complacent? Have I forgotten to work towards our long term goals, our long term dreams? Have I let the common, needful, constant things in life take over and squish the hoped for things. Am I doing the least I can to get by or am I really and truly working to live the life I have imagined. And I will add the life that, along with my sweet husband, we have prayed over, discussed, dreamed about and decided upon. Am I truly doing my all to work towards our goals as a family?

The life I have imagined ... something to think about.