So Subway has this essay contest which is open to children in pre K-grade 6 ... unless they are homeschooled children. "No home schools will be accepted" is the exact language used on their contest page.

The contest winner receives, among other things, $5000 for athletic equipment for his school. Okay, I get it, the $5000 is not intended for a single family to win. But what a short-sighted decision! Wouldn't it have been simpler to say that the winner could designate the institution of her choice to receive the $5000? Eligible institutions could include not only schools but community centers and playgrounds, recreational sport leagues, and even churches.

I bet they get a huge backlash from the homeschool community. I admit, they've already heard from me.

Posted in Family Matters

Posted in Family Matters

So it seems that The Pistol, 6, seems to be one of those people who just happens to be susceptible to boils. He had one in an unmentionable location several years ago while still in diapers. Then a couple of months ago, a very large one rose up above his left knee. Volcano-like, the surrounding skin was swollen, angry red, and painful, rising high to meet the core. It was a painful progression and when it burst, a gaping hole nearly as big around as a pencil where the core had been ... seemingly as deep as the Grand Canyon. Now weeks later, after the scab has healed, there is still serious discoloration for about an inch all the way around, where the skin was infected, which is only slowly fading.

So imagine my distress when, while this disaster was still healing, I looked closer one day at his eye and asked him if he had banged into something, because there was swelling and redness radiating out from a point in the middle of his eyebrow. He had not hit it, but when I convinced him to let me touch it, it was immediately obvious that it was something much bigger than a pimple forming under the skin. I do know that boils (or anything) around the eye can be very serious; I read about orbital cellulitis which was rather frightening.

It was too late for anything but the emergency room at this point, and that seemed a bit drastic for a beginning boil. However, near the end of the first boil ordeal, I had discovered two homeopathic remedies for boils, which were no use for that one since it was so near to bursting already. So I decided to start with the homeopathics, alternating belladonna with arsenicum, every one every 30 minutes. And the next morning, peering closely at his eyebrow, there seemed to be less redness and swelling on the lid. I kept giving the belladonna and arsenicum, and kept it smeared with Black ointment, which I also discovered too late for any good with the previous boil. The swelling kept going down. I watched it very closely and at any sign of it getting bigger or worse even slightly, we would have headed to the doctor.

However, and blessedly, it reduced and reduced until it was barely pimple-sized. Then I turned my mind to wondering why he would get two boils so quick together and I think I came up with a somewhat plausible explanation. Until recently, he would crawl into the shower with me or his dad several times a week, but sometime back he began disdaining that. Too much clean, I suppose. The lack of showers, plus lots of outdoor play in what has turned out to be the worst allergy season ever on record, which I think may have lowered his immune system, it most likely the culprit.

So baths or showers every other day at a minimum, and so far, thank the good Lord, no further boils have reared their ugly heads.

Posted in Project: In Progress

So, it's now April and my famous afghan is only about 5 inches long. But I HAVE been working on it! Mind you, this project is on needles that I can barely get my hands around, and with three different yarns. So while it does get bulky fast, it is REALLY hard to tell exactly what I am doing, or not doing, or pick up dropped stitches, or see the pattern. I started with a really odd pattern on which I kept losing my place, and no way to count the stitches or fix problems, so I ripped it out several times. Then I came up with my own pattern, much simpler to do and keep track of. KK-PP-KK-PP all the way across, then on the return journey PP-KK-PP-KK, so it will basically be a long rib-knit afghan. I still had to frog it twice before getting it started to my satisfaction, but now it IS started, and it IS growing, and I AM proud of it, thankyouverymuch.

Posted in Family Matters

We figure the total the burglar made off with is somewhere around $1500-$1700 worth of goods. As we have a $1000 deductible on our homeowner's insurance, we figured we we just take the loss. Then Lenny called.

Lenny is our wonderful handyman, who, when I called him at 5:45 on a Thursday evening, when he was surely headed home in heavy traffic from a long day of physical labor, and told him what had happened with our back door, didn't even hesitate or wait for me to ask, but said, "I'll be right over." He secured the door to the door jamb with five enormous screws, which no crowbar could dislodge. The next day, he sent over a door specialist to have a look at our door.

It's not a typical back door. For one thing, it has an enormous, not-quite floor to doortop single sheet of glass (double-paned and hard to break, thank goodness). For another, the doorjamb is double-wide, and the door shares the frame with a twin that looks like another door, but is in fact just a window, as it does not open.

Unfortunately, it ALL has to be replaced, door jamb, door, and decorative door-like window.

Unfortunately, it won't be cheap.

Unfortunately, the cost of replacing the door is almost two and a half times as much as the cost of the goods we lost!

Now that we are looking at nearly $4000 to fix the door (demo, new parts, paint, cart off debris), we are calling Chubb. Fortunately they have (so far) lived up to their excellent reputation and not giving us any hassle about the claim. So far. We'll see once everything has been submitted.

Posted in Family Matters

They do say all things come to she who waits. Including, as it turns out, the chance to foil a daring daylight robbery. So, my chance came last week and while I did foil it, the glow of accomplishment was somewhat dimmed by the fact that (A) I didn't realize until about 20 minutes after we were home that someone had, in fact, been involved in said daring robbery, and scurried out the back when he heard me turn the key in the lock; and (B) in fact, he wasn't completely foiled, having made away with upwards of $1500 worth of electric guitar, case, and most of our jewelry. All mine, of course, except for hubby's wedding ring which was in my jewelry case. Along with my OWN wedding ring. We exchanged anniversary rings on our 20th wedding anniversary a couple of years ago, and we both wear those daily now.

Other than actually locking the doors when we left, I guess our house was pretty much an open invitation to a random robbery. And I do think it was random; anyone casing the house would have known I was normally home on that day at that time. But all the window blinds facing the fenced back yard were wide open, allowing anyone to see almost every part of the house and certainly enough to ascertain it was empty. The north side of our long, narrow yard rises up to meet the block fence; and while I certainly couldn't scramble over it, I can see that it would present no problem to a reasonably agile young male. Across the fence, the neighbors have a huge, heavy growth of oleanders, under which the utility company obligingly keeps a trimmed pathway next to my fence for an access to various wires, providing ample cover for anyone to stand completely unseen and scope the backyard and as much as he could see into the house.

So after watching a while, he jumped the fence and paced the length of the house, checking that it was empty and seeing what was out and accessible. My husband's brand new electric guitar - his gift from his mother for finishing his disseration before Christmas last year - was what he spotted. He crowbarred the back door in my bedroom right open, busting the lock and splintering the doorjamb. He picked up my son's guitar case, removed his cheap student guitar, and replaced it with the electric guitar. Then into the master closet where he was a little over halfway through my jewelry chest when he heard me unlocking the door and scarpered. He obligingly pulled the door shut behind him so I wouldn't immediately notice someone had been inside.

The first thing I said on walking into the living room was, "Hey, you didn't put your guitar away this morning!" When my son replied he had, I told him to put it away again, since someone else must have taken it out. I didn't pay attention when he told me he couldn't find his case; he never notices anything, does he?

Then I plopped down in my comfy big chair, less than 3 feet away from the broken back door. And I never noticed the broken lock and splintered jamb. When the phone rang I went to answer, and there was my little silver box, where I put my anniversary band and everyday earrings at night. Open and empty. What pops into my head except ... The Three-Year-Old. She obligingly told me that yes, she HAD gotten into my jewelry, and obediently led me through the house, looking all over for where she could have put it. She took me into the playroom, scuffed around on the floor for a minute, then sweetly pointed up to the top of the closet. I swatted her bottom, then. :-(

While storming back to my bathroom, I saw that the amplifier to the electric guitar was pulled out into the middle of the room and while looking for the 5yo to scold this time, I saw that the electric guitar was, in fact, not on its stand. (I guess he figured the amplifier was too heavy to take over the wall with him.) I actually, actually made a circuit of the house twice, looking for where they had laid it, while it slowly crept into my robber-resistant mentality that a 3yo and 5yo could not, in fact, have dragged an electric guitar anywhere in our mostly tile-floor house without my hearing it. That’s when my spidey-senses, which had been set to 'tingle' about since I saw the amplifier pulled out of place, started roaring up and down my spine. Having traversed the entire house twice, and even been in the garage, I knew no one was going to leap out at me so I didn’t start a mad trample for the front door. Instead, I checked the back yard door in the kitchen – locked and okay; then walked rather slowly back to my bedroom, past the squashy green chair where I had retired oh-so-briefly 10 minutes earlier, to brush back the branch of spindly ficus that obscured the lock on the door and the splinters surrounding it.

At this point, dear reader, the story is pretty well told. Except for the fact that, NATURALLY, my husband was out of town, and not answering his cell phone. Our usual code is: I will call his phone and if he doesn’t answer, I assume he is in a meeting and will call me back when he can; on the other hand if I call back immediately a time or two, he assumes it is urgent and hies himself out of said meeting to answer my summons. He didn’t answer, didn’t answer again, and didn’t answer a third time. At this point, I brilliantly hung up and … CALLED MY SISTER. After breathlessly informing her that we had had a break-in, she queried, “Did you call the police?” Umm, no. “Why haven’t you called the police?” Because Sweetiekins didn’t answer, and I called YOU! “Hang up and call the police!” So I hung up. In mid-sentence, she informed me later, as she was still talking but when she instructed me to hang up, I just hung up! Hey, she’s my big sister, and a teacher besides! What other option did I have?

The police didn’t show up for more than two hours, during which time I was finally able to get hold of hubby. He had, in fact, left his phone in the hotel room while at a banquet. I knew that Doug was at the conference with him, and I know Doug’s wife, so I called her and asked for his cell phone number, explained briefly, and called and left a message for Doug to GET MY HUSBAND ON THE PHONE!!! Which he did, since he was at the same banquet WITH his phone. Thanks, Doug!

My sister, her husband, and her two kids spent the night with me, after the broken door was screwed shut to its frame. And believe it or not, I did manage to get a few hours of sleep that night, after checking on the kids a half-dozen times.

The police were unable to lift any fingerprints anywhere, including from the shiny surface of my son’s guitar, so sadly bereft of its case. Can you believe it, the burglar didn’t even have the courtesy to leave his books behind? Had to go find a new set of books before his weekly music lesson.

Posted in Family Matters

After picking my dad up at the airport, the 3yo and the 5yo were pestering him with their ages: "Dandy, I'm 5 years old!" "Dandy, I free!"

After a pause for some adult conversation, the 5yo said, "Dandy, how old are YOU?"

He replied, "I'm older than five."

"WHOA my GOSH!" was the astonished reply. A few minutes later he repeated, "How OLD are you, Dandy?"

Dad answered, "I'm afraid to tell you! You might have a heart attack!"

Posted in The Rattery

My oldest daughter was Scabbers' owner and is delighted that he turned out to be, in fact, Suzi.

 

Posted in The Rattery

So, the kids wanted some pets. DH said only caged pets - not my first choice, but okay. We looked into small pets and decided rats were the ones for us! I was fortunate to get in touch with someone who knew someone whose daughter's high school biology class was in the midst of a breeding project, so directly after Thanksgiving, we acquired three male rats, about 2 months old at the time. Two of the males were very well developed and agressive, while the third was underdeveloped. I asked my sister, whose children have owned rats for many years, and she assured me that it was just an underdeveloped male rat. So our little male ratties were Sniff (Smith, mispronounced by my 5yo, and the mispronunciation stuck), Scabbers (obvious origin), and Skitterwit (named by yours truly).

Then one day I picked up Scabbers and noticed he had gotten VERY fat. In dread, I picked up Skitterwit and Sniff, hoping to feel that they too were overfed and rotund.

They weren't.

So Scabbers-now-Suzi was moved out of the big cage back into the small cage they came in. And on December 30, New Year's Eve Eve, near midnight, we got to watch her birth a litter of TWELVE rittens (that's Rat kITTENS for those out of the rodent-speak loop). They are now two weeks old and awfully cute, I admit. We have five girls and seven boys. I looked up for myself how to differentiate and I think I did a pretty good job with IDs. We'll check again in a few more days to confirm.

Fortunately my sister's kids, who currently have no rats, are taking four. (Serves her right, eh?) And through our homeschool group we've already adopted out three more, so have five left to find homes for. Of course they are not ready to leave mom yet. We'll have to see if there are any we just can't bear to part with.

Posted in Family Matters

Last night a fellow homeschooler called and said she had access to some free tickets to the Nutcracker being performed at the city symphony orchestra, and did I want any? No one was interested except my eldest daughter (11yo), so tonight she and I are getting all dolled up (herself under much duress) and heading out for some good mother-daughter time. Actually, since there were more tickets, she invited two homeschool friends who are afterward spending the night, so this is a really good day for her! And I'm getting to wear a new outfit I bought a month ago and was saving for something special. What fun!