CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN NOW!!

Let them know your feelings on CAP AND TRADE, and the UN Treaty of the Child. Cap and trade is being voted on today.

If you don't call and talk to your rep.'s office they can't vote to represent you.

Educate yourself and call....now...

The Circle deadline is tomorrow...

and I called and got the information on how to transfer.

This may not seem significant to you, but I have been with Circle since Maddy was a kindergartener. There is comfort and safety and loyalty all mixed up in my feelings towards Circle.

And then there is my wallet... and Circle is VERY expensive. It is 9 times more expensive than the other umbrella school I am looking at and they offer the same services I would be obtaining from Circle...

I really like HOUSE, the Circle co-op, and want Olivia to attend again, so I think we are going to take this year off, and then enroll Liv with Circle next year so she may go to co-op and Maddy can stay with Crossroads...

Why do I not feel great about saving all this money???

Circle has done a wonderful job of earning loyalty and making you feel like a family..

I'm sorry Linda ;)

I have decided to design my own homeschool curriculum...

after 5 years of using sonlight I feel I have a gift for putting together curriculum pretty well.

So I have decided to use Dr Quinn Medicine Woman as a spine to our American History study.


You may laugh or think I have really lost it and have been at the bar all night but let me just tell you in the season and a half we have watched we have touched on topics of:

* Woman's suffrage
* The Civil War
* Slavery
* racism
* The gold rush
* mining
* Union and big labor
* Indian relations
* General Custer
* Cheyenne Indians, Dog soldiers, & their culture
* The railroad
* The Flu epidemic
* Cattle drives
* KKK
* The orphan train
* western justice
** and the list goes on and on....

These are all topics we have and are covering in our actual "curriculum". And they have put a real face on the struggles and what life may have looked like in that period. Of course with a smokin hot mountain man named Sully to guide poor Dr Quinn and kiss her when she needed it ;)

This series has opened up alot of dialogue about this time period that I am sure we would never have discussed. The KKK episode was hard to watch and made me feel such anger and injustice. I know about racism but Maddy had not ever witnessed it in a dramatic form. It is one thing to read about it, but quite another to have it layed out in one of your favorite series.

It helps that Maddy loves it and that she will finish all school work and chores diligently so she can watch it every night. I love when the kids have currency!!

Well look at convention next year for my booth, Homeschooling with the Quinn method

A Ethan Funny

Ethan has the cutest way of asking about himself right now. He refers to himself as "me". So he will say is...me sick, is me going, where was me at... I know I should correct him but it is so darn sweet....

My sweet boy has also learned how to lie. I noticed a sharpie marker drawing on my wall in my bedrooom.
Me: Ethan did you do this?
Ethan: As sweet and innocent as can be he said no, Livia did it..
Me: I called Liv in and asked her, "did you do this?"
Liv: No, she is rather insulted I would think a 6 year old would color on the wall
Me: Ethan did you do this tell me the truth...
Ethan: wide eyed and still proclaiming innocense, "No, Maddy did it"
Maddy please come in here...
Maddy: I did NOT do that, Ethan did. Of course I know he did it!!
Me: Ethan, it is wrong to tell mommy stories, did you color on mommies wall?? I am giving him my most serious mommy stare down. You know the one that can discern all wrong doing...He is starting to cave under the stare, but he gets an epiphany....He looks up with his big eyes getting wider and whispers... "the aliens did it................."
Me:biting the inside of my cheeks to contain the laughter I feel coming...Maddy and Liv are snickering.. He is still looking at me innocently trying to judge if I might be ok with the alien answer...it got pretty boring after that.. some talking, a spanking and some more talking...about how aliens shouldn't lie to their all knowing mothers...

Licking Toliets at Walmart....

will give you the plague, so that must have been what my kids have been doing....

Liv is better, Ethan is in the midst of the croup, and Maddy came home from VBS yesterday throwing up?????????????????

Ay,yi,yiiii you can find me down at the bar if anyone is looking!!!

Lots of Pictures

I am overdue for some pictures so here is Trinity's VBS and the Methodist VBS

SICK

How yucky is it to be sick in the midst of summer.

Liv has the croup. Last Sunday she started in with blood shot eyes, fever, and a sore throat. Then a few days later she had a barking cough and felt like she couldn't get enough air. Wednesday we saw Dr. C who said "croup" and started her on steroids and respiratory treatments. Yesterday she seemed much improved and the fever was gone. Last night she woke up again coughing , and a fever and she has proceeded to sleep on the couch all day today...

Ethan is trying to decide if he is sick. He had a fever and a sore throat this morning, but after some advil he has played as usual all day.

So pretty much it will go like this.. Liv will get better over the weekend and then Ethan will be sick all next week so I can miss 2 full weeks of a good night sleep and have to wash every blanket and sheet in the whole house, again....

The joys of motherhood..

My cousin Amelia is down and staying with my mom. They are playing at the beach today.

Well that pretty much sums up our week. I am still schooling Maddy and we are on track, and this weekend I think we are hunkering down and watching the next 3 Dr. Quinn discs.

Summer

Summer is here and we are as busy as ever. I love the lazy pace of summer, even as busy as we are, it still feels like "summer".

* the first week of June we attended the methodist VBS it was themed "Paul in Rome." This is one of my favorite VBS's. They have dinner for the family and then the kids go to their class. Maddy attended Mega Sports camp and learned the "Hoedown Throwdown."

* We are schooling full time in the afternoons after VBS and before swim team. Olivia started Sonlight Core 1 and Maddy has 10 weeks left of Sonlight Core 4. We are taking a break in October for 2 weeks and then 6 weeks off in November & December. We are currently reading Charlottes Web with Liv and The Great Turkey Walk & The Terrible Wave with Maddy.

* We are in week 4 of no TV. It has been one of the best things I could have done from a school standpoint. I no longer fight with the TV to keep their attention. And once the lure is gone, there is so much more time freed up. We do have netflix and Dr Quinn Medicine woman has been our family treat in the evenings. I will be so sad when season 6 comes to an end....

* Liv has the croup so I am home with her giving breathing treatments for the rest of the week.

* My garden is in it's final death gasp... the heat and rain have been too much for her. When it is finished I will dig and grade up the whole thing and put down 8-10 square foot gardening boxes.

* and what is on my bedstand... The backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan.

* I'm contemplating getting in the camper and meeting up with the Humston's...

* And in general just enjoying summer....

Dino Baby

While in Georgia we bought Ethan a baby dinosaur webkinz.
Unaware

that this would become something very special to him..

He says "it has love" which he explains by showing the heart.

in the last 3 days he has carried it around and slept with it at night..
and I just think it is sooooo cute!!

A Slow and Gentle Push!

A few weeks ago in Sunday school Maddy was involved in a conversation regarding God and answering prayers. She argued, to her credit, that God answered all prayers, Yes, No or maybe!

The question was a yes or no question. It asked did God answer the prayers of the church when Herod had James, brother of John, put to death?

Maddy said, "yes" it just wasn't what the church wanted as an answer..

Well the Sunday school teacher came to me and wanted me to review this answer with her. As we all know it can be unnerving as they get up in age and start having their own take on theology and then repeating it in Sunday school.

For the life of me I could not find the error in her reasoning. Logically I knew God answers all prayer. I have tumbled it around in my head, I asked her teacher if he thought the answer was wrong? To which he just smiled and said she was right. Yet there has been an air of expectancy around what I needed to discuss with her.

Well I had put it out of my mind for the last two weeks, and I woke from a dead sleep with an epiphany! Maddy wasn't wrong, I needed to hear this not logically but spiritually. I have had a difficult time since this fall reconnecting spiritually. I am sure some of it is from anger at my prayers not being answered the way I wanted it. I was going through the motions at church, at home but not really feeling. Keeping everyone at arms length and avoiding too much interaction from the church body. I mentally still want to not be there but am feeling the pull spiritually calling me back.

So my prayers were not unanswered, just answered in a way I didn't want. So do I choose as a toddler to throw my fit? All along not seeing the bigger picture? It is much easier to talk theology than to have to walk in it.

Little House Series Part 1

This will be a series of posts on ways to "green" up your home and checkbook at the same time. In an age that is more enviornmentally conscious, chemical conscious and unfortunately wallet conscious how do we, so to speak "have it all"?

Well if you no longer had to purchase your laundry soap at 5-9.00 a bottle every week, or could use soap that cost .09 a bar, supplemented your grocery bill with home grown pesticide free veggies, and the list goes on and on. Would this help?

This will be a summer long weekly posts on alternatives to buying high priced green products. This is common sense from "Grandma's Kitchen." Cause' grandma was green before green was cool...

Free Garden

A garden can be as expensive or as cheap as you want to make it..

Visions of raised beds dance in my head, and I think do they really cost that MUCH???

Only if you are not handy, and by handy I mean resourceful. Pallets are free, and a great source of wood for a raised garden bed, or compost pile. You can go to lawn mower shops or look by dumpsters to find often new pallets for free. Lawn mower shops carry the really long pallets that have 2x4's on them. You just need to have a way to get them to your home.

Then pull them apart with a hammer and crow bar, and assemble with nails. They can be any dimension you need. A straight saw will work if you have one, and if not you can take it to Lowe's and ask nicely if they would be willing to cut it to your dimensions.








Now that you have your bed assembled, till up your patch of dirt by hand. For weed control snag some papers out of the local recycle bins, wet them and line them on the ground. Now for some good dirt! Craigslist often has listings of people offering fill dirt for free pick up. If you live in farm area ask local horse farms if you can dig in their manure pile for some OLD stuff. It needs to be dry and crusty looking.




For your next planting time you will want to compost some soil to fill your beds. This is still free, use yard clippings that people have bagged and are on the corner on trash day. Add veggie, & egg scraps, and any bunny,chicken,cow, or horse droppings to it. I will post more on making a compost bin in the future.

Now for something to put in your free garden. How about some free seeds? Wintersown offers free seeds with a self addressed stamped envelope. Walmart has seeds for .20 cents a packet, and Home depot will offer buy one get one seeds. Your best bet may be to invest in heirloom seeds from a seed swap, and then save your seeds for next planting. Children can get free seeds here.

So let's recap. Free raised bed+ free weed control+free dirt +fertilizer+free seeds= free food!

A small garden can make a big difference on your grocery bill.

Toffee Apple Dip

Apple Toffe Dip
1 - 8 oz. block softened cream cheese
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 pkg of a 8 oz. bag of Toffee Bits (you find this beside the choc. chips)
6-9 Granny Smith Apples cut into wedges for dipping
Mix together with until smooth - cream cheese, sugars and vanilla. Fold in toffee bits and refridgerate for at least 2 hours, the longer the better the flavors meld. I cut the apples just before serving to prevent them turning brown and coat them in lemon juice.

photo courtesy of yourhomebasedmom.com

What does 36.00 get you nowadays?

How about:

10 Jars of Hellmans Mayo
8- boxes of Graham Crackers
1- Gallon of Milk
4- Grands Biscuits
2- Juicy Juice Apple Juice
4- Boxes Duncan Hines Brownie Mix
2- Bottles of Glass Plus
2- Green Giant frozen Vegetable Boxes
3- Vidalia Onions
1- bunch of bananas
2- Cucumbers
2- Loaves of White Mountain Bakery Bread
2- Hidden Valley Ranch bottles salad dressing

The total was 36.00 with 99.00 in savings...

Best deals ** .24 Glass Plus, .75 Grands biscuits, .84 Ranch dressing, .99 graham crackers, and 1.50 Mayo., .50 cents green giant frozen veggies.

Check out Southernsavers.com for more weekly deals and printable coupons...

**There is quite a few Kashi, cascadian farm and another organic brand on BOGO at Publix and matching printable Q's
**5lb sugar is on sale and with a food lion printable it drops it to .99-1.29 a bag
**Food lion also has 2.00 off meat Q that you can use when buying publix meat.

AND DO NOT forget to go to KRAFT.com and print your coupons, and then go to coupons.com and print another copy. Both sites will let you print 2 copies so you should have 4 coupons per item....There are alot of good Q's out right now for summer.

Things that make you say, What The ??????

The indignation, you know that rooster doesn't want to wear a cape!

Chicken Diapers, Yall?

Let me introduce you to the newest member of our coop.

This is Dreamer

She is a sweet 12 week old Red Star

She is also been the victim

of

coop bullying

I found her being chased and pecked violently this afternoon. She has been here 2 days with no

incident.

I got to her before any damage was done physically.

But mentally who knows? Being bullied can hurt a young ones self esteem.

And now I have found her checking out the cat's watering bowl,

and just chilling in the kitchen with me while I was making dinner.

She's really sweet, and really scared of being in the coop.

One of the older hussies decided to make her the target, and let me tell you chickens do succumb to peer pressure.


Why even sweet little Sparkles was pecking this poor baby!



When you put her in the coop she paces by the door and cries..

So


Maddy has moved her into a large dog crate in the school room..



and I am wondering?




Where can I find some of those chicken diapers?

Mother's Day

My three blessings!
I sit typing this in my fresh cleaned house. Today was wonderful. My angels finished cleaning my car, which looks fabulous and my house. I start the week all fresh and shiny. All the laundry is completed and even the upstairs is clean.

YAY!!

I love a clean organized home to start my week off.

I spent most of the day with my BFF, and I just want to say what a wonderful mom she is. It has been really cool over the years to see our friendship grow and blossom into being like family. You know your like family when you can't hide your bad traits any longer. She knows them all and still hangs around.. Happy Mother's Day BFF!!!!!!!! I think your one of the coolest mom's I know!

And here is a glimpse (to prove she exsists for Tiff) since she won't willingly pose for a picture.

Need A Laugh?

Do yourself a favor and GO, right now here, and read the post .

Then follow the link at the bottom and read the next post.

You won't be sorry!

I love reading him..............

Time Out Friday

* Ok, I am giving myself a time out. We are going to do all the little projects I need accomplished for my sanity. I pulled Mike's spotlight out last night and continued weeding the garden until 10. Crazy, I tell you! So I am getting my house clean, my car clean, and all the little things that are bugging me.


* I am taking Maddy to the Ped today for a earache and acne. Since we started swimming her face has gotten sooo bad. I feel sorry for her and the dermatologist appointment is not until June. I think the chlorine is drying out her face. Unfortunately she is the only child in our group to really have acne yet...

* Tomorrow I am going to SWR training refresher. By Ethan's vocabulary you would think I know how to SWR just fine... But I need a refresher on how to teach children to SWR.


* And I am sure while I am gone my family will be doing all the things on my mother's day list.
*clean out my car, wash and vacuum, weed my garden, clean their rooms, build a compost
pile. I love Mom's day weekend, there is no NASCAR...so Sunday is fair game for
projects.

Shut-Up!!

I am going to date myself here but that's okay I think all of you are older than me anyway ;)

Do you remember the Twilight Zone episodes on primetime TV? There was one about a woman who somehow was granted the power to make everything stand still when she said "shut-up". She used this power when her kids were driving her crazy or other things like that. Well one day she was grocery shopping and a nuclear war head was getting ready to hit, you could see it in the sky and she said "shut-up" and then she was the only one trapped in a frozen world by herself. If she undid it they would all die. I always thought I would get all my family in our car and drive somewhere safe and then undo it... selfish aren't I?

Anyway the reason I told you this enthralling story is I need to make time stand still and catch up. Everything is out of order. My house is in disorder, my garden is in disorder, my car is a wreck, and I am behind in school, and church obligations.... I just want to scream ................SHUT-UP..............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Loser Thursday

**Ok, so I COMPLETELY & UTTERLY forgot about Holes. We were supposed to be in Orlando for the Rep play and I forgot!

*I am 3 days behind in reading and have Art,Writing Club, and swim team this afternoon before I can try and read 45 chapters to Maddy.

* Our A/C unit died on Tuesday night (the downstairs unit). It was the motor and we went 2 days with no air in the mid 90's. I know there are some who will not sympathize with me... but, I just told the kids in honor of Cinco de Mayo we were living like the mexicans during that time... They were not impressed. So, while the new motor was being installed my upstairs unit dies and needs a new motor. Needless to say the kids are sleeping in the living room at night for a while...

* I went to publix last night and felt like a criminal walking out. My bill was 140.00 and after coupons it reduced it to 49.72. I had 6 boxes of Capri suns for free. 6 boxes of Eggos for .25 a box, 4 -5lb bags of apples for a 1.50 a bag. .49 sour cream, .19 mahatma rice, and the list goes on and on. I had a FULL cart of groceries. I kept expecting to have a siren or the manager come over and take me away. You should feel sorry for the people behind me in line. It took her 10 minutes to ring up my coupons. In the parking lot I kept thinking, load up your groceries before the manager comes out for my grocery booty. Arrrgh- matey!

* Ethan will be going to preschool in the fall. He loved it, and Ms Shawnie has another peanut allergy child that will be attending. I don't know why that makes me feel better, but it does. I will pick him up before lunch daily. Oh, my baby!!!!!!!!!!

* Ok, I am off to take a shower the a/c is cranked and I am cooool today....