...the difference between a "v" and a "w"???
I’ve come to a realization about Sam. He’s not dumb. That’s not the realization—I already knew that. But I’ve always held to that “maybe he’s not ready” philosophy concerning the fact that he still doesn’t know all of his letters. Kate & Joe both knew their letters before they turned two years old. That puts Sam 3 years older than they were and he still doesn’t know ‘em all. I try real hard not to compare one kid to another. They are all sooooo different and I realize that they will learn different things at different times in different ways and at different rates. And I’m cool with that. I don’t want to push a kid to learn something before he’s truly ready and make him hate learning because of it. Anyway, I’ve always assumed that perhaps Sam was just one of those kids who was going to wait until he was 5 or 6 or 7, then learn all there is to know in a week’s time. That’s where my realization comes in.
I have come to realize that I really don’t know if Sam is “ready” to learn his letters or not. That’s because he has sold himself into doofus mode and enjoys being the “dummy” around here—plays it up and accepts it as his role in the family. Sam: the trouble maker who makes us mad but usually makes us laugh at the same time…and the one who doesn’t know his letters yet. I think he considers it to be his job, almost as if he’s proud of it. Well, that’s not going to work! So I decided that, ready or not, the kid is learning his letters!!! Mental capability is not the problem (never has been), it’s just INTEREST. But now that he’s become interested in “staying dumb” I really don’t care if he’s interested in learning his letters or not. He’s gonna. (Said as only a teacher could! Ha!)
So several days ago we sifted through the letters Sam does know (most of them) and figured out which ones are still giving him trouble (only 6 or 8). I had him choose one and he grabbed for the letter “D.” So for the next few days he had to wear a big “D” pin on his shirt at all times and I quizzed him non-stop about what his letter is and what it says. Made him draw it over and over again and cut out its shape and color pictures of things that start with it. I sent him outside one day and told him that when he came back I wanted him to bring me something that started with a “D.” He asked if he could use a shovel. “Sure, Sam! So you can d-d-d-d-DIG in the d-d-d-d-DIRT???” He didn’t get it. He was determined to go dig up some d-d-dinosaur bones to bring to me. Ha!
Anyway, I felt as if Sam has successfully mastered the letter “D,” so yesterday I had him choose a new letter from the magnets still remaining on the refrigerator. “V” was his choice, so now he’s wearing a big “V” on his shirt every day. This is not going to be as easy as “D” was, however. I asked him if he knew what the letter “v” said. You’d have to be familiar with how Sam speaks to really appreciate this, but he responded, “Uummm… vagon!” (Wagon, that is. The kid has always spoken like a little German boy. “Mom, vould jou like summer or vinter veather?”) I said, “No, Sam, w-w-WAGON doesn’t start with a ‘v-v-VEE’.” “Hhmmm,” he said, “sounds like it!” Ha! How do you win with that?! Joe has him well trained that “V” is for v-v-valosiraptor, one of his favorite dinosaurs. He’s also learned that “V” is for van… but that’s not how Sam says it. “What does ‘v’ say, Sam?” “Uummm… wan!!!” ~sigh~ Wish me luck! ;-)
IN OTHER NEWS…
We’re leaving again!!! We’ll be heading out in the morning for Arizona. We’ll spend tomorrow night with my Great-Grandmother (my Mom’s grandmother), then move over to the Shulers’ house. We’ll be in District Convention there in Phoenix on Friday and Saturday, be at the Phoenix church on Sunday, MAYBE stick around on Monday and have a family dinner with Grandma Bunny and the Shu crowd, then come home Tuesday. Or we may skip the extra day on Monday and come home then. Either way, that’s what we’ll be up to and why you won’t be hearing from me! ;-) Please pray for our Convention out there. I am soooooo excited!!! It seems like forever since we were able to visit the churches out there. James has been a couple of times without me. Maybe that’s why. Anyway, we’ll be back early next week!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
~Ya-a-a-a-a-awn~
I'm sooooo tired tonight. Not sure why, really. But blogging sounds a lot better than doing anything truly constructive. :-)
We've been able to get some work done around the house here the past few days, so that's good. James has worked so hard in the garage and has all of the sheetrock done and was able to get it all taped and textured. I think it looks GREAT! So the next step is to get everything OUT of there, then spend who knows how long cleaning out all of the dirt and grime and cobwebs and dead bugs and cocoons (really) and all other manner of nastiness. Then I'm going to cover and tape off the doors and wood floor and tile and whatever else needs it, at which point we'll be ready to haul out Maurice! I've decided I'm going to use him instead of do everything with rollers and brushes. The prep work takes more time than the painting when we use Maurice, but it's sooooo worth it. So I'm going to prime everything, then spray everything (ceilings and all walls) Almond Tree (a creamy white color) as a base coat. But I'm not sure when we'll get to all of that. We're trying!
I was able to get the logs caulked this past weekend. I've been putting that off for months now. It was a one afternoon job and one that's really not that bad... just one that seems bad and is hard to get motivated about!
What else have we been up to... We watched a couple of new movies this week. Want some reviews? Fireproof was good, BUT... Isn't that always the way it is?! It started off so good but they ended up doing what we expected they'd do, but hoped they wouldn't do. It's all this "God wants you to make your marriage work" and "one man for one woman for life" stuff and it's sounding great. But inevitably they have to throw in that conversation about making it work with whoever you happen to be married to right now, regardless of whether you already have a living companion. ~sigh~ Dopes. James was also bothered by how much they used the wedding band throughout the movie, as if it was a major focal point. Other than those things it was great! Ha! You know, if it was a regular Hollywood production we'd be raving about how fantastic it was and the amazing values it was promoting, but when it's put out by Christians you find yourself being so much more critical!
The other thing we watched was Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intellegence Allowed, about the incredible bias in our country toward evolution--and the unfair treatment and termination of employment of those who would suggest that perhaps "intellegent design" might rest at the origin of the universe. It was enlightening, to say the least, and it serves a good purpose that way. Otherwise I found it profoundly depressing! Ha! When I'm going to listen to Creation vs. Evolution stuff, I want to hear the truth of Creation and how the Word of God is infallible--and then the science that backs up what God already told us. This was more aimed toward revealing the trouble that has come to those who suggest evolution might have some holes in it. The most disturbing parts were when Ben Stein visited an institution in Germany where Hitler had handicapped people murdered and brains dissected and such monstrosities. It just sickens you--and more so when the tour guide sort of defended him. She didn't think he was insane--"He had his purposes for doing what he did." ?!?!? HOW WARPED. The other deeply disturbing thing was the interviews with Richard Dawkins. WHAT A SICK MAN. I found myself trembling with the fear of God as I listened to his prideful assertations that there is no God--and his vile and abusive description of "the God of the Old Testament." How can one be so brazen?! He's so fully convinced of himself and that anyone who believes in God is an imbecile, simple and trusting in a fairy tale. God have mercy on his soul!!! He will either have a broken and humble repentance some day (if he's not reprobate--which is a real possibility) or the lies from his own books will echo in his mind as he suffers throughout eternity. How tragic!!!
After all that, can I recommend it?! Enlightening, yes. Uplifting and encouraging, not so much! Take your pick! :-)
What else have we been up to... We did a little bit of school on Saturday to finish catching up from our Texas trip. Joe wasn't a happy camper 'bout that. Ha!
Church yesterday was... interesting! I must confess. I single-handedly destroyed the Sunday School class. Okay, well maybe it wasn't totally destroyed (I hope it wasn't!) and it wasn't exactly single-handed either. But I did get drug into being the main instrument of distraction! I hate that!!! ~sigh~ I apologized profusely to the teacher, but still--you feel rotten after something like that, you know?!
After church drove by a couple of buildings that might be possibilites for us to rent or purchase for a church building. One is definitely not a possibility any more and the other probably isn't either. We'll just keep looking and praying! We're back to meeting in a motel for now and that can only last so long. I know God has something in mind for us.
Today we did school, then I spent the entirety of the afternoon shampooing furniture. James rented a Rug Doctor this morning and we got good use out of it. We had bought a couple of green wingback chairs super cheap from a lady about a month ago and they were in desperate need of cleaning, as was our blue couch that has been in storage/construction areas for over a year now. So I worked real hard on them, then did the rest of the furniture, too. Everything looks GREAT! Even the couch and green chairs look fantastic. What a change! Feels so good to get that done--and it got some things out of the garage (they're now crammed in the house until we finish out there) so we have less to move out tomorrow. :-)
~sigh~ It's been one month today since Hershey died. The kids are over it, I think. I'd been doing lots better, but I had a really hard couple of days last week--cried sooooo hard on Saturday! It was weird. Probably because I was outside caulking. It's the first time I've spent any length of time outside in the past month. I hate hearing every dog on the mountain bark and howl at each other... except my dog! I kept "seeing" him run along the fence line in that dippy sweater, yapping away with all the other dogs. I finally went and sat by his grave and had a good cry. Strangely, it helped! It kind of put everything back into focus for me and I just kept praising God that it wasn't one of my kids that I lost. We have so many good memories of Hershey and I'm so thankful for them, and for the 6 years we had with him. So much to be thankful for!
That's about it, I think. Another long, rambling post! I don't have a wham-bang finish to it, so I'll slap some pictures up from the past few days. :-)
Here's a little bunny that Joe found. I got the picture before Joe tried to catch him. HA! That was great. ;-)
When the kids get too wild we either send them outside or make them sit down quietly with a book for a little while. The book bored Sam right to sleep the other day!
And here's the bench that Joe built last week. He's so proud of himself. He wants to sell it for $5. (Any suggestions on how to handle this one?! Ha!)
We've been able to get some work done around the house here the past few days, so that's good. James has worked so hard in the garage and has all of the sheetrock done and was able to get it all taped and textured. I think it looks GREAT! So the next step is to get everything OUT of there, then spend who knows how long cleaning out all of the dirt and grime and cobwebs and dead bugs and cocoons (really) and all other manner of nastiness. Then I'm going to cover and tape off the doors and wood floor and tile and whatever else needs it, at which point we'll be ready to haul out Maurice! I've decided I'm going to use him instead of do everything with rollers and brushes. The prep work takes more time than the painting when we use Maurice, but it's sooooo worth it. So I'm going to prime everything, then spray everything (ceilings and all walls) Almond Tree (a creamy white color) as a base coat. But I'm not sure when we'll get to all of that. We're trying!
I was able to get the logs caulked this past weekend. I've been putting that off for months now. It was a one afternoon job and one that's really not that bad... just one that seems bad and is hard to get motivated about!
What else have we been up to... We watched a couple of new movies this week. Want some reviews? Fireproof was good, BUT... Isn't that always the way it is?! It started off so good but they ended up doing what we expected they'd do, but hoped they wouldn't do. It's all this "God wants you to make your marriage work" and "one man for one woman for life" stuff and it's sounding great. But inevitably they have to throw in that conversation about making it work with whoever you happen to be married to right now, regardless of whether you already have a living companion. ~sigh~ Dopes. James was also bothered by how much they used the wedding band throughout the movie, as if it was a major focal point. Other than those things it was great! Ha! You know, if it was a regular Hollywood production we'd be raving about how fantastic it was and the amazing values it was promoting, but when it's put out by Christians you find yourself being so much more critical!
The other thing we watched was Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intellegence Allowed, about the incredible bias in our country toward evolution--and the unfair treatment and termination of employment of those who would suggest that perhaps "intellegent design" might rest at the origin of the universe. It was enlightening, to say the least, and it serves a good purpose that way. Otherwise I found it profoundly depressing! Ha! When I'm going to listen to Creation vs. Evolution stuff, I want to hear the truth of Creation and how the Word of God is infallible--and then the science that backs up what God already told us. This was more aimed toward revealing the trouble that has come to those who suggest evolution might have some holes in it. The most disturbing parts were when Ben Stein visited an institution in Germany where Hitler had handicapped people murdered and brains dissected and such monstrosities. It just sickens you--and more so when the tour guide sort of defended him. She didn't think he was insane--"He had his purposes for doing what he did." ?!?!? HOW WARPED. The other deeply disturbing thing was the interviews with Richard Dawkins. WHAT A SICK MAN. I found myself trembling with the fear of God as I listened to his prideful assertations that there is no God--and his vile and abusive description of "the God of the Old Testament." How can one be so brazen?! He's so fully convinced of himself and that anyone who believes in God is an imbecile, simple and trusting in a fairy tale. God have mercy on his soul!!! He will either have a broken and humble repentance some day (if he's not reprobate--which is a real possibility) or the lies from his own books will echo in his mind as he suffers throughout eternity. How tragic!!!
After all that, can I recommend it?! Enlightening, yes. Uplifting and encouraging, not so much! Take your pick! :-)
What else have we been up to... We did a little bit of school on Saturday to finish catching up from our Texas trip. Joe wasn't a happy camper 'bout that. Ha!
Church yesterday was... interesting! I must confess. I single-handedly destroyed the Sunday School class. Okay, well maybe it wasn't totally destroyed (I hope it wasn't!) and it wasn't exactly single-handed either. But I did get drug into being the main instrument of distraction! I hate that!!! ~sigh~ I apologized profusely to the teacher, but still--you feel rotten after something like that, you know?!
After church drove by a couple of buildings that might be possibilites for us to rent or purchase for a church building. One is definitely not a possibility any more and the other probably isn't either. We'll just keep looking and praying! We're back to meeting in a motel for now and that can only last so long. I know God has something in mind for us.
Today we did school, then I spent the entirety of the afternoon shampooing furniture. James rented a Rug Doctor this morning and we got good use out of it. We had bought a couple of green wingback chairs super cheap from a lady about a month ago and they were in desperate need of cleaning, as was our blue couch that has been in storage/construction areas for over a year now. So I worked real hard on them, then did the rest of the furniture, too. Everything looks GREAT! Even the couch and green chairs look fantastic. What a change! Feels so good to get that done--and it got some things out of the garage (they're now crammed in the house until we finish out there) so we have less to move out tomorrow. :-)
~sigh~ It's been one month today since Hershey died. The kids are over it, I think. I'd been doing lots better, but I had a really hard couple of days last week--cried sooooo hard on Saturday! It was weird. Probably because I was outside caulking. It's the first time I've spent any length of time outside in the past month. I hate hearing every dog on the mountain bark and howl at each other... except my dog! I kept "seeing" him run along the fence line in that dippy sweater, yapping away with all the other dogs. I finally went and sat by his grave and had a good cry. Strangely, it helped! It kind of put everything back into focus for me and I just kept praising God that it wasn't one of my kids that I lost. We have so many good memories of Hershey and I'm so thankful for them, and for the 6 years we had with him. So much to be thankful for!
That's about it, I think. Another long, rambling post! I don't have a wham-bang finish to it, so I'll slap some pictures up from the past few days. :-)
Here's a little bunny that Joe found. I got the picture before Joe tried to catch him. HA! That was great. ;-)
When the kids get too wild we either send them outside or make them sit down quietly with a book for a little while. The book bored Sam right to sleep the other day!
And here's the bench that Joe built last week. He's so proud of himself. He wants to sell it for $5. (Any suggestions on how to handle this one?! Ha!)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
A Romantic Anniversary
It started like this...
James picked the roses up last night, but I found the rest of it on the table waiting for me this morning. The picture is a print by my favorite artist. (Don't you love it, Mom?!) As for the Rook cards... THANKS, EM! Ha! I mentioned to James after our last Colorado trip that Emilee said he really should buy me some new ones. ;-) That's all it took, I guess!
The kids had fruit for breakfast because one of our members gave us the most fantastic fruit pounding this week! It's soooooo great! Apples and gigantic oranges (they almost look like grapefruit) and the longest bananas I've ever seen -- and grapes. The kids have been LOVING the grapes. What a blessing! Anyway, while they were enjoying breakfast I was enjoying a nice, hot bath. ~Aaaahhh~ A great way to start the day.
Then it was time for our Anniversary outing. We loaded up the fam, drove into town, and went to Nick's Crossroads Cafe. It's a little diner type place downtown. It wasn't as old fashioned as we would have liked (more of a trendy college kid place), but the food was still good. James had a green chili chicken sandwhich, I had a Monte Cristo, and the kids had pancakes, eggs, and bacon. :-)
Then we were off to the oozay! (Our kids have never really been exposed to Pig Latin and had no clue what that was until we got there. They still don't "get it." Don't tell!) Yes, for our romantic anniversary get-away we decided to take the kids to the zoo. Haley came and got Jon & Em's kids last week so they could go stay in a nice lodge or something all alone and enjoy a real anniversary. I think it's pretty unfair that she didn't come get our kids this week. You just can't count on some people, you know?! ;-)
No, actually, we had a really, really great day. It wasn't exceptionally romantic (although James wanted everybody to know that he kissed me in the monkey house. Weird-o.), but it was such a nice, relaxing, fun day. We all loved it!
James picked the roses up last night, but I found the rest of it on the table waiting for me this morning. The picture is a print by my favorite artist. (Don't you love it, Mom?!) As for the Rook cards... THANKS, EM! Ha! I mentioned to James after our last Colorado trip that Emilee said he really should buy me some new ones. ;-) That's all it took, I guess!
The kids had fruit for breakfast because one of our members gave us the most fantastic fruit pounding this week! It's soooooo great! Apples and gigantic oranges (they almost look like grapefruit) and the longest bananas I've ever seen -- and grapes. The kids have been LOVING the grapes. What a blessing! Anyway, while they were enjoying breakfast I was enjoying a nice, hot bath. ~Aaaahhh~ A great way to start the day.
Then it was time for our Anniversary outing. We loaded up the fam, drove into town, and went to Nick's Crossroads Cafe. It's a little diner type place downtown. It wasn't as old fashioned as we would have liked (more of a trendy college kid place), but the food was still good. James had a green chili chicken sandwhich, I had a Monte Cristo, and the kids had pancakes, eggs, and bacon. :-)
Then we were off to the oozay! (Our kids have never really been exposed to Pig Latin and had no clue what that was until we got there. They still don't "get it." Don't tell!) Yes, for our romantic anniversary get-away we decided to take the kids to the zoo. Haley came and got Jon & Em's kids last week so they could go stay in a nice lodge or something all alone and enjoy a real anniversary. I think it's pretty unfair that she didn't come get our kids this week. You just can't count on some people, you know?! ;-)
No, actually, we had a really, really great day. It wasn't exceptionally romantic (although James wanted everybody to know that he kissed me in the monkey house. Weird-o.), but it was such a nice, relaxing, fun day. We all loved it!
So, the ZOO! It provided lots of picture opportunities, so I figured I'd post a whole slew of 'em. I haven't had any pics to post in a while, right?!
James had a very successful day with the birds. These sun conures were quite personable.
Love the toucans...
Joe went NUTS in the reptile house. He just pinged from one window to the next, chattering on about all of the creatures he's read about in books for the past year.
The last time we went to the zoo was December '07 with the Hays, so it was almost "brand new" all over again. And it's so fun to take the kids at this age. They do so much reading and have learned so many things about the animals, so it's so much more thrilling for them to see them in person. It was great!
They've got several bald eagles at this zoo. We've never seen one take a bath before!
This polar bear was pacing with a purpose--FAST!
The cougar looked to be in search of some lunch...
The lions apparently already had theirs! Ha!
We spent quite a while at the duck pond. We usually don't even stop there because, after all, it's just ducks! There are more exotic things to be seen, you know?! But we stayed and fed the ducks and had a great time. This swan gave Joe a pretty good bite while he was trying to pick up loose food from the ground to throw into the water. :-) Swans always look so beautiful and peaceful. Don't believe it! They're as mean as any goose you'll ever meet! Ha!
I LOVE the Canadian geese. ("Canada geese" always sounds dumb to me, proper or not.) They are so pretty and... "country" looking or something!
Joe had sooooo much fun! He just ran all over the place, scaring birds right and left, trying to feed them!
Love the koalas, too. They're so cuddly, if not a whole lot of fun to watch. (They have a severe energy deficiency!)
James was able to get the kookaburras to laugh! I couldn't tell if they were enjoying his conversation or annoyed by it. They would sort of ruffle their feathers and stare at him, then fly in a circle around the cage and come back and stare him down again. But after a couple of minutes they started talking and worked up to a pretty good "laugh"! It is soooooo cool to hear that!
James also had quite a conversation with this fruit dove. He knows exactly what each bird "says" and if he's able to mimic them well enough they usually talk back to him. This little fellow seemed plenty anxious for a chat!
The white rhinos are HUGE. They're so big and cool and impressive and scary. :-)
These are some of my favorites. There's just something so sweet looking about giraffes. I think it must be their eyes.
Have you ever watched a hippo play? In all truthfulness, it's not much more exciting than the koalas--everything is in slo-o-o-o-o-o-ow motion! Ha! Still, it was neat that they were trying!
There were several animals I wish I had pictures of--like the black panther. SOOOOO cool. The picture of the red panda didn't turn out. And I didn't get a picture of the adorable little chimp girl who was celebrating her 2nd birthday today. (Big event at the zoo today!)
But I got a picture of the boys riding a komodo dragon!
Of course, they enjoyed seeing the REAL komodo dragons today. Those things creep me out. They are so huge and they've got those lo-o-o-o-o-ong, nasty forked tongues flicking. YUCK. And Joe is always sure to explain how, even if their bite doesn't kill their prey, all of the bacteria in their saliva usually causes a fatal infection. All they have to do is bite something, then wait around for it to die in a day or two. GA-ROSS. Anyway...
Here's Katie, always the lady, riding a lion's head.
Now you get to guess... Were the people mimicking the monkey... Or was the monkey mimicking the people?! HA!
Katie took this one of the Anniversary people. Nine years it's been. CRAZY!!!
After the zoo we drove around a bit, then stopped by Sonic for some ice cream before heading home. We picked up some Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner and James ran in the grocery store to take advantage of some really great deals on meat. So we got home and I separated 12 lbs. of burger to freeze, some ribs, and some steaks. Wa-Hoo! It feels great to have a good selection of meat in the freezer.
We enjoyed our pizza dinner (love that cinnamon dessert ring!), then we all piled on the bed to watch The Princess Bride. It was the boys' first time. They loved most of it. Joe is just like Fred Savage though. "Whoa! What is this?! Is this a kissing book???" ;-) He thoroughly enjoyed the fencing and fighting and Miracle Max and all that stuff. The boys especially liked Fezik. It was fun.
And that's about it! Our Anniversary celebration!!! The kids loved it and can't wait until next year's anniversary. Ha! Katie asked a few days ago, "So... what are we going to do for your anniversary?!" As if it's totally normal for it to be a whole family affair. I tried to explain to them tonight how MOST people celebrate their anniversary... by leaving their kids behind! They don't like that idea at all. I told them to brace themselves for it because we're going to try to find away to do it next year on #10! But for this year, we had a whole lot of fun and it all seemed just right. :-)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Taking Care of Business
It's amazing. Since spending 30+ hours in bed this past weekend I have had an over-abundance of energy. It's been great. I really think I ought to consider sleeping from Friday night until Sunday morning every weekend. It seems to increase my productivity considerably! Not that any of my projects have been truly colossal, but it sure feels like I've accomplished a lot. But backing up a bit...
When James left Panda Express the other day (the rest of us were still eating) to head to Hatch--no kidding--all three kids watched him walk through the door, then spun around and began pelting me with questions.
"Mom! Can we have a pizza party tonight???"
"Yeah, and watch a show, maybe?"
"And have popcorn???"
Then Joe felt the need to clarify.
"It's not that we just want to celebrate that Dad is gone or anything... But now's the time to do it!!!"
HA! So after service that night we came home and I put The Sock Drawer on for them (a truly great grouping of Veggie shorts... or briefs. Get it?! Sock drawer?! HA!) and threw some pizzas in the oven. Then I sat at the other computer and "watched" a play-by-play of the last few minutes of the Super Bowl. Would have been really fun to be able to see that 4th quarter! Love those exciting ones.
I don't know what possessed me, but I told the kids they could all camp out on the floor in my room that night since James was gone. It's amazing what kids find to be special treats. Anyway, they had just fallen asleep and I had just planted myself right smack in the middle of the bed to fully enjoy being able to sprawl out instead of hang on to the edge for dear life (James doesn't believe in the invisible line I used to draw for him dictating "My side" and "Your side")... when James called and said he was coming home! HA! Gre-e-e-e-e-eat. He had taken clothes to stay over night and I fully expected that's what he'd do. I told him to be careful not to kill any children trying to make it to the bed--they covered most of the floor. It all worked out perfect, really. We were able to have our little Dad's Gone Party, but he was there when everybody woke up the next morning!
We've been doing double school (not entirely, but almost) the past two days in an effort to make up for what we didn't do last week due to our Texas trip. We actually took the school books with us on the trip and did a day's worth on the way there... but that was the end of that! If we hit it hard again tomorrow we should be able to get all caught up again.
So aside from school taking a little longer than usual, I've managed to change the sheets, get the week's worth of laundry and ironing done, scrub the kids' gross bathroom and get it shining again, vacuum the carpets and shine up the wood floor, cook waffles and two chicken dishes... Ah, yes. I made my first chicken pot pie! It's been sounding good ever since Mom told me about Sister Betsy's. I had made a new chicken casserole with bisquits on top for dinner last night. It sounded good, but it really wasn't as good as it should have been--mostly everybody just ate the bisquits. So tonight I took what was left of it (plenty!) and added some veggies and chicken bouillon and enough herbs and spices to change the flavor significantly from the first not-so-hot casserole, whipped up a pie crust, and called it chicken pot pie. It wasn't award worthy, but I thought it was pretty good! And it always feels good to fix a flop and make it into something that will get eaten instead of thrown out. :-)
We had horse lessons today--first time since early December. The kids are excited about getting into that again. Afterwards we made a nice, long trip to the library. The kids got a whole slew of books. Katie picked out several American Girl books. They look good. I guess we'll see. Sam chose books about octopuses and other slimy sea life. Joe got another book about how to build robots (gonna be one of those drive us bonkers weeks for sure!) and who knows what all. I found one of the 4 children's books in the entire library system (!!!) about Creation. Dinosaurs by Design, I think it is. The boys have been loving it. I have been wanting to watch The Magic of Ordinary Days the past couple of days, so I tried looking it up at the library. They didn't have the movie, but they did have the book. I checked it out, but by the time I got home I had decided that I really don't have the time to read a book right now anyway... so I watched the movie on YouTube tonight, clip by clip (15 total!) while I did the ironing! Whatever works, I guess!
The only other news to report is my pressing correspondance with David Baroni. HA! Mom and I were talking about him the other day and, I'm not sure what inspired me to do it, but I wrote to him and told him that he stole my Dad's belt when I was a kid. :-) Actually, he was staying with us and borrowed it, but forgot to give it back. We've teased all these years that "David Baroni stole my Dad's belt!" I also told him how much I've enjoyed one particular recording over the years--it has nothing but slow, worshipful songs on it and is just so very good. Sam loves it, too, and often chooses it above Veggie Tales at night when it's his turn to pick the music. Anyway, Mr. Baroni (is that what I'm supposed to call him?!) wrote back and laughingly said he owed us a belt. (I'm sure he was thrilled to learn that.) He said he and his wife fondly remember the trip to Pueblo. Hard to imagine, really. There's not a lot in Pueblo to be fond of! Aside from the Church, of course. ;-)
And that's it. A good start to our week. Gotten lots done and hope to get lots more done. I'll try to start taking pictures again. Not sure why I've quit, but it's been a while since I've used that schnazzy camera of mine. I'll set it out in the open, then maybe I'll think to take a picture of something. It won't be a poodle. ~sniff~ Maybe a kid will do something dumb and picture worthy. :-)
When James left Panda Express the other day (the rest of us were still eating) to head to Hatch--no kidding--all three kids watched him walk through the door, then spun around and began pelting me with questions.
"Mom! Can we have a pizza party tonight???"
"Yeah, and watch a show, maybe?"
"And have popcorn???"
Then Joe felt the need to clarify.
"It's not that we just want to celebrate that Dad is gone or anything... But now's the time to do it!!!"
HA! So after service that night we came home and I put The Sock Drawer on for them (a truly great grouping of Veggie shorts... or briefs. Get it?! Sock drawer?! HA!) and threw some pizzas in the oven. Then I sat at the other computer and "watched" a play-by-play of the last few minutes of the Super Bowl. Would have been really fun to be able to see that 4th quarter! Love those exciting ones.
I don't know what possessed me, but I told the kids they could all camp out on the floor in my room that night since James was gone. It's amazing what kids find to be special treats. Anyway, they had just fallen asleep and I had just planted myself right smack in the middle of the bed to fully enjoy being able to sprawl out instead of hang on to the edge for dear life (James doesn't believe in the invisible line I used to draw for him dictating "My side" and "Your side")... when James called and said he was coming home! HA! Gre-e-e-e-e-eat. He had taken clothes to stay over night and I fully expected that's what he'd do. I told him to be careful not to kill any children trying to make it to the bed--they covered most of the floor. It all worked out perfect, really. We were able to have our little Dad's Gone Party, but he was there when everybody woke up the next morning!
We've been doing double school (not entirely, but almost) the past two days in an effort to make up for what we didn't do last week due to our Texas trip. We actually took the school books with us on the trip and did a day's worth on the way there... but that was the end of that! If we hit it hard again tomorrow we should be able to get all caught up again.
So aside from school taking a little longer than usual, I've managed to change the sheets, get the week's worth of laundry and ironing done, scrub the kids' gross bathroom and get it shining again, vacuum the carpets and shine up the wood floor, cook waffles and two chicken dishes... Ah, yes. I made my first chicken pot pie! It's been sounding good ever since Mom told me about Sister Betsy's. I had made a new chicken casserole with bisquits on top for dinner last night. It sounded good, but it really wasn't as good as it should have been--mostly everybody just ate the bisquits. So tonight I took what was left of it (plenty!) and added some veggies and chicken bouillon and enough herbs and spices to change the flavor significantly from the first not-so-hot casserole, whipped up a pie crust, and called it chicken pot pie. It wasn't award worthy, but I thought it was pretty good! And it always feels good to fix a flop and make it into something that will get eaten instead of thrown out. :-)
We had horse lessons today--first time since early December. The kids are excited about getting into that again. Afterwards we made a nice, long trip to the library. The kids got a whole slew of books. Katie picked out several American Girl books. They look good. I guess we'll see. Sam chose books about octopuses and other slimy sea life. Joe got another book about how to build robots (gonna be one of those drive us bonkers weeks for sure!) and who knows what all. I found one of the 4 children's books in the entire library system (!!!) about Creation. Dinosaurs by Design, I think it is. The boys have been loving it. I have been wanting to watch The Magic of Ordinary Days the past couple of days, so I tried looking it up at the library. They didn't have the movie, but they did have the book. I checked it out, but by the time I got home I had decided that I really don't have the time to read a book right now anyway... so I watched the movie on YouTube tonight, clip by clip (15 total!) while I did the ironing! Whatever works, I guess!
The only other news to report is my pressing correspondance with David Baroni. HA! Mom and I were talking about him the other day and, I'm not sure what inspired me to do it, but I wrote to him and told him that he stole my Dad's belt when I was a kid. :-) Actually, he was staying with us and borrowed it, but forgot to give it back. We've teased all these years that "David Baroni stole my Dad's belt!" I also told him how much I've enjoyed one particular recording over the years--it has nothing but slow, worshipful songs on it and is just so very good. Sam loves it, too, and often chooses it above Veggie Tales at night when it's his turn to pick the music. Anyway, Mr. Baroni (is that what I'm supposed to call him?!) wrote back and laughingly said he owed us a belt. (I'm sure he was thrilled to learn that.) He said he and his wife fondly remember the trip to Pueblo. Hard to imagine, really. There's not a lot in Pueblo to be fond of! Aside from the Church, of course. ;-)
And that's it. A good start to our week. Gotten lots done and hope to get lots more done. I'll try to start taking pictures again. Not sure why I've quit, but it's been a while since I've used that schnazzy camera of mine. I'll set it out in the open, then maybe I'll think to take a picture of something. It won't be a poodle. ~sniff~ Maybe a kid will do something dumb and picture worthy. :-)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
At Last!
Sorry about the failure to blog. It's been a long week!
Our impromptu trip to Texas was great. We got to Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry's house in time for Aunt Sue's homemade chicken and dumplins Tuesday night. It's one of the few truly homemade things Aunt Sue makes and they are the best ever. :-) Sam, Tammy, and Frank came over after a while to help assemble the Regional Paper (which reminds me--gotta send that off for translation tonight!!!) while I whipped up on Uncle Jerry at pool. Really! It was an incredibly good night for me, which makes it so much more fun. Too bad those nights are so rare. Ha!
After that we enjoyed a nice, rousing game of Balderdash. We had several good laughs (which is, of course, the purpose of such a game) and I was amazed at how well Aunt Sue did. Came in second over all, I think. (Just behind me, of course. ;-) Ha!) And it also meant that Frank lost. :-)
Wednesday was nice and relaxing. We just hung around the house and visited with Aunt Sue and let the kids watch Gunsmoke and things like that. We loaded up in the afternoon and headed to Odessa for James to get a haircut, then to go visit with Stacey at her store. That was nice, too, especially since she wasn't able to join the rest of us for dinner at...
Carino's, of course! I can't recall ever going there on a weeknight before and now I know why. They were soooooo busy and our waiter was swamped. We were there for, oh, quite some time! But the food was great and, most importantly, my four Italian sodas were fantastical. :-) That's right, I cut back this time. I usually have four while we're there and one to go, but I cut back to 3/1 this time. Aren't you proud?! The best part is when the waiter brought the bill... on which he had charged us for all 4 Italian sodas! I had taken Katie to the restroom and was gone at the moment, but I heard from all around about the expression on James' face when he saw the $10 worth of Italian sodas on his ticket! HA! Our waiter used to work at Olive Garden and just switched over to Carino's, so he wasn't aware that you get unlimited refills here. (You don't at O.G., so we never order them there.) James got it fixed, however. ;-)
After dinner we headed over to Sam & Tammy's house to play a game before calling it a night. Actually, we read a very timely message by Brother Tomlinson in the White Wing from 1988 first. It was really good! Then we played a game Frank had brought called... Mental Floss, maybe? I'm not sure, but it was GREAT! A trivia game in which, even if you're not a brainiac, you still have the possibility of bumbling your way into a win. It was great! And I don't remember who won that one... Me or Frank or Sam, but I don't remember who got there first. Oh well. It was FUN.
We got up really early on Thursday, threw the kids into the van and drove the 3 hours over to Abilene. We were planning on visiting the Lunas in Merkel, but when we finally got ahold of them we learned that Sister Luna was in the hospital in Abilene, so that's where we went. She was in ICU, so the kids and I couldn't go see her but James was able to go in and have a good visit and prayer with her. Please say a prayer for her, even though most of you don't know her. She's a good (The) Church of God lady and really needs a touch from the Lord. I'm still not sure what all is wrong with her, but she's still listed in serious condition.
After leaving the hospital we drove to Sweetwater for our traditional stop at K-Mart and Schlotzky's. For the first time ever perhaps we left K-Mart with nothing! (This particular store is always bursting at the seams with unbelievable deals, but not this time.) Schlotzky's was a winner though. Yum!
We got back to Aunt Sue's house and had some time to relax before service in Andrews that night. We had a good service and I think there were 20 people present. Praise the Lord! Worship was good and James preached a really good message. He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him so later. He seems to think it's the first time I've ever told him that! Ha! We went back to Aunt Sue's house and played some pool with them, then just sat and visited until about midnight.
We got up on Friday and headed over to Tammy's house at 9:00 to play one last game with her and Frank (sadly, Sam had to be at work) before leaving town! I thought about Rachel's statement on one of my posts recently about how people out West have more fun. It surely must be true! I can't imagine most people rushing over to squeeze in one last game before heading home! Ha! We did though and it was great. I Buy this time. I think Tammy won. It was so great to be able to spend a few days in Texas and spend some time with everybody--and even get to play games with Frank again after way too many years. ~sigh~ What a great week!
After we left Tammy's house we went to Aunt Sue's store to pick up a lamp shade and a few other things for the house, then we hit the road. We made it home that evening and I had plenty of time to get the van unloaded before I got sick. Really and truly sick! It was so weird! As I was unloading the last of the stuff I knew I was going to bed pronto. I think I hit the hay at about 9:00. I was up a couple of times during the night and finally lost my lunch (gross, I know--sorry) at about 6:00 the next morning. James went into town to help Sister Galaviz get moved, so I got up at about 9:00, put on a sweatshirt, pulled a skirt over my pj bottoms and loaded the kids up. We headed down to Charlie's grocery store and I sent Katie and Joe in to buy a gallon of milk--and a bottle of Sprite for their sickly mother! Made 'em feel all grown up. They loved it. We came home and I spent the rest of the day in bed. I had a severe case of the sweaty chills (you know, where you feel sooooo hot and you're sweaty and gross... but you also feel soooo cold and you just keep piling on the blankets to get rid of the chills) and an ugly headache. I can't remember the last time I was IN BED sick. In fact, in the 36 hours between getting home from Texas and waking up this morning I think I was out of bed for a total of about 2 hours! CRAZY. But PRAISE THE LORD I woke up perfectly well this morning!!! I still had a headache last night, but fully expected God to touch and heal me (I HATE missing church for sickness!) and He did! Aside from being a little weak from not eating, I felt terrific. God is so good!!! He held the sickness off long enough for us to have a great trip to Texas, then squeezed it into a 36 hour period, and healed me in time be up and about in time for church today! Wa-Hoo! :-)
We had a good service this morning, then had lunch at Panda Express (that's how healed I am! Ha!) before James headed to Hatch. He's going to take Brother Hugo with him (a WONDERFUL man who is SUCH a blessing to our church... and who we're praying will soon be a member of The Church of God) and they'll be in church there tonight, along with several Church folks from El Paso that James hasn't had a chance to meet yet. Exciting! I'll be in charge of James' CPMA service here in town tonight, but it won't be difficult since he left me a complete service outline. I'm going to take the projector and show Brother Byers' CPMA message from the Assembly, since none of our folks were able to attend.
And that's all of our news! Great Texas trip, knock-you-out sickness, perfect healing, and church and then more church. ~sigh~ God's good. :-)
Our impromptu trip to Texas was great. We got to Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry's house in time for Aunt Sue's homemade chicken and dumplins Tuesday night. It's one of the few truly homemade things Aunt Sue makes and they are the best ever. :-) Sam, Tammy, and Frank came over after a while to help assemble the Regional Paper (which reminds me--gotta send that off for translation tonight!!!) while I whipped up on Uncle Jerry at pool. Really! It was an incredibly good night for me, which makes it so much more fun. Too bad those nights are so rare. Ha!
After that we enjoyed a nice, rousing game of Balderdash. We had several good laughs (which is, of course, the purpose of such a game) and I was amazed at how well Aunt Sue did. Came in second over all, I think. (Just behind me, of course. ;-) Ha!) And it also meant that Frank lost. :-)
Wednesday was nice and relaxing. We just hung around the house and visited with Aunt Sue and let the kids watch Gunsmoke and things like that. We loaded up in the afternoon and headed to Odessa for James to get a haircut, then to go visit with Stacey at her store. That was nice, too, especially since she wasn't able to join the rest of us for dinner at...
Carino's, of course! I can't recall ever going there on a weeknight before and now I know why. They were soooooo busy and our waiter was swamped. We were there for, oh, quite some time! But the food was great and, most importantly, my four Italian sodas were fantastical. :-) That's right, I cut back this time. I usually have four while we're there and one to go, but I cut back to 3/1 this time. Aren't you proud?! The best part is when the waiter brought the bill... on which he had charged us for all 4 Italian sodas! I had taken Katie to the restroom and was gone at the moment, but I heard from all around about the expression on James' face when he saw the $10 worth of Italian sodas on his ticket! HA! Our waiter used to work at Olive Garden and just switched over to Carino's, so he wasn't aware that you get unlimited refills here. (You don't at O.G., so we never order them there.) James got it fixed, however. ;-)
After dinner we headed over to Sam & Tammy's house to play a game before calling it a night. Actually, we read a very timely message by Brother Tomlinson in the White Wing from 1988 first. It was really good! Then we played a game Frank had brought called... Mental Floss, maybe? I'm not sure, but it was GREAT! A trivia game in which, even if you're not a brainiac, you still have the possibility of bumbling your way into a win. It was great! And I don't remember who won that one... Me or Frank or Sam, but I don't remember who got there first. Oh well. It was FUN.
We got up really early on Thursday, threw the kids into the van and drove the 3 hours over to Abilene. We were planning on visiting the Lunas in Merkel, but when we finally got ahold of them we learned that Sister Luna was in the hospital in Abilene, so that's where we went. She was in ICU, so the kids and I couldn't go see her but James was able to go in and have a good visit and prayer with her. Please say a prayer for her, even though most of you don't know her. She's a good (The) Church of God lady and really needs a touch from the Lord. I'm still not sure what all is wrong with her, but she's still listed in serious condition.
After leaving the hospital we drove to Sweetwater for our traditional stop at K-Mart and Schlotzky's. For the first time ever perhaps we left K-Mart with nothing! (This particular store is always bursting at the seams with unbelievable deals, but not this time.) Schlotzky's was a winner though. Yum!
We got back to Aunt Sue's house and had some time to relax before service in Andrews that night. We had a good service and I think there were 20 people present. Praise the Lord! Worship was good and James preached a really good message. He seemed genuinely shocked when I told him so later. He seems to think it's the first time I've ever told him that! Ha! We went back to Aunt Sue's house and played some pool with them, then just sat and visited until about midnight.
We got up on Friday and headed over to Tammy's house at 9:00 to play one last game with her and Frank (sadly, Sam had to be at work) before leaving town! I thought about Rachel's statement on one of my posts recently about how people out West have more fun. It surely must be true! I can't imagine most people rushing over to squeeze in one last game before heading home! Ha! We did though and it was great. I Buy this time. I think Tammy won. It was so great to be able to spend a few days in Texas and spend some time with everybody--and even get to play games with Frank again after way too many years. ~sigh~ What a great week!
After we left Tammy's house we went to Aunt Sue's store to pick up a lamp shade and a few other things for the house, then we hit the road. We made it home that evening and I had plenty of time to get the van unloaded before I got sick. Really and truly sick! It was so weird! As I was unloading the last of the stuff I knew I was going to bed pronto. I think I hit the hay at about 9:00. I was up a couple of times during the night and finally lost my lunch (gross, I know--sorry) at about 6:00 the next morning. James went into town to help Sister Galaviz get moved, so I got up at about 9:00, put on a sweatshirt, pulled a skirt over my pj bottoms and loaded the kids up. We headed down to Charlie's grocery store and I sent Katie and Joe in to buy a gallon of milk--and a bottle of Sprite for their sickly mother! Made 'em feel all grown up. They loved it. We came home and I spent the rest of the day in bed. I had a severe case of the sweaty chills (you know, where you feel sooooo hot and you're sweaty and gross... but you also feel soooo cold and you just keep piling on the blankets to get rid of the chills) and an ugly headache. I can't remember the last time I was IN BED sick. In fact, in the 36 hours between getting home from Texas and waking up this morning I think I was out of bed for a total of about 2 hours! CRAZY. But PRAISE THE LORD I woke up perfectly well this morning!!! I still had a headache last night, but fully expected God to touch and heal me (I HATE missing church for sickness!) and He did! Aside from being a little weak from not eating, I felt terrific. God is so good!!! He held the sickness off long enough for us to have a great trip to Texas, then squeezed it into a 36 hour period, and healed me in time be up and about in time for church today! Wa-Hoo! :-)
We had a good service this morning, then had lunch at Panda Express (that's how healed I am! Ha!) before James headed to Hatch. He's going to take Brother Hugo with him (a WONDERFUL man who is SUCH a blessing to our church... and who we're praying will soon be a member of The Church of God) and they'll be in church there tonight, along with several Church folks from El Paso that James hasn't had a chance to meet yet. Exciting! I'll be in charge of James' CPMA service here in town tonight, but it won't be difficult since he left me a complete service outline. I'm going to take the projector and show Brother Byers' CPMA message from the Assembly, since none of our folks were able to attend.
And that's all of our news! Great Texas trip, knock-you-out sickness, perfect healing, and church and then more church. ~sigh~ God's good. :-)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
We're Headed to Texas!
I'm just as surprised as you are.
"Wow! How long has this trip been in the works?"
Oh, a few hours now, I guess. For being sooooo extremely Choleric and always having a plan for himself and several for me (ha!), James sure has turned into a spontaneous kind of guy. It's good, for the most part.
You see, it's like this. We finished up on the Regional Paper today and got it all printed. The next step is assembling all of the pages, folding them, stapling them, and stuffing and addressing the envelopes. It's a 12 page-er and we make about 175 copies. It's not a whole lot of fun to do by yourself and James really misses the assistance we used to get from Sam & Tammy. So we're going to drive 6 hours tomorrow so they can help us! HA! Okay, so that's not ALL we're doing...
We got to looking at our upcoming events and realized that this is really our best shot at being able to visit the Texas churches, what, with all of the District Conventions coming up. So we're going to get some help with the Church paper, make a church visit in Andrews, drive over to Merkel to visit with the Luna's, as well as stay with Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry, at least have lunch or something with Stacey (if it works out--she doesn't know we're coming yet), and hopefully be able to squeeze in some games with Sam & Tammy and Frank. Ah, yes! Frank, my old game buddy. Wonder if Tammy will let the two of us play on the same team... Nah! Oh well, should be fun anyway!
We had a full and productive day today. Got up and hit the road for a day on the town. First stop: library. We were puzzled by the empty parking lot at first. Ah, yes. The library is closed on Mondays. The kids had great fun with the book drop though. The first time is always so exciting. Apparently!
After that we headed to Barnes & Noble so Katie could look around and possibly use her gift card. No problem there. My kids are all so different. Sam has used his gift card on two different occasions and bought toys that he's gotten a ton of use out of already--and he's got enough left on the card for another purchase or two. Joe has tried with all of his might to use his gift card several times, but just can't make himself do it. Katie marched into Barnes & Noble today (our first chance to get there since she got the card), bought three Children's Classics books (read the first one in its entirety tonight) and a Garfield book and walked out with .56 change. Ha!
We perused the mall a bit today and I'm so glad we did. We had a few gift cards to use up at Sears and Penney's. (We had returned some things that were the wrong sizes and such after Christmas and just got gift cards for the stores instead of fighting the after Christmas crowds.) Everybody was having HUGE sales and we got some fantastic deals. I got a pair of Deer Stag dress shoes for Joe (usually pretty expensive ones--at least for our taste!) for $4 and a really adorable shirt for Katie for $3. I can't remember what all we got, but at prices like that--and with a gift card, making it basically "free"--you can fill up a bag pretty quick! We spent very little money today, but were blessed to find several things the kids really needed, and a few deals for James, too. As if that wasn't enough we stopped at the Family Thrift Center afterward. :-) I told James we really ought to stop in there once a month. We found a really nice dress for Katie for $3 and a suit jacket for Joe for $1 (can you believe that?!), a jean jacket for Sam, a denim skirt for me, some "bloomers" (little cotton pants--in size 3! Ha!) for Katie... It was such a successful shopping day. And being homeschoolers, we did it without the crowds! :-)
We made another stop or two before coming home. It was then that we decided on this Texas trip. So I've spent all evening cleaning the house and I managed to get all of the laundry and ironing done. I've got the kids and myself pretty well packed, too. The kids spent their evening doing school and taking baths. Now it's just past midnight and I'm bushed. But I wanted to let everybody know what we're doing the next few days instead of just mysteriously disappearing from Blogland. Now you know I'll be with real, live people again! :-) Makes me happy. We plan to be back Friday night. Have a great week!
"Wow! How long has this trip been in the works?"
Oh, a few hours now, I guess. For being sooooo extremely Choleric and always having a plan for himself and several for me (ha!), James sure has turned into a spontaneous kind of guy. It's good, for the most part.
You see, it's like this. We finished up on the Regional Paper today and got it all printed. The next step is assembling all of the pages, folding them, stapling them, and stuffing and addressing the envelopes. It's a 12 page-er and we make about 175 copies. It's not a whole lot of fun to do by yourself and James really misses the assistance we used to get from Sam & Tammy. So we're going to drive 6 hours tomorrow so they can help us! HA! Okay, so that's not ALL we're doing...
We got to looking at our upcoming events and realized that this is really our best shot at being able to visit the Texas churches, what, with all of the District Conventions coming up. So we're going to get some help with the Church paper, make a church visit in Andrews, drive over to Merkel to visit with the Luna's, as well as stay with Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry, at least have lunch or something with Stacey (if it works out--she doesn't know we're coming yet), and hopefully be able to squeeze in some games with Sam & Tammy and Frank. Ah, yes! Frank, my old game buddy. Wonder if Tammy will let the two of us play on the same team... Nah! Oh well, should be fun anyway!
We had a full and productive day today. Got up and hit the road for a day on the town. First stop: library. We were puzzled by the empty parking lot at first. Ah, yes. The library is closed on Mondays. The kids had great fun with the book drop though. The first time is always so exciting. Apparently!
After that we headed to Barnes & Noble so Katie could look around and possibly use her gift card. No problem there. My kids are all so different. Sam has used his gift card on two different occasions and bought toys that he's gotten a ton of use out of already--and he's got enough left on the card for another purchase or two. Joe has tried with all of his might to use his gift card several times, but just can't make himself do it. Katie marched into Barnes & Noble today (our first chance to get there since she got the card), bought three Children's Classics books (read the first one in its entirety tonight) and a Garfield book and walked out with .56 change. Ha!
We perused the mall a bit today and I'm so glad we did. We had a few gift cards to use up at Sears and Penney's. (We had returned some things that were the wrong sizes and such after Christmas and just got gift cards for the stores instead of fighting the after Christmas crowds.) Everybody was having HUGE sales and we got some fantastic deals. I got a pair of Deer Stag dress shoes for Joe (usually pretty expensive ones--at least for our taste!) for $4 and a really adorable shirt for Katie for $3. I can't remember what all we got, but at prices like that--and with a gift card, making it basically "free"--you can fill up a bag pretty quick! We spent very little money today, but were blessed to find several things the kids really needed, and a few deals for James, too. As if that wasn't enough we stopped at the Family Thrift Center afterward. :-) I told James we really ought to stop in there once a month. We found a really nice dress for Katie for $3 and a suit jacket for Joe for $1 (can you believe that?!), a jean jacket for Sam, a denim skirt for me, some "bloomers" (little cotton pants--in size 3! Ha!) for Katie... It was such a successful shopping day. And being homeschoolers, we did it without the crowds! :-)
We made another stop or two before coming home. It was then that we decided on this Texas trip. So I've spent all evening cleaning the house and I managed to get all of the laundry and ironing done. I've got the kids and myself pretty well packed, too. The kids spent their evening doing school and taking baths. Now it's just past midnight and I'm bushed. But I wanted to let everybody know what we're doing the next few days instead of just mysteriously disappearing from Blogland. Now you know I'll be with real, live people again! :-) Makes me happy. We plan to be back Friday night. Have a great week!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Haley is a Punk
I have selected that title in hopes that Haley will notice she is being addressed. She somehow missed my reply to her comment, expecting it to be in the comments window following her smart remarks and never seeing it in the "HEY, I'M REPLYING TO ALL OF THOSE COMMENTS RIGHT HERE" post from last night. I just received this e-mail from her tonight:
What's up? I went to your blog...... no comment. I know, you can't think of any thing witty enough. It's okay I understand. Pobre tomato she thinks she can comment but she can't. :(
No wait I know you have finally realized that you indeed love NN and to deny it would be a lie. So now you're stuck. Deny it, and well.... have Bro James sing you the song about liars. Admit it and face the humiliation of everyone knowing your deepest darkest secret. II await your fury (that is your forth coming comment) in earnest expectation. Unless of course you really are a pobre tomato :)
~Tsk, tsk, tsk~ So sad. To think of the poor girl sitting on pins and needles all this time, anxiously awaiting my reply. I wonder if she'll notice THIS one... As for NN, I have reconsidered my position, Haley. I want you to buy me that movie for my birthday this year. Yes, yes. I do. Please buy me that movie. For starters, it would be the PERFECT "Haley gift." But I wouldn't have the "Surely this is a gag gift... but if it's NOT, what do I say" dilemma. Secondly, I would most certainly bring it to next year's Girl Party. I have a special ceremony in mind for it. It would, of course, never involve a VCR or DVD player. Just a nice, clear area in the back yard and some lighter fluid, a few matches... And a signed contract with the binding stipulation written in blood that you will never again attempt to choose the girl movie; any violation is punishable by death. Or at least by eternal banishment from the Girl Party. ;-)
Hhmmm. Nothing much to report. We had good services today. Well, this morning, anyway! Ha! Tonight was my VLB service and I must confess I re-e-e-e-eally struggled to put it together. That, "Oh, THIS is what direction I need to go" thing never hit me, so I decided to go with the upcoming holiday. I looked into Groundhog Day, but there's not too much inspiration to be found in Punxatawnie Phil. Besides, after some preliminary study on the subject I discovered that it actually originated from a Catholic-ish holiday having something to do with Mary (February 2nd is 40 days after Christmas; her purification being complete) and then it went way downhill, borrowing from old Pagan beliefs about the seasons and whatnot. Not sure how the groundhog got thrown into the mix. So I opted for February 14th instead. Of course, I've never been a very big fan of Valentine's Day, so we talked about the telephone instead. (February 14, 1867, is the day Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent on the telephone.) I used every corny analogy I could make up, right down to "Please enjoy the music while your party is reached." You didn't know there was anything spiritual about phones, did you?! Ha! We even sang The Royal Telephone tonight, believe it or not. That's a song that... well, let's just say it's not one I lead very often! Ha! It cracks me up. Always has. Oh well--we went with it tonight! Mostly, I'm just glad it's over.
In other news, I'm still missing Hershey Dog way too much. Not crying quite as often as before, but still thinking of him soooooo often and wishing he was here. It's just so weird without him. Weird and sad and lonely and and quiet... Hardly seems possible with three kids (!), but it still feels that way a lot. I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have them to fill my life, my days, and my heart! It didn't help to read that February is Responsible Pet Owners Month and the 20th is Love Your Pet Day. ~sniffle~ All of you pet people, don't take those little furballs for granted! And Stacey, remember to give Jasmine a hug for me on the 20th! Ha! ;-)
Hhmmm. Guess that's about it from here. I hope you all had a great Sunday and were truly blessed of the Lord. And didn't have to sing The Royal Telephone. ;-) James said today that he figures we were probably the only church in all of Albuquerque that sang that song tonight. I told him we were probably the only church in all of Albuquerque that has sung that song for at least 20 years! Ha!
What's up? I went to your blog...... no comment. I know, you can't think of any thing witty enough. It's okay I understand. Pobre tomato she thinks she can comment but she can't. :(
No wait I know you have finally realized that you indeed love NN and to deny it would be a lie. So now you're stuck. Deny it, and well.... have Bro James sing you the song about liars. Admit it and face the humiliation of everyone knowing your deepest darkest secret. II await your fury (that is your forth coming comment) in earnest expectation. Unless of course you really are a pobre tomato :)
~Tsk, tsk, tsk~ So sad. To think of the poor girl sitting on pins and needles all this time, anxiously awaiting my reply. I wonder if she'll notice THIS one... As for NN, I have reconsidered my position, Haley. I want you to buy me that movie for my birthday this year. Yes, yes. I do. Please buy me that movie. For starters, it would be the PERFECT "Haley gift." But I wouldn't have the "Surely this is a gag gift... but if it's NOT, what do I say" dilemma. Secondly, I would most certainly bring it to next year's Girl Party. I have a special ceremony in mind for it. It would, of course, never involve a VCR or DVD player. Just a nice, clear area in the back yard and some lighter fluid, a few matches... And a signed contract with the binding stipulation written in blood that you will never again attempt to choose the girl movie; any violation is punishable by death. Or at least by eternal banishment from the Girl Party. ;-)
Hhmmm. Nothing much to report. We had good services today. Well, this morning, anyway! Ha! Tonight was my VLB service and I must confess I re-e-e-e-eally struggled to put it together. That, "Oh, THIS is what direction I need to go" thing never hit me, so I decided to go with the upcoming holiday. I looked into Groundhog Day, but there's not too much inspiration to be found in Punxatawnie Phil. Besides, after some preliminary study on the subject I discovered that it actually originated from a Catholic-ish holiday having something to do with Mary (February 2nd is 40 days after Christmas; her purification being complete) and then it went way downhill, borrowing from old Pagan beliefs about the seasons and whatnot. Not sure how the groundhog got thrown into the mix. So I opted for February 14th instead. Of course, I've never been a very big fan of Valentine's Day, so we talked about the telephone instead. (February 14, 1867, is the day Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent on the telephone.) I used every corny analogy I could make up, right down to "Please enjoy the music while your party is reached." You didn't know there was anything spiritual about phones, did you?! Ha! We even sang The Royal Telephone tonight, believe it or not. That's a song that... well, let's just say it's not one I lead very often! Ha! It cracks me up. Always has. Oh well--we went with it tonight! Mostly, I'm just glad it's over.
In other news, I'm still missing Hershey Dog way too much. Not crying quite as often as before, but still thinking of him soooooo often and wishing he was here. It's just so weird without him. Weird and sad and lonely and and quiet... Hardly seems possible with three kids (!), but it still feels that way a lot. I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have them to fill my life, my days, and my heart! It didn't help to read that February is Responsible Pet Owners Month and the 20th is Love Your Pet Day. ~sniffle~ All of you pet people, don't take those little furballs for granted! And Stacey, remember to give Jasmine a hug for me on the 20th! Ha! ;-)
Hhmmm. Guess that's about it from here. I hope you all had a great Sunday and were truly blessed of the Lord. And didn't have to sing The Royal Telephone. ;-) James said today that he figures we were probably the only church in all of Albuquerque that sang that song tonight. I told him we were probably the only church in all of Albuquerque that has sung that song for at least 20 years! Ha!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
One Big Comment
That's really all this is. I haven't anything to actually POST about right now, but I felt bad having not replied to anybody else's comments on my last little flock of posts. So I'll just reply to them here and make them look and feel like a new post instead of just a comment replying to old comments. Clever, hu? Nah, I didn't think so either, but it's all I've got.
GIRL PARTY
Mom--Creamer? Creamer??? I thought of that actually, but somehow it didn't sound just right. I mean, do you call the coffee pot a coffee-er? Or the tea pitcher a tea-er?! No, they get their own special name. I assumed somebody would've bestowed the same amount of thought upon the poor little container that holds the cream. Guess not. Creamer. How sad.
Rachel--I don't know what to say. First of all, I'm shocked and appalled that your ventures west have only carried you so far as Shawnee. What a terrible place to stop when things will get so much better if you just go a little farther! (No offence to any Okies, of course!) Secondly, you are SOOOOOO RIGHT about our folks having more fun. And you and Sister Tammi pretty well nailed the reason for it. When you're piled up with a whole bunch of friends all of the time you really do take the fellowship for granted. We've never had that luxury out here so we take extra pains to be together, fully intending to have the grandest time possible from the first moment until the very last. :-) And, of course, we also happen to have the most fantastical people in the whole world out here! I'm glad to hear you're planning on moving out this direction (although slightly surprised you would make it public, what, with the possibility of your locals reading it and going nuts)--just name the state and we'll start looking for work and a place to live for you... ;-)
Tammy--As one of my dearest and longest standing friends, I count on you to comment on each and every post. I can't believe you skipped to them end only to tell me you weren't gonna. ~gasp!~ Of all the nerve! ;-)
Haley--Oh, where do I start?! I really should've started a day or two ago because I had a truly grand reply all worked up for you, but it seems to have left me. Hhmmm. All I've got now is, "Nu-uh!!!" I'll see if I can do better. I AM NOT A PUNK. (That's a winning start...) And I most certainly DID NOT laugh at the NN movie. I may have laughed DURING it, but never AT it. And as I described to you before, there are certain things that are so disturbing and appalling that the longer they go on the more aghast you become until finally the next disturbing and appalling thing happens and you snap and find yourself laughing hysterically. Not because the thing was FUNNY--no. Because it was enough to push you completely off the rocker you were already perched so precariously on due what you've already been exposed to. Such is the case of my laugher DURING (not AT) NN. Now that we have that cleared up, have I made it abundantly clear that you are never again allowed to pick the movie in this lifetime?
~whew~ I think that covers that.
MEN'S RETREAT
Sister Nowling and Jenna--So glad Brother Nowling enjoyed himself out here. (Down here? Over here?) I was sorry that I didn't get to see him personally, but it sounds like the guys really enjoyed having him at Retreat. And I DID get to hear him preach in Denver on Thursday through my brother's computer conference call thingy. It was great! And you're both right--the retreat facilities are GREAT, as is the Shuler boys' ability to make great pictures. ;-)
AS FOR NEW YORK
Mom--I haven't thought or worried about the whole "lurker" thing, although it did occupy a good amount of my thoughts that first night! NYC is an awful long ways away and there are a whole slew of people there. I would suspect there are a whole slew of WEIRD people there, thus furthering my belief that one of them would actually buy a sculpture such as Kate's! ;-)
Rachel--Because that would be far too easy! ;-) Actually, James took care of all of the business with the eBay buyer and he's not known for being particularly chatty in such situations. Ha!
Sister Tammy--I felt much better learning that you have a lurker in NY, too. You're closer to them than I am, so if anything happens to you I'll know they're probably on their way out here! Ha!
Jared--I've got plenty of hits from Ohio, so I doubt you're showing up as New York. One tracker (I ended up with two--long story) currently says Westerville-1, Miamitown-15, and Bellevue-41 for the past month. The other says Norwalk-1, Port Clinton-8, Bellevue-8, Cincinnati-11, and Lakeside Marblehead-15. I'm guessing one tracker is more specific than the other, but still the total number of hits is pretty close. Anyway, glad to know you stop in! Tell the folks up there we said howdy! :-)
THE FIRST...OR LAST
Mom--The brisket was fabulous-o! Mmmmmm... :-)
Sister Tammi--It is amazing to watch the kids grow up and develop such interesting personalities. Sam's is just packed. Some things are hidden so much deeper with him, but they're certainly present!
Kasey--I'm the same way; I deal with things a little bit like Joe, a little bit like Sam. Mostly, I think Sam must take after James. James isn't the kind to sit around and cry for weeks on end. He's the kind to shed a few tears, then get up and DO something about it. Thus the gorgeous little box Hershey was buried in the next day.
Sister Tammy--Interesting perspective! I would love it if Sam became a writer one day. I could see that happening... if the kid will ever learn to READ! Ha!
Rebekah--I prefer it that way, too, especially if I can tell that I'm in one of those rambling moods and it's going to be the never-ending post. Like THIS one! That wasn't even supposed to be a post, just a comment! HA! Pitiful.
~Whew!~ That's that.
The only other news is that I've got the Regional paper all put together... except for a message from the Regional Overseer. Slacker. ;-) I'll be able to finish up quickly once he gets it to me. James made chicken parmesan and cheesy baked ziti for dinner last night (so I could work on the paper)--what a guy! I did take time out from the paper to make a Pineapple Chiffon Pie. Yum! The crust is made out of vanilla wafers and the pie has lemon jell-o and pineapple juice and such deliciousness. It's nice and tangy, kind of like a key lime pie. Right down my alley!
Gotta run. It's not like anybody comes around the blogs on the weekends anyway. It just seemed like it was TIME to say something, you know? I just found out yesterday that my VLB service is tomorrow night (I thought for sure it was NEXT Sunday!) and I need to get Sunday School together--and I also just learned I'm on to lead songs. You'd think the lady who makes the calendar oughtn't be surprised by what's on it. It's a strange phenomenon. Every time! Ha!
GIRL PARTY
Mom--Creamer? Creamer??? I thought of that actually, but somehow it didn't sound just right. I mean, do you call the coffee pot a coffee-er? Or the tea pitcher a tea-er?! No, they get their own special name. I assumed somebody would've bestowed the same amount of thought upon the poor little container that holds the cream. Guess not. Creamer. How sad.
Rachel--I don't know what to say. First of all, I'm shocked and appalled that your ventures west have only carried you so far as Shawnee. What a terrible place to stop when things will get so much better if you just go a little farther! (No offence to any Okies, of course!) Secondly, you are SOOOOOO RIGHT about our folks having more fun. And you and Sister Tammi pretty well nailed the reason for it. When you're piled up with a whole bunch of friends all of the time you really do take the fellowship for granted. We've never had that luxury out here so we take extra pains to be together, fully intending to have the grandest time possible from the first moment until the very last. :-) And, of course, we also happen to have the most fantastical people in the whole world out here! I'm glad to hear you're planning on moving out this direction (although slightly surprised you would make it public, what, with the possibility of your locals reading it and going nuts)--just name the state and we'll start looking for work and a place to live for you... ;-)
Tammy--As one of my dearest and longest standing friends, I count on you to comment on each and every post. I can't believe you skipped to them end only to tell me you weren't gonna. ~gasp!~ Of all the nerve! ;-)
Haley--Oh, where do I start?! I really should've started a day or two ago because I had a truly grand reply all worked up for you, but it seems to have left me. Hhmmm. All I've got now is, "Nu-uh!!!" I'll see if I can do better. I AM NOT A PUNK. (That's a winning start...) And I most certainly DID NOT laugh at the NN movie. I may have laughed DURING it, but never AT it. And as I described to you before, there are certain things that are so disturbing and appalling that the longer they go on the more aghast you become until finally the next disturbing and appalling thing happens and you snap and find yourself laughing hysterically. Not because the thing was FUNNY--no. Because it was enough to push you completely off the rocker you were already perched so precariously on due what you've already been exposed to. Such is the case of my laugher DURING (not AT) NN. Now that we have that cleared up, have I made it abundantly clear that you are never again allowed to pick the movie in this lifetime?
~whew~ I think that covers that.
MEN'S RETREAT
Sister Nowling and Jenna--So glad Brother Nowling enjoyed himself out here. (Down here? Over here?) I was sorry that I didn't get to see him personally, but it sounds like the guys really enjoyed having him at Retreat. And I DID get to hear him preach in Denver on Thursday through my brother's computer conference call thingy. It was great! And you're both right--the retreat facilities are GREAT, as is the Shuler boys' ability to make great pictures. ;-)
AS FOR NEW YORK
Mom--I haven't thought or worried about the whole "lurker" thing, although it did occupy a good amount of my thoughts that first night! NYC is an awful long ways away and there are a whole slew of people there. I would suspect there are a whole slew of WEIRD people there, thus furthering my belief that one of them would actually buy a sculpture such as Kate's! ;-)
Rachel--Because that would be far too easy! ;-) Actually, James took care of all of the business with the eBay buyer and he's not known for being particularly chatty in such situations. Ha!
Sister Tammy--I felt much better learning that you have a lurker in NY, too. You're closer to them than I am, so if anything happens to you I'll know they're probably on their way out here! Ha!
Jared--I've got plenty of hits from Ohio, so I doubt you're showing up as New York. One tracker (I ended up with two--long story) currently says Westerville-1, Miamitown-15, and Bellevue-41 for the past month. The other says Norwalk-1, Port Clinton-8, Bellevue-8, Cincinnati-11, and Lakeside Marblehead-15. I'm guessing one tracker is more specific than the other, but still the total number of hits is pretty close. Anyway, glad to know you stop in! Tell the folks up there we said howdy! :-)
THE FIRST...OR LAST
Mom--The brisket was fabulous-o! Mmmmmm... :-)
Sister Tammi--It is amazing to watch the kids grow up and develop such interesting personalities. Sam's is just packed. Some things are hidden so much deeper with him, but they're certainly present!
Kasey--I'm the same way; I deal with things a little bit like Joe, a little bit like Sam. Mostly, I think Sam must take after James. James isn't the kind to sit around and cry for weeks on end. He's the kind to shed a few tears, then get up and DO something about it. Thus the gorgeous little box Hershey was buried in the next day.
Sister Tammy--Interesting perspective! I would love it if Sam became a writer one day. I could see that happening... if the kid will ever learn to READ! Ha!
Rebekah--I prefer it that way, too, especially if I can tell that I'm in one of those rambling moods and it's going to be the never-ending post. Like THIS one! That wasn't even supposed to be a post, just a comment! HA! Pitiful.
~Whew!~ That's that.
The only other news is that I've got the Regional paper all put together... except for a message from the Regional Overseer. Slacker. ;-) I'll be able to finish up quickly once he gets it to me. James made chicken parmesan and cheesy baked ziti for dinner last night (so I could work on the paper)--what a guy! I did take time out from the paper to make a Pineapple Chiffon Pie. Yum! The crust is made out of vanilla wafers and the pie has lemon jell-o and pineapple juice and such deliciousness. It's nice and tangy, kind of like a key lime pie. Right down my alley!
Gotta run. It's not like anybody comes around the blogs on the weekends anyway. It just seemed like it was TIME to say something, you know? I just found out yesterday that my VLB service is tomorrow night (I thought for sure it was NEXT Sunday!) and I need to get Sunday School together--and I also just learned I'm on to lead songs. You'd think the lady who makes the calendar oughtn't be surprised by what's on it. It's a strange phenomenon. Every time! Ha!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The First... or Last???
Of 4 new posts, that is. If you're interested (or really, really bored), I put all of my news into four long, drawn-out posts instead of one painfully long, drawn-out post. :-)
We bought a 7.5 lb. brisket for $8 today and I decided to cook it tonight. It's in the oven for 20 minutes right now to heat through, then I'll turn the temp way down and go to bed. Until then I thought I'd slap one more little post up here (since I probably won't have a chance for the next few days--it's Regional paper time) while I'm waiting.
I told my Mom I'd post a picture of Hershey's grave. I know it seems weird, but she asked to see it, so...
We bought a 7.5 lb. brisket for $8 today and I decided to cook it tonight. It's in the oven for 20 minutes right now to heat through, then I'll turn the temp way down and go to bed. Until then I thought I'd slap one more little post up here (since I probably won't have a chance for the next few days--it's Regional paper time) while I'm waiting.
I told my Mom I'd post a picture of Hershey's grave. I know it seems weird, but she asked to see it, so...
Have I mentioned how much I've learned about my kids since losing Hershey??? Well, I'm still learning! Katie has been FINE since the day after it happened. Like I said, she feels things very deeply, but she also recovers quickly. In cases like this, I take it as the blessing that it is. Joe was absolutely devastated--cried uncontrollably for the first few days, at the drop of a hat. Sam seemed more "untouched" and only broke down and cried a few times. He seemed that way... but he's the one who sobbed just a few days ago out of the blue--days after the other kids have been fine. And again tonight...
I had been playing the piano for a while (just found my chorus book with all the chords in it! Wa-Hoo!) and noticed that Sam had been sitting at the table real quiet for a long time. I went over and asked what he was doing. "Drawing Hershey's life," he said.
That's a tree at the top right, with Hershey's "rope" tied to it. (What we used to use to tie him out with when we were traveling and somebody didn't have a fenced yard.) On the top left, under the rope are his dog dishes. Below that is Hershey's leash. On the bottom left is "Hershey's favorite spot": the fireplace, on the right is his toy duck, and in the center is his grave.
And, of course, Hershey Dog. (Don't know what happened to his fourth leg, but he got the curls down!)
Sam seemed fine until he began explaining what everything was, then he got lost in another of those crying episodes where he chokes up and can't speak. !!! He is so different from the other kids--and I'm so thankful to be learning more about him and his nature. Sometimes he seems so aloof (emotionally) and I wonder if he really cares about certain things. But I'm learning so much more about his little heart through all of this. Losing Hershey is just as hard on him as it is any of the rest of us; he just deals with it differently. He never cried buckets for days on end, but he has these unexpected gushes of emotion. Tonight he really opened up and tried to talk about it and tell me how much he loved Hershey and how sad he is that he's gone. It broke my heart, yet it feels so right. That somehow God is teaching our family so many things through this. For that I am so grateful. I have such special kids. I still miss my dog (!!!), but I'm thankful that God is using this to work in our family. All things work together for good somehow, right?
Okay, I just turned the brisket down, so I can go to bed now. I'll post more in a few days--and hopefully make the rounds to everybody else's blogs! (Maybe I'll even sneak in a few of those while I'm supposed to be working on the paper...) ;-)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
And as for NEW YORK
But first...
Today's been a pretty good one. We had a slow start and ended up watching the Inaguration; something that I didn't plan on doing. But then we figured that kids all across the country were doing that for "school," so we did, too. The kids didn't make it through the whole thing, but that's okay--I didn't either. That wacky poem did me in. GOOD GRIEF!!!
After that we loaded up and went shopping because we had nothing in the house to eat. Last night we had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches... but we only had enough bread for two and a half sandwiches, so I dumped the rest of the tortilla chip crumbs on a cookie sheet and made nachos so we'd have enough food. So not shopping was not an option today. Got home and were so tired!!! We didn't even start school until nearly 4:00, but still managed to finish up by about 5:30. The only things we skipped were science and handwriting. It was too late to pull of a traditional dinner, so we had breakfast instead: bacon and eggs and bisquits.
And now...
AS FOR NEW YORK...
Remember a while back when I mentioned that my blog tracker lets me know how many hits my site gets, when they are here, and where they came from? And I seem to have a regular viewer (or more than one?) from New York. It's pretty cool, except that I don't know anybody in New York. Still, no biggie.
Well, do you also remember that crazy little Wikki-Stix sculpture that Katie put on eBay??? Well, it SOLD! For $2.25 plus $1 shipping. Crazy and cute all at once, right? Everything was cool until we realized that the buyer is from NEW YORK!
This leaves only 3 possibilites:
1. A friend or member of the Church in New York (who has wished thus far not to identify themselves) looks at my blog, somehow found it cute that a 7 year old was trying to sell something, thought they'd humor her, looked it up on eBay and bought it. That's nice.
2. There is some weird-o out there stalking us! Sounds nutty, right?! Probably, but these days you just never know! I mean, what are the chances that a Wikki-Stix sculpture is actually going to sell on eBay? Then, that it sells to a person from New York... where there just happens to be somebody who looks at my blog on a regular basis?! (An average of at least 3 times a day, it appears.) Still, it wouldn't be that big of a deal since I try to be real careful about not giving too many specifics about our family--last name, city, etc. But (!!!), now that this person bought Katie's sculpture, eBay automatically sent them our name and address. Gre-e-e-e-e-eat. Good thinkin', Bec. You just HAD to blog about it, right?! It NEVER occured to me that if there WAS a freak out there they could see this on my blog and think, "Hhmmm... I could figure out who and where these people are if only I bought the thing!" ~sigh~ I'm so dumb. In any case, what's done is done. I'm not scared or worried or even nervous about it, but it does bother me that I did something so dumb! It's kind of cool that I have the blog traker though. If I didn't, I wouldn't even know that there was somebody from NY checking out my blog. This way, I've got their IP address and they can be tracked--besides the fact that I now have a name and address as well. Not to say that it definitely IS the same person... which brings us to possibility #3.
3. It was a mere coincidence. That won't make my Dad feel any better (he's going to KILL me when he finds out about this!), but there always is that option. And I really rather prefer it. :-) Perhaps somebody in New York who doesn't even know I HAVE a blog stumbled upon that eBay listing and for whatever reason, decided to buy it. After all, New York is a pretty big place! (But I looked up the address and it is very near where my blog tracker is picking up some action...)
So just in case there is some weird-o out there...
I'm on to you now! ;-)
Today's been a pretty good one. We had a slow start and ended up watching the Inaguration; something that I didn't plan on doing. But then we figured that kids all across the country were doing that for "school," so we did, too. The kids didn't make it through the whole thing, but that's okay--I didn't either. That wacky poem did me in. GOOD GRIEF!!!
After that we loaded up and went shopping because we had nothing in the house to eat. Last night we had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches... but we only had enough bread for two and a half sandwiches, so I dumped the rest of the tortilla chip crumbs on a cookie sheet and made nachos so we'd have enough food. So not shopping was not an option today. Got home and were so tired!!! We didn't even start school until nearly 4:00, but still managed to finish up by about 5:30. The only things we skipped were science and handwriting. It was too late to pull of a traditional dinner, so we had breakfast instead: bacon and eggs and bisquits.
And now...
AS FOR NEW YORK...
Remember a while back when I mentioned that my blog tracker lets me know how many hits my site gets, when they are here, and where they came from? And I seem to have a regular viewer (or more than one?) from New York. It's pretty cool, except that I don't know anybody in New York. Still, no biggie.
Well, do you also remember that crazy little Wikki-Stix sculpture that Katie put on eBay??? Well, it SOLD! For $2.25 plus $1 shipping. Crazy and cute all at once, right? Everything was cool until we realized that the buyer is from NEW YORK!
This leaves only 3 possibilites:
1. A friend or member of the Church in New York (who has wished thus far not to identify themselves) looks at my blog, somehow found it cute that a 7 year old was trying to sell something, thought they'd humor her, looked it up on eBay and bought it. That's nice.
2. There is some weird-o out there stalking us! Sounds nutty, right?! Probably, but these days you just never know! I mean, what are the chances that a Wikki-Stix sculpture is actually going to sell on eBay? Then, that it sells to a person from New York... where there just happens to be somebody who looks at my blog on a regular basis?! (An average of at least 3 times a day, it appears.) Still, it wouldn't be that big of a deal since I try to be real careful about not giving too many specifics about our family--last name, city, etc. But (!!!), now that this person bought Katie's sculpture, eBay automatically sent them our name and address. Gre-e-e-e-e-eat. Good thinkin', Bec. You just HAD to blog about it, right?! It NEVER occured to me that if there WAS a freak out there they could see this on my blog and think, "Hhmmm... I could figure out who and where these people are if only I bought the thing!" ~sigh~ I'm so dumb. In any case, what's done is done. I'm not scared or worried or even nervous about it, but it does bother me that I did something so dumb! It's kind of cool that I have the blog traker though. If I didn't, I wouldn't even know that there was somebody from NY checking out my blog. This way, I've got their IP address and they can be tracked--besides the fact that I now have a name and address as well. Not to say that it definitely IS the same person... which brings us to possibility #3.
3. It was a mere coincidence. That won't make my Dad feel any better (he's going to KILL me when he finds out about this!), but there always is that option. And I really rather prefer it. :-) Perhaps somebody in New York who doesn't even know I HAVE a blog stumbled upon that eBay listing and for whatever reason, decided to buy it. After all, New York is a pretty big place! (But I looked up the address and it is very near where my blog tracker is picking up some action...)
So just in case there is some weird-o out there...
I'm on to you now! ;-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
