Forgive Me Father...

...for I have sinned. Since confession is good for the soul, I will attempt to try to itemize the many sins of the last few days.

• I have begrudged and resented hubby for enjoying his true passion (drums and music) many many times.
• I have longed for a larger house instead of being content with the one you have blessed us with. We really do love our home...except for the days the walls seem to be closing in on us.
• I expressed mirth when the perfect children at butterfly tagging erupted into a full-blown fist fight.
• I have had little patience with mini-me(Lilly) for far too many days in a row. Give me the patience to spend some quality time with her today.
• I have not been a good steward of money or belongings. I am surrounded by boxes and boxes of things that should be sold on ebay or released into the world through a charity so that they may be used and enjoyed by another.
• I have not been a good dieter-I have cheated many many times and yet still hop on the scale to find the same weight. I am awed and humbled by your mercy.
• I have not been a patient teacher. I want to make learning fun but the "just get it all done" side of me keeps winning.
• I am embracing sleep too often. I long for leisurely mornings of sleep and naps. My energy level has bottomed out.
• I was happy when I visited my mom yesterday to find her not at home-gone to the DR. with my sister. I hurried to shave my stepdad and fled the scene as fast as possible and hoped I could get to my home before she got back. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!
• I am not studying your word near enough. My prayer life is full but I know you wish me to grow in the knowledge of your word as well. Create in me the desire to do so.
• Most of all, I am not "blooming where I am planted". In fact, most days find me withered on the vine. Help me bloom.

There, I feel much better. This is a small list but it covers most of the biggies. No one wants to read the unabridged version.

Weekend Update
(Bullets, of course)

• We bought "the rest of our yard" from our neighbor. We have lived here 8 years now and a pie shaped section of our yard has belonged to our neighbor. While the land division makes perfect sense on paper-our land was a rectangle, his was a square-in real life the translation meant that our ginormous side yard had a little triangle in the back that was his. It was quite annoying and we have been trying to obtain it for quite some time. The elderly fellow that lived there before not only did not want to sell it-but wanted us to sell him part of our yard so he would have road frontage to his triangle. We had finally worn him down and we were beginning to negotiate the deal when he had a car wreck. He died shortly after of pneumonia while recovering in the hospital. The a young man bought his house. He did not even know about the triangle until we told him and promised to sell it "someday" if we would "make an offer". Someday finally came and the deal will close tomorrow. We now own all of our yard, even the triangle in the back which was surprisingly-half an acre. Now, we can get goats and chickens. Oh wait, I forgot, hubby is still not talked into that. Someday.
• Yesterday we got up at 8, yard saled for about an hour (Lilly got three pairs of shoes for 75 cents-one of them heelies!!!) and then headed to National Public Lands Day!! We had an awesome day of nature. We went back in time to 1850, learned about organic gardening, petted some sheep, listened to the sweet happy snorts of sleeping pigs and played dress up in clothes of that time frame. Then we went to our next stop where we watched the feeding times of the bald eagle and the vultures. The girl feeding them was so informative and friendly that Lilly has a new best friend. We met the newest employee and used our girlish charms to talk him into getting out our friend the prairie king snake so we could share some love. Then we went monarch butterfly tagging. It was nothing like last year because there were NO monarchs OR big butterflies at all, just little ones. This is just one of many of the tagging classes they have had and they have tagged no monarchs. I find this very disturbing. They usually tag about 100. This is so disturbing, in fact, that we will be doing much more research on them in the weeks to come.
• We ran into the wonderful Phillip and Sara who mentioned they had camped with others from church and so we went to properly stalk them at their campground when we had shut all the attractions down. They were not there but the other names-Rob and Penny were. We figured our two families could hang out a bit and we would get home around dark. However, we were pleasantly surprised that there were three families(John and Sandy and Ted & Christina) involved in the camp-out and all were still there. Even better than that was the fact that John invited us to stay and have supper. I hastily said yes and proceeded to join the 2 hour wait for grub. It was delicious and even though we waited much longer than expected, we all had a wonderful time of fellowship and I hope they camp again so we can go too-and actually camp with them, not just mooch a supper!! The best food is the food that is long anticipated!! The longer the wait, the better the taste-right?
• If you have never tried Makers Mark in your coffee-you should. It has a nice flavor and makes for nice sleep. I am not a bourbon fan but a nice friend shared a little shot with some coffee and I brought it home and consumed it. I give it a thumbs up. I'm still not buying any bourbon though-but if perhaps the opportunity ever presents itself again I will partake. It had been well over 10 years since whiskey had touched these lips.
• I finally finished Rich Man, Poor Man and it remains on my favorites list. It is such a good story about life. Then Friday, I started Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin and stayed up till the wee hours finishing it. After reading a VERY long book, a short book can be consumed in an evening. It is a great book and also the beginning of a series. However, My Sister's Keeper is on the nightstand for right now. I am just a few pages into it and I hope I can get to bed at a decent hour not get sucked in!!
• Back to school in the morning and I look forward to a bit of normalcy!! We have run run run all weekend. Just a few errands tomorrow and then we hole up for a few days in this little rabbit hole we call home. I hope your weekend was awesome!!

Excitement!

We have managed to now get two full days of school in a crazy week where one might think we could do none! We have doubled and tripled up on just the basics because our field trips count as school as well. Hubby is on vacation all week. (Maybe you have noticed he likes to consolidate most of his vacation in the hot humid part of summer. He is a very smart man who has to work outside for a living.) We had our little mini vacation to St. Louis and now there is a big festival that hubby likes to e a part of at the end of this week. He will be playing with all three bands and he also volunteers(works like a dog for free-and loves every minute of it) as the entertainment/stage manager for the whole festival. Yesterday we enjoyed one of his perks-we walked to find him to say hello and he drove us to our car in "Big Red". It was fun to pass by all those poor chums that had to walk to their vehicle. (It should be clarified that we did have to walk one way.) Tomorrow we will take advantage of a wonderful science excursion and to accomplish anything this busy busy week is a miracle-yet we have done our schoolwork. Thank goodness for a syllabus and an already planned school year or I would curl up in the fetal position and accomplish nothing.

On a side note, Lilly amazes me. She has learned how to "carry" in addition in one sitting and can't wait to do it. She masters math so easily. I hope "borrowing" comes as easily. However, fractions are kicking the other two in the rear. We are at 2 weeks and I think we will have to have at least 4 to have mastery-which freak that I am is what I work toward no matter how long it takes. Fractions(GCF, LCM, mixed number conversion, adding and subtracting with different denominators) are a bit challenging but I never dreamed they would struggle this much. I hate it that our finances did not permit Teaching Textbooks this year...although I am totally asking Santa for it for Christmas!!

Have a productive and exciting weekend!!

At Last, My Time Has Come Along...

My time to completely understand why some people (not naming any names here) have a hard time keeping up with their blogs. First, I have to say I never sit at this keyboard and have a hard time finding something to write about. I never have writer's block. Probably never will. I never struggle to keep up with conversations either. I have trouble allowing other people room to talk, but never any trouble holding up my end of the conversation. (Stop laughing and amening-real life friends.) However, I am having a hard time lately finding time to post every day and decide which of the ten blog posts dancing around in my brain I want to write.

There is much to catch up on. Early Tuesday morning, our family took a little road trip to St. Louis. We had tickets to a night game and before that we were going to do a little sight seeing. We went to the butterfly house and it was glorious. So many beautiful butterflies!! We loved it. Erik was the only one lucky enough to have a butterfly land on him. We took lots and lots of pictures but it was on a disposable camera not our digital camera. I understand why the world has gone digital!! Waiting to finish a roll of film and then get it developed is maddening!! After the butterfly house, we checked into our hotel. We also walked up to the 18th floor to see the pool and then we took off for the arch. Erik and I had not gone up in a long time and the kids had not ever gone up so it was very exciting for them. They have done a whole lot of remodeling and it now includes a little movie about the history of St. Louis. It was great and we could see our hotel pool from the top. Then we went to eat at a local restaurant with great pizza and pasta. After that, we were off to the game. It was such a wonderful surprise to find out that Busch stadium now has margaritas!! Live baseball and margaritas!! Good times, good times. The cards won and we saw a homerun. The next morning we got up early to swim in the two rooftop pools. They were very warm and it was totally awesome to know we were swimming up 18 floors from the ground. After swimming we checked out and headed homeward. We stopped at Joe's Crab Shack for a delicious lunch.

Upon arriving home, we checked messages and discovered that Mom had gone with my sister to get her new leg. The girls and I ran over to see it before church. She is very excited but still a long way off from getting to walk on it. She needs lots of prayers. She has not been an ideal patient so now she will have to do some catch-up to make up for all the rules she has broken. She has not been walking with her walker or flexing and unflexing her knee. This gives her some new hurdles in addition to getting used to a leg.

So that covers our life up to today. Today we have spent the day chilling. Tomorrow and Saturday we will finish our school week. Saturday we will be nature detectives and we can't wait. It is going to be a very busy and fun weekend.

Some Days Are Diamonds, Some Days Are Coal

This one is coal so far. We have seen glimpses of diamonds glittering below the surface. The next two days will be extremely busy ones so the need to get alot accomplished today is bearing down on me. This means the day has been completely unproductive so far(at least as far as school goes). Since Erik is on vacation, the kids have gone into full helpless mode thinking that if they can make the day difficult, we will just declare the day an off day and they can play. It AIN'T happening. I love having Erik at home and it just infuriates me how the kids are so uncooperative when he is home. I know it infuriates him as well. He doesn't know whether to be menacing or ignore them or just leave and let us do school. Usually the latter is what happens and that just isn't fair-to anyone.

I wish, just for once, the kids would act as if he wasn't here(without him having to physically leave!) and just have a normal school day.

GRRRRRR!!

Random and Odd

• Daisy has finished her quarantine time. However, it is Saturday and neither agency is open that could issue her walking papers. Oh well, she prefers being a housedog anyway.
• Daisy is at least half goat. While she doesn't eat everything, she will chew almost anything in her path.
• Go and enter this contest!!! Especially you, Mia!!
• We have a hammock now, score!!! It was only $5 at a yard sale, score!!! We obtained other valuables to numerous to mention while yard saling today!!! SCORE!!!
• Rich Man, Poor Man is just as awesome as I remember and completely responsible for my sketchy blogging lately. Irwin Shaw is the author. A must read. R rated though, for those who might offend easily.

My phone rang at 8:30AM and it was my mom. (YAHOO, we have a phone with a good battery and caller ID finally!!) That is never a good sign since my mom very much enjoys sleeping in. My stepdad fell down and she could not get him up. Could I come quickly? I will be there as quick as possible but Kayla JUST got in the shower so it won't be quick. I also took a very quick shower after her because I was pretty sure there was an ER visit in my future.

I was wrong, Pete is fine and was able to get up before I arrived in a record 20 minutes. (Sometimes speeding is not wrong, right?) However, the bad news was that he had been on his way to the bathroom. Soooooo, my morning started with some hard core service. Mom felt terrible that I drove out for nothing, but I told her call me anytime. They have a hard life taking care of each other and I feel blessed to be able to be there for them. I thought of Hulagirl as I usually do when driving to Mom's (since I drive by her road) and decided that living next door would be pretty ideal. Of course, this is not an option as the houses by Mom are mostly farms that stay in the family and not anything anyone puts up for sale.

I have decided maybe I should get up and shower first thing though as this sort of thing is getting to be more and more likely and odds are good that I will be the first call due to our flexibility.

We have had a pretty good day after that. School was very abbreviated, but it did happen. We will play the fun game of catch-up tomorrow. Have a good Thursday!

Because of Winn-Dixie

No wait, I mean because of Daisy. Because of Daisy, we are meeting lots and lots of new neighbors. News has traveled quickly of the bite and then the subsequent animal control vehicles. The neighbors have expressed outrage at the man who reported her and we are getting phone calls and visits from people who love her and miss her. One neighbor even checked the pound and she planned to spring her out of jail if need be. It has been very touching, we affectionately refer to them as the "Daisy fan club". Toby has the same fan club but he is still making his rounds, so no one is beside themselves with worry over him.

I never thought of our dogs as being community property before but I think we must as they have endeared themselves to the masses. This also explains why our BIG dogs eat such small amounts of food. Apparently everyone gives them a few treats and snacks when they visit. It's a hard knock life.

I am just very very thankful everyone has been so nice and positive (even the man she bit). With dogs and neighbors, we could be getting to know them in a whole other way!

Monday, Monday

A fresh start, a new week. I feel good. So far, we are having a pretty decent school day...as I typed that, things got ugly. Never type that you are having a decent school day until said day is over.

I hope all my friends in Texas are well. I have prayed specifically for your families and continue to do so. We had the tail end of the storm come through our parts and it was the weirdest storm I have ever seen. We were hoping for rain, lots of it because we need it. Instead we got tree splitting winds. Very little rain. LOTS of damage. Most of the schools in this area are unable to meet today due to the sheer volume of downed power lines. We did not have a power outage and for that I am very thankful. We spent the afternoon picking up branches here and at Erik's parents. We are surrouded by neighbors with substantial damage so we feel very lucky.

Back to school for me, I have a mountain of papers to grade and Mount Washmore threatens to take over our house. Happy Monday!

I HAVE ANOTHER SISTER!!!

(Because 3 isn't enough???)

Special thanks to Stephanie R for helping me find her. As I read through her history, I have nearly peed 7 times-but when I got to this post, I audibly gasped!! If you recall this post outed me as such an oddball I made Jason's single sentence soup post. To know someone else out there has this same un-named disease is a comfort, let me tell you!! Go read her history-especially this story. Make sure you pee first though...and maybe you shouldn't have any drinks around either.

Now to catch you up a bit on all that is exciting around here, bullets!!!

• The above picture shows that pool season is now over. No more washing load after load of towels and still finding the towel shelf bare. No more water tracked all through the house in the form of little dirty footprints. No more neighbors who magically appear in swimsuits the moment my toe hits the water. I love to see it turn into pool season and I am just as happy to see it go. The kids love their tent and new sandbox so much. The tent (pool cover) will be put away soon, but the sandbox lasts until pool season comes around again.
• I forgot how much sand little feet can track through my laundry room. Now laundry really brings out the gritty in me.
• Daisy LOVES being quarantined. LOVES IT!! She has always wanted to be a housedog. She may make a habit of biting elderly neighbors. We have to keep her in chew toys which may bankrupt us. They only last a day. She does HATE the crate though. We are so thankful to still have her that we love on her all the time. Can you say spoiled rotten?
• I fell off the diet wagon and have bumped my head so hard I have a concussion. However, I have only gained a couple of pounds back. Climbing back on a wagon is SOOOOO hard!
• The little crab sandbox is Daisy's pool/water dish. She looooooves water. We took her swimming Monday and she was the cutest thing ever. She fetches stick from the lake like nobody's business. She even puts her head under water. Adorable.
• Gotta go, Daisy is trying to chew everything in sight. She doesn't like to be alone.

Fugitives
9:15PM Both dogs in the house for the night. Never happened before.
12:35AM I go to bed praying Daisy sleeps through the night and doesn't chew anything valuable.
5:30 AM I am awakened to the unmistakable thump thump thump thump...of a Daisy tail on hardwood floor. Get up and take both dogs outside where the three of us sit in the back yard looking at one another. My sincere hope that a bathroom break might take place was dashed.
5:40AM Back in the house and back to bed, Daisy joined us-another first.
6:15ish Erik up and getting ready for work. Daisy and I stretched out on the bed. Erik encourages me to get up and get gone.
6:30AM Erik to work.
6:31 AM Erik called and informed us animal control was already pulling into the neighbor's driveway. We had our escape plan all planned out.
6:35 AM All three girls and me dressed, 2 dogs on a leash ready to flee the scene. Our plan was to take Daisy to the vet for her spaying and shots and then not be home during animal control hours until the heat was off. Fugitives.
6:36 AM Animal control and the neighbor pulling into our driveway. Our plan was foiled.
6:37 AM Inner debate about whether to hide and pretend we aren't home or face the music. After silent prayer, opened the door and stepped out to greet them. Officer was very nice, very doubtful that Daisy has rabies and asked us to quarantine her in our home for 10 days and then someone will come out and visually inspect her. Then it will be over. We are fortunate that there have been no cases of rabies in our state for many many years.

I consider this our miracle and I am very happy. The next 10 days will be very hard, but it beats the alternative.

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that going to church tonight, surrounded by good friends, participating in studying the word and being distracted a bit by good things finally stopped my tearfest.

The bad news is I came home and began the tearfest again. The really bad news is the reason for the tearfest. I am telling you this and coveting your sincere prayers NO MATTER WHEN YOU READ IT!! God is NOT constrained by time like we are.

You may remember a certain beautiful black lab that we rescued on a deserted country road. You may recall that I was frustrated to bring another pet into our fold. Of course, then you will recall that Daisy charmed her way right into the hearts of this entire family-even the cats. We have several neighbors who love her so much they call us to thank us for "sharing" and want to help with her animal care expenses. She is very lovable. Toby's wife. We are crazy about her.

Today, while playing with an elderly neighbor (with very thin elderly skin), she bit him instead of his paper she was playing with. (He was playing with her with his paper-I know that sounds odd!) She broke the skin and there was bleeding. He is OK but very worried about rabies-completely understandable. This man did not know us or that she was our dog. He did the only thing he could think of which was to *GASP* call animal control and report the bite. THEN he asked around to some neighbors to find out whose dog she was and if she had her rabies shot. Now here is the REALLY BAD part, she hasn't gotten it yet. We were planning to take her for that and getting her fixed next week.

Now, the wheels are in motion for animal control to come and pick her up tomorrow. I am devastated. If you do a google search of rabies testing of dogs, you will understand why I am crying buckets. Through tears and ungraceful crying I tried to explain to him what it entails. He doesn't want any of this to happen and he very much wants to withdraw his complaint. He also firmly believes I am wrong and that animal control will just come out, look at her, declare her fine and go on back to headquarters. HOWEVER, animal control is not known for being warm and fuzzy. It is basically dog law enforcement and a very big deal.

We may lose our baby and I need your prayers desperately.

More Angst

Don't you just love it when I am in a good mood?? Lately, I am very frustrated-as if yesterday's post didn't clue you in. I feel like such a failure in the social world. On one hand I make friends very easily, on the other hand, I often do things to drive those new friends away without even knowing it. Thankfully, through it all, my BEST friend is my husband. He has tolerated the mood swings, tongue lashings, and overall goofiness. He also still loves me, usually agrees with me (even though I open cans of worms he would NEVER open!), and gets me-even the worst parts of me. He sympathizes with me when it is obvious I AM being mistreated and also when it is obvious I AM MAKING MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLEHILLS. In return for this I try really hard to be nice to him. To lovingly do things for him and understand him to the very best of my ability. I think that may be the secret to the success of any long term relationship-loving one another even when they make your blood boil. Loving one another despite HUGE differences in personality and being thankful to God above that those differences allow you to help one another grow if you let it. Last night I read him this upcoming verse and we both nodded at how easy church SHOULD be. Why isn't it? Because of all the people. We are so flawed. We want to be right, but I think even deeper than that-we want to be liked. The people who feel liked tend to fare a little little better than those of us who don't feel liked or appreciated.

Anyway, I am very blessed this quarter at church to be studying Acts with one of our churches most gifted teachers (in my opinion). I say that because he is blunt, opinionated, VERY knowledgeable, but also open minded. Eager to get a different insight than his own. That is rare. Most people just cling to their own insight and don't enjoy hearing other people's take on things because they have already figured it all out. The seek to "bring people around to their way of thinking" not consider a new way of looking at something. ( I definitely fall into that bringing people around opinion even though I don't want to!!)

So tonight, even though I am totally in a state of spiritual depression about too many things to mention, I will go and study the first two chapters of Acts. I have been reading them and can't wait to get another perspective that will be so far from my own, I will have to delve deeper. My favorite verse:

Acts 2: 46-7
46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.


This verse just crystallizes what church should be for me. What was required of the people? GLAD AND SINCERE HEARTS, GRANTING FAVOR TO EVERYONE AROUND THEM. God did the rest. All they had to do was love the Lord with all of their hearts and love one another with gladness and sincerity. A VERY TALL ORDER, but the rewards were that their number was added to daily.

Angst

Last night, I served as a sounding board for a friend who is having a really hard time with some circumstances in her life. I tried to listen and be encouraging. My encouragement was to go straight to the source of the problem-in this case, the person-and she plans to do so. This is always my advice. I'll listen all you want, but at the heart of the matter, only working it out with the source of your frustration will ease the problem. Even if you think the person is an inconsiderate sloth that is completely unreasonable-that is still the only path you have to deal with the other person. Prayer helps, but even God has laid out very clearly for us that when our brother offends us we are to first GO TO THE BROTHER. Today, another friend called me and we talked about an almost identical problem. My answer was the same-go to your brother. You must work it out with your brother.

Matthew 18:15
" 15"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over."

Seldom is that the case though. We first want to do a little something I call "rallying the troops". We want to go to a friend and say: "Hey, I'm having this problem with Janice. How about you? Do you ever have that problem with Janice? You do? So it isn't just me? How do you deal with her? Great idea. I'm going to pray for her and from now on, that is how I will deal with her too. Thanks for listening, I'm not even mad at Janice anymore. I'll just dismiss this incident now that I know, bless her heart, THAT IS JUST THE WAY SHE IS."

At first glance, one might say there is nothing wrong with that approach, but let's look a little deeper. Having a problem with Janice might be a little bit your fault to, but in this scenario, that isn't revealed at all. It is pretty much impossible for something to only be the fault of one person. As I tell my children all the time-it takes two to tango. In this case, one to annoy, one to be annoyed. We often assume the annoyer is at fault, but perhaps being the annoyee takes just as much fault.

Perhaps the biggest glaring errors in "rallying the troops" is twofold: NUMBER ONE-Janice was NEVER consulted. She has offended a brother and is not even aware. How selfish. How can Janice grow in maturity when someone is not even willing to go to her and discuss the offense? Who decided she wasn't worth the effort? Does God say that anyone is not worth confronting in their sin? Eventually all the "troops" will treat Janice with the same disregard and she will feel isolated. Sure she is "loved and prayed for", but is that really what God calls us to do? Perhaps by going to a brother when we feel sinned against is commanded because God knows it will change BOTH people for the better. Offering and receiving grace are two of the biggest gifts a person can bestow(receiving grace can humble you in a way nothing else will). NUMBER TWO- The "troops" have just put themselves on a higher spiritual plane. They look across at one another, but down at Janice. To quote the church lady, "They feel just a little bit superior." A good self image is one thing, esteeming yourself (or someone else) higher than another is just sinful. Don't get me wrong, we all have people we click with, we can enjoy their company without thinking they are superior to other people. We may have favorites, but God sure doesn't.

I am very frustrated because I am just feeling just a little bit too much like the Janice in my examples these days. I know I have offended people and continue to do so. In big ways and in small ways. Some people have come to me and we have talked and our relationships have grown strong- tested. However, other people have been offended and just remain distant. Aloof. It comes across in their lack of communication. Have you ever known you screwed up, you just weren't sure which mistake it was that did it? Have you ever offended someone to the extent that they dislike you so much you can feel it oozing from their pores when you say hello? That is how I feel. I know I am a blunt person that very few people understand. I can totally relate, I talk to God daily about why he made me the way he made me. It drives ME crazy, I can't even imagine the havok it wreaks on those around me. However, HE DID CREATE ME THIS WAY and he does have a reason and a purpose for my life. I am who HE says I am-GOOD ENOUGH only when covered in the blood, just like you. I am a struggling and sometimes failing Christian doing the very best I know how. I belong to Him and that makes me good enough and worth the "trouble", even if some of the "troops" don't think so.

I'm thinking about confronting them. What do you think? Really, you feel the same way? I know, that is just how they are. I'll be praying.

Quitting

Once upon a time in my life, I worked at McDonald's. It was a job I dearly loved. I liked all my co-wrkers and we had a lot of fun while working very hard together. I was trained in all positions in a very short amount of time and some days I would open, go home to take a nap and then come back and close. There were managers that I loved working with and I almost always made over time-plus they worked around my college schedule-no easy feat.

It seemed like I had been there forever because I worked so often. In reality though, it had only been 4 months. I was a good hard worker. There was another girl that only worked once in a blue moon, did a lousy job and could only do one job and was not even remotely competent at that. We made the same pay. It made my blood boil. I approached my store manager and told her I wanted a raise. She said I would definitely get one-in two months at my 6 month evaluation. I needed to make more money without working so many hours so in my mind, it was not acceptable. Another manager gave me a long lecture about how it was easier to quit than to stay and work things out. Her advice caused me to do alot of soul searching and reflecting. It was such good advice that I still reflect on it often when faced with times I want to quit and walk away. However, in this case, I quit and went to Captain D's where they paid me $1 an hour more and gave me 40 hours. I think I made the right move. Sometimes, quitting is the right thing to do.

Too many people don't quit for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes people do quit for all the wrong reasons. Sorting out those reasons is the hardest part of life.

This has been deep thoughts by janjanmom.

Ahhh, Innocence-I LOVE YOU!

Today, when hubby got home for work, I made a humongo sandwich that I cut up and we all ate on the way to a far off place to look at old boats. We had to leave early to make it by dark. I love this particular drive because we often see so many different kinds of wildlife. We have seen hawks, eagles, owls, ducks, geese, lots and lots of deer, squirrels(of course), the much beloved possum, and once-A BEAVER crossed the road in front of us. All of the other animals are pretty commonly spied, but the beaver was a once-in-a-lifetime.

Puritans in the group, stop reading NOW!!

READ NO MORE...the following is PG-13. Suggestive language.

Now, if you have a gutter type of sense of humor like darling hubby and myself-you're already chuckling. Maybe, like me, the scene from Naked Gun 2 1/2 crosses the big screen of your mind. The scene where Priscilla Presley(in a dress) is on the ladder handing stuff out of the attic down to Leslie Neilson(who is looking up) and you hear:

"Nice beaver."

"Thanks, I just had it stuffed."

With that said, one of my children said innocently from the backseat, "Hey Mom, maybe you'll get to see a beaver!" This makes Hubby snicker which makes me laugh and we are both trying not to laugh which just makes it funnier. "What? What is so funny? Why is that so funny? I don't get it, does Dad see beavers all the time at work or something?" More laughter.

Gosh, I hope not.

More Hours Please

I could use about 3 more hours in a day please. I have so many cool ideas and projects for this year that we keep running out of time. We are supposed to have a 6 hour day and I try to keep instruction (do not picture me talking or instructing for that long!! It is more along the lines of read alouds and doing work that sometimes requires teacher assistance) time to about 4-4 1/2 hours. That gives us time for supplemental projects, experiments, movies, etc. However, we keep going over and I refuse to school longer than 6 hours a day although on historical movie night, we are off the charts over that. I suppose the answer is just being more diligent in keeping to a "schedule" but I enjoy the looseness of our day-it is structured but not rigid. However, if I don't get more rigid we are going to be lucky to finish school before bedtime.

Yesterday we got caught up on all we were supposed to and so today is going very well. We have begun our election unit study and will spend the afternoon being artsy with our supplemental activities. Nothing seals in a lesson like a good cut and paste project-at least for my crew.

Organizing tip of the day:

I've been doing this so long, I can't remember how I got the idea. I think I wanted a Rolodex-but I made do with this until I could get one. Then I liked it and never got a Rolodex.

For years I tried to keep an address book. It never worked out. When I would finally get it done, several of my friends would move and I would become frustrated with the book and all the crossed out names. So I would buy a new one and start over. The same thing would happen again because all of my friends were young and not yet finished with college, much less established. So I put everyone's info on an index card and then bought an index card organizer with the alphabet tabs. It work great. Everyone doesn't go in there-few people from church are in there because I have a church directory in my directory file. Few people from my homeschool group are in there because I have a homeschool directory as well. People who go in there are people I call alot, invite to birthday parties, send encouraging cards to, Christmas card recipients, etc. This has been so handy because as people divorce, move away, even die (not too many of those but more than I like)- I can just pull that card out and make a new one. It is the best way to keep track of names, addresses, phone # and cell phones. I also keep important emails on there because we lost the desire to keep a good e-address book a few computer changes/email addresses changes ago. The best feature is that if someone writes their name and info on a piece of paper and I can actually make it home with the paper-I can just drop it in there under the right letter and make a card later. Foolproof for people like me who have to be very diligent to remain organized.

Today is officially a catch up day. We have much to accomplish. I have 4 noses to hold to the grindstone. I am praying to do so with patience and love but also an unmatched persistence. This will have to do as my fun post for today, mine is one of those noses.