I'm finally getting to do some laundry!! It's been, what... a week? More maybe. But DH hooked up a sump pump to the gray water in our septic tank and is running it over to another septic tank that is on our property (was there for a trailer that the previous owners had). This is a very temporary fix, but it's allowing me to get caught up on my laundry and it couldn't have come a moment too soon. Eli was out of pocket dipes and our towels were all dirty. So I'm on my way and very relieved!
I decided that I'm very much a visual person so I found a bunch of clipart to coincide with my Flylady Control Journal and I just check off the images of what I'm supposed to do as I do them, I think that might work better than me just looking at a page full of text (yes I can read, lol).
I slept in this morning because I got to bed a few minutes later than I would have liked and then Eli woke up once and Gigi came in and said she had bad dreams and didn't want to sleep in her bed. She got in our bed, but she was too wiggly and I wasn't getting any sleep so I made a little bed for her on the floor and went back to bed.
I was really hoping that DH would go with Geo to his dentist appointment this morning, I wasn't sure how I'd handle seeing Geo in pain... but Mr. Sleepyhead decided that he'd stayed up so late last night working that he didn't want to wake up that early so I got to go... yipee [sarcastically clapping hands, jumping up and down while rolling eyes].
We didn't tell Geo that there would be shots because that would have sent him thru the roof. He would have stressed over that so much and would have made things much worse. I'm glad we chose this route. When we got in, they put the laughing gas mask over his nose (he chose orange scented) and after several minutes was starting to feel rather giddy. The dentist came in and was real friendly, donned his orange flavored rubber gloves (what they won't think of next!) and put some numbing gel on his gums. Then, while the nitrous mask was blocking his view, he snuck the syringe in and numbed him all up without him even really knowing what was happening. He did say that it was hurting, but he didn't flinch or anything.
So after a minute or so his mouth and cheek started feeling like it was falling off his face and he couldn hardly talk or swallow (it was funny in a sad sort of way). So he and I started conversing in sign language (to a point, he needs a bigger vocab) and the spit vacuum was employed so that took care of those two things. Then he started getting bored so the dental assistant went and got him a Bible Story Book from the waiting room to look at.
Finally the dentist came in and chit-chatted with him a little more. He checked the numbness of Geo's cheek and lips and introduced him to the drill (that whistled and had headlights). Well, as soon as he started drilling, Geo tensed up and said it hurt so they put the nitrous mask on again and gave him some more nummy juice and after a couple minutes tried again.
I could tell that it either hurt or was bothering him because he was tense, but then again, I am too in the same shoes. The doc reamed out a good sized hole (I didn't look too much, rather icky) and then put some medicine soaked cotton inside to kill any infection going on (he said there was drainage, I guess from some kind of infection?). Then he put the filling putty in. It was soft at first but hardened up and after an hour Geo could chew on it. He gave me some more antibiotic for Geo to take for the next 4 days and we were done with this installment.
We'll have to go back in a month or two to get a stainless cap put on. But I was so proud of Geo and I'm so happy that he won't have to worry about a hurting tooth any more! Praise God for that! They asked him if he wanted a sticker and he said he wanted three because he had a baby brother and a sister at home. They thought that was so sweet so gave him 3 little toys and 3 stickers. They really were so nice :) I thank our pastor's wife for referring them.
I have a diaper deal that I'm planning at CVS (as soon as some money that I'm expecting gets here). If all goes as planned, I should be able to get a package of dipes for $3.50 or less (that's with ECBs and coupons driving down the price). Not bad. I've gotten my mom into CVSing too and she's doing the diaper deal as well to help me stock up on some for Eli. I like cloth, it's great and all, but my dear MIL has decided that it's her mission and her passion to see her little grandson in slim and trim 'sposies. I have to say I'm not totally against the idea because my diapers have an odd smell in them that I can't get rid of and I'm tired of it. And the less laundry I have to worry about at the moment, the better. I plan to start potty training in the spring so hopefully this won't be a problem for much longer! So thank you so much Mama D, it's truly sweet of you and really appreciated!
I do feel that I had a productive day today. I got everything on my list done except for cleaning out the van (cleaned sink/counter/stove, swept floor in kitchen, made my bed, cleaned the bathroom counter and toilet, cleared off my dresser and dusted, folded and put away a load of clothes, took some clothes that I weeded out of my shirt drawer and bagged them up, got them out of my room, folded up some blankets from Gigi's makeshift bed and vacuumed our floor, did several loads of laundry, washed/put away dishes...) I have some clothes I need to fold, tho, so I'd better get to that before it's time for me to head to bed.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Just another septic Thursday
We had the septic tank pumped again yesterday so we'll be ok for the next few days (we are limiting our water usage as much as possible in the time being, covered the septic hole with a tarp...) till DH can figure out if it's the holding tank from the septic tank that's blocked or if the field lines are damaged. He'll probably rent a backhoe to make the process infinitely easier. I can't wait, can't wait till it's back to "normal" so that I can start doing laundry again. I have learned my lesson, though, that I shouldn't do laundry back-to-back-to-back like I did last week. Stresses the system. This has really served to highten my awareness of how much water I use on a daily basis and I think I'll really try to cut down when possible. My mom gave me a great idea of saving the water that usually gets wasted when waiting for the hot water to get to the other end of the house (for showers...) and use it for other things (the garden in the summer, watering house plants, flushing toilets, adding to the fish tank...) so I may try doing that.
My CVS Coup
Ok, so it's not all that much to look at, but I was rather proud.I managed to get all 3 toothpastes and the Gatorade G2 for $0.27 out of pocket! Not bad :)
I paid $1.88 each for the toothpastes, and $1.29 for the Gatorade, but I had a $1.50 off of one and a $1.00 off of 2 coupon for the toothpaste. I paid for it with about $4.49 in Extra Care Bucks and earned back $4.29 in ECBs. That's the way to buy toothpaste!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Whatta day!
Well, I really thought I was going to bail ship and head over to Mom and Dad's, but we stuck it out here. It didn't rain an awful lot last night so we were able to flush the toilet 2 or 3 times and shared water for baths (sorry if that's tmi, but desperate times called for desperate measures and, as DH said, they used to do that in the "olden days"). I opted to wash my hair in the sink as I just don't do well washing my Rapunzel locks in a bathtub. It actually worked pretty well.
DH found out that before we can do anything to the septic system, we had to get a permit from the county health department. He called them and filled them in on the problem and they sent a guy out to check it out and bring the permit. He thinks the field lines might just be blocked because damaged lines would cause pooling on the surface and there isn't any. Who knows what the problem is, I just know it's a big problem. All my lovely Flylady routines (well not all but a lot) are going down the tube. The biggy, shining the sink and keeping dishes out of it has been steamrolled over because we're cautious to use that much water (especially after 20 or so gallons of bathwater). I had thought about doing all my laundry at the laundromat, but DH is going to try to rig up a way to get the water from the washer out the window via a garden hose. Not exactly sure how that's going to work yet, it remains to be seen. He'll be my hero (not that he's not already) if he makes that happen!
Today I was able to empty one box of junk and then took that box (plastic tote really) to Eli's dresser and pulled out some more of his clothes. I took out at least 1/3 of what was there and was able to get rid of another tote of clothes that were sitting on top of his dresser. All in all (since the beginning) I've managed to get rid of 4 large plastic totes of clothes 18m-2T! (Ok I admit it, he had way way way too many clothes!). I still need to get into Galena's room and do that to her clothes. I know that will be a blessing to her as her clothes are in terrible disarray.
Hmm, I got the kids computer settled into it's new home, redid my laundry area, weeded out the kids clothes, it's time for me to decide what my next mission is. Maybe taking down the Christmas tree? (Ok, slightly less bad than it sounds, but only very slightly, lol). Eli pulled the tree down after it had been up only about 2 days and I knew that if we put it up again, it would just come down again. So it's sitting in a jumbled heap in the corner and I've been ignoring it because there were "more important" things that I wanted to do first (and really, who loves taking the tree down?). The lights wires are going to be a headache to get untangled. If I had the money, I'd be tempted to cut them off and buy new ones. I think we'll have to figure out how to get the tree put back up so I can then disassemble it properly. That might not happen tomorrow since DH is going to have bigger fish to fry so maybe I need to have a plan B mission just in case. Um, I guess I'd really like to get my sewing corner organized and I had the thought of turning the bookcase that's behind my head so that it's back is to the wall which will open up the space. I don't know if that will be a good thing or not. I suppose if it's not cluttered, it will be ok.
DH found out that before we can do anything to the septic system, we had to get a permit from the county health department. He called them and filled them in on the problem and they sent a guy out to check it out and bring the permit. He thinks the field lines might just be blocked because damaged lines would cause pooling on the surface and there isn't any. Who knows what the problem is, I just know it's a big problem. All my lovely Flylady routines (well not all but a lot) are going down the tube. The biggy, shining the sink and keeping dishes out of it has been steamrolled over because we're cautious to use that much water (especially after 20 or so gallons of bathwater). I had thought about doing all my laundry at the laundromat, but DH is going to try to rig up a way to get the water from the washer out the window via a garden hose. Not exactly sure how that's going to work yet, it remains to be seen. He'll be my hero (not that he's not already) if he makes that happen!
Today I was able to empty one box of junk and then took that box (plastic tote really) to Eli's dresser and pulled out some more of his clothes. I took out at least 1/3 of what was there and was able to get rid of another tote of clothes that were sitting on top of his dresser. All in all (since the beginning) I've managed to get rid of 4 large plastic totes of clothes 18m-2T! (Ok I admit it, he had way way way too many clothes!). I still need to get into Galena's room and do that to her clothes. I know that will be a blessing to her as her clothes are in terrible disarray.
Hmm, I got the kids computer settled into it's new home, redid my laundry area, weeded out the kids clothes, it's time for me to decide what my next mission is. Maybe taking down the Christmas tree? (Ok, slightly less bad than it sounds, but only very slightly, lol). Eli pulled the tree down after it had been up only about 2 days and I knew that if we put it up again, it would just come down again. So it's sitting in a jumbled heap in the corner and I've been ignoring it because there were "more important" things that I wanted to do first (and really, who loves taking the tree down?). The lights wires are going to be a headache to get untangled. If I had the money, I'd be tempted to cut them off and buy new ones. I think we'll have to figure out how to get the tree put back up so I can then disassemble it properly. That might not happen tomorrow since DH is going to have bigger fish to fry so maybe I need to have a plan B mission just in case. Um, I guess I'd really like to get my sewing corner organized and I had the thought of turning the bookcase that's behind my head so that it's back is to the wall which will open up the space. I don't know if that will be a good thing or not. I suppose if it's not cluttered, it will be ok.
Amendment
I'm making an amendment to my blog-a-day challenge. I finally decided it wasn't "loving myself" to feel so guilty about not posting so now I'm going to post as often as I can, hopefully every day, but if I miss a day, I'll just try to get it the next...
Yesterday DH told me to hold off on doing any more washing because our septic tank was full again! The field lines aren't wicking away the water from the tank like they're supposed to and so the tank was full and any water from our house really didn't have anywhere to go. That fact became grossly apparent after Geo had taken his shower last night (thankfully not during his shower) and I was washing a very small load of diapers (gotta have diapers) and the spin cycle go to be too much for it and sewage started backwashing into our lowest area which is our bathtub (gross, yuck, bleugh, ad nauseum!). Since we won't be able to do much toilet flushing today and knowing how kids are, I think I'm going to take them and flee to my parents' house in the mountains and I'm taking my laundry with me, lol. I think DH might stay here and try to get the situation fixed. First the tank is going to have to be emptied again, then he's going to rent a back-hoe and dig out the field lines (leach beds) and replace them. He'll also dig up the rest of his garden for spring and move some bushes from around the septic tank to the perimeter of the yard. Their roots seeking out moisture during the dry summer probably played a big role in the field lines' collapse. So that whole area needs to be de-planted so this doesn't happen again.
I thought I had Eli's clothes pared down to a reasonable amount and then heard Flylady saying that kids shouldn't have more than 5 pairs of play pants and a couple of dress pants. Well, that was eye-opening seeing as Eli probably has 20 pair of jeans alone, not counting corderoy, khaki and church pants. Um, I think I need to go back and try again, lol. Maybe I could do 6 pair of jeans (I like even numbers), 1 khaki, 1 tan corderoy, 1 blue corderoy and 1-2 church pants. And his shirts are another thing altogether. But if I wash every day (which won't be a chore if my loads are smaller and more manageable), I should be able to get by on much less. I'm trying to instill in the older 2 the idea of getting more mileage from their clothes. If they aren't too dirty after a day's wearing, I've told them to lay them out by their beds to put on the next day. That will also really help with the laundry. I'll see if I can't get our water bill down yet! :) And clothes that aren't washed so frequently last longer so that's good too.
Last night the kids needed to use the bathroom (the kind where you can't get by without flushing, lol), so, since I needed to run some things by the library anyway, we all bundled up and went over there and took advantage of their plumbing. I think we're going to need to get out of here pretty soon today so we don't tax the water system any further.
Yesterday DH told me to hold off on doing any more washing because our septic tank was full again! The field lines aren't wicking away the water from the tank like they're supposed to and so the tank was full and any water from our house really didn't have anywhere to go. That fact became grossly apparent after Geo had taken his shower last night (thankfully not during his shower) and I was washing a very small load of diapers (gotta have diapers) and the spin cycle go to be too much for it and sewage started backwashing into our lowest area which is our bathtub (gross, yuck, bleugh, ad nauseum!). Since we won't be able to do much toilet flushing today and knowing how kids are, I think I'm going to take them and flee to my parents' house in the mountains and I'm taking my laundry with me, lol. I think DH might stay here and try to get the situation fixed. First the tank is going to have to be emptied again, then he's going to rent a back-hoe and dig out the field lines (leach beds) and replace them. He'll also dig up the rest of his garden for spring and move some bushes from around the septic tank to the perimeter of the yard. Their roots seeking out moisture during the dry summer probably played a big role in the field lines' collapse. So that whole area needs to be de-planted so this doesn't happen again.
I thought I had Eli's clothes pared down to a reasonable amount and then heard Flylady saying that kids shouldn't have more than 5 pairs of play pants and a couple of dress pants. Well, that was eye-opening seeing as Eli probably has 20 pair of jeans alone, not counting corderoy, khaki and church pants. Um, I think I need to go back and try again, lol. Maybe I could do 6 pair of jeans (I like even numbers), 1 khaki, 1 tan corderoy, 1 blue corderoy and 1-2 church pants. And his shirts are another thing altogether. But if I wash every day (which won't be a chore if my loads are smaller and more manageable), I should be able to get by on much less. I'm trying to instill in the older 2 the idea of getting more mileage from their clothes. If they aren't too dirty after a day's wearing, I've told them to lay them out by their beds to put on the next day. That will also really help with the laundry. I'll see if I can't get our water bill down yet! :) And clothes that aren't washed so frequently last longer so that's good too.
Last night the kids needed to use the bathroom (the kind where you can't get by without flushing, lol), so, since I needed to run some things by the library anyway, we all bundled up and went over there and took advantage of their plumbing. I think we're going to need to get out of here pretty soon today so we don't tax the water system any further.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Oops, I did it again...
(didn't post yesterday) Well, um, I was in super hyper cleaning mode yesterday, I got something like 6 loads of clothes folded and maybe 8 loads washed, tidied the kitchen, shined my sink, did some dishes..., and culled a bunch of clothes out of Geo's overly crowded drawers. We are truly blessed to get hand me downs from their older boy cousin, but we just almost have too much. Flylady says that if the drawers are too full, it's not fun to put clothes away so I'm just keeping the nicest shirts (plus 2 really grubby ones so he can use them to paint in or play outside in the mud...) and mostly blue jeans or khaki pants and a few corduroy. I'll put them up out of the way for awhile just in case we run out of clothes between washings (like we have in the past when I wasn't FLYing) and if we don't need them, I'll put them in the "to sell" pile. Reminds me, today DH looked at a shirt I had washed last night and said "Is this clean? I just put it in the dirty clothes yesterday." I said "I washed it." He sniffed it and got a funny, surprised, happy look on his face. That was a good feeling.
Last night I went and picked up a Sunday paper and was mightily disappointed by the wimpy bundle of coupons that was in there. I hope my coupons didn't fall out somewhere. Then I folded some more clothes before bed, put food away, shined my sink, and got everything ready to take our cat in to the vet today.
Which leads me to the huge blessing of the day yesterday! I got a call from the vet that I've been talking to about having our cat Charlie spayed. There were no openings till the end of March and I was despairing at the thought of having Charlie cooped up in our laundry room for a month and a half. The lady asked me if they'd booked me in yet and I said no, but I was starting to think that I should. She said "Would you like to bring her in tomorrow? Someone cancelled." Would I??!!? Where are you located and where do I sign? LOL I was so happy.
So, after a very sleepless night (Eli is still sick and wasn't wanting to sleep as much as he usually does), I woke up at 6:30, got dressed, ate, and was out of here by 7. I thought it would take a little longer to get there than it did, but I got there at 7:30. I wasn't supposed to be there till 8. There was a mass of people bringing their pets, maybe 18-20 people crammed into the medium sized waiting room. It was rather a mad-house. But the workers seemed really nice and treated the animals with compassion. I'll have to go there again tomorrow morning, this time they want me there at 7:30 so I know that if I leave just a little before 7, I should be good (as long as there are no traffic snarls on the way).
DH told me yesterday that a lady from our church was coming over to test her air mattress in our pool to try to find an air leak. And something like that would have sent me into a tizzy in the past, fear that she might come inside my house, but this time I looked around, realized I was "only 15 minutes from clean" (a Flylady-ism) and what a great feeling that was!
Another terrific thing that happened yesterday was that I found Gigi and Eli's birth certificates. I'd misplaced them (or so I thought) and had searched and searched for them with no luck, but decided to look in a place I was almost sure they weren't and there they were. Praise God! That was an answer to prayer.
Yet another great and happy thing that happened today was that I just discovered that we're eligible to join the larger library system for our state. We used to be part of that system before we moved, but where we are right now, our library system is 2 counties wide and just doesn't have all that much. So, now we'll have access to our little local (and super convenient) library as well as the full fledged mega library system. And the closest library is only about 20 minutes away which is not all that bad. This honkin' library system is the one that my knitting buddy is a member of and I'm always jealous of the great knitting books she can get. Well no more! Hehe, doing a little happy dance.
Last night I went and picked up a Sunday paper and was mightily disappointed by the wimpy bundle of coupons that was in there. I hope my coupons didn't fall out somewhere. Then I folded some more clothes before bed, put food away, shined my sink, and got everything ready to take our cat in to the vet today.
Which leads me to the huge blessing of the day yesterday! I got a call from the vet that I've been talking to about having our cat Charlie spayed. There were no openings till the end of March and I was despairing at the thought of having Charlie cooped up in our laundry room for a month and a half. The lady asked me if they'd booked me in yet and I said no, but I was starting to think that I should. She said "Would you like to bring her in tomorrow? Someone cancelled." Would I??!!? Where are you located and where do I sign? LOL I was so happy.
So, after a very sleepless night (Eli is still sick and wasn't wanting to sleep as much as he usually does), I woke up at 6:30, got dressed, ate, and was out of here by 7. I thought it would take a little longer to get there than it did, but I got there at 7:30. I wasn't supposed to be there till 8. There was a mass of people bringing their pets, maybe 18-20 people crammed into the medium sized waiting room. It was rather a mad-house. But the workers seemed really nice and treated the animals with compassion. I'll have to go there again tomorrow morning, this time they want me there at 7:30 so I know that if I leave just a little before 7, I should be good (as long as there are no traffic snarls on the way).
DH told me yesterday that a lady from our church was coming over to test her air mattress in our pool to try to find an air leak. And something like that would have sent me into a tizzy in the past, fear that she might come inside my house, but this time I looked around, realized I was "only 15 minutes from clean" (a Flylady-ism) and what a great feeling that was!
Another terrific thing that happened yesterday was that I found Gigi and Eli's birth certificates. I'd misplaced them (or so I thought) and had searched and searched for them with no luck, but decided to look in a place I was almost sure they weren't and there they were. Praise God! That was an answer to prayer.
Yet another great and happy thing that happened today was that I just discovered that we're eligible to join the larger library system for our state. We used to be part of that system before we moved, but where we are right now, our library system is 2 counties wide and just doesn't have all that much. So, now we'll have access to our little local (and super convenient) library as well as the full fledged mega library system. And the closest library is only about 20 minutes away which is not all that bad. This honkin' library system is the one that my knitting buddy is a member of and I'm always jealous of the great knitting books she can get. Well no more! Hehe, doing a little happy dance.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Picture of the Day
Ha! Like I have a picture of the day, but this was a cool picture I took of an ant this summer. He actually moved this Kix ball an inch or two through tall grass. Ants really are very hardworking creatures, aren't they?
Friday, February 08, 2008
Chagrined
How could I drop the ball and forget to blog yesterday and Wednesday? I was doing so good. Here's what happened (it's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)... I went to a Pampered Chef demonstration last night at our pastor's house (his wife was hosting) and had a really nice time, but didn't end up getting home till close to 10. Then there were some stuff like laundry and cleaning out the sink (gotta leave that sink shiny, Flylady says, lol) and I just plain forgot. But hopefully it was just the one time. I have no idea what happened Wednesday [shrugs shoulders].
Today was lovely and sunny and beautiful and is supposed to be that way for the next day or two, nice! I managed to get most of school done even tho my night schedule (going to bed at 10, up at 6:30) was really messed up by Eli waking up a couple of times to nurse ("Baba, Baba... [very plaintively] Baba"; tho he actually started saying Mama and Mommy today which was so exciting to me. He also started saying Nanana so he's trying out his Ms and Ns now [from Bs and Ds]), and Gigi waking up crying around 11:00 or so because she was coughing and it hurt. I rubbed some Vicks on her feet, not sure if it worked, but I had to try, then I let her go to bed in our bed (DH was still up working) till DH came to bed and then he moved her to a little makeshift bed on the floor. So I didn't make my 6:30 wakeup time and that kind of threw my whole day off.
I did manage to do Kelly's Mission of the day (it's another Flylady thing) which was sweep and mop the kitchen floor. I also did the dining room floor as it was in dire need. I tidied up in the bonus room some, made a little more elbow room, did some vertical stacking of boxes so that things weren't spread out all over the place. I also moved the laundry sorting bins out of site (well 1/2 of them anyway) and moved the ironing board to where they were so it's not in my way when I come out of the laundry room anymore. The bins that show have lids on them and stack so they don't look too awful. Geo got into the cleaning and started sorting his toys. I think I'll introduce him to Riley's Challenges (yet another Flylady thing), see if he can get on board with that. I think I'm going to start listing the school subjects we need to cover every day on the white board so he can see what to expect and how much more we have to accomplish before we're "done" for the day and he can go do something else. I asked him if he'd like that and he said "yes." We finished reading a book about Ben Franklin today and I learned a lot that I never knew before. He was a very interesting fellow.
It was so much easier to clean up for Sabbath since I'd been keeping up with things every day rather than saving things till Friday afternoon. The bathroom, hallway, family room and kitchen aren't too bad. Now I need to start branching out to other parts of the house, but it's very gratifying to have those places staying fairly decent on a regular basis.
For the last little while, maybe a month or two, Eli has been jumping with both feet off the ground which is very cute to watch. He has good balance too for a little squirt.
Wednesday we went to the dentist because Geo has cavities. He had some acid reflux when he was around 3 or 4 (gone now) and it played havoc on his teeth. One of the cavities was so bad that it was giving him pretty bad toothaches (which we treated with oil of oregano & olive oil on a cotton swab which he bit down on, and tylenol) so now he's on an antibiotic as the cavity went all the way to the root (ouch!) and they want to make sure there's no infection before they take care of it. He's going to have to have a pulpotomy (what they do instead of a root canal for baby teeth) in a couple of weeks. I don't look forward to that!
Yesterday the septic guy came and took care of our septic problem and now we're good to go again. Still have a plugged toilet in the laundry room, tho; he hadn't been told that we wanted him to do that and he didn't have any tools with him. That toilet is being a sticky little thorn in my side.
Our cat is in heat and the cheapest clinic around ($20 to spay a cat!) is 2 months booked out. We've been keeping Charlie (our cat, and btw, she's a she [the kids named her]) in our laundry room as there were so many boy cats hanging around the house and we didn't like the odds. But I can't imagine keeping her in there for 2 months! I'm not sure what we're going to do. I wish I'd called a long time ago before she went into heat, but it's too late now. We can't afford a regular vet so we may not have any options. We like our kitty so it's not like we want to get rid of her or anything, but we also don't want kittens (or more accurately we don't want to have to try to get rid of kittens). Poor Charlie is talking to me right now, sounds like she's saying "Hello? Hello?" as in "is anyone out there?" Poor li'l chickadee.
Today was lovely and sunny and beautiful and is supposed to be that way for the next day or two, nice! I managed to get most of school done even tho my night schedule (going to bed at 10, up at 6:30) was really messed up by Eli waking up a couple of times to nurse ("Baba, Baba... [very plaintively] Baba"; tho he actually started saying Mama and Mommy today which was so exciting to me. He also started saying Nanana so he's trying out his Ms and Ns now [from Bs and Ds]), and Gigi waking up crying around 11:00 or so because she was coughing and it hurt. I rubbed some Vicks on her feet, not sure if it worked, but I had to try, then I let her go to bed in our bed (DH was still up working) till DH came to bed and then he moved her to a little makeshift bed on the floor. So I didn't make my 6:30 wakeup time and that kind of threw my whole day off.
I did manage to do Kelly's Mission of the day (it's another Flylady thing) which was sweep and mop the kitchen floor. I also did the dining room floor as it was in dire need. I tidied up in the bonus room some, made a little more elbow room, did some vertical stacking of boxes so that things weren't spread out all over the place. I also moved the laundry sorting bins out of site (well 1/2 of them anyway) and moved the ironing board to where they were so it's not in my way when I come out of the laundry room anymore. The bins that show have lids on them and stack so they don't look too awful. Geo got into the cleaning and started sorting his toys. I think I'll introduce him to Riley's Challenges (yet another Flylady thing), see if he can get on board with that. I think I'm going to start listing the school subjects we need to cover every day on the white board so he can see what to expect and how much more we have to accomplish before we're "done" for the day and he can go do something else. I asked him if he'd like that and he said "yes." We finished reading a book about Ben Franklin today and I learned a lot that I never knew before. He was a very interesting fellow.
It was so much easier to clean up for Sabbath since I'd been keeping up with things every day rather than saving things till Friday afternoon. The bathroom, hallway, family room and kitchen aren't too bad. Now I need to start branching out to other parts of the house, but it's very gratifying to have those places staying fairly decent on a regular basis.
For the last little while, maybe a month or two, Eli has been jumping with both feet off the ground which is very cute to watch. He has good balance too for a little squirt.
Wednesday we went to the dentist because Geo has cavities. He had some acid reflux when he was around 3 or 4 (gone now) and it played havoc on his teeth. One of the cavities was so bad that it was giving him pretty bad toothaches (which we treated with oil of oregano & olive oil on a cotton swab which he bit down on, and tylenol) so now he's on an antibiotic as the cavity went all the way to the root (ouch!) and they want to make sure there's no infection before they take care of it. He's going to have to have a pulpotomy (what they do instead of a root canal for baby teeth) in a couple of weeks. I don't look forward to that!
Yesterday the septic guy came and took care of our septic problem and now we're good to go again. Still have a plugged toilet in the laundry room, tho; he hadn't been told that we wanted him to do that and he didn't have any tools with him. That toilet is being a sticky little thorn in my side.
Our cat is in heat and the cheapest clinic around ($20 to spay a cat!) is 2 months booked out. We've been keeping Charlie (our cat, and btw, she's a she [the kids named her]) in our laundry room as there were so many boy cats hanging around the house and we didn't like the odds. But I can't imagine keeping her in there for 2 months! I'm not sure what we're going to do. I wish I'd called a long time ago before she went into heat, but it's too late now. We can't afford a regular vet so we may not have any options. We like our kitty so it's not like we want to get rid of her or anything, but we also don't want kittens (or more accurately we don't want to have to try to get rid of kittens). Poor Charlie is talking to me right now, sounds like she's saying "Hello? Hello?" as in "is anyone out there?" Poor li'l chickadee.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Plumbing woes
We've known almost from when we first moved in here that the plumbing was not quite there. The toilets seemed sluggish and finally one of the toilets refused to flush altogether so we haven't used it in quite some time. Lately the toilets have been bubbling and needing to be plunged frequently and when we are plunging the toilet, water bubbles up in the sinks (gross!). So we finally had a septic guy come check it out and he said that our field lines (that drain the water off the top when the tank gets full) are needing to be replaced. So... DH is going to see if he and a couple of guys from church (one has a back hoe) can handle that part of it and some septic guys are coming out tomorrow to pump it out which will, at least for now, allow us to resume normal water consumption (washing clothes, dishes, showers, flushing toilets... we've been doing some of this, but at least then we'll have no worries and things should work much much better!). I really can't wait to have multiple working toilets that actually flush like they're supposed to. Yehaw!
Sansa Cozy
I wanted a way to carry my mp3 player around with me so that it was accessible for me to pause it as needed, and also to keep it safe so I knitted a quick cozy. I cast on 20, knit st st in the round, till I was about an inch from where I wanted to end, then I switched to 2x2 ribbing. I attached a belt loop on the back as well as a belt loop loop (if I'm not wearing a belt, I can still loop it thru my belt loop and button it on, if that makes any sense at all). Here's how it turned out (I should have a pic of me actually wearing it)
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Monday, February 04, 2008
A day at Grandma's
DH and I had a meeting we had to go to down in the big city so we took the kiddos to Grandma's for the day and did they ever have a ball. They didn't want to leave and wondered why we weren't just spending the night there, lol. I'm glad they had a good time.
I got a new toy today :) I "bought" a new mp3 player (mine is refurb'ed so much cheaper than list price!) on scarf credit (meaning as soon as I get a scarf made and sold to cover the cost, I'll pay my parents back for it). It's something I can put Geo's composer study music on so we can listen to it for school, books in mp3 format from Librivox, and it's also something that I can put a whole bunch of motivational (home organization, home economizing, homeschool, kids, family, marriage, devotional...) podcasts on and listen to while I blitz around the house beautifying it and removing layers, trying to get rid of some of the evidence that a passel of kids live here. (LOVE the kids, hate the mess!)
Oh too, my mom said she went down to her local paper and asked about coupons and the lady said she could come on Thursday and look thru what was left before it got hauled away. Mom was pretty sure they have coupons in them. I'm so excited about that! I think I need to check with our local paper and see if they'd do the same for me. And my loving brother gets a free paper that has some coupons in it which he's saving for me. I'm on my way!! :) (Thanks for everyone's help!)
I got a new toy today :) I "bought" a new mp3 player (mine is refurb'ed so much cheaper than list price!) on scarf credit (meaning as soon as I get a scarf made and sold to cover the cost, I'll pay my parents back for it). It's something I can put Geo's composer study music on so we can listen to it for school, books in mp3 format from Librivox, and it's also something that I can put a whole bunch of motivational (home organization, home economizing, homeschool, kids, family, marriage, devotional...) podcasts on and listen to while I blitz around the house beautifying it and removing layers, trying to get rid of some of the evidence that a passel of kids live here. (LOVE the kids, hate the mess!)
Oh too, my mom said she went down to her local paper and asked about coupons and the lady said she could come on Thursday and look thru what was left before it got hauled away. Mom was pretty sure they have coupons in them. I'm so excited about that! I think I need to check with our local paper and see if they'd do the same for me. And my loving brother gets a free paper that has some coupons in it which he's saving for me. I'm on my way!! :) (Thanks for everyone's help!)
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Coupon glee
I waited all day to run down and pick up a couple of Sunday papers for the coupons. I ended up with only 3 coupon flyers, 2 SmartSource and 1 Valassis. I'm not sure if that was a mistake or not. Hmm. I've decided that for now I won't cut all the coupons out, I'll just to to the pack that I need a coupon from and get it from there (Couponmom.com makes it easy to find coupons, as does MoneySavingMom.com). Eventually I'd like to put together a coupon binder like some I've seen on other blogs (using trading card sleeves for my see-thru coupon organizational pouches). Unfortunately it seems that all the good CVS deals are calling for coupons from a few weeks back, before I was getting coupons so I'll just have to wait a few weeks till I have amassed enough of my own. I spent $3.50 on 2 newspapers, we'll see if that was a good investment or not, I think it will pay off eventually by creating overages at CVS. I think my CVS day will be Tuesday altho I did hear a rumor that CVS might be clearancing and reorganizing their makeup on Thursday so maybe I should also check then. It's thought that some of the makeup could me marked down to 90% off. That I could handle! I also heard about Cheerios coupons being back by the blood pressure cuffs at certain stores (not just CVS) and since we do eat the Honey Nut variety, they would come in very handy. Hey, if I'm going to be buying them anyway, why not pay less? Sounds like a plan to me!
My mom sent me a post about putting Vicks on feet helping with annoying coughs (which Geo is afflicted with at the moment) so I tried it, I'll see if it makes a difference come morning.
Well, it's past my bedtime, gotta run.
My mom sent me a post about putting Vicks on feet helping with annoying coughs (which Geo is afflicted with at the moment) so I tried it, I'll see if it makes a difference come morning.
Well, it's past my bedtime, gotta run.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Where did THAT come from?
We were all doing fine, healthy, happy, (minus a broken arm and toothache pain) when out of no where Eli got a runny, stuffy nose and Geo is dealing with a cough. Can't think that we've been around anyone who was sick. It was so sudden and unexpected. Poor Eli can't breath well at night so he didn't sleep well last night and hence, neither did I. But I did get a lovely nap this afternoon to make up for it :)
Friday, February 01, 2008
Fire?!? No, Thank God!
After I brought a very soggy baby Eli into the bonus room to dry him off after his bath, I noticed a strange smell, but couldn't pinpoint it. Geo distracted me with toothache pain (we can't get him in to the dentist till Wednesday, poor little chickadee!), and when DH came in a little later, he said "what's burning?" I said I didn't know, that I had smelled something funny too but couldn't place it. He checked the stove, nothing there (rice cooking but was ok), then he went back into the bonus room and happened to glance at our space heater plug which had gotten half pulled out of the outlet and the outlet was starting to flair up. He caught it just in time, praise God! It's a scary thought about what a few more minutes could have done. All night, all day, Angels watching over me, my Lord... Whew!
It's potluck tomorrow at church so I made some guacamole out of some 33 cent avocados (can you tell I think that's a good price? LOL) that I had bought from Aldi last week sometime. They were lovely! Hope the guacamole does them justice.
Happy of the day: My friend Wendy came over for a visit, haven't seen her in awhile and it was nice to just stop what I was doing for awhile and chat. Got my house relatively straightened (swept, vacuumed, things put away, lots of clean folded clothes put away, sheets changed...) for Sabbath which is always a nice feeling. Learned a little more about CVS and started getting my plans together for next week's shopping (after getting the Sunday paper & coupon inserts of course, lol). Did a couple more rows on my shawl, knitting's always nice :)
Grr of the day: Seems like the kids were determined to hurt each other today, it was always something. First Gigi hauled off and clocked Geo in the head (accidentally of course) and he made a terrific scene about it too. Then later the 2 olders were playing and Gigi kept running into things and hurting herself (once she hit her head on a doorknob [still can't figure that one out] and other times she hurt her legs running into things in the living room).
I looked high and low for a newspaper recycling drop-off place, they were all over the place where we used to live, but, alas, none around here. I was hoping to score a few coupon booklets.
This morning I tried to get Eli to go back to sleep when he was done nursing (around 6:45 a.m.), but around 7:30 or so, a groggy DH came down and asked if Eli could just get up since he had no intention of sleeping. I said ok, but that always means I can't get as much done (folding clothes with a toddler who wants to "help?" You must be crazy!). Later he wanted to know why I hadn't emptied the dishwasher and I told him I was trying to stay as quiet as possible (knowing he can hear a pin drop in Chicago). He told me it wasn't a big deal, if it was a problem he would say something about it, that it's fine. So that part isn't actually a grr because it's cart blanche to do whatever I think needs doing in the morning. Kinda nice really. Thanks sweetie :)
It's potluck tomorrow at church so I made some guacamole out of some 33 cent avocados (can you tell I think that's a good price? LOL) that I had bought from Aldi last week sometime. They were lovely! Hope the guacamole does them justice.
Happy of the day: My friend Wendy came over for a visit, haven't seen her in awhile and it was nice to just stop what I was doing for awhile and chat. Got my house relatively straightened (swept, vacuumed, things put away, lots of clean folded clothes put away, sheets changed...) for Sabbath which is always a nice feeling. Learned a little more about CVS and started getting my plans together for next week's shopping (after getting the Sunday paper & coupon inserts of course, lol). Did a couple more rows on my shawl, knitting's always nice :)
Grr of the day: Seems like the kids were determined to hurt each other today, it was always something. First Gigi hauled off and clocked Geo in the head (accidentally of course) and he made a terrific scene about it too. Then later the 2 olders were playing and Gigi kept running into things and hurting herself (once she hit her head on a doorknob [still can't figure that one out] and other times she hurt her legs running into things in the living room).
I looked high and low for a newspaper recycling drop-off place, they were all over the place where we used to live, but, alas, none around here. I was hoping to score a few coupon booklets.
This morning I tried to get Eli to go back to sleep when he was done nursing (around 6:45 a.m.), but around 7:30 or so, a groggy DH came down and asked if Eli could just get up since he had no intention of sleeping. I said ok, but that always means I can't get as much done (folding clothes with a toddler who wants to "help?" You must be crazy!). Later he wanted to know why I hadn't emptied the dishwasher and I told him I was trying to stay as quiet as possible (knowing he can hear a pin drop in Chicago). He told me it wasn't a big deal, if it was a problem he would say something about it, that it's fine. So that part isn't actually a grr because it's cart blanche to do whatever I think needs doing in the morning. Kinda nice really. Thanks sweetie :)
New Schedule
I've been trying out a new schedule and so far I really like it. It would work a lot better if my house was better sound insulated, but it's still good. In the past I stayed up way too late, upwards of 12 or 1 a.m. and then I'd sleep in as long as the kiddos would let me which would sometimes vary. Sometimes Eli would wake up at 7:30 and that would be it for the morning, no more sleeping. And this is on top of him waking me up several times during the night to nurse.
Well, now I'm going to bed as close to 10 p.m. as I can and waking up at 6:30 to nurse Eli, then putting him back in his bed for some more sleep and getting up, going to the other side of the house, folding any clothes that need folding (have to keep my tasks quiet as DH has bat ears and can apparently hear thru walls! and he works late into the night so I try to let him sleep in a little), eating my breakfast, maybe doing some filing or sorting in the bonus room... Then when the kids get up around 8:00 I can start in with school, reading Bible to them while they eat their breakfast, then after breakfast, on to nature study and math... The 2 days that I've actually been doing this have gone so well. I love not having to do school ALL DAY because we didn't get started till 9 or 10. I think Geo is more motivated to plug right along because he knows if we get school out of the way in the morning (to very early afternoon), then he has the rest of the day to "play" (play on the computer, ride his "new" bigger bike [18" wheels up from his 16" bike], crochet or knit, play piano, play with his sister...) and he really does like that. And I like it because I have the whole afternoon to do more housework (Flylady stuff, right now I am just babystepping tho, not quite flying yet, but soon!), knit, shop, whatever I feel like doing. It's great :)
Well, now I'm going to bed as close to 10 p.m. as I can and waking up at 6:30 to nurse Eli, then putting him back in his bed for some more sleep and getting up, going to the other side of the house, folding any clothes that need folding (have to keep my tasks quiet as DH has bat ears and can apparently hear thru walls! and he works late into the night so I try to let him sleep in a little), eating my breakfast, maybe doing some filing or sorting in the bonus room... Then when the kids get up around 8:00 I can start in with school, reading Bible to them while they eat their breakfast, then after breakfast, on to nature study and math... The 2 days that I've actually been doing this have gone so well. I love not having to do school ALL DAY because we didn't get started till 9 or 10. I think Geo is more motivated to plug right along because he knows if we get school out of the way in the morning (to very early afternoon), then he has the rest of the day to "play" (play on the computer, ride his "new" bigger bike [18" wheels up from his 16" bike], crochet or knit, play piano, play with his sister...) and he really does like that. And I like it because I have the whole afternoon to do more housework (Flylady stuff, right now I am just babystepping tho, not quite flying yet, but soon!), knit, shop, whatever I feel like doing. It's great :)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Blog-a-day challenge
Inspired by the Thing-a-Day challenge, and not feeling like I could actually create a new thing every day of the month but also feeling very bad at my lack of posting for the last eon, I've decided to take on a Blog-a-Day challenge and make myself blog at least once a day for the next month (hopefully I'll develop a good habit and it'll continue).
GRR #1 for the day: my yarn going to my Shetland Triangle shawl (a pretty example pic here) got broken by some little native so I spit-spliced it back together, ... all better :) (at least until GRR #2 happened and another little native or two pulled out my knitting needle out of half of the shawl and causing me to drop a stitch somewhere. Oh where oh where did that stitch go?)
Happy for the day: I learned about using CVS Extra Care Bucks to my advantage. I messed up by buying an extra toothbrush and toothpaste that didn't give me ECBs (because I didn't look at the offer closely enough, I'll keep better notes next time!), but I ended up spending a little over $14 for 12 rolls of TP, 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 toothbrushes and some maxipads. I used two different CVS coupons that I found which came to $5 off my purchase, I got over $12 in ECBs which I can use toward my future purchases, and I have a gift pack coming in 8-10 weeks which will include 2 boxes of Cheerios, Colgate Total toothpaste, CVS brand pain reliever tabs, Benefiber, Execedrin Migrain sample, a pen and a pill sorter so I think all in all I did pretty good. I can't wait to get next month's sales flyer and start figuring out what goodies I can get next.
Geo went and picked up a free personal pan pizza for the Pizza Hut Book-It program. He read a whole book that wasn't part of school this last month. For February I'm going to have him read a few more books or a bigger book. We got started a little late in January and since it was the first month I tried that, I went a little easier on him.
He is really progressing in piano, he has started playing Away in a Manger and when it get's to the word Manger, he inserts a B flat in the left hand (no one showed him how) to make it sound nicer. He's really got an ear for it.
Eli has started calling me Baba. I say "say MMMMMM" and he goes "mmmmm." Then I go "ahhhhhh" and he says "ahhhhhh" and then I say "Mmmmmmaaaaaaaammmmaaaa" and he says "Mmmmm Baba!" He insists on calling me Baba even though he can make the sounds in Mama. What a funny monkey he is. He is also jumping like a frog, jumps pretty high, both feet off the ground, lands well, amazing.
Gigi is doing great with her cast. We have her bath routine downpat. I wash her hair in the sink (she lies on the counter and leans her head back into the sink). This way her cast is in no danger of getting wet. Then when her hair is dried off, I move her to the bath, wash her body while she keeps her arm raised so the cast doesn't get wet. I use a bucket to pour water over the soapy parts and quick as a flash, she's done and getting out again. This is not to say that I really look forward to the day that cast is taken off! But all in all she's doing very well. Hasn't slowed her down one bit. She has also start tinkering on the piano. She's learned how to play Jesus Loves Me on the black notes, and twinkle twinkle on the white notes. So it won't be long before she's rivaling Geo. She wants to learn how to read SO bad so she can get a free pizza too. I told her that I'd enroll her next year when she's in Kindergarten and she's excited about that.
GRR #1 for the day: my yarn going to my Shetland Triangle shawl (a pretty example pic here) got broken by some little native so I spit-spliced it back together, ... all better :) (at least until GRR #2 happened and another little native or two pulled out my knitting needle out of half of the shawl and causing me to drop a stitch somewhere. Oh where oh where did that stitch go?)
Happy for the day: I learned about using CVS Extra Care Bucks to my advantage. I messed up by buying an extra toothbrush and toothpaste that didn't give me ECBs (because I didn't look at the offer closely enough, I'll keep better notes next time!), but I ended up spending a little over $14 for 12 rolls of TP, 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 toothbrushes and some maxipads. I used two different CVS coupons that I found which came to $5 off my purchase, I got over $12 in ECBs which I can use toward my future purchases, and I have a gift pack coming in 8-10 weeks which will include 2 boxes of Cheerios, Colgate Total toothpaste, CVS brand pain reliever tabs, Benefiber, Execedrin Migrain sample, a pen and a pill sorter so I think all in all I did pretty good. I can't wait to get next month's sales flyer and start figuring out what goodies I can get next.
Geo went and picked up a free personal pan pizza for the Pizza Hut Book-It program. He read a whole book that wasn't part of school this last month. For February I'm going to have him read a few more books or a bigger book. We got started a little late in January and since it was the first month I tried that, I went a little easier on him.
He is really progressing in piano, he has started playing Away in a Manger and when it get's to the word Manger, he inserts a B flat in the left hand (no one showed him how) to make it sound nicer. He's really got an ear for it.
Eli has started calling me Baba. I say "say MMMMMM" and he goes "mmmmm." Then I go "ahhhhhh" and he says "ahhhhhh" and then I say "Mmmmmmaaaaaaaammmmaaaa" and he says "Mmmmm Baba!" He insists on calling me Baba even though he can make the sounds in Mama. What a funny monkey he is. He is also jumping like a frog, jumps pretty high, both feet off the ground, lands well, amazing.
Gigi is doing great with her cast. We have her bath routine downpat. I wash her hair in the sink (she lies on the counter and leans her head back into the sink). This way her cast is in no danger of getting wet. Then when her hair is dried off, I move her to the bath, wash her body while she keeps her arm raised so the cast doesn't get wet. I use a bucket to pour water over the soapy parts and quick as a flash, she's done and getting out again. This is not to say that I really look forward to the day that cast is taken off! But all in all she's doing very well. Hasn't slowed her down one bit. She has also start tinkering on the piano. She's learned how to play Jesus Loves Me on the black notes, and twinkle twinkle on the white notes. So it won't be long before she's rivaling Geo. She wants to learn how to read SO bad so she can get a free pizza too. I told her that I'd enroll her next year when she's in Kindergarten and she's excited about that.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Ouch!
Our poor l'il girl broke her left arm (she's a lefty) yesterday. Geo decided it would be fun to try to rig up a teeter totter of sorts out of a 2x4 and a rope that he got caught up in a tree. In the process of trying to get on this very tottery seesaw, Gigi fell and tried to break her fall with her arm and the fall ended up breaking her arm. I hear the scream, looked out the window and took off for the door where I saw her running to the house. I could tell her arm just didn't look right (that was a sick feeling let me tell you!). I had her sit on the couch and rest her arm on a pillow, then I grabbed a bag of peas and rested it next to the arm. I called DH who was out shopping with his uncle (his uncle is visiting and doesn't have a way to get around) and he left everything immediately and came home. I had to try to keep the brothers away from her so they wouldn't bother or injure her. She was crying but not as bad as she had a couple of nights before when she suffered from a migraine (when it rains it pours). That was something else! But this time she was wanting Mommy so I sat with her and tried to comfort her. When DH got home, we tried to get things together for her trip to the ER (finding her SS #, gathering some snacks, water...). I made a splint out of cereal box cardboard and a kitchen towel (rolled it around her arm and secured with tape) to keep her arm as still as possible. DH took her to the ER and they waited for about 2 hours before being seen. A PA confirmed our suspicions that it was broken and ordered x-rays, then they splinted her arm with a temporary-sock-material-encased-fiberglass-2-piece-splint that they wrapped around her arm and taped up. It allows for swelling since the sides are open, but mostly keeps her arm stationary. She also has a little sling to hold the splint in. She was such a trouper, DH commented after they got home (around 9:30 pm, the fall happened at around 4:45 pm) that she was very brave and she said "Yes I am!" But today she said she was ready for her broken arm to fly out of her and she didn't want it any more and dissolved in tears when I told her it might be awhile before it's better. Poor little girl! That was this evening. All day tho she acted like everything was perfectly normal. I kept having to tell her not to do normal kid things (she wanted to ride her bike, kept running and fighting for supremacy on the chair in the kitchen that big brother had brought in to reach the sink, that sort of thing). And bathing her was a major challenge. I will be really glad when we get past these next few weeks and she's out of her hopefully pink cast (which she won't get till Monday).
Here's a pic of her x-ray:
My dad the doc said that it looked pretty good (bones being lined up rather than separated) and it probably wouldn't need setting per se, just mobilization (a cast) and time. The breaks occurred near, but thankfully didn't involve the growth plate.
Here's a pic of her x-ray:
My dad the doc said that it looked pretty good (bones being lined up rather than separated) and it probably wouldn't need setting per se, just mobilization (a cast) and time. The breaks occurred near, but thankfully didn't involve the growth plate.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Away in a manger
This year I'm starting something new with the kids. I'm doing my version of Advent and I think it will help to put a little more of Christ back into our Christmas. We didn't get off to a great start tonight because I just downloaded a bunch of stuff to read about different ways to celebrate it last night and haven't found much time to read it yet, but so far I'm planning on having a growing knitted nativity scene (more to follow), a Jesse Tree with ornaments and verses talking about the ancestry of Jesus, candles (in an Advent wreath or not, not sure about that one yet), and the kids will have mangers that they will fill up with yarn or hay or something like that for each little kind deed that they do leading up to Christmas and a little doll in their mangers on Christmas morning. I'm very excited about it. Tonight I made the manger for the nativity set. Baby Jesus will be the last one knitted (unless I choose to have the wise men come some time later). I found a patter for a knitted nativity set (I'd LOVE to get my hands on this one or this one), but it didn't have a manger so I made one up. Basically what I did was:
Cast on 14, Starting with a knit row, st-st 7 rows
Row 8: Knit (makes a purl bump which will help when making up the manger)
Row 9: Cast on (knitted cast on) 6 stitches, knit across
Row 10: Purl
Row 11: Cast on 6 stitches, knit across
Row 12: St-st 6 rows
Row 18: Bind off 6 st, purl to the end
Row 19: Bind off 6 st. knit to end
Row 20: K
Row 21-27: starting with a knit row, st-st 7 rows
Row 28: K
Row 29-40: K
Bind off. Make a cardboard box (with no top) for support (something along this line):
Set down in manger, stuff lightly, sew up manger. Add crossbeam embellishments with yarn needle and extra yarn. Geo crocheted a few pieces of hay for me :)
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Knitted Chicken Egg
I'm knitting up a bunch of eggs for play food for the kids for Christmas and here's the pattern I came up with. I wanted a knit version of the cute Egg Babies (crochet). It's roughly based on the Curly Purly Egg pattern, but I found that that pattern knitted with worsted weight yarn on size 7s or 8s was giving me a goose egg size rather than chicken so I adjusted it slightly.
Cast on 9 stitches over 3 double pointed needles (3 st per needle), use a 4th needle to knit in the round.
Row 1: K
Row 2: K1, M1 (lifted bar increase), K2 (repeat for remaining 2 needles)
Row 3: K
Row 4: K1, M1, K1, M1 (around, will have 6 st per needle)
K in stocking stitch for 9 rows, begin decreases
Decrease Row 1: K1, K2tog*, K1, K2tog* (around)
Row 2-3: K
Row 4: K2tog* (around)
Cut yarn leaving a long tail, thread it onto a large yarn needle, weave through loops on needles, remove needles, stuff egg, pull thread snug and sew up tightly. Hide ends. Shape egg with needle.
* I think I might have invented an "invisible" decrease, or at least slightly less obvious decrease. Slip 1 knitwise, move that stitch back to the left needle (purlwise), knit 2 together thru back loops.
Cast on 9 stitches over 3 double pointed needles (3 st per needle), use a 4th needle to knit in the round.
Row 1: K
Row 2: K1, M1 (lifted bar increase), K2 (repeat for remaining 2 needles)
Row 3: K
Row 4: K1, M1, K1, M1 (around, will have 6 st per needle)
K in stocking stitch for 9 rows, begin decreases
Decrease Row 1: K1, K2tog*, K1, K2tog* (around)
Row 2-3: K
Row 4: K2tog* (around)
Cut yarn leaving a long tail, thread it onto a large yarn needle, weave through loops on needles, remove needles, stuff egg, pull thread snug and sew up tightly. Hide ends. Shape egg with needle.
* I think I might have invented an "invisible" decrease, or at least slightly less obvious decrease. Slip 1 knitwise, move that stitch back to the left needle (purlwise), knit 2 together thru back loops.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
My journey into Ubuntu
My dad turned me on to Ubuntu (operating system) the other day, was raving about how cool it was, so easy to install. Mom had been having problems with Windows on her computer so he decided that they didn't have anything to loose in trying it and installed it on her computer.
The more he talked about it, the more I was dying to try it too. I've always been smitten by the idea of trying an alternate OS, but was always way too scared, felt totally out of my element so never did anything about it. But this time (since I knew he was there to help hold my hands), I got brave and decided to give it a try. I installed version 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (I think they might have released an "H" version in the last little bit, not sure).
I had to burn the .iso file to a disk, then boot to the disk to get it to start up. Ubuntu lets you test drive the OS (without making any changes to your hard drive) to see if you like it or not. I was mightily impressed with what I saw so after a little hesitation, I started the install. I got a little nervous when I got to the hard drive partitioning part, probably should have done a little more research because I did something wrong (I think I was supposed to do the Manual partitioning, but I didn't chose that) and now Windows doesn't recognize my hard drive (a 2nd drive, not with Windows installed on it, just a data disk). Windows thinks I need to format the drive. But Linux sees it just fine. Strange. I tried to format the drive twice in Windows but it said it couldn't both times. Luckily I had backed everything on that drive up the night before so it wasn't the end of the world.
Linux is a whole 'nother animal from Windows so I had to do a fair bit of asking Papa for help and searching around the net for directions on how to install programs (one of the major differences between Windows and Ubuntu) and other various commands I had to do from terminal (kind of like DOS prompt).
Ubuntu is awesome in that it detects almost everything that it should. I was immediately on the net, could see all my drives and all the files in them (even on the drive that Windows thinks is toast), my display was lovely...
I now don't remember everything I did, but I started figuring that if this was going to work for me, I'd have to be able to run certain Windows programs in Ubuntu (or therabouts). Dad told me about a commercial virtual machine program out there that would allow you to use Windows software (actually run a virtual Windows session while in Ubuntu), so I looked into it, installed the trial, wasn't too impressed.
I searched a little more and found a free gem of a VM program called VirtualBox. While it's not perfect and it does have it's little things here and there, it's so far working GREAT! I created a VM, installed Windows 2000 onto it (at first I was worried that when it said it had to format C: that it was actually going to wipe out my C drive, but not to worry, it just thinks the .iso image file "partitioned" for it is C drive, what it doesn't know won't hurt me), got it on the net (with a lot of help from DH), and I'm now in the process of Windows Update, then on to installing all the drivers I still might need, and then some of my most needed Windows software (Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Word, Excel & Publisher, (sorry OpenOffice and Gimp, you just didn't do it for me)). Then I will be in hog heaven with access to Windows and Linux software and a super little OS to run the Linux stuff on...
...my kids' computer is next, bwahahaha!
Pros:
Cons:
Favorite Linux programs so far:
Gparted - graphical partition editor, again you burn the .iso to a disk, then boot to the disk to edit the partitions. I think I should have done this even before installing Ubuntu, maybe my drive wouldn't have confused poor Windows so badly.
VirtualBox - Run Windows from Linux, access both without needing to reboot. Another little plus about VBox is that Windows loads so bloomin' fast compared to the old way of actually having to reboot the whole computer. Windows restarts in it's little VM window so I don't have to stop what I'm doing in Ubuntu just to restart Windows. Nice.
The more he talked about it, the more I was dying to try it too. I've always been smitten by the idea of trying an alternate OS, but was always way too scared, felt totally out of my element so never did anything about it. But this time (since I knew he was there to help hold my hands), I got brave and decided to give it a try. I installed version 7.10 - Gutsy Gibbon (I think they might have released an "H" version in the last little bit, not sure).
I had to burn the .iso file to a disk, then boot to the disk to get it to start up. Ubuntu lets you test drive the OS (without making any changes to your hard drive) to see if you like it or not. I was mightily impressed with what I saw so after a little hesitation, I started the install. I got a little nervous when I got to the hard drive partitioning part, probably should have done a little more research because I did something wrong (I think I was supposed to do the Manual partitioning, but I didn't chose that) and now Windows doesn't recognize my hard drive (a 2nd drive, not with Windows installed on it, just a data disk). Windows thinks I need to format the drive. But Linux sees it just fine. Strange. I tried to format the drive twice in Windows but it said it couldn't both times. Luckily I had backed everything on that drive up the night before so it wasn't the end of the world.
Linux is a whole 'nother animal from Windows so I had to do a fair bit of asking Papa for help and searching around the net for directions on how to install programs (one of the major differences between Windows and Ubuntu) and other various commands I had to do from terminal (kind of like DOS prompt).
Ubuntu is awesome in that it detects almost everything that it should. I was immediately on the net, could see all my drives and all the files in them (even on the drive that Windows thinks is toast), my display was lovely...
I now don't remember everything I did, but I started figuring that if this was going to work for me, I'd have to be able to run certain Windows programs in Ubuntu (or therabouts). Dad told me about a commercial virtual machine program out there that would allow you to use Windows software (actually run a virtual Windows session while in Ubuntu), so I looked into it, installed the trial, wasn't too impressed.
I searched a little more and found a free gem of a VM program called VirtualBox. While it's not perfect and it does have it's little things here and there, it's so far working GREAT! I created a VM, installed Windows 2000 onto it (at first I was worried that when it said it had to format C: that it was actually going to wipe out my C drive, but not to worry, it just thinks the .iso image file "partitioned" for it is C drive, what it doesn't know won't hurt me), got it on the net (with a lot of help from DH), and I'm now in the process of Windows Update, then on to installing all the drivers I still might need, and then some of my most needed Windows software (Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Word, Excel & Publisher, (sorry OpenOffice and Gimp, you just didn't do it for me)). Then I will be in hog heaven with access to Windows and Linux software and a super little OS to run the Linux stuff on...
...my kids' computer is next, bwahahaha!
Pros:
- Ease of install
- Lovely desktop theme right out of the box
- Some neat visual effects (lots actually, wrapped up in a thing called Compiz, and they are SO fun!)
- Price - Free!
- The project is alive, it's constantly being developed, updated, issues addressed
- Lots of free software to chose from
- Not a huge learning curve coming from Windows
Cons:
- Firefox for Ubuntu doesn't have the "copy image" command
- Can't get the Flash Player to work in Opera
- Wish Windows programs would work without any extra stuff needed
- Potentially not as bug-free as non-free OSs
- Back everything up, anything could happen during install
Favorite Linux programs so far:
Gparted - graphical partition editor, again you burn the .iso to a disk, then boot to the disk to edit the partitions. I think I should have done this even before installing Ubuntu, maybe my drive wouldn't have confused poor Windows so badly.
VirtualBox - Run Windows from Linux, access both without needing to reboot. Another little plus about VBox is that Windows loads so bloomin' fast compared to the old way of actually having to reboot the whole computer. Windows restarts in it's little VM window so I don't have to stop what I'm doing in Ubuntu just to restart Windows. Nice.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Yarn Harvesting
Yarn harvesting, sweater recycling, whatever you call it, it's great fun (at least for this nerd) and super thrifty. I have a thrift shop near my home that sells sweaters for $0.25 each on Thursdays (1/2 off day) and I can usually get 5 or 6 skeins worth of yarn from one sweater. I never measure the yardage, but you can make a pvc niddyy noddy or rig up any of several other ways to figure the yardage if you want.
The first thing to note is the seaming of the sweater you are looking at. There are two ways that sweaters are seamed, one is the material is knitted on a machine in large sheets, the pieces are cut/serged and serged together (like any other article of commercial made clothing). The other way is the sweater is knit on a machine, but with a precise pattern and one long piece of yarn is used (going back and forth up the sweater) and this long piece can be unraveled and wound into balls.
Here's what a serged seam (not useable for yarn harvesting) looks like:
And here's a chain stitched seam (what you want to look for):
The chain stitch is similar to the type of stitching that is done in the top of dog food bags that allows you (if you can find the tail) to rip the string right off the top of the bag and open it easily.
Here's a drawing of what to look for when getting ready to separate the pieces of your sweater. Find the side of the chain where the rounded part of the chain is closest to an edge. Slide a seam ripper under one of the chains and cut it (try not to nick the sweater yarn). You may have to loosen one or two more chains before you can start to pull the string from the other side of the seam and rip the whole seam out. Sometimes as your ripping it out, the chain might snag, just give a quick tug to both sides of the sweater and it should break free and you can continue ripping out the seam.
(more to come as I have time)
The first thing to note is the seaming of the sweater you are looking at. There are two ways that sweaters are seamed, one is the material is knitted on a machine in large sheets, the pieces are cut/serged and serged together (like any other article of commercial made clothing). The other way is the sweater is knit on a machine, but with a precise pattern and one long piece of yarn is used (going back and forth up the sweater) and this long piece can be unraveled and wound into balls.
Here's what a serged seam (not useable for yarn harvesting) looks like:
And here's a chain stitched seam (what you want to look for):
The chain stitch is similar to the type of stitching that is done in the top of dog food bags that allows you (if you can find the tail) to rip the string right off the top of the bag and open it easily.
Here's a drawing of what to look for when getting ready to separate the pieces of your sweater. Find the side of the chain where the rounded part of the chain is closest to an edge. Slide a seam ripper under one of the chains and cut it (try not to nick the sweater yarn). You may have to loosen one or two more chains before you can start to pull the string from the other side of the seam and rip the whole seam out. Sometimes as your ripping it out, the chain might snag, just give a quick tug to both sides of the sweater and it should break free and you can continue ripping out the seam.(more to come as I have time)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Make a center pull ball with a homemade Nostepinde
What is a Nostepinde, you ask? Well, let me tell you all I know which is really just very limited reading on the internet. I believe they are traditional wooden yarn winders that have been around for eeons, and, while they might not be as fast as a ball winder, they are a lot cheeper and really get the job done very nicely. Here's how I use the Nostepinde method with a piece of PVC pipe.
Start by holding the tail of the yarn with your thumb and fingers so it won't run away on you.
Wrap a 2" (or so) section on one end of the pipe (any dowel shape would work actually so don't feel stuck if you don't have pvc, you probably have a wooden spoon, right?). You'll be wrapping the pipe toward you and winding away from you (clockwise). When you have it well covered (maybe 1-2 layers of yarn), start winding from bottom to top on more of a diagonal. I've made a very exaggerated first wind to show what I mean. At first it won't want to go that direction and your first few diagonal winds will be rather shallow, but keep at it and it will get better.
Keep winding and winding, turning the pipe/dowel/stick... toward you as you wrap. Eventually the ball will cover all the first couple of rows of yarn and if you wind it right, you end up with a ball that is flat on top and bottom and won't go running away on you. Tuck the tail in with a crochet hook and slide the ball off the pipe. Et voila, a wonderful, center-pull ball.
Start by holding the tail of the yarn with your thumb and fingers so it won't run away on you.
Wrap a 2" (or so) section on one end of the pipe (any dowel shape would work actually so don't feel stuck if you don't have pvc, you probably have a wooden spoon, right?). You'll be wrapping the pipe toward you and winding away from you (clockwise). When you have it well covered (maybe 1-2 layers of yarn), start winding from bottom to top on more of a diagonal. I've made a very exaggerated first wind to show what I mean. At first it won't want to go that direction and your first few diagonal winds will be rather shallow, but keep at it and it will get better.
Keep winding and winding, turning the pipe/dowel/stick... toward you as you wrap. Eventually the ball will cover all the first couple of rows of yarn and if you wind it right, you end up with a ball that is flat on top and bottom and won't go running away on you. Tuck the tail in with a crochet hook and slide the ball off the pipe. Et voila, a wonderful, center-pull ball.
How to wind a center pull ball
First take the tail of the yarn and hold it, tail pointing down, in your non-dominant hand (for me that's my left hand). 
Start winding in a figure-8 motion between thumb and pointer finger while continuing to hold the tail with your last 3 fingers.
Pull the figure-8 off your fingers and fold it in half, then continue winding over it.
I keep my thumb over the place where the tail comes out from the ball so I don't wind over its escape route. See the little hole my thumb leaves?
As I'm winding, I turn the ball to the right and keep wrapping around. At first I'm almost going from south to north pole, but after there's a bit of a ball, I turn the ball a little off its axis and begin winding from the bottom right hand "corner" of the ball, (ha, is that an oxymoron?) to the top left of the ball which serves to make the ball a little more flat on top and bottom which is great for keeping the ball from rolling all over the place when it's finished being wound.
When I'm done, I tuck the tail in to the ball with a crochet hook. Notice the tail coming out of the center of my center pull ball.
See how nicely they stack (well if you tilt your head, lol)?
Start winding in a figure-8 motion between thumb and pointer finger while continuing to hold the tail with your last 3 fingers.
Pull the figure-8 off your fingers and fold it in half, then continue winding over it.
I keep my thumb over the place where the tail comes out from the ball so I don't wind over its escape route. See the little hole my thumb leaves?
As I'm winding, I turn the ball to the right and keep wrapping around. At first I'm almost going from south to north pole, but after there's a bit of a ball, I turn the ball a little off its axis and begin winding from the bottom right hand "corner" of the ball, (ha, is that an oxymoron?) to the top left of the ball which serves to make the ball a little more flat on top and bottom which is great for keeping the ball from rolling all over the place when it's finished being wound.When I'm done, I tuck the tail in to the ball with a crochet hook. Notice the tail coming out of the center of my center pull ball.
See how nicely they stack (well if you tilt your head, lol)?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
What the kids are getting (hope they don't read my blog!)
Christmas is coming, the goose is overeating, and I'm feeling the crunch to get some toys made for the kiddos in time. Inspired by the adorable cuties at Little Cotton Rabbits, I thought I would try my hand at knitting some bunnies, bears and maybe monkeys, (not sure I'll get them figured out tho). Currently I'm working on the feet and trying to make my own pattern using short rows for the heels (like a sock with an extra large foot). I've done short rows before, but never for socks so I searched and searched for a tutorial that would explain it on a Knitting-for-dummies level and I found it. Jo from Microcrafty has a very nice, very understandable tutorial that held my hands quite nicely till I came up with a decent prototype, tho probably not my final one, have some more tweaking to do. But at least now I have a clue.
For Eli: Lots and lots of knitted (and crochet) balls, balls and more balls. Also maybe a bear or a monkey.
For Geo: Knitted finger puppets, and a knitted bear, probably some balls too
For Gigi: A knitted backpack, knitted doll, knitted rabbit, finish the quilt I started 2 years ago (!).
The list will probably grow, at least for things I'd like to make, we'll see if I have time.
For Eli: Lots and lots of knitted (and crochet) balls, balls and more balls. Also maybe a bear or a monkey.
For Geo: Knitted finger puppets, and a knitted bear, probably some balls too
For Gigi: A knitted backpack, knitted doll, knitted rabbit, finish the quilt I started 2 years ago (!).
The list will probably grow, at least for things I'd like to make, we'll see if I have time.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Back in the saddle again
I'm so glad to be back to school this week. We were off last week due to moving the last little bits out of our old house. I think Geo was ready to be back to school too, he really did really well, flew thru math which is rather unusual for him, was no more distracted than usual by his sister and baby brother. The weather was wonderful this morning, crisp, lovely. We spent awhile outside, observing and trying to draw nature. It was so nice, I may just move school out of doors while the weather permits.
My l'il boy is growing up
Eli will soon be 17 months old and what a fun little guy he is. He loves to play, has to be right in the middle of whatever is going on, he's inquisitive, curious, imitative ("talks" on the cell phone, tries to "take something apart" with a screwdriver [with us right there supervising of course], tries to turn on the stove burners, glad there's a trick to it!, tries to turn on the stereo, tries to use my computer mouse move the pointer around, tries to feed himself (messy!), is starting to try to go down stairs like a big boy, tries to play guitar...), spins around in circles until he's too dizzy to stand, he's a climber, he's fearless (kind of a bad combo)...
His favorite or at least his most used vocalization is "Dah!" like the first part of Daddy. He uses it for "Daddy," "look," "Mommy," "hey, where is everybody?"... He has kind of a low sounding voice for a baby and his plaintive "Daaahhh" is such a funny, sweet sound.
He isn't saying much at all (bah for ball, Dah), but he signs: baby, bird, dog, cat, down, more, please, eat/food, bread, banana, milk, shoes, and he meows like a cat :) That one's kind of funny. It sounds like "wow," with the word slightly drug out and the mouth wide open for the vowel part of the word. It does sound rather like a cat, but much lower than our cat's dainty and high-pitched "meow." Signs I keep trying to get him to learn are: Mommy, up, thank you, tree, diaper, bath, nice/clean, good, water, cereal, ball...
His favorite or at least his most used vocalization is "Dah!" like the first part of Daddy. He uses it for "Daddy," "look," "Mommy," "hey, where is everybody?"... He has kind of a low sounding voice for a baby and his plaintive "Daaahhh" is such a funny, sweet sound.
He isn't saying much at all (bah for ball, Dah), but he signs: baby, bird, dog, cat, down, more, please, eat/food, bread, banana, milk, shoes, and he meows like a cat :) That one's kind of funny. It sounds like "wow," with the word slightly drug out and the mouth wide open for the vowel part of the word. It does sound rather like a cat, but much lower than our cat's dainty and high-pitched "meow." Signs I keep trying to get him to learn are: Mommy, up, thank you, tree, diaper, bath, nice/clean, good, water, cereal, ball...
In mourning
Well, it's official (I think), my old faithful palm pilot is kaput, no more. She had been refusing to charge properly and now she won't even power up. Sigh, sniff. We had a good run, old friend, may you rest in peace.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
My Christmas List
Ha, I know it's way early and what business do I have in posting my Christmas List, but there's one particular thing that's eating away at me, I'm trying to figure out how I can beg, rob or steal (no, not really! just joking, lol) to get my hands on one. I'm thinking the days are numbered for my faithful, but old, Palm M515. The charging base seems to have a bad connection in it so sometimes it doesn't want to sync or charge the battery. Also, there's not enough space on it for the things I want to do with it (lots of ebooks for school, for example) and I'd really like one with more memory (mine only has about 15 MB, and the 1GB card that I had extra to go with my other Palm that was stolen sadly doesn't work in the m515). So I'm looking at the latest, greatest Palm offering, the T|X. Pretty snazzy with 100MB of useable space, a much faster processor, and a bigger screen area. There is some concern that not all of my programs will run on it, but I have already determined that my favorite palm database, Handyshopper, will run on it so I'm good. About the only other thing I use it for is books for school and Bible+ (guess I'd better check on that one). They are going for under $200 new/lightly used on Ebay so I need ideas of what I can do to come up with that much money (well, a little more because I'd also like a keyboard so that I can type narrations during school). Any ideas?
I make silhouettes so if anyone wants any (kids, grandkids?), I'd be happy to do some for a small (to generous) donation. Oh, and calligraphy, I've done that for pay before, maybe a saying that is special to your family, nicely penned and framed to hang in your home? I also make straw stars (Christmas ornaments), I can knit, I learned how to do stitching cards so I could make some of those to sell...
I posted an ad on Craigslist to type handwritten documents or do any other data entry needed, we'll see if I get any nibbles from that. I've also applied to a few other data entry companies, but haven't heard back from any of them yet.
I probably just need to have a yard sale, which we plan on doing in October when the weather starts to get bearable. If I could come up with something that would even just pay me an extra $50 a week, that would be great, at least it wouldn't be too long before I could get my next "baby," just having a hard time figuring out what that might be. Oh, I do have some earrings and knitting stitch markers I could sell if anyone wanted anything like that. I think they're rather pretty.
I had thought about designing and putting together homeschooling and home organization forms and selling those either as a download or as a book and I still may do that, but that would take a good bit of time so have to figure out when I'd do that.
I think I've developed a nice system for putting my Ambleside Online schedule on my Palm into Handyshopper format so that I can check off items as a I do them and I can see in detail what I'm supposed to be doing in each time slot. That makes life very easy for me. Wonder if that would be worth anything? Probably not, but hey, it might be worth a try. I'm really just brainstorming here.
Sigh :)
Let's see, is there anything else on my "Christmas List" or am I really just rabid for a new Palm?
I make silhouettes so if anyone wants any (kids, grandkids?), I'd be happy to do some for a small (to generous) donation
I posted an ad on Craigslist to type handwritten documents or do any other data entry needed, we'll see if I get any nibbles from that. I've also applied to a few other data entry companies, but haven't heard back from any of them yet.
I probably just need to have a yard sale, which we plan on doing in October when the weather starts to get bearable. If I could come up with something that would even just pay me an extra $50 a week, that would be great, at least it wouldn't be too long before I could get my next "baby," just having a hard time figuring out what that might be. Oh, I do have some earrings and knitting stitch markers I could sell if anyone wanted anything like that. I think they're rather pretty.
I had thought about designing and putting together homeschooling and home organization forms and selling those either as a download or as a book and I still may do that, but that would take a good bit of time so have to figure out when I'd do that.
I think I've developed a nice system for putting my Ambleside Online schedule on my Palm into Handyshopper format so that I can check off items as a I do them and I can see in detail what I'm supposed to be doing in each time slot. That makes life very easy for me. Wonder if that would be worth anything? Probably not, but hey, it might be worth a try. I'm really just brainstorming here.
Sigh :)
Let's see, is there anything else on my "Christmas List" or am I really just rabid for a new Palm?
- Um, there are some school supplies I'd like to get (Nature notebooks, a few books that I can't download for free from the web, glue, pens, colored pencils, math manipulatives, paper, ink for the printer, supplies for other handicrafts down the road, downloads of the music we need for Composer Study)...
- I would like another camera as I'm not sure how long ours will last, but for now, it's probably one of those things we'll have to save up for. At least they are coming down in price (since we bought ours 6 years ago), and we'll likely be able to afford many more megapixels when we do get another one (ours is only 3 megapixels).
Another use for ramen noodles
My dear hubby happened upon this lovely way of gussying up the ever budget friendly, but very basic, ramen noodles. Here's what he does:
Take 2 stalks of celery (cut in chunks), 2 carrots (peeled, cut up), 1/2 to 1 onion, and he's either used fresh asparagus on one occasion or mushrooms on a couple of others (I also made it with just celery, carrots and onion and used Buddha's Delight gluten & vege/mushroom mix and it turned out decent too). Cook these up with some salt or seasoning salt till the carrots are nice and soft. Blend everything in the blender to make a nice "gravy." Add one of those small cans (I'm guessing 8-10 oz.) of Chinese Braised Gluten or Mock Duck or some such thing (I think you can get them in the Asian section of the supermarket), mix with about 3 packages of cooked, drained, ramen noodles (minus the seasoning packets), and there you have it, a yummy meal (cheap too), and sure to please all eating.
Take 2 stalks of celery (cut in chunks), 2 carrots (peeled, cut up), 1/2 to 1 onion, and he's either used fresh asparagus on one occasion or mushrooms on a couple of others (I also made it with just celery, carrots and onion and used Buddha's Delight gluten & vege/mushroom mix and it turned out decent too). Cook these up with some salt or seasoning salt till the carrots are nice and soft. Blend everything in the blender to make a nice "gravy." Add one of those small cans (I'm guessing 8-10 oz.) of Chinese Braised Gluten or Mock Duck or some such thing (I think you can get them in the Asian section of the supermarket), mix with about 3 packages of cooked, drained, ramen noodles (minus the seasoning packets), and there you have it, a yummy meal (cheap too), and sure to please all eating.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Meal Planning
I've never been great about this and in the past would find myself about 11:55 am scratching my head wondering what was for lunch. Day after day that gets to be really old fast. So I gathered up some of my/our favorite recipes that were also really simple and easy to make (and pretty inexpensive too) and threw together a menu plan. Fwiw, here is my 8 week cyclical menu plan (I'll try to post recipes for some of these when I get time in the future (lol):
Week 1
Spanish Veggie Rice
Tofu Stuffed Shells & Sauce
Sloppy Joes
Polenta
Mexican Lentils & Rice
Taco Style Lentils & Rice
Tomato Rice Pilaf
Meatloaf
Soup Ideas:
Lentil Soup
Potato Soup
Tomato Soup
ABC Soup
Cream of Broccoli Soup
Vegetable Soup with Dumplings
Once a Month Treat:
Banana Bread
Dilly Bread
Cream of Wheat pudding
Fruit soup (breakfast)
Week 1
- Sunday: Spaghetti (make bread)
- Monday: Biscuits & Egg &/or mushroom gravy
- Tuesday: Egg salad sandwiches, Soup (Broccoli, potato, or tomato)
- Wednesday: Patties (Gluten, potato/egg, rice /potato/egg/tofu...)
- Thursday: Haystacks (taco salad/tacos/tostadas/burritos)
- Friday: Mac n Cheese ( like the Tofu Rarebit recipe), Green beans, Corn on the cobb (or frozen corn)
- Sabbath: Special K (or Cottage Cheese) Loaf, Green Bean Salad (or just green beans and/or salad), Mashed Potatoes
- Sunday: Pizza, Make Bread
- Monday: Shepherd's/Pot Pie, Mashed P&G
- Tuesday: Egg & Tomato, Sandwiches, (Soak beans for tomorrow)
- Wednesday: Black Beans & Rice
- Thursday: Curry (Egg, potato/chickpea or lentil...) & rice, Chipaties
- Friday: Muffins, fruit & soup (usually a supper, not sure what to do for lunch, leftovers?)
- Sabbath: Potato/Tomato Galette
- Sunday: Spaghetti, Make Bread
- Monday: Tater tot casserole
- Tuesday: Egg salad sandwiches
- Wednesday: Patties (Gluten, potato/egg, rice /potato/egg/tofu...)
- Thursday: Haystacks
- Friday: Mac n "Cheese", (make extra cheese), Asparagus, (Soak beans)
- Sabbath: Conch Stew, Rice & Beans
- Sunday: Pizza, Make Bread
- Monday: Shepherd's/Pot Pie, Mashed P&G
- Tuesday: Tomato Soup, Grilled "Cheese" Sandwiches (Cheese leftover from Mac n Cheese), (Soak beans)
- Wednesday: Cornbread & chili, Salad
- Thursday: Chicken a la king, Broccoli, Salad (tomatoes, lettuce, mayo/catsup /soymilk dressing)
- Friday: Lunch: Perogies w/ "Nice Spaghetti Sauce," Peas & Corn
- Supper: Muffins, fruit & soup
- Sabbath: Special K Loaf, Green Bean Salad, Mashed Potatoes
- Sunday: Spaghetti, Make Bread
- Monday: Something with rice (make extra rice)
- Tuesday: Egg salad, sandwiches
- Wednesday: Patties (Gluten, potato/egg, rice /potato/egg/tofu...)
- Thursday: Fried Rice (add broccoli, scrambled eggs, onions, slivered carrots, frozen peas...)
- Friday: Mac n Cheese, Brussels Sprouts
- Sabbath: Pierogies
- Sunday: Pizza, Make Bread
- Monday: Biscuits & Egg gravy
- Tuesday: Egg & Tomato Sandwiches, Soak beans
- Wednesday: Black Beans & Rice
- Thursday: Haystacks
- Friday: Supper: Baked Rice Pudding
- Sabbath: 1 Dish Meal, Salad, Bread (rolls?)
- Sunday: Spaghetti, Make Bread
- Monday: Tater tot casserole
- Tuesday: Egg salad sandwiches
- Wednesday: Patties (Gluten, potato/egg, rice /potato/egg/tofu...)
- Thursday: Chicken a la king, Broccoli
- Friday: Mac n Cheese, (make extra cheese), Spinach
- Sabbath: Special K Loaf, Green Bean Salad, Mashed Potatoes
- Sunday: Pizza, Make Bread
- Monday: Shepherd's/Pot Pie, Mashed P&G
- Tuesday: Tomato Soup, Grilled "Cheese" Sandwiches (Cheese leftover from Mac n Cheese)
- Wednesday: Cornbread & chili, Salad
- Thursday: Fried Rice
- Friday: Supper: Muffins, fruit & soup
- Sabbath: Pierogies
Spanish Veggie Rice
Tofu Stuffed Shells & Sauce
Sloppy Joes
Polenta
Mexican Lentils & Rice
Taco Style Lentils & Rice
Tomato Rice Pilaf
Meatloaf
Soup Ideas:
Lentil Soup
Potato Soup
Tomato Soup
ABC Soup
Cream of Broccoli Soup
Vegetable Soup with Dumplings
Once a Month Treat:
Banana Bread
Dilly Bread
Cream of Wheat pudding
Fruit soup (breakfast)
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Homeschool Progress
We will be going into our fourth week of homeschool tomorrow and so far so good (-ish). I seeing some improvement so that's at least good. I decided on AmblesideOnline (a la Charlotte Mason [CM]) after much reading and determining that it's at least as good as everything else out there and it's FREE! I'm also adding some of the books from Old Fashioned Education (OFE, another great site, also free!). Charlotte Mason was a strong believer in "Living Books" (engaging and interesting books on a wide variety of subjects written by one author who is passionate about their subject and draws the reader in as opposed to a committee of writers as for a dryly written textbook) and "Narration" (telling back what the student heard or read), in addition to Nature Study (another huge component and beginning science in the early grades), Bible, Art, Music, Copywork (handwriting), Dictation for grammar and spelling in middle grades, Poetry, History, Foreign Language, Geography, Literature, Handicrafts (learning to make useful things, things with a purpose or beautiful things to be given as gifts as opposed to useless arts and crafts that just sit around collecting dust). Classes are kept short so as to not bore the student causing them to "check out" and stop paying attention. School is usually wrapped up by early afternoon leaving the afternoon for free play, chores, free reading, child-led learning if they want, art, music, ...
My schedule as it currently stands:
Bible/Character Training: MW we read an OT story, TTh an NT one, and Friday we review both stories. Will start adding in memorizing family rules, Sabbath School memory verses and discussing the importance of developing a good character and manners, etc.
Nature Study: MTW Nature walk, Observation, Nature Journal (when I can get one put together for Geo), and read about Mammals. Thursday, read from one of the Among the (Forest, Meadow, Farmyard, Night...) People books. Friday, either a science DVD from the library or a science experiment from a book we have.
Math: We are doing the Math Enhancement Programme from the UK, Year 1, but I'd like to get caught up to Year 2 so will probably go a little faster than the plan laid out at OFE, or at least we'll go year round and eventually get caught up that way.
Drawing (Drawing with Children by Mona Brooke, we'll also be watching some of Jan Brett's drawing videos)/Artist (Leonardo da Vinci) /Composer (Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov) /Folk Song (Go Get the Ax) /Hymn (Children of the Heavenly Father) /Handicraft things (for this term we're going to be working on/perfecting knitting. Right now Geo is getting pretty adept at finger knitting) will be scattered throughout the week.
Literature: Scheduled reading from assigned books MWF with Free Reading (from grade appropriate living books not assigned for this year's reading) on TTh
Phonics: M-Th (McGuffey's Reader & Speller, & Word Mastery per OFE schedule)
Sign Language: M-Th, Friday we review all known signs or at least quite a few.
World History: M
American History: TW
Book of Centuries: TF Collect entries from week's readings, compile with pics and blurbs from the web, print out and glue in Book of Centuries.
Geography/Social Studies: TTh Paddle-to-the-Sea (a story about a little model canoe that makes a journey through the great lakes region from just north of Lake Superior all the way to the Atlantic Ocean), F Seven Little Sisters... from OFE schedule (I'm guessing it features little "sisters" from each of the seven continents)
Mapping: We map things on Google Maps whenever we read of a notable place.
Copywork & Memory work: M-F
I'm very excited about the coming year. I'm scouring every CM resource I can find on the net so I can fully grasp her philosophy of education. I need some help getting Geo to pay attention and narrate back to me what he heard (if he even listened). I may play around with shortening lesson times and bringing back the lesson later in the morning if needed. I think I will be adding lapbooking to our narrating in that I want to turn each narration into a little book to go into a larger lapbook (maybe 1 a month or 1 a quarter?). Need to save my pennies so I can get a little recorder so that Geo can narrate into it and I can type it out later (or use DH's laptop for dictating narrations).
I have been able to get 85% of the books required free from the net as most of them are now in the public domain. The rest of them I plan to get from the library or substitute with a suitable free alternative (Project Gutenberg and Baldwin Online are my friends :). I've put the free books I can get onto my Palm Pilot so I can just pretty much pick up and go and I think that's pretty neat.
My schedule as it currently stands:
Bible/Character Training: MW we read an OT story, TTh an NT one, and Friday we review both stories. Will start adding in memorizing family rules, Sabbath School memory verses and discussing the importance of developing a good character and manners, etc.
Nature Study: MTW Nature walk, Observation, Nature Journal (when I can get one put together for Geo), and read about Mammals. Thursday, read from one of the Among the (Forest, Meadow, Farmyard, Night...) People books. Friday, either a science DVD from the library or a science experiment from a book we have.
Math: We are doing the Math Enhancement Programme from the UK, Year 1, but I'd like to get caught up to Year 2 so will probably go a little faster than the plan laid out at OFE, or at least we'll go year round and eventually get caught up that way.
Drawing (Drawing with Children by Mona Brooke, we'll also be watching some of Jan Brett's drawing videos)/Artist (Leonardo da Vinci) /Composer (Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov) /Folk Song (Go Get the Ax) /Hymn (Children of the Heavenly Father) /Handicraft things (for this term we're going to be working on/perfecting knitting. Right now Geo is getting pretty adept at finger knitting) will be scattered throughout the week.
Literature: Scheduled reading from assigned books MWF with Free Reading (from grade appropriate living books not assigned for this year's reading) on TTh
Phonics: M-Th (McGuffey's Reader & Speller, & Word Mastery per OFE schedule)
Sign Language: M-Th, Friday we review all known signs or at least quite a few.
World History: M
American History: TW
Book of Centuries: TF Collect entries from week's readings, compile with pics and blurbs from the web, print out and glue in Book of Centuries.
Geography/Social Studies: TTh Paddle-to-the-Sea (a story about a little model canoe that makes a journey through the great lakes region from just north of Lake Superior all the way to the Atlantic Ocean), F Seven Little Sisters... from OFE schedule (I'm guessing it features little "sisters" from each of the seven continents)
Mapping: We map things on Google Maps whenever we read of a notable place.
Copywork & Memory work: M-F
I'm very excited about the coming year. I'm scouring every CM resource I can find on the net so I can fully grasp her philosophy of education. I need some help getting Geo to pay attention and narrate back to me what he heard (if he even listened). I may play around with shortening lesson times and bringing back the lesson later in the morning if needed. I think I will be adding lapbooking to our narrating in that I want to turn each narration into a little book to go into a larger lapbook (maybe 1 a month or 1 a quarter?). Need to save my pennies so I can get a little recorder so that Geo can narrate into it and I can type it out later (or use DH's laptop for dictating narrations).
I have been able to get 85% of the books required free from the net as most of them are now in the public domain. The rest of them I plan to get from the library or substitute with a suitable free alternative (Project Gutenberg and Baldwin Online are my friends :). I've put the free books I can get onto my Palm Pilot so I can just pretty much pick up and go and I think that's pretty neat.
Splintzell Sprouts
Gigi calls Brussels' Sprouts Splintzell Sprouts and I think it's the most adorable thing (she loves them btw) and I don't want to forget it so I'm blogging about it here.
Oh, also, while I'm jotting things down (and was very remiss in not getting the exact days), Eli cut his incisors about a month ago (yeah, all of them at once), and his molars came in about a month before that.
Oh, also, while I'm jotting things down (and was very remiss in not getting the exact days), Eli cut his incisors about a month ago (yeah, all of them at once), and his molars came in about a month before that.
I'm a speller, I can spell ([What about] Bob's in my head saying "I'm a sailor, I can sail")
A couple of double letter words tried to trip me up but in the end I was victorious, bwahahaha
Give it a try, it's short and kinda fun :)
Give it a try, it's short and kinda fun :)
Mingle2 - Free Online Dating
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Word Saving Glich
A few days ago I was working on Word and started noticing that things I knew I had saved weren't showing up when I closed the file and opened it again. It was frustrating to say the least! I did some searching around and at first I thought it might be a bad relationship between Adobe 7 & Word 2000, but was hesitant to uninstall Adobe. Instead I uninstalled/reinstalled Word (that took a good long time too tho), and it didn't fix the problem. Then I found something that suggested the normal.dot file might be corrupted so I deleted every instance of that file I could find. That seemed to be the magic bullet because now things are humming along again quite nicely, I'm once again able to make pdf files (that was messed up too) and my changes are being saved. I'm happy that it was such an easy fix.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
The Final Straw
They've been sat upon, bent out of shape several times till the other day they were contorted to the max (by a friend's 2 yo) and then the final straw was when Geo bumped into me when we were reading a book on the couch and ... *snap* one of the ear thingies popped right off my glasses, broke clean off :( It stinks because the only way we can replace them is to dip into our tiny emergency fund that we're trying to grow for Financial Peace University (HIGHLY recommended btw), but I can't drive without glasses, I'll be a sitting duck. It really stinks. I was so hoping they would last a little longer. Not that I won't be glad to get new glasses (my lenses look terrible!), but this is not the way I wanted it to happen (not the time either).
Friday, July 27, 2007
And now for something completely different
Have to start this with a shout out to my friend, Nichole, who gave me the idea for this new little project of mine. After looking at the extensive instructions found here, I started making my very own case bound book (like a real hard cover book that you'd buy in the store). Here are some pics and my thoughts about the process. For my part I'm sure I'm doing this "all wrong" because I don't have the right kind of glue or board or paper for that matter, but I'm doing the best with what I have and I'm right happy with the results (so far).
The first thing I did was to make 4 signatures (a stack of paper folded in half in a very basic "book fold") of 8 sheets of regular 8.5 x 11 inkjet paper (16 pages) each, folding each sheet individually to insure a nice, sharp crease before putting the folios together to make the signatures. I had already printed out what I wanted in my book (in my case my homeschool planner), laid it all out in Publisher and printed the first 32 pages front-and-back, then the next and so on till I had what I needed for 4 signatures. I figured out what I was going to use for the cloth hinges (in my case that turned out to be some green bias tape I had on hand), and linen tape (bias tape folded in half). I prepared the endsheets as described. Then I figured out where I was going to put my "linen tape," (in my case I went with 3) and marked on all the signatures where to punch the holes. The kids helped me with that part by pushing a thumb tack into each marking. Then I found a needle and some bedspread weight crochet thread that I had, and started sewing the signatures together. Then I fashioned a crude book press with a couple pieces of particle board that were lying around and a couple of clamps to hold them together. I banged on the spine with a metal thingamabob that I had handy to flatten them down a bit and make them flair out. It stayed like that all night. I glued a strip of watercolor paper on the spine, then another piece of bias tape, opened up. I made some headbands for the top and bottom of the spine and glued them on (I think I got the order wrong, but ... who cares :). It stayed like that all night. This morning I made the case for my book. I didn't have board, the closest thing to the consistency was cereal boxes, but they are much too thin so I glued three layers together to make the right thickness. They sat piled under a whole bunch of Bible Story Books till they dried. Then I found some fabric for the cover, measured it like they told me to (forgot to add the 3mm for an overhang, bummer) glued the paper strip down the middle and the boards on either side, then glued the fabric up and inside the cover. When that was dry, I put my book innards inside the cover, and with the help of some wax paper (hope it works!) I glued the flappy parts (hinges) to the inside cover of the book, front and back. In the morning, if I want, (probably closer to tomorrow evening tho), I'll be able to glue the paste-downs to the front and back cover and voila... I'll have my very own hard cover book made completely by me. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. And very economical too. I had everything on hand so it didn't cost me a dime. Glue is cheep (especially this time of year with school sales going on), cereal boxes are free, I have tons of fabric scraps, the only thing that I have to pay for is the paper which is something I usually have on hand anyway. Now I think I'd like to print my cookbook and bind it :) The possibilities are endless.
Pics added 7/28/07
Notice the signatures in the 4th picture, the last picture shows the importance of gluing the cereal box cardboard with the pictures in (you can barely make out part of the Weetabix logo on the inside of my back cover, lol). In the third picture you can see the stitching down the center of one of the signatures. Just for fun, go find a hard bound book and find the string at the center of a signature.
The first thing I did was to make 4 signatures (a stack of paper folded in half in a very basic "book fold") of 8 sheets of regular 8.5 x 11 inkjet paper (16 pages) each, folding each sheet individually to insure a nice, sharp crease before putting the folios together to make the signatures. I had already printed out what I wanted in my book (in my case my homeschool planner), laid it all out in Publisher and printed the first 32 pages front-and-back, then the next and so on till I had what I needed for 4 signatures. I figured out what I was going to use for the cloth hinges (in my case that turned out to be some green bias tape I had on hand), and linen tape (bias tape folded in half). I prepared the endsheets as described. Then I figured out where I was going to put my "linen tape," (in my case I went with 3) and marked on all the signatures where to punch the holes. The kids helped me with that part by pushing a thumb tack into each marking. Then I found a needle and some bedspread weight crochet thread that I had, and started sewing the signatures together. Then I fashioned a crude book press with a couple pieces of particle board that were lying around and a couple of clamps to hold them together. I banged on the spine with a metal thingamabob that I had handy to flatten them down a bit and make them flair out. It stayed like that all night. I glued a strip of watercolor paper on the spine, then another piece of bias tape, opened up. I made some headbands for the top and bottom of the spine and glued them on (I think I got the order wrong, but ... who cares :). It stayed like that all night. This morning I made the case for my book. I didn't have board, the closest thing to the consistency was cereal boxes, but they are much too thin so I glued three layers together to make the right thickness. They sat piled under a whole bunch of Bible Story Books till they dried. Then I found some fabric for the cover, measured it like they told me to (forgot to add the 3mm for an overhang, bummer) glued the paper strip down the middle and the boards on either side, then glued the fabric up and inside the cover. When that was dry, I put my book innards inside the cover, and with the help of some wax paper (hope it works!) I glued the flappy parts (hinges) to the inside cover of the book, front and back. In the morning, if I want, (probably closer to tomorrow evening tho), I'll be able to glue the paste-downs to the front and back cover and voila... I'll have my very own hard cover book made completely by me. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. And very economical too. I had everything on hand so it didn't cost me a dime. Glue is cheep (especially this time of year with school sales going on), cereal boxes are free, I have tons of fabric scraps, the only thing that I have to pay for is the paper which is something I usually have on hand anyway. Now I think I'd like to print my cookbook and bind it :) The possibilities are endless.
Pics added 7/28/07
Notice the signatures in the 4th picture, the last picture shows the importance of gluing the cereal box cardboard with the pictures in (you can barely make out part of the Weetabix logo on the inside of my back cover, lol). In the third picture you can see the stitching down the center of one of the signatures. Just for fun, go find a hard bound book and find the string at the center of a signature.
He's getting so big
Our little Eli is starting to do SO many things. Not only is he running around everywhere, climbing on things, dancing to music, spinning around in circles till he's dizzy, and basically acting silly, he's also starting to try to talk (Ba for ball, bapoo for diaper, mo for more), he's learning to sign (can sign "more," "eat," & "thank you") and last night he apparently saw the moon for the first time and made sure to point it out to me. He stared and stared at it for the longest time, it was kinda cute.
Addendum 7/25/07: As of today he's also signed (copying us) car & dog. He's so into things, really understands what's going on. At supper I asked him to sign something with his hands and he immediately started signing eat and more.
The older two (after watching a couple of DVDs from the library) now know signs for: eat, drink, socks, shoes, hat, baby, flower, water, milk, sit, stand, off, on, open, close, book, help, want, more, cookie, boy, girl, mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, bird, fish, cat, dog, thank you, please, be, good, hungry, happy, play, stop, go, on, off, video, sleep and I'm sure a few more that I can't think of right now. Pretty cool. Sign language is definitely going to be a part of homeschool for us, like a second language or secret language or something :)
Addendum 7/25/07: As of today he's also signed (copying us) car & dog. He's so into things, really understands what's going on. At supper I asked him to sign something with his hands and he immediately started signing eat and more.
The older two (after watching a couple of DVDs from the library) now know signs for: eat, drink, socks, shoes, hat, baby, flower, water, milk, sit, stand, off, on, open, close, book, help, want, more, cookie, boy, girl, mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, bird, fish, cat, dog, thank you, please, be, good, hungry, happy, play, stop, go, on, off, video, sleep and I'm sure a few more that I can't think of right now. Pretty cool. Sign language is definitely going to be a part of homeschool for us, like a second language or secret language or something :)
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