Oh the joys!

I've started potty training Eli and it's going slow. The first day we had both #1 and #2 accidents, yesterday he didn't have any pee accidents (I don't think) but had about 4-5 pea-soup poop accidents in his underwear (the kind that dribbles down legs and trickles down on the floor/carpet, whatever). Yuck! He was so hesitant to even sit on his little blue potty that I finally resorted to bribing rewarding him with "sweets" when he does manage to do anything on the potty. He gets about 3x as many sweets for #2 as for #1 since the former is less frequent and also he seems to be more hesitant in that department. So.... this morning after I got him up I had him sit on the potty and, whatd'ya know, he pooped! A small pile, but it was something. I was very happy, clapped my hands, got real animated and gave him a small handful of sweets (raisins, carob chips, stuff like that) as a reward. I really do hope that starts a nice trend in that direction. He also went pee in his potty all by himself this morning, without my having to remind him so that was pretty cool too. I saw him in the kitchen trying to move a stool over to the counter where the "sweets" are kept so he could reward himself. I didn't catch on right away, but finally did see his deposit in the potty and paid him his dues. He's keeping dry for at least an hour between pees, maybe more, so he's doing well with that. I'm hoping to have him mostly trained by the end of this week. We'll see. I will still probably put him in pull-ups for going out, but for now, at least at home, he's in big boy pants and seems to be finally catching on.

Potty Training?

I'm being very lazy about potty training this time around. Eli has shown little signs like he might be getting ready, but I just wasn't ready for the accidents that come with training so I've been procrastinating. But today I decided to put some "big boy pants" on him right after I changed a stinky diaper (so hopefully he won't be doing any of that in his underwear) and he stayed dry for about an hour or so. He wanted to go outside with Daddy so I told him he had to pee in the potty first so we went to do that. He decided he's not ready to pee like Daddy yet (standing up) and wanted his potty seat. When I sat him down, he tried and, sure enough, was able to go.Woo hoo, that's my boy! Now, I'm not harboring any grand ideas that this is some huge milestone or anything because he's gone in the potty before, but it's the longest I think he's kept his diapers dry in a long time, and he's always peed in his underwear in the past so dry undies is a good thing. I'll take what I can get!

Home (not) Alone

Geo started telling me yesterday afternoon that he was feeling like he was getting sick and sure enough, in the middle of the night, both he and Gigi work up with sore throats. Geo asked for some Tylenol to help the pain, but Gigi just went back to sleep. I decided it would be best to keep them home from church today (don't want to expose all the other kids) so it's just me and the kids today till DH gets back from teaching his Kindergarten Sabbath-School class. I'm sure he's planning to stay for church too. Eli is entertaining himself trying to sing along with some Kid's Time Praise videos and the older two are off being creative with the play food. I'll probably read their lessons a little later and review their memory verses... It won't be quite the same as Sabbath School, but... oh well, I can only do what I can do.

On at OT school note, my books came Thursday! That was just about 2 weeks from when I joined MT Advantage :o) Not bad, not bad at all. They came just at the right time because the couple of days before were spent decluttering the bonus room (slash office/school room/craft, toy and other storage/laundry launchepad/ironing station/filing room...) which was a tremendously huge job, but it's done now :) well, mostly and it's SO much nicer. But I'm kind of glad my books didn't come earlier in the week because I would have wanted to delve into them instead of cleaning which was very very necessary! I'd like to continue on in this fashion (cleaning) so that the house is presentable for the baby when he or she arrives in November. The bonus room was the biggest hurdle so the rest of it should be a piece of cake, right? LOL Here's a pic of my nicely arranged storage closet shelf complete with MT books :o) Notice how nothing is spilling out all over the floor in front of the shelves (like they used to). Everything fits on the shelves and if there ever gets to be too much, then it'll be time for another purge! I think I might go thru all the boxes in 6 months or so and see if there's anything else I can let go.

Back to my books... there's a set of 1000 flashcards of medical terminology (words, prefixes, roots, suffixes...) that I have to have learned by the end of the course, so I've started plugging them into my handy-dandy jMemorize program. I have about 120 keyed in so far and that was just in about a day so I think I could have them all in in a month or less (I hope!). Interseting medical terminology tip of the day (and something I remember from A&P): acetabulum (hip socket) literally means "little vinegar cup."

Flashcard update

I did some snooping online and learned about the Leitner System for learning things for the short as well as the long term. Basically what it does is it remembers the cards you get wrong and you see them more often until you start to get them right. Then the ones you get right come back again in a week or two or three to see if you still know them (refresh and strengthen your memory). I found several freeware or open source programs that were based on the Leitner method and after trying out 3 or 4 have decided that my favorite is jMemorize.

Pros:

Free
Runs on Linux, Mac and Windows
Can arrange flashcards in categories
Text formatting on cards (very simple tho, no highlighting)
Attach images to cards
Has nice charts to keep track of progress

Cons:

Doesn't allow sound attachments
Doesn't allow highlighting of text

All in all, not too many drawbacks. There's another one called Memory Lifter which I think I will use to practice typing commonly misspelled words. Memory Lifter has a function for adding sound where you can either add a sound file or you can record a sound, so I can just speak them into the microphone and off I go. The con for me with Memory Lifter is that it makes you type out every answer, doesn't just take your word for it, but that will actually be a pro in regard to my misspelled words list.

I'm in school!

Yup, after years and years in the real world, I'm finally in school again and lovin' it. Uh-huh, I'm a nerd, a bookworm, what can I say, I love school, or probably more accurately, learning. And I've never stopped learning, but now I'm officially enrolled. I'm going to be a Medical Transcriptionist when I grow up, lol.

After much research and indecision, trying to decide whether I'd go with the cheepest of the "big 3" MT schools, or choose another school which seemed to offer as much and more, if not the designation of being one of the "big 3." In the end, due to prompt replies to all of my emails and honest answers to all of my "difficult" questions, not to mention an awsomely awsome discount which brought it within range of the other school I was considering, I chose MT Advantage (Medical Transcription Advantage Career Center) and I'm so far very happy with my choice. The school boasts a 100% job placement rate which is very encouraging and so far, in working thru the lessons, I really feel that there is a lot there for me to learn. I feel that I'll come out with a lot of knowledge and practice that will translate well to the real word. It will probably take me at least a year to complete, what with homeschool, a new baby and the possibility of my having to pick up some part-time-at-home work while DH is in school, not to mention just staying on top of the running of a household... Sometimes I think I bit off too much, but I'm having such fun with this program and the good thing about it is that it's a do-at-your-own-pace course and they are fairly flexible about how long it takes you to finish. Right now I'm just trying to perfect my grammar, spelling, and my attention to detail (or occasional lack thereof), finish a few non-required, but helpful computer classes and improve my typing speed... I just found my old Harbrace College Handbook so I'm going to look thru it and hopefully pick up some helpful pointers in the grammar department. I don't think I'm horrible, but I think I definitely could use some improvement. And MTs generally have impecable grammar and spelling.

For note taking I'm using a dandy little feeware app called KeyNote. It's a wonderful little notes program that supports tabs and an unlimited tree structure within each tab. It's marvelous; I'm sad it's not being updated anymore, but I'm really mostly fine with it how it is.

Also, I downloaded a flashcard freebie called CueCard which will help me drill myself either online or via the printed version of the flashcards (will do either, or so it says).

So far I'm on Module 4 of 30 that are in the course and I've been given the green light to start Mod 5 if I want (since Mod 4 is about computers and is not graded or required, but helpful and so far [for me] boring as all get out). I'll have to skip back to Mod 3 when I get my books (in 3-5 weeks, sooner I hope!), but at least I can keep up the forward momentum. I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

20 down, 20 more to go

Weeks that is. Actually I'll be 21 weeks tomorrow so slightly less. I made it to the halfway mark! Things are going well with this pregnancy so far. A few weeks ago I was having early morning mid-back pain that would force me up at 6:00 a.m. or so. But that has recently eased up, not sure what has changed, but I'm not going to complain! My belly is getting to that slightly uncomfortable, makes-it-hard-to-breath stage, but the baby isn't so big yet that it's kicking my ribs or my bladder so I guess I can be thankful for small blessings. Also, thank God, the relaxin hasn't kicked in yet. I hope it waits for a good while! The baby is probably close to 12" long now and wiggles now and then. I love the wiggling part :)

Sore Throat finally gone!

I'd had a sore throat for the last week or so and couldn't shake it. Normally all I have to do is up my water intake, suck on a zinc lozenge, and try to get extra sleep and that does the trick. But not this time. After a day or two it started getting very sore on my left tonsil and it hurt like crazy when I stuck my tongue out. So I got this wacky idea to "paint" my tonsil with hydrogen peroxide. I put some on a cotton swab and dabbed it on a couple of times. It burned for awhile and I drank a bunch of water to try to dilute the burning. And here comes my word of warning... I don't think that was the best thing to do. My tonsil did indeed stop hurting initially, but the hurt came back and it seemed to be worse and I think it may have caused it to last longer than it would have on its own. So next time I won't be doing that!

So my next weapon was... da da da daahhhh! garlic. My dad suggested a garlic/tomato sandwich so I diced up a clove, put it on bread with mayo on it, then slices of tomato, salted. It wasn't too bad, but it was spicy and stroooonnnnngg. But it did seem that after each dose of garlic, the soreness abated for awhile or felt a little less severe. I had 2 sandwiches one day, none the next, 1 the next (I think, as I recall). Anyway, it was almost gone yesterday and today I truly feel free. Hooray! So glad to be done with that! Oh, I forgot, I also tried gargling with cayenne in water which ended up being too spicy for me, but I also put it on my food which did seem to have a positive effect.

Medical Transcription

I've recently gotten a bit of a nudge from mi Papa RE: taking a medical transcription course online so I've been looking into it. I stumbled upon a terrific blog devoted to MT and have been having great fun reading thru the first few posts. It does rather sound like a lot of work (the coursework, the actual work work), but I also think it's something that might be right down my alley. I'm interested in things medical if just from a distance (couldn't actually be a nurse or anything like that), I type decently enough (I was the typesetter for my college newspaper for a year; incidentally I learned on a very old manual typewriter in eastern Africa), don't mind sitting on my computer for hours on end and have a love of the English language. Check back in a year or two and we'll see what comes of it all, but for now, I'm having fun investigating the prospect of it all.

Too tired for words (no not me)

The other day l'il bub was woken up from his nap by dad because he'd "slept long enough." Then dad and the older two went to run a quick errand and left Eli at home with me. Well, after a few minutes things got REALLY quiet and I went to investigate. I walked into the family room and this is what I found:


Then going around to check the other side of him:

Nothing sweeter than sleeping babies. Cracks me up the position he chose to cat-nap.

Projects

Here are a couple of my fairly recent projects that I hadn't had a chance to blog about yet. The first one is the bible cover I made out of old jeans for Geo's 7th birthday. I stayed up into the wee hours of the night the night before finishing it. Gigi has already requested one, but if I do, I'll start it months in advance, lol.


The next is the Cinderella Topsy Turvy doll (a la Jean Greenhowe) that I made for Gigi's 5th birthday. I'm really happy with how she turned out. Still need to make some little flowers to go around her bun, but otherwise she's done.


Here are a couple that Geo made for his sister's birthday. The bunny finger puppet was knit in the round using the magic loop method (ears knit by me, whiskers added by me), The pink bunny was knit in the round (magic loop) too, I think I did the ears for that one too, but pretty much everything else he did.

Sleepy Days, Restless Nights

I've had a bit of a revelation that if I don't get enough sleep I can't function the next day (now why is this news? LOL). Anyway, I guess the revelation was that I need to make sure we eat lunch between 12 and 1, eat supper at 5 and have kids in bed before 8 so that I can have some time with DH before I need to hit the sack between 9 and 9:30. One of the reasons for this early of a bedtime is that my back is starting to really bother me in the morning (mid to upper back). No matter when I go to sleep, I wake up between 6 and 7 and can't stay in bed past that time because my back hurts so bad. It stops hurting when I get up so it's a very good alarm clock. Also it's getting much more uncomfortable to sleep at night and I do quite a bit of tossing and turning till I can finally fall asleep. But if I don't get enough sleep the night before, it sets me up for complete exhaustion and inability and total lack of desire to do any of my routines and as a result the house falls apart. SO... this is the new plan in hopes that I'll be able to maintain a certain amount of functionality. We can hope. Next stop, relaxin and aching joints. I hope that stop isn't for awhile yet (like 2 or 3 more months at least!).

Revamped My Routines

Awhile back I decided that my visual side really needed a bit of a crutch when it came to my FlyLady control journal which lists my Morning, Afternoon and Before Bed routines as well as weekly chores and space for To-Dos and the like. I had it to where I liked it, ... for awhile anyway. But I've decided that it's time to simplify my routines a little so I redid my control journal. Here's a snapshot of my Morning Routine:
It sits in a sheet protector and hangs on my fridge where I mark off each task as it's completed with a dry erase marker. I even made the kids their own routine sheets (great for when they actually look at them, lol).

Biblical Womanhood

For awhile I've known about Crystal's (of MoneySavingMom blog fame) website about Biblical Womanhood and in the past I never gave it more than a cursory glance. But I have had the opportunity to read a few of her recent entries and I'm totally and completely impressed by her maturity in the light of her tender age (in her 20s with 2 little ones). I probably have 10 years or so on her and I feel that I am way behind where she's at. But I feel God is leading me to be more deliberate in my attempts to live out His directive for my life (Titus 2:3-5 talks about how older women are supposed to teach younger women [where I find myself at the moment] how to be sober, love their husbands, their children, be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands so that the word of God be not blasphemed). I feel that this is my true and highest calling and I will walk in faith as I attempt to do the best I can with God's help and pray He fills in all my inadequacies (of which there are many).

Part of Biblical womanhood includes modesty in dress and speech. I have felt a calling toward more modest dress for awhile now, but have no means to achieve that end at the moment. I would like to wear more skirts, but for now my swelling belly regulates me to whatever I have in the maternity department which is mostly pants and shorts. But after the baby, I'd love to get into making more of my own clothes, lots of pretty, feminine skirts and simple tops to match, some pretty and functional aprons for working around the house (and eating, lol) to keep my clothes tidy. It will of course be more practical when/if I'm able to cull a good portion of the extras that have been hanging around this house and the last like a millstone around my neck. I'm working on decluttering a little each day to achieve that eventual goal. I really would love to live a simple life... no TV (or very limited), just a few good toys for the kids, fewer clothes for everyone (means less laundry, water, soap, work for me...) and just the things we need or love allowed in our house. Someday...

Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all you deserving dads out there and most especially to my DH and my dad. The kids made cards for Daddy today and I found a simple little poem for Elliot to repeat after me and pulled it into Audacity to edit out all my prompts. I think it came out cute if fairly unintelligible. The text is as follows:

Daddy, I love you
For all that you do.

I'll kiss you and hug you
'Cause you love me, too.

You feed me and help me
Learn how to pray.

So smile 'cause I love you
On this Father's Day.

I'm baaaaaaccckkk!

Yeah, ok, I've been absent for quite awhile now, about 3 months, and in my defense, wasn't feeling great for most of those months. Why you might ask? Well let me go ahead and spill the beans all over the place.

Very shortly after I stopped blogging in March, dh and I found out that we were expecting baby #4. When I got a positive within seconds, it was almost too much to be believed. Dh and I were still sort of living in the fantasy that my cycle was just being a little crazy this month, it would come. But it didn't and, well, after the initial shock of it all wore off and we had mulled over what bad (in our minds) timing this was to be having another baby, we decided to leave it in God's hands and accept it as a blessing that God's Word says that it is. Now that I'm past the almost constant feeling-like-I-majorly-overate-and-need-to-relieve-my-stomach feeling, I'm actually really looking forward to the rest of the pregnancy and for the next addition of our not-so-little-anymore family.

Imitation = Flattery; the ER

Yesterday I heard Eli "do-do-doing" in the kitchen, kind of singing a song and I happened to glance in there to see what he was doing exactly and there he was with a piece of pvc pipe (I use it to wind my yarn) and was pretending to play it like a flute. And he was holding it fairly correctly too. If I didn't think he'd move or clam up, I'd have gotten a pic, but it didn't last long. It was very cute while it lasted tho.

At some point in the evening on Tuesday we noticed that Eli wasn't using his right hand like normal. Geo was the one to pinpoint the cause of Eli's crying, not sure why I didn't catch it. I had tried to change his diaper and give him a snack thinking he needed changing or was hungry, but sure enough, his hand wasn't doing much, he wasn't wanting to use it. We didn't know what might have happened. I didn't think he could have fallen hard enough to hurt it and even if he did, it was odd that it was his right hand since he's apparently left-handed. So we gave him some Tylenol and hoped he'd feel better in the morning.

I wrapped it up in an Ace bandage to try to keep it still in case it was a sprain or something like that. Well, he did better on Wednesday, but still wasn't using the hand and was complaining if we touched his hand or fingers... so finally after lunch I got us ready and off to the ER we went. There weren't that many people there at that time of day so maybe was a good time to go. We got in to triage and then a room very quickly.

Once in the room we had to wait a little longer between being seen, but Eli had fun and entertained himself by peeking outside the door every time the automatic doors down the hall opened or closed; he also enjoyed playing peek-a-boo with the curtains and thought that was a riot. The lady who saw us was a nurse practitioner and couldn't have been nicer. She said from what I told her that she suspected "Nursemaid's Elbow" where the radius bone gets pulled away from the ulna and humerus enough so that one of the tendon's holding the bones in place can slip down behind the bone and gets pinched and hurts! Poor baby!

So she tried to pop it back in place (simple procedure), but it didn't want to go back in. After 2 or 3 tries of this she decided to rule out anything else going on (a fracture or anything like that) and ordered x-rays. Well, the x-rays, thankfully, came back normal so she tried the procedure again and this time she said, "ah! there it went, I felt the pop." So we just watched him for a few minutes, tried to get him to pick up stickers or keys or my cellphone... He finally was able to hand me my keys which was the most he'd used his hands since the day before. After that he did some baby signs with that hand and then it was a very steady and quick improvement till, by the time I got him to the car to buckle him in, he was pretty much back to normal.

Apparently, one of us had taken him by the forearm and pulled a little too hard, or maybe he fought/resisted us while we had him by the arm (could have been me, DH, or Geo for that matter; he's bad about fighting diaper changes so I'll have to be careful with that). So we had a family meeting and I told them that no one should pull him by the hand or try to pick him up that way... only picking up under both arms or by the upper arm. So, all in all, I'm glad it wasn't worse, glad he's back to normal, and glad we know what to do to make sure it doesn't happen again!

My baby turned 7, *sniff*

Geo had his 7th birthday today. Even he is feeling the rush of time I think because he kept insisting that he was still 6. I think he's afraid that he'll grow up too fast and have to move out of the house. I tried to reassure him that that wouldn't happen for many years and that for now, this is his house, he lives here with us. When he gets older, he'll get the urge to get out on his own (well, hopefully, lol). But for now, he's still a kid and he doesn't have to worry about any of that. He still didn't seem too impressed and will probably be 6 for a few more days till 7 gets more normal sounding. He did try to use 7 in his defense yesterday, though. He told me that he was old enough to watch Polar Express even thought I was sure it would be too intense for him. He said that it wouldn't be too scary for a 7 year old. LOL So we let him watch it, and you know what? He watched it all and swore up and down that it wasn't scary. Guess he is growing up. We didn't have a big party but we did take a break from school in honor of his day, we did an egg hunt in the front yard (enjoyed the lovely weather, he really picked a good time of year to be born!), ate cake and I gave him a bible cover that I had stayed up late the last two nights wrestling with. Now Gigi says she wants one, but... I don't know. Geo's was a real bear, not sure I want to tackle one again any time soon. I think he had a good day, hope so :) But back to the grindstone again tomorrow!

107 years, one amazing woman

My 107 great-grandma, great-great-gran to my kiddos, passed away yesterday afternoon. She had had a heart attack the night before but it wasn't caught till yesterday morning. Apparently she was somewhat alert and talking till her very last breath, and then very quietly, she was gone. We are all very much at peace with her passing because she was so ready to go and she had lived a long long life. She had lost her eyesight a few years ago and became more and more dependent on my grandpa (her SIL) for assistance (as my grandma has health problems of her own). So I say a fond good-bye to my "grandma" and I know that her very next thought will be the 2nd coming of Jesus, so for her this quiet resting time will seem like the blink of an eye. Rest in peace dear lady.

The day's happenings

My plan was to wake up this morning early so the younger two and I could get over to the health department (for WIC recertification) and beat the rush so we wouldn't have to wait a million years to be seen. But, I ended up staying up till after midnight (my new bedtime is supposed to be much closer to 10) getting everything together (finding birth certificates, getting proof of income and address..., getting clothes out for the kids, getting things together for them to do if we had to wait...) so I really was not in the mood to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. We didn't manage to get over there till 10 a.m. They don't make appointments for anything there anymore, it's first come first served (I hate the new policy!!) so we sat and sat and Gigi got bored and more bored... About an hour later, they called us in. I had to sign some things, answer some questions, then we had to wait in another waiting room for awhile. They they called us in for weighing, measuring and hemoglobin check (for Eli only, Gigi was rather relieved!), then we waited some more, saw the nutritionist, waited some more, then finally got our vouchers. They really make you earn them I tell ya :) Oh well, an hour an a half later, we were free for another 6 months when Eli will have to be re-certified (Gigi will by then be too old). So that took up all of my morning.

After lunch Gigi and I went out for a mother-daughter jaunt. I thought she would like it, feel important... but all she did was grip and complain about one thing or another so I think maybe the concept is lost on her. I suppose she'd rather do other things so I won't be in such a hurry to take her anywhere in the future! We went and got some things laminated for DH for his Sabbath School class (class rosters and memory verse charts...), then we popped over to a nearby thrift store. I had very little money on me, but was able to get several really large, huge, gigantic dresses that I'll be able to take apart and re-purpose them into something for me :) I'm thinking lots and lots of aprons because I really have the bug to start wearing pretty things more often, less jeans and sweats and I don't want nice clothes to get dirty so lots of pretty and functional aprons will be nice! Here are some of my favorites: ruffly, paisley, apron from dress [pdf], slightly bizarre but functional "Lady Artisan", cute, not free, halter apron, slight ruffle apron, Christmas apron.

I went to CVS last Saturday night to take advantage of a diaper deal they had going on. Actually there were a bunch of things that were part of the deal. If you purchased $30 worth of the items, they would give you $15 back in ECBs. Good deal, but when I added $6 in diaper coupons and $1 battery coupon and a $4 off CVS coupon and $9.98 in ECBs, it was a really great deal. The only problem is that when the receipt printed off, they only gave me ECBs for the 5 Boost Smoothies that I had bought (because they were free after ECBs). So I asked the lady about it and she tried to tell me that because my coupons took the grand total under $30, that was why the ECBs hadn't printed. She even got another manager to agree with her. I didn't think so, but I walked out with my stuff, rather upset because I was sure I was supposed to get those ECBs. When I got home I looked more carefully at the receipt and it said that the amount that I had credited toward the reward was $26.97 which was the exact price of the diapers. So I saw that they hadn't given me credit for the batteries. I was elated when I figured that out because I was sure that I would be getting my ECBs :) So I called customer service and I must glow and wax complimentary about CVSs customer service. I got a really nice lady who, when she looked at my receipt on her end, saw what I was talking about and she said that my ECBs would print on my receipt the next time I shopped at CVS. So thank you CVS, it was pleasure doing business with you, I hope you get lots of business and have many happy years.

The breakdown of my transaction goes like this:

cost of 3 packs of diapers	$26.97
batteries	$5.29
subtotal	$32.26
coupons ($7.50)	$24.76
CVS $4 off $20 coupon	$20.76
used $9.98 in ECBs to pay	$10.78
get back $15 in ECBs	$-4.22

Not counting the ECBs that I used to pay with (because I had to build them up in the beginning with real money), I got 3 packs of dipes and 1 pack of 8 AA batteries for $5.76. Not bad say I!

Mount Washmore Nomore!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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):

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!)

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.

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 :)

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 :)

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 :)

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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:

• 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.

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)

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.