SouthForte Farms

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T10:41:00.000-06:00

Warning: Randomness to follow.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there!

We started the day with a delicious cookie breakfast this morning, much to the surprise of my 4 little valentines.

I made this oatmeal cookie recipe, leaving out the raisins and nuts, and baked the dough in a Wilton heart pan. Choosing the icing was easy, since I was out of powdered sugar and chocolate (I know--how did THAT happen??) so Swiss Buttercream it was. Yum.

We are having fun today, despite a nasty headcold that is cycling through the ranks. Everyone is finding little things to do for each other, and I was even given 30 minutes to do "anything you want, Mom!" while Encyclopedia cleaned up my kitchen. Everyone needs an Encyclopedia in the family. Besides his killer organizing skills, he makes up for any annoyance he ever causes by staging these intricate and thorough surprises. He cleaned out David's truck, for instance, saving every little scrap of paper he found for me to look through in case it was something important, truly making it a pleasant surprise that you don't have to go back and redo. I love him for that. I really see how parenting forces you outside your little personality comfort-zone so that you learn to embrace and nurture and treasure these little people who think and react completely opposite of you.

I found this

the other day. It is a sock. Rolled into a donut. Thrown and left in between the slats of the living room blinds.

I have no idea.

I didn't even ask.

No, it wasn't clean.

In other news, I found my dream dining room table on Craigslist the other day. What's new, you say. You've found your dream dining room table several times, at antique stores, furniture outlets, garage sales... YES, but this time it was only $100! And I am not kidding! And we bought it!

It is from Ikea, their Norden line, and extends from 84" to 105" and I am completely in love! I have wanted a huge long farmtable for years, and this one fits our dining area perfectly. So I'm on a quest now to sell the old table and purchase black windsor chairs for the non-benched sides, preferably two with arms for the ends. So excited. I pinch myself every time I see it. We've enjoyed spreading out and planning all the families we could have over and seat all together. Quite the surprise to find, quite the bargain, and I'm so grateful. I'd been saving up to buy materials so that we (um, used loosely here...) could build our own, but there's no way we could touch the supplies for this table for $100. Solid birch with the leaf/track system would shoot it out of our pricerange fer sher. So grateful.

Have you seen this audio cd? It has 44 30-minute radio programs from the 40s and 50s, each telling a story about a certain president, little known facts and background information, and you are left guessing which president until the very end. Very fun, and I think I paid $7 for it, so definitely something to pick up.

I found it at Library and Ed, one of my very favorite places to shop for supplementary school items. They have excellent sales, and they never spam or sell your info, so sign up for an acct and get their sale emails. You won't be sorry. I purchased these grahpic history books there recently and the boys have eaten them up. They sell everything from Focus on the Family's Radio Theater (I paid $14 for the ENTIRE set of FotF Narnia stories once!) to science projects and popular fiction. Check it out! (I am not an affiliate--they don't know that I exist, except that I have probably paid someone's salary a couple of times over my years of shopping there. )

Dinner tonight is consisting of chicken and dumplings, the fanciest chicken-soup-for-the-sickies I can make. I'm considering cutting the dumplings out like hearts in honor of...okay, considered it. Strike that. Whew. That was close.

We have a date scheduled somewhere in there, but the logistics are proving difficult. Can't wait to have a kid a leeeeetle bit older that we can leave here with the other hoodlums for a couple of hours here and there. Then, when they're sick, they can just infect each other like they always do and not infect a babysitter, and we don't have to feel guilty about having a date. But we aren't there yet, so we will see what happens.

I hope your Valentine's Day is a happy one, friends! Some years things fall together, the husband picks up a little something the day BEFORE and not the day OF on his WAY HOME, and some years he doesn't, and you learn to roll with it. Sometimes you plan ahead and have CHOCOLATE in the house and all the ingredients for a hot and sexy dinner for after the kids are in bed, complete with wine and candlelight, and sometimes you make chicken and dumplings and he rolls with it. You just have to decide that you are going to enjoy the day, and remember that love is proven over a lifetime, not over one or two or ten days a year. So revel in the years when the romantic logistics work out, and be patient in the years when you barely feel like it was a day of any significance. It's like that for all of us. It's just life.

So put on your red lipstick, throw some sprinkles on something, and have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day, and Having an Intimate Marriage

2012-02-10T14:34:00.001-06:00

Okay, Girls. We have 4 days till Valentines Day. I don't know about you, but we have to kind of take these holidays with some flexibility at our house. There is NO guarantee that my honey and I will be able to go out for dinner on the actual 14th of February. Sitters cancelling, sickness, a farm crisis, evil corporate meetings and business trips, family crises...all these things have cropped up in the past to "mess up" the plans and expectations we had for the evening.

True story: On our very first Valentine's Day as a married couple (and remember that we had followed a very strict courtship during the year before, so no gooey kissy date on Feb. 14 then, either...) we lived in a trailer (long story) an hour out of town. I was 2 months pregnant (we'd been married 2 months and 1 week...you do the math...) and I puked my way through preparing a big roast beef/potatoes/hot rolls/fancy dessert dinner. It took all day, because I normally crawled in and out of bed only to find some protein that I hadn't thrown up recently and could choke down until about noon each day, and then moved to the couch so I could pretend I was getting something accomplished...so I had to pace myself. Looking at food was not a favorite pastime. And yes, this lasted for 7 months. And yes, my boy was so worth it. But it was hellish.

So anyway, here I was, so proud and excited that I had made it through the fiery trial-by-raw-beef, down to the perfectly smooth gravy and lit candles, and then I watched my honey walk in the door with his eyes half shut, go straight to the couch and ask to lie down for a few minutes before we ate. His head, neck and eyes hurt so badly that I threw the food in the fridge and drove him to the ER (yes, an hour away, praying I wouldn't have to pull over and throw up on the side of the highway) and he ended up with a diagnosis of Mono. No kissing for 4 months because he was contagious. No strenuous exercise or his spleen might burst. 14 doctor-ordered-hours of sleep a day (plus a 2-hour commute and an 8-hour workday. that pretty much makes 24 hours.)

That was our first Valentine's Day and the next 4 months after.

I guess it could only go UP from there, right?

This marriage thing is a dance. In fact, I've decided that it is a shame we don't all learn ballroom dancing as a matter of course anymore. The leading/following, the cooperation, the communication and the thought and the time and the skill and the practice and the patience it takes to sail smoothly across the floor is a perfect picture of the work it takes to build a strong and intimate relationship in a marriage.

We have to work at it, ya'll. And when you are working hard to be a good mom, a good teacher-or-whatever-your-other-job-is, a good Christian, a good daughter, very very often the effort to be a good wife falls by the side. He's a grown up too, after all, and he can suffer through this busy/stressful/tired time with me without making demands, right?

But I encourage you to set aside your tiredness for a minute. Don't slam the door on a close, mutually fulfilling, HOT relationship with your husband. Don't put it off. Don't assume he can't do anything for you or that you don't have anything left to give. Set all that aside, and just remember that you and your husband are a team, that he is your best friend, and that you picked him with all of his quirks and foibles and strengths and weaknesses. You are not married to the wrong person. You would not be more fulfilled or less annoyed by ANYONE else, because every single couple has to work through these things. If another guy didn't leave his socks on the floor, he might be a neat freak that couldn't relax till the house was clean, and THAT would drive you nuts. So stop looking at your marriage like you can't make this work and give it some attention.

Okay, that was quite a lecture. And you guys might not be thinking that way at all. But our culture

(i.e. HOLLYWOOD) thinks that way, and if you're like me, sometimes those thoughts can creep in and skew my perspective and emotional response, and I need someone to slap my cheeks a little and shake me out of it.

So give it some attention. And I don't just mean read another book about being a Godly wife praying for your husband. Those can be excellent, but just like we are commanded not to tell a beggar, "God loves you--go and be filled!" but are supposed to hand him bread--so we are not to pray for our husbands to rise up and lead and love us while we wear sweatpants to bed and make them beg for any sex, much less good sex. Shame on us!

I'm sure we'd all agree that a Christian lady should be modest in her dress and behavior. That's pretty clear in Scripture. But Girls, when you are with your husband, a switch should flip. Don't subject him to ankle length calico nightgowns because that's what they wore in the 19th century and that feels more spiritual. Baloney. There was nothing more spiritual about what folks wore 200 years ago. Don't try to imagine what your Bible Study Fellowship girlfriends would think if they saw you in that little lace number, because -- wait for it -- they won't even know!

And there is nothing more spiritual about acting superior because your husband wants more sex than you do. You, simply by being the female, are not more mature spiritually. I think this is a lie from the Victorian era, where women were elevated in politics, art and literature to be the spiritually pure because they could resist the carnal desires of sex and alcohol and men could not. Sex was a necessary evil, not to be enjoyed, purely for procreation.That's just silliness, but has led through the years to a lot of unhappy marriages and a pretty messed up culture.

God devoted an entire book of the Bible to love and sex. Have you read Song of Solomon lately? If you read it willing to see double entendre and really steamy affection between two lovers, it's all there. There is no pious, prim mama saying she has a headache. And I don't imagine the SoS lover was in calico. Or, as Gary Thomas says, in the dark under 6 blankets. Ahem.

So in light of the fact that Tuesday is Valentine's Day, I'm sharing with you a few of the married romance blogs I subscribe to. They are clean for married people, but not exactly kid-friendly, so ya know. Don't leave the screen up when you run off to see what that crash was. :0)

Here you go. Pour a cup of coffee, start clicking, and have fun getting things ready for Valentine's Day!

Hot, Holy and Humorous

Intimacy in Marriage

Married Spice

To Love, Honor and Vacuum

The Best Christmas Present for a Mom

2012-02-10T13:29:00.000-06:00

It was such a hit last year that he gave it to me again this year. And he can keep giving it to me forever, and it will never, ever get old!

It's a little envelope tucked into the branches of our tree, and I usually open it last, just because. A little silver visa card with a chunk of spending money loaded onto it, all for me. Also inside is a note telling me that one Saturday in the very near future I will be completely off-duty around the house, from morning chores till bedtime, that I will get to roam around town and spend my money and drink cappuccinos and have sushi for lunch, that no one will need me to supervise a practice or to wipe them up or remind them to shut the door. That when I get home, dinner will be made. That the hacker and all the kids will have straightened and cleaned up all day, not just keeping up with my daily stuff like the dishes, but also dusting ceiling fans and baseboards and mopping all of the slate, stuff like that. There is a lot of love packed into one little envelope.

And I got to enjoy my gift this last Saturday! It was glorious.

After breakfast and NOT going down to the barn, I headed out to my favorite little coffee shop and then to a fabulous consignment shop nearby. So many great buys. (If you are not into thrifting, you must know that there is a total difference in a thrift store like Goodwill and a consignment store. You will pay a bit more for the consigned items, but they have already done the sorting and you have a much nicer selection to look through.) I found several name-brand items with tags still on them, for a fraction of the original price! Like these pants:

from Talbots that were originally $109, and I paid $8.48 because they'd been there for 2 months and were half of the consigned price of $17. I don't care that they aren't from the 2012 collection--they fit beautifully (that's the other nice thing about consignment stores--they have fitting rooms that you can use without feeling like you need to drink your hand sanitizer...) and I am not a trend-setting type. Not that anyone thought so. Ha. It was especially fun shopping for clothes now that I am 42 (!!!) pounds closer to my goal weight--what a psychological boost it was to move over a couple sizes from when I shopped there last summer. :0)

I strolled around our little town square, hitting shops that I *never* enjoy with my demolition crew. And I found this great sale going on at one of the design shops, so this basket that I'd had my eye on for a while was now at a price I could imagine paying, and I snagged it:

I hit Goodwill next, and found these two bolts of upholstery fabric for about $.70/yd! I have 12 yards of this burlap-ish fabric that I am pondering for curtains in the boys' room:

...and 6 yds. of this adorable stuff:

...which I have already sewn into something I will show you soon. I am so thrilled with how it turned out.

Then I puttered around Walmart, because a mom can't leave home without needing to stop there for something, so while I was there I picked up a can of my new favorite color spray paint, and worked on a few baskets after I got home. They are a happy spot in my kitchen right now, and I'm looking for other ways to use this color!

So that is a little piece of how I spent my wonderful Christmas present-day. Lots of relaxed shopping, lots of cappuccinos, lots of time to think completely through a project without interruption, lots of cappuccinos, lots of quiet moments to just be ...while drinking cappuccinos.

If gift giving isn't your honey's thing or if you are the picky one in the relationship and are hard to buy for, you might put this on your wishlist. If you are buying for a mom, remember to throw in the cleaning part too, because it isn't really a break if you come home from a great day to a pile of dishes and a mountain of laundry and a house that has had little people running through it all day. That's almost worse than not getting to go at all--like getting to go on a field trip and then having to make up all the day's schoolwork that evening.

And I've discovered that it goes both ways--Guys like this kind of thing, too! A visa card can be spent anywhere, and who wouldn't love permission to take one day off and roam around to all those places they never have time to browse? Most dads I know would find plenty to do with some cash and a guilt-free day out and about on their own. :0)

Being Offended

2012-02-08T22:05:00.000-06:00

We had one of those big defining brouhahas over here today. Every child and every parent (okay, that would be me) was involved and it was tangled and messy and twisted and sad. Little people were stomping all over each other trying to get what they wanted, getting angry at nothing, joining ranks with one brother against the next, and other little people felt cornered and came out swinging.

Literally.

I'm mentally and spiritually exhausted from this little bout of sanctification. My heart is sore from seeing my babies act out hate, and my brain is sore from piecing together the gray chain of events leading up to the black climax.

We've talked it out, cried it out, taken our punishment and consequences (me, too. have you ever disciplined a child for acting out what is your very own besetting sin? it hurts badly.) and kissed and made up.

I have hugged and breathed in the outdoorsy scent of their hair as they prayed to ask Jesus to help them stop and think about the loving thing. To pause and consider the other person. To resist the impulse to lash out at those they love the most.

And I have watched them lie down quietly for rest time and drift off, soul at peace, because they are forgiven and they have help to do better the next time.

It makes me ponder my own life as it swirls around me, and what a friend of mine said recently: "You can't choose to be offended. Either someone meant to offend you, or they didn't. They either offer an apology or an explanation, and you have to leave it at that." Isn't that the practical essence loving our neighbor? Isn't that what we do if we stop to consider the other person?

How often we prickly adults take offense at some little statement or annoyance and we cling to that offense, attributing to our loved ones the motive of a heartless and sadistic egotist. We have our feelers out because we are thinking only of ourselves, and we just know that everyone else is meditating and plotting constantly for either our benefit or our humiliation. We might even tell the offender, confront them in love with their offensive actions, and wait for them to be touched to the core by our condescension and forbearance and willingness to receive their apology. And when they explain how we totally misunderstood or how they meant nothing by it, we are twice offended. Our hard work analyzing and determining their motives has been kicked under the carpet, scorned. Completely invalidated. And that's just not right, our hearts tell us. They must be lying now, too. They must be convinced that we are right, that they have offended, and until they are convinced, nothing can be right between us.

But here's the thing: With the explanation that nothing was intended by the offending gesture, the offense is removed. It does not exist. There can be no offense unless one was intended. As I told my littles today, you can't decide that the other person really meant to hurt your feelings. Because you love them, you attribute to them the best motive possible in the situation. And that is painful, yes, because we love to feel injured and martyred and innocent in the midst of lots of bad people around us. We are so quick to feel offense and so slow to admit our own wearying habits and foibles that others are so forbearing of.

So we are intently practicing love at our house. Love that overlooks a multitude of offenses, and is slow to anger. Love that is patient and is not easily provoked. Love that bears all things. Love that doesn't disparage an explanation. Love that doesn't stew over motives. Love that can sit and build Legos beside those they love the most, relishing the closeness of battling through this life together. Love that will forgive his brother a little because he has been forgiven so very, very much. It's the Gospel.

Home Library Update 2

2012-02-08T12:23:00.000-06:00

Well, the silence around here has been deafening. I have so much to show and tell. I'll start with our bookshelf situation in the music room.

Remember this project that I started brainstorming about several weeks ago?

The Hot Hacker has done it again! He took things from this pitiful state:

...to this beautiful, built-in state:

They are finished except for a round of caulk and paint. What a difference having the baseboard at the bottom and the crown at the top has made. I was tempted to just screw them to the wall and leave them sitting on the floor, because I hated to create another project that I couldn't do by myself. The list of need-help-because-it-involves-upper-body-strength-and/or-large-power-tools projects is long around here.

But the Hacker was happy to help, and here we are! I can't wait to finish it up. Those extra shelves he added at the top will let me spread things out quite a bit and add a few more decorative items. I had the greatest shopping day last Saturday (will have to tell you about that another time) and found the perfect basket to go up on that center shelf, and more ivy to sit at the very top behind the crown...but all that has to be the bribe for caulking. Must. Caulk. First.

I will (hopefully) post final pictures soon!

A Modern Major General, by Gilbert and Sullivan

2012-01-28T10:31:00.000-06:00

We attended a local production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" several weeks ago, and the boys loved the famous patter song by the Major General in this comic musical. Now that we've started a new school semester, I've decided to let them take a break from our scheduled memory work (except for reviews, of course!!) and learn this song for fun. Definitely earned World's Best Mom points the morning I announced that. :0) Next up on our memory list is one of the boys' favorites, The Wailin' Jennys' version of "The Parting Glass," because I'm enjoying these Mom points. And maybe because they already learned everything I'd planned for the year. But don't tell them that.

So for your entertainment, here are two of our favorite videos of the song. The first one shows part of an actual production, and gives you the context of the piece. The second is a solo performance by a classical baritone who enunciates much more clearly, but without the little umbrella and the British uniform, it loses a lot of the fun.

Progress on the Home Library

2012-01-27T10:51:00.002-06:00

Here are some progress photos of our Music Room project since last Saturday:

Here are the shelves, lined up and ready to be measured...

...and imagine the hot hacker popping off baseboard and building the little platforms you see underneath in this photo. I forgot to take photos. It was a crazy day, but at the end of it, the shelves were up, a new dishwasher was installed, a retirement-open-house attended, 6 batches of pumpkin bread and 4 batches of waffles were in the freezer, and I was sitting at an opera performance with a friend. It was a very good day. But I forgot to take photos.

So in the above photo, I've started placing books. And coffee cups, apparently.

Here I've sorted and tweaked and rearranged until I am almost perfectly happy with the look of it. There will be a shelf in the center resting on the top of the door frame, and vertical supports lining up with the inside edges of the bookcases, then one more shelf straight across the top.This last bit of space will let me spread out the books a little more and add some more decorative items. It still looks pretty crowded to me right now.

Then we will add trim across the top, and baseboards popped onto the bottoms, then all the edges trimmed out to meet the walls. I'll paint those pieces before installation, so all I have to do is touch up the nail holes and caulk everything.

Here's a final look, with my slipcovered chair and music cabinet...

It's coming along! And it is fully functional, way up from this, which is how we battled through last week:

Can't wait to be able to show you the final photos!

Teaching Dyslexics to Label

2012-01-26T09:41:00.001-06:00

One of the traits of a dyslexic learner is confusion when labeling things. Letter names, for instance, can completely overwhelm them.

The authors of Reading Reflex (my favorite phonics program for the kids who need a boost, courtesy of my friend Kathy!) describe the traditional way of teaching letter names and sounds like this: You take your child into a room, and you say, "This is Bill, but we call him John and sometimes Jack. This is Kate, but call her Amanda unless she's next to Bill/John/Jack, and then we call her Rosy. And this is Herbert, but if he stands next to Michael over here, they both share the name Fred..." and so on for 26 people. Too much to process, no pattern to anchor all that information, and a lot of pressure to memorize and regurgitate. The RR authors and other dyslexia experts remove that middle step from the phonics process and only have the child learn that this picture tells us to say this sound. They don't need to know that it has a name in order to read. Eventually they pick up on the names on their own, but in the meantime, reading fluency progresses much faster.

These kids have the same difficulty learning to count money, because every coin has a certain look, a certain name, and a certain denomination that all must be retained, associated with each other, and recalled in a mix-and-match way very quickly. The solution is to pull out the extraneous information that is clogging the pipes, so to speak. My fella has been working on money lately, and when I realized what was causing his confusion, I stopped calling the coins by their names and started referring to them as a "25" or a "10" because that was the number we used to count them by. IMMEDIATE improvement. Yay!

I've also discovered that often the dyslexic child will have no problem at all with the concepts of what you are teaching, but stumble as they look at the page or try to answer you verbally because of the labels. So I use lots of visuals, like holding up four fingers when we count quarters, letting him show me how two 25s make 50, and two more 25s makes a dollar/a hundred. Or holding up ten fingers for the dimes, and showing him how half of a dollar is five of the 10s, and if a whole finger is a 10, half of a finger is a 5, so that's why it takes so many more 5s to make a dollar/a hundred. I'm trying to stretch his mind and logic with the concepts behind what we are trying to put on paper, because I am confident that that is the most important part.

I inherited this well-loved box of money puzzles from a teacher-friend of mine (Thanks, Steph!!) and pulled it out yesterday to change things up a bit...hahahahahahha. Sorry. Buster had a blast with it. To set him up, I laid out the four coins in denomination-order and had him recite their amounts several times. I left those coins there for reference, and then let him at the puzzles. After a few tries, he warmed up and was able to finish the complete set alone.

For another example, when I teach note reading in a violin lesson, I completely separate learning the letter name of that note on the staff from where that note is on the fingerboard. Because when an advanced musician sight reads music well and quickly, they are skipping the letter-name-step and rapidly associating a line or space on the staff with a pitch and finger on their instrument. So pragmatically, that's what the kids need to know to sight read music at an advanced level. We work on naming the notes on the staff separately, so that they can easily do that too, but it is a secondary reflex. Taking that step out of the middle just makes sense.

Remember Thomas Edison's story? He was 9 years old, and couldn't spell "cat." His teacher kicked him out of school, because he was "stupid" and "couldn't learn." His mother refused to believe it, thinking that the myriad of experiments and inventions her little guy had made around the house from his earliest years did NOT ring true with a child who couldn't learn. She tutored him at home, figuring out HOW to teach his special brain. By 11 he'd learned to read and was discussing the information in the massive journals he'd read with university students. Stupid kid. :0)

I guess my point is to encourage ya'll to let go of the way YOU were taught, the way EVERYONE teaches things, and think through what the child has to know to be successful in that area. Look for the hang-ups, look for the reason behind the struggle. Is it a conceptual problem or a recall problem? Don't assume it is a conceptual problem, that your child just isn't "good" at something, and please don't ever tell them that. Don't pigeon-hole them AWAY from math or whatever it is. You never know what their future might hold, and I firmly believe with Dr. Suzuki that every child can achieve ability in any area if they are given the environment they need in which to learn it. Come at the lesson from another angle, remove the pencil and paper, talk to them and see what they can tell you or show you, ask them questions and get inside their head. Then see what you can remove from the clutter of labels and facts to pare them down to the essentials. Be contented with baby steps and remember that "success breeds success." Break the tricky stuff down into pieces, and be excited if the first week's efforts mean your student can only identify and count the 10s. Stop while everyone is smiling! Add 5s next week, and see what happens. Better to go slowly and successfully than ramrod your way through. I don't think you will get to the end any faster, and certainly with less joy along the journey. "Without hurry, without rest," as Dr. Suzuki used to say.

And this is not just with dyslexics, by the way. I think every child could use this patient, baby-step instruction, moving as fast or slowly as they need to. Sports, memorization, diligence, diagramming...what areas are your children struggling in, and how could you break it down for them, so that success can breed success?

7 Myths of Homeschooling, Debunked

2012-01-21T10:43:00.001-06:00

This video has been all over facebook, so maybe you've seen it. But I just had to share it here, because it was so stinkin' funny. Everyone has met/been homeschoolers like his stereotype! Tell me you haven't! Enjoy the laugh.

Paving the Way for Teen Conversations

2012-01-20T09:50:00.001-06:00

I was thinking today that the little comments we make to our kids add up to a lot of talking.

So many times my kids are talking to me and I am uh-huhing and mmmm-hmming, sometimes barely answering, as I keep moving through my tasks. Often this is survival. When you have 4 children talking to you all day, the extra bits of conversation just kind of spill over the edges of your mind and simply cannot be processed. Saturation, I think they call it.

But I was thinking (thus the uh-huhing) that a parent has to be careful to use and create moments of casual conversation as the mortar for the big brick topics. Parenting is made up of these little moments, and as my husband is fond of saying, one or two big pow-wows about sex and relationships will not make up for a lifetime of awkwardness and silence.

So when you have them captive in the car, ask them what they are reading and what their favorite part was. Ask them who the good guys and bad guys are. Pause the movie you are watching together and ask what they think about what just happened. Call them in to scramble eggs while you do the dishes, and just ask if they have anything they want to talk about. Sit next to them after dinner and read your book while they read theirs, or offer to read their next chapter aloud to them, as my friend Beth does. Tell them stories about your childhood, the good-bad-and-ugly, and about your parents' childhood, and your grandparents'. Talk about the books you are reading on their level, and about what you are learning as you grow up. :0) TALK.

Because if you never talk, just in a visiting-I-like-you-I-want-to-know-what-makes-you-tick-sort of way while they are children, you will never get inside their heads as teenagers. You will have teens in your house, full of raging hormones and developing independence, and they will be trapped inside their own heads, drifting along at the mercy of their magazines and peers, with no buoy showing them the harbor. Be that buoy.

So talk to them. And by talking, I mean equal parts listening. Do you ever ask them a question, let them answer, and then not correct or fix what they said? Do you ever just look at them and smile as they're telling you something, grateful for this amazing little life you've been given care of? Do you ever communicate that you just enjoy being with them and listening to their thoughts? Do you ever ask them about their hobbies--how they make that sound on their violin, or what that soccer play is called, or how they know when the wood has been sanded down far enough...whatever THEY love and do...do you?

A friend of mine said once that he knew his dad loved to have him along on his weekly hunting trips, but the kid didn't love to hunt. If the boy wanted to spend time with his dad, he had to join the hunting trips, but the dad never changed plans to take the boy out fishing, which was his favorite. That dad missed a huge opportunity to invest in his son's life and open those doors of communication, and they drifted apart as the boy turned down more and more hunting trips and resented the pressure to hunt or never hang out.

So get inside their heads while your kids are young--study them, listen to them, show them you love their little hobbies and quirks and personalities and strengths and weaknesses. Develop a pattern of setting your stuff aside to make time for just them.

Several years ago, my husband started taking an hour every Sunday afternoon to take one child and do whatever they wanted to do. Sometimes they get in the canoe and paddle around the pond, sometimes they drive up to the nearby neighborhood and ride bikes, sometimes they fish or throw the ball or have a tea party, or play Lego.com games on the laptop. Whatever they want, all of his attention, for a whole hour. I can NOT describe how much these kids anticipate their time with Dad. They fist pump or squeal (depending on the kid...) when they remember that "it's MY week!!" and start planning what they want to do days in advance, changing it 47 times. Encyclopedia keeps a running list (he just can't help it...bless his little type A heart...) of things he wants to talk to Dad about, and topics have ranged from "how do we KNOW that we are going to heaven?" to "what is prostitution?" to "I don't understand why I have to let SuzyQ come in my room." Good stuff. But the point is, he knows he can broach these things to Dad, and that Dad is there, that Dad will listen. And that's only because Dad was there for the bike rides and the lego games.

We are waiting to see this play out as Encyclopedia turns 12 this year and grows through his teen years. We've never done this before. :0) But we're hoping to model Christ to them in this way--showing them that they don't need an intercessor to get help from us. There are no walls. There is no demand for perfection BEFORE they can ask for help. All they have to do is ask, and we are always there, we listen, we love them unconditionally, and we will not ever abandon them. It's the Gospel, played out one little lego game at a time.

Lunchbox Oatmeal Cookies

2012-01-18T09:35:00.002-06:00

I've tweaked this cookie recipe until I have finally created a cookie that is NOT crunchy but will hold up to being thrown around in a kid's lunchbox for a few hours. We are currently homeschooling, but I still pack lunches a couple of times a week for field trips and lesson days., so I can attest to having provided my children with many unidentifiable crumbled cookie baggies.

On a side note, I couldn't believe my ears when we were checking out at Walmart a week or two ago and the boys asked me what a Twinkie was. They were reading the Hostess display as we waited, and were talking about which treats they'd had and not had. Apparently, oatmeal creme sandwiches were the only thing on the "had" list, so I pulled us out of line and we marched off in search of a box of Twinkies. They loved them, of course. Ding Dongs are probably next on their bucket list...

But back to the oatmeal cookies.

The recipe is below, and if you are feeling really frivolous and want to surprise your dinks, spread peanut butter (or if you live at our house, Almond Butter for the Peanut Allergics and Soy Butter for the Tree Nut Allergics...it's complicated...) between two cookies and tell them that is their sandwich. You will bring shocked smiles to the little faces you love.

Lunchbox Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 cup boiling water
6 cups rolled oats (not quick oats!)
2 1/4 cups butter, softened (or a combination of butter and coconut oil)
3 1/2 cups sucanat (or white sugar works fine, too.) {This is down from the 5 cups the original recipe called for--adjust it to your taste.}
6 eggs
1 T. vanilla extract
5 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour (or whole wheat, but this small amount of white helps the cookies hold together better.)
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 T. soda
1 T. salt
1 T. cinnamon

In a medium bowl, pour water over the oats; cover and let stand while you proceed with recipe. (You can also use a cup of leftover oatmeal from breakfast with 5 cups of dry oats. Ask me how I know.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Blend flour, baking powder, soda, salt and spices. Stir into butter mixture. Add rolled oats and mix until well blended. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls (get a cookie scoop!!!) on to a parchment lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes until edges are lightly browned.

This recipe makes a TON of cookies--like 15 dozen. I usually bake what I need for the occasion and scoop the rest onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, crowding the little balls all up, and flash freeze them. Bag up the raw frozen dough balls, and you can pop them out to bake fresh anytime! The frozen dough makes a great gift, too. Who doesn't like a freshly baked homemade cookie with the convenience of storebought? :0)

Our Little Home Library

2012-01-17T05:53:00.000-06:00

As I decide how to install these bookshelves in our Music Room/Library, I'm collecting photos from the all-knowing Google:

Like these, because I love the over-the-door look:

ewww. Sorry for the resolution. But you get the idea.

and this one:

Because instead of lining the three shelves up on this wall, I think they will fit better on the doorway wall to the left.

Not here,

but here, on either side of that door: (taking the banjo down, of course. :0)

What do you guys think? I'd love to raise them up so I could re-install the baseboards on the front of the shelves as built-ins, and take them up to the ceiling, but that is a LOT more work than just screwing them to the wall right where they stand. Still pondering.

And while I ponder, I'm loving this little video--show your kids!!!

HT: James Grant

Monday Droopiness, and How a Mom Must Overcome

2012-01-16T17:19:00.002-06:00

It certainly feels like a Monday over here. We are all moving a little slowly--you know, the draped-over-the -schooldesk-hair-in-the-eyes kind of motion. The kind where it takes all of Mom's enthusiastic encouragement to get everyone through chores and breakfast and the first round of subjects, and then she's all dried up and things go downhill from there. That kind of Monday. The kind of Monday where knowing Daddy is coming home soon just doesn't help, because he's not going to magically appear, right this droopy instant, cancel school, and take everyone out for ice cream.

But we've muddled through, learning a little book-knowledge and a lot of perseverance. One boy had a music meltdown today. Rather, the mother had a music meltdown upon realizing the sloppiness with which the assigned passages had been drilled all week. I'm leaving more and more of the quality control up to them, and they are having to push themselves and care, when that lesson seems like 6 long, glorious days away and quality doesn't really matter yet. :) So I stood there and insisted on quality until the tears stopped and the sullens gave way and then left the boy to finish on his own with the smile that I knew would come. We celebrated with corn dogs and tiny cups of maraschino cherries and the divided remains of two hollow chocolate Easter eggs I found in the freezer.

Several Mom-Things have been floating through my mind and heart lately, especially on days like today. One is that Moms don't have permission to fall apart just because things are hard. Some moms fall apart by retreating into silent depression, some moms hype up and run all over town, some moms join 23 online forums, and some moms turn into angry whack-a-molers who blow their top at every little thing. But falling apart just isn't an option. Little people are depending on you. Grab onto the reins! Get help for the serious bits like postpartum and relational problems that need counseling--don't be prideful and ruin lives by refusing to ask for help. But let's be honest--most of the time, we just need to grab those reins and choose joy, choose peace, choose patience.

Days like today remind me that letting my emotions steer my actions NEVER fails but to run me into the ditch. Just like the horse analogy we repeat often to our kids, it is my job to stay on the road. I have a whole row of little riders lined up behind me, and their horses will follow mine. How can I lead them into the ditch and then turn around and yell at them for not staying up on the road? Haven't you seen the hurt and confusion and even anger in your kids' faces when you've done that? I have. The hug and apology can make it better, but how much BETTER would it be to smilingly guide with a cheerful voice, patiently correct with calm sternness, and peacefully walk through the day with your kids? To forgive them a little because you have been forgiven a lot?

Because there is never a perfect day. Heck, around here, there isn't a perfect hour. Potties clog, noses bleed, brains go blank, scales are slopped through, dishwashers leak, mud is tracked, dryers squeak...and that is just before lunch. But we are not doomed to the difficulties of this life for forever. We have been given hope. We just need to lift our eyes from the horse's backside in front of us, and see the beautiful horizon, and then point it out to the little people behind us.

Faith for the Future, and New Year Decorating Goals

2012-01-12T11:59:00.000-06:00

Hello, Friends. I'm back from a {long and irregular} haitus from blogging...I haven't shared a lot about my behind-the-scenes life on here, and so while I've missed sitting down and writing here SO much, there have been reasons I couldn't bring myself to do it very often, letting the busy-ness of my days be my excuse...

I came to the realization last night that writing here felt like opening myself up to further criticism and rejection from some people we love but with whom we have a rocky relationship right now. My wise and wonderful husband reminded me that my blog is a happy place for me, and I'm not to be guided by some irrational fear that people who have hurt me in the past will hurt me again. That might happen, and there will be GRACE for that, but I can't try to anticipate it and hide in a corner to avoid it.

Can we all say "FREEEEEEEEE-DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!"

Fear really does put one in bondage, and trust in the God who is directing the events of our lives looses those bonds.

So I am back, excited to put on paper (screen?) once again my plans and my projects, my philosophizing and my recipes, my successes and failures with homeschooling, Suzuki violin and piano lessons, and working our tiny farm. I've been really busy with some awesome house projects lately, and I think you'll like them! I also have discovered several home design blogs that I've fallen in love with and that inspire me to make my home a welcoming and warm place for my family and guests. I think I might even link up to one of my new favorite blogs, "The Nesting Place." (I know--where have I been?!?!? Everyone reads the Nester! I guess I've just been busy reading up on milking cows and making cheese. But now that I have all that stuff down pat *snort* I'm branching out into decorating this neglected farmhouse a little more.)

I've been "shopping my house" for the furniture and decos that I've used, and have bought very little--so much fun to paint and repurpose a shelf here and a frame there to create a totally different space! Of course, I also have a running list of purchases I want to make, as the budget allows. Here are photos of some of my plans and projects, and I'll give more detail in individual posts:

TV Cabinet: This is one of my Craigslist bargains, a mere $75 for this massive, beautiful unit. I've painted it and finally figured out what I wanted on top of it, and how to get some subtle lighting without rewiring anything. I have plans to store all of our electronics paraphernalia in there, and have it all nicely organized. This project is almost done, but the last 10% seems to often be the hardest, because I have to find the perfect fit on the last few parts. I bookmarked some great possibilities on OpenSky the other day, so there's hope.

Schoolroom: Our stairs take you right up into this room, with the bedrooms opening off of it, so the look and feel of this space is very important to me. The kids and I spend a lot of time here, and we all know what a pleasant classroom does for the attitudes of students and teacher. :0) I have 4 kids/7 subjects each to keep track of, give or take a few, and I need all my stuff accessible and organized. I've kept my historical fiction/science/literature books next door in the office up until now, and the tall silver shelves you see there (on the far right of the photo) have held the books we are currently using. All my teaching materials have been TOO SPREAD OUT! and as I have added students to my little school, our need for space has increased.

My plan is to purchase one more of these short bookshelves (which I had in various places around the house--purchased on clearance at Walmart for $30 several years ago! score!) to complete the wall-unit look, and then fill in from there with maps, a rug, desks, etc. I've come a long way on this already, and I'll show you soon!

Music Room: What a disaster this is right now. The grand piano is off to the right in this photo, and it is staying over there out of the traffic flow. The focus of my work in this room is moving three huge white bookcases from the upstairs office down here and creating a sort of library/study feel. All 4 violins need a shelf to live on, because we leave them open to encourage easy access and frequent playing, and I have a lot of sheet music folders and files that will fill several more shelves. All of the non-schoolbooks up in the office will come down as well, and I'm looking forward to having it all more accessible on a daily basis. Bibles and catechism books will have a home here as well, eliminating those stacks and daily shuffle. I'd love to trim out the bookcases to make them look built in, and add a club chair and small table for reading. I have to keep this room open, though, because it is our main practicing area, and gets a ton of use.

SuzyQ's Room: We still have our little girl in the room across from ours, the nursery as was. She will be moved down the hall to the old office into a big girl room by the summer, hopefully. I put this shelf/bench grouping together right after Christmas out of desperation as I was trying to purge and sort and tidy up for company and had no storage space and one tiny set of {overflowing} pink bookshelves. I intend to move the whole setup down to the new room, maybe adding another couple of bookcases and trimming them out to look like built-ins. Her new room will have board and batten on the walls as well, adding to the built-in look. Aqua walls above the chair rail, a sparkly light fixture, new bedding...So much fun to plan.

The Boys' Room: I've been working on this unfinished-bonus-room-turned-boys'-dorm for a while, and it ALMOST completely matches what I have had in my head! So nice when that can happen. :0) I need a few more bookcases and a little more rearranging, and we will have it. Can't wait to show you. It is so perfect for my guys.

Fireplace Wall: We'd always thought we wanted to cover this wall with ledgestone and take the white trim down, but I really really like this white trim. The slate floors and walls are so dark, and the white contrasts so nicely, that I am nearly 100% positive I want to add board and batten to the lower half of this wall. I've found so much DIY inspiration online that I am convinced we could do this ourselves quickly and cheaply. I'd like to build up the trim around the fireplace and have a nice fat shelf ledge to use as a mantle, too. That space up there is screaming for some attention, dontcha think?

Dining room: This is a horrible photo, but I was dealing with sunrise glare if I opened the blinds, and overhead glare if I didn't. Could possibly have been my camera, also known as my iPhone, but I'm blaming the lighting. :0) See those benches along the window there? We got those down from the attic (we is used loosely here. thanks, honey.) where they've lived off and on over the years since my father-in-law found them somewhere and gave them to us. They are thick heavy solid wood pieces, and with some paint and cushions, would make an adorable banquette-type bench. The Hot Hacker has helped me think through how we can build a long 4x8 plank farm table that makes my heart go pitter-pat, and I am keeping my eye out for 6 windsor chairs to complete the look I want. I need to make an idea board for this area, because colors and fabrics are escaping me. And I think we need curtains of some sort, but that's complicated because of my home's layout. I'm going to need help on this one.

CD Collection: We own a bajillion music cds. Probably close to a thousand, no kidding. Mostly mine, mostly classical, I do admit. But also a TON of audiobooks that I've collected for the kids, a very important part of my educational philosophy. HOWEVER. The cd shelf took up very valuable space in the music room, and they were uncatalogued, so hunting for the elusive disc of the moment, say the Bach Partitas
by Hilary Hahn (get this one, by the way. stunning. my favorite bach performer.) was torture. Also, we are diehard iPod/iTouch owners now, and Apple has made storing music digitally SO incredibly easy and pleasant. I'll show you how I am reducing our cumbersomecollection to a set of playlists that I can view at a glance, search by keyword (yes, I can not only find the Hahn Partitas, I can quickly see who else's Partita recordings I have, and pull them all out to an mp3 player in a matter of seconds. I am stunned with the simplicity.)

Porch Swings: This was a cheapo glider rocker I'd purchased back before Encyclopedia was born, as Service Merchandise was going out of business. (Remember that store?) It wasn't fancy and it squeaked terribly, and I had to totally repad the cushions because they'd give you a crick in the neck, but it rocked all 4 of my babies up in the nursery just wonderfully fine. It is receiving a new life now as a gloriously comfy porch swing. Years ago, I inherited my mom's glider that she'd purchased at the same clearance sale, because they just couldn't deal with the squeakiness and cheapness of it anymore...our newly-built, unfurnished house needed so much help I took handmedowns from wherever I could get them (still do!!) and the twin to this rocker is awaiting its swing transformation in the workshop now. I will paint them red to match the shutters, and redo the cushions...jury is still out on fabric choices, but I know I want something sun resistant and easy to clean.

Garden plans: We are revamping the garden this year. This garden is our inspiration, from Serena's new house atthefarmchicks.com. We currently use raised beds, but we merely slope the sides of the dirt, meaning that the beds need serious shoveling and hoeing each spring. We also use straw/grass clippings for the mulch between the beds, which has to be replaced often to be effective. Also, we currently have a hot wire running around the entire garden to keep the dogs out, which only works sometimes. So the permanent beds, tall fencing, and bark mulch are all on our to-do list, as the budget allows. We'll see how much we can do this year.

I'm so glad to finally feel like I'm back here at my blog in mind, body, and spirit. Thanks for sticking around--I know I've lost some followers, but maybe they'll come back once I blow off the cobwebs. :0)

I hope you guys have a wonderful Thursday! I'm off to grade schoolwork, change some violin strings and feed my kiddos lunch--and find my coffee cup.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-14T10:36:00.000-06:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I love the winter holidays, and our family has had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Advent this year. I have so much to tell you guys, and I am hardly ever at the laptop anymore to say it! I miss being here! But life has me wearing roller skates these days, and I am having to content myself with scrawling notes on scraps of paper for future posts.

School is out for the holidays over here, so maybe I'll grab some time to sit and write a little more. We love taking a nice long break around Christmas time. Shorter this year because of all the sick days we had to take in October, but still wonderful. We tidy up the schoolroom and put the desks in the attic, drag out the big folding table and set up the Playmobil castle or some other large fun toy we don't get out very often. The boys have asked me to put the foam mat back down this time, so they can wrestle. I'm still thinking about it. We did just get the cast off of Buster's broken wrist, after all.

Our Advent celebration is up and running! For our Jesse Tree, we once again bought a nice little Norfolk pine at the big orange store, and I love how they spray the branches with glitter. We are still reading through this book

and using our beautiful handmade Jesse Tree ornaments that my sister gave me.

Since the boys are learning the Advent stories so very well, David has changed it up a little to keep their interest. He started the study that first night by having them name the Covenants in order. Then he reminded them that woven in and among the covenants was the Gospel, told to us over and over again. The line of Jesse, which we are tracing with these ornaments, contains one story after another that not only follows the lineage of Christ, but repeats the message of redemption that culminates in Christ's incarnation. The kids love to be handed the next ornament and asked to tell everyone what story it belongs to. We are also continuing the Arnold Ytreetide series with Bartholomew's Passage. Love these books, although we often skip the little devo part at the end of the chapters and have our own discussion.

I've collected lots of little goodies over the last couple of months to use for Advent treats. Mostly we have a special event to attend, or some treat to make together, or a new Christmas story to read, but I took advantage of free shipping and % off deals to get some big treats, too. Colorku is our new favorite game, and the Playmobil Nativity has been lots of fun.

So I will hopefully be popping up a few more things before Christmas Day, but I hope you are all rejoicing in the blessings of this season. I know quite a few families without a paycheck right now, and I know from life experience that that gives the festivities a change of pace. But a smiling mommy and a thoughtful plan go a long way to stretching a few dollars into a joyful anticipation of the big day. One of the best Christmas gifts I've ever gotten from my husband and kids was the coupon for a day out by myself, accompanied by coupons from the kids for the chores they were going to do for me while I was gone, so I came home to a clean house. It was a day I looked forward to, and enjoyed thoroughly. Cookies and cinnamon rolls are inexpensive to make, as is the favorite pretzel/almond bark/sprinkles treat, and they make great neighbor and teacher gifts. Pinterest and Google can help you out with other homemade gift ideas, too. With a little planning and lots of grace, a tiny budget can stretch into a bounteous holiday. If you are one of the financially blessed this year, consider dropping an anonymous box of goodies off with a note of encouragement. What a treat that would be for some littles to discover on the front porch one morning!

Enjoy your last few days of preparation! I'm off to perm my mother-in-law's hair (don't laugh--it is one of my hidden talents! I know you are jealous.) and care for a sick little one, and hopefully get my book-inhalers BACK to the library today. Maybe I'll get our sugar cookie dough into the fridge this afternoon, and I'd love to do a quick purge of the toy closet. Sounds ambitious to me, but we'll see. :0)

The Character Equivalent of Foot Binding

2011-11-23T04:00:00.000-06:00

Some of us have always worked really hard to catch bad attitudes in our little kids early, right out of the gate, before they turn into a full-blown meltdown. When you tell your 2-year-old child it is time to go, and she sticks that lip out and says, "No," you take her hand and find a private place to have a little heart-to-heart. Immediately. No bribing, no explaining, no fussing, no (please, no!) whining. Because as we all know, that little "no" will be followed by a louder "no" then a flailing and howling and you are left gathering what is left of your wits and accoutrements as you drag your child out the door. You have to teach your kids that a little "no" is the same as a big "no," but you can only do this if you catch the reins of the situation at that first little shoulder-huff. This is a good thing.

But in an effort to look for attitudes and help my kids keep their horses on the road, it is easy for me to slip into the unhealthy habit of preempting the kids' bad behavior, anticipating what I think they might be about to do and warning them about it before hand. This is silly mothering. First of all, I do not always know how they are going to respond to a situation, and it is arrogant to think I do. Second, that is a sort of disciplinary play-penning, and does not let the kids try and fail and learn to do better. Third, it sets an exhausting and contentious tone for the home.

So here's a completely made-up, fake, unreal situation (ahem):
The kids are happily occupied playing, reading, pushing valuable objects into the nether regions of the couch cushions...
Mom decides it is time for afternoon chores and calls out that the 5 minute warning is over.

She then proceeds to announce that she is headed out to the barn and everyone needs to follow their chore lists, and please would they not argue with each other? in fact, don't even talk. just work. and please, honey, don't put all the napkins under the plates like you did last time. make it nice. and when you dump the water out of the tops of the drinking glasses, remember not to dump that water all over the clean dishes underneath. and don't forget to sort the clothes this time, kiddo, ok? and I expect to come back up and see hard workers! I'd better not find everything half finished. go back and double check. if your brother needs help, buddy, you need to help him, and be cheerful and kind. Ok, everyone? are we good? Ok.

I'm not kidding. I do that. And all I really have to do is announce chore time, smile and wave at everyone, and go to the barn. My kids are old enough to read a list and complete chores that they've done a thousand times without all that yammering. I'm more relaxed, and they have everything they need to succeed.

If I come back up and they haven't finished or have started fighting or whatever, I can deal with that. I've started saying things like, "Learn to govern yourself well, so that no one else has to," a lot. But I have to resist hedging them in and preventing them from committing any misdeeds or mistakes, and simultaneously swaddling them. It is the character equivalent of foot-binding. It stunts their spiritual development and it steals my mothering-joy, because I feel the burden of anticipating and reminding about every step they make.

Instead, I am trying to equip them with skills and character training beforehand, and then launch them into their little orbits around the house, letting them try and fail and fall down and get up and hurt feelings and restore fellowship. Letting them pick up small weights and build the ethic-muscles that will hold them in good stead when they are sitting in an office or paving a highway or preparing the State of the Union or stocking grocery shelves, or even raising little people in their own home someday.

Why I'm Okay with Raw Milk, part 2

2011-11-21T03:49:00.000-06:00

Pt. 1

In this installment, I want to visit the topic of eColi contamination. If you are squeamish, you might want to click away. I'm not trying to be gross, but I realize that a lot of us thumb through our reader over our breakfast which often consists of milk products, so consider yourself warned.

Okay.

E. Coli contamination is another of the concerns when the Raw Milk issue is raised. Again, some bullet points:

1) E. Coli does not exist in the cows udder. The milk does not automatically contain this bacteria. The milk has to be contaminated somewhere along the way.

2) It is possible to keep raw milk clean and free of contaminants. With some basic attention to detail, you can keep a cow's udder, stanchion, and milk pail immaculate.

3) E. Coli exists in hundreds of forms in everyone's intestines. They are essential to digestive health, and most strains are harmless, but a few are toxic and spread easily through contact. People who regularly come in contact with the toxic forms can develop resistance to an E. Coli infection.

Now for some details.

The toxic forms of E. Coli are everywhere that animals and humans are, and that's why your mama always taught you to wash your hands before you eat and after you use the bathroom. Our bodies fight off a lot of this bacteria every day, from sloppy slaughterhouse, restaurant, grocery and food storage practices. When our bodies can't fight it off, whether that's because of a weakened immune system or a too-large concentration of the bacteria, we get diarrhea. To quote the government:
"Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) is a leading bacterial cause of diarrhea in the developing world. Each year, about 210 million cases and 380,000 deaths occur, mostly in children, from ETEC, according to the World Health Organization. ETEC is the most common cause of traveler's diarrhea and affects troops deployed overseas." --The Dept. of Health and Human Services

With the more severe cases, that diarrhea becomes severe and, left untreated, the infection can spread to the blood (sepsis) and cause organ failure and death.

There is no way to completely protect your family from exposure to E. Coli. We've recently seen outbreaks cause by spinach (manure as fertilizer, improper washing), peanut butter (poor sanitation in the processing plants), and ground meats (contamination during the butchering process, i.e. the contents of the intestines touched the edible parts. I know, grody.) But it is also in your backyard, where your dog poos, and in your cat's litterbox. It is in your garden where you spread that fresh manure. It is on the stall-door handles in that public restroom. It is on your toilet brush and plunger. And it is nearly always on your kitchen faucet handles and sponges.

Obviously we do not all constantly have diarrhea, and I only know one person who has had a severe case of E. Coli that put her in the hospital (traced directly to a rare hamburger she ate a restaurant). We are able to fight off these bacteria for the most part. In fact, those who are around animals a lot, i.e. vets and farmers, often build up immunity to the dangerous forms of E. Coli without catching it. Often people walking through an animal barn or petting zoo at the fair will contract an E. Coli infection while the people who own and handle the animals are perfectly healthy. This is not because the farmers are "carriers" of some sort, but rather that their bodies have developed the ability to fight these dangerous bacteria. I would say that their immune systems are stronger, and this is a very strong reason to let your kids handle their pets, play in the dirt, and raise 4-H animals. I haven't read that anyone officially studied this, but I would also guess that this is how folks were protected back in the day, before refrigeration and betadine spray and stainless steel pails and Clorox. They almost certainly grew some bacteria in their wooden milk pails and unrefrigerated milk bottles, but it wasn't lethal to them because their bodies had a vigorous immune system and could fight it as easily as we fight off the common cold.

Unfortunately, people today live very sterile lives, and our immune response is slower and weaker. I'm not suggesting that we all start living in the barn with chickens running over our dirt kitchen floors. I just want to remind everyone that E. Coli is simply a bacteria like any other that our bodies have to fight off, and that they can fight it off most of the time if they are accustomed to it and strong enough. The government's ad campaigns give us just enough information to be thoroughly concerned and stressed out about the dangers of something like E. Coli, but not quite enough information to thoroughly understand the risks. We are just expected to follow the government's instructions to avoid these things and be safely taken care of and protected. I personally like to have a little more information than that and be allowed to make my own informed decision, but I will now step down off that favorite little soapbox of mine. You are now hearing the applause of those who know me best. I am not known for stepping down off of soapboxes. :0)

Okay. So since people do not live out in the "real" (i.e., dirty!) world so much anymore, and since it is necessary to prevent E. Coli infections in people with weaker immune systems, those of us with milking animals follow a strict sanitary protocol. You can search YouTube for "how to milk a cow" and come up with some pretty gross looking situations, but please don't assume that is the way all family cow or small dairy owners operate. The small raw milk dairy near us surpassed the standards for Grade A certification, and passed monthly inspections from the Dept. of Agriculture. We watched and learned from them, and here's what we do here at Southforte:

First, we milk in a milking stall out in the barn. Nothing stainless or fancy, but it is a wooden floor with a rubber mat over the top that we are able to scrub clean. The cow stands on the mat, and her head is secured in a stanchion, where she eats a snack during milkings. If she comes in to the barn looking like she rolled in the mud, she gets a bath with the hose. Since we have our cows on lots of open pasture and not in a muddy barnyard, they usually come in very clean.

Next, we brush Tinkerbell down and then wash her udder with hot soapy water. A clean papertowel is used for each quarter, and we are looking and feeling for anything unusual as we do this. This continues until the entire udder area is clean and the papertowels stay white.

After that, we spray each teat with betadine. This is an extra step that many skip, but we were taught this by the small dairy where we purchased our cow, and I like knowing we are giving a good sterile rinse to the place where the milk comes out.

After a few minutes, we wipe the udder dry with clean papertowels, and then hand milk the cow. We place a clean plastic pail lid between the rubber mat and the bucket, to keep the bottom of the pail clean, and we use stainless steel pails that are covered by a double layer of cheesecloth.

This covering lets us watch the milk for any clumps indicating mastitis (still waiting on that--we've never had trouble with mastitis so far...) and also keeps any dust or hay or (yes, it happens) poo from hitting the milk. There have been times where the milk just gets poured on the garden, because Tinkerbell was in a snit and decided to poop in the stanchion and/or stick her muddy hoof up on the cheesecloth and/or swish a wet and dirty tail right up onto the pail and we were not confident that the cheesecloth caught it all. There might be some connection to the fact that "kick the bucket" means die. :0) But usually, because cows love routine, a clean Tinkerbell stands quietly and eats, we milk calmly into the clean pail, and nothing exciting happens.

When her udder is empty, we will set our covered pail on a shelf while we turn Tink back out to pasture. The stanchion is brushed clean and then given a scrub and rinse so that we start afresh next time. The milk is taken up to the house and the cheesecloth removed and washed in a light bleach load in the washing machine. The milk is filtered through disposable filters in a stainless steel strainer into glass milk bottles. These bottles have been washed and then given a soak in a mild bleach solution, then left to air dry. We give them a rinse before we fill them with milk, to remove any bleach residue.

The milk bottles are then capped and labeled with the date, and put into the freezer for 1-2 hours to drop their temperature as quickly as possible, then transferred to the fridge. The milk is bottled and chilled within 30 minutes of the milking, usually closer to 10 minutes. These bottles of milk stay fresh for about 2 weeks. We don't know if they'd stay good longer, because we've never tried.

So that's how we work hard to ensure our milk is free of contamination. If you are concerned about the safety of your raw milk options, I encourage you to visit the farms and ask questions. I think you can tell a lot by how willing the farmer is to talk to you and show you around. Do have the courtesy to schedule your visit, though, because a small farm is a small business, lots to do and not a lot of hands to share the work.

I hope you will consider the facts about a small dairy's ability to manage raw milk and raw milk products. Our little farm is not commercial, because farmers who sell raw milk are terrorized by local authorities, regardless of their Grade A cleanliness and inspections. We are not willing to get into that fight presently, and just want to feed our family. But I have read that the husbandry practices at the large commercial dairies are often shocking, with sickly cows and unhealthy living conditions and large quantities of milk that is not traceable to any single cow. This milk is not called into question because they cook the milk and then leave the sludge at the bottom of the tank when filling those nice fat plastic jugs and cartons.

Personally, I think that the true test of good milk, just like water and fish and steak and other raw products, is that it doesn't HAVE to be boiled to be consumed safely. I would offer this clean, raw, creamy Jersey milk for a taste and nutrient test any day.

Chris Thompkins

2011-11-20T18:16:00.001-06:00

This guy records all the instruments and effects of a song in layers, using only his own voice. I was enthralled! Check it out:

PCOS

2011-11-05T03:35:00.000-05:00

I have spent a good part of 2011 learning to deal with my PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) diagnosis, and the insulin resistance that goes along with it. It's been an interesting ride.

PCOS is explained in great detail here, but the summary is that for an unknown reason a patient does not ovulate, leaving the egg and a resulting cyst in the ovary. These collect and form what doctors call the "pearl necklace" of cysts in a ring around the edge of the ovary, visible via ultrasound. Obviously I have not had this forever, since pcos'ers do not typically have 4 babies in 6 years. Ahem. But things were never right after SuzyQ was born, and if I hadn't put off going back for a check up, I probably would have gotten a diagnosis much sooner. Somehow, scheduling that little visit just kept slipping my mind. With no baby to look forward to, those checkups lose a lot (all?) of their appeal. Just sayin'.

So the PCOS is not treatable per se, but the symptoms can be. Weight gain can be a symptom, and losing weight can often regulate the hormones that trigger the pcos. Insulin resistance often goes hand-in-hand with PCOS, and again, losing weight will help the IR and reset that button, too. So as you can see, getting back down to a healthy weight has been a big priority for me lately. The irony is that IR makes losing weight very difficult, because your body stores carbohydrate as fat, not processing or burning it for energy as it should.

My doctor has been wonderful, working with medications to find what works for me, and she's found it. I maintain a very strict almost-carb-free diet, take my medication, and I am finally losing weight. With the meds I can add back a piece of fruit or a slice of my whole-wheat bread once a day, and still keep losing. Before the medication, I ate absolutely no carbs and small portions, and lost weight at the rate of about .5 pound/month. Any addition of carbohydrate into my diet over a couple of days would result in a quick 2 or 3 pound gain. Veerrrrrrry tedious and slow and discouraging, because I knew that my health would not improve until the weight came down. I felt very helpless, and I think I appreciate the blessing of a treatment plan so much more because of that struggle.

So there's the start to my PCOS story. I love natural health options as much as the next person, but I have to say that I don't know what I would have done without modern medicine in this instance. After years of trying natural products, I am so grateful to drive by that pharmacy and pick up my little orange bottle. I feel more "normal" than I have in years, between the hormones regulating and being 26 pounds lighter.

PCOS occurs in about 10% of women. It usually strikes the 15-30 year old crowd, but it can pop up at other ages, and it runs in the family. I encourage you to know the symptoms of PCOS, and to make sure you go to all of your checkups. Also, find a good doctor that listens, because hormone imbalances make you feel depressed and crazy, and you need someone who acknowledges the reality of all that. I found that switching to a female OB-GYN revolutionized my whole experience, so consider that as well. And thank the Lord for modern medicine!

Fall Update

2011-11-01T10:05:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends! Happy All-Saints Day! What on earth happened to 2011 that we are already in November? I am reeling as I look at the calendar this morning and see all that is coming up in the next few months. It's a glorious time of year, though--the leaves here are beautiful this year and we get to spend the next two months preparing for the biggest party of the year! I love love love this season.

We've been having lots of adventures over here. It has been so long since I posted that I can't remember what I've told you guys, so I'm just going to fire off a quick update and *hopefully* post details on some of the million topics I've drafted during this long silence. I think about this little blog every day, and write notes to myself on everything from church bulletins to receipts I find on the floor of the van, as post ideas come to my mind. So if I can ever sit down and fill out those outlines, I will have lots to post in the near future.

*Tinkerbell the cow is bred back. Hooray! We've officially completed the entire cycle, from purchasing a pregnant cow through calving and milking and hormone shots and AI and long, long gloves. And now we are hoping for a calf in February. We weaned Bluebell this summer, and are milking twice a day. We get 2.5-3 gallons of the richest, sweetest milk every day.

*Bluebell the calf is almost a year old. She is smaller than Tink still, and we are wondering if she is going to stay on the petite side. Our plans were to sell Blue and recoup some of Tink's purchase price, but we are AMAZED at how fat Bluebell is staying on grass and hay alone. We have to supplement Tink's feed with beet pulp and alfalfa cubes for her to stay in condition, which is a lot of added expense. Blue is shaping up to be what farmers call an "easy keeper," and we are considering selling Tink once Blue has calved for the first time and we see what kind of a milker she will be. But we can't breed her till she's 18 months and she will calve 9 months after that, so it will be quite a while before we sell a cow. It's good for the cows to have company, anyway.

*The hens are starting to lay a few eggs! We've sold a few and the neighbor's dog had a brief and thrilling few moments of freedom during which time he killed two, and we had a few casualties of unknown cause, so we are left with about 28 layers and 5 roosters. Some of the roosters are probably going to have to go, but the whole hen operation is a post in itself, so I won't go into detail here. We are so excited about getting real eggs again. And the guineas terrorize the barnyard and are currently sitting in time-out in the broiler pen. Again, another post for another day. Or possibly another meal for another day. We'll see.

*David was in Singapore for two weeks in October, so we took a long fall break and played "little-house-on-the-prairie-with-pa-gone-isn't-mom-insane" until he got home. I was glad to know that I didn't hate the farm work when the responsibility of it all fell to me, and I was also amazed at how well David had trained the kids to fill in for him. The three boys kept the chickens, guineas, dog and barn in good shape without being told, and I did the milking with Encyclopedia's help. Charlie stayed in during milking times and ran dishes and laundry with SuzyQ's help. I had quite the crew, I'm telling you. Now that David is back, that stretching of everyone's abilities has made our normal chore routines seem like a piece of cake.

*After Singapore, we battled everything from pink eye to a UTI. Fun stuff. And people around here are still coughing, despite antibiotics, so I have a feeling we have that thing that hangs on for a few weeks. Perfect timing for the Halloween sugar infusion. Did you know that your immune system is suppressed for 5 hours after eating sugary foods? I shouldn't have told you that. Forget I said that and go enjoy that mini kitkat. All the kids are out of the kitchen, so seize the moment! :0)

*I am not teaching violin this year, for the first time in 10 years. It is bittersweet. I am enjoying the mental freedom and the ability to just be a mom, because I loved my students and would constantly think about where they were technically and how I could teach them better. It is strange to be able to devote all of that mental musical energy at my own kids, and I'm enjoying that. And the time back in the afternoons is nice. But I do miss teaching. Private Suzuki lessons are a unique experience, in that you are intimately acquainted with your students and their family, with lots of one-on-one and lots of parent/teacher conversations. There is a deeper connection there than in a classroom setting (more like tutoring, I think) and it was hard to say goodbye at that last lesson. Sweet memories.

*I am officially teaching all 4 kids this year, as SuzyQ (4) is working through her Kindergarten Phonics and 1st grade Saxon books with ease. Buster (7) is reading, really reading! and came up to tell me that according to his library book, one teaspoon of a white dwarf star weighs 1,000 tons. I can't get him interested in Boxcar Children or Hardy Boys, but the science/engineering books suck him in. Not complaining--it just took me a while to figure him out. :0) Charlie (9) is Charlie, steady-freddy, taking every subject easily in stride. We're in the last effective year of his eye patching, so we've stepped up the intensity on that, and he's been a trooper about it. Encyclopedia (11) is turning into a teenager, and I love what I'm seeing. The learning stages of the Trivium are so very accurate, and E is leaving the Grammar stage behind for good. Ack! New Territory! Must.Keep.Reading.Up.On.Big.Kids.

That's where we are right now. Happy, busy, still farming and schooling and practicing instruments and finding detached lizard tails in shoeboxes under the beds. Nothing new! I will post again as soon as I can--I have so much to tell you about.

Happy November!!
Kathleen

Giving them Grace

2011-09-22T09:27:00.002-05:00

Hi! I hope your weather is starting to be tinged with fall! We are loving the chilly mornings around here. We are "keep the windows open until you can't stand the heat/cold any longer" kind of people. I love coming downstairs with all the pre-dawn farm sounds breezing through the kitchen. That early morning hour where sleepy kids are snuggling at the table in hoodies and sipping coffee, (boy-coffee, heavy on the milk and sugar, low on the caffeine. I'm not suicidal.) and everyone is talking quietly about last night's dreams and the busy day ahead.

Lest that sound all idyllic, there is a good bit of (mostly patient) parental shushing to keep everyone talking quietly, the boy-coffee gets spilled, shoulders slump occasionally when the morning chore lists are written out, and there was the morning last week where the dog had eaten a mole and puked all over the living room so we were sipping coffee at 5:30 am with the scent of bleach wafting around us...

But even so, life is beautiful.

School is rolling forward, carrying us along with it. I'm still focused on lightening up, on not sweating the small stuff, not lying awake at night listing anxiously everything I didn't get done. It is getting easier, but I daily feel those feelings of misplaced guilt and failure and have to take those thoughts captive and remind myself of the truth--that it doesn't matter if my kids had to put on soccer socks out of the dirty laundry. Gross, but not the end of the world, especially since they weren't even stinky or muddy. Hello? Why am I stressing over this? Oh yeah. If I were doing everything right, I'd be getting all the chores done every day, and I'd never have to tell them to do this. Bad mommy.

Sounds crazy when I type it, but truthfully I have always struggled with giving myself grace to not be perfect, and that kind of problem always shows up in the little things.

I'm seeing opportunities to show this grace to my kids, too. Kind of like when you buy a new blue car and suddenly you start noticing all the cars in that exact shade of blue on the road. You can't help it--they just stand out to you now.

For instance, we were in the middle of Circle Time on Tuesday, and we'd just finished working on memorizing the end of James 1, which closes with, "...and keep oneself unstained by the world." Buster, ever the fella who needs to know, asked what it meant.

I grew up thinking that meant we needed to separate ourselves from this bad 'ol world to keep it from rubbing off on us, but I don't believe that now.

Here's what I told my kids: This world is a messed-up place, with sin in it. Because of that, all of us have hearts that are stained by the sin of this world. They are dark with it. But Jesus came, and by taking our punishment when He was completely unstained by sin, washed that stain away for us, giving us hearts that are white as snow.

But because we still live in this world, and in these sinful bodies, we continually re-stain our hearts. We keep doing stuff that is selfish and mean, we keep choosing to serve ourselves rather than God. And we swipe that sin-stain right back across the heart that Jesus died to cleanse.

James is telling us, though, that we don't have to stay that way. When we confess our sins and ask God to remember Christ and forgive us because of Him, God wipes that stain right off, and we are forgiven. The sin is washed away, and there is nothing left to see there but a Father's unconditional love for His child.

So that's what I told my kids. Keeping oneself unstained by the world is not battling through each day making sure your actions are not as bad as the next guy's so you are ahead of him in God's spirituality ratings, or using your bootstraps to maintain a "perfect" image so no one thinks you (i.e. the "good" Christian) have any problems, or isolating yourself so that the sin-grubbied paws of the people in the trenches don't stain your Pharisaical robes. Keeping oneself unstained is not a physical action or lifestyle.

It IS staying in sweet communion with Jesus by humbly acknowledging your sins, accepting His unfailing forgiveness, and then sharing that love and forgiveness with people in the trenches around you.

What a picture.

And what a breath of life-giving air to a sin stifled world.

So my kids are starting to hear a lot more of the grace, a lot less of the "try harder," and hopefully, seeing my good-girl, battle-weary soul smiling with peace and relief.

Happy Monday!

2011-09-12T03:57:00.000-05:00

I have several things to discuss today, so you might want to grab a cup of coffee...

First of all, I have the greatest husband. He hacks computers (legally, for pay) and he wears Levis and Indiana Jones hats and sunglasses and drives a tractor, and he's really good at keeping up with the laundry. But he ALSO makes things for me. The latest being transforming these rockers:

...into porch swings! Like these, which I found on Pinterest:

I can't wait. We're painting them white, and they are awaiting their second coat, then we can hang them up. We is being used rather loosely here. Ahem. I'll post pictures when we get them done!

Second, I have an eleven year old son. Encyclopedia had his birthday this last week, and we seriously partied it up. All things Lego and How to Train Your Dragon, with a good sized dose of Harry Potter mixed in. (Eleventh birthdays being important ones at Hogwarts, after all.) Here he is with sleepy morning eyes and his birthday doughnuts. Do you like the improvised 7/1 candle on the right? That's just par for the course around here. I can almost guarantee that if I look around and say, "Wow! Everything came together so well!" that I have forgotten something important. :0)

Third, I don't really know what to think when the kids are sitting quietly (well, quietly for our family...) during church, taking notes or drawing pictures of the sermon and I look over at SuzyQ's bulletin and see that she's written "nekid" in front of her brothers' names. I just really don't know what to think, except that we must make sure that bulletin leaves with us.

Fourth, have I told you guys about my new diagnosis? Over the summer I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, aka PCOS. This is tightly linked with Insulin Resistance in many cases, which is also called pre-diabetes. (With IR, your body doesn't process sugar efficiently, so your pancreas keeps pumping out the insulin trying to turn that sugar into energy. But it mostly gets stored as fat. Bad, bad, bad. Adult-onset Diabetes is the point at which your pancreas has had enough and stops making insulin altogether.) IR makes it very easy to gain weight and very difficult to lose it, but it and PCOS are both aggravated by being overweight. Nice, huh?

So after 2 months of a die-hard South Beach diet and frustrating weight-loss results, I was put on Metformin, which is a drug that helps force your body to metabolize the sugars rather than storing them. It has been about 14 weeks and as you can see over there in the sidebar, I have peeeeeeeeeeeled off 13 pounds. Not too bad at face value, but since ten of those pounds came off in the first 2 weeks, you can understand how slow and frustrating this has been. I'm becoming a low carb pro, though. I feel better and my symptoms are starting to get under control, and those are non-scale victories, as some say. It is a pretty boring diet, especially since I avoid the artificial sweeteners except for Stevia products, but I'm getting used to it and hardly think about it any more.

Anyway, thought I'd mention this since it has been a huge part of my world lately. I will try to post some of my favorite low-carb recipes and meal ideas, in case anyone else is sentenced to a diet like this. IS anyone else out there low-carbing it, permanently or otherwise?

Fifth, we've discovered that Guinea Hens are terrible bullies. Our poor layers are being terrorized. So another bird-house is in the design stages so that we can kick the guineas out of the layers' pen and house. The guineas were supposed to be tick-eating machines that roamed the property, but they just hang around the hen house eating all the feed and chasing the hens. Even our 4 roosters don't stand a chance. I keep expecting to hear "Chicken Run" music playing out there, with the chickens lined up drilling their militia to oust the GreyCoats.

Sixth and finally, a video for you to enjoy. There's one bad word at 2:54, so watch it before you show your kids. But except for that, this is my favorite version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

Have a great Monday!

Giveaway Winner!

2011-09-11T14:20:00.004-05:00

Hi, Everyone! I'm back! I told you I'd get a winner picked this weekend.

Oh.

Wait.

That was last weekend. But it is still a weekend, so does that count?

Thanks to Random.org, our giveaway winner is #1, Kim F. Congratulations, Kim! Email me with your address at dkalkema AT yahoo DOT com, and I will get your books in the mail asap.

Thanks to everyone who entered and subscribed to my little blog. I hope you enjoy visiting here!

Have a great weekend, and find a firefighter or policeman to thank today, as we remember the events of ten years ago.

Giveaway!

2011-08-29T21:18:00.001-05:00

It's been forever since I hosted a giveaway around here. Anyone want a *very* noisy guinea hen? I won't even make you leave a comment. Just nod your head, and I'll pop 1 or 2 into the mail.

Just kidding.

Kind of.

I do have a couple of books I'd love to share with you guys, some of my favorites.

Here's the lineup:
This is one of the best books I've ever read on motherhood. Practical, inspiring, down-to-earth, and chock full of the Gospel. The real kind. Not the "do more" kind. Love this book.

Another of our favorites, Patrick McManus never fails to crack us completely up. A sort of country-boy Dave Barry. Great stress relief after a day of raising sons, let me tell you.

This book is not as stiff as it looks. It is a very practical look at HOW talent is developed, and debunks the myth that the smart/successful/rich/inventive...whatever people were born that way. Daniel Coyle offers practical ways to develop talent. This book mirrors what Dr. Suzuki discovered and has taught for years, so it was particularly interesting to me. Every parent needs this book.

And, for something completely different, my favorite cheese making book. Even if you don't have a cow, this book is for you if you are interested in making cheese. The recipes are based on pasteurized store-bought milk, so don't be intimidated. Ricki Carroll runs the website New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, where I usually buy all my cultures and supplies. She even sells kits, so how easy is that?

Now for the giveaway details:

I want you to have the book you want, and I want there to be something for everyone. So
1) sign up for my RSS feed (by clicking over there in the right sidebar under "subscribe to")
2) leave a comment and tell me that you did so (or that you already are) and which TWO of these books you would love to call your own, and I will randomly choose a winner from the entrants.

See? Something for everyone. And you can always re-gift the second book if you really only want one, so pick something your mother might want to read around Christmastime. I won't tell.

No entries after Friday, September 2nd at Midnight.

I will publish the winner sometime next weekend! There. I left myself plenty of wiggle room to not be late. We'll see how that works. :0)

Have fun, and I'll (hopefully) be back soon. But sure as I say that, someone will need plastic surgery or suddenly fly to Singapore or pee on the treadmill or start a nice, smoldering fire in a bed with one of those rice-bed-buddy-things, and I'll be a little busy for a while.

Why I'm Okay With Raw Milk, part 1

2011-08-29T03:02:00.003-05:00

I get a lot of questions about our little farm, but the one I get most often has to do with our cow and raw milk.

"Raw" kind of communicates something not quite ready to ingest, doesn't it? like raw hamburger. That's not very accurate when it comes to milk. I like to use the terms "cooked" and "fresh." That captures the distinction more clearly.

The raw milk question that seems to upset and confuse people the most is the issue of raw milk carrying tuberculosis. It can and has, but here are some quick facts.

1) Healthy cows produce healthy milk. Tuberculosis isn't a germ that falls into or grows in the milk. The cow has to be sick with TB for her milk to carry TB.

2) Pasteurization kills tuberculosis, but it also kills the good stuff that makes milk a superfood. I won't go into all of that here, but I just want to state for the record that pasteurized milk and raw milk are not equal. That's why this is even an issue. This is not like a rare-or-well-done-steak preference. If pasteurization did no damage to milk, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd all just cook our milk to be on the safe side and be done with it.

3) You've probably heard that there has been a resurgence in tuberculosis lately? The strain that is coming back is NOT the strain that is transmitted by cows. I'll go into more detail in a second, but I wanted that to be up here in a bullet point. That's a very important factor in the emotional impact that this conversation has.

Okay, now for some details.

Pasteurization of milk started back in the late 1800s, around the time of the Industrial Revolution. This was the time when lots of folks relocated from the family farm to the big city, working in factories and living in close contact with a lot of people. Milk was brought in from the farms in milk trucks, delivered daily. Bigger dairies were needed to keep up with the demand, since people didn't own their own milk cows much anymore. Bigger dairies with less quality control, closer (often squalid) living and work conditions in the factories and slums, poorer human nutrition, no known cure in the medical community...all these led to a tuberculosis crisis that needed serious intervention.

There are three kinds of tuberculosis--Mycobacterium Bovis (carried by cattle and most warm-blooded vertebrates), Mycobacterium Avium (carried by birds, caught by hogs and cattle) and Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (carried only by humans, but can be caught by dogs, hogs and cattle).

Scary, huh? Just about any animal that humans come in contact with can catch or carry a form of tuberculosis. I actually think that is very reassuring, since I don't know anyone who has had TB. It is extremely rare these days, even with all the animal/human contact around us.

So folks discovered, back in the day, that cows carried a form of TB that humans could catch, and that pasteurization killed the M. Bovis bacterium. All milk was required to be pasteurized. A cure was discovered with a >95% success rate. A conclusive series of tests were developed, and all infected animals were eradicated (slaughtered). Aggressive procedures were developed to designate TB Free herds of cattle, and this continues today. 48 states, including mine, are accredited as free of the M. Bovis bacteria as of July 2011, and the other 2 are close. This means, among other things, that they have had no confirmed cases for 5 years.

The Dept. of Agriculture is so confident of this certification that they issued the statement "Livestock from any herd in an accredited free State may be added to an accredited herd without a qualifying test." in their TBFactsheet. In other words, we don't have to go around testing and retesting inside safe states.

The results of these eradication procedures are ultimately proven at the slaughterhouses, where infected cattle are officially and most clearly diagnosed by the lesions in their insides. Officials are able to track the disease by the number (or lack) of infected animals showing up there, and trace the infection back to the herd where it can be quarantined and cleared.

So I feel very safe drinking my raw milk, and you can too. Meet your farmer, visit the farm, and then sit back and enjoy one of the greatest foods on earth.

My Summer Project

2011-08-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

I posted a long time ago about my "grace for the good girl" revelations (and the book that I can't wait to read), and these thoughts have become a continuing theme for me this summer.

I've been making a new habit! It is a little forced right now, but it's starting to come more easily--telling myself that the messy house was good enough for now. That the kids' behavior wasn't perfect but it was fine. That our practice sessions were short but that was okay. That we didn't do a lick of formal science last year (just being honest, here) but that my kids' education wasn't ruined. That I have weedy flowerbeds and have actually resorted to MOWING them a couple of times this summer but that was actually pretty funny and not at all a big deal.

It's therapeutic to type this, even! Admitting to the world (or the small and wonderful piece of it that reads this blog. :0) ) that I do not have it all together all the time, and that I am not expected to, and that I am not failing to do something right because all the myriad of pieces that make up the puzzles of a life, a family, a home, an education, do not all fall into the right place at the same time.

I can't say that I really worry about what other people think so much as I worry about living up to the ideal I have in my head of a Godly woman, a good wife, a perfect mother, the best possible whatever.

As I type this, there are three flies buzzing in the window next to me, the trash can in the nearby bathroom contains a sort of paper-towel sculpture that is creeping up the wall because no one has emptied it in a week, and the remnants of our car trip earlier this week are scattered about needing to be put away.

It is never all done!

I guess I like to think that if I could get the right schedule going, or get up early enough, or stay up late enough, or birth the right temperments of kids, or train the ones I have well enough, or whatever, that at some points in this family, everything would be just right. It's just not true.

And you know what I'm learning?

God doesn't care about my trash cans.

God doesn't care that the coolers still need to go to the attic.

God doesn't care if I vacuum today or not.

God doesn't care if I file each piece of schoolwork alphabetically and chronologically.

God doesn't care if we eat hot dogs two nights in a row and then cereal on the third.

Really.

He just doesn't care about those things! There is nothing prescriptive about these nitty gritty details in the Bible. Nothing that even mentions the details of how to feed your kids, how to educate, how to keep house.

Now He does want us to feed our kids, educate them, and keep house. There are general commands in those categories. But hot dogs or organic tofu burgers? Nary a statement. Homeschooling or classroom? Nada. Vinegar or Bleach? Not a word.

God cares about our hearts. He wants us to love Him, and love each other. Our every act falls into one of these two commands, and it is a glorious and freeing thing to take our eyes off the dusty baseboards and the weedy flowerbeds and focus on showing our love to God and to those around us.

Do you love the Lord? Then show hospitality to the unlovely around you. Look for ways to give your time and money to those who need it more. Read your Bible and memorize and meditate. Not because there are rules, but just because you love Him.

Do you love your husband? Then make sure he has clean socks in the mornings and a sweet smelling, responsive wife to look forward to in the evenings. Not because it is all up to you to make your marriage work, but just because you love him.

Do you love your kids? Then be deliberate about their education, give them a clean and pretty place to call home, and let them see your eyes smile when you look at them. Let them hear and feel and taste and bask in your affection. Not because it will turn them in to the model children of a fairy tale, but just because you love them.

When we stop piling the burden of the law onto ourselves, we can feel the cool rush of the Gospel on our hearts, and there is peace there. I'm starting to feel it.

photos

Yesterday

2011-08-13T08:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the day we were headed to the Y, for their Dive In Movie Night! Toy Story 3! The kids were thrilled, it was the last one of the summer so we were committed, we'd missed the other two for various and sundry reasons and were going to be voted off the island if we missed this one, too. Pretty sure.

So I planned the whole day around GETTING TO THE Y by 6:45 pm. These things take coordination around here. I started at the usual 5am hit-the-snooze routine, and the morning proceeded to take shape as it usually does--one boy left inside with SuzyQ to run the laundry and empty the dishwasher and straighten bedrooms, two more outside with Dad to take care of animals and water things that need to be wet and pull hornworms off the tomatoes. (That is what I think of when I am a little weary of the noise the boys bring to this household. Who would pull off the hornworms if I had a houseful of quiet girls? And who would be fascinated by the parasitic wasps that we found all over several of the hornworms and not vomit at the sight of them like I wanted to? Yeah, no one. Thank heavens for little boys.)

And as I'm thinking through the school day, I realize that there are 23 things I need to do tomorrow, which means I need to do my 2-week shopping trip to Costco today. Mmmmmmm. Four kids and two-weeks worth of groceries in the same afternoon. Thrills me to my fingertips, that thought.

So I get all the machines running in the house and head out to the barn to milk, and we suddenly decide that today is not only a school day and grocery day and Y day, but get-the-stupid-cow-bred-who-was-supposed-to-be-bred-but-isn't-Day.

Now in the old days, that meant opening up the gate and running that cow into the bull's pen, leaving her there for a few days between milkings, and that was it. The bull knew how to take it from there. But in this era of modern technology, it means making 43 phone calls and getting in touch with someone with a liquid nitrogen tank and some jersey bull semen straws, and some seriously long gloves.

And how did we know, you ask, that the cow was not bred? Well, first of all, instead of our usual 2 gallons at the morning milking, Tink held up and gave us about 2 quarts. Second of all, in the cow world, being in heat is all the reason those girls need to party. And they are all willing to help each other out with that breeding thing, whether they have the equipment or not. Mental picture, yet? So a standing heat is when you want to call the guy with the gloves, and you KNOW she's in standing heat because, well, she stands still. Everyone else (in our case, her 10-month-old female calf) is helpin' out. I'm just sayin', every homeschool family should get a few cows. It's like a National Geographic program, right in your own backyard! Very educational. Or scarring. Quite possibly scarring.

So the hacker left for work, making phone calls on the way, and got us set up for the evening. And I get a text telling me that since we need to leave at 6:30, the AI guy will be here at 5, so we need to milk at 4. Because we have a small operation here, and the milking stanchion doubles as our squeeze chute (very confining walls up the sides for when the vet/tech needs to do things involving long gloves.) The hot and handy hacker has built removable sides to the stanchion, which is very efficient, but has to be set up. So that was our time frame.

Then the school day started, and we zoomed through our assignments, with me trying desperately not to superimpose my anxiety about how this day was actually going to go down onto the academic situation. "Honey, I think we can just leave those 15 slots blank for now. I'll know what you meant when I grade it. On to Language!" I didn't do that, but it took some willpower.

The kids, being convinced that we were of course going to make it to the Y, were supremely motivated and focused. We finished school, finished a light practice, and left the house for Costco at 2pm. After a whirlwind trip down the aisles of bulk heaven, I grabbed a pizza lunch for the kids (I know--bad mommy. 3:00 lunchtime.) took care of a brief skirmish involving water bottles and kicked shins, confiscated a piece of pizza and put Dad on the phone to a certain perpetrator, and zoomed home at 3:40.

We made it, the *adorable* 80 year old AI technician that lives down the road showed up right on time (he speaks with a thick German accent and has been working dairy cattle since the '60s. A treasure!) and he put on his glove and decided through the whole process that this was definitely going to take this time, fer shure. And I packed dinner and we fell into the van at 6:30.

And then got to the Y at 6:45!

And then the lady came out over the loudspeaker and told us that the movie didn't start until 8:15.

And the final success of the day was that we didn't say any bad words at all, and we sat back and just enjoyed the beautiful night and the water and the fact that our kids were having so much fun. And we were actually chilly! Gloriously, goose-bumpy, chilly! A taste of fall and a perfect ending to a loonnng day.

Budget Schmudget

2011-08-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here with three laptops on my dining room table. We look geeky. And antisocial.

But we are working hard! The hacker is hacking, and I am working on the budget!

I love working on the budget!

I love sitting here, all warm and fuzzy in my bunny slippers, entering data into Quicken and making sure every penny is where it belongs.

......

I.
am.
so.
kidding!

But you knew that. I don't even OWN a pair of bunny slippers!

And about the budget thing--I was kidding there too.

I *detest* working on the budget.

In my perfect world, the money comes in, the money goes out, and it behaves itself in between. It doesn't go out twice, and it stays neatly tucked into little categories that automatically sort themselves in the check book entries.

Cuz, I'm just sayin', have you ever tried to break down a Walmart receipt? I don't want the whole dang $223 coming out of my grocery budget, because there were some clothing items and electronic items and a prescription in there, and Quicken will sort all that out if you tell it to, but AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
A few of those and I'm fried.

There's only so much a girl can take before she needs some retail therapy. And Amazon is just a leeeetle click away! In fact, I've been known to work several browser screens at once while updating the budget, just to save time later. Sometimes searches on Amazon can fill just the right amount of time while Quicken is updating all the bank entries, and then, there's that handy little "buy-with-1-click!" button there, just for people who are in a hurry to get back to their itemizing, and there you have it! Efficiency at it's finest.

Oh--hi, honey! I'm just kidding, of course. I'm all about saving money right now.

Excuse me while I go close down a few windows...

But only one of the laptops is mine. The other two are connected by some crazy little orange wire and they are controlling other computers in foreign countries. I can't tell you where, or I'd have to kill you. We are seriously classified over here.

So while I'm over here doing the budget *ahem* I'm also checking on a few other things. Look at these cutsies I found on Pinterest over the last few weeks:

Tiny little wine glass lamps! A tutorial! How adorable is that.

And this snowman wreath! I love this.

And this is made from a spray-painted dryer vent hose! The kids would get a kick out of making these for gifts. So if you teach my kids anything right now, please do not look at the above photo. Thank you.

And how adorable is this quilty-look? I saw the greatest dresser, just begging for this treatment at Goodwill the other day. And I hadn't seen this photo yet, so I wasn't tempted. Oh well. I'm sure that fact is making all this hard work I'm doing on the budget smoother than it would have been.

And I'm dying to put these up on my front porch. So so fun. I want to sit in one, though, because porch swings should above all things be comfy. and there are no arm rests. So I might have to do this one:

Without the little sticky-out parts and without the bright yellowness. And with some serious cushions. I'm thinking about it. Someone please try this out and tell me it is awful and to go buy the rockers at Cracker Barrel because my to-do list is not lookin' pretty. One thing comes off, three more things go on. And I LOVE it all, and want to do it all RIGHT NOW, and that just isn't possible. Because the budget, whether I sit here ignoring it or not, is a real thing that YELLS at you, people, when it isn't in the mood for projects. It just yells. And because teaching 4 kids is a full time job.

I admit I sneak some searches and blog reading in here and there during the school day, but really--how many list words can a girl read before she is ready to go stab herself with a fork or something? I am the worlds fastest spelling word reader--it is a hangup from my childhood in traditional school, having to wait for the teacher to read the word three times and give a sentence...k.i.l.l.e.d me. We zoom over here. Unless they need a sentence, which happens sometimes, thus the Pinterest account. So far, no one has minded being given sentences like, "Beginning. If I start this porch swing project at the beginning of the month, the home improvement budget will not be depleted yet." or "Applesauce. I forgot all about making ornaments from cinnamon and applesauce for the Christmas garland this year!" or "Cardigan. Where's that post I saw about converting a man's shirt into a cardigan?" It's workin'.

So hunting for rickety chairs at thrift shops, cutting the legs off and painting them red just doesn't bubble to the top of my todos very often.

But it just might tomorrow.

I think I'm headed to Craigslist riiiiiight now.

The Boys' Room

2011-08-02T14:52:00.000-05:00

We've been working on little thises and thats around the house lately. Okay, fine. We're ALWAYS working on thises and thats around the house. I just love making a space cozy and useful, and even though I'm constrained by budgetary allowances and the spare time my honey has available, decorating is one of my favorite things to spend time on.

I wish I had a better before photo of the loft bed that we started with in the boys room. My sweet sister-in-law (hi, Patti!!) knows how much we love hand-me-downs over here, and sent us home from our last visit with this bed her girl didn't need anymore. I didn't think to take photos of the before, but this is close. A simple twin loft bed, except ours didn't have the lower bracing boards, just straight legs coming down from the bed.

The hot hacker used his serious skillz and turned it into this:

A three boy bunk system! David used 2x8s and 2x4s for the lower bunk, attaching them with inset screws and brackets underneath for support. He was able to customize the height of the lower bunk to accommodate the trundle without crowding the headspace. I slapped on some black paint and we have exactly the bed we've wanted for their room. The trundle rolls out around that ladder, and pops up to full twin height.

The boys are thrilled and so am I. I love the tiny footprint of the bunks! They have their floor space back, and can spread out to enjoy their lego creations and action figure battles.

And I can't wait to show you what I did to the rest of their room...

Sunday

2011-07-31T17:24:00.000-05:00

There's something about Sunday afternoon around here.

Everyone is in nap-mode, and I don't have that panicky get-them-down-for-a-nap-now-or-never feeling I used to have. Like there was no way I could even remotely plan on having a nap for sure, because catching up on some sleep always played second fiddle to a fussing baby. But I remember that deep ache for more sleep.

It is still there. Getting up at 5 and going to bed at 11 does not make for a wide-awake feeling. We're working on that. The 5am is in stone, but the 11pm could be tweaked. There's just always something else that needs doing, you know? And before you know it, it's 9pm, the kids are all in bed, and projects beckon.

I love having projects going! I can't wait to post about what we've been working on in the boys' room, and what I have planned for SuzyQ's big girl room. A good friend of mine is decorating her girl's new room in a Gryffindor Tower theme--hearing about her plans has my juices flowing! Fun, fun, fun. I have also subscribed to some wonderful blogs I can't wait to tell you about--blogs by amazing women who are queens of repurposing. Taking something old and ugly and making it useful and beautiful. Very budget friendly stuff, like pallets and 2x4s and old chairs with rickety legs that you find at yard sales.

And I've discovered Pinterest! Drool. If you're new to it, Pinterest is like a huge bulletin board where you can collect the ideas you've gathered across the web. You have multiple sub-boards, like "Recipes" and "Inspiring Stories" and "School Ideas." As you see something on a blog or website that you want to remember, you bookmark it (or pin it) to your boards. Simple as that! Then when you want to bake a cake, say, you can go to your Pinterest Recipe board and scroll through the pics/recipes you've gathered there and then click to the original website. You can also subscribe to your friends boards and share ideas that way. The only downer, according to my hot hacker, is that they (the Pinterest people) are gathering marketing data and selling it. So when you sign up, it's probably better not to sign up through your facebook account, since you are giving them permission to access all of your FB info at any time, whether you are logged in to FB or not. (All those games/quizzes/apps on FB do the same thing, by the way. And you wondered why Farmville was free.) I signed in with a username and password that was unique to Pinterest, and not associated with other stuff I do on the web. They give you that option.

So that's all fun. And that's where I've been finding inspiration for my projects lately. The iPhone app lets me poke around while I'm watching my kids swim at the Y, and I hop on my laptop for a few minutes of browsing while I give spelling words or listen to someone drill measures 44-48 a few hundred times.

Sundays mean I get to sit here at the dining room table with the laptop, sipping coffee and looking out at my little flowerbeds and the hummingbird feeder. Which isn't always restful, because I'm sitting here thinking that I REALLY need to brave the 154o heat index and tidy things up out there.

I want to invent a GRASS ONLY weed spray that I can use on my flower beds. I swear. I just get them looking great, and take a breather inside, and durn it if there are not 43 bermuda trailers popping up again. I've heard of a round-up application that involves a towel strip in a bucket, wicking up the round-up mixture, and you swipe the other end of the towel on the grass stems that are among the flowers/vegetable plants. Keeps overspray from killing the good stuff, but I haven't tried it. I have to stop my kids from grumping at Adam while they weed the tomato beds. They really think he should have thought about this before eating that stupid apple.

Sundays mean I can listen to the hot hacker put on his guitarist hat and practice songs like this:

My new favorite. I learned the alto part and we have the greatest time belting this out with the kids in the car. When we sing loud enough, we sound just like the cd. :0) The album it comes from, Risen, is also the kids' new favorite to listen to while they do their schoolwork. Encyclopedia popped his head up from his Latin the other day and said, "This is just the greatest music!" And Buster said, "Yeah. It's just so encouraging!" Made me smile.

So that's what I'm up to over here. Basking in a glorious day of rest, enjoying all the completed projects and dreaming up more. Thrilling that we've finished 3 weeks of school already, and *still* needing to finish up some copies and planning for the year. Loving that we are working on slowing the pace around here, and wondering how on earth that is really gonna work when soccer and group lessons start back. Enjoying my new way of eating ('nother post for 'nother day--but two little words: carb free) and marveling that I do really have to eat like this for the rest of my life when I could so totally be Julia Child's apprentice and die happy. God has to smile at me like I smile at SuzyQ when she makes her little plans and thinks she knows how things are going down. I just know He does.

Hope your Sunday is full of peace.

Shelter

2011-07-24T05:38:00.000-05:00

Plink, Plank, Plunk by Leroy Anderson :0)

2011-07-17T05:06:00.001-05:00

I couldn't have said it better myself...

2011-07-16T03:51:00.001-05:00

Mary over at Owlhaven posted this about kids and chores. She has 10 kids, so she knows what she is talking about.

I love her point about not feeling guilt, like if you'd planned better you wouldn't have to ask your kids to help. That one sneaks in on me sometimes. :0)

Very encouraging. Check it out!

Valuing Children

2011-07-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

Rachel Jankovich has done it again. Check out her latest post on the Desiring God blog. I was very encouraged as we have started back to school and my days are again consumed with the worlds of my children. Lay it down. Live it. Embrace it.

Making Cheese in Kenya

2011-07-12T04:42:00.004-05:00

If you are interested in cheesemaking, you might want to subscribe to The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company's blog. They post stories of real-life cheesemakers from around the world. It is fascinating! And I am encouraged by the patience and persistence of people who have to IRON THEIR CHEESECLOTH to kill the fly larvae that lands on their clotheslines. Oh. My. Goodness.

I'm going to go hug my 10-year-old washer and dryer right now.

Their most recent post is by a family who ministers in Kenya. It was a very interesting read!

Here's the link.

Eat Your Frog

2011-07-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

I think this is some of the best advice I've ever read--applicable to homemaking, homeschooling, an office job, or any other way you might be spending your day:

“Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
-Mark Twain

Read Tsh over at Simple Mom as she explains how this has helped her plan her task list as a working mom.

How Deep the Father's Love for Us

2011-07-10T05:33:00.000-05:00

Salmon Salad

2011-07-06T09:37:00.001-05:00

After all the heavy eating we've done these past few days, I thought this would be a great time to post one of my favorite recipes!

Wild Alaskan salmon is a superfood, and we eat it at every chance. I've raised my kids on salmon oil capsules, just squeezing the oil onto a spoon when they were babies, and then letting them chew the capsules as toddlers. Now they all swallow pills, and don't mind the taste at all. Worked for us! So we love the taste, and I love finding new ways to prepare it.

Filets can get expensive (isn't everything getting expensive these days? heavens.) so in order to work our salmon into the budget I sometimes depend on canned. Costco carries these beautiful little cans of Wild Alaskan, 6-6oz. cans for about $10. It takes 3 cans to feed us for a dinner, so that is considerably cheaper than the filets.

Here's my Salmon Salad recipe:

3 (6 ounce) cans pink salmon, drained
3/4 cup finely sliced green onions
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. fresh dill
1 1/2 t. seasoned salt

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Serve over spinach leaves, with a side of quesadillas, if your family needs a little more heft to their meal.

The Declaration of Independence

2011-07-04T03:25:00.002-05:00

Today, as we celebrate our freedom, let's take a minute (or 5) to watch this snapshot of the fateful day the vote was cast. It is from the HBO miniseries John Adams , based on the book by David McCullough.

I think it shows the sobriety of the issue, and the weight that that decision placed on the shoulders of the men who represented their fellow colonists. They had no idea of the outcome, no guarantee that they were going to win the war that would surely follow. It was not entered into lightly. Most of these men would lose their fortunes and many their lives in the years to come.

In all of our modern arrogance, I think these men are easy targets for scorn and criticism. But the bottom line is that at great personal sacrifice, they DID win their independence, and they did set into motion a government that has been unique and magnificent in history. They deserve our respect.

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, by Saint Saens

2011-07-03T05:14:00.000-05:00

Honey Vanilla Pudding

2011-07-01T15:29:00.001-05:00

I'm tending sick babies with sore throats this week, and since I have a dab of milk around here, I landed on a pudding to tempt weak appetites.

Avoiding sugar has always been a priority for me when fighting germs, so I created a version of creamy pudding only sweetened with honey.

Try it sometime! It is good even when you're not sick. :0)

Ingredients

1/2 cup honey
5 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups milk
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, combine the honey, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat.

Stir a small amount of the pudding into the egg yolk. This is called "tempering" the yolks, and it heats them gradually to keep them from scrambling in your pudding. ~~Here's a youtube video on it~~ Nevermind. The ones I found on youtube were tedious at best, and there were even long pink elf hats involved. So just nevermind.

Temper your eggs.

And I don't have a photo of this because I'm an airhead.

Return all of the egg mixture to the pudding in the pan, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil and cook/stir 1 minute longer. (I skipped this step because I forgot.)

Gently stir in butter and vanilla.

Cool for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to remove lumps.

Transfer to dishes and cover with plastic wrap, allowing the wrap to sit on the surface of the pudding to eliminate skin forming.

Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon and some fruit, if you like!

Enjoy!

A Year Ago at Southforte:

2011-07-01T03:48:00.000-05:00

Baking Soda or Baking Powder?
June 26, 2010

Some Days You Just Cling

June 29, 2010: I'm popping up a quick post to explain the silence over here--on this daily-post kind of blog, three days seems like a lot of silence to me. Maybe you haven't noticed yet, and that would be good.

I guess.

Maybe not...

Plum Jam
June 30. 2010

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies:

2011-06-29T04:16:00.000-05:00

I had a batch of those little nasty flies hitch a ride on my Costco bananas the other day, and I SWEAR those things breed into millions within hours!

Here's how I eliminate them just as quickly:

Put a piece of fruit in a jar or glass. Make a funnel out of paper and tape the funnel to the rim of the glass so that no buggies can escape. Set the jar out where you found the bugs, and wait.

When you've caught a bunch of the buggers, fold the funnel over and put the whole jar in the freezer for a day. This kills the flies. Then just set the jar back out in the same spot, unfold the funnel, and let the trap thaw and work its magic again.

You can reuse these jars tens of times.

It is so satisfying to see the millions of little bugs trapped in there--NOT in my kitchen any more! Easy, no chemicals, and inexpensive (free!). Doesn't get any better than that!

Planning the School Year

2011-06-27T04:02:00.002-05:00

I am in the throes of school planning this month. Because we love our 3 weeks on/1 week off schedule, we have to start in July to complete our 180 days of schooling required by law. On our off weeks we have a full day of music lessons and field trips, so it isn't actually a full week off, but don't tell the kids that. :0)

Here are some links to previous Southforte posts on school and schedule planning. I hope they are helpful!

Schedules: Part 1, Part 2-The Early Years, Part 3-Early Elementary with Littles

Planning the School Year: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

All Over Again

2011-06-26T05:52:00.000-05:00

And in other news...

2011-06-24T14:39:00.000-05:00

...the broilers will be on grass in their new chicken tractor shortly!

This is the design we are copying--those are not our chickens. Or tarps or buckets or pieces of scrap wood. We have enough of those around here, for sure, but I have not completely given up on the aesthetics of the small farm situation. I am holding out for a store-bought substance for the roofed-end, and I think the hacker agrees with me.

But we are so excited to get our meat chickens out free ranging! The last 4 or 5 weeks of their short lives will be in a little green paradise. :0)

A Year Ago at Southforte:

2011-06-24T04:27:00.000-05:00

Just a little something new, just for fun...what was happening around here a year ago?

(and if you right-click on the links, you can choose "open link in new tab" which will pop the blog post up without you having to click the back button 47 times. assuming you want to click the back button, of course. )

So Grateful for my Little Girl
June 15, 2010: ...they made us so happy, and we thought our little family would look just like this for a long time, until we adopted somewhere in the nebulous and obscure future.

But God had other plans for our lego and overall household.

Homeschooling From My Perspective
June 24, 2010: By the time you read this, I will be headed to a girls' weekend away! We are going to be eating chocolate, getting spa treatments, having our hair done, and watching chick flicks, nonstop, for three days!
ha.ha.ha...

Obedience All The Way
June 25, 2010: ...So we make them go back, pick up every single one of the straggling weeds, remind them of the available wagons and wheelbarrows which, strangely, don't let things fall through the bottom like grasping arms do. Make them switch to hand-weeding in the beds if they can't handle a hoe, repair the ruined mounds, do it right the second time which is harder and hotter than doing it right the first time, don't we all know?...

Raising Chicks--3 week Update

2011-06-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

Our babies are growing up!

We have come to the crossroads of cuteness, though. At about two weeks, the broiler/layer distinction becomes clear, leaving the broilers in the ugly category for the rest of their (short) lives.

A photo explanation:

At two weeks-ish. You can see how the broiler chick, even though it is a full week younger than the guinea, is much bigger. If you held them, you'd FEEL the huge difference.

The next week brought huge changes:

Here are my beautiful guineas and layers, looking a bit teenagey, but still colorful and sleek, active and smart.

Ok, chickens are not smart. But it is all relative. Look at what I'm comparing them to:

These are the broilers at 3 weeks. This is all they doo. I mean, do. Because they doo a lot, too.

I crack myself up.

Broilers eat, and then poop and flop onto the straw and sleep. Then they get up and drink for a while, then they go eat. That's it. Throw a grasshopper in there, and they act like you're crazy. Actually, you have to kind of imagine that, because they are just flopped there with their eyes closed. But they MIGHT be thinking you're crazy.

Perhaps.

It's doubtful.

Nevermind.

This is a horrible photo, and admittedly the broilers are in the get-real-feathers stage, so they look scroungy, but regardless, they are just not cute anymore:

They stay dirty unless you change the straw out every 3 hours, and they get so fat they cannot roost, so they flop into the dirty straw, and they poop like every 30 seconds. Did I mention they poop? A lot? Grody.

To.

The.

Max.

Here, though, are my little beauties in the other brooder:


See the comb starting to form? That one is a rooster. I'm smart like that. :0)

Look at how alert they are--they are not this crowded in the house. I was freaking them out and they all flocked up and started zooming from one corner of the house to the other, so they're standing in about 1/5 of their space. The guineas have joined into the flock, even though they are older and much wilder and flightier. Sometimes you'll see a guinea shoot from one side to the other, as fast as they can go, just for fun. And you should have seen them attack David's rake when we were separating the broilers out last night. They'd run up and peck it, then shoot back and another would attack. A flock of guineas can kill a snake that way--decoys up front (wonder how they choose?) and stealth pecking attacks from the rear. Cool, huh?

Hi there, little peeper!

This little Black Australorp just flew up to see me. She was gentle and not at all afraid. She's a beauty--here's what her mama looks like:

And that rooster-baby over there?

His daddy looks like this:

Aren't they just gorgeous? I hope they aren't all mean. We'll have them in the movable pen, but I still don't want to hate the boys. We're planning for these guys (we have 5) to help prevent the possum and fox attacks. A mad rooster is a foe to be reckoned with.

So to summarize:

Ugly, fat, juicy, tender broiler.

Beautiful, friendly, smart(er), tough and chewy laying hens. The guineas are good eating, but you have to catch them first! :0)

A few more weeks and the broilers will be headed to the freezer and the layers will be out in the yard! Can't wait!

Circle Time, 2011-2012

2011-06-21T09:38:00.000-05:00

I've just ordered the sheet music to this, John Rutter's Anthem Collection. Rutter is a world-renowned composer, famous for his choral arrangements and anthems.

We're learning "Look at the World" this year in our Circle Time, as it is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. I love this YouTube video of it--show it to your kids! Mine were enthralled with the video.

A Must-Read for all Mommies:

2011-06-17T08:59:00.001-05:00

Rachel Jankovic, over at John Piper's Desiring God website:

But I’d like to challenge you to look at it differently. Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now. Cheerfully wipe the nose for the fiftieth time today. Make dinner again for the people who don’t like the green beans. Laugh when your plans are thwarted by a vomiting child. Lay yourself down for the people here with you, the people who annoy you, the people who get in your way, the people who take up so much of your time that you can’t read anymore. Rejoice in them. Sacrifice for them. Gain that which you cannot lose in them.

It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.

Check out the whole article here.

Our Summer Schedule

2011-06-17T08:37:00.001-05:00

We are still pretty new to this farm thing. David grew up in a farm family, spending his first 7 years on a full-time farm and living in the country with chickens and gardens until he was around 12. He's familiar with it, but I come from city folk. Moving around the country and living on Army posts is not conducive to milking cows. They don't make dishpaks that big.

We're learning to make this lifestyle work for our family. The older the kids get, the more ~~indentured servants~~ help we have, and the more we can accomplish in a day. But these summer days are HOT, and since we aren't full-time farmers, things take a little more planning. I think we figured a schedule out this summer that is working wonderfully for us.

Our days go something like this:

4:50am The hot hacker's alarm goes off, and he hits snooze a couple of times. I sleep through it all in blissful oblivion. (This is why I hate it when he goes out of town--my subconscious knows there is no one else to hit snooze, and I wake up BEFORE the stupid alarms go off, just to be ready to slap that button. Wears me out.)

5:15 The hot hacker wakes me up with a hot cup of coffee. Sorry, he's mine forever.

5:30 The boys' alarm goes off, and they (make more noise than any person should at that hour and) stumble downstairs. We all sit around the table drinking coffee (mostly milk and cocoa or honey for the kids--yes, it's bribery.) and talk. I scribble lists for the morning's chores as David talks through what he wants them to do.

5:45 The older two boys alternate staying inside with SuzyQ and going out. Buster is stuck going out with us every day, but I think he prefers that anyway. The inside crew empties the dishwasher, runs and folds laundry, tidies whatever room needs help that morning, sets out breakfast, and waters plants, stuff like that. The outside crew mows and weeds and hoes the garden, feeding the chicks and dog and whatever odd jobs need to be done. The grown-ups work with the cows and milk, then split up and help finish up the lists.

7:15 Everyone is back in, and we shower and eat breakfast, and then the day is launched.

8:00 Summer vacation is in full swing. Everyone is free to go their separate ways.

4:00pm We stop whatever we are doing and each child practices and does 1 evening chore, usually to dig out from our fun times of the day. Putting away their laundry is a favorite of mine, as is tidying up the living room. Or emptying the dishwasher again. Or cleaning out the van. I am always so well stocked with chore ideas. It is a gift I have.

6:00 David is home, we milk Tink one more time. Bluebell is weaned now--post on that coming soon.

7:00 Late dinner, which is working for us right now. We used to be 5:30 dinner people, so this is a big change, but I like the easier pace/less stress of eating AFTER the chores are done, so we can relax.

7:45 Two littles head to bed.

8:30 Two olders head to bed.

This schedule lets us get the work done in the gloriously cool hours of the morning, when the sun is barely up and the world is wet and gentle.

It is also letting me feel like we actually are on summer break. Instead of squeezing in fun stuff while trying to do chores and clean house and keep laundry under control and staying on the edge of frustration all the time, I am able to just hang out and do my stuff during the day, knowing the chores have their place, practicing has its place, and it will all get done.

That was a long sentence. Possible a run-on. But I am on vacation, so I'm not even going to go check on that.

Baby Guineas, June 10, 2011

Curriculum Reveal, updated

2011-06-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

I forgot to add our Logic and Typing and Music software choices for the year, so check back to yesterday's post if you're interested. :0)

Curriculum Reveal, 2011-2012

2011-06-13T17:56:00.001-05:00

For last year's recap, click here.

I love this time of year! Apparently I am not alone in my feelings for school planning. Every h.s. mom I know loves to pore through websites and catalogs and talk about this curriculum choice or that one. It is geeky, I know, but I really enjoy pedagogy and finding the best books to fit my little crew. And I love that the UPS man brings us a book package nearly every day for a while--it is like Christmas!

So my kids were in VBS last week, all FOUR OF THEM! and I used the time to ~~check out all the coffee shops,~~ ~~bargain hunt at all the local bookstores,~~ research and purchase next year's curriculum. And the uninterrupted time let me price compare more than usual, saving over $100 at half.com. Have you discovered that little gem? Nearly half of the historical fiction books I wanted were there this year, at prices like $.75 and $2. Even with the $3-something shipping charge, it was a steal for books that were normally $15-$25 each. Love that place.

Back from the rabbit trail.

Here is what we are doing this year:

Math:

Encyclopedia (6th): Singapore Primary Mathematics, 5b and 6a. Singapore is a new flavor of math for us, and approaches things from a "why" angle, rather than just teaching the kids to plug in numbers. As I said in my recap of last year, my math-major husband believes that this is a valuable way to learn math, better in the long run, even if we have to back up a little.

Charlie (4th): Singapore 3b and 4a

Buster (2nd): Teaching Textbooks 3. I chose this for B for several reasons. First, I need to get my brain around teaching Singapore to the olders. TT lets Buster be totally independent of me in his math work, freeing my time up a lot. Also, 2nd grade is where I add Latin, Writing, and expect more in History, so I chose level 3 (even though it is a repeat of Saxon 2 which he did last year) so that he'd have at least one subject with lots of affirmation and ease. I have a feeling he will be flying through it, so I'll probably be purchasing level 4 before the school year is out.

SuzyQ (K): Saxon 1.

Language:

Encyclopedia (6th): Abeka Language Level C. Love the repetition of this curriculum, and I love that the lesson is clearly presented and available for the kids' reference.

Charlie (4th): Abeka Language Level A. Switching over from First Language Lessons 4, here. Charlie will be working more independently this year, which is great for my limited time.

Buster (2nd): First Language Lessons 2. This is our first foray into language, since B just learned to read last year, so I'm treading lightly. But I think he will enjoy it, and FLL is gentle and only takes 15-20 minutes per lesson, so I think we will have success here.

SuzyQ (K): Phonics Museum K. We worked in Phonics Pathways last year (which requires no writing), and since SuzyQ has started writing on her own this spring, I feel comfortable using the Museum series with her. I love the readers.

Writing:

Encyclopedia (6th) and Charlie (4th): IEW Level A. I'm so excited about this! Two of my classical friends and I are doing this together. One of us will teach the IEW kids, another will teach the 2nd grade siblings with Writing with Ease 2, and the third one will enjoy a few hours of free time.
Can.
Not.
Wait.

Buster (2nd): Writing with Ease 2. I really love this curriculum, as I've said before. I love how simple Baur makes summarization and dictation and copywork, and I love the lit excerpts.

Suzy Q (K): Nothing formal. She'll probably be taking a nap during this time, or at Grandma's during the weekly IEW sessions.

Spelling:

Spelling Workouts all around--Levels A, D and F. Except SuzyQ, of course.

Handwriting:

Encyclopedia (6th): Classically Cursive IV. This is the Westminster Shorter, one a day, which will be great for review.

Charlie (4th): Classically Cursive II.

Buster (2nd): Modern Manuscript 2.

SuzyQ (K): Modern Manuscript 1. I will be taking a super easy pace with this, as her interest and ability guides. Phonics Museum has plenty of writing for her at first, but she is a girl who loves busy work.

Art:

Another Meet the Masters sequence, hopefully with friends if we can coordinate it. Otherwise, we will do it here at home.

Science:

Apologia's Flying Creatures. For sure this time.

Latin:

Encyclopedia (6th): Lively Latin II.

Charlie (4th): Lively Latin I (second half).

Buster (2nd): Prima Latina. I chose this for Buster's intro because it worked so well with the other boys. The DVD format is a fun change for them, it lets them hear and become familiar with the vocab aurally, and the lessons are super simple.

SuzyQ (K): No Latin until 2nd grade.

Bible:

Encyclopedia (6th): The Westminster Shorter Catechism for Study Classes, by Williamson. E finished memorizing the Shorter this spring, so he and Dad are going to work their way through this text together, question by question. We don't expect the kids to understand the words they memorize at first, just like they can't analyze the music they are learning to play. But as they mature, we want them to know the whys and wherefores, not "just because."

Charlie (4th): The Westminster Shorter Catechism with daddy.

Buster (2nd): The Westminster Shorter Catechism with daddy. Promoted up from First Catechism--he's so excited!

SuzyQ (K): First Catechism, with daddy.

Music:

Encyclopedia (6th): Violin--60 minute lesson, 90-120 minute daily practice, one weekly group lesson.
   Kjos Master Theory Book 1 AND Music Ace Computer games.


Charlie (4th): Piano--45 minute lesson, 60-90 minute daily practice, one weekly group lesson.
                                     Alfred Piano Theory Book 1 AND Music Ace Computer games.

Buster (2nd): Violin--45 minute lesson, 45-60 minute daily practice, one weekly group lesson. Piano Mouse computer games.

SuzyQ (K): Violin--30 minute lesson, 30-45 minute daily practice, one weekly group lesson. Piano Mouse Goes to Preschool computer games.

P.E.

All: Soccer in the fall, weekly trip to the Y for swimming or homeschool P.E.

History:

All:
Story of the World IV, Modern Era. I'm so excited about this, and especially about the supplementary historical fiction books I found. E is going to be in heaven with a whole shelf-full of new books to read and re-read. Should last him about a month. Must ration them.

Veritas Press History Cards and Song. I love learning these with the kids, and even though they don't line up exactly with the SOTW book divisions, it gives the kids a nice timeline to hang their stories on.

Timeline Figures

Read Alouds:

We're continuing our Audible.com membership, so the audio books will continue to be the main thrust of our read-alouds. But I plan to read Rescue and Redeem: Volume 5 Chronicles of the Modern Church (History Lives) and Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life aloud over the course of the year.

Memory Work:

I have several poem selections chosen for this year, but I have not finalized our list. I'll update this as soon as I get that finished. This is probably my favorite part of my school planning. We just love our memory work so much. I hear the kids quoting from bits of their poems every once in a while, and it makes me happy!
I use this book, The Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry, to find nearly all of our poetry. The rest I google and then cut and paste into a word document.

Typing:

All: Typing Instructor Software. I found this as a downloadable purchase, rather than a cd package, which made me happy. No more keeping up with and NOT scratching the cds. We really like this typing game.

Logic:

Encyclopedia (6th) and Charlie (4th) and Buster (2nd): MindBenders 1, 2 and 3, by ability.

This is something I'm giving a little more attention to this year. I've used Critical Thinking worksheets sporadically in the past, but I plan to use these daily. There is also a software program put out by Critical Thinking, but I decided we get enough screen time with typing and music theory games.

I guess that's it. Whew.

I'm linking up with my friends Dawn and Heather. Be sure to pop over there and see what the others are doing!

Fruitfulness or Efficiency?

2011-06-13T16:23:00.001-05:00

I don't know if I can get them out clearly, but here are some thought-capsules swirling around inside me:

*I don't want to spend my life telling my kids to "hurry up." Where are we going, and what are we doing, and why are we doing it if we can't look at each other and smile on the way?

*Having kids is earthy (ok, it's gross...), time-consuming, and hard. Watching Hollywood's version of parenting shouldn't make me discontent with my a) lack of a nanny, b) lack of household help, c) lack of a 9-5 high-heeled career and daily Starbucks, d) lack of a personal stylist and fitness coach, e) lack of enough personal time to do anything other than shower on most days. Hollywood = retouched and photoshopped. My life = homey and real. I can't hold myself subconsciously to a some standard that is unattainable.

*We are called to be fruitful in our daily lives. This is not the same thing as efficiency. It might take me 5 hours to make menus and a grocery list because I've wiped bottoms, kissed booboos, read stories, found socks, and turned on sprinklers. If my day has been spent giving my children fat souls, but my house is a mess and we have hot dogs for dinner, my priorities are straight and my day was glorious.

*There is grace for the good girls. I can't wait to read this book. I do not need to go to bed breathless and anxious and guilty that I did not do/be/say/give enough.

*My marriage is a priority, and I have to act as if it is. My husband needs me to emotionally separate our relationship from all the ups and downs of daily life, and not use our closeness as the barometer of stress. We are a team. We are on the same side. We are best friends.

*Raising kids to obey is not the same as raising your kids to "love the standard." If I am fighting my kids on a certain issue, rather than drive them away, I should lower the standard. That means my son has a longer haircut than I'd choose, and I jump in and help with room-cleaning, and choose not to call down bad table manners every time I see them. This is huge, huge, huge for my black-and-white self, but it is balm to my parenting soul.

So there you have it. All these thoughts are bubbling around in my head these days, due to the lighter schedule and mental freedom of summer break, I guess. I hope they are encouraging to you as you go on your way this week.

P.S. The green pop-ices are the best.

School Year Wrap-Up

2011-06-12T12:42:00.001-05:00

We did it! Another year in the books. I can't believe it is summertime already.

This has been quite the year for us--very eventful. We bought our first cow in August 2010 and started that adventure. I've spent many hours learning to make cheese and stocking up over 100 pounds in my fridge-turned-cheese cave. We've continued caring for the medical ups and downs of my mother-in-law who lives with us. We discovered that our boy was developing tics and followed the ER/Neurologist trails until we received a tentative Tourette's diagnosis. Things were crazy a lot of the time, but God is so faithful. That sounds trite to some of us who have heard that for our whole lives, but in that simple statement I'm summing up a myriad of fearful and stressful moments that were calmed and/or resolved supernaturally. That peace that passes understanding, you know? It is real.

On top of the daily excitement, we had a stellar school year. I'm very happy with the ground we covered academically, and I can honestly state that my kids are flourishing in their education. My non-reader/possible dyslexic started reading alone this year, even! That's huge for us, and so encouraging.

Here's what we did:

Math:

Encyclopedia (5th): Teaching Textbooks 6. He finished this in March, so he's spent the last two months doing worksheets while I figured out what we're doing next. I love the ease of Teaching Textbooks, but my math-major husband and I are very impressed with the pedagogy of Singapore Math. We're switching the two older boys over this year. More on that later.

Charlie (3rd): Teaching Textbooks 5. Math is super-easy for Charlie, and he loves TT. I've enjoyed watching him be so motivated to work on math.

Buster (1st): Saxon 2. Another math lover, Buster. He did very well with Saxon. I love their simple and repetitive lessons, and I love the daily Meeting Book practice. Some kids don't need all the calendar/counting/number line stuff, but now that I have one who does, I am thrilled Saxon provides it. I don't use the dialog in the TM, though. We just work through the meeting book stuff and the workbook pages together until they are reading fluently (which happened halfway through the year--yay!), then they do the lessons on their own unless they have questions. There is still grading to do, but overall it is a simple curriculum to follow for the early years.

Language:

Encyclopedia (5th): Abeka God's Gift of Language B. I wish First Language Lessons continued through the older years, but Abeka is a fine curriculum. E was able to read the lessons and work through this without any difficulty (besides the ever-present focus problem, but that's not Abeka's fault. :0) I sat down with him and watched him work through the 8 or 9 page final review at the end of the book, and I was very pleased with his ability to analyze complicated sentences.

Charlie (3rd): First Language Lessons 4. Charlie is pushing ahead in so many subjects. I guess he could technically skip 4th grade next year and be in 5th, but don't tell him that. :0) Again, I love First Language Lessons, with their big open pages and plenty of room to write and lots of repetition.

Buster (1st): Reading Reflex. This was the program that gave us the breakthrough in B's reading. I realized he wasn't hearing distinct sounds in the dipthongs, like --st, --rd, --ing. RR uses little paper letters and lots of games and drills to teach them to hear the letters and memorize the ones that you can't hear, like the --ow, --ou sets, and --ir, --ur, --er. All the little things that most kids just pick up. I'm so glad God gave me Buster with his learning style, because my first two boys were the easy kind who just "got it." I have learned so much, pedagogically and personally, working with someone who wants to understand but needs a little more help. I can't recommend RR enough. Inexpensive, simple, effective.

Writing:

Encyclopedia (5th): Writing with Ease 4. I "hit the middle" with E and C the last two years, working through WWE 3 and then 4. I *adore* this program. It eases the children into dictation and summarization, with engaging excerpts from great books.

Charlie (3rd): Writing with Ease 4. See above.

Buster (1st): No writing this year beyond basic copy work and handwriting for other subjects.

Spelling:

Encyclopedia (5th): Spelling Workout E. These workbooks are easy for the level of my kids, but I am only including spelling in their program for the practice, so I'm not pushing them. E is a fabulous reader and speller, and I like giving them a workbook that they know will be fun and simple, for a change. If they miss a word on the weekly test, they have to write it 10 times. If they miss more than 2 on the test, we retake the test another day. This rarely happened, but the threat made everyone pay attention a little better. :0)

Charlie (3rd): Spelling Workout C. See above.

Buster (1st): No formal spelling. Reading Reflexes demands a lot of spelling drills, so that sufficed.

Handwriting:

Encyclopedia (5th): Classically Cursive III. I love these workbooks, too. Full of Scripture and nicely printed. E's handwriting has greatly improved this year.

Charlie (3rd): Classically Cursive II. This was C's intro to cursive, and he took to it beautifully. I think I see some calligraphy in his future.

Buster (1st): Modern Manuscript book 1. We didn't spend much time on this this year. I honestly poured my effort into getting him reading, and I would usually choose to work his RR for another 10 minutes and then get him outside to run free, rather than handing him another workbook page. His handwriting is decent, and I'll hit this harder next year.

Art:

Some friends and I held a 7-week art class last summer at the beginning of our school year, using the Meet the Masters curriculum. We really loved doing this together--it worked great in a larger group! And the kids still talk about the artists they studied. I would definitely do this again. Other than this class, we didn't do anything formal. No one in my crew seems to be very drawn to artwork, but I would like them to be able to put pencil to paper and sketch when they want to. There are basic, learnable skills involved just like anything else, and I'm thinking about this for next year.

Science:

Okay, this is where we fell apart. I *dislike* science. Very muchly. The only things I enjoy are anatomy and general biology. Details are blah to me. I don't store details in my brain, so they might as well just stay in the book till I need them. And of course, this is where we are the weakest in our curriculum. HOWEVER. After attending a Classical Ed Seminar on science this spring, I am inspired to give this more attention in the future. I also have very math/science oriented boys, and they love, love, love science when we do it. So I have a feeling I am going to enjoy some sanctification as I learn to teach the subject I don't love. We started Apologia's Flying Creatures, but didn't make it past the first chapter. With some advice and encouragement from my sister (<3) I'm planning to re-start this next year. And actually do it. Ahem.

I kept Your Story Hour discs in the car, though, and the kids thoroughly know the life stories of Pasteur, Edison, Bell, the Wright Brothers, Curie, and a few others. So my conscience is assuaged somewhat by this thought. :0)

Latin:

Encyclopedia (5th): Lively Latin I/II. E finished up Level 1 and started 2. I really like this curriculum. We switched from Latina Christiana, which we'd done for years 1, 2, and 3. I like Lively Latin's clearer text and more drills and more history stories. It is all in one package, very kid-friendly, and we all love it. I'm seeing a lot of grammar dots begin to connect with E this year! Latin is one of my beloved subjects, so I'm glad to find a rigorous curriculum that the boys like, too.

Charlie (3rd): Lively Latin I. I'm taking my time with C through this. He does 2 or 3 pages a day, an easy pace, since he is only in 3rd.

Buster (1st): No Latin yet. He'll start in 2nd grade, like the older boys did. That seems to line up with their readiness and their understanding of the English language, while still being early enough that these things are easy.

Bible:

Encyclopedia (5th): Westminster Shorter Catechism, with Dad. E finished memorizing the entire Shorter this year! We are so proud of him. This was a huge accomplishment for a 10-year-old. Not only did he memorize them, he kept his old ones up thanks to Dad's review charts. :0) He will be getting his leather grown-up Bible to commemorate this.

Charlie (3rd): Westminster Shorter Catechism, with Dad. C is halfway now, so the end is in sight!

Buster (1st): Children's Catechism, with Dad. Buster finished all 140-something questions this year! What a great thing. He will say them all for our pastor, and then he'll receive his own Children's Bible as a reward for all of that hard work. He's pretty pumped.

Music:

Encyclopedia (5th): Violin--60 minute lessons, 90-120 minute daily practice, and one group lesson per week. E is now in Suzuki book 6, and just went up to a 1/2 size violin. He has learned vibrato this year, and is sounding like a musician and not just a student. Much progress in the musicality-arena this year.

Charlie (3rd): Piano--45 minute lessons, 60-90 minute daily practice, and one group lesson per week. C is at the end of Suzuki book 2, and knows all of his # scales, 4 octaves. He is note-reading now, and loves to accompany Buster and Suzy Q on the pieces he knows. He's learning to take his own lesson notes, because focus and retention are a constant issue, and that has improved a bit this spring.

Buster (1st): Violin--45 minute lessons, 45 minute daily practice, and one group lesson per week. B is in Suzuki book 2, and if he'd stop growing and needing new bows and violins every few months, we'd be moving faster. :0) I'm very pleased with his musical progress this year. Something clicked when we became more consistent with the 100x drills, and our "jelly bean drills" are something we all look forward to.

P.E.

This is another arena that needs work. We did not participate on any teams this last year, and I regret that. The boys need it, as we are very strong on the academics over here but not so much on the athletics, beyond running free on 5 acres, doing farm chores, and building tree houses. :0)

History:

We started the year with Mystery of History v. 3, and enjoyed it for the most part. I became increasingly frustrated by the interpretation of different stories by the author, and then I realized she was not going to have the next book finished in time for us to start in July. So mid-spring, we switched to Story of the World, and I cannot tell you how much more I love this curriculum. It is a much better fit for our family. And I love the fact that there are audios of the text with SOTW. I loved turning on the mp3 for us all to listen to, while the kids colored their pages and I graded or tidied up the schoolroom. Gave me HOURS back, I tell you. I also loved the layout of the student pages/activity book. You can tell that Susan Wise Baur homeschools, because she keeps things streamlined and accessible. Loved this program.

Read Alouds:

We didn't do as much reading as a family this year as we did last. We have heavily invested in audio books, though, and the kids have listened a lot. What they've heard:

Anne of Green Gables/Avonlea
Ben-Hur
The Call of the Wild
The Redwall Series
Lad, A Dog
Old Yeller
Twenty-One Balloons
Treasure Island
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Railway Children
Little Lord Fauntleroy
The Wind in the Willows
The War of the Worlds
100 Cupboards
In the Reign of Terror (Henty)

I can't recommend Audible.com enough. I have purchased several of these for $5 or less as I check out with my free book each month, making the $15/month membership well worth it. Audio books are the big family/busy mom's best friend.

Memory Work:

This is always our favorite part of Circle Time! Here's a list of what we've memorized this year:

Molly Pitcher, by Kate Brownlee Sherwood
Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll
The Table and the Chair, by Edward Lear
The Elf and the Dormouse, by Oliver Herford
The Village Blacksmith, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Elf Singing, by William Allingham
Our Heroes, by Phoebe Cary

And we've started Paul Revere's Ride, by Longfellow. We're halfway through, so we'll pick up with this next year.

We've also learned Colossians 3:12-17, Psalm 27, and more of Luke 2 and James 1.

And we learned two-part harmony to Come Thou Fount, We Gather Together, the Doxology, and the Gloria Patri.

All in all, I am very pleased with our school year. Sorry for the long post, but it is also serving as a journal for me, and I'm just a wordy writer. :0)

Stay tuned for my next homeschooling post, which will announce our curriculum for the upcoming year!

I'm linking up with my friends Dawn and Heather! Be sure to join us for The Great Curriculum Reveal 2011!

The New Sprinkler:

2011-06-07T05:15:00.000-05:00

This is what Charlie and Daddy spent their together time making last Sunday afternoon. So much fun!

If you are interested in the specs, the technical one among us says it is 10'x5', 1/2" pvc, drilled with a 7/64" drill bit. A hole every two feet or so, totaling around 25 holes, is recommended. Thus the black tape. Ahem. And the whole thing cost about $10. And the longest part was the hour waiting for the glue to dry.

The kids are having a great time, and our grass is getting watered as we move it around the yard. :0)

I might or night not be seen running through this if the temps around here don't break soon. But I'm not posting pictures of that. :)

Sunday Dinners

2011-06-05T02:49:00.001-05:00

Back when all we had were littles, we used to come in from church, make kefir/protein smoothies for everyone, and get them into bed as fast as possible. Sometimes we'd grab a shake too, or sometimes we'd eat together, David and I, after they were all in bed.

Not your traditional family Sunday meal, fer shur.

Something about that long morning at church made the kiddos sleep for hours and WE wanted a nap, too, before we had to get everyone back to church for the evening service. And everyone with littles knows how tricky an operation sneaking in a nap with three babies 3-and-under can be.

Did that last statement make any sense?

I think I suffer from residual sleep deprivation.

Let's blame it on that, 'k?

So we used to laugh at the idea of a hot, sit-down family Sunday dinner. Didn't work for us at all, and our Sabbath was much more restful without all the extra work of a big meal.

But now the kids are older. Half of them don't sleep on Sunday afternoons anyway. And they talk! They hold nice conversations around the table and we can visit together.

These days, with this older crowd, we like to make Sunday lunches a little nicer. I still insist on NO COOKING OR DISHES OR OTHER CHORES on Sundays, making my day of rest truly restful. But I often have a freezer meal that can be popped into the oven before we leave for Sunday School, and if not, I will let everyone reheat their choice of leftover or make sandwiches. It is always simple, but we've started setting the table and sitting down together this last year or so, and it has been nice.

We're entering a new phase in our family life, little-less, and I'm enjoying the changes. It will probably take a long time for me to forget the exhaustion of getting up 27 times to take care of a fussy trio and missing my nap of a Sunday though, so I can't say I'm wistful yet. :0)

Enjoy the season you're in, my friends, and be flexible. Nothing lasts forever.

Icy Greek Frappe

2011-06-04T12:03:00.000-05:00

Some of us are withering under heat indices that bring us phone calls from the local emergency weather service. I had to walk Bluebell down to the end of the property at 10:30 am (due to some milking/weaning issues...post coming soon...) and suddenly our little 5 acres of pasture turned into the Sahara. I thought I would melt into a puddle before I got back to the barn. So I came back up to the house, stuck my head into a bucket of ice water (not really) and made this.

Here, my friends, is a drink to make your summer wonderful! And I haven't even tried it with Bailey's or Kahlua like I want to yet. If you do, let me know how it is.

For one serving, start with 1 spoonful of instant coffee, 1 spoonful sugar, and 1/3 cup water. You will see me making a double recipe in a quart jar. Please disregard, because that would be a crazy amount for one person to drink. ahem.

Use a hand blender to whiz this mixture into a thick froth.

Pour that froth into a glass. Add a handful of crushed ice, 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup Tinkerbell milk*.

Stir with a straw, and sip slowly. Look at the beautiful layers! And I didn't even try. This is my kind of recipe.

*For those of you who are unfortunate enough not to have Tinkerbell milk, you may substitute regular milk or evaporated milk. Poor you.

I found this recipe here, at My Greek Ambition, one seriously delicious blog. :)

Greek Frappe Recipe:
2/3 - 3/4 cup filtered water
1 spoon of nescafe (or other instant coffee)
1 spoon sugar (for metrio/medium sweet)
~1/4 cup evaporated milk (or ~1/3 cup regular milk)
handful of ice

Use a small electric frothing wand, if you have handy because this creates ideal foam instantly. Simply add coffee, sugar, and 1/3 of the water into your cup and beat until thick. Add some ice, remaining water, milk, and stir gently with a straw!
If you do not have a wand, simply put 3 ice cubes, 1/3 cup of the water, sugar and nescafe in a shaker or any closed container with a tight fitting lid, and shake very well for about 30-45 seconds. The coffee should get very frothy and thick. Pour into a tall glass of your choice and fill with a few more ice cubes. Put another 1/3 cup of water in the shaker and swish around to pick up all the rest of the foam and coffee. Add to glass. Pour in evaporated milk and a few more ice cubes if desired. Stir with a straw. From My Greek Ambition.

Raising Chicks-Ordering Day-Old Babies

2011-06-03T11:25:00.001-05:00

We love having chickens around Southforte. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events and a hawk, a possum family, and a fox, we were chicken-less for several months.

But that is over now.

We are the proud parents of 100 chicks.

Yes, 100.

No, I am not on medication. Why do you ask?

Here's the breakdown:

We ordered 15 Guinea Fowl for their bug-eating capabilities. They are also a meat and egg delicacy, similar to pheasant. I've read a lot about them, but this was a very concise report from the University of Connecticut if you're interested.

Here are the guineas at one day:

They still have the remnants of their egg-tooth, the little white pointy spur on the top of their beak that gets them out of the shell:

And here are the 85 broiler and laying hens and roosters at one day old:

You can buy them from a feed store, or you can order them by mail. These guys came from Cackle Hatchery , and we are really happy with them. We've also ordered from McMurray and Estes Hatcheries in the past.

When your chicks arrive, the most important thing is to get them warm and watered. The hatcheries send a couple extra with each shipment in case one or two die, but this rarely happens in our experience. We've ordered chickies 5 or 6 times and only lost two chicks ever.

You'll need a heat lamp (a regular clamp work light) with a heat bulb inside. All farm supply stores have these.

You'll also need little chick waterers, which are really only plastic bases that screw onto quart mason jars. Again, get these at the farm store. Fill these a couple tablespoons of white sugar dissolved into the quart of lukewarm water.

Some folks will tell you to dip each chick's beak into the water, but we've not seen that this is necessary, and it is very stressful to the chicks. And to you. So we just make sure there are enough spots at the waterers for the babies, and leave them to discover it. If there is a small one or sleepy one, we will make sure they get to some water first thing. But usually, they all just rush around drinking and pushing each other around, finding the water with no problem.

We use a plastic wading pool for the first week or two, until the chicks can start hopping out. We buy a big bag of wood shavings at the feed store, and use those to line the bottom of the pool. Then we put pieces of cardboard down to set the waterers on, just to help keep the water a little cleaner a little longer.

These guys are pretty crowded--as soon as they warm up we are splitting up the flock...

We also buy feed called "chick starter" at the feed store, and you can choose medicated or unmedicated. The medicated feed usually contains amprolium, a mild drug (thiamin blocker) that prevents coccidiosis in the chickens. It has a 3 day withdrawal in the system of the chickens, and we usually get the feed WITH the medication for the babies. There are folks on both sides of the medicated feed fence, so read the labels and go with what seems best for your family. Just sprinkle the feed on the cardboard for a few days, and then you can go to a shallow box lid or traditional tray feeder.

So once they are warm, watered, and fed, all you have to do is keep an eye on them for paste-up (which means you have to wipe their bottoms. Feathers plus poop cause issues sometimes.) and then enjoy watching them grow!


Guinea baby, Left; Cornish Cross Broiler baby, Right

So, to summarize:
*Order chicks.
*Prepare wading pool or other enclosed space.
*Buy wood chips, waterers, feeders, chick starter (feed), and a heat lamp and bulb.
*Wait for the call from the Post Office.
*Get the chicks warm, dry, and watered immediately.
*Feed them.

It's simple!
I'll have updates as the little peeps get older!

I just can't say it better than these photos:

2011-05-30T13:47:00.000-05:00

Click here for a photo reminder of what Memorial Day is all about.

Thank you to our troops, then and now.

Cakes

2011-05-27T05:13:00.003-05:00

I have seen so many great ideas and recipes lately--I have to show you!

This is a recipe for a Neapolitan sheet cake from She Wears Flowers. I NEVER thought of this! What a fun idea.

And this is a strawberry cake from scratch from A Feast for the Eyes. Made me drool. Homey, comfy and you can just smell the strawberries, can't you?

Here are some Daffodil Cake Pops from Bake at 350. They make me smile! I would so totally make these with orange flavoring.

And this cake made me drool on my keyboard a little. And start craving chocolate mousse. From Fresh.

This is also from Fresh--a light Viennese tea cake. I could see this going for breakfast, too. And that's light as in fluffy, not light as in lite. Just sayin'.

This is a twist on a crowd pleaser---Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake, by Savory Sweet Life. What's not to love?

And finally, Banana Surprise Muffins by My Greek Ambition. These are not technically cupcakes, but would be a great dessert, no? And in case you didn't know, you can get a twin pack of Nutella at Costco for a great price. Not that I would keep that much temptation around, but just fyi.

These are some of my favorite blogs that I subscribe to--pop them into your reader and enjoy a customized online magazine every day! Happy caking!

Make Your Own {awesome!} Sprinkler!

2011-05-26T17:07:00.000-05:00

Check out this fun tutorial from She Wears Flowers! I really want to make one of these for the kids. I think I could make it big enough that 4 kids could have lots of room to run and play. Looking forward to those hot mornings with popsicles and swimsuits!

School Daze

2011-05-25T23:38:00.000-05:00

We've wrapped up another year here at Southforte Farms.

My oldest baby has decided to enter 6th grade next year. I gave him the option of revisiting preschool because I just can't stand the thought of him being of middle school age, but the little stinker insisted on 6th. Overachiever.

I am reeling from the events of the last few weeks--we've switched from an early-to-bed-early-to-rise farm family to a 1am-7am sleeping schedule, kicking and screaming. I am trying to make myself go to bed before my honey comes home from saving the world, but 1) there are just so many things I can do while the kids are asleep and I have the house to myself! my closet and bedroom and garage are showing signs of having received some one-on-one attention, and I'm loving that, and 2) I don't sleep well when my honey is not home, so I might as well be productive, and 3) have you seen the lineup on Netflix streaming lately? it is vast. But there are only a couple more weeks of this night shift nonsense, so after that we will return to our 11-5 sleeping schedule with gladness. So looking forward to that.

We've been partying it up with birthday after birthday! Buster is officially 7 years old. What ever happened to this little guy:

I swear he was just in the living room a second ago.

And SuzyQ is 4. My baby...

Has it really been 4 years? I had no idea just how much fun having a little girl would be.

Our nephew graduated from highschool--the first on his side of the family, and we have been there and back again in a whirlwind 3 day/7 hour drive trip.

And Tinkerbell is being a stinker and holding up her milk for her baby. I alternate between being proud of her mothering skills and wanting to kick her. So weaning the babe might be in our imminent future. Milking is taking waaaaaay too long these days.

And we are out of school! I have to repeat this to myself many times a day, because it seems that the other activities in our lives are a gas that has expanded to fill the void left by school. I'm just not feeling the freedom yet.

I have had nary a second to myself these last weeks--date nights have been set aside, blogging has taken a back burner, freezer meals have been the order of the day...

(I served my family scrambled eggs and toast for dinner tonight! Yes, the kids were thrilled and said I was such a good cooker. Yes, my honey enjoyed it too, but only because I took all the leftover veggies and made him a killer omelet. You can't go wrong if you throw some portabella mushrooms on it. Yes, I am running out of freezer meals.)

And there is not an end in sight at the moment.

But I'm happily snatching moments to poke through curriculum sites and order things here and there for next year. I have some changes coming and I can't wait to tell you about them!

I have been reading snatches of some awesome pedagogy books, too, and I can't wait to tell you about those.

And I have a couple of super recipes that you'll love!

And the funny stories abound...remind me to tell you about the communion cup and the whiskey comment during the post prayer silence. I have a million blog posts rattling around in my brain, and I can only hope that a few of the best ones make their way out someday.

I'll be back soon!

Aaaaannnnnd...

2011-05-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

...it's finished! A more beautiful cheese press you may never see. I can't wait to have a few calm hours to try it out!

My Cheese Press

2011-05-17T10:54:00.001-05:00

My family has decided I need a cheese press for my birthday!

After 6+ months of using round 10-pound weights from my honey's weight bench, I agree with them.

Some of my cheeses have been too wet when I've unwrapped the wax, and I think a lot of that has to do with how evenly and consistently I am pressing the cheese.

And while it works, and I could go on doing this forever if I needed to, it is a pain. Several times the weights have come crashing down, giving me a heart attack and making me grateful once again for my slate floors.

So I've shopped and shopped, and read about press after press, and I settled on this one, from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company:

I like the wooden look, since it will be on my counter constantly.

I love the stainless drip pan that can be put in the dishwasher.

I love the ease of the spring-weights, rather than storing and hauling around actual weights to hang or set on top.

I love the versatility in the cheese sizes and shapes this one gives me.

So I picked this one, and my hot hacker handyman looked at it and immediately saw some improvements that were needed. There was also all of this rough-sawn oak in our attic that his dad gave to us before he died several years ago. And then there was the nearly $300 price tag.

So after some thought, it all came together into this:

This is the mock-up made with plywood, so that I could use it for a week and see what I like and don't like.

And I LIKE!!!

The Hot Hacker raised the base so that I could place a dish under the drip spout rather than having to keep the press near the sink edge.

After seeing that work, he realized that if he made the front open, I could slide a pan underneath, making the footprint of the unit smaller. So that will show up in the final product.

He also used some different hardware for the tighteners. These are knobs that only grip when they are under pressure, so they just slide off when you release the spring. The other presses have spinners that have to screw allllllll the way up or down manually. Sllllllloooooow. I love how fast I can take this thing apart and put it back together.

He drilled a hole in the top wooden bar, letting me slide the center rod up higher. This makes it easier to get the molds in and out, and lets me stack my nesting molds to press two cheeses at once. My dream is to have a baking day and a cheese day, and I will need to be able to make more than one batch of cheese if I am to only make it once a week. But the press time was backing me up, making that impossible. I'm hoping I can get about 10 pounds of cheese going at once, which is about 12 gallons of milk. So cool.

Look at this adorable little 2-pound mold he ordered for the lite days--isn't it cute? I can't wait to make some little rounds for gifts...

So that is my excitement right now--watching the (beautiful!) oak press take shape in the workshop, and making several batches of cheese on this temporary one. It comes out so tight and smooth--makes me smile. I'm starting to feel like a real cheesemaker!

School's Out!

2011-05-13T21:35:00.000-05:00

School's Out! Let Summer Vacation officially begin!

2011-05-13T15:42:00.000-05:00

Hello, sweet friends.

I am paddling through a turbulent patch in my life-raft these days.

Not the dangerous kind of turbulence. Just the kind that makes you have to focus onthe paddles and watch the curves and bends up ahead. The kind that doesn't let you shoot the breezewith the raft that floats beside you.

I miss coming here to hang out with ya’ll and talk. I have so much to say—that’s the tricky thingabout turbulent patches. They give youso much food for thought, and so little time to put those thoughts into words.

But I just couldn’t stand it anymore, and here I am! Hi!

I have one of those evenings swirling aroundme—I’m looking at 6 pairs of boy shorts that need hemming (thriftyproject! Post to come!), a dishwasherthat needs to be run for the 3^rd time today…Yes, third. Yes, I got behind. Yes, my sink was empty last night. I got behinder and behinder today, just sincebreakfast. It was incredible.

I have today’s cheese in my new cheese press, needing to beflipped and re-wrapped. (Yes, you heard that right—NEW CHEESE PRESS!!!!! Post to come!)

I have a living room floor that is peppered with Playmobilpirates and all of their magnificent, detailed, tiny, detachable, horridparaphernalia. I must clean that upbefore the hot hacker comes home at 2am and loses his Christianity via thesoles of his feet. (yes, 2am. India and large corporation acquisitions andsoftware security all converged in our little corner of the world.)

I have a counter-full of sterilized milk bottles that needto be rinsed and put away.

I have 4 gorgeous herb plants I picked up at the feed storethe other day that need to get into the ground. Does anyone else grow cilantro? HOW, pray, does one grow cilantro? This is my third try just this year. I plant them, I tenderly care for them, and they die. Rinse, repeat.

I have curriculum sites calling my name…school years areturning over, and I am dying to get my brain around some new-to-me innovationsin our classical journey.

I have a stack of papers to grade and file, and ONE MORE DAYOF SCHOOL to plan! Tomorrow! Then no school for 6 weeks! I. can’t. wait. But I have to stay the course or I will endup with straggling to-do piles that will rain on my free time.

And my room is a mess. I hate when I let that happen.

I’m going to get to all of this tonight, fer sher, butthat is what is rolling around in my head. And I set it all aside to come over and say hi, because I miss being inthis little corner of the dubya dubya dubya. Thanks for coming back around Southforte, even in the echo-ysilence. I have some great postsswirling around in my brain, and some recipes that I know you’ll love…and thenjust more of the usual craziness.

See you soon!

Love, Me.

Wednesday

2011-05-07T19:29:00.001-05:00

Some days, things just don't go as expected. And some days make those days look like clockwork. And then, there are days like last Wednesday.

5:30am: Alarm goes off, coffee pot starts, check email.

6:00am: Out to the barn.

6:45am: In from the barn.

7:20am: 3 gallons of milk bottled and chilled, breakfast packed for kids, violins and music bags loaded, all kids dressed in non-holey clean clothing, and two mugs of coffee poured and put in the van. Kids loaded, and van pulling out of the driveway.

7:35am: Start seeing an undue number of brake lights ahead of me on the interstate. Too many even for rush hour.

7:45am: Come to a complete stop two exits away from the interchange I am headed for, see a notice that the left two (of three!!) lanes are blocked at that interchange.

8:00am: Lessons are due to start.

8:15am: Realize that we are going nowhere fast, and duck out of the traffic at the last exit before the interchange. Yes, I just spent 30 minutes going between two exits. Yes, I have finished 1 1/2 cups of the coffee I brought. Yes, 47 other cars have the same idea.

8:17am: Zoom up the road off the exit ramp, so happy to be moving even if it means squirreling through town. Screech to a halt at the next stoplight, because of a wreck. Stare at the 2 blocks worth of traffic in front of me, waiting at that light for the wreck to clear.

8:18am: Start up a game of I Spy with the kids out of desperation.

8:19am: Swerve up a side street that will take me to another main road eventually, and call the teacher, explaining why we are so so late. Hear that there is an observer (of course). No pressure.

8:57am: Pull up at the teacher's house. After one. and. one-half. hours. in. the. car.

9:00-11:00am: Have spectacular but fast lessons, with all the kids playing like we have actually practiced this week. God gave them fast and focused minds. Counting blessings, here.

11:07am: Dodge out of lessons, headed to ChickFilA 20 minutes away to meet my mom-in-law.

11:30am: Get to ChickFilA, unload kids and squint through the blazing sun at someone in the drive-thru who calls my name and wants to chat--I have no idea who this person is, but like any good Southern girl, I holler that I'm so glad to see them again too!, smile, wave, and get inside as fast as one person with 4 little people in the middle of a lunch-hour parking lot is able to. Meet mom-in-law, giggle at her deer-in-the-headlights look because of the preschool happy hour swirling around us. Kiss kids (my own) and get out of there to drive to my eye appointment.

12:05pm: Pull into the medical office parking lot, thrilled that I am 10 minutes early, and put on the makeup that I have lugged around in my purse all day. Because you don't think I got that put on before I left the house, did you?

12:12pm: Walk up to Suite 100, and notice that, strangely, I am staring at an Internal Medicine nameplate on the door. Huh. Call the Ophthalmologist (yes, I just depended on the squiggly red line to type that.) and discover that they have not been at this location in 3 years. Well that's odd, I say, because some little old lady called me Saturday to confirm my appointment and asked me if I knew where the office was and told me THIS ADDRESS!!! Uh-huh, the lady says, well, we are --waaah wah wah waaaaah wah wah----down the road, so come on and we'll hold your appointment for you.

12:14pm: Climb back in the van, call David, asking what on earth I should do. I am wondering if I am going to wake up at some point soon.

12:15pm: Call dysfunctional Ophthalmologist's office back and tell them I am going to have to reschedule. Argue briefly about the fact that I cannot drive 25 minutes away to their current office location due to the fact that my kids are at ChickFilA waiting on me. Waffle fries and playgrounds only last for so long.

1:45pm: Arrive home with all 4 kids after a rousing 20-minute rendition of "Plop, Plop! Fizz, Fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!" from the back seats. (Thanks, honey. Is there more to that song? Because the kids don't know any more to that song.) Unload the explosion of junk out of the van . Put the snoring 3 year old in her bed, and make the executive decision that we are watching the rest of Scarlet Pimpernel together for school time. Crash with my Diet Lemonade from ChickFilA, wonder to myself how early is too early to drink alcohol and do I have anything that goes with lemonade, and lose myself in the intrigue of the French Revolution for an hour.

3:00pm: Make all the kids go read or listen to books. Realize that I have run an entire load of whites on hot, 30 minute extra soak, with no detergent. Restart that load.

3:30pm: Call my sister to whine. Make her day look suddenly much better.

4:00pm: Call David to whine. Hear him tell me that God has ordained this day, and that my job is to roll with it. That I shouldn't look at it as a waste (gasoline! time! effort! shortened lessons! another month wait to get into the dr.! Argh!) and step off the "what if" merry-go-round. He said he was looking forward to that freezer-meal dinner (cajun pork chops, so that was a bright spot...) and reminded me that I had a kid-free evening to regroup.

So I did. I got my kitchen cleaned, 23 milk bottles sterilized, a batch of cheese made, laundry running (with detergent this time!), pantry organized, and watched 47 episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" on my iPhone as I worked. I was refreshed.

And God did ordain my day. It seems almost silly to say that, when we usually save those kinds of statements for the big stuff like a sudden death or a car wreck. But life is mostly made up of small stuff like backed-up traffic and confused distracted ignorant misguided careless office staff persons at Ophthalmologists offices. These are the things that wear us down when we stay on that boot-strap/I shoulda merry-go-round. These are the things that defeat us, the morale killers, the discouragement fodder, that we hang on to and replay in our minds as we add it to the list of the last several bad days we've had. Letting these kinds of days just go is so much of a healthier spiritual habit.

God is using each day in my life to make me more like Christ, and when I see it that way, a screwball morning just doesn't seem so bad. Just like God paints magnificent sunrises over the desert that no one ever sees or appreciates, I had given my all to a morning that bore little if any fruit. No tangible results for monumental effort. I think I will call them my desert sunrise kind of days, from now on.

Big picture, my friends. It is all about remembering the big picture.

by Al Bossence

How to cut a Mango

2011-05-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

I think it is so helpful to start your babies out tasting all sorts of flavors! We pretty much fed ours normal people food (fruits and veggies) as soon as they could handle the textures. They all love fruit and veggies now. Even SuzyQ who detested fruits (of all weirdness...) as a baby. She loved veggies--peas, sweet potatoes, beans, carrots...but would not take a bite of peaches or plums. I didn't fight it. I just kept having her try a bite, and as she grew to be a toddler, I'd insist that she take one bite of the orange/peach/tomato/whatever every time I offered it. No picky eaters around here if I can help it.

And now she plows right through a juicy pear or mandarin orange alongside the boys, so it worked for us. She still hates tomatoes and doesn't care for mango, actually, but I keep making sure she eats a few every so often. Maybe someday.

But anyhow, I thought of all this today as I was whunking up some gorgeous mangoes that my mother-in-law picked up for us at Aldi. They were on sale for $.30, so we bought a bunch.

New and unusual fruits can be intimidating if you don't know what to do with them, so here's how I cut up a mango, in case you have never tried one. They taste like a cross between a peach and a pear--very tropical and fresh, and very soft and baby friendly. But the seeds are huge and the skin inedible and thick. Here's what I do:

Make sure your mango is soft to the touch, like a peach. They should not be crunchy.

The seed is wide and flat, so cut from the stem end down to the bottom, along the wide side of the fruit.

Then cut down the other side of the seed the same way. After you do this a few times, you'll start to feel the seed with your knife and waste less fruit.

You can see the white seed on the right there. I got really close!

So here we are. Both sides sliced off.

Take each side and cut a crisscross pattern all the way to the skin on the other side.

Flip the skin in to make the cut parts stand out.

Run your knife along the skin and slice off the fruit. Let you kids nibble the leftovers off the seed, or take a paring knife and slice it off.

Put it into a bowl, and chop finely or process for littles, OR grab a spoon and enjoy! I served diced mango over whole wheat pound cake the other night for dessert. It was wonderful!

Mango nutrition, according to the National Mango Board: (who knew?!)