Random Monday

It is March. Is it going to come in like a lion or a lamb? I can’t tell yet. All I know is that it is still cold.

This past week, How This Mother of Seven Children Does It, resonated with me. I don’t have seven children, but there was a lot in the article that I think applies to all families.

That’s when you realize that you were making things at least as difficult as the kids were.

(Raising my hand.) YES! Me, please! Pick me!

Other happenings this week…

• My daughter landed a job! Woo hoo! She is going to be working a lot. I am not going to say much here to protect her privacy, but I am excited for her.  She is still planning to continue babysitting. I don’t know how she is going to do it, but hey, she is young. Plus, she seems to really like money. (Don’t we all?) Babysitting actually pays better, but it isn’t consistent enough for her.

• A good friend of mine moved away. Can I just tell you how tired I am of saying good-bye to my friends? I am so over it. My best friends live in different states, and it is getting a little old.

• My husband had a job interview. Did I talk about that already? Maybe I did. We are now waiting. How long does a person usually wait after a job interview? My husband has no idea how the interview went. He came home thinking that it could really go either way. It is a bit stressful because he would like this job. I don’t think he would care as much if he wasn’t interested in the job.

That is all I have for now. I am sure there was something else that I wanted to talk about, but it escapes me. Have a great week!

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Random Monday

I am late getting this out today. I have had a few things to do this morning, so I wasn’t sitting at the table while my son did his math. I am here now. In body at least.

My son is working through the Apologia Physical Science book. I forgot how much that I disliked physics. No, I didn’t forget. I blocked it from my mind. On purpose. It frustrates me because I have trouble visualizing the concepts. It doesn’t help that my son wants to animate every concept, and then he wants to question it over and over again. This sends my brain over the cliff. I want to be that supportive homeschooling mother that allows him to follow his curiosity, but it hurts. It hurts so much.  So instead I throw my hands up in the air, and say, “I don’t know! Save it for your professors.” Yes, these are not my proudest moments. Thank goodness I can do the math. That is my one saving grace.

I was able to talk to my oldest son yesterday over Skype for the first time in awhile. He looks good. It is fun to talk to him. I guess he is doing well in school. I don’t ask anymore because it stresses me out. We were talking about the weather, and I was complaining because it had been so cold here. “Mom,” he says., “It is 1 degree outside right now.” I laughed. “I thought you wanted to live there forever,” I teased him. “I do, but I can still complain that it is a frozen hell,” he said. “Well, maybe your dad and I will move there so it will be better,” I told him. “uhh..well, then I will just be cold….and miserable (whispered under his breath)” he teased. “NOT FUNNY! I HEARD that!” I hollered. He laughed and laughed. I don’t think it was as funny as he thought it was. It is fine. I don’t want to live in the tundra anyway, but see if he gets any more packages. I will show him!

My husband bribed me over the weekend. He promised to take me antiquing and to buy me a piece of vintage jewelry if I let him stay home and watch the Daytona 500 on Sunday. Never above a bribe, I said that it would be fine. So, we drove 90 minutes to an antique store that I had seen online. Unfortunately, the jewelry was limited, and I didn’t find anything that inspired me. I am not going to buy jewelry just to buy jewelry. It has to call my name when I see it. But I did find the final piece of Pyrex that I needed to complete my refrigerator set.

My husband asked me what I was going to do with them. I am going to display them on my counter because every time I look at them they make me happy. He seemed a little bothered that I wasn’t going to use them. They make me happy just sitting there. Why would I need to use them? He doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to. Am I right? Besides, he got to watch Daytona without being disturbed, and I have new Pyrex. Everyone is happy. This is what 22 years of wedded bliss looks like. I love it here.

I would like to leave you with this video. I saw it on Ace of Spades first, but it made me smile. Who doesn’t love 80’s teen movies?

Random Monday

Happy President’s Day! I gave the kids the day off. We probably shouldn’t take it, but Scott is off. Plus, they really need some sleep.

This makes me think that I should give you a little homeschool tip. There is nothing wrong with taking a day off now and then. The trick is to tell the kids the day before what you are planning to do. If you decide last minute in the morning, every morning your kids are going to hope that you will take the day off. Instead, tell them the night before and stick to your plans. If you tell them that you are going to have a full school day the next day, do it. If it is 8:30 at night and you are tired into the depths of your soul, tell the kids that the next day is a day off, and stick to it. I discovered that the back and forth of my indecisive personality was causing more trouble for me than anything. The kids played my indecisiveness as all kids are wired to do. Making the decision the day before put an end to all that.

It really is true that you learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned that children’s car seats have an expiration date. The experts say that the plastic of the car seat degrades, and you need to replace the car seat every 6 years.  Excuse my cynical nature, but what a load of bunk. Oh, sure. I found a video that shows me what an “old” car seat will do in the event of a crash. I am still not believing it. It seems to me that if car seat manufacturers didn’t put an expiration date on their car seats then we would have fewer car seats floating around out there, and by extension, less money for them. Of course, you are reading the blog of a woman who had no car when her kids were babies, and spent 3 years in taxis with her children on her lap. I don’t remember being nervous about this, but most people in Singapore do not own cars. Many mothers take their new babies home in a taxi. (It could be different now. I don’t know. But I doubt it. Singaporeans just don’t worry the way we do.)

We are exactly 5 months from Scott’s retirement ceremony.

I am exactly one year past the date I flew out to be with my mom. This was the last week of her life that resembled anything close to normal. We talked about her funeral and dying. I didn’t think that the year anniversary was going to hit me as hard as it has. You know how people say that “not a day goes by that I don’t think about them”? It is a real thing. Some days it may be a quick, passing thought and other days I linger on the memories longer, but I still think of her every day.

My kids are still sleeping. I am still drinking coffee. Looks to be a promising day!

Random Monday

• Who watched the Super Bowl? I did. I found myself hoping the Seahawks would win. When they didn’t, I was a bit bummed. Oh well. The commercials were terrible. Why not feed America’s anxiety for its children, Nationwide? That was terrible. I don’t need to write anymore about it, because Mollie Ziegler Hemmingway already did.

• This morning we were derailed by the following math problem, and it wasn’t because we didn’t know how to do it.

Caesar’s legion had an inventory of 2400 pairs of thongs. If they normally wear out 30 percent of their supply by the end of the year, how many pairs of thongs remain at the end of the year?

HAHAHAHA! Oh yes, this is a great problem for a 13 year old boy!

• I am finally putting all my Christmas dishes away.

• My daughter has made a decision to go to college. She is going to go to the same place as her brother. Her plan right now is to study communications, but we all know how many times college kids switch their majors. It is actually a good fit for her. The college has a good communication program. She doesn’t want to be in front of a camera, she wants to be behind it. We will see.

• My husband is getting a lot of phone calls about job interviews. He hasn’t been interested in many of them. The one that did interest him was 100% travel. Hello? We have already done that, thank you very much. All of the interest has given him more confidence. We don’t want the call for the perfect job to come in until June anyway.

• This week is going to be less busy than last week, thank goodness. I hope the February blahs don’t get me down this year. Last year, I flew out to Washington State to be with my mom. I miss her.

Random Monday

I spent almost my entire weekend reading. I read Dean Koontz’s “Odd Thomas”. It is an older book, but he recently released the final book in the series. I like starting a series after all the books are released. None of this waiting around nonsense. Anyway, I love his writing. I also read “The City” recently. That book showcases his writing without all the scary stuff, if you want to try something out. I also read “Station Eleven.” There is nothing like staying up way past your bedtime to finish a post-apocalyptic novel. I wasn’t quite ready for the ending of that one. I recommend it.

In military news, servicemembers are going to start feeling more of a pinch when it comes to our housing benefits. Tom Philpott reported last week, that those living on base will no longer have rental insurance covered in their lease. I don’t think that is a very big deal. Rental insurance is cheap, and many insurances companies just tack it on to your auto insurance. What I do see as a big deal is a change in the way they will be collecting rent for those living on post. Congress is going to be changing the percentage of what they will pay for housing to 99% of cost. That means the service member living off post will have to cover 1% of their own expenses. The kicker comes for those living on post. Not only will you have to sign over your entire BAH to the company, but you will also have to give them 1% your base pay. THIS is bogus.

I know that no one likes to hear what military life was like in the 90’s, but I am going to tell you anyway. Our housing allowance covered about 80% of costs, and this was usually only in the less than desirable part of town. People waited months to get into housing even if it was gross. Why? Because you saved money. They took your housing allowance and let you be. Housing is privatized now, and while I think there have been many improvements, the savings to the service member is not one of them. We live on post now, not because it saves us money, but because of the convenience. We could do much better out in town, but we choose to live on post because it is close to Scott’s work and all the other amenities the base offers. I try not to think of how much money the housing company is getting for this duplex that I am living in. NOW, the government is saying that on TOP of our BAH, we are going to have to pay an additional 1% from our base pay. Screw that. The writer at Spousebuzz talks about it more eloquently than I.  I normally wouldn’t jump on a rumor bandwagon about pay, but Tom Philpott is a trustworthy source. I am not sad that we are retiring. This is really a step backward.

I am sure that you are just dying to know how Toby is doing. I am happy to report that he is doing much better. He is no longer coughing, and he no longer sounds like Snufflelafagus. (I don’t know if I spelled that right.) He is a wily. I have to be certain that he doesn’t walk away and spit out his pill. He has been seen doing that. However it doesn’t matter how much if feels like I am torturing him, he comes back to me for lots of love.

My computer is dragging and needs a restart, so I am going to post this without a proofread. Living on the edge is what I do.

Random Monday

Good Morning! I have had a lot of thoughts swimming around my mind lately. They aren’t thoughts that are coherent enough for their own post, so I thought I would just jot them down here. Because why not?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about social media and the need for people to speak their minds at all times. It seems that I have the personality that makes it easy for people to give me their unwanted advice. It really bothers me because it implies that I do not know what I am doing or that what I am doing is wrong. Neither of which I believe to be true. The problem I have with social media advice is that people give advice based on their own life experiences and situation in life without considering the situation of the person to whom they are giving the advice. For example, my favorites are people who have lived in the same town their entire lives, established large community connections, and have raised children in one house telling me how to raise my children who have moved more than once to a community where they know no one. I ask myself if I invite the advice, and maybe I do. Regardless, it bothers me. I have close friends whose advice I cherish. Everyone else needs to leave me alone.

I came across the book, “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?”, in the library yesterday. I sat in the library and read almost the entire book. It is a memoir of a woman who lost both of her parents. It struck a chord with me. How healing it must have been for her to get her raw emotions down on paper. Why can’t I do something like that? Would it make me feel better to get my emotions down on paper? I believe that, yes, it would. So I have begun my own memoir. I started with the first time my mom ended up in the hospital before we knew she had cancer, and I will go from there.  No one will probably ever read it, but I am going to write everything anyway. Sometimes I think that people don’t want to talk about death because they want to pretend that they are somehow going to avoid it. I find that people don’t want to talk about my mom because they are afraid it will upset me, or maybe they think it has almost been a year and it is time to move on. I don’t know. What I do know is that I am not done feeling it yet.

Actually, this was all made aware to me on my way to the library. As I was driving to the library I came to an intersection where there was a kitten lying in the road. He was obviously struggling. I drove by him and it was obvious that he had just been hit by a car. I pulled the car over and got out. The woman who lives across the street from the intersection came out to meet me. She told me that the car before mine had hit the poor thing. She didn’t know what to do. We walked over to the kitten which was dying. My heart broke. We stood there and talked like idiots to the poor thing as it struggled to die. Because dying is hard, people. There was nothing we could do. Half of its face was on the pavement. I suppose that I could have done something to put it out of its misery, but I couldn’t. Neither could she. Instead, my heart broke and it died on its own. The rest of the day I was a mess. I guess I am still a little, or this Random Monday post wouldn’t be so depressing.

I should write about something less depressing. Let me see. I set up a bird feeder off my back patio. I love it. So does my cat, Toby. We put a chair in front of the door so that he can look out the window and “talk” to the birds. He is one of those cats that make the chattering noise. It cracks us up. We call the feeder, “Toby TV”. It entertains him and us. We have all kinds of birds showing up at the feeder. Mostly they are cardinals. I love the cardinals, bright and red. I am keeping a journal of the birds that visit for my own scientific curiousity. It makes my husband laugh, but I don’t care. We have also had Mourning Doves which are content to eat the seeds that the cardinals kick off the feeder and that fall to the ground. Chipping Sparrows are another frequent visitor. The Tufted Titmouse visited yesterday for the first time. I like him a lot. He spends a lot of time tapping on the arm of the feeder. I can’t tell if he is breaking open the seeds or just making a racket. If I get too close to the window, he flies away. The only downside to the feeder is the mess. They birds sure do make a mess pooping all over the place and leaving their seed droppings. Oh well, it is worth it.

I told you that I had stuff swirling in my brain. It feels good to get it all down. I should do it more often.

Random Monday

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trim healthy mama

Deb, do you mind that I am still using your Random Monday sticky? I am wondering about that.

Today is Columbus Day or if you are in Seattle, Indigenous People’s Day. Seattle makes me shake my head. Whatever you want to call it, I like the day off.

Because we are taking the day off. I was going to have the kids do some school work today, but honestly, who am I kidding? My husband is home, and it is nice to wake up late and drink coffee while I scan the internet.

This isn’t what I would call a flattering picture of me, but I love it anyway. The kids ran up and grabbed me and gave me an Oreo cookie hug. It was spontaneous. Scott caught it on camera. When they are making me crazy, I will use this picture to remind me that they really do love me.

And this is the one that I will use to remind myself that they love each other.

Mollie Ziegler Hemmingway writes another post that I heartily agree with, Forget the War on Christmas, The War on Advent is Worse.  

I had already decided that I was going to take Christmas more slowly this year. It usually feels that Christmas is a month long, and by the time I get to Christmas, I don’t want it to be Christmas anymore. The tree comes down the day after, and I want to move on with my normal life. This year, it will be different. I am not going to start making Christmas cookies in November. The family is going to have to wait until Christmas Eve to eat my fudge. I even think that we won’t put up the Christmas tree until mid-December instead of the day after Thanksgiving. We will see. I could get excited and change my mind, which is completely within my rights to do.

I also wanted to mention that I tried the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating for awhile. Anyone else follow that way of eating? I did it for two weeks, and the weight was falling off. But as much as I liked to see the number on the scale fall, I am not sure that I can eat this way long term. For one thing, it is expensive. For another thing, I was eating a lot of dairy. It seems that non-fat greek yogurt is the main source of low fat protein. Dairy is an inflammatory for me. I can eat some dairy, but I can not eat it all day long. Also, there are very few E meals that I want to eat, and I need a few carbs. Oats are the main source of carbs for the E meals. Again, I can eat some oats, but I am sensitive to them, even the gluten free ones.  I found that I was eating S meals for the most part, and then feeling of out of sorts. My friend lost a lot of weight eating this way, and was able to lower some of her diabetes medications. I know it works. I would love to hear from anyone that has made it work for them with a variety of foods. It seems that people who make it work long term, are eating the same things over and over again for the most part. Let me know what works for you.

I hope everyone has a good week. Enjoy your pumpkin spice lattes everyone!

Random Monday

Let’s see. Where were we? Oh, yes. It is Monday.

I took a break from my doctrinal reading and grabbed a couple of books from the new release shelf at the library. I read Liane Moriarty’s, “Big Little Lies”. I enjoyed the murder mystery/catty woman cross-over. It was an entertaining read, and who can’t relate to the dynamics of crazy womanhood?  I also read Anthony Doerr’s, “All the Light We Cannot See”. I read this one in one day. I as a bit irritated after I read the first chapter and realized that he was going to go back and forth in time. Sometimes this bothers me because I don’t think it is always necessary, but this time it kept me reading. I gave both books 5 stars on Goodreads. Are you reading anything good right now?

Speaking of Goodreads. I like Goodreads. It is a good, no pun intended, place to keep of a list of all the books that I have read and all the ones that I want to read. I used to keep the list in my journal, but I like the convenience of having it on my phone and on my iPad. At first, I was a little concerned about what I was reading since everyone can see it. I would spend too much time rating the book. Now I just say, “Heck with it.” I give the book the rating I want and read what I want. I think turning 40 will do that to a person. Maybe.

Quick school update. It is fine.

I wanted to show you a picture of the very cool hawk that came to visit us on my back porch this past week, but I can’t find the camera. I know he lives around my neighborhood because I have seen him often. This week I also saw a vulture hopping along the ground with a broken wing. I felt bad for the vulture, even though he is a vulture, and called animal control. What followed was a 20 minute conversation about all the vultures that live in my neighborhood, and why they are going to let nature run its course with this one. Apparently, he is a wily sort of creature that can’t be caught. The animal control guy (Let’s call him John.) reminded me more than once not to try and catch him. Thank you, kind sir, for that friendly reminder, but there is no way I would try to catch a vulture. John reminded me that they are covered in bacteria and all sorts of dead matter. Yes, that is nice. John also went on to tell me that he has been trying to catch this vulture for a month. I learned a lot about vultures and the other wildlife in my area. It was obvious that John wanted to share his knowledge, and I am always interested. The homeschool mom in me almost, almost asked him to come share it with our homeschool group, but commonsense prevailed.

Said to my daughter just now, “It is not Statistics’ fault that you are using the wrong formula.” Mom for the wine!… I mean win!

The pictures in this post were taken at the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit in Seattle. My mom, sister and I visited it last summer on our special day.  I hope you all have a great week!

Random Monday

Good morning, everyone! How are you doing this fine Monday morning?

I am doing all right. I don’t have much in the way of randomness this morning. I have been busy doing a lot of reading from the early church fathers. Just something for my own personal study, so I haven’t done much of anything else.

Like housework. I haven’t been doing much of that.

Not kidding here, but my cat just puked up ribbons. Where in world did he get a bunch of Christmas ribbons? OH, my closet! I usually keep him out of our bedroom at night, but lately he has figured out how to open our bedroom door, and he wakes me up with his searching around in the closet. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that he found some ribbon strands in there. My closet is a menagerie of all kinds of goodness scattered everywhere. I am just thankful that he is OK. Stupid cat.

I haven’t even been reading much in the way of blogs, but I would like to thank Karen at Living Unabridged for linking me this past weekend. That made me feel very special! She always has great links to read over the weekend.

Here is a website that we just discovered. It is doesn’t really have a name. We were looking for an example of how the polar vortex works in Antarctica and we came across it. It shows the current wind patterns of the earth. Click on the word “Earth” on the website, and it will take you there. You can also use your mouse to move the earth around.

This is a fun video that uses the website I just linked. It helped my son visualize the polar vortex that is explained in Module 3 of his Apologia Physical Science text.

Have a great week!

Random Monday

We are entering our 5th week of school. We had a strong first month, and I feel good about it. I made a big change last week. I pulled Freckle Face out of Saxon Alg. 1/2 and put him into Algebra 1. Why? Because after I really looked at the book, I realized that he wasn’t going to learn anything new for weeks and weeks. How annoying! They are the same problems that he did last year; they are only a bit more obnoxious. He is happy. He said he wants it. And if I know anything about my Freckle Face, I know that if he wants something he will work hard for it.

So what is up with the bag of potatoes? Well, I will tell you. There are a couple of things that I want to point out. First of all the weight. It is 4 pounds. What happened to my 5 pound bag of potatoes? It may seem like a silly gripe, but the price didn’t go down on my potatoes. Just the size. I am now paying more per pound. I think they must think us dumb.  Annoying. Secondly, and this is rather silly, but do they need to tell me that potatoes are 100% Natural and, get this, Gluten Free! Seriously? Like everyone on the planet didn’t already know that. See? This is why we gluten free people get picked on. Since it is now cool to be gluten free, let’s stick it on the potato package!  How about save the ink and give me another pound of potatoes?

I read a lot on The Federalist. A lot. Mollie Ziegler Hemmingway is one of my favorite authors. She writes about a lot of good stuff-sex, food, women’s issues. Stuff like that. She recently took on the Slate article about how cooking for your family is tyranny or some such thing. Her article, 7 Important Things Slate Misses in its Attack on Home Cooked Meals, is great. To make me appreciate her even more, she quoted from Martin Luther.

But instead of looking at it as just a burden, we should look at is a holy blessing. It’s funny to read Martin Luther on this topic because he sounds so modern. He notes that married men might complain, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labour at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves?” How to view this, he asks? He says to view it as a holy blessing. “I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers. or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labour, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight

Go read the whole thing. The entire article is very good.

I have been reading all over Facebook that this year we are in for a doozy of a winter. South Dakota had snow the other day. It was the earliest snow since 1888 or something. I don’t get too excited about long term weather prediction. For one thing, we can’t control the weather. For another they do a pretty lousy job predicting from day to day. However, I do know that if an El Nino is forming in the ocean, we can have a better idea of what our winter will look like. The meteorologists were expecting a strong El Nino this year, but that is looking less likely now. Washington State weather is affected by El Nino, so I used to pay better attention. Now, meh. BUT, it does annoy me to see all the “stock up your pantries!” and “killer winter storms coming this winter” articles on Facebook.  According to the NOAA, we now only have a 65% chance of an El Nino forming, and if it does it will probably be a weak event. So, if you are reading a doom and gloom article from April, you should probably read something a little more current. Facebook is like a breeding ground for misinformed articles of the end of the world type scenarios.

Do I sound cranky? I am not cranky. Really and truly. A few things are just striking a nerve.

Anything strike a nerve for you this week?