Learning to Chatter

OK, just so you know ahead of time, I'm doing this post so I can practice light conversation. I've come to the conclusion that one reason I have a hard time posting regularly, is because I'm just not good with light conversation. Give me a good meaty topic and I can go on and on, but cheery, light, this and that chatter is hard work for me. I really think that's why some of my children were slow talkers, you know they say moms are supposed to talk to their babies, well I just couldn't. So, I'm thinking if I get on here to post and just start typing something, maybe I'll can get better at chattering. My schoolgirl side wants to do an idea sheet first, then a rough draft, edit and then finally post on my blog.
Oh yeah, I finally found a way to fix brown rice that my family will eat it. We have no problem with most other whole grain products, but we just couldn't handle brown rice. Alton Brown has a recipe out that has you bake it in the oven and it works- nice fluffy rice!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-brown-rice-recipe/index.html

Well, that's all the time I have for "exercising" my brain right now. Fire to stoke, supper to fix, schoolwork to check (note to self: hand out more smiles to the children this evening!) Oh no, that thought is putting me on the serious track again- the power of a mother's smile. Yeah it's a good thought, don't want to throw that one out. Oh, this is tough. I really want to delete all this and do it the right way, but I'm going to leave it. I can do this!! I promise there won't be many of these kinds of posts, it's just not me. But if you do something 7 times regularly, it's supposed to become a habit. So, until my blogging habit is established, please bear with me or just ignore my blog for awhile.

I'm back

It's been 4 days since I've even been near a pc and probably 2 wks since I've read anyones blog. So, here's a list of the things that I haven't had time to blog about.
Shopping for a vehicle, online and out of state - Ugg! But we have one now.
2 fires in our house- please go test your smoke detectors!
A nice visit in Ohio and snow.
My frig is empty, the suitcases need upacked and bills need paid. I'll try and add details this week and read all my buddy's blogs.

The Adventures of Breakfast & Lunch

I was awakened at 3:30 this morning by Breakfast and Lunch, no it wasn’t indigestion, it was Silas’ roosters, thus named. The strong winds had knocked over their cage and they were at the back porch complaining. There was no way I could sleep through that racket (Steve was doing a night job) and I figured it would be a good lesson in responsibility for Silas, so I woke him up to take care of it. Good boy, he woke right up raring to go. But he said, “ Mama, this ain’t goin’ to be easy, they aren’t peace lovin’ birds, ya know.” It’s at this point that I’m thinking this will make it to blog post level. The first rooster was easy enough, he was wet and miserable but this allowed the second one to see what was up. Lunch hung around Breakfast clucking, but stayed just out of Silas’ reach. When we saw he wanted to stay with his buddy, I decided it was time for us to head back to bed and he would stay around the rest of the night. We got bedded down when Silas came and said he was sure Lunch was asleep now and that he(Silas) would be able to sneak up on him easy. I gave the OK for one more try and only one. Well, the short version is that Silas came back in covered in mud. After a shower, we got a little more sleep. The camaraderie of hard times is over. This morning Lunch was still staying beside Breakfast’s cage, but now he’s picking fights with him. It’s finally over, Silas has Breakfast put up, but those two youngsters are still picking fights with each other in their connected cages. I can just hear them saying, “It’s your fault we’re back in here!,” “No it’s not, it’s your fault.”

Big Sigh

Ahhh, I can finally relax and settle down for a little while into our school routine, until it's time to head to Ohio and we're still not sure when that will be. The holiday rush is over for us. That's one of the things I like about Thanksgiving being our family's "chosen" holiday. My rushing around is over, even when I'm out in town, the busyness doesn't get to me. It's nice to relax!! You know that mental relaxation -where there's no pressing engagements.
We had a blessed time at a cabin get away with Steve's folks. The snow topped the weekend off beautifully. Snow in the Smokies is gorgeous. My camera stopped on me this weekend, so no pictures, but thanks to mom, we do have video of the best parts.
We still have no van and are patiently waiting for God to provide with something in our price range. Gen is letting us borrow her little car for must do trips. The kids and I will fit, not legally, but it does in the current pinch. Jose let Steve borrow a custom van for the trip over. Wow, was that boat nice, but I worried the whole time about us breaking something. Thankfully the DVD feature kept little fingers out of all interesting hideaways.
I am so thankful. The weekend required me to go 3 days in a row with only 4 hrs. of sleep each night and I didn't fine!! Thank you Lord. Monday I was spent physically and mentally but I just rested. We got back in the groove smoothly today.
Oh, a funny I almost forgot. Steve and I talked about stopping somewhere on the way out of Pigeon Forge for some free amusement, since we stayed in the cabin all weekend and didn't take in anything. The choices were Smokey Mountina Knifeworks or the huge Bass Pro Shop. We pulled into Bass Pro's parking lot and then were too tired to get out and fight the crowd. So, we put in a movie for the kids, layed back our seats and took a nap instead. Umm, sounds like middle age is definatly setting in.

Pictures for Grandma

Mom, I was way behind on unloading the camera. Here's some new pictures for you to enjoy.

Our wonderful Goodwill had a sale where everything in the store was 1/2 off. We found a neat Knex set, with all it's pieces for $4 !!! Here's the boys working on one of the projects.

The completed water park and, well a headless child.

Karrigan at the hayride.

Help!! If a blogger could help me out, I'd appreciate it. Every time I add a picture, it puts it at the top, not where I want it. Do I have to load my pictures backwards?

Well I had a beautiful picture to put in here, but after trying to upload it 5 times, I'm done!! Oh, for high speed.

Yesterday I was reading with Karrigan in the recliner. I THOUGHT Philip was quietly doing his schoolwork on the carpert. Not so. When I turned around and stood up, I was faced with a row of about 10 Rescue Heroes, all standing at attention with their right arms raised and a sharpened green pencil in their upraised arms. He didn't get a scolding, it hit me too funny. Before I could get back with the camera, Philip had them in a battle, so that's what this is a picture of. I've started to get rid of the Rescue Heroes several times, sure that they had outgrown them. Wrong again. Thanks Aunt Arlene for recommending Rescue Heroes when they were little fellows.

Life, Etc.

Well, I got over my backset last week and we've had several great days enjoying the beautiful weather. Thank you Lord!! The kids had friends over Friday and we had a hot dog roast, jumped rope and the girls had a tea party. Over the weekend we cleaned up the garden beds and got rid of the ugly, old well cover - ( we have an old hand dug well that isn't used for anything, I hope to have a hand pump on it one day for watering the garden) Steve put a heavy duty cover on it and I stacked pretty rocks on top of that. It's safe and more attractive now. We all enjoyed digging into our compost pile to top of the gardens. We've been working on a compost pile for a couple of years. We've never done it "right", we just threw in vegtable waste, leaves and manure. Even without us turning it properly, it still did it's thing. Philip, who's job it is to take out the daily compost, Steve and Silas who build the composting frame and Mama, who makes sure no good compost goes in the trash, enjoyed a great feeling of accomplishment when we shoveled out the rich black dirt. We've put down newspaper, leaves and compost on our old beds and a new compost pile started. More on that in just a minute. I just want to add that the children and I watched Food Inc. and it's what prompted us to try gardening again in the spring. I highly recommend Food Inc., it's available at Netflix. Yes, there's some liberal stuff in it but it is really info that everyone needs to know.
Now, back on topic. We gathered the shovels and wheelbarrows and headed to Rojo's(our horse) field to pick up his contribution to our new compost pile. Once there,we broke into groups and got to work. When I saw that we had enough, I hollered for everyone to head to the house and got
protests. Yes, I said protest! Here's what they yelled back: " Just a minute, there's a good patch down here, just let us get this first," and "But, my wheelbarrow isn't full!" and " Can we come back after we empty this load?".
I have no answer for this other than that kids really do enjoy good ole hard work. Maybe it's like discpline, they fight against it but really do want it.

Enjoying November

Someone wrote in on my MOMYS group and asked for ideas on celebrating Thanksgiving. This was my reply:

Thanksgiving is our family's chosen holiday. Meaning, we decorate for it and really try to celebrate it. We make baked treats and deliver them around town to the folks who are special to us and have helped us throughout the year. For us, this includes the employees of our local Goodwill store and the library, along with neighbors and friends. Some years the children make handmade cards to send out. We are learning a Thanksgiving hymn this year and memorizing a new psalm of thanksgiving. We try to do a thanksgiving read aloud sometime during the month. The kids dress up as pilgrims or indians when we have our large dinner. I'm always looking for meaningful and fun ideas. We are trying to do one fun or special thing each day this month until thanksgiving. Mostly they are just little things. One day it was to scrape out our pumpkin and cook it. One day will be roasting the seeds we saved. We collected leaves one day and will try waxing them today. Just letting them bake a pumpkin treat counts as one day's special time. It really doesn't have to have bells and whistles to be special to children. Simple pleasures, enjoyed as a family year after year become memories and anticipated fun for the future. This hit me yesterday when we went to a park. My 11, 10, 9 and 7 year old had fun picking up large rocks and dropping them over the walking bridge into the water. They did this over and over again, trying to make the biggest splash. Of course the boys were bombing things and in a battle while doing it and the girls liked pocketing the prettiest rocks and the pretty splash that was made. But the were totally having fun! It was my husband's idea to go to this certain park which was quite a little drive to get to but while collecting rocks my 7 year old dd said, " Mom this really was worth coming to." Sandwiches, pretzels some frisbees, a football and rock throwing, taking a walk, going down a new country road and visiting a Goodwill in a new town made up or special day yesterday. Hey, guess what? I just wrote a new blog post for myself without realizing it. Yeah for multitasking!!