Black Eyed Susan (or Kate)

I'm feeling a little stupid tonight.
I gave myself a black eye.

The girls and I were making Gabby's bed and Grace was plopped down on the floor on top of the sheet I needed next. I grabbed a corner of the sheet and pulled as hard as I could but Grace had a heavy butt thing going on. I gave the sheet one last really hard yank and it slipped out from under her sending my fist directly into my face.
I can't believe it.
I wandered around Goodwill tonight and people were smiling at me with that look that said...... "Poor thing".
Hope this goes away by next weekend when we're doing family pictures.
"Whatch you lookin at?"

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomatoe

Anita and I have been best friends for 26 years. When our kids were toddlers we moved next door to each other in a neighborhood that was so "country" I felt I was in, No-where, West Virginia. We had to become friends or live out in this remote place with nobody.
We couldn't be more different from each other - a perfect match.
One of the many things we differ on is our taste in dogs.
She likes big, really big dogs.
The smaller the better for me.
We introduced our new puppies to each other last week. I'm sure they'll be best friends too.
(You can tell Anita you saw this - she never reads my blog)

Another Hurdle

David has followed in his brother Kevin's footsteps and is running hurdles in track again this year. David is the kind of boy that moves through life at an alarming rate much like the little silver ball in a pinball machine. He runs the hurdles in a similar fashion. He's very fast and his determination is unequaled but his body is covered with cuts, bruises and scrapes from hitting the hurdles and falling down. These unplanned ricochets off the ground haven't slowed him and he's presently second in the sate in high hurdles. David's the one in the middle in this picture.

David, as I said, moves pretty fast all the time - including when he gets dressed in the morning. He told me this story about the last track meet. He has a favorite pair of warm double lined pants that he wears all the time. Over the year they have gotten quite a few holes in them but he wears them anyway. He was standing with a bunch of friends and felt a bump on the inside leg of his pants. He couldn't figure out what it was, so he reached down by his ankle to the hole and felt around. He found something and pulled it out. It was his sister Kelly's black underwear that said, "Rock and Roll" and had pink lace on it. Apparently during the wash or dry cycle they had decided to hide in David's leg. Not wanting to be embarrassed he left them in there the rest of the day.

I'm still laughing at him.

"Expelled" Movie Review

Last night a group of us saw the movie, "Expelled" with Ben Stein. It's his documentary on the present scientific climate toward anyone who has any discussion about Intelligent Design as the origin of life. He interviews scientists (and not all Christians) who questioned the Darwin theory and reports on them being dismissed from their jobs and places in the scientific community.
Ben is Jewish and in his personal search for truth, goes to the concentration camps in Germany to see first hand where Darwin's beliefs of natural selection are played out to the fullest. He concludes that as our society takes a Creator out of the creation, it sweeps away morality and value of life.
Ben does a fantastic job with the subject and he brings his usual humor along.
This is a must see for everyone!! Take your older kids-take everyone to this movie. It's only playing in select theaters, but is well worth a drive.

Slow Down - You Move To Fast

Life is always busy but the last few weeks have been over the top crazy.

I started reading a book called "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" but was too rushed in the morning to spend any time in it.

I made a decision to not worry or work on anything that didn't occur in the next 5 hours. So with no time alloted for planning or preparation, life has completely spun out of control. The bus is coming around the corner and I'm yelling, "Get your shoes on, find your book-bag" as I'm throwing piles of papers off my desk looking for the stupid field trip form that's due today knowing there's about zero chance of finding the check book too. There's really no way of making the wash cycle go faster when your son is trapped in his boxers waiting for his work pants to be clean. And no 3 year old in the world will gulp down his cheerios on command so that you can get out the door faster.

"Stop and smell the roses" is a joke. I'm lucky to catch the putrid odor of the potatoes that I was going to make for dinner two weeks ago, rotting in the pantry or that smell from the rim of the toilet when you don't scrub it for two weeks.

And then there's Whitt, the new puppy, whose only desire in life is to sleep in my lap. He really doesn't care what time it is or how much there is to get done - he needs me to sit still so he can get some rest from his strenuous puppy life. And I do! Sometimes for an hour at a time.

He's a sweet black and brown excuse to check out of all the madness and I love him for it.

Folder Books

Our science class did a "folder book" while studying fish the last few weeks. I had never done one with the kids before - they looked really hard and I don't exactly excel in the craft department, but they were easy. While studying the subject, the kids cut out all kinds of cool little books and write the information they learned in them. There's so much cutting, folding and pasting that the note taking becomes fun and creative instead of a chore.

And yes, there is a wolf in the back of the class. We began a study of wolves this week and Tim came dressed for the occasion.

I love homeschool.

Fools in the Pool 08

We held our annual "Fools in the Pool Day" and had quite a few kids who fit the name.

James opens the pool every year the first weekend in April and swimming starts usually in May. Although it was mildly warm outside, the water was icy cold.

Every year one of the kids decides that they're not getting in this time - I take it as a sign of wising up and maturity...the other kids just think they're getting to be boring adults.

This years crew was particularly crazy with some of them getting in many times.

Summer's coming!! I'm ready!!! So ready!

10 inches of Hair

The other night at a viewing I got to see many friends that I hadn't seen in years. Lots of them (like me) had much shorter hair than last time I had seen them, which inevitably led to someone saying they had donated their hair to locks of love.
I've never really talked about this with anyone because it sounds so wrong, but I'm not sure I believe in "Locks of Love". Not that I believe it's wrong to give hair to someone going through cancer. When Grace went through two years of chemo, we bought hats of every type imaginable to cover her very cute but extremely bald head.

What I often have a hard time with is, that all this donated hair really goes somewhere. I can name quickly about 10 people who I know that have donated. I don't think I've ever- ever heard of someone receiving a wig from this hair (and we have spent a lot of time on the oncology ward.)

And how can they take that hair and make a wig? Do they put different people's donations together into one wig? Do they have people who sit and separate the hair and lay it straight and find matches and bundle it really carefully and put it in baggies? If all this is true, why haven't I seen this on "World's Dirtiest Jobs"?

What if "Locks of Love" is an urban legend and beauty shops all over the world are selling all this hair for.......... okay, what would you do with all this hair?

Maybe I'm wrong about all this. Let me know.

Good Thing I'm Cheap

I teach a science class every Monday to a big group of homeschoolers and have for 4 years. It's one of my favorite things about homeschooling. I've even been offered an opportunity to teach a summer science camp.

I caught this test on Gibson's Fun School blog and gave it a try.

So Mondays may be a little quieter a round here after this.

Hey You Dog There

There wasn't enough chaos in my life so we got a new puppy. He's a Min Pin, very cute and cuddly and he's had 3 names so far. He's either- Whitacre, Winnepeg or Vancover. He doesn't answer to any of them but he doesn't really need to as he's already in someones lap every minute.

He spent his first two nights here quietly in Kelly's bed but when he choose to play with her face in the middle of the night, she choose not to sleep with him ever again. The third night we crated him in the laundry room - which is located directly under my bedroom. I couldn't believe a tiny dog could cry so long and so loud. Banished again. Last night he slept in the basement bathroom in his crate. I have no idea if he slept or cried the whole night, but I slept wonderfully.

He's perfect and I love him.