Maple Leaf Jig…?

No.

Well, sure.  Maybe.  Hold the jig for me, please.

Went to folkdance tonight with a gimp knee.  It’s baaaaaaa-aaaack!  The same achy feeling in my knee that had me hobbling around fair site last winter with a walking stick.  Only now it feels twice as bad.  And I can’t put any pressure on it either.  Aw, come ON!  I’m not old enough for this!!    So, since I can’t recall injuring it in any way, I’m assuming it’s the nastiness of arthritis rearing its ugly head with me.  How do I deal with this without aspirin?  Isn’t that the common pain reliever?  Only, I can’t take aspirin, so…..

Oh well… I’ll make due.

The fun stuff?  How about a song called “Go Down To The Devil and Shake Yourself”?  No kidding.  And it’s a heck of a lot of fun to dance hobble to.  Puts you in the mind of that song of the Charlie Daniels band… “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”.  The other fun thing?  My son actually had a good time playing guitar with the band.  After I basically forced him to do it.  He was really reluctant… not very confident at all.  He’s only been taking lessons for about a year now, and he’s never really played with a group.  So he needed that kind of experience.  And he needed it with a group of people who didn’t care if he missed notes or couldn’t keep up.  What did I get out of it?  The satisfaction of him coming to me at break and saying “OK, I admit it.  I do like it.”  and afterwards, “You know I’m going to have to go back, right?”

Gosh, if they’d only listen to me in the first place, we could skip all of the drama!

And just because I haven’t mentioned it yet… a sense of accomplishment for me this week… finally took caulk-gun and glazier points in hand and replaced the panes of glass in Moira’s bedroom window.  Two down, one to go!  I may just tackle finishing the plumbing in my upstairs bathroom before it’s all said and done!  And I still have lye soap and lotion bars to make this fall, too.  Ain’t no gimp knee gonna keep me down.

An Interesting day

That was what my Mom said on the second day of our visit to the Amish area in Ohio… an interesting day.   Though I think her comment had more to do with the comical banter between our driver (love you Dad), me trying to calm  him down a bit, and all of those other terrible drivers, it was an interesting and fun trip.  We had a really good time, despite the rain and road construction and because our driver was such a good sport.

One of the tenets of homeschooling that I’m trying to get back into a firm habit of this year is getting out and about to engage in our world… to learn things while we’re experiencing it.  To that end, P and I had planned to visit Lehman’s while there.  On the demonstration floor was a lady who introduced us to our newest hobby (like we need another one…): rug hooking.  First, let me just tell you that you will need an entire day to explore this store if you go.  It’s gigantic!  Even M said so.  Which really shouldn’t come as any great surprise since most everything larger than her bedroom is gigantic.  It just happens to be one of her interesting new adult words.

Anyway, this hooker extrordinaire’s name is Holly and she was gracious enough to spend about an hour sharing her craft with us.  Yes, we did laugh quite a bit over the “hooker” moniker (“P, it’s time for you to become a hooker!”); no, not everybody considers it a craft, but more of an art.  Holly’s not that type of rug hooker, though.   And, wouldn’t you know it… Holly is a homeschooling Mom!  Which just goes to show, homeschoolers are everywhere that interesting stuff is happening!   Holly let us sit down with her own supplies and try our hand at it and it’s SO easy!  What an interesting fabric art (that’s the artist coming out in me).  Do you have problems with attention span and can’t manage to count stitches or knit ones and pearl twos?  No counting involved in this.  Has your eyesight seen better days like mine?  YES, you TOO can hook!  And Holly was such a delight to talk with… sharing how she came to the hobby, what she’s done wrong, pieces she’s proud of and a sisterly relationship that has grown through the sharing of this hobby.

So, of course we’re HOOKED!    Came home and we now have in our possession a piece of burlap, a homemade hook, a hoop and a dream.  We finally found some designs we want to start with and are already set to make our first new hookers mistake: starting out with a piece that’s too large!  LOL  We found a pair of designs we’re content to start with – a stylized yellow toned sun on a blue background and it’s partner moon on another blue background.  And I already have a place to display them when they get finished in 2011 (see, I’m patient).  Now all we have to do is get some second hand wool coats or skirts or something at Goodwill (we’d take donations, too!) and cut them up into little 1/4 inch wide strips, dye them the appropriate colors and get to hookin’!  We can’t wait!

Thanks to Holly, one of “Two Sisters” who made our day, probably our decade at the rate we’ll go, and shared one of her loves with us.

Studying… for a Reason I’m not sure of

I have totally no idea… really more of a refresher course for me.  So, some things I want to remember, in no particular order, except when I come upon them:

* Beyond reason, but not contrary to it.

* ”Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt?  If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.”  Gotta love self will.  The ultimate parental worry…

* From the poet, Emily Dickenson… “We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.”

It’s interesting what happens when the rain comes along with a son’s worry on a Sunday morning.

Random Updates

Not much time… the girl tween tells me today is her morning on the computer… school work… *sigh*.  The thigns we have to do…

Updated my “what I’ve read” list on Library Thing.  You can find a link to that on my books are bliss page.  Cataracts make reading hard.  And I woke up this morning with a thorough crust of gunk caking my eyes shut… thank you allergies… don’t know if I’ll be able to read or write much of anything today or for the next couple of weeks.  Somehow, my typing has become dyslexic with the worsening eyesight.  Go figure.  Must enjoy other things… which leaves me with what I hear and what I feel…that’s ok.  This too shall pass.

The children have all gotten back into a school day routine.  M loves what she’s doing in her FIAR stuff… it’s still a lot of fun when they don’t know to relate learning something with imposed school work.  She harumphed a bit to me yesterday… said she didn’t know how to tie her shoes.  You’ve gotta laugh about that.  A 4 year old driven to learn how to tie her shoes.  I love it.  I nudged her with my shoulder this morning in bed (I think she made it into my room about 5-ish).  Kind of a “hey you” kind of thing.  She nudges me back with a little giggle and starts singing John Kanakanaka.  *sigh*  Yes, I know a lot of you are laughing.  Just wait until next season!  She’ll have you in stitches, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, P and I are watching some tv last night and she’s up doing something at the same time.  She hears a commercial for a golf scramble with tee time at (insert ungodly hour here).  She whips her head around… “They have tea?”  We laughed for a good five minutes about that one!  Only Sely’s daughter…

Writing Workshop at the library has been postponed until the spring semester… argh.  The other leader had to go back to work.  when they meet again, they’ll have a leader who teaches college classes here at Kentucky State.  How cool is that?  Which reminds me… I need to get over to their library and check on what kind of materials they are giving away.  Curriculum stuff that they are just going to throw away!  Can you believe it?

Another postponement… our Scotalnd culture lunch.  Half of our families were not going to be there… all came through in about an hour yesterday morning.  And if 1/2 of 5 or 6 families don’t come, then you try to reschedule!  Cause that’s just not a very auspicious start for a school year.  Next Friday!  Hopefully it will go well and we will have a few new families.  Several families asked if we were still going to be able to get the piper… your acclaim stretches far and wide Caro!  So, a little greedily, I’m hoping her music rehearsals don’t start until a later date.  But… oh well.  You do what you gotta do. 

And I gotta do some other things before lunch.  Have a great day all!

Planning

I don’t know if I like planning or not.  Often times I’m better at planning than I am the actual beginning of the project.  Sometimes it’s the finishing up of the project that only slowly materializes.  Planning though… mostly I get excited when I’m planning things, but sometimes it makes me anxious because I’m putting other things aside in order to do it effectively.

Like the school year stuff.  In all actuality, the school year kind of forms in my brain during the winter and spring of the previous school year.  We have traditionally accessed what we are doing midyear, make usually smaller adjustments to just keep us going for the spring semester, but are really looking ahead to how it’s going to pan out for the following school year.  Yeah, it’s a never-ending cycle.  Which is ok… I’ve almost gotten use to the party-line I’ve been talking for the past several years: : “learning is an ongoing process and to think of it in terms of grade levels, school semesters and when the next break will come is defeating”.  Doesn’t keep the “am I doing right by my children” thought at bay, but my mindset is actually starting to materialize and look like who we are.  Or rather, who we are is coming into line with what my goal has been since we started this whole thing.  And it only took me until their high school years to get us there.  WOW! 

So all 3 children will be with their Grandparents in a couple of weeks and I’ll have the focus time to actually pull out my brain-waves and put them down in an organized manner on homeschool tracker.  Yes, we used it a little more than half of last year and liked it.  Lessons learned:  note as much as possible in the notes sections, and download it onto a disk at least once every couple of weeks or so.  We got to February and were using the new computer for most everything and the laptop, which had all of the tracker forms and notes on it, was pretty much unusable.

So, on our plate for 2009-2010?  Mathematics online through ALEKS… and possibly Chemistry too, if we have it in the budget to do.  If no on the chemistry, kitchen science… for the tweens they’ll be able to dig deep into the nutritional and chemical (not to mention purely yummy) stuff of science (we call that real-life applications) and the preschooler gets to help measure and mix and learn that pizza, or a form of it, was actually around BC and hopefully that we have to exercise to balance all of this stuff out.

Poetry from Prodigy Press.  We like their lit reviews… they’re pretty in-depth and give us some basic stuff from scripture to chew on too.   Unlike in science, I appreciate scripture references in our literature reviews – that’s where the ideas that we translate into everything we do get formed.  Science… well, duh!  For us, everything in creation speaks of His handywork.  We don’t see any problems between the majority of scientific theories and our faith.  We are quite comfortable in the idea that science can and will be used to explain what we see, what we think we see, and what we can only guess at.  But God is not explainable.  So we don’t try to force either into the other’s box.  We think outside of the box.  At least, I hope that’s what all of our reading is encouraging us to do.  But I do take heart that what we read, we can cross reference to scripture.  So, Prodigy Press lit reviews… no Apologia Science.

The tweens will also be participating in a writing group for teens at the public library.  Yee-haw!  So, while they are there, Moira and I get time to do something else.  Who knows… maybe we’ll walk around the block a few times… maybe we’ll take a study room and practice drawing letters… maybe we’ll curl up in a library chair and read a few dozen books… maybe we’ll walk down the street to Liberty Hall and talk about the gardens or the river.  I really do love preschool years!

History in Art for all of us… The National Endowment for the Humanities gave away sets of historical reproductions for cross curricular study in school groups.  I applied for a set for MIND and we got it.  So each parent that wants to participate has taken a print to teach (a lot of compare/contrast kind of stuff and what was the artist trying to tell us about this period in time) and will then get to keep that print to display in their homes.  The prints we have left over will be donated to a library or my church’s art gallery for everybody to enjoy.  The group consists of about 7 families teaching and maybe a few more coming to the classes, but not taking a print.  That’s a group of about 25-30 children covering the whole age-range exploring art in history.  Cool!

All of the children will be Junior Historical Society members as well, so we look forward to taking some historical fieldtrips in Kentucky.  And of course, letterboxing for us tends to be mini-history lessons too.  I have an American History curriculum that I got online and a curriculum that uses debate and logical thinking practices with first person accounts to look at American History for the tweens as well.  We also do a culture lunch once a month with our MIND group, focusing on a country a month.  First one is Scotland at the end of August!!! :O)

M will do Five In A Row stuff to match up with the Art In History and Culture Lunch groups… so, “Wee Gillis” is her book for Scotland and I’ll have to poke through the curriculum info for “Paul Revere’s Ride” to match something up with that.  She will also be doing Daisy Girl Scout stuff… so we’ll have lots of fun stuff to start exploring.

Let’s see… what haven’t I hit?  YMCA once a week with their homeschooler’s program, HYPE.  Piano for P and hopefully guitar again for S (I have to find a teacher for him… AGAIN!).  Sword dancing for P and me (I’m going to start learning one of the Morris hanky dances) and folkdnace on Friday nights for all of us.  P will start an online Spanish class “Coffeebreak Spanish” and S will be starting Latin online. 

Whew!  Now to break all of that down even further into the Tracker.  In two weeks…

Do I Have To Have A Title?

I have thunder outside.  No rain yet, so I hesitate to call it a storm.  Just a lot of hot air.

I have a 4 year old in my ear constantly informing me that she wants to play Polly Pockets.

I have fans buzzing all around me (no air conditioning, remember?).  So lots of white noise and a breeze.

I have a house begging to be cleaned.  A yard that needs more work on it (tomorrow… thank God for bad weather).  A school year that needs to come out of my brain and be put down on official looking paper.  A stack of books to be read ( glad I squoze that library trip into the 15 minutes before P’s sword dance practice yesterday evening.  Squoze… hehehe – that’s a new word for me… I saw it twice the other day.  If it was in print, it must be right… right?  At any rate, it makes me smile.  Shouldn’t the language you use make you smile? )

I have all of these things + the zillions of little bits and pieces that fly into my head and make me think “gee, I should blog”.  So here I am.  But do I really need to have a title?  Seems like a little extra work that’s not really necessary.  I mean, a title informs the reader what they are going to read and gives them the option to choose not to, before spending 10 minutes that they’ll never get back.  And most anybody who is going to read my blog (hi Mom!) doesn’t really care what I write… just so long as they can share something of me for a few minutes today because they most likely won’t see me.  You know… they won’t get to enjoy this excitement that is me and my life in person- live and in technicolor.  So they read whatever I write, nod their head, smile, scratch their head or pull out their hair and think to themselves “I can hear her now”.

So it’s really just a big, written hug.  Whether you want it or not in the end.  And does a hug really need to be announced?

That’s all for the Tammy show today.  Tune in tomorrow when we’ll discuss how much of my housework I still have not accomplished because I’m too busy sending hearts to friends on facebook and playing Polly Pockets with the 4 year old.  Bright side?  The weather should be relatively good tomorrow so that I can not do all of that yard work that’s calling to me.

The Long Or the Short Of It

So, to me, the whole Facebook thing seems to be about getting as many applications in one thing as possible while practically pulling off the whole Instant Messaging thing (if everyone in the conversation is doing the same). Which is great… I’ll probably end up doing it more than I want. After all, it’s one more way to stay in touch.
But it makes me realize that I really do miss posting as much here as I was once upon a time. Not that I have any more computers to handle the load of the “I need on the computer” s around here. Or any more time to write longer posts. Or any more funny, thoughtful or ventful material for that matter. But I’m not really very good at the whole pleasant conversation/chatter stuff. I’m usually either quiet (yes! I CAN be quiet) and listening or I have more to say than can be comfortably put in a one liner.
And I still don’t know if the WordPress/Facebook application is working correctly. You’re supposed to see a brief snippet of my WP posts in FB… somewhere.  But I’m not sure I’ve pushed all of the correct buttons for that.  *shrug*  Oh well.  Look for me on both, I guess.  Try http://www.facebook.com/snpnmnmi

Too Much?

I don’t know… we’ll see. Right now I’m just futzin’ around with the Facebook site to see if I like it. But maybe it’s a bit more than I should be allowed to have. I am easily addicted to communicating with people online… as if I don’t already have enough to keep me busy.

Three More Weekends…

… and I’m already sad!    While a couple of days have been rather hot and humid  sticky and miserable, the majority of the days at the Kentucky Highlands Renaissance festival have been nice enough.  The one Sunday with the storm was very refreshing and at just the right time.  Weather in Central Kentucky is absolutely fantastic right now and looks to be almost as good for the weekend coming up.  If you’re close by, do come!

To my utter shame and horror I was put in the stocks last Sunday.  I know what you’re thinking… “not Goodwife Sely!*  shock gasp  It’s true.  A young upstart was the instigator of this horrible crime against nature itself… so I just want you, all of my true and honest friends, to know that I was set up.  Well, yes *nodding head*.   Set up. 

THIS is my story.   When the front gate opens, Sely walks in, minding my own business.  Not bothering anyone in the world… being my unobtrusive and sunshiny self.  I will admit, I did have to push by Lady Sersha on my way in… but only because my wee one was running to pester one of the vendors.  I truly only meant to help!  REALLY!  And that wonderful man picks up my wee one with all of the tenderness and affection of a teddy bear.  But upon seeing me, he puts her down and (he does respect me so… I am the village Governess, after all) plays me a song.  My own song.  He does not play it for anyone else.  What am I, a poor peasant who gets barely any recognition for all that she does for the noble children of the village, I say… what am I supposed to do?  Shun his generosity to me and instead direct my poor, pitiful, under appreciated attentions to the Lady Sersha and kneel?  Have I mentioned that the *ahem* Lady Sersha goes through husbands like water?  That, somehow all of her poor, landed husbands end up dead after only a few days of wedded bliss life?  And she took offense.

And later, she took advantage of the miscreant upstart blacksmith apprentice’s rude and wholey traitorous act of sitting on THE royal throne to decree that I should be sent to the stocks!  *sharp intake of breath*  I know!  I couldn’t believe it either!  That the nobility would condone and even further such a traitorous act.  And she required some of my friends in the village, more that love, respect and wholly adore me… she forced them to follow through with this scandalous attack on me.  They did not want to, I know!

But there is more shame and humiliation that Captain Amos (!$X@!!) would have heaped onto my poor, miserable peasant head.  I can almost not bear to tell it… *sniff… choke*  He stood behind me, just as brazen as you will, and feigned to whip me… cracking that pitiful excuse for a whip… thinking he would strike fear into poor Sely’s heart.  ME!  But he did NOT!  And when I refused to quake in my poor, pitiful, soleless shoes, he truly DID whip me!  I know!  You are aghast at this terrible treatment of me!

But fear not, my wonderful and true friends.  For the Good Piper Caro had a say in the retribution.  It seems that she somehow came across a certain pair of handcuffs.  And with this pair of handcuffs, the rogue pirate met his punishment!  After suffering her own humiliation at his hands during feast ( calling her insane… crazy… and implying that she was somehow less than intelligent), she did pin him to one side of the feast table with a rolled up rug whilst I was able to secure help in securing his hand in a very secure leather handcuff.  That handcuff just happened to be attached to a similar, but in no way punishing, cuff on my own wrist.

You see, for some reason fair beyond my imagination, the Captain covers his ears and walks  runs the opposite way when he hears my beautiful voice.  *shakes head vigorously*  No, I do not know why exactly he would do that.  Except, perhaps, that he knows the very words I utter are true and honest and strike fear and pain in his miscreant pirate ears.   He has, after all, likened my voice to an angelic choir.

So, the vile pirate had to spend 3, count them, THREE hours chained to me… his greatest fear.  He did not get to lead his precious human chess match.  He was forced to sing his scandalous filth under my stern eyes.  He begged to be let go in order to play a game of rat pucking (which he tied for the win ONLY because I served as a good luck charm, I am sure). 

Oh, do not pity him!  Upon somehow convincing the good Sir Alexander the Bruce to appeal to the traveling masses, who did then beg leniency for the man, he was let go.  And he RAN!  In shame, I am convinced, for his wayward life.

May God have mercy upon his soul.

Tact

Warning:  The following is a “blathering on” and “where is she going with this?” kind of post.

At fair the dear Morrigan and I have this little thing that rears it’s head every little once in a while where she is making royal proclamations and the like… not proper for anybody but a Bruce to do, but then, it is Morrigan, the inept spy.  She’s now been in the stockades for this… but that’s another story.

Her procamations include no taxes.  Otherwise said as tax-less.  I, being the loyal *ahem*peasant in the village, never in my wildest dreams saying even one small word against the nobility *ahem* , make the point to her that we are pretty much already a tactless village.  It’s really a lot of fun, but you may have to be there to really appreciate it.

All of this to say that tact is a very necessary skill that lots of folks just never learn.   Or get lax about (myself included) and let “telling the truth” mask our tactlessness.  And it can be very hurtful to those receiving our truths.

BUT, I am also a strong believer that we are very much in control of our responses to those around us.  Something else that is a learned skill.  You have to be able to hear comments with a large amount of salt and move on.  Maybe there are appropriate steps for you to take, maybe there’s nothing to be done.  But for heavens sake… don’t let it stop you!

In the end, as my Dear Heart says, “What are they going to do?  Take away your birthday?”  You have God and yourself to answer to.  Everyone else is extra.  We care for those around us, we consider their feelings.  Be loving, be kind… but take care of yourself and be repsonsible for yourself.  That includes your feelings.  God loves you regardless.

Barely Controlled Insanity!

Yeah… yeah… I know!  I haven’t been around in a while!  I’ve let myself be slightly consumed with renaissance fair stuff / keeping the home/hearth barely running since mid- March.  Oh, but it has been so much fun!  Week 3 is now lots of fun memories and only 5 more weekends left.

S has FINALLY found some guys that enjoy chatting with him and letting him tag along, so that’s a REAL blessing.  He hasn’t been too hip on the whole thing, since it takes a large chunk of weekend “free time” away (translation- time with a video game controller in hand).  But now he’s seeing that just because he has a place that he is required to be at it doesn’t equal chokehold on his fun.  He can have fun in places totally new to him.  And he’s starting to ease up a bit when talking with the cast… almost as if he’s a part OF the cast.  He’s not one for talking in front of people or being on stage, so this is a real leap for him.

P is a real blessing to me, helping to run down M when cast obligations have me tied up (though S shares the responsibilty) and just being some really nice company.  Her sword dance troupe has performed one weekend and has 3 more Saturdays to go.  We sat in on our own private drop-spindle lesson this past Saturday and she’s getting really good at it (much better than me… shhhh).  I think I’ll have to stick to carding the wool.   

M is the center of her own stage!  She makes friends wherever she goes at fair and is just having a ball being 4 at a renaissance faire!  I’m so happy that the site is enclosed on all sides (so she can’t really get out of bounds without somebody seeing), she has friends her own age to play with and there are about 20 adults and teenagers on cast “happily willing and even head over heels happy to have her as their shadow”.  Everybody loves her (which makes Mom relieved).  Her choice of cast personalities to cling to would make a mom flinch – the village drunk, the sneaky (and inept) spy and our own anachronisitc pirate – if they weren’t wonderful people in their own right.

As for me, lots of chiding the children that walk through our gates… asking them if they are one of mine, posing riddles for them to answer and playing string games with them.  Screeching at the top of my lungs to all of the young people of the village who don’t pay attention to me, walking away while muttering anything and everything under the sun, complimenting the local nobility ad naseum (you are the sun rising, the sun setting… the wind as it blows through my hair, the cool water as it flows over my toes… on and on and on) and usually winning a fiercest battle cry competition in human chess (it seems many people have not so fond memories of their own mothers screeching through their childhood neighborhoods after their not so innocent children).  We even got to play a game of red rover out in the rain yesterday evening!

Loads of fun!  Our Captain Amos calls it barely controlled insanity.  I would have to agree.  Come join us if you can!  Fair runs through July 19th.

http://www.kyrenfaire.com/

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=1&aid=2168801&l=30d04396e0&id=38316614

http://videos.sturmphoto.com/

http://www.albannachmusic.com/

http://www.davidrross.org/

Good Day and Well Met!

I’m fairly excited!  You’ve seen me mention the renaissance faire, so now I’ll tell you a bit more.  Rehearsals for cast got started a couple of weekends ago.  Interesting to go from only knowing someone through what they post on a message board to meeting them, singing and joking with them and trying to come up with scenes to act between our characters.  See, this isn’t one of those things where you get handed a script and you memorize lines.  Oh nooooo!  That would be too easy!  But it has been a fun challenge for me.

I knew going into it that I was doing it to give my chidlren another example… you CAN try something new and act like a fool and enjoy it.  I hope they realize it is not something that comes easily to me.  But of course, if I’m doing it well, maybe they don’t know!  And hopefully they will learn a bit more about soemthing historical.  A lot of license is taken with the subject matter, but still.  How could you fail to pick something up if you are immersed in it for several months?

So we go about 45 minutes away for practice on the weekends, the whole brood.  The tweens are tasked with keeping M within sight and fairly happy with snacks and playing with frisbee and ball and just roaming around the site… but M hangs out with me and the cast quite a bit too.  Thankfully, the cast fairly loves her!  The first day we were there, she lays down on the gravel and starts making a dirt angel!  So, one of the characters, the “town drunk” comes up, plops down on the gorund and starts making them as well.  I warned him!  You better watch or she’ll be your best friend for life!  And she was, for the rest of the day!  One of the acting activities had us acting like animals.  He was a sloth (fitting for a town drunkard, don’t you think?) and she decided she was a cat… or a dog… it changed quite a bit.  But whatever she was, it was an animal that was always hissing and barking at him!  Good practice for the patron corwds, I guess!  A week or two later I hear from someone else that he has remarked how cute M is.  yeah!  Wait til you get to know her!  LOL  no, she is a cutie, and she does add an extra little element to the fun, so all’s well!

One of the things I was most concerned about was getting that Scottish accent down.  But it has been surprisingly easy!  The director had us hold jellybeans under our tongues the first day and that basically did it!  Besides the rolling r’s, everything else is just a matter of getting your mouth to move down instead of opening wide and to the side.  We have been cuationed… there are to be no hillbilly Scots in this village!

I’ll share more later… the kiddoes need the computer and M wants to play a game.  have a great day!

Camping Again

Whew!  I’ve had things that kept me hands and me mind occupied for the past little bit… so I’ve not been here.  ARGH.  I will think, “you should write that down”… and then I don’t get a chance until I have forgotten more than I put on the list!  So here I am, and here I’ll be for the next few minutes… until a child “needs” the computer.

Speaking of… I was hoping after getting this wonderful new tippity tappity under my fingers and the accompanying machine that makes it run, that things would run a litle smoother with 3 people needing to use the computer and there now, technically, being two in the house.  It hasn’t happened that way.  *rolling my eyes*  Everybody wants to use the new computer!  And then, once we got past the “but I hate using the old one… it hangs up… blah,blah,blah… well, then it became something about everything they do has to be done with speed.  It’s a good thing they didn’t have to use a computer when they were dial-up.  So even thpough we have two, it’s as if we are working with only one well-loved friend… the other is too loud, too slow, too… whatever.  In fact, I don’t know how I’ve managed to have the computer for these few minutes this morning without hearing “when you gonna be off, Mom?”

So, what can I choose to catch you up on?  First, the weather looks like it’s bouncing back to a spring-like state today… mid 50’s by noon.  Which is good, because I have a tent that has been standing out in our backyard since Sunday, ostensibly to “dry” from the rain we got when we went camping last week.  See, the thing is, it needs to be dry to keep it from mildewing in the bag while stored and unfortunately, it has rained and flurried every day since we put it up.  So today looks like the day we’ll get to fold that behemoth back up and see if it’ll fit back into its original bag.  Sort of like those maps you hate trying to re-fold.  We’ll see what happens.

Ah, the camping trip.  Since we had our new behemoth tent (3 rooms this thing has… fairly decent for a family of 5), I told the children we would get in at least one camping trip in the spring, before the renaissance faire gets started in May.  And that trip happened to come about last week, during the local spring break week.  Yes, we homeschool, but several things we do are scheduled to do function within that calendar, so it was still the right week to try to make something work.  We did miss my Dear Heart, who couldn’t get away from work and other responsibilities… but it was a good chance for some “us time” without the book work forcing us into the standard teacher/student roles.  We went to one of my favorite places in the world, Cave Run Lake. 

And there was only one thing that I really wanted to do while there.  Besides enjoying the time with the children… walk up that mountain trail!  I haven’t been up that trail since I was probably around 13 myself.  Oddly, it has gotten both smaller and steeper at the same time.  How did THAT happen?  P and I even created a series of 3 letterboxes to plant along the way… we’ll see if they are ever looked for.   But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wednesday was a beautiful day!  Nice weather to set a tent up in.  Which is really a good thing, cause it took about 3 or 4 hours to get it up.  Now, stop that laughing!  We had never put this tent up before and like I said… it was large!  But we did finally get it up, after a little arguing and a lot of the standard speech… Come on guys!  It won’t do any good to argue that you’re doing it right and the other doesn’t know what they’re talking about!  Let’s just try stuff and we’ll get it up eventually!  Let’s work together!”  We also found out that the bathouse we thought would be open and therefore we chose our site based on, was not open… and we would have to walk through all kinds of brambles to get to the one that was.  Oh well.  And surprisingly, there were quite a few folks camping!  I think I counted 6 other sites occupied in our loop alone.  Of course, that’s nothing like the peak season when every site is taken… but still a lot for a week or two into the beginning of the camping season!  Mostly families… but one group of what looked like college students.  After pitching the tent and gathering some firewood  (“I think that’s enough, Mom… No son, it’s not!  It will burn up in 5 or 10 minutes!”), M wanted to go walk to the “pond”… yeah, in actuality it’s  a lake, but really… a body of water is a body of water.  So we walked down to the lakeside and walked for about 1/2 an hour before heading back.  Got a nice toasty fire going, enjoyed an early bedtime for M (I guess we wore her out) and the twins and I sat up basking in the firelight and the standard stories form my childhood.  Sleeping that night got a little nippy, but we survived without any dew collecting on our sleeping bags… that was not an incident we wanted to see repeated from October.  But we didn’t have to sleep anywhere near the sides of big Bertha, so we all stayed dry.  THAT night.

The next night, and our last, was a different story.  But again… getting ahead of myself.  We woke up and got moving somewhere around 7… so we had about 3 hours to wait for my Mom and sister (with the baby) to come join us.  We piddled around with the fire… ate girl scout cookies, apples and dry cereal for breakfast (because I forgot the milk…) and got water on for coffee and hot chocolate.  I think I might feel fairly confident about my camp stove abilities if I get one more shot to work with it.  LOL

When the others arrived we sat my mom, who was not going to be able to walk up the hill, down by the fire with a book, piddled around for a little while more while we exchanged traffic stories and other camp set-up tales.  Then we started on our hike.

Needless to say, M was not too happy about having to walk a bit more than usual.  I broke down and told her that if she couldn’t behave I would take her back to Mamaw and she wouldn’t be able to see the pond from the top.  That worked for a little while.  At about the half way point she says “momma, I don’t want to behave… I want to go stay with Mamaw”.  Uhm… yeah… too late for that!  I ended up carrying her on my shoulders for about 3/4 of the 4 mile hike.  Still, not too bad, I don’t think.  Once to the top we stripped off shoes and socks, ate some apples and enjoyed the view for about 1/2 an hour while the baby ate.  It was s great walk… a little taxing at times for this one who is out of shape… but worth it!

The letterbox series, if you’re interested!

Mamaw slept in the truck that night and the rest of us piled into the tent after the wind and the storm that had threatened all evening got going, around 10:30 or so.  And, surprisingly we slept good!  The rain came down but we stayed dry!  Mostly.  There were a couple of puddles that we never quite figured out how they formed…. but we mostly stayed dry.  Woke up abruptly when the storm picked up.  My P wakes up, looks at her watch and proclaiims that it’s 7:30.  WOW!  I must have slept good!  Turns out it was only 4 something… she calims she was tired and read her watch wrong… uhuh… oh well… back to sleep for a few more hours, praing that the rain would let up enough to let us strike camp.

Which it did.  Headed into Morehead for some breakfast (because, who wants to eat in that kind of weather) and some hot coffee and made it back home by 2:30.  We had a really good time, again!  Maybe we can sneal one more in with Daddy before the end of May and faire season starts.

Don’t Drink The Teabag

Yes, I’m up and at’em this morning.  Trying to get caught up still yet from my January sickness.  And I’m just now feeling as if my brain is coming out of the fog.  Does it seem to take forever for you to get back on track?  I guess I have a little red roadster mentality inside me somewhere.

Trying to get through some stuff, sipping my Early Grey and I just about chomped down on the tea bag.  That is how “with it” I am this morning.  Of course, I’m trying to be with it with other things, so perhaps my brain is just not up to muti-tasking just yet.  It shouldn’t be that hard, though… type… sip tea… breath… do not ingest tea bag.  Shaking head.

The three year old is doing her funny 3 year old stuff again.  The other day she’s sitting on the table watching her “bubby” (how I loathe that nickname) watch a “crazy frog” video on youtube.  Go google it… I’ll wait….

The videos are funny in a mindless entertainment sort of way.  But the 3 year old is sitting on the table, just bopping along with the music and all of a sudden shouts out “that guy rocks!”.  She says that kind of stuff all of the time.

Just a little while ago she found some little safety mirrors.  She is in the doorway between the office and the living room and just groaning and growling…. “OW!”…”Auuuuugh”… and the like.  When we look at her, she’s holding one of the mirrors up to her face and looking at her small little scratch by her mouth, moaning like she’s going to die.  Had she not had the mirror, I’m confident she would not have remembered the scratch was even there.  But she’s glaring into that mirror like the person in it did this to her and boy is she going to pay!

Well, I’ve got to go get some more catching up done.  Hope you feel better soon Took!

By the Way…

I’m going to take the banner off of my side bar, because I have finally rented and seen “Expelled- No Intelligence Allowed”.  Most excellent movie!  Besides supporting the claim that Intelligent Design was and is at work in the world, that there should be no problem with intelligent people pointing to our Creator in this amazing world of ours… Stein also asks the question “just where would we be if we do NOT allow for the possibility?”  Free will and basic kindness to each other can easily be shuffled out the door if the universe will do what it will and only the strong are meant to survive.  Of course, he makes the point much better than I do.  Watch it with your teenagers, if you can.