Happenings

I haven’t been posting much this week. I was furiously reading “I, Claudius” for a book club Thursday. And I was working on getting my homeschooling area in order.

Here’s a quick summary of what we’ve been up to this week:

One girl really got into watching a deer in our backyard.

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One girl got into a big girl bed.

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One girl got into everything.

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We planted herbs with Daddy,

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had a successful trip to the library,

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and went to Open Gym.

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I made good progress on our homeschooling area (that brown shelf was $10 on Craigslist!).

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It’s not quite done, but getting there.

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And we have been having lots of fun doing school at home. So much fun in fact, that Miss has asked several times this week to do school or to continue doing school after I’ve told them we were done with our work and they could go play. I think that’s a good sign.

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Today we did our mini marshmallow “sculptures.”

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Now, I know it looks like they were diligently working on creating masterpieces, but the only “sculpture” we actually ended up with is the small one on the table by Miss below.

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Mostly they just ate the marshmallows. At least Lass did stick some of her marshmallows onto a toothpick before eating them.

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Oh well. It was fun anyway.

I have some cool blogging opportunities coming up, including a guest post on 2dayswoman I think next week, and one on Hip Homeschool Moms at the start of March.

“I, Claudius” is done. I’ll be back to posting here more regularly.

 

Philosophy of Life in a Can of Play Doh

I have never been a big fan of Play Doh. It’s just not my favorite thing.

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My girls, however, love it. Miss was asking to play with it first thing this morning.

So I got it out and searched deep within myself to find some Play Doh love.

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Much to my surprise, I did find some appreciation.

In fact, I decided that life is a lot like playing with Play Doh. Really.

Check this out:

1. Sometimes it’s messy. But you can’t get caught up in the messiness or you miss out on the fun. When it’s time to clean up, clean up. Until then, just enjoy the process.

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2. Sometimes things just get all mixed up and you can’t seem to separate them again. Roll with it. It’ll all work out.

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3. Sometimes people will smash your stuff. You might scream and/or cry for a bit. But then you pull it together and make something even better.

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4. And finally, when life hands you a blob of smelly crap, make it into a “delicious cake.”

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Voila.

Philosphy of life in a can of Play Doh.

 

 

 

Two Stories About Opossums.

I am a total city girl. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. You don’t get much more “city” than that.

In the early years of our relationship, my husband called me “City Mouse.” He, of course, was my “Country Mouse” counterpart, having grown up in a fairly rural town in Iowa.

I went camping frequently as a kid, learned to shoot a bow and a gun, and ate venison rather than beef through most of my childhood, so I have a tiny bit of “country” in me. But for the most part, I’m not terribly wise to the ways of the world as far as gardening, farming, and animal habits go.

When I first started going to the Farm with my husband, we’d go on “treasure hunts” with his niece and nephews, and I was often at least excited about the cool stuff we would find in the woods as the kids were. Okay, I still am, but now it’s mostly because I’m excited about my own kids seeing new things…

Anyway, all this about my lack of country sophistication is to lead up to a story about an opossum. As an aside, and to further illustrate my point, I have been calling these animals “possums” and initially started typing this post with that in the title, until I decided to double check my accuracy and learned that possums are a different species of marsupials from Australia. This is an opossum:

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Good to know. Back to my story.

Shortly before my husband and I got married, some thugs in our neighborhood shot at our house. This shooting occurred on a Tuesday, and I remember hearing the shots, but didn’t realize what it was. I surely didn’t realize that bullets had  been shot at my home.

The following weekend my hubby had to work out of town. While I was home alone, I decided to do some cleaning. As I was dusting my dining room, I happened to notice what looked like a small hole, high in the front wall of our house. The wheels started turning in my head, and I looked across to the opposite wall of the dining room. I saw a chip in the paint, where whatever had come through the front wall had continued with enough velocity to cross the room and chip the paint on the other wall. My city-girl brain started making connections and I dropped to the floor, where I quickly found a .22 slug. I then remembered seeing a puzzling hole in the door of the closet in our master bathroom a few days before. I raced up the stairs, pulled aside a small shelf holding towels, and saw another hole in the front wall of our master bathroom.

Two bullets had shot through the front of our house. Holy crap.

Needless to say, I kind of freaked out. I was extremely nervous about spending the rest of the weekend home alone. Though my rational brain realized that the shots had been fired several days before and nothing else had happened since, I was still on high alert. By the time it was dark outside, I had become pretty paranoid.

Then my dogs wanted to go outside. I let them out in the backyard, almost immediately calling them to come back in. I was so jittery I didn’t want them out of the house.

Then they started acting strange, like they had found something super awesome and were not planning to come back in the house any time soon. I thought it must be a dead animal of some sort, and I knew that if I didn’t go out and physically drag my dogs away from said animal carcass, they would never come back inside, and would (of course) end up being shot if I left them outside for one more minute.

So, though I was terrified of being shot myself, I marched outside with a garbage bag in hand to dispose of whatever animal parts I might find. To my dismay, I found an opossum who looked only mostly dead. I was horrified that my dog (who had never, ever come even close to catching and killing another animal, BTW) had attacked this thing and nearly killed it on the very day that I was afraid to be in my yard because I just knew someone was waiting to shoot at me again any minute.

In my near-panicked state, I decided that I must get rid of the opossum, who was surely in its death throes and wouldn’t make it much longer anyway after the deadly attack by my oh-so-wimpy dog. So I quickly pulled my dog off the suffering marsupial, scooped it up in the garbage bag, and proceeded to whack the bag onto the ground several times so that the dying animal would just go ahead and die and not suffer needlessly any longer.

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I then threw the bag into the garbage, hustled my dogs into our bullet-ridden house, and proceeded to call my Dad.

Me: “Dad! There was this possum, and Jonah attacked it, and it was almost dead, so I put it in a trash bag and whacked it on the ground a bunch of times. Do-you-think-it’s-dead-because-I-don’t-want-to-leave-it-to-suffocate-in-a-plastic-bag-if-it’s-not-dead??”

Dad: “Um, do you think maybe it was playing possum?”

Me: “Oh crap.”

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So I risked my life again to go back outside and dump over my trash bin (it was empty other than the bag with the living animal in it) so the opossum could get out. I probably should have pulled the bag out and untwisted it, but once I realized that I was probably dealing with a fully-alive-and-not-at-all-mostly-dead-opossum, I wasn’t going anywhere near that thing.

In the morning I peeked my head outside and saw that, in fact, the trash bag was empty and the opossum had run off, hopefully only slightly dazed from his nightmare experience with the crazy lady in the gun-shot house.

I haven’t had any experiences with opossums since that day, until yesterday.

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Yesterday, while reading a book with Miss, she looked up and saw an opossum through our window. He was right up on our deck eating some bread I had thrown outside hoping to lure some squirrels up on the deck so the girls could watch them.

An opossum was much more cool. AND, this wasn’t just any opossum. This was an opossum with just a stump for a tail and only three legs.

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When Miss asked me why he was missing one of his legs, my City Mouse-ness reared its head again and I said, “I’m not sure, maybe it got into a fight with another animal.” Later, my husband pointed out that it had probably been caught in a trap and chewed its own leg off. Right. Because we don’t really have any savage and enormous carnivores roaming our little neighborhood that would be capable of chomping off an opossum leg in one bite, while simultaneously leaving the rest of the little guy to wander around alive on his three remaining legs. Duh. And ew.

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Poor little thing was so hungry (and blind) that it came right up to our back door looking for more bread.

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Miss thought it was very cool, having never seen an opossum before. She wanted to open the door. I, however, wasn’t really up for another up close and personal opossum encounter. I might never be ready for that.

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Seeing this little guy naturally reminded me of my previous ignorance in dealing with that opossum almost five years ago. I got a good laugh out of remembering my opossum story.

Now Miss has an opossum story of her own. She watched him until he hobbled away and asked if we could put out more bread so he would come back. We did, and today she scared away a squirrel who was trying to eat it, “To save it for the opossum.”

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Last night I asked her, as I do every night, what her favorite part of the day was. She said, “Watching the opossum.”

 

 

Homeschool Art Show

Recently, I heard about an opportunity in our homeschooling group for the kids to have their artwork displayed at a local downtown store during our town’s Gallery Walk, which occurs the first Saturday of every month.

My girls love to paint, so I jumped at the chance for them to participate. I told the girls about it and bought them some special canvases on which to create their pieces. Neither of them really understood what the heck I was talking about when I said their art would be on display in a store downtown. They didn’t really care about anything other than having the chance to paint. And paint they did.

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They each did a painting for the Gallery Walk and then did several more.

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Miss did paintings of her sisters and then created this Self Portrait.

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I thought about taking Miss’s self portrait for the Gallery Walk, but she didn’t want me to take that or the painting she did of her sisters anywhere.

So we sent these:

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The one on the left is Lass’s, Miss’s on the right.

I didn’t ask either of them what they had painted or to give a name for their paintings. Both of them did so on their own though. In case you can’t see the cards on them, Lass’s is “Rapunzel’s Magical Hair” and Miss’s is “Picture of Wisconsin.”

Tonight was the Gallery Walk. I told the girls we were all going on a date to have dinner and ice cream and go see their paintings on display. I didn’t think they would really get the concept of having their artwork displayed for others to see unless we actually went and saw it and saw others seeing it. So we did.

We started out with dinner at a small cafe downtown.

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I realized recently that we don’t take the girls out for dinner enough (um, ever). When we visited my parents we took them out to a local buffet and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. Neither of them had done that before. When it occurred to me that they don’t ever get to do that, I decided to remedy the situation and begin taking them out to eat more often.

So tonight we had a girl’s night out “date night” (Daddy wasn’t home). They had mac and cheese for dinner and chocolate ice cream for dessert.

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After dinner we went over the the store where their art was displayed. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was really fun to see them see their art and accept compliments on it. There were several other homeschooling families there and they were very kind in their comments to my girls about their paintings.

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It was also a great experience for them to see the artwork done by the other kids in the group. There were really great pieces, including photography, fused glass, paintings, textural drawings, cut paper art, colored pencil drawings, and even a castle sculpture made from marshmallows and toothpicks. The girls really got into looking at the different types of art.

When I first signed them up to participate in this I wondered if I was being kind of dumb since they are so young. I thought maybe I would seem silly since they aren’t technically of “homeschooling age.” I thought they might not even understand the idea of being in an “art show.”

They probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t taken them to see it. And Lass probably still didn’t really quite get it.

But I don’t feel silly about having them participate in the experience anymore. They had fun. They got to paint, which they always love. They got to have a special night out with Mom. They got to see their artwork on display with other pieces by older kids. They got to explore and enjoy the other art and receive compliments on theirs. They thanked the mother who organized the show.

And now we have our next craft project already planned out. I happen to have mini marshmallows and toothpicks in my cupboards. Sculptural art lesson, here we come!

 

Gratitude

2012 was a great year. We have a lot to be thankful for from 2012.

2012 brought us this sweet girl.

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It brought us lots of traveling and treasured time with family. It brought us to the decision to homeschool our girls. It brought us health and friendship and two freezers full of self-processed, healthy meat.

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2012 also brought us sorrow. Big, heavy losses. The kind of losses that make you stop and think about your life. Take stock. Examine priorities. Realize all that you do have in the face of what you just lost.

Yes, these are the types of losses we have faced this year. Losses that have led us to some big discussions. Long talks about our Life and how we want to live fully and not take things for granted and simplify. Conversations about just how much we have to be grateful for and how we can make the most of our good fortune to give something back.

I think I’ve always been pretty good at recognizing my blessings and not taking things for granted. But this year I feel like my gratitude has really blossomed.

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In the new year, my goal is to truly embrace gratitude.

When I feel cranky or pissed of? Gratitude.

When I’m tired? Gratitude.

When I worry or fret about whether I’m getting this whole motherhood thing right? Gratitude for the chance to do my best at it.

This morning, I had a small chance to practice. I got up and fed Baby Sis. I changed her diaper. Then my husband offered to get up with her and Miss and let me go back to sleep.

I have to admit, I had been looking forward to the chance to sleep in a bit this morning for a week. I love to sleep, I just don’t like to go to bed early, which puts me at a disadvantage when I have children who, as children do, love to get up before the sun.

But I digress. I was given the chance to sleep in this morning… Unfortunately I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Just as I started to drift off into dreamland, who should come creeping into my room, climbing up my bed steps, whispering, “Mama?” This girl.

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Oh, I did start to feel frustrated. But how could I refuse when she climbs up in my bed and says, “I want to get in your bed and snuggle with you”?

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We snuggled a bit. Then she fidgeted and rolled around while I stayed very still and hoped and hoped that I might be able to fall back to sleep. Of course I couldn’t. After a few minutes she climbed down and went back downstairs to play.

I started to fume for a minute in my disappointment that my one morning to sleep in didn’t work out the way I wanted.

But then, as I was snuggled in my bed under my cozy covers at 7:45 am, not sleeping, I reminded myself that it was totally ridiculous to be mad or frustrated or otherwise annoyed about the situation.

I decided to stop thinking about how much I would have loved to sleep in and remind myself how thankful I am that I have a sweet girl who wanted to come in my bed and snuggle with me and a thoughtful husband who was willing to get up this morning and let me try to sleep more.

A much happier place from which to begin my day.

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One of my goals for this next year and beyond is to begin keeping a gratitude journal. Every night before bed, I will write down at least one thing from the day for which I am grateful. It won’t be hard, because there is so much.

Tonight my gratitude journal will read something like this:

“Today I’m grateful for a snuggly 3-year-old and a thoughtful husband. Oh yeah, and 45 minutes or so of peaceful rest in my oh-so-cozy bed.”

What are you grateful for?

 


Cheers!

Sparkling grape juice, party blowers, and a 15 second countdown before our “Celebration” made for some happy girls at bedtime tonight.

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Kisses at “midnight” and lots of “cheers-ing” with my girls.

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Party time.

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2012 was a great year.

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I’m happily looking forward to what 2013 has in store for us.

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Happy New Year.

 

 

 

Home

We’re home.

It is so good to be home after being away for two and a half of the past three weeks.

We had a lazy, yet somewhat productive at-home day yesterday.

My girls got busy playing. They played “book store.”

Need I say how much I love that they were having so much fun playing book store? That’s almost as good as playing “Library.”

It was the kind of day when lots of things just worked out nicely. The older girls played well together (all sorts of things besides book store). Their imaginations expanded as they became reacquainted with their own toys. My husband got lots of work done in the yard and in our garage. Sis sat on the floor and played with these scarves the whole time I cooked dinner.

Harmonious.

As you can see, the girls were excited to see their things again.

They did have a wonderful time at the Farm too. Imaginary play is at its best when my kids have lots of different, old, and totally unrelated toys to play with.

Different dress up clothes? No problem. Just make up some new characters. Lass became “Princess Petunia” and Miss invented a little boy named “Parch.”

Yes, Princess Petunia wears a red cowboy hat and a Santa apron.
She wanted me to put her hair up in this cap so she would be “disguised” as a boy.

They played with HeMan characters, an old Mr. T doll, two Fisher Price planes, an Etch-A-Sketch, and many more random toys that all came together beautifully in the richness of their play. Strawberry Shortcake was Sis’s fave.

They got some good crafting time in with their Baba too. Miss displayed her task-master side when directing my mother-in-law in the creation of some new dresses for two of my sister-in-law’s old baby dolls. One doll became Rapunzel, draped in purple tulle with golden ribbons extending from her hair, while another just got a “beautiful, colorful, princess dress” made from pink tulle and lots of ribbon tied just so. The girl definitely knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to say so.

My mother-in-law also had two of these Cinderella carriages made from dried gourds for the girls to paint.

It was serious work.

It really was a wonderful trip.

And it is so good to be home. As much as I love going to visit family, and I know we will always continue to do it because it is just important, my life is made so much easier when I can mother my girls in our own space. It’s amazing how much of my day flows more easily because of our routines and the way we have adapted our home to work for us.

But a little inconvenience is a small price to pay for family time. That’s what it’s all about of course. My children blossom amongst the sunshine of those who love them. The more the merrier.

We have some exciting things coming up.

We’re planning some renovations in our house (goodbye 1990s oak and brass, hello new range and pantry and kitchen floor and basement bathroom!).

We’re starting (slowly) our home preschool. This week is “T for Turkey” week. I ordered a laminating machine and some binders to start getting organized. By the way, what is with all the “Binder for Women” comments in the Amazon reviews of binders? I missed the joke, I guess, but I’ve seen links on FB and there are hundreds of these comments it seems. I don’t get it. … Anyway, I’ll let you know how our first week goes.

My hubby and I will be bringing back our “At-Home Chopped Challenge” (in which I randomly choose three ingredients from an Excel spreadsheet my husband has made up and use them to make dinner). If you want a little background, you can check out some of my previous successes (spaghetti squash, merguez sausage, and spinach or raisins and cherry tomatoes) and failures (tofu, plantains, and bacon bits or maybe sweet pickles, bran cereal, and pickled herring) in this endeavor. Even when the dishes have turned out horrendous (just look at some of those ingredients, for pete’s sake!), it has always been a fun cooking game for us, so I’m really looking forward to drawing my next three ingredients. Anyone want to suggest some fun ingredients for our spreadsheet?

 

 

Best Halloween Craft Project Ever

I am a huge fan of Pinterest. I pin stuff all the time. Tons of recipes and home decor ideas and great craft projects for my kids. I have a whole pin board of fun stuff to do with my girls.

I have never done any of it.

Until now.

Recently I made a vow to actually get into my “Kid Stuff” pin board and do some of the projects. The first one I picked was this Ghost Garland.

I used styrofoam balls from Hobby Lobby instead of paper, so I could put the ghosts outside. And I cut an old chenille bedspread to use as the ghost “sheets.” I gave each of the girls a sharpie to draw the ghosts faces.

I love how they turned out and the girls had a blast making them.

They named them and then played with them for quite a while before I put them up.

We gathered them up to make them into a garland.

That part didn’t work out so well. I couldn’t figure out how to do it without ending up with a hopelessly tangled mess of yarn.

So we hung them individually.

No glue. No paint. No glitter.

Easy. Cute. Love.