Like my Pixie?

So what do you all think about my Weather Pixie? She is on the sidebar. She will tell you all what kind of weather I am having currently. She stays current and updates her outfit according to the weather.

Like her? Want one? Just click on her and she will take you to the site were you can personalize your own Pixie!!

Progress

Today we set out to try to accomplish some cleaning today. So we started with the living room. Now we don't use this room except for holidays and birthdays. It usually ends up a catch all room from time to time and we have to clean it out when we want to use it. It is supposed to be our "formal" room. We have a white couch in there along with white patterned wing chairs and our piano. Today it was easy to clean as there wasn't much in there that wasn't supposed to be there. I began with a quick removal of all things not belonging in the room and then began vacuuming. I then decided that we needed to rearrange the furniture. It took three trys to get it right and I am pleased with the results. I will have to post a picture for you all to see.

We moved the couch from one side to the other and put the wing chairs opposite the couch. The piano is still at the far wall. Now, we only took out one piece of furniture which was a sofa table but the result was a much larger looking room. I think it was from the rearranging not the removal of the table.

I am so pleased with our results I think I will just live in that room only and not bother with the rest of the house. Unfortunately, the computer resides in a messy room. Tomorrow I really hope to tackle another room.

Fall Schedules

This year we signed the kids up for fall soccer. Last year we didn't and had intended to use the free weekends to go camping but we never did that so this year we went ahead and signed them up. All three a playing and that means two nights a week we have soccer practice and then most of the day on Saturday we have the games. It is good that the games are all at the same location so we literally pick up our chairs and move them from field to field on Saturdays.

We also have started back to church from our hyatus. Sunday school has started and the kids really enjoy that. It was good to be back last Sunday. While we were there we also signed up for their "Logos" program for Allie, which is an afterschool program from 4:30-7pm on Wednesdays where they do arts and crafts, activities, lessons, children's choir, and have dinner. It will be nice because the others have soccer that day and Allie gets bored hanging out on the sidelines just waiting around.

At church we also signed up for Kenneth and I to participate in their "supper club" which meets once a month with 3 other couples and we have dinner together centered on a theme. I figured that it was time to meet more people and this was a great way to do it.

Moving on, Monday, Nicholas had cub scouts and they had signups for a camping trip and we got our schedule of cub scout events for the year. Man is our calendar filling up.

Caroline announced that she wants to do Girl Scouts this year and she will be a Daisy. Yeah, we will squeeze it into the schedule...somewhere.

So, I have now done exactly what I didn't want to do and that is fill our week with activities all the time. It really just seems like that and isn't really that. With three kids they each have two things that they do each week. But when it is all together, Kenneth and I are running raged just trying to keep up.

Okay, before you all tell me "just wait until they are teenagers", I know!! I am waiting but hopefully I will be a bit more organized....not.

Lessons Learned

My grandfather passed away last week at the age of 90. There were a few lessons that I have learned from him that I thought I would share.
1. It is better to listen well then to speak well. My Pop-pop always listened to us. He usually didn't give his advice right away but he let us work through situations and learn from our mistakes and our accomplishments. Then he would tell us what he really thought.
2. Always stay active. Up to his death he was an active man. Slower in pace as the years piled on but active still. He played golf through his eighties and even got a hole in one and he played bocce ball and traveled.
3. Set your goals and make them happen. In the 1990's he got cancer and fought through it with surgeries and treatment. He set a goal that he would live to see the year 2000, and became healthy again and accomplished it. Then after my grandmother died in 2004 he set another goal to travel to the Panama Canal. This past March he took a cruise through the canal and loved it.
4. Take time to watch the sunsets. You see them a zillion times but they are beautiful each time and oh so different. His house on the river has a porch where he would sit and watch the sunset each evening. They mark a beautiful life.
5. Err on the side of patience. The good things in life will come if only you are patient.
He was the most patient, kind and considerate man I have ever known. He will be missed greatly in this world.

New Blog to Check Out!

I found this new blog and I think it is great. This guy, Jimbo, hand carves crochet hooks. I love to crochet and I am DEFINITELY going to bid on one!!

He has declared September 12th "International Crochet Day" and I think it is a great idea. Much of our historic handcrafts are falling to the wayside. It is so much easier to go to the store and buy a $5 pair of mittens but it is so much nicer to receive a pair of handmade mittens. We in our fast society are rushing out to the store and just buying what we need and not taking the care, love and time into making exactly what we want! I will always support handcrafts and will always practice them in my home.

So head on over to:http://jimbosfrontporch.blogspot.com/ and check him out. By the way, he is "raffling" off a crochet hook. Scan down to August's blogs and find his entry for the contest. You will see that I entered!!

Back to School

When I was a kid I remember the weeks prior to returning to school. Now, of course we were at the beach for most of the month of August and we would return the Sunday a week before school began. Mom would return to work the very next Monday, as she was a teacher so she started the week before school began. We would spend much of that week out shopping and getting our school supplies and a new outfit or new shoes for school to start. In the weeks prior to this week while we were at the beach I would scour the fashion magazines, teen magazines, and newspapers to figure out what I wanted. I loved new school supplies, the new notebooks, pencils, and markers. We didn't use a book bag or back pack back then but I remember as a kid thinking about what lunch box I wanted. I had a Holly Hobbie lunch box and a Peanuts one. It was such an exciting week.

Nowadays, that week has turned into a month long series of sales. I have been collecting school supplies for my kids for the past several weeks. Nothing goes on sale at the same time and they never are at the same store. Walmart will have crayons on sale, Office Depot will have glue, Staples will have pencils. My kids are barely involved in the process anymore.

While I don't mind having the super sales and getting packs of pencils for a penny, I do miss the excitement that no longer exists. The biggest excitement we have had was back to school day (or really half hour) where the kids get to take their supplies to school and meet their teacher. It is a madhouse at the school for a half hour but the kids really enjoy it.

Does anyone have anything that they do to help get that sense of excitement back like we had?

Alexandra Quits School After 1st Grade

Last night Alexandra announced at dinner, "Mom, I've been thinking and I don't think I am going to go to school this year."

Kenneth looks at me with a look like, "so, what are you going to do with this one honey?"

Nicholas stops eating in mid bite and looks with wide eyes as if to say, "oh no Allie you have done it this time."

Without missing a beat (and you all would be so proud of me), I say, "okay, if you have really been thinking hard about this and you are serious about not going to school this year, then you don't have to go."

"Really? I can stay home?", she asks.

"No you can't stay home because you aren't allowed to stay by yourself yet, and since Daddy and I have to work you can go with Daddy to work everyday." Kenneth still keeps silent.

"Now of course, since you aren't going to be in school anymore then you will have to start paying rent here and helping out with the bills, so it will be important for you to work hard so you can earn enough money to help us out."

"Okay," she says, "I can work with Daddy."

Kenneth then says, "We will drop off Nicholas and Caroline at the bus stop in the mornings and the you and I can go right to work." (for those of you who don't know, Kenneth does lawn care and maintenance, so this isn't a desk job but manual labor mostly.)

And I add, "You don't have to wait for school to start to start working for Daddy. He has a job tomorrow and you can start then." She smiles and agrees.

This morning at the breakfast table, Kenneth reminds her that she is working with him today and she said she remembered. They, then worked out a fair payment schedule and an hourly rate.

Two hours after they left to trim some bushes at a customer's house they return. Allie walks in and gives me a big hug and says I am going back to school now. Nothing else was said.

We were willing to play this out, even though it didn't take us long to convince her that school was the best choice. We were even willing to go as far as not sending her to school on the first day of school and having her work with Kenneth, but luckily she saw the light early.

Baby Seals

I asked my sister to help me today to come up with a topic for a blog entry. I said anything and she gave me "baby seals". I said, "okay, baby seals it is."

This subject, I thought would be difficult for me as I don't live near a place where seals inhabit. I did go to San Francisco several years back and went shopping on a dock overlooking the harbor. It was a beautiful, yet windy day. We wore sweaters and were still a bit chilly but I didn't want to wear a jacket for fear of having to carry it around. The shops were nice but I don't remember anything special there, and I didn't buy anything. I do remember walking towards the water and letting the wind hit my face and enjoying the briskness of it. There were seals lounging on the floating docks around this shopping area. They were making these great noises and some of them were wrestling around with each other. It was fun to watch.

I usually don't think about this area much nor really the shopping on the dock, however it all came back to me two years ago when I heard a news story about a woman and her three young children. Apparently the children were missing and later they would be found and she would be arrested for murder. The story was so horrific to me that it brings me to tears just thinking about it.

On chilly, but sunny day this woman and her three babies, the oldest just 6 years old and the youngest just 9 months, were out on a dock similar to the one that I was on shopping. The woman stripped the children down to no clothes and one by one and tossed them in the water. She later states that they wanted to go swimming. She later is found to be mentally ill. Each child, though, stripped down and tossed in the 50 some degree water. There were other people on the dock that day but no one either saw her or for whatever reason stopped her.

I just don't understand how someone could hurt a child. I don't understand how a mother could toss her children in the cold water. I don't understand how no one saw her or stopped her. I read so many news articles of adults harming or killing children and in our times now it seems to be common. Even the TV dramas like ER, Law and Order, CSI, and such almost enjoy making a child injury, murder, abuse, etc, show because they know they will get the ratings as people will watch it. I had to stop watching ER because there were too many children on it. I can't watch Law and Order any more for the same reasons. I truly believe that if we allow our TV networks to air shows like this then we are only making these types of crimes "acceptable" and we are conditioning our children to not find it horrific and shocking when these types of things occur in our society.

It is just sick and sad.

Instant Messaging

Our first computer that was hooked up to the internet or had the capability was in 1992. I had bought a computer with graduation money from College. It had a 102 mb harddrive, and that was an upgrade. It had Windows 3.0. Then I upgraded to 3.1 when it came out. I was on AOL as soon as it came out and I was one of the ones who paid BY THE HOUR! There were months that my AOL bill was quite expensive. I want to say it was $9.95 for the first 5 hours or something like that and then you had to pay for anything over that. It was dial up and the internet was fairly safe. One of the fun things on AOL was the chat rooms and I would spend a lot of time there, just chatting away. Then we had Instant Messaging. Wow... what fun when my college friends also got on AOL and we could talk online!

I loved it when AOL went to just a monthly service charge and you could be online as much as you want. Well there wasn't much out there other than what AOL had on their servers. But as time went by more and more websites were being formed and you could truly start surfing the net.

When we moved into this house, my husband was now in the IT profession (before he was a tennis pro) and he set up our computer and internet to go straight out to the net using netscape. I literally went through AOL withdraw. I tried to set up an AIM account and it didn't do much for me and eventually I found that life without AOL was fine and I found other websites to surf. But I missed instant messaging.

Life goes on and a few upgrades to the computer, no more dial up but now a cable modem and DSL. I still find myself on the computer a lot and hadn't missed anything since blogging.

However, a friend of mine mentioned that we could instant message each other through MSN. We both have Hotmail and they have recently been doing some upgrades and boom there it was in my face yesterday. So I did what it said, followed the directions, and downloaded the necessary programs and BOOM I now have instant messaging capabilities.

Wow, I didn't realize I had missed it so much. It is a good thing that I can't access it at work (tried), because I wouldn't get anything done otherwise.

Visit from an old friend (also titled, "The Bird Weekend")

My old friend from college came to see me. Well, there were two reasons she came, one was to see me and the second was to retrieve a theater chair that she won on ebay and had me pick up for her. So she arrives about 12:30 and I open the front door and she steps in to give me a hug. We are in mid-hug and all of the sudden I hear a flapping of something right by my ear and brushing my hair. I exclaim, "What was that?", loudly and slightly frightened.

She says, "It hit me. I felt it on my neck."

"Do you think it was a bat? It must have been a bat." Now I am becoming concerned. "Did it come in the house?"

Shakey voice, "I think so.", she says.

"KENNETH!!!", I scream, knowing that I could possibly wake the house up but now there is a bat in my house, and I am not sure I care.

Kenneth comes down the stairs a bit groggy from being asleep for the past hour. "What, oh hi Lel" he says.

We explain the story and at first he doesn't seem ready to believe us until Lella says it might be better if she stayed in a hotel. He goes and gets a flashlight, leaving the two ladies, trembling now in the hallway where this animal could very well be. He returns a few minutes later with a large flashlight and hands it to me and he closes the kitchen doors blocking off the rest of the house from the kitchen, or was it the kitchen from the rest of the house? Anyway, he then sends ME up to check out the kids rooms and close their doors. I look at him funny, ME? I wonder, and then exclaim "why me? I don't really want to find it and what do I do if I do find it?" He doesn't answer and pushes me up the steps.

I find nothing, thankfully. And when I return to the downstairs hallway he convinces us that it must have flown out and that it realized that it wasn't flying away and we must have deflected it from coming inside. There is nothing inside the house. We reluctantly, and may I repeat, reluctantly believe him. We want to believe him. But we also don't want to wake to a bat sucking our blood or hanging upside down in the morning from a curtain. Shivers run up my back and Kenneth heads back upstairs to bed.

I look at Lella and ask, "would you like a glass of wine?" She says something like "hell yeah".

I open the kitchen door and am greeted by a little bird standing on the floor in the kitchen. I let out a shreak and when I scream I startle the bird and he starts to fly and then I start screaming again. It was all I could do to get the door shut again. Thank goodness it wasn't a bat! But there is a bird in the house.

Kenneth returns with Caroline's butterfly net and her safari hat. (see picture) He devises a plan to trap the bird in our back hallway and catch it but the plan involves me too. I have to hold up a sheet in the doorway to the family room so he doesn't go in there. I hold the sheet he scares the bird, Lella sits quietly in the living room thinking of many excuses why she should go to a hotel. The bird flies down the hallway, flaps up against the sheet, I start screaming again because the sheet is now flapping on my head and face, and then "THWAP". Nothing, no sound, no flapping, no screaming.

"Got it." Kenneth says.

"Got what?", I ask.

"The bird. I got the bird. It's okay you can come out now."

"No way. Get it out of the house now!", I say.

"Really, Whitney, I've got it. I was a tennis pro you know. Come look at it."

"Tennis pro? What does that have to do with it?", still behind the sheet.

"I caught it in the net. Get out here and look at this thing. He is little." Reluctantly I pull down the sheet ever so slowly and there it was in the net.

Next thing to do, obviously was get the camera. We call Lella in and she responded something like, "I don't need to see it. I'm okay. Don't want to see it." But with more prodding she came in and checked it out too.

What an exciting entrance!

Happy Birthday Pop-Pop!

This past weekend we celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday. He is doing well and had a great time having his family celebrate with him. He enjoys watching my kids play in the pool and he has a running joke with Caroline my youngest. He tries to kiss her and she likes to run away. At first she was a bit frightened of him but now it is a game. I am sure he will have many more birthdays.

More Bugs...This time not so happy ending

A few days ago my middle daughter Allie found this on our back door. Yes the door we all go in and out many times a day.

You guessed right, it is a Black Widow Spider. It had a nice web and had caught some dinner for it.

Alexandra guessed right away what it was and we were impressed that she identified it. It made for an easy learning lesson for the kids.

"Do not touch these spiders, Caroline. They will bite you and make you very, very sick. Do not squoosh these spiders, they may bite you before your squoosh them. Do not pick them up, do not catch them. Do not go near them!"




"Caroline, are you paying attention?"


This spider met his demise.

Of Bugs and Butterflies

This summer I have been battling with Caroline over bringing bugs into the house and then letting them out to "play" with her. Today, Alexandra caught a Monarch Butterfly in our yard and they put it in the butterfly cage. Caroline then, apparently took the cage to her room some time today and decided to let him out to play with her. A little while ago she came to me, "Mommy, I can't find my butterfly."

"What butterfly, honey?", I ask.

"The one we caught and put in the cage.", she says in her cute little voice.

"You caught a butterfly?"

"Allie did and we put it in the cage."

"Well, where is the cage?", I ask.

"In my room.", she says.

"Isn't the butterfly in the cage?", thinking uh-oh.

"No".

"Did you let him go outside?", I ask cautiously, knowing the answer already.

"No I let him in my room. He loves my room and so do I. He was flying around my room when I lost him." That is what I thought.

So we go to her room and start looking for the butterfly. The door to her bedroom was already open when we got there and I begin thinking this butterfly could be anywhere in our house. Thankfully after only 30 seconds I found the butterfly alive and well. I called to Allie to get the net and told Caroline to watch him and not open the door. Like a good Mommy, I ran to get the camera.

When I return to her room I find her showing the butterfly her bat that she made in bug camp! (first picture)

The last picture is her catching the butterfly in the net to return him to his cage. He is currently all snuggy in his cage with plenty of fresh flowers to eat and some grass on the bottom.

While this story is cute and has a happy ending, this summer we have been graced with sharing our home with "pincher bugs", ants, worms, and snails. Some we have found, some we haven't yet. Although each bug gets to play with Caroline in her room and with her toys.

"What I did this summer"

Tomorrow is my last day of freedom before I return to ... jail. Well, not jail for me but I work there. I teach at our county juvenile detention center, aka, juvenile jail. We return to work a month earlier than "regular" teachers and we work the entire month of June whereas other schools get out the first or second week in June. So tomorrow is my last day of summer vacation.

If I were to have written an essay, entitled, "what did I do this summer". I would be hard pressed to come up with anything interesting. So let's see.

Things I did this summer:
1. Went to the pool with the kids, almost everyday.
2. Got up early and drove kids to and from various camps everyday all summer break.
3. Went to the movies and saw, Rattatouille and Over the Hedge.
4. Went to Talbots twice and bought $650 worth of clothes on huge clearance. (clothes for me and all three of my kids)
5. Went to the Smithsonian Institute Natural History Museum. Rode the Metro in to DC from Springfield. Yes, on the way out of town I stopped by the Talbots Outlet Store and bought some great buys there too!!
6. Knitted half of a sweater, crocheted 4 potholders, and a doily.
7. Made a scrapbook for my mother with all her old pictures.
8. Participated in the neighborhood 4th of July parade which ended at and involved a day at the pool.
9. Harvested copious amounts of squash, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. from our garden. Pulled weeds, planted and sprayed for pests.
10. Canned and cooked a lot!!
11. Did considerable amounts of laundry.

12. Installed a new vanity in our downstairs bathroom. (Well my husband installed it, I just stood there and looked pretty!)

13. Oh yeah, I read five books too!!

I can't think of anything else. My boss asked us to all bring pictures of what we did this summer when we return. I think I am just going to refer them to my blog.

Welcome My Friend and Country GAL

My friend and former co-worker, Sharon, has just started a blog here on Blogspot and I think we all should give her a big "Howdy!"

She is quite an entertainer with her bits of wisdom and stories about a city gal turn country wife and momma! Her stories at work used to make me laugh so hard I would cry and my sides would ache.

She has decided to share her stories and wisdom with us all on her blog.

So check her out and comment on her blog with a big "howdy"!!

http://whatsupwithus-vial.blogspot.com/

Any time you want to return to her blog I have it on my list of blogs on the sidebar.

Update on the "No TV" thing...

We DID survive the no TV day yesterday... well, my husband cheated. Once the kids went to bed he turned on the TV and we started watching Glen Beck. About 20 minutes into it I realized that I was feeling guilty about watching TV, plus my bowl of ice cream was finished. So I got up and checked my email and then announced that I was heading up stairs. Kenneth barely heard me. So I said to him, "See, this thing sucks your brains out too".

He came up right after me and we ended up turning on the TV again to watch the weather report.

The kids didn't mind so much about no TV day but they did ask a couple of times. Caroline wanted to watch a video she had borrowed from the library on bugs, Nicholas wanted to watch the new SpongeBob episode, and Alexandra wanted to watch a DVD "High School Musical" which she has seen a zillion times. Each time my answer was the same, "not today."

We will have another no TV day and I need to work on Kenneth about not watching after the kids go to bed.

A "NO TV" DAY...

Today is a "no TV" day in our house. The kids have recently gotten their brains sucked out by sitting in front of the TV for 3 and 4 hours at a time. I can't move them and when I ask them to do anything they literally don't move. They have become limp green beans.

So today I have declared it a "no TV" day in our house. In the three hours that my middle daughter has been awake she has asked me three times if she can watch TV. I tell her "N-O!". She isn't happy about it but hasn't whined yet either. Right now she is stringing beads on the back porch watching workmen take down part of a tree in our neighbors yard. Now isn't that better than getting your brain sucked out by SpongeBob Squarepants?

What a Beautiful Week!

This week couldn't be more perfect in any way. If I had my perfect climate, temperature, weather, this would be it. All this week it is sunny and in the low 80's for a high. The humidity is lower than normal and it doesn't really get hot until late afternoon like 3ish. There is a slight breeze blowing and these big cottonball clouds scattering the bright blue sky. If only it could be like this all summer...

New Blog and Corn Salad Recipe

I have decided to begin a new blog specifically for cooking, baking, and canning. I really enjoy them and have had several people ask for recipes or comment on my cooking. I thought it might be fun to have a blog specifically geared for that. So I am sending you to my other blog for the recipe, but first here is a little 'teaser' picture of the corn salad.

http://www.whitneyscooking.blogspot.com/

Come visit me there!!

Don't worry, I will still be writing on this site too. I have so much more to share than just cooking!

OH My!!!

We went to dinner tonight over at my mother's house. We had tacos and fajitas. Mom made a corn salad that was to die for. It had corn (shaved off the cob), green pepper, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and Italian salad dressing and a bit of sugar. She said she got it off www.allrecipes.com. I will get the recipe and post it.