A Complicated Life

My stats show me that my readership is falling on a daily basis. I guess there's nothing I can do about that. I don't have the time to read blogs and I don't have time to write blogs. I'm always busy this time of year but this year it's even worse than other times. The tutoring, homeschool, volley ball and music classes are keeping me too busy to think!

This time of year the musical concerts are in full swing. Tink has two concerts this week. Peter has a recital tonight and a concert Friday. Friday night we are going with the church group to hear the Singing Christmas Tree in downtown Portland.

I usually don't tutor on Fridays because of the need for a free day to run errands. This Friday I have to teach because I offered a makeup day for my students because we missed Tuesday. Tink had a volleyball game in Seattle and I really wanted to attend the game. I don't like her gone for that long of a day without me. She plays on the junior varsity team but yesterday they had her play on varsity too. She did so well. I was so proud of her. She needed that so much. It did wonders for her self esteem!

My husband wants me to run to Best Buy today to turn my laptop in for repairs. The warranty runs out next week. The problem is that I don't have time to get it in! I thought I could do it this afternoon but I forgot about Peters recital. I'm just panicking. This laptop has to get in. If it doesn't we'll lose out on $500.

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It is now 9 pm. I left the charter school at lunch time and had the kids eat in the car while I ran the laptop out to the store. Now they tell me it will be 3 to 4 weeks until I get it back!

I am so tired I just have to get to bed. This is just one long week. My cousin died by her own hand this past weekend and her Memorial service is Saturday morning. Tink has a recital Saturday afternoon and some of my family from out of state will be here. Most likely they will end up at my house at some point. I love being with everyone but how will I fit it all in?

I really have to get some rest or I'm going to topple over. Because I'm running school on Friday this week it's really complicating things. I will barely have time to get in Peters viola lesson and get ready for the Christmas event that night and the funeral in the morning and prepare for the recital and for any guests that might be here overnight.

Sorry I'm not posting more but I really cant do any more at this point. I'm still planning on writing the post about discipline for the older child and believe it or not I was contacted by some company whose name I forget right now, to review a DVD on effective discipline for teenagers. Now I'm holding off on that post until I get a chance to watch this DVD. I'm curious as to what they say about it.

Reflecting

Thanksgiving has come and gone. In our hearts and minds the memories linger. We had a wonderful time right down to the busy preparation before. Tink made the filling for the blueberry and the pumpkin pies. I have no idea what I would have done without her this year! She worked along side me in the kitchen for 5 hours without one complaint.

She not only made the pie fillings she made cornbread for the stuffing and fried all the sausage, onions, nuts, and celery. My big cast iron skillet was loaded with the stuff. She then crumbled the 17 cups of cornbread, bread, and seasoned cubes, mixed them all with chicken broth and set it aside to bake on Thanksgiving morning. She made the cranberry sauce and while doing so she discovered this floating candle idea on the back of the bag of cranberrys. She loved setting up this arrangement! I think it looks mighty good myself! I'm so thrilled to see this interest in Tink. Three years ago I was almost in despair that she never would take an interest in the little extra things.
Of course, I made the crust for the pies. Over on facebook several of us had a debate on the merits of butter crust verses Crisco crust. I make mine with Crisco. I love the way it makes the crust flake.
And would you believe it on Thanksgiving Day I didn't get any pics at all! This one of Tiger Lily was taken by Tink. She's being a wee bit naughty here and she knows it. She is not suppose to be at Grandmas desk! She's such a dear, I guess I will just let her sit in my chair and have her fun!
Thanksgiving afternoon was spent pouring over the Black Friday ads. Wendy's motherinlaw and Wendy and I plotted out the stores that we were going to hit. I dont go with them because they go much slower than I do, but we always meet up for lunch then afterward. I came home 300 bucks poorer but oh the sales I found! I'll tell you about them later.

After Wendy's mother in law left the kids and everyone set down to a rousing game of Taboo! We played Taboo for the rest of the afternoon. Wendy and Tink are just like me. We are just so competitive. Of course the girls won the boys but only by a margin! We'd have never lived it down if they would have won!

The late evening was spent eating popcorn and watching a movie. Edward and Wendy left at about 8 pm I believe. It was a day of family, games and good food.

The rest of the weekend will have to be told later. I have scarecly been on line since last Tuesday. For three days this week my computer was crashed. Thankfully Mr Darling got it up and running. The power box just plain shut down. Thankfully a new one wasn't very expensive. Anyway I'm back online and finally able to see what you all were up to on Thanksgiving. Blessings to you all.

Thanksgiving Day Countdown

I must get through today! I must! Then I can concentrate on the house and the food and friends and on Thanksgiving Day. I've been going through my two store rooms and taking stuff to Goodwill. I absolutely need more space in there and there is no reason to keep some of that stuff for "what if". I'd like to have things all cleaned out so it's easier to put all the Christmas decorations away after the holidays.

Last night I spent almost three hours steam cleaning my upstairs carpet. I can't figure out how it gets so dirty when everyone takes their shoes off before coming up here. It just defies logic! This morning I see a few spots that I missed last night so I'm going to quick tough them up before school starts.

I've got to pull the bird out the freezer today. Yes, I use a frozen turkey, what can I say? I would love to have all the cleaning done today so I can start on the food tomorrow and not have to worry about laundry and the house.

I love Thanksgiving dinner. It's so predictable and basically easy to prepare since most of it is done in the oven instead of on the stove top. Today why don't you tell us what you are cooking for the holiday. Over here Wendy is bringing all the snacks for the evening meal. Of course that will include Brie cheese roll, warmed with garlic or cranberries whichever she prefers. That girl loves brie! Costco has a ring of Brie in that is done in a flaky crust with cranberries in the center of the ring. It is incredibly good.

For the main dinner I am serving turkey and stuffing, cranberries, honeybaked ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, green beans, cole slaw, homemade dinner rolls (yikes I forgot I had to make the rolls), corn pudding, and jello salad. I'm also going to go through my Taste of Home recipe books and add something new to the meal. I don't know what it will be but I love adding new side dishes to holiday and company meals so we shall see.

For desert of course we will have pumpkin pie. I'm also going to make a blueberry pie since I have a freezer full of blueberries! I am also making sugar cookies for the kids. I have lovely fall leaves and acorn cutters that just delight the heart at Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow I will make the cookies, pies, dinner rolls and salads. Today I will home school until 2 pm, run Tink to volleyball practice at 2:30, come home and clean the house, run back to the Academy at 3:15 and pick up my granddaughter. I will come home and clean house some more. At five I will run again to the Academy to pick up Tink. Then its dinner. After dinner the real cleaning begins! Tonight I will probably see an early morning bedtime!

So whats cooking at your house for this Thanksgiving?

Life on the Easy Side

Back from Thanksgiving in Seattle. Now its time to get ready for another couple days of school. They will be easy days because the charter school is closed so that wipes out all of the extra curricular classes for the week. I'm only schooling for the first two days this week then I'm off for the Thanksgiving holiday. I also only have one other student coming those two days, so really it should be a very easy week.

In Seattle Tink and I went with my mother in law to a huge nursery that had amazing poinsettias and huge Christmas trees decked out in all sorts of themed ornaments to buy. I saw ornaments there that I have never seen the like of before. I admit to a certain fondness for ornaments. I should count mine someday. I'm sure I have over 500 of them. This place was wonderful!

My mother in law bought me a huge bag of incredible potpourri spiced in Christmas flavors. She bought Tink about 6 ornaments. I found one for Peter that was a mother snow owl spreading its wings over two tiny baby owls. It was just too beautiful not to buy! When it gets closer to Christmas I'll take a pic of it and show you all.

Instead of a turkey dinner we had stuffed pork shops, cole slaw, yams, green beans and a brie cheese roll with cranberries in the middle of the ring. It was wonderful. I'm glad we didn't have turkey. Much as I love the old bird I cant eat much of it before tiring of it. Now I can enjoy it better this week. Actually Im debating whether or not I should even eat turkey. It puts me to sleep quicker than any sleeping pill but I've noticed certain brands are worse than others so we'll see.

I ate way too much this weekend. Food was everywhere; waffles with strawberries and cream, cakes, donuts, nachos with mango and peach salsa, polish sausages, pizza, home made peanut brittle, pudding, popcorn, nuts, pierogis, fruit cake, veggie platters, yogurt, oatmeal with raisins and nuts and cream and butter, biscuits, and coffee and more coffee and still more coffee! It is now time to diet!

Anyway I better get ready for school in the morning. How was your weekend? Hopefully it was filled with family fun!

The Indian Feast

Peters history class put on a play and an Indian feast for Thanksgiving Day. Here is my little Indian in the door of his tee pee.
Here is the little Indian with his Pilgrim mother. Sorry about the blur on this one. Somebody else took it and they probably were not used to little Indian boys who don't know how to smile!

And this is the feast prepared for that first Thanksgiving Day. Ignore the pizza potato chips at the end of the table. The kids were suppose to bring their favorite Thanksgiving Day food. Who has pizza chips at Thanksgiving? Of course Peter thought I had to make a pie and of course mama obliged!That other pie was brought by someone else. Do not think I would buy my pies! Pshaw. The taste is just plain awful in those store bought pies. The only good one I can find is the pumpkin pie at Costco. But even then it cant beat a good home made one!

And here is the little Indian playing marbles with his Indian and Pilgrim friends. The boy in the green shirt on the right of this pic is one of my full time tutoring students. The little girl on Peters right and our left is one of the girls I tutor. She is looking down here so you really cant see her well.

These are just two little girls in the class. Aren't they precious?

The class put on a play and my student K and Peter helped to make this background. Some of the kids had their parts totally memorized. It was a darling little play about the first Thanksgiving from a child's view.

And here is my sober Indian with a happy squaw and a plastic papoose. This is the teachers daughter. Peter doesn't mind posing with the girls .. yet ...although you wouldn't know it from his expression here! But he immediately posed with whatever girl I wanted him to pose with at the feast. Those years are almost over I know.

So there you have it. Thank you for enjoying this special feast day with us!

Proper Discipline Will Yield Results

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I'm just going to make this short and sweet. I could elaborate but I don't have the time. So let me just get to the point. If you have teenagers that are going astray and rebelling at everything don't start dealing with it at the external level. Their hearts need changed!

You hear and see it all these days. Mothers, its the child's heart that needs to be shepherded through these hard times. It's consistently and tough love and your prayers that will count in the end.

It's easier to take care of external things than to tend to things of the heart. If your teenager is rolling his eyes at you and raising his voice when he speaks to you then taking away Christmas is not the answer. We must be careful that the discipline we use does not cause further rebellion in our kids.

Suddenly deciding that putting cobwebs on your porch for Halloween is evil is not the answer either. Those cobwebs on your porch are not the reason your teenager is sassy. The fact that Christmas has the word mass in it and therefore you are going to quit doing anything to celebrate it is not the reason your teenager has decided to start smoking cigarettes and your solution is not the answer to your teenagers problem.

And what about those flutes? So now your teenager is hanging out with bad friends; friends that are leading him down the wrong path. How is deciding that the flute is an evil instrument going to be the solution for your teen? Getting rid of all flutes and wind instruments and telling your child that the reason is because you want him to go right in life is not going to effect your teens sauciness.

I just don't see kids committing suicide or turning to drugs because their parents had flutes in the house or presents under the tree or cobwebs on the porch. Yes, these are all real examples that I have personally read of or heard of.

Parents, deal with your child's rebellion swiftly and with sure conviction. Don't fear the child. Don't fear the discipline you must give him. There is no easy way out. It's a tough road fraught with tough decisions!

The decisions you are making are not the hard ones, neither are they going to have any impact on your teenagers rebellious heart! You have a hard job ahead of you. Tackle it! Forget about all these other things and get to the real issue. It does not make you righteous or holier than other people to quit celebrating the holidays or to declare the flute evil. You think it sounds like you're on top of things to declare to all who will listen how you have incorporated these new rules in your home.

Sorry, it's not having the effect on your listener that you are intending nor is it having any effect on your teenager. Quit trying to impress people and go to your prayer closet. Deal with your teens rebellion with lots of love coupled with firmness and consistency. Teenagers who are disciplined with sure swift assurance on the parents part are happier kids.

Take all the energy that you are spending on researching the origin of wind instruments and put that into real discipline! If you do you will see the results that you aren't seeing now!

The Magic Man

Why is Peter up at 6 am? He is sitting here playing Christmas music, drinking hot chocolate and begging me to get the fire going. I am usually up alone at this time and having my quiet time. I told him he had to wait patiently until I was done. So he cuddled up beside me and laid his head on my shoulder and waited. When I got done praying he looks at me and says, "What is there to pray about so long?" Little does he know that at my age there is so much to pray about that if one had the time one could pray all day long and not cover everything!

Yesterday the neighbor man was walking by when I got home with the kids. Peter asked him to do his magic tricks. So he took a quarter and pulled it from behind Peters ear. After he played with the kids a little they went inside and the neighbor man shared with me that he has leukemia and is not doing any chemo because he's lived his life and ready to go.

He has had cancer of different types 2 other times and he says that he just want quality of days rather than quantity at this point. I came in and without thinking I told the kids that the "magic man" had cancer and only has a few months to live. We don't know the man other than the magic tricks he's always doing when he sees the kids. He lives in a little neighborhood out at the end of our road.

Anyway Peter just teared up and first thing I knew he was crying. We were in the schoolroom upstairs with all the kids and he buried his face on his desk and just sobbed. I went over and hugged him and he just leaned into me crying. I whispered to him that he could leave the room so he did. After he left P, one of my students, said, "Peter just told us before you came in that the magic man was his best friend!"

I just felt terrible! I had no idea that Peter felt so close to that man. I know that many times he begs to go to his house and I've never let him because I really don't know him. Peter does, however, talk to him every chance he gets. So now I have promised Peter that I will take him to visit the magic man.

Before the magic man left me yesterday he gave me a little message for Peter. He said, "Tell Peter I think he is a very smart boy and that I want him to study hard and make something of himself in life. That boy will go a long way! He's one of a kind."

Of course, when I told Peter the magic mans words he just burst into tears again. He started crying again at bedtime when he said his prayers. If I would have known how attached he was I would have told him privately, not in front of the other kids. It was one of those mother moments that I really messed up, poor boy!I just feel terrible about not being sensitive to his feelings.

Mothering is so hard at times yet I wouldn't miss these days for anything!