Masterly Inactivity

I'm in the middle of reading an interesting e-book called Masterly Inactivity. For those of you who like Charlotte Mason you will enjoy this. If you are struggling with discipline and homeschooling I highly recommend you download it. Best of all - it's FREE! Check it out HERE.

The Child vs The Medicine

Tell me I'm not the only mother to deal with this.

My 10 year old son woke up this morning complaining he was going to be sick. Not much came up so I was figuring it was just sinus issues. A bit later he's covered in hives. Not good so off we went to the Doctor. Come to find out the poor boy has strep. Out come two prescriptions - one for the strep, one for the hives - however she said we can wait a day for the steroids to see if just being on the other will work.

A bit of info on this son - we believe him to have Asperger's Syndrome, but have opted not to have him formally tested (ie. - insurance won't cover it). With the exception of a few issues, he's doing well. Of course one of those issues is food - a sensory thing.

So we get home from the doctor's and the medicine can be taken with milk - so I mix it in, tell son to go drink up. He gets it all down but the last mouth full which ends up down the front of him. Okay - better than I expected.

Bedtime, he tries to sneak upstairs to bed but I call him back down to take his meds. He's already determined he's going to throw it up (this after throwing up the benadryl I gave him a half hour previous). I give him the choice - the med in the milk OR straight up. He opts for the milk - only not a full cup this time. I comply. Next minute he takes a swallow and makes a mad dash to the bathroom. UGH!!!

I try and reason with him - he just needs to drink it down and he will be fine. Meanwhile he's working himself into a panic. So I told hubby he has medicine duty. He gave him 10 minutes to drink it up or he would be giving it to him directly. I just stuck my head in the other room after not hearing anything and son is not there. I asked hubby if he took it and he said yes. I told hubby he has medicine duty for the next 5 days! lol

Time for son to learn how to swallow pills!!! We'll see how that goes since his father can't (won't) swallow them (2 children can - 3 to go).

To Diet or Not to Diet...

That is the question...

Why do women obsess about their weight so much? My weight used to never bother me. Yes, I'm overweight. I've had 5 children and most of that excess weight is their fault!

However over the past couple years I've packed on more weight that I can't blame the children for. Well, actually I guess I could - as they have grown up, I don't have to chase them around anymore! LOL

Hence my dilemma. I usually eat fairly well. I'm not someone who sits around the house and eats for lack of something to do. I don't use food for comfort. I eat when I'm hungry and because I have to. My main problem is exercise and the lack there-of.

I don't know why making myself exercise is such a hassle. I have good intentions before going to bed for the next day, but then morning comes and I get busy with other things and before I know it, the day is once again gone, and I haven't moved much to save my life.

I did the 3D Diet several years ago with some gals from our church and did well on it. But don't you know once we stopped, so did my loss.

I have several friends who are doing the South Beach Diet and I'm tempted to get the book and take a look at it. Maybe if I start losing some weight through diet, I'll have more determination to start doing some moving. Hmmm....


I hate to say I'm "on a diet" because ultimately I believe that if you just eat right (ultimately following the food pyramid and exercise, the weight will come off. I don't necessarily agree with some of these diets that tell you not to eat this or that. So I'm still not sure what I'm going to do - but I really need to start and do something.

Somebody motivate me - or just give me a good swift kick!

Christmas Shopping Year Round

I am such a procrastinator - but hate it! Every year I say I'm going to start my Christmas shopping early, but never do, then we're hunting around two weeks before Christmas and not finding anything we want. Humph!

So I've decided this year I'm starting NOW!!! We hit thrift stores and garage sales weekly (well maybe not the garage sales THIS time of year) - and find some fantastic stuff. Usually I'm looking with the "eye to sell", not the "eye for gifts" - but I'm going to purpose this year to look through both eyes! I have already decided what I'm going to make for my sisters and nieces. That will require purchasing some fleece - so if I do one a month, I'll have them done long before Christmas. Now I just have to get my hubby to be on the same page as me!

Hold me accountable oh dear blog.

Next time...Garden planning!!!

Snow Days

Being homeschoolers, we don't often get snow days when the schools around us do. Guess I'm just mean that way - but after all, they just had 3 weeks off for Christmas break.

Today was one of those days all the area schools were closed due to freezing rain and snow in our area. We did school, however they have canceled church for this evening - so we can stay in and keep warm. YEAH!!!

I do however remember snow days as a child. My sisters and I would spend the entire day outside. My grandparents lived next door to us. They used to be chicken farmers, and while they had retired when we were young, they still had a huge barn, with a long driveway that would amount to large snow piles in front of the barn. We would dig tunnels (horrors of horrors - as I tell my children their tunnels can't be any wider than 2 feet), sled down the piles along with the hills on the side of the barn and the other side of our house. Come in long enough to eat lunch then back out into the wonderful snow! We would take turns cross-country skiing with old skis that belonged to my father (until we got some of our own one Christmas). We attempted to ice skate on the "pond" behind the house (that was really more like swampy land with 2 inches of frozen water). Those were the days!

Today I avoid playing in the snow at all costs but I love to look at it, and actually enjoy being snowbound. Around here that doesn't happen too often - even when we do get dumped on. I just love hearing stories of southern towns who shut down with a couple inches of snow. I think it would take several feet of snow (as in 4-6) for our towns to be shut down.

So since my evening has now freed up - I think we'll play on the wii, and curl up with a good book. Which one of my current 5 should I read???

Silence is Golden

Our first day back to school after a too long/not long enough vacation (did that make sense?). I couldn't resist taking this picture as they were all hard at work and there was no bickering or arguing going on at the moment. Something rather rare around the school table. I used to have a teacher who would say "Silence is Golden" when she wanted us to quiet down. I think she was a music teacher? I relish that saying now - since it happens so infrequently.

We did manage to make it through just about everything by 3:00 a bit late for us but we're slightly behind in a couple things so I tried to do some doubling up. Monday's are good days as we usually have nothing else going on. Tuesdays we go swimming, JT has speech, plus Dad is home so we make it a light day doing just the basics. Wednesday isn't bad but we do have church in the evening. Thursdays the boys have Quiz practice in the evening, and Friday we don't do school because it's Dad's other day off and we use it for errands, inventory scouting and whatever is needed for that day.

So we're back to our "normal" routine. J was asking if it was summer yet? Gotta love them!

The Next Step

After 13 years of homeschool, my oldest child has graduated and will be heading off to the Word of Life Bible Institute in the fall. She has already been accepted, and today I sat down to fill out all the financial "stuff". Kind of a scarry step for both of us. We are praying that between grants and scholarships, she won't have to get a loan. She has been putting away as much of her paycheck as she is able.

I have mixed feelings about starting this "empty nest" part of my life. At least having many children it will be a while before they are all gone, but my oldest and I have become good friends over the past couple years, plus she has always been my right hand. I will miss her dearly. I have had some practice with her being gone as the past 3 summers she has worked at the WOL Inn. She is more than ready to start this new path and I'm sure we will both be fine. It's only a phone call and 4 hour drive away!

Today I have also been getting ready to start back up to school on Monday. I finally got my quarterly reports done. I was very bad (seems to be the norm for me when it comes to the first quarter for some reason). With my computer dieing I had to "re-create" my reports all over - and while this really doesn't take long to do, it's just something I was not wanting to do. So I spent an hour this morning and got that all done. Now to go throw in some laundry and see how things look for Monday morning in the kids lesson plan books.

Until next time...

Have a wonderful day!