Daddy's love

The other day my hubby got home and saw Joshua sitting in his bouncy seat swinging his leg to make it bouncy furiously. Hubby said, "He needs one of those round bouncy things." He then immediately went the computer and looked them up on Amazon. He and I discussed the benefits of an exersaucer compared to a walker and then we went on to something else. It wasn't mentioned again.

Today UPS delivered a new exersaucer. Joshua loves it:-)


(We wore the old one plumb out by the time Jane didn't need it anymore! It had only been through six kids:-)

Writing space

A fellow blogger has asked to see everyone else's writing space. I'm afraid mine isn't really exciting.

That's my dad sitting in my chair where I do my writing. The laptop on the stool is what I write on. The drawers next to the chair hold my teacher's books for homeschool. The book shelf holds various story books (from Star Trek to Elsie Dinsmore to Narnia.)

Since this is the day Joshua was born, the house was a bit of a mess so I won't show you my view from my chair. It has nothing to do with writing anyway.

I have tried more formal arrangements for both writing and school but neither one gets done anywhere else. This works for me.

Ethicists Argue for Acceptance of After-Birth Abortions | TheBlaze.com

Ethicists Argue for Acceptance of After-Birth Abortions TheBlaze.com

'The two are quick to note that they prefer the term “after-birth abortion“ as opposed to ”infanticide.” '

Well, duhhhh. Of course they do.

'The authors counter the argument that these “potential persons” have the right to reach that potential by stating it is “over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being because, as we have just argued, merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence.” '

The whole point of abortion is selfishness. Women are supposed to be allowed to "pursue their own well-being" no matter how many babies they have to murder to do it.

'The second we allow ourselves to become the arbiters of who is human and who isn’t, this is the calamitous yet inevitable end. Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand.'

Yep. how long before people can legally kill their 3 year olds? What's the difference? And how long before the gove decides which people are worthy of the right to life? It won't matter if the parents want the baby or not. It will matter if the government does. And the handicapped and elderly? They are not "real people" and thus won't have the right to life either.

No one is truly free until all humans are free. No one has the right to life until EVERYONES right to life is protected, including the unborn's.

What if...

What if obesity was NOT caused by laziness and gluttony?

What if it were caused by genetics, a virus, and/or chemicals they put in our food and vaccines?

What if the health problems "caused" by fat were in fact caused by poverty and dieting?

What if it were impossible to loose weight and keep it off?

How does this change your life?



I finished "Health at Every Size" by Linda Bacon a few days ago. She has degrees in health, nutrition, dieting, and psychology and presents the evidence in this book that all the above is true.

So how does this change my life?

I can now focus on how food makes me feel instead of how many calories it has. I can enjoy one or two cookies and know that I don't have to eat the whole box. I can be free to eat more tomorrow if I want to. I'm not cheating, I'm enjoying myself.

I am moving more because it feels good to dance and stretch, instead of movement being a chore "I really should do but don't feel up to."

I eat slowly and taste my food, enjoying its texture and flavors. I don't have to rush through the meal due to feelings that I should somehow be able to live without food. It's not sinful to enjoy the full experience of that food that God has provided. In fact, Jesus said He is the Bread of Life. This means He is the treat, the enjoyment, the spice that makes life worth living. If food is an object lesson for how much we need God and How much we should enjoy Him, then we really should slow down and take full pleasure in our meals. Only in this way can we begin to really enjoy what God is to us.

Hunger is the body's signal that you need food. It is not natural nor healthy to ignore that signal. In fact, why do we say a woman who journaled every bite she ate, exercised for an hour a day, never ate desert, and was always hungry, but weighs 100 pounds has an eating disorder, but if she weighs 200 pounds she is being "wise and disciplined"? This is a double standard. This behavior is just as destructive in a Fatty Patty as it is in Skinny Minny.

God made many different sizes and shapes of bodies. Why does our society think that half-starved scarecrow (or more disturbing- pre adolescent boy with boobs) is the only beautiful body? Curves are feminine. Curves are a sign of health and fertility and maturity (wisdom).

It's time we told our society to go "fry ice." It's time we embraced life, no matter what size we are.

Chickies

After having all our roosters butchered, we are left with 12 hens. They are two years old now, so their production will perminantly drop next fall.

We decided to set up a permanant rotaion. We will buy 7 new chicks every spring and butcher 7 old hens every fall, keeping our flock between 14 and 21 birds.

We just bought 7 White Rocks and 7 Golden Sex Link chicks.  Next fall, about the time these new ones begin producing, we will butcher all our current hens. Then the next year, half of these new ones. We'll buy 7 new chicks from completly different breeds every year so we can tell which ones to off. I think this will work great.

Weird children

My children are so weird. I give them a day off for birthdays, so, since tomorrow is Jon's birthday and I have two sick and a couple feeling blahhh, I told them no school today. Several of them are doing school anyway. So weird.

So how do I acheive this? Are homeschooled children really that much more interested in learning?

Uhhh, no.

One advantage to switching to mostly Abeka is that I know for sure what will be done in each subject each year. So in January (the beginning of our school year) I hand each child their books and say "When you finish these you are done for the year." Last year was the first year we were really able to do this. Jon buckled in and had everything but math and grammar (and things like penmanship that have to be done ONLY one page per day) done by August. The others were mostly done by October.

They don't want the day off school today so they can be that much closer to having it over with for the year.

Valentines

Hubby bought me two comic books, a kindle book, strawberry shortcake flavored cofee, and whoppers for valentines. That's the most attention he has paid to the holiday in years! Makes my dollar store candies look pretty pitiful. Guess I'll have to try to outdo him for Easter:-)

Amongst Lovely Things: Why I'm No Homeschool Superstar

Amongst Lovely Things: Why I'm No Homeschool Superstar

Oh so ditto!!!

We are not all crafters. It takes everything out of me for an entire day to even try most crafts. So I don't.

Oh the kids do an occasional craft at Grandma's (Christmas ornaments for church for example). But not a lot.

I wouldn't mind if they could do more, but not with me. Toooo much for mamma.

And to tell you the truth, I'm not all that convinced that crafty stuff is all that educational. They are fun, to be sure. But so is running around in the yard playing cowboys. I know I remember learning a great deal more from the textbooks than from any of the crafty things we did in public school. Of course it's possible I'm just a boring booky person. But I'm that kind of teacher too. I can get an idea across way easier by reading selections to the kiddos than by building, uhhhh, messes.

Another thing to remember when reading about homeschoolers doing so many neat things is that you are often reading an entire 15-20 years worth of craft ideas. With my oldest at 20yo, if I were to list our craft projects from every other year, it would sound very much like we were doing neat things all the time.

Here's the truth about our school: We do Bible study together every morning, practice our poems, memory verses, and memorizing phone numbers and addresses. Than each child does their math, grammar, science, history, health, geography, penmanship, phonics (where the child is the right age), art, music, literature and Spanish alone. I begin at my second youngest (4.5yo) and work through her kindergarten workbooks. Than I correct my 7yo's work, give her spelling and reading lessons. Than I do the same to my 8yo, 10yo, 12yo, 13yo, and 17yo (skipping the reading lessons, lol). I end with my 20yo telling me what she has been studying (She often does all the spelling lessons for me and I allow the older dc to correct most of their own stuff with me just spot checking once in a while so this time with the older ones is usually only about 10 minutes or less each.) This takes from about 9:30-2:30 with an hour or so out for lunch and a 20minute break mid-morning. Then I have the rest of the day to do my things and they each do their own things. They are learning lots and I have time to de-stress. Works great for us.

So, if you aren't the kind of mom who wants to build pyramids out of sugar cubes, ear canals you can crawl through, or 3D models of the solar system, you can still homeschool. I do.

Smart Cow

It appears our cow has learned to open her gate. That's the only thing we can figure out since we go out she is greeting us at the stairs.  guess we'll hav eto find a way to fasten it shut.

Snatorum has made somewhat of a comeback. Hope he keeps it up, but I don't expect he will. Call me cynical, but I think the whole thing was decided by the party bosses a couple of years ago. It will be Romney and he will lose to BO, though the GOP will probably take the senate.

and we will stay in a depression.

Talking about depressing...BO as a lame duck? Eeeekkkk:-(


For the first time in 20-odd years I am interested in wearing makeup. I took a proffesional makeup class at our community college shortly after graduating high school. So when I went to the store to buy new makeup I was dumbfounded to discover there are things I have never heard of before. Primer? Isn't that what you put on your car? I ended up going to youtube and watching some demonstrations. Very interesting.

Mice and Dogs

I resisted using kill mouse traps for a long time. Just didn't like them. We have a mouser cat and even our dog loves to hunt little critters. We keep things as clean as we can, but mice are just part of living in the country and Jiffy the dog and Susie the cat just can't keep up with them.

We tried live-catch traps with no success. I have sat in my chair and watched a mouse go right through the trap without even thinking of triggering the lock:-( I think our mice are too big to work with the traps (no, they aren't big enough to be rats. They are just healthy mice.)

I hate to admit we did use some poison many years ago, but that simply isn't a realistic option now with chickens, curious Jiffy, and toddlers around.

When I had to listen to a mouse nibbling on my piano during my entire labor with Joshua, I knew it was time to step things up.

We have set out old fashioned snap kill-traps. These usually kill instantly, so I feel they are more humane than glue traps.

Last night we heard a mouse (unfortunatly not unusual). We kept hearing it squeal so Jim (17) hunted down the noise. The trap caught the poor thing by the leg instead of killing it. He put it and the trap into a bucket to take it outside to put it out of its misery. Jiffy ran up, snatched it out of the trap and the bucket and carried it off! With all the shouting and everything we got him to take it outside. It was acctually dead quicker than if Jim had taken care of it, so I guess it wasn't so bad. But we were all tramatized.

And people wonder why I won't let the dog lick my baby:-(

Rich vs Poor?

"I've never worked for a poor man." - My Hubby

Everyone he has ever worked for probably made 6 digits. His current employers were probably pulling in more than $200k before the crash.

Do we resent it?

No, far from it.

Whenever my Hubby's bosses have prospered, they have given him raises and bonuses. When they have hurt financially, he doesn't get raises (we haven't had a raise in 5 or 6 years, in fact.) His current bosses have fought tooth and nail to keep from having to lay him and many others off. Unfortunately, they have had to lay some off over the last few years, but they have fought to keep Hubby.

I believe this is the way most business owners are.

Why would I want to do anything politically to hurt these people? That would be shooting myself in the foot!

And why do the anti-rich people talk only about business owners? No one talks about sports or movie stars making obscene amounts of money for playing.

Yet those who hire others, who provide a lively hood to Working Men, are somehow evil.

Remember, A Working man who has no job is not a working man.




He's a welfare man.