The Bug That Has Been Going Around…………

(Originally posted on my old blog, December 2, 2010)

has found some “R & R” around here.

Last Wednesday night, Kylin went to bed with a fever, so we were starting to wonder if half of our family would be staying home for Thanksgiving. However, by Thursday, he was feeling well, and his fever was gone. However, after the holiday, both of my kids and my husband came down with fevers and colds. So, I headed to the store and stocked up on the needed items to get us through this.

I did ask Kylin what kind of juice he wanted, and his answer was: 7-UP. Please don’t blame that mistake on home education. The boy is just trying to trick me.

By lunchtime, they were feeling better, for some, voices were starting to return and sound normal again. So I made up some home made macaroni & cheese.

Doesn’t that look yummy? I think so………I could eat the whole pot………..but I won’t………….because really…………..it’s for the children.

Due to the kids being on bedrest, we haven’t had any school this week either……and they haven’t really done any chores (I did those, because who feels like doing dishes or putting wet clothes in the dryer when you’re head feels like it’s too heavy for your neck to hold up?).

We’ve also been catching up on “Spongebob Squarepants”. We’ve never bothered to watch this show, so Kevin downloaded it from Netflix so that we could see what the fuss was about. Ok, there isn’t an ounce of anything educational about this cartoon, yet, it’s still pretty funny!

Oh, and during all of this time of infirmity, this is one of the things keeping me charged and awake and going,

It looks like it’s time to make another pot…….

Thanksgiving And A Few Lazy Days

(Originally posted on my old blog, November 28, 2010)

I’ve been meaning to blog more often. However, there has been a lot going on due to the holidays, and getting ready to move. So, first, an update

-Our church is putting on a dessert theater production just before Christmas. Heather is in the play this year. So we’ve had a few play practices to drive to and those are about to increase.

-Our house has been on the market for over a month now. We’ve had a few showings. So far, no bites (unless you count the ridiculously low one that we received early on).

– We’re still slowly packing and putting those things into storage. However, now that the holidays are here, we did have to go back and dig out a few Christmas decorations because we do like to keep things somewhat festive.

-Just before thanksgiving, we also had our first snow of the season.

Initially, the kids were excited about the snow, however it was discovered to be the icy kind and not the kind for snowman making. But it was pretty while it lasted (which was about a day).

-For Thanksgiving, we went to my sister’s. She made the entire meal by herself, including 3 different pies (chocolate, pumpkin and apple—–all three were delicious!). When we first arrived, Nephew #1, age 3, found his buddy Heather and they were off to his room to play. Kylin checked out the family room where the toys were. Nephew #2, wasn’t so sure about the unfamiliar adults who just arrived and hid behind a chair, and looked down at the floor, hoping that if he couldn’t see his auntie, then she couldn’t see him. He was more comfortable with the kids than he was with us. Heather spent the entire visit playing with her little cousins, so she really slept well that night. After we were home, and the kids were in bed, we watched “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles”.

-We didn’t venture out at all for “Black Friday”. Part of me would like to try doing that, and the part of me that doesn’t like crowds is happy to stay home. My daughter thinks that it would be a lot of fun. I’m thinking that I might actually try it next year, with my daughter. This year, the stores were open at 10PM on Thanksgiving night! Would a shopper going out to this be considered an “early bird” or a “night owl”? I have friends who took part in this late night event, and not returning home until mid afternoon the next day. That’s insane………..but it sounds like fun, if you’re with friends or daughters.

-Now that Thanksgiving is over, we seem to have caught a little cold and we’ve each been in various stages of feeling bad or feeling better but needing Kleenex. Twice now, we’ve had a lazy day around the house and I’ve been in my pj’s past noon (today included). Sometimes it’s just nice to have a day with very few demands. However, I do have some Christmas decorations that need to be put out……….and I do need to venture out and get a newspaper.

The Lonely Carnivore

(Originally posted on my old blog, October 8, 2010)

Well maybe not totally lonely.

Ten years ago, my husband and I decided to try out a vegetarian diet. He had some issues with acid reflux and we thought that perhaps that by trying the “no meat” route for 6 months, maybe the reflux would subside. It did for a little bit. By the end of 6 months, my husband was pretty much sold out on this way of eating and wanted the children to be vegetarian too. So, because it wasn’t immoral or unethical, and not totally unhealthy, I didn’t argue. In fact, I stopped eating meat also because I didn’t want to cause a rebellion amongst the children. So I learned just what substitutes were out there for meat. I learned how to use those substitutes in regular recipes, and over the years, we’ve been alright.

However, I’ve never been a vegetarian at heart, only in practice. I come from a family with farming roots. During the first 8+ years of my life, my father helped run my grandfather’s dairy farm. We had cows around our house most of the time. The cows that didn’t like to stay in the pasture, wound up in our freezer, and on our dinner table. We had beef nearly every night. So years later, when I stopped eating meat, there was concern from some in my family (my grandma mostly) that we weren’t getting any protein. Well the meat substitutes were soy based, so there was protein. Dairy was still part of the menu (however, my husband has gone vegan a few times, and he is doing the vegan way as I type this).

So as of 3 weeks ago, I stopped being a vegetarian.

So that leaves me as the only non-vegetarian in the family. I’m still cooking meatless for the four of us. Last weekend, I think in an attempt to show that it was ok with him if I eat meat, my husband offered to take me to a Wendy’s for a burger. Well, I’m on Weight Watcher’s, and a burger would have been too many points for me, and quite frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for one. Plus, I hadn’t eaten meat in front my family in several years.

I wasn’t sure when the opportunity would come up to for me to break back into the carnivorous world. As it turned out, today was the day. It’s Friday night, and a payday, which means it’s “takeout night”. My husband wasn’t feeling good today, and he’s the one who usually procures the dinner for “takeout night”. The overall request was for sandwiches from Subway. The kids and their father had their usual “Veggie Delight” sandwich.

My sandwich:

Turkey! Mmmmm………………

Empty Boxes

(Originally posted on my old blog, September 8, 2010)

We’re currently in the early stages of moving. Early, in that we’re packing all of the decorations and extra items that we aren’t using (for example: all of my bakeware is packed because my oven doesn’t work). So we’ve been asking around to friends, and friends of friends and local grocery stores for boxes. When the boxes were first brought home they were stacked in front of the house. It didn’t take long before this happened:

Oscar,

And I found this later on,

Fonzie (I will be washing those grocery bags before I use them again……….just in case anyone is looking at this photo and getting grossed out that my son’s cat is using them as a comforter or a pillow.)

Hmmmm……When moving day comes, I wonder if this would be a viable way to move the cats? Just kidding 🙂

Our First Day of the New School Year

(Originally posted on my old blog, September 7, 2010)

I have a high schooler now.
And I have another middle-schooler, at least according to his age, he is one.

I had read about a tradition of another home-schooling family (Sprittibee), in which they take their children out for a “back to school” breakfast on the first day of school. So we did that last year, and had plans for that this year as well. Because of limited finances both last year and this one, breakfast was only for the children, and it came from McDonald’s (a.k.a. “Micky D’s” or “Mac & Dee’s Roadhouse” around here).

When I woke up this morning and came out into the livingroom, Kylin was on the couch, dressed and ready to go (I wasn’t). Heather came out soon after and she dressed for pictures (because she knew I would take them and she didn’t want to look like she had just rolled out of bed). The plan was, for us to leave as soon as Kevin left for work (he took the bus this morning so that we could have the car).

When the time came for us to leave, my son was out of the door and waiting by the car, and I was still inside the house, looking for the keys. I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I finally sent Kevin a text asking if he knew where they were. As it turned out, he had them. So he got back on the bus and came home. While we waited for him and the keys to arrive, the kids decided to get started on their schoolwork early.

So here is my highschool gal

and here is my middle-schooler boy

When my husband arrived home with the keys, we then took him to work and finally made it to McDonald’s for this breakfast

I probably would have ordered a hashbrown for myself (because I LOVE potatoes), but they tend to stick with me longer than I like.

What I really wanted was this:

“Mama’s Little Helper”

So by 9:30 I think, the kids were finally having something to eat

Pay no attention to the table, it has just become a catch-all for a family starting to pack for a future move (and a boy who likes to draw a lot of pictures and then not put his supplies away).

The weather seemed to know that it was the first day of school as well. We went from decent sunny weather yesterday, to rain all day today. I didn’t mind too much as it gave me an excuse to make chili and the kids had some hot cocoa!

Eventually, I’ll get back to posting about our Seattle trip, and also about the move that I just mentioned………..when I get another free moment.

Are We Old?

(Originally posted on my old blog, September 1, 2010)

Yesterday, we were watching “Live With Regis & Kelly”, and apparently a viewer had e-mailed the show stating that Regis wouldn’t have such a hard time dialing numbers for their trivia contest, if he had a rotary phone. So, that brought the question out of my daughter, “What’s a rotary phone?”. Did someone just slap me with an “old” label!

So I posted that comment as a status on my Facebook page and that brought on other comments. I was reminded of the days when we had party lines. I remember trying to call my grandma or my dad, and discovering that there were other people having a conversation on my phone. Then someone commented on how when they worked in a thrift shop and a record player was brought in. Apparently the 17 year old co-worker didn’t know how to put the needle on the record.

My husband and I have told our kids about our childhoods, in which we didn’t have personal computers (I didn’t, but my husband did when he was about 15), and our televisions only brought in 1-3 channels and we didn’t have cable (as Jeff Foxworthy once said about those days, “When the President was on, your night was shot!”). When I was 12, my mother put our black & white tv in our pastor’s garage sale, so I wasn’t watching any channel for several years (until I had my own apartment and my own tv, and soon after that, my mom and stepfather acquired another tv and it was ok to have in the house again).

My kids have heard of records, but I don’t think that they’ve seen them. My daughter likes to ask, “What are those?” everytime they’re mentioned.

So because they don’t know what these things are, does that make us “old”. I’d rather use the word “classic”.

Our Weekend in Seattle—Part 2, Heading North

(Originally posted on my old blog, August 18, 2010)

So, now that my purse was packed, as our suitcases. I thought that we would be able to get away with taking one suitcase, however after packing what I needed (for anything that could happen), I realized that there wouldn’t be any room for my husband’s clothes. So I dug out another suitcase. It was smaller than mine, but I’ve noticed that men don’t pack as many things as women do (I went on a trip with my dad once, and all he packed was his shaving kit, a coffee maker and a fresh shirt and underwear for the next day……just the necessities). Women pack for any occasion or weather change that may come up, so I needed that larger suitcase for myself :)I was up late the night before, making sure that we had everything we needed, and that the kids would have everything they needed for their stay at my friend’s house, and making sure that the cats would be taken care of etc. I think that I finally went to bed near midnight (all of that hard work and stressing paid off too because we didn’t forget anything! I was a very good packer).

I woke up at around 5AM as to get a shower in. We have 4 people and a water heater that needs about an hour to heat the water between showers. The ladies go first, because we have hair and we like to kind of fix it up a bit, kind of, sort of (well maybe not for a road trip, but I wanted mine to be clean and dry at least, I didn’t want my spouse offended by the filthy chick in the passenger’s seat).

We took the kids to my friend’s house, said our good-byes, thanked my friend again for taking them for the weekend, and headed off to find some fast food breakfast.

Our first stop was a McDonald’s. Since we don’t eat meat, we usually order the Sausage McMuffin with Egg, minus the sausage. We apparently only ordered the Sausage McMuffin minus the sausage (we didn’t ask for the one with egg I guess because what we discovered, once on the road again, was this:

That’s right, a grilled cheese English Muffin. We had a good laugh about that and figured that it was probably the equivalent of what we’d normally eat at home.

Then we found a local coffee stand for our “morning fuel”

And we were headed North…

I lived on a dairy farm when I was little, so I like to see cows grazing in the pasture.

Then there was the rain of hay and it’s source (windshield wipers are of no use here)

Once in Portland, we found the sign leading to our destination! Excitement is building! And apparently, so were rain clouds, because once we crossed over into Washington, the rain started coming down.

Not only was excitement building, but so was the need to use the bathroom. So our first stop in Washington was at a Winco in Vancouver………..to use their bathroom. My apologies to Winco for not buying anything, but thank you for the clean bathrooms! Just a recommendation or two. A door on the bathroom would be a good idea, and duct tape isn’t adequate for holding hand dryers on the walls.

We finally made it to our hotel in Federal Way, with about 2 hours before needing to leave for the show. As soon as we entered the lobby, we noticed other fans of the group. Other than the time that we went to Portland to see a documentary about this band, I hadn’t seen so many fans in one place (and that was about to change later in the evening). I forgot to take pictures of our room and by the time I thought to do it, my husband was already napping in the bed and I was putting on my contacts and sprucing up for the show. However, it was a really nice room!

So, that was the trip, and my next post will probably be about the show…………

Our Weekend in Seattle—part 1, Packing the Purse!

(Originally posted on my old blog, August 15, 2010)

Kevin’s favorite band was planning to perform near Seattle, last weekend. For the first time, he asked me to if I’d like to go. So I said that I would. Before I married my husband, I had never heard of the band. I remember seeing a record album cover at some point in the 80’s but had no idea or interest to know whose record it was for. So when I married my husband, he was no longer listening to them, or really any other secular music. So I didn’t hear or see anything related to them. So, since then, things have changed, and he listens to this group again, as well as several others. So, in the past 7 years, I’ve heard more about this band and it’s members. So, when he talks about them, I have a better idea as to what or who he’s talking about. I’ve heard their music, and they play really, REALLY well, however, it’s not really music that I listen to. If I listen to anything secular, it’s usually something that I listened to in my highschool/college years……………..or, the Jonas Brothers (thanks to my daughter, lol). Mostly what I do listen to is on the Christian radio stations.

I never went to that many concerts and most of them were Christian. The last secular one that I went to see was for Weird Al Yankovic at the county fair. The last two Christian shows I went to, were in enclosed buildings, and they were so loud that the bodies of the audience absorbed the volume, and some of the opening acts, literally screamed at us. I had heard that the venue for this latest show was open on the sides and back, so I felt that I probably wouldn’t be blown totally out of the place, and I learned that even though this group did scream out their songs in the early years, they really didn’t do that anymore. But, in any case, I thought that I would make sure that my purse was ready for almost anything during the show (my husband wasn’t so sure that I should bring it, but most men aren’t carrying the things that we women are. A purse is our home away from home as it has the basic necessities to keep our lives from falling apart..

So, here’s what I packed, and who knows, it might help other future inexperienced concert goers (one never knows…………)

Yes! Earplugs. I wound up not using these because I was concerned that I might not hear anything at all. The gal who frisked me and checked my purse (before I boarded the shuttle to the venue) laughed when she saw these.

Ok, don’t laugh at the brand of granola bars that I bought. They’re low cal, and a nice substitute for the fried food at the venue, if one is trying to trim down.

How did we survive with out this stuff when we were kids and went to the lake and the only bathrooms were not the kind with flushing toilets or running water? Always good to have when you go to a venue and you don’t know if maintenance has adequately filled the soap dispensers in the bathroom.

I was wearing my contacts to the show, that’s the only explanation I need.

I didn’t take any pictures of the show with my phone (I used my camera to take about 4………….my husband took many, many more). I carry this everywhere so my daughter can text me if they need me (but she was having too much fun with her friends to send me anything, so she didn’t need me after all).

It’s summer, and I assumed that it would be sunny, and that I would need these. However, once we crossed the border from Oregon into Washington, the sky became cloudy, and it started to rain, and continued to do so off and on for the rest of the day (and the day after that, so I didn’t need these after all)

Hey, I may be in my 40’s, and the rain kind of flattened my hair, but a girl still wants to look cute & pretty for her guy at a concert!

Who, me? Apologize?

(Originally posted on my old blog, July 30, 2010)

Yesterday, my son spent the latter half of the morning playing with his model train set, out in the garage. It provides a quieter home for the rest of us when he does that.

(I realize that I’ve used this photo before, but he’s wearing the same shirt as he did yesterday and he is playing with the trains!)

So at lunch time, I fixed their chicken burger sandwiches and set the lunch on the table. I called out to the garage to let the young engineer know that his lunch was ready. Normally, he’d say, “coming” and be at the table in no time. Not this time. No, this time I was told, “I’ll be there in awhile”. So I said that he needed to come to the table right now, before his lunch is cold (which would bring on complaining if that happened). So he reluctantly comes in and sits down, and then asks me, “Mom, have you apologized for interrupting what I was doing?”

Uh, no, I make no apologies for refusing to starve my kid!

My Girl is Home!!!

(Originally posted on my old blog, July 23, 2010)

I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of her getting off of the bus. By the time I arrived at the church, she was off of the bus and had her luggage and was ready to go home. She had a touch of sunburn on her face, and she’d had a long week. She wound up being sick off and on at camp all week. This was also the first year that she had a cell phone with her, so we were texting back and forth all week. If the week was rough for her, the one benefit from camp is that she was so glad to come home and see her brother, and us.

Miss Lisa's Life At Home

Christian, Wife, Mother, Coffee Drinker, Photographer, Seamstress, Gardener