Mother torture anyone?

I really hate swimming lessons. I love swimming, the kinder love swimming too but I think swimming lessons were designed as torture for moms. Swimming lessons in the summer I can only assume, would be sheer insanity. Imagine every single child crammed into the swimming pool with their parents on the bleachers.
One of the blessings of homeschool is the ability to enroll my kids in lessons in April well before the little ones are let out of kiddy prison and unleashed upon the unsuspecting swim-team graduates.
Still I find lessons relentless torture. They are always scheduled a wee bit earlier than we are used to being out of the house, we get there barely on time. I manoeuvre my slow children through the crowded dressing room to the pool and I get situated and Nutmeg starts playing. I try to maintain a balance friendly mom to chat with other moms, but each time I chat I can't pay attention to my kids. As soon as look up they are just finishing their turn. Before I know it the 25 min lessons are finished. Then I take a waddling, shivering 4 year old into the women's dressing room with all of the other mothers, their boys AND girls and their strollers, in addition to the half a dozen old ladies who have dropped by for a swim.
Then Mom has to go into the shower to turn it on for said 4 year old, getting wet in the process while the 2 year old is doing who knows what elsewhere. Then it is time to get a slow, wet 4 year old dressed. You know how underwear, pants and socks do not want to go on damp skin. Yeah, that is how I send my mornings now. Then we rush home just in time for the kids to simultaneously beg for food the moment I drag all of the wet clothes out of the van and into the house. I ask, if my patience is all used up by 11am, what are we left with? Answer: me snapping all day long and lying about the house in a martyr's pose begging the kids to please stop whining.

Mercifully lessons last only 4 weeks. I don't think I am going to make it.

The Law of 3

I made a batch of Turkish Delight last night. It didn't set so I made another, it also did not set. this could have been because I was cooking on the Sabbath or just a failing on my part. Tonight I made rhubarb crisp - also a failure. I would blame my appliance but the Turkish Delight was a stovetop project while the crisp was an oven affair.

The question is, if these things usually happen in threes; am I safe? Does each failed batch of Turkish Delight count or are they one collective failure. How will Commander C's birthday cake turn out tomorrow? Is it free from the curse?

And how will I ever satisfy my craving for a rose flavored confection?

Things I love (totally stole this topic form Kiera)

1. Newborn babies
2. Freshly folded cloth diapers
3. Devil's Food Cake
4. Needlework
5. My Champlin hoodie
6. Swimming in Loon Lake
7. England
8. Freedom
9. Vintage Mustangs
10. Benihana's seared tuna
11. Ridiculously full skirts

The Elusive Cello Suite pt 2

Cello has been purchased. Smiles all around. Lessons about to begin.

Cranford!

I finished watching Sense and Sensibility on Masterpiece last night (yes, it was very good.) In the previews for the next round of Masterpiece they had Cranford. Cranford! So, right now you are thinking what is Cranford? Cranford is a delightful pastoral novel by Mrs. Gaskell. I discovered Gaskell when reading all the biographies I could find on Charlotte Bronte. Mrs. Gaskell actually met and interviewed Charlotte before her death. I enjoyed the biography and read many of Gaskell's other works. My favorite is Cranford followed by North and South (no, not that North and South.) Take the time to read this book it is very short and so charming. Then watch it on Masterpiece, you won't be disappointed (I hope) Judi Dench is in it!
My favorite part is when a friend sends the women a "cage" and they can't figure out what it is for.

March Reading list

Finished:
God's Politics - by Jim Wallis
This was a very thought provoking book. It really made me examine issues that I thought I held to moral high ground on. As a book group we really felt the need to do more for the poor but disagree with Wallis that the government should do something about it. I feel it is everyone's personal responsibility, not one we should delegate.

Currently Reading:
The Merry Adventures of Robing Hood - By Howard Pyle
We are still pressing forward, it is a long book and difficult reading. Some nights the boys aren't listening so I don't read very long. We are enjoying it.

Free To Choose - by Milton and Rose Friedman
This is for our TJEd book goup. I have only just started. I am very excited because Friedman was so smart.

I, Robot - by Isaac Asimov
A little out of my usual reading material. Reading this for the other book group. This is an easy read, has interesting ideas and some parts are hilarious 60 years after it was written (not intentional.)

The Book of Mormon -
Still doing this is fits and starts but better than usual.

Teach the Children - by Neal Flinders
Haven't picked this up in about a month. Looking forward to getting back to it.

Up Next:

Dead Reckoning - By my friend Craig Cheney and his brothers Jeffery and Jared

Leadership Education, The Phases of Learning - By Oliver deMille

The Elusive Cello Suite

Boba Fett wants to play the cello. Cellos as you may know are very expensive. Quality used cellos at what I would consider an affordable price are hard to come by. Compund that with the fact that Boba Fett is a very little guy so we are looking for an 1/8 sized cello. This is nigh impossible. I have spent the last 7 days obsessing over finding a cello including a very stressful afternoon on e-bay where I lost the auction. I have not given up but I am no longer hopeful.

Library Thing

I like books. Nay, I LOVE books. You could say that I am a Bibliophile. It is my goal to have a small library and SHELVES. I found this site and I am having a great deal of fun with it. The limit of books for the free account is 200 and I know that I have about 800 so I am going to have to upgrade to a paid account.

FYI, there will be a party when I near 1,000 books. Friends and family will be invited to my party and will be asked to bring me a gift of a book. If the book is a duplicate of a book I already own, it doesn't count. The person who brings the 1,000th book will get a prize and will be honored as the donor of the 1,000th book.

How many fingers do you see?

I need glasses. The nice eye doctor says I can use them for reading, sewing and driving. I don't have to wear them all the time. Take that eye doctor I saw 6 years ago. I pulled out my old glasses a while ago and noticed that they are terribly dated. 6 years ago they were the cusp of eye wear fashion, now they are lame. We will be picking out new frames tonight, they of course will be trendy and dated in a few years. C'est la vie!

He is Risen!

We are singing two songs in Sacrament meeting this morning one of peace and one of JOY! I love them. Even though it is cloudy and grey what a wonderful day. I am including the lyrics because they describe my heart this morning.






O Morn of Beauty - Jean Sibelius

O morn of beauty, morn of gladness!
Awak'ning joy, dispelling shades of night,
Gone is the gloom, the sorrow and the sadness,
Now breaks the day of peace and light.
Sing and Rejoice with joyful alleluias,
Sing alleluia, alleluia!

The days are past when souls were wrapt in mourning,
The earth awakes with vict'ry as her strain,
Lift up your hearts and greet the glad day dawning,
For Christ the Lord is ris'n again!
Sing and rejoice with joyful alleluias,
Sing alleluia, alleluia!


Let the Trumpet Sound - Natalie Sleeth

Let the trumpet sound, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Let the earth resound, Hallelujah Amen!
Let the people sing, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Let the heavens ring Hallelujah, Amen!
Now and ever blessed are we
Christ has won the victory!
Let the world rejoice, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Let the chorus voice, Hallelujah, Amen!

Christ the Lord, is risen on this Easter Day.
From his mortal prison where three days he lay.
Love has come down to roll the stone away;
Gone is now the sorrow, Dawns the joyful day.

Let the trumpet sound, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Let the earth resound, Hallelujah Amen!
Let the people sing, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Let the heavens ring Hallelujah, Amen!
Now and ever blessed are we
Christ has won the victory!

Let the night be gone, Let the daylight dawn,Hallelujah, Amen!
Let the world rejoice, Let the chorus voice: Hallelujah, Amen!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen! Hallelujah, Amen!

The Business of Being Born

I just watched The Business of Being Born . It was so wonderful. I thought I would be angry but I am more thoughtful. Thank you to my two earthly angels; to Cindy who was my doula at my hospital birth and to Betty my midwife for my two homebirths. Thank you for helping me find myself. Thank you to my 3 children who are the reason I am who I am. Amen.

A picture of Nutmeg just after birth at home on my crazy zebra sheets with her born at home bracelet.

Plumbing

Why the image of a commonly eaten junk food that is often passed off as real food? Why because that is what was clogging my kitchen sink. For which I had to endure 18 hours of Draino fumes and pay $69 to the plumber. FYI if there is a lot of mac n' cheese in your disposal, when you turn it on it doesn't dispose, it just sucks it all into the drain where it sits in your u-bend and clogs up your sink.

The good news is I know a plumber so I knew who to call and I think $69 is a reasonable fee. Also, there is only one person in the house who eats "smack" and it isn't me.

Hug your babies...

A little lost boy was found outside of my house today. He rode his trike about 3 blocks around the corner and up the hill and on to the MAJOR road near my house. He was probably 2 certainly not yet 3. The people who found him knocked on my door since the kids were playing outside to see if he belonged to me. He was IN the road. Luckily his mom came just after the police arrived. Unfortunately I did not know where he came from. I was afraid that he lived in the mega condo-plex behind our house. We might never have found his mom.

So pick up your babies and hug them tight, and please tell them not to ride in the middle of the road.

Ok, so I like SOME poetry

Mi amiga takes exception to my feeling for flowery rhymes I seek to vindicate myself.
I really appreciate carefully crafted prose. If you want to say something just say already quit pussyfooting around it like a wimpy old lady. I am aware that this is a shocking revelation in my personality, it shocks me too. A girl who likes period dramas and embroidery would seemingly be a fool for poetry. I, however; skip whole sections of books where a poem or song is retold. I do like some poetry like the kind that don't use sentences but just string words or phrases together.

Here is poetry I can handle

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
-William Carlos Williams

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Haiku ( I really love haiku)
The Highwayman - Noyes
and I can indeed enjoy a rhymed couplet (they aren't long enough to make me glaze over)

Chicken boarding school??

I love fresh eggs. Moose used to work with a guy who kept chickens and for a couple of years we were treated to free farm eggs. Eventually he stopped keeping chickens and I was left to buy my own eggs, there was a farm nearby that sold them, but they stopped.

My neighbor says that then they bought their house there was a paper that said "no chickens" on it, but I never saw such a rule. I don't know if our yard is big enough anyway. I think I will call the county and ask. Not that Moose would EVER let me have chickens on our tiny lot.

I have 2 friends that keep chickens and I am envious. Our babysitter (daughter of one of the friends) suggested that it wouldn't be anymore work to take care of 6-8 chickens than it is to take care of 4 and hinted that maybe my chickens could board at their house. I told her maybe she should check with her mom before she offered that, also It didn't sound fair that they do all the work and I get the spoils, though of course I would pay for feed.

Then I got to thinking, wouldn't it be cute to get chicks in Easter baskets? Then I looked on Craigslist and found chicks for sale.

So I am just wondering, anyone out there who wants to board some chickens for me? I would like to get Araucanas for the pretty eggs but if that won't jive with your flock I could change my mind.

The first bloom

Violets are my favorite flower, followed by lilacs, lily of the valley and tea roses. Very old fashioned, I know. This is a blurry picture of the firt violet in my violet patch. The first bloom of spring!

COD4

We have a wonderful new droid in our home. Its number is COD4 and he washes my dishes. He does it very, very well. Moose sacrificed from his computer cache to buy this for me. Turns our that the old dishwasher that never cleaned was just a bad model. So I am not crazy and I DO know how to load a dishwasher.

February Reading List

I have started reading again as knitting season is in the Pro-bowl state.

Read this month:
Ivanhoe - By Sir Walter Scott - For TJEd discussion group. Liked it, really liked it, but thought that is was too long. Why is this book called "Ivanhoe"? It should be called "Rebecca" or "Superbad knights from Merry Old England, Their Cohorts and Their Ladies"

Instead of Education - by John Holt for a different discussion Group. Good stuff. Down with S-chools, hooray for homeschools, s-chools unite!

Persepolis - By Marjane Satropi
A touch of misguided communism in appealing comic book form. Interesting look and the Iran of the late 70's early 80's. I don't know much about the topic so I was unable to compare it with anything else. Iranians are people too - their leaders are a little bit ...off. Recommended reading takes 2 hours tops.

Currenty reading:

Teach the Children - by Neal Flinders
Good, but I find it frustrating to read books that want to advocate homeschooling but can't because they were written before homeschooling became acceptable so they focus on fixing the broken and unfix-able public school machine. (Also my only criticism of Instead of Education - just tell us to Homeschool!)

The Merry Adventures of Robing Hood - By Howard Pyle
I inherited this bedtime story book because Moose does not like reading Pyle. I now know why
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue." is nothing to the prose of Pyle. Luckily I have a background in Shakespeare and I can barrel through fancy language with some ease. I am probably reading it too fast, I always read aloud very quickly.
Question: Is Robin Hood a good role model? He is a criminal, how do I work this into a leadership education? Commander C is lapping it up and thus so I continue.

The Book of Mormon:
Totally doing this in fits and starts, like 15 chapters on Sunday, 3 on Wednesday and guilt the other 5 days of the week. I am highlighting in green with my new fancy scripture marker all the verses that are examples on how and what to teach one's Children.

To be read:
Mary Barton - Elisabeth Gaskell (for fun)
The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster (for Commonwealth)
God's Politics - By Jim Wallis (for TJEd discussion group) this will prove thought provoking, thus far I am not agreeing with the author.

63 reasons to love Luke!

1. He is cute.
2. He says "G'day"
3. He writes "I love Janessa Moss" in the sand.
4. His fingers never smell like smoke.
5. Dad likes him.
6. He LOVES the USA!
7. He is LDS.
8. He is not chubby.
9. He likes our family.
10. The family likes him.
11. He wanted to give his DS to Eddy.
12. Eddy loves him.
13. He has brown eyes.
14. He has brown hair.
15. He is so nice.
16. Mom like him.
17. He will take a girl to the temple.
18. His mom likes Janessa.
19. He bought Taylor a boomerang.
20. He is tall but not too tall.
21. He wears hoodies at the cinema.
22. Sara likes him.
23. He knows how to throw anotha shrimp on the barbie.
24. He is generous.
25. He puts up with Janessa and still loves her.
26. We like the way he talks.
27. He'll treat you right.
28. Brian likes him.
29. He spent Christmas in a foreign land.
30. He would be a good father.
31. Regan likes him.
32. He likes mint oreos.
33. He likes to go shopping.
34. He is not gay.
35. His initials spell LAW
36. Jessica likes him.
37. HE showed Danny how to pull his thumb off.
38. His breath never smells like beer.
39. He likes Montana.
40. He doesn't leave the toilet seat up.
41.Cameron likes him.
42. He is Australian.
43.He'll move across the world to be near you.
44.He is good with kids.
45.He is handy.
46.Margaret likes him
47. He can lay tile.
48. He is not a bum.
49. He likes Disneyland
50.He conserves water.
51. Kylene likes him.
52. He does a good gay impression.
53. You don't deserve him.
54. Danny likes him.
55. Jason likes him.
56. Jeremy likes him.
57.He has a job.
58.Audrey likes him.
59. Janie likes him.
60. Shawnel likes him.
61. Really you love him.
62. He is the best thing that could ever happen to you.
63. He is forgiving.

Here's a little something for you!

SO, I don't take pills. When I am pregnant I try to choke down a few because I am generally anemic and tired during pregnancy. I also do not remember to give my children pills. Yet I have an entire cupboard shelf for vitamins, herbs and supplements. My homeopathics DO get used but the rest of this stuff...not so much.

I was organizing my cupboard today and took all of these things out. Nearly half are things I puchased because I wanted to. The Vitamin C, B-12, Folic Acid, Dandelion Root, Papaya Root (pregnancy heartburn be gone), Cran-actin, Cramp-ease, Nettle and Garlic Oil.

The Other half are things that my practicioners convinced me to buy. The trouble with those are ... they aren't cheap. We are talking about $30+ a bottle here folks. Most of them are things that it would behoove me to take or give to my children, but I forget. There are a few exceptions there is the big bottle with a shiny label, that is from the MLM my parents were into before the current one. Why do Mormons Like MLM's so much? I don't know, I did not inherit that gene. I don't know what it does and as I opened it this afternoon I learned, the seal hasn't even been broken.
Then there is the Opti-Gyn. Opti-Gyn is some sort of super vitamin for women with reprodictive issues. I acquired a this bottle during a last ditch effort to avoid surgery. It was a late rainy winter evening, I got a last minute appointment at the Naturopathic College of Medicine downtown. My best friend saved me by watching my son for me while I went in. While I was there I learned 1) My insurance would not cover this visit and the person who recommended it to me had a different idea of affordable than I did. 2) It was hot in that building, and I was in emotional distress. 3) I was starving and dangerously close to passing out from hunger.
After waiting quite some time I finally was ushered into a room with a real doctor and 3 students. I cried out my story to them and told them how much I wanted to avoid surgery and that it was scheduled in 3 weeks.
They grilled me, asked every single question under the sun, 3 times. They then left the room for quite some time to confer and then came back, told me to eat a better diet and showed me out the door. Where I was met with a bill of $80 and told to buy this bottle of pills. Cost $40 - sure I could have declined to do so but all 4 of the doctors were hovering watching me write out my check and as I mentioned the 3 points I was in no state to argue. As soon as I left the building I cried, and cried and cried. I picked up my son, crying out the whole story and then arrived home where my husband had to make me soup and put me to bed.

The next morning I called the office and told them I would like to return my bottle of pills. I was told that all pharmacy purchases were non refundable. I was so mad, I stopped payment on my check. Where I learned 1) banks charge $25 dollars to stop payment on checks. 2) even if you are pissed off about the treatment you recieved at the doctors office you still have to pay.

So I was stuck with the $80 visit, $40 pills, and $25 check cancellation fee, and a $10 late payment fee at the office. Nice, emotional abuse and highway robbery. And I still had to have the surgery.

I can't get rid of these pills because I am so frugal - I can't thow out money. I am not going to take them because I will not remember, I can't get rid of them because Freecycle won't let you freecycle "supplements" even though they won't define supplements.

So I just look at these pills as a tip. I give the practicioners ;who are all excellent (save the Opti-Gyn pushers) a little tip. They do a good job and I smile and buy their pills so they can make a little more money than my insurance company will pay them.