Santa is out of touch!

Lucy and I were driving in the car yesterday and discussing Christmas Presents. We talked about the various relatives we have and what we are going to make for them. Out of the blue, Lucy mentions Santa. She decides that we need to get Santa a present also. When asked what she would like to give Santa, she thought for a minute, and then replied, "A cell phone!"

When I get my drivers license....

I am going to go to the sewing machine store! Lucy exclaimed this morning. When asked why, she replied that she wants to sew. Well, guess I should have seen that answer coming!

Babies smell good!

Yesterday we babysat for a friends 6 week old baby. What a cutie! As Ad was holding him ever so gently in his lap, he looked up at me and said, "He smells like tater tots, or something else to eat!"

Ten years, man! Ten!

Where’ve you been for ten years?"
"I freaked out, joined the army, went into business for myself. I’m a professional killer."
"Oh, do you have to do postgraduate work for that, or can you jump right in?

In 6 days my first baby will be 10. This is worse than turning 30! I feel like someone punched me in my breathing mechanisms!

Anywho, we are going to go mini golfing as a family, and invite 3 friends for a movie date. Ad wants to see city of Ember, so I hope it is showing!

He wants to have an MP3 player for his birthday... So I guess we will be breaking the bank.. I mean a young man only turns 10 once, you know!

I can't vote for Angus.

Chuck Angus is running for re-election to the Radcliff, KY city council. I can't vote for him. This is why:

In denial

I am in denial! I have 3 things floating around my brain that I want to blog about.. I haven't done it yet, because writing it down makes it real. I don't want to confront all this yet, so tonight I am going to deny them exit from my head. Maybe tomorrow.

Will you smell my....

Any questions that start with "Will you smell my..." is dangerous. The answer to this question is always a resounding NO! Lk learned this lesson the hard way today. Aj asked her if she would smell his arm pit. For some reason, she said yes and then almost barfed on herself. Then Aj rubbed his arm pit on Ad's head. Ad asked Lk if she wanted to smell his head. For some reason she said yes, and then almost barfed on herself. We had to have a talk about questions to which one should always answer no.

Google was invented by Pinky and the Brain

I better not say that too loudly here, because blogger is owned by pinky..err.. google now.

What could be better than an email service that tells you when you have had too much to drink??

The new email goggles will help you decide if you should not send that email to your ex boyfriend. It is available on nights and weekends only, cuz who's drunk on weekdays??? (ha!) Sounds super great, no? Unfortunately the way your computer decides if you are drunk is by giving you a MATH test. what happens if you fail your math test? You can't send ANY email at night or on the weekends? Brain, this is the UNITED STATES!! No one is going to pass, drunk or not! Sorry there, sally, susie, and bobby jo.. NO EMAIL FOR YOU!

On another note, I find it deeply disturbing that my computer could potentially tell me not to send an email. Pinky and the Brain are already storing every private thought we have sent in email, but now they are going to tell us not to send those emails because we are too stupid, err, drunk to add? Scary folks!

Pinky and the Brain speak up about email goggles

Chili... not for fork lift drivers

Armyman makes a mean chili sauce. But he has never made a DEADLY chili sauce. Some people should just stay away from the spiciness.

Attack of the killer chilis

Fun with zoo animals

Today we went to the zoo with our Susie Goodness children. We all had a blast! We were able to feed the lorikeets. One of them was in a bad mood and bit Ad on the hand. He is tough though, and did not even make a sound. One of the lorries perched on Aj's head. He looked a bit nervous after the bite his brother just got. We saw the gorillas, and one of them would knock on the glass to get the kids attention. They would knock back and then the Gorilla would look at them and knock on the glass at the same place. The zoo is so fun. I am so glad we managed to get the membership! Lk told me her favoritest part was the monkeys who knocked on the glass.

Lk's Birthday

Lk turns 5 on Saturday. I can't believe my baby is 5. I can't believe it has been 5 years since that adventure in my mom's office :) My mom is the lifesaver of the year for 2003, according to the Ventura County Red Cross, dontcha know?

In honor of Lk actually reaching the 5 year mark, here is her birthday wish list, verbatim.

Music thingy like a radio
A clean house that is this big and touches the ground. (playhouse)
A long fake pink rattlesnake or a rainbow one.
5 my little ponies with a house
a little stroller for my babies
my own little tv that has channels in it.. then I could watch tv whenever I want, but not when I am going to bed. I won't ask that.
I bet I want something else too, 8 thingys.
candy
fake candy for my ponies
2 little dogs
a pony that's a baby one
a fly pony
a pony that has a bicycle that has a controller and a helmet so it could be safe.

Future Career Opportunities

Ad is truly a boy after my own heart. Yesterday, we were discussing his future career choices. He told me he would like to make posters, like lost dog posters, and hang them up all over the world telling people not to waste our trees. He asked me how much paper makers get paid. He said he would like to travel the world telling people about conservation. AWWWW! He then decided that since artisan paper makers don't make a living wage, he will be a zoologist and feed and train animals, and occasionally brush their teeth. He demonstrated how to keep a lion from biting you (stuff your hand in their mouth and hook their cheeks, learned from a nature documentary). I guess I now need to contact the zoo so he can learn about what is necessary to become a zoologist.

Today, Lk decided that when she grows up she will be a gorilla and scare people. So Ad helped her practice her gorilla growl.

Hospital funnies

Cuz everything about hospitals are funny right??

So today I went to get counseled about my lack of vaccination love. We get up to the fourth floor... for the first time.. and see that the walls are tiled in hospital horror movie green, and alternating walls are covered in what looks like pink burlap. Yes.. pink. Lk remarks.. Wow, it looks like a jail up here.

When we finished on the pink and horror jail floor we went back downstairs to leave. We passed a mom who was standing with her toddler ON A LEASH. Lk and I both stared like it was a horrific traffic accident. We both rubbernecked all the way to the door. As Lk was passing through the door, she turned around and said to me in the most incredulous voice, That boy was wearing a LEASH! She turned around and passed through the door laughing to herself. I asked her what was so funny, and she said again, That boy was wearing a LEASH!!


leashes on little boys apparently don't fit in with her world order!

Breastmilk.. yummmmy

Breast is best, right? Just how far are YOU willing to go to push the agenda, and to save the cows from a life of servitude?

PETA says we should free the cows, and as an afterthought, give up veal!

PETA loves breastmilk. See their letter to Ben and Jerry below.


September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President



Now, how about some ice cream??

Don't be a side kick!

I don't eat meat... anyone who reads this blog probably already knows that, because, well, no one reads this blog!
But i just found this sooo funny... in a very wrong sort of way. Have you ever noticed that old couples who have been together forever look alike. And those crazy pet lovers always look like their pets.. poodle owners always have perms, right?

Nothing for you, Suckah!

This NY couple were murdered. That is really sad, not funny at all. What is funny is the draft will they left behind. Unfortunately for them, they did not sign so it is not legally binding, but wowzas, these folks were bitter! The husband decided he wanted to be either buried in a scuba suit at sea, or thrown a stripper beach party. I will bring the midori!!

crazy with a will

Sewing!

I have been on a sewing kick! 2 days ago I organized my patterns for easy viewing. I pulled out 4 patterns for Lk's winter wardrobe.. and started Aj's shorts and shirts.. I may finish those before summer is over @@. He will wear them year round anyway. Now I just need to get my machines serviced before they die LOL

Book Adventure

I found this nifty new website. Your children register for free, and then they read books, go to the site, and take a quiz on the book. The quizes are really short and not too tough. They receive points for how well they do on the quizes and then they can redeem the points for cool reading paraphernalia. Right now they are running a contest for a free trip to space camp, including airfare, for 2! Yeah baby! We are all reading and quizzing our hearts out to get a chance at space camp!

www.BookAdventure.org

Where has the month gone?

I haven't posted anything in a long long time, and I wanted to post like 5 different posts just so I could neatly tag and file these updates away and find them later shoudl I want to find them, but then i decided that was way too much work. So one update it is!

First the Garden... We moved the garden to the side of the house, luckily it was all in pots!! Unfortunately with it being out of eye sight, we slacked a bit on the watering, but I don't think it mattered. We had mushrooms growing in a few pots. Our tomatoes did not really produce at all and I don't know if it is because there was not enough drainage, or if the soil wasn't good. Basically we got no produce from our big ole garden. It was sad. This winter we are going to build raised beds, and I am going to get the book square foot gardening and see if I can do better next year.

Daycare - I have opened a home daycare. It took a while to get everything together and I still feel slightly under prepared, but I am open and 3 children in my care. 2 are only before and after school care and one is all day. They are all 3 really nice children and fit in well with my three. The only downside is waking up at the butt crack of the morning every day. I am now seriously dragging arse!

School - We are homeschooling the kidlets this year. We are using www.amblesideonline.com for our curriculum. This is a literature based curriculum with "living books". This plan appeals to me because i love to read, and really love classics. I like the idea that our children will know all those stories that our culture is built upon and that are alluded to frequently. I am so thankful that an atmosphere of great reading and learning was fostered in my home as a child. I was given books of classic literature many times as a child and now i already own many of the books on our school book list. Unfortunately we are po' and can't afford many of the other books, but luckily many are now public domain and I have been able to print off their readings for the first term already. I also found Paper Back Swap
I was able to post 35 of my fluff books and have gotten many books for our school years present and future. Ambleside online is great also in that there are many support groups and they are super active. Any questions I have are quickly answered in a very friendly way.

We are currently reading the Bible, An Island Story, This Country of Ours, The Discovery of New Worlds, The Awakening of Europe, Fifty Famous Stories, Retold, Parables from Nature, Aesop's Fables, Burgess Bird Book, Paddle-to-the-Sea, Robert Louis Stephenson's poems, Trial and Triumph, Assorted Fairy Tales, James Herriot's Treasury for Children, Just So Stories, Benjamin Franklin, Tales from Shakespeare, Da Vinvi, Marco Polo, The Story of Inventions, William Blake poetry, American Tall Tales, The Heros, The Princess and the Goblin. And that's only for the first term!!

I decided not to start LK this year, and she will start next year when she is 6.

Business endeavors - I have been renewed in making DD a business that actually makes a profit. I can already see a difference. I decided that I just don't have time to devote to 2 businesses at once. I can't do it. I believe this is why i have failed to show large profits with my businesses. I told ArmyMan that I can't continue PP because I just don't have the time for it, and he professed a desire to do it himself, so I told him if he made all the paper, I would do the decorating into cards, and he could take pics, and then I would put them on the website. So far, he hasn't made any paper LOL. We shall see if that works out. I just have to find time to finish the website.. Maybe next month LOL.

Anyway that's the update for the month. Hopefully, in the next couple of days I will post my 101 things in 1001 days list and get going on that again.

WALL*E review

I went and saw Walle this last weekend with Lk and grammie. It was an amazing movie.. I absolutely am in love with it. Most of my friends know that I am a freak when it comes to sustainable living. This movie is exactly why I think more people should attempt to live more sustainably. I thought the message of the movie would be above the heads of the younger viewers, and Lk at age 4.85 did not understand the major message, but she still loved the movie. I recommend that everyone go watch this movie and then attempt to reduce, reuse and recycle!

Praise and Beverages

Driving down the crazy Kentucky highway, I saw a very small church with a sign board detailing their policy of Praise and Beverages. Everytime I passed the little church I would marvel! Maybe this church really wants to bring in the bar crowd for attempted reform. Maybe. Well I passed the church again a couple weeks ago and realized that the church sign says praise and DELIVERANCE! not BEVERAGES! oops.

fly paper

Lk was quietly sitting in the window. After over an hour, she came over to me and showed me her "fly paper". She told me that she was "plucking" flies from the air and then gluing them onto a sheet of printer paper. She was so happy to show me that she had glued over 10 flies!

Eco-Libris

How cool is this?? Plant a tree for every book you read to offset the trees cut down to make the book. They even send you a sticker for each tree that you plant. You put the sticker into the book and then everytime you pass it on, people will know that it is a sustainable book! I think Perpetual Paper Works is going to sponsor this organization!!

Click on this logo to go check it out and start balancing out your books!

What does every interstellar hitch hiker need?

A towel of course!

Funny article about towels according to Douglas Adams

Clotheslines rock!

taken from project laundry list

TOP REASONS TO HANG OUT YOUR CLOTHES


Electric dryers use five to ten percent of residential electricity in the United States!

• Save money (more than $100/year on electric bill for most households).FN1
  
• Conserve energy and the environment.FN2
  
• Clothes and sheets smell better.FN3
  
• Clothes last longer. Where do you think lint comes from?FN4
  
• It is physical activity which you can do in or outside.FN5
  
• Sunlight bleaches and disinfects
  
• Indoor racks can humidify in dry winter weather
  
• Clothes dryer fires account for about 15,600 structure fires, 15 deaths, and 400 injuries annually. The yearly national fire loss for clothes dryer fires in structures is estimated at $99 million.FN6

The things my children say

We went to Grammie and Grampa's house for the 4th. While we were there, we helped paint the upstairs bedroom. When we first walked into the bedroom, Ad looks around and says, "why are you painting? Are you going to move?" Poor thing was worried. Every time he sees me painting, I am covering up the dirt and crayon so we can move!

Today I took a shower with Lk. I got out first and wrapped up in a towel. As she was waiting for me to get her towel, she was jumping around in the tub. She looked up at me and told me it was okay to jump because no one lives under us, only the beavers. Uhhh.... okay.

planning ahead in the garden

So I am really contemplating next year's garden... I know, I know... get through this year first! But as I rearranged all my ghetto pots I began to think about next year. I am a total novice when it comes to gardening so I am not sure how to do all this. I decided I want this outcome:
15 pints of applesauce
3 lbs dried apples
3 lbs dried cranberries
5 qts. frozen blueberries
5 qts. frozen strawberries
20 pts diced tomatoes
20 qts spaghetti sauce
20 half pts tomato paste
10 pts salsa
5 lbs. dried mushrooms
10 qts froz. sweet peppers
25 ears of corn on the cob frozen
15 pts corn
15 pts of jam
15 pts of peanut butter
10 lbs of wheat berries
10 qts of carrots
10 qts of carrots frozen
5 qts of peas
25 lbs potatoes
25 pts refried beans
25 pts black beans
5 qts ketchup
5 qts froz broccoli
5 qts froz. cauliflower
4 qts zucchini
10 qts pickles

I also want to plant celery, but it doesn't freeze well.


So I suppose I need to plant
Blueberries
tomatoes
peppers
strawberries
corn
wheat
carrots
peas
potatoes
black beans
pinto beans
broccoli
cauliflower
zucchini
celery
and swiss chard for greens
lettuce
cucumbers

I am going to buy
apples
cranberries
peanuts
fruit for jams


the only thing left to determine is how much of each, and how I am going to plant that much food in my yard.. i don't have so much sun... so this should be an interesting thing.

Need vs. Want

this was a super interesting blog post about wants vs. needs. I really found it something i could relate too LOL!
Less Junk is More

Balloon Glow

Last week the kids and I went to a balloon glow with grampa. It was tons of fun.. I took way too many pictures to post here so click on the picture below to visit my snapfish album and see all the awesome pictures! Unfortunately you will have to register for a snap fish account to see the pics.. but it's the only picture place that automatically works with my phone.



We had tons of fun. It wasn't too crowded.. we ate popcorn, and toured all the balloons.

LK's skirt!

Today I finished Lk's skirt! The top was hand knit in mainly stockinette stitch and the bottom was machine knit with the ribbing at the bottom and the top hand knit. She told me she looks like a beach girl in her new outfit.

Garden Update!

We are starting to get food! It is the coolest thing to see that the plants I have been nurturing are starting to produce food that I am going to eat! YAY! Here are some new and updated pics of the garden.


Baby Bell Peppers


Baby Strawberries


Baby tomatoes


From the back door


Beans and Pumpkins!

Sustainablity

So one thing on my mind has been sustainable living. I am living a life that is so far from sustainable it is amazing. My family is very dependent on oil. We use gas in the car, and drive everywhere. Our food has been shipped to the grocery store, and then we drive to the store and buy it. Our goods have been shipped to large retail chain stores where we again drive and buy it. I think one of our major goals this year is going to be to learn how to sustain ourselves! I wonder if I can have chickens on post... and I wonder if I can find a butcher that will "fix" my chickens? I am not sure I could cook and eat it if I used to talk to it and collect it's eggs. I suppose we shall see, eh?

The Garden!

This year we finally planted a big ole garden. I am hoping to can a ton of veggies to help out with the grocery bills this winter. Of course the cicadas were so bad that we could not plant them in the ground so I ended up with tons of ghetto container plants! Our yard isn't quite sunny enough so the plants are taking a bit longer to flower than I had hoped, but we do have flowers on our tomatoes, and some on our strawberries. YAY!!
These pictures are from May 13, 2008

Garden from back door

Up close and personal with the tomatoes!

Pepper, strawberries, beans and pumpkins, OH MY!

Cicadas crawl out of these holes.

Cicada skins under my tree. EWWWWW!