Bleeding Green

Breathe. Breathe. Yes, it is "4H Project Record Book Time". That means life as we know it is put on hold and every thought and motion is under the Green Patrol. Books are actually due a month earlier this year. I think I am going to like it, because it means I have all of December to relax before we start new projects for next year. HOWEVER, I am not there yet, and so I dream of the day I turn in all records, forms, and files. Actually I don't know how I can dream of it since I can't go to bed until I am done. I would be done, but I made a discovery today. The electricity project that we completed this year isn't the right one for the boys to qualify for the free trip in the summer to Electric Congress. So I made a few calls, and visited a few friends, and voila I have acquired the correct book. So tomorrow the boys have to do 7 activities based on the correct electricity book. Lots of smiles and cheers for that one!! But once they do that, it is all over. YEE HAW! ----------- Once all of this is out of the way I will update on the last week and a half. It has to do with the play, Thanksgiving with family, relaxing, shopping, and a sick kid. All of that and Project Records. No wonder I feel a little loopy.

Stepping Up in Kingly Fashion

Last night at the dress rehearsal one of the worse things that can happen did happen. One of the lead parts got very sick. 102.7 fever! So an hour before the full dress rehearsal in front of an audience, #1 was asked to step in and take the king's spot. I didn't even know what was going on because I was putting make-up on the other actors. Evidently about an hour before the rehearsal the actor called the director to say he couldn't make it. The director asked #1 to step in, and he did a great job. I found out about 20 minutes before they were to go on. He came to ask me to do his make-up, and we were able to chat for a minute. He was nervous, but doing ok. While the cast went over some last notes, he sat on the bleachers going over the part. I felt miserable for him, knowing that he doesn't like change. After everything got settled, I went out to the auditorium to watch the play. I have been at several practices this week, but I am always graading papers or some such task and hadn't seen more than snatches of the play. The play is The Spell of Sleeping Beauty, and it is funny. It is meant as children's theater and involves the audience a bit. The evil witch is perfect, and I imagine some small kids may cry!

#1 was able to say a lot of the lines without any aid from the script. He is in a lot of scenes with the king, so he also had to teach another kid his original part. I was impressed with his ability to jump right in and take over. Yes, he used the script some, but honestly he stuck to the part and did excellent.

Even people in the audience were amazed at how comfortable he was and how quickly he caught on and knew the part.

At the curtain call, he was called out, "Go King!!" He told me on the way home that he wished people would just tell the truth, "You did ok for the first time, but you messed up a lot." I told him he was nuts. If it had been his part for the whole play they would be right in saying such a thing, but to jump in and take over a large part like he did was a very royal act indeed. Hopefully the other kid will be fine by tonight, it would be a shame for him to miss out after all of the hard work and time he put into the play. But if he is still sick, #1 will be the king.

Short Eternal Story

The high school Composition class I am teaching is going well, though I don't like all of the grading. I would much rather write a story than try to grade one. I have several talented writers in my class. Currently we are working on short stories. Short stories often have a moral, and rarely do they end well. Besides writing short stories, the kids are having to read a couple each week. It is interesting to me that the kids have enjoyed the older stories better than the "newer" ones. The more recent ones aren't really all that recent, but in comparison they are. They have enjoyed The Bet by Chekov, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Hawthorne, God Sees the Truth But Waits by Tolstoy, and An Honest Thief by Dostoyevsky. Some of the kids don't like the sad endings, but they seem to understand the morals behind them. Perhaps that is why the kids like these stories: morals. All of the kids have been raised to know Christ and His standards. They understand right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust. I have been reading Jesus Freaks lately; it's a book about Christian Martyrs. What I mostly notice is Communism's lack of understanding. Communists try very hard to eradicate Christianity because Christians pledge to a higher authority. They can't seem to see, however, that the higher authority actually allows them to serve those around them in an even better way than communism requires. How can feeding the hungry, serving the helpless, and loving the orphaned be bad in any society? It seems that life on Earth is the basic short story...Good versus evil, but it doesn't always look like the good wins. To those of us who know the Eternal Story, and not the just the short version, it is the Pulitzer Prize Award Winner.

Loving the Lord with Your Shoes Off

I stepped over a black pair of dress shoes yesterday as I headed out of the sanctuary to help serve communion. It never crossed my mind that the shoes were not on my child's feet. It never even entered my mind that the child whose feet should be in the shoes wasn't in his chair. It was not until I returned from serving communion that I realized #2 was putting his shoes on. His shoes often come off in church, truth be told so do mine, but the embarrassing part of the story is that he was ALSO serving communion. Yes, in his stocking feet, my child served the body of the Lord. I hope God saw it as respectfully walking on Holy Ground. ---------- The hang out Friday night went well. We had about 20 kids show up and they played so hard that one of the moms called the next day to tell me how exhausted her kids were. One fell asleep at the breakfast table and the other didn't make it past the floor at the top of the steps. My boys are already talking about next month's hang out! ---------- Why is there always one basket of unfolded clothes left all week until next laundry day? I would like to start one laundry day without having to finish the last one. Play practice starts later this week as the kids prepare for a night performance on Friday. This last week is always a killer, but we love being a part of it. All of the grandparents are coming down on Friday to spend several days with us. They will go to the play on Saturday. Monday they are preparing a Thanksgiving Feast for us, since we won't make it home this year, and we will all enjoy it together. Last week in Science class #2 commented that he wouldn't have understood the chapter if he hadn't seen the movie on black holes at the museum last summer. That lead us into a conversation about why he does better at school because of the advantages he has in life, and then I asked him to name them. He said he has the advantage of having his parents with him all of the time, and that we travel a lot and go to museums and parks, then thirdly he said, "And I get to see my grandparents, and they come to see me." I thought it was great that he picked up on that huge advantage. Knowing that you are greatly loved and cared for, that someone (in this case 4 someones) think you are the best thing that ever happened, can put you ten thousand steps above the rest in the advantage race. If only everyone could see the way the Lord loves them.

Alexander Graham Bell Would Be Shocked

I went to a home school support meeting last night and learned a lot about my phone. The speaker is a fairly new homeschooler; her kids are 8 and 4. She is still in the "do it all" phase of home schooling. Her topic was explaining an organizational notebook that she keeps. The notebook was probably 4 inches thick!!! The experienced home school mom at our table pulled out her spiral notebook and said, "It is all in here." I then pulled out my pocket calendar and said, "It is all in here." If I lose that little calendar I'm toast. Then the speaker said something about a memo pad on her phone. Hmm, I thought, I wonder if I have one of those on my phone. Soon the 4 moms at my table were all engrossed in our phones. None of us had bothered to see what capabilities our phones have; we just use them to call people. Go figure. Yes, my phone has a memo pad, as well as a way to put dates on a calendar, set alarm reminders, make to-do lists, and more. My phone is one of the free ones you get when you sign up for a plan, and it is several years old now, so it really is easier to just keep a little pad of paper in my purse and write myself a note. I know that sounds like an old person afraid of technology, but in reality it is a mother afraid of a 4 inch binder! I like my pocket calendar, thank you very much.

Thirteen Year Old Eeyore

#1 has always been a bit of an Eeyore. You know, the sad, gray donkey from Winnie-the-Poooh. No matter what happens, even if it is good, Eeyore expects that it will end poorly. I used to say that if #1 got to go to the Zoo, the Circus, and a Movie all in one day, but stubbed his toe at 10:00 a.m., it would have been the worst day of his life. Now Eeyore is 13 and it has become even worse, or funnier depending which side you are sitting on. Not long ago, perhaps last week, he asked me if he is difficult to teach. I said, "When you don't focus and complain about why you have to learn any of this anyway, yes you are difficult to teach. But no you are not hard to teach things to. Why?" "All of my teachers sigh when they have to teach me." "What?" "When I have a question they moan or sigh when I ask it. They make comments like 'We would dissect, but SOME people can't handle it.' I just don't think any of the teachers like me." Now, granted I am one of his teachers and occasionally I do sigh when he comes with a problem, but never in class! Of the other 3 teachers, 2 are really good friends who love him like their own. Maybe they are sighing like I am! Last week after a fun Halloween Party, we got home to hear, "I don't think anyone cared that I was at that party." Why he would think that is beyond me, but think that he did. He has been acting that way for quite a while now, and I am about to the point of saying, "You are right. Nobody loves you. Nobody wants to be around you. You have no friends. Go eat a worm." I have refrained so far. This is so foreign to me. I expect to have fun. I expect that things will go well. I imagine that everyone likes me, because really, why wouldn't they like me? My neighbor calls me Miss Sunshine because I think the best of others and think they think the same of me. Sometimes I get the feeling that he doesn't think that way about me though, but then I move on. My neighbor is an Eeyore, too. I just invited all of the 11-14 year old homeschoolers over this Friday night for Capture the Flag and a fire. Want to make a bet that Eeyore thinks no one will come? I expect about 30 kids myself! I wonder how Eeyore's mother got him through puberty?

You Know You're Married When...

When I was 19 I prepared for a date by showering, fixing my hair, applying make-up with special care, and even spritzing on a little body spray. My date would arrive at the preappointed time, and we would head out for dinner and a movie with popcorn and drinks, maybe followed by an exploration of the local bookstore. Yesterday my lover and I decided to go on a date. I sold two goats this weekend and had a little extra cash. I was trying to finish up lesson plans for the week so I could get everything squared away for the coming week. As soon as I typed in the last of the lessons, I blurted, "Are you ready?" My date put on his shoes and off we went. Our first stop was to drop a borrowed sweater off at a friend's house, then we headed to the library for the history books. After that we raced to the theater to get tickets and Hubby had popcorn and soda. I declined as it upset my stomach the last couple of times. The movie was a comedy, and I cried through the whole thing. The movie was about two people who get an orphaned child when their friends pass away. It did have funny sections, but the mother in me kept thinking what if this were our child. After the movie we went to the grocery store and were excited to find they had restocked the organic mac and cheese (49 cent special) and milk was marked down to $1.75 for dates of November 10. We bought 4 gallons. We tried to make a side trip to Lowe's to look at seeds for the greenhouse, but they were closing. Then we made a final stop at another grocer that carries the laundry soap I needed. Today is laundry day and I was completely out of soap. On the way to that store my date started sniffling and by the time we pulled in the parking lot he had a bloody nose. We managed a kiss in the van when we pulled into the driveway. Then I came in, ate a bowl of cereal, and headed to bed...alone.

Sleep

I went to bed at 7:30 last night and it was nearly 7:30 when I got up this morning. One of my medical friends said that Bell's Palsy is related to Mono, so maybe that is why I am so tired. I just got up from an hour long nap too! I feel like I could still go lie down longer, but there is work to do, and do it I must. Today's paper had an article on American's use of money. It seems that even though the Great Recession is over, most Americans learned a lesson and are spending differently. Another short article in the paper had 10 ways to save your money. I get frustrated with those articles. We already do the things listed, so how can we save money? One friend pointed out that we make choices that limit the money we have. For instance, we have chosen to homeschool, and therefore I don't have a larger income. While that may be true, I would like help for those of us in this situation. There are more and more of us out there according to public school records. Don't tell me not to go shopping so often; the skirt I wore today is over 12 years old, the shoes 3 years, and the shirts hand-me-downs. I did buy 3 shirts for myself last week, but that was because I had a shortage of long-sleeved shirts, and we are saving money this year by keeping the heat lower. I thought the shirts were a wise investment. One way we have been cutting back is to not eat out. It takes a lot of forethought, but it is definitely helping the pocketbook. As it was we ate out about once a week as a family and once with Guys' Night Out. Now we eat out a couple of times a month. The guys have been limiting their restaurants to twice a month and just watching a movie at home or looking around the library. The library is a great way to save money. We have a great library system here as well as being able to use the University library. We borrowed The Odd Couple from the university this past week and watched it last night as a family. The movie isn't as good as the tv show. Maybe I will have to add that to NetFlix. Oops. There's an expense we could cut out. Shh. Now off to the work!

Smokin'

I put a brisket in the fabulous crockpot yesterday morning, and we had a terrific dinner last night of brisket, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes and gravy. I guess I decided how to cook those potatoes after all! During dinner Hubby asked if I know anything about Liquid Smoke. No. "The brisket is good, but if it had a little of that smokey flavor it would be great." I stared him down. "What?" "That would be putting chemicals in your food!" I exclaimed. And the match was on. "But it would make the meat taste better," he smiled. "Carcinogens," I returned. "Taste," he mocked. "Don't you know your body is a temple?" I cried. "Don't you think there was smoke in the Temple?" he slyly chuckled. At this #1 could hold himself back no longer. "I bet Abraham smoked Camels," he giggled. Match won by the novice rookie. We were all laughing. This morning #1 put bread into the toaster and then headed to the newspaper. About 10 minutes later Hubby walked out of the bedroom into the kitchen and about died from smoke inhalation. The toaster sticks on the right hand side and #1 was oblivious to the layer of smoke filling the room next to him. The whole house is full of smoke now and we are freezing as we try to air the house out. It wasn't Camels that boy was smoking. --------- We are getting our family portrait taken today. The yearbook staff this year is taking pictures of the whole family and then you get a cd of the pictures with permission to print them. We haven't had a family picture taken in about 7 years, and I didn't buy that one. This may be the last one while the kids are still at home. Sad to think.

Potatoes

I can't decide what my potatoes are or how to "cook" them. Sunday I went to a new homeschooler meeting. The topic for the day was time management, and I was talking about lesson planning. The leader showed us how you can get more in a bucket if you put in the big, important things first. She loaded in the potatoes, then beans, then rice, then water. Potatoes are the most important ingredient; "What are your potatoes?" she asked. Well, that isn't difficult. I know that Hubby and my boys along with myself are the potatoes. I didn't list God since I put him in with taking care of myself. BUT what does it mean that we are the potatoes? I can't decide. I hear all of the people around me talking about how fast time is going and that there isn't time for everything. All of my friends are stressed by everything they have to do. No one has any help for me; we are all in the same bucket swimming in a soup that we can't escape. I can't stay at home all of the time, but when you add in 4 people, we can't do everything that there is available to do. I can try to stay home until 3:00, but the school work still isn't done and the house still isn't clean. I am not watching tv and popping bon-bons either! I try to soothe myself with the knowledge that once the boys are gone then I can do the things that are left undone now. But how does that help with the stress level now? And I was talking to a grandmother yesterday who told me that she is always at meetings and functions and doesn't have time for the art that she planned on making all of those years she had kids at home. That was depressing. I guess I am once again complaining about the fast pace of life and the lack of leisure. I must figure it out though! My eye is twitching and I am exhausted yet again. I don't want to ask God to clarify things for me since I may be struck down with something worse that Bell's Palsy, but I sure do need some help that seems to be otherworldly, for no one here has any answers for me.