Miss Sniz

Random stuff no one cares about

2010-11-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Izzi (our youngest) just turned 12. She had a sleepover with Eva, Victoria and AG. (Madison spent the night with Baylee) the night after, Oct. 30th, when we had trick-or-treating in Avon. The girls and I had the School Open House, then I took Izzi and her friends to Metropolis mall. They went to Toys-R-Us, Justice, and Claires. Then we came home, the girls dressed up and Rog took them trick or treating. Audrey Gail stayed here to help me pass out candy. We went through two huge bowls and had to turn our light on before 8:00 because we didn't have any more. But when the girls got back and started trading, they had SO MUCH FUN. Izzi told me at least two times how happy she was. She just hugged me and looked up into my face and said, "I'm so happy." All the girls were talking in the car about how this was the best day they'd ever had. They stayed on the trampoline until late, then watched a movie in the living room.

Yesterday (Sunday) was the family birthday party for Miriam and Izzi at Bone and Leah's house. Madison and AG were there. We had a taco salad bar. Yum!!!

I took AG and Madison home and talked to Kelly for a long time. Last night Rog and I just hung out. It was nice. I love my husband.

Well, that's all. Peace!

Ordinary lives

2010-10-25T17:34:00.001-07:00

As I was driving home from an American Heritage Girls meeting tonight (I'm the high school leader), I was thinking about how God uses all of us in so many different ways. He led my sister and brother clearly to bring home two boys from Ethiopia...that is big. I mean BIG and I have to admit I've struggled with feelings of "not being righteous enough". I mean, if I am a "good Christian", why don't I have the same calling?

But on the way home, I started reflecting on the meeting, on how much I like it, on how much the girls in my group like it, on how glad they are that I am part of their lives and how glad I am that they are part of mine. And how I know it's from God that He led me here. Right where I am. Touching these lives. Touching the lives around me. And it made me feel warm all over when I thought that God even uses lives that seem ordinary and unimportant, like mine.

2010-10-24T05:51:00.002-07:00

Things that have happened since my last post:

We got a cat. (Or it got us, not sure which!)
The Cincinnati Reds lost their bid for the World Series.
I became (by default) a Texas Ranger fan.
School started and is going well. Our first 9 week (quarter) celebration is this weekend.
Our youngest turns 12 in five days.
I turned 42.
Rog turned 41.
We celebrated our 18th anniversary.
Our grass died and ugly weeds took over and we did nothing about it.
I went on a business trip with Rog for 5 days in Dallas.
My sister-in-law used a home-kit to highlight my hair.
She also gave me a used sewing machine for my birthday, which I am soooo excited about since mine doesn't work.
This is exciting stuff, I'm telling you!
We got a new front door.
I sewed some really cool bags.
I'm going to church now.
Peace!

2010-10-24T05:51:00.001-07:00

Things that have happened since my last post:

We got a cat. (Or it got us, not sure which!)
The Cincinnati Reds lost their bid for the World Series.
I became (by default) a Texas Ranger fan.
School started and is going well. Our first 9 week (quarter) celebration is this weekend.
Our youngest turns 12 in five days.
I turned 42.
Rog turned 41.
We celebrated our 18th anniversary.
I went on a business trip with Rog for 5 days in Dallas.
My sister-in-law used a home-kit to highlight my hair.
She also gave me a used sewing machine for my birthday, which I am soooo excited about since mine doesn't work.
This is exciting stuff, I'm telling you!
We got a new front door.
I sewed some really cool bags.
I'm going to church now.
Peace!

2010-10-24T05:51:00.000-07:00

Things that have happened since my last post:

We got a cat. (Or it got us, not sure which!)
The Cincinnati Reds lost their bid for the World Series.
I became (by default) a Texas Ranger fan.
School started and is going well. Our first 9 week (quarter) celebration is this weekend.
Our youngest turns 12 in five days.
I turned 42.
Rog turned 41.
We celebrated our 18th anniversary.
I went on a business trip with Rog for 5 days in Dallas.
My sister-in-law used a home-kit to highlight my hair.
She also gave me a used sewing machine for my birthday, which I am soooo excited about since mine doesn't work.
We got a new front door.
I sewed some really cool bags.
I'm going to church now.
Peace!

Presents

2010-07-17T05:30:00.001-07:00

To prove her loyalty to our family, yesterday the cat brought me a dead mouse and laid it at my feet. Because nothing says devotion like a dead rodent.

Kitties and sump pumps

2010-07-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, a cat followed my daughter home from a friend's house. Since this is the daughter who can't even pass the stuffed animal sections at stores without knowing that they are all begging her to rescue them, the cat was brilliant to pick her. Since then, our daughter who loves to take care of things more than anyone I know, has adopted "Sunday" as her own. And I have to admit, the kitty is pretty cute. She's very nice and gentle. Her back feet have been declawed and she is clean like a house cat would be. She lives under our deck and on our front porch. So it seems the Shuman family has a kitty---at least for the time being.

We got the news yesterday that we need a whole new front door. We've lived here ten years and the front of our house faces the weather, so our uncovered entry gets a lot of abuse. The steel door is fine, it's the wood frame that has rotted. So we have to get a whole new set...it's only going to cost a few thousand dollars. This on top of the new sump system we need for the basement is pretty much going to wipe out our savings. But as Rog says, at least we have savings. I asked him to give me a few hours to arrive at that point mentally. :-)

Summer

2010-07-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

I love summer. Have I said that lately? These are some of the things I love:

Not having to layer up or put coats on when we leave the house.

Having daylight until almost 10 PM.

The fireflies in the thousands in our backyard and across the bean field behind our house.

Jogging in the morning when it is fresh and cool and comfortable and the rising sun throws inviting shadows across the trees that fall on my shoulders as I pass beneath.

Not having school.

Going to baseball games.

Swimming.

Wearing shorts.

Watching "Food Network Star".

Sunshine and heat. 'Nuff said.

What I don't like about summer:

Um....

July, 2010

2010-07-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Even though I'm not feeling creative or funny at all today, I decided I needed to start blogging again, just to keep a journal or record of our lives. So here goes...

A person I know whom shall remain nameless to protect their identity, experienced a significant physical event for the first time yesterday. This on the heels of buying a real bra last week (instead of a training bra) and beginning to shave her legs the week before that. And she and I have been sharing clothes for the last couple months and sometimes Rog even mistakes her for me out of the corner of his eye. It's so weird how fast it happened...my little girl becoming a woman-girl. But I am so happy and pleased with the glimpses I see of the woman she will be some day. I just hope that day doesn't come too soon!

We actually had a family lunch at my mom's after church yesterday, something that used to be a weekly event. But it hasn't happened since my sister and her husband brought their two boys home from Ethiopia two months ago. So it was really nice.

Rog got Wil a job at his office working two days a week in the shipping department making ten dollars an hour. It's just too bad Wil doesn't have a true understanding of appreciation of such a cherry job falling in his lap like that. But we're still praying and hoping that it might be a growing, maturing experience.

And last night, he played his first double elimination baseball game. Even though they actually hit two home runs in the game, they still lost. Oooh, that hurt. Or was that all the bugs that dined on me during the game? A little bit of both, I guess.

And what's going on with this heat wave that is sweeping much of the country? (Hey, wait a minute. I sound like a really bad comedy routine. I deeply apologize, but I can't seem to stop.) This is the hottest overall summer I can remember. I mean, we have really hot and humid days here in the summer, but usually not so MANY and for so long in a row. It's in the mid nineties pretty much every day. I usually like the heat and would still much rather have this than snow, but it's actually getting to me a little this year. And our tomato plants have blight. I think I'm about ready to cry since I pretty much live on fresh tomatoes in August. And we planted 12 plants this year just to make sure we have enough. Sigh.

Well, that's it for now. Miss Sniz out. Try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Trampolines: tear-making, age-determining devices

2010-04-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

We got a trampoline this weekend. It has already proven to be a blessing and a curse. The kids' excitement knows no bounds, but that also means emotions are close to the surface and tears over it break forth at the drop of a hat.

"But we just got it. I don't want anyone else jumping on it." (Tears)
"My back hurts." "Well, stop jumping for a little while." "But I want to SO MUCH." (tears)
"When she jumps with other people, she acts happy and they have so much fun, but when I jump with her, she acts bored and won't play anything with me." (tears)
"They leave me out." (tears)

Of course, when I jump on it, I quickly realize my age. Here I thought I was in pretty good shape for a 41 year old. But on that thing, I can't do anything except jump up and down and even that exhausts me. What in the heck? I can jog for miles, but I can barely catch my breath after 5 minutes on that thing. And bladder control when you are bouncing so hard...when did that become an issue? I just don't like feeling this way, especially since I just graduated from high school not very long ago. (In my mind, that is always less than 5 years ago.)

a horse's rear end

2010-04-06T05:37:00.000-07:00

If you have kids, they will embarrass you at least once in their life, if not several times. But yesterday I had a little revenge.

I started with the five-year-old boy next door who comes over whenever he perceives movement of any kind at our house. Landon looks in our windows, rings our doorbell, comes into our garage, and "invites himself" into any activity our kids are engaged in, be it riding bikes or playing basketball or even football in the street. Whenever we pull into our driveway, he appears and asks 10 or so questions before we can even get into the house. Of course, his parents are no where to be found.

Now, our kids are older...11,13 and 16 and although my son tried to be patient and the girls would play with him sometimes, they would often ask him nicely to let them play their games in peace. Soon he started to ignore their requests so they became more "stern", and when that stopped working, they even got a trifle mean. But even that didn't seem to deter Landon and my husband said that under no circumstance were they allowed to be unkind, and that if Landon continued to jump in on their activities, he would take care of it.

So it came to be that my son and his friends were occupied with a game of "HORSE" in our driveway and Landon came over and started shooting his own basketball randomly in the middle of their game. Maybe he thought he was 16 or 17, instead of 5, I don't know. I was in the kitchen, and my daughter and my son would alternate, coming to complain every ten minutes or so, saying they had asked him to leave, but he wouldn't.

Well, my husband was upstairs, so I did what any conscientious mom would do...I nodded and shrugged until they went away, hoping the problem would resolve itself. Until my son came in for the third time begging one of us to get Landon to leave. By this time my husband was in the shower. No help there. Then my son said the clincher, "I don't know why, but Landon grabbed my butt." Now of course, he knew as well as I did that a five year old grabbing a sixteen year old's nether regions is just not that big of a deal. But he was obviously desperate to get me involved, having his hands tied, as it were. So I reluctantly came out on the front porch. Several faces turned to look at me...my daughters', my son's friends, and Landon's. I hesitated, unsure of what to say, but everyone was looking. I heard my son come out behind me. And that's when it happened.

"Landon, did you touch William's rear end?" I asked loudly.

Everyone's faces registered shock and disbelief. Then there was total silence.

I felt my face grow hot. Questions raced through my mind. Had I just referred to my 16 year old's son rear end in front of all of his friends? I don't even call it a rear end at home...what sort of a dork calls it that? I mean, where did that come from? And how could I get away with some semblance of dignity left? Would I forever be dubbed "That crazy lady?" And how was William going to ever live it down?

Then Wil's best friend collapsed on the grass and literally started rolling around, his hands on his stomach and tears in his eyes. Between wails of laughter, he sputtered, "You just made my day!"

That broke the ice and I started laughing too. William said, "Yeah, I've been harassed by a five year old and I need my mom to fight for me." My daughters started squealing too, and soon everyone was cracking up.

Meanwhile, Landon stood frozen on the driveway. I looked at him and said kindly, "I think it's time for you to go home, honey." He put down the basketball and scampered off.

Now why couldn't I have said that in the first place?

Confessions of a Deadbeat Blogger and bagless vacuums

2010-04-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's been a little while since I blogged. OK, maybe a little longer than that. OK, maybe a LONG TIME. Anyway, I just signed on today for the first time in --- ahem, A WHILE, and I had 40 comments to moderate. Yay, I thought. I am popular even when I'm a deadbeat! Imagine my angst when I realized that 39 out of 40 comments were links that if you followed them, would take to you to sites selling Viagra or discount shoes or illegal prescription drugs. Of course, looking at the gigantic list, I thought of starting a new home business. After all, the links were all there...all I had to do was hit "publish", and everyone who visited my blog could use it to access all the worthwhile free stuff available on the internet. But then I wondered about kickbacks and began to seriously doubt that I would see any monetary recompense for "sharing important links". So, beside the one comment from a blog entry that is a couple of years old (for some reason I still get a lot of comments on this post I wrote a long time ago about softball chants), I deleted all the rest. So if you are "Anonymous", I'm sorry. Use your name next time and you might get farther.

Last night the family went to buy a new vacuum cleaner. "Oh that's nice" you think. But you'd be wrong.

See, we've lived in our house for ten years. When we moved here, I was a good housekeeper. In fact, I even remember a friend commenting to me one time that everything looked so nice and clean in my house, especially the floors. I commented cheerily (if a little smugly), that since I didn't have to work outside the home, that keeping our house clean was the least I could do. And I even thought at the time that it was pretty easy to do. (Poor, disillusioned girl.)

This brings me to the present and our vacuum cleaner. It's been broken for a while (okay, 6 months) and although I did enjoy the built-in excuse for dirty floors it provided, I realized the time had come for a new one when I vacuumed my grandma's house for her, and the vacuum didn't emit even one of those little "ping" noises a vacuum makes when it's picking up dirt. Even at my housekeeping peak, our vacuum always sounded like a bike with a trading card in the spokes as I pushed it around our living room. Oops, there going a Polly Pocket shoe...oops, there goes a poptab or a plastic bead or a cheese cracker or a piece of pizza (how did THAT get there?)...well, you get the idea.

Anyway, last night we brought our new bagless vacuum cleaner home and tried it out for less than 10 seconds to see how it worked. That's when I found out that I prefer a "bagged" vacuum because when we pulled out the "dirt cup", it was nearly full of dust and dirt (after only 10 seconds). "What in the heck?" we thought. "Where did that come from?" As a side note here, in my opinion, the so-called "dirt cup" is a horrible invention designed to make housekeepers everywhere feel like failures. Since that time I have been studiously avoiding thinking about what that really means, that the floor we've been walking on for the past month or so was FILTHY. Besides, if I vacuumed today, hardly any dirt get would get in the "dirt cup".
Of course, I don't think about the fact that I vacuumed slowly and carefully several times last night and had to empty said "dirt cup" often. I mean, what really matters is how clean it is now, right? Not how clean it was when my kids slept on the floor last weekend.

As I write this, it occurs to me that if I were to get philosophical, I might see an analogy between our hearts and how dirt can hide in them and how the longer we go between deep cleanings, the more the filth builds up until we don't even notice it. We'd rather keep all the dirt in a bag that we can throw away without seeing or touching all the filth.

And I might wonder that while my life looks clean on the outside, how much dirt would be in my "dirt cup"?

I might think those things if I was getting philosophical.

Looking back

2009-12-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

OK, as my husband commented, that last post was a little intense! I have usually kept it light around here, but during my 4-month bloggy break, I've started to look at our family and my life more seriously. Or maybe I always did and my lighthearted blog was an escape from the seriousness. I really don't feel like analyzing right now. Anyway, without being clairvoyant, I would think that in the future I'll have light-hearted bloggy times with some serious ones mixed in. Maybe that's not so different than before. Why did I start rambling like this???

OK. (Deep breath.) I want to talk about my sister and something amazing that's going on in her life and family.

My sister is my best friend. I am blessed that she lives a few minutes from me. She has three kids, just like me, who are close in age to my younger two. In fact, my kids' best friends are their cousins. Anyway, about two weeks ago she and her husband Tom, shared something with us that is awesome and exciting and scary and...well, there's too many emotions to list. She has started a blog about it entitled No Looking Back. Please go there and read her story.

People, her heart is wonderful and I applaud and support them in this. I am so excited to be a part of witnessing how this plays out first-hand and to be directly involved in their future children's lives.

Homeschooling will promote a love of learning in your child (if you have the right books)

2009-12-14T23:29:00.000-08:00

…One of the best things about homeschooling is that …iIf you are excited about the opportunity to learn, then your child will be too. From the article, "Educating from a Place of Rest and Peace" by Angelina Stanford

I homeschool two of our three children. Did I ever say that? I don’t think I have ever really talked about my children’s education on this blog. Let me just say now for the record, that I think educating children and equipping them for adult life is THE most difficult thing a person will ever do. And I think the above statement creates the opposite of what the author intended. Instead of peace and rest, it can cause unnecessary guilt.

Our sixteen year old is a sophomore at our local high school. I homeschooled him from fourth grade through eighth grade. We put him into our local public school in ninth grade as a freshman. He is now a sophomore. I still homeschool our daughters, grades 5 and 7, so this is my seventh year of homeschooling.

I am in a unique situation, at least for where I live and whom I am around, as I have a foot in both camps, so to speak.

Back to the quote at the top. I KNOW the author had the very, very best of intentions and really desires to encourage homeschooling parents. And the article did have a lot of good things to say. But unfortunately if any homeschoolers out there have a child like mine (and I know there are some), this article, and others like it, accomplishes exactly opposite in our lives. If I would have read this the last year I homeschooled our son, I would have been very discouraged and almost angry at reading the following quotes:

The first is: …what do you want your child to look like as an adult? Do you want him to be wise and virtuous, able to think and engage in articulate discussion of ideas—both in speech and in writing? Then each year, as you plan out your child’s school year, consider what curriculum choices will move your child closer to you end goal.

Ok, who DOESN’T want his or her child to be wise and virtuous? Who doesn’t want him/her to think and engage in articulate discussion of ideas in speech and writing? Well, according to this author, all you need to do to ensure this happens to your child is to consider the curriculums that will move him/her toward that goal. Yeah, right. That sure didn’t happen for me. Five years of trying every curriculum under the sun NEVER fostered anything articulate or wise or even caused any sort of interest in our son.

Next: … If you want your child to be an articulate adult, then each year, you must fill your child’s mind with very best literature, the very best examples of the English language, and then give him ample opportunity to discuss what he has read---both orally and in writing.

Ok, check, check, AND check. I did what this article suggested. And waited. Nothing. No articulate person. No desire for classic literature. No desire to discuss ANYTHING, let alone read-alouds. And believe me, with parents who love learning like his father and I do, he has had AMPLE opportunity to discuss what he wants! But he doesn’t want!

The next quote: …And what I discovered was that when I thought I was introducing some new and exciting history event or science fact, my children often would jump ahead of me and begin describing---usually in greater detail that I had prepared---the topic I was teaching. How did they do that? They read---a lot! We have an extensive library of the highest quality books on a variety of subjects. Just from reading on their own, my children had managed to learn most of the things that I wanted to teach them.

OK, that is so NOT true for my son. Implying that having good books on hand will not only make you a better parent, but will also make your child educated is ridiculous. Having cool books around and readily available means NOTHING if the child won’t seek the books out and read them. And mine doesn’t. I have always LOVED reading and read in front of my kids all the time. We have LOTS of great books in the house, both fiction and non-fiction, on every subject and every period in history, but my son has no interest in reading any of them. So it doesn’t matter if they are here or not. The implication here is that if those of us who have unmotivated children just got the right books...

…Give your children access to books, lots and lots of books, and let the authors of these books teach your children for you. Take the time to discuss the more difficult ideas and concepts with your children, but you can have peace that most of the information that children need to learn, they can learn on their own in books.

Didn’t I address this already? My son has ACCESS, he doesn’t take advantage of that access. So does the access matter? Truly?

(Regarding read-alouds)…We have laughed at Tom Sawyer, and we have cried over the death of Old Yeller, and we have grown closer together as a family. These stories have become part of our family culture. It is not unusual at all to hear one of my children make a joke that is an obscure Shakespearean reference. We all laugh, and I rest in the knowledge that they are learning in a peaceful and enjoyable atmosphere instead of a prison of anxiety.

I have read Old Yeller to my kids. I have read Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer . I have read LOTS of books from all of the homeschool reading lists and the classic literature lists, and although they are good books, they did not automatically inspire a love of great literature or reading in my kids. My son read Romeo and Juliet. He didn’t fall in love…he thought Romeo and Juliet were dumb. Why did they kill themselves? It made no sense. Oh horror! A homeschool boy who doesn’t think Shakespeare is the I Ching!

Then there is: …All of the books and catalogs put such an emphasis on activities and hands-on learning, that I felt guilty because I wasn’t including those activities in our day. But I finally came to understand that learning is its own reward and that it is important for my children to understand that—I want them to be lifelong learners, and I think it is far more likely that they will continue to be curious and desire knowledge if I have nurtured their love of learning rather than relying on gimmicks.

My son was NEVER curious!!!! He never desired knowledge, no matter what I did or didn’t do. I love school. I love learning. But my son couldn’t be more different. Where did he get this attitude? Not from school, since he was homeschooled the majority of his life. Not from his father or I. How did I get a son who has no desire to learn? How did I get a child that always takes the easy road, the road of least resistance, whose philosophy is that learning requires effort, so it should be avoided? These questions swirl around in my head. He didn’t learn that attitude by example, so that trait has to come from inside him.

The article goes on to say…A friend of mind regularly laments to me that her children do not love homeschool. This, of course, produces a great deal of anxiety for her. But what she doesn’t understand is that her children are not the problem. She is. She does not love learning, and so neither do her children. It is impossible to convince our children to value those things that we do not value. If you think of your homeschooling as an unpleasant chore, so will they. However, the converse is also true. When we are excited about learning, our children will be excited as well.

What???? This is perhaps the most offensive statement of them all!
How dare anyone say that if I love learning, my children will, but if they don’t love learning, it is MY fault!?!?!?!? And how is saying that the mother is the problem supposed to alleviate guilt and promote peace and rest????

I LOVE LEARNING AM EXCITED ABOUT IT!!! That has NOTHING to do with how my kids feel about learning! And I WON’T take the blame for it!!!! The statement that if I am excited about learning, my kids will be too is bogus. You hear me???? Bogus!!!!!

Eventually I hated homeschooling my son because he was argumentative, disrespectful, totally unmotivated and fought me at every turn. That is NOT MY FAULT! I love him. He knows it. He has no desire to achieve anything academically. After years of trying and failing with him, my husband and I realize that he, unfortunately, will have to learn the hard way. He doesn’t heed our wisdom--- we have spent hours of time with him, as well as lots of prayer, directly imparting that wisdom to him, but it doesn’t matter. My husband spends time with him every morning studying the Bible and working through biblical books before school. My son knows the truth. What more can we do? Does God expect us to do His job? I don’t think so. It has taken years, but I have finally accepted that I can’t make my son the kind of person I think he should be. He is going to be the way HE is, regardless of me. All my husband and I can do is teach him the truth, but we can’t MAKE him do anything. As a mother, that is hard to accept. I want to think of him as my baby, my child that I can control and teach. But he isn’t. I CAN’T MAKE HIM DO ANYTHING! HE IS NOT MINE, HE IS GOD’S.

So I think homeschooling is great…but it’s not for every child in every circumstance. And God is bigger than anything we humans do anyway. That is comforting to me. And for any homeschooler to imply that if we would just do _______ and ________, then our kids would be great students, I say stop! We all love our kids. We all want them to succeed. Don’t imply that you are better at being a parent than the rest of us and if we would just take all of your tips, our kids will be in love with school and learning. It’s just not the truth.

I hope this is encouraging to others out there who don’t have the “perfect” student!

All your homeshooling parents out there…you rock! And all of the rest of you parents out there, public school or whatever…you rock too!!! I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think being a good parent is the hardest thing you will ever do and I applaud all of you.

You go, people, go!

The Flounderer (and I don't mean the fish)

2009-09-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

What do you get when a husband is gone for a week-long business trip? A toilet clogged with the biggest bucket load of crap imaginable (from a little friend of my daughter's no less) that took me more than two days and lots of changes of clothes and washing of hands and loud yell---I mean mutterings, to unclog. A child who knows better than to play with fire who almost burns the house down while playing with a lighter. A slow-draining bathtub in the kids' bathroom that, when taken apart, is full of a soft-ball sized clog of hair, pony-tail holders, dirt and slime that takes several hours and lots of tools to get out. A gagging and crying, stressed-out wife and mother who is handling all of this by herself who can barely walk because of a ripped-off big toenail.

Despite all of this, all seems quiet on the family front. At least on the outside. But beyond the quiet, I am experiencing what seems to me to be life-changing events. I feel lost, floating in a sea of uncertainty. I keep praying. What should I do, Lord? I don't have answers. I thought maybe I did, but now I realize that I don't. In time I know that I will feel grounded again, but right now I am floundering.

I know you're wondering what in the world I am talking about and all I can say is that it has to do with our 15 year old son. Our 15 year old son who is turning 16 in November. Our 15 year old son who is only a little more than 2 years away from 18 and having to take on adult responsibility. Our 15 year old son. Yeah.

Lord help us. Lord help HIM.

Warning: I'm climbing onto my soap box for this one!

2009-08-31T04:51:00.000-07:00

I don't like horror movies. In fact, I've never watched one all the way through because I don't want to put images in my mind that will be with me the rest of my life. Oh sure, the constant dwelling on them may fade, but things like that have a way of resurfacing unannounced, like when BD is on a business trip for a week and I'm crawling into bed and hear a noise. I've spent many nights in agony thinking about "what might happen". I don't need to make things worse. Why would I choose to do that to myself?

The same applies for anything of a perverse or sexual nature. Other people may do horrible things, but why do I want to put those ideas in my mind? While a naive flight attendant of 22, I happened to see a postcard of a perverse sexual nature on a street corner in Athens, Greece. It was in one of those turn-racks, right next to the picture of a sunset over the Parthenon that read "Wish you were here". That image is now burned into my brain and pops up at the worst times. Before that, I hadn't even imagined such aberrant things were possible. I'll remember that image until the day I die. Is it possible to be too sensitive in this area? I don't think so. Every act starts in the mind. Who knows where one step will lead?

Anyway, while at the library with my girls the other day, I walked by the shelves in the teen section and one book in particular caught my eye. It was obviously new and expensive. On the cover of the thick, glossy book jacket was a photo of a pretty little girl's dress made of white silk strewn with tiny pink roses. I was intrigued by the photo and by the title, "Living Dead Girl". The back breifly mentioned that it was an abduction story. I like mystery, especially if there's a happy ending as the pretty cover seemed to indicate, so while my girl's were in the children's section, I sat down and started to read the first few pages.

I wish I hadn't.

It was an abduction story, all right. Told from the first person perspective of a 15 year old girl who'd been abducted at ten and kept as a sexual slave by her captor. It wasn't a fantasy, like a vampire novel, or a Harry Potter tome. It was reality. It was told in great detail. Told graphically. There were things in those first five pages that will haunt me the rest of my life, details you would never hear about on the news or even said outloud on the street. Those pages deeply depressed me to the point that I walked around distracted and on the verge of tears for a few days. I tried to stop replaying it in my head. I begged God to let me stop thinking about it, and the worst part of it is that this book was in our public library that our tax dollars are paying for and was in the TEEN SECTION.

I admit that I'm a little naive, especially for a forty year old woman. But I don't think I'm a prude, nor am I am I legalistic in any way. I may not agree with what an adult chooses to read or fill their heads with, but I don't have the right to tell an adult what to do (unless they are a serial killer. :-) Then I might tell them to stop killing people!) But it scares me to death to think an unsuspecting young mind could innocently pick up that book and have pictures of these sexual horrors in their heads. And even scarier is that someone made the decision that this was suitable reading for teenagers. If someone is caught doing the things that were done in this book, we call them a monster, more animal than human, someone without a conscience. But reading about them being done to a child is OK. And hey, it's enlightening for young minds to be exposed to all sorts of things, right? I pray every day for the Lord's protection to be around my childrens' thoughts.

My beautiful kids

2009-08-20T15:33:00.001-07:00

I am blessed to have two sisters who take great pictures. Here are some examples:

These were taken by my sister in 2003.

These were taken by my sister-in-law in 2006.

And these were taken by that same sister-in-law in her back yard today:

(This one is looking at me when I was a girl.)

Banana Pops gone wrong

2009-08-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

If you want to do your kids a favor and make them dislike chocolate, just go to the store, buy that waxy dipping chocolate, melt it, then try to coat peeled bananas with it. You'll end up with globs of half-liquid melted chocolate that barely cling to the bananas because they are more interested in congealing into squishy lumps of chocolate-flavored wax. Then sit back and watch as your children greedily down the dubious brown mass and proceed to get stomach aches they will remember the rest of their days. Now pat yourself on the back. You have accomplished your goal of making the mere mention of melted chocolate distasteful to them for life. You're a great parent!

School news

2009-08-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

My son started his sophmore year Wednesday and I start school with the girls Monday. Today is my planning day. Since I'm using the same curriculum I used last year, I'm familiar with how the day goes and am hoping it won't be overwhelming today. We'll see.

Indian's game

2009-08-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Last night the kids and I went to the Indianapolis Indians game because our good friends, the Millers, were singing the national anthem before the game. I wish I could figure out how to embed video so I could put it on here. (It's on my Facebook page if anyone wants to see it there.) Anyway, we sat on the lawn. The incline of the ground made it perfect to lay back and actually see the game from that position. The kids running around and the fact that it was so far away were the downfalls of our seats, but it was a nice night--the perfect temperature, and we had a blast!

Wil and I. He's got his sad, puppy dog eyes because he was starting school in the morning.

Baylee, Izzi, Lydia Wright and me. (Yes, I'm talented enough to get all four of us in a picture just by holding out my arm and clicking!)

I want to be a mommy!

2009-08-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

Ten-year-old: I just want to be a mom so bad. That's why I don't want Jesus to come back until then.

Me: What do you love about the idea of being a mom?

10-year-old, with passion: I just want to tell them about my childhood, I want to go trick-or-treating with them, I want to buy them birthday presents, I want to go with them to get their ears pierced, I want to teach them, I want to take them different places, I want to take them out to eat, I want to teach them to ride a bike, I want to do their hair and nails.

Me: What if you have all boys?

10-year-old: That's OK, I want to have a girl AND a boy. I want to watch them go off diving boards, I want to help them decide what they want to be, to help them pick out what they are interested in. I can't wait to get my own house and paint their rooms and get accessories for them and I want to pick out the names for my kids and I want to walk them to the bus stop, even when they are teenagers. There's SOOO many things I want to do with them. I want to bring them to your house at Christmas. I want them to have friends, and have sleepovers, and go places with their friends, I want to teach them about nature, I want to take them to get their hair cut, I want to teach them to read, to be there when they lose their first tooth. It just seems so fun. I want to be there when they move from the nursery at church to their first Sunday School class. I want to take care of them. I want to bring them over to your house so I can have special dates with my husband. Oh Mommy, there's just SOOO many things I want to do!

Scrap retreat

2009-08-10T16:02:00.001-07:00

After six wonderful days in Ohio, the kids and I drove home only for me to turn around less than 24 hours later and attend a retreat with my scrappin sistahs. There is a group of girls at our church that love to scrapbook together and one of them worked it out so we could use her in-law's lake house for the weekend. What a wonderful time of fellowship, fun and crafting! While there, we each issued a challenge, competed to put together the most pages, went to a diner that has been featured on HGTV, got lost, watched Meet the Parents, listened to corny music, and...well, it would take too long to list all that we did. And one of our members turned 35 on Sunday, the last day. On the way home, we got her a cashew-carmel custard dish from Culver's. I've never had such wonderful ice cream in my life.

Anyway, I completed 14 events (21 pages) over the weekend. I was in the zone! I'm sorry to bore some of you, but for those who are interested, here are my completed pages:

My daughter the SAR

2009-08-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

My youngest daughter loves to shop. (A girl after my heart!) I love to have her as my little shopping buddy...she's a big help and always has a cheerful attitude. There's just one problem---Izzi is a SAR (Stuffed Animal Rescuer) and she take her job very seriously. She told me last week that she can hardly stand to be around the stuffed animals in the store because they are begging her to save them (in voices too high to hear by adults). "Rescue me! Save me! Love me! Take me home!" Yes, she can hardly bear to be around them, and yet that area of the store draws her as if they were pulling her with invisible strings. If there are stuffed animals in a store, she just sits down in front of the display and carefully chooses which one (or two or more) animals she will ask me to buy. If I do, she will carefully cradle it, stroking and talking to it softly. The way home from the store is precious as she tenderly cares for her new pet. They are very real to her. And it's not like she ever forgets about them. She gets babysitters for all of her animals when she leaves, she feeds them, reads to them, puts them tenderly to bed. Years later she still remembers their birthdays and when and where she rescued them. She seems to have the capacity in her heart for unlimited pets. She builds individual homes for them from shoe-boxes, carefully designing the construction paper decor to suit their needs. She never forgets any of their names. She is precious with them.

Now all of this would not be a problem except that I DON'T WANT 100 OR MORE STUFFED ANIMALS AND THEIR HOMES IN HER ROOM!!! And I feel like the bad guy when I turn down her requests to help her rescue one. (Which is most of the time.)

Mmmm....

2009-08-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Driving to Chillecothe, Ohio, to visit my mom's parents has been a yearly event since I was born. I think I've missed one summer in 40 years. Anyway, my girls went over to Grandma Mil's Thursday and BD, Wil and I followed after BD got home from work Friday evening. On the four hour drive, Wil just talked and talked and he even made sense sometimes. One of those times was when he just blurted randomly,

Fried chicken is tasty in the summertime!

What can I say? Sometimes he comes up with a profound truth.

Sunday Scrapping

2009-07-11T09:45:00.001-07:00

I didn't get much scrapping done this week because I threw my back out last weekend and our regular church craft nights, where I usually get a lot of stuff done, have been "Prep for VBS" nights instead. :-)

I finished the layout of my brother coming home from his deployment last September:

as well as a 3 page Christmas LO.

Although I didn't do this week's Sunday Scrappin' challenge, working chronologically keeps me inspired and these were the next pictures on my list! If you want to talk about challenges though, my sil, Leah, has commented a couple of times about how she likes that I usually use non-traditional colors for Christmas layouts. So I've begun challenging myself to do so whenever I can. The 3 page Christmas LO I did this week was aqua blue, neon green and bright yellow with a touch hot pink and orange.

Anyway, there is a group of five of us ladies that like to scrapbook at our church. (Wani, my sis-in-law Lehi, Kara, Toni and myself) We've started informally calling ourselves the Scrappin' Sistahs and have been getting together on a semi-regular basis for over a year now. Last month, Lehi issued a challenge which Toni won. This month, I've decided to come up with a challenge for the group too. It's fun and gives us a personal goal, you know? Here's the challenge sketch and Wani's entry. (she's always the first one to complete a challenge):

Check out her whole post...!

And here's my page, which I completed this week. I turned in on it's side, which is why it looks different from Wani's. I hand-drew the white title on the black cardstock. The whole title reads, "Pictures of joy prove life isn't a dream":

I want to invite all of my readers to participate. If you like to scrapbook and are interested (to more people we have, the more fun it'll be!) use the sketch in the picture as an inspiration for your own page. You have about two weeks to complete it...it's due on Monday, July 20th. I'm also adding a twist. The title must be at least 50% hand-done and I will also be taking into account the words themselves. Is it an especially creative or poignant title, like Toni's was in the last challenge? Or is it poetic? Especially meaningful? A clever play on words? Send a pic to my email or blog. arshuman@sbcglobal.net and feel free to invite others to participate---the more the merrier!

Sunday Scrappin', a day late!

2009-07-06T18:09:00.001-07:00

I know this Sunday Scrappin' post is late, but I threw my back out Sunday morning and couldn't even sit up yesterday, let alone get on the computer. That same day, our router bit the dust, so until Wednesday, we can only get online occasionally. Are those good enough excuses? :-)

Anyway, I did get four pages done last week. I finished the layout of my brother coming home from his deployment last September, (sorry it's dark)

as well as a 3 page Christmas LO.

This wasn't this week's Sunday Scrappin' challenge, but working chronologically keeps me inspired and these were the next pictures on my list! If you want to talk about challenges though, my sil, Leah, has commented a couple of times about how she likes that I usually use non-traditional colors for Christmas layouts. So I've begun challenging myself to do so whenever I can. The 3 page Christmas LO I did this week was aqua blue, neon green and bright yellow with a touch hot pink and orange.

Anyway, there is a group of five of us ladies that like to scrapbook at our church. (Wani, my sis-in-law Lehi, Kara, Toni and myself) We've started informally calling ourselves the Scrappin' Sistahs and have been getting together on a semi-regular basis for over a year now. Last month, Lehi issued a challenge which Toni won. This month, I've decided to come up with a challenge for the group too. It's fun and gives us a personal goal, you know? Here's the challenge sketch and Wani's entry. (she's always the first one to complete a challenge):
Here, check out her whole post...!

I want to invite all of my readers to participate. If you like to scrapbook and are interested (to more people we have, the more fun it'll be!) use the sketch in the picture as an inspiration for your own page. You have about two weeks to complete it...it's due on Monday, July 20th. I'm also adding a twist. The title must be at least 50% hand-done and I will also be taking into account the words themselves. Is it an especially creative or poignant title, like Toni's was in the last challenge? Or is it poetic? Especially meaningful? A clever play on words? Send a pic to my email or blog. arshuman@sbcglobal.net and feel free to invite others to participate---the more the merrier!

If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with me! I don't know when I'll actually be able to post this, but in the meantime, have a great week!

Remember the hat lady

2009-07-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

As my husband would tell you, I have a problem.

I buy clothing and forget to take the tags off. Now before you have visions of the woman from Hee Haw with the price tag dangling from her hat, I DO eventually take them off. Just not until I wear them for the first time. And the problem is that by that time, if they are not in my line of sight, I often forget. Many is the day that BD grabs a tag on my shirt, yanks hard, and a price tag falls to the floor. He thinks it's pretty funny but it's quirks like that that make us unique, right?

Anyway, today, I put on a new shirt and noticed the tag protruding from the shoulder. So I grabbed it and pulled. And pulled. It didn't come loose. My brow wrinkled in consternation. After all, BD makes it look so effortless. I know he has those big, strong muscles in his arms and all, but surely I'm strong enough to break a little plastic tag. So I tried again. I pulled harder. I yanked so hard that my fist snapped back and...and...and I gave myself a bloody lip.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm just that kool.

love and flabby arms

2009-07-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

My ten year old loves to squeeze my upper arms. Even though it's the part of my body I dislike the most, I grit my teeth and let her because she does it out of love. But all that squeezing must have left her with some nagging questions.

Mama, when I grow up, will my arms look like yours?

What do you mean, honey?

I mean do all grown ups have those flaps on their arms?

(I once again grit my teeth and smile.) Your arms don't have to have them. If I did special exercises, they wouldn't be that way.

(She tilts her head and looks confused.) Why don't you do those exercises?

(By this time, I'm getting a little defensive.) Do you think I look bad, Izabella?

No! (She runs to me and hugs me close.) I love you, Mommy. (She pulls away and pats my arm and I can tell she's just genuinely curious about the changes a person goes through to get an adult body. To her ten year old mind, people don't look good or bad, they just either love her or they don't.)

But I've been doing my special "upper body" exercise tape ever since!

Sunday Scrapping

2009-06-21T11:47:00.001-07:00

Like I said last Sunday, I participated in a challenge two weeks ago. Here is the challenge sketch:

And here is the page I did:

I didn't win, but you can go here to see all the contenders...

Anyway, the challenge this week was to use contrasting colors from opposite sides of the color wheel. I choose blue and red-orange:

I also scrapped four other pages. This was an ice skating trip from last December:

I love these pictures! My sis-in-law snizzle-sis took them at her house last fall and they have always reminded me of how JOY feels.

This page is four misc. photos from last year:

This is the second page of a two-page layout of my brother's homecoming to his base in Germany last September after a 15 month deployment in Iraq. I started the first page, but the electricity went out at our church during craft night Friday just as I was starting it. I'll get it done this week.

A post about nothing

2009-06-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to exercise again. Yay! I won't be running for a while, but I still manage to get a 45 minute walk in most days. And I didn't gain any weight while I was down, something I was worried about. In fact, I lost 2-3 pounds. And despite my harrowing doctor's checkup a couple of weeks ago, I am healing really well. I feel almost back to normal.

I just gotta say how wonderful I feel to have a family like mine. Everyone is healthy and God has allowed me to stay home with my kids as well as have a wonderful, supportive husband. I am so blessed. And my kids are the sweetest!

OK, that's all for now. Maybe I'll come up with something witty or at least interesting later, but for now, Sniz out!

Sunday Scrapping

2009-06-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

I used to have a Sunday Scrapping post regularly, but have gotten out of the habit, so I have a lot of catching up to do. My daughter, Baylee, has become a scrapper too, and that is fun to share my hobby with her! This week, I entered a challenge put forth by my scrappin sistah, (and sister-in-law) which my BFF Toni won - rightly. :-)

At our church craft night Friday, I scrapped this page of our 16th anniversary dinner last October.

This is a three-page layout of a a weekend at my parent's timeshare in French Lick, Indiana last November.

This is my fortieth birthday breakfast last October.

This is my birthday trip to downtown Indianapolis.

A homeschooling trip to the Indiana State Museum, plus some misc. stuff.

An old picture that didn't belong anywhere, so I had fun just putting one picture on this page.

Same with this one.

Christmas at my Grandma's house. Baylee was in rare form!

My computer's power cord gave up the ghost today, so if I don't have time to visit any blogs today, I promise I will when the new cord comes in! Until then, I have to finish this before the battery dies! Hope you all have a good week!

June 13, 2009

2009-06-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

I know all of you are on pins and needles wanting to know how our chore system is working. Well, we started out strong and our house looked better than it had in a while. I started just giving them one misc. chore each morning that consisted of anything I saw around the house that needed done...like straighten the books on the kids' bookshelf, or wash the wall where there were water-marks that had been bugging me (but that I hadn't done myself :-)) or go through the shoe basket and find any socks and put them in the dirty clothes or empty out the vacuum cleaner. Slowly but surely things were getting done and I was checking their work regularly. It's now a week into it and the kids are starting to complain. So they still do their chores, just more reluctantly. That's human nature, I guess.

And for those of you interested in the winner of the scrap challenge, my BFF Toni won! Not only was her page beautiful, but we all agreed that the title and the journaling was so creative and cool, not-withstanding that someone in her family that shall remain nameless thought the half-circles on the bottom of the page represented a certain part of the female anatomy. Save us from male scrapbookers! Although BD DID scrap a very cool page once and he loves to put little captions coming from the mouths of the people in the photos. He's cool that way.

scrapbook challenge

2009-06-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Recently my snizzle-sis, Lehi, issued forth a scrapbook challenge unto us. Those of us with courage to face said challenge, used the following sketch as a guideline:

Baylee (my 12 year old daughter) came up with this:

Here's Lehi's page:

Here's Wani's two pages:

Here's mine:

And here's Toni's:

Kid Scrap

2009-06-05T19:06:00.001-07:00

Here is Baylee's most recent scrap book page. It was created today using pictures from a few years ago.

Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy

2009-06-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

I am such a wimp. I went to the surgeon yesterday for my first check-up post-surgery, and he removed all the steristrips and some gauze that had gotten accidentally glued to my incision. When he was done, it looked AWFUL and it hurt like heck. The incision looked open again and was bleeding, but he said it looked pretty good. Wha??? I guess that's just my wimpiness talking when I say it do NOT look good! In fact, I had to sit down and cry a little bit after I left his office. Like I said, WIMP.

15 year old

2009-06-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about our son is that he's always happy. (Well almost all the time.) I guess I've learned to appreciate that quality more and more as one of our other children becomes moodier and moodier by the day (actually, by the hour). But one of the side affects of being always happy seems to be that he has the ability (as most males do) to turn a switch and stop thinking about something unpleasant whenever he wants to. Therefore, he seems to be able to listen to us talk for an hour about how he needs to be more responsible with his things and how he needs to be more trustworthy to do his chores, and he can walk away, bouncing around, singing, and cheerfully forgetting that he ever had anything he forgot to do or there might still be things he needs to do. He has to write lots of sentences today (that's one of the consequences we came up with) and he wasn't happy at first, but like I said, he has the ability to distract himself from thinking about anything he doesn't want to. So the fact that he wouldn't have to write them if he did what he was supposed to the first time doesn't trouble him anymore and now he's happy again. When I called BD this morning to discuss this with him, he said we just have to accept that he may never see the importance of what we are saying while he's at home, but we just have to love him. We both hope and pray this stuff will make sense to him when he's an adult. But I have to admit, it scares me to think this boy will be driving in less than a year.

June 3, 2009

2009-06-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Baylee's last gymnastics lesson is today and Izzi finished up ballet with her yearly performance on Saturday. Will is spending the night at Zac's. I had surgery last Wednesday and have been pretty useless these last few days, although BD asked me to come up with a workable chore system that I can easily enforce over the summer. (We've tried them before, but hey, never give up, right?) So I started that yesterday and am continuing today. The kids seem reluctantly on board, although William seems to not take it very seriously and his room and the bathroom need some major attention. I was able to take a long walk yesterday. My incision was sore, but it wasn't too bad. I won't be able to run again for a while, though. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, I have overdue library books, as I was just informed by email today. I can't drive until tomorrow, so I'll just have to pay the fine. Sigh. My life is so exciting.

My amazing toe!

2009-04-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

While reading the post my hubby (BD) wrote on his little earwax problem and laughing my head off (while trying to ignore the grossness of it all), I had the idea that posting something funny/weird/unusual about myself might be fun. Or at least entertaining. OK, it would give me something to write about. Anyway, it would be fun if my few readers did the same! So if you post something unique/funny/weird about yourself, let me know in a comment so I can come check yours out!

This post is about my feet. Or more specifically, the second toe on my right foot. It is nearly the same length as my big toe and when I stub my toes, that is always the "forerunner" that bears the brunt of the injury. Plus I'm a jogger and that toe seems to hit the end of my shoe a lot, resulting in something pretty bizarre. The toenail on that foot is only attached at the base...it lifts up like the lid of a box and has been that way for a long time. The weirdest thing of all is that it doesn't hurt at all and it still grows. I share this fact with very few people because for some reason, most who know seem to find it disgusting. But my kids think it's fascinating so I'm gonna go with that.

It's a big-un!

2009-04-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

OK, I promised a story about the trip. Here goes...

Driving through the mountains of Virginia is beautiful. Winding roads with new, spectacular scenery around each corner, the woods bursting into the new growth of spring...the problem is that when you are traveling with 11 people, 6 of which are kids, bathroom stops become pretty important and the few "buildings" visible from the road would make the Clampitt's cabin look like a palace. Oh, there was the occasional Mom and Pop gas station, but they were few and far between and if they had a "restroom" (I use the term loosely), they were outhouses out back complete with signs written with magic marker on a torn piece of cardboard that read something to the effect of, "Bathroom for paying customers only". For some reason, the females in our party balked at the idea of using the structures complete with a cutout of a crescent moon on the door. So while we were actually willing to become "paying customers" if necessary, some of us would take one look around and high-tail it back to the safety of the minivans.

So it was that while we were transversing said winding, mountain roads, anxiously on the lookout for the neon glow of a modern BP or a Marathon station, that we came up behind an old pick-up truck, circa early 70's, so rusty that the original paint color was a mystery. We followed the pick-up for a few miles before spotting a country store and pulling into the gravel lot eagerly. We poured out of the vans and pushed into the small store, not even noticing that the pickup had pulled into the lot too. It didn't take long to discern that this stop was not going to produce our longed for potty. We went outside to discuss our options. My sister wanted to take the girls to the woods and let them pee there (yes, peeing in the woods was preferable to the outhouses), I was wondering why we didn't bring a "pee-can" like my parents did on long trips when we were young, my dad was voicing his frustrations that a US highway didn't have any rest-stops...and it was in this general hubbub that the man from the pick-up intruded onto my consciousness. He was an African-American man, dressed in worn overalls, holding a huge, smelly carp by it's tail, swinging it back and forth as he strutted around the parking lot calling in a sing-song voice, "It's a big-un! It's a big-un! It's a big-un!" (To whom was he talking to? We were the only ones there.) In my confusion, I thought he must be a local selling it to the store, but he never went in, just stood outside the plate-glass window, lifting the fish high and showing it off by swinging it madly and yelling through the window, "It's a big-un! It's a big-un!" with a huge smile. The fish was indeed a "big-un", about four feet in length and probably weighing 50 pounds. It hung to the man's shins and there were at least four long, bloody strings of unknown origin coming from it's mouth. (I think it was saliva.) After the man showed off his catch to the store keeper, he turned towards me, still swinging and calling out "It's a big-un!" For a moment I was frozen in place, watching those bloody streams of saliva whipping ever closer with each mad swing the man took. "Please don't touch me," my mind screamed as I hurried away. Everything is kinda blurry after that. I do remember that he stopped by my mom's open window to show the carp off to she and my dad before flinging the big fish willy-nilly into the back of his truck and hopping in the cab. By this time I was safely ensconced in our vehicle myself with the door tightly closed. When we pulled back onto the road, the man's pick-up was right in front of us. We noticed that he would slow down each time we would pass a house or a structure and we knew he was just driving down the road looking for places to show off his "big-un".

In hind-sight, we would have done things differently. I would have taken his picture to put on my blog (and make his day), my sister would have responded to his "big-un" comments by saying, "I've seen bigger." Regardless, the phrase, "It's a big-un!" will live in infamy in our family get-togethers from here on out.

And yes, we finally did find a bathroom.

Spring Break

2009-04-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

I figured it was time to dust off this ole' blog of mine and write something spectacular as usual. Oh wait, one of the reason I've been avoiding it is because my entries rarely were spectacular and at this point in time, I feel I have nothing of interest to say. So I guess you'll have to bear with me as I try my dardnest to think of something...anything...even remotely worth reading!

OK, well, Spring Break was the week before last. BD was in Las Vegas for the week, so Sunday after church, my kids and I hopped in my parent's mini-van and caravaned with my sister's family for the week. We drove to Lancaster Co, VA to my aunt and uncle's house, a drive of about 10 hours (12 with stops), and got there after midnight. The next day we got up and drove three hours to Gettysburg and then back to Uncle Steve and Aunt Paula's house. The next day we went to New York City where we toured the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the subway sytem (a horrible experience), and the top of the Empire State Building. We rounded out our day by having New York pizza with friends of ours, then back to Aunt and Uncle's. The next day we drove to Washington DC and toured the Capital Building and drove around downtown to see the sights. My wonderful aunt and uncle had turned in some points to get us a time-share condo in Williamsburg, VA, and we went there that night. The next morning we went to Jamestown, VA, the first white settlement in North America. They have a living musuem there...it was so neat!
The next day (Friday) we drove to Amhearst, VA, for my cousin's wedding on Saturday evening. Saturday morning we had the chance to hike up Crabtree Falls, the highest falls west of the Mississippi River. The weather that day was 70 and sunny. The wedding in the chapel at a small exclusive women's college was beautiful; the afternoon sunlight from the tall, arched windows fell on the bride's gown as she said her vows.
Anyway, the next morning we drove all day to get back to Indiana. We arrived home around 9:00 on Sunday night.
OK, being in a closed vehicle stuffed with luggage for six people for seven days with my parents and three children, one of which is a teen-aged boy, was challenging.
And all I have to say is, "It's a big-un!"
I will post that story next time and I promise I won't be gone so long this time!

Cruise 2009!

2009-02-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Our cruise was SOOO FUN!!!!

I'm not ready to get back into the real world yet (we just got home late last night), so for now I'll just post some pictures and say that our friends Toni and Carl are the best...we were so blessed to take this trip with them! I thank God for this wonderful experience...I don't deserve it, but I am so grateful.

It's here!

2009-02-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning, BD and I leave for our cruise. For the sixteen and a half years we've been married, we have never taken a vacation for more than a night or two away from the kids and we've always driven, never flown. I find myself gripped by a strange nervousness and the kids are wandering around as sad as can be about us leaving for a week. But once we get on the plane in the morning, I know it all will fade away. I am so looking forward to BD and I just being able to relax and enjoy each other's company and the company of our dear friends, Toni and Carlos, the Narcoleptic Dad.

Fat legs

2009-02-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

All of your comments about your own laundry woes made me feel like I'm not the only one and maybe my kids are normal, so thanks!

Anyway, every single time Snip and Snap (10 and 8) are in the back of the mini-van, their conversation is an adventure. Yesterday it was about legs. (Keep in mind that neither of them are the least bit overweight. In fact, Snip might be UNDERweight.)

Snap: The tops of my legs are kinda fat.

Snip: The top of EVERYONE'S legs are fat. I mean big around. Mom, is that mean?

Me: No. (I knew what she meant)

Snip: I used to think something was wrong with my legs 'cause if you stare at them for a long time, the little red lines under the skin start to look funny.

Me (thinking this could be a teaching moment): Those are your veins and capillaries. Remember we studied those?

Snip (totally uninterested): OK.

Snap: Yeah, I used to think I needed to go to the emergency room because my legs would be so skinny, but they got fat when I sat down.

Snip and Snap: HA HA HA HA HA

Me, thinking to myself: Yeah, laugh it up while you can, ladies. Laugh it up.

Laundry Day

2009-02-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

Sorting the kids' laundry baskets is always an adventure. I did a laundry post almost two years ago about the time that there was an unknown donor's underwear (toddler size 2) in the laundry. That was kinda spooky but there is usually mystery jackets or shirts in there. Let me share what I found in the girls' basket this morning:

One boot
One strapless dress that hasn't been worn since last summer
One fancy skirt (dry clean only)
One Laura Ingalls costume (that hasn't been worn since Halloween)
A pair of formal satin gloves that I wore in a wedding ten years ago
An empty beach bag
A shirt (still folded neatly from last week's laundry)
One baseball sock
A baby hat that my daughter wore when she was one

And there was more that I didn't even mention. As an added bonus, almost half of the items in their basket were clean. And as I pulled each item out, my daughters would invariably say, "I don't know how that got in there." Hmmm. It seems someone has been sneaking into our home and putting items in the girls' laundry that don't belong there. Should I be worried? Or should I choose to view doing the laundry every week as an adventure? I'm sure it will be boring when the kid's don't live here anymore.

Sometimes boring is a good thing.

Catching up

2009-01-29T05:28:00.000-08:00

I got on Facebook a few weeks ago. Since then, I have sorely neglected my little blog. Facebook is so fast and easy...just takes a few minutes here and there to catch up with the latest.

Anyway, to recap around here...my back went out again. It's my stupid tailbone; it get's twisted somehow. But if I rest at the first sign of pain, it will usually heal itself within three days or so. That's what happened this time. It's hard to just lay on the couch when there's housework to be done, but I know from experience that's the only way.

We got over a foot of snow two days ago. Yesterday was a snow day and the kids built an igloo complete with windows. I'm so glad they are old enough to get themselves dressed in their snow gear and to play outside without me so I can stay toasty warm! (Or as warm as a person can be in a 63 degree house.)

But the biggest news around here is that BD and I are going on a cruise next month with our dear friends, Toni and Carl. It happened so fast...I'd never dreamed I'd ever take a vacation like this! It's a dream come true. God is so good to make this happen!

So that's the latest. Hope everyone is staying warm!

We're not in Kansas anymore...or are we?

2009-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy goes from Kansas to Oz? From black and white to color? The contrast is extreme. Sometimes people come along like that...like our youngest daughter. When she's in color, it's technicolor...vivid, riotous, overwhelming. Her thoughtfulness and maturity and goodness are astounding and we are left shaking our heads in amazement. But her "Kansas" can appear in black and white with no warning...no gradual slope to prepare you for the change. It's not an emotional change...THAT I'm used to; the gradual descent or ascent into emotional happiness or sadness. Instead, it's just going from "Being one of the most thoughtful, caring people ever" to "I'll get to that when I'm good and ready...that is, if I even decide to acknowledge you." It makes it tough to discipline correctly. Just another of the many challenges of being a parent, the hardest job EVAH!

Snafus and hotties

2009-01-12T05:58:00.000-08:00

OK, so we had company over for lunch after church yesterday. I made our favorite crock-pot chili. There's just one LITTLE problem. I mistook the cayenne pepper for chili powder. There were fumes coming off it by the time I was done. But bless their hearts, 3 out of the five guests ate it. The soul of politeness still lives!
Anyway, I felt better when later, a friend told BD and I she once mistook cumin for cinnamon when she was making cinnamon pancakes, and that her family actually ate cumin-spiked "mexican" pancakes. But then BD chimes in with how I filled the pepper grinder with all-spice corns one time. But he redeemed himself by saying that he discovered some new, interesting combinations, and that now he LIKES all-spice on his eggs. Funny, I've never seen him actually PUT all-spice on them voluntarily. Bless his heart, after 16 years of marriage, he's starting to know what to say in situations like that! I've almost got him trained to say, "You're the HOT one!" whenever the word hot comes up in conversation. He had lots of opportunities to practice when I served that chili yesterday.

I should have thought...

2009-01-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

Note to self: Get rid of high school photo album full of pictures with me and old boyfriend and DO NOT SAVE old love letters in the back, lest 10 year old daughter find it and start asking uncomfortable questions.

I wish I had a bigger bosom, I mean BUXTON

2009-01-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

There is a certain commercial that me and the fam. make fun of every time it comes on. (Well, we make fun of most commercials.) Anyway, this commercial is for the Buxton Over-the-shoulder ~~boulder holder~~ organizer bag.

Anyway, I finally admitted to myself (I've been told the first step is admitting you have a problem) that deep down in my little ole' soul, I really want one of these things. I am 40 years old and although I have searched all my life, I have never found the perfect purse. (Or bathing suit, but that's another post.) But this one can organize hundreds of items, fits comfortably over your shoulder so it can't be stolen, AND it expands to hold 2 full-sized water bottles AND an umbrella! It even comes with a handy little voice recorder for remembering things you need from the grocery store, and all for only 19.95 plus shipping and handling (which I'm sure is negligible). Gee whiz, could there BE anything better???

Abandonment and manure

2009-01-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

Snip and Snap have extremely interesting conversations in the back of our minivan. This one was about breakfast cereals.

Snip: I love Fruit Loops, but I'm not abandoned to have sugar cereals any more.

Snap: My mom and dad let us have sugar cereals...they even buy Rice Crispies or Grapenuts sometimes. Even though I have only had it twice, my favorite is Captain Crunch, but only Daddy gets to eat that. When he buys it, he hides it, but I find it a lot.

Snip: My daddy hides candy a lot.

Snap: One time I saw a box of Captain Crunch way up high in the pantry, so I got it down and started eating it. But then Daddy found out and he didn't put it back in the pantry. So my brother and I wanted to play a game the next day, so we looked at the games up high in the guest room closet, and we found it again.

Snip: My dad hid a whole ginormous bag of Skittles in his room once.

Snap: My hands smell like maneuver.

Me: What's maneuver, Snap?

Snap: You know, cow poop?

Snip: You mean manure. That's what our soap smells like upstairs where you washed your hands. Sorry.

Me: Our soap does not smell like manure.

Snap: I know what it is. Daddy painted the pantry today and we had to take the shelf paper off. It was DESCUSTING. The paper smelled like manure.

Then they started saying disgusting as loud as they could for at least ten minutes, laughing hilariously the whole time.

BD told me that whenever I get frustrated with our kids, I need to remember moments like this.

Green bean cassarole @#%!

2008-12-17T05:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't done ANY shopping for my kids yet this year. I could use the excuse that I've had a monster cold, or that my brother and his family are only here through tomorrow, or I've been making gifts for other people. But the truth is that BD and I usually do this. In fact, I was reading through my posts from this time last year and came across this one...

There are food items that I dread to put on my grocery list because I know I will spend the majority of my shopping time wandering the aisles, searching for an item that the nebulous "grocery store planners" have determined it should go. Here's how I imagine a planning meeting between these execs might go:

"Where should we plan to put the french-fried onions?"

"Well, they are frequently used for green bean casserole."

"What's that? Does it have caviar in it?"

"No, I think it has green beans and mushroom soup."

"Sounds cheap. Like it might make someone have to go to the bathroom. Let's put them next to the toilet paper."

"Right. How about powdered milk?"

"Put it on the other side of the store, next to the medicine and shampoo."

"That makes sense. People can make homemade medicated shampoo with it. Now how about the pickles?"

So last night I needed French-fried onions. Mr. Shumway and I went to a super store so we could also do some ~~last-minute~~ Christmas shopping. When a person visits an unfamiliar grocery store, an additional 30-45 minutes are needed to compensate for wandering the aisles, searching fruitlessly for certain items. As soon as we started in on the grocery part of our shopping expedition, Mr. Shumway remembered something he needed in another section, leaving me to fend for myself. I eventually got everything else on my list, then went down every aisle that MIGHT possibly have french fried onions. No luck.

Since Mr. Shumway hadn't returned yet (25 minutes later), I figured I'd take the time to go down EVERY aisle, as well as check all the endcaps. I didn't find the french-fried onions, but I did frequently pass some of the same people wearing similar confused expressions. When I passed the same woman for the fourth time, she met my eyes.

"We keep meeting." She laughed nervously.

"Yeah," I agreed, trying to move my cart to the side.

"All I want is RAISINS." Her voice rose until the last word was nearly shouted.

Suddenly my frustration also rose. "I'm looking for FRENCH-FRIED ONIONS."

"I saw those OVER THERE," she said, pointing in the general direction of the back of the store.

"The raisins are by the cereal," I nearly shouted. People were staring by this time, but I knew they wished they could let loose enough to be rescued from their trance-like aisle-wanderings.

The lady led me to the french-fried onions that were in a separate display by the pharmacy, hidden below a shelf of maraschino cherries. Then she hoofed it towards the cereal aisle.

Proof that the spirit of brotherly kindness still lives.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

2008-12-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

I believe girls are born intuitive. They see the world in shades of gray, as it were, whereas boys tend to see the world in black and white. There are all kinds of books about the fact that men and women think completely differently; the male brain is typically more logical and thinks linearly from point A to point B, etc, whereas the female is more emotional and her thoughts are more of a web. She usually comes up with the right answer, but cannot always tell you how she arrived there. When it comes to relationships, this causes women to be more interested in face-to-face relationships where they discuss feelings, whereas boys like to DO activities together and have no desire to discuss feelings. This truth was demonstrated to me as clear as day yesterday.

I was in the basement on the treadmill while my daughter, my niece, and their friend were playing. Later on, my daughter came up to me and said, "Were you mad at me in the basement, because every time you looked at me, your eyes seemed angry?"

Now, I had been annoyed because my treadmill time is usually my time for me to be alone with my thoughts, or listen to music I want to listen to, or watch detective shows on TV that I can't watch when there are children around. But I didn't want the kids to know that, so how did she know?

But it didn't stop there. Later in the car, my daughter and my niece were talking.

Niece: "Are you mad at me?"

Daughter: "I thought you were mad at me."

Niece: "No, I was just mad at myself because I didn't know what to do."

Daughter: "You acted like you were mad at me."

Niece: "So did you get mad at me because you thought I was mad at you?"

Daughter: "Well, a little bit. I just didn't understand."

Niece: "But I didn't know which way to go on the pillow-path! I wasn't trying to keep Kylie from being able to have her turn!"

Daughter: "Were you a little mad at me then?"

Niece: "Well, a little."

Daughter: "I was too, but I'm not mad now."

Niece: "But how did you feel when you were mad at me?"

Daughter: "I was just a little sad, but I'm happy now."

Niece: "But when we played that game, I didn't mean to keep Kylie from having a turn."

And the conversation continued in that manner for a good ten minutes. Now here's how I imagine that conversation between a 9 and 10 year boy would go:

Ten year old boy: "Did you see me pass Tommy up?"

Nine year old boy: "Yeah. You made sure no one could beat you."

Ten year old: "Well he wasn't fast enough, so I passed him and beat you both in a shut-out."

Nine year old: "Next time, you're going down."

Ten year old: "Hahahaha!"

Those memorable company dinners

2008-12-10T06:05:00.001-08:00

First of all, I want to say bless those of you who have stuck with this little blog lately. It certainly isn't because I give you all interesting things to read! But I have to share something that happened to me last night.

If anyone has been around for a while, they might remember this post. You see, whenever I have the rare chance to actually dress nicely and attend a "grown-up" function, things seem to happen.

BD's company Christmas Dinner is a function we both enjoy every year. This year it was at Fogo de Chao, a Brazillian Steakhouse. Oh. My. Goodness. The STEAK. It just keeps coming! Let me tell you, this place is not for vegetarians, but it was some of the best steak I've ever had in my life!!! You have a disc that is red on one side and green on the other and if you turn it to green, they just keep bringing you different cuts that have been grilled on a spit and slice the type of cuts you like, so every bite is hot and tender and it never ends. I mean the tenderloin! The ribeye! You just finish eating a round of all the different cuts, and they start all over. Your glass is NEVER empty,and they are constantly replacing the side dishes so they are always hot and fresh. And of course we had dessert, the best creme brulee I've ever had. Anyway, we had never eaten so much steak in our lives and it caught up with us on the way back to the car when both BD and I wondered if we might get sick from being so full. But that's not what this story is about.

Being 40 hasn't bothered me at all since I actually feel better right now than I have in a long time. But at events like this, I DO care about looking my best. So when I planned what I would wear ~~ten days ago~~ yesterday, I decided on a top that had a wide vee-neck. Now, in the past, I've had a problem with getting hives on my neck and chest when I get nervous, but hey, I'm 40 now. I've outgrown that, right? I mean, the worst I ever had them was on my prom day when every picture showed those ugly big red blotches marching across my chest as plain as day. But that was over 20 years ago. That doesn't happen anymore. I'm an experinced woman of 40, not a girl of 17!

Can you see where this is leading? That's right. At the beginning of the evening, we all just stand around, chit-chatting with people we haven't seen in a year. And there's always new people you've never met. OK, it's awkward, but we all do our best. So anyway, the waiters came around asking each of us what we wanted to drink and everyone was acting so...well, knowledgeble about different types of wine, etc. So I decided I'd act knowledgable as well and impress BD's co-workers by asking for the only wine I know by name that I like...Gevertaminer. (I have no idea how to spell it). But there was a problem with my plan. The waiters weren't exactly fluent in English. Actually, the one I spoke to didn't seem to know what in the world I was talking about and my little plan to impress BD's co-workers and their dates by gracefully and subtly ordering a specific wine turned into a five minute struggle to communicate. I was hopelessly snarled and didn't know what to do and the worst part was that I felt the familiar red-hot tingle across the skin of my chest and knew my old friends, the HIVES, were back. Finally someone said in my ear, "Just say red or white." I nearly shouted at the man, "Red!" He started to say something about bottle or glass, only with such a heavy accent, again I didn't understand. The same voice told me, "Say glass." I did and accompanied it with a hand gesture that said clearly, "Now go away before my hives get worse!"

So after some nervous chuckling by the group that had witnessed my unraveling, the woman I had just met, the date of a co-worker, turned to me to resume our conversation about her job as a hospital administrator. But her gaze fell to my neck and chest with a confused, then sympathetic/humorous look several times during the rest of our conversation. Yeah. It's pretty hard to look like a cool, composed and confident woman while causing a scene and breaking out in red blotches. But hey, I'm a 40 year old stay-at-home mom from Indiana. I'm sure I carried it off, because after all, that's how I roll.

ZAP!!

2008-12-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

Do yourself a favor and check out BD's blog entry today...I've been feeling under the weather, so he told me that this blog entry would cheer me up. He was right. :-)

You are a Winner! Of what, I don't know. Click to find out. We won't flood your inbox with junk mail. We promise.

2008-12-05T13:14:00.001-08:00

It's hard to take this seriously when it shows up on my screen EVERY TIME I open my email.

Home for Christmas

2008-11-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

My brother whose in the Army and just got back from 15 months in Iraq is coming home with his family for the holidays!!!! They are getting here Friday! Oh, and my sister-in-law got pregnant on his first day home. Hmmm. I bet there will be a new generation of Baby Boomers thirty or forty years from now. :-) The song "I'll be home for Christmas" has extra meaning this year.

Winter warmth

2008-11-25T05:13:00.000-08:00

Our son's 15th birthday was yesterday. I really can't believe it. How can he get older while I stay the same age? It doesn't make sense. Oh wait.
Ahem. Anyway, I'm not doing a big long post about him and his wonderful qualities because he doesn't want me to. Imagine that...a fifteen year old boy being sensitive about what I put into blogosphere.
But one thing I will share is that he LOVES Christmas. It is his FAVORITE time of year. I didn't realize how much he loved it until he started watching old Christmas home videos A LOT and talking about the smells and sights of Christmas A LOT and wanted to listen to Christmas music starting in September A LOT. But what really told me was that all he wanted for his birthday was money toward an I-Pod, breakfast lunch and dinner from Taco Bell, and to put up the Christmas decorations. We did that Sunday when he and BD got home from our church's men's retreat.
So now our decorations are up and I am amazed at what a mood-lifter they are, for Baylee (11) especially. She struggles with moodiness. Sigh. I wish I could say she doesn't get it from me, but...Well, yesterday she woke up happy and was happy all day, staring at the tree and doing her work (even the dreaded math assignment) happily under it's branches. Maybe we should leave it up all year.
Anyway, I digress. Christmas music and putting up the decorations, along with the colder weather is usually bittersweet for me because it marks the beginning of the saddest time of year for me...winter. This year, I couldn't help thinking about last year at this time, probably the lowest time emotionally I've ever had. I was talking to my sister about last winter and how I didn't even realize how depressed I really was, and she said we never realize how bad it is until we are feeling better and look back on it. All that to say that I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER this year (and I just turned 40!) than I was last year. For the first time, I am NOT dreading the cold and the dark. God's love and faithfulness is all around me, making me warm. I look at my children's faces and I feel warm. I feel my grandmother's lips on my cheek and I feel warm. My mother smiles at me, my dad hugs me, my sisters laugh with me and I feel warm. My husband does something little for me, like buying me a firelog or cleaning the kitchen, and I feel warm. Some friends of mine wrote posts recently about the five senses and things they love experiencing with those gifts. Lovely posts and reading them makes me feel warm. I may have selfishly turned a post around from talking about my kids to talking about me, but right now I just have to praise God for feeling warm and light inside!

Yay!

2008-11-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

I am generally pretty healthy, but bad backs run in my family and mine goes out on me periodically, knocking me onto the couch for a good week or two at a time. Such was the case several days ago and when that happens, I get pretty down. It's tough to be the perfect wife and mother when I can barely get into a standing position. I mean, after all, I'm not just a housewife, I'm a conversationalist; receptionist; nurse; short-order cook; maid; social secretary; gourmet chef; chauffeur; drill sergeant; negotiator; tutor; event planner; laundress; encourager; professional shopper; money manager; teacher; disciplinarian; costume designer; knee-kisser; curfew-enforcer, playmate, master scheduler, heartbeat of the home; etc...

Why do I bring this up? Welllll (deep breath), my pal, Mamarazzi, hosted this way cool thing called "Mamarazzi's Favorite Things Swap". Little did I know what this would mean until a big, fat envelope arrived, addressed to ME!!! And the address wasn't written by a computer. Oh no, my address was written by a PERSON! And it arrived at just the right time to lift spirits that were sorely dragging. Let me just share the wonderful things my "Swap Partner" at What's Next Girls? sent my way:

A wonderful magazine, five of her favorite winter recipes, a tube of her favorite coffee-flavored lip gloss, The Memory Keeper's Daughter (which I'm really enjoying), two CDs of her favorite Christmas music, and my favorite thing of all (and not just because she made me look so skinny on the front), a gorgeous altered notebook...

Note how she put my head on a super-skinny body! Guaranteed to warm any girl's heart!

Inside front

Inside back

Back

You should have heard the squeals and exclamations as my girls and I revealed item after item. I haven't received something so fun in the mail for as long as I remember. Thanks so much, swap partner! You know who you are!!!

October is a busy month!

2008-11-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

In the month of October, we have 8 birthdays and anniversaries in our family. October 16th was BD's 39th birthday, the 17th was our 16th anniversary, and the 19th was my 40th birthday. Yes, the time has come for me to admit to being 40, but since I feel better than I have in a long time, I don't mind!

For our anniversary, BD made bacon-wrapped filet mignon with pasta in garlic cream sauce with fresh tomatoes and grilled asparagus. Izzi and my niece decorated the table...it was soooo nice!

For my birthday, my peeps took me to breakfast at a really quaint place...they know going out for breakfast is one of my favorite things to do.

It was a gorgeous, sunny early Fall day and my sistas and I ran across the street to the town square where there was a scarecrow contest for all the local businesses.

That night, my mom had a dinner for me and BD. My BFF Toni showed up as a surprise, and Mom had a turtle cheesecake for desert for me.

But the fun didn't stop there. BD surprised me with a night in the Canterbury hotel in downtown Indianapolis. The weather was perfect; sunny and low seventies. We walked from the beginning of the canal to the end and back, as well as walking around the Circle City Mall where we did some shopping, and wrapped up the evening with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants that was across the street from our hotel. Walking for hours downtown in the sunshine is one of my favorite things to do.

The Circle.

The next day we went to Einstein's for breakfast. I had never been there and it was the BEST coffee I'd ever had! The Autumn Roast tasted like Fall in a cup. It was like drinking images of nuts and pumpkins and falling leaves and golden sunshine! The weather was PERFECT again...what a marvelous Autumn we've had!

It's hard to see, but this is Einstein's.

I had a wonderful birthday...God has blessed truly blessed me!

Late Sunday Scrapping

2008-11-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

I scrapped five pages this week. Here are four:

This first one is the doodle page I made in black and white, then colored it in and added a picture. I made it as a sample for my doodling class. I would not normally have used one small picture on a large page.

These are some of my favorite pictures...in fact, I'd like to get 12x12 frames and put them in our living room.

After I made the layout of my daughter Izabella, my other daughter Baylee wanted one like that too. So I just used random pictures of her and made this page.

I'll actually post a normal post soon. :-) Oh, I hurt my back, so can't do the cartwheel at the gas station that my wonderful husband he insists on. Shoot.

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-11-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've been participating for a while in this cool meme where people share their craft ta-das and to-dos for the week because I just love to scrapbook. Go here to check out lots of other awesome creations...

I don't usually do the weekly challenges even though I think they're neat, but for me it's just simpler to keep plugging away on my own family photo pages. This week, I was looking through this old album I keep where I just throw old pictures that I haven't scrapped. They are in no particular order, nor are they labeled. Anyway, I found twelve miscellaneous baby/toddler pictures of our youngest daughter (she just turned ten on Wednesday) and thought I'd make a page just for fun and to practice my doodling skills since I'm going to be teaching it in January. I just used black 12X12 cardstock, cropped the pictures, matted them with white cardstock, and added miscellaneous flower stickers and images I'd cut from magazines. Then I doodled vines and swirls with a white pen and added details to the flowers themselves with both white and black pens. So it was very cost effective---just two ink pens, some cardstock, and flowers. The layout turned out really artsy and it was so much fun to do!

There's our little Izabella. She's so sweet and adds so much beauty to our life. We are so proud and pleased to be her parents!

Cartwheels for gas

2008-10-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the day is here, folks. Gas is $1.98 at the good ole Walmart in town. Looks like I need to do some stretching in preparation for my performance, which my husband informed me will be this evening when he gets home. Go here to see what I am talking about.

Thrifty or spendthrift?

2008-10-29T05:16:00.001-07:00

This week, the girls and I are focusing on the character trait "thriftiness". I pride myself on being an example to them of a thrifty person. Not to be confused with spendthrift. But I'm concerned that line may have been blurred yesterday when I got into a fight with the cashier at Goodwill over $1.50. In front of my daughter. Oh yes, I'm a good example.

Dreams and Sunday Scrappin'

2008-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

My sisters and I have two dreams in life...

Expensive cosmetic dental work...

...and to sing professionally with a nationally known scarecrow choir.

We always have our dreams.

Anyway, on Friday I attended a crop at Ally Scraps, a local scrapbooking store extraordinaire. I met some great ladies there, especially Jessica. I only got two pages and some thank you cards done, but she and I had a great conversation. Anyway, here's the pages, bringing my yearly total up to 163. But since there have been so many events in my life lately, it will take a long time to catch up with current stuff.

(Amy came up with this cool meme where people share their craft ta-das and to-dos for the week. Go here to check out lots of other awesome creations...)

This last one is my attempt to do a page using just my own doodles. I plan on adding color to the design, as well as photos. It's fun, a way to use my sketchy, artsy tendencies. I'm going to start teaching on this skill in January. Weird.

Buckeye Bonanza Bash

2008-10-16T17:07:00.001-07:00

this be my ma and pa.

so as it ain't surprising that BD and I got hitched.

we ain't that smrt. we need hlp. Please send money!

OK, OK, I'm just kidding. We ARE smart! At least that's what we tell our friends.

Seriously, let me tell you about the Burns Buckeye Bonanza, my mom's brainchild.

It started six years ago when the tree behind my parents new home dropped an amazing amount of buckeyes in the fall. So Mom (tradition starter extrodinaire!) created a celebration that included food that started with "B", the Buckeye Toss (a way to get rid of all those pesky buckeyes by throwing them at empty cans), and the Buckeye Guess where we guessed how many buckeyes were in the bucket (over 1000 that my mom counted out on her own each year).

Over the years, the Buckeye Bonanza has grown more and more elaborate with customized competitions, gifts, and prizes. Then my sis-in-law Leah (or Snizzle-Sis) got involved...

(Pictured here with my brother)

...and it got even more elaborate (and fun).

This year, Leah's mom...

...was visiting from LA and SHE LOVES this kind of thing so guess what? This year's bash was THE BOMB-DIGGETY.

So without further ado, here's some pictures from our sixth annual celebration at my brother and sister-in-law's house. In the words of my kids, it was, "...as much fun as Christmas!".

Peanut butter and chocolate buckeyes.

Birthday Boy Bronco cake. (It was my nephew's first birthday).

Buckeye Toss.

Buried Treasure Hunt.

Bubble blowing Contest.

Bad Teeth Bash.

Birthday Boy.

Bye-bye, ya'll!!!

practical joke

2008-10-14T06:07:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who's a practical joker. I caught her trying to "sneak" and put a bumper sticker on the back of my minivan when I wasn't looking. I'm glad I stopped her because that thing could have been on there a long time before I noticed it. And for anyone who knows me, I would NEVER put this saying on my car. Hmmm. I guess that's why it would have been so funny!

practical joke II

2008-10-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

Oh, you want to know what it said?

If I'm speeding, it's because I really have to poop.

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-10-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have been hit and miss (mostly miss) for posting lately...I'm surprised there aren't cobwebs on here!

Anyway, Amy came up with this cool meme where people share their craft ta-das and to-dos for the week. Go here to check out lots of other awesome creations...

I have scrapped several pages the last two weeks. I'm up to 161 for the year I think. The ones I'm posting are all Christmas pages from 2003 and signal my completion of that year. Yay! I'm only about a month behind on current events, but a lot of stuff has been going on that I need to scrapbook. In fact, today is our 6th annual Burns Buckeye Bonanza, Thursday is my husband's birthday, Friday is our 16th anniversary, and Sunday is my 40th birthday. So I'm going to have LOTS of pictures to scrap very soon!

Anyway, here's my last seven pages...

Wani reminded me of something that happened when I scrapped this page at our church craft night Friday. The three little green punched-out reindeer are made from a frog punch that I mistook for a reindeer head. But Wani agreed that it "absolutely looked like a reindeer", so I'm going with that! :-)

She made me do it!

2008-10-05T05:45:00.001-07:00

There are many mysteries in life. One of the biggest is why we as humans feel that bad behavior on someone else's part justifies bad behavior on our part. As we were in the car last night, one of our children said something mean and nasty to another. When questioned about why they did it, they said, "Well she said something mean to me" as if that explained it.

BD: "What in the world makes you think it's OK to so something you know is wrong just because someone else does something wrong to you?"

Child: "I don't know, Dad. I was wrong. I'm sorry." (Our children have learned that to admit they've done something wrong to their dad immediately is the only way the issue will be resolved quickly.)

As I was sitting there listening, I started thinking about it.

Since I have said the phrase Just because someone else makes a bad decision doesn't make it OK for you to do something you know you shouldn't. If someone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? hundreds, maybe thousands of times throughout my parenting experience, BD's question about "What in the world makes you think it's OK" seems pretty obvious. It's the way we are. We are born that way and we will always be that way.

As adults, our responses to thing may be more sophisticated, but let's say you're at work and you have the opportunity to steal maybe something as small as a six-pack of coke (I'm thinking of my flight attendant days). The company treats you bad. The company used to pay for uniforms, now you have to pay for them yourself. Isn't that stealing from you? The company deserves it. Plus, a six-pack of coke won't make any difference anyway.

It started in the garden. That's why my kids will always say, "Someone else made me do it!" I just pray that by the time they are adults, they will have the maturity to understand they can overcome their human response and call upon God's help to say against their nature, "Just because someone else does something wrong or unfair or bad doesn't mean I have to." Now if only I would always remember it!

Homecoming!!!

2008-09-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord! My brother is home with his twin boys and his wife after fifteen months in Iraq!!!!

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-09-21T09:13:00.001-07:00

Amy came up with this cool meme where people share their craft ta-das and to-dos for the week. Go here to check out lots of other awesome creations...

I have a goal of 200 pages this year...to keep current and when I have time, go back and work on 2003. I've now scrapped 149 pages and am in December of 2003, in part helped by these awesome scrap nights at a local scrapbooking store where me and my scrappin' sistas go to scrap from late afternoon until midnight.

Here we are at the one from last month. The far left is Toni from In The Midst of This Season; next to her is Wani from Wani's World, then my snizzle-sis Leah, and me. Not pictured is our friend Kara from My Train of Thought Has Derailed. We have so much fun at these things, snacking, laughing and scrapping.

So anyway, we had another all night crop Friday where I scrapped seven pages....

This one is the next two pages of last week's black and pink layout.

We're supposed to share our goals for the coming week, but the only goals I ever seem to have is just to scrap whenever I have time. Not very glamorous, but it works for me!

Bees may be a beautiful part of God's creation, but they are also mean little....

2008-09-16T06:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I ran five miles. I just had to say that because I'm kinda in shock myself.

OK, over Labor Day, me and the fam spent the long weekend at my Grandma's in Ohio. (The one that has the lake). Since she's in the country, most of her grass is clover and the bees are all over the ground, busily collecting pollen. This summer, several children got bee stings from stepping on bees and we found that toothpaste smeared on the sting immediately soothes pain. Who knew?

Anyway, I was the adult in charge of watching the kids swim one day. I walked to the shed to get a floaty, watching the ground carefully for bees as usual. Then OWWW! I was in disbelief as I fell to the ground, clutching my right foot that now sported a swollen, angry red sting. The kids all gathered around me in fascination, watching my face carefully to make sure I wasn't going to start crying which would make it imperative for them to panic. But one thing I learned as a flight attendant was the ability to keep my face impassive, even if the plane was going down and we were all going to die. Couldn't let them see my fear you know! So I kept my expression as bland as possible and my rocking back and forth in pain to a minimum. Besides, I felt uncomfortable with their little faces so close to my unshaved legs (hey, I was on vacation...showering, shaving, and/or grooming is optional!).

So as you can imagine, when I got to my feet, I was especially careful. My nose was almost to the ground as I kinda stoop-walked, hunchback-style, back to my chair. One minute later, pain radiated from the bottom of my OTHER foot. Wha...?!? No way did I get stung again! I was watching every square inch of ground that my foot stepped on! But when I turned my foot over, THE BEE WAS STILL IN IT! Folks, my fear of insects affected me not at all as I grabbed the sucker, squishing him all over me and pulling the stinger and clear, stringy bee-venom from my foot.

Well, I smeared toothpaste on the stings and the pain subsided. It wasd=n't as bad as I would have expected and I soon forgot about them.

Until the middle of the night.

I woke at 2 am to an itch that was deep, painful and all-encompassing. In fact, I couldn't sleep one more minute that night, but just writhed in agony while BD slept peacefully beside me. I was having an allergic reaction, something I'd never had before, but has come upon me in my old age! Well, I was in misery for the next couple of days, hobbling around like a cripple and finally binding and taping my "injured feet". Everyone was laughing at me as I wound the medical tape around and around my feet and propped them up on a folding chair. BD snapped a picture of me. They were laughing, but in the end I think they just wished I would stop whining about my measly little bee stings. Anyway, I don't know if you can see my bandages well and I'm sure it doesn't look as funny as it was to my family, but use your imagination...

But come on! Really, what are the chances?

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-09-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

I scrapped seven pages this week. Here are three of them...

Carmel or caramel?

2008-09-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

BD loves to try new, ethnic, local places to eat. It's a habit I've grown to love too. Tonight we were going to try a new Cajun place, but since it was closed we ended up going to a Mediterranean restaurant. It was really good even though I couldn't pronounce most of the items. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I looked at the wine list and saw Carmel Riesling. Yum, I thought. A wine with hints of caramel! I promptly ordered a glass.
After the waitress walked away, BD looked at me.
"You know that wine doesn't taste like caramel. It's from Carmel, the place."
I just stared at him. I had said CAR-mel, like the candy, not car-MEL, the place in California. As I've said before, any attempts on my part to look sophisticated usually backfire on me. I would say I'm like Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy, but I think my friend Toni's got me beat in that department. Check this out for a GUARANTEED laugh (I mean I really, really promise). Warning: Her story isn't for the squeamish.

Things

2008-08-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of our children while playing the game "Things"...

Things you shouldn't say at a funeral..."Hey, what's that smell?"
Things that are embarrassing..."Toots that sound like a whistle."
Things you shouldn't say to the first lady..."Did I just hear you fart like a whistle?"
Things that make you nervous..."Tigers in the bedroom."
Things a waiter shouldn't do..."Scratch softly."
Thing that scare you..."Cat poop. Truck loads and truck loads of cat poop."

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-08-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a Sunday Scrappin' post for a couple of months, but now that school has started again, I've been scrapping more.

Above my craft desk shelves, I have three 12X12 clipboards that I've used to hang my latest pages, but decided to make a permanent page for each of the kids so I can look at them every day. I did those this week:

Friday, I attended a "crop" at a local scrapbooking store. It's just where a bunch of ladies scrapbook from 6 - midnight. To some that will sound fun. To others, I know you think I'm crazy. My husband said he could just imagine the noise in the room from all the excited conversations of lots of happy ladies. He was right. We had a blast. There are 4 other girls and myself from my church that call ourselves the Scrappin' Sisters (two of which blog: Toni and Wani) and four of us were there. There were tons of snacks and we could use our store credit to buy stuff when we needed it throughout the night. I only finished 5 pages that night but we're doing it again September 19th. Anyway, here are the pages I did that night:

And here are a couple of other pages I did earlier this summer, bringing my yearly total up to 140:

Hope you all have a great week!

Homeschool

2008-08-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, I've been so busy updating my homeschooling blog that I've neglected this little blog. Please forgive me? Pretty please?

Just to update you, our oldest started high school at the public school this year (the 13th) and I continue to homeschool our daughters. Both endevors are going really well. This Friday I'm going to a 6-12 crop at a local scrapbooking store with my Snizzle-sis and Toni. I can't wait! I'll update you all later! Love you all!

Keep it clean

2008-08-12T08:42:00.001-07:00

When I was in college my brothers went in together to buy me a mat-cutter. I have gotten so much use and saved so much money with that thing over the years, cutting my own mats, as well as framing and matting artwork for friends and for gifts.

This is the hallway into the living room/kitchen. I've had a similar picture arrangement up for the last 5 years. It took weeks for me to get it up. First I had to choose the photos, then gather my frames and paint them gold, then cut all the mats from the same color, then cut a template of all the frames and lay them out on the floor, then number them all and measure everything so I could hang them perfectly. It was a huge project! Unfortunately since the wall is a stairway wall, the frames got a lot of shaking and bumping through the years. Therefore a lot of them had fallen off, the glass had broken or they ended up crooked. I knew I needed to update and fix it, but it was such a huge job, I kept putting it off. But after we painted the living room and kitchen a couple of weeks ago, I got inspired and spent a full day and a half doing it.

So anyway, we finally got the living room/kitchen combo painted and decorated after only a two month delay.

This year our church contracted with a large company (the one that does all the school pictures in our town) to take family photos for our church directory. We decided to order our family photo in the largest size they offered, 20x24, in sepia, to hang above the mantle. (We've never had a formal family portrait taken.) I purchased the 30x40 frame, backing, and three mats from Hobby Lobby for 50% off, then cut the mats and framed it myself. We love the way it looks.

BD writes and sings and plays guitar. All of his music is stored in the bench and he loves having a special corner designated just for his hobby.

We had inherited an old bookcase somewhere along the line in our marriage. Although it was rickety, it was the exact same height and width as our kitchen island. So I cut a hole in the back with my jigsaw for the outlet on the side of the island, sanded and painted it the same color as the rest of the room. Then I attached it to the side of the island for cookbook storage. I've always wanted a spot for my recipes so I'm so excited.

If any of you were around when I was making the curtains and couldn't decide on the green or the brown trim, your votes/opinions were split down the middle. After more deliberation, I went with the brown trim, as you can see from these pictures...

Every year, I like things cleaner and simpler. The whole family loves our rooms but one of the best things about it is how inspired we all are to keep it clean. Wonder how long it will take for that side effect to wear off! :-)

Big Doofus, the Nickname Master

2008-08-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

One of the many things my husband has a talent for is coming up with nicknames for his kids and nieces and nephews. Most of the time, they don't have anything to do with anything, but that doesn't distract from the fun! It makes the kids feel so special...having their dad or uncle give them a nickname is equivalent to waking up Christmas morning. :-) But there's a catch. Big Doofus is...well, he's goofy. And fun and creative and well...the perfect dad and uncle. But some of the names are...well, see for yourself:

Wilbur Wilson
Baylee-Bird, the bird girl
Izzer McGizzer
Houndogerson the third, esquire, attorney-at-law, how may I be of service to you?
Sunshine Girl
Skitty Skitterson, from Skitland, where the Skits live
Diggety Dog
Old Timer
Chopper

Now these names (or shortened versions) are really the only thing he uses to address them. He always tries to buy them birthday gifts according to their names as well. He actually designed and ordered a T-shirt for my niece's (Hound Dog) last birthday...

Whenever we see a shirt with a symbol or a name that goes with the nickname, we buy it and save it for their next gift. Just one of the many unique things about being in our family. It's never boring with Big Doofus around. :-)

You're cordially invited...

2008-08-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

Believing they were brought together by love (and by Snip and Snap at the Dollar Store), Miss Cream Bear will wed Mr. Copper Penny Bear At 2:00 (give or take an hour or so), at the home of Miss Sniz and Big Doofus. Please help them celebrate! (By giggling. A LOT.) Watered-down tea and granola bar reception, a White Elephant game, and dancing to a mix of praise music and Hannah Montana immediately following.

Classical wedding music and reception decorations provided by Snip's older sister.

The minister was attired in his best baseball jersey, the groom wore a blue tuxedo (with no pants) and the bride wore a white gown, a diamonique tiara and a cathedral-length veil, (donated by Miss Sniz). Her train was carried by Pinky, the official train-bearer. Her bouquet was of red geraniums (past their prime). Unfortunately, due to a camera malfunction by the official wedding photographer, no formal photos of the bride were able to be taken, but please enjoy the photos captured before the camera battery died...

The groom and some of the guests waiting in anxious anticipation.

The bridesmaids.

The ring-bearer.

The actual ceremony.

Some guests finding their seats at the reception.

This was a much-anticipated and planned-for wedding. As Snip said, she laughed and smiled and giggled during the entire 4-hour event and said with a sigh that she wished she could do it again. I suppose she will, someday, although I doubt Build-a-Bears will be the bridesmaids.

Crazy Summer

2008-07-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm still here! Just busy, busy, busy. Our son won his baseball All-Star tournament (BD coached---he was pretty excited), I've been preparing for school (I'm homeschooling our 9 and 11 year olds this year), the girls got their ears pierced (our 9 yo for the first time, our 11 yo for the second), we painted our kitchen and living room this weekend, (I'll post pics soon), then had another fun family day Monday. I know it must seem that we are always doing family stuff and looking back on it, I guess we do. But the week in Ohio at my grandma's was without BD, so he and my brother-in-law and his family, as well as my parents and my sister-in-law and her kids went to a local water park Monday morning, then we all went downtown to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

After that we walked around downtown for an hour, then went to a late 10:00PM movie. Wall-E. It was really good, but we had a hard time staying awake! :-)

A few of you asked about my salsa recipe. That's coming soon too but since I made it up and it's a little different each time, it's hard to actually write one down. But it's so easy, you'll be amazed, especially if you have a food processor.

I miss all of my friends here in cyberspace but know that I'll be back to writing (and reading all of your great entries) everyday when it's cold and dark and I can't leave the house. For now I'm totally and completely enjoying this AWESOME SUMMER!!!!

BTW Mamarazzi, you should be getting your cards soon!

Sniz out

And the winner is...

2008-07-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Two Sundays ago, my dad's side of the family had our yearly reunion. Check out last year's for pics of our famed Silvershaft trophy and the Golden Glider...

This year at the award ceremony, not only was the 13th annual Silvershaft golf award given to my uncle Roger, the 2nd annual disc golf Golden Glider was awarded to my brother in law. BD, my trophy-making husband extrodinaire created the Sassy Sombrero especially for our first annual Burns/Seigelin salsa throwdown.

We had five entries. My famous salsa was a runner up, but it was my baby brother who went home with the Sassy. (Don't worry, I'm not bitter about that AT ALL!)

The next day (Monday), my sister and I and our kids, as well as my parents, went to Ohio to my Grandma's house in the country (where my mom grew up). I've been going there every summer my whole life...they have a small lake with a "big dock" which sports a low dive, a high dive, a 24 foot "platform", and a trapeze swing. Then there's a low dock with another diving board, and also a sandy beach leading into the shallow water. Our kids were in the water at least 8 hours (if not more) every day.

We were there six days and had such an awesome, relaxing time. Most of my relatives were there and everyone took turns making wonderful, yummy meals. And of course, my grandma made her famous, mouth-watering, irresistible cinnamon rolls. During the week, I had no internet connection, hence no contact with the outside world. It was surreal but wonderful.

Anyway, after getting back to reality, I had a GREAT time reading all of your wonderful, hilarious stories from my last entry. Here's the results:

QTPies – Honorable mention for kicking off the idea for this contest and telling that great “sex over 60” story. I need your address, sweetie-pie, so I can send you your gift.

Here were some Contenders, all of which made me laugh---you all are the BEST!

Eally for “Courtesy Flush”

Randy for “Imports and Exports”

Sassyfrazz for “You’re not that Lucky”

Debbie for “Thongs”

Mayhem for “Too busy pushing to Talk” (this one REALLY made me laugh)

Jen for “My Father put the Baby in my Belly”

McNeill Family for “This Bathroom is Beescusting”

Honey Bee May for “Prophylactic shock”

Julia for “Familiar with Chicken Fingers?”

Wani for “Group Poop”

It was really difficult to choose a winner, but after laughing my head off, I finally selected...

Mamarazzi for her “Furry Whoo Whoo” story (although all of them, especially the fancy poop made me seriously laugh until I cried.) Hey girl, send me your address so I can send you your AWESOME cards!

Congratulations to the winners and thank you, thank you for playing, my dear friends!

An impulsive contest

2008-07-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I am SO enjoying this summer!!! Which is why my blogging has slowed WAY down. There so much to do and enjoy...know what I mean?

Anyway, as I was blog surfing today, I came across this funny post at Our Seven Qtpies.

She talks about a conversation she overheard from the Burger King bathroom stall next to her. The other, faceless woman was on the phone and said, I was just taking a crap and I thought of you, so I called to apologize. I love you, bye.

This tickled my funny bone so much, and on my jog this morning I got to thinking about what other bizarre conversations have been heard in public restrooms. I'm so curious about this, I'm holding a contest. I've never done this before and all I'm offering is a set of 4 greeting cards (handmade by moi) to the person I think has the funniest story to tell. It's not much, but I promise they're the cutest, most unique cards EVAH! (Well, at least my mother thinks so. :-))

Now, most contests I've seen on blogs randomly choose a winner but that's not the way I roll. I am going to be non-politically-correct and base this contest shamelessly on my own opinion. So search your brains and give me some funnies!

Enjoy your day. Carpe Diem. That is all.

A question I'd never thought I'd be asked

2008-07-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

Daughter: Mom, there's pus on the scrape on my arm even though it doesn't hurt. Is it infected?

Me: It's not swollen and the discharge is clear. It's OK.

Daughter's friend (in seriousness and awe): Are you a doctor?

Me: No, but I play one on TV.

Daughter and friend: blank looks

The upside of getting old is that you get all the jokes.

Isn't this stuff dangerous? (from the Big Doofus blog)

2008-07-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

My husband put something on his blog today that I thought was so interesting, I had to borrow it. I hope he doesn't get mad! If you want to view the real source, check out his blog. Anyway, here it is...

I don't usually get too political on my blog, but someone pointed me towards this little news gem today...

Iraqi Uranium Transferred to Canada

This was the part that I found to be of greatest interest...

The yellow cake was discovered by US troops after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Facility south of Baghdad, and was placed under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Yellowcake is a form of processed uranium ore that can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors, or if further enriched as fuel for nuclear weapons.

So, the US troops found at least 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium during the Iraqi invasion...but we've all been told by the press that there were no weapons of mass destruction...yet. Looks like we beat them to the punch.

What this really made me think about is how much that we don't know. We think we know 100%, but I bet we only really know 5% or so of the real story, and even that is reported by slanted, opinionated media.

Mom, what's that smell?

2008-07-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

It started with a smell. A rather stinky smell. A smell that made you think of nasty, rotting, smelly things.

Next there were the orange fingers. The orange fingers of aliens that had been buried in our flower bed and whose long, gruesome appendages were poking through the earth, brown blood dripping down their wrinkled skin. Um, well, no. I haven't buried any aliens lately.

So they must be carrots dipped in chocolate. Yes, that's it. Someone poked carrots into our flowerbed...carrots dipped in chocolate that smells like...um, well, like it's gone bad. Several days ago.

That's still not right.

OK, why don't I show you...

Um yeah. This is a real photo from our flower bed. The picture doesn't do them justice, especially the smelly brown liquid coming from the top and dripping down the sides with flies stuck in it. Imagine seeing these AND smelling the smell I mentioned earlier.

After some searching on the internet, we discovered that the proper name for these relatives of the mushroom is stinkhorn. I couldn't have come up with a more appropriate name myself.

It could've been worse. It could've been phallic impudicus.

Rock Climbing

2008-07-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday the Shumway family went to our local community's Ribfest at a local park. The glorification of hunks of BBQ meat always draws thousands of people whereas things like church...well, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions! Anyhoo, the National Guard was there with this 30 feet rock climbing wall. It had three sides, all at different climbing levels. There was a small bell at the top of each rock face and if you rang it, you got a T-shirt. We got there early, so our 11 year old daughter was the first one to climb. I loved the guy that helped her put on her harness...he was home from a 15 month deployment in Iraq and had volunteered to go back for 9 months. He was so positive and patriotic. It made me happy just talking to him.

Anyway, our daughter scrambled to the top in record time, rang the bell, and got a T-shirt. Because she did it so easily, I assumed it wasn't very difficult. Later we came back because our 9 year old daughter wanted to try. There was a long line by that time. While waiting for our turn, we watched as person after person tried...adults, muscular teen-aged boys, there was even one woman who said she was an experienced rock climber. While a few people actually made it to the top, the majority did not. Not even the rock climber. Our 9 year old is a tiny thing so I had my doubts she'd be able to do it. When we got to the front of the line, the cool guy asked if our other daughter wanted to try again on one of the other sides. So both girls got harnessed up and waited their turn. They ended up climbing on opposite sides of the structure at the same time, and both made it up fairly easily. They impressed the guy so much, he asked if the wanted to climb all the sides. So both girls climbed all three and rang the bell each time. He said very few civilians can do that. Both girls were so proud and excited, and Mommy and Daddy were too, I can tell you! I am kicking myself that I didn't bring our camera. Our 11 year old says she's only going to take her shirt off to wash it. In fact, she's worn it every day since, and our 9 year old wears hers to sleep in since it's so huge it comes to her knees.

Anyway, I know I haven't been writing much lately. Check out my husband's blog for more consistent updates of our lives!

Miss Sniz, out!

Bloggy Thanks

2008-06-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

You all DO still love me! You do, you do! Oh, I am so blessed with great readers here on my humble blog. I've been a bad blogger lately and have avoided the computer like it might give me some disease. I can't explain it really, but once I'm done judging this writing contest I'm working on, I PROMISE to visit ALL of my WONDERFUL FRIENDS! I sincerely hope you are enjoying the summer. I sure am...I LOVE summer!!!!!

Today's the day!!!

2008-06-22T09:07:00.001-07:00

We don't own a pet, but if we did....

I'm sure this church is going to be paying a lot of money to some company in an effort to erase all the little "blessings" our community's pets leave on on their sanctuary carpet. Makes me wish we owned a carpet cleaning service.

The dreaded bathing suit

2008-06-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Last summer I wrote about the harrowing experience of choosing a bathing suit here. Well, the kids and I have been invited to swim at a friend's house this afternoon. It's actually amazing (or a testimony to my wily personality) that even though my kids have swum numerous times this summer already, I have managed to avoid the dreaded "donning of the bathing suit" that, to my chagrin, seems to always happen this time of year. But I'm not going to get out of it today. I already tried...

a) telling my friend that my thighs were big white blobs that might scare the children
b) telling my friend I didn't want to get a sunburn on aforementioned big white thighs
c) telling my friend that I am deathly afraid of swimming pools, and besides, my back still hurts (which for those of you who have expressed concern, is FINALLY better!)
d) telling my friend that I have a disease that eats away at the thigh/stomach area, leaving open sores and I don't want to expose them to such a frightening sight.

I guess I am losing my touch, because none of the above excuses phased her.

So I am donning the dreaded bathing suit. This two days after my daughter asked after she saw a sign with a lovely bathing beauty, "Mom, you will never wear a bikini, will you?"
And when I said no, she said with great relief, "Good!"

But alas, my tankini shows my belly button. The shock and horror on my kid's faces almost made me lose my nerve. But best to get it over with. That's my new motto.

Think my friend will notice if I lay out with my towel wrapped firmly around me until only my legs below the knees are exposed?

Meeting Toni

2008-06-18T06:18:00.001-07:00

I began to blog. Just a journal. A diary that I'd actually keep up since I hadn't managed to be diligent about writing one long-hand. No one but my mom read it. I tried to get my sister, my husband, or maybe my good friend to read it. Sometimes I got one comment from my friend. More often, I got no comments. But so what? I was doing this for me.

Then my sister told me about this blog.

I loved it. I read all her archives. I was intimidated. I was impressed. I was sure I would never, never understand what it was she did and how the blog community worked. I wasn't sure if I should comment, or even how to do it. This girl Toni, she was so cool. She knew what it was all about, man! I loved her. I was too embarrassed to tell her. I took a deep breath and kinda started commenting...

I started thinking that maybe this girl lived in Indiana. She talked about the Indianapolis Children's Museum; she talked about the Indianapolis Indians. Could she really be so close to me?

After a little while, I took my courage in my hands and contacted her privately. I told her that if she lived anywhere within four hours, I'd be willing to drive and meet her. I thought if I was lucky, she lived in Carmel, on the north side of Indianapolis, 45 minutes away from me.

But it turns out, she lived five minutes from me. I mean, what are the chances? It still gives me chills when I think about it. She could be anywhere in the world! But no! Five. Minutes. Away. It. Was. God.

But she still wasn't sure about me. I mean, I was a stranger. I could have been really weird. I could have been this guy. So she chose to meet in a local park with our kids. It was soooo hot outside. But I remember every moment of that meeting; and now she is one of my best friends.

So that was the start.

Since then, I've met Monica

I already knew Wani, but know her much better through her blog.

And Jan.

And Michelle.

And Kara.

All people I knew face to face, but now I know them better.

And...well, I've gotten to know my husband better. Sounds strange, I know. But the thing is, we write things we don't say. That's just natural. As we're leaving a furniture store, for instance, how could I verbalize my every thought? But I blog about it. And he reads it. And he loves me for those thoughts.

And through blogging I've met so many other neat people.

Sarah.

HolleeAnn.

Debbie.

Kristen.

Jeanine.

NeeNee.

Rebekah.

Shay.

Missy.

Barb.

Nicole.

Susan.

Melissa.

This is just a portion of the people that mean so much to me. To list them all would take forever.

Blogging is such a neat thing...

"Park Rules"

2008-06-08T19:15:00.001-07:00

As many of you know, we have two kids who play baseball and softball respectively. As a result, BD and I spend a lot of time at our local baseball park. What sets our community sports program apart from other local parks is that all of the rules there are optional, as evidenced by the sign prominently displayed on the side of the main building.

As you can see, the "rules" are merely suggestions and one can only hope there is "no" drug use, "no" profanity, and for heaven's sake, "no" petting! There are children present, after all. As there are no quotation marks present in the last sentence, one can only guess that they mean that part. So anyone smoking, drinking, doing drugs and indulging in heavy petting while driving 10 MPH, MAY be asked to leave. Then again, they may not.

2008-06-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

Well, after visiting an osteopath, it turns out that I had twisted my back so my hipbones were out of alignment. He "adjusted" them (which is a nice way of saying he pulled and twisted my hips until they popped back in place). I am still sore, but should be feeling better by today or tomorrow. I sure hope he's right, although I have to admit this forced "down time" has been nice and is going to be hard to give up. LOL!

The girls have started their yearly swimming lessons. They have lessons every morning for two weeks. I can't believe the improvement in Baylee. She is in the highest level this year (they've been taking lessons for 4 years) and she is an awesome swimmer. Of course I can't sit on the hard bleachers to watch them, so I have to stand for an hour in the sweltering heat, but it's fun to watch them.

Baseball and softball is also in full swing. Baylee has a game tonight, then William has one tomorrow night. BD is William's coach this year and it's so fun to watch the games even though they go so late (10:00 or 10:30 PM). Both kids are doing so well this year.

Next week is VBS and my job is to take pictures and set up a short slide show for the closing minutes every night. I've never done that before, so it should be interesting!

Well, how's that for a boring update on our lives? I have been out of commission for a while, but I am LOVING the beautiful, WARM weather and am in love with life right now, despite my annoying back problems. I hope you all are enjoying life as well!

Love or hate the mess???

2008-05-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

When the kids were little, I gave them free reign of our bedroom on the off chance they would occupy themselves and give me a few minutes to myself. But over the last few years, it's been dawning on me that our bedroom is no longer just a place to sleep. It is a theater for impromptu plays. It is a dresser for all the folded laundry that somehow never finds it's way to the "real" dressers; it is an arena for surprise water-gun fights and games of tag; the blankets from the bed make great tents; Mom's closet is the perfect spot for hide and seek or a secret clubhouse; her shoes, jewelry, scarves and purses make good dress-up props, the floor is a perfect place to lay and compose stories or pictures or make crafts or even have an picnic with favorite dolls...it is a place of imagination and dreams.

The problem is that now we have shiny streaks on our freshly-painted walls (from the water-gun fights), there are times we can't even go into the room because intricate tents that cover every square foot, I regularly find clothes wadded up in the back of my closet where they fell off hangers and no one bothered to put them back on, there always seems to be miscellaneous "stuff" to be tripped over like DVDs, tray tables, piles of books, old costume jewelry, the dyed-satin shoes and matching gloves that I wore in my best friend's wedding, miscellaneous pillows and blankets from all over the house, assorted stuffed animals and dolls, old bridesmaid dresses, scissors, tape (they ALWAYS need tape), crayons, scraps of paper, cups, plates and silver wear, etc.

People tell me that I'll have the house to myself someday and that it will always stay neat. There are days I think that's a good thing. But then my daughter tells me she loves me and wants to hold my hand and my son helps me put my shoes on (because of my back problems, I haven't been able to do that for two weeks) and suddenly the streaks on the wall and the wadded up clothes don't bother me so much. But I still wish they'd use that imagination to clean up their messes with the same enthusiasm they showed when they made them.

Family Fun!

2008-05-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

My back was much worse than I let on and I haven't been able to get online for a week. It's really, really getting me down. I had 276 new email messages waiting for me. Argg! It's gonna take me forever to get caught up---with that, and with reading my favorite blogs, especially since I still can't sit at the computer for very long at a time. Sigh.

Anyway, we had an overnight family trip planned for a while, already paid for, so despite my back, I insisted that we go. The kids had so much fun. We went to a Holiday Inn on the north side of Indy that is attached to a water park. The first day we swam and played. (Well, everyone else did. I watched :-)) Our room faced the atrium and stairs from our balcony led to the hotel pool , a small putt-putt golf course, and various games.

This was the balcony outside our room. That's William leaning on the railing.

Then we went to the water park. Oh, it looked so fun and I couldn't do anything but sit and watch. :-( Bummer!

For dinner we went to Macaroni Grill---great food, great service, great experience. When we went back to the hotel, we sang Christmas carols and drank spiced, warm cider. Then the kids ditched their cozy winter clothes and dived into the pool for another hour of swimming. To round out the night, we watched National Treasure II in our room. (Well, the kids did. BD and I couldn't stay awake...man, that's a long movie.)

The next morning we had the breakfast buffet and the kids swam for three hours before we had to check out. They all kept saying it was one of the best trips of their life, and we were 20 miles from our house and got a great deal on the hotel and water park. I guess fun doesn't have to cost a lot! I'm so thankful the kids love to be together as a family--I am so blessed. :-)

Hello again!

2008-05-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I've been absent for a while for a couple of reasons. The first was that I was really busy and then I went away to a scrapbooking B&B for the weekend. The second was that bad backs run in my family and mine went out on me, so I've been bed-ridden for a couple of days.

Last Thursday, I taught my first 3 hour calligraphy class to 9 ladies at Joann's. For someone who hasn't been in the workforce for years and who doesn't love teaching, this was a stressful thing. Three hours is a long time for one class, let alone one I hadn't taught to adults before. I spent hours preparing for it. I set up my easle and all my examples in my bedroom and taught the class to the air a couple of times, then taught it to my daughters (until they got bored). I was nervous, but was so prepared that I think it went well. Here's an example of the Chancery Cursive I taught:
The next day, my friend Wani and I drove to Harrison, IN (close to Anderson) to a new scrapbooking B&B. It was a lot of fun. I completed 13 pages and started 2 more, and Wani completed 22 pages! I've never had so much space before! Here's a picture of Wani scrapping away:
I had never used a cricut before and had a good time learning to use the one our hostess, Stephanie, had there. Here are a few of my pages:

This is the layout that I started, but didn't get to finish. When I am done, it will have 3 pages.

For a much better summary of our weekend and pics of Wani's wonderful pages, check out her blog! www.wanibug.blogspot.com

Snip and Snap on breakfast foods

2008-05-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

We call our daughter and her cousin Snip and Snap because they are best friends and they LOVE to talk. A lot. Yesterday, Snap spent the night here with Snip. In the morning, I made them cinnamon roll-ups, tortillas fried in butter on one side, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled up. Snap, who'd never had them before loved them.

Snap: These are so good. They are just like cinnamon rolls.

Snip: Except they are made from tortillas instead of bread and don't have any icing.

Snap: Yeah, and they taste completely different.

So there you have it, folks.

Mother's Day 2008

2008-05-11T16:53:00.001-07:00

It all started this morning before church when my son asked me if I was coming downstairs. He never asks me that. The kids had been sneaking around all week and there were "secret" trips to the store, so I knew something was up. I just didn't know what. Boy, didn't I!

I walked into the kitchen. BD was making coffee, acting totally normal. The kids were in the living room, just hanging out. I saw Baylee give William a conspiratory smile, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. I just stood there, not knowing what to do.

Finally, William pulled a little silver gift bag from behind the coffee table and said, "We were in charge of Mother's Day this year, so we got you this."

Inside the bag was a jeweler's box. Inside the box was this:

Did they do good or what? A couple of months ago, Baylee and I had looked through a Kohl's jewelry catalogue and I had told her absently that this bracelet was my favorite one. But I never think about really getting anything and the bracelet was 180.00 anyway.

But she remembered. BD took the three of them shopping when I was out of the house for ladies' night, and found that the very bracelet I had said I liked was on sale for 77.00! They pooled their money (with some help from Dad), bought it, then kept it a complete secret for 5 days. I was stunned and everytime I look at my beautiful, unique bracelet, I know I am really, really loved. And really, really blessed.

At church, my dad (who's also my pastor) taught a great sermon, then there was a baptism where Toni's husband got baptized. It was so beautiful.

After church, we all got together at my brother and Snizzle-sis's house...

...where the guys made us moms grilled hamburgers, roasted potatoes and onions, and pasta salad. BD was in charge of the fixin's bar. Look what he came up with:

There were fourteen condiments, including raspberry-chipotle sauce, jalapeño ranch, salsa, blue cheese crumbles, and two kinds of pickles.

He also made homemade blackberry sherbet, my brother made homemade ice cream, and my sil made these:

Here's a picture of me and my wonderful mommy:

Here's me and my wonderful, gift-giving kids:

It was a great day! Hope you all had a blessed day as well!

Sunday Scrappin'

2008-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to scrap 4 pages this week and got my brother's R&R from Iraq done. I tried to keep each layout to two pages despite lots of pictures as well as a long blog entry. My total for the year is now 103. This Friday I'm going to a scrap B&B with my friend Wani for an overnight. It's my first trip of this kind. I can't wait!

Question: Did you make anything special for Mother's Day?
Answer: Yes, I made a card for my mom, but that's it.

awards and stuff

2008-05-09T07:56:00.001-07:00

My good friend Wani from Wani's world made this award and was so kind to pass it on to me. I was bad and only passed it on to one person. Also, HolleeAnn from TheVasquez3 just gave me this wonderful award. HolleeAnn is an awesome, dear friend who I wished lived closer so badly. I know I'd LOVE to hang out with her! Anyway, I love both of these awards! Thanks Wani

and HolleeAnn!

I gift these awards to the following people:

Sarah because she is awesome and she just found out she is pregnant after trying for a really long time. Your sense of humor is wonderful and always makes me laugh. I'm soooo happy for you, Sarah!
Kristen from MMM. She's a wonderful friend...so encouraging. She is a fellow homeschooler and scrapper and is one of the sweetest people I know.
Debbie at This is the Life. Wow, what can I say about Debbie? Her sense of humor is great and her family is so much like mine....visiting her is ALWAYS a treat! I hope to meet face to face one day!
Nicole from Humor Me. I heart her blog. She's so fun!
Shay from Speilmom's Ramblings. A fellow homeschooler with sons nearly the same ages, Shay is an inspiration to me!

Anyway, when HolleeAnn gave me this award, this is what she said about me:

...have ya seen the pages this girl scrapbooks? she is like a super cropper...awesome!

I love being called awesome anytime, and HolleeAnn and I have this cool new scrapping relationship going, but I'm afraid that's what my blog has become...a place to talk about scrapbooking. But that's not the primary way I want people to think about my blog. You see, I am a believer in Jesus Christ who loves her family and her life first and foremost and I really want that aspect of my life to shine out. I admit, I've let my blog go the past month, primarily because I have a REALLY hard time emotionally in the winter and I blog a lot to distract me from the short, dark, cold days. But when it actually gets kinda warm and sunny around here, and when the days get longer, I don't want much to do with my winter activities. So I've just been enjoying the warmth and sunshine, being outside and being more active, going on field trips, going to softball and baseball games, gardening for my grandma, my mother and myself, basically refueling after a long, cold winter. Praise the Lord--Spring is finally here!