The Lovely Award

Many thanks to Laura O at Day By Day In Our World for this award! She was in the process of giving me an award on Tuesday when I was in the process of giving her one... too funny. Thanks Laura for thinking my blog is Lovely and for being a blogging, homeschooling, Cindy Rushton lovin' friend.

This is what the award is for and about.

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Thanks Laura,
I want to make friends through my blog because I want this blog to be a friendly place where folk can laugh, even if they are laughing at me LOL, and get advice, and see lapbooks, and get information, and see what we do for homeschool.

As requested, I'm passing this along to some bloggers I read and appreciate.

1. Since my dd's do not have this award yet they are #1 Rachel and Jessica at Young Homemakers
2. My dd Jessica has her own writing site and it is just lovely so she gets one for that site too
Literary Pursuits
3. My good friend Michele at Seek the Silver Lining Michele is a brand new blogger and yes, Michele, I will help you put this on your blog on Friday and help you do what you need to do about it.
4. My new friend Chasity at Seasons of a Godly Woman
5. Dawn at For I am Confident in This
6. Sheri at Scrapbooks and Lapbooks

Well, that is all for passing along this time.
thanks again Laura,
Debbie

Homeschool Memoirs #22: ABC’s, Describing Me

This week use the ABC’s to describe your character, your life, your homeschool, and your family. Next to each letter of the alphabet put a word that describes you or has something to do with you. It was very amusing and a bit tricky. Once you actually get to a letter your mind goes blank!

I also wanted to do one of these about ME
Awesome (if I do say so myself)
Broke (as in NO money)
Christian
Daughter
Eclectic
Friend
Growing
Happy
Intelligent
Jolly
Knowledgeable
Likable
Mom
Nice
Organized
Partial to chocolate which makes me Portly
Queen (see my other Homeschool Memoirs post)
Reader
Scrapbooker, Sister, Singer
Tired
Ummmm..... (my son said to do that)
Valuable
Wife
X-cellent
Yule Lover
Zany

and now you know more about me
Debbie

Homeschool Memoirs #22: ABC’s, Describing (Our Homeschool)

Can you believe there is only 26 letters in our entire alphabet? Only 26 letters that you can create thousands and thousands of words out of, and all those little words make up all sentences, paragraphs, articles, and books we read?

THEME

This week use the ABC’s to describe your character, your life, your homeschool, and your family. Next to each letter of the alphabet put a word that describes you or has something to do with you. It was very amusing and a bit tricky. Once you actually get to a letter your mind goes blank!

Our Homeschool

Artist Study
Biblical, Boys
Creationists, Composer Study, Charlotte Mason Style, Copywork, Christian Worldview
Dedication (not just for this year but all the way through - 'til they all graduate), Drill
Eclectic
Fun
Games (Computer, Homemade and Board Games)
Historical Fiction Lovers, Homeschooling and Homemaking (keeping the balance)
Interesting Books - not Twaddle (of all kinds, on many subjects, ones we own and ones we borrow)
Journey (the long "trip" of homeschooling over the years)
Knowledge
Lapbooking (or Lap 'n Note)
Music (singing as a family)
Notebooking
Organization (I love to be organized, I even teach a class on it)
Perspective, Prepared (the way I try to be for each day of school)
Queen (that's me LOL, I even have a cup that says so)
Routine (so we keep on track), Responsibility (we try to teach this and have it as parents), Read
Silly, Sequential History (Creation to Today), Service (for each other and in the community)
Touch (hugs and kisses), Training
Unit Studies (for History and Science)
Vacant (that stare you get when you ask if they understand), Variety (so we don't get bored)
Whoopee (what we yell on the last day of school), Winterthur (our favorite place to walk and do nature study)
Xerox (for the many copies I make)
Yahweh (Jehovah our God and head of our home and school), yell (what I try not to do)
Zoo (most days it is one around here! HA!)

that's all the letters,

Just had to include pictures of my cup as proof that I am Queen

bye for now,
Debbie

Wordless Wednesday

Can you count me as doing a Wordless Wednesday when I do Weightloss Wednesday and other posts on the same day and so I am not so wordless today??? LOL

Well here it is anyway!!

Christopher Shoveling


Nathan not shoveling


Christopher Shoveling


Nathan not shoveling

Just kidding Nathan... you did some work. LOL

Effects of the Ice Storm

Nathan's find

so you can see it better we hung it over the railing in the house

Another of Nathan's finds but he let Christopher hold it for the picture
The boys said it looked like the ice home from the Superman movie except in miniature

Thank you God for your creation, even freezing rain,
Debbie

Weightloss Wednesday Jan 28, 2009

I have to smile and exercise... I can't do both!!! LOL

Well, since Chasity is being honest, I will be. On Sunday, my dh decided to go to the Entenmann's Discount store that we have 5 min. from our house. I know I did not have to pick out or eat any goodies but I did. For the whole family to share I got: a chocolate cake, a cheese danish, a crumb cake and two individual Crumb Cake packs (one serving each) just for me. My dh also got chocolate donuts and crumb donuts. On Sunday I had two pieces of the chocolate cake and one of my crumb cakes very late that night while I was on the computer. On Monday I had one piece of chocolate cake. Yesterday I had one piece of cheese danish and the other of my crumb cakes. We still have the big crumb cake left and I still have a piece of cheese danish left. I also bought two candy bars on Sunday but I have not eaten them. I plan to save them for way later... If I can resist. I am surprised to have still lost one pound.

Just think what I could have lost if I had done all the exercise I did, which was 20-30 minutes on the Bowflex and 1/2 mile on the eliptical walker on Wed. - Fri. last week and yesterday (Tues.)

this is me on our Bowflexmy dd Rachel says I am brave... I say I am honest...
and silly...


this is our eliptical walker
I am not working out today on the equipment becuase I helped shovel and scrape our car this morning and that was exercise enough, I was exhausted.

To make up for buying the goodies I also got a loaf of Weight Watchers bread and a pack of light high fiber English muffins - 8 grams soluble fiber per muffin. Like that will make up for all the "goodies" I ate, LOL. Oh well I will try to do better this week. I will buy and or make some Weight Watchers deserts.

Now an update on the salsa. It was good but not the best I have ever had. My favorite salsa was Old El Paso Thick 'n Chunky Salsa Extra Mild but they don't make extra mild any more. So this was the best I have found as a substitute so far but I want to keep working on it until I get it closer to what I remember my favorite being. We saved a label from the last jar so I could see the ingredient list.

So here is the salsa recipe:
Makes 4 servings
6 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons chopped basil
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon minced green bell pepper
1 scallion (green onion), minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt
1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar

1. In a medium nonreactive bowl (see note below), combine the tomatoes, basil , cilantro, bell pepper, green onion, garlic and salt. Let stand 30 min; drain off any liquid that accumulates.
2. Sprinkle the vinegar over the salsa; toss again.

Per serving: 14 Calories, 0 g Total Fat, 0 g Saturated Fat, 0 mg Cholesterol, 305 mg Sodium, 7 g Total Carb., 2 g Dietary Fiber, 1 g Protein, 18 mg Calcium. Points per serving: 0.

Note: acidic ingredients like tomatoes can react with metals to produce off-colors and off-flavors. Be sure to mix the salsa in a glass, ceramic or plastic - nonractive - bowl.

So there you have it.
Pictures of me while exercising as promised
the Salsa recipe
and the truth about my Weightloss for the week
here's hoping next week will be MUCH better

Debbie
p.s. hope you enjoy the smilies I thought they fit well

I got a Blog Award

My Dear Daughters gave me my very first Blogger Award. Thanks Girls I love you very much, and not just because of the award LOL!!! Go check out there site at Young Homemakers.

This is what you need to do...Thank the person who gave the award to you, post the award on you blog or on a post, nominate 10 blogs which show great attitude/gratitude, link to the people you chose on your post, and comment on their blogs to tell them about the award! =:)

Since my dd's gave me the award I will not give it right back to them though if I had gotten it from someone else they would be #1 on my list of awardee's. But since they already have this award I will pass it on to:
1. Laura at Day by Day In Our World
2. Chasity at Seasons of a Godly Woman
3. Erna at Simply Lapbooks
4. Jessica at A Path with Promise
5. Molly at Counter Cultural School
6. Dawn at For I am Confident in This
7. Sheri at Scrapbooks and Lapbooks
8. Christine at the real life home
9. Mrs. Cuddles at Cuddles on the Couch
10. Tiany at Less of Me - More of Him

Congratulations to the Award Winning Ladies... come get your award
Everyone else check out some of my favorite blogging friends

Have a Wonder Filled Week
Debbie

P.S. I had to save the jpg of the award to my computer and put it in as a picture, that was the only way I could get it on my sidebar and in my post.

The Simple Woman's Daybook for the week of January 26, 2009

FOR TODAY Monday, January 26, 2009

Outside my window it is cloudy and gloomy but no snow

I am thinking that I should not be blogging I should be getting my boys going on school, we are all lazy this morning.

I am thankful for weekends to spend more time with my dh

From the learning rooms much to do this week but again we have to make adjustments because I am out of ink and so this week everything must be reading or on pages already printed. Dh is supposed to order ink tonight when he gets home.

From the kitchen nothing yet but it is my night to cook dinner so later I will be making Cinnamon Chicken.

I am wearing blue slacks, red long sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt that has America the Beautiful on it.

I am creating nothing much. I wanted to scrapbook last week but did not get to it because I spent so much time with my dear children this past week and weekend. It seems if I spend time doing what I should do I don't have time to do things for myself... I guess that is the way it is supposed to be in this season of my life.

I am going nowhere... oh wait... I am going downstairs to do school with the boys. LOL

I am reading the same things as last week, but I can't find my book Two from Galilee. Now where did I leave that??? I have been looking for it for 3 or 4 days... so I am reading Passionate Housewives Desperate for God instead. A book I got for Christmas. We will finish The Crusades today and Tomorrow we start Red Falcons of Tremoine. Check out my Shelfari for more details of what we are reading.

I am hoping that dh will make wise decisions on what to spend our tax money on.. we are getting a bunch back and that is a blessing but spending it wisely is hard!

I am hearing my dd typing, cars going by outside as usual and my voice trying to get my 12yods moving. He is still not up and dressed!!! "Let's GO Christopher!"

Around the house nothing much. I have many projects that need doing but I injured my back/shoulder over the weekend and so nothing is getting done. I am in pain and on Ibuprofen round the clock right now though I slept better last night than Sat. night and did not have to take medicine in the middle of the night.

One of my favorite things ... bears of all kinds... the ones I have are stuffed but bears are my favorite animal at the most at the zoo, and especially the red panda from the big zoo in the city near us. My dh even bought me a stuffed one from the zoo because I like them so much.

A few plans for the rest of the week: schooling, catch up on the 90 days reading through the Bible that I am behind on but I am not giving up, blog, hopefully: spend time with family, exercise (but not today as my back is still hurting), talk to Michele (Call Me!!! or I will Call You!!!), visit with Michele at my home if she calls and we work out the details of when she will come over (Call Me!!! LOL), cook, eat (LOL), buy ink for my printer... wait, not so patiently, for it to get here... once it arrives print like crazy!!! LOL

Here is picture thought I am sharing...



Thanks to Peggy at The Simple Woman's Daybook for sponsoring this http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Giveaway at Doodlebug Designs the blog

Judi at Doodlebug Designs is giving away a free blog redesign here is what she had to say click the box above or on my sidebar to go to the giveaway.

"Start the New Year with a fabulous blog design! Haven't you been longing for a change in your design? Have you been wanting a different layout? Have you been wanting more bells and whistles? Here you have a chance to get all of that and more absolutely free! This free design will include as many or as few elements as you would like."

WOW as many elements as I would like.. I better start a list in case I win... now what would I want??? I don't know, I am too new of a blogger to even know what I would want... I will have to peruse some of my favorite blogs and start taking notes. LOL

Debbie

Weightloss Wednesday Jan 21, 2009

Ok... I weighed myself, but I forgot to do it first thing this morning before eating like I did it last week and so I weighed myself about 1/2 an hour ago. I lost 3 pounds this week so that is good so far. I have a long way to go but it is a start. I am still eating things I should not eat or I should not each them as often as I have eaten them. My dd made brownies and them my ds made cookie bars.

I still need to eat better at lunch but my dh eats a lot of salad for lunch and so I have been leaving the salad stuff for him. But if I want to eat better I will have to eat more veggies and fruit too and drink more water. I have increased my water intake to about 6 eight ounce glasses but it should be 8 or more.

I have been doing ok on my exercise but not great. My goal was 5-6 days a week. I worked out Thursday and Friday, and then not again until today. Just to much stress, and, oh I don't know, I could give you a bunch of excuses but what good would that do. I need to, and want to, do better. But, I am on my way and on a long journey and it is one step at a time. Anyway, I work my arms one day and my legs the next day it takes about a 1/2 hour. Then, I work out on the elliptical walker. I have been able to do 1/2 a mile a day it takes about 15 minutes. I hope to increase this soon but I need to be more consistent so I improve my cardio first.

So that you know what I am using for my exercise program I want to post pictures of our exercise equipment. Maybe I will take picture of our actual equipment in the basement for next week... maybe I will be brave and post a picture of me ON the equipment... LOL

The Bowflex is a machine for weight training and I love it. Ok, well I checked out the ones online and they are way more advanced than ours so I will just wait until next week and post pictures of our actual machines.

Thanks Chasity for sponsoring this meme. If you are interested in joining you can check it out at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/chasity

Good day and good eating (good exercise too LOL)
Debbie

Balance

Weekly Unplugged Challenge at http://www.unplugyourkids.com/

This weeks challenge was balance. The boys were playing board games for school yesterday and I was reading what the other families did for their unplugged challenge and one of them had a balancing game for kids and I suddenly thought of our Blockhead game that we have not played in ages and decided that was perfect.

So here is a slideshow of us (Christopher, Nathan and I) playing Blockhead and some of the "towers" we built.



Unplug your kids from the electronics and make a memory today,
Debbie

My Memories from 2008

My DD Jessica tagged me but probably only because she posted first so check out both Rachel and Jessica's posts here The Young Homemaker

The rules:

1. Fill in your memories of 2008
2. Link my blog to yours
3. Tag others and comment on their blogs so they know they've been tagged

My memories from 2008

A good book I read
Do I have to pick just one??? LOL
I narrowed it down to just two...
Twice Freed by Patricia St. John - a story about Philemon and Onesimus from the Bible
and
Men of Iron by Howard Pyle - a good book full of morals, about a boy who becomes a knight and wins back the honor of his father.
A Review from Amazon that sums it up better than I could. "Master storyteller Howard Pyle at his best, incorporating fascinating historical information about life in a medieval castle, knighthood, and chivalry into the fast-moving and entertaining story of young Myles Falworth's fight to restore his family's rights and good name. This classic story remains a great favorite not only among young readers but also among educators because of the author's effortless way of teaching great virtues such as courage, loyalty, steadfastness, and generosity."

A great film/movie I watched
Fireproof

A new place I visited
The only place new I have been to in the past year that I know of, like my dd Rachel, is a new library by our house, Garfield Library.

An inspiring verse or quote I read
Charlotte Mason Companion Chapter 9 The Happiness of Habit"
"New thoughts and new actions are not done out of habit. They are in formation. We must give them lots of attention and care if we wish them to become habits" pg 69
""...working daily to create habits - whether intellectual habits of ones of etiquette - depended on the energy of the students as much as the teacher. ... children need a regular sprinkling (or sparking) of inspiring ideas of righteousness to evoke their cooperation." pg 70
"In our rising up, our sitting down, and in any other wayside moments of the day. Children pick up knowledge from our lips, our attitudes, our examples - not just during those few sacred scheduled hours." pg 70

A discovery I made
This is a hard one... hmmmm... mold growing in the bathroom, mold growing in the refrigerator, mold growing in the box of potatoes in the Laundry/Storage room. Remember all these discoveries were over the course of a year.... LOL don't think I never clean my house... LOL does that count???

A new skill I acquired
Blogging and I love it - memes, posts, links, slide shows, pictures, and Shelfari among other things

A lesson I learned
That God is there when the trial seems endless. In the beginning of 2008 we were 3 1/2 years into our trial from my husbands injured back... I never thought it would last as long as it did, and thanks to the economy and the fact that his pay is 1/2 what it was before his work injury we are still struggling.

A moment I will always remember
When I found my blog link on the first page of a Google search (actually my ds found if first) ... it was my first post about doing our Olympic Lapbooks!! I was so excited... I was the third link on the first page. I thought I was really something that day... of course you had to be searching for the right thing to find that page... LOL

Who do I tag??? anyone that wants to do this... it was pretty fun... and challenging... just leave me a comment so I can check out your post.

Debbie

Homeschool Weekly - Week Ending 01-16-09

This is late but I still want to do it, for my records especially.

Last weeks school went pretty well. We changed a few things around for a few days because ds Nathan tried to print his Grammar Lapbook page (we have the type it in version so they type in the answers and know how to print it themselves), anyway, it would not print. He came and told me that he read an error message on the printer that said that it was out of ink. Since he is really go with computers I trusted what he said. Well, my dh wanted to know how many pages I had printed from the black cartridge and when I went to check it the computer said it could not connect with the printer. I checked the cord and it was connected to... nothing! LOL My husband had been using the printer for his laptop and had disconnected the cord and not plugged it back into my computer. So I had ink after all and my ds, the computer nerd will never live this down. However, after printing this weeks Science we are NOW out of ink. LOL

So anyway... for the two or three days we thought we were out of ink the boys did their other grammar, Nathan Easy Grammar and Christopher Daily Grams. We did our exercises the boys all 5 days I did 3 days. Art Appreciation we did more Boticelli two more prints, "The Trinity with the Saints" and "Fortitude". We also started the Art Appreciation Lapbook which is from HOAC. We did the pages for the Elements of Art and the Colors of the Light Spectrum. We are actually doing this as a lap-n-note instead of in a traditional lapbook way. We did it this way because I wanted to add some notebooking elements and because I want it to be an ongoing project that we can add to as we study more artists There will be a similar section for the composers we study though I don't have a prepared lapbook to go with the Composers I am finding free stuff on the internet. I will blog about pages as we find and use them.

We, also, finished The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow and the boys just loved it. We also finished The Vikings a Landmark book by Elizabeth Janeway, so we are done Vikings and one to the Middle Ages and the Crusades and all that entails. For Science we finished up the Senses and then started the Digestive System.

Well that was our week,
we have already started this week and I hope yours is a good one,
Debbie

Goals 2009 - How I am doing

One of the ladies on one of the blogs I read, Dawn at For I Am Confident In This, posted that since it was halfway through January she wanted to do a check on herself for her goals for 2009 and how she was doing so far. I thought that was a great idea to keep myself accountable. Make sure you read all the way to the bottom... it is a sorta long post... if you want to see a link to something that has helped me greatly in keeping my goals. So here goes:

Personal Goals:
Exercise more, more often and consistently
doing ok on this one, exercised Mon-Fri last week and Sat. Huge grocery shopping so lots of walking, stooping, carrying and all over again to bring it all in the house and put it away.

Eat better and loose weight
I have not weighed myself again yet to see if I have lost weight but I am slowly getting back on weight watchers. The Christmas cookies and candy are almost gone and I am working on getting Weight Watchers recipes back into my menu planning.

Be more consistent in my devotions
Unfortunately, this is one area I have not done well with so far this year. Jan 4th I started a plan to read through the Bible in 90 days. I thought if I could read to the boys for over an hour each day and read fiction books for longer than that I should be able to read my Bible for 45 min to an hour a day. I have done horribly I have only done 5 days out of 12. I am not giving up though and I am going to try to get caught up to.

Work on E-book I am trying to write
I have not touched this yet though on my Productivity chart. I have it listed for once a week... hopefully I will get to it this week.

Get back to weekly time with each of my kids, just mom and one of the kids having lunch in my bedroom alone and then doing whatever the child wants to do. Usually a combo of eating, talking and playing board games and/or computer games.
I did my day with Jessica last week on Tuesday and am scheduled to have a day with Rachel on Friday this week so I am doing well with this goal.

Spend some time scrapbooking
Nope... not yet Goal to scrapbook at least one afternoon every two weeks.

Get back to doing my own personal copywork
Nope... no copywork... I want to fit this in though. I guess if I was reading something challenging and not just “fluff” I would have something I want to copy. I am reading the Bible but the reading the whole Bible in 90 days schedule makes it difficult to do that as copywork.

Homeschool Goals:
Get my son Nathan more organized and help him keep that way
Working on this. Things are better but still need work. Need more organization for his school stuff... need to clean off the dining room shelves and make them for school stuff only!!! and keep it that way

Get the boys back on our daily "schedule"
Well we decided on a time schedule for part of the day at least to keep us more accountable. We all wanted to get up together and eat together and get started in our day better. This is working wonderfully.

Our New Schedule:
7:00 am rise, shower if needed, dress, etc.
7:30 personal devotions
8:00 breakfast and clean up
8:30 start school – ds Nathan usually does typing since he has to do that on my computer and it is available since I am downstairs with other ds getting things ready for the school day. Ds Christopher usually does his Bible (Inductive Bible Study forKids not the same as devotions) and then whatever.
9:00-10:30 exercise
9:00 Nate on the Elliptical Walker Mom on the Bowflex Chris continues school
9:30 Chris comes and does Bowflex, Mom does Elliptical Walker Nate does school
10:00 Chris does Elliptical Walker Nate does Bowflex and I read Historical Fiction to them
10:30 History, then Science, then Art or Music Appreciation, then I read the book we have been using for copywork lately Wisdom and the Millers. Then we usually are at lunch time.
12:00 approximately we have lunch
12:30 Quiet time – each person in a different place in the house no one talking to each other doing something quiet.
1:00 finish up any school items not yet done... Sometimes we have an extra project like Unplugged or Think Challenge or other.
Then free time until dinner
Then dinner about 5:00-5:30
Then clean up kitchen – chores
Then family devotions and I read aloud to the family
Then free time until bed some nights I read to the boys (Little House in the Big Woods right now)
Bedtime for the boys is 9:00 and for us later... sometimes much later!!! LOL

Get back to evening read aloud time with the boys
Making some progress... read to them last night and they really got into it and Dh who was also listening starting looking on Google Earth at the places the Ingalls and Laura and Almonzo lived.

Be more consistent on recording daily in our school log.
Doing much better with this. Keeping up with it daily thanks to it being on my Productivity Chart

Read the two Henty novels to the boys that we were supposed to finish a long time ago and never did. We are partly done but never finished. One is For the Temple the other is the Young Carthaginian. I may only read For the Temple because ds got Young Carthaginian on audio for Christmas, I will have to make that decision later.
No Progress – I need to put this on my Productivity Chart maybe that will help

Family Goals:
Healthier Eating
Doing well with this considering the way we were eating. Still making to many treats and still need to eat more fruit and veggies.

Exercise
Doing well on exercise, no walking at Winterthur yet... much to cold... in the single digits and teens. Soon it will be spring though... I can't wait

More singing as a family
Soon, this will have to happen because we are scheduled to sing, Feb. 15th Valentine weekend, at church but we have not really sung together since we sang at the Christmas Eve Service at Church

Regular Personal Devotions for each family member and regular Family Devotions in the evening.
Doing well making up the day for my 90 days through the Bible. Dh needs to be more consistent with evening family devotions.... need to pray about that.

Family evening read-aloud time more consistently.
If we don't have devotions we don't read... soo... more prayer

Get back to meal planning and shopping more wisely because things are more planned and then we will not have to eat the same chicken every night! I am sick of the meals we have had lately.
Going very well, much more variety in our meals and everyone is happier.


Well here it is... you can get the Productivity Chart that I use for tracking the goals I made by going a free habits course at this website. http://www.productivity501.com/habit-list/308/ Her post tells you more about it and you can sign up for the course. It is free and the course is more to explain ways to use the chart. The course is only 10 days and comes by way of e-mail... I highly recommend it, it has helped me keep on track so far. Once you sign up for the course you can print one for the whole family. Leave me a comment if you sign up and let me know if it helps you.

Leave me a comment if you don't sign up, let me know how you are doing on your goals. Leave your blog link and I'll come read and comment on your blog

Keep on Keeping on.. especially with your goals.
Debbie

The Simple Woman's Daybook for the week of January 19, 2009

FOR TODAY January 19, 2009

Outside my window it is dark, I wanted to post this earlier while the gentle pretty snowflakes were falling... but I did not have time... to many things I had to do... not enough time for the things I wanted to do.

I am thinking that I should go to bed with my sweetheart... but I want to blog, also. I will do this one post and save the others for tomorrow. The posts I wanted to write are already later than I wanted them to be... so what is one more day.

I am thankful for my full freezer and a variety of meals over the past week. Tonight's dinner was especially good if I do say so myself. It was Cheesy Turkey Ziti Casserole, but I used Fusilli noodles because I did not have any Ziti. See my Daybook from last week here for pictures of the full freezer.

From the learning rooms lots going on this week but an annoence of no black ink so no printing until dh gets paid on Friday and then orders ink and it comes in by mail.

From the kitchen lots of cooking, variety of meals and goodies. Ds, Nathan, made cookie bars today... YUMM!!!

I am wearing black slacks, black socks, no shoes, teddy bear turtleneck, and a red fleece sweatshirt with a snowman on him.

I am creating nothing much but many projects on my list of things I want to do... just need more time to get them done like I said at the beginning... HA

I am going to bed!

I am reading books to the boys: The Crusades (Landmark), Little House in the Big Woods, and a couple books for myself... see my Shelfari in my sidebar (which I need to update because we finished the Viking books, another project I may or may not get done tomorrow.

I am hoping we get all the money back from taxes that my dh thinks we will. We are waiting on one more paper to do final calculating.

I am hearing quiet. All household in bed except dh and I. Cars going by outside.

Around the house we finally got cleaned up from Christmas. Most everything put away now, only a couple things we have found that we forgot... now where to put them so I can find them next year since dh does not want to go back up to the attic since we don't have pull down stairs or a floor up there.

One of my favorite things a little date with my dh. Tonight we went out to get a few groceries and then stopped at McDonald's for a sweet tea and french fries... mmmm... not good for my weight loss plan though.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
back to exercising, I skipped it today; more schooling, hopefully more blogging, and a day with my dd Rachel for Lunch and whatever she wants to do on Friday afternoon. It is her turn.

Here is picture thought I am sharing

snow falling and a break in the clouds
(photo taken by dd Jessica)

Thanks to the hostess of The Simple Woman's Daybook

See you tomorrow
Debbie

Lego Organization, Clean-up, Storage and Display

One of the ladies from my homeschool group asked a question on our Yahoo group about how we keep our boy's Lego contained

First - Organizing, Clean-up and Storage of general Legos. These are the Legos my boys share. Not specific sets that they keep separate. Here is how we keep them contained and do really quick clean up. Photos are of my son Christopher, he was playing and agreed to do the demonstrating for us.

So you start by having all the Legos you child plays with or wants to keep in together on a sheet. This sheet is a single bed sheet and fits a lot of Legos. When they play they should try to keep the Legos on the sheet. They will get better with that as they use the sheet and see its purpose and how easy it is to do the clean up.

When they are done playing they begin by gathering up two of the corners of the sheet.

Then gather the other two corners.
You would think that was enough but no!

Christopher says if you do not have at least 8 parts of the sheet in your hand you will loose parts out the side while trying to pick it up... so

He pulled the middle of one of the sides out, shook it so that the Legos would go down into the bottom. Then he grabbed the center of the side and added it to the corners he was already holding.

He kept pulling up sides until he had a the four corners and the center of each side

Then he looked like he was holding Santa's sack of toys!!! LOL

He placed the "sack" in the large tub

Now it is ready for the lid

When your child is ready to play again it is easy to grab the corners and the sides into a big bunch and pull the "sack" out of the tub. Make sure you have it all or you may dump the Legos. Pick a wide area, clear of other toys, books, etc.

Spread the sheet out so the Legos have room to spread out when your child is searching for that one piece of Lego he needs to finish his project without them going off the sheet.

Voila... you are ready to build.

I hope this helps you keep cleaned up and organized and that less Legos get sucked up by the vacuum,
Debbie

Weightloss Wednesday Jan 14, 2009

This is my first time joining Weightloss Wednesday. As you can see from my weight loss counter at the top of my blog I have not lost any weight yet. There is a good reason for that. I just started on Monday morning. And this was not a great week to start because my monthly visitor arrived on Monday afternoon and I have been feeling terrible since then. Last week I exercised 5 days. Each day I did 30 minutes on our Bowflex and 15 min. on our Elliptical Walker. One of the goals for this year for our family is to eat healthier, exercise and hopefully loose weight. We all need to except dd Jessica, skinny minny. She is exercising too but not to loose weight to put on some muscle she hopes and tone up. I did not weigh myself the first week. I will admit it... I was to scared to do it. But Monday I got up the courage and was correct in the assumption that I am now the heaviest person in my immediate family.
Well I exercised early Monday Morning, but I did not exercise yesterday. I may exercise a little today but I am not feeling much better than yesterday. Oh, well, I should be fine to exercise tomorrow and the rest of the week. Maybe I will have lost something on Monday when I weigh myself again. Maybe I will switch to weighing in on Wednesday to go with WLW. Hey, I like that idea. I think I will and that will give me two more days in this "week" to lose weight.

I am not fully on a diet yet as I have a few leftovers from Christmas (see my post on candy by scrolling down, one of the reasons I am as heavy as I am) but I am trying to cut back on fats and calories during the day by eating better. Like homemade soup from a Weight Watchers recipe instead of cheep boxes of Mac and Cheese, and a salad for lunch instead of pb&j. I also made dinner lighter this week, my day to cook is Monday. I made a recipe that was a light version of barbecued chicken baked in the oven. Most of the family liked it. Dh, Jessica and I loved it.
In the coming weeks and months I hope to fully get on Weight Watchers, from home, from old programs I have, I have one that is one the computer to keep track and you ladies will be my group meeting to keep me accountable and we can encourage each other to keep on keeping on.

So that is my saga so far. Not very impressive but I will persevere and I will loose weight however slowly it needs to be.
Debbie