My roommate my freshman year at A&M and I overheard a boy say this to a girl in a study lounge one evening. It became one of the many running jokes of our first year in college.

I got this great idea from Donna, although I admit I saw it on someone else's blog last week, but can't remember either. So, sorry if I didn't give you props out there.



You can also make motivational posters. Jean in Wisconsin, if you are out there, you really need to make a motivational poster with a picture of Penelope. That would be precious! (I am a big fan of Penelope's.) Here's mine:




You can make your own magazine cover or poster here. I can't wait to see yours!

This is a fun little meme that I saw over at Leslie's. I like this meme, so you should do it, too! And comment here when you do it so that I can go read yours.


1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family? There are four of us, and we eat out after church every week, and then usually grab a salad at Market Street one other time. Bud eats lunch out with customers about three times per week. Otherwise, we eat everything else here at home.

2. How many cookbooks do you own? About 30.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week? Once or twice.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources? I collect recipes from my siblings and other blogs. I also like allrecipes.com.

5. How do you store those recipes? I stick them in the recipe book my mom made for my wedding shower. It has a family photo at the beginning of each section - for example a picture of my mom and her best friend Mrs. Stokes holding the huge redfish they caught on one of their yearly fishing trips. My mom wrote lots of favorite recipes in it, and I continue to add my favorites to it. It's one of the few things I would grab in case of a fire.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas? Copied from Leslie: I usually follow it the first time, and make adjustments the next time I cook the recipe.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it? I like to call it TexMex Soul Food, I use a lot of spicy peppers and a ton of tomatoes, corn, avocadoes and such, with copious amounts of fresh bread and cornbread. Bud's 1/4 Italian, so I do Italian because he misses his grandmother's homemade Italian cooking, but it's not my strongsuit.

8. What's your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count) I like to chop/slice/dice when I have time - it's very satisfying to have a nice, uniform product.


9. What's your least favorite part? Well, I get bored with the day-in, day-out of it. I like to cook special meals when I have time, but just the basic meat/veggie/starch of a weekday night gets old.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop? About half the time. We live very close to a wonderful market, so it's easy to pop over and pick up what I need right at the moment, as well.


11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances? I love my serrated Henckels knife, my pampered chef stoneware cookie sheet (I use it for tons of stuff besides cookies), and my mini-cutting boards - they're so handy.

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have? I'd put in a big ol' frozen margarita machine. I don't drink hard liquor much, but a nice slushy margarita in the hot summertime is really delish.

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next? I really don't need any gadgets/appliances/etc. There is a good chance we'll replace the tile that we dislike so much, and perhaps paint the cabinets.

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage? We have refrigerator/freezer in the garage. I use very little frozen food, so the spare freezer is empty. I put popsicles in it in the summer so the neighbor kids can help themselves without tracking through the house. We keep the extra fridge stocked with beverages so we're prepared for a crowd whenever one may congregate.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others? Usually alone, but sometimes Luke and Peyton go. I'm just starting The Grocery Game, so the kids really hate going to different stores with me. It's usually not a problem because Bud works from home and I can scoot out while he's here to watch the kids.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week? Almost none. We lika tha meat.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors? My kitchen has "wheat" walls, beaded board stained cabinets, hardwood floors, black and stainless steel appliances, a neutral corian-type counter top and these really ugly art deco tiles on the backsplash and island. I have a few black accents. I'd like the cabinets to be painted off white, and I don't know what kind of tile I'd like to switch to.

18. What's the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you? My brother, Terry, taught me how to take white bread, cut it in strips, dip in sweetened condensed milk, roll in coconut and bake. I was about 4, maybe even 3. That must be where my health food addiction began, he he.

19. How did you learn to cook? On my own. My mom really didn't like "help" in the kitchen, so I left home with no idea. Fortunately I have her recipes and older siblings to help me work things out.

20. Tag two other people to play. Want to play? Let me know where I can read your answers. You can answer any or all of the questions in the comments if you don't have a blog.

Read this today in "Discipline" by Elisabeth Elliot.

There is a common belief that a frank expression of what one naturally feels and thinks is always a good thing because it is "honest." This is not true. If the feelings and thoughts are wrong in themselves, how can expressing them verbally add up to something good? It seems to me they add up to three sins: wrong feeling, wrong thought, wrong action.


Now I've been improving on the action part of this threesome for a while, with some improvement (with a lot of prayer and help from God). And lately I've been working on the thought part of things. When I start to think an ugly thought I try to pray and turn my thoughts elsewhere.

What hit me in Mrs. Elliot's quote was the "feeling" part of her statement. How can a feeling be sinful? I mean, we can't really *control* our feelings can we, just what we do with them? But now that I think about it, how can a feeling that is contrary to God's Word NOT be sinful? If I have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, how could it be possible to be the host of a feeling that contradicts God's revealed Word, without being in sin? The clear answer is that it is not possible.

Of course, Jesus addressed this nicely in Matthew 5 when he talks about murder, adultery, divorce and oaths. I just wasn't listening very carefully any of the hundreds of times He told me this.

I've got a lot of work to do. I am very thankful that I don't have to do it alone.

_____________

And on a lighter note, my epitaph:

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

A transcript of Peyton's phonics lesson. It's all her own running dialog as she reads the "-ck" words in Phonics Pathways. My occasional interjections are in italics.

Sock. Like 'my dirty sweat sock.'

Sack. Like 'my sack of gravy.'

Tick. What's a tick?
It's a bug, or the sound a clock makes.
Like 'it is about tick five.'

Tock. Like this, 'I am tocking on the phone.'

Buck. No, that's duck. Oh, duck. Like 'quack, quack a duck is swimming.'

Suck. Like 'I am a baby that's sucking my thumb.'

Buck. What's a buck? It's a nickname for a dollar, or a male deer.
Oh. Like, 'my rusty buck.'

Luck. 'My own luck is in my heart.'

Rick. What's that? Someone's name.
Like, 'my friend Rick.'

Nick. Like 'my friend Nick.'

Pick. Like, 'pick what you need but never from greed.' That's almost the same thing from Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. But in Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus it says, 'take what you need, but never from greed.'

Jack. Like this, 'Jack, look out. You're driving on your scooter too fast. you're falling off your scooter.'

Pack. Like, 'Pack up, because we're moving to Australia!'

Rack. What's a rack? Something you hang things on. 'I rack my shoes - wait a sec - I rack my clothes.' How about, 'I hang my clothes on a rack'? How about, 'I love putting my clothes on a rack.'?

Rock. Like, 'I can't pick up this big rock.'

Do I have to read the next two rectangles?
No. You may take a break.

Yay!!!

Editing to add this for Donna who wants to know what we see when we go walk out our front door. This is what I see when I sit on our front porch. The kids love to play in the little park. The house right across is where Luke's best friend lives. We like it here :).


Yesterday was our ice-skating lesson. We* take group homeschool lessons every other week and go for free-skating on the off weeks. Both Luke and Peyton have improved tremendously over the few weeks we've been at it, and they look forward to going.

This week was different. I don't like to waste a minute, and yesterday I was doing all the last little things I could before we left - folding a load of laundry, returning an email, and then we took off for the mall without a minute to spare. We ran up to the food court and grabbed Sonic for Luke and Peyton and a salad for me, and between big mouthfuls of food I told them to eat quickly so we wouldn't be late for our lesson. So we head to the rink, I get Peyton's skates on her and send her out to join her group that was just forming on the ice. Then I help Luke on with his skates and send him to his group only to find Peyton still standing on the same spot and crying.

She couldn't be convinced to go across the ice to her group, so I brought her back out with me while I got my skates on and then took her to her group. I then went to join my own group and Luke wasn't there! I looked over and he was with the next lower level group. I waved him over and he said the teacher (not our usual one) sent him down to that group. So, I go to the teacher and he looks at me like I'm a crazy stage mom who wants her son to do more than he's ready for. I assured him that no, he really could skate, and needed to do more than just practice little steps across the ice. So he rejoins our usual group. Then he proceeds to get completely frustrated with every instruction and is on the verge of tears the whole lesson.

After the lesson, I told Luke to go skate and just have fun. The teacher goes, "Wow, he really can skate!"

And then it dawned on me. I did this to my kids. They need the transition time that I don't need. They need to get there 10 minutes early and just skate around and get a feel for it before they are expected to perform. Then I thought back to other situations where frustration reigned supreme, and I could pinpoint the lack of warm-up time as the source of all the trouble.

Luke is now 7 1/2 years old. I'm just now figuring this out. Duh.

I had a talk with both kids about how next time, we'll get to the mall an hour before our lesson to eat at the food court and then that should give us at least 15 or 20 minutes to warm-up and have fun before the lesson. They seemed thrilled.

I'm still feeling guilty but Luke and Peyton seem to be recovered from the trauma. That pretty much sums up mothering, eh?

*Yes, I take the homeschool lessons, too - the only adult with about 45 kids in various groups on the ice. I look like an idiot, but it's good exercise, better than sitting and watching anyway.

Some folks have been posting a day in their homeschooling life, so I thought I'd do the same.

Wednesday morning (that would be today)

8:30 I wake up, grab a glass of water and head to the sofa to read my Bible. Normally I would stay in bed for this, but Peyton made her way there after a bad dream last night, and I didn't want to wake her.

9:00 The kids are up and playing. You can hear Peyton's high pitched singing voice and Luke's many sound effects throughout the house. I get a load of laundry going, tidy a bit, and check email and blogs.

9:45 Breakfast - waffles for the kids, oatmeal for me and Bud. While they finish their breakfast, I read to Luke and Peyton from Leading Little Ones to God and Egermeier's Story Bible. Then we review the Books of the Old Testament and start working on Psalm 23. I put on Vivaldi and they go do their chores while I unload the dishwasher and tidy from breakfast.

10:30 - Three R's - Luke has realized the beauty of working quickly without breaks. He used to take a break between every two subjects, now he just plows through them. Math (MUS Gamma), Spelling Power, Handwriting Without Tears cursive, Building Thinking Skills*, First Language Lessons, and 20 minutes of quiet reading are done in about and hour and a half. I conduct the spelling test and read FLL, but he does the rest pretty independently. *When I was checking the Building Thinking Skills pages, I couldn't decide if he had done them right or not. So I had Bud look at them - he couldn't decide either. We just told Luke he got them right and moved on to grammar. It's not Luke's thinking skills that I'm worried about at this point.

Peyton does a page in MUS Alpha, practices K's and L's in handwriting, does two Mindbender puzzles and a page in Phonics Pathway.

12:00 Breaktime - I get dressed and fix lunch - a protein bar for me and tuna on Ritz crackers with oranges for the kids. Bud comes down and asks what's for lunch - oops. I thought he had a lunch appointment today. He runs over to the grocery store and makes a salad bar salad for himself.

During lunch I read a chaper from Mrs. Piggle Wiggle aloud to Luke and Peyton. They are astounded at the rudeness of the Answer-Backer, and are very pleased when she learns her lesson from the parrot.

1:00 We head to Park Day where we all have fun with our friends in the beautiful, but windy, 80 degree weather.

3:00 Back at home we do history. We read about Theseus and the Minotaur and both Luke and Peyton do narrations. I don't require narrations from Peyton, but pretty much anything Luke does she wants to do, too. I type their narrations and print them on the back of the labyrinth from the Story of the World Activity Guid. They complete the maze and color it.

3:40 - The kids watch a little t.v. while I go to the Y to workout. (Bud's at work upstairs in case of blood or fire!)

4:45 - I'm back home and grab a snack. Peyton goes to a neighbor's to play while Luke works on his "Rexman" game. This is his own game based on the YuGiOh cards. He's made about 120 cards so far, each with a different monster and rules about how it can be used. We play this game on game night, and it is continually expanding. I take a shower and fold some laundry.

6:00 - Peyton returns home, and I get dinner started. Bud comes downstairs and plays his guitar a bit. I sneak a bit of reading while the fish bakes.

7:00 - Dinner - orange roughy, broccoli, rice, and lots of jabbering from Peyton.

7:30 - The kids decide to do a performance of Theseus and Minotaur, so they get to work on props - which are mainly a maze of blocks, some action figures, and a Barbie for Ariadne. I clean up dinner and Bud goes back up to his office to get somethings ready for a meeting tomorrow. I help them do a run-through of the show before they do it in front of Dad and the camera.

9:00 - Showtime. A fabulous performance with Luke performing the voices of Theseus, the Minotaur and King Aegeus; and Peyton voicing Ariadne and King Minos. After the show, we sit through two screenings of the video of the just-completed performance. There is just something about seeing yourself on tv when you are 5 & 7 years old!

9:30 - Snacks - Dad's Famous Giant Jumbos, aka ice cream sundaes are consumed while we watch the men's mogul competition on the Olympics.

10:00 - It's Bud's turn for bedtime, so he takes the kids up for "books and songs" while I type this out. We'll probably watch a bit more of the Olympics and then hit the sack.


And that's a day in our homeschooling life.

P.S. There were 2 or 3 Diet Cokes for me in there, but I couldn't tell you exactly where. Full disclosure and all that.

For Christmas, Bud gave me a beautiful copy of The Daily Bible. It's an NIV arranged in chronological order, broken up into daily finish-in-one-year reading assignments. I've been reading it since the beginning of January and I've gotten to Leviticus and Numbers which are always difficult reading for me. My sister says that God wants us to read it so that when we see how tedious it is simply to read it, we'll appreciate how truly difficult it must have been to live it - and that still didn't do the trick. Still needed a Savior.

So I'm dutifully making my way through these books(I did it last year, too, in my regular Bible) and not really expecting to gain anything too great from it, but well, it's God's Word, and it's on the schedule, so I should read it. Nice attitude, right?

So I read this from Numbers 9/Exodus 40 today:

Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the Lord's command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the Lord's order and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the Lord's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted they would set out.

Okay, now if I was an Israelite, headed to the Promised Land, I would be up at the crack of dawn, have the Tabernacle packed, and gone out and picked up Krispy Kremes for breakfast before everyone else was up. I mean folks, they were going to the Promised Land! Camp for a year? I would go out of my mind.

But sometimes God wants us to wait. I don't know why, but He does. I'm not big on waiting, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have ended up making it into the Promised Land. However, I am learning. Right now we're waiting. I'm not even sure what we're waiting for, but we're waiting. A bit impatiently, I'll admit, but I'm starting to get more comfortable with it. I'm starting to go from waiting impatiently to waiting expectantly. Which is a very good thing.

God has a different schedule than I do, and that it so good to know!

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On other fronts - I finished The Plot Against America this week. Excellent read and good food for thought concerning the situation we find our own country in right now (U.S. for my non-U.S. readers). How much of our comfort and wealth are we willing to sacrifice for the principles that this country was founded upon? Are we willing to overlook the infringement of certain individual's rights in the name of preserving our own comfort and security?

My stomach was in knots through the entire book, as the suspension of disbelief was remarkably easy with this book. Highly recommended.

I started on The Year of Magical Thinking, but can't stomach it, so it's going back on the shelf and I'm picking up Wicked for my next read.

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Tomorrow I'll post the pictures from our annual neighborhood Mardi Gras celebration. Big Fun! See you then!

My previous post was in reference to The Count of Monte Cristo, which I just finished reading last night. Donna finished it a couple of weeks back.

Donna, you're right, Mercedes won't be starving unless Albert is killed in Algeria. But he basically dismantled her life then took off.

I truly enjoyed the first half of the book, especially the description of the the imprisonment, Edmond's relationship with the Abbe Faria, and his escape. That part was a wonderful tribute to the human will to survive (much like my favorite movie of all time, The Shawshank Redemption... "I hope.").

Have you seen the movie version of The Count with Jim Cavaziel? Perhaps having seen this version, I'm overly bothered by the book now.

I've read somewhere that Dumas' writing was a sort of serial popular fiction of his day. I can definitely see that in this book. It almost has a People Magazine feel - in fiction of course - describing the lives, affairs, and downfalls of the rich and famous.

I'm glad I read it, but I probably won't read any of his other works.

I could tolerate the excruciatingly detailed description of every jewel, waistcoat, parlor, coach, horse, breakfast, and courtyard.

I could tolerate incessant discussions of the cost of everything mentioned above, down to the last crown, livre and franc.

I could tolerate the Melrose Place-like coincidences that stretch believability so far that it is transparent. (I mean, really, what are the odds that the two parties involved in a broken engagement will flee for hours, end up in the same inn, and that in an effort to escape the authorities, the one will hide in the fireplace of the other?)

SPOILER:

What I cannot tolerate is the "hero" leaving the love of his life in poverty, awaiting death, while he sails off into the sunset with Soon-Yi.

There go 30 or 40 hours of my life I'll never get back.

Last weekend I avoided it by exercising my gift of hospitality. It was spiritual, see, so it took priority.

All this week, I've avoided it because my boy is still quite sick (alarmingly sick yesterday) but better today.

And now the weekend faces me with nothing on the calendar. Probably the last time that will happen until the end of soccer season in May. So I have to get. it. done.

Taxes. Taxes x5. Yes, in this family, in 2005, there were 4 businesses plus we have to do personal returns as well. The only thing that's gonna get me through this weekend is Diet Coke and knowing that next year we will have only one business (Bud's) and one personal return.

So I'm gonna keep my eye on the prize and get it done. I won't be back till then. See you Monday.

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BFL update. Well, I fell off the bandwagon, but I've been back on this week. It's been a perfect BFL week actually. And Bud is now doing it with me, which makes it so much easier because he is so encouraging about it. When I tell him my workout he goes "oooh, those are hard! Good job!" I love that.

Also, today I saw my doctor when I took Luke in. He scolded me that I haven't been in in over a year and a half to follow up on my cholesterol. I told him I have to lose weight and get in shape before I can allow him to do that. He rolled his eyes. Guess I better get with it.