Sometimes Bud watches a popular evangelist on tv. I sometimes give him grief for it. ;)

Tonight while Bud had this show on, Peyton walked in and asked, "Is this American Idol?"

"Almost, honey," I replied, "almost."

He he.

Dy: I will post about that sometime soon. We're still on the journey, and thankfully God is very patient!

Sandy: I would love any info that Luke might have readily available to share via email. Thanks for your encouraging words!

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Today our homeschool support group sponsored its used curriculum/book sale. I volunteered, got there early to set up and sort books, left for Luke's soccer game, and then went back to clean up/take down.

And in between I shopped! Here's what I got:

DVD's - My Friend Flicka, The New Adventures of Heidi, and The Borrowers
The Big Book of Tell Me Why
Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs
The Scientist's Apprentice - A complete one-year science curriculum for elementary grades
Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children
Family Fun Boredom Busters
More Mudpies to Magnets
The Magic School Bus - Lost in the Solar System
The Magic School Bus - Inside the Earth
Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf
The Incredible Clay Book
The Usborne Book of Printing
Most of these are for summer fun, except the Greek myths, because we're on Greece right now. I did quite well price-wise, but didn't get much literature because I thought those were priced high when Half Price Books is so near.

For next year, I got

Writing Strands 2 & 3 Brand new, the seller changed her mind and is going with IEW instead. I was going to buy this at our conference in two weeks so I was thrilled to find it.

And the biggie that I'm so excited about.........

Veritas Press Phonics Museum and both volumes of First Favorites Comprehension Guides!!! I've been struggling with Peyton always tagging along Luke and the level of things always being so challenging for her. Challenge is good, but sometimes it should just be fun. So this will be just for her. She will still do SL2 with us next year, but we'll have a good time with this.

I've looked longingly at Phonics Museum before, but Peyton is fairly far along in it, so it didn't seem worth it to invest in a two year program that we'd probably only use one year. But since I got a good deal - woo hoo! I'm hoping that if we take good care of it we can sell it for close to what I paid. And we have so many of the First Favorites books already that those will be really fun.

So that was my very successful Saturday!

Dy had this on her blog.

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

I'm afraid I'm being watched.

Over the last year or so, Bud and I have been having the uncomfortable feeling that maybe our church is not the place for us. Many late nights and practically that entire rainy cruise back in January have been spent talking about it. We've visited some other churches, some we liked, some not. But we don't feel the Spirit leading us to any of them, either.

A recent conversation went like this:

"If you lost your legs in an accident, who would help us?"
"Well, the neighbors would. And if you died a sudden and horrible death, they would be the ones I would turn to if I needed anything."

We're a cheery couple aren't we?

We have six families in our neighborhood that we are very close with. Plus a lot of other great families, too, but we've really bonded with this handful of families. They are all Christians, and crazy enough, none of us is really settled in a church.

So why don't we have our own church? I've heard folks talk about house churches, but never really seriously considered it. Bud's no preacher, and I'm no preacher's wife. But the more we study and read God's Word, the more we realize that those things aren't necessary. What we need is to come together with a group of like-minded (not identically-minded) believers to encourage one another and worship the Lord, to share meals together and help one another in times of need.

So, we decided last night, after hashing this out for a while, to ask these neighbors to meet with us as a church family. We have a lovely little park that our houses face, and as long as the weather allows, we'll meet there. We'll worship, share hymns, scripture and encouragement with eachother, and have a meal. We'll invite the entire neighborhood to share in our worship time and/or our meal. We'll save our tithing to give directly to orphanages and missionaries, or wherever we see a need.

It sounds so simple, I know. But maybe that's how it should be. I can tell you this, I've felt more peace about this than about any church we've visited or considered visiting. What big things are we missing here? (As for leadership, most of the men in this group clearly meet the scriptural requirements for elders.)

So I ask for my imaginary friends to pray for us as we bring this idea to our dear friends, and that God's will would be done here in our little park. Also, any thoughts on this subject would be quite welcome. Thanks so much!

Perhaps it's finally clicked with me that I have a bit of time on my hands. So I actually got crafty and FINISHED the craft yesterday! It's a gift for our little neighbor, Kate, who is two today. You may recognize the fabric that I used. Poor Peyton will never have those pajamas now. But she is getting a stuffed bunny.

The patterns for these items are provided free at Wee Wonderfuls, and if you browse the gallery of Point Kitties and Bunnies, you will be stunned at how creative people are! I already have orders for two more stuffed animals, from Luke and Peyton, of course.



I'm off to a two-year olds birthday party. I hope your afternoon is wonderful!

One time, I hired a monkey to take notes for me in class. I would just sit back with my mind completely blank while the monkey scribbled on little pieces of paper. At the end of the week, the teacher said, "Class, I want you to write a paper using your notes." So I wrote a paper that said, "Hello! My name is Bingo! I like to climb on things! Can I have a banana? Eek, eek!" I got an F. When I told my mom about it, she said, "I told you, never trust a monkey!" - Brak from Cartoon Planet

All this to say, here's another meme. I saw it over at Allsorts (not saying she's a monkey or anything, but you know what I mean), and I think it's cute. Memes don't require me to think much, which can occasionally be a good thing.

1. Five minutes to yourself: how would you spend them, ideally? Drinking a big glass of lemon water and memorizing scripture. In reality? Drinking a Diet Coke and finishing a Sudoku.

2. Five bucks to spend right now: how would you spend it? Half Price Books. Or maybe for a five minute chair massage at the grocery store.

3. Five items in your house you could part with, right now, that you hadn't thought of already? My desk broken and uncomfortable desk chair, a fair amount of books that I'll never read again and don't want my kids to read, my coffee table (too big), the tv(okay I've thought about that a lot), the gameroom sofa (duct tape).

4. Five items you absolutely, positively could never part with in your house? My mom's mixing bowl, my dad's Bible, my recipe book with handwritten recipes from my mom, artwork made for me by my kids, lots of photos.

5. Five words you love? Hackneyed, preposterous, cheeky, flabergasted, trollop. (I also like 'bassackwards', but I'm too embarrassed to say so, so it's not in my top 5.)

Please share your fives in the comments or on your blog and don't forget to leave a comment that you blogged it!

Amy

From Donna's blog.

1. Morning sunshine on my face.
2. Vine-ripened tomatoes.
3. The sound of children's voices floating in through the screen door.
4. The recently awakened freckles on my children's faces.


(excuse the red-eye, but I just love this picture!)


5. The delicious aroma of sausage on the grill.
6. Sitting with Bud and chatting during the first few minutes of our day.
7. Sitting on the front porch with a Diet Coke and a good friend.
8. A game of Blokus with Luke and Peyton.
9. A sparkly clean shower door.
10. "Mom, watch this!"

Spring has sprung, well actually summer has. It broke 100F yesterday and is expected to be about that high today. Now, I love summer, but even I am not sure if I can stand this all the way through summer. Bud said we might just go to Colorado for the entire month of August, to escape the heat. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the summer weather, because, as Luke likes to say, "It makes me feel alive!"

This morning I read the story of Christ's crucifixion to Luke and Peyton. And I cried. Big tears.

Luke said, "Mom, I can't believe you're crying more than when you read The Polar Express!"

Laughter and tears do go well together don't they?

Alrighty, moving into April, it's time to talk books. I read Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher, Discipline by Elisabeth Elliott, and Washington Squre by Henry James in March. The first two were quite good, helpful, and inspiring (I've already quoted them here in the blog as I was enjoying them).

Washington Square was a weird one. I've not read a book with such uniformly dull characters that I can remember. Actually, they kind of remind me of some of Ann Tyler's characters, now that I think of it. Just kind of...blah. However, the story was compelling. My heart hurt for Catherine - I so wanted her to be loved. I was dying for her father to love her like Bud loves Peyton, to just cherish her. Their relationship was so unnatural to me. It also made me consider how our own opinion of our children affects their reality. You know - the smart one, the pretty one, the athletic one, the shy one. I really believe that's the crux of what happened in the book.

Also, having recently read Pride and Prejudice, it was difficult not to draw parallels between some of the characters - Wickham and Townsend, and Mrs. Bennett and Catherine's aunt (I can't remember her name right now.)

Anyway, it's not the best book I've ever read, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.

I'm moving on to Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer now.

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On to Walmart. I don't like Walmart and I very rarely shop there. I don't like their business practices, so I spend my money elsewhere. I am a member of an organic produce co-op, and I go to the closest Sprouts to buy wild fish, natural beef and other food needs. For household items I shop with coupons at our local Albertson's when they have triple coupon weekends. I like to think my personal decisions might end up having a wider impact, and I encourage my friends to think about where their consumer votes go.

Now Walmart is apparently going to open an organic market in a neighboring town, and I've heard so many organic-loving people get excited about it. The idea is very troubling to me. If Walmart gets their hands on organic producers, then we have no hope of the organic label meaning anything! They will drive the price down so far that no one will be able to afford to farm organically as we now no it, but Walmart will surely wield great lobbying power to lower the standards, so the label can continue be used in their markets. I would love to see their business plan on this.

Am I on target with this thinking, or am I missing something here?

Somehow I just know that organic apples from Walmart just won't taste as good.

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day. The kind of day that makes you want egg salad. The only problem is that Luke freaks out if he smells boiled eggs. So when I put the kids' lunch on the table, I boiled my eggs. By the time our lunch/read aloud time was over, my eggs had cooled a bit, and I took them out on the front porch to peel. It was trash day, so I dropped the shells in the conveniently located trash can on the front curb, then headed in, quickly added mayo, sardines and co-op onion to my eggs, grabbed a box of Triscuits and a Diet Coke and went right back out to the front porch to dine. It was heavenly and Luke's nose was never the wiser.

Then, I had a big ol' head of cauliflower to deal with. It, along with a few carrots, was the only veggie remaining from my last coop share, and I had to do something with it. But none of us really likes cauliflower. Well, I found a recipe with a strong-sounding vinaigrette that seemed like it might mask the cauliflower flavor. So I steamed the cauliflower and carrots, mixed up the vinaigrette, tossed them together and stuck them in the fridge till dinner. Bud walks in and comments on the stink. At least it wasn't the smell of boiled eggs.

Bud and I ate the cauliflower grudgingly, but the kids declined any further participation after their obligatory "honest bite." I took the leftover cauliflower to my neighbor Leanne who, for whatever reason, likes the stuff.

Today, was coop pick up. Every other Tuesday, the kids and I head over to a homeschooling mom of 10's house and pick up our share of delicious fruits and veggies. The kids love the trip because the family has goats that think they are puppies and they keep bees. The family keeps bees, the goats don't. It's too late to deal with restructuring that sentence.

There were beets in the share this time. I've never made beets. Actually, I'm not sure that I've ever eaten them. So I made chilled beet soup. Yeah, that was a hit. We all took an obligatory "honest bite," and poured the rest down the drain.

Oh, I forgot the best part. While making the soup there was a Blender Incident. The kitchen looked like a crime scene from Law and Order.

That was so not worth it.

Fortunately, the rest of the share is wonderful - tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, avocadoes, apples, bananas, oranges and pears. So no more experiments with veggies for the next two weeks.

Tomorrow: Steak and potatoes, baby!

I sat down to write a very serious post about the growth I've experienced in the last few years, how God used the struggles to refine me, blah blah blah.

Then Luke and his good buddy Tommy come and ask me if they can sell something outside for money. I said, "No, not for money." (There are a lot of entrepreneurial kids around here and we parents finally said no selling stuff for money - no lemonade for 25 cents, no Yu Gi Oh card sales, no trying to unload your useless Happy Meal toys for spending cash.)

Luke said, "I was thinking a burping contest for a penny a burp...?"

I looked up from the keyboard. "You think someone will pay you to burp?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure Tommy would."

"Yeah, I would," Tommy added.

It's official. Luke is a full-blown boy. I was pretty sure when the two of them swam for an hour in the unheated pool today. This conversation just confirmed it. Gone are the days of being a little one, a tyke, or whatever you want to call it. This is boyhood in all its glory. Going to a private place to change clothes, attempting to burp the alphabet, running until his face is read and his hair is soaked with sweat and then running some more. And you know that boy smell? Not BO or stinky feet, but that been-outside-all-day-in-the-sunshine-and-dirt-and-grass smell.

And do you know what? There is nothing better in the world than a full-blown boy who still hugs and kisses his mom. Nothing better.

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FYI - Bud has instituted a rule that Luke may engage in bodily noise contests as long as we adults don't have to hear it. The Wisdom of the Father.