The day before yesterday was my only sister’s birthday.  I probably should have posted something sweet about what a charming, funny, intelligent and wonderful person she is (and she really is!), but Pookie and I were too busy garage saling.   Yes, I am a wayward and downright bad big sister.  Our internet connection was down most of yesterday and today so I am getting something of a late start on even wishing my sister a belated happy birthday.  If you are reading this, Callie, please know that I hope your birthday was great and I love you dearly!

Tomorrow (meaning Tuesday) is my birthday.  Callie is still the best birthday present I ever got, but Eaglewood and the progeny always do something to make my birthdays as wonderful as humanly possible!  Right now, Eaglewood has the progeny out shopping for my birthday gift.  The house is so quiet that it’s almost creepy.  However, I’m busy celebrating a little early with my brand new Timberdoodle catalog!   The giant Rainbow Resource catalog came last week!  Oh, joy!

It looks as though Eaglewood may actually manage to stay home from California this week!  Yay!  Unfortunately for him, he was here to deal with the accumulating household issues like the internet connection problem and an oven that wouldn’t turn on.  If I haven’t mentioned it lately, I’d just like to say again that Eaglewood is my hero!

Ditto is excited about the opening of Spiderman 3 this weekend.  Sadly for him, we probably won’t go to see it on opening weekend.  However, for the more impoverished Spider-geeks out there, it is also free comic book weekend!  We probably WILL attend the give-away at the comic book shop.
 

Tis’ the season for the major community garage sales and the wealthier and less well-to-do citizens of our little town joined together and had some dandies!  Pookie and I packed up the essential garage saling gear (our designated garage sale money, a clothes basket and a cold drink) and headed out to explore as many of them as we possibly could.  Our finds of the day included a new mattress for $5 and a very fancy denim baby blanket and soft book set for about $1.50.  Even better, we discovered that most of our neighbors just the sort of wonderfully nice and friendly people you would hope to have living around you.  I hope we have a chance to get to know a good many of them better!

I’ve been experiencing something new with this latest pregnancy… boring dreams!  I’ve always  been one to have wild dreams filled with more adventure than the average Summer movie so this is really strange for me.  I’m actually dreaming about mundane household events and problems.  I suppose I don’t get to think about those things enough while I’m awake?  You don’t think this may be a sign that I may actually be NORMAL, do you?

I am chief amongst the sluggish non-posting bloggers these days.  I apologize.  Life is rather busy here and comes complete with all day morning sickness, a head cold, sick kiddos, a perpetually broken cat, and a husband who seems to have moved to California (of course, under the circumstances, I can’t really blame him…)!

In case he hasn’t mentioned it, Eaglewood is on his way back to California for the third time in three weeks.  He’s tired.  He doesn’t like flying.  He misses his family.  He may just have to break down and resort to being cranky about it pretty soon.

Guilt over my lack of blogging lately apparently isn’t enough for me.  I also have that massive shame-inducing bedside pile of great books that I should be reading.  Truth be told, I am looking for something light, fluffy and shallow to read right now.  My brain just can’t take much more at the moment.  Any suggestions?  Please don’t make me resort to picture books…
 

It’s that time of year again.  Every evening the frogs are treating us to their symphony.  I LOVE that sound!  As amusing as the geckos (we now have TWO) are when they sing to us, they have nothing on our local frogs talent-wise.   The other tune I’ve been hearing so very much of begins with “Mommy Mommy…”.  Anyone else familiar with that one?

My sister-in-law has invited me to run away from home tomorrow for a visit with her.  I’m looking forward to it!  I went ahead and got my grocery shopping out of the way today so that I would have time for a good visit with her before Eaglewood’s flight gets in tomorrow night. 

Five In a Row has reached whole new levels of popularity during the time we took off from it.  The boys are now begging to do the activities even on non-school days!  Isn’t it wonderful when children love to learn?  The older two have been concentrating on reading, character studies and history for the past week while I have been feeling sick.  Pookie finished another science book, and I’m not sure if I want to start her on another so close to Summer.  We do homeschool through the Summer, but we tend to keep a lighter workload.  Nature guides and the great outdoors always have more appeal then, too!  Maybe I should just leave it at that? Ditto has been reading Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law”.  While he does seem to be getting a lot out of it, it has been refreshing for me to see him read something that he can’t polish off in an afternoon or two.  He’s a quick reader and I have always had a difficult time keeping up with his reading lists!

Frankly, the nightly frog sing-along is probably the most exciting thing going on around here these days!   

HT to Carrie

I feel sick.

 

Eaglewood was home for all of one day.  Now he is flying back to California.  Seriously.  I really miss him.

 

I’m doing Five In A Row with my little guys again.  We had been doing a more pure Charlotte Mason thing for awhile which slowly dissolved into too much seat work.  Now we are back to FIAR.  Sadly, most of our FIAR books were either lost in the move or loved to pieces.  Literally.  I really wish our city had a good library!

 

Ditto has been busy designing his dream computer.  Is that normal?  I mean, he’s actually going out and pricing each individual component and really designing his dream computer!  I now know more about computers than I ever thought possible and all this with pregnancy brain, too!   I guess I should have expected this sort of thing from a kid who started building his own computers from junk parts at the age of eight.  Did I mention that his first computer was a laptop!?

 

Our cat found a rare empty box in the house today and is now perfectly happy.  I just thought that you should know that.  Wouldn’t it be nice if that was all it took to make everyone happy?

 

Pookie’s been sewing.  I’ve been crocheting and learning about computers whether I want to or not.  We are NOT exciting people.

 

Did I mention that I feel really sick?

 

Oh, and it’s raining again. 

 

Here’s hoping that YOUR day is blessed and sunshine-y!

Eaglewood has been spending his weekend in California.  He’s not exactly thrilled.  He hates flying and isn’t too wild about California.  At least he is scheduled to come home on Sunday.  We will certainly be thrilled to have him back!

 

My morning sickness has been lasting all day and all night.  Why DO they call it “morning sickness” anyway?  I have not been experiencing any cravings for what surely must be the first time ever.

 

Everyone here has been rather grumpy all weekend.  Grumpy isn’t exactly a normal occurrence for Puddleglum and myself.  The rest of the family is starting to look at us funny.  At least their goofy expressions of concern are somewhat amusing…

 

We all survived grocery shopping as a family sans Eaglewood yesterday.  We even went out to do something fun afterward.  Now we will have to spend some time this evening picking up important things that we forgot yesterday (like lightbulbs)!  I’ve learned an important lesson, though.  Next time I should probably put Pookie in charge of our shopping list.  She’s a linear thinker like her father.  Non-linear thinkers shouldn’t be put in charge of any  sort of expedition… at least not if that expedition has any sort of limitations on it like time, budget, or gas in the van.

groovy meme

HT to Beth

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?  According to my mother, I was named after an old boyfriend of hers who happened to have the same name as my father.  I don’t even pretend to understand that.

2. ARE YOU AN ONLY child? I am my mother’s only child and the oldest of my father’s three.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Sometimes

4. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Probably

5. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? No.

6. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Grits.  What can I say?  I’m VERY Southern!

7. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF. Not usually.

8. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I have a reputation for being strong.  I’m not so sure myself.

9. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? I don’t eat ice cream.  Too sweet.

10. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? I tend to notice how a person carries himself/herself first.

11. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I’m not sure.  I don’t spend much time thinking about things that are guaranteed to make me unhappy…

12 . WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My grandmother on my mother’s side and my great aunt on my father’s side.

13 . WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? denim shorts, no shoes.

14. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Some baked chicken

15. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? My phone just rang and the little guys are being noisy.  Happy stuff.

16. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Purple

17. FAVORITE SMELLS? New babies, morning coffee, Spring flowers

18. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Daddy

19. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Sure do!

20. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? Yep.  We have Eaglewood’s Australian shepherd, most of a cat, and a bathroom gecko!

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Football or racing

22. HAIR COLOR? Dark brown

23. EYE COLOR? Dark blue

24. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No

25. FAVORITE FOOD? Mexican, salads of all sorts, yogurt smoothies, stir-fried veggies…

26. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I prefer happy endings, but a scary movie can be fun to watch with Eaglewood.

27. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Batman Begins

28. WHAT COLORS SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Royal blue with varigated blue crochet trim

29. SUMMER OR WINTER? Fall and Spring!  (I have to agree with Beth on this one!)

30. HUGS OR KISSES? Both!  (This one, too!)

31. FAVORITE DESSERT? Fruit, yogurt, unsweetened chocolate milk

32. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?  I have NO idea.

33. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?  Probably Serena…

34. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? For school I’m working through a Charles Coffin book, I’m reading something about Manzanar, and going over some science books that I plan on using with Sneefert (needed a refresher).  For pleasure I’m mostly going through crochet and sewing stuff right now, and I just finished another Dilbert book.  “The Federalist Papers” and a couple of sci-fi novels are also calling my name…

35. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? No pad.

36. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? I don’t watch TV

37. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SOUND(s)? Rain, esp. thunderstorms (I agree with Beth again here!), babies cooing…

38. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Neither

39. WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Virginia

40. SO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Crochet, soft sculpture doll making

41. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Anyone brave enough to play.

We have spread our flu germs far and wide amongst ourselves, but we seem to finally be recovering!  Flu and morning sickness do NOT mix well.  Since neither the children or I have been feeling up to it, school has pretty much been called off for the past week.  With all of the excitement of the past week and a half, that hasn’t been a bad thing.  We probably wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on much anyway.  Right now, I’m sipping some sort of carbonated and flavored drink that calls itself water, but is really a sugar-free soft drink in disguise while trying to think of something entertaining and worthwhile to say.  As you can tell, I’ve got nothing.  How’s that for honesty?  Thanks for reading anyway!