I am excited to announce the birth of a brand new niece; my sister’s second child!  She weighed in at 5lbs and 12oz and is 17 1/2 inches long!  Ironically, she has arrived in that tiny three day gap between my sister’s birthday and my own.  How fun!  Pookie and I will be celebrating by crafting a few things for her, of course.

“The Road to Serfdom” by F. A. Hayek

“The Big Book Of Gardening Skills” by the Editors of Garden Way Publishing 

“Muffins and Quickbreads” by Linda Fraser

And some good old-fashioned “twaddle” that doesn’t take much concentration and can be read while working out.  I’m sure Charlotte Mason would be horrified.  

What’s your favorite book?  Who is your favorite author?  What are you really wanting to learn more about?  Please share!

 

On an unrelated note… Tomorrow is my birthday so I may decide to play hooky.

I would like to apologize for the lack of real content in my blog of late.  I have been feeling a need to be more active and involved in my children’s lives, and that does take time.  I would like to assure any readers that I might still have left (and thank you!) that the lack of posting does not reflect a lack of reading about, learning, and doing what is most important to us.  In fact, the time we are spending on those things is the cause!  As our schedule settles down a bit over the Summer, I will probably have a little more time to spend blogging about more important things.  In the meantime, thanks so much for stopping by.  I really do value you and your comments.

Your significant other? Eaglewood is very quiet, very smart and VERY focused

Your hair? long

Your mother? Exceptionally bitter and always unhappy, but my stepmom is a major sweetie!

Your father? Smart.  Very smart.  A man who truly loves G-d.  Also funny!

Your favorite thing? Reading, crocheting, spending time with my family, sewing, creating, working out, listening to music, learning stuff, scrapbooking, hiking, photography…  Okay, I’ll stop there so that I won’t bore you TOO much!

Your dream last night? Nope.  I didn’t sleep that well for some reason.

Your favorite drink? coffee?  Tea?  Water?  I think it depends on my mood…

Your dream/goal? Hmmm…  Be a good wife to Eaglewood, and raise G-dly children…

The room you’re in? The office

Your ex? Not a clue

Your fear? Losing a child.

Where do you want to be in 6 years? Living a more self-sufficient off-grid life.

Where were you last night? At home with my family.

What you’re not? There are so many things I’m not that it would take all day just to give you a fair accounting of them…  Although my seven year old son just pointed out that I’m not manly!

Muffins? As long as they are homemade and sugar free (allergies).

One of your wish list items? Books, maybe?  I dunno…  I feel pretty content.

Where you grew up? Texas

The last thing you did? Fed the baby and checked in a couple of blogs where I found this meme (Hi, Lawanda!).

What are you wearing? Workout togs.  I have a date with exercise equipment in about an hour.

Your TV? Being used by boys (who finished their schoolwork early!) to play a game.

Your pets? A dog and a rug-like cat.

Your computer? Which one?  Thanks go Ditto and his hobbies, we have several up and running right now.

Your life? Mostly joyful. 

Your mood? Happy and upbeat.

Missing someone? Samuel. 

Your car? a REALLY old minivan, but we are feeling quite blessed to have it!

Something you’re not wearing? Shoes.

Favorite store? Half Price Books, or just about any used book store.  Is there ANYONE who didn’t see that coming?

Your summer? Hot.  Texas is always hot in the summer!

Like someone? Of course.  Don’t you?

Your favorite color? Blue, green and purple.  I refuse to choose just one.  In fact, I had a difficult time narrowing it down that much!

When is the last time you laughed? a couple of minutes ago.

Last time you cried? I have no idea.  I almost never cry.

Who will repost this?  I have no idea.

Ditto, Pookie, Buddy and I had a good time garage saling this weekend.  Our favorite finds were four matching chairs for our kitchen table ($15), three pairs of jeans ($3) for Buddy and a pair of baby shoes ($1).  Pookie found some mugs (20 cents) and we found an enormous box of Mega blocks (the small ones that are compatible with Legos) for $2.  Sneefert and Puddleglum were thrilled with that one!

 

Sneefert and I (with occasional help from Puddleglum) also spent quite a bit of time weeding in our flower beds, trimming back our bushes, and transplanting our vegetables this weekend.  Of all of my children, Sneefert seems to be the only one with a real love for growing things.

 

 

Ditto recently decided that he wanted the experience of repairing some game systems.  He ended up buying an old and broken PS2 for $20 and repairing it in about an hour (it is now worth $80 in our area).  Eaglewood was so impressed that he picked up a $5 broken XBox to use along with another broken XBox that we already happened to have and got Ditto to fix one of those, too.  That one also took about an hour of Ditto’s time and we now have two game systems!

 

 

 

The really big, mega-huge, larger-than life neighborhood garage sale thing is happening in the really nice, fancy-schmancy part of our little town tomorrow!  I’ll be taking my children and running away from home to rifle through the unwanted possessions of total strangers.  I’ll probably top that off by playing in the dirt (you might prefer to call it gardening) because my little garden plants have grown quite a bit and many now need to be transplanted.  See you soon!

Friday afternoon, while the children and I were out doing our bulk shopping, a cashier (after eying my larger than average for our area family) commented on how expensive it is to raise children and how even her grown daughter is always calling her to ask for money.  I would have been perfectly happy to mumble something polite and leave, but she asked me if I knew what she meant and tried to get me to agree with her.  I just couldn’t do that.  My children almost never ask for anything that isn’t a need.  They are a thoughtful and independent bunch who usually try to figure out how to buy or make the things they want on their own.  They don’t mind getting things second-hand and even pitch in with menu planning, bulk food shopping, cooking from scratch, gardening, recycling, and anything else that helps our family budget.  They are a wonderful, generous and frugal bunch and I couldn’t be more grateful to G-d for blessing me with them all.  

Eaglewood spent most of last week traveling to and from and working in California.  Have I mentioned lately how much he just LOVES (yes, that IS sarcasm!) California?  The children and I stayed here and tried to get some things done at home.  At one point, Eaglewood called to tell me that he was having a lot of trouble with his allergies and had accidentally left his inhaler behind somewhere.  My response was to start scrubbing the house from top to bottom.  That sure helped, huh?   At least he didn’t have to worry about dust when he got home!

Ditto, Pookie, Buddy and I went garage saling again on Saturday.  We managed to find enough baby clothing to fill in the few remaining gaps in Buddy’s wardrobe.  We also picked up a stack of pillow cases.  For some reason, we are unnaturally hard on bed linens.   My theory is that boys are made mostly of dirt, mischief and more fun than normal children’s bedding can handle.  You may have a better theory, however.  Of course, the fact that pillow cases make dandy storage bags for boy stuff might also have something to do with it, too.

…that when you are away from your computer you have so many things you would like to say or to share, but when you sit down at your keyboard your brain kind of turns to jello?  Well, my mind turns to jello, anyway.  I think it may be caused by wrestling a five month old for the mouse (which really is NOT a good chew toy even if I cannot convince Buddy of that).  At least I’m having fun and getting plenty of exercise!