bsmiles and sunny days

Our celebration of completion, while belated, commenced at Chuck E Cheese in leau of Dale's day off. We decided to have lunch at IHOP since they are having all you can eat pancake deals starting at $4.99, which is a steal. After a lavish feast of bacon and eggs and pancakes galore, we headed over to Chuck E. Cheese for the next leg of the party. If you sign up for their e-mail newsletter, you get a coupon for 100 tokens for $10, which is also a steal. I insisted we take advantage of the savings before they expired. Leila sat on the Chuck E. Cheese car that takes your picture and dropped one token in after the next, only to be rewarded in the end with no pictures due to the lack of print paper in the machine. She didn't care though because she got the longest ride ever. I was glad I didn't let Dale give her more than seven when she started loading them mid-ride. Somehow Tre managed to come away without any tangible evidence of ever having been at Chuck E. Cheese with us tha...

I'm a little afraid of the dark. I'm not a chicken about being in the dark, normally, I just don't prefer to be outside by myself in the dark. I don't mind taking out the trash or fetching something out of the car when the sun has gone down, but you won't find me out walking if the sun is even remotely on it's way out because I just don't like it. Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I prefer to think of it as a safety issue. And there's really no reason to take a chance unless it is absolutely necessary because weirdos are everywhere. I am afraid of the dark though. For most of my life I thought it was about what was hiding in the bushes or who was lurking after hours, but deeper than that there is a teeny bit of phobia in me, the irrational kind, and I forgot all about it until our power went out and stayed out overnight several weeks ago. I woke up spontaneously and when I opened my eyes my house was pitch black. The enormity of the darkness sucked t...

Men ought always to pray, and not to faint. Luke 18:1 You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into a futile sympathy with human beings which will only increase their submissive content to being out of touch with God. In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by HIS attitude towards that person or circumstance. Intercession means filling up *that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ* and that is why there are so few intercessors. Intercession is put on the line of put yourself in his place. Never! Try to put yourself in God's place. As a worker, be careful to keep pace with the communications of reality from God or you will be crushed. If you know too much, more than God has engineered for you to know, you cannot pray, the condition of the people is so crushing that you cannot get through to reality. Our work lies in coming into definite ...

Conferences were exactly as I predicted. Miss D was generous with her compliments, and thoughtful in her responses, and a little frazzled at the abundance of paperwork that is required to log all of my children's grades. She was also gracious with Leila, who wanted so badly to show her something and sing her a song and tell her stories in gibberish. The kids were proud of their work and their little song and dance that represented what they learned in music, and all around it was good. I always laugh when it's over at how ridiculously I fret over these meetings. I think part of it is that I'm still learning how to do it all, so I am afraid I will try to take shortcuts and cut out something critical to their education. As a matter of fact I'm sure that happens, but I think it is just part of juggling this many lessons for this many children five days of the week for this many weeks; and I'm sure it's part of the learning process that *real* teachers go throu...

At 1:57pm today I finished compiling work samples for our parent/teacher conference tomorrow morning. This is probably the single-most stressful part of home schooling for me, on the whole, aside from my inability to focus on one day at a time and becoming nearly hysterical once a week at the prospect of how many more lessons and days and pages and conferences we have until the end of the school year. Even so, the preparation to be judged on my efficiency as an educator to all of these kids takes me for a ride. A highly emotional ride. Takes us for a highly emotional ride. But I'm ready. We have everything in the folders signed and stamped and labelled and corrected and perfectly ordered to present to our teacher tomorrow, who will generously lavish the children with praise and be visibly astounded at their progress no matter what notes she jots in that top secret notebook she's always scribbling in. In all actuality, the kids have made huge strides this quarter in their educat...

About a million years ago, I went to a MOPS meeting and brought out a little nugget of information from the hours of listening to lovely speakers come one after another and share snippets of wisdom with us from different walks of life. This was what I came away with and have waited a million years to see the fruition of. It takes twelve tastes of any new food to acquire a taste for that food. Not wanting to be a tyrant at the dinner table, I have tried not to insist that my kids eat anything in it's entirety if they can hardly bear the sight of it-- things like steamed squash or canned greens. However, I have practiced the one bite rule for all these years. I can't guarantee that it takes exactly twelve times, but this theory works. It does! I love to make beans. Initially I started out making them because they were cheap and supposedly good for you. As the years pass, I appreciate more than the cost effectiveness and the health benefits- they are super easy and there...

I can't have cookies. I was just sitting here writing away to my heart's content, all the while thumbing through my mental to-do list which includes going to the grocery store to restock the milk supply. Dale's working *these are still my thoughts* and maybe we should pick up some Oreos since he won't be here all night; he would never know since the kids would have them all eaten up, and I might have one or twelve, they'd be gone before he gets home tonight. Please understand, with this many kids, it's nothing to put away an entire bag of cookies in a matter of one single afternoon. Or a bag of chips. Or a box of cereal, or a gallon of milk. It all depends on how good the other snacks are. Did I mention I'm having another one? Still in shock. So last week I decided to make some cookies, for the children. We've been living on couscous and fruit salads, they need to have homemade cookies once in a while or what kind of mother am I? The problem is, when I ...

Remember when she really loved God and wrote songs that we loved? ...I'm raining on the inside, oh my heart wells up with tears and starts to pour... I'm raining on the inside... I used to listen to this album over and over and over on my cassette Walkman. Now I change the station when she comes on; I just can't stand her new stuff or her new life. But I still love this song, and with all of this rain and the dark clouds that threaten my happiness, it has been rolling through my mind for a couple of days now. Not by accidental timing, I am attempting another Bible study and have found a way to stick it out for the duration of the nine weeks. We are studying Habakkuk and it's got me thinking, which has been rare lately. I can't get away from God's sovereignty in these verses and the confusion that it brings to this bold prophet in his desperation to be heard. I didn't know anything about the book when I received the materials except that it was one of the min...

I wrote this long post yesterday and Leila came in, shut the power off on the tower, and left. She likes to sit beside me when I'm writing; normally she doesn't mess with anything else so I don't keep a close eye on her. Apparently I need to do that. I can't even remember what I was writing about so I guess this is a do-over. We tried the Brown Rice Risotto with Lamb a few nights ago, but lamb is too expensive to attempt on an experimental dish, so I got a beef chuck roast, and it has been the talk of the house ever since. I'm serious. They have not stopped joking about the castle Dale made out of the risotto or how much they hope we never have that again. And just for the record, when they smell something that is displeasing they say it smells like apple couscous. Listen, I'm just doing the best I can here, trying to venture out into some unchartered territory. It will take me a little while to get the groove, but we're getting the groove. More than...

I'm pregnant. Did I mention that? When you've never had a life growing inside you, you have this perception the first time of how large your stomach is going to get. I always manage to arrive at that size in the sixth month. That's where I'm at right now. So far everything is buzzing along nicely, no serious problems to speak of, thank You God! But I know that after this size, the size I initially thought I'd be at 40 weeks, this is where the rubber meets the road. It's when every pound locks away an inch of my breathing space for the remainder of my term. I'm starting to waddle too. In public I consciously maintain my stride, but when I'm tired, I find myself lopping from one side to the other with every step. Not nice. I've also been cold this time around, which is strange but welcome, until now. Maybe it was nerves telling me I wasn't as comfortable as I seemed the first time I attended ladies' Bible study this week, but I was sweating bul...

Yesterday I was on the phone while I was preparing dinner; I believe I mentioned that with each pregnancy, I get a little clumsy and dropsy and I miscalculate depth sometimes pretty severely, which makes me hazardous in the kitchen. I burn myself almost everyday, I don't mean terrible burns usually, but I end up dropping a pan on the floor or catching the oven rack with a side of my hand that's not covered with a hot pad, these kinds of things. So yesterday was especially dangerous in the kitchen because I had three pans on the stove and something on the grill all at the same time. I was also doing a lot of chopping. And I was on the phone. Every time I cut myself or dropped something or touched the grill with palm of my hand I said, "Oh crap!" and then continued the conversation like normal. Apparently this is really common for me because I said it probably ten times while we were talking and I only noticed because I was on the phone and I felt like I was spewing p...

I find myself struggling to remember the things that really make me feel good. This life affords me such little energy for myself that sometimes I just get bummed and need a pick me up. Typically this is when I start rummaging through the cabinets for something sweet or a hot pizza, but with our lifestyle renovations, my stomach doesn't tolerate pizza very well and sweets are nowhere to be found- not the ones I'm looking for anyway, like hot fudge brownie sundaes. So in the course of my week I make mental notes of the simple things that pick me up, with the extra baggage and hormones of this pregnancy, that is no easy task. This week I went out on my solo morning adventure while Dale was home with the kids and made the normal rounds: Wal -Mart, Starbucks, Vons , Goodwill. Goodwill left me feeling especially cheery after not so cheery a week, and then on my way home from Vons , I was darn right giddy, and this is why. I LOVE BARGAINS!!! Nothing makes me happier than finding ...

Early in my parenting days, I picked up a book on etiquette so that I could properly train my children for life, preparing them for anything they may encounter. Unfortunately for them, I never read the book, never even cracked it open. I've considered tossing it many times because of that fact, and the fact that I bought it at a library housecleaning for a quarter. Nonetheless, I continue to enforce various social rules and am grateful for the consistency of the past, knowing it was just the right thing to do, now that I have five someday-to-be grown-ups sitting around my dining room table three or four times a day. While they are learning, we still have a long, long way to go. It's not using the wrong utensil that bothers me, I don't even mind if some of the food is handled, as long as the hand is not used as a shovel of indiscretion. What bothers me is the sound that occurs when someone is eating without keeping their lips sealed. And the slurping; you know, the slurpi...

Kennedy is an avid participant in anything that: a. gets her out of the house, b. gets her around other kids and c. involves a challenge. I cracked up watching her on the first night of try-outs during pass drills. She took every word that came from the coach's mouth and tried to translate it perfectly into her pass. Gritting her teeth with meticulous concentration on her form, the pass, the follow-through, we was determined to do everything well. The first game started off with a bang, but we missed it because I thought it was supposed to be at a church gymnasium and we drove back and forth from the church to our house a few times before Dale made me look at the schedule and see that it was at the school. She was half an hour late. What's more, I thought she was supposed to be there an hour early, like they did in football, so I thought we were only half an hour late to warm ups. Nope! She missed the first half of her first game ever and was nearly in tears before we even g...

My little experiment, the one I hope to turn lifestyle, is going along very well. I can't tell you how long I scribbled and scoured and listed and fretted over the menus. What I can tell you, however, is that we have held to them faithfully and with a great deal of success, I'd say. This one is beef apple couscous from page 19 of the Better Homes and Gardens Diabetic Cookbook magazine. I got it at the check stand at Albertson's one day, hoping I'd use it at least once. To date, we've tried six of the recipes. I was nervous to attempt any of them because I have five hungry mouths to feed that generally aren't very adventurous eaters, and I hate to waste food. You can imagine my surprise when all I had left to send to work with Dale was one serving. I really thought I'd be throwing away at least half of it. Mine didn't quite look like this... I had forgotten that we ran out of apple juice yesterday, so I cooked the couscous and vegetables in diet...

My favorite and least favorite thing here is this blasted rain. It's just as cold as it looks--and wet--and sandy. There's sand everywhere; on the beach, at the park, in the yard, under the faucet in my bathroom, in piles at various locations on my porch and on my carpet. Right now I despise it. In Nebraska I had resigned myself to the cold, and I didn't mind it as long as I was prepared for it. I had wool socks, a warm and cute hat, glove, and scarf trio, and a snugly warm coat to shield me from the blasts. Here, I just can't seem to get it together. Maybe it's because it was 73 degrees last week and today it's 53. I can't adjust to the constant changes. And the rain comes on with no warning, mainly because the fog is pretty consistent so the overcast skies are no cause for concern. Until you realize the rain is creating a lake in your courtyard and all the door are open, your shed doors, the sliding doors, the car doors... It's a surprise attack every ...

Our lives are so very different, but I become more and more like her every year. Searching through scads of picture files for this post, I was not surprised to find that I didn't have many pictures of my mom; it's a mom epidemic. The ones I did have were mostly staged for a portrait, which she clearly does not enjoy posing for. This one, however, is the most natural photograph I've ever seen of her because she didn't know it was coming and she is in her most comfortable setting, being Nana. She was a master of this chapter of her life, the one I've living right now. I don't remember it ever being simple either. For instance, when she had preschoolers still home, she ran a daycare out of our house. It wasn't just babysitting; she did crafts, carted us to Easter egg hunts in the park, made every meal, and at one point I remember her having 13 children. I don't recall how many she had in the house at the same time, but I wouldn't be surprised if ...

After three weeks of dastardly laziness, we are gearing up for *back to normal* Monday. Honestly, I'm kind of dreading it. I don't mind school once we are going strong, but getting into the groove... it's not something I do well. For one thing, I'm pregnant and everything that seems to be going smoothly in my life goes haywire when those torrential hormones start corsing through my veins. For another, I know we have conferences coming up again and I just don't test well so I turn into a nervous wreck. Our teacher, who oversees our progress and turns in reports on us, is remarkably generous to me and my crew when it comes to this time of the quarter, but I'm still a nervous wreck for several days before the meeting. On the other hand, I am holding to a resolution that I made after Christmas: to get back on the healthy track. While Dale's parents were here we ate out, ate ice cream between meals out, ate a couple of meals at the bowling alley, and ate ou...