meal for one (not low fat!)

I tried to think of food that I like, that others don't like,

that was easy to fix,

and came up empty.

So when I went shopping 

I just grabbed a few things that sounded good at the time:

a package of bacon, a sweet potato, and a $2.78 butternut squash.

Oh - and 2 pints of icecream :-)  coffee and coconut macaroon

(which I shared with Brandon and Tyler after they got home) 

For 3 of my 6 meals while the family was away, I had the same exact thing - bacon and cheese.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Arrange 4 slices of bacon on a baking sheet with sides.

Bake for 15 ish minutes; no need to flip bacon midway through cooking.

When the bacon is to your liking, remove it.

Using your same pan,

sprinkle a generous handful of shredded monterey jack cheese on the bacon grease and any bits of bacon that stuck to the pan

and pop it back in the oven for about 4-6 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown around the edges.

Eat it right out of the pan.

Scrumptious, I tell you. Scrumptious.

camping, finally

Tyler has been wanting to take the kids camping since May.

He either couldn't manage the time away from work,

we already had plans,

or the weather was disagreeable.

As summer turned into fall,

we began checking the forecast in earnest - 10 days out.

And every time it looked pleasant, we'd think 'this may be the last good weekend'.

This past weekend, things finally lined up for him to take them!

He planned for 2 nights, figuring that'd be plenty.

We went Tuesday evening to check out a campground not far from home.

It was such a nice little place, and so peaceful,

I told him he'd get out there and want to stay thru Saturday.

He didn't think that was likely.

Plan was to head out around noon Wednesday,

set up camp and hang out a bit, then go to the fall festival at church.

Right on schedule, they piled in the Excursion.

And it wouldn't start.

A few hours and a fixed (or so they thought) vehicle later,

they were on their way.

As soon as they got all set up, Tyler decided staying through Saturday might just be a good idea, after all.

There had been no ranger or host when they arrived,

but Tyler found one as they were leaving for the fall festival.

(after having the Excursion's battery hooked up to a charger they thankfully brought along)

He was told the campground was closed!

And they'd have to leave in the morning.

They'd have to go to a new campground

and set up all over again.

Turns out, they aren't a ton of campground around here that are open past October.

They ended out hanging out at Clear Creek for a decent part of the day,

before coming home to grab the trailer and moving on to the next campground.

The place in Ozark wasn't quite as nice, and the bathroom was 1/4 mile away from their site,

but beside that,

they had a great time.

And ate lots of junk.

And candy, from the festival...

Meanwhile, I was home. By myself. Having my own little mini vacation.

And they did stay through Saturday.

fifty-three

Fifty-three.

That's how many minutes I spent looking for my keys this morning.

I do believe that's a record.

~sigh~

The up side is - my purses are cleaned out.

The desk is clean.

The trash that accumulates on the bookshelves got tossed.

The top of the fridge is clean.

All trash has been removed from various jacket pockets

and I added $4 and seven cents to the anniversary jar.

perfect spaghetti

Now, you may be wondering how it is that we even eat spaghetti,

seeing that we don't eat wheat.

My friend asked me that very question recently when she asked what we were having for lunch after church one day 

and I replied,"Spaghetti."

I told her we eat it on shredded cabbage instead of pasta. 

(I know. 

It sounds gross. It's not; it's actually very good)

She said, "Then it's not spaghetti. Spaghetti refers to the pasta."

So, all this talk about spaghetti,

 is,

 I guess,

  technically 

talk about marinara sauce (with ground beef)

that we happen to eat over raw very thinly-sliced cabbage instead of long skinny noodles

but tastes suspiciously like the spaghetti of my memories.

Needless to say, Tyler was more than happy to tweak the recipe a bit,

'cause it meant more spaghetti to taste test.

And if he could get it to where I actually liked it,

well, he'd be in spaghetti heaven.

The last time he'd made the sauce,

we decided to reduce the seasoning mix,

so scribbled out the previous measurement on the bag

and wrote the new one.

So the next time I made the sauce accordingly.

(Hey! It just dawned on me; I've made the spaghetti every time except for once,

since he came up with and perfected the recipe. What gives?!)

It was simmering on the stove

and I gave it a stir as I walked by.

And then I tasted some.

And I said, "mmmm".

And then I realized,

I had just mmmm'd spaghetti.

Which brings us back to where I started this whole thing...

to be continued.

again.

just kidding :-)

And now, the recipe.

I have yet to figure out the measurements for doubling / tripling/ quadrupling....

It can be done quite easily, I'm sure, converting Tablespoons to cups and partial tsps to Tbls,

but I've been in a rush each time I've had to make up a batch of the seasoning,

so it was quicker to just make it as it's written on the crumpled paper bag Tyler brought the spices home from OFF in, 

than to think and multiply to convert....

Italian Seasoning Mix for people who don't like Thyme

(and people that do...)

9 TBS basil

9 TBS parsley

4 TBS oregano

3 TBS garlic powder

1 TBS onion powder

1 TBS rosemary (ground)

3/4 tsp black pepper

3/4 tsp red pepper flakes

3/4 tsp ground fennel

Mix 'em all together, give 'em a whir in the grinder (or a blender) and store in a jar.

(our spice grinder is just a dedicated coffee grinder from a yard sale :-)

To make Tyler's Spaghetti Sauce,

in a large pot, brown 2-3 lbs. ground beef (round or chuck) with a bit of garlic powder and season-all

While it's browning,

dice an onion and a bell pepper (half is okay if they're pricey, but a whole one is better)

and throw them in the pot when the beef's about 1/2 done.

When the beef is thoroughly cooked, 

add 1 big can (102 oz) crushed tomatoes

and 2 TBS of the magic spaghetti seasoning mix..

You can add a clove or two of crushed garlic, or not.

Let it simmer over low heat for at least 20 minutes if you're in a rush,

but it's best simmered 3-4 hours if you get it going early enough.

If that's just wayyy too much sauce for you,

reduce the meat (duh) and onions & peppers,

and mix 1/2 Tbs of your italian seasoning mix with a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes.

If I were you, though, I'd go ahead and make the big batch,

'cause I'll be back before long,

to tell you what you can do 

with the leftovers.

more spaghetti

Okay.

So where were we?

Ah, yes ~ I was hatin' on spaghetti and Tyler was determined to change my mind.

In order to come up with a homemade spaghetti sauce that I would enjoy,

we had to first come up with our own seasoning blend,

because neither of us (admittedly, mostly me) were crazy about the Italian seasoning we had in the cabinet.

Tyler spent some time looking at recipes online,

chose one,

and went to Old Fashioned Foods to buy all the spices we'd need.

(Did you know that local health food stores are generally a great place to buy good quality spices at a fraction of what you'd pay for them at the grocery store? Long before we were health nuts - way back when walking into a health food store was liking entering a different planet and I wondered why people thought you shouldn't bathe or brush your hair if you were healthy and we stuck out like sore thumbs, 

what with our clothes actually matching and all - we  bought a lot of our spices from the wide-mouth quart sized jars lining the bulk aisle 

in the old house with uneven floors that was Ozark Natural Foods in downtown Fayetteville.)

Armed with his paper sack of plastic-bagged spices, cheap Walmart spices from the pantry, such as garlic & onion powders, his recipe and measuring spoons, Tyler set out to make The Seasoning.

I'd already told him to not bother buying Thyme;

we'd figured out that was one of the ingredients in Italian seasoning neither of us liked.

Then, we decided that reducing the oregano would be smart, since I'm not crazy about it, either.

(you can see what he was up against?! was it even possible for me to like spaghetti??)

I also insisted suggested that the rosemary be ground prior to adding it to the mix. 

I like the flavor; hate eating the sticks.

We made a few other changes to the recipe, but I forget what all.

When he made the first batch of sauce, I said, "Not bad."

Considering we were talking about spaghetti - that's pretty good,

but he wasn't going for 'not bad', he was going for really good...

some spaghetti

I sent Tyler a text that said,

"I just took a bite from the pot and said, 'mmmm'." 

"It was spaghetti sauce!"

To fully appreciate that, you need to understand something.

My mom made delicious spaghetti sauce when I was growing up.

In fact, it's what we had to eat the first time Tyler came over for dinner.

I'm not sure if I made it, or she did.

Either way - it was the same yummy sauce; I made it just like she did.

Tyler wasn't sure he'd like my mom's cooking, so he (unbeknownst to me at the time) grabbed a burger on his way over.

His eyes about popped out of his head when my mom served him up a Miller male sized portion.

He couldn't have eaten that much normally,

but having just had a burger, well, things didn't look good for him....

I don't remember if he ate it all or not

and actually, that part of the story is irrelevant.

When I was pregnant with Lana,

I could not stand the smell of cooked tomatoes.

Which was quite a problem, seeing that tomato based foods were pretty cheap

and we were incredibly poor.

So I cooked with tomato sauce and such anyways

and sometimes, I even managed to get down a few bites.

At some point not long after Lana was born,

we'd discovered that it was cheaper to buy jarred or canned spaghetti sauce than make my own.

Since it was all nasty in my opinion (even though the smell no longer made me sick, there was still a negative association...)

 and Tyler just loved spaghetti, period,

well, it was a no-brainer.

We started buying pre-made spaghetti sauce.

We could have a meal of spaghetti for $2 if we didn't use meat;

$1 for the sauce, and $ .50 each for pasta and a can of diced tomatoes.

As kids grew (and became more plentiful) we just added another jar of sauce and more pasta.

When we switched to whole grains, it was slightly more expensive, since the pasta was $1 a box...

Occasional, we had hamburger  or ground turkey in it,

but Lana preferred it meatless. 

Since she rarely stated preferences,

I choose to fix it the way she liked it.

Once she married, we added meat to the sauce more often than not.

And once I discovered that Tyler really didn't care for ground turkey in it,

I never added it again - only ground beef.

And every single time we ate spaghetti for dinner,

which was probably at least 3x's amonth, since everyone else loved it

and it was a cheap healthy meal - what with all that whole grain pasta,

I hated it.

Whenever possible, I planned to have it when I would be gone at dinner time.

Seeing that I don't really go gallivanting around all that much,

I didn't get to skip out on the sketti very often.

Then came the great food upheaval of 2011

and we re-examined our eating habits again.

Now, even though we ate in a way we thought was healthy, 

and I'd known for years that they put sugar or HFCS in spaghetti sauce,

I overlooked it.

It was cheap and easy.

But with knowledge comes responsibility, so as we learned more,

we adjusted more.

The cheap Aldi spaghetti sauce had to go.

Tyler found some jarred sauce with just a smidge of added sugar - no HFCS - that they liked okay,

but it was no longer a cheap option, especially when you consider we needed 3 jars...

But of course, I still hated spaghetti night.

Mind you, I didn't carry on like a martyr or anything;

I'm sure some of the kids didn't even know I didn't like spaghetti,

but Tyler knew.

And he made it his mission to come up with a spaghetti sauce that I would like,

and preferably be inexpensive, too.

to be continued...

weekending

Saturday found us waking up before the crack of dawn again,

off to the races. (Well, technically not a race, just a run...)

Brandon hurt his foot/ankle (again) playing soccer Friday night at a friend's house,

so wasn't able to run the 5K.

Kacy broke her toe (again) earlier in the week, so she had to back out, too,

but Tony was intact, so at least he got to run.

Tyler signed up to walk, in an attempt to encourage more people to sign up for the run/walk.

He did have to run the last little bit, though, to get back in time to take the girls on the 1K.

He cut  it so close, that I'd already taken my coat off and lined up with them.

(Jeremiah and Josiah lined up with Ton')

I was so proud of them!

The all ran the whole 1K, except for Lily who had to walk a few steps a couple of times.

Not a big deal, except that we hadn't taken them out to run one time...

(and it was in the 30's!)

Jeremiah came in 3rd

and Josiah 4th!

There were about 50 people (mostly kiddos) doing the 1K,

so that was kind of a surprise.

I guess nobody else trained either...

There was a contest to see which floor had the largest percentage of participants

(the run was sponsored by Tyler's work as a United Way fundraiser)

Tyler was the Team Leader for his floor

and recruited a good sized team to help recruit runners.

They were leading the competition with 34% of the 2nd floor registered to run on Friday,

when the TL from another (much smaller) office called HR to find out what they had to do to win.

 Tyler was a little irritated....

Oh - almost forgot ~ our family won the most participants per family award :-)

Imagine that.

After the race, it was TKD testing.

The boys all did super and are now brown/black belts.

After all that,

I thought I might need a nap, but I ended up having coffee instead :-)

Brandon went to a friend's house for a few hours in the late afternoon;

I dropped him off and visited for 30 minutes or so before heading back home.

I expected that Tyler had laid down with the girls for a nap when the Razorback game ended.

(Ol' Miss won. Big surprise there.)

Instead, he had rallied the troops

('the troops' being the 4 little ones)

and had the house looking really nice when I got home.

(thanks, Hon!)

Tyler carved pumpkins with the kids

(which reminds me - I need to take pictures of them with their pumpkins)

while I put away all the wedding crap stuff that finally got brought in the house Friday evening

(but only because we needed the room in the car for other junk...)

It took me a ridiculous amount of time (close to 2 hours?)

because I re-organized and  repacked everything to make it easy for future use.

I think I spent 20 -30 minutes just putting 40 yards of tulle (cut to varying lengths) back on the bolt.

I'm telling you, I really wanted to just trash it;

but I couldn't. 

(The other day, I was cutting out a top (finally getting around to trying to add sleeves to my favorite sleeveless shirt pattern - now that it's already cold...  I'm hoping it'll work, but at the same time, expecting it can't be that easy...)

I had the fabric folded and the front pattern pieces laid out with rocks on them for weights, all ready for cutting,

when I realized I'd be wasting about 3 inches of fabric.

So I moved everything.

Grumbling the whole time about 'why do I have to make sure not to waste even a smidge of fabric...'  sigh.)

After the pumpkins, Tyler ran to pick up Brandon (and some rotisserie chicken for dinner :-)

while I finished putting away the crap stuff.

Wait. You know what? I didn't spend quite as long as I thought putting stuff away;

TJ called and I sat down and talked to him for awhile,

'cause my 'putting things away while on the phone' skills are notoriously lacking.

After dinner and clean-up and getting kids to bed, 

I worked on Lily's quilt while Brandon and I watched an episode of Sherlock.

(Tyler pooped out on us and went to bed)

I forgot that they were movie-length shows.

I was thinking 'episode'. Episodes are about 45 minutes.

I was good and ready for bed myself when it was over.

Today was mostly lazy.

I even sat under a tree for awhile, quilting and enjoying the sunshine, while Tyler rested beside me

and Josiah ran back and forth between us and the house (making paper hats)

and Lola and Smokey the cat begged for attention.

Which was a really nice way to end a weekend.

gifts of love

I love, truly love, going through the gift catalogs and choosing what to give.

Honestly,

if we did nothing else to celebrate Christmas,

I would be great with that.

It isn't that I don't love my children

and love giving them gifts that will bring them pleasure,

but lets face it,

they have no true needs, and quite honestly, since we don't watch TV, there are very few wants even.

Add to that, we have a tiny house.

But even when we build a bigger house - I don't want it filled with junk,

I just want the junk that we already have

 to have a place ;-)

Books are gifts that keep giving,

but books don't exactly elicit squeals of delight on Christmas morning....

And there's also the matter of kids giving to each other and learning to be generous

(which, really, all of our kids already are....)

Just the other day, Jeremiah was saying he didn't know which he liked better about Christmas,

the excitement of his gifts,or the excitement of giving gifts.

I don't want to take that away....

Anyways - that was a roundabout way of saying that every year, we tweak,

and try to figure out the best way, for our family, to celebrate the birth and love of Christ.

I don't think we've arrived yet at the ideal solution, but I trust one day we will.

Rebekah had asked me to share the organizations that we buy from.

Now, I haven't thoroughly researched these, 

We just started with Ann's recommendations and went from there.

Compassion International is probably my favorite;

we sponsor kids through Compassion and have been 'exposed' to the organization in various ways

and have followed blogger trips and such,

but if we found chickens cheaper elsewhere (and we did) we purchased elsewhere.

Yes, we comparison shop.

It's how we always shop.

We want our money to go as far as it possibly can.

The first year, we didn't have paper catalogs and did all shopping online.

Last year it was a mixture of both.

This year, we got catalogs from all the organizations we've purchased from in the past, 

so we will most likely do our selecting that way, but order online.

The kids have already been looking through the catalogs, which I love!

I imagine there is plenty of time to order catalogs for your family if you request them soon.

This post tells what we bought from where last year, and includes links to the organizations

and this one is from two years ago, when we started the tradition.

I don't know what all our Christmas celebration will look like this year,

but one thing is for sure,

it will include gifts for Jesus.

goodness

I certainly did not anticipate,

when I posted pictures of myself on Wednesday,

that it'd be almost a week before I got back here!

Lots of busy going on around here,

and I seem to take a bit longer to recuperate from it than most people;

I got up this morning thinking maybe we could take the day off school,

but then remembered that we'd already done that twice last week,

so I'll just need to soldier on.

Thursday and Friday I got to help precious friends with a wedding.

Brandon had the kiddos all day Thursday - by himself!

None of our other kids, at fourteen (and just turned 14, at that...) have ever babysat 4 younger siblings.

Heck, none of them even had 4 younger siblings at 14...

They did just fine, but I did worry a bit ~ all day is a long time

and Lexi can be a bit of a challenge, to say the least.

I came home at 4:30 to a reasonably clean house, which was a huge blessing.

When we arrived at the boys' TKD class and hour later, 

we found out the that it had been cancelled,

so I called Tyler and told him he should take us out to dinner.

He agreed :-)

After dinner, they all headed to Timberline (formerly Riverwalk) for apartment ministry

and I came home and plopped my butt in the recliner.

I was getting really thirsty right about the time that Tyler called to say they were heading home,

so I just waited for someone to bring me water.

(my foot was hurtin' real bad, Pa)

After we got the kids to bed, I relocated to the couch and we watched a movie with Brandon.

Friday started off nice and leisurely - I slept in, did some laundry, and enjoyed two cups of coffee

before scarfing down breakfast (that Tyler cooked :-) at 11:15.

I had to run pick up race packets

and meet the Taggs at the church at noon.

Then it was nothing but flowers for me for 5 hours

(I am so stinkin' slow!)

while Tyler took the kids sailing.

As soon as I got home, I washed up the breakfast dishes 

and made a pot of soup

and we vegged out in front of Kung Fu Panda 2

then headed to bed so we could get up early....

Saturday we were up before the crack of dawn

for our second Survivors Challenge 5K.

Needless to say - I didn't run

but Tyler and Brandon did

and they both improved their times from last year,

even though their training was severely lacking.

(Tyler has just been so busy with work lately!)

Tyler came in at 29 minutes and 48 seconds (12th in  his age group)

and Brandon was 7th in his group, with 25:52
(and ended up in the paper too)

They've got another 5K this weekend and Brandon is hoping to shave 2 more minutes off his time.

After we got home, the runners napped

kids played

and I worked on getting us (mostly me) ready for the wedding.

We went early to the wedding, so I could put ribbons on the bouquets

and be available for any other quick jobs.

The wedding was short and sweet and beautiful

and then we enjoyed visiting with friends at the reception.

Knowing the value of friends who stay to help clean up,

we did just that.

We were recently gifted with a (ridiculously generous) Sonic gift card,

so that's what we had for dinner before coming home for another early bedtime.

Not much had been done to the house since Brandon and the kiddos picked things up Thursday afternoon

so it was an absolute wreck when Tyler and Brandon left for church Sunday morning.

By the time the kids and I left the house 1 1/2 hours later,

it was still a wreck, but the boys got their bedroom cleaned 

and we got the living room picked up.

Tyler ran to Sam's after church

and the kids and I quickly blitzed the house,

so that by the time he arrived home,

it was pretty well picked up

so we could be lazy rest in the afternoon

before Kacy (Tony was working) came to spend the evening with us.

And now, it's time for me to be thinking about what all this week holds for us...

why we don't have many photos of me

I mean, besides the fact that I despise seeing myself...

Tyler

 is not very good behind the camera

and I

am absolutely horrible

in front of it.

But we had a nice date anyways :-)

Thanks, Brandon for watching the kids!

and thanks, Love, for taking me out.

(no- taking pictures wasn't our date; Tyler was taking me to dinner
(our first date since Tony got married - besides our anniversary, of course)

 and since I hadn't taken any pictures yet of the completed shirt, 2nd take bolero, or my skirt yet, and I was wearing them,

 well, it made sense to try to get a photo or two... Plus, I was wearing my shoes ;-)

fabric wondering

When Tyler gave me the day off (was that only 1 1/2 weeks ago?!)

I sewed pretty much all day.

I knew I wanted a skirt from one of the Alabama Chanin books,

but I wasn't sure which one.

I decided to go with the one from the 3rd book -

since the front and back pieces were a bit different, I thought the fit would be better.
(the skirt in book 1 uses 4 of the same pattern piece.
And I didn't really want 6 panels, which is what the skirt in book 2 has, plus, that's a fuller skirt...)

I expected I'd need to make a couple of muslins, since I am

a) difficult to fit

and 

b) notoriously picky about fit 

but I figured I could knock out a muslin in no time.

(I wouldn't be adding the elastic waist, so we're talking 4 seams...)

I thought I wouldn't like a seam up the front, but copied the pattern exactly for my first time.

Really.

Why are you rolling your eyes like that?!

I really did make it exactly, exactly like the pattern.

I was right ~ I didn't like that center front seam,

so the first thing I did was change the front pattern piece to one cut on the fold.

I also had to reduce the waist, which is no surprise,

seeing that my rear is even more ample than my waist...

After trying on each muslin,

I'd wear it

while I made the next one, after tweaking the pattern.

These skirts are so comfy!

(I was using an old jersey sheet passed down from my best sewing buddy)

I kept saying, "This is so comfortable ~ it feels like I'm wearing nothing."

To which Tyler would reply with stars in his eyes, "You practically are!"

Turns out the man does like me in skirts after all,

a fact I discovered on our anniversary - thus the whole skirt making in the first place.

I'd always assumed he didn't like me in skirts,

because he never said anything, on the rare occasion that I wore one.

He doesn't like me in long skirts.

Glad we got that all figured out.

After some googling,

(and adding fitting books to my wish list...)

I ended up deciding that I needed to make a full rear adjustment,

not just take in the waist.

So I made, what I think was, a full rear adjustment

and I also lowered the front a smidge at the waist

The 3rd muslin fit well enough, that I made my final pattern adjustments

(took another tiny bit off the waist, lowered the front waist a smidge more, and added about 2 cm to the back length) 

and moved on to the 'good' fabric, without making another muslin.

(Each muslin took longer than I'd expected. Shocking, I know.)

I sewed up the skirt on the machine, but hand-sewed the hem,

which I did using binding strips and the cretan stitch.

Love it!

I also finished up my gray shirt that evening

and wore it to church the next day (with a sweater since it was freezing...)

At lunch,

Tyler told me he wanted me to keep sewing for myself,

'til I had an entire wardrobe,

and that I'd just need to re-figure patterns as I lose weight

and sew more....

Which leads me to the what I sat down to write about in the first place.

Fabric.

Specifically, knit fabric.

How the heck do you tell how a fabric is going to wear over time?

It's not such a huge deal right now;

I'm not going to make anything terribly involved until I lose more weight

(meaning what I am making now won't fit me for years, so it doesn't have to be top quality)

but if I'm going to spend hours and hours (and more hours)

making a garment,

I'd like to know that the fabric is worth the time, that it won't start pilling in 3 months,

that I'll be able to wear it 'til I'm tired of it, not 'til its tired.

I don't have a single shirt in my closet that isn't showing signs of wear.

(except the few I've made recently, so they don't count...)

Now, admittedly, since I don't have a ton of clothes, I wear each piece more often than most people do,

but still, I don't think a shirt should be looking 'old' after being worn 2 seasons,

even if they average a wear a week (which my 'going' shirts don't...)

I can't help but notice also

that

my girls' shirts from The Children's Place look fabulous, 

even when they've gone through 2 (or more, for the thrifted ones) kids!

So what is it?

What do I need to look for to know that a fabric will stay nice looking?

(Adding to the difficulty ~ I have to purchase over the internet,

as very little knit fabric is available locally!)

One can assume that the more you spend, the better the quality,

but that isn't always going to be the case.

And frankly, I can't exactly afford to spend big money on fabric...

So my big question,

which I have been a researching, but haven't yet come to any conclusions,

is - how do I figure out what fabric to buy??

meet li'l Miss Liza

So, my sister called me when I was driving to A-Z

for the 3rd time in less than a week

buying stuff for the reception.

"Don't even think about it right now," she says, "wait 'til after the reception

and you'll still have a whole month to come up with one."

She needed a scarecrow for an auction to benefit the Children's Shelter in Benton County

She's on the board of directors,

and helped plan the craft show and scarecrow fundraiser,

but had no clue how she was going to come up with the scarecrow.

So,

she called me.

Like I'd say, "no" to that....

Tyler and I were going to have a friendly little competition,

and provide her with two scarecrows for the auction,

and see which one brought in the most money,

but he wimped out was too busy to make one.

Guess that makes me the winner :-)

Li'l Miss Liza is really such a sweetie, with a good heart 

and she's ready to go on to her new home.

Liza!

Not yet, Punkin; git back in this house!

Guess I'll need to explain to her that she gets to spend the night here for a few days first.

She's an adventurous one, that little Miss Liza ~ no scaredy in her!

just look

at what's starting to arrive in our mailbox :-)

catalogs!!!

one thing

I second guess myself as a mother all the time.

I feel like I fail more often than I get things right.

Yesterday, though, when I used the technique I'm going to tell you about in just a sec,

I realized, I've got this one thing down.

Now, I don't always remember to use it

and it doesn't always have positive results,

but much of the time, it works.

As a general rule, I try to answer affirmatively if possible.

For example,

yesterday, when Lexi was supposed to be going to sleep at naptime, she asked if I could read her a book.

I could have just said, "No." because, it wasn't time to read right then,

but instead, I said, "Maybe after nap I can read it to you."

To which she happily replied, "Okay." and rolled over. 

Basically, I was saying the same thing ~ there would be no book at the moment,

but I said it in a way that left her hopeful, rather than deflated.

Obviously, every question can't be answered with a 'yes',
but that doesn't mean it has to be answered with a 'NO" either.

An affirmative answer is one thing that works for me!

snippets of school

consider the source

I have this friend, Robbie, who has a huge gorgeous smile,

so when she sends me messages with :-))) 

I see her big beautiful smile.

When I write back, though,

and type in :-)))

all I can see is a double chin.

tha's some high quality H20

One of the benefits of aiming to drink a gallon of water a day

is

even when I fail,

I still drink at least 8 cups.

dinner is served

Tyler gave me the day off on Friday.

Originally the plan was for him to take the kids camping,

so I would really have been off,

but the weather was uncooperative,

so they stayed home.

But I still didn't  have to cook or clean.

Come dinner time, he was trying to decide what to make.

Whatever it was going to be, he'd have to go to the store since we had no chicken or beef in the house.

After he'd shot down a few of my suggestions,

I very patiently and sweetly told him,

"Why don't you just think of all the thing you know how to fix for dinner

and pick one?"

A few minutes later, he was heading out the door.

He hadn't yet washed up the lunch dishes,

and I felt bad that he was going to have to fix dinner in a messy kitchen,

so even though I was off, I cleaned the kitchen for him.

I was just about done when he walked in the door and hollered, "Dinner's ready."

He'd picked up Pizza Hut.

:-)

pet peeve

Can I just share a little something?

I try,

really, I try,

to be a positive person. 

It doesn't come naturally for me.

I know you're shocked, so I'll  just let that sink in a bit ;-)

I think 

lots

about posting my litany of pet peeves.

But I restrain myself, because it isn't really in keeping with the tone I want to have for this space,

you know, finding joy, and all.....

But.

There is one thing that I get annoyed with (even more than stupid drivers) on a daily basis.

Comment Verification.

I can't tell you how many times I've typed up a comment

and then said, forget it! when I discovered I was going to be forced decipher out of focus small text.

I realize that there are occasionally spam comments.

But out of the 2,487 comments on my blog,

only 3, maybe 4, have been spam.

(and they were easy and fast to delete)

Please, people, keep me from sinning

and turn off comment verification.

I thank you.

And my family thanks you.

for the record

Seriously.

This is a for-the-record post; for my records,

and will be of little interest to pretty much everyone

especially the 4 males who read here. 

Feel free to skip to the next post.

Really! 

*

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Go on, now!

*

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Okay.

We went back to see Dr Baker Sept 14th,

after having realized in June (or was it May?) that it was time to change up my hormone cream.

I'd been so pleased with the drastic improvement last time he changed it up,

actually wanting to live again and all,

that it hadn't occurred to me 

that we could change it up more, for better results.

Or maybe I thought of it, but was afraid that a change didn't necessarily mean an improvement,

and I definitely didn't want to back-track any. I'm not sure.

As Tyler put it,

before creams, there were only bad days.

And worse days.

There were no good days.

Good moments, but those were few and far between.

Now, there are good days, bad days, and only a few worse days every month.

But the worse days were getting more plentiful,

and so were the bad,

so it was time to go back.

I'm a little disappointed that the results aren't drastic since the new prescription arrived.

Last time, I noticed an improvement with one dose;

This time, nothing.

But

we had a yucky upper respiratory bug running through the house, and I had it,

so I reasoned that maybe, when I was better, I'd notice something?

But it ran its course, and I still didn't observe any earth-shattering improvement.

I realized last night, though, that there is some forward progress after all;

I'm on day 33 of my cycle

and I am civil.

I have been a functioning member of the household, and even society.

Which, actually is huge.

In the past, even in the good months, by day 26, I am a basket case.

I am ridiculously irritable (and I'm sure irritating, as well)

and most definitely can not interact with non-family members (I don't interact with family members so well, either).

Having to leave the house, even just to drop the boys off at TKD, is torture.

We won't even talk about mid-cycle madness; 

I'm not sure which is worse.

We also won't talk about skin issues, my pupils, or the bloating and weight gain that accompany these hell days.

Anyways, like I said, I'm on day 33 and I am civil.

Nice even, actually. (at least, I think...)

While I'm still not feeling the improvement I had hoped for,

I recognize that this really is quite huge.

And so, I'm grateful.

Now we need to figure out, do we wait a bit, and see how my body adjusts?

Or do we need to do more tweaking right away?

Or is it possible that I'll just never be quite right again??

(If all that was TMI - I apologize. But - I did warn you....)

blue. suede. shoes.

~ squeal ~

more Lexi

Lily and Lexi were playing 'friends'.

'Kayla' (Lily) knocked on the door and when 'Allah' (Lex') opened the door,

(I'm fairly certain no door has ever seen as much traffic as our front door)

Kayla asked to borrow eggs.

Allah ran off to the kitchen to get some.

She took so long, I was beginning to worry that she was getting real eggs, 

but no, when she came back through the living room, I couldn't see anything,

although, she was obviously carrying something pretend in each hand.

She carefully opened the door and handed the first item to Kayla, saying, "Here's an egg." 

Then she reached out her other hand, "And here is a chick."

(while writing this - the door has opened (and surprisingly, closed) no less than 8 9 times)

Lexi's reading lesson

I couldn't care less if my preschoolers learn to read

while they are still 'preschoolers'.

Tiger momma, I am not.

But.

The little ones like to do a bit of school, too.

Until they get bored and / or tired; then they want to quit.

I'm torn on that one.

Do I let them quit, because - I wasn't he one who ordered the work?

Or - do I make them finish, because they started,

and if I let them quit, even if I don't care if they finish, am I raising a quitter?

sigh.

anyways.

Lexi often insists on reading lessons

(meaning, if Lexi is aware that reading lessons have, or will, take place, she wants one!)

We repeat a lot of lessons.

Which I can get away with for several days in a row, until she reminds me that we need to move the bookmark.

Sometimes, I hide the bookmark, so she won't see it, and remember.

As I've done with kiddos in the past,

when the older sibling gets a new letter,

I add it to the younger sibling's flashcards, too, so that by the time they get to it in the book,

they are already familiar with it.

Somehow, not remembering the sound on a flashcard

 isn't as frustrating to them as drawing a blank when we're using the book.

(Speaking of - you should see it - such a wrinkled mess. Definitely our most-used school book.)

We added the letter 'c' the other day, with the soft sound.

Lexi said it as a 't' sound.

I said, "C (the sound), as in cat. Say Cat."
"Tat."

oh. 

machine quilting

As soon as I got Lily's quilt pin basted

(I am considering spray basting in the future - any thoughts??)

I made a doll sized quilt out of leftover squares to practice my quilting before starting on the real deal.

It was bad.

real bad.

The tension was totally messed up.

I'd not really had problems with tension and free-motion quilting, unless I 

a) was moving the quilt too fast 

or b) had the needle going too slow

so I reasoned that it must have something to do with having the timing fixed.

Maybe they screwed it up?

So, like I do when I get frustrated with something, I set the quilt aside.

But. it's getting cooler, and Lily will be needing her quilt soon.

Yesterday, I tried more sample quilting.

Same issue - major 'eyelashing' on the bottom.

I called the repair shop and asked, was it possible that fixing the timing messed with the tension.

They said they didn't really think so, but that I could bring it in and they'd look at it.

Mmhmm.

The shop is 20 minutes away and I wasn't going to town.

So I sat my booty back down in my sewing chair.

I finally discovered that by setting my tension high (but dropping it back down to move from one block to the next)

my problems were solved.

I have about an hour left of free-motion quilting a flower in each block, 

but haven't decided what, if anything, I am doing with the sashing.

Part of my want to hand-quilt the sashing,

and part of me wants to just finish already, and save the hand stitching for Alabama Chanin garments...

I finished The Next Thing On The List.

Like I said last week, it's not one to buy, but I think it's worth a borrow from the library

and if it gets made into a movie, I'd rent it.

Of course, if you are looking for a great book to borrow, check out These Is My Words.

Now that, is a great book!

I pulled two old Catherine Marshall books off my shelves this week.

Meeting God at Every Turn, I read years ago, and snapped it up when I found it at a yard sale recently,

and I bought Something More from the thrift shop for 10 cents awhile back, but hadn't yet read it.

I like Catherine's writing style; 

 her books speak to me - without hurting my brain ;-)

for more sewing and reading, visit