Fun - The little Ws are really looking forward to the end of this week! We're all heading to
Bauman's with our homeschooling group on Thursday. Devon and Naomi will be participants and Silas will be helping at our church's annual Maze Craze for grade schoolers all day Friday, an event they all look forward to each year. Silas will be attending a dodgeball event with other middle schoolers from church on Saturday. So much fun! I'm incredibly thankful for the generosity of those who have made those outings possible.
Humor - I think the following posts are so funny because sometimes it's hard to see how ridiculous the things we say are until we reverse roles or see someone else saying what we say. First up is
When Suits Become a Stumbling Block: A Plea to My Brothers in Christ. The arguments that people make for why women should or should not wear certain clothing sound pretty silly in the context of women who find certain clothing on men to be very attractive. Next up is
If Asians Said the Stuff White People Say. It's a comical look at how ridiculous the stereotypes we make about entire people groups are, taking the things white people often say to Asians and flipping them so that the opposite thing is said to white people or highlighting specific stereotypes.The last one is
Weird Things All Couples Fight About. Tim and I may or may not have been able to relate to some of them, We'll never tell. All of us laughed our way through it multiple times, though the one we saw was edited and had the bad word at :32 beeped over. I can't remember where I found that one, so just skip over those two seconds on this one if you want to.
Pumpkins - A friend offered up pumpkins from her garden to a group I'm part of, so we picked some up on our way home from church one day. I ended up with ten quarts and seven pints of pumpkin puree in the freezer, plus about seven cups of roasted pumpkin seeds. Yum!
Words - Teebs says a few things that are cute. Hot air balloons are "hot balloons". He was given a paper bat from a Halloween display by a librarian who said something about how it flies around like a bird. He loves baseball, so he's been calling the animal type of bat a "baseball bat bird". He combines two different hoops when describing a basketball hoop, calling it a "basketball hula hoop".
Yogurt - I haven't bought flavored/fruited yogurt in at least ten years and never buy yogurt in individual servings, but there was a free 6 oz. container of yogurt on my account when I went to Safeway a few weeks ago, so I got it. Keep in mind that we've all been almost dairy-free since Teebs quit eating dairy. I miss dairy products a lot! We've started a little bit of experimenting to see exactly what he can and can't handle, but in the meantime there's been a serious lack of yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheddar around here. That free carton of yogurt was a sweet indulgence, a little bit of dairy bliss that was inhaled by yours truly in my kitchen while the kids were outside,
Seeds - I harvested some seeds while I was working in our yard a few days ago and am going to try planting them next year. I have hollyhocks, black-eyed Susans, and Shasta daisies. We'll see how it goes!
Running - I asked for some running advice on Facebook a couple weeks ago because I was really struggling with running the same distance Devon and I had done before taking August off, which was three miles. I'd also started
Couch to 5K with Naomi in September, but the amount of running in the beginning of the program is minimal and I didn't think it was a big deal to add it to my days. I described all the problems I was having and the consensus was that I was doing too much too soon after taking a month off and needed to slow down, give myself some walking breaks, bring water, and delegate a run or two out to Tim each week.
What I ended up doing was slowing down (I wasn't fast to begin with, but I'm slower now), giving myself a 20 step walking break at the end of each mile with Devon (I'd passed the point of needing breaks in July and it's always a bummer to regress, but I did it anyway), and taking water (less than a cup in a water bottle and I take a sip every 1/2 - 1 mile, probably less than a quarter cup consumed during a run, but it's been helpful). I didn't delegate any runs to Tim, as I really want to run with Devon and Naomi, but I restructured our running schedule so that I'm never doing double runs. The trade-off is that I'm running six days a week, but I did two weeks like that and it worked well. Over this last weekend I dropped from two breaks, one at the end of each mile, to one break at the halfway point. I'll do that for a couple weeks and then drop the break completely. We may restructure again once Naomi reaches the three mile point, but we'll see. Meanwhile, the combination of cooler temps lately and the changes we made mean I no longer feel like I'm dying when I run. Progress!
Breakfast - A couple of Fridays ago Silas asked if he could make breakfast the next morning. We agreed, but that's not an unusual thing for him to do. However, the next morning Tim and I were banished to our room, along with a squirrely little boy who kept getting in the way of the kids who were cooking, while Silas and Naomi made breakfast. They served Tim and I in bed, then all the kids ate at the table. The picture of us isn't great and the one of the food doesn't do it justice, but that's fine. It's the thought that counts.
Scrambled eggs with cheddar and pancakes served with whipped cream and strawberries. They used a new pancake recipe and decided to toss some coconut in it. So good!!
Studio C - A girl from our homeschooling group recently told Silas about
Studio C, a bunch of short comedy videos on Youtube, and the little Ws have been laughing their way through them ever since ... and so have the big Ws from time to time. They're put out by BYU, which means I don't have to wonder if they'll have things that are inappropriate for the kids to be watching. Love that!
Fall - Frugal Living NW puts out a
great list of fall activities (pumpkin patches, fairs, and so on) all over Western Oregon and SW Washington, The list is broken down into geographical area, which makes it pretty easy to find out what's in your neck of the woods. There are also links to activities in the Puget Sound area, Eastern Washington, and both Central and Eastern Oregon.
