I am thankful for electricity.
What is something that you're thankful for?
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
4/21/15 - TEN ON TUESDAY
Dad - My dad came for a visit a few weeks ago and we took him with us to OMSI for several hours. He hadn't been there since they were located at the current Portland Children's Museum. He did a few blog posts about his visit, each with a bunch of pictures - an awesome surprise he gave us, dinner at Abby's, and a day at OMSI.
Fishing - Joel has taken Tim and the bigs out fishing a couple of times recently and they caught a salmon on Saturday. Half of it went in the freezer, but we've tweaked our menu for the week accordingly and will be scarfing some of it for dinner tonight.
Friends - Someone recently asked on our homeschooling group Facebook page if they could come without being judged. The following was my response.
As for being judged ... well, that's the first time I've ever been asked that. I don't think any group of people see themselves as judgmental, but I've never heard anyone complain that we are. Of course, those types of complaints usually happen to other people, not actually to the ones who have hurt someone, so .... I don't know.
What I *do* know is that we're all doing life and homeschooling a little differently from each other, but still have lots in common. We've gained insight into other perspectives as we've all shared our experiences, but we're fine with agreeing to disagree or to simply not understand. The introverts and extroverts are both comfortable, the newbies and the veterans get along, we help each other out when life is hard ... and we laugh a lot.
Typing that out made me smile because I'm so thankful for our little group, both the individuals in it and the group as a whole.
Lids - Devon cleared up some shelf space for me by hanging these lids on the wall and door of the cabinet. The door one will need to be moved or get a different nail to hang from because it wasn't secure enough to handle having the door opened and closed multiple times a day, but I'm really enjoying having the lids off the shelf.
Mowing - This is a sight usually only seen when I'm eight months pregnant and simply can't mow the lawn anymore without painful repercussions, but Tim offered to take care of it the other day after replacing a spark plug on the lawnmower. He did the "lawning", as Teebs calls it, while I took care of a bunch of other stuff.
Recital - I completely forgot to post about this last month! Oops. Silas has been taking piano lessons for a little over a year and his teacher had a casual recital in her home in early March. It was a fun evening spent listening to her students play some songs and visiting with the other families once the kids were done.
Roses - First one of the year!
Science fair - The little Ws recently had an opportunity to participate in their first science fair. All three bigs enjoy science and are constantly doing various experiments, but I left participation up to them. Naomi opted out, Devon decided about five minutes before we walked out the door to do a quick demonstration, and Silas spent a few days preparing for a presentation on the nervous system, often getting Teebs involved in the work. Silas had taught a class on body systems a month earlier and hadn't had enough time to cover the nervous system, so the science fair ended up being an extension of the class he'd taught. We all enjoyed eating soup and bread with the other families who were there, then listening as each of the eleven participants shared their contribution with the audience.
Weather - I love the mixture of weather we get this time of year. A week of sunshine and temps in the mid-high 70s with shorts, tank tops, hanging out at the park with friends, and doing school while sprawled on the lawn. A week of grey skies and rain in the 50s and 60s with hoodies, slippers, curling up in a blanket to watch a movie, lighting candles, and eating soup.
Yard - We love our home and yard, but there aren't many options for places to have a garden. The place with the best sun is a narrow walkway on one side of our house and the previous owners planted tomatoes there. It's not ideal, but we're copying them this year, along with doing another run of peas like we did last year.
We also moved things around on the other side of our house. The compost used to be along the fence to the left of the tree with the rails lined in front like a wall. I moved them to the other side of the corner, making two distinctly different piles, moved an azalea that needed more sun to the old compost area, and planted some bulbs. That side of the yard is a work in progress and looks pretty ugly right now, but I think we're finally figuring out how we want to use the space.
Friends - Someone recently asked on our homeschooling group Facebook page if they could come without being judged. The following was my response.
As for being judged ... well, that's the first time I've ever been asked that. I don't think any group of people see themselves as judgmental, but I've never heard anyone complain that we are. Of course, those types of complaints usually happen to other people, not actually to the ones who have hurt someone, so .... I don't know.
What I *do* know is that we're all doing life and homeschooling a little differently from each other, but still have lots in common. We've gained insight into other perspectives as we've all shared our experiences, but we're fine with agreeing to disagree or to simply not understand. The introverts and extroverts are both comfortable, the newbies and the veterans get along, we help each other out when life is hard ... and we laugh a lot.
Typing that out made me smile because I'm so thankful for our little group, both the individuals in it and the group as a whole.
Lids - Devon cleared up some shelf space for me by hanging these lids on the wall and door of the cabinet. The door one will need to be moved or get a different nail to hang from because it wasn't secure enough to handle having the door opened and closed multiple times a day, but I'm really enjoying having the lids off the shelf.
Mowing - This is a sight usually only seen when I'm eight months pregnant and simply can't mow the lawn anymore without painful repercussions, but Tim offered to take care of it the other day after replacing a spark plug on the lawnmower. He did the "lawning", as Teebs calls it, while I took care of a bunch of other stuff.
Recital - I completely forgot to post about this last month! Oops. Silas has been taking piano lessons for a little over a year and his teacher had a casual recital in her home in early March. It was a fun evening spent listening to her students play some songs and visiting with the other families once the kids were done.
Roses - First one of the year!
Science fair - The little Ws recently had an opportunity to participate in their first science fair. All three bigs enjoy science and are constantly doing various experiments, but I left participation up to them. Naomi opted out, Devon decided about five minutes before we walked out the door to do a quick demonstration, and Silas spent a few days preparing for a presentation on the nervous system, often getting Teebs involved in the work. Silas had taught a class on body systems a month earlier and hadn't had enough time to cover the nervous system, so the science fair ended up being an extension of the class he'd taught. We all enjoyed eating soup and bread with the other families who were there, then listening as each of the eleven participants shared their contribution with the audience.
Weather - I love the mixture of weather we get this time of year. A week of sunshine and temps in the mid-high 70s with shorts, tank tops, hanging out at the park with friends, and doing school while sprawled on the lawn. A week of grey skies and rain in the 50s and 60s with hoodies, slippers, curling up in a blanket to watch a movie, lighting candles, and eating soup.
Yard - We love our home and yard, but there aren't many options for places to have a garden. The place with the best sun is a narrow walkway on one side of our house and the previous owners planted tomatoes there. It's not ideal, but we're copying them this year, along with doing another run of peas like we did last year.
We also moved things around on the other side of our house. The compost used to be along the fence to the left of the tree with the rails lined in front like a wall. I moved them to the other side of the corner, making two distinctly different piles, moved an azalea that needed more sun to the old compost area, and planted some bulbs. That side of the yard is a work in progress and looks pretty ugly right now, but I think we're finally figuring out how we want to use the space.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
ILLUSTRATED SPELLING TESTS
This is from last year, a spelling test I saved because it represents most of the ones Devon has done over the years. I love it.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
MENU: 4/16/15 - 4/22/15
I have another menu up at Frugal Living NW this week. It's completely different from this one, so feel free to check it out. Those ladies want menus from their readers, so I encourage some of you to send one in. You can scroll through some of their past menus to get a feel for the variety of ways they and their readers feed their families.
I didn't have any new recipes on last week's menu, but I did end up making a few new things. One was planned, as it was an ingredient I needed it for an old recipe, but the rest were pretty spontaneous.
* egg & sweet potato scramble - We were out of russets, but did have a sweet potato, so we changed up our usual egg & potato scramble combo for breakfast one day. We added some garlic and onion powders, seasoned salt, and pepper to the mix and it was great!
* hummus - I love hummus and have tried several recipes to make my own, but none of them have been very good. I'd given up a long time ago, but Heidi recently posted something on Facebook about making her own. I tried the recipe she used and loved it. It's good as is, but easy to tweak if the mood strikes.
* Italian sausage mix - I knew I'd be making this because I had to turn the plain sausage in my freezer into Italian sausage for the upside-down pizza I had on the menu. It was tasty and I don't anticipate buying Italian sausage again.
* red lentil & veggie soup - This was a totally spontaneous creation that I came up with when I wanted something warm for lunch one day and raided the kitchen for various ingredients.
Now that the new stuff is out of the way, here is what we have planned for the next seven days.
ADVANCED COOKING (These aren't always planned, so they'll often be things I did the previous week.)
* I made a big batch of garbanzos in the crockpot last week, using two cups for the hummus recipe and freezing the rest in four cup portions in quart-sized freezer bags.
* I'll cook and freeze some bacon for a future meal.
* I'll make peanut butter and crockpot beans, just like I do once or twice every week.
BREAKFASTS
* yogurt/new recipe
* doughnuts at church
* oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, milk, homemade peanut butter, maple almond butter, raisins, dried cranberries, fresh or frozen fruit, huh-koe-pee milk, and/or energy mix as optional toppings x5
DINNERS
* rice, kale, & eggs (chopped garden kale from the freezer)
* sweet potato & chipotle soup (from the freezer)/toast (We skipped this last week because we ate soup and bread at a science fair some little Ws took part in.)
* Jen's chicken (crockpot, raw in in marinade from the freezer/rice/roasted broccoli
* lentils & rice
* new recipe/broccoli pesto (from the freezer) with pasta
* tacos - seasoned meat from the freezer, crockpot beans, and some other toppings served in a tortilla or bowl, as a salad over a pile of greens, or with mound of rice
SNACKS & DESSERTS
* lemon bars
* produce
* Crunchy Flax cereal (We've scored a few cases of 12 for $4.99 at a local discount store over the last few months, so we've been using it as a snack. We either eat it with milk as a cold cereal, over yogurt with fruit, or mixed into homemade granola.)
I didn't have any new recipes on last week's menu, but I did end up making a few new things. One was planned, as it was an ingredient I needed it for an old recipe, but the rest were pretty spontaneous.
* egg & sweet potato scramble - We were out of russets, but did have a sweet potato, so we changed up our usual egg & potato scramble combo for breakfast one day. We added some garlic and onion powders, seasoned salt, and pepper to the mix and it was great!
* hummus - I love hummus and have tried several recipes to make my own, but none of them have been very good. I'd given up a long time ago, but Heidi recently posted something on Facebook about making her own. I tried the recipe she used and loved it. It's good as is, but easy to tweak if the mood strikes.
* Italian sausage mix - I knew I'd be making this because I had to turn the plain sausage in my freezer into Italian sausage for the upside-down pizza I had on the menu. It was tasty and I don't anticipate buying Italian sausage again.
* red lentil & veggie soup - This was a totally spontaneous creation that I came up with when I wanted something warm for lunch one day and raided the kitchen for various ingredients.
Now that the new stuff is out of the way, here is what we have planned for the next seven days.
ADVANCED COOKING (These aren't always planned, so they'll often be things I did the previous week.)
* I made a big batch of garbanzos in the crockpot last week, using two cups for the hummus recipe and freezing the rest in four cup portions in quart-sized freezer bags.
* I'll cook and freeze some bacon for a future meal.
* I'll make peanut butter and crockpot beans, just like I do once or twice every week.
BREAKFASTS
* yogurt/new recipe
* doughnuts at church
* oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, milk, homemade peanut butter, maple almond butter, raisins, dried cranberries, fresh or frozen fruit, huh-koe-pee milk, and/or energy mix as optional toppings x5
* rice, kale, & eggs (chopped garden kale from the freezer)
* sweet potato & chipotle soup (from the freezer)/toast (We skipped this last week because we ate soup and bread at a science fair some little Ws took part in.)
* Jen's chicken (crockpot, raw in in marinade from the freezer/rice/roasted broccoli
* lentils & rice
* new recipe/broccoli pesto (from the freezer) with pasta
* tacos - seasoned meat from the freezer, crockpot beans, and some other toppings served in a tortilla or bowl, as a salad over a pile of greens, or with mound of rice
* leftovers
SNACKS & DESSERTS
* lemon bars
* produce
* Crunchy Flax cereal (We've scored a few cases of 12 for $4.99 at a local discount store over the last few months, so we've been using it as a snack. We either eat it with milk as a cold cereal, over yogurt with fruit, or mixed into homemade granola.)
* popcorn with seasoned salt (kernels from the WinCo bulk department that get popped in my Lodge Dutch oven, but you can see my thoughts on both the wonderful Dutch oven and the fantastic West Bend Stir Crazy in this post. )
** This post contains affiliate links and we're grateful when people use them. **
4/16/15 - THANKFUL THURSDAY
I'm thankful for blue skies and leisurely mornings.
What is something that you are thankful for?
What is something that you are thankful for?
Monday, April 13, 2015
4/13/15 - WORTH REPEATING
********
Life is too short and there are too many real tragedies in life to be offended by a friendly cliche from a stranger!
~ Mandi Ehman in Why, yes, we DO have our hands full! at Life Your Way
********
I don't pick my friends based on whether they do things like I do but whether I like them as actual people.
~ Hannah in Clean and Dirty at Praying With One Eye Open
********
I propose that pride and shame go hand in hand. If we do not let our children feel their failures in a personal way, if we continually shield them from it, then we keep them from feeling the personal responsibility they bear. How then will they recognize the personal responsibility they also have in their successes? How can they feel pride in what they have done, if there is no connection between actions and consequences? Give them the gift of personal responsibility, so that they will feel the exhilaration of making something of themselves, of self motivation, of living on this earth with a purpose and a goal.
~ Sammy Lackner
********
Our results will not change until our habits change.
~ The Mighty Macs
********
Rejection is a part of life, and the key is to honor his disappointment without overindulging it.
~ Elizabeth Lombardo, Ph.D in The Good Kid Project: Dealing with Rejection, Better Homes and Gardens - March 2015
********
Life is too short and there are too many real tragedies in life to be offended by a friendly cliche from a stranger!
~ Mandi Ehman in Why, yes, we DO have our hands full! at Life Your Way
********
I don't pick my friends based on whether they do things like I do but whether I like them as actual people.
~ Hannah in Clean and Dirty at Praying With One Eye Open
********
I propose that pride and shame go hand in hand. If we do not let our children feel their failures in a personal way, if we continually shield them from it, then we keep them from feeling the personal responsibility they bear. How then will they recognize the personal responsibility they also have in their successes? How can they feel pride in what they have done, if there is no connection between actions and consequences? Give them the gift of personal responsibility, so that they will feel the exhilaration of making something of themselves, of self motivation, of living on this earth with a purpose and a goal.
~ Sammy Lackner
********
Our results will not change until our habits change.
~ The Mighty Macs
********
Rejection is a part of life, and the key is to honor his disappointment without overindulging it.
~ Elizabeth Lombardo, Ph.D in The Good Kid Project: Dealing with Rejection, Better Homes and Gardens - March 2015
********
** This post contains affiliate links and I'm grateful when people use them. **
Saturday, April 11, 2015
THE JOB HUNT CONTINUES
I've typed and deleted this post a few times in the last hour, wondering what details to share. I want to keep people in the loop, as we frequently get asked for updates and are so appreciative of people keeping their eyes and ears open for possibilities, but I don't want to share details that don't need to be up for public consumption. Here's the nutshell.
* We're coming up on the three year mark of Tim not having a job. The first year was insanely hard for a variety of reasons, the last two have been much better.
* Tim works full-time, his calendar is filled with subbing jobs weeks in advance, and he has to turn down jobs all the time. I'm thankful that he's in a field where he can work full-time without actually having a job.
* We haven't wondered how the bills are going to get paid in a really, really long time. While we're not taking exotic vacations or anything, all of our needs are met and we actually have some breathing room in our monthly budget since we made our last school debt payment. We've never had one late or missed payment in the entire time he's been without a regular job.
* There have been a handful of opportunities that have presented themselves within the last year, all very different from each other and each with some major pros and cons, but none of them have worked out. Sometimes that was exactly what I was praying for, other times not.
* People sometimes ask if he'd consider jobs out of the education field. There are pros and cons to a complete career change, but it's something we're open to and will probably give greater consideration to if he doesn't land a job for the 2015-16 school year.
* None of us want to move. Tim and I are in agreement that Woodburn has been and continues to be a good place for our family. Sometimes it's hard to know whether or not to apply for jobs outside of the area, especially since we can live off of a subbing income and summer jobs here.
* I know exactly what kind of job I'd like Tim to get and where I'd like him to get it, but I also want to be content no matter how things play out. What if subbing is what Tim has to do for the rest of his life? What if our family has to be uprooted when none of us want to be? Will I be content with that or will I wallow in frustration and self-pity? I can't choose my circumstances, but I can choose my attitude. Sometimes that's way easier said than done, but I want to choose wisely.
* Hiring season is underway for next year. It's limbo, a time that triggers a range of emotions for me - excitement and apathy, discouragement and hope, resentment and contentment. I could use prayers on that front, as seemingly small things can send me into a tailspin of bad attitudes and behavior.
I guess that's a little bigger than a nutshell. Oops.
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