2009 June

Bad guy in our neighborhood: The Mailbox Marauder

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 16, 2009 By kimc

It’s official. We have a bad guy in our neighborhood. Our boy knew it all along, because he has sword fights and gunfights daily, but I don’t think he knew who he was fighting.

It’s the Mailbox Marauder.

We have missed quite a few packages lately and should have been suspicious, but I just assumed the mail was slow or we were suffering 6 years’ worth of lost mail all at once. I never thought about how vulnerable rural rows of mailboxes can be, just lined up in the middle of nowhere, out of sight for any local residents.

Finally my mom, whose mailbox is half a mile away from her house in the same row as ours, missed an expensive package. She made some calls and confirmed that it had been not just shipped, but delivered. That’s when the post office confirmed it. We have thieves, Mailbox Marauders, actively stealing residents’ mail.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

The MM empties all the boxes, and everybody wonders why they didn’t have a scrap of mail that day. He keeps the valuables and ditches the rest. One time somebody even found the cast off mail by the side of the road and returned it to the post office so that it could be re-delivered.

Now we’re left wondering what has been stolen from us. Birthday gifts? Affiliate checks? Paperback Swap books? Bills?

On the bright side, maybe I’m not as forgetful as I thought. Maybe the bill and the late notice never arrived, and it’s really not my fault that I forgot to pay the electric bill. Again.

Filed Under: gone awry 20 Comments

Happy birthday, Sarah.

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 14, 2009 By kimc

Happy birthday, Sarah. It’s been 6 years since you were born into glory.

Your birthdays aren’t sad days for me, but they are thoughtful days. My quiet thoughts have been drifting toward you for the past weeks leading up to today.

You were the only child we named before birth, because you were the only one whose gender we knew ahead of time. We decided to name you Sarah – princess - because it was a favorite name of all your sisters. When they played dress-up and pretended to be princesses, one of them was always named Sarah.

I wonder what you would look like if you were here with us today.

I wish I had taken some photos of you when you were born.

I’m glad my mom asked to hold you when I was unsure at first whether I should hold you.

I wish I had let the ultrasound technician try a little longer before I said that was good enough, because the one photo I have of you at 20 weeks gestation really doesn’t show much.

Mostly I just look forward to meeting you again someday.

Happy birthday, sweet princess.

Kim, mother of 10 children with names, and 2 more without.

Filed Under: birthdays/holidays, thoughtful stuff 20 Comments

Boys are different than girls. Duh.

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 12, 2009 By kimc

A few days ago, The Boy asked his sister to help him change his shirt. He had peed on it.

“How did you pee your shirt?!” she exclaimed.

“It just went up and down, up and down.” He paused, and frowned at her.

“Why are you laughing? I’m not telling a joke.”

*****************

And while we’re on the subject…

He likes to pee off the deck. We live in the country, so this is fine if he’s careful to do it out of sight of girls and make sure he’s all clear below.

Recently Megan was outside and saw a stream coming off the deck. She didn’t quite realize what it was until her eye tracked it back to its source. Then she laughed out loud.

She heard an insulted voice from above. “What are you laughing at? It’s just my pen**.”

Filed Under: Boys, gone awry 15 Comments

Our 7 year stupid tax

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 11, 2009 By kimc

Yesterday hubby announced a big sale on our Geneva Bible Pages. He told you that we had accidentally double ordered and were trying to move inventory quickly.

That’s true, but it’s only part of the story.

That double order was placed back near the beginning of the year. We’ve planned on having a big sale to move the pages for months, but the timing is a whole different story. We’re trying to come up with lots of cash very quickly. Now that we think we know the ending of this story, it seems like a good time to tell what led up to this.

Seven years ago we lived in Ohio. We had 6 young children and lived far from family. Our church had dissolved in a very ugly dispute between the elders and we were drifting. We wanted desperately to be near family, preferably in San Antonio, but job leads simply weren’t working out. We owned a nice little house in a nice little town, but aspired to something more. Since God didn’t seem to want us to move at the time, we decided to begin building a dynasty of rental homes. [cue mad-scientist-about-to-take-over-the-world laughter]. We rented out our house and bought a triplex, moving into the 1st story and renting out the 2 small upstairs apartments.

It seemed like a great idea at the time, and we were ecstatic. We bought the house at 30% less than the recently appraised value. The triplex was old, but beautiful and gloriously huge, with 5 bathrooms in all and a wrap-around brick porch. We had very little trouble keeping the upstairs apartments rented and they covered the payment, enabling us to live rent-free. We dreamed of creating a 4th apartment in the basement since there was even a bathroom down there, and maybe renting out the detached garage for extra income.

Then God brought us to San Antonio. It was swift and unmistakable. We put both houses on the market and left town.

We were able to sell the first house with relatively little trouble, but the triplex was harder. We paid a friend to manage it for us. At first we managed to keep it fully occupied, but over the years the economy in that little town began to suffer, and people left. After a couple of years the house stood empty, and still we made payments. We hired old friends to mow the lawn when we received threatening letters from the city. Things were tight for us, but God enabled us to make ends meet even while making house payments both in Texas and Ohio.

We have been in Texas making payments on a house in Ohio for the past 6 years. This is what Dave Ramsey calls “stupid tax.“ Here’s a friendly tip: Don’t buy what you can’t afford. If you have to borrow money, just wait. If you want to go into business, pick one you can start without debt. Real estate was a bad choice for us on many levels. We have seen the error of our ways and repented.

For the last 2 years, the triplex has been on the market for less than half of what we paid with very few showings and no offers. We finally found a buyer at even less than that, and have spent the last 2 months praying for and working toward a short sale – one in which the bank agrees to allow us to sell the house for less than we owe and forgives a portion of the deficit.

There was great rejoicing when we finally learned last week that our request for a short sale was approved! The bank has agreed to forgive 60% of the deficit if we can come up with the other 40% at closing.

And so…

We are scrambling for cash. We have some emergency savings. We have some other savings. Our children are happy to lend their savings to the cause. We have a bit of money in Paypal. We are expecting a litter of registered pups in a couple of months. We have learned that we can borrow if we must, but we really want to get out of debt rather than taking on new debts.

And we are running a big sale and cash/prize giveaway on our Geneva Bible Pages.

That’s why. We think our 400 year old Bible pages are pretty incredible, but even if you don’t order from us, would you please consider blogging our sale and/or giveaway?

Filed Under: blogging & technology, giveaways & deals, gone awry 9 Comments

Big Giveaway

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 10, 2009 By Perry C.

This one isn’t a Vision Forum giveaway, it’s a GenevaBiblepages.com giveaway, and we need your help.

The Skinny:

We over ordered – double actually – our stock, but instead of sending it back we decided to keep it and put our inventory on sale. We are running a 40% off sale over at Geneva Bible Pages. We’ve even created a special Family Bundle at 50% off!

What you can do:

Blog, Twitter, Facebook,Digg, do whatever it takes to help us get the word out about this sale. We need to move this inventory fast – like in the next 2 weeks and we are prepared to make it worth your time to help us.

What’s in it for you? Besides a great deal on a really cool gift, that is.

There’s also 400 bucks - well up to 400 dollars retail in products from GenevaBiblePages.com.

Blog about our sale and giveaway (or facebook or twitter) and then come back here and leave a comment with a link to your efforts. We will take entries until midnight June 17, then we will select a winner to pick up to 4 individual items from GenevaBiblePages.com absolutely free. Our most expensive item sells for $94.99 each so that’s practically 400 dollars in retail.

But wait! There’s more! (Now where have I heard that before? )

I will actually let the winner choose 200 dollars cash instead of up to 400 dollars in merchandise if they prefer. Would you choose filthy lucre instead of a set of framed 400 year old Bible pages?

As always shipping is entirely free on GenevaBiblePages.com free Big Giveaway

Filed Under: Bible, blogging & technology, giveaways & deals

New exclusive swag code

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 9, 2009 By kimc

If you still haven’t joined Swagbucks, here’s one more chance to start off with a bang: a special exclusive code just for my readers. Instead of the usual 3 Swagbucks, when you use this code at sign-up you’ll get 6!

6 Swagbuck code: FRUGALMOMMYCODE (case sensitive)
expires 6/16/09 at 11:59pm PST

More good stuff coming up from Swagbucks:

Swagbucks will be running a number of “Swag Code” hunts on their Facebook, Blog and Twitter pages. If you don’t follow these, consider doing so. Some people get a little obsessive about the whole thing which is amusing in its own right, but it can also be a fun way to add to your Swag stash.
Coupons and Swagbucks when you shop at your favorite stores through Swagbucks. Their stores include many that we already shop at, like Tiger Direct, Buy.com, NewEgg, Office Depot, WalMart, Vista Print, and many more. Oh, and Zoobooks! I don’t know why it’s on the list, but it’s a wonderful children’s nature magazine written from a Christian perspective.
Swag Bucks Widget: The ultimate referral / promotional tool. The widget will be 300px by 301px, and will feature a search box, prize images, swag code alerts, and a referral tab. The widget allows you to generate referrals through the registration tab, and through those who do a search & win through the widget on your page. The widget is simple html code that you copy and paste on your blog or social network profile. I think this is a great idea, and can’t wait to get mine!

Have you tried Swagbucks yet? Do you love it like we do? What’s on your wishlist? We can’t wait to earn our free serger from Amazon!

Filed Under: blogging & technology 3 Comments

I am a bad person

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 8, 2009 By kimc

Please tell me you’ve done the same thing I did today:

I was shooing the dog – the helpless little dog – the very expensive dog that the girls pooled their savings to buy and breed – up the hill toward the house, away from the chickens she was harassing. She stopped after about 50 feet and stood there watching me, refusing to go farther. What did I do? I tossed a rock toward her to get her moving again. I said toward her, not at her. Anyway, I throw like a girl, and this rock was very nearly the size of a tennis ball. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I watched in growing horror as the rock sailed up through the air, then descended straight toward her. And it hit her. In the head. She didn’t even see it coming. I wasn’t trying to hit her, but she might have been safer if I had.

The poor little thing yelped and dropped to her belly, all of 2 inches lower. Overcome with sudden guilt, I watched from 50 feet away as she scooted around in circles and then straight into the nearest yucca plant. I wondered if I had crushed the side of her head. Was she blinded? Dazed? Brain damaged?

I hurried to her and to my great relief she was only scared, trying to hide from the next meteorite. The sky was falling, after all. I soothed her and checked her for signs of injury, but she was fine. And when I gently suggested that she get on up to the house, she didn’t dawdle.

You don’t need to tell me that there are better ways to break a dog of dawdling. Trust me, I know.

Filed Under: gone awry 14 Comments

Bethany gets around

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 7, 2009 By kimc

Did you ever see anything as funny as the way my kids crawl? First there was The Boy: my uncle said he looked like an injured soldier dragging one leg behind, but he sure got around. Now it’s Bethie-babe, scootching around on her bottom with both hands free. She can even rise to a standing position without using her hands to pull herself up.

She’s going to have some mean muscle tone in her legs by the time she starts walking! Maybe the rest of us should try her technique for a few minutes every day.

Filed Under: babies 17 Comments

Our chooks

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 6, 2009 By kimc

Finally, the chicken coop is finished. Mostly. Sort of. There are a lot of details left, but at least it’s habitable. Now that I think about it that way, it sounds a lot like our own home.

We’ve primed it with white, but have some green that we intend to use.

Then comes trim around doors, windows, gable ends, etc. We also need to cut out the window on the other side, where you can’t see.

What you can see is the door, with which I am inordinately pleased. Hubby found some amazingly simple brackets at Lowe’s, and I used them to put together a set of half-doors in about an hour. I covered them with rabbit wire to make them predator-proof, though we might fabricate plywood covers for cold weather. Those of you up north can stop laughing now. 40 degrees feels cold to those of us who live in 90 degrees for 9 months of the year.

See my swing-y doors? We can stand outside with the bottom closed and lean in to watch our sweet chooks contentedly pecking about the floor.

They also love the feeder I built from scrap siding left after hubby did all the hard work. The feeder was meant to be big. I wanted it to easily hold 50 lbs. of food. As it turns out, I should have done the math first. My feeder holds something in the vicinity of 150 or 200 lbs. We could feed once/year. :)

The pullets seem to like it, too. Here are 4 of the 13 big girls. All of our older pullets are about 14 weeks old.

Our week-old chickie-babies live in a large rabbit cage on the floor of the henhouse. The rabbit feeders work very nicely for them, keeping the food just high enough so that they don’t waste too much. The bigger girls seem mildly curious, but generally ignore the babies. There’s a brooder light on top of the cage, but the chickie-babies don’t seem to care about it. The big girls, on the other hand, want to roost up there near the light. Silly things. Don’t they know how warm it is?

We have 5 little Buff Orpingtons,

3 little Barred Rocks,

and 4 precious little Auracanas. I went back for more later but they were all gone. Isn’t she sweet?

Here are the big girls. Maybe you can help us identify them.

The twins:

Bare Bottom Red, up on the 2×2 we hung for them to roost. She’s wearing her mini skirt a little too short if you ask me.

Then there’s this little gray and orange gal. She makes me think of orange sherbet for some reason.

The feather foot. Her back and bottom are bare, though the feathers are coming in on her back. I’ve read that some don’t have tails, so I don’t know if the others picked on her before she came to us or if she’s just made that way.

A lovely black and gold:

One solid black, stretching her wings:

And our barred rock. She seems to be the dominant hen, but she’s a benevolent dictator so far. She’s the most outgoing, curious, and least skittish. Always the first to find treats, but willing to share. Yes, we need to change the water.

These two seem to be good friends. They hang out together a lot.

Does anyone think there might be a rooster in our henhouse? This one has more wattle than all the rest, more red, and the neck feathers look a little…spiky. Would we know for sure by 14 weeks, or do some mature so slowly that we could still be fooled?

Aren’t they sweet? They still tend to nap in piles, like puppies, especially during daytime naps. At night most of them roost like grown-up girls.

They also tend to just flop down in the hay when they sleep. If I were the nervous type, I’d be constantly poking them to see if they’re still alive.

so tired medium 300x201 Our chooks

See what I mean? Not dead. Just tired.

Now, who can help us identify our big girls? I know there’s a wide variety and some are mixes. I would love to hear your best guesses!

Filed Under: crunchy stuff, pets 20 Comments

My very strange dream

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 5, 2009 By kimc

I mentioned quite a few upcoming posts, but I’m going with the one about my bizarre dream and its meaning first for several reasons:

It doesn’t need photos, which means I don’t have to peel my tired bottom out of this chair until I’m done.

Well, that’s pretty much the whole list. I thought there was more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment. Maybe this isn’t the best time to compose an introspective post after all…oh yeah. Second reason:

An introspective post is long overdue on our blog. Don’t you agree?

MY DREAM

I dreamed hubby and I were at a gathering with many other adults. They ranged from friends and casual acquaintances to those we barely knew by name. I think they were you: our readers.

We were participating in some sort of athletic activity, taking turns at an obstacle course. It was another woman’s turn, but she didn’t want to do it. She would have to take out her false teeth, and she was ashamed to do so.

(Hey, quit laughing. Do your dreams make perfect sense?)

I decided to encourage her: “Come on, you can do it! Don’t be shy. Look, I have false teeth too. I’ll take mine out!” I popped out my false teeth, right then and there. It actually felt good; I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable they were.

(Hey, I said quit laughing. It’s not that funny. Well, maybe it is.)

A few minutes later I found myself in the bathroom examining my teeth in the mirror. The false teeth were actually more like caps, and I had broken, disfigured teeth beneath. I wasn’t surprised to see them, but I was taken aback at just how bad they looked – especially my two front teeth on top. “I really should get those fixed,” I thought to myself. “Why haven’t I done that already?”

fade

Ok, that was the end. Are you stumped? I’m not, which makes sense to me since dreams are often a sign of what’s going on inside our own heads. Here’s what I think it means.

THE MEANING

I think my teeth are my life. This is actually quite common in dreams. For example, when you dream that you are losing your teeth it often means that you feel you are losing control of your life.

In this case, I think my teeth – my false teeth, to be specific – represent the “public me.” KimC. You generally see the cheerful me, the hardworking me, the humble-and-submissive-to-my-husband me. The patient, charming, brave, kind, generous-to-a-fault, ever-holy-and-pious KimC.

Yes, I do post about real life. I have a whole category dedicated to Gone Awry. But more often than not, those posts are about me keeping my cool and my fabulous sense of humor even as all my best laid plans go awry.

I don’t know if anyone is laboring under the assumption that I’m perfect (no? whew!) or even that I’m any better than you are, but I want you all to know that sometimes more than just my plans go bad. I can be cranky, rebellious, selfish and lazy. It can be very difficult to persuade me that I’m wrong. I tend to be blind to my own faults and shortcomings. That’s just the short list. I’m sure there’s more, but I suspect that the part about being blind tends to keep the list short.

And like my real teeth under the false ones, I think I need to feel a bigger sense of disgust over these flaws of mine rather than a flippant willingness to accept them as a part of my personality. I need to hate my sin nature and turn from my sinful ways. Don’t we all?

That’s what I think my dream meant.

Filed Under: Christian living, deep thoughts 11 Comments

Drafts in my head

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 3, 2009 By kimc

It seems there has been no time to blog lately, but it’s not for lack of material. Just to let you know I’ve haven’t forgotten all about blogging, here are the topics of a few of the many drafts floating around in my over-taxed head:

Our chicken house, nearly finished and already in use.
Portraits of our pullets so you can help us identify their various breeds.
Our new chickie-babies, because 13 pullets just wasn’t enough.
Head lice, our newest pets. We didn’t want them, and are hard at work on getting rid of them before they get too attached. I’m praising God that we caught it very early, with just a few sightings on 3 people.
My very strange dream about false teeth, and my proposed interpretation.
Our newly stained deck – hurrah! Good news: no more splinters! Bad news: it’s now even hotter when the sun bakes down. It does that a lot around here.
Our upcoming trip to Branson, Missouri – but not to Boston.
And within 24-48 hours, we should have an answer to a big, big question. Our stupid tax from a bad decision 7 years ago just might come to an end soon. Pray with us, please! Details soon!

Filed Under: blogging & technology 14 Comments

John Calvin

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

June 3, 2009 By Deanna

Posted by: Deanna

Yesterday my Dad had me read an article titled A Heart Offered to God about the life of John Calvin.

It was very interesting to me to find out that he was smaller than I am. He was 5′ 6″ and had a slight build. He was the second of 6 children and his mother died when he was 4. His father recognized his keen intellectual skills and decided that John should pursue the priesthood and had him enrolled in a local preparatory school called the College des Capettes. When John was 14 he was sent to the College de La Marche in Paris to study latin and theology. In 1525 (when he was 16) John was transferred to the College of Montaigu where at age 18 he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. John continued studying theology until his father fell out with the church authorities back home and decided that John should pursue a career in law instead. As an obedient son, John moved south and enrolled at the University of Orleans to study law. It was while he was at Orleans that he started questioning the teachings of the roman church and was encouraged by his friends to make himself familiar with scripture.

In 1529 he transferred to the University of Bourges. While in Bourges, he studied New Testament Greek under the enthusiastic and outspoken German instructor, Melchior Wolmar. Also, it was under Wolmar’s tutelage that Calvin first read the Early Church Fathers. As a result of this study, the foundation was laid for Calvin’s appreciation for the orthodox Christian faith and his excellent familiarity with the Church Fathers and Ancient Creeds. In 1531 John’s father died freeing him to return to his study of theology. After receiving his licensie es loix, John returned to Paris.

The future direction of Calvin’s life, however, took a surprising turn when he became friends with Nicolas Cop, the newly appointed Rector of the University of Paris. In 1533 Cop gave a stirring inaugural address which infuriated the roman catholics because he not only endorsed Martin Luther (gasp), he also criticized the Pope. Cop realized his life was in great danger and he fled the city. John was suspected of being the ghost writer of Cop’s speech and the church authorities determined to arrest him. John only narrowly escaped being arrested. He had to climb out the window as the police were pounding on his door! he sought refuge with Queen Margaret of Navarre, who was sympathetic to the protestant cause. The die was cast, he was now officially a reformer.

If you want to go the Reformation 500 in Boston but haven’t registered yet, use our cou r500 John Calvin pon code for 25% off registration for an individual or a whole family! But it expires June 2nd And it’s been extended to the end of this week! So hurry!