2009 November

Review: Glory, Duty & the Gold Dome

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

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November 12, 2009 By Kittykait

37522 m Review: Glory, Duty & the Gold Dome Glory, Duty & the Gold Dome

I have to say I don’t think title of this book does it justice. The reason I’m starting with that is because I know that in our house some of us have the bad habit of judging a book by its title. This book, rather than the impression the title gave me, is fast paced, exciting and very informative. I read it in only a day and a half, which is something I rarely do.

One of my favorite parts in the book is when 14 year old Thomas finds his friend being teased by a group of boys who are on a school field trip. He politely asks for the papers back and informs them that they are hindering important work, then the bullies turn to him. After a brief interchange where Thomas threatens to call the security guard, the ring leader swings at him. With a few quick motions Thomas has his arm twisted behind his back and Derrick is crying uncle. I like this part because he deals with bullies how they should be dealt with. He is cool and gentlemanly until it turns into a self defense issue, and even then he is polite. After the papers are returned he suggests some points of interest for their site-seeing tour and leaves.

Here is a brief summary of the book from Vision Forum:

When adversity strikes, boys must act like men. This story traces one boy’s journey as he stands beside his father to defend the life of a helpless young woman. Fourteen-year-old Thomas witnesses his father, John Richards, put his congressional race at risk to do the right thing. This high-octane adventure story digs deep, exploring important lessons related to law, civics, medical ethics, and discipleship.

Although it does deal with some difficult topics, I think that this book would be interesting and appropriate for young teens up to adults. My book-loving 11yo sister is reading and enjoying it along with several older members of the family.

I love that so many important lessons are incorporated all throughout the book. There is a lot of information about how our legislative and judicial system works. I learned a lot, but I didn’t fully absorb all of it so I’ll probably read the book again for that reason. There is also a lot of emphasis on father son relationships, the importance of manliness and standing for what’s right at any cost. As Christians books like these should be important to us, so that if ever a sticky situation comes our way we know without a second thought what do.

Filed Under: books and poetry, education, homeschooling, reviews, Vision Forum 5 Comments

Your burning questions answered

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

November 10, 2009 By kimc

I am pleased to present answers to a few of your questions from my pathetic Help Me post. Thanks for jump-starting my brain.

On your book, Princess Adelina , who is Julie Sutter? I keep getting confused how it’s your book and yet doesn’t have your names on it….Could you give us a puzzle piece?

Julie Sutter was the author of the original book. We didn’t write the book. We just found an old book, retyped, updated and edited it, created maps and a glossary, etc. Then we presented it to Vision Forum for re-publishing. Our names are inside, as editors.

Tell us how schooling is different now than when you were being homeschooled. What are you thankful for that you know since you were homeschooled?

We were homeschool pioneers when I was a kid. We hid in the house during school hours and endeavored to recreate the institutional school experience at home, minus the humanistic worldview. Well, not exactly – but there was no such thing as unschooling, relaxed schooling, or even the eclectic approach. Each step away from “the norm” was akin to walking on the moon: one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind. My parents were brave pioneers during an early and uncertain time for homeschooling, and I’m thankful to be farther down that path in a friendlier part of the woods. I’m thankful to be another generation removed from the assumption that “real school” = age segregated children learning from a canned curriculum in an institutionalized setting.

update us on how your chicken experiment is going!

After a brief and horrible misunderstanding with our Golden Retriever regarding her life purpose and that of our chickens, our hen population has stabilized at just under 20, and we were getting 1-2 eggs/day. That’s pretty pathetic, but I blame myself. I have read that most chickens need 14-17 hours of daylight for optimum laying, and it took me weeks to drag my sorry carcass out to the chicken house to install a light to fool our hens into believing that it’s still summer.

Now, after 3 days of never-ending light, our production is up to 3 eggs/day and we’ve had our first 2 green eggs which means that new hens are laying. Of course we’re hoping that it will rise more than that. My suspicion is that it will take a while to kick everyone’s body clocks into action.

I’m curious about the potted plants on your deck. Was it worthwhile? Do you plan on doing it again next year?

Worthwhile? No. But we had a brutally hot summer and I’ve heard that very few gardens in south Texas were worthwhile this year, so I’m hesitant to call it quits on our deck garden after the first season. We’ll probably give it another shot next year.

Why don’t you re-post your birth stories? Those are some of my favorites.

Thank you. I enjoy them too, especially in the past sense. Not so much at the time. Here they are:

Filed Under: from the mailbag 8 Comments

When Silly Putty Attacks

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

November 7, 2009 By kimc

Connie blogs regularly at Smockity Frocks. She is the mom of seven rowdy children, wife of one hunky golf pro, maker of aprons, wiper of noses, writer of stories.

Have you ever had a bad experience with a child’s play thing that was so frightening, so traumatic, that it scarred you for life to the point of having Post Traumatic Toy Disorder whenever you unexpectedly encountered said toy?

No? Well, count yourself blessed, Friends, because you may be just one unfortunate encounter away from this happening to you! [Cue creepy organ music.]

In the days of yore, when we only had two small children, my husband would load his golf clubs into our van and we would pack up our suitcases and travel around with him to one golf tournament after another for weeks at a time.

I was in the habit of packing little bags of toys and trinkets to keep the kids occupied in the van on the long stretches between tournament towns. I included small trinkets like a mini Etch-a-Sketch, crayons, tiny note pads, little books, Sillly Putty, and small stuffed animals.

One particular tournament that will forever be seared into my memory was in the Atlanta area. It turned out that one of the children was upset that the Silly Putty was missing from the activity bag.

“Don’t worry,” I comforted her as I gave a quick glance around the van, “It will turn up.” [This would be called "foreshadowing" in an actual literary work.]

Oh yeah, it turned up all right.

We had found a little country church just outside of Atlanta where we could attend worship services that sunny Sunday morning. During one of the “stand and sing” portions of the service, I noticed that some teenagers sitting in the pew directly behind me were giggling hysterically, which I found odd since I didn’t see anything funny about “This Is My Father’s World”.

At one point, I looked back to see what was so funny and I saw their eyes dart up from a southerly direction.

Self consciously, I rubbed the back of my dress, and to my horror, I felt the missing flesh colored Silly Putty clinging stubbornly to the back of my navy dress like a barnacle on a tug boat.

I inconspicuously contorted myself like a Chinese acrobat to wrest that rubbery blob from my back side, all the while trying to act like I wasn’t about to die of embarrassment thinking of all the people who had just seen me with a glob of gummy goop on my hind end.

I quickly dislodged the offending wad and tried to act as if nothing had ever happened. I continued singing, all the while wondering how many people had noticed it and WHY one of them didn’t stop me to say, “Ma’am, you have a glob of goop on your… uh… dress.”

Of course, the kids were thrilled to have their Silly Putty back, but I was already making secret, sinister plans to dispose of it and forever banish it and all its kin from my presence.

To this day, whenever I pass Silly Putty in the toy aisle, a cold shiver goes down my… uh… dress and I must hurry away from that horrid reminder of the time Silly Putty attacked.

Connie
www.smockityfrocks.com
Aprons and abc’s, baking and bandaids,
laundry and long division…
All to the glory of God

Filed Under: humor 14 Comments

Current chore list

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

November 5, 2009 By kimc

This question popped up once or twice when I asked for blogging ideas, so here’s what we do currently. The list changes about every 3 months. This is more often than hubby and I prefer, but not nearly as often as the children would like.

Deanna (16yo): clean & straighten living room; plan and cook dinner; rinse dinner dishes; iron
Kaitlyn (14yo): burn trash; clean & straighten dining room; put away clean dishes; iron
Lydia (13yo): Lydia has requested all outdoor and animal duties: feed & water animals (chickens, dogs, cat); keep yard picked up; take out compost; “first shift” on dinner dishes (clear & wipe counters, put away leftovers, set up coffee for following morning); iron
Megan (11yo): clean & straighten bathroom and kitchen; wash dinner dishes; iron
Natalie (9yo) & Becca (8yo): hang all laundry to dry; sort and fold dry laundry, put away towels and diapers; clean & straighten laundry room; breakfast & lunch dishes; clear & wipe table after dinner.
Rachael (5yo): clean and straighten deck (under Lydia’s supervision); help clear table after dinner.
Perry (3yo): empty small trash cans in bedrooms.

More notes:

The kids also put away their own laundry and are responsible to keep their bedroom clean.

8yo Becca very often volunteers to cook breakfast. She made pancakes this morning.

Deanna often has help with dinner. Her primary duty is to plan and prepare a main dish.

This list is not comprehensive: some people regularly help above and beyond the scope of their daily chores, and I have no reservation about making “extra” requests of anyone and everyone when the need arises. The sentence, “But that’s not my job” is a capital offense in our house. We used to have more children, but had to make examples of some.

Filed Under: Everyday life, from the mailbag 41 Comments

Just one puppy boy left…

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

November 4, 2009 By kimc

…and he’s the sweetest guy ever!

I’ve heard that pups left with their mothers longer than the standard 6-8 weeks learn better manners and are more gentle than those that go to new homes sooner. The theory says that their mother schools them in doggie manners, teaching them not to play too roughly, where to relieve themselves, etc.

I was a little skeptical the first time I heard it, but you have to meet our last pup. At 12 weeks, he has none of the crazy wildness one expects from a high-energy breed like Golden Retrievers. He is gentle enough to trust with the baby, and has been almost completely housebroken by his own mother – though he’s not entirely averse to using a back corner of the bedroom if we miss his signals. Ahem.

But here’s the best part: we accidentally left him alone in the house for 10 hours over the weekend, and came home to…no surprises. He didn’t chew anything. Didn’t get into the trash, even though he was desperately hungry by the time we got home. We found a couple of accidents, but he could hardly help that. The only surprise was that there were no surprises.

We had a couple of inquiries about his ad yesterday, so I took him out on the deck for a photo shoot. The hardest part was narrowing down the results. Isn’t he handsome?

PS. Just in case you might be interested, Duke is AKC registered and for sale for $400, though we’ll give readers a special $50 discount. He can be shipped to any major airport in the continental US for an add’l $300.

Filed Under: pets, photos 16 Comments

Happy Birthday

Current giveaway: Grandpa Jake's Campfire Cooker

November 2, 2009 By kimc

It’s official. We now have 3 teens in the house. Not content with 3, hubby is counting down to the day we’ll have 5 teenaged daughters at the same time. But is it just my imagination, or is there a haunted look in his eye when he contemplates those days? hmmm…

Lydia turned 13 yesterday, but I took her out for a birthday trip earlier in the week since I was going to be in town anyway. At her request, we visited several thift stores and used bookstores. This is my children’s idea of a perfect shopping trip, and I love it!

Then we splurged and split her first-ever prime rib dinner at Outback Steak House. I say we splurged, but the entire meal was just over $20, including tax and tip. I’m not sure introducing her to prime rib was such a great idea, since she enjoyed it just as much as hubby and I do. Expensive taste isn’t always a good thing. But prime rib is always a good thing. Oh, yes it is.

13 Memories for Lydia

Remember when you used to play hide-and-seek with Cinder the cat? You always chose the cat’s hiding places. I’m not sure we ever convinced you just how much the cat despised this game.
Remember the nickname we used to tease you about loving animals to the point of cruelty?
Remember when your sisters convinced you that they were going to bury you in the 4′ pit they dug in the backyard?
Remember when you were too short to turn on the bathroom light? You would leave the door open for light, and short chubby little Megan would grin and slam the door, leaving you in total darkness.
Remember when somebody wrote your name with a rock on Grandpa C’s van? But it wasn’t you, was it?
Remember when you wedged toothpicks upright into Grandpa B’s chair? And he actually sat on them?
Remember when we were learning about Egypt and you got to be the mummy, all wrapped up in toilet paper? Everyone wanted to be the mummy, and then you got too scared to go through with the job.
Remember when you helped a certain young aunt eat a cheesy stone-fried stick bug?
Remember when Deanna dressed you up like an Indian? And years later, she found the old pics and posted them to the blog? And dad was shocked and made her take them down.
Remember when you woke up and found your pet caterpillar all wrapped up in tape-y stuff? And you unwrapped him to save him? Poor lil guy.
Remember the stink bombs from Grandma’s old barrel of rotten horse grain?
Remember when you and your sisters tried to drown the rats out of the walls of the upstairs bathroom?
Remember when you threw a peanut shell in another customer’s drink at Texas Roadhouse?