Life In a Shoe

So I finally get ambitious on the house ….. Trying to get 2 little rooms textured ….Do you know how hard it is to estimate how much mud you need when you actually texture every oooooh

3 years or so?

There we are 11 pm rolling up on us …the kids are getting emotionally incontinent over in the other room …and out of mud we ran ….

2 and nine tenths walls finished out of four …

Oh well the Lord knows our frames …by the time we got everything cleaned up we were looking down the barrel of midnight …. I’m glad I didn;t have that extra box of mud afterall I’d have been up till 2 texturing ….

we still have a shot ar getting it under paint by Saturday!

Please pray that God will give us all renewed endurance as we crank up the construction project again.

Let me start by saying I’m very neat when I cook. If I spill a little baking powder, I wipe up before moving on. I wash bowls and utensils as I use them. I put things away as soon as I’ve used them.
My house is not perfect, but if I am simultaneously happy and cooking, you can be sure that my kitchen is clean.
Yes, I’ve heard it said that the only good cook is a messy cook. I’m sure it was a messy cook who first said it. But I don’t buy it. When I’m in the middle of a mess, I’m distracted and stressed. I don’t cook well in a mess, so I clean up as I go. It’s that simple.
It took me many years to develop these habits fully. My children are younger than me – you realized this, right? They have not been cooking for many years; therefore, sadly, they have not yet perfected the art of clean cookery.
So now we have a system when the older girls cook.
The system is this: they cook, I stay out of the kitchen.
They are 10 and 12, so I trust them to call me if they start a fire they can’t put out themselves. Otherwise I just stay busy elsewhere in the house. I’m speaking figuratively, but I suppose the Fire Rule would apply literally just as well.
Sometimes I don’t know ahead of time that one of them is cooking. If I hear a scary noise, I ask from the other room, “Should I not come into the kitchen right now?”
They clean up when they’re done. Then, and only then, I enter the kitchen. I sample their wares, glance around the kitchen, and everyone is happy.

When you’re raising a large family on a single income, it’s nice to make a child feel special without shelling out a special amount of cash:
We have a little tradition in our house, which my 9yo sister nicknamed “the mail fairy.”
I like to frequent freebie websites and order free samples for my children. I occasionally will order something for other people that might be interested – like my 9yo sister.
Since free samples are unreliable to say the least, I make it a secret; this way nobody is disappointed if a sample doesn’t arrive.
But if it does arrive, somebody’s day is made. “Mail for me? Why? How? Who? It must be The Mail Fairy!”
Some of the freebies we have received:

• stickers
• color books
• those little plastic tooth flossers
• utility knife
• Ensure
• Pantene Pro-V shampoo and conditioner
• memo pad and clip board
• Nascar poster (this went to my 9yo brother)
• personalized ball point pen
• coupon for a full size candy bar
• snack bar
• a poorly done CD
• a poster of horse breeds
• coffee and tea samples
• much, much more

All of these were free for the asking. I found most of them at Spoofee’s Free Goods page, although there are many other freebie sites out there.

The Spoofee home page lists great deals every day from major vendors all over the web: Staples, Amazon, Buy.com, etc. Scroll down to my post about bookcases for an example.

As if the male gender wasn’t already rare enough in our household, the scale just tipped a little farther. No, we’re not expecting a new baby.
We just, well, forgive me: we just retrieved our 2-weeks-missing Golden Retriever from the local animal shelter. Lady is back! And she is happy with all the heartfelt, bubbling-over drooly joy that only a Golden Retriever can muster.
Who even knew that the little town nearby had an animal shelter? Well, apparently one of our neighbors knew when they placed the call to have our sweet Lady dog-napped, but we won’t dwell on that. When, by God’s good providence, I just happened to hear somebody mention the shelter, I whipped out my trusty green notepad and jotted down the name of the place.
From the beginning, the children were sure that Lady was there, but I tried not to get my hopes up. But I needn’t have worried.
I did a little sleuthing to acquire the number, called the shelter and left a message, and settled down to wait.
Well, if you can’t expect a small town to have a listed phone number for the animal shelter, then obviously they won’t actually staff the animal shelter.
Three days later, we received an exciting call: there was indeed a sweet young female Golden Retriever at the shelter. The nice lady knew only that she had been there about 10 days. She said that if we could come between 9 AM and noon, we might be lucky enough to find the gate unlocked and the cleaning crew at work. Otherwise, we would need to call the sheriff’s department and see if they could spare a deputy to come show us the animal shelter inmates.
Getting viewing privileges was more easily said than done, and involved getting on a first name basis with the sheriff’s dispatch, but in the end it all worked out.
As soon as we were able, we all piled out of the living room and into the stuffy Suburban; out of the Suburban and into the shelter; back to the Suburban and over to the cold room at the sheriff’s department; and back into the now steaming hot Suburban, which would be even steamier when we were joined an hour later by a highly excited, heavily panting, very slobbery golden girl.
But Lady was ours again!
We brought her home, washed off some of the kennel odor (which she seemed very willing to be shed of) and took turns being slobbered upon, while we hatched out new and better plans for keeping a very intelligent and ambitious dog confined. Our dog may be bad, but life is good.
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The Green Notepad Project installment #1

NEWS FLASH

Chinese News Agency reports that “Boys are dirtier than Girls

has ANY girl you have EVER known doubted it?

The suspense is killing me.
We recently dined at The Olive Garden. We love The Olive Garden, and we thought they loved us. They were always nice to us, and seemed to enjoy our company.
But now I’m not so sure.
After our last visit, I used the online feedback forum to say something like this…(as the reply I received did not quote my original message, I will be recreating to the best of my ability):

We enjoy eating out with our 7 daughters. We generally find our servers to be cheerful, competent, and eager to please, and we generally tip 20-25%. Many restaurants reserve the right to add a mandatory gratuity to the bill for larger parties, but it has never been done to us. Never, that is, until our last visit to The Olive Garden.
On August 19, we visited your Round Rock location with our 7 daughters. Our children were neat, quiet, and well-behaved. They made very few requests of our server. We received many compliments on their behavior and appearance from both patrons and staff.
When our bill arrived, we discovered that a “mandatory gratuity” of 18% had been added. This was insulting to us and unfortunate to the server, who would have received significantly more had the tipping been voluntary.
Our server maintained that the mandatory gratuity was store policy and the decision was not in his own hands.
If this is true, our family will need to reconsider patronizing The Olive Garden…

Dear Kim:

Thank you for your interest in Olive Garden and allowing us an opportunity to respond.

We have noted your comments concerning the addition of a gratuity to your check. As indicated on the inside panel of our menu and on your guest check, we add an optional gratuity to each guest check on parties of eight or more. The 18 % gratuity is to ensure our server receives the tip amount that is generally considered “standard” for service that meets expectations. As you might imagine, the potential gratuity from each party becomes very meaningful to your service provider. One way you can let us know how we did is by how you reward your service provider. We hope that all of our servers warrant at least a standard tip, however, should you feel a tip is unwarranted, please discuss your concerns with the manager on duty. Of course, if you felt the service was exceptional, you can also leave an even more generous tip to reflect your delight.

Again, thank you for sharing your comments. We consider you a valued guest and hope you will continue to think of Olive Garden for your dining occasions.

Erich
Olive Garden Guest Relations

Erich,
I’m sorry, but I disagree. If the mandatory gratuity were a safeguard for the server, you would add no more than the minimum acceptable tip. If The Olive Garden were truly concerned about protecting servers, you might even tip the server yourself when his customers fail to do so.

But a mandatory gratuity of 12-15% would still be offensive to me because we are a neither a “party” nor a “group.” We are a family. I’m disappointed that The Olive Garden does not recognize the difference.

An automatic additional charge (of 18%, no less) is not a gratuity:

A favor or gift, usually in the form of money, given in return for service.

This is a surcharge:
An additional sum added to the usual amount or cost.
This is a penalty for bringing our 7 daughters to your restaurant. The couple in the next room whose toddler screamed incessantly was not required to pay a surcharge. Their child (just 1) made everyone’s meal less pleasant. But there were no additional charges on their bill because of that.
We know many large families; nearly all of them train and require their children to behave well in public. Large families recognize that children must be trained to behave well. We don’t want restaurant managers to cringe when we enter.
We spent $120, with no dessert or alcohol. Our children were quiet and undemanding. We made very few requests of our server: 1 drink refill/child. 1 extra plate. 2 boxes for leftovers. We checked the floor for dropped items before we left. We used the restroom several times, but were careful to dry the counters and pick up stray paper towels – which were there before we arrived. Perhaps the surcharge helps with the water bill?
Let me close by reiterating: we understand that most restaurants give servers the right to add a “mandatory gratuity” to larger parties. However, this was the first time the large party surcharge has ever been imposed upon us. Until our last visit to your restaurant, we have always been treated as family.
We will miss our Olive Garden dining, but we are looking forward to eating in an establishment where our family is treated like family.

Sincerely,
The Coghlan Family

There are unconfirmed reports of a missing tooth in the Pipe Creek area …….witnesses claim it might be the first for the girl in question …..details to follow……

the real question on everyone’s mind is …..did she cry?

Greg Wilbur over at Kingsmeadow.com’s art and culture blog has some great thoughts on men who immerse themselves in Scripture…

but then wants to be able to equivocate between miracles and magic in the very next post ….

is it just me or was it the Scriptures that said MAGIC IS BAD ?
and here
and here ….
and this too

I still haven’t heard anyone from the “magic in Harry Potter falls under Christian Liberty” school of thought answer Doug Phillips assessment of the situation the best anyone (Hi Thomas) can come up with is the “Oh yeah well you like Tolkein and Tolkein has Magic too” defense.

Now maybe he does and maybe old Tolkein doesn’t have magic in his writing, to that I say —- WHO CARES!!!! Any presuppositionalist worth his salt will recognize that when we are talking about magic in literature,the root issue changes not – no matter who the author is!

I will give up Tolkein if I must but that does not change the sinfulness or lack thereof wrt Harry Potter.

Savy?

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Random bit o coolness for the day:
the guys over at google have done it again check out google earth’s illuminated continent!
(I’m glad I have broadband at work:)

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I over heard Focus on the Family’s radio show today and Dobson and Company was on a pretty good rant about black culture, liberals and the higglely pigglely the feds have made in New Orleans. it’s worth a listen click HERE to listen. Now I don’t agree with everything the good Doctor says but I think they hit the nail on the head more than once in this broadcast.

I also found Texas Public Radio’s last segment on Katrina’s impact on the SA area to be a startling dose of socialism after hearing the Focus broadcast but also the hurricane victim interviews made me realize how much opportunity there is for Christ’s church to reach people if we are willing to live the “Strenuous Life” and come out of our bubbles a bit.

One guy livin’ the life is Ken Kennedy over at Only a Servant ministries. He is teamed up with Vision Forum and is going to shift his focus from Mexico to Louisiana for the next little bit and (re)build some houses in the States.

“I’m going shopping in the village,” George’s mother said to George on Saturday morning. “So be a good boy and don’t get into mischief.”
This was a silly thing to say to a small boy at any time. It immediately made him wonder what sort of mischief he might get into.

…like a men’s wrestling team in robes with an inferiority complex .

I am so glad God gave us His Word in a written format! We have a real, legitimate reason to teach our children to read. If our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, one of our chief goals in homeschooling is to enable our children to read His Word so they learn how to glorify and enjoy Him.
We love to read. We love books. We endeavor to instill in our children that same love of reading, and it thrills me to see them curled up on the couch, drinking in the substance of a truly good and worthwhile book.
Books enrich the vocabulary, give an intuitive grasp of grammar, and model correct spelling What dedicated reader doesn’t know a misspelled when she sees it?
Books exercise our imaginations, our attention spans, our narrative abilities, and our reasoning skills.
Books can broaden our perspective, helping us to better understand and apply the Golden Rule.
Books can show us life through someone else’s eyes, help us understand how others think and feel, and thus teach us how to prefer others above ourselves in our daily lives.
Books can foster fellowship through reading aloud or book discussions, or they can preserve a busy mother’s sanity (quiet reading).
Shhh! Don’t tell, but we even work a little “brain candy” into our book diet. We all enjoy Calvin & Hobbes for the uniquely 6-year-old perspective that Bill Watterson remembers well enough to convey to his readers. I suspect that our younger crowd sees the humor a little differently than do the big people in our household. There are jokes that go over the little kids’ heads. What goes under mine?
We love The Far Side because, well, if I have to explain then you’re probably just not a Far Side person.
Dilbert. Peanuts. Garfield. Many of our early readers cut their teeth on this fare. These all have a place in our carefully chosen collection. God has a sense of humor, and so should we. Look what he did to the Philistines in I Samuel 5-6. The Philistines might not have been laughing, but I’ll bet God was.
We think of books as our companions, and try to choose them with the same care that Proverbs exhorts us to use with our human companions.
I don’t think I could ever narrow my favorites to 20 books. Our house is a half-finished construction zone with one bathroom and only the barest essentials of furniture: 2 beds, 5 dressers, dining table & chairs, and 2 sofas…but we have 3 large bookcases (7′ x 4′), overflowing, with a constantly rotating selection of our best and dearest friends. We just purchased 2 more bookcases so a few more friends will be joining us in the house. Maybe we’ll put them behind the couch.
Ahhh. Books.

Go look at www.spoofee.com. Hurry! Spoofee has great deals nearly every day, from all over the web. Today, spoofee informs us, you can get $20 off selected bookshelves, plus a free am/fm/CD boombox, and free shipping. We just ordered a 6′ bookcase (3′ wide) with 5 shelves, plus the boombox, for a grand total of $43 and change.
If you’re interested, hurry. Availability varies by zip code and great deals often don’t last long.

…Shamelessly plagiarized from my sweet husband’s blog

Friday Nights

coming home

near dusk.

long week

longer drive

no one hears me pull in

lights at the top of the stairs

door opens

arms open wider

wide smiles glow

God is good.

I will always remember dreading my father marching up to the bedrooms at the crack fo dawn (when only grasshoppers and chicken were waking) and throwing on the lights in the childrens bedrooms and singing the first verse of “Arise my Soul Arise” at the top of his lungs.

To which most of us were apt to reply “Proverbs 27:14″

flash forward 20 or so years

I have recently began “blessing” my children with the same method of calling them forth. Now imagine my suprise and delight the other morning when I hear my Becca (pic at the left is about a year old) marching about the house quite stridently and singing to her sisters at the top of her voice

“arise YOUR soul arise ….”

Yes God is good.
A tradition survives to another generation.

So our Aunt Linda, Uncle Ronny, and my 2 second cousins twice removed, got up at 3:00 AM and packed us a really good breakfast and we were off.
So we slept in the car from about from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM then we ate strawberries, egg biscuits, bananas, pineapple, and I think that’s all besides the apple juice, and coffee for Mom and Dad.
After about 9 hours we got to our destination (were we stayed for a week). Everyone was very happy.
Our GPA, GMA, Aunt,and Uncle took us out to eat at Logans Roadhouse.
After that we went to their house and went to bed.
Here is a list of cool things that happened:

1.For Mom and, Dad’s anniversary, Dad rented a Mustang Convertible and I was the first kid to ride it.

2. My Aunt Abigail and Uncle Thomas saved $50 worth of fireworks for when we got there.
When they set off a 25 shot mortar and a dog grabbed it and retrieved it to its Master while it was still shooting off.
His house was getting showered with fireworks and he thought we it did on purpose I guess.
He was so mad I don’t blame him. I probably would have called the cops. So my Dad and uncle and and a couple of other guy went up the hill and calmed him down and after a few minutes they were up there laughing.

3. We went swimming.

4.We went bowling.

THE TRIP HOME:
So we woke up, said our goodbyes and left our grandma and grandpa’s house. GMA packed us a whole bunch of really fun snacks, so that was our breakfast. We sung a few psalms in the car then fell asleep.
Nothing interesting happened on the way back except when we stopped at Aunt Linda’s house.
So we got to Aunt Linda’s house ate and went to bed.
The next morning was Sunday. Instead of going to church with our Aunt Linda and Uncle Ronny, we went to church with our Aunt Yvonne, who is Aunt Linda’s sister. Afterwards we ate lunch at Aunt Gail and Uncle Bobby’s house. We had fruit salad, hamburger helper, green beans, corn, hot dogs and leftover birthday cake. Then we went back to Aunt Linda’s house to gather our backpacks.
It was raining when we got there. Aunt Linda fed us a second dinner. This time we had green beans, pot roast, and a couple more things that I can’t remember. Then we had a second dessert – banana pudding. Sooo good!
After that, we left.
When we got home it was about 10:30 PM. We unloaded most of the stuff, then we went to bed.
The End.

Here is a picture of me and the twins I talked about in the post called, “who am I.”
Alaura is holding her guinea pig, Alec. The boy is William (I think you can tell who he is), and I’m the other girl.
You can really tell they’re twins, can’t you? But you can’t really tell they’re my aunt and uncle.