daybook ... once in a blue moon

Have you ever wondered what that saying actually means?  Well, thanks to a question from one of my kids not long ago, I looked it up.  Of course, there is more than one answer to the question, but the most widely accepted answer is that a blue moon occurs when there are two full moons within a single calendar month.  Sounds good to me ... 

Now that you have been armed with a dose of useless information ... how about a little glimpse into my day.

FOR TODAY: 

October 2, 2012

Outside my window...

Yesterday's rain is gone and the sun is shining...the cooler temps are still hanging around, giving a decidedly fall feel to the air.  Ain't it grand?!

I am thinking...

about all that needs to get done today and about some things I need to order for school.

I am thankful...

for the cooler weather and for the way God provides the things we need.

In the kitchen...

I have a pork loin sitting on the counter waiting to be cooked ... just trying to decide how to cook it.

I am wearing...

sweats and a t-shirt

I am creating...

a trivet for some friends who are getting married soon ... actually, this one is for a joke and made at my husband's request ... since the bride is an Ole Miss fan and the groom a State fan, I have crocheted two pot holders, one blue and red and the other maroon and white ... I will stitch the two together and let them decide which one wins out.

I am going...

to stay home today and hopefully get some laundry and other housework done.

I am wondering...

if I'll ever get used to having to tell my kids that there are questions that I just don't know the answers to.  It is so hard to realize that we can't fix everything for our kids and somethings they will just have to struggle through.

I am reading...

Heart of the Wilderness by Janette Oke  and  the book of Proverbs

I am hoping...

that LB isn't disappointed with the ribbons she is awarded for her fair entries ... she is especially concerned about her wreath, since it was her favorite entry and she worked so hard on it.

I am looking forward to...

going to the fair on Thursday and seeing our projects displayed.

I am learning...

to trust God even more each day as I recognize the things in my life over which I have absolutely no control.

Around the house...

the housework was neglected last week as we completed fair projects and then had an extremely busy weekend, so I need to catch up this week.

I am pondering...

Proverbs chapter 2 ... there is much to ponder in those verses

A favorite quote for today...

For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:6

One of my favorite things...

quiet evenings at home with the family.

A few plans for the rest of the week:

going to the MS State Fair on Thursday to see our craft projects, going back on Saturday to work in the booth for Operation Christmas Child and hopefully spending much of the rest of the week at home.

A peek into my day...

D doing mazes on my bed ... waiting patiently on me to do his phonics lesson

the potholders commissioned by Ronnie
that will soon be sewn together to make a trivet

I hope you enjoyed your little glimpse into my day ... if you want to take a similar look into the lives of other bloggers, visit  The Simple Woman's Daybook.

i can't believe we pulled it off ...

On Monday, September 17, 2012, Ronnie and I officially became the parents of a teenager. 

To celebrate this milestone, I hatched the idea of a surprise party.  Now, I am not sure what put the idea into my head, but since my sweet little girl is such a "Nosy Nellie" I knew that it would be fun to plan something behind her back.  

And, plan we did!  

One of the hardest parts of the planning was knowing exactly which girls to invite.  Though I didn't think about it at first, I ended up inviting eight girls and only seven could come, which turned out to be perfect since the party would be at our church and our tables seat eight.  I knew that LB would want to invite our entire home school group, not to mention all the other girls that she knows from church and dance, but that was just impractical, so I had to make the decision on my own.  

For the party theme, I chose "Pinterest" ... LB is somewhat obsessed with the site and many times has hi-jacked my account and pinned tons of things to her own boards.  As a side note, she has been begging her Daddy and me to let her get her own facebook and pinterest accounts, but we haven't given in on those ... yet.  Anyway, back to the party ... I chose to make recipes and crafts for the girls from things that LB and I have found on Pinterest.  This is the other part of the surprise that I was worried that LB would wish she could have been in on.  It was fun for me, but several times I wished that I could ask her opinion on something without arousing suspicion. 

I chose two craft projects for the party ... button bracelets

and glass magnets

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the girls and their crafts on my phone and I can't find the cord to put the pictures from my camera on the computer, so you'll just have to take my word for the fact that they were cute.  I did mess up a little on the glass magnets by not buying the right kind of glue.  I used my home made mod podge to make the sample and it worked fine, but I took my time and held the paper in place on the glass until it dried enough, but I forgot to tell the girls to do that, so some of theirs didn't stay glued very well.

For the food, LB had asked for a Kit-Kat cake that I had found on Pinterest several months ago and made for a friend, so that was an easy choice.  Then we had chocolate dipped pretzel rods and grapes dipped in caramel and crushed peanuts.  I had also planned to dip oreos in white chocolate and sprinkles, but we ran out of time.  We did have some, non-Pinterest inspired food, like little smokies and ham sandwiches, but those are hardly worth mentioning ...

The cake ... marbled chocolate and yellow cake, iced with white icing
and then surrounded by KitKats to make a bowl in the middle for mini M&M's.
The candles are another pinterest find...
cheap candles with colorful sequins glued on them.  Fun, huh?

The girls and the pretzel rods ... I dipped them in chocolate but the girls
drizzled the white chocolate and had a GREAT time doing it!

What was left after the girls (and my boys) finished eating

Of course, you can't have a surprise party without some planning and even a little fibbing to the surprisee ... and this is the part of the party that I couldn't have pulled off without my parents.  LB spent the night before the party at their house and then spent the day with them on Friday.  It was a good thing that I didn't have to see LB on the day of the party because I am a terrible liar ... as in even a small child can tell if I am not telling the truth!  Fortunately, my Mama is better than me and LB had no idea that they weren't really coming to the church to pick us up to go out to eat for her birthday.  The girls were hiding in the closet in the kitchen and LB was truly shocked when they came piling out yelling surprise!  I only wish I had a picture of the look on her face, but I was videoing and it is stuck in my camera with the rest of the pictures :(

LB and her guests ... she still looks a little surprised and overwhelmed here.

I am thrilled that we were able to pull of the surprise and even more thrilled that LB and her friends had such a good time at her party.  Though we usually blame the noise in our house on the boys, I will tell you that 8 pre-teen and teen girls can make A LOT of noise!  But, I can handle the noise for one night knowing that she really did have a happy birthday!

How we celebrated the actual day ... JW made LB muffins for breakfast!

busy, busy, busy

This summer has been crazy busy for us but it has been a good kind of busy.  I doubt that any of you really want a play-by-play of our summer, but this is also my journal (of sorts) so please indulge me a little.

To get the summer started, Ronnie and I took a trip (sans kids!) for our 15th wedding anniversary.  One of these days I really should post about that, but today is not that day.

Last week, our church was in Vacation Bible School and it was a great week.  I don't think I will voluntarily repeat teaching preschool, but it was a good experience and I think I can now say that I have taught every age group in the church (not all in VBS, but including Sunday School as well) except Senior Adults.  According to my kids, the only problem with VBS was that it isn't long enough. I did enjoy the week, but I must say that I am truly glad that it is only one week!

Ronnie and I have also undertaken a major overhaul of our bedroom this summer.  Our room is the "junk/storage room" of the house and quite frankly, I am tired of it!  So, Ronnie took off Thursday and Friday after July 4th and we went to work.  We haven't finished all that we want to do, but we did get rid of more junk than I care to admit, not to mention several bags of kids' clothes and even a bag of my own clothes that are (thankfully) too big for me now!  We still need to rearrange the room, but  I am loving all the space we have since we got rid of the piles of junk!

The thing that has kept me the busiest this summer is the garden.  My Daddy planted more than 100 tomato plants and somewhere around 30 squash plants.  So far, we have put up more than 60 quarts of squash - most of it canned - and I have two drawers full waiting for me to can tomorrow.  The tomatoes have been a bit scraggly ... it was hot early, with no rain, but we'll take what we can get.  Normally we would can the tomatoes in a concoction that we lovingly call tomato relish, though, in reality it is what most people would call soup stock.  The tomatoes are peeled and diced and then we add bell pepper, celery, and onion and simmer the mixture before packing it in jars and then pressure canning the final product.  This stuff is wonderful ... I use it for spaghetti, chili, soups, and in most any other recipe where I would use canned tomatoes.  I absolutely love not having to buy store bought tomatoes with all of their questionable ingredients.  Our unusually busy summer has kept us from being able to actually can any tomatoes yet.  So far, we have just been peeling and cutting up the tomatoes and then freezing them in gallon bags until we have time to do the whole process of canning our relish.  At last count, we had somewhere around 30 gallon bags waiting for us to get our act together ... hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks.  Oh, and I also have three cucumber plants that are late getting going (the first ones died and we had to re-plant) so hopefully I will be putting up pickles very, very soon!

Our busy summer has kept us from getting as much school work done as I would have liked, but I am just going to call it home-ec and let it go.  LB has learned the process for canning both squash and tomatoes and the boys have both spent a fair amount of time in the garden with my Daddy.  We have done a little math along with the older kids and I've worked with D on his reading, but we haven't had much organized book-work.  I am enjoying the break though, and soon, I'll begin working on our schedule for the new year ... it will be here before we know it!

a new appreciation

It is VBS week ... and, through no fault of my own, I am teaching preschool this year.


I tried to get out of teaching all together ... I signed up to help with the food - which, at our church, is a full meal each night.  (Tonight is spaghetti night ... yummy!)  I was thrilled...I'd get to do something totally different and then, once the work in the kitchen was finished, I could float around and help in other classes or take pictures, or maybe even go to the adult class.


But, God had other plans.


One of the first teachers to sign up this year was a lady to work with the preschool class, but a few weeks ago she called Ronnie to tell him that she was going to have to be out of town this week for work and wouldn't be able to teach.  So we began to look for another teacher, to no avail.  One of the perils of being married to the VBS director is that sometimes you get appointed to do something whether you want to or not.


Please don't get me wrong, I love preschoolers!  But the last time I taught a preschool class younger than kindergarten, I didn't have any children!  I have a hard time figuring out how to relate to small children and this week has been especially challenging because the kids in my class range from one who just turned three to one who is almost six.


Now, lest you think I am just posting this as a reason to complain, let me get to the real point of this post.


I am often guilty of lamenting how fast my children have grown and how much I miss all those stages that we have flown through over the last 12 years.  Now it is confession time.


After three nights ...
of taking kids to the bathroom ...
and trying to understand what they are saying ...
and trying to show them how to use a glue stick ...
and trying to get them to listen for more than 30 seconds at a time ...
and trying to remember to only give one instruction at a time ...
and the list could go on and on ... 
my eyes have been opened.


I have a whole new appreciation for the ages and stages we have reached with the kids.  

America, the Beautiful

We sang this song in church this morning and in light of the political mess in our nation right now, I found that the words touched me even more than they normally do.  I have no big speech to go along with this, just a healthy dose of patriotism to go with the knowledge that those of us who are Christians had better put 2 Chronicles 7:14 in practice, before this song is a thing of the past.


Listen closely to the second verse ... it gives me chills every time I sing it.

America, the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine ev'ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness, 

And ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees, beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam,

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

crochet projects galore

I have been in crochet mode lately.

A friend asked me the other day when I find time to crochet.  The truth is that it is hard to find time to just crochet, but since crocheting is so relaxing for me, I use it as a tool to help keep calm during high stress activities like listening to my kids read or playing Rook.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

I'm not.  Really!

All jokes aside,  I thought I would share some of the things I've been working on lately.

First up are the dishcloths.  Most of these will probably end up as gifts, though I may save a few for my own use.  Some of them are actually thick enough to use as a hot pad or trivet.

These two are simply granny square dishcloths with a pretty edging.
The pattern came from a dishcloth pattern book I found at Walmart.
The original pattern called for dark blue, white, and yellow, but I like this
sunny variation as well.

This is my new favorite pattern and I absolutely love this color,
though it won't work well as a dishcloth because the color fades too easily.
It actually dyed my fingers as I worked with the yarn!  I do love how
it turned out, though, so I plan to use it as a trivet. 

I was playing around with stripes on this one and I think it turned out cute.
The little round thing is made out of Scrubbie yarn,
which is kind of like a rough ribbon.
I have only found it at Michael's and it was pretty expensive,
so I won't be doing it often.

This is the new pattern in the same sunny colors as the granny squares.
I thought that these three together would make a nice wedding gift.

 The other thing I have been busy making lately is scrunchies.  I have been making these for awhile and I think I have probably blogged about them before, but since I have learned more about crocheting, I have added to the patterns I use for these and have even come up with a couple of patterns of my own.  I also decided (since my hubby asked) to see how many I could get from one ball of yarn.  My test is a little imprecise because I didn't make them all by the same pattern, but the answer is nine and a half (you'll see what I mean by that in the pics).

This is the first scrunchie pattern I learned ... it is simply single crochets around a
pony-tail holder and then chains and single crochets.

This was the first pattern I came up with myself.  It is simply treble crochets
around the pony tail holder.  These are probably the fastest ones to make.

A sampling of the ones I've done ... the one in the bottom right corner is another
one I came up with ... double crochets for the first round and then scallops for the
second round.  You can't tell it here, but it looks kind of like a flower.

Here are all the scrunchies made from the single ball of yarn.  The little ball of
yarn on the bottom is all I had left when I finished.

Most of these scrunchies will probably end up in shoe boxes.  LB has already claimed one and she likes to give them to her friends, but my intention is to use them for our church's shoe box packing party.  And since I can get approximately 10 scrunchies out of one ball of yarn and the yarn costs around $2 a ball and I got a 10 pack of pony tail holders from Target for $1, this is a pretty cost effective item for the boxes.  My only advice for someone planning to make these is to use the brand name pony tail holders - the cheap ones break too easily.  I also advise using 100% cotton yarn.  I've tried other types and they just don't look right.

Finally, here are a couple other projects I have done lately.

This isn't the best picture, but I made this little teacup and saucer
for Mama for Mother's Day .  To be honest, I can't remember where  I
found this pattern, but I hope I can find it again!  I would like to do one in
Christmas colors to enter in the fair.

I found this sweet little granny square heart on Pinterest the other day
and it was so much fun to make ... not to mention the fact that it was
incredibly easy!  I did change the original pattern a little, it had
 a picot stitch for the edging, but they aren't my favorite,
so I used scallops instead.

One other project I have made recently was a granny square water bottle cozy.  My friend Donna needed a little help with the pattern, so I made one with her.  I don't have a picture, but Donna has one on her blog, along with a link to the pattern, if you are interested.

I do have some other things I want to try ... like an interesting pattern I found on the same site that one of my dishcloth patterns came from ... her blog post is titled You Can Crochet with Sheets!  Sound like fun, huh?

almost

I don't have much to say tonight, 

except that we are almost done.

When Sunday morning rolls around we will have finished another year of both baseball and dance.

D had his baseball party tonight at the 

Mississippi Braves game.

JW has his last game on Friday and 

his party on Saturday afternoon.

LB has her eighth dance recital on 

Saturday night.

That leaves only one thing to say ...

Hallelujah!!!