Horse Poop

I grew up loving horses and having horses, I've always wanted kids, but never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine waking up with horse poop in my bed:




Lucky for me it only looks realistic and the manufacturer didn't feel the need to make it smell realistic.

I Have A New Hobby

My friend the Super Amazing Mary-Kay Lady introduced me to the world of coupons. I needed something more to do, what with me idling away all those hours picking my toes. So now, I spend some serious time clipping and snipping and reading ad previews trying to score some free toothpaste or make some change on deoderant. "Buying" free stuff and making money to shop just makes my girlish heart go pitter-patter.

We almost had a tragedy of the poultry kind today in the chicken pen. Four off the little fluff balls got trapped under the feed pan which then got half buried in dirt. Poor little guys were sweaty but OK when I discovered their plight and freed them from their eminent tomb.

I'm really struggling with finding my summer time groove. So many things I need and want to be doing, so little energy and motivation to actually do them! I putter in the garden...which is ROCKING this year! And I've managed to keep the grass mowed, but even though Hubster's ex will be in town in a week, and E will be here on Tuesday, I can't seem to motivate myself to get the house in order. Taxi Mom made me a deal of the organizational sort...trading off time at each other's houses to calm the clutter. Taxi Mom is the product of a military background...she married a military man...I would not hesitate to lick ice cream off her floor on any given day...I suspect she's being her usual wonderful self and just sees my plight and has vowed to help me out without making me feel bad. I won't tell her I know what she's up to if you don't...K?

My hometown got hit by a tornado yesterday! I told E I guess I'm glad I moved to Texas! We've only had to hide out once during our time here, and that was this spring when a huge hail storm went through. The tornado was headed right for us, but as they are wont to do, it dissipated before it hit town. Gramma said the sky was black, not the eerie green it gets when a tornado forms down here. I sure feel bad for the folks in Windsor who got hit. Dense population and intense storms are never a good combination.

I'll try and update with pictures of the garden and some non-sense of the kid variety soon. We've got plenty of that going on around here!

So I Lied...

I have no idea why I procrastinate so. Finals went fine, and I've been picking my toes for two weeks now. Nothing goin' on round here. Well, unless you count this stuff:


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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Or this stuff:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

(Nothing like an AIRPLANE HANGAR in your HOUSE!)

Or this stuff:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

And just yesterday, this happened:


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Yup. A whole lotta nothin' going on around here!

I Promise...

I'll check back in after finals. I have two of them tomorrow and the other two are early next week. I finally managed to get ONE B on a calculus test! Go me! Now if I can just avoid failing the final, I'll get out of there with my precious, hard earned C.

Ruining Our Bad Reputation

In the car as we pull into Church:

Mom of All Trades: "Wow! We are TEN minutes early!"
B: "Ohhhh cr@p."
D: "Yeah, we've got a reputation to uphold, don't we B?"

Singing Our Own Song

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It totally cracks me up that it sounds like she says "Evewy where we tease him!" I tried to capture some "Aaahhhhhssss cweam" goodness for everyone, but she enunciated today. That is one word that doesn't sound at all good in Texan...

The best one is "Jack and Jiwl wen' up-a-hiwl, fetch-a-pay-o-wader, Jack faw' down, bwoke him cw-own and Jiwl came barrowing af'er. Now him up a-fas'-as-him can go-o, wen' to bed and busted him head wif bin-awound-a-papah." But I could only get "Pock-a-Posey-Posey" uploaded before I ran out of bandwidth, so you'll have to wait on Jack and Jill until next month. Here's her version of Ring Around the Rosey, (with K in the background some):


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Happy Campers

Now, how long do you think THIS lasted?

It was harder for Mom than it was for (most) of the kids.

How DO I Do It?

I was asked that twice today. Well, actually, they asked how DO you do it...referring to me. I don't usually give it much thought, because frankly, a lot of days I just feel like a slug. I know I'm busy and all, but some days I just don't feel busy. And other days I want to pull the covers back over my head to avoid the busy. So here's how I juggle full time school for me and homeschooling two and a half kids: I've made friends with imperfection.

See, as a kid, I always had this feeling I could be perfect. I could do everything that was expected of me, some nice stuff for others and keep myself out of trouble. No matter what I did, I expected that I would be the best at it. Not being the best at absolutely everything was simply crushing to me. Yep. I put the fun in dysfunctional. Then I got married and unleashed my perfection on raising a family. And of course, being the second wife, I had to prove I really was the best wife. Too bad no one ever told me that life is a marathon and not a sprint. Over the years, I have found myself sprinted to exhaustion on more than one occasion. Lucky for me, I'm not dumb and I do have a lazy side, so I have learned to ease up some. Some. Mostly in the area of laundry and cleaning. Anyone who sees my house on a regular basis would never guess at the perfectionism that lies beneath this calm exterior. I have learned to step over the laundry piles and let the dishes sit in the sink out of sheer need. See, I figure that educating myself and my children, well, that's probably more important than folded laundry, and being calm and loving towards my kids is probably more important than my need for a clean living room with no PILES of stuff.

I'm not that fru fru high energy mom who hovers over her kids and fills their days with stimulating activity. I'm not that mom who does "school at home". I'm not that mom who volunteers for everything. I do what I do because of some simple time structure during my days, a little planning at night and a whole lot of breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. I try and handle certain tasks only on certain days and I don't beat myself up if I don't get around to them. I try and keep to a loose schedule to keep our studies on track, but I don't beat myself up (much) if we don't get as far as I'd like. I try to read my scriptures before I fall asleep at night. I try and do my studying the night before I have class and a few hours on the weekends. I try and have the kids help keep the living room from looking horrible and I try to keep the kitchen from utter chaos. I let the rest of it go. I get to it when I can. My neighbors hate me because I have the worst yard on the block. Oh well. I serve in my church calling and I try and find things to show my kids how to serve others. I guess if it bothered them that much they'd offer to cut my grass.

There are lots and lots and lots of things that I can do better. Being forced to embrace my own imperfections is a daily reminder of why I need to depend on my Savior. It's comforting to finally know that my imperfections are built in and it is not within my ability to perfect them through any amount of will power.

RE: The Heatherless Chickens

They are pretty ugly, aren't they? They are called Turken's, but I think the official breed name is Hungarian Naked Necks. They are all little boys, included at no charge to keep a small order of little girls warm. I guess having "heatherless" necks makes them easy to tell apart from the girls. I'm thinking it also means a clear "target" once they reach 8-10 pounds.

The Little Red Hen

I spend all day very busy, feeding the children, cleaning the house and washing the clothes. (Well, OK, maybe not so much with the cleaning and laundry but I feed the children at least ONE square meal every day.) When I ask for help cooking, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. When I ask for help with the cleaning, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. When I ask for help with the laundry, "Not I" say the little pigs kids. So when I said, "Who wants to help me go pick up my latest Freecycle find?", all the little pigs except one said "Not I", and frankly, the one who "WOULD WIKE TO GO HEWP" hasn't been the greatest traveling partner lately. The worst part is, the kid will not ease up off my back. She tells me that my precious Freecycle finds are "UGwy 'cause 'dem don't hab HEATHERS on dem necks!" I dunno. I guess she kinda has a point.

It Has to Be Said...

Taxi Dad, I think your tractor's $exy. Especially when it's parked at my house. It told me it likes living here and saving me from copious amounts of physical labor. I give it the attention it needs and the challenge it craves. I'm sorry, I know it hurts being Dear John'ed by your John Deere.




And really, who would want to dig this:


with this:


when you can dig it with the help of a big, strong, tractor?

Little Known Nursery Songs

We've been known to sing a rousing rendition of "All Around the Merry Go Bush" in this house, but when the "AB Song" goes haywire, you might want to pay attention. I had to drop D off at the airport today, so I ditched two children and J came with me and D for a little traffic filled adventure. On the way back, J's Cheeto's made a repeat appearance. It wasn't pretty. Good news though, she was just car sick, not sick-sick. And apparently, she was also inspired by the great orange globs of goo, for I heard the following being cheerfully sung from the back seat: "Now I know my ABC's, I can't hold my puke on me!"

Ahhhh, Spring Break

And I'm working on a new project. You can see it here. I have always had a testimony of food storage. My testimony of food storage was formed long before I had the added benefit of hearing revelation from a modern day prophet. My testimony of food storage began each year as we drove our cattle to summer pasture so that our hayfields could grow to their full capacity; as I watched the grasses grow taller and taller, as I restricted my travels across our ranch so as not to trample the growing crop, and as I labored in the fields with my family, and other families in the valley, so that we could harvest the hay and make it available to our cattle all winter long. My testimony of food storage began as I pushed heaping shopping carts behind my mother and grandmother during our "stocking up" trips that took place 100 miles from our ranch; as I helped butcher the steer that was to become the little white packages that filled our freezer each year, and as I listened to my dad groan about the bill that came every September when they came to fill our 1000 gallon propane tank. I say I began with these things, because in the early 1980's, our valley was hit with monumental snowfall. That was the year that cemented my testimony of food storage.

That year the snow began early and piled up fast. Soon, we were not able to take hay to the cattle with our tractors. My grandfather went out and removed the hood off an old car, turned the smooth side down, and lashed the makeshift sled to the back of our ancient snowmobile. We couldn't carry many bales at one time this way, so feeding time took up the better part of each day. I thought we had it pretty tough, and then I went to spend the night at my friend Heather's house.

Each day we watched Heather and her brothers ride up to the bus stop with their mom on a sled behind a snowmobile. It looked like a grand adventure to start each day with a ride behind a snowmobile! So after school one day, I got to bundle into the sled with the other children and we started the trek to their home. They only lived about 2 miles from the highway, but their ranch did not have the benefit of the valley's protection. The windswept plain offered no protection from the driving snow, and the snow drifted all the way to the roofs of the barns and houses. Walk ways had been cleared but making your way from the house to the barn required snowshoes if wind blew in the trampled paths. The herd at Heather's house was much larger than ours, and to my delight, four large, black draft horses were employed to drag a huge sled out to the field to feed the cattle each morning; until I found out how that huge sled had to be loaded: one pitchfork (!!!) full at a time.

The ranch house was warm and snug, and it was at Heather's house that I tasted my first bite of homemade wheat bread. It tasted strange and not at all good to my white bread palette. Not even the homemade jam helped it go down. Good thing there was stew that night, because the next morning, there were buckwheat pancakes, and for lunch, wheat biscuits with gravy. By the time it was time to load my overnight bag onto the snowmobile sled and meet my mother at the highway, I was cold, hungry and tireder than I'd ever been before in my young life. I didn't know it then, but I learned a valuable lesson about food storage that day. Store what you eat. It wasn't until years later I first heard the expression to "Store what you eat, eat what you store." And I have to admit that my idea of food storage is much evolved from what I learned as a young girl snowed into a ranch on Wyoming. Even though I've left the ranch, I'm more passionate than ever about food storage. I'd love to get to the point that I don't visit the grocery store on a weekly basis, not only because I don't NEED to but because I won't WANT to. For me growing up, self-reliance was a way of life and I'd like my kids to experience that.

Summing It Up

I found an interesting concept today over at Smith Magazine. They claim that legend tells of Hemingway being asked to write a story in six words. His response was "For Sale, baby shoes, never worn." So they've asked people to sum up their lives in six words. I planned on thinking on this over the week, but it came to me much faster than I ever anticipated. My submission? "I failed to plan and lived". And I'm not having second thoughts about it either. It totally fits. So what about you? Sum up YOUR life in six words and leave me some comment love.

See What I'm Up Against Here?

This was around noon. I had to help her clean it off so Hubster could use his table.

And here it is around 6 this evening.




Such a busy little girl!

*sigh*

The Girl Moves Mountains

Mountains and mountains of stuff that is.



She moved all these books onto this table in just a short time of quiet play. (And then promptly fell asleep on the floor, as you can see.)

Friday the tent was piled high all around her, taller than the purple rubbermaid chest at the right of the photo. This is after I cleaned it all up and she played yesterday.



And this table spent the better part of the last two weeks piled high with pillows, toys, books and other necessities of 3 year old fun. The mountain was so high it was well over the ends of the legs.



And I won't even go into the negotiations involved with leaving the house. She tried to take no less than 3 huge bags full of stuff to Taxi Mom's house last night. I actually had to carry a bucket to church this morning to contain the treasures and avoid a melt down.

This obsession with surrounding herself with all of her possessions (and as much of her sibling's stuff as she can snipe off with) tickles me and frustrates me all at once. It is so fun to watch her quietly playing. It is amazing that one little girl can be so industrious and move so.much.stuff. And it's too bad I can't harness this evil gift in reverse. All attempts at getting her to move the stuff BACK meets with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Cookies For the Class

One year, shortly after I was first married, OK, like within two months of being married, before I got all tired and crabby and no fun, the older kids and I made Valentine's Day cookies for their whole class...so like, 60 cookies, thereabout.

This year, I decided to make Valentine's Day cookies with the little kids. So like, 60 cookies or so.



Good thing they didn't have far to go to make it to the school. *cough*

Sweetheart Cake

Sweetheart Cake , originally uploaded by yibbityibbit.

Is it sad that I practiced making my own birthday cake tonight? I have a good reason, this is my first adventure into rolled frosting. I've been watching Ace of Cakes too much. I've been lusting after that silky smooth finish. Yearning for those clean lines and sharp angles. There's only one problem: Fondant tastes NASTY. Well, OK, maybe there is two problems, butter cream tastes WONDERFUL. Particularly MY butter cream. My butter cream is more of an event...really. My headstone will probably read: Here Lies Mom of All Trades. She couldn't keep house worth squat but her butter cream was divine.

I could tell you my secret, but then I'd have to kill you.

Anyway. Not wishing to give up my butter cream tastiness, I used my now famous super Google skillz and came up with a lovely little thing called Rolled Buttercream. It is still lacking the creamy perfection of butter cream, but I was able to get pretty close to my signature flavor.

So I made myself a lemon cake covered with play-doh that tastes like buttercream. It is kinda pretty, all those clean lines and satiny smoothness. And I only swore once when I rolled it all out, smoothed it and polished it and my three year old punched her little fists into it, declaring it perfect and ruining all that satiny smoothness. Well, OK, I swore again when I rolled it all back out smoothed and polished it and tried to lift it onto the cake. They have you roll it on a board for a reason. It will not tolerate folding or lifting. It breaks in half. Once I followed the directions and rolled it out, smoothed and polished it for the third time, I found that it wasn't too tricky to smooth down the sides of the cake. Kinda fun. I used the recipe on Allrecipes. With my flavor modifications.

Have You Seen This?

Glenn Beck on President Hinkley My SIL sent me this link and I think even those who don't like Glenn Beck will benefit from taking time to view this clip. A heartfelt tribute to a man who truly did set a wonderful example to people of all faiths; and humility from a man who makes his living arguing for what he believes is right. A great example of how humility is not a sign of weakness.

Making Home a Heaven on Earth

If Heaven has laundry piles and dirty dishes, I'm in great shape. I finally cleaned my bedroom last night, and thanks to Chris' Year Off Blog I've been being a bit more motivated to do some purging. So I tackled my closet. THREE black trash bags FULL later, I have space to hang my clothes! You can walk in there! Best of all, I would actually wear the things that are in there! There was some seriously tragic 90's fashion going on in there. Best part of all is that Hubster was working last night, so ONE of those bags...let's just say it's not like the others! LOL There is some seriously tragic 80's fashion in that one. But don't tell him, m'kay? He's formed some pretty intense attachments to his old, torn up, ratty clothes. And I didn't even scratch the surface on his side of the closet. I'm gonna have to make it go away g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y. One day he will wake up and go to the closet to find his shorts that are torn up the side from the hem to the belt and I will feign ignorance. It's better if we don't speak of this again.