I Should Post

So I shall.

Today was the official start of home school. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. It was also a rare day off for Hubster in which he had his eyes open and was coherent instead of catching up on much needed sleep. He was taking some on-line courses and after running back and forth between K's spelling, B's History and fixing the 'puter for Hubster, I think Hub got a good reminder of why I am catatonic by the end of a day. It's always good to let the Hub have a glimpse into my day to day life, it's usually good for a little forgiveness for the six foot tall laundry pile at any rate.

Sometimes it is hard to tell how much time I actually spend with my kids. I know that sounds strange for a home schooling mom to say, but I do. A typical day begins with breakfast, chores and then we move on to lessons. I shuffle between all three for about four hours, then fix a snack aka lunch, then I turn them loose to "self-study" which at this age, consists of reading library selections, drawing or other creative projects or play, and house keeping projects...depending on the day. It is during this time that I try and run errands, prepare dinner, tidy up and handle things that need done during business hours. After 4, the kids are free to relax, watch TV, play with friends and so forth, Hubster goes to work, and I sit down to try and study..or something. Four hours out of all that just doesn't seem like much. I guess we do try and read some during the late afternoon...but still. It is a strange thing to never be without them, and yet, some days, I feel as though I've hardly seen them.

I think my Managerial Accounting class is calling my name. I was pleased to be able to get this class on-line instead of Tue-Thurs as I had planned. Now I only go on campus on Sat mornings to suffer through PE. They don't call it that anymore, but my poor, sore legs and butt will tell you that no matter what they are calling it these days, it is still PE. But my poor, sore legs and butt will also tell you that they are still in considerably better shape than many of my classmates. The poor guy who asked to be my lifting partner disappeared after I leg pressed 140# 8 times. There was one poor girl who couldn't even finish the 8 reps with just the apparatus and no weight. I'll tell you that it is a sad, sad state of affairs when a 33 year old with a heart problem performs in the top third of a class of 20 somethings. No wonder we are all dying of diabetes and heart disease. If my poor, sore legs and butt will ever let me walk again, I think I may just have to commit myself to a somewhat less sedentary lifestyle. Maybe. As long as I can still eat cake.

My Next Project

Honey Bees! No, I haven't lost my mind. I've been studying a lot and I attended a class. I have to wait until spring, but I'm so excited!

Here's the Bee lady


Isn't this the coolest thing ever?!


See? My friend Home School Supa Momma doesn't look scared at all!


There were several people who came to observe and only two bee suits. By the time it was my turn in the suit, the bees were unhappy, so I didn't mess with them, but my pictures are taken with a 50 mm fixed lens...so no zooming in on things. I walked right up to where the action was, with no suit and was completely ignored by the little stingers. I'm gonna be good at this, I just know it!

Baptism, Complete With Cake

So here are the promised pictures of the momentous occasion.

My girls...D, J, K, and C (my daughter in law)


Hubster and the girl


Yes, I have been making cake all summer, so shut up.


With E. Yes, he's got a mohawk. He's always been a bit on the crazy side.


Squeaky clean with new scriptures and....cake, of course.


One with Taximom. I heart her.


Here's the cake before assembly...the springy-thingy's on the finished thing were totally awesome, but I just can't get over how good this thing turned out. I felt bad about the cake for S's birthday...I struggled with that one so much I changed recipe's and I'll never look back. I've been promised a second chance at a cake for her next year.


It's hard to tell but the colors are painted on with this wonderful sparkley dust, they were so soft and pretty.



I'm noticing that it's getting harder and harder to get pictures of ALL the kids together. Thanks to my friend for running my camera and doing a great job!

Music Randomness

K turned 8 yesterday, and she also go to be baptized. Seriously, I've never seen so many people at a baptism. I didn't count but if there was fewer than 75 people I'd fall over from the shock, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was closer to a hundred. I was overwhelmed with the love so many people showed my magnificent girly and our family.

I made cake.

I always make cake.

But now I'm tired. Maybe I'll get the pictures off my camera later tonight and then post them. It's raining right now, so I'd really rather be taking a nap. Here is some music for your listening enjoyment:

Brandi Carlisle

You'll recognize that from the GMC commercial that's been playing during the Olympics. I love it.

Also check out:

Priscilla Ahn

I make it a policy to get all my new favorite music from Grey's Anatomy and random commercials. Don't believe me?

Ben's Brother From a Dentyne Commercial..maybe..it was gum anyway. Gum sold buy a frog and an animated princess.

My current obsession with The Weepies sparked by my interest in their Jc Penny's commercial during the holidays.

The World Spins Madly On

Nobody Knows Me at All

Feist compliments of I-pod Commercials.

And Yael Naim .... from the Mac notebook commercial.

Perhaps the most interesting album I've found from my lame way of finding new favorites is the collaberation by Allison Krauss and Robert Plant called Raising Sand. The song that initially caught my attention? Killing the Blues ...another JCPenny commercial.

Now I'm just going to waste the afternoon refereeing fights between the restless inmates and surfing You Tube. Maybe I'll get ambitious and watch some more Olympic diving. Then again, maybe not. I promise I'll post pics of the lovely afore mentioned event soon.

PS: Try IZ too. I swear I heard that in 50 First Dates too...

What The Camera Saw

Funky psychadelic fondant covered birthday cake a-la-alice-in-wonderland.



Hey, wait...this is not my child! No, I did not inherit any more children, I've been looking after a couple rug rats that belong to my sweet friend and giver of the rice seasoning, and she needs a blog name...and I suck...because I can't think under this much pressure. It'll come to me...give it time.

Anyhow, she was nice enough to let me borrow her kids this summer so mine wouldn't drive me up the wall.

And she has a pool that's less than 2 minutes from my house...lets just say that the arrangement has worked out "swimmingly" for us this summer...

Uh, anyway, sweet S turned 6, I was beside myself, so I made cake.

And took pictures. Because I can. My camera looks big and muy importante now, so people respect the camera.



Too bad I'm too lazy to photoshop out the red eye. That is a dang cute bunch of kids right there.



Fun too!



Her brother D made her this crown. I took an improperly focused picture. Sigh. I know how to fix that, and I practiced, but I lost my focus (so to speak) under the pressure. Someday I will learn to check ALL the settings. Sigh.




I love photoshop. I'm pretty proud of my handi work on this shot, but I won't detail the whole thing right here on the WORLD WIDE WEB. No one needs to know you just had a facial, an eybrow wax and lost some weight! Hey...what are friends for? I got your back *insert witty blog name here* I haven't posted an unedited picture of myself since I discovered LIQUIFY and the Self healing blemish remover. Better than lipo and a make up artist baby.

But her husband....he shall not be so lucky. The photoshop magic I run on this attractive photo will be to turn it into their annual Christmas card:



I'll teach him to fool around in front of *MY* camera. Bwaaa, haaa, haaa, haaa, haaa.

Good thing he has an incredible sense of humor...I'm afraid he knows where I live.



There was more than a little foolishness goin' down that night. Good thing we're all Mormons and didn't have any liquor around. THAT could have been UGLY...



Aren't these kids just darling?



Happy Birthday S! Not sure what we're gonna do when you guys go back to school this fall.

The Photog Begins...

My newest child arrived yesterday. I'm so excited! These are some straight out of camera shots we took last night in between rain showers just before the sun went down.

I used to do a fair amount of film photography, but I'm not so much with the notebooks and the running back and forth to the lab to develop film. I'm all about the instant gratification of digital. And since my new child is the culmination of several birthdays, Christmases and Mother's Day with no presents...I'm about dang ready for some instant gratification.




Notice the sharp,clear picture of the "Gahteraid" mustache she's sporting? Classy.



I love me some bokeh.



My how tall you are getting.

And since I'm celebrating the end of shutter delay in my photography life, some action shots:



Focus is off, but this shot more than makes up for it:



I've missed far to much booty shaking in my pre-DSLR days.

But the best thing of all is finally being able to capture the subtle expressions that I've been missing all these years.

Garden Winding Down

The hot hot hot Texas sun is doing it's thing on my garden and so we are just about done with fresh from the garden produce.


Gosh I love macro shots...


There will be more where that came from soon. My new to me camera should be arriving any day now. Thanks Brandi! Couldn't have gotten it done without your kindness and generosity. I can't wait to finally have the tool to get all the awesome shots that I see allllll the time but slip past my poor Cannon point and shoot. Shutter delay kills shots of fast moving children like nobody's business. Within the next few days, the blog will probably become just another photog blog! LOL Oh well, that will make the grandparents happy. And me. It will make me very happy. I'm always needing more outlets for my creativity.

More Fluff Balls

The two hens I got from Freecycle like to set on eggs...a lot. So here's the newest batch of fluff balls. There are actually three, but one is already hiding under momma....like this one is trying to do...


Here's number three...look close...


These chicks are actually from my other hens...the surrogate momma is sorta scrawny and I'm not really wanting to pass along her gene pool, so these will hopefully be Aracauna crosses. I'm now finding myself in need of a new chicken pen...and my next big project will be raising some broilers.

Father's Day

A bit late, but I should chronicle the addition of the latest family member here. Hubster has always wanted a German Shorthair Pointer. They are a sporting dog and not the most common thing to try and find. When you do find them, they cost a bit and then flying them to where you might be able to pick them up costs even more. I got lucky and found a man who had his dogs flown to him and then decided he'd like to have a litter...thus making it so he wouldn't have to have a new dog flown to him when his got too old for hunting. He ended up with 9, so he posted them on a little corner of the internet and with my supa Google skillz I found them and was pleased to see that he not only didn't want a million dollars for them but that he lived close enough that I could drive there and back in a day. So under the cover of a Boy Scout field trip, I loaded up the girls and went to pick him up. Hubster was not overly surprised that wanted to get him a dog for Father's Day, but was surprised that we actually GOT him a dog for Father's Day! He decided to call him "Q". Do you see it?



He could just as well have gone with "8", but then the Bond nod would be lost...


I don't generally care much about his hunting dogs, but I really, really love this one.



Look at those eyes. Now if he just won't eat any more chickens, I'll love him a whole lot more.

Bath Hoodie

My Church has a wonderful program that promotes friendships and care for the needs of sisters called Visiting Teaching. Basically, every woman is assigned a partner with whom she visits four or five sisters each month. In turn, each woman also has two sisters who visit her each month...clear as mud? When B was born, my visiting teacher also happened to be my pediatrician. This sweet woman just loves children and had difficulty carrying pregnancies to term. She and her husband would have liked to have had a very large family, but they were so thankful to have finally gotten the two darling children they finally were able to have. So, on top of being a doctor and mom, she was my visiting teacher. Shortly after B was born, she made me one of these hooded bath towels. It always touched my heart that this woman, who could likely afford anything she wanted to give as a gift, chose to give us the one thing she was short on: Her time. I still have that gift and have used it with all three babies, it's in very rough shape now, but I'll never part with it.

Last night, at the ripe old age of 33, I became a grandmother. The situation is not the happiest, but we have hopes that it will improve. The mother is very young and has a string of psychological challenges. Long story short, it has been best for us to stay in the background as we support our son as he tries to cope with the situation.

At any rate, sad and worried as I am for the situation, I wanted to show our new grand-daughter that we do love her more than she may ever know, and wouldn't you know it, I thought of that gift given by a thoughtful and loving visiting teacher over 9 years ago. So I sat down this morning and made this:



The only thing I ever disliked about the one that was given to me was that the hood quickly became too small...I blame the kids for that. ;O) So I made this one adjustable. The buttons keep it small for now and when she's bigger, they can simply undo them and the hood will be larger.





I think it turned out really cute. I'm so hoping M will be able to bring her for a visit so I can take some newborn shots here in the next couple weeks.



And by the way, if you are over the age of fifteen hours old, you may not call me Grandma.

Bounty

Here's tonight's harvest:



And there are a few more things waiting for us down there:










But the chickens are unhappy with the heat and are going on strike.

The Tail End

Yesterday, Hubster and I decided that Commencement exercises were created by people who have two or fewer kids. It's fun to see her so excited to move onto the next phase of her life. She was 5 when Hubster and I got married, and her graduation marks the end...the end of something I can't quite put my finger on. We're the child support-ed, not the child support-er, so, it isn't that. The nest is obviously not empty, so it's not that. Maybe it is that the negotiations with the ex-spouse are officially over. That part hasn't been too tough for a while now, but even so, I guess it's just the idea that they are all adults now and make their own choices and be cognizant of everything that needs to go into and results from, those choices. I no longer feel the weight of being responsible for them pressing down on me.



Don't get me wrong, I've always felt that we were a family, I've always done for my step-kids as though they were my own, but I always did feel a deep responsibility to their mother. That sense of responsibility has really made a separation in the past couple of years. Teenagers are tough. I can't pretend I didn't wish on more than one occasion that their mother would have had to deal with them instead of me. Being the Disneyland parent sounded pretty good sometimes. But overall, I'm just glad to be moving into a new relationship with my now grown step kids. Instead of feeling compelled to teach, I am looking forward to sitting back and letting them come to me for advice. Instead of feeling the need to set guidelines and enforce rules, I am looking forward to letting natural consequences take over and leave me as the sympathetic ear.

I know it's not really the end of anything to me, but it still feels like a new beginning.