Shortly after the new year, we were in Office Max to pick up some business supplies. In the clearance area near the front door they had these adorable little toddler desk and chair sets marked down from $50 to $19.99. We considered getting one and then decided against it. We thought about them again on Wednesday this week and wondered if they had any left. We called the Office Max nearby and they were sold out. I checked online and saw they had gone down to $16. We called another Office Max in town and found out they still had several. We decided to have a family outing and get one for Caroline. When we got there, we found out all their clearance stuff was an additional 20% off, bringing them down to $12.80. But the best part was that I had a coupon for $10 off a $20 purchase. So in the end, with tax, we paid $2.97! It also came with a tabletop easel that isn’t in the picture. Caroline now has her own little workspace in the dining room and she loves it! We also got her some washable crayons and scribble pads.

We also started something new with her this week which I guess is the “official” start of our homeschooling. Every night I put something new in her blue folder. The first night I made a little book for her with pictures of birds. I looked online and found photos of several birds we see around our house and printed them off. I cut them out and put together a little booklet with the name of each bird underneath it. We also made a tiny accordion booklet out of scrapbooking tagboard and put a sticker of something she likes on each section of the booklet, front and back. She was just thrilled. I’ve also been finding free coloring pages online. She’s too little to color them, but she likes seeing the new pictures and we talk about them. I found a snowman coloring page and we colored that for her, talking about colors and what was in the picture. I found some shape pages and I’m in the process of putting together a little booklet of those for her as well. I don’t expect her to know her shapes yet, but I’m a big believer in print awareness and making it fun. We’ve been doing some other things I’ll try to write about sometime.

I’ve started doing these things because I am finding it challenging to keep Caroline intellectually happy. I know that probably sounds ridiculous when she’s only sixteen months old, but she is so inquisitive and loves exploring and examining new things. She’s not able to do any real “pretending” yet so she’s definitely into the hands-on nitty gritty exploring. I’m hoping some of these little things each day will meet part of that needs. One of her favorite things to do right now is go to the basement and explore the pantry shelves. She loves taking the packages and spices and such off the shelves. She carries them around, moves them around, rearranges things, etc.

On the other hand, the food thing is driving me nuts. It is making me feel very inadequate as a mother. I realize this isn’t the case, but we’re having some real challenges in getting her switched over to regular food and getting her to eat enough so she isn’t starving ten minutes after she gets down. I talked with my pediatrician about it when we went in for her fifteen month appointment and then again when we went in this week to follow-up on her ear infections and I just didn’t get the help or insight I was looking for. I’m being very lowkey about it with her, but it is frankly frustrating me to know what to do.

And on the curls front (which you can see poofed out in the picture)… thanks so much to the ladies who left advice. I got a pick and some tangle spray and it has done the trick.

We’ve had a glorious week of winter weather. The snow is piling up this morning and it is so gorgeous. I wish I could send some to everyone reading this who lives where there is no snow. How much you miss out on! I think today it is finally warm enough to bundle Caroline up and take her out in the snow this afternoon.

Happy Friday!

I’ve published a new article at Suite101.com entitled Thanksgiving Ideas and Projects. It is full of writing prompts, projects, research ideas and miscellaneous fun! I hope you find something to enjoy with your family!

Tonight I’m doing a plug for one of the best blogs I don’t think I’ve ever plugged and you may have never read: Afterthoughts. I don’t know why I haven’t linked to Brandy more often because she writes some really good stuff.

Here’s a little sample:

16 October 2007: Conviction
Long story short, little miss A. was jumping on a crib mattress (that I had just put a fresh sheet on) while I was out of the room. The reason this is important is that she had been previously been playing outside and she had wet her pants. And then she had sat in the dirt. So now she her pants were covered in what can only be called slightly dried urine mud. Yum.

So I don’t really know this has happened, and we sit down for lunch. This is when I notice the stains on the fresh sheet (please don’t ask why it was in the dining room which is also the play room because, like I said, it is a long story). I said shrieked, “A.! Were you playing on that mattress?” When she answered in the affirmative, I was angry. Visibly angry. And the children all knew it. Since there was smoke coming from my ears, I told my son that he needed to pray before we ate. He is smart and knows that this is code for “Mommy’s heart isn’t right with God right now.”

And so he prayed.

“Dear Lord. You are a great and mighty God. Please comfort Mommy’s heart while she is angry…and mean. Please forgive her sin. Thank you for this food. Amen.”

Lest you think that she only writes funny stuff, I assure you she doesn’t. She writes great stuff. I’ve been thinking about this post ever since I read it: Contentment is the Real Thing:

It has been my observation that there is a bit of a competitive spirit out there. It appears that, to some folks, having a large family proves something to the world. It makes a statement. It might even mean the parents are more spiritual.

But does it?

Enjoy!

This is taken from Sanders New Series, The New School Reader: Fourth Book, 1865.

Lesson XLV

Nathaniel Bowditch was born in Salem, Massachusetts, March 26, 1773. He had no other educational advantages than those afforded in the common schools of his native town, in that period; and was taken from school at ten years of age. Yet, by continuing industry, in the midst of laborious and multiplied employments, he gained a knowledge of several foreign languages, and became one of the most eminent mathematicians and astronomers that this country has yet produced.

VALUE OF CHARACTER
John Todd

1. In some circumstances, men may command influence, and receive tokens of honor irrespective of their own personal merits. Titles and estates, in some countries, may descend from father to son. But we can not claim any such circumstances to aid us. To have a name that is of any worth here, we must have character of our own.

2. It is but a poor passport to distinction here, that a man had ancestors who were distinguished,–if this be all. Nay, in some respects, it is a positive disadvantage; because more is expected of such a one, than of others. Nor is it any disadvantage that your father was a mechanic, a farmer, or even a wood-sawyer. The nation will ever call Bowditch the great and the good, though he spent his boyhood in the shop of the tallow-maker.

3. I am aware that we are often accused of being inordinately covetous; because, it is said, nothing but wealth can make a man respectable here. I know that we are too covetous, and too greedy of gain, and too reckless in its pursuits; but I know that there is something vastly more valuable than wealth, in the estimation of our country–and that is character. Property, office, or station, can not be compared with it.

4. Within a short time we have witnessed a curious and beautiful spectacle. An old man, not in office, and never to be in office, not rich, but plain and simple in dress and appearance, has been passing through the every-day route of travel in our country. Wherever he went, the community,–not his own or any other political party,–but the community, embracing every party and every class of men, has risen up, and gathered around that old man, and bowed in the most respectful manner.

5. He has been greeted, in one place, by the roar of cannon, and, in another, by the silence of the forge and the trip-hammer, and the stoppage of all machinery. All delighted to honor him, from the old man with the silvered head, to lisping infancy. His name, announced without any notice, would, in a few moments, call out the city’s crowd, and the worth of the village, so that the journey of a plain citizen has been more glorious than the triumphs of the proudest general that iron-footed Rome ever welcomed.

6. He would have the lictors go before him, and his own car of triumph follow, and then the long train of prisoners in irons, about to be beheaded at the Capitol,–and then the shouting army and the untold multitude drawn out to see the show. But, in the case before us, it was to honor a man who had never waded in blood, and never gained a name on the field of battle.

7. And what was the secret of all this? It was that this old man had earned a character, and there is nothing so valued, in an intelligent community, as character. Wealth may command respect to a certain degree; but it is so much easier to acquire money than character, that they can never be placed on the same level.

8. What is it, in the highest and loftiest Being in the universe, which calls creation around Him in solemn and silent adoration, and in unshaken confidence? Is it the silver and the gold which are His? Is it the cattle upon a thousand hills, or is it, that, through all His works, His providence and His revelations, which He has made to His creatures, He shows that He possesses a character so great, and so harmonious, so wise, and so good, that all His creation can not buy cry aloud:–”Just and true are all Thy ways?”

I’ve been bookmarking links for several days and it’s time to move some of them along!

Let’s Give Our Children Eden

Running on empty (Think that gas station owner down the street is making a killing on you? Think again…)

What’s up with McMansions? (”Are McMansions McOver?”)

Homeschooling Heresies (I LOVED this post, especially number five)

Average salaries lower than past generation’s (And we’ve got more “must have” toys to boot!)

The frayed knot (Interesting look at marriage trends)

Keeping tabs on personal finances a lost art (That pretty much sums it up)

“I’m bored” (This has been my philosophy for a long time, including when I was a teacher.)

And now a moment for my fellow Spartan and Big Ten friends. Rememeber that story I linked to that Michigan State was one of the best teams of the past ten years in college hoops? He he! Guess who was NUMBER ONE on the list of most underachieving teams over the past ten years? Yes, the weasels down in Ann Arbor. Man, it is FINE TIME to be a Spartan. (I have to bask in this because football will start in a few months and there will be nothing to bask in again until basketball starts up in November…)

Happy reading!

Well, I had no intention of being so scarce around here again! Every day I thought that I would finally sit down and write, but every day was full and by the time evening rolled around I was too tired to write anything coherent.

So here’s a rambly post about what’s been going on around our home.

We still have ants. The Terminex guy has been here three times now. We deal with them in one area and they move to another. I have a whole new appreciation for the verse “Look to the ants, ye sluggard.” Thankfully they have not gone anywhere near our food. But I am getting really tired of them. I feel like a hostage in my home. We wouldn’t dare go out of town for a few days for fear of what we might find when we return. So hopefully we can get these taken care of soon because I’m growing mighty weary of them.

Do you know what the inside of your freezer looks like if you put a can of Coca-Cola in there and forget about it? Trust me, you don’t want to know. Unless you need an interesting homeschool experiment. Then give it a go!

Now that Caroline is on her way toward table foods and real milk in the next few months, I’ve started thinking about food in general. As in all the ways we can do a whole lot better in our eating. As in hormone-free milk. As in organic food. As in cleaner meat and eggs. One of my goals this summer is to start doing a little research and figure out where to start making changes. David and I are both willing to make some significant changes in the way we eat because we know it will be best for us too. But being willing and actually getting it done are two different things. The hormone stuff bothers me the most so I’ll probably start with that.

Our garden is growing very well. We should be eating a salad from it in the next few days. I have a dehydrator and plan on trying my hand at drying herbs from my garden this summer. This weekend we cut screening to put in the trays for doing herbs.

This weekend we also took down all our birdfeeders. (We had eight.) We decided we were tired of the mess on the lawn and tired of maintaining them. The final straw was when two pigeons starting appearing regularly, all day. Perhaps in the future when Caroline is older and we live in a place where it would be easier for her to watch them, we will try it again. But for now we are ready to have a bird (and squirrel) free yard for a while.

Two things that make my heart pound and adreneline rush? Children’s bookstores and curriculum. I know I’m still quite a ways from “officially” starting homeschooling, but I can’t help myself! I’ve been exploring homeschooling sites online a lot more lately and have also started printing off copies of good freebies when I find them. Since they might not still be there when I need them, I decided I’ll print things off whenever I find them and file them away for (potential) future use. I’m planning to do a post about homeschooling sometime soon since I’ve been thinking about it so much. I did add a homeschooling category to my blog. I may not be an “official” homeschooler yet, but I am completely a homeschooler at heart so that will probably start coming up more frequently.

I have one month. Thirty-two days to be exact. Tomorrow Caroline will be eight months old. That means according to the “nine months on, nine months off” I “should” have my pregnancy weight off next month. In reality, I “should” have had it off months ago since I lost almost all of it after Caroline was born. But too much sitting around in the winter, too many comfort foods, etc. made me put ON weight over the winter. And I actually don’t care what I weigh in a month. If I can get back in all my clothes comfortably, I’ll be happy. I can get all of them on. We’re just not to the “comfortably” mark yet. I can’t stand tight clothes. So it’s time to make more of a concerted effort. I will buy a scale next month and weigh myself out of curiosity.

A friend asked in an email last week how I liked my treadmill. I LOVE IT!!! I’ve “walked” in the rain, in snow, at night, during thunderstorms, in the heat and humidity, etc. I absolutely love being able to walk when it is convenient for me, not when all of the circumstances align so I might be able to get out and walk. My only regret is that we didn’t buy one of these years ago instead of wasting money on my two ill-fated Curves memberships. But I have to say the KEY for me is having the DVDs to watch. I look forward to getting downstairs every day. (Lately I’ve been trying to get down there twice a day!) If I just had to go walk on a treadmill and stare at a wall, I would have almost no motivation to do it. I am thoroughly bored with exercising. I always have been. But this way I get time to myself, I get to watch something I enjoy, and I get exercise. It is win, win, win!

Well, I’m sure there are other things I’ve forgotten, but that’s it for tonight. Have a great evening!

I’ll be busy with Mother’s Day preparations and gardening/yard work the rest of the day, but wanted to pop on and leave a few lovely links. There are so many beautiful sites and blogs out there…

A Bed for Beau (Now that is one loved doggie!)

1919 Diary (This is fascinating and I’ve just started reading the posts myself. Excerpts from a 1919 Diary written by a young woman from Fullerton, California. Part 2 is also up.)

An Old-Fashioned Education (I’ve just started exploring this site myself, but it looks like there are lots of good links and resources, including many links to Project Gutenberg)

Best program of the past decade? Try Michigan State (Ok, maybe most of you won’t think this belongs on a list of lovely links, but for this lifetime Spartan fan, I think it is lovely! I’m posting this for my fellow Spartans who read here and Lindsey, my Duke bloggy friend, and Kristy, my Tar Heel bloggy friend!)