Monthly Archives: November 2006

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving again this year. We are so very thankful that God has watched over us for the past 2 years. That is when everything changed for us. God had been nudging us for awhile, but we hesitated to step away from all that was familiar and safe. God continued to work on our hearts until we finally heeded His prodding and took that step of faith. EVERYTHING has been so drastically different since then!

This Thanksgiving we were blessed to have my parents with us. It was their first visit since we moved to Florida, so Mom and I were able to catch up and Dad spent some time building with the grand kids. We went to the beach and to visit Hubby’s work. We showed them the town, and we had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner. We are doubly blessed this year, we had my parents for Thanksgiving, and we’ll have Hubby’s folks, sister and her husband for Christmas. We are all traveled out for a bit, so everyone is coming to us! It’s good to be loved!

My family has come down to spend Thanksgiving with us, so we will be out and about for a few days. The Imp has chosen this week to fall apart. Suddenly she can’t do anything without being ornery or “the whine”! It turned colder here, and she doesn’t want to wear warm clothing. That is where it all started this morning and things went down hill from there. Her clothes bugged her, her hair wasn’t right, she was hot, she was cold, she was being looked at by her brothers, tears were shed over shoes…… Yes, it was one of THOSE days. Of all the weeks to pick, she waits till we have company. (sigh) We got her to bed earlier yesterday and I had a chat with her…. laying out some consequences. (Read: “If she doesn’t knock it off, she is going to stay home and nap since she acts like she needs one.”) Hopefully this will be a passing funk and my sweetie pie will return by morning.

I was feeling all domestic today, and found this nifty little recipe. It works surprisingly well, the smell is better than Mr. Clean, but not as mild as Windex. If you shop at warehouses where they give you a 10 year supply of rubbing alcohol, it will help with that storage problem too. (Honestly, who really needs a gallon of rubbing alcohol!? ) So in the effort of saving big bucks and clearing out some of those monster bottles of rubbing alcohol, I will share my little nugget of info, ENJOY!

Glass Cleaner Recipe
1 cup rubbing alcohol
1 cup water
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Using isopropyl alcohol and white vinegar together makes a quickly evaporating spray glass and mirror cleaner that competes with national brands. This can also be used to shine to hard tiles, chrome, and other surfaces.

We try to live a simple life. I plan and organize, I don’t over schedule the kids, I make lists so that we have items before we actually run out of them. The OTHERS in my home do not share my desire to be prepared and organized. They like to decide to go on some whacked out diet IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR GROCERY WEEK! They insist that waiting 5 more days will just make them burst forth from every pair of pants they own. I am all for cooking to the whims of the Grand Ruler, but PLEASE, give me advance notice! One must plan these things!

The miniature people in the house have also strayed from the serenity of the Path of Organization into the hills of Chaos. Case in point: We have 40 cards to make for a nursing home visit. I had checked that we had supplies last week and all was well. The miniature OTHERS chose to use up ALL the construction paper during this time and not put it on THE LIST or even inform me!
We go to make cards on Monday, no supplies. That’s ok, I gave us an extra day to get it done, we’ll pick up paper tomorrow. Tuesday rolls around. With THE LIST in hand and a well planned hour of errands ahead, we head for the car. What is this!? The car has a flat tire. Hubby came home from work early, checked tire and rim, inflated it and drove straight to tire shop to find the hole. That’s right, no hole, no leak, better replace the stem valve just in case. Bless the tire man for being so kind. He didn’t even let hubby pay him for the valve thingie. Note to self…return to blessed tire man for future tire business. (We later discover it was a “flat”…. Not as in needs air…..rather as in, “Oh look, the neighbor kids were practicing their hoodlum skills again and it was our turn to be the chosen ones!” GRRR! ) It is now 7pm on Tuesday. I jump in fixed car, run to do errands. Forget THE LIST, and must return home to get it. Once again on the road, we find a store with most everything on THE LIST, including construction paper and head home.

We begin making cards with the children from 8pm till about 10pm when Hubby points out that kidlet’s heads will explode like pumpkins at the nursing home tomorrow if we don’t get them to bed soon. Having lost all track of time and covered with Elmer’s glue, paper punch dots, and markers, I surrender my coloring and pasting army to their beds. The kitchen looks like an explosion at a crafting store. I begin to clean. Hubby insists that mess will be there in the morning, we MUST sleep. SLEEP?! I can not sleep when my kitchen is a wreck. Hubby is tired. we MUST sleep. Sigh. I lie awake thinking of things for the children to write in their cards, counting how many left to make, my kitchen is calling to be cleaned. I toss, I turn. Just 15 minutes would set it to rights again. But alas, we are to sleep. Sleep finally comes, then the alarm goes off. I stagger out of bed to get Hubby’s coffee. The kitchen is still a wreck, I begin to set it to rights while packing Hubby’s lunch and waiting for his coffee to finish. My right eye begins to twitch. Welcome to my world!

The Kids Carnival of Comedy is up for those looking for a snicker and a smile. What a fun way to share our kid stories. Thanks to In a Shoe for hosting this week!

Recently the Imp went to play with a friend at her house. The playmate was clearly upset about something, so the Imp asked her about it. The little playmate was very upset because one of the girls at school was telling all the other girls that she could see ghosts and talk to them. She told the girls to bring in pictures of anyone that was dead and she would tell them how it happened. She was especially interested in pictures where the person was murdered or kidnapped. (Mind you, these are 6 year old girls.) She went on to tell the little neighbor girl all about demons and how they bite people and it will kill them within 6 weeks of biting them. That she knew how to make pictures on the floor of their bedrooms to keep them safe, if they were worried about getting bit. (There was much more, but you get the idea…..at SIX!)

The little neighbor girl has been afraid to be in her room alone or in the dark for a couple days. Her grandma died recently, and as a six year old, she doesn’t fully understand death. Her mom said the g’ma died of natural causes/illness….but the little girl is positive she must have been murdered, and is planning to take a picture to school for the other little girl to use as a psychic medium. Which will, I’m sure, feed into more fears.

The Imp tried to encourage her to talk to her mom about it, but the neighbor girl was afraid her mom would be upset, and talking about the grandma makes her cry sometimes. The Imp tried to tell her that God is bigger than anything that could be scary and that if the neighbor girl prays when she feels afraid, God could help her not be afraid. The little girl just got upset and kept saying, “NO, no, no,” and told her it wouldn’t work.

The Imp came to me and wanted to talk after the playdate. We discussed what the Bible said, and any other concerns she was thinking about. I praised her for encouraging her friend to discuss it with her mom, because her mom is there to help her understand the things that go on around her. We prayed for the little girl to be able to make the right choice by talking to her mom and not getting involved with “fortune telling”, but rather looking to the Bible and her parents for guidance.

(We also discussed how it is right after Halloween and the school girl may have watched movies that she shouldn’t have.) How that some girls try to scare other girls to get attention, if they don’t get enough from home. She just may be trying to get the other girls to think she is special so they will like her.

The question now is, do I say something to the mom of the frightened neighbor girl? I remember lots of kids like this when I got to the preteen years, but this one is freaking out little kids. I don’t know much about the family to know if they would even find this offensive. (they just moved in) Is this just “normal” playground behavior, or is this something to be concerned about? After discussing it and having her questions answered, the Imp seems fine, but I worry about the little neighbor girl, if she won’t talk to her mom. Some of the things were pretty disturbing for a little kid that assumes everything anyone tells them is true.

This weekend was fun. Hubby had Friday off so we hung out as a family. In school the boys are learning about the Civil War. We just finished a book on Abraham Lincoln and two other period books, so we began watching the PBS program The Civil War as a family. (Yes we own the dvd’s …..don’t ask…..it’s part of Hubby’s “All-things-WARLIKE” collection, which he adds to on a regular basis.) We have been watching a section per night and it definitely has brought home the evils of slavery and the sacrifice that standing up for right sometimes costs.

We have been looking for some fun things for the kids to make as gifts this year. Lowe’s offers a kids day once a month where the kids get to build a project to take home. This time they armed them with hammers and goggles and fun was had by all. The programs are free. They get an apron, a bag of goodies, and a project to build at home (in case the one they did there doesn’t come out right). The kids had a blast, and they have plans to sand and finish their projects in time for Christmas.

On Sunday, we did home church in the morning, had a lazy afternoon, and then went to evening service. The children were each assigned a part for the Christmas play last week, so they had to practice. The Sarge is reading a Scripture passage, the Gremlin is one of the speaking children, and the Imp gets to be a sheep that talks about baby Jesus in her feed trough. I need to get started on a sheep costume, as there may be other costumes to help with too. This church is finally starting to feel like home. We are getting to know the members, and the children have made friends and started to put down roots. It is nice to start settling in again. I don’t know if Florida will ever feel ENTIRELY like home, but it’s not a bad place to be. We’ve been through so much in the last 2 years, it’s good to have a “quiet season” for awhile.