Which Middle Earth Character Are You?

I was looking online for some Lord of the Rings books, and got trapped into the ever expanding void of the internet.

I came across the Buzzfeed which Middle Earth Character are you, and of course I had to take it. What else would I do on a Monday aftenoon 4 days before Christmas?

Here's what I got:

You got: Wizard

You are a bit of a loner. An unpredictable rogue. People are simultaneously intimidated and enchanted by your wisdom, power, and party tricks, which is why you tend to get a pass for all of your meddling. And you do a lot of meddling.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!  I've decided to reread the books and watch all the movies.  

In my spare time......

Christmas Shopping & 100 Books Done!

I finished my Christmas shopping.  This makes me feel quite accomplished because now I don't have to fight the crazy crowds in the last few days.


This was not me so I'd say success for sure!  (Although I was tempted a few times!)

We went light this year because of the pool membership, but I did a fair amount of shopping year round for things on sale so there wasn't a whole lot I had to get.  Every year I struggle with Christmas though.  It really does take away the celebration of Jesus' birth and focuses on ourselves as we all get excited about presents instead of the God who came to save us.  This will probably always be a struggle for us.

I finished my 100 books!  The 100th book I read was Being Mortal by Atul Gawande who happens to be a surgeon and comes from two parents who were also doctors.


Get yourself to Amazon and buy this book immediately.  (The library waiting lists are too long.) One of the best books that I have ever read.  It focuses on how medicine doesn't deal with death in a meaningful way and how healthcare, old-style nursing homes in particular and doctors pushing new medicine that mostly make things worse because we throw so many things at people that don't work or make us physically worse all in the name of getting a few more days of "life".    Don't be scared. This is not about death panels.  I am not even describing it well at all, but if there is one book you by for 2016 make it this one.  It will make you reevaluate all sorts of ideas on what the end of your life looks like and more specifically, what you want it to look like. 

What We're Changing In Our Homeschool

Because we homeschool on a year round schedule, our kids change grades at random times compared to public school.  Owen will be heading into 4th grade after the New Year.  We're shaking his schedule up quite a bit.

He currently does Rod and Staff for grammar.  It's a pretty tough curriculum put out by the Mennonites.  But there is a lot of things that just don't happen anymore like diagramming sentences. and while I am not in the "grammar is dead" camp, I think he can use something different.

Read this grammar article for some laughs.  And also this:

  

He also uses Rod and Staff for spelling.  Starting in 4th grade, the lists are all in cursive, and while Owen learned cursive, we'll be emphasizing computer typing more and so will be changing up his spelling.  I am not sure what we'll use yet.  He is a terrible speller.  Like the worst, and I need to research this a little better.

I think for Owen we'll be doing Learning Language Arts Through Literature, which is a curriculum that combines all the things that encompass Language Arts into one curriculum based on literature excerpts.  I have a friend who does it with her more challenging boys and they love it.

Kembia technically entered first grade, and I am once again piecing together a curriculum.  She's doing Horizons 1st grade math, and then I think we'll use First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind.  To be honest, I don't really like the program, but we have it, and I think it will work well for her.  We're also doing All About Reading Level 1, but we haven't been great with it, so once she finishes it I think we'll start it again from the beginning.

Truitt will be in first grade probably in the next couple of weeks, and he'll just use what Kembia uses. His reading is progressing a lot faster than hers because he wants to read every single day.  Mostly because you get to put a star sticker on the lesson chart saying you finished and he loves that part.

Ava won't hit her next grade (mostly 10th grade stuff, with the exception of math) until later in April, so I have some breathing room before we make curriculum changes for her.  They just changed our state Math requirements from allowing Algebra 1 to be a high school math curriculum, to needing it before you enter high school.  She is super bummed about this because it means a whole other year of math for her.  Such is life.

Barefoot Contessa: Rosemary White Bean Soup

I'm not super familiar with the Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa.  I've heard of her, of course, but that's about it.

Enter her books checked out from the library and I came across her recipe for Rosemary White Bean Soup.    I happen to have a dying Rosemary plant in my bathroom right now, so it was good timing.  I altered her recipe and used can beans instead of dried, and a lot more of them than what she called for.  My hubby isn't big on too much broth without substance, such a sad shame.


Pic from her cookbook.

So good, my kids ate it up and requested I make it again.  And since I have to use the plant up I think I'll make a bunch and freeze it.  Here's my version (original at the link above).

Rosemary White Bean Soup

- 4 cans white beans
- 2 onions, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 6-inch piece of rosemary
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 cups chicken stock

Saute onions in olive oil for about 10 minutes, add garlic and cook for 3 minutes.  Add rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil, simmer for about 30 minutes.  Mash some of the beans to help thicken.  Season with pepper and salt.  Serve with crusty bread and parmesan cheese.  Would be good with ham if you had some laying around.  I didn't, but maybe next time.

Unpopular Names and an Awesome Name Ring

Did you know that you can go to the Social Security website and type in a name and it will tell you if it's in the top 1000 since the year 2000?

Ava and Owen we knew were way up there. (4th for Ava, and 28th most common for Owen).  But when we named our two oldest these names weren't even in the top 20 list.

However, all three of our littles, Kembia, Moyz and Truitt don't even make a crack at the top 1000.  I feel a little better about that!  Enough to safely say that I don't think they'll ever crack the top 1000 much less the top 20.

And definitely I want these rings with my kiddos name on them.



5 names and the spacer bands would cost me $140.  Not cheap, but certainly fun and different.

What I am Getting Myself for Christmas

Chris and I decided not to get each other Christmas gifts.

So of course I would just happen to find the coolest thing on the blog Modern Mrs. Darcy.



I bought just the stainless steel charm since I already had a sterling silver chain.  I can't wait to get it. Chris will probably just roll his eyes!

Go the Etsy store here.

Thanksgiving Humor

6 Months In & How Its Going

Today officially marks 6 months at our new house and community.  Half a year.

Chris' work said "well, you made it to 6 months.  Typically if you can make it to 6-9  months, you retire here."  Which was both a weird statement, and a little bit frightening when you look at just what that means.

Overall, it's gone pretty well.  I miss my friends and church like crazy.  I have 2 girls that I am slowly getting to know, and would introduce them as friends, but they are still the type of friends that you don't tell all the juicy stuff to.  Because you just don't "know them well enough yet".

I've lost 5 pounds, gained 10 pounds and lost 5 lbs, which puts me right back where I started.

I've read 48 books.

I've locked myself several times in my closet with a glass of wine and Friends on Netflix.

I have not gone through depression, which is nice.  That's not to say that I haven't felt depressed, but it isn't something that has grabbed a hold of me and ruled my life.  That I am very thankful for.

We've started trying different churches again.  This part sucks.  We thought we'd be settled with this, and were for about 4 months.  Awesome pastors, but just not the right fit for us.

We've done some stuff in the house, with plans for more but it just takes time.

And we finally, finally got on a budget and are sticking to it, just in time for Christmas to come into the picture and blow it out the window.

So yes, we are still happy with our decision, grateful for our beautiful home and land, and reminding ourselves that the amazing community we had built up for the last 12 years takes time to build again.

We're getting there.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Tincture

It is well known that if you A. live in the North and B. experience long, dark, cold winters, then you are familiar with Seasonal Affective Disorder, better known as SAD.





Here is a link to the Mayo Clinics page on SAD.

Last year I made a tincture for SAD, and Chris swears up and down that it worked.  Mostly because he said and I quote him "we had a lot of things to be upset and feeling bummed about but it didn't happen".

Most of those things were in reference to the fact that we had sent out a bunch of resumes to New Zealand and other states in the US and hadn't heard a thing from any of them, our kids tried to all kill each other in the fall, and we were stressed about putting the house up on the market.

We've just started taking it again and I have a new batch in the windowsill mixing up all nice.  The recipe I used is from Rosemary Gladstar, kind of the mother of modern herbalism here in the US.  We buy our herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs and off Amazon.

Here is the recipe, which I highly recommend, but I'd hurry because it takes a month to draw all the good stuff out of the herbs.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Tincture

- 2 parts St. John;s wort flower
- 1 part green oat tops
- 1 part hawthorn berries
- 80 proof alcohol

Don't let the "parts" measurement scare you.  A part can be anything you want it to be, a tablespoon, a quarter of a cup, etc.  It depends how much you are making.  Whatever size jar you are using, you want the alcohol to be 3 inches higher than the herbs, and you want to pretty much fill the jar so oxidation doesn't happen.

For example, I just made a batch in a pint size jar.  So I had 1/4 c. of St. John's wort and then and 1/8th a cup of the other two ingredients.  You add all the ingredients together, add alcohol and then seal.  Shake and set in the sun for 4 weeks, and shake occasionally.  Strain out herbs and store in a dark bottle.  Take 1/2 tsp. to 1 tsp. twice daily for 3 weeks, discontinue for 1 week and repeat.  Or you can do what we do and take on weekdays but not on the weekends.  We take it through the end of March.

It totally sounds crazy but that doesn't matter because it totally works.

What We're Getting the Kids for Christmas

My little kids have been asking about Christmas since August.  I have no idea why.

\
Our new town has an amazing community pool with water slides and a water rock wall and a totally rockin' kiddie pool area.  But it is crazy expensive.  Like save up for it expensive.  This is most likely their Christmas present as a collective whole.  But we know a few hearts would be broken if they didn't have something to unwrap under the tree.

My big plan is hitting up the Target dollar section for some goodies, and then one nice present for the kiddos.  Here's what I've got so far.

Ava is a major Adele fan, and she is set to drop her new album this month.  She'll get this and be singing it for the foreseeable future.



Owen fell in love with this series of books after we read the first one out loud.  Hilarious with awesome drawings every few pages, he'll be getting the second book.



And then Moyz is the only other person I have figured out.  His car obsession continues and the one thing he's been requesting is a car mat to drive on.  So we'll be picking this up for him from Costco.

Kembia and Truitt I haven't figured out yet.  We try to stay away from toys if we can, so maybe some art supplies or some more books.  Both of them are obsessed with reading and trying to do their school fast so they "can be in first grade".  At least I have a little bit of time.

My Face is on Fire

It's that time of year where the weather changes to cold and my skin responds by turning to fire.  It burns and itches and just all around sucks.

I don't actually watch this show.  I tried the books once and had to quit because of the violence and extreme sexuality.  I imagine the show is that much worse.

Anyway, dry skin- enter Vanicream.  It has been making my face feel much better although I still have to use it a couple times a day.


I like it because there is no dyes,  lanolin, masking fragrance, fragrance, parabens or formaldehyde. It is kind of expensive about $11 for a 1 lb. container.  But because it's a cream it is super thick so it doesn't take a whole lot.

At a doctor appt. recently my new doctor (a first year resident), asked about my skin and if it had changed due to weather at all yet.  This is the first time in my entire life I have ever had a doctor ask about that.  It was just one of those weird moments where you feel validated about the crappy weather and what it does to your skin.

Chris doesn't deal with these issues.  I guess it's reserved for those with sensitive skin.  Lucky me.

8 Weeks, 16 Books

My goal to read 100 books in 2015 is quickly running out of time.  I have 8 weeks and 16 books left to read.  So close and achievable, but bordering on pretty hard.  Ava told me that now is not the time to read Moby Dick.

So I decided to help myself and come up with the 16 that would round me out to a solid 100. It kind of spans several genres from classics to childrens.  Some are longer (Jane Eyre) and some are shorter (The Little Prince), but they are all books I have wanted to read, or reread.  Here they are in no particular order.

1. All Roads Lead to Austen

2. Jane Eyre

3. The Color of Secrets

4. Little Men

5. Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

6. Slaughterhouse Five

7. The Wind in the Willows

8. King Arthur

9. The Secret Life of Bees

10. The Little Prince

11. The Magicians Elephant

12. Jesus Feminist

13. The Penderwicks

14. Kidnapped

15. The Grand Sophy

16. North and South

Maybe instead of school one week we'll  just have it be "read novels all week" week.  Just kidding. Sort of.

Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate, Four Seasons in Rome & Wanderlust

I was at Trader Joe's last week and came across Sipping Chocolate.


On the back it talked about it being a decadent European drink.  And I was totally onboard with that. Basically, it's dark chocolate that you put into a very small amount of milk.  It calls for 1/3 cup, but I do a little more than that, closer to 1/2.

Then I got to thinking if this was a real European thing, or fancy marketing.  I hopped on the internet and couldn't really find "sipping chocolate", although it didn't look like it was totally made up.  Fast forward a couple of days and I was reading this book:



It's about an American who moves to Italy for a year on a fellowship with his 6 month old twin boys and his wife.  

Anyway, I was literally sipping my sipping chocolate when I came across a passage in this book about how they stopped and ordered a tiny hot chocolate that was so thick it was magical.  Bam. Sipping chocolate right there in the book I was reading while drinking it.  How's that for coincidence?

Also, the book will give you severe wanderlust.  Like I had one of those moments where I again realized that I gave up moving to New Zealand to stay in the Midwest.  How dumb of me.  Okay, not really. We did make the right choice, but it's books like these (not to mention Midwest winters) that have me wistfully thinking about what could have been..

It's Time for a Change

Kembia and Truitt share a room.  It was formerly the office, so no closet, but we have a dresser tucked behind the door.  It looked like this from the previous owners.



We basically tossed in bunkbeds and called it a day.  The good news is that the walls are not wallpaper.

Every single day I look down the hallway and see this green.  And it drives me crazy.  I finally bit the bullet and painted the back wall black, and here is some of my inspiration for where I am going with it.


We definitely want to do some type of banner.


Crosses with electrical tape on the white wall?  yes, please


It's also going to have some type of science-chic (chic as in cool, not chic as in girl, because Truitt has to live in it too) theme going on.


We totally have room for feathers, wood and leather!

Stay tuned, I am hoping to have it done in the next week or so.

Those Dumb Cats

They would be Claire (white one) and Sherlock.  They do kind of look like one big cat blob in this picture.  Or maybe one cat with two heads.

We call them dumb, but we love them a whole lot.  They love this tree, specifically, the top of it. Two seconds after I took this picture they were "fighting" in it.  Then they saw us and came shooting out of the tree to get loved up.

Their life is really tough.

Sherlock hated people when we first got him.  He would hiss and attack you all the time.  Claire was so tiny we didn't know if she would make it.  The runt of the litter at 8 weeks, she was way smaller than the palm of our hands.  She'd run away from us and be super reclusive.

I don't exactly know what happened, because you would think with the three littles in our family, they would have continued their "fight and run for their lives", but I am thinking that Moyz smothered them with love (literally smothered them, I am kind of surprised they are still alive), that they just eventually decided that people were awesome, especially the closer they were to you.

We've tried dogs in the past, more than I care to admit, but I think we really are cat people.

Free 2016 Calendars

I print off a yearly calendar every year about this time and organize my life.  Kind of.  At least I try to organize my life.  There are some super fun ones that recently came out on Pinterest.  And they are all free.  My favorite kind.


This is the one that I printed off for 2016.  Super cute colors.  Get it here.



I like the simplicity of this black and white calendar, but the kiddos like color.



Love the bold graphics of this one.  If I hadn't already printed off the calendar I think this would have been my choice.  I still might succumb to it.

And just in case you didn't see anything you liked above, this lady put together 20 different calendar options!



 

E is for Eczema

You know how when kids are learning sounds and how to read?  A is for apple, etc.  Well to Truitt, E is for Eczema.  That's because Kembia developed severe eczema over the summer, and our days and nights have been filled with medicine and wet wraps.



It started with some itchy bumps in her elbow.  Which quickly spread up her arms onto her chest and back.  When it migrated onto her face, I knew we had a major problem.  And she was super conscious about the bumps on her face.

I'd tried all sorts of salves and balms to help her but nothing worked.  We finally took her in where she saw a fantastic team of doctors and was diagnosed with what we already knew to be eczema.

We now have 4 separate medicines to use, two for when she's really bad, two for when she's sort of bad, and a fifth internal medicine that's kind of like Benadryl on steroids.  And we should probably be buying stock in Vaseline.

And then there's the wet wrap.  Or the baby burrito as we affectionately call it.

It goes something like this:  spread medicine on child, in the mean time have towel in the dryer, and long sleeve shirt soaking in warm to hot water.  Wring out shirt, put on child, wrap child in warm towel, sit for 30 minutes, slather in vaseline.

It sounds like some sort of elaborate beauty ritual.  Kembia loves it, which I think is so weird.  But it helps a lot.  We've gotten the eczema under control, but if we skip a wet wrap two days in a row, her eczema starts to come back very quickly.

We're a tad bit nervous about winter and all the dry weather coming up since eczema tends to be the worst then, but at least I feel like we have a fighting chance.  And finally good health insurance to help us along the way....

But It Can Buy Me A Boat

Flipping through the radio stations on a long drive we heard "the boat song".  And our children have been obsessed ever since.

We finally watched the video because they thought a "Yeti 110" was a gun because the lyrics then said it was filled with "silver bullets".

Nope.  Turns out a Yeti 110 is a cooler, and silver bullets are beer.

Oh well.  We still love the song.

Candid Classroom

This is how we mostly do school- at the dining room table. Sometimes the kids go out on the deck but with the walnuts dropping off it's not worth the risk right now.   Moyz was outside and Ava did not want her picture taken.

Moving to Florida to Avoid the Imperial System

Huh? Don't worry, I questioned Owen's logic too.

See we learned about the Imperial System (ounces, pounds, feet, inches, etc.,) vs. the Metric System (kilometers, millileters, liters, etc.)

Turns out the only countries in the entire world that use the Imperial System would be the United States, Liberia and Myanmar.  No wonder people hate Americans.


A visual for everyone.

Owen's way to deal with this is "I'm moving to Florida to get away from the Imperial System."  Lord help that child.  He thinks Florida is a country.  Since we homeschool and Owen is currently going through the 50 states, we may have to spend slightly more time devoted to this!

Moyz Ate His Nametag

I went back to our previous town this past weekend for a funeral.  It was the first time I'd been back since we left.  It was pretty emotional, not just because of the funeral, but seeing everyone again, and going back to our awesome church.

In hindsight, I probably wasn't ready to go back yet.  We had such an amazing group of friends and we are still finding our way at our new house, so today I am feeling slightly depressed thinking of all the things that we don't have here, like an awesome group of people to do life with.  I know it takes time but could someone just be my friend, quick like?

At least I have my highly humorous children to lift my spirits.

Chris took the kids to church on Sunday and out doing errands afterwards.  They stopped to get some french bread and sandwich meat for lunch.  Which was then that they discovered that Moyz, instead of waiting for something yummy, decided to eat his sticker nametag for Sunday school.

The child is 5!  I feel like eating your nametag is something you should have grown out of by this point.  So Moyz had to watch while everyone else ate their yummy sandwiches before he could have any.  Which I think was an excellent parenting choice.  I think they also had a discussion about how there's probably something really disgusting in glue that could make you sick, or die.  Nothing but the truth at this house.

Alice In Wonderland Turns 150

I love Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.



Ava just finished both for the first time.  She came upstairs and said that it was kind of crazy and not really a kids' book.  Good insight.

I think I will hold off telling her about how Lewis Carroll quite possibly might have been a pervert that was actually in love/obsessed with the real life Alice Liddell who was a child.

Somehow the books don't seem like they came from the 19th century.  In honor of 150 years, there are all sorts of Alice books out right now.  I want this one below.


So pretty.  Illustrator who did the Puffin in Bloom books.

Or this one, which is annotated.  I love annotated books but they take forever to read because you are constantly reading the notes about the text.


150th Anniversary version.

A couple of other pretty options:

     
Both of these are at Barnes and Noble

And then I came across this book.



It's an Alice in Wonderland spin-off.  I didn't even know they had these for Alice in Wonderland.  I haven't read it yet, but the reviews are pretty good, so I may have to give it a whirl.

2015 Goals- Running Out of Time

For New Years, I always make resolutions.  And I always suck at them.


Pretty much sums up how they typically go.

But for 2015 I wanted to read 100 books in a year.  I counted last night and I've read 73.  So 27 more books to go in the next three months.  It's kind of a lot, but I think I can do it.  If I can focus.

I have this little problem called starting-too-many-books-at-one-time.  And then I can't figure out which one to focus on and so I bounce back and forth and almost paralyze myself.  I've tried just reading one book at a time, but it's so against my nature I can't do that either.

I had other New Year's Resolutions but I can't remember them.  They must have gotten lost between moving and not knowing where that was going to be, starting over in a totally new place, and in general, just feeling frazzled.  That's okay, I'll just focus on the books.

Harvest Time

It got down to 39 last night.  Finally, fall is here!  Yesterday, Ava made Puppy Chow in honor of it being fall.  She also cleaned just about the entire house, because according to her she "can't bake in these conditions."  I don't care what the reason is.  If she wants to clean, be my guest.

We brought in our squash last night just in case it gets colder than what those always-accurate meteorologists say.

Here was our haul.

 Owen likes to showcase thoroughly the produce.

 What the girls were doing while we were in the garden.

 I am totally out of it.  Adjusted at the chiropractor yesterday and wasn't feeling all that well.

Moyz in his bike helmet.  Probably one of his favorite things.  Literally, the helmet.

Sad State of the Master Bathroom

We have a pretty nice master bathroom if you don't count the ugly wallpaper and the oak.  But one thing I haven't figured out in our new house is where to put the dirty clothes.  Our laundry room, which basically is a laundry closet, doesn't have anywhere for them.  So my solution thus far has been this.

Throw the clothes on the floor.  And since it is already an eye-sore, why clean up anything else in the room?  You can sort of see Chris' sink to the right.  Clean and sparkly.  And then there's mine, sort of like a hoarders shrine.  There is a giant bag on it, because who doesn't need one in the bathroom?

Also, please be quick to notice the My Little Pony on the tub.  Inside the tub you will find about 15 more along with dirt from filling up the Rosemary plant.  We hardly ever use this tub.  Isn't that a shame?  It's been relegated to the duties of giving kids a bath and watering plants.

Not that you can tell at all from this picture, but I really am working on trying to put everything away in its spot.  Otherwise my whole house will end up like this room.

Reading the Encyclopedia from A to Z

Okay, I didn't actually do this.  I would if I could but I have 5 kids and homeschool and can't keep my house clean....so reading that many words, around 32,0000 of them, would mean my kids would be eating ketchup for supper.  But AJ Jacobs did it, so I can live vicariously through him



I read this book many years ago, and our new library has it so I am going in for round two.  I also read his Year of Living Biblically, which was him trying to follow all of the laws in the Old and New Testament.  Highly recommend.

I'm also reading Mindy Kalings book  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?



I'm not super far into it, but so far it's funny.

And this isn't related to reading at all, but I had to go into the high school today in our district because the district offices are there and I had to turn in last minute homeschool paperwork (our state requires it).  The bell rang when I was walking through the hall, and cross my heart, everyone was like giants. I was easily among the shortest people there.  Some of the kids I could swear were adults.  I am going to blame it all on hormones in milk.