Why homeschooling is like making chili

I love a hot bowl of chili on a cold fall day. Topped with cheese and sour cream, it warms me up like nothing else can. I like my chili with lots of hamburger and onions, chili beans, mushrooms, and a good dose of cayenne pepper.

A friend of mine thinks it is strange that I put mushrooms in my chili. Another friend of mine thinks it is strange that I don't put macaroni in my chili.

Attend any chili cook-off and you will discover more varieties of chili than you knew existed! I know one man that puts coffee in his chili and boasts about how many contests he's won with his secret ingredient. I know another that puts a warning label on his chili--it is so hot, he calls it "X-rated chili." And of course, there's white chili, which doesn't seem like it should be called "chili" at all!

I read a story a long time ago about a mother who was making chili for her family. Each family member made a special request to leave out a certain ingredient. One child didn't like beans. Another didn't like onions, and so on. At the end of the day, the mother served up a hot, steaming pot of water to her family, because there were no ingredients left that her family could agree on.

There are a lot of similarities to chili and homeschooling. There are as many "recipes" to a successful homeschool as there are recipes for chili. Sometimes when people try to define what a homeschooling family is, they think of a stay-at-home mother (in a denim jumper, of course) with five or six children sitting around the kitchen table together, or maybe at desks in the family room. Depending on the level of contact that people have with actual homeschoolers, their views of homeschooling can be fuzzy and vague ("Do they have any friends?") or at best, limited.

So what do homeschools have in common? Well, they usually have at least one teacher. Many times it's the mother, and many times she does stay at home. Other mothers (like me) work a job and homeschool. In those cases, the fathers are often involved. Homeschool teachers can also be grandparents, siblings, friends, tutors, and more. Some students, especially older ones, are self-taught.

Most homeschools do the bulk of their schooling at home (which would make sense given that it's called "homeschooling"), but not all meet at home. Some meet in churches or buildings with other homeschoolers, either daily or weekly. Some do their work at a parent's place of employment. Some prominent politicians have homeschooled their children while on the campaign trail in order to keep their family together.

Some kids do their work at desks or the kitchen table, others while sitting on the couch or lying on the floor. Some stay in their room and do their school while others (like mine) are not allowed to. When I was a kid being homeschooled, I liked to do my schoolwork while sitting up high in the  maple tree in our backyard.

Some families use a boxed curriculum. Others use no curriculum at all. Some are involved in sports and other extra-curricular activities. Others prefer to stay at home. Some homeschool for religious reasons. Others homeschool for academic or practical reasons. Some are partially involved in the public schools. Others stay as far away from the public schools as possible. Some buy computers for all their children. Others do not own a computer or even a TV.

Even amongst homeschoolers, sometimes we quibble over the definition of homeschooling. Recently, public schools have begun to offer "cyber schooling," which is public schooling at home, through the computer. Is that homeschooling or public schooling? People disagree. Maybe cyber schooling is like white chili--it just seems out of place somehow.

My recipe for homeschooling has changed slightly over the years, and will probably continue to change as my kids get older. On the other hand, my recipe for chili is likely to stay the same, because it's perfect the way it is!

Chili

Brown one pound of hamburger with onions. Drain. Add one can of tomato juice, one can diced tomatoes, one can of mushrooms, and two cans of chili beans. Add chili powder, garlic powder, salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper to taste. Simmer for as long as you want. Serve hot with sour cream, cheese, tortilla chips, and green onions.

Skinning stuffed animals--it's educational!

Today I helped eight 2nd and 3rd grade homeschooled children kill their stuffed animals and tan their hides. It was a pretty messy experience, but they enjoyed it.

My kids are part of a co-op group that meets every Thursday for classes. The parents are the teachers, and we each sign up to teach classes that are in our area of expertise each semester. This year the board voted to plan the classes around a Way Out West theme. This made it a little tricky for me, since I was planning on teaching ballet. Cowboys in tutus just didn't seem like a good idea. So I decided to teach a class called "Working With Leather." I'm not a leather expert, by any means, but I do have some limited experience. My dad is a book binder by trade, and I did skin a rabbit for the 4-H Tanning project years ago. So I did some research and prepared enough lessons for a six-week class covering the uses of leather, how leather is made, leather crafts, and leather care.

I didn't think the seven- and eight-year-olds in my class would want to actually skin live animals, so I cooked up the brilliant idea of using stuffed animals. We tied yarn around the legs of their teddy bears, stuffed dogs, and even a frog, hung them upside-down from a coat peg, and then used scissors to slaughter them. We cut the heads off first, so the "blood" could drain out, and then slit them down the belly and up the legs, cutting out the feet. We scraped the skin with butterknives and then soaked them in a bucket of water, salt, and alum. We stirred the skins with wooden spoons while I explained the process of tanning to them. Then we tacked up the hides on pieces of cardboard and styrofoam for display.

The funny thing was that we had a photographer today at our co-op to take school pictures earlier in the day. She had her equipment set up in my classroom, and was just packing it up when we started whacking off the teddy bears' heads. I think she was just a little bit disturbed at first. She said, "This is a very interesting class. What are you teaching the children?" I explained to her what we were doing, and she just laughed, saying that she had always thought homeschooled children were nice!

I guess we are nice, but Teddy had better look out!

New homeschool group

Today I received the new member packet from our new homeschool group. We've been a part of our old one, GRACE, for the past three and a half years, ever since we moved to Southern Indiana. We've enjoyed that group very much and our children have made many close friends there, but we are going to try a new group this spring. The reason for this is financial--we aren't able to afford the fees for our old co-op group anymore.

Not long after we joined our old group, a family purchased a building and donated it to the co-op. The board voted to use it and pay for the utilities with fundraisers. I felt at the time that it was a bad idea, but being new to the group, I didn't say anything. It was nice having our own building. We could put up our own posters in the classrooms, fix lunch in the kitchen, and not have to worry about our group being in the way at a church's building. It needed a lot of work, and the families all worked together to fix it up. We had yard sales and other fundraisers, solicited donations from philanthropic groups, and made and sold our own lunches to ourselves to raise money. It still wasn't enough. Some of the members even gave their tithes to the building, something I personally had some reservations about.

At the beginning of this school year, the board voted to raise the costs of co-op registration by $100 per family per semester to cover expenses, explaining that it still wasn't going to be enough to cover everything. This is on top of co-op fees. If we kept attending this co-op group, we would be paying close to $200 twice a year just to be able to attend co-op. Erick and I talked about it and decided to look for another group. There is a group in Clay County called FISH, and it's been around since the mid-nineties. It's bigger and cheaper, since it still meets in a church like most homeschool groups do. The fees there are only $20 per family, plus class fees (although even those seem cheaper). It will be a longer drive, but we're going to give it a try and see if the kids like it. If not, we haven't burned any bridges. We'll just have to see how it all works out.

I did it--478 posts moved over to my new blog.

Well, it took nearly two weeks, but I've moved over all 478 posts and close to eight years worth of posts and pictures to my new blog here. I've enjoyed looking over my old posts and tweaking a few things I found along the way. One thing I'm really going to like about this new format is the ability to post videos. Before, I had to post links to Facebook when I wanted to share a video. Now I can upload them directly or embed them. I added the videos to my blog as I went along. I also have an opportunity to be a community blogger for the Greene County Daily World. I interviewed the general manager there for a school assigment, and he asked if I'd like to do that. I most definitely am interested, but I'm not sure whether to use this blog or start a new one. This one is so huge--I'm sure he doesn't want this many posts right off the bat. I'd like to write more, but it's already 10:15 and I haven't started school yet. I really need to get busy on my day!

October 16, 2011--Last post

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day for forums. It just doesn't seem possible. I've spent eleven years of my life here--at times I was absolutely addicted to it. I've moderated here, I've made real life friends here, I've wreaked havoc here, and I've been blessed here. This is the place that I've had to really work out what I've believed on issues. I've had my viewpoints challenged and over the years I've even changed some of my opinions because after doing the research, I found my opinions needed to be adjusted. I've made a fool out of myself a time or two, but despite it all I've always felt this was my home. It's been my homepage, my blog home, and the place that comes up over and over when I Google my own name. I'm going to miss Crosswalk a.k.a. Faith Community Network, which to me is forums. Without forums, I don't have much of a reason to visit Crosswalk anymore. I will always treasure the times I've had here. It's the end of a great era. I'm glad that many of the friends I've made here are friends on Facebook, although I won't be joining the groups at this time. I guess from now on I'll have to argue my opinions by myself on my blog and hope someone out there will set me straight if I'm wrong. So, goodbye forums! You will be missed.

October 9, 2011--Moving to Blogspot

Since these forums are going to be moving to Facebook, I'm going to have to begin the process of moving all of my posts to Blogspot. It might take awhile, but I want to save all of the work I've put into this blog. I don't want to lose it. If anyone wants to follow me, my address is lisaluper.blogspot.com.

September 26, 2011--Blonde

I dyed my hair yesterday before church. It didn't look very good. I was inspired to dye my hair Saturday because I was working in the health and beauty section, putting hair dye on the shelf. I got to looking at it and thinking about it, and thought, "Hmmm, I should go blonde again." I was blonde several years ago and thought it was fun, although I had really messed it up when I tried it myself. Actually, I've messed it up just about every time I've tried dying my own hair, but silly me, I thought I'd try again. I guess I thought maybe my trouble was that I bought the cheap kind and if I bought the $10 box it might work out better than the $3 box.

Like I said, I dyed it right before church. It was so uneven and patchy I borrowed Abby's bandana headband to wear over it. Besides having dark patches, it was also a really bad color of blonde--more of a yellow. Because I didn't want to look like that longer than I had to, I went to the Smart Style in my Walmart that afternoon and got it fixed. I also had it cut while I was at it. Three hours and $70 later, I looked a lot better. My hair is now a very light blonde, and it's short. It's actually shorter in the back than in the front and slopes down at an angle. I really like it. I only have one picture so far that I took on my webcam, because I'm having camera issues again. (One is lost and the flash won't work and the other has a broken battery compartment door.)

So here's the "new me." It looks like my eyes are really dark but they aren't. The contrast isn't quite as dramatic as it looks in the picture, but this is the best I can do on the webcam.

September 22, 2011--Locked out!

Last Saturday night I got locked out of the house. We were getting ready to go on a mini-vacation to stay at a cabin on a lake at the campground for our denomination, and Erick and the kids had been getting ready to go. I had to work until 11:00 p.m. that night. I had lost my set of keys, so I took the spare set. It has the key to the blue van and a couple of house keys on it. During my lunch hour, Erick came to switch vans so he could get the one I had taken cleaned out and packed up for our trip. Since I didn't have my regular set of keys, he went and had a key made for the gold van so I could get home. After all, I'd hate to get stranded at Walmart.

All went well until I got home. Usually, Erick leaves the door unlocked when I work late so I don't have to mess with finding the right key in the dark. That night, he had locked it. I tried to unlock it with my spare keys, and lo and behold, none of them fit. Apparently they were the keys to our last house. I called Erick on my cell phone and got his voice mail. I called the house phone and no one answered. I knocked and rang the doorbell and no one heard me.

Now, most of the time, if I'm not home in a reasonable amount of time, Erick will wake up and notice I'm not in bed and he'll call me. I figured that he's get up soon and notice he had some missed calls and texts and come out and let me in. So I figured I'd wait in the van for him. Since there were blankets packed up for our trip, I made myself a little place to sleep on the back seat and tried to sleep, but I was lonely and had a hard time sleeping. After an hour he still hadn't come out, so I got up and tried calling and knocking and everything again, but to no avail. I went and laid down again. Finally, at nearly two in the morning, I was starting to get desperate. I wanted in and I wanted in now! I decided to break in. I pried the screen off of one of the windows that we keep open a lot and then stood on an upside-down trash can so I could try to pry it open. It wouldn't budge. I found out later that Erick had put the security locks on since we were getting ready to leave on our mini-vacation. I put my mouth up to the crack and screamed and yelled as loud as I could, but not even the dog responded. I went around to Jay's window and threw rocks at it, hoping to wake him up. I finally started body slamming the front door, intending to break it if I had to. I was beginning to imagine that someone had broken in, murdered my family, and then locked the door on the way out. I knew I couldn't go back to sleep with that thought running through my head.

Finally, Jay came down and let me in. I was in tears. I went upstairs and flipped on the light and said to Erick, "What are you doing sleeping?" He jumped up and said, "It's in the middle of the night--what do you think I'm doing?" I was a wreck. He felt terrible about it. It took me awhile to calm down. The next day it seemed a l ot funnier, but boy it sure wasn't funny at the time!

September 16, 2011--Cute things my kids wrote

I'm really trying to get back into blogging more regularly. Sometimes I tend to post things that I would have posted here in the past on Facebook instead, but I guess it doesn't hurt to post them in both places. I posted the following poem I found that Abby had written as a status update, but it won't be on people's news feed forever. I'd like to put it here so I can read it years down the road, too.

Love is good.
I love love.
So love pepal.
Pepal rock.
So dos Jesus.
Jesus rocks.
So remeber Jesus rocks and so do you.
And tell nest time,
Good bey.
--Love you ~Abby

August 31, 2011--Political ad

I got to do something really fun today. I got to be in a campaign commercial! One of our friends is also our State Representative, and he asked if our family would be in his commercial. Erick had to go to work, so he didn't get to be in it, and Jay wouldn't cooperate, so it was just me and the rest of the kids. Basically, it was Bruce Borders and I talking with the kids playing on playground equipment at the park behind us. (I guess Jay thought he was too cool to slide down the slide over and over on cue.) There won't be any audio of us talking, so we just talked about whatever, including discussing jobs we'd had and Tim Hawkins jokes.

It felt a bit awkward, since they had us standing so close together. No personal bubbles for us! The camera people would tell us every so often to nod or smile or look serious, but other than they just wanted us to carry on a conversation with each other. They also called out directions for the kids and how they should play--such as when they needed to down the slide or whether they needed to go faster or slower. After they had filmed for probably a good twenty minutes, they decided they wanted me to take my glasses off so they had to do all the shots over again.

I really enjoyed the experience. The kids said they never knew that people in the background in commercials were told to do things a certain way. It was definitely a learning experience for all of us, and I'm so glad I got to do it. I've always wanted to be in a political ad.

August 13, 201--Praising God! (new job)

Here I haven't posted all summer, and now I'm posting three times in the last week!

We just found out yesterday that Erick got the bank job he'd applied for. We are so excited! It had been three months since he had applied for it, but we just felt like this was the one God had for him. It's perfect. It's in the same town as our church so he can build relationships with people, and the hours are perfect. At a bank, we don't have to worry about it conflicting with church hours, since banks are never open on Sundays or Wednesday nights. It's days, so it won't conflict with my schedule. It's not going to hurt his elbow. It's the right amount of hours--not too many, and not too few. Trying to find a job like this was so difficult, because there are very few businesses in that town. There's an IGA, a Dollar General, an A&W and a couple of gas stations, a few small family owned restaurants, used car lots, and other small businesses, but that's about it. The bank was really the only place that wouldn't require him to work odd shifts. We are just praising God that He opened the doors so Erick could get this job.

August 12, 2011--A wee little political rant

Recently, Congress passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for promises that spending would be cut. Anyone who has paid any attention to the debate knows it was pretty intense. Tossed about were fears that senior citizens would not get their Social Security checks this months and that the government would go into default if those in Washington didn't act quickly. As lawmakers battled it out over whether to raise taxes, cut spending, or both, the political rhetoric became as ugly as I've ever seen it.

A common word I've seen used over and over is "moron." As in, "Those bunch of morons in Washington." Others have described them as juveniles--spoiled children insisting on their own way. The enlightened public seems to think that every elected official is a stupid, lying, crooked moron who doesn't know how to lead and doesn't care about anyone else. And I'm getting a little weary of that attitude.

First of all, this country is in a real pickle. We can blame and point fingers all we want over whose fault that is, but fault-finding doesn't fix the problem. And the real problem is that there might not be a way to fix the problem. There is no shortage of ideas out there, but I'm convinced that all of the proposed fixes would be very painful for the economy. Raise taxes on corporations? That will lead to lay-offs and price hikes. Slash unnecessary government spending? The government now supports so many people, either by entitlements or by employment, that a slash in those services will also lead to more people without work. Say we did away with superfluous government agencies that happen to employ 50,000 people. That's 50,000 people now looking for a job in an economy that is already low on good jobs.

So there's no easy fix. There might not even be a fix at all. We very well could be doomed. That's not very positive, I know, but it could be the truth. The easiest thing to do would be to close our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears and pretend that borrowing trillions of dollars every year that we don't have isn't going to cause any long term problems. We all know it will, but since we don't know exactly what that will look like, denial seems like as plausible an option as the others.

Now, as for the enlightened public who wants to call those in Washington a bunch of morons, I'd like to ask, what solution would you propose? Keep in mind, these elected officials probably at the least graduated from college, which would be a rather difficult feat for a moron. Beyond that, they've had enough intelligence to manage to get elected to a public office. Usually to get elected to a public office, especially as far up there as Congress, you have to demonstrate that you can successfully be in charge of something first. So I think it would be safe to say that most politicians probably do have more intelligence than the average bear (although I think the average bear out there probably isn't all that smart.)

Well, you may ask, if they are so intelligent, then why can't they all agree and come up with a reasonable solution like adults? Because they have very different ideologies. Their unwillingness to compromise isn't because they are stupid or childish. It's because a compromise would be completely worthless to either of them. It's like one group thinks chili soup would solve the worlds problems and the other group thinks key lime pie is the answer. You can't come up with a compromise on something that's so completely different or it's going to taste terrible. Like mixing an acid with a base, you end up with neither, something that's completely worthless.

And it's not like they can take turns trying out their ideologies to see which one actually solves all our country's problems. So then we see the struggle for the chance to implement the ideologies of two highly intelligent, but very different groups.

Anybody can sit back and criticize and say what they feel the solution should be. I guarantee that if any of the people I know who are satisfied with finger pointing and name calling were in the position that our lawmakers are in, they wouldn't fare any better. I don't envy their job at all--it's a difficult and thankless one.

August 8, 2011--Catching up

I know I've been terribly lax on my blog. I haven't posted since May! I'll try to catch up a bit on what I've been doing the last couple of months.

For the most part I've been busy with school. I took three classes over the summer again. I hadn't planned on it, but I looked at my transfer options and realized that I had nearly maxed out how many credits I could transfer over to IU East. There were a few more Gen Ed classes I needed, so I decided to go ahead and do them at Ivy Tech this summer so I could transfer this fall. I had put off the science classes until last, because they all had math prerequisites which I didn't get finished until this spring. So this summer I took a chemistry class, a biology class, and another math class. It about killed me. I am happy to say I still managed A's in all them, but it was a ton of work trying to stay caught up. I'm still unwinding from the stress of it all.

We didn't do very much in 4-H this year. I let the kids decide if they wanted to do it or not, but I told them they were going to have to take initiative to get it done themselves. I didn't have the time to stand over them and make sure they got their work done. Joy didn't do any projects, but the others did one each. Jay is the only one who earned a champion this year. He made a beautiful lamp out of a lighthouse bird feeder and it's at the state fair now. We'll go see it next week.

Erick took a job for a few weeks at Fed Ex as a package handler, but it bothered his elbow too much to continue. We didn't want to undo the progress he's made from his surgery and waste everything he's gone through, so he quit that. School will be starting back up again soon so he can go back to substitute teaching, but what we are really praying for is a job as a teller that he's applied for. It's in the same town as our church and we've felt for quite some time that he should work in the community in which he pastors. He's had two interviews for it, but we don't know yet if he'll get it.

Of course we don't know how long our church is going to survive, either. It's been really hard to keep people. We've had visitors who have actually come back, but they end up going somewhere else where more is happening. When there are so many other good, thriving churches in town, it's hard to keep people in a church with a handful of elderly people. We're not quite ready to give up on it yet, but I don't know what God's plan is for this church at this time.

I can't think of anything else really important to post about. Oh, we did get some new furniture the other day. Well, new to us, anyway. Our couches were all torn up, so we bought some overstuffed leather couches from Craigslist. They are really nice! We also got a couple of dressers. We put our old couches out on the curb and someone else took them who didn't have any furniture and were happy to take our old ones. We were just going to throw them out. I feel kind of bad that someone is so bad off they are happy to take our trash.

I'll try to stay more caught up on my blog. I'm only taking four classes this fall, so it shouldn't be as difficult. They are all journalism-type classes, too, so no more math or science! Woohoo! Well, eventually I will have one more I need to take, but not this semester. I also will need one more semester of Spanish.

Today I'm going to be working on getting together the school schedule for the kids. I've already done Jay's. He's in high school this year. It's hard to believe I have a high schooler now. All of the kids are school age now, from 1st to 9th grade. This week he's up at my mom and dad's house working on their barn. They got a lot of money when my great-grandpa died and so they are doing a lot of remodeling. They are paying him $7.50 an hour to re-side the barn, which is a pretty good deal for a 14 year old.

I guess I'll go for now. I know this is a jumbled mess of thoughts, but at least I finally got around to posting.

May 22, 2011--Puerto Rican Vacation

This year, on May 29th, Erick and I will celebrate our 15th anniversary. To celebrate, we went on a four-day, three night stay vacation in Puerto Rico. I have Puerto Rican ancestors, so I've always wanted to visit. Erick went on a missions trip there ten years ago, but I didn't get to go.

We planned our trip so we would leave right after District Council. We were gone for a total of a week, so my parents watched the kids for the first half and Erick's family watched them for the other half. We flew out on Wednesday from Indianapolis and came back on Saturday.

The hotel we reserved was in Ponce, named for Ponce de Leon. We got lost every time we tried to get back to our hotel, which was downtown. The map and directions we had printed out from Google Maps wasn't even close. We ended up having to call the hotel and have the receptionist help us get there. The biggest problem was the lack of signs. There were very few street signs, and the ones they had were hard to see. Most of them (we finally discovered) were actually on the sides of the buildings. It took me awhile to remember that "calle" is "street" in Spanish, so that didn't help, either. Most of the streets were one-way, and several of the streets downtown were blocked off for some sort of festival. And the few street signs that they actually had no one even followed. Most intersections did not have a stop sign--people just went whenever they found a spot. It was crazy. Here is a picture of our hotel, and also a picture of Ponce taken from one of the balconies in our room.

On Thursday we went to see the Camuy cavern. There is a 4-lane highway from Ponce up to the cavern, but it isn't quite finished. There was maybe 25 miles through the mountains and rain forest that was little more than a one-land road. It was so curvy it made the roads in West Virginia look straight! When semis came around the bend, they would lay on the horn so other cars would know they were coming. We managed to get lost in one of the towns we went through, too. It probably took us an hour and a half to go 25 miles. The cavern was amazing. The tour guide, like most Puerto Ricans, was bilingual. Spanish and English are both the official languages of Puerto Rico, and most people can speak them both but primarily speak Spanish. When we were in the rural parts, people assumed we spoke Spanish and would speak to us in Spanish. In San Juan and the more touristy areas, people would assume we spoke English.

Here are a couple of pictures of the cavern:

That evening we went to Old San Juan. Again, we got lost, but we finally found the fort. We didn't get to go in, because it had closed before we found it, but we did walk around the outside of the old wall that used to completely surround Old San Juan. I discovered that there are hundreds of cats living in the rocks by the ocean around the wall. They all seem healthy looking and don't seem to be mean. Every few yards there was another cat, sunning itself on the rocks, sleeping on the grass, or wandering around on the path. It seems that Puerto Ricans are a lot more tolerant of animals being around than we are around here. It was not uncommon to see horses wandering down the side of the road, or cats begging food at an outdoor restaurant. Cattle would graze by the highway without a fence. I wondered how they knew not to get on the road. The outdoors were almost a part of the indoors, actually. It's not unusual to see architecture with open courtyards. Even at our hotel, the pool area was out in the open. There were TVs on the walls, which I don't know how they keep from getting wet when it rains (which it does pretty much every day).

Here are some of the pictures of the Old San Juan Fort and the cats that live by it.

This next picture shows something else interesting about the walls by the fort. If you look closely at the bushes on the top, you can see kites stuck in the branches. There are dozens of stuck kites along the edges of the fort. I guess people must think flying kites there is a good idea. Maybe they see the stuck kites and think, "Kite flying! What a great idea!"

Here is the front of the fort. Yes, that's a kite string in the grass in the foreground of the picture. I guess people like to fly kites on this side of the fort, too.

On Friday, we went to the beach in Ponce, but it was too rocky to swim. So we watched sand crabs crawl in and out of their holes and played in the sand. We took some pictures of some really weird trees and then made a sandcastle of sorts.

We went back to our hotel to change after that, since we had gotten all wet and sandy. We took a walk around town and got some pictures. Here are some of the sights from near our hotel. The first is a mango tree that we saw from our balcony. We weren't sure what it was at first, because I didn't know that mangoes were purple.

So we decided to walk to it and get a closer look. Underneath it were lots of mangoes that fell to the ground and smashed open. It was odd seeing all that expensive fruit going to waste on the ground.

We also saw this cool sand art. (Although Erick and I agreed that our sand art at the beach was just as good!)

This picture is of the old Ponce fire station. It is now a museum. This is one of the few structures that we saw that was made out of wood. Most of the buildings are brightly painted cement.

After we walked around Ponce for awhile, we decided to find a better swimming beach. We drove to a place called Baqueron on the Southwest side of the island and went swimming. It was sprinkling, but we swam anyway. There were a ton of mosquitoes there, though. They didn't bother us in the water, but when we got out they attacked. We ran to our car and got in, soaking wet and still in our bathing suits, and used our beach towels to smash all the mosquitoes that followed us into the car. Then we drove back to Ponce, stopping on the way to eat at a seafood restaurant by the ocean. I just pulled my jeans on over my bathing suit, but we didn't care that we were soaked. I ordered mofongo with red snapper, made from mashed plantains. It was delicious!



May 3, 2011-Thoughts on Osama Bin Ladin's death

A couple of days ago, Osama Bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, was killed. Since then I've followed the news and read the comments of dozens of people regarding his death. I have not commented myself, because I hadn't really sorted out what I was feeling. My emotions have been so mixed about this: Disbelief--could this really have happened, now after all this time? Relief--that we've finally caught the killer and brought him to justice. Sadness--because I know where he is now, and what remorse he must be feeling too late. Pride--that the military was smart enough to capture him. All together it adds into almost an emotional numbness that refuses to feel any one emotion very strongly.

I was listening to Glenn Beck yesterday in my car, and he replayed a montage of sound clips from 9/11 that brought back all of the emotions from ten years ago. I was weeping by the time I reached work. The thought that I had then was that the death of one man cannot make up for all the carnage he caused. Only God can truly bring justice.

Today, most of the comments I have been reading for others are berating others for posting their own thoughts. It seems everyone wants to tell everyone else how they should or should not be feeling. I think that all of those feelings--joy, sorrow, disbelief, apathy, patriotism--have their places. I feel them all in me, and I can understand why those beliefs would be reflected in the posts of other people. There's no right or wrong way to feel about this. Let's just allow people to work through their own emotional mix on this, without casting judgment on those emotions.

April 21, 2011--Passover

Sunday night we went up to my parents' church for Passover. I know I've posted here before about it, but I just wanted to post a few of my favorite pictures.

We also did a really nice dance. My sister choreographed it and recorded it and posted it on Facebook so the kids and I could learn it before we got there. It was really different. We had three boys in the dance (my brother, my son, and my sister's boyfriend) who at one point danced in the middle in a circle going the opposite way from everyone else. There were other girls from my family's church in the dance, too. Altogether, I think there were about fifteen dancers. I don't have a picture of the dance, but I do have a video. I don't have a way to post it here, * but if you are my Facebook friend it's on my profile.

  *(On this new blog, I can actually post it, so here it is!)

April 16, 2011--My camera

Guess what. The kids finally found my camera. I knew that if we broke down and bought another one, it would turn up.

April 16, 2011--Shadow and Joy's spa party

I guess I should update my blog. It actually went to the second page!

We did get a dog. He's a border terrier, beagle mix and his name is Shadow. He's about two years old and we bought him from the shelter. He's hyper and loves to play, and he's housebroken (although he will have an accident if someone doesn't take him out.) He's a sweet little dog and a lot of fun. He loves to go hiking with us. Here is the picture we took of him on the way home from the shelter. It was on the cell phone camera and he was moving a lot, so it's kind of blurry.

I think part of the reason I haven't blogged much is because I lost my camera. We've looked everywhere for it. I finally did break down and get a new one a couple of days ago.

Erick's surgery went well and he's pretty much recovered from it already. He hasn't been released to go back from work, as he has to do strengthening exercises and everything with it still, but he's out of his sling and braces and all that stuff. Yesterday he had a wisdom tooth pulled, so now he's got to recover from that.

In other news, I got promoted at work to CSM. That's short for Customer Service Manager. I'll be one of the people at front with the clipboards making sure the cashiers are all getting their breaks on time, giving them their change orders, helping them with overrides and things like that. I got a .90 cent raise and I'll be starting training in about a week, I think. It was official yesterday. I was surprised to get the job, actually, because the other two who interviewed both had experience and I didn't.

Three days ago, Joy had her thirteenth birthday. It doesn't seem possible that I am the mother of two teenagers now. She had a spa party and invited a bunch of girls over. We made a foot scrub from a recipe I found online with coconut milk, corn meal, olive oil, honey, espom salts, and rosemary. We bought a tube of cucumber clay mask and gave everyone facials. We also let everyone give themselves manicures, pedicures, and facials. We decorated the livingroom to look like a spa by draping everything with sheets, decorating with flowers and candles, and playing soothing music with lots of ocean sounds in the background. Everyone had a lot of fun. Here are some of the pictures we took (with my new camera!)

March 9, 2011--Surgery, pets, and more

Last Wednesday Erick had surgery on his right elbow to repair the tendons he has damaged in his years of swinging a hammer. From what I understand, they removed the tendon from the bone, cut off the part with the scar tissue, and then roughed the bone up so the tendon would reattach itself. They wrapped up his arm and put it in a sling. It's not a cast, but it's big enough it might as well be. He's starting to get used to having to use his left hand, but it's still tricky for him. The kids have really been helping out a lot--cooking meals, cleaning, etc. I had midterms this last week on top of that, so I've been busy with schoolwork and haven't been able to help out much, either. Then, over the last couple of days, I left for the Ministry's Wives Retreat (which was wonderful and refreshing!) so the kids still had to do everything.

So today we're giving the kids a day off. They deserve it for all the help they've been. I'm on spring break now, so I'm not so busy. Erick isn't working right now (except for at the church) because of his surgery, so he's here to help out as much as he can. We are also going to get the kids something they've been wanting for a long time--a pet. Today we're going to go visit the human society and see what they have available. I don't know if we'll be able to bring home one today or not, but we hope so. We'd like to find a small house dog. We want one that's a little older and has grown out of the puppy stage, and that's already housebroken. We've been looking online, but it's really hard to tell much from a picture, so we're going to head out here soon and go see what they have.

February 28, 2011--Vehicle list, reposted

I decided to repost and update the list of all of the vehicles we have ever owned, now that Erick is 33 and he's always managed to own one vehicle for every year he's been alive. (He said it's a personal goal of his.)

$100--Chevy Citation, ’82, red and rust
$50--’84 Renault Alliance, red
$100--’72 Ford pick-up, blue
$0--Tan Dodge D50 with wooden homemade bed, ’82 or ‘84 (This had an unique feature--the passenger side door didn't close right. We nearly lost our chaperone a few times when we were out courting.)
$500--’79 gold Chevy pickup
$100 plus trade--’79 White Caprice (This is the car we had when we got married)
$1000--’87 Chevy S10, 2 tone gray
$0--Blue Chevette, ‘88 (This is the car we had when Jay was born)
$1000--Gray Ford Tempo, ’87 (first loan)
$500--’76 Chevy Crew Cab, red
$3000--’87 Oldsmobile, Delta 88, blue (second loan) We gave this one to Erick's sister after she helped us for six weeks when Erick was in the hospital.
$100--plus trade (he traded the red Chevy Crew Cab--one of the worst deals we ever made!) 78 Ford F100, sea green
$0--Brown Chevy Van, ’87 (we never actually drove this one--Dad gave it to us, but we never came and got it so he gave it to someone else.)
$50--Red Dodge with no engine, ’84 or ‘85 (Erick tried and tried to fix it but finally gave up.)
$0--Pontiac Parnesian? (We fixed it up and gave it to a single mother who needed a car.)
$500--Ford Ranger, ’84, black
$800--Burgandy Chevy Van that we got in Decatar, ‘87
$500--Tan Dodge Van from Erick's parents, ‘86. (I'm not sure if we actually paid them for it, though. I think we finally just gave it back to them because we couldn't come up with the $500.)
$1000--White Jeep Wagoneer, 4X4, ’79, (The back window kept falling out. He bought this when he had his newspaper route.)
$0--’77 Ford F150 Extended Cab, Long bed, bad blue and black paint job.
$0--Brown ’75 Ford Crew Cab. This was given to us by a friend, but he couldn't find the title. Erick parked it down by his Mom and Dad's house before we moved to Missouri, and Erick’s family eventually got tired of having it around and got rid of it.
$8500--’98 gold Ford Windstar. Third and biggest loan. Sold it for way too little. First vehicle we bought when we moved to Missouri. We wished we would have kept it. It was nice.
$1200--’87 Mazda 323, gold, dependable until the wheel fell off.
$2200--’87 Suburban, blue. This is what we bought for the family when we sold the Winstar.
$1000--'88 Ford Ranger. This was his grandpa's truck. I just added this in because we forgot to list it earlier.
$500--’89 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon, rust in abundance.
$1000--’94 blue Buick Skylark. Died the day we moved.
$0--Blue ’84 Ford Van, given to us by a homeschool family.
$1650--Mecury Grand Marquis, white, ‘92
$800--Dodge Ram B150, white, ‘94
$4200--Dodge Grand Caravan, blue, 2004. We still own this one and are still driving it. It seats eight. We paid it off, the transmission went out, we took out another loan to put a new transmission in, and just recently paid it off again.
$2600--Ford Ranger, gold, 2000. Erick wrecked this truck after owning it for not even a year. Someone rear-ended him.
$4250--Dodge Dakota, maroon, 2001. Paid for this truck with the insurance money from Erick's wreck. And now he's about to trade this one even for number 32--
Chrysler Town and Country mini van, gold, '99.

We also have a gold Honda Goldwing '85 that I don't know if I should include in this list or not. It's not running and he put in a fence in exchange for it. It's sort of a vehicle, although it's of the two-wheeled variety. If I count that one then it makes 34 vehicles that my husband has owned.

So now that makes 33 vehicles not counting the motorcycle! I guess that means he can't buy one when he's 34.

February 11, 2011--Update

Erick didn't get the chaplaincy job. He was the second choice, but they hired a retired minister who had a certification that Erick didn't have. They did say they really liked Erick and requested to keep his information in case the first guy didn't work out. In the meantime, he's thinking of going ahead and getting the surgery on his elbow, now that it looks like he'll have the time to recover. Workman's Comp should pay for the surgery and give him money to live on while he's doing that, and then we can decide what to do next.

I also wanted to share a kind of amusing story from work. I was in the break room, and one of my co-workers said, "Well, Lisa, I think I'm going to buy me a Dr. Pepper. I usually get Coke, but my dentist said I need to stop drinking them. They have too much sugar and they are giving me cavities. Those Cokes--they are really bad for you!"

I said, "Okay, but Dr. Pepper has sugar in it, too."

He stopped and looked at me in amazement. "Really?" he said. Then he sighed, walked back to the other machine, and said, "I guess I'll just get the Coke then."



True story.

February 3, 2011--Snow storm

We had a huge ice storm blow through the last couple of days. At work on Monday, it was crazy busy. It was like Black Friday--everyone was in stocking up on food, flashlights, candles, blankets, fire logs, etc. They asked me to stay longer, and I could only stay an extra hour because I was supposed to have had class that night. When I got home, though, I found that my Monday night class had been cancelled. We decided that we'd better go back to Walmart and buy a few things ourselves. We wanted to get an oil lamp, but they were out, so we got some candles. We also bought the last box of fire logs, since we didn't have any firewood for our fireplace left. It was the last box.

It started raining and freezing that night. By morning we had a thin coating of ice on everything, but it wasn't very bad yet. I was scheduled to work 6:30 to 11 Tuesday evening, but by 4:00 it was freezing rain again. I called into work because the roads were just a sheet of ice. Two of the neighbor kids spent the night, since their parents were worried about the house getting too cold if their power went out and since we had a fireplace. When the power did go out, one family came over for awhile, but after an hour and a half they went back home. We stayed nice and cozy with our fireplace. It was kind of fun, all being in the same room together with the fireplace and candles.

That night the power blinked off and on a couple of times, but it stayed on finally. Yesterday they salted down the main roads enough and they were dry, so I was able to go to work. It was still a little slow at work, but we had lots of people calling the service desk asking if we had kerosene heaters. There are still thousands of people in the area without power, so we feel very blessed to have power.

Erick hasn't worked much this week, since school has been cancelled almost every day. He's been enjoying substitute teaching. He has an interview next Tuesday for a chaplaincy position at the hospital. Please pray with us about this. This would be a wonderful opportunity. He's one of three that they are considering--he actually sent in his resume for that before Christmas on a whim, and we hadn't heard anything so we had pretty much forgotten about it. Pray for God's will to be done.

January 13, 2011--Tendonitis

So lately, we've been looking at a transition in our lives, in Erick's work. He's been working construction for the past year and a half, and his elbows have been bothering him for several months now. For the last few months we've also really felt that we need to find a way to be more involved in the community in which we are pastoring. One of the options we'd been thinking seriously about was having Erick quit his construction job and get a job at one of the small businesses in town. Well, it seems like God has been nudging us along in that direction. Recently, he was laid off temporarily from his job because they ran out of work. So he put in an application to be a substitute teacher at the schools up in that area. The kids were rather shocked that he'd want to teach at a public school. Today he received his substitute teacher's license, so the way is clear for that. He's still looking at other jobs, though, such as working at the IGA or Dollar General. He really needs to be more careful with his elbow. The doctor is talking about surgery if it doesn't get any better. He has another appointment in a month and they will decide then if he should get surgery or not. In the meantime, he's laid off anyway so maybe this will be a good time for him to heal, if he can restrain from doing things like shoveling snow and chopping firewood for awhile.

In other news, I started back to school again this week. I have one class this semester I have to take on campus--Fundamentals of Algebra. I didn't do so well on the COMPASS entrance exam on the algebra part. I had forgotten everything I'd learned in high school about algebra, so just selected random questions. It didn't help that it was the last part of the COMPASS exam and that I'd been there for four hours already, not to mention I had a headache and was hungry because I hadn't eaten lunch. I did really well on the English portions and even pretty good on general math, just not algebra. So I have to take this class before I can take college level math courses.

Anyway, besides co-op classes and a few other similar type things, this was really my first time in a brick-and-mortal school classroom. As you all know, I've been homeschooled all my life. So I was interested to see what it would be like. All I can say is I hope that things get more interesting as the class goes along, because I felt like I had wasted two and a half hours of my life. It took the teacher an hour and a half to explain the syllabus! I could have read it myself in five minutes. In fact, I could have learned everything that we did that night by myself in about ten minutes. It's going to be a bit different not being able to do this at my own pace.

So that's what's been going on lately with me. I haven't had very many hours at work because it's always slow after the holidays. They have too many cashiers and not enough hours to go around. Oh, and I also found out that my great-grandpa passed away today. He was ninety-five years old this last Christmas.

December 29, 2010--An experience at work

Yesterday was an interesting day at work, to say the least. Most of my customers are really wonderful, and although I've had a handful of rude ones, it was nothing I couldn't ignore. Until yesterday.

A customer was purchasing beer, and I asked to see his ID. He held out his wallet to me, so I could see his driver's license through the little plastic window. I asked him to please take it out of the wallet for me. It's store policy, although not everyone at our store follows it. I do, because it's really impossible to inspect it to see if it's valid without holding it. I'm also near-sighted and having it close to my face helps. We're not supposed to be holding customers' billfolds either, lest they accuse us of stealing from it.

I've had some customers be irritated that they had to take it out, but they always comply. This man started to, and then he said, "No! You can read it through the plastic! That's what it's there for--no one else ever asks me to take it out!" Of course, that wasn't quite the way he said it. He used profanity every other word. I informed him it was store policy, and he finally took it out and practically threw it at me. He continued to cuss me out, calling me every name under the sun. There was a small hat behind the beer, and I wasn't sure if it was part of his order or the man's behind him, so I asked if it was his, too. "Of course it is, you (insert bad word here) idiot! That's why it's up there!" he replied. Then he threw it at me and I had to pick it up off the floor.

At that point I had had enough. I told him that he couldn't talk to me that way. He yelled at me and said that was the way he talked and that I'd better get used to it. I told him that next time, he needed to go through someone else's line.

After he left, I was shaking. I turned my light off and talked to a CSM to make sure I wasn't going to get in trouble for telling off a customer. She said no, I wasn't going to get in trouble, that I did fine. In fact she said that customers are not allowed to abuse the cashiers, and that if it happens again to refuse the sale and call management and they would kick him out of the store. I wish I had know that I could have done that, because I probably would have!

December 25, 2010--Christmas

Merry Christmas! After the last couple of months of Christmas season business, it's hard to believe that another Christmas has finally come. This year I had to work Christmas Eve, but the managers did a wonderful job of making sure there were enough workers on the service desk this time and we were able to get everything cleaned up and shut down by 8:00 p.m. Erick had just finished installing our new fireplace and we tried it out Christmas Eve. It made the house so cozy.

Christmas started out rather disappointing, because one of my sisters who was planning to come out to our house had to cancel at the last minute due to vehicle troubles. Another brother and his wife weren't able to make it either, so it was my mom and dad and five of my siblings, plus my brother-in-law and his wife. I had to scrounge up a few presents to make up for the ones that wouldn't be brought for the gift exchange and fix a last-minute sweet potato casserole, but we were able to manage.

We opened our presents early. Jay got a guitar, a tuner, a pocket knife, and a skateboard. Joy got a bathrobe, a pearl bracelet, an Mp3 layer, and a nail art set. Sarah got a bathrobe, a pearl bracelet, a purse, and a PS2 game. Abby got a Paper Jams guitar, a PS2 game, a pearl bracelet, and a lipstick shaped bank with Lisa Frank stickers and things in it. Rachel got a pair of binoculars, a pearl bracelet, a PS2 game, and an Ants in the Pants game. Timothy got a Nerf gun, a Nerf battle axe, a ninja costume, and sidewalk chalk. Erick got a tie, a hammer, a neck massager, and a router and table combo. I got a necklace and earring set, a set of plastic storage containers, a purse, and a new camera.

We had a relaxing day, and then everyone came at about 4:00 p.m. and stayed until about 8:00. I got to hold my newest baby nephew, and he's so tiny! Since we are going up to visit our families again for New Year's, we let my littlest sister stay here for the week and our oldest son went home with my family.

We had a very nice Christmas overall.

December 20, 2010--12 days of a Walmart Christmas

A friend of mine is starting her first day of the 12 days of Christmas today. I told her that started a few days before Halloween and that she missed it. In honor of her, I decided to re-write "The 12 Days of Christmas", from the viewpoint of a cashier. Enjoy!







On the first day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"It's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the second day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"When do your sales start?"
"It's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the third day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"It's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the fourth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"It's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the fifth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"NO THANKS, I DON"T WANT A CREDIT CARD!"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the sixth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"Can you double bag it?"
"NO CREDIT CARDS!
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the seventh day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"CREDIT CARDS WILL GET ME IN TROUBLE!"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the eighth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I forgot my wallet."
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"I DON"T BELIEVE IN CREDIT CARDS!"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the ninth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I'll be back in a second"
"I forgot my wallet."
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"MY HUSBAND WOULD KILL ME IF I GOT A CREDIT CARD!"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the tenth day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I need a gift receipt"
"I'll be back in a second"
"I forgot my wallet."
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"STOP ASKING ME IF I'D LIKE A CREDIT CARD!"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the eleventh day of Christmas my customer said to me,
"I need to return this."
"I need a gift receipt"
"I'll be back in a second"
"I forgot my wallet."
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"Um, yeah, I guess I'll apply for a credit card. How long will it take?"
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

On the twelfth dayof Christmas my customer said to me,
"I can't find my receipt."
"I need to return this."
"I need a gift receipt"
"I'll be back in a second"
"I forgot my wallet."
"I need carry-out."
"Can you double bag it?"
"I APPLIED FOR A CREDIT CARD YESTERDAY AND THEY DENIED ME!
"Target has this cheaper."
"I'm going shopping!"
"When do your sales start?"
"And it's not even Thanksgiving!"

November 28, 2010--Facebook

I have had so much fun with Facebook over the last few years since I joined. When I first started, there weren't a whole lot of other people that I knew on there. I couldn't find even one person that was from Missouri. There were several teens from the church we attended at the time that I friended, partly because we were in a drama together, and partly because they were the ones who told me about Facebook in the first place. At first I friended everyone I knew that I could find on there, and it really wasn't that many.

After awhile, more and more people joined Facebook. As my friends list grew, I added more and more people. I found homeschoolers from long ago, old friends I hadn't seen in ages and had lost contact with, and tons of people from here. Almost my entire family joined Facebook, even some of my distant relatives that I hadn't talked to or seen in a long time. I even found old boyfriends. As more and more people joined Facebook, I started not friending everyone I knew anymore. Facebook would suggest friends for me, and I would think, "Yeah, I know who they are, but I don't really know them. That kind of became my new criteria for deciding whether or not to friend someone. Of course, I was a little weaker on people who would send me friend requests, because I didn't really like rejecting people who wanted to be friends with me.

Recently I've been realizing that some of the people I friended way back then I never hear from or see on Facebook. Often it's because they don't even use Facebook. They started an account and then forgot about it. Other people I see, but I don't interact with them and don't really know them well. And there are others that even though I don't know them well anymore, I do enjoy keeping up with them.

It's difficult to develop a good system for deciding who should be a Facebook friend and who shouldn't be, but I have 423 friends now. I can't even see all of the wall posts and I miss stuff, because I have so many. I've decided to unfriend some of the ones that I don't interact with around the first of the year. It won't be an easy process, but I'll try not to cut out people who would actually miss seeing my posts. Of course, it's tricky to know who even falls in that category! I did post a status update about it, so hopefully the feedback I get will help me know who not to cut.

December 9, 2010--Women's Convention and Holes

I went to the Indiana District Women's convention this last weekend, and had a blast. I'm not going to blog about everything, because I have a lot to get done today, but I did want to tell a funny story. They have one workshop period just for pastor's wives and credentialed women. It's not really a workshop, just more of a fellowship time. They always have a chocolate fountain and all sorts of goodies to dip into it--strawberries, pretzels, pineapple chunks, marshmallows, cookies, etc. There were several round tables with chairs, and the ladies sat around the tables. On the middle of each table was a door prize. The lady in charge of the workshop told us all to reach under our chairs, and if there was a yellow sticky note stuck to the bottom of our chair, that meant we won a door prize. I reached under, and felt a small piece of paper hanging loosely. I was so excited that I had won, and I pulled it off, only to discover it was the tag to the chair! I looked around, and all of the other women had done the exact same thing. We were all sitting there around those tables holding chair tags in our hands. I laughed so hard.

I really enjoyed the convention. I won a door prize for the first time there--a teddy bear wearing a necklace. I also bought a scarf from a booth they had in the hallway. These scarves were made by women in India who were rescued from the slave trade, and the money from their products is sent back to them to support them.

After the convention, Erick came and met me and took me to see Holes. I needed to see a play for one of my school assignments, and I was so excited to see this one. It was so well done, and they used a mechanical stage with holes and trapdoors and a conveyor belt. It was so cool!

October 10, 2010--New York vacation

So I'm finally getting around to blogging a bit about our vacation. It's been two weeks ago already!

About a week before our vacation, Joy stepped on a sewing needle. She ran her hand over the carpet, trying to find it, but couldn't. So she put some antibiotic ointment on it and a bandaid and left it at that. After a couple of days, it was getting infected. I thought that was odd, since it was just a needle prick. I figured it would resolve itself. After it had been five days and the infection was getting worse intead of better, we took her to the doctor. It turned out the needle was inside her toe! They ended up having to cut her toe and pull the needle out. Here is a picture of the X-ray of her foot with the needle in her toe:

Two days after her minor surgery, we left to go to New York to visit the Penners. We drove all day on Thursday, through Ohio and up to Lake Erie where stopped for a few minutes and took some pictures, then clipped the corner of Pennysylvani, and then up into New York. We finally got there late, around 10:00 p.m. if I remember correctly. We stayed there for two days. They took us hiking and we went and splashed in their creek. They had little fishies in the creek that nibbled my toes when I stood in the water. It was so much fun and so beautiful. The fall colors were so beautiful!

Sunday morning we left really early and drove to D.C. We had planned to get there around noon, but that didn't quite happen. There was a really long detour in Pennsylvania due to an accident, plus we decided to stop in Hershey and see Chocolate World. So by the time we got to the Smithsonians we had about 45 minutes before the museum closed. We did a mad dash through the American History museum, stopping to snap photos of the First Lady dresses, and then walked out to see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial before it got dark.

At that point, we had planned on driving out to a St. Park in West Virginia to camp, but it was starting to rain and it was cold. We didn't relish the thought of setting up a tent in the dark and in the rain, so we decided to call and see where an America's Best Value in was located in West Viriginia instead, since we happened to have their number on our Value Club card and they are the most reasonably priced motel we've ever stayed in. I was having a hard time finding the cities the lady on the phone mentioned on my map, and I ended up reserving one near Charleston. We tried to take a shortcut over the mountains, since the interstate went way around. That was a bad idea. The road was very narrow, with tight curves. Erick couldn't even take the curves at the posted speed limit, which was 15 mph, because he was afraid he'd flip the van. Signs warned us that there was a 9% upward grade for the next three miles, and we'd go up and up, into the clouds so we couldn't even see in front of us. It was dark, and we could tell there were guard rails that were not just for decoration, but we couldn't see how far the drop-off was. Then we'd go down and our ears would pop, and then back up again. One sign we passed said that the mountain we had just climbed was 3200 feet. I didn't even know that they had mountains that tall in West Virginia. We were on that road for two hours, and then we had another two hours to go by the time we finally reached the interstate. It was 3:30 a.m. before we ever got to bed that night.

We slept until 11:00 the next day and then went straight home. We were too tired to go hiking, which is what we had intended on doing. We did detour through French Lick, Indiana, because everyone talks about it and we wanted to see what the fuss was about. It was good to get home, and we enjoyed our vacation very much.

September 13, 2010--Labor Day pictures

I wanted to share a couple of pictures from Labor Day. The first one is five of my kids and my littlest sister making a pyramid. The little one on the bottom is my sister.

The other picture is my mom and dad and us eight kids. As the tallest girl in the family, I got to stand in the back row. It's not very often I get to stand in a back row, so it was a big moment for me.

September 8, 2010--Running away together

Erick and I decided a few weeks ago to run away together, so this week we finally did. We went and visited our parents for Labor Day, and then left the kids there while we took off by ourselves for a couple of days. It was really enjoyable--rather like a second honeymoon.

Labor Day with the family was great, too. All of us kids were there, for the first time in about a year and a half at least. Some of Erick's family came to visit, too. I got to meet Erick's brother's new wife that he eloped with a couple of months ago. He was the ring bearer at our wedding. It seems unbelievable that he could be old enough to have a wife now! She seems really sweet.

We all set up instruments outside and played music on the front porch pretty much all afternoon. We had to take turns since there weren't enough instruments to go around. It was my idea to put them on the porch, and it was a brilliant idea if I do say so myself. That way those inside didn't have to hear it, at least not as loud as they would have had to hear it if it were in the house.

Later on, after a family picture of just the eight kids and Mom and Dad, which I'll try and post later if I remember, Erick and I left for a hotel we had reserved in Fort Wayne. We found a real bargain on a jacuzzi suite. It was the first time I'd ever been in one, and I really loved it. I'm trying to talk Erick into getting one, but I don't think I'm having too much luck so far.

Tuesday we went to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. I think we were the only ones there without any preschoolers. We rode the sky ride, fed lettuce to the giraffes, and even rode on the little train. Erick barely squeezed into the seat. I really enjoyed it. I think my favorite animals were the orangutans.

Then we drove up the Gene Stratton Porter home on Lake Sylvian and walked around the gardens. After that we went to Hartford City. The Assemblies of God has a cabin that they have for credentialed ministries and their families to use free of charge and we'd reserved that for a night. It was really nice! It had a kitchen, three bedrooms, leather couches, and a gorgeous prayer room. It was right there on the lake with a beautiful view from the deck. The only downside was that the Internet was down, so I couldn't get on Facebook. We went on a walk around the campground. It was pretty empty that day. Erick took me out to the Ranger campground, which had been empty since early August. The grass was all grown up back there. As we were walking back by the woods, I heard a little pop, almost like one of those pop-its they sell for the 4th of July, right by my foot. A second later I heard a gunshot coming from a nearby house. At first I didn't really realize what was going on, until it happened again. Someone was shooting towards us! I don't know if they were shooting at targets or just into the bank (the house was down the hill) but obviously they couldn't see us back there. We started walking quickly and got out of there. That was a little scary.

When we got back to the lake, we took out a paddle boat. I had never done that before and it was a lot of fun. A spider crawled over the top towards me, while we were in the middle of the lake. Erick tried to flick it off and ended up flicking into my side. I was practically crawling up the the seat of the boat, trying to avoid the spider. Erick was trying to get me to sit back down, so I didn't tip it over. It was kind of funny.

The next day we went to the Limberlost State Historical Site and toured Gene Stratton Porter's other home in Geneva. Then we went to see the Loblolloy Marsh preserve, which was in the process of restoration. Then we went back and picked up the kids and went home. It was fun running away together, but being the good, responsible people we are, we figured we'd better come back. We do want to do it again sometime, though, and not wait another fourteen years to do so.

August 30, 2010--Daily beauty routine

Some of us in the Women's Only folder  (on Crosswalk) thought it would be fun to take pictures of our beauty routines. Here are my before, during, and after pictures of getting ready:

This is what I look like after getting up in the morning. I'm still in my bathrobe and I haven't showered yet.

Here I am a little later in day. By this time I've showered and brushed out my hair, and it has dried. My hair is curlier on humid days, and this day was pretty humid. My eyes are half-closed in this picture because Jay took the pictures and was using the flash. After this picture he turned the flash off, so my eyes are more open from here on out. I wanted to add that disclaimer because I didn't try and look like this for the sake of the before and after affect. I've seen a lot of before and after pictures where the subject is frowning in the before picture and smiling in the after picture. I think that's cheating, because anyone looks better when they smile.

In this picture I am using a yellow stick to cover up my under-eye circles. They are hereditary and I still have circles no matter how much sleep I get.

Next I am brushing on mineral make-up to even out my tone. I am using L'Oreal Bare Naturale in soft ivory.

Now I am blending in some bronzer for some color. I don't like blush as much as bronzer. This is a cheap brand called "Blends of Color" and the name is Sultry in Brown.

Next I am applying some eyeshadow powder. I use BonBons in a bronze color.

After combing my eyebrows with an eyebrow comb and plucking a couple of stray hairs, I use an eye pencil very lightly to fill out thin areas. This is a waterproof eye pencil, crayon style. I bought it at Dollar General and it's called Perfect Point Plus. The color is Espresso.

I use the same eye pencil to line my eyes along the inside of the upper and lower lashes. I don't know why, but the next several pictures turned out very yellow. Jay might have messed with the settings on the camera.

I finish my eyes up with mascara. This is black waterproof mascara from Great Last, that I bought at Dollar General. Since it's waterproof, it's hard to get off. I don't wear it every day.

I'm finishing up my make-up with lipstick. This is Love My Lips in Cafe Au Lait color.

Now I'm finished putting on my make-up. Next I need to do my hair.

Following are several shots of me straightening my hair with a flat iron. I don't do this every day, since it's so much work.

I've changed my clothes, added some jewelry, and ta da! Here's my after picture: