Saturday – 1 April 1, 2006
The day began at 2 a.m. I had great hopes of baking bread, making pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, cookies, peanut butter cups and ice cream. It didn’t work out that way.
Mike wanted to change the oil on both cars. I took the opportunity to go commissary shopping. While there I priced the produce items I bought this week through the produce co-op. I spent around $107.00 at the co-op; at the commissary the same produce would have cost $231.34. AND I didn’t have to pay the surcharge or tip the bagger at the co-op. I saved $124.34 on produce by buying through the co-op. Thank you Heather…what a blessing.
My big finds at the commissary today were the organic hamburger and the tomato paste with only one ingredient “tomatoes”. YES! I also stocked up on PEAR juice. Zander used to drink apple juice like it was water. It is a no-no on stage 1 of his program. They suggested Baby Pear juice instead. The first time I gave it to him he literally spit it in my face. One day he got desperate when Stacia was drinking it and said it was good juice…and since then he calls it apple juice. I’m nervous to try the apple juice now that we are on Stage 2. I think we’ll keep doing pear juice at home and if he gets apple juice while out that will be fine. Of course, if he drinks real juice again he is bound to wonder WHY Mom’s apple juice tastes so funny. {G}
Back at home I was about to begin my bread, sauce, ice-cream, cookie baking spree when Mike noticed the steaks coming out of the bag. He asked if we could grill…and so I took a break and we had yummy steaks with “Chili seasoned Sweet Potato fries”, French fries, “Churches honey biscuits” – not much like the real ones but good, a great salad and fruit. THEN I made the pizza sauce and the spaghetti sauce is still simmering. I decided I’d try bread and cookies tomorrow and we’ll make do with the ice cream we have left from last week.
I’m still trying to figure out the software for Shop Natural co-op. I am supposed to be able to get it set up so each member can input their own order – which will save me HOURS. I just need to get it figured out. I printed out the manual tonight and if I can’t figure it out, I’m sure Mike will by tomorrow night.
Kelly, not sure what I’m doing with carob/chocolate. I am not against either…..I am leaning to chocolate because we LIKE it and we’ve given up so much these past few weeks that we like. I’m about to begin looking into flax seed and flax oil….as Jamin read that he needs flax oil. I think I’m winning them over…..I’ve still not brought out the vegetable sausage patties…..or the turkey bacon…I thought those would be treats but they seem to view them as a threat. The list of ingredients is about 4 inches long and it killed me to spend real money for something so obviously fake…but I did to quell the bacon revolt.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Beware - early morning mental wanderings shared below...delete now if you don't care. :::snort:::
Nutritional Research/Thoughts
I’ve been online this morning researching various nutritional substances. I quickly checked out durum and semolina as they are listed as ingredients in most pastas and I wasn’t sure what they were. I’ve heard two things 1. They are nutritionally stripped wheat (from people) and 2. Durum is a variety of wheat and semolina is ground durum (from websites). Now to sort it out.
I’ve also been researching Carob and Chocolate. This one started not because of any specific leaning or such on my part but because some want to split carob chips in the co-op next month and I wanted to be sure that it would be o.k. for Zander. Then I began to hear that carob has “nutritional benefits” but no one ever says WHAT those are. I began to research.
I asked friends, read books, websites and asked on SHS. Wow – can folks get hot over this issue. {G} The websites are amazing. Of course there are claims of unsanitary processing of chocolate (which I know exist for processing of anything – probably why we should all eat from scratch and not eat Carob or Chocolate or any other processed thing…back to Little House days…)..the thing that amazed me is that these “unbiased” sites never mention unsanitary processing of Carob. Shoot….I even found on the sugar sites one that admitted that Rapadura tastes bitter because it’s the ground stalk of the cane and some dirt and such gets in to the product. This didn’t surprise me as I can remember the fields of drying cane and sugar being processed as a child….What’s with the Carob/Chocolate fanatics???? I have a friend here, Becky, who has been a great source to bounce things off of. She has her ideas but is fair with the evidence. I like that. {G} She basically told me that Carob has trace minerals and is usually processed with better additives than Chocolate because it is marketed to “Health Nuts – Crunchies as I prefer to call us”. {G} However, she also told me that Chocolate has anti-oxidants which Carob doesn’t have. The problem is in the refined sugars, soy lecithin, oils and vanillin used. This is what we’d already noted and quit using because of Feingold. We get the chocolate without vanillin…..and I’d like to find some made with coconut oil…I have found some made with palm oil…..
In all the research I came across warnings from folks who had allergists tell them that they see way more allergic reactions to Carob than Chocolate. THEN I began to read in the Feingold materials to be very careful with Carob because often it is flavored with “orange flavoring” which is often synthetic (and we don’t do synthetic flavorings around here any longer). Since it is impossible to be sure the labels have listed everything (really, it’s amazing what they get away with in the food industry as far as not completely labeling a product) I will only use carob or chocolate that is listed in the FG food lists. They have both listed….so there I am…back to the Carob/Chocolate question. Of course, if I find a chocolate or carob that I really like I can request that the FAUS check it out. They have choices already though for both Carob and Chocolate.
Here’s a quote that surprised me from wiki: “Recent studies have shown that cocoa or dark chocolate has potent health benefits for people. Dark chocolate, with its high cocoa content, is full of the flavonoids epicatechin and gallic acid, which are antioxidants that help protect blood vessels, promote cardiac health, and prevent cancer. It also has been effectively demonstrated to counteract mild hypertension. In fact, dark chocolate has more flavonoids than any other antioxidant-rich food such as red wine, green and black tea, and blueberries.”
Of course this must be DARK CHOCOLATE and not MILK chocolate or combined with milk. There is even study going on now on using chocolate medicinally – like I need the FDA to tell me that chocolate is a drug!!! I did find out there is a “chocolate diet” out there and may have to look further into that. LOL I’m thinking maybe there is something to the idea of taking your own dark chocolate and adding coconut oil and honey to it…but I’m sure someone out there MAKES it that way already. And really…there you have it; I’d best eat some daily to deal with my blood pressure issues.
What about the caffeine in chocolate – yes – it’s there…but less than a cup of tea or coffee has….I suppose the thing here would be to watch cumulative buildup….there go those espressos with the cute little chocolate stirring spoons. (I HATE COFFEE and don’t drink a lot of tea down here either).
THEN I decided to see what others are saying about Dr. Ben Feingold and the Feingold Diet. Hmmm….it seems that there are many out there determined to label Feingold as a quack…but I can’t help but be amazed at the changes we’ve seen in Zander. I’m glad I didn’t hear the quackwatch folks before we proved this works for Zander. I did take note of the “negatives’ they mentioned on various websites to keep track of. Seems the big one is that these kids NEED DRUGS and if you “mask the symptoms” with diet they won’t get their drugs. I don’t think I’ll comment further on that line of thinking. Reminds me of being pregnant and having borderline diabetes and being told not to change my diet so that I wouldn’t “mask the symptoms”. Gee I masked the symptoms so well that I’ve not developed gestational diabetes in the last 4 pregnancies…though doc repeatedly warn me to eat “normal” with each pregnancy so that I don’t “mask the symptoms”. Other negatives are that a child learns to blame food for his behavior rather than himself. This sort of cracked me up as I’ve seen many families going the drug route who blame the lack of drug for a child’s behavior. Not sure there’s a difference there. We’ve already thought this one through and none of us ever tell Zander that eating the wrong thing will “make you be bad”. We tell him that eating the right food “makes it easier to be good”. Shoot – he’ll still have a SIN problem – don’t we all? They also said that it will ostracize a child and make him feel weird to eat this way….well….homeschooling and having 8 siblings probably already pretty much took care of that. {G} There were no medical negatives (other than not getting drugs you need – which you don’t need if the problem is fake food). Feingold is NOT against drugs…they simply say to try the diet treatment first and then add in the drugs you may need in lower doses….not sure why they are painted as “anti-drugs” – they aren’t.
Since there have been huge rises in so many behavioral type diseases from 1950 – 1980 why don’t folks want to investigate the changes in diet made during those dates? There was a huge move to eating more processed food. This led to more synthetic colors, dyes and petrochemicals being used in many, many foods. I tend to tell the boys now “we don’t spend real money on fake food”. So…hmm….is chocolate a food or a drug?
Nutritional Research/Thoughts
I’ve been online this morning researching various nutritional substances. I quickly checked out durum and semolina as they are listed as ingredients in most pastas and I wasn’t sure what they were. I’ve heard two things 1. They are nutritionally stripped wheat (from people) and 2. Durum is a variety of wheat and semolina is ground durum (from websites). Now to sort it out.
I’ve also been researching Carob and Chocolate. This one started not because of any specific leaning or such on my part but because some want to split carob chips in the co-op next month and I wanted to be sure that it would be o.k. for Zander. Then I began to hear that carob has “nutritional benefits” but no one ever says WHAT those are. I began to research.
I asked friends, read books, websites and asked on SHS. Wow – can folks get hot over this issue. {G} The websites are amazing. Of course there are claims of unsanitary processing of chocolate (which I know exist for processing of anything – probably why we should all eat from scratch and not eat Carob or Chocolate or any other processed thing…back to Little House days…)..the thing that amazed me is that these “unbiased” sites never mention unsanitary processing of Carob. Shoot….I even found on the sugar sites one that admitted that Rapadura tastes bitter because it’s the ground stalk of the cane and some dirt and such gets in to the product. This didn’t surprise me as I can remember the fields of drying cane and sugar being processed as a child….What’s with the Carob/Chocolate fanatics???? I have a friend here, Becky, who has been a great source to bounce things off of. She has her ideas but is fair with the evidence. I like that. {G} She basically told me that Carob has trace minerals and is usually processed with better additives than Chocolate because it is marketed to “Health Nuts – Crunchies as I prefer to call us”. {G} However, she also told me that Chocolate has anti-oxidants which Carob doesn’t have. The problem is in the refined sugars, soy lecithin, oils and vanillin used. This is what we’d already noted and quit using because of Feingold. We get the chocolate without vanillin…..and I’d like to find some made with coconut oil…I have found some made with palm oil…..
In all the research I came across warnings from folks who had allergists tell them that they see way more allergic reactions to Carob than Chocolate. THEN I began to read in the Feingold materials to be very careful with Carob because often it is flavored with “orange flavoring” which is often synthetic (and we don’t do synthetic flavorings around here any longer). Since it is impossible to be sure the labels have listed everything (really, it’s amazing what they get away with in the food industry as far as not completely labeling a product) I will only use carob or chocolate that is listed in the FG food lists. They have both listed….so there I am…back to the Carob/Chocolate question. Of course, if I find a chocolate or carob that I really like I can request that the FAUS check it out. They have choices already though for both Carob and Chocolate.
Here’s a quote that surprised me from wiki: “Recent studies have shown that cocoa or dark chocolate has potent health benefits for people. Dark chocolate, with its high cocoa content, is full of the flavonoids epicatechin and gallic acid, which are antioxidants that help protect blood vessels, promote cardiac health, and prevent cancer. It also has been effectively demonstrated to counteract mild hypertension. In fact, dark chocolate has more flavonoids than any other antioxidant-rich food such as red wine, green and black tea, and blueberries.”
Of course this must be DARK CHOCOLATE and not MILK chocolate or combined with milk. There is even study going on now on using chocolate medicinally – like I need the FDA to tell me that chocolate is a drug!!! I did find out there is a “chocolate diet” out there and may have to look further into that. LOL I’m thinking maybe there is something to the idea of taking your own dark chocolate and adding coconut oil and honey to it…but I’m sure someone out there MAKES it that way already. And really…there you have it; I’d best eat some daily to deal with my blood pressure issues.
What about the caffeine in chocolate – yes – it’s there…but less than a cup of tea or coffee has….I suppose the thing here would be to watch cumulative buildup….there go those espressos with the cute little chocolate stirring spoons. (I HATE COFFEE and don’t drink a lot of tea down here either).
THEN I decided to see what others are saying about Dr. Ben Feingold and the Feingold Diet. Hmmm….it seems that there are many out there determined to label Feingold as a quack…but I can’t help but be amazed at the changes we’ve seen in Zander. I’m glad I didn’t hear the quackwatch folks before we proved this works for Zander. I did take note of the “negatives’ they mentioned on various websites to keep track of. Seems the big one is that these kids NEED DRUGS and if you “mask the symptoms” with diet they won’t get their drugs. I don’t think I’ll comment further on that line of thinking. Reminds me of being pregnant and having borderline diabetes and being told not to change my diet so that I wouldn’t “mask the symptoms”. Gee I masked the symptoms so well that I’ve not developed gestational diabetes in the last 4 pregnancies…though doc repeatedly warn me to eat “normal” with each pregnancy so that I don’t “mask the symptoms”. Other negatives are that a child learns to blame food for his behavior rather than himself. This sort of cracked me up as I’ve seen many families going the drug route who blame the lack of drug for a child’s behavior. Not sure there’s a difference there. We’ve already thought this one through and none of us ever tell Zander that eating the wrong thing will “make you be bad”. We tell him that eating the right food “makes it easier to be good”. Shoot – he’ll still have a SIN problem – don’t we all? They also said that it will ostracize a child and make him feel weird to eat this way….well….homeschooling and having 8 siblings probably already pretty much took care of that. {G} There were no medical negatives (other than not getting drugs you need – which you don’t need if the problem is fake food). Feingold is NOT against drugs…they simply say to try the diet treatment first and then add in the drugs you may need in lower doses….not sure why they are painted as “anti-drugs” – they aren’t.
Since there have been huge rises in so many behavioral type diseases from 1950 – 1980 why don’t folks want to investigate the changes in diet made during those dates? There was a huge move to eating more processed food. This led to more synthetic colors, dyes and petrochemicals being used in many, many foods. I tend to tell the boys now “we don’t spend real money on fake food”. So…hmm….is chocolate a food or a drug?
Week of 26 March
It’s been a while since a week has gone by without being documented on the blog. That fact alone tells a story. We’ve been busy. It’s been a good busy. I’ll try to upload pictures from the week later today.
Sunday – 26 March – The day began with our typical Sunday activities. Mike did a great job leading us in a discussion of Phil. 2 in RE (Religious Education). I’m really enjoying these books (New Inductive Study Series) in an RE setting. They require “some” prior homework and thinking on the subject; but they don’t seem to overwhelm folks as a Precept upon Precept course does. The discussions have been fun. This is the first time that most (if not all) in the class have done any inductive study. It’s been a good “break in”.
We were so impressed with how Jill, our RE director, is supporting us with Zander’s class and their treats. They all had FG approved snacks and seemed none the worse for it. We did have to cut doughnut hour short when Mike and the boys didn’t know where the “approved” treats were for Zander (in my hand)….but all in all it was a good day for him at church.
We sponsored an “old fashioned picnic” for the youth out at the lake later Sunday afternoon. Jill actually did all the work and we simply provided man-power. It was a fun day. I continued to work on notes for the Spiritual Gift Seminar in the evening.
Monday 27 Mar - Our very first SAGE co-op pick up day with Shop Natural out of Tucson, AZ. It went incredibly well. We weren’t sure how it would work to meet the truck but it was great. The driver was in the parking lot of a local church earlier than he told us. There was only one car ahead of us when we arrived, so we had virtually no wait time. All of our items were in. Adrienne and her sons Cian and Jordan came to help load things into our home and to show us how to invoice items. Most everyone showed up when expected to pick up their items…basically worked like a charm and was fun to boot. {G} Most of these women have been part of a working co-op where everyone met the truck at a church, invoiced and sorted together. We can’t have the driver move to an alternate location unless we have over $700 of sales. I’m not sure we’ll consistently be there. We were over that this time…but I’d rather continue to meet the truck and ferry the stuff to our home than not be able to order one month because we are under $700. We’ll have to see if we continue to be over $700 each month. We are also considering how we want to do this. If we meet at a church it will require significantly more time for me to be away from the family. By doing it at home I only had to leave the kids for 20 minutes while we picked our order up. Everyone (from our 4 yo – adults) helped bring boxes and bags into the house. All the older ones helped invoice and sort. We like family projects and we may want to keep it as a family service project as long as we can handle the volume. It’s only once a month. Ladies were still able to visit and socialize when they picked up and it was fun to have them in our home. We had two men show up and I was glad that Mike had someone to talk to. {g} We’ll see.
Tuesday – Mar 28 - School. More prep for Gifts workshop. Speech therapy. Baking…10 of us met for the workshop. It was “ok but not excellent”. That’s my assessment. I’ve been told that my assessments are always harder on myself than others would be….but that’s a good thing. I’m not depressed that it wasn’t “excellent” – I’m only noting what I’d do differently. Everyone did have a good time. We served smoothies and wholesome banana muffins.
Wednesday – Mar 29 - I finished up April’s PWOC newsletter so it can be printed and passed out on Sunday. We decided we’d earned an afternoon of play at the park so the kids and I met Adrienne and family at the local park. It was a great day for the park. We’d had a thunder-storm the night before and most seemed to think it would be too wet for the park…but it was wonderful. It was cooler than usual and unpopulated. The kids have seemed to move from big light saber wars to bike riding. This park has a sidewalk track that circles the park area….nice for walking and bike-riding. Nolan is ready to have his training wheels removed…hope to get that done for him soon. We KNEW it would only take some motivation (provided by Jordan and Coby getting bikes and learning to ride and Nolan wanting to keep up with them) and some practice.
While at the park I fell again. I was holding Stacia. We were showing another lady my sling. She had wanted to try it and so I gave her mine, Adrienne was showing her how to put it on and I walked across the pavilion and plopped myself down on the concrete bench. The drawback to my plan is that I’d forgotten the middle section of the bench is not there – it’s a wheel chair access. I hit the back of my head really hard on the edge of the concrete table as I went down to the concrete ground. Thank GOD that Stacia only hit her cheek on the table and that I was able to hold on to her and she landed on top of me. I hit my head hard enough that a lady across the park heard it. I felt like I’d scrambled my brain…the first night I had a splitting headache, dizzy, nauseous….
Jared, Arielle and Nolan went to Christian Church for the kids’ program. They are doing a VBS for the next six Wed nights. They really enjoyed it. Adrienne’s boys had invited them to attend. Josiah dropped them off and Adrienne brought them home. Mike worked late and I nursed my headache.
Thursday 30 Mar – My head continued to ache but other symptoms lessened. We had speech. We took Jared, Arielle, Zander & Stacia with us to speech so that we could go spend some time in the park. There were a ton of folks there from our local homeschool group as we got there a bit earlier than we usually do. We were able to visit with them. I found that without Adrienne at the park I need to do more hands on playing with Zander. When she and her family are there Zander has two or three buddies to play with and I can visit with the Moms. Ah well – the point of the day was to let the little ones run off energy and for me to nurse my headache…not to visit. I did meet a “mentor mom” that I’ve been hearing about for weeks. She told me that she is pregnant with her 9th. I also met another family new to the area. It’s always fun to reach out to new folks.
Mike worked late again on this night, but the evening went quickly as Krista and BreAnne called. Jamin and I also took all the kids on a bike ride /walk. Josiah worked too.
Friday – 31 Mar – PRODUCE DAY! Every two weeks we get $100 - $150 worth of produce. This is always a fun day – there are usually a couple of surprises too. It’s much more fun than driving to the grocery store. The truck was an hour late on Friday…but that gave more time for me to get to know new women. I was sad that my two cases of apples were very bruised…but I have crock pot applesauce cooking as I type and plan to begin Stacia on apples this week. The rest of the family probably won’t eat it – and I’m missing BreAnne who was our lone applesauce eater. {G}I planned to make a lot of dehydrated apple chips anyway and these will be great for that. The other produce all looked very good and the house has a lovely “produce” smell to it.
This was Mike’s day off but he spent quite a few hours at work. He got home at about 3:30 and we went out to buy milk and pick up some FG approved pizza for dinner. My head is still hurting. Mike worked on filing our AK PFD’s (dividend from oil money) online. I had to come and do my own as I had to hack into my old account. Who would have guessed I’d learned enough to figure out how to get into an old account. {g} We aren’t sure we’ll be able to get our PFD’s while we are down here. It looks like there have been some changes to the program. Ah well – that led to dreaming about how long it will be before we can move back “home”. The kids got out the big screen and projector and watched *Chicken Run* while we worked on PFD’s. I gave up and went to bed with my aching head. Mike woke me up at 2 a.m. getting into bed (he had a day that required some decompressing). I found myself thinking of a couple of friends who are going through deep trials and praying for them and that led to me being wide awake. I decided to update the blog now so that I won’t continue to feel “behind”.
Oh yes, discovered a strange thing in the bathroom and called the exterminator who had sprayed for termites in June. Yep, termites. That is really common down here…but we’ll need to keep on top of it. He sprayed some stuff in and puttied the whole they’d made and we are to continue to watch it. He told me that yesterday was the first day of the year that he’d seen the termites swarming (yards, streets) and that it is common this time of the year. The things we learn as we travel from location to location.
Misc –
~Arielle has proven herself to be the “keeper of the eggs” and faithfully remembers to turn the quail eggs.
~I discover that having big sisters away from home can be a huge support to a mom in the trenches. Just a word of encouragement from them and wowee did one of my little one’s attitude change. I never guessed I was raising my own support system all those years ago. {bg}
~We finished week 27 of school. We all feel the need for a spring break and are looking forward to our camping trip where there will be no “school” (but probably lots of learning) and Mike and Josiah won’t be working.
~We have completed week 6 of Feingold. I spent some time reflecting on the changes we’ve seen in our home in the past 6 weeks. The most obvious ones are in Zander…but we’ve all changed our eating habits. Josiah and Jamin (instigators of the Great Bacon Revolt) have made my week by commenting on the changes THEY see in Zander.
~ My thumb has healed remarkably quickly. It’s a bit funky looking but doing great. Still numb but that may take a long time to mend itself…and it still hurts when touched but I’m no longer wearing the huge covering and it does have some sort of skin over the whole area.
That’s the week…..pictures later. I know more happened but I can’t remember at this time in the morning. Just realized it's April Fool's day....now what can I do to take advantage of the day????
Sunday – 26 March – The day began with our typical Sunday activities. Mike did a great job leading us in a discussion of Phil. 2 in RE (Religious Education). I’m really enjoying these books (New Inductive Study Series) in an RE setting. They require “some” prior homework and thinking on the subject; but they don’t seem to overwhelm folks as a Precept upon Precept course does. The discussions have been fun. This is the first time that most (if not all) in the class have done any inductive study. It’s been a good “break in”.
We were so impressed with how Jill, our RE director, is supporting us with Zander’s class and their treats. They all had FG approved snacks and seemed none the worse for it. We did have to cut doughnut hour short when Mike and the boys didn’t know where the “approved” treats were for Zander (in my hand)….but all in all it was a good day for him at church.
We sponsored an “old fashioned picnic” for the youth out at the lake later Sunday afternoon. Jill actually did all the work and we simply provided man-power. It was a fun day. I continued to work on notes for the Spiritual Gift Seminar in the evening.
Monday 27 Mar - Our very first SAGE co-op pick up day with Shop Natural out of Tucson, AZ. It went incredibly well. We weren’t sure how it would work to meet the truck but it was great. The driver was in the parking lot of a local church earlier than he told us. There was only one car ahead of us when we arrived, so we had virtually no wait time. All of our items were in. Adrienne and her sons Cian and Jordan came to help load things into our home and to show us how to invoice items. Most everyone showed up when expected to pick up their items…basically worked like a charm and was fun to boot. {G} Most of these women have been part of a working co-op where everyone met the truck at a church, invoiced and sorted together. We can’t have the driver move to an alternate location unless we have over $700 of sales. I’m not sure we’ll consistently be there. We were over that this time…but I’d rather continue to meet the truck and ferry the stuff to our home than not be able to order one month because we are under $700. We’ll have to see if we continue to be over $700 each month. We are also considering how we want to do this. If we meet at a church it will require significantly more time for me to be away from the family. By doing it at home I only had to leave the kids for 20 minutes while we picked our order up. Everyone (from our 4 yo – adults) helped bring boxes and bags into the house. All the older ones helped invoice and sort. We like family projects and we may want to keep it as a family service project as long as we can handle the volume. It’s only once a month. Ladies were still able to visit and socialize when they picked up and it was fun to have them in our home. We had two men show up and I was glad that Mike had someone to talk to. {g} We’ll see.
Tuesday – Mar 28 - School. More prep for Gifts workshop. Speech therapy. Baking…10 of us met for the workshop. It was “ok but not excellent”. That’s my assessment. I’ve been told that my assessments are always harder on myself than others would be….but that’s a good thing. I’m not depressed that it wasn’t “excellent” – I’m only noting what I’d do differently. Everyone did have a good time. We served smoothies and wholesome banana muffins.
Wednesday – Mar 29 - I finished up April’s PWOC newsletter so it can be printed and passed out on Sunday. We decided we’d earned an afternoon of play at the park so the kids and I met Adrienne and family at the local park. It was a great day for the park. We’d had a thunder-storm the night before and most seemed to think it would be too wet for the park…but it was wonderful. It was cooler than usual and unpopulated. The kids have seemed to move from big light saber wars to bike riding. This park has a sidewalk track that circles the park area….nice for walking and bike-riding. Nolan is ready to have his training wheels removed…hope to get that done for him soon. We KNEW it would only take some motivation (provided by Jordan and Coby getting bikes and learning to ride and Nolan wanting to keep up with them) and some practice.
While at the park I fell again. I was holding Stacia. We were showing another lady my sling. She had wanted to try it and so I gave her mine, Adrienne was showing her how to put it on and I walked across the pavilion and plopped myself down on the concrete bench. The drawback to my plan is that I’d forgotten the middle section of the bench is not there – it’s a wheel chair access. I hit the back of my head really hard on the edge of the concrete table as I went down to the concrete ground. Thank GOD that Stacia only hit her cheek on the table and that I was able to hold on to her and she landed on top of me. I hit my head hard enough that a lady across the park heard it. I felt like I’d scrambled my brain…the first night I had a splitting headache, dizzy, nauseous….
Jared, Arielle and Nolan went to Christian Church for the kids’ program. They are doing a VBS for the next six Wed nights. They really enjoyed it. Adrienne’s boys had invited them to attend. Josiah dropped them off and Adrienne brought them home. Mike worked late and I nursed my headache.
Thursday 30 Mar – My head continued to ache but other symptoms lessened. We had speech. We took Jared, Arielle, Zander & Stacia with us to speech so that we could go spend some time in the park. There were a ton of folks there from our local homeschool group as we got there a bit earlier than we usually do. We were able to visit with them. I found that without Adrienne at the park I need to do more hands on playing with Zander. When she and her family are there Zander has two or three buddies to play with and I can visit with the Moms. Ah well – the point of the day was to let the little ones run off energy and for me to nurse my headache…not to visit. I did meet a “mentor mom” that I’ve been hearing about for weeks. She told me that she is pregnant with her 9th. I also met another family new to the area. It’s always fun to reach out to new folks.
Mike worked late again on this night, but the evening went quickly as Krista and BreAnne called. Jamin and I also took all the kids on a bike ride /walk. Josiah worked too.
Friday – 31 Mar – PRODUCE DAY! Every two weeks we get $100 - $150 worth of produce. This is always a fun day – there are usually a couple of surprises too. It’s much more fun than driving to the grocery store. The truck was an hour late on Friday…but that gave more time for me to get to know new women. I was sad that my two cases of apples were very bruised…but I have crock pot applesauce cooking as I type and plan to begin Stacia on apples this week. The rest of the family probably won’t eat it – and I’m missing BreAnne who was our lone applesauce eater. {G}I planned to make a lot of dehydrated apple chips anyway and these will be great for that. The other produce all looked very good and the house has a lovely “produce” smell to it.
This was Mike’s day off but he spent quite a few hours at work. He got home at about 3:30 and we went out to buy milk and pick up some FG approved pizza for dinner. My head is still hurting. Mike worked on filing our AK PFD’s (dividend from oil money) online. I had to come and do my own as I had to hack into my old account. Who would have guessed I’d learned enough to figure out how to get into an old account. {g} We aren’t sure we’ll be able to get our PFD’s while we are down here. It looks like there have been some changes to the program. Ah well – that led to dreaming about how long it will be before we can move back “home”. The kids got out the big screen and projector and watched *Chicken Run* while we worked on PFD’s. I gave up and went to bed with my aching head. Mike woke me up at 2 a.m. getting into bed (he had a day that required some decompressing). I found myself thinking of a couple of friends who are going through deep trials and praying for them and that led to me being wide awake. I decided to update the blog now so that I won’t continue to feel “behind”.
Oh yes, discovered a strange thing in the bathroom and called the exterminator who had sprayed for termites in June. Yep, termites. That is really common down here…but we’ll need to keep on top of it. He sprayed some stuff in and puttied the whole they’d made and we are to continue to watch it. He told me that yesterday was the first day of the year that he’d seen the termites swarming (yards, streets) and that it is common this time of the year. The things we learn as we travel from location to location.
Misc –
~Arielle has proven herself to be the “keeper of the eggs” and faithfully remembers to turn the quail eggs.
~I discover that having big sisters away from home can be a huge support to a mom in the trenches. Just a word of encouragement from them and wowee did one of my little one’s attitude change. I never guessed I was raising my own support system all those years ago. {bg}
~We finished week 27 of school. We all feel the need for a spring break and are looking forward to our camping trip where there will be no “school” (but probably lots of learning) and Mike and Josiah won’t be working.
~We have completed week 6 of Feingold. I spent some time reflecting on the changes we’ve seen in our home in the past 6 weeks. The most obvious ones are in Zander…but we’ve all changed our eating habits. Josiah and Jamin (instigators of the Great Bacon Revolt) have made my week by commenting on the changes THEY see in Zander.
~ My thumb has healed remarkably quickly. It’s a bit funky looking but doing great. Still numb but that may take a long time to mend itself…and it still hurts when touched but I’m no longer wearing the huge covering and it does have some sort of skin over the whole area.
That’s the week…..pictures later. I know more happened but I can’t remember at this time in the morning. Just realized it's April Fool's day....now what can I do to take advantage of the day????
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