Thursday, November 16, 2006

A Good Day - Or the Postman Loves Us

All arrived today - white packages are those famous presents from Grandma that have been hiding in the closet for months...and birthday gifts as well, brown box is another box of books from book close outs, card from Mike, Netflix movie, PBS book and a book that Debbie is loaning me about being a "Meek and gentle homeschooler". That whole meek thing used to intimidate me until I did a word study and realized that evangelicals sort of miss the mark on that definition. Now I'm not afraid of the title. LOL
This and That

OK - I went shopping early in the a.m. and again this afternoon.

I had a doctor's appointment.

We did some school...all but our Thanksgiving book.

I went for my annual appointment.

The boys had House of Faith.

I typed up all the details that Adrienne and I have been talking on produce co-op so that everyone can easily see what is going on...always good to have principles in writing.

I switched electric companies. Goodness....my bill would have been $130 cheaper last month with this company. I KNEW ours was high but everyone kept saying it was the cheapest. TX has lots of little companies so you can shop for the cheapest KWH. Well it was pre KWH but they had a HUGE "fuel charge" they taked on which made them one of the costliests...yes...still trying to trim the budget. LOL This is a big trim....

I fed the kids. I refuse to say WHAT. ::snort::

I tried to return phone calls. I did talk to Mom and Dad.

I discovered a teacher's store - one I've driven by hundreds of times but I had no IDEA it was this huge. I spent a chunk of change but got lots of great things I will begin using tomorrow. LOL

I continue to listen to *Grace Based Parenting* as I drive around town....this is a mixed blessing. More on that when I review the book. {G}

We read more from *Peter Pan* ... we are loving the vocabulary and getting a huge kick out of some of the off the cuff comments the author makes.

Stacia seems to be waiting up for Cy to get home from work these evenings.....and then we realized he comes home bearing Chicken Nuggets. ::snort::
My Perfect Planner






A while back I asked what features you'd all look for in the perfect planner. The response was underwhelming. ::snort::




I admit I have a THING about calendars. Transfering to the computer and a PDA was very sad for me. I loved picking out new calendars each year.....and it is TIME. I'm starting to get engagements into January. My big calendar is still crashed.




Today I picked out a lighthouse calendar for our room. We have a giant calendar for weekly family activities mounted in the library. This is a one month dry erase from Office Depot. I use it by using the colums DOWN as a day - so it works for all of us for one week. We are all color coded. ::snort::



I began designing this perfect planner a couple of months ago. I'm happy. My planner is in a 1 1/2 inch, 3 ring binder. I put an 8 x 10 family photo on the front.



I needed color, so I chose purple and I made dividers from colored folders. Currently my sections are: a calendar, Thin Within Observation worksheets, directories (all of them in ONE spot, chapel, homeschool support group, two co-ops, chapel spouse), reciepts I need to save (pampered chef, plane tickets) and co-op. All the papers are easily hole punched and stored in the notebook.




In addition I placed a zipper pouch in front. This holds pens, white out (because the schedule always changes), calculater and highlighter.

I am using some plastic folder pockets (not sure of their exact name). One holds coupons and checks from co-op, another holds recipts, another holds stamps, address labels and custom forms, and the last one has blank Thin Within sheets.




I loved the calendar I had on my fridge last year - but it really didn't get used there. A couple of months ago, I took the staples out, cut it in half, hole punched it and put it in my notebook. This calendar has really large squares to write in. It is supposed to have slots for each family member - but it isn't close. LOL Having the calender in my notebook has worked so well the past couple of months that today I bought a 2007 calendar by the same company. I DID cut it up - but I used every part of the calendar. I put the pages in my calendar section, I put the cover on the back cover of the notebook, I cut the bottom pockent off and slid it into the binding of my planner and I used graphics from pages I didn't need to decorate my page dividers. LOL






The great thing about this is that it can grow as I need it too....I can add sections easily. I thought of buying day timer monthly pages...but I needed the color and large spaces on the calendar.




I still have the weekly dry erase family calendar.....and when my computer is working I'll have the outlook calendar - because it synchs to the PDA....but this is the calendar that walks around the house wherever the phone is....and it tracks my food, my spending, my phone numbers are there...everything.....I don't want it to grow any bigger than this...if I'm not careful it will be a 5 in notebook. LOL
I'm feeling like a....


USED CAR!!!! Today was my dreaded "annual appointment".

To begin with - my girls seem to be right. They've been telling me all along I wasn't 5'4". I thought I was 5' 10" and was sure I was 5'4". It seems I'm 5'3". I made them check THREE TIMES! LOL I did them this really throws my height/weight ratio off and the ticker is going the wrong way.

The doc says that I'm one of the few who have fun at my yearly appointment. I informed her that I really wouldn't call it fun. Ok - to spare graphics but my lady readers KNOW what I'm talking about. Since WHEN did they decided that starting classical music at exact crucial moments would RELAX a person? ::snort::

She asked what form of birth control I'm using and I told her I'd finally found one that was 100% guaranteed. She's Catholic....she's been very supportive of my many pregnancies...but she's also been trying to get me to find a "reliable" form of birth control - sort of because I seem to be wearing out and need to loose some weight. She was very skeptical of what I was going to tell her but I assured her that I'd found a 100% reliable, church sanctioned method after all my years of marriage. She smirked and said, "Ok - what?" I told her deployment...she checked my chart and said "I see that's what you put in your medical record." We had a good laugh. ::hiccup::

She asked if we'd be staying an extra year because of the new AF regulations. I told her yes and that my first thought had been, "I'll get to have another baby with Dr. X". She and the nurse thought that was very funny.


We discussed various conditions and ailments. She added another surgery that would need to be done "when I'm done having babies". I told her that since the surgeries were adding up, I thought I'd just go ahead and keep having babies. ::snort:: She told me one of the ailments would go away or get better when I hit menopause - can't remember - oh the fibroid cysts - and that maybe I really did have something to my plan.

Then she told me that I needed to have diabetes and thyroid checked yearly. Oops. I told her I KNEW that the clinic would agree to that but that I'd not asked for it and they aren't going to call me to remind me. She said that the statistics say with gestational diabetes you will develop adult onset diabetes in 10 years and my child is now 12. She agreed that I seem to have a way of beating the odds but that I'd best get it monitored yearly anyway.

Like I said, I feel like a used car. Check the oil, change the tires and good to go another year.
LAP BOOK MAVENS - HELP

OK I need a very practical question answered. When you do these lapbooks...do you simply read and then check and see if you can make any of the booklets? Or do you look at the booklet and go search for that answer? It seems a bit "fill in the blank" and I'm not sure that is my style....but we are enjoying making the books...just not sure how best to approach "gaining knowledge".

How do you all do this?
PARENTING IN PROVERBS - Ch 16 - PRIDE

~Why are you comparing your children to others? God gave you YOUR children to raise - not hers! Comparing our parenting to others will only lead to depression or arrogance. Note - you CAN watch, imitate in a mentor sense...but to compare in a "who is doing this right" attitude is sure to lead to failure! To think that you know how to parent someone elses children better than they do....if you've not become involved in a relationship that would be mentoring and iron sharpening iron... is plain haughty.

16:18 "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling."

16:19 "It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud."

~Be satisfied with following God's plan for YOUR family, don't presume to tell others what God wants THEM to do....lead them to God, mirror a passionate relationship with HIM and LET GOD TELL THEM what His plan is for them.

~Don't allow yourself to become prideful of your well-behaved children...God may give you one next who wants to fly off the chapel balcony!

~OK so I'd best say this here...so there is no doubt....

As the mother of several strong willed children - I do not see this as BAD....God needs innovators in the kingdom. He needs people with single vision. He needs zeal and spunk and spirit....but if we are judging our parenting skills based on the external behavior of our children...when God entrusts us with a special personality to raise for His kingdom, we may spend needless hours of frustration trying to make our children look like "Sally or Johnny", rather than teaching our child to channel his/her incredible determination, spunk, energy...

STOP COMPARING YOUR CHILDREN TO OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN....God gave you YOURS because there are things that He wants YOU to impart to your children. Discover what those are and get to it. Yes, Beth may be a natural mother and oh so creative and intelligent but God gave these kids to ME to raise....so He must know that if I walk close to Him I can do this. {g} I believe, when you are totally engaged in parenting your children, you won't have time to compare them to others - in a boastful way or in a way that reflects negatively on your child. See the value in your child, ask God for a glimpse of what He wants to accomplish with your problem or different child....accept that child....and get on with mentoring that child...not the text book child.
PARENTING IN PROVERBS - Ch. 16

Our Words and Tongue

16:13 "Righteous lips are the delight of Kings (and my family) and he who speaks right is loved."

16:20 "He who gives attention to the word will find good, and blessed is he who trust in the Lord. "

~Suppose this could again be Word or word....but since it is lower case....I need to pay attention to my words!!!

~My trust is to be in HIM (not myself, the experts, the church)

16:23 "The heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips".

~The HEART instructs the mouth - not the other way around.

~Well chosen words are persuasive

16:24 "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweat to the soul and healing to the bones."

~I don't believe God would have me compromise truth therefore I've concluded that:

~Truth doesn't have to be communicated with a club and a bite

~Gentle, gentle (When we were new parents, Mike told me one day, "De'Etta you are harsh and hard with the children - you need to be gentle." OUCH but oh so true. Truth doesn't have to be mean! We shared this with a homebuilder group in AK and I was blessed when several told me later they were surprised because I am so gentle with the children now. Thank GOD for his new mercies and transforming, redeeming work.)