Indians, Co-ops, Parks

Hmmm….what did we do WEDNESDAY? We did school. We continue to study the Plains Indians and the transcontinental railroad. One legend told how the Sioux nation came to be. Seems there was a god who had 5 sons. He named the North, South, West and East and the youngest one was Whirlwind. I could relate. {g}

After school we went to the park. I worked on setting up Excel for the new natural foods co-op that I’m organizing – or trying to organize. Back at home I began to slice and dice a pile of veggies for a stir fry dinner. The young boys were watching me and I began to show off the ability of my new knife to quickly chop….doing the Ginsu thing. That’s when I chopped my finger. I had been complaining that my butcher knife disappeared during our move. I finally bought a new knife. It certainly was sharp enough. {G} We waited an hour for the urgent care on call doctor to call us back. She thought I’d be fine to wait and see the doc Thursday a.m. I went to sleep at mid-night with my thumb still bleeding. I cut the top ¼ th of the nail off – damaged the nail bed, shaved the top of the rest and the tip of the thumb. Ouch. I KNOW I had a tetanus shot in San Antonio. During the accident time I realized how different it is to have an accident surrounded by 5 boys and a husband…with no GIRLS around. {g} If Mike ever leaves the chaplaincy these guys can take their act on the road. From Josiah, “You know it’s going to be a bad dinner when the cook is beside herself”. From Mike as he holds pieces of my former thumb came a SONG “I wanna hold your hand”. Nuts. We laughed hard. I can’t remember the rest of the comments. Zander stole my heart by grabbing a towel and joining me to moan about his hurt finger. He kept saying “you should NOT cut fingers, Mom”. (Picture later - won't upload).

THURSDAY bright and early I called Tri-care. The gentlemen told me that they had no appts for Thursday or Friday. I told him that the urgent care doc had wanted me to be seen. He told me that it wasn’t “acute” and asked if I could call back Monday. I asked if I could make an appt for Monday and he told me I could call back to see if they had an opening on Monday. Keep in mind that I really did NOT want them to 1. Give me a shot or 2. Remove the remaining nail (a possibility). Mike was quite upset when he heard what they’d told me. I was once again told that I had to be more forceful when dealing with tri-care. I should have insisted that they find something for me THAT DAY. He emailed the doctor who is our PCM. That doctor called him and said this was totally unsat. He says that he is looking into it and will get to the bottom of it. That someone on the appointment line is NOT qualified to be giving medical advice. I was told I needed an appointment and they should have given me one…not told me that it wasn’t acute. I HATE confrontation and I hate my name associated with this sort of thing. I know that someone is going to get their tail chewed…I THINK he was active duty….and I have no idea WHO he is…so there will be someone out there who I don’t know who dislikes me. UGH. I have an appointment for 1:00 TODAY. I realized that my records were lost when we moved and so they will have no record of my tetanus shot. YIKES! I will do all in my power to dissuade them from the removal of said nail….it’s feeling better and I do not want to go back to all that blood and pain again.

In other news on Thursday – we finished school. Read some really gross stuff, read some interesting stuff, ordered an incubator and 4 quail eggs from Home Training Tools, mailed packages to my parents and the girls, took the little ones to lunch and Josiah to work. THEN we headed to the park again. {g} We needed to give Adrienne money for Friday’s produce co-op. Yippee…more fresh produce.

Zander had a hard day in the park. This month he’s gone from being totally anti-social to thinking that every child at the park should want to play with him. This led to a big brawl in the sand box when one little boy did NOT want to play with him. Being this is my 9th child, I don’t tend to get real worked up about these things, but other parents do. Enough said. Walking out to the van I was talking and fell off the curb. Now I was just thrilled that I’d twisted my ankle…there was a reason for this fall and my leg didn’t just give out. {G} I did have Stacia in the sling and she got a scratched up finger. I got a twisted ankle, scraped knee, hand and elbows….to go with my bandaged thumb. I’m a sight. Heather offered me the chance to stay home and she’d bring me produce to the house in the a.m. but I really enjoy visiting with these ladies.

The night ended with a PWOC board meeting.

OUCH

 i cut the end of my thumb off - cy is running to the store for steri strips and gauze. mike is racing home from work - sure that i must go to the er. yuck. ouch.

Momentum

It’s been a fairly momentous Tuesday – so busy that I didn’t blog. {Sarcasm here folks}

I set up an account with Shop Natural. I wanted to be SAGE but both the other groups in town are SAGE – SAGE Buying Company; SAGE Co-op…..so I told them our name was S A Groceries Etc – and I’d think of ANOTHER name. The lady asked if I didn’t have ANY other names that I’d considered. I admitted I had considered GASEOUS – she laughed at the name but did not find my motto humorous at all: GASEOUS – if it gives you gas and tastes like dirt – it’s good for you! BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD. She offered to send me software that will allow each member to upload their OWN order and I’ll compile them all and send them in. That way the company will make invoices for each member and I just have to add the splits and $1 fee. This month I’ll have to do it the “old way”. She was surprised that more clubs aren’t using the software.

Arielle, Nolan, Zander, Stacia and I went to the lake today with Charly and her children. This was a first. Charly and her family attend the chapel. We’d wanted to do this before but both Mick and Zander are “handfuls”. Both have been on Feingold for 3 weeks so we tried it. I thought it went fairly well. Sure – they were boys and there were discipline issues…but Zander was actually SOCIAL – playing WITH Mick and not having melt downs when Mick touched him. Both boys responded when disciplined. We were able to visit a bit. This was cool.

I lost one more pound this past week. OK – so not incredibly momentous – but in my life it is fairly significant. Ah but what IS momentous is that I fit into the jeans a size smaller!!! These are the ones I wore when I got pregnant…so they aren’t my all-time-skinny-jeans…but I’m working my way back into the depths of my closet.

I suspect Stacia has a tooth under the surface. I got a glimpse when trying to get antibiotics in her mouth. She’s on to us. I used to wait for her to scream and shoot it down the back/side of her mouth – causing her to involuntarily swallow the nasty stuff…..but now she clamps her mouth shut the minute you put her in the “medicine hold”. {bg}

Bible study was good. Beth Moore was talking about God’s unfailing love. She talked about Mark 12:28 – 30; my life verses. I do enjoy Beth’s lectures.

At home I was already getting orders and splits for SAGE. SO….I had Mike teach me how to use excel while we waited for Josiah to get home from work. I think we may have to tell Chick Fil A that he can only close 2 or 3 nights a week. They have him closing 5 nights a week….and that is getting tough for a kid in high school. When they hired him they said they “hoped” to give him 15 – 20 hours – the amount he wanted. He’s been getting 20 – 30 each week….probably 35 this week. We KNEW once he got a job the employer would realize what he had and he’d get lots of hours. {G}

That’s Tuesday – now on with Wednesday.

Tarantulas and Buffaloes!

As Mondays go, this one wasn’t ½ bad. {G}

I’ve scheduled Mondays and Tuesdays to be our heavy history days. We try to get most of our history reading done for the week by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. This schedule insures that the kids KNOW what we are discussing the rest of the week in their writing assignments, hands on assignments etc. We do divide our literature readings into 4 or 5 days. Mike is scheduled to have Friday off. He doesn’t usually take it, so it was a rare treat when he had both Friday off and TODAY off. He is going to another AFB on Friday with the Wing Chaplain and so it was suggested he take today off. We LOVE having Mike home but for some bizarre reason the kids simply don’t buckle down to school with Dad in the house. Every time he walks through the room I can see their attention follow him. {G}

Today was also slow for school as I tried to gather info for organizing the new Shop Natural co-op, made a few PWOC calls, fielded a few more PWOC calls, worked on my produce order for Friday, chatted with new friends who called on the phone….and THEN I finally realized it was time to just “do school”. We did. Mike went for a run and came home determined to work on taxes.

One of our history books for this week is *Buffalo Hunt*. We read 3 chapters out of the 5. Sometime during the reading I remembered that there are Bison at the state park up the road. I suggested we all go to the state park for lunch and visit the Bison. Mike suggested that I take the little ones on the adventure so that he could work on taxes in peace. Josiah had to be at work this afternoon. Jamin and Jared had no interest in seeing Buffalo! I couldn’t believe it. I even asked Jared if he wasn’t learning about Buffalo this week. He agreed he was. I said, “Then why don’t you want to come with us?” He informed me he’s seen Buffalo before. Hmm….well the four younger ones and I headed for the state park. The Buffalo are usually right as you enter the park. They were GONE. I asked where they were and when they’d be back. The gate keeper told me that they had to move them because of construction. Then she leaned closer and told me which roads to take to the acreage where the buffalos were. She said that if we were lucky we may find one near a fence. We saw about 3,000,000,000 Prairie dogs. Zander and Nolan noticed right away that they resembled the “Whack A Mole” game at Chuck E Cheese or Mr. Gattis. We also saw one buffalo. Arielle was timid to approach him, but finally did. I had Stacia in the sling, the camera around my neck (discovered the strap makes a good teether) and I was chasing wild boys who were trying to “whack a mole” all over creation. They had no fear of the buffalo. Nolan told Zander all he had learned from the 3 chapters in school. I love how personal God can be. What a blessing to have the time and chance to bring history alive for them today – all for $0.00. I also had quite a chuckle over something that Tricia, Adrienne and I had discussed one day at a different park. Zander and Ja’nae were having a blast putting gravel on the slide and then sliding down and pushing it off everywhere. Adrienne and I were fine with this. They were having fun. We were watching. No one was getting hurt. I shared a story about being at a park with my little ones and a group of first time mommies who were very uptight about their children playing in a park. No sooner had we laughed at how much more laid back we are these days – She has 7 and I have 9 children – than children with Mommies who didn’t like gravel on the slides began to arrive. TODAY we were the ONLY ones at the play ground. There were big rocks throughout the sand pile. Zander and Nolan took a lot of time hauling them all to the slide and then sliding down. An elderly gentleman (host?) came out and said, “Boys, I want you to put all those rocks back when you leave. They can’t be by the slide.” My boys were perplexed, but took great care to scatter them back into the sand box instead of piled beside the slide when we left. {G}

Back at home it was discovered that the taxes didn’t go as well as expected. BUT I did gain a new filing system out of the ordeal. :::snort:::

By the time we were ready for dinner it was way past a decent hour for dinner. No one was thrilled with the home made tortilla chips. SOMEONE is eating the apple chips (dryer than I meant them to be but they are a nice potato chip substitute) so I plan to make more. They all were satisfied with making a sandwich on one of my home made rolls. Thanks again to Adrienne for this recipe and for the tip to bake double and freeze them for sandwiches. The boys have noticed that they eat less when it is the whole grain stuff that I bake. In fact – I heard a comment to the effect of my “gut buster bread”. I’m not SURE that was a compliment…but I’m going to choose to think it was. {G}

*Dean & Me* by Jerry Lewis/James Kaplan

I’ve long been a Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis fan. I grew up watching the old movies and the telethon. When I saw this book at the library I knew I had to read it. It was a fascinating read. It will be fun to watch some of the movies again, knowing the background of what was going on.

This book gives an insider view of the “golden age” of Hollywood. It is interesting to glimpse. It also portrays a friendship that spanned many decades. I learned lots of interesting things. Just a few, I’d never realized that Jerry Lewis is Jewish. That certainly made some of the sketches I’ve seen him do make a bit more “sense”. I’d also thought Dean Martin was a total LUSH but that isn’t how he is portrayed in this book.

All in all it was an interesting read. It makes me wish now that I could have seen their act live….my mother in law has emailed that she did just THAT in San Francisco back in 1952. How cool is that?

Ice CREAM night!

Pictures to go with the account above. Here Zander enjoys his milk and honey from the dasher.....


Ah....dedicated to the last drop!

SUNDAY

We’ve had a rather lazy Sunday. Chapel went well. Stacia DID make her presence known. First, chatty away with Mike when he began to speak as if they were the only two in the room. He looked at her after a bit and said, “Yes, Stacia” and she quieted down. THEN later in the cry room (non-sound proofed room separated from sanctuary by glass window) she howled her displeasure at waiting for her meal and I’m told all in the service could hear her.

We had several options for the afternoon but settled on lazing around home. Mike played some games with Arielle, Nolan and Zander. The older boys played computer games and read. We made ice cream. Nothing big or fantastic.

If I don’t discover any hidden fees or regulations when I call Shop Natural tomorrow, I will be organizing a food co-op. We’ve spent some time trying to figure out what we want to do with this. When we ran the produce co-op we got free produce for our family. We don’t think we want to make $ on this endeavor…mainly we want enough people doing this that we can all buy our groceries at member prices. We ARE trying to think of all the hidden costs as we don’t want to end up LOSING money either. We’re trying to come up with a catchy name. We had some friends whose last name were Rath who set themselves up as *Raths of God* but *Pickles of God* or *Gherkins for God* just doesn’t have the same ring. We’ve though of acronyms….GASEOUS …but really we aren’t coming up with any good ideas. I suppose we could do what most do “co-op” and just put the account in our personal name – but that doesn’t sound like fun. We welcome all suggestions. {G}

The gentleman who allows his son to play with guns on a playground called today. Mike had faxed him two more estimates to fix our van. We told him we’d go with the lowest estimate. He said he didn’t have the $. We told him we’d take whatever he can send this week and then monthly payments that he can afford each month until he’s paid for it. We’ll send him a receipt because he wants to be sure we fix it! We’ll pay the difference between the lowest offer and the offer from the reputable place.

That’s our day. Next week is spring break around here. We don’t plan to take the week off of school. Josiah is scheduled to work 30 hours – which probably means 35 as he always gets extra time when they close. We may not get a full week of school done. We’ll see.