Whew - Thank God the Day is over!!!

Stacia was up late and early. Need I say more?

It seemed we had barely begun school and it was time for me to head for the base. Today was the monthly Parish Advisory Council - ummm - guess it is a bit like an elder board or a lay leadership board in a civilian church. The meeting went past the one hour mark.... I was supposed to have contacted one of our Catholic ladies to see about doing a joint Thanksgiving "something" for the students. We didn't connect all month. {G} This turned out to be good because others had more ideas of things they wanted to do and it was good that we hadn't agreed on a plan already. We were going to have turkey sandwiches and such at the big student center - The Crossroads - on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Now, it appears that we'll have bands playing in the parking lot and such. I'm sure it will all come together....delegate, delegate...that's what I'll do. Kathy already agreed to handle all the publicity (fliers, getting word to instructors, and out on the global email at base) because my computer is crashed!!! I can handle getting it in the Protestant News and getting sign ups for food and volunteers. I simply need a bit of quiet time to get my thoughts together. LOL

We DID manage to have tea today. I figured school was a bust anyway. That is NOT true. I have always prioritized our school and had to laugh at the timely message last night at Mom's Night Out. The lady was talking about reading to your children. A favorite past time around here. She went on to say that she had prioritized her school and did the most important things first. For HER that was devotions and reading. Those are mine too....it cracked me up that TODAY would go so awry that all we got done were devotions and reading (well the kids did table school on their own). What a timely reminder Becca provided last night. I took it in stride and we enjoyed tea time with our freed up time instead of stressing about cramming one more subject into the short amount of time. I bought some cute tea cups on sale. I was looking for something for PWOC and these will fit the bill perfectly AND they are great for family tea. They are special and yet not TOO SPECIAL. In other words, they are nice, pretty and delicate (not a mug) but they aren't terribly expensive and won't bother me if one of the kids breaks one. They were marked down to $19.99 too. The only problem is I forgot that I have more than *6* in my family and so I need to go back and see if they have any others. Unfortunately, during tea, Zander was so excited for his yummy AhLaska hot drink that he took a big gulp and royally burned his tongue and mouth. Poor baby. He cried and cried....asked for milk, ice cream and smoothie and finally fell asleep holding his tongue. He is fine now.

Ah bummer...the photo of Arielle with the tea cups won't load. I'm thinking that these will make a darling set to give her when she is older...after they are filled with memories of family tea time. We'll see.

I made "shake and bake" tonight. I still don't' have my computer and my recipes but I found several on line and combined. We really liked it. We also had a salad, fruit, bread and roasted veggies!!! YUMMM....I LOVE roasted veggies.

Tonight was PWOC. Study went well. Fellowship was sweet. The ladies like the new tea cups. I FORGOT TO TAKE THE KEY and couldn't get into the chapel. I did have my cell phone and called Marty to have Mandy bring a key. She was gracious enough to stay longer than she wanted so we could clean up and lock up. I think the tea tasted better in real cups instead of Styrofoam. :::gag:: The secret is out - I really hate Styrofoam and have a thing about using it. ::snort::

I came home and read 3 chapters out of Pinocchio to the crew (age 1 - 17). I really liked the name of the town Pinocchio visited tonight "land of the blockhead"...I think I've been there a time or two. :::snort:::

Weigh In -

WooHOO! I KNEW it was only a matter of doing what I KNEW I needed to do. My "paper brain" is really helping me. I made a sheet up a long time ago with the Thin Within Observation/Correction chart on it, Food Log and hunger scale. I added a box to chart exercise and water consumption. I also added a spot to write my last weight and a spot to mark my thyroid meds. Oh yes...and I wrote out "my" hunger scale to help me objectively evaluate where I am on the hunger scale. It's all in one spot. It's clicking. I lose two lbs last week and three lbs this week. I'm sure it will shortly settle back down to 1/2 - 1 lb a week...but at least something is moving.

A friend began doing weight watchers and commented a couple of weeks ago about how the food log/points really helped her because she didn't want to WRITE down that extra bit of food etc. Bingo - I remembered my paper brain....I knew she was right. Thin Within aims to have you internalize the principles but offers these tools to help you until you do. I HAD internalized the principles...but had slipped. Until I can do this by second nature again, I'll use my paper brain. Now - if I could just get out every day for 30 minutes....

Bosch Question....

The last two days when I make smoothies (which I do one - two times a day) it seeps out the bottom of the blender. I've checked and can't figure out why. I do not have a manual. I suddenly realized that I bought it from a distributor in AK - she sold grains and mills and mixers out of her home...but she didn't give me paperwork or a manual or anything....

Anyone have a clue what would be causing this? Do I need to go get a blender JUST for smooothies?

My Dad has surgery Tuesday a.m. He'll be the first one in. Please pray for wisdom for the doc and for Dad's recovery. They are saying it will be about six weeks before he can put any pressure on it this time. Here's hoping the 3rd time's the charm????

Nah - here's praying for God's will.

White Sauce - makes 6 cups - equivalent of 4 cans of condensed soup


OK - you KNOW that those condensed cream of soups aren't good for you....if you WANT to find a substitute, here you go...if not...no condemnation here...sometimes all you can do is open a can. LOL


3/4 C Butter
3/4 C flour (I used soft white - they use mix of whole wheat and all purpose)
6 C warmed milk
Chicken or Beef Flavoring (bouillon granules (2T), bouillon cubes (6) or broth powder (1/4 C)*

Add mushrooms or whatever if you want.

Note: 1 1/2 C of white sauce = 1 can of condensed soup

*You can get a fat free, all natural broth powder (chicken, beef or veggie) from Frontier Herbs

Conventional:
melt butter over low heat, add flour and stir until smooth. Cook the mixture until it bubbles. Do NOT let it brown. Gradually add the milk - STIR CONSTANTLY. When the sauce has thickened (could take 30 minutes - STIR), add flavoring of choice.

MICROWAVE (because I have to find fast!!!)
Microwave butter until melted. Add flour and microwave 1 1/2 - 2 minutes until bubbly. Add 2 C of milk and microwave for 2 minutes. Stir. Add 2 more C of milk and microwave for 2 minutes. Stir. Add last 2 C of milk and microwave for 2 min. Stir. Keep microwaving and stirring in 2 min increments until sauce is thickened....about 15 minutes today...and I could prepare the rest of the meal while I waited to stir instead of stirring continuously for 30 minutes. LOL

I made enough today to use 1/2 for the Chicken Divan and the other 1/2 I'll use either for a pasta sauce or add cheese and use it over cauliflower or broccoli.

Original recipe from "The Freezer Manual" - the 30 day gourmet folks

Mondays -

are dreaded around here. We always weight our studies heavily to Mon - Wed. I'm trying to play catch up on laundry after Sunday. I don't mention it every day but laundry is a constant theme to my days (3-5 loads a day except Sunday).

This a.m. we got up and kept adapting as needed throughout the day. I began to think about that when I read Debbie's comment to my school post. Nothing went quite as planned but enough got done. LOL

So...school. Dinner: Chicken Divan, another 39 second salad (yippee)...something else. We were just finishing dinner when Josiah got called in to work.

I had Mom's Night Out. I really enjoy that time but am not sure that I'll be able to keep it up until Mike gets home. Things were pretty rough for the children left at home....we even left before folks were done so that I could be home close to bed time for the littles. It seems to me that maybe park days or family activities are going to be better for my "outs" than Mom's Nights...but the boys want me to try it one more month. We'll see.

School Daze

We got a late start on school today because I called my folks. Then we discovered that we were less than impressed with our library's selections on the Russian Revolution. I went ahead and purchased two books that I'd not ordered earlier. They'll hopefully be here tomorrow. The older three boys will double up on math and science today and tomorrow and then double up on history after that. This happens once or twice year where we didn't order a book because it was used for one week and the library had books on the same subject (or sometimes the library doesn't). I usually let the boys read the World Book article excerpts and Tapestry of Grace teacher notes when this happens. This time, they are more interested in the topic, and the book was "highly recommened", so I ordered it.

Arielle and Nolan had been working independently on table school, while I got the big boys going for the week.

I had them come work on their quilt squares from last week. They were excited. Arielle made a square on The Wright Brothers and Nolan chose to make one on the San Francisco Earthquake.

Arielle works on her square

newest squares began our second row...not sure how to tie it all LOL

For history (there are 3 more weeks of WWI) we'll cover the Titanic this week. I spent today reading to them about oceans, reveiwing continents and looking at some pictures of the great old ocean liners. We breifly skimmed through *Ghost Liners* - checking out the pictures - then and now. {G} I'll go online this afternoon and see if I can find some interactive sites with photos of the elegant liners. We read *The Seven Seas*. The illustrations in this book were awesome. The text left much to be desired. It was a good spring board for our review and I edited the text on the fly. . . the same ole' evolution stuff, theories presented as fact, global warming and "man is bad" themes.

For grammar we worked on collective nouns by reading Ruth Heller's *A Cache of Jewels*. Zander was even intriqued by the pictures and joined us. We also read some more tidbits about Texas from the *Roundup, a Texas number book*.

For math we read *Seaweed Soup*. We had checked this book out over the summer but it was worth another read. It teaches about matching sets. Zander joined us for this too. I suggested making some seaweed soup - an idea that was met with strong disapproval. We also played a math folder game I had made. I got the idea of this game from *File Folder Games for Math* from Scholastic. Amazon had it for $25 or so...I was relieved that Scholastic had it for $9 at the time I purchased it. Now that I've gotten my feet wet I'm seriously considering buying the "file folder game SET" that they sell or maybe just another book with reading games. Though Sing Spell, Read and Write has tons of great games for reinforcing phonics...I'm a bit bored after using the program for the past 9 years. I can't believe I've had a new reader for 9 years. LOL

Playing Nine in a Hive

We put Stacia down for a nap. I loaded Zander into the bike trailer, Arielle and Nolan got their helmets on and we took off for a bike ride. I needed to get at LEAST 30 minutes of riding in today.

Back at home, I corrected table work and then worked with Nolan on phonics. He's reviewing short vowel sounds...yes...we're about to leave Step 17 in Sing, Spell, Read and Write.

Josiah was at work when we watched Nicholas and Alexandra, so he watched that today.

Stacia woke up and it's time to start dinner and play with her. School's out.