What Have WE Been Up To??

I'm making it my goal to get back to blogging at least weekly. I'm amazed at how quickly I can get behind with my blog! Some updating is definitely in order. 

If you remember the post about the little stray dog I found and took in, he found a forever home. We were unable to keep him ourselves although I would have in a heartbeat. After much research I finally found a foster home for him. They had him for a few months and then decided that they wanted to make him part of their permanent family. 

I finally got those book shelves cleared as well! That was a LOT of work! Now the over 200 books are sitting in boxes waiting to be sold on Amazon. First I have to clean up my database so that I can do a mass listing on Amazon. That shouldn't take very long, once I get the time to do it. 

I did manage to get all the books we are keeping to fit into one shelf. That's a good thing because we needed the extra room for my sister and two aunts who came down from Arkansas to visit with us last week! We went to the beach pretty much every day they were here. 

This was the day we went to Tarpon Springs, home of the United States' largest Greek population and historic sponge docks. Mmmm!! Gyros!

On the heals of having my family visiting, I took Fashionista to her week of training with CYIA (Christian Youth In Action). She is spending the week in the dorms of a local Christian college learning how to tell kids about Jesus Christ. She had to send out support letters just like a missionary and is earning the title Junior Missionary.

I miss her terribly but know that she is in great hands with the staff of CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship). I'd better get used to it because we will not be seeing much of her this summer. She will be going out doing 5-day clubs for the remainder of the summer after her training is done.

In the meantime, the boys and I will be working to clean out their room and toss or give away all the junk...er ahem stuff they don't need or want. I will also be working to sell all those books and of course crocheting! I'll also have to carve out some time to do some homeschool planning for this upcoming school year.

Just 15 minutes!

GUEST POST by Rebecca Fuller of LearnFluteOnline.com

What can I accomplish in 15 minutes?

Well... it all depends on which 15 minutes you are asking me about.  I have certain “15 minutes” windows of time where I am like a lump on a log and other times I can whisk my whole entire main floor into ship-shape.

What are the differences between these little snippits of time?  As a highly motivated person striving to raise highly motivated children, I have had to analyze this often.

First, I am a goal setter.  Second, I am a goal accomplisher.

I have home-taught my children to a very high-level of proficiency on several different instruments.  I’m not kidding when I say that I work concertos with 9 year olds, and that they love it.

What’s the secret to my success?  15 minutes.  That’s it.  I can take 15 minutes and set everything else in the world aside and put and extremely concentrated effort into making sure my child and I have a positive experience in music learning.    

Where has this gotten us?  I don’t think this blog post could be long enough to list all of the benefits and amazing fun we have had over the years as a performing family.

It’s 15 minutes a day working towards an effort for a positive experience between you and your child.  Desire to have more positive experiences grow from here.  

And, children are never too young to start a lifetime of positive experiences.

-Rebecca Fuller

You can find Rebecca teaching online with passion and organized to the hilt at: http://LearnFluteOnline.com where she helps all ages hone their musical skill by using the beautiful instrument flute in a step-by-step, affordable, online approach.

Thank you Rebecca for sharing with us here!

Just a Little Bit

On Wednesday I did something I've never done before! I was out for my run and several blocks from home when this Little Bit of a dog came toward me. He let me approach him and pick him up. I checked him for a collar and he had none. I asked people in nearby homes if they knew who he belonged to. They said that they had never seen him before. So, not knowing what else to do with him, I took him home.

Little Bit was absolutely filthy! Not only that but he was covered in fleas. I tried to give him a bath, but his fur was so thick and fluffy that it just started matting up. I ended up pulling out my scissors and dog grooming clippers and taking all that nasty, dirty fur off. He seemed to be relieved to get it off.

After the fur was gone, it was back to the bath. It took several sudsing ups to get him clean. There were fleas seemingly coming from nowhere all over his tiny face. It seemed to take forever to get all of them off.

Now that he was finally clean and more comfortable, I started the process of searching the internet and making phone calls to Animal Services, SPCA, the sherriff's office and, posting to Facebook and Craig's List. We even took a walk to the vet down the street several blocks to ask them to scan him for a microchip. He doesn't have one. I also put "Found Dog" posters up near where I found him and at the vet's office and our local library.

I knew that I didn't want to take him somewhere that he might be euthanized. So I told Animal Services that I prefer to keep him here until his owners can be found or a new family located for him. In the meantime, he is getting lots of love from my kids and me.

Yesterday, Fashionista and I decided to try to get an idea of how old Little Bit is so we tried to get a look at his teeth. There were no teeth! Now we understand why he wouldn't chew the kibble we tried to give him.

I wanted to make sure that Little Bit doesn't become re-infested with fleas or get our house infested, so MyHero and I went to the pet store last night to find flea medicine for him. In chatting with the store employee who was helping us, we realized that he most likely has worms. So she helped us find a dewormer for him. I would love to take him to our vet, but we really can't afford to do that.

I've gotten tons of offers to give him a good home but no owners have come forward. Anyone who takes him in is going to need to be prepared for a walking vet bill! Not only that, but he doesn't have good bladder control and piddles in the floor. My hero is NOT thrilled with the piddling and many might think twice about taking him in knowing these things. I'm praying that he is able to find a loving home soon so that MyHero doesn't insist that I take him to the pound!

Clearing the Shelves

I had the privilege of serving other runners this past weekend at a local Halfathon. Several of our running team were on hand to distribute water to the runners.

I'm on the far left with the red hair.

It was so much fun to encourage these athletes! I did discover that there is a technique to handing water/gatorade to someone who is in motion! Many of the more serious runners did not want to slow their pace to grab the cup, so we had to expect to get splashed a bit by the contents. What a wonderful way to pay-it-forward to the folks who were there to encourage and distribute water in my first two races.

Live here continues to move forward at breakneck pace. Too many times this week I've asked myself, where has the day gone?? I'm simply going to HAVE to train myself to get up earlier. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all that I need to do, if I sleep till 9 am! Working out and running have been taking up a pretty large chunk of my days. Oh, yeah! And we are still homeschooling too. I'm also working to unload our multiple bookshelves of the books crammed onto them.

My hubby had the brilliant idea of having me purchase a barcode scanner to use to inventory all our books for sale. This will be so much easier than entering information manually into a fill in the blank database. I'm excited about the prospect of bringing in a small amount of extra income while emptying our bookshelves of books that we will no longer use.

Here are the bookshelves which need to be emptied. I also have boxes full of books that will not fit on these shelves. Part of the reason that we are pushing to get this done is because the two main bookshelves shown in the bottom picture are currently in Fashionista's room. There is a possibility of my sister and my aunt coming to visit this summer. We need these shelves out of Fashionista's room so that we can set up an extra bed for them to sleep in.

Son, What Are You Going To Be When You Grow Up??

It's a rainy day out. I worked out and then went for a refreshing run in the rain. Well, the rain was refreshing but NOT the pain in my legs! I powered through the shin splint pain I was having and made it to the end of my run. Yikes! I need to find a way to run without having that much pain!

Now that I'm all cleaned up after the workout and run, I'm relaxing and trying to get a bit of work done. The rain isn't helping me to get motivated to do anything. This is great crochet and audio book weather!  Maybe I'll be able to do some of that later.

I've been thinking about homeschool-friendly colleges for my son. I wish he would decide what he wants to do with his life!! That would greatly simplify things! Since he loves to cook so much I did some research on local cooking schools for teens. They all seem to be way out of our budget. I thought it would be nice for him to get a chance to work with a professional chef in order to decide if he really wants to settle on this profession.

Too bad there isn't a career path for sitting and playing online games all day! He would excel at that! Any one need a Mine Craft player for their business?? No? I thought not! I tell you, homeschooling high school may just be the death of me! Or at least my sanity!

Taking it Easy

This is day two of a migraine. When I feel like this, it seems no matter how hard I try to keep it from happening, school ends up sliding to the back burner. Last time I checked, Fashionista had TONS of math to catch up on. Mom is starting to experience math anxiety! I keep having to remind myself that I will feel better in a day or two and we will get back on track. Educational videos are on the docket for today! At the moment we are watching Animal Planet. As far as I'm concerned this is enough learning for today.

Home Again, Home Again! Jiggity Jig!

We made it home from our vacation visiting Grandma and Grandpa in AR! Whew! It's been a crazy week trying to get back into the swing of things. We will be starting schooling back up on Monday. However one of the things I've realized that I've neglected to add to my kids' assignment list is spelling. Uuugh! I really need to get on that! Not that it will be a difficult task, just one more thing to remember. We use Spelling and Vocabulary City which has wonderful spelling lists by grade. I can just add the appropriate lists to each of my children's assignments. This will round out our homeschool language arts curriculum.

As I promised last post, here are some pics from our trip!

My kids playing in the snow! No that is not an outhouse! It's my parent's well house! LOL

ManBoy found a huge ice sickle hanging from the eaves of my parent's house.

Looking out the back window of my mom and dad's house.

This is a shot from the side porch of mom and dad's house.