Chinese Pregnancy Calendar

I looked at this chart - just for fun - to see how accurate it was. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my children were predicted correctly. Isn't that funny?

Also, just for fun, I checked the miscarriage that I had... according to the chart it would have been a boy.

Check it out and leave a comment on how accurate it is. :)

Disclaimer - I seriously do not believe in this stuff. I believe that GOD is the only one who can determine the gender of a child. - Just so you know... :)

Tim Tebow Commercial

Let It Snow!

I haven't seen this much snow since we left Ohio!

A Modern Inconvenience

This is how our story begins...

One evening, about supper-time, Audrey needs to buy about 10 gallons of water. (That is a totally different story.) Before she leaves the house her husband is very adamant that she get air in the van tire while she is out. Audrey agrees.

Before she leaves the house she looks at the tire. "Yeah, it's low," she says to herself, "But there's plenty of air to get to the gas station." Boy was she WRONG! - Insert sarcastic snicker -

It is exactly one mile to the nearest Air compressor. Audrey makes it .75 miles when she hears (and feels) a terrible thud... thud... thud... Audrey drove for about another 30 seconds frantically looking for a place to pull over. When Audrey stopped on a side street to take a look at the damage, she was floored! The tire had come off of the rim!

"What do I do now? Do I knock on the door of this house? or do I pull out my handy dandy cell phone and call my husband who is at home with 5 children and couldn't help me anyway?"

Here's where the story splits. Have you seen the movie Sliding Doors?

Let's pretend that Audrey decided to knock on the door... this is how that story would end:

Audrey: "Hi, can I use your phone? I have a flat tire and I need to find someone to change it."

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house: "Sure you can use my phone, but I can change your tire if you like."

Audrey: "Really? That would be wonderful! Thank you so much!!"

Total time: 30 minutes

WAIT! I forgot to mention the weather - this is why the time is so important. It's about 20* and dropping since the sun is going down. Said van has no heat, said driver is wearing 2 sweatshirts for lack of a winter coat. Oh and it's starting to flurry.

Back to story... this is what REALLY happened:

Audrey calls her husband and they discuss what to do. She then remembers that she has roadside assistance through Verizon (a wonderful wonderful service I might add). The nice Verizon lady said that it would be about 45 minutes.

Telephone calls: 15 minutes

Audrey sits and waits.

Time: 30 minutes

Audrey forgets that the radio works and turns it on. Not too long after the Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house walks toward Audrey's van.

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house: "Are you ok?"

Audrey: "Yeah, I've got someone coming."

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house: "A wrecker?"

Audrey: "Yeah, I have roadside assistance and they are sending xxxxx Wrecker."

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house laughs: "I drive a wrecker (for a different company) but I'm off tonight. That company is slow, how long did they say?"

Audrey: "They have about 3 more minutes and then they're late."

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house: "Well, if they don't show up in the next 20-30 minutes I'll come back out and change it for you."

Audrey: "Thanks so much, I really appreciate it."

Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house goes back into nice warm house.

Time: 20 minutes

Audrey sees the wrecker go down the wrong street. Then she prays for forgiveness for all of the nasty thoughts she had about that man.

Audrey sees Nice-man-who-lives-in-the-house walk outside and shake his head at said wrecker driving down wrong street.

Wrecker-man parks in front of Audrey's van. He doesn't even say hi as he walks past her to look at the tire.

Wrecker-man: "Where's your spare?"

Audrey: "Under the back."

Wrecker-man: "Do I need any tools to get it off?"

Audrey is dumbfounded. How on earth should she know?!? She raises kids for a living, what does he do? So she says, "I have no idea."

Wrecker-man is not very friendly and he uses very nasty language. At one point Wrecker-man tries - for lack of a better word - to be friendly. "How long have you been waiting?"

Audrey: "Over an hour."

Wrecker-man: "I just got the call 20 minutes ago. I was in Knoxville."

Audrey has to restrain herself. Audrey is not as naive as she may seem. Audrey knows that unless one can teleport (or maybe fly) it is IMPOSSIBLE to get here from Knoxville in 20 minutes.

Wrecker-man is finally finished: 40 minutes

Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Oxiclean is Magic!

BEFORE:



AFTER:

Happy Blogoversary to ME!

It's the 2nd anniversary of my first blog post... just had to mention it. :)

Cna yuo raed tihs?

This is so weird... I received this in an email so I have no idea who to give the credit. I had absolutely no problems reading it. It also gives me a greater appreciation for Phonics instruction over the Whole Word approach.

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Our Schooling Area

I absolutely LOVED looking at everyone's blogs. I noticed that most people included their couch. This is where we do most of our reading. Lately, it's where we do math and LA also. I go over things with them and send them to their room or the table to finish.



This is the Kitchen/Main School Area. (I just made Laundry Soap.)



Here's the whiteboard and our new bookshelf. The banker's boxes both have more books in them. I seriously need more space.



This is both of my school bookshelves. The little one still needs filled and as you can see it's in our hallway below the timeline.



And finally, the calendar with our Jewish Holiday list next to it.

Canning Beans

We had planned on starting school this week... and sort of did. I guess we'll just stretch it over 2 weeks. I have 2 reasons for the delay: 1) Nauseousness (morning sickness) has come back with a vengeance and 2) I had to help break and can beans.

Great experience! I like breaking beans... I can sit and do nothing, yet still accomplish a whole lot! :) We ended up canning about 50 quarts and I got 3 dozen of them. Had some last night, they are AWESOME!! I hope I never have to eat commercially canned beans again.

Complete Bedroom

... the bed is complete anyway. :) THANK YOU MOM!!

New Bed

I love my mom so much - she's so good to me.

... and a view from the doorway.

Now, I have more than just a 15 year old mattress on the floor. I have a brand new boxspring and mattress on the floor. :)

ETA: I talked to my mom last night and she ordered the comforter set that I wanted...

AND a frame and headboard (no footboard).

I'll take more pictures after it's all set up! I'm so excited!

Another Haircut

I never thought of myself as the type of person to love short hair... but I do. It's so much easier to take care of AND I actually *do* something with it when it's short.

I absolutely LOVE the front/sides of my new 'do.

The back is... well... not exactly my style. It doesn't seem to blend well with the sides. I feel like there's a big hole in the back of my head. The girl that did my hair couldn't have been more than 20, so I figure she'd know a little more about the current styles than I do. Hmm....

MOVED! Whew!!

We're all done moving. LOTS left to unpack, I still have to clean the new place, and my couch and loveseat wouldln't fit in the door. BUT WE'RE MOVED!

I'll post some pictures later. If I did it now all you'd see is boxes. :)

Hydronephrosis of Pregnancy

I've got it again.

When I was around 7 months pregnant with *L* I went to the hospital with excruciating pain in my back. I was hospitalized for 3 days so that they could monitor my pain and give me meds.

Before that I had NEVER heard of 'hydronephrosis of pregnancy'. Apparently it's not unusual, the nurses were all surprised that I hadn't had it with any of my first 3 kids.

Hydronephrosis is explained very well here. Basically the baby is kinking my ureters (the tubes going from kidney to bladder) and that causes my kidney to get backed up. Unfortunately, there's really nothing they can do since it will fix itself after the baby is born.

The things we go through to have kids... :)

More Grocery Store Books

I paid $1, Savings $5.99

I paid $.50, Savings $2.49

I paid $2.00, Savings 10.44

I paid $2.00, Savings 9.55

TOTAL SAVINGS: $28.47

Breathe Right

These things are great! I hate taking any kind of medicine anyway, but being pregnant I have to be extra careful. I haven't been able to breathe for the last day or so, tonight I pulled out the nifty nose holders.

I'm telling you what... instant relief!! I can breathe!! I still can't believe how effective they are. (Yes, I am using the kids strips... they fit me fine.)

The Bible in One Year

I've challenged myself to read the Bible this year. I'd like to make it an ongoing thing, where I read the entire Bible once every year. I started by using the recommended schedule in my Holman Study Bible. I liked the variety, but it was getting a bit... uh... hard to keep up with. There were 4 different readings each day. For example, Day 1: Gen 1, Est 1, Ps 1, and Mt 1. Like I said, I loved the variety.

So, I found a different plan that I'm going to use. You read a different section of the Bible each day of the week. Sunday is Epistles, Monday is The Law, Tuesday is History, Wednesday is Psalms, Thursday is Poetry, Friday is Prophecy, and Saturday is Gospels. One passage per day, 7 different passages per week. You can download the pdf here or view it online here.

Plumbing Problems

We have one full bath upstairs, and one full bath downstairs. Laundry is on the 1st floor.

Everytime I did laundry it backed up into the downstairs bathtub. It was never much and it always went right down, so I never worried much about it. Until one day about 2 weeks ago... the bathtub had overflowed!! Only we didn't know it until the next morning.

The Landlord sent a "handyman" out to snake the pipes and he couldn't find anything. So, she had a plumber come out. Apparently, the toilets went to the septic tank and the bathtubs, sinks, and washer drained to a dry well. Our dry well must've been full. He had to dig up our yard to reroute the pipes and have everything drain to the septic tank. He had no idea where any of the pipes were so he was doing some exploratory digging!!

This is what we ended up with:








But the kids enjoyed it!!

What will you hear?

Homemade Laundry Detergent

This whole thing got started Monday night when I watched 17 Kids and Counting on TLC. The Duggar Family makes their own Laundry Soap. I had toyed with the idea of trying it for a while, but after she said that the batch they make costs about $2 I made my decision. Also, I had no idea how EASY it actually is. The only problem is that their recipe is WAY TOO BIG. :) So I did a little research and found quite a few sites. Tip Nut has 10 different variations on one  page, but this is the one that I actually followed.

Here's what you need. Washing Soda, Borax, and soap. 



Fels Naptha is the most highly recommended, but I couldn't find it and I already had Ivory. After all was said and done, I found some Octagon. I'm going to try it the next time.

Ingredients:
1/3 bar soap
1/2 C. Washing Soda
1/2 C. Borax

On the website she said to use a full bar if using Ivory. I didn't read that until AFTER I had made mine. It came out just fine and washes better than the commercial stuff! So, 1/3 of a bar of Ivory soap is the same as 1/2 C. after it has been shredded.

Then just follow the instructions and voila!!



... enough soap to last a LONG TIME!! I've already washed 3 loads (at 1/2 C. per load), and I'm loving the results.

The first load was my husbands work clothes. (He is a welder, they get very very very dirty.) I wanted a true test. I have never gotten his clothes that clean with any commercial detergent that I have ever used.

Let me know if you usually make your own. Or if you made some after you read my post! :)