Tackle It Tuesday

If this were Tackle It Monday I could have claimed an epic tackle for my household. But it's not, so I can't (besides, it wasn't housework related).

If it were Tackle It Sunday I could claim my first attempt ever in my lifetime at making chutney. But it's not, so I can't.

Pear Chutney

 
We have a busy day today. We have appointments, lessons, and a Cub Scout Pack to visit. I also have a microwave, five ceiling fans, and house filters to clean. Which one should I tackle this week?

The microwave isn't wretched. But I have not been keeping up with it weekly as intended. It really isn't difficult. Nuke a quantity of vinegar water in my 4c Pyrex measuring glass for 5-minutes. Wipe out with a damp rag. Wipe down the front. Wipe down the stovetop underneath--fallen debris.

The ceiling fans are a pain in the neck. Seriously. If I take the shortcut, I crane my neck to see what I'm doing with the ShopVac hose as I evict the dust bunny colonies on the fan blades. If I do it properly, I'm craning my neck and straining my shoulders as I wipe down each and every blade with a CloroxWipe. It's not the worst it has ever been, but it's bugging me. The living room would be the first, the breakfast nook would be the second. They're the ones I see the most.

I would love to change the house filters once a month. But they say to change every three months and the ones I prefer to use are not cheap. We've tried the cheap ones--it's an experience that will not be repeated. The goal is to change them the first day of the quarter, but I don't actually remember when they were changed last. We're headed into another round of allergens and we're heading into another sicky season thanks to the time of year and the restarting of public schools. Ugh--just thinking about it makes me want to change the filters weekly!

It's not a difficult task. It's merely removing the cover, removing the old filters, ShopVac'ing the coil, installing the new filters, ShopVac'ing the cover, closing it up and putting away the ShopVac (that doesn't really have a designated place to belong anymore now that we're using the side door).

So which one am I tackling this week?? I guess I'll have to see how the flow of the day goes. And you'll have to wait for the elusive broadband when I can load the pictures and edit all these emailed blog posts--THAT will be quite the Tackle!!

Happy Tuesday!!

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Menu Plan Monday

http://orgjunkie.com/menu-plan-monday-guidelines

Monday: Skillet Mac & Beef

Tuesday: White Chili

Wednesday: Sloppy Joes

Thursday: Burritos

Friday: Brauts (w/ pear chutney, maybe)

Saturday: Toad-in-a-hole

Sunday: Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken


Last week didn't end up going quite as planned. But life is what happens while you're making plans.

We unexpectedly picked pears Tuesday. They were super ripe and needed to be cleared from the trees before Irene blew them off. Ended up taking me three full days to make some pear chutney (from the Ball Blue Book). I've never had chutney and I've never made chutney before. I was told by two dear friends that it's great on sausage and with pork. I was interested because I remember reading or seeing "westernized" chutney as a side dish. Everything I'm finding at this moment expresses it as a condiment--akin to dill relish if you please. Anyway, it took three days because the entirety of the household conspired against me.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Traditional Roles

While looking for a meme I vaguely remembered, from some time ago, I came across HomegrownMom. She has a blog category whose title struck a chord in me: A Wife to Rush Home to.

A wife to rush home to.

Six little words that make a big statement. A phrase that carries power and a basketful of concepts.

A kept home invites a spouse to rush home.

A kitchen conscientiously stocked and prepped invites a spouse to rush home.

Putting yourself together invites a spouse to rush home (usually, frequent bedroom exercises also encourage this).

Peace in the home invites a spouse to rush home.

All Hopped Up

...on sugar.

You know that line in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days? When she says, "I may love you, but I don't have to like you right now!" That's a sentiment I have to fight when my kids have sugar and/or food coloring. I find it extremely unpleasant to be around them when they're sugared out.

(I wonder if it's the same variety of feeling as those parents that just CAN.NOT.WAIT. for their kids to disappear into the public school season.)

It's like sugar and food coloring are an instant lobotomy for my kids. A crackhead with a lobotomy. Strung-out-wild with no sense. And it takes a week for them to come down fully.

Six Word Saturday

Extremely grateful for much needed rain!

Prayers to those that are, and will be, more greatly impacted by Irene than us. I'm worried about friends in Wilmington, about friends in Raleigh, about family in New England, but I'm breathing easier since she appears to be continuing to weaken. It's all a waiting game though.

We're in a funky little vortex here in the central Piedmont where we can watch storms split and move around us--which usually translates into less rain than the rest of our county. Thankfully it also greatly reduces our likelihood for a tornado, but it sucks in drought conditions.

Irene has brought us a snippet of rain most of this morning (until now). Unfortunately the new rain gauge is sitting on the counter rather than on the stoop railing so I can't determine what has fallen.

Happy (and safe) Saturday y'all!

Unprepared

Irene, while not a huge concern for us at this moment because of how far inland we are, is actually catching us a bit unprepared.

Our 72hr food kits were cycled-out but never restocked. We *do* have two full flats of water, but we don't have any jugs of water (for cooking and hand-washing).

We still don't have full 72hr kits pulled together. We still haven't determined our evacuation meeting places or plans. We no longer have our out-of-state contact available; we had their office designated as our primary contact in the event of disasters or evacuations, but their position was just downsized.

We're low on fuel and on funds. Payday hits *after* the hurricane. Not likely we'll see the $3.499 prices next week.

We also didn't do our annual review of hurricanes. The plan was to revisit our hurricane studies each May before the season officially started 1 June. Part two of that plan was to reboot our emergency kits, etc as well.

Fail.

Hopefully this won't prove to be an epic fail. Think tomorrow will be spent attempting to remedy some of these, at least temporarily.

Menu Plan Monday

http://orgjunkie.com/menu-plan-monday-guidelines

Monday: Ham steak, eggs, biscuits

Tuesday: Homemade corn tortilla tacos (the corn tortillas are store bought)

Wednesday: Chicken Fagiole

Thursday: Homemade Pizza

Friday: Beef Stew and Cornbread

Saturday: OUT

Sunday: Smothered Chicken


Happy Meal Prep!!

Life With Baby

Some may say this is not "school" related, but in our household life skills are part of our required education. And while it's not likely that my children will ever be nursing a baby (men *are* capable--survival of the species), their experiences here and now will likely benefit their own family down the road. I hope.

I feel a need to expound upon my first-ever Six Word Saturday post...probably because I like to hear myself think, and I suspect that I'll need to reread it when I get frustrated.

The human body is a marvelous thing on so many levels--a mother's body is nothing short of miraculous! I won't gush over all the reasons why right now (maybe I should so I can counteract every time I look in the mirror *lol*), but it's fascinating to contemplate mothers' milk. We make what we need, when we need it due to supply and demand. If baby demands it, we'll inevitably make it. If baby doesn't demand it, we inevitably won't make it.

With this in mind, I was waiting to start pumping until baby settled into his own rhythm or schedule so I could then determine when to pump so it didn't interfere with him--and so we didn't create oversupply issues during those first several weeks. However, that ended up meaning there wasn't a whole lot to pump when I wanted to and I started to fret and get discouraged.

Fabulous Le Leche League Leader to the rescue!! In a brief chat with her I was able to take a step back and assess more logically--

• I do not need the pump supply of a mother working outside the home full-time.
• the event that I am most concerned about having milk for is two months away. It is only three days and I will be with baby in the evenings/night.
• he will be 6mo old, likely starting to explore solids (I still need to check the library for Baby Led Weaning...I've heard tell it should actually be titled Baby Self-feeding), and we can overnight nurse those days. If he gets fussy about bottles during the 8hr workshops he will actually survive--it's only three days. My milk supply will recover.
• if I stay consistent with my once-a-day pumping (at approx the same time each day) I will produce. She reminded me that adjustments in feeding patterns typically take 72hrs for the body to "catch-up."
• even if I don't produce more than the one-ounce per pump session (that I had the two times I pumped last week), that's still 7oz a week which should be sufficient for our needs once I'm off sabbatical.
• I do not NEED to pump 5oz every time I plug in. Again, I do not need the supply of pumped milk a mother working outside the home full-time needs. I'll only need to cover the three day certification, and then some 2hr to 4hr blocks during the week. Maybe one 8hr day each week.
• this is why I declared sabbatical until he was 6mo so the necessity of me being constantly on-hand was not as great. 

So relax. Breathe. Snuggle. Nurse. Adore.
...and pump every morning at 8:30.

Six Word Saturday

Starting pump schedule for future sanity.

Consequences: Positive and Negative

On the positive:

• the kids now receive an allowance so we can learn about money-handling
• we have a list of paid chores available for earning extra money
• LegoBucks!! Our own creation--they come in $1 and $5 increments and are redeemed with me for Lego Store purchases.
• $1 legobuck for completing that day's lessonwork.
• $2 legobucks for working one full day ahead in lessonwork
• $5 legobucks for completing a lapbook
• screentime after lessons done
• Wii games after afternoon chores done

On the negative:

• docking of monies as a Time-Out Alternative
• docking $1 legobuck for not doing lessons (on days that lessons are to be done)
• docking $5 legobuck for lapbooks not completed in one month (most lapbooks are 5-14 days)
• 25-cent fine for each chore not completed by 9a; 6p for afternoon chores

All is an effort to encourage better habits, reduce contention, and put some giddyup in the foot-dragging they are so skilled at.

Anxiously Awaiting Broadband

TWC has been laying lines in our corner of the county the last couple of months and we are chomping at the bit for some broadband internet!

Geographically we're in an intriguing wallow where cell signals are flighty regardless of carrier and most storm systems split to go around. Throw in ever-growing trees whose leafing blocks the signal flow and internetting becomes a real frustration!

There are so many blogposts waiting for broadband that I'm afraid I'm going to forget some of them! And then there's the blogging games a friend has turned me on to through her blog--{this moment}, Six Word Saturday... There's Outdoor Hour and Jr. Master Gardening when we get them rolling again. The Not-Back-to-School bloghop at heartofthematteronline.

Of course, it will also open up Skype for us--bedtime stories with the grandparents, keeping an eye on friends that have moved away, chess games... ;)

I'm excited about the ease of additional research when the kids have a query mid-lesson that is not met by our printed resources. Webcams that tie into our studies. Super-Charged Science. The ability to finally check out khanacademy.

Pretty much just having the internet at our fingertips without having to wait 20-minutes for something (if anything) to load. I feel like I won the lottery I never play, and now I'm just waiting for them to cut the check. *lol*

Coming This Fall

We're officially starting our next year of lessons the week of Sept 1st. We have the goal to run Sept-Nov, Jan-Mar, May-July. So, starting Aug 29th our frame work will be:

• prep for day, breakfast, and morning chores done by 9a.
• a short stroll outside at 9a, then our "circle time" to discuss our day, our week, the virtue for the week, and a scripture story.
• at the top of each hour we will start a new bit of lessonwork. Whatever remains of that hour once they complete it is theirs. If they don't complete their assignment by the top of the next hour we'll simply move on to the next task. They have their choice of which "subject" they want to work on when, but all four will be completed each day.
• we're only doing four "subjects" each day: math, lapbook, language arts worksheet (we refer to it as grammar even though that's not fully accurate), and weekly activities.
• our weeklies include language arts folder centers from Take It to Your Seat, SWR/penmanship, science/Outdoor Hour, reading for wee-one and DailySpark:History for eldest.
• Wii Fit after lessons and before lunch.
• the afternoon will be available for free play and/or screentime until afternoon chores at 4:30p. Wii games will be available during dinner prep after their afternoon chores are done.
• other activities for our evenings will include Family Night, Scouts (whether we find a troop or continue to Lone Scout), Correspondence, and Game Night.
• we've scheduled Late Night Playdates and nature study dates with a lovely group we enjoy...we'll see if anybody is able to fit it into their schedules.
• we'll be participating in a frequent Handwork Gathering (fiber arts), a monthly art appreciation class, the free Home Depot builds, and the free Lego builds (we hit a museum beforehand to avoid rush hour traffic). We have to miss out on some nifty enrichment classes and TrackOuts, as well as swim lessons this fall due to life (read: medical and dental bills) but maybe in the spring... There's also a couple of HotWheels shows (racing) and CruiseNights coming up.
• we're members of three homeschooling groups this year. Each one has attributes that are of service to our family and none of them require us to be involved 100% in every.single.activity.
• we have the DVR set to record Wonders of the Solar System (science), Sons of Guns (engineering), Black Ops Brothers (engineering), Mythbusters (science), Cake Boss (engineering, creativity), When Earth Erupts (science, geography), WordGirl (language), Dinosaur Train (social studies, science), Stuck with Hackett (science, engineering), and any intriguing programs involving WWII or volcanoes. We have some other programs already saved for upcoming astronomy studies and Civil War studies.
• eldest will have his choice of a free read to enjoy on his own time. Once completed he'll earn a reward for sending a book report to Grandma.
• we'll be doing our third annual historic gingerbread in November (we actually need to start deciding which historical building we want to do this year)
• thanks to eldest's fascination with Denmark after reading Number the Stars (as part of our WWII studies), we're going to incorporate some of their holiday traditions this year.