Looking Ahead

Back in October I realized we had SO many activities and exciting events coming up on our calendar, that we needed a visual. We keep a calendar of the current month up in our dining room with important events on it. We also use our calendars on our computers and the four oldest people in our family are all linked up to the calendar so they can always check what's going on when.

But the visual I decided to make was a paper chain. For the remaining days of October, I used orange and black construction paper. For events in November, I used brown and orange. And for December, I did a pattern in red, green, and white. I ended the chain on Christmas day and when we first hung it up, it stretched across and around part of our dining room.

The girls have taken turns tearing a chain link off each evening. They can't believe how short the chain has gotten already. It has really helped with a visual of "How much longer until....." questions.

This month the main things we have are of course Christmas....and we have a house guest coming next week. Towards that end, we have been cleaning a lot lately. Our regular cleaning is not enough when you have someone coming to stay and not just over for a few hours.

And the Christmas shopping has begun in earnest. I'm taking my mom this afternoon to get a few things as well. I'm also working on Christmas cards, which need to be mailed out soon.

This month we are also doing a lot of planning. We have wrapped up the first "season" of our podcast. Now we just need to plan for next year's episodes. Also, husband is thinking ahead to what he will preach about next year. And we are making plans for our finances in 2019 and what we can do to help out in that area.

It doesn't matter what you are planning though---a fun event like a camping trip, or how to improve your life in the new year--those plans all need to be prayed over. Honoring God with our plans is the most important thing.

This fall is passing so quickly!

I don't believe that I can pray, "God, should I...?" and He will answer me. That is not how God operates today. (See Hebrews 1:1-2). But I DO believe that God will give us wisdom if we ask for it in faith. (See James 1:5-6). I also believe scripture addresses many things that we can apply to our own lives with common sense.

And that is the really important thing in all of this. We may plan, and prepare, and work hard on our future. We may fill our calendar up with events both fun and important. But if we are not seeking the Lord's guidance, our plans are in vain.

What are you preparing for?

Signing off,

This Calls for a Wrap Up Post

So I somehow missed blogging throughout this entire month of November.

We were busy?

But I'd like to remember what we did this fall, so here we go, in summary form:

We attended a family reunion on my husband's side. We used to have annual Christmas get-togethers and we haven't in a long time so it was neat to get together.

NASA had a special anniversary day and we went to walk around Johnson Space Center. When my husband and I were little, and we would visit NASA, it was actually a portion of Johnson Space Center that you toured. These days, visitors go to Space Center Houston, which has been adapted for tourists and has lots of fun stuff for kids. So it was a special treat to get to walk around JSC, most of which is not normally open to the public. And it was free!

We got to touch a portion of a real moon rock. 

Met a man who was in the astronaut program in the early 60s while in line to get these pics.  He showed us a pic of himself as an astronaut so I guess he was telling the truth.

We went camping for our 2nd born daughter's birthday. That was what she wanted to do. It was so fun to go, because it had been about 5 years since we had camped (other than our backyard).

We got a little shelter instead of tent camping because a big rain storm was due to come through. We were glad we did.

So when it rained the second night, we were able to just bring our chairs inside and eat around the card table. It was a nice time.

It was expensive, however. We had to get several things we didn't anticipate since it had been so long since we had camped. Whew. Camping is never cheap.













The younger girls and I went to a farm on a field trip with our homeschool group. We had been a few years ago and enjoyed it this time as well. Our youngest didn't really remember so it was all new to her.

Train ride!

See? I was there too!

When you feed goats, sometimes they slime you. 

Whew! We were WORN OUT at the end of the day. 

Then it was time for a certain 15 year old's actual birthday. Since we had gone on the big camping trip, we just had family over for cake. No theme this year: just "blue."

Little sister was super proud to make her gift (she painted and potted a plant for her room). 

Happy Birthday!!

Our youngest has been on the waiting list for awhile to read to the dogs at the library. She finally got to start doing that on Mondays.

Our drama classes at co-op had a little holiday performance. That little pilgrim was one of the emcees--telling corny Thanksgiving jokes in between performances.

We went to my parent's "country home" for Thanksgiving, just like we usually do. I made turkey pancakes for the girls Thanksgiving morning.

But first I had to wake up 3 turkeys.....

That night we had a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with my sisters and brother-in-law.

And that gets us pretty much caught up to this week, which I'll share about later. Whew!

In summary, we spent a lot of money, I cooked and worked very hard the whole time we were out of town for Thanksgiving and was exhausted when we got back, but we had some fun times and it was a good November.

From Higher Education to the ER

I'll cover it all in this post!

Our oldest daughter is finally going to be starting her higher education in the morning! Working out a life-plan with her has been challenging. What do you DO when you still live at home and yet haven't started school yet? What about a job? A job with enough flexibility to allow you the time to study and be with your family?

What she's been doing, while she waited to start school, is a lot of housework. Not sure she'll look back on it as the most fun chapter of her life, but it sure has been a huge help to me!

So we think we have a plan worked out for that now...and a lot of my friends will be quite happy with it, I believe. She's excited, I'm excited, Dad's excited. So I feel like we finally have her starting on the right path.

I'm glad she's still home anyway because over the weekend I was ironing a pile of Steve's dress shirts and it occurred to me that she doesn't know how to iron a man's dress shirt. I taught her to iron many years ago, but it hasn't been practiced enough. Also what if one day she is married and her husband needs his shirts ironed? (I know a ton of people who just send everything to the cleaners but that isn't always in the budget!)

So she learned to do that. And it's just nice that she's still here and there is still time to teach her little things like that for adulthood.

We have another field trip this week. I'm so happy that we are getting to go on field trips again after several years of not really going on many (because oldest needed to finish school and also we had a lot of therapy and tutoring appointments). However, it stresses me out a little to see another day of school not getting done. Last week's field trip was at least educational, but this week's is pretty much just fun. That's OK. There will be other days to do book work, right?

My oldest sister has been taking my oldest daughter on Friday night fun nights for awhile now. They will go get some food that we normally cannot have due to food allergies, and then watch a movie that we can't watch around here because of little eyes and ears. It's nice for her to get to go do something "big" and stay out late. So this last Friday night, sister picked up the 2nd born for her turn. And now this coming Friday, she is planning a daytime fun day for the youngest. She's a good aunt.
They feel special getting to do something by themselves.

Brave Aunt T and 2nd born at her birthday last year. 

So while 2nd born was out with her aunt, the rest of us RAN NOT WALKED to Whataburger and ate. Whataburger has soy in pretty much everything except their drinks and ketchup packets. So we never get to eat there anymore. It was so cheap! It made me realize how when we do go out, it costs so much more than other families because we have to choose allergy-friendly places and make substitutions that cost more. Food allergies stink.

Steve in the ER last year. I'll spare you his face. He looked miserable. 

Speaking of food allergies, one year ago yesterday we found out that my husband also suddenly had food allergies. We found out through the fun of anaphylaxis. It was an hours-long ordeal and it took us way too long to figure out what was going on. In the end, he ended up taking a ride in the ambulance.

A picture of his side showing the hives he broke out in once he arrived at the ER. 

After seeing that anaphylaxis is a very scary beast, we got Epi-Pens for both he and our 2nd born. She had been diagnosed 2 years prior, but we were under the (very mistaken) belief that her allergies "weren't that bad" and no doctor even offered an Epi-Pen nor suggested that we needed one. We are wiser today and they carry them everywhere they go.

Which is why, tonight, I made banana bread from scratch. Daughter wanted something sweet and it's so nice to know exactly what's in the food because I made it. Actually, it's on my weight loss plan, which isn't actually going very well. But I have lost 2 pounds in a month or so....so there's that.

Signing off,

Project: Doctor Visits and a Small Rant

Today was a day of medical stuff. First of all, we had to take the cat to the vet. We've never been to an actual vet's office. Around here, we have a non-profit organization that does low-cost spay/neutering and vaccines. Our cat has always been healthy, so we've always just gone there.

But she's been sick, so we had to go to an actual vet. It was nice. It was much cleaner and the people were very nice. It wasn't as expensive as I feared, either.

She, however, was not pleased.

Back home and not speaking to us. She stayed gone most of the day. 

Kit-Cat got a shot of antibiotics and we hope she's feeling much better really soon. Poor baby.

By the way, if you want to follow Kit-Cat's Instagram page, go here. 

After the vet, I dropped the cat and older girls home and took the youngest to the doctor, where a urine sample was required. After explaining the process to her she said, "This is the weirdest thing I have ever done."

But she couldn't um...successfully complete the sample when we first got there. So the doctor had her drink water while walking around the exam room and then gave instructions for her to run around and get her heart rate up. It worked! But an 8x4 room is pretty hard to work in!

Enough medical stuff for awhile.

This weekend our local library had a knock off of the show Antiques Roadshow. Steve and I were given a book from my uncle last year and we discovered it was a pretty old specimen. We had done a little research online, but wanted to hear from an expert.

We invited my mom to go along and told her to bring some old stuff to have it looked at. She brought her old doll, my grandma's old doll (nearly 100 years old!) and another doll of hers from when she was a girl.

I'm not sure how much the antiques people knew about our particular items, but it was interesting discussing them with them and hearing their opinions. We're not interested in selling those dolls by any means, but I'm glad to know more about them!

Last week was our week off of school (which is why I didn't post much!) so Sunday the younger girls wanted to do one last fun thing. We drove to a mall so the youngest could play in the very awesome play area they have.

And the 2nd born and I did a little window shopping at the American Girl Store.

She loves this store so much.

Well, we did a little more than window shop. My girl wanted a book. Listen, I'll tell you some other time about our journey with her vision, but when this girl asks for a book ----to voluntarily read--- you get that book!!

Then we wanted to treat the girls to ice cream. There were several choices of ice cream stores at this particular mall. Big, national, chain ice cream stores whose names I will not mention here. But none of them could tell us the ingredients of their ice cream. Our 2nd born has food allergies. How can big, national, chain ice cream stores not supply us with a list of ingredients for their products?????

We once went to a place on vacation. Inside this place was a little, how do I say it best? Grill? Eatery? Snack bar? It wasn't a sit-down restaurant is what I'm saying. It was a walk-up-to-the-counter-and-look-at-the-board-and-get-your-food-in-a-paper-boat kind of place. 

And when we asked about allergy information, THEY HANDED US A BINDER WITH COPIES OF EVERY PACKAGE OF FOOD THEY USED. Want a corn dog? Here's a copy of the ingredients on the side of the corn dog box! 

Revolutionary, I'm telling you. Come on ice cream stores. Get it together. 

Signing off, 

What We Are NOT Doing...

...is getting ready for a hurricane. I feel sorry for the people who live in North Carolina and the surrounding areas. But I am so glad it's not us getting ready for a hurricane. I've had enough for awhile.

Also, ten years ago was Hurricane Ike. I can't believe it has been that long. The girls and I were doing a lesson in History where they wrapped each other up in toilet paper like mummies. We were using The Mystery of History back then. A friend called and asked if we were leaving. I had no idea what she was talking about, but figured it out during the course of the conversation. Told her I needed to talk to Steve.

Hurricane? What hurricane? Our mama was busy looking at lesson plans, not the weather!

After we hung up, Steve called immediately and told us to get packed up. We had a small leak in the living room, half our fence blown down, the playhouse flipped over, and we needed a new roof when we got back home.

It was vertical when we left. 

I don't know how many hurricanes I've prepped for in my life. I probably don't want to know either. Stay safe, you guys on the East Coast!

Steve took off work Monday and Tuesday. We sweated and worked in the garage all day Monday. Boy what a difference! We threw away probably 10 contractor bags of trash. The next morning I took some trash out to put with our other piles as it was trash pick-up day in our neighborhood. There were holes in every bag. We've had a lot of trouble with stray dogs getting into the trash and it's such a pain to pick up after them when they have scattered the contents everywhere. But this looked different. For one thing, a small trash can we had throw into a sack the day before was sitting nicely on the sidewalk. Hmm. Husband came out to help me double bag everything so it wouldn't all fall out when the trash guys picked them up, and we noticed every hole was torn very neatly and carefully. Someone had been going through our bags. We guessed they saw us cleaning out our garage and were looking for personal information. Needless to say, we had NO paperwork at all in those bags and I'm happy they wasted their time.

That, and we will be making good use of our little Amazon Basics shredder when we go through those other boxes! Some people....

But yesterday we didn't do much of anything responsible. We went to our favorite island and ate lunch at our favorite little drug store. And we went to an historic library that the girls and I had toured this summer, but Steve had not seen. It was an enjoyable day. It was really nice for Steve to be off. Preaching pretty much means he works all weekend. Many preachers take Mondays off since Sunday is essentially a work day, but he can't do that because he works another job as well. So the day off was very appreciated.

Also yesterday we found a neat little barber shop here in our city. A guy from work told my husband about it. It was like stepping back in time when we walked in.

Steve got a great haircut and we were noticing how relaxed the atmosphere was. The barber on the right (you can see his back in the mirror) was so chill and I noticed how his job was so very NOT stressful. Told Steve he should become a barber and preach on the side. Or preach and barber on the side.

Cleaning up your hairline and cleaning up your soul.

What do you think? :)

(This post contains affiliate links. If you click on them and make a purchase, we get some change. It doesn't cost you a thing. Thank you!)

Signing off,

Wrapping Up August

I'm sitting here listening to "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel in amazement remembering my friend who made her children learn every reference in that song. History--check! I don't think I caught half of them. I could educate myself. One day. If I have time.

We celebrated our oldest's birthday this weekend.

The little girls and I made her the shirt. She was not excited about being 19. 

So many goodies! It takes 3 different kind of donuts to accommodate all the allergies and diabetics in the family. 

The whole family (grandma, aunts, cousins, etc.) got together and gave her a whole bag of fidget toys and stress relief toys. She LOVES them. They are to help her study this fall. 

 She's 19 now and about to embark on higher education. Gotta get her a house key this weekend as she will not be on our schedule anymore. Growing up is strange and hard and I so remember being where she is. How can it be **cough28yearscough** since I was her age?

The younger girls and I started back to co-op last week. We forgot to take their pictures at home so we took them on the lovely gym wall once we got there. They had a great first day. The youngest is taking choir, general music, P.E., ballet, and art. The second-born is taking choir, band (she plays clarinet), music theory, and drama.

I teach the preschool class and assist the youngest drama class. It's a tiring day, but I can't beat the classes my daughters are getting to take and the friendships they make.

This time last year we were in the middle of Hurricane Harvey and a DIY remodel of our house. When the water got half-way up our front yard that Friday night, but we didn't flood, we figured we weren't going to. So Saturday found us painting during the storm. We were really fortunate to not flood (our old house did flood during a storm).

This shows our rain total during the hurricane compared to our then 5 year old. 

So many friends were not as fortunate. I don't personally know anyone who is not back in their home or a new home, but I'm sure there are many who have yet to re-build. The effects of storms like that are long-lasting.

The effects of remodeling are too, it seems.

See, last summer we packed up 50% of our house belongings planning to hire someone to do the remodel. When that didn't pan out, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. A year later, our garage is still a big mountain of mess. Actually even more so because we moved all those boxes before Harvey. Then we moved them 472 more times looking for things over the last year.

(This is where there will not be a picture. Ahem. Pride.)

So next month we shall embark on a new project here at Project: Family---the garage. Somehow I don't think this will garner as much sympathy or help as Harvey did.

"Help the victims of home remodeling" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Signing off,