Fun to say....

J-man has been allowed to play Lego Star Wars on the Play Station 2. He loves it. He's a big fan of the game and has watched his siblings play hours upon hours of this game. So he was thrilled when The Professor let him play for the first time. He's slowly acquiring the skills needed to master the controller. Though, he needs to work on his patience.

He's three. We can't have everything.

The problem has arisen is obvious. He's obsessed. That may not be the right word - but he's so excited that he wants to play at every chance he gets. It's like that new toy that gets played with all the time. This must have been how Woody felt in Toy Story when Andy got Buzz for his birthday. J-man's other toys are getting neglected.

The other night, at bed time, I could tell that J-man was having a hard time winding down. So I sat next to him to talk while he laid all snuggled in his bed. I asked him, in my best calm and quiet voice, "What would you like to talk about?"

He got quiet. He grinned. He whispered his response: "Star Wars".

Another day, we were out running errands. J-man needed new shoes and the big kids wanted to look at Webkinz. Our shoe store sells Webkinz. It's a great combo. For me. (AND they're cheaper than Hallmark. Bonus!!)

Mini-Me bought what's called a li'l Kinz. It's quite cute. It's a Chihuahua that she's named Treasure.

G-man bought a Monkey that he named Bob. Don't blame him, It was my idea.

J-man wanted one, so I bought the cheapest one - a pug dog that he named "Chubby Puppy" - but looks A LOT like Frank from "Men In Black".

We got them all logged into the website. They talked about them. Somewhere along the way, Mini-Me pronounced, "Chihuahua is just fun to say."

I have to agree.

Definitely half-full...

I'm taking the advice of a very good, and wise, friend. I'm considering my glass half-full.

Which it usually is, by the way.

Our homeschool days have been full of life stuff...and we got behind from where I thought we should be in school work.

I realize, too, that I have a mindset of summer needing to be a vacation. I've also realized that it's me who really needs the vacation.

I sat down and figured out where we were in our core curriculum and when we were going to end at our current rate of learning.

The end of July.

So I've made a decision. I've decided that we're going to keep going as we're going. We'll take a day off and go to the zoo. We'll take a week off when Swim lessons happen. If we get involved in VBS, that will be a week without school work.
But there won't be an "Official" summer vacation. Maybe we'll even start our next season a bit early. Who knows, we might even take time off in September.

It's during these kind of reflections of a homeschool mom that make me realize how much our homeschool is just part of life. Which is why I talk about homeschool and kids and other stuff all in one blog. Because it's all my life. It's hard to separate them....

So our glass is half-full. Our school year is progressing nicely, all things considered. God is on the throne. All is well in the Laundry Pile.

red- footed?

I've heard of "red-handed", but never red-footed. Until now.

This is what I found when I uploaded photos from my camera onto my computer.


Those are NOT my feet.
Those are the feet of a 2 year old.
Those are the feet that belong to the adorable child that torments my phone.
Or throws it behind the head board of her bed.

It's just probably a good thing that my camera can't talk.

They Really are bunny feet in my freezer

I'm so glad you guys are as amused by the bunny feet in my freezer as I am. Because I'm totally amused. It was called a "BigFoot Bunny" - before the professor cut off his head.

All sorts of things have gone through my head when I think about the bunny feet in my freezer.

He can't hear us coming. or. He'll never see it coming.

He's in the dark.

I also thought of this joke...I googled it to make sure I got it right. Found it here.

A man inherited a Parrot. At first he thought this was a good thing. But the parrot would do nothing but swear. It's language offended hardened sailors.

On the first day the man played the parrot soothing music and put its condition down to the stress of moving. On the second day he tried witty put downs. On the third day he ignored it. Nothing worked, the parrot still let forth a torrent of blue words.

On the fourth day he snapped and after a particularly creative insult involving his mother, a goat and the local vicar the man grabbed the parrot and thrust him into the freezer.

For a few minutes the parrot continued unabated. Then everything went quiet. The man, worried that he had killed the parrot, took a peek into the freezer. The parrot hopped out and was strangely silent and then said:

"I am most terribly sorry, old chap, if I in any way offended you earlier with my choice language....could I just ask......what did the chicken do?"

Of course, our bunny doesn't have a vocabulary problem. If anything, it's the strong, silent type.

So -- maybe...

A lady opened her refrigerator and saw a rabbit sitting on one of her shelves.
"What are you doing in there?" she asked.
The Rabbit replied: "This is a Westinghouse, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." the Lady replied.
"Well," said the rabbit...

I'm westing."

our bunny would be .. um .. chilling out.
What else is he going to do?? I certainly can't ask him.

He doesn't have a head for such things.

Bunny feet and other notes...

The professor likes his Reese's Cups frozen.
Apparently, he likes his bunny feet frozen, too.

at least, we don't have to sneak up on him.

In other news, I thought about panicking the other day...when I realized it was March 17th.
And now it's March 24th. The month is almost over!
I had things I wanted to do before the year is up. While I realize that the year has many days left in it, I still wanted to be further along.
I wanted to get further along with our school work and March is almost over!
I probably need to sit down and figure out a plan.
I'd like to get school work finished in June so we can take advantage of the pool this year. Without school hanging over our heads.

I'm already pushing past the review stuff in our books and focusing on the new things to learn.
It can be done. It's just a bit of a shock to think that March is almost over!
Schoolwork should be winding down, not winding up!!

Along with school work, I need to accomplish two things on a personal level.
1) Learn guitar basics. The professor and the kids got me a DVD lesson for Christmas about 3 years ago and I haven't had time to make use of them yet. Surprisingly, the guitar is still in really good tune.

2) Finish writing my story. I wish I could just tip my head and all the thoughts and visual pictures would pour out onto the page. Alas. I need to put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper.

Still it's hard not to think that March is almost over.

It won't do any good to think of the time that's already gone
but only to think of the time that I have to use.

He is not dead as you suppose...

He's Alive!

Conversation with a cell phone..

Cell Phone: (CP) Excuse me, my memory is full.

Me: How can that be? I haven't texted my brother THAT much.

CP: Excuse me, my memory is full and it's making me cranky.

Me: Seriously, how can that be? (deletes ALL texts messages.)

CP: Excuse me, my memory is STILL full. Please fix it or I'll keep blinking at you. Because I can.

Me: Are you brain damaged? Did I drop you one too many times. (Yes, all messages are deleted.)

CP: Excuse me, my memory is full. I'm sure, if you don't fix this, I'll forget something just for spite.

Me: Maybe it's the pictures. I may have taken a FEW pictures....

CP: Excuse me.....

Me: The picture screen says I have 67 pictures saved. WHAT?? HOW CAN THAT BE?? There's nothing here.

CP: Excuse me.....

Me: pushes buttons - yes those are black squares -- they're pictures?? Oh. Those are pictures of the inside of my pockets. *Lol* It's dark in there. *deletes pictures of inside of pockets one. at. a. time.*

CP: That's getting better.

Me: Wait. What's this?? *Turns phone sideways* I don't think I took pictures of buildings. Oh, I see. Those are from when mini-E had the phone. There's her cute little upside down head, too. caught in the act. There's at least 12 pictures here.

CP: Keep her away from me.

Me: I'll do my best. You'll be safe in my pocket.

Safe to come out now...

The phrase: "Did you get the license of that truck?" made a lot of sense last week. We had no idea what the sickness was, though we suspect it was a flu-form of an unknown kind, but it had us out of the world for a week.

It even kept the Professor home from work on Friday. I think he was so very glad to see Monday roll around so he could get back to work. Where it's quiet. *L*

The funny part about our week, we got our Wii in the mail on Thursday. That's right, I found one. On e-bay, no less. I accidentally one it.

Yes, accidentally. See, all the wii's have been selling for over $300. And we kept holding out hope that we'd find one for about the cost of retail. So I'd bid on ones that were really cheap and watch them go up and up and up. I'm still amazed that they were going for so much. The Professor had a great deal of fun bidding on Wii's that were going to finish and raising the bids to our price and waiting to see if they went over.

They did. But he had fun and almost won a few times. The next day, I put a bid in and waited. Then I saw this button on my screen that said "refresh" and it created another tiny screen where you could bid and refresh at the same time - without reloading the ENTIRE page.
I played with this new toy for a bit, going a bit over retail, and I won. Not really intending to win - but it was still cheap compared to the others.

So our wii came on Thursday. I managed to get it plugged in, despite my fever. We are serious gamers, no sickness will hold us back. Pretty soon, we'd managed to play wii bowling, tennis and baseball.

The Professor came home sick on Thursday, but he got to play a bit on Friday.

Then an odd thing happened. I had a weird muscle pain in my shoulder. I thought maybe I'd slept wrong, because I'd fallen asleep on the floor in mini-E's room (she was up and wandering). but I was wrong.

I had Wii shoulder.
From wii bowling.
Gosh, I'm old enough to remember when the original Nintendo came out - and we all ended up with "Nintendo Thumb". You know, when your thumb was numb from playing too long.

I winced and chuckled last night every time I bowled. I can't let it stop me though.
Mini-Me is better than I at wii-bowling. That can not happen!

Especially now that we're all feeling so much better.
I guess I should focus on School work first.

Drats.

What's a denim to do?

I wrote my last post about Renaming. I had canceled Speech therapy because J-man had run a fever on Sunday. Tuesday, I felt crummy.

What does a gal do when she's had a really great object less and then gets sick? Ack.
The only thing you can do.

Laugh.

Well, not too much because it makes you cough and that hurts.

The entire laundry pile is not feeling well. That's the fact of the matter.
The truth of the matter is - the entire Denim family is healed in Jesus' name.

I was laying in bed the other night, after taking cough medicine and just had songs arise from my heart - worship for the King. I just loved God even in the midst of it all...and that's what it's all about.

Now if I can keep that object lesson, I'll be doing good.
Until then, I'm passing the tissues around.

It's all in a name...

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. This is one of those "This could preach" moments. An object lesson, if you will. I've been thinking about the "preach" factor.

And it all started with a pair of shoes.

I stumbled across my tie-dyed Airwalks at Payless. (The Crocs knockoffs) They were me. I really enjoy them for what they were made for -- to wear when I don't want to tie my shoes. Or when I need to scurry out of the house. My mother-in-law has informed me that the Airwalks are nothing compared to the actual Crocs. I'm sure others feel the same way - but mine are tie-dyed! (I certainly didn't buy them because they were pretty. I bought them because they were quirky!)

I've had a few curious comments about them. Several people who have seen my shoes think they are wild. I have to admit, I would call them clown shoes. Anyone who owns a pair of these things has to admit that they are shaped a lot like clown shoes. So that's what I called them. I would ask the kids if they had seen my clown shoes and they knew exactly what I was searching for.

Of course, they had probably seen them last. Did you know that these kind of shoes make great rocket ships for action figures? They also make great boats for different action figures.

It's no wonder I can only find one most of the time. The other one has set sail.

One day, while shoe-shopping with the kids, Mini-Me found something called Jibbitz. Her shoes are hot pink and she found a flower that looked great with her shoes. I found a Gonzo Jibbitz.

I didn't buy it right away. I thought about it - and decided that it really would look good on one of my tie-dye shoes. I've always liked Gonzo. He was the one that I always felt I was most like. (Either him or Fozzie Bear) I even took a blog-things quiz to see which muppet I was most like - and came up with Gonzo. I was highly amused.

On our next trip to the shoe store (we were actually buying webkinz) I bought the Gonzo Jibbitz and put it on my shoe.
Suddenly, they were not "clown shoes" any more. They were my "Gonzo Shoes". Even the kids started calling them Gonzo shoes. Did that make them any less weird? No. But their identity had changed.

I started reflecting on this fact and thought about renaming.

The world renames things in the pursuit of Political Correctness (another rant for another time) - but the Lord of All renames in the pursuit of VICTORY!

the world would name some as victims, God would renames us Victorious!

God would take us out from under our circumstances, out from under the weather and put us on top and call us "Over-comers". He would calls us the Head and not the tail. He would call us Above and not beneath.

God renames us because He sees us as we will be - not as we are currently.

What about circumstances?
I realized that circumstances can be renamed by one simple act - the act of praising.
Circumstances can be renamed by realizing that we might be going through a refining process, a sifting process or a molding process. And all we really need to do is say "God, whatever is in me that needs to come out - let it come out." With that realization comes a peace that we get to not struggle on the potter's wheel.

I don't think sickness falls into this category - as I believe sickness is not of God. But sickness can be renamed. Cancer can be called "Cursed at the root!" and sickness can be called "Covered in the blood of Christ!"

Of course, my kids are a major part of my day and my life. I love them. Can they be annoying? Yes. They can also be re-named - in my eyes and heart.
They can go from annoying to "arrows in the Lord's hands".
They can go from whiny - to conquerors in the Lord.
They can be taught of the Lord and great will be their composure and peace.

I'm looking around and I really want a spiritual label gun. I want to stick new labels on everything. I think, as I clean things up around the house, it's time to evaluate Old labels that have been on things. It's time to rethink their names.

If it can work for shoes -- there's not telling what a new name is going to do for the rest of the house.

The Search has begun...

I enlisted the help of GoofyGirl who designs here and blogs here.
She gave me my wonderful design before - and while I love it - I thought it was time for a spring look. I even get to keep the old design!! I just love my new look. It's got a quirk factor that suits me. I am pleased. Thank you, Heather!

So -- now I can think of quirky things to post about -- like my hunt for the ellusive Wii. The game console that is never in stock at the stores - but seem to be abundant on e-bay.

The Professor has decided that this would make a great Birthday present. I agree, of course. As he is difficult to buy for. When he mentioned this - I snatched the idea. Perfect!! How difficult would it be??

Ha! My optimism could possibly be dashed in this pursuit of the elusive wii. Since there aren't any in the stores around me (right now) I've searched on e-bay. I have bid on 7 and lost all of them. Somewhere along the way, someone has decided that they are worth over $300. I mean, really. If I wanted to pay that kind of money - I would buy a PlayStation 3.

I do feel a bit like Elmer Fudd, though.
Shhhh.... I'm hunting game consoles.

If I can't find one before The Professor's birthday - the real challenge begins. He'll have to come up with ideas.