rachel's continued ramblings

sunday: hamburgers; carrots; tater tots monday: chicken; beans/rice; salad tuesday: chili; cornbread wednesday: lenten service/supper at church thursday: taco salads friday: pizza; green beans saturday: leftovers i still need to shop, but don’t need too much. some salad stuff, zatarans, cans of tomato ‘stuff’ for the chili and maybe one more can of beans, and some chips for the taco salads. that should do it!

so i’m totally stealing this idea from my SIL. she recently had a post, recording some of her kids’ favorite things at the time and i think it’s a wonderful idea and wish i'd been doing it all along! you think you’ll remember these things, BUT YOU JUST CAN’T, NEMO!!! but life distracts you and you forget. (oops! sorry. that happens sometimes.) so, we’ll start with the oldest (because life is SO unfair and stuff like that)… shane likes: the olympics. he is very excited about watching, especially snowboarding, downhill skiing (because he likes to watch people wreck), and speed skating. susie. this is our neighbor who ‘employs’ him. he speeds through what he needs to get done here and rushes over to her house. sometimes they’re weeding, sometimes planting, sometimes filling 83 pots with compost and repotting 5 different species of native ferns, and sometimes cleaning out woodsheds, tool sheds, and garages so that a camper can be moved inside and remodeled. essentially, home is reall...

i’ve been sitting on a couple pictures for awhile, meaning to post them, but just haven’t gotten around to it. my poor little guy. this sort of thing could only happen to the LITTLE brother… here we see that a certain big brother thought it would be entertaining to secure micah’s arms to his sides by binding him all the way around, several times with packing tape.   and here we see the work of a certain big sister, who thought that micah’s face wasn’t smiley enough. gotta love it! =S

today is ash wednesday, marking the beginning of the liturgical season of lent. as happens every year, i CAN’T believe it’s already here! didn’t we just celebrate christmas? wasn’t it JUST 2009? i remember being a kid and listening to my mother talk about how quickly time went and thinking she was crazy. time seems to crawl at what seems like a geological pace when you’re a kid. but, as usual, she was right. the traditions involved with lent, around the world, are fascinating to me. yesterday, thanks to UK native friends, i got to celebrate ‘pancake tuesday’. yesterday afternoon and evening, facebook was littered with status updates about what things people were ‘giving up’ for lent. this is a tradition i generally participate in. last year i gave up facebook. in the past, i’ve given up things like soda, coffee, candy, tv.  this year, i’m giving up my dishwasher. odd, i know. people have different ideas about the purpose of giving something up. i’m not an expert on the history ...

short and sweet: monday: leftovers tuesday: leftovers (for some reason, we have a lot in the fridge right now) wednesday: hamburgers; salad; oven fries (or we might go to ash wednesday service at church, which has supper before) thursday: fried chicken; peas and carrots; rice friday: pizza; green beans saturday: chili cook-off at church sunday: french toast; sausage

so i’m feeling a little bit stifled right now. when i took over responsibility for shane’s education, i knew i was making a big time/lifestyle commitment. i also figured that layla and eventually, micah would be involved in this endeavor. i knew that i was stepping out into a great unknown, having never completely done this sort of thing before. it was an experiment. in general, this experiment has gone well. not entirely as planned, but well, nonetheless. i mean really, when you’re dealing with kids (or other human beings, for that matter) what does go as planned. but at this point, i have to say that homeschooling is NOT my favorite thing. it’s not that i can’t do it. it’s not that shane isn’t learning. it’s not that i’m excessively overwhelmed or that i feel like i’m failing. it’s not any of that. the best thing i can figure out is that i feel ‘boxed in’. i feel like my time and opportunities are so limited for all of us. it’s not just about shane, and with layla and micah so mu...

oh yes, wednesday IS the most exciting day of the week around here. that’s right, wednesday is garbage day. my kids LOVE garbage trucks. when shane was little, he used to go running outside, every time he (or someone else) heard one rumbling up the street. i remember one time he came in all excited because the driver had given him some ritz crackers. um, yeah. sorry kid, you don’t get to eat anything given to you by an on-duty garbage collector! yes, i realize he mostly just drives the truck, but still… when we lived in ohio, they didn’t have the automated trucks that pick up your can, empty it, and set it down again like we do here. they had old school garbage trucks with actual people who jumped on and off the back of the truck and emptied everyone’s cans. actual people who wore orange and white striped uniforms. actual people who looked strangely like convicts in those uniforms. actually, it turns out those people were ACTUAL convicts! it took me like 2 months to figure this out...

something got into me on saturday evening… actually, i think it’s just because we were out of milk and SOMEONE had to go to the store. the kids were behaving like baboons on crack, so i graciously volunteered to run to the store for the milk. i decided that, since i was going, i ought to pick up a few other things and wound up planning my whole week’s menu right then. so at any rate, i wound up getting ALL the shopping done that night!!!! woohooo! and let me tell you, i’m SO glad today because somehow i managed to run into SOMETHING that i’m VERY allergic to and have been violently sneezing, dripping and sniffling all day long. SHOPPING is not something i would be very excited about right now. i got kind of lucky budget-wise too, since i have a meal that’s hanging over from last week. i planned pizza for friday and already had the pizza in the fridge (papa murphy’s), but forgot that we would be eating pizza at a birthday party that night anyway. so we saved it, and figured we’d have...

it’s been awhile. not sure why. i’ve still been planning, just not posting. sorry (if you happen to care). monday: soy chicken; brown rice; peas tuesday: oven swiss steak; mashed potatoes wednesday: chicken caesar salads thursday: hamburgers; potatoes; carrots friday: pizza; green beans saturday: baked potatoes; salad sunday: french toast

i made my bucket list for the year, and i want to do a monthly post, tracking my progress. this way i’ll be aware of the things i’m procrastinating on instead of pushing them out of my head until november, when i realize i’ve only got a month to do everything! so here’s the first installment: spin my own yarn – nothing too exciting to report, but i do have a couple of leads on people who own spinning wheels and they are aware of my desire to learn. spend more time in nature. – also, not too much to report, but dave and i are trying to incorporate lengthy walks into our exercise regimine. read all of jane austen’s books. – nothing really. i’ve got a copy of ‘sense and sensibility’ in the car that i pick up every couple of weeks when i’m waiting for shane, but that’s not really reading it. can my own veggies/fruits – i figure i’ll get around to this when there’s something growing! acquire a sewing machine - nope re-learn to play the piano -nope exercise regul...