It's technical and I'm afraid of it

Sky gave me an early Birthday gift. I have wanted a better camera for about 2 years now, I have seriously outgrown my old point-and-shoot. Soo, I told Sky to check out PW's suggestions-and to please, please not get me the latest/greatest (he loves new tech, so that is exactly what he would want to do). He got me the D80...it arrived a few days ago, and I finally used it today. I admit I am intimidated by it, I finally cracked open the owner's manual to try and figure out how to turn off the flash. It took us 10 minutes to figure it out.

I am so excited to have it, but oh my, the learning curve is going to be huge!

He's so good to me!

Laundry

I rarely find rocks in my dryer, but this was the haul from 1 single load the other night. The screws are from Sky's pockets, he is usually good about emptying his work jeans for me, but I guess he missed a few. The advil is from Meg's pockets, ditto the dreaded verbottem chapstick, the girly beads and stickers are Amie's, and the bullets and what-not are Demi's. I tell them all that the policy is that mom keeps all money found...but they know I'm bluffing, and I give it back. Usually. No berries today. The motion detector-lock was a surprise.

Bad hair days

The hens are going through a harsh molt right now. When I say harsh, I mean as in-... a girl just wants to hide for a few weeks. Annabelle, really- it's not that bad... o.k, I lied, it is bad....

Here's a close up, Annabelle seems to be suffering the most...at least she is the one we laugh at the most... The worst of it is actually over, I should have gotten my camera out a week ago. You can see the new feathers on her neck are almost out now...for a while she kind of looked like a bald vulture... You can see that her comb is kind of a pale red, it should be bright, she is experiencing a little iron deficiency due to the rigors of feather-making.

Anemia-brain, anyone?
I can relate. I feel a sort of sister-hood with my hen-friends. The way they wander around aimlessly for most of the day (it seems-they are actually doing important stuff), the way they work hard to produce something everyday, and then it disappears and they have to start all over again the next day (cleaning the house?! Making meals?-work with me, it's my analogy...)

My feelings of sister-hood are the strongest during molting season...

Sistahs, I can relate! Don't look at me... Don't-look-! Yes, I walk around the house like this sometimes...I am at a crossroads with my hair. I have very thick, kind of curly hair. Curly enough to look messy when I let it air-dry, yet it is so heavy that it will still be damp underneath at bed-time if I don't blow-dry it. Today I clipped the middle back portion up so it would dry underneath, thus my "feathers" sticking out around my head. It is so thick that it takes a lot of time to blow dry and straighten it. I had important stuff to do today, like..um, educating 5 kids, so I skipped the hair thing.

So, should I cut it shorter? I would like to, but I know that Sky likes it long...

random rambly thoughts

I have nothing profound to say, so I thought I would just post a "what we are doing lately" sort of post.

Well, first I have to confess that after the flurry of activity I chronicled in our
Homeschool weekly report, I fell apart and we've had no history or science since, um...Wednesday?!
Don't freak, I'm not saying that no learning is going on, we still have our basics which consist of math, handwriting, number writing, phonics and grammar. ..

And Latin!! I am happy to report that after years of wishing to teach my kids Latin,
(after I finally got it ALL together and triumphed in a amazing homeschool/scheduled-precisely-planned- acedemic- homeschool year...then, I would allow myself to attempt to teach Latin!!!!!..and we all know that I wouldn't be Jen if I triumphed in such a way...) But, I digress... so, it never happened that way, but I felt that things were running along as smoothly as they ever will-

so Today I started Latin for Children with Meg and Josie. By started, I will confess that
I sat on the couch with them and slipped in the dvd. I love this era!!!
I really enjoyed it, I thought it was presented very well. When Sky came home and I crowed (er, excitedly shared with him) my accomplishment, Sky asked the girls which words they learned today and they looked at him blankly and said 'none'. [Insert screaming smiley face here....] On the other hand, I can report to you that MOM was able to list 4 of the 6 words right off. I'm off to make them some flashcards...

Here is a photo I snapped of one of the yellow- headed amazons that live wild in our neighborhood, there were a few in our neighbor's magnolia tree. They like to eat the little red seeds in the magnolia pods. I photographed this fella, and while I was trying to focus in on its mate, something scared them and 5 flew out of the tree...I only saw one and assumed the mate because I could hear more pods falling on the ground. They blend in really well with the leaves!
Can you see the red seed in his bill?

Meg had her first real day of work last week at the stables. I picked her up at the end of the day, got her home and realized she had a bad cold and a fever. I felt really bad. What a horrible first day of manual labor...it was hot outside, too.

Neighbors down the street had a fall potluck at their house. Our other neighbor, the gourmet French Chef attended and made a shrimp scampi. I do not know what it was called, he called it 'shrimp scampi' but is was not the butter-soaked scampi I am familiar with. This scampi was spicy, kind of a cajun thing- but it was sooo goood. I ate 3 giant shrimps (at least) with my fingers, burning my fingers and mouth..but I didn't care, because it was sooo goood. He also made a dish that had fresh mangos, onions, other vegetables I can't remember and ahi tuna. Turns out it was raw ahi tuna. Sky watched me scarf down several crackers-full before he told me. I didn't care and I ate more. Only our friend, the gourmet French chef and manager of a 5 star restaurant-- could ever present me with raw meat, and I would actually eat it.

It was really good. I'd eat it again, so there!

Other big news... I am officially sick of politics and I am counting the day till the election is over.

Oh, and I am slowly working my way through the mini-series Cranford, and loving it. I think I will just curl up with that and ignore the news for the next 2 weeks.

Sound like a plan?

If I could just get the french chef to send over some food while I sit, ignore world politics and enjoy my Cranford...it would be just perfect. Bliss, I tell you, sure bliss.

America needs a 12-step program

September 17th was Constitution day, and I was planning on doing something in our little homeschool to celebrate our amazing, unique national document.

Watching the current bail-outs unfold, my heart died a little...and I just couldn't do it. Could I sing "We the people" with my kids the week I watch an un-elected official commit to spend billions of our money? I'm sorry, but as I flipped through a copy of the constitution...I didn't see anything about the Fed having authority to spend the taxpayer's money or to raise taxes.

And now this week, oh goody- Congress is finally getting involved...and making the bail-out a great big trash- can to throw in commercial debt, bad auto loans and credit card debt. Congress doing what it does best I guess, adding pork to any bill that crosses their desk.

I try not to get political on the blawg, but I am just so disgusted. Congress just needs to go home.

I did not follow Ron Paul at all, we don't watch t.v. news...but wasn't anyone in Washington listening?? This is a pretty good interview, the first time we watched Glenn Beck, and this made us a big fan. I'm wondering, is congress handing out cake, too?


* America needs a 12 step program article from Glenn Beck, worth a click over, I think.

We don't watch television, we use it mostly to dvr Monk, and so Amie can watch Noggin or Between the Lions, or lately we've been dvr-ing "Liberty kids" on history channel...

Anyway, we happened to have a news show on last week as the financial blow-up began, and we stumbled onto Glenn Beck somehow. He's got some interesting thoughts, and he's saying some things I'm not hearing on the radio...am I the last person in America to know who he is??
Just wondering...

lap pets

Friday we went to the stables for a riding lesson for Meg. This little barn cat loves a nice lap
for a nap... as soon as she spots a likely candidate, she hurries on over and makes herself comfortable.

I snapped this view of her, while she was sleeping in my lap. It's funny that she so loves a lap, living out in the stables the way she does...

After a few minutes of kitty-snoozing, I peeked over the top of my book to see this big fellow
at my knee and looking very intently at the empty spot next to me on the bench...

I wasn't sure if he was looking at the spot next to me, or if he was deciding to jump up on my lap, too.

He is bigger then most dogs, and just heading out of an ugly molt...I really didn't want to entertain a lap-turkey.

"Shoo there, Turkey!"

the earnestness of being Jen


Sky is of the opinion that I am not being real here on the blawg... He said I didn't share the whole juicy story about our not-back-to-school day at Disneyland.

I was trying to be upbeat and not weigh you all down with my whining and complaining and travailing all over the place...but in an effort to be transparent, I'll share...

It's really a story of my deep-down Jenn-ness, it's like a really bad, sitcom- karma- ring.

I have this Jennifer-trait of waiting till the last minute to do really complicated things. I self-deceive myself weeks up till the event, telling myself such things as..."it will be a really simple project, I'll just pick up these items and do it in the evening, 20 minutes-tops!" or better yet, I will veto the idea (in an effort to thwart my inner-Jen) and wisely choose to forgo proposed project, just to change my mind at the last minute and frantically try to do it, gather all supplies, etc..

So, back to the Disneyland thing...we were supposed to wear tie-dye shirts so we can identify ourselves as homeschoolers. I thought about it weeks in advance, kept my eye out for tie-dye shirts when we were out and about (because buying them would be simpler, by far).

Fast forward to the night before. I make plans to go to Old Navy and buy plain shirts to dye if we can't find any already made. I distantly remember in my childhood, making tie-dye shirts with friends, using food coloring and bleach...we did something with vinegar to make them set, or not..I can't remember.

So, plain shirts, check. Food color, and vinegar, check. I go online real quick to find directions to refresh myself on what to do with the vinegar.

Screech to a halt. Everything said not to use food color on cotton shirts...they would fade out.

So, ahem.

For a split second I acknowledged the zen thing to do, the mature-self-actualized Jen thing to do would be to say never-mind, we'll do it next time...
-The normal Jen thing to do would be to go crazy and rush to Micheal's before it closes in 30 minutes and buy some kind of dye and try to resurrect the whole thing.

Sky sat at the table and watched me go full-bore into Jen mode. He considered saying something, reconsidered and just let me go.

at about 9:30 that night I decided this was not what I wanted to be doing, and I gave up...after reading the dye directions and realizing I would not only have to wash and dry the shirts first, but then would have to let the shirts sit 5 hours after being dyed, and then wash and dry them again...

I went to bed very frustrated with myself, because 5 hours earlier I had planned to sit down with a bowl full of strawberries, cool-whip and bitter-sweet chocolate chips and watch SuperNanny.

I ruined my whole night. Dang.

The Jen thing, mostly it's a curse..sometimes it's a gift, but mostly it's a curse.