My favorite quote

"I just wanted to tell you that your kids are the ONLY reason I will have kids when I'm older..."
Helen. 7/24/09

Words to live by

If it is to be, it is up to me.

My left chi

Jack has been having bad dreams this last week. His bad dreams is that "No one will EVER get me a Thomas turn-table." He still loves to do his homework and actually asks each day if he can sit down with me for some homework. He stabbed himself in the eye the other day with his homework pencil. As he was trying to show me which eye was hurting, he stabbed himself again. I felt horrible that it was so hard to not sit there and laugh at his little comedy of errors.

A few days ago I heard a minor ruckus upstairs. I didn't go tromping up to see what happened. I figured I would wait it out and see if anyone started to cry or fight. I only had a few seconds of silence before I heard Jack quietly calling out "Mommy, my chi hurts." I asked him to repeat himself and he said "My left chi hurts." I smiled and asked if we needed to work on opening his chakras. He pointed to his face and said "Mommy, vat's not funny. I told you my left chi hurts." I still wanted to make cracks about opening up his chakras, but he's four.

If you, dear reader, are interested in opening up any of your chakras, you can go to: www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/chakratest.php (I can't get a link to post in this silly blog.)

I cut the boys' hair on Sunday. Jack agreed to the ordeal only after he negotiated for a slinky. Wy wasn't having it until I mentioned chocolate. He stopped on a dime and said "OK." He was only calm as long as he had a chocolate in his mouth and one in his hand at all times.

Every Monday morning I spend a good long while working up a menu and grocery list for the whole week. In an attempt to save money on the grocery bill, I try to figure out meals that don't have too many ingredients, have inexpensive ingredients, are foods that the kids MIGHT eat and keep some variety going. Feeding 10-11 people healthful meals on a LOW budget is very challenging. Once I put all the groceries away, my menu gets posted on the refrigerator.

My two favorite things about this menu are: 1. I don't have to figure out what I'm going to cook after a long day and 2. The kids aren't bugging me about "what's for dinner?" They just look at the menu! We operate off of this menu so much that Jack will ask me "What is for breakfast?" I tell him and he replies with "Is that on the menu?"

What is everyone else's favorite part about the menu? Friday night. I work nearly every Friday night and have found the fam really likes to get out from under my menu thumb when I am away. I now have Friday night's dinner listed as "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD" and allow the family to pick/purchase/prepare dinner that night. 90% of the time that means a call to Pizza Hut.

Wy has discovered that the bottom shelf of my little kitchen island is a perfect hiding spot. He loves to pull all the lunchboxes out onto the floor so he can crawl into his little spot. He and Jack remind me of the cats - whenever Libby finds a new cozy spot in which to doze, Gracie makes her move and takes over the newly discovered hang out.


Before I go, please pray for two friends of mine. One is going through serious health issues with her father and the other is going through serious health issues with her child. My heart aches for both of these women.

Blessings on you and yours,
Owenland Park.

Jess' mask

Jess is studying Romeo & Juliet in her English class. The teacher asked each student to pick a character and create a mask. Here is the beginning of Jess' mask for Romeo. She picked red, gold and yellow sequins and feathers to symbolize the "fiery nature of Romeo's passion for Juliet" as she put it. She says her teacher was impressed with the finished mask. From what Jess tells us, a lot of the other kids used paper plates as the base for their masks.

Wy came down with pink eye the other weekend. I have no idea how he got it. I bless the Dr. who didn't want to drag us out to the office that Saturday morning in the ice - he just called in an RX. Getting Wy to endure the eye drops was a Herculean feat. We finally managed to get him to cooperate by popping chocolate in his mouth and hold him down long enough to get a drop in each eye.

What I found super puzzling was the fact that Wy had an uber crusty case of it but all the other kids were fine...That is until 3 days later when Devlyn came down with a puffy faced version that looked like we had been punching her only she hadn't bruised. Then the next morning Jack's eyes were crusted over...All 3 kids suffered5 days of eye drops in the morning and at bedtime. We went through a lot of chocolate.

Jack went to see Life on the Mississippi with me on Saturday. He ran a few sound cues in the booth. You should have seen his head whip around when he ran a boat whistle sound cue - this cue sounds EXACTLY like his train whistles. He begged and begged to do it again. I told him he had to wait till the show was over and he could run it as much as he wanted. We had our archival photo shoot after the show that day and I let Jack run that sound cue between each set up. The cast thought it was so funny how happy and bouncy Jack would get every time he ran the cue. It was very nice of them to put up with that. Later that evening, John and I took Jack to see Around the World in 80 Days at the Rep. I got pretty worried that we would have to leave as he started getting pretty squirrely near intermission and throughout Act II. Then as we were leaving, the couple in front of us commented on how well behaved he was! Jack said his favorite parts were the super loud boat's whistle and what he called 'the banging part' This was the big gun battle in act 2.

Please say a some prayers for my friend Shannon and her family. Shannon's dad had three heart attacks in 36 hours and is having a valve replaced and a triple bypass on Monday.

My little nephew, Noah was helping his daddy fix breakfast last weekend when he slipped his hand past his dad and laid it palm down on the piping hot glass top stove. The little guy has a large 2 degree burn covering his palm.

Jack & Wy got little blasa wood models for Christmas. John helped Jack put together his jet enjine weeks ago. Poor Wy has been waiting patiently for us to help him with his race car. I finally sat down with him last night and we put it together. The directions were so utterly un-helpful and confusing that I thought my brain was going to explode. Anyway, Wy named his car Frankenstien, said we would paint it orange and then he was going to drive me to the candy store. I thought this was a brilliant idea as I deserved a piece of candy after all the brain trauma I endured in putting that car together.

Jack is still doing 'homework' nearly every day. He has discovered the Instrument point. For days I had no idea what he was talking about, until he was reading something to me and he ended the sentence by saying "instrument point" He meant exclamation point.

I hope to be get back to more informative and regular updates. I have had a couple of rough weeks and my spirits have been low. Lucky for me I have the best guy in town and he has some great shoulders for my tired head.

Love and blessings,
Owenland Park.