Scooter teaches……..
It was 1:00 in the afternoon and time to do memory work. They whined and scratched and cried and fell to the floor and complained that this was the worst day of school. Ever. So, I did what any self-respecting teacher would do…..I solicited the help of the dog. And in no time at all, we were all laughing so hard that I was thankful I hadn’t taken the time to put on any makeup. These particular verses of scripture are now forever burned in their memory, but I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to say them without laughing. Enjoy!
What brand of whine/wine do you prefer?
Our day began like this……writing sentences about not whining……all the while whining about it…Writing is good practice…..and any writing that gets us the chance of less whining is worth a try…….
And because I’m such a good teacher, I demonstrated for the class by writing some sentences of my own……
without whining, of course. There’s only one kind of whine/wine I like. Those are homonyms, just in case you wondered. I’m teacherly like that.
You give me half a reason to go to Birmingham and I’m on the phone to this dear friend. We met twelve years ago and our boys spent some of their most formative years together…..lucky for me. Susan and Johnny are one-of-a-kind–friends, parents, servants of God. They have taught their boys well and I don’t know if I’ve ever met young men who were more adept at relating to and showing respect for adults. They make good eye contact, give nice big hugs, and say yes ma’am. These two know how to raise boys to be men. Susan has taught them to be kind and Johnny has taught them to hunt. I was inspired. Again.Susan has impeccable taste in decorating…..traditional, classy, southern, and beautiful. She’s also one of the funniest and most interesting people to talk to. She’s the essence of femininity and has a grasp on the scriptures that is uncanny. And an adorable Alabama/Mississippi accent. She also has picked the perfect life partner. Johnny stayed up late, even though he was on call, and talked with us and made us laugh and poured us wine and said how thankful any husband would be to have wives like us! I’ve already requested that my heavenly condo be in the same building as theirs. Will there be communion wine in heaven? One can wish.
At the park I found Cindy again, my fearless and funny roadtrip partner…..at least for part of the way. We share a deep passion and commitment to Starbucks, photography, denim jackets, music, and our kids. She supports my shopping and eating habits way too enthusiastically and has an GPS-like sense of direction. Really. Oh, yeah and the boys had a race……that was the purpose of my trip ya know. And when I’m on a trip, I’m all business. It’s all about the race. I’m hard core that way. I told Coach Farmer that if he saw my car at Dillards, it was only to look at running shoes. I’m concentrating. On running. The whole time. All business.
Sweet Home Alabama, baking, and plumbers……
I’m going out of town. By myself. Tomorrow. I have the same feeling as I did the night before I went to Disney World when I was 7. Sheer childlike anticipation. I’m going to Birmingham to watch my son race and to stay with one of my dearest friends in the whole world. I also plan to eat (food that I didn’t cook), shop, drink Starbucks, listen to Madame Bovary on tape, listen to Sweet Home Alabama, read, think, stay up all night and talk and cry and laugh and laugh til’ I cry. My friends Johnny and Susan are so wonderful and so funny and even though I haven’t seen them in a couple of years, it’ll be like I never left. Don’t ya love friends like that. So, in their honor and because I like things with themes…..I listened to Sweet Home Alabama all day.
My girls asked me at 4:00, “Mom, how many times are we gonna listen to Sweet Home Alabama?” Until you can say Lynard Skynard three times fast. Okay?
Then, it started. My crazy ‘going out of town’ routine where I temporarily go insane. Let me remind you, I’m only going to be gone 48 hours. I bake and clean and pack and write notes as if my family is likely to never see me again. So, pretend you can hear Sweet Home Alabama in the background and let me show you some of the stuff I did today.
I fired this guy up. My double ovens which I like to call ‘W’ ’cause I love George Bush and my last name starts with ‘W’. And they work like pack mules all day long for me…..most days….while I bake as if I’m runnin’ some kind of bakery. Like yesterday, when I whipped up four dozen of these babies……
so that the bachelors will have plenty of cookies while I’m gone…for forty eight hours….
then ‘W’ baked pumpkin bread which I “spiced” up by adding butterscotch chips! Oh dear, you need to try this. It’s like the reserved, smart , red -headed twin sister to my chocolate chip banana bread. Some members of my family did not warmly welcome the twin……they ONLY like blonds, apparently. But you can’t always make CCBB (choc.chip ban bread). And it’s fall. So I made pumpkin. They’ll warm up to her as soon as the rest of the CCBB is gone. Then they’ll regret their lukewarm welcome.
Okay, now don’t tell the members of my family, but I did make one more loaf of CCBB and I’m sneaking it out to the car to take to the Wards who live in sweethomeAlabama. Noone can know. They’ll break into my car and steal it. And eat it. All. Shhhhh.
To prepare for tonite’s dinner and for the manfood extravaganza that is sure to take place while I’m gone, I marinated 2 london broils with these ingredients and then browned them on the grill……(at 9am, BTW)
I then cooked one of them in a slow roaster all day at 200 degrees, to cut up and put in the man-chili. The other one was broiled about 8 minutes per side and served as traditional london broil with garlic mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts….at 7pm. It was fantastic and will lend itself to yummy leftovers…….I see nachos in Marcus’s future…
The chili is still simmering and will be ready for the bachelors to partake of tomorrow.
Then, I got my hostess and sitter gifts together. These fun aprons with a jar of my homeade strawberry jelly. My darling sister is taking the two ‘little’ girls camping with her! I’m so thankful for her in their lives. They adore her and her only request was homeade strawberry jelly. Check.
Then I gathered tools for my next ‘job’ of the day. What am I embarking on, you ask? As if this display of tools doesn’t give it away, I’m gonna clean out the tub drain in the downstairs bathroom. I honestly don’t know why the ‘Oh-to-be-25-again’ nail polish is in the line up. I don’t have plans to use her for the clean out. She’s just there-for moral support, I suppose. Why, when I have plenty to do, would I pick today to clean out the drain? Because I have plumber skills and am I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. (And the last time I hired a plumber for the job, it costed me $40 per drain…..I have no lies to tell–that’s $160 for four drains….I could buy a mulitude of MAC eye shadows and a new purse and some new shoes for that……or you know invest it or something) Back to my plumber skills.
I had to solicit the help of macdaddy and Marcus to muscle the drain-thingy out. Then I started digging. This is not a job for the faint of heart and if you’re feeling a little nauseated, don’t look at the next picture, ’cause I’m not exactly sure what kind of gargantuan-hairy-gooey mess came out….
I nearly dry-heave just to show it to you. But I just wanted you to know that I have plumber skills……and no crack……showing, that is….
Now you Southerners may not know this little ointment wonder. It’s apparently loved by vets everywhere. Stevie’s family from MN taught me all about it and showed me how to squeeze a little into a small container to function as ‘chapstick’. I LOVE IT. It’s called Corona and can be used for various and sundry purposes such as “preserving the natural moisture balance of the horny wall?, to protect and prevent drying and cracking teats and udders, and minor cuts and lacerations from ropes and wires.” Or as chapstick. But you use it for whatever you want.
So, I scooped a little into my empty MAC eye shadow container and I’m good to go. Ready for ALMOST anything.
I applied some in the car……on my lips…..and thought you might want to see the effect. I like it. It’s udderly soothing. Sorry. I’m easily amused.
Then we arrived at ballet where I wisked Emme into class (isn’t she just adorable) and then commenced the much dreaded job of purse clean out. Which I last tackled when I bought this current purse. It’s not pretty, but here’s a few random items I found sloshing around in the bottom…..
a toothbrush, a rope of NERDS, a booklight, 12 tubes of lip gloss, a Jesus Saves cross made from popsicle sticks, a pair of running socks, 12,000 receipts, lotion, motrin and m&m’s apparently spilled from somewhere and in various states of decay…..okay I won’t bore you with the rest…..but let’s just say, it took nearly the whole ballet class. It’s a big purse, cut me some slack.
Back at the compound, I noticed what a beauty this little ensemble is. It better not freeze while I’m gone. Will the bachelors take the time to cover these pretty little flowers with a warm sheet? Will they feed Scooter? Will they watch football?
There they are right now, scrambling to get the new HD receiver hooked up. It’s been sitting there for many days, so what would drive them into such a frenzy to get it hooked up tonite before 9:30 EST? The Cubs play tonite……at 9:30 EST. I’m cookin’ and packin’ and retrievin’ large scary things from the drain……and they are, well dealin’ with important issues of sports in high definition.
I REALLY need to get the oil changed in this bad boy before tomorrow but as you can tell…..it’s dark and there’s no time left. So, if my engine blows up on my way down South , people will eat well and drains will drain well, and I’ll be sittin’ on the side of the road waitin’ for AAA listening to Sweet Home Alabama eating CCBB.
What does homeschooling have to do with chocolate chip cookies, anyway?
This is our 5th week of homeschooling! I can’t believe it. We’ve learned so much, had so much fun, strengthened our mother-daughter bonds and I’ve had one tiny break-down. I’d call that a success. We’re following Susan Wise Bauer’s book “The Well-Trained Mind” which is a classical method for homeschooling. Our curriculum is centered around history and literature, which both happen to be my favorite subjects. Take last week for example: we’re studying ancient Egypt and learned all about Cheops and the great pyramid at Giza. We also studied Joseph and how he was sold into slavery in Egypt. These studies lend themselves to cool and exciting projects. We made pyramids and a coat of many colors which we all thoroughly enjoyed.We decided to make the ‘coats-of-many-colors’ doll size, so that our American girl dolls could wear them….
Anything painting or crafty goes over so well….my girls love art and are both talented with their hands…..
Their dolls, Kit and Emily, even made guest appearances at school while we made the ‘coats’. They sat in their own little desks and did their own little spelling sheets. They were quite well behaved except for the fact that Emily (the doll) kept falling out of her seat! We had to spread her legs really wide to keep her from falling. We all though it hysterical! Then there’s the latin, grammar, writing, spanish, spelling, art, music, memory work……all of which I love…to learn about and teach. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious. It seems to be. Then there’s math…….
So, why is it that I can’t manage to make math exciting enough for them to get those blasted math facts in their heads? It has to be the most frustrating half hour of the day for me. I seems to always pray that someone will visit or the fire alarm will go off or something during math. I sometimes use that time to switch out the laundry or water the plants. I just don’t like math and I don’t know how to make it fun. I’ve tried the manipulatives but we end up making some fun art project out of those usually.
Secretly, inside my head, I am frustrated, feeling like the worst mother ever to embark on the monstrous task of teaching her own children, and yelling at the top of my lungs (all to myself remember) WHY CAN’T YOU JUST REMEMBER THAT NINE PLUS EIGHT EQUALS SEVENTEEN? WHY? JUST MEMORIZE IT. OKAY. AND DON’T ASK ME TO ANOTHER ART PROJECT UNTIL YOU’VE GOT. GOT IT? Hence, my tiny breakdown. All to myself. So, how do I handle tiny breakdowns? I bake chocolate chip cookies and eat them warm….with milk. And I solicit the help of two darling little girls who are creative and love to bake and paint and craft and memorize……and who may never be mathmeticians. God help us when we get to multiplication.
So, we measure (that’s sorta like math)
and mix…..
and scoop…..and voila….