I get to join...

those of you that are cool bloggers and actually get hits on your blog from search engine searches.

My most recent, and maybe my fave.....

"boys farted in gym" um...?

or a little bizarre, but at least it isn't gross...

"meadows well stocked half marathon" I ran one that was but it wasn't mine ;)

and last but not least, the tame one.

"queenmeadow"

:)

Update on paper

The paper I blogged about a few days ago. I received the grade today, 9/10. My professor is incredibly picky, so frustratingly so that I'm pretty freaked out about writing the final paper (12-15 freaking pages long!!). But the grade is good on this paper so I guess if I can suck it up and take criticism from him, it wont be too bad.

He said my thesis statement wasn't enough to the point. Let me show you my final draft of the thesis statement.

"Without assistance, only those born into wealth will have the opportunity to receive the kind of education that gives them an advantage over those who would otherwise be stuck in a never-ending cycle of under privilege and societal discrimination, i.e.: discrimination from higher social classes."

He also said that I'm trying too hard. Um...yeah, I wonder why :P

I'm just happy that this is my final English class because I think my head is going to explode. As you all can tell, I'm not a good writer and this is really sucking.

Any smarty pants writers reading right now?

I'm writing a controversial research paper for my class this semester. My problem is that I tend to get wordy, I know! its shocking ;) My other problem is that I don't like controversy, lol. So I keep trying to soften the "blow" of my thesis statement.

I need to turn in a report that includes my thesis statement (and the bibliography, so its not the whole paper yet) but its so wordy and doesn't feel right yet.

Here it is...

In order to increase the success of all students, those that are less economically privileged that are unable to pay for private schools, school vouchers will provide the means necessary for parents to choose a school that they feel will benefit their child the most therefore increase the success rate of their child.


My paper is on School Vouchers and I had to choose a side so I went with the side for vouchers.

Help!!! fast too, please :) Its due in 4.5 hours, eek!

Fish heads, fish heads....

rolly polly fish heads, fish head fish heads, eat them up. Yum!

We had dinner at the In-Laws house last night. Mother-in-law asked Little Man if he liked fish, he said yes so she gave him some dried sardines to try. He looks at them and said "ooh, they have teeth!" and then put them in his mouth "Yum!" She gave him a bunch more and he happily munched on the little icky things.

Stu says "you didn't pull the heads off?" I said "I've never seen them before, I don't know how to eat them!" he said "I guess if he doesn't mind"

So yeah, I think I'll tell him that he can never complain about my cooking again, now that he has eaten whole, dried fish.

Jealous?

This food review is inspired by foodie, since she has been critiquing food a lot lately, thought she'd like something new to try.

Zion

I drove back down to southern Utah with my older sister. We wanted to go hike Zion on Saturday since the weather was beautiful and I don't remember ever going there. Pretty sad since I've lived in Utah most of my life :).


I love this place :)


I love the layering of the mountain and all the colors.


The "bathtub", just thought it was cool.


This tree was struck by lighting, see the stripe going down it? it twists all the way around the tree, down to the base.


This is my mom, she'll hate me for posting her picture but too bad ;). This is what happens when my dad decides to ditch us, we stand by the edge because he makes us hug the mountain while we hike. He is scared of heights and can't stand anyone by the edge, hehe.


We made it to the top!! It only took 3 hours!!! And I stupidly wore pants, not just pants but black pants! I recommend you wear shorts if you hike when its 85+ degrees.

Vacation

I have lots of pictures to show and I'll make small comments. We'll let the pictures tell about the trip :)

This is the jacuzzi tub in our room :)


This is the wonderful pillowtop mattress with the down comforter and down pillows. Heaven!




The shower and sink, notice the glass instead of plastic cups, lol.



Ok, moving on to Hoover Dam where Stu took the boys (I was sick and needed to stay close to the potty ;) )

The boys can't be in a picture without posing something like this...




And the Dam, wish I could've gone, maybe next year :)




We also saw KA from Cirque de Soleil (I'm sure I butchered the spelling but I'm too lazy to look it up). It was good but I recommend getting the program first, we were pretty lost as far as the story goes.

I had a great time and so did the kids. I'm pretty sure they didn't want to come home after all the fun they had with the aunt and uncle.

I have returned!

Last night we returned from warm and enjoyable, Las Vegas. I have lots of fun pictures to share but they must wait. I was sick all week, it was no fun, with a UTI and am about to go to the dr. I will try to post when I return but I am leaving town once again. I am going back down to Southern Utah to hang out with my sister and parents with no kids :). If I don't get a chance to post before I leave, I'll post on Monday for sure!

Yum!!

I made this yummalicious soup on Friday! I got the recipe from Frugalmom who got it, and modified it, from kerflop. I modified it slightly as well and it was divine! I had some for lunch on saturday and plan on finishing the rest off today for lunch.

Tangy Potato Soup
6 medium to large russet potatoes. Peel 4, leave the skin on 2, and dice into 3/4 inch pieces
2 cans low-sodium chicken broth
1 8 oz package cream cheese
2 tbsp dried minced onion
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tbsp flour
1 cup cooked, crumbled bacon (I used the precooked kind I buy in a big bag at Costco, about 12 oz bacon cooked would yield a cup of bacon)

Put potatoes, chicken broth, cream cheese and onion in a big soup pot. Bring to a boil. Add milk which has been mixed with flour to dissolve lumps. Simmer until potatoes are tender (15-20 minutes). Season with salt and pepper. Add bacon and serve.

*my changes, I had no dried minced onion so I used onion salt (out of onion powder too, oops) about 1 tablespoon. I also added about 2 teaspoons of course ground pepper. And I used 8 smallish potatoes because thats all I had. Then garnished with graded medium sharp cheese, delish!

Why Gmail, Why?

Dear Gmail,

I have been a loyal subscriber to your email services for a very long time. I have invited friends and family to use your service, I even dropped my hotmail email account to use you exclusively and this morning? You don't allow me to log on. Oh sad sad day.

I have emails to read! don't you understand?

*sigh*

My Oh So Sweet, Little Man.

My kids have an hour to an hour and a half of "Quiet Time" in their rooms every afternoon. They can draw, read, play with quiet toys, listen to music, nap, whatever they want within reason. I usually let one of the boys "sleep" in my room during quiet time so the other has their room to "sleep" in. When its Little Man's turn to be in their bedroom he usually cleans! How sweet is that? He'll take a notebook, pen, pencil and books with him but he almost always ends up cleaning the room instead. And he's only 4, well he'll be 5 at the end of April, sigh.

I really am spoiled ;) (and so is M, lol)

I am so spoiled!

I'm currently in my third year of college, I'm going part-time and its taking an eternity! Anyway, I've wanted a laptop for quite awhile now, so we decided to take the plunge and sell my desktop and get me a laptop. I'm typing on it right now :)

I love it!! Its a Sony Vaio and its cute and fun and its mine and did I mention that its cute? Cause it is :) Oh and we got it on sale so its cheaper than shown in that link, woot.

I'll take a pic later and post it so you can see how cute it is. I can't take it to school yet because I don't have a bag for it, lol. But I will make one or buy one soon. Its a little bigger than I planned, but bigger is better sometimes ;)

Changing my blog a bit.

I'm adding stuff to the side bar, so you can see how hard I'm trying to become crafty. Once I get some good projects finished, I'll add photos or maybe I'll just blog about them and put them in the link rather than the pattern.

I have discovered knitting, its portable and you can make some really cute stuff! We'll see if I get back to sewing on my machine, maybe I'll actually finish the quilt I started 2-ish years ago, lol.

But for now, its all about the knitting :)

Are you sure she is mine?

L is 10 and tall, very tall, atleast by my standards ;).

We decided to measure her yesterday to see how tall she really is. I think I liked not knowing for sure. Ignorance really can be bliss. I mean, I can just make sure not to stand up next to her and I'll pretend that her feet aren't the same size as mine or that her pants don't look almost as long as mine.

Anyway.....

She is 4 ft 10 inches tall. I am 5 ft 3 inches tall. Yeah, she'll pass me much sooner than I anticipated, crap :P. I needed that mental boost a bit longer.

"You listen to me young lady!" just doesn't sound as threatening when you are looking up at your child ;)

And I did a height predictor just now, it predicts that she will be 5 ft 9 at 18. I guess I should go measure my boys and see if they'll be lucky enough to be taller than their sister ;)

Edited to add:

It predicts that M will be 5ft 9 and Little Man will be 5 ft 8. Oh that makes me giggle. I'm pretty sure Little Man will be taller than M, just their body types, but we'll see :). Gotta make sure I save this and check in 12 years ;)

An unexpected bonus to homeschooling...

My kids are very negative and it drives me batty. So I decided that as part of their handwriting practice, or L's journaling, I'd have them write about things they like.

I told M to pick one person a day, from our family, and write 3 things he liked about them. Today was my turn...

"I like mom because I love her and she loves me a lot and becaues she plays with me a lot."

Too cute!

Yesterday was dad's turn...

"I like dad becaues he is cool. And because I love him. And because he plays with me a lot."

I can't wait to see what he says about his siblings, hehe.

My Life Monday

This weeks assignment, from Rachelle, is on pet peeves.

I worry that she has opened the flood gates, so I'm going to try and control myself :).

1. People that make noise while they eat. Any noise! (I know, I know).

2. Anyone bumping into the couch or chair that I'm sitting on. My kids do this a lot and it drives me crazy!

3. People being late, if you say you'll be here at 4, you better be here at 4!!

4. People getting in front of me on the freeway, or any road for that matter, and go slower than I am. Yes, I have lead foot, so what :P

5. Waiter/Waitresses taking my cup and refilling it and then bringing it back. Give me a new one! sick.

6. Employers not getting their employees w2's out in a timely manner!

Ok, I'll stop :)

p.s. for some reason I can't get the cute little logo thing to work.

Check!

January is over! One month down, 2 to go (I hope, I hope) before we start in on mostly sunny days, or at least above freezing days!

I hate this time of year. Hate. I don't like being cold, I don't like snow, I don't like fog (or smog for that matter), I don't like clouds. I hate everyone being sick all the time.

I love the sun, oh sweet and bright and oh so warm sun! I'd move to Phoenix if my hunny could handle the heat ;).

Give me some green grass, pretty flowers and leaves on the trees and I'm one happy girl :)

Sometimes 10 years olds are awesome!

L has been in a new stage and I have to say that I'm enjoying it. She wants to cook, and cook everything. She made hard boiled eggs the other day (I supervised of course) and then blueberry muffins. Today she made mac n cheese for lunch. I think I'll show her how to make meatloaf so she can make dinner too :P

I'll just try to focus on this part and not the "2nd mom syndrome" she seems to have right now ;)

Yep

Another day of no desire to blog and nothing to blog about.

I decided that I needed to let my loyal readers know that I'm alive and kicking.

Homeschool is coming along well.

School for me is coming along well.

The family is pretty healthy.

Stu's job is going well.

The dust bunnies are coming along well. Ok, just seeing if you were really reading ;). I dusted last week and even vacuumed, yeah I know shocking!

I'm tired of brown air in the horizon, knowing that I'm breathing that lovely stuff.

I'm still in my pj's and its 4:45 in the afternoon. If I didn't have class tonight I would stay in my pj's the whole day ;)

So cool!

I was taking the garbage out on my way to school and noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. I dropped the garbage can lid, because its freaking freezing out! And saw something jump in our neighbors yard. I turned all the way around and saw a deer!! I ran up the steps and fumbled with the door trying not to scare the deer. I yelled "hunny, get the camera quick!" While waiting for him I noticed that there were 3 deer!!

The camera had dead batteries, dangit! So Stu ran to get new ones while I watched whispering to the kids "shh, don't scare them." One started walking toward the street and our street is really busy with no sidewalk on our side, so I said "don't go into the street." Cause deer understand english and would listen to me, duh. To my surprise it started walking into our yard! Woohoo, we might get a pic after all.

Stu got this picture...



before they ran down the hill and out of site.

I hope they found food or whatever it was they were looking for. They were so cute :)
and for Stu's version, click here.

Getting in a groove...

Last week was pretty hard, getting the kids into new routines and figuring out how much they could handle to learn. How much time could they sit and do work, how often did they really need breaks. How long should the school day last? etc etc etc...

Then this week the kids just fought. All. The. Time! It has been really cold here and snowy and just icky. Plus we've been dealing with illness too. I was about to throw in the towel and say, no more school for another week! Just let 'em battle it out for awhile ;)

Yesterday I decided to try a more relaxed approach and see how it went. I had L on once couch, M on the other and Little Man on starfall.com . It was so much fun and we covered a ton more material, so nice! Fighting was much less and I think they really enjoyed the day. I know I did!

Today we are going to the library and we'll do craft time and maybe some geography or history. Just a relaxed day.