I smoked the house out!

I tried to light the wood stove this afternoon, but failed miserably! I just cannot manage to get it lit without splits and we were out of splits. It drives me crazy when that happens! Anyway, I didn't get it lit but it sure created a lot of smoke. DH made it even worse when he tried to light it! I ended up taking the girls for a ride just to get them out of the smoke filled house. Dh finally had the fire going and the smoke cleared out when we got home. I'm kind of glad he had the same problem. He seems kind of peed at me for having difficulty, but he couldn't say much when he had the same trouble. He also made more splits for me. :)

Failing miserably

It seems that I have lost all desire to write anything right now. The good thing is that I have done more house cleaning, playing with little one, and scrapping than I have for a long while, but the sad thing is I was really hoping to get to write more. I have been more faithful in writing on my scrapping blog than I have this one, but that's because I've also been scrapping so I have things to share on that blog.

Opps! Gotta run! DD just came and told me that NCIS is coming on. It's our show to watch together. Chow!

Home Again!

Yippeeee!!!! Not so happy to come home to a sink full of dishes and a couch full of clothes and garbage! Some young man is going to get a tongue banging when I see him tomorrow. He's staying at a friend's place tonight.

It's so hot!

I can't wait to get back to my nice cold house. :) Every time we visit the inlaws I suffer with the heat in their house. They have a wood stove and they often make it so hot that they have to open the windows to cool down, and then they stuff the stove again to heat it up again! I can't take the heat at all! I spend most of my time in the bedroom with the window wide open.

We have a wood stove at home and DH tends to do the same routine as his parents with overheating the place, but I think I'm finally getting through to him that you don't have to do that. He's not been home much lately and I've had to control the woodstove and I've managed to do it just fine without having those times when the heat is unbearable.

The temperature outside here is not at all hot. Actually, it's quite cold. Little one was looking for mittens this morning when she was outside with her dad while he was doing some yard work for his mother. I went out for a while too, just to get out of the heat of the house. It hit me in the face when I came back in though.

Regular visitors to my house know to dress warm or bring a sweater because I prefer to have the heat on the cool side. My philosophy is that you can always add another layer until you get to a temperture that youare comfortable with if you're cold but you can only remove so many layers when you're hot. :)

Not doing so well...

...with the blogging challenge. :( I missed posting again yesterday. I tell you, I am really having trouble adjusting to the time change. It's thrown me right out of whack. I didn't even realize that I hadn't posted yesterday. Oh well, I've failed to meet my goal of posting every day in November, but I'm still going to try to post everyday. I need to work on a routine of some sort.

Anyway, nothing exciting to share today. We had a 6 hour drive today. We are visiting DH's home. FIL is still in the hospital so that means that most of the time I'm at home trying to keep letting one from tearing MIL's house apart while everyone else is visiting at the hospital. I'm trying real hard to keep a right attitude but it is hard. I usually stay in our home rather than make the trip to visit with DH simply because it is easier on Little One and I to be in our own familiar territory, but we came to visit this time because it's been a while since we have and it will probablly be a while before we do again. The weather will soon interfere with the visits as winter driving is not fun, especially in the area of the island were DH is from. It was nice to see Little One giving her grandfather hugs and kisses today, and I know he enjoyed it. I wish he was at home so we could spend more time with him but we can only keep her in the hospital for so long.

Anyway, I have to go try to get her to settle down again.

Ack!!! I missed posting yesterday!

Yesterday was a crazy day at my house. It started with a bang and kept on throughout the day.

I didn't manage to get anything done in the morning before little one got up. Once she was under foot I accomplished little without her right by my side.

We had library books that needed to be returned to the library. The library is in a community an hour away. Our community library is just about a two minute walking distance away from us but we don't like going to it because it is a part of the highschool. It's just not as comfortable walking in there during school hours so we go to the library in the community I grew up in. We usually make a fun day of it, though lately we haven't been able to do that so much because of the tightness of finances. Anyway, that cut into my time yesterday to do anything else.

I also had a scrapbooking layout that I had to get done yesterday to get posted today. I didn't get to work on that because Little One was underfoot so I was up til 1 in the morning finishing that.

The really sad thing is that I didn't get to do any writing yesterday at all! I just can't concentrate on writing when little one is stuck to me like she was yesterday.

I'm wondering if I'm going to get any done today. I haven't yet, because once again little one is stuck to me. I was hoping to get some time tonight but DH is out and I feel sleep calling. This is also my TV night. So You Think You Can Dance Canada and NCIS come on tonight. I'm so tired I'm not sure I'll last through them so I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. I'm sure going to have a lot of making up to do when I finally get to sit and write.

Does anyone else find that all you want to do is sleep since the times went back? It's really affected DD#1 and I.

Enough rambling from me. I've done my post for today and I'm off to try to stay awake and see what I can accomplish.

I need more time in my days!!

I'm going crazy trying to fit in everything that I want to do!

I did manage to fit in some writing this morning before the girls got up. I'm now up to 3633 words in my novel, but that's still short of where I should be by the end of the day. I really need to find some time to write a bit more tonight to stay on target, but I don't know if that's going to happen.

I have a scrapbooking layout that is due to be posted in a forum Wednesday night, and I haven't even started it yet. I only finally got an idea of what I want to do for it this afternoon, and it's just a rough idea that still needs lots of thought. I was really hoping to get to work on that tonight, but I don't see that happening either.

I'm bushed! I feel like I need to go to bed. I've had a good day.

Did some great work with DD#1. Especially enjoyed teaching her some math topics that we hadn't touched on before. I think she got them. Also had some fun with her playing the guitar hero game DS#1 bought this weekend. He said it's an early Christmas present for the family.

I also had fun with little one. She's discovered how to use scissors and had a ball cutting up paper today. I spent most of the day picking up the scraps. She did have some very creative moments. She made a fish and a bird and a witches hat. She's so cute! I need to try to get pictures of these creations of hers.

I also managed to do my wii fit today! DD#1 and I bought the wii fit as an early family Christmas present a few weeks back. I've set a goal for myself to try to do some wii fit every day during the month of November. It is so much fun and I feel great when I do it.

Anyway, I think I'm going to call it a night and hopefully get up early again tomorrow and accomplish something before the girls get up again.

Outward vs inward

I was struck by a portion of the scripture that I read during my Bible reading time today. A section of 2 Chronicles 30:18-19 says "May the good Lord provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek the Lord God of his father, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary."

This is a part of Hezekiah's prayer during a passover ceremony he conducted as part of the restoration of temple worship during his reign as king. There had been very strict rules about how people were to prepare themselves to take part in the passover but these rules had been neglected. It may be because they had forgotten the rules or because they just didn't take the time to follow them, the scripture is not clear on that. Whatever it was, King Hezekiah prays that God would look past the outward and look at the hearts of the people.

I believe this is something that God is much more willing to do than we are. I think it is us, not God, that gets hung up on the outward. May we, like Hezekiah, learn to look past the outward, because if the heart is right, the outward will eventually follow, but it doesn't do one bit of good to have everything in place on the outward and not have the heart in it.

NaBloWriMo

Okay, so I think I'm crazy, but.....inspired by Penelope, I, too, am going to attempt to blog every day for the month of November. I didn't actually sign up to be a member of NaBloPoMo, so I am unofficially doing this, but I think it's a great challenge.

I am going to be so busy this month trying to meet the NaNoWriMo challenge that I won't have much time to put much thought into my blog posts but I am going to try to post something everyday. It may simply amount to an update as to how I am doing in the NaNoWriMo challenge, or something as mundane as that so don't expect anything wonderful.

Anyone else want to join us in this challenge? I'd love to hear from you if you do.

BTW, I did start the NaNoWriMo challenge today. This morning I managed to pound out 1588 words towards my goal of 50,000 words. I've set myself a goal of doing approximately 1500 words a day, broken up into three slots of time and aiming for 500 words per time slot. I figure there will be some days when I go over and some days when I go under but that should get me close to the goal.

I was shocked when I sat down this morning and wrote over 1500 words without stopping! Funny thing is I really hadn't decided what I was going to write until I started. I had a rough idea in mind with one main character and one supporting character but that's it. I didn't even have the characters well thought out at all, but it seems to be falling into place.

I'm hoping to get some more time to write later today. I think I need to take advantage of this momentum because I don't think it's going to last. Would be great if it did, but reality is that I won't always have the time I would like to write, so I must take advantage of the time when it comes.

This is not a story that I have any illusions of ever having published or anything, it is something simply for me. I have always loved to write and always wanted to write a book and maybe some day I will, but this one is just for me. The main character is based very loosely on my maternal grandmother and the story is based roughly on her life. The supporting character is based loosely on my maternal grandfather. I also love to work on family history and would love to some day put together a family history that could be passed on to our relatives. Maybe this will give me more of a drive to do that too.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed my writing time this morning and rather than feeling drained and not wanting to write anything else, as I thought might happened, I feel inspired to write more and want to try to keep my blogs updated during this time. I sure hope this continues!

NaNoWriMo page for Canadian Home Educators

Woah! It's been a long time since I posted. Life has been extremely crazy! Not only have I not posted, I also have not been reading or commenting on blogs much. Sorry about that, everyone, but sometimes you have to let things go for a while. We've had some stressful things happening and some major changes in our household. I really miss reading and commenting on the blogs and I'm hoping to find more time for it before too long.

DD#1 and I are loving working our way through the highschool hand book on the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program site. It is great! We're getting excited about November! It's definitely going to be crazy times.

Because I noticed that a few of the participants in the Canadian Home Educators Blog Carnival have mentioned that they are going to be taking part in the NaNoWriMo, I decided to start a special group page for Canadian Home Educators, especially blog carnival participants, on the main NaNoWriMo site. You can find the page here. I thought it would be nice for us to be able to encourage and share with one another as we take on the challenge.

Hopefully my blog won't be totally neglected during Novemeber, while I'm working on my word count for NaNoWriMo, but I'm not making any promises. :)

NaNoWriMo

Have you heard about NaNoWriMo? How about NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program? If you haven't you should check it out. Tonia reminded me of it recently. I wrote a post about it on the HSN blog I manage. It's worth checking out, I promise. If you decide to try it out, let me know.

Little One Discovers YouTube!

I fear I've lost the use of my computer! Little one has discovered nursery rhymes and songs on YouTube!



It all started innocently enough when she crawled up onto my lap while I was working on the computer and asked me to sing to her. She fed me the songs she wanted me to sing. I got stuck on the words to one of her requests, Hush Little Baby, and did a google search to find them. That's when we discovered the world of YouTube Children's Songs and Nursery Rhymes.

We listened to a number together, with me clicking to different ones to try. Little one was enthralled! Finally I'd had enough and needed to do other things. Little one wanted more. I set her up to listen to one while I went to do some housework. She sat happily singing along.



Suddenly I noticed that the song I had set up was done and another had started! She had discovered how to use the mouse and start the next song! I was in shock! I had to be sure it wasn't a fluke. I let her alone and watched in amazement as she did it again and again.



All is lost! I know have to share my computer with my not quite 3 year old!

National Newspaper Week

Did you know there was any such thing? Did you know that this week is National Newspaper Week? I didn't. I never heard of it before, until last month when I was searching for possible learning themes for the month. It was listed on the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers Association (NLTA) 2008/09 Observances Poster. It piqued my curiousity and I went searching. There wasn't much to be found. I couldn't find any mention of National Newspaper Week in any Canadian or Newfoundland and Labrador resources. If anyone knows of any please point them out to me.

I did manage to find some American references to it and some resources for it. I also managed to find some Canadian resources that could be used in a newspaper themed study so I put together a post about National Newspaper Week for the HSN blog that I am co-ordinator for. You can check it out by clicking here if you're interested. There are some really great resources there.

Oh, and by the way, the 25th edition of the Canadian Home Educator's Blog Carnival has been posted. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already.

A saluate to my firefighters!

This week is Fire Safety Week. Earlier today I published a post about it on the Newfoundland and Labrador Homeschool Nations blog that I am co-ordinator for. In that post you will find all kinds of links to information and activities. Inspired by Fire Safety Week I decided to post a saluate to my own firefighters.

DH is the Fire Chief of our community's volunteer fire department. I searched through my pictures for a picture of him in his fire gear to post but I couldn't find one.

DS#1 has been a member of the volunteer fire department for almost three years. He couldn't wait to be old enough to join and he sent his application in the day of his 18th birthday. He loves the work and has actually decided that it is something he would like to do as a career.

Here are some shots of him in action:







Being on a volunteer fire department means that you are on call 24/7. They both have their pagers attached to them at all times during the day and the pagers are sitting on their night tables by their beds at night. The pager may go off at any time and if at all possible you are expected to respond ASAP. This is something that my men do quite willingly. Sometimes it's quite funny to watch them scrabble the second the pager starts buzzing.

I am proud of them for their willingness to give up their time to be an asset to our community. I am thankful for all the members of our volunteer fire department that do the same. They are a very important part of our community and today I want to send out a salute to them all.

Featured in the 25th edition of the Canadian Home Educators Blog Carnival

Prayers for the Stauffers

Juanita, a dear friend and fellow homeschooler, could use your prayers. Her 14 year old daughter, Emily, was attacked and killed while on a walk yesterday afternoon. Emily was a beautiful young lady inside and out. Her dad wrote a short blog post about it today.

Accept your self part 2

I found Celtic Mom's post through Mary's post, and what they were saying went along with the accepting yourself journey I've been on.

Celtic Mom talks about how we compare yourselves to others and end up with an "unjustified inferiority complex". She reminds us that we are all unique and each one of us is special in some way, but the sad thing is that we tend to focus on what we think is wrong with ourselves instead of on what is right. She challenges us to find pride and joy in being who we are, instead of wishing we were someone else.

That's not always easy, but it is important. We have to remember that God created each one of us unique and if we are busy trying to be someone else, then we are missing God's plan to be who He means for us to be. Instead of looking at others and trying to be like them we need to look at ourselves and be who we were meant to be.

I know all this, but I still couldn't bring myself to list 10 things I like about myself like Celtic Mom and Mary asked. I like the idea, but it's just too hard. Sorry. I am, however, working on seeing the positives, not the negatives, and even trying to realize that some of what I see as negatives may in fact be positives. I am meant to be me, not a carbon copy of someone else.

Accept yourself as you are

I seem to have struck a cord with many with my recent talk about how much I hate pictures of myself and how I'm trying to get over it. For many years now I have joked that I am alergic to cameras. I avoid them, at least the front of them, as much as I can. You would not believe how many paper pictures I have ripped up and how many digital pictures I have deleted over the years. Because of that, there are very few pictures of me, especially since I've been married and had kids.

Finding the scrapbooking hobby a few years ago made me realize how sad that is. According to pictures, I have pretty well been absent from our family's life for years. I can't go back and change the past, but I can change the future, and I've been trying to work on that, but I really haven't been that successful. I haven't been able to let go of the fact that I don't like pictures of myself. But I need to get over that. The importance of it was really driven home to me recently by this blog post, which was drawn to my attention the day after the writer of the post died, just a few days more than a month after she wrote the first post.

Earlier this month DD was getting ready to go out and looking like her beautiful self and I wanted to take a picture of her. She agreed on one condition, I had to get in the picture with her. Reluctantly I agreed. I hate me in the pictures. I almost deleted them right afterwards, but I kept them for her. I've never posted them anywhere but I am going to post them here as encouragement for you. Here are the pictures DD took that day:




Here are a couple of pictures I took of myself and Little One the day after I read the post I linked above:




And here's one I took of me. The great thing about a digital camera is that you can take lots and delete lots until you finally come up with one that is passable, if not totally acceptable. This was the best of the many that I took so you can imagine how bad the others were. ;)




I challenge you to do as the lady I linked to above said, "hand over the camera and get in those photos!", or have some fun taking some self photos of you with your kids, or even you alone. Don't let another day pass with your kids not having a picture of you, especially one of you with them. You may not like what you look like in the pictures, but it is the you that your kids love. Be brave - get in those pictures, and keep them, and post them even. Accept yourself as you are.

Tag, You're It

Janet tagged me, and while I often avoid a game of tag I'm in a strange mood this morning so I think I'll play for a bit. She also got to me by mentioning that she has Newfoundland connections. :)

Here are the rules.
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag sixish people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know he or she has been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Now for Six Random things about me:
1. I'm a chocoholic, but I'm not a chocolate snob, just about any chocolate will do. :)
2. I would love to be bilingual. I loved French in highschool, but hated it in college. I think the best way to learn a language is to be surrounded by it. If I had a friend near by that was bilingual I'd make her talk to me in french all the time so that I could learn.
3. I sometimes joke that I am bilingual because my sister and I drive my mother and DH crazy speaking pig latin when we don't want them to know what we're talking about. We've kind of developed out own version of pig latin and can converse in it quite easily, while others that know pig latin have trouble following us.
4. My optometrist says I have the weirdest eyes he's ever seen. I'm near sighted in one and far sighted in the other and he declares that my eyes are older than me.
5. I have never dyed my hair, except for that one time when I tried a wash in wash out dye once as a joke. I wear my grey "sparkly" (as my DD calls them) strands with pride. I've earned them. :)
6. I had all 4 of my children by C-section and the last 2 are 13 years apart. I had the last one while in my 40s and had to endure a doctor advising me to consider terminating the pregnancy because of the dangers to both me and the child because of my age, inspite of my assuring him that I considered this child a gift from God, albeit a surprise gift, no matter what. Both Little One and I survived and are as normal as can be, well, that actually depends on who you talk to I guess. :)

Opps! I relly got carried away with this. I meant to keep it light and fun, but got a little serious in that last one. Oh well. There it is.

Now, I'm going to break one of the rules. I'm not going to tag 6 people. Instead I'm going to say if you read this, consider yourself tagged. Play if you want, don't if you don't. Let me know if you do decide to play because I'd love to come read about you.

Thanks for the fun, Janet!

Glassy Beach

This week some of the homeschooling families in our area got together for a hike to glassy beach. We were blessed with a beautiful day for it and we had a great time. Here are some of the children enjoying their adventure.



Glassy beach is a beach in a small cove in our community that is covered with bits of broken glass and pottery that have been rubbed smooth by the ocean and the elements. You can dig way, way, down and still find mostly the smooth bits of glass and pottery. It is really neat. It's a bit of a hike to get there and the beach is quite small, but it is well worth the visit. Here Little One and I are searching for treasures



We went there for the first time years ago and I was awed by it. It seems to me that there is not as much there now as there was then, probably because there have been a lot of visitors since then and many people have taken bits of the glass and pottery for souvenirs and to use in crafts. I have heard that the town was trying to institute a by-law restricting what people take from the beach in order to protect it as it is. I can understand that, but I can also understand people wanting to bring a little home. We didn't bother to bring any home, we brought home some great pictures instead. :)

Here are my two beautiful daughters. This is the only picture I took. The rest were taken by DD#1.



Little One looking out over the ocean.



My beautiful eldest daughter sitting on a rock looking over the ocean. She took this herself!



Me. DD insisted this one was a keeper so I was a good mommy and let her keep it. I'm really working on trying to let my children have more pictures of me because they are so few.



DD took lots of great scenery pictures too. Here's a sampling:

Wanna trade Candidate cards with us?

A few posts back I mentioned that DD and I were planning on making Election Candidates Trading Cards. Shortly after I posted that DD and I were chatting and we came up with what we think is a great idea. We thought it would be neat to actually trade Candidate cards with others. Read on to see if you're interested.

We have decided that our cards will be 3 1/2 x 2 1/4, the size of a normal playing card. On one side of the card we will have a picture of the candidate, something to indicate the party the candidate is running for, and the riding the candidate is running in. The other side of the card will have information about the candidate - name, age, and a short bio including information about family, work, education, political experience, etc. There really won't be room for a whole lot of information so we'll have to see what we can fit. We are hoping to get cards made representing each of the candidates in the seven ridings in Newfoundland and Labrador but we will definitely be making cards representing each of the candidates running in our riding.

Most likely the design of the cards will be done on the computer and then printed and front and back stuck on to cardstock to make the card. This would make it pretty easy to make as many cards as you wanted of the same kind. If we decide to make the cards without the computer somehow we could still scan the finished cards and make duplicates if needed.

If you decide to make cards representing the candidates in your area we would love to trade with you - you sending us a set of your cards and we sending you a set of ours. Anyone interested? Leave a comment to let us know