Moving to a Single Blog

I currently have 2 blogs, my homeschool one and a more generalized one. Lately, I've been posting in the general one only a few times a month. I still want to post the things I do, but don't want to bother with keeping up with both of them. So I will be merging the 2 into one on my homeschool blog. I hope anyone who likes to read my general one will follow me over. If homeschooling isn't your thing, I won't be upset if this is where we say goodbye :) For those who follow my homeschooling blog, if there's non-homeschool stuff you don't care about, feel free to skip over. For that matter, anyone on both my blogs should skip over stuff they don't care about lol

New Years Resolutions - Blog Style

1. I resolve to begin blogging again. I took a break to get my business running but seem to have forgotten to come back. With my business, homeschooling the girls and adding my niece into our homeschool, I should have lots to talk about that I'd really like to record!

2. I resolve to read the blogs I follow again. I have a list of about 100 blogs that I used to get zillions of ideas and 2nd hand support from that I really enjoyed reading and like blogging I seem to have forgotten to go back to. I can't promise I'll remember to comment on a lot of them, but at least I'll be reading them again!

Garden Yummies

I am so happy with my garden! We're starting to be able to harvest the early stuff (radish, lettuce, ect...) and it is sooooooooo better than the store! I use store bought veggies in the winter, but I long for my garden each time. I wish I had a bigger garden so I could grow enough for the winter, but I figure I still do better than most city dwellers!

Beef Steak tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Lee's Jalapeno

Teeny plant, giant Green Pepper!

Baby Spinach and Lettuce going crazy!

First Cucumber

First Zucchini

Air Conditioning!

Glorious air conditioning! Today it's 104 with the humidity and we only had the one air conditioner downstairs which does N.O.T.H.I.N.G. for the upstairs. Who needs to go to a spa?! I've got my own sauna! Lee put in the 2nd air conditioner today. While it's still 82 in the house, it is wonderful compared to outside! Now... if only I had a large pool....

So Sorry!

We've had a bit of a family emergency with my sister's family over the last couple weeks. I didn't mean to just drop off the map! Things are settling down now and I promise to resume regular programing :)

Five Question Friday

1. How close to your childhood dreams is your life now? Well, I wanted to be a teacher and have lots of kids. I homeschool and I have 4 kids. I guess it's pretty close :)

2. What is one must have item for the summer? Chapstick!!!

3. Do you have your kids stay up on school stuff during summer vacation? (Or, if you don't have kiddos, did your parents make you keep up on school stuff during summer?) Yup! We're year-round homeschoolers. We do lighter amounts of school work during the summer, but we do school all year. It's been proven that most kids NEED that month or 2 of review each Sept because they lost so much info over the summer! My kids don't :)

4. Do you can or freeze fresh produce? I don't know how to can yet, but I do freeze all the time!

5. Do you get ready for the day first thing in the morning? No way! I need to consume coffee via an IV before I can even open my eyes lol

Linking up with My Little Life

Five Question Friday

 Look! I actually made it ON Friday!

1. If you had to choose, how would you prefer to choose to spend money...on landscaping or a pool?  If I had the yard for a pool, deff a pool. However, since my yard is too small, landscaping :)

2. Death penalty, yay or nay? Nay. I'd rather someone who qualified for the death penalty slowly suffer for the rest of their lives.

3. What's the worst thing your kid has gotten into when you turned your back/blogged/showered/blinked?  One morning, about 4am, my kids decided to make breakfast.... that translated to a cake pan in my oven with Bisto, cinnamon, oregano, chocolate chips and a few others I forget. Thankfully no one had been dumb enough to try to take the 450F pan out of the oven before I smelled cinnamon burning.

4. How often do you REALLY go to the dentist?  Cringe worthy I know, but I haven't been in about 4 years. After having Brianna my teeth went to hell in a handbasket. I just take care of them at home.

5. What is your favorite animal?  Ferret. I just love them! I know they sometimes get a bad wrap, but I think they're awesome!

Linking up with My Little Life

Wind Storm

We got some massive winds today. Trees knocked down, power outages, ect... Our new 9 ft cedar trees got knocked down too :(

Before

After

Interesting straight lines

Five Question Friday

 Yeah, I'm awesomer this week and am doing my Friday questions on Sunday.... I'm behind in reading my blogs....

1. Do you apologize to your kids? Absolutely, if I did something wrong I say I'm sorry. It's hard to teach apologizing if you're unwilling to do it!

2. What color are your nails right now? An awesome teal color :D

3. When you were growing up, how difficult was it for you to stay home from school sick? (As in, did you have to vomit or just say "I don't feel good".) For me it was more how could I pretend to be healthy so I didn't have to stay home! I loved school so I'd whine to go in when I was sick.

4. When is the last time you bought a new comforter for your bed? About 3 yrs ago. It sucks and we need a new one.

5. Favorite website(s)? Well, I'd say my daily visited ones would be facebook, blogger and several random homeschool ones.

See other people's answers at My Little Life!

Questions....

A questionnaire is floating around blogland and I thought I'd post it if anyone has any interested in the oddities of me :) Feel free to post it yourself, leave me the link to yours in my comments!

What is your middle name? Lynn... I hate it. Especially with my first name (Sandra), you say them together and it sounds like a hick name. Which my sisters loooove to make fun of *gee thanks* :P

How big is your bed? Double. A lot of people's jaws drop at this, but I'm happy with my double. Me and Lee and my giant body pillow fit just fine in it. Oh, and don't forget the cat....
 
What are you listening to right now? Other than the radio, blissful silence

What was the last thing you ate? Supper. And amazingly, what it (----->) say I was supposed to make for supper today!
 
How is the weather right now? Clear and getting chilly not that the sun has gone down. The clouds are supposed to be rolling in for rain tonight (and the next 3 days *sigh*)
 
Do you want children? I *have* children, but that's not the question... Most of the time I want children... course there's days that Olivia's teething and Brianna's refusing to do school work that I don't want them! (j/k!)
 
Hair color? Which layer? The part that's dyed is dark reddish brown. The 3 inches of roots is dark brown with growing amounts of gray.
 
Do you wear contacts? I'll stick with glasses, I'm not a fan of stabbing myself in the eye several times a day
 
Last Movie you watched? Um... in the theater? 21. About 2 yrs ago lol Any movie at all? Um... ah... oh yeah! Shut Up and Sing. Do documentaries count?

What books are you reading? Do Brianna' school books count? Amazingly I'm not reading anything of my own right now (that would explain why I'm a month behind on my reading challenge!)
 
What were you doing before filling this out? Delivering Avon books for my sister
 
Have you ever fired a gun? Nope, and I hope that answer never changes!
 
If you could go to any place right now where would you go? Into my bed with a laptop. Course then I'd need a laptop with internet connection... then I'd never leave my bed... maybe it's better this way....
 
Are you missing someone? Well I hope not! Everyone here is accounted for other than mom, who I know is at work!
 
Are you hiding something from someone right now? I'm hiding from myself how much I ate for lunch *shhhh*
 
3 things you can't live without? Family, music, books
 
Stuck on a deserted island, and can only bring one thing? Since it's a thing I guess that doesn't include my family, so I'd say an MP3 player with like 500 songs and unlimited powered batteries
 
What do you usually do when the alarm turns on? Why is it set?!?! I don't use an alarm
 
What do you think about before you go to bed? Ok, stop moving, breathe even, pretend that doesn't itch, cat - get off my feet! (or something similar)

Toys

I've been called something of a toy nazi. I just happen to think that kids don't need all the toys in the store to be happy! I would also rather my kids use their imagination and their brain than swim through thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of toys.

In a practical sense, we also just plain ole don't have the room nor the financial means to give up for the latest cool commercial touted things. I'd rather spend out space and money on things that will last more than 5 minutes and things that will bring REAL entertainment or meaning to our lives.

Our house is approx 750 sq feet. In it we house 3 adults, 2 kids and a cat. We are lucky enough to have a "toy room" which is more and more becoming a "schoolish" room. Really, it's an oversized hallway with a window at the end of it. It's about 6x8 feet. There's also 3 doorways and a staircase = no wall space. The girls shared bedroom is about 10x12. That's feet. I know people who's bathrooms are bigger. Then there's our living room that's a spacious 12x14 (feet). Again, people have bathrooms that are bigger. Needless to say, we don't have a lot of room for extras.

Going back to spending money and space on things that will last more than 5 minutes and things that will bring REAL entertainment or meaning to our lives.... I love educational toys. I love books. I love real-life play toys. I love craft stuff. Generally stuff that will have  long shelf life.

My kids share toys. I am grateful that Brianna is not the kind of child who demands the latest things. Maybe she would be if I bought them, but she knows I won't. Olivia of course, doesn't care. So I buy toys that appeal to both age groups, will last a long time and can be used in a variety of ways or situations.

My favorite toys:
- Books
- Lego/Mega Blocks
- Wooden Blocks
- Wooden Train Set
- Play Kitchen and Foods
- Cars
- Any Type of Craft Supply
- Baby Type Dolls (not barbies)

These are toys that my children don't get bored with in 10 minutes. These are toys that my children can learn from. These are toys (if quality items are acquired) that will last their whole childhood.

200 Posts!

I thought I'd post a stats post as my 200th post.

Top Posts
Menu Plan Monday
Blog Party!
Toaster Ovens Rock!
New Year, New Goals
Random Tuesday

Top Referring Sites
I'm An Organizing Junkie
Blogger
5 Minutes For Mom
The Un Mom
Facebook

Top Searched
Kids Walking Log

Reader Stats
Most users are from Canada with the USA a close 2nd
Most people are using Mozilla with IE trailing behind
Not surprisingly, more than 90% of readers are using a Windows OS

I know most people don't care about this kind of stuff, but I've always loved random stats!

Tags

I finally got around to adding tags to my posts. Not a big deal to most, but I had 100+ posts to go through! Kinda wishing I had done it months ago when I first thought of it!

Crocuses!

After our walk this afternoon, Brianna noticed out crocuses were starting to pop up! It's true! Spring is on the way!

Weigh In and Menu Planning

Wooooooooooo! Down to 188.8lbs! I knew today would be a loss cause of all the shoveling I did on Wednesday, but I didn't think it would be that much! YAY!

Now I'm taking a crack at menu planning. Both to eat more real meals (instead of some pasta and sauce or something equally lazy) but also to get rid of the random food in the house. I mean, I love having lots of food in my house, but when it's been in the cupboard for a year and no one's given it a second glance, it's time to use it and not buy it again! I will try to make things as diet friendly as possible, but sometimes you just need comfort food!

I'm not a perfect menu planner cause I often cook on cravings or energy (as in, I don't wanna cook!). So my menu plan is basically, I'm gonna cook this as some point in the next while, but who knows what day. I figure, if I can get 2 1/2-3 weeks worth of meals planned, that'll take me through a month (with Lee cooking, leftover days, or serve yourself days to fill in).

Here's what I have so far for Feb:

Mexican Mac & Cheese

Pork Stew

Mexican Casserole

Home Style Mac & Cheese

Dogs & Taters

Calzones

Honey Garlic Pork Chops with Corn and Rice Casserole

There of course will be repeats for favorites, but I'm also trying to go through all my recipe cards, one by one, and try all the stuff in there to see if it's even worth keeping. I have a slew of recipes online too that I need to go through (I'm really bad for writing/typing out a recipe just cause it sounds good, then keeping it forever without even trying it).

Camera FOUND!

Woooooo! Special thanks to my mommy for finding the camera! It's been missing since Christmas when we went to Grandma Hart's for dinner and couldn't find it to take pics. Turns out it was under the driver's seat in the car! Eeek! That much cold (3 days of -30C and colder) CAN'T be good for electronics! So I sat on it for like an hour lol Thankfully, it still works!!!

Now the problem is having a computer I can use it with. This ooooold laptop doesn't have any kind of picture viewing program. Hopefully my BIL is able to fix my computer and I'll be good to go and be able to post pics on my blogs again!

New (to us) Appliances

These are probably the newest appliances I've ever owned lol

Lee's ex-wife called a few days ago to see if we were still looking for a washer and dryer. Well, they may not work *great* by my washer and dry *were* still working. Anything's better than the laundry mat. Well she said that her husband bought new front loaders (supposedly better in the country with a septic tank) and she wanted to give us her old (5 yrs) set. 

Hell yes! Free is my friend :)

Tested out the washer tonight. It's a super capacity so I was able to stuff more than Lee's work clothes into one load. And it's so quiet! And didn't dance across my kitchen! Woooooo!

We didn't try out the dryer though since we dry majority of our clothes on the dry rack in the living room. Especially if it's only one load. When I do 2+ loads over the weekend all the jeans and little things will get to test out the new dryer.

Toaster Ovens Rock!

So I took the advice of a friend and found a toaster oven that would fit my bread pan (it also fits a 8in square pan so I can make smaller casseroles too). Such a life saver! I'm back in the bread business!

While completely without baking capabilities I used my breadmaker as it was intended... to bake bread. I didn't like how the loaves were formed, kinda like a cube. One sandwich was about the size of 2 since the bread cube was so large! I did find a yummy recipe though that I'll have to try in the oven/toaster oven.

Lee is of course thrilled since he had been bugging me for a while to buy one, but I didn't see the point since we had a perfectly good oven.....

I'm curious to see my electric bill next month. While I am still using the stove part, the toaster oven says it uses 68% less energy than a regular oven. If my bill is noticeably lower I think I'll keep using the toaster oven unless I need the larger size of the regular oven!

Stupid Oven

My element blew again. I've had this oven 4 years, am now gonna replace it for the second time. I've never in my life had to replace an element (the inside the oven bottom one) before this oven. POS However, I need a new fridge and only want a new oven. Short of this stupid element, the oven works fine. My fridge on the other hand is wonky.

I discovered this by making bread. I had run the dough through the breadmaker, did it's 2nd rise and was preheating the oven to bake it. 10 minutes later the oven is only reading 120F! Crap.... So I turned it off, waited for it to cool and checked it out. The top element is slightly warm, the bottom one? COLD! Unscrew it, yup, one of the prong thingies is black. Fried. *sigh* 

It's Sunday night... hmmm.... maaaaaybe Canadian tire is open. Drive up there, nope, closed. Sears sells ovens.... nope, closed. Well I don't know if Zellers sells ovens, but they do sell larger appliances so maybe... they're open, no elements. *siiiiiiigh* Drive to the other end of town to Home Depot. They DO sell elements, but at over $30! The one I bought from Canadian tire was under $20 so I only brought $20 with me *cry* I'll have to wait til tomorrow to go to Canadian Tire.

Thankfully my next door neighbour was home so I borrowed her oven for a half hour so at least I didn't have to toss the dough (which thankfully hadn't dropped by the time I got home!). First thing tomorrow... element shopping!

Remembrance Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Today we remember the fallen and the ones who have served. Bow your head and honour them with a moment of silence at 11am today. Freedom isn't free. Someone had to pay for it.