15 things: Belated Anniversary Edition

My hubby and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on December 23rd.  In honor of that I present to you 15 of my annoying habits quirks that my husband has had to live with for the past 15 years

1. My need to talk incessantly
    and by incessant I mean that when I start talking sometimes I don't even need to stop to take a breath


2. My pathological neatness
    I will put away something while he is in the middle of using it.  It's an illness I tell you.


3. My spaciness
    sometimes I lose track of the conversation mid sentence


4. The fact that I like to use a blanket at night even in Hawaii
     What?  I like to snuggle up under blankets when I sleep


5. My chronic lateness
    I try. I really do, but I cannot get places on time.


6. My inability to stop in the middle of working on something
    It's a problem. Once I start a project, I cannot stop even if I should be doing something else like making dinner.


7. My internet addiction
    between email, facebook, and blogs, it gets out of hand sometimes, but I am working on it.


8. My cheesiness
    I'm kind of cross between swiss and cheddar. Cheesy music, cheesy movies, getting choked up over random things, that's me.


9. My forgetfulness
    if I don't write it on my list, I will forget it.


10. My list making
      see #9. 


11. When I say I will be ready in 5 minutes, and I am not.
       probably related to #5 and #6.  My sense of time is not great...


12. The fact that I don't like to watch football
       he has tried to teach my about the game, I have tried to find a team to cheer for, but I just can't get into it.


13. My taste in music
     I like Colbie Caillat.  He likes Nirvana.


14. The fact that I something feel claustrophobic when we snuggle.
       sometimes I am fine with him draping his legs over me while we watch TV, sometimes I have to throw his legs off me in a panic 


15. My overwhelming love for him
     ok, not a quirk, but it is true, for 15 year through our ups and down I have never stopped loving him.


Thanks, babe, for loving me, quirks and all,  for the past 15 years!

The Best Christmas Eve Ever

Today as the girls and I were making Christmas cookies to leave for Santa tonight, I started thinking about my favorite Christmas Eve memory.

One Christmas, I think it was the year that I had a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a newborn, I ran out of time to make Christmas cookies for Santa.  I was feeling frustrated and upset that I had not succeeded in carrying out an important Christmas tradition.  Rand, my wonderful husband, came to the rescue.  He suggested that we leave Dr. Pepper and chips for Santa. The girls thought this was a great idea.  And the next morning, we found a note from Santa thanking us for the pop and chips and telling us that it was nice to get something beside cookies. What started out as a disaster in my postpartum mind became a favorite Christmas memory.

              

Smooth Sailing

This picture has nothing to do with this post, but I found it on my camera and thought it was funny. Oh and by the way, we love Singapore Math.  My oldest is just not a fan of math in general.

In fact, this post is about how smoothly everything has been going in our homeschooling lately. Yes, my oldest is still not a fan of math, but truly things are going SO well. (Please don't let this post jinx it!) I mean it.  It just feels like I after finally figured out this homeschooling thing. And it has only taken me 7 1/2 years...

I haven't been posting much about homeschooling lately and I think that is because everything is just kind of chugging along.  Nothing overly exciting is happening.  I am not stressing out over curriculum or deficiencies in my girls' learning.  I don't have anything new to report.  We are just happily using what we have found works in our homeschool; Writing Strands, Singapore Math , First Language Lessons , Growing with Grammar, Story of the World , English from the Roots Up , Real Science 4 Kids , Live Mocha, Individual spelling lists, reading good books...

My girls have their daily lists and come to me when they have questions. I spend about an hour and a half every morning fielding questions.  With 3, it seems like someone always needs help, but it is manageable.  Then I actively teach and lead discussions for another hour and a half. Usually the girls have some work to finish up after lunch and then I have my afternoons to do household stuff while the girls play with the neighborhood kids.

So.. If you are a new homeschooler or thinking about homeschooling, you just need to stick it out for 7 years and it will be great.

Just a typical day in our homeschool. For some reason my middle child likes to stand while she works...

Link to my girls' daily lists

The Goose is getting fat...

or maybe that's just me... Must exercise more.... Too much holiday food...

Yes, Christmas time is upon us.

I have been enjoying this holiday season with my sanity pretty much intact.  Or as much as my sanity is ever intact... 

Decorations are up. 

Gift have been bought (Thank you, Amazon!) 

Packages have been mailed. 

Cookies have been baked. 

I still have wrapping to do and more cookies to bake (need to make sure we have some to leave for Santa on Christmas Eve). I gave up Christmas cards last year due to facebook.  Sad, I know, but it freed up some serious time and money in my Christmas season.

one of about 20 pictures found on my camera that my kids took of the Christmas tree

Want to know a secret? I let my kids set up and decorate the tree all by themselves AND... I didn't even go back and move the ornaments around when they were done.

Truly it has been a very relaxing Christmas season this year. Yep, I kept myself sane, but I am not sure what has happened to my hair...

OK, I do know. Arwen gave me Cindy Lou Who hair the other day while we were learning about DNA.  It made it hard to concentrated, but we had a good time laughing!

Merry Christmas

Ok, so maybe homemade laundry soap doesn't work

'member when I made homemade laundry soap and I was skeptical at first, but then excited when it worked. Well...

I am not sure it works.

First, I made a batch and forgot to add Oxy Clean.  I started to notice that my clothes were looking dingy and then I remember that I read that that would happen if you didn't use Oxy Clean.

Now, Rand and I are noticing that our T-shirts are starting to smell really rank, even right after they are washed.  OK, yes, we live in Hawaii and stuff gets musty easily, but clearly the homemade stuff is not getting the stink out.  They seem to be getting worse and worse.  I think it is time to buy a big box of Tide!!!

*I just remembered that the first couple of batches I used washing soda, but then I ran out and it is really difficult to find in Hawaii, so I started using baking soda.  I just read that washing soda is stronger.  Hum, maybe I won't give up completely.

I also tried homemade dishwasher soap and all purpose cleaner.

Homemade Dishwasher Soap
This took a bit of experimenting.  The basic recipe is

1 cup of borax
1 cup of baking soda

use 1 teaspoon in each soap container

easy peasy, right?  Well, this got the dishes clean, but left a residue.  I tried adding salt.  I added a squirt of dish soap.  I tried vinegar in the jet dry spot (which kind of worked, but splashed everywhere).  I read that citric acid works well, but I didn't feel like running all over trying to find it and I couldn't get it on Amazon with free shipping. Finally, I just added a cup of Cascade to the recipe and it works great.  And let's be honest, I am doing this to save money more than to save the environment.  Sorry, Mother Earth, love ya, but a girl's gotta save a dime where she can. So really what I am doing is extending the life of the store bought stuff with cheaper stuff.

Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda or washing soda
• 2 teaspoons borax
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid soap or detergent
• 2 cups hot water

Combine all the ingredients and the water into a spray bottle. Shake well. The washing soda or baking soda makes this formula a great grease cutter.

So far no problems with this one and is really is great for cleaning up greasy messes.  But not greasy faces, as my daughter Arwen suggested when she was reading over my shoulder and I tried to explain to her what a grease cutter was.