Princess Perky's Page

We are out of bread..we are out of a lot of things (husband still not supposed to drive), but bread being the big end of world item (at the moment)

So today I wake up dreading figuring out lunch and snack with no bread (it is a fall back, when done with what I cook you can have bread if you are still hungry, and one or the other of my two older kids is always still hungry)

Then for lunch I contemplated the lack of leftovers.....what on earth was I going to cook? I came up with eggs, GMC read about poached eggs and wanted to know what they tasted like, so I hunted up directions and made some, now eggs for my husband belong with bread...so I thought he would have to suffer...until I remembered, bread is made from flour, which I have!

Well real bread would take to long for lunchtime (that was fast approaching) but biscuits, which I make rather well and quite frequently were simple quick and easy (5,4,3,2,1 recipe).

Tonight for bedtime snack there will be plenty of leftover biscuits to drown in strawberry juice (after thawing the berries there is always lots of juice, son loves strawberry, daughter loves blueberry, youngest loves either)

Why oh why does it take such an effort for me to come up with something out of the norm? Considering how much flour is int he house, and how often I tend to bake you would assume making bread to be the first thought when I run out, but nope, bread is store bought (I am good at biscuits, not bread)so I think buy buy buy when we run out...

Anyone who cares may know I have really (really) really (no really) long hair.

It was down past my knees....I decided the other day to get it cut, asked a friend for a ride so that I didn't have three kids around for the event, and today we went.

They cut off almost 2 feet.

It is now only down to the top of my pants and it is soooooooooo short to me!

Instantly my head felt lighter and the first time I ran my fingers through it I couldn't get over how little of it there was.

I came home and did the test, I knelt to put my youngest pants on...no hair on the floor

I stooped to pick up a toy..no hair on the floor. Still too long to do any real leaning but that is what the bun is for.

On a financial note..it was 40% off because I donated my hair to locks of love, and the place took care of the forms and mailing and all that.

Though I don't think I will be back anytime soon....least not till another 10 inches or so grows.

1.You have to be rich to afford one parent to stay home. Actually no, we all need enough for food and shelter, then we spend what is left on other things….in our case with careful planning there is enough to go on trips to DC and museums and science centers, and more but I would be home regardless, so long as there is food on the table and shelter, I stay home, the rest is further down the priority list. If you are putting anything above staying home besides food and shelter, than just be honest, it isn’t that you can’t afford it, it is that you choose other things first.

2.The wife has to stay unless you are nursing (and even then you would pump to leave the kid at daycare, just pump to leave them with Dad) There is no particular reason for mom to stay over dad, that is purely a personality issue. Pick the one most likely to play all day. (As opposed to cleaner or teacher see next myth) (though you also need to make sure the one working has a salary that covers the food and shelter)

3. All you do is clean and teach Are you kidding that’s what the kids are for! What do you think they do while I type up silly lists! (Actually they nap, oldest is goofing off, quietly) However, if you do not like talking to kids for significant stretches of time, if you do not enjoy watching a child discover reading, or flowers, or bugs, or trees, if you cannot stand the thought of changing diapers and reviewing proper teeth brushing techniques yet again, if hearing a person chew with their mouth gaping open after being told to close it for the millionth time makes you lose your lunch (anybody got a cure for adult relatives with this problem?), if hearing a story about a giant truck for the tenth time makes your blood boil, and the thousand ‘kids’ who eat a googolplex eggs, etc. then kids might not be in your best future whether you stay home or not. If you do chose to stay, and you are about to smash something…. send them off to play with something and go take a break, no one said it was even good for kids to be interacted with 24/7…they need time alone to process. Not only naps, but also time to play while adults err, clean (Or maybe something more interesting, but common, cleaning does need to be done sometime)

4. Children need other children unless you live on a remote location with only you your spouse and kid, they will get other interactions, many much more useful than a room full of same age kids. No offense intended to the 3 year olds in the world, but well lets face it, they are in the minority…most of the people in the world are over 3, and most adults spend their time with older people, so knowing how to get along with a 3 year is a rather limited skill that my 3 year old doesn’t have to learn. (Her big bro never did, she on the other hand is very social) I would like to suggest the opposite of this is true, children need to spend more time with a variety of people of all ages, and less with their age-mate peers.

5.you will all get sick at the same time while I have not done nor seen a fancy medical study, I have heard from many stay home families and all out the house families….if one kid gets sick they all do, in or out of the house, the common cold is common for a reason. Misc, genetic traits and hand washing habits can help, but the short version is, unless you quarantine a kid you all are going to get it (and who wants to quarantine a kid with the sniffles…. poor bored kid)

6. One parent home equals always home, how boring yes it certainly would be! Fortunately this myth is easily disproved, pick up a copy of available classes at a large library (nature center, science center, museum, whatever), check out how many are during normal ‘working hours’ who do you think goes to them? Yep, houseparents. We are not always home, and the degree of home or out is totally up to the individual parenting style/personality.

7.And I am saving the best for last home kids are healthier/sicker, watch more/less tv, get sick more/less, smarter/slower, clingier/more independent, more mental health issues/less…etc truthfully, the studies I have seen for either side of any of the above(and you can find an expert or two million on each side, for or against) showed mostly the same….like the drink being oh so proud of 56%…really home or away it is still up to the adults in charge, whether that is mostly mom or dad, or well chosen care givers (or not so well chosen) kids are a product of their interactions (and lack therof) Until the age of ‘formal education’ home or away, kids statistically average about the same. (And if you want to talk myths of home education, well that is a whole “nother kettle o’ fish”, but in short

statistically we win)

* a googgolplex is a one followed by a googol zeros, in short a really big number, and a delight to small boys. and no firefox doesn't recognize it.

So since he is working from home he will be paid (course the whole delay in paperwork is a bit irritating....hope that gets smoothed out soon)

But since he didn't take at least 7 days off (consecutive) the day off for surgery wont be paid for....one day off wont kill us, but it is irritating to know that because he is back to work quickly he wont be paid.....punishment for trying to get back in the game fast....you would think the punishment would be reversed...punishing those dragging it out.

All I want is unsweetened dried cranberries to eat...hopefully for less than 10$ a pound..why is it so much cheaper to sweeten them?

Apparently due to a paperwork error, again he will not be paid.

Which means right before the lowered pay due to time off for recovery (doing fine, bit sore, bit tired...and bored) there will be a delay ion cash flow. I am so glad I didn't pay extra on the car, and that I don't drive (can't go spend money anyway)

My youngest loves to color (scribble) and feels like a big kid when he joins his brothers and sisters in 'worksheets'. While he is far to young to really grasp any lesson, he does like to point to what he colored and tell you what it is.

I have hunted up dogs, and horses, and all sorts of animals.

We traced hands and feet, and made a face. (complete with baby blue eyes)

Today after going thru all the animals, I thought I would hunt up a couple of his favorite letters (D, his big bros favorite, E his sisters favorite, and Q...no idea why)

After a futile search turning up only pages with words (far to advanced) or animals sortof shaped like a letter (nice for older kids, not for him) I thought, hey all I want is a letter I can make that on word...then I remembered I did that already, long ago for my daughter and put it all on pdf and put it online to share....duh!

In the hunt to find things online, I often forget what work I already did.

My husbands surgery is today, he will not be back to work for at least a week...which means no pay.

Which you would think I would have planned for....

But nope, didn't consider it till yesterday.

Fortunately I was about to pay extra on the car when I thought of it.

And didn't, so that payment is still in the account to cover bills. Plus he will get one more pay before the mortgage is due.

I wonder if workman's comp will pay him eventually or if it is a total loss?

I found the test a bit longer than 5 minutes, but I had to read the directions first...if you take this test with your kids, read the directions then call them over!

I also found the skills to test a bit higher than my expectations, but I understand they are based on No Child Left Behind standards (we'll leave the commentary on that to another day)

ReadingKey

On this page is lots of 'why you need us' and a link to a test that will ask for a name and approximate grade level (though I do not know why since you then have to take a pretest before it will send you to the actual grade test...)

Might be a direct link to the test.

reading test

The first 9 weeks of each grade are free to download and print, as well as some of the extras.

printable links

Scroll down for each grade (including kindergarten level) look for clues like 'worksheets' to find the free part.

So that check he didn't get, it was rolled into the next week...and since the check was for more, the taxes taken out were more! leaving us with less than 2 weeks normal pay....


Not cool...not going to break us, but one more reminder of how annoying the government is...

Last night as we were tidying up the living room I asked my son to pick up a few things, with his nose in a book, he didn't pay any attention.

He dad told him he was a reading addict like his momma (Ok so a few minutes earlier with my nose in a book I might have ignored someone....like Daddy)

I realized this morning as I asked GMC to wind up the vacuum cleaner cord. He took the book he was reading with him, placed it on the floor, open, beside the vacuum, and continued to read while winding up the cord!



I think we may have a problem...the younger two are a bit book obsessed as well.

A great way for children to learn about money is to use it. Most people have thought of setting up a home 'store' with toys or fake food for sale, and then you have to make price tags, and store the 'stuff'.

I was always lazy, I use a shape puzzle that we have around for our youngest. Pricing is easy, each shape costs 1 cent per side (a lesson in shapes and money) For my older son we used 10cents per side (lesson in equality)

I usually 'shortchange' my kids in pennies (or dimes for older) that way they have to earn more, or trade in dimes for them. (or if ready, work on making change)

After todays lesson, I talked more about how grownups have to budget. I pointed out that we had to pay for the house (pentagon, almost house shaped) and we had to pay for the car (trapezoid) and we needed food (square, 4 food groups) and some all around house bills (circle), and phone (half circle, it looks kinda like a phone). Then we were almost out of money, we could either pay for a trip to the science center (rectangle, medium bill) or eating out (oval, small bill) or take a vacation to see family up north (hexagon, big bill)

He noticed we couldn't do all of them, but if we skipped the science center and eating out we could go on vacation....

Pretty nifty the mileage you can get out of one wooden puzzle!

lable TV sets

In an article mentioning that FCC is requiring retailers to label TV sets, I came across the why...

....without a special converter box -- these TVs will not receive signals through antennas once broadcasters switch to the digital format.

I have a feeling that our set a hand me down from Gma isn't digital (in fact I think it is from the 80's..did they even know about digital then?

Since we have no cable, we only use the rabbit ears, and I really don't think those ears from the 70s accept digital signals...we wont have TV after 2009...

Considering we have watched 2 hours of TV the last 3 weeks (lost and the time before/ right after lost) I don't think I will mind much...not that I don't want a fancy flat screen digital whatever thing. (mostly cause flat screen should be up on the wall, taking up less space!) Just that I would rather own my house and car than a TV....

Besides the TV works fine for video...which is what the kids managed 2 hours of this month.

Sorry bout the multiple postings, but I had the thoughts today..didn't want to trust my memory to wait.

Last night we played a game with the kids, "Pin the hat on bob" which is essentially 'pin the tail on the donkey' only with a dude and a hat, not a tail and an a... err donkey.

The kids had a blast! So did Daddy, it was adorable! But the game came out of a devotions book, and was supposed to help them see how they needed rules, or guidance to succeed...and well none of them really needed help, so I was thinking the lesson failed. (though it was fun!)


GMC

Then today I thought about how they managed without help. My husband did a great job of showing us. He stumbled around on his knees (to avoid stepping on small fry) and then felt his way to a wall, he knows our house so he knew where to go from there, but if he wasn't in a house he knew, he wouldn't have had much help from that wall.



UE

I thought about how we need to spend more time in 'God's house' not necessarily church, but in prayer, devotion, study, bible reading, etc, and living life the way God wants us to. Maybe if we know Gods house really well, then when we bump into a wall we can find our way to our goal.


JC

You know I was looking at all there 'where I have traveled posts' and thinking I haven't been anywhere, but you know if you add in the states we drive thru, and get a map of just Europe rather than the whole world, It doesn't look to bad! Though still nothing compared to a dedicated traveler.

But I imagine if my son continues in his mission to go 'everywhere in the world' the map will look very red by the time he moves out and his map might just be 100% red!

US:


Europe:

I have had questions (from others and myself) regarding why we leave such a high balance in the checking account, it could be earning interest, or at least paying down the car/house.

But this past week we were reminded just why we have one (well two, one for each checking account)

No pay last Friday (we get paid weekly now).....right before the mortgage and half the other bills came out! and our bills are almost all auto deducted, or on an auto pay plan. Not much to do to stop them going out, and no way I wanted to pay any late fees. So in steps the cushion (The cushion is part of our EF. Not fully funded but enough for this, and always sitting in the checking account.)

Not that I like missing a pay check (it will come this week, paperwork foul up) but if you have to miss one, miss it with money available to cover the bills!

I got smart, I took the pictures today and I am posting them today, not taking any chances of them disappearing to the black abyss of my husbands hard drive.

Unfortunately no great pictures of the kids, but I have sunflower shoots, and a worm bin.

The kids read about a 'sunflower secret hideout' and they wanted us to plant one, I am not sure it will live but I let them try, we even bought good dirt for it....


The rocks are to keep the dirt from washing down, my backyard is mostly a hill.

You know there is an amazing amount of beauty in one tiny shoot...


And here is a whole row of them, some a bit to close, which is what happens when you let a 1 year old help you plant!


This is it folks, not fancy, not pretty...and from what I read, might not make it. I have plans of moving it to a less wet spot, hope it helps.



On a financial note.....all the dirt and seeds came in under budget last month. mostly cause the worms and bin were free .

I don't have all of them, or prolly even enough to keep this batch alive, but I found a cool kid friendly site with all sorts of information about worms and worm binds

worm fun

Along with cool games there is the 'how to'

how to

Course it suggests screens to keep the worms in...which we don't have...and I so am not letting them in the house!

And there is a cool part by part picto-screen-thing, with all sorts of technical words...clitellum

I have high hopes the screens are not that necessary....

We have worms...in a bin in the back yard..they are supposed to eat garbage....food waste and such...

I was on my way to the store to buy a bin and then call some contacts to get worms, when my contact said she had a bin and the worms and all ready for me, just swing on by and get it.

very cool since my husband did not want to spend the money on worms.

I still have to call my wonderful friend and ask her what on earth I am supposed to do with them now that I have them.....

First the guilty confession ... I Sim, as in I play the Sims 2 I know it isn't even a game, and it certainly isn't useful, and yeah it wastes electricity, not to mention brain cells, but I am here to say, I have learned some things.

1. Once you have had fun there is no point to watching more TV so fill up and then move on.....and to fill up that fun in the shortest amount of time, you MUST have the same giant flat panel, M4E, Low Mess screen that all your neighbors have.

2. There is no point to going to school, job useful skills are only learned outside of school.... though all children must go to school, just so they and their parents, can get the 'jumps' each day after they bring home the coveted A+....then they can go about learning to cook, and/or other job useful skills.

3. Speaking of those skills, the better cook you are the longer the meal will last, so no meat box helper I guess.....though if you want to learn to cook (or anything else) it is faster to read a book than to actually practice cooking......and more fun to make chocolate (which helps the lobster thermador somehow.)

4. Starting kids younger is better, potty train your toddlers, then point them to educational blocks, xylophones, and rabbit heads...yeah, apparently banging that rabbit head is very good for future politicians, and important to do in toddler hood as aside from golfing there is no other way for a child to improve Charisma.

5. And when your teens are about ready to become adults ship them off to college, not to learn anything, just to buy time where life is cheap to work on those skills, or not.....college doesn't teach you anything, it is how you spend your free time that does.

6. A more expensive fridge may not hold better food, but it does make the room look cooler......and amazingly no matter what you buy you can make turkey or mac n cheese from it!

7. Once you reach your life's ambition, you are permanently happy .....Now if I could only find my and my families life ambition panel so I knew what it was......

8. Speaking of that ambition, half the people are getting married or having kids to appease their parents ambitions not their own......fortunately having MIL move in to take care of the rug rats is easy and nets you big ole chunk of change when they do! (and so long as you keep em busy no nagging, mostly)

(wrote this before I read the new contest..., so I came back and changed the title, though it's not very useful info here, it is the best I will get to, sorry)

I took lots, I took some3 good ones, I would love to share, I even sat down now to put them online for you...and they are gone...I have a card but no pictures...Someone emptied the card and didn't give me the pictures....

And the only other adult in the house would be...my wonderful picture stealing husband....

So maybe another day.

I read Ferns 365 day goal, and I while I have no real ability with a camera to improve, I do love pictures of my kids, and lately I have to been taking anywhere near enough, so I decided to aim for one each kid at least a week.

I am hoping to take some good ones that I can post as well as ones for family.

And being digital the whole project is free, I love that in a hobby

I had no idea it was that hard to find a place the gives clothes to girls!!!

I finally got smart and stopped looking at charities, and started looking for orphanages, and again I had no idea how hard it could be to find an orphanage!!!!

There must be a secret that I just don't know.

I finally found one, and I called and asked if we could donate specifically for clothes, and got the names of two girls and an address to send the money to.

As soon as I got off the phone I told JC and she was very happy (course she doesn't have to hunt up a checkbook address an envelope and all the other paperwork!) Then I mentioned to my son he still had money leftover and he asked if he could find a boy to give it to. So here we are having to call back to get boys names and find out if I needed to send two checks or not.

I tell you it is hard to give stuff away!

I think I want the kids to draw a picture or two to go with it and I hope this adorable desire to share grows with them.

My husband was offered a chance at a free class through work, well through some people who work in the same building anyway.

He at first declined because three very late nights a week is a lot to be away from family, and one of those nights is GMC's Cub scout night.

Then he went to a meeting with his bosses boss, regarding some 'restructuring'. Now in general we worry a little when this happens but mainly rely on the fact that all the nearby managers like him (and often fight over who gets him for work) so even if one account goes away, there will be another.

This time there are no nearby managers of other accounts, he is currently in a separate building for the client, not for his company. Which means nearby managers might like him but it is more than a simple transfer of files for him to switch jobs. So this time, we felt he should
A. get in good with the company offering the class, and
B. get a piece of paper or two saying what he can do.

He has had other offers of free classes, but he never wanted to spend weeks reviewing what he knew, this one is on cisco (sp?) servers stuff, and he knows a lot but not all, he needs enough info to not be bored (we hope).

The catch is he has to drive (back to work, he is normally home for 2.5 hours before the class starts) and he is missing for a lot of time. Plus I am not sure if the test is free or not, if not we can use some money that we would be sending to the car for it.

Google em.....

Specifically if you want worksheets for a kid search for the level and type.

eg. free worksheets kindergarten math

If you are not sure, pick a level and then google it, read the sheets for that level then decide if you need to go up or down.

Many sites have sheets designed for beginning year students so they will be a bit easy if you have been doing level 2 math for months. Bump up to level 3 as needed.

eg. free worksheets grade three science

This actually works for music as well though the levels are most aimed at older students.

eg. free music worksheets

If you want a coloring page, use the image search. then you can preview what you are printing without going to multiple pages.

eg. free printable coloring animals

Change the subject to fit your needs, holiday, letters, shapes, etc.

One of the best things about searching is that in a month the top sites may change and you get a whole new batch of results.

If you don't get new results, try changing the order of words in your search option.

Practice does help, after a short time you will know which sites offer a free worksheet just to get listed but want money for most, or the sites that have lousy printable coloring.

(or you could go to

dimeed.com and find a whole pile of sites that I have used....found by googling)

I am a teacher, so my skills are not getting rusty sitting here at home! In fact my skills are being honed as each child calls for different teaching methods, and my google search skills are getting awesome as I hunt up free rescources!

See one more financial reason to home school . For non teachers I bet you use many skills teaching that you would in the workforce ...heh and if I expand on that, I have a 'how to topic'.....

And the other reason, isn't very financial, sorry. It came to me from my pastor as he was holding a class to help parents decide when communion should begin for their own children and how to teach just what it is (not that he or anyone I know had all the answers about that amazing gift) If you take out the 'faith like' words, and change them to education words you have why we home school, we live a life of learning, not outsourcing solely to professionals, though we do seek them out when needed)

I got permission to quote my Pastor here, though I can't recall his exact wording in class, so he kindly rewrote it:

For the last 50 years or so, we have been outsourcing large portions of our lives to “the professionals.” We have taken responsibility and expectation away parents and grandparents and put it in the hands of someone else. Scholastic tutors, tax preparers, oil change shops, coaches, pre-schools, after-school care programs, etc. Even matters of faith have, over time, become things that are handled by “the professionals” at the local church. Need to hear about Jesus? Go and listen to the pastor or Sunday School teacher (but not mom or dad). Want to know what “we” believe? Ask your Confirmation teacher or, again, the pastor (but not your parents or grandparents) and they’ll fill you in.
Our congregation and many others are working to swing the pendulum back the other direction, where families and congregations share a partnership that brings faith home where it can grow amongst the most important relationships in our life. Grace, love, compassion, faithfulness are all learned about and preached about on Sundays, but if they are not live about throughout the week, we’re all heading down a dead end street. Churches can and should empower parents to be faithful parents, passing along the faith to the next generations in the context of life. You shouldn’t have to step outside of your normal life to have a ‘faith experience.’ We know that when faith is a part of life within the home and family, it becomes a deeper and richer thing.

If you want faithful children, you have to have faithful adults to guide them. Since parents don’t have ‘the skills’ or the confidence to do ‘church stuff’ at home, we need to give them both permission and the education to do so well and faithfully. Faith in God is a matter of relationship – what better place to strengthen that faith than within the relationships of the family, supported and enriched by the relationships we share as the family of God?

I don't want to take away from my Pastors original message, I do believe that a strong faith is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some church experts when needed) but I ALSO believe a strong life of education is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some professional support as needed).

I really don't know how he did it, but I know he spent his ebay sales money on some fancy tools and now I have my date! the drive is shot though so no laptop, but I can suffer on this..so long as my husband and I never want a computer at the same time...which he has been amazingly patient and working on his other hobby (miniatures) while I play at night...I really have the greatest husband on the planet

Now to stop procrastinating and 'merge' the new checkbook and old....

When I get around to buying I usually want it right now, and Ebay, first you have to wait to see if you won (did not win viewmaster reels for GMC .) Then you have to wait for it to ship (still waiting for Veggie tales book .)

I can handle the wait for shipping most times, but the wait and fail to win, I hate!

Now we are scouring the pages, waiting for some non movie reels and it is not going well. I so wanted that set with the carry case for reels!

But on a plus note we are getting a shirt from ebay for GMC dressy and white, I really prefer my boys to own one, for more formal occassions.

Every year we try to look for something little for our nieces, but if we miss no big, they are a bit old for the toys that abound.

This year we needed to look for egg hunt stuffers and we hit the jackpot.

For roughly $15 we got tons of eggs, and cool mini mazes (25cents for 6), some stickers, bendy toys (18cents each), erasers(25cents for 6), stamps (25cents for 6). Gigantically full bag of stuff!

Not quite enough for a whole church hunt, but some of the kids are allowed candy, and will want it, so we only got some. and we are pputting a portion of it to the family egg hunt. (gma's)

We also found some cool things for us, a silver and gold egg . I am a kid when it comes to some things, I think they are way cool eggs.

The only thing I would like to do without is the garbage, there was a gigantic bag of garbage from all the wrapping 6 to a pack and we got 10 packs...

We also found a gift for my BIL and my daughter, and a couple stocking stuffers. Still under budget for Misc. for the month.

I made that old checkbook on excell, adn the calendar and the budget, so why don't I do it again (because I am lazy .)

Ahem, I stopped being lazy!...ok fine, actually I decided to hunt up the checkbook that I emailed to my husband which had at least the basic information, obviously missing some info for the checkbook (like two months worth) but at least the lists of bills, and formulas were there.

So I pulled it up, pulled some bank info for up to date amounts, and checked off my list of bills paid ect.

Turns out all the bills are paid for April, only waiting on two more trips to the grocery store.

And another tidbit of information apparently the no OT checks are lower than we thought, which means some revamping of the budget is in order .

On the plus side I know how much money we can spend when we do finally make it to the store.

Oh and after my work today, I emailed the book back to my husband..just so we have it