Princess Perky's Page

This is from a friend, so I am not the originator(though I doubt she will mind as I think she found it in tightwade gazette? but I could be wrong)

here you go (my notes in parentheses):
1) Heat the oven to 350.
2) Spray 2 (9x13) pans with Pam. (I used oil)
3) In a large bowl, mix the following dry ingredients:

10 C whole oats (NOT quick -but quick works just soft IMO)
dash of salt
freshly grated nutmeg(enough)
cinnamon(enough - maybe 1 t?)

I also include almonds and walnuts. You can add in whatever's around and what your family enjoys. For example, I don't add chocolate chips because we eat this for breakfast.

4) In a pot on the stove over medium-high heat, heat the following:

2/3 C honey (or other sweatner)
2/3 C oil (NOT olive oil - I use regular canola oil)
1 1/2 C brown sugar

5) Stir together to combine then heat over medium heat until just beginning to boil. Don't stir this too much while it's heating. Then, stir really well and add to the dry ingredients.

IMPORTANT: STIR WELL. Really well. This might take more than 5 seconds. ) You want to make sure that the oatmeal is no longer dry or your final product will be less than wonderful.

5) Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 - 12 minutes or until it's a nice golden brown color.

6) Put the granola back in the original bowl and add raisins (enough)

IMPORTANT: STIR WELL. As it cools, this stuff gets sticky! You want to stir it enough during the first 30 minutes after baking so that it cools evenly and not in huge clumps. If you don't do this step, you'll regret it later! ) (Yep, one big clump in the bowl right now, but still good when you chip it off)

This is actually a double batch, so I halved it for playing.

I made two batches, one with whole oats the way it says to, and one with quick oats, cause that's what I had.

I like the quick ones better, the end result was softer, and since I am used to soft chewy granola bars, I think I vote soft.

I tried with honey and with half molasses, I like the half molasses better too.

And contrary to the recipe, I used craisins. (dried cranberries)

Friend of mine said she tried with some sort of brown rice syrup, sounded odd, but I bet it was interesting.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to make it more of a bar less of a crumbly mess so we gan eat it on the go more.

I really didn't know how hard it would be to find curtains, I thought if I was willing to spend some money I would find nice ones easy and move on.

Unfortunately what I am finding costs 150 or more and isn't quite right!

So still looking.

I did however get a desk, once I get this living room wall done I will take a picture, it is all coordinated and I am being very strict about putting things in it. though it is slow going, I hope to have it all done by Easter.

EL doesn't like naps, in fact lately she doesn't like sleep period. SO she is screaming at me not awake enough to go play, but not willing to settle down, and I can't think straight, I know there was work to be done on the computer, I just don't know what it was....

I said I didn't want to be frugal with this tax return (which BTW we keep as small as possible by claiming like 20 dependents or a bunch anyway, but overtime is taxed at a much higher rate, and he works a LOT of overtime)

OK so back to how irresponsible I am being.

1. bought a new entertainment system, IKEA generic, not top of the line, but affordable black and simple, all qualities I like.

2. bought new hats for everyone in the family. I always wanted a new hat and gloves and easter dress every easter as a kid, but never got them (why pay for something you will only wear for an hour a year?) Well this year I told JC I would buy her one if she wanted (just the hat), and happened to see a perfect one for EL, and one for me (though much less girly, cowboy with green beads) AND UE and GMC wanted one, though not girly of course. So we found an adorable armyish hat for GMC, and UE looks absolutely honestly AMAZINGLY adorable in a black fedora (I think it is a fedora anyway) so I spent good money on hats when we all have perfectly good if not so cute hats at home...but man were they ever cute in their hats on the way home!

3. organizer boxes, in pretty colors. Normally I think of function when it comes to organizing, and an old shoe box is just as good as a storebought box and hurts less when it busts..but this time I wanted matching, and a dozen of them. So I bought them.

4. Ate out twice in two days!!!! (all that stuff had to be shopped for, and unfortunately took two days.) yes I spent two days and not much to show for it, hard to find something worth paying for.

5. I tried and failed to buy new curtains/blinds for the kitchen and my sons room, I will keep looking.

6. chocolate, a new dark chocolate to try (not bad) some chocolate peanutbutter fudge eggs (easter bad habit) and the shrimp GMC asked for.

I am now about 2/3 of the way through the designated waste fund of the return, and I plan on buying a desk to match the entertainments system, plus possibly a few more boxes to organize, the curtains, and then I will be done and go back to not spending much of anything for months.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

cream 1/2 cup butter
slowly mix in 2/3 cup maple sugar
beat in 2 eggs

mix together:
2and2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

combine wet and dry

roll into balls roll in raw sugar (I use regular) flatten with bottom of sugared glass

bake on stone 8 minutes

You can roll them in cinnamon and sugar if you want, tends to make it a kindof spicy cookie. Not to sweet,but very good IMO.

They had plenty of other deserts so mine wasn't needed or used at all.

I hate baking when folk don't appreciate it.

I busted my hand so I will post the recipe later

Just remembered 20 minutes ago I was supposed to bake desert for tonight!

So I made some mini maple cakes, and now G is scooping them, J is rolling them, I am trying to remember what else I had to do on the computer

The parents and I had our first planning meeting, and at first glance, we are very different.

I am very driven about the three Rs, but beyond that I am very much an unschooler.

Not that I don't teach, just than in general I am not to picky what we are learning so long as we are.

So what if a kid is interested in Abraham Lincoln at 5, I do not plan on repeating or making him wait til 6 just because the 'plan' says 6 year olds have to study him..it is fine if they do, but fine if they don't.

And if they don't study him till 8 or 9. it is ok I might object if they never do study him though. But then again I might prefer they not to the current glamorized version of him.

Same with sciences, beyond life skills I see no need to insist that kids know how to classify birds or flowers, though I see no reason not to. I see no age requirements on Gods world, why do we impose them on children?

On the other hand I could get some Language and I would love for my kids to learn about nature from someone who knows....

Next week we meet again, I shall see how it goes.

I have heard some good things about Co-ops and have a couple friends that are interested in starting one of the Charlotte Mason variety.

We will have to read up on CM, plus more info on Co-ops, but I am hopeful we can start one in the fall. There are several subjects I hate and would gladly entrust to another. Would be nice to not have to care about if antelope's was a noun or adjective.

"The Antelope's vision was good"

vision is the subject...Was is the verb, Good definitely describes the noun..but Antelope's?

Seriously I have never in my adult life cared, except when checking children's English papers.

(see English is an adjective telling what kind of papers..but is Children's?)

Oh well, off to see if the kids want to hear another chapter of the Island Story.

EL is sick, she was sick on Saturday and still is, I hate colds, and I hate when my baby is sick.

On other notes, we are listening to a history online

island story Very interesting way to cover old history, we are only on chapter 5 now.

I found an online community page maker thing Ning. I am exploring it's use as a cub scout page, would be a simple website to remember, and we could let others update photos so it wouldn't all have to be me. I still am researching it, but I just might use it for the pack, and the girl scout troop. Would be nice to have all that info in one place.

Well our return will be a bit bigger than I expected, and we do have responsible things to do with it, beefing up an EF and such. (no debt aside from the house)

But I don't want to be responsible. I want to waste some money. Well not waste, I want to spend some on things for the house and kids.

I want some canvas type 'boxes' to be slid into shelves, one for library books, one for library Cds and movies. oh and one for baby toys, so I can have them easy to reach, but not so messy looking in the living room.

like these

Then I want to get my kids to the library and other places more often, since I don't drive, I am going to have to get others to do it for me, and for that I need to be able to help with gas at least some of the time.

I also want something new in my kitchen windows, not sure what though. I kindof like this roman shade But not sure I am willing to splurge that much on each window.

Though I did see some that had neat prints silk screened on the shades, that I might pay more for, but not the prints I saw. A cute simple scene. Saw a nice one that was mostly black and gray, with a few flowers in yellow, neat simple, enough color to not be drab, drew attention to the flowers, but not gaudy. Since my kitchen is mostly gray and black it would be pretty cool.

But looking at prices, I find it easier said than done. Ah well we shall see.

I believe libraries to be the greatest invention since, umm well greatest ever.

And to show my love, not only do we make frequent use of ours, we also support them monetarily.

By that I mean we pay plenty of library fines!

Every so often I notice it has been months since we paid a fine, been visiting too often turnover of books going to well. So I try to lose a book or two. Not to long, just long enough to accumulate a fine, or have to buy the book.

Then I can say I have done my civic duty and can go back to returning books more frequently, or renewing them at least.

ETA-this is just a joke, I do not intentionally create fines! I am just absent minded, and it sounds better this way. I do not advocate intentionally forgetting/losing books!

I just learned of a home school co-op that literally right up the street from me, It would be a long walk, but I could prolly do it.

I have to do a bit more research into it, because I am mostly an un-schooler, I like to take things easy and slow and I am not all that worried if my kids skip certain skills.

for example I spoke of cutting awhile back, by oldest has poor skills, I just discovered my daughter (almost 2 years younger) cuts almost as well as I do! I am ok with GMC not doing well, figure if he needs to he will learn better.

I did a bit of research into Charlotte Mason, the program the co-op is based on. Some of the info is interesting, some a bit more than I care to do.

For example copywork, I have terrible handwriting and I recall my mother wanting me to do copywork, I recall copying books, I prefered to read them to copying them.

Anyway, all that effort and I still have lousy handwriting, not to sure it was worth it.

But I thought I could at least see if a little interest could improve my kids. So the other day I set the kids a simple task of copying for 15 minutes just to see how they would do, I told them I didn't care how much they got done, so long as they were working and it was neat. within 2 minutes JC was in tears, carried that on for the rest of the time. GMC on the other hand worked for the whole 15 minutes, and at the end said he wanted to finish copying the section!

I was amazed at the difference, GMC after all is my boy with lousy hand writing while JC has comparable writing (at almost 2 years younger)

Oh well, I learn something new about the kids every day.

Tonight is the first night of our church Lent 'happenings' which is what they call music and classes.

The kids get music class, the adults have options, and all can have dinner for not to terrible of a price (6 adult 3 kid) Much cheaper to do it myself, but then I would have to do it, and eat and be in the car by 5:30, this way I just have to be in the car at 5. And the evening is taken care of.

I figure the extra cost makes up for the free music class, and the kids really seem to enjoy it.

Now if I could get rid of the last 8 boxes of girl scout cookies tonight that would make it all worth while!

Seems we will be getting about double what we expected, which is nice, been planning on an entertainment system for some time, this will be enough to pay for it.

Plus some to the savings, and a bit left over for something splurge-like. Not sure what, but something.

This was a rant by a friend in reply to an email of a friend

I think it is worth sharing so here you have it:

> People are not going to vote for universally-mandated home schooling,

That's a blatant red herring. Unlike the Soviet Union, we didn't collectivize the farms. Does that mean everyone is mandated to grow their own groceries? In reality, only a few percent grow their own groceries; the rest rely upon the market, which (burdened though it may be with taxes, food stamps, and other nonsense) is still a lot more free than a soviet-style collective.

If we stop collectivizing education, that does not mean home schooling will be mandatory; it means that people won't be coerced to pay for or send their children to educational collectives. They'll be perfectly free to teach kids at home, or send them to free-market schools - which will be better and cheaper than the collectives.

Historically, free-market education has worked very well.. One of the key planks of Karl Marx was the collectivization of education. I'm sure he is absolutely thrilled with your support.... His propaganda campaign was so successful that people now forget that free-market alternatives are actually possible.

The Soviets finally abandoned collective farming when they saw how much better free-market alternatives were. I am hoping that our brains haven't been turned into such collective mush that we can't recognize the advantages of liberty.

I really do, not only is it a lousy system that ;lags behind other browsers in all the cool features, it is riddles with easy access for viruses.

I am not a careless person, in general I stick to sites unlikely to harbor ill intent, and when down loading I follow reasonable precautions.

But I still get a virus on occasions. Right now I have a virus trying to convince me to run a virus scan..which when checked allows the virus to download other nasty stuff (just cause it looks a good deal like Microsoft doesn't mean it is) I only have to deal with this virus when I work on IE..which I only have to do for scout work. I would really prefer them to reconfigure their website to accept Firefox. but since I gather the website is volunteer run, I don't really get to complain.

But I am anyway aren't I...

This is the song we will be singing for Girl scout Sunday. I found many choirs singing it on youtube, very nice work, but, not helpful for my family to learn.

For one thing I cannot sing a round! I know most folk make fun of me for it, but it is true, I simply cannot handle singing one thing while others sing something different, but then I really don't sing period. I just sort of change what I am singing to follow someone and if I have lots of someones to choose from, I get confused as to what I am supposed to be doing.

Anyway, found a girl hoping to make a big project out of many different voices, has her own voice doing just one 'track' so we are listening to that, and will do so every day to learn the words.

sing for peace
I also found the words here

Now I have JC singing 'donna nobis pachem' in all sorts of different tunes all over the house. She likes to sing, but cannot carry a tune to save her life. (GMC can do the timing, but his notes are..a little off)

My fingers are all busted up from sewing patches on, though I did find this glue that works well to 'sew' patches for things that don't move much, works on the daisy tunic, but not so well on a back pack.

Tonight GMC gets his Wolf badge so I will have to sew that one on too, I am debating on sewing it to his shirt that is too short in the sleeves, or getting him a new shirt and sewing it along with all the other patches anew.

sure would be easier to make up my mind if he were a bear, Webelos have a different shirt, but as wolf he needs to be in blue for another year and couple months.

I completed the scout newsletter (cub) so now I can move on to one of the thousands of other items on my list.

Tomorrow is our Blue and Gold, I have no doubt I will forget any one of the millions of items that need done, but I am trying to keep things straight with a black book.

It even fits in my pocket.

Speaking of my pocket, I now have a ton of photos of scouts, and I do not look very good in any of them.

Apparently I need to work on how I fill the uniform. Wonder how far down the todo list that will fall.

So while hunting around Hulu (free online tv shows) for something to kill time when L refuses to nap in her bed (I do get nighttime off, but she really hates napping)

I stumbled across

nanny and the professor adorable old school show about a nanny and three children. Oh of course it is old and has the stereotypical nanny stays home while professor works (though he works with plenty of women) and the sound effect for her 'magic' is just silly. but it is sweet.

Happy kids, little troubles, and cute. and at the end of a short show I can go back to working. Though I would rather not. I want to hire a housekeeper to do the cooking and cleaning...

Last year I didn't participate, not because I didn't like the idea, but because my kids are always asleep about 8:30 so the lights are always out.

I could carry the lights out to no TV while I put my youngest to bed, but..what else am I supposed to do? Computer time is the same amount of electricity, playing the Wii as well. I could read, but by candlelight that is rough on the eyes, and if I just go to bed she is likely to stay there all night, which while not terrible, she tends to wake me up with funny noises in the wee hours of the morning if she sleeps with us. Oh and conversations keep her up, so no to that either. Most crafts require both hands, or at least more freedom of one.

So This year I had a revelation..why not move it back an hour or two?

Yeah simple thought, but took me all year to come up with it!

So I wont be joining in the proper hour of 8:30, sorry, but I will be doing my own at 7:30

I thinkg etting ready for bed without alight in the bathroom while you brush teeth, or to read by, would be a good for them to try.

Found a link to

this site with some info and even lesson plans.

Now I have to be honest, I am not a chicken little thinking the sky is falling, in fact I see plenty of evidence it isn't, but I do feel there is no need to pour excess junk into our air, and I feel children should experience life without electricity sometimes, even if only for an hour. So join in, even if only for a little old fashioned fun.

I have mentioned before how most baby 'stuff' is really not needed, and today I happened to read a much better article including safety links about

car seats, strollers, baby baths, cribs, and diapers.


She does take 5 different posts to tell you, but that is because of the important information.

my two cents:
Everyone has their own quirks, habits and desires. So if you want a special pillow just for nursing go for it, I want two computers and at least 2 laptops for two adults, and really GMC needs a computer or laptop of his own... I just don't go telling others they HAVE to have the same number of computers (Do you folk really share computers?) Oh and I do have a crib, and bucket seat, but it stays buckled to the car, not a carrier.


If you want more of a laugh try silly baby contraptions

I wish all new mothers caught up in the gotta have it lists could read these kinds of articles. But the advertisers wouldn't make much money on it.

***Do you know where your highschool diploma is? I do, I just had to copy it to register my son as a homeschooler here. I do not however have a copy for my husband, so I guess he wont be allowed to teach, hope the kids don't need to now anything about physics or chemistry since I certainly don't. (just so you know that was a joke, I never bothered to wait for the govt to tell me when/if I could teach my kids)

***I wonder when folk will say '800K isn't that much'.

wonder what the avg postal worker makes?

***How are you supposed to glue 'pipe cleaners'? they don't stick!

Even though my husband has been willing to use cloth bags on occasion, he still frequently comes home with plastic bags. My least favorite are the ones holding one lonely item..

So while googling something completely different I came across

this site, with instructions to make plarn, or plastic yarn from grocery bags.

With it you can make a pretty valentine bag:


among many other crafts in the blog.

I don't know how easy plarn is to work with, but it would be a cheap way to learn to crochet without having to buy yarn.

Plus on the same sheet is a recycle craft I think I will do with my daughter no crochet needed.



Amazing what you can do with garbage...

So today my son had the age old doubling question in his math book.

There are many ways to word it, from rice bowls to pennies, to gold pieces, but in general everyone should know the answer.

one version
the gist is you can have one penny the first day, then it doubles each day, 2 the second, 4 the third and so on. Or a large flat fee. Which is better?

I know the theory, but I am not a fan of numbers, so I generally let excel do the math.

But today doing the math, "How much will you make on day 30?" was the question so some number crunching was in order (he can do the math himself but I have to check it)

After discovering day 30's amount, he wanted to know what day you would get over 1 billion, so off he went to crunch numbers. Wasn't done with his other work, but it is prolly better to let him do math when he wants, than to force him to do work in any particular order.

here is a one grain rice
doubling with a moral.

On a related note I keep finding that boy reading when he could be working..still rather hard to make him stop reading for little things.

What would the world say if I told EL (7 months old) she had to learn to talk right this minute, no matter how interested she was in walking?

Just had to share what made me laugh Ou Loud today (like for real, not just a smile and type LOL, but honest my kids really want to know what is so funny.)

Venn diagram

If it doesn’t show up well in this picture please go read it on think geek!


floor mat:
Also comes in a shirt form. But in my case you wouldn’t be able to read it around the kid perpetually tucked on the hip so I pick doormat.

Perfect timing for me as we are about to head into a month or two of no company. This Friday will be our last games night for the lent season, We need a break and most folk know when Easter is, so we decided to take time off.

I am hoping that we will build an entertainment wall and replace most of our CD and VHS collection. We want to convert completely to DVD and MP3, which takes up so much less space. Really that is my only reason for wanting to switch.

I would like a vacation, but a maid at home would do the trick just as well really.

Oh I don't like all my kids do, and many times, like this morning I wonder why I even try. But then, really would not being here help? I would still have to come back to the same kids.

I hear a lot about retreats, and weekends away from the kids, and I really just don't get it. Not saying anything against it, I don't get football either, but not planning on a national campaign to ban it.

So given a choice of a weekend away from the house (and away from kids) or one at home...I choose home.

Now if I could get home and kids elsewhere, that would like once or twice. Not to often though, I do like spending time with my kids.

I have too much stuff, so I need to organize, and I found the perfect items to organize my stuff in!

bag of holding Oh I need one of these for my collection of stuff! Scout stuff, (boys and girls) church stuff, kid stuff, baby stuff, a bag of holding would be perfect!


For the massive collection of papers to go in the bag, one needs some organization stapleless stapler


And everyone could use more shelves for that stuff