Getting Dad Involved

So Bret's life is pretty much working and hunting. Some times this summer he put in crazy hours at work. 18 hours some days he would work, come home to eat and sleep, then wake up and do it again. Now it is fall, so he is slowing down on work and focusing on his favorite past time, hunting. He works so hard, I think it is important that he has his time to play also. And sometimes because of this, we don't get to see him much. And when we do see him, the kids are so excited and loud that he gets frustrated. Then the kids start to think that he is always just cranky. It is a cycle we have. He really is a good guy that works tremendously hard for our family.

I think there are so many families like this. The parents work so hard that they are exhausted at the end of the day. They don't have the mental state of mind or the energy to keep up with the kids. Children need so much time from us. It is a part of what keeps them healthy.

This is the third year in a row where we had an opportunity with scouts to help produce an activity where parents and their scouts can get some one-on-one. A time where they can get silly if they want. Where they can have a moment of going down to their  children's level. Does everyone who goes to these activities get that out of it? Probably not. Hopefully some do. Because we all need it.

 

Anyway the program for our Masquerade Dance Party goes like this... There were a series of stations: pumpkin decorating, planting a spider plant, bookmarks to make, a Girl Scout Quiz, Ghost suckers, and dancing on the dance floor. Each girl gets a "passport". Each station has a stamp which each scout/parent pair can stamp the passport with when they have completed the station.




Then after snacks

(the ones I brought were made with loving help from my girls)
and singing Happy Birthday to Girl Scouts (in consideration for Juliette Gordon Low's birthday on October 31), each girl can trade her passport in for a gift (dollar store fun prizes like jewelery makers, fuzzy socks, body tatoos, etc.)

At the end all families and troops can go for group photos.



My amazing family minus the boys of course.

This is some of my fab troop. Just as often as I remember to be a good sport, I do so. The more I remember, the happier their childhood becomes. A quote I heard as of recent, which really reminds me of my goals and how to acheive them...

 

"If you decide how you want your home to be, and then make choices that get you nearer to that, things will get gradually better.
If you don't decide, or if you don't think of it many times a day when you make small choices, and decide how to act and react, then things won't get better.

Not every step will be forward, but if most of them are, then you'll make progress." Sandra Dodd

 

It is a hard one to remember, but well worth it. This is how we change our world, change our world, change our world. This is how we change our world, so early in the morning. (in a singsongy voice)

 

UPDATE: Totally forgot Marley's troop :-)

 

HOW TO: Grow plants for hydroponics PART I

So we will be doing this Brett-Thompson Style. Yes that's right, my auto mechanic is my hydroponics teacher. He swears he grows 9 foot corn stalks. And his sweet peppers are bigger than my head. As if that isn't intriguing enough, he offers to help me set up my own system! That brings me here now.

 

The reason this is part one is because I am blogging as I go along. We aren't "there" quite yet. Come along for the experience. :-) Learn with us.

 

Let's go over some Bret-Thompson basics...

 

We will be growing from seed. Because it is good to see everything from the beginning. We will learn more that way. ALSO fall is NOT the time to purchase tomato and pepper plants... apparently. Who knew...

 

 

Soooooo. Anywho, here are our seeds. First I placed a wet cloth in a ziplock container (a bowl of any sort would work just fine). I placed a few seeds in the wet cloth and closed the sides of the cloth on top of the seeds. Then I stored them on top of the refrigerater. Note: I found that the cloth dried up too often so I draped a plastic bag lightly over the cloth to keep the water from evaporating so soon. Every day, I checked the the cloth. When it began to dry out, I just added more water to the cloth, put the baggy over it again and put it away.

 

A little Botany 101... To germinate (begin to grow a seedling) all a seed needs is water and warm air. Seeds can grow a seedling in the dark and lacking dirt. This is because the seed has everything the plant needs to begin growing. It will not begin the process of photosynthesis right away during germination. (of course we are going to see that the plants don't REALLY need dirt at all, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

 

 

 

 

At first some roots popped out, this was maybe 4-5 days. Then about a week later, when the roots had grown and the plantling was starting to appear, I took them carefully out of the cloth. I placed them in a small yogurt-ish container and covered the roots with a wet napkin, again making sure that the napkin stayed constantly moist. I put a plastic baggy over the napkin when I noticed it started to dry out too often. Right about now, the plant was good to have some light. I put it by the window. Then went off to see Brett.

 

Tools:

We need a Ph and PPU Reader. Ph (how acid or basic something is) and PPM (parts per million, it is essencially a way to see how much food is in the water). Brett was kind enough to let me borrow his until I get my own. They cost about $250.00. 

Brett recommends (and again has let me borrow some for this experiment) MaxiBloom 5-15-14 made by General Hydroponics for the plant food. This was purchased at Worms Way in Hebron KY, cost $29.95 AND it goes a long way. Totally I plan to head over there soon to check out what they have and see how they are doing things. Luckily I have Brett here to show me how to get things started first.

Pargro Quickdrain. It looks like insulation. When you touch it, you should wash your hands. It can cause itching same as insulation. Now mine is already soaking. It should soak 24 hrs before use. I am starting with 1.5" starter plugs (cubes). ( I do have bigger cubes soaking too which will continue to soak in there until it is time to put the small cubes into the bigger sized cubes. More about that later.) I started by filling a bathroom-sized grabage can with 3/4 full with water.

I put in MaxiBloom a pinch at a time until the PPM reads between 600-650 (it didn't take much MaxiBloom to get it there) and Ph should be around 6-6.5. If it is too low you can purchase "UP" from most pool supply stores to balance the Ph.

 

LAST, I need a terrarium. I don't have one, but I do have a small fish bowl and glass lids for my pans. So I fixed one up this way.

 

 

 

 

I took the small Pargo plugs and, using a small skinny pencil, I put a hole in each one big enough to fit the seedling's root. After inserting the seedling I smoothed out the hole so it was closed around the plant. Now I put the plants in my terrarium. They will need to be checked to make sure they stay moist, of course. This is where the terrarium lid comes in of course, keeping the mixture from evaporating out. The terrarium should be by a window. The plants need sunlight now. The plants will grow in here about a month. I will update to show my progress. In the mean time I am soaking sweet pepper seeds and hot pepper seeds, to get them started too. So exciting!!

 

 

 

If you want to learn more about what I am doing for this ongoing project... http://hydroponicandgarden.blogspot.com/



The Lesser of Two Evils

Can I weigh in on the debate for president?

I will try not to make it long. I will try not to insult your choice, I will try not to do all the things over half of my facebook "friends" have done to me, which is to say, post photos, messages, and commentaries of half truths and distorted comments of conversations that were mishandled, misread, and misunderstood for the purpose of making their point of who is better.

First, I would like to say I take a firm stand when voting on what I believe. I don't care about abortion issues in the US. I don't care if you are gay and want to marry another person of your own gender. All this is about God and not the government. Personally, I might have even been happier to just be with my husband and not married throughout or lives. Marriage has been a binder that held us together too many times and it was also what we used against eachother when we wanted to get our way too many times for so many years. I should like to see what would have happened if we didn't have that sticky glue of marriage holding us here. If our choice to stay together would have changed had we not had that sticky paper. What if the only thing holding us together was... us. Well I digress. Back to the topic.

I don't even care about whether or not people are more green. There I said it. Sometimes I throw my paper mail into the garbage because it is closer than the recycle. And let's face it, who are we kidding?? People were greener when they didn't have computers, ipods, ipads, cell phones, and all the other doohickies that charge our electric bills to high heights all night and day. We were greener when mom and grandma had to walk to the grocery store with her foldup cart, because the family only had one car and it was at work with hub. We were more green when our kids walked to the park, instead of being driven to soccer practice, dance lessons, swim practice, and all the other places we think they "must" be. But again, I digress. This, for another day and another blog post. We will get THERE.

For too long I have listened to both sides. (and as I told you, I do have a position). Why too long? Because it seems forever that I have been hearing the half truths of both sides. And any amount of lies is too much. Fact checking the dems from reps has even become a job for liars. Even the FACTS are being swayed toward one side or another. So to all you political facebook friends of mine, all you commentary-ers, you "fact" checkers, how are you helping? If you convince someone to vote for your stupid candidate by telling them half truths and lies, if you distort the numbers so they look like something they are not, and post them on Facebook, are you helping the world? Are you helping ANYONE? Are you making us smarter? Or is reaching your goal just more important than your integrity? Are we such a community of scammers that there is no need for truth, just a need for a bottom line winner?

This is why election year really sucks. It reminds me (at first I put "us" in place of "me". I changed it just in case you don't agree) of how many people think we are stupid. It reminds me of how many people think power is more important than the pain women suffer after abortions and before. It reminds me of how little REP's and DEM's alike really care about the rights of gays. They don't. They don't seem to care at all. They only want to win. They don't care if women are dying from unsafe abortions or if they are dying inside after a safe abortion. They think we think that they care. But they don't. They don't care about whether or not they environemnt is safe. They don't care about whether or not you are safe. Raise taxes, lower taxes, it doesn't matter. You won't see any more if it going to benifit you than you already do. And they think you don't know this. They are taking away our rights and they think you don't notice.

They are signing bills into effect allowing themselves ultimate freedoms and restricting ours. They are allowing children to be tagged and monitored with computer chips. They are making rules that apply to us and not them. They take our money and squander it, then convince people it is the rich's fault we are poor, and if we take more from them, we will all be even. Only the reality is that there will just be more for them to squander. And they think we don't know that they are trying to turn us against eachother. They think we are so into what we believe in that we don't care if it is based on their lies.

And THAT ladies and gentlemen, is the world we live in. The people we chose to protect our rights are leading us to slaughter and they think we don't care. Maybe they are right. And that is my weigh-in. In the words of the fab Dr. Seuss "Sorry to say so but sadly its true.

When we are offensive...

I have had the opportunity to be in a situation to witness one of my children acting in a way that is considered offensive to another person. This was a concept in a theme on my blog not too long ago, so I though I would take a moment to address this new situation here.

One of my children is doing something in a group setting (a group which she really enjoys and loves to be a participant in) that is considered offensive by one of the members of the group. It is a group of younger children. I attend the group as an onlooker, so I have been aware of this thing she is doing,  and reaction it is having. We do not (in our family) consider what she does to be anything out of the ordinary, and we definitely do not find it obscene. But this one person does, because his parent have tought him that it is. So the parent brought it to the attention of the person in charge. She politely asked for the person in charge to recognize it as offensive and not allow it to happen in the group and of course in front of her child.

I should stress again that we do not find this thing offensive. Not in the least. It is something that is commonplace in our lives, and we don't even bat an eye to it. I would go further to say that we all do it from time to time. She is just our dramatic one right now so she is doing it more. She knows that we don't agree with the stance of the parent who believes it is offensive and even maybe sacreligious.

So what to do??

The person in charge brought it to my attention the other day in an email. I really respect this person, and also I should note for the record that I am sure the other parent is not being a problem starter, but just trying to resolve what she sees as an issue in her best way possible. I take no offense from either one of them for the actions they have taken (which is to say just addressing the matter with eachother and me.)

And my child knows it is bothering the other child. He has addressed it to her and she told him that she doesn't believe it is offensive or sinful. She recognizes that said child gives her the "stink eye" when she commits this "atrocity" - if you will.

Again, WHAT TO DO...

What do I teach my children? Things will seem offensive in life. You may chose to be offended, or chose to not be offended and move on. We can be offended by everything or nothing. It is best to live our own lives how we see fit, and understand that not everyone sees fit the same as us. In other words, to each his own. But that is not how everyone sees it. If they are "offended" some people believe the offense should be ended. That is because they believe their way is right and the offense MUST be wrong and therefore stopped. (Yes that was two ands in one sentence. Get over it. lol.) We don't believe or teach that everyone should stop their ways to accomodate us. Except in extreme cases like abuse, bullying, etc.

So again, WHAT TO DO???

So I weighed the options and discussed them with her. Because that seemed what to do. She DOES have choices, after all. She can change her ways for the group because she likes being there and she wants to stay there living in peace with other people. OR she can chose to take a stand and drop out of the group. Both are acceptable options, and both are fine with me.

She chose to stay and try to work on her "offensive behavior" for the class. I could be upset. I could be offended as well. But I am not. So is life. It is good to see we have choices and make the ones that work for us. This is a good opportunity. So we will learn and move on.

A New Kind of Sleepover

Marley has gone to two "sleepovers" to this date. They both looked similar. The girls had a great time. They played and stayed up late, put their pj's on, watched tv, had snacks, then when it was time to go to sleep I get the call. "I will be right over."

So when Marley asked if she could have her friend, J, come over and spend the night, I got on the phone with her mom, who informed me she was having card night at her brother's appartment with family. I told her, why don't I pick J up and she can hang out here until you are done with card night and you can pick her up. Well that was going to be around midnight. It was perfect! The sleepover would end when all good sleepovers end at that age, WHEN IT IS TIME FOR BED.

So J came over and the girls played, which freed me up to help process the meat of the deer my husband had killed the day before. They laid in bed watching tv with snacks. And when it was time to wind down for the "night", there was J's mom, ready for a pickup. We all went back into our bed together like usually snuggly and warm for a good night's rest. No 2 o'clock call and quick still-in-my-slippers pick-up. Just a good night's sleep.

Girl Scouts October

 

Boy oh boy! Here we are again, talking about how busy we have been and how fast the year has gone. I yearn for the days when we can slow down from what is starting to feel like a rat race. It seemed like there wasn't as many crazy days this fall, but still we seem to be constantly busy. I am forgetting things, and overlooking things. Time to slow down. When my own young children are remarking how fast time is going (which is totally supposed to be an older person's perspective) it is time to make a change. But I digress. This is about our Girl Scouts October.

 

It seems like (when not only does it seem like, but it IS like) we have an activity going on every week this month! Check it out. Friday we were in the local high school homecoming parade.

 

Saturday (yesterday) my cadettes had a training and planning meeting for Camp Spookybrook, a Halloween activity put on by CSA's for the younger girls. There is a game and activity building, a "haunted" house, a craft and snack room, face painting and I think they added a haunted trail this year too. The older girls plan it and set it all up. Such a great introduction to being leaders, themselves.

Next weekend, we are camping out for a night of wall climbing, archery, camp fire, and more. The weekend of the 20th, the girls dress up in costumes, dresses, and masks for the bring-an-adult event called "Masquerade Dance Party". The weekend of the 27th my Cadettes get together again to head over to Camp Spookybrook to put their planning ideas to work for the one day event, Camp Spookybrook.

It is like the month that never ends. On top of this Bret's troop meets twice on Thursdays, Brenda and Marley now attend the homeschool troop which meets on the alternate Thursdays to Bret's troop. And Marley's local troop starts this month. **SIGH** (That was a sigh with a crooked smile, btw)

Fall and the Family

 

Here is a great list. Are you someone who wants some new or even old ideas for the autumn time of year? Are you out of ideas that will spark your and your children's creativity at this amazingly beautiful time of year?

This was posted to a group I belong to. A group I haven't been on in quite a while appearantly, given the over 300 messages that I had when I decided to check it out again. So I have been a little busy as of late.

Anyway check it out. There are lots of ideas that you will already have thought of and plenty more that might make you go, "Ah we haven't done that in a while. Let's try it out."

http://parentingsquad.com/fun-fall-activities-for-families