Ideas for my art program... Oil Pastels...

Can you pick an artist for any of these?

 

 

School is starting AGAIN???

Well summer still holds on to a few more weeks so I don't understand WHY??????? school is starting already! Not to be a complaining monster, but every year when the kids go back to school, the pool closes. And IT IS STILL SUMMER. Ok I suppose that is enough of that. Let's move on.

Who knows how much time before the littles wake up. I have already played my Candy Crush Saga and my Farm Saga. I got dressed, though I must admit that I haven't showered yet. I took the dogs out for their daily morning walk. And now I am back at the computer on, of all sights, Pinterest.

Do you like pinterest? I have a love/hate relationship with it. It is so full of brilliant ideas. I could spend all day on it saying, "why didn't I think of that??" The hate part is how I said I can spend all day on it. When I want to keep a recipe that I saw on Facebook, I can usually go to Pinterest and find it. Then I have it forever. or at least until SHIF and the computers crash, blah blah. Then I'm screwed.

I digress.

Bree, as you know, has been MIA from any schoolish work over the last few years. She pretty much decided that if she is going to be an unschooler, she is going to rebel against all and any schoolish learning. And she has succeeded magnificently, IMHO.

Of course we have had a co op (affectionately titled COOP) where she has taken classes in art, cake decorating, and such. But never.... NEVER science or math. Never US history. Never English.

So this year she decided, now that she is in High School, she will do some "work". Algebra through KEY TO. I used it for Josh and it was a breeze. And a science from Apologia... I am still deciding which one. History "Lies My Teacher Told Me". (That is right I haven't ordered the books yet. Thanks for noticing my one of my weaknesses.)

Bret and Marley have asked for 21 days of Painless Math again. (This is a curriculum put together by me, not a book.) We work on basic skills (no drills) for 21 days. After 21 days we go out for a treat. Also I bought a few workbooks for them to fine tune their logic skills. If they don't like them I will have to put them away and call it money wasted.

Oh I did it again. I was talking about Pinterest for a reason. Because I came across a teacher art page that I loved. Then that brought me to another one and so on and so on. Which made me decide to do what I have wanted to do for years. History and art combo. Because how fun is art!

So anyway. A couple resources to get me started. First an art scavenger hunt...

Next my first idea...
Found here...
http://pinterest.com/pin/280067670547020492/
Essencially how to use oil pastels to make your own Modigliani... For example made by a student.

OK so some more great ideas that are maybes in my repertoire for oil pastels on the next post. (That is how I ended up on Pinterest. We just bought some oil pastels and I wanted some creative ideas to give the kids about how to use them.)

A Little Too Late

So a couple quotes to get us started on this topic.

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.”
― Byron Katie

So... someone in my family died recently. And I will probably be crying the whole time I write this, so bear with me if it makes no sense sometimes. :-)

So when we got married, my husband and I, fifteen years ago, it was kind of sudden. He had broken up with his current girl friend, because I told him he had to if he liked me. And so he did. Then we were together and married soon after. It was sudden for his family too, who liked his other girl friend. And so some of the family, a specific relative or two, wasn't as nice and accepting of me as they could have been. In retrospect, I was young. Probably we all were and that contributed to our behavior. He talked his family up, and how close they all were, and how much I was going to love them. And then they didn't seem to like me at all, and it hurt. And I got upset. Then they did some things we didn't like and we didn't talk for years. Probably if they lived closer, we would have fought it out good and been over it. But they didn't. They lived a continent away, and eventually half a continent away. When they came to visit the family (we found out years later) they would tell the kids that they tried to call and we wouldn't answer, which was not the truth, but probably settled the kids. When we did see them, she (the specific relative in question, let's call her Pam) and I were cordial at best. We were friendly. But I knew she didn't like me, and since I am shy and awkward anyway, I kept it short to avoid any embarrassment of my own.

The family said we should fix this. And I knew it was true. It broke my husband's heart that they weren't close, like he used to be with them. But they were so far away and we hardly ever saw them. Eventually things smoothed over a bit. He called a few times to talk and be friendly. Then last Christmas she (Pam) was there at the Christmas party. By herself, without the kids who are grown now, without the husband who we figured was working like usual. And she was nice. And we laughed and chatted and talked. My husband too. Which made him feel very happy, I know. She said we should keep in touch, which made me happy, but that is just what people say, you know? So I thought that it would be nice to keep in touch, but that probably she was just saying that. (Maybe she thought the same thing. That I didn't really want to keep in touch, that I was just saying what was expected of me.)

Later we found out that she was so excited for us all to be together again. And that it felt like old times (she had been in the family practically since she was 12 years old, eventually to marry in to it when she was 18. And she and my husband had been so close growing up.) She talked about that party with a sparkle. What we didn't know at the time was that she was in the beginnings of a divorce. That the family she revolved her whole life around since she was not even a teenager was about to come unwound. Her kids were in and out of jail, he husband was seeing someone else. And she was moving back to town. She was here for 6 months before she took her life. We only knew she was here for the last month of it. And we didn't call. We were standoffish. Because that is always how we are.

She might have liked to come over and drink some wine with me. After all she likes wine, I like wine. It seemed like she was struggling with an alcohol problem, I have heard. Maybe. Or maybe she was just drinking away some of the pain. I don't know. We could have made cookies with the girls. Or just visited for lunch. She could have told me stories of her and my husband when they were younger. Stories I never heard until just now. (Now that she is gone, that is.) She might have just liked to be around. And we (she, me, my husband) we did nothing.

Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe not. But it would have been nice for all of us if we had a few more nice visits. It would have been nice for us all to have something other than ONE Christmas party to remember in the last 15 years. And that is so sad. It makes me feel so sad.

So what do I do? I suppose I should make a list. A fix-it list. And start fixing those relationships now. Because she didn't know how many people would be sad that they didn't have just one more day with her. Maybe she didn't know that we would have liked one more day together. So many people in my life won't know that I wanted just one more day. Life happens and your one more day disappears.

I know this isn't specifically a homeschool post. But I suppose this small piece of my life might be helpful for my girls when they get older. I think I wanted to write it down and keep it so they could remember what I didn't realize until it was too late.

The dreaded curfew

This is the latest assault on kids (teens hopefully?) running a-muck on Facebook lately. You missed curfew. Here is a blanket. Sleep outside.

The comments span from "Great idea I am going to try this" to "My kids would just go sleep on their friend's couch" to "your child could get kidnapped and killed staying outside like that". Most people liked it. Some people said it was mean. Lots of people used it as the morning joke to get their day started.

As with many photos I see of people mistreating kids, I put myself where they are... after all, this is something you say to someone because you think you have control over them. And let us women remember, it was not too long ago when women were fighting for their rights to not be controlled by other people. Women were the property of their husbands and/or fathers once. They were meant to act how men thought they should, or they were to be "put in their place". It wasn't rape if your husband did it. It was his marital right, sometime even obligation. Women were beat, even killed, because they acted up, didn't follow the rules, were out of control. If they rebelled against this control, they were said to have hysteria. Doctors thought it was caused by women's uterus and treated them to a vibrator to relieve their anxiety. (Remember those days? Probably not, but surely you have heard of them.)

So how would I feel if say, oh I don't know, my husband put this note on the door after I spent too long chatting with my friend at the coffee house. Or if my boss slapped a "you are late so you don't get to work today" note on the door after I spent an hour trying to get a tow truck for my car that broke down in the rain, and finally made it to work late. How would my husband feel if I did this to him? Would it be a sign of a successful marriage?

No, you say? Then how come treating kids like this makes people think of good parenting? Aren't we trying to teach our kids to be loving, kind? Compassionate, even?

No. I don't suppose so. Someone commented that if you play like an adult you pay like an adult... I don't know of any adult who would put up with this. So what are we really teaching our children by expecting they to? Will they learn discipline by this? Will they know you mean business and therefore toe the line next time?

My kids, they would just head back out, and realize the curfew means nothing. Next time, why even bother coming back if they will be late? The door will be locked anyway.

Camping Fun to follow.....

Girl Scouts and oportunities to be leaders

You may or may not know... our new obsession is roller derby. my two older girls live on it, breath is, and SMELL LIKE IT. (Sorry girls, but it is as stinky as hockey. Peee uuuuu!)

How we first heard about Junior Roller Derby, was we went with our scout troop to scout night at the Girls roller derby. AND who was there playing a scrimmage during the half time? The Jr Roller Derby. My girls were hooked from that moment on. They talked about it all summer and bugged me about it in the fall until it finally started and they took flight (on wheels of course.)

So this year, when scout night came around again, the girls were asked to wear their sashes and vests over their derby clothes and help with the pre-game demonstration for the other scouts who had come to watch.

They demonstrated the game with the derby adults, then they fielded questions with everyone too. Such a great "girls leading girls" moment for our derby scouts!

 

WHAT she doesn't know how to READ?

This past weekend was our scout overnight to a Tipi Camp. My troop of Juniors and Cadettes were tipi camping for Friday and Saturday nights. Marley's troop of Brownies and Daisies were coming on Saturday for a one night overnight. Since Marley is MY child and I had to stay for two nights, of course she camped out with the big girls the first night before her troop got there. Because how else was she going to get there?

A funny thing happened when we were there. I came over to a table of my girls (all three of MY OWN girls were there) plus a few of my scouts, one of which is a school teacher's daughter. As I get to the table I hear the (school teacher's daughter) scout say to my older daughter, "she doesn't know how to read??"

Which first of all, is not entirely true. She does TELL people she can't read. She can READ. Not fluently. But she can sound out words. And she is 7 years old.

If she were in school, she would be in first grade, maybe second, I donno. Our town has all day kindergarten so that when they start 1st grade they can start teaching to the test. That is how they get their funding. I don't hate on that. It is what it is for them. They have to keep their funding. And no doubt they are scrambling and tripping over eachother making sure those kids know all the right words and all the right math equations... and the exact right pieces of history. If a kid doesn't read by first grade, how will they learn to fill out all those worksheets? How will they do homework? How will they PASS the test? If everyone passes the same test, then everyone has the same information. If everyone has the same information then we can rest assured that our education system works.

Except that if Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Galilei, Da Vinci (to name a few) all had the same education and same information in their heads, where would we be now? Who knows.

Marley can't "read". She and I were taking a walk the other day and talking about the planets in our system. And what our system was called and all that stuff. But she can't "read". Sometimes she asks me to drill her on math skills (which btw she hasn't ever done a math worksheet) but she can't "read". We read together all the time. She wants me to sit and read with her. She is a barrel of knowledge and she wants to learn. And aparently she doesn't need to be "reading ready" for that. Not here anyway.

What Is The Big Deal About Reading Anyway???

I saw this when I woke up on my fb. Bree is my daughter. She always tells me she doesn't like to read. I am sometimes worried about her lack of reading. It bothers me because there are so many classics I would love for her to know. I want her to love the experience of reading a book and watching it go by like a movie in her head, only she created how the characters look (in her mind) and she recreates the scenes (in her head.) It is something different from watching a movie.

 

And when I read a great book, like the Hunger Games series, where no one gets fed by me, and no laundry gets done, and the dishes sit in the sink for two or three days while I read everything; then I see the movie and try to explain to the girls how the book was so much better than the movie, and how so many things in the movie are unexplained, but I understand them because I read the book, while they pass right by the scenes not knowing there is so much more detail than they know. (How was that just one sentence?? I need to start watching my grammar and sentence structure. hahahahaha.)

 

I love to read!!!! I can't do it enough because I have a family to take care of (see the paragraph above about what happens when I start a good book). But I LOVE TO READ!!!! It is hart to be a book lover in a family of non book lovers.

 

So I satisfy my unschooling mind by realizing she reads all the time. She is constantly on fb, she reads instructions, tutorials. Her grammar and spelling, for someone who wasn't "taught" grammar and spelling, seem to be as good as anyones. She asks how to spell things when she needs to. When she doesn't capitalize something it is usually because she doesn't want to, not because she doesn't know to.

 

I try to stand up for kids rights, to do what is right for them. For them to read what is right for them. To be who they are... Just... as.. often.. as.. possible... and as often as I remember to. Because lots of my old habits are not so freeing, sometimes I lapse back into old ways. But I try. I also remind myself often that if I force the classics on my kids, they will remember the classics as things I force fed on them. And they will reject them anyway.

 

So when I caught this on fb this morning I had a little glimmer in my eye. My daughter was at the library a few times this week looking to see if her book was in. (Mr. C, the child's librarian, has never seen her so much) And now... ta da... she is reading a book. It isn't Shakespeare or Samuel Clemens. But still it is a book.

 

Bree

omg i just got john's journal from the library and it's awesome!
i keep turning to the front page just to look at dean! :p 

• Cheyenne  XD dean is amazingggahh n allsooo there are some pretty cute moments in tht book
• 
  

  Bree  i haven't read a lot yet but can't wait to read more!
• 
  

  Cheyenne  Lol yeah its awesome

Where did that dang path go to??? ;-)

Bree really likes Pentonix. They perform songs with only voice. I think we first heard their interpretation of Somebody That I Used to Know, at a time when everyone was trying to cover it.

Anyway, we were watching this video on YouTube the other day. After watching the whole video through I told Bree that the thing this video really proved to me is that our era of music really kind of sucks. There are some good songs out there, but there isn't really an era of music out there right now. It seems to be all over the place, and most of it sucks.

Then I saw this on fb today. And it all seemed to go together. I like to read this without the cuss words. A cuss word every now and then is fine with me, but this felt a little over cussed for my taste. Anyway here it is...

Are we so busy trying to be great that we are forgetting that there is a path that takes us there?

May, the month of endings, and new beginnings

It has been a while since I showed up here. I haven't been doing my due diligence with my blog this year. I like to write and I like to blog, but I also love my life and it takes over for me sometimes. Well lots of times actually.

The kids keep growing, which at the very least, Marley promised she wouldn't do any more of that years ago. They are all so wonderful to be around. I wouldn't have my life any other way. Talking to the grandparents, last night, after Marley's recital, we were going over what is "wrong with the world". It reminded me how thankful I am that things are just the way they are here in our family. My kids hang out with me during the day, we plan activities and projects. We see them through. Sometimes we don't see them all the way through. Sometimes they devour our lives until we move on to something else.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. So here we are now in May, asking what we did with our year. School year, of course. And the list is probabaly endless. We finished our last year of the co op we are in for "school". I often wonder how we made it through. Waking up Monday monrnings to get there on time looks like a mountain to climb, looking back. But we did. And I am glad it is over. The girls will miss it, and they will be glad it is a closed chapter, all at once.

 Here are a couple cakes from Bree's cake decorating class. That is a Dr. Who cake up above, in case you weren't aware. I am sure Bree would like that to be made known. And the spaghetti and meatball cake down below. Both were wonderful creations of her time and energy.

Nine months of jazz classes this year for Marley, and it finally came to a head with her recital this week. This was another monday requirement of ours. Get Marley to dance on time, while making dinner, and getting the older girls ready for roller derby practice.

 Marley and her grandparents after her last recital.

Bret and a couple friends after Marley's recital, at our local restaurant, celebrating the dancing success. Bret had spent the whole day with Marley crimping her hair, doing her make-up and nails, putting her together nicely.

And then there is scouts, our May campout marks probably the last one of its kind for me and my crew, being that we are moving this summer back to our KY roots. I went on an adult enrichment campout with my service unit mgr Paula...

Bree FINALLY filled out the paperwork so she could earn her silver award from her hard work with making all those bags for the Belize project. She is following it up now with helping her sister troop make quilts for her troop leaders.

We found a weekend so she could hang out with all her old Scout crew. They hadn't been together in a couple years. They used to be inseparable. It is bitter sweet to see them all growing up so fast.

Thinking Day, Geocaching, Scout night at the City Hall, patches, badges, campouts, father/daughter dances, they have just ruled our world for years now. What will we do without it?

Even today we are off in a few hours to a Mother/Daughter Tea. It is Alice in Wonderland Themed.

Alice

The Mad Hatter

 

We have had Callie Mae every other weekend for most of the winter and spring. She is hell on wheels, just like her dad was, I am told. She is a blessing for my girls. Although I know Josh and his dad are on the outs, I like to think he would be glad that his sisters get a chance to know Callie. She and Marley are almost inseparable when the are together. Bret and Bree pamper that girl like nobody's business. She is so loved.

 

 

Here we are at the Witch's Brew Coffee Shoppe hanging out with the babygirl.

 

That's about all. It cannot possibly capture even an ounce of our days. My Little Pony's. Dr. Who. Supernatural. The Walking Dead. We are certainly caught in the middle of a bunch of great series this year. We have done so much. I cannot wait to see what it next.





Mixed Messages

First of all, for the kids to get their due, congratulations to the Cincinnati Jr. Rollergirls for a really spectacular game. They won both games, the level 2 and level 3 games. Kudos to the Neo's and the Dayton Rollergirls playing two competitive games with us. Thanks to Dayton for showing up with the Neo's who, on their own, didn't have enough girls coming down to play the games. Thanks to the coaches who really do put in a lot of time to do what they do with these girls. You all rock!

Win or lose, this is my favorite girl sport to watch. The girls are agressive. They play hard. And they can only win by being team players. The game is fast paced and keeps you guessing until the end. (I imagine this is how my husband felt when he would drag me to hockey tournaments to watch our son play years ago. A game that, although I loved watching Josh shine, I just could never get into really, outside of his games.)

Here's my own AphroDIEte (center with the grey helmet and pink jersey) blocking a girl from the other team in our first game of the year.

I know I probably seem like a fuddy duddy to my kids. I make them wear bicycle pants instead of net nylons. And they have to wear bicycle shorts instead of shiny silver and gold undies over those nets. And when my girls say, "but they all wear make up to the games, at least eye liner," I say I know that they don't ALL wear make up. In fact, I know of two who don't... My two.

I give my girls just as much leeway as I can. I do the best I can to give them as much responsibility as they want, to treat them as they want to be treated, to set up as many opportunities to grow as they want to have. There is just one thing that stops me in my tracks. I don't like to see little girls acting like they need to be "sexy" adults. I don't like to see adults looking like that but I really don't like to see kids who think they need to dress that way.  But ok so not all adults agree with me. I get that. That's fine. As far as I am concerned, the ol' "well I am not their mother" applies just fine here. Dare I admit that I don't care if my kids cuss every now and then, when it is appropriate for a cuss word. Or that I don't care if my kids muddy their best shoes in puddles during a good rain. But I will be damned if I can have them at the age of 8 or 12 trying to emulate (yes I am going to say it, so close your eyes and cringe if you don't want to hear it) street hooker attire. Again, I understand that I am probably not in the majority here, and I am willing to live with that.

Still when I go to a game to watch my daughters teams play and I see this...



And this woman is timing the game. I wonder if people aren't going too far. Ok so this is not me wondering. But downright saying. I love the sport. I love the game. I love that my kids want to play a sport with this kind of energy to it. This lady might be a Neo Rollergirl with the sport name Penal Eyes, but this might not be the best arena to sport your team spirit, since these girls start at 8 years old.

So while we, my husband and I, are talking about the inapropriateness of this view we are getting at our daughter's game, we hear our coaches scolding the girls on the bench for cussing at the other team. "No cussing or dirty talk at the other players or refs or you are out of the game." And I chuckle. I chuckle softly to myself. Because one of the refs AT THIS EXACT GAME has, "Karma ZAbitch" on the back of her striped shirt. And my husband noticed one of our OUR coach assistants at a scrimmage a couple weeks ago with stickers on her helmet which read "Kick Em In the Cooter." Yes I said COOTER!

And still I didn't think either one of these were worse than viewing the timer's shirt which read, PENAL EYES. Because Karma and Kick 'Em are just talking smack. Penal Eyes is bringing sexual tones into the game. Which to me was worse. Go figure.

I guess I just don't understand why other adults want their kids to be adults before their time. They will have so much time for that later. But once their childhood is over, its over. Why not hold on to that for one more day???



Steubenville is only 4 hours away

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/highschool--steubenville-high-school-football-players-found-guilty-of-raping-16-year-old-girl-164129528.html
"Drunk on their own small-town greatness, they operated unaware of common decency until they went too far, wrote too much, bragged too many times and, finally, on a cold Sunday morning, were hauled out of a small third-floor courtroom as a couple of common criminals."

Poppy Harlow for CNN - "Incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart,"

Here are just a couple examples of what I woke up to this morning. I don't know those boys. I don't know the town. I don't know anything other than the info I found on the internet, as I have followed this case. It puts a pit in my stomach. A girl was so drunk that she couldn't consent to anything, driving around in a car full of boys for hours, going from party to party, puking more after every stop. If no one had videoed any of this or texted all this, if these boys hadn't been caught, no one would even care about this. Tens of thousands of teen girls are driving around drunk just like this every weekend. EVERY WEEKEND. Boys are driving around thinking they are entitled to the life they are living: drinking, drugs, uncaring and unprotected sex. Little girls having no respect for themselves or others. Little boys having no respect for themselves or others.

Who are these boys and girls?

Well they are the boys who once played with cars and action figures in their rooms as toddlers. Maybe they slept with a teddy bear or blanky at night after their parents tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. They went to the parks and learned how to swing the swings. Maybe their moms taught them how to pump their feet to swing without help. Their parents probably watched them off to the bus on their first day of Kindergarten, maybe even packed their pb&j sandwiches. Maybe they went to their friends houses for sleepovers on weekends.

And the girls? Many of them played princess dress-up, played house with their dolls and cooked in their play kitchens. They made cookies and cake with their mommys. They tried on their mom's high heeled shoes. These girls dreamed of being on tv or famous singers. They had play dates with other little princesses, and stuck their tongues out at the boys on the playground. Their parents watched with pride as they first learned to ride their bikes without training wheels. They learned how to swim at the Y. They played soccer with all the other little girls when they were of age.

Who are these kids? Well when put this way, they sound an aweful lot like all of our kids. Could they be yours? Mine? Could we, me and you, be producing young adults who not just live like this, but don't mind living like this? Don't see a problem in this?

Kids who don't think about what could happen to them if they get so drunk that they cannot even stand up on their own. Kids who don't worry about what tomorrow might look like after a night like this. Is this the new "kids just being kids"?

Are we the complacent parents who don't care to really know where our little boys and girls are late at night anymore? They are 15 or 16 years old, they are fine. We are all just fine. Just kids being kids. They will be fine.

After all, they are only 4 hours away from me and my little girls. Only 4 hours. That is mighty close.

The Ghosts of KY

 This elf is located on the big hill down to the first clearing.

This is the first ghost we encountered, but it started our search for more like it along our hike. This one was all the way over on the second plot of land we aquired last year.

Now this ghost was extrememly interesting. It was actually a ghost leaf. You wouldn't think they are quite as common as they actually are.

This guy was our favorite. To tell the truth this was the only ghost that we made. Well we gave him eyes after we decided that he was to be our revered moss ghost.

 

More on Girl Scout Cookie boxes

Another project I did this year on how to use up those cookie boxes creatively...

This is actually a cookie case cut down to a smaller size. A friend of mine and I were out shopping with her kids, and one of her daughters saw a basket that she could not buy. Her mom asked what she would even do with that basket. She said she would make it into a hanging doll bed.

So I offered to make one for her with a cookie box, because of course, I am trying to repurpose them. So some spray paint, fabric, duct tape, and a hanging doll bed has arrived at its new home already. Well there are TWO girls, so I made two.

What to do with all those darn Girl Scout cookie boxes...

So with Girl Scout cookie time going strong, you might have seen some girls hanging around looking like this:



 



 

For every group of girls you see hanging around at the grocery store like that, is a parent or two who has a wall or walls that look like THIS in their house:

 

If you are one of these families who inherits the job of holding on to thousands of boxes of cookies for a month or two each year, then you might consider each year what to do with all those case boxes when the cookies are all picked up and purchased.

For a couple years we saved the boxes and stored them... Then when the kids were bored sometimes they would go upstairs and use them as blocks to make houses and towers and other such building projects. I eventually got tired of the boxes of mess everywhere upstairs, though and broke them down. Marley, 7, still misses these days sometimes.

This year when all those boxes arrived, I was going through a bit of an overhaul of my home. We are going to be putting our house up for sale soon, and we have been trying to declutter. That gave me the idea of finding a use for these boxes. They are small but VERY sturdy.

My project for the boxes that I kept this year is THIS. First I measured the boxes to see which size box fit where I wanted them to go. Cookie case boxes come in different sizes, if you didn't already know this. Then I tore the top flaps off the boxes.

  Next I spray painted them. As with all paint projects, I applied spray primer first. Then after this dried I added the color I wanted.

 After the color paint dried, I measured the box sizes for fabric, making sure the fabric was extra long so it would hang over the box. And I have fancy storage boxes. These red ones hold Marley's Polly Pockets and Petshops. NOTE: Without the fabric there would be small holes in the bottoms of the boxes that would let small objects seep out.

These boxes sit in my dining room bench to collect the books the kids leave on the table.

Girl Scouts is all about conserving. Conserving energy, water, time, etc. So all these left over boxes, even when recycled, are being just wasted. Why not put them to good use? What other ways can you think to use these boxes? I have a friend who uses them in her gardening projects with her scouts.

Potential New Gun Regulations

What is an assault weapon? My husband tells me there is no clear definition for assault weapon. Recently people have been throwing those words around like they understand what exactly makes a weapon an assault weapon.

Don't worry, this is not a blogger attempt to sway you against or for gun regulations. I am not going to tell you how many lives we could save. I am not going to explain to you what our founding father's meant when they wrote up the magnificant constitution.

I am going to just show you what happens when we threaten to take away ANYTHING from ANYONE.


This is Bass Pro's Semi Auto gun section by my house right around Christmas. Did they pull those guns off the shelf in fear of igniting customer concerns for the wellbeing of the world? (No, but Dick's Sporting Goods did, btw.) No no no. This is the sight of what happens when someone tells you they will soon make it harder or possibly impossible to purchase what you want. The customers sold Bass Pro completely out of their supply. COMPLETELY. People are stockpiling. And while we were there talking to a clerk, he got two phone calls from people asking if they had any more come in.

I am not suggesting anything. Just showing a photo I snapped.

The Bustle... when will it end

Bree at Thinking Day with her Girl Scout troop




Bree camping with scout friends (Triple all this since all three camp and participate in Thinking Day and other activities each month and we are neck deep in Girl Scout cookies.)


Bree at Kalahari

Oh wait a minute she spent so much time with friends I never DID get a photo of us together!



Well, me and Marley at our Kalahari trip sporting our new henna tats.

And roller derby for two of my girls, and dance for one, and swim team starts up this weekend for all three.


And there are artsy birthday parties to attend.


Volunteering to help with the Belize trip.

Silliness.


Making time to hang out with the grandbaby.