Easter 2007

We had a nice church service this morning, a musical. Tim played the keyboard and sang, J played a violin solo (Amazing Grace, played perfectly!) and sang back-up, and even L sang back-up. There were 8 or 9 people on the stage, and my sons made up a third of the ensemble! Everyone did great, the service was great and I was proud of the boys.

I only got two pictures, this was after the boys had already left for a final rehearsal, and only Miss M was still at home. You can see her missing tooth in the first picture.




Now we're all home, there are jellybeans and Reeses chocolate eggs on the mantel, and the boys are watching Veggie Tales (a rare treat) and later we'll watch the movie Jesus. I can't eat the candy, so I'm indulging in Chocolate Caramel Brownie Luna bars - low glycemic, high in protein, not excessively sugary, and gluten and dairy free.

Dad is sleeping today because he works tonight, so I asked the boys what they'd like for Easter dinner - and they picked turkey sandwiches! We'll dye eggs later, too. They're already boiled.

Come Ye Disconsolate

We're reading Little Women - actually, we're listening to the audio book, and we're near the end of Book 2, which isn't Little Women, but Good Wives. Chapter 20 says,

"But [Amy] did show something better than brilliancy or skill, for she sang Beth's songs with a tender music in her voice which the best master could not have taught, and touched the listener's hearts with a sweeter power than any other inspiration could have given her. The room was very still, when the clear voice failed suddenly at the last line of Beth's favorite hymn. It was hard to say, 'Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.'"

I was curious, so I looked up those words and it led to a poem by Thomas More, which was altered to make it suitable as a hymn. Here are the lyrics, and the MIDI tune is here.

Come Ye Disconsolate

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
“Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.”

Here see the Bread of Life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

Thinking Blogger Award

I was nominated by the Headmistress at The Common Room, and I'm very honored! The Common Room is my first-stop blog. There's always something new to read, and almost always something to laugh over, think about, or find encouragement from.

Here are the rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (there is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

My favorite blogs tend to be blogs that have a little bit of everything - a few posts that make me think sprinkled among posts that make me laugh, tidbits about their family, advice and suggestions for crafts and projects. Limiting it to just five will be difficult!

I "met" Camille at A Time to Laugh on a parenting message board; she's a gifted writer and makes me think about theology. She's one of the bloggers at True Womanhood in the New Millennium, which is another blog that makes me think.

Christine Miller at A Little Perspective posts about Israel and homeschool issues and Christian issues. Hers is one of the only blogs that I found by accident rather than through a CM or AP connection that I keep up with regularly.

I tried to stay away from CM/AO blogs (all my CM/AO moms make me think!), but I made a couple of exceptions. Mother Auma at CM, Children and Lots of Grace does more than make me think, she makes me stop and reflect. Her blog has it all - CM reflections, poetry, family warmth and inspiration.

Tulip Girl is my favorite attachment parenting/positive discipline blog. She's wise and experienced and has four boys. Most news I find related to parenting is from her blog.

Purring Piggy and MerryK at Beth Spera in Domino are my other exception to trying to post non-CM blogs. I love MerryK's book/movie reviews, she's a homeschool student who's worth reading. Her mom also makes me think. I hope this isn't breaking the rules, listing both of them, but, after all, they post on one blog.

I Was Nominated for a Blog Award!

I was nominated by Firefly at Bioluminescence, for Best Cyber-Buddy Blogger at Homeschool Blog Awards. :)

"Best Cyber-Buddy Blogger: A blogger that you haven’t met, but you think you would enjoy meeting and hanging out with. She/he is a person that you would love to co-op with or live next door to." Firefly and I are virtual twins - we share a lot of the same likes, dislikes, and interests. Every time I read her answers to the latest "blog-thing," she's answered almost exactly the way I did!

Homeschool Moms are Cool

"Home school mothers are the heart of a traditionalist revolution that is driving life back into the homes." Read more in the article Homeschool Mothers: The Beatrice Brigade, thanks to Dominion Family.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. I'd like to make a poetry post a day this month, but whether I will or no remains to be seen (one a week seems more likely). But to begin, at least, I give you the opening to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

(For more, Harvard has an interlinear translation of the prologue, Librarius.com has the full text with side-by-side translations, and this information on pronouncing Middle English is helpful. As an aside, I think this opening must win the prize for the longest opening sentence in literature.)

It all started innocently enough . . .

I wanted a bag for my camera, something I could wear on my belt to free up my hands. Something simple, no hassle of trying to sew zippers or complicated shapes. So, I settled on a simple padded bag that cinches shut and will slip onto my belt. It was a success!

I loved it so much that I decided I needed another bag to wear on my belt (or not) when we go for hikes, that sort of thing - something small, with only room for the barest necessities, but able to carry *everything* I might need - sunglasses, cards, cell phone, a Luna Bar, and allow me to have my hands free for Miss M.



So I made one, and I love it so much that it's become my purse. Here it is, pictured next to a favorite mug for size reference.






But then I decided I needed something fun for those times I don't feel like basic black. I took Miss M's old sling, the one I had made with a beautiful Hawaian fabric. I was kind of sad as I cut it up, thinking how she's grown so much that I won't need it anymore, but holding bittersweet emotions at bay by thinking of the new bag I was going to get out of it, a way to carry those memories with me all the time.






The bag works great! It cinches closed like a dream, has individual pockets for sunglasses (so they won't scratch) and cell phone (so I can reach it easily without rummaging if it rings, which it never does because dh is almost the only one who knows the number), a place for cards, and extra room for a Luna Bar and a few other things.







Here's how I fit everything I need into one small bag - I pack small items in an empty, rinsed bubbles container with the blower snipped off. It holds nail clippers (baby sized, since they're small; they can double as scissors sometimes), toothpaste (for cleaning contact lenses in an emergency), Vaseline, a couple of Advils (each wrapped individually in a corner of a plastic bag, as are the toothpaste and Vaseline), a couple of Q-tips, and a list. I suppose a drop of dishwashing liquid (for hand-washing when there's no soap) ought to be included, too. The bubbles container keeps anything that might leak contained, and prevents the toothpaste from drying out - that had been a big problem, and I only just now came up with a solution that doesn't involve me carrying an entire tube of toothpaste in my bag.

RSS Feeds - Wow, What a Concept!

I opened an account at Netvibes.com and programmed in all the blogs I regularly check up on - some daily, some weekly. It uses RSS feeds. And it's great! I click on one page and it shows which of those blogs has a new post - no more clicking on various blogs only to find that most of them haven't posted anything new since my last visit.

I was so impressed that I added a few blogs I've always wished I could keep up with, but never had the time. The extra nice thing about Netvibes is that I was able to set my display page to pink. :)

Remodeling

Mr B has always planned to add on a new master bedroom over the garage with a walk-out patio by the time Tim was old enough to need his own space. Well, that time has come, but the finances aren't available to do a room addition.

So - Plan B.

Mr. B has been using our third bedroom as an office/daytime sleeping room (so we can still the master bedroom and bathroom when he's sleeping) and we use it when we have guests. The plan is to move his office into the master bedroom and let Tim move into that third bedroom.

The problem is storage - Miss M is in our room, so we have three of us in the room, plus all the bedding for the entire household, sewing, toy storage and other things that have nowhere else to go (we have no linen closet). The solution - remodel the room so we can fit all our stuff in there! I've always loved the challenge of trying to get as much storage into as small a space as possible while avoiding a crowded, cluttered look. It's not always successful or possible, but I like to try anyway.

Tim has been graphing out the proposed changes, and this is what we're looking at so far:

Low bed, but with room for storage bins underneath. Mr B will put a mattress on a cheap frame and build legs (he's done it before) and build a headboard far enough away from the wall to hide a file cabinet behind it for his desk stuff, leaving room for a very large cabinet for bedding behind half of the headboard.

A high shelf around two full walls so Mr. B can move his 19 feet of books into the room (and that still leaves shelf space for other needs).

A narrow cabinet that doesn't come out too far from the wall (because the bathroom door is right there, and the dresser we have there now is a bit of an obstruction).

Mr B's roll-top desk is being moved into the room, and a cabinet put above it to hide desk clutter.

One full wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets, a clean, uncluttered, bright improvement over the piles of clutter atop two dressers we have now. It's inexpensive (comparitively speaking) melamine cabinetry, the kind you can pick up at Walmart or Home Depot, but it will suit our needs and I've always favored efficiency, light and lack of clutter over style.

The walls were painted light yellow (it's called "Lemon Ice") and the valances over the windows are white (the room gets the best light in the mornings, and those colors really accentuate that!) There's one big space of wall by the desk with room for a nice print - I'm thinking a beautiful Bouguereau poster.

You can see how it might look below (the thing coming down from the ceiling isn't an oven hood, it's a fan/lamp, but trying to create it in the graphics wasn't worth the time):

But wait - that's not all! In the hallway, Mr B is going to put another long, long high shelf, just above the door frames, the length of the hall like in the bedroom, and a wider cabinet at the end of the hall where our bedroom door is - and we'll finally have a linen closet! A bit high, but, oh, how nice it will be to get all that stuff up out of sight and out of the way!

Tim is busy now plotting out how he might arrange his "new room." :)

And J has been hinting for weeks (not so subtly) that he has his own ideas about how he'll use all the space he and L will gain when Tim moves out of their room.

More Diet Changes

I've been doing the THM (Total Health Makeover - mostly vegetarian, dairy-free, sugar-free, and, for me, wheat-free) diet for almost two months, starting the day with a piece of fruit, then a bowl of oats mixed with granola and soy milk, and doing lots of salads with beans and grains. And Luna bars. And I had the worst month I've ever had - constantly bone-tired, no stamina, napping every day and going to bed earlier than usual, low blood pressure so I'd feel woozy when standing, visual auras, headaches, blood sugar drops, on and off sore throat, chills, and my head felt puffy so that my eyes would't fully open. All of this for a MONTH! I wondered if I had a virus.

The day before yesterday, I woke up exhausted, foggy and with a headache as usual. Instead of granola, I made a green-green-green smoothie with one apple and lots and lots of spinach and lettuce. It tasted tolerable, but not sweet. And within an hour, the headache and fogginess were gone and I didn't feel exhausted anymore. I've felt a lot better the past three days doing dark green smoothies, salads and a small serving of beans and grains late at night.

So now I'm looking at The PH Diet, which is mostly raw, lots of greens, but almost no fruit. Lots of green smoothies, salads and vegetables with a little other healthy food added in. It could be that too many grains (granola, millet, rice) is too high in carbs? Or, one thing I haven't considered, maybe the gluten in the oat-based granola isn't agreeing with me?