A break

I'm feeling like I need to take a break from the computer for awhile. I'm just spending way too much time on the computer, and I feel like it is taking away time that I should be spending with God, and my family. So I am going to stop blogging for awhile, and I'm taking a sabbatical from the computer all together. I may check my email once a week, just so I don't get overloaded with emails. I will miss reading all of my friend's blogs, but I feel like God is leading me to take a break from being online.

Beautiful weather!

It has been so gorgeous here this week, and finally it is getting warm! It was in the 80's yesterday. We finally had to turn the air conditioning on last night. We have a long weekend with Memorial Day, and I am looking forward to that. I would love to sleep in, but knowing me, I will end up getting up at my normal 6:30 even on the weekend! That seems to happen every weekend! Evie is starting to sleep in until 8:00, and some days even past there. I just let her sleep. That is one huge bonus of homeschooling. She doesn't have to be up at the crack of dawn. That extra rest really helps her body to be strong and healthy. Our hummingbirds came back. They completely amaze me. They remember where we live! They will come back every year, and they will hover in front of our window to let us know they are back, and will actually look in the window like, "Okay, I'm back...where's the food?" I then put the feeder out, and they flock to it right away. It amazes me that they fly so far every year, and still come back to our feeder. I just want to marvel at the handiwork of God! We just ordered a butterfly kit, and they are going to send us butterfly larvae so we can watch the butterfly come out of their chrysalis. I have never seen this happen before, and have always wanted to. It is supposed to be a homeschool lesson for Evie, but I think I am just as excited as she is :). Isn't God's creation just amazing?!

Poor Sierra

My sweet doggie is not feeling so well. We had quite a day yesterday. I came home from Bible study, and there was diarrhea everywhere. Thankfully the majority of it was on the tile floor. Then she threw up twice. Both times on the carpet. Not a fun day for cleaning up stuff :(. Yuck. Collies are super sensitive to heartworm medicine of any kind, and are sensitive to flea meds and vaccinations. We have been on 3 different heartworm medicines, and all have made her sick. A month ago I started her back on a heartworm medicine that worked okay last year. She ended up throwing up and getting diarrhea. Thankfully no diarrhea in the house then, just outside. Once it started to wear off near the end of the month, she started to feel better. Last week I decided to try a natural de-wormer that I found online that was for pets. She started out with some major gas for a week, and then the diarrhea and throwing up yesterday. We have been to several vets who are pretty much clueless about Collies and heartworm medicine problems. I have looked online, and many Colllie owners don't even give their dogs heartworm medicine because they are so sensitive to it. She seems to be feeling a bit better this morning. She has been drinking a lot, and I gave her some chicken broth last night, which she ate (or drank). She was looking for food this morning, and I am going to give her a little food to see how she does. I stopped the natural wormer, so she should start feeling better today. She actually got up and barked at something outside, so that is good. She is laying around a lot, but does seem a lot better compared to yesterday. I am going to look online to see some other options for Collies for de-worming. The vets just want to give her the heartworm drugs even though it makes her sick, and I don't want to do that. That can't be good for her, and many Collie owners say the heartworm meds can kill Collies. I wish the vets were more knowledged about this. I feel like I am having to doctor her myself, which isn't fun. My poor Si Si. I hate when she, or any of my family, isn't feeling well.

Books

I love reading. I love new books! I think books are my favorite gift to get. For my birthday, I got some money and gift certificates, so I wanted to get some books. We went to the Christian bookstore, and I got a few books. I bought the book called The Love Dare from the movie "Fireproof". For anyone struggling in their marriage, or for those who have a wonderful marriage and just want it to be even better, "Fireproof" is the movie to see. It was awesome, and the book is a great marriage builder. I also bought the book "20 and counting" by the Duggar family. The Duggar's are on The Learning Channel (TLC), and have 18 kids. They homeschool, and are debt free, and they completely fascinate me! I also bought a book by Kirk Cameron called "Still Growing". Remember Kirk Cameron? He played Mike Seaver in the tv show "Growing Pains". As a kid, I was completely in love with him :). He was an athiest, but came to know Christ while working on "Growing Pains". His book is an autobiography of his life so far. He now has a ministry called Way Of The Master (www.wayofthemaster.com). It is a really cool ministry that teaches people how to lead others to Christ in a really simple way. I still have some money left over from my birthday. I keep going back and forth between getting more books...or hair toys :).

Why I homeschool

Some days I wonder why I homeschool, and other days I get such fulfillment out of it. Evie really loves to read, and today I asked her to go pick out one of her books to read outloud. I love hearing her read. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment because I taught her to do that! It is really rewarding. I think I may have to have Evie's eyes checked again. She keeps holding the book really close to her face. When I ask her why, she says it is because she loses her place if she doesn't have it close. She doesn't seem to have trouble seeing with anything else, but I should have her eyes checked just in case. This video is about 2 minutes long, so it is a little longer than some of my other videos. I was just really proud of her for reading so well. She is sounding out all the big words. Today she was reading words in her homeschool workbook that were really big like "communication" and "admission". She did great!

One really cute/funny thing she did today was something she did outside. I heard her singing really loud (which she does daily), and I look outside and she is singing and dancing in the driveway. Then I see a bin that she turned upside down, and on top of the bin is her piggy bank. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was trying to make money! She said that she wanted to sing, and maybe if people heard her they would think she sounded pretty and put money in her piggy bank. The picture is of her dancing, and you can click on it to make it larger. She told me she is trying to save her money so she can give it to some friends of ours. They have 5 kids, and the dad lost his job in November because of the economy and has not been able to find a job. I was really proud of her for being really selfless and thinking of them. It was a proud day :).

Hair

I am going through that major spring urge to cut my hair. I'm not sure why this happens every spring, but it does. A few days ago, I trimmed off another 2-3 inches, so now I am at waist length. I now wish it was 2 inches longer because now I am having trouble doing my usual updos because my hair is shorter. I wish I could just be content with my hair. Is any woman ever content with their hair? It seems that around the time of my birthday, I really starting feeling like my hair looked ridiculous. Like I was way too old for this long of hair. Like people thought I really looked horrible. Why oh why do I even care what other people think of my hair! UGHHHHH! You see these makeover shows, and they all chop their hair. The audience and the people on stage really think the long hair is disgusting. I have heard teen girls talk about really long hair, and they actually said they thought it was gross (they actually used that word). I guess I'm just feeling quite insecure about my hair lately. Maybe because I have heard way too many people say things like, "You would look really nice if your hair was just past your shoulders". I see all these trendy styles, and have seriously thought of cutting my hair to bra strap length with layers. It is that never-ending desire to feel hip. My hubby thinks my hair is a security issue. He thinks that if I were more secure with myself, then I wouldn't care what others thought of my hair. He is usually right about things :). I just need to figure out how to boost that security!

Birthday and Mother's Day

My birthday was Saturday, and Jeff got me a hilarious card. That is what the video is of :). I had a really nice birthday. On Friday night my parents came over, and we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We came back home and Mom and I both opened gifts. We wanted to celebrate both my birthday and Mother's Day. We had a fun visit with my parents. On Saturday, Jeff, Evie and I went shopping so I could use some of my birthday money and gift cards I got for my birthday. I got some books at the Christian bookstore, and got some clothes and a journal. Jeff was so sweet on my birthday. He made me breakfast in bed, and he and Evie made me a gluten free birthday cake. It was really good too! It was the first cake he has ever made. I had a great birthday, and Mother's Day was also really nice. We had a great service at church, and then we came home and grilled out. We went over to Jeff's parents later to give Jeff's mom her card and gift. We had a nice visit with them. It was a wondeful weekend!

Gardening

I finally got my garden planted yesterday. It was a beautiful day, so I wanted to take advantage of it. Evie had helped me plant flowers the day before, and she did a great job helping. She had a playdate at a friend's house for several hours yesterday, so it helped me get the garden in. I had planted some seeds in pots about a week and a half ago, and they are already coming up. I planted some different varieties of lettuce and spinach in long pots, and planted cilantro and parsley. The parsley is the only thing not coming up so far.


I planted a bunch of different herbs in my flower garden area. I planted a lavender plant that smells absolutely divine. I just want to sit there and sniff it! It is the small plant in the picture to the left that is almost in the middle of the picture. The rest of the herbs I planted from seeds. I planted lemon balm, spearmint (it is in the black pot up front because spearmint spreads like crazy!), basil, cilantro (I planted more in the ground because it is one of my favorite herbs), and more parsley. I had fun being more creative with my garden this year. Last year, most of the garden area was filled with flowers. We yanked a lot of the flowers out and replanted them in different areas of the yard so I would have more room for veggies and herbs. I planted zucchini, beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, heirloom tomatoes, green peppers, broccoli and red cabbage. I was amazed I was able to fit all that in there. The area is bigger than it looks! I did several rows of carrots and beets. The only seeds I bought and didn't plant were swiss chard seeds. I figured that between the beet tops, the spinach, and the 2 different varieties of lettuce that I would have plenty of greens.

For my upcoming birthday/Mother's Day gift, Jeff bought me this.....












It is a battery powered cultivator, and I LOVE it! It saved me so much time, and it wasn't back-breaking work like it usually is. This is what part of my insanely weedy garden looked like before the cultivator...

It did such a great job at tackling the weeds. I can use it whenever I want to weed, instead of having to hand weed. It will save me tons of time. By the way, that big black thing is not a weed :). Just my goofy cat who thinks the backyard is her jungle. Our yard is fenced, so she can't get out, and she loves to go outside and play in the garden. I can't wait to start seeing stuff coming up in the garden! I love spring :).

Catching up!

Two blog posts in two days! Wow, I think I am setting a record :). I have lots to catch up on! Miss Evie lost another tooth, and looks way cute. I am loving the gap-toothed grin. I'm a little sad that the new teeth are coming in already, just because she looks so cute. She has only lost 4 baby teeth total so far, so she still has lots to go.

We had a nice Easter. I tried to take a good family picture of us, but we were running late for church, so I hurried. I didn't realize that Jeff had a big twig in front of his face, and we are all staring into the sun. Oh well, we are all dressed nice!

On a hair related note, I had to trim my hair back a bit. I was getting some wicked tangles. Isn't the picture to the left just lovely? That was a section taken from the back underside of my hair, and it was doing that every time I wore it down. I finally trimmed a few inches off. I am about an inch above tailbone now, and the tangles are much better.


I had a mega curly day not too long ago, and did my hair in the wrap, snap and go rollers. My hair turned out the best it had in a long time! Evie wanted her picture taken too. We were about ready to go to church, so that is why we are so dressed up.



I took this picture of our crabapple tree in full bloom. It was gorgeous this year. Evie loves to climb it and sit up there with her Barbie's.