T is for the thought
H is for the heart
A is for another year
N is for nasty neck bones (ew!)
K is for kids running around
S is for special memories
G is for good times
I is for in touch with family
V is for very loved
I is for interesting stories
N is for newcomers to the table
G is for a good day.
When you’re making that Green Bean casserole for the family this holiday season don’t buy Del Monte or Campbell’s for that matter. Make your own cream of soup and buy fresh or frozen (if you have too) green beans. Let’s not pass out helping of carcinogen’s this year!
BPA is a chemical preservative. It’s recently been found, in elevated levels, in Del Monte Green Bean cans, some Cambell’s Soup cans, some Progresso Soup cans and in many Nestle products. (Hey, weren’t they the ones who had lead in baby formula a few years back?) Anyway the EU and other health aware countries around the globe have already banned the use of BPA as a preservative in any food or food related product. Why? Because it’s a carcinogen. That makes sense to me!
The following quote is specifically about BPA in baby bottles but applies to BPA in general as well.
There is some cause for concern since, in animal studies, even low-level BPA may be linked to anything from early puberty to breast cancer. “The National Toxicology Program and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences convened an independent review panel of polycarbonate bottles that noted ‘some’ concern for adverse health effects on fetuses and infants, including the potential cause of neurological and behavioral problems in infants and children,” Dr. Brown says. “And, while ‘some’ is certainly open for interpretation, it is more than ‘negligible’ or ‘none’ which were cited for other age groups and health concerns related to BPA exposure.
Chew on that one for a while. Do you want a second helping? I know I do! Check out the report from ABC News, here. If the link doesn’t work copy/paste the url to your browser. (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/bpa-dangers-pantry/story?id=8989235)
Trying to upload this to wordpress was beyond my ability. Everybody must already know how to do it because finding directions was impossible! Good thing I’ could figure out how to do it on myspace. It’s a fun little gem of a game and you can play it on my myspace or try to put it on some one of your pages. Have fun and SAVE THE ANTS!
A Doula is a defined by Webster’s as: : a woman experienced in childbirth
who provides advice, information, emotional support, and physical comfort to a mother before, during, and just after childbirth.
I can so do this. I would love to do this! So I’ve researched the suggested Doula must reads and have a list worked up to take with me to the library.
Besides being something I would just love to do… the pay would be great. The only problem with this job choice is school. The kids being in school means I cannot be a Doula. Why? Well if I’m not at the bus stop at said time then my child is taken back to the bus barn to await my arrival. If I’m a Doula I might be in labor with someone when bus time rolls around. What could I say, “Hold that thought. I’ve gotta go pick up my kids.” I don’t think so. Grrrr! I really miss homeschooling!
We love pizza!
To make it more healthful we sometimes add a thick fluffy layer of fresh spinach and then frozen salad shrimp. Sprinkle lightly with shredded cheese and cook as directed. It’s delicious with the extra protein and leafy greens. Yumm!
It looks very much like this pizza is from Derby, CT. The photographed pizza has been featured on Roadfood.com. No need to pack the car though, you can have Shrimp Spinach Pizza at home!
I have this pantry door in my kitchen that stares at everyone. No, it’s not got eyeballs all over it. It just sticks out. Here’s a picture…
See what I mean? It just stares at me no matter what I do around it… the door is a hole. A big ol’ boring, plain, white hole. So I got this idea to paint it like a curio cabinet and fill it up with trinkets, odds and ends, bottles of potions and the like. It’s my apothecary door! 
I’m almost finished with the pencil drawings but I have ten spaces and I’m out of ideas! Help! I’ve asked the kids for ideas already. Keek now has a jackal headed canopic jar from ancient Egypt and Fish has the Apple of Discord from ancient Greece. Dh suggested ancient Persia and got a gold cow horn cup. My sister in law suggested Love Potion #9.
Tell me what YOU think should be in an apothecary/pharmacopoeia/occult shop. The most interesting item! And I’ll put it on my door with your name.
Being part of an electric co-op is so nice. It’s like being part of a larger extended family. There is a real sense of community. I sure do like it.
My co-op has monthly mailers and in this months edition was an open invitation to artists, statewide. The Fred Jones Junior museum of art is holding a $1,000.00 poster contest! I’m going to make a couple of workups and ask for your opinions. The rules for the poster are pretty strict and it’ll be a challenge but I’m excited. The entry date is November 30th and I must enter my submission in person. SCARY!
If you’d like more information, or to enter a submission, too, visit http://www.ou.edu/fjjma or call 325-4938.
Blog numero uno for NaBloPoMo! Beautiful “Maple Leaf Structure” for your enjoyment. (and mine too!)
Halloween was a success! See pics of the kids in costume on my Facebook. You must be my friend. I sure do love that privacy
This is so weird. This is like an adult learning to cook on a little tykes kitchen. And check out that life like cardboard placenta.
Pregnant Robot Trains Students
Took Fish to his first eye therapy appointment this morning. It was about an hour long and he did great.
Dr. Super Powers was great, too. She wants to re-adjust his Rx to 1.5 in one eye and 3.5 in the other. It’s currently 3.5 and 7. She thinks our other Doctor has been giving too much Rx and that pushing his eyes (esp. the left) to do more will make his brain re-connect.
The doctor said he’s 20/20 in the right and 20/25 in the left for close work but 20/30 and 20/60, respectively, over distance. Right around the seventh birthday kids have eye and brain growth spurts. Fish has now had his which accounts for the improvement.
Turns out Asperger’s may also be playing a hand in his brain “turning off” the left eye. His neurons have more pathways than average and have decided they are too busy to decode the information sent to the brain by the left eye. This is in part because his left eye is smaller than his right. After all the testing Fish got to visit the treasure bos and picked out a yo-yo. Now he’s excited to go back tomorrow!
When we go back she’ll do another hour of testing. We’ll cover depth perception, hand eye coordination and tracking. Then she’ll order the new Rx and we’ll see what kind of eye work outs we can do at home.
Charles has the long lived habit of catching bugs and lizards to show me and the kids. He brought this one in and I had to share! He found this guy outside in the fallen leaves. I placed him on a black book for the picture… but I’m not quite a gifted photographer. This is his face.
Isn’t he cute! Not a very good picture though….I’ll borrow… from
http://uforest.blogspot.com/2009/02/exploring-ubin_01.html !!!
This caterpillar looks just like our guy and was found in leaf litter too. All fluff and stuff!
I have no idea what he is but he’s so cute! With just a little tweaking we’ve got an Einstein smiley!
Beautiful, very yellow, Honey Mustard Bread.
2 cups flour
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup warm milk
1 pkt (2tsp) yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 Tbs mustard
2 1/2 Tbs honey
1/2 tsp salt
Mix water milk, yeast and sugar in measuring cup. Dump the rest in the bread machine. Pour foaming yeast mix in and set it on 1.5 pound regular loaf. Walk away!
Makes 1/2 a loaf. Next time I will double the recipe, use fancy mustard and more honey! Delicious!!!
Are we evolving in the wrong direction? An interesting point made by Peter McAllister got me thinking.
…according to anthropologist Peter McAllister, author of Manthropology: the Science of Inadequate Modern Man, the contemporary male has evolved, at least physically, into “the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.” Thanks to genetic differences, an average Neanderthal woman, McAllister notes, could have whupped Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak in an arm-wrestling match. And prehistoric Australian Aborigines, who typically built up great strength in their joints and muscles through childhood and adolescence, could have easily beat Usain Bolt in a 100-m dash.
Hmmm… poor Ahhhhnold. LOL But really where are our kids going? How bout those grand kids (10 generations removed)? OK what about those aliens… so tall and lean with giant heads. Are they really humans from the distant future? Our long legged Barbie doll and super lean Ken fascinations are heading us in the wrong direction. Besides body image and self esteem what memes are we programming with admiration of Kate Moss and Twiggy and the Calvin Klien underwear models? Perhaps we should be the first generation in a long line of thinnies to go in a different direction. I wonder how Neanderthal Nikki and Proto Human Peter would sell?
I will be working on brevity. Quick posts from now on. (Cross your fingers!)
Subbed 4 of 5 days last week. Wow I learned a lot. Kids can be great teachers!
Trying to be more active on facebook as per friendly request. Friend me!
Will be putting more work online, for sale and probably getting an etsy account… ok, maybe getting an etsy acct.
Poor Sam Bradford. Guy can’t get a break. 
Dh says he has “Jason White syndrome.” hahaha
Cool Halloween pic just had to share… “Baby Pumpkin Voodoo Doll”.
So glad the weather is cool enough to justify my hot chocolate addiction! Yummmm!
Today was the first subbing I’ve done. Fifth graders! They are the big kids on campus and boy do they know it. We lost a tooth, had a fight (at recess… I missed it), teachers kid who wanted to go to his mom’s classroom, four girls called to the office(for fighting), wonderful boy with add/adhd (who watched every mythbusters show ever made) and one boy who kept reading “orgasm” instead of “organism”! Ha! Lucky it was an honest mistake and only one other boy in the class knew what a big O was anyway… He even held his tongue until after we were through with our science reading. Then quietly told me he knew what it meant when everyone else was busy working. Phew!
Art, free color, from Keek. Looks very stained glass to me. Has been getting quicker with her handwriting and can complete some of her math homework at school now. Yea! Started a reading calender and is becoming very conscientious about time. She’s supposed to read 20 minutes at least five days a week. Easy stuff.
And art, “Fall Tree”, from Fish. Love the movement. Fish says he loves the homework and wishes he could have only homework and no school. Poor kid. I hope he is putting on a bit. He seems to be because he rattles on and on about how much he loves his teacher, friends and library trips. He gets to go daily and pick out a new book to read at home. Yesterday we read about Warships and today we’ll read about Firetrucks. I suppose it’s like everything else… some things are fun and some are not.
Painted it when I first moved in… told you I’d upload a pic sooner or later! Don’t mind the dirt… lol! Yes that’s a dime up at the top… oops. You can see some of the yellow staining that covered half the floor on the back door side (right side) of the ‘rug’. Quick easy simple colorful. I love it!
Turns out Keek wasn’t just having allergies. She spiked a fever on Thursday and then was all better by Saturday. Of course on Friday I called the Dr. and made an appt to satisfy the school and b/c the fever had gone over that magic 100 degree line.
I also spoke with the nurse at school. She was great. Really helpful and attentive and said all I need to do to avoid any kind of truancy issues is keep in touch with her. To legitimize Fish’ asthma they keep a rescue inhaler at school and I got Keek her own scrip for allergy meds. The truancy stuff I was so worried about, a few posts ago, only applies if there is no reason for the kiddos to be absent. Yes, allergies are a legitimate reason.
The 24 hour fever policy only applies to fevers over 100 degrees. So if one of the kids has an allergy fever of 99.0 and is fine the next morning they are ok to go to school. But if they are drowsy, in pain or in other ways sick they are ok to stay home with the only explanation being allergies. And they don’t need a Dr.s slip either. And Fish’s absences have all been excused, too… so that’s good. Pretty cool, now that I talked to the nurse.
The nurse and I discussed the H1N1 letter also. Turns out the few cases weren’t necessarily H1N1 after all. One case has been confirmed and the other three were assumed. Either way, those students left on Wednesday’s and were back in classes by Monday. The letter was sent out as a preventative so no parent could hold the school liable for not disclosing information. What a bunch of mess!
Keek L_O_V_E_S school. They got progress reports and shes doing just great. She’s got a bf, who’s mom teaches at the school and who’s dad ran over the phone cord with the lawn mower. Sounds all too familiar!
Fish loves recess, pe, free time centers, computers and art. The rest of school he could do without! He likes to read to the other kids and but he doesn’t think they get to do that enough. His progress report had only good news too. He said the kids tease him about his glasses so he wants Harry Potter frames when he goes back to the optometrist.
Met with the principal regarding music instruction at the school. It was not my idea but dh, mind you. Somehow it got around to her requesting the curriculum I had made for Keek and Fish and her seeking funding with the superintendent. I/we could be teaching music history/ appreciation/ theory one night a week. Surprise! Because it would be an after school activity I/we don’t need any kind of teaching credentials. The curric has to meet or exceed the current Oklahoma PASS standards and that’s it. Hopefully this lead will go somewhere!
Haven’t subbed yet so haven’t applied at other school districts. Once I get that call though! Maybe this week… cross your fingers!
I’ve done it! Made stuff to sell and now you can see what I’ve listed on ebay. Hope it sells… cross your fingers.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230384282523
http://cgi.ebay.com/Country-Paradise-Hand-Painted-Mail-Box_W0QQitemZ230384274411QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item35a3f90beb&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.com/Red-Sky-Original-16×20-Oil-Painting_W0QQitemZ230384197123QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Paintings?hash=item35a3f7de03&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.com/Light-Dark-Original-16×20-Acrylic-Painting_W0QQitemZ230384264161QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Paintings?hash=item35a3f8e3e1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
