really?

I just answered our front door. There was a kid there, about 10.
KID: "would you like to donate money to our elementary school"
I am kinda dumbfounded at that and look at his plain manila envelope with a sheet of white paper with the name of the school in plain type and then some lines with 1 person's name and amount they gave.
KID: "It's for a jog-a-thon.
ME: "when is the jog-a-thon" (the paper has no info besides school name, kid's name, and 1 donation)
KID:" I dunno. They didn't tell us."
ME: "No I don't want to donate."

Summer of Challenges

30 Outfits Challenge
31 Days to Clean Challenge
and now:
21 Days of Warrior Prayers (praying for boys)
I have decided I like doing these little challenges.
I did the 30 outfits as a way to go through my closet and see what all I had and wear it. Usually I just wear about 10% of my clothes. I enjoyed this one. It was actually fun to make new outfits and feel a little dressier (and get out of the rut of wearing the same thing everyday)And my husband seemed to like it, too. Which was a good motivation for me to bite the bullet and try to dress a little nicer, or new, or at least 'not the same jeans & top daily'. I knew Brian would appreciate it.
I just started the 31 Days To Clean with some online friends. We do the daily challenges and post Before & after cleaning pictures. B&A cleaning pictures are a real motivator for me. This book has Martha and a Mary Challenge. One challenge to clean and another to show love via our homes. We are only on Day 3. I leave for 4 days in L.A. I will be on day 5 when they are on Day 9. But I hope to get caught up in a few days.Day 1- was write a little mission statement for why you want a clean house. What is the goal? What is the Motivation.
Day 2 was clean the fridge/freezer insides. And make a list of ways to add more fun to the home. A Game night weekly? family bike rides? decor/lighting candles? Have happy music playing in the house?
Day 3 -today- clean the tops of the fridge, shelves, cabinets. I don't have shelves in the kitchen (but I do in the dining room, but those will be for the Office/Den challenge week, as they are homeschool shelves). My cabinets don;t have dustable tops. BUT I do have 2 tile tops to ovens- they are like big shelves. I will clean those.
If anyone wants to join in, let me know and I'll share the link to my online 31 Days to Clean photos. There is a printable calendar HERE for what to do each of the days.
I had already decided to give Coupon Shopping a real try in June and July. I will call it my College Try Coupon Challenge for June & Julyor I should use a number. like the other challenges:"61 Days of Coupons"
And recently a friend on Facebook and fellow homeschool blogger (Angie) posted about a21 Days of Warrior Prayers. (with a free eBook to follow).I decided to add it to my Summer of Challenges.
I have been thinking of making a Facebook Account for my blog. It's probably just a Peer Pressure thing. So many homeschoolers/moms have Facebook accounts for their blogs. I could be fun. But I doubt I have enough readers.
And I have been thinking about the couponing. You see/read about people that end up with 12 tubes of free toothpaste or 8 bottles of free body scrub, and how they ended up spending $3 out of pocket on $35 worth of stuff... and it is a bit intoxicating and desirable. But I out thought into it and will have a post to write about that in the near future.
YEP: I am Diggin' Challenges. With Day Numbers in the Title!
Don't forget to check out the post of vacation trip pictures!! -->
http://kabersblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/pictures-words.html




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Pictures & Words

San Francisco was fun. Well, actually it was wet, dreary, and cold and I had a nasty sinus cold. But being sick with a hotel and spouse to deal with the boys is better than being home alone with the 3 boys while sick.
Getting out of town was fun.
China Town was pretty much like China actually.

[above] It was the 1st time I have seen a Bomb Squad on the road next to me. The lights flashing and all.

[above] Connor caught a newt. Ki was holding it for that shot though.

[above] Connor. Climbing.



The city was a busy city, but the architecture was neat. China Town was almost like reminiscing (I went to China a while ago)
Brian bought me some yummy tea at a cute little tea room.


[below] Pier 39 in San Francisco ->

[scenery shots] -->



Then we went to Darkshore; Amtgard Camping event:
[below] Connor

[below] Ki (from the back, with his leather armor. not the man-boob dude)


[below] Gavin

[below] Ki and his new gnome throwie (umm, looks like he's giving me the bird.)

[below] Connor (with the lime green sword)

We are home now. A few dozen loads of laundry have been washed; it seems.
Today was Bible Study day and acupuncture and visiting the neighbor.
and cleaning the fridge.
and not thinking up an exciting post.



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darkshore

We leave tomorrow for a week of travels, sight seeing & camping. San Fran, Wendy, Darkshores.(which means today is a day of doing laundry, fertilizing the garden, & buying toiletries)
Here are some pictures from some of the week's activities:
[making a ballista]





[getting our hair ready for Darkshore]



[Ki sewing a tunic for Darkshore- with his hair finished




And when the bloggersite was down the other day I felt like bloggin and couldn't blog, to I made a facebook weblog:

The Blogger site is down. So I will just talk here instead. I have gotten used to having a place to 'talk' when when words are in my head. So bear with me. or ignore me.

The boys couldn't find the Standard Deviants DVD, so I told them to skip Chemistry and go out back and make amtgard weapons. So They worked on a ballista they hope to take to camp next week. It's a fine line between Chemistry and Power Tools, right? It's all good in the end as long as I'm not in the E.R.

This morning I told them to just do half their math today- so they can have more time to work on their ballista and other projects. Math? Weapon Making? Math? Weapon Making? Idecided weaponry is more fun. School-Shmool. Gavin's reply to 'just do half your math' was; "O.K., but I'll be doing more becuase I need to make up for Tuesday." (He decided to go out to dinner with his dad instead of finishing his math. It was a business dinner with some guys from work.)

Life is short. Make a Ballista.

I decided to take Connor tot he DMV to get his learner's permit. If I had decided this a few days ago, he'd have had time tii study. He studied hard- 2 months ago, but we ended up not having the proper paperwork, then got busy . So he missed 1 too many. And I took him to Panda Express.

I hope they don't end up needing too much therapy from Life with an Impulsive Mom.

Now, I need to go color my gray hairs. I always know when it time to color them because Connor is obsessed with my shiny gray hairs and will tell me how awesome (and plentiful) they are when they start showing too much. And he was commenting on my awesome shiny gray hairs today. So I stopped by Sally's to get stuff to take care of that issue.

The wonderful mail delivery lady brought my SEE-N-READ stuff today. They are basically just blue see-through plastic overlays that also have a strip cut out. So you can read the sentence in the cut out or through the blue and it will keep me..err, Ki, from always losong his place while reading. I hope it makes it so I can read in burch. The flouresents lights bother me too much and reading during Bible Study gives me a migraine.

(that's it from me. I feel better having gotten all those words out of my head)

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Let's give a hand to the Deviants!

The boys froze water.

in balloons.

and latex gloves.

For the purpose of THROWING them and watching them shatter.(and drinking the not-yet-frozen-water out of them)
They watched the water bubbles move inside them and looked the air bubbles inside, too

I have some Chemistry DVDs from Netflix. They are the Standard Deviants ones. I have the boys watching them this week, as kind of an overview before we get back into the DVD course. I was watching them watch them and listening to Gavin who is re-explaining pretty much everything, with more detail and more examples. So, I wonder why I even bother teaching him. This is how it has been his whole life. He always seems to already know what I get ready to teach him. I think he should be my co-teacher for this course. (we are using Apologia High School Chemistry DVD Course)
I just need a place to list all my planned experiments all together. to make it easy for me to gather everything we need. These are pretty much the NON-DVD Experiments (demonstrations). just for me to remember.
Make Black Snakes (fireworks):http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/blacksnakes.htm

Magnetic breakfast Cereal Sulfur & Iron mix
Vinegar & Egg thing

NI3 explosion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt9xCq0Dq9ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L436Rx42jXg

Burning Money (combustion) http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstrationsexperiments/ss/burnmoney.htm
Jam Jar Pulse Jet Engine: (just because it's fun)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePLpM5SnqE&feature=related
Experiments/Demos downloaded from: http://www.nclark.net/ChemicalReactions
Burn Ice Cubes: http://chemistry.about.com/od/funfireprojects/a/iceonfire.htmMake Hot Ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC-KOYQsIvU
Simple Colored Flames: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfii6r-ul-cMore Chemicals to use: http://chemistry.about.com/od/analyticalchemistry/a/flametest.htm
I need to find someone to go in with for buying these chemicals!!
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YO!

Oh My.
Where have I been?
Not here in the blog world.
I have been in my van. Driving.
But the play is over. The kids were great. I am tired of driving. And paying $4.15+ a gallon for gas. I think I filled up the van 3 times in the last 2 weeks. Once it was $4.32 a gallon!
LAST WEEK: In the midst of the Play Frenzy I had to make a stop at my acupuncturist's. I had an awful migraine with sensitivities and tingly/numb arms and face. I sure feel LOADS better when I came out of there, after some massage and hitting some major points. I had about 5 needles in my head. I normaly only have 2. I left there with 6 ear tacks. 4 in my ears and 2 in my back.
Hector is a Mexican guy in town that always comes by our house looking for work and money. Always trying to get paid way more than his work merits and it seems he often is pulling our leg.All is fine with his family until he thinks we didn't pay him enough then his baby is in the hospital. But, he is out working to get money and I am ok to pay for hard work. But when we were gone Saturday he cam by and pulled weeds when we were NOT here. Gavin got home and Hector talked G into paying him for the work and letting him in the backyard to do more work, which he insisted Brian pay his for doing. And he pulled out all my Asparagus Plants. I was NOT happy about any of it! And Gavin forgot to tell Brian he had Paid Hector $20 already. Hector got paid and paid again then had Brian give him a lift to the store and got dropped off. A liquor Store and dropped at a bar.
THIS WEEK: I have little planned. Bible Study is on Tuesday. I will be here every night to make dinner! I have to pick up my sewing machine so the boys can work on their amtgard stuff.I assigned them an hour of reading and an hour of math. I wanted to get back into Apologia Chemistry, but I can not find our CD-ROM. So we'll watch some Standard Deviant DVDs and take notes. **FOUND IT! but still gonna just watch the Standard Deviant DVDs this week- then seriously Buckle Down with Apologia in June & July.
Ki is reading White Fang. Connor is reading The Adventures of Tom Sayer. Gavin is reading Two Spies and a General. They are to do 1 hour at Khan Academy daily- with 15 minutes of that being watching videos. and Ki has 15 minutes of review.
TODAY: I watered my garden. We have to tuck seeds in here & there where we have room. So my garden is in bits and pieces around the yard. I found 18 sunflower starts in back and 9 in front. I planted the ones in front a few days after the ones in back. I ate a strawberry from last years plant. 2 of the new plants (24) from this year didn't survive. (there is a chance one of those might be revived..).
NEXT WEEK: We will be headed out to Yosemite for hiking and pictures! We'll cross a BIG BRIDGE and then cross it to come back. We'll visit a friend on the way home, then attend a 4 day Amtgard Camping Function. We MIGHT stop by Pinnacles on the way home.
Then we'll have 3 days to unpack, do laundry, repack for 4 days in LA for a gaming convention.
So I won't be blogging much this month I guess.
That iPad is looking better and better.... I looked up iPad 2, was impressed (the guy says ALYOOMINIUM... that gets me every time). Talked to Gavin, who totally shot it down and said I'd be better off just getting my laptop upgraded. Then he said if I gave him $600 he could make a really good computer for me.



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WAZZUP????

Welcome to Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday! Which means it is almost Sunday! I plan to knit and sleep and drink Starbucks.
The boys had dress rehearsal this week and opening night of their play was last night. They had a great time and did a awesome job!
I didn't get very many pictures last night. But I got a few.
There are 3 more performances.
This is all there is to this blog post, because I have been too preoccupied to think of anything witty and to busy for anything blog worthy to happen. (except my 6 ear tacks I have right now to help reduce the headaches)









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How To Tuesday: make a seed starter greenhouse

I begin with a story. A Dialogue between a hungry 17 yr old boy and his mother.
SON: "Mom, do you know where the small pan is??"MOM: Eating Chocolate Covered Almonds while Watching Netflix -(thinks to self. "oh, no. I totally forgot about that!)
MOM: :"ummm. In the back yard."SON: "WHAT?? Why is it out THERE??"MOM:" I took it out to clean it. It was super dirty."SON: "So, is it clean?"MOM: "no."SON: "ARG!"
I had it out back my the compost pile squirting the moldy spaghetti sauce out with the hose- but got distracted.
NOW for my HOW TO mini-Instructional. (and, don't worry, it won;t be how to clean dishes. That'd be like the Blind leading the Blind. THIS How To is for a mini-greenhouse to start your seeds.
Well, not an actual house.
and it is not actually GREEN.
But you get to use a knife and a soldering iron.
and tape.
And before I begin I must apologize for the quality of the pictures. I used Connor's video camera- that takes stills, but not that well. I was too lazy to find my good camera:
So, choose your seeds. For my first project I went with Bell Pepper Seeds.
Then get some 2 Liter bottles, knife, scissors, packing tape, soldering knife, and dirt.
take the lid off of your bottles and rinse them. (my just had Club Soda, so I didn't bother rinsing them)Then pinch the side a bit and make a small cut:
Then Use scissors in the cut, and cut around the entire circumference of the bottle:
I just follow the label. And I advise leaving labels on to protect the roots from the sunlight..
I like to cut a few slits in the lid. I find this helps them fit on better:

Then I use a soldering iron to put the holes in the bottom. WAY EASIER then when you had to poke them with your safety scissors in 4th grade.


Next add the dirt:
I like to start with some type of gravel for drainage. I had some clay spheres I got at a Hydroponics Store- so I used them:

Just a handful to cover the bottom.
Then I took a mixture of: Compost/Garden Soil & Potting Soil & Sphagnum Moss. I filled the containers to about 2 inches below the top of the label.

Added my seeds, watered with added fertilizer, put the lids on, and then the packing tape around the seam.





I misplaced the lids, do I added more tape to cover the opening.

I bought some apples at Costco. They came in this plastic bubble container:
I thought I'd try using it as a seed starter. I filled with the dirt mixture.poked holes, through the dirt with my scissors- because I forgot to to make holes first.

then added the seeds.
and watered and snapped the lid closed.


I hope it works.


I'm Joining Julianna in Posting a How To Tuesday Post with this hop:Click to see more How To's on Tuesday!

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