T minus 22 days until we depart with a very unloved part of my son--his tonsils. While tonsil removal has been on the decline in the last two decades, I will say with certainty--He needs them out! Every cold, every illness goes straight to his throat. Just yesterday he awoke with a cold and two of the most swollen tonsils you've ever seen. I thought about taking a picture of them to share with you, but then changed my mind. I spared you!! Just imagine a throat full of tonsils so … [Read more...]
North and South
July 26, 2011 By
If you love Jane Austen, and ardently admire Charles Dickens, but always sort of wish that one were more like the other, meet Elizabeth Gaskell, and the BBC mini-series North and South. A love story set with themes of changing society and labor relations, with hot fight scenes between the proud main couple, and baskets brought to consumptive working class friends, the whole thing is exquisite. Available on instant download from Netflix, perfect for when your husband is working late, as mine … [Read more...]
Divide and Conquer
July 25, 2011 By
It has been a super busy summer, involving early mornings and late nights, toddlers pushed through and beyond their nap-deprived patience and me melting down or falling asleep by 9:30 most nights. With all of this in mind, I am particularly thankful that my mother-in-law has taken the littlest two for a sleepover at her house tonight so that I can get the older four off to swim championships at 6:30 am. This is a win-win situation, the little guys will have a dreamy time getting special … [Read more...]
Not a helicopter parent
July 25, 2011 By
His day visiting his great-grandparents didn't go as planned. Poor kid. It's always something with our Gus. But the tomato he was carrying came through unscathed. He asked about that tomato as soon as we got the bleeding under control, and again once they finished stitching up his face. He then ate it for lunch today. Unfortunately, in the craziness of our day, we left the ointment from our hospital trip behind. His discharge instructions say to keep the wound covered in … [Read more...]
Good Reads
July 24, 2011 By
Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia. The subject of sharing about books came up recently on Facebook, so I also wanted to share here that I love GoodReads as a way to catalog what I am reading and get book recommendations from others. Look for me over there and friend me if you want to join in and see what is on my bookshelves. Seeing bookshelves is one of my favorite reasons to visit a new home, at a cocktail … [Read more...]
What is modesty for mothers?
July 21, 2011 By
Recently, we were at the pool with my VERY FIT friend Mrs. X and her five children. Mrs. X was in a fairly skimpy bikini. After 5 kids, she still has the figure for it. At the pool that day, instead of asking Mrs. X for a juice box himself, my 5-year-old son asked me to go ask her. Twice I told him it was his responsibility to ask her if he wanted a juice box. Finally, as I was becoming impatient, he told me, "Mom, please ask her for me. I'm embarrassed to, because Mrs. X doesn't look … [Read more...]
Food Storage Question
July 20, 2011 By
We like to buy in bulk, but then every once in a while we have an unexpected stretch of not eating at home as often, and things go to waste. Right now, we have some issues with insects (pantry moths) in our grains, and I was thinking that I might like to just get an extra freezer and keep everything in the freezer. Does anyone have experience or thoughts on this -- I keep rice in the freezer, but what about flour, dry pasta, cereal? … [Read more...]
Pope appoints Archbishop Chaput to Philadelphia archdiocese :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
July 20, 2011 By
Pope appoints Archbishop Chaput to Philadelphia archdiocese :: Catholic News Agency (CNA). Exciting news for our area, and also another chance to practice with PressThis. I must now relinquish the computer so that a certain nine year old can check his online chess game. By the way, does anyone have success posting to wordpress from email or an iphone? I want to be able to do this, I can post pictures and things easily to blogger and facebook, so why not wordpress? But, this will … [Read more...]
Serendipity: Along the American History Trail ~ Lewis and Clark Stop 1
July 20, 2011 By
Serendipity: Along the American History Trail ~ Lewis and Clark Stop 1. We are going to use some of these resources for the early part of our 19th Century America. This is a test of the "press this" tool on WordPress. It is an easy way to link to anyplace on the web, but I don't know if it will be too busy to be doing this as a fresh post, some of us really want to have a shared items feed of some sort, but it is harder to integrate it on a group blog. Technology... … [Read more...]
Test Post and brief update
July 20, 2011 By
Friends, this is just a test post because some of us have been having trouble with wordpress. Looks like it is working now! Here are some quick takes from my family in July: 1. This is the summer of swim team and audio books, both of which have been great fun. We have listened to The Kite Fighters, which was wonderful, we are also using "playaways" which are individual mp3 players loaded with a book from the library. The kids love to plug in some headphones and listen while knitting, doing … [Read more...]
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