There is a lot going around on the internet about National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short! For those of you who need enlightenment, I’m here for you: This is a movement for authors and would be authors to sign up on a website saying that you will try to write 50,000 words of a new novel from November 1st – November 30th. On the website you can track your progress daily and try to reach your goal. Earlier this year this sounded like a great idea! I’m writing a historical fiction novel based in England/Scotland. I’ve been researching books, and maps, clothing, food, language, etc. I even forced my brother and sisters and their kids to the Celtic Festival this year (the end result of that was large quantities of swords and dirks brought to each home…sorry guys!) I’ve been really excited to start and complete a rough draft novel by the end of November. But then life came along…So instead, I’m researching parenting a strong willed child, the “Reflections” Program in our school (more details to come), the Double Bass and Webelos Scouting. So, in an effort to still play along, I would like to start something new. For those of us that are having difficulty committing to 50,000 words, let’s work on NaJoEntMo or National Journal Entry Writing Month. Take a deep breath, yes, yes, an entire journal entry! I have my personal Journal (last written in a week after I got married, 15 years ago) and I purchased a journal for each child for me to enter in all of the “cute” and “funny” things. Umm, each child has ONE entry that I put in six years ago after first buying the journals. So to all of you reading this, let’s commit together. Let’s take the plunge and try and write at least ONE JOURNAL entry during the month of November!
2 Comments
Growing up I HATED the garden, it meant work, dirty work. I would try to avoid my gardening expert father (seriously, he grew lemons, and blueberries in Utah—that isn’t supposed to be done!) during the spring and summer to avoid work and his blabbering on and on about what to do with plants, bulbs, bugs, etc. (Although the year he bought beer to feed the slugs was a lot of fun!) Now that I am older, wiser, and let’s face it…cheap…I too have been gardening. I am now kicking myself as My Dad’s dementia has made it so he cannot help me with all of my garden mysteries and problems, but luckily some of my siblings were paying attention to him (and to think I thought Ken wasn’t listening while he was looking for grasshoppers to throw at Angela and myself.) So, let me help you get your Garden ready for fall with what I have gleaned from them OR from what I have learned on my own.
Step One: Remove all vegetation. Step Two: This one is actually super important. You must add ORGANIC matter back in to your soil. It IS possible to OVER fertilize your soil, but you can NEVER over organic-ize (see how I made up that word there?) Organic matter would include grass clippings or dead leaves. Don’t have any trees? No problem, mention to a friend that you would love THEIR leaves and I’m sure they’ll give you bags full. Heck, I'll even give you some of mine! I find it helpful to use my lawn mower to pick them up so that they are being “mulched” allowing decomposition to move quicker. Step Three: Add a little fertilizer over the top of the leaves. Even a simple 10-10-10 will work. The reason behind this is that Nitrogen (the first number of the three numbers) is important in speeding along the decomposition of all of those leaves! Step Four: (This is just for people with hard soil) Add some gypsum on top as well. I also put this on my lawn and flower beds as gypsum helps with soil drainage. Step Five: Now turn your soil over. Tillers are easiest but shovels and my husband’s strong back work just as well! Some years I only make it through step four and the snow comes, but it’s okay, step five CAN be done in the spring, it just isn’t as beneficial for that year’s crops. And if you get this all done in the Fall, you’ll get a jump on things when it comes to early planting of things in the Spring such as peas, carrots and onions. You’ll be amazed at how these simple steps will help your garden! Here is my bonus tip: (Thanks to my brother Ken) Halloween—think vampires, what do they hate: Garlic. Halloween is the PERFECT time to plant your garlic bulbs to have fresh garlic next year! **I've added new recipes and October's Book and Movie Reviews--Check them out! This last week with my husband in Florida and I being swamped with a project for the local school, I will admit to being neglectful of my children, including going out to dinner 4 nights in a row (the kids said that they love it when dad is out of town!) Today our church had a conference that could be watched on TV or via the radio. So I decided the kids and I could spend some quality time on a fun ride seeing the fall leaves in the mountains above our house while "listening to church." I got the dogs and water and left around 10:30 A.M. I didn’t worry about packing any snacks or lunch because I intended to be home by noon. We had a great time, stopping occasionally to explore, including a wet trip into a beaver pond. Skyline Drive in our mountains is usually a road that extends into the city of Farmington but was ruined this year due to our extremely wet winter. Have no fear, I saw another road going east and thought it would get us down into the town of Morgan that lies directly east over the mountain from us. Let’s try that! The sign said: This road not intended for passenger vehicles. I was in a 4 wheel drive, not a wussy passenger car! Let’s plow through! It was a lot of fun going over huge rocks, gorges and through huge puddles! I taught my kids what the handles on the sides of the car were really for! We were having a great time until we noticed the clock quickly moving forward and we were still deep in the mountains…we were hopelessly lost! No problem! Bubba picked up my cell phone to call his Dad in Florida to ask him if the GPS—in Florida—could help us find our way home. Good thing we had no reception so Dad didn’t have to lecture me on reckless behavior with the children in tow! We continued on until we turned a corner and there stood the weather towers on Francis Peak! Great all that driving with still no hope of an exit! We turned around. Then began the real fun, being lost, hungry (LouLou asked me to please stop the next campers we saw and ask them for food) we were tired, one of the dogs threw up and It did NOT smell pretty and then that same dog jumped out of the moving vehicle slightly injuring herself. Well, what started up as a leisurely drive ended up being a FIVE HOUR adventure! Of course the kids will forget about me driving them to assorted lessons, helping with homework, volunteering with scouts, making dinners and cookies etc, etc, but I’m sure they’ll remember the time that mom got them lost in the mountains with the puking dog! Ah, the memories! This week I have another confession to make: I…am… musically challenged. I know, totally unbelievable seeing as how I am seemingly perfect, but it’s true! As a little girl my piano teacher, told me that she thought it would be best if I saved my Mom’s money and just quit piano. When JellyBean was six and she and I were “bonding” while watching horrible singers in the initial tryouts for American Idol, she turned to me and informed me that if Simon Cowell (judge on American Idol) heard me sing, he would say that I was “dreadful.” Luckily for my own dear children, I married a man that has a good singing voice, can somewhat read music and can—heaven forbid, keep time! I’m honestly not sure if he heard me sing until we were married for months if not years (I would just mouth the words during sacrament meeting, hey don’t judge, it works!) I have hoped that my children follow after Ethan and not myself in the musical arena, so when JellyBean informed us in the 6th grade orchestra that she wanted to play, not the violin, but instead the largest possible instrument, the upright Bass, I was very supportive. Especially because we didn’t have to buy a bass, just borrow one from the school district. I was so supportive that I would help her carry the bass to and from school (it didn’t fit in our car without a lot of twisting, turnings, seat bending…you get the idea.) Jr. High and a carpool later we realized that lessons and buying a bass became essential. I was still supportive and after weeks of phone calls we FINALLY found someone to teach her lessons. It would cost us $25 a week and Ethan would go with her so that he could help her at home after listening to the teacher (see, NOT musically challenged!) We also went bass shopping. This is where I start to wonder WHO I’m supporting! We went to the local “R” music store and were told that the rental was 69% interest…yes, you read that right! 69% interest!!! There was also a penalty if we paid off early. So we tried the local “S” music store and they were slightly better but still in the 60%’s. Okay, I don’t care how musically challenged you are, or how supportive you are, it doesn’t mean that you are math or logic challenged too! Isn’t that the whole right brain/left brain question? Are they expecting that I have neither side functioning? I was ready to tell JellyBean that the support I was going to give her was walking with her to the counselor’s office and finding something else musical…like choir, pretty sure that I already paid for the voice box attached to her! Ahh, have no fear, I’ve been a good girl and have been paying my tithing! We managed to find a bass on Craig’s list that we could pay cash for and it's in great shape! So I will go on supporting her and her HUGE bass that has found a home in my living room…now I just hope she doesn’t want the whole family coming to concerts, we won’t all fit in the car with the bass! ************************ Side note: I have updated my monthly book and movie reviews These are my children’s memories! Yep, at least 7 years worth. I enjoy scrapbooking, really, I do. It just became a huge hassle when I would pull things out and only have a little time to work and then have to put everything away again! If my kids weren’t getting into the stickers, glue, scissors or the actual photos then it was my cats! They would lie all over my scrapbook table and then push things off to keep themselves occupied; the last straw was when someone decided an unfinished page was the perfect place to leave a hairball! Then it became a bigger hassle as the kids got older and they had more things for me to scrapbook. I ran out of places to store things and boxes to put them in. A stack started to form. I would dread kindergarten when the kids would say “I get to bring a poster to school to show all about me.” For JellyBean I was still able to locate some for her, for Bubba it got harder and those photos have since be added back in the stack. And for Lou Lou, well, I just reprinted photos for her to use! What is even worse than this is that when Lou Lou was little and couldn’t read yet, she wanted to see baby photos of herself. I understand, don’t we all want to see how adorable we were. Well, to make me feel less guilty, I just showed her Jellybean’s few years of photos I’d scrapbooked and told her that they were of her! Every time she saw a picture of Jesus with little kids she would ask if the one with brown hair was her. “Yep, aren’t you so cute!” The other two kids quickly learned that when Mom gave them ‘the look’ and put her finger to her lips, they were NOT to out her and tell who the pictures were really of. Bubba also has a couple of his years scrapbooked and has all the faith in the world that I’ll get more done. To this day he will regularly hand me things and say “Will you scrapbook this for me?” My answer, “Yep, just go put it on my scrapbook table…..” Do you remember how excited you were to go back to school in first grade? Ya, well me either. But I do remember walking to school with my older sister, Angela, in my brand new pants, shirt, and amazingly white tennis shoes. We got to walk to school ALONE, UP HILL and through the “kiddy walk”. At the time I enjoyed talking… a lot (okay, still do). However, I had a lisp! I’m guessing that to pass the time on our journey, Angela probably had me say as many “s” and “z” words she could think of just to see how far the spittle would fly while we were walking . Well, maybe not, she was usually pretty nice to me, but I would have done it to her had roles been reversed! Thanks goes out to Mr. Whitney for helping to fix that lisp sometime during elementary school, oh, and for all of the bribery candy you supplied over the years of speech therapy! Luckily for my own first grader, LouLou, she has no lisp, a mere one minute walk to school and a mother who has threatened her older brother to take good care of her on the way. In preparation for the first grade we got new clothes, amazingly white shoes that ALSO sparkle, backpack that is half her size, lunch box and a haircut. All that was left was finding out who her teacher was and her room assignment. The magic day arrived when the mailman delivered the letters from the school…dun, dun, dun…She was assigned to the new outside classroom in a trailer home wannabee. It is what our school district calls a “portable”. I have been informed that these classrooms have many different names and witnessed a heated ‘discussion’ between my mother-in-law and her son-in-law about the label “portable” as she firmly believes that they are called “relocatables”. Well, in spite of its name, my oldest, The Bean, was also in a portable in the first grade and excitedly told her how great they were. Muffin had to call daddy at work to share her exciting news! “I get to have my class in the teleport!” Ummm, any indication that she had been watching too many episodes of Star Trek with her older siblings? Noooo…not at all! After correcting this term for her she got back on the phone with her dad, “Oh, I meant I get my class in the porta potty!” Ummm….. I started to blog almost exactly TWO months ago and never made it past the first page. I figured that if I whined enough and begged enough that my husband, Ethan, would just do it for me...well, apparently he's pulling out the tough love and making me do it on my own. So just to prove that I'm not going to hold a grudge, I'm going to tell you a few of the many reasons that I still think he's amazing even after all these many years of marriage. Let me set the record straight, I did not marry him JUST because he was a pretty face and his name was SO unique.
***His Technical talents. He is a computer master (really I'm starring at several certificates on the wall signed by Bill Gates of Microsoft and Eric Schmidt of Novell saying that he is!). As soon as his mouth opens with computer lingo or really ANY technical lingo my ears slowly close...it's crazy how that happens. I purposely don't learn what he is teaching me, what else would he have to do around here if I didn't look at him innocently and explain for the 79th time that 'No, I don't know how to take the memory card out of the camera to put photos on the computer' (what was wrong with film anyway, right?! Who has my back?!) He has kindly informed me that if anything were to happen to him, then our 9 year old would have to manage all technical things in the house not to be limited to the cameras, XBOX, computers, wireless something or others, etc., etc. ***His big strong muscles to open pickle jars! I'll be honest, at first I really was too weak to open those dumb glass jars that are obviously only meant for super heroes to open. However, as time went by I realized that most times the pickle juice would explode OUT of the jar and onto whoever was opening it, so I continued to pretend weakness. He keeps buying it because he has never witnessed me carrying a toddler, 32 oz. soda, 6 bags of groceries, and my purse all at the same time WHILE managing to unlock the door. ***His fearless nature in the face of fast, hairy spiders! 'I am women hear me roar' does NOT apply when faced with spiders. I don't care about the size, type or color, if it is in my house it IS a mortal enemy. When I lived at my parents’ house I would get the dust buster and suck them up. The sound of them crunching in between toilet paper was nasty. And what if you didn't fully kill them and they came back for you later...hmm, I laid awake thinking about that as a child. Well, when we got married I didn't own a dust buster. So if he wasn't home, I did the next best thing! I would get a glass cup and place it over the top of the spider. That way I could see that the spider was still in there and then he could get rid of it however he wanted. It worked well for us until a dreaded event happened...we got cats! The cats thought this was great fun to watch a spider crawling around under glass. The first time I found a glass tipped over and the spider missing I screamed and ran upstairs and called to inform him over the eight legged emergency at home. ***His 6 foot 3 inch frame. Let's face it, when you're short you lose things in closets and high cupboards. Let's not even get started on things on the TOP shelves in grocery stores! He is like my own personal step ladder in cases like this. Wait, not just my own personal, I can't count the number of times strangers have asked him to help get something for them in the store...wait, isn't that a pick up line? Thank you for the 15 wonderful years of marriage Ethan! You are really a great guy (now I'm sucking up so you won't make me kill my own spiders!) and I'm glad you're mine! I do realize that you caught onto me years ago and continue to do these things just because you love me. (He’s also super cool because he loves me enough to spell check my blog and explain to me again that I need to press F7 to spell and grammar check my work. ) |
AuthorIam HILARIOUS...or so I tell my children regularly! I am a horrible cleaning lady, an okay social organizer for all of my 'peeps' activities, but I make AMAZING cookies! I love my family...especially when they all leave to school or work and I'm alone with 2 dogs, 2 box turtles and my own imagination! Archives
December 2015
|