Mama's Garden
I'm Drowning in Books!
Well school is back and I already feel in over my head. This is my third day and I have a paper to write, a language to learn, a book to review, and math, which by itself can make my brain hurt=] But the truth is, is that I love learning. I have tons of useless fact jut waiting for there time to shine=]I made a goal this summer to read at least 100 books. Last summer I read 50, no problem. But I guess doubling it was not good because I only read 87=[ Oh well, I know know at least 87 things I didn't before=] I just finished "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, if you want to read a creepy book thats one of the creepiest. It's the authors vision of the future, which includes cloning, drugs, and the banning of marriage. Nightmare city=]
Well since I have all these useless facts I will start sharing one at the end of each post, if I remember that is=]
"There are 330,000 species of beetles alone, the largest is named the Goliath Beetle"
Madge@Home
Tomorrow Is going to be awsome!
Tomorrow is the first day of school! I'm so exited! I'm going to have lots of fun I can just feel it. Schools going to be really new. (Since were doing a charter school.) But I know I will have just as much fun as last year.A New Beginning
I am so dense. And proud. And selfish. I don't think those are the words that people who know me would usually use to describe me (I guess I'm also sneaky) but it's so true!I have homeschooled my children all of their lives. They have only been inside a classroom when doing extra things with their dad. And I am proud of that....partly in the good way (thank you God for allowing it and giving me kids that are easy to teach) and partly in a very bad way ("Isn't it nifty of me to sacrifice my own desires to stay home?") The last two school years I have felt enormous pressure (self induced, I am now finding...thus the dense) to make sure I find and co-ordinate all of my children's school and that it isn't like anyone else's. I wanted to be seen as super mom that did all the right things while being COMPLETELY different from "the world." It was in large part about how I would appear to others! Not entirely, because I am a firm believer in schooling at home, but selfishly, I was pretty impressed with me. I like it when my friends think I'm great. How ridiculous! We have been so blessed with each other (husband and I have been together since I was in high school...another source of that good/bad pride thing) and with wonderfully healthy, smart children. We had so little to do with what God has poured on us! Yes, we made some right decisions, but we also made some very poor ones that the Lord STILL used to bless us. How can we take credit for any of that? Even looking at it all written out, and seeing the ugliness of ME, I still have to fight down the hideous pride-self monster.
The last four years have been the strangest of our lives. We have moved six times and lost our closest family friend to a hidden drug addiction. My husband, the stereotypical engineer, decided to change careers and become a middle school math teacher, necessitating three years of full time teaching while at the same time full time grad school. It cut our family income in almost half. And put us nearly $40,000 in debt. And gave me a husband who gets up and goes to his job gladly. And gives us nearly three months of true family time spaced out over the year. And brought us even closer to our children. God brought us through the yuck, to this place of refuge...for how ever long it lasts. As He always has!
All that long winded confession to say, I have changed our style of schooling completely and I feel FREEDOM from so much of that pressure I had placed on myself. I have released control of the planning of the children's school and it is a relief! Now I can help them with their studies and enjoy the time with them, and not be the one that has ultimate power. Ultimate power is a heady thing for a fallen Mom! It will be a change. It is public school curriculum, and I have always used Christian based. It will mean discussions of truth and righteousness and the way other people view the world. I has the potential to be iron sharpening iron. IF I can remember humility, unselfishness and thoughtful thankfulness.
The Summer Adventures of Madge, Chapter Five, The Lava Beds
Okay its not tomorrow=]After we went to Virginia City we stayed two more days at my grandma's before heading home.
On the way back we decided to camp at the Lava Beds National Park and Monument. The campground was nice and it wasn't long before we had dinner going and the tent up (Dad didn't ask me to help this time) =]
That night we all slept great and were all ready to go in the morning.
The main reason we went to this campground was to go spelunking, if your like me you'll be thinking, does this person go around randomly making up words? The answer is yes, but not in this case. Spelunking is just the scientific word for the exploration of caves.
So the next morning we set off to go explore some caves. The first cave we went in you have to go down a long flight of stairs, more like a ladder, in to the darkness. My mom and brother don't like dark tight places and it wasn't long before the decided to let us go on with out them.The second one they got a little farther but still stopped about a third of the way through.
It was so fun, I loved getting down on my hands and knees to crawl down into the darkness. I also liked the cool earthy smell that was down in the caves. They were really amazing and in my opinion one of Gods coolest works of art. I have a few pictures so here they are.
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..........................................................................................................................................Here ends my summer adventures, I hope you liked reading about the fun I had this summer and I hope you keep reading about my life when I remember to post it=]
<~}Madge{~>
Happy New Month!!!
Well Its a new month. I wonder if its the end of the sunny days. My mom thinks it is. I wonder why they called this year global warming.I mean It snowed in April! But I'll make as much fun as I can out of it.It's all done
And boy am I glad! The question now is...will we ever raise chickens for meat again?I ordered 50 with the understanding that our landlord would pay for feed and we would raise and butcher. At the end he would get 25 and we would have the rest for our freezer. We ended up keeping four as layers (they look and lay like Austrolorps...were they really Black Cornish Cross?) and butchering 12. Four we gave to our friend for helping with the butchering and feeding while we were gone to Mexico. She is also canning four for us. So I have three cut up for fryers, one whole roaster and the eight quarts of canned, precooked meat. Sounds alright, but it was an awful lot of work!
In other homestead news...the potato crop was mediocre. There were approximately 60 pounds but we planted almost 10 pounds of seed. That's only six pounds to the pound of seed and I had figured 10 pounds. The tomatoes are still only producing eating quantities, so I haven't gotten any canned. The beans are lovely plants but a little fruit. We had great onions and garlic. So it looks like potato soup this winter!
We sold all of our Nigerian Dwarf goats to one family. They are just too hard to milk for us, so we downsized to the two Nubian girls. We'll be breeding them sometime in the next month. Another deciding factor in the decision to sell is the price of feed. It's $13 a bag and we were using about three a month for animals that weren't contributing. Now that the chickens are gone as well as those seven goats, we'll be back to our $40 a month feed budget.
School starts on the third. We are doing an online charter school, so we are on someone else's schedule for the first time ever. I am glad to have someone else doing the planning but apprehensive about doing anything "public" school. I hope it all goes well.
Husband (Didaskalos) and I are celebrating our 18th anniversary on Monday. We may go have dinner out (his mom sent us a little paper present) tonight....or we may wait until Monday and take the kids to see a cheap movie.
I suppose I should end this ramble and ramble on out to the dump so that the pickup is clean before the busy week. Not any deep thoughts today, just an update on the Dailey Doings!
The Summer Adventures of Madge, Chapter Four, Nevada
A week after VBS we headed to my grandma's house in Silver Springs, Nevada.On the way down we stopped at Goose Lake to camp for the night. So while mom made dinner it was my job to help dad set up the tent. It was a new one so it took us awhile to figure it out but when we were done it looked great (in my opinion, dad thought it wasn't right) and after dinner we went went to bed. The next morning we woke up, ate, repacked the tent, and were on our way.
The next day around dinner time we got to my grandma's house. The first few days we just relaxed and were lazy, except for a few minor trips to town for food and video games=] Then on Thursday we went to Virginia City. For those of you who don't know much, or anything, about here's a little about it.
Virginia city was one of the richest mining towns of the 1850's. The first miners were looking for gold, but instead found silver, lots and lots of silver. A little gold was found, but the city flourished mostly on silver exportation. In 1864ish there was a big fire that burned down most of the town, but because of the wealth of the community they were able to completely rebuild it. There are some really neat old churches and buildings, and most of them you can go inside. It's a really neat place and you should try to visit it sometime. Here are some pictures, luckily my dad takes a lot of pictures=]
Here is a beautiful old house with a history. . .
Read this sign that was on the fence of this house.
Here is one of the old churches, this one is "Saint Mary's in the Mountains" cute name I think=] Isn't it pretty?
Here is a retired train.
Well there's my favorite Virginia City pictures I'll have the rest of the trip posted by tomorrow=]
=]Madge[=
Random Insanity
A friend sent me this in a email and I thought I would share them. It's just a list of 10 of silly, random things that made me laugh=]1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it 'In'.
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6.Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
7.Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme?
8. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
9. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
10.Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'
Well they they made me laugh anyway=]
=]Madge[=
Happy Birthday To Me!!
My Birthday is tomorrow!!! I am going to be nine years old!! But this year I do not get a party. But next year I'm going to have a tea party. Just like my sisters.The Summer Adventures of Madge, Chapter Three, VBS
After camp was over I had a whole week's break before it was time for our church to do it's annual Vacation Bible School. This year I was asked to be in the skits.The theme was "Serving" so for skits me and a group of other kids from the church played the Snobsons, a "snobby" family, (the name says it all=]) They were a lot of fun and I don't think there was a day when someone didn't get some moist or wet substance thrown on them=]
Over all I think every kid took something away from it. The volunteers worked really hard to make it a fun week and I really think it payed off through the kids.
=]Madge[=
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