WHOO HOO, DOGGIES!

OH MY! OH MY! OH MY!

I hardly have words to describe the Cowboy game, or any fingernails left, because my friends, it was a nail biter!

*We pulled it out with a touchdown, Romo to Whitten, with approximately 18 seconds left on the clock and no time outs. Whew!

If I were on blood pressure medicine I’d have to take some right about now.

The lions outplayed *us the whole game and still they lost. I almost feel bad for them…almost.

*I realize the use of the terms we and us imply that I had something to do with the win which is not necessarily true as I was not actually on the field playing. But I cheered, oh yes I did!

The REASON for the season

Because I think it bears repeating...

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13 CHRISTMAS VERSION
AUTHOR UNKNOWN

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen,
baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
preparing gourmet meals
and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime:
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another cook.

If I work at a soup kitchen
carol in the nursing home,
and give all that I have to charity;
but do not show love to my family,
it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels
and crocheted snowflakes,
attend a myriad of holiday parties
and sing in the choir's cantata
but do not focus on Christ,
I have missed the point.


Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.

Love is kind, though harried and tired.

Love does not envy another's home
that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love does not yell at the kids to get out of the way,
but is thankful they are there to be in the way.

Love does not give only to those who are able to give in return;
but rejoices in giving to those who cannot.

Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things, and
endures all things.
Love never fails.

Video games will break,
pearl necklaces will be lost,
golf clubs will rust;
but giving the gift of love will endure

Soup!

I live in TX. Today, December 7th it is 80 degrees and sunny. This is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.

I love winter. I love to be cold; actually I love when it is cold outside and I can wear flannel things and sweats and socks and be warm despite the cold blustery weather.

Cold blustery weather where are you? Please, please come. Please. I miss you.

Since I can’t seem to convince old man winter to come for a visit, I’m just going to pretend. One of the things I like to do in the winter when it’s, you know, COLD is to eat soup. Potato soup. I love the potato, she is my friend. She is the mother of all comfort foods. And when she is in a soup, well my culinary joy is complete.

So here is my potato soup recipe (cooked in the crock pot of course!). If you would like to find some equally yummy soups go on over and visit BooMama. I bet they’ll be soups that don’t use frozen things and are from *gasp* scratch. But really, why go to all that trouble when there is potato soup to be had?

Crock Pot Potato Soup

1.) Put a bag of shredded hash browns in the crock pot. (I use the Southern Style square kind)

2.) Add 3 cups chicken broth, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup chopped onion and 1 cup chopped ham.

3.) Turn on LOW and cook for 3 to 6 hours. (The longer, the better.)

4.) Stir in one pint of half and half or one can of evaporated milk. (yeah right, who’s going to choose Evaporated milk when Half and Half is an option?)

Remove lid and cook another 30 minutes on HIGH. Serve with a salad and/or a cheesy bread.

Sprinkle your bowl with pepper and extra sharp cheddar cheese.

Serves 4 to 6.

My friend Tonya pointed out to me (in the comments) a vital step in the Potato Soup making process that I forgot to mention, one that I often forget to do myself. (As I have previously stated)

***PLUG IN THE CROCK POT***

And on a side note. My friend Tonya has started a blog and I think we all need to check her out. She is not just a cyber friend but a friend IRL. I have known Tonya since I was a teen with unfortunate taste in eye makeup and hair styles. And yet, still, she is my friend.

She is a fellow homeschooling mom with 4 kids and a husband in the military, I could tell you more about her husband but then I’d have to kill you and that would be hard since I don’t know where most of you live.

Looking Back

Today I was perusing through my blog, looking at some of the Archives. I wanted to make sure that everything was still lined up and even after the design change.

I came across this post. It was kinda interesting to me that even though I posted it 8 months ago, last school year; I could have posted it today.

I still desire the same things, and I still have the same struggles. I know in light of eternity these struggles are 'Light and Momentary' but 8 months does not seem too momentary. I think I just need to get my head around the fact that I will always have these struggles as long as I have children.



The Perfect Mom



Of all the haunting moments of motherhood, few rank with hearing your own words come out of your daughter's mouth. ~Victoria Secunda

God intended motherhood to be a relay race. Each generation would pass the baton on to the next. ~ Mary Pride

I have not posted in a while, my Mom’s been visiting. Her visit has really got me thinking. What kind of Mom will my kids describe me as when they are adults? Will they remember all the good times or only the bad?

Will they remember all the nights I read to them before bed, or the nights I was too tired or too busy.

Will they remember all the kind and uplifting words, all the I Love You’s or the times when I raised my voice in anger?

Will they remember all the things I taught them? Or all the things I didn’t know?

Will they have fond memories of all the things we did together, or only remember the times I went without them?

Will they remember the times I let them make a huge mess, cooking in my kitchen, or only think on the times I said no because I didn’t want the hassle?

Will they remember the times we all played games together, or the times when they had to play by themselves.

Will they remember all the times we curled up on the couch to read a great book, or the times I made them do their math?

Will they remember all the great and deep conversations we had, or only the lectures they occasionally had to endure?

I am a parent, I am a sinner, I am human, I will not be a perfect parent. How will my children choose to remember me when they have left the nest?

I know that no one can be the perfect parent. There is this constant tug between doing what feels right and doing what is right in this fallen world we live in. The more I focus on God the more doing what is right, is easier. But I’ll never get it perfectly right this side of eternity.

Even in homeschool, I feel the tug between idealism, and reality. I want to sit and talk and read and have deep spiritual discussions with my kids, and we do that some, but there is always the tyranny of the urgent. The math MUST get done; we MUST study writing more, the SAT’s are coming! We don’t have time to sit and talk about what my 8 year old wants to be when she grows up, we have phonics to cover, and haven’t even started History yet, and I have to go get B from his Algebra tutor in 30 minutes! You get the point and have probably experienced the same struggle.

I know what I want my home and homeschool to look like, I know the Ideal that is in my head, but somehow reality falls far short of that ideal.

I think having my Mom here reminded me that this is not forever, this time I have to teach and influence my children is only a season, then they are on their own and I can’t go back and do or undo anything. I can’t go back and read Peter Pan to my 30 year olds, or pull them on my lap and ask them what they want to be when they grow up.

It’s kind of like the parable of the talents. God has given me these 4 talents for a time. One day He is going to ask me what I did with them. One day I’ll be held to account.

Some day soon this portion of my job will be done and I desperately want to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant” from my Father, and “You did a good job, Mom, I love you” from my kids.

No pressure or anything!

The above photo...
Enough and Room to Spare
by Frederick Morgan

Genius!

Um, you know when you have an electronic object that will not work and you call customer service or try to read the troubleshooting section in the informational pages? You know how the first thing they ask you is if you have checked to see if it is plugged in? And you get irritated and mutter under your breath, “who are these idiots who call customer service without checking the plug first?”

Yeah, here is me raising my hand.

First there is the crock pot thing. I did this again last night by the way. B noticed it in time and we got it plugged in before it was too late.

Remember this post where the clock would not work?

Well, those times no one but me and my 10 daily readers knew. But this time I took up the time of the Dish Network customer service people with my idiocy. My remote stopped working so I did the logical thing, I asked D to fix it. He told me to replace the batteries. I did this and it would still not work. I thought it needed to be re programmed or something so I called customer service.

After she walked me through the steps to re program the remote and it still would not turn on the TV, she asked me if I could manually turn on my TV. Um, that would be a no.

“Is it plugged in?”

“Um, no. No it’s not.”

Brilliance in action my friends!

I Love Me A Good Book!

Time for a book review on the Hilltop.



The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is one of my favorite Christmas books ever.

We read this little gem every year. It is a short book, only about 80 pages, but it is just so sweet. It is set in the late 50’s early 60’s and is about how a horrible group of siblings take over the Christmas pageant of the local church. Initially everyone is horrifies that that these dirty, and very un- godly little children are going to be playing the Holy Family in the pageant; but when all is said and done, we are reminded that the Heardman children are exactly the kind of people Jesus came here for. And perhaps the Holy family looked a bit more like the Herdman children (tired, bedraggled, unkempt) than the clean cut families from the best homes.

Reading this book together as a family is one of my family’s favorite Charismas traditions, even though they almost have it memorized.

Holiday Brunch

So here are the photos of the Holiday Brunch I promised. I know you were waiting with great anticipation.

Here is the photo of me and my friend S. (wonder if S would mind me putting her photo on the Web for the entire world, or my 10 daily readers, to see?)



My hair was so nicely curled and freshly darkened (oh the gray, it is taking over). However the wind was blowing, so you can not see how nice my hair looked, which is a same because having nicely coiffured hair is a rarity for me, I needed pictorial evidence.



This is a photo of some ladies chatting. Notice the absence of small people, sippy cups, plastic plates or catsup. Ahh, it was wonderful.

My SIL, is a wonder decorator. She has her own business here, and she is really good at what she does. I think she gets twitchy every time she comes to my home decorated in the Early Homeschool Fashion. Here are some of her decorations and the buffet she set out for our brunch.







On a serious note, as Christy stated here, it is important for women to get out now and then and talk to other adults. We need to go back to civility sometimes. I personally forget how to interact with people when it is not my job to train them. I get to just relax and be myself. It was really a wonderful time.

I think I need to make this a regular Saturday occurrence, I wonder if D would mind?

Advent on the Hilltop

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It is our tradition to skip church and stay home and have home church, when we begin the years Advent celebrations.

This is how we are celebrating this wonderful day. First we woke up early and had a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits and fresh fruit. Kidding, we never do that. In fact, I think the only day we do that is Christmas morning. Needless to say, I am not a morning person.

Back to advent; D and I slept in, which was hard because the girls knew we were going to do our tree today and to say they were excited would be and understatement. EVERYTHING THEY SAID WAS SAID IN ALL CAPS SINCE THEIR EYES OPENED AT 6 AM!

We got up and had some coffee and read the paper. After hearing MOM IS IT TIME HUH? HUH? MOM IS IT TIME? We ordered pizza and began our Advent celebration. As we sat around the table eating pizza, we lit the first candle of the advent season the Prophesy or Hope candle. We read Isaiah 9:2-7

Here is a part of what we read.

6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, [b] Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Then we pulled out our tree from the wall where we it sat waiting to be decorated and the fun began. The boys put the lights on; and oh the memories. G breaking bulbs, possible electrocution, girls ringing all the bells they found in the Christmas boxes they were unpacking all over the living room, while Reba sang O Come O Come Emanuel. (Who in the world put it on the County Christmas station?) We’re a sophisticated lot let me tell you.



It’s a darn good thing this holiday is really about the Birth of Christ. My advent Wreath is beautiful (I think) and I have the advent readings and books all organized and ready to go. I'm totally on top of it.



As for the Christmas decorations; well, while we may not be creating beauty, we are at least creating memories.

This and That, Here and There.

Jenny in CA, sorry there is no one Wal-Mart story. I could write a book about my Wal-Mart adventures, but I’ll spare you.

I have just noticed every year that the closer you get to Christmas the scarier it is at Wal-Mart. Sometimes I think I’d rather be in a dark alley all alone at night than at Wal-Mart near Christmastime. It is like everyone has a head cold or a hangover! Normal every day Minivan Moms suddenly morph into people who appear capable of committing murder for that last Disco-Dance Elmo.

It’s a frightening thing.

***********************************

And Jewlsntexas I really liked your comment about my immigration post. I think I like your idea, perhaps we should ask those who were here first.

One thing I struggle with is that we are all here because of immigration -
But even more upsetting to me is when Christians behave as if anything belongs to them - the world is the Lord's and everything in it.
I agree that there are processes - but at the same time - it smacks sometimes of my kids petty "I was sitting here first!"

Let’s let the Native Americans solve immigration! Seriously, I would live to ask a Native American what they think of the whole immigration situation, I bet they might have an idea or two.


***********************************


I have much to say about the Holliday Brunch today, it was a great time and I have pictures! I’ll post that tomorrow.

Brunch!

I am going to a women’s brunch today. There will be no kids, real plates, good food and much beauty and adult conversations.

I have on a nice 3\4 length sleeve top (because oven though it is Dec 1st it is going to be 70 degrees) with bead embellishment around the neckline. My hair is curled and I have on makeup.

I can hardly wait.

However, I have this horrible feeling I might tell someone to chew with their mouth closed or to use inside voices or correct someone’s grammar.

I think I’ve forgotten how to behave around a room full of grownups!
Details and photos to follow when I return home.