Mommy Brain » Blogging

I know, I know….

carrie — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:17:41 +0000

….it’s been a really long time since I posted here. My mom has informed me that she misses reading my posts and thinks that others probably do, too. I’m not so sure about that – but for the few of you that are still checking back here for updates about me and my life, here’s a quick bullet-points update:

~ We had a wonderful Christmas. Kevin and I and the kids headed south to Chewelah to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve afternoon. We had a wonderful dinner – homemade fried chicken a la Dad – and then headed to church for the Christmas Eve service, at which Natalie and I both sang. We stayed over at Mom and Dad’s and had Christmas morning there. The kids were thrilled with the Wii and played all day long – which resulted in a lot of sore arms the next day.

~ New Year’s Eve we spent with Michelle and Don. The boys played video games, while Michelle and Don and Kevin and I played Mad Gab and Scruples and enjoyed spinach dip and pomegranate martinis. I think that was the first time we were awake for ringing in the New Year in a while!

~ The latest Jonathan-ism occurred when we were having dinner at a friend’s house. He asked for a piece of “German shepherd cake,” rather than German chocolate.

~ The kids are getting ready to start second semester P.E. classes, which will include 10 weeks of bowling. They are all very excited.

~ Two of my sisters are dealing with health issues. Marni has been diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a thyroid condition. She’s on medication and hoping that it works and she doesn’t need more radical treatment. Andrea has Raynaud’s condition, which is lack of circulation to hands and feet that causes extreme cold. It sometimes occurs on its own; other times it can be an indicator of something else, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. We’re praying for the former.

~ Speaking of sisters, all three of my sisters, with their husbands and kids, will be visiting in June. I absolutely cannot wait.

Well, that’s all the personal stuff I can think of at the moment. Hope this finds all of you well in this first week of 2010.

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Bullet points

carrie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:50:52 +0000

~ There is so much going on – I haven’t had much time to post here at Mommy Brain. I feel bad, but Books and Movies has to be more of a priority, because I’m getting free books to review in the mail every week.

~ No improvement on the financial front – enough said. Oh, and my van – which is our most reliable vehicle and the only one with a fully functioning heater – is in the shop today. Praying very hard that it is something easy and cheap to fix.

~ I switched Natalie to The History of US by Joy Hakim for her US history. She’s liking it much better. I’m dealing with the lack of review exercises/exams by having her write a summary paragraph after reading each chapter. So far, so good.

~ Kevin and the kids carved pumpkins last week, but two of them have already had to be thrown away. We had a very early freeze in our neck of the woods, and the result was mushy pumpkins.

~ Our butterflies have completed their life cycle, and the butterfly habitat will be put away until spring. This has been one of Jonathan’s most favorite birthday presents ever!

~ The kids are extremely excited to attend the Harvest Party at Grandmamma and Papa’s church tomorrow night. They always bring home bags and bags of candy.

~ And now, in the “here’s my excuse for not blogging hardly at all next month” category: I’m doing NaNoWriMo. For those of you unfamiliar with the acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel. In a month. That amounts to 1667 words a day. So, needless to say, blogging will be at a minimum until November is over. I’m excited but terrified, too. But at least I’ll be able to say I tried, right? Michelle did it last year, and it didn’t kill her. Natalie is doing it, too – but her goal is 7,000 words. Michelle and her kids are doing it, too, so at least we’ll have company.

I guess that catches everyone up. Anyone else out there doing NaNoWriMo? Please let me know – and tell me your user name – so I can add you to my writing buddies list.

Have a great Halloween!

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24-Hour Read-a-thon

carrie — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:42:05 +0000

I’m participating in Dewey’s 24 Read-a-thon this weekend. You can read my updates here at Books and Movies.

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Links for Friday

carrie — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:22:50 +0000

The kids all doubled up on assignments this week and finished Math. Natalie has the proof-reading and final draft stages left for a research paper on Venice, and we have two afternoons of Science. History will continue as part of our read-aloud time in the summer, because we need to complete Story of the World: Book 3 for Natalie to be ready to start her 7th grade history, which begins with the Civil War. So we are mostly done with our school year and heading into summer break mode: reading and read-aloud time in the morning, and then afternoons at the park or pool! I am so, so ready.

Last weekend, Kevin and the boys worked hard, building two four-by-four raised gardens.

They then mixed the peat, compost, and vermiculite – the perfect mixture according to Square Foot Gardening.

After mixing, they filled the boxes and Kevin applied a lattice-grid to help keep track of where they would plant everything.

Natalie got out of all the hardest work, because she was on a sleepover at a friend’s house. She did help with the planting, though.

They planted romaine lettuce, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, chives, beets, cantaloupe, onions, green beans, and carrots. We’ll have some yummy salads this summer!

This weekend will be more low-key, since Kevin is in the midst of a nasty cold. Everyone around us is planning to head to the surrounding lakes to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. We, however, prefer the lakes on non-holiday weekends, when there are less partiers. I received three DVDs to review via UPS this afternoon: Taken, Valkyrie, and Defiance – so we’ll have some good movies to watch. I will probably do some homeschool record keeping and organizing to finish up the year.

I finally got to watch the House finale – and, wow! Spoiler alert: don’t read the following paragraph if you have episodes of House waiting on your Tivo. Scroll down to the white space and you should be okay.

That was intense and crazy. Hugh Laurie is brilliant – the look on House’s face when he realized that the whole thing had been a hallucination was devastating. I liked Cameron and Chase’s wedding, although I think Chase was a lot more understanding about the whole “I want to keep my dead husband’s frozen sperm” issue than I would have been. It will be interesting to see what the next season brings.

Scrolling….

Okay, you’re safe.

Lots going on at Books and Movies lately. Last Saturday, I posted a list of links that included a lot of book giveaways – many of which are still open. I’ll post another list. tomorrow. I posted part one of my list of favorite memoirs, reviewed Justice Hall by Laurie R. King, and posted the trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes film, starring Robert Downey, Jr.

Here are some other links I saved to share:

~ NY Times: Some thoughts on the lost art of reading aloud

~ Bookroom Reviews is giving away the six Disney Animation Collection DVDs I just reviewed.

~ Funny video: awkward questions about Jesus.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

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Links for Friday

carrie — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:55:49 +0000

Our week back to school after Spring Break went much smoother than I had anticipated. It helps that as we get closer to summer, more and more subjects are being finished up, and the work load gets smaller. Good thing, because I am very ready for summer vacation. Last week of afternoons spent reading at the park or pool while the kids played/swam completely spoiled me. Spoiled me so much that I took them to the park again this Monday – after we were done with school, of course. It was in the high 70s, absolutely beautiful, and I had just picked up 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff at the library. It’s only 97 pages long, and I devoured that delightful book while the kids played for an hour and a half. A perfect afternoon.

This weekend is going to be pretty low-key, which is just fine with me. I am struggling with some church issues (again, or still, however you want to look at it) and mulling things over in my head. This will either be beneficial or an exercise in futility, I can’t tell yet. I’d like to go see Duplicity at the theater this weekend with my folks, if I can scrape together the moolah. We’ll see.

I don’t have a lot of web links to share with you this week, because I’ve been spending every spare moment getting the new Books and Movies populated with posts. So, in the spirit of blatant self-promotion, here are some links to what I’ve been doing over there. And, if you’re wondering why I moved it, this person’s post about the deceptive business practices at Today.com will help explain. My experience wasn’t quite as bad – at least not at the beginning – but it didn’t end well.

My posts at Books and Movies this week:

~ Like Twitter? Try Flutter.

~ Gasp! My daughter is a last-page-peeker!

~ Summer movie preview (including the latest Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer).

~ Blogwarming giveaway – I’m giving away six books.

~ Book review: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.

~ Monday’s Movie Review: The Illusionist.

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