Good one.

I had a pretty nice day today.  I had to spend the morning typing vascular surgeries which is not my favorite, but survived it and then after an uneventful afternoon, went for a Mom's night out with the other homeschool moms.  After our dinner out, we did a little shopping, so it was a very nice evening.  While I was working this morning and while I was out with the homeschool moms, I finished up the Easter shopping.  Its not a big deal like Christmas, but we usually get the kids one small gift and some candy, which has to be bought when I'm not with them, so it takes a little effort and/or planning.

I can't believe how quickly the end of this school year is coming!   Very soon, it will be over and we'll have our first homeschool graduate.  It's a little scary!  

Grouchiness.

I've been kind of grouchy today.  It might be due to the fact that I had so much housework to do today and didn't get as much of it done as I had hoped. It might be that my birthday is coming up and I don't feel that I'm really making any progress (you know how we feel like we have to evaluate every year or is that just me?)  It might just be one of those things and I may wake up all happy in the morning.  I don't know.  I hope that tomorrow morning I wake up with a better attitude!   :-(  

Rules at our house.

Over the years raising our kids, we've had to make some rules.  Some of them are very practical and some of them are just a little weird, but these things have come up.  It's like the book "Please Don't Eat The Daisies" when the mom remembered to tell her kids a bunch of things not to do when company came over, but forgot to mention that they should not eat the daisies out of the centerpiece of the dining table.   When they were little, our rules were very simple and to the point.  "No means no" and "Stop means stop" are 2 examples.  The meaning here is if Mom says no, she means it, quit asking her over and over and if your sister says to stop tickling her, you need to stop immediately.  At one point, for a very brief time when my oldest was a toddler, we had a rule that stated "Spitting means spanking" because he had gotten into a very brief (thankfully) habit of spitting into people's faces.  As soon as it became grounds for an immediate (rare) spanking, he quit doing that.  We have used spanking very sparingly but that was one time we did.  We tried a bunch of other things first, but nothing worked. 

As they got older, the rules changed.  One of the best things that we did when they were in the elementary school ages was "Kid of the Day", an idea I got from Family Fun Magazine.  Each kid had 2 days a week and the parents had 1.  On that day, they got to decide where we ate if we ate at a restaurant and they got the first hour first choice of the very complicated screen time schedule.   Now that they are a little older, they work out the screen time disputes on their own with pretty much no intervention from either parent.  We've always encouraged them to work out disputes as fairly as possible without involving mom or dad because mom and dad would say things like "You're fighting over the TV?  Let's just turn it off for the rest of the day."  They really, don't want mom or dad involved in any disputes because mom and dad's solutions usually don't make anyone happy.  As a result of this technique, they rarely fight and often are found negotiating interesting solutions to problems.  Screen time is limited to from 7:00 p.m. to bedtime each night and school work must be done first.  

Since our oldest is 18 and is getting ready to graduate, we're going to be going through some rule re-thinking.  I mean, he's an adult.   The old rules of "no cooking unless an adult is home" and "no going outside unless an adult is home" have changed because now we have another adult in the family.  (It's weird!). 

A lot of our rules have to do with food for some reason.  For a long time, we had a rule about choosing from a different food group if a child wanted to just eat the same thing all day long.  Now we have complicated food rules that I hear about but I don't really participate in because of my unusual dietary requirements and restrictions.  Apparently, if you eat chips, you must eat a sandwich with them.  (Not me, because I don't really eat sandwiches!) You cannot just fill up on a whole bag of chips.  Also, you can only eat 2 sweet things per day.  If we buy a package of  hot dogs, each child and dad each get 2 hot dogs.  (I don't eat them either).  

There are, or there should be rules about eating mom's peanut butter M&Ms when she has PMS too.  This is very important.  I don't care what anyone says, my name on that bag of M&Ms last month was IMPLIED.  :-P

So there you are, a glimpse into how we run our mostly peaceful household. 

Gorgeous day!

We had clouds and storms yesterday but today is just beautiful.  I worked, which went okay and then came home and the younger two kids went on a long walk out in the sunshine.  We scattered some flower seeds here and there up and down our driveway and dug up some Easter flower bulbs and moved them.  Then, of course, we had to go to the creek. That's just a given  for my country kids - you walk, you go to the creek. 

Now the funny thing about today is that the 2 younger kids did kind of a role reversal.  The youngest was pretty much done with school when I got home and the girl is finishing up school right now at 6:25 p.m.  Strange things happen sometimes.  :-P  

My extra trip to Walmart.

I took my son to youth group last night and while he was there, I spent an hour and a half in Walmart, looking at plants, picture frames, furniture, basically everything, really.  I had a list of 3 things I wanted to get, a square picture frame for my daughter's latest needlework creation, some of those velcro sticky thingies to hang it up with and  Prilosec which I was completely out of, which is my second basic necessity of life after air.  I can't sleep if I haven't taken my Prilosec.  My acid reflux is a horrible, horrible thing.  So I go in Walmart and take my time, since I have to wait an hour and a half.  I get a ton of Easter shopping done, which I wasn't planning on but it worked out well.  I got my picture frame and my velcro sticky thingies, picked up my son and went home.  As soon as I got home, I realized, I had forgotten it.  The Prilosec.  I did a frantic search through my desk, the kitchen, the bathroom and the hospital bag I keep packed.  Unfortunately, I had raided the hospital bag last time I ran out of Prilosec and it was empty, as was the bathroom and the kitchen.  I had to go back to Walmart within minutes of coming home.  In one of those interesting little twists in life, I arrived just in time to help a young dad who had a crying baby at home and was searching frantically for the Baby Oragel and couldn't find a store employee to help him.  I have no idea why I knew exactly where it was, but I did, despite the fact that my baby is 12 years old and when he was a baby, the Walmart was in a different building. It was kind of cool.  Hey, maybe that's my superpower?  :-P

Leftover Silliness.

When I got up this morning, I opened the front door to let the dogs out and a bunch of balloons fell on my head with a note that said "Happy Late April Fools Day".  Then, when I tried to put my shoes on, there were teeny little balloons in them too, so the silliness went on for a full 24 hours so far.  I'm not sure that all the pranks have been discovered yet.  Since I wasn't the one doing all of them, there's no way for me to know.  I guess we'll see.  :-)

Kitchen wall.

Okay, I didn't realize that these pics I had were after the second coat of paint and I haven't taken the after the third coat pictures, but you get the general idea.

Getting things done and having a little fun.

We finally got the dining room wall finished and it looks okay.  You can kind of tell that the people who did it have never done anything like that if you know what I mean.  My daughter and I did it she's good with the level and the saw and the measuring tape but neither one of us is all that good at painting.  Nonetheless, it's as good as it is going to get with 3 coats on it.  I'll share pictures someday.  I know where the camera cord is now, but now our rechargeable battery supply seems to be low on charged ones so once we get some batteries charged, I share a photo.  It's a complicated process you know?

Anyway, I've been giving some thought to homeschooling and I have decided that next year, I'm just going to give up and send the kids to public school.  I just don't want to fool with it anymore.   And speaking of fooling with things, April Fool to you.  We're not quitting homeschooling we love it. :-) I've been pranking the kids this morning before they wake up, putting food coloring in the milk, stuffing the toes of their shoes with pillow fluff so they will feel like they don't fit, putting balloons in the kitchen cabinet which will hopefully cascade out when they open it and messing around with the auto correct on someones computer so now it will type ha ha ha every time she types "the".  I enjoy April Fool's day.   I'm enjoying the April Fools pranks I've seen on the internet this morning.  Google's got one on their home page and so does Snique Away.

For some fun printable pranks like word finds that don't have the right words in them see this site.