Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Send this eCard !Thought this little cutie pie kind of wrapped up my sentiments for everyone this year. Open it up and enjoy.

And have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Foot woes

After being on my feet on Saturday, I spent Sunday and Monday cleaning fiendishly (muhahaha) around my own abode, which sorely needed the attention. I haven't been able to do very much at all since I developed my Morton's neuroma.

So, I have cleaned, scrubbed, cleaned, polished, cleaned, did I say cleaned?

Plus, my friend Karen is coming by on Tuesday to visit while on her way to Orlando to see family for Thanksgiving and I don't want her and her beautiful daughters to see my house the way it really is most days :-)

But, being on my feet has been difficult. I am up in the wee hours because my foot hurt so badly that I had to resort to taking a Vicodin to get the pain to let up (this was left over from when I broke my foot this last time). That helped quite a bit, but makes my stomach burn so that I can't lay down and sleep. Ugh.

Looks like I am eventually surgery bound. I just have to wait and see what will happen with the possibility of a school move. If we move over Christmas, surgery might not be a good idea then. We'll just have to see.

Youth for Truth...

Okay, it has honestly taken me a while to recover from the Youth Night Rally. Whew!

We met at 8:30 am to clean the gym which smelled, honestly, like a mixture of dirty rear ends mixed with old sweat socks. When I left at 1 pm for lunch and a break for my foot, it smelled pretty darn good.

Hubby got all of the rust out the toilets. I thought grown women would cry over that one as many have tried.... They just don't have access to the heavy duty industrial cleaners that hubby has. He also brought fragrance to spray around the gym which helped a great deal.

We returned at 4 pm and set up our t-shirt booth. We had a good crowd and everyone was in a great mood, ready to praise and worship! The music was absolutely delightful and energetic and Shep's preaching, as always, was Godly and wonderful. The best part was the positive response at the end of the evening.

We left exhausted and edified. I wish we had sold more t-shirts, but I think that a few more will sell when we return to school, plus we may list them on ebay. I will keep you posted.

Feast Day

Well, tomorrow is the final day for our classes prior to Thanksgiving break. The elementary classes are all planning pageants, plays, awards, and feasting. It's a fun, party day for them and because the focus is on the harvest and Thanksgiving, it's a learning time, too, with lots of American history and agricultural focus.

We are taking the 9th graders (who often get left out of other outings) to lunch to celebrate the holiday. They will enjoy it and it is a nice change of pace for us teachers who never leave for lunch.

So, the food is being prepared, Daddy and Grandparents are coming to participate, the pilgrim costume and essay is complete for DS10 and DS12 is ready to eat!

Life is good...

Another craft project

This is, admittedly, a lousy picture of one of my craft projects that I did with my kids. I used a frame from Dollar Tree (where everything is $1). It was a shadow box with a metal charm in the center. I pulled that stuff out (and saved the charm for future projects) and re-used the frame. It is about 6 inches square and a nice, satin black finish.

Inside I put a piece of scrapbook paper in soft blue with a nice pattern. In the center, I affixed (with foam tape) a sand dollar that we found (already dead) during our vacation last summer. We bleached and strengthened the sand dollar ourselves.

The boys gave this to our Headmaster, who has her office decorated in a beach theme. She loved it and it probably cost me, all total, less than $1.50. That's pretty cool in my book.

We made 4 more and they are hanging in the boy's bathroom as a grouping, 2 on either side of each window. The background of these are a green color.

A few fiber crafts...

I recently found the cord that allows me to download photos to the computer, so I thought I would catch everyone up on some crochet projects that I have been working on.This is my first attempt at a round ripple afghan. I made it for a co-worker's first baby, a little girl. It is baby pink in the middle with a round of multicolor baby print, and edged in white. I was able to make this one completely with left over yarns from other projects.

It seems like we have had loads of babies lately! Over the last 6 months or so, I have made blankets for 2 baby boys and 2 baby girls. The fifth one went to a friend to give to a friend of hers who didn't know the gender of the baby. It's almost more fun to pray over the quilt and give it away, not knowing what baby is cuddled in it! This pattern is called "Bubbles" and it was a freebie from the internet. It doesn't take a whole lot of yarn and since you hold two yarns together it works up really fast! Plus, you can mix up different yarns to get different looks. I especially like a solid (like white) with a baby print. It looks almost sparkly that way.

This is for the first child (due in February) of our school secretary, who is a wonderful lady. It is linen white, espresso brown, turquoise, and spring green to match their nursery. It's a very sophisticated color scheme. Of course, with two boys, I am starved to work with pink, but I think this turned out nicely. I got the yarn when Michael's was having a 50% off sale on yarn. Plus, I wanted soft, but didn't go for the most expensive stuff.

This is my kitty getting ready to nap in front of the bright, technicolored giant granny blanket that I made for my niece Gracie. She will receive it on Christmas Eve. All the yarn for this one was from Dollar Tree--great deal for fancy yarn.

This is the ripple afghan that I have started for my eldest niece, Janice. It is her favorite colors, turquoise, medium brown, and a dark coffee brown. It's turning out nicely, but it needs to keep on growing!!! This is probably the last thing I will try to get finished by Christmas and any other projects will be gravy. I did purchase yarn for this, but it is the new Eco-Soft by Caron. It's very soft, works up like a dream, is inexpensive at my local Wally World, and recycles soft drink bottles--now how cool is that?

So much yarn (seriously, crammed all over my house), so many patterns, so much inspiration, and so little time. Sigh.

But, stash yarn isn't cutting out of my budget right now! Can you say "frugal?"

It's official!!!

My kiddos rock! I am so proud of my kids--they both placed in our school science fair. They worked hard on their projects (and did them themselves) and gave a great presentation.

This is DS10 with his project. Note the critter keepers in front with our toad test subjects. He hypothesized that toad respiration would change with the temperature in the water that they were in at the time. He was right!

This is DS12 with his project. He hypothesized that since he knew the components of a battery, that he could substitute a lemon for the acid paste and the battery would still work. He did it all himself and gave the presentation. Remember, this is my aspie and this was WAY harder for him than for the other kids his age. He placed, get this, 2nd place in the entire 7th grade, not just among the special ed students!!! I am one very proud mama! He has come such a long way!

Science Fair and other methods of parental torture...

Well, it's here. Middle School Science Fair.

How can something so innocuous be disastrous in its very existence? The display boards, the markers, the lost, crumpled, and mangled charts and notes--the bloomin' TOADS in my house for goodness sake. Ugh!

All entries are due in by Wednesday. Fruit batteries and toad respiration projects, anyone?

I will post pics when I can (lost the cord to my camera--oops).

Helping with school projects is a true test of parental love and devotion.

Local School Board

The private school that I work for is looking for a new location. We are cramped in a too small facility and are paying high rent. There is an abandoned school building that we may be able to lease for less money than we are currently paying. Plus, we'll have more room. No more kids in trailers. No more having to schedule 5 or more lunches because we can't squeeze any more kids in the lunchroom at one time. A library with room for books appropriate for middle and high school. We have a library, but it is so small that it houses encyclopedias and elementary school books.

Sadly, we have loads of great books for middle and high school, but no where to house them except at our headmaster's home. It's a shame.

The local school board is going on a retreat this upcoming week and will vote on November 11th. I hope and pray that we can do this. I have already sent my letter to the board asking them to consider this. The school has sent out a letter asking for support from our parents who live in Spalding County.

If you live in Spalding County, Georgia, please contact your school board representative and encourage them to vote FOR Faith Christian Academy to lease the building on Flynt Street. Let me know if you need the contact information. Also, even if you don't live in the area, please pray for us. Thanks

Presidential Reflections

Okay, I tend not to blog heavily about political issues. Honestly, I assumed when I put the word "Christian" in my heading that people would have a general idea how I feel about many issues, including some very controversial ones like abortion. My parents are adoptive parents (they adopted my brother) and I am an adoptive parent as well. I truly believe that all children can have loving homes if given an opportunity and not killed. I vote my beliefs and my beliefs are in line with holy scripture. Period. God expects no less from his followers.

I pray for our nation's leaders and over our nation's elections. I pray for God's protection for our country and it's brave men and women serving in the Armed Services. I realize that God hears the prayers of the righteous, but does not always answer us in the ways we would choose, often for our own good.

Tonight, watching the election results was like staring at a train wreck. I didn't like what I saw, but I couldn't pull myself away. For me, it's not a racial thing; my family is very multi-racial in composition and I love it that way. But, I have to remember that sometimes God's will reflects larger issues, like calling a nation to repentance.

Tonight, we have entered a historic era with a historic President-elect who is racially different from all previous Presidents before him. I will pray for him as I have prayed for all the others.

Sometimes, we don't get what we ask for, but we get what we deserve.

Happy Anniversary!

Okay, this entry is a day late, but yesterday, my parents celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. They went out to dinner after church to celebrate.

Mom says she is getting Dad a "hard pillow" and some socks. I guess there is no pretense after 45 years :-) When I asked her if she was going to do something major since it was 45 years, after all and she laughed and said, "why?"

Gotta love those practical parents!

Sick kid

DS12 succumbed to the stress of the field trip (and falling face first into really cold ocean water) and has a massive cold. I kept him home today to force him into resting and irrigating his nose several times to try and force out the worst of it. I am not willing to sit back and passively watch him set up a sinus infection and go through months of trying to clear it up again. And, don't even mention surgery! Ugh!

So, we had a very low key day today with kiddo mad at me most of the time for making him rest and drink cinnamon tea (like that is really torture!) and irrigate his nose. Nice to know that I am creating the memories that will put him into a lifetime of therapy (if you believe him).

It's amazing how far he has come in so many ways, but the autism really shows it's face when he is sick. There is no filter when he is feeling unwell.

We'll see what tomorrow will bring.

They're home!

As much as I enjoyed a little adult time, I am so glad that my family made it home safely on Friday. They were strung out, overwhelmed, a little sleep deprived, and talking ten miles per minute. In other words, the trip was "way cool, Mom."

I have laughed at DS10s rendition of the "fish song." He made a video of it with Grandpa John, so maybe I can post it sometime. Too cute

Dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, caudal--pelvic caudal
(imagine skinny kid wiggling his fanny frantically at this point).

Saturday, we took more photos for seniors at our school. So far, they are all coming out wonderfully. Next week we are scheduled for the end of them--including personality shots of a goth kid in a graveyard, but, hey--it's his personality!

Today, hubby took engagement pics of a gorgeous couple who are so happy.

Sigh. Life is good.