Happenings….

Yesterday the kids had their physicals.  They are healthy but it did involve immunizations and blood work. Charlie doesn’t like needles. He did well.  Poor Robbie ended up getting poked three times before they were finally able to get his blood work. Colleen and Charlie ended up having their blood drawn from their hands. Eewwww.

I have been a bad girl.  My A1C was at a 5.5 but jumped to a 6.5.  I am going to have to be more careful. I don’t need to become a full fledged diabetic.

I am trying to get other things organized. Randy is contemplating moving our bedroom downstairs. Oh boy!! If we do this, it will be a monumental task. It would require moving the toy room out and painting the walls. They are currently decorated with 3 foot flowers and a huge tree. IF, and it’s a big IF, we move the kids around, I would rather move Colleen into our room and put one of the boys in Colleen’s room. This would also require painting her room. I don’t think the boys would want a purple room.The kids actually like this idea. I just mentioned this to them and they like the idea.  Colleen doesn’t want to move her room though. Even with the offering of a bigger room she wants to keep her room. Charlie is ecstatic about getting our room. He just informed me that he would then be able to buy the fold up table at Walmart. Why does he want a fold up table you ask? He wants it for his puzzles so we don’t have to put it away all the time after starting them on the dining room table. That is still going to be a lot of work.

He has volunteered to start packing up the toy room.  I guess this boy is serious. I guess the next decision would be whether or not to keep their loft beds. I love, love loft beds. When two or more are sharing a room, having a loft bed frees up so much floor space.

I really don’t know if I am up to that. It would give us more privacy. We would also have our own bathroom. I would be closer to the laundry room. I have this fear about being that far away from my kids. Granted, any step someone took I would hear from downstairs. There is still a but in there.

My neighbor’s son is moving back from New York. My neighbor asked me to drive to New York with her and help them bring some things to her house.  They need to empty their apartment a little so it will show better for the Realtor. At some point tonight I need to remove the bench seats in my van so we will have more room to load. We will be driving to New York tomorrow and coming back on Thursday.

Saturday is family fun day at the rescue squad.  This is a day set aside for just the families of the rescue squad. It is a day filled with games, fun for all and food. This will be our first event.

Sunday is the annual Rolling Thunder Ride. We have been asked to make baked goods and offered the chance to sell them to the bikers riding in Rolling Thunder. I am thinking Heather’s sticky bun recipe, Pioneer Women’s apple thing recipe and my homemade cinnamon buns…or Pioneer Women’s cinnamon buns. We will need to be up and out there early, early in the morning.

This is basically what my week entails couple with some other thoughts on possible summer projects. I am still not so sure about the whole bedroom thing. I guess I will need to put some serious thought into that one.

Frogs, Math and Birthday’s…

My daughter sent this to me as a birthday card. I cried and cried and cried. Some will understand why. Thank you Colleen.  I love you so much…

They don’t allow embedding so you will have to go to the link to view the video. You will need to cut and paste.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vjwIDelIWg

My friend  and her children made me a birthday cake along with cards. Donna is also a homeschooler. We meet up every Monday and Thursday. So this Thursday, they  had a surprise (sort of) for me when we got to her house.  Thank you Donna, Grace, Andrew and Charity!!  They know I like frogs. I was also given a very sweet and cute stuffed frog. Organically green…LOL

How to tell you have been given a cake with candles from a homeschool family…

When you don’t have all the numbers necessary to represent the age but have enough numbers to make it into a subtraction problem…You have a true homeschool family!!!

So far that is the day’s happenings…I will update with more as the day progresses.  We still don’t know what we are doing today. My husband did take the day off to spend with me.

If you want to know how old I am…do the math!!

An Evening Drive…

Saturday was hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.  We needed milk so I thought it would be a great idea to head out to the store at 11:30 pm. We hit the little store just down from our house.  My husband didn’t realize I was slightly disappointed.  I was, after all, looking for a wee longer drive.

We dropped the milk off at the house then headed back down the road. We drove past the local shopping center which is about five miles from our house. It had been ages since either one of us had been there; curious to see what shops were still there, we pulled into the shopping center.

My only regret was in not grabbing my eyeballs (glasses). I couldn’t see very well but what I could see was interesting and fun to watch.

Living where I do, I am not often surprised by what I see people doing. I was not prepared for what my husband and I came upon.

There were about 20+ young men in the parking lot.  I later found out by talking to the right outfielder that they were mostly Pakistani and Indian.

They meet there on the weekends.  They prefer the empty parking lot to a club or field since most of them work long hours. They needed an area that had some decent lighting.

They had a rousing game of Cricket going on. The team at bat was winning so far. The outfielder was very kind and explained the ins and outs of the game. Some of which I was all ready familiar with. Since they were playing in the parking lot they were using cardboard boxes for the wickets and a tennis ball wrapped in white tape. He explained why the bowler had to run up the line and throw the ball overhanded.  It has to bounce at least once in front of the batter.

It really was fun to watch and dare I say (hiding and ducking as I say this) a lot more interesting to watch then the ummmm…American past time of baseball.

If you happen to be out driving around empty shopping mall parking lots and see a large group of people with two cardboard boxes running back and forth…stop and watch. It is pretty interesting and surely not one of the things one would expect to see at midnight, on a Saturday. At least not in my neck of the woods.

If you would like to know more about Cricket, check out this blog.  Here is a brief tutorial on the game.

I knew Cricket used to be played in the United States but didn’t realize we actually had a top notch team at one point. Cricket was a popular game in the United States in her early days. George Washington even played “wicket” with his troops after they had just spent a hard winter in Valley Forge to boost moral. It declined somewhat during the war of 1812.Hmmm…wonder why?  It had a revival of sorts during the latter part of the 18th century.

The United States may claim the title of holding the first official international match in the world. The United States played against Canada in 1844. Canada won by 23 runs.

Staten Island, New York is home to the oldest Cricket club in America. It has continued to operate since 1872. There is still hope that America my again break into the International Cricket  League. We actually qualified to play against the “professionals” in 2004.  A Short History of Cricket in the US (link provided below) is where the above information was pulled.

Here are some other links of interest…

An Explanation of Criket

Cricket Rules and Basic Set Up (very interesting names)

A Short History of Cricket in the United States

Pretty nifty if you ask me…next time I will take my glasses so I can see and my camera to snap some pictures.

Mother’s Day Match…

My husband thinks it would be a great idea for me to try shooting an IPSC match.  In case you are wondering what that is I found an excellent video demonstrating an IPSC match.

In order to do this, I need a holster and extra magazines.  We are heading out to the Nation’s Gun Show to hopefully get me fitted for a holster.

We went to the range last weekend. My husband has had me shooting target loads with my Taurus PT1911.   Target loads are lighter loads to shoot. Last weekend he loaded me up with full loads. The difference was big considering I wasn’t expecting the recoil. Everything stays the same (according to my husband) accept the recoil. (He wasn’t kidding!) I think I closed my eyes once. I got the hang of it.

Remember those pearl handled grips? My husband has been shooting for over twenty years. He did competition shooting while in college.  He knows his guns. He has never over tightened a grip. We noticed when shooting my gun, that I have actually worked the grip loose. No big deal, we just tighten it back down after cleaning the gun.  The grips come off when we clean the pistol.

When I switched to the full load rounds I noticed the grips loosening up on me. At first I didn’t think much of it, I just gripped it harder. I had a death grip on my pistol, simply because the recoil was a wee bit  more than I was used to. Some how I gripped it  so hard that during the process of shooting, I broke the grip. It cracked along the line of where the screws hold the grip in place. I know I am strong but I don’t think I am that strong.

Anyhoo, when we got home we replaced the grips with the extra set that came with my Taurus. I am hoping that Taurus will be kind enough to replace them since it was my Valentine’s gift. My daughter likes the black grips better.  She says black is classy with gold…

My husband thinks shooting the IPSC will be lots of fun for me.  I just don’t want to embarrass him. He is pretty confident in my skill after having seen me at the range. I think he is a little proud of his coaching skills. He is pretty good at what he does.

We shall see…

Since it is Mother’s Day and they are trying to get more women involved in shooting…No registration fee for me!!

I must admit…that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for Mother’s Day. I will be the pistol packin’ momma. I did find a couple of new skirts that I can wear with a holster. Yes…I shoot in skirts. I will have to post a picture for other gun toting Momma friends of mine. I am sure they will get a kick out of this adventure.

One other thing I forgot to mention that my husband thought would be interesting.

I have since discovered that the style of foundational garment I wear (ie bra!) makes a difference in how I shoot. If I wear the perky, stand at attention garment the “girls” are some what in the way. Just like I can’t swing a golf club because the arms just won’t position correctly. I am blessed. If I wear the flatten me to the chest, smoosh them down garment…I have no problem bringing the pistol up and sighting it. I don’t have to reposition my arms.

I may be the only women who finds this to be the case but my husband thought it was worth mentioning. I do know I am not the only blessed women out there shooting.  I wonder if Cornered Cat ever heard of this problem. I might have to drop her a line and ask…

“Faith like Potatoes”… a movie review.

The other day my husband and I were walking through Stuff-Mart and as I always do, I glance over to see what new movies are out. You see, we don ‘t have cable or any other service that would allow us to be glued to the idiot box. Due to our location, even a good set of rabbit ears won’t work. Our idiot box is used as an output device for the dvd player.  Whether it be educational or just for fun that is all it is used for.

I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t tell you that I do on occasion watch a tv show online though.

I partially credit our elimination of the various cable services to the love my children have for reading and using their imagination. I will also admit that I am weak when it comes to television programs. I would be glued to the Home and Garden shows along with every food show there is to offer if we had cable service. I know me.

We make do and do quite well. We are picky parents. I am truly heartened to see the rise of faith based movies that are clean and yet still present life. It is possible to do so with “Facing the Giants” and “Fireproof” as two examples.

Back to Stuff-Mart…

I saw this movie and made a face. “Faith like Potatoes”? Hmmm…I wasn’t too sure about that. It just sounded…goofy sort of. I did read that it was based on a true story. I thought I would go home and check it out before blowing the $19.

I forgot about the movie until a couple days ago while reading my email. Tangle (formerly God Tube) had the trailers of this movie. Along with the trailer was a brief interview of Angus Buchan, the writer and main character of the story. It is based on the lives of Angus Buchan and his family. That sparked an interest so the next time at Stuff-Mart I bought the movie.

I suppose the first question would be whether or not I wasted $19?