Know & Tell Friday ~ Spouse Edition

This week in honor of both Heather and Reese's anniversaries, they're having the spouse edition of Know & Tell Friday. After having read Reese's sweet poem and knowing it was her anniversary week (before knowing that Heather's was this month too), I had a funny feeling we might be talking spouses. I'm just going to reiterate that I want to be Nancy Drew when I grow up. I'd be really, really good at it.

So that said, and all digressions aside for the moment, here goes nothing!

1. Where did you meet your spouse?

I already know I'm in trouble! I met my spouse in first grade. We were in the same class. Our teacher was Mrs. Minge, and it was her very first year to teach. And no, we were not boyfriend and girlfriend.

2. What is your favorite personality trait about him?

Golly, only one. You made this hard! He's very funny.

3. How old were you when you met your spouse?

Well, based on question number one, I guess you can figure out that I was all of six years old.

4. How old were you when you got married?

We were both 19 when we got married, in the summer between our freshman and sophomore years in college.

5. What is your favorite way to spend time together?

My first thought was watching ball games, since we seem to live at the ballpark with our kids. We used to live at Busch Stadium and watch the Cardinals when we could. Here was my Hubby managing Buddy's all-star team tonight. He was in the middle of spitting a seed. Good thing I have a not-so-good digital camera that doesn't pick up details.
But when it comes down to us spending time together, just the two of us, we like to go out and get coffee together.

6. How did your spouse propose to you?

In the car in the parking lot of the Bonanza restaurant.

7. Where did you go on your honeymoon?

We went to Branson, Missouri, which was about two hours from our hometown in Arkansas. We stayed at the Holiday Inn for two nights (remember, we were broke college students) and during the day went to the water park.

To participate in Know & Tell Friday or just to read some other fun posts, go visit Heather & Reese at Kickin' It In Crazyville.

9 on the 9th ~ Unusual Things I'm Thankful For

Virginia has been a tough place for us these past two years. We've made a couple of good friends, but not nearly as many as we usually do. It's like we've been outsiders looking in the whole time and never quite fit in. So I decided for my 9 on the 9th hosted by All That Naz, I'd do a list of some things I'm thankful for, not necessarily about Virginia, although the first one definitely applies.

1. Never having to think about whether I have enough people to get in an HOV lane.

2. Matlock reruns ~ I can't get enough of them. Of course my husband got enough of them about seven years ago.

3. The Sterilite company.

4. My label maker...need I say more?

5. Ikea ~ neat furniture for organization, cheap, and I'M GOING TO LIVE LESS THAN AN HOUR AWAY FROM ONE!!!

6. My children bickering ~ that means I have them with me safe and sound. Although I prefer safe and sound and not bickering, but we've had a rough day.

7. Daisies ~ they put me in my happy place.

8. A flexible real estate agent ~ because the rain keeps postponing all-star little league games, which is postponing our trip to finalize our house.

9. Imitrex ~ how'd they live in the olden days with migraines?

If you'd like to participate in 9 on the 9th or to read what others have listed, go visit Mrs. N at All That Naz.

Talk About Tuesday ~ Flat Stanley (Give a Homeschooler a Project...)

Because we homeschool, we have been exempt from the second grade facscination with Flat Stanley. We'd never heard of him. But boy was he fun to have around!

If you too are unfamiliar with Flat Stanley, it is a story in which Flat Stanley is flattened by a bulletin board, and while he is flat he goes on adventures. Our personal Flat Stanley came to us via Caboose's best friend from Illinois (by St. Louis). Other Flat Stanleys have apparently visited the President of the United States and flown around the earth with astronauts. Now those are some adventures! Since we had to send Flat Stanley back, we took color copies of him for each child to keep (not just Caboose). Here is a picture of our Flat Stanley. Notice the details. There are some extras drawn on by this gifted second grader because his father is an artist (he can paint on a wall where it looks like you're looking out a window).


We were asked to let Flat Stanley do things in our everyday activities with us and send pictures if possible. The idea is that the classroom that sent Flat Stanley learns some geography about where the different Stanley's go around the country and/or world. Well, if you give a homeschooler a project, they are more than likely going to go a little crazy. We did a little scrapbook to send back. I told you we had fun with Stanley.

One of the places Stanley got to go was to Virginia Beach to Monsters on the Beach. It's one of only two places left where the Monster Trucks still race and do freestyle on the beach. Here's Caboose with Flat Stanley with the Atlantic Ocean in the background:

Here's Flat Stanley in the sand on Virginia Beach (he almost blew away!):

Here Flat Stanley is waiting in line to get in to Monsters on the Beach:

Here Buddy and Caboose are in front of the newly designed Stonecrusher truck with Flat Stanley:

Here is a picture in case you have kids that like monster trucks:

Another place Flat Stanley went was down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Sparky had a softball tournament the weekend before Memorial Day. On the way there you pass Digger's Dungeon, which is Dennis Anderson's garage and shop for his monster truck and others that are in his family. By the road out front is this truck, and Sassy and Sparky are with Flat Stanley:

Stanley got to stay with a bunch of girls in a beach house in Nags Head. He wasn't too crazy about that. This was the next day when Sparky was warming up her pitcher before the game (she pitches about 55 mph). If you haven't read before, Sparky is only about 4 feet 10 1/2 inches.

And then because we didn't want Stanley to miss out on school while he was on his adventure, and because we're mean that way, he had to sit down and do school with Caboose. That was not his favorite part of his trip. Although staying around all those girls with cooties was a pretty close second.

These are just a few of the things Flat Stanley did while he was with us. It was funny to leave the house and hear everyone say, "Does somebody have Flat Stanley and the camera?" You should have seen the looks at the dentist office!

Lara is talking about new ideas this week, so to read about it and see what others are talking about this Tuesday, go and visit her over at The Lazy Organizer.

The Proverbial "Who Moved My Cheese?"

Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective, according to this book. According to Caboose, it's a curse. There is nothing to be gained from it, nothing good can come from it, it can only be bad.

As I've said several times before, we are moving soon. So soon in fact, that I've started packing some boxes. See, we are doing what is affectionately referred to as a partial DITY. In military terms, a do-it-yourself move. My OCD finally caught up with me after the last move. We were packed in our little duplex wall-to-wall with boxes, and even unpacking was a much bigger challenge than ever before. I decided to do clothes first, because it made sense to me to get them put away in the drawers and closets to see what space I had left for toys. Well, when I open a box that says clothes and there are two items of clothing and the rest are toys, or it was half and half, or worse yet, it was some clothing and items from other parts of the house the packers needed to stick in a box, that created utter chaos. At that point I asked Hubby if we could move all our boxes next time, or at least most of them. He understands my OCD, and he is willing to stack like boxes together in proper rooms to facilitate proper unpacking. He humors me.

Since the box packing started in the boys' room, Caboose was in there part of the time and started talking about the house that we think we are going to buy. This house will mean that he has a separate room from his brother, which he has never had. We had decided that we could still use their bunk beds in Buddy's room, maybe not bunk them and just put them as twins, and he could sleep in there when he wanted, but his stuff could be in his own room across the hall. He liked that his room would be across the hall. What he didn't like was that the beds would no longer be bunked. He'd get to sleep in a room with someone, but it wasn't good enough because it was change. Arg! I mentioned his aversion to change in my Know & Tell post last Friday if you'd like to feel a little more sympathy for him Hubby and me.

This slightly sad conversation led to a sadder conversation about his sister Sparky leaving for college. She's 14. They talked about how she needed to go to college to be able to do the job she wanted (be a missionary) and then he asked how long it would take and could she drive home every night to sleep. That proceeded into a discussion about how long Hubby and I were in college (your typical four years), how he was never going to college, and how he would have a job when he was old enough if he planned to live at home forever, which he does, because he doesn't like change. The weeping began. It was a tough evening as real life began to become a little more reality for an eight year old boy. After he went to sleep, amidst my packing boxes and ripping tape from the roller, I snuck my camera in and took these pictures of him sleeping peacefully.

He has his snowman sheets because he doesn't like change and they will be his sheets probably until they have holes.

He has piles of animals on his bed because he can't put any away in a box because they can't "breath" and he can't stand not to have them out and available at a moment's notice. And then there's the change issue.

Can you see the trace of red, white, and blue peeking out in the middle of this picture by Caboose's leg? Now I don't know if that is officially "Bed Bear" or "Car Bear," but I'm guessing it's Car Bear because it doesn't look very beat up. If you're familiar with Beanie Buddies, he had Spangle as an infant. I got it for him on my 34th birthday, two weeks before he was born. He loved that bear like nobody's business. Without using my hands I can't describe how he sucked on his two fingers upside down and held the paw at the same time and rubbed it. Oh, the memories. Well, Bed Bear only has stuffing in his head now. Car Bear looks a lot better. He became the bear we took out of the house so we never lost Bed Bear, because it was that big of a deal. Car Bear was actually another Spangle that was Buddy's, but somehow Caboose crawled around and found it. We realized the benefit of two bears and just replaced Buddy's. Caboose didn't go anywhere without his bear, sleep without his bear, do anything without his bear. It was literally his security blanket for years. We have so many pictures of him when he was little and one or the other of the bears was in the picture. These bears will always hold a special place in our hearts.

That said, there are a lot of things that are changing right now: Caboose's cheese is being moved, he doesn't like it one little bit, but at least he can find comfort in knowing that nothing will ever happen to those bears.

And because cheese was being moved at paces even too rapid for me to keep up with last week, I fell off the proverbial menu planning wagon. I failed miserably. We started out great with our roast and chicken spaghetti, but then things went downhill from there. We did have waffles one night, and I'll have to post my waffle recipe next week when I post a new menu plan. The good news is, I still have all the goodies in my freezer and cabinets to make the stuff from last week's menu that I didn't make. The bad news is, cheese is still moving rapidly, maybe even more than before, so it will be an adventure to see what the week brings.

Know & Tell Friday

After Reese created the questions for this week's edition of Know & Tell Friday, she woke up thinking, "It's the 4th of July. These questions should be about America's birthday!" But she's living in England, which is no longer enemy territory, but makes Independence Day a little less prominent, although she did mention in a separate post the irony that many Brits are joining them on base for the Independence Day celebrations. Maybe they like a good air show? Well, whatever the case may be, go check out Heather and Reese's answers, and get to know some other people through their Mr. Linky posts. I've been looking forward to Fridays because this has been so much fun!

1. If you are a blogger, what got you started? Have you ever made, or do you hope to make, money blogging?

I had several reasons for starting a blog. I had been on several that are hosted by moms using one of the main homeschool curriculums we use (the one for history, literature, worldview, geography, etc.). Now I don't know that my blog will ever be anything like theirs, I just like them. My cousin started a blog at the beginning of the year and it's a great way to keep family up-to-date when you live far away, even though she lives close and gets to visit family often compared to us. We haven't seen anyone on either side in over two years. I also like being able to record things that I don't want to forget, little funny things that happen, tips that might benefit others, menu planning for accountability, and there are a lot of neat people out there. It's kind of like having pen pals when you were growing up. I'm not sure that my blog is focused enough yet. I sometimes end up writing about whatever excites me on a particular day or about whatever "tragic" happened that day. I've been using the meme's (did I use that word correctly in a sentence?) to help stay focused somewhat, and they're fun. And I also needed a blog to participate in some of the giveaways I was finding, but that wasn't the primary purpose. So ultimately, there were multiple reasons, all culminating to the creation of my blog.

I have never made money blogging, and I don't plan to. At least I know one focus of my blog, which is a not.

2. Are you a collector of anything?

Yes. Nancy Drew, Dana Girls, and Hardy Boys books. Stamps, although I haven't actively collected since I was a teenager, but my grandfather gave me some of his things before he passed away. They are precious to me. Starbuck's cityscape coffee mugs.

And I can't finish answering this question without mentioning baseball cards. Now I don't know if this question was specific to me or generally to my family, but the baseball cards at any given point could help us go over any weight limit allowed by the U.S. Government in a move. And they are not mine. But I do know lots about them. As a husband or son you couldn't ask for a much better sports wife or mom, because I know sports. But when Hubby's cards take up the entire bottom of his closet (at least it's not a walk-in), and I mean entire, because there is overflow on the top, that's a lot. Sparky has about as many as Hubby, and Buddy has as many as the two of them combined. Sassy and Caboose have little in comparison to the masses.

3. Apple juice or orange juice?

Orange juice.

That one came out of left field.

4. What are 3 of your best personality traits?

I am a true friend and can keep a secret.

I am witty, although when it borders on sarcasm it always gets me in trouble. I've learned the hard way many times in my life.

I'M ORGANIZED!!!

5. Name 1 thing you miss about being a kid.

I miss my grandparents being young (only my grandma is living) and going over to their house.

6. What is usually your first thought when you wake up?

I don't want to get up, leave me alone, don't make me get up, that alarm is driving me crazy, be quiet, I don't want to get up, did you make coffee yet, I'll get up if you make coffee, bring me the coffee in bed, the coffee is too cold to drink because I dozed off, don't make me get up, I don't want to get up, oh okaaay (with serious whine). I am not a morning person. God gifted me with morning children. Where is the irony in that?

7. Regarding material possessions: the more the merrier or less is best?

Less is best, although I have problems with one of my children. Caboose can't let go. We went shopping for new sneakers about a year and a half ago. His old ones were too small. We picked out the new ones, he wore them and put the old ones in the box, and a few minutes later I noticed he had tears in his eyes by Hubby. I found out later that he realized he would have to get rid of his old shoes now that he had new ones. We still have those old shoes, but he only gets to keep one old pair. Our printer broke a few months ago and we had to buy a new one. He was very upset about that, and he was not keeping a broken printer in his room. So he finally went out on the porch and said a few words and hugged it good-bye. I'd say I feel sorry for his wife, except he says he's not getting married and is going to live with us forever. Hmmm....

Thanks to Heather & Reese over at Kickin' It In Crazyville for another round of fun questions!

Works For Me: The Five Ingredients Or Less Edition (Chili)

Our family loves this chili! This is something I've come up with on my own and then doubled along the way so we can eat on it for leftovers (usually two more times, but sometimes just once). The main thing you need to know is not to follow any part of the package directions from the chili seasoning mix.

2 pkgs very lean ground beef, about 2 1/2 to 3 lbs (I use 97%; you could use ground turkey too)
2 pkgs McCormick's Chili Seasoning (the original one, not the one that says mild or hot)
2 cans Chili Beans
1-2 large cans diced tomatoes (this is how you could make your chili stretch more)
1 large can tomato sauce

Brown the ground beef and then add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for about 15 minutes and serve. I usually only put about half of the second can of diced tomatoes in, and then I'll hold the tomatoes back so the rest of the juice flows in. My kids aren't crazy about the tomatoes and pick around them. If I only use one large can of diced tomatoes I will usually add a smidge of water.

For more great recipes using 5! ingredients or less, go visit Rocks In My Dryer.

Book Review ~ Sisterchicks Go Brit!

I just finished reading this seventh book in Robin Jones Gunn's series. The Sisterchicks books are always about a different pair of "Sisterchicks" that go on an adventure together and along the way find some truths about themselves and God.

This was my least favorite of all the books. I should have had some warning when I didn't like the cover because unfortunately, I judge a book by its cover. That's how I sometimes end up picking out a new series. Seriously. I found the Lumby Lines series that way. Digressing again, I know. I felt like the author had to try to fit God into this story; it didn't feel natural. Although there were a few funny situations, there wasn't as much humor in this book as in the others. I actually laughed out loud in some of the others and woke my Hubby up if I was reading in bed. Overall, I was disappointed in this book. It may have been because I expected more after having read the others. I don't know that it was a bad book, it just wasn't that good. When I finished it, I wasn't disappointed that it was over.

My favorite book in the Sisterchicks series is Sisterchicks Do the Hula, although I enjoyed all six of the first books. There was just something special about that one to me even though I've never been to Hawaii.