History Revised

Go here to read a fascinating article about the "10 Commandments" being changed to the "10 Amendments" at the U.S. Supreme Court. Click on "READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE." It's also very interesting to read the ongoing dialogue between the author and Snopes. I've always just assumed that Snopes was the infallible word on most subjects, but maybe not.
It's really sad what revisionists are doing to the history of our country.

because she says so

I was informed this morning by my three-year-old daughter, "Santa Claus likes me!"

What's not to like? 

just in case I don't have time for blogging

I received the following email this week! I am so excited and know "my ship has finally come in"! I just wanted to let y'all know what happened in case I'm not able to blog much now that I'll be out spending the money that my friend, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, will be sending me. I can't wait to send him all of the personal information he requested so that he can transfer the funds to me! Woo hoo!

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
TINUBU SQUARE,VICTORIA ISLAND,
LAGOS-NIGERIA

Urgent Attention;

This is to notify you that you funds has been programmed for immediate release into your nominated account but we can not transfer this funds direct to your nominated bank account, because we are having a problem with International Monetary Fund (IMF) so our method of payment is by Diplomatic Courier Service

Note; that every arrangement regarding your cash payment through diplomatic services has been made, note that your funds have been package like a consignment. Be inform that the Diplomatic Agency has to move down to your Country in order to deliver the Consignment to your doorstep.

I want you to forward the below infromation immediately, so that as soon as the diplomatic arrive in your country they will call you mmediately to notify you.

1) Your full name and address
2) Phone, fax and mobile #.
3) Company's name, position and address.
4) Profession, sex, age and marital status.
5) Working Id/Int'l passport.

Looking forward to hear from you

YOURS IN SERVICE,

PROFESSOR CHARLES C. SOLUDO
GOVERNOR, CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN)

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Today I laid my old coffee maker to rest. From my best guess, I think it dates back to the late 80s, when my husband brought it home from work. His district manager said that the thing had sat in a box for months and apparently no one was going to use it, so just get it out of there. Neither of us drink coffee, but I used it for brewing tea. Once, we broke the carafe and I was able to buy a replacement. When we broke the carafe again this week, I discovered that this model is so old that the replacements just aren't going to fit. With great glee I discovered that I could buy a Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker for about $9 more than I would have paid for the replacement carafe, and it's what I really need in the first place.

Tonight I took it out of the box, thoroughly read the destructions (that's what my husband and I call instructions, after one of the older kids who always said it when they were little), and put it to use. I was proudly showing my husband my clever little gadget, when I said, "Oh, look - Tempus Sans ITC!"

"What?" he said.

"You know, Tempus Sans ITC?"

"No, I don't know."

"The font. They used Tempus Sans ITC. On the iced tea maker. See?"

"Other people don't know the names of fonts."

"Yes, they do. At least I think they do."

"No, they don't. It's just you."

Is it just me? Isn't there one of you who would have said, "Oh, yeah. That is so totally Tempus Sans ITC."? Here's a picture I snagged off of ebay of the box. Tempus Sans ITC. Well, except for that funky curly "C" they added to "ICED."

I am issuing a challenge to my husband: If no one leaves a comment that they would have also known the font, I will concede that he is right (he has made this comment about no one else being so interested in fonts before). If such a comment does appear, however, I challenge him to actually leave a comment on my blog.

I have emailed him this post, which was the first time I visited Callapidder Days and decided Katrina's husband was one cool guy. No luck. My blog is his homepage at work and he even emails me his results for my lame blogthings quizzes, but still no posted comment. Good grief - Great Scot is a contributor at The Beehive, and Barb's husband even has his own blog (well, even the dog has her own blog in Barb's family, but that's beside the point).

The thing is, my husband won't see this until he goes to work Monday morning, and by then I'm counting on one of you, my geeky blogging friends, to have assured my victory! Mwahahaha!

You can cook much faster...

when someone else removes the giblets, washes and dries, and even stuffs the turkey (with a little help from an enthusiastic six-year-old daughter) while you prepare the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic.

when someone else chops the berries and greases the pans for your three loaves of cranberry bread.

when someone else melts the butter and gets and puts away the ingredients for your pecan pie.

Thanks, honey!

(I'm just wishing I'd realized how tired I was before I put that cranberry bread in the oven at 11:45 p.m.!)

Giving Thanks

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came:
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear, -
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared;
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? -
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God!

-- Felicia Dorothea Hemans

 

an open letter to the Bloglines plumber

Mr. Bloglines plumber, what have I done to offend you? Why did you quit, apparently as of last Thursday, updating my feed? What do you mean my feed does not appear to exist? You don't think I did anything with it, do you? And why did you not make a personal appearance, but just insidiously keep my fellow bloggers from knowing about my new posts? Not well done, Mr. Plumber.

Oh, Mr. Plumber! Your minions at Bloglines Customer Service have just emailed me to say that they have reset my feed! I am going to trust your dedication to fix my problem and take a moment to say to my bloglines friends - welcome back! I've missed you!

SAT essay tips

There is a very informative post on Jeannie Fulbright's blog about the way the new essay portion of the SAT is graded. This is a must-read for any student who will be faced by the most frightening and random thing to hit standardized testing since - well, I don't know - but I would be quite worried about it if I were in high school. It's also interesting to get a little insight into what it's like for the graders.

*Update*: Here is a follow-up post with more tips.

The Dinner Party!

Last Friday night I tried the dinner party/recipe swap idea I'd gotten from BooMama with a few ladies from church; there were five of us in attendance. My nine-year-old daughter did a lovely job setting the table. She had been waiting all week for the opportunity. When she finished, she must have lit every candle in the house. Then my husband loaded up the kids for a night at CiCi's and a trip through Wal-Mart. What more could a kid want? Thank you, honey, for giving me some big-girl time!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures earlier, when my aunt was here, too.

Having a small crowd was great for conversational purposes! Highlights included jury duty stories and pronunciation oddities (not unusual, considering Melissa and Lynne both have backgrounds in speech therapy). Did you know that people from Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas will all pronounce Ponce de Leon differently? And that this is actually relevant since it is the name of a major street in downtown Atlanta? And that people from Arkansas will think that native Georgians (this includes news anchors and traffic reporters) sound really stupid odd when they pronounce it? But that people from Arkansas who feel superior to people from Georgia when pronouncing "Ponce de Leon" may themselves feel somewhat foolish when they hear someone from Texas pronounce it? Or that people from Texas have a really strange very unique pronunciation for the words Colorado and Nevada (or maybe that's just Lynne)? Or that Tina's husband pronounces "loin" (as in pork loin) "low-in"? And that I just have to hear him say it with my own two ears?

Or that Tina is highly photogenic?

And did I mention the food? Or the fact that I never start sentences with conjunctions but seem to be making a huge exception for this post? The food was OUT.OF.THIS.WORLD, topped off by my fudge truffle cheesecake and Melissa's mystery brownies, whose ingredients were not divulged until after they'd been tasted. (Curious, aren't you?)

Although it took me out of my usual comfort zone entertaining-wise (I'm much more casual - in over twenty-one years of marriage I had NEVER used my good china), this is an idea which I highly recommend. You can read the synopsis on BooMama's blog. The only thing we did differently is that the recipes are being emailed to me so that I can compile them into one document and send them to everyone, including ladies who were unable to attend but want to share in the recipe exchange. It will be nice to have them all in one place and be able to print extra copies as needed.

Thanks, sweet sisters, for the food and the fellowship!

Food for Thought

The following is from an article at Boundless Webzine:

What Are We Celebrating? A Fresh Look at an Old Tradition

Before you loosen your belt and find a comfortable place on the couch to nap this Thursday, ask yourself:

What are we celebrating?
a) A feast day honoring the ancient god, pigus dermus.
b) The festival of the ancient god, pigus outus.
c) A feast commemorating the bravery of the Pilgrim’s who set sail for an unknown world 3,000 miles from home.

On Thanksgiving, who's the one getting thanked?
1) The Indians
2) Mother Earth
3) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Why did the Pilgrims leave England for America?
a) They were seeking religious freedom
b) They were searching for a better environment for their out-of-control kids
c) It's a trick question. The Pilgrims actually came to America from Holland.

Okay, how'd you do? If you're like a lot of Americans, you don't know as much about Thanksgiving's origins as you thought.

It's really not your fault. The holiday has fallen into politically-correct disrepute. Walk into a Border's Books, you'll find plenty of books about Thanksgiving. But most of them offer a deeply distorted view of the holiday. For instance, readers will get the distinct impression that the Pilgrims were atheists, because all mention of God has been omitted from many a modern holiday tale.

Read the article in its entirety.

Our family enjoys Christian Liberty Press's Stories of the Pilgrims, which is an annual holiday read-aloud. Our biggest hurdle is starting it early enough to finish before Thanksgiving.

Wishing your family a blessed Thanksgiving!

I'm growing up, Mommy

Dear Mommy:

Please don't be sad. I'm moving in the big girls' room tonight. We've been putting it off for a long time. Daddy's moved my crib for me. I'm just right up the stairs.

xoxoxoxoxo,
Lily

 

Google me

One of the most entertaining things about a sitemeter is seeing the Google searches that lead random visitors to your blog. Here are some of mine:

• monster pierced with arrows by charles le brun
• severely chapped hands
• furr's apple dumplings
• Homeschool + Softball + Nationals
• gary albero (this was my 9/11 victim tribute post)
• jupiter striking down the titans discussion
  
• hershey's amazing fruit gummy bears
• amazing fruit gummy bears (yes, these were 2 separate searches within 24 hours - I'm not the only one looking for them)
  
• Recipes of thick crust Hawaiian pizza
• free you are invited to my housewarming cards
• old home sweet home sampler clipart
• mommie dearest set
• wassail can frozen orange juice gallon apple cider -pineapple can frozen lemonade 12 cloves "holiday wassail"
• " bed tray with legs "
• the futile pursuit of happiness
• birthday bygone years sweets hamper
• 'home sweet home' restaurant dancing
  

There are some really interesting ones in there, huh? I think my most consistent source of visitors comes from a comment I left on the Large Family Logistics blog about posting a picture of their Dutch Puff recipe. I get weekly - if not daily - hits from that, which I never would have imagined.

Do you have any interesting referral stories?

with a little help from my kids

I'm really excited about tomorrow night. With some of my sweet church sisters as my guests, I'm trying the dinner party/recipe exchange idea that I read about at BooMama's. If it goes well, I'd like to try it later with the ladies in my neighborhood and in my homeschool group, too. It's a more formal style than we usually entertain, but like The Little Engine that Could, I keep saying, "I think I can, I think I can!" Unfortunately, my kids don't seem to share my optimism.

After the etiquette classes my 9- and 6-year-old daughters and 11-year-old son took in our homeschool co-op before their recent cotillion, I think they are capable of setting the table for dinner at the White House. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way they began to examine yours truly and decided I was lacking in this department. It all began the week when their homework was to set the table before dinner each night. They were obviously quite disappointed when they realized that not only would we not need a very formal place setting or a basic formal place setting, but often we didn't even use all of the utensils for a simple place setting. I'm just a practical person; we generate enough dirty laundry and dishes around here already without having to clean items we won't actually use, and four of the nine people at our table are age six and under.

This week, my oldest daughter has been leaving her etiquette notebook on my desk, "In case I need to study." She has also told me that she plans to set the table for Friday night. It's actually very sweet, except for the (unintentional) condescension of it. . .{sigh}. I know my limitations, one of which is that by not drinking coffee I don't know how to make it. Hopefully I have solved this problem by asking a friend who is an amazing cook (she catered her own wedding and has a recipe in last year's Southern Living cookbook!) to bring coffee (last time she even brought her own grinder and pot). Fortunately, I plan to serve my fudge truffle cheesecake, which should cover a multitude of sins.

Works-for-Me Wednesday: Crescent-Wrapped Gouda with Red Pepper Jelly

For the Christmas edition of Works-for-Me Wednesday, I thought I would share a simple yet elegant appetizer for all of those holiday get-togethers.

Crescent-Wrapped Gouda with Red Pepper Jelly

1 (7-oz.) round of Gouda cheese
1 (8-oz.) can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 egg, beaten
fancy crackers
red pepper jelly

Heat oven to 350˚. Cut cheese round in half to form 2 circles; remove wax.

Separate dough into 4 rectangles; firmly press perforations to seal. Press each into a 6x6-inch rectangle. Place 2 rectangles, 3 inches apart, on ungreased cookie sheet. Place 1 cheese circle on center of each rectangle (from experience, I would take a knife and "break-up" the cheese; it will heat through better). If desired, use canape cutter or paring knife to cut 2 to 3 small decorative shapes from the corners of each remaining rectangle; set shapes aside. Place 1 remaining rectangle on top of each cheese round. Press dough around cheese to seal; curl bottom edges over top edges, gently stretching dough to form a ring of dough around cheese, sealing completely. Place decorative shapes on top of each pastry. Brush with beaten egg.

Bake at 350˚ for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes before serving. Place on a decorative plate or platter, surrounded by fancy crackers and topped with red pepper jelly. 8 servings.

Technically, you could omit the red pepper jelly. To me, however, it is the highlight. Once we were invited to a Christmas party where I brought this appetizer. I didn't have any red pepper jelly and asked my husband to please pick some up on his way there from work. He ended up being very late because he had so much trouble finding a store that stocked it. He finally found it at Publix. Our hostess later gave me 3 jars as a Christmas gift. I will be making this on Friday night; if I remember, I'll take a picture and update the post with it.

For more Christmas Works-for-Me Wednesday ideas, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

Huh?

The following took place today while working on chemistry with my fifteen-year-old son:

Three-year-old daughter, pointing in toy catalog: I'm getting one of these for Christmas!

Fifteen-year-old son: No, Christmas this year is for ages five and up. You and Lily won't be getting anything.

Daughter, holding up two fingers: YES I WILL! I'm this many years old!

Son and I, simultaneously, while choking back laughter and holding up three fingers: Actually, you are this many years old.

Daughter: NO I'M NOT! I'm going to Christmas!

Son: You don't go to Christmas.

Daughter: YES I DO! And I go to birthdays!

At this point we just rolled our eyes and went back to chemistry, which makes about as much sense to me as conversations with some of my kids.

Say Anything!

In 2002, Entertainment Weekly ranked it as the greatest modern movie romance.

Are you a child of the 80s?

From what classic 80s movie comes this quote?

"I don't want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

Bonus question: What awesome song was played in one of this movie's most memorable scenes?

Organizationally Challenged

I just discovered the 30-Day Organizational Challenge at "I'm an Organizing Junkie." I don't know about you, but I seem to be selectively organized. My bookshelves, drawers, and cabinets are in good shape. Other areas are, well, a different - much uglier - story.

I heard a Christian professional organizer speak in 2004, and it had a very profound impact on me at the time. I will share the story if I stick to it and keep the challenge. Now off to get the camera for those "before" pictures... 

just following orders

My Prince Charming is anything but camera shy. When he saw I was going to take pictures of his sister, he jumped right in.



Then he wanted to get his bear (remember him?) in on the act.



I'm not sure what's happened in the last few days, but my baby is turning into a little girl. She wants to carry around baby dolls, give them bottles, and push them in the doll stroller. It's sweet, but I still want her to be the baby.


After I took their pictures, Prince Charming looked at me and said, "Now go put them on the internet." They learn pretty quickly, don't they?

 

“When the chips are down…

refill the basket.”

My 15-year-old son and I went to buy new basketball shoes after his first practice yesterday. I had something that is a rare and treasured commodity for me: one-on-one time with an individual child. We ate lunch at Moe’s. I love their quirky artwork with silly sayings written around the borders:

“If you don’t have fun saying quesadilla, you’re probably pronouncing it wrong.” (Yes, No Cool Story, my son and I laughed about the quesadiLLa quote in Napoleon D.)

“If a quesadilla could talk, it would be terrifying.”

“You can tell a lot by the way a person dips their chips.”

You certainly can. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: double dipping. In case you don’t know, double-dipping is the loathsome and socially abhorrent practice of dipping food in some kind of shared, community dip (like salsa or cheese dip), taking a bite, and then re-dipping the same piece of food (usually tortilla chip) into the sauce again. After you’ve eaten off of it. Some restaurants give each person an individual bowl. In that case, double-dip your heart out; it doesn’t affect anyone else. Otherwise, just don’t do it.

Years ago, I attended a moms’ night out with ladies from a playgroup one of my sons attended at that time. I was really excited because we were going to my favorite Mexican restaurant. When the chips and salsa arrived, most of the women immediately started double-dipping. I was horrified, disgusted, but mostly just plain irritated; I had wanted chips and salsa, too, but not anymore.

Two other moms and I taught a human anatomy class in our homeschool co-op this year. On the week when we covered the digestive system, I explained to the children exactly what double-dipping does (one of many anatomy-related rabbit trails we followed this semester). I told how if you repeatedly scoop baby food directly out of the jar into the baby’s mouth, and then reseal the unfinished jar and put it in the refrigerator, saliva will break-down the food, whether it’s in your mouth or not. When you reopen that jar, part of the baby food will be liquefied. It was that mental image that did it. Those sweet faces registered such shock and revulsion that I knew I had helped prevent a few more double-dippers in this world, and for that I am pleased; it was my civic duty.

If you are a habitual double-dipper: Stop the madness! Cease and desist! Just say no!

Never let it be said that I am afraid to tackle the big issues on this blog.

Biting the bullet

Please note: I will try to wade through the geek-speak as quickly as possible and get to the news-you-can-use part of this post.

For the last few weeks I've been preparing - with a mixture of excitement and apprehension - to reformat my C drive (I store documents, photos, and music on my D drive, which I don't reformat). My computer has been really dragging lately in spite of doubling the RAM and running anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. When I couldn't even get it to HotSync with my Palm yesterday, I knew the time had come to bite the bullet and just do it.

I love that fresh-as-the-day-I-brought-it-home feeling of reformatting. The downside is having to reinstall and update so many programs (since my computer is three years old, it doesn't install the current versions of things like Acrobat Reader). I spent a chunk of time yesterday reformatting and reinstalling, but I am thrilled with how things are running now. It even recognizes my jump drive for the first time - woo hoo!

Here's the really exciting news:

From my earlier post about browsers, 50% of the people who took the survey use Mozilla Firefox, my web browser of choice. When I went to Mozilla's site to install Firefox yesterday, I discovered that Firefox 2 is now available, and boy is it sa-weet! Here are a few highlights (emphasis is mine, with comments in purple), followed by links to Mozilla's site where you can get more information or download Firefox 2 for yourself!

What’s New in Firefox 2:

Improved Tabbed Browsing

We love tabs as much as you do, so Firefox 2 will open new web pages in tabs by default. Each of those tabs has its own close button (this takes getting used to but is extremely handy), but don’t worry - if you accidentally close a tab, just go to the History menu to bring it back from the list of “Recently Closed Tabs.” You’ll never be crunched for space anymore, either. When you have too many tabs open to comfortably fit in a single window, scroll arrows will appear on either side, and a button on the right side will always show you an easy-to-read list of all your open tabs. (For those of you who have never tried tabbed browsing, it is the only way to blog or surf - I currently have four open tabs.)

Spell Checking

Sometimes you’re in a rush, and can’t remember if it’s “i” before “e” or the other way around. Firefox 2 has built-in spell checking to keep you from making any mistakes in your blog posts and Web-based email, so you can worry about more important things. (This means you get spell check correction marks - red lines under the misspelled word, like in Word - when you are blogging or leaving comments; you can even add words to your personal dictionary!)

Session Restore

Losing your place while you’re doing things on the Web is a pain. Now, with Session Restore, if Firefox has to restart or closes when it comes back you’ll pick up exactly where you left off. The windows and tabs you were using, the text you typed into forms, and the in-progress downloads you had running will all be restored. You can even set Firefox 2 to always restore your previous session instead of loading a home page, so you’ll never lose your place again.

Web Feeds (RSS)

You can use a Firefox Live Bookmark, or a feed reader that you’ve installed on your computer, or through a Web service such as My Yahoo!, Bloglines or Google Reader. (This means you can click this button and subscribe through your Bloglines account!)

Integrated Search

Firefox helps you find whatever it is that you’re looking for. The Search bar comes pre-loaded with search engines for Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Answers.com, and Creative Commons. Wherever you are on the Web, you can enter a search term in the Search bar and receive immediate answers from the search engine you’ve chosen. You can select a new search engine from the Search bar menu at any time, and add search engines from hundreds of your favorite Web sites (I also use Wikipedia, Webster's Dictionary, and del.icio.us.)

Personalize Your Browser

Choose from thousands of useful Add-ons that enhance Firefox. It’s easy to personalize Firefox 2 to make it your own. (I downloaded this incredibly cool theme!)

For more information on Mozilla Firefox 2 and how it delivers an easier, faster and safer online experience, visit www.mozilla.com/firefox/features.html.

Mozilla Firefox 2 is available now as a free download from www.getfirefox.com.

Magic Eraser burns

I just read this post which I linked from Large Family Logistics. I think the story is worth reading, if you're like me and swear by Magic Erasers (and knock-offs of them). I'm still going to use them, but I'll be more careful with the kids. I showed them the picture and talked to them about this; hopefully I didn't give anyone any ideas. I just felt like I should pass this along...

something to blog about

You know that feeling when you are so excited about something that you just can't wait to blog about it? Then later you're telling someone about this exciting, bloggable event and you say, "Oh! It was so great that I wrote about it on my blog." Then you cringe and wait for the reaction. Is it just me, or do you sometimes feel that your non-blogging friends think that your blogging habit is odd, or worse yet, just plain weird? I think it is one of those things that you just don't get until you do it, providing you want to in the first place. There's some statistic about how many words a man uses during the day compared to how many words a woman uses; I think the joke is that women talk their husband's ears off at night because they're using up the rest of their words. Maybe habitual bloggers are just utilizing the rest of their daily quota (or sparing their spouses, whatever the case may be).

My oldest daughter was telling me the other day about something Miss Leigh said about our blog. "What? Who? Huh?" I stammered. You see, Miss Leigh is my neighbor across the street; my neighbor who (supposedly) didn't know about my blogging habit (I just love the way Code Yellow Mom's Calvin called it "her work" - that's a good boy). Well, I talked to Leigh today and she was excited to tell me that she has started her own blog this week! How cool is that? She wants to blog, too. Leigh has a 3-year-old, and 1-year-old twins, all girls. Feel free to stop by and say hello.

I was truly touched today to see that Melanie posted about my son's recent baptism. We've seen evidence of the Lord's spiritual quickening of him for some time; we were thrilled that he felt the desire to walk in gospel obedience by joining the church and being baptized. He is one precious boy, if I do say so myself.

Last, but not least, No Cool Story posted about socks that go missing today, complete with actual photo of her LSB (lost sock bag) and the question: What goes missing at your house? In an actual, unposed photograph (who would stage such a thing?) I am revealing my current singles sock collection. Scary, huh? What you see in the front is one complete pair of socks which were joyously reunited last night (but somehow failed to find their way to the appropriate child's sock drawer). Every few months, I take the current pile collection of single socks, sort them by sex (of wearer) and general size, and have all of the kids look to see if they claim any of them or have mates in their drawers. The leftovers get tossed. I'm thinking maybe it's about that time again... Since moving last summer, my husband has been unable to find one of his suits. When we can't find something, he and I say it's "with the suit."

Okay, maybe I'm not finished after all: check out Barb's delicious sounding holiday bread recipes, and Magi's holiday recipes, too. I'm wanting to try those Chocolate Candy Cherries; my grandmother always made them for Christmas Eve, and I'm excited to have a recipe now.

Have a blessed weekend!

The Highlight of the Social Season!

Since September, the children in grades 1-8 in our homeschool co-op have been studying human anatomy, ballroom dance, etiquette, and sign language. With the exception of anatomy, these classes have been geared to culminate in a cotillion, which was held last Thursday morning. Chairs were arranged beyond the dance area for invited guests. My mother-in-law, our retired neighbors, and my husband were able to attend. I can say, without a doubt, that this was one of the highlights of our thirteen years of homeschooling.

The mothers were determined that the kids get the full experience, including a six-course meal. We didn't want to risk breaking our good china in transport, so eventually we decided to rent china, crystal, linens, and silverware, which came in special carrying cases. Amazingly, we only had one broken water goblet and one missing napkin.

This turned out to be a very emotional experience for the mothers! One mom said she felt like her son was getting married. I cried when the 4th-8th grade kids performed Nicol Sponberg's "Resurrection" in sign-language; it was very moving.

The mothers dressed in black pants with white shirts and served the meal. I mentally chanted "serve from the left, clear from the right" until I felt like I could get a job at a local restaurant. I have a new respect for everything a server's job entails. Refilling glasses and clearing plates sure keeps you on your toes!

Although Clayton wasn't old enought to participate in the cotillion itself, he was one of the children in the pre-K/kindergarten class who performed in sign-language during the program.

I am going to publish a series of posts for each of my children who participated.

Chloe at Cotillion

Here is Chloe at the cotillion.

Here she is during one of the toasts. Those kids put away a serious amount of ginger ale!

Each child had a dance card. One of Chloe's partners was an adorable boy named Jacob.

This is Chloe with her "date," Judson.

The 1st-3rd graders performed a song in sign-language, too.

The younger ones also did the bunny hop!