weekly update

So Scott is getting on my case for not blogging, and I have been very lax. I was kind of burnt out on it you know? So he inspired me to write more about our family doings and stuff that my family might be interested in reading (since you are the few who actually read it) and that re-inspired me because I am horrible at journaling anyway, so this is my only journaling outlet that I actually do.

I thought I would bring you up to speed on things going on with me.

Dillon started into the middle school/ junior high this year as a 6th grader. I was so proud when I got his class schedule and saw that he has all honors classes!! I’ve always known he is a smart kid, but his ADD has always kind of masked it in a classroom setting. But he has finally gotten to a point that his medication is working great for him and last year his grades really picked up. I just am so proud of him, and of course a little nervous- thinking, “Will he be able to handle the work load?, Will his grades stay up in honors classes?, Will he enjoy it or will it burn him out????” You know, obsessing like a Mother does. I guess we will just see. As far as I can tell the honors classes do more in depth learning, more hands on and such, so that is great for Dillon. I think he will be a Scientist or an Engineer, the boy loves to build. He was accompanying Scott to the dump a few weeks ago and saw a place for chemicals and wanted to go pick some up to bring home?!? What in the heck for I am wondering…

I am officially in my 3rd trimester and now I do daily kick counts. They say if you don’t feel your baby kick at least 10 times in an hour or two then you should get checked out. This little girl is so active when she is awake that she kicks 10 times in under 10 minutes every day. It is very entertaining at this stage, she/I haven’t gotten so big that it is uncomfortable yet.

Since all the kids are now in school, it is really quiet around here during the day. It is kind of disturbing, I miss my Chloe. Just the two of us were here on Saturday and that was enjoyable to have her around again. I am trying to put my quiet time before the baby to good use. I am going to sew the crib bedding and a few other things too. I’ll post some pictures when it gets underway.

That is all for now!  I’ll have Scott keep on my case to keep posting!

if I only had a brain…

Paige

My oldest daughter Paige is almost 13. She read me this poem that she wrote the other day and I want to share it with you!

Imagine

If I could fly
I’d be in the sky
almost all day
and on warm summer nights.

I’d fly through the clouds.
and swoop with the birds.
My spirit so free
I can’t say a word.

The view is like
none I’ve ever seen.
The wings I’ve been given
have a glittery sheen.

My hair blowing wildly,
I zoom through the air.
It’s starting to rain,
but I don’t care.

The storm clouds blow in,
but soon blow away.
I’m glad they are gone
I start a new day.

I dip and I curve
and I fall to the ground.
Then I turn to the sky,
There isn’t a sound.

Then I tuck in my wings
and fall once again
I feel so ecstatic,
But I have no friend.

There’s nobody with me
To share this great fun
So I make someone up
And the fun has begun.

We fly and we swoop
We bask in the sun
But then I’m alone
My story is done.

I use my mind
to create what’s been done,
It’s all in my head
Now wasn’t that fun?

Paige Wilkins
2-24-08

trails and trail mix

I was at Walmart a couple of weeks ago and spotted their Sam’s Choice Trail mixes. I picked up a bag of the”Indulgent” kind. It is so good. You should try it, next time you are at Walmart pick up a bag. (I know you all shop there) It has almonds, cashews, peanuts, dried cranberries, golden raisins, white choc. chips, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips! It is soo good. The funny thing is that I pick out the chocolate chips, not to eat them mind you, I am not a fan, I give them to the kids.

When I eat trail mix, I have an urge to take up hiking. Trail Mix is all about natural goodness right? The name says it all.

I have always loved hiking, though I can’t say I have ever done enough of it. There are so many beautiful places with tons of trails just up the mountains from us, I really want to take advantage of living here so close. Maybe when the weather turns warmer I will have to take my family out on a hike. The kids will probably be game, and I think I can convince Scott to go too, he loves to mountain bike, so why not hike? (what do you think honey?)

This is Horsetail Falls, about half an hour from here.  It is a hike I have actually done a couple of times, years ago.  It is really fun with the water rushing down the whole way. Beautiful.  I need to go again.

When we were in Oregon last summer we went on a few walks, that could possibly be construed as hikes. But when little people are involved you can only do so much! One such time was a hike out to a big cliff/bluff above the ocean where we flew kites and watched the whales, it was fantastic. The other was a walk through the redwoods, which was so completely gorgeous.

Do you find that sometimes we do all kinds of things on vacation, that we could also do at home, but for some reason we just don’t? For example: I live about four hours away from Yosemite, and I have never been there. I know, I know, it’s a crime! And there are bound to be so many other beautiful places here in the Sierra’s that would be great to see. I think it just comes down to taking the initiative to fight the homebody tendencies we have and make a plan and follow through, because we never regret it when we do get out. And who ever remembers “that great weekend at home when we cleaned the house and watched tv”?

so ridiculous

Spam, that is was is ridiculous. You spammers know who you are! (don’t worry I still love you)

I must say a lot of spam is harmless funny stuff, but don’t believe everything you read people. Here is a spam email that I got months ago and Scott just got last night:

Please help do this.. refuse to accept these when they are handed to you. I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead. The lady just smiled and said ‘way to go’ so she had read this e-mail. Please help out….our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!!

U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins

You guessed it
‘IN GOD WE TRUST’
IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!

DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE

Together we can force them out of circulation.

Please send to all on mail list !!!

ok, you think, “shocking”, and “how can they get away with this?!” Well before you get all indignant and forward the spam to everyone you know, check the facts man! Here is the reply my hubby sent to the friend spammer:

“In God We Trust” is on the edge of the $1 Presidents coins.

The United States is honoring our Nation’s presidents by issuing $1 circulating coins featuring their images in the order that they served. The United States Mint issues four Presidential $1 Coins per year, with Presidents Monroe,Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren being honored in 2008. Each coin has a common reverse design featuring a striking rendition of the Statue of Liberty. These coins feature larger, more dramatic artwork, as well as edge-incused inscriptions of the year of minting or issuance, “E Pluribus Unum,” “In God We Trust” and the mint mark.  It is one of the features of this coin that make it distinctive.

An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including “In God We Trust,” and are fetching around $50 apiece online as a collectors item, as all misprints are valuable to collectors. (I am a collector, and would love one of the misprints myself!)
The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of the nation’s first president, are inscribed along the edge with “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum” and the year and mint mark. They made it past inspectors and went into circulation.
The U.S. Mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.
About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver . So far the mint has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia , mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey said.
Bailey said it was unknown how many coins lacked the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world’s largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation.
“The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were,” he said. “They’re going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they’ll probably settle in the $50 range.”
Just wanted to clear up a few things for you. They haven’t gotten rid of the phrase, just moved it, along with most of the other writing, to the edge. So I don’t find it necessary to boycott them. I will gladly pay you double the face value for any of the misprints you come across!

We are still “One Nation Under God”

So there you go. People all over the country spreading email spam around like wildfire and all for naught! So if you must read/send spam, just realize that it is often more fiction than fact!

And for those of you who love to spam, watch THIS, it is MUY IMPORTANTE!, and entertaining as well!

stuff and nonsense

Don’t ever try kiwi preserves, NASTY!

Funny story: Last night I went to sign Dillon up for Little League and when I was finished and getting in my car, I turned the key and the radio came on and was playing this song “put me in coach, I wanna play center field…” CRAZY coincidence!

I love Pride and Prejudice. I have been watching the A & E version the last couple of days and now I want to find a pattern to make those dresses, LOVE THEM.

My projects for the day: (besides the usual cleaning)

• make a book cover for Scott,
• work on my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that I started about 9 years ago…it’s one of my resolutions to finish those this year, I am going to make the clothes out of some fun fabrics instead of going the traditional route.
• exercise with my Dance Dance Revolution.
• blog the castle cake tutorial

What I am eating: rice crispy treats and cranberry juice. Hence the need to exercise. I should never make rice crispy treats because I can not resist them and I resort to logic such as “hey it is made of breakfast cereal so eating them for breakfast is fine!”
Hope you have a fine January day today!!

moon boots

Remember these? I had a pair. They were blue and grey. I spent some of my own hard earned money on them, which tells you how much I wanted them because I never had money, and I love to shop. When we were young living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, we rarely got snow, so we were never really equipped for snowy weather. We would improvise in any way to be able to stay outside as long as possible in the snow so as not to miss a minute of it because it was sure to melt soon and it might be the only snow that year. The number one concern was fingers and toes. Fortunalely we had a random stash of gloves, so check on that… the shoes however were an issue. I am not sure who came up with the idea, probably Mom, but we would take bread bags from loaves of store bought bread (we saved those, now that I think of it I am not quite clear why, maybe for storing home made bread, or just having and extra sack to use, or ???) Anyway we would put the bags over our socks in our shoes to make our feet more water resistant, brilliant huh? Not too fashionable, but when you are in your own front yard building snowmen and sledding who cares if you have Home Pride bags sticking out of your shoes…

Which brings me to my Moon Boots, happy was the day I got those. We had them for years, just waiting for the occasional snowy day or maybe a trip up to the mountains. I think every kid in my family wore them one time or another. Even after they were drying too close to the wood stove and one of them kind of melted… but it still worked!!

I was remembering my boots because we went sledding yesterday. We got a sled a couple of years ago, and finally used it for the first time yesterday! It was so fun!! (Sorry no pics, I am horrible lately about remembering the darn thing..) We only had to drive less than 10 minutes up the hill to get enough to sled on. We sled for about an hour and when we are soaked through and frozen, we come home. That is perfect for us, because we are not outfitted for snow anymore now than when I was a kid! But I have not pulled out the bread bags just yet…

hear the wind blow…

Does that phrase put a song in your head? I can think of a couple with it.

So we here in Nor Cal are being BLASTED with a wind/rain storm. I do love the wind, I really really love wind. It is just making me incredibly nervous though. I fear the power will go out.

I don’t mind the power being out generally because when we were growing up it would go out in the winter and we would light the many many oil lamps that my mom collected and we would put a pot of beans on the wood stove and it was kind of an adventure. When the power was out for a while during a snow storm once, I remember melting snow for water because we were on a well and no power meant no water… but I think fondly of those times.

My fear now is that if the power goes out at my house we will have water, but no heat. We have a pellet stove, that I love, but we are out of luck in a power outage. That would mean no hunkering down and enjoying a primitive life with no power, but packing up and heading to my brothers house, who has a wood stove. I guess that would be an adventure too, and probably fun, but in a big storm nothing beats holing up in your own house.

We are always toying with the idea of getting a generator, we’ll see if that happens. So for now I am enjoying the storm from my nice warm house, and thinking of baking something, because stormy weather calls for something hot from the oven doesn’t it?

Happy New Year!!

Hope you had a fantastic 2007. Ours had big ups and big downs, but we survived and are the better for it all.

Yesterday we finished off the year with some family fun. We went ROLLER SKATING! Good memories and good times. The kids are coming along nicely with their roller skating skills. Chloe does better when she is not holding your hand, Paige is a little worse for wear, but didn’t break anything, and Dillon just had fun. Of course Scott and I love it too. We discovered that New Years Eve is a great day to go, there was hardly anyone there, so it wasn’t a big deal when Chloe would go the wrong way or cut straight across the rink…

When we got home I tackled putting away Christmas. I wanted to start the new year all nice and clean.

Then in Porter family tradition we had a movie marathon. We watched Spiderman one and two. (we ran out of time for #three) Chloe crashed at 9:30, Scott and I lasted till around 11, but Paige and Dillon were our troopers and were up to welcome in the new year!

Thismorning we had a 18 popper salute to the new year:

Today calls for making good food, playing games, and watching movies.

Happy New Year!

losing steam

I think I can, I think I can…..
Ok I think I am officially worn out. But the end of my to do list is in sight, and no more will be added. I don’t care that a section of my Christmas tree lights has gone out, I am NOT going to deal with trying to find the faulty bulb, so my tree is a little stripey… Also my outdoor lights have also gone out in places…don’t care! I did all my menu planning and grocery shopping today, so I won’t have to go to the store again for a week. I decided not to make the rice heat bag for the teacher, just couldn’t get the motivation to do it. So instead I made a boquet of flower topped pens for the school, and I am thinking of making fudge in a minute.

The only reason I am even contemplating this is because of THIS recipe that is the easiest in the world, and I like it. (I add 1/2 tsp of salt to the recipe.)

Tomorrow I will get all my presents wrapped and I should be good to go. Then the only things I need to do are making cinnamon rolls on Monday (fun), and finish my “Wee” nativity set (which is coming along nicely), I will post pics later!

Paige and Dillon got all packed up and delivered to their Dad’s house today. They are going to AZ for a week. That means a nice quiet week with Chloe and Mommy! Scott has Sunday (Chloe’s b-day) and Christmas Day off next week. (oh yeah, I need to make Chloe’s princess castle cake for Sunday)

I am definitely ready for a break from the daily grind of the school schedule. I have not a single thing planned for next week and I am going to enjoy it!! I will have time to bake, read and relax….If I don’t get to relax soon this is going to be me:

hee hee

 

movie reviews

There used to be a time way back before Chloe was born and we didn’t have a budget, that Scott and I used to go to the movies quite often. Back in the days when we had, …you guessed it, more time and money. We usually go on date nite every so often, but it seemed to us that there was absolutely nothing worth seeing for ages now. But as usual, all the good movies are saved for the holidays. In the last little bit we have seen two movies that I enjoyed.

First was Dan in Real Life

I HIGHLY enjoyed this movie. It was about a great family that was having a reunion type gathering, and it was a sweet love story and it was funny.   I enjoy Steve Carrel in The Office, and was nervous that it would be more of that character. I had nothing to fear, his Dan character was great, really believable and human.  I will own this movie when it comes out on DVD, and I wish I could watch it right now. It makes me want to have a reunion and steal their ideas of fun things to do.

Yesterday we saw:

I Am Legend. Did you know this is a zombie movie? I had seen previews and the zombie creatures were only flashed on for a second, so I figured they were a minor part of the story. Not so. Not that I didn’t enjoy it for what it was. This is about as scary of a movie that I will enjoy. (I HATE Horror movies with an undying passion burning like a thousand suns, and think they are all evil— and I could go on but I won’t) I do like Will Smith, he is one of my favorites I must say. So I will give this a thumbs up because I enjoyed all in all, after being mildly disconcerted that it was a zombie movie. I would record it off tv, or rent it, but I won’t be buying it. Scott tells me it is just like Resident Evil, which I refuse to see because of afore mentioned reasons, but he HATED Resident Evil even though he insists that he likes it, although whenever he sees it again on tv or whatever he is reminded how much he hates it. He did not however hate this movie, so I’m not sure what my point is….

So there you go. See Dan in Real Life and tell me what you think. If you are a fan of Will Smith then see his movie, or if you are in the mood for a mild zombie movie, I am Legend is for you.

today

Well today is random. I have a lot on my mind and I feel kinda behind…

Today I am putting away the fall decor and pulling out Christmas, I think I will feel a bit better when I do. I will play Christmas music and drink egg nog with my family.

It is a rainy sort of day here, I’m enjoying it, it suits my mood. I walked around my yard this morning and here is what I found:

Pretty huh.

This morning while Chloe is at preschool I am going to make her a sock monkey. This came about because on Thanksgiving Day we were at my brothers familys house and my sister in law and I were planning out our attack for Black Friday shopping. We had the kids writing letters to Santa to make sure we were getting something they wanted. Well Chloe has been talking about getting a princess Cinderella Castle for a while, so that was in the letter. She also wants some my little ponies. She then started looking around the room and writing down what she saw. That included a mermaid barbie, and a monkey doll. No prob on the mermaid doll, they were even on sale, but I thought she would just forget about the monkey doll. No such luck. Every time she talks about Santa, she mentions the castle, mermaid doll, a my little pony, and a MONKEY DOLL! Aaallll riiight! So, I decided to make a totally awesome sock monkey using this tutorial. It will not be your typical sock monkey, I found some pink and fuschia striped knee highs to make it out of. So this monkey is going to have long ‘ol legs, arms and tail. It will be fantastic and I know I will love it, and I hope she loves it too. I know it is not quite the monkey she has in mind, but it is what Santa is bringing… I will post a pic of it when I finish it, hopefully in just a bit!