A Very Nearly Tea

This post isn't meant for young children. I don't know why any would be reading this blog, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

There is a bit of debate out there about exactly what ghosts are, if they are and what it all means. For what it is worth, I believe there is something out there. Evil spirits one should not be communing with. And because it is that season, I thought I'd share my own ghost story and leave it open for your interpretation.

It scared me half to death and I think you will see why.

When we lived in Ft. Wayne, we lived in a house with occasional strange goings on. Most were explicable...but consistent enough that we could not help but wonder if something else was there as well. I'm sure everyone has had the experience of turning the light out in a room only to discover later that the light is still on. It is an eerie sensation, but most of the time I am sure the real cause of the light's persistent "on-ness" is that you only thought you turned out the light.

But it happened a lot in that house, and centered on one room of the house.

And I'm getting chills up my spine. I think I'll think about something else for a moment.

Like the lady bug hibernating in our house. I'll write about him more later, but I think he thought he found a good spot to stay until he met the children.


I can get through this. Really I can. So there were the lights. And my mom calling my name. Very distinctly. Except when I answered, she didn't know what I was talking about. Or worse, sometimes she wasn't even home.

Oy, there it goes again. Have I ever told you how much I love windmills? That is why I have them plastered all over my other blog. And in almost every online profile I've created. Actually, that is a pretty funny story worth telling, too.


But first I have to get through this one.

The worst, however, was the stairs. We all heard the footsteps going up the stairs. Slowly, somewhat labored and quite distinctly. They were not like the footsteps of anyone else in the house. If you have stairs, you know what I mean. You know who is on the stairs by the sound of their step.

But these steps didn't belong to anyone in our family. And late at night, lying in bed, I would slowly count as they mounted the stairs one at a time. Complete with the creak on the fifth stair. Something was coming upstairs. Something always made it to the top of the stairs. Something always turned right, took two steps and then my door would shake.

Alrighty then. I am freezing cold. I think I'll go get a sweater. And turn on a light. Do you think the kids will notice if I raid the candy they got at church on Wednesday? Chocolate. Mmmm, is chocolate a pleasant distraction. Except I think they are all out of chocolate and there just isn't a point to the calories if it isn't for chocolate. So I'll be good.

Anyway, my brother, being my brother, was very annoying. One day, I couldn't take it anymore. So I went up to my room and locked the door. My brother, being my brother, didn't care about locked doors. He beat at it with a toy until he broke a hole through the door and busted the doorknob.

Great. Now my door only sort of closed.

And that night as I huddled under the blankets, I heard the footsteps slowly mount the stairs one at a time. Complete with the creak on the fifth stair. They made it to the top of the stairs. They turned right.

Except my door didn't rattle. It just swung open. And I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn't scream. I couldn't even breathe. I just sat there, clutching my blanket, too terrified to move.

But there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

And now I'm supposed to go to bed? Why did I just do that to myself? Have I told you how cute our baby gerbils are? Today, Kit Kat was lying on her back in her nest and we got to watch her nurse them for awhile. It was a special little moment. She is quite a devoted mother. So I guess I will leave you with that. And the recommendation to have read this early in the day in case you get like me about these things.


Actually, ghost stories don't bother me that much. Problem is, this one isn't just a story.

Halloween ghost story

So I, uh, have a ton of things to do. A huge laundry list of things that need to be done THIS WEEK. Being by Friday which is tomorrow.

So, um, I did the only thing that I could possibly do with my time. I kept my daughter up late to see if we could find Vesta the asteroid. We couldn't. We couldn't even find Cetus the Whale off our insufficient little star chart. But my daughter did finally get to see Orion and the Milky Way. And know what she was looking at.

Homeschool Tip: Don't schedule your astronomy unit during a three week cloud cover. The field trips are rather boring.

I even saw a meteorite. But no Vesta. No Cetus. Not even Pegasus, which was supposed to help us find Cetus so that we could find Vesta.

So, yeah. We got cold, and I was thankful that I did NOT hear a bobcat like the last time I went out there looking for things in the middle of the night all alone. My daughter might never have agreed to come with me again which would have put a bit of a damper on my plans of instilling in her a lifelong love of stargazing.

But anyway, I have a ton of stuff to do with deadlines attached. So I went stargazing and I figured out how to customize my twitter profile.

And suddenly I feel the need to mess with my Blogger template.

Highly productive we are here on this side of the monitor.

I have been thinking about this assignment all day and come to the conclusion that I can't quite answer it. I don't know. What would you do differently if you knew it was your last day in this world?

We only have today. Should God take you today, have you accomplished everything that you wanted to, needed to?

It is almost midnight, and I need to finish a lesson for AWANAs tomorrow. It is almost the 29th and I have an article due on the 31st. We didn't get to science or history today. I need to finish cleaning the oven but that isn't likely to happen tonight. Or even tomorrow.


These are the kinds of things which stack up on my to-do list, pushed aside in favor of more pressing tasks. But they are small, and while they occasionally create some stress, they really do not cause any regrets.

Thinking now, in this life, the kinds of things I would wish I had done differently if I realized that my life were ending very soon?

That I had a more long-term vision in my parenting rather than making decisions and issuing consequences out of the frustration of the moment.

That I had focused more on my writing, inculcated more of a habit and respected it more than as just a hobby.

That I had been more patient, more kind and more bold with respect to my faith. And that I had taken more time to just be.



But then shifting focus to the other side, to standing before God on the day of judgment?

Suddenly I see very clearly that these are my dreams, my plans and where I fall short in my own eyes. On that day, every knee shall bow, every tongue confess...and regardless of what I check off my to-do list or accomplish with my last hours, the distance between my best intentions and God's expectations will remain a gaping chasm.


And I think my greatest regret will not be that I didn't do more, but that I didn't trust more.


This post is part of the Blogger Friend School. You can visit more sites by following the links posted there.

I cannot quite describe the feeling I had when my three year old snuggled up to me this evening and said,

I like to snuggle you, mom. Do you like to snuggle me, too?

And when I answered with a yes and a snuggle, her whole face beamed as she nestled into my arms.

Last week for Blogger Friend School (I'm beginning to notice a pattern here), I was supposed to tell you about my relaxing time. A sort of "Calgon, take me away..." place. Except the slogan of a certain restaurant where I worked for almost ten years was mentioned. For almost ten years, I sang, "I' gotta get out of this place...if it's the last thing I ever do..." and I'm not going back there now. Even for my Blogger Friend School classmates. So, my slightly adjusted lesson:

Overheard from my five year old son as I buckled the three year old in her car seat:

Dear God,

Thank you so much for macaroni and cheese.

Amen.

And my little heart warmed.

On the one hand, it is frustrating to slave over the stove for an hour making some delectable bit of nutrition to have your children poke it suspiciously, knowing all the while they would cheer for a thirty three cent box of mac and cheese.

On the other, we have been talking about thankfulness. And specifically about developing a habit of thankfulness. It is easy to notice all that goes wrong in the day. We seemed programmed to notice the worst in everything. To ask "Why me?" To grumble and moan and complain and forget what God has done for us.

It takes effort to notice the positives in our lives and to truly be thankful for those "simple pleasures."

Like mac and cheese.

What do you think? Do you agree with the technician?

And a more complete view of the young man:


Isn't he the most adorable little tacker you have ever seen? He has a nickname, too. Mudpuppy, to go along with our other animal names. Perhaps I should add him to the sidebar as well?

Bear is quite excited to finally have a brother.

I speculated the other day that Kit Kat, Bug's little black gerbil, was pregnant. "How do you know that?" the kids immediately inquired. Intuition? The universal sisterhood of expectant mothers? I'm not sure.

She has always been quite a bit bigger than her mate, Buttercup, but has been appearing a little more rotund of late. But that wasn't really what tipped me off.

As Buttercup ran loops through the tubes, and Kit Kat merely raised a weary head before nestling back into her nest, I noticed.

As Buttercup got out four nights in a row, leading to hours long search and "rescue" operations and Kit Kat barely stirred from the nest, I noticed.

As Kit Kat struggled to make the small leap from the bottom cage to the tube leading to her food and water, I noticed.

As I heard Kit Kat labor to climb the tubes she once darted through as quickly as Buttercup, I noticed.

I noticed, and empathized. I so know how you feel, little Kit Kat.

Last night, however, she was restless. She paced the cage which is not at all normal for her, and drank quite a bit. She finally settled in to shredding the toilet paper tubes I had thrown in and lined the nest with the bits of toilet paper that were left on them.

Not surprising, this is what we discovered this morning.



Congratulations, Kit Kat and Buttercup!

Well, at Mandy Mom's suggestion, I have decided to join the Blogger Friend School. My first assignment is a couple days late, I think, but here is a nice fall recipe which we made for the first time today. I don't know why I've never made them for my family. I made them at a fair in Indiana while working a food stand as a teenager. Maybe I had enough of them then, who knows?

Introducing: The easiest, at-home recipe for the classic elephant ear!

I'm not sure this qualifies as my favorite recipe, but it is quick and fun and great for a crisp fall afternoon.

Ingredients:

Oil
Tortillas
Sugar
Cinnamon

Procedure:

Heat oil in skillet.
Place tortilla in hot oil. Turn after about two minutes. The tortilla should be just beginning to brown and be crisp when removed.
Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Enjoy!

It doesn't get much simpler. I would have taken a picture, except they were gone too fast. That and my camera was out of batteries, anyway.

Me in a large barn with thousands of books all priced from fifty cents to a dollar goes a little beyond a mere simple pleasure. Especially when my husband did not say anything but "where will we put them?" when asked about reasonable limits.

But he came along.

And helped wrangle restless children while I looked, and browsed and looked some more. He did not even wince as I slowly filled three boxes of books near his camping spot at the children's books. He didn't seem at all concerned as I wrote a check for $44.94. He didn't groan as he loaded them in the car.

But he did again inquire as to where they were to find their final resting place once we got home. Had he not done that, however, I might have started to wonder if I brought the wrong man home from the book sale.

I don't know which was more exciting...searching through the thousands of books for sale for buried treasure, or glancing over at my daughter and seeing the same excitement in her eyes as she sifted through the piles looking for her own treasure.

Then came a complete and total surprise. I expected to see other homeschoolers at today's event. After all, a library book sale held during school hours seems set aside just for us. What I didn't expect was to look up to see my daughter walking up with a complete stranger. As she said,

Mom, she wanted me to introduce you.

I thought perhaps it was someone from church that my daughter knew but that I had never met. But then came the surprise.

Hi, my name is Sarah and I read your blog. I recognized your daughter from the pictures.

How cool is that?

We did end up with one extra item, however. If you would like a chance at it, or would just like to see a complete listing of my discovered treasure, pop on over to my homeschool blog!

(The picture is from Flickr.)

And all day long, I hum to myself a little rhyme.

Warum, warum ist die Banane krumm?

About as meaningless to you as it is intended to be in German, but translated:

Why, why is the banana bent?

It reminds me of being a young girl. Why I asked my mother her name a gazillion times, I do not know. Perhaps I liked the answer. But I remember asking (and asking, and asking) and always receiving the same answer:

Puddin' n' tain
Ask me again
I'll tell you the same

Not sure what I would have thought if she answered my numerous other questions by inquiring about the general shape of bananas, but it seems to be the only suitable answer to the 500th "Why?" of the day.

But I still don't know what a Puddin' n' tain is supposed to be.

Reading aspiemom's memories of school reminded me of the time I was kicked out of class. English no less. For not taking the class seriously enough.

Go figure.

I found it all strangely amusing at the time, and really did try to remain respectful as the teacher instructed me on how I needed to take her class more seriously and attend to it more. Now, I have to admit, and admitted even then (to myself at least), that she had a point. But the amusing part to me was the fact that I had an "A" in the class. She was purely upset with my motivation, not my performance. And it wasn't as if I were disrespectful. She just knew I wasn't putting the work into her class that I could and was "sliding by."

Anyway, this all culminated in the only test I know of that was given purely for my benefit. One morning before the bell rang, I got out my book, arranged my notebook and suddenly gasped. I leaned over and noted to my friend that I had completely forgotten to do the reading. Thing is, Mrs. S. heard me and her face turned from its general firm "time to get started" morning look to a rather victorious look of "Gotcha!" as she announced a pop quiz.

All the while staring right at me. She stared at me as she passed out the papers. She stood over me as I took the quiz. The moment I was finished, she snatched the paper from me and graded it right next to me.

I don't think I ever saw a teacher so upset about a 100% in my life.

Now, I empathize with her. I really do. But who needs to do the reading in order to pass a quiz covering rather basic information about the life and work of Benjamin Franklin? It seems for an honors English class, it would be expected that most students would know this. Especially since concurrent enrollment in honors History was mandatory for this course since they were being jointly taught.

But I still rather enjoyed it.

Sometimes, you just don't appreciate health like you should.

I have been battling something all week which finally culminated in me being almost totally out of commission yesterday. My daughter, always happy to play mom, made lunch, sweet potato pie and even did dishes for me. I laid on the couch with my roll of tissues and my sore throat which permeated the back of my mouth, nose and ears and mostly just felt miserable. The sore, scratchy feeling along with the increasing sinus pressure reminded me of a sinus infection I had years ago...one of the worst experiences of my life. The pain was far greater than that of childbirth. After all, I felt like I was going to give birth right out of my cheek. I remember having semi-lucid fantasies about cutting into my cheek to relieve the pressure.

Yuck.

But upon awakening this morning, I felt better. Not all better, but the sore throat and sinus pressure was gone. All that is left is a weepy right eye and a lot of, um, nose blowing. Ok, and a bit of a cough. But it is so nice to feel better.

When I'm all better, I am going to have to take a moment to consciously consider how nice it feels to just feel healthy.

Odd. Very odd.

I just got off the phone with a company due to an unrecognized charge on our bank account. It was a mistake, but at least not a case of identity theft. Although I was worried at first because the first thing she pulled said it was charged under my nine year old daughter's name.

But while sitting on hold, I had to sit through ad after ad for Obama. Each ending with "this advertisement was paid for by..." Never mind the potential for alienating, oh, half of your potential customers. What I want to know is, are companies now so desperate for revenue that they are selling ad space in lieu of hold music?

I wonder how much the space on my answering machine message would go for.

Although I've set this up as a series, I thought I'd point out that I can only think of one myth to debunk at the moment, so it may be a very short series. But as a homeschooler and a homeschool advocate, I thought I should discuss a little about the realities of homeschooling.

One of the most pervasive arguments out there is that it takes less time to homeschool.

Joel Turtel says so. HERO of Oklahoma agrees. I think I even vaguely remember making similar claims once upon a time, but can't find it now. Probably just as well, because I'd hate to have to contradict myself, although I'm certain it wouldn't be the first time.

But we started at nine this morning and didn't finish until 5:30. That is one long day. Just a hair longer than your average public school day.

Of course, not all of that was spent in academic pursuits. A lot of it was spent looking for pencils. More was spent upside down on the couch with a book over her face. And a fair amount was spent brushing out the mane of the toy horses grandpa bought her at a garage sale.

So does this mean you are done with your spelling?

I would ask, really wanting to know. Apparently not, however, as the horses would invariably be set aside and her spelling book picked up again.

The thing is, she never complained. Mom wants to concentrate, focus and get done. She wants to piddle around take her time and digest the knowledge. And I'm not so sure that the time she spends in play isn't as important to her truly absorbing the material as the time she spends with her recently found pencil in hand. It is a battle to remember to let her work at her pace and we have been there before. Funny how my thoughts then at the beginning of this independent learning journey were almost identical to my thoughts now.

So what have I learned this year? Not much, apparently. You can't rush a child into learning, and sometimes the days can seem to stretch out before you with no end in sight. Those days, I have to remind myself why it bothers me. My conclusion? At the core of the problem is the fact that I do not value play and see it as a waste of time.

Other than right there, you will likely never hear me say anything like that. It grates on me to even have to admit it. But the discomfort I feel watching her in her minor diversions points clearly to that simple truth.

Now if we could only solve the pencil issue, we'd be making some real progress.

Friday, we were to get up, clean the house and pack to go to grandma's house. The children were quite excited, which always results in frustration for everyone.

To find a toy, they dumped three toy boxes. To pack, they emptied three drawers. By noon, I was exhausted and further behind than when I woke up. Excited children, at least around here, result in messes which multiply faster than I can possibly keep up.

I tried to contain some of the damage with a movie, but that didn't work out so well. But then about 2PM, they decided it was time to go. Everyone went out to the car to buckle themselves in.

And they waited.

And waited.

And came in for a few potty breaks, but mostly they waited.

They waited until we left at about 6:30. But at least I was finally able to get the house straightened up without interruption. Thankfully, it was a wonderfully cool day, and Bug and L. E. Fant both took their naps in the breeze.

You don't think they were happy to visit Grandma and Grandpa, do you?

I agreed to camp out with the children the other night in the playroom. With Bug's knees in my back, I clung to the edge of the trundle and lay there half asleep wondering if there'd be any complaints if I abandoned ship and returned to my own rightful sleeping quarters.

Then I felt a tickle move swiftly across my arm.

And then across my ankle.

And then back on my arm.

Finally awake, I stopped the reflexive swishing at it and looked. There in the half light spilling in from the laundry room, eight eyes stared back at me from their perch on my elbow.

OK, so that picture is from Wikipedia. I did NOT do anything like calmly get a camera to photograph the nightmarish beast on my arm. Almost as soon as I was awake enough to realize what it was, she was gone, scurrying down the edge of the mattress and disappearing into the space between it and the wooden frame.

Just for good measure, however, I went ahead and leaped three feet in the air, yelped and brushed myself off vigorously. All to the great delight of Little Bear who giggled and squealed as his mother danced around the playroom brushing off the memory of the spider she knew was already gone but couldn't help further ridding herself of.

I caught my breath, but Bear was still rolling around, giggling and saying,

That was so great, mom!

I retorted,

There was a spider on me. Spiders aren't supposed to hunt on me.

And this is where I really had to wonder about my son. Expecting some sort of sympathy, or maybe an eek, this is what I received instead:

I know, mom. I watched it crawl up the bed.

Please tell me it is just because he is a boy and I'm not raising some sort of freakish monster. 'Cause I knew this other kid once that we decided really was not headed anywhere good. At seven he greeted guests with his pet wolf spider. He held it gently between his grubby little fingers and described its various parts and habits to anyone who would listen. That wasn't so bad, but then came the bit that sent chills up my spine.

Would you like to experience a spider bite?

Like, no! What kind of an invitation is that to a guest in your home? It's...it's...it's just plain disturbing.

But watching a spider crawl on your mom and laughing as she dances around the room isn't in the same category, is it? 'Cause I know my boy may not be entirely "normal" but deranged has never crossed my mind.

EEEK! Still thinking of that thing crawling around on me while I was asleep, hunting as if I were the Great Plains and she the hungry wolf. EEK!