Thu., Oct. 4

Jim gave me some good amounts of garlic to plant so I didn't have to buy it out of grocery money which is short again this month (though not as crazy as last month). The children enjoyed separating the cloves; Natasha did the Elephant Garlic (We planted about 30 cloves, which will each grow into a bulb.) and Justus did the Mexican Garlic (We planted about 40 cloves, which will each grow into a bulb.)!! It was fun. Garlic is easy to plant because you're dealing with such a larger 'seed'. Natasha had a ball pushing the 'butts' of the cloves down into the dirt so they'd sit point-up. :) Only problem: it was 95 degrees. (sigh)

I spent about an extra hour, as long as I was already hot and sweaty, working on cleaning up the back yard. This would be similar to 'Spring Cleaning' in other parts of the country. The monsoons are gone, so there won't be that much wind and rain to make everything outside dirty and damaged. I threw away some broken outside toys, cleaned and re-set-up the grill, took some things to the garage, etc.

There are some HUGE, GORGEOUS black and blue butterflies that congregate around our Lantana bushes. I haven't yet figured out what they are, but -- ooh! -- they're pretty. I took a couple pictures trying to give you an idea of what they look like. Each one, wings spread, has to be at least 4" across or more!

The kids look like midgets, swinging up high like this. They enjoy doing non-trad things with the swingset to make it fun, since they've pretty much outgrown the 'basic' swing set. Of course, in order to get on the swings when they're up high they have to climb like monkeys!

This is the silly puppy chewing on his favorite chew toy. He rolls around in tiny-dog bliss and ends up lying on his back half the time when he's chewing! ?? -weird-

This is Natasha's bathroom calendar. She uses it to track the days, and especially which days she's supposed to wash her hair (every other). Her new trick is to just put a big "W" (for 'wash') on the first or second day of the month and then every day she gets to figure out if that day is a hair wash day or not. (It looks like she messed up and wrote an "M" the first time, then erased it and made it a "W".) Anyway, I was interested to see that she wrote two things on her calendar for this month. It was not surprising that she wrote Sayler's birthday on the calendar, since it's just about the only birthday besides her own that she knows; she thinks it's way-cool that her birthday is December 16th and Sayler's is October 16th. She wrote "Saylars B Day". Hm. I WAS very surprised and am still pondering why she chose October 10th to write "orgenis Room"; I wonder what will happen on that day!! lol

In the evening I finally was able to return a call from Ashley last week; it was good to talk to her. She spoke to the children as well. I wrapped up the day with some church secretary work.

When we were kids Mom had a recipe called "Holiday Gorp". I always wondered what Gorp meant. "Gorp"?? "Gorp"! For real!!?! It's a long, embarrassing story I won't detail here, but I've decided to carry a peanut, raisin, M & M mixture in my purse. So I've been thinking about trail mixes a lot this past week and then I accidetally came across a TV show about trail mix and how popular its become lately, and from such humble beginnings. The guy said, "Trail Mix used to be called Gorp, which of course simply stood for 'Good Old Raisins and Peanuts'." (blink, blink)

It's amazing the things we learn when our children start asking questions. Have you ever wondered where gelatin comes from? I haven't! WHY I haven't wondered is beyond me ... because I think I should have wondered! Or maybe I did wonder at some point, and Mom answered my question satisfactorally and I then put it out of my brain. Natasha asked me to research it (a number of months ago) and I have just finally done that. I'm slightly disturbed by what I found. First of all, did you know that there are "Koser" gelatin substitutes? "Vegetarian" gelatin substitutes? Gelatin is made from boiled bones and tendons and cartilage. Usually from cows, sometimes from pigs.

How does that make you feel?

Cooking them brings out the collagen. They said, "Actually, if you have ever made a roast in your oven at home you have made your own gelatin." (Okayyyyy!? But, yes, this makes sense.) "The gelatinous stuff in the bottom of the pan (most noticeable if you refrigerate it, or at least as it cools) is the collagen, from which gelatin is made."

Now we head to camp for the weekend!