Mon. - Wed., Nov. 12-14

Here is Natasha in new, hand-me-down winter pajamas (actually from a fun, TINY!, elderly lady in our congregation!!) playing 'Indian Princess'.

Here N's two songs she composed over the weekend. This first one is louder than the second one. On the second one you'll probably have to turn up your volume. I wasn't thinking well when I recorded it from so far away. Sorry.



By way of clarification, the 'pink eye' problem in my left eye is, I think, unrelated to the burst blood vessel in my right eye, from 3-4 weeks ago ... which is STILL trying to clear up, btw. If Sunday's eye problem was Pink Eye, Jeremy woke up on Monday with the same strain of it. It seems to have taken its course already, and no one else seems to have caught it, happily. Wierd.... But we're thankful it's gone. Neither he nor I has eye pain anymore. Yay!

All my spare minutes on Monday were spent sifting through a PILE of coupons I've collected the past number of months and 'rebooting' my coupon binder. I'm sad, though not surprised, that I was pulling coupons out of there that expired in February and March. You-know-who had entered our life a couple months before that, and the schedule didn't allow for much of anything that 'could wait'. So coupons waited ... for seven months ... while I stayed afloat and took care of other, more pressing things. The children are spending hours of each day outside with Kiana, which is very good for everyone, not the least of whom is the dog. "German Shepherd Dogs" (aka GSD) aren't supposed to be 'outside dogs'; they are happiest when they are included in the family. [This explains her digging....] Well, we can't have her be an inside dog for a long list of reasons, so it's important that we do things with her outside as much as we can. Jeremy, who felt really sick on Monday, video gamed quite a lot. So frustrated he is about his strange health problems of late, he renewed his commitment to walking Kiana early every morning, to try to get his sleep cycle back on track and get at least SOME exercise in. Justus and I played more Connect Four. You know, each round of Connect Four can last as few as ten seconds. So ... it's quite a fast-paced and fun way to spend a number of minutes on the floor counting and conspiring with the boy ... or, in fact, against him! :) heehee He gets rather tired of losing, but especially on a game that simple I don't plan to take it easy on him much. Every now and then I'll say a few sentences out loud to help him toward some good scheming....

Tuesday was Grocery Shopping day. Justus went with me, and one of our other errands was a stop at a church member's house to drop off some things. Her husband was out of town so she had lots of words to use on us. :) It being the first time we'd been in her home she showed us around and shared lots of super-interesting stories about especially all the FASCINATING antique furniture and interesting (though not numerous! - hm) things in her house. It was cool. N lost another top molar. She is now missing three teeth half way back on her top mandible (?), and has a fourth that is loose. Something extremely intriguing and a little disturbing is that three of the last four teeth she has lost (all since we've moved into this house) have broken in half within hours or days of being out of her head. Does that bother anyone but me? This is a mystery none in our house understands. In addition to playing outside, N & J got out the Dress-Up box again today and played who-knows-what. One thing I thought actually looked fun was when they were flinging the stuff off the upstairs half-wall and watching how they fell and where/how they landed! LOL

Today we began reading a new mammals book. The fascination continues.... We walked Jabba in the evening. I'm comfortable enough letting N & J play in the Tot Lot while I walk Jabba up and down the street in front of the Tot Lot. Though I can't see them every second, I can hear them pretty much every second, and ... it encourages me to walk fast. :) Jabba gets lots of training during these walks. He is doing pretty well with 'stay' now! We ran out of laundry soap on Friday or Saturday last week, so needless to say there has been a LOT of laundering going on yesterday evening and today. I cooked a pork roast in the crock pot today and FORGOT TO ADD ANY LIQUID! Shockingly, it wasn't burned up even though I remembered it only 10 minutes before it was time to eat. Mom says that Great-Grandma Edna always claimed that the less water you put in the Crock Pot, the moister the meat will turn out. We can make no scientific sense of the theory, but based on tonight's results we're thinking she might be right!! All around the table were RAVES like, "Look, the meat fairly glistens in the light!" (lol) I don't know ... try it for yourself sometime and see...!!?

We're having the same problem with Jeremy's VA check this month as we did two months ago. ARGH!! Although last month they sent the check to us here, when Jeremy called them today he learned that this month they sent it to our old address. COME ON! The way the budget #s worked out this month, that income is the last part of our grocery money as well as part of our rent money, so we're all eeeeeeking by these days. Elaine is even sacrificing - to make sure the rent check didn't bounce - until that check arrives. SO PROBLEMATICAL!!

And now your reward for reading to the end. ha A J funny. On the way home from the grocery store last night I pointed out to Justus the very thin, waxing moon. "Justus, do you see the moon over there?" "Yes!" Then, a few seconds later, "It's empty!"

Is it hard for anyone else to believe that it's only a week 'til Thanksgiving. I'm REALLY not feeling that holiday coming on! Could be the weather, I guess....