And All the Children Are Above Average

I was awed yesterday by the quality of work done by the guys who installed the septic system. They were fast. They were polite. They were hard-working. They explained everything that needed explaining. When they had to dig a trench up to the house for the electric wires, the guy set aside the tulip bulbs that were disturbed rather than just destroying them or discarding them. They had to put in dirt to make a "bridge" to cross the ditch, and at the end of the day they undid it and seeded it. They carefully smoothed all the dirt -- even the dirt dug up last fall for the perk tests -- and seeded it and threw out straw for mulch. This is SO awesome compared to the septic system we had done last fall at the old house.

Now, at the time, I didn't have any complaints about the service at the old house when the septic was installed. What they did was good enough. But the Lietzau company is outstanding in comparison.

It made me think of schools. Everybody thinks their local public school is doing a fine job. Sure, there are bad schools out there. But ours is just dandy. They're all above average, right? But that's what I thought about companies who do septic systems. The one from last fall was just dandy. Until I saw Mr Lietzau's company in comparison. I think it's probably like that with doctors and mechanics and nursing homes and hair stylists and all sort of other things too, not just schools.

Minor Pick-Me-Up

Done with the editing job I was in the midst of. It's so nice to work on something I'm capable of instead of something that I'm always floundering at (this motherhood/housewife thing).

Today we needed to start watering the grass seed that was spread yesterday. I'm a little bummed because we had hoped to put strawberries in that nicely dug-up top soil. But a friend told us that mound systems get very dry on top. Since I'm not very good at keeping things watered [understatement!], I think I'd just kill the strawberries if I decided to go for it. So now I have to spread grass seed in the place where I told the workman yesterday to NOT put seed. And we struggled with leaky faucets and leaky hoses and leaky connections before Andrew managed to put together a working hose for wetting the soil & seed. (It's hard to go from working on something I'm adept at --like the editing-- to working on something that stymies me at every turn.)

So, bummed out, I went to town to do errands: copies from the library, laundry detergent because I ran out with ALL the laundry I've done today, and a little hand-held broadcaster for the seed. The grocery store had Newcastle Brown on sale, and I wanted some. No good reason; I just wanted some. So I picked it up with the laundry detergent. And I got carded. I wanted to laugh. I asked the clerk if she were looking for a tip. Maybe it's their policy to card everyone under 83? But you know what? As shallow as it is, it made me feel better for a few minutes, even in the face of leaky faucets and leaky hoses and way too much lawn to water.

Oh, vanity....

Pastors' Wives Music Video

Just in case you haven't seen it linked elsewhere, this is a riot!

And like my friends who also found it hilarious, I want to give the preemptive comment that, no, Gary does not talk about us in sermons. In over twenty years, it's happened less-than-a-handful of times, and he always tells me/us first and gets our okay.

Septic

There is a backhoe in my backyard!
There have been dump trucks coming and going!

Tonight I will be able to do some laundry in my house. My poor lonely washer has been resting for 11 weeks and is now going to be pressed into service once again. Bye-bye, laundromat.

And we will be able to flush. How's that for mega-cool? Y'know how the rule is always "Go to the bathroom before you get in the car" and "Go to the bathroom before you go to the store" and "Go to the bathroom before we leave for church"? Well, for the last 11 weeks, it's been "Hold it until we get to the library" or church or the store, places where we could flush. But now we can flush at home!

The glories of plumbing!!!!
I love plumbing!

In-

Working on some editing today, Pastor and I ran across the word "inchastity" in the Book of Concord. Everywhere else in the book, it was translated "unchastity." So we debated whether that was an intentional translation or a slip of the typing fingers. After all, I said, "in-" can be a prefix for negating. Pastor was skeptical about that one, and he spent a few seconds trying to come up with a word that used "in-" as a negation. He couldn't think of any, so he asked me. It took me about 1/2 a second to come up with ...

insane.

For some reason, a few people found that amusing.
(Of all words to come to mind.... sheeesh.)

Gas Prices

An excellent point heard on Mark Belling's show today:

The Democrats want the Saudis to increase the supply of oil. There isn't enough available; that's causing the price to rise. An increased supply would help keep prices from sky-rocketing so badly.

So why are they so dead-set against AMERICA increasing the oil supply? If we need more, why don't they change a few environmental policies and a few tax policies and a few OSHA policies so that we can GET the oil we HAVE instead of asking the Saudis for more?

Glory in Mercy

The antiphon for Sunday's introit was
Blessed be the holy Trinity and the undivided Unity!
Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us!

And we go from the Introit (O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!) directly to the Kyrie (Lord, have mercy upon us). Then we go straight to the Gloria in Excelsis (Glory be to God on high... We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory... Have mercy upon us.)

And so it went throughout the service, in the hymns and liturgy, going back and forth, back and forth, between glory and mercy. It almost reminds me of the collect in summer:
O God, You declare Your almighty power above all in showing mercy and pity....

You'd almost be tempted to think that God's great glory is His mercy, wouldn't you?

Daily Doings

The computer connection has been pitiful the last few days. Each page takes a long time to load, and the connection to the Internet keeps failing.

We had a gorgeous day yesterday for a fieldtrip with friends. We walked around downtown Milwaukee, learning about the history of the city and observing the architecture from the 1850s to 1880s. I've begun to wonder, though, whether we spin our wheels planning educational activities for these get-togethers. The kids want to play play play. They see their friends seldom enough that maybe the socialization time is more important than the fieldtrip's academic value. (After all, we all know homeschoolers are in desperate need of socialization. LOL -- okay, all you homeschoolers, quit bustin' a gut and get back to skimming blogs instead of laughing uproariously after having fallen off your chair!)

Gary bought and connected the digital tv converter. Wow, that is one clear picture on our tv screen! And now there are two channels that look similar to TV-Land and some PBS stations that look somewhat similar to the nature and history channels on cable. I figured out how to work the answering machine last month. I can figure out how to work the tv too. (I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!) Hey, Rachel, Daddy says you ought to get a converter box so that you'll have a signal that comes in for you! (The government gives you $40 toward it.)

I was on Charlie's talk show this morning. He told me I made an excellent point. Cool!

Tomorrow is Andrew's final exam for drivers ed. Last classroom lesson. Only four more trips to go for behind-the-wheel lessons.

Almost done with the next CCA project. I'm done with my part on the next project after that too. Yee haw!

Rumor has it that the septic system may be installed this week. I keep putting off doing laundry in an attempt to save quarters, thinking that right-quick I'll be able to run my very own wash machine in my very own house. But we're still on the water-conservation routine. If Mr Leitzau doesn't come tomorrow, I may have to do a couple of loads so that we can squeak through for another day or so before doing laundry at HOME.

Desk

A friend gave us a beautiful oak roll-top desk this past weekend. He had built it once-upon-a-time, so it has special meaning that way as well as being a very practical place to store a lot of paperwork-stuff that I haven't figured out in the new house yet.

I spent the whole day today working through the drawers of the old desk, figuring out which things should go together in which new drawers and new cubbies and new slots. And then there was the paperwork all over the kitchen counter and the top of my dresser, all of which has a much better place to live now.

I found beads from broken necklaces that had been stored away for little girls' projects. I found 150 million pens. (Well, okay, not quiiiite that many. But shame on the person in my house who decides to pick up pens from a hotel or from a college open-house!) I found a 1990 phone book from the town we used to live in. I found all the old Christmas cards I had designed. I found catalogs and envelopes and erasers and Canadian money. I found bank statements for banks where we no longer have accounts (and haven't had for years). Y'know, when I got rid of the junk, I didn't need nearly as many drawers as I'd been using before!

Narnia 2

We went to see Prince Caspian last night. It was okay. Too many battles. Granted, this book is probably the most battle-intensive story in the series. But I can see why BBC put this story into only one hour. I'm glad we went to see it, but I have no desire to see it in the theater again. Dvd's will be soon enough.

There were two little things I noticed and really enjoyed. At the start, when Caspian and his tutor were hiding, they slipped into the wardrobe in his bedroom... and didn't quite close the door. After all, it would be very foolish to shut oneself into a wardrobe. :-)

And I noticed on the catapults and ballistas in the final battle-scene that the enemy's weapons had Tash on them. I thought that was a cool thing to do to unify the series.

And boy, did Lucy grow up since the first movie was filmed!

Narnia 1

Anticipating the new movie out this week, we watched Rachel's DVD of Narnia last night.

At the end, Edmund was crowned "Edmund the Just." Like, as in "justified." Cool.

And I never noticed before that it was the humans that reigned over the rest of creation. I always thought of it as the outsiders coming to Narnia, fulfilling the prophecy, and being kings and queens. But no; it was man having dominion over the animals and all the rest.

How They Embarrass Us

Gary was working in the yard yesterday morning. The wee children next door were looking out the window, watching him, waving to him, yelling HI. One announced, "We're going to a birfday party!" Gary asked when. "When Mommy gets out of the shower." And then the other one piped up, "Yeah, she's naked!"

And to think our kids (and your kids) told people the same kind of helpful information....

Home-Made Soap

I've been noticing how the real soap (not the bath bars that we usually call "soap") lasts until the bar is tiny. It doesn't fall to pieces. It doesn't crumble away. You get to use the whooooole bar and none is wasted.

I really need to make a few batches of soap. It's been over a year and a half since I last made soap, and I've only got one bar left. That poor lone bar sure ain't gonna last me until I get my next batch made and aged. Unless I shower once a week .... hmmm, might work....

Granola

Toss together
5 cups rolled oats (works better than quick oats)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans or almonds or whatever)
1/2 cup sunflower kernels

Stir together
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup honey
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp vanilla (or peach schnapps or black raspberry liqueur)

Mix honey into oats. Stir till all oats have been moistened. I bake it on a lightly greased airbake jelly-roll pan for about 20-22 minutes at about 360°.

If I bake it on a cookie sheet that's not airbake, I have to shorten the time or decrease the temp. The boys like it baked longer so it's a littler browner. I do not stir it in the oven, nor while it's cooling. If I wait until it's completely cool before loosening the granola from the pan or removing it, I get bigger chunks instead of just oat-flakes. When completely cooled, store in a sealed container.

I used to try to make huge batches of granola so that I didn't have to do it so often. But then I was putting too much in the oven, and I had to bake it for so long, and I had to keep stirring it, and that was too much brain-effort and trouble for me. Sometimes I burned it; sometimes I underbaked it; I always ended up spilling some on the bottom of the oven. This recipe lets me mix it, throw it in the oven for 20 minutes, let it sit on the counter for an hour or more, pretty much ignoring it. That makes for success! LOL. Of course, this batch seldom lasts us a whole week, and would only last for a couple days if we didn't eat so many eggs for breakfast! But this recipe is easy enough to make that I can handle doing it more than once a week.

TV in the Kitchen?

I discovered something last night, and it may not be good for me! LOL!

About a month ago, we moved the computer into the breakfast nook so that the living room wouldn't be so crowded. Last night Gary invited me to sit down with him and watch a movie. Well, the poor little neglected balls of tortilla dough had been sitting for many hours, and it was high time they were pressed and browned. I knew that I'd be falling asleep by the end of the movie, so finishing the tortillas "later" wouldn't work.

Hey! What if we stuck the dvd into the computer and played it in the kitchen? I could watch with him and do tortillas, and then we could sit down in the living room together when I was done with the kitchen work. Ohhhhh, that worked well. I might have to figure out how to work this technology so I can pop a dvd into the machine all by myself!

And I'm betting that I can use the computer to listen to talk-radio online too. Maybe I won't need a radio in the kitchen after all....

Getting Rid of Smoke Smell

The people who owned this house before us smoked. They usually smoked outside, and they had scent diffusers to help neutralize the odor, so it really didn't smell bad at all. But every now and then we would notice, like when we closed up the house on a cold evening after the windows had been open all day, or when we opened the linen closet to put something away.

I discovered something this week. Since I've been hanging towels and sheets on the line, and then putting some of them back into the linen closet, that fresh scent seems to have absorbed and overcome and eliminated the smoke smell in the closet really well! It makes me wonder if taking couch cushions outside and sunning them, or washing the afghans more frequently (and line-drying them), would help get rid of the smoke smell throughout the rest of the house even faster than it's disappearing on its own.

Decks, Gutters, and Wasps (Oh My!)

I don't see what the attraction is in a deck. When we were house hunting, the ads and a variety of real-estate agents would wax eloquent about the beautiful deck on the house. I see a deck as something else to take care of. It needs to be stained and sealed periodically. The screws have to be tightened. It needs to be shoveled free of snow in the winter. What's so great about a deck? I could sit in the backyard on the lawn, and there's a lot less care needed for a lawn. Lawns are nice. Patios are too. Decks take work.

But, nevertheless, we ended up with a deck. Okay, fine.

We have wasps. Can't figure out where they're coming from. After some web-researching, I discovered that wasps often like to build their nests on the underside of wood decks. The only real solution seems to be to crawl under the deck (if that's possible) or take up the boards until you can discover the location of the wasp nest. Oh, good gravy! When we had wasps at the parsonage, you just had to keep knocking down their nests and destroying them. But when you did so, three weeks later you'd have to do it again. That's one thing when the wasp nests are out in the open, under the eaves of the house. However, if we have to take up deck-boards repeatedly through the summer, this is not going to be a happy thing! Another strike against decks.

However, today I think I may have figured out something. Maybe they're hiding in the gutters. We have the weirdest gutter-guards I've ever seen. After checking with my local home-owner mentor, I decided the gutter-guards were headed for the trash. Andrew eliminated a lot of them and we set them out for the garbage man today. Now I'm filling up the garbage can again from yankin' this weird steel-wool stuff out of the gutters. And I found lots of dead wasps. And then I found several abandoned nests. Then I found one very small new and growing nest. I betcha as more of the gutter-guards get pulled out, we find more wasps. (Note to self: do not give this job to the son who is horribly allergic to bug bites.)

One-Family Rule

I blogged the other day about how a few people in Wisconsin would like to homeschool other people's kids along with their own. But it's illegal in this state. As much as I think the government should stay out of education, the reality is that they don't. There are rules, and some of them even have some fairly decent reasoning behind the rules.

Jeff asked about whether it could be considered legal to homeschool someone else's kid because the statute says that the parents can designate someone one else to provide the instruction.

That sentence allows for the fact that homeschool parents are not required, entirely by themselves, to provide all instruction for the child. For example, many kids learn foreign language primarily by speaking with a person who is a native speaker. Even though the kid may study a book, the primary teacher is Grandpa Schmidt who grew up in Germany (or whatever).

In other situations, the parents hire a tutor to be the full-time instructor in their homeschool. I have two friends who homeschool their grandchildren.

So, is it okay "hire a tutor" who is also homeschooling her own children? No. The next sentence in the statutes makes that very plain.

Once upon a time, the government was enforcing all the school codes onto homeschools. In the state of Wisconsin, they asked homeschoolers to have separate bathrooms for boys and girls. They asked for "Exit" signs over the doorways. There were loads of rules. With a lot of lobbying by some committed homeschoolers and some help from a few people in Madison, the legislature (among other legal changes) came to see how ridiculous it was to have the same safety requirements for a building where one family was homeschooling. If the children were safe enough at home from 3:30-bedtime, then they were safe enough there from 8:30-3:30. And so the law that affects homeschoolers no longer requires that they conform to the building codes and safety regulations enjoined upon conventional schools.

But
if I want to start "homeschooling" other people's kids along with my own, should I be exempt from safety rules? (And let's not take up whether the government has the right to enforce such rules. The reality is that they make such rules and enforce them for most public building. For those who disagree with that, you'd have to change the whole system before you can properly address whether this particular instance of building code is valid.) If I homeschool one other child, that doesn't seem like a big deal. But if I homeschool 32 other children from 17 different families, doesn't that sound more like a school than "homeschooling other people's kids"? Where's the line? How many "other kids" makes it a school instead of homeschooling?

That's why the law says that "more than one family unit" does not constitute a home-based private educational program. Saying "Well, that homeschool mom over there is the person I designated to provide my kid's instruction" does not undo the next sentence in the statutes!

CAN I do this?

Getting old.
Less strength in the muscles.
Less mental acuity.
Tires more quickly.
Kinda stinks.

So you try to do a job involving physical labor. CAN you do it? You know you can do it. You used to be able to do it. You should be in good enough shape now that --of course-- you can do it. So you go for it! It is struggle. It is work. But you accomplish the task. See? You know you could do it!

Then the next day is the back pain. And the sore muscles. And days and days of back pain. And you end up making several trips to the chiropractor to get straightened out and interrupt the cycle of pain. And life is good again.

So... CAN you do it if the work (roofing the house, rebuilding the deck, dismantling the pool, running the marathon, carrying the salt for the water softener, whatever it may be) has repercussions that it shouldn't have? Hmmm. How do you decide when you CAN or CAN'T?



You know what else I think? I think our system of doing school just exacerbates this problem. We lock kids up with their age-mates from the time they're 3 until they're 20-something. We seldom saw our parents and grandparents struggling with aging. We were too busy with kids our own age.... kids who were immortal like us. (LOL!) So now we baby-boomers and baby-busters are shocked when we have to face the fact that our bodies can't do what they used to do. Hey, this stinks! It's not fair! I want to be young, strong, and immortal again! :-)

And then, I've got all these friends who are 10 or 20 or 30 years older, and they keep telling me, "You just WAIT. You ain't seen nothing yet." LOL -- oh, lovvvvvely!

Now, if only the mind wouldn't FAIL too recall the fact that my body couldn't handle this job last time, and it's not likely to be able to handle the job this time either. But no, the mind is goin' too....

Doubling Up Trips

I seldom go anyplace for just one errand. But I've been noticing that trying to do ALL the errands (gazillions of them!!!) while I'm out can get a little overwhelming. Maybe the stress of having to try to have everything codified on the list, the stress of having to put off the projects that you're working on for 3 more days (until you can do your one big errand-trip), or the stress of having to line up appointments back-to-back (and hope that the appts don't take longer than they're supposed to), ... maybe those stressors are worth spending $3 extra in gas money. Don't ya suppose?