My girl tried to scare the bejeevers out of me today. I was supervising her "rest time" in my bedroom. It is a quiet room downstairs that we can warm for her. I had been checking on her regularly because she was her usual unrestful self. Finally I let her come to me to cuddle with me while I was supervising bigger brother's schoolwork. I got up to turn the kerosene heater in the bedroom off, and I discovered that she had covered the still running heater with a flannel sheet. I am so glad I am a penny pincher and went to shut the heater off. Scarey.

I thought that was the only thing she did, but I came into my room tonight to make my bed tonight and......
she yanked the pull cord off our ceiling light fixture.

This I why God made her so cute.

In keeping with tradition, just after thanksgiving we pull out our tree and put it up.  Our poor little tree has seen 9 Christmas' now.  For those who know me, you know that I was raised on real trees, and it is hard to put this thing we call a tree up.  However, it is a tree and it holds all our memories quite nicely.  A few of you might recall my Christmas ornament post here a number of years ago.  I was noticing today as we put up our tree that we are running out of room for ornaments.  Now that our fake tree is shedding like it is a real tree, we may be keeping our eyes open for another tree alternative.

Just last week, my boys were asking about when we would put the tree up.  I found it funny as they were strolling down Christmas ornament memory lane and reminding each other of certain ornaments that they really liked.  I love that my kids have developed that tradition.  Just a warning to grandparents, they did ponder aloud what kind of ornaments they would receive this year.  Expectations.  Yes, I think so.  It is the expectation of an ornament that tells me that this is a tradition that is sticking out as memorable for them.  Will Maya be any different?  I should think not!  She stood at the tree kissing the ornaments that had her name on them.  I hate to have to remind her not to touch the tree as she lovingly cups the ornaments in her hand.  She likes them too.  It was fun today watching her stand and just stare at the tree.  Oh the wonders!  

And another tradition at our house...my husband likes to take the leftover Thanksgiving turkey and make calzones.  He always makes some spinach calzones up for me too.  I like turkey, but I really enjoy spinach in my calzone.  He makes the dough from scratch and he smokes the meat and he also smokes the unbaked calzone in the grill to give it a smokey flavor.  

It has been sort of a quiet day, but it has been nice.

Today is America's Thanksgiving day. It is in my top three on my short list of favorite holidays. I enjoy spending time with family and friends, and I enjoy the food. Each year thanksgiving time grows more and more precious to me. I like to approach the year with a thankful heart. Really, I am so thankful and have so much to be thankful for. Every day is a precious gift. A chance to be a part of this world that God created. A chance to see be with my husband. A chance to see my children grow. A chance to see a life change to the glory of God the Father. Each day I put food on the table, I am thankful. Because that food was put on my table by the loving and generous donations of God's children. Sometimes when the account looks really skinny, I thank God for what I do have. Each time we put out a monthly accounting of our budget and news letter, I am thankful for our supporters. We couldn't do it without them. Seriously.

Tonight we spent Thanksgiving quietly as a family of 5. It wasn't what I expected because a number of other people had been invited. Some couldn't come because of work. Some couldn't come because of the hospitalization of a family member, and some just didn't show up. It happens, but I try not to let that get me down. We had a nice time enjoying Thanksgiving with just our 5. I can't think that we have ever done that. Not even when we were just 4 or 3 or 2. Nope, never. It was different.

Even though, no one came, I did take a couple of huge plates down to my friends who had a family member hospitalized. I wouldn't have taken out a few more plates, but those individuals lived a bit far just to walk the plates to them. I usually give food to my neighbor, but he has been gone a few days. He has a job that takes him away for days at a time. I wish he was home though because I would have loved to have him over for dinner. Tomorrow is a Japanese holiday. Perhaps he will be home tomorrow and I can take over some food to him then.

Like I said, it wasn't what I expected, but it was still so nice to have a traditional meal with my family. And I DO really have so much to be thankful for!

Here was our menu:
Roasted turkey
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing
Gravy
Corey's "grandma's noodles"
glazed carrots
green peas
steamed green beans
cranberry sauce
rolls
cornbread
pumpkin pie
pumpkin bread
persimmon pudding

Save for the stuffing (which came from a box) and the cranberry sauce (which came from a can) everything else was made from scratch.
If only the dishes would wash themselves....
Time to jump in the ofuro and relax!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends

***Warning***

Pardon the flour covered table.  Excuse the persimmon pulp all over the place.  Step over the cord for my stand mixer.  That mixer and I have been working hard today.  Two pies and a persimmon pudding later, I feel like I am in a good spot in my preparations for our special meal on Thursday.  Turkey is thawing quite nicely in my refrigerator as we speak.  Tomorrow I will tackle making rolls from scratch.  Yes, another day of working the stand mixer.  That thing is going to get its workout because I intend to do my potatoes in them too!

Tomo had a little bit of schoolwork to do yesterday, but he has the rest of the week free.  He keeps telling me that he is glad he worked hard so he could have some extra days off school.  I am proud of him and the hard work he puts in at school.  Skyler is a bit behind where I would prefer him to be at this point, so Corey spent the day trying to keep him on track and focused but away from the house.  Hopefully, tomorrow, we can get some god time from him, but it looks like he will have to return to the books on Friday instead of having a planned day off.  I sure hope he has learned a thing or two the past week or two, because these life lessons are sometimes so hard to learn.  Maya has been happily playing with Tomo.  I like to see these two playing more and more lately.  

Nothing to exciting today, just schoolwork and dessert making.

I am hoping that I will blog more from now on.  The reason why?

I now have a keyboard for my iPad!!!  It was a birthday gift from my husband and kids last Friday.  The ipad is mine because I taught English classes and saved the money to purchase this iPad for me.  Now, before you call me selfish, if you look through my apps, you will discover that most of the apps are kid related educational things.  So, yes, my kids use my ipad daily.  The boys do their Japanese studies through some pretty cool iPad apps that I bought.  Maya does the variety of preschool related apps that includes puzzles too.  Nonetheless, it is my iPad, and I use it for work and homeschool related things and for my record keeping and such.  

We have no desk top computer.  We do have a Mac and a Dell laptops.  The Mac works and is the primary computer that my husband uses.  The Dell, it works marginally well, but it has its moments when I am sure that it is little better than a paperweight.  There are just times when I want to to type but the Mac is with my husband, and I just can't get my head or my fingers around typing on the iPad or my iPhone. It is slower and harder for me to do since I struggle with carpal tunnel.  I try to stay away from things that end up aggravating me or my carpal tunnel.  SO, this wireless keyboard for my iPad is just perfect! 

My husband laughs at me and says that I am the gadget girl.  Yes, I suppose I am.  I did go online and look for the one that would be best for us both in what I wanted and in the price.  I did all the research and simply placed the item on my wishlist.  I can't say it isn't what I wanted because it IS exactly what I wanted!  Do I have a great family or what!

Now, the only excuse for not blogging will simply be a matter of time.

In the meantime...go, go gadget...keyboard.

I realize that I haven't written much lately.  It seems like there are always reasons why I can't seem to write whether it is the time or just that the phone line doesn't work...there is always something.  

In not writing for a while I realize a big part of what has been happening lately in my life has gone on simply unmentioned.  Sure I keep up on Facebook, but I fall so far behind on Xanga.

Here is the scoop.

At the very end of August, I checked out on orchestra that is located in the next big city south of where I live.  It was an amateur orchestra that I might be able to join.  After about a month's worth of deliberating, I decided to join the group officially.  

I play the viola.  I started playing the viola the summer between my 4th and 5th grade year of elementary school.  I got asked over the weekend by an orchestra member if I started out on the viola, and the answer is (unless you count the flutophone), yes, I started out on the viola.  I realized that in my answer it seemed odd to the hearer that I have never played anything but the viola.  Really, the viola?  Who just wakes up one day and says, "I'll play the viola!"  And I know there may be some out there who are wondering what a viola is in the first place.  

Viola
It is a member of the string family that is lower in pitch and slightly larger in size then the size of a violin. It is higher pitched than the cello and much smaller than the cello.  It is held in the same way a violin is.  Violas read their music in alto clef.  This makes violas in a league all their own.  Yes, please commence the viola jokes now....

What drew me to the viola?
I liked the tone of the instrument.  It many ways it just simply pleased my ears.  The violin is to high pitched for my strange ears, and playing anything larger than the viola just looked mendokusai (like it would be troubling or burdensome) to me.  I always liked the idea of playing a stringed instrument and have generally felt that blowing and or spitting into instruments is absurd.  Please note!  To all the winds and brass players, I mean you no ill will, they just don't interest me.  Percussion is also not really my thing either.  My elementary school brought musical instruments to our school and people played them so we could hear how they sounded.  I heard the viola and I knew it was the one for me.  Do you have to be weird to play viola?  I suppose you can draw your own conclusions on that one.  I don't think that is really for me to say.

At any rate, the past weekend the group I am a part of held a family concert.  The group is called the Nagaoka Symphony Orchestra.  Officially, there are two violas in our group.  Because we are not a particularly large group as a whole, we borrowed some help from the big city to the North of us.  This filled out the whole orchestra and made the violas swell to 7.  The first half of the concert were more classical numbers that included Pachelbel's Canon in D and the Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian.  I am sure you would know the songs if you heard them even if you do not recognize their names.  We also played some Wagner and Handel.  The second half of the concert was more popular songs.  We played the theme to the Thunderbirds Anime and a medley of Disney songs.  I am sure that these might sound familiar, but the bulk of the songs were squarely rooted in Japanese culture.  It is possible that some of you would recognize the Miyazaki movie songs like The Naushika Requiem and a song from the Laputa movie called Kimiwo Nosete.  I personally only know the Miyazaki songs because I live with a Miyazaki fan.  To my daughter's absolute delight, we played the Anpanman March.  She was over the top excited about this song.  I have written about the Anpanman cartoons before here on this blog, but I neglected to tag those posts and would have a time trying to find them again.  We also did some music from an anime call Space Battleship Yamato which came out in the 70's but turned live action movie a few summers ago.  I watched the movie to get my bearings on the songs, but scifi is not my thing....let alone Japanese scifi.  We rounded out the concert with some themes from some Samurai dramas.  I have to use the words some, because I really do not know the dramas they belong to because I simply do not watch samurai dramas.  Samurai dramas are known as old man shows and the only one whom I personally know who likes them is my son Tomo.  He has an old man's soul and he's super cool that way.

The weekend was very tiring as we had a lot of last minute rehearsals, but it was so much fun.  Was I nervous?  No way!  I was just enjoying being up on the stage and playing music with a group.  I enjoyed that team play aspect of being a viola.  We seldom hold a melody, but without us the fabric of the song just sounds a little bare.  You don't notice us, but you would miss us if we weren't there.  Just how we violas roll.

We have had some poetry assignments here at the house lately for homeschool.  We thought that we would share some with you.  Please don't groan too loudly.

Maya, Maya, beautiful girl
Wears her dresses and gives a twirl.
Maya, Maya, friendly gal 
Gives a smile and makes you her pal.
Maya, Maya, curious thing
Loves her puzzles, and dances and sings!

Greg, Greg, grape grabber,
Had a dog and couldn't stop her.
He put her in a grape skin
And there the dog stayed within.

Video games like Star Wars
Shoot and fight and play some more.
Move the Jedi's and use the force,
The battlefront is like an obstacle course.
Star Wars Battlefront is one big fight,
Clone troopers use guns to line droids up in their sight.

and finally...

Sanity, Sanity, you allude me.
Oh my brain, where can it be?
Sanity, Sanity, I think I need help,
for this I cry and yelp.
Sanity, Sanity, it ain't no joke,
But I might cure it with a can of Coke.

Ok, so poets, we may not be.  

I am wearing jeans today.  Yes, JEANS!  Today was the first day in a long time that it didn't feel terrible to put on jeans.  I am not convinced that the cooler temperatures are really here to stay, but I am glad that we can turn off all our fans and just enjoy the comfortable temperatures.  The cooler temps and the rain the last couple of days I know are because of a recent typhoon that terrorized parts of this country.  All we got was a little rain and cooler temperatures.  

Once a month I try to take the kids out in turn and spend some time with them away from the house.  I aim for at least once a month, but if more can be managed I do it.  Today was Tomo's time out with me.  Often going out during a school day means we do some of our school work out of the house as well.  The change of scenery is nice from time to time, but it gives me time just to give all my attention to one kid.  As we got onto the train today, Tomo noticed the mist in the mountains.  He thought it looked like smoke and asked if something was on fire.  I explained the whole mist in the mountain thing to him.  Seeing the mist reminded me of the times we used to vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains.  The Smokies are a beautiful place and the mist that hangs in the mountains give it a fairy-tale sort of feel to them.  It is fun to live so close to the mountains and to see the mist hanging in the air.  It does have a bit of a fantasy sort of feel to it.  

Tonight I am making pizza.  We will have Hawaiian Pizza.  Something different and yet something familiar.  I am so glad that the temperatures are starting to get cooler because it means I can do more baking without making the whole house feel like an oven as well.  I do not mind making pizza at home at all provided the temperatures are temperate.  Besides I put my bread maker to work and have it make the pizza crust for me.  Later tonight we will be showing Beauty and the Beast.  So, if you are free, come on over for some Hawaiian Pizza and Beauty and the Beast.

A long time ago when Corey and I worked as shelvers at the local Borders bookstore (which sadly does not exist any more), I came across a book while shelving.  I know that is not earth shattering.  When you shelve books, you actually come across A LOT of books.  This particular day I was shelving books and came across a book called Clean Home Clean Planet by Karen Logan.  At the time I came across the book, I was pretty newly married and thinking about children.  I knew from the get go that I wanted to try and keep the toxic chemicals out of my house if I could swing it.  I wanted to have a safe environment in which my children could grow up.  This book grabbed my attention and with my Borders' discount, I purchased this book.  I won't claim that I do not have any commercial cleaners in my cabinet, but over time as more becomes available to me, more commercial cleaners find their way out the doors of my house. 

All I have long since kept a bottle of vinegar water on hand to wipe urine accidents.  In fact, I keep vinegar water available, so that mishaps at the toilet means the child who caused it can him or herself clean it up.  In doing so, I do not have to worry about the vinegar hurting my kids.  I also use vinegar as my fabric softener.  i know it seems strange to use it as something that you want your clothes to smell good, but i find it does a great job of making my clothes feel nice.  If your detergent has a scent in it, then the vinegar brings that out more.  I also have noticed that just a dab scented commercial fabric softener with the vinegar also gives a scented smell as well.  I am looking for way, through scented essential oils, where I can scent the vinegar directly.  Little by little I see more of these types of things around me, but I am always on the hunt for more cost effective ways of doing things.  Speaking of cheap, vinegar is cheap!  Using it is food, as a cleaner, as a fabric softener...all cheap.  Vinegar...cheap, works well, isn't harmful to people OR the earth.  This makes it a winner in my book!

One of the things that has become more readily available to me is Dr. Bronner's castile soap.  Dr. Bronner's is a liquid soap which is also more environmentally sound to use.  I now have more cleaning supplies available to me because I can use this liquid soap in "recipes" to create cleaning supplies.  This is where the Karen Logan book helped me to mix up some cleaning supplies.  

The added benefit to Dr. Bronner's is that i can use it in not just cleaning supplies, but....in cleaning PEOPLE as well.  I am sure this is what most people buy Dr. Bronner's for, but it my journey it was the quest to clean my house that led me to Dr. Bronner's.  I have been using the liquid soap of the peppermint and the almond scents.  I call it field testing, and I had mentioned to a friend that after I field tested a bit, I would report on how it went.

Hand soap.
This was a rousing success!  I opted the set the hand foaming dispenser up with the peppermint smell.  The kids have absolutely loved washing their hands and smelling the peppermint.  I have not had to remind them to wash their hands nearly at all since I introduced Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap into our home.  I have enjoyed, after sweaty walks, washing my face with the soap which has left my face feeling not just clean but a bit tingly which helps me to feel so much cooler.  Now I know there are concerns about whether or not this is a disinfecting soap.  This one is not, but I could make it that way.  One way to do this would have been to just buy the tea tree oil Dr. Bronner's soap.  Tea tree oil has very natural properties for disinfecting things.  This is all above my head but my understanding is that many Australians do use tea tree oil as a disinfectant and hail a bottle of it "the first aid kit."  I have also learned that because of US standards there is a reluctance to actually outright call tea tree oil a disinfectant.  But like I said, there is a lot I do not know or understand.  What I do know from my researching, is that Tea tree is an all natural plant based oil that is helpful in cleaning cuts, open wounds, and burns.  The other way would be to just buy tea tree oil and add it to the Dr. Bronner's soap.

Actually, I am considering this option and looking into what it takes to get tea tree oil.  I had some on hand and have used it with vinegar to make a odor eating disinfecting spray.  If anyone has advice on how to get TTO for the most amount with the least amount of cost, please let me know.

Body Wash.
I opted to use the almond scented soap for body wash.  I also put this into a foaming dispenser.  I should also say that almost always when using Dr. Bronner's I dilute it with water.  This brings the cost efficiency of the soap to be quite high.  How does it do?  My two younger children struggle with eczema.  The summer that make them sweaty is hard on their skin.  The dryness of winter is hard on their skin, so long and short is that eczema plagues their skin.  I have taken them to the doctor who gives us medicine for the condition, but I am always a fan of getting rid of medicine if it is possible.  The soap really clears up their skin.  They are not quite as itchy and the rashes have almost all subsided without any medicines or special lotions.  I won't say it is 100% cleared up, but no medicine could do that either.  I have used it as well and once thing it has helped me with is the dry scaly skin on the heals of my feet.  

Shampoo.
This isn't quite fair because the body wash is the shampoo, but I feel it is necessary to list them separate.  Again my two younger children get the worst smelling head funk in the summer times due to sweaty scalps.  Anyone who has ever smelled my kids' heads in the summer know it is pretty funky.  I started using the castile soap in their hair and low and behold...scalp funk...be gone!  I am really happy with this one because it means that Tomo will not HAVE to have super short cuts unless he wants it that way.  One night Corey washed Maya with the baby shampoo that we used to use in their hair and immediately I could smell that funky smell in Maya's hair.  The liquid castile soap really does work!  I have used it my hair as well and noticed that at least for me that my hair is not as frizzy as it can be.  It has also helped to keep dandruff at bay.  With the scent being almond, I have noticed that while you can smell it going on, the smell does not linger like the peppermint, so I think it is a scent that works well for male or female.  I also took the shampoo/body wash and put it directly on my eyelashes like I do with the baby shampoo sometimes.  I do this to wash my eye lashes clean of dust and stuff.  I struggle with allergies and when it gets bad I wash my eye lashes out.  Baby shampoo is mild and though I feel it is does not hurt.  I found out with the almond scent, I could feel it and it felt a little uncomfortable, but it did not burn.  I know that Dr. Bronner puts out a baby mild soap, and I think this would have more of the feeling of the J&J baby shampoo.  As of yet, none of my children have complained about the soap in their eyes, but in truth none of them have complained at all about the new soap.

I have to go now.  There is more I could say about clean products that clean, but I have a 6th grader wanting me to review is schoolwork.  Gotta go.

Farm Fresh Southern Cooking by Tammy Algood

I chose to read Farm Fresh Southern Cooking to review because I enjoy finding new recipes.  I do not have a lot of room for cookbooks in my kitchen, so reviewing an ebook version of a cookbook is a nice fit for me.  I live in a country where it is hard to find things that are so readily available in the local supermarkets of the United States; like baking mixes or anything prepackaged.  Therefore,  I am always on the hunt for cookbooks that emphasize the from scratch way of cooking.  Since the title of this book targets fresh southern cooking, I thought that this would be a good book to find some new recipes.I was not disappointed in that I did find a number of recipes that I will certainly try soon.  However, given my circumstances, and what I did not take in account, is the fact that where I live some of the amazing fresh produceof the Southern US are just simply not available.  As a result I found an even larger number of recipes that I would love to try, if I had access to the specific ingredients. Another thing I really appreciated about this book is how the author included ideas on either how to use a recipe or in what other foods or entrees the recipe would go well with in a particular dish.  I like this idea sharing.  As one who does not live any where near the Southern US, the information about the various farmers and markets, would be interesting if I lived in the area but hold little value to anyone beyond the area.Overall, I enjoyed this cookbook.  I will enjoy trying out some new recipes.  For example, croutons are hard to come by here, and when we can find them they are either super small or super expensive, so I look forward to using the crouton recipes to make some tasty croutons at a reasonable price.  Since I can make them, I can control the size of the crouton as well.  I also like the emphasis on the fresh fruits and vegetables and now have a number of new ideas for side dishes.  There are many main dishes and desserts listed as well.If you enjoy cooking, enjoy the emphasis on fresh cooking and happen to like Southern foods, then Farm Fresh Southern Cooking is good book to add to your cookbook collection.

I received an ebook copy of Farm Fresh Southern Cooking by Tammy Algood from Thomas Nelson Publishing in exchange for a fair review of this book.