Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

Look where I got to park yesterday at the mall.

How fun is that? Never mind that we walked five miles once we got into the mall. It was important that we didn't wear ourselves out getting to the front door.

Lovely's favorite thing to do these days is open and close doors for me. This can take a considerable amount of time. There are a lot of heavy doors out there that I am not allowed to touch so we had better not think we are headed anywhere fast!

Do you know what helps me the most with my habits? Slowing down. Not only does slowing down help you get things done (yes, really!) but it frees up time for all the little things that really make life more fun and enjoyable. This means that you have to stop trying to do it ALL and start doing what is IMPORTANT. Deciding what that is is the tricky part so I'll leave that up to you.

If I sit in the car for a moment until the kids have all their stuff picked up and their garbage thrown away then I get to enjoy a clean van. If I immediately rush into the house, the kids do the same, leaving all their junk behind.

This month I am going to revisit a habit that I failed miserably with last year and that is keeping my office and paperwork organized. I cannot put this off any longer. If this is the last habit I work on this year I will conquer it! I'm going to spend 15 minutes on it every day while we do our jobs in the morning.

Have a SMART week!!!

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

What Does a Hanger Do?

That was the first question Don Aslett, the cleaning expert, asked at the seminar he gave for our local homeschooling group this week. Of course all the kids yelled out, "It hangs up clothes!"

"No!" he replied as he let go of it and it fell to the floor. "It doesn't do anything! Who hangs up clothes? You do!"

The kids were absolutely mesmerized during the entire presentation. He showed them how to make their bed while they were still in it, how to clean a toilet, how to dust, vacuum, clean walls, etc. He was handing out toilet erasers and key chains left and right. He made it all look so fun and continually emphasized how it was the kids' job to clean up after themselves, not their Mother's. Yay Don!!!

If you click on Don's link above and scroll down In The News, you can see a video clip of him on a news show and how fun he is. He gave me a stack of his books that I will be giving away at my presentation this Saturday at the Forum. If you come to my class you may win one!

Speaking of teaching kids to work, Bonnie took my advice to heart last week and has been working with her kids ever since. She's turned some frustrating after school hours into a fun and productive family time. Go read her post, Change Is Good, for yourself. I loved it!

Here was my post last week on teaching kids to work, They Grow Up Fast Around Here.

Schooling Options

This is something I have wanted to mention for a few months but reading Julie's post today and her struggle with which kind of schooling to choose for her son prompted me to speak up.

All of you know now that we are homeschoolers. We have always home schooled. Most people do public school. But did you know there is another option? An option that I really hadn't thought of until I talked to a friend of mine last fall? You can also homeschool part time. At least you can here in Utah.

I guess I knew you could homeschool part time because homeschoolers can send their kids to public school for certain classes but I didn't really think of the potential benefits it might have for many families who public school. My friend keeps her kids home for one hour every morning so they can study literature. Then they go to public school the rest of the day. Sounds OK right? But it gets better.

Because they homeschool for that one hour they are considered official homeschoolers. She can take her kids out of school for any reason any time she wants without answering to the school. Her kids don't have to do any of the testing. If she doesn't like one of their assignments in their classes then her kids don't have to do it.

It really seems like the best of both worlds for those of you who have no desire to homeschool full time but you also want more options for your kids. The laws probably differ in each state so you might want to check into it where you live.

My friend has no desire to teach math, science or any other subject. She just wants to teach them literature. But there wasn't time with her kids in school for so many hours a day and then coming home with homework so she made her own time. Isn't she brilliant? I love it when people find original solutions that really work for them. It's easy to get in a trap thinking we have to do what everyone else is doing or that there are only a limited number of options. If there aren't any options that work for you then find a new one!

Two years ago we lived just three minutes away from the elementary school and I drove Victor there for chess club and special classes. I would have kept doing that if we lived closer to the school or I wasn't too lazy to drive my kids into town every day. Living out in the country is fabulous but it also has many limitations. One being that my kids are stuck with me all day every day. Poor things!

Talking About How To Section Citrus Fruit AND Recipes

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

We bought a case of grapefruit yesterday. We've already been through two cases of oranges this month but we thought we'd get crazy and mix things up a bit with the grapefruit. My mission is to eat at least six a day. That's how much love I feel for them.

I do not, however, love digging grapefruit sections out with a spoon. It's messy and it makes it difficult to shovel them into my mouth at the speed I desire. If I spend a couple minutes sectioning the fruit into a bowl then the pleasure is much greater.

This is also great for sectioning grapefruit, oranges, lemons, limes, or tangerines for salads and desserts. Why eat disgusting canned oranges when you can cut up your own fresh fruit? (Ok, I'll admit I use the canned ones sometimes too.) Let me show you how easy it is. Wow, are you excited about this? I know I am!

First you want to start with your favorite sharp knife. I like my serrated bread knife for this job but you could use something smaller and less scary.

Slice off both ends of the grapefruit.

Then you place a flat end on your cutting board and cut the peel off in stripes, curving your knife with the shape of the fruit as you go.

There is a fine line between cutting all the peel off and cutting off too much of the fruit. You don't want to waste any of those precious juices.

When you're done it will look like this. At this point you might be tempted to just take a big bite out of it but try to control yourself.

Now start sectioning it by running your knife right down along one of the membranes to the center of the fruit.

Then slice against the membrane of the other side of the section and lift it out.

Once you get the first section out it gets even easier. Slice along the next membrane and keep the edge of your knife in the center of the fruit.

Flip your knife over (remember, don't move the cutting edge, just flip the outside edge over) and slide it between the membrane on the other side. You won't even really have to cut. The section will just pull away.

Repeat this step until all the grapefruit sections are nestled snugly in your bowl. Then cut up two more grapefruit because they still look a little lonely in there. Remember, you have a whole case to eat and you want to get as many as you can before your kids do.

This is not my first fruit tutorial by the way. You can also learn from Lazy herself, How To Cut Up Melons.

As a bonus I will give you a couple recipes. I cringe every time I see someone buy a bottle of salad dressing at the store. Why would you do something like that when it's so cheap and easy to make your own? Why people? There are a lot of great recipes out there for you to start trying.

Tonight for dinner I had lettuce greens with chicken, almonds, red onion, oranges and poppyseed dressing. Yum! I've been eating this salad (without the chicken) for a week with every meal and I am still not sick of it.

Sweet Vinaigrette or Poppy Seed Dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise or olive oil
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon poppy seeds (optional)

Mix in a blender. Refrigerate at least an hour. Using mayonnaise makes the dressing opaque and keeps it from separating.

This is the recipe my Mother gave me. It's a little fancier but they taste pretty much the same.

Grandma's Poppy Seed Dressing

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup apple cider or red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons red onion (the red onion turns it pink!)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Mix in a blender. Refrigerate at least an hour.

What are you talking about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

It's a Boy!

Contrary to my wishes of not finding out, we now know that we are having a boy.

We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant with some family the other day for dinner. You know, the place we eat at so often that the owners gave me a baby gift the last time I gave birth? And they hold our baby for us while we eat? Ya, that place. Anyway, Mau, or however you would spell it, came out of the kitchen to have a look at me and tell me what kind of baby we would be having. She took my face in her hands and examined it closely and announced that it would be a boy.

Then she spoke some Chinese to one of the other ladies there and they both nodded their heads in agreement. It would definitely be a boy. Because apparently boys are hard on their mothers and make them ugly. She pointed to Victor to see if it was true with him and I agreed that yes, I was ugly when I was pregnant with him too.

In fact the whole table agreed that I was very, very ugly.

Yep, we must be having a boy.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

This has been a great year so far! I am still going strong with my menu planning. Do you know what helps? I make the kids do it with me in our family counsel for that day and they actually have fun with it. They give me lots of great ideas and they can tell me which meals they want to make themselves. I like to have each of them in charge of one meal a week. I also have them write out our shopping list. Little do they know it's good practice for their writing and spelling skills. My eight year old is a much better cook than speller.

I also love my new one load a day laundry habit. I had some questions from you about how I hang the laundry to dry in the winter but you aren't going to like my answer. I have a Ruck Zuck in my laundry room and I love it! But unfortunately I don't know of any place in the US where you can order one anymore. We bought ours years ago.



You can always use another type of drying rack of course. I just love this one because it is very sturdy, it hangs on the wall and it folds out of the way. It works especially well hung over the sink because I can scrub things out and then let them drip dry. You can read a few other laundry posts here. I tell all about my secret ironing method that I found out isn't so secret because some of you are already using it.

Our van has been much neater this week as well but even though the clutter is gone it is still grossing me out because it's filthy dirty from muddy winter shoes. We vacuum it out once a week but I guess I will have to put up with the rest of it until it gets warm enough to go out and give it a proper scrub.

Have a SMART week!!!

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Lovely Reading Time

Thanks for all your comments on my post yesterday. Stranger had one thing to say after reading it. "I feel sorry for all those poor kids of the mothers reading you blog!" But he doesn't really. He knows we're teaching our kids the right things. I just hope your kids don't hate me too much!

I spent some time today labeling all my posts related to teaching kids to work and re-loading the photos that were lost on them. If you're interested you can go back and see some of the progress and changes we have made over the last year or so. There are also a few goofy videos of my kids doing chores.

Click here to see all the posts. I will work on answering your latest questions as soon as I can.

In other news...

After Lovely was all ready for bed last night I asked her to go get in bed and read while I took a shower and then I would come tuck her in.


When I got out of the shower my two older kids were running around playing and this is where I found Lovely. In bed reading!!! I've told you before that she will put herself to bed but it still amazes me.

You know I love all my kids right? I definitely don't have any favorites. Of course not! It's just that this one is so sweet and agreeable that she has spoiled me. I'm scared of what the new baby is going to do to our lives. You can't get this lucky twice.

Decorate-A-Cake-A-Thon

Victor had his Boy Scout Blue and Gold Banquet today. All the boys are supposed to make their own cake but as you can imagine it doesn't usually turn out that way with parents getting in the way. Last year we planned something too elaborate and I ended up doing most of it. This year Victor planned it himself, baked his own cake (from scratch I might add) and decorated it himself. It took him ALL day. It might not have been the fanciest cake at the party but we thought it was the coolest.

And I know there wasn't another boy there who was more excited about his creation. We started a new tradition this year of having the kids make their own birthday cakes. They have had a great time and it has relieved me of a lot of pressure. Not that it's not a lot of work to supervise them because it is. I have to be in the kitchen every moment to answer questions and help when they ask but they love it so much that it's well worth it.

Lovely's birthday is tomorrow so Victor baked her a little cake to decorate. That's two cakes out of the way in one day! I will have to show you her sparkly finished creation tomorrow.

I also want you to know how proud I was of myself. I didn't plan one single other thing today. Nothing! I reserved the entire day for cake making.

Normally I would have planned 52 other things and then been frustrated with myself and everyone else that it was all going wrong and I was a frantic mess. Nope. Today was a good day.

They Grow Up Fast Around Here

It might look like she is just playing with her doll but she is really undergoing vigorous training to help with our new baby when it's born in May. See how she's supporting the baby's head while she holds it? Thanks to her big sister she also knows how to change its diaper and not to poke her fingers in its eyes.

What chores do my kids do around the house you ask? All of them.

I was talking to my friend at the gym tonight about how my schedule is going to change when this new baby comes. I'm not going to be staying up late and sleeping in any more. I'll be going to bed and getting up with the baby. She joked about how my kids would have to start putting themselves to bed and I said, "Probably."

She said, "I don't know how you do it when your husband is gone so much. It's not like your kids can just take care of themselves while you're taking care of a new baby."

"Yes, they can. They had to take care of all of us when I was sick with this pregnancy," I replied.

She sounded doubtful, "My 19 and 20 year olds can't even take care of themselves!"

But it's true. There are very few things that my ten and eight year old can't do for themselves. My son even knows how to change the furnace filter!

The only thing I can think of right now that I have never let them do is drain a boiling pot of pasta but my son is strong enough to do it so I think I'm going to let him start. I don't let my eight year old daughter get heavy things out of the oven but if it's something light like a pan of cookies then she does it herself. They have been cutting with knives and working in the kitchen independently since they were six. In fact my two year old is starting to learn how to use knives. We hold the knife together to chop vegetables because I'm not allowed to do anything in the kitchen without her help.

Maybe we are weird parents but our kids are eager to learn and we feel like it's our job to teach them to be capable and responsible adults. What's the right age for them to start learning? How about when they're born? You don't wait till a baby is one before you start teaching them to talk. You talk to them the minute they're born. I also don't think there is an age when kids should start helping around the house. Well, I guess you could wait till they can walk before you have them mowing the lawn but whatever.

Basically here is my rule for working around the house. "If momma's working, everyone's working." That's it. And we work every day. I never ever ever clean after my kids go to bed. There are no cleaning fairies at our house. We always work together.

We spent two hours cleaning the house last night and another two hours this morning because we had company coming over for lunch. My kids worked right along side me the whole time. In fact at one point my son proudly informed me that I didn't even have to tell him what to do because he looked around and saw what needed to be done himself and then did it. It was true!

My two year old followed us around from room to room. We gave her little errands to run like getting the vacuum and putting things in the correct rooms. We all had a great time (not always the case by the way) and my son declared when we were done, "Maybe we shouldn't have made the house so clean because your friend might feel bad that her house isn't as clean as ours."

I assured him that there was NO danger of that!!! But I'm happy that he's proud of the work he does.

My ten year old son is in charge of

• Rinsing, washing and putting away the dishes every day
• Washing, hanging and putting away his own laundry
• Buckling the two year old in the car
• Loading groceries into the car
• Vacuuming the van
• Getting the stroller in and out of the car
• Shoveling the sidewalks (a big job this winter!)
• Carrying heavy things for me and any other duty that makes him feel manly

My eight year old daughter is in charge of

• Picking up and putting away anything in the house that's out of place every day
• Clearing the table, putting the food away and wiping the counters after meals
• Putting the laundry away
• Helping me clean the bathrooms
• Organizing projects with me or on her own
• Taking her sister potty
• Putting the grocery cart away

My two older kids are both in charge of

• Keeping their rooms clean and picking up after themselves
• Keeping the van cleaned out
• Feeding the animals
• Bringing in groceries and putting them away
• Cooking meals by themselves and with the family
• Vacuuming is my job but they help me with it when I ask them to
• This summer they will start helping with yard work because we haven't had a yard for the last two years.
• Anything else their father and I ask them to do, whenever we ask them to do it

My two year old (three on Thursday) is in charge of

• Making her bed
• Getting herself dressed
• Putting her dirty clothes in the hamper
• Hanging her towel up
• Hanging up her coat and putting her shoes away
• Helping her sister put her clothes away
• Picking up her toys and books
• Washing her own hair
• Brushing and flossing her teeth (I let her do it herself in the morning and we take turns at night)
• Bringing in groceries
• Passing out the scriptures and putting them away when it's reading time
• Helping me do laundry and cook meals and basically making everything I do more difficult and more fun!

After two years of teaching my kids they have turned out to be hard workers. The road has been a little rough because I didn't seriously start training them to work until they were 6 and 8 and by that time they were pretty set in their slovenly ways. Things will be easier with my two year old because she doesn't know anything different.

I just want to add that there is a huge difference in kids when they turn eight. I think that is the magic age for them to work independently and take responsibility for doing a good job. Before that they need a lot of supervision and it's best if you can work together or at least in the same room because they get distracted easily. My daughter turned eight last month and it's like she has changed overnight. She is making her bed now without me reminding her and she has surprised me in all sorts of other ways.

If you are just starting out teaching your kids to help around the house my advice is to start slow, work together and don't give up.

Teach Your Kids to Work

Talk About Tuesday

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

First of all, don't forget to enter my drawing to win a free copy of W.O.R.K., Wonderful Opportunities for raising Responsible Kids. I forgot to mention that I will be closing the drawing on Wednesday.

I love that my kids love to wear hats. Persistence wears the hats I knit for her night and day. With that kind of gratitude it's no wonder I can't stop making them! Lovely appreciates them too but since she can't stop herself from picking them apart I'm not as keen to knit her any more.

This is one of the hats from my new knitting book, Itty-Bitty Hats by Susan B. Anderson. I crocheted several different colored flowers so she can pin them on to match any outfit. I think I might have to make one of these for myself!

Now on to my Emergency Prepareness program. Is anyone else participating in Julie's Challenge? I love Julie for motivating me so.

I now know where the keys and combination are to our safe that has all our important documents in it. I took the documents to the copy shop today and made two copies of everything. I already had single copies of it in a file drawer but it makes sense to have it in a binder that is easy to grab and go. I'm making two binders with the copies. One to keep at our house and one to keep at a family member's house in case we were to lose everything by flood or fire. All the originals are going in our suposedly fire-proof/resistant safe in the basement. I suppose we should keep them in a safe deposit box but this will have to do for now.

It was great to go through everything again because it's been years since I've looked at all this stuff so there were updates to make. We own some new vehicles. We've had a baby. You know. Little things like that!

I still have a lot more work to do with my binders to get caught up to Julie's schedule but at least I'm working on it now. Which brings me to my next point and it is a fabulous one.

You know my stylish new planner? There is a little square for each morning that I never write in because we almost never go anywhere in the morning. That's our time to be home-bodies. So as of this week those squares are being used to plan my daily organizing/cleaning projects.

I'm getting so organized I can hardly stand myself and it's not just the garlic potatoes I ate for dinner. Some day I'm going to be so grown up that I actually plan and accomplish things instead of winging it and hoping my life falls into place!

What are you talking about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Wonderful Opportunities for Raising Responsible Kids

This contest is closed. The winner of the book was Christine Rockwell. Congratulations Christine!

Opportunity is missed by most of us because it is dressed in coveralls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison

Our homeschool group invited Debbie Bowen to speak at one of our sharing nights for Mom's several months ago. She wrote a book called W.O.R.K., Wonderful Opportunities for Raising Responsible Kids. I made sure I went because teaching my kids to work around the house has been one of my big projects these last two years. It took about a year to really get into the swing of things and I learned a lot along the way, a lot of things I would have already known if I had just read Debbie's book first!!!

To save yourself the trouble of figuring it out the hard way like I did, pick up a copy of Debbie's book right now. Immediately! I wrote a few articles on the subject but her book goes more in depth and answers a lot of questions you might have as you go along.

Debbie is the Mother of ten so she has many years of experience in teaching children. She understands that it takes a family, not just a Mother, to run a household.

As the parent, you are not a soloist but rather the conductor of your own home
orchestra. You need not, in fact, you should not try to do all the work
yourself.

No matter what ages your children are it's never too late, or too early, to start teaching them capability, dependability, and responsibility and Debbie can show you where to start. She says delegation is the key to your sanity and she will lead you step by step through the process.

If you aren't already teaching your children to work you probably have many excuses including,

• I can do it faster myself.


• If I want it done right I have to do it myself.


• I find the work enjoyable.


• I'm a creature of habit.


• I'm not organized enough.


• I feel sorry for them.


• My children aren't capable.


• My children are too busy.


• My children complain.


• My children refuse to work.


• They're too old to change.


• My children expect to get paid.
  

Debbie answers all these concerns and more. I wish I had been given this book the day my first baby was born. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. First I had to learn that it wasn't my job to do everything for my children. That took about five years. And then I had to figure out how to teach them to do things for themselves. That has taken another three years. It's been a long road but I know from my experience that it's possible. People often ask me how I have time to do all the things I do. To me it doesn't seem like I do much but even so I couldn't do half of it without my children's help. I'm finding out that they are my greatest asset so I think I'll keep them around!

To win a free copy of Debbie Bowens book, W.O.R.K., leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite and least favorite household chores are. Make sure you also leave contact information through your blog or e-mail so you don't miss out on your opportunity to win.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

My new laundry habit of doing one load of wash a day and hanging it to dry is going great. Laundry is pretty easy at our house. If you are having trouble with laundry then

1. You probably have too many clothes.


2. You have too many clothes.


3. You need to get rid of some of your clothes.

At our house

1. The kids help with laundry. My 10 year old son does his own and my eight year old daughter is in charge of putting the rest of our laundry away.


2. We all have a minimum amount of clothing.


3. We each have our own towel that we reuse a couple times before washing.


4. Each bed has one set of sheets that we wash and put right back on the beds.


5. Laundry never piles up or we would have nothing to wear, sleep in or dry off with.

I'm going to start a new habit this week. The kids and I are going to work on cleaning out the van every day. I try to keep on top of this but most of the time I fail and it ends up looking like a mess. There is no reason why my kids can't pick up their things and bring them into the house so I'm going to be strict in checking it every single day.

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

A Sampling of the Weird Family

People have been asking me what kind of storage shelves we bought this week. These are great shelves we got at Sam's Club. They're sturdy and not too expensive at $60 a unit. We're not storing our buckets on them but we needed shelves for canned goods and a lot of the other items on my storage list.



We had a home school Valentine party today of which I didn't take any decent photos of as usual. It's a good thing I always keep my camera in my purse or else I might forget to forget to use it.



One of the things I love about home schooling are the activities. It's not just a classroom of fourth graders having a party at school. It's a building full of families with kids and parents of all ages, spending time together, having fun. I would be missing out on all that fun if I sent my kids off to school every day.



Someone mentioned to me the other day that they couldn't tell from my blog that I home school. I guess I don't mention it very often except to make fun of my kids for looking like home schoolers. Then it hit me that someone who didn't know us might think I was making fun of home schoolers! Well, I am but I can because I am one.

I also love the times that just the Moms get together for book discussions and sharing nights because the Moms I meet are so amazing! I wish some of them were home schooling me! They asked me to talk about organizing last month and it was so much fun that we did it again last night. If you haven't invited me over yet to yap about organizing, you should. Invite a bunch of friends, make some yummy food and I will be there!



No, worms did not dig tunnels on my daughter's arm. This is what happens when you put together a giant rubberband and your father teaches you how to stretch it around the house a couple times and then when he isn't there to supervise you try it again except that this time you let go of it while your sister is holding onto the other end.

By the way, I can never figure out when to use onto/on to and into/in to. I read this explanation but I still can't figure it out. So is it "onto the other end" or "on to the other end"?

I also don't know which is correct, home school, home-school, or homeschool. Maybe I need to go back to school to figure it out.

Talk About Tuesday

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

I have news! It's official. I am speaking at the Thomas Jefferson Education Forum on March 1st. If you haven't already signed up to go then you must do so immediately. It will be fabulous and not just because I'll be there. That's part of it but all the speakers are wonderful and plus don't forget that I'll be there. Click here and scroll down to see Moi and my class description.

As a bonus today I am talking about...

The Secrets That Are My Life

• We bought several sets of shelves today to organize our food storage.
  
  
• Now if only our basement wasn't such a wreck so we had somewhere to put them.
  
  
• I confess that I didn't make my daughter's baptism dress. I bought it. I learned a lesson from my last sewing fiasco where I could have bought a dress at an expensive boutique and spent less than I did for the fabric of my daughter's Halloween costume. It almost ripped my heart out to not be hemming something on the way to the Church (a family tradition) but what was done was done and we all lived happily ever after.
  
  
• My Christmas tree is finally out of my living room and put away.
  
  
• My life is plauged by Box Elder bugs and according to Stranger there is nothing we can do about it because we didn't spray for them in the fall. How were we supposed to know we needed to spray for them? We didn't have this problem last year. How fun is it to wake up every night/morning with bugs crawling on your face and in your underwear? You want to come visit me now don't you.
  
  
• This fall we will be spraying for bugs. I already have it written in my calendar.
  
  
• Sometimes my two year old tucks herself into bed. Sometimes when she tells me she's tired and I'm in the middle of something I will tell her to go potty and get into bed and I'll be right there to tuck her in. Except that sometimes I forget about her and she's asleep before I get there. Sometimes my bad mothering skills bring tears to my eyes.
  
  
• I make it up to her by letting her "help" me in the kitchen. I think the patience involved with that pretty much makes me a Saint in spite of my other weaknesses.
  

• My family stinks. Truly. Yesterday everyone ate garlic noodles but me and I about choked to death sleeping with stranger last night. Then today I had to drive around with the windows open because the children still stunk. Normally I'm eating garlic with them so I guess I don't notice the smell. I want to apologize to everyone right now. I had no idea we were so stinky and I feel bad about it. Not bad enough to stop eating garlic but still pretty bad.
  
  
• We lost the password to our wireless internet router for a while. Guess where we found it? Typed up with my label maker and stuck to the front of our computer so we wouldn't lose it.
  
  
• Today I was looking for the password to our safe. I told Stranger that we should have stuck it on the front of our safe because no one would ever think to look there.
  
  
• You want to be as organized as I am don't you?
  
  
• Stay tuned for more embarrassing secrets about the Lazy Organizer...
  

What are you talking about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Persistent in Growing Up

Our little girl was baptized this month.


I could say time is flying by too fast,


But every day she surprises us with her growing personality,


And I would never trade the future for the past.

Book Worms

I punished my kids tonight by sending them to bed without letting them read. They were acting like two year olds at the grocery store (except for my two year old who was being completely decent) and that was the best I could come up with. I wanted something really painful and no reading just about killed them. Mission accomplished.

Stranger snapped this photo of Persistence the other morning as she was cooking oatmeal. My kids read while they eat. They read when they wake up. They read before they go to sleep. They read in the car. They listen to books on tape while they do their chores. And apparently they read while they cook.

They only time they won't read is when I'm on the phone. They like to take that opportunity to run screaming through the house, either fighting or playing some wildly exciting game. In case you're wondering, I don't have any friends. At least no phone friends. If you want to be friends with me you either have to be content with the time we spend in person or else you have to like e-mail.

Speaking of my pregnancy. (We were talking about bratty children, right?) This new Sweet Little Troublemaker is getting big. I mean, people are starting to touch my stomach and my maternity clothes are starting to fit, big. And the contractions are getting a tiny bit painful. I'm really looking forward to three months of painful contractions.

I'm officially six months along today. At least I think it's official since I'm due May 9th and today is February 9th.

Have I mentioned that we're not finding out the sex? You are just going to have to wait till May to find out what kind of present to send. Although you could start sending cash right away. Cash is always in fashion.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

I love my new laundry habit! I used to do all the laundry one day a week. This was actually working really well for me. Persistence and I gathered up all the laundry, got it washed, dried, folded, I ironed the few things that needed it and she put everything away. All done.


But my dream is to hang all the clothes to dry to save electricity. I don't know what difference it will actually make in our monthly bill but it just seems so environmentally friendly that I can't help myself. Anything that makes more work has to be fun right? Except maybe not when you're ten. Victor didn't enjoy my new plan yesterday when he had to hang up all his laundry.


So every day this week we have washed a load and hung it to dry. The next day I fold the last load and hang up a new load. I actually look forward to it! I have to put a few things in the dryer for a minute to tumble the wrinkles out but it has worked really well and I get to have all those warm fuzzies of simple living.

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

Stop Buying Hay

If you haven't read Julie's post, What if. . . none were enough?, on the subject of Stuff you need to head over there right away.

Did anyone see Oprah today? Does this clutter make my butt look fat? I caught a few minutes of it at the gym. Peter Walsh had the woman in tears numerous times in the 15 minutes that I watched. He called her fat about 50 times. I think having someone call me fat over and over would make me cry too.

It's an interesting idea but I don't agree with Peter's premise. Clutter has never made anyone fat. I do agree that someone who is fat and lazy will probably also have a cluttered house but there are plenty of overweight people out there who are organized and not lazy in the least. Of course I didn't see the whole show so maybe I missed the point. What do you think?

Oh and there were a couple other women in the room watching the show and I mentioned that the