Somersize

I've gone back to Somersize level one, for reasons that I can't disclose at this time, but it works for me in certain sensitive situations, and hopefully I can discipline myself to make a lifestyle out of it. My health really, truly depends on it. Hence, this is another phase to my personal war on diabetes.

Here is a strange, interesting fact about me, now that we are on the subject of health: I do not drink water without ice. Even if I drink bottled water, it needs to be ice cold. As I write this, Princess Melody has informed me that we are out of ice, and since caffeine causes issues with my blood sugar, my glass remains empty. It's water, or nothing..............so I need to go out and get a bag of ice. Don't even ask why I won't drink ice made at home. It doesn't even make sense to me, but that's one of the things that makes me different. Be that as it may, I have made a commitment to myself to drink as much water as possible, and it's working for me. Since we live in Death Texas....er.....WEST Texas, water is a good thing to pour within one's body.

Hopefully, it will get cool enough to do something outside. When, and if that happens, I want to make Sidewalk Paint for Princess Tarja. I'm sure that her sisters will enjoy helping her beautificate our sidewalks, as well. I absolutely love home made art supplies.

I got up early this morning to get a jump start on my day before everyone else got out of bed. No sooner had I gotten out of the shower, when my hubs handed me the keys to the Expedition, and told me to go have it inspected. I took it in, and was told that the horn and a rear tire needed attention. When I took it home, my hubs handed me the keys to the Tahoe and gave repeat instructions. Ok, fine. I did that. As soon as I got home with the newly inspection stickered Tahoe, he handed me the keys to the Expedition, and said that it was ready to be inspected again. This time, it passed. As soon as I got home with the Expedition, he decided that we should go to Sams Club to fill up the Tahoe. Sams Club is in the next town, and I am always up for running off for an hour or two with him, so we jumped in and took off. Mind you, it was over 90 degrees, and the air conditioner in the Tahoe ran out of freon. Joy.

Other than that, I got two large loads of laundry completed, and redesigned some leftovers for a fast, after church supper. Princess Tarja wasn't too sure about my newly seasoned chicken. The king was trying to convince her that it was very good, and she said, "It's holy crap!" However, the king won, and she enjoyed two helpings of her crappy chicken.

Isaiah 46:4

I started out having a very difficult day. Of course, this primarily started in my mind and emotions, as all difficult days are apt to do.

There were a few very important things that seemed to breathe down my neck and try to choke the peace right out of me.

Finally, I prayed, and asked God to please show me whatever it is that he wanted me to know today. I opened my Bible, and turned straight to this verse:

"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." Isaiah 46:4

As soon as I finished reading this brief message, all of the obstacles were cleared. Everything happened instantly. My needs were not just met, but met with great abundance.

I may not be a wealthy woman, but my father in heaven owns everything.

Work at Home Mom

I have not worked outside of my home in several years. There are some challenges to being self employed, but for me, the challenges of being a career mom were way more difficult to surmount. As the tale goes for many self employed individuals, there have been some fat years and some learn years. My little job with ChaCha.com helped with the expense of moving to our new town about two years ago. Today, things have slowed down so that I might not be able to earn that kind of money with them. Still, I keep plugging, because I have been through their fat and lean times already. That's just business, I guess.

While things are slow with ChaCha, I have been doing a little bit more on mturk.com. Mturk is owned by Amazon.com, and is a good way to either earn credit to spend on Amazon.com, or to cash out to pay a bill or buy groceries. I'm debating on whether or not to treat this as my Christmas fund, because it is very easy money.

I have found that I can successfully crochet during the time that I work with ChaCha, so I have finally ventured to open My Etsy Shop. As of right now, I don't have very much posted, Soon I will have my little piece of the internet flooded with items.

If you have an Etsy, please leave a link in my comments so that I can add you as a friend.

Also, if you are a WAHM, please tell us what you do. I love to learn about other mommy adventures.

Charlotte Mason

I've been thinking about how neat it's going to be that I can start Tarja off with a Charlotte Mason education, rather than starting in late elementary and early middle school like I did for Melody and Abbey.

Several years ago, I began to look for something that could help us with Abbey's reading. She was a very, very slow reader. Here, begins my testimony of what has made me so passionate about using the Charlotte Mason method.

Abbey could not read or write by the time she was 8 years old. I worked with her every single day. Even my husband started to question my ways, and said that maybe I just didn't know what I was doing, and should send her to public school. I stood my ground. Friends of mine who are school teachers offered all kinds of suggestions, web sites, and curriculum. A lot of tears were shed by both Abbey and me during this time.

Finally, I asked another homeschooler about Charlotte Mason, and she explained it to me, and directed me to a few websites that could explain it better. I borrowed A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola from my local library, took an empty spiral notebook, and took notes from every chapter. I put the brakes on everything else that we had been working on, and started adopting Charlotte Mason's ways immediately.

In about a month's time, Abbey was reading. Not only was she reading her lessons, but she started to read for pleasure. As if a switch had been turned on in her head, she began to spell perfectly, and her penmanship was beautiful ONE MONTH changed everything, after several years of stress, struggle, and heart break.

Shortly after this change, I attended a play that she did with our local Methodist Church. She had to stand up and read a few lines. She read them perfectly, with no mistakes at all. I held myself together until the very end. The girls invited me to enjoy their fellowship meal with them, but I excused myself and went home. I went to my husband, with tears streaming down my face, and I said, "Even you, didn't believe that I could teach her, but today, Abbey stood up and read to the entire church!"

Now, there is a big kicker at the end of this tale. Abbey's reading, writing, and school work seemed to improve 100 percent each and every year. The only problem was that she worked very slowly, but she did get everything done that was asked of her. She works steadily, methodically, and even exclaimed once that she loved doing her school work. I knew that she had a visual perception issue, and I also knew that a regular eye doctor couldn't fix it, but maybe there was some hope. We made a date to have both her and Melody's eyes checked. It was heart wrenching to watch Abbey try to read the eye charts to the doctor. She couldn't read anything correctly. How, then, was she doing so well with her reading, copywork, and writing assignments? I'll never understand it myself, unless it was the consistency that came with using the Charlotte Mason Method, or maybe the act of learning to recognize the words, even if the words looked very different to her than they looked to other people.

This year, Abbey has read almost all of the Babysitter's Club series for pleasure. She is in the lead for our 52 books challenge, and even though she hasn't tried to read any for herself, she enjoys classic literature. I credit the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling for transforming my daughter's life.

This being a holiday weekend, and also my brother in law's wife's birthday weekend, we literally had an all day cookout. My hubs started off by grilling some chicken, and I made some really spicy and delicious deviled eggs. My brother in law's wife made stuffed jalapeno peppers, roasted chilis, roasted corn, and hot dogs wrapped in bacon. All of this fits nicely into my diet plan, so I was literally in hog heaven today. I don't mean to come across as a foodie, but family events haven't been much fun for me, considering that the majority of the meals being served consist of foods that could be deadly for me. Today was literally a feast day for me.

After dinner, we played Monopoly. My brother in law won. I haven't won a game of Monopoly in a long time, but it's still my favorite game.

It's unusual for me to post more than once per day, but after publishing "I Wanna Talk About Jesus", I looked down at Tarja's sweet, sleeping face, and a horrible day that we shared almost two years ago came back to visit my memory.

On a cold afternoon, Abbey brought Tarja from their bedroom. She was hanging from her arms like a rag doll. Her eyes were rolled back into her head, and she was making a strange gurgling sound. Abbey said, "Mom....she won't snap out of it." I took Tarja from her, sat her on my lap, and screamed for Melody to call 911. It appeared that she was not breathing. I thought that she was choking on something, and did a finger sweep in her mouth, but could find nothing. I shook her slightly, turned her over and pounded on her back to allow her to expel whatever was cutting off her breathing, but nothing was happening. She seemed to be fading fast. Melody called everybody that she could for help, and I held Tarja in my arms and cried, begging God to please not take my baby. Everything was in slow motion as we waited for the ambulance. By this time, we were all holding her and each other, and crying, pleading for her to stay. The neighbors across the street came running. By the time the ambulance arrived, I had completely lost all of my senses, and I don't remember a whole lot of what happened until she came to on the way to the hospital.

By the time the doctor examined her, Tarja was fully alert, and acted like nothing had ever happened. The doctor said, "Ma'am, your baby is fine, and will never know that this ever happened. YOU are the one that will have to recuperate." Believe it or not, I was still crying by the time we were discharged from the emergency room. It turns out that she had a febrile seizure that was caused because she had received vaccinations while she had an ear infection. It will take me a long time to forgive the clinic that gave those vaccinations, because I told them that she was sick and they told me that she wasn't sick enough to not receive her shots.

Thank you, Jesus, for blessing us with this princess when we didn't think that we could have any more children, and for keeping her safe and well. That day will be burned on our hearts forever, but you kept this baby in your hands loving hands.