A Pajama Mama

The painting and the painting and the painting. I spent part of our first week of summer break painting our porch french doors RED .. Whose idea was that??? It took FOUR coats of paint and four mornings of painting to FINALLY be finished. It took our idiotic kitty Punkin all of FOUR seconds of being shut on the porch to scratch a patch of said red paint from my beautiful door. Why must we have claws, again? ANYWAY, last week, The Boy and I dismantled the school room while one sister was at VBS and one sister was at Driver's Ed. We gave our "soft fern" green school walls a little fresh boost with "celery stick" green to better match the dining area. Then, I tackled the tired wooden desk and shelves in the room. The desk belonged to little boy Hero. It is wood except for the desktop...which is wood-looking laminate. This is why I held off painting the desk these last 20 years. Finally, I had had ENOUGH of the pitiful sad desk. I found an "expert" a...

Our Favorite Top Ten Things To Do  With Summertime Squash 1. Shred zucchini with a cheese grater and add to spaghetti sauce. 2. Zucchini Bread. A quick search on my favorite recipe website yielded 94 zucchini bread recipes . 3. Chop into chunks, dust with seasoned bread crumbs and saute in olive oil with onions, bell peppers, corn (or any other garden veggies you have), add chopped garden tomatoes when other veggies are just about done. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve with rice. 4. Chop into chunks, spread on a baking pan, drizzle with evoo, toss with salt and seasonings. We love Weber Grinder - roasted Garlic and Herbs. Roast in oven at 350 until tender. 5. Freeze for later use (all sorts of squash-freezing advice found online). 6. Slice and eat raw with ranch dressing,  hummus, or spinach dip . 7. Slice long ways, coat with meal, salt/pepper, and pan fry. 8. Slice long ways, drizzle with evoo, season to taste and grill alongside your chicken or steak!...

To my delight, we have had an abundant supply of yellow squash and zucchini. I've gotten quite creative with ways to cook the squash that appeals to the discriminating taste buds of our children. I was excited today to try my sweet friend's recipe for Zucchini Quiche. She is a veteran homeschool mom and has brought this quiche several times to our homeschool meals. It's so savory and delicious. You will love it! And...if you have a thing about quiche, you can call it something else. It's barely a quiche, anyway,  with only two eggs in it and all.... Cindy's Zucchini Quiche 1 pie crust 4 cups sliced zucchini 1 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup (one stick) butter ( 1/4 cup should be plenty.) 1/4 cup parsley (I used fresh, chopped) 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon basil 1/2 teaspoon oregano (I was all out, so made it without and it was still wonderful.) 2 eggs 2 cups shredded mozzarella or muenster cheese Saute onion a...

LucyBelle's First Day Home  I resisted. I was the hold out. But we told the kids that we would consider getting a little doggy when our two elderly outside kitties passed on. The kitties didn't make it through the spring...and the lobbying for a puppy began. Rayray had wanted a yorkiepoo for quite sometime and talked her siblings into it, too. We visited a kennel and saw several breeds....shih-poo, poodle, and this one little black yorkie-poo. I could see it in Rayray's eyes...we could hold all the little cute puppies we wanted to hold, but it was the little yorkiepoo that had stolen her heart. The kids voluntarily pooled their saved money to pay for half of Lucy's adoption fees. Two days later, LucyBelle came home with us. My sweet puppy! She is 3/4 yorkshire terrier and 1/3 poodle. She weighs 5 pounds, almost exactly. Rayray has taught her some tricks...sit, lay, roll over, dance. She LOVES playing ball with Hero. When she wants to play, she will worry us ...

"Mommy, for my 8th birthday, I want to get my hair cut." So, we went to see "Miss Ronda", who worked her hair-magic. She loved it...even though it's not as short as she wanted to go....but she still lost 6-8 inches. Birthday hair! Big Sissy, Rayray, took her turn with her "magic wand."  Yes, you can still have piggytails!

Or we might be just plain ol' rednecks. This is what was happening in our "room of learning" while I was cooking up a scrumptious dinner last night.  THIS contraption is what I found in our master bedroom after the scrumptious dinner.  A few years ago, we closed in the garage to make a lovely master bedroom but it gets the last trickle of cold air from the a/c unit AND is on the hottest, sunniest end of the house. Since Summer has decided to get an early start on the three-digit temps down here in the south of Georgia, we are working ovetime to keep the room cool.....three fans blowing, blinds and curtains closed, extra insulation in the attic, etc.  The Hero has a lightbulb moment....He did a little google research, spent less than ten dollars and mostly used things we had. He and The Boy together created the lovely, the beautiful, the "won't take up too much space", homemade air conditioner, pictured above.  Does it work? Well, as long as the...

Clutching my stomach and bent over double, I crouched in the hall at the plastic surgeon's office trying not to get sick or pass out. All I could hear was my just-turned 7 year old babygirl screaming in excruciating pain and my Hero's attempt to soothe her with his words. It's been a year today and I'm finally sharing the story. The morning of June 1, 2010, we were finishing up our last week of homeschooling before summer. I had walked into our bedroom to plug in my laptop. My babygirl came running into my room to tell me something funny the kitty had done. Then, it happened. She tripped over the rug in my room and fell, face first, onto the corner of the cedar chest. I didn't see the accident. I heard it. By the time I got to her, she was up, had her hand over her mouth and was stunned and panicky. It took me a split second glance at the injury to see that her mouth needed medical attention, immediately. After a quick call to our beloved pediatrician, we...