2011 Year Review

This has been an interesting year for us.  In many ways it's been better than the years in the past.  We managed to stay in one place for almost one full year.  That may not seem like much, but with all the moving we've done since leaving my ex, that's actually pretty good.  We're in a place that isn't perfect for us, but it will work.  We've learned to cook healthier, eat healthier, and shop more wisely, though we haven't been as good as we could be.  I've been building up a small list of recipes I know my family likes and home cooked meals made from scratch or from very few premade additives are becoming more common.  We're making progress.

On the homeschooling front, it may not seem like we did much this year in a lot of ways.  The year started off with a bang.  We did tons of arts and crafts, but as time went on we slowed down.  The summer was full of a lot of nothingness and idol time.  Thankfully, the fall picked up with the co-op.  We got to see just how smart the kids really were, and how good they are at what they can do.  Bunny Boo proved (finally) that she can read and is actually pretty good at it (when she's got the right motivation.  She's been reading Meet Marie-Grace from the American Girl collection.  She got the doll and book series from her grandmother for Christmas.  Link (as my older son has requested to be called on this blog) has shown that he's already learning some good reading skills and can already read a little bit here and there.  The littlest one is finally learning to talk and apparently has quite a bit to say.  They've all come a lot farther than I'd realized, and have grown so much too! Looking back at the past year, it's hard to think how much smaller they all were.

We didn't make a huge move towards sustainability this year, but we have been forced to make a few changes.  Given that we're without a car for the time being we've learned to do as much of our grocery shopping in bulk as possible.  As a result, we've cut back on grocery trips a good deal.  There's far fewer needs to run out for some last minute items forgotten.  Thanks to slippers for everyone under the tree this year and wonderful afghans sent by my aunt, we've also decided to keep the house cooler than usual this winter.  We're probably going to keep the house as warm as we can bear again this summer, since that worked out fairly well for us last summer.  We're looking for other ways to save on electricity too, but that's going to be hard with Chesh and his forgetfulness.  He has a bad habit of leaving the closet light on, as well as every single light in the kitchen.

Financially, we've made some progress on the debt-free thing without intending to.  Without having a car payment, we're going to be that much better off every month.  Living where we are now, rent is cheaper and water is included.  That means we're saving a good deal every month.  Unfortunately, Chesh is also out of work again, but I'll be employed as a nanny during the first half of the year.  That should buy him some time to find a new job and to keep pulling us that much farther out of debt.  The debt collectors from my past have finally tracked me down, so I've got all the contact with them I need in order to start working off my past debts.  This will put us in good standing when we finally decide to buy a home of our own.  I know the debts from my past can't technically hurt me any right now, unless I go for a line of credit somewhere, but it's better to have them all paid off and taken care of.  You never know when you might need your credit in good standing in the future, especially as many jobs do credit checks now.  I can't wait to have some of this consolidated and behind me.  Thankfully, moving to this place was our first step.

Overall it's been a wild ride of a year.  It's had it's ups and downs.  It's been interesting, that's for sure.  We've had to keep on our toes, but as a result, we've gotten a lot accomplished.  I can honestly say I hope the new year brings in better luck than this passing year, but I'm not too upset about the year we're leaving behind.  The challenges only helped us all grow.

Family Tradition of Christmas Presents...What Were We Thinking?

Over the past few years we'd kept the presents hidden away until Christmas Eve.  All of the presents would be put out at night, after the kids all went to bed.  Usually this was met with me cursing my own exhaustion as I wrapped all of the presents that had been unwrapped, which took me until well early in the morning.  We all know kids, waking up at the crack of dawn Christmas morning, so this usually meant for a very wiped out mama come time to open the presents.

For those of you who remember last year, our tree was pretty much over-run by presents.  Santa didn't bring terribly much, and Chesh and I didn't get much, but my Aunt and Uncle's incredible generosity combined with my Grama's gifts made the tree pale in comparison to the pile of gifts.  We decided then that we had to do things differently next year.

Now, I'll be honest, I never anticipate as much stuff as we end up getting.  This year we know Santa's planning to get more than he did last year.  We've talked to him about keeping the tradition of family activities.  Since he's not bringing them a big, expensive kitchen set this year, or anything just as fancy and expensive, we've talked him into bringing a couple small gifts from the whole family.  He's whispered rumors of bringing an additional gift for everyone in the family, even us adults, so we're going to have to plan for five extra gifts under the tree this year.  I hope they're not too big!  Space is at a premium under that tree!  Okay, so maybe not so much yet, but with our current set-up, big presents mean we're going to have to move some furniture to make room for it all, something we may just have to do anyway!

At the moment each of the kids have their presents from my mom under the tree.  My daughters gifts from Chesh and I are there.  My littlest has his gifts from Chesh and I.  My older son only has his gift from Chesh, but I got sick over the weekend, so I haven't gotten around to wrapping the last one.  We've got a stack of little gifts on the table under our small tree because that's where my littlest wanted his birthday presents to go.  For now, it's a suitable arrangement.

The older two are supposed to be getting presents from their dad, but I never know with him.  He makes a lot of promises, but he doesn't follow through on most of them.  Generally until I get confirmation on things I don't know for sure if they're done or not.  In other words, since he won't get me tracking numbers or anything, I won't know until they get here.  Thankfully, this year I'm being smart and not saying a word to the kids until we've got presents in hand.  I had seriously considered buying "back up gifts" to give to them "from their father", but it's not in the budget and I really don't think it's right for me to lie to my kids like that.  Either their father will make sure it happens...or he won't...  It's got me stressed out both in the "under the tree real estate" department (since I know the gifts he was wanting to send aren't exactly small) and because it's hard to be dancing around, knowing that you might be getting something, but not knowing whether to worry if nothing shows.

Thankfully, on the more reliable side, I know my aunts presents are due here this week.  I'm excited to see how we're going to fit all that under the tree.  One thing I've learned about my aunt is whether the quantity of gifts is great or small, there's always interesting shapes to work with.  She's not one of those people who believes a present in an unconventional shape should go in a box.  She wraps it just the way it is, which only makes the holiday so much better as the kids stare down their presents, wondering what each package could be.  The more creative shapes always end up with more creative answers.  Of course, these can also be harder to stack under the tree.  I'm kind of excited to see what we'll be working with this time around.

Of course, having all the presents under the tree ahead of time does make things more challenging.  It's great because the kids have that much longer to wonder what each present is before Christmas finally comes.  However, that comes with the cost of keeping the kids out of the presents!  My older son has already said ten times he wants to open his presents right now!  My daughter is happy to wait and look at them for hours, but she has to ask me a million questions about each present.  My littlest is content to rearrange the presents, which isn't so bad, I guess.  I love having the presents out where everyone can see, but I'm not sure if this is going to be the brightest of ideas for next year.  I may just have to go back to putting all the wrapped presents up in my closet until Christmas eve and then spend all that time putting them all out, which hopefully won't be so long given I'm trying to get in the habit of wrapping in advance!

Rebuilding Bridges with my Mother

It's been years since my mom and I talked with any kind of regularity.  She and I have grown apart over the years.  For a while I thought having a child might bring us closer together, and I guess it kind of did, but then I moved halfway across the country and it seemed like the distance between us was just as physical as it was anything else.  It was like a shocking reality of just how far apart we'd grown.

I think it was a couple of years ago that I really got upset about this and wrote in an old live journal about how I'd blamed my mom for the distance, but I think it was both of us, really.  I used to say that she just gave up because I was no longer nearby, convenient, and making all the effort.  Maybe that really was part of it.  I'm sure it probably was, but at the same time, I was going through a lot and wanted to blame everyone for my problems but me.  I didn't want to admit that I could have made a bigger effort with my family too.

For the past nearly five years I've been in Texas.  This is our fourth Christmas living in Texas and our third one actually staying in state.  I didn't think this year would be any different.  My aunt would send us a ton of cool stuff for the kids.  My grandmother would send some stuff too.  Maybe the older two would get something from their dad, but I'd never know for sure until it arrived on my doorstep.  I'd do what I could for the kids, but I never planned to get anything crazy, wild, or fancy.  That would pretty much be it.  Sander's birthday would be filled with loving gifts from my aunt and my grandmother, as well as some gifts from Chesh and I, but we wouldn't be able to do much.  That's pretty much how it goes every year.  Our gingerbread party usually only has a couple people ending in a pretty small gathering which has been really nice.  It's a small, quiet holiday.

This year I was a little surprised to see an e-mail in my inbox from my mother asking me what the kids wanted for Christmas.  She said she'd really like to get something specific for Bunny Boo, but she wanted to make sure the boys weren't left out.  She wanted to know what kinds of things they liked so she could shop for them.  She had some ideas of her own, of course, and let me tell you, after seeing all the boxes come in from my mom, I was completely shocked!  There was a lot of stuff there.

Now, let me tell you a thing or two about my mom.  Boy can that woman shop!  It's not so much that she likes to buy stuff, but the things she likes to buy.  My mom always picks out the best toys, and I think it's because she put so much time and consideration into the things she bought for my sister and I when we were younger.  She just seems to have a knack for picking out wonderful toys.  I've noticed cost doesn't seem to be much of a concern for my mother.  It's not so much that the sky's the limit for spending.  It's more that she'd rather focus on quality over cost.

For years I wondered how she managed.  We were never a family that had much money, so it was always a shock to see the piles of presents under the tree.  I suppose she had it easier, in a way, only having two children instead of three like my family has, or five like some of the families I know.  Even so, I always thought it was a Christmas miracle.  I couldn't imagine she would be able to hide all of that stuff without my sister and I noticing, not in the small apartment we lived in.  The whole idea just seemed impossible.

As I contacted my mom to let her know of each delivery and arrival, my mom and I would talk with every message.  She told me how she'd find the toys when they were on sale and hide them away no matter what time of year it was.  Then when it got close to Christmas time she only had the fun stuff to worry about.  She saved a lot of money and broke up the cost throughout the year, so the burden of Christmas shopping was much less of a problem.  Sure, she spent a lot of money on Christmas, but breaking it up throughout the year was what made it possible, and finding good sales only helped.

We've talked about a lot more than just Christmas shopping.  My mom said she hoped that we'd make cookies this year, since she loved doing it so much when we were kids.  I remember making cookies with my mom every year.  I haven't told her this yet, but we have a pancake breakfast every year to try and keep the family tradition.  It's not quite the same as what my mom used to do.  She'd go all out with eggs, bacon, sausage, and waffles.  We don't do the bacon because of the pork and turkey bacon just isn't the same.  Sausage sometimes ends up on the menu because there are so many varieties other than pork.  Eggs are a must on Christmas morning, even if I can't eat them anymore.  We top it all off with pancakes as a poor substitute for waffles.  The absence of a waffle iron makes a waffle breakfast difficult.  Some day we'll have a waffle iron and be able to keep to the tradition.  For several years we'd make fudge every year, just like my mom always did, but it's hard to get motivated without the right ingredients.  I'd meant to order some Marshmallow Fluff, but it was forgotten on the list of Christmas shopping and it's so much more expensive to order online.  The alternatives down here just aren't the same.  It's just one more thing that makes me think of my mom.

As we got to talking, she and I touched upon the idea of image.  It's hard when your friends all have their own houses and have husbands with decent jobs.  It seems like in the homeschool community there's a lot of people with money.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit we're a poor family.  It's not easy to tell people we're on WIC and food stamps when they own their own house and have two nice cars.  It's not easy to explain that we just can't afford to fly home for Christmas when they talk about taking all these trips and about their adventures in foreign countries.  I'm intimidated to have these families over to the little trailer we call home.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with our place, but it's not easy to have people look down on you, and it's hard to accept that not everyone will.

Talking with my mom reminded me of something.  She said that one of the kids we knew said we could have a nicer place if she bought us less toys.  Well, I suppose if she spent less money on my sister and I we could have had a nicer place, that's true.  How much nicer of a place is questionable, but nicer.  We would have had a less cluttered house too.  However, looking back at my childhood I don't see an apartment that must have been pretty run down by all the splinters I remember.  I see moments.  I think of my sister and I coming in from playing in the snow while my dad shoveled the stairs and the driveway, stuffing our boots and gloves on and under the radiator, and being met with fresh popcorn and hot chocolate.  I remember my dad making snow animals at the end of the stairs, and saying the neighbor complained because it made the snow harder to shovel.  I remember making cookies with my mom and from what I remember, it seemed like we did it a lot.  I remember dressing up in my school uniform and having french toast for breakfast because my mom always made us breakfast before school.  I remember learning how to use the old rotary phone.  I remember all our girl scout projects and trips.  I remember swimming with my dad at the local reservoir, and my mom taking us there almost every day in the summer and sitting there for hours, working on embroidery, while my sister and I played.  I always loved watching her with her cross stitch.  Every time we'd come back to take a peek there was something new to discover.  We'd run around like crazy kids in he forsythia bushes in our tiny front yard, pretending they were wild rabbit dens and all sorts of crazy thing.  I also remember helping my mom with our tiny garden that always seemed to grow so perfect, no matter what was going on.

I guess what I'm saying is it shouldn't matter how much money a family has, but how happy they are.  Looking back at my life, sure, I would have loved my own room or a big back yard, but not if it replaced the moments in my life.  Because of the way we were raised, my sister and I were very creative and inventive.  We were always making up our own crazy adventures.  We even decided that our American Girl dolls had a time machine and could travel to visit each other because it didn't make sense that kids from two time periods would play together.  They would have to dress up in each other's clothes and come up with some crazy story about why they were visiting.  Their families knew, of course!  How could you not know you owned a time machine?  But the contemporaries at the time couldn't know about it.  We were raised to be respectful too, and to honor the people around us.  I know at times we've shown the standard lack of respect of kids our generation, but I remember always trying to be as polite and courteous as possible.

The sacrifices my family made in lifestyle were certainly made up for on other fronts.  My sister and I learned to truly enjoy life.  I can imagine it would have been much different if my mother put all her efforts into making sure we had the nicest apartment we could afford.  I'd like to think my kids are going to go through much the same sort of thing.

There are also so many people I doubt I would have looked at twice had I been used to "higher standards". Because of the way I was raised, I realized that I wasn't like my friends with more money in many ways, but at the same rate, I was no different.  I didn't think in terms of class or money.  If I did, I surely would have passed up Chesh, who says his family is trailer trash, but that's what he came from.  He doesn't focus on having all the luxuries we may want, but he lives to see the kids brighten up and smile.  Much like my mom, he seems to take delight in seeing the kids light up when they get the perfect gift, or when they find out he's been planning a surprise for them.  He believes they should live for the moments, which is why we've gone on field trips and to events that we probably shouldn't have spent the money on.  He'd rather be poor as a pauper and in debt up to his eyeballs than deny the kids a wonderful experience they're going to remember straight into adulthood.  That really sounds like my mom, but if I'd been raised like a lot of the people I once knew, I can't help but think I'd look down on him because he grew up in a trailer park, no matter how nice he cleans up.  His bad habit of being poor because he'd rather provide a good time his family will remember now than save money for later would be highly frowned upon.  In many ways, he's just different.  I think in many ways my mom is too.

It's taken years to open up the lines of communication between us and I really hope it doesn't stop once Christmas has passed.  I know it's all too easy to get lax in communication when the holidays pass or there isn't some event to encourage talking.  I don't want to see things go that way again.

This year has been strange.  There's been a lot of good coming out of unexpected places.  There's a lot of battered and broken bridges that are finally being repaired.  It just seems like my life is being rebuilt.  It gives me a lot of hope for the new year.  It gives me hope that even with all the hard times my kids have seen, we'll make it through okay.  Some day they'll grow up and realize I did the best I could, and in reality, it really wasn't all that bad.

They Joys of a Local Meat Market

Just the other day a friend of mine finally dragged me to the local meat market.  She insisted that the meat packets you could buy there were far less expensive than buying the meat at the local grocery store.  The cuts of meat would be better and local meat markets are known for having meat from local suppliers.  That appealed to my desire to buy local in the first place.

For various reasons, getting down to the meat market just didn't work out.  We kept meaning to go, but all the good intentions in the world got us nowhere.  It's nice to mean to do something, but until you actually do it, it's just out there in space.  Strange how living closer actually meant doing less of what we said we were going to do.  I guess things were just meant to work out that way.

Finally arriving at the meat market I was overwhelmed by their selection.  I'd never bought my meat at a meat market before so the idea was kind of shocking to me.  There were lists and lists of meat packages offered and a whole window full of meat available to order.  There were so many possible selections it was dizzying!

Looking over the lists I saw one problem right away.  Every single option on the list included a good share of pork.  I can understand this as pork is cheap.  Putting a lot of cheap meat in the package deals means allowing for a larger quantity at a lower cost.  Let's face it, beef is expensive, and the only chicken they really seem to do there is quarters and whole, so that doesn't leave a lot of options.  Many Americans I know have a very pork-heavy diet.  Ham, sausage, and hot dogs make up a large component of many families' diets that I know of.  Bacon and pork chops are also pretty popular.

Now, I know there are a lot of reasons not to eat pork out there.  For me it all just started because I didn't like it all that much.  As I got older and started studying medieval history more I decided I didn't want to eat an animal that had been used by so many cultures as a garbage disposal.  When my littlest was born he made all sorts of little grunting pig sounds instead of crying, so I kept calling him my little piggy.  This, of course, made it that much harder to eat pork.  We've done a lot of work with the Native American concept of totem animals in this house.  We discovered my daughter has rabbit on her totem, so no rabbit stew for us!  I wasn't surprised because she used to kick like a rabbit before she was born and when she was very small.  She had some serious leg strength!  My younger son has some kind of cat, though I forget which.  I believe it was a lynx, but I might be wrong.  I never put much thought into it because we don't exactly eat cat in this house.  My littlest was determined to be boar, so that's a close relative to pig.  In Native American tradition it is considered in poor taste to eat your totem animal, so we've planned our diet accordingly.  Chesh breaks the rules on pork a good deal because he loves it, and we're not terribly strict, but we try to keep the pork down so the little one won't eat it, at least not until he's old enough to make that decision on his own.  For all we know he may grow up to decide he doesn't really care about the whole totem idea, or maybe he thinks it's not disrespectful to eat his totem animal.  No matter how you look at it, we have a long list of reasons for keeping the pork in this house pretty minimal.  Of course the older kids do like to have ham sandwiches now and again!

So, going to the meat market meant some careful figuring out so we wouldn't end up with pork that wouldn't be eaten.  We're considering our options for the future, both in splitting our arrangement with another family so we can trade for things we'll actually use or buying our meat by the item versus by the pack.

Going to the meat market actually saved us a good deal of money, in some ways.  The truth is we spent the same amount as we normally would on meat every month.  The difference is we got a whole lot more meat, and we got a better selection for each of the meats we've gotten.  It's nice to know we've got a local place to pick up good quality beef, save ourselves some money, and buy locally.  There's nothing like stretching our food budget even farther!

I think the best part of shopping at a meat market is having the ability to get what I want and not rely on what I've got the availability to get.  I don't have to worry about a store's selection.  I can go in and tell them exactly what I want.  If I feel like cooking a roast, I know I'll have several options instead of the three or four cuts of meat of one or two varieties.  Often times that ends with more meat than we can use, or not enough to feed the family.  True, chicken doesn't come with many choices, but we don't tend to eat a lot of chicken.  We tend to be more of a turkey family when it comes to poultry.  It's nice to go in with my shopping list and tell them what kinds of meat I need for my weekly or monthly shopping instead of having to look and hope they have something that works with what I want to make, or to plan my bigger roasts and things on the fly based on what they have available.

I have a feeling this local meat market is really going to do well for us.  I'm glad we've got one available.  Now I just need to start planning to take advantage of that!

Energy Saver: Plastic Window Insulation

Our current home is drafty.  From what I've heard, most trailers are.  We don't have a central heater or anything, so we're kind of reliant on electric heaters.  From what we've seen, everyone pretty much is.  I suppose in some ways we're doing better for the environment because our energy provider uses 100% green energy, but we'd still like to conserve a bit more.  There's no point in taking up resources we don't need, even if it is green energy.

To combat the draft, I remembered my aunt using some plastic window insulation stuff on her windows.  I don't know if she still bothers with it now since she owns her own home and may have some pretty decent windows, but I'd still remembered it.  When our houses here in Texas have been so incredibly drafty I'd often thought about looking it up, but I never did.  It never got cold enough to make a difference in the house, so I figured a bit of a cool draft wouldn't hurt anyone.

Things changed when we moved into this little trailer.  We originally ordered two heaters for our house. Our Lasko heater was just fine. It really cooks even the largest room in our house. The Lasko Stanley wasn't as helpful. It arrived with a broken fan so we had to replace it (which wonderfully came pretty quick!)  Thankfully that one cooks too, so we've got the advantage of keeping warm.  Unfortunately, the drafts can make things challenging.  The heaters have been constantly running since we got them to keep the place a tolerable temperature.  In hopes of saving electricity, we decided to look into that plastic stuff.

We decided on the Duck Brand Window Insulation Kit.  It was inexpensive and functional.  I was a little worried about using such a thin plastic with kids in the house, but I thought it would be worth a shot.  We ordered enough kits to deal with all our windows and hoped for the best.

When the kits arrived we went to work.  We started in the kid's room.  The double sided tape was a great idea, but we worried since there was supposed to be an inch left on each edge around the perimeter of the window.  However, the stuff was great.  Just insulating one window made a huge difference.  Given there are four windows in the kids' room, we could only imagine how great it would be when we got them all done!  We decided to put tape down on the outside edge of the windows as well.  The plastic was getting pulled up by the kids as we expected, so it wasn't going to be much help.  We also found that the littlest one likes to puncture it with pens, pencils, his fingers.  One of them pretty quickly got a pretty decent sized rip.  It's obviously not an ideal solution with kids and something sturdier would probably have been a better option, but they were inexpensive, so it's not like we wasted a lot of money.  That and repairing the one spot that needs repair isn't going to be that big of a deal.  There was some extra plastic from the edge so we're figuring we'll fashion a patch and that will be good enough.  They look pretty clear, so it's almost as though there's nothing over the window at all, or would look that way if we weren't going to need to patch the one.  I think this would be great for anyone who wants a subtle window insulation that's pretty clear.  Once you hit it with the hair dryer to "shrink wrap" it, it looks pretty sharp!

Next year we might start looking into more expensive solutions, like thermal curtains.  We'll have to save up for them since they are so expensive, but they keep in cool air in the summer and warm air in the winter, so they're a year-round benefit.  They should save us enough money to be worth it, and there's nothing like curtains to make a place feel more like home!  Combine that with these simple window kits and we should be able to minimize the use of our little electric heaters!  Now all we need is a place we can throw some solar panels up on the roof and we'll have incredible efficiency!  Of course, that's not really an option until we own our own place.

Simple things, like sweaters, warm blankets, slippers, and insulation can make a huge difference in energy usage through the winter months.  Common problems such as drafts aren't such a big deal when you've got an option to dress a little warmer.  Slippers keep feet from feeling the effects of drafts and from cold tile and wood floors.  Blankets can be pulled over a lap while sitting in front of the television or working with a project.  Sweaters can always be thrown on if there's a chill in the house.  As much as I prefer the ability to have my house so warm I can sit around in a short sleeved shirt and barefoot all winter, it's not practical unless you have the luxury of sitting by a fire all winter long or don't mind spending a fortune to heat your home.  It's better to dress like it's winter outside!

It may not seem like much to keep temperatures low in the winter, better insulate the house, and dress a little warmer, but these little things can make a huge impact on your energy bill.  Just remember, the more you have to work to heat your house, the more energy you expend.  This is both costly for your wallet, and the environment (unless you use 100% green energy like we're privileged to do...)

What I Would Want for Christmas...

I've been doing a lot of Christmas shopping for the kids, as I'm sure just about everyone has been this time of year.  While I won't divulge the secret of what I'm getting for my kids, I've found a lot of things after the fact that I wish I could have gotten for the kids!  This year it would be so easy to go over budget.

Looking through all this stuff, I've kind of been on an educational kick.  My kids are homeschooled, so pretty much all of their education comes from opportunities I give them.  As a result, Christmas isn't just a time for toys, it's a time for potential learning as well.  This year I don't feel like I was really prepared for that commitment.  I don't think I even began to knew what I was getting myself into.  Sure, you see science kits out at the craft store and in big box stores.  If you search Amazon there's tons of science, math, and reading activities.  Unfortunately, if you don't know what you're looking for, you'll probably miss some of the cool things that are out there and available!  I've decided to go through some of this stuff and pick out some of the things I would have wanted if I were a kid, maybe things I can share with my own kids in the future.

The first that made me jump up and down and squeal like a little girl in a movie over getting exactly what she wanted for Christmas, was something that looked like the Scorbot I used when I was in high school.  This was a robotic arm robot that would be controlled and programmed.  The OWI Robotic Arm is a project that you construct, then use a controller to maneuver the machine. There's an optional USB interface to allow the operator to program a list of commands on the computer for the robot to execute, similar to what I'm used to using.  Even though I'm an adult, I think I'd still have fun with it!

The next item I found reminded me of another project I did in high school.  It's a Forensic Science Detective's Toolkit.  It teaches how to do everything from finding and handling evidence to writing out the crime scene report with sketches and everything!  They test for counterfeit currency, search for fingerprints and footprints, analyze hair and soil samples, from what I've seen, it's got everything real detectives would want at a crime scene for a theft or breaking and entering.  When I was in high school we had to determine who committed a certain crime in our biotech class by analyzing hair samples found on the crime scene and some other information, so this seems to fit right in with what we did then.  We even went on a field trip to a forensic lab where I decided I wanted to work in ballistics.  Of course, I never did get there, but it definitely would be a fun kit for a mystery lover!

Then there's a whole bunch of obvious math and science books that I would love to have had when I was younger.  For example, there's a whole series of Analogy Crossword Puzzles that I think are just great. There's a series of books based on math and puzzles and things. The series has Addition Adventures, Subtraction Secrets, Multiplication Mosaics, More Multiplication Mosaics, Division Designs, Decimal Destinations, Fraction Finders, and Algebra Antics. I love stuff like Code Breakers too! Then there's the Perplexors puzzles that look pretty cool. I know it really makes me a geek that I'm all about stuff like this, but I love it!  What can I say?  I love math and word games!

Those are just my top picks.  I'm sure I could go on for months and months with all the cool stuff I keep finding, thanks to doing my Christmas shopping online and getting all kinds of fantastic catalogs, I'm starting to realize how many untapped sources of really cool stuff there are out there!  If you know what you're looking for, it's amazing what you can find!

So I guess what I'm saying is if you've got to be a consumer this holiday season, maybe there are some cool things you can pick up that will stimulate the mind, not just fill your house with stuff.  True, we're homeschoolers so it's kind of our job to fill the house with really awesome math, science, reading, writing, and literature things, but that's no reason every family can't have some really cool stuff too!  There's some really cool stuff out there that can truly expand the mind and educate!  Believe it or not, most kids actually love that stuff!

Favorite Christmas Specials

Christmas specials are a part of the holiday season for most people.  Those with cable or satellite often catch them on regular broadcast.  Some have extensive collections of holiday specials.  In our home, we don't have any of that.  My ex really wasn't a fan of Christmas in any way, shape, or form and didn't even want me decorating.  As time went on, things changed.  I've become more and more in tune with Christmas with each passing year.  That means picking out my favorite Christmas specials, even if I can't get my hands on all of them right away.

When I was growing up there were a lot of diverse specials.  Some were religious, others weren't.  Some were live action.  There were animated ones and ones with puppets.  Many of them you won't see today.  There are a million Christmas specials out there for every channel imaginable, and a huge number of "made for TV" movies.  A lot of the older classics with their poorer production quality have become forgotten or replaced with something a little more modernized.

For me, the most memorable Christmas special of all time was a recording off the television that my mom had made years ago.  For the longest time no one I knew had ever seemed to have seen it.  I remember watching it several times a year because we thought it was so funny.  The move I'm talking about is A Muppet Family Christmas.  There's nothing like combining the many directions of Jim Henson's work.  The Muppets show up, of course, and they Fozzy's mom's house, which Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock are renting out for the holidays.  Then the monsters and animals of Sesame Street drop by as carolers.  Even the Fraggles make an appearance.  It's been my all-time favorite story for years.

Of course, I'll never forget the year my uncle and aunts took my sister and me to see The Muppet Christmas Carol.  I didn't expect it to be much.  I'd seen a whole bunch of other versions and as much as I was excited to see this one, I already knew the story.  How much new and different could you do with it?  However, this quickly became my favorite version for it's sense of humor and creativity.  On top of that, it has Bean from The Tale of the Bunny Picnic , which was also a childhood favorite of mine.  This has become a family classic, something we can't wait to watch every year.

There's also another unknown Muppet classic that I adore every Christmas, but haven't seen in years.  It's not your typical Muppet movie, with all your favorite cast and crew.  It only features Kermit for a few minutes in the beginning, and again at the end, but my sister and I used to watch this movie as many times as we could each year, until we drove my mother nuts, I'm sure!  Our absolute all time favorite as kids was Jim Henson's The Christmas Toy.  There's nothing to inspire a child like a story where their toys come to life and they learn about love, friendship, and the holiday spirit.


Another movie I loved and was starting to think I made up entirely can be found in the two disk double feature (conveniently two more of my favorite movies),The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and Nestor the Christmas Donkey.  The first is a story about the counsel of immortals deciding whether or not to grant Claus, who grew up in the valley of the immortals and was later sent to face life in the mortal world, immortality for his good deeds.  It's a little sad as Claus will die that night if they don't grant him immortality.  The counsel of immortals was always a little scary to me when I was a child because they're a strange looking lot, especially the creepy wind guy.  The Great Ak, the head of the counsel and the one who brings Claus out into the world is a great old wizard like guy with two giant antlers on his head.  Looking back now the Pagan imagery is just fantastic!  On top of that, the story of how Claus got his start is pretty fantastic too.  He made the first ever toy for an orphan that liked his little cat so much.  The trend caught on, so he began to make and deliver toys to everyone.  Originally it was a lioness (probably a mountain lion?) the one that raised him, that pulled the cart for him to deliver his toys, and he actually had an adversary, trolls, that didn't want him delivering the toys because they believed in living off the villager's fear.  I didn't realize it until I was older, but the Norse mythological imagery included in this film is absolutely fantastic!  It's a refreshing break from the typical view of Santa Claus.

Pairing that with a very Christian film may seem like an odd combination to me, but Nestor was always one of my favorites come Christmas time.  He was a cute little donkey with long ears that tripped him up all the time.  His mother died to save his life, and a little cherub came down from the heavens to guide him where he needed to go.  As it turns out, Nestor, with his long and clumsy ears, was the perfect donkey to carry Mary to Bethlehem.  He wrapped her up in his long ears to protect her from the wind and desert sands.  He's always been one of my favorite Christmas characters, in part because a creature that's so flawed actually finds that his biggest flaw turns out to be the perfect trait that would allow him to do something so incredibly important.  He was chosen above all the other normal donkeys because he was different and special.  On top of that, it's incredibly sweet that it all starts out with a little nativity set up inside Santa's stable.  It was a wonderful link between the standard holiday classics and this wonderful story.

Of course, there are tons of holiday specials out there.  I'm sure there's so many at this point that you could watch ten of them every day from the first day of December until Christmas and still never repeat a viewing! Even so, some classics will always hold a place in my heart.  Over they years I'm going to start collecting all my favorites.  I can't wait to share them with my kids.  It'll be so nice when we can have our own Christmas Movie Night with friends and family like my aunt does back home.  It's just one more way we can bring a little piece of my family holidays and traditions down here to Texas.

Theme for the Year, Useful Gifts

It's that Christmas time of year again.  Everyone is out shopping.  In our family we don't really do much of a gift exchange with the adults.  I usually exchange gifts with my partner, but that's about it.  However, kids are a very different story.

This year we've decided to go for a break from traditional.  I was originally going to hand-make all of my gifts this year, but that ambitious goal turned out to be too ambitious for me.  I figured that would cut down on consumerism, but the truth is I'll still end up buying things to make the present.  It's not like I have a sheep to sheer, then wash the fleece, card it, spin it, knit with the yarn, and some time in the process, dye it with home-made dyes that I grow at my own home.  The consumer process does happen in there, and while home-made gifts are typically the best, I honestly think there should be a some value placed on time.  Right now, it's something I just don't have enough of.

That being said, I wanted our Christmas present theme to be useful items.  Now, I know I'm going to be expecting some toys for family.  No matter what you say, nor how much you beg people not to, there are always going to be people who insist on giving toys to kids.  I've decided I'm not going to fight it.  More importantly, it's good for kids to receive toys for holidays and birthdays.  How else will they end up with new toys as they outgrow the old?

Every year my aunt has always been fantastic with flooding our house with useful things.  She sends us crayons, markers, and pencils.  There's been drawing paper, workbooks, and coloring books.  There's been crafts to decorate with and lots of other stuff to inspire creativity.  She sends books, which are always good to have.  There's so much variety, but I noticed that most of it has been useful, at least for the older two, even with a good number of toys sprinkled throughout.

Because of my aunt's inspiration and looking at my children's insane number of toys, I decided this year it's time for something different.  Last year Santa was a huge hit for bringing games to the whole family.  This year he's planning the same.  They encourage family time, togetherness, and fun.  However, this year our family is focusing on things that can inspire outside interests, and we're going to carry that through birthdays and everything.  It means knowing a lot more about my kids than what a kid of their gender and age would like.  However, it's totally worth it.  This is what makes gifts that wow.

Taking my daughter as an example, we can see what appeals to her quite easily.  Archery would be a good direction to choose.  She loves it.  She's been begging me for her own bow and arrows ever since she shot her first arrow.  She's all about art, always wanting to draw, paint, color, or otherwise create masterpieces.  I want to pick something that will appeal to those interests of hers.

My older son is really into art and music.  He likes to sing and make music on anything he can make noise on.  He loves to draw and paint too.  I want to encourage him in those fields because he needs to have interest in something other than toys.  He's got to start developing his own tastes.  He also loves science, but finding science stuff for his age isn't something I'm particularly good at.

The littlest one is really only into making messes right now, so it's hard to pick things he'd like.  He's good with coloring and seems to like the idea of painting.  Anything he can squish in his fingers is also good, so soft clays may not be a bad choice either.

I'm starting to realize that my kids have very limited interests.  They haven't experienced life as much as I might wish.  They don't really have much of an idea of what they might like to be when they grow up because they haven't experienced enough to know.  My daughter wants to be an artist and my older son wants to be a rock star, but how do they know for sure?  They haven't really had a chance to dabble in other areas of life.  Maybe my older son will always want to be a rock star, or a musician of some kind.  Maybe my daughter will always want to be an artist, but at least I hope I can open up some other options for them so they know for sure.  More importantly, if they do decide to keep those career choices, at the least maybe they'll know what direction within those careers.  Maybe my daughter will decide she wants to be a painter, an illustrator, or a potter.  Perhaps my son will want to grow up to be a classical guitarist or a musician with the orchestra.  We won't know until they get there.  All I can do is take this time to give them as many opportunities to explore as possible, and Christmas is just as good of a chance as anything else.

I feel pretty good about this Christmas.  I feel like I'm finally doing something better than just getting toys and leaving it at that.  I'm hoping that they find it as wonderful of a Christmas as I'm planning it to be.  After all, if I can't get away from consumerism, I might as well use the holiday season as a time to help my kids advance their own goals or find new areas of exploration in life.  There are plenty of people to make sure they have toys.  I know them better than anyone else, so it really should be my job to pick out the things that will inspire them this year.

Taking the Back Seat

It's that time of year again, Christmas.  It's the season of consumerism and the competition to get the best gifts every year.  I'm not that kind of person.  My children are what's important this holiday season.  There's something about seeing their smiles on Christmas day that makes it worth it to make sacrifices, even when I feel like maybe I should just step up and be the one to take credit for what I do.

For the past three years I've tried to make sure my older two get something incredibly awesome from their dad.  Often times it's meant a good deal of hurting on my part.  These were things I'd intended on getting for my own kids.  I wanted to be the ones to light up their faces the way they do.  Sometimes it kind of hurts to know that, while it was my brilliant idea, I can't take any of the credit.  I have to stand in the background and let someone else stand in the spotlight, someone who wouldn't have even come up with such a brilliant idea if I'd never brought it up.

Of course, isn't that kind of what Christmas is about?  It's about seeing the joy on the faces of the people you love.  In this case, it's knowing my kids are happy, not about my own personal pride at being the one to make them happy.  I know in my heart it's my doing that made them happy and that should matter far more than my kids knowing I was the one behind all of it.  Isn't that kind of the idea of Santa too?  It's not so important that someone knows you were the one to do something for them.  That's all a matter of pride.  It's the joy that's important, so not taking credit for something my kids get from "Santa" is worth it.

In a way, I'm also trying to do something good for the kids' father as well.  True, he's getting the credit for my brilliant idea and all he has to do is physically get the stuff with his own money, but it means something to the kids.  With how frustrated they've been at the absence of their father in their life, it makes them feel good and cared about to have their dad get them something so incredibly special.  It helps their feeling of connection with their father, even if it's not the same as if he'd made the effort himself.

I know I could be like so many other moms out there.  I could tell their father if he really cared about what the kids were into or what they wanted, he should talk to them about it.  I could just give him a vague overview.  I could just tell him something simple and vague, or to buy them things they need, like clothes.  I know a lot of moms that expect their ex to figure it out on their own or take the time with the kids to figure it out, but I don't really want to do that.  I know exactly what the gift of the year would be for my kids, and I know a part of what makes those gifts so special is who they got it from.  I don't want them to be disappointed by their father.  They've got enough disappointment in their lives.

Even so, it's really hard.  I feel like I'm shielding my kids from the harsh reality of what's going on in their relationship with their father.  I'm sure at some point they'll both realize that their dad relies on me to tell him what they're into and what to get.  I don't know if they'll appreciate it more or think less of me for letting him take all the credit.  I guess the truth of the matter is I want them to feel like they matter, even if that means letting their dad give them the things I know in my heart will truly make them happy.