Gaudo-Gaudo

Here is the new recipe I tried tonight. It's really just a peanut sauce served over rice and veges. We liked it very much. My friend used to make it for me when we were in college together in TN. She went as a student missionary to Taiwan for a year before I met her, and she learned all kinds of tasty foreign dishes. I think this one might come from Micronesia. (It's pronounced like "god-oo" I think. I hope you like it!

Please feel free to half this sauce recipe. It makes quite a bit.

1 large onion, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, pressed
2 to 3 C water
1 can coconut milk
1/4 C hot sauce "Louisiana" brand or similar (I used half that for the kids)
1/2 C soy sauce
1/2 C brown sugar
3 - 4 Tbsp. lemon jc.
2 C peanut butter (use less brown sugar if using sweetened PB like Jif, Peter Pan, etc.)

Cook the onion and garlic in the water until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until warmed.

Serve over cooked rice and steamed potato and carrot chunks (we like baby carrots).

Asian Noodle Salad

Well, so far, so good. I've made 4 new recipes in 4 days. I hope I can keep it up, just maybe not at such a tedious pace.

Here's the recipe (site link) to the salad I made tonight. I appreciate my blogging buddy posting it on her blog the other day. Thanks, SK. I will give you a couple cautions about this recipe though. It makes a huge salad. You are forewarned. Also, I used about 1/2 the hot pepper she calls for. Aren't serano hotter than jalapeno? I used 1/2 a jalapeno. I didn't find it too spicy, though it might have been if I'd used more. I thought it was delicious. The kids ate it, although it is not their favorite. I think it's good to stretch their comfort zone a little bit, even if they are good eaters for kids. I think variety is the spice of life. Hubby on the other hand, is always in a food rut, but he doesn't mind one bit.

First Venture into Thai Food

I tried my friend Tif's recipe for Pad Thai tonight. I had to adjust it a bit to fit our vegetarian needs. (I used some vege broth for the fish sauce, and omitted the shrimp. I was also lacking bean sprouts, so I used some of the fresh bok choy, thinly sliced, that I had left from last night's Chinese.) I did use the peanut butter, and it was pretty good! I would even say very good. At first the kids liked it, but then after they ate it a while, they changed their minds. I may try again in a couple weeks with this recipe that I found on a GFCF recipe group that I visit often. It is quite different than the recipe I followed today.

If any of you non-local readers want my friend's recipe, email me privately and I will get it for you. (You know who you are: all the lurkers I write to all the time! I mean, all my old friends and family that don't comment.)

And it looks like I'll have plenty of time to try a few more recipes in the next couple weeks. I had to take my sewing machine in for a check-up. I may not get it back for a couple weeks. :-( Just when I was getting going really good, too.

Lame Brain & NJ Quirks

I am a bona fide lame brain. I lost my cell phone somewhere in NJ. I have been calling around to every restaurant, shop, and motel we visited there on our last day or so. Nobody has seen it. It's no where to be found. I hate to spend money needlessly. Spending money on a new cell phone just because I lost my other one is pretty high up there on the wasteful list. It really upsets me.

On a much lighter note, here are some quirks about New Jersey that caught our attention. It's definitely a unique state. First, NJ does not appreciate left-hand turns when you're driving. They minimize them as much as possible. When driving down a road you may notice that there is a very long, defined median down the whole road. This median breaks only for another street that intersects perpendicularly. You are not allowed to turn left at those intersections, and you most certainly cannot perform U-turns. There are many signs along the road that direct you to "Make all turns from right lane". There are designated U-turn/L-turn areas before each major road. These places allow you to cross at a stop-light so you can get going in the opposite direction you were traveling prior to your U-turn. As you can imagine, these can be quite spread out along the main road, and you may find yourself traveling a very long way before you can turn around. Also, if you miss one, you got it: drive a long way further to find one again!

In keeping with their mentality that fewer turns are better than many, there are designated entrances/exits to businesses. These businesses will share the entrance with many other businesses. You'll find a large lot of signs all together, indicating that you are to turn at that entrance for where ever you are headed. This can be a problem, when once you get off at the right entrance, you can't even see the business! It's hard to know where to go at that point since the business may be pretty far away from their sign. Very frustrating.

NJ gasoline was very inexpensive compared to our FL gas. When we arrived, the average was about $3.11/gallon. That compares to our local price of $3.52 when we arrived back into town a couple days later.

And the last funny thing we noticed about NJ had us laughing up a storm. We drove on 2 major roads through Wayne, NJ. (Given their policy about U-turns and L-turns, we drove those 2 roads a LOT trying to make sense of everything!) Well, driving those 2 roads so much, we began to notice that every other business, it seemed, had incorporated the State Road # into their name. Here are some examples: Golf 23, Fuelco 23, 23 Nails, 23 Deli, Spa 23, Dodge 23, 46 Ford, etc. I could literally go on and on, as there were that many businesses taking the name of the road they were on. We just found it amusing. I hope you do too. We even went to Golf 23 and drove some golf balls one evening. I'll post pictures of that later. Right now, I have to go order a new cell phone.

Food, Quilting, and More

I have GOT to get us out of our little food rut. I have not been doing good enough providing a wider variety of GFCF meals for my family. We eat the same things over and over again. Fresh blueberries are ready, so I made blueberry muffins, TWICE. First batch very dry and lumpy. We ate them anyway. But I thought I could do better, so on the second time, more liquid. They puffed up nicely, but fell when I took them out, even though they were cooked throughout. We ate them too, and they were better, but I felt really let down. A friend of mine and I were chatting about this briefly at the park. Part of the reason I don't try much GFCF baking (as I have more success with cooking than baking) is because it's so deflating to my ego when it doesn't go well. I am a perfectionist by nature, and it doesn't sit well with me to fail time and time again with anything. But the only way I can experience baking success is to try, so I am *trying* to try more things. That is my wimpy pledge. I will hereby experiment more often with my baking. I guess I should pledge a certain frequency, but alas, I can't bring myself to go that far, yet! (Wink, wink....) Can you see in this picture how much the muffins shrank once they had cooled? It's because they rose so high and then shrank about 40%. I might try again with less baking powder.

Along the experimenting theme, I got stuff to make Chinese food at home tonight. I made it alright, and boy! I really tip my hat to any so-so Chinese chef, let alone a great one. It's hard to co-ordinate the different dishes and keep everything going all at once. It felt like a three-ring circus, even without the kids' help tonight! I think that a large part of the problem was that I wasn't using any recipes. I cook a lot just by "winging it" and can do it pretty well (I know, just not the baking!) I guess that's not going to work very well for me with Chinese food. But it was so cute. C and H were eating their supper tonight, and they both relayed to me that the egg foo yong was very good, but the other "dish" wasn't my best. But...."I'm sure you'll do better next time. This was a learning experience for you tonight that you can learn from." If there's one thing the GFCF business has done for my kids other than the out-and-out healing of symptoms, they are getting very flexible with what they'll eat. They've been so patient with it all.

I've been meaning to do it, and finally did. I started our juice keifer up again today. It wasn't hard; why did I put it off? We haven't been making it since I broke my keifer jar about a year ago. This jar is still pretty small, and I have to get a bigger one. I know we felt better when we were drinking it on a regular basis.

C seems to have a much better appetite lately, and I believe it's due to the 5HTP he's started. Whatever the reason, it's wonderful. He's actually starting to gain some weight on his skinny little bod. He surprised us all today when not too long after dinner, he vomited up what seemed to be his entire supper. No sooner was he done bringing it up, he asked for something to eat because he was really hungry. He had no symptoms whatsoever, and neither do the rest of us. Just so you don't go blaming his trouble on my Chinese cooking, I recalled that he had a massively large glass of water with his meal. I think it was all just too much volume for him.

I found a full-grown green tree frog sitting on the window sill of our master bathroom this evening. I have no idea how he got in there, but it must not have been too long ago because he was quite moist. (Come on. We've all found dried frogs or lizards in our Florida homes, haven't we?) Our windows have not been open and the bathroom's not near any doors that open to the outside. I quickly rescued him and put him outside where he can find more bugs and water.

We had to feed the snakes today. The mice the pet shop sold us must have been bigger than usual. Both the snakes took much longer to swallow them than usual. This fascinated the kids. Sorry to be so graphic, but that was part of our day.

I was excited to find a praying mantis on the ceiling of our garage today. I told the kids about it, but they had already seen it too. Tif--what can we house him in if we capture him for another pet? He's bigger than a baby, but no where near as big as an adult.

And my last prominent recollection from today: I finally received the walking foot in the mail today that I ordered before we left for our trip. My sewing machine is about 18 yrs. old, and it was very inexpensive (or should I say cheap??) The quilting phase of my quilts were not going very well and I was told that a walking foot would feed the top layer through the machine like the feed dogs feed the bottom layer through. So I tried it out tonight. It was like learning to sew all over again!! I think I need an adjustment or two on the machine. The presser foot does not want to lift off the floor of the machine now. Maybe because the walking foot is heavier than the other presser foot? Anybody know of a local sewing machine repair shop? I'm sure it's just a minor adjustment that is required.

Mom and Kids Take D.C.

This first picture was really from our first day in D.C. It is the Korean War Memorial. This picture doesn't do it justice, but these people's pics. are etched into the granite. It was fascinating. (Ch said it would have been done by machine, not by hand, but I still found it amazingly artistic.)

Below are some samples of what we saw and did in Washington D.C. the day we went in to sight-see on our own without hubby/dad, since he was meeting customers:

Riding the Metro Line. (The hotel we stayed in ran a shuttle to the Metro Station.) It's an above-ground train until you reach the city, and then it becomes a subway. It was a little daunting for me to get us on for the first time, but once on, they had fun! Of course, coming back that evening, we had to stand up in the aisles because it was crowded with people getting off work and heading for home.

Here's the subway itself!


The kids remembered Amelia Earhart. This was one of her planes.

We spent a lot of time in the Air and Space Museum. This is only a smathering of what we saw. The boys really ate it up. The only "attraction" we paid money for, was the IMAX movie we saw titled "To Fly". The movie is on it's 25th year, but still totally amazing.

We recently read about the Bleriot XI, and here is a replica of it. It's so much fun to run into things we've learned about. It's especially neat for me to see the kids connect things to the "building blocks" we have laid via our studies.

After the Air and Space Museum, we went next door to the Native American Indian Museum. There was a lot of interesting things to look at that I cannot believe I didn't get pictures of! (I kick myself for not taking more pictures. I do that a lot.) For instance, we spent a lot of time looking at native costumes, guns, tomahawks, arts and crafts, hand made dolls, beading, peace treaty medals, and how to make buck skin for clothing. All were totally amazing.


The kids and I recently read a book about the Blackfeet Indians, so we were excited to find this display. (RSH recommended it to us, so she and her family will enjoy these pics too.)





Excuse my obvious fascination with the flowers we saw around town. I couldn't quit snapping pictures of them, they were so beautiful. I love tulips and pansies anyway.




This wall hanging "quilt" puts mine to shame. It was made in Peru.


A boat made of reeds. (Sorry I can't remember more details like tribe and area.)

Outside the Smithsonian Native American Museum.

More D.C. Pictures to Follow....

I am having difficulty attaching pictures to these blog posts. Must be weak signals with my internet while on the road. So.....I will blog our second day in D.C. later. It requires a lot of pictures.

Stay tuned!

Second Honeymoon?

Oops! I forgot to tell you something. The hotels were all booked solid and it was very difficult for us to find rooms to stay in the entire time. Last night was a surprise gift, though.

Because we just celebrated our 14 year wedding anniversary, Ch and I have been joking about how this trip would be our "second honeymoon" even though we were bringing the kids with us. Our real honeymoon consisted of 2 nights at a budget hotel near a local Florida theme park, and one day at the theme park. We were going to ride all the roller coasters the second day at the park, but then we went home a day early because we were in the middle of building our first home and it was expected to "close" at any time and we couldn't miss that! Our honeymoon was on a very tight budget because we had already paid for our wedding and were scraping together our pennies for the down payment on our home, and well, a fancy honeymoon was out of the question. You get the picture. It wouldn't take much to improve upon it if there were a second go-around....

Back to the surprise gift part: we ended up staying in the honeymoon suite last night! It was absolutely their last room, because of 6 buses that came through last night (yep, all headed to N.Y. to see the Pope). We got the room for a steal! We all took turns in the fancy jacuzzi tub and 8 spray head shower. And the KING-size bed was very comfortable. How's that for a second honeymoon?

And while I'm at it, I must say something about the kids' behavior on this trip. They were absolutely fabulous. They walked, and walked, and walked some more! I know B's little legs were sore but she didn't complain or ask me to carry her. I know my legs were sore! The kids didn't argue or fight (more than a few minutes.....). They didn't complain about the difficulty finding food we could eat because of our dietary challenges. They didn't grumble about the long periods of waiting the last 3 days because of their dad's business dealings. Shoot, they didn't even complain about the long hours of driving. Counting my blessings, I'm feeling pretty blessed right now. What more could a mother want?

And I am sending out a great big "thank you" to a friend of mine for suggesting I try using 5HTP with C. It's made a huge difference for him. Thanks again, Kiwi!

Coming Home is Not as Much Fun as Driving Up

Phew! The driving up North seemed like a whole lot more fun than it has been driving back South again. For one thing, the driving was split between 2 days and not done in one shot like we're doing now. Next, we are frustrated and disappointed right now, but more on that later. Third, we didn't have numerous delays or any break-downs. I'll elaborate further:

We had expected to spend at least another day in D.C. than we did. Little did we know that the Pope would be visiting D.C. at the exact time we were. It caused for some added traffic and city chaos. That was fine, since we (the kids and I) were using the Metro subway system to get around, and we simply avoided the crowded areas. But when we scooted out of D.C. to head North, the Pope followed us up there. (Just kidding. I know he had his own agenda, but it sounded good, right?) Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

We went to N.J. to meet with a potential client. He wanted to see us, and we had an appointment set with him verbally via the telephone. We got up there and had to kill time the rest of the day (Wed.), waiting for the apt. on Thurs., at which time he was too busy to see hubby right then. So we waited around, and waited around some more. We literally walked the local mall ALL day, thinking this guy would call us back, since that's what he said. We're pretty honest people, and maybe a little gullible too, that people will tell you the way it is, and not what you want to hear. Because he kept saying he wanted to see Ch, we spent the night again, only to call him this morning, and he couldn't see us (with no explanation as to why not). What's most upsetting is that he knows we drove a long way just to see him. Second on the list of upsetting was the 2 entire days wasted twiddling our thumbs while we could have been sight-seeing, but oh, well.

So now, it's Friday, and time to come home. We were "SO close, so close and yet so far...." (can you hear the music?) to the Statue of Liberty, but found out the Pope had made his way up to New York City. The news stations were all talking about how the entire city would be in absolute grid-lock from extra traffic. People all over the city were taking a sick day to avoid the traffic. (People in D.C. did the same.) That's when Ch made the decision to skip New York entirely and just head home. It was probably a good idea anyway. He's pretty let-down right now because of the waste of time and money with the trip extension for nothing. But driving home today has not been easy. We had to drive back through D.C. and the traffic was pretty bad because everybody is leaving that was there to see the Pope in the first place. Traffic was at a stand-still everywhere we turned. Oh, well. No harm in taking a little extra time getting home. We'd get home sooner or later, right? Until "Blam!!!"

That's when we got a flat tire on our rental van. Luckily, we were pretty near an exit, and hobbled in to a truck stop. Yep, total flat. The closest tire-fix-it-place was 14 miles away. Lucky for me, hubby is handy. (Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for sending me a handy-man for a husband.) The kids helped too. The boys held tools and managed the air hose and water hose to check for leaks. B saved the day by providing soap to check for residual leaks. She had saved a sample of shampoo from our last motel. What did I do? Cheer lead, pick up trash, and document the whole thing. We had to go to 3 truck stops to get the stuff to fix the flat. But it's fixed, and we continue to drive. Thank you, Jesus! We're safe and sound, and "on the road again". (Again, I wish I could put musical notes in the text. It would help support the "mood".)
So, all in all, it was an interesting trip. Hubby ended up with a productive first half of a business trip. The kids and I ended up with 1 1/2 days of sight-seeing, and we saw a LOT in that day and a half! And we all got a lot of family together time. That in itself is priceless in today's busy world. And yes, I know we all got to work on building up our patience levels and flexibility requirements when plans go awry. I do not regret this trip in the least. I'm just trying not to focus on the "could-have-beens" and the "what-ifs".

Little Change of Plan--off to N.J.

We thought we would be in Washington D.C. for another day or two, but we're off and driving again. We ended up with 1 1/2 days sightseeing D.C. (another post with D.C. pictures to follow). This time we are traveling to Northeastern New Jersey. We're driving through Baltimore, Maryland right now. The kids were quite excited to drive through a pretty long tunnel, especially to know it was taking us under water. Ch says we'll be driving over a bridge that is quite elevated. All in all, the kids will be adding several states to their list of states traveled through. It's exciting because we have not done much traveling during their lives. Next up is Delaware.

For all you baseball fans, Ch went last night to a baseball game in Baltimore. It was all business, of course. Ch didn't even watch the game since he was mingling with hopefully future clients. He saw the Baltimore Orioles play the Toronto Bluejays. He did catch the game results though, and the Bluejays won by a lot, but he didn't catch the score.

It is early spring here. Some of the trees have some bright green growth. Others just have a very faint tinge of green on the tips of the branches. And some of the trees almost look like fall because their new leaf buds are an orange-red color. Is that a certain kind of tree, like maple, with their helicopter seed-pods? It was cooler the last 2 days, but seems to be warming up a little now.

Oh, we are going to try and scoot over to New York City to see the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero before coming home. I'll write more later!

Highlights of First Day in D.C.

We really covered a lot of ground our first day in D.C. We drove around and around, trying to find our way through the one-way roads, navigating an unknown city. The traffic really wasn't that bad, we just didn't know where we were going! (I am not the greatest with navigating maps, and hubby is not the greatest at following my directives.) These pictures represent about 3 different car stops, with us walking a LOT to see the things we saw.

The Lincoln Memorial. What a day to see it, on the anniversary of his murderous death.

There are lots of flowers and trees in bloom, though we missed the peak of the cherry blossoms.

In the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

This model of an aircraft carrier took 12000 hours over 12 yrs. to build.

We drove by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

We actually stood right in front of the White House, and skipped our close-up picture opportunity because we needed a bathroom break in a major way! (Well, after driving around for over an hour looking for parking, anywhere near a landmark of any sort, what could be expected?) When we came back, the area in front of the White House was closed off to foot traffic. We had to walk, taking the long way around to our car. We almost got a ticket because our parking meter had run out.

The Capitol Building. (We got closer later on.)

The Washington Memorial Monument.

I don't know what this giant #1 in red tulips is for, but it was sure pretty.

And for all you letter boxing fans, have you heard of the National Parks Service Passport program? You start with a nice inexpensive passport book, and stamp it at several different NPS locations across the country. We got 7 stamps yesterday to start our collection! I think there are about 20 different stamps for the D.C. (Capitol) region. It's pretty fun.

Driving, Update, and More

We stopped Sun. night and got a hotel in Virginia, north of Richmond. But let me just back up a bit and offer a little bit of advice. Ch and the kids had fun playing "I Spy" with all the "South of the Border" billboard signs they saw along the way. I kept myself busy playing the referee. Boy, were there a lot of them! It was a nice game to keep them busy for quite a while, which definitely helped to take the edge off their boredom. Turns out, this place, South of the Border, must be nothing more than an old, washed-up tourist attraction. It must have been a big hit back in the day, though. I wonder how many years ago that was? Well, when we got to "South of the Border", we pulled into a little Mexican Restaurant for supper. The food was totally NASTY. We ate it because there wasn't anywhere else to eat, and given our food difficulties, we really had no choice. But it really burned me up when we ate at Chevy's Mexican Restaurant the next evening, and food that was 10 times better, actually only cost $1.00 more. A great lesson explaining supply and demand. Your official advice: Count all the South of the Border billboard signs you want, but DON'T, under any circumstances, stop there!

Truly, though, on Monday night, Chevy's had a wonderful gluten-free menu, and the manager really went all-out exploring our dietary challenges, and finding something we could eat. It was delightful to get a little TLC from a restaurant staff that cared a little bit about their customers. We may just go back again while we're here!


The kids were pleasantly surprised to find out about the free face painting on Monday nights. We couldn't have planned it better! Our table was near the face painting, and B lost no time in jumping up in the lady's chair to have her face done when she saw the chair was empty. She's really coming out of her shyness. It's so cute. Man, she's growing up fast! And once the boys saw their little sister getting her face done, they couldn't resist. Here are the results. Luckily, the stuff washed right off, so we didn't have to walk around D.C. the next day with smudgy face paint all over their faces! (More advice: the face painting-lady warned against green paint. I guess it stains pretty bad. I wonder if that's all face paint brands, or just what she was using?)

Driving....

We are on our way to Washington D.C. We are literally driving as I type this blog post. I think it is the coolest thing to be plugged in to the computer, online, and driving (well, I'm not driving, but riding!) at the same time. Some of you may have been doing it for a while now, but I'm a little later getting into the techno scene. Our home internet is portable, so it's easy to bring with us. Hooray for modern technology!

We left a little later than we meant to, but Ch had a race last night so he wasn't in any hurry to get going early this morning.

So, I'll try and send some pictures of what we're visiting once we get up there and see something neat to share. We might even run into some snow somewhere up there. I think it's supposed to get colder in the next couple days, even here in FL.

Ta-ta for now!

Sneak Peak

This is my "spring quilt", using fall colors. The top has been finished for almost 2 weeks now. I just need somebody to help me figure out how to "sandwich" it the right way. When is our next quilting get-together? I love how the colors and fabrics look together, so I don't want to ruin it!! This is a "lap/bunk" size. I think it will be nice for snuggling in on the couch.

This is the "old" fabric I had for my first quilt ever, that I realized I had started on very briefly 17 years ago but never finished. I have been working on it along with my "nice" one, but a couple steps ahead of it, so I can hopefully make all my mistakes on it and not the pretty one. It is in it's half-quilted state already (sandwiched with it's layers). No, my rails don't match up with each other because I realized too late in sewing the blocks together that I must have been using different seams when I sewed about 10% of it so long ago. This makes quilting it very difficult. I don't quite know what to do with it now, either, but it's getting close to needing binding to finish it off. It is a "twin" size, but seems big? This picture seems fuzzy to me, but I am holding the thing up as high as I can while standing on a stool, and a kid snapped the picture for me.

Not Much Blogging Lately, I Know

I'm trying to figure out exactly why I haven't been writing much lately. I really think I've been in some kind of a slump. There are a lot of reasons, I guess. I tried to say it was because I've been quilting so much, but that's not it. A couple of ladies and I were talking at the park today (homeschoolers meet every Friday, and we go when we can.) I have come to the realization that I have been trying to blog only positive things. Maybe I am taking that philosophy a little too far. Although I don't want to drag anybody down by reading my not-quite glowing blog posts, I shouldn't avoid posts that aren't exactly perfect life. I don't mind if one of my friends share their trials or something that's bothering them in life, so why should I be afraid to do so? Life is not always "roses", and mine is surely no exception.

So, here goes. There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time. It is quite perplexing at times, and it affects our family greatly. I have mentioned tidbits before about the kids and I being gluten-free, as well as dairy-free and using very minimal soy products in our diet. This is because all 3 kids and I each exhibit different symptoms when we eat these things. (We are also all vegetarian by choice, so this complicates matters. I am quite used to being vegetarian as I was raised that way, but the GFCFSF is quite difficult because of the vege. issue.)

Well, I am not going to complain about having to eat this way. We've been dealing with it for 1 1/2 yrs. already, so that it's almost second nature by now. What is frustrating me now is our middle son's symptoms. Even following this diet very strictly, he continues to react. (I hinted at his difficulties on his birthday.) It's quite difficult, because I cannot tell if he's now reacting to nuts, or corn, or eggs. Or is it something else? Yes, I could do a rotation diet, but that seems very difficult to accomplish given the fact that he can eat very little variety as it is. Given his super-skinny physic, it's scary to think about him starving to death just because he can't eat beans on day #3 because beans are only allowed on day #6, for example.

Okay, so back to his symptoms, which is the reason for this post in the first place. When C is reacting, he is super hyper, has no impulse control, and torments the rest of us to no end. He really gets quite annoying, and even that is an understatement. This is not his normal personality, yet it's beginning to seem normal since it's going on all of the time lately. When he has a good day, he is so sweet and seems like a different person. This is why I don't like to talk about it. I am afraid that nobody will believe me, and just chalk it up to behavioral problems with little or NO discipline in the home. I know it's not true (lack of discipline), but when he is reacting very badly, I am literally afraid to take him outside of our own home. I don't want people thinking badly of him, or of us as his parents for that matter. I also realize it's hard not to judge his behavior. Truly, when he's reacting, I can hardly stand to be around him myself. Talk about guilt! How can I, his own mother, wish it were his bedtime, when it's only 9 o'clock in the morning?? And how can I help the other 2 kids tolerate and forgive, even understand his behavior when I cannot understand it myself?

There's the background of what we've been dealing with for the last 3 or more years. It has been especially bad the last few months, and does seem to be worse the older he gets. I can finally report that we might have found a supplement that just might help. I started him on 5-HTP 3 days ago, and he's been better. Even H and B have noticed it's better. I am crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, and yes, praying a LOT. Of course, I pray about it all the time, but I really don't want to get my hopes up if it's not going to last.

And you know what? It's sure a lot easier to be a nice, fun-loving mother to kids that aren't fighting all the time because one of them is continually pestering the other two!

Tomatoes are Planted

Well, we planted our tomatoes with the help of a friend of ours. We are quite lucky for him to show us his tomato-growing secrets. He inducted us into the Tomato-Grower's Secret Society, and we are waiting for his secrets to work their magic on our plants. It's really kind of funny, but that's what he wants us to do. He's a super guy. Some of you might remember him from our New Year's Eve Party. He was the barbecue chef. He's very knowledgeable about many different and diverse subjects. I am in awe every time I talk to him. I love to surround myself with knowledgeable people. Many of the mothers I meet are this way, and I love it!

Well, our tomatoes will be doing well to survive to the point they can produce their 200# per bush. (Oh, he also says they'll grow to 10 feet tall, and keep producing until the first frost in winter. We'll see, won't we?) Our dogs keep digging them up. I don't know how they're getting out at night, but they are. I have, for the last several mornings, gone out and replanted several of the tomato plants. I am quite upset at our dogs right now. The stinkers!! They are labs, however, and I guess they do this sort of thing. Just ask my friend bfarmmom.

I did finally get in our backordered tomato seeds. They are sprouting, and when they're big enough, I will plant them with the others. They'll probably grow pretty fast since I used extra worm tea on them. This variety is called "Costoluto" beef steak tomatoes, all the way from Italy! The other three varieties we planted are: Brandywine (red) beef steak, Black Russian (a purple heirloom), and then a hybrid "Sugary" grape tomato, just because we love to pop those cute little ones in our mouth in the fields.

The kids have helped with this process all the way through, and they are hoping they can put a little money in their pockets along the way, from selling some of the fruit of their labors. Their homeschool field trip expenses have escalated since the group started going skating every other Wednesday. Let's just say that roller-skating is their latest obsession.

14 Years Ago Today....

It's our anniversary! We were married 14 years ago today. It seems like it was just yesterday that we said, "I DO.", and then again, it seems like forever ago! But I would marry him again in a heartbeat. Here are a couple pictures from that day. (They are scans of prints, so the quality isn't quite as good as it could be.)


We were married on Easter Sunday, so it was a very Spring-like wedding. It was also the day after the time-change the night before, and I was nervous the groom would be an hour late to our wedding! But he was there on time.


Publix Grocery Store did our flowers and our cake. They did a good job. These stained-glass windows were in the church. I hadn't planned the wedding there for the beauty of them, but they sure were a nice touch! And you ladies might be interested to know that my dress was not supposed to be an off-the-shoulder type, but the lady that did the alterations took them in much too tight and they wouldn't stay up! My shoulders were nearly bruised by the end of the day.

You Know You're a Homeschooler When...

I have been tagged. I am posting a few reasons why we know we're homeschoolers:

You Know You're a Homeschooler When....

• A large portion of your school focus is on home ec, work study, and nature study.
• You can take the kids with you to the store (as usual) during the hours when a lot of other people are still at work, or children at school. This makes for less congested store isles and shorter lines at the cash register.
• Your kids don't need a note from the doctor to return to school if they were sick and out of school too long.
• Your 4 yr. old preschooler schools right along with the older kids, and she actually learns stuff. Your classroom doesn't have to be age segregated to flourish.
• Your list of field trips for the school year is getting pretty lengthy.
• Your kids feel sorry for public school kids that get to attend only a field trip or two for the entire school year.
• You can take family vacations off-peak and avoid many of the crowds.
• Your hubby comes home and states he has a business trip coming up, and we get to drop everything and go with him!!!

We are going to travel to Washington D.C. in about a week and a half. We will be there for 4 or 5 days, plus 2 days for driving up and back (that's the part I dread. Yuck!). I am so excited. Ch doesn't go on business trips very often; I can only remember one time when he went to Puerto Rico to check on a truck there. (Well, okay, when he used to drive truck he was gone all the time, but that was different.) Maybe that's why I am so surprised by all of this. About 2 of our sightseeing days will have to be done without hubby. It's a business trip after all (and how lucky we are that the business will be paying for much of the trip, to boot). I figure I can take the kids to the Smithsonian on those 2 days by myself just fine. After all, I survived a very long day at Disney by myself with the kids. (And yes, I plan on posting pictures of that day soon. I've been very busy quilting!)

So, my question for you all: what are some things that are a must see? Should we spend a day with hubby and travel to Williamsburg, or is there so much in D.C. we should just stay put the whole time? Please share. Thanks. I was thinking 2 days at the Smithsonian, and all the monuments. We'll at least drive by the White House. Do they still let people in for a tour? I have no idea what to expect since the 9/11 happenings changed the world as we knew it. I can't remember how old I was when I visited Washington D.C., but it was a very LONG time ago. I'm very excited. Can you tell?