My Basketball Star

As promised, her is a page featuring my other basketball player, Anna. She is doing such a great job. She signed up to play basketball for the very first time last year. She didn't know the rules of the game, could barely dribble and shoot. This year she is like a new player! She is handling the ball, passing and shooting like she has been doing it for years. We are so proud of her progress! That center photo is of her making a basket.

You can see the credits for the page and read the handwritten journaling here.

Flashback: 1983

I was telling my kids, well my two older girls, about my "schoolbus song." There is one song that everytime I hear it I flashback to riding the schoolbus during the winter of my freshman year of high school. I can see the black rubber flooring covered in slush, the straight-backed bench seats and the bus driver's boombox strapped onto the center console at the front. I don't remember our bus driver as especially nice, but she was cool in the fact that she didn't subject us to the bus' staticky AM radio, but instead brought her own boombox and tuned it to the popular FM station.

This is the song that takes me there:



Ahhhhh....YES 90125. I loved that album. Owner of a Lonely Heart was not especially my favorite and I don't recall every watching this somewhat strange video. (As I recall that's what music videos were back in the day - strange.) My favorite song was "Leave It." LOVE that song. I don't recall this video either. I guess I really wasn't into the MTV thing. But this video is kinda fun - especially when you remember that this was the early eighties technology that produced it.




I found the "Leave It" video here which lead me to the other. Thanks Taking Me Back for the fun flashback!

Upwards Basketball

Just wanted to share another page I completed yesterday. This is my son playing Upwards Basketball at our church. It is a wonderful program that several of my kids have been a part of. )Patrick is finally old enough to play this year and he is having a ball. The young ones are so cute to watch. My older daughter, Anna, is playing this year, too, but I haven't gotten her page done yet. Look for it soon.

Journaling reads:
Journaling reads:Go, Patrick! You are doing a great job playing basketball for the very first time at 6 years old. We are so proud of your enthusiasm for the game and your happy spirit.

Credits can be found here.

A little scrappin'

I finally managed to sneak in a little scrappin' time this morning and I did this silly page.

Journaling reads:

Yes, I confess...I am having a torrid love affair. It is so hot and steamy, so delicious that I can’t bear to give it up. The amazing thing is that Barry doesn’t even seem to mind. In fact, he has encouraged it. So who is this “Ned”? He can often be found checking out the contents of my fridge and I do feed him often. But what I love about him most is his amazing talent at baking bread. Yes, Ned is my homemade wild yeast (sourdough) bread starter. Am I crazy for giving such a thing a name? Perhaps, but I have heard that explorers in the Klondike would sleep with their starters to keep them warm. At least I haven’t gone that far...yet.

Credits for the page can be found here.

Everyday Life

Yesterday, I was feeling run down and took some sit down time in front of the computer reading some favorite blogs. I ran into several people doing daily photos of everyday stuff. I am always intrigued by this. I know that I am bad about keeping projects like this up, but I got the bug to walk around the house snapping photos. I put them together into a quickie layout using FotoFusion this morning. Even if I could do this once a week, it would be really cool.

Here are a couple Photo-a-Day type blogs I thought were neat:

3191

Soule Mama

So, confession time here....you can see in the photo here that we still have our Christmas stuff up. I know; it's bad. I was really enjoying leaving it up this year, but then life got busy and I just didn't have time to deal with it. I am going to try to make today the day it goes away.

I have another big project I need to get done right away. Last week I popped into a Hallmark store that is going out of business looking for some good deals and discovered that they were giving away all of their bookshelves for free (this particular store also sold books). I ended up getting seven big double sided bookshelves. As a homeschooling family we have no shortage of book around here and I have been storing the bulk of them in rubbermaid tubs and boxes because bookshelves have not been in the budget. Well, now I can really set up a fantastic library! We had to unload them off the truck and trailor quickly, so they ended up going in the garage for now. This means that my van is sitting out in our current bitter cold weather so I am anxious to get these carried down to the basement where they will permanently reside. I can't wait to get this set up!

I also got another great bargain from that store. I got a computer for $5 complete with monitor and printer. Can you believe that? Good friends of ours had one they were looking to donate and were wonderful enough to think of us a couple of weeks ago, too. I have been wishing for a bank of computers for the Rich Hearts Homeschool and these will bring us up to 4. Now I need to reorganize the school room and get them set up properly. There are several educational things that I have wanting the kids to do on the computers, but it was hard to do sharing just one. It will be great to finally be able to do that!

So if I am quiet on the computer, it is just because I am busy with all of these projects in my real life.

Everyone keep warm and have a great day!

A little fun

I thought this was fun, even though I can't get past level 8.

Why don't you give it a try:

brought to you by TravelPod, the Web's Original Travel Blog ( part of the TripAdvisor Media Network )

Just Checking In

Sorry, I have been pretty absent from the computer lately and haven't checked in here. We are still alive and kicking. There is always plenty to keep us busy around our home.

Some of the things I am working on:

Breadmaking. I have become a baker. I never would have thought I could because I have made more loaves of brick bread over the course of my lifetime than I would care to admit. For the past several months, I have been honing my breadmaking skills and have adopted it as part of my daily routine. I could go on and on about this, but I will save it for another day. (Actually, I think I feel a scrapbook page coming on about this ;-)

Making bread has brought about a desire for more simple, healthy eating. I am not sure exactly where I am going to go with this. I want to move towards fewer processed ingredients, perhaps more organic and local ingredients. Of course, this means more cooking from scratch which takes time and planning. I think a lot of it is just a change in attitude and mindset. I am reading this book and it has make me think more about what we are eating, what is in it and where it comes from.

I am also reading up on how to make cheese. According to this site, you can make mozzerella cheese in only 30 minutes. Sounds fun!

I am also working on frugality and less clutter. The expenses for a family of 7 are not cheap and I am trying hard to give us more positive cash flow. Anywhere I can realistically cut, I am cutting. I am inspired by this woman who plans to take a year away from shopping and only buy needs and NO wants. I have been thinking more about each of my purchases, even my groceries. I have been postponing my grocery shopping and therefore forcing myself creatively use what's in my pantry. Of course, today I am sitting here with no milk, fresh produce, meat, eggs and many other things that we normally consume each day. I think I am going to have to break down and go. I do, however, have homemade bread. ;-)

This week, my daughters unearthed my guitar. I haven't played it in years. They want to learn to play, especially my oldest. Wow, am I ever out of practice and I soon became painfully (yea, I mean that literally) aware that I have NO callus on my fingers. So, my daughter and I are plucking away a bit each day trying to build up our fingers and learn/relearn how to play.

Those are the highlights of our recents adventures. Surprisingly, scrapbooking hasn't happened in weeks which is really strange for me. I probably won't be able to go too much longer without having a scrap-attack, though. Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to mention one of our big highlights...we bought a new computer. It is awesome! Once I have a chance, I will install Photoshop on it and it will become my primary computer and the old one will be more the kids'. There are currently 6 people in this house fighting for computer time (before we know it, Rachel will figure out she is missing something and it will be 7 people). Adding a second computer has been wonderful! I plan on utilizing it for more school assignments and research now.

Well, I have babbled enough for now and the household chores are calling.
Have a great day!