Time to Purge???

I'm coming to the realization that some of the books in this house just have to go. It's so hard, because I LOVE books. But, I'm running out of shelves. I think I need to institute the policy I used to have with buying other stuff - for every new thing purchased, two old things need to go. I have no problem getting rid of old clothes, knick-knacky things, unused kitchen appliances... So why not books? It fascinates me that books each hold some sort of knowledge between their covers. If I read a really good one from the library, I will sometimes even go buy a copy just to have for myself. I think I am trying to preserve that knowledge, or at least remind myself that I now have it. I generally try to get novels from the library, and have no problem not keeping a copy myself. But classics, non-fiction, and now of course, homeschool texts and history books are accumulating like mad around here. How do I choose which ones go and which ones stay? What should I do? Help!!!!!

Happy Birthday I-Baby!

Nourishing Traditions

I just read "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats". This was a really interesting book - another one talking about the benefits of a diet of real food - not packaged, processed, sugared, etc. Given all the books I have read over the years on this topic, it was not super insightful to me, although I never knew about preparing food traditionally in order to enhance enzyme production and digestion. I'm excited to try a few recipes. There is one main reason I am blogging about this book - the best sentence I have ever read in an eat-healthy book... "use as much good quality butter as you like, with the happy assurance that it is a wholesome - indeed, an essential - food for you and your family." Yippeeee!!!!!! I love butter. Especially the grass-fed, pasture butter that I am now buying. And it is healthy! For somone whose philosophy with butter is the more the better, this is revolutionary! And, the fact that the book also touts popcorn as being a healthy snack really has made my day. I can eat my favorite snack, with TONS of butter and not feel guilty! Who says real food has to be bad???

Books Read as of September 30, 2010

As of September 30, 2010 I've read 68 books. Lots of kid lit. It's fun and quick!

49. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
50. Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year by Laura Brodie
51. The Story of the World – Ancients by Susan Wise Bauer
52. The Story of the World – Middle Ages by Susan Wise Bauer
53. The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett
54. The Omnivore’s Dilemna (Young Edition) by Michael Pollan
55. Life in a Medieval Monastery by Victoria Sherrow
56. The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
57. The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly
58. Beowulf: A New Telling by Robert Nye
59. Marley and Me by John Grogan
60. Letters to God by Patrick Doughtie and John Perry
61. Isabel and the Miracle Baby by Emily Smith Pearce
62. Just One Wish by Janette Rallison
63. Six Months to Live by Lurene McDaniel
64. Beowulf – translation by Seamus Heaney
65. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
66. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
67. The Promise by Eva Schloss
68. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

A Driver's Manifesto

Dear Seattle Drivers:

You win the award for being the most incompetent drivers in the world. And this is saying a lot, considering I have been a driver or passenger in some of the worst trafficked cities in the world - Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington D.C., London, Paris, Rome. You even rival the drivers on the Circle of Death in Lima, Peru. Actually, maybe not. Those drivers are pretty good, considering the traffic.

I especially love you Seattlites who see another car merging into your lane, either from a highway ramp or due to a construction lane closure, and speed up just enough to cause that car's driver to either gun the engine to get in front of you or slow way down in order to keep from hitting you. Like yesterday on I90. What you didn't realize is the dark shadow on the back of my van is not a glare from a rare sunbreak. It's a dent. It's one of the reasons I continue to nurse along my geriatric, 10 year old, 162,305 mile van. So that when amazing drivers like you decide to speed up just enough so that I either have to choose to hit the orange cones indicating the lane closure in front of me, or merge into and maybe hit you, I will choose the possibility of hitting you every time. Especially if you have a BMW, or an Acura or Lexus. That's half the fun of having an old car. And when you honk and finally move into the wide open lane next to you and drive past staring at me, like I'm the idiot who didn't pull off the road so you didn't have to speed up to tailgate me, I really wish I had a sign indicating the award I have just given you. Maybe I should make one. One that's okay for kids to see...

I'm moving

Or, at least I wish I was - to a place like this.


Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time period? I do. I should have been living in the mid 1800's. Ever since I was a girl reading and watching Little House on the Prairie, I have wished it was me riding along in a covered wagon, making quilts, skipping off to a one-room schoolhouse and battling Nellie. As an adult, I long for a simpler life. I would love my own tiny farm, with a big garden and some chickens. Maybe some alpaca for the wool. No TV. More time. More quiet. Sustainability. Self-sufficiency. Sensing a theme? Oh, and the house above? Well, I can't really live in it. It's just way too small...

A Little House

Rachel and I delivered a replica of the Little House on the Prairie to the Puyallup fair today. We started this project 3 years ago, when Rachel first started homeschooling. She wanted to study pioneers and our intention was to build the Little House and electrify the fireplace using a paper clip switch. Three years later we are finally done! Well, done enough to take to the fair anyway. We still have some work to do.

We started out using a kit made by Dura Craft. However, after reading "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and consulting "The World of Little House" by Carolyn Strom Collins, we realized we needed to completely modify the kit. My intention was for our house to replicate the size of the real little house on a 1/12 miniature scale, but our kit wouldn't allow for that, so our house is a little small (in more ways then one!). We used pictures from the website of the official historic site near Independence, Kansas to replicate where the door and windows would have been.

First, I redesigned the layout of the house, sticking to the size of the wood "logs" as provided on our kit. I did have to cut some to allow for the change in window and door position. Instead of using logs for the floor, as directed in our kit instructions, I used a solid plywood floor, thus allowing for extra logs, which were the ones I cut as needed. Rachel painstakingly glued all the logs together using tacky glue. She did an amazing job. And all this gluing was done three years ago. Then, the walls, floor, roof and door sat gathering dust while we waited to stain everything and put it together. That finally happened last weekend! I mentioned to Rachel that the fair was coming up and asked her if she wanted to enter our little house for judging. Of course she did! So, we had a huge weekend project. We went from pieces to an almost finished house in one week.

On Friday we put the walls and roof together. We used grout to chink our logs, and let it dry overnight.

We started staining everything on Saturday. It was a big job, and messy!

After the stain dried, I started building the stone chimney. This was a painstaking job, as I could only glue one row on at a time, then wait until it was mostly dry to glue the next row. I used Tacky Glue. If I had a better glue, it would have probably gone much more quickly. The top of the chimney will be made with sticks, and then the whole thing will be grouted, once our house returns from the fair.

This is how the little house looked the day before we took it to the fair.

We have some really cool details in our house. My favorites are Ma's blue china doll on the mantle and Pa's fiddle. We also have Jack the bulldog, and even the one tin cup shared by Laura and Mary. Our scale is a little off. The house is around 15" long and 12" wide. To be true to Pa's actual cabin, it should be 16" long by 15" wide. We were limited by our "logs". Also, our family is small - probably 3/4 of an inch rather then the 1 inch scale, so some of our accessories are a little large - like our rocking chair, fiddle (which is really a violin), cradle and spinning wheel. We still love it!

In addition to the chimney, there are a few other things to be finished when our house returns home. The front door has to fastened on. I used leather strap hinges fastened with tiny black screws. The lantern hanging from the roof beam needs to be ordered and fastened on. We created a praire grass base on which to display the house. We also have an outhouse which will conceal our mini-generator which will power our fireplace and candles! ( No more paper clip switch.)

It was hard to leave our house. We walked away, picturing it falling or being knocked over. Well, I hope it stays safe. And maybe it will even win!