A Possible Return

A lot has happened in the years since we last posted. I just might start posting regularly.
--Brandi

As anybody can clearly see, Brandi and I haven't made much  headway in keeping this blog updated. We have many good reasons and time consuming activities that have wholly consumed all available time between the two of us.Last time we posted (aside from Christmas wishes) was May of 2012. A full year later, and some things have changed, and some have stayed the same. We are both finished with another year of schooling, and Brandi has been inducted into an honor society as well.

"Almost, Maine" set

Promotional poster

Princesses, a tiger, & Zombies!

"If I only had a brain..."

I have helped build the sets for "Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels," "Almost, Maine," and "Women of Lockerbie," all presented by Clark State Community College in Springfield, OH. I have had two good semesters, grade-wise, including a 4.0 this Spring. Brandi has just finished running a gauntlet of 20 credit hours of classes in one semester, and so far has another very respectable GPA. As we sit here resting before the next sprint, we are trying to evaluate our effectiveness as parents, homeschoolers, students, homeowners, etc. etc. As wild as this is right now, it will eventually be worth it. As for right now, our schooling has presented us with some unique opportunities for homeschooling. These included getting to see theatrical light shows and being human canvases for a makeup class. The girls loved getting dolled up, and the other students enjoyed working with them. The boys, however, made the best of the opportunity by asking to be turned into "zombies." I've learned a great deal more about theatre than I ever thought possible in such a short time including both on and offstage aspects as well as history and future. We are quite excited about our future with these degrees which we should finish in Spring of 2014.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

College

We went to Jon's induction into Phi Theta Kappa yesterday.  Phi Theta Kappa is an honor society for community colleges.  I tried to take a couple pictures with my phone, but my phone has a delay and I kept getting his back.  Jon is in the final two weeks of his Spring quarter, so he is busy with final projects.

The kids are in the final unit of this year's curriculum.  We'll be finishing their school year in time for our church's Kidfest (VBS).  The boys are still young enough to participate; Jon, the girls, and I are all volunteering.

I finished out my first semester back at college.  I did pretty well.  I have to take one class this summer in order to keep my graduation from being pushed back a year.  As it stands now, I should graduate in the Spring of 2014.

Um . . . Spring Break?

I'm halfway through my first semester back at college.  I am now officially on spring break.  Sort of.  I have so much to catch up around the house and so much schoolwork to do over break that it won't seem like much of a break.

 In fact, I also plan to get some jammed packed days of homeschooling done with the kids.  I did that last fall in anticipation of going back to school and it worked out well.  We're still on target for finishing our required amount of school time! 

So, now I go to jump neck deep into writing outlines, writing papers, and lesson planning.  Oh, yeah.  I need to clean too!  I'll write more, if I get a chance to come up for air.

Have a great day!

Current Chaos - the calm before the storm

I noticed that nobody has posted here in a while, so I figured I'd pop in to explain. After our costly January, we were informed that I would be losing my job at the end of April. I spent the rest of February, March, and April working every hour possible to squirrel away as much as we could. The thought process was to try to make it through the time between jobs. Little did I know that there was no job in the area for me. The month of May gave way to June, which quickly became July. Before I knew, it was August, and I was still job hunting. I looked into the possibility of returning to school to finish what I'd started 18 years previous. I enrolled at the local Community College, and started classes in early September. Here we are in October, at midterms, (we are still on quarters until next year),and I am barely able to think. I came here to see what was going on from my wife's perspective, as we haven't had much time to converse with each other lately. I still don't know anything, but was at least able to, for the moment, relieve the stress of having to do schoolwork. I had two midterm exams today, with a paper, quiz, and another exam tomorrow. Maybe Brandi could tell you about our vehicular adventures in her next post, or maybe she will be trying to relieve her own stress as she plans to return to college as well. The storm is coming.....

Ha!

I'm pretty sure there aren't many more appliances or machines that can break down. This month alone, we have replaced a sump pump, water heater, and two furnaces. Now, our van, the only vehicle we all fit in, is at the shop. We suspect the starter is bad. So, I think we'll just be done with repairs and replacements for a while. Thank you very much!

Merry Christmas!

May the peace and joy of Jesus Christ be yours this Christmas.

Almost Done?

Jon, the boys, and I have been fighting off some type of cold or flu the last few days. The girls have been a little testy, but they haven't acquired the fever. I wasn't as bad off as Jon, so I've been the one to run the errands and get the girls to where they need to go. Hopefully, we are on the mend and no one else gets sick.

I was concerned that we might be getting behind on school days, since we took off a few unexpected sick days. So, today I checked our day counts and found that we had done enough extra days this year to make up for the missed days/hours. I can rest easy!

We're going on a picnic . . .

...and we're going to bring

Apples,

Bonsai fruit, *squeak*

Chips,

Dip,

Eggs,

Fish,

Grapes,

Horseradish,

Ichabod's pumpkin,

Jalapenos, *gasp*

Kite,

Lollipops,

Monkey,

Nanas,

Oranges,

Pulled pork,

Quail,

Risotto, *mama mia*

Salsa,

Teriyaki sauce,

Uncooked pasta,

Velvet ice cream sheet cake, *yummmm*

Water,

Xylitol,

Yam pudding, *ooooohhhh*

and

Zesty crackers.

The *sound effects* were added every round by one particular member of our family. Can you guess who?

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*All sound effects were made by Jon (yes, Mr. Owings).

"Mom? I have a complication."

I should have dug out our camera for this picture, but my phone was handy and I didn't want to miss the shot. If you look to the left side of the picture, there is another cat there curled up against Kitty Kat's side. Tiger, the cat on Kat's lap, curled up there on his own while she was working.

Whistles and Chocolates

Yesterday, the kids and I went on a field trip with a homeschool field trip group. Our first stop was the American Whistle factory. We each got a whistle at the end of the tour, and I bought different colored lanyards for each of us. The kids were really good and I didn't have to confiscate any whistles. This is in Columbus, OH. The tour costs $4.00 per person and you get a whistle. If you can't make it to the factory, they were featured on How It's Made season 10 episode 12 and will be featured on Factory Made.

My kids are on the right end of each row.
Top row: Birdie and Froggie
Middle row: Monkey and Kitty Kat
Bottom row: Puppy Dog and Little Bear
I think one of the moms told the kids to make funny faces.

We ate lunch after the whistle factory tour and then went to the Anthony-Thomas candy factory.

This huge buckeye weighs 235 lbs. and costs $3500.00! The girls asked how old it was and found out it is seven years old. At the end of the tour, we got to sample the normal sized buckeyes. Some of my kids liked them, but most of us prefer homemade buckeyes.

Yeah, it's about time for Little Bear to clean off his temporary tattoos.

Breakfast - cold cereal with bananas and milk

I started keeping track of what we were eating this past week. This posts title was saved in a draft from the seventeenth. That's all I had. I didn't get back to it until today. Pardon me if I don't dig through my memory and recap the entire week.

Did you notice in the title that we had bananas? Though I did have banana slices in the freezer (part of the frozen fruit in this post), these were fresh bananas. Jon brought home a case of bananas that needed to be used right away. I now have more banana slices and two banana pudding pies in our freezer. We also ate some banana pudding cups the other night for a snack.

Apparently, the chili and potatoes went over well with Jon. Monday evening, while I was at Sonflower Scouts with the girls, Jon and the boys went grocery shopping. Jon bought some huge potatoes and some more chili ingredients along with a bunch of other things (he even bought dry beans, rice, and lentils). Jon thought I was going to fix chili and potatoes for our Life Group on Thursday. He forgot that I was going to make beef stew. So, I took a poll of our group members. Chili and potatoes won.

Thursday Night's Chili

2 lbs. ground beef
1 large onion (chopped large so those who don't like onions can pick them out)
1 30(?) oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 10-12 oz. can tomato paste plus one can water
2 15 oz. cans diced tomatoes with jalapenos
2 15 oz. cans hot chili beans

Brown the ground beef and onions. Drain. Mix all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for a few hours or low for longer. I think I used a combination of high and low. I also left the lid propped open with a spoon for a few hours to let the chili cook down some. Less or no water could be used for thicker chili. I mostly used the water to help get the paste rinsed out of the can.


Our potatoes were BIG, so I baked them at 400* for about two hours.

The chili and potatoes went over well. One of the men had a work related meeting, so he wasn't at Life Group. We only had one potato and a bit of chili left over. The man's wife didn't want the leftovers, so Jon took those for his work lunch today.

Tonight's Chili

I make different versions of chili depending on our moods, what I have on hand, or what I can get a good deal on at the store. I try not to spend more than two dollars a pound for any kind of meat. It is getting increasingly more difficult, but I try to buy extra when there is a good deal. The ground beef was expensive this week and I was out, so I bought a two pound pack and a pound of lentils that were on sale for less than two dollars a pound. I had a fifty-five cents off coupon that got raised to one dollar off for two cans of Brooks chili beans, so I bought two large cans that were on sale.

I cooked the lentils and browned the ground beef. Then, added enough lentils to the browned ground beef to double the volume. After mixing the beef and lentils, I put half away in the refrigerator to use for tacos later this week. I still have some lentils cooling. I think I'll freeze those with the water they are in to use for soup.

So, here is the recipe I threw together for tonight's chili:

1 lb. ground beef browned and drained
cooked lentils (enough to double the volume of the beef)
1-30.5 oz. can mild chili beans
1-30.5 oz. can hot chili beans
1-14.5 oz. can peeled diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers
1-14.5 oz. can peeled diced chili ready tomatoes

I let this simmer while I baked some potatoes. I baked extra potatoes for Jon's work lunches and for use later this week.

To prepare the potatoes I slice them in half, make some slits in the meat of the potatoes, butter them with Country Crock calcium plus vitamin D, and salt and pepper them. The chili goes on top of the potato and then we add a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

On The Menu

I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve neglected to fully plan our menu. So, today I decided to just do it. Pardon me as I think in this post.

Grains: rice, various flours, corn meal, a small amount of star shaped pasta, oatmeal, bread scraps in the freezer, flour tortillas, tortilla chips, cold cereal

Fruits and Vegetables: potatoes (~ 15 lbs.), celery, cabbage, frozen three pepper and onion blend, one onion, frozen spinach, canned tomatoes (various styles),
tomato paste, pineapple tidbits, mandarin oranges, a small jar of peaches,
~ 1 b. of various apples, frozen fruits, canned pumpkin, pickles, applesauce

Proteins: peanut butter (smooth and crunchy), a fryer chicken, a beef chuck blade pot
Roast, a 20 lb. turkey (thawing in a cooler), chili beans, lentils, 2 lbs. ground
beef, pork shanks, dry navy beans, 4 doz. Eggs, Polish sausage

Dairy: 2 gal. milk, 11 slices of American cheese, 6 c. shredded mild cheddar, 6 c. shredded mozzarella, 2 lbs. Velveeta, 16 oz. sour cream, mint chocolate chip
ice cream

Beverages: water, tea bags (various flavors), coffee and creamer

Other: a Wanchai Ferry sweet & sour chicken meal for two, instant pudding and gelatin mixes, cake mixes, etc.

Meal Ideas

Lunch or Supper

Pizza
Polish sausage with three pepper and onion blend over rice with cheddar cheese
PB&J, apple slices or applesauce, celery
Chili with baked potatoes cheese and sour cream
Ham, beans, and corn bread
Tacos, chips and salsa
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie or cake (buy some g. beans?**)
Turkey salad sandwiches, celery
Roast chicken, potato wedges, veggie (I need to buy some more**)
Chicken and stars soup, PB&J
*Beef stew (I need to buy carrots**), rolls, dessert of some sort
Turkey burritos or tacos
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, pickles, carrot sticks (need to buy carrots**)
Leftovers for Jon’s lunches
Leftovers

Breakfast
Oatmeal (various flavors)
Cold cereal
Toast
Pancakes and fruit syrup
Eggs and toast


*The beef stew meal will be for our Life Group (small group through church). I’ll probably plan something else for the kids to eat unless the roast I have is big enough to make two stews.

**The store was out of the carrots I normally get last night. I didn’t buy many vegetables, because money was tight and I wanted to make sure I had enough for incidentals later. I managed to save $22 of my grocery money that I can use tomorrow to buy the Sunday paper (for the coupons), carrots, and some other veggies.

Today’s meals:

Breakfast - cinnamon raison oatmeal

Lunch - pizza made with leftover spaghetti sauce that needed used up I went light on the cheese

Supper - I plan on making chili with baked potatoes, cheddar cheese, and sour cream.

Snacks - I haven’t decided yet. Though, I did eat some turnip greens for my mid-morning snack. The children got up late today, so they didn’t have a mid-morning snack.

Overheard

I overheard the following during a rather calm argument my boys were having.
Puppy Dog: "So, just stop arguing."
Little Bear: "Yeah, that's a good idea." (I posted this on Facebook earlier this week.)

Monkey and Puppy Dog had been in a fight. I had just finished hashing it out with them and told them, "now, hug each other and make up." Monkey and Puppy Dog hugged. As they were hugging, Monkey said, "alright, now we've hugged. Let's go find some make-up so we can hug it." Then, they did.

Mondays

Well, I was going to illustrate this post with a bunch of pictures. Apparently, I won't be doing that, because my pictures won't load to the blog. Anyway . . .

Jon has Mondays off work, so for now, Mondays are our field trip and special classes days. This past Monday, we packed our lunches and walked downtown. We ate at a picnic table in the shade of the Town Hall building. After lunch, we had the kids spread out over the courtyard to draw/sketch. The directions I gave the kids were:

1. You can go anywhere in the courtyard.
2. You can lay on your belly, lay on your back, sit, stand, or whatever you want to do.
3. Choose something you like and draw it.

Some chose to draw a fountain or fountains, one included a sibling in her drawing, some chose to draw plants, one drew a horse she saw in the clouds, and one drew three pictures. Most sat up to draw, but one drew while laying on her back. They were all intense. We are getting ready to start an art class together. Our plans are to return to the same place in the Spring and see how much their drawing improves.

We stopped by the library on our way home and checked out and reserved some books we needed for school.

Next Monday we will head to my sister's home for her annual Labor Day cookout.

God, thank you for spiders!

Yesterday, I went to put some meat in one of my Crock-Pots. I stopped short when I saw something in the pot. "That's strange," I thought. "I know this got washed. Maybe something got missed?" So, I stuck my finger down in the pot and poked at the "flaked, leftover-from-being-missed-during-washing-who-washed-this-Crock-Pot-last-time-anyway, peeling food" only to discover that it was a live spider. Yuck!

I postponed putting the meat into the crock. There was no way I was going to cook in it without rewashing it! As I was drying the crock, I discovered a crack that went from one side of the crock's bottom to the other both inside and out.

If it weren't for that spider, I could have had a mess or disaster on my hands!

We still had our dinner, I just cooked it in my other large Crock-Pot.

Look What Came Monday!

I was down to about 1/4 teaspoon of loose yeast. I did have a couple packet strips of yeast, but their "best by" date was sometime in 2008. I keep them for measuring reference and because I can't stand to waste anything. I'll probably try to use them sometime when I'm not in a hurry. Maybe I'll use them when I can let my dough rise overnight.

A while back, a friend asked me to post about how I buy my yeast. That was a couple months ago, sorry!

Yeast at the grocery store is expensive! A three packet strip is a "good" price at about a dollar a strip. Each strip has 0.75 ounces. That is about $21.34 for a pound of yeast on sale! A four ounce jar of yeast costs between $5.00 and $7.00+. That works out to $20.00 to $28.00 dollars or more for one pound of yeast. I'm not going to pay that much!

There was a time when I did buy the jars for just under $5.00 a jar, but then I discovered King Arthur Flour, www dot kingarthurflour dot com/shop/yeast-baking/yeast . A one pound package of yeast is as low as $12.45 shipped! A two pound package is even better at $16.45 shipped! This time, I bought two 2lb. packages (one is for a sister-in-law) and paid $27.90 to have it shipped to my house. That is four pounds of yeast for about the same price at one pound at the store.

I will fill my old yeast jars, store them in my refrigerator and put the rest of the yeast in my freezer until my jars are empty. Two pounds of yeast will last me quite a while, but when this order runs out, I may just order four or more pounds for myself. That would save me on shipping costs in the long run.

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Update: I was at the GFS (Gordon Food Supply) store the other day and found yeast hidden behind a hanging display in the baking aisle. It cost about the same or less than the yeast at the KAF site, before shipping costs were added on! Needless to say, I'll be checking GFS the next time I'm in need of yeast!

Where have I been?

A lot has happened in the last month. Puppy Dog, Birdie, and Monkey were in the children's Spring musical at church followed by an awards party the next week. The girls and I had the Sonflower Scouts badge ceremony to go to. Jon got back on first shift. We now get up at 5AM! I got a pretty bad case of poison ivy. We got burnt at the Memorial Day parade (I got sun poisoning) and then went to a park to cook out/play.

I know there is more. I just can't remember right now. We have some pictures, too. I might post those later.

Tomorrow, the kids and I are going to the Columbus zoo with my parents. Hopefully, I'll get some cute pictures of the kids.

Good night everyone!