St. Arbuck's Coffee & other ramblings

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee getting ready for a busy day (leave at 9:30am and get home at 5pm) having already packed lunch, made sure the kids ate and were accomplishing morning activities and reading my morning article from my homepage Catholic Exchange and my favorite author Mark Shea when he mentioned St. Arbuck's Coffee. Well that little ditty just struck me as HILARIOUS! I googled it and it turns out there's a book (I haven't read it) about it.

This post has no purpose or real significance in life what-so-ever -- I just found it interesting -- I love playing with words.

Inauguration Day

"...and the TRUTH will set you free"

http://www.4marks.com/videos/details.html?video_id=987

Crochet Wallet

I couldn't find a wallet to buy that fit just what I wanted :

• compact as possible
• spot for keys
• cell phone holder
• money & change pocket
• plenty of space for credit cards
• not ugly

So I looked around online and found some examples of some. Instead of using a pattern, I just used the ideas and made it up as I went along.

First of all, I wanted something pretty, so I used laminated holy cards for the front and back. I used a hole punch around the edge of the card and crocheted around it. I continued sewing across to double the size for the back side.



Then I flipped the front over and sewed a change pocket.
I tied this off and made a credit card pocket and divided it in half, tied it off and and set it aside.


I started on the cell phone holder as a seperate piece, which is the back side of the wallet the same way with a holy card and a hole punch. I only made this wide enough for my cell phone and then started making it into a rectangle box. The back of the box is the credit card pocket. (this view is of the depth of the cell phone holder compared with the front of the wallet.)


I attached the two pieces together and put a key chain in the stitches to clip my keys onto when I go out without my diaper bag.

The last picture is of the wallet open so you can see the front and back sides. I put a tie on it and have been tying it closed using the key chain, but I intend on buying a zipper to zipper the whole thing shut.

Happy Birthday to my teen-ager

We threw a football party for Dd#1'2 13th birthday party and had 17 kids here. We couldn't go outside due to FRIGID temperatures, so we tried to be creative.

We bought a football party pack of decorations (thanks to the fact that it's SuperBowl time)

We bought frozen pizzas and made them into football pizzas

We bought football cupcake papers and squeeze icing and let the kids each decorate their own football cupcakes

We made facepaint and painted the kids' faces with numbers of their favorite players or goalposts, etc.

They played blindfolded punter using a balloon as a football, and made an obstacle course they had to run while hanging onto the football. They had a little football toy they tried to get kick a ball through the goal posts and everyone went home with a balloon. The experienced football fans in our crowd stayed and showed us how to use our new football game on the Wii.

Quote of the Day

This quote is from me ... to me

This whole homeschooling thing is really interfering with my blog!

Quick 2009 update:

• We got a Wii for Christmas -- Dave's hooked and I spend alot of time sayingto the kids, "No, you're not done with ____, so you can't play the Wii."
• This was a miracle Christmas -- we made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve without anyone being sick!!! We were AMAZED! That's the first time since we've had kids that has happened.

(Pic below -- 13 month old baby petting the dog in front of our $12-after-Christmas-tree from last year)

• Baby still isn't sleeping through the night. He eats dinner before bed, but he HATES sitting in his high chair and doesn't have the patience to sit there long. We'll have a couple of good nights and then a couple of weeks of him wanting to nurse in the middle of the night. He's getting skinnier because he's walking and climbing and moving more -- which I knew to expect. I just can't bare the thought of denying him food if he's hungry.
• I'm much busier with kids and homeschooling now that we have a toddler. I'm still sort of shocked how busy I am with just everyday stuff! I really love it, but it feels like I hardly have 2 seconds to grab and think my own thoughts. That's not exactly true, but that's how it feels. Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep at 3:30am and got up -- I realized I could actually use my brain for my own purposes rather than answering the 1,002 questions during the day the kids and phone and e-mail and Dave throw at me.
• I've been fairly anxious about teaching highschool. It's not even that I'm afraid or anything, but -- when we're not getting as much school done as I think we should, now, let alone making things a little more challenging to get ready for highschool...it all seems a little overwhelming -- like I'll never get it all done. I know I'm not supposed to get it all done, I'm just supposed to give my best and let God worry about the outcome...

I'm better at stressing than I am trusting.

• I've been keeping the house cleaner, lately -- that's been quite an accomplishment and it's been no easy task!
• We're supposed to have Dd#1's 13 birthday football party today (we had to reschedule it from last week due to illness), but with the snow and the below zero windchill, I'm not sure if we'll have to reschedule again.
• Our computer is filled up (almost no memory left) so the 42 pictures I've taken over the last month and transferred to the computer and deleted from the camera...didn't get saved by my computer and were lost -- there was a horrible picture of Dave I was going to post on my blog, too -- now I'll have to find a different way to humiliate him.
• We've gotten a slow start back to school from Christmas. I was sick the week we should have been back, so we just did a few things here and there. I feel like we're not home enough to get intensive school done, but I also don't think I'm very efficient when we're home

1. please get the baby out of the toilet
2. I haven't gone to the grocery, so you can't have (fill in the blank)
3. When I said, "put away your coats" it means I shouldn't have to make you stop your reading to put away your boots and gloves, too
4. what do you mean you "lost" your math book -- you haven't taken it out of the house!
5. don't let the baby eat the dog food
6. don't sit in front of the space heater when you have a short sleved shirt on. put a sweatshirt on and if you're still cold, THEN you can sit in front of the space heater.
7. I know you have a sweatshirt in your drawer, I'll come look as soon as I finish reserving the library books for next week.
8. please don't tackle your brother while your sister is trying to read history to you
9. no, you can't make cookies right now, we just started school
10. you'll need to clean up all your school books off the floor because the baby scooched the chair up to your desk and climbed on it and tossed everything out of it
11. shhhhh you can't practice your trumpet while the baby is alseep
12. no I haven't graded your language arts, I'm nursing the baby and I can't manage the book and the baby
13. I don't know what we're having for lunch but it isn't raemen noodles

...none of that gets us any closer to getting school done!

However, at the end of the day when we're discussing a great book we all shared and laughing over the antics of the baby and congratulating one of the kids for their effort in overcoming long division and singing a song we made up and filling Daddy in on our shared day...it's been a wonderful day, afterall.

Thank you, President Bush

Thank you, President Bush

This was a GREAT post!!

January Sledding brrrrrrrr