Standing Desks

I have this re-occurring shoulder/neck pain. It is eased by a visit to the chiropractor, but the next time I spend hours finishing a sewing or computer task I end up needing another adjustment. Insurance covers a bit of the chiropractor visit but I was wondering if I could find a less expensive way to cure the pain. I decided to try a standing desk.

Hubby added some extensions to the legs on my desk and my sewing machine got moved to my cutting table.

I've been using them this way for about 3 months and now my feet hurt! 😏

Actually, I do like the new set up and if I add walking to my lifestyle improvements maybe I'll only need new shoes.

Those cords under my desk are annoying when viewed on a photo.  Should I paint them white?

Thankfully someone with a good camera snapped a picture of Shekinah with her friends at their Christmas program.

My princess practicing her posture.

What did Zeke call that thing!? I think it was a dodecahedron ...maybe not.

Annual preparations for the Christmas Eve party at our house. The local Asian food market was out of round dumpling wrappers so I was forced to learn to make my own...I was too stubborn to use won-ton wrappers...they're square.

When the hot chocolate is too hot, you sit on the cold porch.

I finished her lifebook yesterday. I used a $5 photobook offer from Photobook America. I'm anxious to see what it looks like.

Ben was here for supper the other night, he met Cocoa. Yes Hope is training a new bunny.

It was good to have Ben here again. The crazy quotes that fly between he and Zeke keep me on my toes.  Last night it was "Odessey", "The Pond", and "Freddy the Pig".

Me to Shekinah: "Don't be running alot out there in the cold" (she has a nasty cough)

Shekinah: "No we're not running, we're selling ice."

She could probably sell ice to a snowman.

Of Christmas Programs and Nativity Scenes

When you spot a size 8 dress at the Re_uzit Shoppe (added "e" makes it classy, not?)

Add some lace from another garment, a zipper to bring in the neck

find a sweater at yet another shoppe.

Thankful for left-over scraps from my niece's Liberian fabric and some other fuzzy fabric someone off-loaded on me and Shekinah had a jumper with sweater.

Once more we were treated with a great Christmas program from our elementary school.

We have some wise men for the nativity scene (gotta take pics of the rest of the crew)

double-sided permanent tape is your friend in a project like this.

We almost can't stand our exciting household here we are watching candles burn. 

A few minutes before they were all watching.

There was something said about watching a candle rapping...or was it wrapping?

I Like My Sewing Room Better

I think I like my sewing room better than my kitchen. I spent most of last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week cooking batches of food. I like to eat and therefore need to cook, but somehow sewing and working with fabric seems more relaxing.
Last week it was prep work for hubby's family get-together. We were in charge this year so that meant supply the venue, meat, table settings/decorations, and bread for about 65 people. We rented a place, bought ham and went mostly plastic  for the tables. But you can't just send people home with full bellies you need to do something extra.  Some years the hosts gave flowers to the ladies and ring bologna or candy (something like that) to the men. Another year, it was holiday mugs gathered from thrift shops and filled with chocolates.

We decided to make some chocolates and Hope found some little custard cups at Dollar Tree and we made chocolate. Peppermint patties from here , crockpot candies from here, and a Brownie Truffle sorta from here.
I found out that Peppermint patties are much easier to dip if they are made into round balls.

Crock Pot candy is delicious when you add caramel candy at the end and pretzel pieces with the peanuts.
And, Brownie truffles are great with some cream cheese mixed in the crumbs to help hold the mixture together.

All three candies were a hit. The crock pot candy was so easy, the most difficult thing was to make sure that any hot spots in my cooker didn't burn the chocolate. I think I will probably just use the warm setting the next time.

This week I decided to start on the egg rolls  and pot stickers for Christmas Eve. I made a trip to our favorite Chinese food store and they were out of round wrappers for my dumplings/pot stickers. I used wonton wrappers for some, but I don't like the way they look--picky- picky.

I guess I will resort to making wrappers and finish up Christmas prep next week. I will need to make more egg rolls too, because someone ordered 2 dozen from me....again- next week.

This week I want to make the three wisemen for the Nativity Scene that I started...I figured if I make two or three figures every few days, I can keep up with the date--right? I need to take a picture with some of the figures on it. I got the patterns from here

AND the Christmas program...had no idea of the date and really!? you need new dresses for that? Who knew? Guess what I'm doing the rest of the week.

Then the other day I had this startling thought! In a few short months I will hit 50! I've been wondering if I accomplished what God had planned up to this point?  I had some ideas of things I will do ....sometime. Maybe that is a blog post for another day...any thoughts of what is on my bucket list--I don't have a 5 or 10 year plan, my plans are truly the "bucket" type, just thrown in there and some things swim to the top occasionally. Wonder if that is how you are supposed to do things?

Math Facts and a Change of Pace

So this year we start a new chapter in our lives...maybe. The first-grade teacher has identified Shekinah as a student that is struggling with math facts. It came as a surprise to us because the very experienced kindergarten teacher last year hadn't mentioned anything. So now our evenings are spent with flash cards, xtramath.com and if we still have her attention, a math game disguised as a fun family game.  For the most part she is OK with working hard at this along with also doing the reading word lists and Bible Memory.  I try to go over Bible Memory every night at bedtime. Tonight I declared that "wait don't tell me!" does not appear in the Bible and I don't need to hear it at every pause like a "selah".

I've decided to try something a little different for the months of November and December. Instead of trying to fit quilt-making into every spare moment, I am going to do charitable sewing...in other words "fun stuff".  If you look around there are a number of places that are looking for people to put their sewing machines to good use. There are little dresses, boys shorts, and sanitary napkin patterns (go read why) at http://www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/patterns/    Christian Aid Ministries is always looking for donations of kits with new clothes for specific areas, that information can be found here.  I know there were a few places that took baby bibs to different orphanages especially for the cleft babies, so that would be another option. So I'm going to see how many dresses, shorts, bibs, or other items I can make in the next two months along with the other crazy stuff you usually end up doing in November and December.

Oh and we are babysitting son#1 little Yorkie, between the rabbit and the dog, life is not boring when the kids are in school.  Rabbit? you say. Yes, we have gone round the bend, Hope decided she wanted to house break a bunny. Lo and behold, it can be done. She uses a litter box. The dog is about the size of the bunny and the two do not think much of each other, therefore I could not get both of them on the same picture. The dog stays in the kitchen mostly and the rabbit stays on the carpet because the kitchen floor is like an ice rink to a rabbit :)

We Had a Vacation!

We went to the beach in October!

Sort of risky I know, the weather was predicted to be cold and windy.

It was...

but not THAT cold and not THAT windy.

I did something else we don't often do, I found a condo, online and went by the reviews 

and picked one that looked good. We were happy with it.

Shekinah had never been to see the ocean,

 but she loved  chasing the waves as much as her sisters did.

I loved the little kitchen, it was missing a few things,

like a toaster and a pancake flipper.

We managed to prep 5 pounds of shrimp and make them two different ways--

deep fried and oven- grilled (on skewers even!)

I had plenty of good help.

The water was still warmer than the air.

And the beach has few shells left on it...the rest are at home in my house! 

The living room area

The beach is right there! straight ahead. We had to drive a bit to get to the 

boardwalk. I figured these people who hadn't been to Ocean City before needed

to see the board walk.  They walked the whole three miles of it too.

Tracking my daughter wasn't hard.

There wasn't a lot of Jana and Ben time...there was a LOT of

Shekinah and Jana time tho'...We did take care of our own kids

some of the time and let the two of them have some time alone.

Really! the beach and winter coats, I was glad I insisted on packing them.

The remains of the shrimp

The sun over the bay

Good-by Beluka Halfmoon Condo. I hope we can manage another trip next year.

Tho next year I plan to actually put our bag of clothes IN the van and not beside the van in the garage. Thankfully the house had a washer and dryer and Jana had a dress along that fit me.

It did give DH and I reason to buy souvenir t-shirts. 

#NEAS2016 and My Runners

This past weekend DH and I attended the NorthEast Adoption Summit in Lancaster PA. While we were there, my niece watched the girls, Joe worked and Zeke had a quiet day on his own. The girls were able to attend a 2.1mile benefit run. It was a first for them. When I first told them about it, Faith asked if she HAS to run and Hope thought maybe she would walk it. I was a bit confused because one of these girls can be seen running in and out of the drive quite often and both of them can run like the wind during track and field. I decided it wasn't my worry, walking it would be just fine, the point was the fun and fund-raising part of it.

Well I got a text from my niece on Saturday afternoon--"Faith came in third for the girls" I figured it was an age-divided thing and she did well for her age group.  No-- she was the 3rd female to cross the finish line! Her time was 18 min and 21 seconds, Hope got side-stitches and made it in 20 min and 10 seconds. Shekinah trotted the whole route with no stops and made it in 28 minutes.

Along the route she and my niece would encourage each other with the phrase, "french fries and hamburgers and pizza"  (That was waiting at the finish line)  After awhile Shekinah said, "I'll just say it in my head now."

Had no trouble putting those girls to bed when we got home.


Now the conference--Enjoyed it of course, some big names were there--that is if you are constantly looking at information on "kids from hard places" and how to help the families.  Dr. David Cross, Mandy Howard, Heather Forbes seemed to be familiar friends because their faces show up so often on the videos I scour for information.
I was sort of disappointed that I couldn't go to more of the workshops, but there were only so many hours to the day.

We listened to Bishop Aaron Blake as he told the story how he and his wife became foster parents after they were empty-nesters. Not to the  tiny babies that needed homes, but to big 16 year old boys who needed a home because their current foster placement wasn't working out. Within a year of bringing home the first son, they had six boys in their home, all of them played on the highschool football team.  He challenged his church to stand with them and become foster parents. Their church with less than 200 members had around 75 foster children at one point. Hmmm

We heard a lot about the foster children of our state and nation, part of me was ready to rush into it and say "sure, we could do that!" Then thankfully, one of the speakers said, "not everyone needs to be a foster parent, nor SHOULD be a foster parent, but everyone should care and help in some capacity."

OK, got it.

One of the speakers mentioned that he would like to see "In this world you will have troubles--Jesus" needle-pointed on a pillow. I am so tempted to make one for him, but I think the other side of the pillow needs to say, "but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."  I am trying not to be too down, this week, it seemed that 75% of my phone calls were hard stuff from the adoption world and yesterday I touched base with two moms that I haven't talked to in awhile and ...more stuff to add to my prayer list.

One "small" peeve I had with the conference was the volume of the "music". Sorry, I'm from an acapella singing church, I enjoy instrumental ACCOMPANIMENT not dominance. I had to think of the comment Karyn Purvis made on "The Sensory World" about pastors driving our sensory kids out of the church with the noise. I confess I had the urge to just scream loudly like Shekinah does when I run the blender, but I pulled up my big-girl undies and did deep breathing---hubby went for a walk.

Remembering and Being Thankful

This girl-- we are coming up on four years. Four years ago, I was frantically putting my house in order and fixing freezer meals, praying that my ulcerative colitis behaves itself (do diseases have selves?).  I worried if it was a crazy plan to leave all the children at home, could I go for two weeks without my husband to bounce ideas and give me a steadying hand?
I knew that there was no way we had the funds to again take the whole family to China so this was the best option, but still was this God's plan was I being crazy?

Four years later I can tell you for sure that God had His hand in this. She has taught us so much. I remember showing her pictures to the doctors at Shriner's and Dr Kozin confidently saying, "she'll be fine."  I was glad for his vote, but inside I wondered how he could be so sure of himself. He was right!

Her whole adoption story was a big step of faith.  See, we (well, mostly my hubby) had agreed that we should have all of our children born by the time he turned 40--so that he wouldn't be an "old man" and still teaching teens how to drive.  So this time when we had started looking at files, he told me to look only at files of children of five-years. That would have about worked in his timeline.  But then I came across that picture of that little girl and he had that Sunday morning vision--in church, mind you and well.... He told me that he is sure God was telling him that little girl is to be our daughter,but since she was so young and since we needed a waiver to be approved to adopt, we should probably wait until the agency is willing to "go to bat" for this little one.

We waited about four weeks and then sent in our paperwork requesting permission to adopt this little girl...even if our yearly income did not reach their requested level.  We received permission within a week. I thought the home study would be a breeze after that, after all, we were using the same agency for the third time.  Ah, not so fast! New people in charge, apparently they didn't really like large families and, and, and.
We managed to jump over all their hurdles , squeeze through their flaming hoops, and tunnel through the thorny thickets. God allowed it to actually move forward in good time. My niece and I were flying to meet her in about ten months from the day we sent our first piece of paper.

She is a survivor.
She is brave--last week she was allowed to go to the inner-city kid's club with Zeke and Ben (her sisters were along too). Later she told me about the other girl who just was so curious about her and how they figured she must only speak Spanish because she was so quiet. This little girl declared she was going to pray so that Shekinah has the same hands as everyone else.  I asked her if it bothered her that the other kids asked so many questions. She said, "yeah, but Zeke was protecting me, he sat between me and that girl and told her that she is asking a lot of questions."

I told her that was her big brother's job...she agreed.

She has no problem telling her siblings what they should and should not be doing. She is living proof that the youngest child is the loudest.

She is learning about jokes....she ends them with "boom chee"  Just like the terrible comedian in Adventures in Odyssey.

So the other night dad brought out his joke " If a canoe goes backwards down a one way street and the wheels fall off, how many flapjacks does it take to cover a dog house roof?"

She looked at him a bit cross-eyed and says "none"

Dad says at the same time, "none, because ice cream don't have bones!'

She crowed, " I finally got a joke right!"    boom- chee


Tonite after Joe came home from the freshman/sophomore campout, he had to tell "The Brick Joke"
It's an old joke made up of two stories.  After the first part when everyone else is looking at the story-teller as if he lost his train of thought...Shekinah was roaring with laughter and yelled ,"I get it--boom-chee!"

She wasn't paying attention when he finally got to the punchline at the end.

The other day I complimented her on how fast she could navigate the stairs, I mentioned that some kids still take one step at a time and it showed how fast she is growing because she doesn't do that anymore.  Ever since she has been coming home with stories of who goes up and down the stairs "the wrong way".  I didn't ask her if she informed those children of their error...I really don't want to know.

End of Summer Report

So now that all the kids are in school, why on earth am I not finding time to blog, take pictures and finish projects?
We are flying through September and the "Christmas Quilt" is still in pieces and there has been no sign of that house-cleaning lady. I finally had a phone chat with a friend and still have a sore shoulder from all the catching up we needed to do.
Driver training with Joe is proceeding --"fast enough," I say. "At a snail's pace" he says.

The daily struggle to get enough calories in one dear child in the morning is boggling my mind. She would do best with a  school day that started at 10AM and ended at 5 pm. We have a "rule"at our house,  if you can't eat breakfast, you stay home and you are sick. And by sick I mean you stay on the sofa all day. You may read a book and get up for lunch and bathroom, but otherwise, it's the sofa.
I have not had my children take me up on that too many times, but Monday morning was one of "those" mornings. Everything was overwhelming AND her belly hurt. This one has had that complaint off and on for years and we really can't put a diagnosis to it. So after an orthodontist visit for Joe, we went home and she headed for the sofa. She ended up sleeping about four hours and by 3 PM she was raring to go.  We did have revival meetings every night last week so maybe she really did need to sleep.
Today I bough high-caloried drink mix and she thinks that sounds like a good plan.  But then she thought the energy balls,or the scrambled eggs sounded good too--the night before.

Anyway, on to other things.  We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.

Goodness we look young...yeah, guess I was...I was nineteen.

We were much more mature at nineteen back then.

We did some day trip stuff to celbrate, took Hope off to the baby-sitter in the morning and were back to pick up the school kids in the afternoon. Spent one day at Longwood Gardens and another day wandering around Ikea's store in Philly...of course we ate out at lunch time.

And guess who pulled a tooth!

The second one is about to fall out too, but IT HURTS!

The adult teeth are both through the gum, but behind the baby tooth. I'm afraid it is going to look a mess in there for a few years.

.

Satisfying Sunday

That was a satisfying last Sunday of summer.  We went to church, heard a sermon on repentance. Ate a quick and easy lunch. Certain folks took a quick nap, then hubby and I took a walk. After supper we played a made-up basketball game that involved people on rip-sticks shooting baskets , then somehow ended up with a game of Knock-Out but you had to shoot by first bouncing the basketball on a mini-trampoline and then hopefully have the right trajectory to make a basket.

Unfortunately, I was having too much fun to get the camera.

We watched one of our bake-off competitions online. Grabbed blankets and pillows and set up camp on the blacktop looking for shooting stars. Some people were sure they saw shooting stars,

 I didn't so I'm sure they weren't there.

Were convinced to set off some of the last of the fireworks and found a crazy bug/millipede thingy crawling through the ashes.

He proved to be quite aggressive for such a little critter, rearing up to attack an inquisitive finger. Looked it up and after a bit of debate- even online- decided it to be a Rove beetle. They are nasty little critters, that seem to make a drug that will make other bugs slaves to it.

Finished up the watermelon, ate some hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes (really kids!) And they are off to bed. Determined to "make something" with the twelve dozen eggs our industrious chickens have given us. Possibly Floating Islands and Angel Food cake.

City Life and Country Life

Cleaned up my multiple camera cards, I need to keep better track of life.

We had a Monarch nursery this summer and watched a few of them hatch.

We are waiting on some swallow tails to hatch too.

Shekinah learned to swim this summer. I was worried that a couple of episodes would scare her off, but she is a determined little mite!

For the first year, I decided to try canning grape juice. I was worried this might be a lot of 

hard work. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a lot of fun.  My SIL has a steamer juicer. It has three levels, the bottom one has water in it, the middle section with the hose attached has the space for the juice. The very top level has small holes in the bottom and you put the grapes in there.  Set it on your outdoor cooker. Let the water boil awhile and after awhile you release the hose clamp and the juice comes out into your waiting jar. I was told you can put on the lids and allow it to seal. ( I know that isn't an approved method, but we shall see)  One 1/2 bushel basket gave me 10 quarts of concentrated juice. One quart of concentrate made a gallon of juice, I added one cup of sugar and we seem to have a winner. 

This is what was left after all the juice was collected.

Hope started school the same week the others did...well actually she started in July, but this was the first official day. 

And then a "Ben in the City" post.

A couple of the kids from Ben's street wanted to see "where Ben lived" after a second attempt at gaining permission and finding the interested parties. Saturday was finally the day.

The other adult that was going to ride along, had last minute plans. It looked like "Mr Ben" would have to go back on his word and I almost told him that they needed to learn those life lessons too.

Actually, I did tell him that, then I felt guilty.

So I called Ben back and told him I'd drive out and be the second adult.

We still needed to wait awhile for the right persons to show up, so the violin/ukelele came out. The poor thing wasn't a high priced musical instrument when I bought it, but it wasn't made to make those kinds of noises (not the kid shown above, but another one that was there).

The street is pretty quiet at noon on a Saturday...life was definitely happening at 7 PM when we took the boys home again.

We spent the afternoon shooting baskets, riding rip stick, whittling sticks for marshmallow roast, riding bike and generally tiring them out. 

This little girl has some strength in that small hand! She can't swing hand over hand yet,but I didn't think she would manage this either.