A Liefy Would

Amazing Adventures

2009-04-15T21:07:00.006-06:00

Wow. Two posts in one day. Please refrain from fainting. It was son #1's 11th birthday last week, and he received a little RCA Small Wonder camcorder. It's had some interesting adventures I thought I'd better share. The idea was to explore places humans could not possibly fit into...

Look!

2009-04-15T21:02:00.003-06:00

Here it is. My first baby-related project both started and completed for the same baby! I'm so proud of myself, I had to show it off. The yarn is incredibly soft and has a nice sheen to it. It is 80% bamboo and 20% wool. Since we're not finding out what we're having... the set is gender generic. I do have some pink soysilk yarn to make another set though, just in case.

Also, I have a camera again! At least one that works. Not that that is any sort of excuse for not posting...

What's your definition of blindness?

2009-02-08T21:41:00.003-07:00

I just returned from a great trip with my family--to Maui, Hawaii. We combed the island in our rental van, played at different beaches (red, black, and white), hiked around a volcano, had heart attacks near 200-ft waterfalls (with wonderful views, however), and even milked special Hawaiian goats (well, maybe they just lived there.)

A couple of days into our trip, we were at a great black sand beach along the road to Hana. For those who haven't yet experienced it, the road to Hana is a narrow, winding, sometimes single-lane road that goes around the north-east side of the island. The trip is an event in and of itself, spectacular views, lots of hikes, waterfalls, cliffs, and beaches. Not to mention GREEN. Lots of it. It takes about two hours to travel in either direction. This beach was almost to Hana, about an hour and a half away from "civilization." My boys were really enjoying the power of the surf--letting it knock them over and wash them up the beach, while their dad was acting as a net to make sure no one was pulled out to sea. The two little ones wouldn't approach the water, and were enjoying themselves building and flattening black sand castles/houses on the beach as far away from the water as possible.

I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity, finding them so happily occupied, and I joined my dh for a bit of bodysurfing. When I sat up after being tumbled head over heels up the beach by a large wave, I realized things were looking a little blurry. I had given my glasses as an offering to Poseidon, so to speak. They were gone forever. I had a good laugh at myself for being so silly as to leave my glasses on.

Look, ma! No glasses!

At first, I was grateful that I had seen the beauty of the beach and the drive leading up to it before I lost my ability to discern detail, as everything was reduced to a haze of colors for me at that point. But as we continued to enjoy the beach, hiked to waterspouts and lava caves near the area, I realized that I could still see more than enough to enjoy the things around me--especially my family. Even the drive back was spectacular, just a little more surreal and less defined (we had to wait a couple of hours for another set of keys to the rental, as we lost those on the beach as well...).

I realized I could drive in familiar areas during daylight, and probably be the safer for it, as I wouldn't risk accidents by swerving to avoid small animals crossing the road. I can cook blind, and even watch tv and enjoy it, depending on what's on. The only thing I regretted was my lack of reading material. I longed for a book right up to my nose, but had not brought one on the trip.

Because I only brought the one pair of glasses, and because it was so late by the time we were able to drive back to our "home," I had to stay in my hazy world for about 24 hours until I could get my prescription faxed to me and get new glasses at Lenscrafters.

With prescription sunglasses on Haleakala

Here was my big "aha!" moment. I don't usually spend much time without glasses, unless I'm sleeping. When I have them off, I feel like I'm in my own little world, unable to truly communicate or interact with others. The more the hours went by without perfect vision, however, the more I was forced to be me, and I realized it didn't matter what I perceived things were like outwardly. So what if my assessment of the outward appearance of that lady walking down the street isn't correct? What truly matters is how I view her soul, and that has nothing to do with my eyes. My new definition of blindness is failing to realize the true nature of things--the inward identity of my family members, friends, and my own divine mission and potential.

That was the best thing I took home from our trip--and all from lost glasses.

I wrote a novel?

2008-12-03T00:25:00.004-07:00

Um...I did it. I wrote a 50,000+ word novel in thirty days. And I even kind of like it. Next step--finding all the dropped plot threads and tying them together in a second draft... w00t!

Things I learned:

I like to write weird stories.

I can discipline myself to reach a goal I care about.

When I'm doing something I love, everything else is more fun as well.

My kids think writing is neat.

Comcast doesn't work very well when the junction box is destroyed in a hit-and-run.

When people change from animals back into human form, clothes don't magically appear on them.

Did I mention I like to write weird stories?

Interesting...

2008-11-08T18:00:00.007-07:00

Life is interesting. I've noticed, for example, that since I've started writing every night I get more sleep, my kids go to bed at 8, and I'm more productive during the day. I love writing, even if I don't know what to write about. For example, I have absolutely no idea where I want my story to go tonight, but I'm not worrying about it. When I stop procrastinating and start writing, I'll just write whatever pops into my head.

This is so interesting to me. Usually, I feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off during the day. I'll bounce from one task to another as I remember things, hardly ever finishing half of the things I start. This past week, however, I've been able to keep a clean kitchen, do school with my kids, do LAUNDRY (the evil beast it is), AND wander around occasionally feeling like I have nothing to do. (Most likely the result of scant short-term memory.) We've even been enjoying the chicken pox. I've been less worried about life in general, and I've looked forward to each day. Amazing.

My dh remarked last night that I must have learned something from Louis L'amour, because one of my characters in my novel had some forestry skills. That definitely WAS interesting.

For those of you who are still waiting for the hallowe'en pics, here they are. Finally. What are they looking at? Probably this...

Later on #5 was feeling better and enjoying his apple...

Um. Yes. Well, I thought it looked good on him! After one and all left on their trick-or-treat-a-thon, I decided to get dressed up, too. After gathering all my materials, I was interrupted several times by trick-or-treaters before I was satisfied.

By the way, my corset does not fit like it used to, but I don't care. It looks cool, anyway!

P.S. 12,000 words and counting!

One down, 29 to go...

2008-11-02T09:21:00.002-07:00

I finished writing my first 1700 words for NaNoWriMo last evening, and it took me less than an hour! I was utterly shocked, imagining instead that I would be a slave to my daily word count goal (1670), tiredly writing myself into oblivion each night. I guess starting a novel wasn't as hard as expected. I do anticipate, however, difficult writing times ahead. You know, when you can't decide where the story is going, what new characters you should introduce to keep the story moving, etc. But what the heck. I started.

Writing is FUN

2008-10-21T08:27:00.002-06:00

I've been working on a novel lately, and have recently decided to abandon it for a month while I participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Write Month) in November. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Just to say you did. You lock your inner editor away in a safety deposit box for 30 days so you can let your creativity flow without criticizing yourself into stagnation! The great thing (for me, anyway) is that there is a young writers program, and Stephen is doing it with me! The young participants (17 and younger) can set their own word count goal, and they have cute workbooks to help them plan out their novel before they start writing Nov 1.

Sooo... if you would like to join me in this challenge, please do! The more the merrier!

I''m still trying to decide what to write about--maybe where all those helpful, talking enchanted animals come from in fairytales. Maybe they have to go to a helpful enchanted animal school. :)

My username is amillsap, and you can add me as your nanowrimo friend. (Kim--what is your username?)

Hooray for writing!

Waldenness

2008-10-04T16:38:00.003-06:00

I have a million things I could blog about. Today, however, I am contemplating doing a "Walden." Thoreau, granted, was single, no dependents, and had the financial ability to pick up and wander off into the woods. I don't think wandering off into the woods with five kids in tow crying about their computer games would work for me. However. We all have the freedom in our lives to choose. We can live wherever we want, create whatever we want, and be whoever we need to be. Amazingly enough, no matter what choices we make prior, good or bad, we still have a choice at the present to do what God wants us to do. ONE of our choices (perhaps more) , no matter how few their number, will lead us to become who we are meant to be. WHAT AMAZING POWER!!

Ten acres with fruit trees and pasture, a barn, etc, would work for me. :)

Vacations

2008-07-19T22:51:00.004-06:00

Yea!!! We had a wonderful trip to Oregon and Washington's Pacific Coast for a week! We had a family reunion just south of Mt. Saint Helens NP, and decided to extend our trip to enjoy the cool, misty beaches, ferns, and giant trees a little longer. When my dh and I were engaged, we worked around the Bremerton, WA area on the peninsula and had many memorable excursions to the west. I was looking forward to revisiting the Lake Ozette hike out to the coast in particular.

I think the kids rather enjoyed the trees. Tree-climbing has been one of their newly-acquired skills, and they put it to good use when we hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

Here's a real man--he carried these two all the way to the top and back down, to the great acclaim of passing hikers.

After the reunion (aka chasing toddlers around nonstop for 2 days) finished on Sunday we packed up and headed west on highway 101, stopping at a blustery beach before camping in between Forks and La Push. Gavin reminds me of Christopher Robin in this picture. He is being magnetically pulled toward the water. . .

What makes a better picture than kids playing in the ocean at sunset?

I loved the light in that picture. We were all impressed with the BIG CEDAR, and crawled around barefoot inside it. As we reached Forks, the temperature had dropped from the 95 degrees we had enjoyed outside of Battleground, WA to a more reasonable 70 degrees with sunny skies. The temperature dropped to the high 50s over 7 miles as we drove to our camp in La Push. That night camping was definitely our coldest. . . and dampest. The fog rolling in off the ocean kept everything we had soaked in the ocean the night before from drying on the top of our car.
After our cold camp, we played at a couple of beaches around La Push, one of which required a hike of 1.3 miles to reach the beach. Although we didn't spot any vampires or werewolves, we had several narrow misses with slugs and found lots of dead crabs and other cool things on the beach. Our eldest collected several interesting plant specimens to take home and identify (and possibly try to grow). He was quite interested in ferns. The beach was cold, and so we didn't strip down to swimsuits. The kids would run for the water, get knocked over, and then bury themselves in the sand to keep warm. I'm still cleaning sand out of my dryer. Baby retrieving--keeps your cardiovascular system healthy.

The kids were so funny--they didn't want to get hit by the incoming waves, but would go out as far as they could--playing chicken.

On our way back through Forks, I made one last effort to locate vampires. When we found the high school, two other cars pulled up at the same time to take pictures as well (gag). I fought them off to get a good shot for all my friends. The town reminded me of Preston, ID. Except there were a few more trees. Lots of farmland, though. I was mollified that the only sign of Twilight tourist stuff was a small handwritten sign for t-shirts on a shop window. Hooray Forks! Good job for not jumping on the pop-culture tourist crap wagon!

And what trip to Washington would be complete without a ferry ride? #4 cracks me up. In almost every picture, he is looking in another random direction. Maybe he saw a werewolf.

The trip, with all its forests and beaches and lack of vampires, can be summed up with the following picture. We spent enough time in the car to listen to the entire Harry Potter 7 book, plus half of Harry Potter 6. The boys had a hard time in the back seat bugging each other. I can't wait until we get a 15 passenger van. . .

I am a PIRATE

2008-05-25T21:41:00.000-06:00

Your Pirate Name Is...

Evil Fanny La Bouche

What's Your Pirate Name?

Lessons of war

2008-05-13T22:15:00.002-06:00

Reading The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer has been great. It is not exactly a "page turner/stay up all night until you finish it" book, but I am loving it. I have been trying to figure out why the power of a king was measured by his kingdom's borders--well, besides the obvious reason. Why was it (and is it) so important to be expanding your influence? For example, Sparta had little access to a navigable river, so trade was difficult, and space limited. Therefore, they conquered a neighboring valley with lots of fertile land and subjected the inhabitants to slavery. So they could have food. WHAT? What about figuring out what they did have (besides swords) and trading it for food. The Phrygians (what a cool name) figured out the whole trading thing, but missed the whole defense lesson somewhere along the line and were first subject to the Assyrians, and then wiped out by barbarians. Hmmm. How do we find balance? What guides our actions? Am I patient enough to discover the best way to deal with each situation I find myself in? Or do I jump in, motivated by pride or "honor" to do something?

If I were a superheroine. . .

2008-05-13T22:13:00.002-06:00

Your Superpower Should Be Invisibility

You are stealth, complex, and creative.

You never face problems head on. Instead, you rely on your craftiness to get your way.

A mystery to others, you thrive on being a little misunderstood.

You happily work behind the scenes... because there's nothing better than a sneak attack!

Why you would be a good superhero: You're so sly, no one would notice... not even your best friends

Your biggest problem as a superhero: Missing out on all of the glory that visible superheroes get.

What Should Your Superpower Be?

Check out my cool muscles!!!

Anchors

2008-05-01T22:49:00.003-06:00

I recently read the story of the Trapp Family Singers (The musical Sound of Music was based on part of this story.) and Endurance, the story of the Shackleton expedition. In each of these (auto)biographies, I was struck by the ability of the characters to press onward to meet their goals, or the goals God had for them regardless of obstacles encountered. Shackleton and his crew of 28 men were on their way to Antarctica to attempt the first crossing of the continent when their ship became frozen in pack ice. They drifted with the ice for almost a year, living in tents eating seals and penguins after their ship was finally crushed. They saved their ship's life boats and used them to sail to an uninhabited piece of rock, where Shackleton and a few others left them and sailed in one life boat 600 miles to the nearest inhabited whaling station for help. What??? Everyone survived! They were miserable and sleeping in rotting sleeping bags with frostbitten appendages, but they had the tenacity to survive. Why? Maria von Trapp and her family not only fled Austria at the beginning of the Nazi occupation leaving everything they owned behind (they were quite wealthy before the war), but they faced severe challenges making a living afterwards. They emigrated to the United States, learned to speak English on the way, and had to learn how to appeal to an American audience. The adjustments their family had to make to survive in a completely alien culture were difficult. There were many other immigrant families coming to the United States at that time, and many of them could not escape poverty. They clung to who they HAD been instead of trying to assimilate themselves and create something new for themselves and their families. The Trapp family looked forward with faith. Shackleton and his men looked forward with faith. Faith in a higher power is the most inspirational, strengthening, encouraging anchor.

And the winner is. . .

2008-05-01T22:40:00.002-06:00

My amazing eldest son has done it again. He is the first one to be published in our family! Hooray!! He spent the past few months writing a detailed script for his favorite videogame, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. His purpose--to make a live-action movie with his friends! We are now past the audition stage and into rehearsal planning. I must say that this is more of a project than I ever anticipated. He is obsessively motivated, though, which helps me remember that I need to help him. . . The creation of this pet project of his will be a fabulous learning experience for everyone (especially me). He even emailed the Nintendo Corp's legal division to ask about what he would have to do to use their characters. Anyway, I am looking forward to my NaNoWriMo this year. I'm sure glad we homeschool and have the opportunity to learn by DOING. He's a great inspiration to all of us!

Entrepreneurship--what a cool word!

2008-03-17T17:32:00.002-06:00

Yup. I'm doing Mary Kay again. This time from an efficiency expert perspective. I know I'm not the typical "Mary Kay Stalker", and I'm glad. However, I am interested in finding out how I can make it work for me while not stalking anyone AND keeping all my friends! My ideas center around setting up an account for each "preferred" customer where they can accumulate 15% of the order total as a credit of the orders of those they refer to my website. Did that make any sense? Also, there is a neat online tool that does a virtual makeover--with just a few parameters such as face shape, eye placement and type, and hair/eye color, the website generates a "customized look" for you. This would make it easier for me to ship "person-specific" samples out for people to try. My goal is to have people incentivized to hold their own "parties" without me being there, per se. I could give them all pertinent samples, and they could all order online through my website! Of course, I know nothing about customizing websites, so this will be a learning process. Hee Hee!

The Rest of the Story

2008-03-04T22:40:00.004-07:00

For those of you who read the Boys to Kings blog, here are some additional "in-between" and "after" photos of the great midnight perm-a-thon that took place in our kitchen between February and March.

We are looking a bit blurry and out of focus here, but that's probably okay, considering how long he had to sit still. We had to take a few walking/sitting breaks, where we all switched places. Next is the "I'm all done, hooray! Let's get some sleep now!" picture:

Just FYI, this is the second perm for my dh. He allowed my roommates and I to perm his hair BEFORE we were even engaged. It was true love. What else can I say. Just for the record, he has awesome hair, whether it is permed, straight, short, or long!

Kid-watching

2008-02-20T13:47:00.002-07:00

I love watching my kids when they don't know they are being observed. We were supposed to be getting ready for bed, but somehow an impromptu concert came into being instead. At first, I recorded them singing and playing something about "Harry Potter," but I liked this clip best. (They did catch on to my recording by this time.)

A bean's demise

2008-02-20T12:19:00.003-07:00

Our poor kidney bean plant. It was just starting to flower. This plant began as a kitchen science experiment. We sprouted a kidney bean, lima bean, pinto bean, and lentil in a mason jar. Of those sprouts, the kidney bean was the strongest and thrived after transplanting. Today, as my oldest and his friend were baking in the kitchen, my 2 yo and his friend climbed up on a chair to watch--and decided to uproot the plants in the pot right next to them. So. Let's all give a moment of silence to the brave plant that tried
its best in a house full of boys. . .

On the other hand, here is a happy picture--my valentine from my fearless compadre in life. He is so creative. While I was out at Knights of Freedom, he came home and made this lovely bouquet of paper flowers. Long live LOVE!

Ethics

2008-02-18T17:18:00.005-07:00

Okay. There is a nice cat that roams our immediate neighborhood, and if we leave stuff outside in our carport, it gets marked. So far, a stroller and camp chair, some cardboard boxes and a knight's shield have fallen prey to this horrendous fate. I think this cat belongs to our back neighbor, and it is friendly with my kids.

I have no problem with setting out poison for ants, rats, etc, but is it morally right to poison someone else's pet for being a nuisance? I've seen the pets of friends die mysterious, horrible deaths from being poisoned. I think it would be a more humane solution to not leave items outside. . .

Let your voice be heard, and vote in my poll! If we can save the yeast, we can save some cats, too!

To and FRO

2008-02-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

We've all been a bit shy of the barber lately. A couple of weeks ago, my eldest, who was quite proud of his "Harry Potter" style hair, asked me to put gel in his hair so it would be fluffy like Luke Skywalker's for church. We put the product in his wet hair and blow dried it. For extra effect, I had him lean over so I could blow dry his hair upside down. The result:

It took some wrestling to convince him to let me capture the moment for posterity--the effect of his hair bouncing as he ran away from me brought to mind the bowl cuts of the early eighties. After a little taming with water, he was satisfied enough to venture out into public.

Blog on. . .

2008-02-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

If you haven't noticed, I've had a difficult time blogging lately. In fact, I've had a difficult time opening my laptop. This makes blogging sporadic. I have, however, spent more time being with my kids. I've noticed that this reduces significantly the amount of "bombs" I have to worry about cleaning up around the house each day. Remember, I said reduces.

Today we had friends over (5 friends from a fellow homeschooling family, to be precise), and I was downstairs managing activities in a hands-off way. I was even beginning to get into Nanny McPhee. I suddenly realized I didn't know exactly where #5 was, and went upstairs to see if he had escaped up the stairs. As I entered the kitchen, I saw the refrigerator door wide open, with the entire contents of the refrigerator door on the floor. Neatly arranged, of course. #4 and #5 were happily dissecting the contents of the lower shelves, and as I reached for him, #5 was in the process of tasting an egg. Luckily, he didn't get past the shell, and I whisked him away into his high chair while I helped #4 clean up and find a snack. Our fridge has been rather bare lately, and I suppose he was hunting for things in the door among the ketchup and mustard?

Later on, I found a huge pile of puzzle pieces on his bedroom floor. He had emptied out his puzzle drawer in order to make room for my new "shut-the-box" game. I knew I should have him clean it up, but I HATE losing pieces to things, so I obsessively/compulsively began putting pieces back where they belonged. I was missing about half of them, however. After thinking for a minute, I looked inside the "shut-the-box" container and found some puzzle soup. It must have been a fun project.

This was a minor incident day on the road of life, and I did have time to read during the day. Right now I'm reading Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World with #1 and #2, and we're all enjoying it very much. We made a "baby Moses" newspaper reed basket today. I'm also reading Dr. Shettles' How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby (no immediate plans. . . but an interesting read).

More nerdiness

2008-01-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was a little disappointed in my space sciences score--I should spend more time with my oldest son on his space studies, I guess!

A Sad, Sad Fate

2008-01-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

For the enjoyment of all, here is a speech I worked up over the holidays:

The air stirred, warming Terrence as he shifted to the right on his bed. He had been asleep for a long time, but he knew he would be wide-awake soon. A warm light shone round his room, and he smelled the tantalizing aromas of his favorite foods! With an awakening burst of energy he leapt to his feet, running towards the amazing smells!

Mouth watering, Terrence found his breakfast. Never before had he seen or tasted such bliss. There was an overabundance of food, so he ate until he was stuffed. With a full belly, he had a difficult time in keeping awake--especially in the warm air. Passing gas, he succumbed and drifted off into a restful slumber.

Suddenly, he awoke in a sweat. The air surrounding him was thick and oppressive--suffocatingly hot and humid. Frantically, he searched for a way out. The increasing temperature sealed his fate. Terrence collapsed, dead, another casualty in the struggle for daily bread.

The plight of Terrence and millions of others just like him has unjustly escaped our notice for centuries. Do we realize the full consequences of our exploitation of the yeast organism?

For every loaf of leavened bread lovingly crafted by Grandmother, millions of yeast organisms are bred, fattened, and killed--all for a fluffy, springy consistency. This amounts to billions of Terrence's relatives slaughtered senselessly.

Each holiday season, much fuss is made over the practices of unscrupulous poultry farmers, and we are encouraged to pass the bird in order to discourage abusing our fellow creatures. Why have the poor yeast organisms been beneath our scrutiny? They deserve equal rights with any other inhabitant of our planet. No organism should be exploited against its will.

What can we do to help? If our hearts have been touched, let us take the next step and proclaim loud and wide to one and all the merits of baking powder and soda! These ingenious chemicals could provide leaven for our staple of life without abusing anyone! If one is chemically-sensitive, unleavened breads are helpful as well. Beginning this year and forever, let us be mindful of ALL of our fellow beings, Terrence included, and make more compassionate choices.

Thank You.

(This would be great as an audio file, but, well, I can't seem to get past paragraph 2 without cracking up. I'll keep working on my serious, intense face. This truly is an important cause, after all.)

2008-01-20T17:20:00.001-07:00

'Nuff said.

Creativity

2007-12-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

I've been encouraging the kids to write more for their school time lately, and after reading my nephew Daren's awesome poem, I was inspired to post a sampling of their work.

Stephen:

I saw it with mine own eyes,
In the woods by the mines.
It was big, furry, and drool came from its mouth.
I saw it in my youth.
And years later, about 5, I think,
I saw it in my bottle of ink!
It growled, it gnashed its horrible yellow teeth,
It kicked me with its ugly feet!
I smashed into the wall, and saw the thing fall!
I looked out the window, and saw the thing in a telephone stall!
The thing pushed a button, and was sucked into the telephone!
And since then, I've looked and looked, but I haven't found a bone!

Gareth:

Once upon a time there was a troll baby and a good troll baby.
Troll baby: Goo Goo Gaa Gaa Dag! Dag! Boo!
Bad Troll Baby: (Goes to jump on good troll.)
Good Troll: (bites bad troll's b**.)
Bad Troll: Owwwwwwuch! (smacks good troll in the head.)
Good Troll: (jumps on bad troll's b**.)
Bad Troll: (jumps on good troll's head but misses and falls into the river.)
Good Troll: Yahoo!

Jacob (as dictated to me):

Once upon a time there was a red skeleton. Then Dad was running around with his brothers, and one of his brothers saw the skeleton. Then Dad saw the skeleton too, and he ran to punch it in the stomach. Then the skeleton ran fast back into his cave and he baked some rice pudding.

THE END