school days

Just pretend your reading one of those crazy thriller novels that keep jumping around from present day to past. It will help you immensely  when reading my blog :)

School is starting on Monday. I cannot believe I am the mother of a 5th and 1st grader. Where have my children gone? We will be homeschooling again this year. I thoroughly look forward to starting school each year specifically for the structure it provides for me and the kids. I know I could create more structure in the summer but by the time summer rolls around I am in full fledged rebellion against structure of any sort.  Then, right around September 1st, I begin to crave it again. So as you can see it works perfectly for me :)

Summer means forgetting to do laundry until I run out of underwear. Forgetting to clean the inside of the house because I spent all day outside. Leaving dishes in the sink and going to the pool. Sitting and reading on the side stoop in the sun while the kids run around and play. Visiting all day with friends, family and neighbors.

School means doing laundry daily while the kids work at the dining room table. Having the kitchen clean and the dishes in the washer before lunch. Regular chores for all us girls in the morning. Happiness of the organized sort. ( Very different from happiness of the chaotic sort. Not better or worse. Just different.) Vacuuming the floors more regularly. Piano lessons. Lastly, a happier husband who has graciously tolerated my summer rebellion and is much to happy to have us all back in school.

Here are some pics of our summer rebellion adventures:

Anna and Nena with some of their mustachioed friends

Krohn Conservatory with our Gautraud cousins

Nena with her crazy sense of humor and a headband

Riding the tractor with Papa Gates

Art walk with Gogo and Mimi in Lexington

The girls making a print in Lexington

Leisurely summer morning restaurant run by Anna and Nena with real food cooked to order!!!!

Keeping warm

Okay, so I know no one is thinking about keeping warm right now.However its been on Tony's mind for quite a while now. After several years of thinking about it and drooling over friends stoves we finally bit the bullet and got a Buck wood burning stove insert. It is a full wood burning stove but it fits back into the fireplace so only about 8" of it still sticks out. This turned out to be quite a big project. In order to have it installed we had to extend the hearth about 12" to meet the code. This meant chopping out a perfectly good section of red oak floor. SCARY!!!! Tony picked out tile ( he really is good at those things) and then measured the hearth and removed the floor. You can see his gorgeous finished work in the photo. He also saved some strips of flooring and took them to the ever talented Mr. Talbert and had him shape them for edging around the whole hearth. They turned out perfect!

We were then much too eager to fire this puppy up. It was going to be in the 50's at night so we decided this was our chance before the summer set in.(Remember I am a procrastinator so this post really is from April or May)  Let me just say, I hope that it is really cold this winter or else we might possibly melt into puddles on our living room floor. It rapidly heats up the downstairs to a mind blowing 80-85 degrees without much effort!!! If you drive by or visit in January you may find us with our windows and doors thrown open and our skivvies on. We will have to work on controlling the fire as we get used to this new super furnace. We hope to be able to heat the majority of our home for the colder months. Pipe dream? I don't know yet. I'll get back to you.

You may be asking yourself ," Well that sounds nice and all but where are you going to get all that wood"?

Just so happens that Great Grandma Z. needed a tree taken out and Tony jumped at the chance to load up our wood stores. Mutually beneficial. It took a good 3 day weekend, a log splitter, a chainsaw and lots of hard work . I have to say I was a little smitten with my sweaty lumberjack that weekend.

So here is our winter stash that is taking over our driveway. Hopefully we will get it moved to the permanent woodpile by the end of the summer.

 

summer

This is the first summer in a long time that I can remember really enjoying myself. Past summers have been fun and full of the same usual experiences; swimming, going on vacation, leisure time to read books or take a big nap, visiting with friends and family, impromptu neighborhood grill-outs and streetball etc. But this year seems different. I have tried to pinpont the reasons and can only come up with a couple. I think this is the first summer break for us after a more intense homeschooling year. School was hard work this year. Also, our kids are getting bigger and more independent. I think that is what has made the summer so enjoyable. We all needed  this break. Our whole family let out a big collective sigh as we began our summer with an early vacation to Florida.

We went to St. Augustine as my family has done for thirty some odd years. However, this was the first year that we went on our own without the whole family.  We really enjoyed it but we also missed having fun with all of our siblings and cousins.

We did a few things that we normally wouldn't do because it was too crazy to try and go places with 20 people. One of our favorites was an Eco-boat tour. A Coast guard captain takes just your family out onto the inland waterway to see dolphins, manatees, and other sea life. We all really enjoyed this and Anna reluctantly even drove the boat. (Can you imagine a kid turning down driving a boat?) I need some boys :)

My aunt and uncle who live in town were generous enough to have us over for dinner and to meet us out a few times. It was really nice getting to know them in a different way. My uncle Pete took us shark tooth hunting and we ended up finding about a dozen small shark teeth!

As always we had a blast swimming and playing at the beach. I love to hunt for shells and sea creatures with the girls. We saw quite a few interesting things this year. In particular was this turquoise blue jelly fish shell looking thing called a Blue Button.

After asking my uncle about all of the things we were finding he went and got us a book called Florida's Living Beaches, a Guide for the Curious Beachcomber. It was perfect! It literally had a picture and description of everything we saw. Nena would carry it with her and read it at dinner while we were waiting for our food. Later that same evening as we were walking down the dock to the beach we saw a turtle digging in the sand and we stopped to watch. I was saying how we would have to look it up in our new book when we got back to our condo and Nena says, " Mom, I am pretty sure that is a Gopher Tortoise because the book said they have a brown back shaped like that."  Wow! That made the book totally worth it just for that.


Here are some obligatory pool photos. I love the one of Anna because it looks like one of those carnival mirrors that warp your body.

The evening walks on the beach might be my favorite thing. The sun is setting and it isn't roasting your back. All of the sunbathers are in for the night. The beach is quiet and the sound of the waves crashing is loud.

The light is awesome. Rosy orange. Perfect for picture taking.

Ahh summer. I will miss you.

Too much to do so little time

Well , things have been buzzing around these parts. I have been documenting it all but am just now getting it all loaded onto the computer. I am quite the procrastinator. Since it has been a while I will try to keep it all in order :) This spring and summer I have been doing a lot of reading. Mostly about food and nutrition which is my current obsessive compulsive subject of study. I have been reading lots of Michael Pollan's books; In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma. Both of which were great and got me to thinking more about what we eat and how we spend our food dollars. I also read Animal,Vegetable Miracle a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it also. Last but not least was Nourishing Traditions. My favorite and most thought provoking so far. To sum up and so as not to bore you to tears basically they all say; eat real food that came from plants and animals the way God made them. Sounds simple huh? Until you try to do it. OVERWHELMING. Not much in the local grocery store falls into these categories. Yes, shopping the edges of the store helps but even then I cannot get the grass fed meats and dairy at my local Kroger. So I had to slow down and digest all of my reading.My personality wants to go whole hog and clean out my house and start fresh with new food. Not very practical or responsible. I decided that the best place to start was with my dairy foods. These get used up quickly and I usually purchase them weekly. I was on the prowl for some grass fed whole milk that was not overly pasteurized or homogenized. It took a while but I found it at Whole Foods in Rookwood. It is called Snowville Creamery milk. It is my newest favorite thing on the planet. SOOOO much tastier than the milk I am used to. A half gallon was $3.19. I also purchased a half gallon of Heavy Cream for $7.99. This may seem like alot at first but let me explain my little trick. You can use this cream to very easily make grass fed butter!!! Then you not only have butter, but cream and buttermilk from the butter ( uncultured though). Here is some of the yummy golden yellow butter we made with the neighbor girls.

It was delicious and we even turned it into garlic butter! MMMMMMM.I also came upon this thing called a butter bell. Most of you may already know of this or even own one but it lets you store your butter on the counter in this jar so it stays soft but won't go rancid. The butter is sealed in by the water in the bottom of the jar.

My next giant project is very similar to Kate's. I had to laugh when I saw her last blog post. Check this out:

All I can say is great minds think alike!

blog vent

Ok. So does anyone else type in the wrong security words all the time when leaving a comment?. I think they purposly get really close to a word or phrase and then change it ever so slightly. My brain always turns it into the real word and then I type it. GRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Like 3 times in a row..... Here are some of my recent examples.

 fellowing - which we all know is following a fellow around.

pessi- which is really a passy but spelled wrong. Or what my little brother used to call the female anatomy that gives milk, pessers. Don't ask where that came from.

Last but not least was the one that just threw me over the edge this morning while leaving a comment on Janelle's blog:  ougasm!!!!  Now seriously! Who thinks these up. There is no way they are randomly generated. I won't define this new word for you but my guess is it is pronounced OWWgasm. Hmmm...... Maybe there is a place for this new word in our English vocabulary?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Blueberry harvest

     Does 34 blueberries from my own bush make a harvest? This year I have decided that anytime I need new landscaping plants I am going to get ones that can feed us! Why have I not thought of this before? I easily spend $20 perfectly good dollars on some bush or plant that just sits there and looks pretty. Why not get one that can do something for me? As many of you know we live in a little neighborhood with lots of little cape cod houses. We have a nice yard but it does not lend itself to a large garden. There is a gorgeous old oak that shades much of the rear and I cannot quite warm up to the idea of a big plot in the front yard. I have taken a small section against the house on the side to plant basil, cilantro, oregano, dill, tomatoes, peppers and pumpkins. For many this would be enough but I have deep longings to have a big garden that are just not satisfied with this sorry little patch of earth. So as a compromise I purchased a blackberry and a blueberry bush to fill in where some old dead bushes were pulled out. They seem to be doing well but seeing as this is the first year our harvest is a bit meager to say the least. The girls still think it is too cool that we have our own berry bushes. We used our 34 blueberries to make smoothies on Saturday. That was it. All gone. Dang they were good smoothies though. With our extensive blueberry harvesting season over we launched into planting watermelons all over the place. I planted a few seeds on each side of the house in the flower beds. They are starting to germinate and I am really curious to see how they grow.  We have a neighbor that inspired us to try out this random planting method. After Halloween 2 years ago they just threw their rotting pumpkins behind the bushes and low and behold the following summer they had gorgeous pumpkin vines curling in and out of their flowers and bushes. They even harvested about 8 pumpkins that year.
     Our blackberry bush is starting to ripen so we will have to see how many we get from it this year. I look forward to being able to make jams at some point in the future.
     
   

Can't stop listening to this band!!!!!

All I can say is WOW!!

YouTube - Mumford & Sons - The Cave

The "Menaissance" is long overdue

I was watching the news last night when a little clip about something called the "menaissance" caught my attention. Basically, it is men reclaiming their masculinity from the past. No longer wanting to be metrosexuals but retrosexuals. I like that. Men who are looking toward great icons like Churchill and John Wayne for inspiration. Refusing to be the "dumb dad" that today's TV shows portray.I thought this was intriguing so I found this clip YouTube - "The Menaissance" by Brett McKay - Ignite Tulsa . I sure hope this catches on. No more mansy pansy men but more Rhett Butlers and James Cagneys and Clint Eastwoods from the 40's and 50's. I say Amen to that. There is nothing better than a man that knows who he is and isn't afraid to use it! Woo Hoo! Lest any of you fainting feminists get angry, the movement has nothing to do with subjection of women but really the return of men to their God ordained headship of their families. Take a second to watch the clip. I think you will enjoy it as much as I did. Then do the men in your life a favor and email it to them. Give them permission to be MEN!!! By doing this we have to commit to being WOMEN. Not man substitues. Ladies give your man the best gift by allowing him to step up and lead.

Here is the link to the website: http://artofmanliness.com/

Enjoy

I am back

Well after a perusal of all of the available computer time killers this is my favorite. I am on facebook but I never get on there. ( If you post on my wall I may never know it!) I thought I would just email people but it doesn't have that same conversational tone as a blog. Plus I don't do it so that doesn't work well. :) And forget Twitter. I hate it! I miss conversing with all of my blogging buddies. So this is my official announcement. I'M BACK.

At the bottom of the list

OK. Now that my blog is at the bottom of everyone's list for inactivity I thought I would come back and say a few words!!!! This has been a hectic time for us Schwartzes. Nothing crazy. Just wrestling with some possible job changes for Tony that would require us to vacate the premises. I am not at liberty to fully discuss it but can say that I am fully on board and that God has really been working on me. He truly is sovereign and so awesome. Remember my earlier blog about God being small? Well that was in the midst of my struggling with the idea of moving away. Since then God has truly done a work on me and now I think I will be somewhat disappointed if we stay! WOW! Those words would never have come out of my mouth a few months ago. This past Sunday at Grace we had a FANTASTIC sermon about fear. I know that God was speaking directly at me and Tony. Now, everyone I was talking to afterward said the same thing so it must have been a really good one! Have you ever had the feeling that God is preparing you specifically for some purpose? I have that. I do not know if this is it, but he is really working on something. My sense of awe and anticipation of what God will do is overwhelming. If nothing else he has caused me to wrestle with him and come out the other side courageous. I am ready to go wherever he may lead. I was not a while back. I would have said I was but when confronted with it I found myself sorely lacking in faith!!! God has since increased my measure of faith 10 fold! Whatever happens it is in his hand. Pray that he would speak to us and that we would follow!!!!

Laundry mishap ( mean moms fault)

Earlier this week I had invited my parents over for dinner and was in the process of making a dessert for dinner with Nena. Anna was getting dressed (at 4:00 in the afternoon) and came to inform me that she had no pants. I ever so kindly(sarcasm) said that they were in the washer and if she would not mind she could transfer them into the dryer and turn it on for me. She looked at me like I had 3 heads and in my ever so patient voice I said go ahead and get started and if you run into trouble or do not know how to set it come and get me. What could possibly go wrong? (Foreshadowing) Meanwhile Nena and I went about baking our cake. About 10 -15 minutes later Anna returned to the kitchen in tears with hands that were bright red! She said" Can you please help me? My hands are numb!" It was then that I realized the cycle in the wash must not have been finished and she was loading the dryer with freezing cold sopping wet jeans! I ran downstairs and sure enough there was a pile of wet laundry and about 5" of water in the bottom of the dryer! YIKES! We got it all cleaned up and all is well but Mom still feels like a big turd. I was annoyed that she needed my help while I was in the middle of something and so I sent her off to do what she was not sure how to do. She was trying to please mom and did not come to get me and the poor thing tried to do it herself. :( I think I need a spanking !!!

For us girls with "assets" ( you know who you are)

Just a little caveat before I begin blogging: For those of you at Pastor Brad's service on Sunday I just want you to know that I did read my bible before blogging!There, now that that's out of the way let's move on.
I have made one of the greatest discoveries of my life! Seriously. While trying hard to spend a gift certificate for Dillards from Christmas I thought I would look at the jeans in hopes of finding something acceptable that might be on clearance. I pulled a few 12P's off the shelf with a bit of laughter thinking that any of these might fit my amply endowed butt! Now, for those of you who do not know, my nickname growing up was bubble butt or better yet basketball butt! I always took it in stride and didn't think too much of it. I could usually find acceptable pants before I had children but ( no pun intended) now that God's little gifts have rearranged the hip to waist ratio I struggle to find pants, jeans etc. that allow for a waist as much as 2 sizes smaller than my booty. The low rise jeans do help this a little and that has pacified me the past few years. However on one glorious day in January I found the answer to my prayers. Here it is...Levi's 529 curvy jeans. What a godsend. ( I know God didn't make them but I think he guided the saint who did!) I slipped these jeans on in the dressing room with an audible oohhhhhh! They are low rise in the front but with extra fabric in the back to cover your butt!!!!!! Don't worry your large butt will make the waist look even all the way around. What genius do I owe my thanks to? Not to mention all of this at the reasonable price of $29.99. Better yet you can catch them on sale! They are made of nice thick denim. Not that thin fashion jean fabric that has been stone washed into oblivion. You can feel the difference right away. They also come in dark and light washes. ( Do I need to tell you not to buy the light wash) They shouldn't even make that for us with big butts!

Cherry chocolate chip cake recipe

Here it is Krisser,

1 can cherry pie filling
2 cups mini chocolate chips( do not use regular size, they stick to the cake pan too much)
1 recipe white or vanilla cake
1 jar maraschino cherries
4 cups buttercream frosting
1/2 cup heavy cream for whipped cream

For cake:
Drain and rinse cherry pie filling under running water. Press cherries between paper towels or a dishcloth until very dry. Chop cherries fine. Gently fold cherries and chocolate chips into cake batter. Grease and flour 3 8in. cake pans. divide batter evenly and bake on middle rack at 350 for 20 or so min. Until toothpick comes out dry.

For frosting:
Beat food coloring into buttercream recipe. Or buy 2-3 cans of Pillsbury(?) cherry icing!
( that's what I do) Frost each layer with 3/4 cup frosting and then finish the sides.

For topping:
Whip the cream in a chilled bowl and add 2tbs. sugar at the soft peak stage.
Melt some chips in a microwave bowl and dip either maraschino cherries or some real cherries into the melted chocolate.
Pile all of this deliciousness on the top of the cake!

Happy belated Valentine's day

Long time no blog!!!!! I was busy trying to figure out this whole picture thing. Thanks to all of you that passed on your tips!

We love Valentines day here but not for the romantic warm fuzzy reasons. The truth be told we love crafts and we love to cook big meals that we never cook. Here are some of the envelopes we decorated to send Valentines to all of our cousins. It is so much fun to get pretty mail. The girls really enjoy this because while homeschooling we miss some of the in-class Valentine exchange things and they really want a reason to buy the little Valentine card kits for kids.


Also, at our house I have started a tradition of celebrating at home with family and maybe a few guests. It takes the pressure off of trying to go out that night or feel like we have to do something extravagant. I try to cook a very special meal with a super yummy dessert! Something that I really do not take the time to make on a regular basis. This year we ( I ) chose to make my mom's lasagna. MMMMMMM!!!!!! I love this stuff. It isn't to hard to make, just lots of steps and making your own sauce. Sorry I have no pictures of it because I forgot and ate it to quickly:)
Then to top it all off we make a crazy dessert. For the past few years I have been making this Cherry chocolate chip cake on the back of a Cook's Country magazine. It is to die for! Here's a peek before we destroyed it!




And last but not least a touching and funny moment at the Schwartz House:

Mom: These cherries look just like hearts. Isn't that cool?
Anna: Yeah! here are some more....

Rooting through bag inspecting different cherries

Nena: They do look like cherries but I think they look more like BUTTS!

Hahahahaha ROFL That's our Nena!!!!

HAPPY VALENTINE"S DAY!!!

Painting on wood

We here at the House of Schwartz absolutely love to paint all manner of small wooden items. We usually purchase these items at the Dollar Tree, Goodwill or craft store. Our only rule is it has to cost less than 1$. The girls will paint anything! We have purchased crosses, picture frames, bird-houses, letters and other items. Here are some of their latest creations......

Help with pictures

All right everyone out there in blog land I need help. I cannot seem to figure out how to post pictures in my blog without them all being smooshed together at the top. Can you click and drag them around or do I need to HTML them into certain spots and if so how? GRRRRR I have a backlog of mind clutter that I need to blog ! :) I guess to sum up I need to know how you post pics in the places that you want them. I cannot seem to find the info I need. This may be really easy and stupid but hey I can't get it!!!!!!

Is God too small in my life?

Do you ever really question if God is big? I don't mean intellectually but really? I would never say if asked that God is small or not working somewhere else but I think in my own thoughts that is what I believe. When confronted with my life in this cozy section of Northern Kentucky, where everyone in my extended family lives, where all I have ever known is, where my favorite church on earth is and where true blue friends can be found; I realize that I am very insulated and comfortable. Do I believe that God knows what is best and that whatever his plan is for me and my family it is really for his glory and our great good? I have everything I could ever want here. What if he calls us to be somewhere else? Do I trust him with my life, my children, my relationships , my spiritual life? This is where I am this morning as I stay home with the still recovering kiddos. Like I said I know all of this intellectually but I feel a deeper need to know it in my heart. ( Watch out I feel a trial coming on:) My prayer is that God would stretch and grow me to be more reliant on him and not just on the comforts that surround me, which are many. I think I need to stop in the book nook and get "When You are big and God is Small" (or something like that) Anyone out there read that one?

The Joy of vomiting

Here it is February and we are experiencing our annual vomit party. It usually starts out of nowhere and continues late into the night. Any of you who have little ones can appreciate the look of horror that comes across Nena's face only milliseconds before projectile vomiting up the last three days woth of captain crunchberries onto me and the down comforter on our bed. (Those things cannot go in our washing machine!!! Here we come drycleaner.) Within minutes Anna did the same thing. Now, how's that for synchronization? I am caught between wanting and not wanting to eat today for fear I will see it again in a few hours.
Poor Anna really had it bad and got up every hour like clockwork until 5:30 AM. Poor kid had nothing left but just a spasming stomach. She kept reciting " I am OK" to herself. She gets really worried about not being able to breathe while it is happening.
After all that, I slept until about 11:30 in the morning. The sweet hubby stayed home while I slept on the couch and also went out to get the required Gatorade supply. That is a real man in my book!

Sugar cereal in the Schwartz house

So I decide a few years back to not buy sugar cereal on a regular basis. However, I didn't want to be a complete freak and suck all the joy out of childhood so I came up with a plan. Well actually I stole it from someone else but I don't remember who. We decided that for Christmas, birthdays and vacations they can pick out whatever ridiculous box of junk their heart desires. Seemed reasonable to me.....until my children outsmarted me. As some of you may or may not know poor Anna has her Birthday on Christmas Eve ( this makes her one day older than Jesus according to her) So therefore she picks 2 boxes of junk at the same time. One for birthday, one for Christmas. Nena then also picks her cereal for Christmas at the same time. Now the rule is they have to share with eachother. So they have conspired together to buy the largest bargain bags of generic sugar cereals possible. Currently that is the 32 ounce or 2lb. bag of Kroger Fruitn' Rice and Crispy Berry Crunch. So as you can see, even though it is now February we still have sugar cereal!!!!! Foiled again.... At least they are bargain shoppers :) $2.99 for 2lbs of crap. Now who can argue with that.

Back to the grind

Ok. We are really going to do school today. I meant to on Monday but we had to many errands to run in preparation for our homeschool co-op that began on Tuesday. It always sneaks up on me eventhough it has been on my calendar since August! I always think I have more time to prepare for the classes that I teach and to find the missing ballet leotards that I haven't seen since Christmas. Such is life.

Co-op went well yesterday and I even had all of my supplies with me! ( This rarely happens) This semester I am teaching a craft and story time to the preschoolers, Collage art to 7th -12th graders and Predators of the deep lapbook to 2nd and 3rd graders. Remind me not to teach 3 classes again next year! DUH! Always seems like a good idea in August when I am all excited to get started but by the time it is February I am confronted with my delusional ways.

The snow storm hit just before we all had to leave the church parking lot and that was a little hairy but we got home just before it got bad. Tony worked late trying to avoid some of the traffic and that worked out well. I am so thankful on days like today that we do not have to get up and go anywhere. We can rise with the sunshine and eat a healthy breakfast of Captain Crunchberries ( more on this later) before plugging in for the day. Nothing like getting through math on a sugar buzz! Whatever works.

Hello World!

I know it is incredibly ridiculous but I am just now joining the blogoshere. I am really excited to get started. I will be back with more to say........