Ain't technology grand?

My cell phone plan includes "new every 2" so my husband just got me that new "Chocolate" phone that plays MP3s. Do I need it? Not really. I have a perfectly good cell phone... and a tiny 2gig portable MP3 player (not an IPod, but similar), so what do I need with a phone that combines the two? I'm just spoiled, I guess. It's "free" and it's cool. Isn't that the American way?

But I'm weird. I don't listen to music much, nor even talk radio. My listening preference is for old time radio (drama/comedy/mystery) or audio books. I love stories!!! Old time radio is readily available in MP3 format, so that's mostly what's on my player at any given time.

Speaking of technology, about a year ago I unearthed some 40-year-old home-recorded reel-to-reel tapes in my mother's attic (formerly my grandmother's attic). I brought them home with me with the hopes of converting them to digital format and restoring the sound quality. I bought a player for them cheap on eBay and now I'm trying to figure out how to proceed from here. Getting them to the computer is not the problem, but oh, the sound quality! Lots of static, hiss, poorly recorded to start with, etc. However, in a family heritage sense, these are priceless recordings so I have high hopes that the sound can be restored.

We also recently discovered some old slides that hadn't seen the light of day in 30 years or more, and were able to scan them onto the computer. I do know enough about photo-editing to clean those up a bit, so that was very exciting to have some "new" old pictures that hadn't been thumbed past in the family albums hundreds of times over the years. Christmas 1971. I was 6! I showed the group picture to my husband and asked if he could pick me out of the crowd. He said, "Of course! You were the cutest one!" I laughed at him, but he did pick the right kid out of about 15!

Lesson Plans for the New Year

I told the girls a few days ago that they didn't have to do school work this week. Chores, yes. School work, no. Their response? "Why?" I couldn't believe it! I guess they've gotten used to me telling them, "I don't care whether or not the public school kids are out of school, you still need to do school today."

I've been trying to put in some extra hours of work while I have the chance. My goal for today is to get my bedroom organized better. There is still a mountain of boxes of "miscellaneous" to do something with, from when we moved in August! It's driving me nuts.

I have also been spending some time this week getting lesson plans and materials all set up to start school fresh next Tuesday. My 11yo has an "auditory processing deficiency". We have been seeing a neurodevelopmentalist to help us plan out her school work to help her make the most progress. Her re-eval was the Wednesday before Christmas, so we have a new program to start. I've been gathering materials and printing out appropriate worksheets and setting up a schedule for her. I am modifying a chore pack that came with the Managers of Their Chores book I got last summer, to list all the various activities she needs to do. I'm color coding them to help her see which ones need to be done once a day, twice a day, etc.

For math, I've been printing out some worksheets from The Math Worksheet Site. I am so impressed with what is available there! I highly recommend it as a supplement to any math program. The site has a free section, but the subscription section is well worth the price! (You can subscribe for a month for $2.50 or for a year for $20.)

For Bible, I plan to print out some of the lessons at Calvary Chapel Children's Bible Curriculum. Top quality worksheets for every story you can think of in the Bible! And it's completely free!

Now, if I could just find some nice worksheets featuring Christian heroes of the faith. I've seriously been considering developing my own! My kids enjoy have puzzle sheets or coloring sheets to do as they listen to read-alouds.

I'm also looking for some color-by-number print-outs. That is supposed to help my daughter with attention to detail. I have found a few pages online, but nothing I'm real impressed with yet.

CocaCola "stuff"

I got some fun Coke-themed stuff for Christmas... the cutest little Christmas tree ornaments, a tiny tin lunch-box, and some Coke-flavored Lip Smackers! The Lip Smackers were from my husband. He got them for a joke, expecting me to give them to our teen-age daughter... but, nope! I'm keepin' 'em! I am going to take the hanging cords off the tree ornaments and put them on my type-case miniature shelf, too. They are too cute to only see at Christmas time.

My DH is working late tonight, and I'm too tired to do anything that requires much brain activity, so I was surfing through a blinky site and came across a really cute Coke blinky. That made me think of my little goodies... so I thought I'd tell you about them and post the blinky here, just for fun!

Christmas "Get-to-Know-You" Quiz

I got this by email from both of my sisters. Rather than emailing it out to all my friends, I thought I would post it to my blog. Feel free to copy it and pass it on (with your answers, of course)!

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends.
Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!!
Just copy (not forward) this entire email and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you. 'Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper, usually.

2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial this year. Last year we didn't have a tree. The year before that we went to the National Forest and cut down a wild tree. That was fun!

3. When do you put up the tree? Whenever we get around to it. Sometime between the-day-after-Thanksgiving and about December 15 or so.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime during the week between Christmas and New Year's.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, if it's homemade and non-alcoholic.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Oh, my... I have a hard time picking a favorite of anything. We always had great Christmas gifts, even though we were very "poor" by today's standards. My parents always put a lot of thought and love into our gifts. Mother often sewed rag dolls and clothes. Sometimes she would find nearly-new things she knew we would like at garage sales. Dad made us wooden doll cradles one year. Another year he worked at a grocery store that sold toys at Christmas time. It seems like we got a lot of cool toys that year. I think it may have been discards that perhaps had a part missing or an open package or were for some other reason unsaleable. We didn't care! My favorite thing that year was a huge pile of ViewMaster reels and the viewer. We got way more reels than the standard 3 that come with the viewer, and then 3 per package for a ridiculous price. That was very cool!

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. It's small... the figures are maybe 2" tall... and plastic. But very sweet. The children enjoy setting it up under the Christmas tree. When they were younger they would play with it and act out the Christmas story. That's why I bought a plastic one!

8. Hardest person to buy for? Hmm... it varies from year-to-year.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My kids, of course.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Both. And also, hand deliver.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? My sister mentioned, "Ms. McKinley next door at our house in Lufkin when I was in the third grade gave us girls all a pair of boys socks – UGLY boys socks!!" I have to agree with that one. Mother said Miz McKinley later said something to her about never seeing us wear the socks she gave us. Can you believe she noticed?!? So Mother told her they were boys' socks so we gave them to our little brothers. Miz McKinley was just appalled. She had no idea! Bless her heart... she was trying to be nice!

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It's a Wonderful Life.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? As early as I can.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Sure.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? cookies

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? This year they are clear. I prefer colored, but clear are pretty.

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Little Town of Bethlehem

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Usually stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? uh-huh, unless I forget

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Our kids open 2 gifts on Christmas Eve. They are always the same thing... a new pair of pajamas and a new Bible story book (or tape/video related to the Bible). We open other gifts on Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Charities trying to make you feel guilty for not giving more, especially on years when it's all you can do to put Christmas together for your own family. I've had a couple of bad experiences in this regard that kinda turn me off of the whole "give to those less fortunate" drive that goes on. Lest you think I'm a complete Scrooge, I do give to needs I am personally aware of as I am able... but I don't usually give to the big charity drives.

23. Does Santa leave the gifts wrapped or unwrapped? wrapped

24. Do you have Jesus in your heart this Christmas? No point in celebrating Christmas otherwise, is there?

Rambling update

Every time I post, I think, "Well, that wasn't so hard! I should do that more often. Yup. Gonna start blogging every day." And then, of course, I don't because when I think about it, it just seems like too much effort...

Tomorrow is the last day of the fall trimester for our homeschool co-op. I'm so ready for the break! We don't start back up again until mid-January, and I finally bit the bullet and only agreed to do half-days for the winter trimester. I've been waffling on that for 2 months! First, I think we'll quit... then I think we won't... I weighed the pros and cons and still didn't come to a good conclusion... DH wasn't a bit of help. I begged him to make the decision for me. Doesn't he get the idea? I'm willing to be a "submissive wife"! Just tell me what to do! He won't. So... I finally compromised. We'll go for 2 classes instead of 4.

Got the kids' school pictures back today. The photographer captured great smiles! The only drawback was that for some reason all the pictures came back too dark. The entire homeschool group's pictures were all too dark. And nobody had backgrounds on their pictures. It was the kind of deal where you choose the background and they add it in digitally later, or something. I don't really understand how that's done... but these are just blah-dark... no color, not even really black. The photographer was just really having a bad day that day. He forgot some critical part and had to go back to Spokane after it, so the picture-taking was delayed an hour or more. It was a mess! They've offered to retake them, but I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle again. Hopefully they'll just refund our money. The disappointing thing is, they were actually really good pictures!

The mountain out my window has snow on it. Today was the first day the sun shone since it snowed up there. I really enjoyed my view today! But another storm is supposed to be moving in, so we'll probably get snow tonight or tomorrow. It will still be pretty, just not as dramatic as when there's snow on the mountain and not down here. We've actually already had snow twice, but both times melted off within a day or two. It's still a little early for it to stay any length of time.

Still working on trying to get the dog to not bark when we leave her home alone. Funny thing is, she's not usually a barker... at least when we're around. But we can't leave her home, because the other lady in the building sleeps days. We've been watching "The Dog Whisperer". Fascinating show. He recommends walking the dog for at least an hour a day to wear her out before we leave, but who has time for that? But then he demonstrated how to teach your dog to walk on a treadmill, if you don't have time to walk the dog that much. So now I'm looking for a second-hand treadmill, cheap! We think it's hilarious! But, hey... if it works...

Finally saw "Cars" on Saturday night. DH bought it for the kids. (At least, that's what he said! ) After our sojourn on Route 66 this summer, we especially enjoyed the extras on the DVD telling what inspired the movie. DH is a huge auto-racing fan, so he loved all the parodies of the race car drivers and other celebrities. I told him, "I'm sure I'm not appreciating this movie as much as you are." He said, "I'm sure you're not either!"