Country Living We Got Chickens!

The first thing I asked my husband if I could get, when we started our downsizing adventure, was chickens. I have been wanting to raise my own backyard flock for years now. Pastured eggs from our area run anywhere from $2 to $4 a dozen and most of the time it is hard to get my hands on some of the cheaper ones. I also just can not afford to pay for pastured chicken meat.

So here I am! About 2 1/2 weeks ago I went into the local feed store and purchased 10 straight run white leghorns and 5 Rhode Island red pullets. Oh, and two ducks. Don't ask me what happened there. I made the cardinal mistake of purchasing them because they were cute. Thankfully, they have been easy to raise and I am looking forward to some roasted duck in a few months.

Back to the chickens. We *think* that we have 7 roosters and 3 hens from the straight runs. A little disappointed since the leghorns are supposed to be my big layers but that is the risk you run when you buy straight run. I am glad I decided to get the reds as back up.

We started them off in big totes in the house with plans to move them at about 6 weeks into the large outdoor coop we made. However, after about a week and a half I was chatting with a friend who said that we could move them out now as long as they have a heat lamp. I know that probably breaks every chicken raising rule, but it is true, they have been out for about 5 nights now and even through a near freeze and survived and are thriving. They seem to be enjoying it much more than being cooped up in the boxes. The ducks especially. They have quadrupled in size over the last 3 days.

CONTINUED

I forgot about this post so things have changed a bit since I started it. Mostly, I have contracted a horrible ailment called "crazy chicken lady" and what is commonly known as "chicken math" followed close behind. We have since the top part of this post added 2 hens which we have had for about 2 weeks now. They have been laying an egg each, regularly since we got them. I have also added in 10 more chicks, just over three weeks old. I wanted to add some variety to our mostly white leghorn flock. I now have 6 different varieties of chicks, which I will have to edit in the names later because I didn't write them down when I purchased them!

My husband has been ever so tolerant of my new obsession. The day we got the new babies he came out to watch them with me and suddenly looks at me and says "did you get more?". I said yes, and he playfully walks away and says, "I don't want to know any more". I love that man. It definitely isn't his thing, but he supports us doing it anyways.

My oldest has become known as the chicken whisperer. She would spend all day around the coop if I would let her. I can not tell you how many times she has gone "missing" and we have found her cuddling chickens in the coop. I think we might let her show one next year.

A Mosaics Review: Saving Memories Forever

Do you remember sitting at grandma's feet listening to stories? Do you wish you could have recorded those for your own children?

Now you can capture these memories with a free application called Saving Memories Forever (you can upgrade to a premium account for just $3.99 per month or $40 per year). Saving Memories Forever is a phone app that allows you to record stories on your phone and manage them on your computer. Once you have registered online you can begin recording memories straight on your phone. Simply add a story teller, choose a time frame and category and hit the record button!

If you need help getting started there are helpful hints as well as a How To Video.
This app could be a great way to start a genealogy project with your children or just a fun way to record precious memories in story form from the adults in your life. Or if you are like us and have family over seas, what a precious gift to have recorded voices to listen to during times that you are apart.

We also had fun letting the kids record their own versions of what they thought our lives were like. It was fun to listen to my daughters and son describe what they thought mommy and daddy's childhood was like. They also had fun setting up their own story teller accounts and telling us all about their lives. Starting an account for your child now that you carry on through their adult years would a fantastic and fun way to look back on those sweet childhood years!

A Homeschool Mosaics Review: Spanish For You!

Click Here for Sample!

I live in Texas. That pretty much means Spanish is a requirement. Being bilingual in Texas opens up a ton of job and promotion opportunities and it has always been my intentions to teach my children at least some basic Spanish that they could build on later if they chose.








Basic information about Spanish for You!:

What we reviewed: Spanish for You! Fiesta

What it comes with: 1 Spanish for You! soft cover text book, several audio downloads in mp3 format that include native speaker downloads, lesson guides for grades 3-4 and work sheets and flashcards for those levels.

Cost: $39.95

Extra materials: No extra materials are required but having some colors for the flash cards as well as some contact paper to laminate is nice.


So here is the hard part, I wanted to like this curriculum. It seemed spot on at first glance and was a great price compared to other programs for teaching Spanish. The biggest issue I had was the download files being all out of order. In order to get things together for each lesson, I had to search through the files and find the corresponding supplements. I am all about grab and go. Another big issue for me was that while there were lesson guides, they were so basic that as a parent with little to no Spanish speaking ability, I had no idea how to administer the lesson. I would listen to the audio, try to remember pronunciations while I went over them with the girls, listen to the audio again to get pronunciations, try to play the games and so on. There just wasn't enough teacher help for me to feel comfortable and fluid in teaching my own children. It didn't work for me as I believe it was intended.

On the other hand, my girls had a fantastic time reading the vocabulary themselves in their free time and if it did nothing else, it sparked an interest in learning Spanish that I will definitely run with. There are things that I love about this curriculum. The author uses hand drawn pictures which I found very charming and my kids related to, the price point is great if you can make the curriculum work for you, and the fact that it has native and non-native speaking audio files is a fantastic idea.

I want to love every product that is sent to me, but the truth is that sometimes something just doesn't work. I can't personally recommend Spanish for You! if what you need is a scripted, thoroughly laid out and well organized Spanish program, but please do check out the Spanish for You! site and see what you think for yourself!

REVISED: We were sent an email this morning from the publisher this morning and the files have been reorganized so that navigation is easier. I have not seen the reorganized files, but can imagine that, that alone makes a huge difference.


Disclaimer: I was given this product free of charge in exchange for an honest review. Any expressed opinion is 100% mine.

Praise God for Those Perfect Homeschool Moms

Don't compare yourself to others. If I had a nickle for every time I heard that phrase I would be able to hire a self-esteem coach to remind me daily of perfect I am.

If you read my blog then you have probably seen a few of my posts about how I feel about how it being ok to do some comparison. Look, I get the heart behind the "do not compare" mantra. Ultimately, the only person I should be measuring myself up against is Jesus.  Here is where I have a hard time though, we homeschooling moms have made a career out of "not comparing ourselves". We have turned it into an excuse not to be better than we are. Not only that, we have made it an occasion to poke fun at moms who have managed to "do it all" or to make broad assumptions about how she must be neglecting other areas of her life.

She feeds her children healthy all the time? Well, she must spend so much time in the kitchen! I would much rather be making real memories with my children.

Her house is way too clean for her children to be enjoying any artsy craftsy time.

Her children must be afraid of her to be that well behaved.

There is no way she could possibly be that joyful all.the.time.

So why are we so jealous of those mothers who have found a way to make it all fit together? Why do we assume that they can't possibly be real? Or that what they have is so unattainable that we shouldn't even try?

When I see a mom who is doing a better job at something than I am, I often have that initial flash of jealousy and envy. Then, after a moment of repentance, I often find myself looking at her and wanting to pick her brain. How do you manage your meal schedule? Talk to me about how you discipline your children. Share your secrets with me!

Instead of tearing down these mothers, why aren't we asking for their "secrets" with an earnest interest in learning how to make our own homes run more smoothly? Why are we not praising God for placing these women in our paths so that we can learn from them? Why are we not telling them how encouraging they are to us? Why instead of looking at them as a rare exception to the rule, are we not looking at them as a rare gem?

My home may never be perfect. I am still very much a work in progress. It will never look exactly like someone else's. I have been blessed with my own unique circumstances, but God forbid that if I should become "that mom", any of my fellow sisters look at the result that God has produced through me, and tell me that it is unrealistic and then proceed to criticize me behind my back for being "too perfect".

Advanced 3rd and 4th Grade Reading List

I am putting together our reading list for next year. Please keep in mind that I have two advanced and avid readers. I would put these books into an advanced 3rd grade to 4th grade range. I try to pick a variety of genre as well as length. I want the girls to enjoy the books and to also feel a sense of accomplishment when they finish one. Honestly, I don't know if we will get through all of these, but my goal is to give the girls a wide range of rich literature and if we get through it we get through it, if not, they can always come back to it in their free time or even next year.




The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Freak the Mighty
How to Eat Fried Worms
The Sign of the Beaver
My Side of the Mountain
The Wheel on the School
Little Pear
Detectives in Togas
The Whipping Boy
Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Meet George Washington
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain
The Matchlock Gun
The Door in the Wall
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Number the Stars
Good Night Mr. Tom
Captain Grey
The Castle in the Attic
The Trumpet of the Swan
The Twenty-one Balloons
The Cricket in Times Square
Pocahontas and the Strangers
There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom
The Learning Dog
The Cabin Faced West
The Indian in the Cupboard
Return of the Indian
Grandpa's Box
The Bronze Bow
Adam of the Road
The Phantom Tollbooth
Henry Huggins
Caddie Woodlawn
Understood Betsy
The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle
Where the Red Fern Grows
The Wizard of Oz
Old Yeller
Pipi Longstocking
Misty of Chincoteague
Amos Fortune, Free Man
Carry on Mr. Bowditch
Strawberry Girl
The Red Badge of Courage
Captain Courageous
Black Beauty
Treasure Island


I hope you enjoy!

Busting the homeschool myths #3: All homeschoolers are religious freaks

Every homeschool mom needs a denim jumper!

Admit it. You have had the image of a Christian homeschool family, 14 children all lined in a row, girls wearing denim skirts and boys with their khaki pants, polo shirts and comb over hair do. Let's not forget mom in all of her denim jumper glory cheerfully leading the group in hymnals and Bible verse recitation. You have no doubt at some point heard someone assert that all homeschoolers were religious, Bible thumping freaks. It is even somewhat of a joke among homeschoolers.

In the pioneering days of homeschooling the demographics for homeschooling were quite different than they are today. Most parents who were willing to break the law and homeschool were doing so for religious reasons. It is true that the 1980's version of a homeschooling family might have looked quite a lot like the one I described above. Fashions were different and homeschooling families tended to be from the fundamental groups of Christianity.

It even comes in a kids version!

Once homeschooling became legal and more and more parent's eyes were opened to not only the secular state of the schools but also the academic failures of the schools that demographic began to slowly change. Today, the majority of homeschoolers still cite moral or religious training as their number one reason to homeschool, but as homeschooling becomes more popular the demographics continue to change. In my anecdotal experience, our local group consists of every type of family from atheist to fundamental Baptist. Chances are, you pass homeschoolers every day and don't notice because they look exactly like everyone else. Our family has experienced gasps of shock and awe when we mention we homeschool because we "just look so normal!".

Do some families still fit into that sterotype, yes. But, really, who cares? None of us should be making our judgements of other people based simply on what they wear.

From Every Side

I had a best friend.

She was closer to me than a sister. I named my youngest daughter after her.  I don't know if you have ever had that experience before but it was the kind of friendship that movies are made of and books are written about. I miss her every day. I keep waiting for the missing her to stop, but it is just always there, the missing her.  We had a falling out quite a while ago and I don't know that either one of us knows how to fix it. It seems that every attempt has ended with more hurt for one of us and I think maybe we just got to the point where we just did not want to hurt each anymore.

Most of the time I do pretty well. I am happy and content and then WHAM! I miss her so badly it takes my breath away. Tears come to my eyes and I have to walk away from what I am doing lest the people near me ask and I have to explain.

Anna commented to me that I have been "all kinds of deep lately". Maybe that is true. Or maybe I just have not been able to "get my talk out" with people. I have been kind of a hermit the past couple weeks.

Regardless, I was burning grilling some steaks on the grill this evening and it made me think of low carb dieting. Any kind of food makes me think of dieting these days!  But in thinking about low carbing, I thought of my friend and how we did that diet together and both lost quite a bit of weight. I have never been able to repeat that same success and I wonder if I will be able to do it without her.

There was a time when I would have said you were a crazy liar if you told me that we would be in this place. I remember wondering aloud with her on the phone once about the weirdness that would exist if we did not have each other as best friends. We wondered who would we talk to. We wondered how we would get advice. We wondered who we would turn to for support. I don't think either one of us really thought that was any kind of real possibility. But here we are and I don't know about her but I often find myself wondering, "What in the world happened?"

Looking back, I know that there was a lot of unhealthy things in our friendship.  If anything happened in my day, she was the first person I wanted to share it with, the first person that I wanted to ask for guidance.  In a lot of ways, my husband came in second. I did not need any other friends, even though I had them. I think we let too many things go for the sake of our relationship. We did not do a lot of boat rocking and when the storm came, we did not know how to stabilize it. We had no practice and a good strong wind just blew us over.

In the past few years, I have done a lot of changing and some serious changes have happened in my life. I have had to learn what living with a chronically ill child looks like, my relationship with my husband went through a change (for the better), my oldest daughter offered more serious challenges, my priorities have changed, and I have found a more real confidence in knowing who I am in the eyes of God. I often wonder if we met each other for the first time at this point in our lives, would we have become friends at all. Maybe she would not even like me now. I don't know.

I do know this: One - no friendship should ever be taken for granted. It should be nurtured with conversation, giving, and boundaries. You need conversation to further the relationship, giving to deepen the relationship and boundaries to conserve the relationship. And two - no problem should be "let go" unless you are really willing to let it go and never let it be a problem.  Forgiveness and grace should always abound from every side.