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Star in Your Own JibJab! It’s Free!

I had to run some business errands earlier this afternoon, but Jami and AJ stopped by to see Mrs. Dannhaus. AJ made sure that she knew he and Gordon (our neighbor on the other side) were here if she needs anything. And she will. She and her husband had just moved to a new home about five minutes from their house next door to us. The new place is about three acres on the river … and will require mowing with his tractor. The “old” place next door to us is about nine acres. They have had it for sale for a good while, and until there’s a buyer, it will need to be maintained as well. Mr. Dannhaus was a tough old Marine, but he had a good heart and was a good neighbor. He and Mrs. Dannhaus celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary not terribly long after we bought our house in 2000. He was in his late 70’s, she a few years younger. I know she’s going to miss him terribly.

When you’re saying your prayers … please remember Mrs. Dannhaus. Thanks …

And the winners are:

“Sweetie, Princess of the Caribbean”

Student Photo Competition – 3rd Place

Jami

I can’t believe our Chihuahua allowed herself to be dressed up like this.  Good doggie . . .

“Cookies ‘N Cream” — Colored Pencil drawing of an Appaloosa Circus Horse

Student Art Competition – 2nd Place

Jami

“Birdhouse” — Home Depot Kids’ Workshop Project

Student Crafts Competition – 1st Place

Jami  

Mommy got a little recognition, too (and thanks her sister for signing a release allowing this photo to be publically displayed)!

“She Ain’t Goofy, She’s My Mom!”

Amateur Photography, B&W Division – 3rd Place

Laura 

Frustration!  I wrote the most interesting little blog the other day about our fun-filled weekend . . . and then *blip* — the internet ate it!  Let me see if I can recreate my story:

Last Saturday we went to Galveston for the Greek Festival.  This is an annual event for us.  It all began when my husband was a kid . . . his family went every year, and so when we married, we began going each year.  It is so much fun.  There are dancers in traditional Greek costume, wonderful music, delicious food.  This year, my mom-in-law, Jami, and I went down to watch a little of the entertainment and pick up some dinner plates to take back to the house.  AJ’s dad had foot surgery a couple of weeks ago and since he’s still limited in how much trekking about he can do, AJ visited with him while we were gone.

The Assumption Greek Orthodox Church is the host of this annual event.  The Olympian Dancers are incredible, performing traditional Greek dances for the festival-goers.   Years ago, a gentleman named Vasili Papavasiliou would do his famous “Table Dance,” where he would literally pick a square table up with his teeth!  The last year that we saw him do it, he first picked up the table, then he set a chair upon the table and picked that up!  It was amazing.  We think his dentist may have told him to stop, because he seems to have retired.

The music is awesome, although the last couple of years they have set up some gianormous speakers, and it’s really almost too loud.  We had difficulty hearing each other talk at one point, and that’s not good.  Perhaps I should write a letter???

The main reason we go, however, is the FOOD.  Oh, my.  We always get the dinner plate . . . full of good stuff.  For $10, you get generous servings of Pastitsio, Tiropita, Spanakopita, Keftedes, Dolmades, Salata, and Bread.  If those things seem a little “foreign” to you, souvlaki (marinated beef skewered with onions and green pepper and grilled to perfection) is also available.  Now if you’re not too full by now, you can visit the dessert table for some delicious confection made by one of the ladies of the church.  The classic Baklava, yummy Kourambiedes, Melomacarona, Koulourakia, or Karidopita.  Those Greeks know their sweets, for sure.  Us girls went ahead and ate our lunches and then took plates back to the guys.  I think they enjoyed them, as there was little conversation and lots of contented munching. 

When they finished, AJ took me over to Ohana’s to see the Bob Martin surfboard he would like to buy. The boards were cool, but the thing that really caught my attention was the tile “welcome mat.”  AJ is going to see what he can come up with for our side entry into the house.  What do you think?

While I would love to get this beauty for him for Christmas, (1) it’s not a surfboard, it’s art and (2) it costs $1200.  Ouch!  Seriously, it is a 10-year-old gorgeous wood veneer board, and it has never been in the water.  I think the original owner hung it on the wall or something.  For that price, I sure would hate to see something happen to it.  

There was a very nice Robert August board there, too.  It was a much more reasonable $800 (!)  In all truth, not a bad price for a nice board (so I’ve been told).  Hey, I dream about $1,000 cameras, so I suppose I can’t say much.

A few days later we made it to the county fair.  I am pleased to say that we did not go home “ribbon-less.”  I received a 3rd place ribbon for that hysterically goofy picture of my sister and her son (see previous blog entry) and my girl received THREE ribbons — a 3rd place for her “Sweetie, Princess of the Caribbean” photograph (how the child got that snotty Chihuahua to let her dress her up is beyond me!), a 2nd place for her colored pencil sketch of an Appaloosa, and a 1st place ribbon for the birdhouse she built at the Home Depot Kids Workshop.  All around, I’d say it was a very nice year at the fair.  I will post pictures of her winning entries sometime tomorrow.

Aloha!

An update for those of you who wonder what’s happening at the Creek.  (Our little community is named after a creek, and so we call our homeschool “Creekside Academy.”  It’s been handy to have a “name,” since we get educator discount cards at the teacher supply stores, Barnes & Noble and Office Max.)

Saturday we submitted our entries for the county fair.  We love the county fair!  We don’t do the agriculture/livestock thing — it’s not our cup of tea.  However, we do like to go see the animals and we even peek in at the rodeo goings-on.  (A couple of years ago I was affeared that I’d unknowingly given birth to a future PETA member — we went to watch the calf roping and Jami burst into tears thinking that the cowboy was “hurting” the baby cow.  We explained to her a little of the ins-and-outs of ranch life and how ranchers take better care of their animals than one can imagine.  She’s okay with it now.  Whew!)

Now our favorite part of the fair is the exhibition hall.  We love to go and see all the wonderful things that people have crafted for display and competition.  Personally, my girl entered a photograph, a drawing, and a wooden birdhouse in the appropriate divisions.  I entered five photographs.  It’s so exciting to go to the exhibit hall and search out our entries to see if we’ve won anything.  Entries of these types were due in yesterday and I dropped them off with time to spare.  My girl will also be entering the Kitchen Pride Bake Off on October 21.  She entered last year and won a blue ribbon for the bar cookies she made.  I was very proud of her!

Our fair really has a great display of countywide talent and skill.  We will see quilts, needlework, woodcrafts, art in various media, photography, and collections (we have a seashelling club in our area and they always have  a beautiful exhibit of shells their members have collected from their travels) on display.  There’s also the commercial exhibit hall where vendors of different products come to display their wares and hopefully make a sale or two.  One year there was a gentleman doing cooking demonstrations with some very fine cookware — more than we could afford, but it was fun to watch him do his little “infomercial” in real life!

After we’ve scoped out our entries to see if we’ve won anything and then checked out the other entries on display, we’ll wonder over to the food booths where we’ll have to choose between such incredibly rich and decadent yummies like sausage on a stick, gumbo, turkey legs, apple dumplings with ice cream, funnel cakes and fried oreos (yes, you read that right — it’s an oreo dipped in funnel cake batter and deep fried, dusted with powdered sugar . . . so sweet it makes your teeth hurt, and I can hardly wait . . . !)

Then there’s the Midway — flashing bright lights streak through the sky on the Ferris Wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the Zipper!  Toss a ping-pong ball in a bowl of colored water and win a Fishy!  Pop a balloon with a dart and win a stuffed animal!  Everyone’s a winnah!  (Yeah, right!)  Cotton candy and candied apples, popcorn and soda . . . sticky hands and sticky smiles.  A tired little girl falling asleep on the drive home.  Already talking about “next year” as her little head nods with weariness.

I just love this time of year . . . 

Here are some of my photos — one of them uploaded upside down (I don’t know why and it’s late — I may come back and fix it later, but I need to finish up here for now . . . )

This is a picture of my girl that I took at my sister-in-law’s wedding back on the spring.  I love this photo!  (In fact, I think I may have posted it before, but hey, it’s my blog and I can do what I want to!  LOL)

This is my nephew and my sister at last year’s county fair.  I entitled this one:

“She ain’t goofy, she’s my mama!”

Fortunately, my sister has a good sense of humor (and I asked for permission before entering it in the fair)!

I took this one (“Across the Water”) at a rosery up the road from where we live.  The nursery specializes in antique roses, especially roses developed by Texas A&M that have been designated “Earthkind” roses.  Earthkind roses are put through strenuous testing for hardiness in the least friendly of environments.  Meaning the test roses are stuck in the ground and ignored for three years.  If they thrive, they are awarded the Earthkind label (which in my world translates to:  Idiot-proof)  I really want to get some of these roses for our yard.

This was taken a few weeks ago on our homeschool group’s field trip to see the Elissa at the Texas Seaport Museum in Galveston.  I entitled it “Sailing Back in Time.”  The kids had a great time touring the ship and learning about sea travel in the 1800’s.  My girl looks quite at home, dontcha’ think?

I’m sorry this one is upside down!  I’m not sure how to get it to flip over.  :0(  Anyway,  if you have a laptop, I suppose you could turn your screen over . . . ha!  It is one of those inflatable slide things that you see at carnivals, etc.  This happened to be at Opening Day for the Little League Ball club in my nephew’s hometown.  Like I said, I’ll try to get this to upload properly at some later time so you can truly appreciate it in all its glory!  LOL

I did not enter this one in the fair, but I do like it a lot.  I went to a women’s retreat with my church a few weeks ago.  It was held at a Baptist encampment on the bay south of here.  One of the ladies organized a 7:00 a.m. prayer walk — in theory a lovely thing, but I am not a morning person!  They left about 5 minutes before I made it to the common room . . . which was actually fine with me.  I took my Bible, my little notebook, my camera, and headed out on my own “prayer walk.”  I found a perch on the seawall where I settled in to watch the sun rise and have my own talk with God.  I wish I could do this every morning!  (The watching the sun rise over the water thing . . . ) 

It’s been a while, eh?  Well, to catch ya’ll up on what’s going on here — the girl recovered from her little temperature bug.  Yay!  She’s doing great and we’re puttering along with our schoolwork.  SuperMath is her least favorite class, but she prefers it over the curriculum that we used last year.  This past week we learned how to turn fractions into decimals and how to square large numbers ending in the number “5”.  (It’s a pretty neat trick, and works every time!  It would be easier to demonstrate if I could actually “write” it the way the teacher does on the board, but here goes: 

75 squared — write it where the 7 is to the left of a backwards capital “l” and the 5 is to the right.  Square the 7 to get 49.  Then add 7 and 49 together to get 56.  Square 5 and bring it down to the right of the 56.  75 squared = 5,625.  Use your calculator and see if I’m right.

105 squared — write it where the 10 is to the left of a backwards capital “l” and the 5 is to the right.  Square the 10 to get 100.  Then add 10 and 100 together to get 110.  Square 5 and bring it down to the right of the 110.  105 squared = 11,025

Works every time, but only with numbers ending in 5.  No calculator needed.  Wowsers!

She loves anatomy and American History, and while Spanish is a very elementary class (basically just learning lots of vocabulary), she enjoys it, too.  We still struggle with the management of it all, but then again, we struggle with that with life in general.  So what’s so unusual?

Work continues — I had a couple of appointments with potential clients — one of whom I discouraged from ordering from me, because in all honesty, she had beautiful draperies that were perfectly fine and I didn’t think she would be happy with what I had to offer.  I’d rather lose the sale than have her regret buying from me, or worse yet, complain that I gave her bad counsel.  The other potential client asked if I had a particular cording available for my blinds — um, no.  She really liked what she’d seen at her friend’s house and so I encouraged her to do a little more research and then if she still wanted a quote from me, I would come back and measure her windows.  I could tell this cording that I don’t have is very important to her.  I did NOT want to measure 20+ windows, knowing the likelihood of my getting the job is very slim.  I’ll go back if she decides she is still interested, but at least I’ll know that she’s really interested.

Not to mention, she had miniblinds and my allergies are in overdrive right now.  You know, it does not matter how great a housekeeper someone is — blinds are dusty.  And I don’t think I could have handled measuring the windows today anyway.  My chest hurts from coughing — why aggravate it?

Wednesday may turn out to be a very good day for me business-wise.  I hope so, anyway, especially after the above-mentioned appointments.  I received a call from a company that does apartment rehabilitations.  They are spiffying up a 40-unit complex about 90 miles from here and they would like a quote for vertical blinds for all the units.  My guy and I are running up there Wednesday to talk to the project manager and measure a few windows so I can give them a quote.  I’ll be bidding against 4 other companies (nothing new) and so we’ll see.  I’ve done residential and commerical work, and I have good references, so hopefully this one will come through.  It would be a great job to get, and if they like my work, there may be more.  They are Houston-based, so I’m sure there are other apartment complexes in my general vicinity that I could bid on, provided they hire me for this one and like the work I do.

My guy is doing well, although he’s been struggling with some shoulder and arm pain these last several months.  He went for x-rays, a bone scan and bloodwork to see what’s going on there.  The x-rays and bone scan came back negative for any abnormalities.  We hope to hear back on the bloodwork soon.  I’m sure it’s fine — it would just be nice to know why a pulled muscle is taking so long to heal.

On a happier note, our girl received her Christmas present early this year.  She’s been wanting her own puppy — while her daddy has a golden retriever and we’ve been “sharing” a Chihuahua, she wanted her own dog.  So we went out to the breeders’ home where we got our Chihuahua to see what she had and our girl fell in love with the cutest little boy Yorkshire Terrier.  His name is Willie Flynn and he’s a pistol!  He’s 11 weeks old and full of himself for sure.  Our golden and the chihuahua seem to tolerate him pretty well, although sometimes I swear that’s a somewhat disgusted look on their faces.

Well, enough for now.  I will try to post a little more of what’s been happening tomorrow.  Ciao!

I’m pleased to report that “Cleopatra” is doing much better.  Temperature is still hovering around 99.9, but she seems to be feeling fine otherwise.  In addition to watching “The Waltons,” she read a good bit and worked on making beaded bracelets for her friends.  Her throat is a bit red and so I am going to try to get a doctor’s appointment for her tomorrow.  Just to rule out some ugly bugly like strep, or to get antibiotics if necessary.

We are supposed to officially start school tomorrow, but I have a feeling it will be a “light” day.  We’ll probably fill our morning with a couple of Supermath timed quizzes and begin reading “Farmer Boy” aloud.  It’s the first book study in our “Learning Language Arts through Literature” book.  I’m really excited about this curriculum and I think we both will enjoy it greatly.

Have a good one and I’ll see you later!

Please keep my girl in your prayers. We went to church yesterday and all was fine. But later in the afternoon, she began to feel poorly. She started out running a 103.4 degree temp.  I gave her Motrin, followed by Tylenol 4 hours later (per my sister’s, aka “Nurse Poo”, instructions).  The temp went down some, but it’s been holding at about 100.4 all day today.  I’ve not given her any additional meds now that it’s a “reasonable” temp, since temp is the body’s way of fighting off infection.  Her throat is a little red and so I will probably be taking her to the pediatrician tomorrow. 

She’s a pretty agreeable patient though — she’s reclining on the sofa, watching “The Waltons” DVD’s that my sister loaned her.  I hope she doesn’t get too comfortable with this “Cleopatra” gig!  I’ve got to run – she’d like an apple, thinly sliced . . . LOL