More Winter Photos

Here is Josh with his new friend.

I took these photos today. We have had a couple of days break in the snow, it was actually pretty nice out today. There were a few snow flurries and we are supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow - anywhere from 1 - 6 inches depending on where in the Puget Sound area you live. My sister and her family are supposed to come up tomorrow, I hope the roads aren't too bad.

Homemade Snow

Baking

I don't usually bake very much because I eat too much when I do. At the holidays I do try to bake some Christmas cookies and some other treats to help make the season special. This year Galen and I baked spritz, lemon cream cheese spritz, chip & dip, and Russian tea cake cookies. I also baked Fruit Cocktail Pound Cake and Kuchen. Kuchen is a pastry that has a sweet dough crust with a custard filling and you can add fruit to it also. I make peach and apple and we usually eat it on Christmas morning. The Fruit Cocktail Pound Cake was my mother in laws answer to the traditional fruitcake that so many people don't really like. I will try to add photos of the pound cake and kuchen later.

Holiday Time

Like many people, we have been busy during this holiday season. We started by celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom and then my sister and her children joined us for shopping and gingerbread house and cookie decorating. My children have also made paper snowflakes of many shapes and sizes, so that we could have snow inside the house as well as outside. One of our annual traditions at this time of the year is to go out and cut a christmas tree. Although it has become an expensive tradition, it is one that holds a special place in our hearts.

Winter is Upon Us

Once again I have let the blog go by the wayside while attending to other activities. Winter has hit very hard here in the Pacific Northwest and it is just now officially arrived. We have had snow, more snow than we have had in a very long time and colder temperatures than I EVER remember. It was 3 degrees at 8:30 yesterday morning and I have never seen that temperature. I was born and raised here and am well into my 40s - so you can see how long that has been. There is even a possibility of a white Christmas this year and I don't remember ever having one of those, at least not where the white came down on Christmas. I know that people in other parts of the country get this kind of weather every winter, but those of us in Western Washington don't see much snow and most of us don't get much experience driving in these conditions. Due to that, driving around here has been a bit tricky. We are supposed to see a break in the snow tomorrow before more snow on Tuesday. Even with the difficulties the snow and ice brings, I must say that I think it is beautiful especially since I haven't had to get out and drive in it.

Our Mitten Kitten

Mitten Kitten likes baskets. Isn't he cute. He also likes Rusty Kitty.

More Kitty News

Star - Oreo - Splash

Star is a very friendly kitten, playful but also loveable, our friends adopted him. Oreo and Splash are great kittens, both are very playful. Splash is rough and tumble and loves to play fight with his brothers and him mom. Oreo is a purr baby and will cuddle up with you. Yesterday they both went off to an adoption event and if they didn't get adopted there they will have been placed into one of three area pet stores. I had mixed emotions about them leaving, I was tired of having and taking care of so many cats but they had become part of our family after living with us for so long. I hope they find loving forever homes.

What have I learned from this whole experience? It is hard for me to foster, I get emotionally attached to the little kittens. I have learned how important it is to have your animals spayed and neutered. Ignoring stray animals around your neighborhood can endanger your own animals through disease and fighting. Would I do it again? Possibly, if we had an extra room that we didn't need regularly - such as a spare bedroom. I won't be volunteering anytime in the near future, especially since we now have three cats of our own, one of whom is not keen on other animals - including the two she lives with.

Kitties, Kitties, Kitties

This is Rusty, our 16 year old furry boy.

This is Jasmine; aka: little momma; aka: Mean Kitty. She is actually a pretty good cat and would be a great pet for a family who has no other pets. She tolerates the kittens most of the time, but absolutely hates my Rusty kitty. This has been a big challenge.

We train them early to love books. This is Skitters, the petite and only girl of the bunch. She has gone to live with my sister and her family. I will post about the rest of the group later. Blogger photo uploading is just too slow tonight.

Our life . . . Random events - not so minor

So much has happened in our lives since I posted months ago. I have already shared about the kittens - I will post more pictures in a later post. My husband is a Boeing employee who just went back to work today after a 57 day labor dispute. It was great having him home, but stressful watching our savings dwindle. Although we prepare for a strike every contract year, we always hope it won't come to that. We are very thankful that this contract is for four years and we gain an extra year of breathing room. Our daughter moved from Washington state to Nashville, TN and you can read about her adventure on her blog, The Joyful Student . We are excited for her but at the same time will miss her greatly. After an extremely growing year with our next child in line, things have come around and we are doing much better with our relationship. He is a senior in our homeschool and will graduate in May. He is in process of joining the Navy and will probably ship out to boot camp sometime in June. I think it will be a time of growth and self exploration for him. We have had a busy fall with our third child in football, his first year at the high school level. It has been tough competition, but a growing experience for him. He still loves to play, but is glad that it is drawing to an end this week. A blessing to my husband being on strike for so long is that he was able to see our son play in almost all of his games, due to his working swing shift he usually misses all of the games. As you can see we have had a very busy few months.

Crazy Cat Lady

This is Splash before we brought the kittens inside. This is oscar right after we brought them inside and he was the first to be adopted.

Recently, I have been called the “Cat Lady”. You know, one of those people who has WAY too many cats. It all started one day many, many years ago when we acquired a young cat named Rusty who was about two years of age from some friends who were moving out of state. He has been our furry family member for the past 14 years. A year or two after his arrival in our family, we got an all black kitty for our daughter, which she named Velvet. Velvet lived with us for many years until she died of kidney failure a few years ago. And now the story continues:

One day in early August we discovered 3 kittens on our front porch, the next day there were three more. Where did they come from? and where was the mother?, we wondered. We were soon to wonder no more as the very skinny, all black mommy, who looks almost exactly like our daughter’s prior kitty Velvet, showed up. She was not much more than a kitten herself and she evidently found under our porch a safe place to have her brood of 6 kittens. At first I thought she was wild but she had on a very tight flea collar, thus we knew she had been a pet to someone at one time, although we could not find out whose. It didn’t take too long and she started to trust me and come to me when I called, but the kittens would run anytime we tried to get near to them. I contacted Purrfect Pals, a local no kill cat shelter and found some help there. I proceeded to trap all 7 cats and bring them into my house for safety. Once they were all trapped we took them up to the shelter for an examination, they all were healthy. When the kittens were big enough, I took them up to the shelter to be altered and have their vaccinations. We decided to keep one of the kittens and take care of the mommy as she was still a little wild and not likely to be adopted by anyone. I surrendered the other kittens to the shelter, but kept them at my home as foster kittens. Our family has worked on taming them so that they can be adopted. Purrfect Pals hosts adoption events at major pet stores in the area every Saturday and the foster parents bring their little wards to these events so people can see them. The first time we took our kitties to an adoption event they became stressed and hissed at everyone. Even so, one of the cute little guys got adopted. The remaining babies caught an upper respiratory infection and I had to give them an immune booster so that they could get over it before they went to another event. In the meantime they became more and more tame and used to us. Soon three of them were well enough to go to an event. They became so stressed while there, they had to be removed from the display and thus none were adopted and they came back home with us. The fourth little guy was adopted by a friend of ours and now happily has a family of his own. We were down to three kittens, 3 months old and thinking they belonged with us. We tried taking just two of them to an event (thinking they were feeding off of the third one’s stress). They still were stressed and hissed and thus came back to our home. So then I tried taking the mellowest one to an event by himself, he did better but still hissed. Who wants to adopt a hissing, snarly kitten when there are 13 sweet loving kittens nearby? It is very frustrating to have these sweet little kittens in our home and then see them get so stressed that everyone thinks they are snarling wild cats. My sister came and her children came to visit and fell in love with the kittens, now we only have two extras that need homes. A further complication that we have is that mommy kitty HATES my Old Man Kitty and causes a bit of chaos around here. Most of the time, foster parents don’t have their wards this long, we are just having a time with stressed out kitties. So while those at the shelter try to figure out what to do, here it is November and I still have 3 kittens and two adult cats and thus the name cat lady.

Online Surveys - My experience

Recently, I posted about some things that I had been spending my time on. One of those items is online surveys. I started exploring the possibility of doing online surveys to make a little cash to help our budget shortfalls. My experience has been mixed, but has for the most part been pretty positive. I have found that some survey sites seem to make better sense for me to spend my time on than others and that I won't make a fortune, but can make a little bit here and there. There are many types of survey sites, some reward you with an entry into their latest sweeps, others reward with points that can be cashed in for prizes or money after a certain number have been accumulated and others that just pay cash. There are also sites called GPT sites that have surveys and other offers that you sign up for to earn cash. My experience with the GPT sites have not been very positive and therefore I won't spend time talking about them.

When you sign up for a survey site, they usually have you complete profiles on different subjects so that they can better match you to surveys that you will qualify for. When you are invited to complete a survey, many times there are a few qualifying questions to see if you meet the profile that they are looking for. Sometimes you qualify and sometimes you don't. My favorite site is www.mysurvey.com . They don't send me a ton of surveys, but I seem to qualify for most that they do send. They reward with points that can be redeemed for cash after you accumulate 1000. I started doing online surveys in June and have cashed out with them twice. Their surveys are usually fairly short and so I feel that the time spent is worth it. I also like www.surveyspot.com . A lot of their surveys are rewarded with a chance in their sweeps, but they also have some paying surveys and I have gotten most of my paying surveys from them, including a $20 online focus group participation. When you answer their qualifying questions you get a chance at an instant win, while most groups give you nothing for the qualifying questions. Most survey sites have a minimum cashout balance, meaning that you have to accumulate a certain amount of points or dollars in your account before you can get paid. When I first started looking into doing surveys, I signed up for as many panels as I could find. After doing so, I started looking at what the rewards were and found that a couple had nothing that I wanted and they didn't redeem for cash. I also found that many survey panels used the same survey companies and then you wouldn't qualify because you had already done that or a similar survey. My advice to others is first look over how they payout and if it is in prizes, make sure there are items you would like. There is nothing worse than spending lots of time doing surveys and finding out that the rewards are not worth it. As a rule, I prefer those sites that pay cash and don't really spend time on those that are only for sweeps entries or prizes. My exception to that rule is for surveyspot and NPDOR. I already mentioned survey spot. NPDOR is a site that awards points for surveys and then you can bid on their prize board. I have only done a few surveys with them, but they were interesting and it was kind of fun bidding, even though I haven't won anything yet.

Here is a list of panels that I am somewhat familiar with:

www.mysurvey.com - reward with points that can be cashed in for money or donated to charity.
www.greenfield.com - Athough they pay for some surveys they mostly reward with sweeps. I haven't qualified for many surveys and I have found that a lot of other sites use their surveys and then pay for them. I am probably going to drop this one.
www.globalopinionpanels.com - they reward with points for cash, 5000 minimum cash out. They also give some points for qualifier questions even if you don't qualify for the survey.
www.surveyspot.com - some for instant win chances, some for sweeps entries, some paid. I like this one a lot.
www.zoompanel.com - points for prizes. I dropped this one because they didn't have anything I really wanted.
www.opinionoutpost.com - points for cash. 50 point minimum cashout - 10 points = $1. I have cashed out once since April and I like this one, I don't always qualify, but they pay decent points for those surveys you do qualify for.
www.globaltestmarket.com - points for cash. Points = $.05 ea and you need 1000 to cash in. I haven't cashed in on this one yet.
www.uslightspeedpanel.com - points for cash or prizes. They pay via paypal and I just cashed in my first time. You need at least 575 points. I get quite a few invites from them.
www.pineconeresearch.com - paid surveys. They pay for each survey automatically. I have completed one survey and promptly received a $3 check in the mail. I don't get many invites.
www.npdor.com - points to bid on their prize board.
www.your2cents.com - paid surveys. Registered in June, no invites yet.
www.valuedopinions.com - paid surveys. $20 minimum to cash in. I have $8 total and haven't had any invites since June 22.
www.opinioncentral.com - points for prizes. The prizes, in my opinion, were not worth the effort to receive them. I dropped this one.
www.americanconsumeropinion.com - paid surveys. I haven't qualified for one yet.
www.harrispollonline.com - points for cash, 800 minimum for $5. I haven't had many invites yet.
www.testspin.com - Amazon gift cards. Minimum $10 to cash out. I haven't qualified for much - but will keep trying on this one.
www.clearvoicesurveys.com - cash, mimimum $10 to cash out. I haven't qualified for one yet. They did credit $.25 to my account for screener questions.
www.surveysavvy.com - cash - I have only done one survey so far.

Surveys are an interesting way to earn some extra cash without having to leave home.

Get Smart - Lighthearted end to Tough Week

Yesterday afternoon, 1st Mustang and I had some alone time and so we went to see the new Get Smart movie. Steve Carell, of Office fame, stars as Maxwell Smart and was perfect for the part. Anne Hathaway plays Agent 99 and does a wonderful job as well. It was SO FUNNY! I don't think I have laughed so much at a movie. Get Smart will appeal to most people who like a good comedy. The movie is fairly clean, although there are some sexual innuendo and one bare bottom scene, so it does warrant its PG-13 rating. Seeing this movie was a welcomed, lighthearted end to a tough week.

Happy Fourth of July

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. . . . .

. . .The Declaration of Independence


I am thankful for the freedoms we have here in the United States of America, but I can't help but wonder how biblical the revolution was. I have not studied the Declaration in depth, but the copied portion, on first glance, appears to be contradictory to the scriptures. I think this calls for a little more study. What do you think?

My Favorite

This little pot was given to me by 1st Mustang's aunt. It came from his grandmother's farm and I love it. This year I potted it up with an ornamental grass, English Daisies, Marigolds and some cute trailing flowers. I am pleased with the result.

Back Yard Birds

Today 1st Mustang and I saw a Spotted Towhee in our backyard and we observed that the Goldfinches have discovered the birdfeeders. I have never seen the Spotted Towhee in our yard before and so it was an exciting discovery! Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it.

The To Do List

I have been trying to work on my productivity this week and so I made a To Do List and tried to keep to it. Here is what was on my list:

Finished:
Change out the hummingbird feeder food
Add America's Godly Heritage to our Government Lesson Plan
Go Grocery Shopping
Go to Costco
Clean the Downstairs (with the boys help)
Weed Front Flowerbed
Do the invitations for Boy #3s birthday party
Blog
Clean the Cobwebs
Mail a Package
View writing lessons and email observations to IEW elist.

Not yet Finished
Go through Boy #2 and Boy #3s grammar books and see where they are on their summer reading.
Make Jello Salad
Make Macaroni Salad
Make Strawberry Pie

I have accomplished alot this week and it feels good! These items were on top of the regular housework, cooking and laundry that gets done during the week.

Flowerbeds and Yard Work

One of the things that has captured some of my time and attention lately is our yard. We are slowly trying to fill the flowerbeds and make the yard more appealing to us and the birds and butterflies.

The flowerbed in the above photo was my main project for this year. I have had trouble keeping things alive in this bed as there is an overhang and it doesn't get much water even when it is raining. I am trying to be more diligent with my watering this year. The bed has a Yellow Oriental Lilly of some sort, two daylilly plants, two Penstimon plants, Shasta Daisies and Delphiniums. The blue flower is a delphinium, and the pinkish one is a penstimon. Penstimon are supposed to attract hummingbirds, although I haven't seen any yet. I also have a few marigolds in the front of the bed. There is still room and so I would like to add a couple of taller plants to the back row. All in all, I am happy with how it looks for now.

The Deadliest Monster, Prologue & Ch. 1

In preparation for the upcoming school year, I am currently reading the book The Deadliest Monster by J.F. Baldwin. This book is an introduction to worldviews and utilizes the novels Dr. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson to illustrate the two main positions that people hold on mans' condition. In the prologue he gives a brief synopsis of the two stories and then in Chapter 1 he asks the question, which monster do we see when we look in the mirror. Either Shelley or Stevenson are right, but both cannot be. Either man is good and can save himself or he is sinful and in need of a savior. Christianity recognizes that the good news starts with the bad and thus recognizes sin and the need of the savior. Also in chapter 1, Mr. Baldwin presents a survey of the 10 most influential non-christian worldviews in hopes that it will enable the reader to be more prepared to fulfill the Great Commision found in Mathew 28:19 - 20. So far I am finding this book very engaging and thought provoking.

Scattered Thoughts and Attentions

Once again I have left this blog to itself for a very long time. I have had my attentions elsewhere and unfortunately have not stayed focused on any one thing long enough to make real progress in any area. I have spent time trying to learn enough html to do a simple webpage for my family history, got a bit frustrated and didn't finish. Then the little bit I had finished caught the attention of a cousin in another state and that has provided me with the new motivation that I needed. I even fell off of the menu planning wagon and although we have had decent meals in spite of it, I really need to get back to being organized in this area. I have been working on school planning, which involves more teacher training and pre-reading of books. Currently, the teacher training involves rewatching the Teaching Writing Structure and Style DVDs from IEW and discussing them on the e-loop for said program and prereading The Deadliest Monster by Baldwin. I have one son who will graduate next year and so I am trying to figure out what items I feel he still needs before he leaves our nest. In addition to our soon to be senior, we also have one son starting highschool and one going into 7th grade. Another area that has captured my attention is our yard. There is pruning and weeding and planting of new flowers. Summer is finally bringing in some warmth and so my attention moves outside. And lastly, with rising gas prices pinching our budget, I looked for ways to earn a few pennys to help stretch the budget. I have been experimenting with doing online surveys and have had varying success, it is definately not going to make us wealthy, but it brings in a little to supplement the gas budget. I hope to expand on each of these areas in later posts over the next few weeks as things progress in each of the areas.

Intiman Theatre - Anne Frank

On Mothers' Day we went to see the play Anne Frank done by the Intiman Theatre group in Seattle. They did a wonderful job portraying the emotion of the time and the struggle that those in hiding went through and the risks that those who hid them faced. Although I was familiar with the story, I didn't realize that Mr. Frank survived the concentration camp and learned that fact from the play. The younger two boys and I are studying WWII and our oldest boy is trying to finish his art appreciation credit, so although the story was heartwrenching, it fit the bill for where we are in our schooling right now.