Homegrown Thoughts

Ok, I know, homeschool parents don’t exactly get time off for sick days, but I’m trying my best!  I have taken up an almost permanent position in the recliner with my laptop.  I have my pillows, blankets, pets and assorted cold remedies surrounding me.

What’s a girl to do when she’s afraid to sleep and leave her children to their own devices, but can’t get vertical without her sinus contents sloshing around in her head and making her feel like the Earth is seriously listing to the left…then to the right…then to the left?

Well, if you’re me, you do something on the computer, of course!  My webpage has been in need of a revamp for some time now so I decided this was a good time to tackle it.  My complete lack of good judgment when I’m ill is obvious here.  I’m in zombie mode and I decide to take on a project that requires me to think?!?

Fortunately, after much much much trial and error, I did manage to get it done.  It probably only took me 8 times as long as it would have if I’d have waited until I was healthy.  It’s not completely different, but should work better for some future plans I have for the site.  I converted it from HTML only to CSS-driven - which was a huge pain since a program I used before added extraneous html tags to EVERYTHING.  So I’ve spent the last 2-3 days trying to clean all of that up and change the design for my needs by hand-coding it.

At least I know my brain is still functioning on some level.  I may not be able to remember what I did 5 minutes ago, but I can code webpages.  Yay me.

If anybody would like to check out the new look - or maybe see the site for the first time, if you haven’t already, it can be found here - Homegrown Hearts.

If anybody has suggestions of what else I can do from the recliner to remain sane, please let me know!  It’s scary to consider what I might come up with on my own in my present state.

I have this habit of working on ‘hidden’ clutter before tackling the more obvious clutter ( like the kids’ toys littering the living room and the pockets of disarray scattered around our home). I was up to my tricks again today as I finished filing the multitude of clipped and printed off recipes I’ve collected over the years. I tend to think that recipes in the paper, magazines or online look really good at the time, so I’ll tear or print them out thinking, “I’ll have to try that sometime!”. Most of these recipes have managed to congregate in a couple of areas that are hidden, but I still know they’re there…taunting me.

So, as I said, I finished up filing all of these today. I bought (before my ‘want’ buying ban, I might add) a FilePLUS organizer for my recipes. A simple accordian file would have accomplished the same thing, but I think I’ll use it more because it’s attractive. I feel more organized when my organizational tools look nice. Here is what it looks like:

Nice, huh? I have a section for the recipes I still want to try. I threw away probably 80% of what I started with. I have other sections for recipes I’ve tried and liked. As I try out the new ones, they will either be filed there or tossed if they aren’t to our liking. The very popular recipes will be transferred to my personal cookbook, which is another great organizational tool.

This isn’t the same one I have (mine is nearly 20 years old, a wedding shower gift), but it’s the same idea. I think this is spiral-bound and mine is a 3-ring binder.

Also, I will NOT be clipping any more recipes unless I am sure I will try them and they will be filed in this folder or they will be thrown away.   I have enough new recipes to keep me busy for quite awhile, so any that get added will have to be VERY impressive.  With allrecipes.com as another great resource, there’s really very little reason to be clipping anything out of magazines (where the recipes seem to emphasize certain products over really great taste anyway).

I hope to share some of our favorite recipes here at HomegrownHearts very soon!

I was tagged for this on my homeschoolblogger blog, but I’ll post it here, too.  :-)

I’ve been tagged by Kelly at Unschooling @ Sage Manor.  I haven’t done a meme/tag for awhile, so…why not?

Here are the ‘rules’:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

And now, my 6 unimportant things:

1. I’m a night owl.  If I had my way, I’d be up until 2 am every night and sleep until 10.  Of course, this doesn’t really work too well when you have kids to take care of, so instead I live on much less sleep than I should have and often take ‘unplanned’ short naps during the day.
2. I don’t have any wisdom teeth.  As in, I never had any, they never appeared.  Go ahead, make your ‘lack of wisdom’ jokes now.  I can take it.
3. I don’t like to be in the dark.  I insist on a night-light in my bedroom.  This is one of the (many?) things I’ve never outgrown from childhood.
4. I can’t get a tan.  I go from almost transparent to red and back again.  There is no in between.
5. I unapologetically say ‘on accident’ instead of ‘by accident’.  I actually did some research on this a short time ago and it seems to be a bit of a regional thing.  I try to use correct grammar, but this is just one of those things I’m not willing to worry about.  Plus, it’s fun irritating a certain someone by saying it MY way.  Heh.
6. I love milk.  I mean, really love it.  Yes, I know, cow’s milk is for calves, not people…yada yada yada.  I don’t care.  I love my moo juice.  Maybe I’ve developed multiple stomachs like cows have…that would explain a lot.  Regardless, I will almost always choose milk over any other beverage.

I guess that takes care of that.  I’m supposed to tag random people, but I’m going to unrandomly tag people I know.  :-)  These people are as follows:

Joy at Overflowing Acres
Heather at Beloved Books
Nancy B at Homeschooling is Life!
Dianna at Through the Eyes of Happy Apple
Gina at The Christian Mom’s Outlet
Maggie at Maggie’s Place

Maybe I’m just in a weird mood due to every part of my body but my right ear being in pain from a brutal kick-boxing workout last night…but this is the kind of thing that cracks me up.

Don’t let the website address worry you - it’s worth the visit. Note the ‘unforeseen circumstances’ reference. HA!

http://www.astrologicalmagazine.com/

I needed to get groceries, specifically groceries that fit into the new nutrition plan I started today.  Yeah, I’m starting this exercise/nutrition thing that goes for 10 weeks, but wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about it so I hadn’t mentioned it yet.  Anyway…I needed ‘healthy’ food so off I went.  Most of the time I do my grocery shopping at Super Target.  It’s conveniently located and, dudettes, it’s Target!  I love me some Target.  But, oh yes, we have this Mission: Self-Control thing going on, don’t we?  This trip was a trial by fire.  I could have just gone to the regular grocery store, but there were actually a couple of items I did need at Target, so I braved it.

I didn’t do too bad.  I did impulse buy one thing, sort of, but I did kind of need it, too.  And it was on sale.  Ok, ok, I know…but I’m calling this one justified. I did need some eye shadow.  I did.  And that was ALL I got that wasn’t food or on my list.  At least I’m pretty sure of that.

I think the nutritional part of this program is going to be a lot harder than the exercise part, and that will be plenty hard!  I have to will be going to exercise for 6 days a week for the next 10 weeks, at a minimum.  3 days kick-boxing and 3 days of resistance bands.  I am now the owner of a pair of boxing gloves!  I find that so funny…if you know me, you know how NOT me that is.  The nutrition part of it is set up to maximize the benefits of the exercise program - balanced carbs and proteins, 6 meals a day, etc.  It’s a lot like the abs diet if anybody is familiar with that…also a lot like South Beach.  And I don’t like calling it a diet.  It’s not a diet.  I don’t go on diets.  It’s just a…tweaking..of my usual very horrible eating habits.  It fits in with the ’self-control’ theme very well.

So this year is starting off to be pretty challenging.  De-cluttering, not buying more clutter, new exercise and nutrition program…full full schedule…oh, and I’ve been asked to give a seminar at an upcoming homeschool group meeting, too!  Me oh my oh me oh my.  To even consider it is a major step forward for me.  How my life has changed over the last year.  But I’m going to say that’s a good thing!  My comfort zone is being stretched wider and wider.  God is definitely working on me!