Dear New Oxford American Writing Thesaurus

Dear New Oxford American Writing Thesaurus,

This morning, our homeschool family was finishing up a writing assignment and we used the dictionary feature on our MacBook Pro to find a synonym for pitfall. Imagine our surprise and disappointment to open the thesaurus and read:

pitfall
noun
home schooling has its pitfalls: hazard, danger, risk, peril, difficulty, catch,snag, stumbling block, drawback.

Homeschooling? That's the best example you could come up with? Alienating 1,273,089 registered Americans who are the very people who still use dictionaries and thesauruses seems poorly thought out.

I'm wondering if when looking up a synonym for stingy we'll find a reference to judaism or when exploring intelligence we'll see, " Men exhibit greater intelligence than women". What other biases and prejudice should I expect to find within your pages?

Your example is offensive and does hard working families like my own a disservice.

Perhaps you need to look deeper into the homeschool movement. It stands to reason that if home schooled youth are courted by all the best post secondary institutions then perhaps this mode of educating is not as hazardous and rife with peril as implied.

Warmly,
Nicole

E is for Easter Candy

Does "stretching" the candy by putting it on a cupcake make it healthier? LOL


We made chocolate cupcakes and topped them with a peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Yum!

Sorry for the quiet, I have been mostly off line as I haven't been able to manage all my responsibilities (homeschool, house, marriage, special time with each of my boys, home cooking, sleep...) and being online was the lower priority item in my schedule.

This healing up business is hard slogging. My nerves are regrowing and the pain and sensations are very intense. I am thankful for the "pain training" the last few years have put me through or this would have brought me to my knees.

Blog Award

My sweet friend, Glittery Katie, a fellow Bombshell gave me this sweet blog award. I know there have been a few others (Carmen, Gabby, I'm sorry) but with all the surgery/meds/pain whoo-ha I've been bad about keeping up with things. That said, I really, really appreciated them and felt a little thrill at being mentioned. Thank you.

The way this works is:

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
2. List who gave the award to you and use a link to her blog (or hyperlink).
3. List 10 things that make you happy.
4. Pass the award on to other bloggers and visit their blog to let them know!
5. I am not such a stickler for rules if you are like me: do as you please with it!!!

I'd like to give this award to Cheryl - one of the most talented card makers I've ever had the privilege of knowing and an absolute sweetheart as well.

And to Maggi, I really can't say enough wonderful things about the positive, creative force that is uniquely Maggi. She's the real deal.

10 things that make me happy!

1. Coffee
2. Bombshell Stamps and Pin-up culture in general
3. Gauche Alchemy and the fact that I can be vintage and eclectic in my crafts without shopping. Yahoo. And my Gauche Girls.
4. Stripy Socks!
5. My friends in Portland. Who I love with all my heart. You know who you are.
6. Mountains. Snow. Mountains with Snow. Being snowed in up the mountain
7. Jason, Estela and Benjamin.
8. Being a boy mom, which means life is filed with zombies and dragons, not Barbie and ballerinas.
9. Bubby. The very, very best dog in all the land
10. Being married to a guy who still rocks my world and takes my breath away each and every day.

************************************************

We are still working on our March-April budget and it is seriously kicking our butt. Squeeze as hard as I can and I can't get our spending below 70% of our income. Grrr. This month we have no health spending account to fall back on, so prescriptions, doctors co-pays etc. are all cash categories. We also have a Costco membership due and last month we ate the cupboards bare (on purpose for the sake of freshness) so groceries are going to be spendy. This should be an interesting month money-wise.

I share this, because I sometimes worry that I haven't put a wholly honest spin on the TMMO - debt reduction journey. It hasn't all been a happy scamper from spendthrift to miser. Thousand dollar bills haven't fallen from the sky (although it was nice to sign the check from the tax man as opposed to writing him one) and we've worked hard every day. This week alone we've spent at least two hours a night scouring our bills and budget trying to decide if a category with twenty dollars in it can be moved down to fifteen. It's a lot of work and sacrifice. We're just Go Hard or Go Home people so we've made crazy progress.

E is for...

Eggplant: We went out for Baba Ganoush
Eight Seconds: One of my favorite movies ever and now my boys like it it too.


Ebelskivers: We bought the pan and are gave them a go. Delish!


Cinnamon Bun Style:



Chocolate Filled:



Today the boys new Escher puzzle arrived - 1000 pieces should keep them busy.



Next up is homemade eclairs - YUMMY! - I used to make them all the time in my teens but haven't since.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Plus Painting

Chris and I found five 16x20 canvases for five dollars on our date Saturday so we spent our evening painting and goofing off. It was so much fun! We played around with the new stencils from Tulip's Fashion Graffiti line. So awesome! Here's a glimpse:

Nicole:
Chris:
Chris:
Nicole
I've since cut mine into strips for cuffs and the rest into posies for a wreath I'm making. Knowing a project is going to end up in pieces takes the pressure off in terms of final result. It is important to remember to play. It's been awhile since I've done one of these posts so I thought I might as well.

Healthy:

I was doing great. Really. Down to 15-20% of my daily meds, getting stronger, doing more each day. Then BLAMMO!!!! right back to eight on the out of ten on the pain scale, massive muscle spasms and lots of pain meds. It's a little frustrating. Normal, expected, "appropriate" to the situation. But grrrrr. It feels like a set back. I think my head was in the game better when it was so terrible. Now that I've felt better, I want to keep feeling better.

I need to start eating well again too. This past eight months has taken a chunk out of all the weight I lost and I don't feel as good about myself as I did a year ago. I know what I need to do, but adding another thing to my schedule feels impossible right now.

Wealthy:

Dave Ramsey says when you take control of your finances you become a money magnet and I believe it. It's actually not so much a money magnet as all those streams, trickles and windfalls really exist. Many a bonus, tax return or rebate was frittered away before our big money overhaul. This year everything - even three dollar returns and rolled change - has gone onto debt. We've sold huge amounts of stuff and been really, really diligent in our spending. I'm thrilled to report that we've paid off 40K leaving us 26K to go.There have been some great windfalls in there - a bonus, tax return etc. But most of it was beans and rice and rice and beans. The best month we've had, we put 74.7% of our income on debt and the worst we put down 37%. Huge change from last July when we were spending 110% a month.

In other money news, the surgery bills keeps going up. All those nice "it's all covered" and "max of $1250 out of pocket" conversations were omitting that while the surgery may be covered, the hospital, anesthesiologist, x-rays ... were not. We've paid it all, but the ever-growing total was a bit of a bear to figure out. Again, I am incredibly grateful for the way we are handling our finances now. It wasn't a scary thing to have to pay my medical bills. It just meant we put a little less on debt than we'd planned. There is a deep peace to what we're doing. I can't say enough good things about it.

Now that we know we can finish this, the boys are getting excited about our trip to Europe. Our plan, since before we began is to pay off our debts, is to keep living the beans and rice lifestyle and finance a big trip to Europe. We want to go before the kids leave home and the way we were heading it would never have happened. We are hoping to go in 2011. *Squeal*

Now that I am making friends all over the UK the trip will be all the sweeter.

Once back, we have more financial stuff to do - six month emergency fund, college, retirement... but this trip is important to us and I can't wait.

Wise:

I am reading again. The reduction in meds helped me clear my head and be able to retain snippets of books. As a mom I rarely get to read more than a few pages at a time. With all the pain, that didn't leave enough of an impression for me to follow a long and make those stolen moments worth it. I've been blowing through the Song of Fire and Ice series and I finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Next is The Help and then hopefully one of Nick Hornby's new books - Slam or Juliet, Naked. Reading is such a joy.

We also are back to our regular homeschool schedule. Avery seems to have suffered the worse for the gaps in teaching. Trenton and Brayden picked up right where we left off. Trenton has a full day writing class later this month that focuses on the SAT essay and writing your personal essays for college applications. It'll be his first full day at a class without me nearby. We're all excited for him.

Health Update

Saw Dr. Awesome on Wednesday and I'm free to do as I please until my next visit in two months. I'm healing ahead of schedule, the mega-scar closed nicely and everyone continues to be in awe of my ability to feel my once dead big toe a mere ten minutes after waking from surgery.

Hooray!

As for the rest, the swelling, bruising, muscle fury etc. should die down about four months post-surg and the back pain should be 80% relieved by one year. That's a little different than I had it figured. Frankly I would have kept a numb toe and taken the pain relief first if anyone asked - they didn't.

But I am allowed back in the hot tub. Yippee. I was able to reduce my meds significantly as soon as I got my "tools" back.

While it's really nothing to fuss about, I am battling a nasty bug that involves a fever, mild cold and flu ick and a creeping rash that is intent on ruining my days and nights. I am SO itchy and whenever my skin touches something that bit welts up something fierce. In addition to itching, I feel sunburned. Ugh. It's so minor compared to everything else, but so are gnats - and those little buggers are annoying!

Last night between pain and itching I didn't get to sleep until after five this morning. My lovely family let me sleep 'til nine so I don't feel near so bad as I should. Hopefully tonight will be a lot better.

My, that was a lot of whining. My apologies.

Happy Things:

* This is the start of E fortnight ; E is a tricky minx - we'll have to brainstorm a little harder this time or else we'll eat edamame daily, listen to Eddie Vedder and Elvis and call it good.


* I'm considering the Eat Real Food Challenge from March 1st -15th. You can read about it here and here. It seems like an admirable E endeavor. Plus it's not a giant stretch for us as we have been moseying in that direction anyhow.


* I finished A Clash of Kings - a thousand page book in under a week. What amazes me is that aside from a sleepless night, the book was read three to five pages at a time. I think I may have forgot that parenting doesn't exclude reading, it just means you need to work a little harder and remember to steal those moments. The author has slowed down/halted his production on the series and different factions of my circle of friends have both encouraged me to continue with the series and cautioned me against committing to roughly five thousand pages of a story only to be left hanging by an ending that may never come. I was too intrigued to not read Book Two, but I think the break between two and three was "comfortable" enough for me to wait a bit before soldiering on. I think I might read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See next. I've heard good things.



* Thank you to everyone who came by my blog on Wednesday. I had 341 unique visitors. Wow and again, thank you so much for stopping by.

Bombshell Blog Hop

Yippee! It's the Bombshell Stamps Hump Day Hop!

We usually highlight the Bombshell projects we've done since the last hop, but I've done a whopping twelve projects - which is a lot when you factor in surgery, hospitalization etc.

Instead, I've been a good girl and tagged all my Bombshell projects so look over here ----------> at the tag cloud and click on "Bombshell Stamps"; it'll take you to everything I've done. Another handy-dandy feature of the tag cloud is that if you want to just see projects using a certain stamp set (like "Man's Ruin") you can click on that sets name and it will further sort them to just show those ones. Pretty fancy!

I do have something new to show, and it meets with our theme:

The Mission: Mama Said Knock You Out!

Use your punches and Die Cuts to create a Bombshell Masterpiece!

For this card I used Bombshell Angel and a lot of Gauche Alchemy goodies. This was the first time I've added clothes to a Bombshell Stamp - it was fun, but I don't think she's less scandalous for the clothing. *giggle*

It meets the Get Messy Challenge at Tuesday Taggers (which is being sponsored by The Craft Barn) and the distress challenge at Paper Sundaes.

I also made a gel card. Thanks Tonya for posting about them. Here it is:


See the pretty bubbles:


To be honest, I'm not super-happy with it. But, not every card is the greatest thing ever made (in case you're wondering, truly wonderful cards are orange and flee from purple. J/K) - such is life.

HERE is a link to a tutorial of my rather disastrous first brush with gel cards. It's a groovy Comic Life presentation, c'mon, you know you want to clickity, click.

This card met a couple of challenges out in internet-land:

KL Stampin and Scrappin: Recycle something that is usually trash - I used an old, used zip-loc baggies.
Our Creative Corner: Try a New Technique - and boy was this a new one. And....

Bombshell's very own Wet and Wild Challenge dreamed up by the uber-talented Pinkstar who on top of being a seriously talented crafter, she's super-nice. When I got home from the hospital there was a parcel from her full of fun things to play with. And she's Canadian to boot.

"Wet & Wild" CONTEST GUIDELINES: (CONTEST ENDS FEB. 28, 2010)
The creation can be a card, layout or altered item, but must:

1. use a Bombshell Stamp somewhere
2. project must involve a nautical theme, use a wet medium, or both
3. post a photo of your creation in this thread!


Here are the other blogs to hop to - I hope you make the time to visit, these ladies never disappoint.

Sarah
BoHoRose
Stempelientje
Meredith
Erika
Angela
Sy
Cheryl
MaryG
Kas
Kathi
MissMagoo
Gabby
Steph
Kelli
Kim
Angie
Patti
Sunghee