WWII generation

My mom grew up during WWII on a Farm in Indiana. I think that farm life and growing up during the depression and the great war toughens people up. She is tough and so are her siblings. They worked hard and didn't even have electricity until mom was in 6th grade. They killed their chickens and dressed them when they wanted to eat chicken and they killed their pig and had a big party while doing it. Her attic bedroom would go below freezing at night in the winter! They took hot water bottles to bed with them. She shared a double bed with her sister all the way up through high school and her brothers across from them did too. I grew up so much softer...eating prepackaged meats in a warm house in the winter and a cool house in the summer. I shared a room until the 6th grade and then had my own. I think sharing communal space is good for a kid. I'm not that comforatable sharing my space with others. If I wake at night, I watch TV or sit at the computer. What did they do when they woke up at night?

Picture Day!

Today is picture day at school. My middle daughter does not like picture day. She is a little self conscious and tends to have an unnatural smile. Don't get me wrong - she is a very funny. jokey kid, but something about the camera makes her self-conscious. My youngest is in second grade where the teeth tend to be funny. She has one front tooth all the way in and the second tooth about half way down and crooked. Should be a cute picture!

Psalm 23

Laura's RamblingsDavid was a shepherd before he became king. He wrote many of the Psalms including Psalm 23. I've always liked that famous Psalm, but didn't really relate to "My Lord is My Shepherd" as I've never been a shepherd or even ever met one. David worked as a shepherd and was used to moving the sheep to greener pastures and making sure that they had plenty of water. He was used to protecting them from dangerous animals. He carried a rod and a staff to protect his sheep. So David could relate to God being like a shepherd to him - protecting and taking care of him.

Birthday Parties

Laura's Ramblings Our oldest daughters were born on the same day (no they are not twins, they are two years apart). It makes for a hectic birthday party time of year. Two slumber parties in less than one week! I'm thinking about having one of them celebrate their half birthday instead. Do you think they will go for that?

Are your kids being challenged at school?

Laura's RamblingsOur kids attend public school in Connecticut. I've struggled with whether I should homeschool them. I have a sister who homeschools and several people at church also homeschool. I can see the advantage of not having to deal with negative social issues as children advance in grades. However, I figure if God wants me to do it he would make it clear to us and would give us the conviction, the strength and the drive to do it (which I don't feel that I have right now). So our kids are in public schools. My middle daughter is participating in a Johns Hopkins advanced math program and has a tutor from Johns Hopkins. She will start the program this week. If you are interested in finding out more about this program go to www.cty.jhu.edu to enroll. My oldest daughter qualifies based on her advanced CMT scores. She may take the SAT this year as a 7th grader to give her practice and see how she does.

First Gray Hair

Laura's RamblingsThe other day I was primping after a shower and noticed a light shiny hair. My hair was wet and it was hard to isolate this one hair, but I finally succeeded. I plucked it and took it into the bathroom and examined it. Was it blond? No, definitely gray. It seemed thicker than my normal dark brown hair. I got on the internet to search for the age at which gray hairs first begin to appear. It is different for different races, but for caucasians, it is 34 +/- 10 years. Since I am almost 44 I guess I am at the upper end of the range. That made me feel better.

My Seven Year Old

Laura's RamblingsSeven is a magical age - seems to be right between the little kid and big kid stage. My seven year old's big front teeth are coming in now(crooked) and she will be forever changed in looks. She likes to primp me - she painted my toenails for me and tried to file them (they were too short). She gets out the spray bottle and sprays my hair with water and then brushes it and makes a little pony tail. She announces that she "is the prettiest, but I am second prettiest". My other daughters don't like that. She has become my personal gray hair plucker. I'm starting to get a few here and there and I don't want to dye my hair yet so she plucks them for me.

Haircut

Laura's RamblingsI decided to try cutting my own hair. The beauticians never cut as much as I ask so I got out a pair of hair scissors and started cutting. I tried to do what they do - snip evenly down along the front and then pull up hair from both sides to the top of my head and trim it. It's hard to do looking in the mirror. I had two people comment on my hair cut - a neighbor and a lady from church. (I never get comments because it never looks any different when I go to Cost Cutters). The lady from church said it looked nice. I didn't have the guts to say that I had cut it myself!

Finished!!

Laura's Ramblings
I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo. It was over 1400 pages and took me six weeks to finish. I loved the first 300 pages. Very exciting and a real page turner. The second half of the book was devoted to the Count seeking revenge and his vengeance was extreme. I found this to be less enjoyable because of all of the human suffering. Dumas could have written for Seinfeld if he were alive as the plot interconnections and twists and turns reminded me of a very long, elaborate Seinfeld episode.

How do you make a blog?

Our pastor started a blog a couple of months ago. He has links to other blogs. I started reading his blog and then blogs from his blog and recognized a couple of ladies from our church. It looked like fun and I wanted to try it, too! My husband found a website for a free blog and it's pretty easy to get started. By the way, these are my daughters dressed up for a tea party last summer. Such beauties!