Schooling choices

  We have been looking into all the options for Kaya when she starts school. It's doubly interesting because locally our town has had an issue with a teacher being busted for drugs..but that could happen in public or private school.  So we decided to look at all kinds of options to prepare for when Kaya does go to school.
  We started with the local Catholic school. We are not Catholic but they have a reputation that is split. Some say it's excellent small classes others say that the kids come out to middle school less prepared. So we listened to people's opinions that had sent their kids there and then looked at the tuition work page. Very interesting. They will state over and over that they are "very open and loving school setting for all faiths" but if you are not Catholic in their parish then your tuition is nearly double!! At $5680 est it's a steep price for a year. Plus you have to add in to that cost $500 for books and you have to purchase uniforms and gym uniforms. You can receive a non parish grant IF you sign paperwork you will attend mass weekly and be a financial cornerstone of the church. That's great but I'd be a hypocrite attending Mass to save money...and I'm pretty sure the Lord would see my true heart and the churches. The second scholarship takes 500 off a year but you must attend and help at every single school function and fundraiser as well as SCRPT programs. There is no way that either of us could attend or financially do EVERY single program!! The third for 500 off would be volunteering 20 hrs a school year which is more feasible. But even with a scholarship flat tuition would be over 400 a month. Not in our budget. I also questioned where our hard earned money would be spent when my daughter couldn't attend Mass fully or take the classes for confirmation etc attached to the church.
  Another option is the local Christian Academy. We looked at private religious schools first mainly because many have high academic standards, small classes, good teacher/student ratios and more secure environment. Our second school was a bomb too. Our cousin attends the church connected to the school so we went to her for info as they have no website and no info on the computer (that alone made me rethink the school...it didn't sound open and inviting if that makes sense). Once we received the list of things you cannot do etc we quickly realized it was not the choice for us. If Kaya attended there I could not cut her hair, could not allow her to wear any jewelry, could not allow her to paint her toes or fingernails, her shoes would be measured for height, her skirt would have to go past her knees and her shirt sleeves over her elbow, no tv, no dancing, restricted music and the kicker....When I would pick her up I'd be required to follow the same rules...I would have to have a skirt on that went past my knees, elbows covered, no makeup, no jewelry (Not even my wedding band!!) or it would constitute Kaya being put out of the school. We would also have to attend church for a certain amount of hours a month for approval. I wasn't totally surprised with all the rules but to be honest a bit shocked by the absolute dictation of your life and outward appearances. How could I explain to Kaya that her teachers say women cannot wear pants or that dancing is a sin then allow it in our home? Believe me I have no issues with Kaya seeing or learning different faiths and questions and curiosity do not scare me. We do all kinds of different things in our home and I truly believe if you do not seek..you will not find. But it's quite another to tell a child her worth is based upon her hair being long but that if she wears a bracelet then it's sinful. Just a murky area. And how would we fit into the parent mix at the school functions and meetings?! Do I put on a fake personality and wear a skirt to fit in or do I try to be me..and my child pay for the consequences. Don't get me wrong..I'd give up anything I had to to allow my child every single chance in life...but..I won't stifle her soul and her being to get her into a school that MIGHT prepare her for college or her dream job.
   So far looking at private or religious schools has given me the feeling that schooling outside of public school or homeschooling is reserved for only people of money. That if you do not have a certain bank account amount then you are not going to "fit in" at these institutions. That the chance to give your kid a better education or even a strong faith based education is not in site if you do not have the moola. I also feel that they are entirely allowed to set all rules and faith rules they want (otherwise I'd be a hypocrite on things such as freedoms and censorship) but I have a feeling their openness to other faiths is not..that open.
  So onto public school. I came out of public school..loved it and did well. Steve came from public school and hated it. But I've explained to him he had no parental involvement at all, n one did homework with him, no one kept track of him. We are not that way. That the media and people fuel the fire about public school by focusing on bad teachers and lose sight of the good teachers that make a difference. So public school is definitely on the table. My main fear is the immense size of our school system here compared to my tiny hometown school I grew up in. Steve's main fear is security and dealing with less than desirable parents that could care less about their kids or anyone elses.
  Sending her to my school is an option. But we would have to add in the transfer fee since it's another county, the gas for a 40 mile trip TWICE a day,and the bad roads if the winter gets bad. It's an option but not a likely one. I love the idea of her having a small class, involved teachers and to be honest..my environment. Call me a control freak lol but I know the school, most the staff and that comforts me. Here..I know noone, I know very few parents of any kids etc.
  Homeschooling is another option. Steve is passionately for it because it's controlled, we have a more hands on approach and it has different forms. You can have home school groups and programs as well as set your own pace at home. My qualms with it is the fact I feel there is restricted socialization, makes me nervous about advancement past a certain age, I'm NOT a school teacher or certified in education, and I'm afraid we'll fail Kaya.
   Soo all in all it's still an investigation. I know if we approach it hands on no matter where we send her she will do great. We are involved parents, we will expect the best out of her and her teachers and our faces will be very visible at the school lol

5 yrs ago today....

    June 12, 2008..1:11am...our world changed in a way that constantly never ceases to amaze us. We earned the title of "Mamma and PappaBear" to a beautiful 9 lb 5 oz baby girl.
    

Today she turns the big 5!!! Hard to believe!!

1. What is your favorite phrase: I can do this!

2. What is your favorite food: spaghetti, yogurt (reg or Greek!), red hot dogs

3. Fave take out: mini corn dog meal from Steak n Shake or salsa/white cheese and chips from Mexican

4. When you grow up, what do you want to do: toss up as she wants to be a veteraniaran, a teacher, a heart dr and a sword swallower ;)

5: What is your favorite color: Purple and Pink

6. What is your favorite song: anything with a good rhythm!!! From country to rock to salsa. She loves old rock

7. When you're outside, what is your favorite thing to do: jump in the trampoline, swing , play with her pets

8. If you could go anywhere in the World, where would you go: nowhere my home is awesome!! 

9. What is your favorite snack: yogurt or cookies...will snack on porkrinds if given the chance!

10. What's your favorite movie: Too many to name!!

11. What is your favorite thing to do inside: watch my animals, read books, play with my dollhouse, do artwork/crafts

12. Favorite garden item: tomatoes (to eat) ...tomato worms to watch!! lol
    Kaya has went from a tiny baby into an active 5 yr old. With a passion for dance and music, a big heart, love for all things creepy and scary lol, and a magnet for dirt as she'd rather have her shoes off and playing in the dirt. She loves her baby dolls and often says she's afraid she'll have to wait till she's 18 for Santa to give her a baby sister (insert eye roll) and is a pretty funny kiddo.
  So thank you Kaya for giving us five years of joy. Parenting isn't the easiest job but no job worth doing is!! Being your Mamma and Daddy is the best thing ever :)

A booming garden

  Even though we started our garden out a little earlier than most and heard "it'll die" from various freeze warnings etc..ours is doing awesome!

   We have been blessed with lots of strawberries and have yet another round coming on. Some ready to turn and more blooms. We did nothing with the plants over the winter other than let grass cuttings get on them and they have boomed this year. They are literally taking over the area where they have been planted. Very tasty and they make a mean homemade strawberry shortcake :)
 

We do a force spot type of planting. We don't measure it exactly and by some "methodical" gardeners you have to have a certain spacage etc. We have found you can get creative and make lots of interesting things happen.
  We currently have four types of lettuce, kale, broccoli, red cabbage,onions, 30 tomato plants,peas, 2 types of green beans, sweet banana peppers, lemon cucumbers, strawberries, gourds, walla walla onions, sweet basil, Mexican oregano, and cauliflower growing. We are going to be adding a garden bed just for Kaya (part of her gift from us as we got her new "real" garden tools, watering can, seeds and gloves for her bday.She was EXCITED!!) and one other bed in this area. We have raspberry vines growing onto our clothesline that we will allow to vine and twist around the line and keep the berries off the ground.

Kaya's fave and she is counting down the days of growth and when it will ripen LOL She literally will clean the vines off completely if you do not keep an eye on her. We have I believe 5 varieties of tomatoes including husky cherry we started on our seed racks going.

I love seeing this peek through :) We have had great luck with cauliflower here. Soon will be time to tie the leaves over the heads to protect them from the sun and encourage bigger heads. Last year this was one of our garden faves!!

Green bean climbing the strings. 

On left side is a half section of our peas (we plant in two different places) climbing strings. You don't have to climb strings but it helps to keep them off the ground if you have lots of rain/hot sun..less rotting. Peppers and some of the tomatoes shown here. We staggered out plantings to encourage a later crop.
  We also have transplant pots that we use. We've found either mixing in crumbled Tums or reg ole calcium pills stops the tomato blight that you can get around here from watering in pot/hot sun etc.
  We will also be building a hot box using wood and either glass or plexiglass.
  I can't wait to see Kaya's garden box and see her face while working on "just hers". She can plant what she wants and take care of it. We got her mainly flower seeds because she loves to pick flowers :)

  I'm big on  gardens not just because I grew up gardening, canning etc. but because it's an easy way for families to grow healthy food they like while also being good to the environment etc. If we encourage our kiddos to get their hands dirty, have patience and seek the reward of something they grew...then it may encourage them to eat healthier and tackle difficult tasks later in life. A child is more apt to eat something "odd" if they can watch it grow and take care of it.
  A good quote says "You may occasionally need a dr, a lawyer, or a handyman...but 3 times a day you will need a farmer"
 I'm also super excited to start hitting the farmers market. We have one of the best ones around the next county over and I'm thinking about how I want to "attack" lol I've not got beds going for potatoes yet and I will probably look for those there and then I'm going to put them in the fridge to decrease them going bad. I'm going to look for big onions to hang in the "pantyhose" slings we have in the garage(I will attach info).And I want to look for items to freeze etc. to round out what we have.
** Onion slings. Simply take a clean pair of pantyhose (We use Kaya's when she outgrows them..wash and use). Drop one round onion in the foot, tie a knot about 2 inches up...continue on both legs and till you get to the top. Hang on a nail somewhere dry and cool (we use the garage) .Simply cut below the knot and you have an onion with the others staying in place.
 

Kaya's 5th Bday :)

Kaya's 5th bday party theme was Monster High! I made this Clawdeen Werewolf cake using a new doll, white cake on the bottom sheet cake layer dyed inside to look tie dyed using her fave colors  then baked a round cake for the second layer topped with a bunt cake  turned upside down for the skirt. Kaya LOVED it. I used her fave colors in the icing and we decorated with chocolate candy bones, candy skulls etc. We did a cookout complete with hamburgers, hotdogs, polish sausages, 6lbs of cheesy potatoes and two big family boxes of mac n cheese. Add in condiments, chips and lots of drinks (tea,water,pop,juice and lemonade) and everyone was well fed. We had 34 of us all together :) Was wonderful
To go with the cake we did of course ice cream but we also did "cemetery dirt"..chocolate pudding topped with crushed cookie crumbs and then chocolate bones on top. Was a big hit.

Hard to believe Kaya will be 5 Wednesday. Loved watching her play with her cousins,
laugh and have fun. Lots of water fights (party favor was huge crayon shaped water soakers from Dollar Tree lol)
lots of swinging, jumping on the trampoline, running, going down the slide and just having a great

time was had by all the kiddos. Love that so many love Kaya enough to either send her  a message or come to the party. She got a lot of nice gifts but the best thing she got was having her family together for lots of fun,sweets
and laughter :)

Kaya getting ready to blow out her candle

  

Utility room done!

 Utility room is done! Did the same red as the kitchen (cabin red) and left two walls white. 

 Above pic is the wall. Basket is holding dried roses from my second Mother's day from Steve and Kaya :) I dried them in the garage. The sticks are bamboo sticks from a flower arrangement Jonus had sent while in Iraq. The sign I made myself
  To the left is the other basket hanging on the utility room wall.

Finished outside projects!!

    Fire pit is DONE!! Not too bad considering the benches are made from pallets put together and spray painted to match the garage door and roof (will add cushions later). The actual pit is from the ring around our lilac bush which we used the bricks for here and Kaya and I changed the bush area. The border is left over rock from another project. The table in the left corner is a produce pallet turned sideways to make a table. We left the slats on the back of one pallet to have storage area for hotdog forks. The flower box on the right is wood a neighbor thought was bad and Steve took it..and made a raised bed. We moved some flowers that were starts from another bed and two 1.00 clearance callalillys from Lowes lol We planted a transplanted Voodoo plant (hard to see in this pic) behind the pallet table to help keep bugs down.

  Our rose bush is busting itself this year and climbing like crazy. VERY hard to keep Kaya out of it lol 

 We got Asiatic lilies on a half price sale and planted them in the corner by the compost bin. They may not bloom this year but def will next. Adds some color against the brown wood of the compost bin.

  The picture on the right  is the run on the left side of the house (if facing the front porch). We used brown mulch to offset the siding and we have irises, hyacinths, our insane honeysuckle bush and our holly bush is by the compost box. I LOVE how it came out. Lizzy the Lizards little headstone is also back here (Kaya's old pet).

  Top pic is the flower bed run at the top of the drive. Odd angle but hard to get in one  picture lol Gladiolas are coming in :)
  Below that pic is the flower bed between the trees by the road. Asiatic lilies and yucca are in that bed surrounded by rock. We are going to give this bed some more work. It's the first bed we did years ago and it just needs something.
                                                                                           

Lilac bush in side yard. Kaya and I hauled all the clay rock
from the side yard (fire pit area) to this area to make the
ring! Blends in well

Today I Lived

Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart.”
-Robert Tizon  

  I read a wonderful article about living for the day that made me sit up and listen so to speak. It addressed that if you live for the day, pull the positives out of your day and focus less on the negative it impacts your whole day. That if you realize that tomorrow isn't promised and love/live for today life begins to change. You see less stress, you focus on the here and now and you realize that you have control. It also stated that if you treat each person you love as if they will die at midnight you change not only your perspective on how delicate life truly is..but also in how you approach others and treat others.
    I used my Sunday as my day since I read the article on Sunday lol 
  Today I woke up at 3am to a blaring alarm but I also woke up next to the one man that loves me 100% wholeheartedly..loves me for me, for my faults and constantly encourages me to be the best I can. I also woke up to a little arm threw protectively over me..attached to the most beautiful babygirl that had a rough night trying to sleep. Today I woke up not wanting to go to work..the warm bed, the snuggles..much more inviting then hustling it at my hot job..but I realized that I provided a day's pay for my family and the ability to buy our needs and once in awhile our wants. Today I woke up to society saying I'm a working Mom...but to my daughter I am simply "My Mamma". No pressures, no norms and no statistics on what a Mom is or the whole working Mom vs Stay at Home Mom debates...just "My Mamma". Today I came home from work and I threw together a quick supper...six days straight and I was one tired woman...while stressing that I should have made a traditional Sunday dinner until I looked around the kitchen and realized the smiling faces could care less what was on the plates they were just happy to be together eating! Today I came home and changed into my work clothes and thought how nice it would be to sit down and have a glass of tea...until I realized how great it was listening to Steve's excited voice over how well our project is coming together and to hear him and Kaya chat about their day. A trip to the local hardware store resulted in me today feeling as if I'd sink through the floor when my tired,hot, cranky daughter threw the worst fit I've ever seen...until the cashier smiled gently and said "It's ok, I have a little one her age too. She does the same thing when she's had no nap"...and I realized everyone has been there/done that..reprimand and go on. Today I thought I was too tired to check the garden then I realized how happy it made me to see Kaya so delighted over another round of strawberries and how she smiled seeing the first cute little tomatoes hanging on the vines. How she knows where her food comes from and loves to get her hands in the dirt. Today the two people that had gossiped about me (previous post) called needing our help badly. I felt myself thinking "Too bad. You can call when you need a work horse but you can't spend time with us or be there when we need you"...then I realized I didn't want to live as they did. I didn't want my daughter to see someone need help and think it's ok to be mean. I didn't want to allow myself to treat them how they treated me..lowering myself to a standard that I will not do. I realized that I was the better person..they could choose to appreciate it or not. I didn't have to chat them up or make over them..just help my husband. So I did. At first you could feel the "thick air" (they have to know I know they talked about me LOL) but was pleasantly surprised when they not only gave Steve gas money but appreciatively thanked us. As well as we got a start from a plant we wanted LOL  It doesn't change my feelings on the situation nor does it take us back to how it use to be..it was simply a few minutes out of our day and it's done. Today I snuggled up with Kaya and asked her "Why do I love you so much"..expecting her normal hilarious answers of "I'm pretty" or "Cuase I'm your kid"...only to hear "Because you are the best Mamma in the world and I'm lucky to get to be your kid"...and it hit me.
   That was my answer, my confirmation. I am the best person I can be to the person that needs me the most.
  Today I LIVED for TODAY and stress/worries ebbed away.
  To choose to stay when I wanted to retreat.
To choose to forgive when I want to condemn.
To choose to love when situations are hard.
To choose to hope when I want to doubt.
To choose to stand when I want to fall.
Today I lived.