This Is Kristin

“You haven’t lived until you’ve gone grocery shopping with six kids in tow. I would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel, be a contestant on Fear Factor when they’re having pig brains for lunch, or do fourth grade math than to take my six kids to the grocery store………..
…….As I pay for my purchases, the clerk looks at me, indicates my kids, and asks, “Are they all yours?”
Frustrated, exhausted from my trip, sick to my stomach from writing out a check for $289.53, and tired of hearing that question, I look at the clerk and answer her in my most sarcastic voice, “No. They’re not mine. I just go around the neighborhood gathering up kids to take to the grocery store because it’s so much more fun that way.”

~Read this hillarious story of a woman’s grocery shopping experience with her kids, who is selling the pokemon cards that her kids had slipped into her cart.

~This is so good, loved by all in my family. (even those who don’t like tomatoes!)

INGREDIENTS
1 lb. tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 stick celery, roughly chopped
1 quart/ 1 liter vegetable stock
1/2 cup long grain rice
2 TBSP butter
black pepper
Bunch of fresh basil or 2 tsp. pesto sauce
2 TBSP freshly grated parmesan cheese to garnish

DIRECTIONS
~Put the tomatoes, onion and celery in a saucepan. Cover the pan and cook over a very low heat until the tomatoes are soft and pulpy. (about 30 minutes)
~Pour the tomato mixture into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Return the mixture to the pan, add the stock, and bring to a boil. Add the rice. Cover the pan and cook over a very low heat for about 15 minutes, (if using brown rice allow an extra 20 minutes cooking time) or until the rice is tender.
~Stir in the butter, add a little pepper and either sprinkle with the chopped basil or stir in the pesto. Serve sprinkled with the grated parmesan cheese.

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”

~George Eliot

Two moons on 27th August 2007* Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.
It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 Million miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.
The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

~ Some great “going green” sites I’ve found lately, are:

* a blog called Green SAHM who has good ideas.
* a web site called, Tree Hugger full of information, links, forums, etc.
* a web site by National Geographic called, The Green Guide that is full of information, and gives all kinds of advice on completely greening your home and life. I am going to try to add “The green guide” on my sidebar where you can view updated topics weekly, and click on a topic, to link to the site. Look for it to come in my sidebar.

~ One of my favorite web sites to look at is, Round Here a photography site with beautiful pictures. They feature a picture weekly, or you can view the others by clicking on the thumbnails.

Some of my favorites…enjoy…

Iguaza falls, I want to go there.

here too…

….awesome pictures….. which one is your favorite?

“… a sense of brotherhood and community is not derived from the actions and attitudes of others toward us, but our actions and attitudes toward them. As we imitate this approach to other believers, we will form cords of love not quickly broken.”
~Beth Moore

~It seems like attitude can change just about any situation. I have such a hard time with this, I kind of adopt a “feeling,” and then I am stuck for awhile. For instance, I don’t like going to church.

I didn’t say I don’t like church, or anything about church, I just don’t like the act of going there.
I think this is because, first of all, growing up, Sundays were relax at home days for me, or play with friends, I didn’t go to church, it was like a “free day” of the week. So I’ve had a hard time changing my mindset about Sundays, getting up and going like it’s a busy day of the week.

Well, I worry that somehow this unspoken feeling of mine, or maybe my attitude about church is rubbing off on my kids, because they never want to go, I have to drag them to get dressed, eat breakfast, get out the door, etc. They walk slowly down the halls, and cry when they go in their class.

Secondly, I have an attitude about the people though, which again I need to change. I instantly feel “judged” when people realize that I have three kids. I feel like as soon as someone knows that someone my age has three kids, they are weirded out. So my guard is already up before I even begin to interact with people. I’m in and out, and I feel like they are thinking, “there goes that young mom with three kids again….” And that somehow, being young makes me inadequate or something. Again, all my perception. I just keep my head down, and keep walking…

After reading this quote in my bible study, it hit me, maybe they aren’t thinking those things, maybe they are thinking, “why doesn’t she want to talk to anyone?” And even if they are thinking those things, who cares? Wouldn’t my attitude toward them matter more, and possibly change the way they are feeling or thinking?

I am going to try to change my attitude about church, about people, and stop assuming what they are thinking and saying, and try to be friendlier, and hopefully it will rub off on my kids.

~ My experience with the storm last night, felt like it could have been the makings of a scary movie, or maybe a comedy. Last night I was frightened, today I laugh at myself.

The storm brought loud thunder, bright lightning, strong winds, and hard rain. The electricity went out, and all I had to light my way was the only flash light in the house, which is a dinasaur that roars when you turn it on. My two year old was scared, and “can’t like thunder,” so was my dog, so we all huddled in the bed together in the dark.

At ten o clock pm., my four year old came home from his sleepover, he was scared too. After watching my friend nearly blow away as she shepherded my son to the garage, we went up stairs soaking wet, now lighting our way with his light saber, and my flash light. I got them tucked in, in my bed- the two boys, our big dog, and I all drifted off to sleep.
About an hour later, I woke up to noise outside, it was still storming, and we still had no electricity. I peeked out the window, and saw a car parked in front of my house. It was creepy. I could see the light of a cell phone or a lighter in the back seat, and they were just sitting there, in front of my house. I went to my phone, only to find that the battery was dead. After watching them for awhile, get out of their car and then back in again, I felt like I really needed to have my phone, just for peace of mind. I grabbed my sons light saber, made my way down stairs, jumping at every noise, and whipping the light saber around to light every corner of the house. (It has really cool sound effects too- by the way)

I went into the garage, where I sat with the car running, charging my phone. I then realized that the exahaust fumes weren’t good for me, ( I thought, “great now I’m going to accidentally kill myself just trying to charge my phone.)

With my phone barely charged, I went back inside, and continued to spy on the people in front of my house. A lot more people came and went from the “party house” on the street, but there the car sat, in front of my house, the people getting in and out of their car, lighting cigarettes, and talking on their phone.

The electricity finally came back on around 12 am, and I was finally able to sleep. I am terribly afraid of the dark, my imagination runs wild, and makes a normal storm into a dramatic night.

This morning the car was gone, and a large tree was on the deck of my neighbors house, taking off a corner of the roof as well. Thank God everyone is okay.

My friend Jessie and I were asking each other one day about how we find time to do housework. We talked about how it’s moved from doing housework to have a nice, clean and lovely home, to only doing housework for necessary, and cleanliness reasons, because of lack of time. Because it has to be done sometimes, and it has to be squeezed into minutes of the day that don’t really exist most of the time, we were talking about tricks to get it done more easily.

Here are some things we talked about:

*First we were talking about how we have to accept that we can’t spend an entire day cleaning the house, and if we do, it won’t all be perfectly clean by the end of the day, because we are sure to face many interruptions. So doing housework chopped up, and squeezed in, seems to work best.
*For bathrooms, She was telling me that one of her friends cleans her bathrooms when the kids are in the bath, which I have recently tried and it works very well, and seems to go faster.
*She also was saying that she will spend one entire day doing the laundry, and wait until the end of the day to fold it all, while watching a movie or something fun.
*She also had tips on storing the folded laundry. One idea is to get laundry baskets for each family member and put the folded laundry in there, and have them help put away. Another idea is to have bins for kids instead of a dresser, and put all their pants in their own bin, shirts in their own bin, etc. etc.
*For my own kids, I have little buckets with rags, brushes, and a squirt bottle of water and vinegar. I show them what they can spray and wipe down. They love it and actually ask if they can “clean” sometimes. Mostly it just buys me time .
~I have a previous post on this same topic, with some good comments.

~So do you have any special tricks or tips to fit in your cleaning?

It is finally raining! It’s been the hottest in TN history, and we’ve been experiencing a drought, we were in bad need of rain. Balloons were popping on the grass, and you couldn’t walk on it barefoot.
So thank you Lord for sending us some rain!

~The curious george sound track is one of our favorites to listen to. (featuring Jack Johnson, one of my sons imaginary friends, when he was 3 years old.) We were singing the “sharing song” the other day, and he still sings the song wrong.

This is how it is supposed to go,

“It’s always more fun to share with everyone…If you have two give one to your friend… if you’ve got a sandwich, cut that thing in half…”

how my son sings it:

“It’s always more fun to share with everyone…..If you’ve got a friend, cut that thing in half”