STOP NAIS

Please. Contact your representatives (you can use the button in my side bar!) and tell them that you want them to stop NAIS.

The USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was originally designed to give big beef producers help in getting export markets which required disease controls. The idea is that every single livestock animal in the United States will be identified and tagged. All livestock animal movements, including horses taken to a training facility across the lane, will be tracked, logged and reported to the government. The benefit is to the big factory farms as they get to do single ID’s for large groups of animals. Small farmers, pet owners and homesteaders will have to tag and track every single animal. There are NO exceptions - even small farms that sell direct to local consumers will be required to pay the fees and file all the paper work on all their animals. All owners/breeders of horses, llama and alpaca, exotic bird, etc. will be required to participate in NAIS. Homesteaders who raise their own meat and grandma with her one egg hen will also have to register their homes as ‘farm premises’ and obtain a Premise ID, tag all their animals and submit all the paperwork and fees. Those who refuse to cooperate with NAIS will be subject to heavy fines and will be denied the right to exhibit their animals at state fairs, 4-H fairs, Future Farmers of America shows, and all horse shows. You can be assigned a premises ID against your will or without your knowledge. NAIS is not legislation but a program designed by USDA bureaucrats with the help of businessmen and manufacturers of ID tags. This program hopes to obtain the billions needed to oversee every single animal in the US by slipping it into the Farm Bill."USDA's proposed program could be compared to a finely crafted blueprint for a concrete blimp." -LivestockWeek

This is everyone's issue. Not just people who want to raise animals. This is worth your time. Go,, do it now.
If you live in the Huntington area I'll make it one step easier for you:

Senators • Robert Byrd (D) • John Rockefeller (D) Representatives • Nick Rahall (D-3)

Governor • Joe Manchin (D) Senate* • Evan Jenkins (D-5) • Robert Plymale (D-5) House of Delegates* • Kevin Craig (D-15) • Carol Miller (R-15) • Jim Morgan (D-15) • Doug Reynolds (D-16) • Kelli Sobonya (R-16) • Dale Stephens (D-16)

All you have to do is say" Please say NO to NAIS". You don't have to be an expert on the subject (but please, do your own research) to call or email your representative and take your government back.
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Could you use a new TV stand? Who couldn't, right?
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Soggy but Nice.

Well, it's just lovely out today. About 70 degrees and sunny. We sink to our knees in mud if we go out but beggars can't be choosers can they? ha ha.
I didn't get much when I went out shopping yesterday. I don' t know why I thought that I'd see anything to buy AFTER Christmas when there wasn't anything BEFORE Christmas. blah. Oh,, don't get me wrong,, I still managed to spend some moolah but you can't hardly leave the house without spending something.
I bought some clearance Christmas junk, some clearance candles (our power is going out A LOT lately) a pair of pants, a shirt, and a jacket. Big whoop.
The chicky girls have been laying machines lately. We have a surplus of eggs. Well,, that is until I make potato salad on Monday! Mmmmmm,,, 'tater salad. I never tire of the blue eggs we're getting. They're so pretty! I can't wait to get some more birds in the spring.
Speaking of tasty natural organic food. Please read this article: SWAT team raid on private family's home
I don't generally take WND as actual "news"(too many of their news story's have been later refuted) but this time they are dead on the money. I read the story in the family's local paper (online) about 2 days after it happened. That story has now been edited (content taken out,, not replaced) and then went missing. This is RIDICULOUS. This stuff really happens. The fact that it's not front page news is suspicious at the very least.
I'm trying to follow this story as closely as I can. They are a homeschool family and their means of schooling (in the legal sense) has been confiscated by the authorities. I'm assuming that they use OVA for their children's education since they said that all of their children's schooling was done via the computer.
What a crock this is. The authorities even took their personal food supply.
Ok, I'm just ranting now, you'll have to make your own determinations about the situation.
I'm off to enjoy the lovely day!
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I'm so glad that I'm beyond the point where I have to concern myself with engagement rings!
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Shopping!

I will be going out into the world today by MYSELF!
whoo hoo!
My kids are to the age where they would probably be more fun for me if they were girls (tho I'm happy they are boys) because they've lost their tolerance for shopping.
When they were wee, I could just ply them with candy, pop them in the stroller and we were off but now it doesn't matter how much I bribe them with, they last about 20m.
Now, don't get me wrong, they are well behaved, but they do this subconscious thing where they turn into zombies. They stand about 6 inches away from me. When I take a step, they take a step, when I look up, they look up, when I turn, they turn.

It's very annoying.

When they come out of their zombified stooper, they whine things like
"where are we going next?"
"and then where?"
"When will we be done?"
" can we go to EB, Babbages, ToysRus?"

Now, before I had kids, my genius plan was that I would always take the kids to the toy store FIRST, that way I'd avoid the constant "when are we going to the toy store?" question. What I did not anticipate tho was MY limited amount of energy and their patience taking a nose dive after they've got what they wanted.
So today, I leave the 9 year old and the 12 year old with my mother and I venture out into the land of clearance brasseries without shame or whining.

I can even stop and eat something without it costing $27.00.

It's POURING here. I went out to let the chickens into the run. I have on my knee boots and I'm carrying an umbrella. The girls have never seen an umbrella apparently because they had a total fit. They all escaped into the barn yard and huddled in the corner while staring at me in terror and cussing me. I had to close my umbrella to get them back into the hen house. Better yet, upon reentering the hen house, Coco started setting in the nest so I'll have to go back out an collect eggs again.
YAY FOR THE RAINY SEASON!

Carpenters. Jesus and the Singing Ones.

Merry Christmas Darling.
The greeting cards have all been sent, the Christmas rush is through.....

Thank Goodness. I bought the last gift today. ( I need an appropriate emoticon for this space, perhaps a dead smiley )
All that's left is the big day.
This year isn't going to be like the years previous. We'll actually still be able to see the Christmas tree. It won't be obscured by the massive mound of gifts. Every year we set back and look at it in utter disgust.
The definition of stupidity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Well, buying all those gifts never made us feel good and didn't do anything to glorify the reason for the season so why do it? Not this year. I'm sure there will be bitterness from the spoiled children but "oh well". I can only try to replace the gifts with a little peace and simplicity.
I don't have all the gifts wrapped yet but I think that's the last thing on the list.

I took the boys up to the Mall today to enter a Call of Duty competition put on by the Army. Yeah, I know it's a recruiting gig but no where.... on ANY of the signs did it say there was an age requirement. It never occurred to me about the age requirement on the game. They were not kind to us and it kinda pissed me off. All the punk kids that were sitting there laughed at T1 and I wanted to go over and grab their "soon to be shorn" heads and bang them together. All T1 wanted was the participation Tshirt. We'll not even mention that he would have kicked all their asses. But I digress.
After that we ran into Walmart to pick up some blank CDs and rent a movie from the Redbox. We're standing there at the Redbox by the front door and we hear the "whomm whomm whomm" go off of the security alarm. We hear a guy scream "STOP" and come barreling into the front buggy area. This is a HUGE guy by the way. Not "good huge" but like 450lb 5ft 8. He stops cold, buckles over and grabs his chest and puts his other hand on his knee. He sits there a second and I start to move towards him to get him on the ground and call 911 when he raises up and says "JUST KIDDIN!"
DIE. Seriously. If you're acting like you're having a heart attack at your size you D*** well better be. I could have smacked him.
I think I'm going to take a nap. I feel a bit moody and unwell anyway and I shouldn't have left the house today. BLAH!
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I'm going to need some diet pills after this year's overfeasting!
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Took a little Vacation

• Baked cookies
• Christmas shopping.
  
• Still haven't sent out cards
• Up to my eyeballs in school stuff

I took a bit of a blogging vacation didn't I? ha ha. I just a bit overwhelmed I guess. Blogging seems to be the first thing that falls off the list.
I went out and made cookies at a friends house the other day. That was fun. It really was. I made my butterscotch no bakes. I thought it would be good not to take up any oven space. Plus they are soo soo easy to make.
I still haven't done any Christmas shopping. Nice huh? I swear, I just have NO good ideas! It's getting down to the wire. Saturday, my mom is going to keep the boys so I can go out and spend tons of money on worthless crap that no one wants. Yay. (That's me in the picture by the way! lol) I just can't get into it this year. Spending money this year seems so irresponsible. Sigh.
I did buy Christmas Cards. I haven't sent them OUT but hey,, I bought them. I have addresses on most of them but I've yet to sign them. Most of the ones that are addressed and signed are setting in boxes that I've yet to mail out. Nice, right?
Then I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff for EAGLE and TESTING. Groan. I'm just a ray of sunshine today aren't I? ha ha.

I'm Tired.

It was a pretty big day. I mentioned yesterday that our new group was having a registration fair today. I didn't need to do a whole lot to prepare for it but there was still quite a bit to remember.
We had an EXCELLENT turn out! I just cannot believe how many folks showed up! I haven't counted how many families we have involved yet but I think it's somewhere around 20.
Of course it was pretty near pandemonium all day but I don't think we missed anything really. All the "i"s are dotted and all the "t"s are crossed.
I hope.
Today started with me getting up and doing laundry, putting on a roast and loading the car. Oh yes, and checking my email 14 times. I just knew if I didn't, that I'd miss someone that was trying to get ahold of me at the last minute. After that I drove to a friends house and picked up her stuff because she's in Florida (DOG!). Next we set up and discovered we had no change for the cash box. Off to Kmart. I did about 20 different things all day. I felt like one of those 8 armed goddesses. I even got to hold a baby twin! Oh, he was very cuddly. (NOT THAT CUDDLY,, Don't you people get any ideas)
At the end of the day, I helped jump a vehicle and headed home. Not before stopping at Goodwill and dropping off a bunch of junk though.
When we got home, I straitened up a bit and CRASHED. When Chris got home it occurred to me that I have a turkey in the fridge thawing. I'll have to cook that tomorrow. I was out of the stuff to brine it so off to the store.
My Kroger had Cheerios for $1.00 a box! The BIG box! That's just too good of a deal. the trick is that you had to buy 4 of them. No big deal, I can do that! I'm going back tomorrow to buy more! Guess who's making White Trash next week!?! ha ha.
So, the turkey is brining in the fridge as we speak. I hope it's good. It's the first time I've ever tried brining. I used Pioneer Woman's recipe.
Now I'm going to finally hit the bed. Wow... am I tired.
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I'm supposed to write about home theater sconces. Really? In our house that's called a lamp. LOL
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EAGLE

So tomorrow is the big day. Registration day for E.A.G.L.E.. I'm nervous and excited. It's been a lot of work but it's been a labor of love.

Please consider coming out if you're in the Tristate area. We've reduced tuition costs thanks to some generous gifts and reworking of overhead.

Our first 4H meeting will be tomorrow too. It will be the last day you can order your curriculum booklets. If you've considered 4H in the past, feel free to come out and see what it's all about!

Friday Highlights- just one really

• Cupcake Pops

I woke up early Friday with the urge to bake! I've been eyeballing these

They're from the Bakerella Blog, which I love. They are deceptively easy to make and OH. SO. DIVINE. My presentation is very lacking but the they are sooooooo yummy!

This week's dinners consisted of the following:

• Monday- Boneless Pork chops and Mashed Potatos
• Tuesday- Beer Braised Corned Beef and Fried Potatos
• Wednesday- Leftovers + Fishsticks for the kids
• Thursday- Mom's night out (NO COOKING FOR ME!)
• Friday- Potato Soup and Peppered Bacon Sandwiches

For this coming week, I've looked over the Kroger paper and planned the following:

• Monday- Ground Chicken Tacos (shredded cheese on sale 2/$4)
• Tuesday- Roast ($2.49lb sale) and noodles ($1.00 off coupon)
• Wednesday- Brined Turkey (already in the freezer, used $7.00 coupon)
• Thursday - Leftover Turkey + mashed potatoes (coupon for $0.80, makes them $$0.20!)
• Friday- Chicken Tenderloins ($7.99 sale)
  

Most of the sides come from the pantry. I won't have to buy any this week. Hopefully, I'll get out of the store for less than $100.00.

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Chris and the boys rigged up a light in the coop today. Hopefully it'll keep it a little warmer in there. It's really cold!!!! I also read today that outdoor lighting will keep coons away. Speaking of that, we haven't caught anything in the trap. I think it's just too daggone cold.

Thursday Highlights

• Spider Graveyard
• Mom's Night Out
• Heater was messed with again
• Kittah Trap

What's up with my house? We have spiders everywhere!! OMG,, I hate spiders so much. I mean really, I panic and get light headed and I have to quit talking about it. (puts head between knees) Our house (more specifically our bathroom) has become the place where nasty creepy disgusting brown spiders have come to die! (and live sometimes). In the summer we see more spiders when it's getting ready to rain but I've never seen this many cold weather spiders before! I looked briefly for a picture to include but I started to see the room spinning so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Tonight was mom's night out. I love Mom's night out so good. It's nice to get to go out and chit chat with other mommies without being interupted 10 zillion times. Not to mention getting something good to eat. Tonight we went to Max and Ermas. I didn't tip my waitress. She wasn't very attentive, my well done burger was medium rare and she stood over me waiting for money and she hadn't given me a bill! Yeah,, no tip for you. I had a good time otherwise tho.

About a month ago, our new heating unit stopped working. We had Chris's uncle come over and look at it. Well they quickly found out what had happened. Someone had sabotaged the power disconnect. Hmmmm,,, very suspicious. No big whoop really. A mild inconvienience. Well, this morning I woke up again to an ultra chilly house. I shuffled around for a while before I went to look at the thermostat. Blank again. Same thing as last time. I went outside to check the box and sure enough,,, it was standing open and the someone had messed with the lever again. It's getting real old. Just sayin.

A friend came over to play with, I mean,, watch the kids tonight so his wife and I could go out. He brought a Havaheart trap for the fox. As soon as he went out to set it he said "your cats are going to end up in this!" Well, wouldn't you know it? As soon as Chris came home he found our old fat male cat in the trap. Poor kittah,, he was so so stressed. Keep your fingers crossed that we get a fox!

Wednesday Highlights

• Science Club
• Hair Cuts
• Yahoo Crashed
• More Christmas junk
• My Husband>Tom Hanks

Science Club rocked my socks off again today. We have such an awesome group of parents, we really do. Lynda's Mike brought in his kit full of orthopedic hardware and told the kids all about how it was used. There was real bones to touch and examine. We learned about all of our joints, different types of fractures, how screws are put into bones, what happens when you get a plate put in your head, etc. It was REALLY cool. The "impressive" factor will be hard to top on that one!

After we finished up with Science Club I took the boys to lunch and to get their hair cut. Boy did they ever need it. I coulda knit a sweater with the hair that was on the floor. We tried out a new barber. Our old barber retired after a massive heart attack. This guy did a real good job and was kinda funny too. He gave T1 a Peter Boyle!

HA! He spun him around in the chair and told him "welp,, I'm done! Do you like it?" LOL The look on T1's face was priceless.

When we came home I went to check my email and I just about had a small heart attack. Yahoo did not exist! I mean,, it was no where to be found! Google found ZERO results for "Yahoo.com"

After trying about 20 different ways to get to my email and making 12 different calls I was ready to get a brown paper bag and start breathing into it. I tried one more time and a teensey bit of the page came up. I refreshed, a teensey bit more appeared. Each time I refreshed, it got a little bit better. Ok, blood pressure is going down. Eventually it came back up. It was a rude awakening. I depend on it WAY too much.

I ALMOST have all the Christmas junk up. I think there is one more box up there in he attic, somewhere. It took me until 1am to get the mess cleaned up that the 3 boxes I got down made. Little bits of garland, packing paper, random boxes, OH MY!

Do you remember this commercial?

It's a spoof on the movie Castaway. My husband is the FedEx guy. He does his job very very well. Well today he had a package for the woman that killed our best friend. He delivered the package and was completely professional. This was a bigger accomplishment than hanging onto a package for 5 years while being stranded on an island. I'm just sayin. I know his boss knows they have a great employee in him but I don't think they realize just HOW exemplary he really is.

Tuesday Highlights

• Paragraphs
• The Handmaid's Tale and Netflix

Today I had T2 do the reading practice for the West Virginia Westest. Part of the test involves writing a paragraph stating 3 ways the 2 parts of the story conflict and agree. The child just cannot articulate himself. I know... he's 9 but wow.... it was really bad. It's definitely something we need to work on. That's a homeschool bonus though don't ya know! We CAN work on it,, we don't have to rush along because the lesson plan says so.

I think I mentioned that I read "The Handmaid's Tale" last week. Great book. I pushed the movie to the top of my netflix cue. I heart netflix, I really really do. I mean, I hardly EVER watch television anymore. I probably haven't turned on the TV on purpose since the last new episode of Lost was on. That was what? May?

Anyway.... back to Netflix and my movie. (speaking of not being able to construct a cohesive paragraph) I'm more of a documentary kinda gal. Netflix is chock full of 'em. My most recent fav is the Natural History of the Chicken. It's a PBS documentary. Watch it, you won't be sorry.

Ok, so someone grind up an Adderal in my hot chocolate would ya? The MOVIE. Good flick. A wee bit cheesy but entertaining because I'd read the book. I'm not sure people who haven't read the book would enjoy the movie. It's also a wee bit graphic, be forewarned. There is lady bits and sex acts. I think it would make a KILLER movie if they redid it today. I liked the way the movie ended better than how the book ended but I liked a lot of the foreshadowing and the details that the book had. The book was a weak 9/10 and the movie rated a solid 7/10.

Deeper still, the book has many feminist undertones but not so much that it ruins the storyline for me. I rather liked it. It is a dystopian setting which if you know me at all you know I'm drawn to. It's the paranoia. (waves at the black helicopter) The speculation about the fundamentalist totalitarianism was also very intriguing to me. It's a quick read. If you like to read a freaky book, pick this one up! It's back at the Barboursville Library now!

Tomorrow is Science Club and house cleaning. Yay!

Monday Highlights

• snow
• band
• grammar
• math
• Christmas decor

It snowed on and off today. Nothing stuck. I'll take snow to winter rain any day of the week.

I went early to band today. I wanted to catch all the members of the band so I could be sure they all had a shirt to wear to the concert on the 15th. I think everyone but one person has a shirt. I got a greater precentage of the band fees this month than I usually do, that's a bonus. I did forget to pay the band instructor though. I swear,, sometimes I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.

Grammar took forever today. T2 was required to look up a bunch of words in the dictionary and write their plural forms down. Well our Giant Merriam Webster Large Print Edition assumes that you're not a mental deficiant if you're using it apparently because if it was a simple word then it didn't give the plural form. Does T2 just flip 1 page back in his book, read the rule and use some common sense when asked to write the plural of "bill" down? No. He sits and fumes and fusses and whines "I can't ffffiiiiNNNNNnnnnndddd itttt". By the time he got to "Blueberry" I thought I was gonna kill him.

T1 did excellent on his Algebra quiz today! He only missed 1 out of 38! The one he missed was just a goofy mistake too. That's fine. He neglected to simplify -3^2 properly in one problem. He said it was -9 instead of +9. He coulda kicked himself. I told him I never once in my whole life got an honest to goodness A on an algebra test so that's quite an accomplishment in my book! There were some doozey problems on it too!

I decided this year that I would get the Christmas decor down a little bit at a time instead of all in one fell swoop. I HATE the mess it makes. It takes me all day to sort through the junk and then another day to clean everything back up! So one box at a time this year. I should have it all out in a week or so. I took all the fall decorations down today and put them back in the attic. Flip me a fish, right?

Just another exciting Monday.

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Something Shiney. Post 400!

I love Martha. I'm not sorry. I just do. I love all her kitchy crafty stuff, her cookies that no one in their right mind would ever actually bake, her "good things" and the way she adds "ing" to nouns, makes them into new words (like "paper toweling") and of course the way she makes people belive that anything she does is the"end ALL" because she uses "the" in front of it. May I present to you.....

THE Newspaper Christmas tree.





This was too much fun. They are so much cuter in real life too. Plus? Anyone can do this. It was so easy. I made the big one on an old knitting needle and the little one on a ten penny nail. To give you an idea of scale, the star on top the little one is one of those little reward stars.
Here's a link to video instructions if you wanna make one too!
Happy 400th blog post to me too btw!

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Do you know what else I love? Office Supplies. I love envelopes, highlighters, a fresh reem of paper, hanging folders, and tabs of all sorts. I'm sick that way.
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