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all about popularity…..
You know, I’ve been thinking…..
(Hush, Roger ~ I can hear your “Oh brother, here we go” thoughts!)
Last week Sitemeter had a major problem ~ people’s sites/blogs were crashing in IE7 because of some code changes Sitemeter made. And it got me to thinking ~ why do I use a service like Sitemeter, Statcounter or Goggle Analytics? I’ve found myself getting caught up in the “rat race” of being obsessed about how many hits my blog is getting.
In some ways it reminds me of being in high school. Wanting to be one of the popular kids, having lots of friends, and being the center of attention. But I’m a grown up. And this blog for personal reasons, not professional. Does it really matter how many people are reading my blog?
I love to go to Sitemeter and see who’s reading my blog, though. I am fascinated that there are people all over the world who take the time to stop by here and read my thoughts, see my pictures, and even watch the occasional video. I would love to hear from each of you personally.
I took the Sitemeter code down last week but didn’t reinstall it, even though Sitemeter fixed the problem. But to tell the truth I’ve missed popping in to Sitemeter just to see who has been visiting. I haven’t been able to post very much lately, so I just want to say that I do appreciate your persistence in stopping by to check if I’ve written anything new.
I’ve been examining my motives behind having a hit counter here. And after some thought about it, I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead and reinstall the code for the counter. Not because I want to run the numbers game, or because I’m concerned about how many hits my blog gets each day. I’m reinstalling the code because I love to see where the people who are reading my blog are living. In a strange way, I think that’s a bit like my life. It doesn’t really matter to me how many friends I have ~ I just want the friends I do have to be interesting. And you all are very interesting to me!
so much for that idea
Well, we didn’t quite make it to the fireworks last night. Actually, Jacob and Ashley did, but Roger, Attison and I stayed home. It was just way too hot outside for me. Which means we didn’t hang out outside yesterday, which in turn means I didn’t take a bunch of pictures. The beauty of the whole thing is, it was even HOTTER outside today, so ~ you guessed it ~ we didn’t hang out outside today either. I did get a picture or two of Attison, but they’re just more pics of her sleeping, and I’m fairly sure everyone has seen enough of those for now. I need to do a better job of finding the camera while she’s awake. She really does have alert periods, I promise!
Sawyer is on his trip to Colorado with our church’s youth choir. They’re touring all over the state, giving concerts and performing mission-type jobs at churches. Tomorrow they’ll be singing at the US Air Force Academy’s Cadet Chapel in the morning (at the Protestant service), then at a church in Colorado Springs in the evening. After reading my friend Meredith’s blog about her town’s parade, I’m wishing I had gone to Colorado with the kids! She’s wearing a JACKET, on the 4th of July! I haven’t worn a jacket on the 4th of July since 2004, when we were still living in Alaska. Sometimes living in the south is just too much for me.
My friend Holly loves the beach. I love the mountains. (I’m pretty sure Holly loves the mountains too, since she lives in Colorado ~ I’ll just clarify that I don’t love the beach. Too sandy and all.) I miss the mountains. Truly, truly miss the mountains. And cool weather. And tree lines, which will only be found on ~ again you guessed what I was going to say ~ mountains. Not those hills that people in the south like to call mountains. Real mountains. And snow. I miss snow. Real snow, not that gloppy stuff that people in the south like to call snow. Snow does not go “SPLAT!” when it hits your windshield. Good snow even has to be packed with just a touch of melted snow on your mittens to make good snowballs. Alaska has amazing snow. And fantastic ski hills. On real mountains. People in the south just don’t understand why I miss Alaska. I think it has to do with the fact that winter in Arkansas is that bone biting, bone chilling kind of cold you get in really humid climates. Winter in Anchorage, Alaska is just not that way. I’ll be completely honest ~ 40 degrees below zero is stinkin’ cold. That’s true. But 40 degrees below zero is not the norm for Anchorage, Alaska. Besides, I stand by my old adage ~ you can always put more clothing on. When it’s 104 degrees with a “Real Feel” of 114, and 10,000,000,000% humidity, there’s only so much clothing you can take off. Really. I’d much rather have on 15 layers of clothing…..
I think it’s just about this time every year when I really start lamenting the fact that we had to move away from Alaska. But don’t worry, the complaining will most likely continue for at least another 20 years. We have no plans to leave Arkansas. God could throw a monkey wrench into our non-plans, which I would probably jump up and yell, “Halleluia! Praise God!” to, but I think there’s a lesson here for me. Most likely it’s something along the lines of bloom where you’re planted (that’s in the Bible, isn’t it? No? Hmmm, I thought I’d read that somewhere…)
A long time ago, when we were living in North Carolina, Roger received an assignment to Japan. Now, I know there are a lot of people who would love to go to, or even live in, Japan. I’m just not one of them. I was horrified. For two weeks I cried, wailed, moaned, groaned, bargained and cajoled with God about it. I promised this and begged that, but He pretty much just kept telling me no. So, finally I gave in, breathed deeply and said, “Ok God. I give in. I’ll go where You send me, and I’ll go joyfully. I know You have a plan, and it’s for my good. So look out Japan, here I come.” And wouldn’t you know, 3 days later Roger’s assignment to Japan was canceled. Wow. You’d think I would have learned a valuable lesson from that, wouldn’t you? Well, I guess as is evidenced by all of my complaining about living in the south that I haven’t learned that lesson as well as I probably should have.
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that if I just gave in and stopped complaining about having to live in the south, God would move us back to Alaska. It doesn’t work that way. God knows my heart. He knows that even if I stopped complaining outwardly, I would still be complaining inwardly. I truly do dislike the heat and humidity. And combined, they make my fibromyalgia about 1000 times worse. The humid cold of the south doesn’t make me feel much better than the humid heat. But again, I know God has a plan. And His plan is for my good. I don’t always know what His plan is, or why His plan is the way it is, but I do know my God. And He is good. I’m a hard-headed lumux, so sometimes it takes me a while to catch on. But of this I am sure ~ God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.
So, if that means I have to live in the south for the rest of my life, I will try to do so joyfully. It most likely won’t be without the occasional complaining. But with the complaining I usually remind myself that God put us here (in Arkansas) for a reason. Many reasons, most likely. And while I may not know what all of those reasons are, I do know that they’re good reasons. God reasons. And those are the best reasons anyone could ask for.
goin’ to san antone
My friend Holly is in charge of The Siesta Fiesta Cookbook and has been doing a fantastic job. It’s a lot of work, but Holly is such a gracious and kind person, and she has been working very hard to make this cookbook something special.
Holly and I first established a relationship in the blogosphere ~ I don’t remember who first contacted whom, but we emailed back and forth and quickly became friends.
When we took a family trip to Colorado this past March, Holly and I were able to meet in person. Joanne and Meredith were there also, and we all had an absolutely wonderful time together.
This August, Ashley, Attison and I will be attending the Living Proof Live convention in San Antonio, as well as The Siesta Fiesta. Holly was instrumental in my decision to try to attend this event ~ she’s the one who told me about it, and she asked me to consider and pray about attending. After some prayer and discussions with Roger, I decided I would like to go. The only problem was the cost of the hotel ~ it was WAY more than we could afford. But, as is His way, God provided an alternative to the expense of staying in a hotel.
We have good friends who live just outside of San Antonio. Ed (Tex) and Stacey have been back in the San Antonio area for less than a year, but they’re all moved into their house (after living in their 5th wheel for 6 months!), and they’re ready for house guests. Plus, Stacey is a young grandma herself, and she just happens to absolutely L.O.V.E. babies ~ so Ashley, Atti and I are going to stay at their house while we’re in San Antonio for LPL and The Siesta Fiesta. Stacey will be attending the events with us, so we’re sure to have a good time. Stacey is an absolute kick ~ never a dull moment with her around!
I’m really looking forward to this trip in August. It’s the same weekend as Ashley’s 20th birthday, I’ll get to see my friends Holly and Joanne (Mer, I wish you were able to go too!), I’ll be able to catch up with my friend Stacey, attend a Beth Moore/LPL event (my 2nd), and hang with my “siestas” at the fiesta. It should be an amazing trip!
a surprise is coming
I just HAVE to get a little teaser in here: my friend Holly and I have been working on something very special for Christian homemakers. We’re hoping to “go live” with the debut in late July or early August. The goal is to be up and running before The Siesta Fiesta in August.
I can’t wait to tell you all about it! But for now, all I can say is that we’re working hard, and we’ll get things running smoothly (hopefully) as soon as possible. Watch for the upcoming announcement!
where have you been?
I have been all over the place lately!
Sawyer was a teen leader in our church’s Music & Drama Camp last week, so I was busy taking him to and from the church every morning. And since we live over 20 miles from the church, I just couldn’t justify making 2 round trips for a 4 hour camp, so I just stayed at the church and enjoyed watching the kids learn from and work with the adults (and teen leaders). This year the “drama” was Life School Musical. I haven’t seen High School Musical, but from the name I would guess it’s a Christian take-off of High School Musical. I was at camp every day, watching as the adults and teens gently but firmly guided and instructed the kids ~ ages kindergarten through 6th grade ~ and taught them the lines, choreography and music of Life School Musical. The performance Friday night was fantastic. Everyone involved in our church’s Music & Drama Camp do an amazing job. Pastor Eddie tells the kids that perfection is not the goal ~ excellence is. Both of my sons were involved in MaD when we lived here last time, and Patrick even had a major speaking role in one of them. It’s so cool to see the kids who were in kindergarten all those years ago now working as teen leaders.
I took pictures:
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| Music and Drama Camp ’08 |
After MaD, Sawyer and I would rush home to make lunner (lunch + dinner = lunner), then head BACK to the church for choir practice. Every night ~ except Wednesday, when Sawyer had youth group AT THE CHURCH, and Friday night when the kids performed Life School Musical AT THE CHURCH. So, as you can see, I spent a lot of time AT THE CHURCH last week!
This week Sawyer has a couple of hours of choir practice tonight and tomorrow night (AT THE CHURCH, imagine that), then he will pack up and head to Colorado for 10 days with the youth choir. They’ll perform at a large cathedral in Kansas City and several churches all over Colorado. They’ll also perform at the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel on Sunday for the Protestant service. I can’t even begin to express how HUGE of a deal performing at the Cadet Chapel is. NO ONE gets to perform there. I’m not sure how Pastor Eddie managed to pull that booking off, but I have a strong suspicion it has something to do with a friend of ours, a retired AF colonel, who lives in the area. (By the way, we miss you, Brian and Sherri!) I seriously considered volunteering as one of the adult chaperons for this choir trip ~ I miss the mountains, and I would love to be somewhere that has lower humidity. But, having my daughter move in and being present for Attison’s birth took precedence over a trip to Colorado this year. Maybe next time…..
I haven’t taken any pictures of Attison this week, but here’s one from last week:
Other than being a little fussy now and then, she’s really an angel baby. She’s working hard on holding up her head, and she is beginning to show some personality with occasional smiles. Of course I will be taking pictures this week ~ and you know I’ll post them! 
toby mac ~ live?
Yep ~ Toby Mac live. Well, a recording of a live concert, anyway. In the theater. And you could win a DVD and CD of the live performance. Free. Intrigued? Go here for a chance to enter!
graduation day
Well, today’s the big day. Patrick will graduate from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts this afternoon at 2:00pm. The guest speaker will be Arkasnas Governor Mike Beebe.
Ariel and a few of her family members, as well as our “framily” the Arkanbloggers, will join us for barbecued brisket sandwichs and a cook-out at our house after graduation. Roger’s mom and step-dad are in town, and of course Jacob and Ashley are here as well. It should be a fun evening.
Tomorrow we’ll all head to church in the morning, then come home and prepare for a graduation Open House. I have no idea how many people will come for that ~ I usually get responses like, “Oh, that’s right, you live all the way out in ……….” Really, we only live about 20 minutes from where we go to church, but for some reason people seem to have it stuck in their heads that where we live is out in the boonies. But we’ll see. Even if no one else shows up, I know the Arkanbloggers will be here ~ they’re enough to make it a party! LOL
Patrick bought Ariel a bike helmet as her graduation present. Isn’t that a funny gift? His thought process was, “Well, she’s going to be riding her bike to work all summer. I want her to be safe.” So, it’s a rather thoughtful gift.
He also bought her a little promise ring. It’s very pretty ~ white gold with a small diamond. He took a picture of it:
They have been wearing sterling silver bands that have “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved it mine ” written in Hebrew on them. Patrick gave it to her for Christmas in 2006 right when they first started dating. It was his way of telling her that their relationship was based on God’s principles of courtship, and that they would be waiting, remaining pure, until they get married.
Patrick and Ariel will be attending different colleges, so I think Patrick wanted to reassure Ariel that their relationship is important to him, no matter how far apart their schools are. And honestly, they’re not that far apart. Ariel will be about 45 minutes away from where we live; Patrick will be about 4 hours from our house. He will be able to come home on long weekends. And Ariel’s dad is going to move to Fayetteville, where Patrick will be going to school, so I imagine Ariel will be going there fairly often as well. There will be plenty of opportunities for them to see each other. And they talk on the phone, e.v.e.r.y. s.i.n.g.l.e. e.v.e.n.i.n.g as it is ~ I’m pretty sure that’s not going to change.
While the house is still quiet this morning, I’m going to go enjoy some blueberry coffee cake with my chai tea, and try to just enjoy and relax in the quiet. It won’t be that way for very long, with people getting up and making preparations for today and tomorrow!
the end of another school year
As we near the end of another school year, I’m already thinking about next school year and what curricula we will use. I have to admit, I am a curricula junkie ~ so is Mama Archer, so at least I know I’m not alone!
This year we tried a new curriculum ~ new to us anyway. We used Beautiful Feet Books’ Ancient History Senior High package. To be honest, Sawyer hated it. It was just too boring. Sawyer loves to read, so the number of books involved in this package wasn’t the problem ~ the books themselves were the problem.
In the past we have had great success with Sonlight Curriculum. We started using Sonlight when Patrick (who is now a senior in high school and will officially graduate May 24th) was in 3rd grade. We really loved all of the books ~ readers, read-alouds ~ how can you go wrong with lots of great, rich, enriching books?
I’ve been looking at the high school levels Sonlight offers. I’m considering using their civics course for next year. Sawyer will be in 10th grade, and it could very well be his last year at home. He wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps and attend the math and science residential high school Patrick has attended the past 2 school years.
We will most likely stick with Teaching Textbooks as Sawyer’s math program. He seems to do well with TT. Our homeschool co-op will be offering high school Spanish and a leadership class, as well as a science class. This year Sawyer tackled 2 science classes ~ biology and chemistry ~ so I’m not really sure what we’ll do for science next year. Assuming Sawyer will attend the math and science high school, we’re not planning to move on to physics because the school requires the students take physics there.
Sawyer has done well this year, especially considering he really disliked the history program we were using. After the first semester we scrapped it and just sort of made up our own history program. I have absolutely no intention of ever writing my own curriculum ~ that’s just not my cup of tea. I much prefer letting someone else figure out all of the details for the curriculum and then taking what they’ve put together and tailoring it to suit our needs, likes, dislikes and schedule.
I’m looking forward to having a little break for the summer, especially considering the upcoming arrival of our first grandchild, and the fact that Patrick will be home from school. He has a summer job lined up, but at least he’ll actually be living at home for the summer. I’m not looking forward to moving him to Fayetteville, Arkansas, for college, but that’s still a few months away so I try not to think too much about it. Fayetteville is about 4 hours from where we live. That’s more than twice as far as where he goes to school now.
Sawyer will continue to do math over the summer, with a two week break in July while he goes to Colorado with our church youth choir on “tour.” They’ll be singing at a Colorado Rockies game and the Air Force Academy cadet chapel, as well as doing some mission work and singing at churches all over the state. He’s really looking forward to it.
This summer will be filled with all kinds of exciting events, but I know next school year will be on us sooner than we think. It will be wonderful to have the whole family home for the summer (including welcoming our family’s newest member). Roger, Sawyer and I have some big decisions to make concerning our curricula for next school year. It’s time to start digging through all of the new curricula catalogs and figuring out what our options are!
birthday slideshow
For some reason my camera was acting up today, so a lot of the pictures I took at Patrick’s surprise birthday party are blurry. I managed to snap a few decent ones though ~ we had a really good time. He truly was surprised! He wrote a post about it here.
Ariel and Patrick’s friend Justin were in on the secret. Ariel set it up so we could use a room at the school, and Justin agreed to keep Patrick busy until we were ready to surprise him. We invited Patrick friends ~ unfortunately most of them went home this weekend because of Mother’s Day, but we had so much fun it didn’t matter how many people were there. We had the family and several friends, and it was enough.
The theme was “cheesy” ~ we did it up like a little kid’s birthday party on purpose. We had Transformer party hats, Spiderman blowouts (they didn’t have kazoos in them, though 
), sparklers on the cake, 2 big jugs of punch, matching plates, napkins and tablecloth, bubbles, and goofy gifts. Roger and I got Patrick several things he needed ~ they were all grooming-types of gifts! LOL I’m not saying his personal hygiene is lacking ~ because it isn’t ~ we just decided to get him his own shaving/overnight kit, fingernail clippers, beard trimmer and such because a young man going off to college really should have all of those things, but Patrick didn’t. At long last Roger will finally be able to get both of his shaving kits back from Patrick!
Anyway, here’s a slideshow of a few of the pictures that weren’t too blurry. You can see by the look on Patrick’s face he was surprised, and he loved it!
cloth diapers
I know, I know ~ I can hear the groans and picture all of the rolling eyes. The response to Ashley’s decision to use cloth diapers has been less than well received. Everyone seems to have the opinion that cloth diapers are just “too” something ~ too messy, too smelly, too much work, too inconvenient…….they’re just too much.
But have you actually seen cloth diapers lately? They’re incredible! They’re so much like disposable diapers it’s amazing. They have an absorbent inside and a waterproof outside. And they can velcro on! No more nasty soggy prefolds, diaper pins or plastic pants. The new cloth diapers are seriously fantastic. A friend of mine has graciously offered to make a dozen newborn cloth diapers for us at a wonderfully discounted price. Since most people don’t believe me when I tell them cloth diapers are akin to disposables these days, I thought I’d show you a few pictures:
These images are used with permission from Hope Chest Creations (meaning they’re the property of Hope Chest Creations, so please don’t steal them!).
****Note (added later) ~ I forgot to mention, these cloth diapers are called All-in-Ones, meaning they have a soft, absorbent material inside and a waterproof material on the outside. No wraps or rubber pants needed ~ they’re so much like disposable diapers it’s amazing, and yet they’re so much better for the baby and the environment. Yep, I’m one of those ~ when my boys were babies, if I had known exactly what I was putting on their precious little bottoms, we would’ve been an exclusively cloth diapering family, even though those were the dark ages as far as cloth diapers go. I did use cloth diapers with Sawyer, but only about half the time. I’ve had plenty of experience with Chinese prefolds, diaper pins and rubber/plastic pants! They weren’t really that bad, although I will admit that it was much easier to use disposable when we were away from home. Nowadays that’s just not the case ~ the all-in-ones have revolutionized cloth diapering!