Big Servin'

On Saturday we participated in The Big Serve through my church, The Summit.  There were groups all over the county serving the community in different ways such as making meals for the firemen, working the concession stand at local high school football games, building Habitat houses, and landscaping at local schools.

We served with a group at a nearby elementary school.  Coincidentally, it was Julianna's school, which made it a little more special for her.  There was one group of folks that raked leaves, pulled weeds, and planted flowers outside at the school and another group that helped paint in the gym and put some bookshelves together.  We did a little of both.

I, of course, did a bit more babysitting than working and I felt a little guilty about this but I decided to stay and at least let my kids see everyone else serving the Lord by volunteering in the community.  We had a beautiful day to do it too.

absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Please tell me you've missed me.  Oh right, oh right, so you probably haven't really missed me too much.  But I've been here.  I'm OK.  We're still getting over sickness at our house and staying as busy as ever with life things, but I wanted to give you guys a heads up to stay tuned.  When I find a spare minute or two I've got several giveaways to post.  Coming your way I've got giveaways for more Van's products, a couple of toys, another food item or two, and a couple of book reviews planned for the next few weeks. Carry on.

and the fist pump goes to...

• My mother and mother-in-law for taking care of Josh this week while he recovered from a virus and ear infection.
• My husband for getting my wedding rings cleaned and checked this weekend.
• My daughter for winning first, third, and fifth place in the three competitive entries she submitted to the Dixie Classic Fair.
• My husband for taking care of Julianna ALL night last night while she vomited repeatedly with a high fever (I was in bed with chills) thanks to the virus Josh brought home.

Here's to a relaxing and recovering sabbath!

Humpty Dumpty

Lunch Wars

My daughter started kindergarten this fall and I knew I would find some encouragement to pack her more healthy lunches after reading the most recent book I was sent for BlogHer Book Club, Amy Kalafa's Lunch Wars.  Indeed, I was right. 


As I commented on this post, I remember being in junior high and packing my lunch every day to take to school.  It always included my original combination of peanut butter and sprinkles on white bread.  I also threw in some processed food snacks and rarely added raw fruit or veggies.

At the ripe old age of five my daughter is already influenced plenty when it comes to her food choices.  If I left it up to her, of course her lunch would include a Lunchable every day, plus a few mini Snickers bars and a juice box and maybe some Doritos or fruit snacks.

I certainly don't fault her.  (Remember the twelve year old me I describe above?)  According to Kalafa, "Branding food packages with licensed characters substantially influences young children's taste preferences and snack selection and does so most strongly for energy-dense, nutrient poor foods.  These findings suggest that the use of licensed characters to advertise junk food to children should be restricted."  So why aren't they?  Ms. Kalafa and I would both like to know.  If "advertisers proudly admit to directing their work towards children to get them to go to the parents to buy the product despite the fact that the kids aren't the ones doing the shopping" then why are we letting them?

The thing is, that's just the packed lunches brought from home.  When you look at what's offered in school lunches, the findings are often worse.  Kalafa's film Two Angry Moms and then her Lunch Wars book delves into what is being offered to our kids at school and how we can advocate changes in school cafeterias.

I typically am not an activist.  I don't ever see myself really fighting for a cause.  I doubt I'll ever write a proposal to change the food service management company at my child's school.

However, I am a teacher.  Almost ninety percent of the students at my school are on a free or reduced lunch plan.  I see the kids eat pizza , french fries soaked in ranch dressing, hot Cheetos, and chocolate chip cookies every day.  I can totally get on board with "teaching food."  I am now encouraged to write a proposal for a school garden and can completely fit that in with our required annual service learning project.

But in her book Mrs. Kalafa provides so many ways to get involved in this movement that perhaps you'd find a different aspect you'd be interested in.  It's certainly worth checking into.  After all, if we don't get involved in what out kids are eating now, then we'll spend more time and money being involved in their health care later.

If you'd like to read more visit please join the discussion over at BlogHer Book Club.

This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

more than you ever wanted to know about my computers

Before I was born my mom worked in medical records and my dad was a stockbroker.  My mom then stayed home with my sister and I until we started school. Eventually my parents bought condominiums at Myrtle Beach and my mom was able to run the business of renting them from our home.  We had our first computer and it was so slow.  That was before Windows and during the time when everything worked from the DOS prompt.

Source

We bought the second computer which was a lot faster and we started a home network.  We nicknamed the old computer Turtle and called the new one Myrtle (Turtle because of it's speed, or lack thereof, and Myrtle because our condominiums were at Myrtle Beach).

As the business grew, my dad quit his job to work at renting condos full-time with my mom.  I'm not sure why, but they named the next few computers Max, Maud, and Mildred.  When we became Harry Potter fans in the late 90s we named a new computer Harry.

When I went to college, naturally I had to stay with family tradition and name my new Dell desktop as well.  I called it Percy (also named after a character in the Harry Potter series).  My next computer was named Hermione and then Neville.  More recently, my husband jumped on board and called his newest Luna.

I don't think it's weird at all that we name our computers.  After all we are a tech family and we enjoy our gadgets.  Some people name their cars, we just name our PCs.  It certainly helps with networking.

Do you think I'm weird?  What inanimate objects have names at your house?  What should be the name of my next computer?

painting pumpkins

I bought some small pumpkins the other day so the kids could paint their hearts out.  Julianna actually wanted me to draw a face on hers so that she could paint it in.  She stressed to me that she wanted it to be SCARY.  I headed to google and searched for images to copy.  I let her pick out the one she wanted and traced it on the pumpkin and then she painted it in.  Josh had so much fun painting his that he screamed when I put it outside to dry.  I ended up also giving him some paper plate to paint as well because he enjoyed it so much and we were approaching meltdown level if I hadn't conceded to letting him use up the rest of the paint we'd poured out.  Anyway, I think they turned out great and it was a fun activity we could do while we were waiting on bedtime to roll around.