Stone Soup

Reese and I read Stone Soup the other night as part of our bed time routine and he just loved it.  It's a folktale that has been told in many different forms but this one features pigs.  The pigs are traveling and enter a town, hoping to find some kind strangers who will feed them.  The villagers, however, see them coming and shut their doors and windows hoping the pigs will go away.  They do not want to share their food, even though they have more than enough.  The villagers are stingy and greedy.  They have hearts of stone. That gives one of the pigs an idea. 

They ring the town bell for emergencies, calling everyone together because there is no food in town (the pigs know better of course).  The pigs begin to make stone soup to feed the town.  They heat water in a pot and put in freshly scrubbed stones.  One of the pigs tastes the soup and decides that it is good, but would be better if they could make the fancy kind with pepper, salt and herbs.  The villagers take the bait and bring those things for the soup.  The pigs use this trick with carrots, onions, milk, potatoes and meat.  The villagers bring it all willingly and declare it delicious.  They can't believe it's just made with stones and water!  The soup is shared with everyone and other goodies are also brought out to add to the meal.  Everyone has a great time and the village asks how they can ever repay them.  "Share stone soup with everyone!"  cry the pigs.

Reese has been bugging me since we first read it to make stone soup so yesterday I broke down.  I cheated and used a tortilla soup base and just added chicken, cheese, corn and squash but we added the freshly scrubbed stones first.  I happened to have some gravel in the backyard and we dug through it to find some big enough to be obvious (so we didn't accidently eat them). 

Kyle was too chicken to eat the soup for dinner but Reese and I did!  I love that books are making an impression on him.  It was totally worth all the scrubbing!

Tiling interruptions

So I had gotten about a quarter of the way done with the patio when we received a call from Karen Beard.  I was covered in mortar and dirt and really didn't want to touch the phone.  In fact, I wouldn't have if Kyle hadn't come outside about 2 minutes prior.  When he read the caller ID, I knew I had to answer it.  Well, of course, you can probably guess that that phone call set off a frenzy of activity as we learned that our dear friends Steven and Sherry Key had been in a bad car accident in Louisiana.  So the project hit a major and extended stall as we tried our best to take care of our friends. 

A few weeks later I was able to work on it a little at a time and I made decent headway.  I kept running out of mortar though and then it would be a week of so before I went to go buy more.  So, I started in May and will completely finish it tomorrow, September 7.  A little longer than I anticipated but I try to go with God's flow.  I will post a pic tomorrow of the final result.  All I can say is that I'm now begging to be allowed to re-tile the entryway!  It looks good!!!

A new project...

I love trying new things.  The way I figure it, it can go really well or hey, I learned a lot during that fiasco.  I ordered 440 slate tiles for our back patio, which got here today.  In my excitement, I managed to throw down two rows of tile in an hour and a half.  I went as far as my mortar would let me.  I gotta say that I am really hurting!  Bruises everywhere, sore feet and hands and an aching back.  But it looks pretty and that's all that really matters!  I'm going to try to document the process since it looks like it's going to be an extended one.  But tonight is not the night to elaborate as the Ambien and Tylenol kicks in.  See here are a few pictures to get you started.

We have THAT kid????

Why oh why does my sweet little boy have to turn into such a little brat when it comes to church???  Today was one of the worst days for me as a mom.  Last Sunday when we left Reese in his classroom, he preceded to scream.  Not an "I'm scared" or "I'm really sad" scream.  No, it was an "I'm mad and I'm going to make sure the entire building knows it" kind of scream.  Kyle and I stopped in the hallway three times trying to decide whether to go back or if that was just giving in to him.  The teachers told us to go on, but that's a really hard thing to do when your child is disrupting an entire hallway.  We decided his punishment before we ever left that hallway.  No TV or video games for the rest of the day which was big for him because he was really into one game that we had been playing together.  So, Sunday passed with few complaints. 
Skip to tonight.  We warned Reese before he went to Team Kid that if he gave us any problems or screamed that it would be no TV or video games for the rest of the night and the next day.  He was complaining that he didn't want to go as Kyle led him down the hallway, but he went.  Kyle came back and said he had to warn him again but that he went in.  Then we heard the screaming.  Really?  We have THAT child??  The one that everybody dreads having in their class because he's so bad??? 
Kyle went and got him and we had a little family talk about how this was going to end.  Right now.  Not only did the punishment stand but he and I were going straight home for a spanking.  I had tears in my eyes when I told him that because I really, really hate to do it.  I haven't had to in 3 years.  Or maybe that's the problem.  I haven't done it in 3 years...
We get home and I pull out my Mom's spanking tool of choice.  The "paint paddle".  You know, the stick you stir paint with?  Except for that I realized too late that Mom's paint paddle was plastic.  Mine's cheap wood.  Her's hurt more.  A lot more.
So Reese is scared and he's jumping around so much that I finally just paddle him with his shorts on.  What does he say??  "That didn't hurt a bit!"  Well, cowboy, you can bet it's going to hurt THIS time!!  Down go the britches and 3 raps later, I realize I have 2 problems.  One - the previously mentioned material issue and two - I didn't spank hard enough.  Now, although he's thoroughly mad, Reese is no longer scared of the pain aspect of the spanking.  Greeeeaaaattttt.  Way to go mom! 
I think I'll see if my Mom still has her paint paddle lying around....

A time stamp on my heart

The headstone for Dwayne's grave was finally laid down.  They really did a beautiful job.  The train is one that Dwayne built as a birdhouse.  It is surreal to think that one day my body will lay on the right hand side of his.  Seeing these pictures made me think about the time since he died and how life has changed.  It's been 7 months now.  What was so fresh in August has dulled to an occasional thought.  It concerns me that his death seems as though it were so long ago, much longer than 7 months.  I didn't see him all that often in life.  Now in death, I'm afraid that he might fade even further.  I'm only 34.  Lots of years to live yet, God willing.  But that means that for the majority of my life, I will not have a brother.  If his image is fading already, what will I have left in 30, 40, 50 years?  The vague notion that I once had a brother that was a part of my life but I can no longer remember?  Dwayne wasn't an easy person to get to know.  He was very quiet and didn't make friends easily.  Maybe the issue is that I just didn't know enough about him to sear a feeling or impression of him into my brain.  I think in the grand scheme of things, that is truly tragic.  We should at least connect with the important people in our lives that we can conjure up an image, a feeling, a memory, an emotion of that person.  That mixture of thoughts and feelings should be like a time stamp on our heart, something that is powerful enough to be instantly recognizable as belonging to one distinct individual.  A culmination of every experience, memory, or emotion connected to them. 
I also suffer regret that Reese will most likely not remember him.  That's especially sad to me because I've had the experience of having family members die when I was young or before I was born.  I often wonder what my grandfather was like, for instance.  All I know about him comes second hand and I've often thought that we would not have gotten along.  But relationships are complex things and they are different in different situations between different people.  My grandfather might have treated me so kindly that I would have overlooked our disagreements about life and religion.  Or maybe not.  But I'll never know for sure and that uncertainty I carry with me as part of the person that I've become. 
I saw Dwayne do things that surprised me in the year before his death.  He was excited to see Reese and actually gave him hugs.  He thought enough of Reese to dig that jeep out of the trash to fix up for him.  Who knows, with time maybe Reese would have pulled Dwayne out of his shell a little.  I wonder what kind of questions Reese will ask one day about his Uncle Dwayne.  And what my answers will be....

On the trail...

I went garage sale-ing this morning in the search for more books but it was a bust. I guess because it's Good Friday, there weren't many garage sales to be had and what there was was full of junk. I ended up at Goodwill because I just can't stand not spending money when I've set out to do just that. I bought quite a few books there but it still wasn't a very satisfying find. Hopefully next week will be better.




I won the auction on ebay for the Five in a Row series curriculum and I feel like I got a really great deal. FIAR volumes 1 thru 3, the Christian supplement, the cookbook, the holiday supplement and 6 books on the lists for $120. Considering the FIAR books are $35 a piece, I made out like a bandit! I enjoy the challenge of finding things at a bargain so I'll just look forward to next Friday's garage sales!

Book surprises...

Reese and I read a book last night called The Five Chinese Brothers. It's about these five brothers that look identical but all have something special about them. One can swallow the sea, another has an iron neck, one cannot be burned, one can hold his breath indefinitly and one can stretch his legs forever. The first one gets himself into trouble and is scheduled to be executed but the next brother takes his place and on and on. At the end the judge decides that the man must be innocent since they have tried so many ways to kill him and have not been successful. I was really surprised when I heard Reese telling his daddy a story very similiar to this one and then tonight he asked to read it again. I think it is interesting that he would really like a story about executions and all. The first time we read it, I thought he would probably be scared but I guess I was wrong! Definitely opens up the possibilities though for future books if I don't have to be so careful about the content so as not to scare him.