Just say, "Yes Mamma."

Our son hates saying, "Yes, Mamma" especially when it's the easiest and most obvious thing to do. So I told him today, "You should say 'Yes, Mamma' more often. It counts in heaven you know." My husband piped up and said cheerily, "Yes, Mamma!" Hehe!

That, plus a church membership will get you a really soft, cushy chair all your own in heaven. Bwa-hahahaha!

(One Sunday our pastor reminded everyone that church membership doesn't get anyone a special parking space in heaven, or a comfy chair, or even a wooden bench! )

Today in pictures

Today in pictures... 

I tried to fix my hair in a criss-cross Chinese bun but I had to redo it three times through the day. I need practice. But I was able to wear a hair stick while we were driving today. Maybe my hair is thicker (because it's longer) than it was when I tried before because it used to bother me in back a lot. Now I can lean on the bun comfortably. This is good news.

Salmon River  

Busted out!

Escapees! 

Passed a few farms 

Hills 

Powdered neem with shikakai

Today I tried out my powdered neem. It worked pretty well! I added the neem to the shikakai for conditioning. When I used shikakai alone, my hair was squeaky clean. This time, with neem in the blend, it didn't get squeaky clean, but it's clean. Leia suggested adding yogurt to the mixture before applying it to my ends (the herbs can be drying Leia said, and after the shikakai wash my ends were dry I thought) and the yogurt made quite a difference. It made the mixture smoother so it was altogether nicer to apply. I used three tablespoons each of shikakai and neem, and about 3/4 cup of Mountain High yogurt. My yogurt had mold growing in it so I had to pick all the green stuff out and just use the good yogurt. I suppose I should look up the effect of penicillin on hair.

I sewed a pair of snoopy pajamas for our son. They turned out cute! I even sewed on one of those tags "Made with love by Mom" on the inside of the neckline.

Memorial Day

It's really not about barbeques, vacation, and fun. It's a day to honor those who died to maintain freedom in the United States. In 1971 federal law changed the day to observe Memorial Day, from May 30th to the last Monday in May. Since then, it's morphed into a huge holiday. Who's against holidays. Nobody. We need holidays. But take time to remember and honor in some way, those who are no longer with us, and their families. Because for them, Memorial Day will never be the same.

A letter written by my mom who lost her daddy in World War II when she was eight years old. Time doesn't heal all wounds.

Dear Grandson

Entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park

Entrance to Bryce Canyon

Hoodoos! These are geologic features called hoodoos. They're formed in sedimentary rock and weather and erosion cause them. There are hoodoos near Drumheller in Alberta, Canada too. We saw them last year. I always think of Bryce when I think of hoodoos though. When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt went to Drumheller they closed the whole place just for them, so the paparazzi would leave them alone.

Service and repairs

Our truck is our bread and butter and we have to take good care of her so she's going in for an oil change and stuff tomorrow. We need new rims for the trailer so I told my husband let's replace all four even though only one is busted. I don't want to look like Ma and Pa Kettle driving down the road ya know, with one rim different from the others.

First mosquito bite of the year! It's on my left ring finger. I hate mosquitoes! Death to mosquitoes. Tonight we're in lower elevation so it's hot and humid. Utah is might purty. The state highway 89 is a scenic byway, which you can tell because there are dots next to it on the map, and it's certainly scenic. We saw cows in the pastures, drove through canyons and valleys with meandering streams, saw beautiful horses and one rolling around in the green, green grass. We saw foals with their mammas. Utah is a beautiful state.

My husband asked me if I took a pretty pill this morning. I had quickly washed just the front of my hair last night then braided it and went to bed. It was mostly dry before I went to bed. And when I woke in the morning, wonder of wonders, it actually looked nice. Highly unusual for day six post wash, but crazier things have happened I suppose.

Think I'll do an experimental herbal wash with powdered neem and yogurt on Saturday.

Ho hum

Having trouble thinking of what to write. Writer's block maybe. I didn't do much today. I wrote Mermayd. Michele wrote me. We finished spelling for third grade today. I had barbequed spare ribs and steamed rice and green beans for dinner. Took a nap because my tummy was full. Got up and we drove to Inspiration Point and Sunset View and I snapped a few pics. Saw quite a few deer since it was evening. My hair stinks so I took a shower and washed the top and sides while the back was in a bun and put it in a braid for bed. I like my avocado oil a lot and my skin is happier since I moisturized thoroughly. I'm going through all my photos of Bryce Canyon and am deciding which ones to upload tomorrow. It's been a ho-hum kind of day. I'm wearing my moosie pajamas. Tomorrow is a driving day.

Updated profile today

I recently contacted my people and asked them to put together a quick write-up about me - something new, something happening, something wow, something not a year and a half old.

Liliana in 1000 words or less.

Chicken pot pie

I had a Marie Callender's chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. I really like those. They're quite bad for you you know.

Pray.

I'm reading three different books about prayer. I have passages I would like to quote but I don't have enough light to read my books by. I'll have to go by memory and touch on some of the points that I'm learning about.

1. Doubt and unbelief. In the language of faith, these are two completely different things.

2. Helplessness is the foremost ingredient in effective prayer.

3. Pray for others because if you don't perhaps things will not unfold according to God's plans. It's possible for people to get into ministry who shouldn't. Likewise, it's possible there may be people who are supposed to be in a ministry who are not because no one has prayed for them. I never thought of this!

4. Don't worry if you can't pray aloud eloquently. Some people do and that's great. Everyone nods their head in appreciation of a job done well. Don't worry about how you sound because when the prayers of a person who is stumbling to find their words reaches God, all of heaven rejoices.

Before

Before 

This is me (in the yellow dress) before I knew what the visor would do to my bangs if I pushed my bangs up over the top of the visor.

I got a compliment from a lady on this dress today. I sewed it ya know! It's still hangin' together. It's a very good dress.

Horrifying hair

Mercy me. I had an incident today.

It's hot, in the 90s, and we're sightseeing. Yesterday I saw a little girl about ten years old with her hair coiled high on her head and she was wearing a sun visor. What a great idea! So today that's how I wore my hair. And I wore a visor. Okay, that part's fine.

But, I also had the bright idea of pushing my bangs up over the top of the visor. I was thinking this would keep my bangs straight and keep my cowlick from going wacky.

Horror of horrors. I took off my visor while my husband is fueling us up, and pull down the vanity mirror, and what do I see? My bangs which are mostly gray are kinked up, big time. I mean, they are totally poodle-lady, majorly, completely kinked, sticking out all balled up. I don't even look like myself. This has never happened! I was aghast at my reflection. Quick before my husband or son might see, I poured water from my water bottle into my hand and put it on my bangs. Most of it ran down my forehead, down my face, and down the front of my dress. That's nice. But I didn't want to draw attention to myself like have our son say, "Ma, why are you slapping your head?" so I did it again, only slower, and more calmly. This time I got more on my face, water's dripping off my chin and onto my dress. But I can't let anyone see this poodle sized ball of gray hair sticking off the top of my head so I got more water and slicked down my bangs with lightning speed. There's a super hot breeze so it dried by the time the men got into the truck and I look very normal except my dress was wet.

Might sound kind of stupid but this, this is the stuff nightmares are made of. I would rather have my bangs pasted against my forehead with sweat than ever see them kinked up like that again. It was HORRIBLE. It was like getting a birds eye view into the reality of what my life could be. Mercy!

The water bottle

That saved my life 

If I hadn't had water from this very bottle, it's my purple water bottle, everyone would have seen my bad hair incident. Perish the thought. I hope I don't dream about it tonight.

I'm glad

Morticia's daughter is home, much improved, and I am glad and relieved! What good news!

Just waiting

I'm just in a waiting mode. Waiting to hear how Morticia's daughter is doing and waiting to hear from Elvea, whose sister passed on a few days ago. By comparison, anything I have to write is insignificant tonight.

Peacock rainbow bugles with gold Delicas

More fringe earrings

Finished last night. Photo is a poor representation, and blurry to boot. The bugles have a beautiful iridescence and the gold Delica seed beads are rich. Color choice wise, the nicest set I've made to date. I can't wait to wear them! The drops are purple, but you can't tell by this pic so I have to tell you.

Of the earrings I've made I get the most compliments on this pair, not counting the peacock earrings.

Grammar grade 3 (correct use of I and me)

One of the things I like best about the curriculum we use at home is that I get the grammar rules in black and white. Here's an excerpt of today's lesson from my teacher's guide.

I is a subject pronoun, and me an object pronoun. As a general rule, I is usually used before the verb in a sentence, and me is usually used after the verb.

Tip: Many people make the error of "overcorrecting" by using I when they should use me. They do this because of a well-intentioned but misinformed sense that I sounds more proper or refined, whereas in fact me is correct. Watch out for instances like the following:

Incorrect: They awarded the prize to Roger and I.
Correct: They awarded the prize to Roger and me.

Incorrect: They told Sally and I the news.
Correct: They told Sally and me the news.

And as usual in English grammar, there's a fly in the oinment! Although it's not a hard-and-fast rule, subject pronouns usually come before the verb, and object pronouns after. As in usually but not always.

I loosely follow the classical method of education and so I put a strong emphasis on grammar. Generally, I find that grammar is taught in junior high and high school but frankly, by then teenagers have too many other things going on. Elementary age is the prime time for learning grammar best in my opinion.

Lately, I've been interested in the Thomas Jefferson model of education. It's not a curriculum, but rather a way of raising up leaders.

Sewing notions and platforms

Important stuff 

We got to stop at our storage area. I dropped off some of my middle eastern dance wear since looks like I won't be using it, and picked up some stuff I can't live without. Got to get my sewing machine (Hooray! Hooray!) and since I couldn't bring my whole sewing box I picked out what I'd need most. Plus the shoes. Had to have the shoes. Could only pick one pair so I picked these. Sigh. I love these shoes. Not that I wear them out much. Heh. Not that I wear them out at all!

Oh yeah. Needed some tax papers too. But those aren't any fun.

He lives here

Blue. Bird. 

He's very blue. We were sitting in front of our rig after dinner enjoying the view. Actually our view was the side of a giant RV which we thought was kind of funny, but to my left this little guy landed and sat and we looked at him and he looked at us.

A bicyclist was mauled by a bear in Banff National Park. That doesn't make me too happy. It's breathtakingly beautiful up there, but I can only take so much of bear country.

I love Mother's Day

Mother's Day was perfect. I never wanted it to end. I woke up and our son was holding my present up for me to open. I opened it and it was the cutest bohemian v-neck, three-quarter sleeve, cotton tie-dyed top. It's so me. They got it to go with my purple earrings and hair stick that Kara gave me.

I didn't have to do any work all day and of course, the rule is everyone has to be nice to me all day, and they were! I got to ask for anything I wanted for dinner and so since we picked up our recipe file when we stopped at our storage space last month I got to read through and and picked creole tenderloin with mashed potatoes and green beans. My husband cooks all the best things!

And we drove to Flagstaff and I walked through historic old town. There was a little festival and a girl was singing and she sounded exactly like Janis Joplin. All kinds of boho dress shops in the downtown area. Heaven!

And what did I spy with my little eye on Route 66? See below!

Flagstaff sign

Flagstaff VC sign

We call Visitor Centers "V.C." for short as in, "Hey, where's the V.C.! There's the V.C.! We gotta see the V.C. first!" Sounds like Viet Cong, huh? That's so '70s.

But across the street...

Whuh?

What do I spy with my little eye? 

Do you see that little green building? Do they think that merely parking a large truck in front of the sign will keep me from detecting it?

Animas Beads in Flagstaff, AZ

Bead shoppers shopping

Peek inside the shop

There were lots of shoppers Sunday afternoon. The help was very helpful. I liked it. I bought peacock rainbow bugles (a huge hank and I only need about ten beads but they're pretty), some Raku beads and boho pendant, and some wooden blue and magenta spacers for hemp jewelry. Need big holes for the hemp and they had a whole table of large holed beads.

I need to find something to make with all these BUGLES now.

My Mother's Day day 

They shopped for me in Flagstaff.

Fringe earrings

Bronze fringe earrings

These are long. Shoulder dusters. I love them. This style can be called fringe earrings, or Native American style, or belly dance style. I used two sites to learn how to make them. The most helpful one was Shira's page and the other was About.com. You can learn the brick stitch and ladder stitch when beading these and both are easy. And enjoyable! I used the Brick Stitch Primer to learn the brick stitch. I want to make more.

Fringe earring examples for inspiration:
My favorite by Auntie Jewelry - I look at these over and over and I always like them.
MsWolfLady96 at Ebay - lots of color combinations to be inspired by!

Packaging done

Ready to mail it

A necklace for my sister

Topaz colored glass cathedral beads

I finished it tonight.

Laundry and question

Why did my husband add bleach to two loads of colored laundry?

Test

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Our son can spell it and define it. It's simply memorization. Nothing more. But it's a confidence builder and a fun ice breaker for a kid.