Just another benefit to homeschooling:





You can take a field trip to wherever you want! Yes, my children are standing in front of the Budweiser logo. At the Anhueser-Busch factory.

One of the famous clydesdales! His name is Darth.

The famous carriages. Sleighs. Coaches. Whatever. They took beer to Prez Roosevelt after Prohibition ended, and everyone loved them so much, it stuck.

A common sight that meets my eyes when I have misplaced the wee one. Yup, he is chewing on a cube of butter while sitting inside the fridge.

So I know you're laughing at me for taking my kids to a beer factory, but it really was fun. Of course the girls loved the clydesdales the best and were sad that no rides are offered, but the rest of the tour was surprisingly educational for them. Really! For instance, they now know more about the process and history of beer than you do, so there. Gianni was the life of the party, getting all excited with the big machines (or simply, the elevator) and at one point, attempting to take a snooze on the floor. He looked like he'd been sampling. And yes, there was sampling at the end and you should have seen Cora in the lounge, her feet propped up, a bag of free pretzels in one hand, a rootbeer in the other, watching football, cherishing her clydesdale poster, and saying dreamily,

"This was the best field trip ever!"

We still don't know where we will be living and/or working past December. We aren't stressed though. I was always married to a small, white-haired gnome, right? And if you hear rumors that a payday loan was nearly acquired in order to purchase toilet paper I will deny them. All I have to say is, thank goodness for piggy banks and dollar stores.

Our days waiting for employment news are quite long and dull (and as a result this post probably will be too). The girls aren't signed up for anything extracurricular, like the typical swimming and gymnastics and book clubs, since I didn't see the wisdom in having them make new friends only to rip them away when we move. We do have art class with the lovely and talented Miss Genesis which they started today and which made me thankful that I am not teaching that particular subject. They had homework (paint a self portrait) that they were excited to work on right after class: I have major difficulties not sticking my nose into their projects and ideas. I remember a couple years ago having them do paintings on canvases for christmas gifts: I hovered over them endlessly, pointing things out, "helping," and generally making a nuisance of myself until Cora burst out, 'Mom! Would you stop helping and just let me paint?!' Another filler on our schedule is something called Fun Night at church, and for that Mike and I actually have the homework. This week we are supposed to write down our schedules for the entire week and then carefully go through them, making sure that what we are doing pleases God. Hmmm... I'm not sure how vacuuming and cooking and bathing small children and scooping dog food out of son's mouth and chasing naked toddlers can be done in a manner pleasing to God, although I'm sure I could attempt to do them with less yelling, which would please everyone. How about trying to grease up a two year old boy with VaporRub without loosing your grip on him? If you're confused, just try that one, I dare you. Or how about when you make $40 at a yard sale and when you spend it all on groceries at Walmart, making the brilliant decision to go through the do-it-yourself check out line, thus spending approximately 100 years coaxing each crumpled bill into the cash machine, one at a bloomin' time? In between each accepted dollar, nudging your oh-so helpful children ever farther away since the blasted machines stop working any time any extra weight is distributed on them. This includes not only children, but stray eyelashes, dust mites, and dust mite's eyelashes. An eternity went by while this was happening, all under the watchful and annoyed glances from the check out clerk who had to push his magic button every time we did something wrong and who probably thought I had made interesting career choices to have such a large bundle of one dollar bills. I'm pretty sure there was praying involved at this point, so maybe, just maybe, God was pleased with me after all.