A week or two ago, my boys decided to take stock of their weapons stash.


They were quite organized about it. Some of those items may look questionable as weapons--I mean, how dangerous can faux-fur golf club covers be? Little do you know, those are cleverly disguised robotic laser arms.

The Arms Master is my favourite, though.

Not so long ago, I came across this really cool project on DadCanDo for Dragon Glare Reducing Goggles.

My boys have no need for Dragon Glare Reducing Goggles (most of the time), but I thought that the craft would be equally authentic as Snow Glare Reducing Goggles to go with our unit about Mountain Climbing and Sir Edmund Hillary.

I got some pop bottles from Amanda (she didn't even charge me the deposit! What a friend!), gathered the rest of the supplies from my copious stash and overflowing recycle bin, and came up with my own version. (I'm usually too cheap to pay for a pattern I can re-invent on my own. However, for those of you less craftily-inclined, I am not going to steal any further revenue from Mr. Chris Bernardo. He is doing some great work over on that DadCanDo site, and I hitherto recommend that if you want to create your own version, head on over there and buy the instructions for yourself.)






Bottle of gold spray paint? $10. The rest of the supplies? Free. Listening to three boys be "astropilots" for as long as Mom will let them before bed?...

...Well, you know the rest.

That's what my van looked like for all of last week. (The amount of snow covering it varied.)

After a spring snowstorm, where large, fluffy flakes the size of hamsters floated down for the entire weekend, I backed up to leave for Swim Club last Monday. After making several attempts at the driveway, I realized that it was pointless, then backed up far enough to get back into my parking spot into some unpacked snow. My tires quickly transformed the slick, wet hamsters under them to solid ice, leaving me stranded in my own yard for the rest of the week.

We missed getting a flag out in time for the county grader to clear the driveway out, so it was not until yesterday, when our friend B brought out his MAX and plowed us out, that I finally achieved freedom. I am looking forward to getting to town today, and Jason is looking forward to doing a lot less errands in town for me this week. (Thank goodness he has 4-wheel-drive on his little Ranger!)

As mildly frustrating as it was to be stuck at home, I did enjoy a week that was a bit more relaxing, and took advantage of it to finish a few things on the "to-do" list.

In fact, yesterday I decided that I just might be addicted to finishing things. Don't get me wrong--starting things is fun. But sometimes I wonder if the only reason I start things is so I can finish them, and have the satisfaction of crossing them off the list. And I don't just cross them off--I use a highlighter. It's a habit I picked up years ago when I worked at Rogers Video in Calgary. Finished things got highlighted. It really makes them stand out on the list--I tell ya, the sense of accomplishment increases exponentially when you see all that neon green, yellow, and pink smiling up at you from your list! :-)

So, here are a few things I accomplished last week:

• Year-end business reconciliation
• 2010 tax returns!!!! (Yippee! First time I've been on time with that in four years, at least! First time I've been early since beginning my business in 2005!)
• Various kitchen chores that I had been falling behind on
• Jason's Valentine's Day socks. Started at Christmas--still not enough time.
  
• Almost (read: 1 more hour of work) finished some little "Keyboard Mitties" for myself. My hands get really cold when I work at the piano or computer for a long time on cold winter days. Colleen cued me in to the benefits of fingerless mitts for inside in the winter. (I never could see the value in this climate, before.)
  
• Season 1 of Glee (a show for which my reviews are mixed), which Jason had bought me for Valentine's Day.

That's it, but not bad for a week, I'd say. I also took a little celebratory leisure time after finishing the taxes to start learning how to use Google Sites. The "learning site" I am developing is just a showcase of our home school activities for the year, but I am checking it out to see if the tool would be suitable for a few other purposes I have in mind. I'll keep you posted on that, most likely.

Sadly, I have accomplished very little with the musical this past week. Last Sunday, I finished some demo recording, and am about half-way through another revision of the script. For some reason, my energy levels this weekend were just extremely low, and my motivation matched. I am blaming a week stuck in the house (still recovering a little from being sick the week before) and the never-ending-freakin'-snow-and-overcastness outside! I am SO ready for spring!

Anyway, that was my week in a nutshell. Happy Monday, friends!

So today, Noah got to write his own "snow" poem for English. First, we wrote one together:


Snowball Fight
by Noah and Mommy

Get set
to get wet!
Go throw
some wet snow!
White might!
Snowball fight!

Then, Noah got to write a snow poem all on his own. His is a little tricky to follow without all his verbal explanations, but not bad for a first grader:

Night Fight
by Noah

Woah! Low
There's snow
Loseboot [a name, apparently]
Is going to toot
Play in the night
Night fight. [à la Dr. Seuss]

Not to be left out, Jude wrote his own little poem on a scrap of paper:

Jude
by Jude

Jude the dude who was not rude
wanted food.

Okay, okay, I get the hint. Lunch is served...

(Re: Jude's poem: What else is new?!)

This is a little poem I wrote today while modelling rhyming poetry-writing for Noah's English lesson. It's no ee cummings, but for an impromptu piece, it says exactly the way I feel as I look out my window at the winter wonderland outside. (It gets a little more abstract as the poem goes on--the first part was for Noah, then I wrote the rest after the lesson for me.)

The Bride
by Talena Winters

Feather-light
Wintry flight
Wet or dry
From the sky
Snow falls down
Earth's bridal gown
Icy cold
Heart on hold
Sun, take her hand
Thaw heart and land
Spring wedding night
Nature's delight
Melt snow and fears
Gown disappears
at last.

Sigh...

I've been feeling the effects lately of two handicaps to my blogging creativity: one, being sick all last week (which I am blaming on the dog/chicken episode of the Friday before), meaning that most of the time when I was not absolutely required to be vertical (and some of the time when I should have been) I was relationship-building with my pillow.

Second, while I was gone to Red Deer a few weeks ago, I had Jason reformat my desktop computer and rebuild it. He finally installed Windows 7 (which I have already been running on my laptop for a while, now), and now my photo-editing software is too old to work with it. So. That means that I have no pictures until my new version comes in the mail.

I didn't realize how much I now rely on photos to blog with--but since most of my blog-fodder these days comes from the adorable antics of my three boys, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I don't consider it "cheating" to save time typing by just posting photos.

Anyway, although the software still isn't here, I am feeling much, much better today, thankfully--there are way too many things on my "to-do" list that have now been carried over from last week, which I am less-than-thrilled about. However, I'm going to take a few minutes and see if I can make up for the lack of photos with actual text. Ha!

So, here are a few stories that have not been typed out, that had no photos to go with them, anyway.


On our last night in Red Deer, after having been away from home for ten nights, I was saying prayers with Jabin and Noah. "Thankful-fors" are everybody's favourite part.

Jabin: I'm thankful that we're going home tomorrow. I miss my big yard.

Me: I bet it misses you, too!

Noah: I'm thankful we're going home tomorrow, too. I miss my Xbox, and it misses me, too!

Me: Ah.



On Saturday night, Jabin was stalling before bed, which sometimes actually brings up the neatest conversations, like this one:

Jabin: Mom, you know what I wish? I wish that there were no bad dreams.

Me: That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Jabin: And I wish God didn't make people be sick.

Me: God doesn't make people be sick. Sickness came into the world when the first person sinned--it's because of sin we get sick. And someday, when God makes the Earth new again, we won't have any more sickness and no more bad dreams. Cool, eh?

Jabin jumped up and down, doing a rocker-type "Yes! Yes!" with clenched eyes and arms upraised and pointing.

A few minutes later, he comes back and asks, "Mom, in the New Earth, will it ever be dark?"

I was surprised at the thought that went into this subject by a five-year-old. Smiling, I answered, "In the Bible, it says God will sit in the middle of the Holy City and his glory will be so bright that there will be no darkness in it, it will be light all the time."

"Cool!" said Jabin, and ran to get his pajamas on, singing God Is Bigger Than The Boogeyman.

I sat thinking about his question for a few more minutes. I like looking at the stars, and the feel of a summer's night when the mosquitoes have all gone back to bed. God made so many wonderful night-time things to enjoy, I bet we'll still get to enjoy them later, too! I'm thinking that the Holy City may be everbright, but I bet we can still go to the other side of the planet to enjoy a night of star-gazing--sans mosquitoes, hopefully! That's what I think, anyway.

Stay warm, friends, and hold on--spring is coming!

"My husband got me a Surprise Dog," I told Pat, the grandmotherly woman who works at the pet store after telling her that I was looking for a stainless steel food dish.

"Oh? What kind of dog is it?" she said, helping me to choose a dish of the appropriate size.

"She's a Golden Retreiver--about two. I need a toy for her, too, like a rope toy. Where do you keep them?"

She pointed me in the right direction.

"I need to have something I can train her that she is allowed to chase--unlike the chicken she killed this morning," I explained, then immediately corrected myself. "Alright, not killed, mutilated--then I had to kill it. Not what I was planning on doing in -20C and eighteen feet of snow on a Friday morning."

She had been raised on a farm, so she sympathized with me as she rang up my dog dish and dog toys.

Apparently, my husband does crazy things when he is left alone for prolonged periods of time--like drive four hours (one way!) to pick up a dog. He had his reasons, but I was definitely surprised when he told me about it on the phone last Sunday!

Sunshine is pretty sweet, but as a retriever, her chasing instinct is strong, and she hasn't been worked with a lot to channel that properly--a fact that became painfully obvious this morning when she barged into the barely-open coop door, chased chickens around for awhile and seriously maimed one of my laying hens. I am hoping that this particular flaw is workable, since she seemed more interested in chasing than killing (although much longer and the bird would have been dead by her paws--and teeth--anyway.)

All that aside, she has some definite positive characteristics--she seems to do great with the kids, and she hasn't attempted to leave our yard (yet--and I'm hoping it stays that way). She needs training, but she seems to be smart, and there is evidence that she might be a quick learner. However, it is too soon to say whether the evidence is a "lesson learned" or "mere coincidence" at this point.

Jason got Sunshine in an attempt to keep Koda, our 17-month-old European Malamute/German Shepherd cross, from wandering over to play with the neighbour's Shepherd pups (almost a year old, now) at every opportunity. Sadly, that has only partially worked out. He seems to be content to play with Sunshine during the day, but if we leave the dogs loose at night, he'll wander off anyway. It's very frustrating. He has been spending a lot of time tied up because of that, which isn't good for a dog, and he has started to get nippy with the kids. Jason finally bought a kennel last weekend (about 9'x10') but that is only nominally better--especially since it is now being occupied by two dogs! However, as long as he stays around during the day, at least he can wear off energy all day long with another dog and not be tied up for most of each 24-hour period.

After regaling (notice my clever euphemism for "whining"?) my friend L today about the emergency chicken butchering (I also needed to call her for advice, since she has been my "chicken butchering mentor" so far, and I have now only actually done it on four birds), she gave me a great idea to work with Sunshine that I actually started doing this afternoon.

After catching Sunshine in the act of mauling one of my best Ameracauna laying hens, I knew two things immediately: I was going to have to butcher a chicken today (a thrilling thing to note when you are still in your pajamas under your winter coat) and I had a serious training issue or three to deal with in our new dog. As I tried to drag Sunshine back to the kennel so I could deal with the injured bird, I noticed that she did not seem to be submitting to me at all, pulling back stubbornly against me or jumping up on me. Not wanting to let the chicken (whom I had instructed Noah to take into the house and put in the bathtub) suffer too long, but not wanting to let this unacceptable behaviour on Sunshine's part slide, either, I had Jude bring me a leash so I would have a little more control than when just using the collar, and worked with her on the "Down" command (a huge one for submission) for about five minutes, requiring her to obey it several times on the way back to the kennel. Then she got shut up until I could do triage on the most urgent situation--putting Emily out of her misery. (Jude named the chicken last fall--and yes, I think it was after his longtime "crush" on my friend Amanda's daughter! When he first came in to tell me about the fiasco that was ensuing with the dog and chickens, he was in tears because Sunshine had "killed Emily." Poor guy.)

Anyway, L suggested spending some time training Sunshine while the chicken chores were being done, which I began doing today. When Jude went out to feed the chickens at lunch, I went with him, putting Sunshine on the leash and making her heel/sit outside the straw-bale windbreak we have at the front of the coop, watching the proceedings. Her entire body was quivering--I could tell that she was wanting desperately to get in there and have some more "fun". However, after only a couple of reminders for her to sit, she complied pretty well. After that, we spent a little bit of time doing some "don't chase the cats" training, since Simba was taking advantage of the afternoon sun for a siesta on the front step. I am planning on working with her every time the chores are being done (so, twice a day) for the next several days, or as long as it takes, for her to figure out that chasing the chickens and cats is not acceptable. That's also the reason for buying her toys--to give her something she's allowed to chase. (I probably would have just used sticks, except they are all a little inaccessible under the mountains of white stuff currently. I am SO ready for spring!)

I think the real reason my husband decided to get a second dog is to give me less time to think about wanting to adopt a kid--if the dog gives me enough trouble, maybe I won't want another kid, is that it, Honey? *wink, nudge* Good luck with that! :-)

(Sorry, no photos of Sunshine, yet--she was too busy trying to get at the cats under the shed on Wednesday when I attempted to photograph her--and my computer is also currently undergoing renovations. I am waiting for my new photo editing software, since my old one is incompatible with Windows 7! Stinkin' Gotta love technology!)

Do not be deceived by the apparent inactivity on this blog's home page--the force behind it has been VERY busy in the last month!

Doing what? Well, many of you know already, actually. I was focusing intensely on getting the musical ready to present to the Red Deer College Theatre department, a meeting which happened this past Tuesday. Then the next day, at their urging, we also presented it to the Music Department. And, at the urging of both, we will soon be presenting it to Central Alberta Theatre, hopefully, as well as several other leads we need to follow up on.

The gist is: they all love it! Many people are intrigued/excited/enthusiastic about this project, and it is so amazing to realize that this "baby" that has been in gestation for the last twelve years, mostly bandied about between only Candace and myself, with the occasional encouragement to remember and return to it from a spouse or parent, now actually has professionals in the theatre starting to come alongside and get excited about it!

"They like it! They really like it!"

That does not, by any means, mean that work on it is finished--on the contrary, it is about to get more intense and exhausting than before, in order to refine and further enhance the story and message we are trying to present, and continue to make it better. We still have many steps to walk on our destination to get this play to Broadway (to therefore impact as many people as possible), but the exciting thing is that the path is becoming much better-defined!

So, there it is... the update. Thank you for your prayers and support--and keep 'em coming! We're gonna need 'em!