I finished #19: 29 Gifts by Cami Walker and #20: A Garden of Eden in Hell : The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer by Melissa Muller - amazing life story. I was hoping more from the book, but I still found her story fascinating.

Yeah, how could I leave off the food recommendation? :lol: Oklahoma Joe's BBQ Anthony Bourdain lists it as one of the 13 places to eat before you die. And now I'll be craving their brisket the rest of the day. :tongue_smilie:

The zoo IS wonderful. They've put a lot of work into it. FYI on the Harley factory - you have to be 12 years of age or older.

Yep, you'll just miss Deanna Rose by a few days. It opens Sunday. The Nelson Art Museum is wonderful (and free)! Crown Center has some fun shops and restaurants. There is a chocolate shop where you can watch them make the candies, a hamburger joint that delivers your meal on a train-like device (although the food isn't very good IMO), a Crayola store, a cool toy store, and others. If your kids like to create and be crafty, go to Kaleidoscope (it's free, but you may need to make a reservation). Union Station is fun. It's free to go in and look around, but almost all the activities cost money (oh, and you have to pay for parking). My kids love Science City - you could spend most of your day there. The nice thing is Union Station connects to Crown Center via a covered walkway. It's also easy walking distance to Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum. If you'd rather shop and browse, you could go to the Country Club Plaza. Only Rome has more fountains. Here's a little photo walk-through. --- Haha! Yeah, well, I must be a slow typist. I see most of them have already been recommended.

The one that gets to me is PAYED. Ack! It's PAID. And like a PP mentioned, I'm afraid that I'm absorbing the poor (pour, pore) spelling. :D

Oh my! I've actually said this in a moment of frustration. As soon as I said it, my kids gave me a funny look, then we all burst out laughing. It's now a family joke. :lol:

I hate to tell you this, but my 16 yo son broke my wok. I suspect he was trying to spin it on his finger. :glare: I try to explain the difference between breaking something on accident while using it correctly versus breaking something on accident because you were messing with it/using it for a purpose it was not intended.

Another vote to have her checked out immediately. These babies can get dehydrated quickly. My daughter had pyloric stenosis and surgery at 6 weeks. By the time that it was diagnosed, after trying everything else, she was pretty sick. She had dangerously high potassium levels and was quite dehydrated. It took three nurses to get an IV in her (and that was at the children's hospital). She had surgery within 12 hours of the diagnosis. Oh, and they can diagnose it with an ultrasound. Often times, an experienced doctor can be pretty sure of the diagnosis just by feeling the stomach.

Azure Standard. I can't wait until it arrives. Is it bad that I'm planning next week's menu around coconut oil?

18. A Feast Nearby by Robin Mather - loved it. It encouraged me to cook up some yummy food for my freezer. Thank you for the recommendation! I'm in the middle of reading WAY too many books. I have A Clash of Kings going (it's over 900 pages! enjoyable, but it slows down my other reading - and it has holds at the library, so I can't renew it.) ---- 17. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 16. Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic 15. The Cay by Theodore Taylor 14. Losing Control and Liking It by Tim Sanford 13. A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond 12. Simple Country Wisdom by Susan Waggoner 11. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 10. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney 9. The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen 8. A Chicken in Every Yard by Robert and Hannah Litt 7. Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott 6. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen 5. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris 4. Ahab's Wife: or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund 3. At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson 2. Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison 1. Little Sugar Addicts by Kathleen DesMaisons

Ohhhhh, this thread should be deleted right now. :tongue_smilie: I'm waiting on my coconut oil to arrive - it'll be here Saturday.

Ohhh, how lovely! I'll be right down with chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers.

Wow - congrats to all of you finishing Moby Dick!!!! So many of the books highlighted this week look interesting. I'm having a happy problem on my bedside. It's feast week from the library: Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Lapin - Wow. Wow. Wow. I'm only to the first chapter and I already think EVERYONE should read this book. It's a personal finance/business book. I'll be purchasing this one. One Thousand Gifts by Voskamp - I won't be reading this one. Her style of writing and my brain's style of processing information do not mesh. I was hoping her book was a bit more readable than her blog, but it's not. I'm sure she has wonderful thoughts to share. I would like to develop my gratitude, but this book is not for me. And who starts a book describing your mother's ring of fire from your birth? :001_huh: Memories Before and After The Sound of Music by Agathe Von Trapp - This book was recommended here on the TWTM. I'm halfway through it and enjoying it. Artemis Fowl - need to start it at the request of my oldest son (he just finished reading it and wants me to read it, too). The Feast Nearby by Mather - Another WTM recommendation. I'm loving it. Almost finished with it. I was inspired to cook up a bunch of food. I now have 6 bags of homemade spaghetti sauce in the freezer. :D 29 Gifts by Walker - Another WTM recommendation. I'm liking this better than the first paragraph of Voskamp's book, even though it's not a "Chrisitian" book. I'm about halfway through this one. MBS and the Perilous Journey - I haven't started this one yet. It's supposed to be a happy easy read, but obviously, I have lots of other reading. A Garden of Eden in Hell - I'm very excited to read this book! Written by a Holocaust survivor, she describes her happiness with her life. I came across the book from this post on Michael Hyatt's blog. It's worth a few minutes of your time to pop over, read the post, and if you have time, watch the interview with the author. And uh, yeah, that's Melville on the bottom (actually, that's National Geographic magazine on the bottom). I gave myself permission to not read Moby Dick, yet it still sits next to my head every night.

:lol: Yep, hangers are my friend, too. I hang up everything except jeans, pjs, underwear, and socks. But now that you say that, I'm betting my boys would go for the jeans on the bottom of the pile, then the rest would fall down. :glare:

I've been thinking about doing this, as well. I found this blog. It has a post about how she organizes her children's clothing in the laundry room.

Our school district no longer allows shadowing. I'm not sure when they stopped, but they wouldn't let my high-schooler check out the school before deciding to go to public school. :glare:

I completed two books this week: 17. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - my review here - in short, loved it! 16. Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic --- 15. The Cay by Theodore Taylor 14. Losing Control and Liking It by Tim Sanford 13. A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond 12. Simple Country Wisdom by Susan Waggoner 11. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 10. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney 9. The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen 8. A Chicken in Every Yard by Robert and Hannah Litt 7. Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott 6. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen 5. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris 4. Ahab's Wife: or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund 3. At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson 2. Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison 1. Little Sugar Addicts by Kathleen DesMaisons

:iagree: :iagree: Everyone has their own - I bought these from Target. :iagree: We hang everything we can. No wrinkle, just a little folding. The folding gets put into the individual baskets, and those get put away once or twice a week.

Congrats! I just got my issue in the mail today. I'm looking forward to reading her article.

Here's my basic, easy-peasy recipe, you know, in case you need more reasons to eat spaghetti. :) This is a great basic recipe. You can add balsamic vinegar, crushed red peppers, browned beef and sausage, anything that sounds good to you. 4 cloves of garlic, finely diced 1 medium onion, diced 1 tablespoon olive oil two 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes, blended until desired (less blended for a chunkier sauce) 1 small can of tomato paste (I think they are 6 oz cans?) 16 oz water 2 teaspoons dried basil 1 teaspoon dried oregano salt and pepper to taste Saute the garlic and onion in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, the herbs, and salt and pepper. Let cook for 5 minutes or so. It's okay (almost desirable) if the tomato paste burns a little. Add the blended tomatoes and water. Then just let it simmer. The longer, the better. I like to let it simmer for 2 hours or so. I add cooked ground beef around the last 30 minutes or so when I want a meat sauce. ---------- And while I'm at it - how about a fabulous alfredo sauce? I just found this one. We had it last night. It was great and EASY and has beat out my old recipe: Better Than Olive Garden Alfredo. I add a little cayenne pepper because I like a little kick to my alfredo. Really go crazy and add diced chicken and bacon with a little red onion. Oh man. :tongue_smilie:

Oh yes! I have to do Hundred Acre Wood for sure. I haven't read Redwall to the kids yet, but I'll definitely be adding that one, too. Thank you! The kids just finished the first four books with DH, so I'll have to The Big Woods for sure. Oh cool - thank you. DS#2 would love for me to make an Azkaban sign. Nope, they don't have to be make-believe. I think I'm going to attach them around our wood fence. (The idea of a post with those signs pointing out right at my kids' eye level doesn't sound so hot). Thanks for all the ideas! My brain shut down and I was drawing a blank. I hope to do The Shire today. If I get it done, I'll post a pic of it.

My kids have been begging me to make them a sign/wooden plaque. I've decided to make something like this picture. I've thought of The Waiting Place from Oh, the Places You'll Go, Rivendell from Lord of the Rings, and Wonderland from Alice in Wonderland. Can you help me think of some more places? Thanks for any help you can give me.

I'm not going to finish a book this week. I'm in the middle of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. It's a pretty big book; I hope to have it finished next week. It's so much fun to immerse myself into another world. I'm also about halfway through Memories Before and After the Sound of Music by Agathe von Trapp. I got the recommendation from someone here on TWTM. Thank you! I'm enjoying it.

Oh yes! KitchenAid is SOOO much better. I bought a cheap stand mixer. Then one Christmas my DH surprised me with a KitchenAid. There is such a huge difference. Night and day. Can you tell I love my KitchenAid? :D

I utilize Google Calendar for appointments and time-specific events. For all the other tasks and to-dos, I use Google Tasks. It works well with gmail. For example, I have my library account set up so I receive an email when I check out books. When I get the email there is an option in gmail to add it to Google Tasks. I add it by the due date of the books and organize my task list by date. Each morning, part of my procedure is checking the Google Tasks (it's on my homepage so it's very convenient); I can easily see that I must drop off the books at the library today, and the relevant email is referenced in the Tasks list. I really like David Allen's Getting Things Done book. It has helped me develop a system so I don't have to remember all those little things. I think it's also very helpful to develop procedures which incorporate daily tasks. (I rebel against the term 'routine' :tongue_smilie: ). For example, your procedure right before bed may include taking vitamins, flossing, brushing teeth, checking the garbage can, locking the doors, and turning out the lights - completed in the same order every night. You may need to utilize a checklist at first. That's okay. It'll eventually become a habit. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress!