Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Wednesday Wisdom

July 30, 2015

And now for another edition of Wednesday Wis…ah…what? It’s Thursday? Really? Well, ok, but we’ll still call it Wednesday Wisdom just to distinguish it from the other posts. Okay, so here we are for another edition of Wednesday Wisdom.

I recently bought three glorious old books written by Peg Bracken – “The I Hate To Cook Book”, “I Hate to Housekeep Book”, and the “I Hate to Cook Almanac”. Each one is an absolute gem and I can’t wait to thoroughly go through them. This morning, I was reading the chapter in the housekeeping book about what to do when you feel miserable. She talked about a quote from Herman Melville that was in his book, Moby Dick, about something called the universal thump. Well now, that seems familiar! Let’s look at the quote:

“Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about-however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is in one way or other served in much the same way-either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder blades and be content.”

In other words, we should not worry when these things of bad things happen because they happen to us all – the universal thump – in one way or another. We should be content knowing this and then help each other out – rub each other’s shoulder blades – through the trial. It might be hard to put these words into practice, and I think it takes a lifetime, but I think it is well worth trying.

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Wednesday Wisdom

July 15, 2015

There are a lot of quotes and things I read here and there and in books that I think are worthy of passing on. So, I’m starting that today and I’ll begin with a Ray Bradbury quote because I think his wisdom is worth thinking about and he was also a book-a-holic like myself. I’ve seen pictures of his basement with bookshelves and books everywhere – oh yeah, baby, that’s me too. Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite reads (to go into another day), but this quote is not from there, it’s just a golden nugget that I think deserves pondering and possibly practicing. And not just because I educate my children at home, but because I believe he’s right.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories. – Ray Bradbury

My oldest son taught himself everything about how computers work to programming them when he was in his teens. He took multitudes of books out of the library and messed around with the computer when I wasn’t looking. He made mistakes, but he also learned how to fix them. He learned about movie making and green screens and game making, etc. By reading and teaching himself he paved the way for a very bright future.

Last year I bought some little introductory books on liberal learning, philosophy, and psychology. I decided that if I can’t actually go to college classes right now, I could do this little thing to further my education. I already read loads of self-help books, books on home education, and spirituality, so it wasn’t a big step to go a little further with intentional reading for me.

I’ll wind this up now, because this is one of those soap boxes I could get on and be on for a long time. I’ll sum it up thusly: We have the power to teach ourselves whatever we want to learn. And if we get stuck we can ask for help.

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Weekend Gallery

July 5, 2015

Well, time for another visit to the Hall of Shame (or Fame). BTW – there are captions under the pictures so read my comments there. Obviously I am not techy so I can’t figure out a better way to do these not to mention figure out dimensions on photos. Sorry.

Star Wars Lucky Charms – for the die hard Star Wars fan.

My British candy haul from Lolli and Pops. I hadn’t had a Crunchie bar in almost 40 years!

Stupid Item of the Week

Beer flavored potato chips – genious! I wish I’d actually bought these.

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An Anniversary

July 1, 2015

That’s right folks – it’s time to celebrate! It was four years ago today that the last payment to the last creditor went through and we were officially out of debt!! Here is the original post from July 1, 2011. I did not think I was going to make it during that year and a half but I did, and I cried for about a week or so knowing the battle was over. My heart still skips a little when the phone rings – the trauma is still there. I still have the tendency to panic when we start buying a lot of stuff we need, but I keep good records of everything and once I balance everything out I can breathe knowing we’re okay. At least organization is one thing I’ve done right.

I also talked about restoration and we’re still in the midst of that. Dental, orthodontist, and eye doctor appointments are in full swing these days and that’s a good thing. Our house still needs some help and we still need a newer vehicle but in time we hope to get those done too. And now that gas is cheaper we can fill the van up as well instead of a little here and a little there. Going clothes shopping with the kids is also more fun since I don’t have as many worries (not to mention half of my kids can now buy their own clothes). I still am frugal though – I always shop around sales so I can get what I need at a better price. Just this last weekend I scored a really cute shirt for Maggie and paid just 96 cents! It was on sale from $16 to $6 and I had reward points money so that took $5 off! Go me!

I mentioned in my restoration post about praying to St. Martha – still doing that. Her feast day is July 29 and I plan on praying every day this month. I also am going to get St. Jude and St. Andrew in on it as well. Not to mention Evelyn Ryan who managed to raise 10 children mostly on her winnings from contests. If you’ve never read the book or seen the movie I highly recommend it. In my book she is a saint and I ask for her help often – she understands.

So, to celebrate I have a small bottle of champagne leftover from New Years and I might just make a cake too. Wacky cake is easy and frugal and I think that will do nicely. :-)

I want to add a special thank you to my children for never complaining and understanding as much they could during that year and a half – I know it was hard but I think we all came out much stronger from having been through it. Scratched up a bit from the experience – but stronger. I love you all!

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» 2015 » July » Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Wednesday Wisdom

July 30, 2015

Wednesday Wisdom

July 15, 2015

Weekend Gallery

July 5, 2015

An Anniversary

July 1, 2015

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