Knitting Retreat!

My favorite knitting friend and I went to a knitting retreat this Saturday at the yarn store in Carroll, and it was heavenly. We knitted all day, learned three new scarf techniques (one of which was horrible and frustrating, but still a wonderful time), and ate like queens. I bought new yarn, which I shouldn't have done, but I think I'm all set for knitting my Christmas presents. It's impossible to just look at all of that gorgeous yarn and not get something. I may have to stay up all night for a few weeks, but everyone on my list is penciled in for a knitted masterpiece this year - scarves, cowls, hats, fairies, gloves...how exciting.
I also was eavesdropping and heard about a website for knitters that I didn't know about: http://www.ravelry.com/. Membership is free, and you can search zillions of patterns - some free, some not. There were all kinds of neat things you can do that I didn't look at, like mark your patterns and rate patterns and other stuff.
This was the busiest weekend ever. It started on Friday night with our First Thanksgiving, which I prepared for to the nth degree and was attended by...one other family and my supervising teacher. And my ex-husband. Sigh. Oh well, I guess I'm super-prepared for next year. And I learned all kinds of interesting things about American history. Then, the knitting retreat on Saturday, followed by shoebox preparations at church for Operation Christmas Child (it's not too late to fill up a shoebox with goodies for children across the world; go to http://www.samaritanspurse.com/ to see what it's all about). Sunday was church, my 31 Gifts party (much better attended than the First Thanksgiving), and a church leadership meeting. I haven't had two coherent thoughts in a row for days.
The kids had a great time with Grandpa at the Iowa Hall of Fame. They got to ride in the Mini-Cooper and eat out for breakfast and lunch, so this one was pretty much in the bag no matter what the actual hall of fame was like.
I've been forgetting to end with a Bible verse - today it's Psalm 100. The whole thing. So you'll have to go and look it up, but I'll give you a hint: it's about thanksgiving. The lower-case kind.

Iowa Hall of Pride

Did you know that there is an Iowa Hall of Pride? It's in Des Moines, attached to the Hy-Vee Hall, and it showcases famous Iowans of all kinds - athletes, historical figures, actors, and so on. You can check it out here: http://www.iowahallofpride.com/, or take a trip there like Isaac, Simon, and Grandpa are tomorrow. So, you're thinking, are there really enough famous Iowans to fill up a hall? Why yes. Here are a few famous Iowans; I'm not sure whether all of these are in the Hall of Pride, since I haven't been there. I'll have to let you know next week.

Famous Iowans
Bess Streeter Aldrich author, Cedar Falls
Bix Beiderbecke jazz musician, Davenport
Norman Borlaug plant pathologist, geneticist, Cresco
Donald L. Campbell inventor, Clinton
Wallace Hume Carothers inventor, Burlington
Johnny Carson TV entertainer, Corning
William Buffalo Bill Cody scout, Scott Cty
Gardner Cowles Jr. publisher, Algona
Lee DeForest inventor, Council Bluffs
Simon Estes bass-baritone, Centerville
William Frawley actor, Burlington
George H. Gallup poll taker, Jefferson
Susan Glaspell writer, Davenport
Herbert Hoover U.S. president, West Branch
Ann Landers columnist, Sioux City
Cloris Leachman actress, Des Moines
William D. Leahy fleet admiral, Hampton
John L. Lewis labor leader, Lucas
Glenn L. Martin aviator, manufacturer, Macksburg
Elsa Maxwell writer, Keokuk
Glenn Miller bandleader, Clarinda
Harriet Nelson actress, Des Moines
Nathan M. Pusey educator, Council Bluffs
David Rabe playwright, Dubuque
Harry Reasoner TV commentator, Dakota City
Donna Reed actress, Denison
Lillian Russell soprano, Clinton
Wallace Stegner author, critic, Lake Mills
Billy Sunday evangelist, Ames
James A. Van Allen space physicist, Mount Pleasant
Abigail Van Buren columnist, Sioux City
Henry A. Wallace statesman, Adair Cty
John Wayne actor, Winterset
Andy Williams singer, Wall Lake
Meredith Willson composer, Mason City
Grant Wood painter, Anamosa
Ashton Kutcher, actor
Elijah Wood, actor
Dan Gable, wrestling legend
Kurt Warner, football legend
Jerry Mathers, actor

So, to everyone who thinks Iowa is uncool, PTHTHTHTHTH. (That's me sticking out my tongue.)

Coin Collecting

Isaac is ecstatic over his coin collection, enhanced this weekend by a bunch of cool coins and bank notes from Grandpa. We've started looking them all up online, and we discovered a bunch of coin-collecting websites in the process. Who knew? You can catalog your coin collection and swap coins online for free! Cool. Of course, I had already started a spreadsheet, which Isaac doesn't want to give up, but eventually, I'm making him put the whole thing online.
Here are a couple of the sites we saw...I'm not sure which we'll use or which is better, but they all looked neat:

Numista:  http://en.numista.com/
Collector's Society (this one has paper money too - not sure if the others do or not): http://www.collectors-society.com/default.aspx

UCoin: http://en.ucoin.net/
Nostomania (this one can be used for other types of collections too): http://www.nostomania.com/servlets/com.nostomania.HomeServlet

Routine, shmoutine

We have been terrible lately at sticking to a schedule. Grace is wailing in her crib right now because I know it's not naptime, but she's so crabby that I don't know what else to do with her. I had forgotten how high maintenance almost-one-year-olds can be. She is everywhere, and she only likes to play with stuff she can choke on (especially paper, legos, and hair bands), and she falls and hits her head ALL the time. So if she's fussy (read: awake), doing anything else with anyone else is almost impossible, including school. And, as you've noticed, blogging. I never get to work out in the morning anymore, because she gets up early and smiley and fights to climb all over me while I try to vinyasa. And now, Isaac and Simon always want to get up "early", so mornings to myself are totally out. I think I'm going to start getting up from 2-4 am to enjoy some "me" time. I read somewhere that "me" time is selfish anyway, so I suppose I should be willing to get up at 2 if I think I need it.
The only useful information I have to pass along today is that you must read the book, Free Range Learning, by Laura Grace Weldon. It's an excellent book on homeschooling. You also must read As Always, Julia, which is a collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. I will probably never get to the end of either of these books, because of the aforementioned problem with me-time, so don't expect me to be able to talk intelligently about either of them. I can only vouch for the first 30 pages or so.

It costs HOW MUCH to take guitar lessons???

I've been fairly decided on the idea of getting guitar lessons for Isaac for Christmas. I was eventually going to get around to checking the cost, but, remembering the $5 a week it cost for piano lessons when I was a kid, I figured cost would not be an issue. I keep forgetting that "when I was a kid" was 20 years ago. So John was talking to a friend from work at our Halloween mask making class at Swan Lake last night, and she said her son just loves his lessons. He goes to the same place I would send Isaac. His lessons cost $70 a month. That's for one 30-minute lesson per week. So, what do we do? I'm debating whether I could learn guitar with him at home, for free...but part of the point of the lessons is for him to get out of the house, and perform with other kids, and for him to be taught by someone perhaps a bit more patient than his mother. I can't imagine finding $70 a month to spend on this, especially when I was going to get art lessons for Simon, which surely cost this much as well. Argh. If I have to revisit my food budget and start trying to extreme coupon again, I will cry. Give me your opinion - is this something I need to do, or is this an outrageous luxury that the kids can do without? And what about the school band? Can I dual-enroll him in band and get free lessons at the school?

Clickschooling

I just signed up for another free e-newsletter, but I'm pretty sure I won't just be deleting this one every morning. (Sorry, all of you devotional and homeschooling newsletters that I currently get. I just don't have time to read you right now.) It's called ClickSchooling, and it includes a new, free lesson every day, based on the day of the week. Monday is math, Tuesday is science, and so on. They include a bunch of great website links and ideas, and I've learned that having a backup plan for your normal daily lesson (and a backup for your backup) is a good idea. If the kids start pouting, throwing tantrums, running around like wild apes, or otherwise getting distracted from what you're "supposed" to be doing, it's awesome to have other ideas handy to try to reel them back in.

Pumpkin Pie Baked in a Pumpkin

It works! You really can make a pie in a pumpkin. The trick is knowing whether your pumpkin is ripe, because one of mine was a lot riper than the other. However, I have no idea how you judge this without cutting open the pumpkin. The ripe one was a lot easier to cut into, so I suppose it must have felt a little softer from the outside? It was darker too. I found them at Wal-Mart in the fruit section...make sure you don't try this with a carving pumpkin. They're too big and too watery.

Here's what I did:

Cut open two pie pumpkins and scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff. You won't be able to get all of the stringy stuff - at least I couldn't - but get as much as you can. I roasted the seeds with salt and pepper, but that requires a lot of washing and picking off slimy pumpkin guts, so if you're going for speed, just toss the seeds.

Next, put some butter (a tablespoon or so) in each of the pumpkins and stick them in the oven at 350 (without the tops). Put them on a cookie sheet, because stuff will ooze out the bottom. Bake them for about an hour.

Take one of the pumpkins and peel off the skin. This should be easy to do; if not, stick it back in and cook it longer. Cut the pumpkin flesh into chunks, then put it in a bowl and beat it with a mixer. I strained mine, but that took forever and I'm not sure that it really did anything. Add two eggs, a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, 1/4 cup honey, and 1/4 cup brown sugar (substitute maple syrup if you're going for an authentic pilgrim experience, because they didn't have sugar when they first arrived). Beat until combined.

Pour the mixture into the other pumpkin until it's about 80% of the way full. You can use the extra to make a traditional pumpkin pie, or pour it into small glass or ceramic dishes and bake them like custards. Put the top on the pumpkin, slightly askew, and stick it back in the oven. Bake at 400 until the filling is set (pudding vs. soupy consistency), which took about an hour for mine.

Peel the skin from the pumpkin and slice it into wedges. Serve with whipped cream and sprinkle with cinnamon. If you don't like squash, you won't like the pumpkin flesh, but I thought it was great. It tastes just like acorn squash except maybe a little bit sweeter.