Boo loves to curl up after getting out of the bathtub to dry. Leighton kept pacing in and out of the bathroom. She could not understand why Boo was on the floor.
I think she was trying to figure out if something was wrong with her. So when she couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong she decided to join her.
These are the words I was greeted with when Chicken climbed into bed with me this morning. After having a wonderful but busy Labor Day weekend it was back to the grind stone today. We have gotten a lot of rain the past couple of days thanks to one of the hurricanes. So my neighbor and I skipped the early walk since it was supposed to be raining and I don’t do rain.=-)
So I made plans to sleep in until 7 am but when the alarm went off and I knew technically I didn’t have to get up I didn’t. Ben left for work and Mason finally came and crawled in bed with me around 8:45 and told that we still had to do school today. This of course me me happy because it means he enjoyed it. It also made me happy to see him show my dad over the weekend how you hold a pencil correctly.
So last night after our family left after a wonderful Labor Day get together I went over Chicken’s lesson for today. I pulled the visuals etc that I would need. While going over the lesson I saw I needed food coloring because we were learning about colors. I only had red and yellow but no blue! I called my mom to see if she had any blue food coloring but she didn’t. I guess she knows how to be creative since she was a Kindergarten teacher and she suggested using water color paint. Now I had some of that so this morning when we were leaning about our colors I was able to let the Chicken’s do the hands on part! Thanks mom for the great idea.
The Chickens mixing the colors.
For some reason for the life of me I can never remember what colors make what colors. In fact I went to mix two colors and said it would make purple and it made green. It was funny because Mason caught it right away and said mommy that makes green not purple. Oops this is a sign that Ben should be doing art side of this and not me. But we finally got it in the end and they had fun too.
Our next project was for them to draw a picture using their favorite colors. This of course turned into a 30 minutes art project they both seem to have gotten their daddy’s genes as far as art goes. I finally had to set a timer for Mason and tell him when it went off he had to be done and that he could finish is picture after school. After he finishes we plan to stable them together and make a book for Ben.
Chicken hard at work on his picture.
Boo said she likes ALL the colors.
We finished up their work book pages and now we are taking a break and they are having a snack. We will do reading next. It’s amazing to me how much they soak stuff up. This is only our second day but they already remembered the “Alphabet song” we sang and the “Hopscotch” song. I guess it’s all about making it fun. We sang ring around the rosy and added if your name starts with “B” and “K” then we all fall down they thought that was absolutely the best. And I figured it didn’t matter how silly I felt dancing around the house singing at the top of my lungs with them. This is what being a mom is all about I get the joy of teaching my children and you really can’t ask for much more then that. =-)
So today was our first day of home schooling. The co-op that we joined does not start until September 12th, but I already have all my teachers editions and most of the stuff I need to start. So I thought what better way then to ease into it on a Friday with a three day weekend. I looked over the lesson last night and everything was pretty straight forward. I was fortunate enough to get all the visuals with the curriculum I bought. I would not of normally spent the extra money on visuals but after having done just one day of school I would say they make all the difference in the world.
Some of our visuals for our first day.
Chicken and Boo were immediately engaged in the lesson. I loved how everything tied together in the different lessons. If we do home school next year I think it will be worth the extra money just to buy the visuals.
We started out with Boo sitting in on our lessons. I let her sit in with the idea if she got bored she could always go play. But she wanted to sit in the whole time. I initially was going to teach for 30 minutes then take a 15 minute break but Mason wanted to keep going so we worked for an hour. And then we took a 30 minute break and finished our last subject.
When we were done I said well that is it. He had this stricken look on his face and said but I want to do more! I said we will do more another day. He was so disappointed and then he said he wishes we could do it every day. I told him not to worry that we would except for the weekends.
We started at 9 and were done by 11 of course that included our 30 minutes break. But after we were done we went to run a few errands. It was so nice having all afternoon to run errands knowing we already had school done for the day. While were out we grabbed a snack at Panera Bread to celebrate our first day of school.
This is Boo wanting to know if she can have Mason’s cream cheese.
This is Mason basically telling her no.
After Panera we went to Toys R Us since it ‘s so close to the mall. The Chickens love to visit this store and just look around they would spend hours if you let them. One of their favorite things to do is “drive” the play cars.
I shudder to think she will be driving in 13 years.
While we were at Toys R Us Chicken made the comment that he wished he could go to school until he was a Grandpa! After we got home we went for a quick swim and then the Chickens chilled on the sofa.
Two tired Chickens..
It was so encouraging to me to have him so interested and to consider it “fun”. Especially for someone like me who does not consider themselves teacher material and who does not have any college under my belt. I figure if I can do it then anyone can do it.
Our resident writing spider. Maybe it just wanted to read we do keep our books in there.
So I am sure you are happy to see me blog about something other then juicing. Well here is my exciting tale of our spider.
My mom does story time every week for all the grand kids and for the last couple of weeks she has been doing it at my house. This is a good excuse for me to actually clean my house. So I was going around vacuuming we have seven fire places in our house six of them are coal fireplaces. Dust usually collects around these and I will vacuum them up. Well in the den I was fixing to vacuum in the fireplace and I saw a huge spider sitting in the middle of the fireplace. Needless to say I screamed! But then I looked to see what kind of spider it was and saw that it was a writing spider, or they are called garden spiders or corn spider.
I was nervous to show the Chickens at first because I thought for sure they would run away screaming because just an ant can make Chicken scream like a girl. But they looked at it and were quite interested. I told Mason it was a Writing Spider like Charlotte’s Web technically Charlotte was a barn spider but it made him less afraid. I called my dad to come get him because I did not want to kill him but I sure wasn’t going to move him. My dad asked my ten year old nephew Harrison if he would move it and he said yes.
So when all the kids came over for story time. I gave Harrison a pitcher and he scooped that spider right up and dumped him outside. I took a video of it you will have to excuse the screaming we were all a little nervous. =-)
I know we sound like girls screaming. =-)
So that was our excitement for the day. I wondered how he got inside and then I looked up our chimney it’s been stuffed with old newspaper I mean OLD newspaper but there are two large gaps on the side. So he just moved right in. I will have to get Ben to close that up. I just wonder how long he had been there?
Wow so I sit here drinking my Day 11 breakfast juice. It was super yummy this morning, strawberries, apricot, apple, celery and carrots. I really loaded it up with the carrots and celery again trying to help my asthma. And I can say the last time I had my asthma medication was 4 days ago. I am not wheezing my lungs feel a little tight but this is really good considering I am usually take it every other day. So maybe the massive amounts of carrots and celery are helping. I have really upped that in every juice I make the past couple of days. I still do more fruit in the morning and more veggies the rest of the day, but I have learned to at least throw in a half an apple just that little bit of sweetness really helps the taste of the juice.
I have been doing a lot of reading on the message board at join the reboot it has been nice to read and chat with other people who are going through the same thing as me. I heard from a couple of other people that they are to are experiencing chills. I about drove Ben out of the house last night I had the air up to 78 because I was so cold. Mind you I am hot outside but inside I am freezing. I assume it’s part of the “detoxing” process.
I must confess last night I made my wonderful family a cake and I licked the batter and then as I was frosting it I licked the icing too. So when they sat down to have a piece I took two bites. I immediately regretted it! The taste was too sweet and I did not care for it at all. I am not beating myself up to much because I only had two bites and also because it showed me that my taste buds are changing and this is a good thing.
But I can say I feel good today! I feel like I have energy I had a lot of energy yesterday too. I seem to be the most tempted to eat at night when making supper or around sweets. Licking that cake batter was just to much for me. But still I console myself with I did not eat a whole piece of cake. =-)
Wow day 10! My shake this morning was 2 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 1 apple and 1 banana.. It was so yummy and filling. I hope by boosting my intake of carrots and celery that I will notice an improvement in my asthma.
I am feeling great today except for a slight headache which I think is so to a lack of caffeine. I am down to 2 cups a day which is going to make for a rough day. I am thinking about just keeping it down to 4 cups of coffee. After all coffee is good for asthma.:)
Last night before bed the Chickens wanted a snack and I let them have an apple. Normally it would of been cereal. And for breakfast I gave them half a banana. Boo is so funny though she is complaining about eating her banana. And she likes bananas. I just want them to eat more fruits an veggies.
So last night I ate my first real meal. We went to some friends house and she served turkey meatloaf, scallop potatoes and green beans. It was sooo good. I had two huge servings of the green beans, one serving of potatoes and about 2 servings of the meatloaf. It made me feel better since it was turkey. But at least my stomach did not hurt. I don’t feel like I over ate. And I skipped dessert.
I will say one thing about eating is it did not discourage me to quit juicing. I’d anything it was encouraging the meal was delicious but I would of been just as happy with a huge salad.
I was very thirsty again yesterday and drank a lot of water. But my energy was way up again! I am hoping for the same thing today!
We went to dinner last night with my parents at Longhorn Steakhouse. I ended up getting a salad with strawberries, grapes, feta cheese and nuts. The dressing was a raspberry vinaigrette. It was very yummy and I ate the whole thing. I was not sure if I would feel sick after eating for the first time in 8 days but I felt good. The food was yummy but I did not feel the urge to quit juicing.
I will say I had tons more energy yesterday and I was very thirsty too. So I have been drinking lots of water. I woke up today feeling great and I juiced first thing. I had to go to the grocery store this afternoon because I juiced my last fruits and veggies for lunch. I decided to go to Aldi because most of their produce is actually cheaper then the Tomato Vine.
So I got all the above veggies and fruits for $23.31 I was excited! I thought that was a pretty good price. The Chickens asked for an apple for a snack when I got home and Boo also wanted to eat a carrot. It’s habits like these I hope to promote in my family. I want the Chickens snack in the afternoon to be a piece of fruit instead of crackers. I have also been reading up on juicing and asthma. They said carrots and celery are supposed to help asthma. So I had a yummy juice this afternoon of 3 celery, 3 carrots and 1 1/2 apples. It was really yummy!
Good morning! So I am on Day 8 of my juice fast. Yesterday was by far the roughest day so far for me. I felt weak and cold all day it was really weird. I managed to take a nap yesterday afternoon and that seemed to help. But I fought hunger more yesterday then I feel like I have all week. My family had pizza for supper last night and cookies for dessert that was hard it all looked so good. But I pushed through and did not eat any. My stomach actually growled for the first time last night while I was in bed. I was reading on the Reboot Website last night and they are suggesting you drink 4 16 ounce juices a day. So I might not be drinking enough juice. I plan to increase my juice intake and see if this helps. Because last night about and hour and a half after supper I was really feeling weak. So I juiced a half a red cabbage and three carrots and that really gave me a pick me up and instantly curbed my hunger.
So this morning my mom called me to see how I was feeling. I told her I felt much better today so far and that I was working on making my morning juice. She mentioned that when you are on a diet it’s important to eat within 30 minutes after waking. And I started to think about yesterday I got up around 7:45 and drank my 4 cups of coffee first and did not end of juicing until around 9:30 or 10. I think that is why I felt so weak and bad yesterday my body was running on nothing for the first couple of hours. So since I drank my morning juice within 30 to 45 minutes of waking today I want to see if I feel better today.
I do have my first juicing roadblock tonight though. My parents are taking Ben and I out to dinner. I googled where we plan to go to look at their menu and I saw a salad with lots of veggies and fruit on it. So I plan to get that. I figure it can’t be to bad for me I will just be eating what I normally juice. I don’t plan to eat to much because I don’t want to make myself sick. I plan to go right back on my juicing diet the next day. So I will let you know how dinner goes.
On a side note I weighed myself at my mom’s yesterday and she has a dr scale and I have lost 5 pounds so far.
So I am on Day 7. I have to be honest I am feeling extremely rough this morning. I woke up once last night but the rest of the time I slept hard. And I will say something my dreams have been VERY vivid it’s almost like going to the movies. I think once reason I am extremely tired today is because of the short night sleep last night and from staying up late last night. But this week was VBS at our church and we were there every night until late. It was wonderful but probably not the best time to start a juice fast. It says to keep your activities to a minimum when you first try this. I did cut out my exercising because I did not want to put to much stress on my body, but all the activity every night has been draining. Plus my body is not getting it’s usual 10 cups of coffee. I am on day 2 of cutting down to 4 cups. I will hate getting off coffee but I think it’s a good thing. I can be honest and say it’s probably been easier to give up food then coffee.
I weighed myself this morning and I have lost 4 pounds so far. I don’t think that is to bad.. weight loss is not my main goal it’s a nice side effect. I have not juiced yet as I write this but I am sipping on coffee. Today is the first day I have woken up actively hungry or hunger may not be the right word my stomach feels VERY empty. I know from yesterday that as soon as I drink my morning juice that feeling will go away. I did have more energy yesterday then on day 5 I hoping for the same today. =-)
Day 5 of juice fast was rough. I was extremely tired and my patience was VERY short. The hunger pangs were not bad though at all. I took my asthma medicine on Sunday and normally I would of taken it on Tuesday morning. I tried to push it yesterday and did not take my medicine at all. So at 4:30 this morning my wheezing woke me up and I was unable to go back to sleep. The last two nights I slept like the dead and I usually wake up at least once in the night. I was unable to go back to sleep but I don’t feel that tired right now. Which really surprises me I have felt hungrier today though. But as soon I had my breakfast and lunch juice the hunger went away.
I am really hoping that today will I will have the fabled energy surge that everyone says they get. Funny being on Day 6 I can see how people might do this for as long as 30 and 60 days. At this rate I might try for 15 days…..