Chas had an unfortunate accident on his bike this afternoon. He has a huge 'strawberry' on his elbow and has been nursing his wounds all afternoon. Right now he is chilling out in the guest room side of the tatami, reading to me the poems he likes from A Light in the Attic.
Like this one.

How Many, How Much
`
How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give 'em.

shel silverstein
`

fast chicken and rice.

$1.48 for 4 chicken thighs, sliced thin and cooked fast and hot on a skillet, without oil or butter

$.50 for 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce

$.65 for 1 cup of frozen peas

$2.48 for 2 pkgs of Uncle Ben's brown rice in a pouch

total $5.11

Next time I will probably use a whole crown or maybe two of fresh broccoli, steamed a few minutes in the microwave, and brown rice from my steamer instead of from a pouch (will cut down the cost a lot) and less teriyaki sauce (this was a strong taste and almost too sweet.) I think they liked it though.

Gardener's Pie

Tonight's 5 ingredient recipe was Gardener's Pie. I made some adjustments - instead of refrigerated mashed potato product I used a 90 cent box of garlic mashed instant potatoes, and I added in three boneless chicken thighs, which I sauteed and then cut into cubes.
So it's frozen mixed veggies, and soup and thyme, and chicken, with mashed potatoes on top, bake at 350 covered for 30, uncovered for 15, and with cheese for 5 minutes.

$1.29 cheddar cheese condensed soup
$.75 1 cup of cheddar cheese for the top
$.69 pound of frozen mixed veggies
$.90 garlic mashed potatoes
($.70 2 cups of milk and
$.32 4 tbs butter to prepare potatoes)
$1.12 boneless chicken thighs
1/2 tsp thyme
$5.77 total

I won't make this on a regular basis because of the sodium in the soup and the potatoes. It is nice that it is all shelf stable or frozen items (and milk and butter, which I always have anyway) that I can keep on hand if I find myself in a pinch and need to make something easy, or to bring along, pot luck or whatever, especially since it made soooo much, we only ate half of what it made.

Praline Crunch Bars

The ham and asparagus pasta was a hit. We'll be keeping that one on the menu.

Next up was a dessert to bring to knitting group tonight.

In an one gallon zipper bag, knead together a roll of sugar cookie dough ($1.89) with 1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans ($3.00 for the whole bag, I used less than half) and 1/2 cup toffee bits (like Heath Bar baking pieces, $2.01, used less than half). Press into a 9x13 pan.
Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, then immediately pour an entire bag of semisweet mini chips (2.21) on top, cover with foil, come back in five minutes and spread the melted chips, then some more toffee pieces. Chill until set, cut, and eat.

About $7, less than the cost of two cups of Starbuck's (which ironically is about about how much I save by our group not meeting at Starbuck's twice a month, gathering instead at the USO, where the coffee shop is not as good, and, also, closed.)

5 ingredients, $10.63, happy family

So I got this new magazine at the checkout stand, a Good Housekeeping Special Interest Publication, with 200 + recipes that use about 5 ingredients. I picked a few to start with this week, knowing that the fewer ingredients called for the more likely it would mean buying prepared and/or packaged foods. No matter. I went ahead and planned them anyway, choosing only the ones which didn't compromise my standards, and of course, which used ingredients I know my family will eat. As a math lesson this week, we'll look at the cost per meal and cost per serving each night.


Tonight's meal was ham and asparagus pasta.

$1.19 - - 1 lb. box of bowtie pasta
$1.19 - - frozen broccoli florets (added these for my non-asparagus-eating family members, only used half a bag)
$2.29 - - frozen asparagus
$4.97 - - 1lb ham steak (maybe a little high in sodium, but I did trim the fat out and gave it to the dog)
$1.58 - - 8 oz. chive and onion cream cheese (the only ingredient I wouldn't normally buy or have on hand, and a glance at the ingredient list reveals no items of questionable nutritional value)
pennies - 1/3 c. milk
TOTAL MEAL cost - $10.63 ($1.32 per serving)

(Fresh broccoli and asparagus can be expensive here, so I substitute frozen at times when the quality is low.)

Spelling Lessons for the next week or so...

We are going to go through this website and correct the spelling errors for spelling practice.

lolcats

And we will be graphing jelly beans and other Easter candy for math.

And rearranging the plants in the garden for their benefit, as a science project.

Mia is starting back on piano lessons (with a new teacher) this week.

The boys are going to get lots of exercise riding their bikes around the neighborhood.

Mia has a new baby care set from the nearby electronics and toy store, Yamada Denki. It includes a front or back baby carrier. She hurried to open the box and put the carrier on, then headed up to get a baby doll from her room. When she came down she told me she had shown her brothers. They pointed out to her, and she had to agree, that carrying the baby on the front is better than on the back because no one can sneak up and put bombs and grenades and blow the baby up.

Let's see... what else is Mia up to? She is reading quite fluently, and choosing more challenging books every day. She is also showing understanding of advanced math concepts like multiplication. Now, if I show her a multiplication worksheet or even one written problem, she wouldn't know what to do with it. But, if we are playing a game that needs twelve cards laid out, she knows she needs 3 rows of 4. Or when make fuse bead creations, she'll count the four hooves of a horse and see that she needs four black beads for each hoof, so she'll get 16 black beads on her tray.
When we watch movies she pays close attention and asks questions and discusses things with me, like about the characters and their motivation, etc. We bowl once a week as a family, Monday nights, and she graduated from bowling with a ramp, and only uses the bumpers now. An unfortunate accident with her scooter left the basket cracked, so Simon generously gave her his razor scooter, a two wheeled scooter. She has been practicing with this and doing very well turning and using the brake. She delights in gardening with me, insists that I let her do it, and I am not allowed to help her. She has grown about two inches since last June. I am not sure how much weight she has gained, but I can tell she is filling out and is not the tiny little thing she used to be. We just got her some new clothes, and had to get size 6!

Last September she and Simon started taking violin lessons. Well that morphed into violin and/or piano and then Simon said he was done, and I think we decided that Mia's violin is too big for her (it digs into her neck). So now it is just Mia learning piano, and I even thought she was losing interest and said we would stop and give her a break, but that she could go back to it after a while. Of course she could still practice at home. Then she found out about the recital at the end of the semester, which I'll be performing with my cello, and now she wants to continue so she can perform on stage. She practices every day, sometimes first thing in the morning, I'll wake up to her playing downstairs. She is reading music, using the right and left hands independently, moving her fingers independently, and counting out notes (whole, half, quarter, etc) and rests too.

So that's what Mia has been up to, in short. I will post about the boys individually in the next day or two. Gotta go make supper, cut the boys' hair, and get them all bathed and in bed early. This gorgeous weather has had them outside all day for two or three days now.

click the pic to see the facebook album of all our family portraits from this year.

ugh, I hate the tv!!

It's been raining all day. So I took the kids bowling this afternoon to kill some time between piano lessons (and my first cello lesson) and family night at the club on base. We were the only people there besides some Japanese men who were relaxing a few lanes over with their pitcher of draft, at 3 in the afternoon... hmmm. Anyway, the employees there thought it would be nice to put pokemon on the tv for the kids while they bowl. Well, until they turned it on, the kids were having a blast, getting excited for each other, and bowling well. It was like someone flipped a switch. They turned into zombies, focused only on the tv. They stopped talking to each other. And when it was Simon's turn to bowl, he didn't want to.

I went up to the counter and thanked them for thinking that the kids would like it. But I asked them to turn the news back on. They asked 'are you sure?'. 'Um, yeah. Look at the kids. I brought them here to bowl and get some exercise.' I paid for bowling, not tv time. SO they changed it back.

To their credit, all the kids went straight back to bowling. One or two of them noticed the change in channel, and I freely admitted that I had asked them to change it back. We went on to finish the game and not another word was said.

Thursday family night at the club offers a buffet and some poor souls dressed up in costume (tonight was elmo, pooh and pikachu) drawing numbers for door prizes. Last week, Mia won this giant Barbie Sleeping Beauty Castle, and the boys didn't win anything. They were cool about it, even came home and helped her put it together. This week, some friends joined us for dinner there and when their daughter won a Barbie and didn't want it, she gave it to Mia. Well, I guess that was the end of the line for Simon. He fell apart, and another mom that was with us offered a toy that her son had won and was too young for. We graciously declined, citing the valuable lesson of dealing with the disappointment. Well, we were right, in a matter of minutes he was running around having fun, and watching... tv.
We were all staring at the kids standing up in front of the big screen they had set up. We chose to eat at the tables behind the tv, so they wouldn't be staring at it during dinner. But they found it anyway, after they had eaten, and were staring at it like zombies, some of them with their (green popsicle stained) mouths half open. It was creepy, actually.

I have a book coming from amazon.com called Four Arguments Against Television, or something along those lines. Tim asked what was the point of that book, everyone knows tv is bad for you. But nonetheless, I would like to read the book.

Gotta get to bed, so glad tomorrow is Friday!

reviving an old post, never published

Here's a little bit I wrote a while back, came across it today and thought I would post it. I am contemplating a second post on a related topic.
from September...
School is back in session for those who use DoDDS or other schools on island. This time of year homeschoolers can stick out like sore thumbs and usually elicit a question or two from acquaintances and strangers alike. Most people have probably heard of homeschooling, and most people probably even know a homeschooling family. However, these questions (and I have heard my share of them) can range from 'is that legal?' to 'what about socialization?' and can conjure strong reactions from the depths of a homeschool mom's heart.
For starters, here's the low-down on homeschooling on the island, specifically the legalities. I looked around on the net for a clear and simple answer, alas I came up empty handed. I am no lawyer, so I need to leave it at a simple 'yes, homeschooling is legal here.' The basic idea is that states regulate these matters and we are not technically residents of any state. There are some sources that claim a servicemember's command has some oversight, but this has been disputed in numerous places.

Although it may sound like it, it is not as if there are a bunch of families out here doing whatever they want with regards to their children's education without accountability or oversight. I have heard this question many times - 'do you have to be accredited/test/get approval to do that?' The implication that a family might hold their children to lower standards than the government schools appalls most homeschoolers. For most homeschooling families the decision to teach our children at home is to ensure a higher standard. Who has their children's best interest at heart, if not the parents? Of course, there is no shortage news stories of horrendous child abuse cases in families that claimed to be homeschooling. And in CONUS, state and local governments make no secret of the fact that their oversight of homeschool families enables them to identify child abuse and neglect cases, and provide services to at-risk families. The reality is these families slipped through the cracks of the social services system (the system already in place to handle abuse and neglect cases.) Lawmakers use these tragedies to push for more government oversight into homeschooling families. Consider this quote:

"One message does not appear to penetrate official thinking in these cases. Child abusers are criminals. CRIMINALS DO NOT COMPLY WITH LAWS that expose their crimes. Revising homeschooling laws to catch child abuse will result in child abusing criminals hiding elsewhere. Refocusing homeschooling laws on child abuse prevention will result in one thing only: a bureaucratic nightmare and the invasion of the privacy of the 99.9+% of homeschooling citizens who are not criminals." Ann Lahrson-Fisher, Home Education Magazine; quoted on The Military Homeschooler
Here on Okinawa, homeschoolers are a subset of the military community. Servicemembers, and their spouses and children, comprise a group of people already subscribing to a high standard of conduct. Of course, military families have been found to be involved in abuse and neglect. This is not the norm, however, and there are programs in place to intervene in these cases.

On this date in History...

A look at all the March archives since the beginning of this blog...

March 2005 - Tim was on his second tour in Iraq, Mia was about 7 months old, Simon approaching 3 years old, and Chas 4 1/2. We were living in Clayton, having moved back to wait out Tim's deployment near our families.

March 2006 - Our Clayton house was on the market for the fifth and final year, as we grew weary of Tim commuting home from Lejeune on the weekends. Simon moved into the realm of big boys.

March 2007 - Living in DC provided us so many opportunities - like meeting Neal Boortz, talk radio celebrity. We used the ample space in our rented townhome to do some unit studies, and the boys started their own blog.

March 2008 - Our final month of preparations before our first overseas PCS (Permanent Change of Station) was filled with saying goodbye to friends, doctors appointments, and movers and packers coming and going.

A trip to a local park last week. Tim has placed a puzzle geocache there. On this beautiful day, the kids and I solved the puzzle, but were unable to get to the cache as other geocachers were also looking and we didn't want to ruin the first-to-find for them. These spider web climbers are in just about every park all over the island. This day Simon and Mia both overcame their feaer and climbed all the way to the top! We actually came home with a little bit of sunburn.

This weekend, we attended an event cache on Saturday morning at a Japanese campground with an amazing view (tent sites, as well as huts with small kitchen and bath facilities which seem to be run entirely on solar power), met some of the other cachers on the island. There were games, contests, and fellowship. Lots of kids running around, climbing rocks, running races, throwing sticks - good clean fun. Then Sunday, we headed up to find a geocache at The British Wine and Tea Shop in the northern part of our island. Lovely shop, good company, delicious menu, including proper English tea and fresh homemade scones and jam. We also headed up to Yaedake Bread of Life Bakery and adjacent farm (where a friend of ours recently spent a month WWOOFing) to place a cache of our own, using our minimal Japanese to explain geocaching to the owners. This was all totally new to them, they were excited to learn about the game. We left there with a bag of oranges and a papaya from their farm, and, of course, some bread from the bakery. We got home late and the kids were naturally and happily exhausted. Since our weekends are pretty much full of geocaching and exploring, that means Mondays are catching up on housework and chores, so I must go...

hey I don't want to hear it...

I know it's been a while.

But you have just got to hear this one...

Mia doesn't like being upstairs alone, so today I suggested she go upstairs when Daddy goes up. So she's following him up and starts saying that they have to get dressed in separate rooms, because they have different parts and we aren't supposed to see each other parts.

'and Daddy, last night when I was being Simon's bath buddy, we were having technical difficulties because Simon kept standing up in the tub and I kept seeing his priiiivaaates!'

facebook photo album

They're at it again...

Remember this little homeschooling gem?

They're at it again. This afternoon, I was watching a movie and the kids were... around, but not necessarily watching it. After a bit, they went upstairs to play. They were being a little wild up there, I could hear. But it's been rainy and wet, so they haven't been outside to spend any energy. It's somewhat tolerated some days - at least they were getting along.

Tonight, during clean up leading into 'lamp time' I asked them to gather up the little pieces of what seemed like fifteen different games, building sets, etc. into a big pile in the middle of the rug so we could sort them out. They busted out laughing, yelling 'feed the fire'. They admitted that they had been pretending to 'feed the fire' by throwing toys and bed sheets in the middle of the room. So where on earth did they get this idea?

Well, the movie I was watching is Luther. It's a bit graphic and more than a little hard to understand. I didn't think they were absorbing any of it. But there's a line in the movie spoken by the character Professor Andreas Karlstadt: Feed the fire with every lie ever written in Rome!



I highly recommend this movie. Ralph Fiennes is amazing, as is Sir Peter Ustinov, and many others, whom you'll recognize, by face, if not by name.

Heads Up!

Just a heads up to all of you readers states-side... Japan does not practice daylight savings time, so we are now on a 14 hour time difference! We are ahead of you.

This just occurred to me tonight while waiting for boortz.com to update with today's program notes, usually 9:30pm our time. Ugh, now I have to wait till 10:30pm?? But, on the up-side we get election result coverage Wednesday beginning at 9am! No staying up all hours of the night nursing our back spasms waiting for election results.

Mia (rolling on the floor in a pile of puzzle pieces, for the second time in a week): Can someone please help me with this puzzle?


[silence]

Mia (increasing her pitch): Can someone please help me with the puzzle or my head will explode from an invisible nuclear missile?


[muffled giggling]

the one and only political post you will see on this blog

I can't stand it any longer... this has to be said.

Spreading wealth around is NOT giving people an 'opportunity', it's giving them cash.

This is a trap. This leads more and more people to rely on the government to solve their problems. This money will be spent, and then they will be right back where they started, waiting for the next handout. And if you are giving people cash, why would they ever work for it?? I wish I could find some statistics about the numbers of people who go on welfare or take government housing and stay there, unable to wean themselves.

Certainly welfare, food stamps and government health care programs have their place. My issue lies with universal healthcare, universal preschool, social security, and 'wealth redistribution.'

Please do not read this and think what a callous and uncaring person I must be. Allowing people to fall into this trap and to lose all sense of independence by taking handfuls of cash they didn't work for seems uncaring to me.

What have we been up to?

Well, if you read Tim's blog you have probably figured out that things were a bit crazy around here.
Two weeks ago, Tim got orders to go to Afghanistan with only ten days to prepare. So we cried. A lot. Then shifted into high gear to get ready. Many of you readers are not military. So please take a minute to stop and think, if you knew your husband would be gone in ten days what would be your priority? Family time? Of course! But wait, there's no time to take off and spend at home.

Too much to be done, and only two weekends to do it, because late nights are spent at the office completing 'work' tasks to be ready to go. So there's the second half of the garden that needs to be tilled, the satellite dish that needs to mounted and tuned, the mound of stuff broken in the move waiting in the closet to go to the recycling center, additional loaner furniture (bunk beds, an extra dresser or two) we had planned to request and pick up, the budget that needed to be adjusted (for the additional expenses involved with operating a single parent family and the additional pay and benefits associated with deployment to a war zone), the appointment at the auto dealer's to have the window motor on Tim's car replaced, the family care plan needs to be tweaked since we are overseas, visits to base legal to get Powers of Attorney and Last Wills written up, phone calls to make asking new friends (whom we have known less than six months) to care for and (home)school our children in the event that I, their primary caregiver, end up in a coma, or in Japanese jail, or, more likely, a mental institution. This is a just a snap shot of the little, tangible details that we spent an entire week focused on.

Tim's unit even scheduled a pre-deployment brief which we attended with the children. We introduced ourselves and children, and explained why they were with us, and not in school. The battalion commander asked what we were learning today. Well, sir, actually... Afghanistan. [small ripple of nervous laughter shudders through the group] Later this guy actually went through the small crowd, from wife to wife asking us how we were doing. Yeah right! Do you really wanna know? Do you really want me start an uprising right here in the conference room? I think I said something like, there's never enough time to prepare emotionally for a separation, we have managed to get all the technical details sorted out, we just wished there was time for Tim to take leave. I get the impression from this guy that he doesn't really listen when you answer his question, he's the kind who is already forming a response or his next question before you even start talking.

So they briefed us on quite a few programs, old ones we are familiar with, and newer, shinier ones, designed to attend to the needs of the family while the men are deployed. Now there is even a club card, which provides generous discounts at Marine Corps Community Services facilities. Gives new credibility to the phrase 'join the club'. They really have come along way from 'if we wanted you to have a wife we would have issued you one' to really focussing on caring for families as a way to ensure readiness on the part of the Marines. It's really self-serving, if you think about it. But at least they realized it had to be done. They try, they do what they can, and they do a lot for families. But there is no substitute for having the leader of your family present and attentive.

And the emotional work that accompanies the transition from present to absent is a process which can take - depending on many factors like who you are (adult or child or infant) and how many times you have had to do it, and how long since you have had to do it (3 years for us), how far you are away from extended family - anywhere from, well, 24 hours to several months. Ten days was as short of notice as we have ever had. And of course, on top of all this there is pressure to hold it all together, and not give the impression that you won't be able to handle it. Where does this pressure come from? Hard to say... a large part of it is not wanting to worry relatives, or anyone at the unit. Nobody wants to be 'that wife'.

So there's your sneak peak into half of our last two weeks here at the Lewis' household in Japan.

The second week? That would begin with the evening after the full day I spent at Tim's base for the predeployment briefing and budget counseling session. We had spent some time visiting at Yoko's house. As I was leaving I thought I would call Tim to meet us for dinner, as he was working late anyway. When he met us at the front gate, he pulled me out of the driver's seat so he could hold me. Ugh. Last time he did this, it was exactly a week earlier and it was BAD NEWS.

They canceled the trip. It seems, he was able to appeal to the right people that the hastiness with which this trip was being thrown together felt dangerous. I'd like to leave it at that. But I will say this is one reason why I felt such pressure to 'keep it together.' I knew all week that Tim was making his voice heard, appropriately, about his reservations. I didn't want to appear as though family issues were prompting him to try to shirk his responsibilities as a Marine. Family and Unit relations can be very delicate. As I have probably already said more than I should... get your screen shot now, I may be editing this later today. moving on...

So after being unceremoniously jerked in one direction for 7 miserable days, believe it or not, the second week was just as difficult. This is very hard for me to explain. We were thrown in one direction, and never feeling 'comfortable' there, but... adjusting. Quickly and dramatically. Then, thrown in the other direction. It takes some time. Disclaimer: The following list of fun and cool stuff that comprised our second week doesn't not include all the gory details of my emotional state during stated week. I have two words for you: roller. coaster.

We had Tim's small team/shop/whatever, over with their families, for barbeque on Monday (oh and it was a 4 day holiday weekend) which was very nice as this was the day Tim would have been 'wheels up', as he likes to put it, and not with this team of guys, but another team whom he didn't know (well enough to trust, I suspect). A delivery of lovely flowers from my mom also arrived Monday. And then an extra day off work Tuesday. Tuesday night, Tim and the kids came along to my knitting group at the Starbuck's at the mall up the hill, and they went geocaching while I knitted and guzzled legal addictive stimulants with a friend. Tim's birthday was the next day, and we ate at McDonald's, sorry Tim. He was home too late that night to cook the steaks and latkes we had planned. And we tried to thaw the frozen cheesecake I bought, but it was getting later, so we abandoned that too. Maybe we'll do all that this weekend. We are planning to go to a few geocache sites, maybe a bull fight, maybe the beach, maybe bowling, maybe church... It's our 11th wedding anniversary this weekend, and 13th anniversary of the day we met. Many new friends have offered to babysit. And we have promised to return at the end of the evening, and not run away. It's an island... where would we go? Most of you readers know I love my kids, and we choose to homeschool them for lots of different reasons. But boy oh boy do I need a break sometimes.

Oh and we are counting the days until our dog arrives from the states.
So it's nearly back to normal. For now.