Sunday selfie

Rhiannon and I took this "Sunday selfie" together a few days ago.  I love it!  I love her!  It is one of the most popular pictures on my Facebook page, and for good reason:  our daughter is gorgeous and radiates goodness.  Love this girl!

Some fun "green" projects

Unconsciously I've been going a little more "green" lately and saving some green $$ in the process. It's a REALLY cool feeling!  Here are the projects I've been busy with the last few weeks:

I made homemade Swiffer dusters using used flannel receiving blankets that I bought from a friend.  They are fun to use and they work pretty well!

Update on that laundry detergent I made a few weeks ago:  I'm almost done with my first bottle's worth and I LOVE IT.  It smells great and the bonus is that I've got a huge bucket of it still to go through, haha!

Sun Oven experiments have gone really, really well.  I put this apple-cinnamon bread outside in the solar oven at lunch time and it was ready to eat in about an hour.

Delish, and I didn't use any electricity to bake it! :)

I hard-boiled these eggs WITHOUT USING ANY WATER in the sun oven.  SO COOL, and yes, they are edible! :)

This was my first sun oven experiment--brownies using a brownie mix.

They turned out great, too!

I won't be buying any more of these Swiffer refills, either.  I found an idea online where you could use old chenille socks and they worked just fine.  Then I take them off and throw them in the washer.  We only use the Swiffer to get under furniture, and the sock magically "grabs" all that dog hair with ease.

Oh, and Jason has kindly let me do his last 3 haircuts.  He's a good sport to trust me with that!!! :)

That time I made homemade laundry detergent

Yesterday I spent a large part of the day making laundry detergent.  It was a Monday, the kids were at school, and I didn't have anything else going on that day.

WalMart carried every item I needed, plus a nice, clean 5-gallon bucket.

And a friend gave me a fun vinyl sticker to dress that bucket up:

It was an easy process, but the Zote soap part took a while--you're supposed to dry it out and then grate it or flake it.  And I was in such a hurry to make it happen THAT DAY so I used the microwave to dry most of it out.  This was a tip on the website where I found the recipe.  Next time I'll just leave the soap bars out in the sun for a few days and save myself the hassle, for when, ya know, in 10 years I need to make some more.  (Just kidding, it won't last me 10 years, but it WILL save us some money and hopefully clean our clothes better than they've ever been cleaned!) The recipe makes 3 gallons of the stuff, and you only need 1-3 tablespoons per load.

It actually smells super good--I'm excited to try it and have fun doing laundry!

Here's the link for the recipe:  Cheaper and Better Laundry Detergent

Girls Night

Rhiannon and I had a great time the first weekend in August having a girls night while the boys were on a backpacking trip.  We watched two movies (Divergent = good, Winter's Tale = weird, good thing it was only a $1), ate lots of chocolate, talked, stayed up late, slept in, and had fun decorating sandwich bags, just for kicks!  I love hanging out with this girl!

Decluttering reveals many treasures!

Thanks to the blog "Becoming Minimalist," I really got the bug to clean out some things around our home last week.

I sold a few things.  I gave some other things away.

I found my trifle bowl that I thought I'd lost forever.

I found my favorite bookmark.

I discovered a new place to store books.

And I found a very inspiring book in that process, Letters, by Marjorie Pay Hinckley.  I can't remember where this book came from, whether it was a gift or not.  There is no inscription in it, so it may have been one of the books in Grandpa Ed's wonderful collection of books that we were able to go through.

Regardless of where it came from,  it is a GOLD MINE and made me cry happy tears last week as I sat in the new "book nook" and read a few pages.  Sister Hinckley's children wrote a letter of their own as an introduction, and the last paragraph really got to me:

"And so, we offer this sampling of Mother's letters....We hope you will see them as a celebration of the power of the ordinary.  We hope that as you peek into the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday-ness of her life, you will see with new eyes the value of your own.  And, most of all, we hope that your family will decide to write and save more letters.

Having a wonderful time.  We only wish you were here, Mother!"

How awesome is that!  It was a quiet, sweet validation of my own splendid, ordinary and blessed life.  I'm looking forward to reading more from it!

Wade's pool party

Wade and I managed to have some fun this week while Jason and Rhiannon were gone.  We ate way too much junk food, talked, got groceries, played several rounds of Tri-ominoes, and stayed up late watching movies.

On Wednesday he finally got to have his pool party that he's been wanting to do since school got out.  A few friends were out of town, but he had a B-L-A-S-T with those who could make it--Tucker, Ben, and Nick were a ton of fun.  They swam for an hour, talked and ate, and played Need for Speed.  We will definitely need to have them over again.  They were wonderful guests and fun boys!

That night Wade had a hard time falling sleep (maybe it was the 2-liter of Dr Pepper from the party??).  Around midnight I let him hang out with me and I told him stories about my childhood for a while until he finally, finally could sleep.  It was a sweet experience for me.

Wade also got really good at sewing on a button.  We failed in our attempt to have an electronics-free week, BUT we got a lot of good and fun accomplished, too.  Love you, buddy!

Introvert

The Knights of the Round Table Cub Scout Camp ended today.  16 hours of crazy fun!!!!  It was really well done, and a LOT of work went into it!!!!  I was glad to do my little part as a craft volunteer--we used gobs of duck tape at my station, haha!

However, my internal battery was seriously depleted by the time Wade and I got home today.  The interesting thing was that Wade was ready to go way before I was.  I had to bribe him to get him involved in the water games, the Best Activity Of The Week, where 50 other boys were running around crazy having the time of their lives on the water bounce house and water "wars".  I probed him with questions--were the boys in his group being nice?  Did he feel well?  What was wrong?  It was a little frustrating, but I understood how he felt, too.  To watch him with other boys at camp, sometimes he seemed like he was 10 years older than them!  He said he'd had a lot of fun, but after 4 nights and 1 long day he was just. plain. done.

Too much of a good thing for us introverts, maybe?

For kicks I took this online introvert/extrovert quiz, based on Susan Cain's book Quiet.  Here's the link:  

QUIZ.

Sure enough, even on a few answers where I wasn't sure, I was a definite introvert.  It explains some things: why I really do love having friends and being with people, but enjoy quiet nights at home with my family more.  Why I can substitute teach and have demanding church callings but NEED that quiet time at night to read and recharge.  Why talking on the phone can be torture sometimes.  And maybe, just maybe why I feel a LOT more comfortable writing than talking, haha! :)

That said, I was grateful for the quote on the website, too:

Remember, though, that no one is all introvert or all extrovert. Introverts attend wild parties, and extroverts curl up with their favorite books. As the psychologist Carl Jung put it, "There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum."

Thankfully I'm not to that point yet! :)

Books, books, and more books

I'm in book heaven right now, where I've been reading a lot and have enjoyed everything I've read.  First there was this one for next year's Battle of the Books list:

Then a Kindle freebie that I actually really enjoyed, a clean romance that held my interest:

Then these for Battle of the Books:

Stayed up late to finish this one last night  (WHERE has this book been all my life?  Surprisingly good!):

Waiting their turn on my nightstand:

Happy!

A new church assignment

In the middle of the very busy month of May, one of our church high councilors came by to talk to me and Jason about a new church assignment.  I was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT sure that he was going to ask me to help out with Girls Camp, and I was ready for it.

SO,

when he asked me if I'd be willing to serve as the stake's young single adult institute teacher, I was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT shocked.  Totally, completely shocked.  I did NOT see that coming, not in a million years.

I started teaching the very next week and finished up the Book of Mormon class they'd been doing.  Now we are starting a Doctrine and Covenants class.  We meet every Tuesday night form 6:30pm to 8:00pm at the stake center, following the local community college's schedule.  (This means I'll get a LONG 5-week break around Christmas.)  So far I've had anywhere from 8 to 14 people attend, and that's a very tiny percentage of the young adults here in Ridgecrest.  An area to work on, for sure!

Getting released from my Webelos assistant calling has been bittersweet.  I was super sad at first, and so was Wade.  I have LOVED being his Cub Scout leader!!!  But as I've prepared and slaved over these institute lessons each week and get ready for several hours of training over the summer, I'm also grateful for the release.  It's a bigger deal than I thought, this institute gig.  Among other things, I had to have a 4-year college degree and a current temple recommend!  That's a first!

After the second lesson, though, I was hooked.  Teaching young single adults makes my heart sing.  Those who attend want to be there, and they do a pretty good job teaching ME with their comments and their spirit.  It's wonderful!

Since the cruise...BIG recap

Whew!  Can you believe it's MAY already?  I love getting closer to summer break, but it's a little scary how quickly time moves, too!

I'm a little overwhelmed thinking about all I want to say about the last three weeks; it's been crazy busy and crazy fun.  Guess I'll just plunge in and take a lunch break when I need it!

Starting youngest to oldest:

Oscar:  is a good teenage dog.  He is still uber-protective, occasionally very feisty when he wants to play, and loved by every member of our family.  He loves his dog chew toys; he also loves grass, much to our chagrin.  This dog will literally mow the grass if we're not paying attention.  He is still Mom's constant shadow, the perfect companion for an afternoon nap, and a great "walker."  I love how he perks up when he sees me going for his leash!

Wade:  is only 45+ objectives away from completing SIXTH GRADE math objectives.  I don't know if he'll get it done before school ends on the 30th, but he's super close.  He loves playing outside with all his neighbor friends, too.  Last week Wade and I played basketball at the park every school morning after we'd dropped Rhiannon off.  It was fun trying to shoot hoops together!  He's practicing for a piano recital this weekend, has a big history project all spread out on the dining room table (log cabin), and he's looking forward to a Fathers/Sons camp out with his dad on Friday.  No, he hasn't been to Iron Man 3 yet, and it's KILLING him.  He's probably got the meanest parents ever, seeing as how he's willing to pay for his own ticket! :)

As far as baseball, well, it's play-off time and Wade's team is in last place.  The only game they've won was against a team from out of town, and it doesn't count. Can you imagine what that must feel like for 9- and 10-year-old boys? 

 

I think the head coach put it best after a very messy practice last week  To put it gently, the boys are talented, but, man, they don't listen, they argue, and they don't work as a team.  I can't tell you how many times we've started out looking like we're going to win and end up losing.  After a 16-13 loss at last week's game, the coaches gathered Wade's team together again, and Wade got a huge compliment.   Coach Tony pointed to Wade and two other boys and said, "These boys are the best examples on our team.  They NEVER argue, they listen, and they play hard."  Wade came back to the dugout, beaming.  I'm thankful to the coach for recognizing Wade's efforts, because, I'm not gonna lie, it's been hard showing up practice after practice, game after game.  Lots of life lessons learned, we hope!  Wish the Tigers good luck in the play-offs!  :)

 

Rhiannon:  stayed pretty busy the last two weeks with state testing and was really happy when that was all over.  She is NOT looking forward to school ending for a couple reasons.  The last day of school is on her birthday, it's a minimum day, and she loves seeing her friends at school.  We'll try to do a better job helping her get with friends this summer than we did last year.  In her free time, she's either:

 

a) on the piano

b) on the computer, writing stories and fan fiction on Goodreads

c) sitting on the couch watching Dr. Who on Netflix

d) reading up in her bedroom  (she recently went through her own "library" and realized there were books of her own that she hadn't read yet, so she's trying to go through those.)

e) sending emails to her friend Leslie in Virginia

f) online surfing for funny YouTube videos or Piano Guys' music, OR finding cute clothes and sending links for them to me via email!  Both Rhiannon and Wade have got this video almost completely memorized, NO LIE: 

 

 

This weekend Rhiannon "made" over $60 with her allowance, money from a Saturday night babysitting job, and $35 of mystery money she found in a bag in her room.  Lucky!

She also performed in her first Honors Recital yesterday with other 7th thru 12th graders.  She did a great job on El Diablo! :)

 

 

 

Me:  after a quick 5 months working with the Young Women at church, I'm now working as a Webelos leader with the 10-year-old Cub Scouts.  I jumped right in to the new calling this week with a pack meeting and an all-day day hike on Saturday (which was a blast.)  Probably the greatest thing about this new "job" is that I get to work with my longtime Ridgecrest friend Judith.  She is AMAZING! 

 

Sub jobs have been almost non-existent due to state testing, and that's okay.  I've gotten lots of decluttering done around the house and even went out in the garden and pulled weeds because I WANTED to. :)  I've enjoyed watching "Call the Midwife" on Netflix, too--look it up, Downton Abbey lovers!  It's g-o-o-o-o-d.

 

I'm really looking forward to summer break, Cub Scout day camp (I'm helping with crafts this year), lots of down-time, and a Sheen Reunion over the 4th of July!

 

 

 

Jason:  completed another one of these last month...

 

 

 

with his "How the West was Run" team.  They did great!!!

 

 

And he started this yesterday...

 





 

 

He's amazing and motivated!   He's planning on getting the workouts done in the mornings.  The past 2 days Jason has gotten up at 4:45am; maybe I'll "join" him by taking Oscar on some early-morning walks, but doing weights/hard-core routines that early in the morning takes way more willpower than I've got! :)

 

It's been nice having Jason home more; less federal budget money means less travel.  It makes his job harder, but it's been GREAT having him home.  He's been wonderful about covering Wade's baseball games when we've had conflicting schedules, for just one example!

 

 

ALL:  last night we enjoyed a Cinco de Mayo dinner at our friends' home across the street, the Hawkins family.  We had a great time, ate delicious food, and enjoyed visiting.  It was a great way to start another busy week of May!

My first girls' trip and first cruise!



Where to begin?  Grandma Deb surprised Aunt Heather, Aunt Jaymie, and I with a weekend cruise to Mexico!  She spent many months planning for it and helping us to get ready, and I am so grateful for her and for the time the four of us enjoyed together.  I had never gone on a cruise before, let alone a girls' weekend, and, well, now I completely understand why people do it.  It was energizing and relaxing and FUN!

 

Our trip started on Friday, April 12th.  (It was a great weekend for Jason to be with the kids--no Boy Scout camp outs, no baseball games, just time to play!)  Mom, Heather, and Jaymie flew into the Long Beach airport and I picked them up from there.  I didn't have too many problems driving down--I just don't like passing semis in LA traffic. :)  From there we grabbed a nice lunch at a Red Robin and then parked at the Long Beach port, where our "terminal" to the ship awaited.  We got there around 1:30pm, so the lines were really short.  (Note to self--get there early!)  We showed our booking passes and passports/licenses and were given plastic cards for use on the ship.  Those little cards were pretty important, like our "ship licenses."  They were our room keys, our entrance to dinner in the dining rooms, our drink cards, etc.  We also had our pictures taken and linked to our cards, so it was a pretty good security system. 

 

We were all pretty happy to find we could take care of our own bags and keep them with us.  Several people used porters who delivered their luggage right outside their staterooms on the ship, which sounded like a good idea until you saw luggage up and down the hallways, free for the taking!  At least one person had their luggage stolen that I was aware of.  No thanks!

We checked out our staterooms on the Empress Level (Deck 7), unpacked, freshened up, and then walked around to familiarize ourselves with the ship.  I remember we took a tour of the spa and gym(fun but pricey), and some of us bought drink passes, for unlimited sodas and juices.  (That cost about $22--if I do this again, I'd probably pass and just drink water the whole time.  I think I got one glass of Sprite and then cranberry juice at dinners, but that was it.)  We viewed art at a gallery on the same level.

One really neat thing about the cruise was the diversity of those employed on the ship.  They all wore tags with their names and country of origin, kind of like missionaries, ha-ha!  Hungary, Dominican Republic, Croatia, Philippines, South Africa, etc!  Most spoke English well, too.

 

  



A view of our ship, the Carnival Inspiration, at Long Beach Port. 

The stateroom I shared with Jaymie.  Mom and Heather were right next door.  I loved the window!!!
 

View looking up from Deck 7
 

For breakfast and lunches we ate very well at buffets, but at 6pm each night we met for a fancier dinner in the Mardi Gras dining room.  The first night was dressy casual.  We were shown to a table set for 10 people--Mom was confused because she'd worked it out through her travel agent for us to have a table to ourselves.  Jaymie and Heather went to try to fix that, but in the end we were glad to be at that table and meet some new folks, who we shared the same table with each dinner.  We met Ryan and Jenny, Keith and Ivy, and Karla and her hubby (didn't get his name).  I think they were all from California, if I remember right.  They were fun, interesting, and polite.  They were amazed that Deb would take her daughter and daughters-in-law on a cruise!  We also had the same servers the entire cruise--Jimmy from the Philippines, Consuela, and a guy who served drinks but I can't remember his name.  They memorized all of our names the first night, so we felt like we were with family.  Heather and Jaymie came up with a "rule" that you had to try something new at every meal, so I went crazy and ordered escargot from the appetizer menu (snails, with LOTS of garlic and butter--they tasted like tough mushrooms).  We were also forbidden to mention weight, calories, or exercise, ha-ha! :)

Mom and I experienced a little motion sickness for the first time at dinner that night.  I think we got pretty lucky--it was a mild, almost imperceptible rocking movement.  I used wrist bands and Dramamine; Mom had a bag full of tricks that she used, too. :)  We got along pretty well!

Before we went back to our staterooms for the night, we enjoyed watching some karaoke. There were a couple people who got up who I could have listened to all night long--they were great! 

That night Jaymie and I experienced what the phrase "booze cruise" means.  Around 11:00pm, some young men started screaming and cussing in the hallway right outside our room.  For 2 straight hours we endured this.  It was so bad, that it got to the point where I was more bothered by the noise level than the constant swearing.  We both thought the other was asleep and didn't want to bother each other, but once we realized we were both awake, Jaymie jumped up and called security.  It died down pretty quickly after that, and we squashed it quick when the same thing happened the following night.  Thankfully Grandma and Heather slept through the whole thing!  It was eye-opening to learn that many people got drunk and stayed drunk the entire weekend, to help them deal with hangovers.  Craziness!  Guest services tried to reach us several times that weekend to check in and see that we were taken care of--I thought that was nice; I just wish there had been some kind of "brig" where we could throw those guys!

Saturday morning Heather and Jaymie got up and hit the gym.  We all had some breakfast, and then we got ready to get off the boat and explore Ensenada, Mexico.  We were in for some fun times that day!

 

We paid a couple dollars to get on this bus that took us into Ensenada.  I'd imagined that we'd just park it there and do some shopping, but there wasn't much to see.  The guide on the bus did a good job convincing us to take a tour to La Bufadora (a famous marine geyser, one of 3 in the world), and some commercial markets.  We paid another $15 and got ready for the ride of our life, about a 45-minute drive.

 

I think Mom, Heather, and Jaymie would agree with me when I say we got our money's worth with the tour guide, Alejandro.  He was fantastic and kept us thoroughly entertained and interested.  I'm pretty sure I would have been throwing up the whole drive over if it wasn't for him--the drive was scary, windy, and the driver was going really fast! 

 

Alejandro taught us how to barter, too--

 

1) First you ask, "How much do you want for this?"

 

2)  Whatever they say, you offer 40% less, and don't worry about the "need to feed my family" bit.  They're still getting a profit.

 

3)  If they don't budge, you start walking away.

 

4)  They'll scramble back to you!  Deal's on!

 

I used this "strategy" to get some nice Mexican blankets, the one item I planned on buying.  One merchant wanted $135 (US dollars) for a large one, and I balked.  We worked each other for about 15 minutes, and I felt okay about walking away with 2 blankets for about $60!  Woo-hoo!  Of course, the rest of the morning I had to lug the blankets around and every other merchant said they would have given me a better deal, ha-ha!

 

We had a great time that morning looking at the marine geyser and shop, shop, shopping.  Mom bought some good Mexican vanilla; Jaymie, Heather, and I purchased things for the kids.  Unfortunately (but still kind of funny), both Jaymie and Heather had to leavesome of their purchases with security on the ship temporarily.  Apparently whips and sling shots send up signal flares!



 

 

Heading into the commercial market area

I thought the pineapples looked cool--I took a picture for my two Psych fans Rhiannon and Wade

Did I mention Alejandro was a flirt?  We learned he has a son and a wife--they've been married for 19 years.

I love this picture--we were so happy and adventurous that day!

Great shot of La Bufadora

What a memory!

This man played music in the background while we viewed the geyser.

Too funny!  Yep, I used it.  And I thought the restrooms were surprisingly clean!
 

There were lots of things to enjoy the last day and a half of our cruise.  We laid out at the pool and fought for a turn in the hot tub.  One hot tub was overrun by kids, but you couldn't blame them because the pool itself was freezing.  We also got a little "entertainment" when this very drunk woman started throwing these large bean bags at people near the pool and hot tub.  I couldn't get out of there fast enough!

We dressed up for dinner Saturday night, took pictures and saw a "Vegas"-type show that evening.  On Sunday morning we treated Mom to a manicure and massage, and we went for a walk on the jogging track at the top of the ship.  It was cold up there, but after all I'd been eating, it felt good to get a little exercise!  We did a little shopping, continued to eat well, saw comedy shows, and sat in an art auction.  There was always something to do--it was great!

On Sunday morning we got a huge laugh when we went to look at all the "professional" pictures we'd taken the night before.  Some of them turned out pretty well, but there was this one, taken by a nice Hungarian woman, that was super awkward and funny.  She'd had us pose in these uncomfortable positions, and when we looked at the photo, it looked like I had an extra thumb growing out of the side of my hand.  You'd have to see it to believe it, but I chose to leave that bad boy on the ship and save $20! I'm laughing out loud just thinking about how weird it was!!!!!!

Yep, I went down this slide really, really slowly.  I felt old. :)

Mom (hidden) dancing with Jimmy at dinner

Looks like she had fun!

There was a different towel creation waiting for us each night in our staterooms.  I liked this gorilla the best. :)

Our last dinner--they were dancing to Gangnam Style.

What fun!

By Sunday night we were pretty much packed up and ready to exit the boat early Monday morning.  We were off the boat in really good time and got to the Long Beach airport by 9, after a yummy iHop breakfast.  Hard to believe it had only been a few days--I felt like I'd had a week-long vacation!

I know I'm missing lots of things, but, bottom line, we had a fantastic, memorable time and had soooooo much fun together.  I love you, ladies--let's do this again someday! :)

REWIND: Rocky Acre Farm

Wade and I have a couple hours together on our own every school morning.  He starts school almost 2 hours after Rhiannon does!  I love to sit down over breakfast and visit.  It doesn't happen like that all the time, but we had some fun conversation this morning. 

First we talked about the special people with birthdays today, Grandpa Rod and our cousin Jonah!  Happy Birthday!!!

Then I told Wade about his new cousin born yesterday, David Harrison Sheen, how he was really cute and Aunt Amelia was doing well. 

Wade made some funny remark about how his dad knew someone named David...a character on a video game, of all things! 

Then I told Wade that I had two uncles named David, Grandpa Rich's older brother David Sheen, who lives in Colorado, and Uncle David Funk, a farmer in Idaho. 

That led me to share a couple fun memories I had of being with my Funk cousins, how I was always amazed at their beautiful home and appreciative of how down-to-earth, generous, and fun they were, even though they were "rich," ha-ha!

Then Wade said, "I've never been on a farm."

I said, "What!  Yes, you have!  Don't you remember Rocky Acre Farm?"

Wade:  "Oh, yeah!  I remember having to eat breakfast with all these strangers and how Rhiannon and I didn't like it.  We even had to INTRODUCE ourselves to them!"

We laughed about that trip and all the fun/scary/weird things we got to do there.  What a memory!

Click on the picture below for a link to that old blog post and pictures--great fun! :)  Hard to believe it was only 4 years ago--the kids have changed SOOOOOOO much!