District Two SBOE Candidates Forum

Please read my new column on We The People News!!!!

Health Care & The Supreme Court - Worries

What I have read about the oral arguments in the health care case is scaring me.  We, the people of the United States, need those totally imperfect but, oh so necessary reforms.  We need them.

A First In Sleepovers

After our backyard camp-out, the Lone Star Baby attended a birthday party sleepover on Saturday night - her very first night sleeping over outside of the family (she has slept over with her primas in Dallas before).  She had so much fun!  My growing little girl!

Lone Star Pa - Excellent Educator

Lone Star Pa was just recognized (with a prize, even!) as having been one of the semi-finalists in the H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards.  He had been anonymously nominated by someone to apply and I read his application which rocked my socks off.  He is really the bestest teacher ever!!! (At which point, he will correct my grammar -   he is an English teacher.)  We are so proud of him!

Brownie Backyard Camp-Out!!!

We had ever so much fun with the Brownies in my backyard Friday night and Saturday morning!  We cooked foil-packet dinners and banana boats for dinner and eggs and tortillas (we heated the tortillas - we did not make them) for breakfast in the morning over the fires we built.  We read stories and the girls giggled late into the night in their tent with the mamas in the tent next door and the wonderful Lone Star Girl sleeping across the door of the girls' tent (we're not stupid).  The Lone Star Girl totally rocked cooking over the fire and was the most helpful teenager you can possibly imagine (if you don't know her, you may not even be able to imagine such a helpful teenager)!    The Brownies had a lovely time.  It was great!

Tent

A-frame fire

News Baby 2

As I listen to coverage of the Republican primary on the radio in the car,

Lone Star Baby:  Why (with great frustration and disgust) do they never talk about Barack Obama?



I explained about primaries and how the President already has the Democratic nomination in hand but the Republicans are still deciding on their nomination.  I told her that once the Republicans had picked their guy, she'd start hearing more about the President.  Then she was happy again.

Paging Dr. Perry

Please be sure to e-mail or Facebook the Governor any time you have a women's health question - periods, pregnancy, menopause, diseases, cancers - he is your go-to guy.  Since he knows more than all of our gynecologists, we should really take advantage of the valuable resource we are so lucky to have in him.  Ask him your questions every day...

Milestones

A few days ago, we took the five-point harnesses out of the Lone Star Baby's car seats, making them booster seats, much to her proud happiness.

Although she is seven, the Lone Star Baby did not hit the forty pound mark until fairly recently and she has hovered at around 42-ish pounds for awhile now.  Our car seats are safety tested for up to 50 pounds with the harness and I wanted to keep her in the harness as long as possible since it is so much safer.  

Just recently, though, she has had a bit of a growth spurt and is weighing more reliably in the mid 40s.  Also - she was just getting too tall for the harness and there was no way to adjust it so she was comfortable anymore.  The time has come.

Considering that her sister was easily ten before she was anywhere near the 80 pounds and 4 feet nine inches that a child should be to sit in a regular seat belt, and that the Lone Star Baby is much more petite than her sister was,  I think it will be a long time before we have another car seat milestone!

News Baby

In the car on the way to school today:  

Lone Star Baby:  I heard that Rick Santorum...well, in Puerto Rico,  they have two official languages - English and Spanish.  I heard that Rick Santorum said he wouldn't let Puerto Rico become ... that part of the country?

Me:  State.

LSB:  Yes - state.  He wouldn't let them become a state unless it was only English.

Me:  He's being silly about it.

Lone Star Girl:  Silly and racist.

LSB:  Yes.  Rick Santorum is...not Puerto Rico.

More Urban Farming Thoughts From The Container Gardener

Lone Star Pa will not let me get chickens.  Not happily anyways, and I do aim to keep the man happy.  So.....I guess I really need to grow some beans.  Not the green kind in my veggie garden, but the protein kind.  Woman cannot live on fruits and salad alone, after all.  If we can't raise egg protein, we're going to need to raise some bean protein, right?  So...to plant some cow peas....

Still On The List

Things I wanted to accomplish over Spring Break, but did not get to:


1.)  Cleaning out the Lone Star Baby's room
2.)   Lots of writing (or any).
 

Spring Greening 2012

I have added a beautiful basket of pink dragon wing begonias and a really freaky-interesting-wonderful pitcher plant to the hanging garden.

I added some more lettuce and some spinach to the salad garden (and found a big bunch of volunteer lettuce in the yard that must have come up from seeds from old lettuce I grew that went to seed).

I added some bush beans to the veggie garden.

Lone Star Pa took down a great big dead hunk of our old ash tree, so we have ash tree sticks and branches everywhere, but he also mowed the yards and things are looking very nice but for the brush.

My attempts to grow veggies and salad may be small and puttering and only marginally successful, but I have a bigger, better aspect to my plan for urban farming - fruit trees!  Did I mention that Lone Star Pa got me a baby Cuban papaya tree for our 17th anniversary in February? So cool!

 We now have four baby fruit trees (fig, lowquat, lime, papaya) as well as the established two - orange and grapefruit.  I have eventual plans for avocado and peach, as well.  

And...finally... after meaning to do so for just years, I switched our electric provider to a 100% wind power company.  I'm so ashamed that I took so long to get to that - I think I was afraid they would not accept my credit history due to having heard from others that they were picky like that, but they gave me no trouble.  I'm glad it's finally done!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

We had a lovely St. Paddy's Day.  The Girl made lots of green food for breakfast and then both girls and I went to the library and an art fair and, since it was too late for the farmers' market, a farm truck, and to Hobby Lobby for the Girl's endless art supply needs.  Then we had the neighbors over for pizza and the kids watched Star Treks and ate while the grown-ups got to play Scrabble and Bananagrams - a lovely evening!

A very special birthday wish goes out to my Jazz Girl today whom I miss this week:  Happy 23rd, Baby Sis!  Looking forward to you getting back to Corpus!

Postal Seasons/Lone Star Ma #10

I was something of a letter-writer from a young age.  At the age of 8, my family moved me 500 miles from my home town, which resulted in my paternal aunt (my age - more like close cousins in our childhood) and I entering into a long correspondence.  When I was a teen-ager, I had lots of pen pals. In college, I checked my mailbox several times each day.  In graduate school, my long distance lover (Lone Star Pa) and I wrote pretty constantly. My seasons as a letter-writer were many.

Motherhood and adult responsibilities soon put a serious dent in my value as a correspondent, but then came zines and Lone Star Ma Magazine.  I got my first non-college P.O. Box for Lone Star Ma and have had it ever since.  Being at the post office gives me a serious thrill, the same way being in a print shop does.  (Office supply stores are also thrilling but not nearly at the same level.)


When I had a more flexible job and a less hectic family life, I used to check my P.O. Box all the time, at least a few times each week - no lie.  Over the years, though, our tribe of zine mamas dwindled and Lone Star Ma first stopped and then went digital and I got very busy ... I started checking it a lot less often.  Weeks would go by without my having checked it - sometimes months.


Two weeks ago, I went to check my box while mailing some packages and found that the lock had changed - it had been so long since I had checked it that I had missed the renewal notice!  Fortunately, no one had gotten it yet, so after an unfortunate fee, I ended up with the same box and two shiny new keys.


If you mailed anything to my P.O. Box in January or February, I did not receive it, but please resume mailing now!  I am hoping that everyone reading this post will also make sure they have read Issue Ten of Lone Star Ma   and will write me lots of letters about it, either to the post office box or to submissions@LoneStarMa.com.  What did you think of Issue Ten?  I'll be checking my box again!

Happy 100th Birthday, Girl Scouts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is the 100th Birthday of the Girl Scouts!  Rock on, Sisters!

Proud Pa

This morning/afternoon, Lone Star Pa asked me if I had blogged about how the Lone Star Girl is in training to become a superhero.  I looked at him rather blankly, although the Lone Star Baby looked up from her lunch with seeming comprehension.  He explained that she is training to become a lifeguard - to guard lives - and that makes her a superhero in training.  He then asked if I had noticed that he had saved the picture of her from the newspaper article on Friday about her Invisible Children club...and had I read the article, and the critical comments, and his response to them (no, yes, yes, yes).  Then he continued on to describe the excellent job the Lone Star Baby had done of wiping her shoes without being reminded before entering the Art Center for her painting lesson on Saturday.

Think he loves those girls?

Action Alert: International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day!  Let us honor it with action.  Please call your Congressperson and tell them that the women of America are tired of being under attack and will not stand for the erosion of our right to control our own fertility. 

Poetry Published!

Please read my poem here on Vox Poetica today!  Tomorrow it will be on the poemblog!  What do you think?