Halloween at the Cosners

We have been so incredibly busy!!! Holidays find our days packed with activities and family time, which is just how I like it--but its taken until now for things to slow down and blogging-inspiration to take hold.

Blogging Inspiration:

We should make up a word for this! Ronelle? Lisa? Susanne? Challice? Any word-creators out there? 

A word meaning when the inspiration to blog hits...

Our Halloween flew by this year. This whole year has been flying by, despite my desperate attempts to slow it down. We had decorations, we BOOed our neighbors (this was so fun, and something I had wanted to do for years with the kids!), we made Halloween watercolor crafts from elmer's glue and watercolors, and trick-or-treated...love the holiday season. Here's the late pictures, and I hope everyone's Halloween was a memory in the making. :)

A Dementor and Gollum--my kids have great taste in literature!

Some house decorations

Hippie Road Trip Ideas

Here's a link for me to save for my Hippie Road Trip. I will expand on this crazy idea of mine this weekend. Hold your breath. ;)

How To Sleep in Your Car

Some interesting links

"We are Going to Homeschool": Matt Walsh Blog

This was a well-written article about why homeschooling is a viable option for many parents. We are jumping on the train next year, having decided to homeschool our kids through middle school. I'm a little bit scared, I'm not gonna lie...but I agree with Matt, it really is time for parents to step up and say, "Nope. Not anymore." 

Pinterest Review: Chicken Parmesan Bake

I made this off of  Pinterest last night; the kids loved it, I was not a huge fan. To be fair, I did things a little differently than the actual recipe--I had less tomatoes than called for, and I baked it in a casserole dish. The result was not the rosy, cheesy, crisp goodness pictured above, but rather a slightly pink, homemade mac'n'cheese--like I said, kids thought it was great. ;)  Too much cheese for me, I think!

Finished my book, Lady of the Rivers--first in a series of four from Philippa Gregory. Fantastic. Waiting on my mom to finish the second one. I just started The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, which is the first book in the Roman series of the demigods made famous by Percy Jackson. :)  I love this story line Riordan has created. Its such an intriguing idea! I am not, however, a fan of his writing style. I don't think you have to "write down" to kids--Harry Potter, anyone? If Rowling can make a series in a 5-7th grade reading level and still write well, so can RR. Since he didn't, however, I will push through the "dude" mentality for the sake of the story. :)

Not much going on at the homestead. Fall is a slow season here. Halloween is around the corner! 

Marla's Movie Musings

Okay, so I'm a little behind the times on this one, since it came out in 2008! BUT I read the book over the summer, and put it in my queue...and it just came yesterday. (Probably because I was putting Downton Abbey episodes in the number 1 and 2 slots for three months straight.) This movie is FANTASTIC. It was awesome to me that the three leads are all singers by trade--they were fantastic. It was awesome to me that Dakota Fanning is still such a talented actress. It was awesome to me that it stayed very true to the book--which was awesome. I highly recommend the book AND the film--but read the book first!! You'll get so much more out of the movie, I promise!

Rating: A for (wait for it...) Awesome!

Weekend!

Its amazing, the feeling of contentment that comes from the promise of a weekend, some sweatpants, and a good book.

Homesteading and Self Sufficiency

Self Sufficiency

This article was posted on facebook by one of my friends (who happens to be a rather interesting conspiracy theorist, but that is neither here nor there), and I love it. My mind is sometimes blown by how dependent my generation is on the government, and on commerce. Is that the right word? Meaning--if Walmart and Stater Brothers shut down tomorrow, who would be okay in a week?? If the government had to regulate our food supply in an emergency by handing out staples (say a sack of flour and a bag of potatoes)--who would know what to do?? This first came to my attention about six or seven years ago when Ridgecrest had a two-day blackout. No electricity. People left the city in droves. No, seriously, people packed up and left to wait out the time in a hotel room, in "nearby" cities an hour and a half away. When we did get power back, there were lines outside the gas stations with panicked people waiting for their gas. Wow. Got me thinking. My parents' generation (not necessarily my parents, mind you!) would know what to do if things just stopped working. Ours? Some people would be in a lot of trouble. Is that scary to anyone else??

Anyway, self-sufficiency, along with avid reading of pioneer settlers accounts (usually women's journals from the late 1800s who came to settle the west coast) are a bit like my hobbies. I often wonder at a time when these hobbies were methods of survival--if you didn't garden or raise livestock, you would die. Could we do it?? Out here in the Mojave? 

In this article, the thing that I not so good at is the concept of debt. Credit cards make it easy for me to buy things on a whim. A goal of mine would be to pay only cash or not pay at all. Do you have a goal to make your life-style more self-sufficient? In this day and age, can "normal" families achieve a measure of self-sufficiency? What about true self-sufficiency? (Not talking about the hippie guys living in RVs on BLM land--although I'm totally jealous.) Marla Wants to Know!!!

I saw this today. I liked it.