Viola's Mail Time- The Kids from Kansas! #4, #5, #6, #7

Viola's Aunt Amy told the kids she is nannying all about Violas Mail Time and now they are HUGE fans!  The kids old enough to write sent Viola ADORABLE letters.  I've put them all in the same post because that just made sense :-)

This time on Viola's mail time, Viola reads a letter from Jeremiah, Jayvon, Kyra, and Keyvon, some of Aunt Amy's charges.  She received the letter in the mail from Kansas! If you are friends of the family outside of the internet, you can participate too!  Dont you want to hear Viola read your mail?  PM me for the address.  In the least, we will continue to do mail time throughout the summer of 2017. 
This started as a fun activity to help encourage Viola to read.  She loves hosting her own show, but has been slower than her sister learning how to read.  Viola just turned seven and is completing Saxon Phonics One this year and learning so much!

Viola's Mail Time #3- Aunt Amy's Valentine

This time on Viola's mail time, Viola reads a valentine from her Aunt Amy she received in the mail!  If you are friends of the family outside of the internet, you can participate too!  Dont you want to hear Viola read your mail?  PM me for the address.  In the least, we will continue to do mail time throughout the summer of 2017. 
This started as a fun activity to help encourage Viola to read.  She loves hosting her own show, but has been slower than her sister learning how to read.  Viola just turned seven and is completing Saxon Phonics One this year and learning so much!

The Seventh Birthday

Advice was given to me from a very wise wife of a firefighter.  She told me that holidays aren't about the date.  Holidays are about celebrating when you can, all together as a family.  At the time, I was marrying my daughters' father, a doctor.  This wife had no idea just how handy this advice would be, years later, as one family became two.  My youngest daughter turned seven and I didn't see her on her birthday.  Its one of the harsh realities of divorce.  I'm missing bits and pieces of kids' lives.  I told her we would celebrate her birthday on Saturday the 4th even though her birthday was Monday, the 30th.  A month before her birthday she requested a surprise party.  She then proceeded to try to plan every aspect of the surprise party!   It was so adorable.  We planned to surprise her with a party on Friday and she would wake up on Saturday and it would be her "Birthday."

It was a huge success!  Since Saturday was her "Birthday" she was indeed surprised.  Apparently she had planned that her party would be on her "birthday." 

   

On Saturday we did our Birthday rituals.  First, when my new 7 year old woke up, I asked her how it felt to be seven years old.  Something my Mom would ask on my birthday.  Then, I made her a special birthday breakfast.  Viola dictated the menu in advance:  pancakes, bacon, and sausage.  I also made her some hot cocoa (one of her faves) and she was so excited. 

After playing with her new toys, we took her to spend her birthday money at the mall.  She went to Build a Bear and the Disney Store and found out it doesn't take long to spend $75! 

For dinner she chose where we ate.  That's also a part of the birthday ritual.  This year she chose Burger King which was a welcome deviation from previous years when she requested the "sample store" (her name for Sam's Club)  After eating at Burger King she had some time to play on their big indoor playground.  Then I took her to see Peter and the Starcatcher at the Tulsa PAC.  She was happy to have a date just with her Mom. 

All in all, Viola's seventh birthday was a huge success! 

Viola's Mail Time: Aunt Georgie's Card

Viola and I have added a new activity to her homeschool curriculum:  Viola's Mail Time.  On this edition of VMT, Viola reads her birthday card from her Great Aunt Georgie.  If you would like to hear your mail read on VMT, email me: nicoleulahr@gmail.com

Viola's Mail Time

One of the biggest factors pushing me to home school my kids was the fact that my six year old daughter could barely read her own name.  We made a goal that for her 7th Birthday (which happened this week) she would be able to read her birthday cards all on her own.  This is a skill her sister had years before turning seven.  Last summer, we started to work on her reading more seriously and this fall began Saxon Phonics I.  We now spend at least an hour a day focused on improving her reading.  I am so proud of all she has accomplished. 

As part of her learning, I have this fun idea. Viola has recently very badly wanted to do a youtube channel.  Since its her birthday week, she has gotten some cards in the mail.  So now as part of her learning time, we are going to be shooting brief videos of her reading her mail.  Would you make my daughter's day and help her learn how to read by sending a SHORT message via the mail?

Maybe you have a learner who is learning how to write.  They may think it will be fun to send her a very short message via the mail. 

If I already know you in real life, I'll PM you my address.  If this becomes very popular, we'll get a PO BOX.  Message me on FB or email me if you want to participate:  nicoleulahr@gmail.com

She has already done the first video and it's ADORABLE.  Don't you want to see your message on Viola's Mail Time?   WATCH WHAT SHE HAS ALREADY DONE!  I got so tickled taping this because of what she says near the end. 



We will tweak the next few and keep working on the lighting and quality.  I hope you will join me in encouraging literacy!  We are planning to do this at least throughout the summer of 2017.

 

Ten Year Cancer-Free-Aversary!

10 Year Cancer-Free AVERSARY

Today is a very special anniversary; I bet not too many people out there get the chance to celebrate it:  On this day 10 years ago, I took my final chemo-therapy treatment.  

I was a mere 21 when I got sick.  Immersed in college and crazy busy I kept coughing and wouldn’t get better.  My condition worsened.  Movement was too difficult and I began sweating profusely.  My joints ached and tired easily.  Lying down was a challenge and finally after being misdiagnosed with several conditions for over a year the doctors noticed something on all the scans- I had pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around my heart)  It took a pericardialectomy (a surgeon removed the membrane around my heart) to discover the problem- a stage 3B Hodgkins Lymphoma tumor was growing around my heart and killing me.  The surgeon, only prepped for the pericardialectomy removed the tumor the best he could, salvaging the nerves and muscles in my chest and neck that give me the ability to speak.  (Thankfully!)

I had about two weeks to recuperate from open chest surgery (which isn’t enough)and then go straight into a rigorous chemo -therapy treatment.  Don’t ask me what it was called.  All I know is it was green and made my urine red.  

Treatments took about two hours I believe and took a lot out of me.  I had them on Mondays.  Tuesday I would have to come back and take a shot that would elevate my white blood count.  It was way too low, but they couldn’t stop treatment because of that.  (in other cancers they do)  The shot would make my bone marrow produce something and would cause my entire body to ache as if I had the flu times like a thougsand.  A pain I wouldn’t wish on most anybody  I would go home and writhe in pain for the rest of the day.  Even drugs wouldn’t take away the pain entirely. 

I took the semester off of college, not to “find myself” but to save myself.

The pain meds made me ill.  I would vomit and also get very constipated.   

My hair slowly receded.  I held onto it, instead of shaving it like so many do.  I cut it shorter and then a little shorter until not much was less.  I wasn’t bald, but I was very close.  Every time a clump of hair would fall out it would remind me that no matter what I was doing at the moment, I was still very ill.  I still find clumps of my hair that fell into books I was reading at the time.

I took so many steroids that I ended up gaining 30 pounds in that 6 months.  

 Walking was difficult and sometimes impossible.

I would sometimes wake up and be surprised I was still alive because I was sure I would die that night in my sleep.  I would awake early and sit outside watching the sunrise.  Each was more beautiful than the rest.  I got closer to my creator than I’ve ever been.

My family spoke to me more and we all got so much closer.   

People are nicer to you when they think you might die.

For 6 months of hell all I could really do was stay home and watch TV and on TV was coverage of the war 24hrs a day.  A war was being fought over seas as I was fighting a personal war of my own. 

I don’t talk much about it.  Maybe it was too painful to talk about.  Maybe I just wanted to spare people the details because I knew it wouldn’t make them happy and thats what I live to do:  make people happy.  I know I don’t think about it everyday of my life and most times completely forget it happened altogether-sometimes people mention my zipper (the scar on my chest) and I have no idea what they are talking about because I forget its there.  

BUT anytime I get a cough that hangs on or a new pain somewhere then the thought creeps into the back of my mind that perhaps the cancer has returned.  When you are diagnosed late, as I was and only treated with one thing, the chances are greater for a reoccurrence.  Its something I live with everyday.  I’ve had countless cancer scares since then, luckily they all turned about to be something else- the most notable being my two children.  I was told that the treatment would most likely sterilize me but am happy to say that it most definitely did not.  Since the treatment I’ve become pregnant three times and given birth twice.  Being pregnant feels a lot like a tumor...but I digress.

In short, Cancer sucked.  It still makes parts of my life suck.  But it didn’t ruin my life.  I think it just made my life better.  When I returned to school after taking a semester off for treatment I was more thankful for being able to walk to class and study books than any other student in that room.  And when I gave birth to my two children, I was more thankful for those children than I would have been if they hadn’t been such a miracle.  And tonight, when I kiss my husband goodnight, it will be better than if I didn’t ever have cancer because I know how fragile and precious life is and how much each kiss really means.  Because you really don’t know which kiss will be your last.

Pickling and such

My incredibly talented husband has planted quite the garden in our backyard and it has produced lots and lots of produce.  We planted green beans, tomatoes, peppers, Jalapeno, Zucchini, Squash, and cucumbers.  I’ve tried to be very creative in preparing meals to include the vegetables that we have harvested. Im really good at sautéing

 squash and frying it.  We’ve had countless tomato sandwiches, lots of salads, and have even resorted to making hearty stews... HOWEVER, there are just way too many to eat!  So I’ve taken to canning.  Its actually really fun.  If you enjoy baking or cooking I think you would also enjoy canning.  Last night I had the pleasure of making my own pickles out of the cucumbers.  Other than pickles and cucumber sandwiches, and salads I have no other ideas for their use!

One days take from the garden!  We had several days like this :-)

I cut them in spears first. The recipe said to cut them in half, but some of these suckers were huge!  Some of them were so fat and I cut them into 6 pieces instead of 4.  Ball has a recipe for Kosher Dill pickles, however it called for Red Pepper and mustard seed, but I didn’t have that so I just added Dill sprigs, a Clove of Garlic and a bay leaf to each Quart- I ended up making 8 Quarts.

I’ll have to wait about a month before I know if I totally screwed them up.  BUT they look great to me and my kids and I cant wait to try them!

In all, I think I worked on them for two hours,(chopping takes some time and I could have been multi tasking by boiling the jars while I chopped)  but now I have 8 quarts of pickles to enjoy.  I hope we have another harvest of cucumbers so I can do another batch!  If not, I’ll just have to wait till next years harvest.  I’ve been bitten by the pickling bug.  :-)