Ruth's Excellent Short Story

Treasure in the Desert

By: Ruth McKnight

The sand was red hot in the Shimmer-Scale Desert. It was mid-day, and the sun’s relentless heat was beating down upon the three young dragons sitting at a rare oasis. One of the dragons, who had scales that looked like they were made of brass, spread her wings out. Each long spine that supported the wing membrane stretched out so she was covered by the shadow. “Gosh Obsidian, I thought we’d be at the ruins by now.” She groaned. The black dragon, whose wings were more like those of the dragons that stormed castles and battled knights, looked up. “I keep telling you two the directions!” he said, glaring at his friends. “Amber, if I can’t tell where we are, this map is useless!” Obsidian roared, his black scales quivering with force.

            Amber sighed, “What do you think Typhoon?” she asked the blue dragon beside her. Typhoon looked up, the mountain-like horn on the front of his face dusted with sand. He shrugged, “I thought that that rock was closer to us that it was.” He said. The Sapphire and gold necklace around his neck glistened in the sun. Obsidian rolled his eyes. “I keep telling you that we need to go west!” he snarled, his black dragon attitude was kicking in. “Alright, calm down.” Amber said softly “west is that way,” she pointed a claw towards a sand dune in the distance. Typhoon perked up, “Amber, I’m sure that west this that way.” He said pointing in the opposite direction. Amber narrowed her eyes; Brass dragons were very much at home in the desert, so why was Typhoon telling her that she was wrong?

             If only they had a compass, but a sly human thief had stolen the only one they had.  Typhoon’s horns started to crackle with electricity, a sign he was preparing to attack if need be. Amber snarled, and small spikes of flame sizzled between her teeth. Obsidian's throat swelled with acid, prepared for a fight. “Wait!” Amber roared suddenly. “Fighting each other will not get us out of here.” She said calmly. Typhoon and Obsidian looked at her, the electricity slowly faded away, and Obsidian swallowed the acid.  Amber began to dig around in the leather pouch strapped to her side. She pulled out a magnet, a piece of iron form a human sword, and a bowl that was big enough for a dragon to drink from.

“What are we going to do with those things?” Obsidian asked. “We’re going to make a compass.” Amber said “Typhoon, will you fill this up please?” she handed Typhoon the bowl. Amber began to rub the sword blade with the magnet like her life depended on it. Typhoon came back with the bowl, which was full of water from the oasis. Amber pulled a leaf from one of the palm trees that circled the oasis. She set in the bowl, and placed the sword blade on it. The blade and leaf slowly turned until it stopped. “Okay, it’s pointing north, so west is that way!” Typhoon said, pointing towards the sand dune Amber had been pointing at. Amber smirked at him. Typhoon blushed “okay, you were right. Let’s go find that treasure!”

The three friends trekked over to the sand dune, their water bags filled with oasis water, and Amber’s food bag filled with coconuts. Typhoon scooped a snake from the sand, roasting it with it a blast of electricity. “That is so gross.” Amber muttered, making a face as Typhoon swallowed the snake whole. Obsidian was eating a fish from his bag. Seeing her friends eating, Amber opened a small bag hanging from her deck. She pulled out a crystal vial filled with dew drops, and poured the whole thing into her mouth. “Wow.” Obsidian's voice caused Amber to look up from her snack. The ‘sand dune’ was actually a huge temple, buried in sand. Only the entrance was visible. Suddenly, the sand beside her shuddered and Typhoon rose up. He was holding a whole human boat, filled to the brim with gold and jewels! The friends split the treasure evenly, with Obsidian taking the gold, Typhoon taking the jewels ( they were nearly all blue) and Amber taking the boat. “I can’t wait to show this to my parents!” Amber said excitedly. “I know, my dad will flip! Typhoon said. “My brothers will try to steal all of this, they’ll be so jealous!” Obsidian roared happily. With their treasure packs full, the three friends took flight to go back home.

  

21 Ways to Deal with a Bully

This list was compiled by my Ruth for one of her classes. She had twice as many as everyone else. Probably because she was bullied and her counselor worked with her A LOT about it. I am just glad to see how much it sank in! Ruth has also been helping Eian deal with a boy in his class who seems to have an issue with Eian. Sigh. It never ends. (#1 is about the Golden Rule.)

Ruth’s Anti-bully List

1.      Try to be nice to people!

2.      Tell a teacher if you or friends are being threatened.

3.      Don’t give a bully what it wants! Money or just a reaction!

4.      Try to stay away from the bully.

5.      Stay in a group with lots of friends! It’s hard to pick on a group!

6.      NEVER FIGHT THE BULLY!!!!!!!

7.      If they are insulting you, laugh or say, “That’s right, and I’m proud of it!”

8.      If people are excluding you, just sit next to them and don’t do anything.

9.      Try to do things you like! Don’t let them ruin your day!

10.   Write a letter saying all the things you want to say to them and throw it out, or make a paper doll and rip it up.

11.  Talk to friends, parents or the school counselor.

12.  Tell the bully they are being mean. Sometimes they don’t mean it!

13.  If it’s not at school, like if a kid throws rocks at you when you skateboard by their house, stay away from the area!

14.  If it’s a “on –off bully”, a bully who is mean some days and nice others, try to find out the pattern and avoid them on the “on” days.

15.  If it’s a cyber bully, block them from your contact list, or don’t read email from them.

16.  Send any threats online to your internet provider. They can help stop it.

17.  Don’t listen to an older sibling who tells you to fight.

18.  If you see someone being a jerk to another kid stand up for them!

19.  “Ignore the bully” that is what most people say. Don’t! They will just keep at it!

20.  If you think YOU are being a bully, stop! Being nice is golden!

21.  Treat people how you want to be treated!

Art at Our House

Ruth and Abbe have a pretty excellent art course as part of their online school. They are learning art history and method in addition to actually doing art.

Their public school used to have an AWESOME art teacher that the school let go due to budget reasons. Now, they (well, just Eian from here) have an OK teacher. But the school has changed art teachers quite a few times in the past few years because they never knew if they would have the money to keep the teacher. So, I have lost track of which one he has now! How sad is that? I do know that she doesn't seem to give them anything that stretches them artistically. Maybe the school doesn't have the money for the art supplies???

Two of Ruth's:

Four of Abbe's - the last one she painted while it was taped to the bottom of the table, like Michelangelo did the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel:

Art wall at my house - clown and owl are Eian's:

HRH Princess Sarafina looking condescendingly at me photographing the art.

Fall fun .... a little work too.

We finally spotted another praying mantis. So glad they are back!

Ruth is allowed to play with playdough during her Live Lessons. It helps her concentrate. Don't ask....it just does. (Just like me knitting helps me to be able to stay focused during sermons.) Well, this is what she makes.

We have a new pet. His name is Oscar. He is a woolly worm that Ruth and I 'rescued' from the middle of the road. They eat the leaves of violets and lambs quarter. Learn something new every day around here!

Jason canned some peppers using my Grandma's recipe. He is also going to make me some hot pepper jelly. At least, I hope he is. Then, he saved some of the seeds for next year. These were heirloom peppers which means the seeds should grow next year. If your peppers are a hybrid, they may not grow from seed.

We made the gallon jug ghosts that I saw on Pinterest. We used sharpies and bic pens for the jugs. I cut a small hole in the back, and we put in those little battery operated candle lights. The ones on Pinterest used Christmas lights, but I want to be able to move them around easily from the front porch to the back deck to where ever I feel like it. Jason took the middle picture. Looks pretty good, huh?

Ruth and I found the wooden masks on sale at JoAnns. For around a dollar. The kids used the poster markers (they have wide tips) to color in their masks. Then, they used puffy paint to outline different areas. Last, I let the use GLITTER! Glitter always makes my mom cringe - she used to work with preschoolers. Glitter and preschoolers do not always mix well. :-)

These two projects were pretty much free. I had to buy the candle lights and the masks. Yes, I had all the sharpies, bic pens, poster markers, puffy paint and glitter. Usually what I do, whenever I see something like that on clearance, or on sale, or I have an excellent coupon, I will snatch it up. Then, all I have to do is go to Momma's magic craft cabinet box and pull something out.

I really need to get the kids craft stuff organized. Anyone have any good, next to free, ideas??

Columbus Crew Game

Last week Ruth and Abbe's school gave us free tickets to The Columbus Crew. We had never been before. Have you?

There were not a lot of people there which was a good thing - from a parent viewpoint, not the Crew's obviously. Mother Bear didn't have to worry about one of her kids getting lost or annoying a bunch of people because they are being kids.

Abbe and Eian were able to go onto the field before the game and kick some soccer balls around with the other smaller kids. Ruth was SUPPOSED to be able to be in the tunnel but she was too impatient to wait around for instructions. (hmmmm, can we say ADHD) So, that didn't happen. Of course, when she saw all the other Jr. High and High School kids in the tunnel, she wished she would have waited.

 
We ate $5 hotdogs and bratwursts and BBQ pulled pork (which was actually really good - need to get Jason to smoke a pork roast). I told Jason that I understand why they do it - you aren't allowed to bring food in. So, if you are hungry, you eat a $5 hotdog. But don't they realize that if they made it a little cheaper, I would probably buy more. Instead, I packed everyone a snack of homemade chocolate chip cookies and an apple to have on the way there. And I promised everyone a snack on the way home. Oh, and they only had a few of those tables you stand up by and eat which were too tall for Abbe and Eian.

I could tell that they were still wanting more to eat but they were being really good and not bugging me about it. So, I split a pretzel with Ruth ($4 or 5). Abbe and Eian split some cotton candy (prepackaged and looked even more disgusting than cotton candy usually looks). Jason was allowed to have his own extra bratwurst. ;-)

We sat with other online school families which was very nice. Didn't have to worry about alcohol, cussing, kids bugging people, .... because they were all worried about their kids bugging us!

We watched the sun set over downtown Columbus. Which reminded me of watching the sun rise over downtown Columbus when I worked for the OSU Dairy Farm while I was at OSU. Those were some of the best mornings of my college experience.

Ruth noticed that all the players, referees and even the ball had four shadows. Which was really kind of cool once you noticed it.

All three had an awesome time and didn't want to leave but mean mama made them leave at half time because they had school in the morning. We listened to the rest of the game on the radio on the way home.

I lost $.25 to Ruth on a bet (The Crew scored first) and $.01 to Eian (The Crew won). Abbe the miser didn't want to bet anything just in case she would lose.

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Sorry about the pictures. These were taken with my cell phone. Which is a very old Palm.
Didn't want to carry the 'big' camera and couldn't find my little point and shoot. Which has since been found in one of Abbe's backpacks. She took it to The Wilds when she went with a friend.

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Oh, and The Crew won 1-0.

Cake baking lessons learned.

I learned two very interesting important lessons Tuesday night.

1. Don't bake cakes when the humidity is 95%.

2. Don't bake cakes with a seven year old helping you when it is 8:30 at night, and he should already be in bed.

Sigh. Four inedible cakes later..............

Let's start at the beginning. ("Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start." Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music - one of my favorite movies.)

Ruth and Abbe took a cake decorating class last night. They each needed one or two round cakes for the class. The girls were supposed to bake the cakes themselves but they were taking FOREVER to get their school work finished after their three day weekend.

I really wanted to get the cakes baked on Tuesday so that they would be easier to ice and work with on Wednesday. So, I stayed home to bake cakes while Jason took the kids to the library. The humidity in the house was atrocious. I did not have any cake mixes in the house because I have tried to quit buying such things. So, I had to bake cakes from scratch which really usually isn't any big deal.

But once I finished with the batter (I used yellow cake from Betty Crocker - usually a fail safe recipe.) I could tell something was different but really didn't think about it too much. The cakes really didn't bake well. They were not light but WAAYYY to moist and ..... weird.

Sooooooo, enter cake batch #2.

When I say I am going to bake another batch, Eian begs me to help. Fine. Whatever. Bake with the kids all the time. No problem, thinks Mama. Huh. We added a little more flour because I thought the humidity caused the first batch to turn out strange. Also, since I was in a hurry, I didn't realize that we forgot to put the butter and Crisco in until I had the cakes already in the oven and I was cleaning up. Sigh.

CAKE FAIL #2.

The second batch felt like cornbread but more firm when I put a toothpick in to check if they were done baking.

Ruth and Abbe decided to take all four cakes anyway. They made their Pumpkin Cakes at the class on the ones Eian and I totally screwed up.

Then tonight, Eian, Ruth, and Abbe made 'birthday' cakes for Sarafina and Splotch. Ruth and Eian made Splotch's and Abbe made Sarafina's.

It's been a long week.

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Side Notes:

1. I have not been sleeping well due to having very strange dreams every night. And I remember them in the morning. The kids have gotten a kick out of hearing about them. Strange, strange dreams.

2. I wish I would have watched the Vuelta yesterday. Alberto Contador kicked everyone's butt from what I hear. Tried to watch the replay today but kept having to help with school work. Did watch the end of today's stage - was a really cool sprint finish.

3. Watching Project Runway while writing this. Love, love, love this show. Abbe likes to watch is too. I spend the whole time telling her, "That is not appropriate language." "You shouldn't treat people like that." etc. She just keeps saying, "I know Momma" in her disgusted 10 year old voice.

4. Sarafina is prowling around like the mad hunter that she is. Just a few minutes age she found the grasshopper that Eian accidentally let loose in the house after school. He kept telling me that he thought Smokey ate it. I think he was saying that so he could quit looking for it. I kept saying, "I don't want 40 million grasshopper babies in the house! You need to find that thing!" The poor grasshopper must have been trying to make a mad dash to the front door, not realizing that we have a tiger in the house!

I am alive!

I really didn't mean to take the month of August off blogging but that is just how it worked out. With Eian starting school just a little ways into August (they take a week off in October for the Fair), and Ruth and Abbe starting home/online school the next week. Sigh. The month just got away from me.

We switched online schools this year. This new school is MUCH, MUCH MORE intense. I really like all that they provide. It has just been a pretty big adjustment from last year's online school and adding Abbe into the mix..... All of this has made for a few stressful weeks.

Yes, we have decided to keep Abbe home this year also. Last year ended up being a pretty good year for Ruth. So, with the doctor concluding that all of Abbe's stomach issues were due to her stressing herself out, we decided we would try it with her also.

So, now our kitchen/dining area has two computer desks and computers and school areas. Jason said he didn't know where else we could stuff something else in here. Jason and I sit at the laptop at the kitchen table off and on while we are helping the girls. This way we can see what they are doing and also try to get some things accomplished.

As most of you know, we decided to keep Ruth home last year after a very trying and difficult 5th grade year in regular school. Ruth has ADHD and very high anxiety which feed off of each other in a vicious circle. (Yes, we went to Children's Hospital for diagnosis. Yes, she sees a counselor. Yes, she takes medicine but at the very lowest level available. Yes, I did not want to believe the diagnosis when they told me. My child could not have this. Any hooo...) Ruth was getting bullied and was retaliating. So, Ruth was getting in trouble and not the girls who were doing the bullying. The teachers really tried to do something about this but they did not have the back up from the principal for any real change to happen. All of this was having a very negative affect on Ruth's self confidence which was already not very high anyway due to the ADHD and high anxiety. Another vicious circle for my girl. Having been bullied myself in High School, I know what it can do to a person's self confidence. And at age 10.....well, I knew something drastic needed to happen for my girl. My mom has said that she has noticed a huge positive change in Ruth over the past year which makes me happy. Especially since doing school at home is a pretty big challenge for the whole family.

Yes, that previous paragraph had a lot of "hot topic" words in it. Sigh. And I can see a lot of people rolling their eyes right now about the ADHD, the bullying, the stomach issues, the high anxiety.... These words are in the press a lot these days, and everyone is saying they are involved in one or more of these things. But these things ARE and have been happening here. If you want to believe it or not, that is up to you. We are doing what we feel is best for our children. If you know me well, then you know how much I struggled with Ruth's diagnosis. You know how terrible Ruth's fifth grade year was socially. And you know that I am a Big Mama Bear when it comes to my children.

Yes, Eian still goes to the local public school and will remain there as long as it continues to work for him. He has an excellent teacher this year. Also, Eian is a pretty social kid who likes (and needs) to be around other boys. Also, I know myself pretty well, and I think having Eian home too with all of the one-on-one work that is needed at his age would be waayyy too much for me. And he gets aggravated being home with all of us girls when Jason is at the firehouse! :-) Most of our neighbors have girls too! So he really needs to be throwing around some testosterone with someone.

Well, this ended up being a much wordier post than I had intended! Included some pictures from August for y'all.

For some reason I really like this photo from The Sartorialist blog. I think it is the youth, vitality and the preview of spring.



Below is my absolute FAVORITE jacket that he has had on there lately. Maybe always. It is very 18th century/militaristic (? is that a word).  I would love it in a hunter green or deep violet. What do you think?



Both of the above photos are from the blog, The Sartorialist.

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I am sitting here looking at a few blogs waiting, waiting, waiting for Ruth to finish her math so I can grade it.

What?????

So, I opened up my blogger dashboard to dash off a quick post, and this was on as an unpublished post.

Somehow, I think SOMEONE (Ruth) was messing with my blog. Since this was the Study Island stuff we were doing last week.

12.	Which of the following changes will improve the graph the most?

	Make the range on the X axis to go from 0 to 5 hours instead of from 0 to 10 hours.
	Change the Y axis scale to show a tick for every 400 miles instead of every 300 miles.
	Change the X axis scale to show a tick for every hour instead of every 4 hours.
	Change the label on the Y axis to 'Length Traveled' instead of 'Distance'.

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Anyway.....

Got on here to post that I will post a little about what we were doing last week soon. Ruth had last week off school and we used it to get ahead. And go somewhere special, just Ruth, Jason and me. Hopefully, will be able to get the new post finished by tonight or tomorrow.

Happy April!

Session Complete

Lunch with friends

Lunch with friends. Don't those words just SOUND great.

That is what I got to do today. By myself. Without kids.

I really needed it. Thank you Linda and Jennifer.

This week has been a long week of homeschooling. Ruth and I have been rubbing each other the wrong way. It was nice to go and hear from other mothers that they are having problems too. (Not that I wish them to have problems....well, you understand.) I love my girl but as those who have kids with ADHD know, her brain NEVER stops and her wiggling NEVER stops. IT CAN WEAR A MOMMA OUT.

So, where was Ruth? At her Thursday tutoring/art/lunch at a local Christian school. This is time that I really need for myself. Especially with Jason gone every day for Lt. school and home every night.

Got to sit at my favorite local coffee shop for a while also. Found a cool knitting blog to follow. I haven't been knitting and this really makes me want to pick up the needles again. I have plenty I could finish: these are just two! Huh. These are from a month ago. How sad is that?

(These pictures of Ruth are from just this past summer. She is already looking so much older now. Great big ruffled mama sigh.)

Halloween and Homeschooling

So, my Abbe and Eian get home from school last night and not twenty minutes later it starts raining! For Trick or Treat. Yes, my kids like the candy, but they are more interested in getting dressed up in their costumes and seeing their friends.

Well, the rain stopped but it was still pretty chilly out and now damp too. And muddy. And wet. But I think they still had fun. (Yes, Mom, they all have jackets/sweatshirts/sweatpants/tights on under their costumes. I always make them big enough to do that.)
Ruth as Clawdeen Wolf.

We walked around with our neighbors. It is always nice to get to talk to other parents. I think everyone had a good time. Then, we came back and handed out candy too. Here is my honey eating handing out candy.

The best thing about Abbe and Eian's costumes this year is that they only required FOUR seams. Yes, only four. I have always let them decide what they want to be with no limitations. Then, we work together to figure out the best way to pull it off. They are already discussing next year's costumes.

Luke and Leia helping the Ewoks defeat......well somebody or other in Return of the Jedi (I think). Can you tell I am a big Star Wars fan? ;-)

I made a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I've made this cake for Halloween the past few years. It is really simple to do. I think I first saw it in Martha Stewart.

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On another note, homeschooling lately has been interesting. Ruth has not been motivated AT ALL. Part of her problem is that a lot of school work is easy for her. So then, when she actually has to THINK about or actually DO something she just shuts down and doesn't want to do it at all. I made an appointment with her counselor, who is great with her, for tomorrow. Hopefully that will give her the kick start she needs to get motivated again.

It is very aggravating to see your gifted child being lazy and not trying her hardest. Makes you start to doubt yourself as a mother and a person. Do I do this??? Is she just following my example????

COSI courtesy of Ruth's School

Ruth's online school had a COSI night. My kids love any excuse to go to COSI.

The school had a craft for them and gave them COSI dollars - which my kids spent in the gift shop since I never let them get anything. It costs too much to get something in there, we always end up getting something to eat afterward, and just going should be enough. Of course, I am a mean mommy - just ask my kids. Sigh, I am starting to sound like my mother! I always swore that I wouldn't but now I see she was right about most things.

Progress is Abbe's favorite section. She could spend forever in there. Hula hooping.

Four!

The phones in Progress are really fun. They have people recorded on there talking about stuff from that time period. And not always educational stuff - sometimes it is things like "my cows got out - have you seen them?" And you can call the other phones too.

Ruth made a couple of cool things in Gadgets.

A bridge:

All of the pieces turned:

They wanted to go to Ocean but you can get soaked in there and I didn't bring any extra clothes. Like I said, mean mommy! (Also, it was cold outside and we have to drive an hour home.)