I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned while B was gone. My house is so tidy and organized that it’s hard to believe *I* did it. I am now and always have been the notoriously messy person, and I hate cleaning. But this weekend I just got into the groove and cleaned. I cleaned under beds, in corners, in closets. I washed mirrors, windows, and doors. I organized into individual Rubbermaid containers CDs, wires, decorations, arts and crafts. I even organized things like nails and screws and nuts and bolts.

I love my rubbermaid containers. I have containers with:

That’s 38 - and I can think of a couple more that I still want to have (bathroom stuff, mostly)!

I’m almost ready to cross off “organize my life” on my list…almost! In the meantime, though, it’s nice having so little to do around the house. There are still a few things I need to do, like scrub down the floors in the bathrooms and kitchen, the bathtub, and the walls, but that’s stuff that needs to be done periodically anyways, so no need worrying about it getting done right now.

Making a list of things to do…I might as well use the kick I’m on while I still can…:)

I have heard all day about the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 10 commandments in courthouses and in state capitols. And there was a thread on a messageboard I participate in on the topic as well. My words would be completely wasted there, as people get so wrapped up in their own world that they won’t hear what anyone who disagrees with them says. So I’ll say it here on my blog, where I can post what I want, and people can read it or not read it if they want.

I consider myself a Unitarian Universalist. I was raised Lutheran and started questioning it when I was going through confirmation, but kept it to myself until I was an adult. Then I just got out of religion altogether until I discovered UU, and even now attending church isn’t a priority.

My best friend throughout my childhood was a devout Pentacostal for many years. Talk about polar opposites. For a few years we weren’t that close due to our religious differences, but when we became adults, we were able to talk openly and be tolerant and accepting of each other’s viewpoints. I gained so much respect for her when we were able to agree to disagree and still be close friends. My point in saying this is that I do not mind other people being of a different religion than I am.

I do, however, mind when religion starts moving into private arenas - more like when it starts moving into anywhere that isn’t a church.

I know that it isn’t the case of all Christians, but it seems that most Christians think that those of us who don’t want religion in public arenas are somehow stifling their right to practice religion. Not only that, they don’t understand WHY we don’t want it outside of private practice - that their practicing of religion doesn’t infringe on our right not to. And no matter what you say about it, they will not understand how it is to be a non-Christian at a school where the football game doesn’t start until a prayer is said. They don’t understand how it is to be a non-Christian and have the words “one nation, under God” as part of the pledge of allegiance. In case you’re not familiar with the history of the Pledge, it originally did NOT say “under God,” those words were added in the 1950s during the McCarthy era.

One thing that turned my view the most sour was boot camp graduation: Our recruit division commanders (RDCs) were running us through graduation rehearsal. At the beginning and ending of EVERY military ceremony - every one in the last 8 years I’ve been in the Navy - there is an invocation at the beginning and a benediction at the end. It starts with “Let us pray,” followed by a uniform bowing of the heads in prayers. I remember our RDCs telling us that we MUST bow our heads - that we had no choice - that if we did not, we would not graduate from boot camp.

I think that moment was the turning point for me…the point at which I was vehemently against organized prayer in any public arena. To be told that it was mandatory for me to bow my head in prayer…it was appalling. Fortunately, I graduated (with my head bowed, of course) but ever since that day I have never bowed my head in prayer.

For all of us who are not Christians, we should not be forced to participate in such an activity. We should not be expected to follow along in prayer. We should not have to listen to prayer at the beginning of a government ceremony! It’s a matter of our private lives, not of a public place.

No schools, no stadiums, no government sanctioned ceremonies. Save it for your church, your home, your car. Just not public turf.

I’m starting to get a wee bit upset that I didn’t go along to Alaska. OK, not really, but I can’t believe how great this trip is going for B!!

Today was his fly out. His pilot was also his fishing guide. I’m glad that he brought both the camcorder as well as my 10D (yes, I trusted him to take my 3rd child with him without its mamma). He said they couldn’t get a place to land but finally the pilot just banked and dove down, landing on one ski (it was a seaplane). Can you imagine?! He asked the pilot if he always lands like that, and he said not usually. Ha ha.

He went fishing for sockeyes, which he was really excited about. He’s never fished for (so then obviously never caught) a sockeye and wasn’t sure how it’d go. But he caught his limit - 3 fish, all an average size of about 5lbs. It’s funny, because I’m sure that’s a decent sized fish, but after his 38lb fish last summer, and now a 171lb fish yesterday and more than likely a very large (50lb?) fish in the coming days, 5lbs seems like nothing!

We are going to be eating fish out of the wazoo.

The coolest part is that he said he was fishing right there with the bears. Like WITH THE BEARS. Like reach out and touch a bear kind of right there. I said how close? Thinking directly across the river on the other bank? Noooo. We’re talking 5-10 FEET away!!!! Holy carp! What the halibut are you thinking, B?? He said that at one point they were a little too close for comfort and they had to bang on the boat to make some noise to scare the bears away. Zoikies.

He called me at bedtime tonight to tell me he isn’t coming home. I am starting to worry that he really might not! I don’t think I would! LOL

I cannot wait to see the pictures and videos!!!

I finished cleaning the magic room today. As I explained in my last post, the “magic room” is the room where stuff goes in, never to be seen again. It started out as our last room to unpack and turned into the if-we-don’t-have-anywhere-else-for-it-put-it-in-there room.

I worked a whole bunch yesterday and started in again first thing this morning. And IT IS DONE. The Siglets are so excited and keep going in there: “Mamma, it is PERFECT!” I found some interesting missing items and got rid of all that stuff that you really should throw away but you don’t really want to so it sits there until you have the guts to chuck it.

And chuck I did. Boxes, bags, more boxes, more bags, more bags, more boxes, boxes, boxes, bags, bags. Additionally, I gave away 3 bags of toys, a box full of toys, a box full of infant clothes, an old rug, a stack of books (pending pickup from my Freecycle group), and some stuff to Niki. I uncovered several Rubbermaid containers that were perfect for organizing things like my non-scrapbook craft stuff, tool-type things and holiday stuff. Once I cleaned the boxes from under the bed (empty boxes we were holding onto for moving our paintings; however, when we move the movers will package them up in their own boxes so no sense in keeping them), the Rubbermaid containers fit under there perfectly. It also freed up space where I put B’s toolboxes/drill/etc. that had been sitting in our bedroom waiting for someone to stub a toe on.

The pictures are worth a thousand words…but the rollovers help explain:

Are you ready for the afters?

I am tired! I woke up this morning and we left quite early to go do some shopping. My first stop was Circuit City where I bought a wireless router (yaaaaaaay!!) and an external hard drive (200 gigabytes!!) with some of the money from my birthday. I then headed over to WalMart to buy some organizing stuff for my scrapbooking stuff, and then stopped at the grocery store to rent a movie for the kids.

I got home and it took me 2 1/2 hours to hook up the wireless correctly. Strange, because I’m pretty decent with personal-use tech stuff, and I’ve been on wireless networks before with no problems. I tried setting it up with 128 bit encryption but every time I tried doing that it wouldn’t work, so for now I’m settling with an unsecured network until I can call the support center and have them help me with it.

Once that was all figured out, I set up my hard drive and copied everything over to there. My house is littered with plastic wrap, boxes, styrofoam, cables, and irritating twist ties from the cords. I’ve been doing ten things at once all day and so my already poor housekeeping skills have been even worse than usual.

However, I did work in the “magic room” - you know, the room where stuff goes to never be seen again? When we moved in, we put the kids in one bedroom together and had the third room as the “guest room”, and set up the bed and then when we had boxes of miscellaneous stuff that didn’t really have a home, it went in there. Plus, all my scrapbooking stuff is in there, as is B’s fly fishing stuff, and my photography stuff, and the old computer. I’ll let your imagination wander about how bad the room is.

Since we’re moving at the end of the year, I wanted to get the room organized now instead of waiting til the last minute. So that’s my project while B is away in Alaska. I did a LOT today, though it looks worse than it did before it’s actually moving toward being done hopefully by tomorrow.

Speaking of B in Alaska…my phone rang today - we both have the same ring on each other’s phones that only rings for us - it was him! I was so excited that he was calling; I didn’t think he’d have a signal. Granted, the signal was bad, but I was able to have a quick conversation before he was whisked away to dinner with some of the guys at the lodge with him. He said that he decided to go halibut fishing today, which kind of annoyed me because I didn’t think he’d want that so I didn’t book it for him ahead of time. I am glad he went, I just wanted to have everything planned and perfect before he got there. Anyway, he had a good time and caught a fish. A big fish. A very big fish. According to an Alaskan fishing website, the average size of halibut is “about 20 to 40 lbs., however it is not unusual to catch fish approaching 100 lbs”. His was — drumroll, please —

171.2lbs!!!!!

Holy carp!

He said they had to harpoon it to get it in, but that didn’t work, so they had to shoot it!!! Wow!!! I am so excited for him. And this is just his first day of fishing!! He said that he was talking to a couple of the guys who did a fly out (I booked him a fly out where they’ll take him on a little plane to a remote area with just the pilot who doubles as his fishing guide). They said that it was incredible, that as they were fishing, they were watching bears and their cubs hunting in the same river. OMG. I can’t believe I didn’t go, too.

And to the Q-tips…my best friend from high school called tonight. She’s coming to visit next month with her new baby. I’ve never seen her new baby; I found out she had her when we pulled into Hawaii for the 3rd time when I was on the Lincoln. The news caught me off guard - I didn’t realize she was due to have the baby by then - and when I found out, I just started crying. Apparently, I was crying so much that I heard her name incorrectly! :O All this time, I thought her name was “Karina”…a fine enough name, though I thought it a bit odd that she’d give her baby that name because there was a girl in our class with the same name and she doesn’t like to give her kids names that she associates with the wrong person. But who was I to say anything, maybe she didn’t mind her as much as I thought she did…

Tonight I came to find out that her name is NOT, in fact, Karina. It is SARENA. Rhymes with Karina, but most definitely NOT Karina. I felt quite the fool.

Well, I’m off to go do some more work in the “magic room” - I took some pictures with my 0.8 megapixel antique digital camera and I will hopefully post them when I’m done.

OK, so I know it’s good night, but it’s not nighttime yet.

I just got back from dropping off B at the airport for his Father’s Day trip to Alaska! I don’t know who is more excited. He keeps a poker face about everything but I can tell he’s excited because he has been soooo antsy the last few nights.

I can’t wait to see the pictures he comes back with and to hang the Big One on the wall! I don’t even like fish, but if catches a 70+ pound fish (I told him that’s the minimum size for it), he can get it stuffed and mounted to hang in our home.

He has to beat his current record: the 37lb salmon he caught in 2003:

Here’s to no kids and big fish!

I just got Isak’s kindergarten progress report. My favorite is the 2nd to last page where they ask the kids to write things in the pictures.

Goat: G-O-T
Lamb: L-A-M
Bunny: B-U-N-E
Money: M-U-N-E
Fox: F-O-S

He did spell “lid”, “dog”, “cup”, and “sad” right, ut the rest just made me giggle. I’m still trying to figure out how he got “F-U-I-H” for “fish”.

He only missed one day of school this year, and that was to fly to Wisconsin for Christmas. All of his grades were Satisfactory with an Outstanding in “Produces neat work,” “shows interest in reading,” and “colors with control.”

And the comments from all of the grading period makes me smile:

1st semester:

Isak is a sweet and kind child. He has many friends due to his kind nature.

Isak is showing good growth in the basic skills. He takes pride in working neatly and accurately. Isak still struggles with always following directions. If things don’t go his way he will refuse to do any work and then as a consequence loses all his free time.”

2nd semester…would be important to note that this was during the period I was on the ship and he had a hard time in school with me being gone:

Isak has been working very hard in all areas this grading period. I really appreciate the way he puts great effort in every task, and turns in high quality work. He is making good progress in all areas, including reading, math and writing.

Isak has occasional days where he has difficulty following directionms and completing his work. He has a very determined nature and when he decides he won’t work, there doesn’t seem to be anything that will change his mind. These periods seem to be decreasing so we won’t do anything at this time.

His last semester:

Isak has made great progress in all academic areas this grading period. His effort and cooperation has greatly improved in the last couple of months, which has helped him improve his abilities. It has been a pleasure to have Isak in class this year.