"Londyn LaRae Says Okay" Book Review

"Londyn LaRae Says Okay" by Nicholeen Peck is too cute. And too perfect for my kids right now. Here's how it starts:

"Londyn LaRae can't say okay, but does everything else just fine.
Even when Londyn turned six years old, she still refused and whined.
The morning of Londyn's birthday Mom said, "Make your bed."
But Londyn didn't want to; she chose to play instead."



This is a story about something you probably don't struggle with AT ALL: a kid who won't obey and likes to play instead. Yep, I know ... isn't that EVERY kid? The story shows Londyn disobeying to go off and have her own fun and do what she wants and then it shows consequences (like she was supposed to cover picnic food and blew it off and birds ate all their food so they did not get to eat).

After several such situations, Londyn then goes to her friend's house and watches as her friend obeys her parents' request immediately and then is free to play (after receiving adoration from her dad). If we learn from others' mistakes, we certainly also learn from what they do right, and that is exactly what Londyn does in this book.

Her friend teaches her a 5-step process for "following instructions and saying okay", which Londyn then puts into practice. Afterwards we get to see how proud her family is of her and how good it makes her feel to get her task done right away and then be free to do what she wants.

The illustrations are cute and colorful and vibrant and fitting. The story is perfectly written. There's a note at the end from the author, Nicholeen Peck, about how to put it all into practice.

You can purchase this great book here (I'm an affiliate so I got the book free to review and I also get a little kickback, just to let you know).

My Husband: THE IMPREGNATOR

 Maybe you don't have a sick sense of humor like I do. Or maybe you DO, in which case WELCOME TO THE KERRIE SHOW ... you will be entertained.

Anyway, Aron was working on putting our shower pan back in and trying to make something stick to something else and finally got this stuff. When he showed it to me, I laughed until I cried then made him pose. This is a real product, folks.

My husband, The Impregnator, uses a product with the same name. Perfect. Who named this product, anyway? It is fitting, if you think about it, though. This stuff is like the superest SuperGlue ... if you use this your tile is stuck together forever. And if you get someone pregnant, you are stuck together forever. Hmmm.

AND ... happy birthday to Michael, who is 9 today. In case you don't know, Michael was Aron the Impregnator's second impregnation. I can feel my dad cringing from 40 miles away.

While Dad's cringing, I'm going to add this little tidbit: Ladies, you'd have 5 kids, too, if your man was this hot. Just sayin'.

A Million Bucks Don't Buy Much

You gotta love Facebook. Where else can you have debates with people in real time that all your other friends and acquaintances and colleagues and pretty much anyone else can see and comment on?

So recently I posted something about being not ashamed that I went to JuCo but that my education there wasn't really necessary for me to be a homeschooling mom or writer. I might have made the inflammatory statement that it was a waste of money. I'm not saying education is a waste ... I guess I was saying you never know with education if you'll need it or not and it costs so dang much and why do we push our kids to go to college at age 18 when they can barely wipe their butts let alone know what they want to do for the rest of their lives ... that's actually another blog post.

Someone weighed in that if their mom hadn't had a college education when their dad died, they would've been screwed. I countered with WHAT ABOUT LIFE INSURANCE?

Then someone told me I'm smoking crack if I think a million dollars in life insurance is going to take care of my kids and myself if Aron dies.

Now I'm not the best at math, folks, but I'm thinking if Aron dies, I won't have his cell phone bill, his truck payment (because I'll sell it if I have to), his truck insurance, his truck tags, his truck gas (it's a beast!), his grocery bill, his Clothes Horse bill (ha! ... he and I are not exactly fashionistas!), etc. And to replace his handyman skills around the house, I will have to call on my dad, his dad and his brothers.

Okay, so a million dollars put into a savings account I'm thinking would last til all 5 of my kids turn 18. I keep up the monthly house payment, utilities, insurance, groceries, expenses. I keep taking hand-me-down clothing, I shop cheap at garage sales and thrift stores and consignment stores. I don't need fancy crap. My mom gets us a membership to the zoo at Christmas every year, so there's our entertainment.

There's also the 401(k) and the IRAs, but who's counting? I suppose I'm blessed that I could keep up a writing career and bring in around $10,000 per year for whatever else we needed.

I'm really trying to figure out how a million dollars (or even half of that) would not be able to support us. I mean, a "normal" woman with no education and her kids in school would just work during the day, right? Maybe she'd only be making $25,000 per year, but on top of life insurance, wouldn't that take care of an awful lot of living expenses if she spent it wisely? We're talking about a woman who doesn't need designer clothes and purses and shoes and vacations. A woman who lives in a 1,500-square-foot house with a low house payment. A woman with a paid-off car. A woman who has kids who don't go to private school. You know, a woman who is SUFFERING (ha!).

So once again I realize my argument isn't the best (I write these posts with kids hanging on me, what do you want ... real journalism?). I'm curious to see where you stand. Do you know someone who had no life insurance but made it anyway?

Someone who had life insurance and struggled?

Someone with no education who made it big? (Steve Jobs, anyone?)

Now I'm getting all sad thinking about living without Aron, so I'm going to go love on him.

Racism & The Hunger Games (Call Me Swedish-American, Dammit)

I checked this out just for fun. I have to say I don't understand why people would take the time to get outraged about something so stupid (check out this). So some of the characters in the movie The Hunger Games were BLACK* ... so what? I don't remember the book ever saying what color anyone was, but maybe I missed that part. You'd think BLACK people would be glad that other BLACK people were included in the movie and were given parts and jobs, but nobody can just be freaking happy anymore.

Newsflash: in the future (where The Hunger Games is set), I bet there are BLACK people. What if the whole movie had been made with, say, Chinese people? Think of the outrage! I mean, you read a book and picture stuff a certain way and then they go and make some of the characters black! And if you read the book and thought all the characters were WHITE (like I did), maybe you are a racist (like I am not).

*I'm almost over figuring out how to be politically correct, folks. My black friends can call me WHITE (or honkey or cracker if they like) and I can call them BLACK and I can call my gay friends GAY yet I don't call my Latino friends BROWN or my Asian pals YELLOW so I'm at a loss. And if I have to call BLACK people African American, since apparently ALL black people originated there, then they'd better take the time to find out where I am originally from and call me SWEDISH-AMERICAN or something like that.

Taking Good Friday off so this is it til the weekend, peeps. Have at it.

The Pope Told Me to Have 5 Kids So I Obeyed

Subtitle: Natural Family Planning Fun at Age Forty

I realize some of you may be new to the blog and haven't quite found the time yet to check out my entire blog for the last 4 years (shame on you, and I'll wait while you print the whole thing out ...), so here is a post about something we are currently dealing with in our marital life. Thank the good Lord above my husband is a patient (long suffering) man and so won't mind me talking about our sex life. Dad, if you are here, you need to see yourself out please. This is not for your eyes.

Okay, I'm only writing this because most people I say "NFP" to do not have a clue what I'm talking about. And then when I say Natural Family Planning, they say, "Oh, like the Rhythm Method!" And I say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

NFP is a scientific method based on all sorts of cool stuff I'm not going to go into right now unless you beg me to in the comments section. Basically you use a chart based on a regular 28-day cycle ... like the first 7 days are reserved for a woman's period. The next 7 are often fertile. Then next 14 are hopefully "dry" and therefore you can get busy wit yo spouse.

Currently we use the don't-touch-me-at-all-until-I'm-on-Day-20-of-my-chart-thanks-hon method of NFP since we are trying to NOT get pregnant. Disclaimer: if it happens, we will be thrilled but we are trying to NOT make it happen right now.

It's funny when I talk to other moms my age in Catholic settings. This woman I went to high school with is my age and pregnant with her 7th. She said this one is a "Day 8 baby". I nodded and pointed at Samuel and said, "Day 9 baby." This means that you generally have a teeny infertile window between your period and your fertile time and if you have sex then you just might get pregnant. We NFP users know the odds and are happy with the result no matter what. It's not the Rhythm Method, like I said, but it's a bit of a crapshoot if you aren't checking your womanly signs during that time. Oh, and if you're taking medicines that dry up your nasal mucus for a cold or something OR antibiotics, that will mess with your signals.

As for title of this blog, the other day some dude made a crack about that and I was like, "Um, no, dude, the Pope does not tell me how many kids to have. We WANT a bunch of kids and always did and we enjoy using NFP because it's free and natural and doesn't mess with my body and all that."

So for those of you who think the Pope tells all us Catholics how many kids to have, let me tell you that the majority of Catholics DO use artificial birth control or have been sterilized. (check this out) We are the freaky minority Catholics who use NFP, and NOT because some guy in Italy told us to. How ridiculous!