Our Blog Has A New Address......

Go to http://www.lifewiththecassells.blogspot.com/ to keep up with us.

A most unproductive day. School, no. Cleaning, no. Laundry, no. Menu planning, no. Anything of use, NO. Why? I don't know. Nor do I know why my typing is lining up like this.

Sometimes life's lessons are hard. Sometimes they aren't hard enough. But perhaps one doesn't need to hit rock bottom in order to learn a lesson. Perhaps one does. I do know that the current situation that Jordon has found himself to be in, will without a doubt, be an eye opener. He has been redirected from his high school to another school, The Opportunity School. I can only imagine that it is named that as to imply 'this may be your last opportunity.' In my mind, its a blessing straight from God Himself. Jordon doesn't, won't, and at this point can't see it as that. He has been taken from a high school of 100s to a school of only 30. Seems ideal to me. His education for the remainder of the school year will be computer based, self paced and under constant supervision. There is a teacher and assistant for these 30 students. And for a child that likes to go to the bathroom as an excuse to get out of most situations, he wont be going to even the bathroom without an escort. He will attend this school Monday through Friday from 9am until 4pm. There is little to no socializing at this school. Outside of school, he has had little time hanging out at malls, roaming the streets, etc. Now he will have even less. We have even taken his phone. Perhaps a little harsh??? I consider it a small price to pay for a 14 year old who has admittedly said that if he would just keep his mouth shut, he would never get in trouble. Yes, it could be worse. He could be doing lots of completely undesirable things, and although he has entertained a few things, he hasn't committed to them nor do we want him to.

This guy is so smart but wont apply himself. He would rather cruise than soar. God has gifted him with intelligence and an athletic ability some only dream of. His heart is football. I believe that God wants to give him the desire of his heart where football is concerned, but Jordon must first give God his heart, all of it, not just a part of it when he needs something. I pray that this is just the beginning of God working in Jordon's life so that he can do just that. This will be a most humbling season for Jordon. Not only will he be at this small school with little to no freedom, he has no cell phone, and will have to go to summer school as well. I'm believing that God will move in a mighty way over this next month in Jordon's life.

What a difference a coat of paint can make. Still not done, but definitely a step in the right direction. We still need to get the crown and baseboard up, as well as paint the doors. (This is the same room, we just rearranged the furniture).

Today has looked nothing AT ALL like yesterday. We got up early and got Bible and math done before leaving for Bible study. We came home, had lunch and that's about it. I am now heading to the kitchen to get dinner started before Jeff leaves for praise and worship practice at 7:30pm.

Today was most productive. Good day of schoolwork. Good day of working in the basement. Good evening of working on lesson plans.

Tomorrow, we will rise and shine a little earlier than we have all week. On Thursdays, I have Bible study while Harrison has sign language, Spanish and art classes. It will be Mack's first day of classes and he will be doing a Fit and Fun class as well as Spanish. He will have the last hour with me working on some schoolwork and that way when we get home our school day will be done. I especially enjoy Thursdays as it requires little from me and gives me time with other homeschooling moms while the boys have classes. Something for all of us.

Our afternoon is pretty much open until bedtime. Perhaps a little more work in the basement. I need to work on the menu and grocery list as well. Grey's Anatomy is on at 9pm so I will be front and center to the JVC. With Addison on this episode, it will surely be a good one.

Well, I'm determined to be in bed at 10pm to read tonight, so I must get a move on. Good night.

A Lot of Basement Organizing

Before.....

.....After

My goodness, we worked ourselves hard down in the dungeon, I mean basement this afternoon. Maybe about 2 hours. We got a great start on just getting things organized in a sensible way, but there is definitely much to go through. With that said, here are a couple before shots as well as after. And this is just the carpeted room. There is another room a little larger and it is in worse shape than this one before we started. I know, its so not a good thing to have this much stuff. Perhaps all this organizing will help me do that garage sale I keep talking about. There is plenty to sell, that is for sure.

I have decided to participate in This and it is with great horror that I will attempt to organize the basement. As I have not had the nerve to go down there to take "before" pictures, I promise to do so. Although, I may not post them until the organizing is done and that way people are more impressed at the end result versus disgusted with the beginning. Some talk about a table or nightstand being a catch all. Well, our basement is the "hold all". And with the job at hand, I hope to be the "randomly picked entry" that wins the prize.

This is NOT MY story!!!

Do not try this at home!

One Woman's Tale of Woe - All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal - The epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now...the wax. My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: "Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet." So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those "cold wax" kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ("Cold wax," yeah...right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire. With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my who-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek. (Yes, it was a long strip) I inhale deeply and brace myself.........RRRRIIIPPP!!!! I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!.... OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!! Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP!!! Another deep breath and RRIIPP!! Everything is swirly and spotted. I think I may pass out...........must stay conscious...Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip! There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX??? Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip. I touch. I am touching wax. CRAP! I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake.......remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down. DANG!!!!!!!! I hear the slamming of a cell door. Who-Ha? Sealed shut! Butt?? Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself "Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!" What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? *WRONG!!!!!!!* I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax. So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cement-epoxied myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter - "So, my butt and who-ha are glue together to the bottom of the tub!" There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, "Are we talking cheeks or hole or who-ha?" She's laughing out loud by now.....I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night. While we go through various solutions. I resort to scraping the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better then to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event. My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care. "IT WORKS!! It works !!" I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair....THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. Next week I'm going to try hair colour......

Warning for Women!!!

You've heard about people who have been abducted and had their kidneys removed by black-market organ thieves. My thighs were stolen from me during the night a few years ago. I went to sleep and woke up with someone else's thighs. It was just that quick. The replacements had the texture of cooked oatmeal. Whose thighs were these and what happened to mine? I spent the entire summer looking for my thighs. Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans. And then the thieves struck again. My butt was next. I knew it was the same gang, because they took pains to match my new rear-end to the thighs they had stuck me with earlier. But my new butt was attached at least three inches lower than my original! I realized I'd have to give up my jeans in favor of long skirts. Two years ago I realized my arms had been switched. One morning I was fixing my hair and was horrified to see the flesh of my upper arm swing to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush. This was really getting scary - my body was being replaced one section at a time. What could they do to me next?When my poor neck suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a turkey neck,I decided to tell my story. Women of the world wake up and smell the coffee! Those 'plastic' surgeons are using REAL replacement body parts-stolen from you and me! The next time someone you know has something 'lifted', look again - was it lifted from you? THIS IS NOT A HOAX. This is happening to women everywhere, every night. Please......WARN YOUR FRIENDS!

P.S. Last year I thought some one had stolen my Boobs. I was lying in bed and they were gone! But when I jumped out of bed, I was relieved to see that they had just been hiding in my armpits as I slept. Now I keep them hidden in my waistband.

Today has been slightly challenging. All five of us are home and it seemed to make things difficult when it came to school. I gave the boys until 9:30 to get breakfast which, according to my schedule, is about a good hour after we should be starting school, and called them to the table to get the all too predictable, "I'm hungry." Too bad was all I could think of. Well, it worked for a while. Until Jeff made his breakfast and joined us at the table with scrambled eggs and a leftover pork chop warmed up to tempt the children. And then came Jordon with his toast. Harrison was the one that ate breakfast, Mack did not. We let him have crackers as it required no preparation away from the table - a small price to pay for having played a little longer with Legos instead of eating breakfast. As our morning progressed, Jeff was removing hardware from doors to paint them which required a power drill and his phone rang a few times. Jordon was in and out for various reasons. Just a few distractions. We finally wrapped up around 1pm and then. Boredom. Set. In. "I'm bored." " Can I watch cartoons?" "Can I get on the computer?" "There is nothing to do." "Play outside, why its too cold." It was rather unseasonably cool this morning, but it was not cold. At one point, I went out on the deck to sit in the sun to warm up myself, and perhaps to have a little time alone. But I was not successful AT ALL. First was one son. Then two. Both of whom wanted to be on me, which I actually was more than happy to do. So, three of us sat on the deck in the sun in one chair. They pretty much just piled on. All was good, and then that got old and they disappeared. Later, I made another attempt to warm in the sun, and well, pretty much the same thing. Mack joined but claimed his seat on a small side table. Jordon pulled up his own chair. And then, there were three dogs. The only bad part about that was that the heaviest one (Lily) wanted to be in my lap. (More difficult than 2 kids).

I am now waiting on pork chops to thaw so that they can get on the grill and I can get the rest of dinner done. Hopefully, we will be sitting down by 7pm. Children will shower and be in bed come heck or high water by 9pm, Jordon 10pm. In fact, I might try to get them in their rooms about 30 minutes prior to that so they can wind down.

As for our evening, I don't have anything planned. I usually attend a Bible study on Tuesdays but I just don't want to leave the house. Never mind I don't even know where it is this week as I wasn't there last week. I've got several books started, a menu to make as well as the grocery list and laundry to finish up. There is no lack for something to do for sure.

We had a great first day for our official 'homeschooling two boys'. Mack had been sick last Wednesday and Thursday and was rather depressed at the thought of returning to school on Friday. He literally sat around most of the afternoon looking off in the distance at nothing, very quiet and withdrawn. He has been asking for several weeks to come back home but with it being so close to the end of the year, we wanted him to finish the year. But with the onset of depression, we had to reconsider. And once we told him, he has been like a bouncy ball just bouncing all over the place, happy and giggly, and talking nonstop. I was working on school stuff Friday night in my room and he came in and looked at me and said that he couldn't wait to see me Monday. I said 'why, b/c you will be with me all day' to which he replied yes and took off running to the other end of the house. He has had to deal with a lot of teasing and bullying more and more throughout the year. After the last incident, the child bullying him was suspended. We noticed over Christmas break a change in him after he hadn't been at school for so long upon returning for only 2 days, the angry child returned. The same with Spring break. I truly believe that this was the best decision for us even at this late time in the school year. We were slowly losing him and not liking the person that he was starting to become. He is our sensitive child, perhaps a little too sensitive at times, and he just couldn't rise above what he was dealing with at school. Some kids can handle it well and not be bothered by it, but Mack just couldn't therefore, we had to make the decision based on that and not on where we were in the school year.

Homeschooling is definitely not for everybody. I have learned valuable lessons over the several years that we have done it. Sometimes, people start and stop and then restart. I have known people that have done this multiple times. My downfall last fall when we put the boys in school was that I didn't have a support system and we weren't involved in much that our local homeschool group offers. This fall, when Harrison started asking weekly and then multiple times a week to come back home, I knew that it would have to be done differently this time. That I needed more than just the support of a loving husband and that of a couple of homeschool mom's that I knew. I needed to be involved in as much as my kids needed to be involved. So far this year, we have participated in a PE class at the YMCA, skate day which is once a month, and I started a Bible study that put Harrison in classes with other homeschoolers as well. He is taking art, Spanish, and sign language. When Mack starts this week, he will take a fitness class as well as Spanish. I have also organized 2 used curriculum sales and I am currently working on organizing a Mother's Night Out with other homeschool moms. At the end of May, we will be taking a train trip from Kannapolis to Raleigh and tour several museums and the capital building. I have made so many friends this year that I am able to see God's hand at work in so many areas and that is such a blessing. It was definitely one of my prayer requests when we were just praying about pulling Harrison out. I had to have other homeschooling mom's in my life in a more personal way. God so answered that prayer and for that I am thankful.

Yes, there are good days and there are bad days as with anything. But fortunately, there are more good days and rarely bad days. I am the type of person that feels successful based on what I have done in a day. When it all gets done, its a great day, especially when its done in a timely matter and not dragged out for hours. It is when I can get in a good days work of school with the boy, now boys, and still maintain the order in the house that I feel successful.

Have you ever left out of the house and felt like you had forgotten something and you just couldn't shake the feeling? Kind of the same feeling as when you are trying to remember a word and you have to run through the entire alphabet trying to remember exactly what word it was - its on the tip of your tongue? Well, I have been walking around like that for 3.5 years although I knew what was missing and felt like there was nothing I could do about it and that it would never change.

Well, great things have happened over the last couple of weeks. I came home from Bible study almost 2 weeks ago and was surprised with an email and was totally caught off guard. I sat at this computer for what seemed like years just looking, checking and re-evaluating what was in front of me b/c it just seemed too good to be true. I must have laid in bed for hours before I could sleep and unfortunately, Jeff was already asleep so I had nobody to talk to about this. Talk about wanting to bust.

There were a few more emails before we got to speak over the phone. I was sent an email with a link to years of pictures which as enjoyable as it was to look at, it was hard on my heart knowing that so many years had passed us by. I was a little nervous, but I made the call. I'm thankful for that.

But more importantly, I thank God for restoring this relationship. We were able to visit yesterday and it was GREAT, albeit short. It is great to be able to pick up and call the person that you have spent so many years growing up with. (We met in 9th grade and despite a few valleys, have been friends for 24 years. That in itself is a blessing.) Simply put, it feels good to just hear her voice.

All Hail Broke Loose!!

This is what happened right before we sat down to eat dinner. As the daughter of a meteorologist, I can say that I don't think that I have ever experienced such a thing as I surely would remember the lesson he would've taught me if this had happened in the past. Talk about noisy!!!

Fresh Flowers for Mommy!

I got flowers yesterday - Harrison has always done this for me since he was very little. Somehow, he just knows. And even though they are off the Azalea bush out front, its the thought that counts. He is always thinking of me.