http://www.record-eagle.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_320080205.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_320080205.html I spend a good portion of the holiday season (and ready or not, we're in it now!) trying to avoid crowds. Although it seems a contradiction, I eagerly anticipate Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and everything in between for most of the year. Just not the crowds. Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:00:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_292070140.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_292070140.html Last night my husband offered to get the boys ready for bed and tuck them in last night so I could have a break. He did this out of the kindness of his heart. Or maybe he did it because I had crazy eyes when I begged him to do it. Who knows? The fact remains that he did it. And as I sat on the couch snuggled up in my favorite blanket I heard snippets of my husband's bedtime conversation technique drifting down from overhead ... Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:10:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_264071119.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_264071119.html This is a great time of year to consider delicious dinner building blocks that save time and money. With just a little forethought, it is possible to have homemade dinners on the table whether you're eating around races with your kids, meetings, studies, work, after-school or community activities. Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:15:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_236071653.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_236071653.html 'What's the big deal about poison ivy? Except for when folks get a secondary infection from it and have to take medicine, I don't understand why they dwell on it so much. Why can't they buck up and deal with it? It's just a little itch." That's what I thought until last week when, for the first time in my life, I experienced my own poison ivy reaction. Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:06:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_208080713.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_208080713.html All of my boys are unique individuals. Ty, my third born, is undoubtedly my quietest child. Ty behaves like an angel in public. He eats politely at restaurants and doesn't wiggle in his seat. He is slightly built, blonde-haired, porcelain-skinned, blue-eyed and soft-spoken; and he's totally, 100 percent wacky. You see, his quiet presence is really just a ruse. Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:50:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_180065019.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_180065019.html Three of our beautiful egg-laying chickens were stolen from our coop by some nefarious wildlife type critter within 24 hours. So while my husband and I went to work shoring up the defenses of our chicken coop, our five sons launched a large-scale paramilitary operation on our backwoods 20 acres. Upon discovering that the third hen had been stolen, the boys descended into a huddle. With occasional furtive glances toward the coop, they spent a solid five minutes whispering, planning and gesticulating wildly. Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:55:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_152065619.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_152065619.html My sister suggested two weeks ago that my saying of the year should be, "It's not working right now." After a winter full of near constant catastrophic vehicle problems, a broken washing machine, a broken water heater, a case of identity (and actual) theft, a dead chicken, and a few other inconveniences -- both large and small -- it would appear that my conversations have been peppered with, "Well, I'd love to ____ but my ____ isn't working right now." Mon, 04 May 2009 06:55:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_124065519.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_124065519.html Our first mistake was probably agreeing to the "complimentary in-home, no-obligation water test." Frustrated by years of various and sundry water-related complaints, we uncharacteristically agreed to let a "water technician" (read: tenacious salesman) come into our house and test our water. Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_096065620.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_096065620.html Right now three of my five children are walking around with one or more teeth that appear to be ready to leap from their rightful places in their mouths. Every time I look at those teeth quivering in the breeze, it leaves me with tingly knees and a fuzzy brain and the children with the certain knowledge that until those teeth fall out they have a weapon of monstrous power at their disposal. They give me the heebie-jeebies. Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_068100045.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_068100045.html Following hot on the heels of birthday season for us (October-January) is my annual hair-shirt penitent moment. It is the same thing year after year and you would think I'd learn my lesson. Every single year, I schedule all the kids' appointments to happen at the same time in the name of multitasking. Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_040095521.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_040095521.html I've heard it said that to be a good conversationalist you should listen 80 percent of the time and only talk 20 percent of the time. If that is true then I am the best conversationalist in the whole world courtesy of my children. The only time one of those boys isn't talking is when they're sick. I mean really sick. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_012094100.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_012094100.html Because we live in the middle of nowhere I can only make it to the grocery store once a week in good weather and every other week in bad weather. I always tell my husband that I'd be able to grocery shop more efficiently and spend less money if I could go shopping without taking all five of my boys with me. This was my story and I was sticking to it. Until last week. Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_350093519.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_350093519.html I don't try to eavesdrop on my children but I can't always help it. I'd have to lose all my hearing to give them the privacy that they want. They are, simply put, loud. Just last week I was in the kitchen and heard the following exchange from the boys who were in the dining room. Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_322095125.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_322095125.html Last spring marked our first foray into the area of "keeping" animals. We have had a dog or two, a cat and a few various and sundry fish but that had always been enough. We decided to follow the example of a few friends and ordered day-old chicks from a reputable hatchery and combined orders with those friends to save on shipping. Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:00:55 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_308094313.html http://www.record-eagle.com/rebeccalindamood/local_story_308094313.html Every single time I think I might be getting a handle on how little boys think, they go and prove that I'll never figure them out. I could fill every column that I write with the ridiculous things I say and do in my attempts to be a competent parent. It's much more valuable, in the interest of later blackmail material, to have a chronicle of the silly things my children do in the course of simply living.