My First YouTube Video!

Hello dear friends! Today I just posted my very first YouTube video. I have long been a Stargate fan and am a huge fan of Stargate Universe. My favorite character is Doctor Nickolas Rush. I posted this video on YouTube today, but unfortunately it was only afterwards did I learn that I could not use the sound track I designed it around, so if you see it there I left instructions on how to download the soundtrack to go with it. But hopefully it should run here just fine. Here it is, I've put the storey line down below, you may want to read it first. Thanks. Nicole

Doctor Rush has an endless amount of "good advice" for Chloe on any given day aboard the Destiny. Rush has deep feelings for her, but has difficulty expressing them. So instead he advises her to stay away from Lt. Scott, telling her that he knows what is best for her and that Scott is not right for her.


Chloe has no idea about how Rush feels for her so she takes his criticism as hurtful and resents him for it. Chloe seems very meek towards Rush in the beginning, but inside she just wants to scream at him.

Meanwhile the whole ship has to put up with Rushes "King" like behavior as he lets them all know once again that he is their best hope for a return ticket home.

The pressure she has been feeling from Doctor Rush lately, has been causing Chloe to have nightmares that she is drowning. She is beginning to get fed up with Rush and his "good advice" and the way he is trying to control her. She begins to realize that it is not herself who is "lost" it is Rush, and that no matter how many plans he has for her and the way she should live her life, he is not in charge of her and never will be.

So Chloe begins to see Lt. Scott behind Rushes back. When he finds out through the ships surveillance systems, he is crushed. He feels he is loosing her.

Later jealousy drives Rush to convince Chloe's father to sacrifice himself to save the ship. Rush is the one to seal the door at the push of a button from the control room. Chloe finds out about this plot and is too late to save her father.

Afterwards Rush deeply regrets what he has done after seeing the pain it has caused Chloe. He goes to apologize to her, and tell her of his part in it, but she has already found out and is out to teach Rush a lesson.

After pulling off a really convincing prank on Rush and scaring him out of his mind. The whole ship is now laughing at Rush behind his back he is now the "King of Fools".

Rush realized that he has now lost Chloe forever and this saddens him a great deal. He has played the game and lost to Lt. Scott. But now that Chloe finally has what she wants with out Rushes interference, she begins to realize that it is not what she thought and that Rush was really who she wanted all along. So she goes to surprises him one day and confess her love for him.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OR ANYTHING INTENDED

A Day in the Life of a Home Schooler

We stared home school again this week. My younger son Ty still attends public school, but is home with us this week due to the chickenpox. It's been kind of challenging staring Korbin's first week of home school with his brother here. I asked Ty's teacher to send home missed work so that it would give him something to do for school time as well, it worked out real nicely today. I often wondered if I could school the both of them at the same time, which is why we currently only home school one, but today I was able to divide my time between them and get a good amount accomplished.


With home schooling, especially with multiple children, you have to be a good multi tasker. For anyone who has ever been interested in the possibility of home schooling their child, this might help a little to see how a day in the life of a home schooler goes.

This morning I started Korbin off with his Scantron test ( a test taken online at the beginning and the end of the school year to measure you child's progress and determine their strengths and weaknesses in math and reading.) While Korbin worked on that, I took Ty in the kitchen and tried something new I just learned. We held math class at the kitchen table and used the sliding glass door there as a black board. Using dry erase markers we learned about number families and did a work sheet. After that it was time for a "get to know your teacher" conference online for Korbin to attend. I logged him into a program called Elluminate were his new teacher and about 30 other of her students could all listen as she introduced her self, played games, and told her a little about them selves. Now normally when they log in with a teacher the are in much smaller groups of about 4 kids or less, but today was a big get to know you meeting. So while Korbin was busy with that, Tyler and I did his study words in alphabetical and backwards order on the back door with markers.

After a 15min break, they both attended science class and learned about ecosystems, biomes and climate as I read the lesson from the computer screen, then they watch for about 20 min a series of of kid friendly videos on the subject right from the computer. After their big break for the day, 1 hour, we continued with History and learned the names of the wolds 7 continents and 4 oceans. We also learned about maps, their keys and how to read them. They each had a laminated state and world map that they each doodled on during the lesson. I would ask them to circle Europe or number 1-7 the continents and label a-d the oceans. For fun they started dividing up the world into their conquered territories and drawing their base camps and cities on the parts of the world that they owned. We have this great world map, that I bought from a local fabric outlet for $2, we use it every day. It's made of fabric and is just as accurate as those large expensive school maps you can buy from an educational store. We keep it pinned up on the wall in front of our work table and is great because at any time I can have them find the countries, continents, hemispheres, biomes, etc.

In between all this, mind you I still had to feed the bird every half hour, let our 3 dogs out to go, and keep tabs on our business. On busy school days like this, my sister Stacey mostly runs things downstairs in our shop. She'll let me know if we got any convos, or messages, that require both of us to discuss something and make a decision. For example we are hoping to start advertising our business on several other blogs through the holiday season and so we need to come up with a button design to be posted on their site. Stacey will work up a few button designs, then run them buy me on a break, I'll ask her to tweak them a little and then she'll get back to me, she's so great. If there's an email that needs to go out, but she wants to run by me first, she can send it to me, I'll read it while the kids are working, edit it, then email it out to whomever it was meant for.

I think we have a pretty good system, and we work very well together. I'm looking forward to this year, growing our business and making progress every day with home school until I get it down to a science.
There's always allot going on here in a full house, but some how it always seems to come together.

Thanks for reading,

Nicole

Baby Bird Update Day 3

Our little wild bird, affectionately named Squeaky by our kids, is thriving and doing well.  He makes allot of  little squeaks and chirps, through out the day, and when you open his cage door to feed him he sings, it's so cute.

He has become quite the little escape artist. He has been hopping around his cage flapping is wings yesterday and today. When we open the lid to feed him he some times jumps out. Yesterday I was in the living room and could hear his normal chirping for food, when my sister went into the kitchen she saw Squeaky standing on top of his cage chirping away waiting to be fed.

We've been taking him out every evening to see if he's ready to fly away yet. We set his cage on the ground and take the lid off and wait. Yesterday he hopped on his nest, then onto the cage rim, then onto my shoe and looked at me, then he hopped onto my leg and sat there for a second. I though this was so cute until he crapped on my leg, then hopped away across the porch. I guess that's the thanks I get for around the clock care over the past 3 days, lol.

Mostly when he's outside he likes to hop around the yard and explore or let us hold him in our hands. The boys were so excited when they hold him in their hands, they never though they would ever be able to do that with a wild bird. I took lots of photos of this experience because I hope it's one they will have fond memories of when they are older.

Thanks for reading,

Nicole

Caring for a Baby Bird Day 2 Update

I wanted to post an update to the Weekend of Nature and Babies post I did earlier this week. If you read it then you know we are now caring for a stranded baby bird. He is starting to grow on me I think. I never was a bird person, I know friends who own birds as pets.  Their hands or arms are always covered in scratch or bite marks, some very deep and I often wondered what kind of person would put up with that? Why would you go through all that to keep birds? It must take a truly special personality to keep and care for a pet bird and love them as much as we love our cats and dogs.

This little bundle of fluff is very cute, and surprisingly trusting. He doesn't try to bite or peck at us at all. He is very calm around us and not afraid like I would have thought he would be. He is very gentle and, I'm starting to notice, smart. He knows what he wants and doesn't want, for instance today when offered the choice between bird seed or a dropper of baby food, he has been choosing the seed. Today is the first time I've introduced seeds to his diet, when he opens his mouth I would drop one in by hand, then offer the dropper of baby food or water to wash it down. He got the hang of it and then started refusing the dropper, but when I hovered by hand above his head he would open wide. Show him the dropper and he would close his mouth tight, show him my hand and again he opened wide. I'm completely amazed by this, I wouldn't have thought birds, especially baby ones, would be that intelligent.

Every day he eats a variety of baby food, apple & blueberry, pears & raspberries, apple & cherry, turkey & rice, a vegetable mix, oatmeal and more. We offer him a different flavor every feeding, which right now is every half hour to 45 min. I tell you it's like having a baby all over again. Round the clock feedings, little jars of baby food all throughout the fridge. We even have to heat the jars in a shallow pot of water on the stove to make it room temperature before feeding, reminds me of warming glass baby bottles when my kids were small. This experience has certainly been nostalgic if nothing else.

He is also hopping out of his nest and getting around the pen. Yesterday we took the lid off and had his pen sitting on the picnic table on the back porch so he could hear other birds and get some fresh air and sun. He sat up in his nest and started grooming himself and stretching his wings. It was so cute, I took a dozen photos, but posted some of the best. He was very active at that moment, and this morning was standing on the edge of his nest to make him self taller, so that the food would reach his mouth faster I guess. Hopefully he should be able to go it on his own soon. I'm waiting to see more signs of wing flapping and try to get him to take the seed from a small dish in his pen first.

I also have an update on the baby chipmunks found at the baby shower last weekend. They did go home with a family at the party. They have named them Alvin and Theodore and are feeding them milk formula by bottle. My husband works with the mom of the family that took them home so I will try to get more updates from time to time if I can.

Thank you all for stopping by.

Nicole

A Weekend of Nature and Babies

My family was invited to a dear friends daughter's baby shower. We had such a good time, they held it at a local nature park in a private pavilion. I really enjoy parties of all kinds, but especially this sort, you get to come together with family, friends and co-workers over some really great food and laugh the day away.

When I was little I used to go to all kinds of family backyard Bar-B-Q's at my aunt's house on my dad's side of the family they sure know how to make you feel at home. Since growing up I have always missed the feel of those parties, but this weekend was a much needed blessing.

My husband ran the grill, he has had several cooking jobs in the past and so feels right at home in-front of open flames. My kids made lots of new friends with all the other children who attended. They all went exploring through out the park in two large groups. They brought back all kids of things, my eldest Korbin put together a nice collection of things he found exploring the park.

My younger son Tyler found a baby chipmunk, he was so tiny and blended in with the ground so well, that he almost stepped on him. We wrapped him in my husbands shirt for a while, but unfortunately there was really nothing we could do for him. Later we discovered that he must have been abandoned because 3 other babies were found, sadly one of them dead. The babies barely had their teeth so they wouldn't have been able to eat the things they could find around the Forrest they looked as though they had just gotten used to their walking legs. Some of the older kids in the party said they would take them home and feed them baby food, they had nursed a baby squirrel before and then let him go. I know you shouldn't remove wild life from where you found them, but I  was very sure that the squirrels would not make it if we left them alone.

Later Tyler found a vanilla colored fuzzy caterpillar and some of the other kids found a baby box turtle. Actually I'm not sure what kind of turtle it was, but it was grey and had a long tail. These two animals however stayed at the park.

After the party, we went across the lake to go swimming. I'm happy to report now little fish were found, other then my two splashing around in the water. Swimming in a natural lake is very relaxing and refreshing. We very lucky to have one not too far from our home. I've been coming to Pinchot park ever since I was a child. I'm so happy my kids have the opportunity this weekend to appreciate what nature has to offer, they don't often connect with it at home, but they certainly took advantage of the opportunity this weekend.

Our last little critter of the weekend was a baby bird, found under a neighbors porch, or so I'm told, by my eldest Korbin. The bird with nest had fallen on the ground and so the kids naturally scooped baby and nest up and brought them home. Normally I'm all for leaving birds were they area found, but with the nest on the ground and the baby not old enough to fly, I'm not sure how the mother bird would have fixed the situation.

Fortunately, the baby looks to be several weeks old with feathers, and the ability to hop out of the nest, which may have been what got him into trouble in the first place. We are currently feeding him baby food by dropper. He is taking to it very well, I read that it is important to feed them a large assortment to mimic the variety he would be receiving in the wild. He gets sweet potato, raspberries, pear, apple, banana, tomato, carrots, green beans, rice, oatmeal, and turkey (yep turkey). I was contemplating if this was like cannibalism or not, but he seems to like it and I know he needs a certain amount of meat and I currently do not have any worms to give him. Not to mention if I did, I would have to mash them up and maybe it's my girly side, but yuk!

When you home school you need to look for and take advantage of any opportunity to learn and think outside the box, what better example can I offer to learn about nature and responsibility all in one lesson then caring for a baby bird for a few weeks. I figure within one to two weeks our little birdie should be old enough to fly the coop. The kids are really enjoying taking turns feeding him, I of course get the task of cleaning up the baby food after it comes out the other end. Funny, it looks like baby food going in, and baby food coming out, again yuk!

Thanks for reading,

Nicole

Nature's Bounty Treasury

We have created our first treasury on Etsy this month, it is called Nature's Bounty. It is a collection of items from various other Etsy artists that remind me of fall.



I can't wait for the leaves to start to turn. Here in Pennsylvania we have a beautiful display of natures glory every fall and I get excited to see it every year. This treasury brings to mind some of my favorite things about the season like crisp smells in the air, cider and cinnamon, pumpkin pie, turkey with all the trimmings, leaves crunching beneath my feet, my kids jumping in big piles of them just like I used to when I was their age.



Every fall my family picks fresh apples and pumpkins at a local orchard. There's nothing that says fall has arrived quite like biting into a fresh delicious apple that you picked from the tree. It so out dose any apples you get from the grocery store. After strolling through the orchard we take a hay ride then get lost in the corn maze. Ah the memories... but I'm getting side tracked. As you can see this treasury was very inspiring to me and maybe it will inspire you too.



Thanks for stopping by,
Nicole

FAE Hearth and Harvest Treasury

This month the Fantasy Artists of Etsy (FAE TEAM) have put together a beautiful exhibition for the Fall called Hearth and Harvest. The collection is much larger than shown here and features the works of other skilled FAE Team members. We are pleased to be able to show off this fantastic collection of items currently for sale on Etsy and get you into the spirit of autumn. Check the exhibition out live at: http://faeteam.com/exhibition.html

Thanks for stopping by,
Nicole

3 in 3 Days... You Like Me You Really Like Me

Wow! I am loving every one right now, we have just been added to another treasury! That's 3 this week I am so very honored. Please come and check out this beautiful treasury created by FLASH1214 entitled A LITTLE BIT OF THIS AND THAT: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c34d4b5da918eef05a32f6f/a-little-bit-of-this-and-that

2 in 2 days! We've been featured again!

What do we love more then Pirattitude? Being featured in Pirate Themed Treasuries! ARRR we love these bountiful chests! Overloaded with all things Pirate from T-shirts to Maps and Jewelry. Created by merryroseberry her treasury "EPL Pirates Treasury" is wonderful thought out and put together if you love Pirates like we do go to: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c33ad1c6eb88eefa74b2077/epl-pirates-treasury
And check out MerryRoseBerry's finds!

We've been featured!

Here at Shamble Ramble we're happy and exited to have been featured in a pirate themed treasury on Etsy by Theswankery called "THATS THE LIFE FOR ME!" to see this unique treasury go to: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c31032c55036d91400bcb9d/thats-the-life-for-me

For more things pirate from Shamble Ramble please visit: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShambleRamble?section_id=7162146