Are You A Saucy SITS-Tah?

The Secret Is In The Sauce. How many of us have heard that phrase at certain times throughout our lives? It normally refers to a recipe. Yes? Didn't Mickey D's have a secret sauce on their Big Macs? Or was that a special sauce?

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of secret is:

Etymology:

Middle English, from Anglo-French secré, secret, from Latin secretus, from past participle of secernere to separate, distinguish, from se- apart + cernere to sift — more at secede, certain

1 a: kept from knowledge or view ; marked by the habit of discretion ; working with hidden aims or methods ; not acknowledged; conducted in secret; remote from human frequentation or notice; revealed only to the initiated; containing information whose unauthorized disclosure could endanger national security — compare confidential, top secret

synonyms — se·cret·ly adverb secret , covert , stealthy , furtive, clandestine, surreptitious, underhanded, mean, done without attracting observation. Secret implies concealment on any grounds for any motive secret location. Covert stresses the fact of not being open or declared; covert intelligence operations. Stealthy suggests taking pains to avoid being seen or heard especially in some misdoing stealthy step of a burglar. Furtive implies a sly or cautious stealthiness furtive glances. Clandestine implies secrecy usually for an evil, illicit, or unauthorized purpose and often emphasizes the fear of being discovered clandestine meeting of conspirators. Surreptitious applies to action or behavior done secretly often with skillful avoidance of detection and in violation of custom, law, or authority; the surreptitious stockpiling of weapons. Underhanded stresses fraud or deception; an underhanded trick.


And sauce can be defined as:

Etymology:

Middle English from Anglo-French, from Latin Salsa, feminine of salsus salted, from past participle of sallere to salt, from sal salt — more at salt

1: a condiment or relish for food ; especially : a fluid dressing or topping 2: something that adds zest or piquancy 3: stewed fruit eaten with other food or as a dessert 4: pert or impudent language or actions 5slang : liquor—used with the

So does The Secret Is In The Sauce mean covert condiment? Confidential stewed fruit? Underhanded Zest? Or Surreptitious Liquor? Would that be mOonShIne, by chance? hee hee


The SITS-tah-hood is an amazing group of bloggers who rally around one another, offering support through comment love. You pick up some of their sidebar button bling and add it to your blog's sidebar to join. Then you comment on each and every other blog that has the SITS bling on their sidebar. The more comment love you give, the more you will receive. Make sense? Give=Receive. Love one another. Peace. Love. Happiness. Simon & Garfunkel. (Or October Cherries IF Playlist doesn't have Simon & Garfunkel's version.)

And SITS has Featured Bloggers as well. I've found some awesome blogs through the Featured Bloggers including:

Rhea - Her words are as BIG as the state of Texas and you can easily get tangled up in her hilarious blog!

Kat - This delightful blog makes sunshine out of rainclouds and lemonade out of lemons.

Tiffany - (My younger twin?) We R Family. I've got all my SITS-tahs and me. Read her daily diaries for daily entertainment!

Angie - Her antics are great every day but her Monday morning specialty is what keeps me coming back!

Little Momma - I adore her company! Little Momma is so stinkin' creative AND she's a SAUCY CHEF too! Check out the SITS recipe blog for the latest recipe Little Momma is dishin' out.


If you are lucky enough to be deemed SAUCY, you will be a Featured Blogger. And man, you should see all the comment love those saucy blogs get! Talk about a traffic jam! Wow. The hits are HUGE for the featured bloggers!

I've not (YET) been lucky enough to be initiated into the Saucy Blog SITS-tah-hood club (YET) but I've got fingers, toes and various other body parts crissed AND crossed! Because a girl can always hope.

To join the SITS-tah hood, click on this bling:

Come out, come out, whoever you are

Okay, So I've been trying desperately to draw more traffic and get more comment love from the exhaustingly enormous bloggy-blogville. And I actually received 20 comments on my post about our classroom earlier this week which had me elated and shocked, all at the same time.

Today, my visitor map is showing 55 views from 42 different locations. I only account for one of them and I don't think T-Bone has looked at the blog yet today (not that I would ever know if he looked since he doesn't seem to find it worthy of comment love). So, what I want to know is this. Who are you? Do you have a blog? I would LOVE to check your blog out! I will even leave you kind words before departing. And I won't overstay my welcome. And I will eat before I arrive. And I will bring my own diet coke with me. But I must know who you are first. So please, please, please leave a comment or 20 for me. :)

The Games People Play

Our family LOVES games! We create many games for our studies as well as using games that we find at the homeschool expos, online or in our local stores. We especially love educational games. We discovered these last year at the homeschool expo.



We are always on the lookout for games at yard sales and thrift stores. We seem to collect games. But we love games! In fact, we have an entire closet in our classroom which is devoted to games.




We play games as often as we can and my dream is to have one family night per week that is devoted to nothing but games. For now, that game seems to be soccer as we are at the fields 3 nights a week but a girl (or a mom) can dream.

Our classroom...

Since I have never posted photos of our classroom, I thought now would be the perfect time to do so. Our classroom is very important to both the girls and myself. We enjoy spending a lot of time in our classroom and accomplish a great deal when we can escape to that particular area of the house. There are times when we do work at the dining room table as well but we prefer the classroom which is located in our basement. We have more room to spread out and the distractions are definitely fewer.

This is our chalkboard wall (and our youngest dog, Lola). Tiara 1 is learning her times tables and made this chart last week.


Here are some of our bookshelves...


And some more of our bookshelves...



And another photo of The Wall of Bookshelves...



Did I mention that we like LOVE books?

A Little of This, A Little of That

So we were originally planning to go to our Kaya club meeting this afternoon at another homeschool family's home. We are alternating the monthly meetings between the homes of three different families this year. The club is focusing on Kaya (American Girl) of the Nez Perce tribe in 1764. The Tiaras and I will be going quite in depth this year with our Native American studies. I have many stories, autobiographies, History Pockets and other crafts / activities planned for our year.

In preparation for the meeting, the Tiaras both painted a picture of their favorite part of the Kaya story.

Tiara 2 painted Kaya , Kaya's tepee and fire and the skewer that held the salmon while it was cooked over the fire.



Tiara 1 painted the river, 2 salmon jumping out of the river, two tepees and Kaya. And a bright green heart. (Tiara 1 likes loves hearts.)




Each month, the Tiaras will be painting a scene related to that month's story. And those paintings will be stored in these.

Tiara 2's journal:


Tiara 1's journal: (Notice the heart?)



As it turned out, our club meeting was postponed until tomorrow due to one of the kiddos having dental issues. So after school work today, the girls spent the remainder of the day doing more of what they love best...

Weekend Review...

So the weekend is over and I'm finally off to bed. We had three soccer clinics on Friday evening (Tiara 1 had 2, Tiara 2 had 1) after guitar lessons. Tiara 1 had two soccer games on Saturday morning at 9a and 10:30a in Dacula which is 1 1/2 hours away from us. Tiara 2 had soccer photos at 8a followed by a 9a game. So T-Bone took Tiara 2 while I took Tiara 1 for the first half of the day. We all met back up here later in the day and spent the remainder just being together. Today, the girls and I worked on their Kaya journals for American Girl club which is meeting for the first time tomorrow. They are really looking forward to it.

We have a very busy week. More later.