Excercising Brings the Family Together

Okay - guess what we've been doing at night recently? No, not jogging. I cannot imagine getting this forty-something body moving faster than a brisk walk.

No, it's not golf. Although I do enjoy a good round of golf. Mostly I like to drive the cart at top speed.

No, it's not hunting. I tried pulling the string back on my hubby's compound bow, and if I hadn't seem him do it, I would have sworn they were teeny-tiny metal bars and not strings. I coudn't move them.

No, it's not horsebackriding. My children would be in heaven if it were, but then, so would I. Quite literally. Because the only way they would be able to afford horses is if they were collecting on my life insurance.

Okay, okay you give up. We have been "tennising" recently. That is my new word; I "verbed" the noun and I will be submitting it to Webster next year for inclusion in future volumes.

The Fountain Inn tennis courts have lights and the Staffords, Kappenmans, and Gistingers have been descending upon the courts and batting balls around for several nights, displaying incredible feats of athletic prowess. Well....a few have anyway. Some of us just run back and forth in a rather small section of the court....but I am returning more and more balls every time I play!!! Cool, huh?

OH -guess what? You actually have a muscle in your arm that runs from your elbow area to your wrist. I'm including that information for all my couch-potato friends who may be like me and all your muscles have atrophied by this point in your middle-age dotage. GET OFF THE COUCH! Tennis is actually quite fun. We've been having a blast! And it is DEFINITELY waaaaaaaaay more fun than jogging.

We were playing tennis at the brand-new school just a breath from our house, but they locked the courts. Can you believe it? And after we fixed their dumb gate, too. Yes, you read that right. This is our tax dollars at work. The gate to the tennis court was always unlocked, so we were going down there and playing. But the gate hung caterwalled (preventing it from locking) and balls could roll out underneath. So one day a couple weeks ago, my hubby took his tool kit with him and fixed the gate so it hung right and shut right. The next evening we were rewarded for his efforts by having a lock on the gate...something they couldn't do before because it didn't line up right! Now, if they were so concerned about having the gate fixed so they could lock it, I don't understand why the maintenance guy who always sat on the back dock, smoking his cigarettes and watching us play, didn't get off his lazy hind end and fix it, but he didn't. In fact, I'll wager he even told the folks in charge that the gate now works and is lockable. Oh well. We like Fountain Inn better because it has lights.

So, if you go looking for us of an evening, you might try the Fountain Inn tennis courts. Love-love!

I'm participating in The Hopeful Farm Foundation Benefit.

Well - I have a long way to go before I can support my family off my bloggging! Hahahaha.
I keep hearing about folks who have super-popular blogs and so many people read them that advertisers pay big bucks to be on their blog. That's not the case with me. Yet. I may be there someday. Then all of you faithful readers can say, "I knew her blog when...."

I've been a busy beaver, trying to promote our publications through various new avenues. Success is slow, but I am being rewarded for my endeavors.

One of the places I was able to promote our business through was for a great cause. I donated use of one of our unit studies to this benefit. Please read all about it below:

The Hopeful Farm Foundation is for special needs children and their families. They have an awesome ministry, with horses, a farm, and all kinds of really cool activities and buildings perfect for retreats. The benefit is to raise money for this foundation to be used for the special needs children and their families. The benefit ends in just a few days - October 5th. I'd encourage you to follow the links listed below.

Please consider blessing a family impacted by special needs by making a donation – and in return, you’ll receive some of the best products the homeschool community has to offer.
If you would like to hear what Hopeful Farm is all about, you can access an online interview by Cindy Rushton with Claire and Jill Novak at www.hopefulfarmfoundation.org/interview.html
You can find all the details here:
www.hopefulfarmfoundation.org/benefit.htm

Where Have We Been

Oh brother - it's been forever since a post! But actually, I WAS blogging - just doing it in secret...

We were on vacation for 4 weeks. Even though we had someone staying at the house, I tend toward not wanting to hang a sign out for would-be robbers, so I didn't want to post out here that we were gone.

To see a daily blog of all our adventures for four weeks, go to trip.kapandpen.com and you'll be able to read all about the neat stuff we got to see and do.

Now that we are back home, we are gearing up for our busiest time of year - the pre-Christmas printing season.