Introduction

      My name is Jennifer but most people call me mom! I have 9 children and all of their friends also call me mom! When the children and I were involved with a re-enactment/ muzzle-loaders club we all received trail names and mine was "Trail Mom", but you can all call me Jennifer.  I am a Business and Health Promotion major and a Health Studies minor.  I live on a farm/ranch in Grant County Oregon.  I live in a very remote location and drive an hour just to buy gas or attend church, serious shopping or medical care is 2 hours away.  My children and I raise milk goats and cows, pigs, chickens and other fowl, and always seem to have way too many dogs and cats.  For fun we take walks, swim in the river, play board games, and make music. We produce much of our own food which is the point of living out here, even though I have been known to claim it is to keep my daughters away from boys.  I have more hobbies than you can shake a stick at.  I am a certified information junkie and bibliophile.  I home educated my children for 18 years, but last year when I chose to attend EOU online many of them began attending the local public school, one hour away and they are enjoying it.  My husband is in end stage kidney failure and a recent addition to the Oregon transplant list.
     I entered first grade not even knowing my alphabet and I remember my teachers exasperation about it, however by the end of the year I was reading so advanced that I had my own reading group.  I am a reader from a family of non-readers, neither of my parents read and most of my siblings aren't too keen on it either, I have a sister that has never read a book that wasn't assigned!  My mother was never taught phonics and it always made reading hard for her. I remember that when it became clear that my little brother's teacher was not teaching phonics, my mother assigned me, then 15, to teach him.  I have taught many people, young and old, to read since then.  Mom was always concerned that I was "addicted" to reading and used to take my books away for days at a time if she felt I was reading too much.  I cannot count the number of whippings I received for being caught reading in the bathroom with the door locked or hiding under the covers with a flashlight in the wee hours.  The worst reading related whipping though was when she caught me reading my first romance novel.  She hid it in her bedside table where I continued to sneak in and read it until I finished it.  Today I read on average of a novel a day, even while attending full time, in part because I read incredibly rapidly.  In fiction I can be found reading western, action adventure, chick lit, murder mysteries, fantasy and romance.  Probably romance is my most common fictional read.  In non-fiction I read books that interest me and I have rarely found any that don't.  On the dresser at the foot of my bed you will find my current reading or to-read stacks, books on autism ( I have a 13 year old with ASD), health and fitness, history, alternative building and energy, and cheese making, also the latest Stephanie Plum novel.  I own more books than Imelda Marcos had shoes. Currently the bulk of my book collection resides in an unused single wide on my property,  and the children laugh about my books needing their own house!  My children are almost all readers, and I have always read to them.  The three youngest boys 9, 7, and 5, are currently enjoying the Narnia series as our bedtime read, and we just finished the Harry Potter series.
   My 18 year old daughter Christen is currently reading "Eragon" by  Christopher Paolini and "The Mediator" Series by Meg Cabot, both for the 5th time.  She reads primarily fantasy.  She says she reads because "it's better than real life".  She was the first in my family to purchase an e-reader but she is currently jealous of my Kindle Fire.  My 82 year old mother in-law is currently reading "The Intellectual Devotional of American History" because it is informational, and she learns more about America and it keeps her mind sharp.  At bedtime she reads random Christian romance novels because they are light and she doesn't have to think too much.  I called my little sister Becca, 34, and she said she just finished "Beautiful Disaster" by Jamie McGuire, a romance novel.  She claims she reads them as an escape from reality and a chance to be 'irresponsible'.  She is a busy mom of 3, one with special needs, so I can understand that.
   I am looking forward to this class, and reading the other blogs.