Non-Stop Video Games

If I didn't limit their video game playing, I think they would become cyborgs. I heard a Canadian comedian on the satellite radio, Johnny Munro, who was talking about babysitting his nephew who was a little video game addict. Roughly....

"So I decided to try a little psychology with him. I told him I had a brand-new, 3-D, virtual reality game for him, then I strapped some ski-googles on him and sent him outside. I guess the joke was on me though, two hours later the cops show up and he'd already stolen a car and beaten up a hooker."

Well at least my kids are off the streets.

Rudyard Kipling's "Just So" Stories

I very truly must make a high recomendation to all my families to read some Just So Stories aloud to their most 'satiable curtious children. Specially the one about the Elephant and how he got his trunk by the great- green- greasy Limpopo river. Have a little spot of hot tea next to you when you do this, because it is most very 'ceedingly difficult to say some of the long-windy words. When you read how the Leopard got his spots, you can also learn how the Etiopian decided to turn brown. Truly, best Beloved, it is most 'ceedingly fun.

Making a Mountain out of a Mole

Michelle Malkin has excised something insignificant that got all blown out of proportion by the White House press corps, who apparently have nothing better to investigate.

I think Laura Bush may be constipated. Let's hold a press conference and get a proctologist here quickly. We need to see her latest colonoscopy. We have questions, lots of questions.

The hilarity of the situation is that if Mrs. Bush became a spokeswoman for squamous cell carcinoma, the press would be all over Tony Snow interrogating him about whether this was an important health issue, and why the First Lady wasn't out campaigning against Aids in Africa with Bono or something.

Our Trip to the Nursing Home

Today our little co-op went to the nursing home to visit and pass out Christmas cards. The look on the patients' faces will stay with me for a long time. Many of them took a while to recognize that there was a little person in front of them. But then a kid would put a card in their hand (or drop it in their lap) and say Merry Christmas. That empty look would leave some of their faces, and Grandpa or Grandma would emerge for a short while and they would smile and say "Well, bless your heart" or "Merry Christmas" or "You come back any time and see Nanny, okay?". A few of the patients would just smile.

One lady I won't forget for a long time. She was walking slowly down the hall with an aid beside her and two of the kids went running up to her and handed her their cards. We were all standing outside a room where an old woman who seemed to be pretty lucid was giving away free hugs to our littlest member (two). When the children came back to us, the walking lady followed. Tears were streaming down her nose, and she just stood among us crying like that. She asked for more cards, and the kids just kept giving them to her.

While we were waiting for the world's slowest elevator to carry us down a floor, the kids were singing "Jingle Bells". A very hunched-over woman with a walker sang the whole thing with us, rocking a little, and grinning.

Our trip ended with some boisterous tree-climbing in the front yard. A man in the lobby watched them the whole time.

I so truly wish them all a Merry Christmas, and pray that they have families that will visit them often. If not, I hope our loud, irreverent little kids helped just a little.

As an aside: Old people need little kids around, and little kids need to be there for them too, and all of us in the middle need to make sure that happens, whether our hearts can take it or not. (I mean, the kids were happy, the elderly patients seemed happy to have them, and here I am crying about it.)

Homeschooling for the Bloody Capitalist

The real world is a place where people get paid for their labor. I've decided my kids will get paid for theirs too. For the kids should enjoy learning and doing for its own sake crowd, please start formulating your arguments now, and I heartily promise to ignore them.

From now on if my kids read 10 books, come and tell me about all of them, choose one and write a good one page book report about it they get $5. If it is an especially neat page of writing, they get an extra $1.

If they learn their times tables and take a test and pass, they get $3 for each test passed. They can only take one test a week. There will be no test on 1x. Duh.

They will have to pay me for TV time and computer and playstation time. 50 cents for each 30 minute increment. Educational TV and computer is free. If they write a page about what they learned on TV or on the PC, then they receive $2.

For Jake a day without whining or screaming nets him $2. If he does either of these things he pays me $2. I will keep a sheet on this so if he goes in the hole, he'll have a little lesson on credit and collections.

Same for Josie about using a nice tone of voice.

From now on they buy all of their toys and candy themselves. Christmas doesn't count. Gifts from Grandmas and Grandpas etc. don't count either.

Later, I may get into them taking a loan out from us in order to buy a big item if they don't have enough, but I think that's a concept more for the 11 and above crowd.

Fire away.

Roamin' Joe and J.C. Discover Florida

Greetings from the Atlanta Airport where we awaiteth our second flight at Delta Airlines gate 36B. We arriveth in Atlanta approximately 35 minutes after leaving Knoxville, and travelleth about 450 miles across the Atlanta Airport to get to our lonesome gate, located in a janitor's closet. Despiteth the long-journey, the Christ Child and I did enjoyeth the tram, it sure beateth the donkey.
It seems Delta airlines prefereth J.C. to be seatetheth over the wing. Quite accustomed to seeing the landscapes from on high, he crieth not. The children did spy a manta ray in the water, and were well-pleased.

After our kind hosts' children enjoyeth a short nap, a delicious meal of lasagna, a trip to RonJon surf shop where provisions of a frisbee that gloweth and a bucket for sand were purchasedeth, we wearily proceededeth to the causeway to view the launching of the shuttle. Lil' J.C. and I haileth from a warm middle-eastern desert climate, and were quite pleased to know that Florida was a warm place too. Imagineth our surprise when the temperature droppeth to 50 degrees. We were unable to find clothes for the Christ Child, but again he crieth not. Our hosts girl-child found this exciting trip quite exhausting and began performing her best Linda Blair meets Charlie Babbitt impression while trying to pee in the bushes. We assured her that, being a good Lutheran, her Grandmother has not goneth over to the dark side and is not evil, an empty bladder is a joyful bladder, and if you don't want strangers bearing flashlights to shineth them on you in your most private of moments it is very important to shutteth one's pie-hole.



So freezing as we were, the elders were delighted to hear the sounds of a child's lullaby twinkling towards us. Hark? What cometh across the fields? A fine musical chariot carrying ice cream. What perfect timing.And lo, the boy child walketh away bearing a fudge-cicle, and the girl child contenteth herself with an eskimo bar. ( Lil' J.C. considereth purchasing an ice cream truck, for many suffering children did come unto it that night.)



Why are we in a bucket of sand do you ask? At the last moment of our suffering, NASA scrappeth the launch, and we returneth to a comfortable place upside-down in the soil. (The bucket did not sell.)
Our journey was not for naught. After a good night's slumber, and a breakfast of coffee cake we headeth out to Trappman's Market to buy some blue crab. We were comforted to learn that the fish were so fresh here that they had to slap them. Our gentile hosts greatly enjoy the meat of the crab. Fourteen were brought home in a cooler. The girl-child loveth the crab in a petly way, but alas she did submit to the wishes of her elders and placeth the crustaceans in a boiling pot. Later she gleefully cracketh the shells along with her less-animal attached brother and a great feast of stewed corn, shrimp, potatoes amd crabmeat was enjoyed by all.


It was a good and enlightening experience to be in Florida. We saw many feathered creatures of the air, that can not be seen in Tennessee. We spied spoonbills, egrets, cranes, and a small blue vireo. We chaseth an alligator into a pond, and scareth a great white crane who took wing above our heads in glorious flight. Our tribe also plucketh orange fruit straight from the tree and this morning as we write the juices floweth over our chin and sticketh on our neck. The childrens' mother forgetteth her camera often, but did not turn back, for she prefereth to view life through her eyes rather than through a lens. If thou desireth to see, thou must purchaseth thine own plane ticket.

Our journey is complete and we departeth with the lovely image of Izzy kissing a crustaceon. Verily, there are finer things in this world than the viewing of a shuttle. More shuttles will launch, and though we always look for moments with fire and great roaring flames that will be seared in our memories, it is truly the everyday delights that flicker by into the past without our notice that bring us happiness, then we find ourselves with a smile on our face and we hardly know why.

Trip to AMSE Grossology

It wasn't a program. It was a room full of interactive games. There was also a climbing wall that was supposed to look like skin. Kids were supposed to climb from the scab to the mole to the wart etc. There was a video game cabinet that had "Urine, the Game" written on it. Josie played it. The object of the game is to make sure the right things pass out with the urine. She made sure the sugar and the red blood cells stayed in the system. There was a giant animatronic talking faucet in a bathrobe with a perpetually dripping nose. We learned a lot of interesting things about mucus from him. I couldn't bring myself to play the Guess the Smell game. I saw the buttons to push though. One of them said "anus". Also we learned a bit about the process that causes one to vomit. If you push the buttons for brain, stomach, esophagus, and mouth in order, the cartoon character will blow chunks and the lucky kid recieves a standing ovation. The burp-maker was neat. Pump enough soda-pop into the inbred hick and he will burp for you. Pump some more and he will let out a long screaming fart. Very educational.

Also met some cool, down-to earth, homeschooling moms and their very pleasant children.

We're Going to Grossology

We'll be meeting a bunch of other homeschoolers there hopefully. I'll report back and tell you how it went. I may not actually watch the program though. I'm not much into gross.

Statue in My Yard

Why is St. Joseph so dirty? I didn't know this because I'm a Lutheran, but apparently Jesus' earthly father was a really good realtor. If you bury a statue of him upside-down in your yard and pray really hard your house will sell. St. Joseph (here with baby Jesus) was buried head- first in my front yard, and Jake found him this evening. The Catholic people sold the house to some Evangelicals in September of 2004, in June of 2005 the Evangelicals sold it to us. So it turned around twice within a year. I sure am glad that Jake found it and dug it up because I'm not interested in moving for a very long time.

My Latest Portrait

The requests for portraits really aren't rolling in this year, but that's okay. I can really take my time and enjoy them.

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Time for our yearly Charlie Brown Thanksgiving meal! We highly recommend on the night before Thanksgiving, gathering around the big screen in your jammies, preferably with a couple of little friends, and watching everyone's good buddy Chuck, while feasting on jelly beans, popcorn, toast, and pretzels. Get out and buy it now if you don't already have it! Turkey day comes only once a year, and you have to wait until Christmas to truly appreciate the next Charlie Brown Special.

Wii

It's another gadget. But I may like it. Josie is jumping around here and playing tennis. They also bowled a little. Dad was boxing. I was thinking they should come up with foot controllers that were in ankle weights, and wrist weights with controllers as well. Then you could do cardio kick boxing, dancing, savat, karate etc... No one steal my idea. This blog is dated November 19, 2006. Haha.

The $16,000 Annual Screw Private School Travel Fund

I was talking to someone last night who sent her kids to private school all the way through. I'm sure the private schools around here are better, but it's still a sterile learning environment where children sit in a classroom and absorb information. Even hands-on learning is pretty staged for lack of a better word. Kids learn about many things by assembling crafts and collecting items etc. Of course there are sports and social activities that a kid can't just happen upon without being on a school team too. So private school is a good thing overall, but is it worth $16,000 a year to send two kids to the Episcopal School? Is it possible to spend $16,000 in a more creative, fun, and educational way?

I've been surfing around for educational travel ideas for families this morning. Here are some exciting ways to spend that money.

We could take an eco-trip to Barbados for three days and nights where we can go whale-watching, see green monkeys (whatever they are), take a helicopter tour of the flower forests, go walking on nature trails, see waterfalls, and stay in a historical inn. All together that costs about $5000 including roud trip airfare. That would be a biggie, but we still haven't spent our $16,000 kitty. Yes, they can do their math on the plane or something. They can also journal what they've seen before they go to bed, and send letters to the friends and family about their adventures. They can learn all about Barbados and the islands before they go. It's nature, history, culture, etc.

On our next trip, we could drive to Chicago and stay with some charitable relatives, then depart later on an Amtrak train called the California Zephyr, which will take us through the most beautiful country-side in America. We can see mountains, prairies, lakes and wildlife, as we travel (somewhat uncomfortably for sure, in a family room) 34 hours to Salt Lake City where we can rent a vehicle and travel to Yellowstone National Park. During the travel portion of the trip, we can read about Teddy Roosevelt the great conservationist, study about rock formations, and the animals of Yellowstone, and we can take along our National Parks Coloring Book, oh, and suffer through a little more math (we must learn to carry that 1, you know) Once we get to Yellowstone, we'll stay at the Bar-N-Ranch in a one-room cabin for five days and do all there is to see and do for five days. We return on a flight from Salt Lake City. The whole trip costs about $4000. We still have $7000 left in our SPS Travel Fund.

Trip number three lasts one month. After purchasing and sttudying the books Road Trip USA: Cross Country Adventures on America's 2 Lane Highways, Little Museums: Over 1,000 Small and Not So Small American Showplaces, and Watch It Made in the USA: A Visitors Guide to the Companies that Make Your Favorite Products, we'll chart a course that we can follow in a rented standard RV. The RV rental is about $4500 with a $500 deposit. I'm sure the extra $2000 will come in handy as spending money, because we will be touring factories, hiking trails, walking museums, etc.

Those three trips used up about $16,000. I'm sure there are extra costs involved in all of these vacations, but I'm certain that there are also extra costs involved in sending two kids to a nice private school. That's just one year's tuition too. Imagine a stay-at-home-mom, who is fortunate enough to have that kind of money available planning travels like these for her kids for 12 years, instead of paying for a private education?

I doubt I would ever spend 16,000 a year travelling about with my kids, but once upon a time I enrolled both my kids in private school. It wasn't the Episcopal School, and it was half the price, but I could blog for you what I could to with $9000 in educational travelling expenses if you'd like.

(Hmmm. Do we really need that kitchen remodel?)

Neat Montessori Math Game

The game goes up to nine. I'll try it with them tomorrow. Maybe the rhyming will help them remember. I usually have to get out a calculator after I get above 6. So maybe it will help me too.

I Promise Promise Promise....part 2

Okay. Maybe I'll just try to post something when I can.

Fitness Update

Well, my persistent sore neck has cleared up a bit. Perhaps due to Dharma's warning that if I didn't quit whining she would take me in for a lumbar puncture. Loads of energy right now, and now maybe I could start running, since my nose isn't.

Rat Salad

Josie made a salad for the rats. It's snap peas, mozarella, pineapples, and grapes. She made a little hole in the box she salvaged from our recent flooring project and set the ramekin in it.

They seemed to like it.

Max liked it so much his eyes went opposite directions.

Back to the Lessons

Last night I bought a National Geographic Magazine. Not the one for kids. First thing this morning, Josie got up and read all about leopard seals, horseshoe crabs, debutantes in hoop skirts in Laredo, TX, and the discovery of an ancient hominid child's skeleton. She absorbed the whole thing. That covered reading, science, and social studies all in one swipe and she didn't even know it. And she didn't even hate it. I sat down and did some math with Jake, and then he read and I taught him how to write a book report. His handwriting has gotten a lot better and he's been adding swirls and curls to things just for fun. Josie also practiced her cursive by copying sentences that I wrote about what she had read in the National Geographic. Her kid's National Geographic is expiring this month, I may go ahead and get her a subscription to the regular one and I can enjoy it too.

OOH! Mom! Look at all the pine needles!

"Yes Josie. We can give those away to the next door neighbors!"

So I asked the Eskimo, "Would you care for a free bowl of snow?"

They have a retail location. It's a bit run down, but it's a start-up operation.

They know how to advertise.

They just don't know the laws of supply and demand.
(Time for that lesson in basic economics.)

I Promise Promise Promise....

I will post something every day. I've been slacking as of late in the writing department...but I would have to WRITE about what a slacker homeschooling mom I've been lately and that wouldn't be very brag or blog-worthy, now would it?

Fitness Update

Got measured today. In one month I've gained an inch in my calves, an inch and a half in my thighs, lost an inch in my waist, and an inch on my hips. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I lost six inches on my chest. According to the scale at the gym, I've lost three pounds.

9 sessions down, 27 to go.

My trainer. I don't think he's a nice person. But my calves, they look very good. The kid's are beginning to mock me though. Jake says "OW! OW! OW!" when he walks up the stairs. Maybe if I can find a place in the house that casts good shadows I can show you my magnificent calves:)

Sweet.

We were at Nanny's today getting her doors hung properly so they will close well. Jake came in and told me he wanted to show me something "touching". I said "You want me to touch something?" "No, Mom. It will touch your feelings!"
I don't remember Ray making this, but he said he did it 10 years ago when we were still dating. It's in the corner of the garden.

What I've Got

Today I had a little talk with a little old man at the grocery store. He was sent to give me perspective. He strolled up next to me in one of those ride on carts and asked if I was finding any good deals. I said I had stopped paying attention to the price when my kids had gotten so picky, as I reached for the giant elbow macaroni. He asked me how many I was feeding. I said two kids, a boy and a girl. He looked at me and said "Enjoy them. They grow up fast and leave, and you'll miss them." I told him I was planning on enjoying my children, and that I homeschool them, and work hard at having fun with them while I teach them. He told me about his kids and grandkids while I made sure we cleared a good path for the fourteen people trapped behind us. He also told me that he lost his wife last year to a brain tumor and that she died suddenly and unexpectedly. I watched his eyes mist over a bit there, and there's just about nothing sadder than watching an old man swallow down tears. He told me I should make sure and get out into the community and do volunteer work with the kids, get to know more people and try new things. He said no one should just putter around the house. I guess you can see that we talked quite a while.

The truth is that I haven't been appreciating my kids properly. You might think differently when you read my blog, but all the frustrations are weeded out and I show you the highlights. I don't regularly admit that sometimes I sit them down in front of the TV for two hours so I can mindlessly surf the web, or communicate with people that are really just stories and names and personas. And that I sometimes can't communicate with the people that I just parked in front of the TV.

It also seems that I am always running off to another room when my husband comes around. See, he makes me forget the important chore I was about to do when he disarms me with hugs or jokes or chatter about work and hobbies, and Zombie dreams. Tonight I gladly gave up half an hour and tied up store traffic to talk to an elderly stranger, and my husband who promised to love me forever got the brush off because I was afraid I would forget to clip my toenails if I stopped for a kiss.

It's all a bit more in perspective right now.

I told Ray that it was okay by me if he grew old and died first. I would never want him to be a lonely old man. I hope he knew that was my own strange way of saying I love him, and would rather suffer myself than to think he would be lost and alone. I also am reminded that the whole 'til death do us part is just about the most powerful statement of love a person could make. Our hands will be joined when one of us passes long years from now.

I love my family. And I can't make memories without really enjoying the present.

Sushi-Blogging

So here's the sushi I made tonight. It turned out pretty well. Josie ate 6 pieces. Jake will be going through the Krystal drive through. I believe he thinks this is some kind of punishment, because when I told him we would do this for him he tried to stuff more sushi into his mouth.
The thing with sushi is that it is very pretty, but very labor intensive. Not so much the filling and rolling and cutting part, but the washing up afterwards. Four serving plates, four saucers for the soy sauce, a mixing bowl for the rice, a rice spoon, a saucepan for cooking the rice, rolling mat, chopsticks, bowl for washing fingers, six bowls for the separate filling ingredients, a cutting board, and two very sharp knives. It's all coated in a sticky substance with which you could conceivably plaster a house, and expect it to last about 1000 years.

Shower Dog

I've never met a dog who loved to take showers so much. I'm glad my shower has doors because she would jump right in through a curtain. The stains in the carpet may never come out, but at least she's clean.

Soap Making

These are very happy little soaps, yes?

Leave it to Ray to turn soap-making into a morbid exercise.

So Many Things to Know

Today I learned some things from my kids that I didn't know. Other things that I was pleased to know that they noticed. And other things I didn't know they really knew and I'm not sure if they really know what they seem to know:)

Things I didn't know:

1. A chickadee has peculiar flight pattern. They sort of lift and drop as they fly, so that it looks like they undulate. Josie performed the flight of the chickadee for Jake with her hands.

2. Josie showed me the bottom half of the constellation Libra. She likes constellations.

3. If a month starts on a Sunday, there will be a Friday the 13th in that month. (Josie again).

Things I was pleased to know they noticed:

1. While we were out to dinner tonight at a local Japanese restaurant, I was telling them about Indonesia and how many dishes are eaten with your fingers there. Josie replied "Well, that's definitely unsanitary." Jake suggested that if we ever go there we will have to bring the Purell hand sanitizer. I said that was a good idea, but I wonder if that would be considered rude.

2. While we were in the car, I was trying to listen to talk radio over them playing in the back of the car. I don't know why I do this, it's incredibly frustrating trying to make out the words on the radio over all the babble. A little ways into the drive, Josie said to Jake "Hey Jake, maybe we should stop playing for a while, we might be annoying Mama." Wow, that's very observant for someone who has a poor history with being considerate of others.

3. Jake likes how Japanese girls wear flowers in their hair. I didn't want to be a realist and tell him that they only look that way in the paintings. It's nice to think he has that pretty image in his head.

4. Jake decided it was high time something was done about the scrap wood out by the trashcan.
So he got on his safety glasses and found the hammer and some nails and set out to make some kind of weapon. He was hammering outside for quite a long time. He didn't ask me for help even once. He just took the job on.

5. Josie noticed that we passed two Firestone tire shops on the way from Farragut to Bridgewater Rd. And in both of the "O's" in the signs there were birds' nests. She told me yesterday that if she was a bird she wouldn't want to live in an "O" because she would rather have a house with two stories like a capitol "B". She would be more of a Border's bird I guess.

Now, do they really know this? And how far have their little minds taken this? And would they be stunned if they knew people did this, or would they just treat it scientifically the way they do everything else?............

Jake: " Here's the girl chickadee Josie. She's mating with the boy chickadee."

Josie: "No Jake, the girl doesn't go on top. The boy does."

Jake: "Why?"

Josie: "Cause he needs to use the force of gravity so the sperm can trickle down."

Ice Skating

We went ice skating today. The kids had a lot of fun. We'll probably be doing this every Tuesday and/or Thursday. I bought my own set of skates. The rentals made me slide all over the place. Sliding is bad, it's not the same as skating. It makes you do that whoop whoop maneuver, usually accompanied by that whoop whoop sound. Or at least it is in my case. I'll take some pictures next week.

Tomorrow I go hiking with the ladies. Leaving the kids in the hands of Dad. Whoop whoop!

Oink.

Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie from Chili's: 1600 calories, 72 grams of fat. It tasted good, but geez, it wasn't that good! ( Makes me wonder how many times I've indulged in a dessert at a restaurant and consumed more than my daily allowance of calories in less than 10 minutes.) We split it four ways ( except I ate Dharma's ice cream, cause she didn't want much, and I ate Jake's portion of the pie cause he didn't like the nuts, and Josie didn't want any so I had some of hers too). But we split it four ways. Oink.

Jake has an Inspiration!

So I'm downstairs painting some scenery for a friend, and I hear my kids fighting upstairs over a video game. They had been playing video games all day except for when we went to work out. I was really beginning to think that this "unschooling" idea might not work for us because Jake just doesn't seem to be interested or curious about anything but Dragonball Z. He can regale me all day about Goku and Broly, and Vegeta, and who fused and who's a super sayan, and it makes as little sense to me as it does to you. He rarely writes, he only colors or draws if I ask him to, and then it looks like chicken scratches. He reads really well though, and loves to read to me. At night he stays up late reading (Dragonball series of course). But anyway, he just never seems to want to do anything else unless asked. My philosophy was just to let him Dragonball until he was sick of it and moved on. Josie as well with her gaming. My patience was just about out today, and I was really thinking that unschooling is nice for the ideal unschooling child, but it just wasn't going to work for us. So they're fighting and I yell upstairs that they have to turn off the game, and because Jake was especially whiny, he should sit down and read a library book.

Fifteen minutes later, Jake comes downstairs and tells me "I have to paint a sky!" He has a book in his hand about an Indian boy who painted the sky. He was really inspired. I went and got him a canvas, and he picked out the paint colors. He wanted me to set up the easel outside, so we put it out under the basketball goal. First he painted the blue on top, then he painted yellow and orange. He said wanted a sky "You know, when it first starts getting dark." He later added grass and dirt, and told Josie it was a Kansas sky. I sat and watched them both paint pictures.

Later I took pictures of him jumping off the swing, and playing with the dog. They also had fun letting a daddy long legs crawl all over them, even their faces. At that point I got the heebies and went in, but I did love seeing them just get out of their rut and do something interesting, without me having to force anything. And my boy has decided he is a great artist.

I don't want a donut today.

So I have this doctor who's sort of a pioneer around here. The mission in her office is not just to treat illness, but to make sure her patients are as healthy as they can be. So I go into her office three weeks ago and get a blood test and some other strange tests I've never heard of, and found out that I have deficiencies and issues that I didn't suspect. To make a long story short (kind of) I've been instructed to remedy my health situation by taking about 7 different supplements, and making sure that I get my fruits and vegetables. I have also joined a gym and gotten a personal trainer. Exercise will be a new hobby for me. It's the first time I've decided to exercise because I want to be healthy, and not because I'm oozing out of my tankini. Fortunately, exercising for my health will also help me in the swimsuit department.

So it's been about a week since I've started eating really healthy and taking all of my supplements (28 pills a day!), and I feel GREAT! Seriously, I looked at my clean face in the mirror last night and I looked like I had blush on and had some pink in my lips. My eyes seemed greener. I know it sounds wierd, but I can see it. And it also helps that I feel so good about myself because I'm actually doing it right.

I especially am interested in how the Omega 3's are working on me. I got some for the kids in liquid form, but it tastes terrible, so I think I will try to find a good supplement for them in pill form and make sure they take their vitamins every day as well. I've heard that Omega 3's are very helpful for kids who are a bit attention deficit, because it works on you neurologically. Probably explains why asian kids are so focused. It's their parents and maybe all the fish.

Day One of Personal Fitness Challenge

I'm headed out the door to meet a personal trainer named Abel. He's going to challenge me, apparently. Got my Primatene Mist, yo.

Update: Basically, met my trainer who measured me. Learned some interesting things, like I have the calves of a long-distance runner, yay, but the abs of someone who runs to Dunkin Donuts a bit too often, boo.

There Goes My Diet

Oh no. Now I hear I'm supposed to support Dunkin Donuts, because they have a strict policy against hiring illegals. Please don't give me a political reason to eat their chocolate frosted doughnuts. It's like all the patriotic Americans have me vulnerable in a bomb shelter, scooting real close and whispering dreamily: "We may never have the chance again baby. C'mon do it for your country!" Funny how that little scenario would lead to a expanding waistline and years of regret. Just like giving me free rein to eat doughnuts for America. And don't tell me "Well, just get the coffee. Or the bran muffin." Puh-leeez! Who goes into Dunkin' Donuts for the freakin' bran muffins?! Really. Me ordering a bran muffin in Dunkin Donuts is like sending a man into a brothel for a haircut. They're just there for show anyway. If you asked for one, they would probably look at you funny while they dusted it off.

On the other side of the coin, I'm really not fond of Applebee's. And I'm supposed to support them for the same reason. I'm sorry but I'll support them hiring real Americans when they start serving real food. What's up with those riblet things? It's just itty bitty meat that's messy and full of gelatinous fat. It's the stuff I normally cut off, and they charge me for it. Plus, I've never gotten good service at an Applebee's. My sister disagrees and tells me that there was once a really exceptional waiter there who was a magician and could make a cigarette levitate over the table. Magic is all about distraction by the way. She forgot how dreadful those riblets taste, and gave him a big tip I'm sure.

Buffalo Skin Books

Here's our "Buffalo Skin". It's really goat rawhide. He was an Afghani buffalo I guess. We're going to make two books out of it. It's in the bathtub because we had to dampen it and lay it flat. Originally we were going to burn pictographs into it to tell a story, but the lady at Leatherworks said it would be more authentic to use vegetable dyes and paint the story that way. We got a hole punch and lacing so they can sew it up when they're done, and we'll use beet juice and strong coffee for the paint.

Getting Off My Butt Again

Last month started out well school-wise. I had small packets of schoolwork for them to do every morning. They had to be finished with it in order to have their free time. It worked out pretty well, but still learning seemed like a boring chore. I sort of fell off around the 20th and we puttered around the rest of the month. I'll have to sit down and itemize September just like I did August. We still got things accomplished, just not as in-depth as I would have wished.

This month is going to be more fun. We'll have the regular math, reading, and writing, but I'm starting in on American history. Our history book touches on early Americans, including the really mysterious ones like the Anasazi and the Mound People (or Hopewells). I'm also going to get some Indian folktales, and movies like Brother Bear and Pocahantas, and maybe Indian in the Cupboard to read to them at bedtime. I guess I will have to divide the book into seven parts so that we will get through it in a week. I'm also going to search for some art ideas that go along with the Native American theme.

What Would Freud Say About This?

Now here's an interesting study. It seems to be another study to show that liberals have more intellectual layers than conservatives, or some such nonsense, but I'd like to use it as a jumping off point to talk about my conservative husband's dream world.

There are a few common varieties of dream. There's the anxiety dream, where you think someone chasing you or you showed up naked to your Chemistry class. There's the sexual dream of course where you're doing something unspeakable with someone un-nameable. There's the spiritual dream, where you feel as if you've connected the dots somewhere and you can see the future or the other side. Then there's the action-adventure dream. What? Never heard of it? Well, I know all about it.

Action adventure dreams are the only kind of dream he seems to have. I personally think he writes his dreams before he goes to sleep. If he doesn't, he could at least write some B-movie screen plays after he wakes up, he could probably make some extra money that way. While I dream of three-eyed pomeranian talking dogs from the hood, he's dreaming of killing zombies in a retro-future post apocolyptic world. When he wakes up in the morning and I ask him if he dreamt, I usually ask first "What model of firearm did you use last night?" or "what caliber?" Often I ask how many zombies he bagged, or whether Nazis factored in this time. This year it's zombies. Last year it was basic Saving Private Ryan type stuff. He's added a few "layers".

I guess I'm not making such a good arguement for the creative and many-layered conservative, am I? But he could be one of those guys who dreams about his Mommy drowning him, or his boss making him smoke cigars with a busload of cross-dressing priests, or travelling to the end of the rainbow only to find the Village People waiting for him, or something like that. He's just too confident to let his dreams tell him what to do with his sleep time. Hmm. Now I'm envisioning him shooting Zombie Village People. I'll tell him about it tonight and ask him how it worked out in the morning.

Cove Park

People always ask me if they are twins. Sometimes they really act that way. I didn't pose them for these pictures. They were shifting around in opposite directions and building identical mounds in the sand. Later they played a game of "Bad Flower". Josie would pile sand up at Jake's feet. She would tell him to be a good flower and be still. Then he would yell "Bad flower!" and chase her all over the sandbox.

Will the Rain Ever Stop?

Just to let you know. I'm thinking of a good way to get on the roof. I will need four leashes. One for the dog, one for the cat, two for the kids. I'll need some cardboard too, so I can write something ignorant on it and wave it to passing helicopters.

Crikey, What a Kid

I recorded the Steve Irwin Memorial Service last night and me and the kids watched it this morning. Every time he's been on the TV since his death, my kids would say something like "He died." or "He got stung in the heart by a stingray" or "Jeff Corwin is still alive" They would mention that they knew he had kids. It's interesting to see a child absorb the concept of death.

It blew my mind to see Bindi Irwin read a memorial to her dad in front of thousands of people two weeks after his death. She was so full of energy and light and joy about her daddy.

In the days after his death, there were reports that his 8 year old daughter would carry on in his place at the zoo, and for his causes, and I thought that was cute that she could be a "face" for those things. Surely an 8 year old has no true concept of how to deal with these things. Now I'm not so sure. Of all the speakers at the memorial, she stood out as the strongest and most powerful voice. She never once broke, and left everyone smiling.

There's a daddy in heaven who is really proud of his daughter right now.

Here's an article.
Here's the Video.

For My Audience

The head of the CuttingSchool Fanclub called me very upset because I haven't posted since Saturday. Here's a picture we took in Cades Cove. He's poopin.

Flamingo by Josie

Note the attention to detail in the beak, and the proportions.

Weeding Out the Spinach-Eaters

Earthbound Farm Organic Spinach is marketed by Natural Selection Foods. Well, I think the E. Coli species is winning the evolutionary race, and Darwin is having a hearty laugh from the other side.

Note from Islam to Pope Benedict

How dare you call us violent and unreasonable!

Lost Sea

Went to the Lost Sea today, and it wasn't a disaster. Just let the kids know the rules of storytelling. Like, don't do it. And the rules of Loudly Exclaiming too. And I made sure they understood what a pertinent question was. This is a moonshine still. I didn't have to visit it today.
This is called the Devil's Hole. It's just a hole with a red light in it. But they say it's pretty scary when the maintanance man changes the bulb without warning. Supposedly a lady looked in there at the wrong time and thought she saw the devil, but it was some homely maintanance man who quit his job after the jolt to his self-esteem. I take these Tennessee cave stories with a grain of salt.



This is a thing whose name I can't remember, but in the Civil War soldiers would fill it with bat guano. After a process a liquid called "mother's liquor" would come out. They would take this substance outside and add a few more ingredients and boil it until it crystallized into gunpowder. We won't be doing this recipe at home. Well, unless Dad figures out how it's done. He'll definitely want to try it.

We also visited the glass blower's shop, and walked the nature trail. Josie got a necklace with a glass eagle pendant. Jake got a color changing pencil.

Mayan Corn Day

Here's our corn casserole.

The kids made it.

Recipe:
1/2 cup butter melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 box jiffy corn bread mix
1 can corn
1 can creamed corn
1 cup sour cream

Mix it up, put it in a greased 9x9 baking dish and cook it for 45 minutes at 350 or until the top is golden brown.

It's that corn casserole people often eat at Thanksgiving because it's just too dang fattening to enjoy more often.

Wouldn't It Be Good

I was 11 when this song came out. Still, I had healthy little crushes on the right pop stars. No Nick Rhodes for me. John Taylor (Duran Duran) and Nick Kershaw (especially when he was in that video with the static suit, and not dancing around on British Solid Gold.) And I always thought, "Yes! It would be good if you were on my side. Even if it was for just a day." Still love this song.

Wouldn't it be good if I could post this video on my actual web page? Been trying for too long to set up an account on YouTube.

Sabre Toothed Tigers and Revisionist History

This is Josie's saber toothed tiger. Eating a reasonable sized rodent. Pretty bloody. We learned that the proper name for this cat is smilodon.


This is Jake's saber-toothed tiger. He's the one in the back. The guys in the front are the "freaky rodents" that supposedly lived during prehistoric times. The kids thought that the saber toothed tiger probably ate these freaky rodents. They had to be some mighty big rodents for the tiger to need such enormous teeth to take them down.

Parade of Dead Bugs

Well, she's not dead yet. Actually, Josie is really pretty good at keeping predatory bugs alive since she really enjoys seeing them eat. It's the cricket in the foreground that will meet its fate today. Josie named the mantis Madison, naturally. She thinks it already ate its mate.

I should set her up a little bug coliseum, start giving all her little creatures Roman names. We can call this praying mantis Ceasar Manticus. The cricket can be Saul Goldstein.

What Was I Doing?

I was putting one chocolate fudge pop-tart in the right side of my toaster. It sat right beneath the radio. Josie was walking around the kitchen table doing three year old things. My mother called right when she saw it on TV. When I turned on my own TV, I remember thinking a helicopter had crashed into that building. I had no clue of the enormity of the World Trade Center. Certainly it wasn't a passenger plane. Well, I had to get off the phone at some point and get Jake fed too. He still needed help with that. He had just turned two six days before the whole world changed.

I wasn't watching TV when the second tower hit, although I'm sure I was trying to get back to it. My mom called me again to let me know. Then I thought "Oh my God, my kids are going to see WWIII." I never expected one of them to fall. I was on the phone with my closest friend when that happened. Then I really didn't think the second one would fall. And it did that while I was watching alone. Somewhere in there the Pentagon was hit, and I called Ray.

Josie wanted to watch Blue's Clues of course. I remember thinking "Blue's Clues" couldn't be on right now, or if it was there would be some sort of ticker on the bottom of the screen with updates.

I remember that day very well. Shock is like a camera flash for me. Things stand still and imprint on your brain.

I've changed a lot since that day. I know a lot more about Islam than I ever thought I would care to know. I also operate on the belief that terrible things will happen rather than won't, and more often than not these things can be traced to radical Islam. It's not paranoia, it's just common sense and hindsight. September 11th prepared me for what happened in Beslan in 2003. I admit I'm still digesting what's happening in Darfur. The misery is so big you have to travel to outer space to see it all, and once you get out there you can't see the individual people anymore. It's hard to connect. Am I making sense?

I also know when the media is avoiding the issue and I make it a point to be informed. Like in the case of the college student who blew himself up in Oklahoma. I wasn't surprised that it happened. I'm not surprised that many have forgotten that it happened, and I'm certainly not surprised that he is still not considered a suicide bomber. Just a suicide. That's the media.

I've stopped waking my husband up every time I read something showcasing the rampant idiocy, apathy, and hypocrisy that swarms around us. It's not news to me anymore.

I do have a deeper love for regular people than I ever did before. Some of that comes from what I saw in the days following the terrorist attacks, some of it is just the way I'm wired. Regular people don't seek martyrdom, or burn effigies of American presidents, or insult victims of terrorism. They don't carry offensive signs at the funerals of fallen soldiers, or spew filth at people with whom they disagree. Sometimes if I spend too long on the internet, I start believing that regular people are very rare. That's when I call my friends and laugh and get my priorities straight. All the pain in the world that I see just makes me hug my children tighter, and appreciate my family more. I know that's really all I can do. Be that regular person that helps keep it all together, when forces around us are trying to get us unglued.

No, We're Not Selling the House

I remember when I was in college a male friend of mine called me Polly Homemaker. It seemed to stick in my head for some reason. I guess the first reason it stuck was because he said it in a way that made me know it wasn't really a compliment. Of course I wanted marriage and family and all that, anyone that knew me at the time knew that too. My high school senior prediction was that I would have two kids and have taken them on a world tour with me by the the time our ten year reunion came around. It was actually a pretty controversial prediction, but the students convinced the teacher in charge that I would definitely consider it an accurate and positive one. But there is one very good reason that the name "Polly Homemaker" does not suit me. It's the "Homemaker" part. See, my good college buddy had never really looked at my kitchen sink, or peered into my closet, or noticed that the chocolate brown carpet in my apartment appeared to be jumping. I have gotten quite a bit better over the years, and have also decided that Polly Homemaker is not a name to be ashamed of.

Today I discovered Flylady. It's a Yahoo group. She sends us daily advice that after 28 days will help your be a more organized domestic executive : ) Today she told me how to clean and shine the sink. That was my only assignment. Well, the sink looked so pretty, I wanted my counters to look pretty too. Then the floor. Then the stovetop. My kids even got a good bath tonight.

Maybe at the end of this whole experiment I won't feel like I have to laminate my children.