Month: January 2007

  • Snow Fever

    We finally have enough snow to cover all the grass. Huzzah!  I spent the day at my mom’s, helping her with her digital camera and computer and various other things.  I was grateful to have arrived home safely tonight: the roads were a mess.

    TGD is sporting a 101.5 fever and is safely NyQuilled and asleep in bed.  Who will be the next victim?  Perhaps none of us. One can only hope, although my schedule is fairly clear for the next week, so a violent illness wouldn’t be too disruptive.

    I don’t know if you like hip-hop or rap, but if you do, here’s a fun song about the Bill of Rights. It’s from Hip-Hop History by Flocabulary.  My kids love the CD, and I don’t mind it either. 

    So, is anyone planning a big Super Bowl event? 

  • A TeacherPerson by Any Other Name…

    I found this nifty thingie, and it looked like much fun. You do it, too, if you want, or maybe only the interesting bits.

    YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.)
    Marizzle

    YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color and favorite animal)
    Blue Goldfish      (Okay, I don’t have a  favorite animal. Don’t sign me up for ASPCA fundraising dinners.)

    YOUR SPY NAME: (middle name, and current street name)
    Leigh Ira  (    This name even sounds romantic and spy-like.  I’m glad I don’t live on Stadium Drive anymore!)

    YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters
    of your first name and first 2 letters of mom’s maiden name, first 3 letters of
    your hometown)
    Selma Nocur   (This,  I like! Quick, Wes, toss me a light saber!)

    YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
     Green  Water?  Green Black Cherry Vanilla Coke? Green Pepsi?  (What a lame, indecisive superhero I’d be.)

    YOUR ARABIC NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last
    name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your mom’s maiden name, 3rd
    letter of you dad’s middle name, 1st letter of a sibling’s first name, last
    letter of your mom’s middle) 
    Alhodbe  (It has a nice Arabic ring to it, eh?)

    YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (your dad’s middle name, and your favorite
    author’s last name)
    Ogden Austen  (Charming.   Do you think anyone would believe my name  was “Ogden”?

    YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one your pets)
    Black Paulie  (Yeah, that immortal parakeet is so goth.)

    So, what do you have planned for your week?   And, will you need an alias to accomplish it?

  • Good Animation!

    This video is amazingly funny and well-done. I like Firefox’s attack.

    Sitting in the ski lodge was a great deal of fun today.  Poor GhostFroggy showed up with her arm all in a cast-like thing.  She was still a happy trooper, though.  It was nice weather for tubing–warmish (34 degrees) and mostly sunny.

    I was able to get the last song for Peach Fuzz written. Go, me!  I’d give you the lyrics, but I gave the paper to bkroeker so he could set the song to music. Hope he doesn’t loose it because I’m drawing a total blank on almost everything I wrote.  Here’s what I recall of a chorus.

    Love isn’t something that has to be earned.
    It is a lesson I long ago learned.
    The changes you’ve made only served to deepen
    The feelings that were in my heart to begin. 

    Okay, that’s the gist of it, but I certainly hope I wrote it better, because, as Lauren Willig would say, “It doesn’t scan.”

  • Good News!

    Baby Brie’s fever is down, and they are suspecting VUR, which is what my own Little Miss had. It is a condition where the ureters don’t connect quite right to the bladder and urine refluxes toward the kidney causing urinary tract infections. This isn’t definite, but it is a much better diagnosis than meningitis! Thanks for the prayers you have sent up on her behalf and for any others you still plan to pray.

    Well, well. How did it get to be Friday already?  I feel like I’m still not on top of things this homeschool year. The kids are all doing their work, projects are being completed, but I just feel as if I’m not doing my part.  Strange.

    Tomorrow, The Hunter and TGD head to Palmyra, PA, for a shooting match. This will be Hunter’s first of the year.  Oh, boy.  I get to sit in a ski lodge from 12 to 5 as the Youth Group indoor chaperone and bag-watcher.  The rest will be tubing (except Little Miss who will spend the day at a friend’s house).  Ah, five hours to sit and read and play the occasional board game. Life sounds pretty good! 

    I know many of you are avid readers and movie watchers.  Imagine that this weekend you had the opportunity to switch places with any character in any movie or book (but just for this weekend). Which one would you choose?  If I had to switch forever, I’d pick very differently than for just a weekend jaunt.  Would I like to be Thursday Next?  Guinevere    ? Trinity? Ada Monroe?  So many choices. Which do you choose?

    EDIT–Long, but so funny!  George Lucas in Love

  • Please
    lift up Brie D. in your prayers. She’s the 1.5 week old daughter of
    rjdohner.  She was taken to the hospital with a fever of 100.3 and was
    diagnosed with a bacterial infection. They don’t know yet if it’s
    meningitis.  Plus, since she was born a month early, she’s very tiny (5
    pounds plus), and the doctors wonder how well she will be able to fight
    off this infection.

    Thanks for your prayers!

  • I Smell a Tag

    Yes, it happened. I was just innocently browsing my subscriptions when WHAM! There it was. A tag.  (Thanks, ElizabethDNB!)  Since this is an odd one which I’ve not seen before, I’ll play!

    My Five Favorite Scents

    1. Vanilla–I love the stuff. I sniff it in the kitchen while making desserts. It’s my perfume. It’s my bubble bath. What could be better than to smell like cookies?

    2. Lemon and Orange–Dish liquids and such had better be orange or lemon.  Mmmmm!

    3. Chocolate–I love to smell chocolate, especially cocoa.  (See #1)

    4.  Linen things–I think it’s really the dryer sheets (Bounce), but perhaps it’s just the clean smell of fresh sheets (er, fresh smell of clean sheets?)

    5.  Coppertone suntan lotion–Nothing else says “summer” like the smell of Coppertone!

    I’m sure there are lots of other things I love to smell, but these will do for now.  How about you? What are your favorites?

    What’s the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? 


  • A Little Spice

    Sometimes you need a change in your life, something new to think on.  I’ve felt a touch of this for a while, and I did something about it. I bought myself a new computer CD of 4,000 fonts. Yes, that’s right. Instead of simply writing something in good, ‘ol Comic Sans or Arial,  I can now choose from 4,000 other options.  Life is looking preeeety nice.

    I’m currently reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  It’s an odd book. I don’t really like disengaged main characters with complex interior emotions.  Blah.  Plus, how many more teenage angst books can I take?  Give me a happy Cinderella story!  EDIT–I finished the book last night.  Around page 438 (really), the book got interesting and became worthy of the “mystery” label some librarian had blithely affixed to its spine.  For about 70 pages, I was unaware of the time. And then it ended. 

    Do I recommend this book? Eh, maybe. It had some quirky characters and eventually an interesting plot line. I certainly wouldn’t read it again. But, if you have hours to kill and a desire to read it, by all means!

    Here are some people I’d like for you to meet.


    Elizabeth Ann Linley (and her brother Thomas)

    Richard Brinsley Sheridan

     


    Their story is the one I want to write.


  • Birthday Time

    Does anyone else have a special fondness when the clock shows his/her birthdate?  I am very happy when the clock reads 11:23.  I suppose englishwestern is happy at 1:22 since today is his happy day!

    I still haven’t heard anything from the book proposal. Perhaps I should email asking for confirmation of receipt?  That doesn’t seem too pushy.  But, first on my plate, I must finish writing another song for the musical. Actually sitting down and writing would be a good way to accomplish this task, I bet! Or, at least I should think about it while ironing today.

    What task are you putting off?

  • A Most Excellent Day

    First of all, I encourage you to check out Alias Eliot, a wonderful website made by a dear friend of mine. If you are interested in global issues and humanitarian efforts, please don’t miss this excellent site! There are action items, links, discussion forums, and more. 

    For Christmas, TGD got me a gift certificate to an afternoon-long, bookbinding class at an art studio near us.  I’ve been looking forward to it with great eagerness, and today was finally the day!  For over five hours, I got to sit in an art studio and learn how to make different types of books and how to bind them, eat a catered lunch, and actually work on making books. 

    Although I didn’t really learn a lot of new information in terms of the technical details, I was given a book on loan which explained how to turn me into Mo from Inkheart.  (a real, live bookbinder)  I vastly enjoyed the relaxation of creating with paper. 

    We were given the instructions and were told, “Okay, make whatever you want, whatever size you want. All the supplies are there.” We had just about everything we would want for art supplies, of course, and all of them were included in the class fee. The first book we made was an accordion book. Here’s the front.




    It actually looks really pretty in real life. It’s hard to see the subtle and delicate details online. (Is anyone else piffing and snorting at the thought of anything I make having the words “delicate” and “subtle” attached to it? As if! Okay, it’s just ripped paper with glitter and braided hemp.)

    Here’s the back of the book. Since it’s an accordion book, it might be the front.

    Because some of my pages had seams where they met, I decorated the inside a bit. This picture shows one decoration.



    The book I just showed you was given to LibbyK.  Not to ignore Little Miss, I made a book for her as well with a different binding technique. The inside is just blank paper, so here’s the more interesting cover.  (The bears are just cut out of paper. I didn’t make them, of course!)



    I loved the day. I forget how much I love arts and crafts, especially paper crafts.  If you had five hours to spend however you wanted it (with no guilt!), what might you do?