I'm Afraid So

Did you know that the first music video on MTV (back when they used to actually show music videos) was Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles? Yep. A song about videos. Now, all these years later, it seems The Buggles were wrong, because I listen to the radio every single day and haven't watched a music video since 1998. But I was thinking the other day as I posted on Facebook that Facebook is killing the blogging star. Well, maybe not all of them because some of them are getting book deals and making money from blog posts. I am doing neither. But maybe that's because I'm finding it much easier to post a short little update on Facebook than sit down and compose and edit a full length post. It's not for lack of ideas. I have those to spare. Maybe it's lack of screen time. Maybe it's lack of motivation. Maybe it's just more satisfying to see that little number pop up beside the notification button on Facebook and know that someone commented on my silliness. Either way I have posted a lot less on my blog since I joined Facebook. I don't know if that's true for all bloggers, but I'd be curious to know. But for now I'm going to cut this short and see if I can figure out how to add a "share on Facebook" button to my blog.

Wednesday Word

Hope.

Blessed Sunday

I was blessed today to spend some time alone with my Adam. He was a great help setting up the book fair. And besides that, he's an amazing kid. Sweet. Smart. And funny. I love him all to pieces.

10 Things Thursday

10 favorites I listed on an info sheet given to the teachers at school by the PTO...

1. Reading
2. Writing
3. Chai latte
4. Toblerone
5. Tacos
6. Movies
7. Daisies
8. Trail mix
9. Oreos
10. White board markers and erasers (not a favorite, but what I could use in my classroom)

Two For Tuesday

The ride home after a day of garnet digging last summer. Mining is hard work.

Blessed Sunday

It was just Julianna and I at church this morning. Well, not just us. There were a few hundred other people, but just the two of us from our family. We sat, us two girls, in our regular seat. She with her books and a bag of pretzels. Me with a Bible and a pink stuffed dragon. (The dragon was hers, too, but I got to hold it for awhile.) For most of the service, Julianna sat on my lap. She got up and down a few times, but mostly she sat with me. And most of the time that she sat with me she was wiggling and squiggling and putting her feet on the seat in front of me and twisting to whisper observations to me. She reached for her pretzel bag and turned pages in my Bible and almost made me spill the communion tray. But I did not make her sit beside me in the long pew. I did not make her get off my lap. Because the one time I thought about asking her to move, I thought of Josh and Adam. My two little boys who used to sit on my lap at church. Now they are as tall as me and are no longer those little boys who wiggled and squirmed there not so many years ago. Jules will be four in a few short weeks and I know from experience than in the blink of an eye, she will be sitting across the auditorium with her friends in the youth group. But for today, and for as many more as she will, she sat on my lap. And I treasured it in my heart for those days when she doesn't.

Spring Break Staycation

It's the end of spring break. The end of a fun filled, but very short week. We thought about going away, but decided to save the money for a longer summer trip. It turned out to be a good decision. Julianna started getting a really bad cold last Thursday that led to a trip to the doctor on Saturday and a round of antibiotics. She wasn't really ready for much fun until Wednesday. With that and a rainy forecast, we made the best of it.

The boys had sleepovers on Sunday night. Adam spent the night with Aidan and Josh had a friend over to our house. Monday afternoon there were naps to recover.

Tuesday was movie day at home, Josh's first spring break request. Always a fun time for us.

Wednesday we all went to see The Lorax which was quite entertaining and reminded me how much I love taking my kids to the movies. Then lunch at Outback and dessert at Jamms. Pretty much a perfect outing if you ask me.

Thursday we headed to Spokane despite another day of rain. We headed way up north to Cat Tales, a cat rescue and training facility. (Adam's first pick.) It was just sprinkling when we got there and wasn't too cold, so we braved the weather to see the cats. The first cat we came to was this amazing white Tiger named Apollo. He is beautiful. But he apparently doesn't like umbrellas because when we got too close to the fence he roared at us to let us know to get back. And we did...quickly.


There were lots of other, less grumpy cats, too. Lions, tigers, leopards, mountain lions, and lynx. There was even a black bear to complete our lions and tigers and bears (Oh, my!) adventure. Since it was raining, there weren't a lot of guests, so we got a lot of attention from the staff. They walked with us and told us the story behind each cat. Some are rescues and some are movie and tv stars. Two of the leopard brothers were the first live leopard birth on tv.







And later, they took the cats out of their enclosures one at a time and went in and hid chunks of meat around for them to find. When they let the cats back in, it was like watching a big, furry egg hunt. It was really fun to watch the cats be so active and playful.





We had a great time despite the rain and were so glad we made the trek.

After Cat Tales we headed to Chuck E. Cheese's, Julianna's one and only spring break request. She loves going there and playing the games and climbing and sliding. She is an expert at the spider stomp game. Probably because it is kind of like dancing...and stomping spiders! She loves the place and the games, but she does not like Chuck E. Whenever he makes his hourly appearance, she dives under the table and hides until he is no longer in her sight. Then she's back on the go. Funny!

Spider stomping...

Spider sitting...

Alien hunting...




And finally, yesterday, we took Josh and Adam to see John Carter of Mars, Josh's second pick. You know I love going to the movies. I love going by myself. I love going with my friends. I love going with Arrty. But I especially love going with my kids. They are terrific movie buddies. All three of them started going to the movies when they were very young since we go to the free movies during the summer. (I think Julianna was about two weeks old when we took her to the movies for the first time.) Josh is great because he gets really into the movies like I do. He laughs and gasps and reacts without worrying about who might hear. I love that. I know that the day will come when he does worry about what the people around him might think. But that day hasn't come yet. And Adam. Oh, Adam. He vibrates with excitement. Literally. I sat next to him yesterday and loved being able to sense what he was thinking just by feeling. During the exciting parts he would just shake. I love that! And besides loving going with the boys, I loved the movie! It was really, really good! I know it hasn't gotten much good PR, but it deserves better. It's a great story and a well made movie. I hope it ends up getting the recognition it deserves.

Today we still have bowling to do. Adam's other pick. Arrty had to teach today so it will have to wait until this afternoon.

It's been a really great week off from school. Some fun. Some rest. I think I may just be able to make it through the last nine weeks of school now. Maybe.

Wednesday WORD

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

History Fair

We had our history fair at school on Thursday. Each class preschool through 2nd grade did a class project with each student helping with the presentation. Julianna's class did their project on George Washington. They colored pictures of our first president and made cherry trees out of toilet paper rolls and construction paper with red fingerprint cherries. The four year olds did a project on the history of macaroni and cheese complete with macaroni sculptures. My kindergarten class's project was based on our social studies unit on children of the world. We learn about how children around the world live and our project shared what we learned. The first and second grade class have been studying several presidents and presented their artwork and writing about them. The third, fourth, and seventh grade students chose historical figures to study and present. And the fifth and sixth graders did a written project about a country of their choice and an oral presentation about a historical figure.

To start the program, the preschoolers led the Pledge of Allegiance and sang and signed "Glory, Glory Hallelujah." Then they and the kindergartners and first and second graders sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and "Skip to My Lou." It was so cute. And only one little boy announced that he "had to pee" during the show. Julianna and Abby were, of course, the cutest ones on the stage. Here's some proof.

They worked on the railroad all the livelong day...

They skipped to the Lou my darlin'...

But mostly they giggled...


Then the third, fourth, and seventh graders gave a dramatic reading of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. It was quite inspirational. And finally, the fifth and sixth graders did their portrayals of historical figures including Mary Queen of Scots, Daniel Boone, Sacajawea, Louisa May Alcott, Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt, and Amelia Earhart. They all did such a good job.

Here are Daniel Boone and Teddy Roosevelt...well, younger, cuter versions of them.

I was very proud of all the kids and what they accomplished. They did a great job.

10 Things Thursday

10 things representing the countries in the kindergarten "Children of the World" history fair project.

1. Australia--stuffed koala
2. China--paper lantern
3. Japan--origami dragon
4. Japan--bowl of rice with chopsticks
5. Kenya--toy animals (elephant, giraffe, hippo, rhino, zebra, cheetah)
6. Mexico--paper flower decoration
7. The Netherlands--tulips
8. Israel--Adras game
9. Italy--plate of pasta
10. Peru--picture of rainforest plants

Blessed Sunday

So I turned 40 today. 40 is a lot of years. 40 years worth of love and laughter and memories combined with some trials and mistakes to make me who I am today. 40 years spent loving and being loved by parents who chose to be a family for me. 40 years for my spirit to grow and learn and follow a path that leads upward and homeward. 40 years filled with people who have touched my heart and helped form my character. 40 years spent watching sunsets, chasing butterflies, and marveling at His creation. 40 years in which I have been a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, wife, mother, aunt, student, teacher, friend, and Christian. 40 years worth of reading books and watching movies and singing songs. 40 years to dream and write and search. 40 years of life lived full of all kinds of wonderfully good things. Yes, 40 is a lot of years. And I have looked forward to this day for a while. Because somehow, it feels like a new beginning. A good time to start living the life I'm meant to live. A good time to look at where I've been and where I'm going. A good time to start living every day with purpose. A good time to count the blessings I have and embrace the ones that come my way each day. So here's to the wonderful, amazing, crazy 40 years I've lived so far...and to the many still to come. I can only imagine what they have in store for me!

10 Things Thursday

10 things in our "100th Day Trail Mix." (To celebrate the 100th day of school, each student gets 10 each of 10 things brought in by the students...and me since I only have 7 students.

1. Honey Nut Cheerios
2. chocolate chips
3. vanilla cupcake flavored goldfish crackers
4. Apple Jacks
5. M&M's*
6. mini marshmallows
7. peanut butter pretzels
8. mini pretzel twists
9. valentine heart candies
10. Nerds

*Why is there an apostrophe in M&M's?

Road Report

As part of Arrty's position with the Transportation Department, he plows snow in the winter. Like big time plowing with the huge, yellow, state trucks with the flashing lights and everything. He leaves the house at an hour that I consider to be the middle of the night and braves the dark and winter weather to go to work to make the roads safe for all of us who will be driving to work or school several hours later. He even plows the highway from town north to just past our house. So most mornings, and especially if there's any weather to speak of, he calls just before we leave for school and gives me my own private road report. He tells me if the roads are dry or wet or slushy or icy. He warns me if there might be black ice or fog. He alerts me to any accidents or other things to watch out for. I really, truly appreciate his updates. It's good for me, a nervous winter driver, to know what I'm getting into. And he knows that about me. So his road reports are much more than just road reports. They are one more way he tells me he knows me and loves me...and is protecting me in every way he can. What a blessing.

10 Things Thursday

Josh and Adam are working on projects for the history fair coming up in March. They each had to choose a historical figure to portray on stage and a country for a written project. Josh chose Daniel Boone and Peru. Adam chose Teddy Roosevelt and Australia. It's been interesting learning along with them. So here are 5 people and 5 places I would choose if I were in their class.

1. Amelia Earhart
2. Georgia O'Keefe
3. Harriet Tubman
4. Laura Ingalls Wilder
5. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
6. Ireland
7. Brazil
8. Greece
9. Switzerland
10. Kenya

Who and where would you choose?

Idol Shmidol

I like to watch singing competition shows on tv. You know, like American Idol and The Voice (which I just discovered and LOVE). I have often caught myself thinking, "If I were on this show I would sing...(fill in the blank with any one of a million songs that I love)." I love to sing and have for as long as I can remember. I sing often. I sing at home and at church and at school and in the car...especially in the car. I sing by myself and with my family and my students...and especially with my kids. I sing when I'm happy and I sing through the tears when I'm not. And even though I'm way to old to try out for Idol or Voice, I don't need to. Here's why.

Sunday at church I was singing, like usual, when Julianna motioned for me to hear a secret. She then, in her most precious little girl voice, whispered, "Mommy, you have a beautiful voice." I was surprised. Not by her sweetness, because that's just the way she is, but by her observation and thoughtfulness in sharing such a compliment. I said, "Thanks, Julie," and went back to singing...even though I was tearing up a little.

So Steven, Jennifer, and Randy and Adam, Cee Lo, Christina, and Blake, I really like you guys and wish you all the best, but I've been judged by a much more important person. She's three years old, her name is Julianna, and she's way, way, WAY cuter than any of you.

10 Things Thursday

10 questions about Facebook.

1. First, why, oh why, did I fall into temptation and join? It is not a good place for someone who is naturally nosy...I mean, curious...to find themselves.
2. What am I supposed to post? Does anyone really care that a kid threw up in my class or that my daughter calls lullabies "luvabies?"
3. What am I supposed to "like?" What if someone posts something sad? Can I "like" that?
4. How can I not confirm friendship? I've taught kindergarten for 7 years. It goes against everything I know to say no when someone asks me to be their friend.
5. Why is it impossible for me to write anything, including a Facebook post, without using proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? (At least to the best of my ability.) It must be just me because lots of other people don't seem to have that problem.
6. Can I really call someone my friend if I haven't spoken to them in over 10 years? Or ever.
7. Isn't it wrong to find out really important information on Facebook? Seems to me it is.
8. When someone is on chat, do they really want to chat? Because I'm not so good at chatting in real life so I'm probably not good at it online either.
9. Do I get free stuff if I "like" a product or business? Because if I get free stuff, there's lots of things I "like."
10. Where does Mark Zuckerberg get all his money? It's free to be on Facebook. There really aren't that many ads that I've seen. The aps that I've seen so far are free. I'm confused by how he can be so rich. But since joining Facebook, I'm obviously confused by many things.

Valentines

The dictionary defines valentine as "a sweetheart chosen or complimented on Valentine's Day." A sweetheart is defined as "one who is loved, a generally likable person, a remarkable one of its kind."

That being true, I have lots of valentines. My four favorites though, are the four I live with. The one who's been my valentine for well over 20 years. The one whose birth made me a mommy. The one who makes me laugh more than any other person in the world. And the one whose perfect pinkness has brought completion to our family. They are all loved. They are all generally likable people. (Generally.) And they are each one a remarkable one of a kind. And today, on this, my 39th Valentine's Day, I am overjoyed to have four such amazing, wonderful valentines.

I love you Arrty, Josh, Adam, and Julianna. You are my valentines today and every day.

Neon

I was walking through Target the other day and saw their new line of neon clothing. The brightest green and pink and yellow seen since the 80's. It gave me a serious flashback to high school and jazz choir. The first year we chose to have our costumes be bright blue, pink and yellow. (Well, they decided. I was too shy to say, "Ummm...really?) It was 1988 though. Those bright colors were cool. So not only did we stun the audience with our talent, we blinded them with "rad colors." And lucky me, I got to wear yellow. (Once again done in by my shyness.) Even in 1988 it was impossible to find a bright yellow dress so Mom had to make me one. It was a very simple pattern. Long sleeves, straight skirt. But paired with the wide black belt and black bead necklace, I was only the fifth silliest looking person on the stage.

The second year of my jazz choir experience we mixed it up a little and added black to our bright colors. Black pants for the boys and black skirts for the girls with neon tee shirts on top with black tees underneath so we could roll up the sleeves and have black edges. The boys wore their black shirts on top and had neon edges.* There was no yellow that year. Only pink, green and orange. I got orange. I know. Super cool. But it was better than yellow.

So either Target is going retro or we were way ahead of the times. Either way, I've done my neon time.

*I only remember the details because I found the pictures when we were de-flooding the basement. I will post the pics for a small fee.

10 Things Thursday

10 things we found while de-flooding the basement.

1. That we have too much stuff.
2. 2 boxes of VHS tapes with stickers that said things like "Seinfeld Finale" and "90210." (The Brenda and Brandon and Dillon and Kelly 90210. Obviously, if it's recorded on VHS.)
3. Several blank VHS tapes. Anyone need them? Kathy, maybe?
4. Boxes and boxes of books. Some that I knew about and some that I didn't. About a third of them survived.
5. That if you have brand new puzzles, they are in plastic bags inside the box. Even if the box is ruined, the puzzle might be saved.
6. Wet carpet is very, very heavy.
7. Bags and bags of stuffed animals that I had stealthily moved to the basement. Julianna has now carried, by the armful, many of them back upstairs to her room...and the couch...and the living room floor...
8. Everyone has a flooded basement story of their own or at least of someone they know. And plenty advice for the clean up.
9. Did I mention that we found that we have too much stuff? Oh, I did?
10. We found out what's important. Everything in the basement could float away today, but as long as the people upstairs are safe, we're good.

When It Rains...

it pours.

Ever heard that saying? Well, I've had one of those weeks. The big finale (at least I hope it's the finale) began early yesterday morning when my husband woke me up at 3:40 am and told me that our basement was flooding. How could that even be possible? We live on the prairie! But with all the melting snow and heavy rain overnight, our backyard was a small lake and we had water about a foot up on our sliding glass door in the basement. That foot of water outside had leaked inside around the door and was covering every inch of our basement in 2 inches of water. Arrty called my dad (because that's what you do when you need something fixed) and he came out to the house and helped block the water from coming in. That was the easy part.

Arrty spent all day Monday getting the water out and when I got home we began the slow process of drying everything out. It took Monday evening and all day yesterday to get everything moved, the carpet up, and the things that weren't salvageable thrown away. One of the hardest parts was the books I lost. I had to throw away at least 6 boxes of books that were ruined. I looked through the first few to see what was in there, but after that I just carried them to the trash pile. I didn't want to know what was in there. It just made it worse. There were a few things that I checked on right away...the safe box holding birth certificates and other important documents and my scrapbooks. They were safe...or so I thought. For some reason Josh and Adam's first year scrapbooks were not on the shelf with all the others and were found yesterday afternoon after sitting on wet carpet for over a day. That's when I lost it and cried hysterically for about a minute and a half. Then I pulled myself together and made a plan. I ran into town and made color copies of all the pages and then laid them out to dry to see what could be saved. They aren't looking so good, so the color copies may have to work as replacements. But I will include a note to the boys reminding them that at one time their scrapbooks were lovingly handmade. Most everything else of significance was either well protected in Rubbermaid boxes or put on shelves. It looks like we will be able to save all the furniture. So we lost our carpet, lots of books, some jigsaw puzzles and board games, and a few other odds and ends.

Now we have to continue to dry out the concrete floor with fans and heaters and then put everything back where it belongs. It was bad, but certainly could have been much worse. It sure is a hard way to get the basement cleaned up.

Oh yeah, and did you know that homeowners insurance does not cover loss or damage caused by ground water? So it looks like we'll have no carpet in the basement for awhile. But the floor sure is clean!