Happy Anniversary

 

AS IN J JUMP JOYFUL JUMBLE

Today is my 14th wedding anniversary.  Yes 14 years today I woke up as a single man and went to bed as a married man.  There has been good and bad in my life since that day.  But the truth is that our life really has been a joyful jumble. 

I found out that the traditional 14th anniversary gift is Ivory while the modern 14th gift is gold.  Both these songs are golden oldies and notice that Barney is tickling the ivories in the video below. 


Happy Anniversary Amy, I heart you big time. 

Change of Face

Puppy has been obsessed with the beginning of Spring for almost a month now. Each morning she checks her calendar and announces how many days until Spring.



In honor of the start of Spring tomorrow I decided to shave of my beard. As you may recall, I grew my present beard because my having facial hair was a previous obsession of hers.



So, after dinner and a pleasant stroll with my beloved Amy, I transformed myself from this to this

This

To This

The Best Christmas Gift Ever

Time once again for Thursday

@ Self Sagacity

Here are my two questions:

Question 1

What is the best Christmas present you ever received?

This year I received this book.

You might not be able to tell by the cover.  But this book is probably the best give I ever received. 

Here is what, the folks at Amazon call, a look inside.



That is my son reading and as I have mentioned in other posts, my son has really struggled learning to read.  This year he has made a series of breakthroughs and thus, this Christmas was able to read the entire book and my wife recorded it as a keepsake for me.  As I type this, I am beginning to cry.  I am so thankful to God that our hard work is paying off and thankful for a wife who loves us so much that she wanted to commemorate our achievement.

Question 2

What is your favorite part of your favorite season?

I think I like all 4 seasons of the year pretty much equally.  I certainly have my favorite part of each season.  For winter, it has to be what is scheduled for this evening.  Snow, and plenty of it.  I especially love sledding with the kids. 

Those are my 2 questions.  I am looking forward to your answers.
To see other people's questions or participate yourself, click here.

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This post's  featured HSBA blog is Handbook of Nature Study winner in the Best Homeschool Nature/Field Trip category.  I really like the look and feel of this blog.  It is the home of an outddor carnival that I want to look into more deeply in the future.  I really enjoyed this sample post.

The Queen's Speech

Christmas, Libraries and More

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up and A Look Ahead



A Link Up

This week we started Library Week amid all the hustle and bustle of the Holiday Season.  I hope to utilize our home school blog more in the months to come and will post our library adventures there.  Here is the first installment

We interrupt this post with a Holiday Message

Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas.  We hosted our family today as there were few enough people coming to fit comfortably in our house.  With all the travelling we have been doing lately, it is nice to stay home and celebrate here.

A Look Ahead

This week in real life, we will be visiting loads of libraries,  and posting snippets here.  That won't start until Tuesday.  Tomorrow we will engage in a little excitement call Do Nothing Day.

You can read all about it next time.

Merry Christmas! 

Christmas Eve Musings

It is 9:oo p.m.  Christmas Eve.  Amy and I are relaxing on the couch as we wait for our children to fall asleep.  We never taught our kids to believe in Santa, but we do still like to put candy in their stockings from us once they are asleep.  Even though they know the big guy isn't coming, it is still hard to get them asleep the night before Christmas. 

While I wait for them to sleep, I thought I would take some time to say a few things here. Christmas is chaotic fun, chock full of family visits, car rides, old movies, good food, good conversations, awkward pauses, rousing card games, frequent questions like "So how long are you in town?" etc.  But we do enjoy the chaos.  At times, we do forget to be really thankful for the true meaning of Christmas.  Not what many people say, "baby Jesus being born." No, no. We are thankful that Jesus gave up his God-hood, and became a man, to suffer as we do (and much more) to make a way for billions of sinners He loved so much.  And that way He made for us is so simple and beautiful, almost too much so for so many, so that they miss their role in salvation...acceptance.  Oh no, I have to DO something to go to heaven. Or God doesn't exist for me, no God I know would allow people to suffer, etc.  God has made a way for us to know about him through his word and creation, and to know him through his Son.  Thank you Jesus!

Comparison Shopping during the Holidays

Christmas time is a great time for catching up with people you haven't seen for a while.  This is done through family get-togethers, parties and Christmas cards.  Sometimes after reading other people's Christmas  letters, I get a feeling of paling in comparison.  Earlier this week after reading about how great some of my relatives lives are going I became noticeably melancholy.

At least noticeable to my wife, who spent a few minutes working  at the computer and then handed me a sheet of paper.  The sheet had all the things our family had done in  2011 written on it.  At first I didn't know why she had done it.  It seemed too late to be thinking about sending out a Christmas letter of our own. 

So I asked her why she had done it.She said to remind you of all the great things we have accomplished this year under your leadership.  I have that list on my computer's hard drive now and will pull it up the next time a Christmas greeting has me questioning my worth.

I am so thankful for a wife who will stop what she is doing just to pick up my spirits.

Calculating Milestones in Days.

Every once in a while here in blogworld, someone will write a post about some sort of milestone in their lives (i.e. birthday, anniversary etc.) and make a comment about the exact # of days they have been alive or married or whatever. The problem is, each time I have read such a comment, the exact number of days has been incorrect.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let's say someone is celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary today. That means they were married December 18th, 1986. Perhaps they want to post about it. They might take out a calculator and multiply 365 by 25 and get a product of  9125 days. They might say we've been married 9125 days today.

That is not correct.

There are 2 mistakes that are being made. 1 is obvious and 1 not so obvious. Actually, both are obvious to me. Let's see if either one is obvious to you.

First, a little thing I like to call Lauren's birthday. Lauren is a sweet girl in our co-op. She has had 2 birthdays, and will have her third next year. The thing is, Lauren's 11. That's right, her birthday is on Leap Day.  The above calculation did not take into account the  extra day every 4 years that leap year produces.

The next mistake is based on the method used for counting days. Let's say you were born at 11:00 p,m. today. At midnight, it is the next day, and although you have been alive for 1 hour, you have lived on 2 different days.

This is the mistake I see people make when they are counting days by year. They don't count the day of the event they are commemorating. For example, I was born on 9/23/64. On 9/23/65 I had lived in all or some of 366 days, not 365.

If you are not totally confused already, let me teach you a sure fire method of counting the exact number of days (including parts of the 1st and last day) that you are commemorating. If you are totally confused, go do a Charlie Brown: pound your head against a tree, and say I can't stand it. You could also, as Amy is apt to point out,  do a Miss Piggy and say, "I don't understand any of this."   I'll wait.

Welcome back those of you returning from the tree, or your Miss Piggy impersonation.

In order to calculate the exact amount of days you have been involved in something, you need to know 2 things:

1) The current day.
2) The date you are counting from.
3) How many days are in each month. (access to a calendar will suffice.)

Here's our test case:

Amy and I were married on Apri l 11th 1998.

I want to know how many days (full and partial) we have been married, here is what I do . . .

1) Starting with April 11th 1998 I count out 4 year periods as 1461 days (365 per year times 4 plus one leap day.

April 11th 1998 - April 10th 2002 1461
April 11th 2002 - April 10th 2006 1461
April 11th 2006 - April 10th 2010 1461

2) Since April 10th 2010 is less than 4 years before today, I count out years as 365 days, unless there was a leap day and then I count it as 366.

April 11th 1998 - April 10th 2002 1461
April 11th 2002 - April 10th 2006 1461
April 11th 2006 - April 10th 2010 1461
April 11th 2010- April 11th 2011 365

3) When I get to where there is less than a year left til the current date, I just count out the remaining days by months. This includes the rest of April 2011 and the days that have taken place so far this month..

There are 30 days in April and I have already accounted for the first 10 in 2011. This means there are 20 more to put in our rendering. Today is December 18th. So the amount of days Amy and I have been married can be tallied like this:

April 11th 1998 - April 10th 2002                         1461

April 11th 2002 - April 10th 2006                         1461

April 11th 2006 - April 10th 2010                         1461

April 11th 2010- April 11th 2011                            365

April 11th 2011 - April 30th 2011                             20
May 2011                                                                 31
June 2011                                                                 30
Ju;y 2011                                                                  31
Aigust 2011                                                               31
September 2011                                                        30
October 2011                                                            31
November 2011                                                        30
December 1st to Dec 18 2011                                   18

4) Add all the numbers together

1461
1461
1461
0365
0020
0031
0030
0031
0031
0030
0031
0030
0018
5000


That means that as of today Amy and I have been married 5000 days. Wow, imagine that! The day I picked to do a tutorial on calculating milestones, was actually a milestone itself. I think I'll take her out to celebrate. Actually, I have been using this calculation for years and chose today because it is our 5000th day of marriage.  I am taking Amy on a secret surprise date to commemorate the occasion.

This explanation serves 3 purposes

1) The next time someone posts about blogging for 3650 days when they have actually been at it 3653, I will simply send them the link to this post.

2) To communicate to you what Amy has been putting up with  for 5000 days.

3) To commemorate an average day as a momentous occasion for the woman I love. I am touched by the holiday symmetry of this occasion. Our first day of marriage was the Saturday prior to Easter in 1998. Today, Day 5000, is a week before Christmas 2011. Amy is a lot like Mary Poppins, in that every day is a Jolly Holiday with her.

A Picture is worth 200 Posts

Click here for more Wordless Wednesday

Speaking of Wordless,my HSBA spotlight blog is Mothership Adventures who won for best pictures.  They travel the country in an r.v which is cool enough.  The pictures are fantastic.  Here is a sample post.

As the title indicated, this is my 200th post with pictures in it. 

Thanks Swimming!

I love t-shirts and would love to have one that says "I brake for symmetry".

I am always looking for book ends to catalog my life .  One such moment of symmetry appeared to me when our family was picking up my oldest niece in South Bend to bring her back to the Chicago area for Thanksgiving.  I invited our niece to go swimming with us in our hotel.  This was on Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving.  I realized that my younger sister had invited our niece as well as our family to go swimming with her 2 days after Thanksgiving.  So I', thinking swimming, Thanksgiving, swimming and it came to me, Thankswimming.

Here's A Recap . . .

Thankswimming Day 1

 

Then after drying off,

leaving the hotel,

inspecting the dorm,

Catching The Muppet Premiere,

 

Eating,

and waiting

for the tryptophan to kick in.

We were ready for . . .

 Thankswimming Day 2

This summer, my older kids started going off the diving board.  The problem was, every time I tried to take a picture of them, I would get this . . .

and then this . . .

This year, no doubt due to the miracle that is Thankswimming, I got this . . .

and this . . .



and even this . . .

All this  while Puppy paddled.

In short Thankswimming

made a big splash!

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Today's featured HSBA category is Best Homemaking or Recipes Blog.  This years winner, The Happy Lil' Homemaker seems to have a lot of great recipes like the one I saw today fro Spritz Cookies.  I was surprised that they didn't have any Thankswimming recipes.  Although this  Sample Post does look delectable.

A JJ Heller Style birthday

Today is Puppy's birthday. A few months ago Puppy heard a song on the radio by J.J. Heller. She calls it Love me for me which are the main lyrics in the chorus. The actual song is called What Love Really Means. Puppy instantly fell in love with that song and with J.J. Heller herself. She wrote her a letter and even got a response from her.

Since then I found out that J.J. Heller and I have a lot in common . . .

1. Her daughter has the same real name as Puppy.

2. She has a husband named Dave. I am a husband named Dave.

3. She blogs. I blog.

4. She made her daughter rainbow cupcakes for her recent birthday. We made Puppy rainbow cupcakes for her birthday.

5. She has a lovely singing voice. I have a lovely singing voice blog.

So for Puppy's birthday we got her the J.J.Heller C.D.. that has What Love Really Means on it. When Puppy found out that J.J Heller's daughter got rainbow cupcakes on her birthday she said I'm having a J.J. Heller style birthday. Puppy you bring your own style to every birthday and everything you do and as pal J.J might say we love you for you. Happy Birthday!

Thanksgiving Fool

11 11 11 41

Veteran's day always served a double purpose in my adult life. One was it gave me pause to reflect on how those in our military, lay their lives on the line to insure and protect the freedoms I often take for granted.

The other was actually more important, it reminded me of my brother's birthday. My youngest brother was born on November 11th. Having 4 siblings, I was grateful for anything that would remind me of their birthdays. Having one born on a holiday is certainly one way of doing it.


Keith loved being born on Veteran's day. He used to joke that people were getting the day off from school or work (although I don't remember getting the day off for either) for his birthday.
Having a brother with a birthday on a holiday was working for both of us. I remembered it and he basked in it. Then, in 2009, he goes and dies on me!

What good is a remembering a birthday if you don't have someone to celebrate with? So, I started celebrating Keith's birthday here, on my blog. In November of 2009, I spaced my posts 39 hours apart since he would have been 39. What can I say, the kid loved math. On his actual birthday I posted every 39 minutes mine and other's remembrances of him. Last November, I linked many of those remembrances at the end of my posts and on what would have been his 40th birthday I wrote this.

Keith would have actually enjoyed his 41st birthday better than his 40th. He was obsessed with math, and particularly enjoyed calendar math. This probably had something to do with being born on the 11th day of the 11th month. I remember in 1981 how he cherished turning 11 on 11/11. I also remember in the mid to late '90s how this 20 something was telling me what would happen on his 41st birthday. I mean hey this was before people were even worrying about Y2k!

Yes, today his 41st birthday is on 11/11/(20)11. The kid would certainly dig that. The only thing he might have wanted to change, if he could go back in time (a concept, he often thought about), would to be born 3 decades later and turn 11 on 11/11/11. I am not sure my Mom, who would have given birth at age 60, would have appreciated that.

In honor of Keith's posthumous achievement I posted this at 11:11 this morning. We all miss you Keith. The memories we have of you, and the knowledge that you are in Heaven, help us get through each birthday and every day we spend without you.

Birthdays and Home Schooling

Like many home school parents, I was not home educated. Unlike my kids I went to school rather than stay at home. One of my favorite days to "go" to school was on my birthday. I loved going on my birthday, bringing candy for my class. I also loved when it was someone elses birthday and they brought in candy.

At our home school we have a tradition of taking the day off school on our children's birthdays. Last week Spider Droid went all double digits on us.

When SD was younger he really enjoyed trains. He loved playing with trains, watching and reading Thomas the Tank engine stories, visiting train museums, riding trains. He loved all things trains. As he has become interested in other things like robotics, Lego's and soccer, his train love has waned a bit. Thomas is old news, and he only plays with his trains when younger kids come to visit. He still likes to ride trains, though.

So for his birthday we went on a short family train trip. 2 of his friends, brothers who had gone to Joplin with us, came with. We took a Chicago commuter train from one suburb to another. Our destination was a place called the Choo Choo Cafe. It is a real cool restaurant that serves your food on a model train.

Here are some pics or Spider Droids special day. . .

After we ate lunch the train brought out some ice cream for the kids.

Not all our birthday celebrations are so elaborate. This was a nice birthday/field trip. So I got to wondering how other home educators spend birthdays. If you are visiting from this weeks Carnival of Homeschooling please comment and tell me what you do for birthdays. To get back to the Carnival click here.

Next Time: HSBA Challenge

Sunday's Cool: Bunny Circus

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up & A Look Ahead

A Link Up: In September and October when I was all but an absent figure in the blogosphere, I was also not pushing my children's presence there. Now that things at the Izola Becker Home School or more or less to back to normal, I hope my kids will get back to blogging as well.

On Friday, Bunny Girl wrote a post about our trip to the Circus. You can get to that post my clicking on the picture of the 12 year old ringmaster or by clicking here.

A Look Ahead: This week I plan to blog about birthdays. My son's that just passed and a birthday my late brother would have loved. I also will be working on the Carnival of Homeschooling that I will be hosting on the 16th of this month.

Next Time: Birthday Training

NABLOPOMO is just over and I have decided to start it again.

If you are reading this on November 1 2011 or later I am to be considered a time traveller from the past. It is 11 months ago December 1, 2010 as I write this. In my time it is 5 days from my daughters 5th birthday. In your time, it is my son's 10th birthday.

So you are probably wondering what is so important to pull me out of the past. I have decided to participate in Nablopomo again this year. But this year I hope to write some of the blog posts early. That way I will not be forced to write every day. November is generally a busy month for our family. Spider Droid's birthday, Thanksgiving, the end of fall semester at our co-op. I generally don't post everyday anyway. Just about 3-5 times a week. I have done Nablopomo 2 times previously. The first time it put great stress on me and my family. Last year (or yesterday to me) didn't take as much of a toll. Amy wrote a few posts and I introduced HSD rewinds (reprints of previous posts and got through it). These prewritten posts can be considered HSD forwards.

I still will be popping in from your present from time to time but you will also get these blasts from the past as well. The thing is I might not always mention when I am while writing these.

Meanwhile back in the present . . . I have decided not to participate in NABLOPOMO this year.

Even with advance written posts and the ability to go HSD rewind when I need to, it just wasn't worth the extra time comittment. I hope to get back to the 3-5 posts per week that I was doing pre sabbatical.

Happy Birthday Spider Droid. We are going to have a great day.

Free Circus Tickets is No Trick

I am part of a group of bloggers that promotes certain family events in Chicago for a national marketing company.

One of those events is the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus.

There is a really good promotion happening October 31st which for some people is Halloween. Even though my family doesn't participate in Haloween, I thought I would pass this cool trick or treat give-a-way on to my readers in the Chicago area. I will also have it on my twitter feed and facebook page.

Here it is . . .

Halloween Trick or Ringling Treat!

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® presents Fully Charged is taking Halloween to a whole new level! This year you can Trick or Treat for a FREE Ticket to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents Fully Charged! Simply visit one of the 5 Halloween Ringling Treat Houses during their Ringling Treat hour:

House 1 – Roseland, 11350 S. Calumet Avenue – 3pm – 4pm
House 2 – Oak Lawn, 9643 Melvina Avenue – 4pm – 5pm
House 3 – Barrington, 9149 Jasmine Way – 4pm – 5pm
House 4 – Oak Park, 300 Forest Avenue – 5pm – 6pm
House 5 – Naperville, 4711 Snapjack Circle – 5pm – 6pm

Parents who visit a Ringling Treat House with children between the ages of 2 and 12 will receive one voucher for a FREE Kid’s Ticket for each child present. Voucher is redeemable for a ticket to any Monday – Friday performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents Fully Charged at Allstate Arena and United Center. Voucher must be redeemed for Kid’s Ticket at the arena box office. Additional tickets and adjoining seats may be purchased at that time. Trick-or-Ringling Treating is available on Oct. 31 until the end of the hour noted or until 100 FREE Kids’ Vouchers are distributed at each house, whichever occurs first.

Fragments, Photos, Tweets and Rants.

Yes you can sing my title to the tune of Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes if you want to. You got to know I will! That said, I have been blogging like crazy lately. I still have a lot to say and Friday Fragments is a great place to tie up loose ends

Fragment 1: I blogged earlier about former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich this week. Maybe I didn't mention that when he ran he said he was going to clean up corruption left in the wake of the previous governor. Now that George Ryan is in jail and Blago soon to join him I really like this new license plate and slogan proposal.

Fragment 2: I also have blogged some what inadvertently about the Pioneer Woman over the past two posts. They were really peripheral blink if you miss them comments beyond the main themes of the posts. It got me to thinking though that I do have a few pictures of her I wanted to post. Amy and the bigs went to a book store in Naperville this spring to get her new book.

She signed Spider Droid's book. and posed for these pictures.

She was impressed with his profound Lego skills. If I was The Next Big Thing on the Internet, I would have probably been "Next!" She, was incredibly gracious.

Fragment 3: As you may or may not know bad or inaccurate commercials drive me crazy. Today I was listening to Pandora while weeding the garden. (If you don't believe me check out this tweet.) A commercial for Lowe's came on and they said July 4th was finally here. That really ticked me off. (If you don't believe me check out this tweet.)

You see they Didn't say July 4th weekend was finally here. They made a single day into a season and then call the season by the day. This sort of thing really irks me, because making the day something it isn't, obscures what it is. In the Little House books, especially Little Town on the Prairie and Those Happy Golden Years, the 4th of July was a special day nestled in between 2 ordinary days. This gave it special meaning.

Our town's 4th of July fireworks were June 25th! 9 days before the actual event. Now they used to always have them the Saturday before the 4th, which I could understand. I even sort of got it when the 4th of July was on a Saturday, and they held the fire works the Saturday before. But 9 days? I mean they should have called them the Father's day fireworks since they were held closer to them, then the 4th of July. Many of the local area festivals which usually coincide with the 4th of July are ending on Sunday this year. I don't get it. The date has significance!

The timer just rang which means I have to stop this ranting and move on. (If you don't believe me check out this tweet.)


Fragment 4: I stole this picture along with the picture from Fragment 1 from the same Facebook account. I could type a lot more, but I think the picture speaks for itself.

Those are all the fragments I have for the time being. Click here to head back to Half Past Kissing Time for more Friday Fragments. (If you don't believe me, check out this tweet.)