A to Z 2024: R is for R R R Very Funny. if You think I'm going to respect Lima Beans.

 For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day.

Lima beans the well deserved Rodney Dangerfield of vegetables

I do not need an entire day to respect lima beans.  For me a minute would be too much time.  To misquote Snoopy in Your A Good man Charlie Brown:  I am a Lima Bean hater, a Lima Bean despiser and a Lima Bean loather.  Or to misquote Greg Brady in the Brady Bunch episode," My sister Benedict Arnold": Lima beans are on the top of my bad vegetable list, the bottom of my bad vegetable list and every bad vegetable in-between.  

I grew up in the 70's and we were all members of the clear your plate club.  If my parents served it we ate it, or we hid it, or we fed it to the dog.  I've always been a big fan of food, and there's hardly a food I don't enjoy.  Growing up, I was not really big on most vegetables, I could eat corn or carrots but anything else was a stretch for me.  But the worse of the worst was the lima bean.  

I absolutely hate lima beans.  I would not eat it on a bet.  As I've got older I've learned to enjoy most vegetables and tolerate the ones I don't enjoy.  I am actually a big fan of most beans black, pinto, kidney, garbanzo.  Generally I lead the league in legumes.  But I can not bring myself to eat a single lima bean.  It is probably the only food I won't eat.  I have strong preferences against some food like olives, but in a pinch I can eat one.  Luckily my wife loves olives, so it never comes to that.  

My hate for lima beans is legendary in my family.  Just like my kids grew up knowing that I love The White Sox, Randy Stonehill, Libraries, and diving off the high dive, they also discovered I hate lima beans.  So each Christmas for several years I could always count on that they would wrap up a can of lima beans for me.  

I'm not sure why April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day.  If it were up to me I'd ban the Holiday all together.  If I can't do that I would just make it 19 day earlier.  Because a day honoring lima beans has to be some sort of April Fools Joke.

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The song of the day Is Road to Zion by Petra

Here is a snippet of the song performed live ...

 

Here is the entire song ... 

The A to Z mix tape now contains 18 songs.

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To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A to Z 2024 - B is for Books for Children

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

Yesterday, I created a new made up holiday by making one up.  Today I will regale you with info regarding a Holiday that someone else made up.  Today is Children's Picture book day! 

Here is an informative video from the  Champaign Library.

 

Like many of these made up Holidays the day we celebrate it is based on a relevant birthday.  The birthday in this instance is Hans Christian Anderson who was born on this day in 1805.  

In preparation for this post I watched the Danny Kaye Film Hans Christian Anderson.  I will review the film sometime shortly after the challenge is complete.  Here is the trailer.  

Exactly 98 years and 11 months after  Han's Christian Anderson's birthday Theodor Geisel much better known as Dr. Seuss was born on March 2nd 1904.  Geisel became a pioneer in children's picture books.  

The book, “The Cat in The Hat,” by Dr. Seuss, sits on a book shelf at West Elementary School during a National Read Across America Day event Mar. 2, 2017 at Yokota Air Base, Japan. National Read Across America Day is a holiday to share the fun of reading with children of all ages, and is celebrated on Dr. Seuss’ birthday. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Donald Hudson) Unit: 374th Airlift Wing DVIDS Tags: Japan; Yokota Air Base; 374th Airlift Wing; Dr. Seuss; National Read Across America Day

One of my favorite kinds of picture books is what I call Alphabet books.  These books much like the A to Z challenge take a subject and then devote 1 page and 1 picture per letter of the alphabet.  On a recent trip to the Beloit Public Library (which I will also be reviewing after the challenge)  I was reminded of my love for Alphabets and took pictures of several of them

Not sure why that pen is in all the pictures, it's nothing to write home about.  

Among other holidays occurring today is Autism Awareness Day.  

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Today's song of the day  is Broken Things by Julie Miller

The Leap of Dave A to Z Spotify Playlist is now up to 2 songs.

Time to close the book on the letter B.  I think you get the picture.  As you head back to more of the challenge or just your regularly scheduled life feel free to leave a comment.  Maybe you can let me know what your favorite picture book is/was and why.  

 To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A to Z 2024: A is for Adult Children

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

When I first started this blog in 2009 (click here for the inaugural post), I had 3 children between the ages of 3 and 9)

Back then they looked like this ...

Since then ,life happened  at a brisk pace and  my wife and I soon  had 1, then 2, and then  (for 9 glorious months in 2018-19) 3 teenagers.  Now we are down to one teenager and we find ourselves  the proud parent of 3 adults.  Babies having babies is one thing, but adults raising adults is quite another.

Today is the first of 5 days that I will make up a new holiday.  It is going to be called Adult Children Appreciation day.  Here are some facts about the Holiday that I am making up right now.

Adult Children Appreciation Day was created by David Roller in 2024 to commemorate that all his children were now adults as the youngest had turned 18 that winter.  Adult Children Appreciation Day was first celebrated on April 1st, 2024.  Adult Children Appreciation Day is held the Monday after Easter.  Mr. Roller (That's Me.) says he chose that day because it had been a family tradition for him to go to Walgreens the day after Easter and buy Easter products for 1/2 price or less.  Dave's oldest daughter loved Bunnies and this was the most cost effective time to buy bunny themed gifts,  

Even though the first Adult Children Appreciation Day was on April 1st, it is not associated with April Fools Day at all.  Mr. Roller chose Springtime to celebrate this holiday as spring is associated with growth and all growing things mature to some sort of adulthood.

Since The original ACDA was on   April 1st and April 1st  is also National Greeting Card Day, the creator of Adult Children Appreciation Day gave greeting cards to each of his adult children telling them about qualities they are developing that He appreciates.

If you and your adult children are together on Easter Sunday that is a good time to give them a note or a card showing how much you appreciate them. The Next 3 ACDAs will fall on April 21, 2025, April 6, 2026, and March 28, 2027

Here is what my kids look like now ...

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I happen to be typing this post at a local library a few days in advance of the challenge.  In the past 2 months I have  visited 14 local libraries as part of the Library Lover's Expedition.  I mention this because April 1st is also Library Snapshot Day an annual day that celebrates the importance of libraries.  I am planning on writing apost for each of the 14 libraries I visited for the challenge later this year.  For today I will just post a few of the snapshots I took at some of the libraries.

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 Today's Song of the Day is Any Other Way by Andy Gullahorn

Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips

I am a big Spotify guy and have soooo many playlists that  I have created.  I have made a special play list for the A to Z challenge.  By the end of the month it will contain all 26 songs featured here.  For now it just contains the A song.

Every good beginning must come to an end. Hopefully you have appreciated Adult Child Appreciation Day. There are still (at least) 25 more holidays to enjoy and a few more for me to make up. In your comments if you have adult children let me know what you most appreciate about them. I will try to make some guide comment solicitations for each day, but feel free to comment anyway you want.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

Timber-Lee closing and Trinity College and grad school going virtual only.

 Two places near and dear to me are ending their work as we know it in the coming months.  These places are Camp Timber-Lee in East Troy,  Wisconsin, and Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois.  Both of these establishments have long histories, both recently celebrating a milestone.  In 2022 Trinity College celebrated its 125th anniversary and Timber-Lee celebrated its 75th.  If this were the Electric Company short, Letter Man, The villainous Spellbinder would take out his magic wand and change the first E to a  second L making milestone, millstone.  I'm not sure what to call the millstone. Perhaps it was  Covid, perhaps a change in the culture of education, perhaps a change in the paradigm of Christian camping; likely a combination of all 3.  But the millstone around Trinity International University whose umbrella is around both Camp Timberlee and Trinity has caused business as usual in the college's case and possibly business altogether to come crashing to a halt in the very near future.  

 I was never a student at Trinity, but I have visited their campus on multiple occasions over the past 40 years.  I have slept in their dorms, eaten in their cafeterias, and played frisbee in their courtyards.  I have attended classes, visited students, and borrowed materials from their library.  I even at one time had a Trinity library card. 

In 2016, Camp Timberlee was gifted by the Evangelical Free Church Association (EFCA)  to Trinity International University (TIU).  I have a long history with Camp Timber-Lee. I was baptized in their lake in 1986 at a church picnic. I did a polar plunge in the same lake in January 2020. My wife Amy and our children once attended a home school camp there and our family slept in one if their famous cabooses. I have visited friends who worked there on multiple occasions. I even flipped over a snapping turtle  who had was trapped on his back bicycling near their grounds while visiting a staff member. I was bicycling near the camp, I'm assuming the snapping turtle was a pedestrian. 

Over the past 15 years, I have chaperoned a half dozen or so arctic blast and winter X-treme trips with our church kids groups and youth groups which has included at least one of my children on each occasion. 3 of my favorite things to do at those winter retreats are

1. A trip to their nature center where there is always an obligatory snake pic taken of one of my children.

2. To spend hours playing gaga ball with students.

3. To spend hours playing nine-square with students.

There is a multitude of other things to do at Timber-Lee: Ropes course, rec room, x-country skiing, zip line, sledding, tubing, tobogganing, horseback riding, broomball, and karaoke, just to name a few.  Of course, camps are a lot of fun and make lasting memories.  But Timber-Lee was all about sharing the gospel and promoting Christian growth.  This spiritual aspect of their ministry is the main reason why so many people are shocked and saddened about its demise.    

When camps like these go under there is often talk of getting new funding and continuing the ministry.  Sometimes something comes out of it like the recent change of ownership of what used to be called Cedar Campus in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  Timber-Lee has a plethora of staff, campers, and alumni who would love to see the ministry continue to grow.

As for Trinity College the class of 2023 seems to be the last class as a residential college as they make the transition to distance learning only.  TIU sees this as a new beginning that fits with its global strategy.  I, for one, hope that is true, but need time to reflect on the past and what will surely be missed.  

Love,

Dave

  

The Library at Last

March 13, 2020 was a Friday.  It turned out to be a true Friday the 13th in the sense that something scary started occurring.  Friday March 13th was the day that many things in the U.S. started shutting down because of Covid 19.  For me it was a day of lasts.  It was one of the last days I worked at the movie theatre I used to work at.  It was the last day I subbed during the 2020 school year. It was the last day I went to a public indoor event (a college talent show, wher my daughter was reciting her poetry).  

During this time I've switched jobs, (although I still hope I can sub in the Fall.) jumped back into blogging, and navigated the new normal with help from God and my family.  Because of that and that I am a particularly resilient kind of guy  social distancing, face masks and zoom chats have been fairly easy to adapt to.  What's been difficult is LOL. LOL is no laughing matter, it stands for lack of libraries.  

I love libraries.  I have really missed ours (Gail Borden in Elgin, Illinois) being open during the stay at home order.  They have handled it greatly but I still missed them.  The first thing they did after closing was expand the amount of materials you could take out virtually using Hoopla.  In late May or Early June the drive through  opened and you were able to start checking out  mterials.  Today they reopened in person,  

When we went to Wisconsin last month we stopped in an open library and there was a 30 minute time limit and not much to do because we didn;t  have borrowing priviliges.  It felt good to be back at a library even for a half hour, but today felt more like coming home. 

Instead of lasts it was a day of covid-19 era firsts.  First time back at Gail Borden ,first time bugging  reference people, first time checking out books in person. , first time back at my bank  (my credit union is in the same building as the library), first time running into and talking with someone I knew while at the library, and first time using a library computer.  I even started this post while using it.  

Home Sweet Library

Quarantine Chic: Library Style

I must have told 8 employees of  the library how glad I was that they were open.  A kid in a candy store had absolutely nothing at me.  Now if you could borrow candy and then return it when you were finished, that would be similar. A library is an everlasting gobstopper for the soul. 

L is for Library (Thing)

Today's letter is L.  I have documented over the years that our family loves libraries.  Here is a you tube video from another of my blogs Dave Out Loud.






For more A to Z Blogging click here.

What about the other 1010?

This summer our children participated in our local library's summer reading program.  This is always a big deal in our family.  Spider Droid made sure that he was the first one to sign up and also read very diligently and was the first one to finish.  As the summer went on, each of our children finished the program.  When the children finish they receive a free book of their choosing and several prizes from local businesses, like certificates for a free Frostee from Wendy's, and vouchers for free tickets to  a local minor league baseball team.

As you enter the childrens' section of the library you see this sign . . .

This picture was taken a day or two before the program ended, so I would imagine the final count would be pretty similar.

When I saw the sign, I asked myself the question, that serves as the title of this post,

What about the other 1,010?

I mentioned what the finishers got out of participating in the program.  But what did the non finishers get out of it?


Here is what I think . . .

Each child who participated the  program gained something from it.  Those who finished and even those who got 1/2 way stickers (which the poster did not mention) received something tangible.  But I think all participants received intangible rewards (some without even knowing it.)

I wonder how many of those 1,010 children result of entering the program.  I'd imagine the number quite high since only library materials can be used for the program and those materials must be read or listened to off of library grounds.  Now our family checks out 100's if not thousands of books each year.  But for some families, a library book is a special treat.  So if any of the 1,010 children took out a book for the only time all year this summer, that is a wonderful thing.

Since our library lets children from 0 to 12 participate in the summer reading program (there are separated programs for teens, and adults).  Some of the reading that is done over the summer is by parents and older siblings to younger children.  Any of the 1,010 who did not finish or the 632 that did, who were read to as a result of this program experienced something magical.

Another  thing that may have happened with a great number of participants in the program this year,  (regardless of whether they recorded finishing the  program) is they may have discovered a favorite author, book, genre, series, or subject this summer.  Some may have discovered the joy of reading.

Achievement and accomplishment are wonderful things.  I think that so much is achieved and accomplished when children or anyone reads or is read to for enjoyment.  I would say that the 1,642 children who participated, may not have all finished, but each one achieved.

Puppy;s Pets on Display - Epilogue

I mentioned at the beginning of last month that Puppy's pillow pets and Webkinz were on display at our local library.

Here are a few tidbits and pics from the experience.

Puppy was a little panic stricken concerned with the idea of leaving her pets at the library for the whole month. So to keep her from the psych ward help her I . . .

1. Let her keep some of her favorites at home.

2. Bought her a new Webkinz cardinal at Target after we set the display up


3. Let her visit her animals often including visiting her turtle George Washington on February 22nd, which is George Washington's birthday.

After the month was over while we were picking all the pillow pets and Webkinz up, the children's librarian called Puppy over. She told Puppy that about 6 months ago, a child had left a pillow pet behind at the library and never claimed it. Little Miss memory chip said she remembered seeing it at the desk in her visits to the library . The librarian continued, saying that since Puppy took such good care of her animals, they thought that she could give the orphaned pillow pet a good home.

Puppy was so pleased that she named the Pillow Pet after her self and takes her every where. 

George Washington and comapny

A Bird in the hand is worth 20 in the display case



Puppy II



Happy to be home.

Thanks again to the Dundee Township Public Library for their fine program.

Friday Fragments

Fast Fragments.

Fragment 1: Amy and I will be out the door in a few minutes to work a Compassion table together at the Rock & Worship Roadshow Concert. I am looking forward to  time away from those snotty kids of mine spending some time ministering with my wife.

We have been Compassion sponsors for a few years now, I have not really blogged much about it before.  In the future, I will be blogging more about Compassion and their ministries around the world.  If you have any interest in finding out more about supporting a child through compassion, click here.

Fragment 2:  Our library has a serious backlog when it comes to use of the display case in the children's department.  It wasn't always this way.  Spider Droid and Bunny displayed their collections 1 or two months after signing up.  Puppy signed up last Spring, and was told that there wasn't a  month available to display her Pillow Pets and Webkinz until April 2013.

This Monday, we got a call from the director of the children's section of the library.  The  scheduled February presenter was no longer interested in displaying their collection.  (Keep in mind they probably signed up in 2009 or 2010).  Puppy was called in to be a last minute replacement.  I am not sure how she leap frogged the 13 people in front of her.  It may well be that since we are such fixtures at the library, they knew we could get the collection to them by the first.  Which we did.

Fragment 3: 

Last year Spider Droid and I had a blast at Monster Jam.  We are going to go again this year.  Tomorrow I will be posting a give-a-way here and on my FB   &  Twitter pages.  You can win 4 tickets to the Friday February 10th show in Rosemont, Illinois.  

Stay Tuned.

Those are my fragments and I am sticking to them.

For more Friday Fragments click here. 

Fragments of photos Ipod Edition

I am at a waiting room, cleaning out the pictures from my i-pod.  many of them were for blog posts that I haven't quite got to yet.  So here's a few fragments about them.

Photo Fragment 1

That's no majestic sunrise/sunset.  It's just a lamp post over spider droid working on snow board moves on his sled.

Picture Fragment 2

Many libraries offer a read to a dog program.  My oldest kids have done this.  But puppy, our resident dog lover never had before this.  Here she is reading to Samson, who is from a Sox fan family and paid a lot of attention to me because I was wearing my White Sox jacket.

Here she is in action . . . 

Photo Fragment 3

This pic is already on the blog.  I show it here to illustrate that it is generally not much of a problem to get all 3 kids to pose for a good photo.  But when you try to add an adult in, like when Amy and I took the kids to the Brookfield Zoo in late December, you get something like this.

Amy and Bunny look great.  Puppy and Spider Droid look goofy. 

Photo Fragment 4

I lived in Khabarovsk Russia for 2 years in the early  90's. Khababarosvsk is located  on the Amur River.  So when I'm at the zoo I always like to see the tigers and leopards that hail from that region.  Hers is  a picture of an Amur Leopard.  

Well that's enough fragments for one day.  For more fragments, join Friday Fragments at Half Past Kissing Time.

I do, however, have time for one more photo.

NEXT TIME: DARE TO DREAM

From my mouth to your eyes

This is kind of amazing for me. Here I am, laying down ready to sleep, and I think , "Hey, I haven't really posted on my blog for a while." So, I grab my new Christmas gift, an I pod touch and simply start talking. Cool. I've talked before, what's different about today? Well I'll tell you what's different, I am using the Dragon voice recognition app. It is typing everything I say.

The past few days since Christmas, we have gone on our annual library week. It has turned out to be more screaming and yelling week. This is really a problem for our family, because I love screaming but hate yelling and Amy loves yelling (and Cheetos) but can't stand screaming. The goal is more libraries tomorrow and Friday sans the screaming and without the yelling.

Typing not talking here. In the future, I will not broadcast (pun intended) what methodology I used to bring these posts to life.

Have not forgotten about HSBA spotlight. The winner this year of best encourager was the Home Scholar. The thing I like about this blog is that the encouragement found within is practical and pragmatic. Here is a sample post.

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! 

Six Word Saturday @ Show My Face Dot Com

Starting today, for the next week I will feature posts for all the meme's and carnivals I participate in, whether I have a horse in the race, or not.

I do have 6 words today they are . . .

Why I bring books to Library.

The reason I do this is because I am a chronic over-packer. I always bring along more things than I could possibly accomplish. Today, I brought 3 books that  I am supposed to be reviewing for this blog. I will probably not get to any of them, since that was not the purpose of this trip to the library. Come to think of it, neither was making this post, so I best be going. Before I do let me tell you about my HSBA featured blog. Today's category is . . .

Best Homeschool Methods Blog.

The winner was 1+1+1=1

Aside from the mathematically challenged title, this is an excellent blog which I generally carry around somewhere in my sidebar.  If you are looking for fun preschool home school ideas, this is definitely the blog for you. 

Click here for a sample post, and click here for more 6 Word Saturday.

Next Time: Santa comes early for Santo?

Monday Morning Paragraphy

Mondays can be a real jumble. You get up and you try to get everybody ready for a new week. But inwardly and outwardly can be something of a muddle. Last year I heard about a teaching tool called paragraphy @ http://www.byrdseed.com/. You write a paragraph. Paragraphy switches the order of the sentences. Your students then put the sentences in the correct order. Since Mondays can be a real jumble, I have decided to occasionally put a post through the paragraphy machine and let you you loyal readers try to make sense of it. This really isn't much different than my regular posts.

Today's installment will actually be a little piece I wrote about my current Monday jumble. I hope you enjoy.

1. That's the plan any way.









2. I hope to have Bunny work on some of her stuff before we go, some at the library and then we can all do some table activities when we get home.









3. Mondays are not just for morning quarterbacks.
   









4. Yes, I can say I knew him when.
   









5. Generally our Mondays are spent at our home school co-op and Awana.
   









6. The interview will be at the church where our co-op usually meets.
   









7. Since they have both ended for the school year, our Monday's have become a regular school at the table day.
   









8. Not sure what all we will do after the interview.
   









9. This week is going to be a little different from our new routine.









10. I am going to take the girls to a branch library near the church while the team meets with the reporter.








11. Spider Droid's robotics team is going to be interviewed for a magazine article.

Next Time: The story behind the picture

Home School "As You Wish"

There is something deeply wrong with my wife. This may surprise some of my readers. Not that you would be surprised to find that I am not married to a perfect person. It's just that I usually write the great things about her. But this thing is so wrong, it emanates from the soul of her being and taints every decision she will ever make.

Yes, my wife, (GASP) does not like the movie the Princess Bride. And the thing is I married her anyway. I just put the videocassette aside and waited until our progeny were born and then old enough to watch it. This coming of age happened last month, when Spider Droid and I watched it together. He absolutely loved it and soon Bunny girl devoured it also. They have only seen it twice and are still able to quote large portions of it to each other in the back of our mini van.

My wife remains apathetic to the film. She walked in while we were watching it New year's Eve and said "Billy Crystal is in The Princess Bride?" and I replied, "Billy Crystal is The Princess Bride", an homage to the line he had just spoken about Fezzik and the Brute Squad. Even though Crystal is in just the one scene his entire performance is one great quote after another, which is indeed a microcosm of the film. The entire movie is in Jeopardy speak, a potent quotable.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post, The Carnival of Homeschooling is celebrating it's 5th anniversary. The Carnival creator/maintainer/many other thing doer Henry Cate of Why Homeschool is hosting the extravaganza. And nothing gives you more vaganza than A Princess Bride themed edition. So check it out. Henry included my recent Library Week posting in the doings, so be sure to check that out as well.

I have to go back into the fire swamp now and start home schooling after a 2 week hiatus. The end of a hiatus is a Byeatus, but that's a post for another day. Until then, have fun storming the castle.

Library Story with alternat(or) ending

Yesterday we continued one of our favorite family traditions: Library Week.

We generally will visit a number of libraries and spend the day exploring what they have. Our visit to the North Shore suburb of Highland Park was fairly typical.

We found the building . . .
















We entered the building.

We read and relaxed.

We played Games

We made friends.

And more friends

We took in the sights near the library.

From there things became more atypical. 5 minutes after this picture was taken our car battery died. A family visiting the same lake shore view as us stopped and gave us a jump. We could tell within seconds after the car restarted that there was still something wrong. We had no lights and our emergency beeper would not turn off.

We rode about 6 miles (this was in dusk) and pulled over into a gas station that also happened to have a service station. Our alternator had gone out.

An hour and a 1/2 and a good amount of our emergency savings reserve later, we were on our way home. Besides the alternator and the somewhat burned (although still eaten) crock pot meal (due to our lost 1.5 hours) this was a very typical day at the library. (Except for the kids waiting at the gas station, certain people were tired.)

One Last Christmas

Friday Fragment time is as easys as 1-2-3, Episode 123, that is. I have decided to save the title fragment for last because if you are anything like me you will be bawling so much you won't be able to defragment any of the other sundry items.

The 2006 2007 t.v season was the last season that we were able to watch television the old fashioned way (via airwaves). Since then t.v. shows have only been seen on the television via d.v.d's on the computer via sites such as hulu.The 2006 2007 season was the first of four seasons for the show heroes. For whatever reason, I didn't see any part of the show in it's 4 year run. In the past 3 weeks I watched every episode of season 1 on dvd's borrowed from our local library.

I just borrowed season 2 today, so I must have liked Season 1. I did. But it was certainly much different than imagined. I was thinking kind of a super heroes among us light hearted romp.

Light hearted? Not so much. As I watched each episode I was reminded of one of my favorite lines from City Slickers : "Let's think back on what we've buried so far."

Lots of death, lots of blood, lots of gore. I always had to watch it away from my children. It is strangely compelling and does use excellent storytelling. But come on guys, tone it down on the crazy watchmaker dude!
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There are some things I can't tell you, but there be some exciting in our home school lives in the coming future. Some of the stuff will probably not pan out, but I will tell you all about it when I am more free to talk about it. One thing I can say now, that I will be posting far less this month as Amy and I are going to be working on some book ideas.
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This week I discovered the most amazing teaching tool of all time, The Dry Erase Board.

It's amazing! It's revolutionary. If it only sliced and diced vegetables, I'd hawk it on late night television.

Seriously, it rocks. I use the 1 pictured above on the wall. I use a smaller one at the table. All the kids love using them. I am going to buy 2 or 3 more tomorrow. I was telling the kids the night before I bought them, about the concept of the parking lot. You know, where you put ideas and questions that you are going to get too later. When I brought the boards home the first thing Spider Droid wanted to do was start a parking lot.
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I was on facebook today when I saw a link for the video below. I usually don't watch videos on facebook as I am usually too busy playing Farkle and Tetris. I made an exception for this one and was moved to tears.

The video and the song are a tribute to the Locke family from Washington, Il. whose son Dax died from Leukemia Dec 30, 2010.



To find out more about this family click here. The Family is trying to raise 1.6 million dollars to donate to the hospital that treated for their son. The money would run the hospital for 1 day. To donate go to Matthew Wests site.

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That's all I have for today, fragmentally speaking for more Friday Fragments head over to Half Past Kissing Time.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday, The Video