That's Just Nutty

I was at Artic Blast with Spider Droid this past Sunday and Monday at Camp Timber-Lee in East Troy, Wisconsin. A full review is on it's way. Consider this a tease. The above picture is Pattertwig and me. (I'm the one that's not a squirrel.) Pattertwig (named after the squirrel from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.) just jumped right on me. He was on me long enough for me to hand my camera to the Timber-Lee Staff member who snapped this picture.

At our house Pattertwig would be named Nutty. All squirrels that Puppy sees are named Nutty. Unless of course there are two squirrels together. Than 1 is Nutty and the other is Puddles, Nutty's wife. If there are 3 squirrels: Nutty, Puddles and their son, Bob. If there are 4 Bob gets a sister named Sally. God in his providential wisdom has never let Puppy see more than 4 squirrels together at one time.

If there are 3 squirrels in our yard and two go away. Whatever squirrel remains is called Nutty, regardless of what we were calling it before. This special kind of naming has led to a joke in our house modeled after the Pete and Repeat jokes.

Q:Nutty and Puddles were on a boat. Nutty fell off. Who was left?

A: Nutty

A lot to say but little time to say it.

Sometimes I have so many things to blog about and just have trouble making time to actually do it. There is much I want to post in the near future. Right now I'll go with a couple puppyisms before hanging it up for the night.

Puppyism 1: We were driving home from church on Sunday and I started singing "tomorrow" from Annie. I love to break into show tunes. Puppy did not want me to sing at this particular moment. I asked her why not she said because her throat and mouth hurt. I told her that the song tomorrow helps her throat and mouth. She said "No, it only helps the Sun. (As in the Sun will come out tomorrow.)

Puppyism the second: Amy and Puppy were talking early one morning. Their discussion went something like this

Puppy: Mom, I can't say certain words.
Amy: Like what?
Puppy: Accelerate.
Amy:Why do you need to say accelerate?
Puppy: I don't know. I just do.

Lions and Podcasts and Robotics. Oh My!

White Lion
Originally uploaded by Cyberslayer

Friday Fragment time. I am finally teaching my blog class at our co-op this semester. For the student's first assignment I had them look at some home schooled students blogs. While doing that Bunny girl came across a post about a white lion. I decided to start today's fragment fest with a pic of White Lion cubs.

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The following video is on my desk top. This means my kids like to watch it over and over and over and over and over and over again. (It is short.)

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Speaking of videos, the Office starts new episodes tonight. They have also put out a new bunch of webisodes called The Podcast. I thought I would share it here as blogging is a plot point.

The Office - Ep 101: The Podcast: Gabe's Podcast - Video - NBC.com

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Robotics update: Spider Droid's team did quite well at the State Playoffs this past weekend. His team finished 19th of 63 teams in the performance category. The other 3 categories are scored by judges and the results were not made public. While they did not win any awards they all had a rewarding time. The team will compete in the Spring in a 4H robotics competition.

That is all the fragments I have for today. Head over to half past kissing time for more Friday Fragments.

More evidence that sarcasm doesn't work on 5 year olds.

Friday Fragment time, which is an opportunity for me to throw together a few disconnected tidbits, thoughts and recollections of the week that was.











A few days ago Princess Puppy was on the other side of the door as me and I could not be interrupted, so I told her to wait a minute and not to come in. She just kept on trying to come in and tell me whatever problem she was having at that moment. I told her again to wait a minute and not to come in. She just kept jiggling the door handle and trying to come in and get my help. I finished what I was doing and impatience got the better of me as I said to her: "What part of wait a minute and do not come in don't you understand?". She thought about it a second and said "both."





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Today we were studying the digestive system in our anatomy class. Did you know that if you unwrapped your small intestine it would be 20 feet long? We decided to measure 20 feet out just to get a better understanding.

I like activities that help reinforce the words read from the page. Last week we were learning about the Israelites being deported to Assyria in 721 B.C. We learned that 27,290 Israelites in all were sent to Assyria. The text suggested that we take some small items like matchsticks, toothpicks, or buttons (we used coins) and group 100 of them together.


We even made our coins spell out 100. It really hits home how many Israelites that was when it would take almost 273 groups like we made to equal 27,290.



Much thanks to Linda Hobar and her fine Curriculum, The Mystery of History which has so many good activities like this to add to the lessons.

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This Friday and Saturday is the state robotics tournament. I have wanted for some time to describe my thoughts about Spider Droid's team advancing from sectionals. The sectional they were participating in was a double sectional. Meaning that 2 distinct sectionals were being held at the same time and location. with 15 teams in each sectional. At the beginning of the meet the organizer announced that instead of 3 teams advancing to state from each sectional as was customary, They had just found out that 4 teams each would advance.

The teams are evaluated in 4 categories. 1) Performance. 2) Research Project. 3)Teamwork and 4) Technical Excellence

In performance the team has their robots compete against other teams in 4 different heats. The teams are given a score for each heat and it is the best score of the 4 heats (not an average of all 4) that determines who wins. This is the only 1 of the categories where you know how you are doing as they post all the scores on a screen in the gym. Droids team got off to a great start and had the best score of both regionals in the first heat. They were not able to replicate that score in the subsequent heats and ended coming in third in their regional for performance.t

The other 3 categories are all based on judging. Before they announced the results the event organizer made it clear that coming in first in any of the categories does not assure a trip to state nor does not finishing first mean no trip.

This is all well and good. But as they made the announcements for the first place winners, I couldn't help thinking after their team wasn't announced as any of the category winners that this just wasn't their year. I remember thinking about taking droid to go see the state tournament and how much he would enjoy it. After a few "Honorable mention" type awards, which I was disappointed they didn't get, they announced the 4 state qualifiers in each region.

The first team they announced was his team, The Fanatix! I was in shock. I really haven't been that surprised since Amy threw me a surprise 40th birthday party some six years ago. Before I go on, I just want to say that I would have been fine (and Spider Droid more so) if they hadn't won. 30 teams met that day a week before Christmas and I would venture to say that each one had the time of their lives.

That being said, I still am so proud of my son and his team. I am pretty certain that this weekends competition will be the end of the line for the Fanatix, but Oh, what a ride it's been.

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That's all the fragments I have. For more, head back to half past kissin' time by clicking here.

Four Year Old Follies (Ending Soon)

Puppy came up to me with her nose wrinkled up, and said, "Mom, are my letters wiggly or funky?" After stifling laughter, I said her letters are perfect. Look at that G! Secretly thinking, where did this girl come from? She's about to turn five, so who knows what the next year will bring.

Six Word Saturday: The Video

My Six Words: The making of a prima donna.




For more six word Saturday click here.

Next Time: Nablopomo rewind

You don't have to be Einstein.

To be 1 step ahead of the Holidays Half Past Kissing Time has started Friday Fragments early here are mine . . .

Our home school co-op ended this week. One of the teachers was teaching a physics class for 1st-3rd Graders. Earlier in the semester she asked me to speak the last week of the class as Albert Einstein.

So I donned a wig (cotton balls taped to a stocking cap) and my best German scientist accent and had a lot of fun with it.

It turns out you don't have to be Einstein to play Einstein. I was able to perform an experiment that illustrated what Einstein discovered about light having gravity.

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My parents came to the closing festivities for the co-op for the first time this year. I think it was the first time they ever got to see my kids in action in a true home school setting. I shared the emceeing duties with two of the speech classes. The presenters went up in pairs and they were very polished, so it had a real awards show feel to it. At the end of the evening I handed the microphone to puppy and she told this joke . . .

Who was the most important knight at the round table?Sir Cumference

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As I posted Sunday, Christmas shopping has seemed to begun in earnest all around us. If you make it out to the malls and big box stores take the sales advice with a grain of salt. I have noticed that some sales people through ignorance, poor listening skills, or just to sell more product don't always give correct product information.

For example, I wanted to buy Amy something she could listen to radio programs with when she is out and about. On several occasions we looked at ipods and we asked several associates if those ipods would play pod casts. Each time we were told no. Sometimes we were told that only a Zune would play pod casts, sometimes we were told that only an ipod touch would play them. Both those pieces of equipment cost more than what I had to spend on her birthday present. We then decided to just buy an old fashioned Walkman type radio and were told by an associate that the store no longer sold radios like that.

I walked back to where they "used to be" located anyway. They were still there and we bought out. We found out later that day through the miracle that is Facebook. That ipods do indeed play pod casts. (I mean they are called "pod" casts for a reason.)

I marched (figuratively) back to the store returned the Walkman radio, and proceeded to buy Amy an ipod; at a different store.

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Those are all the fragments I have. I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving. For More Friday Fragments click here.

HSD Rewind: Puppyisms

HSD Rewind

Originally broadcast February 2009 (edited for the 2nd decade of the 21st century, which includes name changing)

A common theme of this blog has been the sayings of my youngest daughter which I call puppyisms.

Here is what I wrote about it last year . . .


I would have no problem at all filling a daily blog with just crazy things my children say. So far the youngest is the most quotable. Today, I was putting on her bathing suit on and then her clothes over them. This generally takes me two minutes because she is a very squirrely three year old. During those two minutes this conversation occurred:



Me: Let's get dressed for swimming.



Puppy: Is today Monday or Tuesday?



Me: No today's Thursday.



Puppy: Oh Man!



Me: ?



Lucy: I love Monday. Is Monday soon?



So, most people might be thinking what is so special about Monday? Monday is a good day for her; she has some classes she really enjoys at our Home School Co-op. I don't think that's why she said it. I think she has my random genes. She just says things as they occur to her. Things that would never occur to anyone. Like the next thing she said.



Puppy: Butera loves me.



Me: You mean Butera, the grocery store?



Puppy: Yes, Butera loves me.



The problem is that she says so many crazy things, generally in a 2 minute period, that I can't possibly remember them all to tell Amy when she gets home. Point in fact, she said something very random indeed after the Butera comment, but now I have no idea what it was. She just marched in the room chanting "Hello Pumpkin. Hello Pumpkin." I guess, that will have to do.


MEANWHILE BACK IN 2010 . . .

Same puppy, different year. She is still as random as ever. We were at Aldi the other day and she was off the wall. She was pushing the cart, climbing on shelves. Just acting nuts. Then she stops what she's doing, becomes all calm and controlled and says to woman next to us. "I really like your hair." The lady thanks her and then she's crawling the walls again

Keith Time: Amy Remembers Keith Part II

Some Puppy and Turkeyisms

It has been over a year but I have decided to contribute some fragments at the Half Past Kissing Time blog feature called Friday Fragments.



Last week I was doing puppy's reading program with her. She was reading a story about a tiger and I notices she was covering her ears. I asked her why she was covering her ears, and she said, "The scary part of the story is coming up and I don't want to hear it."

The other day she told me a joke she made up. It is actually a variation of a joke most of you should already know. She gave it a nice twist, and really stuck the dismount. So when our co-op newsletter was looking for submissions, I entered it for her.

Here is what my published puppy's joke looks like:

Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad nobody said banana?

The very same newsletter is having a writing contest. They are giving away a turkey to the writer of the winning paragraph written from the POV of a turkey explaining why or why not the Turkey should be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.

Bunny's response:

Hello. I'm Tom the Turkey. I want to be eaten because I am very plump and juicy, My feathers are able to be plucked out real fast. I bet I'd be real yummy! If you eat me for Thanksgiving, I wont bother you anymore.

Spider Droid's entry:

Pardon Me!

Dear Mr. President,

Hi. My name is Bill. How are you? You should be fine. Nobody is going to eat you at the end of the month. I am a turkey. Turkeys are not thankful for Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please pardon me!!!!!!! Mr. President you are my only hope of not facing my greatest fear, having my wishbone broken.

Puppy's two cents:

Hello. My name is turkey L3000. The first robot turkey. I do not want to be eaten because I have too many feathers around my robot body.

Those are all the fractured fragments I have for you today. This is a blog hop so hop on over to the other participating blogs.

Keith Time: The Humor of Keith, Ham on Wry.

The Heart is for Loving Mommy.

At Puppy's art station today I had her make a few pieces of art work.
















As I looked over the first one I asked her to describe it for me.

















"This is me." she said as she pointed to the purple person in the middle of a page. She then pointed to the figure inside the heart. "That's a bunny." she said. She told me a little more about other parts of the picture and ended with a flourish by saying "The heart is for loving Mom."

It was such a cute interaction that I snapped some pictures and abandoned my planned post for today just to share this little puppyism with you guys.

Sometimes, (on my "low self-image days") {I'll mail a dollar to the first commenter, besides my wife, who can tell me what movie the quote in parentheses comes from} when my children tell me how much they love their Mom, I wonder why they don't say they love me. On this occasion, however, I felt glad that my children re discovering what I've known for years. My heart is for loving you babe, and you Puppy, and you Spider Droid, and you also Bunny.

Next Time: United + Guitars times three.

A Lucyism by any other name

Before I decided to give the kids nicknames here on this blog I called them by their real names and even the labels reflected that. Amidst all the real stuff I do off line, I have been trying to clean up past posts and labels. I have changed all the posts about the ways and sayings of my youngest to Puppyisms rather than her nameisms. But let's face facts they are Lucyisms!

She says so many of them I can't always recall them. One of my recent favorites was when my wife commented on the fact that Puppy is always hungry and asking for food said that we were going to give her a meal every 10 minutes. The next morning and for the next few days Puppy would come up to me and say has it been 10 minutes yet I'm hungry again. I had to finally explain to her that we were not, in fact, going to feed her every 10 minutes. She was less than thrilled.

A few weeks ago I was having a little trouble with my oldest daughter talking back to me. So I called her into my room and was having a private conversation with her about her attitude. Now Puppy doesn't know what a private conversation is so she just wandered in. Here is a transcript from that convo

Me: Bunny you need show me respect.

Puppy: Daddy do you know what spect means?

Me: No, I don't. Bunny and I are talking right now.

Puppy: Daddy you shouldn't use words if you don't know what they mean!

After a few more interchanges I realized that she was asking what spect meant because I said respect and she heard the word spect.

Call them Puppyisms, call them Lucyisms, I just call them precious snapshots of a very special person.

Next Time: Nominations

Death disrupts order

I have been systematically going through my top 25 labels as of post 300 and breaking them down label by label. I am up to # 8 and was about to wax eloquent on the many and various sayings of my precious little puppy.

This was until I saw the topic of the latest Men's Monday Meme, How do you handle the death of a loved one. This made me jump all the way from daughter at # 8 to brother at #2 with Keith for 300.

I will return to the puppyisms next time. For now let's turn to Tim the author of Families Again. He reported in his last post that his mom is possibly terminally ill and he's not quite sure how to handle things like last goodbyes and tying up loose ends. In his meme he raised these questions for any men who wanted to answer them:

How do you fellow men deal with things like this? What are your secrets? Is it okay to be weak sometimes?

As I alluded to, this reminded me of my brother Keith. Keith passed away in April of 2009. Coping with his death and remembering his life have become mainstays of this blog. Keith's death took me by complete surprise. However, he had been in and out of hospitals with kidney and heart ailments for almost three years. Some of the hospitalizations lasted for months. When he was in the hospital, I would visit him at least once a week, sometimes even staying overnight in the hospital. My purpose for visiting him so frequently was three-fold: helping him pass the time with games and watching shows together, being an advocate for his health care, and there is something compulsive in me about visiting people when they are in hospitals. Even though I never expected him to die, you never know.

When I was out of work in 2006, Keith became ill. Within a month, he was at the Mayo Clinic. I had found a job that didn't start for a few weeks, so I was able to take the entire family and Keith's daughter to visit him. After that, Keith's health and well-being was like a family project.

I found that the more I got involved, the easier things became for me. Especially after he died. I never find myself thinking, "Why didn't I do more? Why wasn't I there for him?" As for being weak, that's a difficult one for me to answer because I've never been one of those Let's Chop Down a Tree and Not Talk About Our Feelings, kind of guy. Even though at some points, Keith had only 10% heart use and 10% kidney use, I never felt like his death was imminent. Perhaps that's why when he was living, I never felt weak.

I did often feel drained from the frequent visits. At the same time, Amy's dad was also having months long hospitalizations and at one point, my dad had a hip replacement and spent several weeks rehabing. It seemed we were always visiting someone in a hospital. Amy was especially encouraging and understanding during those times. I was working outside the home at the time and would often be at home only to sleep.

After Keith died was when much of my weaknesses showed. In some ways, I'm still in shock. Today I looked at a picture of Keith and me taken when I was living in Russia. The first thing I thought of was I couldn't believe he was dead. The initial grief was seemingly omnipresent. I would cry for no reason. Some of those moments are well documented in these posts. My family was a tremendous blessing to me during those times. I remember a time where my oldest daughter wrote a letter to me that was incredibly encouraging.

When Keith was in high school, I was his youth group leader. Several times he came forward saying he wanted to follow Christ. I was always unsure whether he was genuine or just trying to please me. When he was in college, he began to grow in his faith. My grieving for him is lessened knowing that he is in heaven now and someday I will be reunited with him.

Since Keith died last year, I have been active in the lives of his widow and children. Spending time with them and helping them as they need it, has also helped me move on to the next stage of life.

If you are interested in participating in the Men's Monday meme, click here. If you want to see more things I wrote about Keith, click here.

Next time: A Lucyism by any other name

I found out where puppyisms come from.

This evening Princess Puppy got a small scratch. Amy put some ointment on it and Puppy said some phrase to me that I had never heard anyone in our family ever say. I don't remember exactly what she said it but it was something like it hurts something awful. I looked at her and said "where do you come up with these sayings?" Without a moment's hesitations she looked me straight in the eye and said "I feel them." She is our puppy, 4 going on 35.

Next Time: A month full of weekly wrap-ups

Of Lucyisms and Lemons

Lucy came up to me earlier today and said the following :

Dad, could you google sour lemons?

So I did.

First I found this video . . .

Then this picture . . .



I also found devotions, recipes for Indian side dishes, a my space page for the group Maxwell and the Sour Lemons and a link to buy a 5lb bag of sour lemon drops for $29.95.

Still not sure what put Lucy on the lemon obsession. I made about 20 lemon shapes for her already today.

Oh, well.

For more Six Word Saturday head over to Show my Face Dot Com.

Next Time: Carnival Musings

Things Fortnightly

Time now for Things Fortnightly.


Thing 1 Diagnosis Blogger


Last week's episode of House was centered around a sick blogger. While there were aspects of the program that I was not fond of, the blogger theme worked quite well. I especially liked the dynamic between the blogger and her friends/followers.


There is a scene when her friend is visiting her in the hospital. The patient is blogging and her friend is reading her posts as opposed to just visiting with each other. This was unexpectedly poignant to me as the last time I saw my brother alive, I was visiting him in the hospital and showing him video's of my kid's biking that I had posted on my blog.


Thing 2. Nostalgia for teenagers


Have you seen the Because of camp commercial? As a former camp counselor, and a camp guy, I think it is pretty cool. I do have a problem with Emma Robert's part. She says that because of camp she built lasting relationships with people she keeps up with to this day. My problem with that is: She's 19! She was probably 17 when it was filmed! I have t-shirts that are older than her! If camp is such a life changing experience where you maintain lifetimes of friendships perhaps we could get a spokesman who is at least the drinking age!

Thing 3: My 8 year old gets it!

We have been in the car a lot lately. Field trips, doctor appointments, family visits: the stuff life is made of. This means I have been subjecting my kids to talk radio. It seems I have passed the talking to the radio gene on to Charlie.

One of the radio hosts we have been listening to lately has a habit of calling the USA the greatest country on God's green earth. After hearing that about 3 times, Charlie starts talking to the radio and saying it is not the greatest country! Other people like their countries just as much, and things of that nature. We as a family are very thankful for our heritage as Americans. We are looking forward to our trip to Washington D.C. later this spring. But Charlie gets that our patriotism stems mainly from the fact that we were born here. As he continued his conversation with the radio, he went on to say how much better a country Heaven is than America could ever be. While Heaven is not on God's green earth, Charlie still knows what country it is better to have your citizenship in.

Thing 4: Chuck and the World Chucks with you.

There are some Internet acronyms that have just not taken off yet. So when I say Chuck is the BTSSB you might not know of which I speak. Chuck is certainly the best thing since sliced bread, and in the last Things Fortnightly, I shouted its praise from the tops of something. Two weeks after the BEE (Best Episode Ever) things in Chuckville are still kicking it old school. The most recent episodes Chuck Vs. The Final Exam was particularly awesome. It had an excellent "Man who Shot Liberty Valance" moment that blew me away.


Thing 5: I see that hand (I just choose to ignore it.)


We took a field trip this week to a working fire house.

At the end of the tour, the fireman who was showing us around asked if anyone had any questions. Lucy raised her hand, which given her penchant for Lucyisms, usually frightens me. The fireman called on her and she asked a pretty good question for the general population, which means an amazing question for a 4 year old, and a pretty miraculous one coming from her. She asked when do you guys (fireman) sleep. The fireman said that when he is working a night shift, he tries to go to bed early, so he can get some sleep before the calls start coming in.

Some of the other parents, and children asked some more questions and then Lucy raised her hand again. She not only raised her hand, she said "I have another question." The fireman called on her again and this time she said, "My favorite color is purple.". Now, that's the kind of "questions" she usually asks!

Well those are my things for This Thursday. Thanks for stopping by

To play along just click on Mr. Linky.

Next Time: Snack Time

Lucy, Bears, and Meat Loaf. Oh My!

Time again for things this Thursday.


1. Lucy the Artist.


















We had a piece of saran wrap like packaging material around the house. Lucy wanted to make a project of it. I taped it up to two pieces of construction paper so it wouldn't rip. Lucy proceeded to make the design pictured here. I removed the tape from the construction paper and displayed it in our room.















2. Lucy, the graphic novelist.

The same day all the kids were working on some school work. Lucy was drawing pictures. Sometimes she likes to write words on the pictures so she asks me how to spell the words. On this particular occasion she asked: "Dad how do you spell " a long time ago in Mexico in a library that was far away from Carpentersville? She then proceeded to illustrate and dictate narration to a ten page story of kitties in a Mexican library.



3. TV


I don't regularly watch the show House. Amy watches it sometimes and I have sat down and watched it with her. A recent episode entitled 5 to 9 followed the day of the Hospital administrator. Even though the focus of this episode was not House and his antics, I found that it did a good job of grounding the new or infrequent viewer into what the Show is about. You can watch the episode on HULU by clicking here.

4. Dinner











Last week I made meatloaf for dinner. I used a traditional recipes that uses tomato soup. The only significant departure I made was to substitute oyster cracker crumbs for bread crumbs. I even put whole oyster crackers on top. It actually turned out to be very good. Better than the after picture shows.





5. Polar Bear backwards is Polar Bear.

I took the kids to the zoo last weekend. We always try to go see the Polar bears. A few years ago Amy and the kids saw one of the bears do this.


On Saturday we watched a polar bear doing this

over and over again. I took 4 separate videos of the bear walking on the ledge

and then backing up.

So those are my things this Thursday. Join in by clinking on Mr. Linky below.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday

Poetry

Poetry appreciated. Poetry demonstrated. Poetry Lucified.

We have been studying poetry in school for the past few weeks. Today I had Emma blog about two of her favorite poets who coincidentally have written several poems about bunnies. You can see her post by clicking here.


Charlie and I worked for a while to write a poem and finally since many of the poems we have been studying have been accompanied by illustrations. Charlie wrote and illustrated a poem about winter.

I like to ski. Wheeeeee!

Lucy really wanted to write a poem about flowers. So I had her dictate one to me.

Flowers are pretty

They're very nice

I picked them for my Momma

Flowers are beautiful

The pink and purple and red ones

and green ones and black ones and yellows ones

and roses and green ones

and orange ones and . . .

Now, she probably had a few dozen more lines to recite when I interrupted her by saying that's a nice poem let's draw a picture of a flower. Her response: I'm not good at drawing flowers let's draw a horse.

Then she decided that she wanted to draw a unicorn instead of a horse. I want to say that she wanted to draw a unicorn because I had read Shel Silversteins's "The Unicorn" earlier that day. But Lucy's motivations are generally much more random than that. Here is said picture . . .

Those are my six words for today. Head over to Show My Face dot com to play along at home.

Before you do, I want to share a small poem I wrote today inspired by Charlie. I had asked him to write a poem about winter and he was getting frustrated and being silly at the same time. He said something like: Winter winter Winter winter. I don't like winter.

I decided to write a poem from the perspective of a second grader assigned to write a poem about winter and does not want to.

Winter. Winter. Winter. Winter.

Winter is no fun.

Winter. Winter. Winter Winter.

Now my poem's done.

I say it's done

but Dad say no.

Who wants to write

when you can play in the snow?

Sledding, Skiing, snow ball fighting.

Winter's really quite inviting.

It's fun outside and in the home

but do I have to write a poem?!!!

Winter. Winter. Winter. Winter.

Now, my poem's done!

Next Time: Things This Thursday

1 Year Ago Today . . .

The FAQS of Life: My life in Frequently Asked Question Format

Special Blogoversary Edition

Q: Do you know what is special about today?

A: Yes. Today is a special anniversary.

Q: An anniversary of what?

A: It's the 4 year anniversary of date multiplication day. Just 4 years ago on 1-6-06. You see 1 times 6 = 6.

Q: Doesn't that happen quite frequently? Aren't there 4 just this year?

A: Oh, that's right! January 10th, February 5th, May 2nd and October 1st.

Q: Is it maybe a different anniversary?

A: Can't think of any.

Q: Does this ring a bell?

A: Literally, no it does not ring a bell. But figuratively, yes, this here blog is a year old today.

Q: Are you doing anything special to commemorate the day?

A: Yes?

Q: Are we back to that joke again?

A: Yes

Q: What are you doing to commemorate the day?

A: I thought you'd never ask. I have been making changes to the format of the blog over the past few weeks and I am unveiling them today.

Q: What's new?

A: Not much. We had fish today. Don't usually have fish at home. It was quite tasty.

Q: No I mean what's new with the blog?

A: Well first of all, I am starting a new segment where I feature a new blog in the top right corner of my blog.

Q: Cool. What's it called?

A: Featured blog .

Q. Catchy. Who are you featuring now?

A: Cornforth Adventures. It is an excellent blog. I have known the Cornforth's for several years and it is nice to follow someone in cyber life who you know in real life. She has great music on her blog. I'm even listening to it right now. She is also been a consistent commenter and encourager of this blog. Even when we don't see eye to eye she gently states her points without destroying me in the process.

Q: Will you basically be featuring blogs that you already link to?

A: No. I will probably feature all those but I will also be featuring many others.

Q: Has your blog changed a lot over the past year. If so what about it has changed?

A: Yes, it really has evolved. In the first few months I was changing links and music and other things on a weekly basis. It was wearing me out. I did a lot of experimentation over the first few months as well. I really learned my lesson from the NABLOPOMO incident. Blogging is not an end in itself.

Q: Didn't you write about that in the End of blogging?

A: Sure did. Tackled it in Danger: Blogging as well. It is a theme I kept going back to. I constantly need to be reminded to put this blog in it's proper place. Another thing that changed was that the blog often took on a more personal nature than I thought it would when I started it.

Q: What do you think that was due to?

A: It was definitely due to the passing of my Brother last April.

Q: How did blogging affect your grieving process?

A: I think it both helped and hurt. It helped in the sense that I had an outlet to air my feelings. It hurt that it created an idea inside myself that because I blogged about it, I had dealt with it fully. But that's enough about that now. Ask me another question.

Q: Gladly. What have been some of the more surprising aspects of blogging over the past year.

A: I think most surprising is that I have started 2 more blogs and each of my oldest kids have started their own. Lucy can't wait until she can get in on the act.

Q: Isn't she already the act with all her Lucyisms?

A: She sure is.

Q: Do you have any more?

A: This past week she was on her way home from AWANA. She asked Amy if she (AMY) was a Christian and Amy said "yes, why." Lucy told her that she (LUCY) was not a Christian. Amy asked "why not, don't you believe in Jesus?" Lucy said, "Yes, but I'm not a Christian". Amy asked why not? Lucy said, "because I don't want to go to Medieval Times".

Q: Medieval Times! What's That?

A: It's a dinner theatre experience where there is jousting and knights and much merriment.

Apparently Lucy had heard about Jesus being King and tied it together with Medieval Times.

Q: That's quite a story, How do we move on from that?

A: Ask me what I'm doing tomorrow.

Q: Why can't I ask you right now?

A: Aren't I supposed to be handling the jokes?

Q: And shouldn't I be asking the questions?

A: Good point.

Q: What are you doing tomorrow?

A: Eating the leftover fish. Oh! On the blog! I am making a change t0 3 Things This Thursday. From now on I will call it Some Things This Thursday. That way if people only have 1 or two things going on they can still contribute.

Q: Any closing thoughts you'd like to share?

A: I'd like to thank everybody who followed the blog this past year and say I am looking forward to having you along for the ride in the years to come.

Next Time: Some Things Thursday

A Great Drum

Hockey Lessons

Life Lessons from the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

This is the first post that I am publishing in it's entirety on both my blogs. The idea speaks to me on both a sports and home school level.

Mark Pavelich was one of the three young men who played on the "conehead" line for Herb Brook's gold medal winning hockey team. Named the cone head line because of the unique perhaps alien style the boys played with as an homage to the popular conehead sketch on Saturday Night Live at that time.

The book "The Boy's of Winter" does an excellent job portraying Pavelich as someone who loves playing Hockey but not the notoriety that comes with excelling. Pavelich is one of 2 NHL players to score 5 goals in a game. 1

That fact notwithstanding, Pavelich was much more comfortable getting the puck to other scores than scoring himself. Most familiar with the Miracle on Ice are familiar with Mike Eurizione's game winning goal. It was Pavelich who got the assist. Pavelich also got the assist on his line mate Buzz Schneider's first period goal that knotted the Russians at one. How appropriate that a player who liked being behind the scenes made the first and final assists in the most important hockey game in his countries history.

As a NHL player Pavelich was known for his poise on the ice, his practical jokes in the locker room and his desire to be and completely comfortable in who he was as a person. Who he was off the ice was not a social butterfly or a clotheshorse. There are countless stories in "Boys of Winter." showing Pavelich's preference to be withdrawn and only comfortable outside of the rink when He was fishing, hunting or other outddorsy tasks. His New York Rangers teammate Nick Foitu described him thusly, "He dressed like a mountain man from the backwoods of Minnesota. Then he would come out on the ice and play his heart out." 2

Joe Devaney a close friend of Pavelich's summed him up this way . . . "He's completely happy and content with what he does. He marches to his own drum and it's a great drum." 3

I really liked that quote because it makes an important distinction for going against the status quo. Some people march to a different drum just to be contrarian. When they hear toe-may-toe they have a knee-jerk need to say toe-mah-toe. Unfortunately, being different just to be different doesn't usually make a difference.

Amy and I march to a different drummer when it comes to educating our kids. We home school our children and we don't do it to be different. We do it because, for us, homeschooling is a great drum. Like Pavelich, we are happy and content with our decision to homeschool.

As a parent I also see the quote about Pavelich as an opportunity to help my children find their drummer. All our children seem to be on their way to establishing their own paths. Emma, the literary giant and animal lover. Charlie, the scientist, explorer, super hero. Lucy, the 1 man wrecking crew/ballerina with an unusual take on about everything. I recently told her that over Christmas Break I wanted her to memorize three state capitols. I suggested Indiana, Iowa and Missouri as they border Illinois. She responded back that she wanted to memorize the capitols of Kentucky, Bethlehem and Arkansas.

As Amy and I help them find their drummer we realize it doesn't have to be the road less traveled, we just want the path they take to be a great drum.

Next Time: Christmas Eve at the Bowling Alley

1. Wikpedia article on Pavelich

2. The Boys of Winter. Coffey, Wayne. p. 167

3. Boys of Winter, P. 169

Library Week

Six Word Saturday

Library Week with my Intrepid Reporter

Twice a year we have library week as part of our home school activities. We generally spend 5 days going to various libraries. Since Amy gets two weeks off at Christmas time we have decided to take two weeks to visit libraries.

Our first library chose itself as Charlie was invited to a afternoon birthday party 30 minutes from our house. While he sleds and has general merriment with the Bioncle and Star Wars set, we went 600 feet (thanks GPS) across town to the local library.

I have assigned Emma with the task of reporting on each library. I am actually posting this while visiting library #1.

Here is Emma's report:

Name of Library: St. Charles Library. St. Charles, IL.

Something I liked: I liked all the Animal Ark Books they had.

One thing I didn't like: They didn't have one of my favorite books, Bunnies in the Bathroom.

A book I read while I was there: 2 Minute Mysteries by Donald Sobol author of Encyclopedia Brown.

Dad asked me to ask the Librarian a question. Lucy said she would, so I followed her with my notebook.

Lucy: Knock Knock

Librarian: Who's There?

Lucy: Emma

Librarian: Emma Who?

Lucy: Emma Kayrene (My Middle Name)

It's time to pick Charlie up from sledding so thus ends the first installment of Library Week

Head over to showmyface.com for more six word fun.

Next Time: Hockey Lessons