At school this year, 10 was part of a teacher-sponsored book club that met once a month. For their end of the year celebration, they had a progressive dinner. At the last house, the kids were able to create a Potato Car.
10 won first place (and brought home a huge Hershey’s Chocolate Bar).
What do you think of his design?
Posted in Children | 8 Comments »
This is Mater, our Red-Footed Tortoise. He’s all bumpy and deformed because when we got him, he was sick, so he developed soft-shell disease, and his shell didn’t grow correctly. He’s better now, and the new shell growth is healthy, but he’ll always be a bit wonky in the looks department. Which is why we love him….he’s got character.
If I had been three seconds faster with the camera, you would have seen him sleeping, half-in, half-out of his water dish, his shoulders and head resting on the branches in his tank—as though he couldn’t quite be bothered to climb all the way out of the water dish and maybe find a reasonable resting spot. Of course, he’s also taken to flipping himself over on a regular basis, so what can you expect?
You ever have one of those days?
Posted in Pets | 8 Comments »
So, yesterday, I was in a MOOD, and I lamented that I was bored, bored, bored and my best friend of 22 years said, “You’re bored? Then you are a boring person. Go do something,” which was not the point at all, the point was, I didn’t WANT to do anything but play and no one was available, they were all out being responsible adults. Dang it.
Then another friend said, “You could be writing something funny for your readers. ENTERTAIN ME!” and while I applaud the sentiment, my first thought (okay, my second thought, since my first thought was, Gee, you’re demanding, aren’t you? but we’re buds, so she knows I was just kidding. Sort of.), was, It’s hard to be funny when you’re bored (and in a MOOD).
So I settled in with a good book and a jar of dark chocolate hot-fudge sauce and then 10 came home and totally cracked me up, so even if I was busy pouting on the couch and not being funny on the internet, at least he could fill in the gaps.
10 found his dad’s motorcycle boots and decided he wanted to gear up to do a little cycling around the neighborhood. Please keep in mind it was about 8 gajillion (yes, that WAS the official temperature) degrees with plenty of humidity to spare and the kid is in leather boots, sweats, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, ski gloves, a bike helmet and some weird goggle-visor-mask-thing.
He lasted about five minutes, but did wait for me to snap the picture before returning to more weather-appropriate clothing.
Has summer come to your neck of the woods?
Posted in Children, Daily Life | 14 Comments »
Earlier this year, I received this sign as a gift.
I mentioned it yesterday and it started a conversation about favorite quotes.
A few of mine:
If you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning (generally attributed to Catherine Aird–I couldn’t find the original citation, though).
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough (Mae West).
Well-behaved women rarely make history (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich).
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work (Emile Zola).
Since I’m in the final push to finish my book, I’m asking you, Dear Readers, to do some of the heavy lifting today….what are some of your favorite quotes and why?
Posted in Writing | 12 Comments »
I was out on a walk and came across a bush full of these flowers and snapped a quick picture with my phone.
Anyone know what they are?
Posted in General | 10 Comments »
Every time I get the cell phone bill, I don’t think too much about 14’s texting habits in a general, “numbers” sense. He’s limited on talk time, and he’s supposed to be using his phone for texting with his friends, because he can talk to them at school, but when I actually took a moment to study the details of his texting, I was a tad, um, surprised.
I knew 14 texted a lot, but I had no idea just how much—4,211 texts sent and received, people. That was more than his dad and I combined. It was almost 2300 more than me alone.
I, of course, could not let this slide, so I determined to text MORE than him this month.
And thus, the Great Texting War of May 2009 began.
To send the most OUTGOING texts between now and the end of the billing cycle.
$5, bragging rights, and the title of Texter Supreme. The point is really the bragging rights, but the $5 is enough to keep 14 interested (like you have to work to keep a teenager interested in texting)
Game on.
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p.s. Did we miss anything? Any rules you think we SHOULD have and don’t?
p.p.s. I’m soooo getting my butt kicked on this, I know it, but I’m really going to try and win. Really. I just can’t let him be Texter Supreme without a fight.
Posted in Daily Life, Teens | Tagged cell phone use, parenting, teenagers, texting | 10 Comments »
So you know how we’ve been having a little frog issue. Okay, “we” is probably overstating it a bit. I have been having a little frog issue. As in, the frogs were keeping me from sleeping, which was bad enough, but then, I came home from two frog-free weeks in California to learn that there was a frog living in my backyard. A very loud frog. 10 asked what kind of frog could be so loud and Hubs told 10, apparently, that it was an elephant frog.
Now, 10 is no dummy, he didn’t buy that for a minute, so Hubs pulled out his smartphone and Googled “elephant frog.”
This is what popped up.
Which sort of threw 10 for a loop, because if it’s on the internet, it must be true, right?
Needless to say, it was NOT an elephant frog (there is no such thing, kids), but two small, regular-type frogs living in our swimming pool. They were relocated the other night, and have rejoined their froggy friends, far away from my bedroom window.
And I’ve had several relatively peaceful nights of sleep. I can still hear the frogs, but after a week of listening to them right outside the window, having them off in the distance is not so bad.
Attitude adjustment, right?
Posted in General | Tagged frogs, sleep | 6 Comments »
You know about my obsession with the swirls in my morning latte, right?
This is the best one yet.
Personally, I think a little caffeinated heart is the perfect way to greet the day. What do you think?
Posted in Photos | Tagged coffee, latte | 7 Comments »
If you ever decide to travel west and take all your worldly possessions with you, you’ll want 10 to design your moving wagon.
He is a skilled craftsman, after all, with careful attention to detail. He designed this wagon entirely on his own, talking through some of the more difficult points with his staff engineer. Because it’s important to know when you need help, right?
His sense of proportion is stellar. Based on the ratio of chair-size to wagon capacity, this thing could easily move a four-bedroom house owned by humans of the pack-rat variety.
But don’t worry, in case you forget to pack your pantry, 10 will provide sufficient provisions for your travels. In this economy, customer satisfaction is key.
I’d totally hire him to design my moving wagon. Wouldn’t you?
Posted in Children | 9 Comments »
I’ve been a bad, bad blogger.
I took a little vacation and did all this relaxing, which is very hard work, by the way, and every time I got on the computer, someone complained about how much time I was spending on the computer. What they didn’t realize is that I typically spend 6+ hours on the computer just to get through my daily work/e-mails/blogs/etc., so the paltry 2-3 hours I was computing each day were so little as to make me twitchy.
I’m terribly, terribly sorry I was only able to post the Burn-to-Learn photos, but don’t worry, dear readers, the Universe has got your backs, and I’ve been suitably punished for taking time off.
After 15 fabulous days in California, where it was sunny, and warm, and sunny, and oh, did I mention sunny? I returned to Oregon. I was greeted by cold, cloudy and gray. And rain.
A big change from all the sun in California.
::sigh::
I really miss the sun.
And this view:
Even more enchanting was coming home to find out that those frogs that had been interrupting my sleep….yeah, one of them is now LIVING in my backyard. And he’s loud. Really loud. So loud that when you close the windows, it still sounds like he’s right there in the room with you.
But even better than that? When I left, 14 was shorter than me by a good inch. When I came home? Not so much.
Who told him he could grow while I was gone???
I’m now in catch-up mode, but did get completely unpacked and all the laundry done. Why is recovering from a vacation so hard?
What have you been up to for the last few weeks?
Posted in Daily Life | 13 Comments »
Since it’s been a while (A week. Okay? I know it’s been a week. I’m on vacation….no excuse, but what can I say? This relaxing is serious business) you can catch up by rereading part one, if you like.
Now, where were we? Oh, right….
Since they were getting ready to light the final fires, the ones that would burn down the house, they moved as much debris as they could into the dwelling.
Then they wet down the surrounding trees and bushes to keep them from going up in flames.
Then it’s time for the rest of them to finish gearing up.
We were able to go to the back of the house when the final fires were being set.
This was the corner of the house where we were standing. Elapsed time between pictures? Less than two minutes.
Two minutes.
I was a bit shocked at how quickly the fire escalated.
Once the siding started melting and the flames were outside the window, we knew it was time to head back to the front of the house….it was WAY too hot back there.
Now, what’s interesting about this picture is that, even though the ceiling looks like it’s on fire….it isn’t. The flames are simply being carried on the air currents. The things you learn when standing around with firefighters, watching something burn.
Here’s what that room looked like when we got to the front of the house. Remember that Window Conversion? This is what it looks like when the house is on fire. MUCH easier to get to someone when you have a huge hole in the wall to walk through.
After we moved to the front of the house, we went to the other end, in front of the garage. The firefighters continually work to keep the fire under control.
By this point, we were standing about 150 feet away, and it was a chilly day (high 40s, maybe?), and the heat was so intense, I had to remove my coat and sweatshirt (yes, I had a T-shirt on). So, when you see movies where people are running through fire in their street clothes? Yeah, not so much.
Now imagine being in all that gear and having to go INTO that stuff to get someone out.
Like I said: firefighters? Certain level of awesome.
…and when the point is to burn the house to the ground, if things aren’t crumbling fast enough, the firefighters will help it along by pushing the debris into the fire.
But sometimes, things sort of fall apart on their own.
Yeah, that’s the roof falling off the house.
When we arrived, it was a bright, sunny day (though chilly). Here’s what the sky near the house looked like at noon. That’s the sun.
This is what the burnt house looked like at the end.
Pretty cool, huh?
Posted in General | 6 Comments »
Several weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of attending a Burn-To-Learn.
Don’ t know what that is? It’s a training exercise for the fire department. They take a house or building that has been donated to the department, and burn it down. No, seriously. They burn it down. On purpose.
It’s really cool.
Now at this particular burn-to-learn, the interior burns had been done earlier. Fires were set in each of the rooms, each one caused by something different. One room was a party that got out of hand, one was someone who fell asleep smoking…that kind of thing. Then, investigators would come in and attempt to determine the cause of the fires.
What we got to watch were the preparations for the final burn.
This is the technical term for what firefighters will do if they need an entry point into your house and the traditional methods (i.e. a door) are not viable options.
First, they start by breaking out the glass.
Then they get out their chainsaws and cut through the lower window and the wall, until they get to the floor.
This part was really cool: they get out a hooky-thing (I’m told the one in the picture is called a Trash Hook—really, you can’t make this stuff up) and YANK on the freshly cut wall….
…until there is a new access point into the house.
Yes, that’s the wall on the ground.
Because if the fire department needs to get to you, they will do whatever it takes. Firefighters are awesome that way.
See those guys on the roof? If they are on the roof during a fire, it means the fire has gotten to the point where they need to cut an exit for all the heat and smoke. They do that by cutting a hole in the roof. A big one. A standard cut is 4′x4′, but if they have to go 8′x2′, they will. Anything to make it easier and safer for them to get in and get the job done.
Because, again, firefighters? Certain level of awesome.
Interestingly, when I commented that I was looking to have a few new windows and some skylights cut, the firefighters jumped all over it, offering to run right over to my house when they were done there and leave me with several holes in the walls and roof. They had no strategy, however, for filling the openings with something practical like glass. So we passed on having the fire department do a little construction work at our house.
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Up next….Lighting The Final Fire.
Posted in General | 8 Comments »
