Science Friday--Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me...

Last week it was actually Science Sunday and Thursday, but I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the days when NPR and I had a closer relationship. I wonder how NPR is doing? Does NPR ever think of me? We had so many great drives together, so many afternoons while I prepped in my classroom at good old St. Joesph Grade School.

Nevermind.

I am not a very science-y person, so am I VERY glad to be around others who are. Specifically, others who are willing to teach my children. For example:

el domingo pasado, we were driving home from church and Bud wanted to know who invented cars, and then how they worked, etc. This is typical Bud. We'll be driving along, and he will pipe up: "Mom? What kinds of animals like to move around at night?" Or, "Mom? Will you tell me again how volcanoes are made?" And then he relentlessly pursues with more questions until he's exhausted my knowledge.

Fortunately, on Sunday J was driving and answering car questions. In the midst of this, J. remembered making a steam engine at home as a kid (please see "CovCov"'s hilarious comment on my last post). After naptime, they decided to try to build the thing!


I would like to say this was a family project, but I was zonked in a chair in the backyard for the entire construction segment. I made it back in for the trial, though. I just loooooove Sunday afternoons.

What do you need to make a steam engine, you may ask? A soda can, cork, candles, and something lightweight with wheels.


You put some water in the can, and then when it begins to boil the steam comes out of a little hole and propels the whole contraption forward.


That's the idea, anyway. This one didn't quite work as planned, but the kids thought it was really cool. And I love being married to someone with the initiative to give it a try. I love that the kids understand the concept, even though the "car" didn't go...and that they learned it's okay to give something a shot and not have it work out. As planned, anyway.




Then, on Thursday, my friend M. came over after a science fair promo/demonstration at the local school. She brought one for us to do! She measured in the vinegar and baking soda, and I timed how long it took to shoot the top off.

I also tried to take pictures, and sometimes my timings were not accurate (really, really not good at being a science person).


Once the cap went up on the roof. I was just going to leave the cap up there, maybe until J got home, maybe forever--seeing as how ladders and roofs and I have a very tense relationship. We really should never be in the same room.

Even though I shouldn't have let her, I forgot about that part and M. waltzed right up the steps and onto the roof. It was beautiful.

I was so relieved.

The kids thought it was awesome.


Science Thursday!


I am so thankful for the reminders--both in your kind and funny comments, and in watching my week unfold--that I am not shouldering the real burden, and I'm not doing any of this alone.

Happy Wednesday, Beta

Happy Wednesday! You know what that means!

I am in the process of working on a nice long, reminiscent post and found mid-way through that I'm too emotional and brain-fried to continue. It's too much to ask me to figure out why I'm crying over the fact that Miss Marianne closed the Athens School of Ballet back in 2005, and I didn't even know. You'd have thought someone would have let me know.

I'm seriously starting to think life might have been better before Google.

At our supper swap tonight, M. brought up preschool. It wasn't me! But I'm left wondering (again) whether I'm wrecking my children's lives by not having in them in preschool. Or normal school. Actually, if we want to get down to the heart of it, there are are more subterranean issues, such as (1) why I don't have them in, specifically, Mrs. Moody's class at Green Acres Baptist Nursery School (preferably in the early 80s, I guess), and (2) in what ways I'm ruining their lives without even knowing it.

Oh, my word. I thought I just stuck this blog in the draft file. Obviously I can't jump out of a rut quite as easily as I can hit "New Post."

Sometime I will take the time and space to hammer out my argument for the existence of eternity based on the existence of a healthy combo of nostalgia, morriña y vivid, lovely memories. But not tonight.

Instead, I will be silly. There's no one here to make funny comments to make me laugh at myself. J found out today that he's being observed for mid-tenure review tomorrow; I don't think he's stressed, but he's working hard in the next room. Very unaware that I have been teetering on the edge. Possibly wondering what on earth I've been doing in here for so long.

So, here are some funnies from our week. Here's Wombles in his very modern fashion design:



Hey--reuse, reduce, recycle--it's all there! I wish you could have heard him describing his "dress."

Bud, today at our lunch picnic. He got to "blow bubbles" (he was not at table).


And Pixie...well, I remember when Pixie did this:



I just wanted to see her curls again.

By the way, although she's not quite at ASB, Pixie is taking ballet lessons herself these days. :)

Just because I'd like to know, what is one of your favorite pre-grade school memories? I'll start: Mom driving to a preschool function already in her full costume as a clown, and all of the other drivers staring at her. Oh, David and I just howled!

Seriously?!

J was a hero tonight: dinner ready when I got home from teaching, and then he cleaned up and got the kids ready for bed while I worked on Bible study for tomorrow. Which prep I will get back to very soon.

In the first 18 minutes after J left for his Bible study, I was called in to the boys' room FOUR times. Four. Usually we don't hear from them, or maybe get one call. FOUR.

This was because Wombles kept getting out of bed, and Bud kept tattling. It's true, they are NOT allowed to get out of bed...especially not get-out-of-bed-get-a-book-throw-it-across-the-room, or get-out-of-bed-retrieve-Lightning-McQueen-cars.

Most of all, they are NOT to get out of bed and sneak into my bedroom, pulling things off of J's dresser in search of candy. Certainly NOT.

OK, back to Matthew 21. :)

Sorry to Be Mysterious

My last post was done late at night after I bought two plane tickets for my mom and my sister. I was so excited I just had to share it with the world, although it didn't make any sense to anyone else.

I thought I would follow up soon, Saturday morning maybe, but my yesterday was full of planning: homeschool, Spanish classes, and Bible study coincide to make the week a Perfect Storm--and worked on those things until I was cross-eyed and then plunked down with J. to finish the BBC's North and South (based on Elizabeth Gaskell's book). Whew! Whoever knew that holding hands could be so incredibly steamy?! I almost couldn't look!

Anyway, Mom and Natalia and I have been talking for a while about getting away together. It didn't happen last year--two weddings and a rendezvous in Vegas with Natalia were happy substitutes--but we really wanted to give it a go this year. Natalia and her lovely husband are expecting Baby Guff in August, so we had a sort of deadline. We finally decided on San Diego--nice and warm, and none of us has been before! So later this Spring, the three of us will meet in SoCal on a Thursday morning and hang out until Sunday afternoon.


I CAN'T BELIEVE IT"S ACTUALLY HAPPENING! WHHHOOOOOOO!

I miss them so much. I'm really looking forward to getting to spend the time together. That sounds so lame and generic...but the truth is that the two ladies I grew up with are hilarious, dear, and So Much Fun. I can't wait to not miss them for a few days. What will we do? I don't know...beach? Zoo? Karaoke? Sea World? Movies? Room Service? Shopping at Target? Chocolate-eating contests? The hotel and agenda are still completely up in the air.

I'm being a little silly, of course. I can't see myself ever forking out for room service.

Thanks, J., for keeping the circus while I'm gone. You're amazing. (This trip was his birthday present to me in 2008, 9 days before the Tea Fire changed all of our plans rather significantly).

PS If any of you have recommendations for which part of San Diego to stay in, that would be great.

I can't wait!

They are coming. We are going. I can't wait.

Wide Open Spaces

It's very nearly my favorite time of the week. I love waking up on Thursdays--it's a wonderful feeling. Still lots of good work to be done before the weekend, but the pressure is off and it's a long, slow glide into Sunday from there. Delicious! I love it so much that it works backwards, and I'm already enjoying tonight that it will be Thursday morning tomorrow. I have the blessing of getting to be involved in several things that I find highly valuable and interesting. I love it.

But I do not love having a tight schedule. Wide, open spaces in my schedule give me room to breathe and think; they can recharge me the same way wide open spaces outdoors can do. It's not so much that those spaces are going to stay wide and open; but having the flexibility to do what the moment calls for, instead of being constantly scheduled, is refreshing for me. Wide, and open.

Oh, for a bit of Indiana sky...have you ever driven from South Bend to Indianapolis and caught the sunset on the way home? We used to make the round-trip monthly, and those skies made the "permacloud" and 77-inches-of-snow-in-winter doable, even for this Georgia girl.




When we were in Georgia at Christmas, we had a beautiful sunset coming home from Mimi's house on her birthday. I just had to pull the truck over. Glory.


(Don't you just love the "Do Not Enter" sign? Argh! )


I've highlighted quite a few sunsets from our new town over the years we have been here. While not as dramatic, I wanted to share our rainbow sunrise earlier this week:



Wide open spaces. What a blessing!

There is a lot going on in my schedule, and in life in general. This morning I was grumpy. Tonight I am sad. I think the most clutter and noise are coming from inside my head! One of my prayers this Lent is for the Holy Spirit to clear out the junk and cluttered mess I have going on inside, and that my heart would be wide and open to hear His voice.

My Man!

It WORKS! It WORKS!

J is outside leveling weeds all round the house. Green chunks of pernicious vegetation are flying all around. The boys have finished covering their ears. It's beautiful.



It's extra beautiful because the weedwacker has been barely-or not-functioning for some time. This morning J decided he wanted to use it. So he sat down and figured out what was broken and what was needed to fix the engine (it was a fuel-line thing). Then he packed the boys into the van and went to some type of store that I didn't even know existed...bought the parts for maybe $6, and FIXED IT (cue SNL). He knew how to FIX IT!



Hooray, hooray, hooray! Weeds are not only an eyesore around here; they are also a hazard. Unlike dirt, gravel, and sand, they burn.

I'm watching him go to town out of the window right now. He's wacking the part of the yard (North bank) the HOA landscapers are responsible for. My guess is that he's having entirely too much fun.

In my last post, I noted that Bud has tons of initiative and thinks creatively about getting what he wants. I've even seen him as a three-year-old standing on top of a step stool...on top of a chair...trying to reach the candy on top of the refrigerator.


Bud did not get this initiative or creative problem solving from Me.