A train of thought moving faster than a speeding bullet

Quickly, before I forget!

Yesterday's blog post was about how my brain jumps from thought to thought very quickly.  I have a hard time thinking about just one thing sometimes.  Here is an example of what I mean.  I was in the shower this morning after my morning walk.  My mind started thinking and by the time I was done with the shower, I was way off topic of what I was originally thinking about.  I had to back track my thoughts to get back to the original one.

Here is the line of thought:
-Funny how skills can be called two different names depending on their use.  For example: manipulation is considered to be negative, but when turned around, it can be called good leadership skills. Right?
-Peanut, my three year old can be so manipulative.  We've got to get her sleeping through the night in her own bed in in a different room from Hubby and I.  I wish we had more rooms in the house. 
-The number of bedrooms in the house....  We've got too many people, too few bedrooms and five kids who don't want to share their room with anyone else. There is too much fighting is going on over who went into whose bedroom.  This kids have got to learn to share space better.
-The size of the house we are in now vs. the size of the last house we lived in.  Our current home has 500 more square feet than our last home, but the smaller home had two more rooms than this house.  I would rather have the rooms than the space.
-The longest I've ever lived in one house since getting married is 3 years 2 months.  Come December 1, we will have been here for three years and it doesn't look like we are going to move again anytime soon. We might break our record of three years and two months.  That's funny (or not) since I've wanted to get out of this house for the last two years. 
- My Mom lived in one place for 30 years.  She taught in several schools in the city, each year having 25-30 kids in her class.  She knew people from church and civic people. She knew everyone.
-Mom was always running into someone she knew at the grocery store.  I went with her to the grocery store a lot growing up and we could hardly make it through one shopping trip without her running into someone she knew.  I didn't mind, it was just funny.
-I occasionally see people I know at the grocery store, but not too often.  Of course, I don't know many people since I've only lived here for a couple of years.  Do I ever actually look at the people in the grocery store while I shop?  No, I don't think I do.  I'm just there to get my stuff and get out.  Would I notice a friend at the store if a friend was there?  Maybe.  What if one of my favorite celebrities were at the grocery store?  Would I notice?
-I should make it more of a point to look at the people around me at the store.  I might see a friend.

So, that is what ran through my head during my shower.  It wasn't a long shower.  My thoughts just go too fast and change too much.  Maybe I should get a water proof voice recorder to carry around with me all the time.  Then I can just talk while I think.... That might be really funny to listen to.

Now what was I thinking?

Yesterday I thought up about four great blog entries.  I wrote one.  Not sure if it’s really great or not.  The rest I’ve forgotten.  I’m so attention deficit sometimes.  My brain jumps from thought to thought faster than rabbit can jump across the desert.

Well, I’ve just gotten distracted by something else in the house, so I’m not going to finish this thought.  I’ll come back to it later.

The Platter

For many years, I did not have a platter for serving food on. It didn’t matter too much. A dinner plate worked just fine. Then, several years ago, after my youngest started eating solid foods, I realized that I just needed a bit bigger of a plate for serving food. I began to search for a platter.


I went to a local church yard sale about 2 years ago and found a lovely glass platter for $3. Can’t beat that, right? I bought it. I was so happy to have a platter.

Tonight, as I was preparing to serve dinner, I realized that I needed my platter. I’m always slightly giddy to use the platter and to show how giddy I became, I will confess that I have a little platter dance and song. So, I was dancing about in the kitchen and chanting, “I get to use my platter, I get to use my platter.” I placed the food on the platter and went to call Hubby and the kids to dinner.

When I got back to the kitchen, I picked up the platter of food. It had CRACKED while I was calling the family to dinner! My poor, poor $3 platter. Thankfully, I have another platter. I had, about a year ago, found another great deal on a platter that I couldn’t pass up. I had two, but now I have one.

I guess it is time to keep my eye out for another platter. I might need a back-up again someday.

End note: When you start to say the word “platter” as many times as I have while writing this, “platter” becomes a pretty funny sounding word. Platter, platter, platter, platter……(giggle)

Inspiration

Sometimes when we are in a rut, it only takes one little thing to inspire us.  Last night, while surfin' the Net, I found a blog.  I haven't done much blog reading lately or much writing, but I read this blogs posts back to December, and it is updated frequently.  It was a fun read.

What I liked most about this particular blog is the way they (2 women) write.  It is very similar to my own writing style. Of course, they are 100 times better than I am because they are professional writers and professional comediennes and I'm not, but their style of storytelling, I feel, is like mine.  This is hard for me to put into words, oddly enough.  Feelings can be so difficult to explain.  Sometimes something clicks and you can't really explain why.

As I laid down to go to bed, my mind was racing.  I was creating fun blog entries.  I think before going to bed, I composed three new blog entries in my mind.  So, this is your official warning:  Blog entries to come!

Random weekend thoughts

We had a nice Easter weekend. Peanut kept us quite entertained with her first Easter.

Some random things and thoughts:
- My 5 year old daughter has a bad habit of getting up in the night and getting in bed with Hubby. He doesn't like it because our daughter, like all of our kids, is a busy sleeper. All of the kids kick, squirm, hit, and do random gymnastics in bed while they are asleep. So, to keep daughter in her own bed we are doing rewards. I asked her what she wanted for a reward and she requested stickers. So, last week, I took her to Dollar Tree and she picked out a small journal and three sheets of stickers. Being the girly-girl that she is, she got a hot pink journal and Barbie stickers. She has earned 5 stickers so far and she loves to put them in her journal. The really neat part is she is making up stories about her stickers. Under the stickers she will write a random group of letters, numbers and happy faces. They are her stories. She has read them to me. They are very cute and all about princesses and fairies.

-Daughter's latest favorite name for a Barbie or fairy is "Stumbleina" Yes, 'stumble' as in, to fall and 'ina'. It is like Thumbelina, but it is Stumbleina. It makes me laugh every time she tells me a story about Stumbleina.

-Daughter also has been asking me questions lately. OK, that isn't unusual. This girl asks a LOT of questions. However, lately, she will ask me a question like, "What color do you think Cousin Claire likes?"
I'll answer, "Oh, I think she likes the color purple."
Then daughter will answer back, "No Mom, I think she likes pink the best."
It makes me want to yell "why did you ask me in the first place?"

-Peanut has grown so much lately. If I could write all the things she has done since turning 1 a week and a half ago, it would take up a huge amount of space and take me all day to write. I've noticed with kids they will have not only growing spurts, but learning spurts too. Peanut is turning out to be a girly-girl too. I'm glad. She likes to wear necklaces. She will get a hold of one of her sister's dress-up necklaces, put it around her neck and prance around. She wore a bright colorful necklace all day on Saturday.

- Easter related thought. Well, it has nothing to do with the spiritual nature of Easter... my kids and Easter egg hunts. I've never seen kids so competitive with each other to find eggs. My 10 year old has no mercy for his younger siblings. When we open the door to do the outdoor hunt, he is blocking the door and sprints out when we open it. The three year old starts to cry almost immediately because before he can even step out of the door, his oldest brother has collected 10 eggs. My 8 year old son has never learned, even though we tell him year after year, to not follow his older brother when it comes to egg hunting. Ten year old will have gotten everything so if you follow him, there will be nothing left for you. We've encouraged him every year to run in a different direction, but he never learns. Instead, he follows his older brother and gets a lot less eggs. Five year old daughter really can't win either. As soon as she spots one and runs for it, the older boys will chase her, pass her and get the egg first. Then she starts to cry.

If two of them see an egg at the same time, they both run for it and whoever grabs it first shoves it into his bag. The other one claims it was his/hers first and grabs it out of the other's bag and sticks it into theirs. Then it becomes an argument. The ironic thing about our outdoor egg hunts is that we only use empty eggs. They gain no more candy by collecting more eggs. We don't even count who has more, but they still fight over who has the most. I'm seriously thinking of having two hunts next year, one for the older boys and one for the smaller group. Maybe it is time we make a rule that after 10 years of age, you can no longer hunt for eggs.

That would be so sad, though. My family did egg hunts every year and I did it well into my late teen years and I want my kids to have fun. They just turn it into a major competition and ruin the fun for all. Good thing Easter comes once a year.

Can you believe I've had so much to say?

This is post #200. Two hundred times I've written about... what? What have I written about? Kids, Hubby, laundry, food, shopping, good times, bad times, silly times, and many very random ideas.

So, I should do something monumental with my two hundredth post, right?

Do you want to know 200 random things about me?
No, you really don't want that. I don't even know if I could come up with two hundred things - you lucked out.

Do you want to know 200 ways to avoid doing laundry?
No, you probably have your own ways of doing that and don't need help from me. I mean, don't we all avoid laundry when we can?

Do you want to know 200 ways to cook potatoes?
No, I guess not. Who really wants to know that? I don't even know that!

Do you want me to sing 200 silly camp songs?
OK! Lets go: Found a Peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now! Come on, sing with me. No? Party pooper.

Well, I can't think of 200 anything that I could share. No, wait, I guess I can. Stick around for the next 200 posts and I'll tell you all sorts of good, bad, silly and random stuff.

Books

Last night I had an activity with the Activity Day Girls at church. To encourage the great pastime of reading, I had each girl tell us about her favorite book or a book she has recently read.

To start things off, I brought along four of my favorites. My books were The Secret Garden, Peter Pan, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Anne of Green Gables. The Anne book isn't high on my list of favorites, but it is a fun read and I thought the girls might really enjoy it. First of all, it was sad when I introduced each of my books and the girls would say, I've seen that movie! While I enjoy the movie versions of these books (I've never seen an Anne movie, although I know there is one) the movies are never as good as the books. One girl said she hated each movie.

Then, each girl took a turn to tell us about her book. One girl brought in a fantasy novel she had just finished. Another girl told us about one she was reading in school. Another girl said her book was called Spiderwick, but it wasn't the Chronicles book. The other girls didn't believe her. I felt bad. She could hardly tell us about the book because the others were saying there was no way that was a Spiderwick book.

Anyway, after it was over, I thought back to when I was in school and the books the teachers made me read. I didn't like most of them. It seems teachers are keeping this up. They like to pick depressing, thought-provocing novels based on true events and wars instead of great classic literature. I told the girls thank goodness for summers when you can choose your own good books to read. I was lucky enough to have a teacher in the 11th grade who told us to pick any book by an American author in the 20th century. What a huge choice! I picked a Star Wars novel. It was acceptable and I got an A on my paper. I loved that teacher for letting us do that. I'll never understand why some people choose to read depressing novels about people who always end up with a fatal disease and dying a sad death. To each his own, I guess.

This has been a rambling, random thought with no point brought to you by the letters B, G, and the number 4836.

A history of random thoughts

My toddler broke a bowl today. Whoever said Correll doesn't break, hasn't been to my house. We have broken more bowls in the last few months then I can remember. Today, it was the toddler's fault. Why is it when you yell "Don't Move!" that they have to keep moving? I yell at my toddler not to move and he starts to back up from the shattered mess. I tell my daughter to stay out. This hurt her feelings, it wasn't her fault the bowl broke, so why should she have to stay out of the kitchen?

Anyway, I'm cleaning up this bowl and I was disappointed to find that it was a clean bowl that had fallen to the floor. Now, I have to clean up the remains of a clean bowl and I still have as many dirty dishes as before this one broke. Does that make sense? If a dirty bowl had broken, it would have been like cleaning up one mess, not two.

I guess that is pretty ridiculous.

I have a history of silly random thoughts. I'll share a few with you.

When I was quite young, I thought how silly a vacuume cleaner was. As you push it around the room, it leaves it's cord all over the floor. Then, when you are done with the vacuume, you have to clean up the cord off the floor. With a vacuume you clean twice!

Another random thought I had as a child was about dust. (Cleaning is on my mind, can you tell?) When you are wearing white, and you roll around on the floor, you get black dust all over your clothes. However, when you are wearing black, and you roll around the same floor, you end up with white dust on you. This was, to me, very odd. I remember this thought came to me after watching Star Wars. Princess Leia was wearing a white dress and when it got dirty, you could see black. Luke Skywalker was wearing an all black outfit and after rolling about on the floor he is covered in a white dusting.

Yes folks, strange random thoughts have been a part of me for a long time. I'm glad they never go away.

Finding yourself - Not just a teenage problem

There is a young lady that I see at church every week, almost. She is a pretty girl, but sometimes that prettiness is masked by the bizarre hairdos and clothes she wears. I'm sure you've seen the type.

One week she comes with the bottom half of her hair dyed black and straight while the top half is bleach blond and curly. The next week her hair will be all bleached blond and curly. The next week her hair will be something else. (At least part of it is always bleach blond.) Her clothes range from t-shirts and denim skirts, to empire waist mini-dresses, to a brown skirt and blue sweatshirt. It is a secret bit of entertainment for me to see what this young lady will look like from week to week.

I asked a friend of mine, who is closer to the young lady's family than I am, what is up with the changes each week. My friend said the young lady is "searching for herself" in a big way. She tries every hair style and clothing style during these searches. It is a stage most teenages go through.

I laughed to myself. I don't remember really searching for myself as a teen. I was confident in myself. I had a style that was comfortable and neat. It wasn't trendy in anyway, but I was always clean and neat. I knew that I would attend college and I knew what college. In the 9th grade I decided what it was I wanted to study in college and I stuck with it. I went to the college of my choice and I never changed majors once I got to college. I knew what kind of job I wanted and where I wanted to work. I knew what I wanted and where I was going.

Part of those life plans included marriage and children. Now, I have two college degrees, a good husband and four amazing children. Yet now, I feel myself is lost. I find my confidence in who I am is gone. My brain is mushy, I'm anti-social, I'm no longer an intelligent person and I prefer to stay hidden in my home rather than go out and have adventures.

I'm doing the opposite of the teenage thing. Now, I feel the need to find myself, search for myself and find out who I am. The thing is, as a teen, you have the energy to search for yourself, but now, as a 30-Something year old mom, I don't have the energy to do anymore than I'm required to each day. It is a shame to waste youth on youth.

This is all meant in fun, but it is also truth. It's too bad no one has told the young lady it isn't the clothes or the hair styles that make you who you are. Instead of dying her hair various colors from week to week, she should be spending that time she undoubtable spends in front of the mirror, working in areas of interest. Volunteer in places you might want to work someday, take a class in web design or flower arranging. That would help her find herself in a much better way than black hair or empire dresses.

Good luck to us all who are searching for ourselves, no matter how old we are.

Blog to blog

Sorry for the multiple postings. I can't get here everyday like I would like to and then thoughts build and finally I do a blogging explosion.

So, what's on the ol' mind?

Blogging. I love reading others blogs. I have a few I visit frequently and somtimes I'll follow links they have for blogs they enjoy. You can go on and on and on doing this. Some, ok, many blogs have weekly things, like Menu Monday, Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Frugal Friday, and I've seen stuff for Wednesday and Thrusday, but I don't remember any right now. These are fun and I enjoy reading kitchen tips and frugal ideas. However, some blogs are nothing but these things. It seems that blogs are used for many reasons.

Some blogs, like the ones that follow the weekly things and nothing else seem like a public To Do list.

- Some are there as family journals
- Some are a nice combination of journal/weekly To Do
- Some are there for the blogger to make money, they get commission off things they review and sell or they are promoting their own wares.
- Some are for creative muses and thoughts
- Some are to make bold statements on certian issues
- the list can go on and on

Nothing is wrong with any of these. I have no point to this, it was just an observation. I hope that my own little blog is a creative combination of personal observation and amusing family life. The blogs I visit most are SAHMs, like me, who want to share a little of their life, their kids lives, and recipies. It is nice for me, who is home all day with her children, with no car available for me to get out of the house, and who just wants to reach out and feel a part of a social group where we all understand each other.

The absolute best part of this social organization is that to visit "friends" I don't have to clean my house or change out of my pink Winnie the Pooh pajamas!

thoughts on a mother's employment

A week ago, my husband and I and our herd of kids went to a company picnic. It was a small get together since my husband's work is usually with a small team of people. There were about 20 (give or take a few) couples there.

I don't know any of these people. A few I had met over a year ago at a similar function, but did not remember who they were. While my husband mingled and chatted with co-workers, I listened to various conversations that were going on around me while watching my kids to make sure they stayed out of trouble. As I'm listening to all the conversations, I realized that I am the only woman there who does not hold a job. I commented this to my husband who said, don't compare yourself with them. I wasn't, it was merely an observation - I was the only woman who did not work outside of the home.

Two nights ago, I get a telephone call for a survey. I had the time to do it, so I participated. At the end of all the questions, they ask for the statisical information. One question was do I hold a full time job, a part time job, or am I unemployed. I answered, I am not employed outside of the home.

I can't say I don't have a job, I do. I am a primary caretaker to four children, I am a chef, I am a laundry maid, I am a house cleaner, I am an audio visual technician, I am a dictionary, a calculator, and homework helper, I am a teacher, I am a babysitter of other people's kids, I am a pool cleaner, I am an accountant, I am a book keeper, I shop for all of our needs, and I am a lawn caretaker. I don't just hold down one job, I hold down a hundred. And the crazy thing is, I do it all for FREE.

Just because we are stay-at-home moms, don't call us unemployed. I know working mothers do all those jobs I named plus one outside the home. I work too, but it is not a paying job.

I have a job that I love. One day I hope to return to the world of paying employment, but I'm not rushing it. The kids will grow and I'll have lots of time then. For now, I work at home and watch my children grow.

Homeschool adventures, Day 3 and FOOD!

I love working on my blog, but since school started, there hasn't been much time. My oldest child started 4th grade. It is hard to believe he is in the fourth grade. He is growing so fast. On the homefront, we have begun our homeschool adventure. This is Day 3, and we are actually in the middle of it. He is working on a project at the moment, giving me a few free minutes. It has been fun and gone very well, so far. I've learned a lot about my son in the last three days. My two other children have been pretty good. My little princess, sits at her little dest next to us. She has a pre-K workbook (previously used by one of her brothers) and she loves to sit at her desk, color "work" in her workbook. All the while she is singing, singing. My 21 month old will sometimes play, sometimes fuss, sometimes scream at us while we are working. About mid morning we will take a 30-45 minute break so I can get the youngest to take a nap. He has had a runny nose and I think it is adding to his normal fussiness. Anyway, we are having fun. I'm keeping a detailed journal of our days for two reasons - a journal and a record in case the school wants to see what we have been doing.


Other thoughts recently have revolved around food. I love food. As a result, I'm, well, as the deparment store puts it, a Plus Sized Woman. For the last six year, my weight has been on the climb. I finally said this summer, no more gain. Either hold steady or loose it. I've done both. In a fairly short amount of time with only a slight adjustment in my eating, I lost 10 pounds. Then I held steady for about 2 months. I've now lost 5 more and seem to be holding steady here too. It is progress, even if it is slow. So, that is the first thought about food.


Recently, in the morning, I've not been drawn to those breakfast foods I've so enjoyed in the past. The cereal, oatmeal, and pancakes hold little appeal to me. What else is there? I'm not a jelly fan, but jelly has sounded so good to me lately and guess what, we are out of jelly. I guess I'm having a fruit craving. We need more fruit in the house. The problem is, when I get it, my kids devour it within two days. That is great. I'm glad they like it, but it is expensive to keep up when it goes so quickly. Anyway, I'm hoping to get to the store later and get some fruit!


Last food thought, my birthday is coming up. It is next week even. For the last 9 or so years, on my birthday we have a fondue. I love to fondue. It's one of those 70's things that disappeared with bell bottoms and disco. Thanks to the 70's revival that has gone on, fondue has made it's way back into popular culture. I love a good cheese fondue. Mmmm, there are so many wonderful cheeses that you can fondue with. I don't do the oil fondue often, but we do them once in a while and they are tasty. The best of course, is the chocolate. How much more glorious can food get than that beautiful liquid chocolate! However, due to time and money constraints, I'm going to limit my birthday fondue to cheese and oil. We haven't done oil in several years. So, I'm making my shopping list and I'm very excited about the birthday fondue. It is a great tradition.
Isn't that the most wonderful food picture you have ever seen? This tasty picture comes fromt he Better Homes and Gardens Fondue and Tabletop Cooking book.

The Magazine of LIES

Through a strange train of thought the other day, I ended up thinking about pregnancy magazine’s views of morning sickness. NO, I don’t have morning sickness, like I said, it was a strange train of thoughts that led me to this. So, anyway, I was thinking back to when I was expecting my first and reading every magazine I could get my swelling hands on. I remember being very amused with the article about morning sickness. It would talk about nibbling crackers and such. Accompanying this article would be a picture of a woman (with very nice hair for having just woken up) who was sitting up in bed, leaning against lots of white fluffy pillows, and happily nibbling away at a Saltine cracker. The sun is streaming in through the window and next to the newly pregnant mom is a bed stand with a plate of decoratively arranged crackers.

ARGGGGHHH! So many things wrong with this picture! We won’t even get into the fluffy, white pillows (I don’t have any, do you?) or the sun streaming into the room (most of us are up before the sun), but I do wish to address some other things that we see in this lovely photograph. Let’s look at the mom-to-be, she is looking awfully good for having morning sickness. Most women have a greenish tint to them. Our photo mom is sitting quietly in bed eating her cracker. This is obviously her first baby or else she would be surrounded by children who are bouncing on the bed, making her already queasy stomach feel worse. Those children would be fighting over or eating her other crackers, getting crumbs everywhere and she would be thinking how she had better take the sheets off the bed and shake them out before the crumbs start to attract other visitors. And let us look at that plate of crackers on her bed stand. Who put them there? If she did, she did it the night before. I’m sorry, but I would be worried about roaches, ants or the crackers going stale overnight. Did her husband bring the crackers then? No, that couldn’t be, if she had asked him to bring her crackers, he wouldn’t have arranged them on a pretty, floral plate. He would have brought the bag of crackers in and the top of the bag would be twisted shut.

Yes, that picture has always annoyed me, and yet, I’ll bet if you picked up a pregnancy magazine in a doctor’s office, that same article with the same picture will still be there. Let’s ignore the unrealistic photo and forget too that most women have never found nibbling crackers to help them with their morning sickness. Most of them spend a great amount of time bowing before the porcelain throne anyway thinking, those stupid crackers just make me throw up again.

Oh well, anything to sooth those first time moms as they journey through the crazy time known as pregnancy, because the rest of us well seasoned moms know to skip the article and just wait for the trimester to pass.

forgotten thoughts

I had thought of a good topic earlier today but was unable to sit down and write, and now I've forgotten what it was!

Don't you hate it when that happens? I've actually had many random ideas floating about today. I'll see if I can remember some of those and they might spark a memory.

In a past post I talked about blogs I've seen by women who live the kind of life I would love. They live on farms, make their own soaps, raise their own chickens and so on. I was on another blog recently and this amazing lady has seven children, they raise sheep, a llama, and a goat or two. With the wool from their sheep, she makes the most amazing wool dolls. They look like Beatrix Potter characters - bunnies with violins and such. With the oil that comes off the wool from their sheep and llama they make their own lotion. They make goat cheese. She makes their own plates with her pottery and kiln. There is a huge garden that provides them with a large amount of their food. In short, it looks like an incredible life. A life very few Americans currently live. I read her blog and look at her photos and my heart sighs, I wish I could live like that. Then, I have to take a reality check. The lady who is the mother of this family was raised in a similar way. I was raised in a large city that is a suburb to a huge city. I have had absolutly no experience with livestock. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Things like making dolls, and making soap could be learned, but it is also something I've never done. Another big reallity check for me is the garden, I don't like veggies. Why would I want to raise an enormous garden of plants I don't like?

I guess, I'll just have to read her blog and wish I could live her life, knowing full well, I would never survive.

I do plan, however, to have a garden next year. Not a big one, but I do want to try a few things. Like I said, I don't like much in the way of veggies, but there are a few. I hope next year to grow carrots, pumpkin, squash, cucumbers, and watermelon (not a veggie, I know). My husband does love vegetables and he will probably want to grow more than my small selection. So, next year, I will take one step towards that ideal life.

Another random thought I was having today was all about digital cameras. Aren't they great? I love mine. It isn't top of the line, just the basic camera, but that is all I need. I love I can take 8 pictures of the same thing, trying to get that perfect picture and not have to worry or feel guilty about wasting film. That is nice when you have moving kids. A few weeks ago, I saw a comic strip, Baby Blues, if you know that one. The father was talking to his wife, "My mother took two rolls of film each year for our family. That covered birthdays and Christmas." The next picture pans back to show him sitting at the kitchen table with his wife and two kids. He says, "Now, we take 180 pictures at breakfast alone." And the kids each have a digital camera and are furiously clicking away taking pictures of each other.

I let my kids have the camera one evening and let them take as many pictures as they wanted to of anything they wanted to. The results were interesting. There were several pictures of the raw meat I had in a pan on the stove that was just starting to cook. There were pictures of the computer screen. Their were pictures of each other and one of dad. (It is funny to see what dad looks like from the height of a seven year old). There were pictures of their bedroom walls, pictures of the stairs, and so many other strange things. Many were out of focus as they were taken to quickly or while moving. Still, it was interesting to see life from their view. They often ask if they can do it again. I haven't let them yet, but I will sometime. They will never understand the point and click and crank the film to the next position. They will never really know what film is. It is kind of like vinyl records or phones with a rotating dial and attached to the wall with a cord.

Yes sir, I like the digital age.

Non Toxic

When I was a teen, I noticed products started advertising they were non-toxic. Maybe that bit of information was always there and I just didn't notice until I was a teenager. Either way, it was then that I saw the non-toxic information on the packages. I always joked, "Oh good, it's non-toxic, we can eat it." I would laugh to myself and wonder why it mattered. Who was going to eat a marker anyway, right?

Fast forward 10+ years and lets look at my youngest child today. His lips, hands, and forehead bear the marks of a light green marker. He first put it in his mouth (he has destroyed several markers this way, biting off the tips) and took it out only when I pulled it out. He went back to his paper and then tried drawing on his hands. "No," I said, "don't write on your hands, only on the paper". He goes back to the paper, but only for half a moment. He raises his marker over his head and very casually brings it down over his blond hair onto his forehead. At that point, the marker got taken away.

I'm so glad those markers are non-toxic and my youngest can eat them without worry.

pets and the law

I had a truly random thought this morning. I was unloading my dishwashing and thinking of what I'll be fixing for a lunch social today when somehow my mind switched to pets and the law.

When we first moved to Virginia, we checked to see if we are zoned to have chickens. We discovered some interesting things. First, we are not zoned for chickens. Then, we also found out that according to city law, only two types of pets are allowed in our zoned area, dogs and cats. That means people who keep fish, turtles, guinea pigs, hamsters, or birds are all breaking the law. That means the pet stores in the area are selling illegal animals.

Ridiculous, isn't it. Who was dumb enough to write that law? Still, it is the law and I want to follow the law. Can I get a pet fish and feel good in my heart knowing that I'm "breaking" the law by having one? Of course this law is not upheld by law officials. Most of them probably have pet fish. No police officer is going to my neighbor's house and arresting them because they have a fish tank, but still, a part of my conscious tickles because their goldfish are "illegal" pets.

Well, like I said, a random thought and one that I shouldn't worry about. Since my husband and I can't agree on pets, we'll not be getting one anytime soon. They only thing we do agree on is a fish and chickens. So, until we move to our dream home on some land, the pets will wait.