a PE curiosity

I was standing in a local elementary school gym for an event recently.  On the wall were the usual posters on might find in a school gym:  the food pyramid, pictures of kids exercising, sports teams and such.

One poster had a list of locomotive movement: leaping, walking, running, climbing, etc.

That all makes sense.  Until I got further down that list and saw "karaoke" listed.

Is karaoke a form of exercise?  I never knew

Stories By Molly

This is my new blog, dedicated to my story writing.  I'll post stories that I'm working on.  Most of them are works in progress.  See the side bar of the blog for the various stories available to read.

Please visit: Stories by Molly

All these stories are original works of fiction.  Currently, there are three stories posted.

Joia and the Guild is a fantasy story for children and young adults.  It is a work in progress but I'm very pleased with it.

Untitled Story: Paul and Nora is an adult fiction chick lit.  Adult fiction meaning that it is not a children's book as most of my stories are.  I've never written adult fiction before and I'm finding it challenging.  It's a chick lit.   :)  Work in progress...

Doctor Who fanfic: Merry and the Doctor.  My kids got me hooked on Doctor Who.  I've seen all the modern series that is 6 1/2 seasons long.  I'm also working my way through the Classic Doctor Who and I've seen Doctors #1, 4, 5, 7, and 8.  Of the classic Doctors, Eight is my favorite and is the feature Doctor of my story.  It's a fun, easy reading bit of fan fiction.  This story is complete.

I have plans to include other stories that I'm working on.  I would appreciate any comments, good or bad.  Find some spelling errors?  Let me know. I edit my work, but sometimes you just can't spot the mistakes in your own writing.  Thanks for reading!

The Ultimate in Laziness: Part 2

I hope the irony of the last post was not completely lost. (I didn't even bother to capitalize the few words I typed.)

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but I haven't.  I've been too lazy.

Yesterday my sister and I were discussing our laziness.  Now truthfully, she is about the 3rd least lazy person I know.  The only two who come before her in unlaziness is my mother and my gran. So, my sister is not a lazy person, but she is feeling like she is and I'm feeling like I am.

I told my sister about a recent display of laziness I have begun to show:  the microwave.  The microwave is the most lazy way to cook something.  Turn it on and within seconds or minutes, the food is nuked and ready to eat.  How do you make cooking with the microwave lazier?  I'll tell you:

When I need to microwave something for one minute, I don't put in the 6 and the 0 to make sixty.  I push the 6 twice.  Why bother moving my finger from the 6 to the 0 when I can just do 66?  If the food needs 30 seconds, I do 33.  That way I don't have to move my finger to the zero.

That is the ultimate in lazy.

The Ultimate in Laziness

microwave
too lazy to blog about the microwave

The weirdest Christmas list you will ever see

My 14 year old son's Christmas wish list:

-Badgers, lots and lots of badgers
-Fluffy bunnies from Money Python
-Toasted wafer nuggets
-A large duck-billed saber tooth platypus
-Tinkle and Sprinkle bed sheets
-Ol' Crusty McPete's "fishin' pole"
-Stonehelm's battle gear
-Banana Bond's "Bunch o' Bananas"
-Dalek poo
-The Doctor's excess earwax
-Rory's 5th Gravestone
-The 11th Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver
-Stevie Wonder
-MC Hammer pants
-The Hulk's deodorant
-Thor's power foot powder
-Zeus's beard comb
-The strange bug in Chewbacca's fur

An exercise in creativity

I haven't written much in the last few months.  Honestly, I don't feel like I have anything of any interest to say.

No guarantees on this either. :)

Several weeks ago I discovered a company that produces high quality audio productions.  I purchased my first story from them.  It's a great story, lots of fun, and has excellent voice acting.  If it didn't cost so much, I would have bought a lot more by now.

I've listened to the story a dozen times now.  The complete story runs about four hours.  Tonight, I had to drive the kids to scouts.  We listened to the audio story on the drive there and home.  We got through an hour of the story.

While it was going, the kids were totally silent.  They were listening as the story progressed.  It's not an audio book.  No one is reading a story to us, it is an audio play.  Like the old time radio productions.  You listen to the characters talk, hear the sound effects and your mind has to fill in all the visual pictures.  It's brilliant! 

I've asked my hubby for more of these audio productions for Christmas.  I think there needs to be more of this kind of stuff on the radio or made available to kids.  In a world that is filled with visual stimulation, this is an exercise in imagination.

Like I said, the story is good and the acting is first class, but you still have to use your imagination to make sense of the story.  My kids were completely spell-bound tonight.  We're going to have to run some long errands this week so they can finish hearing the story.

The room that is not a playroom

Between my five children, there are three bedrooms to play in.  So why is it they take all their toys, blankets, pillows and things out of their bedroom and put it into my laundry room?

The laundry room is also a bit of a storage room since we have no garage for those extra buckets of stuff.  The room is tight, dark, messy and a little stinky.  Why do they play in there?

When I go in to do the laundry and I can't even get to the door because of the tent city that has been placed in front of it. Once I have removed the tent city, I must carefully pick my way through into the room.  I bend down and start throwing blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, baby dolls, books, art supplies, and action figures out of the door and into the living room.  Finally I can reach the laundry.

It's not unusual for me to be rotating laundry and find toys, shoes and stuffed animals that accidentally got thrown into the wash.

I just want to shout: "You have your own room!  Leave me my space!"  And I do shout it.

On a similar rant, we have a trampoline and there are five beds for the kids in the house.  Why are they jumping on the couch?  Even after the 200 millionth time in the span of 14 years of motherhood that I have yelled at them to stop jumping on the couch, they still do it.  I just got a new slipcover for the couch.  It covers the seven years of abuse it has received at the hands of my children.  Every time they jump on the couch, the slipcover slips off and I re-tuck that thing in several times a day.

Just stay off the sofa!  Go to the trampoline!

This is a good humor rant, but a rant none-the-less.  :)

Old ladies and irony

A bit of irony to brighten our day:  In the mail we received a packet of papers telling us we should donate to their cause to save trees.  (See the picture below.)  Yes, that is seven sheets of paper to tell us to save the trees. 

 

This next picture is small, but I'll describe it.  My son brought this home from school.  It has pictures of scary things you might find on halloween: bat, cat, owl, ghost, goblin, bones, wizards, and trick or treating.  However, the scariest thing of all is the first picture: OLD LADY!

Forget ghosts and goblins!  Watch out for the old lady!!  AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

costumes, sister-talk and socks

I haven't written much here this month.  Don't know why... haven't taken the time, don't feel like there is much worth sharing, busy with other things, etc.  It's all true.

Today is Halloween!  My kids are quite excited.  This year we have Shaggy (from Scooby Doo), Captain James T. Kirk, a hippy, Bumblebee (Transformers, you know) and a pretty pink ballerina.  They are excited for tonight. 

According to the weather map, we were in the Hurricane Sandy that passed through the east coast this weekend.  We had more than 24 hours of non-stop rain and some wind, but amazingly we never lost power.  Loosing power doesn't require a huge storm here.  A simple breeze can knock a branch loose in this forest we live in and kill a power line.  The kids' schools were closed for Monday and Tuesday as was my husband's work.  We had a lovely four day weekend.  We watched movies, played games, BBQed hamburgers, and of course some of those household chores like cleaning and laundry.  Yesterday morning, I spent the entire morning in my pajamas, listened to quiet music and read some e-book stories.  I also spent an hour and a half talking on the phone to my sister.  We talked about everything - kids, houses, cleaning, money woes, music, weather, stories, movies, movie stars, talking in British accents, and my falling on the stairs twice in one week. 

Yes, I've fallen on the stairs twice in one week.  My sisters reaction? "For crying out loud, Molly!  Get some non-slip socks!"

Colors of Fall

Today I raked the yard of it's leaves and made a HUGE pile for the kids to play in.  I realized that my two youngest have never jumped in piles of leaves before and it's been four years since the other kids had the joy of jumping into mounds of leaves.

A tree in our yard. The yellows and oranges are spectacular!

 RED!

On the drive to church:

2nd Improv Performance

Tonight we had our second performance with our teen improv group.  The last couple of weeks have been difficult for our group.  I started a job and have been gone for the last three rehearsals.  We had a number of kids say they wouldn't be able to come or that they might not be able to come. 

At 10 minutes before the performance, we had 3 of our teen actors there.  Thankfully, more showed up and in the end, we had 8 performers.  For half of them, it was their first performance with our group.

They did awesome.  We had about 25 audience members (half parents, half not), so it was a small group, but that's OK. 

We played nine games: Film, theater, TV Styles, Instant Replay, 60 second movie, A&E Biography, Forward/Reverse, Two Headed Conversation, Moving Bodies, Living Props, and one more, but I can't remember right now.  I had not seen them perform Forward/Reverse or Moving Bodies before.  They did great!

A couple of problems: During one of the games, two of the actors had their backs to about half of the audience.  They didn't always speak loud enough.  A couple of times, they would curl up in a ball or lay flat on the floor and then talk towards the floor which made it difficult to hear them.

A couple of the games went really, really well and others not so much.  It's all good.  During the film, theater, TV style game, one of the suggestions was Grey's Anatomy.  I don't think the performers had ever seen it before, but one of them starts pointing to his stomach and said, "See my liver?  This is my anatomy."  Good laughs from that one.

We had two kids from the audience as volunteers for the moving bodies.  They actually had to move the actors.  They actors spoke, but they couldn't move unless the volunteers moved them.  It worked quite well.

One problem my little actors have is carrying out a scene.  Even though it is improv, there still needs to be a beginning, a middle and something of a conclusion.  They don't do that.  Sometimes they don't even go with the scene suggestion.  Perhaps we need to practice storytelling - beginning, middle, end...

I think we recruited another kid for the group.  Half of the kids in the group are huge Doctor Who fans.  When this audience member discovered that, she was hooked.  I look forward to her joining us in a few weeks.

We held the performance at the local library in one of the community meeting rooms.  It turned out to be a very good location.  So, overall, it was a great night of funny teens being very funny.

Good Bye Bix Tex

I've said before that even though I haven't lived in Texas in many, many years, I still call Texas home.  I've never met another group of people more fiercely proud of their state than Texans.

So, when on Friday I heard about Big Tex catching on fire and being completely destroyed at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, I mourned.

Big Tex has been in the Dallas skyline since 1952.  Our family went to the state fair every October.  During the day, no matter where you were in the fair, you could hear the deep, booming voice of Big Tex saying, "Howdy!"

Now, he is gone.  However, this being Texas, you can be sure that Big Tex will return.  The fairground officials have promised us a bigger and better Big Tex.  I'm glad he will be back. 

This is what I wrote on Facebook when I found out about Big Tex's tragedy:

"I couldn't believe it. I called up my husband. He said, "WHO?" I about hung up on him when he said that. How can you not know Big Tex? It's like a little part (or big part) of Texas has died. I can't imagine the Dallas fairground skyline without him. He was there, year round waving at you as you drive by. Poor Tex. May his replacement be as grand and Big-As-Texas as they come."

I haven't been to the fair in years, but I might just have to make a special trip next October to see the new Big Tex. This Texan gal wants to say Howdy!

This is how I remember him as a kid.

stinky washing machine

My down stairs was starting to smell funny.  OK, not starting too, it DID smell funny.  I could tell it was coming from the laundry room, but I wasn't entirely sure what was causing the smell.  Yesterday I cleaned that room out.  Threw out a lot of stuff and organized the rest, but found nothing that was causing the smell.  The floor was dry and there was nothing dead hiding behind the machine.

While I was cleaning, I had some laundry going in the machine.  When it was time to switch, I opened the washing machine up and WHEW!  The smell make me cough.  Thanks to Google, I have taken care of my stinky machine.

I ran the machine again, empty of clothes and put in about six cups of bleach.  The next load of laundry I did, I added several cups of vinegar.  Today the smell is gone and I can sit in the downstairs area without coughing.

Humidity, got to love it! Thanks eHow.com!

Going to the grocery store

Going to the grocery store.  Some people hate it, but I don't.  I don't mind going at all.  It's just paying high amounts of money at the end that I hate.

I think the ways that stores deal with the baskets (buggies) in the parking lot is always interesting.  Yeah, I know, if I find grocery baskets interesting, I need some help in my life. :) 

One store I go to has those return basket areas all over the parking lot.  No matter where you park, you aren't more than 4 parking spaces away from a return spot, making it very easy to put the basket in a safe location.

Another store I go to only has two basket return spots in their entire parking lot.  I never end up near one.  I either walk it back to the store front or sometimes leave it in the parking lot.  I hate doing that, but my kids sitting alone in a hot car is worth more than the time it takes to wheel the basket back up to the store.

Another store makes you pay a quarter for a basket and you must take the basket back to the store's door to get your quarter back.  We are all cheapskates, so it works.  Never is a basket to be found sitting in the parking lot.  It's a small parking lot, so it isn't too inconvenient, but I still don't like having to do that with my 4 year old in tow.

I remember a day when grocery stores hired baggers.  They bagged the food for you - not the cashier.  They pushed the basket with your groceries out to your car and loaded it all into your car for you.  Some baggers accepted tips, others did not.  Now, if there is a bagger, he puts your stuff into a plastic sack while chatting about school or co-workers to the cashier.  As soon as your last purchase is in the sack, he walks off, never offering to help.

To be honest though, if a grocery store has a self-checkout area, I use it and by-pass the cashier and bagger all together, never giving them the opportunity to help me out.

Customer service - I guess it goes two ways.

Time with a four year old

Time is tricky to learn.  I don't just mean learning to tell time on a clock, but learning about time in all of its forms.

As an adult, I don't really remember a time before I understood time.  I remember that by the time I was six or seven, I could read a clock (days before digital clocks were widespread) and I remember being very proud of using big phrases like "day before yesterday."

However, having had small children for the last 13 years, I see things through their eyes and watch as they learn to communicate thoughts and ideas through words.  Time is a difficult concept for a young child.

Anything that happened in the past to my 4 year old, whether it was yesterday, last week or last year, is always called "last night" by her.  So she will say to me, "Remember last night when we were in New Mexico and we dumped all the toys in the living room?"  That was 10 months ago.  "Remember last night when I turned four and we had a rainbow cake?"  (six months ago)

My favorite from my four year old is, "When I was a little girl...."

I told her that tonight the teenagers are coming over for improv night.  She says to me, "Tonight is today!"  When we make the treat that will be served after improv practice is over, she will ask for some and I'll tell her that it is for tonight and she will say, "but tonight is today!" and then she can't understand why she can't have a treat at that moment.

An hour can pass like a minute and a minute can feel like an hour. She loves to read the clock, but just doesn't understand why when the little hand is on the seven and the big hand is on the two is it not 7:02?

My youngest son's birthday is the next in our family, but it isn't until November.  Peanut keeps asking if it is his birthday yet.  Why not?  It's the next one!  How do you explain minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years to a four year old?  You really can't.  It is something that she will learn over time....

Time is very, very tricky.

Work

So things here have been a little odd.  In a great way, though.

After 15 years of non-employment, I decided it was time to get a job.  Scary!  I found four potential jobs and I applied for two.  The first one I got an automated email saying that while I was qualified, there were already too many qualified applicants so I wouldn't even be considered.  The second one, the day after I turned in the application, I got an email requesting an interview.

It was a phone interview.  Never done anything quite like it before, but thanks to my mom, whose job is to help people get jobs, she talked me through some of the questions an interviewer might ask and helped me formulate strong answers.  A day or so after the interview, they emailed me and told me they would contact me again when they were ready to proceed with the next step.  After a few weeks of waiting, I went to the HR department and filled out paper work.  I did fingerprints and a drug test.  By that night, I had my work schedule in my email.

I started on Tuesday.  I've worked 3 days now.  I'm excited.  It looks like it will be a nice fit for me.  It is evenings and weekends.  Perfect.  I can be at home with my youngest during the day, and I go to work after the kids get home from school.  Once the training is done, I'll work fairly independently.  I drive around the county, turning lights on and off at the parks for sports teams.  I open and close parks and schools for sports teams and recreational activities.  You don't think about those things until you do them, but those late night baseball games at the city parks, someone has to turn off the lights when they are done and lock up the bathrooms.  That will be me.

The schedule is fairly flexible.  The first night, I was done by 8pm but last night I had to stay at the park until 11pm.  I can take books, my cross stitching, or whatever to keep me busy while I wait for the games to end.  I'm going to know the roads throughout the county very well.  The people I work with are nice people.  The woman I worked with last night had the most wonderful local accent.  I listened as she talked about the "tahrs" on the truck getting flat.

I work again tonight.  Actually, I work for 10 days in a row this week (and next) at all the different parks around the county.  Tonight will be a new park.  I'm excited.  I have a uniform and I drive the county trucks.  I have access codes and keys.  It's a new experience for me, but I'm very happy.

Other than that, things are going along about like normal.  Kids, school, family, house, laundry, dishes, decorating the house for Halloween, and chats with my four year old (which I've been meaning to blog about.  She has the funniest things to say.)

The bored 4 year old

My 4 year old is left at home while her four big siblings go off to school. 

They envy each other.

The four year old wants nothing more than to go to school with her siblings and they want only to be at home.

Everyday after the buses take the kids away, the four year old throws a huge tantrum and for the last two weeks, she does it all day long.  It is really a catch 22.  She is bored and wants some one to play with her.  I would enjoy playing with her and doing more with her if she were happy, but she starts off each day WAY too early and has done quite a bit of crying by 8am at which point, I no longer want to play with her.

I had looked forward to this final year with her.  Just her and me together, but she is making it so difficult to enjoy.

A new line of candles

My children and I present to you: A New Line of Candles!

Inspired by a recent display of candles that included Treehouse Memories and Storm Weather, we present to you our own line of new scents:

Old Books
Indoor Pool
The Bacon Cheeseburger
Teenage Memories
Stuff from the Cracks in the Sofa
School Mascot

Watch out candle world!  As soon as I find a chemical engineer who can achieve our scents, I'll be open for business!

My book needs your help

I have a favor to ask.  My book needs help.  I can't do it alone.   I need others to help me.

There are two ways you can help me and my book.  Neither involves spending money or much time.

#1 - Go to my page on Amazon.com.  Near the top of the page is a Facebook thumbs up.  Please click "Like."  Each click of the "Like" button, helps my ratings on Amazon.

#2 - Add my book to your Wish List, if you have one on Amazon.  You never have to purchase it -although you are most certainly welcome too  ;) - but by adding it to your wish list, it helps the ratings.

If you have bought the book and read it, please leave a rating.  You don't need to do a review, just rate it through the stars.

If you don't have an Kindle, there is a way now to purchase the book in paperback form!  It cost $4.99.  It is available through Create Space, an Amazon.com company:  https://www.createspace.com/3941234 .  Click "Like" here, too!

My book also has its own website now, too! Visit the Band Girls home page.  Let me know what you think.

Thank you for your support!

2 weeks of the kids new school year - finished

Much is going on, as always, but nothing truly worthy of blogging about. 

The Teenprov group is really going well.  With school starting, we had a few changes in our group.  Two kids can't join us anymore because of other activities.  They've apologized to me, which is very kind, but I totally understand.  You can't do everything.  We also gained 5 new kids, including two boys.  Awesome!

The boys are both very young (10 and 12).  I would prefer them with the younger group than the older one, but they both have sisters in the older group.  The boys are both a little hyper and spent their entire first rehearsal jumping.  With every game they played, they jumped through the entire thing.  I appreciate their enthusiasm.

We have our next performance set up.  October 23!  It isn't easy to find places that will let us hold our performances for free or even a small fee, but I remembered the local library has several meeting rooms and they are available to the community to use for free.  Comedy improv at the local library!

I've got some choices and more possible choices a head of me.  I'm not sure what to do.  School?  Jobs?  Dreams? Personal projects?  Can I do it all?  I might try....  Some decision will need to be made in the next few weeks.  I hope I make the right decision. Not worth blogging about yet.

Well, the days start pretty early now.  I'd better head to bed for the night.