Jeu Chiant
Dan has alerted us to this game, which is correctly named...The Irritating Game. Yowsa! Dan lasted 34 seconds and I'm quite certain that qualifies him as a GENIUS. My highest score so far is 21 seconds.

Spencer: "Mommy. I know what milk is."
Me: "What is milk?"
Spencer: "Cow See-um."
Me: "Cow what?"
Spencer: "Cow See-um."
Me: "Cow what?"
Spencer: "COW See-um!"
Daddy: "Calcium."
Colin: "It's cow juice! That's why they call it Cow See-Um!"
Me (thought bubble): "Oh my good heavens."

Sean has found the Retrievr, with which you draw and it finds photographs with qualities similar to your drawing. I drew a fuchsia swirl and got this. Pretty cool!

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This morning we had the usual goings-on about getting ready for school. "Are you finished eating?" "Do you have your shoes on?" "Where is your backpack?" ...You get the idea.

So, when I noticed Colin was dressed except that he was wearing pajama pants, I reminded him that he needed shorts or pants. "But, Mommy," he said, "I can't find my shorts!"

I told him I had seen them recently lying about the bathroom floor and he went to look as I bustled about with my own little chores. Moments later, Colin was missing again and I said, "Colin? Where are you?"

From the kitchen I heard his reply: "I'm drinking tea in my shorts."

I decided he was ready for school.

Are the following sentences now proper English?

Have your child bring their snacks for his/her break.
When does my child wear their uniform?

I hear this language on a daily basis and it is driving me CRAZY!!!!

UPDATE: According to Henry Churchyard, this has always been proper English!!! "Recently, various new constructions or new words have been proposed to mitigate perceived English linguistic sexism; these are innovations, and must be evaluated as such. But singular "their" (etc.) is not an innovation, but old established good usage. So here anti-sexism and traditional English usage go hand-in-hand -- and those who object to singular "their" can find no support from history, linguistics, or the aim of inclusive language."

I think I'll be voting with the prescriptive grammarians who believe this construction is not in accord with the logic of the Latin language - nor any logic for that matter.

There's a little thing I do on Sunday mornings when I arrive at church. I scan the room, letting my eyes rest on each familiar face. Some of them have been friends for nearly 20 years. Some I just met last week. Some I have never met, but I see them every week, sitting in the same general area. None of them realize it, but their presence alone is a blessing to me. I am comforted by the familiarity and the shared past. My spirit is lifted knowing they come, week after week, to worship the same God I come to worship. We sing together. We pray together. We eat together.

We're family.

Most of us tend to sit in the same general area week after week, and my family is no exception. We don't know everyone around us well, but we expect them to be there and miss them when they're not. There is one young couple that began sitting near us a little over a year ago. She is quiet and reserved, he, a bundle of energy. You might find him moving about greeting people while she sits quietly in her seat waiting for him to join her. He occassionally gives a loud "Amen" while she folds her hands in her lap.

Quite often, I found myself sitting beside them, sharing communion and warm greetings, but I never have known them on a deeper level. I have always found their differing personalities interesting and amusing, wondering how they ever met and married. I've noticed his kindness towards her and others, his exhuberance and his willingness to help others. When he sees that someone needs prayer, or even just a hand, he would actually jump over the back of his pew to get there faster and avoid disturbing others. Normally this is something I would consider inappropriate, but in him, it was endearing.

Tomorrow I will be attending a memorial service for him. He fell from a cliff Sunday while rappelling and taking photographs. I didn't know him. But I miss him.

Sean Christopher Mitchell, 34, born in Fresno, CA on January 14, 1972, met with a tragic accident on Sunday, October 22, 2006 and flew home to glory. Survived by wife Kelly Mitchell of Oklahoma City and parents Pam and Lorenzo Gonzales of Turlock, CA and Jerry Mitchell of Fresno, CA. Loved by many for his passionate energy for life, God, serving others, and flying. Sean owned Onsite Audio/Video and a nutritional supplement business. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Commemorative Air Force at American Airpower Heritage Foundation, PO Box 62000, Midland, TX 79711-2000.

Published in The Oklahoman on 10/25/2006.

TEN THINGS ABOUT ME (that you didn't know you wanted to know)

(I’ve been tagged! For real!! I didn’t make it up this time!)

1. Something no one else should know?

Okay, this isn’t the first time a blogger has tried to trick me into revealing too much. Annie, I love your name, but sorry…if you shouldn’t know, you shouldn’t know. (And, truth be told, you probably wouldn’t WANT to know!) ; )

2. Colors I will never wear?

Well, I used to think I would never wear turquoise, but then it became my son’s favorite color and he got me a turquoise necklace and the whole rule is out the window. Still, I consider it an accessory color only. (I hope he never buys me a turquoise dress!)

I also don’t think I should wear yellow, but I do like yellow. I can say with certainty that I will never, EVER wear a yellow polka dot bikini.

3. Things I love to eat?

Mashed potatoes
Chicken and dumplings
Salmon (never canned! NEVER!)
Honey roasted carrots
Anything my friend Jennifer Taliaferro makes.

4. Things I would never serve a guest?

Liver and Onions
Brussell Sprouts
Salmon Patties
Canned Vegetables
Summons to Court

5. Things I forget to buy at the grocery store?

Ha!! You don’t have time!! I’ll just tell you what I forgot on my last trip:
Bread, Ziploc bags and cola.

6. Things I like about Autumn?

Leaves turning colors on the trees
Pumpkin Pie
Monarch migration
Geese flying overhead
Chilly mornings
Pansies and Mums

7. Things I value about my family?

Intimacy
Humor
Continuity
Soft Hearts
Love of God

8. Things I watch on T.V.

Lost
Project Runway
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Survivor
As Time Goes By

9. Things I loved about school?

School supplies
New textbooks
New school clothes
Learning
Routines
Music

10. Things I love about life?

Nature
Family
Friendships
That there is more to know than I can ever know

Two years ago today at about this time in the evening, I walked quietly down the hall to the back door of the nursing home, my hand resting on my father's body as he was wheeled to the waiting hearse. It was a quiet, lonely and holy time I will never forget. I miss you, Dad.

Yesterday we took the Rwandan students to Turner Falls for the day. It was incredibly beautiful - a perfect day. Look at that water!!
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Climbing up to Crystal Cave.
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For a little shortbread and hot cocoa....oooohhhhhh yeah.

I Like

I like my bread with butter.

I like my shoes pretty.

I like my clothing cotton.

I like my burgers medium.

I like my spicy food Thai.

I like my house clean.

I like my feet warm.

I like my popcorn hot and salty.

I like my toenails manicured.

I like my novels subtle.

I like my friends honest.

I like my humor witty.

I like my walls colorful.

I like my jewelry simple.

I like my house clean.

I like my music layered.

I like my mornings quiet.

I like my nights late (and quiet).

I like the sky blue.

I like my summers warm.

I like my lounge-chair shady.

I like my acquaintances straight-forward.

I like my children joyful.

I like my Diet Coke replaced with Coke.

I like my cars clean.

I like my kitchen stocked.

I like my reading material informative.

I like my Saturday outside.

I like my hair pulled gently.

I like my newspapers thick.

I like my movies romantic.

I like my flowers abundant.

(Inspired by Mel).

THEY'RE HERE!!! THEY'RE HERE!!!!

I've been waiting all year for these stamps to arrive and they have!! These postage stamps feature 4 beautiful photographs of snow crystals taken by Kenneth Libbrecht. He also has a few books available if you would like to view even more crystals in even greater detail. Here are the stamps:

Small Irritations

No.1: Most days I drive by a certain bus stop and quite often there are two 20-something people sitting on the park bench (well, slouch-lounging, really) and one 70-something woman standing off to the side. It is never the same three people, but always the same situation. What is up with that???

No. 2: While I love our school and most every parental unit there, there is one woman who will NOT acknowledge my presence and it is really getting to me. Our sons are on the same team and in the same grade at school and she and I attend the same Bible study. When I say "Hello" to her, she looks right through me. Today as I was exiting the school building, she was coming in. I pressed the button that would open the door for her and I opened the door. She breezed in with nary a glance my way.

NOT EVEN A GLANCE!!!!!
NO THANK YOU!!!

I nearly clocked her.

No. 3: We ordered the lunch portion of fajitas at Cocina di Mino on Sunday. They brought out a hot plate with chicken, onions, beans and rice. I asked where the lettuce and tomato and pico di gallo and sour cream and tortillas were. They said we could have lettuce and tomato for 99 cents extra, sour cream for 99 cents extra, pico di gallo for 99 cents extra and guacamole for 99 cents extra. They did, however, bring free tortillas. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

That is all. Thank you for listening.

Seems I'm rare.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

via Charles.

We had a good weekend with Jean Pierre here for his fall break. We kept him quite busy with a soccer game, lunch at the lake, church, dinner with friends and lots of games at home. He is a stellar dodgeball player! Yesterday the students went to the zoo for the day and then we snagged Jean Pierre and took him to Chester's Party Barn for a whole new selection of animals! Despite all the activity, we also got some study hours in and a few hours of sleep. He probably needed to get back to school to get some rest, though!
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Something about this just seems WRONG. . . and it is not the part where they tell you how many are in a dozen.WOOD CROSS-SHAPED PADDLEBALL GAMES

Was $4.95
Now $1.99 per Dozen

12 items per Dozen

Two Carr's, Lexington, KY.
(click image for larger version)

This is a two-sided tri-fold postcard from Two Carr's in Lexington, KY. It is such a cute little thing, I just had to share. This is the sort of place that seems to encourage lingering. Here's what he have on the post side of the post card:

Is our Blue Grass, Blue? No.
But each blade of it has a Green Back
And our Rivers all have Two Banks.
If you put a one dollar bill in your pocket,
You will surely find it increases
So why not linger for awhile!

I have no idea what that means.

There are lots of cool things about this side. The phone number is, quite simply, 9772. They sell Genuine 2-Year Old Country Ham (The Flavor Lingers), and it is "A Clean Place For That Kind of People." Priceless.

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Run, Doctor! Run!

Last night I had a very clever little idea. My children get up early and I'd like to sleep a little longer, so I thought to my clever self: this would be a good time for them to do their chores! So, I told them when they awakened in the morning, they would find a little note on the kitchen table telling them what their chores were. They seemed genuinely excited about the idea and I was quite proud of myself. I found an index card and wrote: "Colin: Vacuum living room and put vacuum away in the closet. Spencer: sweep kitchen (use broom) and put the broom away."

Early this morning before the sun came up, Colin came running into the bedroom and said exhuberantly (aka loudly): "I'm dressed and ready for the day! ... But, I don't want to use the vacuum cleaner yet because I don't want to wake you up!"

I used to think that, perhaps, once I got used to it and all, I might eventually like Word. But, you know, it just occurred to me....this has been going on for quite awhile now and I STILL don't like Word. I want my WordPerfect back. Anybody got an old copy of it?

(Yes, I know, I know....all you Mac people...I know. But I really did LIKE WordPerfect. Really!)

I find this particularly amusing (well, you know, since nobody was hurt):

Driver obeys navigation system, no matter what

BERLIN (Reuters) - An 80-year-old German motorist obediently following his navigation system ignored a motorway "closed for construction" sign and crashed his Mercedes into a pile of sand further down the road, police said Monday.

"The driver was following the orders from his navigation system and even though there was a sufficient number of warnings and barricades, he continued his journey into the construction site," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

"His trip finally ended when he wound up crashing into a pile of sand," she added.

The driver and his wife escaped uninjured from the collision, which occurred on a motorway near Hamburg.

It has been a long, productive and lovely weekend here in OKC. Friday night I had the pleasure of working on my scrapbook with my good friend Penny and a few other lovely acquaintances. I'll post a few pages soon, just for fun.

I got home late Friday night (well, Saturday morning) and awoke a few, very few hours later for Colin's soccer game. I almost had to carry him to the car in his pajamas because he had, apparently, stayed up a bit too late himself the night before. We got there, though, and he did very well. I have been pleasantly surprised by his soccer skills. He has a lot of energy, so he never gets tired. He also seems to have a good grasp of strategy and does well anticipating the next place he needs to be.

After a relaxing afternoon of packing and grilling cheeseburgers, the boys headed out to Cub Scout camp. I stayed home and read the much-anticipated book, The Brethren (3^rd in a series and just released October 1!).

Today I caught up on a few chores like cleaning the fish tank (ewww), laundering the bedding, and other such exciting things. Before I knew it, the boys were flying in the door talking a mile a minute about all the exciting things they did at camp. Oh My! They earned beads! They shot bows and arrows! They made candles! They climbed walls! They ate Fruit Loops! They shot BB guns! They stayed up late! They slept in our tent! They made rope! They went into a valley that was like the GRAND CANYON and they called it THE VALLEY OF TOILET PAPER!

Spencer went out and found a walking stick in our backyard and had me trim it up and string his beads to the top. He never looked prouder!

As Colin snuggled down into bed for the night, he told me, “Mommy, next time they have camp at Camp Kickapoo, I’M GOING!”

Lisa writes: "Make up definitions for the cookey "word verification" that is displayed at the end of these postings. For example, the word I'm being asked to type below is "sdxgdl". Define that."

Well, luckily, this is an easy one for me. These "cookey" words (Lisa....'cookey'? Really?) are easily deciphered by a code. Here is it:

A=Z
B=Y
C=X
D=U
E=W
F=V
G=K
H=T
I=Q
J=P
K=O
L=R
M=N
N=M
O=L
P=J
Q=I
R=H
S=S
T=G
U=F
V=E
W=D
X=C
Y=B
Z=A

The trick is that the code changes each time. Easy Squeasy. Next question?

Okay, until someone prompts me on a subject, I'll just share some random observations from my day:

1) I saw a man (a man!) riding down my street on a skateboard, on two wheels with his hands up in the air. He was really enjoying himself! Too funny.

2) For some reason, if you offer me a dum dum lollipop (aka "sucker") as you ask me for a donation, you can be pretty sure I'll decline both.

3) So, I come up to a left turn lane, which is quite full and has a red light, and I notice a nice woman trying to turn left across the turn lane. Being the generous person I am, I left a large space between me and the car in front of me so as not to block her in. She waited and waited for the chance to cross, and just as it came, two (TWO) rude men swung in front of me in line and blocked the intersection! She and I just looked at each other in total disbelief! You know what really made me mad? Those men probably thought it was me that was the idiot because I didn't pull all the way forward. Either that or they are just scum sucking scum bag scum. Not that it bothered me in any way. (Oh, yeah, and I missed the turn light because of them, too! They didn't miss it, though, they just sped through the yellow/red light). Jerks.

4) On to brighter things! My kitchen is clean. Yay!

5) There is lots of new stuff to read and see at Into Rwanda. Have you visited lately?

6) 81 degrees is okay, but shouldn't something in the 60s or 70s be required for October?

7) What do you think of this news? We have a new family at our school. Why? Their child was in another private school here in the city and attended a 4th grade (going into 5th) co-ed swimming party where the parents allowed skinny dipping. You read that right. When asked what they were thinking and why they would allow it, the parents said skinny dipping is wildly popular, a fact of life, and it is better for the children to experience it with adult supervision than just wait and do it on their own.

8) Did you get your jaw off the floor yet?

9) I haven't.

10) All the other parents thought the questioning parents were prudes. They saw they were swimming upstream (so to speak), so they just changed schools.

11) Oh, wait, I said I'd move on to brighter things.

12) Um. Hmmm.

13) OH, yes. Here's one. I got a $50 gift card to Pottery Barn last year and then I lost it! I found it in my glove box this week and went shopping! Yay! I got a cool clock and a pitcher. Happy Happy. Don't you just love Pottery Barn?

14) And here is another thing: Mardel has a 90% off table where I found jars that I use in my kitchen! They cost just $1.00 each!! Woo Hoo.

15) Life is good.

Alrighty then. Anonymous misses my blog. The postcards are insufficient. I am, in a word, a slacker. Yes indeedy. That's me.

Here's the thing. I don't know what to write about. I feel like I've sated any appetite there may have been for my narcissistic ramblings. But, I will persevere. I will try my best. I will.

(But, could you send me a prompt?)

I will say this: I spent my summer studying the Amish religion and culture and reading Beverly Lewis' fictional stories set in Lancaster County. I feel as if I know the Stoltfuzes and the Zooks and the Ebersoles. . . although, of course, I don't. But, I feel sick to my stomach this week and very sad for the entire community, the Englischers and Amish alike. I can't imagine what level of evil possessed Charles Roberts that this would be his final act on earth. His selfish decisions hurt so many in such a permanent way, including his own family. Unfathomable.

EISENHOWER CENTER
Abilene, Kansas
Eisenhower Center at Abilene is composed of three structures: President Dwight D. Eisenhower's boyhood home (foreground); the Eisenhower Museum (left); and the Eisenhower Presidential Library (right). The Museum was opened in 1954; the Library was dedicated May 1, 1962.

THE EISENHOWER MUSEUM
Abilene, Kansas
Formally dedicated in November, 1954, by President Dwight Eisenhower, this museum houses a vast collection of the President's mementos, trophies, medals, souvenirs and personal tokens of honor valued at more than $2,500,000. The museum, built at a cost of $400,000, is located next to the boyhood home of the President at Abilene.

EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
Abilene, Kansas
Dedicated May 1, 1962, the Eisenhower Presidential Library was erected to preserve the documents, publications and other material relating to the Eisenhower Administration. Color by Don Richards.

PLACE OF MEDITATION
Eisenhower Center - Abilene, Kansas
This chapel, completed in 1966 and built of native limestone, is the final resting place of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 2, 1969).

PLACE OF MEDITATION
Eisenhower Center
Abilene, Kansas
A spray of flowers rests on themarble slab that covers the final resting place of General Dwight D. Eisenhower who was buried with full military and national honors in the Place of Meditation on April 2, 1969. The limestone chapel, across the street from General Eisenhower's boyhood home, is part of the Eisenhower Center at Abilene.

Holiday Inn
TOPEKA-WEST
U.S. I-70 and Fairlawn Rd.
Phone: A.C. 913-272-8040
605 Fairlawn Rd., Topeka, Kansas
Red Velvet Restaurant Gaslight Club - Convention Facilities
Telephone, Color T.V. & Radio in Every
Room - 112 Luxurious Rooms.