Yes! Sometimes they get it!

Sometimes I worry about some of the things my kids are picking up from me.

Tonight Amelia said something that let me know we are on the right track in some areas. After finishing Math homework she asked, "Well, I have reading, but it's not due until Thursday. Should I do it tonight?" I said, "Well, let's look at it and see how long you think it will take".

With no further prompting from me she looked at it and said, "I think I should do these two pages tonight, and then I can do the last page tomorrow."

Yay! I think she's getting it!

How time flies!

How did this happen? Count the candles. And this is my baby! The older will be 10 in February. Wow.

Please don't say five minutes...

Yesterday my daughter asked me, "Mom, how long until supper is ready? And please DON'T say 5 minutes." (She was really hungry).

Methinks I use the term "5 minutes" a bit too liberally around her, and she has figured out that 5 minutes is not 5 minutes.

Reminds me of the discussion between her and Margaret about the answer "maybe".

"When mom says "maybe" that means yes. When dad says "maybe" that means no."

Our kids know us better than we know ourselves sometimes.

Now where did Linda put that?

I have been blessed to be able to afford and to find a house cleaner. We do try to pick up before she comes so she can focus on cleaning and not neatening. But she obviously does need to move some stuff around.

As a result of this, we have a new tagline in the house. That line is "Now where did Linda put that?" Instead of blaming our own laziness, memory, or messiness when we can't find something, we just "blame" the housecleaner.

Of course none of this is actually due to her (and I remind the kids of that), but it's kind of funny to say so. (We did have one thing the first week we couldn't find that I had to call her up to find it. That was the ONLY time, but I guess they remember that time.) And that item was part of my daughter's Halloween costume. That she LOST when she went trick or treating. How ironic.

Parenting Chicken

I have coined what I think is a new term... "Parenting Chicken". I discovered it because my husband has been out of town a few times this fall. I have discovered I seem to have evenings that are in more control when he is gone. I think I have discovered the reason.

I think we play parenting chicken sometimes. You know, you have done it I'm sure. You hear the kids do something they shouldn't. Or you see toys that have been left out. When home alone, you know YOU have to deal with it. So you do.

When the spouse is home? Hmmm. Maybe he'll deal with it. I'll just ignore that for now. Of course, he is dong the same thing. And things spiral out of control.

Yep. Chicken. I usually lose.

(Oh, and if you don't have kids, you can do the same with household chores. I always lose the bathroom battle on that one.)

My computer knows more about me than I do

Sunday I had a bit of a mishap with my computer. I'm not sure who pushed which buttons when or in what order, but my computer decided to "restore" itself to the factory shipped state. Which is thankfully different than having the hard drive re-formatted. But a pain nonetheless.

I am having to re-install most of the programs I installed since getting my computer. And I have had to un-install most of the crap and trial programs that came with the computer.

For many software packages, this means checking your account on their website, or checking your e-mail for some key, since there are very few install CDs sent out anymore.

Do you know how many different passwords you have? I don't. I have had to request so many new passwords, and change so many passwords, and rifle through papers for information to restore everything to its previous state (which wasn't perfect, but at least I knew where everything was).

When I think about that too much, I worry. How many websites know how many things about me that I don't even remember anymore? It's mind boggling.

I'm lucky that at work we have single-use sign-on (or whatever it's called). I sign into my account and every program that is web-based uses that same password. It works nicely at work because of firewalls and security and all that. I hope the outside world never comes to that, because then surely my computer would know more about me than I do.

Which I fear may already be the case.

Thanksgiving Plans

I always take something to my mom's to work on over Thanksgiving. I won't be shopping on the day after!!!

This year I am going to take a run at my negatives again. These pictures are of my boxes with negatives and the two binders I already have filled with negatives in sheets. We'll see how far I get this year!!

Fall Chores

The weather here has been beautiful!!! Sunday we cleaned the yard for winter.(mostly... we did leave this one small pile of leaves for the girlies to play in)

You do enough of these and eventually one of them pegs you straight on.

Here's my "color" profile. Thanks to Nicole for the link. If you don't know me, I can tell you I think this describes me pretty well. As for the color? Love it.

you are seagreen #2E8B57

Your dominant hues are cyan and green. Although you definately strive to be logical you care about people and know there's a time and place for thinking emotionally. Your head rules most things but your heart rules others, and getting them to meet in the middle takes a lot of your energy some days. Your saturation level is higher than average - You know what you want, but sometimes know not to tell everyone. You value accomplishments and know you can get the job done, so don't be afraid to run out and make things happen. Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Tagged again

Leah from TallyScrapper tagged me. I had done this earlier, but no harm in doing again...
and yes, I know #1 is a repeat, but Leah probably doesn't know this about me...

1. I do these tag things when they come my way, but I never pass them on. I also break every chain letter sent to me. I never do those chain swaps..recipes, socks or anything else like that.

2. I grew up in Wisconsin, went to college in Georgia, went to Graduate school in California, got my first full time job in Colorado, and now live in Minnesota. I think a move to the Northeast or Texas would complete this. But no thank you...I'm happy here!

3. I'm an obssessive organizer. I love having everything labled and in order in category. Books, music, scrap supplies, photo, albums, everthing. I don't always have time to do this, however.

4. Reading is not very high on my list of things I enjoy doing.

5. I dread the short daylight hours in winter. The whole going back to standard time has gotten me sort of down.

6. During a 6 month period about 7 years ago the following happened:
We celebrated 15 years of marriage
My husband turned 40
I had a baby.
I turned 39.

I don't know what the craziest part of that is...probably having a baby at age 39. Really...I do recommend getting that taken care of sooner in life if you have the chance. :-)

7. I can knit. I like making mittens because they go fairly quickly. Sweaters take way too LONG. I want to learn to knit socks.

This makes me happy...

Here are my new ribbon jars and pink clock from IKEA. I do have more ribbons than shown in these jars, but I hope having them on the shelf above my desk will encourage me to use them!!




Also, I missed out on posting Halloween pictures. Here are a few...
Margaret is (obviously) a witch. I called her my princess witch, because she had PLANNED to be a princess for the FOURTH year in a row. Until she saw this costume. It's kind of pretty like a princess costume...but black. Hence, princess witch.


Amelia is Betsy Ross. She really loves to pretend to be characters from books she has read and is all over non-fiction (i.e. real people) so she was drawn to this costume right away.



And here's one from Margaret's Brownie Halloween party. She is doing the eat the donut off the string thing.

Speaking of fourth grade..

Amelia's Monday night homework had problems like this:


4 + x = 7

12 - 5 = u

18 - r = 9



Um... I was confused because I thought this was algebra!! I was all concerned that she would be confused.

So I said: this is the same as 4 + BOX = 7. (You know...they have been filling in the box for ages). Turns out she really wasn't confused by the letter variable. She just doesn't know her facts very well.

I guess the difference is that they are not writing the answer as x = 3, but they just rewrite the entire problem replacing the letter with the right number. Plus all the problems were based on facts that they should know.

Now are you confused? I probably didn't explain that well. Anyway...that assignment just threw me for a loop.

Gonna' have to keep an eye on this...

My older daughter is in fourth grade. In fourth grade they have planners and a parent is supposed to sign them every night.

Earlier this week when I went to sign, I saw this suspicious activity in the previous day.

The top signature? Mine. Below it? I think someone is trying to copy it!!!

Egads! Isn't it a bit early for that? I think I'm going to need to make my signature harder to copy!!!! I think she did a pretty good job!

Joke from a 6 year old

"Why are you hiding under there?"

"Under where?"


Total laughter. "You said underwear."

Somehow I missed that one when I was growing up.

Busted

I caught myself yelling at my daughter in the other room after she had yelled at me. I said "Don't yell from the other room! Come in here and talk to me face-to-face."

Ummm. Major league busted. I guess now that I know where she gets it from I can start retraining. Her or me? I'm not sure.

Music to my ears...

When I walked in the door last night, Margaret said.. "Oh. I haven't finished my homework yet, because I was busy reading." I guess she didn't read the part where her 1st grade teacher wrote that reading every day is the most important homework!!

And Amelia said: "Mom, I want to practice violin 15 minutes EVERY DAY." Well see if she remember that when I remind her it's practice time....

Conversation with Margaret

Margaret: "Are the Green Bay guys going to win the Super Cup?"

Mom: Well, maybe. But that is a long ways away. A lot could happen before then.

Margaret: "I bet they'd be happy if they won. Because you get a really big trophy"

Sad Days

Well, I haven't posted lately.

My father-in-law died a week and a half ago. It was a bit whirlwind at the end, with a swift movement from our knowing he was sick (because he finally went to a doctor about it) to his death less than two weeks later. Charlie was obviously tied up with that, including a trip to Albuquerque for a week. The girls and I flew out for two days for the funeral in the middle of that. He was 87. He was a kind and wonderful man.

I tried to post a few pictures from the day, but blogger isn't letting me. I always feel weird taking photos at the reception following the memorial service, but know from pictures of my family growing up that sometime that is the only time everyone gets together. (which is kind of sad, too)

Anyway, I have had a lot of blog worthy thoughts lately (well...worthy for my blog, at least) but just haven't had the gumption to write them down. October will be better. Maybe.

Four Years ago

Four years ago, this is what the backside of my house looked like...




All that cinderblock now surrounds my lovely scrap room, more commonly knows as "my office". I love how little the girls look in this picture. Margaret was not quite 3 here. Amelia had just started Kindergarten. I was 25 pounds heavier than I am right now.

Yeah. I'm reaching for blog material. Haven't been feeling the blog groove lately.

Can you believe that the sun sets at 7:19 tonight. Wah. I hate that it's dark at 8. And soon...it will be dark at 6. The darkest days. Hate 'em.

Photo Finds

I found a plastic bag with several hundred pictures in it last night. Well, found is a bad word, because once I found it I remembered I had it. Let's just say it was forgotten.

In this bag of various eras of photos, I found two boxes of slides. Most of the photos were unremarkable landscape photos (as my dad was wont to take), but I did find a few gems in here.


First, a picture of our Christmas tree in 1974. I was our last Christmas in this house.


Next, a photo of me and my brother (he's the one with all the curly hair) and our three new step-brothers. This was taken on the occasion of our dad's wedding to their mom (now my wonderful step-mother, Jan). Circa 1975. I didn't have to tell you that, eh? I had a GunneSax brand dress with zippers on the sleeves. I remember how badly I wanted this dress and how I pleaded to have it. So happy now that my dad caved in on that request (smirk).



And my personal favorite, because it is from an era when I have almost no pictures of me. It was taken in the summer of '74. We were traveling from Wisconsin to Colorado to check out the school my brother has chosen for college. Colorado State in Fort Collins. We stopped at my Aunt and Uncle's farm in Nebraska. I got to ride their horse, Peanut. I was 12 years old. I only remember that the horse's name was Peanut because my dad did an awesome job of labeling every slide. In numberical order with the date. This was slide #1381, one of his last. Unfortunately, he switched to a Polaroid shortly after this (the kind that shot out the photo and you watched it develop). I have many photos of this ilk, all of very poor quality. They need to be scanned soon. They won't keep like all these slides will.