Coming soon,


a


home!!!

Currently, it's just a house, but on Monday we close on our brand new used home here in Windsor, Ct.


Are you seeing that front porch? It's a real front porch, I tell ya! I'm probably just gonna sit there on that beauty for a few days before I unpack. Just cause. I haven't had a porch in quite some time, you see. Front porches are da bomb, I'm told.




The back yard here is huge and fenced. Emma the Dog has big ideas for that yard: poop, pee, sleep, run, poop, pee. So does Camden. He has drawn up extensive plans for a tree house that would probably require various permits and a mortgage of its own. See that nice wall there in the middle of the yard? That's not just any ordinary bit of architectural detailing. That used to be the rear end of the inground pool. See the inground pool in front of it? Me neither. The owner filled it in sometime between now and when the google map satellite snapped this picture.



That pool sure would have been a nice addition to our backyard. Cheaper than Camden's tree house. But it's definitely not there anymore. Perhaps Emma can dig it up for us.

The movers won't arrive till Tuesday, so we'll continue to reside at the Residence Inn nearby. Get it? Reside? Residence? Yeah, I thought so.



Here's a picture of the boys residing at the Residence Inn before I took them to school where they reside from 8-3. It was Veteran's Day Wednesday, so they were gussied up for the Veteran's Day program. We are so blessed that the boys love their new school.

Taekwondo testing tonight for Camden and Eaglescout. Both had mid-terms, and both passed. It was amazing. It pretty much comes down to the board breaks. If you don't break your boards, you don't pass. I'm so proud of my guys.

Here's Camden doing a left elbow strike (which you can't see because somebody steps in the way) and a running sidekick. It's so amazing! I can't even run and jump, much less run and jump and KICK.



Here's Eaglescout's break. Camden himself filmed this. :)




I'm so very darn proud of my guys. :)

I'm a glutton for punishment. We spent the day at the point again - from 11 this morning till 4:30 this afternoon. The only real damage we did was a light burn to Eaglescout's back. I'm nursing it, though. No worries. But I have to tell ya, the sand on my skin all the live-long day was more than annoying. Turns out, I am really and truly OCD. I kept trying to wipe sand off of my hands, my face, my legs I had to cover up with a towel just to read my book. That's just sad, I tell you. I came back to the cottage ready to soak in rubbing alcohol just to feel clean again. Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say. So I showered, washed my sandy bleached hair, clothed myself in my favorite St. Jude's tee shirt and star-dotted pj bottoms, and hit the bed. From 5:30 till 7:11 I slept. I was O.U.T. OUT. The sun and surf and waves and shells and what-not will do that to a girl. I woke up, was served fresh steamed shrimp by my favorite Eaglescout, and then suffered from gas for an hour. Life is good, they say.

Going out to the point takes a significant amount of planning on the part of OCD people like me. I have to know when I'll return, so I can plan to be clean again. I have to know if there are enough Diet Cokes in the cooler. It's necessary to know that I'll find conch shells. On this occasion, I was in search of the queen mother of all conch shells. The one Sponge Bob himself would have celebrated. We were not disappointed. The boys and I walked out to tip of the point early to find several. Camden swam the entire way. Benjy loved every single broken shell he found. My bucket was overflowing with imperfect, broken shells. But, hey, I'm an imperfect, broken shell, and God still loves me, so who was I to object?

So I lugged my bucket of imperfect broken shells from Timbuctoo to our very own ocean-front property for the day. It was heavy, but, hey, I'm a mom. I could handle it. By the time I waded back to my beach chair, my lower back was aching. My sea legs needed to rest on solid ground. That building-a-house-on-the-sand is for real, I tell you. Don't do it. But I was happy. My boys were happy. Eaglescout was happy, especially when he rigged up his circus tent and hoisted the pirate flag. We were a sight. You could see us from the top of the Hatteras lighthouse. We lit up the point, people. We were the beautiful people today. And the tired ones. And now the clean ones.

There's something to be said for a one stoplight town like Hatteras Village. It's down at the tip of Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks. It's the end of the road, so to speak. The only way to get to Ocracoke Island farther down south is by ferry boat (which is free and leaves every 30 minutes in the summer). It feels like the end of the earth here, and that's just the way we like it.


We love Hatteras for its simple, unhurried ways. It lacks the congestion of the main drag of the OBX. There's not a McDonald's or K-Mart or Food Lion in sight. To us, it's a local's paradise. And now we're ready to be local.

Slap.

Ok, but we're not. But, hey, we're on vacation. So we're local for a week.




We've discovered this fantastic spot for fresh seafood. Vickie takes care of us, and has taught Eaglescout how to steam shrimp. Yum. Who needs to go out to a restaurant when Eaglescout is in the kitchen tossing shrimps around as he juggles fresh corn and slices (yes, he's slicing again) tomatoes that were not grown in China? And he's already done tuna and crab cakes. Yeah, we're eating gooooooooood.

Unfortunately, Camden's face was bitten by the Hatteras sun yesterday, so we spent Tuesday off the beach. We decided to drive an hour and a half up to Kitty Hawk and visit the Wright Brothers' Memorial. This is on the main drag of OBX, highly developed with all the perks of highly developed land: traffic, people, chain restaurants, K-Mart, Food Lion.


This is the view from where Orville strapped himself into the 1903 Flyer and flew off a giant sand dune to a space 120 feet below. By the fourth flight, the brothers had flown a whopping 8 hundred and something feet from this view. As interesting as all this historical stuff is, I have to tell you that we were far from impressed. Eaglescout and I were starting to feel like we were not on vacation at all. The traffic lights made us tense. The large quantity of humanity made us weary. The mix of carbon with carbon dioxide and generous doses of diesel and 4-lane highway, made us downright jumpy. By the time we left, we felt like we were driving home from a day of work. It wasn't till we crossed over the bridge to Hatteras Island that we breathed a slight sigh of relief. The relief settled in when the boys went to sleep, snoring lightly in their happy little room at the back of our beach house.


So, I've digressed.
Let me just say that lightly developed trumps fancy bells and whistles any day in my book.


In spite of how we grown-ups felt on the main drag, the boys were troopers. They walked every inch of the National Park that is the Wright Brothers' Memorial. Camden ate it up and wanted to come back the next day. Ummmm, no. Benjy took it in, not really caring about the historical significance, but just happy to be a part of all this humanity. We sacrificed our day for our boys. Martyrs are we.


Then we came home. Home to Cape Hatteras and our Ocean Cottage. For one week, this is home.

We four-wheeled it today, heading up to the Point, parking along the beach, and setting up our own little mini-camp. Unfortunately, Camden wound up with the coloring of a lobster. :( So we won't be sunning ourselves tomorrow. On the upside: I did find a couple of small conch shells. I'm happy we have the rest of the week to find the queen momma of conches, though.


Obligatory picture of my feet.



I was under the impression that Benjy was water-bending, like on the cartoon, Avatar. But when I asked him, he said he was talking to God. And I believe him. :)



This whirly-gig marked our spot in the sand. It's our beach flag. Now we want a pirate flag to go with it.



Camden body surfing



Camden looking like a golden boy of summer.


Camden on the boogie board


The boys of summer


Benjy is no longer afraid of the water!


Our beach house is called Ocean Cottage. Here's a cool coat rack hanging right near the front door with all our hats hanging up and ready to grab tomorrow.

We have arrived. Yeah, arrived. Arriiiiiiived. We spent the morning on the beach, the early afternoon napping and playing, and the late afternoon back on the beach. The sun is blazing hot here, but the shade under the umbrella is just right with the breeze off the Atlantic.


This is the summer of Benjy, it seems. The child has become almost as fearless as his brother.


Here are the Boys Wonder when they were too worn out to run and play any longer. They simply sat down in the surf and, well, sat.


This was the as still as they've been on the beach. We all had a moment of silence about this time.


And now, a word from our sponsors,

back-to-school goodie

If one of my firsties drew this picture at school, I'd wonder a bit about what was going on at home..............





Word has it that the teacher contacted the mom about this. Am I so happy this wasn't my responsibility! Here's what she said:

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it.

Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.

From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

Is that not the darn funniest homework paper you've ever seen? You can bet I'll be triple checking Camden and Benjy's homework papers this year. (Not that I don't already do that. Because I'm the perfect mom, after all, sitting side-by-side as they labor over their homework pages, prompting at just the right times, helping at the hard parts, dancing around a pole when needed.)

Back when I was a young mountain girl with pigtails, not at all the enchanting lady I am today, I loved the ritual of back-to-school shopping with my sister and mom. We lived in a tiny town miles and miles away from the nearest shopping mall. There were no Wal-Marts. No Hill's discount stores. No big box office supply stores like Staples. What we had was the pharmacy in Big Stone Gap and the Ben Franklin and Woolworth in Norton. Plus also, the Piggly Wiggly sold a few school-related items in the Kleenex aisle.

Each August, we'd start in town at what my grandmother called the five and dimes. I'd rush to the shelves where the brand new Trapper Keepers and spiral bound notebooks and zippered pencil pouches rested. I'd pick out glossy pocket folders with cute kitties and pups on the covers, the tri-binder with the most features - including a clip, tabbed dividers, extra folders, a zippered pouch. I'd smell the plastic cover, practically inhale it, touch the smooth folders. This was a very sensual experience, as you can see. I'd pick out a few special pencils and erasers, a bottle of squeezy glue, the big pack of Crayolas with the sharpener in the back, beg Mom for a mini-stapler. Because I really truly neeeeeeeeeded it, of course. We never bought backpacks. They weren't the rage, and plus also we had arms, so we carried our books. I don't recall ever seeing a backpack in elementary school. As I said, though, this was a long time ago, back when Laura and Mary used to meet us on the walk to school where Nellie would show off her ringlets.

In those days, back-to-school shopping marked the beginning of the back-to-school season. Today, it heralds Halloween. So, when I finally wind my way past the new costumes and scary candy bowls, and find the aisle of primary colors and all things papery, I'm in a time warp of sorts. Some of my favorite little girl memories involve paper and pencils and Trapper Keepers. And so, I'm excited that Teaching Heart Mom is having a giveaway for a $25 Walmart card to get - guess it, people - school supplies!!!!!!!!!!

If I won this baby, I'd dance right over to Wally World and pick up some last-minute goodies for my first graders: several Crayola watercolor paint sets, a few dry erease markers for us kids to use during word study and math, some new headphones for the listen-to-reading station, and perhaps some happy stickers cause kids love stickers. That'd about blow the $25, so I'll save the bean bag chairs for another time. :)

What do YOU like to do at back-to-school time?

Benjy decided last week that he was ready to learn to ride on two wheels. So when Curt came home from work, Benjy asked him to take the training wheels off his bike. Then, he hopped on his tiny little bike, and took off. I'm not kidding here, he took off! Riding! On two wheels!



Well, he was so happy with himself. Tickled pink, I tell you. But he knew he could be happier. So Benjy dragged out Camden's old blue bike. It's bigger than the mini-thing he rode last week. He hopped on and took off. Again! Just took off!



Benjy has begged for me to watch him ride his bike in the road every single hour of every single day since he took off on his rite of passage into big-boyhood. We finally took him to an empty parking lot so he could ride like the wind, Bullseye. And here he demonstrated not only how to ride on two wheels, but also how to take down bad guys. You can really learn something from this boy, people.



All this happened, mind you, while Camden was away at Karate Camp. And let me tell you, we noticed his absence. :) It was eerily quiet here. We dropped Big Brother off on Wednesday, leaving him in the more-than-capable hands of Chief Master and Mr. Dreskler and the other staff at Karate for Kids summer camp. Believe me, it took more than 5 adults to handle this bunch. Meanwhile, Benjy couldn't wait to show Camden his new trick. He was so darn proud of himself.



So now Camden is home where he belongs. He is tired beyond imagination. But he's home. It's noisy again, but he's thankfully home. Thank you, God, for taking care of him. Benjy showed off his new skill. I got all my hugs taken care of. We fed Camden and loved him and did his laundry. And now we're getting back into our summer routine. Tomorrow, we start a new evening tradition: we go to the parking lot to ride our bikes.

I made this card box - the first of its kind that I have ever seen in this real life, for my friend Holly. It's for her wedding guests to stuff their well-wishes into at the reception. I have never been so happy to burn myself with hot glue; this was beyond fun to create. :)

Aside from that, not much has been happening here. A lot of summer just going to the dogs. Lazy days. Late mornings. Not much to exhaust your thoughts on.

Until....

My sister's best friend lost her baby boy. My heart just breaks for her and her family. I pray every single day, more than once, for her and her husband and daughter. I don't think I can get past this now. Doesn't God want us to embrace her now? To hold on to her as He would, show the mercy He would? Love her with the love only Christ can model? Yes, that's what has consumed me this week. I love this mother who has lost her son. I pray for her peace and comfort. I pray that she will survive the terrible guilt that consumes her thoughts and rise to embrace God's great mercy. Love to you, dear friend. Love to you.

I was putting off washing my hair this morning and succeeded by creating this little ditty from Jib Jab. Watch and learn, people. Watch and learn.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

It's been so long since I've posted that Blogger actually asked me to sign in. And had it not been for Firefox remembering my varied and whimsical and clever-beyond-belief passwords, I wouldn't be here now. Instead, I'd be digging Delallo's almond olives from the jar I bought on clearance at the Shop N Save.

I reconnected with some friends from my first school, Fallon Park Elementary, today. Hi Delores and Gerri and Bonnie and Wilma and Angel!!! This is the inner city school-home of the "I ain't doin' jack" second grader and the Bomb Threat Boy. I'll have to tell ya the bomb story another day. (Let us just be thankful for caller ID.) At any rate, it's good to find Virginia people on Facebook. Life in the northeast can be mighty unfriendly without some southern hospitality. :)

So, what've I been up to since summer vacation started? Well, Eaglescout and I have been on a mission to fix up the house. You know, basic cleaning of the tooth brush kind and dreams of granite and Molly Maids and such. I'm stuck at the tooth brush stage.

Seeing as how I'm the adult at home this summer sleeping till 9 a.m. every single day and not washing my hair till noon, I feel an obligation to mow the grass. If we had a postage stamp yard, this would be no big thing. But our quarter-acre feels more like ten when I am behind the mower. So, imagine how smart I feel knowing I've knocked out the grass today while retaining my confident charge of The Wild Things. And now here I sit with Eaglescout, comfortably sipping a glass of vino and watching DYI television actually TEACH a young couple how to mow grass. What's that about??? You start the mower. You push it. You follow your tracks. You cut the grass. Yeah, I'm feeling quite smart today. Could be the olives. I hear almonds are good for you. Actually, my daddy taught me how to mow the grass as soon as he knew I was capable of taking this dreaded job away from him!

So, that amazing shot of our back yard at the top of this post is the bulk of my mowing job. You can see just the hint of our redneck pool we have off to the side of our back porch. Our neighbors have a redneck pool, too. They're popular around these parts. The redneck pools.

Other than mowing my real yard, I've been spending some time farming my virtual fields on Farm Town. This is a fun application on Facebook that allows you to plant fields of crops, harvest them, sell, them, and make money. Virtual money is almost as fun as real money. Almost.


I've made a killing on planting pumpkins and harvesting pumpkins from friends and friend's moms. I made enough to buy an actual virtual farm house! Woot! Now I'm living. I don't know how I'll function when school starts and I can't farm till night time.

I leave you with these images of Father's Day. The Wild Things wanted to take Eaglescout to Statler's Fun Center, complete with go-karts, pizza, and putt putt. I was like Mrs. Tiger Woods, let me tell ya. But I was happier to be Mrs. Eaglescout.

My friend Anne went to a wrestling match last night. This shocked me somewhat, as I didn't know she had a penchant for scantily clad men pretending to beat each other up. Heck, she should come watch our taekwondo testings and see Stephanie put Eaglescout on the floor if she wants excitement. 'Course, we are finely dressed at our testings. No nekkidness to titillate the senses.

So, I was reminded by Anne of a second grade boy I taught in the early years. This was in an inner-city school in Virginia. The school had nearly 600 youngins and most of them were living below the poverty level. This kid was bright. I mean smart as a tack. And he had a way with adults. He was funny, cute, conversational, and in the blink of an eye, mean as a striped snake. Oh, I don't think he wanted to be mean. He was groomed for it, I think. A nurture vs. nature thing.

I mean, this kid (I'll call him James, since I've never taught a James who didn't have this proclivity for stubbornness.) would be fine and dandy till you asked him to do something he wasn't in the mood to do.

"James, would you please put your writing folder away and come to the rug with us?"

"I AIN'T DOIN' JACK, MISS RICHERT!"

"James, writing workshop is over. We're having a meeting on the rug. Let's go."

GLARE GLARE GLARE

MEAN TEACHER LOOK
MEAN TEACHER LOOK
MEAN TEACHER LOOK

No use. James wasn't budging. He wasn't doin' jack.

Nevermind the implications there. Nevermind that I wasn't even a miss at the time.

And yet in all these years, James goes down as one of my favorites. In retrospect, I think that James was probably gifted. I mean that in the education sense of the word. He was bright, able to think about things in abstract ways. He could interact with his friends, teachers, and still keep his toes firmly entrenched in his hood. This was ultimately, I am afraid, his downfall.

You see, if you're gifted, and you don't use your "giftedness", you are in danger of losing it.
It's like practicing for anything. If I don't practice my taekwondo form, I forget how to do it. If Camden doesn't practice his soccer moves, he forgets them. If James didn't work out his thinking muscles, he'd forget how to use them. By the time James was in second grade, it just wasn't cool for him to get good grades. I was told that his uncles were all in jail and they had told him that he'd one day wind up there, too. Grades were a waste fo time. And so his grades dropped a bit every quarter. A self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one.

Still, James taught me an important lesson in that year. He taught me that some subjects are OK to write about. I was a new teacher - I think this was my 2nd or 3rd year. I was really into writing workshop where kids write short picture books on subjects of their choosing. I tended to push kids to write about their own experiences because those were the ones they knew best. But James insisted on writing about his hero - Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Here is the hero cracking open a beer.

James was an avid wrastling fan. He knew all the big players. All their girlfriends. All the winning moves guaranteed to award WWF stardom (or WWE or WWWhatever). The only time his writing came alive with voice and excitement was when he wrote about his beloved wrastling hero. And so I gave in and let him at it.

Through the stories James wrote, I acquired a hefty knowledge of wrestling, albeit ONLY through his writings. I could talk trash with the best of them. I could tell you that Stone Cold and The Rock were rivals at least once. Stone Cold liked to finish off opponents with his signature Stone Cold Stunner. In fact, he once almost had the Undertaker under his Stunner control when suddenly the tables turned and Austin was nailed with a Piledrive of some sort. Of course, Austin did the piledrive, too, at times. This just wasn't his turn. Apparently, too, Stone Cold liked to say things like, "And that's the bottom line, cause Stone Cold said so!"

Well then.

I have to tell ya, I felt cool in those days when I could toss out terms like piledrive and stunner and Royal Rumble. Guys dig chicks who can talk wrastling.
Cause Stone Cold says so.

James transferred to another school after his second grade year; we never heard how he was doing. I think about him every year as I get to know a new class and then say goodbye to them in the spring. I wonder if I have any James in my charge. I wonder if I have any kids whose peeps think jail is more suitable than home. And I wonder if James is at home now. Wherever you are, James, thank you for keeping it real. For being true to yourself most of the time. I pray you are the James God meant for you to be.

Princess stopped by tonight to deliver a precious prize.



(Dear State Champ,
I have taken great pains to note any flaws in your in-practically-perfect-condition novel. I hereby solemnly swear to read it without touching it. I'm sure it will work out just fine. And, I promise to use a non-marking bookmark. That should take care of that. See you at karate.
Hugs,
Wendi)

Oh, I cannot wait to curl up with this baby tonight!

While here, Princess and Benjy had a little conversation.
Here's a snippet of it.

Let's face it. Brothers are hard.
It's hard to be one. It's hard to have one.
Brothers are hard.

I finished Twilight in less than 24 hours. Actually, to be precise, which is important for some, but not to me, I started the novel at 8 last night after TKD, went to bed around 2 a.m., and woke up, made sure the boys were alive, fed them breakfast, made a fresh pot of coffee, and resumed reading from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. I think I peed once. I breathed when I was finished.

Then I called Princess, who loaned me the book from State Champ, who apparently has a thing about how her books are laid down when not being read. Even though she told me herself that she likes to crack spines and dog ear pages herself. I'm just sayin'.

So, I talked to Princess' maid, eh, machine, and told her,

"WOWIE WOW WOW!

IJUSTFINISHEDTWILIGHT
ANDICANNOTBELIEVE
HOWMUCHIWANTEDHIMTO
BITEHER!!!!!!!!!

Or some such blathering.

Princess returned my call today, leaving a cheeky message on my machine. "So, would you be a vampire?" Or some such ramblings.

Ummmmm.

YES!

But, only on the conditions that I am Bella. And Edward Cullen is Edward Cullen. And we live in Forks, Washington, where it rains and rains and rains. Hey, I like rain. I've never been overly fond of the sunshine. Other conditions apply: I will be eternally just exactly like Bella and Edward in Twilight, with no hints of trouble and no age lines or cellulite or high school angst. Hey, if he sat by me in Latin, well, ego amo te.

Now, snapping back to reality. Yes, I know it's a novel. So was The DaVinci Code, but I was awed by that one, too. Nevertheless, novels aren't real. They're called fiction for a reason. Twilight started from a dream on the author's part that she had to write down. And then it took over, practically writing itself as the characters shaped their futures. Daggonit, why don't my dreams ever turn out like that???

But, now that summer vacation is here, I'm all about getting lost in some escapist fiction. Hey, is that blood on my neck?

It's not everyday that I write odes. They're tricky, odes are. They should convey deep thought. And plus also, you need to get a good grade on them because your ode could mean passing 8th grade or staying in 8th grade.

But this ode is special, so I feel the need to try. It's for someone who has touched my life in a most basic of ways.

This ode is to Easy Reader.

For whatever reason, I have been hooked on Easy Reader videos from Youtube. I watched these circa 1970s videos that aired on PBS' The Electric Company when I was a kid. Now, through the wonders of youtube and some youtube poster who calls himself/herself "crotchrot" I can wax nostalgic and get puddly all over the leather sofa reliving the glory days of Easy Reader. Slap a Kleenex on me, will ya?

I had been under the misimpression that Dick and Jane taught me how to read. But I've finally realized that Dick and Jane and Spot and Mother and Father and Teacher had precious little to do with it.

Easy Reader taught me how to read.

Top to bottom.
Left to right.
Reading stuff
is outta sight!

Reading's groovy.
Reading's nice.
And I got a way
to do it twice!

Now that I think about it, I've known since I was knee-high to a grasshopper that TION spells [shun]. Easy Reader taught me.



And what about OA says [oh]? We all know the first letter does the talkin', the second does the walkin'. But Easy Reader taught it to me with words, music, and jive talkin'.



Then there's the more complicated plural form of a noun. This doesn't come naturally to some. Take Benjy, for example. He puts an S on most of his nouns regardless of their plurality. Not that he knows they're nouns yet. I'll show him this video and I bet he'll be slappin' some plurals in all the right places.



Odes aside, did you ever notice how awesome Sylvia dances? I wanted to dance like her on the tall platform at American Bandstand.



And who didn't practice reading the shampoo bottle ingredient list in the bathtub?



Forget the ode. I just wanna go read a book now.

Did I ever tell you that I had this closet obsession with Eminem when I was incubating Benjy? Yeah, I did. I was a bit embarrassed about it, so I kept this close to my chest. Then one day after jiving to school with The Real Slim Shady, I could hide it no more. I came out of the closet in the staff lounge during lunch. I was eating my daily peanut butter and jelly with a V-8 because not only was I with child, but also I was health conscious back in the day. Somebody mentioned John Mayer. Yeah, I like him, I agreed. And somebody mentioned the Rolling Stones. Duh, of course I like them. (Who doesn't?) Then a singer I'd never heard of. And another. And yet another. Not to be outdone, I squirmed in my seat and then let her rip.

"Youwon'tbelievethis,
butIlikeEminem."

I stabbed a grape in my fruit cocktail while the room grew silent. You could hear the 2nd graders in the lunchroom across the hall, but not a teacher spoke in our room.

"Well, I just like the beat. You know, the beat."

I sipped my V-8. Opened my Snack Pack chocolate pudding.

"You know, he does have a good beat. He's a talented musician," the music teacher offered.

Zing!
The music teacher thinks he has a good beat!
She thinks he's got talent!

But I knew better than to elaborate. I had regaled these teachers for months with my obsession with the Sopranos, and they probably feared that I was Tony's consigliere as it was. I didn't really wanna be rogue gangsta of Green Valley Elementary School.

Yeah, I couldn't help it. It must have been the hormones.

Due to the salacious, abhorrent, and indecent lyrics and content of Eminem's performance of Without Me, video is not posted. However, Without Me's beat is still notable.

We had a titillating grammar conversation at taekwondo tonight. Actually, we had our deliberation which was positively enchanting after the TKD class while standing around the parents' lounge all sweaty and breathless-like. On the agenda was the preposition-at-the-end-of-a-sentence dilemma. I've always been of the mind that some English constructions are just plain awkward if you manipulate the preposition from the end of the sentence to someplace else, say, for instance, under the couch, simply to avoid breaking this mother of all rules.

And with these words from Sir Winston Churchill, I am almost ready to rest my case:

“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

A Washington State University professor has a substantial list of common English errors that includes these non-errors. (Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.) This site refers readers to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, which I did not write. From there, I paste these nuggets of English wisdom:

It was John Dryden, the 17th-century poet and dramatist, who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end a sentence. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. In fact, English syntax not only allows but sometimes even requires final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or That depends on what you believe in. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.”

Even sticklers for the traditional rule can have no grounds for criticizing sentences such as I don’t know where she will end up or It’s the most curious book I’ve ever run across; in these examples, up and across are adverbs, not prepositions. You can be sure of this because it is impossible to transform these examples into sentences with prepositional phrases. It is simply not grammatical English to say I don’t know up where she will end and It’s the most curious book across which I have ever run.

So, bite me, John Dryden.

Click HERE to see other non-errors so you can impress your friends with your blatant disregard for schoolroom grammar. And click HERE to see the home page of the professor who maintains the site and his other projects. OK, that's where the grammar stuff is at. :)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I leave you with Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader.

I groove on all the words around.
Ah ah ah.
As long as they are written down.
Ah ah ah.
Easy Reader, that's my name.
Ah ah ah.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Me? Only about 15 minutes if I compact it all down and take out the extraneous moments like stopping to listen to the weather or tell the boys for the 238th time to get up or pick up my coffee mug to take a sip or three. Really, I'm a fast get-ready-er.

Eaglescout rises and shines, yes, shines and sings and sometimes even dances, at 5 a.m. It's strange, but he's at his best at that hour. Too bad I don't care to hear a single word he has to sing. He wakes me at 5:30 with a cup of coffee. He's much better at coffee than dancing. I just lie there in bed counting the minutes on my clock. 5:35. 5:36. 5:37. 5:38. 5:39. 5:40. My clock, you see, is set five minutes fast, so I always think I have an extra five minutes to sleep. It works for me. Really. My feet finally hit the floor at 5:40 and I trudge to the bathroom to begin my get ready ritual.

I'm one of those chicks who has to wash her hair every single morning before facing her people. My shampoo of choice is Prell. It smells clean, fresh, and nothing like the shampoos that sent me hurling when I was pregnant with Benjy. Shampoos, detergents, hand soaps, perfumes. Oh, the scents that put me over the proverbial edge (of the toilet) for 105 days. The doctors finally told me to take vitamin B6 and Unisom for the nausea and, wowie wow wow, I was cured. It was a miracle, I tell you.

So, there's the hair washing, hair moussing, hair drying, hair spraying. That takes around 5 minutes tops. Short hair makes it all work out time-wise. I only lather lotion on my face, followed by blush and a tad bit of eye shadow. Lipstick tops the ensemble and I'm bound to smear a bit on Eaglescout before we bid adieu. Usually he doesn't even know. Clothes are a cinch if only I could decide what to wear.

I swear, it's not the getting ready part that causes me to fret and yell and turn into a raging monster at 6:30 every school morning. It's the boys' get ready ritual that brings out my less flattering side. While I can create a do and find clothes to wear in 20 minutes, again, compressing the unnecessary parts like when Eaglescout wants to dance while the day's forecast is on so I have to dance and then catch the next forecast segment, the boys dilly dally and talk and waste toothpaste for 40 minutes. And they don't even get up till 6:00! By the time they've wolfed down waffles and milk and vitamins and not a little sugary maple syrup and brushed their teeth, it's 6:37 on the clock and I'm in full-out panic mode. Then we have to find our shoes. Great day in the morning, who hid the shoes?!!! We are lucky if we scream out of the garage at 6:48 on my van clock. This clock is set three minutes fast, and so I know it's really only 6:45, but I have to be in Armbrust at 7:00. That's hardly legal. By the way, did you ever notice how folks around these parts don't pronounce it Arm-brust? They say Arm-Burst. As in "my arm burst into a gazillion pieces of flesh and bones." This drives me up a tree, but nobody cares. They continue to butcher the pronunciation, but I refuse to give in. Even if I look weird.

So, what's your morning like? Blog about it, people. You know you need something meaningless to write about. And I need something mindless to read. :)

This is my first-born. He's heavy on personal style and light on patience. He has an opinion on every subject, even the ones he cannot pronounce. He's speaks often and loudly. He's the one Mom wished on me when I was but a wee girl. "I hope you have one just like you when you grow up!" It's a wonder I ever had the second child.

Meet Camden. He's my mini clone. This shot was taken about 5 years ago when he went through his WINTER IN SUMMER phase. He wore turtlenecks, sweatshirts, sweaters, any form of winter-wear during June, July, and August with his yellow rubber "Rescue Hero" boots. He wore this get-up most every single day. Nothing I could say would sway his decision. Sweat would bead up on his brow, belly, and stinky feet, and still, he'd pull on those smelly boots - sans socks - and run outside in all his insane glory.

There's something about a child this stubborn that makes being his mother both a migraine and a pure pleasure. That may explain why I take Lexapro. But I learned a long time ago not to sweat the small stuff. Smelly rubber boots aside, Camden was a joy to watch during this summer. He rejoiced in every single endeavor - finding frogs by the pond, memorizing Golden Books' Beauty and the Beast, teaching Benjy how to play hide and seek, driving his screechy fire engine pedal car down the sidewalk blaring his self-voiced siren. Camden has always been a child who lives his life with zest.

It's taken some time and perhaps a few kicks to the head, but I've grown to embrace this robust side of Camden and appreciate it for all the wonder and life and love he brings to our family. I even miss those yellow boots. Occassionally.

It occurred to me at TKD tonight that I am short. Actually, it's occurred to me on many a night, but tonight it became abundantly clear. Here I was, partnered with Princess, holding a pad for her to roundkick. Only I had to hold the pad at chest-height to accommodate her long legs that she perches her body on. This is particularly uncomfortable for my girls (you know, my "girls") when you're taking hits off the pad and it smashes against you. Short people got no reason. Thanks, Princess, for a bit of clarity on my otherwise beautiful day. :)

Being Forked

I had never been forked until we moved to Ohio in 2003. Benjy was just a few months old when I was forked for the first time. It was election season of 2004. I remember that because I had a Kerry sign in my front yard. To this day we do not know who forked us, but I do recall that Kerry lost the election. Camden was offended, but we just laughed because being forked was, well, so funny. Actually, it was kinda cool to be singled out as worthy of a few hundred forks poked in the yard. If only we knew who liked us so much....


And now we've been forked again. Just when we'd written this town off, Greensburg comes through. And this time we know the guilty parties.

Tami, aka Homeschooling Ninja Turtle Princess

Leslie, aka Lady Leslie

Can you fathom how many forks this must be? If you can guess correctly, you will win an invisible prize. This is the scene we found when we came home from celebrating Benjy Boo's birthday at the hotel with a pool and a party room. (i.e. Room 513)

We had to smile that somebody loved us enough to go to all this work. And we naturally suspected our dog sitter, Leslie. Emma confirmed this for us.


Emma also confirmed how her peculiar bed pals arrived in her bed (i.e. OUR bed) She was sad to see them go back to their own chair, but while she had the bunnies, she was one happy dog.




Thanks, Princess and Lady, for the swell homecoming. It was almost as good as the Clone Cake. :)