ADHD Serves a Purpose

Since I am apparently incapable of writing anything of my own (sorry, I’m a very busy mom these days), take a minute to pop over to Stephanie’s blog Throwing Marshmallows for a great post about Michael Phelps, ADHD, and spelling.

August 16, 2008 | Filed Under Homeschool Issues, Learning | 1 Comment 

Fire

Little Lake Santa Fe.  We go there every year, sometimes twice a year.  This year, there was some excitement.  We watched smoke rise from the trees for about 20 minutes before something struck us as odd.  Initially, we assumed it was a brush fire.  People burn stuff on their property all the time and nobody takes notice.  But the smoke just didn’t seem to let up.

Picture one, 1:36 p.m. when we decided something was not right:

Fire 1

We kept on tubing and having fun, looking over to see if there were any changes.  By this time, people were starting to drive their boats over to watch.  Suddenly, we notice a huge change in the smoke.

Picture 2, 1:41 p.m.:

Fire 2

The smoke had become very black.  We assumed they had a brush fire gone wrong, and headed over on the boat to take a look.

This is what we saw.

Pictures 3 and 4, 1:48 p.m.:

Fire 3

Fire 4

About the time we saw the very black smoke, we also started to hear fire engines.  The smoke had been showing in the sky for over 20 minutes.  At home, there is no way anyone would have waited to call the fire department.  In this area, however, smoke is a normal thing.  The first thing you assume is someone is burning their brush.  The other weird thing was that we drove the boat past there once, before the flames showed, and people seemed to be outside looking around the house as if something weren’t right.  But it was a solid 20 minutes before the sirens could be heard.

The Gainesville Sun reported the fire the following day, but they didn’t have much more information than we had:

Cause of house fire on Little Lake Santa Fe Unknown

Ooooh big excitement for a little town.  I’m feeling really bad for the people who own the house.

August 6, 2008 | Filed Under Trips and Travel | 4 Comments 

R.I.P. Tiger Woods

No, not THAT Tiger Woods, our hermit crab Tiger Woods.

I was giving Simon crap about not giving his hermit crabs water and food the other night.  He finally got off his butt and did, but he came to me and said, “Mom, Tiger’s not moving.”  Sometimes Tiger is shy, so I was hoping he was just not in the mood to move.  I went to his cage and picked him up and as I was lifting his shell out of the cage, he flopped out of it into his newly filled water dish.  Dead.

Poor Simon.  His face just went white.  And Oh.My.God. what a smell!  Aaaaack.

So I did what any good mom would do, I called my husband down to take care of it.  LOL!

We had Tiger for almost a year.  We got him after Albert, who is still alive.  Simon came to me last night and said he couldn’t get the image of Tiger falling out of his shell out of his mind.  He said it scared him so much.  Poor thing.  I know what it is like to dwell on things that bother you.  It’s a tough lesson, and there is nothing I can do to help him with this.  I told him to try to remember Tiger in his shell when he thinks of him.

Tiger and Albert

Rest in peace, Tiger.  (he’s the one on the left in the picture)

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under Parenting | 7 Comments 

Five Places I Have Lived

Geez, it takes a meme to get me off my fat ass and writing again.  BORING.

My buddy Meg at Get In, Hang On posted a meme that I thought was interesting, so I tagged myself (per her instructions).

The fine print:

Name 5 places you’ve lived. Be as specific or generic as you like.
List 5 memories associated with each of those places.
Tag 5 others.

Like Meg, I’m not going to tag anyone. Tag yourself and let me know if you do it.

I’m a bullet kind of gal, so here’s my list. These are the first five places I lived.

Fort Riley, Kansas (age 2 (second home, but the first home I remember))

– Duplex house (the family next door had 9 kids, we had 6 – can you imagine?!)
– Kid next door stealing the streamers from my tricycle handles
– Helicopters landing and taking off
– My dad coming home from work and sitting in the big green recliner
– The last family photo before my dad left for Vietnam (I’m the cute one in the blue dress)

Last Family Photo

Alexandria, Virginia (age 3-18)

– Playing the piano and imagining someone kidnapping me and forcing me to play for an audience (obviously I have issues)
– Playing Kick The Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, Hide With Them with zillions of neighborhood kids and no supervision
– Learning to ride a bicycle, cutting up my knees on the driveway next door
– Playing by the river, making forts, sliding down the cliffs to the water on our butts (again, with no supervision)
– Learning to drive a car (um, no, not legally)

Blacksburg, Virginia (age 18-23 (college))

– Playing backgammon at Top of the Stairs
– Playing darts at Ton 80
– Tubing on the New River
– My first apartment
– My first car

Madrid, Spain (age 20 (study abroad))

– Afternoon siestas
– Tapas and horchata
– Partying until 5am (the bars never close, or if they did, we never noticed)
– Traveling south to Malaga/Calpe, and north to Santander with friends
– Bullfighting – I found it both intriguing and disturbing

West New York, New Jersey (age 22 (internship at Citicorp during grad school))

– The “A Great Place to Live and Shop” sign at the town limits
– The commute to work - Bergenline Avenue bus/Lincoln Tunnel/Port Authority/E Train to Midtown Manhattan
– Hauling laundry 5 blocks uphill to the Laundromat
– Putting “No Radio” signs on my car windows (and having no radio)
– Hocker Pschorr Weiss Beers at The Brass Rail in Hoboken (Did we actually steal a parking meter? Nah. That would be illegal.)

Aspen Hill, Maryland (age 24 (first apartment out of college))

– Wondering if I would ever find a job
– Having to turn left onto Georgia Avenue every morning during rush hour with no traffic light
– Commuting 25 miles each way to Reston, Virginia from May – December while they were widening the Beltway (yes, I finally found a job, just not in an ideal location)
– The squeaky butt sound of the fat guy upstairs taking a bath
– A burglar in my apartment

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 5 Comments 

Herbies - The Love Bug

My nine year old, Alvin, is sitting on our bed watching some program on Discovery or some other normal cable station. I’m in the bathroom getting ready for bed.

Alvin: Mom, what’s herbies?

Mom: Huh?

Alvin: There’s a doctor on TV talking about herbies.

Mom: It’s a virus. There are all sorts of drugs advertised on TV.

Up next, erectile dysfunction. (pun intended)

Oooh I can’t wait to see what sort of search hits I’ll get now.

June 26, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff, Parenting | 6 Comments 

Happy Second Blogiversary To Me!

Two years of sporadic posting about dumb stuff. Who knew I could keep it up this long?! And I’ve had almost 34,000 hits. Amazing.

A few weeks ago, some blogs I read were posting funny searches that lead people to their blog. I decided in honor of my blogiversary I would do the same.

  • What was june cleavers husbands name

Ward

  • Wepinds.com

I’m assuming this is an 7 year old kid trying to find weapons. At least, that’s how my 7 year old spells it.

  • Odds of pregnancy while nursing and on pill

100% and his name is Theodore

  • June cleaver (dirty pics)

Ewwwwww!

  • How do i stop my internal clocks

You can’t. Stop searching.

  • Homeschooling boys who can’t sit still in a regular classroom

They can’t sit still at home either.

  • Are homeschoolers weird

Depends on how weird their parents are. Are you weird? Were you homeschooled? Did you know any weird kids in school?

  • Where can i get permanent cement for teeth

At the dentist. Don’t even attempt that at home.

  • How should i punish my homeschooler

What did he do?

  • How to prepare a child for preschools interviews

LOL!! Don’t get me started. If you read my blog, you know what I think of this sort of thing.

  • How will a girl of eleven go out with me

If you are eleven too, wait until you are older. If you are older, get out of my blog

  • Show kids pictures getting dressed

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a preschool teacher who wants to post helpful pictures on the wall in your classroom.

  • Why not just make ten louder?

These go to eleven.

Thanks everyone for visiting and commenting (and those of you who visit every day and don’t comment really should comment).

June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 9 Comments 

30 Second Elevator Pitch for My Presidential Candidate of Choice

I wrote this yesterday and forgot to click “publish.”  Oops.

The latest Thinking Homeschoolers wiki entry challenges us to share a 30 second elevator pitch for our presidential candidate of choice (this won’t take 30 seconds!):

In the 7 presidential elections in which I have voted (or will soon vote) I have never actually been FOR a candidate. For me it was more about who I didn’t want to win. The reason I am voting FOR Barack Obama is simple. I may be naive, but I think he is honest. I also think he is incredibly smart.

To read the other entries, click here. Everyone is welcome to participate.

June 16, 2008 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | Leave a Comment 

Hybrid Hype

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Imagine buying a hybrid Lexus for a base price of $104,900 without options.

Lexus

Then imagine writing a review that says:

“The car performs beautifully, very quiet and compares to other luxury cars this saves me a lot money on gas.” [emphasis added]

Oh the irony.

June 7, 2008 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | 3 Comments 

What would I be doing if I never had kids?

What would I be doing if I never had kids?

This is my entry for the Thinking Homeschoolers Essay. Since I’m usually too busy to think, I haven’t participated yet, but today is different.

This subject came up on the day my oldest child turned 11.

My parenting journey has been a difficult one, but I cannot imagine life without my children.

Parenting was not something I always imagined doing. In fact, one of my sisters and I had a little “no kids” pact. We had a bond between us. She held on to her no kids ideal. I did not. And I can’t even say why I changed my mind. I was 33 when I had my first child. I wasn’t driven to have children, but I was also afraid NOT to have them. I guess I felt like the regret of not having them would be harder to deal with than the regret of having them. Sometimes I look at my childfree sister and envy her life. But probably more often I do not envy her. My children are as much a source of joy as they are pain. They are most certainly a source of pride.

One thing I do not regret is giving up my career. After seventeen years, I called it quits. My youngest was almost 4, my oldest was 6. That was 4 ½ years ago and I have never looked back. Yes, I miss the income. It was nothing to sneeze at, it was half. And I bitch unmercifully about spending money now. It is a small price to pay for the joy of being here with my children and watching them grow.

There is no way I could ever say what I would be doing now if I never had kids. They have changed my life forever. Some days I think it is changed for the better, some days I think it is changed for the worse. That is just the nature of parenting. Before kids, I really had nothing to be proud of. A career, yes. But I wasn’t passionate about it, nor about anything else. Now I am passionate about being the best parent I can be to my three boys.

Happy Birthday Simon!

May 30, 2008 | Filed Under Parenting | 5 Comments 

Subway. Yum! Yum!

Yep. Not only do we eat at Subway FREQUENTLY, we also make Subway sandwiches at home. And we call it that too. Is that illegal? Well, anyway, we LOVE Subway. We love their subs. Ward Cleaver eats there several times a week for lunch, and I take the kids there at least 3 times a month for lunch. We used to go more often before we discovered that we could buy all the ingredients for a sandwich at the grocery store and make them at home and everyone is just as happy (for less money!). The kids will say, “What’s for dinner?” I’ll say, “Subway!” We all know that means I’m gonna slap a bunch of lunch meat on a sub roll with cheese and other yummy stuff and broil it for a couple of minutes.

I still love Subway despite all the ridiculous hype. Honestly! HSLDA is getting involved now? Pah-leeeeze. I’m not signing the petition. Is there an opposite to a boycott? Like can I eat at Subway every night for a week to offset some the boycotters?

I think that Subway should have been a little more creative, but it is understandable that they would automatically think home schools equals individuals and eliminated them from the big prize. It is just another example of people thinking they get us. They don’t. But it doesn’t warrant a boycott. That’s just silly.

May 27, 2008 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | 6 Comments 

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