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Seedling's Ticker

For JJ's reading time today, I handed him ursulav's book Nurk, telling him I thought he'd find it interesting.

Twenty minutes later...

Me: Junior Jedi?
JJ: Mmmmhmmmm?
Me: Junior Jedi? Are you finding that book interesting?
JJ: What? Oh, it's okay. It has some bits about severed heads in it.
Me: Well, let me know what you think when you're done.
JJ: Mmmmhmmmm.

Ninety minutes of complete silence later...

JJ: (brings me the book) You were right, Mom! This was a really interesting book. There was this thing called the Grizzlemole, and he had lots and lots of feelers around his nose, and he had eyes even though he was blind, and he had captured...(goes off into a five minute plot summary).

So I think we can count this book a success in 10 year old eyes.

"I Think I'll Write a Song" -- Helen Reddy
"Mersey Lullaby" -- Gerry and The Pacemakers (from Sandra Boynton's Blue Moo album)
"Mrs. Robinson" -- Simon and Garfunkel
"Be Thou my Vision" -- sung by Fernando Ortega
"Never Die Young" -- James Taylor
"All the Pretty Little Ponies" -- sung by Kenny Loggins
"Closer to the Heart" -- Rush
"Goodnight Children, Everywhere" -- Vera Lynn with Ambrose and his Orchestra
"Bookends" -- Simon and Garfunkel
"Scherzo from Symphony No. 9" -- Ludwig van Beethoven (unknown orchestra)

Sunshine Girl works diligently cutting out around the birds for a project from Ladybug magazine. She's really into birds this week.



"See what I made?"

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We've been trying to do one fun full-family activity each evening. This week it has been building the Indiana Jones® LEGO® sets. Here, Sunshine Girl plays with the snakes from the snake trap, while Junior Jedi watches d_84 build Indy's motorcycle and sidecar.



( click here to find out why everyone should get LEGO® set 7620 )

In my junk mail folder, spam with the subject lines:

The Loin King

AND

Sperms of Endearment

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But I bet they'd rather I click on those, not blog about them.

shows me the interlocking centimeter cubes

"I made one pile with each color."

after a pause

"That's called sorting!"

To see what other people are doing for Wordless Wednesday click here.

Hey guys! Do you want to come watch this spider who's eating a maple bug?

Junior Jedi and Sunshine Girl came pelting downstairs to check it out.

d_84 was not interested.

I tried to take a picture, but trying to shoot through two panes of glass, flash off, with the room lit behind me casting reflections turned it into an impossible prospect. And I was afraid if I tried to open the patio door the spider would drag his prize into the house, or run off.

"That's Captain Junior Jedi to you, seaman!"



"Thought you'd sneak up and take a picture of me, eh Mom? So there!"

( click here for pictures with more harbor and fish and fewer children )

Somehow, while I was posting that last entry, LJ logged me out and changed my default post-editor to 'Rich Text' format, which I hate.

"Spring Again" -- Lanae' Hale
"There's a New Sound" -- Scooter (from the Muppet Show Cast Album)
"Seven Days of Lonely" (radio edit) -- I Nine
"We Will All Go Together When We Go" -- Tom Lehrer*
"The Oldest Established (Permanent Floating Crap Game)" -- Guys and Dolls Original Broadway Cast
"Promise Me" -- Aaron Jeoffrey
"Thank You, God" -- Echelon
"Fields of Gold" -- Sting
"Latin Golightly" -- Henry Mancini and his Orchestra
"I Will Sing of My Reedemer" -- Fernando Ortega
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*Which contains a pre-L33T reference to his "friend Henry, who was so much of an individualist that he spelled his name Hen3ry. The 3 was silent."

Junior Jedi has discovered graphic novels. So far we've been getting the ones from the kids' section in the library, but there aren't many there and if he wants to keep reading them we'll have to move to the main collection soon.

Can anyone point me to graphic novel series that are appropriate for an almost 10-year old to read? Or, conversely, steer me away from ones which are not?

...you're discussing George Carlin's death over dinner and when your son asks you, "Who's George Carlin?" the answer you give him (after a moment's thought) is, "He's the guy who narrated most of the Thomas the Tank Engine stories you have on VCR tapes."

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R.I.P., George. Hopefully you've found yourself in a place where it won't be necessary to use your infamous seven words.

So, steps 1 and 2 of phase one are complete.

Step 1 was stripping the wall paper. I actually started this two years ago, after Sunshine Girl took an indelible ink stamp pad and a Sharpie to the wall behind the table. Originally, the plan was to strip just that wall, but it snowballed.

The year I started stripping the wall paper, we had a birthday party for the children. This year I'm planning a party again. I decided that under no circumstances was I going to invite the same people to a party with my kitchen looking the same as it did two years ago--hence the 'this summer deadline'.

( cut here for those people who don't like to look at lots of pictures )

Step 3 is cutting and painting wainscoting for the lower parts of the walls that don't have base cabinets on, and the new trim for the archways. We'll be working on that today.

Phase 2, which I don't expect will happen this summer, involves getting one new wall cabinet, replacing the cabinet door hardware, and replacing the plastic drawers that came with the cabinets with wooden ones.

"Belly Button (Round)" -- The Heath Sisters (from Sandra Boynton's Philadelphia Chickens album)
"Walking on the Moon" -- The Police
"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (hand bell and harp)--played by Michèle Sharik
"Too-Ra-Loo-Ra" -- Kenny Loggins
"C is for Conifers" -- They Might Be Giants
"Those Dinosaur Blues" -- Michael Ford (from Sandra Boynton's Philadelphia Chickens album)
"Some Kind of Lady" -- Aaron Geoffrey
"Like a River Glorious" (instrumental) -- Chris Rice
"Singt dem Herrn" -- Taizé
"Peaceful" -- Helen Reddy

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Really heavy on the kids' songs today, but I'm glad that I hit at least one song from my new album (Helen Reddy).

While Sunshine Girl pre-reads her school books for next year...



...Junior Jedi reads a sequel to one of his school books from last year...



...and I paint the kitchen. (Photos to follow in a special edition)

Seven more books, randomly chosen from our library:

Garfield: By the Pound (#22) by Jim Davis -- one of d_84's many Garfield books

Vocabulary Vine: A Spiral Study of Greek and Latin Roots by Nancy Paula Hassler -- I originally bought this to be part of our homeschooling program, but quickly decided it was really more suited to teens and adults than to students the age my children are

The Continuing Mission by Judith Reeves-Stevens -- I must have read this, once, but I don't remember a thing about it

Tom the Grocer and His Friends by Nick Butterworth -- a little board book for teaching occupations and professions, part of a set of four similar books

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore -- one of my favorite classics as a moody teen, we have two copies, a paperback one and my great-grandmother's hard cover (so old it doesn't have a copyright date in it)

A History of US (book 6): War, Terrible War: 1855-1865 by Joy Hakim -- we'll be using this on our next go-round with US history in middle school

A Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure -- a classic of basic linguistics, anyone who majored in Linguistics probably has a copyu of this on their shelves somewhere

...we can no longer afford to buy a house in our own neighborhood.

We had a thunderstorm last night, and the trees were still shaking off the excess this morning during the time that the kids and I would usually be playing/working in the back yard, so we went for a walk through the neighborhood instead. There were three homes the same model as our house (a Richmond-model Leavitt home) for sale within a 50-yard radius of each other. When we got home I looked for them on the multiple-listing service. One is listed for 100K more than we paid for our house five years ago and one for 110K more. I couldn't find the third one.

Also for sale is our 'sister house'--the house with the same house number but one block north. It was totally gutted and redone two years ago, and is listed for $499,990. I have a feeling that the owners bit off more than they could chew with the remodeling costs.

So I made ice cream sandwiches with home-made chocolate chip cookies and high-quality lactose-free ice cream that Junior Jedi can eat.

They were delicious.

The children didn't like them.

*sigh*

Apparently I need to do a little e-housework this evening, the mail server just informed me that my personal email box was full. So if you sent me email today and it bounced, you know why.

So either try again on Monday, or try sending the mail to cjmr@livejournal.com instead. That forwards to a different server.

Why is it that I can tell Sunshine Girl (who's almost five), "There is a glass of the kind I use to drink soda out of on the square table next to the chair that's next to the Exercycle. Please bring it to the kitchen," and she will return with the cup, but when I tell Junior Jedi (who's almost ten), "Your math book in on the dining room table," he can't find it????