I Am Off!

I am off for a whole weekend of go fun! In a few hours, a friend will come to pick me up, and we'll drive down to the Catskill mountains. The weekend will be filled with good friends, good food, good go, and beautiful hikes.



I will bring my camera, so I can share my joy later.

New Table

The girls room is shaping up more and more, the bunkbeds have been assembled, we got a book case, and now they also got a nice table. They really enjoy having it in their room, so they can play cards or draw for hours.



Today, I came into their room and found most of the kids around the table, having a great time.

The cute clock was a thrift store find, I love the color and everything about it.

Persistence and Determination

I am starting to be more and more in awe of the quiet persistence and determination my little girl can exhibit.

Last week, she was in the basement, and discovered a can of coconut milk. She decided that this would be perfect to use for making a smoothie. She took it, and brought it up to me 'Mama, can you make a smoothie?' It was past 10pm at night, so I gently explained to her that, no, I was not going to make smoothies at this time of the night. She walked away, clearly annoyed and said 'OK, then I will do it myself!'

A few minutes later, I saw her go past with can opener and can, and she disappeared upstairs.

She found Cees, and asked him to help her make a smoothie. He told her that he wasn't going to do it, but maybe she could ask Tara. She went off to find Tara. She did manage to convince Tara that this was the perfect time for a smoothie, and she happily drank it once it was done.

It was interesting to me how she never got upset, she just was very insistent till she got done what she wanted to get done.



Today, I saw another example of her persistence. She found a microscopic spot of blood on her knee, and decided she needed a bandaid. She informed me of that fact, but I didn't agree with her assessment, so I told her that I wasn't going to get a bandaid for a non-existing injury.



She whined a little bit, and then disappeared. Five minutes later, she gets back into the room, carrying a bandaid. This means, she must have climbed up on the kitchen counter to get to the cabinet where the bandaids are, and gotten one of them out of the package.

She sat down next to me, and proceeded to try to open the bandaid. I figured her dexterity wouldn't be good enough and I would eventually be the one who would have to take care of it. But no! She spent at least ten minutes doing this, but eventually, she opened the bandaid, put it on, and threw away the trash that got generated. Pretty darned good!



Persistence and determination are omnipotent!

Geocaching

Yesterday, we went out to make as many pictures as possible with my new camera geocaching. As usual, driving through Vermont was fun, I just love the mountains.



We found less caches than we had hoped for, but had a wonderful time out hiking. Kate found the first cache.



We looked for a few other caches, but they kept eluding us.



But frankly, it was so nice to be out, that the caches were not very important. Oh, did I mention that we ended up hiking back in the dark yet again? The days are clearly not long enough anymore, very annoying!



Sylvia kept 'tripping' and spending lots of time singing while laying down, which didn't quite help our walking speed ^^.



We found one more cache before having a high quality gas station dinner. We are cultured like that.

New Camera!

As some of you have noticed, I did get my new camera on Monday. I noticed Chris was getting a new one, and figured that she would do all the time sucking research, so I decided to just get the same model. OK, I did some research , but not as much as I would have done if I didn't suspect that most likely Chris's choice would be fine for me too.



Proudly presenting my Canon D40x!



Notice how it reduced red eye, even without me telling it to.



I am in love with it! This morning, I met a friend at homeschool club, who gave me some tips on using it. Just wait till the next thunder storm, I will be out there making lightning pictures!



And I got this camera just in time for fall!

Spider Web at Night

Walking Around in Our Yard

Sharing some pictures of our yard. Those flowers grow close to our front door. I used to not know when they were called till I finally got out my flower book and looked it up. To my utter surprise they were call Echinacea, which I had heard about, just never realized how breath taking the flowers can be.



The next flowers I wanted to photograph, I discovered a busy bee. It was collecting nectar and staying long enough for me to make a bunch of pictures. Very considerate. I don't know the name of those flowers, so if you know it, please leave me the name in the comments.



Another picture of those flowers, with the bee barely visible.



Maple leaves, turning colour.



A few years ago, I planted cranberry bushes. They finally started producing cranberries this year!



The squirrels are always happy to plant sunflower seeds in our garden, and harvest many more of them in the fall.



More flowers.



And our fall rain storms have produced an explosion of mushrooms. Here is just one of the many.

Psychotic Pumpkins

Innocent looking pumpkins. Cute, polite, they could be living in your neighborhood.



But wait! There is more to the story!



Behind their innocence, those pumpkins are hiding quite a violent streak.



Beware the Psychotic Pumpkins! You will never want to celebrate Halloween again!

Bunk Beds

Presenting: bunk beds which have been put together by Tara and Cees, all by themselves. I am in awe of how capable they are.



I just took a quick picture to show y'all the bunk beds. Today I ordered a book case at Staples, which will arrive in a few days. That will be their next construction project.

Celebrate Banned Books Week!

I just realized that Banned Books Week 2007 has started.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met. As the Intellectual Freedom Manual (ALA, 7th edition) states:

“Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.”

I did not know about Banned Books Week till a few years ago, when I discovered that some of our favorite books actually have been challenged or banned. Those include books like the Harry Potter series, a Where's Waldo book, The Witches, a Wrinkle in Time, and It's Perfectly Normal. (From the 100 Most Frequently Challenges Books of 1990-2000)

The funniest banning I saw in a quick glance was The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. This book was banned by a school district in California for espousing environmentalism and negatively depicting the lumber industry.

Looks like this year's most challenged book is "And Tango Makes Three"


It's a story about two male penguins who adopt an egg. I will have to get it for Sylvia, I am sure she will love it.

Many challenged books list can be found at this ALA page. And if you want to buy any of the challenged books of 2006, someone made a handy amazon list.