We've been doing a clean up and throw out, room by room, campaign. We started with the second biggest mess in the house, the 'play' room. (The first is a storage area.) The idea behind this room was a place for the kids to go and play with toys. They did this, but it ended up with toys everywhere until you couldn't walk in the room, at which point they didn't play in it. Several times we went in and picked everything up and organized it. A coworker of April's suggested that this was overload, in that there were too many toys and they could not decide which to play with, and therefore ended up playing with everything. So the broken toys, puzzles with missing pieces, and other stuff was thrown out. We are giving a number of the video tapes to the school, and some to a dentist who used to be our next door neighbor. Most of the stuff is gone, and we are making good progress.
Friday, in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid having a neighbor boy show up the minute Thomas got home from school, I took him to the Hill Air Museum. He has been wanting to go for months. Once we got there, and he saw the planes up close and realized how big they are, I think he got a little scared. He wanted to go home. So we zipped through (I could have stayed to examine the B-17 for an hour alone), and went to the gift shop. I bought him a cheap die-cast plane, and one for Patrick because he insisted. Passing the model display case, he exclaimed "Wow, cool!". I remembered that I had found an unassembled Klingon K'Tinga model a month or so ago. I might stop by again and get a couple of simple jet fighter models so that we could assemble them one stormy day this winter. Most toy sections no longer carry plastic models. As a boy, I put together dozens of planes, tanks, cars, and ships. I remember having a model of the Bismark for years.
Mowing the lawn is becoming a bigger chore. Rachel found out that Patrick was doing it, and wanted to do it as well. So I let her do the front, and Patrick the back. The contrast in styles was fun to see. Rachel circles the lawn, but misses spots. Patrick has no pattern that I can see. He just turns as he sees fit. But he meticulously cuts every blade of grass. The back yard is about twice as much grass as the front, but Patrick wanted to do it all himself. He came up about three feet short before quitting. It was good enough for me, and I finished it.
We are attempted a game night on Sundays. Last week was the first try. When the kids could not find any of the board games they wanted to play, April taught them Rummy. Patrick broke down after coming in second place for the third time. Tonight we played a couple of rounds with his Star Wars cards (Rachel won both rounds), and then Rummy again. I asked Rachel not to take a set of cards, and helped Patrick to get a few down. He did just barely win. I know teaching someone to lose gracefully is important, but constantly losing is discouraging. He said after we where done that Rummy was a fun game. I also remember playing the game on Sunday night with my sister an mom, so I would like to continue it.
I took a blogging quiz. I got 56 out of 100 points, and this description:
56 points is in the 51 through 80 precent (why yes, so it is. Percent is also spelled wrong)Finally, my snide comment about Gibby's Smash Mouth lyrics was uncalled for. I remember being dumped, and I would not have liked what I wrote. Sorry about that. The problem is I don't have anything other to say than the same thing everyone else told me, in time, all of it will go away, and there is someone out there for everyone. At the time I didn't believe it, but it did come to pass. Everything changes, and eventually for the better.
You are a dedicated weblogger. You post frequently because you enjoy weblogging a lot, yet you still manage to have a social life. You're the best kind of weblogger. Way to go!
The other comment was about no other shows that I liked winning Emmys. Star Trek: Enterprise did win 2. They were not shown, which doesn't make me pleased. I guess I should not have posted that night, but oh well.
End of Entry
No comments:
Post a Comment