Happy 20th Anniversary, Honey!

The kids and I used the Bosch to make an anniversary cake.

New Ticker Challenge

Okay, time to move on. I'm pleased that I was able to meet my last goat of 2000 minutes of treadmill walking before my December 29 anniversary (I started in mid-September). I tried to make it as easy on myself as possible. I've indulged in buying seasons of Law and Order SVU to watch while I'm on the treadmill (I'm currently on Season 3). My kids understand that I will shirk my other responsibilities in order to go on the treadmill, and they're old enough that I can get away with doing that.

My next challenge is a big one, at least for me. For most people, running isn't that big of a deal, but I absolutely hate it. I'm such a wimp. We're big fans of the show The Biggest Loser, and I've been so impressed with how some of the contestants will start out several hundred pounds overweight and by the end of the season will be running a marathon. I'm definitely not going to aspire to running a marathon, but I can add a little running/jogging to my routine.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been adding a few 1 1/2 minute stretches of jogging to my 20 minute treadmill routine. So, I'm pretty comfortable with doing 4 1/2 minutes of running a day. My new ticker goal is to run 200 minutes by Valentine's Day. That's in 7 weeks. So, I need to average about 30 minutes of running a week. I can either do 6 minutes a day/5 days a week, or 5 minutes a day/6 days a week. I'll have to see which works out best.

Looks Like I Made It!

Sorry to punish you, just because I finished my exercise ticker, but this is the song I have going through my head right now. I guess you dodged a bullet there - I'm not able to do the hyperlinks right not.

Here it is, if you feel like cutting and pasting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MbAyldbjrw

Girls and Boys, Princesses and Heroes

One of Grace's presents this year was her own Wi game. It's a princess game, designed for the 3-6 year old crowd. At the start of the game, she needs to set up her character, including what kind of dress, hairstyle, bracelet, shoes, etc., that she'll be wearing. As the game progresses, she needs to wave the remote around. This serves as her wand so that she can help rescue the various princesses through stages. Grace has found that while she's in the middle of a rescue, it's much more important for her to change her dress or bracelet than to continue with the rescue.

Daddy has been extremely patient with helping her navigate back to the start of the game, many times losing any progress that she made, so that she can make the necessary wardrobe adjustments.

Henry has not been so patient. This is a boy whose life primarily revolves around superheroes defeating the villains and rescuing the good guys. He cannot be in the same room with Grace while she's playing, because he loses control when she abandons the rescue. It is beyond his comprehension that she could lose focus on her mission.

I'm sure if Henry were to play this game, it would take him less than an hour to complete all of the levels. It's not a complicated game. For Grace, it's about the prettiness of the game, and interacting with the princesses. The game itself is secondary.

It's interesting to see how the dynamics of a 4 year old girl vs. an 8 year old boy play out with this video game.

Contraption Failure!

I've held off posting about this because I felt so betrayed.

Literally within 20 minutes of writing the last post, I was in the kitchen dicing some more onions and the thing broke. Irreparably. Frankly, I took it personally. As in, "Ha, ha, I got you to blog about me, now I'm outta here!"

But, I'm the one having the last laugh. For Christmas, Dave bought me the food processor attachment for my Bosch. I never used to bother getting out my food processor just for things like onions. But now I will. First, because using this attachment will be much more convenient than lugging out my food processor. Secondly, for spite.

And also to show my appreciation to my husband. Thanks, Honey!

(Mary, the title of this post was for you. :) )

Contraption Confessions

A couple of years ago, my mother-in-law gave each of her kids an onion dicer. I tried it once, and it didn't work very well. I wasn't able to push down on it hard enough. The outer layer was too tough. It didn't seem to be worth using it for the time it takes to clean it up. So, I let it sit on the shelf for a few years.

The other day, I needed to chop some onions, peppers and olives in a hurry. So, I got it down from the shelf and decided to give it another try. This time, it was a totally wonderful experience. Everything diced up quickly.

I was so excited about this experience, that I made a special trip to the store to buy onions, celery, carrots and peppers. Last night, I chopped up 4 green peppers and 3 mixed peppers. I flash froze them, and put them in freezer bags for when I might need them. I also made up 6 2-cup bags of an onion/celery/carrot mixture to have in the freezer for soups, etc.

It didn't go quite as well this time. I used regular yellow onions, and the outer layers were more difficult. If you just peel them off, it works fine. I used sweet onions the other night when it worked so slick. So, I'm not sure if it has to do with the freshness or the brand of onions. Some will work better than others.

Still, it probably didn't take me more than 45 minutes to do the chopping work and clean up. It'll be nice to have those vegetables handy when I need them.

Now, I guess I'll give that multi-grater that she gave us last year another look.

Today's Bible Lesson

We're in the middle of our homeschooling day, but I wanted to make a quick post about something that happened during our Bible study. Madeline reads a section of the Bible (from Acts), and then their books instruct them to draw a picture.

Today's Bible section was from Acts 9, where Saul is lowered in a basket through an opening in the wall. The kids' instructions were to draw the basket in which Saul was lowered. When they were done drawing, Henry explained his picture.

Henry: Here's the wall with the basket attached to a 3 way pulley. Here's Saul waiting to get in the basket. And here's a guy reading the scroll How To Get Someone Out Of A City When People Are Trying To Kill You

Madeline: For Dummies

Enemy Camp

The President of the United States. The Commander in Chief of the strongest military on earth. The Leader of the Free World.

He gives a speech at The United States Military Academy at West Point, and how does one of his media hacks characterize it? "He went to enemy camp" Isn't something terribly wrong when the people charged with doing the dirty work of protecting our country consider their commander in chief the 'enemy'? Isn't it even worse when the commander in chief considers his troops the enemy?

I'm sure there will be much backtracking today and 'of-course-I-didn't-really-mean-to-say-thats". But, it's out there.

Here's the antidote to a president who disdains the military.