After the Bible quizzing was over we scarfed some lunch and headed for the mall. When the Princess and I were studying Japan earlier this year she caught the origami bug and so there were sheets of paper all over the place. Where do you go for a case that is meant to only hold origami paper? You head to a Japanese dollar store, that’s where.

Honest, I was just there for the box. Then we got two, because she has a lot of paper. Then Mr. MG found the origami paper section and pretty much chose one of everything. (I love that man. Tough as nails, yet he picks out pink, flowery bunny paper for the Princess.) Then I wandered into the kitchen section and found cute little chopsticks for kids that come in their own little boxes. Then I found the grownup section and picked a few pairs for us, and a jar to house them and the ones already rattling around in a drawer at home. And the dishes! And tongs! And sushi molds! And bento boxes! And everything is a buck fifty!

I love the Japanese aesthetic – clean lines, efficiency, purpose. And when it’s all so cheap it is hard to maintain control. I am just sure that if I could combine my love of Japanese and Scandinavian cultures, I would be neat as a pin and super annoyingly on the ball. My paper tiger would lick its dry little paws and crawl off to cower in a corner. A tidy, clean corner.

It’d be awesome.

Washable adhesive toilet seat covers, anyone? “Do you feel inconvenience of a toilet seat? I can solve the problem immediately!!”

Just what I need.

 A month of practicing, many months – sometimes years – of memorization, and a long trip to the city in the wee hours (being on the road at 7:30 constitutes wee hours to me), and it all led up to this…AWANA Bible quizzing!

These kids are so awesome. And it is thrilling to see a fourth grade kid stand up to the microphone and rattle off scripture. By the time a clubber gets into book four, they are memorizing huge swaths of verses. They could quote most adults right under the table.

Of the four book levels two of our teams took first place - and included the quizzing champion for those levels – and one team took third. They were simply elated.

The Princess said, “I can’t wait until next year!” My sentiments exactly.  

You know that feeling in winter? When it’s cold and clammy and you’ve been inside for too long? That is the time to go outside and whack the living daylights out of each other.

Poor boy has his sword hand and shield hand switched. And don’t laugh at the hat – the girly snow hat is his approximation of a helmet.

You see that look in his eyes? He has no doubt that he can cream his 6′1″ daddy. He just needs the right opportunity.

And he goes for it!

Takes a two-handed swing…

…and whiffs it. Gets bonked on the head for his trouble.

Just another awesome day.

Is it time to put the kids to bed yet? How about now? Now?

Pretty please?

I love them, I treasure them, they are my dears and my darlings. But Lost is back on tonight and I have been in violent withdrawal since May. Eight long months I have waited for this. Gonna get some popcorn and a comfy couch blanket and a lap cat and Mr. MG. And that’s all I need. (Name that movie.)  

So is it time yet?

How about now?

I’ve been meaning to, and I’m only about five months late. Now in the sidebar is a link to what we do in school. So if you were curious, or if you needed something to cure your insomnia, there it is.

I haven’t tried everything (yet) and I’m not an authority, but right now, this second – this is what works for us.

Okay, I’m not really that cold. December is when we got hit with breathtaking – for here – temperatures. Now it is a balmy 43 degrees. But I can sympathize.

Snuggle up!

It is January, and it is a typical January day in western Washington. Cold. Foggy. Drizzle. No holidays to look forward to. And warmer days seem a very long way away.

I keep trying to write a decent post, but each time I get a paragraph down, I end up deleting it – really, how much doom and gloom can you stand? It’s not actual, clinical depression, just the winter blues. In January, I am Eeyore. Blegh.

Perspective! That’s what I need. On this gray day, I will meditate on how blessed I am.

• The joy of a new year, and the ability to be glad for it. I usually detest New Year’s Day because it slams the door on another year of life and memories. But 2008 was such a wretched year, I have to say that I woke up January first with a sense of bright relief for the first time ever.
• Food in the cupboard and a warm, dry house. More and more people are struggling to feed their families, and my worst worry is that I’m out of artichoke hearts for tonight’s pizza. And we are safely out of the many areas that are flooding.
• New life! At the end of December, my sis-in-law had a baby and they are both healthy and strong. How lucky am I that I am an only child and still get to be an aunt?
• Trixie Triad Hopalong, our resident yard rabbit, was out in the yard this week. Not only was she sleeping out in the open again, but in the rain to boot. Crazy rabbit. But she is a gift only God could know I wanted, and seeing her there made my whole day.
• My lesson plans! Sure, school would go on without them, but it would have made a giant impact on our productivity and the general morale. I still do a jig every time I remember they are there.
• Three healthy, energetic hooligans. Not only are they free from any major health issues, but right now at this very second none of them has even a sniffle.

So many everyday blessings. So many rays of light to carry me through the dark, dark days.

How are you blessed?

Even halfway through the week, I am feeling whiny about the end of Christmas break.

I don’t think it occurs to the Princess that I am at least as bummed as she is. Don’t get me wrong – I love what I do, and feel incredibly blessed to be able to teach my kids at home. But there is something seductive about schedule-free days and a reasonably clean house. A tiny part of my brain said, “Oooh! This is how a housewife lives!” I had forgotten: housewives have clean socks and produce warm meals.

Then I got fed up with the spoiled, whiny children who had too much time on their hands and too much sugar in their systems and figured we were probably due to get going again. And it has been pretty great. I think it’s what we all needed to feel balanced.

But this week I also got my blobby self back on the treadmill, which was at least as daunting as going back to school. I have the creeping feeling of following myself around wherever I go, so it’s time. And again, the initiative was much worse than the actual doing. If nothing else, I finally got warm for the first time in days.

So it is back to the routine. And the routine stretches far to the horizon, and somewhere beyond that lies spring break.

Spring? What’s that?

In which I reveal that I am an even bigger doofus than you already thought.

The new hard drives came Friday and I hustled them on over to my neighbor, who popped them in and showed me how to do a RAID configuration. Counting the two external hard drives, I now have just over 3 TB of capacity. Yowzer!

Speaking of external hard drives, I spent Friday evening and Saturday afternoon getting everything set up again. Usually, when you get a new computer out of the box and set it up, all the little installs and choices you have to make are part of the honeymoon. But when you have had this unit for a year and you are dealing with an amnesiac it is not as charming. “Well, hello! I’m new here! Who are you?” Shut up, idiot, and eat your boot discs.

So after going through all that it was time to bite the bullet and dig into the backup files I created last July on an external drive so I could at least get something back. Sigh…

But…what’s that? Wait… We got that software in November… And that – that file says it was last modified December 11. Oh, dear God, really? Are you telling me it’s all there? (Nothing brings out the prayer warrior in us all like catastrophic computer failure.)

Long story short: the back up file was created in July, and it’s been backing up there every week ever since.

I nearly barfed.

All my months of lesson plans. Thousands of books cataloged. Heck, even my iTunes library. It’s all there. I wanted to run outside and shout. I want to buy strangers cheeseburgers. I want to perform unwieldy ballet moves on the roof.

I want to buy an uninterruptible power supply unit.

All that to say, everything is back to what it should be. I didn’t even lose my bookmarks. Woot! And now I will crawl back under my rock and wait for the next opportunity to freak out.