New Jen's Horde


Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Catching up

 
I still love Cube! I've been busy reading the book she sent me, and that's part of why I've been MIA.

We were extra thankful this year on Thanksgiving. We were rushing around and trying to get out the door on time, so we were a little frazzled when we hit the car. Then, we saw a nasty house fire! The house was completely destroyed, flames were shooting through the roof. Needless to say, we found our happy attitudes at that point!

I've also been playing a fair amount of Plant Tycoon. I've been cheating. Well, not really cheating, just not waiting very well. It's one of those "real time" games where the plants grow whether you're playing or not. So, I've been planting or pollenating, then dinking with the time on my computer to make them grow faster. Is that wrong?

I have a cleaning scheduled today at my dentist's office. Hopefully nothing too weird is going on. There's always something, it seems like.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

I Love CUBE!!!

 
I do, I love Cube! Probably more than some of the people she gave birth to...well, at least today I do!!!!! You should go check her out at The Blog, because I can't fully express her awesomeness here, you'll just have to experience it for yourself...

Do remember last month when I was telling about my Desperation Cleaning Method? I was sharing that when I declutter, I am really brutal and I get rid of just about everything. And that it works really well, but I did say "I'm an awful pack rat, and in all the times I've purged something out of my house, there's only been once that I wish I could get something back."

I happened to mention to Cube that *the one thing* I'd gotten rid of that I'd regretted was an early copy of Stephen King's The Bachman Books. See, in the time since I donated my copy, Stephen King has removed one of the stories from the collection and will no longer allow it to be printed. The story, Rage, details a school shooting, and was written back in the day when such things ONLY happened in horror novels. When they started happening for real, he understandably yanked the story.

Not that I remember it being a great story or anything, but I was curious and wanted to read it again and found I couldn't get a hold of a copy. So, Cube (who gets my vote for Queen and Guardian of the Universe) sent me hers, for FREE!

So, thanks, Cube, you've totally made my day!

Jen and Bachman Books

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Monday, November 19, 2007

Monday, Monday...

 
can't trust that day...

OK, it's not that I can't trust Monday, just that it came with too much baggage left from the weekend! I had a migraine yesterday, one of the really bad ones You know, where you're laying there in the dark questioning whether you actually want to live or not. So, I accomplished nothing. To add to that, we ran out of dishwasher detergent, and around the horde you REALLY need to keep up with the dishwashwer or there's just no hope. So, today I'm playing catch up.

We saw Into the Wild on Saturday. I had found the book to be very moving, and I had high hopes for the movie. I think they did a good job with it. The problem with the story is that the main character is an interesting person, but it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for him. He's self-centered, arrogant, and completely lacking in empathy. But, both the book and the film are able to show him, warts and all, yes still give you some insight into his actions. So, I'm glad we went.

Also, it was just a gorgeous film, definitely worth paying to see on the big screen.

I don't bash the public schools, even thought we don't send our kids there. But, this MadTV skit gave me some giggles:

I love Schoolhouse Rock, and I thought this was pretty well done.

Better go, I've got more dishes to do...

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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Lucky Me!

 
MIL is coming to watch the kids, and Davin and I are going on a date!

Wow, what a post. Could anything be more boring than two old married people going to dinner and a movie? Well, I guess NO post would be more boring, but not by much.

Sorry, I'll do better in the future.

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Friday, November 16, 2007

Reading, reading!

 
I can't blog a lot today. I'm leading a discussion for my homeschool group (the parents, not the kids) of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings tonight and I want to quickly go through it again today. So, I'm going to pull a Bill Cosby for breakfast (ie, feed the kids chocolate cake) and get reading!

What do you think would be a good book for a discussion group?

When I asked the other day about who you all thought should be on any upcoming coins for circulation, these are the answers I got:
Zigggy Stardust
Boy George
Abe Lincoln (for the penny, he said)
The First Ladies
Shirley Temple
Spock
Ms. Frizzle
Albus Dumbledore
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Francis C. Flaherty
Robert R. Scott

Thanks you guys, you are all so cool!

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Mint-y Fresh!

 
Yesterday we toured the United States Mint, right here in Denver.

When you were a kid, were you confused that it was called a mint, but they didn't make mints there? Or, am I the only one? Also, I used to watch the soaps with my step-mom and think that Scotch must be so great, because I thought it must taste like butterscotch. Maybe I'm just weird that way.

Anyway, I learned a few interesting things while I was there. You know the dollar coins? (Is it just me, or do they look like bus tokens? I did not approve that design, no one ever asks me this important stuff.) They're going to make one for each of the presidents, at least up through Ford. Also, they're going to change the design of the penny for something-about-Lincoln's-anniversary-or-something. Sorry, my mind was wandering a bit. But, I thought it was cool that they're going to mint different pennies, and I thought I would at least pass that little bit on.

They're almost done with the quarters. They'll end next year with Alaska and Hawaii.

I'm wondering what they are planning to do next. It would be a shame to go back to the same old designs after all this neat stuff. I felt such a let down after the run of Bicentennial Quarters when we went back to the plain old eagle on the reverse, didn't you?

I was thinking that maybe we could all vote and get all sorts of people put on our coins. Why isn't there a coin for Harriet Tubman or Charles Lindbergh, for instance? Or, we could just go all pop culture and get some Elvis Presley quarters. I'd love to see an Aladdin Sane-era David Bowie on the dollar coin, wouldn't you? And, we couldn't go wrong by putting Stephen King out there, in my opinion. Heck, they do stuff like that on stamps all the time, why not currency? Just a thought, I say let the people decide.

Who would you like to see on a coin?

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Not Dead!

 
Unlike most of the folks on the Titanic! I know, that was a painful segueway...it will make sense in a minute.

It's just been a crazy run of migraines and field trips here at Casa Horde. The migraines are unfortunate, and the less said about them the better, but the field trips have been cool!

Yesterday, we were able to get in to see the Titanic Artifact Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They were showing a lot of the stuff they brought up from the wreckage of the Titanic. It was AWESOME, in every sense of the word. I'm hoping to go back on a day that isn't so packed. Homeschooling families are pretty smart, but none of us realized that yesterday was a school holiday. Duh!

When you enter the exhibit, they issue you a "boarding pass," a card with the information of someone who actually sailed on the Titanic. Then, at the end, you can check the huge list and see if your person survived or not. I was issued the card for Mrs. Margaret Ann Watson Ford, a mother of 5 travelling in 3rd Class. Even though she was in 3rd Class, I held out hope for her that she would have made it into one of the life boats. That is, until I read the little biography given for her on the card. It says, "Margaret had been deserted by her husband after giving birth to their fifth child and had difficulty supporting her family. When she heard of her eldest daughter's success in the United States, Margaret decided to take her family there." Yeah, she's going down, you just know it. I was right, too, her whole family was lost. Poor thing.

Oh, and if we all end up with the plague (again), you'll know where we got it. One of the things we all loved about the exhibit was a giant iceberg you were allowed to touch. It was made of real ice, and was taller than all of us. We were all running our hands over it, and talking about how cold it must have been in the water, when I looked and saw a little boy LICKING it! Right then, I realized that this behavior had probably been going on all day, and here we were rubbing our hands all over this big germy mess! I'm sure a lot of kids couldn't resist licking it, it was actually pretty tempting.

Then, I started to get the giggles. All I could picture in my head was someone on the deck of the Titanic, who couldn't evacuate to the lifeboats because he'd gotten his tongue stuck on the fateful iceberg! In my mind, it looked sort of like this:
tongue stuck

I'm not sure where this exhibit will travel to next, but if it comes near you it's a definite Must See! I've got to run, we've got another field trip today. See you tomorrow!

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