My daughter is lucky to have a great grandmother, although she has only seen her a few times and my daughter is still too young to understand relationships. Her great grandmother is celebrating her 80th birthday today. I think it is amazing that we have so many generations of people alive today.
Healthy Snacks
I need to find some new and exciting healthy snacks. I know the standard fruits and veggies but, what else can we eat that is healthy, nutritionally dense, and tastes great? I know there are low calories snacks marketed everywhere but I dont’ really want to fill up on popcorn or rice cakes and crackers.
I like to dip my food. Maybe I can find some healthy dips to use with some of the normal boring snacks to jazz things up a bit. Maybe if I just use some bright colors in the food we eat it will seem more exciting. I bet I could mix beets in with hummus and have a pretty colored, bright pink, and delicious dip. I’ll do some playing around with ideas and see what works for my family.
Do Your Best on the Test
Now that school is back in session it’s much quieter around the neighborhood during the day. All of the kids are back in school and filling their brains with a wealth of knowledge. Of course with all of the new things they learn they are also tested on it.
In order to get the children to do their best and perform, a lot of teachers are starting to provide test taking incentives. One of the neighbor kids came home and showed off some fancy pencils and bookmarks. She said her teacher gave them to the whole class. It reminded me of a time when I was in school and we had to take the yearly standardized tests. The test was called the CAP Test. Our teachers gave us all a decorated baseball cap and called them our “Thinking Caps”. We got to wear them during the times we were taking the tests. I think the entire class was totally convinced that our “thinking caps” had super powers and made us smarter.
I wonder if the neighbor’s teacher told her class that the pencils had super powers and would help them get the right answers to the test questions. I’ll have to ask her when she comes home from school today.
Fall Festivals
I’ve already seen some fall festivals advertised in my community. I can’t wait to bring the girls out to the pumpkin patch and have them wander aimlessly around in search of the “perfect” pumpkin. I’m also looking forward to those yummy seasonal treats like pumpkin spice lattes. MMM MMM Yummy!!! I know they only come around one time a year so I make sure I get my fill while they are here.
BIG Screen
We finally went out and got a fancy new big screen tv. It’s an HDTV even has 3D. I’ve never seen a tv with soo many ports on it to plug in various items. I swear this thing could run our house it is soo darn high tech. My husband is totally infatuated with the thing. I bet there will be a permanent indent in the couch where he sits now. I just hope he is willing to share with the rest of us. He wanted to watch the big games and fights on it so we decided we could splurge a little since I made a little extra money with some of the junk I sold. I feel like we finally belong in the 21st century now.
What’s for lunch?
Every day we go through the same thing. What’s for lunch? I decided to start planning out our family lunches so I don’t have to waste an extra 10-15 minutes in the morning when I pack lunches for everyone. I made an excel spreadsheet and will add to it weekly so I have a database of all the lunches we have had. When I can’t think of something I can go back and see what we’ve had in the past. I know everyone is getting sick of the same things over and over again so I’m also doing some easy recipe searches to add to our lunch repertoire.
Christmas Shopping
Yes… I’m already thinking about Christmas Shopping this year. I hate having to wait until the last minute to get everything and feel completely rushed. I’m going to go hit some sales this weekend. My goal is to shop for one person each day. We’re only doing the kids and our siblings this year.
I think it might even be a fun idea to have all of us do a gift exchange between the grown ups. Maybe if we all put our name in the pool and set a limit of oh maybe $75 we could each get something really nice. Oh I think I’ll work on that. I know there are random number generators. I can have everyone fill out their information and mail it to me in an envelope with a number written on it. I can then use the number generator to help me match people up. I’ll have to work out a way to make sure no on gets him or herself though. I guess that’s something I’ll bring up at dinner tonight.
10 years Ago
10 years ago our country was attacked. Many people lost their lives on that day. I’ll never forget all of the heroes of that horrific event. Today is a day of remembrance. It’s not a holiday to celebrate in a normal sense. We can celebrate how we have come together because of these attacks. It’s very sad that it took something like this for our people to work together without regard to politic party, race, or gender.
Trucker to be?
My nephew called me last night. He told me that he wants to be a truck driver when he grows up. He said he loves talking to his neighbor when he comes home from one of his truck driving jobs. He is always bringing something different home for him and his own kids.
Last night he brought him a collection of metal spoons that had the names of all of the United States on them. It seems like a strange thing to bring an 11 year old but he loved it. He said he would use it to practice his homework. He has to be able to name all of the fifty states. So I guess it turned out to be a good gift after all.
Anyway, he told me that he’s really excited and that his neighbor told him their are always drivers wanted posters up at his main base. He seems to think that this will also be the case once he is old enough to drive and get a job. I guess we’ll have to wait a few years and find out. I wonder what job he’ll be interested in next. Just last week he wanted to be an astronaut and fly to the moon like Neil Armstrong.
Happy Endings
Have you ever noticed that all the children’s movies have happy endings? They seem to have a formula of introducing the main characters, then bringing in a bad guy, the heroes setting out to save the day, and the good guy gets the girl.
I don’t know if this is because people think children need to be protected from realities or if they are just an easy formula to write into a script. So many of the really old children’s shows were straight forward about who was bad and why. The hero always swooped in and with a few struggles, overcomes the bad guys. The people who suffer deserve it. True love always wins.
I wish real life was that easy.