Faith drew Sean a comic book starring the Sculpey Glees! Click through to read it!
Recently in clicky Category
In my ongoing attempts to scale back my Internet habit I have switched back to Firefox from Google Chrome so I can use the Time Tracker add-on for Firefox. My goal is less than two hours of Internet time a day, which sounds simultaneously decadent and difficult. Decadent because, come on. Two hours? When there are people who walk miles a day to get water and wood to cook with? Poor widdle me, wif my two widdle hours! Difficult because, ack! Only two hours!
Time Tracker doesn’t track while you’re idle (mine considers ‘idle’ to be 30 seconds without mouse movement, the default is 60) and can be set to not track particular sites at all (I don’t track Pandora or this blog server, for instance.)
If I can’t do this the next alternative for me is to not have an exclusive computer, and put this one into communal use. I don’t kick the kids off the computer unless I have to look something up like a recipe or a phone number, and I give it right back. The interesting thing about that scenario is the lack of stress involved. I’m much more likely to be jonesing for my computer when it’s MY computer, and not in use unless I’m using it. When I shared a computer with the kids before I got this one I didn’t resent it at all, even though there were days when I didn’t get on. Maybe I should just do that.
Is this all part of the bargaining addicts do rather than quit for real? Probably. But maybe I’m not addicted so much as a heavy user. If I can control my habit, then I’ll know. If I can’t then I’ll deal with it then. Gulp.
Here’s a guy who has asked himself the same questions: Slate columnist James Sturm is halfway through his four-month Internet hiatus. After the first shock it seems to be largely a non-event. Could it be that easy? Offline: What happened when I gave up the Internet.
I’m tall for a woman (I’m 5’10”, or 178 cm) and Sean is 5’9” (175 cm). Our kids are all normal to tall, but some of them are very tall. Among the girls, Gloria is the 99th percentile for height and is predicted to be 5’10”-5’11”. Faith is very tall right now but will likely end up about 5’8”. Trixie is slated for 5’9”. Abby is supposed to be the shortest, at around 5’6” (168 cm).
The boys. Bede is predicted to be 6’1” (185 cm), and Gilbert is the beanpole, likely to be 6’2”-6’3” (190 cm).
It was fun to predict these!
The summer reading program at Half Price Books is underway! Kids 14 and under can get a $3 card for Half Price Books EVERY WEEK from June 1st through July 31! That’s nine weeks, guys, or $27 bucks!
Your kid (or you, if you have a non-writing kid) have to fill out a log showing at least 15 minutes of reading time each day, but it’s not an annoying log like in fourth grade.
We’ll get $162 in free books chez Glee, and since it’s Half Price Books, it’s actually $324. Ohhhhh yeah!
Here’s my preliminary list of Middle Ages or so historical fiction for middle grades. We’ll start a high-tide period with some or all of these in the next month or so.
(This is just novels. We’ll also have nonfiction and some other books. When I get the final list compiled, I’ll post it too. All links go to the books’ pages on Amazon.)
400s Between the Forest and the Hills
597 Augustine Came to Kent
781 Son of Charlemagne
800s Beorn the Proud
1100s Red Falcons Of Tremoine
1167 The Red Keep
1170 If All the Swords in England
1171 The Hidden Treasure of Glaston
1200s The Magna Charta
1200s Adam of the Road
1200s Catherine, Called Birdy
1381 Crispin: The Cross of Lead
1400s The Door in the Wall
Tabitha, you gotta watch this.
No, no, this isn’t going to be my long-awaited picture post. Instead, it’s about picture books! On Twitter, Melissa Wiley mentioned the favorites at her house right now, and I started to reply with ours but quickly hit the 140 limit.
Gloria’s favorite is unquestionably “the big book!”, the HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics. According to Amazon, I purchased it a year and a half ago and I don’t think a day has gone by since that it hasn’t been read from. It is a great book, and a steal compared to purchasing the titles individually. Unlike many compendiums of kids’ books these are not abridged in word or illustration, nor are the illustrations reduced in size. The paper is heavy and holds up to repeated (and repeated!) readings, although I have had to tape the binding and use a bit of glue to hold the covers to the front papers. It consists of:
Goodnight Moon
Caps for Sale
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Crictor
A Baby Sister for Frances
Leo the Late Bloomer
William’s Doll
If You Give A Mouse a Cookie
George Shrinks
Baby Says
From Head to Toe
Pete’s a Pizza
(The only one I could honestly do without is the very outdated William’s Doll. It introduced the idea that it was weird for boys to have dolls to my children which is what the story was trying to prevent. Heavy-handed writing is heavy-handed.)
Trixie is VERY into the whole If You Give A… series. Her favorite is If You Give a Pig a Party, but really any of them will do. Have you ever noticed the kids in those books look dismayed pretty quickly as they deal with the capricous whims of their charges? Heh heh. Welcome to my world, buddy.
Gilbert likes the Pigeon series, especially Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Gilbert has the melodramatic nature of many five-year olds, and he simultaneously feels for the pigeon, who just wants to drive the bus, fer cryin’ out loud, and yet loves beyond reason the power of telling him NO. Great, great book.
Bede is all about Seuss and Eastman right now. His decoding skills are mad but his ability to follow a plot is significantly delayed, so he really likes books like The Cat in the Hat and similar. A favorite of his is The BIG Blue Book of Beginner Books, which has six stories in it:
Put Me in the Zoo
A Fly Went By
Are You My Mother?
Go, Dog. Go!
The Best Nest
It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny
Again, a steal to get them all for one price. Bede likes to read them all, out loud, to me and Gloria. My favorite is Go, Dog. Go! but I am also fond of A Fly Went By.
So, yeah, busted that 140 character limit pretty hard, huh?
HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics
Watch Hamlet online! David Tennant! Patrick Stewart! It is so awesome yall. SO AWESOME.
was the O’Melays, who were the visiting friends! I didn’t want to out them until they got back to their lovely farm. It was such a delight to finally meet Tabitha who I have known for almost seven years. The kids all got along swimmingly. Tabitha’s children are generally between my kids in age: Tristan is one year younger than Abby, Kassi is nine months older than Gilbert, Toly is nine months younger than Trixie, and Rome is nine months younger than Gloria. This meant that there were multiple playmates for each O’Melay. Tristan flitted between the older girls and Gilbert and Kassi played with Gloria and Faith. Toly and Bede wrestled with each other like puppies, and Rome floated around the edges.
Everyone got a mild cold and stuffy nose but the only one really sidelined by it was Tristan, who spiked a fever too. Poor dude!
Overall the visit was wonderful. They came down so Karl could build a wall in our new garage to partition it off for Sean’s office, and that was accomplished. Karl is amazing. Tabitha and I made food, as previously noted.
I also got other gifts: Sean got me The Complete Sherlock Holmes
So all told, a Very Happy Birthday!
