Peace and Quiet, I Think

I haven't gotten a phone call yet. If I were to receive a phone call from Bigfoot, he would come home to the Apocalypse of groundings. Why? Because he would be done in for the last time.

In translation:

Bigfoot is off at Washington DeMolay Convention this weekend. He is spending four days with almost 1000 teenage boys from around Washington State. Events for this weekend range from official business and election of state officers to spending all night with XBoxes and Wiis. This is a hyperactivity breeding ground. Allowing almost 1000 boys to concoct mischief and mayhem in a hotel can be dangerous business. I stayed home, where there is safety and protection from the wild animals.

There are certain things I expect out of this.

1. I do expect him to stay up all night all weekend.
2. I do expect him to sleep all the way home from being crazy enough to stay up all night all weekend long.
3. I fully expect him to run laps around the hotel should he be caught with an energy drink in hand. I have made it known to his adviser dad that running off unnecessary sugar and caffeine from energy drinks will not take long. Bigfoot is a fast runner.
4. I half expect him to come home a better person with higher moral values. I only half expect this simply due to the fact that I can never know what to expect from Bigfoot.
5. Most importantly, I expect him to have an excellent time being a twelve year old boy running a muck along side almost 1000 other teenage boys.

Beadgirl is reveling in this joyful four days without her big brother. On the flip side, life without a big brother for a few days has generated requirement of the room cleaning to end all room cleaning. Never again, according to her mom and dad, shall her room ever become this big of a chore. If it shall become the tremendous chore she has made it, all fun activities shall become forfeit and her parents will engage in the privilege of cleaning for her. Engagement of this parental right may involve, but is not limited to the removal of toys, beads, and other nonessential wants.

She has had her fun. Her aunt took her out to a park for disc golf yesterday. I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow, but we'll make sure to have some good quality time.

As for me and my Bigboy, we have four days of peace and quiet. There is no fighting amongst siblings. There is none of the usual only half of our regular dose of whining from the mouths of children. Ah, the relaxation of having a child out of the house for the weekend.

There might be peace and quiet for a while. So long as I'm not blaring TobyMac on the stereo.

In Loving Memory

Yesterday afternoon, after several months living with lung cancer, our Grandfather, John Arnold Hazel laid down his working tools and traveled to that undiscovered country. He no longer carries the pain cancer inflicts upon man. His love for his family is well cherished and returned to him now in heaven.

Although we will miss his presence here on earth, we praise his being received by our maker. His life was well lived and Godly. We lift up to God, Grandpa's life, lived in His honor. May he continue his blessings to the world in spirit through God's will.

Lent is Over! I Made It!

He Is Risen! He has indeed risen from the tomb. He sacrificed his life for the benefit of humanity. His rising has brought the promise of salvation from the evils that desire our hearts. Our gratitude to Him is shown through our choice to dedicate ourselves to his counsel, guidance, grace and love. Live His will through our gift of free will from Him and receive His redemption.

Well, I made it all the way to Easter Sunday without any sugar. I knew I could if I tried without giving up. Giving up sugar was a major challenge for me, as you may know from previous postings. I overcame not only sugar, but I lost ten pounds in the process. I'm proud of myself. I filled my Lenten promise this year. I haven't made a Lenten sacrifice for several years. This time, I did it fully and completely. I can overcome, and I did.

Sorry this is so belated. I've been working part time for the circulation department of our local newspaper. My primary job is to redeliver mistakes and check up on carriers. We're going through an adjustment period over the next several weeks. I haven't had a regular "job" for over four years at this point. Early hours requiring conscious efforts need time for adjustment. I haven't had some of teh energy I'd like for blogging.

Bigfoot has BIG FEET!

I've learned...

Kids grow. Tall kids grow like weeds. At one point, I had nicknamed our kids Weed and Feed. Feed one, the other grows like a Weed. Which one was which changed on a regular basis. One would eat insanely, the other would grow insanely. Then, after a new shoe size in one, they'd switch. Both Bigfoot and Beadgirl are above their height growth chart. Bigfoot in particular, is way over his growth chart. So are his feet.

I just bought him size thirteen shoes earlier this week. I only bought his size twelve shoes in September. Actually, six months is a long time for him to wear one shoe size. I replaced shoes in December due to wear, not from growth. I got lucky this time around. I replace shoes resulting from growth every three months. Five months without foot growth is a first. We haven't seen this in almost four years.

I wonder how long this shoe size will last?

Green Tissue Paper, Coming Back to Haunt Me

My green tissue paper issues almost rose from the dead last Friday. Don't get me wrong, the flags came out wonderful. I'm glad I decided to use fabric instead of tissue paper for them. Trying to starch them wasn't so friendly.

Starch has not been seen by my iron for over three years. Of course, I forgot how much of the stuff sticks to the heat plate of the iron. As I was starching these three-inch flags, they were sticking to the iron, removable only with utensils such as forks and table knives. In the end, the flags turned out wonderful.

Stuffing them into the flower boxes was the issue now at hand. Craft sticks hold in floral foam quite well, so long as nothing covers the foam. I can't put these decorations on display with foam showing. I didn't have enough moss for all six boxes, and there was no time left to shop. Tissue paper would work. I need green tissue paper for these boxes, I thought . I'll call Kevin and ask if he can pick some up. Nope, he wouldn't be available to stop in Silverdale for green tissue paper. Tony works in Silverdale. I'm sure he can stop for some. Yeah right. He got the message AFTER he left Silverdale. Great, time for plan “b,” use something else. I guess I can go out for the stuff I need after dinner. I'll just stay later and stuff the boxes after I get green tissue paper.

I began to assess my situation with these decorations after dinner. I realized then, I had white and orange tissue paper. I never needed green tissue paper in the first place.


Orange tissue paper turned out just fine. Unfortunately, NO ONE took any pictures at dinner, and my phone was dead. I had to bring this one home for photos. I really must learn to not forget my camera.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all. May the luck of the Irish be with you today and always. Enjoy your day in which we celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick. I found some interesting websites on Saint Patrick's Day. Just a few of them include:
The History Channel Online. They have a page dedicated to St. Patrick's Day.
Wilstar.com has a section on the holiday.
Teachers.net has some lesson plans here.

We won't be dining on corned beef and cabbage tonight. I'm not entirely into cultural celebrations during the week. This is especially true when Dancing With the Stars is opening season six tonight. There is no time tonight for Irish food. There will be time, however, for my tush to plant itself on the sofa and drool in front of the television.

Instead, we celebrated Saturday night, we dined on Irish stew and soda bread. I loved this stew, made by my friends, Kevin and Tony. Tony stayed up late Friday night roasting lamb all night long for this stew. Friends were many and fun Saturday night. For the past two years, we've served corned beef and cabbage at this particular dinner. Irish stew this year was a delightful change.

Enjoy your holiday. If you choose to drink; do so RESPONSIBLY! Don't forget, HAVE FUN!

Science Lesson Anyone?

My thumb had a science lesson today in motion. As of the time I'm writing this, it still has not forgotten todays lesson. We spent the day in Olympia cleaning Grandpa's house. Don't worry, he hasn't passed away yet. Some of the regular weekly chores have become more of a chore than they used to be. We spent several hours today scrubbing kitchen counters, doing laundry, cleaning windows, and scrubbing bathrooms.

The spare bathroom is where our little science lesson takes place. In this bathroom, lived a very dusty vent. Grandpa has lung cancer and is living on oxygen. Dust in this house is bad. We were on a mission to remove dust. This vent needed dusting badly. What's the best thing to remove dust from a vent without taking it down and washing it? How about a vacuum cleaner? This shouldn't be too hard. Just run the vacuum hose over the vent and its done.

It works just fine if you can get the vacuum hose detached from the floor runner. This is how we come to our little science lesson in the laws of motion.

When the vacuum hose has inertia, outside force is required to set it in motion. In this case, my hand was the outside force. Remember, once an object, such as a hand holding a vacuum hose, is in motion, it stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, such as the vacuum motor itself. Finally, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a hand, holding a hose hits a vacuum motor, the motor gives off an action of equal force to that of the hand holding the hose. This is why my thumb now has two red marks that will very likely bruise by tomorrow morning.