2 Hour Delay

Over the years I have been learning to accept change a bit better. It has always been a weakness of mine. Although I have improved considerably there are still things that throw me off. Today is one of those days. We went to Detroit yesterday to pick up my mom from the airport! She had a positive traveling experience and everything went quite well. This morning we woke to some fall fog as I call it. It is one thing that makes me think of the time I spent in New England. Morning mist and fog in the fall just brings a real feeling of autumn. Yesterday there was a similar scene and the beautiful changing colors on the trees around us and particularly behind our house were picturesque as the fog began to fade away. I was looking forward to another similar morning.

As we pulled to the end of our driveway and I peered down the street to check for traffic I realized that the fog this morning was not anything like it was yesterday. It was quite thick. I couldn’t see very far. A brief thought occurred to me. Wouldn’t it be funny if school was delayed for this? We got to the school and as I passed the teachers parking lot I knew my brief thought was more of a reality. Sure enough the sign was up, “2 hr delay”. OH well more time with Grandma! After being home for a bit Dan wanted to look at the website to see it actually say 2 hr delay. But when I pulled it up – SCHOOL IS CLOSED! Hmm I guess we are starting this routine a bit early this year. Last year I think we had a total of 14 closures. I hope this will not be a repeat performance! Right now it is 10:30am and I’m looking out into the lovely trees and BLUE SKY! Where is the fog now! OH that’s right, its September, the fog burned off. I know that those calls are tough and I’m glad I’m not the decision maker. But one can’t help but wonder if the final decision maker was thinking, hmm its Friday and a day off sounds really great.

I guess we will ALL make cookies today. I need to make cookies for the church kids for Sunday. They are presenting the program in our Sacrament meeting. Since I’m the chorister it is weighing on my mind. They have done very well and sound great. The last few weeks as we have been reviewing the songs I had a little incentive going. For each song they are performing they could earn an ingredient to make cookies, once they sang it the best I knew they could. So they earned the ingredients and they will each get a big chocolate chip cookie. YUM – sounds good to me right now too!

Constitution Day

I think if you look at the Hallmark website you can find something to celebrate on almost every day of the year. We do celebrate much but there is one thing that I honestly never remember celebrating in my 40+ years and that is Constitution Day. Maybe we did and I’m just too old to remember. I do remember learning about the preamble while watching saturday cartoons and seeing American Rock. Who can forget any of these great cartoon teaching moments! So Constitution Day was celebrated at the boy’s elementary school yesterday. I was invited to attend because Dan was chosen from his class along with two other 4^th graders (one from each class) to give a small speaking part about Constitution Day.

It was kind of a fun short little assembly. They had a few cub scouts carry in the flag, did the pledge of allegiance, we sang the Star-Spangled Banner, and heard the short messages from the 4^th graders. The principal spoke as did the music teacher who is a big supporter of The National Anthem Project. I had heard her reference this before but caught more about it. She said there was a survey that showed two out of three Americans don’t know the words to the national anthem. I guess in my little world that is hard to believe. I went to a high school whose mascot was a BRAVE which was an honor and not some disrespect against Native Americans. I say that because we lived through years of arguing and banter over Chief Illiniwek at UIUC during graduate school days. I know that this argument over school mascots is a heated one in many areas but for me and my personal opinion it was an honor and a way to remind me of those who inhabited this country long before we ever arrived. Anyway, I cannot sing the national anthem without thinking of my High School days where we would sing this before any game or major event. Because we were the Braves and the anthem ends with “and the home of the brave” we always turned it into “and the home of the BRAVES!!!!” and would shout with great enthusiasm. The moment I remember most often was a football game where right on cue as we sang out BRAVES a Native American student came out of the darkness of the end zone at full speed on a white horse and he was dressed in full Native American regalia. He rode the length of the field and it was very moving. I’m kind of an emotional person but it gives me chills just remembering it.

Anyway, bottom line is I have a hard time comprehending how someone could actually not know the words to the National Anthem. Although when I have caught a bit of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” I realize that a lot of adults don’t know things I think are common knowledge. (not that I know everything).

Yesterday was fun to participate in a small celebration of our constitution. I know that bringing up Native Americans and our constitution and where we are today with this country could conjure up some really strong feelings. It is not my intentions to stir the pot. I just thought it was fun to spend some time at the school and see one son at the microphone while the other one was spinning around the floor on his back. Granted when he noticed his brother up front he got quite excited and told his teacher “HEY that is my brother!”

Science and Politics [/\/ick]

I've been reading a book called "Corrupted Science" by John Grant (2007). As a scientist, I read things like this to keep me on my toes, and to remind me to be honest when I interpret the results of experiments. Corrupted science often happens when scientists let their humanity overcome their objectivity. It can happen to any scientist who is not careful.

The last chapter, titled "The political corruption of science", begins with the following paragraph:

"Since the dawn of the 20th century, there has been an upsurge in the ideological corruption of science by those in political power. the three classic cases over the past century are Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, and George W. Bush's America.The third of these is treated in slightly more detail here not just because it is current but because its ideological spread has arguably been on the widest scale, affecting not one or two sciences but many. It is also, because of its assault on climate science, potentially the most globally dangerous in human history. This should not be read as reflective of any political attitude the author might have for or against other activities of the Bush Administration; the deliberate governmental corruption of a nation's science is of such parlous importance that it transcends all political allegiances or antipathies."

Mr. Grant has said what I feel in a most concise way. While some may claim that comparing the US with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is spurious, when viewed purely from the viewpoint of scientific corruption, the comparison holds. Suppression of real scientific results or promotion of pseudoscience to serve political or ideological ends is the common thread. Scientific truth is not determined by elections, but by facts. Science is not democratic. Two diametrically opposed theories cannot both be true, and scientists do not vote on which one to accept. Experiments are performed, data is analyzed and interpreted and results are presented. Eventually incorrect theories are discarded and the truth which was always there is discovered.

Keep science free.

Soup on Saturday Club

Enough discussion has been generated about references I made about a small project we have been working on, that I must simply blog to share with all. Earlier this summer our oldest son who is 9 ½ came up with an idea. Now he has always been full of ideas and creativity is one thing he is not lacking. He wanted to put up a Soup Shack in front of our house to sell soup as opposed to a lemonade stand. I just can’t envision this shack and I’m not so sure I would be fond of a lemonade stand either. Trying to be good parents and not squash his creativity we tried to discuss it in more realistic terms, thinking the idea might eventually die. It didn’t. He really liked the idea and it continued to surface as the summer progressed. One thing that frustrated him was that he wanted to do it NOW. But we kept saying that summer is not a time to try and make money selling soup. I just couldn’t picture myself driving down a road and seeing a sign for SOUP in July while sweat is dripping down my back from loading groceries into the hot car. Granted this summer has been fantastic so that didn’t happen much. I wouldn’t have pulled over to buy any, but I must admit I don’t pull over for lemonade either even though I sold it as a kid in front of my house.

Each time the topic surfaced again we discussed it further and slowly developed a plan for him. There was plenty of opportunity to talk about many aspects of having a business as well as his ultimate purpose for doing so (which he is still trying to figure out as are we). The plan included a manageable effort in that he would make soup on the first Saturday of each month for four months and sell by pre-orders. We picked the best four months of the year, September through December. We decided on a small variety of soups and then came up with what we hoped would be catchy names for them. Here are the soups:

September 6th Harvest Creamy Tomato
October 4th Farmers Market Vegetable
November 1st Bountiful Chicken Noodle
December 6th Festive Cheesy Potato

We intentionally started off with only telling a few people so we weren’t overwhelmed. We had just the right amount of orders yesterday and enjoyed making the soup together. We figure if we are going to the effort to teach a few things with this project we might as well really pack in the lessons. I made a spreadsheet for him to track orders, expenses, incoming money etc. It will then automatically figure his profit, how much tithing he owes. The amount he pays for tithing is 10% and he will also save an additional 10% to donate to a charity of his choice. He is still thinking about what that will be. The remainder will go to his education and missionary fund savings. It’s not like he is rolling in the dough but it’s a great place to start learning that every penny earned has a value and how to properly spend and save.

Now that you have heard more than enough about our fun new Soup on Saturday Club here is the most interesting part of all. Our son actually does not like soup. He has begun to gain more of an appreciation for it as we have tried recipes for him to taste test. So he is getting there but he would much prefer a can of Chicken Noodle. I would much rather have home made. So while we figure out why he has such interest in running a soup operation when he doesn’t even like soup that well I will sing the jingle: hmm hmm good, hmm hmm good, that’s what Daniel’s soup is hmm hmm good. Maybe someday he will agree.

No tears today – just smiles!

Part of me felt a tinge of guilt this morning while we did the first day of kindergarten routine with Sam. Mothers were all teary eyed and fawning over their ‘lil ones. Our Sam is no ‘lil one and unlike Dan’s first day of kindergarten where I was a complete emotional mess there was not a single tear from me today. A friend of mine in Canada has a son who Sam was friends with when we lived in Illinois. He started kindergarten today as well. His mom posted a blog for Kindergarten Eve. I LOVE something she said and hope she won’t mind me quoting her. She said “I have spent most of my waking hours for the past 5.5 years with my intense, inquisitive boy. I feel ready for some of his curiosity to be satisfied by someone else.” I have to say that this dear friend is a wonderful mother who has tirelessly spent so much time and effort to help each of her children with their individual needs. She is so creative and willing to go the extra mile to help her children. So I thrill for her that she will have a small break so to speak. But she put it so much more eloquently. Sam might be described with slightly different words. He can be intense and inquisitive. I think he is also an extrovert, uniquely creative, very excited about things generally and full of strong emotions. I agree that it doesn’t matter that he is my baby and I won’t ever do the first day of kindergarten again. I was just overjoyed this morning to allow someone else the opportunity to satisfy him. Three cheers for all the Kindergarten teachers, aides, lunchroom workers, custodians, principals and all those who watch over our big little guys as they learn the ropes and sprout their wings at school.

Labor Day – the beginning of the BEST 4

I was glad Labor Day fell on September 1^st and a Monday this year. We were refreshed from a weekend and had a wonderful day with the boys riding the rail trail, playing in the spray park at the end of the biking and hitting up Barnes & Noble with some gift cards! I was relaxed enough to take stock of how important September first has become to me. It isn’t really that it was Labor Day (not to diminish the holiday) but September 1^st is the ushering in of the best four months of the year! I sometimes feel like a little kid as autumn approaches. Sure some might think that my reason for loving the last four months of the year is for the holidays. That does play a part but isn’t the entire picture. September has been a favorite because it is also my birthday month (towards the very end). As a child I remember beginning school and feeling kind of smart and thinking I was an entire year younger than everyone else in my class. For example in Kindergarten I was 4 (and it showed) for the first month and unlike my poor niece (in law) who would often have her birthday fall on the first day of school or close to it and kind of be overlooked (how sad!!), I would get to be one of the first to celebrate their birthday with a new class of friends because we had settled into the routine. Even when I went away to college I remember being so proud of the fact I was only 17 (again it showed). Between the thrill of a new school year and my birthday I always loved September.

(pictures from our backyard in Michigan in 2007)

October is usually the best time for really enjoying autumn, although it depends on where you live. Living in Northern Maine I remember crisp mornings and changing colors earlier than I had been accustomed. I noticed a little bit of that here in Michigan last year as well and this year I have also seen some changing colors here and there but it’s far from full bloom. This is good because I like this to last as long as possible. I know many who find fall kind of depressing because winter is around the corner. But I’m much more of a cool weather person than warm weather, thus why I kind of ruled out anything below the Mason Dixon line for Nick to apply for work. OK so maybe I’m also just too much of a Yankee. Having lived in the Midwest now for almost 10 years I have grown a fondness for the ugly dried out corn and bean fields and watching combines roll through the field kicking up a dust storm and un-earthing the mice. Watching Nick and Dan, when he was about 3, riding in a combine of a friend was a real thrill. Just years before that I had no clue what a combine was. There are always fun farm stores, apple and pumpkin picking, hayrides, corn mazes and fresh pressed cider available. It is like magic for me. I do have to say that I still miss my friend Genni Lott’s fresh pressed apple juice back in Utah. It is the BEST I have ever and probably ever will have. We would watch her make it for us fresh.

Last year I bought a cute little scarecrow to decorate the front porch. I had to capture this picture of it because I can’t tell you how many times that scarecrow scared me! It kept falling and peeping into our window. It was really funny but not when you thought something was staring in at you.

Although Nick is not a fan of Halloween I love it. I just think it’s a fun time to be a kid. In fact the first year we were married we lived in some apartments that were prime target for lots of trick-or-treaters. I had the candy bowl ready and one of the first knocks at the door was a cute little girl and her dad. It was probably her first time out. After we did the routine she turns around and said “daddy that man scared me”. Yes Nick was at the door with me and NO he was not in costume. Not sure why he was so scary to her. It must have been the beard, such a heathen thing living in Utah. As a parent I don’t enjoy the candy aspect of Halloween and each year struggle to think of something unique and fun that isn’t just sugar. I’m not always successful. Any ideas for this year, please pass them along? By the way the kid's elementary school STILL calls it Halloween and actually does a parade around the neighborhood in full costumes! It was so fun last year.

Of course by the end of October stores are already putting Halloween candy and paraphernalia on clearance to make way for Christmas. But let’s not overlook Thanksgiving wedged in between these two money makers. I guess the stores make their money on food more than anything for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that I think I have been sick in one way or another around Thanksgiving more often than not I still enjoy the holiday. I remember as a little girl having a horrible ear ache and my uncle making a house call to look in my ear and prescribe some warmed oil type drops. I didn’t understand why I had to feel so rotten on such a great day. As I got older it was mostly a horrible cold or flu. I ALWAYS get a flu shot these days. But if I say that is paying off I will no doubt get sick this year so I won’t jinx myself. I love this time of year so much that I have a large quote on our wall, thanks to Uppercase Living, that now reminds me year round to think about my thankfulness always. [The quote says: “The simplest things remind us of all that we have to be thankful for.”] No I don’t always have fall leaves around it. My leaves change with the seasons too.

It has been a tradition that Christmas music not be played in the house until after Thanksgiving. When I was working it was usually playing from my computer LONG before that! There is too much beautiful Christmas music to enjoy that it’s impossible to cram into a few weeks in a year. I think Sam is catching my obsession with Christmas music. He latched onto the “Jingles” CD by Voice Male that I had in the car so played often last year. He has asked for it many times throughout the year and has a few favorites. I’m also beginning to think he is an aspiring beatboxer so no wonder he loves the sounds. I could write an entire blog of funnies related to us listening to this CD in the car! Aside from the music there are so many aspects of Christmas and the final month of the year that just make it so special. It is a time that you look back and say WOW where did this year go! We are usually extra busy involved in this or that, thinking about other’s needs more so than we might have through the rest of the year. I am not always successful but I try every year to do as a good friend of mine (who is successful) does each year. She has Christmas shopping, wrapping and everything done by Thanksgiving. When this happens, even if it’s not completely done but well on its way it sure makes a difference in how much I can truly enjoy this season. I’m picturing it now – sitting by the fireplace sipping hot cocoa or wassail and watching the snow fall outside while the deer play in the backyard and hearing the strains of the Cambridge Singers beautiful renditions of John Rutter’s “What Sweeter Music” or “Wexford Carol” among all the Christmas music that is not only moving, inspiring but also fun. Ah Christmas, it’s a piece of heaven if we can allow the time for it to be.

For now it’s back to September. I guess reflecting on what I really enjoy feeling during these coming months helps me realize I better get life in order so I can truly experience the moments instead of rushing through them only able to enjoy them halfway!