Return of The Learner

Howdy everybody!

I just wanted to post a quick note to let you know that I'm back in Learning Mode! My respite took a little longer than I was planning and included several trips to the hospital (by various family members) and a variety of other learning adventures. I've got pictures and stories to share and plan to post them tonight in my update. :)

In the meantime I'll share one of my new favorite sites :) I confess that I stayed up much later than I'd planned last night looking at pics on this hilarious photoblog:

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

And as a special treat, later this week I'll post some of my own awkward family photos. How about you? Have any hilariously awkward pics of your family?

I'll be back later - to keep you posted. :)

Spring Lessons in the Works

Happy Spring Everybody!

My little posies. :)

Oh, my dear month of April. Every year it's here and gone before I know it. I've had to take a little detour on my path to learning. It seems that while you can learn something new every day and tackle spring cleaning and write a blog and keep up with all the everyday stuff . . . it usually comes with the price tag of a 2 a.m. bedtime.

My husband keeps offering to build me a padded Velcro wall so I can put the kids in little terrycloth suits and just, ya know, stick them up there. "They'd think it was fun and just think of all the stuff you could get done!" Every time he mentioned it I always chuckled and thought how funny my husband is and what crazy and unique ideas he has. Until I learned today that Velcro walls actually exist.

And you can rent them. 

I gotta say, that looks pretty fun . . .

"Why do you need a Velcro wall?" you might find yourself asking yourself.

 (If you are the sort that would ask such a thing of yourself.)

Well, I will give you the example of my daughter's recent birthday.

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I Learned to Laugh "Today"

I set out to make a layered birthday cake. It was on my to-learn list ever since my lesson on how to make a cake from scratch. Of course, I was also running around trying to get the house prepared for the Par-tay that night. What a bustle of activity! I whipped up the cake from a box. Although I am a new fan of scratch cakes, I still have a few boxed ones to use up. I planned on putting my extra time into decorating the cake, anyway. Most girls I know that are her age want ponies or princesses or butterflies on their cakes. And their parents buy beautiful works of art from the local bakery. Because of Waybum's food allergies we can't get a lot of bakery items. And it's alright because those cakes cost more than the presents we bought for her.

Waybums wanted a dinosaur cake. A pink dinosaur cake.

So, I got started . . .

Mmm. Strawberry cake.

I put the cake in the oven and set the kitchen timer
and bustled about on the preparations.

Like clearing off the table.
Which on that day was a hefty order. . .

AAAAAHHH!

I had started sorting the kids' clothes and downstairs toys on top of the table and somehow other things layered on top and before I knew it, FEMA showed up and asked if I needed some help. . .

I worked on it for awhile and was ready to throw my hands in the air and have people eat their hamburgers on the driveway. And then I started scolding myself. Out loud. Why did I volunteer to have a party when I am in the midst of an ongoing, massive organization project? Am I crazy? What was I thinking?

-BeeP!-

Cake's done.

I took the cake out of the oven and put it on
the rack on the back of the counter to cool.

I figured, "I'd just let Super Hubby clear the table when he gets home and I'll work on the bedroom."
Because the biggest design flaw in this place is that you can only access the main floor bathroom by going through the master bedroom. So I was in there reclaiming it from the laundry (again) and pondering that I don't know who remodeled our house, but it seems to me that they didn't really think it through.

Here is one example of their throw-it-togetherness:

Let's put an arch in the bedroom - wouldn't that be cool?

Oh, but there's a window frame in the way.

Ooh! Let's just cut the original 1900s window frame to accomodate

the cheesy plaster decor. But we'll paint it after we put it in....

I mean, really?

Anyway, I was contemplating this when Waybums came running into the bedroom.

"Mother! Come to the kitchen quick!! It's an EMeRGeNCY!"

I ran to the kitchen, going over the possibilities in my brain on the way there.

Fire? Don't see how that could be. The oven's off.

Flood? Sink's off and dishwasher isn't running...

Tornado? Well, it may look like one hit. . .

I got to the kitchen and realize that the natural disaster was . . .

Little Sister.

I had taken the precaution of pushing the cake to the back of the counter, but it seemed that I underestimated the ingenuity of a little person that smelled
strawberry cake and wanted to sample it. On the sly.

Little Koda, tiny thing, had dragged a chair to the kitchen and climbed up onto the counter and was leaning over a decimated layer of cooling strawberry cake.

AAAAAAAHH!

LoL! Ok, so I can laugh now.

In fact, it didn't take me very long to laugh then.

(And now you know why a Velcro wall would be so handy for me.)

I guess what I learned from this experience is that

things get stressful it sometimes and make me want to . . .

 . . . well, you know.

But I am trying my hardest to take everything in perspective.

It's just a cake.

It's just a messy table.

It's not going to ruin life as I know it

and I am sure that we'll all survive.

Super Hubby picked up another mix from the store

and instead of a two-layer cake . . .

Waybums got a three-layer cake.

Tah-dah!

She said it was the most beautiful cake she ever saw.

(Of course she also thought the apple-flavored potato-starch Easter grass was yummy,

so there's no accounting for taste, there.)

And because she's just such a sweetheart,

she had insisted that Koda should get her own cake, too.

That is, after she served her sentence in time-out.

And as for the table . . . it got cleared off.
(Thanks to heroic measures from Super Hubby.)

Although I found it amusing to see what it looked like after the party....

What was all that fuss for again?

You'll be pleased to know that it has fully recovered since then.

When something seems overwhelming I am just learning to stop and evaluate.

My new motto is

"If it's going to be a funny story someday, why not laugh now?

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Just one of the many lessons I've been learning. Anyway, with April being such a busy month, I plan to take a brief hiatus until after the first week of May. I have been lining up some pretty cool learning experiences, so I'm excited to keep you posted!

Until then - Get out there and learn something fun! :)

Today I learned to strengthen my Organization-Fu

There are two groups of people in the world. You can tell what sort of person they are by their purse. (Especially if they are guys. Of course, people call those "murses" - You know - "male purses" and whatnot. You know I love that things just need an "M" in front of them to become "man-ified" objects. Manny - male nanny. Mantrums. The one that makes me chuckle most is "moobs" - Hehe.)

Oh. Where was I?

Ahh right, the categories of people with purses...

The first category contains the Born Organized (BO) people. You probably know at least one. They are the ones that can find things in their purse. Their purses are typically small and orderly and full of useful things. They have a compartment for their lip gloss and the lip gloss is in it. When their phone rings, they open their purse and pull it out. When someone tells them something interesting they pull out their little notepad and pen and write it down. Clicky-click. And they put it back where it belongs.

The other sort of person is a SLOB. I tried to think of a few acronyms that would go with SLOB. I came up with "Sadly Lost Object Borrower" but that's all the further I got. Their purses are typically large and and chaotic and contain completely random objects. They do not have lip gloss, and they did not even realize that's the purpose behind that compartment. When the phone rings, you get to listen to the entire chorus of their ringtone because every time they move something around their phone gets buried deeper. When someone tells them something interesting they pull out the crayon that somehow wound up in the lip gloss compartment and write it on the back of a receipt from two years ago.

Ummm.
I belong to the latter category . . .

Because when you realize that you are somehow carrying around a barnacle in your purse you just have to admit that something went wrong when the organization part of your brain was developing in the womb.

Anyway, today I was looking for some place to put away stuff in my over-stuffed pantry and I had a rare organizational moment. In a previous fit of trying to be organized, I had hung an over-the-door shoe organizer on the inside of my pantry door in a (failed) effort to sort mail. It was a good idea in theory, but a bad location.

As I swung the door open and lamented my lack of space, I noticed that in my previous haste I had put a box of spaghetti in one of the compartments. *Light Bulb*

Check out my newly organized pantry!

Tah-Dah!

It turns out that those extra couple of inches between the door and the pantry shelves were extremely valuable. I was able to clear two and a half pantry shelves of stuff and had a little room to spare!

I feel so brilliant. And organizy.
*patting self on back*

And since I have a birthday party to prepare for tomorrow,
I'll let you get back to the daily grind. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Tomorrow I'll be learning to make a layer cake!

I'll keep you posted!

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Bonus Lesson

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Last week I called my husband up on his way home.

"Hey, Sweetie?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you pick up some shampoo? We're almost out..."

"Ok."

(Real riveting stuff, I know.)

So he came home with some Herbal Essences "Hello Hydration" shampoo. He figured just the shampoo would be fine since we still had some "Color Me Happy" and "Long Term Relationship" conditioners leftover. But on the back of the shampoo bottle is asked the question,

"How many bubbles are in a bottle of champagne?"

and it teased,

"For the answer see the Hello Hydration conditioner bottle."

Mwahahaha! How sneaky is that? Because they realize that "inquiring minds want to know" and chances are the consumer is going to be curious enough to at least pick up the bottle of conditioner in their hand next time to read the back. And if it's already in their hand it's a short trip to the shopping cart.

So the last time I was at the store, I looked up the conditioner bottle.

*******Drumroll*******

There are 58 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne.

(I know it was just eating away at you sweetie, and I have to take care of my #1 fan.)

According to Wikipedia, the early process of making champagne was so perilous that cellar workers had to wear iron masks to protect their faces from spontaneously exploding bottles. And if one bottle burst it could set off a chain reaction that would cause 20-90% of their profits to turn into a pile of shattered glass and sticky champagne on the floor. Talk about bursting one's bubble.

Anyway, I prefer drinking my grape juice before it spoils. :)

Hope you are gearing up for a great weekend!

Toodles for now...

Lessons Resume! - My Latest Learning Updates

Howdy readers! How have you been?

Sorry about the gaps between postings. My "brokened" wrist, as my Waybums calls it, is well on its way to being mended and I am pleased to report that postings should be more regular now. :) I would have popped on and let you know about my days off, but I just didn’t trust myself to stop at a paragraph. Because I’ve still been learning new things every day. Some funny things, some shocking things and some things that just made me wish I could sit down for an hour and hammer out a post so you’d know these things too. :)

One of the more interesting things I learned about?

Kumquats.

Cute little things, aren’t they?

I used the kumquats for an object lesson in a Sunday School class I substitute-taught. Because you know how kids are with substitute teachers, and it’s doubly true about Substitute Sunday School teachers, right? The memory verse they are working on is Psalms 147:5 - Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

Which fits in with the blog, come to think of it. As mere humans, there is a limit to our understanding. We have to learn things as we go, usually by experience or by what we’re taught by others. But sometimes our experience does not equip us, and others don’t fully know how things work and have to make “best-guesses.” I asked the students if they had eaten a kumquat? No. How would they know what it tasted like? They could make a guess. A pretty good guess. They could even ask me what it tasted like.

But until you’ve eaten a kumquat, you don’t really know.

My favorite information gleaned about kumquats was from my independent study on how people thought kumquats are traditionally eaten. Ten out of ten people I asked thought that you peel and discard the rind and eat the slices of fruit inside. They do look like mini oranges, after all. But those who have experienced the enigma that is the kumquat know that the inside is pretty tart and the rind is the part that’s citrusy and sweet. So most people who eat kumquats eat them whole with the rinds on, or peel off and eat just the rind. No kidding.

I just love the idea of serving a God who knows what a kumquat tastes like without ever needing to taste it, and understands how its molecules are arranged and can remember the first time anyone ate one. Quite frankly, it takes some of the pressure off of me. There’s only so much information I can fit in this brain. I already have a hard enough time remembering where I put my phone.

Kumquat.

I think I will use this as my new exclamation when I stub my toe.

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Oh, and since I’m on the subject of produce,

I learned something interesting about potatoes.

I learned that you can explode a potato in the oven. (And - hey - I didn't even do it myself this time.) I'm pretty sure I already knew that, but seeing the results first-hand really drive the lesson home.

I went to a birthday party at my aunt's house over the weekend. When Auntie opened the oven she was surprised to see tater confetti all over the innards of her oven and an empty potato-skin jacket. Of course I had to look up the phenomenon when I got home and found out that's why it's so important to prick the potato skin all over. The tiny pricks work like teeny release valves to allow steam to escape from the spud. So –warning - a simple stab in the middle may not be sufficient. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have been jabbing potatoes for decades and never really appreciated fully why I had been poking them. This is learning in action . . .

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And since I’m on the subject of exploding,

I’ll tell you about this show on YouTube I learned about:

“Is It A Good Idea to Microwave This?”

A couple of guys came up with a brilliant idea to test what things are microwavable.
And by brilliant, I mean often resulting in fire or sparks…

I have operated a microwave for a long time. In fact, I remember the day my parents got our first microwave. It was such a big deal. Wow. That makes me feel a little old. Anyway, one of the things I learned very early on is that you don’t microwave your silverware with the food or you will suddenly have a shocking display of fireworks over your mashed potatoes.

Well, don't do that sort of thing unless you want to have a popular show online that people will get sucked into watching just to see if you survive. . .

Here is the episode where they find out if it’s a good idea to microwave fireworks.

And if it’s not obvious enough, I’ll make it extra clear:

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

I’m not really proud of this fact, but as a learner this show is fascinating.

And as a mom, this show is also pretty terrifying.

I watched them microwaving everything from a can of shaving cream to a roll of Bubble Tape. They even microwaved a microwave. Well, chunks of the microwave they had killed in the previous episode. And, yes, it was a bad idea. Fumes and sparks and choking smoke and a couple of guys killing off microwaves. The worst part is that I keep looking around at things and wondering what would happen if they were microwaved. Holy Smokes, Batman!

That reminds me. My husband did an accidental test on whether or not it was a good idea to microwave the little ants that were trespassing in his microwave.

It was a bad idea. Both for the ants and the microwave.

Here is an exhaustive page about all things microwave from the USDA.

Hmm. I didn’t see anything on that page about fireworks…

Well, it’s great to be back in the swing of things and I look forward to learning more stuff!

I’ll keep you posted. :)

No microwaves were harmed (by me) in the making of this post...

Today I learned how balloons are made

I never even thought to wonder how they're made...

Cool.

I'll keep keeping you posted.

Today I learned the rest of the song

When I was a kid my mom used to sing part of a song to me.

I caught myself singing it to my girls today:

A - You're Adorable...

B - You're so Beautiful....

C - You're a Cutie full of Chaaaaaarm...

And she'd continue through the alphabet until right around "I" where it trailed off.

Her mom used to sing it to her when she was a little.

I remember asking Gramma how the rest of the song went.

She also trailed off around "I" too.

Must be genetic.

Well, today I decided it would be the perfect lesson to learn

while I'm behaving myself.

Awww.

We'll sing it until it's stuck in our heads forever.

(LoL - Loving her cookie)

I had started singing it when I put Koda in her shirt.

It says "Beautiful" and was a hand-me-down from Waybums.
Waybums got it from Gramma on one of those everyday shopping trips.

She paid $2 for it, on clearance. She was one heck of a bargain shopper.

That's genetic, too.

I learned other cool stuff and I'll put it up in the morning

so I can take a break between typings. :)

I'll keep you posted.

Today I learned my lesson . . .

Well, I woke up this morning and my fingers and the palm of my hand felt numb. And occasionally when I pulled something out of a drawer, or picked up a toy off the floor, the sharp shooting pain returned to my forearm. Blasted carpal tunnel! By noon I was cringing when I went to pick up the bag of bread to make the kids' sandwiches. ~Owie~ I had looked high and low for my wrist brace and had no luck finding it. I had to bite the bullet and get a new one.

Eez preetty, no?

I was told a few years back that I am supposed to wear it to bed and when I'm on the computer. But after awhile I got out of the habit and then when we moved I couldn't find it . . . and here I am again. I bumped into my "substitute" doctor at the boo-boo aisle at the store and she gave me a few reprimands and pointers. I'm on light and limited tasks only for the next day or so until it has a chance to rest.

Bummer. :(

 So my plan is to learn something absolutely fascinating tomorrow that I can write about in two paragraphs or less. And hope for marshmallows on Friday.

So aside from learning to behave myself and be good about wearing my brace,

I also learned to make sure ALL of the groceries are put away FOR SURE

BeFoRe letting our house bunny out to play.

Because tonight I came into the kitchen and my bunny had his entire upper body

inside one of my reusable grocery bags. The only thing I could see was

his big ole feet and the tail atop his furry behind.

I thought it was funny until I tapped my foor on the floor twice

(the "come" command) and he exited the bag with a sack of carrots!

THAT LITTLE WASCAL!

So he got a time-out - back into his pen,

and I have to pick up some fresh carrots for my cowboy mashed potatoes tomorrow.

As far as my wrist progress goes...

I'll keep you posted.