Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Not so perfect after all
So, after finding the perfect pumpkin, it has been gracing our front porch....until yesterday afternoon! When I got home from work and was walking up the stairs to the front door, I started noticing a weird smell. As I looked down at our pumpkins, I realized that our once half green, half orange pumpkin was all orange. On one side, it looked a little sunken in. I went to move it a little and made a shocking discovery...our perfect pumpkin had rotted and was leaking. Yucky! When Kevin came home, he took it to the trash. Our perfect pumpkin that we spent about 20 minutes searching for was not so perfect after all. Lesson learned - don't judge a pumpkin!!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
It's good to have friends
On Sunday, we spent the day with my childhood friend and her family. Her house was like my second home growing up and even though we lived nearly 50 miles apart, she was always my confidant and best friend. We would spend many weekends at one house or another, go to each other's birthday parties, celebrate 4th of July with family picnics and fireworks, dream about going to Harvard one day, talked about boys and the list goes on. I have always treasured her friendship.
How did we meet? Our parents were friends for a long time - before they got married. So, we were destined to be friends. In that proud tradition, our daughters only 13 months apart got to spend some time together on Sunday. I only hope they will build a friendship like their mommys have!
How did we meet? Our parents were friends for a long time - before they got married. So, we were destined to be friends. In that proud tradition, our daughters only 13 months apart got to spend some time together on Sunday. I only hope they will build a friendship like their mommys have!
They are both such sweet, loving little girls!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Children of the Corn
While at the pumpkin patch on Saturday, we also spent some time wondering through a couple complex corn mazes. My very talented sister-in-law (soon to be photojournalist) took these photos...
Daddy and daugther studying the corn maze map.
Kendall (our niece) following me through the corn maze.
Kevin said the above photo shows how I was bossing everyone around like "nobody quits till I say so!"
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Our quest for the perfect pumpkin
Saturday we took Brooklyn to a pumpkin patch. As we entered, we were handing shears and instructions on how to cut a pumpkin off its vine and what the green on the pumpkins meant. When we headed down the bumpy, dirt road avoiding oncoming cars and an extreme amount of dust, we realized how much fun this endeavor would be. There was quite a few people out there. You could see a lot of kiddos running around pointing out pumpkins in different shapes, sizes and colors to their parents.
The minute we hit the ground walking, we were hunting for the perfect pumpkin. What makes a perfect pumpkin? A big one with great shape, perfectly round, a great shade of orange, sits up perfectly without tipping and ready to carve and sit on our front porch. Is this a little materialistic? Maybe, but after all it's our first time doing this and we can be a little picky, right?
About 10 minutes into examining pumpkin by pumpkin, we came to the "perfect" one. It was about 2 feet wide, perfectly round and had a little green on it (should turn orange soon!). To make sure this was the one, Brooklyn and I kept looking while Kevin stood guard by the "perfect" one. After about 5 minutes and looking other pumpkins up one side and down the other, we made the decision to go with the first one. Kevin cut it with our shears, and then gazed back at how far away the car was. We did venture kind of far in our quest. I held our punkin in one arm and a smaller orange pumpkin in the other, and watched as Kevin manuevered our "perfect" 25 pound pumpkin to the car. I wondered who had it the hardest. I had a squirming baby in my arms desparately wanting to kiss the pumpkin I was holding in the other, and Kevin was really only just carrying one pumpkin. That was until I went to pick it up when we got home that I realized, he had it harder. Man, was that pumpkin ever heavy!!
Now, we are faced with picking out the perfect design to carve into our pumpkin. Considering that we neither one have any experience, it should be entertaining figuring it all out. I'm sure that Brooklyn will give us her classic "what is this" look when we let her feel what the insides of a pumpkin feel like. I'll have to post pictures once we get it carved!!
The minute we hit the ground walking, we were hunting for the perfect pumpkin. What makes a perfect pumpkin? A big one with great shape, perfectly round, a great shade of orange, sits up perfectly without tipping and ready to carve and sit on our front porch. Is this a little materialistic? Maybe, but after all it's our first time doing this and we can be a little picky, right?
About 10 minutes into examining pumpkin by pumpkin, we came to the "perfect" one. It was about 2 feet wide, perfectly round and had a little green on it (should turn orange soon!). To make sure this was the one, Brooklyn and I kept looking while Kevin stood guard by the "perfect" one. After about 5 minutes and looking other pumpkins up one side and down the other, we made the decision to go with the first one. Kevin cut it with our shears, and then gazed back at how far away the car was. We did venture kind of far in our quest. I held our punkin in one arm and a smaller orange pumpkin in the other, and watched as Kevin manuevered our "perfect" 25 pound pumpkin to the car. I wondered who had it the hardest. I had a squirming baby in my arms desparately wanting to kiss the pumpkin I was holding in the other, and Kevin was really only just carrying one pumpkin. That was until I went to pick it up when we got home that I realized, he had it harder. Man, was that pumpkin ever heavy!!
Now, we are faced with picking out the perfect design to carve into our pumpkin. Considering that we neither one have any experience, it should be entertaining figuring it all out. I'm sure that Brooklyn will give us her classic "what is this" look when we let her feel what the insides of a pumpkin feel like. I'll have to post pictures once we get it carved!!
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Time for a radical change
I’d think we as a society had almost found some sort of resolve in the threat of school shootings.
When I say that, I mean, up until a couple weeks ago, I think we thought we had a handle on the situation.
It was always a familiar pattern, from Littleton to Springfield, Ore., to Edinboro, Penn., a disgruntled or disturbed student decided to bring a weapon to school and kill their classmates.
We could do something about that. We could use an iron fist when it came to bullying. We could study students more closely to make sure they weren’t ready to go off the deep end. We could encourage students to alert adults to any potential threats from other students.
But in the span of one week, we had two individuals randomly walk in to two schools on separate sides of the country and kill students.
Anomaly? Let’s hope so.
But, it’s still time for a new game plan. We learned how to protect kids from each other. How do we protect them from the rest of the world? And with that, I’ve put out the million-dollar question that every parent asks before they lay their head down on their pillow at the night. It’s a question I’m already starting to ask with my own child still four years away from school.
The only solution I can come up with is to fortify our schools – bulletproof windows, armed guards at the door, a barbed-wire perimeter. Students are unloaded from their bus through a secured, covered entrance at 8 a.m., a bus picks them up at the same spot at 3 p.m. No more outdoor recess, no more leaving campus for lunch.
Knee-jerk reaction? You bet.
Completely crazy? Sure.
Crazy because sending our children to school in virtual prisons is unnerving to you? Or crazy because that whole idea of civil rights and freedom is rearing its ugly head again? You know – the same idea that allowed us to stand in long airport security lines for maybe a week after Sept. 11 before we started complaining about it? We want to be protected, we want our kids to be safe but we’d really rather not deal with the inconveniences that come with it.
We have a problem in our society, it’s called short-term memory. We weep for those lives cut way too short but when it comes to action, we tend to be a little shortsighted.“Our children can’t learn like that – locked up in a building like felons. Let’s just put up some metal detectors and then we can sleep at night.”
So once this problem fades from the media’s front page, we’ll move on to something else. It’s the “cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t happen again” mentality. I believe school districts do all they can to protect students. But if we believe the need for an ID badge will stop a homicidal maniac, we’d be better off strategically posting an army of cardboard cutout police officers around school grounds.
It’s time for an honest discussion about how we protect our kids. Uncomfortable to talk about? That’s too bad.
I’d rather talk about this now then talk about how we bury our kids later.
When I say that, I mean, up until a couple weeks ago, I think we thought we had a handle on the situation.
It was always a familiar pattern, from Littleton to Springfield, Ore., to Edinboro, Penn., a disgruntled or disturbed student decided to bring a weapon to school and kill their classmates.
We could do something about that. We could use an iron fist when it came to bullying. We could study students more closely to make sure they weren’t ready to go off the deep end. We could encourage students to alert adults to any potential threats from other students.
But in the span of one week, we had two individuals randomly walk in to two schools on separate sides of the country and kill students.
Anomaly? Let’s hope so.
But, it’s still time for a new game plan. We learned how to protect kids from each other. How do we protect them from the rest of the world? And with that, I’ve put out the million-dollar question that every parent asks before they lay their head down on their pillow at the night. It’s a question I’m already starting to ask with my own child still four years away from school.
The only solution I can come up with is to fortify our schools – bulletproof windows, armed guards at the door, a barbed-wire perimeter. Students are unloaded from their bus through a secured, covered entrance at 8 a.m., a bus picks them up at the same spot at 3 p.m. No more outdoor recess, no more leaving campus for lunch.
Knee-jerk reaction? You bet.
Completely crazy? Sure.
Crazy because sending our children to school in virtual prisons is unnerving to you? Or crazy because that whole idea of civil rights and freedom is rearing its ugly head again? You know – the same idea that allowed us to stand in long airport security lines for maybe a week after Sept. 11 before we started complaining about it? We want to be protected, we want our kids to be safe but we’d really rather not deal with the inconveniences that come with it.
We have a problem in our society, it’s called short-term memory. We weep for those lives cut way too short but when it comes to action, we tend to be a little shortsighted.“Our children can’t learn like that – locked up in a building like felons. Let’s just put up some metal detectors and then we can sleep at night.”
So once this problem fades from the media’s front page, we’ll move on to something else. It’s the “cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t happen again” mentality. I believe school districts do all they can to protect students. But if we believe the need for an ID badge will stop a homicidal maniac, we’d be better off strategically posting an army of cardboard cutout police officers around school grounds.
It’s time for an honest discussion about how we protect our kids. Uncomfortable to talk about? That’s too bad.
I’d rather talk about this now then talk about how we bury our kids later.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
"Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays."
In this case, the "someone" is me. Yesterday marks the first time since my daughter was born that I had to work on a Monday.While I didn't enjoy a minute of it, and I cried almost the entire way to a meeting I had before work, my relief was having my co-worker (who for lack of time and space I absolutely cannot stand) out of the office and going to lunch with a friend of mine. If it weren't for those two things, I don't think I could have gotten through the day without more tears.
Today feels like Wednesday and it's only Tuesday. I will be in for a big wake-up call come Friday, when I think it's Saturday. The new schedule will take some time getting used to. But, the end of the workday has always given me great relief in that I will get to see my sweet baby's toothy smile as I pull into the garage every night!
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