NUMBER 7

I had forgotten one more thing I learned last weekend.

7. If you see a piece of brightly colored clay on the floor and pick it up, throw it out immediately. Do not put it on the kitchen table to be thrown out later. You may go back to it later and think it is a Nerd (candy) and try eating it.

MY SOMEWHAT EVIL SCIENTIST HUSBAND

My husband may be somewhat of an evil scientist. Oh yeah, that was just Thomas's dream. On the way to school he told me his dream.
He started with:
"Dad was a scientist that was sort of evil but not a lot. "

Thomas continued to explain the dream:
Tom had invented a remote control airplane that was controlled by his mind. He apparently was sort of losing his mind because he crashed the plane into our neighbor's house (Thomas didn't say the part about Tom losing his mind I just thought that was funny). He tried to keep the fact that it was his plane a secret so our neighbor wouldn't be mad that he had crashed it into his house. It didn't matter because our neighbor was having a party to celebrate the plane debris that was in his yard. He had invited a bunch of obese three year olds. There was a little more less exciting stuff and then I woke him to get ready for school.

I love the weirdness of dreams!

THINGS i LEARNED THIS WEEKEND

1. If your tractor runs fine while plowing snow through a snowstorm and then suddenly stops running so well, thaw it out. Once everything melts off from it, it will work fine.

2. Tell your daughter that she shouldn't carry an almost brand new $1,100 violin at the same time as a music book and while trying to open a door. She may drop it and break it. Sigh.

3. Do not post comments to blogs that you read unless the person writes something like "comments welcome". You may annoy someone. I'm not sure why this is so but it is.

4. A memory stick is waterproof. Or at least the one I washed in the laundry was.

5. Having a thyroid problem isn't really why you are overweight, its from eating too much food.

6. If you switch to the new blogger, nothing bad will happen...I think.

And something that I just learned. When you hit the caps lock key, you have to watch out for things that you would normally hit the shift key to capitalize - such as the word "I" (see title above).

Now I feel so smart!

MATH COUNTS

Math Counts is the name of a national math competition. It starts in the middle school where they form a math club. From the members of the club they form a team of four of the best "mathletes". This team along with the next four best mathletes attend the district level competition. Our district is the Northeast Pennsylvania district. Thomas went as a member of the team and Erin went as an individual. Our team came in second this year. They lost by half a point! Last year they came in first place and they were able to go onto the state level competition. This year Thomas placed second in the "individual" competition and then during a "countdown" round (need to be first to sound a buzzer to answer questions) moved up to become the top mathlete for the northeast district. Hooray for Thomas! He will get to go onto the state level competition. The top 4 mathletes from that competition will go on to the national competition in Fort Worth, Texas. I am equally proud of Erin who worked really hard to be one of the individuals going to the competition. Fortunately, the coach takes into account dedication and effort. It was a close call between a few students for that last spot on the team but Erin was the only one who went to every practice and had a really great attitude. I'm glad he recognized that fact. Both Erin and Thomas were excited the night before and the day of the competition. Overall it was a really great experience. At the district level the competition is not super intense. It gets a bit more serious at the state level and I'm sure that the national level is probably overwhelming. I doubt Thomas would make it that far because he is really in it for the joy of math and not for winning. You can see that the winners at the state level are really out to beat everyone. I'm sure a lot of tedious memorizing is involved. Erin was in it for the challenge and the fun time. Fortunately, their coach allowed them to have fun!

ARCTIC FREEZE

Its been so cold, you know that kind where the boogers freeze in your nose?!?! Every morning below zero. Even though I bundle up to go out it takes my breath away and feels hard to breath. I'm glad I don't have a job where I need to be out for long periods of time. Regardless of the deep freeze we are in I'm able to appreciate the small things. The cold came right on the heels of a small snowstorm so the snow has stayed around. I love the look of white cleaness. I am really ecstatic that our pipes have not frozen. We have a crawl space and sometimes some of the pipes freeze when it gets really cold. I guess we haven't had enough wind for that to happen. When it finally warms up we will still have enough ice for iceskating!

One thing I love about February is that if you pay attention you will see and hear the signs of spring. The birds don't seem to care that the temperatures scream winter. They know, somehow they know. I open the door to let Beau out in the morning and I hear the birds. Their voice has changed to one heralding spring. A little snippet of things to come. The sun feels different. Stronger, warming me to the bones. Well, maybe not to the bones, but once this weather breaks it will! Soon there will be those patches of dried grass that the sun has warmed. I love to find a small hill where this has happened and sit for awhile soaking in the sun's rays. Watching the last of the snow melt away. I hope we do get at least one big snow storm before the spring meltdown. I love those little rivulets of water and the mud.

Spring, spring!

Don't get me wrong, I do have a fondness for winter, its just that I like the change of seasons. That's why I could never live in Florida or California. The changes make me feel like I live in four different places. Each special in its own way.