Amaryllis sillyramA

Wind Map!

I love looking at this. It kind of reminds me of the story about the astronauts looking down on the earth — ah, here’s the quotation.

The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

–Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud, astronaut

So what we need now is a wind map of the whole planet.
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Update: Ah! I was so transfixed by the picture yesterday that I didn’t notice the text below it. Turns out they would love to do a global wind map — they just need a source of data.

Hooray for science turned to art!

…was yesterday. A day late ain’t so bad.

Aaaaand, we are quit for EIGHT (8) YEARS! (Plus a day.) Hard to believe. We have now NOT smoked over 34,000 cigarettes, and NOT spent over $102,000. (Oh haha! Months later now, and I realize I have that backwards. It’s 102,000 cigarettes and $34,000. And the only reason I noticed is that I finally did the math and couldn’t recall ever smoking a $3 cigarette.)

It might seem a little weird, commemorating the anniversary of something that really shouldn’t matter much anymore. Except: it still matters. We still both notice on a regular basis how much better life is without the addiction. I was just talking the other day with an acquaintance who is trying to quit, and we both agreed it’s like changing who you are. Not easy! And I’m totally not bragging — at least not about my ability to quit. I certainly tried a lot of times before it finally worked.

I am bragging about those stats, though. I love those stats.

Go to silkquit.org for the quit meter, which I have really enjoyed using, as you can see.

On Sunday we went to Kona Kitchen for a late breakfast. After we ordered, our server brought over some crayons for the girls, along with several pages taken from a coloring book. I love it when restaurants do this. I love it when they bring coloring supplies, and I really love it when it’s not the whole coloring book but some fresh pages torn out instead. When it’s the whole book, it can be hard for the girls to find a page that hasn’t been scribbled on, and also I sit there wondering how many kids have sneezed on it. Bleah. But when just a few (fresh, clean) pages are brought, there are no such problems. (Why yes, I am a bit of a germophobe. I’m working on it though. Dirt is good!)

So the two girls were sitting across from each other, coloring away. The 5 year old finished her picture and then wrote her name on the paper. Then, to be helpful, she wrote the 2 year old’s name on her paper, while the 2 year old was still coloring on it. So, she wrote it upside down. Sort of:

When viewed right side up:

Awesome.
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When she was littler, the 5 year old used to say upside up instead of right side up. It was one of my favorite inventions of hers. Now that the 2 year old is talking more and more, I can’t wait to see what kinds of words she invents.

[Morning. I am in the shower. The girls are up and about — the five year old is on the loose in the living room, and the two year old is in her high chair finishing her yogurt. Their daddy is upstairs sleeping.]

My train of thought:

Oh, hot water, I think you might be my best friend.

…Quiet out there now. Order restored. Gotta love the daddy.

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I am astonished it took so much typing to get down about 1.5 minutes of wandering thoughts.
Also: where is my mind?

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* I don’t mean my kids. I mean kids in general. Who might get the wrong idea about the viability of a severed head from watching a cartoon. But then they know it’s made up, don’t they? I’ll bet they have no problem with that distinction.

We used to let the 5 year old watch The Simpsons and Futurama, from when she was a baby until she was three or so. She loved it. Probably something about all the bright colors and music and funny voices. But then there were a few, shall we say, Language Incidents.

Incident #1: she was joking around with daddy and said, in sly disagreement with him, “No it isn’t, you very bastard.”

Incident #2: she was on her way out of a room, and to say goodbye to her daddy and sister, she said “See you later, losers!”

HA! But yeah, no more Bart after that, and definitely no more Bender.

Photo taken on campus, last spring maybe? A while ago. I feel bad for him, missing his nose and all, but I suppose he is missing a bit more than that.