Game: Cranium: Family Edition

Daughter (8) opened a box last week — the game Cranium: Family Edition. I bought it months ago during a “we should play games as a family” phase. You know, the type of good idea that becomes unpopular just as you think it’s working well enough to invest more money?
She and Son (11) played for [...]

A Proper Electronics Kit for Kids

My parents have this thing about science. They’re suckers for kits that promise to teach kids about science.
Not that my parents can’t do just fine on their own. Dad’s a professional engineer — a classic engineer, rather than what I learned. He fixed the car until the winters got too cold. He does load calculations [...]

What Room is This, and Who is this Boy?

Two weeks ago I started a new rule. Five minutes of cleaning before TV (in addition to putting away your clean laundry and toys).
Five minutes is nicely between more than before (zero) and mutiny (ten).
“I’m going to empty that drawer and put everything back in it.” (Let me wipe the drawer while it’s empty.”) [...]

Recipe: Trail Mix Cake.

Courtesy of my daughter. (Any resemblance to a working recipe is entirely co-incidental.)
You will need:
2 granola bars
10 gold fish
10 dried cranberries
10 chocolate chips
2 crackers
10 Cheerios
1 container
flour
baking powder
salt
sugar
vanilla essence
milk
water
eggs
bowl
whipping cream
sweet chocolate
To make the trail mix:
1. Grind up 10 goldfish and put in container.
2. Put in 10 chocolate chips.
3. Put in 10 dried cranberries.
4. Put in 2 thoroughly ground up granola [...]

State of the Week

Friday may work better for blogging that Monday. That may be the wrong way around. Things other than blogging may work better on Monday.
I’ve found a voice I want to try emulating for a while. She has real content and themes, I have meandering reports on my life, but it’s an exercise in tone, not [...]

Resolutions, Take One

I guess it’s that time of year again. Time to look at what we hope to accomplish and set our sights on the stars.
This is a long and possibly uninteresting post, but here it is.
Primary Goal: Use my time more productively, which may include dropping some of these resolutions.
Also:Have more patience with the kids. Be [...]

Just When I was Feeling Productive

I was finally no longer feeling behind after taking October off for the video game. Husband pointed out that if I always start with the routine stuff, I’ll never get the irregular stuff done. He’s right. So, since I’ve done all the weeklies at least once in the last two weeks, I resolved to tackle [...]

Something Positive

Re-reading the last few entries, it looks like I’m in a negative trend. Part of my philosophy that low phases will end backfires, in that I see positive things ending as well. It’s not helped by my sense of humour and the feeling that I shouldn’t appear to have a perfect life.
Positive things have been [...]

And I Never Completed Anything,…

Last spring, the kids brought home the last of a year’s worth of school work. I added it to the overflowing box for the year, confident that I’d actually go through it later.
It’s been hiding unsuccessfully on the far side of the dining room table ever since. Some books that didn’t fit back on the [...]

Quotations

Goals are like the stars. We rarely reach them, but we chart our course by them.
- Anon.
Dreams always come a size too big so we can grow into them.
- Anon
Companions to yesterday’s quote.
Yesterday’s said we were to set great dreams and then make them a reality.
Today’s first was in my high school English room. I [...]