It's only fair...

There's no way my daughters are going to put up with an unborn baby getting a cooler looking room than they have. So, of course, SuperMom that I am, I had to do something special in their rooms. In the past, this would have been done within a few weeks of our moving into the new place, but hey, I think I get a little bit of a break for doing this while pregnant!

Somehow, this has also gotten more complex as we've moved. The first room they had (which they shared) I stenciled bright colored flowers around the room, some pink and purple for March, and some yellow and orange for June. Then, they separated into two new rooms in the next house. So March had lovely blue walls, with butterflies stenciled around, mostly on one wall. And June had a nice mango-colored room with monkeys stenciled all over her walls.

This time, stencils just weren't enough. SuperMom was asked to do murals on their walls. March wanted giant cats playing on the wall, and June wanted hot air balloons flying around her room!!

Anything for my darlings!




In case you're wondering, those are (left to right) Thing (from Addams Family), our cat, Jupiter, Kirby, and "dodo", June's favorite doll since she was about 2 years old, now tattered and worn.


...and here's June herself in a balloon, next to a Webkinz rabbit who's spying on her.


...and the new love of her life, a llama!


Too bad for the monkeys who used to be her favorites before she became a llama lover!


June insisted on drawing me in a balloon, keeping my eye on her in her bed!

Snowed in...

We were actually literally snowed in on Monday!!! How awesome is that?? I've always seen on tv where people couldn't get out their doors because the snow was too high to open the door, but it's never actually happened to me! Okay, so I lived in Southern California half my life, and didn't get too many opportunities to be snowed in, but still, this was big time excitement for me.



This is our screendoor NOT OPENING!


Okay, really we were able to squeeze ourselves out the door :)


When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...when life gives you snow, make a snow kitty!

More on the Baby's Room...

Here's how the stickers turned out on the walls. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but we painted the walls a baby blue color first.

Decorating the baby room...

Somehow, despite an entire wall of bedding options at Babys R Us, we couldn't find a single one that we liked. There's a lot of brown out there these days...brown just seems too depressing for a baby's room to me. So we did some online shopping and found these crib sheets and wall stickers that were just perfect!!







Now, we just need to find some nice matching accessories. This isn't one of those ready-made themes that comes with every possible accessory. We may have to get a bit creative here.

Freaking amazing!

Technology is really freaking amazing! 15 years ago, every detail of what was going on inside a womb was a complete mystery. Women noticed they were pregnant, doctors measured women's bellies, and one day a baby came out. It was either healthy or not.

Today, they not only can measure every bone and every organ in the baby's body, they can track the blood flow in and out of the baby's heart, can do an echocardiogram of the heart, can look inside the skull at the brain. Even freakier, you can pay to have a 3D image of that baby, so you can decide three months before its born whether it has Dad's chin or Mom's nose!!

Yesterday was my fifth sonogram. I really do love the quality time I'm getting to spend watching my baby grow. Yesterday I actually saw him move and felt it at the same time. Just awesome!

I've been derelict...

Okay, clearly I've been totally derelict in keeping up with my blog. But I have a very good reason. The thing that's been occupying my thoughts most for the past few months has been something I couldn't blog about. At least not until now. So, here's why I haven't been posting:



Yes, it's true! I am 20 weeks pregnant! I decided my blog did not need to include all the first trimester complaining, worrying and obsessing. But, lucky you, you will get to hear it for the rest of the pregnancy.

So, yesterday was our sonogram (also known as ultrasound). The tech was a bit crabby at the start, especially when March and June followed us into the room. But she warmed up to us after a bit. And proceeded to give my children a very nice anatomy lesson. They learned about the parts of the heart, all about blood flow into and out of the heart, about the brain, and of course, about gender anatomy. She refused to say the "P" word in front of the girls, but, yes, our baby most certainly has "boy parts"!

While I thought it would be great to have a boy after two girls, I admit that I've had a few other unexpected reactions to the news. First, I mourned just a teeny bit that we wouldn't be buying cute pink dresses for the baby. Then, I had a sudden panicky lack of self-confidence. What if all the things that I know I've done pretty well in raising my girls no longer applies to this boy? Can I expect anything to go the way it went for the girls? Okay, I'm calming back down now.

Good grief, now we just have to think of a name!

It's Been a Busy Month

Wow, I've just realized that it's nearly the end of October, and I've only posted twice this month. It has, though, been a really busy month for us, what with selling one house, buying another, and finally getting a vacation.

We just came back from a lovely week in the Dominican Republic, at the Iberostar Hacienda Dominicus in Bayahibe. This is our third time visiting this resort. The first few days, I was completely lazy and relaxed and forgot about packing, moving, houses, etc. Unfortunately, by about the fourth day, I started having dreams about packing, and it was no longer quite that relaxing. We did a lot of playing around in the pool and the sea, played lots of ping pong, and of course ate a lot.

My daughter March made friends with a German girl named J, and her family really adopted us! J's father spoke fair English, and J and her mother spoke just a tiny bit. J and March played backgammon a few times, and mostly played around in the pool. One night, we taught them to play "BS" or "Bull". They loved the game, and were quite addicted for the remainder of our trip. We all exchanged email addresses, and promised to write and send pictures, etc. But when we left, March cried her eyes out, and J's mother hugged March really tightly and was crying herself. So sweet!

I'll pretend that I took many pictures. But, really, I'm stealing these from elsewhere online!

Here's what the lobby looks like. Very open and airy, and when you first arrive, they bring you a "welcome drink" while you're registering.

We spent a lot of time at the pool, because it's easier to keep from burning here.

The beach is gorgeous too. The water is very clean and clear, and the waves are very mild. Even 50-100 yards out, you can stand in the water. When you look down, you'll see fish swimming around your feet. That lighthouse is actually a bar.

This is what happens when you tip the housekeeper. You get lots of these little towel swans all over your room!

Mmm, food. There are tons of choices in the food buffet. For breakfast, I mostly had eggs, granola and fruit. For lunch and dinner, I usually had fish of some sort and fruit/veggies. Plus dessert of course!!

June's favorite part of the buffet--all you can eat mango!!! I was seriously concerned that the entire island's supply of mango would be depleted before our departure. I would guess that she ate at least 3 mangos at every meal.

There are lots of little ponds and man-made water areas on the grounds. In them live lots of ducks, geese, swans, flamingos and turtles. June fell in love with the one white goose, who she immediately nicknamed "Aflac". The girls fed the animals every day with bread from the buffet. Most of them were pretty gentle while they were actually being given bread, but swans are very nasty animals!! If anyone stood near the edge without food, the swans would nip and bite the people's feet! J's father was teasing one of them, and the swan was really chowing down on his hand.

We're not big fans of the nighttime entertainment. I suppose if you're from some small town in the middle of nowhere, and you've never seen live entertainment, then these shows are very exciting. But for people who've lived in big cities all their lives, they seemed totally amateurish and dull. We did manage to stay through this one though, a version of the Lion King. They had asked June to be in the show, but she said no.

All in all, a nice vacation, and now we're home to start really packing in earnest. We are out on the 6th!

My friends...

Despite the hacking cough that my daughter has been kind enough to share with me, I was determined to stay awake through the debates last night. Because there were important things to be learned from listening to these two candidates discuss the issues. No, not their positions or views. Heck, I've already absentee voted anyway. But I made a bet with a co-worker as to how many times McCain would say "my friends". I said he'd say it 20 times. My co-worker first thought I was way off, that it would only be around 10 times. When I reminded him that it was a town-hall format, he upped it to 15.

He said it 17 times!!! I guess I technically lost. But still, I was pretty close.

It was also kind of fun to watch the scrolling Ohio undecided voters opinions. I didn't really understand all their reactions. Clearly they didn't like anything negative. In fact, both candidates should probably never have mentioned their opponents at all. But most interesting was that nothing McCain ever said made them really excited. They were often positive about what he said, just never at the highest possible rating. Whereas many things Obama said (even though to me they just sounded like standard debate rhetoric) caused them to give very high ratings. It was pretty easy to tell who won, anyway. To me, Obama looked like a president and McCain looked like some weird character from a Batman movie, with the weird jokes, the eyebrows bobbing up and down, the erratic pacing, even while Obama was talking.

Cough, cough, I guess I'll be needing a nap at work today.

My very first award!!

Okay, maybe it doesn't really count, because it's from one of my best friends, but that's okay, I'll take it anyway.

So, I'm proud to announce, that for my outstanding writing contribution to the blog community (cough, ahem, er, friendship with Olga), I have been honored with the Premio Arte Pico award.


It seems to originate in Uruguay, from this
blog, which I'm sure is quite a lovely blog, except that I don't speak Spanish so I have no idea what it says.

So, apparently, there are rules to these awards. Here are the rules:
1) Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.
2) Advertise name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) Share these rules.

So, as nice as the award is, the best part is that I get to pass it on to some of my favorite blogs, many of which I only lurk on (it's kind of awkward commenting on someone's blog the first time--I feel a bit like an intruder)

Shallow Gal makes me laugh so hard I cry/pee sometimes, and that's the nicest break in my otherwise boring day! Plus, she uses footnotes, how cool is that??

Where's My Cape is a complete, irreverant smart-ass too (and I say that with the utmost respect). Although she has so many awards already, she hardly needs this one. But what the heck, she cracks me up.

Vegan Lunch Box is a blogger who I truly admire. I am not vegan, and even if I were, I wouldn't have the time or patience to make these incredible little lunches for my kids (I consider myself SuperMom just for cookie-cutting their sandwiches into hearts on Valentine's Day), but I am in awe of people who make their child's lunch such a work of beauty. What a great way to encourage your children to treasure the earth's gifts.

Half-assed takes care of the other end of the cooking spectrum, and definitely more my style. There are some great ideas on here for quick, easy ways to throw something on the table that the kids won't secretly feed the dog.

Don't Take the Repeats was one of my favorite blogs for a long time. This is a posthumous award, since the poor lady was forced to shut down her blog by some nasty invader of her privacy. I will miss her.

Marinka is also one seriously funny Mom. In case my post-humous award doesn't count (since she can't post the award on her defunct blog), this is one of my newest favorites.

One Heartbeat Away?

Okay, I know it's probably a mistake to introduce my political views onto this blog, but hey, my only visitors at the moment are my friends, and you already know where I stand, right?

So, Sarah Palin finally agreed to answer some questions off the cuff in front of reporters. Okay, to be precise, FOUR questions. Here is part of the transcript (no, I am not making this up, I cut it straight from CNN ) CNN article

Q: "do you agree with the way the Bush administration has handled the war on terrorism, is there anything you would do differently?"
A: "I agree with the Bush administration that we take the fight to them. We never again let them come onto our soil and try to destroy not only our democracy, but communities like the community of New York. Never again. So yes, I do agree with taking the fight to the terrorists and stopping them over there."

     Translation: McCain-Palin want to bring change to Washington. We just want to do it in exactly the same way that Bush has done it for the last 8 years. And, really, I'm still being tutored on how we've handled the war on terrorism, I haven't yet been tutored on how we would do it.

Q: "Do you think our presence in Iraq and afghan and our continued presence there is inflaming islamic extremists?"
A: I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security of our nation, again, because the mission is to take the fight over there. do not let them come over here and attempt again what they accomplished here, and that was some destruction. terrible destruction on that day. but since September 11, Americans uniting and rebuilding and committing to never letting that happen again.

     Translation: You didn't notice that I just gave you the same thirty second sound-bite answer that I gave you on the last question, did you? Because we haven't covered this material yet in my tutoring.

Q: "Do you support the reelection bids of embattled Alaska Republicans, Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens?"
A: "Ted Stevens trial started a couple days ago. We’ll see where that goes."

     Translation: Oops, I'm going to get in trouble if I answer this one. So I guess, I'm really only agreeing to answer three questions then.

Q: "What do you think of bailout package before congress?"
A: "I don't support that until the provisions that Sen. McCain has offered are implemented in Paulson's proposals."

     Translation: I don't have the slightest clue about the bailout package. We haven't gotten to current events yet.

In other news, Sarah announced victory in Iraq.
( Washington Post )

We laugh, we joke, we watch SNL. And, yet, there are electoral projection maps out there (not even made out by Fox News) that project this as a close race, once that McCain Palin may even be leading. Washington Post electoral map 9/26/08 So I find myself, for the third time in twelve years, asking the question "How can it even be close? How can half this country, my country, see everything completely inverted from me?

Under Contract!!

I didn't want to jinx it until all the contingencies had been removed, but my house is now officially under contract. The only thing that can stop the sale now is if the buyers lose a job, or their bank goes belly-up. A few years ago that might have seemed like a long-shot, but these days??

So in 53 days, we will be homeless. Unless we find something to live in by then. (Do you suppose the homeless shelters take a family of four with a dog, two cats and a guinea pig??) We're looking and looking, but nothing much yet. The rental houses we've seen have been nasty. I think renting our your house is apparently something you do when you're too lazy to clean it or fix anything in it. The apartments are very small and almost none take a dog and two cats and a guinea pig--actually, that goes for 90% of the rental homes too. We're hoping to buy something, so we'll have to see what happens.

Oh, and we're leaving for the Dominican Republic in 22 days!!! I have desperately needed a vacation for over a year. At this point, I don't care whether we have a place to live or not, as long as I get to lie on that beach and listen to the waves. Because if I don't get that vacation, I'll have a place to live--it's called Bellevue, or whatever other mental hospital is near!!

What would I eat?

Okay, I really need a break from all my stress. TS Hanna came and drowned out my Saturday open house. The basement flooded despite the $10,000 we spent on waterproofing last year. Actually it was just one speed drain inside the door at the bottom of the stairwell that wasn't speedy enough. Shockingly, the company came out that night to look at it, admitted that they'd installed it improperly, and is coming out today to re-install.

So, for a fun break, I found this meme from Where's My Cape, and thought I'd join in.

The rules are:
1) Copy this list into your blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Bonus: how many did you have to look up? I looked up 11!

And the list:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

The house goes on the market today!

Well, we've finally gotten through this stage of chaos. The house goes on the market today.

The wallpaper has been torn down (about ten square feet of it by my and my kids and friends, the rest by the professionals after we realized there was no way we'd get it done) in the kitchen and it's been painted some bleaugh neutral house-for-sale color. It's covered in new granite.

The walls have all been cleaned with Magic Eraser. This makes me sad, because one of March's favorite pastimes is jumping up and slapping the top of the door frame, just like mine was when I was a kid. And I had to erase all those finger prints off the door frames :(

90% of our furniture, knickknacks and stuff has been sold (eBay or Craig's List), given away (Goodwill or freecycle) or stuffed into boxes in the basement.

Our front door has been painted an appropriate Feng Shui red.

The above ground swimming pool has been removed and replaced with a rather odd looking 15' round garden of impatiens and greenage. The grass has been watered. The windows have been professionally washed. The roof has been repaired.

Every light fixture has a brand new lightbulb.

I spent last night craning and twisting my neck, painting the ceiling in the sunroom, where the roof leaked (hmmm, apparently no one told the window washers that they needed to cushion the feet of their ladders when standing on a roof). I didn't fall off the ladder.

Now, comes the worst and hardest part. The waiting and stressing, and keeping your house looking like a Stepford house.

These last few weeks I have not been a good SuperMom. I've spent no time whatsoever with my kids, and have been cranky whenever I've seen them. They started school this week, March started middle school. I've barely heard about it, and can't name their teachers. Quality time with Mommy has largely been me yelling at them not to touch this or that. Sigh, it's so hard to have it all sometimes!

Someone's getting a great kitchen...

Since we're putting our house on the market, and I'm so busy and crazed that I can no longer think straight, I've been pretty much allowing my realtor to make all the important decisions for me. (Don't blame me if my outfit doesn't match today, the realtor picked it out!)

After his "staging" crew walked the house with him last week, he came up with a big long list of critical home improvements that we needed to make before the house goes on the market. So, suddenly I'm painting our front door red. Or, at least, I'm trying to do so. But after two coats, I'm still nowhere near red, nowhere near having covered up the color underneath (black).

We're peeling off all the wall paper in the guest bathroom. Supermom that I am, I realized that something as destructive as peeling wallpaper off the walls would be a perfect job for June, the little devil!

Now for the worst part. We're putting granite counters in the kitchen, peeling off the blue and white country wallpaper and repainting. Why is this awful? Aside from the amount of work that needs to get magically done by next Thursday (while I'm, coincidentally in California at an in-laws wedding half the time), I've been too cheap, lazy or unmotivated to make these changes for myself the entire time I've lived in this house. I disliked the wallpaper and counters from the minute I stepped into the house. Did I ever look into putting in granite counters for myself? No, it always seemed too expensive or too much trouble. Did I ever tear that darned wallpaper off for myself? No, too much work, I can live with it.


So now, we'll have a beautiful kitchen, which we'll possess for hopefully only a month or two. And I really won't even be able to use it much, because I'm eating Diet to Go , and besides, we've already packed half the kitchen things.

Enough ranting!

Cleaning up...

It looks like we are going to sell our house. It was always one of those financially questionable decisions in the first place, and money's really tight right now. So, we're putting our house on the market.

Our realtor seems pretty positive, thinks that we'll get some equity out of it. But he walked the house with us over the weekend, and showed us what things we could do to make it look as nice as possible for the open house and market. Funny guy, he didn't want to "tell" us what to do, but he kept saying "so,...,are you going to take away that table/cabinet/chair/couch, etc.?" and "so,....are you going to have it cleaned and clean the windows?"

The long and the short of it is that 3/4 of our furniture and belongings needs to magically be beamed up to some netherworld while our house is on the market. Some things are important to us and we know that we'll want them when we get wherever we're going next. But a lot of our things have been dragged along with us from California to Texas and now to Washington DC. And some things we haven't even liked for years.

So we're doing some serious selling and clearing. We already had a garage sale. I've done some Ebay selling before, with some luck. But lots of things haven't sold on Ebay, and you pay for every listing either way, and wait and wait for it to not sell. And we're just a bit upset at our Goodwill right now (meaning, way totally upset), so that's out. Plus we're Jewish so we don't usually give to the Salvation Army. So what to do?

Well, we posted a lot of things on Craig's List. Wow, I'm amazed at what an efficient world this is becoming! We posted things in the morning and they were gone by the end of the day, for decent prices!! And it's free to post, even with pictures! What a great system.

Then, for the things that we didn't think would be worth posting on Craig's list, we posted those to our local freecycle group, and those went even faster. Sometimes we use the phrase "that's so ugly, I couldn't even give that away!" Well, it's just not true. It turns out you can give most anything away. I saw chunks of wood, broken vacuums, dirty clothes, moving boxes and so much more. We picked up some moving boxes from one person and gave away clothes and extra holiday decorations to others. What a resourceful world we live in!!

Confession...

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'm a Webkinz addict! For those of you who don't know, Webkinz are small stuffed animals that come with a secret code attached to them. The secret code allows you access to a virtual world, where your "pet" becomes an animated resident. In this virtual world, you play games to earn "Kinzcash". The Kinzcash is used to buy rooms and furniture for your house, food and clothing for your pet, and other goodies.

It started out simply enough. My daughters tired of their account at Club Penguin because although much of it was free, the best things required a monthly paid membership. So they moved on to Webkinz. March received a koala that she named Koko. June got a monkey that she named Cheeky. And so it began. Soon enough, we'd all been sucked into it. I am now the proud owner of five Webkinz pets: a chocolate lab named Chip, a penguin named Dudley, a raccoon named Bandito, a pinto horse named Dottie, and a cow named Shirley. My husband even joined in, reluctantly at first, but now he's as addicted as the next person. He has a rabbit named James Bond, a penguin named Kopol, and a tiger named Lord Bubu. It would take me too long to list all my daughters' pets, but June has 19 and March has at least 15.

The latest addition? Grandpa adopted a black bear, named Blackie. March and June call him and have "playdates" with him!! They send each other virtual gifts for each other's pets!

Watch out, you might be next!

My Hispanic roots?

Seriously, I have none. Here's proof:

When I lived in Austin, I had a nanny from Mexico, who used to make us tacos (she made chicken mole too, but that's another story). I watched a few times, so now I know how to make them. Not those dry, crispy pre-made taco shells they sell in the store, and not the "soft tacos" that are made from a smushy tortilla wrapped around the filling. But a fried taco.

It's not too hard, really. You heat some oil in a small pan, drop the flour tortilla in, and poke it a few times so it doesn't turn into a giant tortilla balloon. When it starts to turn slightly brown and crispy, flip it over and add fillings. Then fold in half and press down to secure the fillings inside. Voila (not sure how to translate that into Spanish!), you're done.

March absolutely LOVES tacos. Since she's a vegetarian, I fill them with refried beans and cheese. Then she adds lettuce and tomato and, her favorite, sour cream. Since the planets would all collide if both girls liked the same food, June only likes beef tacos, and, in fact, doesn't really want the taco at all, but would prefer to eat the filling and the toppings separately.

The other night I was desperate to make a quick and hearty meal for the girls. Since I've been eating Diet to Go , their eating has been a bit...well, odd. Not unhealthy, just a bit like grazing. Anyhow, searching desperately, I found some tortillas and some sour cream and cheese, but no refried beans and no meat. I had just bought a new package of tater tots, though. So, yes, I made Tater Tot Tacos (say that 10 times fast!).

Truly, not an authentic Mexican tradition, but they were incredibly delicious. I snuck a bite--yum! March begged for seconds, and begged me to make them again about two days later. Even June took a bite and liked it and had some the second time!!

Tip: Microwave the frozen tater tots until they're soft and warmed, about 30 seconds. Then stick in the frying tortilla along with a sprinkle of shredded cheese. Fold over and press together until cheese melts. Dinner in five minutes or less!!

Update on the family tree...

I've found a new, totally addictive hobby (as if I really needed another one)! I'm working on my family tree. A friend of mine got me started on it at www.ancestry.com, where it turns out they have a lot of old records digitalized and searchable. So you can see the actual 1920 federal Census record of your ancestors. This includes information on their address, who was living with them, their age and marital status, where they and their parents were born and their occupation. Plus you can find military records, draft registrations etc. in the person's own writing; and emigration and migration records--every time they entered the country during a certain time period.

It's like a jigsaw puzzle with no end! A month ago, I could only name four living relatives--my brother, my father, an aunt that I'm not even sure how she's related to me, and my mother's cousin. Now, I see that I could essentially find zillions of relatives. In fact, I think that there is a project out there to link as many people in the world as possibly through one world tree.

Every time I look up one relative, I find many more--their spouses, children, relatives of their spouses, etc. And the best part is that I've actually contacted some of these people. It's tricky, because the link between a name on official government records doesn't always match the name someone goes by. And there are often many people with the same name obviously. But I have managed to find three people who are related to me just by sending random emails to people that sound right! One of them had worked on a family tree for my father's side of the family, so that's given me so much more information. Another one is the son of someone who has worked on the tree on my mother's side, and I'm hoping to get all her information too.

I had a few misses too. People with the right names living in approximately the right place, but not related to me. They've happily shared with me their own origins too.

Along the way, I've found some mysteries. I can't find my grandmother anywhere. I've found the rest of her family, all living happily together, at a time when she should have been already born and still young enough to live there. But she's not there. I've found one gruncle (my dad's uncle) who was in a reformatory for boys at age 16--I don't know what he did to get in there!!

I seriously wish I could do this for my profession. It's like being a detective without the dangerous aspect. Following links and searching for clues. What fun!

First flirting...

Yesterday I took my 11-year old daughter and her friend to a local water park. I really hate swimming in those kinds of places, so I nestled down with a book under an umbrella, while they went off to ride down the water slides and ride a tube around on the lazy river. After they'd been gone for a while, I saw them in the pool in front of me, climbing onto a large floating plastic fish. A few minutes into it, a tall, gangly boy came over to them, and started trying to push them off the fish. At first, I thought he was a bully, picking on my little kids. After this went on for a while, though, with the girls clearly thrashing the boy the whole time, I realized that he wasn't a bully.

HE WAS FLIRTING WITH MY DAUGHTER AND HER FRIEND!!!

Not in that obvious teenager flirting way, but in that pre-teen flirting way, where they pretend they don't like each other. But those of us who've been there and beyond know that if you really don't like someone, you just ignore him. You don't go out of your way following them around poking them to tell them that you don't like them!

You know what? MY DAUGHTER AND HER FRIEND WERE FLIRTING RIGHT BACK!! They didn't even know it, but they were giggling and laughing and teasing and...well, basically...flirting!! I asked them about it afterwards, and they were clearly stunned to learn that the boy was flirting, and most certainly didn't know that they were flirting!!

Sigh...they're growing up way too fast.

Mathematics

As the school year ended in June, my children were each given a long math packet to work on over the summer. I think they're supposed to work on it a little each week, but we inevitably do it all in one day. That day arrived this week. To keep them busy while visiting my office for the day, I brought along the math packets, and they started in on them.

While you might assume that the point of these packets is to keep your memory refreshed on basic math skills, I am now convinced that the true point of them is to keep your memory refreshed about how much you hate elementary school math!!!

The sad thing is that my kids do not really hate math. They just hate the math as it is taught in school. In fact, we've always played math games all the time. Sometimes just as simple as me asking them to figure out how much three pounds of bananas will cost if bananas are $0.49 per pound. Sometimes I'll ask them tricky questions like "what three consecutive numbers add up to 75" or "what's 75 times 6" etc. Best of all are math board games. We often play Rummikub or Muggins . And they're really good at math too. It's a shame that since the time I went to school, the math instruction techniques really haven't improved all that much!