What’s A Hero

In my mind heroes are: the firemen that ran into the Twin Towers on 9/11, the policeman who saved a battered woman or child, a soldier, an astronaut,  a teacher who provides a snack for a needy student, etc.  Now there is another set, these engineers who the Fukushima nuclear plant.  There are 50 of them, working while being exposed to unbelievable levels of radiation, just like a doctor or nurse who works on a heart attack patient for over an hour, never giving up hope.  Are these fathers and mothers, grandparents, newly graduated engineers?  Do they even know the fate of their families and homes after the Tsunami?  They must know they’re giving their lives to stop the meltdown.  This whole experience is just drawn from a disaster movie.  Those things just weren’t ever supposed to happen.  Now, they happen every year it seems.  These people remind me of the characters from “Armageddon,”  just your average Joe, who is now charged with saving many.  What can you say about people who do that?  Hero is not a big enough word. 
Here is an NPR article regarding these heroes.  God speed to them.

Oh, The Possibilities

I don’t know if it’s part of the American fabric, or my grandfather’s seaman's blood, but there is nothing like being on the road.  Especially, when it’s dark and the only vehicles on the road are you and a half a dozen semi-s making your way to nowhere.  There’s a world of possibility on that road in front of you.  Tonight, I drove for the first time in a long time, listing to R.E.M., Alanis Morissette, Natalie Merchant, and some other college favorites, with two of my kids sleeping in the back of my car.  As usual, Melissa Etheridge describes it the best.

Call ME: Land Line, Cell Phone, E-mail, Etc.

Unbelievably, I’ve entered another new stage of my life.  I’ve begun to work outside the home again.  While I’m at home waiting for Little John ripening a little bit more before I can let him loose, I’m substitute teaching.  
I’m so excited to finally work in my field again, and every once in a while I am able to teach a Social Studies class.  It just makes my week when that happens.  Unfortunately, I rarely interact with the teachers I work for, which brings me to this post.  I need to leave my contact information in case they have a question and I rather not leave it in my horrible scrawl.  Calling cards are my answer.  I came across How about Orange, a lovely blog, which not only had calling cards, the calling cards have a Kurbits print and they are orange.  Just two of my favorite things. 

Snow Day

last Friday the sixth snow day of the school year hit us in Northeast Ohio.  Wendy finally decided it was time to build her Lego Pirate ship, that had been sitting in the closet.  She spent the day working on this project, without letting her brother (who was circling) divert her attention. 
It always amazes me that this:


Can turn into this:


Scenes from the plunder:

What’s your Ikea name?

What better subject to resume blogging with.  If you’re curious what you’d be called if you were a prepackaged bookcase from Ikea, you can find out here.

Moose

Second Star to the Right and On’Til Morning

My baby is not a baby anymore. He’s starting to put two words together, he wears a size 8 ½ shoe, he runs and jumps, an d he can even throw a tantrum or two. The time has gone so fast. As a result, we’re getting rid of our baby things slowly but surely. Three will be it. So, the items we’re not keeping for mementos or any possible grandchildren are finding their way into the donation pile. So it’s time, before his room changes too much, to document it. It’s a bit narcissistic, but what about blogging isn’t?

I planned for years for this room. The blue is my favorite color, sort of a Wedgewood blue. The stars were in a Pottery Barn catalog years ago and I kept the clipping, for just the right time. The time finally came. However, I had tremendous carpel syndrome due to my pregnancy, that my incredible friend and my mother helped me paint the fine details of the stars. My daughter helped with Big Ben and I was able to paint Peter Pan and the Darlings. The wall decal was special ordered from Just Ad Words. Luckily, the bumper and valance that my incredibly talented mother made for my first child fit wonderfully in this room. All I had to buy was the quilt for our extra bed for guests.

After all that work, the room was complete and waiting for my little baby boy.  He’s so big and just ready and willing to go find some adventures with Peter.  So, here’s the snapshot of my baby’s nursery as he’s  headed for the second star to the right and on’til morning.