9 posts tagged “my zoe”

Yesterday Zoe came home from school with her loot from the treasure box (that she visits weekly because she knows how to be a good girl at school).

 

A mood ring.

I heard her tell Rae, "It's a mood ring, I check it to see what my attitude is."

And then with this melancholy-like voice, "See, right now I'm very happy."

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I recently finished this-

 

I enjoyed The Pigman, it was written for the Junior High aged, which is right up my alley. One of my main reasons is because of the language, have I even mentioned how much I dislike bad words?

 

In the back of the book there is an interview with Paul Zindel.

The question- In The Pigman , you use symbols, such as "%*$#", in place of four-letter words. Was that your original intent or did the publisher encourage you to avoid using controversial language?

His answer- I had to do what was comfortable for me, and I just felt that cursing- now I feel it more than ever- isn't really necessary. There is a difference between the written words and spoken words. I know curse words are thrown all around in kids' mouths, but such words don't help create a novel or a play. The type of language that has the highest literary merit does not happen to include massive amounts of curses...

Thank you Mr Zindel! Can you convince your fellow book writers of that??

 

The story is told of two high school students making friends with an elderly man. It is told from the youth's prespective and they take turns writing their story of Mr Pignati, aka The Pigman. Lorraine writing one chapter, John the next, until their story is told.

When I first started reading this book I thought it was recently published, but it didn't take long for me to notice otherwise and I checked- 1968. As this paragragh I am about to share will show clearly. But I really like this paragragh..... from The Pigman

 

...this English teacher I'm going to tell you about.....says I'm such a card. A card she calls me, which sounds ridiculous coming out of the mouth of an old-maid English teacher who's practically fifty years old. I really hate it when a teacher has to show that she isn't behind the times by using some expression which sounds so up-to-date you know for sure she's behind the times. Besides, card really isn't up-to-date anymore, which makes it even more annoying. In fact, the thing Lorraine and I liked best about the Pigman was that he didn't go around saying we were cards or jazzy or cool or hip. He said we were delightful, and if there's one way to show how much your're not trying to make believe your're not hehind the times, it's to go around saying people are delightful. 

My wittle baby sister Anitra has not had her baby yet.

(unless they forgot to call me) 

:)

 I no longer grant myself permission to tease her with "have you had that baby yet" (I cringe) because I am afraid I feel pure guilt for getting her hopes up for predicting tomorrow to be the big day. Because surely, she put lots of confidence in my prediction. Surely.

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Gary and I re-discussed what we'll do if a hurricane heads right to us (keepin an eye on Ike). I wanted to make sure that I remembered correctly the plans from years past, and wanted to make sure we were on the same boat.

I asked, "So, we still plan to leave if it's a category 4....?"

Gary, "Oh yes, definitely leave when it's a 4."

"But we stay if it's just a 2, right?" I asked.

Gary said, "Yes."

I inquired once more, "And remind me what we do if it's a category 3?"

Gary replied, "We flip a coin."

~~~~~~~

And because I love pictures and feel incomplete posting without at least one-

Zoe is wiped out after a long day of school and...

 

....homework and after school fun.

Naomi and Zoe had Rootbeer Floats for breakfast this morning.

Confession always makes me feel better. 

 

(Anitra- have you had that baby yet?)

 

Not much happened in my neck of the woods this Labor Day.

 

The most exciting was this-

And this-

 

 

And this.

 

 

and.....

 

You get the picture....

 

 

 

Zoe's shoes still aren't dry.

 

Today, after a few tears or more, and after talking to people who love me (Gary who never calls me from work during the day so thank goodness he had a feeling and acted upon it and my Dad and Shaw) I would like to rewrite yesterdays post.

 

Let's have a do-over. Okay?

First off, let's leave out the "Life is very whatever amount hard"- because by golly, that goes without saying. I don't need to tell anyone that, you all already know that it can be at times.

Just call me 'Captain Obvious, Protector of Things Already Known'.

 

But what you may not know about is this gem of a book-

I loved this book and if you think you've read enough stories about the Holocaust I can promise you, you haven't read enough until you've read this one.

This story is told by a young boy who does not know his age, his name or who his parents are. He lives on the streets and believes his name is Stopthief because that is what he hears everytime he gets his food. But he doesn't just take food for himself, he also takes and delivers to orphan's. And he feels so blessed that at least he's not an orphan. He's young and innocent and postive. The author of this book, Jerry Spinelli, takes a devastating time and setting and yet tells a tale of hope fabulously.

It also had me at the first paragraph. Unlike The Grapes of Wrath, which I am trying to read now. And not only is it slower (and not really my kind of writing style) but I swear it, the book has this dry squeek thing going when I turn the pages that totally give me the heebie-jeebies. Gary said I shouldn't share that with anyone though, that I should keep this one to myself, lest people start thinking I'm crazy. Besides (said he), the book is about the Great Depression and a drought, the drought, as in the Dust Bowl, so if the book really is dry (and squeeky), it's fitting.

 

Anyways, I would also like to share these photo's- (because, remember? I'm doing a 'do-over')

Poor Zoe.

 The only child of mine who has no younger siblings, who never got to be the big sister to a baby, so she has to resort to making a kitty a baby.

 He comes with a snotty nose (all. the. time.) so that should make it more realistic.

 

Oh, and wittle baby sister Anitra?

Have you had that baby yet?

;-)

 

* Wouldn't do-over's be the coolest in life, if it were as easy as rewriting a blog post?

** Dear Book Club friends, you might wanna start looking for Milkweed.

***I think I prefer books written for young adults over books written for old one's.

****To all mother's, did the question I asked my sister, even though not directed at you, annoy the mess out of you? Why do people do that? And why am I torturing my sister with it.....??    

Somtimes life is.....

 very very very very very very very very very

very very very very very very very very very

hard.

 

Therefor this is all I've got today.

 You should read it.

 

And my Zoe-

 

 Thinks the kitty is a baby.

Today is school picture day at the elementary school. Yaaay.

 No school uniforms. Bigger Yaaaay.

 Kids don't want mom to pick out their clothes. Booooooooooooooo.

Kids want to choose their own hair style. Double Booooooo.

I have to let them be free to choose or else I would be as bad as the school.  Boooo.

At least I'm not being hypocritical. Yaaaay.

 

So we practiced their smiles this morning.

Here is what they plan to have their pictures look like.

 

 

 

and...

Yaaaaay.

 

Saturday, with dirty muddy girls running in and out of the house, I kept hearing the words 'fishin' and one calling to the other 'let's go catch more fish'.

So I checked it out. 

 

 

 

Maybe there was also a little 'it's my turn to catch fish, "neighbor friend"' and then a little 'it's my net' and then a little 'it's our "mountain stream"'.

 

Can you spy with your little eye....

2 crawdads, 5 minnows, icky water, lotsa moss, 1 leaf....

 

Then the 'fishing pier' becomes a balance beam

 

Lately Naomi and Zoe are all about getting ready for school in record time, so they can get some scootin' in before school.

I am all about it because I don't have to beg, plead, cry, threaten them to hurry so they won't be late.

 

Zoe requested I do her hair like this. Rae used to do it for her, they call it pig-ears. I don't know if they made that up or it's a well known hair term. Does anyone know? 

When she got home from school she said, "Lots of people said my hair looked good..." then she started adding up all the people that said they liked it....

"Mom, 7 people said they liked my hair, including me."

 

 

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Zoe was in charge of Family Home Evening last night. Her idea was to sit around the family room eating dessert and talking. Eating in the family room with permission is a big deal. Nolan said we should go around the room saying nice things about each other.

It's funny how hard they seem to think it is, to give a true compliment.

"Wes, you have a very nice cell phone."

"Rae, you are really good at straightening people's hair."

"Nolan, you wear glasses like noone else in this family."

"Mom, you did a good job picking out my cell phone."

"Mom, you did a good job slicing this store bought pie."

Nobody really said the last one, but that was about how the compliments went. And we did have store bought pie.

 

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Sunday in Sacrament Meeting there was a talk on pride.

Zoe whispered excitedly in my ear, "Mom!!  I know that word. That was one of my spelling words! Pride! p-r-i-d-e, pride."

 

In my house, we are pretty big fans of the Olympics.

It's weird because we don't watch sports on TV at all, until the Olympics.

 

And it's weirder that it's the Summer Olympics but my kids are in school. I remember when I was a kid we watched it during summer break.

 

But if you missed the men's 4x100 swimming a couple of days ago, you must check it out. (the worst recording but the only I can find here. )

 

There is nothing like a come back at the last second!

 

Plus it is always especially exciting after the smack talk from France. Although I have nothing against France, as some know I had a 3 day love affair with a guy from France. (Can I say love affair even if I didn't let him kiss me?) 

It's been cute to watch the Olympics with my children. Naomi is especially interested in the gymnastics because she is a gymnast. Check out one of her smooth moves here.

She's been educating us on some of the gymnastic terms and facts as we watch. She is getting a kick out of knowing more on a subject than the rest of the house.

And Zoe, she and Phelps have this thing in common... it's called- swimming..

Her two week swim lessons have made her the swim expert.

Look what she can do-

 

The funny thing about the Olympics is I'm more likely to get teary eyed watching it than at most any other occasion.

There is this thing about putting your heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears into your passion and having it show that gets to me, right in my heart.

I don't know why.

Because I have nothing in my life that relates to these atheletes.

 Not unless being a bench warmer counts.

A passionate bench warmer.

But a bench warmer just the same.