Mommy Brain

Sorry, everyone - just found out that video about the cell phone and popcorn in my previous post is a hoax. I’ll have to be more diligent in my research next time! It sure looked real, though.

I think I’m recovered from our day-long Silverwood extravaganza. Did I mention that we left at 8:30 am and didn’t return until 10 pm? I’m looking forward to Tuesday, which - in spite of being our fifth day of school - will feel like our first day of school and life will begin to return to normal. Whatever that is.

Lots of exciting things happening in the news lately. Obama gives a darn good speech; McCain announces a surprise VP pick. And me? I’m still ambivalent about the whole thing. I’m musing over a post - that will probably be very long - about the whole presidential thing. Probably sometime this week, if I find the time to get the thoughts out of my head and into some kind of organized format.

But, for now, I promised you links - and do I have a bunch!

~ Entertainment Weekly counts down their top 25 Sci-Fi movies and TV series since 1982.

~ Speaking of sci-fi, Battlestar Galactica may be ending, but there are two projects in the planning stages that will continue the franchise.

~ Don’t Try This At Home has posted another hilarious video for her Sunday YouTube, called “Things You Don’t Say to Your Wife.”

~ Regardless of how you feel about either presidential candidate, I think this ad that McCain ran on the night Obama received the nomination was pretty classy.

~ For all of you fellow homeschooling moms who are beginning another year, I give you I Will Survive.

~ Any fans of Nathan Fillion from Firefly? He’s set to appear in a midseason series on ABC.

~ Update: Angie Hunt just commented to let me know that this video is a hoax. Sure looked real! I’m not a big fan of cell phones. Yes, I have one, and I use it very rarely - maybe twice a week. It’s simply a tool for emergencies or cases when I must reach someone and I’m not near a phone. I prepay for my minutes, so I don’t chat away on it. I don’t even know how to send a text message. I think a lot of people are very rude in how they use their cell phones - an opinion that was reinforced at a recent playdate at the park when one of the other moms proceeded to text message her teenage daughter and her mother for the entire hour she was there. She then stood up and informed the rest of us that she had lots to do and had to be going. Sigh. Anyway, this video reinforces my reasoning for not using my cell phone very often - and for not buying one for my tween daughter. It’s frankly a little scary. Hat tip: Angela Hunt.

~ Time has an amazing photo gallery from the Olympics. Some of the pictures are truly stunning.

~ Note to self: If ever in Japan, avoid the trains. Shudder.

At Books and Movies this week:

~ Review of Half-*ssed: A Weight-Loss Memoir

~ Review of The Devil’s Arithmetic

~ Reading Questionnaire

~ Teaser Tuesday

~ The Sunday Salon

~ Review of The Cross-Time Engineer

~ And, there is still time to enter to win Guernica

We just got back from the fair and I’m pooped. I’ve been entertained out this summer, I think. Vacation was wonderful - so fun - but I have no desire to do anything else. I want to start school and have normal life back! But, that won’t happen until after Tuesday, because on Tuesday, I’m taking the kids here. I don’t want to. at. all. But, the kids read their 10 hours each (over and above normal school reading time) to earn their free tickets, so I kinda half to, or I’d be a really mean mommy. Sigh.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow night. All three boys are going for a sleepover at Michelle’s house in honor of her Jacob’s birthday, and Natalie is heading south to Grandma and Papa’s for the night. So Kevin and I are going to go out to dinner and have an evening all to ourselves. Then Saturday afternoon, he’s taking Josiah on an overnight camping trip, just the two of them. It’s Josiah’s turn for time with Daddy.

It’s been a great week, book-wise. I received a review copy of…

The Grift by Debra Ginsberg

…and an ARC of…

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway.

I also ordered the first four books in the History Lives series, which are books for young readers that tell the history of the church from St. Paul through John Wesley. (Book 5 continues the story from there, and is due out later this year.) Westminster Books has the first four books for only $25.17 - 30% off! The series is written by Brandon and Mindy Withrow, whose blog I’ve enjoyed for a couple of years now. Anyway, I’m going to read these aloud to the kids for part of our Bible studies.

Well, Kevin’s come upstairs and wants to watch a DVD, so I better get to the links.

~ Angela Hunt posted this Urban Legend Amalgam. If you’ve ever received a forwarded e-mail, you gotta click over.

~ Confused baby sea turtles - I would have loved to be there for this!

~ If you’ve read or heard anything about the “revival” going on in Lakeland, Florida, this is a must-read.

On April 3, 2008 Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley was invited to speak to the Ignited Church of Lakeland, FL. Though he was only scheduled to be there for 5 days, he remained for 3 months during what he considered to be the biggest pentecostal revival since the Azusa Street revival. To put it mildly, the “Lakeland revival” has been controversial. Claims of people being raised from the dead? Violent healing? Now it appears Bentley is stepping down after filing for separation from his wife and admitting to an inappropriate relationship with another woman…

(snip)

Yet, when I see things like this, it is just hard not to ask: does anyone still have a Bible and some common sense?

Let me add: I do not think this is a Pentecostal issue. That is why the title is, “Evangelical Gullibility.”

In other words, all kinds of Christians are forwarding emails about the FCC’s phony plan to ban religious braoadcasting, signing up to have emails sent to the loved ones after the rapture, and watching Christian television for its theological depth. For that matter, I have just as many odd people come up to me with “something they discovered in the Bible that no one has ever noticed” after I speak at a Baptist, Wesleyan, of non-denominational meeting as I do when I speak at a Pentecostal one. Furthermore, many Pentecostals and Charismatics HAVE expressed concern about this movement– including some when I visit the Assemblies of God office a couple of weeks ago.

I just have to wonder with Grady if Christians really are just gullible.

~ If you need some Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince buzz to tide you over until the movie’s (new) release date of July 17th, EW has an article with some scoop about the film.

~ Why is it that Dan Brown could publish The Da Vinci Code, a fictional novel which offended many Christians by stating that Jesus was married and had kids, but Harper Collins won’t publish a fictional novel about one of Mohammed’s wives?

“Random House made the decision to cancel its US publication of the novel ‘The Jewel of Medina’ after much deliberation and with great reluctance,” a statement from the publisher sent to AFP said.

“The decision was based on advice from scholars of Islam, among several creditable sources, that publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community and could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

~ If you want to watch a slideshow and some video clips of our vacation, head over to Kevin’s site.

~ Hey - it turns out I’m raising three future surgeons.

~ This video of the a cappella group Naturally 7 is pretty awesome.

~ It’s time to sign up for this year’s Pizza Hut Book-It Program.

~ Homeschool stereotypes vs. public school realities - a must-read at Principled Discovery.

At Books and Movies this week:

~ The Sunday Salon

~ Musing Mondays

~ Teaser Tuesdays

~ Review of The Great Debaters

~ Booking Through Thursday

That was the song that played while our friend walked his daughter down the aisle tonight. She was a beautiful bride. Her mom is a good friend, and I cried, knowing that she was crying, too.

I can’t understand how Jessica became old enough to get married! She used to babysit our kids - first in the nursery as a junior higher, and then at our home when she was in high school. When Noah was 4, he said he was going to grow up and marry Jessica.

As I watched her dance with her father tonight, I couldn’t help thinking that it will seem like no time at all until my own kids are growing up and getting married. Then Natalie dragged Kevin out for a few minutes on the dance floor, and it was like I could see into the future. Sigh.

Yes, I know it’s Saturday. Yesterday was busy with housework, visiting with friends, watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony, and reading Breaking Dawn. Today is busy with nothing. Actually, I am planning to do some school planning, rearranging, etc. - but we’ll see. I had to finish Breaking Dawn first - which leads me to my first link:

~ EW has a 10-part video interview with Stephenie Meyer about Breaking Dawn. Don’t watch it unless you’ve already read the book - lots of spoilers. She addresses the controversy. Oh, the horror!

~ My review of Breaking Dawn.

~ My review of Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna.

~ My review of Wall-E.

~ Thanks to Chris at Book-a-Rama, I stuck with this until the very end. Be stronger than I am. Walk away.

~ Kris at Paradise Found pointed out this site: The Periodic Table of Videos. Cool stuff, which we will be using a lot this year during our chemistry studies.

~ Pixar’s next flick: Up.

~ Ever tried to explain Twitter? This video explains it well. If you decide to tweet, be sure and let me know.

~ Thanks to Andrea, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at awful cakes.

Hope you’re enjoying a wonderful weekend.

We’re home! We slept in our own beds last night, but I still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Why is having fun on vacation so exhausting?

I’m just going to hit the high points for you all - but if you want more detailed info, I think Natalie is busy posting a play-by-play on her blog.

On Sunday (was it really only a week ago?), we got up at 3:30, escorted still sleeping children into the van, and headed off. We stopped for breakfast, and later stopped at Bonneville Dam and the fish hatchery there, where the kids saw Herman the Sturgeon - easily the biggest fish I’ve ever seen. Here are the kids at the hatchery - that’s my latte Nan is holding:

That night, we had dinner at Kevin’s brother Bob’s house, visiting with him and his wife Kathy and Kevin’s mom Marlene.

Off to the Oregon Zoo the next morning. Here is Noah watching the sea lions:

Then we drove to Tillamook to see the cheese factory. Turns out there’s not really much to see anymore. Kevin remembers that when he visited as a boy, you could watch the mill being piped in, the huge vats of churning milk becoming cheese, etc. Everything is enclosed now - so we basically saw big vats doing nothing, then big blocks of cheese being cut. I am having a hard time living that down, since I was the one to insisti we take the detour through Tillamook - educational and all that. They did have wonderful ice cream, though. I think Kevin was mainly miffed because after walking through the zoo, I got in the van and slept for the hour and a half to Tillamook, while he had to fight to stay awake and drive.

After checking into our hotel in Lincoln City, we headed down to the beach for the kids’ first look at the ocean. Yep, first time at the ocean. They’ve been to Puget Sound before, but it’s not really the same thing.

While there, the kids got a lesson on determining the sex of a crab from a crab fisherman:

The forecast was for rain on Tuesday, so we decided that would be the best day to do our indoor activities. We headed south to Depoe Bay, where we watched a gray whale feeding - so incredibly cool. No full body views, but one snout, one tail, and lots of his back as he dove.

Further south to Newport and the aquarium, where Kevin got some wonderful pics. Here are some Dory fish:

A seahorse:

The kids inside one of the aquarium viewing tanks:

And inside the jaws of a great white shark:

After driving back to Lincoln City, we left Daddy alone in the hotel to upload pics to his laptop, and went to see Wall-E - which is absolutely wonderful, by the way.

On Wednesday, we spent our first full day at the beach. Here’s the guy who took all these wonderful pics:

Here’s some serious sand castle building:

Brrrrrr, that water is cold:

Getting braver:

And, down she goes:

We had a wonderful dinner that night at The Flying Dutchman, with a stop off to see the Devil’s Punchbowl:

Another full day at the beach on Thursday, which caused this:

Thursday evening, Nan and I saw Mamma Mia!, and that was what the boys looked like when we got home.

Friday morning, I took off for some Mommy alone time, and found Robert’s Bookshop. (Watch for a future post on my finds.)

After lunch, we played Mini-Golf and the boys used the batting cages at Putt ‘n’ Bat.

Saturday morning, we got up at 3:30 am again, and drove to Post Falls, Idaho, to make a short appearance at my grandmother’s 80th birthday party. I saw cousins I haven’t seen in 20-some years, which reminds me how old I am.

We finally arrived home last night, exhausted but thoroughly convinced that we had a fabulous time. No mishaps, no car trouble, no injuries (other than the very-sunburned tops of my feet), and no sickness. It couldn’t have been better.

Oh, one little change would have made me completely happy. This sign greeted me every time I walked into our hotel lobby:

There is additional beverages and waffles in the room across the hall.

Professionally printed, no less!

I’ll leave you with some pictures of the views we enjoyed while we were gone.

For scads more pics, visit Kevin’s page, and click on Vacation Pics on the lefthand sidebar.

We’re off at 4 am tomorrow, and busy today packing, so I’ll say farewell for a while. If you need something to read before we get back, I’ve pre-posted almost every day at Books and Movies, since I’m supposed to post so many times a week there. Some of the posts are repeats of what you’ve already seen here, other posts are all new.

See you in August!

Two more days, and we’re off to the Oregon Coast! I’m not sure who is more excited - Kevin, or the kids. I’m excited, too, but I haven’t quite reached their level yet. I’m too worried that I’m going to forget something important. Whenever I’m preparing for something - concert at church, start of a new school year, packing for a trip - I start having one of three dreams. Either it’s opening night (I was a theater major) and I don’t know my lines - or often, even what play we’re performing, or I’m back in high school and I can’t remember my locker combination or my class schedule, or I’m back in college and it’s time for an exam and I haven’t even read the text. Am I the only one that has these dreams? Tell me I’m not crazy.

This may be the last post for a while. We’re going to a hotel that has wireless, but my wireless card isn’t the best, and who knows if I’ll have time to blog. If I don’t find time, I’ll have lots to tell you when we get back.

Wanna know what books I’m packing?

Guernica by Dave Boling

Waiting to Surface by Emily Listfield

Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

All of these are ARCs or publisher’s copies I’ve been sent to review - and one I won in a giveaway at Musings of a Bookish Kitty. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to read on vacation.

Here are a few links for your weekend surfing:

~ Jelly Telly is the next big thing from Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales. It looks pretty cool.

~ There’s no way around it, this guy is a complete and utter idiot.

~ Remember Improv Everywhere, the group who staged the freeze-in in Central Station? They also staged a musical in a Food Court. Hat tip: Just a (Reading) Fool.

~ This video is inspiring and really cool. Hat tip: Mental Multivitamin.

Well, we had a little excitement in our neck of the woods yesterday. Winds that were 55 to 60 miles per hour hit our town. We were lucky - we still have power, and we don’t have any trees down in our yard. Others weren’t that lucky - including our city park, where a few trees were uprooted by the wind. Here are some pictures, if you’re interested - click on slideshow.

While the winds were dying down, and our husbands had the kids at Tae Kwon Do, Michelle and I went to see The Incredible Hulk. Not the usual chick flick for a girls’ night out - in fact, I think we might have been the only women there who weren’t accompanying children of the male gender. But, we both needed a night out, and we both like Edward Norton, so…

No big plans for the weekend, other than sending my only daughter off to sleep-away camp for the first time. Sniff. Any of you done this before? How do you not worry?

At Books and Movies this week:

~ Thoughts on the film Into the Wild.

~ Review of Booked to Die, the first of the Cliff “Bookman” Janeway mysteries.

Other links:

~ Anyone else excited about TNT’s The Closer returning Monday night? Here’s an interview with Kyra Sedgewick.

~ William-Adolphe Bouguereau is an incredible artist - I love his paintings of children:

~ I may not agree with Christopher Hitchen’s views on religion, but this article he wrote for Vanity Fair about the interrogation practice of water-boarding is chilling. He agreed to undergo the procedure for research - but be warned: the video is disturbing.

~ On a completely unrelated and much lighter note - I scored 15 out of 20 on this Candy Bar Identification Quiz. Not sure if I should be proud of that, however.

~ This video of a new instrument called an Air Piano is pretty cool.

~ Stephen King’s advice to aspiring writers.

~ A scene from the BBC’s Black Books about responding to a rejection letter from a publisher. Hilarious!

Have a great weekend!

Goodbyes are hard. It is awful to know your child is hurting and not be able to do anything about it.

We said goodbye to my sister Marni and her family today. They are moving to St. Louis, which is across the country from us. Hans, Marni’s husband, will be pursuing his Masters in Divinity degree. (The picture is of my son Josiah on the left, and her son Peter on the right.)

We got through the goodbyes all right, but I started crying as we pulled out of the driveway. Then I heard sobbing from the back seat. I pulled over and offered to hold Josiah, but he said, “No, just keep driving.”

My precious Josiah then cried himself to sleep on the way home. Four years is a long time - and when you’re only six, it seems like your whole life.

Kevin posted a bunch more recent family photos at our family web page (which is supposed to be doubling as his blog, but he doesn’t post very often). Here’s one of our Josiah (age 6, on the right) and our nephew, Peter (also age 6):

Here’s a pic of Kevin and the kids on a bike trip last summer.

Our week of endless VBS is almost at an end. I must admit that the free time in the mornings and evenings has been very nice, but I’m not sure it’s worth the over-tired and cranky-from-too-much-sugar kids. Next year will be different, since Natalie will have finished 6th grade, and therefore aged out of the VBS they’ve been attending for the past several years. I’ll have a daughter entering junior high next August - how did that happen?

Our weekend is looking to be much slower and quieter than our week, and that’s just fine with me. We need a quiet week to gear up for Independence Day weekend, when my sister and her family will be visiting, and we’ll be spending the bulk of our time at Mom and Dad’s. The following weekend we take Natalie to Bible camp. She comes home on Thursday the 17th, and on Saturday the 19th, the kids will participate in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. The following weekend, we leave on our trip. When we get back, it will be three weeks until school starts again. When I look at it like that, the summer’s almost over already!

From the news:

~ This is scary and ridiculous: a Canadian court rules that a father cannot discpline his daughter by grounding her from a school camping trip. The judge said that the punishment was excessive. The father was attempting to discipline his 12-year-old daughter for posting her information on an internet dating site and for fighting with her step-mother. The girl took her unhappiness with the situation to court - and won.

~ Owners of a family plantation in Maryland discovered a treasure trove of documents in their attic - dating from the 1660s through World War II.

~ Yellow Science at the Wall Street Journal:

Nevertheless, over the past several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings.

Some great videos:

~ Electric strings group Scala appears on Britain’s Got Talent. These girls are amazing! Hat tip: Angela Hunt.

~ Where the H*ll is Matt? Hat tip: Chris Rice’s blog. Check out Matt’s web site, and his about page that explains how we had the opportunity to travel all over the world to make the video.

~ BBC Worldwide has its own YouTube page. Check out the QI clips - they are hilarious!

Movie stuff:

~ The movie version of Inkheart is coming in January - here’s the trailer. Looks like they made quite a few changes to the plot. I’ll reserve judgment until I actually see it. I guess.

~ Another book to movie: The Tale of Despereaux - coming in December. Here’s the trailer.

Education and learning:

~ Homeschoolers in college can sniff out the BS. Of course they can.

~ David McCullough’s commencement address at Boston College. Hat tip: Mental Multivitamin.

Read. Read, read! Read the classics of American literature that you’ve never opened. Read your country’s history. How can we profess to love our country and take no interest in its history? Read into the history of Greece and Rome. Read about the great turning points in the history of science and medicine and ideas.

Read for pleasure, to be sure. I adore a good thriller or a first-rate murder mystery. But take seriously –read closely –books that have stood the test of time. Study a masterpiece, take it apart, study its architecture, its vocabulary, its intent. Underline, make notes in the margins, and after a few years, go back and read it again.

Make use of the public libraries. Start your own personal library and see it grow. Talk about the books you’re reading. Ask others what they’re reading. You’ll learn a lot.

Win a book:

~ Head over to Puss Reboots for a chance to win Virus Games, the first in a new series geared toward 9 to 12 year olds.

At Books and Movies this week:

~ Review of Anansi Boys

~ Review of Maus

~ Great audiobooks

~ EW’s 100 New Classic Books

I guess that’s it - that’s enough, right? Oh, I also joined Facebook, so let me know if you’re there, too, so I can add you to my friends list.

…that all it takes is the taste of a cherry Jolly Rancher to make me feel 8 years old again?

Have you tried Wordle yet? Paste in any text, and it creates a beautiful word cloud. Here’s the Wordle of my Where I’m From post. (Click on the thumbnail below to see the full-size version.)