It's All Up to Interpretation

I had an educational moment last night.  One of our janitors informed me she was heading to town and asked if the church needed anything.  The downstairs janitor had given me a list of supplies she needed - one of the items being toilet bowl cleaner. 

Now to me, toilet bowl cleaner is pretty obvious, but I learned last night that it is not obvious to everyone.  So I am curious to know what you think of when someone says they need toilet bowl cleaner.  What image comes to your mind?

The item that was purchased to fulfill the request was

Is that what you think of?  Not me.  I might use Scrubbing Bubbles spray in the sinks or in the tub, maybe on the counter, but not the toilet.

Out of curiosity I asked my husband what he thinks of when someone asks for toilet bowl cleaner.

Looking a little confused, he finally admitted that this comes to mind.

Comet?  Really?  He explained that as a young boy growing up in the James household he was required to use Comet to scrub the toilets.

I wouldn't have thought of that either.  No, when I think of toilet bowl cleaner I think of....

I mean, come on, it says  TOILET BOWL CLEANER right on the front label.   Could it not be more obvious. 

So I, and possibly you, learned that we should not assume that we are all on the same wave length.  In fact, it is all up to our own interpretation, at least, when it comes to bathroom cleaners.

Surprise...surprise..it's snowing in Leavenworth!

It has been three weeks of snow here and I am not complaining.  I do love the snow.  I love the challenge of driving in it.  I love how beautiful it makes everything around us.  I am not ready for spring. I will be in a month, but for now I am soaking up the snow. 

Tonight, Bonnie starts her first night of training for DYW.

Distinguished Young Women of Washington 2013

  I am pretty nervous for her.  To be honest, I think she would be fine if she didn't do the competition, but we are in to so we are going to make the best of it.  She had me proof read the speech she is to give to the local groups who will be sponsoring her.  Her speech is to be about the person who has most influenced her.  I was pretty excited to see that she wrote her speech about her dad.  I figured she would, and I am happy with her choice. Her talent is a little tricky.  We settled on her giving Puck's epilogue from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.  It is a little short so they may ask her to do something else.  I am curious to see what she has to say about tonight's meeting.

We both agreed that if she had done the high school musical she would be heading for a nervous breakdown about now. Fortunately, she doesn't have that pressure on top of everything else. 

Dr. Who

My kids are obsessed.   

Obsessed with Dr. Who!

Bonnie tried Dr. Who a few months ago but couldn't quite get into it, then our friends, the Harpers, came for a visit and their daughter who is a Dr. Who fan informed Bonnie to start with Season Two.  Eighty-six episodes later and we are still watching it.  All three kids love it.  I have to refrain myself from bursting out laughing sometimes with the absurdity of some of the episodes.  - People turned into blobs of fat jiggling around the streets - Really??  The Bill Cosby sketch about the chicken heart that invaded New York comes to mind.    The kids don't like it when I laugh, so I just leave the room.  Will you believe that after some episodes, the boys ask me to leave the hallway light on because they are freaked out?!  LOL 

In all reality, there is nothing morally wrong with the shows.  In fact, they are alot better than anything on the Disney channel or Nickelodeon.  So... why not?  Bring over the popcorn and let's watch some Dr. Who. There are a ton more episodes to watch.

A Very Productive Day

As I sit in my quiet, clean house, I have to say that today has been most productive.

My morning started off a bit rough as I woke up feeling somewhat unwell, but the old "farm-girl" spirit within me would not allow me to lay in bed for long.  Once Todd took off for church to rejoin our Winter Blast crowd, I began my "spring" cleaning.  Our monstrous bathroom had been ignored long enough and needed a thorough cleansing.  Curtains were taken down and laundered, tiles scrubbed, woodwork polished, mirrors cleaned, and everything scrubbed.  Boy, that felt good. 

Besides cleaning I managed to make some of my homemade bread and milled some wheat  only after fighting with my food mill for a couple of hours - still  not sure what the problem was with it, but I ended up with flour all over the place and me. 

Now I get to relax, watch Jane Austen's Emma, and learn a new stitch to knit.  I have finished one square for my patchwork afgan.

Tomorrow will be here soon enough.  We got a lot of new snow today which means Bryce and I get to shovel everyone out so they can go to church in the morning.  Then it will be off to Wenatchee to go skating with the youth.

Till Then....

Oh...I did get our taxes filed yesterday.  What a wonderful feeling that is.  Love Turbo Tax!!! 

Valentines

Happy Valentines Day!


The virtual school is taking the day off so Happy NO SCHOOL Day!   Brian and Bryce get today off and Monday so I am enjoying a quiet morning at the church.  This evening about a hundred teenagers and leaders will be showing up for their annual Winter Blast retreat.  I have been busy rearranging classrooms and cleaning out the fridge get the church facilities ready for them.  Our weather has been cooperating somewhat for the winter retreat.  We received a foot and a half of snow earlier this week but the past two days we have had warm temps and rain which made all of our fluffy snow wet and slushy.  Today it can't figure out if it is going to rain or snow.  Right now it is raining.  I think Todd has convinced the retreat leaders to take the kids ice skating again this year instead of skiing or tubing.  That will make my daughter happy.

Earlier this week we celebrated my 45th birthday.  Wow, I am getting old.  Todd took me out to lunch at the Olive Garden and got me a beautiful necklace that has my birthstone on it.  I was really surprised.  

This evening, Bonnie head over to the community college to attend an orientation for the National Honor Society with the community college.  I am excited that all of her hard work in school is paying off.  Being inducted to this group will give her another edge to getting into the college of her choice and help her to receive the scholarships that she will need to help pay for her college tuition.

This week has also been a challenging one with the virtual school.  Supposedly someone was trying to bombard the K12 website with a high volume of activity and make it shut down.  For two mornings, we were unable to access the school site which left Brian with nothing to do here at the church office.  Fortunately, one of Brian's assignments this semester is to write a research paper.  Even though his teacher has not approved his topic (The Life of Theodore Roosevelt) , I had him begin the research process.  He went on line and read some articles on Roosevelt and began to create his Bibliography page and took notes.  I also give him the World Book Encyclopedia to research as well.   I can't see any reason why his teacher would not approve of the topic and now he is a few steps ahead in the process.  The best thing for me was that he did all of that without putting up a fuss. 

I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to a quiet weekend with just Bryce as Bonnie, Brian, and Todd will be here at church with the Winter Blast crew.  I hope to get our taxes done and a lot of cleaning and organizing.

Happy Valentines!

Time Flies

It has been too long once again.  I am supposed to be reading The Boys War to Bryce right now as we study the Civil War, but I will give you a brief update.

This week I got Brian's report card from WAVA.  All B's.  I should be happy with that.  I was actually surprised.  I expected a C or two with the B's.  Someone must have decided to up the boys grades or the grading scale is really off.  This week has been Brian's Ramp Up week for second semester.  What that means is the boy had nothing to do but sit in on an orientations for each class.  Only one teacher assigned work for this week ...Geometry.  Monday, everything kicks off in full swing.

Bonnie is plugging away at school.  She is so competitive.  She is working again at camp washing dishes over the weekend.  We really miss her when she works.  She has two more work weeks next month and then her schedule slows down.  Believe it or not, in another week she will be signing up for the Spring Quarter at the college.  Wow!  time is flying by.

Bryce is slowly but surely making his way through his studies.  We have settled on a series of books that he WANTS to read and therefore is motivated to read.  He is working his way through the Magic Tree House series.  He downloads them from the library to his IPod and reads them everyday.  I require that he write a summary on each day's reading and then he has to take all of those summaries and write a book report.

Last night,  I invited some other homeschool moms to join me for dinner at a local restaurant  and we had a night of encouragement.  We had five gals altogether, and we had a blast.  At one point, when  the family sitting next to got up to leave the young mom at the table came over to introduce herself.  She apologized for listening in to our conversations, but she was a home school mom and asked some advice on Bible curriculum.  cool!   The highlight for me last night was that I got to know my "relative" Lori a little better as she came to the dinner.  She also brought with her the new pastor's wife, Lori, who is from my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana.  She even knew where my childhood home is.  Double Cool!

Ok...gotta go and read.