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And now a word from across the road
My neighbours are having a yard sale today and tomorrow, so I was awake before Ron and the alarm clock. (No Mom, they do not have anything good left.) Ya think I can get a few extra things done today? Here’s hoping.
Anyway, Earl told me a good story.
Seems he was up at the hardware store and ran into a buddy of his who lives up the road. In the floodin g last week, Buddy’s basement got full of water, so he did what any handy country guy does, he got out the sump pump. He hooked it up and placed the end out the open basement window.
Then he went to bed.
Well, I was thinking that maybe the worst that would happen was the water flowed back in. When he went downstairs the next day to check on things, splashing around in the water was a skunk. So this guy did the first thing he knew of to handle the situation.
He shot it.
And that’s why Earl found him near the air fresheners, buying as many as he could carry.
Post updates
First, Ron weighs in here about being the straight man. Check out his new blog platform and resubscribe to his feed. I got smart this time and burned one at feedburner, so if it changes *again*, feed subscribers will never know. Also, I think now that he has his blog issues sorted out, he’ll post more. 
Next, the parent I posted about whose daughter had to count calories for school and obsess over her size heard back from the teacher. It didn’t clear things up at all.
Like I said in the comments below, I’m certainly not against teaching about a healthy diet. I *am* against giving kids more reasons to despair, hate themselves, and judge one another. There isn’t one single person reading this who *hasn’t* been taught the simple “eat less junk, move more often” at some point. If you don’t remember being taught the food pyramid or covering healthy eating choices in school - well, that shows just how effective that is, doesn’t it? Toss in some helicopter parenting and prepacked preserved goodies at every meal and no wonder society has issues.
And while I’m weighing in (heh) on ridiculous BMI charts, I have no shame in telling you that on a couple of them I’ve checked, my own stature comes in under morbidly obese. I’m the first to tell you I’m fluffy and comfy around the middle, but morbidly obese?
Gimmie a break.
If I weighed my “ideal” according to the charts, I’d be a freakin’ STICK. And I know, because I used to be one and thought I was fat. Let’s aim for somewhere in the middle. Let’s aim for being happy with the skin you’re in.
(and thanks for keeping it sane in the comments 
)
Communication: the key to a good marriage
Ron and I were in the kitchen, working at our own tasks and staring at the walls a bit. I broke the silence.
“I was just thinking how I need to finally paint the kitchen walls.”
“Yes, you do. ” (My husband. So agreeable.)
“Actually,” I continued, “What I really thought of was saying how you needed to help me finish up the rest of the walls and get started on the painting, but then I figured you’d say something about how I was the one who wanted to do it, therefore it was my job and you have too many projects on the go already and don’t need me adding to your list any more than I am already and then I would have said you have a point and I really need to get at this.”
He dried off his hands. “I’m glad we had this chat.”
Another reason to homeschool
6th Graders Monitoring Body Fat and Caloric Intake for School.
There’s learning about healthy eating and exercise and then there’s taking things too far. Especially at that critical age.
This reminds me of a wile back when soemone asked me if I was sheltering my kids. What kinds of horrible things could I not counteract just by being a good parent? Well, this would be a PRIME EXAMPLE. Seriously, I have three girls. They get plenty of this message just in media alone. They don’t need it coming from authority figures during a time in which they are extremely self-consious & impressionable.
(We won’t even mention how girls this age treat each other on top of that.)
It’s hard enough trying to be a good parent at all. I don’t need major components of society “helping” me.
help i can’t type
And I have no idea where last week went. I was head-down working on all kinds of things, mostly tweaking pixel by pixel and troubleshooting some code, among the usual things.
Friday I leaned too hard on my right elbow though, and pinched a nerve. I had an unuseable and painful arm the whole weekend. So I mostly trailed along when Ron worked on the garden, and I followed Emma around on two jaunts to the neighbours. They have a heating pad. It was AWESOME.
We did wind up moving soem plants aroudn the yard. Ron split up my monstrously huge hosta (also called plantain lily) putting some out by the back porch and a bit on the side of the front porch, where it’s really shady. We also moved some daylilies that were in by a clump of trees and hardly noticeable. Those we moved to a nice row on the right of the front porch. The left side has a few daylilies we moved from the last house. I remarked to Ron that our neighbours will love it, as they sit on their porch and directly face ours. Might as well give them something pretty to look at.
We went out for dinner on Saturday night to A&W. $25 for all of us, with careful jiggling of combos. That works when not everyone wants or needs a full burger.
Oh, and last week we got a big envelope in the mail with soem standardized tests in them .The CAT and CTCS. Basically like the SATs but Canadian. We are not obligated to do them, but Sarah wanted to. The tests will be sent back and officially scored. When I looked through them, I thought they had sent the wrong CTCS, because it appeared too easy. Nope, it’s the right one. Sarah’s going to brush up on her algebra and then hopefully next week we’ll sit down and do the tests.
For someone who’s never been to school and never taken a test like this before (other than online IQ tests) I don’t expect her to have any issues at all.
I also looked through a bunch of quilt books and magazines and bemoaned my lack of time & organization. I have a pile of fabrics in blue & white prints - no other colors - and I think it’d look fabulous.
Okay, lunch break over.
p.s - Ron switched blog platforms. go see. also re-subscribe to his rss feed.
Flooding
Well. With all the rain and even snow people to the north and west of us got, it is working its way here down the river systems. We don’t even watch the news and we still find out, partly because everyone’s talking about it and Ron saw some on the way home. We went upriver a bit to check it out and the roads are blocked up in Bristol. People have to go upriver on the opposite side, cross there, and drive down again. I heard one lady say it takes an extra 45 minutes.
Also, Fredericton is flooded downtown. Remember I mentioned in a previous post that Addison & Kaytlyn were moving? Guess where they’re moving to? 
I do know the area they’re at is higher than the river.
I’ve also been looking up some great shots on Flickr and here.
While it floods a bit from time to time, and the water rises normally this time of year, this is the worst it’s been in a while. Pretty much everywhere. Except where I am. The fields are a little wet but that’s it.
