Strange

Good morning! It’s a cool one out there today (47° currently at 7:51 am). It is one of those mornings I remember when it was cool enough for a sweatshirt but I knew that by the time to come home it would be way to warm so I wouldn’t wear anything because I didn’t want to have to carry it home. My teachers thought I was crazy but I don’t recall that anything more happened. Today’s world is different. Children aren’t allowed to be children. Cedric fell off of one of the toys (or whatever you call them) at the new playground at the school and was told he wouldn’t be able to play on it. Really? Because he fell off? Kids do that. It’s how they learn what they can and cannot do. It’s how they learn the limits of their abilities and either live with them or push them. Seth and Joseph reported that a boy fell and broke his arm and that there was talk that students wouldn’t be allowed to play on the playground equipment. Really? Seriously, people, this is part of what’s wrong with our society today. We coddle our children in the pretense of safety. We repress their creativity in the pretense of protecting from violence (never mind all the violence they witness when they go home—a few drawings at school isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference). We don’t allow children to be children.

Yesterday was a pretty good Sunday. Church was good other than the fact I really wanted to sleep during most of the last two-thirds of it. We had grilled pork chops, Chinese sausages, and hot Italian sausages with sliced cucumbers and macaroni salad to eat. I made a cocoa cake after and most of us had a piece at some point before bed. Zack came over when he got off work. He seems to be a nice enough young man. He works, I think I mentioned, at the Friendlys in Tewksbury and is going to school. The boys like him and Joanna likes him.

It's really hard getting good pictures of the cat when she's on your lap but this one isn't too bad.

It appears that Kitty is turning into a decent hunter. She caught her first chipmunk either Friday or Saturday. Amena saw her with it so I know it really happened. Seth reported that she killed it but we found no evidence of that and because she’s so small still, I think she would have left something somewhere. Although it is quite likely we wouldn’t have found anything.

It's even harder getting good pictures of the cat when she's on your shoulders but this one is okay. Certainly better than the others.

This morning while I was milking, she was stalking birds in the trees and rocks and just generally having a good time. When I went out to hold her while the boys got on the bus, she was quite content to sit and be pet for a couple of minutes and then she climbed up on my shoulders (she is definitely a shoulder cat which I think is kind of cool). Then she saw movement in the bushes by the screen house and was off. I think it is safe to say that she is adjusting rather well to life here and I am glad because I have so missed having a cat. Even if she can’t be inside, it’s still nice to have one around that actually belongs, as much as any cat does, to us.

Yesterday afternoon was team pictures for soccer. Joseph’s were at 2:45. I wasn’t too thrilled about going to begin with because it was Sunday and the boys were okay with not. Because we couldn’t have made it to Joseph’s it wouldn’t have been ‘fair’ (and I know life isn’t but sometimes it’s nice to make parts of it) for Seth and Cedric so we didn’t go to any. That was easy.

It was time to play with the grass.

Joanna has today off and doesn’t have class. She is planning on getting her books though. She has homework she needs to do as well so I might have to let her use my computer. Paul found one of his old laptops. It’s a Dell and has Windows XP on it so you might have an idea of how old it is. She can get Windows 8 with her student discount to put on it and as long as it works, she’ll be set until she can save enough money to get a new one.

Laura has work today and is walking both ways so I don’t have to look up bus schedules for her. It’s really rather comical that I, in Massachusetts, look up bus schedules for her, in Utah, so she can ride the bus to or home from work. It’s amazing that we have the technology that allows us to do that so easily.

I don’t have much going on today. I want to get some phlebotomy studying done as well as some raw materials ordering for soap. It still seems strange to refer to something as a ‘raw material’ when it isn’t. For example, the bottles I use to put lotion in are, for me, a raw material because I take it and do something with it before I sell it. Still, from an accounting perspective, they are a raw material. Strange.

I think Joanna is even going to take Joseph to practice this afternoon so I won’t have to do that. How strange.

Have a great day!