Fee-Bee

Supersim's favorite bird is the chickadee, so anytime I read something about them, I pass the info along to her.  I happened to learn some things about chickadees from Wild Moments by Ted Williams, and from Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn by Hannah Holmes.  If you spend a few minutes outside, you are likely to hear a high-pitched "fee-bee."  This means it's mating season for chickadees.  According to Mr. Williams, their typical "chickadee-dee-dee" song is used to locate members of their flock.  If that's the case, our chickadees must constantly be getting lost, because we hear them singing non-stop during spring and summer.  

We have lots of aspen here, and they are just starting to make their fuzzy little buds.  It's a good time for birdwatching because the birds are very active, and there are no leaves on the trees to block the view.  We have observed that our chickadees enjoy the typical birdseed blend, but they seem to relish whatever it is that they find inside the aspen buds. From one of our windows, we can see an abandoned robin's nest in the crook of an aspen tree.  Last spring, we watched the robins work so hard building it, twig by twig.  We knew there were eggs inside because Mrs. Robin started spending all her time on the nest while Mr. Robin brought her food.  Then--tragedy--a huge spring storm hit and strong winds blew all night.  The nest remained, but Mr. and Mrs. Robin never came back.  (Note to robins: aspen trees SWAY.)

Anyway, the nest is still there, although it's not as tidy and cozy as when the robins first constructed it.  If I'm at my desk early in the morning, I see the downy woodpecker hanging upside down from the trunk and digging around in the nest, looking for whatever lives there now.  (I probably don't want to know.)  Later, the chickadees arrive.  When they take a break from munching on aspen buds, they pick through the abandoned nest as well.

Even using my field guide, I can't figure out what finches are visiting us.  They look like a purple finch, but with less color on the wings. And we don't live in the usual purple finch territory. They're sort of like a Cassin's Finch, but the color on the head isn't so defined.  Maybe a house finch, but the head isn't so rounded.  So I had to laugh when I read what Hannah Holmes says about birdwatching: 

"Bird books generally present three portraits of each bird: adult male; adult female; juvenile.  But the things that fly into my line of sight seem to be transsexual, semi-mature birds blown four thousand miles out of their normal range."

How many times have we looked through two or three guides, only to say, "well, it's almost A, a bit like B, but it could be a molting C, if it weren't the wrong season."  It just proves that nature doesn't do anything by the book.

Birdfeeding season is coming to an end.  We don't put out seed past February because of the various small rodents it attracts.  Mice attract snakes.  Snakes freak me out. I'll let the birds finish up the seed on our back porch and the suet feeder in the yard, but no refills! In a few weeks, it will be time to hang up the hummer feeders. They always seem to show up just before the flowers open up, and I wonder if feeders sustain them until their natural food is available. Like chickadees, they definitely have a "pecking order."  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)  As tiny as they are, they are vicious!  We are always impressed by their mid-air battles.

If I can get a decent photo of our finches, I'll post it here.  They are hard to catch, especially since one member of the family loves to bark at them.

  

  

Look! A crocus!

Can you believe my family would...

...make fun of me, just because I got excited about a bird's song this morning?  

Just because I woke everyone up with my spirited rendition of "Anything Goes" this morning does not give them the right to tease me when I freeze in my tracks, still in my robe with coffee cup in hand, and stick my neck out the back door to hear a new song.

"Everybody be quiet!"

"Huh?"

"Listen!  Somebody new is in town!"

Snickers from the kitchen table.  "Shush!  Somebody new just got to town.  Either that or they're mating."

"Um, Mom..."

"Wait!  I want to hear this!"

"Mom!  Shut the door, it's cold!"

"Oh, all right.  But you heard it, didn't you?  Tick-a-whee, tick-a-whee..."

More snickers from the cereal eaters.  My family does not respect me.  

"Hear it?  There it is again!"  I run for the door.

"Mom!  Dad's doing that."

Oh, you people think you're so funny.  You think I can't tell the difference between a real bird and your stupid whistling?  Let's see how funny it is tomorrow when I wake up the house with my spirited rendition of songs from "Hairspray."

"GOOD MORNING, BALTIMORE..."

  

A Great Book So Far...

What is the title of this book?

Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Is this book fiction or nonfiction?

Fiction

Who are the main characters?

Molly, Petula, Miss Adderstone, Edna, Hazel and Rocky

Describe the setting of the book.

Supersim: It's in a crumbling building called Hardwick House Orphanage.  And around the small but lovely town of Briersville.

What are the problems in the book?  What makes Molly unhappy?

Dudeman: Well, Hazel keeps annoying her.  And Rocky leaves.

Supersim: An American family adopts him.  After Rocky is adopted Molly can only play with Petula, Miss Adderstone's pug.  Molly feels like she's an ugly girl.  She calls her face a lump of dough and her nose a potato and her eyes two small green lights.

Dudeman: Also, for part of the book, Edna is making bad food.

Supersim: Only the little kids are nice to her. The big kids call her "Bog Eyes," "Zono" and "Drono."

Dudeman: Miss Adderstone hates Molly. 

How does she solve her problem?

With hypnotism!

Tell about a time she used hypnotism to solve a problem.

Dudeman: She made everyone whack themselves on the head with whatever they are carrying anytime they remembered that they had been mean to her.

Supersim: She hypnotizes Petula, puts ketchup on one of her cookies, and makes a disgusting face at the cookie.  And Petula never ate cookies again and then she felt better and she was a nicer dog. 

Give an example of foreshadowing.

The professor.

What do you predict will happen?

Tell about your favorite part so far.

Supersim: That Petula becomes friends with Molly.

Dudeman: When Miss Adderstone takes her false teeth and says, "If anyone causes trouble, you'll get the nip!" 

What is revenge?

Dudeman: Revenge is to get someone back, when they did something bad to you. 

Tell about something funny in the book.

SparkleeMom: OK, this book may have been written for kids, but I'm really getting into it too!  The funniest part so far has to be when Molly takes Edna out to lunch, and Edna is still hypnotized and acting like a zombie.  The waiter asks Edna for her order and she yells: "I love bleedin' Italy!"  We fell over laughing!  I had to recover for a minute before I could go on.  No, wait, that's not the funniest part.  The funniest part is when Hazel does her act.  I really can't choose the funniest part.  We love this book!

 

Hotel for Dogs

Supersim: In the beginning, these kids who need a family because their parents had died, were hiding their dog named Friday.  

Dudeman: They were selling rocks because their foster Mom only gave them gross foods, like smashed-up mushrooms mixed with salt and pepper.  And dry spaghetti.

Supersim: Sometimes the mom's hair would be in it.

Dudeman: Yeah, sometimes the mom's hair would be in it!

Supersim:  I just said that!

Dudeman: I know, I'm repeating it!

Supersim: And none of the foster parents knew about the dog because they had been in foster care for 3 years and with 5 different families.  Friday was allowed to wander around.  And once Friday got taken to the pound and they had to sign something to get him back, and they didn't want their foster mom or dad to know about it so they had to bribe the guy to get Friday back.  They were walking along saying maybe they should find a real home for Friday, and then Friday ran off into an old hotel. And met a Boston Terrier named Georgia and a Mastiff named Lenny.  

Dudeman: And Georgia's really small!

Supersim: And she uses Lenny as her bodyguard.  Whenever she gets scared she hides in between Lenny's front legs.

Dudeman: Lenny was a big mastiff and he was brindle.  And he was almost the size of a table, only a little bit shorter.  My best guess is he weighed about 150 pounds.      

Supersim: They decided to keep Friday at the hotel and they'd come back every day to feed the dogs.  The next morning they ate the weird food they were always given.  Then they heard howling.  They ran to the hotel as quick as they could and they found Georgia and Friday hiding under the bed, while Lenny was standing at the window howling.  They opened up the blind and he stopped howling.  Closed it--he'd howl.  Opened it--he'd stop howling.  Then they meet two employees at a pet store, and they can't find homes for three dogs, Cooper, Romeo, and Shep.  They take them to the hotel, and then they meet another kid.  And they keep rescuing strays, and they break into the kennel car and they actually took all the dogs out and took them to their hotel.  And one dog in the van had only three legs. 

Dudeman:  She was kind of fawn and black and she had a really cute face.  It kind of looked like a boxer mixed with a bulldog.  Romeo is a very...he's a black and white dog.  And he looks like he got struck by lightening!

Supersim: Because he was a Chinese Crested.

Dudeman: His face looks like there's spikes on it but it's really only fur.  And he was mostly hairless. 

Supersim:  They kept finding more stray dogs.  And eventually, Romeo found his true love--a poodle named Juliette.

Dudeman: Can I describe Cooper?  Cooper was a bulldog and he chewed on anything!  He bent up a license plate with this teeth!  And he destroyed a cell phone, a mattress, and a blanket.  I think he can bite through steel.

Supersim: What I liked about the movie, is, the person named Bernie who tried to get the kids a home, he saved the hotel for dogs.  And also he let the kids move in with him.  And also, their foster parents were rock stars, and they sang songs for the dogs.

Dudeman:  I would recommend this movie because it was sad at the first part, but at the very end, it was really happy.  And I just like happy endings. 

Supersim: It was funny and it was also cool.  An animal lover would like this movie, or somebody who likes comedy.

Dudeman:  Or if the kid is wild like an animal!

Conversation with Dudeman

Mom: So, do you think you'll miss your friends?

Dude: Maybe.  But you said I'd have play dates.  Anyway, you don't really play with your friends at school, except on the playground.

Mom: If we passed by and saw kids playing on the playground, would you wish you were with them?

Dude: Um...probably.

Mom: What else would you miss about school?  Besides playing on the playground?

Dude:  Um...That's about it.

Mom:  There must be something, come on.  Don't say what you think I want to hear.  Tell me what you'd really miss.

Dude:  Um...I'm trying to think of something.

Mom:  What about just being in the classroom?  Working with the other kids?

Dude:  But Mom, I like being independent!  I like being unique!

Supersim's Riding Lesson

Supersim had a great lesson today!  It's cold but sunny here, and not too muddy, considering how much snow we got recently.  Dudeman has a sore throat today, so Supersim had the teacher all to herself.  She groomed and saddled her horse with almost no help; the teacher only had to step in when the horse refused to take the bit.  A year ago, she was very nervous about cleaning out the horse's hooves; today, she looked like a pro.  

It was an extremely busy day at the arena, with multiple lessons going on at once, but Supersim was able to stay focused and concentrate on her lesson.  She warmed up with a serpentine along the wall, then trotted around the arena a couple of times.  Her teacher set up three traffic cones along the center of the arena, and after a couple of practice walks through the cones, Supersim took them at a trot.  I think we have a future barrel racer here!

After her lesson, she took her horse for a little trail ride around the arena, with me tagging along on foot.  Her teacher told me that if she continues to progress at this rate, she'll be ready for the next level by summer.  But the best part was the look of pride and accomplishment on her face.  She knew she did well today!  

Worksheet of the New Millenium

These things are awesome!  The kids love them!  

And they weren't hard to find--I got them at a well-known teacher supply website.  They weren't expensive either.  Makes me wonder why others don't use them.

Dudeman Met a Mountain Climber

Dad and Dudeman saw a presentation about mountain climbing today! Here is what Dudeman learned:

Dad: So, what is it like to climb Mount Everest?

Dude: Well, there is a good chance you could die in every step you take. It takes about a day to get from, like, one side of a gym to another. There's these things called crevasses and they go 200 feet down under the snow and they put ladder things so you can cross, and the guy who climbed Mount Everest, his boot had spikes on it and they got stuck in the ladder and he had to bounce the ladder to unstick his foot.

Dad: What do they have to do with their tents?

Dude: They have to put nets on their tents. Even with 6 men and all their gear, the wind up there is so strong it could blow everything away.

Dad: Is it hot or cold?

Dude: It's usually over 90 degrees. If it's day or afternoon, it's really hot. And since you're over every last cloud, you can see every star and there are shooting stars every 20 or 30 seconds.

Dad: What do they do if they have to use the bathroom?

Dude: They just poo in the snow, or pee in a bottle. No bathrooms!

Dad: How did they get up to the final part of the climb? Was it day or night?

Dude: It was night. He climbed from 8 at night to dawn the next morning.

Dad: What did they see?

Dude: Well, if you looked to their left, they saw 10,000 feet down, and if they looked to their right, they saw 9,000 feet down. And this was in the dark. All they had was moonlight. It was like this! (Dudeman turns out the lights.) I bet a lot of the men said, "I hope I make it down alive!"

Dad: What was that big pyramid in the photo?

Dude: Mount Everest's shadow. A perfect triangle.

Dad: What does it mean to be buried in the sky?

Dude: Well, if you're under 7 yards of snow, no one can dig you out and bring you back to your family. You just have to be buried in the sky.

Dad: Tell about how sherpas get their names.

Dude: They're named...well, every sherpa, their last name is Sherpa, and their first name is the day they were born so if you're born on Monday, you'd be named Monday Sherpa.

Dad: What wanders around in the streets of Katmandu?

Dude: Cows! Because the people there worship cows! And I love cows, too!

Dad: What do the sherpas use for fuel?

Dude: They take yak poop, and they stick it on their walls, and then when it's dry, they use it for cooking.

Dad: What did you learn about yaks?

Dude: They don't lose their antlers. And they like to knock you down and toss you off the cliff! And here is something else: Mount Everest grows about the rate of your fingernail. It used to be underwater. You could hunt for fossils on top of Mount Everest.

Dad: What was that guy carrying in that photo?

Dude: A huge rock from here to here, perfectly smooth, maybe about 1,000 pounds or so, and he was going to use it for bricks.

Dad: Do you remember what the mountain climber is going to do next?

Dude: The next thing he's going to do is row a boat from Australia to Africa.

Pip the Rat by Supersim

Our rat, Pip, will chew on anything!  Computer cords, cardboard boxes, your fingernail, and even your hair!  He's really supposed to chew on the things in his cage, like the little wooden blocks we buy him.   

The other things he likes to do are: eating, licking your finger, and exploring the Magical Office.  When he's in the office, he likes to climb around in the Enchanted Bookshelf.  Then hide inside the Cave of Sofa. And then crawl across the haunted Copy Machine.  Then scamper across the Dazzling Laptop.  Then he'll trot across your Mystic Foot!  

He also enjoys jumping, even in places where he can't grip onto, like he tried to jump into a mirror once.  He also tried to jump onto a lamp and then he fell backwards.

Pip loves to eat sunflower seeds, cashews, apples, rice, cheese, cereal, cookies, crackers and rat treats.  He drinks a lot of water.  That's why he has 3 water bottles.

  

This is what it looks like when Pip runs across the keyboard:

f0u1g6 5070--------;ll0mn0'/ra4as    

If you're going to keep a rat as a pet, make sure you give it a lot of attention.  Make sure to give it plenty of water, and change its bedding every week.  Put a little bit of salt in your rat's diet, like a little bit of a cracker every day.  Always have nutritious food in the cage.   Feel free to feed them peanut buttered apples.  You may have heard that rats like chocolate but it's not true.  If you feed a rat chocolate it could die.

Rats are not like hamsters or mice or gerbils.  They're really sweet.  They are kind of like tiny dogs that climb.  I guess you could say they are a tiny dog-monkey.  They love to play.  Just when you least expect it, they crawl on you and put their wet nose on you and lick you.  They love it when you rub behind their ears.  

Make sure not to put the same gender of rats in one cage unless they're from the same litter.  You can't put them in the same cage because they will fight. You don't really have to bathe your rat because they groom themselves.  When their cage gets dirty, make sure to buy them some new bedding, rinse off the cage with warm water, and then remember to dry it off.  Rats can get a cold.  Never use dusty bedding--it can get in their eyes and nose.

Rats are better than ferrets or any other rodent because they don't smell or bite.  Rats are not like how they look in cartoons.  They are sweet and gentle.  

Mom's Ten Reasons

1.  My baby is unhappy.  Do I need any more reasons?

OK, I'll list all my reasons.

1.  Like I said, my baby is unhappy and wants to try something else.  He cries while he does his homework, which is tedious busywork designed to "reinforce" concepts that he understood two years ago.  He gets mysterious stomachaches and headaches right before school most mornings.  He says he's stressed out and sad while he's at school, and that's enough reason to try a new approach.  

2.  His teacher thinks that she should be extra strict and demanding because he's smart.  Clearly, she doesn't know my kid.  All that pressure is getting in the way of the learning process.  (See above!)

3.  He's bored.  He says, "Mom, why are we doing all the same things we did last year?" 

4.  We want to enrich his learning at home, but he spends the most receptive hours of the day bored at school, then comes home tired.  

5.  A classroom full of kids is not the best way to "socialize" a child.  Not if you want your child to behave in a civilized way.  Trust me, I've heard the stories and I have witnessed it myself.  The teachers have about all they can handle with behavior problems--when are they supposed to actually teach?

6.  One teacher with one student has to be better than one teacher with 25.

7.  Right now, their learning experience is the equivalent of "channel surfing." Dabble in this topic, learn a few factoids about that topic, but don't go into any depth in any topic.  Real wisdom does not come from committing a bunch of facts to memory for the test.

8.  Speaking of tests...between the twice yearly standardized tests, monthly curriculum tests, weekly timed memorization tests, math and spelling tests--my kids are getting tested every other day!  Why?  What are these tests really measuring, besides their ability to endure tests?  I don't have to test my kids--I know exactly what their abilities are, what skills need to be practiced, and what knowledge gaps need to be reviewed. 

9.  I'm already teaching them at home.  I help with homework nightly.  It's always tedious, usually boring, occasionally helpful, but most often a waste of their time and mine.  

10.  Because they asked me to!

And here's the bonus reason:

11. Learning doesn't only happen within a specific building, between specific hours, guided by only by individuals specifically trained to impart specific information.  Learning is a life-long, limitless process of seeing and interpreting the world of information around you.  School is one way to teach one kind of learner one kind of curriculum.  It's not the only way.

Dudeman's Ten Reasons

1.  You get to stay with your family.

2.  Your family is your teacher, so they won't overwork you.

3.  You can do science experiments.

4.  You get to take 15 minute breaks.

5.  You can read anything you want.

6.  You do fun stuff for art.

7.  You get to do math that's not too easy.

8.  We can look at the microscope any time we want.

9.  We can watch science videos on TV.

10.  You get to choose the unit you want to do.

I know I'm supposed to stop at ten but I have more.

11.  You don't have the kid at the next table burping real loud all the time.

12.  You get to pack your own lunch so you know what you're getting.  And you can choose when you want to eat.

What we liked about the museum

Dudeman: My favorite thing was getting to feel bison fur.  And playing that game where you're the dung beetle and you have to get the poop to the hole.

Supersim: It was called a dookie ball, remember?

Dudeman: And I also liked the movie.  And my favorite part of the movie was when the elephants kissed with their trunks.

Supersim: One of my favorite parts was getting a stuffed bison named "Stampede."  And seeing an elephant skull.  And a stuffed real bison.  I liked touching the fur and getting to see a wolf. I've never seen a wolf up close.  I thought the movie was sad when the family of elephants found a dead elephant.  It died because it was hungry and thirsty, probably.  Oh, yeah, and the lead elephant charged at the camera guy!

Dudeman: And at the museum we got to see a rattlesnake rattle at you.  It wasn't real, it was stuffed, of course.  But it was pretty cool.

Supersim: I thought it was neat and all, I just didn't like how it was so crowded.  In the cave, there were a whole bunch of little plastic spiders, and one of the preschoolers would shine a flashlight and go, "Eek!  A spider!"

Dudeman: Such a preschoolish preschooler.

Supersim: I was a little sad that they didn't have any facts about the bison.  And I discovered that their fur is really fuzzy.

Dudeman: And it's not soft, because it's curly.  It just feels really cool.  I personally like the owl pellet thing.  I liked how we could look under it and it shows a mouse skull and some bird bones.  It just surprised me that an owl could eat, like, a whole rat.

Supersim: The bunny fur felt like a poodle.  It felt softer than any stuffed animal or blanket. We got to look at parts of a fly under a microscope.  The most disturbing part was the longest tapeworm ever.  Sixty-one feet!

 

 

Dreaming of spring...

We are still weeks away from even starting seedlings indoors, but when I look out back, I can almost see the tomato plants already...  

Reading about gardening helps me endure February, and one of my favorite books for this time of year is The Bountiful Container by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey.  I'm a fairly new gardener, and their basic, practical, and reassuring advice seems like it was written just for me. I have always admired those mystical souls who seem to have the magic touch with plants. Then I read The Bountiful Container and guess what? It turns out, light, water, and fertilizer are important, too. 

I have never had a garden on the ground.  Where we live, the deer, rabbits, and other critters would destroy anything I attempted to grow.  Besides, my favorite things to grow, tomatoes, strawberries, and herbs, are so easy to grow in containers--why bother with tilling, weeding and irrigating?  Container gardening presents its own challenges, however.  A beloved member of this family--one with floppy ears and four giant paws--loves to dump out my flower pots and scatter soil across the patio.  He sees me playing in the dirt, so why can't he?  Winter birdfeeding has trained the birds to come to the patio, and they are only too happy to help themselves to my strawberries in summer.  (Strategic placement of a few plastic snakes helped last year.  Thanks for the tip, Mom!)  

In spite of the challenges, I'm determined to have a successful container garden this year.  Like I said, I'm still pretty new at this, so my goals are modest.  Enough tomatoes to serve a platter of sliced tomatoes with mozarella and balsamic vinegar (can you tell I'm so ready for summer?)  Enough strawberries to top a family-sized strawberry shortcake.  And this year, I'm trying cucumbers and lettuce for the first time.  Just so I can say for once in my life, "This salad is made of our home grown vegetables."   

 I plan to be really obnoxious about it, and sprinkle it into conversation at inappropriate times. "Yeah, well, speaking of politics, the other day we were eating our home grown tomatoes, and..."    

Do you agree?

"Becoming educated is the only process that engages every human being every day of his or her life.  School, as adults come to realize, is only the beginning of learning.  What many parents overlook is that education is an all-day and every-day event that begins and ends at home."

Robert Lawrence Smith

Girl Scout Cookie Math

If Dad ate 2, and Supersim ate 2, and Dudeman ate 3...

How many did Mom eat?

Chemistry Experiments with Dudeman

Well, I just like using chemicals, and I like science a lot.  And it's because I really want to be a chemical reaction scientist when I grow up, so I want to have a little bit of practice.  We made a volcano today, but we didn't make it erupt because it takes 24 hours to dry.  We also used cornstarch and we put droplets of food coloring on it.  And that demonstrates water's surface tension.  It just makes beads and it doesn't run.  Then you put some dish detergent on the stick and put it in the food coloring and it breaks the surface tension.  And then the color runs and makes a puddle instead of a bead.

(The experiment: sprinkle a thin layer of cornstarch onto a paper plate.  Put a few small drops of food coloring on the cornstarch.  The drops look very rounded, like beads.  Dip a toothpick into dish detergent and then put it in the food coloring beads.  The detergent molecules break up the water's surface tension and the beads of color flatten out and spread into the cornstarch.)  Now, back to Dudeman...

I made a skateboard ramp out of Legos and that's kind of like a science experiment.  Is that OK?  Can I finish this later?  

Favorite Bison Facts by Supersim

The coat of fur at the front of their body is called "the cape."  They can run faster than horses.  The hair at the end of their tongue helps them grip grass and pull it into their mouths.  Then they swallow it and it goes into the first part of their stomach.  Later, they bring it back up and chew on it and swallow it again.  That's called "chewing cud."  A bison's bellow can be heard from 3 miles away.  The bulls bellow to warn other bulls away.  The female is called a cow.  There used to be millions of them, but now there are 200,000 in North America.  There are 2 types of bison.  The wood bison lives in northern Canada.  The plains bison lives in the U.S.  Native Americans used almost every part of the bison.   

A sunny day...

here in Big-Mountain-Snow-on-Top.  A group of snotty ravens are strutting across the grass, picking through the frost for whatever they can find.  (Mean girls at the Abercrombie clearance sale can't do disdain better than ravens.) Earlier this morning, a male downy woodpecker perched on the tree outside my window. And our northern flicker has been hanging around. She scares the finches away from the feeder, eats holes in our windowsills, and wakes us up at dawn with her brdbrdbrdt! But I love her anyway.

Das Kinder want me to post their silly sentences.  A sentence using the longest words possible:

Once, a humuhumunukunukuapua'a, who believed in antidisestablishmentarianism, went to Mississippi and discovered bioluminescence.

Alliterative sentences:

An absolutely annoying alligator and an artistic anteater ate applesauce and apricots at an aquarium.

Completely constipated, crazed cats could crave colorful, chunky chicken.

Doofus doggies devoured delicious dill doughnuts daily.  

Sparklee plans for the day:

Get this heavy, snoring beast out of my chair so I can sit down.  (No, I'm not referring to Dad Sparklee.)

Drink too much coffee while watching CBS Sunday Morning.

Work on Iditarod project, Bison scrapbook, and chemistry experiments.

Try to get outside and work off those coffee jitters, if it gets above 35 degrees. 

Hope it's sunny where you are!

Happy Valentine's Day!

SWEET! An excuse to make cupcakes, eat chocolates, and wear pink socks with cupids on them. Hug everyone you love, or call them if they're far away. Relax today, because tomorrow, you'll be busy checking out the sale in the candy aisle. We'll speak French today, car le francais, c'est la langue d'amour. Et ce soir, un peu de vin rouge, et on ne sait pas...