Cowards float

OK.  I know I haven't posted in a good long while and I need to catch y'all up and post pictures but I had to tell this quick story.

I promise just read the whole paragraph below and you will laugh!

The boys are now into the show Avatar the last air bender.  So quick sum up.... there are 4 nations: earth, air, fire and water.  Certain people in each nation can "bend" their element or move it the way they want.  The fire nation has tried to take over the other 3 nations and are pretty ruthless about it.  Ang is an air bender and is the Avatar, the one person that can learn how to bend all 4 elements and stop the fire nation.  Long story short Ang and his friends are helping some earth benders escape from a fire nation prison ship.  The earth bender has the fire nation warriors hovering over the ocean and the commanding officer says "Please, no I can't swim!"  The earth bender says "That's alright I hear cowards float."  Chris and I start laughing about the good cover up, ("That's alright, I hear shit floats" is the saying) and Deaglan pipes up with "Yeah, I can float so he should be able to float."  I couldn't stop laughing and decided you all needed to laugh too.  I promise to post pics and video soon. 

"I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!"

Aren't they handsome! My boys are so amazing, all 4 of them! Chris just transferred to 79th and Cicero in Burbank, so he is much closer to home and can spend more time with us, Joe is growing up so fast, Deg can finally read and Padric is full of piss and vinegar.


Santa gave Joe a guitar for Christmas and we finally got around to getting him lessons. He's had 2 lessons so far and he's doing well.

So what's with the title of this installment? Last Tuesday, Joe was supposed to be getting ready for his second guitar lesson, but I sent him downstairs to keep Deg, Ricky, and the 2 kids I babysit out of my hair. At about 5:30 Joe comes running upstairs hollering "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!" So I say "Oh holy hell, Joe, what did you do now?" I've been getting conflicting stories from Deg and Joe but the end result is the same..... Joe's face hit the concrete floor in the basement and he bit through his top lip. So we're standing at the sink and I've got him holding a cool wet paper towel on it so to slow the bleeding so I can asses the damage. Chris happened to get home right before it happened so he and i checked Joe out and decided to take him to the ER. So while we were sitting in the waiting room Chris called Joe's guitar teacher and let him know we wouldn't be able to make it to the lesson. After 2 and a half hours in the ER, some lidocaine and 3 stitches, this is what Joe looked like....
And this was the next day..... This was Saturday.... And today (Monday) we went to the doctor's office and had them removed... He's gonna have a little scar and I told him that "Chicks dig scars, you'll understand when you get older"

Back to the guitar lessons... So Wednesday Jerry, Joe's teacher, called to check on him and see if we wanted to make up Tuesday's lesson on Thursday. I told him yes and thanks. So while Chris was tuning the guitar one of the strings broke. I called a shop on 111th in Worth called Player's Guitars to get the string replaced. Mike was really helpful. I walked in with Joe's 30" (which is about 3/4 the size of a regular guitar) and there were 2 older gentlemen in the shop. They both oozed blues if you know what I mean, looking at them made me think of Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. One of them looked at me and said "What's that, a ukulele?" I laughed and said "It's my son's guitar, he's 8." Mike took it out of the bag and started to replace the broken string. The same guy looked at the guitar and asked if I had a picture of him playing it, so I took out my phone and showed this picture He and his friend both chuckled and he said "Get out! Look at that Cat play!"

Sunday we went to China Town for dim sum at Three Happiness with some friends and their kids and then we went to Home Depot to buy a new faucet for the kitchen sink. Isn't it pretty? It's a Moen, I really like it! I helped Chris put it in.

LEGOs, LEGOs,Everywhere!

Got a flier from the Oak Lawn Library the other day, Chris brought it home. The NILTC (Northern Illinois Lego Train Club) was going to have a set-up for 2 days at the library. So we (Ed and I, Chris had to work) took the boys. WOW! All I can do is post the pics and give little comments about them because words can't describe how cool this was. They will be there from 1-4 on Sunday and then they move on. You can go visit them tomorrow (Sunday) or you can visit their website http://www.niltc.org/ and find out where they will be next. I hope you enjoy the pics and get a chance to see their work.



I didn't catch all their names, but these are some of the very helpful builders of this set up. In the second picture the guy making the funny face is Kevin and the guy in the hat is Adam. They all answered every question asked not matter how many times they were asked. They were all very, very kind and happy to answer questions from even the smallest future builder.

This is
the first building I saw when I walked into the room, and a closer look at the street level of the same building.

The was a truck accident! It looks like it was pretty bad, and that the entire police force was called in. I wonder if it was a bus load of prisoners. Oh, wait it looks like two delivery trucks. I see why the entire police force was called in can you? Anybody got any coffee or a nice cold glass of milk to go with all these doughnuts?

Yep, you're looking at the Ecto-1. Who ya gonna call? LOL! right in the middle of the second picture you can see the Amazing Spiderman and in the third, The Green Goblin. I didn't get a picture of Doctor Octopus, but he was there. There were some rooftop sentries and a little further down, a rooftop party.




We all knew that White Castles needed help. LOL! Do you think they have it right for the future of gas prices? Ah, here we see a productive LEGO employee..... Oh, wait, she's xeroxing her butt! Look! It's a gunfight! "He lives in a pineapple under the see, it Spongebob Squarepants", Patrick Star, Squidward Tenticles and, Mr, Eugen Krabs of the famous Krusty Krab.

Looks like there's something going on down there. AHHHH! I see zombies and skeletons! It's a haunted house! Why are these people picnicking in front of the haunted house? Do they want to be zombie food?

Right next to the haunted house was an old time toll booth. Then there was another great movie tribute.... The Palace Hotel. (C'mon..... you all know what movie that was from right?) And to keep up the tribute there's the Good Ol' Boys tour bus. (Did you figure out what movie yet?) Then there was the Millennium Falcon! Can you imagine having to build that? If you look closely there's a shout out to the Olympics as well. It looks like the Canadian Curling team against Hogwarts. I wonder if magic is allowed?

This was just about half of what we saw! I'll blog the other half tomorrow.

Museum Docent..... What????

For any of you that don't know yet, I am currently a Volunteer (or Docent as I was called the last time I was there) at the Museum of Science and Industry. I've been volunteering since November of last year. It is turning out to be a perfect outlet for all of the useless knowledge crammed into my melon, and anyone that knows me knows that that is alot!

I decided to take some pictures of the cool things that I have to pass to get to my area in the Imaging Lab and of some of the things that I use on my Science Connections cart. I pass the Race Cars Exhibit on my way to the Imaging Lab.

I pass the 1914 Ford Model T, 1929 Rolls-Royce New Phaeton, 1930 Franklin Pirate Phaeton, and the 1971 Aston Martin Lagonda Limited. All pretty amazing automobiles if you ask me.

My area of "expertise" is Microscopy, or microscopes. On the cart I have (usually) 6 20X dissection microscopes.

This is my cart from a distance and up close. Since our microscopes don't have a platform light, one of the other volunteers put together this neat set up. Most people ask how the light set up works and how the Altoids power the lights and I usually tell them "Well, they are curiously strong mints." Then I tell them to open the tin to see the battery set up.

The first thing I do is help people get the hang of finding what they are trying to look at and using the focusing knobs by asking if they can find Lincoln on the back of the penny. Yes, he's there if you know where to look.

Go ahead get a penny...... now look at the back right in the center of the Lincoln Memorial you can see him sitting there with the naked eye. Under the microscope you can see him a little more clearly. Then if they are still interested we move on to some other slides. We have bee parts, butterfly wings, dot matrix color printing, sand, differnt kinds of cloth... the list goes on. It's really pretty cool.

The Mayonnaise Jar

I got this from a friend of mine and I thought it was worth sharing.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle,

When 24 hours in a day is not enough; remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy classand had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and start to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and pouredit into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly.

The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor, as the laughter subsided,'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things - God, family,children, health, friends, and favorite passions.

Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else -- The small stuff.

If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued,'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, You will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So... Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Play with your children.

Take time to get medical checkups.

Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap.

'Take care of the golf balls first -- The things that really matter.

Set your priorities.

The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.

'I'm glad you asked'.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.

New Year, New Blog

OK, so it's not really a new blog, I've just decided the change a few things. I have decided that I'm not going to warn you if there is knitting content. It's my blog and I am very proud of the projects I complete and I am excited about them when I finish them, so I'm going to make sure you all see them.

So let's start with the Christmas goodies. The boys and I put together a gingerbread house. Well I put it together and they got to decorate it. It turned out kinda cute.




At Stitch n Bitch we had a gift swap. I made out pretty good with a fabulous skein of sock yarn. And at the Christmas party for work I got two more skeins of really nice sock yarn. It's really awesome that my co-workers know me so well.





The boys got LOTS of LEGOs for Christmas and they couldn't be happpier! Deaglan got a scooter from Santa, Padric got a toy helicoper, and Joseph got..... a guitar. He loves learning to play. Here he is with my sister's beau, Shane.

Shane agreed to help Joe learn how to play.


After Christmas we decided to go to the Museum of Science and industry, aka: the Choo Choo Museum, Padric's favorite place. He only looks tiny inside the big tractor wheel.



In case you didn't already know I'm a volunteer there. I man microscopy Science Connection Carts. I get to teach kids (young and old) about microscopes. It's pretty cool. My spot is past the Whispering Gallery in the Imaging Lab. I volunteer 2 Sundays a month.


Nana and Papa gave the boys some awesome Lego sets and a fill a box at the Lego store. They crammed those things! Here's the "boat" Chris made for Padric out of the Legos they filled the box with.


I didn't go with them to the Lego store. Nope I went on a Knitting Fieldtrip to Marengo, Illinois to the most magical place in the world (so far), The Fold! It's a yarn shop. I bought the most beautiful light grey yarn for a sweater I'll be knitting for my sister and a skein of Mountain Colors sock yarn for myself, because you can't have enough sock yarn (4 skeins since the middle of December...... that'll make 3 pairs of socks, I'll have toasty toes!) Since I have the minivan we drove my car for the field trip. Well I had to do something with all the car seats. I think it's the new Honda Family concept car.

I just sent this scarf to the Middle East to a friend in the military. That's Shane again, he's such a sport to model it for me!

And I am currently working on a scarf for a friend of mine. I love the colors. He asked that it be striped, unfortunately for me he's picky and wanted the stripes lenghtwise. It will be gorgeous when I'm finished. I might have to keep it though!



Ricky (Padric) loves building with his legos. He built 6 "puppies". Pretty good for a 3 year old. He then proceeded to line them up and jump them Evil Kenevil style.

And last night the Sullivan's rented out the outdoor ice rink here in Evergreen Park and had the whole clan out for a night on the ice. I stayed home with Ricky while Chris took Joe and Deg. Chris didn't get the whole action shot but, I'm sure you can figure out what happened next.



Lastly, I just needed to show you all how big the boys are getting. Joe is big enough to wash dishes by himself, and Deg and Ricky, well they're just getting big.



I hope I haven't bored you all to tears, and I hope this finds you all well.