First Haircut

Justus and I had a great adventure last night.  After an Enrichment night (Thursday) talking about hairstyling and cutting, Justus convinced me that I could cut his hair.  I was really nervous because I had only one lesson, but he assured me that I could do it.  We decided to do it the next night (Friday) mostly because the lesson was still fresh in my mind.  We also joked that the backup plan of doing a buzz cut was also acceptable. Knowing a few people who could "fix" it for me also gave me confidence.  After a really long hair cut, I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product.  It's a rough haircut.  I need to work on blending and being more confident, but I assured Justus that the next few will be better. 

The Case of the Missing Shoes

Justus and I had a great time babysitting our cousins on Friday night. They are both adorable and make us smile (one is almost 3 and the other is 6 months). At one point, the eldest brought Justus his shoes for him to put on. We were not going anywhere, but she thought that he should put them on (maybe it's a supposed to be sign that it's now time to go to the park). Justus asked her if she could put the shoes by the front door and off she went carrying the shoes, one under each arm. Later, after the cousins were asleep, when were getting ready to go home we could not find Justus' shoes. All of us searched around the house without any luck. We all stood puzzled, wondering "where did they go?" Justus ended up borrowing a pair of flip flops for the ride home.

Today I received an email saying that my cousin had put the shoes underneath a table in her bedroom. It was so dark when we looked in her room that we could not find Justus' black shoes. The mystery is solved!

(The shoes are currently being held for more babysitting service which we are happy to give)

Sewing Table!!!

Justus and I enjoy scouting out our local Goodwill for great deals.  To escape some of the heat we ventured out on Monday.  To our surprise we found five different sewing tables in various conditions.  They were all priced between 25 and 50 dollars depending upon the quality of the table and if a machine was included.  I have been casually searching for a nice sewing table and I found that I liked two of the tables.  Since the following Saturday would be the 50% Saturday at the Goodwill we decided to wait until Saturday and if one of them was available we would get it.  We arrived at 8:57 AM to find a huge crowd waiting outside waiting for Goodwill to open minutes later.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that both of the tables that I liked were available and for 50% of the listed price we couldn't resist!  For 24.99 I got this beautiful sewing table complete with a Belvedere sewing machine from perhaps the late 1960's (I still need to do some research).   There is some work and repairs required, but most of the exterior marks and scrapes have been cleaned up with a little elbow grease and help from Murphy's wood cleaner.  As you can probably tell, I'm very excited about my find!!!!

East of Eden Review

East of Eden by John Steinbeck


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved the theme of agency. There is a constant discussion on how we have the ability to choose from good and evil, no matter what our ancestors may or may not have done. The parallel to the story of Cain and Able also brings on an interesting discussion on the different translations of the story. A great quote follows:

"The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word 'timshel' - 'thou mayest'- that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if 'Thou mayest' - it is also true that 'Thou mayest not'" (East of Eden, originally copyrighted 1952, page 303 of 1992 edition).



Sidenote: Long read, but worth it. Also, slight profanity if anyone is wanting to avoid it.

View all my reviews >>

Balancing the checkbook

Since the beginning of this year, I've been striving to balance my checkbook at least once a week or twice a month. I don't always see a physical benefit from doing it other than tracking my expenses and always knowing how much money I have in the bank. Today I went to balance my checkbook during lunch and noticed that a withdrawal that I had made came up on the register twice. I quickly called my bank and then my request was sent to "research." I'm not sure how it all will turn out (they said up to 5 days), but I am grateful that I balance and check my accounts so regularly.

Here's to hoping I don't loose any money because of a bank error.


UPDATE 8/7/09: Since customer services told me it would take up to five business days to figure out, I decided to go down to the branch I did the transaction and take it up with the manager. Minutes later I had confirmation that the second error transaction would be credited to my account this evening. Yes!

Learning Opportunities

I love to watch Justus interact with my little brother and sister. They enjoy spending time with him as much as he enjoys spending time with them. Justus strives to do fun activities with the kids and to not always let them watch TV when we're hanging out. This past Saturday, I watched my husband teach Sarah and Ryan how to play marbles. As they were playing he took the opportunities to teach them. At one point we had set the marbles up in a "x" position. Justus started to ask different questions and explain a little about momentum and Newton's laws. "So if we hit this marble, which one do you think will move?" Justus did a wonderful job of teaching them without it feeling like a lecture, or distracting from the fun of the game.