World Pasta Day

Today happens to a pretty important day. If you haven't marked it on your calendar, you probably should: today is officially World Pasta Day. We couldn't make the big international conference in New York City (where the world's leading pasta manufacturers would be presenting the latest nutritional and scientific research on pasta, as well as offering demonstrations from leading chefs on preparing appetizing and healthy pasta recipes). But despite being down about that, we decided to have our own international conference inside our home tonight. This event was big: we had three people show up. Mommy served elbow pasta to Madison, and meanwhile Daddy and Mommy enjoyed ravioli stuffed with a delectable cream. The dinner was a huge success, as noted by the pasta expert panel that attended.

Later, we planned to have an intense discussion summarizing the highlights and most noteworthy published studies on scientific evidence related to carbohydrates, but... it was pasta Madison's bed time!

Jedi Breakfast

Behold the jedi at breakfast. How do we know she's a jedi? Why, look at the spoon, friend. This promotional spoon came out a few years ago, and has been lighting up breakfasts ever since. The handle resembles that of a lightsaber, and yes, it lights up green if you must know. Our daughter is not a naughty Sith!

She happens to be using her force powers to eat yogurt, and a bowl of Booberry, which is an important part of any balanced October breakfast. If you're not eating Booberry, you're not eating right!

Today happened to be World Pasta Day again, and as you know from reading this blog, our family is big on pasta. For lunch, Mommy brought some pasta in for us - still warm and inside a mug. And for dinner, we had spaghetti! So we pretty much had the pasta thing covered from the afternoon on. The World Pasta Council should be impressed!

We had a fun bedtime story tonight, sort of getting into the spirit of this time of year a bit. I wrote a short (abridged) version of our story, but as you read, you can imagine the parts that could be stretched out. Here it is below:

Once upon an adventure, our friends Madison and Batman were following a trail through some creepy woods. It was close to Halloween, so things seemed a bit extra creepy if you know what I mean.

Suddenly, there came a terrifying noise! Scared silly, Batman jumped up and hugged Madison closely, looking around for whatever it was that had made the sound.

"Mooooooo!" it called out again.

"What was that sound, Madison?"

"It's just a cow!"

Batman composed himself, and the two began to walk once more down along the path. When suddenly, there came yet another horrendous sound echoing through the woods! He jumped once more, and ran to Madison's side, looking around with fear in his eyes.

"Oink! Oink!" it said.

"That's just a pig!" Madison told him.

So he calmed down a bit. That is, until he heard the most sinister sound he'd ever heard before!

"Meow! Meow!"

"That's a cat!" Madison said.

Clearly, Batman was a little frightened. But fortunately, they got through the spooky woods. Where they heard this awful sound that nearly caused Batman to faint!

"Ook! Ook!"

"That's a monkey!" Madison said.

Oh dear. This was shaping up to be a long night. But suddenly they both spotted something peculiar on a tree, along their path. It was a sign, posted for them to read - and on the top of this paper was a big green question mark.

"The Riddler!" Batman said.

They looked at the paper, and it said this: "If you want treasure to be found, look for something orange and round."

Batman and Madison looked at each other, as they tried to figure this one out.

"Orange and round?" Madison thought out loud.

"Is it a traffic cone?" Batman suggested.

"No," Madison answered. "That's a triangle."

"Oh," Batman said. Then he rubbed his chin and thought hard.

"I got it!" Madison cried out. "It's a pumpkin!"

"Why, you're right!"

That's when the two of them saw a pumpkin not far away - and raced towards it.

"What do we do?" Madison asked.

Batman replied, "We look inside the pumpkin."

And inside was indeed a treasure! A whole lot of candy from the Riddler. They knew it was from the him, because also inside the pumpkin was this note: "Happy Halloween, from the Riddler."

So for Batman and Madison, even though things started out scary, they ended up very, very sweet.

The End.

Fall's Spring

Ah, Jonagold apples again!  Daddy is munching on these even now as he types.  These were harvested from Ellijay just yesterday, as Aunt Shain and Madison's cousins were picking apples off the trees up there.  It was surely a beautiful day - although it sounded a bit crowded from her description of things.  Nevertheless, they had a splendid time, and of course the fruit of the journey was in fact fruit:  delicious apples.  Jonagold apples are our new favorite right now.

Madison had to 'publish' her paper today.  Don't be alarmed - Daddy didn't even know she was publishing a paper.  This was the final step in something she's been doing at school:  brainstorming, rough draft, peer editing, teacher conference, and then finally publishing.  Madison explained these steps to Daddy, sharing her paper with him.  It was a bit she wrote about the Disney Cruise, and why it was such a fun experience for her.  She wrote quite a bit, in fact, and has been giving slight hints left and right about wanting to do it again some time.  Ah, if only we could, Madison.

Right now we have to let Mommy heal up first.  She's doing well in that respect.  We did have a bit of a setback with some pasta and tomato sauce.  The acidic nature of the sauce probably didn't help out too much - at least that's our suspicion.  The pasta itself was gluten-free, so therefore it should have been okay.  Such is life right now, experimenting again to get back on track.  And trying to avoid medication where possible.  Those pills just make you sleepy, and Mommy is trying to avoid sleeping on the couch all day.  But at the same time, she knows there is a time to rest and a time to heal, and these two weeks following a major surgery are ones where you want to be careful and not overextend yourself.

Tonight we had ballet again, and while that went on, Mommy and Daddy went grocery shopping, finally catching up on all the supplies we need for a few weeks.  Madison enjoyed dance as always, and it was good to have her back there.  We didn't have it last week, due to Labor Day, and then Mommy's inability to drive on Wednesday.  We'll return to close-to-normal this week.

Daddy is always having to tell make-up stories in the car, and this morning's was sort of fun.  We envisioned the entire Avengers team, and then a few other heroes as well, all working together to help out baby sea turtles on their journey to the sea.  Ant-Man's assistance was particularly fun, as he was riding atop a baby sea turtle, using his strength to throw around advancing crabs at pesky seagulls.  This sort of story was just right for Madison, who contributed her own parts of the story as well.

This afternoon, Mommy and Daddy could spend some time on the front porch, reading, and waiting for Madison's bus to get home.  It was such a perfect day, quiet and cool, a slight breeze in the air.  Fall is such a time of refreshing, which is odd because of the very nature of the season.  It is a time where things die, and yet here we all are, a spring in our step after a deep breath of crisp cool air.  Yes, even Madison is loving Fall's 'spring,' where we all suddenly feel a surge of positive emotion.  This all despite the doom and gloom in the world.  We still have Fall's spring, a newfound joy and gleeful spirit.

We're close to finishing "The City of Gold," at bedtime, and simultaneously, this latest Bible we've been reading from.  Story time at night has become a very big moment of the day, we're proud to say.  Before bed, we were watching an episode of "The Tick," an episode that features Leonardo DaVinci and his "Time Commandos."  This is a hilarious cartoon that has only two seasons, but each episode is chock full of goodness.  This episode's treatment of George Washington Carver is especially hilarious, as all I really know about the guy is his work with peanuts.  And apparently that's all the writers of the show knew as well.  This might be a series we watch with Madison soon - we have both seasons on DVD at the moment.  But also at the moment, we're going through "Ultimate Spider-Man," and have a ways to go there.

We got news today:  no Christmas production at Free Chapel this year.  This is big, as we now have a lot more free time to spend at Christmas time.  Also, we can spend a lot of that time working for our new Star Wars themed series.  We're pretty excited about that.  But first... let's deal with the Time Travelers series, eh?  Daddy has a lot to do in that direction.  In fact, I think I'm going to be going to do that... right now...

It's February!

Tonight we took Madison to Chili's, all because she got that free meal voucher for being on honor roll this past semester.  She likes spicy food, and the thinking was that Chili's has spicy food somewhere on its menu, which in fact it does.  We might advance to something more spicy for her soon enough, but tonight's grilled nuggets and buffalo sauce were just fine.  Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy actually really enjoyed our entries, something we haven't had in quite some time really.  Mommy got the Margarita Chicken, which is gluten-free, and Daddy got the cajun pasta, which has been a theme lately.  Today for lunch, Daddy had some gumbo.  Anyway, the point is, we went out to eat for dinner tonight, and it really didn't cost that much either.  We had a great time, the three of us, really going out to eat and that's about it:  no other plans other than going home.

We saw "Shanghai Knights" when home, completing that series, and continuing our "Chinese New Year" theme, although this movie takes place in London mostly.  It starts out in China though, so there's marks for that, right?

Anyway, it was a good day today.  Madison started out early, going to art club this morning.  By the way, she was making space on her device tonight, so we were moving some old photos off of that and onto this computer.  Here are just two that she took:

There's the Cat in the Hat again!  Madison has loved hanging out with the Dr. Seuss crowd on Sundays.  We have one more Sunday to go with this series, and I'm starting to miss it already.

Here's another photo I found:

I like this one - maybe it's the composition, but I think this one is interesting.  Madison brought me to this river up in North Carolina (when we were in the Smoky Mountain National Park), and she wanted to take a picture there, and this above is what she took.  It came out nice, I think!

Anyway, "Art Club" just made me think of that.  The other club she's in, Live to Give, is still collecting the cans for the different teams playing in the Super Bowl.  Patriots vs. Rams - whoever gets the most cans in their barrel wins.  Thus far, it's a blow-out, as you would expect here in Georgia.  The Rams are winning that contest, with at least thirty more cans.  Madison is secretly cheering for the Patriots a bit though, and this might be because Daddy is a quiet Patriots fan this year.  It's just an immense accomplishment for their quarterback, really an amazing feat.  We're living in a historic time for football fans, watching legends play.

Of course, nobody in our house really watches these legends play.  We're not really football fans so much, and of course all the recent controversies haven't helped the cause.  We're just fine on Sunday afternoons, with plenty of other options of things to do.

Today at work, Daddy was given a big box of Quality Street candies from Great Britain.  Oh my.  Mommy loved getting that!  These are special candies, ones you don't just pop in your mouth.  These are the sorts you savor and eat slowly.  Which we did.  Madison, Mommy and Daddy were enjoying some of these tasty candies tonight, something we'll no doubt be doing through this weekend - if they last that long.

It's February, so we're doing something unique for Madison the first fourteen days of the month.  We have a heart on her bedroom door, and by Valentine's Day, there'll be fourteen hearts on her door, each with a different reason written on it why we love her.  Today we quoted a bit of "Oh the Places You'll Go" on today's heart, and each day there'll be a different character or quote.  Don't worry - you'll see pictures soon enough.  But Madison did see that this morning when she got up, and thought it was sweet.

So February is here, and the long month of January is finally over with.  It seemed to go longer than thirty-one days, but that might be because of the temperature, or the tedious nature of it all.  No holidays (except MLK day and a snow day), and no decorations.  In fact, the decorations are supposed to come down this month, so that's even worse.

But February is the month of Presidents and Valentines and Groundhogs, followed by a month of leprechauns, and after that a month of Easter eggs and spring.  So we're rounding a corner here.  I don't know if there's another snow day coming up - we didn't technically get any snow or even flurries so far this winter.  But that might be nice.  I guess we'll have to find out tomorrow about that, as the world's most famous meteorologist will be popping up to make a prediction or two.

We can't wait for that.  See you tomorrow!

Omega Block

We're deep in the science movie theme now with the final movie in the Dexter Riley trilogy, a movie called "The Strongest Man in the World."  What a fun series this is.  I have no idea why I love these movies so much, as they aren't cinematic masterpieces to any qualified film critic.  But Mom and I sat and watched this one thinking about how it was too bad they didn't make any more.  It's fun, and great to see the returning cast members reprising their roles, particularly Dean Higgins, Richard Schuyler, AJ Arno, and his stupid henchman.  I'm using AJ's words there.  

We got another few squirrels today, #14 and #15.  I was out getting the car tag dealt with, but also groceries too.  We had some serious catching up to do, but first we were catching up on sleep.  It was a late night last night, so we slept in for quite a bit.  It was a restful day, as throughout the day there were moments where we just sat down with a cup of tea to rest a bit.  The weather outside is nice, and we were watching the birds, new ones and old ones.  There are still other squirrels coming to visit, so we'll get them all one at a time.  But the birds have been nice, including a sighting of a female red-breasted grosbeak.  Of course it doesn't have the colors of the male, but it is still an interesting bird to see.  I mentioned grocery shopping - we got some neat gluten free items for Mom, including meatballs, a cheese pasta ravioli, English muffins, egg rolls and more - all gluten-free!

Maddie did have taekwondo today, and that was just in time, as she was rested up enough by that moment.  She was busy sparring and training with her form.  Just one more week until she gets her second degree black belt, and things are starting to accelerate here with the testing.  Unfortunately, she's got all kinds of other testing going on that week too, at school.  Lots going on this season, and it's stressful and filled with work, but we had a great time yesterday and will continue to have a great time once we get these tests out of the way.

So there's this weather system in place called an Omega Block.  I just want to say how much I love these names for weather systems.  The end result of this is much colder weather this week.  The air stream looks like a big omega symbol over our country, and there is cold air blocked in place, so I guess that's where the title came from.  It would be a great name for a rock band wouldn't it?  They could open up for Bomb Cyclone or Polar Vortex.

Anyway, we read tonight from our book, and we're learning about a dystopian Disney Park in the future that sounds pretty fun.  I'm actually enjoying this odd storyline - unexpected!  We said our prayers after that, and soon after that... it was time for some sleep!