Go Yellow Jackets!

This is a clip of the Upward Basketball game Mason played today (Upward.org). Upward is a recreational basketball league for school age kids centered around good sportsmanship, Christian themes and making sure each child feels their contribution is appreciated. There are memory verses the kids learn for each practice, they have short devotional times during practice and games, and best of all, Mason is learning the fundamentals of the sport in a very positive atmosphere. Most of you know I'm not a sports fan, (I briefly thought the Cardinals playing in tomorrow's Superbowl were from St. Louis) but I really do enjoy watching a live basketball game. My theory is that it's the action that draws me in--the turnovers, the rebounds, the nearly missed or nearly hit shots that make for edge of your seat drama. It's not the same during Baseball season, when Mason plays in the parks and recreation league. I take my chair, my snacks, and my baby, and usually by the bottom half of the first inning I'm listening to old time radio podcasts on my iPhone to cut the monotony. I cheer for Mason when he's up at bat but I find myself reflexively looking at my watch to see how much longer it's going to be, because I see the entire sport as painfully light on action. Monte says the truth is I enjoy live Basketball only because Baseball is played outside in the cold spring or hot summer, but I assert that he is wrong and surely it's the gripping drama of ten guys running after one ball, where anything can and does happen. I mean it's a lot more impressive than one or two guys running after a ball while the rest of them defend their positions by standing in place. C'mon, how riveting can Baseball really be by design? (No offense, Mr. Pujols.) Of course, Monte tends to follow his "You're just in it for the indoor temperature regulation and the concession stand" argument with "Well, then, if it's really about the excitement of many people after one ball and non-stop action, why don't you like live football?" If I answer truthfully, it's because live football is usually played in the hot fall or cold winter and those bleachers are made of metal so your rear end is alternately asleep, on fire, or frozen, but that explanation seems to play into his hands, so I typically turn to him and say he can't possibly understand the nuances of live Basketball because of his clear preexisting prejudice against the game, and that we are and forever will be at an impasse on the subject. I then excuse myself to another part of the climate controlled house--usually with a TV remote and a box of chocolates.

Crazy word(s) of the day

Monte got me a MacBook Pro laptop for Christmas, and it's got this crazy screen saver that picks random words out of the dictonary, scoots them around the screen, and then picks one, defines it, scoots them around, defines another, and so on. At first I recognized most of the words, but here lately ol' MacBook has found new and increasingly obscure words to throw up there. I thought I would share a few with you now:

• dystopia [dis'topea] noun. an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of Utopia.
• sere [si(e)r] adjective. dry; arid, especially of plants, withered.
• clamant ['klament] adjective. forcing itself urgently on the attention.
• patisserie [pe'tisere] noun. a shop where French pastries and cakes are sold. French pastries and cakes collectively.

I mean, really MacBook? You can't be cool enough without making me feel like you're smarter than me too? Well played, MacBook, well played.

Going digital is sweet, but not my true love

Lately I’ve been a bit back into digital scrapbooking. When I came across digital scrabooking a few years ago, I was impressed at first, and then as I got more into it, underwhelmed with the results. I missed all the dimension—even with Photoshop and layers, it all still felt like just a picture of a scrapbook page. But a while back my friend Tiffany asked me to give her a five minute tutorial on digital scrapbooking, and I found myself admitting that there are some pretty cool DS advantages. No huge mess to manage and clean up, nothing stuck in the wrong spot (I can move anything anywhere, even months later), everything lays flat (obviously, but you’d be surprised how often warping occurs in a regular scrapbook page and how much that really affects the look of the layout), and when you have to make a quick layout of your child for their special “star” week at school like I did at left for Stephen, you can print out your design, send it to school, and not worry about it ever returning because you can print another anytime you like (I could never be that cavalier with my real "one of a kind" pages). I doubt I'll ever go completely digital—I still like the feel and look of real elements on a page—but I think I’m less of a purist and more open at least to a hybrid approach than I previously thought. Sometimes I even surprise myself.

(Click on the pages I made for Stephen to see them larger.)

Are you watching JellyTelly?

This a bit arbitrary, in that my blog chatter (all two posts of it) has mainly been my thoughts at the time of each post, and not product endorsement, but I have got to say out loud once and for all that I LOVE JellyTelly. L-O-V-E IT. Can’t possibly say enough good things about it. What is JellyTelly, you ask? It’s a web-based children’s video “channel” that is sort of Sesame Street meets Sunday Morning Bible Class, crossed with the learning features of places like PBS and the Discovery channel, written by somebody from Monty Python. It’s really great. My kids love it, and often ask to watch JellyTelly on our computer over something they are allowed to watch on TV. It’s great because along with bible school stuff, JellyTelly adds in science and history tidbits, stories with morals, a special movie of the week(end), and best of all, Pirate Etiquette (who knew there were so many rules about how you should choose your pirate name?)

For a while the site was subscription based ($2.99 per month--affordable even in today's economy), but they’ve removed the subscription requirement and now everybody anywhere can watch for free, which rocks. Plus, there are cute little games to play and other features. It’s a really amazing site, and honestly, where else can you learn who all the judges were in the book of Judges? (I suppose one could learn them by reading the actual book of Judges and compiling a list, but the little song they came up with is soooo catchy . . . ) Anyway, if you have kids that are (or will be) TV watchin’ age, check out JellyTelly. Hey, if nothing else, nobody gets called “stupid” during some random cartoon—I swear if I have to explain why we don’t use that word in our house, but it’s okay for the cartoon guy to say it, I’ll go utterly completely certifiably mad. I’m just sayin’.

Zzzzzzz!

Wow--I didn't realize how long it had been since I had written something. It was a charming look back to see my May 2007 self, not realizing yet that she is pregnant with her third boy, or that things would get so hectic between Mason's basketball, cub scouts, church, vacations, school events, baseball, and so forth and so on . . . ah yes, May 2007 was a simpler time. The good ol' days, as it were. Ever notice, everyone talks about the good ol' days as if they were so wonderful, when in fact, I spent most of my childhood lost in malls and theme parks (before cell phones), eating terrible food (before really good restaurants) and wearing the worst clothing imaginable (it was the 70s and 80s after all). No VCR, no DVD player, no internet. NO INTERNET. Think about that. No Wikipedia, no eBay, no E-MAIL. Digest that for a second. Nobody knew anything! Ack. I wouldn't go back for a zillion dollars. Well maybe a zillion dollars, because then I'd just hire some smart people to start the internet. Or Al Gore. Or something. But I couldn't do it for less than a billion-five. That's my bottom line.

Peyton does not want me to blog! He likes to take everything out of my computer desk drawers while I type. I think he's trying to teach me a lesson. The lesson is either "stop typing and pay attention to me" or "your printer ink looks better on the floor."