A Quote for "Those Days"

Today you get a quote:

I long to accomplish a great and noble task but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
--Helen Keller

Most days I am fully aware of the nobility of my job. I have never felt like I was contributing less to the world because I don’t have a money-making job. In fact, I think quite the opposite is true. However, there are some days when it’s hard to really see what I have done that day that has any lasting value and it is for those days that I have this quote written down to encourage me.

Those days it seems like I cycle through a bunch of meaningless jobs (clean the kitchen, sweep the floor, wash toothpaste off the bathroom counter, read little engine that could, clean the kitchen again, fix dinner, sweep again, do laundry, roll a ball across the floor a hundred times, sweep up broken glass, apply band-aids, clean kitchen again, and on and on) and never get to the things that actually seem important. Those days Toby comes home and says, “What did you do today” and I say “nothing” and I wonder why I’m so tired when I didn’t do anything all day. Those days I have to remind myself to do the small tasks as if they were great and noble because in God’s eyes, they are – that is what He’s called me to do on those days. Sometimes God asks us to change the world and sometimes He just asks us to take out the garbage. So here’s the lesson: it’s not the task itself, but the Giver of the task that makes it noble.

Off I go to clean up the kitchen...

Thoughtful Questions

I'm going to start posting a question now and then. I'll answer it for me and I'll ask whomever might be near me when I'm posting to answer it as well. After that, I'll be waiting to hear your answers to the same question.

Here's the first question - it was thought up by Ryan:
Would you rather have the ability to fly or to become invisible whenever you wanted? What would you do with your new ability?

Jake: FLY! I would just like flying and when I played basketball, I could fly up to the hoop with the ball and make a slam dunk.

Ryan: Well, I would actually rather be invisible. I haven't really thought of what I'd do, I would just rather be invisible.

Emma: Fly. I would wear a cape behind me - a red cape - and I would pretend I was superman.

Carol: I think I'd have to chose fly because I can only think of mischievous things to do as an invisible person. Besides, I'd love to see the view from up above. Being able to bypass traffic would be handy, but it wouldn't do me much good unless the rest of the family could fly as well since I'd have to drive them anyway. I guess I could fly somewhere with Jake and Emma, but then Ryan would be left at home, invisible.

Planning Her Future

Emma's got big plans...
When I'm four, I'll learn to swim and blow bubbles with gum.
When I'm five, I'll be able to whistle and take tae kwon do.
When I'm eight, I'll be old enough to go with Ryan walking Pippi on the road.
When I'm sixteen, I'll get my own phone.
When I'm thirty-two, I can use a chain-saw.

Everyday Life

Sometimes everyday, ordinary life seems very interesting and newsworthy but sometimes it just seems ordinary – this week has been like that. Everything seems pretty normal and boring around here. Right now Emma has all the pots and pans laid out on the floor like a drum set – she is dressed in all black and her hair is hanging in her face so she looks the part. Jake is writing his spelling words over and over on the white board next to me. Ryan is walking Jessie around the house, doing his best to avoid the rest of his schoolwork and chores. I type a few words; stop to quiz Jake on his spelling words; type another few words; get up to pull Jessie out of the bathroom; type a few more words; stop to tell Ryan to get to work; type a bit more...By now, nobody is still doing what I said they were doing a sentence ago. Jake has moved on to another school project and Ryan is doing literature with Emma – this is something they’ve only been doing for a month or so. They’re working through a list of pre-school kids’ books – gives Ryan practice reading aloud and makes Emma very happy. Since there’s not any interesting news, I’ll give you some pictures from the week, now. This first one shows a normal weekday lunch - the kids all fight over that thing that holds up a book. I wouldn't know where to get another one - we have this one becasue the realtor who sold this house left it in our hall closet holding fliers for the house and his business cards. In the second one, Jessie is eating a pear, in case you can't tell what that is. Ok, I've got to go - I'm needed for Bible and History.

British Words and Phrases

Since Ryan's birthday in November (when he was given three Harry Potter books by my mom) we've been reading them almost every night. We're a quarter of the way into book 5 now, and the other night Ryan said "Dad, how come all the cool adventures happen in London? Harry Potter, Narnia, Peter Pan, the Susan Cooper series, - it all happens in London. I wish some cool stuff would happen here".

It's also been a bit of a learning curve with regards to terminology. We're obviously not the only ones though, since the first thing to come up when I searched on "British Terminology" was a Harry Potter fan site.

Here is a sampling of some of the words and phrases that the kids are now picking up on: (from http://www.hogwartsfansite.co.uk/britishwords.htm).

'Bang' him on the counter: Informal term for put him on the counter.
Banging on: Talking incessantly about something.
'Bung' him in some owl treats: Carelessly throw them in.
Cheeked/cheeky: If you're being cheeky then you're either being insolently or playfully rude or disrespectful, or you're being funny but inproper and ill-mannered. To cheek someone means to be one of these things to them.
Corking: See 'spiffing' below. :-)
Dicky bird: Not a dicky bird means absolutely nothing. E.g. "Any sign of Bertha Jorkins?" "Not a dicky bird." Or, if you say, "Watch for the dicky bird" you're tellin someone to smile for the camera. Absolutely no idea where this term comes from.
FlapE.g. "You've had us all in a right flap.": Worried or panicy.
Git: (used a ton in Harry Potter, and now used a ton by Ryan) An informal term for someone who is annoying, troublesome, unpleasant or thoughtless (like Malfoy!). It's quite a soft word, really, and is often used in an affectionate or light-hearted way (Fred and George have called Ron a git).
Keruffle: Commotion.
Kip: A nap.
Nicked: An informal word for stole. Alternatively, it could mean arrested, e.g. you can be 'nicked' by a policeman.
Nutter: Someone who acts strange or mad.
Plus-fours: Image. Not all that many people wear them anymore and the ones that do are usually older people.
Shirty: Annoyed or bad tempered.
Skulked: If you're skulking around then you're hanging about a place or person.
Spare: (going)Going mad with frustration or worry.
Spiffing: Wonderful! 'Spiffing' is considered a very posh word and is usually only used when making fun of the elite (or the British, in a friendly way of course).
Starkers: Naked.
Tenterhooks: To be on tenterhooks is to be anxious or in suspense.
Wotcher: A greeting. Comes from 'what cheer?'

Pictures of my Jessie

Isn't she sweet?

A couple certain members of the family had a few days of quite a lot of bickering and another certain member of the family was really tired of listening to it and decided the best thing for an attitude adjustment, in this case, was a lot of really hard work – together.

So, the boys were set to work yesterday, hauling the pile of wood Toby had chopped the previous day, across the yard to stack it.

I didn’t think to take a picture before they started,

but in this picture they were well over half-way done.


These were not small pieces of wood – I was surprised Jake could even lift them.

They figured out on their own to use the wheelbarrow and wagon – smarter than me – I would have carried them one-by-one.

Nearly three hours later, they’re hauling out the very last piece.

It was so big they had to lift it together.

Mission accomplished – times two – big pile of wood stacked and boys working together.

Done.

Weekend Notes

Friday evening the boys earned their green belts in tae kwon do. Here they are receiving the new belts at the end of their promotion test.

Saturday I took no pictures. Ryan and I went to Seattle in the morning to help serve a Valentine breakfast to the ladies at the Union Gospel Mission Women and Children’s Shelter with some people from church. We came home to find an ordinary Saturday in progress at the Smith house – Toby was wearing his “bibs”, Jake was shoveling gravel in his pajama pants (with one leg rolled up), and Emma had her jeans on inside-out, with a camouflage shirt, and her church shoes that were all covered in dirt because she, too, was “working” outside in them. Smithy and Mary soon arrived and spent much of the afternoon working, playing, and going for walks with us.

We do have some pictures from today (Sunday). First, pictures of Toby and Smithy working:

Still clearing trees and chopping wood – that will be going on for quite some time.

Muscle men.

Tough guys wearing bibs – aren’t they cute?
Toby looks like a bald Paul Bunyan in this picture, I think.

After a couple hours of work we all went on a little hike in Carnation.

Jessie, Toby, Emma, and Smithy

Jake asked me to find him a nest – here are the two I found.

Emma, Smithy, Pippi, and Ryan along the Snoqualmie River.

How to entertain yourself if mom won't let you have an x-box:

Discovering Calvin

Oh, it's one of those Calvin and Hobbes books Ryan, Jake, and Emma are always looking at.

I wonder what the big deal is, anyway.

I'd better check it out.

This IS great. I love Calvin.

The All-You-Can-Eat Book Buffet

If I recall correctly, Little House in the Big Woods tells us that when Laura Ingalls was a very small girl, her family had only two books: a Bible and a book about animals. Our kids, on the other hand, have the King County Library System.

I didn’t like the Redmond Regional Library when we first moved here. It’s too big, I thought. I missed the teeny, tiny Kenmore library and its friendly atmosphere. I liked that I could see the kids no matter where I was in the building. I especially liked walking in the door and hearing the librarian say, “Good morning, Carol”. Nobody says “hi Carol” at the Redmond library. I don’t usually come face to face with a librarian there – I get the books reserved for us off the shelf on my own and check them out myself on a self-check-out computer. The children’s section of the Redmond library could hold the entire Kenmore library – probably twice. I just didn’t like this huge library...

...until I browsed for the first time without kids. I finally got to venture out of the kids’ section and into the rows and rows of non-fiction. The amount of information in that building is staggering and it’s all available to me at no cost (well, besides taxes which we would pay even if we didn’t use the library). Since I’m not only limited to the thousands of books at the Redmond library but can search online for what I want through all the books of the entire King County Library System, it’s a bit like an all you can eat buffet where you end up with way more on your plate than you possibly can eat. Right now we have more than a hundred library books in our house, which is not unusual. I don’t know what’s wrong with me – I don’t know why I don’t just check out three books, read them all the way through, return them, and get new ones. I just can’t seem to discipline myself. As soon as a thought comes into my head that I might like to know about something or learn how to do something, I go and reserve a dozen books on the topic. Here are some of the books we have checked out now:

Cedar: tree of life to the Northwest Coast Indians
The complete woodcarvers handbook
Several knitting books
Some cookbooks that I don’t seem to be looking at – not on a cooking kick right now.
Origins of great ancient civilizations (A lecture series on dvd)
Sculpting traditional bowls
Talkers, watchers, and doers: unlocking your child’s unique learning style
How to sharpen carving tools
A primer of Biblical Greek
Superfoods for children
Hiking with dogs: becoming a wilderness-wise dog owner
About ten books on heating your home and cooking on a wood stove (we don’t even have a wood stove)
Shepherding a Child’s Heart
Mummies, pyramids, and Pharoahs
Egyptian Boats
Bill and Pete go down the Nile
Beowulf (a children’s version that is still very gruesome and gory but all three kids loved it)
A lime, a mime, a pool of slime: more about nouns
Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity
Several Harry Potter books
Is your mama a llama?
Rocks and fossils

So many books, so little time. I’m currently looking forward to the arrival of a basic anatomy lecture series I’ve reserved and a book called “How to Play the Pocket Harmonica”. I wonder if we have a harmonica somewhere.

Fashion Central

Here, we have normal Saturday attire at the Smith house. Toby's wearing his new Helly Hanson...I don't think I know what those things are called. Notice the stylish duct-tape arm band. A fly-away ember from one of his burn piles burned a small hole in his jacket and that's his patch job. He's finally starting to look like his dad (that's a good thing, in my opinion - I love Smithy). Then there's Emma - she doesn't realize that when people stay in their pajamas all day on a Saturday it's because they're staying indoors all day. The mis-matched mittens is becoming a classic Smith look - I bet Jake's socks don't match today either. Sigh.

There, that's better.

(No one can tell she's wearing Jake's bright red boxers underneath.)

Ryan, Jake, and Emma were dressing up for some sort of party they were pretending to have and, while Emma chose the above party dress, this is what the boys thought fitting.

Jake is wearing a shower curtain - it's all the rage these days.