So this will probably be our last blog before the New Year. So far New Years Eve has been pretty disappointing - Matt and Dan were sick last night. They stayed sick all day. So then after that Mom, Dad, Melanie, and Nathan went out for dinner leaving me to babysit. Matthew whimpered so much that I thought he was faking it - and he probably was. They said they would be home in 2 hours, but it turns out they weren't home for 3 hours. So when they finally get home they tell us all about 50 year old drunk women fawning over Nathan and Dan...but I'll let Melanie or somebody who was actually there to tell you about it. Then we played this game where you try to make up New-Years resolutions for everybody...it was fun - me and Dan didn't get funny ones, we just got things like "Keep our rooms clean" and "brush 3 times a day" which didn't make sense because I brush 3 times a day anyway. Nothing about keeping my room clean though! Then Melanie decided she was going to get a migraine so she left with Nathan, and then Dad decided he was also sick - probably of the same ailment that afflicted Matt and Dan (and Sam earlier in the week), so he went upstairs, leaving everybody else to their own devices. I don't know if I’ll make it to midnight. Dan and Sarah complained "New Years just isn't new years without staying up to twelve!" and Dad said "Well people aren't usually sick on New Years." So true...yet disappointing.

Oh well - it doesn't matter. I'm very glad I'm not the one who is sick!

Sunday School

=^..^= A new emoticon. The Kitty Cat. The oceanographer is in 8-)

Sunday School is in the downstairs part of the church. A small room with a table and a bunch of chairs. My Sunday School teacher is a 8-foot tall person smushed down to the height of 5 feet. She is an opthamaligast and has grey hair and always wears a nightgown-like (really ugly) dress. She is very funny (not funny to be with, funny to look at) and very christan. Anyway, being the second oldest in the class, Ann Mott (my teacher) said:

Ann: Today we are going to learn the story of David and Bathsheba!

Dan: Oohh, I love this story!

Alex: Do you know every story in the bible?

Dan: Who doesn't know the story of David and Bathsheba?

(at this point the story starts, but to many students are talking)

Ann: I have a loonie for the person who answers the questions right!

(that shut them up)

Ann: Dan, can you read the first verse?

Dan: Sure. blah, blah, blah.

Alex: blah... blah... blah.

(and so on)

Now that wasn't so bad was it? WRONG. For the first time, Ann actually bribed us, but never did give anybody a loonie.

=^..^=




--
Posted by Dan to Abarbablog at 1/31/2005 09:46:33 AM

Today Sarah & I were reading a wonderful book called "The Railway Children". We've actually been sneaking off whenever we can for the last 3 days. All the kids are cool with that except for Sam. Today he knocked on my bedroom door & Sarah told him I was exercising in the basement. So he went away but came back a few minutes later, angry at the rouse. She then said I was sleeping & that she was standing guard. He came in, got right up on top of me, looked and then said, "Yes she is sleeping" - as if all mothers can sleep through such a thorough investigation.
Matt is still on his health kick. He has been sneaking into the fridge to eat celery sticks all week - after I told him that it actually burns more calories to eat celery than celery contains. His birthday is on January 12th so I was asking what he would like. He asked for a "walk away belt" - an exercise tool that is advertised in a fitness video I have!
So our friends Nathan & Melanie have been staying with us off & on. Nathan is an elite athlete so has been coaching us a bit on eating & exercise habits. Nathan is a lovely guy but he IS an elite athlete. He wasn't too impressed that I do aerobics as he claims it is not NATURAL body movement. But then I let it drop that when I was 14 my personal best time for a 10 km run was 42:38. I was a triathlon athlete without even knowing it. That summer I was taking my Bronze Medallion swimming certification - which meant mondo laps in the local pool 5 mornings per week. Then I would run 10 km to my babysitting job & bike 3.5 km home at night. Nathan claims that now I could probably do a 38 minute 10 km. However since I have 5 kids my only CHANCE at staying fit is doing aerobics in the basement. Sigh. I could have been a star. Heck maybe I still could be a star ... if I start training now I could come out of nowhere in the women's over 40 category in 2 years time. Oh here is a post script - after that summer I got a job working in a butcher shop. That was when my weight lifting career really took off ... sides of beef are heavy.

Two days ago Melanie Mibsey and I were supossed to go to the bead pod together and make jewlery. Unfortunately there was a HUGE storm, and it was closed. The next day Mibsey had to work until the Bead Pod was closed, so we went without her. It was a bit disappointing that she couldn't be there, but I had fun anyway. Melanie made 2 really cool necklaces, one with a large blue streaked stone pendant and 2 small blue beads that matched, and another one that is kind of hard to explain. It had beads placed regularly around the string, but there weren't beads all around the string. I hope you guys get it...but whatever. I made a white and red necklace that is very simple and it has a red glass ladybug in the center. I really like it. We were planning to go to a vegetarian restaurant after for tofu cheesecake that tastes SO good, and doesn't taste like tofu at all - its so good, but the restaurant was still closed, so I was a bit ticked off. However, since Nathan didn't pick us up until 4 we went to a little store down the street that sells cool, and not so cool stuff. I bought 2 silver rings, and a little painted turtle that is very cute that was made in indonesia. I didn't really think much of it, until I brought it home and showed it around. Dad said "You know Katelyn, the person who made that is probably dead" Hmmm, what a nice thought. I helped finance someones last walks of life. Of course the population of Indonesia was 238,452,952 but it was the hardest hit area by tsunamis, and over 32,000 people have died there. So dock a couple ten-thousands off that figure there. It still is weird to think though that I may have bought something hand crafted by a dead person. And a recently dead person at that - I don't have much of an issue about looking at paintings by dead artists, but most of them have been dead for a long time, and died of fairly natural causes. It could be debated though that the presumably dead person who made and painted my turtle died of a natural cause - it was a natural disaster after all.

For the record: At supper the other night when Sarah said that Mom and Dad had broken a new record Melanie did turn so red that I thought she was going to hurt herself. I'm also pretty sure that if I had laughed a little bit harder without breathing I would have made myself pass out - it was that funny. Matt and Sam laughed just because everybody else was laughing, and Dan and Sarah didn't laugh as hard as everybody else.

Dad is making egg salad downstairs so I better go - I can't wait until everybody else is back!

Today I was standing at the checkout line with Matt. He started talking to a kind woman in front of us. He said, "I've always lived here ... I was BORN here." The woman smiled & nodded encouragingly. He continued, "I've never moved ... well, I've moved my leg like this but I've never moved houses". Ah ... once again Matt turns an ordinary checkout line into something spectacular.

Yesterday was a blast. We had such a huge snowstorm that Melanie and Nathan had to sleep over for another night. We shoveled while the snowstorm was still blowing, when I felt a HUGE block of SNOW whack me on the back. It was Melanie who did that. Then she jumped on me and started stuffing me with snow. She would of murdered me if Katelyn haden't told her to stop. I spat out the snow coughing like mad on all fours and I think that I stayed there for 2 minutes coughing up snow in the middle of the road (the road was so snowed that even the snowplow couldn't come).

At suppertime when we were all happily eating curried chicken, Dad said it was time for "Hi-Lo". Everybody's "Hi" was that Melanie came over. (I was the only one who said my "Hi" was that Melanie and Nathan came over. THEN Mom's "Hi" was talking with dad for ten minutes alone. At this point Sarah remarked "That's a new record!" Everybody burst out laughing including Melanie, who's hair turned green and face turned red. She mad a perfect inveggienation of a tomato. Then I asked "Shortest or longest?" More laughter came and Sarah said "longest" (at this point Melanie's face turned into a red onion). After that "longest" remark, we were laughing so hard that we forgot to finish "Hi-Lo". We are having a great time.

<><

Dan

This is Sarah. Today it snowed alot. But I didn't understand why the snow plow came down our street 100 times. Melanie has come over. Today I knitted. I knitted with a toy I got for Christmas. The knitting tool is a spool. (That rhymes!) I gave out toy dolls for Christmas. But no one really liked them except for Mom. Mom's got flattened & somehow it looks beautiful to her. Mom says it looks like one of Raphael's paintings - like an angel. She has it on the side of her computer screen. Oh yeah the picture! We painted a picture today. We had our family in the picture & a few friends. I had to call Mary & Wally to see what eye colour they have for the picture. Lawrence is a friend of ours. He is a drywaller & he always fixes our drywall when it is broken. He has a plow on the front of his truck. And his father is dieing because of cancer. Mom's physiotherapist's dad is also dieing. I have to go to bed now so I will say good night!

Before anything I have to tell you this story. One day in November when it was quite warm and there was no snow on the ground Dad got a phone call. It was one of the Chinese people. Here is part of their conversation:
Jason: Hey Ron, do you have time to meet next week?
Baldguy: I don't know, what do you want to do?
Jason: We (meaning most of the Chinese people) want to go skiing!
Baldguy: Oh...well you need snow
So there was a bit of a misunderstanding about skiing I guess, but that is not what my post is about.

So we have a tradition here in the Maritimes. It always snows buckets (or dumptrucks) of snow just after Christmas. Usually it is boxing day or the day after boxing day. So anyway, it snowed last night. I didn't know it was going to snow, so I didn't set my alarm, and I woke up really late because I am in the basement and there is a large window, but it gets blocked up if there is snow. Anyway, I looked out the window and there was A LOT of snow. After that the day was a mixture of eating, reading, shoveling, and calling the bead store to see if it was open because me and Melanie and planned to go there. Unfortunately it wasn't open.
Right after lunch Dad got a call on his cellphone. He looked at the call display for a sec, and then answered it. He said "Hey Jason, feel like going skiing today?" "Oh you don't want to" "ok". The rest of the conversation went as follows. Dad repeated everything Jason said for the benefit of the rest of us in the room. "You're at Mic Mac mall?!" (mic mac mall is a very large mall in Dartmouth, which is a city right next to Halifax) "They closed it?!" "You guys are at the bus stop?!" "There are six of you?!" "The buses are canceled!?" "Can't you call a taxi?" and finally, after trying to find out if taxi service was canceled as well, which it turned out to be. "Ok, I'll be there in 30 minutes" Now you must understand that this was the kind of light slippery snow. The kind that when you walk onto your driveway and there is just a little bit you slip and land on you butt. So not the best driving conditions. Actually, if the buses are canceled, the roads are Very bad. It turned out that they had all gone to the mall for the boxing day sales (it is today because there is no shopping on Sunday) and then the mall decided to close, so they kicked everybody out of the mall - including the people who had taken the bus, not taking into account that the bus had been CANCELED, so those people had no way of getting home.
I was a bit scared that they would have an accident, but they came back just fine. I just think it was really bad that somebody would just do that - these are Chinese people who don't speak very good English, who have NO WAY of getting back home. Also our neighbour who works in the bank got called into work today. He got there at 12:00, and then at 1:00 they decided to close. So they gave everybody taxi tickets, but the taxis weren't running. There is a gap here in someones head I think. Anyway, we are glad that everybody we know is safe.

I was talking with Clara, one of the sweet quiet Chinese girls we had over for Christmas. She noticed Ron discipline Matt, who was being hyper. She asked me about Canadian philosophy for discipline, etc. She said in China the parents usually just sit and tell the child what is the right thing to do & the child understands & is obedient. I was sort of smiling to myself at this form of discipline ... It works best when you have one child & can micromanage them. (Perfect for China with the one child rule) Then Clara said, "I only remember my mom beating me once or twice". I asked Clara to show me what 'beating' looked like & she spanked me on the arm. I quickly explained that the word she wanted was spanking, not beating. We went for a walk late in the afternoon. This was a bad idea because these Chinese are not used to the Canadian cold nor do they have the same level of fitness as we do. (They are thin, I think, because their diet is naturally low in fat & they don't eat sweets). Owen was telling me that at Chinese New Year they all watch a variety show broadcast on T.V. across China - from 8 pm to midnight. Then they go outside & have crack. I looked at him questioningly & he made motions for fireworks. I again explained very firmly that they are called fireworks, not crack. They were confused about my explanation of crack as they only knew sayings like "the door being open a crack". Wait until I have to explain "crack of dawn" & "butt crack". Why is English so complicated?
One of the Christmas presents was copper piping cut into small lengths with different joints & elbows. This, of course, was for Matt's sewage system in the backyard. He was thrilled. But the funny thing is that every guy that comes into the house wants to play with it. Yesterday it was all the Chinese. Today it was Nathan (Melanie's husband). As soon as he saw it he sat down on the floor & started playing. Perhaps we have discovered the next Lego.

Well.

Christmas Eve we usually watch Matilda - a tradition that started from going to get Home Alone at the Video store but it was out. So we usually watch Matilda. This year however, somebody recommended a movie to us - so mom and Dad decided we should watch it. The movie was called "Napoleon Dynamite". Ok, so I really wish e had watched Matilda. Napoleon Dynamite was just about a really geeky - but not smart geeky - guy in high school who is quite thick and goes around bumping into things and being the least tactful person I have ever seen. For example he goes up to a girl at lunch and says "Oh, I uh see you're drinking 1%. Maybe its because you think you're fat....................'Cause you're not." He may mean something nice, but ah, there are better ways to put your words. Yeah, so I hope next year we will watch Matilda.

After that the 5 oldest in the family went down and had a snack, and then we all went to bed. Mom, Dad, Dan and Sarah were going to sleep in front of the Christmas tree. It was quite late so before I went downstairs to bed I said "Nobody wake me up until 8:00!" very loud.

* * * * *

At 5:00 I was sound asleep. At 5:30 I was sound asleep. At 6:00 I was sound asleep. At 6:30 I had just woken up to go to the bathroom, but I was still very sleepy. At 7:00 I heard loud banging at my door and Sarah yelling "KAAAAATELYN!! GET UP RIGHT NOW!!!! DAD SAYS WE CAN OPEN OUR PRESENTS WHEN WE ARE ALL IN THE LIVING ROOM!!!!!!!!!" Well, so much for getting more sleep. Actually I yelled back at her to BE QUIET and STOP BANGING MY DOOR and DIDN'T YOU KNOW I WANTED TO SLEEP 'TIL 8:00???!" So she went upstairs. However, her voice and her pounding were very effective in waking me up, and so 15 minutes later I went upstairs. Lo and behold! There was snow on the ground. Not even enough to cover the whole ground, more like the products of a flurry, but it was snow! So we had a somwhat white and cold Christmas. Anyway, I got my stocking because Mom and Dad were still in bed upstairs - they carried their mattress up apparently in the middle of the night because Dan was snoring really badly. Anyway in my stocking there were some chips, 2 little cups of apple sauce, dunkaroos, and a bottle of shampoo - not because my parents are trying to make a point of my cleanliness, I shower enough - but because it was very high quality shampoo for frizzy hair like mine. I don't really understand why my hair is so frizzy because it isn't kinky or curly, just wavy and thick. However, it is frizzy, and it can be a pain in the butt. So I was happy about that. At around 7:45 Mom and Dad came down, and we opened our presents. I got 1 music CD, 2 horrible histories CD's, and a book. I also got two promises (those are the ones you get after Christmas.) I was quite happy with my gifts.

This year we invited a bunch of Chinese people studying English at Saint Mary's University to Christmas Dinner. They came at 1:00, for supper at 6:30. It was a lot of fun! First we played with playdough for a while trying to see who made the best animal, and then after that a few of them split off and made cards, and the rest of us had Dinky car races, precision contests, and Dinky Car croquet with post made out of playdough on the living-room floor. We played in teams - Me, Dad, and Dan on one team and 3 of the Chinese people on the other team. It was really close, but we won. After that we decided to take them all out on a hike. We were going to walk down to the frog pond, (about 1.5 km) around the frog pond (1.5 km) and back, for a total of 4.5 km. So all the Chinese people were outside waiting for Sam to get ready, and they were freezing their butts off, jumping and running around after Matt and Dan to stay warm. It was really funny to watch. They would give matt 10 seconds to run away, and then they half of them would take off after him. Quite entertaining.

Anyway, we got going, and we walked all the way to the frog pond. Me and Dan got sticks from the side of the road and played our sword fighting game - you try to hit the sword/stick, and only the sword/stick until you break the other persons stick so that it's to short to fight with anymore. Then you win, and your partner has to find himself another stick. So we ended up making it to the frog pond, and going around it, but then we had to call Dad - who was at home with the turkey - to come and pick us all up. There were 16 of u s, so he had to make 2 trips. Of course then there were still too many people for 2 trips, so a bunch of us had to have the kids on our laps. I had to have Dan on my lap. Yeech. We made it home, and everybody had fights with Matt and Sam with the rest of us cheering on in the fight. Some of them played cards, and cats cradle. They taught us how to do some very cool ones, but there were a lot of them and I forget them now.

After that we ate - the food was good, and I had 2 plates full.

Then, we played UNO. It was fun. We alternated between normal UNO, and fast UNO, where you can play out of turn if you have the exact same card as the one currently on the top of the deck. Another rule we play with is that if you play a zero then you can change hands with anybody. We played with that rule all the time, and there was a lot of moaning, groaning, and laughing! After that we played a clapping game when you have to cross hands with the people next to you, and tap the table, all around the table. If somebody taps their hand twice then the direction is changed. If you lift your hand and it isn't your turn that hand is out. If you hesitate too long your hand is out. Dad was the best at it, and for the rest of us it varied who won. It was really fun.

Then we had dessert, and everybody went home. It was 11:30 pm before everybody was gone because Dad had to take 2 trips to take them all home.

I am so sorry that I haven't blogged in a while. Therefor, the nerd is in 8-)

Melanie came to our house on the 22nd but arrived on the first day of winter. We didn't have much fun with her the first time she came because she wasn't at our house for very long. But then the second day was a blast. We went to the library with Melanie, we went to a second had store (frenchy's) with Melanie, we went to the dollar store with Melanie and then we came home with Melanie. Then we made a gingerbread house that looked like it had been in the middle of Hurricane Andrew (a hurricane that will go down in history) And it was more icing than gingerbread. Then we made Christmas Tree cones, What you do is you take a ice cream cone and put it so the point is facing up, then paint it with melted chocolate chips and stick one m&m's, shredded coconut and lots of other candy.

<><

Dan

Yesterday and today Melanie and Nathan came over. We have been having a lot of fun with them...we made a very lopsided gingerbread house, we watched some of the Simpsons, and went to various places like Frenchys, Shoppers Drug mart, the dollar store, and the library. It has been fun. Right now Melanie and Nathan are out, we dropped them off at spring garden this morning. They have been gone since then.

Ok, so it is very foggy and warm today. 6 degrees!!! And the thing is, I was walking along a residential road, and I look at some persons bush and its budding! And the next neighbour has got a blooming plant that looks kind of like a cauliflower from far away, but when you look up close you see it is actually a thing closely resembling a cauliflower. And our neighbour beside us - not so affectionately known as "Cranky Frankie" or "Killer Beaver" - has blooms on his pansies!!! I mean what is up??!! It's winter! You gotta admit though - it is nice to be able to gloat over other parts of Canada...We've got floooowers and yooo-oou don't!! Na nah nah nah nah. Hehehe.

I went to the orthodontist today - the wire of my braces had slid all around so the wire was poking out on one side and poking into one side of my mouth. It was very uncomfortable, especially when you had to chew and it would go up and down in you mouth and stick into the inside of your cheek in all different kinds of places. I was up at 1 in the morning last night trying to get some wax on it, which was very hard because it is so far back in the dark recesses of my mouth. And I couldn't just leave it because I sleep on that side. Thank goodness it is the holidays now - I plan to sleep very late tomorrow morning!

Sam climbed into bed with me this morning and I said, "I love you Sam." He replied, "I love you too Dad." Then he said, "You're beautiful." Very touching - and it sure beats the shampoo treatment.

This is an e-mail Matt wrote to the tooth fairy tonight:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I am losing too many teeth. I am missing 7 right now. I know which one is next because it is the loosest. And I need my gum lifted up. I was wondering if you could lift my gum up. If the gum is not lifted up the teeth will just fall out. That would not be very good.

One problem I find in losing too many teeth is I can chew less food. But the good thing is I don’t have to brush much because I don’t have that many teeth.

I lost my tooth down the drain. So I guess you’ll have to go down there & get it. If you don’t go down the drain to get it the tooth might go out to sea. And that wouldn’t be very good because Scuba divers wouldn’t be able to find it. But tooth fairy, I know you could just use your magic to get the tooth. If you can’t find the tooth look in other oceans because I know it must be somewhere. Look in the Atlantic Ocean & the Pacific. If they aren’t in those two oceans, look in all the other oceans.

Signed,
Matt

Today was an interesting day.

Matthew's new obsession is calories. We have been teaching him about fat and calories, and so now it is completely obsessed with them.

2 days ago it was "Burning calories is my favourite thing to do"

Yesterday it was "Hmmmm, I'm getting fat - I think I need to burn some calories!"
This is especially funny because Matt is actually really skinny, the skinniest of all of us.

Today, he came up to me, and said "Katelyn, I feel like burning some calories now." He had one of our "Walk away the pounds" Dvd's by Leslie Sansone. Just to see how far he would get in it I let him do it. It is basically a lot of power walking, and jumping jacks. When you have walked for a while they say you have gone a mile. It is only an approximation, but it makes you feel good, and it gets your heartrate up. Anyway, I let him do it to see how far he would get before he dropped the calories thing. It was a 3 mile DVD. And Matt started.

Now a thing you must understand is that all video fitness instructors are annoying. Well, all the ones we have anyway. I used to think Kathy Smith was annoying, but BOY was I not prepared for Leslie Sansone.

Anyway, about 1/2 a mile into the workout Matt says "Katelyn I want to be one of these guys when I grow up."
He keeps walking - sometimes I say things like "Pick up your feet" and "Go a bit faster" Which he usually obeyed. A few minutes later he says "Katelyn, I really want to be one of these guys."

He walked one mile. He walked 2 miles. After he walked 2 miles he said "Katelyn, after I finish this I want to do the kickboxing dvd." He walked all three miles. After he did that he decided that he didn't want to burn too many calories, or else he might become too skinny.
Then he started firing questions at me like "How much does a fitness instructor get payed" and "How much school do you have to do to be a fitness instructor."

Weird day today. I dreamt that I slept in until the vinyl cafe started (12:00). Then I woke up. It was 10:00.

Did you know...

That toothpaste has an expiry date? I just found out yesterday, because I get these little tubes to toothpaste with the little toothbrushes I get for my braces. I don't like the flavour though so I don't use them. Anyway, I was tossing one from hand to hand, and I looked at the bottom, and there it was ! The expiration date

That Bono is related to the Rankin Family? They are probably not very closely related, but the fact remains that Bono's mothers maiden name was Iris Rankin.

The other day Dan got one of his Christmas presents early. He got "How to dismantle an atomic bomb" Ok, so I don't really like it. I mean, its sort of random. There isn't a tune you can carry in most of the songs. Of course it must be one of those CD's that you have to listen to a million times before you like it. As it is I like "All that you can't leave behind" "Joshua Tree" and "Under a Blood Red sky" much better.

KaDc

Maybe it is a full moon, maybe something else, but weird things are happening.

This morning Marsha and I were snoozing away quite contentedly when Matthew suddenly snatched Marsha's pillow out from under her head. Marsha yelled, "Hey!" I woke up. Matt then took the pillow and threw it at my head. Two birds with one stone.

Fortunately we were able to resume sleep. Then I hear Marsha say, "Hey!" and Sam say, "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" I sat up to see what was up this time. Marsha had a huge glob of shampoo on her neck and in her hair and Sam was sitting over top of her with the bottle.

Now it is pouring rain outside. I wonder what's next.

This is Sarah. Today I woke up very grumpy because I didn't get much sleep. Last night a woman named Marlene gave us some stuff that people had outgrown. We liked everything except for the Barbies. Because we never got in to them. Marlene had a special present for me. It was an Anne of Green Gables doll. It is three more days before Melanie gets here. When I see Melanie I am going to jump on her and hug her and kiss her. Ok I won't jump on her but I will hug her and kiss her. I went to the store yesterday to get mustard and lettuce. We got the lettuce because we wanted to make taco salad. This is a recipe for taco salad. You need hamburger which you smush into little bits and then you cook it. You cook onions in with the meat. And you need cheese. You take corn chips & melt the cheese on them. You cut up lettuce. And you'll need sour cream. And if you want you can add salsa. I am done blogging now so goodbye.

This is Sam. We have a present. It is cars. I got it from somewhere. I picked it out myself. Then Dan wrapped it up for me. That says Melanie Sammy Kate Matthew Dan & Sar & Dad. Christmas is coming soon. It will come when it snows. Marlene brought us toys. I got two trains and one car. I have two more toys. But I don't have toys. That is what I told Marlene. I got a red had that says "I am Canadian". But now I'm mad at Sar because she made the hate too big for me. I will have to get her to fix it. I am very mad at her. Oh! I fixed it and now I'm wearing it. I like to read books. I like to read Clifford, Thomas the trains and Franklin.I like to watch movies too. I like the Clifford movie and Bob the builder. I made mom a present.It is a cardboard tube that I wrapped up with a lot of purple paper & a LOT of tape. Must go as Sarah is in trouble. Love, sam

Today was the band concert. A few funny things happened.

First, after the strings played, the strings teacher was saying "and now i'm going to hand it over to the band teacher, who plays bass and cello on the piano." The funniest part was that while the band kids were looking at her quizzically the audience seemed to have no reaction, and the woman didn't seem to know what she was saying!!
After, the choir sang a song, which was suposed to open with one person, and then another person would sing with her, and then the rest of the choir would join in. Just as the second person started singing the microphone went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE really loud. It was really funny.
Next, the electric guitars and bases played "Rudolph the rednose reindeer." IT was SO funny. Not that it was bad - in fact it was really good, but electric guitars playing "Rudolph the rednose reindeer" is definitely something I'd never heard before.
Finally came a duet between 2 or our grade 9 flutes. They are quite popular, so there were cries of "Go Lynne!" and "Go Kristen!" Actually there were a lot of cries of "Go lynne!" and "Go Kristen!!" So one of the guys in our band who is usually quite annoying was like "Rock on Metro Transit!!" Which made me laugh, as well as the rest of the remaining band. The two of them played their piece without incident - it was good.

After the concert finished, Dan alongside me in the crowd and said in a very silly way "There was some mighty fine playing out there Katelyn!" So I made an attempt to kick him, but he jumped out of the way, and I kicked some poor lady with her back to me. I mumbled a quick sorry, and continued to the place where I had left my flute case. Dan was gloating all the way home.

Also, We didn't have to wear the red vests!!! It was great.


AAAAahhhh band concerts - you gotta love/hate em!

The Nerd Is In 8-)

Today was rather eventful (for me anyway; I don't know about you guys cause I woke up late this morning (WHOO-HOO!) and had some of mum's brownies (YAY!) and then went down and watched the Simpsons (D'OH!). And then I had some breakfast (brownies don't count as breakfast) and then had some dangerous fun with >>>SAM<<<. Don't worry. This dangerous fun is %100 safe, I assure you ;) Then for the afternoon, I went with dad to see Christmas with the Kranks, a new Christmas movie that me and Dad enjoyed a lot. Then after coming out of the theaters we got a phone call saying tha Matthew was dead (just kidding, he burned his thumb on a glue gun) and we had to come pick them up. We did so and came hope to find that Katelyn had made a wonderful supper (cranberried chicken with rice, and cooked carrots with carrot cake for desert) and after eating it I feel like my taste buds went to heaven. It was WONDERFUL. Thats all I have to say for today so C'iao!

<><

Dan

I was eves-dropping on Matt today while he was on the phone with Suvta (Grandma). She probably asked him if anything was new and he said, "Well I got a Matti. [pause] My Matti started out as a mowhawk. At first I started to cry but as the years went by it got better and better and everyone liked it." This was in reference to his accidental reverse mowhawk (called a Matti - after him - to get him to stop crying)that got better as the days went by. It was pretty funny (the phone conversation not the haircut - the haircut was initially traumatic).

So today was an ok day...

Today we had a full band and choir rehearsal - the first one we've had - and the concert is tomorrow night. We suck. The saxophones are too loud, and the trumpets can't get the right not, and if they do they can't play them in unison...In fact if the band consisted only of clarinets, flutes, 2 trumpets, 1 bass guitar (but not Mr. G-String) one half decent drummer (we only have a bunch of bad ones) and one half decent saxophone we could perform in Carnegie hall! I'm serious....sort of.

Since Wednesday is my night to make supper, and to go to band, then naturally I hate Wednesday. Also the fact that there was a fairly limited supply of food in the house didn't really help. So the first thing I decided to do was make a carrot cake. The recipe said that all the ingredients should be at 20 degrees Celsius. That was ok except for...the egg. All our eggs were in the fridge. So, in a burst of sudden creativity I took an egg out of the fridge, transferred it to the microwave, and fired that baby up. Well, you are probably thinking that the egg exploded. It didn't. It just sat there like an egg, and when the microwave was finished its 10 seconds of labour, it beeped, and I took the idealistically room temperature egg, and put it in the cake. The recipe also called for 1 1/2 cups of grated carrot. I peeled 4 carrots. I grated 2 of them. It made exactly 1 1/2 cups of grated carrot. So then I had 2 leftover peeled carrots that I couldn't do anything with. So I peeled the rest of the carrots. When I had peeled them all there were 5 carrots at my disposal to mold and shape into a delectable delicious appetizer. Or, if you consider the fact that I have absolutely no idea how long to cook a carrot, whether or not the water they are boiled in absorbs all their flavor and if I should add anything to them. Also 5 carrots for 7 people are not very much. At any rate I made the carrot cake, and then realized that since the cake had one of the longest baking times I had ever seen, 1 hr 25 min, I went looking for a chicken recipe that had the same temperature. I was not disappointed. I found a recipe for cranberry chicken - which I like a lot - that used the same temperature as the carrot cake. Great.

Mom and the kids had gone to the library to return some books, and to go to a craft program, so they were gone while I was in the realms of "gourmet" cooking. All of a sudden the phone rang. It was from the library "Katelyn we need you to call dad so he can come and pick us up...Matthew burned his finger" She didn't tell me much, so I called dad to tell him to pick her up, and then I walked around the kitchen wondering if they would have to go to the ER, and if I should postpone supper. I decided not to.

I put the chicken in the oven, and started the rice. Then I put water in with the carrots and started to boil them.

**45 minutes later**

The kitchen looked beautiful. Or at least clean. Most of the dishes were washed, except the ones with food still in them. Our family quietly sat down, and said things like "Wow! I'm so glad you made chicken!" and "Katelyn, when I look at your food, I slobber all over my jowls"
Ok, maybe they didn't say things like that, but the kitchen was clean, and Dan did say that he liked this kind of chicken. We ate all the chicken and carrots that I had ended up adding butter and honey to, and everybody liked them.

**On to dessert**

That first bite of cake I took tasted so good. Then something crunched. Something that sounded, and tasted like glass. I spat my cake out. Sure enough I found 2 pieces of glass - that I had broken in half - in the cake that the digestive enzymes in my spit was already starting to work on. Dad found some in his too. Since it was such a beautiful cake though, I ate the rest very carefully. There was no more glass, and it was very good.


Another thing...Today I was reading this history book, and it said that Mary Mother of God most likely delivered her own baby. Indeed it was taboo for a man to touch a woman during childbirth. In fact woman of that area in Israel and Palestine pride themselves on how easy their deliveries are. My Mom's doctor said that while she was working in Europe the easiest delivery she had ever seen was that of a Bedouin woman. It was the woman's 11th child. She said that the woman just made a face, and she reached under her skirts to catch the baby. Don't ask me why a Bedouin woman was in Europe, but there you have it. Also it would give a lot of believability, and authenticity, and validity (don't you love those words?) to when the midwives were supposed to kill all the Hebrew babies just before the exodus, but the midwives said "Those Hebrew women have their babies too quickly before we can get to them, so we can't kill them!"

It is a very interesting book...In the Fullness of time by Paul Maier

KaDc

You know you don't have a life when...

You spend an hour bending all the fake Christmas tree's branches back into shape after a long time in storage. I wish we had a real Christmas tree, but we can't have one because mom is allergic to pine trees.

Today was a good day, I woke up, ate, exercised, read, did bible study, and all the normal things I do in the morning.

Today since we only had 3 strings of white lights because last year when we went to get coloured ones they were all sold out, we decided to go to Canadian tire to put some money towards a better looking Christmas tree. And believe me, our tree was looking pretty sad. So me and Dan went to Canadian tire and walked into the Christmas decoration section. The first thing we saw was a moose. Yep, a moose. Like one of those things made out of wire and Christmas lights that some people have on their lawns. I always thought they were reindeer, but apparently I was wrong, because the price tag said moose, and the antlers were shaped like moose antlers. The only thing I could think was "well, I guess this is the Maritimes!" The moose cost $100 so we decided not to get it;) After we saw the moose we walked around and located the Christmas lights. Now you know how when people want you to buy something they put it at eye level? Canadian tire did just that. At eye level were a string of 25 coloured lights, with a plug only at one end. They cost $3.49. At the very highest shelf that I couldn't reach they had a string of 100 coloured lights, same brand, with plugs at both ends. They cost $7.34. So, if the extra plug cost $0.36, then if you bought the longer string you got 50 free lights. I couldn't reach the bigger box, so I jumped. High. I managed to dislocated the boxes, and would catch them as they fell from the shelf. I am very glad that I was successful both times. After we did that, me and Dan walked around the store looking at various silly things like chains, polymer rope, copper piping, and weird things like that. Dan also found a shower head that he still unfortunately doesn't have enough money for. They were playing Christmasy music in the background, and the song playing at that moment was "Glooooooooooria" so Dan was like "I can hear the glorious chorus!" In the end we left the store with our Christmas lights and nothing else. After that we picked up a few things at the grocery store that mom asked us to get for her and made our way home.

When I got home the first thing I thought was "That tree looks sad" and it did. Only about half the tree was covered in lights and they were all white. The branches were squished from a year of being compressed into boxes. Operation Christmas tree had begun.

The first thing we did was take all the decorations off the tree. Then we took all the white lights off the tree. Then the rest of my siblings lost interest, so I spent the next hour taking the Christmas tree apart, branch by branch, and straightening all the branches out. In the end the tree looked - well almost - real. Then I put the lights, and the strings of beads and the decorations on the tree. Our tree looks very good now, we could use it as our sole light source!!

Also...I'm sorry I forgot to mention a thing I would like to do before I die in my last post, but I forgot. So here is one for you guys.

2)Get a real Christmas tree sometime. It doesn't have to be big - just real.

I have tried to publish this with paragraphs but it won't let me do paragraphs...I wonder why. Anyway I am very sorry for any inconvienience.

KaDc

Today is Tuesday and it brings relief among all "Monday-haters" and I am no exception. Thereforth I am in a (nerdy) happy mood 8-)

We have just rented Simpsons: Season 3 and it is so funny. So far we have seen all of Season 1, Season 2 and Season 4. Now we just need Season 3. After that Season 5 and then we wait until Season 6 comes in. They are coming in so fast that by the time they reach Season 11 then they won't be able to get any further. If that didn't make any sense then tell me and I will work it out as best I can. As I was saying the Simpsons are so funny and I'm doubling over with laughter all the time. I still have a GREAT liking to Spongebob Squarepants but we (so far) have seen them all and >>>CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEW DVD TO COME IN<<<

Christmas is drawing nearer my the minute (duh) and every minute I feel more Christmasy (if you know what I mean). We always have a tradition of hanging our Christmas cards up on a string attached to the top of the windowpane. I don't really like it when people ask me what I asked Santa for Christmas. It's fine if their joking but if they aren't I get angry (you won't like me when I'm angry) and sarcastic. I don't show that I'm angry, but I show that I'm sarcastic. If you want to hear sarcasm go to Katelyn. She's the sarcasm queen.

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Dan

Today was rather eventful. I hate Mondays (only cause everybody does) and today was a Monday. No matter what, Monday will always try to find me and attack me. And once a week Monday is successful in attacking me and Monday doesn't stop hurting me until the end of the day. Here is the bad stuff that happened on Monday

#1 I woke up in a bad mood (all of you know what happens to anybody who interfeirs with me when I'm in a bad mood).

#2 I figured out that today was Monday.

#3 I sprained my ankle trying to get all the rope out of our backyard tree (we once had a magnifecent pulley made with all kinds of rope and stuff but once we put to much weight on it and the door to our shed ripped off, a couple cords snapped, we ended up with a tree with broken ropes all over it and Sarah fell six feet) I managed to get all the rope out of the tree.

#4 Sam hit a nasty corner in the wall and ran to dad with a huge gash in his head bleeding and all.

#5 This is the most frightning of all. ****I MISSED MY SHOWER**** The worst thing that could ever happen to me got into the hands of Monday.

This blog was written on Thursday December 9th by Sarah:

Dear Blog readers. I have not blogged in a long time. So I am going to do a blog right now. I got my hair cut today. I can’t wait until Melanie comes to Halifax. She is coming in 11 days. I wish I could make a machine that would make days go past fast. I would get rid of 11 days so I wouldn’t have a long time to make for Melanie. We had rice pudding & sausages for lunch. I didn’t have a very good sleep last night. One thing was I woke up in the middle of the night. And then when I finally got some sleep, it was the morning. The boys came to wake me up. That is the only problem I have with my sleep. The boys were playing outside my room. They were jumping and pretending to be acrobats. And sometimes they hit my door. Then I kept saying whenever they opened the door “close the door” in a sleepy, moany voice. And I wasn’t faking it. My favourite book right now is “It’s a jungle out there”. Mom reads it to us every night. Last night she was on the phone with Melanie & forgot to read it to us. So then after she was on the phone with Melanie who she always always talks to for a long time. Anyway, then she read to us even though it was past our bed time. The book is about Indians in Peru called the “Machiguengas”. There are two boys who are white that live with them. And that is all I can think of to tell you today in my blog.

**** VERY SERIOUS WARNING ****

This post contains graphic real
violence against chickens and is certain
to offend anyone who does not like graphic
real violence against chickens. If you are
one of these people PLEASE do not read this post!!

*** VERY SERIOUS WARNING ***

Well I am back and as Katelyn correctly points out I lost the battle of the songs today to my dear wife. This occurred ONLY because I could not remember ANY songs by ABBA which I had once known. They just would not come to mind.

When I came home last night I gathered the kids to tell them of my exploits while I was away for two days. While I was away I stayed at a farm and was invited to help dispose of some chickens who stopped laying. They were old and could not be eaten. Having killed many a chicken in my life and being the official DEEP SEA CHICKEN Head of Executions I offered my services. The only thing I had not anticipated was that the farmer much preferred disposing of these chickens with bullets rather than cutting off of the head. THIS, I had never done before, BUT, it sounded very exciting - to me not the chickens of course.

At 7:00 a.m. I went out to the chicken coup and up the way comes the farmer with A DOUBLE BARRELED SHOTGUN!! He handed it to me, grabbed a chicken and threw it in the field, and said shoot. I started singing the song "I Hung My Head" (by Johnny Cash) while putting a bead on the poor chicken that was about to be blown to smithereens. And believe me it was. I never thought of this as more humane than chopping off the head - but I guarantee you it is. Death is quick and most very certain.

The next chicken was launched into the air at my command, "PULL!" It never hit the ground. And so on until 20 chickens had vanished and my shoulder was stinging with pain.

The kids were completely enthralled by this story and Sam kept making shooting noises. It was all very magical. I love Christmas!

Dad came home last night. He brought a lot of lamb meat. Don't ask me why. I like lamb, but only when its curried.

I was going to sleep in this morning, because I was really tired, but instead I woke up at 8:00 (very early for saturday) because I had a really bad pain in my stomach. So I spent the next hour leaning over the garbage can. I didn't end up barfing, but I felt very sick. Now I feel a bit better, but not up to scratch. I can eat, but not hard to digest things like steak and bacon! Actually I hardly ever have steak and bacon anyway - just at retreats, but if I had it right now I am sure I wouldn't be able to digest it. My diaphram would just flip over in a very unattractive way.

Today Mom and Dad had a battle of the songs. They would both sing a song tunelessly, and see if the other knew it as well as they did. If they didn't they got a point. Mom ended up winning, but not until some really wacky songs had surfaced. "You're so vain" Carly Simon Album: No Secrets 1972 "Bohemian Rhapsody" Queen Album: A night at the Opera 1975 "We are the champions" Also Queen Album: News of the world 1977 "Delta Dawn" Helen Reddy Album: Greatest Hits 1973 "Country Road" John Denver Album: The best of John Denver 1971 and so the songs went on. There were loads of other funny, cool, weird, and obscure songs but I don't know all the names. We were all laughing our heads off by the end, it was fun.

As a final note...Melanie:I located some supplies, and got your Christmas present. It is homemade like you asked for, but that is all I'm going to tell you.

So far this has been a fairly boring day for me, so I decided to make a new thing that I will put in all my blogs, or once in a day - whichever comes first. The new column is called

Things I want to do before I die

There are a lot of things I want to do, but I decided I would do a wacky one today.

1) One day when I am rich and famous, or at least have a little money to spare on trivial pursuits I am going to buy all the yards of sausage behind the deli counter at superstore.

This would be so fun to do as I have never held more than six inches of sausage at one time. It is utterly the most trivial thing I can think of, but hey, maybe after I buy it I'll catch a plane to Africa and feed it to the starving children! I mean I probably wouldn't be able to eat it all. Alternatively I could hang it up in my kitchen and try and act Italian for a week - I'm sure Beah could give me some great advice in this area! The only thing I know about Italian people is that they have big noses like those glasses that you used to be able to get with the big nose and moustache, and that they are extroverted and very loud (these being observations from actual Italian people I have met.

Today I took one cup of soymilk, and 1/2 tbsp of vanilla and made the first (soy)milkshake that I have ever tasted. I think I made the vanilla a bit too strong, and after a while it turned flat - maybe that was the ice cube I put in to make it cold, because I used all the chilled soymilk. But it was good, and I greatly enjoyed it. The brand I used is quite sweet, so I didn't need to add sweetening. It is called Silk. Also I didn't take into account that when I made 1 cup of soymilk, it actually turned into about 2 1/2 cups. So now you know!:)

I think that my 2nd fave music band (or rather music person) is Johnny Cash. He died in 03 but his music still is awesome. And I still listen to it. My third is U2. J/C (Johnny Cash) once played with U2 in one of their albums I have. I am a music maniac. I spend most of my time listening to it. Yesterday got a bit better:) seeing as I got TWO second hand pairs of pants. I usually go to frenchys (a second hand store just down the street from our house) to purchase some pants and end up with a shirt. Same goes the other way around.
<<>>
Just so you know. Hahahahahaha. You were all wondering why dad would be gone for 12 days...

Today dad will not be here. I hate it when dad goes away. I'm stuck with a bunch of roudy kids (see my previous for details) and in a grumpy mood. THERE IS NOTHING MORE DISTURBING THAN THAT!!!!!!! I hate the word "grumpy" but I just sometimes have to use it. To all our blog readers. DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO SAY THE WORD "******" You get the picture. Hmmmmm. I got to go!

<><

Dan

The unhappy nerd is in 8-(

Today so far is dreadful. Dad left for PEI and isn't coming back until the 20th. Maybe longer. I hardly had any sleep lastnight because I would keep waking up thinking that I was in a sausage factory. Whenever I wake up thinking I'm in a sausage factory I slowly lose my temper and by the morning I'm red in the face with grumpyness. Usually reading the latest Harry Potter book would cheer me up and it helped a bit but then Sammy came in with a bowl of cherry sauce. He said I could have it and I was delighted at that but then all the other kids came in and swarmed around me like a bunch of bees that traveled all the way across the atlantic ocean without any nectar weak with hunger. When I'm grumpy I'm claustraphobic (finding small places extremely irritating) and I was cramped with a bunch of kids. Well, you might ask: How did you get rid of them? Simple: Scream till your head might as well be a tomato and that should get rid of them. Now I don't scream very often that loud but seeing I woke up in a sausage factory twice, read 2 chapters of Harry Potter and had to put up with a bunch of siblings cramped around me for a little bit of cherry sauce that I had already eaten WAY before they got in. I told Sarah to get out cause she has her own room but saldy both of the other boys voted her in (all three boys share a room) and I had to put up with it until I finally I resorted to trying to think of something to get them out since I needed some sleep. I finally figured out that Dad was leaving so I got out of bed and dressed in a no better mood then before, went to help Dad with his luggage and had to go through POURING RAIN to get to the car that dad was driving. If a bad mood were an ice cream sundae then rain would be the cherry. There is nothing more unpleasant to top a bad mood but rain. The kids soon followed me around the house wondering where I got the cherry sauce and decided to lock myself in my room (dad reversed to doorknob so you can lock it from the outside; not in cause Sam had a habit for sneaking out of his bed at night. that habit stopped but dad didn't bother putting the doorknob right again) and the kids thought this a great idea because I couldn't get out (I actually could pry the lock open but the kids don't know that) and left me alone. Finally after calming down a bit I went into mums office and started blogging.

Bye:(

Yours grumpy...

Dan

Alright Bloggers. Atlantic Canada has celebrated a first today.

Actually I don't know if its a first, but in all the years i've lived here, public school has never been canceled because of a rainstorm. Thats right. A rainstorm. I heard on the radio that school was closed and I was like "What??!! Its only raining!!!" But public school is closed, and while that means that the Abarbanel kids still have to do school it also means something really good for me. NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOooo BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnnnnnnnnnd!!!! This is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. Aside from hurricane juan canceling more band, and white juan canceling even more. I'm always happy when band gets canceled, can you tell?

As most of you know, it is very hard to find morals in my life. However...

One Day Katelyn discovered that she didn't have any clean laundry. "Oh no" she thought "Well, I guess I'd better do a load then" So she did. She put all her t-shirts in the load. She put all of her pairs of pants in the load. She put all her socks on the load. She put all her sweatshirts in the load. She put all the rest of her clothes in the load. Then she went into the bathroom, took the towel off the hook, and added that to the load as well. After her load was dry, she changed out of her pajamas that she had been wearing all day, and put some clean clothes on. Then she decided to go to Frenchys. While she was at Frenchys she tried on two wonderful pairs of pants. She purchased both of them. She also found one of her favourite books, in the original edition - hardcover with a mostly intact jacket. She purchased that as well. Quite satisfied with herself she made her way home. The rest of her day went as normal. She had a nice supper, read, and then went to bed.

The next morning she woke up to the realization that she had not put away her laundry yet. "Oh well," she thought "I'll do it later." Then she went upstairs to have breakfast. After that she was feeling a bit sluggish so she decided to exercise. She felt quite invigorated, and very sweaty so she decided to take a shower. She felt great during the shower. She washed herself all over. She started feeling squeaky clean. Just as she was rinsing her hair she chanced to look out of the shower, only to the profound realization that she should have done her laundry earlier - there was no towel on the hook. "Oh crap" she thought. After she was all rinsed she turned off the shower, resigned to the fact that she would just have to stand there until she dried off, considering the absence of both a towel and a hairdryer. Fortunately for Katelyn, Sarah chanced to have to use the bathroom, so Katelyn yelled at her to bring her a towel. She was very lucky. Sarah brought her a towel, and Katelyn dried off, but not before she was very late for lunch.

Moral: Always do your laundry

The Nerd Is In 8-)

Finally this blogger thing works. I spent a good 6 minutes to wait for this to work.

Today is Monday which is my least fave day of the week (I hate Mondays). Not because Mum's away but because today is shopping day and the fridge is almost empty. I had nothing for breakfast, (Oh No!!) and probably won't be able to have much for lunch either. Then Mum comes back in the middle of the afternoon and we have a FEAST for supper. Another thing we have to do on Mondays is clean up the house so it can be clean for at least ONE day. Dad let us off easy today and told us we only had to clean the main level (with five kids it can get cleaned up pretty fast). But sometimes we don't want to do it fast and when we do that, Dad hires a bunch of turtles to do the job (joke). I mean the turtles (not us cleaning up slow... we really do clean up slow sometimes). But nevertheless it gets cleaned up by the end of the day and probably a Monday in the abarba-house has never ended clean.

We are thinking of not putting up our Christmas tree this year (I can't stop hypervenalating!) and we are going to decorated our 2 fake bushes. All of the kids have a habit for ripping off the fake leaves. I like the Christmas tree much better because (its also fake) you can't rip off the leaves (or rather pines) because your will prick yourself. It hurts. We don't usually put stars on our Christmas tree. Or angels for that matter. We usually put something that we made that fits on top of the tree. For a couple of years we had a fish on top of our tree that Katelyn made at school. This year we will probably have a star made out of cross-stich. Nobody knows. Lets have a vote. Who votes that we put up our Christmas tree and who votes that we just do our fake bushes. Just sign en in the guestbook!!

There isn't a single cloud in the sky over here at Halifax. But it is really CHILLING.

Hope this blog was long enough for you.

See Ya'll!!

<><

Dan

Today is Sunday. We all know about Sunday's, so I'm not going to talk about them

Today we didn't go to church. I think this was because it is getting close to Christmas, and so it would be really busy, and we wouldn't be able to find a whole row, which is what we need for us. And near Christmas the kids all have to practice for the Christmas pageant - even if they aren't acting in it. So we didn't go

I have recently learned to crochet so I am crocheting Sarah this scarf for Christmas. I am making it out of the only yarn I have - available to use, which is a really dark green. I am getting better at crocheting, but at the beginning of the scarf it is all wavy and loose, and then in the middle it starts to go straight. It is a bit pathetic and I am wondering if it is a suitable Christmas present for her - if I have time I will make her a necklace or another scarf.

Today at lunch we were all eating egg-in-a-hole, except for Dad who was eating his special cheese and crackers, and sausage. We all like egg in a hole, but we all really like sausage, so understandably there was a little discontent. Sam asked "Dad, C'I have some sausage?" repeatedly, and since Sam hadn't finished his egg yet Dad told him that if he finished his egg then he would get some sausage. Meanwhile all the older kids finished their eggs, and got a piece of sausage. 3 pieces in fact. Sam, resolutely nibbling at his egg and bread, watched us eat them. I wasn't really paying attention to him - I was paying too much attention to my sausage. Anyway out of the blue Sam said "Dad, I'm done, C'I have some sausage now?" I looked at his plate and indeed it looked like he had eaten it all. I looked under the table, to see that he wasn't hiding it. He wasn't. So Dad gave him some sausage. In fact he gave him 3 pieces. Meanwhile, I, having finished my sausage some time before, was looking over the table. There were dishes that nobody had cleaned up from breakfast, and a plastic shopping bag for some reason. I looked closer at the shopping bag. And there was Sam's egg-in-a-hole - un-eaten - sitting right on top of it! I couldn't help myself, I burst out laughing. Soon the whole table was laughing. Sam was quite pleased with himself, he kept telling me proudly "I tricked Daddy! I tricked Daddy!" I don't think Sam will get away with that again though :p

Life is SO unfair!!!

Ok, not really but there is a bone I have to pick with the makers of ER. This is my life. I spend a hour this morning searching for a place to buy it, or its release date...Read on.....

I have found out that Er season 3 is not released in America or Canada. I could not find a release date. However when I searched in other countries I came across the fact that Er Season 3 is released in Denmark, Germany, then Netherlands, and Japan. It is going to be released in Australia on December 15th, and in the UK on January 31/05. I am so jealous of Karen and Debs. You guys might be able to watch the third season of Er before the actual place where the show is from!!! See, I was right, life isn't fair;)

KaDc

Beah has asked that we stop talking about politics, and I must confess that I am a bit tired of them myself. This has been a very interesting discussion, but I have more than enough to think about, and I don't really want to continue the argument. Also, I agree with Mellie, whether I get it right or wrong God is still going to love me to bits. There are more important things in a relationship with God. Love your neighbour as yourself, and sometimes you look back at things that you've done, and you thing "boy was that stupid." But it does not make you love yourself (or your neighbour) any less. I rest my case. So I am going to ask everybody to stop talking about politics for a little while. I hope that is Ok with everyone, but I think our little blogging community will have a much better spirit as a result.

Today was band, it was ok, we actually got a lot done. After band was finished I started walking the 20 minutes up the hill home. When I was about half way up the hill I spotted Mom, Sam, Matt, and Sarah. Apparently they had been coming to get me. Anyway, they turned around and started walking up with me. On the way we came across a guy renovating the outside of his house. Matt and Sam struck up a conversation with him, and found out his name was Marc, he was french, and he had 4 kids. It was fun talking to him, and then after that we continued on our way. After that we came to a bunch of construction workers who were fixing the masonry at the old church near our house. Matt and Sam talked to them too, asking what would happen if they didn't fix it. Apparently it would get really cold inside the church, and the rocks would start falling out, and water would leak when it rained. Matt and Sam seemed very glad that they were fixing it. Then we went home, had lunch, and here I am now. (I have really had a very boring day so far!)

Ok, so there has been a little bit of controversy over this post, this post, these two posts, these two posts, and this post (its the last one on the page. First I would like to say about Jonathan's comments that I never insulted George Bush, and when I called him Dub-Yah, it was nothing but a popular (not insulting) nickname for GWB. I have great respect for George Bush. It never says in the bible to always agree with your leaders. I personally think that Jean Chretien made a very good decision to not enter the Iraq war, and I am glad that our politicians try and make Canada, and make Canada appear to be a peace loving country. As it is, I have great respect for our leaders, because it must be really difficult to make the kind of decisions that they have to make. I don't always agree with the decisions they make, but that does not make me respect them any less.

Also, it must be known that I agree with Karen. Its true that it says in the bible in Romans 13 "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves" but then is says "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from the fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." Then it says "Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor;

I think everybody will agree with me that it does sound like God has handpicked every one of these rulers. Like it would probably be better if I always obeyed my parents. They were put there by God as an authority for me.
In communist china there were secret groups of Christians that would meet. Since it was a communist country this was obviously illegal. So the question is Was it right what the Christians were doing, or should they have denounced their beliefs and became staunch communists just because that's what the governing authorities wanted them to do? I think God honestly wants us all to get along, but, there is always when you have to obey one master and that is God. Jesus says that you cannot have two masters. You can get along with two people, and obey two people as long as they are not infringing on the other master's territory. I believe that God honestly wants us all to GET ALONG, and that persecution is usually ultimately part of God's plan, but I think that when something is really meaningful to us-our religion for example-we will ultimately have to choose who our master will be. Some people choose marijuana to be their master-then they can obviously not submit to the wishes of the politicians and the law! So they have marijuana as their governing authority. I am sure they were talking about the government of Rome in the chapter, but everybody has differently "governing authorities" in their lives, be they God, or marijuana...Parents, or other things. I don't think God put marijuana on the earth so that it could act as a governing authority for people, but it does along with other drugs. So every governing authority is not necessarily the right authority. Only the people with God on their hearts and minds should be a real governing authority. Not that you shouldn't obey the non-Christian politicians just because they are non-Christians, but when the question comes up of whether or not to obey them or God, I think we should put God first.

For us and Politicians it is not a problem who to obey. I can obey my parents, and also obey politicians. I think, that our first priority should be god, to obey god, to try and be like god etc. If our first priority would be politicians, and we wanted to please the politicians, and be like the politicians, then politics would be more corrupt then it already is! Besides, I don't think that the politicians are really the governing authorities in most peoples lives. I hardly think that anything a politician has done recently has impacted me. However, I do have authorities in my life, like my parents. A VERY many people have disobeyed the governing authorities to obey God, and great things have been results. (Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus commands them to make disciples of all the nations. Paul proceeds to do this, even after Christianity has been outlawed in Rome! I wouldn't call that submitting yourself to the governing authority! Paul realized that his authority should first and foremost be GOD. Also David, when he runs away from Saul!) However, NOBODY, has ever picked another authority besides God, and had anything good come of it! (Saul, ring any bells? He disobeyed God when he was his anointed one, and guess what happened to him? God killed him! He submitted to his commanders, to his wives, and primarily to himself!)

Also, maybe our politicians are chosen by God, but when they are bad, guess what happens. WE HAVE AN ELECTION!!!

Ah - Ok. My first top 10 list ... "How to be a mostly loving person"

1. Remember that you are on the same level as everyone else in the most fundamental aspects of life. You may know more stuff, be prettier, have more money ... but those things are a passing breeze. BE BE BE BE BE ... VERY ... humble.

2. Really listen to what a person is saying before jumping to conclusions or using something that they said to start talking about yourself. When you begin to empathize you are getting close to being able to respond.

3. Take time to think about people. Imagine yourself in their shoes. What would you really think, what would you really feel, what would you really do, what would you really want from someone? What is this person like, what do they like, what do they hate ... ?

4. Be generous with all that you have.

5. Be generous in your greatest areas of need because you are not the only one. If you feel like no one listens to you, listen to people ... If you feel lonely, call someone ... if you feel worthless, praise someone for something ...

6. Be creative when giving things. The most thoughtful gestures come in unexpected forms.

7. Don't get defensive and allow yourself to see yourself through another person's eyes. It is easy to love those who love you. It is not so easy to respond lovingly to those who have a beef with you.

8. Understand your relationship to a person and be careful when crossing boundaries that may communicate disrespect.

9. Seek to elevate people both in your relationship with them and by providing opportunities for them to excel beyond you.

10. If you need to take a person on or criticize someone ... make sure you have their absolute best interest in mind and that it is not a power-play to make yourself look better or revenge because you are hurt.

The Nerd Is In 8-)

Today is national nonsense day. I have made up (or rather making up) a beautiful nonsense. Here goes!!!!!

The Wrath of the Wriggling Telephone Pole.

I was typing with the mouse when the computer automaticly turned on. So I used my dads favorite toilet to shut the computer off. It worked but then the window fell out and I had to jump out with it. If I haden't the computer would have shut on again. So after I killed myself I decided to rise up to heaven. But just as (we are now entering the part that makes sense) I was going higher than my house I got caught on a wriggling telephone pole (i'm a ghost remember?) I could feel myself getting sucked through the wire and then I heard a voice It sounded like somebody was on the phone: YOU"RE FIRED!!! I heard from one end of the line and then I felt like I was going to toast into toasted bread. So I quickly got out of the phone and saw that the house was on fire. I went down the line to a LARGE white house that looked like a very wealthy man owned it. I heard from one end of the line teeth chattering and then "Oh No!!! What if they assasinate me tomorrow" in a texan accent. I just wanted to go home. So I went home and went back into my dead body. Luckily I came back to life. The End (applause applause)

I Have Got 2 Go!!!

<><

Dan

How To Survive a Junior High Band Class

Mellie has suggested that me and beah do how to manuals. The one she suggested for me was (see title)

**********Warning, this blog may contain immature content. However we will see*************

1. Don't go. That is definitely the best way, because not only will you be alive later, you will also have a clear head, however if you absolutely have to go...

1. Make sure you bring your instrument. Once I forgot my flute, and it was a very embarrassing ordeal. If you actually go to the school it should be fine, because you can go to your other class, but if you are homeschooled like me, you'de better bring it.
2. When you are bored waiting a half hour for the saxophoneys (really) to learn a bit of the music close your eyes, and round numbers off to insignificant digits. I have done this for a long time and it really works! Or, alternativly you can talk to your friends..at least when the saxophoneys are playing because they are so loud.
3. Make fun of people-this is not as bad as it sounds, just throw a sarcastic comment in here and there, and make weird names for the goofy people, like Mr. G-String. It helps A LOT. Also, sometimes it makes them less goofy
4. Don't pay attention-pay attention to the teacher, but the people who are annoying and goofy are (usually) only goofy when they have someones attention. There are one or two people in the class who do not fall into this category, but as a general rule of thumb, it works.
5. Practice-One of the most annoying things about band is when people don't practice they hold up the band. It is not me :) or most of the girls 8th grade and up who do this, but it is the least I can do!
6. When you mess up, continue playing if you don't you will have to start all over and you won't get anything done.

Those are all the ones I can think of right now...but I'm sure there are more.

KaDc

More on Politics

Dan commented to me a few hours ago. "You know Kate, people are insulting George Bush and John Kerry all over the internet. But nobody is insulting Ralph Nader." So true, although I didn't hear much about Ralph Nader during the election, so maybe that's why. Maybe the general population just doesn't know that much about Ralph Nader. Although it is weird, you don't have to know much about a person to insult them!

Blogger was down all morning, and I was going to blog again before George W. Bush, and Paul Martin got here, but I couldn't. I'm not sure what they are doing now, their planes came in at 10:30. You could hear fighter jets all over the place from 10:00 to 11:00. Anyway, I am still a bit miffed that I (the public) was not invited, and I wouldn't have said no to security measures like firearm detectors and stuff like that. Anyway, I did not get a call inviting me, so I am stuck at home blogging.

The oldest woman in Canada died on Monday. She was 113 years old, and her birthday was in 3 months. We read about her in the newspaper once, and she was a nun. She took her vows in 1917, and now has just been waiting for her death-she was mad at god because she thought that he had forgotten about her. Well now she is dead, and I feel quite happy for her. Although it would be cool to be able to say you were the oldest woman in Canada!