Counterfeit Fit

Sam was given some fake money in his Sunday School class at church. When he came home Sarah and he colored it all in. He was quite proud of it so I asked if he would take me on a date with him to Tim Hortons. He somehow knew that the money would not be acceptable despite my insistence that it would be.

After finally convincing him that he could treat me, we went to Tim Hortons and both ordered. When it came time to pay Sam proudly presented his fake money and the girl behind the counter gave me a weird look. I said with a wink, “He is treating me, take his money.” As she reached for the money I slipped her a $20 (unfortunately the smallest bill I had). Sam was all smiles when she handed him $15 and some coin in change! Which of course he now thinks is rightly his!!

I need to learn to anticipate these problems.

Hostas in October

Today, as we are driving along the fairway, we see a landscaping crew planting flowers in the - rather large and grassy - median. It's OCTOBER. It's 9 degrees! You are planting hostas (the nova scotia garden staple)??! All the ones you planted last week have turned yellow, so why don't you plant Icelandic poppies or some other winter flower/plant??? I wonder who's in charge of this deal...

The trees here have finally turned colour, and it's very beautiful, but the number of trees downtown have only just started changing. Their trees (mostly maples, with the occasional oak or birch) are yellow and red on the edges nearest the powerlines, but mostly still green. I don't understand why this is, so it looks like some research is in order...I love research :}

We went to the dentist today. (Pardon me, here comes a proud but perhaps rather boring monologue). Sarah and I didn't have cavities (I have been brushing concientiously since my first cavity, and was crushed to know that six months after I started taking care of my teeth I got another cavity.) But it's been a year and a half for me, so I was proud of myself. Sarah, usually has cavities too, but she has been on an oral care streak since July because she has to brush her teeth enough to show she is responsible enough to get her ears pierced. Mom got her first cavity since she was a kid, Dan got a cavity in and adult tooth, AND he has gingivitis, and Matt got his first cavity, but it's in a baby tooth. So I'm feeling very good, because I have braces, and it's hard to clean my teeth, but I persevere, and my teeth aren't rotting.
We'll see what happens during my next appointment...

Favorite Picture books

Today i am going to tell all of you what some of my favorite picture books.

Olivia
By Ian Falconer

This is a book about a girl pig and her life. It is quite funny. There are three Olivia books. Olivia and the Missing Toy, Olivia Saves the Circus and Olivia.

Curious George
By Hans Augusto Rey

This the series about a little curious monkey with his friend, The man in the yellow hat. He usually gets in trouble but makes it alright in the end.

Kiss the Cow
By Phyllis Root

A story about a girl who milked the cow but wouldn't kiss in return so the cow stopped milking and all her relatives started rioting to make her Kiss the Cow, so they could have more butter and cheese (and milk of course)

These are my favorites

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So Today is coming up. First of all i laughed very hard at the battle sushi pic on Melanie's blog. It was very funny.

Next. Halloween is coming up and we are having a delimma of what we are going to wear. Me and Sarah are probably gonna be Nerds. We will wear our retainers and we put "I am nerd" in binary on our shirts, and go around saying stuff like: "The reason for the sky to be number 3 of the primary colours is because the visible electromagnetic wavelength is due to the random deviation of photons by atomic particles. Quite obvious" in a lispy voice. Or I could be a miner and say: "i have a touch of pneaumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" it doesn't hurt bad.

Alright i am going to have another contest. How many E's are there in the last paragraph. (no sorry Beah we will not be giving out free underwear again). I will make sure i know the answer.

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Still raining. Last night I did some kickboxing, which was a lot of fun, because I've been running all summer, but it was really rainy and windy and cold, so I couldn't go out. I like running better, but the kickboxing was fun, and I let off a lot of steam. After that I did about a half hour of pilates, so now I feel like a limp noodle. And I just did the easiest exercises. But this is boring...

Our neighbours bush is turning red, his hostas are turning yellow, and his tree is turning orange. His grass is still green thanks to the GINORMOUS amount of rain we've been having. It looks pretty funny and out of place.

Yesterday our neighbour (who is a chef) came over to teach us how to make pastry. We made 7 mini apple pies, and one big banana cream pie. The best part was scratching designs into the pastry dough that we were using for the top of the apple pies. I put hearts on Sams, slits on mine, and half-triangles on Dad's. (Dad was on the phone, so I had to make his pie for him). The pastry turned out Ok, but the fun was definitely in making it.

Dan Hates

I have a couple of those google thingies

Who hates Daniel Radcliffe?

EVIL DAN HATES EVERYONE!

Dan hates barrels

ROB LIEFEILD SUCKS! (I bet Dan hates him)

Dan hates Spam

Dan hates window shopping

Dan hates it. Says it's too small, prefers something the size of the Grand Princess.

God hates techno, by G. Dan Covert

God HATES DAN's people. (he said so)

Gus, that's why I hate Whistlin' Dan, but I ain't here to argue. ... Which Danhates Lee Haines!" "He was bought off by Jim Silent," said old Sam.

Why the university hates america, by DAN

Dan hates being late

DAN FEGAN HATES THE JEWS

There are tons more

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Last night Mom put some butter in a pot on the hot stove and it melted. I think she had something she was going to do with it, but she didn't, and so I washed my hands and wrote "is there?" in the butter with my finger. This morning when she looked inside the pot she said "Oh, there's a message in here" Is there? :-)

Last night I had a dream, that a baked the most AWESOME birthday cake ever. It was chocolate, and the icing wasn't canned, and it melted in your mouth. Best of all, you could eat as much as you wanted, because it didn't make you feel sick. It looked rich though. We had a lot of people over, and Mom had bought an apple crisp from the store. And everybody ate the applecrisp. I didn't want to draw attention to the cake (because I wanted to eat it all on my own) , so I ate the apple crisp too. I was planning on eating the cake for breakfast.

The next day, I got up really excited, because I was going to eat this cake. I went upstairs, and I couldn't find the cake anywhere. Turns out I had slept in, and the kids had eaten ALL the cake. I was so mad, in my dream, and I actually remember the dream quite vividly.
What could it mean?
Do I need cake? Are my brothers and sisters taking oppurtunities away from me?:)

For a while Sam has been scared of monsters. So far he has killed (with the help of Mom, Dad, and I,) the 'Blue Guy', the 'Green Guy', the 'Red Guy' and the 'Purple Guy'. So tonight as I was leaving the room for him to go to sleep he said 'What about the 'Orange Guy?'
So there's an Orange guy.
I told him I had him tied up in my room, and was going to chop him up with the breadknife later on.
'What if he gets away'
'He won't get away'
'What about the Grey Guy? He's a King so he's really big, and I can't kill him, 'cause I can only use butter knives'

Hmmmmmmmmm, could this have anything to do with the fact that we are reading 'The Grey King' together.

It turns out Dan and Matt have been goading him on. We will see what will happen to them...

Arthritis

Hey guys. Dad thinks I have arthritis because different parts of my body are in pane at different times It hurts a lot mom is going to take me to the family doctor but we are going to wait maybe a week and test it to see if the chances are big anuf to do it. I have to go now it is lunch time bye

Tomorrow we are supossed to get the remnants of Hurricane Wilma. That's about 40-70 mm of rain. While we definitely won't be any worse off than all the people who actually got hit by Wilma while it was still a hurricane, it will certainly be annoying. Especially since it is the third weekend that it has poured rain. And it's going to make all the leaves fall off the trees before they all turn - that's right, we still have some green trees out here in Atlantic Canada. We used to have beautiful rugged autumns, but I guess the land is still healing from Hurricane Juan (which we milk for all its worth:) because we've had nothing but crappy falls since then.

I have my last soccer game today. We were only supossed to play each team once, but we went to one game, and the other team didn't show up so we played a very long scrimmage with one of the teams that was playing before us. The thing is, none of our parents knew it was a scrimmage until the end, which was pretty funny. In the end of the scrimmage we tied, so the idea of this next game is to win...

Annoying problems, weird definitions and fables

First off. Annoying problems.

You're new car is finally yours. But it breaks down because you lost a vital piece (the ignition for instance) and you spent 1000 to get it fixed and after its done you find that little expensive piece of metal.

The problem: You lose something and then find it after its too late.

You can post some other annoying problems, in the guestbook or comment.

Next. Wierd Definitions.

Look up any word in the Dictionary and trust to find it's definition. When i'm older I'll make a book that is as thick as a Dictionary that has my own definitions for the words for instance

Normal Dictionary:
RICH: 1.Weathly, Makes a lot of money etc...
2.Extremely flavoured Etc... (I made that up but you'll find something similar in a real dictionary)

Fun Dictionary:
RICH: People who have four ply toilet-paper instead of two.

Now if any of you find this insulting, I mean no offense. This is only for fun. I still apoligize if i hurt anybody's feelings.

Lastly Fables.

Fables are short storys that have morals. I have one.

A father and a son and a donkey were walking down the street. And came across a couple. The lady said: "Why do you need the donkey if nobody's gonna ride it?" So the father put the son on the donkey. Soon they came across two farmers. One Said: "look at this fred! A strong young man on a donkey with his father limping at his Side!" So the father hopped on the donkeys back and his son came off. Then they came across two lady's. One said: "look at this mary! The father riding on a donkey and the son killing his legs to walk at his Side!" So the son hopped on the donkeys back so now they were both on the donkey. Soon they came across an albino. He Said: "That poor donkey must be killing his back to take you guys!" and so they both got off. The father and son thought and thought, and then they got an idea. They tied the donkey's legs together and carried the donkey halfway across a bridge and then the donkey bucked and fell into the river, and drowned because his legs were tied together.

Moral: Don't try to please everyone for you will end up unpleased.

All Annoying problems, weird definitions and fables will be gladly recieved!!!

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Speaking Welsh

I'm reading a book to the kids that takes place in Wales. So last night I am reading Welsh place names to the kids which was part of the text, "Tal y Llyn, Mynydd Ceiswyn, Cemmaes, Llanwrin, Machynlleth, Afon Dyfi, Llandgelynin". Katelyn interrupts with obvious frustration, "Mom! You aren't pronouncing it correctly. In Welsh the 'f' is pronounced 'v' and the 'y' is pronouced 'e'. I found this a bit disturbing ... wondering when exactly Katelyn learned to speak Welsh. But the answer was as it always is with Katelyn, "I read it in a book somewhere".
Sam learned to ride a 2-wheeler bike yesterday & was SO proud of himself. I could see the wheels turning in his head, "freedom at last/look how fast I can go on this thing/I look really cool now that I can ride a bike".
This afternoon we are going to watch "Mighty Machines Vol. 7" These are pre-schooler videos but they are FASCINATING & educational. I highly recommend them to anyone ... along with David MacAuley's Building Big series. Please let us know out there in Blogger land if you have other suggestions for us ... Beah I think this means you & anyone else with ideas. Love you all my community of blogging friends ... By the way - has anyone watched "Shaking Hands with the Devil" - the story of Romeo D'allaires experiences as head of UN peacekeeping troops during the Rwandan Genocide? I watched Hotel Rwanda which was kind of a sanitized version of the events ... I'm a bit afraid to watch "Shaking Hands with the Devil" in case of nightmares. Anyone seen it?

Education of African-Americans in the Civil War Period

Hey guys! I'm timing how long it takes us to do this blog. So far it has been 24 seconds. We are going to go somewhere where Sammy can bike. Speaking of that, Sammy learned to bike on a two-wheeler yesterday. He was really excited about it. He was practically doing it all day. And he was always showing strangers that he could bike when we were at Katelyn's soccer game. There was a tree at Katelyn's soccer game that everybody wanted to climb (me,Dan,Matt & Sam) And so we gave boosts to whoever wanted one. I got up the tree all by myself. And Dan couldn't do it even though he is taller than me. There was this guy at Katelyn's soccer game with a toddler. He let us play tennis with his tennis raquets. After he left we tried to lift up the tennis nets. We made it half-way eventually. But it was really hard because some string was wedged onto the pole with the tennis net. And we didn't have any scissors so we couldn't do it all.
When I got a retainer I woke up this morning & the retainer was right beside me. I'm not sure how many hours it was out. I must have pulled it out with my tongue when I was sleeping.
I started a new series of books that I am reading. They are called "American Girls Series". I am reading one now about a girl named Addy. She is a slave. Her dad & her brother were sold and that left her mom, Adddy & her baby sister. Addy and her mom ran away & left the baby sister with an Aunt and Uncle. Her mother doesn't know how to swim but Addy does. And she saves her mom from drowning. And they go to the west where there is no slavery. Addy goes to an African-American school just for African-Americans. There is this girl that wants her to work for her, basically. But she won't tell her that - she just piles on her books door. She is a very mean girl like Nellie Oleson. I found out in the notes in the back of the book that there were laws against being educated for African-American slaves. Some people just ignored the laws and taught their slaves to read & write & get an education. And if someone got caught teaching their slaves they might get a fine or have to go to prison. Eventually there were some African-American schools just for them - even high schools. This happened around the time of the Civil War in the United States. Sammy doesn't want us to write on the blog anymore so he is touching keys on the keyboard. Gotta go.

I hate mouthwash

As you all know (if you read our blog on a regular basis) Dan and Sarah got their retainers yesterday. So when I went downstairs to go to bed, I found Dan and Sarah in the bathroom having a party with their retainers and two bowls full of mouthwash. The smell of mouthwash permeated the entire level. So I told them to get out of my bathroom. (It's actually Sarah's and mine, but Dan wasn't supposed to be in there.) Anyway, the whole place smelled like a dentists office, and I couldn't take it. I have bad associations with dentists offices, even though dentists are usually pretty nice. So I told them to get out. They did eventually, though not before 'but they told us to put them in mouthwash to make them taste a little better' and 'but we're supposed to'. Actually they only said that you were supposed to put them in mouthwash if they dropped them. So I think they have to get into a sort of routine. I actually think I might like braces better than having a retainer:) We'll see what I feel like when I get one.

Whoa!

My first night with a retainer. It wasn't nice. All my night gunk got in between the roof of my mouth and the plastic thing that fits into the roof of the mouth. Ok so we just got a new GBS Album, and we can't find the lyrics for the first song, "Come and i will sing you" (melanie you might be interested in this request). It sound's like a really fun song you could sing at at warm bonfire. but the problem is that nobody can seem to get the lyrics, so i need your help!! Help find the lyrics, for this song. "Come and I will sing you".

It is a Crispy day. Although it is sunny. Mom put this terrible plastic stuff on the windows so that it lets the light in but the sight of the outside is a disturbing blurr.

I have to do science now. Mom thinks i like it because I thought out loud, "If we heated out frying pan and then plunged it into would it turn to steel. I would like to have a steel pan instead of a cast iron pan.

I don't really like the book.

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I checked my e-mail today, and besides getting a belated birthday e-card, I also got a not from Amazon.com telling me that I had added a vacuum cleaner to my shopping cart, and then not gone through with the transaction the last time I was on. Oh. I NEVER ORDERED A VACUUM!!! I don't even remember setting up an account for myself. But I must have, because I went on their site and checked a few passwords and one of them worked. And there was a vacuum in my shopping cart. I got rid of it, and so now I have a nice account without any vacuum cleaners. I must have left my account up, and Mom was looking at vacuum cleaners on amazon and didn't realize that her account wasn't up. Anyway...

Dan and sarah and I went to the orthodontist today - me to get my braces tightened, and Dan and Sarah to get their new retainers. They look pretty funny because I've never seen anyone with a retainer who doesn't have straight teeth. They also talk with lisps. They only have to wear them at night, but they are wearing them in the house too. Oh well, the novelty will wear off.

They got to keep the molds made of their teeth though, and so when they take their retainer out they put it on the molds. It's pretty funny.

Spacer Maintainer Retainer

So me and Sarah got retainers today. We got out teeth molded a week before. They make us look like nerds so we don't wear them in public. We have to wear them to bed minimum but we can wear them whenever we like. We could soak them in mouthwash for better flavor or for cleaning in case of dropping on dirty floor. We have special brushes for the retainers and so it usually takes me 6 minutes to floss and brush teeth but I think it is going to take a bit longer than that!

We sent our orthodontist a postcard that said Pooh-bear says hi to Kissy Bourque! Paul J. Bourque is our orthodontist and Poohbear is a person that Kissy has to find out who it is. So he still doesn't have the answer and we said we would give him another month which is when our next appointment is.

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ZZZ...

I am tired. I had a pretty dull day. We had homemade sushi rolls today. I had four giant rolls of cucumber and shrimp. I wasn't very creative. I should have added carrots. it would have added to the flavor. I managed to get all my work done. But it was slow. I didn't feel very good. I got a nast puncture. There was a pen lying on the floor. Looked pretty harmless. I by mistake stepped on the back of the pen and the pointy end jutted up a bit. My foot hit it and i got a nasty stab. Now it didn't really feel good because first of all i got ink in the hole and this pen wasn't you average slim-as-a-sringe pen. It was quite blunt. I was bleeding all over. I managed to find a bandade and some ointment in the cupboard. I got it all attached.

My math went slow. I got it done in the end. I did my stairs outside where it was cool so i didn't get much sweat, which went quite well. I felt my energy was rising every time i did a step. Whoo-hoo!

I still like biking better, but the brake snapped. Bummer.

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Growing out my bangs

Hey guys. What has been exciting today? I have 5000 points on BookAdventure.com which means I get a prize for reading so many books. You can either get 150 points per book or 200 if you get all the questions right. We did our Bible Study today. It was fun. I have been zipping through my homeschooling again. I am growing my bangs out so I can have long hair and grown-out bangs. So right now my bangs are pretty long. So I have to wear a bandanna to keep them back. And I don't like it because bandannas are uncomfortable.

Funny Story

So Mom bought this new cookbook called "You are what you eat" by Dr. Gillian McKeith. In it, there is a recipe for gluten free carob brownies. Mom loves the Carob balls that she buys at our favorite vegetarian restaurant (Satisfaction Feast) and so she made them. They are mostly made of pureed nuts, and so they have a nice nutty flavour. I really liked them. But the reason why I liked them the most, was because I normally don't like the taste of carob, but I found myself thinking - while eating these brownies - 'it does taste a lot like chocolate - only not so strong' and 'I was wrong! Carob isn't that bad.'
So yesterday we went to Satisfaction Feast, and Mom ordered 2 Carob balls for dessert. She said 'I made those brownies because I thought they would taste the same, because they are made of the same types of ingredients but they didn't'
Then she added 'Although it might have been because I put cocoa powder instead of carob powder'.
No wonder they were good...

I just got to try out...

New Shampoo. It was the worst shampoo i ever had. I put it on and my eyes started to water and i started to faucet. Then I smelt like alchohol and finally to top it all off i at theend i smelt (and probably felt) like a girl. I still shudder thinking about the nightmare shampoo. Of course the shampoo would have been awesome if it haden't been used on a MONDAY. This monday has got me good.

My bike took a bad injury. I was biking down the road and seeing i was about to end up in a place i didn't want to go i slammed on the brakes. ouch. The back brake snapped but the front held and i went head first to the ground. I was wearing my helmet so there wasn't much pain. then i put my hands on the road and fell onto my back. I was lucky because i didn't sustain anything not even a bruise or a scratch. Though by brake didn't do too well.

So now i have to go back to the boring old towers. The really drive me crazy

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Hey guys for some reason my ankle started clcking and then it will not let me walk very well it will last 3to4 days some time,s it will last 1to2 days.
the blog is the last thing on my list.
got to go good bye

So Platinum Blonde stole a game from her friend Sarah where you google your name with the word needs following it, and list the first ten things that come up. So, to expand upon this game, I think we should also google "katelyn wants" and "katelyn is" to make more of this game. A lot of my "katelyn is" stuff says stuff like "katelyn is 7 years old and has just recovered from kidney disease thanks to talented Dr. Somebody". So I don't know what other people will bring up when they try this.

A little comment on Melanie getting rid of her guestbook: It's a good idea, because guestbooks are kind of annoying, but it's also hard to read all the comments because you can't remember exactly how many there were when you last checked. And it's harder to have big discussions because a post will just sink down into the archives after a while. So I don't know what a good idea would be. Although I must say, most blogs do fine without guestbooks.

Katelyn needs:

So these are the first legible things that came up when I googled "katelyn wants" and "katelyn needs".

I like this game.

1) Katelyn needs to get one big show under her belt
2) Katelyn needs to know
3) Katelyn needs a suitable donor
4) Katelyn needs a family that is willing to actively participate in her therapy:)
5) Katelyn needs to stay strong
6) Katelyn needs an Implantable Cardioverter–Defibrillator within the next 2 weeks
7) Katelyn needs 1 more vote
8) Katelyn needs to take 1 boiled egg to school with her tomorrow
9) Katelyn needs to be held accountable for her actions
10)Katelyn needs supplemental oxygen around the clock

1) Katelyn wants to be a buddy
2) Katelyn wants to do 31 things
3) Katelyn wants to imitate
4) Katelyn wants a banana
5) Katelyn wants to be a lawyer
6) Katelyn wants to spend more time with you
7) Katelyn wants to be a veterinarian or a scientist
8) Katelyn wants to make politics easier for kids to understand (hahahaha)
9) Katelyn wants to jump in and stamp too
10)Katelyn wants to reply

Charges Laid In Visual Abuse Scandal

Halifax, NS. — One senior official at the Abarbahome has been charged in a blog dispute that injured his daughter's desire to view their blog.

Katelyn issued a news release Thursday night saying that her father, 37, was charged with dangerous operation of a mechanical photographing device. Though Mr. Abarbanel has been known for experimenting with picture taking and publishing the most visually repulsive images, he has avoided capture until now.

Meanwhile, Mr. Abarbanel has repented of his crime and in a tearful display also announced that he would display only approved images. His injured daughter, Katelyn Abarbanel, 14, has two weeks to decide whether she will pursue the matter in court.

- Canadian Press -

Mars and Venus in the Washer and Dryer

I was at my physio appointment - which is not what you are imagining at this moment. This physio is run out of a woman's basement and is extremely casual. I was once left to fend for myself while my physiotherapist took her kids to school. Anyhow, the point I am making is that there is also a lot of patient to patient interaction because of this informality.

On this particular visit a woman was ruminating on whether to have her washer and dryer installed in her kitchen. I mentioned casually that we have ours in our kitchen. She said, "Do you like it?" And just as I was about to respond the woman let out a little "Oh" with a slight expression of "Why am I asking you, what would you know?" Hmmmmm. Here is what I felt like saying ... God forgive me!

Well I like it a lot. It is much less cruel making my wife take our clothes to the main level than to make her take them all the way down to the basement. I mean, she spends almost 90% of her day waiting on me and the kids from the kitchen, so it makes sense. The only thing I don't like is that when the washer or dryer is on, I have trouble relaxing on the couch in front of the TV. The noise disrupts my channel surfing. I have had thoughts about getting rid of them altogether and make her wash our clothes by hand in the sound proof room in the basement where we have the sink that she does dishes in because the noise of the dishwasher is more than I can handle. Anyhow, before you make a decision, best check with your husband - I'm sure he'll have some thoughts.

What I actually said was: The main downside is the noise on the main level. Have you thought about putting it in your upstairs? That makes a lot of sense if you have the space and the proper drainage. The only thing is that it does make noise so if you have young kids it restricts when you can turn it on.

BUT this is all because I have been a bit edgy lately. I do wonder what would have happened had I said something like that. Maybe I'll try it next time for fun. Lookout Venus, here comes Mars!!

It's raining hard...again.

Today Dan took the book "the princess bride" out of the library. Now, normally I ALWAYS read the book before I see the movie, but this is one exception. If you haven't seen the movie, see it. If you have seen the movie (fourteen-bazillion times) you will understand this post. The movie'ss got sports, adventure, betrayal, politics, and true love in it. Dan keeps reading parts of the book aloud like "Buttercup wasn't the most beautiful girl in the land. In fact, she barely made it into the top 20" and "Buttercup named her horse 'Horse'. She wasn't the most original girl in the world. So it doesn't look like the movie at all. I'm kind of glad I saw the movie first, because it's a lot easier to read a book after seeing the movie and then brainwash yourself into thinking that they are two different stories.
Although it is weird that the guy who wrote the book screenwrote the movie - and the book and the movie seem to be so different.

After I wrote the news article post Dad said that wasn't the way to get him to change the picture. Isn't it sad? Maybe it was the grammar mistakes I made with the quotes (I hate quotes). I'll have to come up with some new ideas.

NOBODY'S COMMENTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's always nice to be read, and when people don't comment it decreases motivation by a lot. So if you want us to keep blogging: keep commenting.
Thanks for the comments on my birthday though:) I also wonder how many people have googled my name and found this blog. Because I know that I google (almost) everybody I know. So maybe there are a lot of people I know closet reading this blog....although maybe I'd rather not know about some of them. But anyway, don't shy away from commenting.

It's Yom Kippur today.
If you don't know what Yom Kippur is: it's a Jewish holy day. It started last night at sundown, and ends at sundown tonight. You are supposed to fast and pray for the entire day.
The only reason I know it's Yom Kippur was because I heard on the news that Israelis were arresting people in hopes (i think) of a peaceful day.

It's also my birthday. On my birthday I tend to have a lot to eat. Maybe I pray...but I never fast.
With a name like Abarbanel I probably should (or it is assumed that I should) be celebrating Yom Kippur.
But that would be like having your birthday during Ramadan, Lent, Passover, or some other deprivation based holy day.

So I'm just celebrating my birthday:)

'I think Dad has a problem.'
Katelyn Abarbanel stated on Thursday

'He seems to be incapable of putting a nice picture on the blog'

Recent speculation has been that Ms. Abarbanels father doesn't like people looking at him while he is taking a picture. This latest picture seems to be the straw that broke the camels back.

'I have been nagging him sometime to change the picture in the front page of the Abarbablog' Ms. Abarbanel admitted to Abarbablog journalists in an exclusive interview. 'But I wanted him to put a better picture for people to see'

Mr. Abarbanel was not available for comment

'I'm afraid this one doesn't cut it. Why doesn't he take individual pictures of us and post those instead?'

'Unfortunately, [Mr. Abarbanel] isn't available to change the picture right now, so I guess I'll just have to wait'

Mr. Abarbanel is known to like to try diffent techniques with his camera, and has a previous record of taking embarrassing pictures.

This morning we had to take the bus. Dad got Dan and Sarah orthodontist appointments at 8:30 (this is scandalous, although all you morning people out there might not think so). Not only this, but our van stalled yesterday and we had to get it towed today. So we had no way to get there. Except for the bus..that is.
Now if you think this is going to be a serenade of metro transit; how economically, enviromentally, and time friendly metro transit is: you're wrong. I have only been on a few different transit systems in my life, and metro transit is by far the worst. Of course you can't really blame the municipality. While Ottawa paves their roads twice every year and tells everybody they should become more enviromentally friendly, we are groveling around on our dirty smelly (enviromentally friendly) late buses wondering what the heck they do in those fancy buildings. But I digress. I have looked at maps of other cities and they are quite neat - their streets are on a grid system and it would be very easy to have a good bus system. But look at this map of halifax. Admittedly our downtown is fine enough, but most of the streets are very narrow. This map doesn't go as far as my street so there are more twisty streets where the bottom of the map leaves off. So we took a bus almost directly there. It takes us 15 minutes to drive, but the bus ride took us an HOUR. Then we took 2 buses back home because we missed the return trip of our first bus and it only took us 45 minutes. And did I mention it cost 18.00 round trip. So 5 kids and 1 adult. I would dearly love to redesign our transit system. I think I could do a really good job....all we need is a little money.

Yesterday when our van wouldn't start we thought it was the battery. When Dad came home he told us it was the fuel pump. We tried starting it again, but it just stalled. So we left it alone. Today Dan and Sarah had orthodontist appointments. Dad had a physiotherapy appointment because he had injured his shoulder at the same time and there were only five seats in the care. There were seven of us.
We had to take the bus. Yesterday night we spent about an hour poring over the route map and decided it would be best to take the number 14 most of the way, and then get out and walk. While we were on the bus one middle aged woman made a face at us because we were sitting in the handicapped section. There weren't any other seats, so it wasn't our fault. But we still felt a bit guilty, and Matt offered his seat. She didn't take it, but she was friendlier after that.Yesterday when our van wouldn't start we thought it was the battery. When Dad came home he told us it was the fuel pump. We tried starting it again, but it just stalled. So we left it alone. Today Dan and Sarah had orthodontist appointments. Dad had a physiotherapy appointment because he had injured his shoulder at the same time and there were only five seats in the care. There were seven of us.
We had to take the bus. Yesterday night we spent about an hour poring over the route map and decided it would be best to take the number 14 most of the way, and then get out and walk. While we were on the bus one middle aged woman made a face at us because we were sitting in the handicapped section. There weren't any other seats, so it wasn't our fault. But we still felt a bit guilty, and Matt offered his seat. She didn't take it, but she was friendlier after that – to the point of telling Matt and I that we had nice red hair and looked like we were brother and sister.

New Overalls

Hey guys. Mommy got me a new pair of overalls last week. And I've been wearing them for the last 2 days. I got a cross necklace at a little bookstore inside an Anglican church. We saw a beautiful old Anglican church. But there was supposed to be a dome over these cool arch-supports. We know that because we watched a DVD about domes so we know where the domes are supposed to go. Today hasn't really been my day actually. Although I am glad about having homeschooling done very early. I liked the Turkey Dinner we had yesterday. It was one big turkey which we are still working on today at lunch. Oh and we got to see the heart and the heart tube where the blood comes out. It was a cooked heart but it was very small. This afternoon I have to do my stairs which I am grumbly looking forward to. Then I'm going to relax for the rest of the day. I have earned enough points to get a new watch.
Me and Dad went on a date on Saturday (I hope you guys don't think this is a lovey dovey date. It is just a "Dad and kid" time so we call it a date.) Dad took me out for Chinese food. I had lemon chicken and these small noodles and wonton soup. I liked the leaves and the wontons but I thought the soup was a little too salty. And you don't want too much salt in anything because it is very bad for you. Daddy found out on the date that I didn't know the order of the months of the year. He said that wasn't my fault because he didn't teach it to me. And I don't know how to type either. And that is not my fault either because the typing program doesn't work on Mom's computer. Got to go.

Thanksgiving

So we had our dinner yesterday night. We managed to buy a gigantic turkey and we had a quite fun (and a little unfortunate) thanksgiving. So Mom went to get something and we decided we would lie her down blindfolded on the ground put shaving cream on her hands and then tickle her until she covers herself in shaving cream. To make a long story short Sam was crying because he had shaving cream all over his clothes and Matt was screaming because he had shaving cream in his eyes and i was looking oh-so-calmly down on myself who has disappeared in a frenzy of shaving cream. So it didn't really go very well but i still smile thinking about how things can go wrong but are still valuable enough for a good laugh when i'm 104 years old.

We had Mashed Potatos Mashed Turnip, Turkey, VERY TASTY Stuffing and the best homemade gravy in the world. I got to hold the turkeys heart!!

Raining....again

We have the most abysmal weather here in Halifax. While the rest of the country is jumping into piles of leaves, crunching into tart delicious apples, getting rosy cheeked outside, and admiring the leaves we sit down to our thanksgiving dinner. It is raining outside. The trees are green. Everything is muddy, and we haven't had a cold snap yet - the coldest it's gotten is 14°C (my grade 2 teacher always said "fourteen degrees celshus"). So it's a pretty sad fall. Maybe by the time my birthday rolls around (I am NOT 14, despite Dad's "time saving efforts" to make me so) we'll have more characteristic fall weather. Yeah, maybe then....

So a little politics (sorry sorry sorry) but when the earthquake happened in Pakistan the Canadian government pledged $300,000. I thought it was ridiculously low, but now they have pledged $20,000,000. A lot of people criticized the initial pledge ($300,000) but Pierre Pettigrew insists that it was not criticism that made the government contribute more.

"I think it is important we're accountable to Canadians. I think they want to know exactly what we will be doing, so when we announce our contribution, we will also express what it will be doing, but you can count on the government of Canada to react generously and as I say, in the course of the day, we will announce a further contribution." - Pierre Pettigrew

Haha. Or maybe it was the Conservatively well placed 'what a meagre donation' that drove the Paul Martin government to contribute more. But anyways, whatever their REAL motivation, I'm glad they did it.

Shaving cream on moms hands

Hey guys mom is beaing really kind to us so we decided to let her have some fun so we decided that we wood tickle her until she had fun then Dan siad lets get the shaving cream and put it on her hands while she is blindfolded. We thought she would have to put her hands on her shirt to make us stop tickling. And guess what? Exactly the opposite. Mom wiped the shaving cream on whoever was tickling her. Sam & Matt got shaving cream all over them and then they cried and cried. Dan got it too but he didn't cry.

Headache Season

So I have a headache - I'm not sure if it's from the POURING rain or from church. Probably both. It's not that I hate church, but it must be the building or SOMETHING because nearly always after leave I have a headache. But maybe I'm just tired - I had a dream last night that I had a bad illness and I felt fine and nobody would tell me what it was. So (in the dream) I decided it must be because I smelled bad and I went and showered in the pig pen. And I was totally self concious because all the pigs could see me. It was weird. And then the dream ended so I never found out what people wouldn't tell me.

It's Thankgiving Weekend!!!!!!! So happy thanksgiving everybody. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Turkey....

books

Mom got me a lot of books from the library. And so I'm going to have a lot of fun getting a lot of points from www.bookadventure.com. But some of the books she got me aren't on the book adventure list. Katelyn surprised me by putting an old bookshelf that I had in my cubbyhole in my room. I was surprised because it looks so cool. So she put all my books on it and told me to try to find my bookshelf. She hid it in a very clever spot - behind the door! Katelyn is making supper tonight. I can smell apple crisp & meatloaf. I went bike riding on Dan's bike. Then he got all puffed up about me using his bike but I don't have a bike right now. Gotta go.

Yesterday was our blogs 2 year anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I look back on our first blogs (and I'm getting all nostalgic now) they seem very cutesy "Hi, i am sarah, and I love my mommy" and non-interesting. Of course, a lot of my blogs are still un-interesting, but hey! at least they are better now then they were then.

Another thing: Nobody has commented on any of my posts (or anybody elses) in a week! And Platinum blonde has mysteriously stopped blogging (except to say happy birthday to Karen). In fact MOST (but not all) people that I read blogs of haven't blogged since october 2 or before. So get blogging!

Ok...that was all because I have nothing really to write about.

I played a soccer game last night. The other team was SO rough. At the end of the game one of our players was crying, and another one had quasi-murderous intentions. The ref called only 1 push - the rest of the time he just said play on. We were So mad at the end of the game - I mean Are you a hockey ref???????!!! Sometimes you are just ticked off at a ref because he made a few bad calls, or because he didn't call an offside or two, but this ref was unbelievable. Anyway, I'll stop complaining about him now and move onto other things. The field had a path going right across it and people would walk across it and keep going across even though we yelled at them. There was a half moon or gravel from an overlapping gravel circle that the path originated from. And the field had ruts and dirt patches all over it. Even though we had a bad ref though we still tied 3-3 with a goal in the last 30 seconds of the game. HAh!

Mom admits

Yes I have just figured out that Mom admits she likes MS DOS Better than windows. I don't understand. I have only been a windows person. I don't understand how people can operate dos. Why can't they just stay at the typewriter?

I wish I had a typewriter. It would be fun, being able to type letters to people without having to print them. I've always wanted my own computer with a printer and a lot of other stuff. I've always wanted a laptop. Just a small one. I remember Mom was givin a tiny soundless IBM. She never used it so it became a good computer for the kids, besides the larger one (and frankly the older one too). But one day the plug was bent sideways and the computer was stored away for a year. Then I decided i would want to resserect it. I grabbed dads heavy duty plyers and with all my strengh i bant the plugs back to normal and the computer worked and wo found all our old archives which were funny to read. Then the computer got old again and i decided i was going to fix it again. So i took out the keyboard and peered into the motherboard. I found that a little thingy wasn't connected, so after some time and a little bit of dads blacktape, i fixed it and ducttaped the keyboard back on. Later on i found out that dad had thrown it away which disappointed me a lot but i got used to it.

P.S. I had lots of Katelyns help when i was fixing the comp the 2nd time

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we fawnd a program on the web for books you read a book and they ask you stuff that was in the book to make sher you red it.
I cut my foot yesterday on the roking chare and thar was a sercal of blood arawd the cut got to go

Wasting time

I was thinking yesterday about how much time I waste in a year. Let's see... there are 8760 hours in a year. I sleep for about 10 hours every night.

8760 - 3650 = 5110

I exercise about 3 times a week for about 30 minutes each:

5110 - 78 = 5032

I stretch for about 7 minutes after my run - that comes to about 6 hours a year

5032 - 6 = 5026

I shower always after exercising, and sometimes when I am just dirty

5026 - 24 = 5002

Then I get dressed..

5002 - 44 = 4958

This school year I'm going to do about 128 hours of math

4958 - 128 = 4830

32 hours of science

4830 - 32 = 4798

28 hours of french

4798 - 28 = 4770

That doesn't look like a lot compared to your whole year, but when 128 hours of math = 5.5 full days and 11 full days if a day is just 12 hours it sure seems like a lot.

Last Canada Day, what flag did you fly?

On Saturday I looked out the window & saw a golden opportunity. Our neighbours had a big load of wood on their driveway & it was taking them a very long time to take it down a long steep hill & stack it in their backyard. I thought I would seize the opportunity to exhaust my kids by helping & develop some skill in wood piling that their city-slicker upbringing had previously neglected. Matt refused to come out to help because the husband is from Virginia & on July 4th last year hung a Yankee flag from his porch. Rather than argue & waste valuable wood piling time, I left him alone. A bit later he came out & happily started carrying wood down the long slope. And then the question came out:
Matt: Last Canada Day, whose flag did you fly
Marsha: (in an embarrassing shrill tone) "My kids are rather anti-American. We didn't teach them to be"
Mike the neighbour: "Well I've become anti-American too because I don't like this war"
Whoo, I thought. Another international incident diverted. Matt was very happy and playful with Mike after that. He did insist on telling him that we won the war of 1812 & burned down the White House. I was relaying this story to a friend today. Dan mused, "I think we became anti- American when we heard the Arrogant Worms song about the war of 1812. But we aren't REALLY anti-American. We just like to pretend that we are. This made me giggle. How very Canadian. In fact, this may be what truly unites Canadians: We aren't really anti-American, but we like to pretend that we are.

Ouch

I got a tooth pulled yesterday. It felt kind of weird. I didn't feel much and it felt like I was a bottle of wine and my tooth was the cork. And the dentist fancied some blood wine and pulled the cork out with plyers. A great experience. I probably haven't met anybody who has all 32 teeth still in. Kind of rare.

So we just had a friend over today and we had lots of fun. I had a double scoop of ice cream. i had to give the rest of it to sam because i can't stand vanilla ice cream. It's so original!!!

So we just rented 4 I Love Lucy episodes from the librarys

***if you don't know I Love Lucy very well (or Gilligan's island) you won't really understand***

Fred and Ethel reminded me a lot of the millionare and his wife in Gilligan's island

They just did. And Lucy was a lot like Mary Ann. I liked Ginger. She was my favorite one. She was the funniest when she tries to convince Gilligan to do something and when ginger kisses her finger and tries to touch Gilligan and gilligan ends up unconcious in the end.

Ah yes i love Gilligan's Island

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Poor Dan

So today Mom took Dan and Sarah to the dentist. Only she didn't tell them beforehand that they were both getting teeth extracted!!!! (She didn't want to get them worked up). So she should be telling them right about now. Aaaah, poor Dan and Sarah. I know what it's like to get teeth pulled, and while you don't really feel the actual pulling, it feels super weird and bad losing a part of your body. And then there's a gaping hole in your mouth and you can't exercise in case you get your blood pumping too much and it starts to bleed again. And you can't feel your mouth for a few hours. So I think they would appreciate prayers - pray that they wouldn't feel guilty (like I said, it's a weird feeling - like you are wrecking yourself or doing something you shouldn't be doing...), pray that it would heal quickly, and pray that they would pull the right ones! Seriously...

So so tired

my nose is filled with gunk delight (not very delightful). And i have to go to the dentist so, it ain't gonna be pretty. Plus this cold makes me sick to my stomach. Don't ask why. I am not, repeat NOT gonna have the flu after this chaos ends. We have always had the flu once a year. In 2004 i was so happy that we weren't gonna have the flu then. Well guess what. I got the flu after Christmas. When Melanie and Nathan came i got the flu and the flu ended on New Years Eve. So i was Quite disappointed and at the same time happy. I was mad because we still kept to the tradition. I felt happy cause if we didn't we would get the flu twice in one year. Probably.

So i just finished this book called Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen. It is quite funny but quite sick. I strongly advise only men should read it. It isn't a book for females.

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