Farmdale Reservoir

 Sarah found a pretty white shell (which you can't really see in this picture)

 I thought this would be a good place for a family picture. I set up the camera on a stump, set the timer, and raced to get into the picture.  I didn't make it.

 This time I made it, but just barely, and I look gigantic from that angle. 

 Noah on this uprooted tree looks like a brown peacock.

Another ill-advised picture taken by the self-timer on the camera.

 Sarah found a tiny strip of beach where she wrote her name.

 Noah found a deer print and made his hand print by it.

 Eating a plum from the picnic basket. I packed cheese, crackers, bologna, hummus, and bagel chips.

Hiking back to the car.  This was a road that led to a trail through the woods and across a meadow that ended up at the parking lot.  It was a beautiful day, and we had lots of fun hiking and playing in the creek!

Family day!

My wonderful parents planned a fun day for their children and grandchildren last weekend.  They treated us to a delicious lunch at River 1000 (a buffet with something for everyone).  Then we were supposed to hike the river trail but it was closed due to flood damage.  So we went to Glen Oak Park instead.

 My crazy people, and cousin Ben

 The hostess at the restaurant took this so we could all be in it.

 Bubbles

 Baseball

 Lawn darts

 Phase 10 (which we shortened to Phase 5, because it was really hot out there).

Noah, Sam, and Ben played a quick game of football with some boys they found at the park.

Aunt Amy did a lot of listening.

All that talking wore Sarah out, and she went to sleep on the way home.

Dateless

Mike was rambling on about one of his favorite topics: the Fair Tax.  Noah was mocking him and climbed up into the bay window to use as a soapbox. He stood up and cracked his head hard on the top of the bay.  He crumpled in a heap, and I was concerned about brain injury.  To test him, I asked, "Do you know what day it is?"  He was curled up in a ball, face down, but I heard him mumble, "No.  But then I never know what day it is."  I think his brain is intact.

Factor racist

I was teaching a math lesson about factor trees.  I told Noah that every composite number has a unique set of factors that no other number has, like its fingerprint.  He didn't believe me.  He tested me with several composite numbers.  Then he said, "But what about the really big numbers? There are only a certain number of prime numbers, right?"  I said, "No. Prime numbers march on into infinity." I made little marching motions with my hands.  He got that look that I LOVE.  The one that is realization dawning, learning occurring, the beginnings of an awestruck smile.  My favorite part of teaching.  It's very rare, but it's worth the wait every time.  He gets it.  But he's not done discussing it quite yet.

N: The factors for 35 are only 5 and 7.  Is that right?
M: Yes.
N: I mean, is that good enough?
M: 5 and 7 are the factors of 35.  There's no value judgment of good or bad. It's just a fact.  That's one of the reasons I love math.
N: But all the other numbers I've done have at least 4 prime factors...
M: That doesn't make them better, you factor racist. [He understood and laughed, which is another reason it's a joy to be with him.] Just as each person has different characteristics that make him unique, he's not better than another person with different characteristics.

Mussels

Sarah just completed the "el" unit in spelling.  One of the words she learned was "mussel".  I made sure she was aware that it wasn't a "muscle".  She asked what it was, and I told her it was a kind of shellfish. She said, "Can we have it for dinner?"  So we did.  None of us had ever bought, cooked, or eaten a mussel before, so it was a fun experience.

 Sarah didn't like the way they looked, but she took a cautious bite and instantly hated them. 

Shiloh took a sniff and decided she didn't like them either.

Mike, Noah, and I thought they were ok, but nothing we'd go out of our way to eat again. 

Nudist

Last night I saw a naked guy.  I was driving the kids home from Pekin, and I glanced over and saw an old fat guy coming out of his house (it might have been an apartment; I didn't really notice the building).  He was standing there in his doorway in broad daylight on a busy street, completely naked.  I was shocked but not disgusted.  In fact, I kind of admired him. 

Here's something about me that most people don't know: I would love to live in a nudist community.  Not the ones full of tan, muscular people, but one that is just regular people walking around naked.  I hate having to wear clothes all the time.  But thanks to society, I don't feel comfortable opening my front door to get the paper naked. That's why I admired the naked guy on Route 98.  He was naked and he didn't care who saw him.

My favorite class

My favorite class to teach is literature, because all we do is read good books and discuss them.  My kids are old enough to engage in fascinating discussions now, which gives me such a charge!  At the moment, we're reading Waking Up in Heaven by Crystal McVea.  It has brought up some very heavy topics that we have not discussed before, like sexual abuse and abortion.  I try to just guide the discussion and not lecture, but sometimes I can't help myself.  I lectured at length about abortion today. The kids asked some good questions. Noah thinks deeply about everything and is very articulate. Sarah spouts out a golden nugget once in awhile, and sometimes she just provides comic relief.  For instance, after I told them to never, ever allow my grandchildren to be aborted and that I would raise them myself if I had to, Sarah said, "How about I give you my baby and you raise it until it's about three or four years old and starts to be a decent person, and then I'll take it back." 

Not surprisingly, my favorite class in college was a literature class about short stories.  We read fantastic short stories and discussed them in class.  Since class participation was 50% of the final grade, everyone had to participate.  I still think about some of those stories to this day.  There was one called "Letter to a Young Lady in Paris" by Julio Cortazar.  I don't remember a thing about it except that I was skimming along the fairly boring story when all the sudden this line appeared: "I was going up in the elevator and just between the first and second floors I felt that I was going to vomit up a little rabbit."  Wait....what?!  I went back and reread that sentence, and it certainly grabbed me.  I don't remember any plot or characters or anything except the fact that this guy would occasionally puke up a live bunny and let it graze on his balcony, where he grew clover for them.

Another one that rocked my world was "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville.  Bartleby worked for a lawyer and did a great job and didn't bother anyone, until he was asked to do something above and beyond his usual tasks.  His reply was, "I would prefer not to."  Having always been a people-pleaser and authority-obeyer myself, I would never have dared to say anything like that to my boss or anyone else.  Bartleby became my hero for awhile. I tried to copy his line, but I was never really able to pull it off.  Bartleby did less and less as the story went on, and rather than fire him, the lawyer ended up moving his practice to another building.  Bartleby finally starved to death because he preferred not to eat.

The one that really blew my mind was "The Circular Ruins" by Jorge Borges.  All the characters turned out to be figments of other characters' imaginations.  The whole thing was a dream.  You're going along reading what you assume is a normal narrative, and then you realize the whole thing was a farce.  I felt betrayed, like someone had yanked the rug out from under me.  Then the professor said, "What if we're all just characters in someone else's dream?"  That actually still haunts me.