The Eli Chronicles: Part One

(as interviewed by my wife, Brooke)

If you could have one super power what would it be?

Ummmm….a transformer.

What chore did you do last?

Ummmmm….I played with my costumes.

 

What is your favorite song?

Ummmmmmmmm….Jingle Bells.

How do you get to school?

Ummm…on Monday.

What is Daddy really good at?

Stories.

 What can you do better than Daddy?

Play.

What’s the nicest thing you’ve done lately for someone in our family?

Drawing.

 

How are you like Mommy?

We feel bad cause we can’t fly.

How are you different from Mommy?

You wash your hands.

 How old is Mommy?

America Junior!

 

Thanks to my community

I’d just like to take a moment to thank everyone who contributed to this blog in the month of January. I always love reading your comments, and I hope you feel appreciated!  The sense of community is what I like most about blogging. So thank you for your participation and I hope to hear fromall of you again soon.

Links below the fold!

Change

“Change” has become the buzzword of this Presidential election season.  Candidates are trying to convince voters that they are the best agents of change.  Also, we’ve just completed January, a month where many of us resolved to change aspects of our own lives.

YourTurn:  Now that January’s over, how are you doing on any New Year’s resolutions you made?

The Eva Chronicles: Part Three

If you were a teacher, what subject would you teach?

Art. I like doing art. Sometimes, I think I’m an artist because I draw a lot of pretty pictures. And I kiss my brain sometimes.

When will be a grown up?

I’ll be a grown up… let’s see. (Goes back to wall where she measured her height.) I’m this short now. I’ll keep going until I’m right there (indicates) and then I’ll be a grown-up. I’ll be eight hundred when I grow up. And then, I’ll die.

What do you like best about kindergarten?

Playing. I like playing in the house… the restaurant house. I play with Shannon, Brianna, Cheyenne, Mackenzie, and Taylor. Everybody wants to get in there, but only five or six can get in there. One time, there were over six! I thought it was going to be one thousand.

If you could go anywhere in the world to visit, where would you go?

To the movies in St. Louis. I would go shopping.

What’s your favorite thing about going to church?

Prayer requests. We tell people to pray for pets and stuff like that.

What’s something that we should do more often?

Talk about girl stuff. Barbies, Polly Pockets, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, you know…

If you had a million dollars, what’s the first thing you would buy?

Six hundred and eighty pups. They’re so cute! They’re little baby puppies and they’re so cute. I don’t want them to grow. They’re too cute! Wouldn’t you want that many pups? Because it would take those pups a long time to grow. I also like big dogs, but little pups are cuter. “Whoah! Whoah! Slow down. That would be a lot of pups.” Ha! I’m pretending somebody else said that.

The Eva Chronicles: Part Two

What will you wish for on your next birthday?

That people from far, far away that love me will come to my birthday party.

What is your favorite treat?

Going to the movies and getting popcorn and a Sprite.

What’s your favorite game to play?

ZINGO.

How tall do you want to be when you grow up?

Let’s see. (Demonstrates against the wall.) I’m this tall. (Measures, then stretches her arm all the way up.) I want to be THAT tall! I want to actually be as tall as Mommy. No wait. I actually want to be taller than Daddy. Hmmm. I want to be Eleven size.

What job do you want to have when you grow up?

Hard to decide. A ballet teacher and a scrapbooker.

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Mashed potatoes and gravy!!!

If you could choose a different name for yourself, what would it be?

Princess Genevieve.

What rule in our house would you get rid of if you could?

Cleaning the whole entire house. It would would be better if there was a Champion who cleaned the house. The Champion would clean 669 rooms. The living room, the dining room… every single room in your house! That would be a lot of work to do.

A Worthwhile Project

I came across a very worthy project that I wanted to share:

Life is beautiful!

The author, Ingmar Weber, is trying to learn the phrase “life is beautiful” in as many languages as possible.  He is sharing the results of his project with us on his blog.  He’s also collecting recordings in different languages and dialects.

I wonder if Missouri Bootheel counts as a valid dialect?

The Eva Chronicles: Part One

What makes our family special?

We have our own house with Maisy.

Who in the world do you look like the most?

That would be Kit.

Name something you’re really good at.

Reading.

What is your favorite color?

Pink and orange and blue and yellow. Rainbow.

Name something you wish you were better at.

Running. Sometimes I’m a slowpoke.

Who is the smartest person you know?

Mrs. Scott.  (Her kindergarten teacher) She is older than me.

Who is the funniest person you know?

Kyle. He makes funny jokes. One time, we were picking up his crayons because he dropped them. And he got up and bumped his knee and he said “there goes the knee.” He’s a really funny guy. You should meet him.

Who is your best friend in the whole world?

Everybody. It’s hard to choose from one person in the whole wide world.

Famous

I’ve never really wanted to be famous. (Well except maybe for that brief period of time when I wanted to be a pro wrestling manager for the WWF.) Even though I love being on stage and involved with theatre, I never had any plans to “make it big.” In fact, fame really bothers me. I don’t understand why regular people get obsessed with fame and support the “celebrity gossip industry.” Why can’t I watch a news broadcast without the mentions of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan? Whatever they’re up to, it’s never any good. There are millions of people making destructive choices like theirs every day, so why do we need to somehow glorify them? It’s ghoulish and represents the worst of our society.

This is not to say that I don’t want to be known. I enjoy living in a smallish town and knowing quite a bit of people just due to the fact that I’m a teacher. I probably like this because I’ve always admired the fact that my dad seems to know people everywhere he goes, and they’re always glad to see him. When I get a little smile or handshake in the grocery store, I guess it makes me feel a little bit more like him.

I heard a great poem this week, and its final lines capture my concept of fame:

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

The poem is “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Does it surprise you, then, that one of my favorite movies is It’s a Wonderful Life? It’s so redeeming for me when the everyman George Bailey wins in the end, with all of the people he’s ever helped rallying to his rescue in his time of need. I guess that’s the kind of fame I’m hoping for. I hope that my life is making other people’s lives a little bit better, and that in the end I’m “famous” for that.

YourTurn:  What kind of “fame” are you working for in your life?  How do you hope others think of you now?  How do you want to be remembered?

(Disclaimer:  Sorry about the silly music at the end of the YouTube clip. It’s the only one I could find that started where I wanted it to start.) 

Frigorific

Did you know that “frigorific” means “chilling?”

If so, you might be able to outscore me at freerice.com.   I’m throwing down a challenge to all my readers:

• Don’t look at the comments yet! (I’ll put my best level in the comments section.)
• Go and play until you’ve donated at least 500 grains.
• Come back and post your top “level” and see if you can beat me.

Remember, it’s for a good cause.

Charity

“Charity sees the need not the cause.”

German Proverb

This summer I attended a workshop for debate teachers.  One of the unintended consequences of this workshop is that I have this nagging sense that I should be doing something to help those in poverty.  This is because we spent a lot of time discussing this year’s high school debate topic: “The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa.”

If you think for even just a little bit about the state of public health in some developing countries, the problems seem staggering. For example:

• Nearly 1 billion people live in substandard housing without clean water or adequate sanitation.

• 18 million children have already lost one or both parents to AIDS, 12 million of them are in Africa alone.

• Around the world, one person in seven goes to bed hungry each night.

• A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases related to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

Of course, the list goes on and on.

It is easy to think about all of the reasons why these problems exist and blame the corrupt governments, military warlords, wasteful organizations that don’t use donations efficiently, etc.

Yet the problems are still there, and people still suffer.  I feel guilty because I don’t have a lot of extra money to throw at those problems, but if I did I believe that would be my “cause.”  Combating poverty and all of its related problems keeps popping up as a burden on my heart.

In researching the issue today, I came upon the Free Rice site.  From what I can gather, it’s legitimate.  I’ve played quite a bit this afternoon and have even added an image link over in my sidebar to remind myself (and hopefully you) to play a little bit from time to time.

I’m going to keep thinking, researching, and praying about what I can do regarding this issue.  If you have any suggestions for me, please share them.

YourTurn:  What issue or cause do you care most deeply about?