Wheel of Fortune

Click on the title of this post to find the #1 song in the country on the day you were born. For me it was Wheel of Fortune by Kay Star.

Find yours and leave it as a comment to this post.

Storytime

Here are some books you must read aloud to your children, emphasis on MUST and ALOUD. They are in no particular order and some of them are appropriate for preschoolers and some are not. They are mostly for children of school age since I read them to children in grades K-4 primarly. You may add your own favorites as comments if you like and I will also add more as I remember them. I must confess that it has been at least 8 years since I've read aloud to a group of children on a regular basis, so the new books are not on my list.

* Hester in the Wild by Sandra Boynton - It's funny.
*Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells - It teaches you to not take yourself too seriously by being funny.
*The Talking Eggs by Robert San Souci - you get to say "You got a spirit of "do right in your soul" , "trail train dresses" and "she took her head off to comb her hair." A classic fairy tale set in the deep American South.
* Brave Irene by William Stieg - Irene qualifies for a heroine by any standards and Stieg can make you weep with pathos while he's making you groan at his melodrama.
* Dr. DeSoto by William Steig. The small mouse dentist, out of compasion, treats a fox with a bad toothache. You get to say "mmmmm how good they would be sauted with a dry, white wine" , "permeate the dentine" and "frank u berry mush." Steig's books celebrate the power of the small and powerless to overcome evil by being armed with their innocence and their native wit.
*Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" ditto on the pathos and melodrama. I swear one little boy was near tears over the plight of Sylvester, a donkey who had turned into a rock by wishing on a magic pebble. I had to rush to finish so he would know it had a happy ending. (Stieig's style is simple and eloquent)
*CDB by Willam Steig - read this one as soon as your child learns his/her alphabet so s/he can read a book by him/herself.
*Redwall by Brian Jacques. The first two chapters are a study of style by describing ultimate innocence and ulitmate evil . Also read the chapters about the hero living with the sparras. I can still remember the battle and I haven't read the book for 15 years.
*Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - Huck Finn channels Ulysses. Afer running away from a loveless foster home, Maniac looks for a home of his own. You get to say " Maniac, Maniac, he's so cool, Maniac Maniac kissed a bull."
*Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman. I have no idea why the kids liked this book. I hated it. They would listen spellbound, I was internally yawning.
*BFG by Roald Dahl. You get to talk funny because the big, friendly giant says things backwards and he drinks fizzy lifting drinks. The bubbles in the drink go from top to bottom, so instead of making you burp, they make you . . . . .
*Witches by Roald Dahl. You get to talk with a Swedish accent as the grandmother and then do some really nasty, evil accent as the Witch. Plus the little boy in the story is brave and clever and a good role model.

The Night the House Didn't Burn Down

First of all, there was no fire, never was a fire. Relax.

About a week ago, the end of the Thanksgiving Weekend, we were sleeping soundly when an alarm went off in the house. Thinking that it was the alarm clock, I reached up to turn it off. I hit the button that usually turns it off and then hit a few other buttons. My husband finally said, "I think it's the smoke alarm." Then the alarm stopped. I went back to sleep. It had been a long weekend. I was tired. It went off again and again I tried to turn off the alarm clock, hitting buttons in a futile attempt to stop the noise so I could go back to sleep. Once more the noise stopped and I went back to sleep. When it happened again, my husband got up to turn off the smoke alarm. It had happened before, that the alarm went off when there was no reason for it to go off. Before it had been a big bug or dust or something like that. The alarm is plugged into the wall, so there are no batteries to change. When he came back to bed he said, " I unplugged it." "Good. Was there any smoke?" "I didn't check." So he got back up to make sure there wasn't any smoke. There wasn't. We went back to sleep until the "real" alarm went off at 6:00. I turned it off with no problem and I went back to sleep. It had been a long night. I was tired. About 6:30, my husband came in and said, "It's late, 6:30." I groaned and got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed and went to the kitchen to see if I had time for breakfast. My husband took his turn in the shower. I looked at the kitchen clock to see if I had time for breakfast and it was 5:55! What! Don't tell me the battery int he kitchen clock died ! I check several other clocks in the house and they all had variations of 5:55. It seems that in my attempts to turn off the alarm clock I had reset the time. So not only was the night's sleep broken by smoke alarms, but we were up, showered and dressed an hour early!!!!!! It was a long day.

But the house didn't burn down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who's bringing the cranberry sauce?

D'oh!

So I get to work about my usual time, 7:45. The clock on the wall says about 5:50 or there abouts. I notice it and say to self, "Huh, the clock must have stopped. Probably the battery died." I go into my office where I have an "atomic" clock and it's about 7:50. I get my computer fired up and check mail, voice messages on the phone and the phone rings.

It's my fellow office worker who lives in Lame Deer. She says, "I'm running late, the power was off last night, my alarm didn't go off and I overslept."

"Oh," I say. "That explains the clock being off." Then I notice that the clock now says 6:oo and there is a cord hanging down the wall. Not dead batteries. Back to my desk I go. Gotta get things done. Phone rings again. It's about 8:00 by now.

"Hi, Ann. I'm trying to log on to READ 180 and it says it can't connect."

"Oh,the power was off. Maybe the server didn't reset yet. I'll get it." D'OH!!!!! None of the servers are on yet! They're all waiting patiently to be turned on, logged on or reset. The phone starts ringing in ernest now. Nothing is working and people are starting to log on.

Moral of the story. Next time I get to work and the clock "died" CHECK THE SERVERS! On the other hand. If no one knew the servers were off, how would they know how clever I was to turn them back on?????

I Earned MY Highschool Diploma

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high!

Me Three

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
Boston
The Northeast
The West
The Inland North
The South
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Week's End UPdaTe

I had an interesting weekend. On Saturday I got up and decided that this would be the weekend I finally finish, once and for all, my Lego Star War game I got for Christmas. I had finished quite a bit, but had left the "hard bits" for last. Mostly the racing levels. I stink at racing. Well, today, I finished all the levels at "True Jedi" level, which unlocked the extra level and two new characters. I'd amassed so many gold legos playing the epidsodes over and over to get all the "kits" that I could buy the last two characters. Ta Da! Not many of my games do I get to beat like that. All the levels, all the extras, all the unlockables.

In between playing sessions, to give my hands a break, we went to Colstrip to the annual Christmas Bazaar. Didn't find too much, a lot of the stuff isn't handmade any more, but I did find two new pinky rings. Can't have too many pinky rings. And they are handmade. I also managed to work in the usual weekend house chores, so I can't feel guillty about spending so much time with the video game and pinky rings.

Tomorrow after work, I leave for Billings where I'll spend the night before heading out to a workshop that involves my job training. All in all it was a good week end. I just wish that my hobby didn't involve using the same sore hand I have to use so much for work all week. I keep looking for a "gamer's glove" with built in ice packs. If anyone knows how to get my hand in one, let me know.

Have a great week!

Free Rice

No registering, no signing up, no commitment. Just answer some fact-type, study for your ACT type questions and for every answer you get correct, someone donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Come one, you know you like it. Might as well feel virtuous about sitting at the computer a few minutes longer.

Just click on the title of this post.

Grace in Defeat

I 'm listening to John McCain's concession speech. If this John McCain had been visible during the last months of the campaign instead of the John McCain we DID see, it would have been a closer race.

Daylight Saving Time

I've said it before and I'm saying it again. I'd vote for the candidate whose only promise was to end daylight saving time forever or end the electoral college, two concepts whose time is past.

WeEkenD UPdaTe

Well, I had a busy and rewarding weekend. I went into Billings Friday afternoon and had a delicious dinner with my dad at a dinner following a business meeting he attended. It was good food and good company, what else do you need? The next morning I had breakfast with aunt, uncle, cousins and two very friendly dogs. Then some shopping and a late lunch, more shopping and home again. Trips to Billngs tend to have a lot of family meals and shopping. I enjoy the family meals, but the shopping......not so much. It's just that living as far away from stores as we do, shopping in "big cities" is a neccessity, not a pleasure. I have gotten quite good at online shopping, but sometimes you just have to try something on, and as yet, they don't deliver cat food and toothpaste online. Maybe someday soon some one, somewhere will invent one of those replicator thingys like on Star Trek and I won't have to shop in Billings at all, just spend time with family!

Experiments in Telecomuting

This summer when gasoline prices starting spiraling upwards, those of us who commute to work started talking about ways to save gas$$$. One of the ideas was to continue working 4/10 hour days as we did in the summer. I liked the idea of 4/10 but the reality was that I was worn out on Friday and didn't get much done at all. The other idea was to stay home and to my work from there. After all one "data monkey cage" is much like another. It turns out that all I've done this week is data entry and fact checking for our state report called "fall count." All my programs are web-based so that's not an issue. Today was a perfect time to give it a try. It was actually not much difference for me. It was just as tiresome and boring as it was when I drive 25 miles to work. The difference was that I didn't have to shower if I didn't want to, (I didn't) and I could putz around a little before "going to work." When the quitting bell sounded. I could just log off my school program and start blogging. No 25 mile drive home with all the stops in town to get mail or milk. As far as I"m concerned I could stay home a couple of days a month and get as much done as I would at work and gain the above mentioned benefits. With winter approaching, another advantage would be to avoid the nasty, icy, slippery roads and the snow drifts that make my drive up the hill an "adventure in sliding." Of course I don't know if the people at work even noticed that I was gone. If not.....it may not be such a good thing.

Maverick

Did I hear right? A TEAM of Mavericks? What part of Maverick doesn't she understand? A Maverick is a LONE dissenter who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates. If you are in a group you can't, by definition, be a maverick. Who wants a Maverick in the White House anyway? I should think that we'd want a leader in the White House. Someone who is going to work with others to achieve a common destination, not someone who is going to go off on his own at cost of the rest of the us. Suppose the maverick values his "maverickness" so much that he appoints a lot of "mavericks" to his cabinet. He picked one as his "sidekick." What do we have then? A lot of people going their own way to prove that they are independent and refusing to work with any one, or a stampede to get to the head of the line to prove that he/she is a leader. No, I don't think we need a "maverick" in the Whitehouse. He is not going to convience me with that argument.

Banned Books Week.

It's Banned Books WeeK! Hurry, don't miss it! Read a book that was challenged or banned. Click on the title above for a list of books if you don't have a favorite banned book to read. Or just do a search for banned books, there are, unfortunately hundreds of banned books to choose from.

Can You Guess Where I'm From?

I found this link on the JWalk Blog. It's a game where a bunch of people from all over are speaking English with accents from there own country. Not all of the countries are English speaking countries though. I got 21 measly points. What's your score?


http://www.languagetrainersgroup.com/accent_game.html

Take 2

Meet Trixie

Meet Trixie, a data monkey like me. She was put together this week and accessorized today. She has the requisite two hands for typing and cutting/pasting from one database or spreadsheet to another. Like me she has highlights in her hair and is addicted to costume jewelry. She is going to join me in the office tomorrow to remind me how to have fun at work.

Self Portrait

How many times has this happened to you, ladies? You go to the salon and spend a few hours getting a new hair doo and then the next day, you cannot make it look like it did when you walked out of the salon?

Vacation Day?

I had yesterday off, but I'm not sure it was a vacation day or a medical leave. I guess it was both. I had to go to the dentist yesterday to get an impression made so I can get a removeable appliance to keep me from clenching my teeth together in my sleep. It's gotten so bad my ears buzz and wake me up. Anyway the procedure at the dentist made me gag horribly so I needed the rest of the day to decompress.

I had an early lunch with a good friend of mine and we talked about other old freinds, not gossip, I swear, just catching up. We talked about politics and agreed on just about everything so that wasn't a long conversation. Then I went to my hair appointment to get a "new doo" , but no one has noticed yet, so I could have saved my $$$$, but then it does feel better to me, so I guess it was worth it. Not much of a vacation, but it was a break from the routine.