Six Nations

Six Nations rugby is coming to BBC America again this year :-) Hmm - it conflicts with DS's basketball . . . What to do, what to do? (And no, we don't have a DVR!)

I have to say, BBC America's Trivia Quiz on rugby is a bit pathetic. The correct answers are blindingly obvious, even if you know nothing about rugby. I suspect the goal is to make Americans feel confident that they know enough about the sport to be able to watch it.

The good news this morning

1. Although the temperature is minus 28˚C this morning, it doesn't feel any colder than that because there is currently no wind chill.
2. The insulated window shades seem to be working - because otherwise the heat from the house would have prevented the ice building up on the (double-glazed) windows, right?
3. I tried the throwing boiling water into the freezing air experiment (see previous post) and it worked!

I'm beginning to hate winter

I spent 2 hours on Saturday morning outside our local supermarket helping my daughter's Girl Scout troop sell crack cookies. I thought I was never going to warm up again! I suppose it was worth it as they sold a box a minute. We then spent an hour and a half in the afternoon walking from door to door trying to get our neighbors to buy cookies too. Our rate of boxes sold per minute was much lower :-( Ah well, it was all in a good cause even if I do lose my toes!

We had yet another snow day last Friday (that makes 3 so far this year.) I was just looking at the weather forecast for this week, and with snow forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday I am doubtful that we'll get a full work week in. I wouldn't mind except for the fact that we have to make the time up in June anyway.

Of more pressing concern is how to dress for the wait for the school bus tomorrow. The bus arrives at the end of our street sometime between 7:12 and 7:25, so there is really no avoiding having to stand out in the cold and wait. But look at the temperatures for Monday morning at 7 a.m.:

The only day I wasn't cold at the bus stop last week was the day I wore my snowpants, so I think that's what will be called for tomorrow.

The kids will be off the wall tomorrow though as it will be indoor recess because of the temperatures. I think this calls for an after-school trip to the YMCA!

Ooh - maybe it will be cold enough for DH to try doing this - he really wants to try it!

Working up a sweat in the cold

As it's MLK Day, there is no school today. I was determined not to have the children stay inside watching TV all day (as they would if I gave them the choice of what to do) so we headed off to one of the local schools that has a great hill for sledding. DD spent 2 hours there yesterday with her Girl Scout troop. We got there a little later than I had planned, but that's OK as it was a holiday after all. We were very surprised to find few other people there - some of the time the hill looked like this:

This photo makes the hill look less steep than it really is. Plus, the section on the left that you see DD climbing was well packed down from the weekend's sledding, so it was icy and very fast.

I had (for once) planned ahead and brought a flask of hot chocolate and some snacks, so we had those after an hour. At that point I took the outer layer of my winter coat off as I was just too hot. The kids and I all worked up quite a sweat trekking up the hill, and even standing around in the sunshine at the bottom of the hill was quite pleasant so long as you weren't sitting on the snow. It wasn't until we were on our way home that I noticed what the temperature was on this glorious, too nice to stay inside, day: 17˚F (that's minus 8˚C!) You see, the cold is just fine if you're doing the right things and are appropriately dressed for it!

A bit parky

A few days ago Sarah was commenting that it was a bit parky in Oklahoma. I was feeling quite happy that it was warmer here up north. Not any more. It was -10 degrees Fahrenheit at 9 a.m. this morning. Brrrr! And just look at the forecast for the next week - ooh, look, it's going to be much warmer on Tuesday :-)

In Fahrenheit

In Celsius

I'm very glad I don't live somewhere that gets REALLY cold in the winter - the kind of place where you have to plug an engine block heater in to make sure your car's engine will start in the morning!

P.S. Did you notice the inconsistency in those screen shots -  the temp. was minus 10, but the weather forecast was still for a low for the day of 17. My maths is bad, but isn't that a 27 degree difference? Quite an error margin!

What's on your fridge?

The fridge was just a fridge when I was growing up. Nowadays, we decorate our fridges with magnets, kids' artwork, postcards, calendars, phone lists . . . and the fridge has become more than just an appliance. It says a lot about the people who live in the house. I'd been meaning to do a blog post on this for a while now, but Crankymonkeys beat me to it. So, in answer to her question "What's on your fridge?", here's my fridge. We seem to have rather more magnets than anything else! (The images are clickable for larger versions.)

Merry Christmas!

No snow here, but it still feels like Christmas.

Thanks again to LJB at Crankymonkeys for some new ornaments for the tree! Santa brought a couple of new ones too - the red and white baubles with writing on them.

I like Crankymonkeys in London

LBJ at Crankymonkeys in London had a giveaway of some Christmas ornaments and I won! It made my day - thanks LBJ!

If you haven't visited her blog, check it out - she's an expat who grew up in Estonia and then the USA. She moved to Australia as an adult, but now lives in London with her husband and two children. I only found her blog fairly recently, but I've added it to my list of must-reads.

Stripping with the Stars

Colleagues at work are obsessed with TV programs like Dancing with the Stars and get into protracted conversations at lunchtime over who they think should be voted off the show next. Personally, I couldn't care less about shows like that. I found this spoof quite funny though:

Tagged

Kathryn at Marmite and Fluff tagged me.
The rules are:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.  Done.
2. Paste these rules on your blog post.  Done.
3. Respond to the following prompts (in bold).  Done.
4. Add a prompt of your own and answer it. Hmm - in the interest of getting this post completed this year, I'm going to skip this step.
5. Tag a few other bloggers at the bottom of the post. Done (kind of).
6. Leave "Tagged You" notices on their blog/Facebook. 
7. Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post. Done


1) The best investment you ever made:
The time spent getting to know my husband when we were dating. Because of my work schedule, it was often difficult to get to see each other, but we spent a lot of time on the phone, chatting online and emailing each other. Next best investment - travelling as much as I could while I was young and single, even though the list of places I want to see is still very long.

2) If you could’ve written any book, directed any movie, and composed any song, which three would you pick:
Simply because of the money it generated and the change it made in JK Rowling's lifestyle, I wish I had written the Harry Potter series. From the impact his work has had over the generations, I wish I had written anything by Shakespeare. Which movie and song do I wish I had written? Hmm - that's harder as movies and songs are not as important in my life as books. Maybe Picnic at Hanging Rock, for a movie (though I haven't seen it in years and it may not be what I remember!) and something by the Beatles for a song.

3) Weirdest quirk:  
DH says that would be my . . . SQUIRREL!! . . . tendency to get easily distracted. I don't think that's weird - I know lots of people with ADD! I'm sure there are plenty of other people who would take 10 days or more to answer the questions in this meme!

4) One wish immediately granted:
Decent, affordable, health care coverage for everyone.

5) Most expensive hobby
Jewelry making or knitting. Jewelry making - obvious - even making your own jewelry is not cheap if you have expensive tastes. No silver-colored or gold-colored beads and findings thank you, I want the real thing! Yarn is stupidly expensive nowadays, though thanks to Ravelry and growing confidence in my own design abilities, I haven't had to buy any patterns in a while.

6) An inexhaustible gift card at which store
The Apple store or my local yarn store.

7) In another lifetime, you'd be:
More athletic.

8) The most famous/interesting member of your family tree:
No one particularly famous in our family tree that I know of, but my mother has some interesting stories about her great-grandmother, Hettie:

"her sons would bring their best clothes to my grandma’s house … if they left  them at home, Hettie took them to the pawn shop to get cash for drink.
On one occasion she was badly burnt when she tipped a pan of boiling  porridge on her lap… she was sitting by the fire brewing the stuff, when she tipped it down herself.  There was an implication that she was the worse for drink when it happened, because despite  extensive damage to lower abdomen and thighs, she was reported to feel no great  pain."

9) The most famous person you've ever met:
King Hussein of Jordan. He died too young.

If you're looking for blog fodder and feel like answering these questions, consider yourself tagged, but don't forget to let me know when your post is up!

Christmas shopping

I am one of those mothers who likes to take her kids to museums for fun and buy her kids educational toys. Fortunately, most of the time my kids seem to like this! Our trip to the UK this summer had a Roman theme - Bath, Chedworth Roman Villa, Roman tour of Chester, Wroxeter Roman city . . . So when I saw that the British Museum shop has a free shipping offer on right now - including to overseas addresses - I had to take a look. Oh dear! I could spent quite a lot of money there, and not just on the children! Well, I'm sure I could get some of those things here in the US, but some of the things I like  are British Museum exclusives. Hmm - may have to browse some more and put a wish list together!

By the way, if you click on my link to the shop and end up buying something there, you could help defray my expenses shopping there as I do get a commission on purchases made in the next ten days through my link.

Sorry? What did you say?

English teachers in non-English-speaking countries face the dilemma of which English to teach. Often their school will have a preference for English English or American English, usually based on the textbooks they are using. I remember when I was at university in France one of the lecturers telling me that the way I pronounced 'bath' was wrong because I had a northern accent rather than the 'BBC accent' he wanted his students to learn. Equally, my lecturers back in the UK were a little taken aback when I returned from my year in France with a very strong southern French accent. Given that most people will retain something of a 'foreign' accent when they learn a second language, the most important thing to my mind is to be able to make yourself understood.

My accent has changed since I first came to the United States 25 years ago. It happened partly because as a language teacher I find myself naturally mimicking the accents of those around me. (That sometimes gets me into trouble as people think I'm taking the mickey!) Mostly though it has been a conscious choice to try to change my accent. I got thoroughly fed up of people asking me to repeat myself when I thought I was being perfectly clear. It was just faster and less frustrating to say it the American way. It also didn't hurt to sound more, rather than less, American when I was looking for employment as an English as a Second Language teacher here in the United States. My colleagues occasionally comment on my accent, and on rare occasions I  hear my students say something with an English accent (and I then 'correct' them!) One of my colleagues though has a strong accent from the south of the USA, which is just as alien to the northeast as my accent is - and I hear her students picking up her accent!

I suppose schools and universities in some countries may prefer Australian English. I can't think of any that would prefer Scottish English though ;-)

Fun with a sharp knife

Every Halloween we decorate our front step with carved pumpkins. When I say 'we', I really mean DH. I buy the pumpkins, but he's always the one that carves them. He does such a good job it has never occurred to me to help other than by helping to remove the guts from the pumpkins. I rarely even make suggestions about what the pumpkin face should look like, for fear of asking for something too difficult to execute.

Something got into me tonight though - guilt perhaps, that DH always does all the work carving the pumpkins? Or simply some enthusiasm for attacking something with a sharp knife? (It's been a long, busy, and stressful week!) DH was asking the children what kind of designs they would like on their pumpkins this year, and I decided to look for some inspiration online.  I found lots of pictures of spectacular pumpkins, but decided that for my first attempt at pumpkin carving perhaps I'd better stick to something simple.

After looking at some simpler designs though, I came to the conclusion that they were really rather boring. We have a neighbor across the street who puts out a dozen or so very nicely carved pumpkins every year, and I don't want to lower the standards in the neighborhood! Thinking I'd probably bitten off more than I could chew, I finally got started. DD gave me a felt pen, and I drew a rough outline of what I wanted. I'm really not a very artistic person, and I knew that the contours of the pumpkin were going to distort my image somewhat, so I really thought as I got started that the pumpkin was more likely to end up in the compost pile than back out on the front step.

After I got done, and went on to carve the design DD had drawn on her pumpkin, DH decided that the carving will be my job from now on. I'm thinking maybe we should have more pumpkins next year . . .

My owl

DD's spider

DH's ghost

DS's pumpkin

Top 5 Genius Ways to Improve the UK

Logical child

I let DS play some games on my iPod Touch one time when we were waiting at the doctor's office and ever since then he begs me on a regular basis to be allowed to borrow my iPod. After a playdate with a classmate, he told me that he wants Santa to bring him a Nintendo DS this year but then he started asking about their relative costs and changed his mind. Now his plan is to buy a Nintendo DS with his own money - presumably money he hopes to get as presents for birthday or Christmas, seeing as I don't give him regular pocket money. The reason why he'd rather buy one himself? Well, he found out that iPods are a lot more expensive, so he wants Santa to bring him an iPod instead! I'm very torn because the games he likes to play on the iPod are things like Numbl and Shift - games that make you think! However, given that I've already cracked the screen on my iPod, I think he's going to have to wait a while before he gets one of his own - and his thinking skills are clearly already well developed anyway, aren't they?

The geography of prejudice . . .

 . . . or the mapping of stereotypes, from visual artist, graphic designer and illustrator Yanko Tsvetkov's blog. (Go to his blog to see other maps he's created.)
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Europe according to Britain

Europe according to the USA

Disabled access

When we were at Chessington, I saw this sign at the top of a flight of stairs. I couldn't read it at first, so went a little closer.



Hmm - is it just me, or is it unusual to have handicapped access via a flight of stairs?



Actually, one of the things I was impressed by at Chessington was that in addition to specifying the minimum height required for each ride, there was information about the degree of mobility required. Although to get on many of the rides, you clearly needed to be able to walk or at least get yourself into your seat, for others there was simply a requirement that once seated you be able to hold yourself upright unaided. It's years since I've been to a theme park in the USA, but I would hope that the ADA laws would ensure the same kind of clarity over here.

To feed or not to feed the ducks?

Blue Planet Aquarium was selling food for visitors to feed to the ducks.



But right next to the vending machine full of duck food was this sign:

Poor kitties!

The children were so stunned by these signs at the side of the road in the UK that they took pictures of them.

Disoriented

It was a strange feeling to be back in the UK after so long (over 4 years) away. It didn't exactly feel like home any more but it wasn't exactly foreign either. It was more like coming home to your own house to find that someone had redecorated and changed some of the furniture while you were away.