What You Missed

The Time Capsule experiment was informative and all but I missed real blogging.  Here’s what I would have posted on those days but in a more truncated format.

Day One.  I’ve lived in this house for nearly two years.  And for nearly two years, I have believed that the locks on all five of the window doors (does that make sense?  The doors that are glass instead of wood) don’t lock.  I figured it was a design flaw and that when we remodel in a year or ten, I’d replace them with doors that lock.  Call it naivety, call it cheap, call it irresponsible, but, yes, that means in the nearly two years that we have lived here, we have never been able to “lock up the house.”  Not at night.  Not on trips.  Never.  So far, so good.

Well, each of those locks are bolt locks underneath a lever handle and when you turn the bolt knob, nothing happens.  I’ve never claimed to be very handy or intuitive when it comes to how things work but I’m going to go out on a limb here and claim that if you see a knob for a lock underneath a handle, turning it should produce some sort of locking action.  Yes?  It doesn’t on these doors hence unlocked doors for two years.

Last Thursday, my son’s friend came over and while they were out on the trampoline, they left the door to the deck open and when I went to close it, it wouldn’t close.  The bolt lock was out and hitting on the jamb, preventing it from fully shutting.  The bolt was out!  How did it get out?  I turned the knob.  Nothing.  As any intuitively fix-it-challenged lady might do, I started simultaneously furiously turning the knob while pulling up and down the the lever handle.  It turned.

I played around with it while the door was closed.  It locked.  Apparently, all I needed to do these past two years to be safe was to raise the lever handle and THEN turn the bolt knob.  Because that is how these doors lock.  All of them.  So, if you were ever thinking of breaking into to my home to rob us, you’re too late.  Uh-oh!  Someone learned how to lock their doors! (said in the voice of Happy Gilmore learning how to putt.  It’s my husband’s fault that I know that movie at all).



Knob turned to the right to lock.  Doesn’t lock.




Door handle lifted up.  Door locks.  Obviously!

Day Two.   I rediscovered a CD in my car that I haven’t listened to in months.  Track five is Florence and the Machine’s Cosmic Love and I just can’t get enough of it.  The drums!  The harp!  The belting!  It made me miss singing so badly.  I don’t even really sing like her - in that style - but I couldn’t help repeating the song over and over and singing out as loud as I could in my car.  Of course, I don’t understand all of the lyrics but once I get a general vowel sound going, I'm good.  I’ve never been a lyric perfectionist.  You say tomato.  I say ah-ah-oh.  Moral of the story is:  I want to sing!  Loudly (or softly if the song called for it) and with emotion.  Wearing sequins would be a plus but it’s not necessary.  Preferably, loud (or soft) emotive singing would be done without the bad ward choir.  But,  I fear it’s not going to happen.



Disclaimer:  I had never seen this video before searching for it to add along with this blog post.  Love the song but ne’er fret, my wishing does not include wearing a pair of cut out leggings.


Day Three.  Second trimester report cards came home.  I am so pleased that each of my school-aged boys are blessed with the kind of intelligence that makes school less of an academic struggle.  Seth got all A’s and one B and the B was the direct result of missing assignments.  The middle school has a website for parents to log on and check grades and assignments and towards the end of the trimester, Seth was missing all kinds of assignments.  Some he had forgotten to turn in.  Some he just didn’t do.  I was emailing teachers and turning into the worst sort of nag but all of his grades came up once he turned in the work he is perfectly capable of understanding and doing.  But, some of the reading assignments were from newspaper articles he couldn’t find again and, thus, the B.  So, while I am pleased that Seth is intelligent, there is an exasperation that he is so disorganized.  We’re working on it.  I’m proud of him making the Honor Roll even though I’ll never, ever display those sentiments on the bumper of my car.




Seth gets his certificate and window decal from his group of core class teachers.



Immediately goes and acts cool with his buddies.  Totally ignoring the embarrassing lady with the camera nearby.

Sam had no problems.  He is bright and organized.  In fact, it annoyed me a bit to get his report card because his teacher almost universally marked his grades as “3”s which, translated, means, “achieves target” (2s are “approaching target" and 4s are “applies at a higher level”.  1s are “requires assistance”) even though he gets pulled out of her class every single day to do differentiated math, reading and language arts with the G/T teacher.  How can he be doing above grade level work outside of her class and still be “at grade level?”  He has completely different spelling words than the rest of the class.  He frequently comes home with some random math puzzler worksheet (like complicated sudoko or multiplying fractions) that is really hard and has nothing to do with what he’s currently learning but is her way of challenging him, I guess. I’m not trying to be obnoxious and I do like his teacher for making the effort to push Sam academically, but if he’s above grade level - give him the 4!  I know he’ll have them on his next report card and my guess is that by waiting to give him a 4, this teacher believes the raising of the grade will somehow reflect her awesome teaching abilities.  Perhaps a cynical and bloated opinion of a biased parent but my opinion nonetheless.

Henry’s report card makes me smile.  Henry, Henry, Henry.  For years, I was worried about Henry having a learning disability.  With his speech delay, it was hard to know what he knew.  Thankfully, I’ve learned that he is very bright.  He does have some other delays, like trouble with his fine motor skills, and the normal boys lengthy attention span delay, but he’s doing well.  Getting all 2s and 3s.  He did pull a couple of “N”s, however.  I remember a few Ns in my own elementary heyday.  Mine were in “avoids unnecessary talking.”  Apparently, I’ve always been wordy.  Henry gets his “N”eeds improvement in “does quality work” and “demonstrates consistent effort.”  His teacher has been on my case about Henry’s deficiencies in both these areas all year.  She is not a big Henry fan.  One of her main gripes is that he does not take the time or seem to care about coloring inside the lines.  He also does not use enough variation in his colors.  One purple or brown crayon will usually do!  I happen to think that pretty colorful pictures are not all that essential to one’s education but I am not a Kindergarten teacher so what do I know.  This comment on one of his take-home papers made me laugh.  Don’t overdo the high praise!  We wouldn’t want Henry to get a big head now!




I guess accolates like “Good Job!” and “Terrific!” are out of vogue in the Kindergarten world.

Day Four:  Did you read the news article about Tide laundry detergent being a target of thieves?  I guess there’s a black market for it.  Let me repeat that.  There is a black market for laundry detergent.  Having white whites and bright colors has joined the seedy underworld of drug trafficking, guns and prostitution.  I buy Tide.  I’ve also learned via Pinterest that blue Dawn dishwashing liquid solves just about all of the world’s problems.  I bet that’s the next at-risk item.  Good thing I have figured out how to lock my doors.

Day Five:   We had to do throw-downs in the body sculpting class I went to.  If you remember from back in my Biggest Loser posting days, this exercise is performed by lying on your back and holding onto the ankles of someone who is standing above your head.  That person “throws down” your legs and you try to keep them from touching the floor, bringing them back up for another throw down.

I had a baby 12 weeks ago.  I have no abdominal muscles.  Imagine my shame when I was the last of the 12 people in the class to complete the exercise.  The shame didn’t come from being last but from the eleven spectators thinking they were helping me by clapping and cheering, “Come on, Lucy!  You can do it!” while I struggled.  Sometimes, being supportive is overrated.  Sometimes, you just need to look away.