7 Quick Takes

1.  Blogging may have been light, but writing has not been.  This week The Book of Penelope got an outline. (Ye Gads!)  She also got two parallel themes.  There are index cards with semi-legible writing on them outlining the journey of the Odyssey with the simultaneous "Meanwhile back at the ranch" plot lines.  She grew from 25k to 31.7 in a week. 

2.  Writing may have been heavy but I'm not.  I've enlisted my second daughter as a personal trainer. She is ruthless. She is motivated, and she gets to boss me around.  I've done 600 more sit ups than I have since I took consecutive years of gym. 

3.   Hello, I'm your mother and I'll be driving you today.  This week we started summer school and so I've been dropping Paul off at one school, Regina off at another, and of course, both start at the same time.  Why oh why have I not received the gift of bi location?

4.  It's less than a week from another birthday.  My son turns 14.  It's funny. When I gave him a sheet of paper and a pen and said, "What do you want?" he drew a blank and wrote chocolate chip cookie dough.  I have some ideas and I'm sure he'll think of some before long, but it was neat that he felt at home enough to simply not have a known heart's desire that he lacked. 

5.  This week, we also ventured into the great unknown, podcasting. Sometimes I get motor mouthed, and the desire to use metaphor to illustrate effect is a favorite tool of mine.  I do wish I'd been a touch more reflective and choosy with my words but for a first try, they liked it.  I'll post it here when it is done being edited.  

6.   Puns.  The other night, we were having dinner and started fruit punning. I can't remember how my daughter got durian to work but we did orange, kiwi, dragon, apple, grape, quince, apricot, cherry, berry, and banana. I do remember my son complaining about not being able to think of some choice ones. He was massaging words to craft one around star fruit.  I told him I was surprised it had stumped him. I'd thought he would be my star fruit punner.  Then I ran out of the room and called it a day. 

7.  Today, my two year old was playing with dolls. She placed the baby in a high chair and went back to the other room.  She brought back a math computer my older daughter owns for multiplication drills.  She opened it up like a laptop, patted the baby doll's head and started typing.  It might be time to put the laptop away.