Spokey-Pines

Do you know what those little poky-hairs are called on an ant? Neither did I. But according to Janie (as per her How Big! book), they are called:

spokey-pines

Yep. Perfect description.

She's a teenager. Finally.

Here's my girl. The original Weston girl. You know how you wished you could catch just a glimpse of your baby girl all grown up when you held them on your laps at 6 months old? This is the girl I saw back in 1997. Or perhaps she has even surpassed that imaginary prediction. Probably true.

Happy birthday Mads. I love you.

Birthday Wishes

ME: Janie, after your nap we are going shopping for Grandpa Bob's birthday present! What should we get him?

JANIE: How about a flying car?

(Can I get those on Amazon?)

$60k a Year can make you Happy

A noteable talk from TED 2010 (Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference. I thought this was very interesting.

$60K a year can make you happy

Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says millions of dollars won't buy you happiness, but a job that pays $60,000 a year might help.
Happiness levels increase up to the $60K mark, but "above that it's a flat line," he said.

"Money does not buy you experiential happiness but lack of money certainly buys you misery," he said. But the real trick, Kahneman said, is to spend time with people you like.

Welcome, 2010

Welcome 2010. I don't know exactly what you'll bring. Your little brother 2009 had a lot of surprises for me, but bring it on. I can't say that I have 'mom brain' anymore from lack of interaction or challenge. I may have 'busy brain' instead, but at least those synapses are humming. My vocabulary has sure expanded.

Terms that did not exist in my life prior to August 2009:

Skype
Twitter
Glogster
SlideRocket
VoiceThread
DimDim
Elluminate
BrainHoney
HighRise
Vimeo
Digication
Raptivity
Oovoo
Oneeko
Tweetdeck
Screencast
Jing
Camtasia
OER
Curriki
PLN
LMS

And now I use these (AMAZING) tools almost everyday. Guess I am now Sarah 2.0 (which is a play on Web 2.0, which you will probably have to google to get, but the joke still made me smile).

I actually carry a cellphone now (something I have never done before). I wrote my first grant. My favorite buy of the year is my Wacom Pen Tablet. I love my netbook; I want to go to Google Teacher Academy.

And I love that I get to be involved in education and still be at home with my girls. I could not have dreamed up this experience. And it could not have come at a better time.

The reality is, given the construction market, we would have sucked our savings dry without this job. This job fell into my lap at just the right time; and I can't imagine any other job I could have done to help support my family that also kept me home with my family. And to top it off, the tender mercies of the Lord being what they are, I was put in the position to take a job that instead of being a burden, would be a soul-satisfying-educational-fest of teaching and personal growth. Wow.

So what's next? I get excited about the future, but even more, I like looking back at the years, because it all just falls into a tableau of experiences that somehow make sense. What is chaos in the moment, is a carefully laid pattern from a distance.

And I am pleased with what Mark and I have created. Here's to the next few strands in my tapestry.

Wordle

Yeah, I know I don't post anymore. My computer time is now work time and non-computer time is Mark & girls time. Something had to go and my hours of wasted webcrawling is one of them. But this is super cool; it's called Wordle. This is a wordle made from my current blog page. I found it a fairly accurate map of my life right now :)

Graffiti

Signs that these girls are growing up:

Only 2 kids in diapers
I wash bottles only once a day
Upper rack of dishwasher completely filled with sippy cups--EVERY time
My walls are 20% covered in crayon

(And I am NOT kidding about the crayon. These kids are destroying my house. I have never ever ever had kids who wrote on walls before. Jane is practically a graffiti artist-- and the twins seem to be wanting to join her street gang. Word.)