This made me cry. Looking back at my own middle school experience I feel like most everyone was bullied at some point, and the kids who got bullied found other kids to pick on. It’s amazing we survived and turned into responsible adults. I am not looking forward to the middle school years.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37_ncv79fLA?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
I love this.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYyAa0VnyY?rel=0&w=640&h=390]
I’ve never given much thought to my smoke detectors other than a) making sure they have batteries, and b) trying to avoid having the fire department show up (again) when Ben burns the bacon. Well, I think it’s time we all gave them some thought.
One of the amazing things about social networking and blogging is the people you “meet” (virtually) along the way. My work blog will have over 6,000 visits this month. That’s a lot of connections. I made a connection last week with a fire chief in California, who is working incredibly hard along with some other passionate guys, to get the message out about photoelectric smoke detectors vs. ionization detectors.
The way I understand it, ionization detectors will sound if there is a flaming fire, but not if it’s just a smoking, smoldering fire. That’s obviously a problem since the window of opportunity to escape from a fire is before the flaming stage. The ionization detectors also sound false alarms frequently, leading people to remove the batteries so they are unprotected if there’s a fire. The World Fire Safety Foundation’s message is that ionization smoke detectors are not safe, and should be changed to photoelectric detectors.
Take 10 minutes and watch this video:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOaL84gbYE?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
And if you’re curious about the “Aquarium Test” mentioned in the video, here it is:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnlkiZC0dd0?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
Now, go check your smoke alarms.
All these years I’ve been w0rking out to try to get in shape…I can’t believe all I needed was the Ab-Hancer!
We had a very productive weekend. Ben got Aliya to her 7 a.m. soccer game on Saturday, and she also made it to her Brownie meeting thanks to the Pearce family. Adlani had a playdate (thanks Yarmos!), and to appease Norah I took our next-door neighbor to Mad Willies with her (our neighbor is in 6th grade so it was a pity playdate). Ben and I cleaned the whole house, and made a great dinner for his mother, sister, aunt, and a family friend. Today I spent most of the day trying to catch up on some work and simultaneously help Aliya with her research project for Sage. I also did at least 8 loads of laundry, grocery shopped, and did a multitude of small tasks that I can’t think of right now. I accomplished a lot.
BUT. It’s never enough. I can never do enough to dig myself out of the hole I’ve inadvertently created. I finish 2 types of tasks – the ones that only take a few minutes, like responding to the easy emails, and the ones that are so close to the deadline (or beyond) that if I don’t do it RIGHT NOW I will get fired or someone will get kicked out of school. The rest of the stuff, for the people who aren’t complaining, gets put off until it gets to that same critical point. Right now I have 52 emails waiting, which will take me anywhere from 20 minutes to 5 hours each to address. Tomorrow I will get about 100 more. I’m not exagerrating.
So, if you’re not a squeaky wheel but you’re waiting for me to get back to you on something, your best bet is to start squeaking. Am I the only one with this problem? What am I doing wrong here???
And because you read through my entire pity-party post, I’ll share with you a funny moment from the weekend. We were having dinner last night with Ben’s family, when Norah said to Ben’s mom, “DO YOU HAVE TEETH?!?!” Norah had told me previously that “Hanna doesn’t have teeth,” and was shocked when she noticed that she was chewing her food. Hanna showed Norah her teeth and Norah was puzzled. She kept insisting on seeing them again. After dinner she somehow realized that Hanna no longer had teeth, and when “Show me your teeth!” didn’t work she kept saying, “Show me your gums!” It was so funny…we were all in tears. That kid is trouble – very smart but with no filter. Pray for us.
Here she is with all of her little leprechaun friends. In Spanish the leprechaun is called a “duende,” which she thought was pretty funny since that’s her cousin’s name.
Go outside and look at the moon! It’s amazing!!!
