a great kit!

My mom signed Tim up to receive a kit every month, a little building project kit. Finally, the first kit arrived over the weekend, and today when Jay stopped by at lunch time, Tim talked him into working on it.


The directions had pictures, so Tim could see what to do.


This is what was going on under the table.


After Dad went back to work, he did the painting.


And then tonight, put it all together. Kit successful. He called my parents to tell them.

In other news, on the radio today I heard an ad for a school, and they mentioned their school cultivating unique thinkers like Edison.

Thomas Edison?

Edison was kicked out of school as a child. They told his mother he was addled. He's one of the most famous homeschoolers of all. With all the people who've attended public and private schools, the best they can come up with to advertise their school is a homeschool student? Is that even honest?

Can you tell I wasn't impressed?

Oh, but this is an impressive story if you like dumbness: This weekend at the lake it was observed that there were about a pound of Asian Beetles in each of the second floor light fixtures. Yuck. My daughter in law, Alicia, and I laughed about how do we deal with THOSE situated over the beds? Nobody wants a bed full of dead Asian Beetles, for gosh sakes.

Well, I thought about it a little and decided a good way would be to take one of those little plastic grocery bags and kind of hold it around there while I unscrewed the glass and dumped it in the bag.

I stood on the bed carefully doing this and realized, THE BAG WAS FULL OF HOLES. Aaaaghh! Are you kidding me?? I thought bad language--real bad words.

I yelled for Julia to bring me another bag and after a suitably long-sweet-Julia time, while I waited with my arms in the air, trying not to jiggle the mattress or move, she came bouncing up the stairs with a new bag, talking to herself.

But then she was riveted by all the Asian Beetles that had fallen on the bed. At least it was just the bedspread, not all in the sheets.

When I told Alicia, this was her reaction: "No! Shut up!" Gosh, that makes me laugh.

How about a little more dumbness? Yesterday was one of those klutzy days. I knocked the tray off a lady's printer. Gawd, take it easy, Val. I caught my foot in the phone cord in the room here, tore that sucker right off the table, scared the dog. I knocked a can of diet Coke over ON MY DRESSER, had to run half-dressed for a towel, as it poured under the jewelry box and into the drawer. What the heck?

When I left to practice driving with Maria, I slammed the belt to my sweater in the door. We pulled on it a bit, but finally had to pound on the door so James would come open it up again. He stared at me, "What are you doing?" Dur, good question.


Finally, a photo of Julia chipper-chattering on the patio. After she asked me to take this picture, the little girl doll was heard telling the potato head guy he needs a bath if he wants to be her boyfriend. Sigh. Happy Tuesday. love, Val