Today’s been quite a day. I started off going to the gym and working out for a full two hours! A 30 minute run, 25 minutes weights for legs and 1 hour cardio… yeah! it was so good to be in the gym again. I love the atmosphere and the support from everyone there, all of them are really positive and friendly.

Then I came home and made our lunch. The girls had scrambled eggs, grapes and a clementine each. I had a small ham sandwich, goat cheese and green grapes. Then I had to get ready for a parent teacher conference about boy2001. It was really good and nice to hear a lot of feedback about him and his work. I want to spend a lot more time reading with him, it’s not easy with the girls buzzing around and by bed time he’s tired.

Please do not forget: only a little while left to order your child’s laptop! One Laptop Per Child http://olpc.com

I really want to get the girls to sit down so I can spend some one on one time with him. He’s made a huge amount of progress this year. I am so pleased with the caliber of the teachers in his life and their method of teaching.

After that we went to the park to blow off some steam. It was cold but it’s fun for them to play around, we met a lot of different groups of people we know so they were able to socialize a lot.

Tonight we went to Walmart and I had some very disturbing conversations with empoloyees which I’ll blog about some other time but it really makes you wonder about these big box stores and how they treat their employees.

These are pictures from when we visited the Peary Arctic Museum and walked around Bowdoin College Campus. The picture of the building is The Walker Art Museum. I HIGHLY recommend both of these museums is you have kids as they are small but chock full of good info.

The Peary Arctic Museum is currently preparing a new exhibit until April 2008! the lady insisted they were not closed, but I’m sure most people would be disapppointed as there are only 2 or 3 cases to look into and the two major parts are being worked on… so you’ll have to wait until April if you want to see anything good.

The Walker Art Museum has been closed forever for renovations. I visited this one many times before it closed. I liked many aspects of the museum before better… for starters you would walk up this wonderful set of stairs you see in the picture between the lions. When you entered it was very dark and it took a few minutes to have your eyes adjust to the ambient lighting. No more… now visitors enter through a side building made of glass, possibly imitating the Louvre’s pyramid (creepy). You can walk down a long flight of stairs or take the elevator down. The fact that the new structure is made of glass and the grey tone and stone makes the hole thing feel sterile. The good thing about the renovation is there is a lot of beautiful new space. Very high ceilings and wonderful lighting showcase every wonderful piece on display. My family and I attended the opening and there were some wonderful worksheets with some great activities and information. Highly recommend this one if you’re in the area.

Both the Walker Art Museum and Pearly Macmillan Arctic Museum are on Bowdoin College Campus in Brunswick, Maine.

How am I supposed to make it through the week without my ultimate trashy indulgence of Desperate Housewives?

I know it’s garbage but I really enjoy it – I have GOT TO KNOW what that new neighbor is keeping secret from the neighborhood and her daughter! Tonight’s Desperate Housewives didn’t air for the country awards.

boooooooooooo

In other news, have you heard about the writer’s strike? I seriously think I could write the script, so if you need somebody ABC, consider giving us bloggers a try to spice of Wisteria Lane. I have so many ideas for the Carlos/Gabrielle storyline, maybe I’ll act it out with storypuppets…

We had Thanksgiving early while Grandma was here. I can always count on Butterball to come through with great juicy turkey. I just bought another turkey on sale for 58 cents a pound and I want to get a few more for the freezer. I’m cooking my next one on Sunday morning — we love our turkey around here.

A few weeks ago we visited a Corn Maze. The kids had a great time getting lost in the stalks. We took a long hayride and marveled at all the hay rolls. It was just a wee bit creepy with visions of Malechai and all, the only thing I know about corn fields I saw in that movie, The Children of the Corn so I was a bit uneasy. Here are some of our moments caught on film…

All girl2004 can talk about is her Pony. I was in Walmart a few weeks ago and they had Butterscotch fur real pony in the toy section… I knew I could efectively avoid the aisle it was in so the girls wouldn’t see it. Well, they got smart last week, when I innocently walked in, there it was right at the entrance!

Girl2004 went crazy which led girl2006 to go crazy and since then girl2004 says that’s the only thing she wants – EVER! if she had that thing she’d be happy, and on and on…

So, I’m wondering if any of you people have got this for your kids already? is there any appeal after the first 4 hours? do they really play with it or has it started gathering dust?

I’ve been waiting for OLPC to come out but didn’t know until two days ago that they’d be available to the public.

I was going to post in a huff, just before I hit submit, I checked out the website: http://olpc.com and saw the give 1 get 1 promotion. So I take back most of what I was about to post below.

I can’t wait to see boy2001′s face when he gets this laptop!! it has everything we have been talking about for him, wifi internet, camera, music program, long battery life and sturdy enough for a child. I know he’ll be so happy that his gift will help another child. It would have been nice to designate which country (or at least have that illusion, lol).

Very convenient to buy, they take paypal, so sell something on ebay and get that cash people. Put your money where your mouth is, all children should be able to get to information, these laptops are a step in that direction.

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I’ve been quite interested in getting boy2001 his own laptop. He’s taking computer lessons at school now and there are wonderful online resources for kids as well as programs you can buy for close to nothing to help them learn things. The problem is the cost is not very family friendly, especially if you have several kids. Not to mention laptops are fragile and can easily be broken.

The $100 laptop project seemed like a dream come true. The mission is to provide indestructable laptops at a nominal cost ($100). Unfortunately the makers want to provide these to governments around the world first and foremost and in doing so forget about those of us middle class people that would like to have our child have a laptop.

I’ve known all this for quite some time but what I didn’t know is that some of the companies I’m familiar with have helped fund this, eBay, Google, Intel, Red Hat and several more. I don’t begrudge the children in other countries receiving these, my only problem is that we are not given the opportunity to purchase these for our children. Seems like discrimination and stupid because I’m sure many Americans would pay a little more to help distribute more of these. If there is a manufacturing problem why isn’t our government or these companies helping with that? Here is a link to the article in Wikipedia on the One Laptop Per Child project.

What a wonderful and relaxing weekend. Boy2001 had two parties this weekend so he had a great time. Girl2004 was sad, she’s only been to one birthday party and unfortunately the mom flaked out so girl2004 is really eager to have a girlfriend. I’m really hoping I can find a little friend for her with a mom I can work with. We had the girls out while he was at the parties and bought them some toys but that’s really shallow and materialistic and girl2004 knows it. It’s really hard to meet new people, she has a great time at nursery school, MOPS and everywhere we go but she wants a playdate and a “best friend”. I’m sure I’m not the first to go through this, hopefully some more experienced moms will chime in on this.

Friday’s after school and Sunday afternoons are now for Donkey Kong Country. We broke out the Super Nintendo, our first major purchase together in 1993ish. When we lived in Key West we would play quite often. When we were stationed in in Japan we would had a tournament of foosball at the single sailor hangout. Of course we did more exciting things off base but it was so nice to have that comfort of an American style home and community. We’d also play connect four 3 times and then we’d play Donkey Kong Country until he’d get so far ahead of me I wanted to give up!

Anyway, we never hooked it up in Maine (about 8 years – GASP!). Boy2001 found it the day before school started and asked if we could play. Of course he caught on real quick and is playing really well now! He can play Friday after school – IF his room is clean and he’s been good all week, and Sunday is he was good Saturday. He’s really loving all the extra mommy/daddy time and it’s been fun reliving our memories of who found what part of the game and how we found bonus levels with him. Girl2006 keeps grabbing the remotes and trying to play.

Just saw Michael Moore’s Sicko. Loved it! I cannot imagine why people don’t say a word about blowing money up all over the world but don’t think we can afford every person to get free health care. Not to mention help after having a baby. It is really upsetting to see Americans without health care and even more upsetting to see that even if you have insurance you may not get what you want to get done. Are there any military retirees out there? what’s been your experience with family insurance once you get out? I wish Moore would have addressed military medicine. I don’t know what to expect as far as the bureaucracy. It seems it would be less stressful if money wasn’t a prerequisite for care.

Several of the stories in the movie broke my heart but especially that of Mychelle, a sweet little girl robbed of life by red tape.