The promised graduation post and our typical Saturdays

Hi! I got a little carried away with karate pictures, as usual, so I tried to tidy them up some so I wouldn't be tempted to add a hundred of them. 

Damon moved from a low green belt to a high green belt, so he's featured in some of the pictures but didn't bump up to a different belt color. Hopefully that will happen in February. Brrr. I don't even want to think about February. But after that graduation all three Thingz will be in the same class again for the rest of forever and let me just make the sound here to express how excited I am about that: Wahoooooooooooooooooo!!

As always, click on any picture to see it in more detail and larger. Damon was featured in two of the weapons displays, though he informed us later that he should have only been in one (typical), and Carrie did one as well. 

New belts, with the exception of black belts, are tied on by parents after the graduation ceremony. Black belts are tied on, onstage, by instructors. The medals around their necks mean they graduated with honors. In order to do that, they had to have turned in at least three karate homeworks. The categories are Knowledge (reading minutes, which ties in nicely with the school reading logs), Self-Discipline (which encourages them to be responsible around the house and with homework, etc), Goal Setting (which seems the easiest to me: three goals and how you'll achieve them. Two of the three have to be completed before you turn it in. Liam's first goal is "to not quit until black belt!" Needless to say, his paper hasn't been turned in yet...), and Respect (going out of their way to be helpful/courteous/etc and must be signed by a parent AND a teacher). 

I can't say enough good things about this program. Yes, it takes up a ton of our time and, let's be honest, our money. But the instructors are amazing, patient, encouraging, dedicated, and fun. Not only are the Thingz learning martial arts and defense, but they're in something that isn't instant gratification. They're starting to see that accomplishments take a long time and that you need to stick to it to be good at something. Do they always want to go? No. Do I always want to take them? No. But we feel that these are good lessons for our family and that this particular program will help their lives in other ways down the road as well as helping them stay physically active now. 

And then there are these feet that I just adore. Damon is still disappointed that he isn't yet a brown belt, which is the lowest of the highest belt levels. He was pouting about his lack of a new belt in the above photo.

It's too bad that you really don't get a sense from the pictures of how hard these kids work. They go to class 2-3 times a week in our old town. Most weeks we go Monday for both of their level classes, Tuesday for weapons, and then again Wednesday for both classes again. Thursday nights are our night off, every other Friday tries to host home group, and weekends are crazy. 

This weekend we did our third Mystery Adventure (see previous post) and three karate classes on Saturday. This is a first. The Academy hosts a Grappling class at 10 AM. It is an elective, but highly beneficial towards earning one's black belt. Until now, the Thingz could only do one elective and they'd chosen weapons, which improves focus and concentration. Grappling is more like wrestling, and I am not even close to qualified to tell you how they differ. 

Anyway, now that the big kids are only six months away from being black belts, they are officially black belt candidates and are encouraged to take classes in everything. One, they'll need all that stuff for their black belt tests, which is taken in stages, and two, it's kind of a reward for sticking with the program for the years required to get to this point. 

So the big kids were excited to head into that first Grappling class. I stayed home and sent the camera with Pap, who was visiting. And kudos to him; in spite of being intimidated by the fancy camera, he did a great job capturing them!

As Damon is not yet a candidate, this was how he spent his time while Thing One and Two were on the floor:

After 45 minutes or more of hot, sweaty working, it was time for their regular family class which means any student of any level participates in the same class. There are jumping jacks, push ups, and some kind of ab work in addition to all the karate stuff they do.

After 45 plus minutes of that class, they take a break to put on their sparring gear:

That class is also 45 minutes or so. We had hot, sweaty, tired, starving Thingz come home! Again, good job to Pap for taking super pictures!

Something must be in the air...

I can't believe it's the last day of September already. It got cold in a hurry. Remember, I'm chilly any temperature under 70, and 56 is the morning is a far cry from 70. I do like sleeping with windows open once it cools down, but the getting out of the blankets is a bit harder...

Anyway, I'm not sure what has happened to my brain, but if you see it, please send it my way. I'm sure Mess is to blame (though I blame Delores*) because I've read that clutter short circuits your brain and causes stress. I'm living that, then, I guess!

I have:

- boxes that need mailed

- books that need dropped off to be resold at our second hand book shop

- clothes and shoes that need to make it to either church or Goodwill

- cookbooks strewn from Hither to Yon because Dada is now doing low/no-carb meals (and anyone who knows me at all can conclude three things from that: I would starve, cookies are my love language, and I am Queen of Carbs)

- kids who try to clean but do it less than half-heartedly (quarter- heartedly? One eighth-heartedly? A dash? A SMIDGEN! I have smidgen-hearted cleaners!) so anytime I return one item to the room in which it belongs, I find two or three or twelve items in that room which don't belong there so I head elsewhere to return them and find the same in the next spot, and so on... long story short, nothing ever feels finished. Welcome to Motherhood, right? Moving on.

- fundraising papers for school (side rant- skip this is you're tired of me complaining. Who is going to pay $16 for a pumpkin roll when you can get two-and-a-half pumpkin rolls for that price at the grocery store!?)

- fundraising papers for Boy Scouts. Anyone want popcorn? Seriously. Let me know. We're selling.

- Kindergarten papers. Holy cow, WHEN is Kindergarten going paperless? Every day, entire trees go home in these folders! I realize it's because these little guys are doing lots of cutting and pasting and tracing and drawing and writing and my heavens, the paper, the trees, make it stop!

- mail that needs sorted, because, come on, we might need one of the millions of pizza coupons or actually use one of the weekly Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons for... I don't know, something...

- use your imagination. Some of you, look around your house. You'll figure it out. The rest of you, go back to the imagination part. Better yet, don't. Just come over and drop a match.

*Delores. Since my brain is shot, I don't remember if I've talked about Delores before. At camp, we got telephone calls for Delores. There's never been a Delores at camp the same time I've been there. It got to the point where we'd laugh and complain about Delores not showing up for work, for slacking off, for breaking something, whatever went wrong had to have been her fault. 

Delores is now my imaginary housekeeper for much the same reason. If I get up and there are dishes in the sink from the previous day, Delores slacked off again. If the laundry isn't put away, Delores didn't show up for work. Sometimes I fire Delores because her work ethic is apparently terrible...

Delores has a friend named Bindhu. But that's a post for another day. They'd last been seen vacationing in Cleveland...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's just there because this is a totally different train of thoughts. Random ones. Things I've been thinking about.

When you use tweezers, are you tweezing or tweezering? Why do we simply stick "plucking" in there? What's with that?

What kind of fruit tempted Eve enough that she'd doom all of us? I've never been that tempted by a fruit. It must have been chocolate covered, right? Did I already talk about this? I know Dada and I have discussed it...

Robert Fulghum mentioned his wish that crayon bombs would be invented many years ago. It was probably in All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, but I have several of his books, so they've kind of blended together in my mind. It got me thinking about how the human race seems so set on harming each other. Wouldn't it be interesting if someone would figure out software that would sense the target and not let the weapon fire if the target registered as a human being? Like for hunters, deer, elk, turkeys, birds, whatever, would all register as acceptable targets, but another hunter wouldn't be accidentally shot because the weapon would register it as something to not be harmed? I guess I'm thinking of Baymax from Big Hero 6 and how his software kept him focused on helping and caring. And for those of you who are already protesting, "but we have the Bible and that IS our software to keep us from harming others!" I get it. I went there, too. I guess I'm just wishing the weapon would say something snarky in a Captain Jack Sparrow voice when a human was targeted, "oy, onion-head, that be a fellow matey. Choose an acceptable target, savvy?" and "what arrrrrrrrrrr you thinkin'? Go work it out. Use your worrrrrds!" Dreams, dreams. Anyway. Somebody get on it. 

Since I obviously can't do crayon bombs, I was pretty delighted to find this idea on Facebook. You start with your pile o' crayons:

Cull through them and find the broken and/or naked ones. Get them all naked, and break them however they'll fit best:

Now bake those little suckers at 275 for about 10 minutes. Dada figured out how to pop them out as I didn't grease the muffin cups or anything. It's a great way to use up busted crayons that the kids don't use. The post said they are also great goody bag stuffers. I was thinking it'd be fun to donate them to a preschool or a kindergarten for one of their centers or stations... it also gives your fingers something to do other than snack while you're watching TV. Peeling crayons takes fine motor skills and dexterity, so it'd also be a good activity for small kids (as long as they don't eat crayons) or Alzheimer's patients (as long as their arthritis isn't too bad) and you end up with fun, not-quite-lid-size crayons that are a blend of colors or solid colors. It's up to you! Get creative!

Why do people wear the same handful of pairs of underwear when there's a whole drawer full of the stuff? Even Carrie commented on this, saying, and I quote, "it's alarming."

What is it about fall that makes me want to dye my hair? Did I already talk about this, too? I know Jessie and I discussed this...

I AM NOT READY FOR COLD! I do not want to say goodbye to my sandals, sundresses, and shorts yet! I do not want to see boots and scarves and jackets yet! I WAS NOT MADE FOR WINTER! Or fall. Pbbbbbbbbbbt.

I'm also not ready for the windows to be shut. It makes me even more conscious of how much the dog smells. Eww.

And can I just say, since I'm so totally random anyway, that "Bailando" by Enrique Iglesias is my very favorite song these days? I could loop it and listen to it repeat for hours. It's so bouncy and fun! In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, click right here.  I love the Spanish guitar, the female dancer's hair, the gowns and fans, the soccer balls, and Carrie and I think the green-hatted dancer is just the cutest thing! So fun. Play it again, Sam!