Recycling!

I love those "how it's made" shows. For some reason I am fascinated by how things are made. No idea why. I just am.

So "Factory Made" was on tonight when I turned the TV on. Did you know that railroad ties can be made out of recycled plastic and recycled tires? How cool is that!

Quote

A year from now you will wish you had started today.

-Karen Lamb

My Vacuum Threw Up!

So last night while I was at Brownies and Cub Scouts, Felisa threw up on the bed. Just a coughing fit gone bad... Ron changed the sheets and washed the dirty one.

Fast forward to today... Darby just got home from his walk with Grandma D. He promptly threw up on the rug in the entryway. So I had to pick up the rug to be washed, revealing all the dirt underneath. Which means I had to vacuum it all up. No big deal - the vacuum is already out and plugged in from earlier when I was cleaning up after the Christmas tree. Then I decided that I should probably empty the canister, as it was getting quite full.

I should mention that this is a new vacuum that Grandma R bought for us in November. Ron had emptied the canister the first few times so this was my first opportunity to do so.

First... I pushed the button that said "Push". So far, so good. Then I lifted the lever that said "Lift to empty".

Then... the vacuum threw up all over my clean living room floor.

I was expecting to pull the lever, and lift something up and out that I could then dump into the trash can.

Instead, the bottom dropped out and so did a giant pile of dust, dirt, and dog hair! Ack!

Note to self... next time, hold the cannister over a trash can BEFORE pulling the lever!!!


(also, I hope this is the end of the throw up for awhile...)

A small act of kindness

After school today Felisa noticed her friend had forgotten to take her backpack and lunchbox home. She very much wanted to go back to the classroom to get them for her friend. I didn't think it was that big a deal but decided to let her do it anyway. We waited a few minutes for Bella to come down from her class, then walked together back to the Kindergarten rooms. While there Felisa also found another child's forgotten lunchbox. Back through the halls to the lobby then outside to the Kiss-n-Ride shack. Felisa's friend was thrilled to see her backpack and had in fact been crying because she had forgotten it. So a small, thoughtful, helpful gesture turns out to be a ray of sunshine for another girl, an act much larger than I imagined. It warmed my heart. Unfortunately the second child was not in the shack so we had to return his lunchbox to the classroom but that is a small sacrifice compared to the joy of Felisa's friend. I'm not sure Felisa even realized what a terrific thing she had done.

*****

In other news...

After dinner, Felisa and Bella enjoyed a nice game of dreidel. I'm pretty sure I never played dreidel as a kid.

Ryan is doing a report on Powhatan Indians and Jamestown. While helping him research the Indian children's clothing, I learned that Powhatan children under the age of 12 generally did not wear any clothes at all, except in very cold weather.

Reportedly, Ryan and his classmates are not allowed to bring their math notebooks home. So all the notes about how to do the homework problems are at school, not at home. Makes no sense to me. So instead, I must google whatever the question of the day is so that I can figure out how to do the problem then explain it to him. Today we learned about vertical, opposite, and adjacent angles.

Ron... Ron... Ron...
(he thinks I'm blogging about him so I couldn't very well leave him out now could I?)