...I refer you to this report, which shows the upside of this past, VERY SNOWY, winter!
Quote: "Lake Michigan-Huron continued rising in February, even though it is usually in decline at this time of year. Above average precipitation contributed to its rise in level, as it was 139% of average for February. The precipitation in the basin has been above average over the last 3 months..."
Lake St. Clair (not really "Great" per se, but part of the chain), Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario all rose in February; Lake Superior was 8 inches higher than it was last February.
So, okay, if that's the result, I'm willing to suck it up and put up with SNOW on EASTER.
Cheers, everybody!
Have a blessed Easter!
love,
C
2008 Edition of White Easter in Michigan,
brought to you by Carole
In Michigan, we don't have Spring. We've never had it, as far as I know. *shrugs*
I've lived here all my life; I'm used to it. But somehow, by Easter, I'm always hoping it wouldn't quite be THIS snowy:
The 2 pix above are from Friday evening, in the midst of the storm.
Here, shots of the aftermath:
(don't worry, he has a tractor with a plow on the front -- he didn't do all that by hand!)
(somebody else tried to, though! :-) )
As promised (or threatened) a month or so ago -- recently-worn silly socks. Modeled by moi!
:-)
DSL router... busted
(gasp!)
can't... blog...
(thud)
***
Thank goodness it's all better now!
PS, that whole dolphin-saving-the-whales thing, communicating with them and leading them away from the beach after humans failed, is totally freaky / cool.
Cetaceans totally rock!
And, you heard it first on Star Trek, baby! Star Trek IV, the Voyage Home, 1986.
Speculative Fiction Roolz!
(If it hadn't happened in REAL LIFE, it would have made a GREAT science fiction story! (DANG!) If maybe a touch sappy, but heck I LIKE sappy. I've always been a sucker for a happy ending.)
- B.J., a little boy answering his mother's question of "How was Sunday Celebration today, hon?" after Dear Husband and I were in charge of said event.
Newsflash -- Boys And Girls Are Different.
No, really -- it's true.
I gained this blinding insight on Sunday during a fun volunteering opportunity.
See, in addition to regular Sunday School for the kids (between services), our church also offers "Sunday Celebration" for kids age 4 through 2nd Grade, during Big People Church. That way they only have to sit through maybe 10 or 15 minutes of Big People Church and then they are dismissed to go have a Bible story and craft time downstairs.
Our Director of Children's Ministries (wonderful woman, by the way) decided earlier this year that Sunday Cel during 2nd Service was getting crowded, and that the parents of kids who regularly attended during 2nd service would need to step up and help out. Fair enough. So along with the other parents, Big Daddy (aka Dear Husband) and I were "volunteered" for duty; our tour was this past Sunday.
Now, in 2nd Service Sunday Cel, mind you, the kids have been required to more-or-less sit still and behave and go along with the program already for a solid hour of Sunday School, and then 15 minutes of Big People Church, and now are expected to do more of the same.
Guess what? -- Doesn't work out so well.
It was like trying to tame a cage-full of hyperactive squirrels who'd gotten into the coffee.
Of course, our own Eldest Son is among the worst offenders, but running a close second are the sons of the Senior Pastor (P.K.'s if there ever were any -- with a vengeance!).
Before Big Daddy began reading the story (he was the one who had prepared), I tried to get them to jump out their jiggles with a sort of follow-my-lead stand-up-and-move time. We pretended to be trees blowing in the wind, frogs hopping, bugs crawling, and finally a seed growing into a flower. I thought the last one would be a nice quiet-down transition sort of activity.
Still pretty squirrelly. Had to haul Eldest Son out of the room into the hall until he could promise to behave. Meanwhile the Senior Pastor's middle kid and little B.J. were egging each other on. I schlepped back into the room and separated them.
FINALLY the story was over, and it was time for the crafts.
It was a little spinner where you flicked a paper-clip, and it would land on one of several possible ways to show kindness toward others. The kids were supposed to color in the pictures, then line up for Big Daddy to complete the brad-and-paper-clip construction.
The girls (including Precious Princess) all colored diligently, trying their best to stay within the lines. One little girl was anxious about making the little picture people's skin colors accurate, and finally achieved this by coloring a mixture of tan, yellow, and pink. The little picture of an African-American person got a nice brown shade.
The boys, meanwhile, decided to draw tornadoes. They all randomly grabbed pencils, crayons, markers, and scribbled furious circles all over their papers. No attempt whatsoever to color the little pictures. Then they decided to see if the circular papers would fly like frisbees.
I stood up and went, "CLAP, CLAP, CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!"
Eldest Son's Kindergarten and First Grade teachers do this all the time to get the kids' attention; the children are required to stop what they are doing and clap the rhythm back, then be quiet and listen to what the teacher wants to say. I hoped this practice was widespread enough that they would be conditioned to the required response by now -- not all the kids in our church are in the same school system as Eldest Son.
I had to do it twice, but they did respond and quiet down for half a sec. A Sunday miracle.
I announced in a loud stern voice, "Any spinners that I see thrown will become MINE, until your parents come to get you."
After that, the frisbee-throwing was kept to a minimum, although I did have to confiscate two of them.
STILL squirrelly.
The boys -- all of them -- had leaped up from the coloring tables by this point and were variously shouting, jumping, and wrassling each other on the floor. Eldest Son began grabbing foam bricks off the shelf and throwing them at the wrestlers. The girls -- all of them -- were still coloring diligently.
I could see we needed more movement time, and in a structured way. So I CLAP, CLAP, CLAP-CLAP-CLAPped again and announced in my Big Stern Voice, "We are going to play Follow-The-Leader! Anyone who doesn't want to play, needs to SIT STILL! I will be the first leader, then you'll take turns. Line up behind me!"
They more or less did, giggling and pushing. Another Sunday miracle.
We went all around the room, being birds with flapping wings, airplanes with stiff wings, a high-stepping marching band, a chugga-chugga-choo-choo, leaping kangaroos, and big-stepping giants.
Then the kids clamored to be the leader. I closed my eyes and pointed randomly. The boy so chosen stood still long enough for the other boys to line up behind him, then announced that for HIS first leadership role, they would be race cars. ZOOM!
ANNND They're OFF!
Running around in circles as fast as they could. Giggling.
Eldest Son demanded a turn as leader. He TOO announced they would be race cars.
ZOOM!
Then Eldest Son decided to start being Chick Hicks and crashing into other cars, whereupon I announced in my Big Stern Voice that "Anybody being Chick Hicks will get a time out!" Nobody wanted to be Chick Hicks any more.
So at that point, Big Daddy went and stood in the middle of the circle of racing boys. And grinned.
Whenever they looked like stopping, Big Daddy would say, "Hey, you're not tired yet, are you? Keep going!"
They kept it up for a solid 35 minutes -- service went long.
It would have been the perfect day to take them out onto our beloved play structure, but it is still snowy here and they were all in their dress-up clothes (sniff!). Summer, summer, where art thou???
Every once in a while, a girl would get up and join them for a bit (usually Precious Princess -- she's used to boys, after all -- and sometimes L.K. and sometimes J.K.), but then sit down again after a while. The girls seemed to think of new finishing touches they could add to their artwork, and they'd go back to coloring.
For the most part, it was the boys doing the ZOOMing and the girls doing the coloring.
And THAT's when I realized that Boys And Girls Really Are Different.
Thus B.J.'s remark to his mother afterward. "We ran around in circles as fast as we could! It was GREAT!"
Not sure that was what the Director of Children's Ministries had intended for Sunday Cel. But it was what they needed.
Thus spake Littlest Brother the other day.
"No, I'm NOT cute! I don't wanna be cute!"
"Oh, well, what are you, then?"
"I wanna be pwecious."
