Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

That's the sound of life at our house lately.

L & H have enjoyed building with an electronic circuit kit that she got from Uncle Dan for her birthday. It has the parts to make 300 different things--how cool is that?! So far they have been assembling the noisy things. I think this particular session they were building a car alarm or something like that. It's very exciting for them to be able to make things that actually work all by themselves.

One of L's xmas gifts was a spy kit that included a motion sensor. It works. Very well. She likes to set it up to protect things from the cats (mostly Lila). Last night we were playing the Garden Game (which is a very cool game my mom got us a few years back--one of our favorites) on our living room floor. Lila's favorite naughty deed is to run by and snatch the straw from my ever-present cup of ice water. I go through several straws a day, despite my best efforts to guard and protect my straw. I'm no match for a kitten's tenacity. Anyway, L decided she would set the motion sensor up on the box top from the game, which she stood up on its side. It was aimed right at my water, so everytime Lila approached for the steal, it beeped. Loudly. After a few preliminary sniffs, bats, and approaches, Lila outsmarted the device by simply pushing the box over and knocking down the alarm. It was cute and clever of her, and by that time, I was more than happy to sacrifice the straw just to stop the damn beeping!

My blog entries for the next week or so will probably be minimal. I just found out that the class I start teaching next week is now using a different textbook. Nobody thought to mention that to me until now, one week before the class starts. That leaves me a week to go through the textbook, select all assignments for the semester, create our semester schedule, modify my syllabus, create at least the first several grading rubrics, and prep for at least the first few classes. UGH! I am so not happy about this. At any rate, between that and my consulting project, I will be extremely busy for the next couple of weeks.

Today it took me a little over two hours to get to work. It usually takes me 45 minutes. There were several accidents (with injuries) on the interstate and the beltline. I also witnessed two accidents, right in front of me, on the interstate. They were pretty minor. Once I got on the interstate and saw how nasty and slow it was going to be, I would have turned around except that the east-bound lane (which I would have to take to get back home) was completely stopped due to a bad accident. They had fire trucks, ambulances, police, and were putting people on stretchers. I figured I might as well plug on through to Madison , rather than being stuck at a complete stop for god knows how long. I wish I had just stayed home and worked from home. We have had entirely too much snow this winter!

Dej had a debate meet this weekend, and the team qualified for nationals! She’s done an awesome job this year on debate. She was very excited about this regional meet and put a ton of work into preparing her arguments and practicing. Her partner, however, the worthless little piece of crap, didn’t bother to show up for practices or the meet, so she didn’t get to debate Saturday. All that work she did, and a selfish little idiot ruined it for her. Can you tell I’m a bit bitter about this?! She doesn’t work hard at very much, so when I see her working this hard at something, I know it’s really important to her. She was pretty bummed. I’m very worried that she’s tied to her idiot partner for nationals and hope he doesn’t deprive her of her last chance to compete. She also gave her big presentation on India , (for her International Academy project) last week and did extremely well on it. She was very excited about giving the presentation and felt good about it when she finished. Her teachers and class gave her a lot of positive feedback.

Here’s an interesting little tidbit about Dejanique. I have not heard her sing in a normal voice since she was very young. She started singing in this (purposely) very ugly high voice and would never sing, despite us constantly telling her to stop using the hideous voice and sing nicely. So yesterday, I was home for MLK day. She came home for lunch, not expecting anyone to be there. I was upstairs. As she came in the house and walked upstairs to her room, she was belting out some song that I don’t know—in a NORMAL voice. I was shocked. I truly had no idea what her normal singing voice was like. She was on key and can actually sing quite well. It’s a shame she’s kept it hidden. I do not sing well, so she didn’t get this from me!