Storytelling and Writing and Celebrity Sighting

The semester is heating up despite the super-cold weather, and there's not much time to take a breath. This may be the last post for a while, since my new boss job is pretty draining. But of late, there's been a lot of story-telling going on in our house, and much of it seemed worthy of documentation.

Lucy's reading has been moving ahead at a surprising pace.  Every day she's reading and writing more and more words.  She and her BFF Ruth together are quite a menace.  The other day, they created this protest sign, directed at Ruth's brother, Woody:

Don't you love the positive reinforcement there?

In addition, Lucy has been writing book after book.  It's a bit intimidating for other authors who live in the same house.  Recently, she's been doing these adorable little accordion fold books; they look like this:

Here's a closer view of the one on birds:

And here's the one on "Hot," which she has targeted at audiences age 2 & up:

And now that she can read and all, apparently she's writing a new book explaining to others how to read:

She's really onto something here.  The more kids she can teach to read, the more readers she'll have, and the more books she'll sell! Genius!

In other exciting Lucy-reading news, the other morning, she read me part of my own book (no not the academic one, the children's one).  It was a tear-inducing moment, I will confess.

Also, just because I wouldn't want you to hear this from someone else first, I thought I should let you know that I'm soon going to have another brush with a famous person.  That person is:

I am not going to type her name because I don't want it to be googled with "Lowell" and end up having my students find my blog.  Ahem.

Anyway, you may recall, that a while back, this happened:

And I wrote about it here: http://thischarmingoldhouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-meeting-literary-heroes-part-2.html 
Also, if you want to see me terrified and excited and living the dream, you can watch me introduce King on the official video of the event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8TkQvdJVbc&list=PLD91T9qx40vrwAuWOj0Rq5ysPBikIkgAo&index=2

Well, it seems we have a reprise, this Wednesday afternoon. I will be introducing our esteemed visitor (photo above).  So, as you can imagine, all I can think about now is: WHAT am I going to wear????  Also, I am hoping she will sign my clipboard.  In my new job as boss, I have a clip-board-based organization system that pleases me and terrorizes others.  There's a wall with project/problem-based clipboards, with appropriate labels.  The famous person has her own personally named clipboard.  I am looking forward to finishing that event (and retiring that clipboard) so that I can tend to the other, less glamourous, but nontheless pressing clipboards.

Perhaps you would like to see?

There you go.  Also, all the clipboards are full now (that was a photo from Day 1).  Now you know why my faculty are now calling me "Dread Chair Marshall," and cowering under my clip-board-based reign of terror.

So if I ever emerge from the impending week of celebrity-induced madness here on campus, I'll try to update you on our household's ever-growing web of celebrity connections.

Vanquished!

"I have vanquished the drain!"

This was Jake's proud announcement this afternoon.  We were having trouble with the drain in the kitchen sink, which came to our attention because my Mom noticed it.  Well, what she noticed was all the wet in the cabinet under the sink, and also that it was the fault of the sink drain (not the faucet).  FYI, my Mom will make sure that something is broken find something that is broken if she stays at your house.  Just ask my brother's garbage disposal, freezer, and washing machine.  Yikes.  She has quite a track record.

And thank goodness for this blog, for it is by the magic of searching the blog that I discovered that my Mom was suspiciously also here the previous time we had sink trouble (though that was with the faucet, in 2007).

But seriously, we are glad she noticed it.  The situation under the kitchen sink has always been a bit, well, suspicious. I really wish I had taken a picture of it before, but rest assured, there was a strange "venting" situation involving a piece of rubber tubing that was cinched off with a clamp.  Just cinch it up.

Thanks to the internets, our friends at Ace Hardware, our neighbor Lisa, and our handy friend Matt, Jake was able to get all the information he needed to take the drain out of the sink and put in a new one.  The one he was removing, however, was not really exactly like the ones that appear on the internets, which are, well, new and easy to attach and detatch.  While removing the old one, something broke into something else, and, well, there was need for a hacksaw.  I realize that a hacksaw isn't typically a tool one uses in plumbing, but in our house it is.  One of our previous (thus far undocumented) Adventures in Plumbing (TM) involved the simple removal of a shower head, which ended with the shearing off of a pipe, which required a call to an Professional Plumber to fix.  (Happened on a Friday afternoon, after business hours, of course.  We waited until Monday for non-emergency plumbing hours.)

But Jake has emerged victorious from this Plumbing Adventure, and without recourse to a Professional Plumber at all.  Three cheers for Jake.  He has vanquished the drain.

In other news of vanquishing, I have just sent off the article that I have been working on; it was my main goal of the summer to get it completed.  And it's still July!  I am very pleased.

And in other, non-vanquishing, though also awesome news, Lucy has begun ukelele lessons.  We're all very excited about this development.  More details in an upcoming post.  But for now, here is a Conversation with Lucy (TM) that Jake got to overhear at the lesson:

Lucy: My mom plays the violin.

Marieke (her ukelele instructor): That's right! She mentioned that.

Lucy: Well, she's not good at it.

Wow, kid, thanks for the vote of confidence.  I've been vanquished by my own child.

Oh, and if you'd like to read about Lucy's ukelele lesson from her teacher's point of view, you can read about it here:
https://storytosong.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/lets-play-ukulele/
(She asked for our permission to write about it, and we were delighted to see what she did!)

On trying to write more

So for the past few days, I have been using a new writing site called 750words.com, which, true to its name, tries to get you to write 750 words each day. I'm liking it so far, and have met my 750 requirement each day (which means I get a cute badge!). One of the things I like about it is that it takes what you write, puts it through some magical super-secret processes, and gives you data. Lots of data. About what you write each day (or over any period of time) and then compares it to all the other users on the site. And then it generates fun graphics like this:



YOUR OVERALL MINDSET:


THE WORLD'S MINDSET:


This is funny. Also, it gives you "badges" as incentives when you pass certain thresholds. For instance, a 3-day long streak gets you this nice-looking turkey.



Adorable. Anyway, you don't get to read what I write there, because it's a place for drafting (not for publicly sharing with the world). But I am hopeful that this will help me be more productive, and thought I'd share it with those of you out there who are also trying to make yourself write more. It's a pretty awesome interface, and I'm really enjoying it so far.