Tag: Kids

Wrapping Up

arrow of light
The boy's Arrow of Honor wrapped with his Rank & Activity stripes.

I’m not getting much focus done on writing this week beyond the bare minimums. It’s been hard enough staying on top of what I wanted to do in the writing-wise let alone come up with additional pithy thoughts on the latest workbook exercise, but maybe Wednesday after all the whirlwind of activity is done with this Cub Scout filled week.

Wednesday night we sanded and stained the plaques to hold each boy’s Arrow of Honor and started wrapping the shafts of the arrows with embroidery floss to commemorate which major activities they’ve done as a scout so far. I finished wrapping DS’s career arrow yesterday and realized that I’d done it wrong but if I’d put a white divider between every color stripe it wouldn’t have fit on the shaft. It just barely did as it was. Taking his old uniform apart and putting all the old patches and pins on the plaque will be time consuming, but it’s not unheard of for them to sit in a state of “in progress” on the dining room table for several months after this point.

This morning, I ran back down to council to pick up the Quality Unit patches that finally came in (I don’t know why they don’t order a similar number to the amount they sold the previous year, but they’re perennially short). Sunday we’ve got the dinner and cake bake. I still haven’t done anything about that yet. I think we’re going to make a teepee cake, we’ll see how that goes since I’ve never played with fondant before. And Tuesday is the big “graduation to boy scouts” ceremony. How sad is it I had to send email to the new scoutmaster for DS’s new troop to tell him he’d misplaced one of our boys into another group?

I’m looking forward to the 11th as a quieter day. My mom leaves on the 14th, but life should settle back to a normal level of chaos next Wednesday. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

ETA: I’ve noticed a lot of people have found this post looking for how to do their own arrows. I went looking too and there isn’t really much out there, is there? Ok. So a quick run down of how we did ours… Starting about a half inch from the flight (the feathers), the pattern can be worked in this manner:

3/4″

Orange for Tigers

1/4″

White divider

3/4″

Dark Blue for Bobcat (or whenever they earned it, it’s often first now)

1/4″

White divider

3/4″

World Conservation (Purple, 1/8″ yellow in the middle, Purple) or whenever they earned it

1/4″

White divider

3/4″

Red for Wolf

1/8″

White divider

1/4″

Gold or Yellow for 1st Arrow Point earned

3/8″

(1/8″ White divider and 1/4″ Silver for each silver arrow point earned as a Wolf Cub)

1/8″

White divider

3/4″

Aquamarine for Bear

1/8″

White divider

1/4″

Gold or Yellow for 1st Arrow Point earned

3/8″

(1/8″ White divider and 1/4″ Silver for each silver arrow point earned as a Bear Cub)

1/8″

White divider

3/4″

Tan for Religious Award or whenever they earned it

1/8″

White divider

3/8″

1/4″ Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for first three Webelos Activities to earn Webelos Badge

3/4″

Navy for Webelos Badge

1/4″

Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for next four Webelos Activities to earn Compass Patch

3/4″

Compass Patch (Light Blue, 1/8″ red in the middle, Light Blue)

3/8″

1/4″ Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for each additional Webelos Activities earned (up to 13)

3/4″

Yellow for Arrow of Light

As for HOW we wrapped them. You start with a dab of tacky craft glue (Aleene’s works well) on the shaft, lay the embroidery floss in it and turn the arrow so the floss covers the shaft. Cut at the desired length and glue that end down. Your fingers will get a bit sticky. After a while, you get to know how many turns it’ll take to reach the 1/4″ mark. Other people have done theirs with paint or colored tape, use what suits you and you think looks good.

So for my son’s arrow, we had 17″ between the flight and the arrowhead. Even omitting the arrow points for space and the religious award he didn’t earn, it should have taken 14.5″ for everything as described as he earned all 20 Webelos Activitities. As you can see in the picture at the top, we also forgot to do the white dividers between everything but the Webelos activities, and it just barely fit. The wrappings on his came out to 15.5″ Measurements likely won’t be exact, expecially if you’re sitting around talking while doing these.

Anyway, I hope that helps someone out there!

Hectic Week

character counts cub scout logoA quick break from my workbook ruminations today… my mom flew in yesterday for a visit to celebrate her birthday (tomorrow) and DS’s Arrow of Light and bridging to Boy Scouts ceremony (next week).We had our last patrol meeting last night and the boy was headache free for a change!

Everything that could have been left to the last minute has been, but this is par for the course. The parents are now scrambling to pull everything together at the last minute. This means a multi-night party to finish up sanding/staining/varnishing the plaques to display their arrows, wrapping their arrows with embroidery floss to show their accomplishments and then taking all the stuff off their old uniforms to put on the plaques for display. They’re pretty impressive looking when they’re done, it’s just getting to that point. Added to this bit of fun, the annual Blue & Gold Dinner (Scouting’s Birthday party) is also this weekend and we have to bake a cake for the auction. Theme: Cowboys & Indians. Ideas: (zilch).

This week also marks my last week with the Pack. I’ve been committee chair for the past two years as well as doing a bunch of other things. I’m still not quite used to the idea that I will have some free time to myself again and won’t have to be doing certain tasks on a regular basis anymore. I suspect I have a good month or so of retraining people to not email me with questions and requests to pass on information though. I’ll definitely miss working with the boys and watching them learn and grow so quickly. We’re not done with Scouts, but the Boy Scout troops work in a completely different fashion. There’s more “stand back and let them learn from their mistakes as they learn to plan and execute things” instead of more active guidance.

So what am I going to do with my free time after next week? I’ve submitted my application for a 3-month writing mentor program! I promised myself that I would do it this year when I felt I could devote more time to it with fewer outside obligations. (Who was I kidding, right?) Seriously though, I’m really looking forward to it and breaking out of the rut I feel I’ve fallen into with my writing.

Just For Andi…

Math is Evil!!!!
Math is Evil!!!!

 

When is one-third, not one-third?

Say you have a math homework problem and you’re eleven years old and you HATE fractions with a burning passion.

You ask your mom across the room, “What does ONE DIVIDED BY THREE equal?” You get extremely upset with her when she offhandedly (and quite innocently) replies ONE-THIRD. You scream at her, “IT CAN’T BE A FRACTION!” and you get even more upset when she then answers with “0.3333333 ad nauseum.”

You just can’t win here (no matter which side of the room you’re sitting on). Now, extend this argument out about 15 minutes and add in an annoying little brother who can’t keep his nose in his own math book to save the world. Can you see what’s coming?

Yes, you finally take your notebook over to your mom because she’s too stupid to do math in her head and she needs to SEE it or some such nonsense to make heads or tails of it. So you patiently (did you hear the sarcasm there?) show her the problem: X/2 + 2/3 = 5/6.

She steals your pencil and rummages up a piece of scrap paper and starts scribbling down lines and lines of numbers. You yell at her to stop when she makes the slightest variation from the way the teacher did the example in class. “You can’t DO THAT! WE HAVE TO USE THIS SHORTCUT!” Then she goes on to keep solving for X and comes up with X = 1/3. Which we all know by now, cannot be the answer.

STUPID WOMAN! IT CAN’T BE A FRACTION! None of the OTHER answers have been fractions and you HATE working with fractions.

Don’t let her try to explain how she did it either. If you must, resort to holding your hands over your ears and screaming, “I HATE FRACTIONS” over and over until she gives up. You must also resist her trickery when she starts asking “What do you call ONE DIVIDED BY TWO? ONE DIVIDED BY FOUR?” Remember, she cannot be allowed to win here, you cannot admit that ONE DIVIDED BY THREE EVER equals ONE-THIRD.

You finally accept that ONE-THIRD might possibly be the answer after another five minutes of additional grousing and sulking, but try to argue your way out of it. Get upset when your mother throws up her hands and says, “Just write whatever down and take the points off if it’s wrong.”

“Fine, whatever…. ” NO!!! The next problem is -3/-2 = ? You refuse to deal with fractions and tell her “It’s not like we really divided 1 by 3 anyway.” So there.

Oh… and you MUST hiss in a most unbecoming fashion when that annoying little brother starts reading over your mom’s shoulder and you realize that you’ve become a blog entry again. Great. First the dress and now this.

Are you SURE you want a WHOLE day in the life post, Andi?

Thursday Thirteen: Morning Delays

 

13 Ways My Kids Make Us Late

 

I hate to be late. I hate to feel like someone else is waiting on me. I hate to sit around waiting for someone else. My kids drive me nuts in the mornings before school. I’d had a nice relaxing stretch of sleeping in well past 6:00 am and I’m sure DH appreciated the silence that reigned for the nine weeks of summer. Anyway, here’s 13 ways in which my kids drag their heels and when they all pile up in a single morning, it’s a disaster on all fronts.

The elementary school starts at 8:15, but they don’t open the gates until 7:55. This means 700+ kids have 20 minutes to get into the school. The middle school starts at 8:30, but the first bell rings at 8:20. Did I also mention that they’re also about 4 miles apart with about 8 stoplights between them? DD has a lot farther to walk from her drop off point and DS complains if he has to walk from the street up the hill from the school.

13. I’m tired and/or cold!
I hate this one. It makes me sound exactly like my mother. At least I haven’t turned their mattress up on end so it’s perpendicular to their beds with them in it. Get up, get dressed, get moving.
12. Lost Clothing
Socks, shoes, clothing, glasses — either the favorite, must-have-nothing-else-will-do item is gone forever or everything is dirty — did I not ask them to bring them down Saturday morning, afternoon, evening and again on Sunday?
11. I’m sick. No, really!
Popular symptoms at our house: headaches, dizziness, sore muscles and nausea. Then they try to take their temperature as many times as possible even if they’ve already eaten, just to make sure it hasn’t miraculously crept up over the magic 100.4 degrees that will keep them home.
10. Sudden Breakfast/Lunch Indecision
Why, when they’ve eaten the same thing day in and day out for months, as soon as they’re running the slightest bit late, do they decide they don’t want the usual? This heading also covers the “But I want _______” when that’s the one thing I didn’t buy on the last trip to the grocery store because someone left the box on the shelf and I didn’t realize it was empty.
9. Screens and Other Shiny Objects
Televisions, nintendo games, youtube videos… so much more interesting than whatever mom’s going on about.
8. You never told me to do that!
Yes I did… see previous entry for why you tuned it out.
7. Breakfast/Lunch Refusal
This is tied closely to the one about indecision. After you make what they asked for, or at least didn’t object to when you asked, they pitch a fit about it and refuse to eat it. In the case of lunch, the answer is “Ok, it’s either this or a yogurt plate. It’s too late to make a second lunch now. Perhaps you’d like to make your own from now on?”
6. Lost School Supplies
Backpacks, books, homework, important papers that must be returned today, and did you write that check, Mom? Why do we ask if everything’s together the night before and then believe them when they say “Yeah.”
5. Shrinking Backpacks
Not everything under the sun will fit in it, trust me. It really won’t kill you to carry your lunch in one hand, really.
4. What do you mean you’re out of insulin?!
This is DD’s specialty. It always seems on the mornings I oversleep or get distracted by shiny objects myself, that her insulin pump needs changed. This usually is realized when she goes to bolus for breakfast.
3. Where’s my _________? I need it today.
This goes along with Lost Items, but it’s more specialized because it can occur after they’ve found the item in question. Standard answers are: I don’t know, it wasn’t my turn to watch it. The last place you had it? The master bedroom is not your personal locker. The bathroom is really not an appropriate storage location either.
2. Never-Ending Sibling Argument, Round #1298708912345
It really doesn’t matter who’s stupider, Fred or Josh, they both are annoying. If you spent more time worrying about what you’re supposed to be doing, instead of stopping to argue about stuff that doesn’t matter in the grand scope of life, you would be ready on time and you wouldn’t have woken your father up.
1. Wait, I forgot something!
Once you finally get in the car… or even get the garage door closed once you’ve back out of it… one of them invariably remembers something they needed but forgot to grab on the way out. Shoes, lunch, books, papers, you name it, they’ve spaced it.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 SandyCarlson 2 Savannah Chase 3 Bernie
4 Nadia Lee 5 Stephanie Sullivan 6 Tempest Knight
7 yasmin 8 Nina Pierce 9 Inez Kelley
10 Jennifer McKenzie 11 Paige Tyler 12 Jenny
13 Kristi 14 Savvy 15 Kelly
16 jenn 17 18

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Countdown: 1!

One day until the blessed silence returns.
One day until blessed silence returns.
Tomorrow’s the big day. DD’s first day of middle school and DS’s first day as a BMOC — yah, he’s a fifth grader. Today’s kinda crazy rushing around trying to get everything finished and together for tomorrow. I really didn’t like the alarm going off at 6am in preparation for this momentous occasion. We’re also expecting a phone call from the boy’s teacher to find out who’s class he’ll be in this year.

The past week has thrown my writing schedule for a loop, but tomorrow should see a good 5 hours of silence. It’ll probably be TOO quiet. I won’t know what to do with myself again. I’ve been rethinking things since showing the first several pages to the DH the other night. Don’tcha hate it when they’re right? It’s even worse when it’s something you knew all along too. This means I have a week and a half to write this story and get it to Bria to trade. Yikes! I mean, I’ll make it!

In the meantime, I’m also contemplating more time for learning and studying for myself. No, I still haven’t caved to sign up for that Conversational Spanish class. But with the copious amounts of free time in my future, I will be adding more study time back into my weekly goals. I just need to figure out some practical methods instead of just cramming in more theory.

I’ve also been listening to random lectures from the 2007 RWA Nationals disc that Jodi sent me from this years. Thanks again, Jodi! It’s interesting to hear some of the people I’ve read speak and wonder how they can sound so good on the page, but so stilted and boring at the podium.

The one that caught my attention the most so far was Todd A. Stone’s Novelist’s Boot Camp. The idea of “Who is the Opposition?” really drove home a problem I keep running up against. Maybe I’m just too nice to my characters. I mean really, I made them to go together like a matched salt-n-pepper set, so umm… what do you mean I have to keep them from getting together, but not let them get too far apart? *sigh* I know it can be done, it’s just figuring out the puzzle of it and applying the pressure and shaping the conflict in meaningful ways.

Back to the drawing board…

Thursday Thirteen: Middle School

 

13 Middle School Differences

 

My oldest child starts middle school in less than a week. I’m not a big fan of new situations or unfamiliar ones, but luckily DD is much more like her father in this respect. She spent yesterday morning at orientation camp, where they “played dumb, boring games” and took a tour of the campus which was “useless because the tour guide was being lazy.” She’s growing up so fast and luckily for her has no problem meeting new people. Most of the kids she went to elementary school with will be going to a different middle school because of the boundary lines and the fact that we’d been bumped from our home school when we moved here almost five years ago.

I never went to middle school. My elementary school was K-6, and for 5th and 6th grades, we had those classes from the other feeder elementary sharing out school because of renovations to theirs. Then we were all dumped straight into one of the smallest public high schools in the state even with grades 7-12 in it. They built the middle school the year I graduated from high school. We also had real hallways and the cafeteria was inside too. What a difference 30 years and the other coast makes.

1. Registration: hour and a half longer. We had to turn in the same paperwork as for DS and then also buy gym clothes, get her ID and school picture taken, check out her textbooks in the library.

2. Campus: The middle school is way bigger, but close enough to walk to in half an hour instead of 5 miles away.

3. Parking lot: It was also designed by a man who hates children and never had any of his own — BUT, shares the space with the high school, making it twice the fun! At least they stagger start and end times.

4. Office Staff: Lots more of them and if possible, the waiting area is even smaller.

5. Attendance: They have a completely separate window for signing in/out of when you’re late. And I don’t just call the health tech to report absences.

6. Health Tech: She’s very nice too, much more easy going about everything. “You can keep your meter with you and test your blood sugar wherever you want. Just not in the bathroom. They’re DIRTY…”

7. PE: They have a real PE class now. Including lockers and showers and everything that made HS PE a nightmare.

8. Cafeteria: There’s even fewer walls it looks like and I didn’t see a roof at all. Lots of scattered tables with umbrellas and an ampitheatre-like set of steps and a grassy quad. Think Veronica Mars or really any SoCal lunch area on tv or in the movies. This will suck come February when it actually does rain.

9. Lunch: menu changes each month, but every meals rotate on a day of the week basis. Cost: $2.50 for most of the stuff she’ll want to eat compared to $2. Choices to be made are potentially even worse. Pizza 5 days a week: M/W/F cheese, T/TH Pepperoni. I really dread this next year with the boy.

10. Books: You get to pick them up early. They’re heavy, but at least you don’t have to carry all of them every day because of the block schedule for classes.

11. Block Class schedule: Classes you have rotate based on odd or even days. Or maybe it’s a minimum day where you have all every class. Then there’s also a late start on even Fridays called Collaborative Days just to make things even more confusing. DS gets out early on Fridays.

12. Dress Code: The dress code is much stricter and more strictly enforced. The biggest change for us will be that pants need to be hemmed so they don’t drag on the ground and get walked into tatters.

13. Independence: DD wants to walk to school. She is reveling in the fact that this means she gets a cell phone. DS is pestering to get one. This is one of those times I really feel the difference the 14 months between them makes.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Sue 2 yasmin 3 SavvyOne
4 Jennifer McKenzie 5 Elaine @ Commotion 6 Paige Tyler
7 Alice Audrey 8 9

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Fan Girl Moment

Suzanne Enoch and Teresa Medeiros at Romance World in El Cajon, CA on 8/3/08.
Suzanne Enoch and Teresa Medeiros
at Romance World in El Cajon, CA on 8/3/08

On Sunday, I dragged my kids with me down to El Cajon to the Romance World bookstore. Two of my favorite Avon authors, Suzanne Enoch and Teresa Medeiros were signing their newest books, Before the Scandal: The Notorious Gentlemen and Some Like It Wicked. After attending the Janet Evanovich event here at Borders, I was a bit apprehensive, but we set out and got there when the store opened. And yes, I took my camera this time!

The kids were predictably bored. Especially the boy. Their kids section was limited and they only had 2 Star Wars books, one of which we own. DD did much better and I think she ended up with more books than I did.

There were maybe a dozen people in the store including the staff. So it was nothing like Janet Evanovich’s event. Although I hope their Borders event later this week is as well attended as that one!

I love the books these ladies write. I got about 9 books signed and managed to get thoroughly tongue-tied and not manage very coherent sentences. Suzanne did remember my name when I mentioned I was the one who blogged about England’s Perfect Hero (Lessons in Love, Book 3) being one of my “comfort reads” back in April.

My daughter impressed Teresa with her love of reading and ability to speak better than her mother. She even wrote down the names of two of the authors my daughter recommended. When she found out DD had written a story for my birthday, she encouraged her to keep up with her writing. DD came home and wrote two pages of a new story. Sad to say that’s more than I accomplished yesterday.

And, Suzanne? A full resolution copy of this picture should be in your inbox as promised.

Into The Woods

Last night, we took the kids to see “Into the Woods” at the Starlight Theatre here in Balboa Park. We’ve been there several times and I’d never realized there was an outdoor ampitheatre there. Apparently, the theatre has been a San Diego tradition for over 40 years. The seats are darned uncomfortable, but that’s expected. We’d also anticipated a sold out show from the ticket ordering choices, but a good number of seats and sections were empty around us.

I’ll admit I’ve been spoiled by the Broadway cast recording and DVD. We saw the show originally on PBS in Alabama in the early 90s and we finally broke down and bought it on DVD a couple of years ago. The kids had watched it with us then, but hadn’t been too excited about it. DD has discovered musicals: High School Musical, Camp Rock, you’d expect those of a tween, right? But would you think of Sweeney Todd, Rocky Horror, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical episode, and now Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog? She likes dark stuff and loves horror movies. We keep teasing her she’s going to “go Goth on us” in a couple years. I don’t really think so.

Anyway, she really enjoyed last night. She wanted THAT performance on DVD too. See there’s another tradition at the Starlight, besides the little red box that’s appeared in every production since 1946, that’s the “freeze action” when the planes come in for a landing at Lindbergh Field. Yep, the nice little outdoor theater is RIGHT under the flight path. The actors “are specially trained” to freeze when a plane comes over and then continue on once the noise levels allow. This is controlled by the conductor, who apparently makes a game out of it, trying to catch the actors in awkard poses. Imagine trying to watch a movie, and having your 3 year old in control of a pause button. Luckily it turned out to be more amusing than annoying, but DS counted at least 28 planes go over in the 3 hours we were there. DH said there were more. We can say we did it and check off another requirement in his Webelos book.

Me? I’m going to watch the DVD as soon as possible. I’ve had the songs stuck in my head all last night and really need to hear the witch’s song about the greens in her garden done properly. The wolf’s “Hey, Little Girl” needs some refreshing too.

Oops!

I'm in the doghouse...
I’m in the doghouse…

I messed up. I thought DD’s day camp started TODAY. Good thing I checked the information packet before driving off to drop her off this morning. It’s only 4 days this year and starts tomorrow. DOH!

So the kids are upset with me for getting them up so early for no good reason and getting her all excited for nothing. Yeah, well I’ve been up since 6 am and we’ve still got a Cub Scout thing to do today. So only part of my day is easier.

So, in line with Diana Peterfreund>‘s AOTM Workshop this week on RD about Subplots & her plotboarding techniques, I’m taking my found hour and working on a scene list and summary for Revealed and looking for subplots and ways to pull the main plot out into focus. SUBPLOTS must serve the ROMANCE plot in some fashion: amplify/mirror/deepen/move it along. They can’t serve as the MAIN plot and I think that’s where I’ve been missing my target.

Writing time is going to be light this week, but I’m still making slow and steady progress. Sometimes it feels like it’s several steps backwards, but it’s all moving along that learning curve, so it’s all good.

Thursday Thirteen: Owls

 

13 Owls My Daughter Likes

 

DD is crazy about owls. For nine years she has collected owls: stuffed owls, puppets, ceramic, carved stone, ones made of gourds, rings, necklaces, any kind really. She is a walking encyclopedia of owl specific knowledge. She loves explaining how you can tell male and female Snowy owls apart, especially if someone refers to her first owl as a “he”.

Her favorites are Snowy Owls because when she was two, DH brought her back one from Seattle. Snowy has been just about everywhere DD has been: school, camping, the doctor’s, the Zoo and several other places. She’s a well-traveled little owl. Unfortunately, she looks it too. Her beak has been replaced, her wing resewn on, and she survived major neck surgery when her head popped off at one point.

BTW: IE 7 sucks and may completely undo my careful formatting. Firefox is much better for you anyway. =P Go get it. Now. Kthxbye.

1. Barn Owl – these guys have white heart-shaped facial disks. Soren from the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series is a barn owl.
2. Boreal Owl
3. Burrowing Owl – You probably recognize these owls from the movie and book, “Hoot” written by Carl Hiaasen. They are different from other owls, because of living above the ground in trees or cacti, they will take over abandoned fox dens or holes in the ground to live in.
4. Elf Owl – These cute little guys live in catci in the desert.
5. Great Grey Owl – the mothers are VERY protective of their chicks.
6. Great Horned Owl
7. Northern Hawk Owl
8. Northern Sawhet Owl
9. Pygmy Owl – these little guys weigh around 3 ounces and are between 2 and 4 inches tall.
10. Short-eared Owl
11. Spotted Owl
12. Spotted Wood Owl
13. Snowy Owl – You can tell this is a female because she has spots. Male Snowy Owls are pure white. The chicks start out grey and as they get older they gain more white feathers.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 gdaybloke 2 Lilibeth 3 Allison
4 Susan Helene Gottfried 5 Carol 6 Di
7 sobeit 8 SandyCarlson 9 Stephanie Secrest
10 Talk About My Favorite Authors 11 Ava Rose Johnson 12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!