My cousin, Mick, besides having stepped into the shoes of his famous grandfather, B.C. comic artist Johnny Hart, is also developing his own strip:

Good luck, Mick. And I’m so proud you have kept B.C. alive.

~Aaron

Some of you probably know about my passion and interest in colour, colour theory, and that I refuse to give into the American spelling of the word.

And many of you know that I love Flickr. (Heck, I’m in the process of moving my photos from my own site to Flickr because it’s better)

So, happy Aaron discovered on Oh My Stinkin’ Heck today that Flickr has a new search function using colour! Here’s a cool colour palette I chose for demonstration:

USA Today published an article about the change left behind at airport security. In October of 2004, Congress passed a law allowing TSA to use the coins left behind to offset security costs.  The article mentions some interesting facts about the change left behind, including the cities with the most ‘donations’ and the city least likely to leave behind a single cent. My hometown:

The cash laggard: Chattanooga (Tenn.) Metropolitan Airport, whose 300,000 departing passengers in 2007 left just $1.20.

 Some quick math shows that the average Chattanoogan leaves only $0.000004 going through security. Actually, those are probably Yankees or Westerners leaving beautiful Chattanooga at the end of a visit. I’d guess Chattanoogans simply DONT leave behind change at all.

 Well, that’s my two cents.

~Aaron

In case you haven’t heard, I have accepted a position with the U.S. Army as a civilian employee of ISEC. What I discovered after accepting, and turning in my notice is that I have to legally swear my allegiance to the Government of these United States:

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

No small promise. But, honestly, I’m really pleased by this - excited almost. There are many ways a man may serve his community; many ways he may be seen as honourable. But to officially stand and swear my allegiance to the United States of America swells me with pride and self-respect.

I will become something more than I am. And I join the ranks of better men that have sacrificed more. I stand behind and beside giants that defend, protect, and lead our country. Thanks to soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, I have many freedoms and gifts. I’m glad to give back in my own small way.

I remember my mom being very strict about thank you notes as I was growing up. She insisted that everyone who sent a gift or did something very nice got a handwritten thank you note directly from me.

I was pretty spoiled, with a plentitude of grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends that showered me at Christmas, Birthday and graduation times. And I diligently, if not un-complainingly, wrote thank you notes to each of them. I’m sure my mom had to do a lot of the work (buy, address and stamp the cards) and that I was not always pleasant as I sat down to write them.

I will be forever grateful to my mother for teaching me that lesson. Gratitude is a wonderful thing. It makes the giver feel appreciated and the receiver reflects on both the gift and the giver, even if it’s only for the short time it takes to write the note.

I started very young with my son - having him “write” with a crayon on notes that I send on his behalf. We will soon progress to including a picture drawn by him, then he will sign him name, and finally write the note himself. We live far from many family and friends and he is also lucky enough to be regularly spoiled by mail. And I won’t let him ever think that he “deserves” this treatment.

Gifts are special treats and generous expressions of a person’s feelings for you (or should be) and should be appreciated as such. If someone goes through all the effort to remember you, shop for you, wrap it up and send it, the least you can do is write a dern Thank You Note!

*And to those that might need still more motivation, know that I have been rewarded with more presents for longer periods of time than those that didn’t respond to the giver. My mother, she of the big lesson, once even rewarded someone with an additional check just because they impressed her with their Thank You Note!

~M

I have a friend who refuses to go out on 4th of July or New Year’s Eve. She says there is just too much pressure to have fun and have “the perfect holiday” and that it inevitably leads to disappointment and frustration.

I have struggled with the notion of holiday pressure with Christmas in the past but this year it was Mother’s Day that gave me the biggest pause.

I usually enjoy purchasing just the right card for the mothers and grandmothers in my life (including my husband’s since you know how men are about remembering to send cards). I saw most of my family right before the event this year so I didn’t send cards. I did call and remind Aaron to do so. (He remembered to get me a card too.)

What really blew me away was the clearly competitive way everyone asked about my Mother’s Day at work today!!! It was a one-up-man-ship of how one loved their mother or the mother of their children best. It was a feast of bragging by mother’s themselves.

When asked, I told them that I got to sleep in and that we working on cleaning the house. People were appalled and said that I needed to train my “boys” right on what was expected of mother’s day celebrations.

I don’t understand - when did it cease to be about loving your mom and become an image event. It’s too much pressure. I guess I’m lucky that I’m my mom’s only child so I have no one to compete with on loving her the best.

Perhaps I’ll take the path of my holiday homebody friend and avoid Mother’s and Father’s Day altogether…..

But I don’t want my family to think that I don’t love them…..

Is “bindering” really a word? Anway, the act of organizing information into plastic, 3 ringed object that sit within arms reach on a shelf is uniquely satisfying.

I have a slightly chaotic work life - multiple ongoing projects of my own plus keeping track of my 3 staff members projects and those of my two commissions. I could easily drown under the piles of paperwork that I am asked to keep track of….

Files just don’t work for me. I can never remember if I’m filing newer stuff in the front or in the back and they end up being a mishmash that I have to pull completely out and sort through to find anything. It’s time consuming, frustrating and looks unprofessional if I have a member of the public waiting for an answer.

So here enters the BINDER. That wonderful object that allows me to insert as many dividers and I can find names for so that locating paperwork becomes much easier. And now that the binder makers have discovered the worship of people like me they have blessed us with not only innumerable sizes, but also wonderful new colors!

My work shelf is now dotted with blues and bright greens and even orange! I love it. I got to spend an afternoon creating pretty labels for all my binders and now can easily tell which I need to grab without really having to take my focus away from whatever I’m in the middle of.

And there’s just something so calming about filling the binders and seeing those stacks of paper go away without stressing that you’ll forget the information. It helps me to feel more prepared to face each daunting day when I don’t have stacks of “to dos” on my desk.

The neat row of binders simply says - we’re here when you need us, no worries.

Our son is 2 1/2 now and has entered that stage where he must watch everything multiple times and wants the same book read over and over. He asks us “Huh?” all the time, I think mainly to get us to repeat ourselves, not so much because he didn’t hear or understand the first time.

I know that repitition is good for his cognitive development and that he learns to distinguish nuance from repeating words or actions. I also know that he finds comfort in the expected as explores the world around him and that watching Bee Movie or Thomas the Tank Engine or Bob the Builder or George Monkey (Curious George) over and over and over and over and over pleases him.

But it’s driving me nuts! Argh……..

My friend, Cheryl (who’s blog you can read through the muppin.com link on the side), has recently started a recycled materials quilt project. She’s been blogging a lot about “going green” and it’s gotten me thinking.

We do have the energy star, low flow washer and dryer and energy star fridge, cubic freezer, etc. and we put in A/C to save on water (many people here use evaporative cooling called Swamp Coolers). My husband does like to keep the house pretty cool and I like him to be comfortable so the house is cooler than the 78 recommended. But his not-grumpiness is worth it, sorry Mother Earth!

We are trying to use fewer chemicals in and around the house for the kitties and the kiddie. We ALWAYS run a FULL dishwasher (though less for water and energy than because with a toddler we go through so many dishes). We try to remember to turn off water and lights when not actively using them. We use rechargable batteries.

I feel like I’m defending my self in the new inquisition, so I obviously feel some guilt. I am going to stop that and focus on the fun and positive things recycling and being green can bring - like Cheryl did in her gorgeous quilt.

Getting out of the house to walk and play will decrease our energy usage from cooling and electronics. Doing recycled craft projects with Owen (like covering a cardboard letter “O” in bits of old atlas’) will give him time with us and encourage creativity. I’m not being LAZY when I wait for the sink to be full of dirty dishes or the laundry to be overflowing - I’m being GREEN!

Now I’m starting to think that this could be fun!

My kid is terrified of the Easter Bunny. I don’t blame him. It’s weird that we think it’s cute to subject our children to grown people dressed up in costume, pretending to be a fictional character. The kids know that bunnies don’t really walk upright and talk to us and they are freaked out that not only do we want them to accept that these abominations mean well - we also want to force them to sit in their laps! Even treats don’t help that much.

Santa was scary enough and he still looked and sounded Human. And the candy cane helped smooth over the edginess of the fuzzy red suit. But now we ask him to approach a six foot tall rabbit with huge wobbly eyes just so we can take his picture - he’s right to think we’re nuts.

We, as parents, spend a lot of time trying to negotiate the fine line between teaching our kids to be friendly and yet be cautious. There are whole books about how to teach your kid “stranger danger” and yet we ask them to approach the strangest of strangers on holidays. I’ve watched too many parents tease their children for being afraid of Santa or the Easter Bunny and then scold them for talking to a stranger in the food court. We need to be more careful about their feelings and assumptions about the world. They don’t differentiate situations like we do.

My 2 year old is still learning about the world and his place in it. I want him to be friendly to people but to always check in with me and make sure I’m nearby and paying attention. He understands that, even at 2. I don’t take it for granted, but I appreciate it. I try to honor his judgements about the world. This weekend, I will encourage him to approach the Easter Bunny but will not make fun of him if he’s scared.

Those instincts about something not being quite right about a situation should be accepted and developed in a child so that they feel empowered later in life to walk away from more dangerous situations that give them that same gut feeling.

Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Would you trust a grown adult in a costume beckoning you to come closer so he can give you candy? Me neither!

~M