Earth Day Fiasco...

Yesterday (April 22) was Earth Day.  I didn't have a lot planned so we spent the day riding our bikes -- okay, Kira rode and I walked/jogged behind.  We also did a few fun crafts.  The first one is a coffee filter globe.  For some reason as a child I found it fascinating that  you could draw with marker, drip water on it and it would change.  I know, I am strange.  Anyway, we took our coffee filters and decorated them as the world.  They looked really cool.  Unfortunately while drying outside, Kira's blew away.  So we will make a new one today.

But wait, there's more!  Gracie, our cat had to come observe what we were doing in the kitchen and this is what she saw....

We had a few bumps along the way since this was a new project for both of us.  I don't remember ever doing paper mache in school or with my Mom.  I used a flour/water ratio I found online and I thought our world was starting to look pretty darn good!  

Instead of painting it, we decided to use tissue paper.  On another site it showed a paper mache project covered in tissue paper and it looked beautiful.  So...we tried it.  Now to make putting the ocean and the land on a little easier, I drew out the continents. They are not drawn to scale and as Kira so kindly pointed out Hawaii is missing and Antarctica is too small.  

But I woke up this morning and found this...

Sorry about the blurriness but as you can plainly see, it still looks white and well the bottom decided to cave in.  I think we can mark this as a FAIL, but we [took] chances, [made] mistakes and [got] messy.  Quote adapted from Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus!

Sleep...

One of my favorite songs as a child was "Sleep, Sleep" by the Rosenshontz.  Then again the Rosenshontz was my favorite music group as a young child.

♫ Sleep Sleep, you gotta go to sleep, right now.

Sleep sleep, you gotta go to sleep. ♫

Well, I last night I took that song to heart and slept and I slept good!  I woke up before the alarm -- sometime around 6:30AM.  Did the morning routine -- bathroom, brush teeth, comb hair, all but eating breakfast.  I crawled back in bed, thinking I was going to read when in fact I just went back to sleep.  So what was the problem?  I turned off the alarm and I am not sure that Kevin set his.  The next thing I know, Kevin is waking me up saying it is almost 11AM!

I have a routine of a morning.  While eating breakfast, I check out Facebook.  One of the posts on a site I check frequently, The FlyLady,  she says today is Anti-Procrastination Day.  I am the queen of procrastination!  

So what have I been putting off -- dishes, laundry, cleaning the bathroom (I know yuck!), sweeping and I am sure there are more things but that is what I am going to start with.  I honestly thought I had more laundry than what I do, but I don't.  I am not complaining.  Maybe I will even wash the curtains and open the windows.  It is a little toasty today but I think some fresh air would be nice.    

Well, enough procrastinating.  Let's get things done today!  I know I can do it!!

Learning CAN Be Fun!!

If the ones that hit the planet are called meteorites, then what do you call the ones that missed?

Meteor-wrongs!

In coordination with Miss Frizzle and The Magic School Bus, Kira and I have been learning a lot about the planets.  Here is what Kira remembers from our lessons this week:

1. Mercury is the hottest planet.  It is also the smallest.  
2. Venus is the brightest planet but we cannot see it at night.  They call it Earth's twin.
3. Earth is where we live and the only place that has life.
4. Mars is the red planet.  It has iron in the dirt and is covered with dust.
5. Jupiter is the largest one and has a LOT of moons!  It is a gas planet. (And she giggles...)
6. Saturn has rings and is also a gas planet.  
7. Uranus is blue-green and also has skinny rings.  
8. We cannot see Neptune without a telescope.
9. Pluto is not a planet any more. *frown*

I found a lapbook that was specifically for the Magic School Bus episode we watched.  With the information from it and the other things I found our lapbook was 3 folders long.   

We also made a play-dough model of the planets, minus Pluto to which Kira responded 'It's still a planet.  It's just smaller!'  Technically it is. It is a dwarf planet but I am not going to attempt to argue the point today.  Our play-dough models -- were kinda to scale.  We tried to use this website and the instructions (which seem easy) weren't as child (or parent) friendly.  I guess I just had trouble with the directions.  We did our best and that is all that matters.  Miss Frizzle said to 'Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!'  By the time they were painted, Kira's fingers were a rainbow of colors!  Now that they are painted, I have no idea what we are going to do with them, but we had fun making them.

Oh, and my friend Christina, sent me a link to the Blues Clues Planet Song.  Kira is in the process of learning it and I will post it this weekend!

Body by Pizza...

A friend of mine started a Facebook Group called 'To Our Health.'  We were all talking that we need to lose some weight but were lacking motivation.  Each day we post what we have eaten, the exercising we have done, and any questions or concerns we may have.  Someone usually has an answer.  We are not only doing this for ourselves but for our families.  A fellow Cairoite, Jill Eoff was on the Today Show a couple of weeks ago and I think Jill Eoff really got us going.  In 2008 she weighed in at 344 lbs!  I was shocked.  After starting Weight Watchers, Jill began to lose the weight.  In 4 years she lost 182 lbs.

I haven't been on the scales for some time but I used my Wii Fit board and weighed in at 163 lbs.  That is 15 lbs lighter than when I was at the doctor in November.  Not a tremendous amount of weight but it is a start.  I am not noticing it in my clothes so that is really what I am wanting to do.  I have a lot of clothes that are size 12 but since I am so close to that size I can't bring myself to get ride of them.  Now today I had 1/2 a packet of ramen noodles with some grilled chicken.  It was saltier than I would have liked but it was also healthier than what I normally have.  I know tonight's supper is not going to be the healthiest.  Wednesdays we always go to McDonald's after Kira's Girl Scout meeting.  Wednesday is the night for cheap cheesburgers.  We normally just get only the cheeseburgers and bring them home.  I found this blog that I am going to start reading as well.  It is called Body By Pizza.  Sounds interesting.  

Current weight: 163 lbs
Goal weight: 135 lbs