Biking in the Fall
Over the weekend, we loaded up all the bikes and headed up toward Galax, VA, to find the New River Trail State Park http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/new.shtml. It is the most beautiful place we have found to go on a day trip to bike. It takes about one and a half hours to get to from Winston Salem. It used to be a rail road line, so it is almost completely flat and has little water falls, big trellises and dark tunnels. Fun for us and for the boys. This latest time, we were able to bike five miles out and back, taking along plenty of grapes and apple chips to put into any little mouths that thought about whining. 
Since it is so flat, even 10 miles is doable for all of us, although we were ready to get back in the car by the end of the journey.
New School Year already?
It has been a long time since I have sat down and made a blog post. Since I work from home on the computer now, it is not as fun to sit down and play on the computer. It’s hard to believe, but Evan is a big fourth grader this year. Only one more year in elementary school after this one?? What a thought. He has a second year teacher who looks about 12 years old to me, but who really keeps him on his toes. She works very hard to find vocabulary words to challenge him. He said this is the first year that he has words he doesn’t already know. Nice. Grayson is in second grade now. His reading is really taking off! We sit together and read the Magic Treehouse books. We are both enjoying that. He says that all he does is read and write all day long. I love seeing his progress! Here is their picture from the first day of school this year. Do they look taller? They get to ride the bus in the mornings now and we have a nice little walk down the road together in the mornings. They watch for the bus pretty eagerly. I love that they are still looking forward to school.
Painting
I procrastinate very well when it comes to painting rooms. I have talked about wanting to paint the kitchen for well over a year. Recently, though, I became inspired. First, I painted the downstairs bathroom a fresh coat of yellow. It had started looking dingy to me. Then……I started the kitchen! I began with the ceiling. I sprayed and scraped off the gross popcorn that some lovely person had sprayed up there long ago. After that I primed it and took a break. The boys and I were picnicking in the mess the next day and I happened to look up and see that the primer was cracking along the places that had mud (spackle) on wallboards. I climbed up, picked at it, and the primer pulled off! I c
ouldn’t believe it. Talking with the man at ACE Hardware, he thought that when the mud was put up that it was coated with an oil based sealant. I was using an acrylic primer. So….. I had to scrape off all the primer that was over the mud, which was 1/4 to 1/3 of the ceiling, and then sand to get below that coating. THEN, I primed again and held my breath. It worked that time. After taking a day’s break, I painted two coats of ceiling paint and thought that everyone should only eat while lying on the floor and looking up. Ben thought I should paint the walls anyway since I had patched and primed them, so I got up my nerve and started that. It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r to go around all the windows and corners, but I finally did finish. I guess now you don’t have to eat while lying on the floor.
Family Photo
Our church is getting its directory updated. We missed the last update, so in the one before it, Grayson is about 18 months old. It is time for an update! A member of our church has a business who does just this sort of thing called re:Member. We were pleased with the very talented and silly cameraman who got such a great smile out of Grayson. 
Synonym songs
When I was in third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Bobo, put a very funny synonym song up for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” It began, “Propel, Propel, Propel Your Craft.” Evan and I were sitting together tonight laughing about that song. I started to wonder if we could make up synonym songs for any other tunes we knew. Amid an awful lot of giggles, we came up with these two:
Small male azure
Hither toot thy instrument
Thy mutten romps in yonder field
The milk bearers tromp the maze
Whither is the youth who tends the mutton?
Look beneath the bales
A snoring.
——————————
——————————
Blink, blink tiny fireball
I often ponder your meaning
Beyond our Earth
Such as jewels in Oaronos
Blink, blink tiny fireball.
Pastels class
It has been a long time, but I just finished taking an art class through Forsyth Tech that lasted several weeks. I thought that the instructor pushed me out of my comfort zone. See the figure and the beginning of the dog? Thinking about it still makes my hands sweat. Ha! My favorites are the landscapes and I do think I can see some improvements. It was great that she spent time on learning new techniques. I hope to take more classes in the future.
All in a day
I used to send out emails with little “Evan quotes” at the bottom. After I switched to google, I couldn’t figure out how to have these random messages appear, so I just added a singular quote and forgot about it. I fell away from grabbing those quotes. However, today just seemed filled with jewels:
While playing twenty questions in the car, Evan’s question was, “Can you whack and destroy things with it?”
While walking in a field, Grayson tries to get Evan and Ben to go in one direction. Evan says, “No! Don’t go that way! There are humans over there.” Pause……slightly lowered voice, “Females!”
After getting dressed up this morning, I walked by Evan who said, “Gosh mom. I think you overdid your prettiness.”
What Alice Forgot
The Devil Amongst the Lawyers (Ballad Mystery, #8)
I Am Half Sick Of Shadows: A Flavia De Luce Novel
Unbroken: A World War II Story Of Survival, Resilience, And Redemption
The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (A Flavia de Luce Mystery #2)
The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means
Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory
View the news