Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

 The coaches announced their choice for skater of the month, and this time it was Michael!

How did that happen? Was what he wanted to know.

Hard work!

The title has Home-School in it but it’s not about homeschooling or homeschooling families.  It is all about a Home and School Council connected to the Philadelphia Public Schools. An umbrella organization connecting home and school associations at Philadelphia public schools.  This point is missed by at least one commenter who remarks about the missing funds, “..if this has to do with home schooling, its understandable. Home schoolers are kind of weird and religious…john56,”

No, we are not all religious, and while some might be weird I’ve yet to meet them.  We can actually read and comprehend that this Greg Wade and the Home and School Council are not homeschoolers or home schoolers or home-schoolers.

A post on TWTM got me wanting to share my favorite breakfast food.

It isn’t bacon and eggs, or waffles, or pancakes, or anything most people think of for breakfast.  No……  Let me back-up to a summer morning when my parents were visiting us.  It was 1998 and it would be the last time my mom visited my home but we didn’t know that she would die during open-heart surgery 6-months later.

My kids were 6 and 2yo; their bedroom and our guest bedroom were on the first floor while mine was on the second floor.  I had slept a little late knowing that the kids would climb in bed with their grandparents and be taken care of OK.

As I came downstairs I could see the boys sitting at the end of the island eating with their grandparents standing to one side, quietly talking with the boys and so I slipped into the room and stood on the opposite side of the island.  By this time the boys were giggling and my folks had cheshire cat grin’s on their faces.

“What’s going on?”  I asked.

Michael exclaimed — “We’re having cereral mom, with a little ice cream!”

Ahhh, so that’s what my mom had been quietly telling my son; telling him exactly what to say.

I smiled and replied, “That’s the best thing to have for breakfast!”  

My mom shared with my boys how I had routinely had that for breakfast when I was a pre-teen so it was only fitting that they have it too.

It actually is a rather normal breakfast for the boys now.  Well, if we have ice cream in the house, and if it is breakfast time.  A bowl of ice cream with a little cereral sprinkled over the top, and a big dash of a memory.   It’s the only one my boys really still have of their Grandmother.  At least it is a pretty good one!

A friend’s son has FOP.  No, that doesn’t stand for Fraternal Order of Police, but fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.   Maybe you have heard of the Stone Man’s disease where muscle and connective tissue turns to bone?  But if you haven’t you shouldn’t be surprised since there’s only an estimated 700 folks in the WORLD with this disease.

Over the past couple years our friend has shared how she and her kids have transported their baby teeth to the researchers at PENN.   The researchers then harvested stem cells from the teeth for research work.   Last month when we scheduled Michael’s wisdom teeth extraction I asked if they might be interested in his wisdom teeth.  Sure enough today, when they’re extracted, a researcher from PENN will be there to place the teeth into a special medium, transport them back to PENN where hopefully the  wisdom teeth will yield abundant osteoprogenitor stem cells.

Stem cells from wisdom teeth.  Wow!   The FOP gene was discovered in 2006 which leads for hope for a cure or a means to inhibit bone growth.   The researchers, who age-match donor stem cells with FOP-patient stem cells, are excited about what they’re learning and gathering from the past teeth.   I hope these Wisdom Teeth lead to wisdom about FOP.

Follow-Up:   DS’s wisdom teeth extraction went smooth.  The teeth are now at PENN.

The installers arrived this morning at 10am, leaving around 2pm.  Oh my, when it went in on the stairs the carpet had a purple tone to it.  I wasn’t sure I liked it:

It is called neutral beige.  Once they left I ran the vacum over it, picking up all the little threads and trying to convince myself that it was better then the pink that had been there.

What do you think? 

As I vacummed I got upset — the installers had left, I signed off on the job, but we were finding things they wrecked.  There’s a 6″ piece of baseboard that is cracked and bent down at a 45 degree angle, so they had to see it.   We will have to replace it.  They had to know they did it and yet they didn’t tell me.   The 2 hallway hanging lights were bent at a 45 degree angle, knocked by carpet as they carried it upstairs.  Granted DH was supposed to replace them with recessed lights before they did this job but they didn’t even tell me they hit them…………. and the wall at the stairs landing will need to be repainted SOON—-scratched really, really bad…..  GRRRR, I really, really HATE having contractors in my home.   And there’s a section of the upstairs hallway that will have to be repainted. 

Well, at least Mark’s bedroom has gotten cleaned out and DH likes it.

Late this fall our skating coaches began awarding a Skater-of-the-Month award.  This is to be given not necessary to the fastest skater, or the skater with the best form, but to the skater who has been working hard, listening to the coaches and trying to improve.  And so it was on a fine evening that our Skating Coaches announced their latest choice.  We gathered and listened to their fine words:

(only about 1/4 of our team were present for practice that evening but the kid who needed to be there was!)

And at least one child was quite surprised by their choice.

And very pleased with being chosen:

How pleased?  When we arrived home he promptly hung his plaque on his bulletin board, over his school desk for all to see.

I’m still enjoying, and will be for some time, the Christmas present my boys made for me this year:

A FOURTEEN room purple martin house!  They used materials that were lying around in the woodworking shop except for the copper strips on the roof peak.  What a beautiful, sound house! The birds are going to love it.

Each side opens for easy cleaning and for inspecting the eggs and baby birds.  If you look closely at this picture you can see through the kitchen window to our present purple martin house.  That house is 6yrs old, plastic and the walls get blown out when the wind whips through our yard.  That happens quite frequently however, somehow we had 8 nesting pairs this past summer.   They keep the bug population to a minimal and I love watching them fly around the sky, or sit on the roof peak calling to each other, or how they try to scare Brutus and Chloe away from their house.  The dogs are not interested in the birds, but they sure get concerned about the dogs.

Also, note that someone—I think Michael—is taking another piece of Apple Strudel.  We always, always, always have that on Christmas morning.

We’ve been told that we need to keep the old purple martin house up for another season.  Hopefully the purple martins will fall in love with their new home as much as I have and move right into it.

The walls are painted.

The stomachs are filled with seafood.

The movie is playing and it is time to say so-long to 2008.  What a year it was for us.

Happy New Year.  We welcome 2009.

This morning, in the bright light of daytime, I realized that the hallwall trimwork looks dingy.  Yellowish instead of nice, bright white like the foyer or family room trimwork.

Now would be a great time to paint I thought and sprung the idea on DH.  He isn’t too keen on doing this project but that didn’t stop me.  I opened the paint can and proceeded to paint all the upstairs hallway trim.  So nice not to have to put drop cloths in place.

Tomorrow I’ll paint the walls.  We have a gallon-and-a-half of paint leftover from when the hallway was painted 7 years ago.   That’s what I’ll use and it won’t even cost us a dime.   Ahhh, nice, freshly coated walls to go with the new carpet.

 Chloe, laying, watching the action below her.  This is her favorite spot to sleep.  She looks innocent doesn’t she.  Hmm, read on to see how she is the reason for some of this carpet removal.

She moved quickly once the work began.

The boys love to jump right in and tackle these jobs.  (This is actually a teaching moment for us—see boys, this is one reason you want to study hard or this might be the only job you can get as an adult.  Not that this isn’t a needed job, just that we want them to have a choice.)

Ahh, to have the strength of a 16yo.  I tried to pull the carpet off the steps and it is hard work!

DS continued up the flight of steps before turning to the task of removing each and every nail and staple.

At about this point he asked why there was so much sand and dirt on the steps under the carpet.  LOL!!

We have a long runway at the top of the steps.  Mark and I tackled pulling the carpet off  this area.  Pink carpet, what were they thinking?

When we pulled the carpet up from this spot we discovered a shiny penny minted the year our home was built.  The previous owner must have placed it there.  What a fun surprise.  I slid it under one of the bedroom’s carpet for either us to find at a later date or for the next owner to discover.

And here’s the other son hard at work removing the nail strip.  He is so happy to be doing this.

Hmmm, a picture does say a thousand words and this is his normal expression when he really wants to do the job at hand.

This is Mark’s bedroom, emptied of almost all its items.  His carpet is being replaced also.  It is a lovely carpet except for a few spots…..

holes placed there by Chloe.  Do not ever say a puppy is free.   Thankfully it is the only carpet she choose to dig into, and chew, and dig.

The new carpet, “neutral beige” will be installed on Friday!