7QT: Rinks Rule!

1. We have a winner!

Would Susan Kolosionek come on down! You have won the Blackberry Sage Dragon Soap from RobinsOwn (that I bought because Robin doesn't know me from Adam) and the teal soap dish (from TJ Maxx).

2. Have you seen this Reese Witherspoon movie, The Good Lie? 

So good.

Reese is not really the star of this film, but she is the headliner. The Good Lie, for those of you who live under a rock or in a cave as I do, is about three of the Lost Boys of Sudan, their journey to Kenya, and eventually to America.

There is one not great scene, the first scene with Reese. The movie is rated PG-13. I think the rating is spot on, though I did let my 12 year old watch it.

So good.

The Good Lie reminded me of the incredible children's novel I read and reviewed about the Lost Boys of Sudan by Linda Sue Park called A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story.

Edmund doesn't know it yet, but he's reading A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story in the near future.

3. Big skating party here yesterday. 

A (young, hip) seminarian-deacon came over as well as a dozen or so friends and family.

He said he couldn't skate, but he was skating backwards and whipping around the rink like nobody's business. I did hear that he can't stop though.

The little girls and I stayed in the warmth and made blueberry muffins.

It was picture perfect.

The rink definitely puts a positive spin on winter. Edmund uses the rink every chance he gets for recess and has neighbor kids or cousins over most days after school.

We've accumulated an enormous stash of skates so we can provide for just about any size, including Lucy's entire skating party of fifteen teens. We had enough hockey sticks for them all too.

I bet we have your size if you'd like to come visit!

Exercise, endorphins, and sunshine are just a few of the benefits. My kids are all good skaters now. Jill will get her first pair next year.

4. Some people have pools, some people have rinks.

Heather at Mama Knows Honeychild asked on my IG picture if it's difficult to build a rink.

Yes, Heather. It is difficult to build a rink, but if you live North of Arendelle, it's worth it.

First you need plywood and 4 by somethings to build your boards (sides). Wood is not cheap. We store our boards in our crawl space during the off season.

The boards go up Thanksgiving weekend or as close to it as we can get.

We buy a liner from Nice Rink in Wisconsin.  Patrick, or one of our rink building relatives with a large vehicle, will make the trek to the factory and pick up the liners for a few of us.

The liner alone costs about $400.  Ours is the biggest backyard rink we've seen, so it's the most expensive too.  Can't re-use the liner, because come spring, the sides are shredded and it's gross.

Then there's the water. We run a hose from our basement laundry sink to the rink for about 72 hours. It's a big rink. The deep areas fill first and the shallow areas fill last. The deepest part of our rink is 11-12 inches deep. We get billed for the water and the sewage/waste-water too, even though we put the water in the public drain. The water costs are about $200, much less for a smaller rink.

The next part is up to Mother Nature.  Zero degrees (Fahrenheit) for 24 hours makes 3 inches of ice. If the temps are above zero, but below 32, it takes longer. On average, our rink freezes in about 4 days. It won't be solid yet, but it will be skate-able.

Anytime we have a day above freezing, the rink starts to melt. It's too slushy to skate on, but a short thaw can re-surface it nicely.

Otherwise, Patrick re-surfaces the rink himself with a homemade device called a rink rake.

5. Other Important Rink Facts

Snow can ruin your rink, especially slushy, wet snow. If that slushy, wet snow freezes on your rink, the texture will be like a gravel road.

We never had a snowblower until we had to shovel our entire backyard.

Many people ask if the rink ruins the grass.

No. A thick heavy block of ice on top of the grass does nothing to it.

6. Pa! The Chinook Is Blowing!

When and if spring comes, the ice begins to thaw beyond all hope of recovery. We use an electric pump to pump the water to the curb so as not to flood our neighbors' yards.

Then we cut up the liner into manageable pieces and throw it away. This must be done as soon as possible because a heavy piece of wet plastic on a warm(ish) day will kill your grass.

Then the boards come down and go in the crawl space until next winter.

Patrick always gets sad when this happens, but SPRING!

7. Don't forget! This Wednesday is the March What We're Reading Wednesday Link-Up!

I'm late to the link-up party with Kelly and the Krew for 7QT Friday.

WWRW. 3/4/15. Must. Not. Forget.

7QT - Family Style

1.

Ain't nothin' gonna break-a my stride!  Ain't nothin' gonna hold me back...oo-oo...

I'll stop now.

2.  Sometimes, homeschooling looks like this.

Edmund socializes at a science museum.

3.  But usually it looks like this.

Edmund invents new ways to waste time during math.

4.  Sometimes history class looks like coloring in these Dover coloring books on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome.

Edmund and I were discussing the coloring books last night.  Actually, I was complaining that I did not like to color the Ancient Egypt book because everything in it is tan.  Boooorrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg.

That's when he swapped with me and I realized that the Ancient Greece book is a lot about....

nudity.

Just to be clear, there are some full-moons, but that's it.

We laughed about that.  Apparently, in Edmund's mind, the Greeks are known for Alexander the Great, the Olympics, and nudity.  

He did a great job narrating (that's Charlotte Mason fancy homeschooling lingo for "telling me") the story of why the Greeks were naked in their Olympics, which probably had a lot to do with why women weren't allowed to compete or observe. There was a footrace during which one guy's "covering" (that's Edmund's term) fell off.  He did not stop to pick it up.  That guy won, and everyone thought it was because he was nude, so everyone ran in the nude from then on.

I will pause while you let your imagination run away with you...modern Olympics and nudity...get all your giggles out.

5.  Susan seems to have the most homework in Art?  She pours over her sketchbook for hours and hours.

She reminds me of this dude.

And the three hours he spent shading the upper lip on this drawing.

Actually, her drawings are very good.  

See?

So it was very funny the other night when she asked Patrick how her reproduction of a Monet looked.

He responded with love and sarcasm as he does, "It looks great!  If you squint."

In his defense, "What?  It's Impressionism!  You're supposed to squint!"

6.  Jill has added two new words to her 2-years-old-going-on-10 vocabulary.

Let me use them in context for you.

My hair was masty so Mom gave me a bath.

Or 

Edmund and Dad smell masty after skating.

And

I have a veggie!  You gave me a veggie!

By which she very obviously means "wedgie."

7.  Yes, I do have two other children.

Peter has been over-scheduled with school and work and baseball and play practice, so I have not been able to record anything witty or silly that he said to embarrass him with.

The same goes for Lucy who has play practice nearly every day.  Jill is mildly disgusted that Lucy is playing the lead part in the upcoming school musical of Peter Pan, because Peter Pan is a boy.

Linking up with the other Conversion Diary junkies and thinking about playing along in her 7 Posts in 7 Days challenge for next week.

Next week's forecast shows great temps for our backyard rink, so I will be holed up indoors inflicting my cabin fever on you.

Theme Thursday: Ridiculous

This is Patrick after spending 90 minutes of snowblowing this:

It's like snow-blowing a driveway that is 10 feet wide and 350 feet long.  Then he did our sidewalks and our driveway which is 80 feet long.  He 'da man.  I hope all of those rascally teens coming over to skate tonight appreciate his hard work.

Thanks, Cari, for hosting this, for explaining "tilt-shift" to me so I can have the miniature train land effect like the cool peeps, and for introducing me to web.stagram.com so I can more easily harvest my Instagram photos for the blog.

I see a lot more Theme Thursday participation in my 2014, 'specially if the themes are super easy like "ridiculous" or "nonsense" because I have those in abundance.

7 Quick Takes Feast of St. Andrew

 

1.

"Dad made the Drudge Report," said the text from my oldest baby brother.  By the time, I found the skewer to pry open my laptop and convinced the squirrels to run fast enough to reach interweb speed, I missed it.  Or I couldn't find it or something.

But on Twitter, I found another Catholic blogger had already written all about it the victorious step in my dad's lawsuit against the HHS mandate.  

I found it very interesting that one of my 100+ cousins had made this her Facebook status that day:

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."
Exodus 14:14

Hold still, Dad. 

2.

Jesse Tree Swap Update: 

Again?  I know, I know.  It's almost over.

Yesterday, I dropped of 23 boxes at USPS each containing 30 ornaments.  The other 2 ornaments will be arriving shortly, and I have been assured that I can mail these to you in envelopes.

I did not use those gallon size baggies, I realized when I woke up in a cold sweat this morning.  Some of the ornaments are quite small, so PLEASE count out your 30 ornaments before you throw away any packing material.

Bad news:  You won't get your boxes until Monday. Cassandra and the folks in Canada will have to be patient even longer.

Good news:  We were able to use medium flat rate boxes, so you are getting $4 in cash in your box too!  Again, please do not throw away any crumpled newspaper or plastic grocery bags that were used as filler until you find your ornaments and your cash.

3.

I did not print out handouts with the verses, symbols, etc.  slacker.  Rather, I will email the document to you and you can print it up, or not. 

4.

What's with everyone having their homes all decorated, trees lit and everything and it's not even Advent?

The Christmas season doesn't even start until December 24th!

How can you prepare if you have nothing left to prepare?

I just don't get it.  I put away my autumnal leaf and ceramic pumpkins today, because November is over.  But our tree won't be going up for a few weeks, and it will stay up through the Octave of Christmas, at least until the Epiphany has come and gone.

I know some folks keep their Christmas decor up until Candlemas which is February 2nd, but I can't keep a tree alive that long.

5.

Just when you've picked up your rink liner from Wisconsin, you get temps in the 50s.  Freezing temps will come.  They always do.

6.

Doing gift exchanges with friends, co-workers, or relatives?  I highly recommend Elfster.  The website does the draw, keeps it anonymous, and you can keep spouses from getting each other.  This is our second year using Elfster, and I was able to click a box that ensures nobody gets the person they had last year.   

Also, you can make a wishlist and link to items you want, or ask your gift recipient anonymous questions...which can be a lot of fun.

Yes, I ripped this take off my sister's blog.

7.

I heard a lot about this show, but no one mentioned it's set in modern times!  They look like an elf and a hobbit.

I've had so many firsts this week.  My first Bond movie (B+), my first Sherlock episodes (A+), my first Doctor Who episodes (?).  I'm not sure I started in the right place with the Doctor.  I went to Netflix and put on Episode 1 of Season 1, Rose, 2005, Christopher Eccleston.  Did I make an error?  When did David Tennant take over?  What do I do now?  What is that funny black line next to the image below?

Enough trivial drivel.  

Go see Jen for something meatier.

 

Have a blessed Advent!