In other surfing, I came across this lovely scarf while reading my amigurumi yahoo bulletin board and thought the colors, the photograph, was just really lovely. Looks very soft and would make a cozy, loving gift. From etsy shop Curls of Sunshine.

ZOOREKA A WINNER!

My good buddy at Keiki Gifts gave my younger thing Zooreka for her 4th birthday recently. At first I thought, "uh, parts" but then I thought, "ok, not that many". So we sat down to learn to play. It is supposed to be for ages 8 and up, but after a good deal of cheating on the 4 year old's part (she just loved to throw those die), she settled down and now plays with her 7 yr old sister and myself quite well. It is a very good game! Fairly simple and after weeks of play, I discovered that exchanging food, animal, and shelter cards at the Trading Post can teach some algebra. One animal card = 3 food cards, one shelter card = 2 animal cards, therefore, if you have 6 food cards, you can trade them in for 2 animal cards. And, if you want to buy a zoo exhibit (naked rats, tortoise, orangutan, etc.), you can with just food and animal cards even though you don't have exactly 1 shelter, 2 animal, and 4 foods.

And then, there's GAMBLING!!! Okay, educationally speaking, it's really basic probability. The resource dice does not have random pictures on it as I originally thought. Since shelter is the most valuable, equal to 2 animals or 6 foods, it appears only once on the dice. Food, having the smallest value (like a penny), appears 4 times on the dice. Part of collecting resource cards is placing your token, or bet, on one of the resource pictures you hope the dice to roll to. So, although you are likely to roll a food (banana), are you gonna bet on the smallest value or the largest, shelter (tree), or the mid-value animal (paw print). It's pretty neat. And great to discover that aspect on your own, as opposed to explaining to players at the very beginning. They will probably get that all on their own. But my esteem of this game shot way up when I figured that out. Neat and a definite value. I can play Zooreka every day with those aspects!

Thank you, Keiki Gifts!

This is the most awesome site I have seen in a long time. Great kid and parent projects, inspired by single parenting and things dads like to tinker with. Free pdf downloads of clear, simple instructions for a lot of really amazing stuff. Dads Can Do dot com. Wonderful Harry Potter stuff section. Amazing, simple, beautiful wands! And mini-spell book! And quills! Oh my!!!

There's so much going on with the internet now, I just barely have time to check and respond to email nowadays. That and my computer has trouble reading my camera's memory card. So putting images on the net has been challenging. Haven't been reading or commenting on anyone's blog for a long time. Must get back on the writing horse and put some articles together - for the Hawaii WAHM blog and our state's 4H newsletter on the joys and challenges of camping with 3-6 year olds almost monthly.

I love to write and comment but I've been trying to keep computer time down to a minimum, handling MOMS Club board duties, organizing things, email, keeping track of our family's calendar, etc. I even stopped shopping online!!! (horrified gasp) That's really a good thing because I didn't know I loved to shop until I started doing it online. Yarn. Books. Craft stuff. It was out of control. With no children nagging and clinging to my parts, I could look and click and buy now at will. Wow. Talk about addictive, destructive behaviors. It's a good thing I never got into physically destructive things, cuz shopping online is bad enough.

It's hard to think about business things when there's so much family things to fill a life! Geesh. I marvel at women who were able to be SAHMs and then pull their heads and bodies out of full-time child care to join or rejoin the business world. Out. There. I don't even know if I could do THAT again. I mean, I shall never don pantihose and heels again. NEVER. Not even if it paid half a million dollars a year. And makeup, daily?! Like with face stuff...whatchu call, ummm, foundation? Nuh uh. Blech. To the male coworkers, I'd just say, "you first!" Women already have to sit to pee, lose bodily fluids on a regular basis, and wear extra underwear. We don't need to walk on unsteady sticks, yank on tight, uncomfortable stretchy stuff over our legs, AND spend our precious dollars on makeup and hair products too. Am I a feminist? Dunno. Did tell my oldest that she didn't even have to shave anything if she no like. We'll see how that goes.

Eh, aloha, you all. (You one, J?) ;) Got a family thing to work on before I try to stay up way too late watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy and knitting socks or sewing cinch sacks. Kam swapmeet tomorrow morning for cheap, fresh carrots and cucumbers. I get wacky if I don't eat enough cucumbers. Sorry no peetchas today. Next time.