The Great Book Sort of '18, Part 2

 We thought a lot about why and how the book shelves got out of hand, and one big reason was having the Legos take over the book shelves. 

They were in front of the books, but that meant no one wanted to move them to get at the books, let alone to put books away!

Since the Zoomlians declared the Legos to be necessary (and since I don't want to think about how much we've spent on Legos over the years), we decided to make dedicated Lego display shelves.

And, since we were repainting the library, we were able to paint the shelves to match!

The main walls are peach and the accent wall and shelves are periwinkle.

 And you know, if you organize one part of the house, it means reorganizing the rest!

Not only did a lot of extra stuff end up in the guest room, we decided to move Zorg's desk from the library to the office.

Which meant moving my desk from the office to the guest room.

But we got there in the end!

Now, if only I could get the back basement organized...

The Great Book Sort of '18 Part 1

 We went through every book in the house.

The pictures are mostly the library, but we have book shelves in every room except the bathrooms!

 I had thought we were up to 4000 books, and I knew from experience that we really can't keep more than 3000 without losing track and creating random piles.

It turned out we were probably closer to 5000 books, maybe a bit more.

 We gave away or donated about 2000 books!  And that's not counting the ones we recycled because they were in terrible shape!

 We sorted and we culled and we cleaned for a week, but we ended up with around 3000 books that we love.

And we know where all of them are!

Wordless Wednesday: Shark Tooth Hunting

Happy Birthday, Mxyl!

Mxyl turned 21 when we were off vacationing in Virginia!

We had an ice cream cake for his birthday, and a bottle of muscato with his steak dinner (21 is the legal drinking age in the US).

Later, back in Maryland, we had a second birthday party with Pop and Mxyl got his biggest birthday present: tickets to try indoor skydiving with Klenda, Zorg, and Leena!




21 Great Things About Mxyl
1. He's working on  his second movie, Abydos: Incursion.  
2. He's really good at web design.
3. He's a great older brother who doesn't mind taking his little brothers biking!
4.  According to those little brothers, "He's amazing!"
4. He's an honor student in all his college classes.
5. He knows an astonishing amount about tokusatsu.  
6. He loves the sacraments.  
7. He's got a great sense of humor!  
7. He's a deadly punster. 
  8. He looks cool in sunglasses.  
9. He never gives spoilers.  
10. He's passionate about his projects.  
10. He has an amazing ability to learn complex things,  whether it's calculus or Japanese, or a computer language.  
11. He always tries to make things better.
12. He's great with little kids.  
13. He always sees things through.  
14. He fan subs Japanese movies.  
14. He loves to help people. 
 15. He does a posh British accent.  
16. He's my in house computer support guy.  
17. He's my out of the house errand guy.
17. He's a big supporter of all his siblings crazy schemes.  
18 He has an eye for creating beautiful photographs.  
18.He enjoys really good artistic movies.
19. He enjoys really bad (artistically speaking) movies.  
20. He's helps without being asked. 
20. He's still supporting the scouts, especially his siblings.  
21. He's a very loving son and grandson!

Poem of the Week: Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

By Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

HT: Poetry Foundation

Vacation Round 3: Bubbles and Birthdays

 We played around quite a bit with a giant bubble wand.

And we took a dip in the hot tub on a rainy day.

And we celebrated Mxyl's 21st birthday!

Vacation Round 2: Fire Pit, Plus the Great Indoors

Smores, skits, singing, and Klenda playing her guitar!

Meanwhile, inside we did puzzles, games, pool, and foosball!

Vacation Round 1: The Great Outdoors

 This year we went back to Crimora Mine Retreat, and it was still beautiful and secluded and amazing.

But this year, I wasn't relapsing from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, so instead of rereading all of Jane Austen's novels (which admittedly was fun last year), I spent the vacation hiking, kayaking, taking pictures, and otherwise having fun with all the Zoomlians!

So beautiful!


So relaxing!
 And I found manganese!  The "mine" part of Crimora Mine Retreat is that the lake is an old flooded manganese mine, and many of the hiking trails are old mining roads.

Which means that there are plenty of roundish red lumps of manganese ore lying around!



We had a great time exploring the paths.  Someone must have a paper map somewhere, but the lure of, "where does this unknown path go" is nigh irresistible.

 There were also hundreds of tiny frogs in a hundred yard radius from the lake.  Super cute!

 Plus butterflies, large frogs, turtles and...two largish adolescent bears that  (fortunately) went crashing off into the forest when we startled them.