A Daring Adventure

Changes

Oh, so much to say.  I think I will number it all.


                                                    ~   ~   ~


1.)




Today is the tenth anniversary of September 11th, so, of course, lots of people have been writing about that.  Where they were, what they were doing, etc.


I was on my way to work, listening to the radio.  Which went from music to news and then... stayed news.


I called my Dad and told him to turn on the tv.  "What channel?"  he asked me.  "Any of them," I told him, and then hung up and called James.


James wasn't a police officer much longer after that.  With the creation of Homeland Security/TSA came new federal job opportunities, and James was fortunate enough to be selected for one.


Going through TSA lines at various airports these last few days while flying around visiting family, I have encountered TSA folks many times.  And though I have railed against TSA on my blog (I even have an entire CATEGORY called "TSA Sucks Royal," which is actually a very popular Google referral to my blog), aspects of the job were incredibly beneficial for James. 


I mean, at one point, he literally managed a federal employee workforce of over 200 people!  How many folks in leadership positions at State have had that kind of federal management experience?  Precious few, right?  There just aren't that many positions available that come with that volume of leadership, because State is so much smaller than Homeland Security.  And James was an excellent, excellent manager, who led by example and with kindness, fairness and respect.  So thank you, TSA, for your positive aspects.


Yes, September 11th was horrible, and I remember it today.


                                                   ~   ~   ~


2.)  I also stand with Jill Perlman and with Jen Dinoia, two dear, dear friends of mine who are also both State bloggers, who remember their friend's son who perished in the DC area flooding a few days ago.  He was twelve years old, the same exact age as my younger son, Zachary.  I cannot even fathom losing my Zachary.  My heart goes out to that family. 


                                                   ~   ~   ~


3.)  I, like Diplopundit (here and here), simply must write about the recent State blogger disappearances. 


If you are not too terribly familiar with the State blogosphere, you may not know that, very recently, two of my favorite blogs have gone dark**: Sass and Sweet and Muttering Behind the Hardline.


[**Which is a nice way of saying that they have been deleted.  Which is a nice way of saying that they probably didn't just decide some random day that they just randomly felt like shutting down.] 


Being a State blogger has never been a safe, risk-free endeavor.  There are many, many bloggers I know whose blogs have not gone dark but who have come under very heavy fire. 


You may notice that my own blog's sidebars (and some former blog posts) have been re-designed today.  Some things that used to be there are gone.  Some things that were not there before have newly appeared.  I'm not going to enumerate the changes, but I am going to ask that if you notice what they are, that you trust me and trust my judgment.  That I took down what I did for a reason.  That I have put up what I have for one, too. 


That, like all other bloggers, I'm doing my best to try to navigate these funky waters. 

Earthquake!

Holy cow, you guys!


So we're all in the middle of moving and everything, and then out of nowhere Zachary and Matthew start yelling to me that there are two birds INSIDE the house flying around.  It was so strange.  We've never before had birds come INSIDE the house.


There were two of the little bird on the left in this picture (I took the picture last winter):






The birds that had flown into our house were very confused.


So I went and helped them get out of the house (without harm), and by the time all the commotion of having birds flying around in the house died down, the house started shaking.


Things were falling off the desk - it was crazy - and, honestly, the idea of it being an earthquake literally never crossed my mind.  I honestly thought- it's another attack or something.  Because we're really close to Washington DC, right?


But it was an earthquake!  Which is absolutely CRAZY.  I never, ever expected to have an earthquake hit us in DC.  From the news reports, it looks like it was a 5.9 magnitude or something like that. 


Life is NEVER BORING, I'll say that!


After the earthquake, I remembered that the birds had flown into the house, all discombobulated, and remembered reading that sometimes animals behave very strangely right before natural disasters.  And I can't help but link the birds in the house to the earthquake that happened just a few minutes later.  Because, really, now - birds have never before been in my house, and then right before the earthquake there were two of them!  I can't even imagine that's just a coincidence.   

 

A Gorgeous Spring Day in Virginia (Among Other Things)

Today was a beautiful, beautiful day.  Virginia can really pull out all the stops in the spring.  See the above picture?  Gorgeous blue sky; not too hot, not too cold.  Perfect.


We went to Roosevelt Island and walked around.  Nature!!  I haven't seen nature in oh-so-long.  You know, since one isn't really exposed to nature much when one is doing nothing but studying Chinese, one doesn't see nature a whole lot.  Which is getting reeeeeeeeally old.


Spring!  There is love in the air.  And in the trees.  See the heart?







The flowers are blooming!  Okay, well, maybe not so much on Roosevelt Island, at least not right now.  There were pretty little vines, though, and some of those had white flowers on them:





Which was fun. 


And dandelions!  There were dandelions galore:






And I was there with two of the three men in my life, seeing as one of them has temporarily escaped the Chinese-language-training-induced gloom that pervades our household these days (Zachary is in Florida with the grandparents).  But the other one, who is rather tall, posed with me, which is always fun:





My son TOWERS over me at this point in my life.  Know what the Chinese say (or, at least, used to say) to women? 


"Obey your husbands, and then when your husbands die, obey your sons." 


So here we are, me and one of my sons.  Someday he'll be taking care of me.  Crazy. 

Speaking of Chinese (it's hard not to, these days), James and I literally had the following conversation last week:


                                                     ~   ~   ~ 


Setting:  Our home.  In the afternoon.  I am eating a meal, James is in a totally other room. 


Suddently, he comes BOUNDING into the room I am in and happily blurts...


                                                      JAMES:

                                             (totally delighted)

                                               What?!?!?!?!?!?!?


                                                         ME:

                                                    (confused)

                                               Huh?  What what?


                                                      JAMES:

                                              (tentatively now)

                                               You... laughed?


                                                        ME:

                                                (:shaking head:)

                                                I did not laugh.

                                                     JAMES:

                                                  (confused)

                                                    But - ??? 

                           But I thought I heard... sounds of... joy?


                                                       ME:

                                             (apologetically)

                              No.  There were no sounds of joy.


                                                     JAMES:

                                                     (sadly)

                                                        Oh. 

                                                      Well. 

Actually, it's been so long since there have been any sounds of joy here that I've forgotten what they sound like.


                                                        ME:

                                                  (:nodding:)

                                                     I know. 


                                           **fade to silence**


                                                    ~   ~   ~


Yes, my friends, that was a real, honest-to-goodness conversation we literally had.  Other than that, the only thing going on around here was my older son's reaction to some pictures from The Royal Wedding.


Upon coming across a picture of Princess Beatrice's festive head decoration of choice:





My son said, "Mom, she looks like a reindeer!"

Score one More for the EFMs!

[First of all, if you haven't yet gotten to read hannah's RoundUp that she posted just a few hours ago, head on over to her blog the slow move east!  Also, Connie at the blog Whale Ears and Other Wonderings will be hosting next week's RoundUp, so stay tuned!]


                                                  ~   ~   ~


Sorry for the recent silence.  I wrote a post last week that I hesitated to publish, and I'm glad I did, for it was titled "Just Because I'm an EFM Doesn't Mean I'm Stupid!"  It was rather... grouchy in tone and spirit... for the multitudinous EFM issues that are out there are... multitudinous... and lend themselves to be spoken of in grouchy tones.


Perhaps someday I will go back and discuss these things in a more rational manner (and then hit "publish").  As it stands, now, though, the topic of the day is again:  Language Training.   Lucky YOU!


I will never ever ever be able to touch Andy's record of Total Wicked EFM Awesomeness, but I pulled a somewhat Go-EFMs-Rah!-Rah! accomplishment, myself.  You see, we recently had our midway-through-Chinese-training Progress Test, and I actually did rather not badly.  Which shocked me, actually, because I feel like I can't even speak a single blessed word of this insane language.  But evidently I was able to fool a tester in the Chinese Department, for guess which box I got checked on my Progress Test form?


 



Oh HELLS YEAH, peeps!  I gots me the top box checked!  And some awesome commentz, to boot! 


Since there are actually employees in language right now who haven't been fortunate enough to get the top box checked, I feel that this is at least a small accomplishment for EFMs everywhere, especially since (and this is something I bitched about at length in the aforementioned blog post that will never see the light of day) each and every time I have interacted with ANYONE official from State (outside of the language department at FSI), they have told me (in so many words, and to my face, even!) that I will never pass the final Chinese exam and get my 2.


(I'm not making this up.)

They may well be proven correct in the end, my friends.  I have miles to go before the final test, and my classmates and I are now starting to learn all manner of grown-up vocabulary like trade surplus and light industry.  It's all headed to the same place - political, economic, military, trade, etc. vocabulary - that, like, educated grownups use in diplomatic environments.  I may well prove all the Main State Dwelling folks who doubt I have any chance at getting my 2 correct in the end.  Heaven knows a lot of EFMs don't stay very long in the FSI Mandarin program.  But some do... and, goshdarnit... I'm one of them, I'm okay today, and that has to count for something. 


(And yes, I had the Chinese Department email that Progress Test report far and wide in a sort of in-yer-face! (but not) kind of thing.  It's the small joys in life...)

[If I may, I have one small piece of advice for anyone who has just started or who will start Mandarin at FSI in the future:  memorize your characters *immediately*.  Do NOT get behind in your characters, especially in the Reading textbook.  Memorize them the second they are assigned to you.  The volume of daily new vocabulary is so impossibly horrific that it is easy to get behind, and if you do, this is the kiss of death.  Take the weekend to memorize what you couldn't during the week.  If you fall behind in the memorization of the characters, you will end up derailed in Chinese.  If you are a spouse, you will drop out.  If you are an employee, you will be held back.  Progress tests are used as barriers to continuance in the program.  Those who do not test well in their progress tests are held back.]


In family newz, the boys are knee-deep in Boy Scouts here.  James is an Assistant Scoutmaster now (a long time ago, he was the Scoutmaster of a Troop we helped start in Florida... *sniff*... we miss you guys!!), and the other night my boys got dressed to the nines for a formal Scout program.  Matthew got all dolled up in his Eagle Scout finery... it was so cute.  Matthew basically looks like a red, white & blue Christmas tree or something.  It made for a great picture:


 


What's nice about our Troop is that a whole lot of folks in the Troop are with State.  Those not with State tend to be with other federal agencies, so this lends itself to some great leadership, some great kids, and lots of empathy about frequent family comings and goings. 


Also, what other Boy Scout Troops but those in the DC area get to wear patches with Air Force One on them?





Dude.  That is AWESOME.

So that's what the boys are doing.  As for me, all my spare time goes toward cleaning the house (True story- after coming home every Friday afternoon, after a looooooong week at FSI, I immediately.... SCRUB THE BATHROOM FLOORS!  It's a glam life, y'all...) or making the wildlife in my backyard clinically obese.  (I get this from my mother, whose housepets tend to be nearly unable to make it through doorways.)


Behold!  A normal day's squirrel buffet:





NO I didn't specifically make that macaroni & cheese for the squirrels!!!  It was leftover, the boys hadn't eaten it, so it was stale.  Better to feed it to the squirrels than throw it away or push it down the garbage disposal.  I hate wasting food.


Also, you can't see this in the picture, but the bananas were wayyyyyy past being usable, and please, heaven help me, PLEASE don't anyone tell me to make banana bread from them, for I barely have time to make the macaroni & cheese that my children won't eat.  In fact, I think James probably made it.  So, basically, you would be telling JAMES to make banana bread with the overripe bananas.  Do you really want to do that?


See the piece of macaroni & cheese hanging out the squirrel's mouth?  I tell you, stuff like this brings me some of the only glimmers of joy in my pathetic life right now.  (All this to say:  RUN LIKE HELL FROM BIDDING ON AN SCNL POST.)






This picture makes me happy.  Their little hands and feet are so cute!

This picture also makes me happy.   There are actually TWO squirrels in this picture!


So, today, the weather here is gorgeous.  I will be inside all day, cleaning and doing Chinese, but at least my rental house's windows are open, the shutters are thrown wide, there is a wonderful breeze, and all of this makes me smile.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

 

 

Discrimination, Sorrow, Anger, Tears, Pain.

I owe dear Sara at the blog Wife-Mommy-Woman an enormous public apology.  I completely forgot to update the RoundUp calendar to reflect that she wanted to host it this past week, and I therefore also completely failed to even put her topic up.  I am very sorry, I never meant to neglect such a thing... I profusely apologize... please, please forgive me.


I've said before that if my blog (and Twitter, Facebook, etc.) go silent for a while, it's always because there's something terribly wrong.  This time is no exception.  I've held off writing about this for a little while because, in my rage and grief, I didn't know if I could handle writing in a responsible way. I probably still won't be able to write about this responsibly, but trust me when I say that whatever I end up putting up is NOTHING compared to what I would have said a few days ago.


Last you guys knew, my almost-17-year-old-son, Matthew, was registered as a homeschooler with a local school system and was taking an accelerated Chinese class there for two hours every day, since the school system allowed local homeschoolers to take up to two academic (non-elective) classes per school year. 


Last week, literally at random, bureaucrats at the school system, which I will now publicly identify as Fairfax County Public Schools, audited my son's paperwork and inclusion in its Chinese class.  Bureaucrats then decided that my son was actually not qualified to take part in this part-time-class program, and so, WITHOUT CONSULTING ME OR JAMES IN ANY WAY, called Matthew into an administrative office and unilaterally informed him that he was being forcibly withdrawn from the entire program effective immediately and was, therefore, no longer allowed to take Chinese. 


Just.  Like.  That.


Their reasons are complicated and absurd (and are nothing but red tape), and are beyond my discussing.  The ins and outs would become tedious were I to explain.  But the bottom line is that my son, for no reason other than because of bureaucratic red tape, was thrown out of school last week. 


He is devastated.


When his Chinese teacher realized that he was in the middle of a bureaucratic nightmare and was going to be administratively denied any further Chinese classes, she was horrified.  She wrote me the most amazing email about Matthew (who has worked SO hard and has learned SO much and who LOVES his Chinese teacher and fellow students... and did I mention that he has an A in Chinese?  And that he got a 96% on the final exam they just had in between semesters?), and I am putting it here, lest anyone reading this thinks in any way that he or the way he conducted himself was involved:


                                              ~  ~  ~


Dear Mrs. (My Name),

I am very sorry to hear that Matthew has to be unenrolled from my class. It has been such a joy to have him in my class! Matthew always comes to class with great enthusiasm and readiness to learn; he makes my teaching job enjoyable. I understand that the transition from home school to public school is a big challenge, but he did it beautifully. He is a delightful young man who gets along well with everyone in the class. We will miss him!! 

Thank you so much  for all your support for my job, and for the opportunity to work with Matthew. I feel confident that he will do well in any Chinese program.

Best wishes for your family,

(Matthew's Teacher)


                                                ~  ~  ~

Matthew was summoned into the administrative offices and informed, cruelly, that he was being forcibly withdrawn because he was deemed unqualified for further Fairfax County instruction while James and I were at FSI.  Matthew called me after after his meeting, while I was sitting in a break area in the Chinese section.  I am horrified to say that, while surrounded by tons of State co-workers and students, I burst into LOUD, hysterical tears.  I kept crying and crying, and someone even went to get James out of class.  Talk about embarrassing. 

I am now filled with utter rage and grief.  I have appealed this bureaucratic nightmare all the way up the Fairfax County Public School bureaucratic chain, and all for naught.  The higher up I go, the meaner the people are, and, finally, when I got about as far up to the top as one can get, I got a woman who not only DELIGHTED to tell me that my son was not qualified to continue to take classes there, but also stated that she felt that he probably should never have been allowed to begin in the first place.  (The issues have to do with his being a homeschooler, with zoning and residential matters, and with a whole host of other things that make him a singular case.  Like I said, it's complicated.)


NEVER MIND that Fairfax County Public Schools even has a mechanism for people to be able to pay tuition to take classes at their schools... THIS OPTION ISN'T OFFERED TO HOMESCHOOLERS (trust me, we would be THRILLED to pay tuition to keep Matthew in class!).   NEVER MIND that he's been taking all year, that we're going to China, that there's no other program around like this, that he's getting an A, that his teacher adores him, that he's a model student, etc.  No one cares.  My son has been tossed aside like trash on the side of the road by the Fairfax County Public School system.

Matthew has done a lot of crying.  I have done a lot of crying.  James has even cried.  We've all cried together.  In a pitiful sight that I never want to repeat, Matthew and I huddled together on our living room couch.  I put my arms around him and let him cry.  He did, and then fell asleep.  On me.  On the couch.  How often does a nearly-17-year-old-almost-man do something like that?

 

Thus ends this homeschooling family's first (and last) foray into any public school system.  I do not for one SECOND believe that anyone there cares about the children individually, except for the teachers.  But the teachers make up an extremely tiny percentage of the bureaucratic wheel, and they certainly aren't the ones that run the show.


What makes this even harder is all the upcoming plans that Matthew had with his Chinese class.  Plans that will now never happen for him, such as making Chinese dumplings with his class next week, or going on a field trip to New York City's Chinatown next month, or the Chinese club after-school meetings (did I ever tell you that Matthew had even been elected as an officer in the school's Chinese Club?).  All of that is gone, now, thanks to the unfeeling bureaucrats that really were delighted to inform me (I'm not making this up) that my son was no longer welcome at their school.  They discriminate against homeschoolers.  Of which my son is one.  And it cannot be undone. 

Our family is now lost, since Matthew and I are lost.  What do I do with this child of mine who loves the Chinese language so much that he says he wants to major in it in college?  His Chinese class was almost 90% native Chinese speakers, yet he got stellar grades and could hold his own among them. 

I tried to reach out to FSI, but he can't go there, either.  Only the children of AMBASSADORS are allowed to take classes at FSI.  Well, heaven only knows that my son is only the child of a newish DS Agent who hasn't even been in long enough to be up for tenure, so that's out.  Some would say to me that James and I should tutor him, but that's not happening, either.  James and I are still struggling with our own tones and grammar and vocabulary; we would be nearly worthless as tutors.  We might even harm more than help.  We're frantically looking around and trying to patch an alternative plan together, while Matthew's former Chinese class goes on without him.  The longer Matthew goes without practicing what he's already learned, the more Chinese he loses.

I spent last week sobbing, and am still sobbing today.  I'm so wrapped up in rage and sorrow that I can't even focus on anything else.  Damn you, Fairfax County Public Schools, DAMN YOU for your lack of humanity and for what you've done to my sons. You traumatized my younger son in the two weeks that he spent with you, and I was far too polite to say anything on my blog at the time, but he's still not over it.  Well, the gloves are off now, because this is MY blog and MY family and you have traumatized my older son, now, far worse that what you did to my younger son. 


I blame myself for thinking that anything good could have ever come out of you at all.  Shame on me for not being more guarded and trusting my precious children to your bureaucratic nightmare of a hell on earth.  Shame on me for thinking that homeschoolers could actually get a fair shake in your hallways.  Shame on me for not being two steps ahead of you.  Shame on me, shame on you... except I'm the only one sorrowing over the outcome.  Because


YOU

COULDN'T

CARE

LESS.


In a first for me, I'm turning comments off on this particular blog post.  This is because I wholeheartedly expect for someone, somewhere to say something hideous to me about how homeschooling is bad, or how public schools in general or Fairfax County Public Schools in particular are perfect, or how I'm a bitch or a horrible mother or heaven only knows what else.  Most of the time, I welcome additional information and lively debate, but not today.  Not about this.  Our family is far too wounded and my I am so wrapped up in anger and sorrow that even one obnoxious comment would send me over the edge, and I don't deserve that.  I'm already teetering on the edge. 


So... to you all who otherwise would have left loving comments of support, thank you so very much.  You know that I treasure each and every one of you.  Please bear with me and I promise that I will get my groove back. 

And to dear Sara at Wife-Mommy-Woman, please forgive me.  I never meant to be such a horrible RoundUp calendar keeper.  I am completely embarrassed and totally horrified and so very sorry.  Please give me another chance.  And for all of you who are waiting on email responses or pin placement on the State Blogger Map or what have you, please forgive me.  I promise that I will catch up soon.  But for now, I'm huddling with my son, and we're licking our collective wounds, trying to figure out where to go from here. 


                                                   ~  ~  ~


UPDATE:  I received a wonderful, supportive email from a reader, and I am reposting it here since I have closed comments:

Dear Daring Adventure,


I felt compelled to write after reading your blog about your family’s horrible experience with FCPS as it brought back my own horrible memories.  I want to assure you that FCPS don’t just discriminate against homeschoolers, but foreign exchange students and anyone else they deem “unworthy of their superior education system.”  As a junior in high school (many) years ago, I was in a high school here.  (Our family hosted) a wonderful exchange student from Finland who lived with us for a year and kicked butt in school.  Not only did she get all As in classes in her non-native language, but she did 3 sports (including participating in the state-champion gymnastics team), was on student council, and in general was a real asset to the school. 


Nevertheless, they refused to give her a diploma or even let her WALK in graduation (as every other exchange student in the US gets to do – simply as part of a cultural experience and in acknowledgement of JUST HOW HARD it is to learn in a foreign language), because having not gone to their school for 4 years they couldn’t be sure she was “worthy” of a FCPS diploma. 


I was sure that it was just a misunderstanding and, like you, went as high up the chain as I could – counselors, principals, other administrators. Until I read your blog, I had almost forgotten how absolutely humiliated and terrible I felt sitting in the principal’s office with tears streaming down my face BEGGING him to let her at least walk in graduation for all her hard work and having him smirk back at me explaining to me as if I was an idiot how they couldn’t just let anyway participate in such an important ceremony.  I still remember that asshole’s name. 


I was eventually told that if I didn’t stop advocating for her they would consider disciplinary action against me.  Your blog brought it all back and all I can say is how sorry I am that the school system is still treating students so terribly so many years later.  The good news is that I left after that year, moved with my family abroad and went to a small international school that embraced diverse backgrounds and learning experiences and almost erased the experiences I had in FCPS.   In fact, the principal there went out of her way to make it work that I could take Russian classes off campus (for credit!) as I was heading off to Russia the next year for an exchange experience of my own (where I did get to participate in a graduation ceremony)...


This is all probably of not comfort to you all in your situation right now, but I have no doubt your son will go on to kick some butt in his schooling now and in the future, proving once again that those most worthy are... open to creative solutions and diversity!  I wish you all the best of luck.  So many FS people will come to this area and end up in the FCPS system and will run into these things (especially in terms of getting credits transferred, getting their kids in appropriate classes, etc), and I hope that your post will help them feel like they are not the only one facing these challenges.

When's The Last Time I Blogged Twice in One Day?!

(Um... never?)


But even though I already blogged today, I can't help but blog again because YOU GUYS! YOU GUYS! OHMYGOSH, YOU GUYS! 


SO!  PRETTY!!!


Yes, this is my first ever snowstorm, and so my Nikon is glued to my hands this evening as the beautious snowgorgeousness blankets the world.  For, behold!  This was what it looked like at the beginning of today's snow:






Some snow, of course, but nothing major.

But here's what it looks like now, after a couple of hours of snow.  The view from our front door:





The snow is so thick all over the ground:





And there's so much snow on the tree's branches that I've been hearing it cracking (with branches falling off from the weight of the snow) while I've been inside studying my Chinese:





So pretty!


But I'll tell you guys this...

If OPM thinks that my husband should be forced to unearth our minivan at 7 am tomorrow morning from what will look much, MUCH worse than this...

(Because right now it has only yet begun to snow)


...then OPM has a screw loose somewhere. 

In the alternative, I would like to state that housing that comes with covered parking really sounds like a delightful idea right about now. 

 

 

A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day

Last night it snowed.  The world, from the vantage point of our front door, looked beautiful. 

 

It looked like this:

Zachary, my twelve-year-old, has been waiting and waiting and WAITING for snow.  A real snow.  Because we've always lived in Florida and Texas, and he's never been in snow. 


He's been looking forward to the blessed day when he could sled!  Down a hill!  Like they talk about in books! 

So last night, when that blessed day came, he couldn't wait for daylight and for his parents to come home from FSI so that he could try out his fun new sled thing that we got for him so many weeks ago in anticipation of This. Very. Day.

O the joy!  James and I both went with him over to a hill nearby in a park.  I took my trusty camera, in order to not miss a MOMENT of the frabjous event.

James, ever the protector and demonstrator of all things new and unknown, went first.  James' trip on the sled looked like this:

Zachary's trip looked like this:




Until the last few moments, in which Zachary HIT A HIDDEN TREE STUMP (turns out, the tree was removed last fall, but did we know that?!  NO!!!  BECAUSE WE'RE NEW HERE!!!) and ended up screaming and screaming and screaming in pain at the bottom of the hill.  Screams of pain the like of which I have never, ever heard before.

Thus, Zachary's trip down the hill (his first sledding experience ever in his whole life!) became this:

 

And this:





And, finally, this:

Fourteen xrays of his back later (he had hit a tree stump at the bottom of the hill and injured his back), and we were given the blessed news that nothing was fractured. 


Along the way, I Twittered or Tweeted or whatever it's called, and I had messages up on Facebook, and tons and tons of kind family and friends told us that they were praying.  Thank you so very, very much.  That is why I LOVE the State Department community.  Each and every one of you is a true blessing. 

Tylenol with Codeine later, and Zachary can be found watching movies.  Some kids will do ANYTHING to get out of school work.


(That's a joke.)


(Furthermore, I'm sure someone out there is horrified that I took pictures of my son being loaded onto the ambulance.  This is because this is actually my SECOND time riding with a son of mine on an ambulance for a potentially life-changing injury.  Many years ago, Matthew was in a horrible biking accident and was, at the scene, unable to move the lower part of his body (he had fractured his pelvis).  I know that, should they exist, he would today be quite interested in having pictures from that day.)

What a Wonderful World (or: Snow and Wildlife)!

[Quick RoundUp update:  Thank you so much, Nomads by Nature, for the wonderful RoundUp that you did yesterday!  Next week's RoundUp will be hosted by Becky at the blog Small Bits!  She's doing a Photo Round Up for this week, and you can read more about it here!]


As for us, the big news here this week was the SNOW! 


My younger son, Zachary, has been desperately praying for snow.  We're from Florida, you see, and so my guys just really haven't seen snow.


So when it started snowing this week, and the outside looked like this:





Zachary grabbed the snow shovel he had been dreaming of using and headed outside for some snowy-world sorts of fun!


Snow-starved children make excellent shovelers.  He shoveled the driveway.  He shoveled the sidewalk.  He even shoveled off the tree branches (I am not making this up). 


He shoveled and he shoveled, and then he collected all the snow he could find into a pile in the front yard, like so:





It's not the biggest pile in the world, is it?


But we must work with what we have, mustn't we?  Which ended up looking like this:






Not exactly enough snow to make a snowMAN... but more than enough snow to make a snowBLOB. 


It was the first ever snowANYTHING that he'd ever made.  And he wanted a carrot for its nose, but his royally sucky mom (Ahem.) didn't have any carrots to give to him.  So he used an Oreo for its mouth, raisins for its eyes, and sticks for its arms.  It sort of looks like something out of a Calvin and Hobbes snowman scene...but that's okay.


We were happy.  And we didn't ever want to come inside the house again.  We wanted to play out in the snow all day and all night.





In other news, over the last couple of weeks I had noticed that our backyard had lots of birds in it.  It also had a dilapidated bird feeder.  So I put two and two together and figured that the folks who lived in our rental house last had fed the birds. 

We like birds.  Birds are like flying flowers.  Plus, our family has never lived anywhere where there are beautiful songbirds that one can feed, so we headed over to Wild Birds Unlimited (the store SHOULD be called "Feed Birds Your Husband's Entire Paycheck") and bought some feeders and seed. 


The result?  Happy family (we have LOVED watching the birds!), and happy Virginia wildlife!  For behold:





And...

And...






The feeder shown in the pictures above is squirrel-proof, which means that after 12 hours of hanging, there's still some seed left in it.  Not a lot, mind you, but at least it's not empty yet.  For this is what the ancient feeder left behind by the other people who lived here looks like:





Whenever there's food in it, that feeder comes complete with its own squirrel.


Which is fine, actually, since we are a squirrel-liking sort of family.  We put food out for them, too.  But wowzers, folks... if we hadn't bought a squirrel-proof feeder, those tiny birds you see pictures of, above, wouldn't have any seed left over to eat! 


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Also, I just have to thank each and every one of you wonderful folks who contributed your fantastic comments to my last post about language training at FSI.  I'm working on adding more information to what I've put up, and y'all's comments were just phenomenal.  You guys are such a blessing! 

Missed Us? (Of Course You Didn't. I Wouldn't Miss Us, Either.)

So since it's been a hundred million years since I've last blogged, I don't even know where to start.  Do I start with Chinese?  Because everyone always asks about Chinese.  Because they are kind and love me/us and want to know how things are going.  You sweet, sweet people.  I adore you. 


The most frequent question I get is phrased something along the lines of:  "And HOW is CHINESE?!?!?"


A couple of weeks ago I would burst into tears at this question.  Because when Chinese was starting, James and I were also in the middle of moving from our short-term-rental apartment (we PCSed here and so we got a short-term rental in the relocation package) into our rental house. 


This was super duper sucky because YOU try moving during language training.  With two children.  With State not helping you to move from your short-term-rental apartment to your rental house (not complaining, just providing information for others.  We had about five months' worth of stuff that we had to move ourselves from Texas to Florida to the apartment to the rental home).  Royal suckyness, especially since I hadn't been to school in several millennia. 


Our Thanksgiving break from FSI consisted of nothing but moving.  We stopped for a few hours to eat a lovely meal at the home of a beautiful family of gracious co-workers. 


Matthew was grateful for the food, and the small break in moving (he did SO much of our moving):

Zachary was grateful for the food and for the company (this family had BOYS our boys' ages!  And they played lots of card games!):





And James was grateful for the food (you see a theme here?) and for the company, and for the invitation, and for the break, etc., etc. 


A darling toddler crawled up on James's lap and actually made my husband smile AND laugh, and I was so grateful.  My husband.  Smiling.  Didn't happen much during the move:






But after the Thanksgiving meal, it was back to the grindstone.

We're still trying to settle into the rental house.  The good news?  It has squirrels.

And the squirrels eat spaghetti.


Who can resist a spaghetti-eating squirrel? 

Initially, I don't think the squirrels were too sure about that pile of stale spaghetti noodles I tossed into our backyard:





But I hate waste, and I TOTALLY hate food waste, and so for the squirrels and I to get along, they needed to get with the program. 

They did:

The light brown squirrels ate the spaghetti, and then the dark squirrels ate the spaghetti:





The dark squirrels have been nicknamed Ninja Squirrels in our household.  So, behold!  A spaghetti-eating Ninja Squirrel in my very own (rental) backyard. 


Yes, you have now seen everything.


MEANWHILE, other holy-cow-we-really-ARE-living-up-north-and-not-in-Florida-or-Texas things have been happening, such as LEAVES. 

As you can see in the pictures, above, "leaves" are these big brown things that fall in your yard and are used by Ninja Squirrels as dinner plates for their spaghetti.  We FloridiaTexans have never seen these curious things before, but since they seem to make squirrels' lives easier, we figured they were okay. 


But then, our landlord had all the Ninja Squirrel dinner plates removed from our yard one random morning, and James and I came back from FSI to find a big huge pile of our Ninja Squirrel dinner plates in front of our house on the street. 


Then - I swear to you this is true - some gargantuan city vacuum cleaner came and sucked all the leaves up.  It was the CRAZIEST thing I have EVER seen, and I'm not even in China yet!  For behold:





That monstrous vehicle, for those of you living in Florida and/or Texas and/or other warm places, is the city's leaf vacuum cleaner. 


It arrives at your street and some dude jumps out of it and vacuums up your leaves in this big sucky hose thing:





And then you post pictures on your blog so that people can think that you're insane to find this to be a curiosity, and then they leave you snide comments wishing you LOTS of luck in China. 


Meanwhile:  CHINESE. 


You guys, Chinese will have to be its own blog post.  I want to write openly and honestly to other spouses looking into language training at FSI, and so to do the topic justice I need to have not taken up way too much space already on pictures of my family, squirrels and crazy northern machines.  I also need to do a little bit more thought consolidation on that incredibly important topic before tackling it. 

ANYWAY, we're alive, we're well, we're learning Chinese and feeding squirrels, and thank you for still reading even though I went AWOL for a while! 

Where am I? In A Frozen Arctic Tundra, That's Where.

Before I start complaining, I just want to thank everyone for the awesome RoundUp submissions going on out there this week!  Becky (Small Bits) is still taking submissions for tomorrow's RoundUp - whether on her theme or not.  Those of you who have posted this week, be sure to tell her about it!  I want everyone to be included in the RoundUp.  Also, anyone interested in hosting the RoundUp on their own blog, please let me know!


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So, anyway, back to it.  Well, Becky had asked us to post a picture of where we are, either physically or mentally.  She offered extra credit for pictures that included pink in honor of dear Jen. 


Well, goodness.  Not liking Jen would be not liking... puppies.  Or butterflies.  Or something.  So I've tried to come up with a picture of where I am that includes the color pink. 


Except - you know where I am?  In FREEZING COLD-VILLE, that's where I am.  And I don't even have any daughters, so there's no pink in the house but what I, myself, have.  And I'm not girly. 


Those of you in the Northern Virginia area who dispute how insanely freezing it is outside, just remember this:  we're from Florida.  As in for forever and always.  And when we moved out of Florida, we moved to TEXAS.  I thought it was cold in Texas.   


This past weekend, our family went to REI to start buying some wintery, warmish things.  DUDE.  Freezing cold weather is super expensive, yo!  Back in Florida, my boys used to cost us almost nothing in the clothing department.  A few tshirts and a couple of pairs of gym shorts could be worn year-round.  Not here!  Almost $400 later, we left REI with warmish footwear, headwear, handwear.  Kill me. 


In fact, get this... at REI I bought a pair of boots, because I'm always cold.  I literally told the lady to bring me my size in the warmest boots they carry.  Didn't care what they looked like. 


She brought me these:

They're rated to -40 degrees.  When I tried them on in the store, they were comfy, so I bought them.


Only, what the heck, -40 degree boots?!?  Because when I wore them outside, my feet were all cold!


But HA HA.  Because the same company makes a -148 degree boot.  Which I'm in the middle of ordering.


But even when I'm in the house, I'm freezing.  Which, of course, means layers.  And thick socks.


One great purchase at REI? 






This pair of Life Is Good Snuggle Socks.  Holy cow, these are the softest things on the face of the earth.  Seriously.  They feel like spun silk or something.  But the Life is Good folks always do a GREAT job on all of their items. 


So that's where I am- in arctic hell.  I'm always freezing... always wearing socks and sweatpants in the house. 


And yes, I'm submitting a picture of my FEET for Jen's RoundUp.  Because it's the only pink thing we have in the entire house other than a pad of pink Post-it-Notes (see: no daughters, above).  And how lame-o would a picture of THAT be?!