Today, Bella was reading a book about planets. One that was mentioned was the dwarf planet Eris. She pronounced it with a long E, and I pointed out that some people pronounce it with a short E. She replied EEris, Airis, whatever ( Read more... )

This evening, Nicky declared a family game night, and chose Sorry!. We all had a lot of fun, but the absolute high point was the moment when Nicky drew a 7. For those unfamiliar with the game, the 7 card allows a player to either move one piece seven spaces, or split the seven spaces of movement between two pieces. Wanting to take advantage of a ( Read more... )

This morning, Meg & Nicky were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors and asked me to join in. Not surprisingly, they didn't get it when I did the sign of the horns every time I decided to go with rock.

While visiting Boston, a friend gave me his Axis and Allies game, having realized he hadn't played it in about 10 years, and wanting someone to get some use out of it. The pieces were more than a bit strewn about the box, and as I was sorting them back into their places, Meg asked if she could help. While she was sorting, she started inventing a ( Read more... )

This afternoon, Nicky came to me carrying the backgammon set, and Meg asked, "Can we play that game?" I let them, and listened as they played ( Read more... )

This morning, while Meg was playing with her magnetic farm set, she put all the animals one on top of the other. The first thought that popped into my head was "Hey, she's figured out that units can stack!" I think that the thought was at least partially influenced by the fact that I spent about 15 minutes last night catching up on Erfworld ( Read more... )

Our Presidents' Day Weekend party turned out extremely well. Thanks to reesei's skill in Science! we became aware of the fact that things written in pencil can be erased with water from the beakers that I have been using for party glassware for about 10 years. People began arriving just after 1 pm, including sconstant, who arrived with khedron as he returned from his ( Read more... )

We've got a few non-rent-paying rodent residents. Part of the household division of labor is that I handle encroachments on our space by non-plant living things (Jess got to deal with the ivy - I got to deal with ants, bees, wasps and now mice). So when we discovered them, I headed to Home Despot to pick up traps. When they talk of building ( Read more... )

Yay! My offer letter showed up. I signed it & filled in all the other paperwork & faxed it away. I got a call back from Corporate Relocation, who assigned somebody to help me with my move & she explained how my relocation benefits work. I skimmed the rest of the benefits package and found some good parts and one not so good part (it turns out ( Read more... )