Word Smithing

The English language can be pretty confusing, and amusing (at least to me). I thought this was funny:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

4) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

5) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

6) I did not object to the object.

7) They were too close to the door to close it.

8) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

9) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

10) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

11) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

12) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.



Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither pine nor apple in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted.
But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.


One more. You lovers of the English language might enjoy this ..

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polishUP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special..

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

October pictures

Mother Teresa

Found a great quote that I wanted to put somewhere :)

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world your best and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway."
-Mother Teresa

Update

I realized I hadn't done a post in awhile, so I thought I'd just do an update on what's going on around here.
We are all healthy and happy now! (The colds that went around 3 times this last month are finally completely gone- Yay)
Billy and I are starting to exercise more consistantly again. He's been waking up between 4:30-6 every morning to exercise(depending on what day it is, with school, etc) Some mornings he works out with his best friend at the gym and other mornings in does P90X from home. He's really getting in good shape. He can't keep a good pair of pants b/c they get too big rather quickly.
Billy's wonderful and the love of my life! I never tire of having him around. Infact I miss him so much when he is gone that I know I'm going to have a hard time when he gets busier in school/ medical school/ his residency/ and life as a doctor. But it is just something I'll have to get used to. He is getting A's in both his classes- a biology class (I can't remember which one) and Trig. I think he's in the top 3 in both of his classes. He studies hard, works hard, and he doesn't go half way. He gives 110%. If he has a homework assignment he'll do that plus more until he really is confident that he knows the material. I'm proud of him.
I had some hard days with the kids a couple weeks ago, and Billy was gone a lot. He actually won tickets to see Creed and was gone all day one day. That was a hard day here at home. All 3 of my kids have days where they are emotional and throw fits. It's like they take turns- one day Will will have 2-4 fits the next day it will be Adalynn and sometimes Tessa. Every once in awhile they'll all cry at once. And it's more than that too- life with 3 young kids is just so busy! So after that week Billy said I could go get a pedicure with one of my friends! It was so nice to get out and have some fun girly time! That really helped my spirits.
Will is doing really good with his at home preschool and I was talking to someone recently about the possibility of him going to preschool at the school near our house for speech. If it was for speech it would be free. I think that would be good for him. He has a list of letters he can't say such as tr=f, g=d, l=y, c=t, etc. He can be a really nice brother- he goes back and forth as I'm sure many siblings do. But sometimes it seems that him and Adalynn are like best friends and he can be really sweet to Tessa.
Adalynn seems to be enjoying her role as the big sister lately. She likes to play with Tessa and give her things. I love it when she makes Tessa laugh, or helps her with something or gets a toy for her. She can be very thoughtful.
She's also starting to make up songs lately. She sang the sesame street song but sang the last part "Can you tell me how to get to garbage man street?" Then when we laughed she knew it was funny and now she sings it all the time and laughs at herself when she sings that part. That girl still loves the garbage man! haha. Another song she made up is (from A Happy Family) We love Tessa, she loves us.. We love Will, WA- WA- WA- WA WILL!
Tessa's transitioning down to 1 nap a day and it's sometimes hard for her to push through until after lunch but she really seems ready for the transition. She is now saying Mama and Dada and trying to imitate animal noises when I do them. But even though she's not saying much you can tell she understands almost everything you say and she's starting to slap (haha) her body parts when you ask Where's your head or Where's your tummy? etc.
We went to a ward Chili cook off last week. That was a lot of fun. Billy made a really good black bean with turkey burger chili. It had a lot of fresh vegetables in it and it was really good. We won a halloween decoration- it's really cute. We didn't have any halloween decorations so I was excited about that. We are going to a costume party in a couple weeks that I am excited about too. But I still haven't decided what I'm going to be... Any ideas?

The Prophet

I was telling the kids today about general conference tommorow and about the prophet, and I decided to look for some pictures of Thomas S. Monson on the computer.
I found a nice little smilebox slideshow if anyone wants to look at it with their kids. My kids loved it. The music is such a great touch, it really invites the spirit. I know Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet! And I'm so glad we have a prophet to lead and guide our church. I am looking forward to conference tomorow.

http://smilebox.com/snap/4f4451304d4445304d413d3d0d0a.jpg or
://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://smilebox.com/snap/4f4451304d4445304d413d3d0d0a.httpjpg&imgrefurl=http://fheabitofheavenathome.blogspot.com/2009/04/our-prophet-thomas-s-monson.html&usg=__Qgz4auMPrgZ6fNXb5Fc0YGdosos=&h=330&w=420&sz=28&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=WiZbIkDdYl0ihM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bthomas%2Bs%2Bmonson%2Bprophet%2Band%2B12%2Bapostles%26hl%3Den

Chores

I've been thinking that I need to start a system with chores around here lately. My kids know how to clean up their toys and help around the house (Will even occasionally helps me vaccum- he likes to vacuum with the hose) BUT I'd like to do something consistent that involves making every day chores fun.
I've heard some good ideas from some of my friends, but I just wanted to put this out there b/c I know a lot of you do some really creative things to help the kids get involved.
So, any suggestions?

Counting to 100

We got a new numbers book at Goodwill this week for 50 cents I think. It's in excellent condition and the kids love it. Don't ya love 1/2 off days?
Anyway, it goes all the way to 100 and Will loves it. He's been wanting to read it a lot lately and every time we get with the page that goes to 100 he wants me to count all the way to 100. The first time I figured- Why not? I thought he was probably a little young to catch onto counting all the way to 100 but I thought it'd still be good for him to hear it. I thought maybe the more he hears it the sooner he'll start hearing the pattern and learning it.
Well, the first time I did it he started counting with me and tried to keep up the whole way. He started getting better each time we did it, but I still thought he was just saying it with me and I wondered how much of it he was getting. So today I decided to write all the numbers down so he could see the pattern. But then after I got to 50 I had the idea that there might be a better numbers chart on the computer that would be easier to teach/ learn.
So I found some stuff. First I found a cool chart where you could color each number any color you wanted. So I think that really helped him to see that and color cordinate it as we counted, then we found a great counting song on YouTube.

THEN we found a great math/ numbers game/ chart. :) Here it is http://www.hbschool.com/activity/count/index.html
I think it really clicked with him today. It would count 54, 55, 56 then say what comes next? And he knew the answer 90% of the time. He really got it! I'm so proud of him that he's learning this at such a young age, and I thought those two things that I found were pretty cool things to help learn counting, and I wanted to share them with you. :)