Patti, Palin, and Puke - Not Necessarily in that Order

I haven't posted in a while. Did you notice, dear readers reader? I'm still here. We're still unschooling. Life moves along even as the blog languishes.

Life in the cornfields is all well and fine; excepting that on my new diet I'm hungry all the freakin' time, my right ear hurts for some strange reason, and last night I was up at 1:00 a.m. cleaning dog puke and then again at 6am cleaning up the garbage spilled by the cat trying to GET to the dog puke. Welcome, piscesgrrl, to this week's edition of 'This is Your Life!'

On other notes, here's a bit of what we've been up to.

Brady celebrated his sixteenth birthday. As much as we hoped to mark this transition by getting him to sign a "refusal to grow a single day older" contract, he has chosen to fully embrace his newfound status by applying for a job and planning outings with friends to which he can drive himself.

Dear Mom: You're not helping matters with your whole 'wouldn't it be funny to get him a gas card for his birthday' thing.

I'm still on my doctor-prescribed diet on which I can eat nothing, nothing, and nothing with a side of vinegar-,yeast-, sugar-, dairy-, wheat- and fruit-free nothing.

Which means it was nothing short of sanity-saving to finally wash out this pan that once held Rob's choice for his birthday - homemade ice cream hot fudge with chocolate wafer crust dessert. Just looking at this photo makes me want to mainline some sugar.

Jonathan taught me how to play marbles. Right after we completed 9 chemistry experiments at the kitchen table, two of which involved marbles. (Yes way.)

Jonathan also dove into the bucket of pattern blocks I strewed and has been making and photographing cool designs for days now.

Oh, and there was this! Homecoming with Carissa, his grrlfriend. That was a fun time, especially considering Carissa's parents are some of our best friends. It was a lovely, sunny, crisp fall day. The 892 photos I took turned out fabulous. (Note: any resemblance to past outfits is entirely intentional.)

Oh, and I met Patti-freakin'-Digh! The book tour for her recently released Life is a Verb brought her to Madison, WI, just a hop skip and a jump from my little ol' cornfield. Since she selected my essay (had you heard?) as Day 1 on her blog count-down, I figured I'd pop in and see if I could accompany her on the rest of her tour. "Hi, I'm your Day 1!" is how I introduced myself after I arrived 30 minutes early so I'd have plenty of time to stalk talk to her before her presentation.

It was a real pleasure to meet Patti and listen to her share excerpts from her book. She has just the right combination of wisdom, humor, humility, and pluck.

And she spoke at this wonderful bookstore, A Room of One's Own, which takes me back to my college days when I was just a flaky, hard-partying, clueless wannabe feminist from the cornfields and the 80's me generation. Back then, I entered this store with a bit of trepidation, knowing the others who shopped there were so much more worldly than me. While they were reading up on the glass ceiling, women's reproductive rights, and new-age spirituality, I was just happy to make it through a physiology lecture with a hang-over. But I went there, on occasion, nonetheless.

Their window dressing was a "What Would Sarah Ban?" display. Priceless.

But back on the homefront, Rob and Brady installed stick-on vinyl flooring in the basement bathroom and utility room. And see that red wall? I managed to talk Rob out of a Green Bay Packer-themed green and gold basement by compromising on a Wisconsin Badgers-themed red wall. I like red. But when I go downstairs, it blinds me and I scream, "My eyes! My eyes!" It's RED, people.

Speaking of eyes, listening to Sarah Palin talk makes me want to jab the nearest sharp object into my eye.

How 'bout you? Or should we not get started...