Walking in Town

First, last week wasn't all that great...on Thursday the husband called me to tell me the car had broke down on the side of the highway. I swear I could write a comedy on broken down cars, I mean just look back through the archive to see how many we've had. Keep in mind we got this car (yes used) after our van broke down on the highway. Well on Friday he got the car towed to the house, they

X-RAY JOURNEY

X-rays and their ilk were my thread of the week. Sometime the thread pans out into something useful. Sometimes not.

 

 

Stephan's Quintet in 60 Seconds from cxcpub on Vimeo.

Friday Giveaway List

It's Friday and what better way to celebrate than by entering (and hopefully winning) giveaways. If you are having a giveaway please sign the mr. linky and add yours. Enjoy your weekend!

To any PR people out there, I love hosting giveaways so feel free to email me at homemom3@gmail.com



I thought some of you might like a bigger list:

Softlips Review & Giveaway

How many of you have went through a day picking at your lips because they were dry? Or saw your child doing it? Chances are with the weather being as cold as it has in the past two months more and more people will be needing to reach for a stick to moisten their lips. Now, I've stated here before of my love for Softlips and how my son refuses to use them but the girls just adore those tiny

~♥ New Post ♥~

Head on over to my baking blog...

there's another new post!

Graphic by: http://www.gooseberrypatch.com/

The New Look and some Info

This is still the same old "The Life of a Home Mom," however now there is a bit more color to it. At this point I'm not sure why you can't just click a post title and go to that page. But I do know on the sidebar you can click the name there and it will take you to that page.

Comments are still a go, at the bottom of each post it says comments. Click on the comment to write one. It will then

Review of Motherhood

I was recently sent "Motherhood" the movie in order to review it. This is one of those mommy movies that I think all of us can relate to if you know what I mean. There are always the great days we may have as moms but it isn't often that we describe, in great details the bad ones. The movie starts off with a very tired mom looking over a to do list for her daughter's birthday party in the middle

Wordless Wednesday: Hurry Up Spring

It's cold, plant life is frozen and I'm ready for Spring. Anyone else?  Happy WW!

~♥ Thank You ♥~

Thank you very much for your kind and encouraging words regarding my new blog...I just posted my first recipe!

Click on the link in my sidebar if you want to visit.

L♥ve, Kim

DIY X-RAYS

Pictures spoke to me louder than words today. This image came from a fascinating article in Wired Science about a 19th-century DIY X-ray craze:

In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the X-ray, a form of electromagnetic radiation with a very short wavelength. To the common people at the time, this was astonishing. Within three months, DIY X-ray kits were available on the market. The rich and famous had their hands X-rayed, their skeletons draped in rings. Photographers, who had access to most of the tools needed to make the images, began to train this new form of light on just about anything that might be beautiful."

Ice Shuts School Doors

Well, early, early this morning I found out the kids would not be going to school. Why? Oh you remember all that snow that has been hitting, well starting Saturday Night we ended up getting hit with snow, ice pellets, slush, etc. By Sunday we were getting more ice pellets and snow to cover the top of the ice.
In my email this morning (remember I don't have cable), I had an email from the school

Wash Them Grow Sweepstakes Ends Tonight

I tweeted and facebook'd this but I wanted to give everyone a last minute notice again:

Suave Kids “Wash Them Grow” Sweepstakes, which has offered awesome weekly prizes. Tonight is the very last night you can enter. You can still have a chance at winning a Family e-Keepsake Kit (that includes a video camera, laptop and digital camera) and the Grand Prize of a family vacation to Orlando! If I

VISUAL RELIEF

SUNDAY POETRY: "OCEAN OF FORMS"

Ocean of Forms
Rabindranath Tagore

I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms,
hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.

No more sailing from harbor to harbor with this my weather-
    beaten boat.
The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on 
    waves.

And now I am eager to die into the deathless.

Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss
where swells up the music of toneless strings
I shall take this harp of my life.

I shall tune it to the notes of forever,
and when it has sobbed out its last utterance,
lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.

Art: Hombre en Llamas (Man on Fire), Jason deCaires Taylor

Snowball Throwing Winners

I've tried emailing both winners of the Snowball Throwing Contest. I will now post them here and give them 24 hours to respond.

Derk Thomas:  Snowball Throwing Training was the best, but there are some other good ones.


and
 
Kimberly:  I like the video regarding the snow throwing uniform.
 
If you are either of these people (Derk's email came back saying it didn't exist) please email me

~♥ My New Blog ♥~

Hi blogging friends...just wanted to let you know that I'm starting a new blog called "Baking at Home Is Where The Heart Is".  Click Here to visit my new blog!  I'm just getting started with it, but I hope to post recipes, favorite cookbooks, products I like, etc. on this blog.  I hope you'll stop over for a visit!

♥ Kim

http://www.glitter-graphics.com/

The Spelling Bee

Wednesday, BalletGirl was in her school Spelling Bee!!! Now she didn't place but I'm so very proud that she knew enough words to even get there. Of course she's not understanding that. Her word that put her out was......GAZELLE and I think it'll be one that she never forgets.

How many of you were in a Spelling Bee as a kid? Chances are if you were then you still remember that word that made you

BalletGirl Won a Jar of Kisses!!!

Okay I should've posted this yesterday but I had to let BabyGirl shine in her moment. On Thursday both girls came home with surprises, BabyGirl with her chocolates and her bigger sister with a jar of kisses. This jar of kisses she won by guessing how many was in them. She said she did what I taught her, count the side and multiply it by four and add up. She basically had it right and she won so

~♥ What Do You Love To Do? ♥~

I l♥ve to bake...so I thought it would be appropriate to write this on my chalkboard.

I love YuMmY peach cobbler!

Heart-shaped pies from the Farm Chicks

Chewy Blond Brownies

Mini Cinnamon Rolls from left-over pie crust...does anyone know what these really are called?

Banana Nut Bread with Orange Glaze....

Please tell me, what do you L♥VE to do?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thanks again for visiting blogging friends!

♥ Kim

ART SEES SCIENCE (AND VICE VERSA)

ScienceArt from Barbara Juncosa on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed this short film, ScienceArt, by Barbara Juncosa, comparing the ways an artist sees the world and a scientist sees the world, and how each uses imagination as her problem solver. In Juncosa's words:

ScienceArt is an experimental documentary that compares and contrasts the thought processes of a scientist and an artist as they reflect on common objects. I directed and produced this short in collaboration with participants at the Banff Centre's Science Communications 2009.

OUTTAKES: SISTER LANDSCAPES

(Satellite image of L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, by NASA's Earth Observing System.)

I never throw away any writing. Instead I dump all discarded passages into an "outs" file. This is left over from my film editing days when the outs bin was a treasure chest of previously sorted material that you knew was good enough to have wanted once, and maybe good enough to want again, maybe even better in a new context. On tight deadlines, my "outs" writing file has proven a lifesaver more than a few times. I love the feeling of recycling words.

Working on this blog, I've been going through my "outs" file more than usual and found myself saddened that some of the good stuff that really should have been included in the new book, Deep Blue Home, got dropped. Some of it I intended to reintroduce but lost track of. Oh, well. Here's part of one passage:

"The distinctive landscape of Newfoundland has nearly identical sisters on the far side of the North Atlantic. Separated by 2,500 miles of ocean, yet connected by oceanic rivers--the Gulf Stream and its northern reach, the North Atlantic Current--the heathlands of coastal northern Scotland and southern Norway nourish the same plants and animals as Newfoundland. What appear to us as disparate continents are inescapably linked by the circulating watery bands of the deep blue home."

The graphic is by Jack Cook at the Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institution. It shows some of the surface and subsurface currents of the North Atlantic connecting Newfoundland to Norway. From the WHOI site:

"Colored arrows approximate two of the major current systems flowing through the North Atlantic, with red representing the warm surface waters of the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Current, and associated flows, and blue roughly representing the cooler, bottom-flowing Deep Western Boundary Current."

You can see how the waters bring the landscapes closer together, carrying messengers in the forms of marine life, birds, plant spores, insects.

This Atlantic puffin, for instance, and the fish, could be from either North America or Europe.

(Photo by Erik Christensen, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

The enterprising puffin is actually from Faroe Islands. 
 
These landscapes, one in Newfoundland, one in Norway, look almost interchangeable.

 

Top: Lodalen, a valley in Stryn municipality, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. (Photo by Aqwis, courtesy Wikipedia.)

Bottom: Panorama of Gros Morne National Park, overlooking Bonne Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. (Photo by Tango7174, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

Even the sheep have managed to cross the sea.

~♥♥♥♥♥~

Hello dear blogging friends...So sorry I am a little behind in my Valentine's Day post...I hope you all had a wonderful day filled with Love and Laughter! 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My chalkboard decorated for Valentine's Day...I know I've said it in previous posts, but I absolutely L♥VE my ChalkInk Markers.

I baked two giant cookies for my family to enjoy!

"Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing."  Jim Rohn

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thank you so much for stopping by for a visit

♥ Kim

p.s.  Take a minute to check out the Chalkink Markers website.  They have a great selection of markers and cute chalkboards.  Click Here to visit their website.

SUNDAY POETRY: "THE STARS GO OVER THE LONELY OCEAN"

The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean

-Robinson Jeffers (1940)

Unhappy about some far off things

That are not my affair, wandering

Along the coast and up the lean ridges,

I saw in the evening

The stars go over the lonely ocean,

And a black-maned wild boar

Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,

Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.

The best nation in Europe has fallen,

And that is Finland,

But the stars go over the lonely ocean,"

The old black-bristled boar,

Tearing the sod on Mal Paso Mountain.

"The world's in a bad way, my man,

And bound to be worse before it mends;

Better lie up in the mountain here

Four or five centuries,

While the stars go over the lonely ocean,"

Said the old father of wild pigs,

Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy

And the dogs that talk revolution,

Drunk with talk, liars and believers.

I believe in my tusks.

Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"

Said the gamey black-maned boar 

Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain. 

As for the story behind this incredible image of a star ploughing through interstellar space, complete with a bow wave of ultraviolet light (from Astronomy Picture of the Day):
 

To 17-century astronomers, Omicron Ceti or Mira was known as a wonderful star whose brightness could change dramatically in the course of about 11 months. Mira is now seen as the archetype of a long-period variable star. Surprisingly, modern astronomers have only recently discovered another striking characteristic of Mira, an enormous comet-like tail nearly 13 light-years long. Billions of years ago Mira was likely similar to our Sun, but has now become a swollen red giant star, its outer layers of material blowing off into interstellar space. Fluorescing in ultraviolet light, the cast off material trails behind the giant star as it plows through the surrounding interstellar medium at 130 kilometers per second. The amount of material in Mira's tail is estimated to be equivalent to 3,000 times the mass of planet Earth.

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, GALEX, C. Martin (Caltech), M. Seibert(OCIW)

Truman Weekend

BalletGirl has a report to write about on Harry S. Truman so we thought it would be a bit fun for her and the rest of the family if we went up to the local museum to learn so stuff. Course once on the road and only a minute away BabyGirl got sick in the backseat, all over her jacket but she immediately said she was fine and ready to go forward. It was cold but we still went, BalletGirl even gave

REMEMBRANCE

This is a slow, moody, beautiful music video for the song Doppelganger by Efterklang (Danish: remembrance, or reverberation), with choppy, haunting images of familiar shorelines, familiar species, topside and underwater. Not something to watch if you're in a hurry.

Efterklang Doppelganger (official music video) from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.

CAT IN A BATHYSPHERE

No means no. Kitty never listens.

Her First REAL Valentine's From a Boy

Today was BalletGirl and BabyGirl's Valentine's Day Party at school, of course this meant the typical school party and fun. Earlier we got to address the Valentine's Day Cards for the exchange, now for BabyGirl we were only allowed to address the from as they didn't want kids feeling left out that some got certain sayings and others didn't. She was bummed as she wanted a specific Valentine for

BREATHE IN SILVER

Those amazingly talented sisters at Raw Art Letterpress and Lulu Bug Jewelry have done it again, transforming Colette's gorgeous print into a stunning necklace by Sue:

"This piece is made of fine silver, and measures approximately 5/8" wide by a touch under 7/8" tall. The finish is brushed and oxidized and it comes on a 16" drawn cable chain. If you'd prefer 18" just note it at checkout, no extra charge."

I just ordered mine, only $36. Looking forward to wearing it as my totem and reminder.

 Here a few more of their collaborative pieces:

 

  

There's a Dog is Love, too.

And here are a couple that haven't crossed the sister mind-meld yet, but might some day:

  

Colette's  sweet heart molecular valentine. 

 

Sue's anatomical heart necklace in silver and concrete.

Breathe.