It is day thirttwenfourfifty of the pandemic and people are crazy!

So today is Monday... the third Monday of no school and it seems like an eternity... My person started cleaning out old work from last semester and some from the ancient days of this semester , she said just for something to do.... all of the packets are done and ready to go into homeroom teacher boxes tomorrow. So tomorrow will most likely be a bit more cleaning.

My person isn't really quite that bad , but we did have to hunt for her for a while... Maybe because she is short. SSSSSHHHH ! I didn't say that, but honestly .. one of her children says she is oompah loompah size.....

You make the decision....

Now I will say that their hair is CRAZY!! Which brings me to another problem. My person is really really fussy about her hair. I don't mean with all that product stuff that people put in their hair, but With its length and shape and stuff.... well let me tell you . I went to find her this evening and do you know what she was doing? CUTTING her own hair!!! How bored do you have to be to do that? Well maybe it is because she likes it to look nice. She even made her person cut the back because she couldn't reach. Oh! The humanity... I was really worried... he was so  un-coordinated with the scissors... She really could have gotten hurt .... like blood and stuff ... ewww....

She is pretty excited because she was talking to one of her students today and they got talking about disc golf. He loves it he said. So she told him that she is trying to create a disc golf course at LHS and so now he is helping to design the course and seek out the equipment. Whoo Hoo!!! Do you guys know what disc golf is? Hang on....

Oh so wait a minute.... it is frisbee throw all jazzed up!  Check it out..

Today has been a pretty good day.. don't you think so? The weather was nice, there was a great thunderstorm in some places and the temperature was pleasant. How about some warm weather recipes you can make as a family?

What about frozen fruit pops? 

Here's an easy recipe to make anybody smile and they are fun to make together.

Fruit Ice Pops

Ingredients  : 

Blueberry Pops:    2 cups frozen blueberries, thawed

                                 1/4 cup apple juice

                                  2 tablespoons honey

                                   1/2 lemon, juiced

                                   1 pinch salt

Strawberry Pops:

                                     2 cups frozen strawberries, thawed

                                     1/4 cup apple juice

                                     2 tablespoons honey

                                     1/2 lemon, juiced

                                     1 pinch salt

Combine blueberry pop ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into 5 of the pop molds. Repeat process with strawberry pop ingredients. Place in freezer for at least 5 hours or overnight. If you do not have ice pop molds you can use 3-ounce plastic cups. Pour the pop mix into each cup, cover with foil and insert pop stick through the center of the foil into the cup. Place in freezer for at least 5 hours or overnight. To remove from the cup submerge the bottom 2/3 of the cup in hot water for about five seconds. Pull on the stick and voila.  Want to see what they look like?  I promise they look delicious!  I am a good sock monkey and the pictures are copyrighted , so you will just have to make some and try them out! 

I can share a monkey picture with you so you will smile!! 

Have a smile.... sending you sunny days and best wishes... we are one week into the stay-at-home and we can do this!!!

Words of wisdom tonight from Cosee:      "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."                   ― Mahatma Gandhi

Star Light ; Star Bright... how can I see the stars tonight?

Before I get started  on my daily adventure into sharing cool stuff with you. My person asked me to share the next few pictures with you. She has been working really hard on getting the phase three packets together for after Spring Break.... today she gave me sometime off and had her person working on the packets. That gave me time to do weather and take attendance. But since she asked me to share , here the pictures are... remember if you are reading this: Once a wolf, always a wolf and that you are missed terribly.

We really did work super hard and the payoff was lunch! Now this was just a sandwich.... or was it? It was lettuce harvested from school and homemade lavender rosemary bread. The smell when it was cooking was enough to drive you crazy . It must have been good because it barely lasted two days.

Even though April is a STAY - AT - HOME month, there are some really amazing astronomical things going on. I did not say astrological because we are talking stars and comets and meteor showers; I mean some super great stuff. Ha! I crack myself up sometimes... we will also have a Super Pink Moon. But , I get ahead of myself.  Let me share a wonderful site with you that has a different picture of something in space or on the planet , every single day. It is called Astronomy Picture of the day and you can look through years and years of pictures. It is fun to see how our technology and the quality of the pictures has changed. So, without any more hesitation..... here is the site :

 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html      and here is an example of what you will see. It is the center of our galaxy.

What else is going on this month? Well let me tell you all the stuff you can see in the night time sky:

7 – 8 Super Pink Moon

21-22 Lyrid Meteor Shower  

AND super coolest of all : We can see the Comet Atlas at the end of April. But it will still be around in May , in fact it will be brighter in May than in April.  You are going to have to look around and between the Big and Little Dippers.

              

If that isn't enough, we are also going to have a conjunction coming up in May.
That is where some of the planets line up with each other.... want a little more information? OK, Glad you asked. Jupiter, Venus, along with the moon will be aligning soon, which will create a smiley face in the sky. This occurrence is called a conjunction. It is a rare appearance, so make sure you are on the lookout. The last time these planets aligned and created a smiley face was in December 2008. It is almost 12 years later, it is finally happening again! It is said to happen this May on the 16th.

Remember it is the Moon ( the mouth ) and Jupiter ( right eye ) and Venus ( left eye ) making the smiley face. Pretty cool isn't it? I'll be checking it out , what about you?

Are there any special star or planet pictures that you like? My person's EE students are reading the Martian ( well actually she is reading it /recording it ) and so I found some cool pictures of Mars for them and anyone, since that is a planned trip NASA has in the works. Maybe I could stowaway? What I blog I could write from space!!!!

Check out the active fault line they found on Mars , Valles Marinaris ( the big crack as long as NY to LA ) and Olympus Mons , the biggest volcano in the solar system.

My person loves the stars and loves this quote so much I want to share it with you as my words of wisdom tonight :

" I have loved the stars too fondly to ever be fearful of the night."    Sarah Williams

I love birds and butterflies .... don't you?

I think I will share some really neat ideas for making treats for birds and butterflies and other critters. My person saw some really interesting bugs when she was in the Amazon, luckily they are not here! Bet you don't believe me ,do you.... well... take a look !

I mean that is just a sample and I will tell you that the tarantula and whatever that other spider was/is was the very least of her favorites. She did however rescue a tarantula that fell from the ceiling onto the floor behind her. She said it kind of thudded when it hit. But , did you see the moth that looked like owl eyes! Pretty cool , right? But the best is the really amazing blue one. It's called a Blue Morpho and holy moly is it pretty.

Oh , here are a couple more pictures. A Giant moth and the small tarantula that fell from the ceiling. It looks sort of broken and my person said she didn't think it survived.

So you can attract butterflies to your yard and that would be a really good thing to do now and over the summer. Want to know how? It's super simple and your mum would love it if you got rid of the old nasty brown bananas!

Check this out!   Just hang an old nasty banana and the butterflies will come.

If attracting birds is what you like better , here is a cool Easter Egg recipe and then you can just hang the eggs in the trees for the birds......

Dissolve 2 packets of unflavored gelatin in 1/2 cup hot water, then stir in 2 1/2 cups birdseed. Generously spray the inside of 12 plastic eggs with cooking oil. Pack the mixture into the egg molds, snap them shut, and let them set overnight

Wait until you see how cute they look!!!

If you want to get more involved, here is a homemade suet recipe... but that is better for the winter. So, maybe wait until later for those.

Make sure no matter what you want to attract that you have plenty of water and change it often, especially when it gets hot. Yuck! Would you want to drink hot water? 

Having birds and butterflies in your yard is such a cool thing! you can get some really good pictures if you are quiet and practice.

Words for today:

“It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.”

 – Doe Zantamata

Make each day a masterpiece. Don't think your best days are out there somewhere. Why not today? Why can't today be a great day? It can if you believe it will.     John Wooden  

Coach Carr would be so proud of me, I know how much he loves Wooden. So let me show you how the day started out. It really was a most beautiful sunrise and got my brain thinking about how we should make today a great day... no matter what we are doing...... check out this sunrise!!

Gorgeous, right? What did I tell you!! This wee monkey has some great taste.  Last night was a fun night, so normally when it isn't soccer season , my person and her person play trivia with Leith , Teague , Benoit , Brett , Courtney and a bunch of folks. They call themselves , Birds of a Feather  which is really funny because they are nothing alike, but they do great together as a team. In fact, they have broken all the records for the trivia competition and the rules even got changed around because they are just that good that they were unbeatable. Any way, so last night ; Leith's dad put together a trivia night among the birds because regular trivia is shut down. My person is familiar with Kahoot , but her person was not so sure and so I had to illustrate how to use the game site......  I look good don't I ? 

My people didn't finish first , because of some dumb mistakes but the team of NH2 ended up in third out of everyone, so overall not a bad night.

We worked at school today and got some things done. The next several days will be busy because the teachers have to get a Phase 3 packet ready ... JUST in CASE they need it. My person puts a lot of time into figuring out what to put in the packet or on canvas..... so I will have lots to keep me busy. Today , my job was weather data and crossing out the month of April ... NO NO!! I mean the days. Did I say month?

I know, I shouldn't be so grumpy , but I worked hard today and had no latte or red jelly beans and my people actually went and got take out Duck Donuts. I mean is that fair?  I think not..... I am looking forward to tomorrow.. actually I look forward to every day , but tomorrow is special. I get to take a bubble bath and change my garden clothes out for something nice. So .... stay tuned.

My favorite quote and so my words of wisdom for today are from the great Jim Valvano - coach of the 1983 NCAA Champion NC State Wolfpack. 
His words are so important that we should read them every day:

" To me , there are three things that everyone should do everyday . Number one is laugh. Number two is think - spend some time in thought. Number three , you should have your emotions move you to tears". 

These are powerful words. Jim Valvano passed away in 1993 , but right up until his death , he spoke about the three things and that you never give up. 

It is ok to want things to be normal....

It is ok for you to want things to be normal. That is normal. But, remember that everyone reacts differently to things and we cannot judge how someone is acting. That is really hard for a sock monkey because often I forget myself and say … stuff like … " what do you mean you did what? or you acted how? " A really fine lady that is the mum of one of my person's former students posted this today and I want to share it.

So how can we be normal when everything isn't normal?

Well, it is time for the spring  peepers to be out ..... Look at how little they are!!  The Spring Peeper, is a tiny frog that grows to anywhere from just under an inch to 1.5 inches in length. Did you know that? They are tinier than me or my person even ( and she really is a shrimp! ) 

Underneath its chin it bears a pouch that fills with air and 'sings' as it deflates. Male Spring Peepers literally serenade their prospective mates. That pouch is crazy!!! 

How many of you have ever seen a tadpole? Well if you are close to areas like this …...

You might see this!!!......

 Pretty awesome , I think .. don't you?

Ever hear a spring peeper?  You can :  Listen Here   Spring peeper     

I bet you have heard them and you just didn't know their name! 

More later , but back to work now..

Words from Cosee:   " There is no place in a city that can't be better. There is no toad that can't be a princess, no frog that can't become a prince."      

Day 1 STAY-AT-HOME ...... unless you are an essential employee

Today March 30 was the Day... you know what I mean. It was the day we were told to stay at home .. starting at 5pm and if we were not essential personnel somewhere or going to the grocery or pharmacy or doctor etc, we had no reason to be out. Stop playing basketball in large groups or 50 people walking the track. I mean folks! How much clearer does it have to be?  I stopped by Fausto Coffee with my person on the way to school and gave the owner some violet syrup. It was muchly appreciated since it was 7 am and she had already had a sort of crappie day..... no blueberry muffins for my person .....

School was pretty busy today since all the teachers were supposed to have the packets ready to go up to spring break ( April 10 ) and so everyone was getting their homeroom material together. My person was concerned because there didn't seem to be four classes for all her kids, but what could she do? She had her packets ready and put in each of her kids homeroom teacher boxes. On a sad note, she found out that the German exchange student that was in her Anatomy H class has been told she has to return to Germany ASAP. But, if we weren't online, she could have stayed.... on a good note, once she gets back in school she is going to talk to her guidance counselors and get a sister school program going! That means my person can go visit her school!!! I tried to help as best I could with getting all the paperwork done, but I have really short arms and it was hard to hold so many papers.

 How do you think I did?

Once all of the work was done, it was time to head home..... shhhhhh...... my person had a spare roll of paper towels and so we brought them home..... but shhhhhhh..... don't say anything because Steve will get mad!  :)

 So what do you do on a really nice day ? You know, one that is that day before it rains AGAIN? Did you say go work in the garden? Well, yes, I think I will.

This is working, right? Or what about this?

or having a chat with a butterfly... does that count?

All joking aside, my people have worked hard to make things look beautiful and what they couldn't do, nature did...... take a look at the beauty.... then smile and know things will be ok!!!

I was wandering back into the garden when I spotted a female Cardinal flying into the arbor, so of course I went to check it out and this is what I found..... can't wait to watch for eggs , then babies!!

No good day in the garden is over without a sit down chat with my friend and I took the opportunity today to listen to a bit of lovely flute music... music makes everything seem better.. don't you agree?

Words of Wisdom:   “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” – Plato