Friday bullets 11/11/16

I'm kind of liking this bullet-thing. Especially on Fridays when the brain is tired from a long week. And what a week. The whole thing just makes me sad that we in our country have so seemingly written off the other half as uncaring and frightening. Yes this statement is true regardless of which color you side with. Sure there are uncaring and frightening people on both sides as well, but I have to believe that the majority are not. And that is all I'm going to say on the topic. We're now going to move on to less stomach-churning topics.

B.'s show, As You Like It, has two more performances... tonight and tomorrow night. You should go and see it, they are doing a terrific job. M. and I decided that this is Shakespeare's answer to the TV sitcom. Light, funny, and a rather unbelievable happy ending which wraps things up at the end. We took most of our people last weekend and they enjoyed it. It's a great introduction to Shakespeare, though I suggest finding a simple synopsis to read to them before hand. K. really liked it. You know, my ten year old boy? Shakespeare can be fun. (And B. is terrific in my humble opinion.)
We went to the library on Tuesday. It was an overdue trip since we had had this particular set of books for nearly three months. I'm afraid we have hit a new milestone in our family; except for R., no one was terribly interested in going and choosing pictures books. They wanted non-fiction, easy readers, graphic novels, and craft style books. Sniff. This feels vaguely momentous and I'm not sure I like it. At all.
We ( J., my older children, and myself) are continuing to enjoy the TV show, Speechless, with Minnie Driver. This week's episode, though, was the first time I didn't think the writers quite nailed the life of a special needs parent. She (the mother) had six, SIX?!, other mom friends who all had special needs children come to her house to hang out. This is not my reality, nor is it the reality of any other special needs mother I know. Friends, and finding time for what friends you do have, is a continuous issue.
It turns out that all three of our pets need their annual vet appointments in the same month. This was not terrific planning on our part. The checkbook will not be happy. (No, we are not taking them all in at the same time. Can you imagine?)
Life with L. continues to keep us on our toes. In the past few days she has been Indiana Jones (dressing the part, of course), carrying a length of rope around to stand in for a whip; an explorer (with costume) where she has tied all of her precious items up in her blankies and then draped herself with them so they can be easily transported as she does her exploring; a math fiend where she spends the entire day either following me around shoving her math workbook in my face demanding I help her or begging to watch a math video where she insists I pause at each problem so she can write it down so she can memorize it. And these are just the things I can remember. Rarely is she just L. Rarely is she not in the throws of working out some idea. It is cute and exhausting.
G. still has her shark teeth and not even A. can convince her to get them out. At least they are gradually getting looser. Like a glacier.
Y., on the other hand, lost a molar which none of us thought was terribly loose, by eating chewy candy.
G. completely skunked me and D. in a game of Camel Up. We were both playing to win and were more than a little surprised when G. had more money than we did. Since it was mostly good playing tactics it was a genuine win on her part. I will keep a closer eye on her next time.
The Halloween candy is almost completely gone and we're getting down to those last few pieces that no one likes. The good stuff (ie chocolate, particularly chocolate and peanut butter or chocolate and coconut) was gone ages ago. If left up to me, the rest of it would sit in its bowl until it petrified.
After having taken a long break (like since R. and Y. came home) I have finally slowly begun to resume my language studies. I'm starting back just with French at first, because it is easier for me and I know far more. Once I get back into the habit I will try adding back in Mandarin as well. To that end, I need some help. To my readers in France, do any of you have any French blogs you would recommend? I want something light, maybe family oriented, maybe something like mine. I tried searching OverBlog and found a couple, but I would like one or two more. They seem to contain more real life French than just reading grammars and books. Merci! Et vous pouvez ecriver en Francais si vous souhaitez. (I know, I know, I still haven't figured out how to do accents or cedillas on my keyboard.)
D.'s novel for NaNoWriMo continues. He writes a lot. He also mutters about characters not behaving, having to kill someone off, and cheers when he figures out a plot point.