10 Things I Love About... Mum!

May is Family Month here in South Korea. Saturday, May 5th, was Children's Day. Last Monday, May 8th, was Parent's Day. And in North America, today is Mother's Day. So I figured this is a good month to resume my fun TTILAY posts. Here's the third edition!

10 things I love about my mum are...

1. She loves traditions.

We have a yearly family tradition of getting PJs for Christmas Eve - this must have been Christmas 1992 or 1993

2. She always finds the most fun toys.

My cool Fisher Price camera - a toy that delighted me for many years

Our Fisher Price airplane that took us on so many amazing trips :)

3. She's full of interesting and creative ideas.

She always comes up with such fun and creative ideas for our Christmas cards and pictures - in front of Dad's shop in 2005

4. She loves her parents (and the rest of her family) and does many things with and for them.

Gramps and Gram W. at their house after Grandpa's birthday party ~ Oct. 3, 2011

A trip to Art Knapps with her parents for some spring flowers for their yard ~ April 2012

A recent visit with her aunt at the nursing home

5. She loves taking pictures: of people, animals, flowers, scenery, well pretty much everything!

Self-portrait in 2011

Just one of the awesome pictures she has taken (to see TONS more, check out her blog)

6. She knows how to be goofy.

For her December photo challenge

5-years-old Glenda - She wasn't really trying to be goofy here, but was actually
trying really hard to smile. Hehe, I think it's so cute I just had to add it.

7. She's good at the element of surprise.

During Christmas-tree hunting 2003

8. She loves to read and has instilled that love in all her kids.

Her newest favourite book

9. She loves flowers.

Showcasing her Valentine's Day flowers ~ Feb. 14, 2012

Iris's (I think?) starting to bloom

Finding a way to make even a drooping tulip look beautiful

10. She loves my dad.

During Christmas-tree hunting 2005

11. She's always there for me! (Just couldn't stop at only 10.)

Sitting right up front and center at my wedding ~ August 1, 2011 (Photo by Glen Durrell)

Special hugs after the ceremony (Photo by Glen Durrell)

Mum, for all these reasons and so many more, I love you! I really wish I could be home to give you a hug and a kiss this year, but this post will have to be an e-hug-and-kiss from me. Happiest of Mother's Days from Seoul!!

{Spotlight} Mo Willems

Back in the fall of 2009 I took a wonderful class called Survey of Children's Literature. It was my favourite class of my whole college career. During that class I was introduced to children's author Mo Willems and his classic book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!" That book turned into a whole pigeon series that concentrate on punctuation, inflection, repetition, and interactive stories where the children can be just as involved in the story reading as the person reading to them. I think it's great!

But what I like even more is this video Willems made. I found it when someone posted a link on Facebook to a new series he's been writing, the Elephant and Piggie books. I absolutely love how Willems explains his writing process, and the reason he tells kids they should learn to read.
Mo Willems is definitely a fun guy who writes fun kids books.

The Story of Stuff

Jonathan and I have been reading a blog called Mr. Money Mustache and learning so much interesting stuff as we go through the posts! I'm only about ten posts from being all caught up and last night I was reading the comments to one post called Why I am SO Not Buying the iPad 3. I enjoyed the read because I myself find no reason to own an iPad of any generation at this point in my life. (Actually I was almost convinced to get rid of my laptop and just use a Raspberry Pi for my computer needs after reading one comment, until Jonathan told me that it probably wouldn't be powerful enough to run Ubuntu, the version of Linux I use, or any other reasonably user-friendly version of Linux at this point. I'm sad about it, though, because it looked like a great alternative. I only ever use OpenOffice - for word processing and spreadsheets - and the Internet on my computer anyway, since my Adobe CS3 doesn't work on Linux. If I need to use InDesign or Photoshop, I use it on Jonathan's computer.) So in the comments of that iPad 3 article I found the following video. Jonathan and I watched it this morning, along with four others (the stories of water bottles, electronics, cosmetics, and broke) by the creator Annie Leonard. It made me mad. And sad. But mostly mad. So I thought I would share it on my blog and see what others think of it.

If it made you mad or sad, too, let me know in the comments. I don't know what we each individually can do about it all, but I personally plan to buy less stuff in the future, make sure what I buy is good quality and will last me for a LONG time, and find lots of ways to boost my happiness that don't center around buying stuff.

Caine's Arcade

On Monday my mum posted this article on her Facebook page saying, "i love original people. this is excellent." It's about a French man who traipsed across frozen lakes in France to make amazing patterns in the snow with his raquettes (snowshoes). You should definitely take a look (if you haven't seen the link already) because it's really impressive.

I, too, love original people. That's why, when I read this post from the Free-Range Kids blog yesterday, I knew I'd have to write my own blog post about this ingenuitive 9-year-old. I love it when people are creative and I love it even more when kids are.

If you've got 10 minutes free sometime, watch the video below or check out Caine's website. And then find your own fun, unique way to be creative and totally cool. If you come up with something, tell me about it because I'd love to know!

Glimpses of my day

Well, Monday afternoon I didn't feel so great at work. My head felt congested (I told Jonathan when I got home that I felt perfectly fine below the ears) and I had a hard time paying attention to the Teacher's Guide I was editing. That evening I curled up in bed while Jonathan was teaching his last two classes of the day and tried to feel get well. Lying down was definitely better than sitting up. By Tuesday the head congestion was gone and in its place was a lovely runny nose. I'm pretty sure I disrupted the entire office all day with my nose-blowing. I'm not even sure if that's OK to do in public here (I know it's a definite no-no during meals), but if I had had to go into the washroom every time I had to blow my nose, I might as well have just stayed in there. Anyway, I hope I didn't gross out too many people. Today was better for sure, but since I have to bend over my desk to edit the pages, gravity again hampered the nose-clearing-up process. Both yesterday and today I noticed that whenever I was sitting up and looking at the computer screen, my nose behaved. But the minute I'd looked down at my desk, the waterworks started up again. I really hope that by tomorrow it will all be over, because I'd hate to make my coworkers endure a third day of the nose-blowing soundtrack...

Anyway, here are a couple pictures from my day for you to enjoy.

1. Yes, I'm a use-everything-until-it's-really-and-truly-finished type of girl. One man I worked with in my dad's cabinet shop years ago told me I must come from a German Mennonite background because I scrimped and saved every little piece of edgetape to use when we had to tape small pieces. He guessed exactly right. My ancestors were in fact frugal and thrifty German Mennonites.

The toothpaste was thrown out after this picture was taken. I had to get Jonathan to help me squeeze out the last drops of toothpaste. He told me I could cut it open to get more if I really wanted, but I decided it was about time to start a new tube. That soap piece, though, still has a lot of washing left in it!

2. Came across this picture while I was editing the WiseMaster Junior 9 textbook and Teacher's Guide this morning. So try to find the person I most identified with yesterday and today.

Yep, that's right, the one down at the bottom center. Minus the stuff coming out of her mouth (what is that?!)
and the sleeping, that was totally me for the past two days at the office.

Bonus: From yesterday, but just so cute I couldn't pass it up! (Not sure why it focused on the right side instead of the center...)

Who can spot the Korean snowman?!