in preparation for the snowdeal rummage and bake sale that odin had orgnaized to pay for the remaining portion of a fancy new bike he's been saving up for, we found we had to change the innertube on one of the tires on his very first bike so we could fetch a premium price.

odin is a "hands on" on kid so he jumped at the chance to learn how change a tire and tube.

i recall being fairly intimidated by the prospect of the task even after i had quite a few decades on odin, but he took to the task with his usual gusto and had the tire off in no time, er, flat.



sadly, we didn't even have much time for mw to reminisce about zen and the art of motorocycle maintenance and the metaphysics of quality before he was tooling around in his newly-fixed and soon-to-be-sold bike!

who knows how or when it started, but i'm a color-coder note taker.

blue and black are "primary text" colors and are used relatively interchangeably, switching occasionally to help break up a page. e.g. on a full page of notes a blue to black transition might indicate a switch in topic. green typically indicates "something of interest" and red, of course, is used to highlight to-dos. color-coding is such a simple way to improve your notes ( indeed, it often makes lists like lifehacker's "five classic ways to boost your note-taking" ) that i'm surprised at how many weird looks i get from people who don't have any idea why i carry multiple colors of pens in to meetings. and more than a few folks have said they think it's just a bit dorky to be color coding notes after the sixth grade.

"pfffffft", i say. carrying around 4 pens is not dorky, it's a sign of an advanced note taker.

amusingly, someone who knows my love of color-coding recently gave me a classic 4-color retractable ballpoint pens, but i can't quite bring myself to use it because, well, it's a little dorky, no?

so, which is dorkier, carrying 4 different pens or one retractable ballpoint?

two thousand one hundred and fourteen days.

how is it possible that it's taken us that long to play a round of miniature golf?

oh well, we had a great time passing some time with 18 holes at the self proclaimed, largest pirate cove in the usa while waiting for odin's cousin to compete in a volleyball tournament in the wisconsin dells.

we'll all remember it as the day poppi shot a hole-in-one :-)

who knew that miniature golf as we know it descended from the royal & ancient golf club in st. andrew as a socially acceptable alternative for woman who were interested in golf at a time when it was "deemed unacceptable for women to publicly perform such violent movements that a golf swing requires".

we have slow food, slow money and even a nascent slow media movement.

maybe it's time for a "slow games" movement!

because there's really nothing more fun than sitting for an hour with odin making a game of "finger soccer" with a found marble and some goals made from fir twigs.

upon returning from a trip to stay with his grandparents in the upper peninsula of michigan, odin coulnd't wait to show us the wonderfully crafty signs he made with them based on an idea they saw in family fun magazine. pretty nifty! i like them so much i'm wondering if i can get odin to crank out a couple of hundred to sell in the city wide rummage sale by next weekend.

is it just me or would the blue birds make a fine mascot for twitter ( *cough* twitter.com/snowdeal *cough* )?

according to greek mythology, hyacinth was a divine hero who was killed while throwing discus with apollo.

apollo was so fond of hyacinth that he did not allow hades to take him to the underworld, but instead made the plant hyacinth from his spilled blood.

we asked odin what he was hoping the easter bunny would bring in his easter basket and we said in a hushed tone that the bunny would bring a magical wishing egg.

we hadn't heard of the wishing egg tradition, but odin was adament that sometimes the easter bunny leaves a very special egg that some say can make your wishes come true. and sure enough, odin awoke on easter morning to find a magical egg that somehow changes colors in the light.

very magical indeed.

odin grasped it tight, closed his eyes, and made a wish.

we asked what he wished for but, unfortunately, he says the can't say until it comes true.

happy easter!

the male bits of a pussy willow, with characteristic silky silvery catkins, prepare to spill their seed.