I am getting so sick of greedy people trying to block others from using names/words they think they have a right to own. UPS has “brown”. Facebook is trying to get the word “face”. Seriously??
Well now someone is trying to own the term “Urban Homesteading”. That doesn’t seem to either belong to this one family, or be in the spirit of the whole movement. Read more about it here.
Two years ago today my father passed away. We took Lindsay ice skating today and I had very happy memories of skating with my dad as a kid. When I was little, he used to send me ahead to skate solo. And just when I completely lost track of where he was, he would come zooming up behind me, grabbing me under my arms and swing me into the air. It was the wildest, best feeling in the world.
When Neil was doing the farm chores this morning, he noticed that there were two eggs in the nest box. It seems as though our girls start laying right around Groundhog’s Day each year. I am thrilled to have fresh eggs again, and I’m sure the girls are happy to have more daylight. Now if we could just get rid of some of the snow in the backyard, they would have more room to roam around. Seems with their older age, they don’t like to stand on snow. Can’t say as I blame them. I wonder if there are any crazy chicken people who put little booties on their girl’s feet.
I was listening to NPR on thursday and they had a segment on how video games can change the world. Hear it here. They had Jane McGonigal on who just came out with the book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. It was discussing how video games are so much more than the stereotypical shoot and kill ones. She talked about how she helped develop a fast-growing type of video games that turn the players towards positive social goals such as fighting depression, obesity, etc.
She mentioned a free game that is still available online that she developed for the World Bank Institute that challenges the players to address issues such as climate change. It is called Evoke and you can see it here.
Take a peek at this video of our friends clothing line. Neil shot the stills and Lindsay and her friends modeled. I think it’s really cute, although I’m a biased, proud mama hen.
Today might win the gross winter day award here in Brooklyn with storm drains clogged with slush and the street corners filling up with several inches of slushy rain. I keep trying to remember to think like a kid, so I put on rain boots and enjoyed stomping in the puddles as I took Lindsay to school.
Here are some photos from a visit with my in-laws up in the Berkshires. We enjoyed the wintery day by snow shoeing on and around a lake. After that, Lindsay and her grandparents made a delicious pasta fagioli in their big colonial fireplace.
