Fraction of the cost

Yesterday at dinnertime the Man was teaching his son fractions through the medium of strawberries.

Man: There are four strawberries in the bowl. If I take away half of them, how many are left? But if I only take away a quarter of them...?

OK. Now, what's a quarter plus a quarter?

Boy (joyfully): Fifty cents!

That's my Boy - always right on the money.

Handmade tales

Today I finished reading The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, the true story of a Malawian boy, William Kamkwamba, who at age 14 saw a picture of a wind turbine in a library book and set about making his own out of what he could find in a scrapyard. His achievement in the face of much adversity is pretty awe-inspiring, and I recommend the book.

Not exactly inspirational, but fun anyway, this afternoon's school sewing project featured my new favourite theme: pumpkins. The kids (in spite of themselves in some cases) all managed to complete one. A very modest accomplishment, maybe, but our own.

A leaf out of their mother's book

It was a day for raking leaves, jumping in piles of leaves and heaping up leaves by the side of the road.

Plus it seems I'm not the only one in this family who likes pressing leaves...

A Fair to Remember

Well, it was another great Fall Fair at school today. Unlike some school fairs, this one isn't run principally as a fundraiser, and although there are nominal charges to play games parents don't have to spend the whole event saying "How much??" and "No, you can't have another go!" to their children - which makes for a happy and relaxed atmosphere all round.

The Instant Raffle was a storming success and was pretty much over in an hour and a half. There were several other equally popular stalls, including the Silly Toss (throwing unlikely objects into unlikely containers) and Squirt the Candle. I was persuaded to help out briefly on the face-painting stall, and achieved a passable Devil and a slightly blurry looking bunny (the little girl I was painting was very sweet but couldn't sit still for the life of her).

And then there was the Fall Fair regular feature: the hired climbing wall. This year the Man shamed me into having a go. It wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be, but it still felt like an achievement, and managing to reach the top was in many senses the high point of my day.

Tat's the way I like it!

A letter went out at school about a week ago requesting donations for the tombola (aka Instant Raffle) that will be part of tomorrow's Fall Fair. This evening I was on hand to help set things out - and my, what a lot of things there are!



And by George, I think this year our American school community has really got it. Although there are some items that are frankly too good for this kind of stall...

...others are absolutely spot on.

The detail is in the Devil

All that talk of pumpkins yesterday - plus the thought of the pumpkin display at the upcoming school Fall Fair - got me in carving mood. So off I went to Indian Ladder Farms to get me some gourds.

First I reprised last year's Peace Pumpkin (see link in the last entry). Then the Girl designed something a little more devilish for me to carve, and insisted on the addition of horns and twisty tail. I think it has come out rather well.

I'm taking a break now, but will work on the Boy's effort tomorrow.

Also today I helped the Girl sew a ragdoll, made pumpkin soup (of course!) and had my hair cut. No-one has said anything complimentary about the latter yet, so perhaps that was also a bit of a carve-up?

Halloween horror story

We're nearly halfway through October, so Halloween fever is setting in. One of the Girl's classmates came round after school today for a sewing lesson - I'm helping her make a Laura Ingalls-Wilder dress as a costume. The Girl is thinking along more ghoulish lines - but more on that, no doubt, at the end of the month.

Halloween is in the headlines, too. It was reported this week that Americans spent $5.7 billion on Halloween last year. That's more than twice the GDP of several developing countries. Even more appallingly, the financial commentator on the radio seemed distressed that, due to the recession, people might decide to spend a bit less this year.

So it's evidently my patriotic duty to go out and buy rubber masks, eyeball candies and death-related lawn ornaments...

Oh go on then, maybe I'll push the boat out and buy myself a pumpkin.