the gookins dot net

what part of these mapquest directions make any sense?? If I want to go from Altoona, Ia to Lamoni, Ia without taking I-80, It won’t let me take the 65/69 bypass directly…I end up going in circles.

Turn RIGHT onto NE UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 W.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 N toward MASON CITY.
Take the E UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 exit, EXIT 79, toward PLEASANT HILL.
Turn LEFT onto IA-163 W/E UNIVERSITY AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto US-65 S/US-69 S/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70A toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 S toward CARLISLE/MASON CITY.
IA-5 S becomes US-65 N.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Take the 85TH AVE exit, EXIT 97, toward FLEUR DR.
Turn LEFT onto 85TH AVE/85TH ST.
Merge onto IA-5 S.
Merge onto US-69 N/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70B toward DES MOINES.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Merge onto I-35 S toward KANSAS CITY.

That is so screwed up.

My poor, abandoned blog. Every now and then I visit here, hoping someone blogged something, hoping to come up with some brilliant thing to post, but nothing. I keep thinking I’ll get some big inspiration and start blogging away again. We didn’t even blog Matthew’s 11th birthday last week. Happy birthday, little guy, we still love you even if we don’t blog every milestone.

I can’t let the entire month go by without posting something. Sadly, facebook has taken over as my online outlet. Mainly because I can just post stupid shit there without having to actually think about anything. So, in case I’m not on your friend list yet, here’s my message to you:

Friend me! I’m at: http://www.facebook.com/don.gookin

That is all.

I have just not felt like blogging lately. Me and about 20 other bloggers I read. It must be the season.

So just what the heck have we been doing? I’m not sure. We’ve been busy but never with anything terribly exciting. On the homeschool front, tumbling wrapped up for us in March. The kids are getting close to “finished” with school for the year, I hope to have loose ends wrapped up this week. We took today off though while Jess went to Adventureland (amusement park) with the local homeschool teen group, so we may seep into next week. Actually, I’m ready to say “screw it” and call it good. I can’t say they’re learning much, their hearts and heads aren’t into it, and neither is mine. So never mind, we’ll be done Friday.

Jess will be high school age next year, so we have been doing a little investigating into classes available to her. She isn’t too interested, but I want her to know the specials, like art, are available if she wants to take a class or two. I’ve also been looking at the graduation requirements, and some of them are stupid and a waste of time. There are some quite lame classes you can fill your time with as well. Who needs the class on learning to live as an adult? Just stupid. I’ve mostly been looking at what colleges want to see though. We are operating under the assumption that Jess will go to college, but if she finds something she enjoys and doesn’t need it, we’re fine with that. But our goal is to have her prepared for any route she chooses.

Matt goes to the pediatrician Friday. A few weeks ago he mentioned “that pain” that he gets in his chest when he’s running or playing…yeah, that’s what I said too, “Uh, WHAT pain??? As if it were a normal thing. He’s not real good at expressing himself, so I’m not all too clear on what exactly is going on. It could just be from being out of breath, but I worry because as a baby he had a heart murmur and saw a pediatric cardiologist who said it would fix itself, but there’s never been any follow up on it. His heart really pounds when he’s been running. I dug out my stethoscope and listened but I haven’t worked peds for almost 11 years (I was pregnant with Matt) and I’ve never been good with abnormal heart sounds so it was kind of pointless. We also have asthma in the family, so I don’t know if that plays into it, but I really want to have this followed up on soon. And I’m not going to let it go with a quick listen and an “I don’t hear anything abnormal”, I want some actual follow-up testing.

We have no soccer games this weekend and I am glad! Matt has two games left, Jess has three, but we get a weekend off to do other fun stuff like build a deck. Okay, I’d much rather watch soccer

Allie has been to 3 dance competitions and recital is only a week away, then she’s on summer break. She has national competition in June, dance “camp” in July, and classes restart in August, so there’s not much break to the break.

Life with the dog is going fine. Don takes him running with him in the morning on most days. I can tell when he didn’t go running because the dog is a bit spazzier and tries to drag me out the door and down the street. He’s a smart guy though, and has figured out I don’t run unless my life is in danger.

We’re looking at a trip to the east coast this summer, but haven’t had much time to do any planning, so I don’t know if it will happen. We want to visit DC museums and Civil War battlefields mostly (okay, I can only speak for me, that’s what I want to see) and the ocean. I could spend a couple months there and not run out of places to go, but it would only be a week whenever we can squeeze it in, so I’m going to have to trim my list down a bit.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to blog a bit more in the future. I think it helps keep my head cleared of a bit of the clutter that usually occupies it.

Allison turned 9 today, and we’ve been so busy that the traditional happy birthday post almost didn’t get written until after midnight. Allison had dance pictures all morning, then we had to get groceries for her chosen birthday dinner (homemade Chinese food). This was followed by opening presents, a visit from her cousins, making a giant birthday cookie (Allie even made the frosting and decorated it herself). Then it was cooking and eating, and cleaning up and more eating. I think she had a good day.

Our littlest munchkin is now officially halfway to adulthood. The fact that she is growing up is all too apparent in that none of her gifts this year were toys (except for two more Webkinz). The girl who used to reliably ask for Barbies or Littlest Pet Shop is now happy with clothes, jewelry, and gift cards. But as much as I want her to stay my little girl forever, I’m very proud of the young lady she is becoming.

Happy Birthday Allison!

This is probably one of those things that’s already been around the blogosphere and I’m just late to the game in finding it, but it’s cool nonetheless.

Bohemian Rhapsody played on old-school computer equipment:

well, beyond words for me.

Did you know that some women eat or ingest their placenta?

And I thought burying it in the back yard was weird.

We went and picked up Griffin the Wonder Dog from the Animal Rescue League today. He is supposedly black lab/pointer mix, and supposedly about 18 months old. I’ll be taking him to the vet soon to see how good they are at naming his breed and guessing his age.

He’s a sweetie (so far) and is good with the kids (so far) and doesn’t beg for food (so far). He sits, lays down, and goes in his kennel very well.

When we were in Portland I got an email from our supervising teacher setting our appointment for our final meeting this school year. I didn’t have my calendar with me, and surprise, surprise, I forgot to put it down when I got home. It got lost in the inbox.

I got an email from her this afternoon, saying she hoped everything was okay and let her know when I would like to reschedule. I couldn’t figure out what the heck she was talking about at first, it took my brain a few minutes to realize that it was already the end of April.

I have been this way since I got back from Portland. Sarah, I think I left my brain somewhere in your house, could you send it to me when you find it? Hopefully Charlie hasn’t gotten to it. They’re kinda hard to replace.

Awhile back, I wrote about Nate Phelps, the son of the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, and an article on his escape from a life of abuse at the hands of his father.

If you’d like to hear more of his very moving story, in his own words, he has posted the transcript of a talk he gave a couple weeks ago.

Jessica tested for her 1st Dan Black Belt rank yesterday, and did an awesome job. She earned her temporary Black Belt last August, and after she is promoted on Tuesday will officially be a 1st Dan Black Belt. She says she’ll continue doing Tae Kwon Do until she is too old do it anymore. If she is determined to do so, I have no doubt she could become a Master (5th Dan) or even a Grand Master (7th Dan) someday. Needless to say we are very proud of her.

Just two weeks from today I’ll be waking up in Portland, OR. Don and I are flying out to visit my little sister, Sarah for almost a week. I’m so excited! We haven’t seen her since November and we’ve never been to Oregon. She has been planning some fun stuff for us, like going to breweries (what, you didn’t see that coming??) and the ocean.

I’m also a bit nervous. The kids will be staying home with Grampy (my dad) and although I trust him to feed them well and take care of them, he goes to bed about 8 pm and doesn’t wake for much of anything. The kids could have a party and I don’t think he’d hear. I also have to figure out how everyone is getting to dance, tae kwon do, soccer games, and practices while we’re gone. And I still don’t have the soccer game schedule (first game is this weekend) so I can’t exactly get it all figured out yet.

Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.

–Galileo Galilei

My favorite guy turns 41 today.

He’s having a sucky day though (including being locked out of the house, pulling his hamstring, getting a ticket, and being late for work, and that’s just the first few hours of the day). So send him your well wishes and some good vibes to get him through the day without other incidents.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me a little story.

She was getting ready for work and putting on her makeup. She has one of those newer styles of eyelash curlers, plastic with a spring, you just squeeze it and it does all the work. Well, it did something unusual, she said something about the spring boinging, and when the pain subsided, she looked up…and…and…

she had no eyelashes. The dang thing had pulled them all out! It makes my eyes water to think about it. I have to admit that it made me laugh a little bit to picture my mom with no eyelashes on one eye but the thought of the pain made me think how awful it would be to have all of your eyelashes yanked out at once. I don’t know how quickly eyelashes grow back, let’s hope it is quick.