Born on a Blue Day

I just finished reading the most fascinating memoir that I have ever read.  It is the life story of Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant.  Merriam Webster defines savant as: "a person of learning; especially : one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature)".  However, this definition doesn't really give justice to what a savant is.  Daniel's capabilities almost seem supernatural.  He visualizes numbers as colors, textures and motions. He does so through a brain condition called synesthesia.

His unique capabilities are accentuated in the areas of math and language.  He is a human calculator so to speak.  He can calculate ANY two numbers given in a matter of seconds and not by normal calculations, but by visualizing them in shapes and colors.  He recited the infinite number of PI over 5 hours at a charity event in Oxford.  He can tell you whether ANY number is a prime or composite number simply through his synesthesia capabilities, not by memorization.  He can tell you what day of the week a certain day fell on in any given year.  He has learned 10 languages and can learn to speak a new language fluently within a week.

He is a person who was considered mentally retarded as a young child. He was difficult to raise because of his autistic challenges. Yet today he is someone who is revered as a human anomaly, highly desired to be studied by world renowned brain scientists.  He was recently featured in a documentary called "Brainman" with other autistic savants. 

The movie Rainman was based on a true story of a savant named Kim Peek.  Kim was born with encephalitis, an enlarged brain.  His doctor at the time encouraged Kim's parents to have him lobotomized and put in an institution, claiming he would never amount to anything.  Kim however had extremely unique capabilities.  He could read two pages simultaneously, one with the left eye and one with the right eye at the same time while forever retaining the information.  He was a human encyclopedia.

I find the stories of these savants not only to be amazing because of their capabilities, but also inspiring because I know their parents felt a sense of hopelessness as the children were young.  Yet, they grew to be a lesson for all of us.  That lesson is that we can never know the full potential of our children.  There is beauty in all of God's creation, and in cases such as these God reminds us that things aren't always so black and white.
Watch the documentary here:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2598363071375453449#

O Holy Night

This time of year is met with great excitement for me because I get to sing from the top of my lungs not only my favorite Christmas song, but one of my favorite songs EVER.  It is O Holy Night.
This song moves me so because it is a triumphant melody of the entry of Jesus into our world.  A humble man,  full of mercy, wisdom and love. 

It is rare to find a full version of this song ever sung, but all three verses are powerful.  I'll note two of the verses here and italicize the parts that strike me to the marrow of my bones, evoking a well of emotion.

O Holy Night 

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, the night when Christ was born;

O night, O holy night, O night divine!

O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Here the song is powerfully and beautifully sung by Celine Dion.



The words and lyrics of the old carol 'O Holy Night' were written by Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure in 1847. Cappeau was a wine seller by trade but was asked by the parish priest to write a poem for Christmas. He obliged and wrote the beautiful words of the hymn. He then realised that it should have music to accompany the words and he approached his friend Adolphe Charles Adams(1803-1856). He agreed and the music for the poem was therefore composed by Adolphe Charles Adams. Adolphe had attended the Paris conservatoire and forged a brilliant career as a composer. It was translated into English by John Sullivan Dwight (1812-1893).

Summer Updates

Summer is here and not a breath of air is to be had with this record breaking heat! 108 degrees, eek.  Whenever I walk out the door I feel like i've been sat on and smothered under a troll's rear end.   I'm ready to get school started since we are kept captive inside anyway!  The lesson plans are all prepared, the new books and curriculum have been put on their shelves and eager minds are ready to begin the new school year.

Other than that there are a few bits of news worthy of reporting.  Sweet little Rocky turned seven at the end of July!  We had a rockin' Ben 10 birthday party.  I actually surprised myself by making the cake and the pinata this year!  To go along with the Ben 10 theme, I made an omnitrix birthday cake, a Vilgax pinata (am I speakin' anyone's language here?), musical chairs to the Ben 10 theme song, and an aliens vs. villains water balloon fight!  Fun times!  Rocky was thrilled.

Rocky blowin' out his candles

The ominitrix cake

Another celebration worth noting is that the other Rocky and I are celebrating 16 years of marriage August 6th.  Without getting too sappy, I can only say that my heart is bursting at the seams with love for him.  There are many things I have doubted myself on in life, but marrying Rocky is something I have never doubted, he is the perfect man for me.  We are going to have a short getaway at the Castle Inn at Riverside.  Woohoo!

16 years ago

Lastly, a fun addition to our summer  is that we bought a boat.  I grew up spending summers at the lake with my family; water-skiing, tubing, camping and enjoying the great outdoors and I am so happy to be able to share that experience that with my husband and kids.

Our new source of summer fun!

That's about all I can get in for now.  Hoping joy and peace for all my friends and loved ones. 

School Year In Review

This post is far past due since we are over half way into summer but I still wanted to get it up here.  It's just a little review of what we did in our homeschool this year.  This was our first year homeschooling.  Rocky was technically in kindergarten and Sadie, pre-K although she did much of the same work that he did except in Math and Reading.  Oh yes, and don't forget Luke.  His main objective was behaving himself for three hours while the rest of us got some learnin' done.

We used the Core K curriculum through Sonlight this year for both Rocky and Sadie.  We focused mainly on Handwriting, Math, Language Arts (phonics, story writing, etc.) and Character Development through various bible devotions.

Some of the memorable achievements this year for Rocky were his large strides in reading.  He was so quick to pick up reading that I felt like he taught himself and is already able to read books such as Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.  His handwriting has improved much over the previous year and he has begun learning simple addition and subtraction problems in math.

Sadie also has shown a lot of growth in learning.  I can remember in September noting with excitement the first time that she wrote her name by herself.  She has begun to read 3 letter words and has learned to write all upper and lowercase letters.  In math she worked hard to recognize numbers 1-100 and began learning to write numbers 1-30.

We really enjoyed reading books together this year.  This was the first time we ventured into chapter books rather than just picture books.  I would read to them during their snack time and I could see their little imaginations working alongside the reading.  We read too many books to list here, but they each had their favorites.  Rocky's favorite was The Story of Dr. Doolittle and Sadie's favorite was Elmer and the Dragon .

Outside of academics we joined a great homeschool group which provided not only fun field trips, but a chance to build relationships with other homeschool children the same age.  We took field trips to the pumpkin patch, Exploration Place, the zoo, Krispy Kreme Donuts, Great Plains Nature Center, Lowes, Wichita Art Museum, the news station and the Water Treatment Center. Other activities included a Science Fair, hosting a Valentine party for friends, weekly gymnastics and Awana at church. 

Next year I plan to add a few more things to their curriculum.  I will be adding a Critical Thinking workbook, a look at World Cultures for History, and an indepth study of the Human Body for Science.  I'm also considering piano lessons.
It has been a true joy to be alongside my kids as they began their life of learning.

This was our "first day of school" party

Zoo trip, looking at a bobcat skull

We frequented the Wichita Art Museum for thier fun programs

Rocky at gymnastics

Standing in front of their science fair project

With our homeschool group at Lowes learning to make keys

Trip to the news station

We celebrated the end of school year at Adventure Sports

Why I Married Rocky Burris, Jr.

My husband has really won me over with his little contraption.  It's something he made to combat our frequent foe - FRUIT FLIES.  We like to eat fruit, but it seems like we can't set a banana out on the counter without being swarmed with these pesky varmants.  So Rocky took an old salsa jar and screwed in four screws to the lid for legs to stand on so that the smell of banana bait could lure the flies up into the hole drilled into the lid where they fly up through a mesh screen out the top of the cone into the jar.  Rocky read that flies cannot fly down, so once they are in there they can't fly back down the cone.  You can't tell by this picture, but we've already caught two of those winged pests in there.  Is my husband the coolest or what?

Abducted by Aliens

With regards to my social networking, blogging and all together free time I have totally fallen off the grid.  Ya know, checked out of the matrix.  I have completely neglected this little blog and most social connections via Twitter or facebook.  My friends probably think I've been abducted by aliens.  This has not been intentional.

I thought the end of the school year and the beginning of summer was going to mean basking in the sun, catching up on some desired reading and just plain relaxing.  It hasn't been much of any of that.  I have been neck high in lesson planning for our next school year.  Last year I bought an all-inclusive school curriculum for Rocky and Sadie using Sonlight so little planning was involved.  This year I decided to use an assortment of materials which is resulting in me doing much more preparation. 
I am using Sonlight for Language Arts, Math U See for Math,  Usborne's People's of the World (World Cultures) for History, Usborne's Complete Book of the Human Body for Science, Handwriting, Art and a Critical Thinking Curriculum.  There are 36 weeks which is 160 days in the school year for which I have to plan for each day.  Whew!  I have been swamped.
Outside of that droll news, Sadie has been doing Tball this summer which has been a gas to watch.  Always the competitive one, Sadie can frequently be seen kicking dirt, stomping on her glove and yelling "I stink at softball!"  I think group sports may not be her thing.  Which is why she and Rocky are also doing gymnastics each week.  That has been going much better.
Thank heavens the kids grandparents have a pool because it has provided much of our summer break from the heat!  If it weren't for that we may be completely stuck inside this house during the day.
Another reason I haven't been connected to the world much is because I used to do most social networking in the evenings.  However, about a month ago Rocky and I decided to start watching old episodes of the show "Lost" on the internet.  We have been completely sucked in and the moment the kids go to bed, we snuggle up and watch it every night.  It's a great show.  Not only that, it's been so nice snuggling with my man at night and sharing that time together.  For so long we seem to have gone to our separate things after the kids have gone to bed.  By the way, that reminds me, remember that blog post "The Lazy Diet" I posted not too long ago?  Well, I for one have not been too successful on it because, well I like to eat too much.  But my husband however has lost close to twenty pounds!  Might I say he is lookin' fine!   Simply by eating smaller portions, and walking on his lunch break.

Well, that's all for now, I have lessons to plan.  Ugh.

Fun at the cemetery

Today Sadie (5 yrs old) and I went to visit my mom's grave at the cemetery with it being Memorial Weekend and all.  We were enjoying our time there. Sadie likes walking around the cemetery and having me read to her the people's names and how old they were.  She likes to pick dandelions and lay them on the graves of people who have no flowers at their headstones.  Just as I was revelling in her sweetness and kindness, she turned into a comic, so I of course have to share.

As we were strolling she said "This place is just like the bathroom with the door shut."  I said, "really, what do you mean?"  She replied, "Because it's so peaceful."  True.

Moments later we saw the hospital helicopter flying to the hospital nearby and she asked, "Where is that helicopter going?"  I said, "to the hospital to take a sick person there."  To which she replied, "well they better hurry up or they are going to be bring that person down here!"  True.

And lastly as we were leaving she laid one last dandelion on a headstone and said, "oh well, easy come easy go."  True.