Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929.  This  year Dr. King’s birthday will be observed on Monday, January 17th.  


I was living in Washington, D.C. in 1986 when President Reagan signed into law the bill that created the federal observance and I have been to MLK’s birthplace in Atlanta many times in the 20 years since I moved here.

The home Martin Luther King grew up in on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. 

I have taken my children, other family members and out of town visitors to walk the streets where he grew up, to sit in the pew of the church where he preached (and where his mother was killed) and to stand at the fountain that marks his tomb. 

Our kids on the first of several trips to the King Memorial.

I am always awed by the experience. 


And, I love children’s books and own quite a few.  So it is not lightly that I say the book(cover above), Martin’s Big Words: The life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is amazing, with lot of illustrations, like this:

It is not surprising that this book won the New York Times  Book Review for Best Illustrated Book in 2001. It was also a Caldecott Honor Book.  It’s author Doreen Rappaport and illustrator Bryan Collier have both done spectacular jobs. 


So, today I will reread this beautiful book, and probably again on Monday too, and reflect on the man who changed so many lives for the better.

Birthday Party Idea - Edition 1

In addition to enjoying and commemorating conventional and unconventional holidays, obvious and obscure celebrations,  I particularly love birthdays.


For that reason, planning and carrying out my childrens' birthday parties when they were younger was always great fun.


So I thought from time to time on this blog I might share some ideas from a party that proved particularly successful and which elicit great memories. 


My children are now teenagers so I haven't had a chance to plan fun-themed parties with cute favors, invitations and the like for a while. Please know that I was working to keep costs (relatively) low and that sites like Etsy, which I adore and which offers thousands and thousands of cute resources, didn't exist then.  However, I never shied away from store bought resources and, in fact, loved Oriental Trading and other similar type companies. 


When my son was 6 he loved The Crocodile Hunter, so we planned a crocodile-themed party.

Theme selected, I Googled "alligator/crocodile template" and found several I liked.  I printed the template I chose  onto white paper and then enlarged it to a size that would fit in a #10 envelope.


Lest you think I am even mildly crafty or technologically savvy, I will embarrassingly admit that I typed up what I wanted the invitation to say and printed it on various size labels, cutting/sticking to fit - I really wanted the tail to say, "See you later alligator."  I then xeroxed the invitation onto green card stock, glued on googly eyes and cut the entire thing (teeth and scales too) out.   


Because my son celebrates his birthday in December, we held his party at the local Y.  But of course, this would be a great summer party too.


During a Labor Day trip to the beach several months before, I purchased 4 five foot long inflatable alligators for pool games (no doubt available online as well).


The kids arrived in their bathing suits and brought towels and a change of clothes.  We did alligator relays - team and individual, other fun games and let the kids swim for an hour or so.

That's my son on the right with the scuba mask - taking his alligator wrangling very seriously. 

After drying off and a quick change, we moved the party upstairs to a party room, where we broke open the alligator pinata (you can catch a glimpse of the pinata in the top left corner of the photo below), had cake and ice cream and opened gifts.   

I purchased the chocolate alligator at a chocolate/candy shoppe in Atlanta (after a little online research) and took it to my local Kroger bakery.  I asked them to create a cake that looked like a swamp.  The cattails (see the #6 hidden among them) were made with uncooked spaghetti noodles and chocolate.

Like so many things about my children growing up -- I miss those days.  Is there anything more priceless than the look on that little boy's face?

Snow Day . . . er, Ice Day 3

A rare occurrence of snow is initially cause for celebration at our house.  But the truth is, the south is just not prepared to deal with the conditions that render  driveways, side streets, secondary roads and even interstates impossible to drive on for days.

Our icy driveway.

So while precipitation of the frozen variety was fun on Day 1, and Day 2 was enjoyable, it's now Day 3 and Day 4 looms with little promise of change. We've grown kind of weary of the cold and ice, the limited groceries and even the no school. 


In the last 72 hours, one or more of us has done a few things not normally part of our routine, including, but not limited to:

worked on a Science Fair project

baked brownies

shoveled the deck and sidewalk

done several loads of laundry

figured out On Demand and watched Other Guys (we give it a 5)

reorganized the laundry room

gone sledding

finished our thank you notes

taken naps

Work begins in earnest on the Science Fair project.

Looks like a winner to me!

With any luck and some assistance from Mr. Sun and the DOT, we'll be back to our standard operating procedure by Friday.

Definitely not Separated at Birth

Is it ironic, coincidental, or just hilarious that both Howard Stern (b. 1954) and Rush Limbaugh (b. 1951) were born today?  Regardless of what you think of these two unrestrained radio personalities with very different target audiences, it does seem strange to me that two of the best known, and well-paid, on-air talkers would both celebrate January 12th as their birthday. Happy Birthday, guys!

International Thank You Day

I'm not certain which international body designated today an official holiday (the UN, NATO, IMF, maybe International Harvester).   

Regardless, the Smith family is going to use today to complete those lingering Christmas thank you notes and a few birthday ones (from my son) as well.

A Snow Event - Postscript

A view out our front door

We  had about 4 inches of snow overnight - not a record breaking event, but still beautiful, also a bit inconvenient and treacherous, but beautiful nonetheless.

We're all at home enjoying  the view from the warm indoors, except for the occasional venture outside (for necessary business). 

Fortunately, she loves it.

Happy Birthday Tube You!

 

The London metropolitan underground railway system, the first in the world, opened 148 years ago today.  The "Tube" has 270 stations and 250 miles of track.   It is the second longest metro system in the world (only Shanghai’s is longer) and almost three and half million people ride the London metro daily. 

And that little recorded announcement that reminds train passengers to be careful while crossing between the train door and the platform is a great metaphor for lots of other circumstances in life.  Circumstances and situations which require care and focus and attention (if we don't want to figuratively lose our balance and fall into something undesirable).

"Mind the Gap" has to be the best three-word-phrase ever, after "I love you" of course, in the English language.

A Snow Event

We’re preparing for a winter snow storm at our house. The meteorologists are calling for a snow event of monumental proportion tonight.  That’s an alarming 4 to 7 inches in Atlanta.  Lest you scoff, the greatest snowfall ever recorded in Atlanta was just 8.31 inches which  fell on January  23, 1940.  Also of note, six inches of snow fell on January 30, 1936; about 8 inches fell on March 24, 1983;  and five inches fell on January 18, 1992.

In my snow memory bank (pun intended), two events stand out.

Snow blankets our front yard in the Super Storm of 1993.

The first occurred the weekend  before our daughter's birth -- the Super Storm of '93.  Amid snow, ice and wind, we lost power and were forced to sleep on a mattress we'd dragged in front of our gas-log fireplace. Sounds fun, right?  Perhaps, unless you're eight and a half months pregnant and on doctor ordered bed rest.  We managed to make the best of it though  and our baby girl was born on a cool, sunny day just 2 days later.

My husband with our St. Patrick's Day baby.

Flash forward three and half years.  There was no snow the day our son was born. But 48 hours later, just as we were  released from the hospital, the biggest, whitest flakes of snow began to fall.  The tiny dressing gown he wore home from the hospital had little blue snowflakes embroidered on the collar.  It was perfect -- just like him.

In his "snow" outfit, wrapped in a blanket knitted by my grandmother.

So while it  doesn't snow often in Atlanta, when it does, it's often remarkable.