Trip to Michigan

 Eight of us went to my parents' home in southwestern Michigan this weekend. My parents had a 60th wedding anniversary party. The weather was perfect and it was all a lot of fun.  My parents are 80 years old. You can do the advanced math and figure out they were 20 when they were married. A long and happy marriage is a blessing from God.

My parents have a nice back yard and the children helped a great deal by hauling tables and chairs outside. My back isn't great, and my parents are, frankly, old, so it was good we had young blood to help out with the lifting!

My brother Darrell, on the left, is a professional balloon master. Rosie suggested a contest between Darrell and my brother Jeff, who is not a balloon master. Jeff kindly engaged in a contest. Which was of course very funny because he doesn't know how to tie balloons.

Daniel with his octopus, and my father behind him

A crowd of relatives, with me in red hair. I recently got my hair dyed redder.  I like it!

The entire clan!  A bunch of relatives came to the party which was awesome. Lots of my parents' friends too. I got to catch up a lot with people.

Rose likes root beer.

The big boys did a lot of hauling and a lot of walking. They spent hours walking up and down the road my parents live on. It is a dead end and very quiet.

My mother is an amazing gardener. My brothers are also excellent gardeners. I missed that gene.

More peoples.

Sarah and a palm tree

Various grandchildren shucking corn. The little guy in green is the children's cousin.

My mother kindly gave away a bunch of her jewelry to the ladies of the family.

My two brothers.

Lydia and the children's only cousin on my side.  He is a little older than Rosie. It was great that the cousins could spend time with one another.

So yes, great trip. Kevin and Miriam and Naomi didn't go, and everyone else did. The minivan was jam packed. It was great seeing everyone and I am thankful for the party and the trip.

Birthdays

 

Joseph turned 19 and Angela turned 16 in the last week.

How did they get to be so grown up?

Joseph was my first C section so I remember his birth quite well. Angela was my third C section and as amazing as it was, I don't remember it specifically. 

She was my smallest baby -- only 5 lb 12 oz at birth! She was 39 weeks so not early. Just small.

Joseph was 6 lb 8 oz so he was not a heavyweight either.

They are both thin. They are both kind, gentle people.

I am proud of all my kids. Thankful, so very thankful, that we are blessed with them and that all are alive and healthy.

Science

 Ok, a few more thoughts on global warming, or climate change.

So I have read a bit more of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.

I am more and more convinced that the governments and scientific establishment have gone completely bonkers in deciding that human created CO2 is what is going to cause us all to be warmed into extinction.

Now to back up a bit. Let me talk science.

I am a scientist, legit.  I have Ph.D. in materials science and engineering. So does Kevin.

Now, as a scientist, I would say I have more knowledge of science than most people. I mean, I spent almost 10 long years in college studying science.

Ok, this is HUGE!

Different  branches of science are ... different.

Take materials science and engineering. We work with materials. We mix different elements to get new materials, or we mix plastics and metals, or plastics and ceramics, or metals and ceramics, and so on and so forth...

The thing about materials science is that a lot of the basic research can be done quite easily in the laboratory. Someone is studying, say, nickel alloys and corrosion resistance. She (yes, there are plenty of female engineers) might decide to add, say, vanadium to nickel progressively and see the effect on hardness and corrosion resistance.

So maybe one pellet is all nickel, and the next pellet is 99 percent nickel and 1 percent vanadium, and the next is 2 percent vanadium and she heats them all up in a furnace at 1000 degrees Celcius for two days and studies the results.

The point is that in this scenario, and in many other materials and chemistry and electrical engineering scenarios, it is pretty easy to control variables.  You make everything the same except ONE variable, and you can be pretty sure that any changes in the results are directly caused by the variable. (Even then  you have to be careful because sometimes there is some rogue problem, like a furnace misbehaving.)

Now let us think about climate science.

Wow.

Talk about complicated!  A whole WORLD! Whose heat is from the SUN, which also changes. Did you know that Jupiter actually effects earth's orbit a bit?

Sunspot activity is another factor.

If you look into history, the world has experienced similarly warm temperatures to now. There was a Medieval Warm Period from about 950 AD to 1250 AD. During that time, Greenland was so warm, so free of ice, that it was possible to grow barley and corn on Greenland!

Obviously CO2 from humans wasn't a problem back then!

Then came the little ice age, and Greenland got colder, and people couldn't farm much there.

So obviously the earth has gone through great shifts in climate even in the last two thousand years.

Did you know that in the last couple of decades, the ice sheet in Antarctica has expanded?

Anyway, my point is this. Climate is INCREDIBLY complicated. People try to pin increasing temperatures on CO2, and furthermore claim that the CO2 made by PEOPLE is causing warming.

I say that the data is NOT there. There are too many variables.

Not to say that we should not TRY to figure it out. When you can't control all the variables, you can still do models and that kind of thing.

But the global warming alarmists are, truthfully, faking evidence, and that is not Ok.

Look up the famous hockey stick graph promulgated by Penn State professor Michael Mann.

The dude seriously messed with the data to make it look the way it does.

I mean, he faked it.

He totally ignored the Medieval Warm Period, where temps were hotter than they are now.

You... can't do that. I mean, you can. He did. His work had an incredible amount of influence on the decisions of a great many councils and governments.

And he FAKED THE DATA.

Outrageous.

The truth is, we as humans are probably affecting the climate. I mean, we are building skyscrapers and putting down pavement. 

But why is it CO2 we are obsessing about?  There are so many other possible variables. And frankly, there is zero raw data that rising CO2 levels are causing rising temperatures. Because people keep fudging the data in various nefarious ways.

So yeah, I am not worried about it at all.

And I am really annoyed at scientists who are putting ideology and money over true science.

Having said that, I get it. You don't get money from governments by saying, "Oh, we are worried that rising CO2 levels MIGHT impact temperature so we want to study it."

No, you say, "The world will end soon if we don't stop CO2 levels rising! Give us money!"

It is the way of the world. Sadly.

This Week in Words

 We formally started homeschooling with the three younger children this week. It was very mellow, with just math, handwriting, and in Sarah's case, an assigned book to read.

It mostly went well. It was a very busy week for some reason -- well, Kevin wasn't feeling well, so that was part of it, and two kids were rushing back and forth to Burger King to work, and Isaac had a dental appointment, and Angela had a dental appointment...

Anyway, it was good but it was busy.

As obvious from a previous post, we launched a new book, The Second Mr. Darcy. It is, I think, a good book. So far the reviews are positive. So that is great.

As I said, Kevin hasn't been feeling well.  On Wednesday we went to the Little Clinic at Kroger and he got prednisone to help with sinus and headache problems.

I took Miriam and Angela to Kohls on Wednesday to buy some needed clothing.

That night I took four kids to a church picnic.  I was exhausted and stressed by the end of Wednesday. I do not like rushing around and being gone from home is hard on me.  That probably sounds like "woe is me". I think it is more I am thankful that I can stay home a lot. I need decompressing after being around people. 

Also, of course, the house has a evil habit of falling apart if I am gone from home a lot.  The children and Kevin do most of the work around here, but I'm the one that notices the weird stuff that needs done. When I say they do most of the work, I mean there are 8 of them and one of me so naturally they do more. Also, our children don't have back problems and the like.  So yes, I ask them, literally, to do the heavy lifting.

This coming week is also kind of busy. We have two kid birthdays!  Hooray!

Also I have to send in my notification of intent (NOI) for this coming homeschool year. The law is changing so this year is going to be hysterically messy but starting next year, the NOI will be far easier. By messy, I mean the local school districts are going to be horribly confused which means the required paperwork will be confused, probably.

We will overcome!

We continue to swim quite a bit in our pool, which is very nice. I think around 80 degrees. I confess to being at the part of the year where I am kind of ready to be done with the pool. It takes a lot of work to keep the chemicals at the right levels.  I do that -- that is one of my jobs, adding most of the chemicals.  The boys do the brushing and vacuuming. Oh, and if I fail to put in chemicals properly, the water turns very green very quickly.

So yep, busy time of year. God has blessed us.

Pictures

 

These two cats adore one another

Also, I took the five younger kids to Young's Dairy, a local ice cream establishment which has, in the last decades, morphed into a local icon with hay rides and putt putt golf and all that.

We had fun.

New book launch!

 

My new Regency romance novel

The Second Mr. Darcy

is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. 

I'm so excited for you to read it!

Darcy and Elizabeth have fallen in love, but can they overcome the troubles caused by his older brother?

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a second son, with little wealth to speak of. His brother, on the other hand, inherited Pemberley’s riches, but those around him suffer from indifference or unwanted attentions.

When Fitzwilliam’s brother dies suddenly, Darcy is faced with the results of his brother’s wild living and dissolute character. Pemberley is deep in debt and suffering from neglect. Darcy struggles with how to pay the creditors and put right the wrongs done by his brother. Must he marry a wealthy heiress?

Elizabeth did not realize how depraved a man could be, and she worries that Darcy could share some of his brother’s tendencies. They have known each other such a short time, but her heart cares not. Can they conquer their fears to be joined in marriage?

(approximately 550  pages #ad)

Click here to see on Amazon!