Also, don’t forget that Roberta, our LeapingFromTheBox “Consult-Ant,” has her very own Growing With Science Blog.

In her Kids’ Questions About Ants post, Roberta answers questions from several fourth graders in Georgia who had an ant farm in their classroom. They had some interesting questions, things I had never thought about concerning ants. Check them out!

Pleasure, enjoyment, delight, joy refer to the feeling of being pleased and happy. Pleasure is the general term: to take pleasure in beautiful scenery. Enjoyment is a quiet sense of well-being and pleasurable satisfaction: enjoyment at sitting in the shade on a warm day. Delight is a high degree of pleasure, usually leading to active expression of it: delight at receiving a hoped-for letter. Joy is a feeling of delight so deep and so lasting that one radiates happiness and expresses it spontaneously: joy at unexpected good news.

So what does bring me joy?

My first thought was writing, but writing is not always joyful or even pleasurable. It can be difficult, painful and emotionally revealing, none of which brings me joy. Writing is something that I have to do, like breathing and eating. It is a rare day that I do not write something, whether a blog post, an email or a letter to a friend (sometimes those are even handwritten!). It does not matter to me whether anyone reads what I write or not. The possibility of an audience is not why I choose write.

Reading also comes to mind, but again, it is more of a need I have, like an addiction to caffeine or nicotine. A day is not complete if I have not had my daily fix of word input and output, reading and writing.

Crocheting gives me pleasure and satisfaction. I find it relaxing, soothing. But crocheting does not give me joy. The act of giving a crocheted item away, knowing that it will be used and appreciated by the recipient, that gives me joy. I never really understood why we needed to save an item that someone had made, pass it down from generation to generation, never to be used. To me, the value of the item is in knowing the person who created that item. If I did not personally know great-grandma Tilly, I am not going to value something made by her nearly as much as I am going to value something made by my Grammy. And so it brings me joy to know that items I have made and given to others are actually being used. That was the reason I made them in the first place!

Here is a picture of the baby afghan I made for my niece’s new baby boy:

Knowing that Aiden’s older brother loved his afghan and carried it around with him for several years gave me great joy. I hope Aiden enjoys his half as much.

Here is another thing that gives me joy:

Copper has taken to sleeping on laptops and computers. When it was ninety degrees and better outside, she preferred sleeping out on our balcony all day long. But when cooler temperatures came in September, she ceased wanting to go out on the balcony and now sleeps away the day on top of laptops or any other computer she can find that is running and warm. Anyway, just seeing a cat gives me pleasure, but having one (or more) of my own that I can interact with gives me joy.

Photography brings me joy. Amy mentioned photography and art in her post, too. Unlike Amy, I have never been interested in the darkroom and developing of pictures. What I love is the hunt for a good subject, the art of framing the subject and the sense of accomplishment I feel when I capture a moment in time. That gives me joy, knowing that I have saved some essence of “now” that can easily be recaptured in the future simply be looking at the picture.

My children, of course, bring me moments of joy. Their individual births were three such moments. Add to that my granddaughter, Miss Munchkin; I was lucky enough to be present at her birth and one of the very first to hold her. Miss Munchkin brings me joy almost every time I see her. There is just something about a toddler who is happy and curious and loving that is joyful, especially when she is related to you.

I feel joy when we hit the road for a road trip, whether it is just a day’s jaunt somewhere or a vacation. There is something truly joyous about leaving behind the every day world for a bit and looking forward towards possible great adventures. And I feel joy every time I step onto a beach. Hearing the waves crashing onto shore and the cry of the gulls, feeling the heat of the sun through the sand on your bare feet, the smell of the salt spray, it all fills me with joy. Oh, and the skirl of bagpipes bring me joy. If ever I were to come across bagpipes being played on the beach while I was walking barefoot with my granddaughter, my heart would likely burst from experiencing too much joy all at once.

Amy’s post talks a lot about finding joy in your work or rather work that you find joyful. I know this is the goal of many unschoolers, to find a way to turn their passion into a career. That is a great goal, although I know few that have been able to truly realize it. The only possible work-related thing that brings me joy is being able to find answers and resources for others. I love to research; I love to hunt for the perfect gift, for the perfect book, for that needed quote or just the right word that will complete a project. I think that is why I continue with my website, since HTML and web design certainly does not bring me joy. On the contrary, many days it fills me with stress and frustration. But I love to know that a resource I have reviewed or something I have written has provided an answer to someone’s quest. That brings me joy.

So, what brings you joy?

So far, he has volunteered eight of his required ten hours over the past three Sundays. He thought his work would consist of helping to socialize the cats, but instead he has been doing a lot of cleaning and grounds keeping as they prepared for an Open House held yesterday. And only in spare moments has he been able to really interact with any of the cats. Even so, he has enjoyed working there and it sounds like he intends to continue his volunteering even after his class commitment is fulfilled. Good for him!

I only had one caveat for David when he told me about the group and I looked over their website. I did not want him telling me about any cats that might need homes! There’s a couple of really cute cats (is there any other kind?) on their website that are up for adoption, but we do not need more animals right now. Two pets in our apartment are just the right number.

This is Penny. A lot of people wonder what breed she is and we tell them she’s a white shepherd mixed with who knows what! She’s a good dog, even if she is afraid of her own shadow.

And this is Copper. She’s a little over a year old and has adjusted very well to being an indoors cat.

So you can see, we really do not need any more animals in our apartment. So I won’t be volunteering with David!

While Kat and Miss Munchkin were here two weekends ago, we visited the beach. I did not think to check for beach advisories before we left, so we were rather disappointed to discover one when we got there. That meant no swimming. It was hot and sticky and there was no breeze and it was not much fun if you couldn’t get into the water. Miss Munchkin played some with her sand and shovel and chased some birds, but we did not stay very long. Next time Grandma will remember to check online for advisories.

I keep telling her Mommy that she needs a haircut!

Penny Update – I took Penny back to the vet on the 23rd for a follow-up. She was doing better and then she wasn’t, so the vet decided to do an x-ray to see if she had any kidney stones. Good news: no stones. (Bad news: wasted money on an x-ray!) The vet decided that she likely has a leakage problem that is fairly common with spayed females of her age and size. So she is now on a twice-daily dose of something to prevent bladder leakage. It does seem to be working, which is good news for my carpets! Now to retrieve my rug cleaner when I go back to Alabama next month.

We had a lot of rain yesterday, maybe close to two inches. The pond in the apartment complex is much higher this morning and Mr. Alligator is having fun cruising around. He seems to be enjoying the higher water level. And I notice this morning that the bird that has been fishing around the pond the last week was now staying out of the water, just fishing from the stone bank. Maybe Mr. Bird is more concerned about Mr. Alligator now that Mr. Alligator is getting around the pond more quickly? I don’t know what the bird is, maybe a heron or egret. I will try to get a pic tomorrow.

The boys signed up for Kenpo Karate last week. Now they just need to get into a routine again, hopefully one that will not involve me doing all the driving! With David as a driver now, it would seem like I should be able to stay at home when they go.

I have been working on updating my Alabama Church School listings the past several days. Each summer I contact every church school listed (and many, many that are not listed) in my attempt to have the most up-to-date listing of church schools online for Alabama homeschoolers. It is a lot of work, but necessary. There are just so many lists online that are not up-to-date, with inaccurate URL’s, e-mail addresses that no longer work, and church schools mentioned that no longer exist.

David’s Freshman English class ends next week. It appears that he is doing well in it, perhaps even a B average. That would be great, compared to how he did last year at Evansville. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

And I think that is it for the updates! Tomorrow is August 1st. That is my Grammy’s birthday, or would have been if she were still alive. I should make molasses cookies in her memory; she always made the most delicious molasses cookies! I wonder if I have her recipe with me or if it is packed away back in Alabama?

Now, if you were to show Charles a new karate form, he would get it right away. Or if you were to put him in charge of a class of karate students, he would have no problem with that. The class would continue calmly and smoothly. But show him something that needs tools to work on, like a car, or something with technological jargon and pop-up warnings, like a computer, and he is lost. He has had to learn to deal with more of that, though, this year with David away to college. No more can he just throw his arms up in defeat and cajole his brother into helping him.

And what is Charles doing now? While his iTunes is finally converting all the files the way he has been trying to get it to since late last night? He is out squirrel hunting. I am not sure if he took his blow gun or his bow. I do know the squirrels are not in any danger, though. The cats trailing after Charles will successfully warn away any squirrel silly enough to get within shooting range.

Mr. Algae-Eater seems to have recovered nicely. I bought some sort of aloe juice medicine that was supposed to be for sores on fish and added it each day for a week. It seemed to do the trick. He’s back to his old self.

We did take a trip to Tallahassee last week and Bill interviewed for a position with a company there. He liked the company, so now we are just waiting to see if they liked him enough to hire him. Or if they thought they needed his experience enough to hire him, as they have a huge mess to clean up. Hopefully we’ll hear soon. Bill and I really liked it there. The sunshine, the warmth, the beach, the seafood. It was very nice.

Christmas was a quiet day. Several of us have colds, others have been stressed and working too many hours. So we just watched movies and played with Miss Munchkin and tried to keep the wrapping paper out of her mouth. The best gift seemed to be the Flexible Flyer horse we got her. It didn’t take long for her to figure out how she could move to get the horse moving. It is going to be a while, though, before she’ll be able to ride it herself.

And I bought her a stocking that had the head of a cat at the top of it. I was going to make her a stocking. I got all of 4 rows done on it. I’ll have to finish it next year. But the cat stocking was a big hit. Miss Munchkin loves “fluffies” and all day long she’d carry that stocking around and put her face right down into the cat’s face and make her “kitty cat” noise, which is sort of a cross between a meow and a purr and a dinosaur growl. Very cute. That’s what she’s doing in these pictures, in addition to trying to eat the nose of the cat!

Kat says that Miss Munchkin walked across the kitchen on her own this afternoon and then stood there longer squealing about it. I need to take some more pictures. I haven’t taken any since early November and they are still on the camera. Tomorrow she will be 9 months! I’ll have to remember to take the camera with us dancing Friday night and get some pictures of Miss Munchkin and I doing Cotton-Eyed Joe.

I talked with David for a short bit today. Today was a “reading / studying” day in preparations for exams, which begin tomorrow. Next Wednesday he will be ready to come home for semester break.

I continue to declutter, cleaning out more books and videos. Some I am selling; many more are just being given away to the public library or being Freecycled (new verb there, like Googling!). I do not want to have to box all these up and move them with me! The more I get rid of now, the less I have to move.

Speaking of moving, it sounds likely that we will have to soon take a trip to Tallahassee, scout the area. Kat & Shawn announced Sunday that it is 90% likely they will be moving to Pensacola by the first of March and that Shawn will be manager of a store there. We had already been looking in that direction, in addition to the Nashville area, but now being further south takes on new meaning. Plus, after the cold weather this week, Bill and I are both looking at each other and saying “and we want to move to Nashville? Further north?”

This morning, while making Bill’s breakfast at about 7:00, I notice that the algae eater (a plecostomus) was not in the fish tank. Or, at least, I could not see him anywhere. I walk around on all sides of the tank to see if he is “hiding” somewhere. It’s not like he’s easy to hide; he’s much too big. Usually he’s down in the plastic “weeds” in one corner. But nope, not there! So where is he? All I can figure is maybe something happened to him during the night and Charles took care of the carcass, but really, the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. Not of something happening to the fish, but of Charles taking care of it!

So, I finish breakfast and then forget about the fish. I know, I know … neglect of fish. So sue me!

I shower, check e-mail and start my regular Friday morning homeschool chat at 8. At 9:00, I suddenly remember about the fish. I mention to my fellow chatters that my fish was missing this morning and that I had better go look for him again. Which I did (go look for him). Nope, still not there! So where is he? I report back to the chat group and they suggest that maybe he jumped out. Well, maybe … So I go back to look around and . Oh my gawd … there it is, on the living room carpet! How did I not step on him earlier? And how long has he been out of the tank? Obviously since before 7!

I go to pick him up with a paper towel, being sure he is dead, but his tail moves when I touch him. He’s still alive! So I scoop him up and dump him back in the water, where he promptly sinks to the bottom with a small tail wiggle.

Now I receive all sorts of advice from my fellow chatters. One suggests I go “move him around the water,” sort of a fish CPR, I think. Right. Well, okay, so he is a cool fish and it would be nice if he survived. So I go try to hold him and “move” him in the water, but he is not going to have any part of that, quickly moving away when I touch him. Okay, so he it appears that he is healthy enough to move about on his own.

I go and report this back to my chatters, who by this time are rolling on the floor with laughter, thinking of me “moving my fish through the water.”

Now I am receiving suggestions of throwing frozen peas into the water and broccoli and hanging a “worm basket” full of kale or something. This is getting complicated! A “worm basket?”

So now my algae eater has three peas in the tank and he is not paying any attention to them.

One helpful suggestion, from someone who had past experiences with jumping algae eaters was to cover the area around the filter so that he can not jump out again. Now that makes sense! Tin foil is now in place.

Upon doing some research online, I have come up with several interesting tidbits of information on algae eaters. First and foremost, that in the wild they can go without water for long periods of time, burrowing down in the mud and extracting oxygen from the air they gulp. They do not have to rely totally upon oxygen through their gills.

Second, it appears that they actually need a lot of movement of water and a large tank. They can grow to be up to a foot long and live ten years or more. Our algae eater is about 8 inches long. I know lately he has not moved around the tank as much as normal and that has concerned me. Possibly, if the tank is not large enough or the current of water is not strong enough, he is not getting enough oxygen?

Third, they often gulp air at the top of the tank, which I have seen them do. They also like to jump out of the water, which I have seen this one do also, although not recently. And obviously his jumping did not make enough of an impression on me to worry about him actually jumping out of the tank, but that possibility was also mentioned online.

Fourth, it would appear that I am not feeding him enough. I thought he would have enough algae in the tank to suit him, but my reading indicates that I should be feeding him daily, or rather, nightly, since he is nocturnal. And that maybe he is not getting enough darkness, as our tank remains lit often from 7 a.m. to around 3 a.m. So I have thrown in a couple of algae wafers into the water, which the guppies are enjoying!

I’ve just finished relating my fish tale to Charles, and he tells me that that fish was going crazy last night around midnight. Jumping up in the water, splashing water out of the tank, hitting the tank lid with his body. So, maybe he jumped out some time after midnight? That algae eater is darned awful lucky that no cats spent the night inside!

Now that I think about it, I have noticed that, whenever I refill the tank (which is about every 4 weeks), the algae eater acts differently for a few days. About once a month the water level evaporates down far enough that the noise of the water falling from the filter drives us all batty. So I empty out more of the tank, maybe about 1/4 of the water total (it is a 30 gallon tank) and then refill till it’s full. I would think the new water would have more oxygen in it and make the fish happier, but it tends to slow up his activity level for a few days. Maybe because the water from the filter doesn’t fall so far to hit the tank water that it actually circulates less oxygen into the tank? Or maybe the new water isn’t to his liking? I think I need to do more research!

So, can anyone answer the original question … how long can an algae-eater go without water and oxygen?

We visited David at Evansville last weekend, Family Weekend. What a rainy Saturday it was! We didn’t join in on any of the college activities but instead visited the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science. http://www.emuseum.org/.

I would have never imagined that Evansville was a major shipyard in the 1940s, building LSTs (Landing Ship, Tanks) for the war effort. Even the boys found it interesting!

David seems to be doing very well. After a bit of poking and prodding we got to hear tidbits about his classes, his teachers, and what he is learning. He could even speak some Japanese already! But he’s definitely not homesick and by Sunday afternoon was more than ready for us all to leave. I guess that’s a good thing?

My poor fern … first Copper decides it’s THE place to sleep. Then the Fluffies discovered it and now it seems like the bed of preferences for several cats and kittens. I’m not sure it’s going to survive. It was so dry and hot this summer that it didn’t grow as much as usual and was just catching a second breath in September. Soon it will be cold enough that I will have to move it inside, but it really doesn’t get enough sunshine when inside, so I hate to move it in any earlier than necessary. But somehow I’ve got to keep the kitties out!

Here’s a new pic of Miss Munchkin, taken two weeks ago. A drooling baby, cutting who knows how many teeth! Today Kat says that Miss Munchkin is “cruising,” which is a term for standing up, holding on to things, and walking around those things. You learn something new every day, Miss Munchkin how to cruise and Grandma what it means! It’s only a matter of time before she takes those first steps and walks on her own!

We’re still trying to decide whether we’ll go up for Family Weekend later in September or combine visiting David with a possible trip to New York in October. I guess the first decision to be made is whether we’re going to New York or maybe the decision to be made is who is going to New York. It’s my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration, so I definitely want to go!

Sunday my dad had a get together at his house and my brother Eric drove over from Atlanta with his family. Daniel spent Saturday night here playing X-Box with Charles and Shawn. I took lots of pics, so maybe later this week I’ll get one posted up here of Eric with Miss Munchkin. She was frightened of Eric when she first saw him Saturday night, but my Sunday afternoon she was having great fun with his beard.

Oh, and it looks like my kittens have all found homes! I just need to decide if I want to keep one of them or not. We’ve been talking of possibly moving in the semi-near future and it is going to be difficult to find a place where I could have my six cats roam freely outside, let alone adding another one to that number. Do we really need to keep any?