each acorn fell at a rate of acceleration of 9.80 m/s^2.

These infernal things.  Acorns give me great amounts of displeasure.  And my mower just chucks them around, so I can't just mow over them either.  Yes, I realize I'm not supposed to begin a sentence with the word "and".  And?

Every fall, I stare out at the acorn minefield that is my front lawn and sigh deeply, resigned to the fact that I will spend ridiculous amounts of time clearing them.  But this year?  No.  This year I decided to try to find the good in it.  So, I turned it into something cool.  I explained to both of my children that I would pay them one cent for each acorn they picked up, turned on some music, and went to town.  My son, the first grader, is supposed to be practicing counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, et cetera, so we counted out his acorns every which way as he gathered them.  My daughter had visions of the T-Pain app she was going to purchase with the money she earned (she has an iPod touch that she saved up for), so she was quite happy to be put to work. 

So, bopping along to music, we dug around, got our hands dirty, met a few slugs, and picked up a hell of a lot of acorns.  My son quit first, earning $1.74, and my daughter kept on for a while longer, earning $3.88.  Not too shabby.  When I started to suggest that we should mess around with estimating how many acorns we had collected by measuring their weight (measuring twenty acorns to see how much they weigh, then measuring all of the acorns and dividing the weight to estimate the total number), both of my children ran away.  

I continued on until it got dark, thinking in my head about a friend of mine who, when I said a few days ago, "god, I hate acorns", said he loves them.  To eat them, I assume.  I won't ask questions, but I saved a jar's worth of the best ones and will mail them on Monday.  Enjoy! 



The silver lining in the darkness of acorns is that my yard was partially cleared of acorns without me having to do it all myself, my children earned some money in a healthy way while increasing their knowledge of numbers, we three spent some quality time together out in the sun, and my buddy gets a rare treat, plucked straight from my front lawn. That's win times four. Booyeah.

In case you're wondering about the strange title of today's blog entry, it's there because the college class I'm currently taking is physics, and because I was pounded on by more than one bastard acorn today.  Felt about as close to Newton as I'll ever feel...which isn't very close. 

let there be light.

People always say that your thirties are the most enjoyable years of your life.  You have things together, you've had your kids, you're starting to get settled and know who you are..your finances are probably more stable.  Well, I've got one of those down.  They are nine and six, a girl and boy, respectively.  Working on the rest.  Okay, maybe I have one and a half down.  I kind of am starting to figure out who I am.   

I've been on this planet for thirty-one years, and I find myself a newly single (divorce is pending) parent who is looking for a job that pays enough for me to pay my mortgage on my own for the first time.  Of course, in have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too fashion, I'd love to be able to pay the rest of my bills too.  Because of this, the new job hunt is only one facet of the re-arranging of my life; I'm also back into college courses, one at a time. I have a fantastic boyfriend who lives in Canada who I don't see nearly enough. You'll hear more about him later, since part of my frustration in life rests in the long gaps between chances we have to meet.  

I am part of what you would call the middle class, though the middle class seems to be disappearing in this interesting economy.  Either you have money, or you don't.  It seems that soon there will be no in-between.  

I've been working part-time on films for years and years, but it's not steady enough work for me to pull in a regular paycheck, especially since I live in a climate that has four seasons.  Film work in winter is nearly non-existent.  My son, the youngest, has now reached that magical age of going to school all day...a novelty, I assure you!  So I'm on the hunt for a job I won't hate that will pay enough to pay my mortgage, in an economy where it's so hard to find a job, MBA grads are working at Dunkin' Donuts.  

BUT, there is always a silver lining.  The actual quote goes something like, "every dark cloud has a silver lining", and while I won't ever admit to literally seeing a silver lining in every dark cloud, it has been known to happen from time to time.  And I'm running with it.  

Here I will spell out the intricacies of the life of a thirty-something woman going through what I believe almost everyone is going through right now in some similar fashion..the struggles of life.  I'm thrashing about with no idea what I'm doing, just hoping that what I'm doing is the right thing.  But instead of complaining about how things might suck, I'm going to look for the good in things that happen in my life, hopefully on a daily basis.  I firmly believe that the key to a good life lies in perspective...it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it.  

So off on this journey I go...feel free to come along for the ride.