Evening walk in the snow

Maya and I went for a walk to Barnes and Noble in the snowfall tonight - here are some pictures from the walk.

Grocery shopping

Last night we went grocery shopping and bought items for Maya's Uncle's birthday dinner tomorrow. Zaheeda is making and all Mexican dinner which should be good.

No violin today

Maya doesn't have her violin lesson today, her teacher rescheduled because she had to go out of town to visit her sick grandma. Everyone seems to be having grandma issues these days.

Last night Maya made a snowman in the front yard which was nice, except she used my scarf and hat as accessories.

Goofy Pic

Sledding

Maya slept in our bed last night and when she opened her eyes this morning the first words out of her mouth were, "I want to go sledding." So here are some picture of Maya's day sledding:

This is Maya getting ready to go down the hill

This is Maya going down the hill backwards.

This is Maya pouting when it was time to go home.

This is close up of Maya pouting and thinking about what she is going to start nagging for next.

The Snow

Poem

Maya found this poem in one of her library books today and thought it was pretty funny. What do you think?

First day on her bike

Here's an old clip of Maya on the day she got her first bike.

Bouncing

Playing Violin for Ralph the Mouse

Lighthouses

2003 Clip about lighthouses

Running through puddles

Here is funny little clip. I like it because you can here Great Grandma Lucht laughing.

In Swedish News....

Sweden is being accused of being a safe haven for internet piracy.

Swede's according to the article are tolerant of piracy, but that's just because the Swedes are tolerant of everything... "Oh, yah... help yourself to some digital content there."

Back at school again

Maya's back at school again and in her normal routine. Tonight we have violin lessons and she's getting very frustrated because she's having a hard time with "Minuet 3" - too many slurs as far as she's concerned. Last night's practice involved a lot of screaming, crying, tantrums and whatnots: "I hate this piece." "I don't want to practice anymore." "I want to play something different."

I helped her work through it by screaming, "just shut-up and play the damn violin!"

It's so nice being able to experience children's growth and development through music.

Ralph's home

Today I made a home for Ralph, it is small but just right for him.

Presidents' Day

Maya's off from school today due to the holiday and is sleeping in - as of 9:00 she's still not out of bed yet. This weekend she had group lesson on Saturday and then we went to The Global Village and had some Somali food for lunch.

Zaheeda is working on learning some new Mexican recipes from some Rick Bayless books that she got from the library and I've been busy making book shelves with the help of my apprentice. Mostly my apprentice just sucks up sawdust with the vacuum and waits for scrap wood that she can do art projects with, but I guess I should be happy with whatever help I get.

Extreme Sledding

Extreme Sledding with Maya and Antwan shot in January 2001

Lost Footage

Movie of misc. footage from late 2000 and early 2001. Features:

Maya in Halloween costume
Maya & Colton freaking out over the book with the pop up spider (boy her Grandma sure got a lot of mileage out that book)

Behavior Issues

This is a little movie from 2001 of Maya causing trouble around the house. There's a clip in this movie where she is crying and when I'd play that clip for when she was little she'd start crying just by watching clip... It just seemed so sad. :-(

Let's watch a two-year-old open a stick of butter movie

This movie offers exactly what its title implies - nothing more, nothing less.

Maya at the Zoo - January 2001

Another old movie, this one of Maya's first trip to the zoo.

It's things like this

that are preventing Maya from having a little brother or sister. If it were a PC it wouldn't have been that bad, but that's an Apple Powerbook....

Zaheeda Turning Evil

2001 clip of Zaheeda turning evil. We'd like to think this was a rare moment to capture on film, kinda like filming Bigfoot or a UFO, but unfortunately it is a far more common occurrence than we care to admit.

Maya takes Wisconsin

Here's and old movie, Maya Takes Wisconsin from 2001 I think, that features:

An odd over dramatic introduction that doesn't seem to fit the movie in anyway
Maya terrified by the spider book
Lisa doing more acrobatics
Grandma Lucht as her old cheerful self
a quick glimpse of Laura and Kyle talking with Grandma Schmitt (she probably couldn't get a word in edgewise:-)

Happy Valentines Day

Book Help

This is funny even with subtitles in a couple different languages.

Lunch with retired teachers

Maya's grandma is having lunch with the retired teachers today. Here is an artist's rendering of what that will look like:

Looking for a cute baby/dog picture?

This has got to be the cutest series of pictures ever taken

Board

Yesterday Maya was so bored she sat in her room and painted an entire board. How bored is that?

The future of blogging

Interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the what blogging could become in the future. Can you imagine being able to come to mayamacstudio.com and have access to every conversation Maya's ever had? Oh, how endlessly fascinating... Eh, maybe not.

Huevos Rancheros

Saturday on America's Test Kitchen they showed how to make huevos rancheros, so this morning for breakfast we decided to give it a try and it turned out pretty good. Nothing like a little south of the border fare to get the day started off right. Maya did nothing most of the day other than proclaim the fact that she was not tired and did not need a nap until about 4:00PM when she actually laid down on the futon and slept for three hours.

Clip - Holloween 2001

Clip - Holloween 2001

Water Bug 2 Movie

Water Bug 2 Movie

Fall 2000 Movie

Fall 2000 Movie

Another cold sunday

Maya finished up making her valentines for school next week - nothing much else going on.

Christmas Eve at The Larsons - 2001

Christmas Eve at The Larsons - 2001 Video

Kellogg's Legos

Someone over at Kellogg's has come up with the brilliant idea of making a fruit snack that looks like Legos. Hmmm... Do you suppose anyone could possibly foresee a problem stemming from a candy that looks like small plastic pieces that kids everywhere play with?



Product development manager of said fruit snack:

Brian's Novel

Another Family Guy Clip... You can never have too many family guy clips. I thought Maya's Grandma would get a kick out of this... Kind of reminds me of her Thursdays with Ralph book that she's been working on :-)

Maya's First Movie

This is Space Girl, the first video we ever shot of Maya - I think it was around March of 2000.

Letter from Aunty Gayle

This is a card Maya got from Aunty Gayle tonight with money for the candy bars she ordered.

An Evening At the Ballet

We're dusting off some of the old classics here at mayamacstudio.com. An Evening at the Ballet (December 24th, 2001) features Lisa and Maya and is fun to watch, especially considering there is no way Lisa could stand on her toes like that now:-)

Old Video Clip - Playing Go Fish

Playing Go Fish - November 2001

Maya's Grandma's New Favorite Ice Cream?

Tip-toeing through the Tulips

Maya's back at it again

After only one day out of commission Maya is back at school today feeling as good as ever. All it took was a day of rest and a half dozen Simpsons episodes and she's as good as new. Last night she was even healthy enough to go to violin and get Little Caesars pizza afterwards.

Today the power company is going to be cutting down trees and branches behind the house (the ones that could pose a problem with the power lines). I'd actually intended to do that myself for sometime, but now I don't have to - the lesson being, I guess if you put off your responsibilities long enough eventually someone will just come along and take care of them for you. God Bless and God Bless America.

Maya's sick

Maya was up at 4AM this morning with and upset stomach and is staying home from school today. At lunch time I'm going to run to the library and get her some Simpson DVD's to watch, because her plan for the day is to stay and bed and rest. Hopefully she'll be feeling a little better by this afternoon because she has a violin lesson today.

Unresolved Problems

Wikipedia has a list of unresolved problems and I could think of no better group of people to present these problems to than some of the smart people who read this blog. Laura should have the answer to about half the medicine problems. My unresolved problems didn't seem to make the list:

How to get Maya to go to bed on time?
How to get Maya to practice violin without throwing a fit?

As far as I'm concerned these are the real great unresolved problems.

See Maya's flower?

Click on the image and you'll see it is a mosaic of all the books in our library. Pretty cool huh?

Super Bowl Sunday!!!

and we did nothing... It was too cold to do anything.

Too cold for astronomy

Despite a temperature of -8 degrees I took Maya's telescope, the one she got for Christmas, out tonight to see if I could get a good view of the moon - on this, the first clear night since she got. The agreement was I'd go outside and get the moon in the view finder and then I'd have her come out and look at it so she wouldn't have to freeze too much. After about ten minutes of fumbling around like a fool and freezing my butt off trying to get the moon in focus I came to the conclusion that both of us have a pretty good idea as to what the moon looks like already and there is no sense suffering in these temperatures to see it again. Perhaps I don't exhibit the greatest commitment to science, but I told Maya we'll try it again when it's a little warmer.

The day mayamac studio was conceived

Oh Sweden...

In lieu of our recent trip to The American Swedish Institute and to the high number of blond, blue eyed, easily sun-burned mayamacstudio.com readers of Swedish decent (you know who you are). I thought this article would be of interest.

The country of Sweden has set up an Embassy in Second Life which is the modern day high tech equivalent of dungeons and dragons. It is a virtual world for geeks who have no real life and now apparently an outpost for Swedish culture... In other words, this is not a proud moment in Swedish history.

Candy Bars

Just a word of caution to all Maya's friends and family members... Tonight Maya will be bringing home her box of candy bars to sell so don't be surprised if while in the middle of dinner the phone rings and you find yourself subjected to some heavy handed sales tactics:

"Hey, I really like you so this is what I'm prepared to do... I'll give you four candy bars for 5 bucks and if we can get this wrapped up tonight I'll throw in an extra candy bar for free"

or

"Don't tell my manager about this but if you buy 5 candy bars tonight I'll waive the tax, license and registration fees"

or

"What do I have to do to get you in and you family a box of chocolate and almond goodness?"

or for Lisa - being that she's pregnant it will be something more like:

"Hey, I got candy, how much do you want to buy?" :-)

Interesting statistics about books

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspence, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)

About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S.
(Source: www.bookwire.com)

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
(Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)

On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
(Source: Para Publishing, www.parapub.com)

Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
(Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker)

New dress for Zaheeda

We're thinking about getting Zaheeda this dress so she'll have something nice to wear to Misty's wedding. Do you think she'd like it?

Retired people and the internet

Here is an article that I thought would be interesting to Maya's Grandparents. Apparently surfing the web is all the rage with retired people in England - 42% say they use the web to stay in touch with their grandchildren. I wonder if any of them have tried Maya's idea of using video chat to have staring contests?

Grandpa's Photographs

So last Friday Maya’s grandparents came over to take her to the Mall – they were having a tulip display, Maya was going to go on some rides, it was to be a nice little mid winter vacation day. To capture some of the highlights, I gave our digital camera to her grandpa to take a few pictures, something to remember the day and/or post on the blog.

Well, I was importing the pictures from the camera today and was left kind of scratching my head over what I found - for some reason he seems to have captured a series of pictures of a middle-aged bald man on a swing?




Now I don’t know why this is… I figured it was implied that by giving him the camera it would be used in taking pictures of his granddaughter - in fact, I cant imagine why anyone would really want pictures of a bald guy on a swing… Then I thought, well… maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. Maybe he wasn’t taking pictures of this specific bald guy on a swing… Maybe he was capturing images of a general bald guy on a swing… Sort of a metaphorical bald guy on a swing – as if to say there is a little bald-headed man on a swing inside each of us…

Though the more I reflect, I think the more sensible explanation is that grandpa is getting on in years now and probably just shouldn’t be put in charge of the camera anymore.