The Painted Panda

The Painted Panda

Who loves an easy craft? Me!!! This painted fork panda is perfect for painting time with kids. It can be done as a stand-alone craft or paired with a great panda book, like Pandamonia from Usborne Books & More!


Supplies:
Black construction paper
White paper
Green or other color construction paper
Googly eyes
White paint
Black Paint
Paintbrush
Fork
Glue Stick
Scissors


Instructions: 

1.) Gather your supplies.

2.) Cut ears, eyes spots, and nose out of the black paper. Freehand them and then you can reshape or resize them if you need to later. Cut the inner eye white spots out of the white paper.


3.) Dip the fork in white paint and paint in a round-ish shape. It doesn't have to be perfect or thick.
*Tip: The lighter the coat of paint the faster it dries! Encourage kids to lightly dip their fork in the paint and not overfill their forks.
You can see in the top left where I had WAY too much paint on my fork and it took a long time to dry and looks kind of gloppy.

4.) Use the glue stick to glue the paper panda spots and nose to the white fork panda face. The paint does not have to be completely dry to do this.

5.) When the white paint is dry or mostly dry paint the mouth lines on the panda.

And there you have it. A fork panda in 5 simple steps!!!

Enjoy!




I am an Usborne Books & More Independent Consultant and Educational Services Representative so I will make a commission on any items bought through my Usborne Books & More links.

Astronauts & Atlantis

I have always enjoyed learning about space, watching the stars, and seeing pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. I used to think being an astronaut would be so cool. I find it to be magnificent, amazing, and awe-inspiring. The fact that God went to such great trouble to create the beauty of outer space and places seemingly out of reach is always such a marvel to me.

Since we moved to Florida several years ago, I have been wanting to make a trip to Kennedy Space Center. Over Labor Day weekend, we finally had time and money to go. I was motivated by the fact that Little Bear was working on a NOVA award, for Cub Scouts, that required a visit to a place that investigates or teaches about space. While we were there Little Bear had to ask several questions to people who worked there.

We arrived at Kennedy Space Center in the morning and the first place we stopped was the rocket garden. We took a short tour and learned about the different types of rockets NASA sent up with satellites and astronauts. In the rocket garden, we had the opportunity to sit inside of capsules. Sitting inside of the capsules I learned, that I would never want to be an astronaut. The capsules are VERY close quarters. You are trapped in a small space with no real way to move around. In capsules with more than one person, you are stuck in basically a bus seat with someone next to you for hours or even days. I don't like anyone enough to be in such close proximity for that long. Between watching Howard on "The Big Bang Theory" and how much he didn't like being in space and sitting in the capsules I no longer think being an astronaut is so cool or at least not cool for me to want to do it.

Our next stop was the Mars exhibit, where we learned about what NASA and Space X are doing to work towards getting people to Mars. This was one of Little Bear's favorite exhibits. He thinks working for NASA would be really cool. He does not want to be in a rocket hurtling through space for two and a half years. His proud Mama Bear thinks he could be an engineer or something. I don't think he needs to be a pilot though, or at least not yet. His lunar module landing skills and capsule docking skills leave a lot to be desired according to repeated crashing in the simulations.

One of my favorite parts of the day was our lunch with an astronaut. The food was delicious. There was a wide variety of things in a buffet with a few things I could eat and tons of things my guys scarfed down like hungry animals. The astronaut that came to lunch was Jack Lousma. I had never heard of him prior to deciding to our arrival. I did a quick google search before lunch to learn a little about him. He spent time on Skylab and piloted the space shuttle Columbia. My favorite part of the meal was listening to him talk about landing the Space Shuttle Columbia at White Sands, New Mexico.

We had seen the Space Shuttle Discovery in Washington D.C., so I was not really that excited. Little Bear did not remember seeing the shuttle in D.C. though so this was something we had to do. The display at Kennedy Space Center beats the Smithsonian. You enter the building and are ushered into a moving video then you move into another room where they start a video that makes you feel like you are watching the shuttle fly. As the video ends the wall lifts up and you are face to face with the Space Shuttle Atlantis. I will say I was disappointed at first that we had to sit through two movies to get to the Space Shuttle, but the videos were so moving that they are well worth the wait to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis revealed in such a magical moment. The space shuttle is up off the floor and at an angle that makes it seem to be flying through the air. It was nothing short of awesome.

The Kennedy Space Center is not Disney World, but it is an amazing place that everyone needs to visit. There are people from all walks of life, from countries far and wide. There is more to see and do than you could possibly get through in one day. If you or your kiddos are interested in space science, NASA, or anything remotely related this is a wonderful place to learn and get some real-life insights.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

I have always loved going to zoos and wildlife parks. I love to look at the animals. My problem is that it does not seem like animals like me. I have been bitten and attacked by all sorts of animals.

The first occurrence of my bad luck came when I was about five years old. We were at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, which is a drive through wildlife park where you can feed the animals. When you enter the park they tell you that feeding the animals is at your own risk. They also tell you to drop the food onto the ground and do not feed the animals out of your hands. Well, I was feeding the animals out of my hands and it was all going great until we got to the zebras. In case you never knew, zebras bite, often, and one bit me right in the palm of my hand. To this day I am still frightened of zebras and their giant faces and teeth.

My fear of zebras is nothing compared to my fear of cheetahs. Most people probably think this is nuts, but I have a legitimate reason for my terror. We were visiting the zoo when I was around eight years old. I vividly remember that I was wearing a bright yellow shirt that day. The cheetahs enclosure could be seen from above as well as from a window at ground level. My family had walked down the stairs and was looking at the cheetah that was laying down a long way from the window and I had stopped at the top of the stairs to look at another animal. They had been watching it for a while when I walked down the stairs. When I reached the window the cheetah had seen me and run all the way across the enclosure and slammed into the glass window right where I was standing. I am pretty sure I cried or screamed or both. To this day I do not wear yellow shirts. I have bought yellow shirts a couple of times only to wear them and remember the cheetah. Those yellow shirts quickly got donated to the Salvation Army.

Then, there were several times I got bit by birds. Birds are mean and they hurt. Landa Park always has ducks and geese that people feed. When we would go to the park we occasionally fed them. The bad part comes when you quit feeding the geese or when they think you should start feeding them. They chase you down and will bite you. You may think getting bit by a goose is not painful, but it does not feel good. My other most hated bird is some kind of crowned something or another from Africa. I got bit by this bird at the zoo and it really, hurts. I won't lie and say that this was the birds fault. I was a dumb child who did not listen to my parents or obey the signs that told me not to put my fingers in the cages. So, I put my childish fingers in the cage to touch the beautiful crowned bird and instead of touching fluffy feathers, I got bit in the finger by a sharp beak.

The last bad animal encounter comes from my adult life. Let me just say I did not really learn my lesson from my past animal encounters. When I was pregnant with Little Bear, we went on a trip to Texas and went to Fossil Rim, another drive through wildlife place. I was feeding the addax and when I quit feeding one of them it made him angry. He somehow managed to get part of his horns IN THE CAR and was bashing me in the head with his horns and the top of his head. It was scary and painful. When he whacked me in the head, Popeye said I had a strange and confused look on my face. He asked if I was okay and I responded with something like, "Yeah, I guess so."  I was yelling at Popeye to "Go, Go" and he said something along the lines of "I can't his head is in the car," as I got whacked in the head again. I kept yelling and finally Popeye started driving. What felt like a long time later with a combination of Popeye driving and me shoving the mean antelope away we got away and I was safe again.

Since then, I really try to be more careful with wildlife. I have successfully taken Little Bear to a drive through wildlife ranch without any injuries. I don't stick my fingers through cages now. I don't feed birds. I roll the windows up when we get close to zebras. I don't wear yellow shirts. I hope my awful animal encounters are over.

The Great Rodent Escapades - A slightly gross, but funny story

Let me preface this story by saying, I hate wild rats and mice. I have a great fear and disgust for the nasty, disease carrying vermin. I come by it naturally; my mom hates them, too, and based on this story, my grandpa is not fond of them either..

When I was a high school freshman, my great-grandpa passed away. My family went down to stay with my grandparents to help clean and sort through stuff at my great-grandparent's house after my great-grandma had moved to a nursing home. My mom's side of the family lives in the country on a farm
so wildlife was always around, but I am happy to say we didn't always have face to face encounters with critters. This particular weekend we had more than normal.

For the first rodent story of the weekend, my cousin and I rode our bikes from my grandparent's house to my great-grandparent's house. The men had been cleaning and moving furniture all day. When we rode up into the driveway it was soaking wet and covered with nasty rat nest parts and dead rats. In their cleaning, they had found a huge rat nest and not knowing what to do they washed it out of the old piece of furniture with the water hose. They were everywhere. I was unprepared for that many rodents and thoroughly disgusted by the sight.

We were quick to leave and ride back to my grandparent's house. When we got to my grandparent's, I was tasked with emptying drawers in an old dresser so they could move it out and put a dresser from my great-grandparent's there. I went to work quickly, happy to have such an easy chore. That quickly changed when I opened the first drawer and took the towel or whatever off the top of the pile.


What I found made me scream, which in turn made everyone come running. It was a little mouse, the fact that it was dead and petrified did not come to my attention at the time of the scream. My grandpa ran in. He saw the little mouse laying there and reached for the closest mouse killer, a wire coat hanger. Why on earth he picked a coat hanger I will never know, but he used that wire coat hanger to repeatedly whack the little mouse. Whack, whack, whack went the hanger and bounce, jump, flop went the little mouse. By this time we had acquired quite an audience and most of us were trying not to laugh at the sight of Grandpa repeatedly swatting the mouse with a flimsy metal hanger.

The poor mouse was not alive or jumping. It was dried up, fairly flat, and most definitely dead as a doornail, but the banging it was getting from the coat hanger made it "come to life". Finally, my grandpa quit smacking the old mouse and used something or another to scoop it's dehydrated and dried body into the trash.

Thankfully, those were the only rodents I encountered that weekend. While I am not a fan of rodents, especially wild ones, this is still a story that makes us laugh, especially my mom who cackles hysterically every single time this story is mentioned.

Klutzy

I am a klutz. I am not graceful or poised. I am clumsy and about as uncoordinated as anyone could possibly be. I try really hard to walk without tripping and to cook without hurting myself. I try not to shut my fingers in doors, burn myself on the oven, cut my fingers while I chop veggies or grate my fingers with the cheese. Sadly, I do not always succeed. I often do damage to myself.

More often than not I trip over my own feet or over level ground. Sadly, sometimes my clumsiness results in real injuries. A few years ago, I had a heck of a time with clumsiness. It all started when I was making dinner one day. I was tired and not really wanting to cook, but I was doing it anyway. I had pulled a big, plastic cutting board (not the thin flimsy kind, the heavy thick plastic kind) out. Well, when I pulled it out, I proceeded to drop it... right onto my right foot. It crashed down onto my big toe. I was on the floor in tears. I had never experienced pain like that. My toe immediately turned purple and started to swell.

Popeye was at work so I called him and told him I needed to go to the ER when he got home. We went to the Emergency Room and they did x-rays less than an hour after it happened. The ER doctor said nothing was broken, but to go to my regular doctor in a couple of days if it was not feeling better.  So, a couple of days later when the swelling was still terrible and the pain was no better, I went to my doctor. They did more x-rays and found a fracture right along the joint in my big toe. It was decided that I needed to see a specialist so off I went.

The specialist said the swelling and pain were so bad because every time I walked in a regular shoe I was re-opening the fracture and any healing it had done. They put me in a huge walking boot for 6 weeks. The boot stabilized my foot and kept me from re-breaking my toe each time I walked around.

Well.... Four weeks after breaking my toe, I got my finger squished flat by a heavy metal door. Once again I was in tears and headed for the emergency room again, with my walking boot on still. The people at the ER laughed at me for breaking multiple bones. They put my finger in a splint for 2 weeks. It was so much fun trying to do stuff in a walking boot and with a splint on my finger. It was, of course, a finger I need to do useful things like cut stuff and write.

So for two weeks, I walked around in my walking boot and splint looking like a total klutz. Thankfully, that was the last time I broke bones, although I was reminded of this time when I dropped something on the same toe last week and wound up with a giant bruise and knot, but thankfully no injuries that have required actual medical treatment since the broken finger.

When Doctors Failed Me

In this day and age, we are raised to believe that doctors can and will diagnose and heal us. We are taught that when we are sick you go to the doctor and they can easily figure out what is wrong with you. Then, they prescribe medications to fix the problem and life goes back to normal.

One Day Before Little Bear was Due

As an adult, I learned that this is not always true. My first experience of this side of health care came when I was pregnant. I was newly married and living across the country from my family. The day I found out I was pregnant was also the first day I had “morning sickness.” For me, morning sickness was a lot more than normal people. When I say constant, I mean severe and extreme. The first time I went to the Urgent Care/Emergency Room on base, they asked how many times I had thrown up. I didn’t have an answer for that. I had not been counting. I just knew I was extremely dehydrated. After getting fluids I felt somewhat better, but nausea did not really abate.

Almost 15 weeks pregnant and spending a week in the hospital

The next day, I was sick as a dog again. After my first trip to the hospital, I started counting how many times I threw up each day. I usually gave up somewhere around 80. I made trips to the ER for IV fluids and IV nausea medicine multiple times a week for the first half of pregnancy. The staff recognized me when I walked in the door. My doctor’s appointments always went a little like this….
Doctor: “How are you feeling?”
Me: “Horrible, I am still throwing up all the time and needing IV fluids.”
Doctor: “Eat saltines in the morning before you get up and make homemade chicken soup for dinner.”
Me: “I wish any of those would stay down.”
Unfortunately, it took nearly 14 weeks before I was diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum which lingered my entire pregnancy.

January 2011 (About the time Gastroparesis Symptoms Began)

My first taste of medicine with a doctor who did not listen or care to find the cause or real answers for my problems was terrifying. It was just a trial run for what I would go through with later medical issues and doctors who did not seem to care about my well being.

The second time that I had this issue was starting in the fall of 2010. I had several stomach bugs that fall and winter and nausea and vomiting never went away. At the time I was going to the doctor on base and their response was always it must be stress or anxiety. It wasn’t. When tests came back normal they sent me to a gastroenterologist, also on base. They did numerous tests as well and found nothing so they continued to think it was stress. When I told them it was not stress, they asked if I had an eating disorder. I knew it was not that either, but they persisted with their stress or eating disorder ideas. After 15 months, moving and getting a whole new team of doctors, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis.   

April 2012 (After diagnosis and new medications for GP)

So what do you do when you are sick and your doctors are not helping you? You push onward. You advocate for yourself. If you cannot advocate for yourself, find a friend or relative that can help you fight. There were days when all I wanted to do was cry because I was tired of being ignored. There were days when I broke down in tears in the ER or the doctor’s office. There were also days when my husband had to be my voice because I was too sick and tired to speak up for myself.  You know your body better than your doctor does. You know how you feel and you know what is normal for you. If I had not kept fighting, I would never have gotten diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum or Gastroparesis. Keep up the fight! Get the answers and the help you need.

When It Rains It Pours Or A Really Bad Day

When I was a few months out of college, I got a job working for a college textbook company. I was hired as a manager trainee and knew that when I got finished with my training I would have to relocate. When it came time to relocate, I was sent to the Rio Grande River Valley. I was excited. Winter is really not a thing there and it was only about 5 hours from my family and friends.

There were several things I did not really realize when I moved. First, I didn't realize how hard it would be without friends or family nearby. Second, I didn't realize that I would be the only white person in the room most of the time. 

Well, on my day from hell, only a month after moving there, both of those things became extremely evident. My day started around three o'clock in the morning. My bed had gone crashing into the floor or at least one corner of it did, which jolted me awake. So, I proceeded to struggle with my mattress and box springs to fix things so they did not get ruined or break the three bolts that were still holding my bed frame together. 

This day I was filling in for a manager at our sister store across town and had to get up earlier than normal to be there. When I woke up it was raining cats and dogs. I have a tiny car and the streets were starting to flood. I made it to the store before the worst of the flooding started. Just after I got there and let myself into the building they started closing streets all over town. 

When I walked into the store, I was greeted by water all over the floor. The building was leaking in several places. There was water running in under the back door and water running down the wall and in the windows that lined one wall. There were textbooks sitting in boxes and piles on the floor getting wet. I quickly moved the books out of the water and then was left wondering how I could possibly get all the water that was left off of the floor and how to stop it from pouring in. While I was doing all this the power was flickering off and on constantly and resetting the computers.

Even worse the phone kept ringing as our regional manager called wondering if I had opened the store. He kept telling me to open the store and to clean up. I was trying, but his constant phone calls were not helping. The roads were closed so we would not have any customers until the road opened again, nor would we have any employees until the road opened again. The regional manager was flying in later that morning so I was rushing trying to get the disaster cleaned up. After mopping for what felt like hours and dumping hundreds of buckets of dirty water out the back door the floor was mostly dry and the rain had lessened enough that water was no longer pouring down the walls. 

The regional manager arrived and so did the other employee. After a lecture from my boss, I headed back to my normal store. On the way, yet another disaster struck. As I was making a turn something on my car snapped and I lost power to the car. I coasted into the parking lot of Peter Piper Pizza. Sitting in the car without power in South Texas is HOT. It was the middle of July and the rain had stopped which left everything more humid than normal. I called my insurance companies' roadside assistance that told me that it would be about an hour before the tow truck arrived. While I waited I crawled under the car and found a chunk of metal hanging down. Turns out it was some kind of important pulley and it had snapped in half. I put it on the seat of the car and walked into Peter Piper to buy a bottle of water. Just as I was getting back to the car a large Hispanic man came up and grabbed me by the arm and started to try to drag me to his car. The whole time he was talking to me in Spanish, which I only have a minimal grasp on. I could not get him to let go even though I was yelling and struggling. He finally turned towards me and I kneed him, right in the balls, and took off running for my car. I jumped in and locked the doors. He was in pain and kind of waddled the rest of the way to his car and left. 

So, I sat in the car with the windows rolled most of the way up waiting for another 30 minutes for the tow truck. I answered numerous phone calls from my boss who was asking when I would be back at my normal store. I continued to tell him it would depend on when the tow truck arrived and what happened with my car. He was not happy. When the tow truck arrived I got in (even though I was a little afraid to do so after my last encounter with a strange man). The tow truck driver asked where I wanted to go, and I said "I don't know. Somewhere that can fix my car today without costing a fortune." He made a phone call to a company that said they could do it and off we went. As we drove we quickly were driving through places I did not recognize and there were signs saying "10 miles to Mexico" and counting down quickly. The last sign I saw was only 2 miles to Mexico. I was starting to feel concerned again and then we finally pulled into the shop.

The shop quickly found the problem and then had a hard time finding the part. After two hours of phone calls, they found my part in a junkyard just across the border. I told them that was fine as long as it could get fixed that day. While they went to get the part I walked down the road to Subway for a late lunch. I was greeted by an employee who says "Wow, you look like hell." I responded with something like "Thanks, I guess." 

Thankfully after more than four hours, they fixed my car. When I got back in my car, the first thing I heard on the radio was a tornado warning and I would be driving straight through it. The bookstore was closing in 10 minutes, by the time I got there. I don't know when I have ever been so grateful for a day to be done. Flooding, car repairs, being drug towards a stranger's car, and a broken bed were more than enough bad things for one day.