Miser Family Update: reaching high

Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser Family household this week.  We've been learning to act brave in the face of scary tasks, and finding our lives all the more rich and full as a result.  

Such as, for example, I learned to make baba ganoush.  (Ganouch?)  I can't even spell it, but I can make it.  And even though it's made of eggplants and such, N-son said it was yummy.  So that's one scary thing behind me.

Also, evaluation plans.  Because apparently, when you write a grant proposal, asking for piles o' money and saying you'll put the money to good use, you have to have a plan to evaluate exactly how good that use was.  Me, I hate evaluation plans.   Our helpful grant person suggested a graphic might be useful, and we nearly resorted to this graphic, helpfully drawn by my co-PI (or rather, by his 3-year-old son).  

However, we pushed through the angst and came up with something that hopefully makes a little bit more sense and might actually be, y'know, useful.  

My guy was kind of nervous about a possible reunion with his former army buddies: one of them was being recognized for some super amazing helicopter work he'd done (pioneering "landing" a Chinook on the back two wheels at the edge of a mountain cliff while rescuing people).   Going to a reunion isn't as scary as landing a Chinook, but these political times being what they are, he wasn't quite sure what reception he'd get (being a knee-jerk liberal protester, and all that).  But he went, and he had a wonderful, wonderful time.  Super!

In other fun news, the week started with the last few days of N-son and L-daughter both being in town.  And right before they both had to leave N-son left, L-daughter, and her In-Laws came over for a rousing game of Monopoly (except that it was a local version, with everything named after stuff in our town).  That was gobs of fun!

I've mentioned getting past scary things.  In gymnastics, the high bar is super scary.   So here's a shout out to A-child for (a) being scared and (b) being brave in spite of being scared and (c) having the reward of learning that the scary thing was actually fun after all!

A big thumbs up for the high bar she was scared to go on! Everyone CRACKED UP LAUGHING!

Kind of like evaluation plans.  But different.  That's just something to chew on, there.

And that's the news from our family, which continues to reap dividends from our trembling efforts.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.