eye patches & pics

I just found this pic in my camera and it is so cute I have to post it, along with a few others from an April visit to Grandpa and Grandma TwoChas. No, that is not really their name. Chas is our spelling of the Russian word for hour. When the children first arrived and were between languages, they needed a way to verbally distinguish between their two sets of Grandparents. The ones two hours away became Grandparents TwoChas and the local ones became Grandparents Ouch.

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Friday Poetry: God

I found this in a book In and Out: Verses (1943) that came to me from the collection of my Great-Aunt Polly (my Mom's Auntie) who ended up married my Grandpa on my Dad's side. Tom Robinson (not the one from To Kill a Mockingbird, nor the one that wrote Still Life with Woodpecker) wrote the poems and Marguerite De Angeli did the illustrations.

God is the littlest fellow
With the littlest quiet voice.
He gets into the tineist particle
Of the very smallest article,
Without making any noise.

God is the biggest fellow,
With a voice like the cataract's roar.
He can get outside of creation,
Enclosing every nation,
And have room enough for more.

He's the biggest and the littlest
And every size between.
He's the noise and the silence,
The peace and the violence
Of everything that's been,
Invisible or seen.

~ Tom Robinson

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2008/05/poetry-friday-roundup-is-here.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Wild Rose Reader.





poetry

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in need of very small ice packs

Remember the dislocated thumb? Well it is not yet healed. I keep re-injuring it by doing foolish things like using my hand to cook, clean, etc. Silly me, I know.

One of the things that helps with the maddening pain discomfort is a tiny little reusable ice pack that I slip inside the thumb guard where it nestles nicely right at the base of the joint, the epicenter of maddening pain discomfort . The ice pack is round, about two inches across, and very thin. I got two of them after the biopsy and unfortunately, I can't find them anywhere to purchase. Apparently they are only sold to breast biopsy clinics. I am not about to get another biopsy just to replenish my ice pack supply, though I have considered it.

So my questions are:
:: Do you know where I can purchase very small slender ice packs?
:: If not, do you work or know any who works at a breast biopsy clinic that would like to share?
:: If not, do you have any ideas?





edited to add that I found the perfect substitute: condiment packets. Freeze them and tuck them into wherever it hurts.

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Mexico Pics

Mexico pics, as promised.

Early in the week, before she learned to really swim -- not just dog-paddle -- Chickadee needed a companion before she could go in. She calls to her brother:

Hey, are you ready to take responsibility for me?

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a girl in a tree

See that little bit of pink in the apple tree? I wonder what it is. The giggle sounds familiar.
Oh my goodness! Tis a small pink girl in a large apple tree. She's been attempting that tree for almost two years and she's finally made it.

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works for me: 5 storyteller podcasts

In keeping with my podcast list series, here are 5 story-teller podcasts that work for me.

Story-tellers

1. Nelson Lauver, The American Storyteller

2. more Nelson Lauver ~ not iTunes, but worth the trouble to download, well worth it.

3. Prairie Home Companion: Lake Wobegon Days

4. Sid Lieberman's Stories ~ always interesting

5. The Writer's Almanac ~ Garrison Keillor presents this day in history and a bit of poetry

My other Works for Me posts.

works for me

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writing & gardening

Writing instruction is about error correction in the same way that gardening is about weeding. If a gardener spent all their time and energy weeding they would indeed have a clean garden: a clean and barren garden, plots and plots of empty dirt expect for where the occasional wind-blown flower planted itself.

Instead, gardeners spend most of their time seeding and planting and mulching and fertilizing and admiring, then digging up and moving just this one plant, and maybe pruning another back a wee bit or quite severely. Gardening is about promoting and nurturing growth. Writing instruction is about nurturing growth in the flora and fauna of the mind. Good writing instruction requires energies directed towards the blossoming of intellects.

Yet, even the most fecund of gardens suffers if it is not weeded. My roses and herbs can’t preen when Japanese knotweed moves in. I must spend some time weeding, lest the weeds obscure my blooms. Similarly, when mechanical errors clutter up the page, we need to teach our students how to weed. “This! This here is the dread knotweed of tangled syntax! Yank it out! And watch out for effect/affect. You get them confused and you look like an amateur.” Though weeding isn’t gardening, it is part of the process; alas it is the part that most commands the attention of our students.

Think about a new gardener friend. When you tour your garden with her and wax eloquently on the proper mulch for peonies, is she listening? No. She is pointing at the pelargoniums and asking, “Is that a weed?” “No, you are thinking of buttercup,” you absent-mindedly reply as you redirect her attention to the peonies. Your friend keeps distracting you with weed questions. She finds comfort in getting a handle on what not to grow. It is learnable, approachable, memorizable. She wants to learn rules, while you are trying to teach beauty. You want to say, “Grow something! Anything! We’ll tidy it up later!” She is thinking, “I just don’t want any weeds.”

Somewhere in the process of being gardening mentors, we’ll need to address her keen interest in weeds. We can’t ignore it. We can, though, show her weeding’s proper place in a gardener’s timeline: dream, plant, fertilize, water, observe, transplant, prune, fertilize some more, plant some more. Weeding is done along the way, something to keep busy between these other tasks, and maybe one grand push before opening the garden for viewing. A gardener yanks the obvious weeds as she prunes, pulls out the knotweed as she fertilizes. Occasionally she will consult her Sunset Western Garden book to refine her weed identification skills, or merely ask a fellow gardener.

No one ever compliments a garden because it is weed-free. Yet our students often expect that a weed-free essay is their, and our, aim. When we can help our students see that good writing is about having fruitful ideas that play with light and shadow and color in an intriguing or charming way, that good writing is lush and redolent with suggestive aromas and implications, and that good writing results from rich and thoughtful fertilizer and a generous amount of time to allow for growth, then we will have done our job.

copyright 2008 Suzanne Chandler, M. Ed.

To print this page, visit the little printer icon in the footer line. Don't see it? Click on either the post title above or the permalink icon below to get to the individual page for this post. Voila! The -- recently tweaked and operating nicely -- printer options awaits you.

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The Simple Woman's Daybook

I found this over at The Simple Woman and I rather like it.


Outside my window is a yard that needs to be mown, two children playing on a ladybug swing, an old dog dozing under the rhododendron and a young dog chasing gnats.

I am thinking about course proposals for Fall semester for 9th and 10th grade home-schoolers. I've never taught this demographic before.

I am thankful for health, and strength, and the meeting of daily needs.

From the kitchen waft the smells of chicken soup and fresh bread.

I am wearing garden overalls.

I am creating a happy childhood for my kids, I hope.

I am going to California in August; I hate heat.

I am reading blogs. I don't have time to read books anymore. So sad.

I am hoping to revise my manuscript this year.

I am hearing my daughter's giggle.

Around the house is a flock of dustbunnies.

One of my favorite things is a loafing in the hammock.

A few plans for the rest of the week include making some concrete pavers and working in my Mom's garden with her.

Here is picture thought I am sharing

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white shoes

Laurel's post about a few cool things reminded me that I had wanted to post about this on Memorial Day. No, it is nothing significant nor anything sentimental or even patriotic. Just that today you may pull out your white shoes (and your white stockings if you must) and wear them wiley-niley all summer, but only if you promise to put them away on Labor Day.

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day: white shoes - okay.

Between Labor Day and Memorial Day: white shoes - not okay.

Got it? There may be a quiz.

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what's-their-name's daughter

So I am on the phone with a woman I do not know who is making me a job offer for next fall. My children's origins come into play and she tries and tries to bring to mind the name of an other local family that she knows that have adopted from Russia. She can't find the name so the conversation moves on and eventually comes to an end.

A few minutes after we hang up the phone rings again. It is the same woman. She has remembered. It is the daughter of her husband's friends. She then names my parents. Why yes! I do know that family ~ quite well in fact.

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chocolate happiness cake

This cake is really the only suitable response to bad days. I've adapted it from a recipe found at deliciousdays. In that version, measurements are in grams; I did some rather casual conversions and we loved the results.

Melt in a double boiler:
8 oz dark unsweetened baking chocolate
1 C butter
While they are melting, butter the sides of your springform pan and put parchment paper in the bottom.

When butter and chocolate are melted, remove from heat and add:
1 1/3 C sugar

When all that has cooled to where it is not unpleasant to touch, start beating in - one at a time please -
4 eggs
3 T flour

Pour into springform pan and bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Serve warm, topped with crème fraîche and strawberries.

Remove springform before the cake cools.

Stop and Smell the Chocolates: Would You Like Chocolate With That?

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garden update

We did not grow vegies last year, as I was still a bit shell-shocked from the previous winter, so we are starting our first family vegetable garden in a new location. We have removed sod from eight 6x6 patches which we then topped with horse compost and My Gift tilled and framed them, installing boards around the edges to discourage grass encroachment.

Seven of the eight beds are planted, both seeds and seedlings. We've lost nothing to cutworms or slugs, yet.

Bed 1 holds root vegetables: Radishes, Carrots, and Beets.
Bed 2 is the salad bed: Arugula, Spinach, Lettuces, Parsley, Cilantro, Chard
Bed 3 is Watermelon. Yes, I know. "Good luck with that" is what you are thinking, isn't it? I planted Sweet Dakota Rose and am whispering sweet nothings to her every time I pass by.
Bed 4 is full of cucumbers.
Bed 5 is full of Bush Summer Squash and regular vine winter storage zucchini
Bed 6 is full of an other Bush Zucchini and an regular vine winter storage squash
Bed 7 is for corn & pumpkin. Not in the ground yet, but sprouting in the kitchen window.
Bed 8 is for pole beans and eggplant.





:: pop on over to a wrung sponge for more Sunday Garden Tour posts

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God of All

Our God is the God of all,
The God of heaven and earth,
Of the sea and of the rivers;
The God of the sun and of the moon
and of all the stars;
The God of the lofty mountains
and of the lowly valleys
He has His dwelling around the heaven and earth,
and sea, and all that in them is.
~ St. Patrick

from The Wisdom of the Celts, a beautiful little book compiled by David Adam

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strabismus correction surgery

before

after

(two days post-op)

The doc said it would take about a month to see full results. Even if it doesn't get any better than this we are well pleased. It is so very nice to be able to look her in the eyeS ~ both at the same time.

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schools on trains

Amtrak has a very cool program called Schools on Trains whereby we got to go to Seattle yesterday for only $10 a person round-trip. We had a wonderful day, avoiding both rain and heat and doing many of fun things.

Fun Thing #1: We rode the train (duh!). The children have never been on a train and My Gift and I haven't been on one since Italy years ago. The tracks run along the coast and we saw many herons and hawks in the tide flats and lots of beach-side cottages and sandy stretches and distant islands. It was lovely.

Fun Thing #2: Then we hopped on one of the (free) downtown Seattle buses and rode up to Westlake Center where we caught the monorail for a quick ride up to The Pacific Science Center.

Fun Thing #3: We saw the Grand Canyon Adventure in 3-D in the IMAX theater. The movie was much better than the trailer, btw. Dandy kept trying to touch the water droplets that splashed out at us.

Fun Things #4-42: We spent the rest of the day in the Science Center. Dandy held a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach (though Chickadee declined with a shriek, can't imagine why). We saw a dynamic presentation on combustion: full of explosions and colored flames and a stern reminder to not play with fire.

We visited the dinosaur exhibit. Chickadee confided in me that she wasn't scared cause her Papa was with her. Dandy tested out the footprint casts.


The Science Center is full of wonderments as well as many many buttons to push. Dandy's favorite was the space shuttle with zillions of buttons and knobs and switches and panels that lit up and dials that moved.

The Pacific Science Center includes a Butterfly Museum full of 1,000s of live butterflies. This butterfly thought Chickadee's hat was a nice place for a rest.

My Gift and the kids really got into the music display where I had fun playing the theremin.


Fun Thing #43: The children rode their first merry-go-round right before we caught the Monorail, the free bus, and the train and came home. I think My Gift and I set a record for getting all the pets located and feed and the kids tucked in and ourselves in bed: ten minutes from driveway to pillows; we were all tuckered out.

In case you are wondering, Chickadee wore her sunglasses and hat for most of the day, as the light hurts her eyes.

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free netflix trial

I have four coupons for free Netflix trials. If you would like one, leave a comment and I will email to you the specifics.

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right this very minute . . .

. . . some very fine men are in my basement clunking and thunking and running power equipment and doing all that is necessary to replace the secondary converter on our furnace which means we will have heat in the main part of the house later on today. We are rather weary of hauling wood.

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works for me: 8 educational podcasts

In keeping with my podcast list series, here are 8 educational podcasts that work for me.

Educational

1. Biography Podcast ~ Martin Luther, Vlad the Impaler, and more

2. Biography Podcast from LearnOutLoud ~ Helen Keller, Tolstoy, Plutarch, Isaac Newton, Alexander the Great, and more.

3. Founding Documents ~ Declarations, Speeches, and other
Documents that formed our Country. You should listen to these before they are declared top-secret.

4. Great Speeches ~ Kennedy, ML King Jr, Roosevelt, Churchill, Babe Ruth and more.

5. Mises Institute ~ lectures from Murray Rothbard and others on economy, Austrian theory, the Federal Reserve Bank and more

6. Mises AudioBooks: Speaking of Liberty by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. ~ read by the author

7. Mises AudioBooks:
For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard ~ I have posted about Rothbard before

8. US Presidents ~ Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt,
Harrison,

My other Works for Me posts.

works for me

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poor little baby

According to the doctor, the surgery went beautifully and we should see good results within the month.

Here is what Chickadee has had to say:

I'm going to burp up.
My eyes hurt.
I'm going to burp up.

Both eyes are puffy and bloodshot and goopy and her skin is greenish and she looks about as poorly as she feels. She is all cuddled up in the big bed next to me and we are listening to Peter Rabbit and Other Stories.

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I love Gateway!!

I must tell you that Gateway rocks. I bought my laptop in summer of 06, and I chose Gateway because their computers are very easy to take apart and add/replace components. This is even true on their laptops.

Even so, my hard-traveled laptop needed attention that was beyond my ability. I contacted Gateway who sent me a perfect shipping box. I sent off my dear little laptop, all battered and dirty and missing keys, and it came back to me all shiny and clean and with all the keys replaced and the power problem fixed and the DC/DVD drive replaced and all this at no charge, just part of the standard warranty. Yeah Gateway!!

So, now that I have my laptop back, y'all will probably be hearing from me more often. At least on rainy days that is. Sunny days are spent outside.

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Yogurt Chicken

This is super yummy, and easy, and nutritious, and pretty. We like it a lot.

Yogurt Chicken

Combine & marinate overnight:
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into thirds
1 C olive oil
1 t crushed garlic
½ C dry white wine or beer
¼ C lemon juice
1 t fresh basil

Discard the marinade and brown the chicken in olive oil.

Slice and sauté in olive oil:
2 med yellow onions

Add:
chicken
2 C yogurt
1 t curry powder and a dash of paprika and salt.

Cover and cook on low for 30 minutes. Garnish with lots of fresh parsley. Great served over wild rice.

recipe

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news

Quick newsflash.

All of the garden is either in the ground or in little egg carton seed trays in the house. We have labored mightily and are very proud of our work. By the way, we are right pleased with our Seeds of Change purchase. Thus far we have had 100% germination on all indoor starts: tomatoes, zucchinis, squashes, radishes, lettuces, spinach, etc.

I have a cooktop again, thanks to my Dad who just happened to have a functioning gas cooktop in his barn: Dad's handy that way. The cooktop is cosmetically challenged, but it cooks, so I don't really care what it looks like.

My long-time yearning for a wormbin has been consummated thanks to Dad -- again -- who cajoled a friend into sharing one with us. We've been cooing over our little baby worms all weekend and are very relieved to report that they are eating well. Thus far we are ever so impressed with The Worm Factory's set up and care & feeding manual. More wormy blog posts later.

Chickadee has bilateral strabismus correction surgery on Tuesday in Seattle. I am sternly resolved to not fret about it. So if you have any scary strabismus stories to share, just don't.

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Friday Poetry: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
~ William Wordsworth

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/the-round-up/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>
:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Two Writing Teachers.

poetry

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works for me: 11 informative podcasts

In keeping with my podcast list series, here are 11 informative podcasts that work for me.

Informative

1. Essential Knowledge ~ under 2 minute podcasts from the NY Times Guide to Essential Knowledge

2. Get it Done Guy's Quick and Dirty Tricks to Work Less and Do More ~ 5-8 minute tips for efficiency

3. Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tricks for Better Writing ~ 5-8 minute explanations of grammar conundrums

4. Homeschooling for Life ~ not via iTunes

5. How Stuff Works ~ under 2 minutes

6. Merriam-Webster Word of the Day ~ expand your vocabulary in less than 3 minutes

7. Modern Manners Quick and Dirty Tricks for A More Polite Life ~ there is always something more to learn

8. NPR Story of the Day ~

9. Podictionary ~ a fascinating exploration of the origins and connections of words.

1o. Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute ~

11. World Almanac ~

My other Works for Me posts.

works for me

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home again, home again, jiggedy jog

Well we are back; reluctant to leave the sun and the pool yet happy to see My Gift and the fur-babies and our seedlings. We swam, and ate, and slept and did the same thing the next day and all the days after that. The grownups took turns getting mightly sick with colds. Apparently I slept from Tuesday night until Thursday late afternoon. When I got up on Thursday I thought it was Wednesday and am still not sure they didn't all play tricks on me. Mom did not get as sick, perhaps cause we popped her into bed at the first throat tickle.

More pics and a full report later. My laptop is off at the repair center, so I am on restricted 'puter access for awhile. Probably good for me.

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so long, farewell . . .

Adios! Gma needs a break and someone has to schlep her luggage.

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kindle

So what is your take on Amazon's Kindle? My read-a-book-in-the tub-heart says "no thanks", and my techie-heart says, "cool". What do you think?

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Friday Poetry: Poem of Praise by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Poem of Praise

Swift things are beautiful:
swallows and deer,
and lightning that falls
bright-veined and clear,
rivers and meteors,
wind in the wheat,
the strong-withered horse,
the runner's sure feet.

And slow things are beautiful:
the closing of day,
the pause of the wave
that curves downward to spray,
the ember that crumbles,
the opening flower,
and the ox that moves on
in the quiet of power.

~ Elizabeth Coatsworth

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2008/05/poetry-friday-original-to-my-graduating.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by BIG A little a.

poetry

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radishes

Planted on Tuesday, up on Thursday. Gotta love that!

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