art institute reject

I found this over at my niece's blog. It's a brain test (your kind of gizmo Kate) to help one decide if they should apply to Art Institute. I should not apply.

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trouble with IE & ID

It seems the ID (IntenseDebate) and IE (Internet Explorer) don't mix. This is the only drawback I have found with ID, but it is a dealbreaker if they can't help me resolve it right soon.

In the meantime, if you are burning to say something, I invite you to give FireFox a whirl.

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Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum is a real treat. The book opens in 1951 with the conception of the Rose Lennox, narrated by Rose herself (from an insider's perspective, of course). The wee little one-celled, oopps, two-celled person, oopps, four-celled now, has all the vocabulary and literary references of a grown-up. It is a quirky and highly engaging narrative voice and I loved it.

Interspersed with Rose's voice are footnotes that tell the backstories of the extended family. Boys go off to war, girls get pregnant, families squabble, people die, small children too. There is sadness and relief, amusement, mystery, and ordinary detail of ordinary people. The pleasure of the book is Atkinson's entertaining voice and her ability to recall and relate what it was to be small. She nailed me with this passage:

I am sent to bed first and have to negotiate this trecherous journey entirely on my own. This is manifestly wrong. I have adopted certain strategies to help us in this ordeal. It's important, for example, that I keep my hand on the banister rail at all times when climbing the stairs (the other one is being clutched by Teddy). That way, nothing can hurtle unexpectedly down the stairs and knock us flying into the Outer Darkness. And we must never look back. Never, not even when we can feel the hot breath of the wolves on the backs of our necks, not when we can hear their long, uncut claws scrabbling on the wood at either edge of the stair-carpet and the growls bubbling deep in their throats.

I felt the same way as a child, though I was much less eloquent about it. I'll be adding Kate Atkinson's other books to my To Read pile.

P.S. I heard about this book on someone else's blog, in the comments. Does anyone remember who or where? I'd like to give credit for the recommendation.

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6 things I like about Sarah Palin

6 reasons why I like Sarah Palin.


1. She and her extended family are used to working for a living. They don't marry or inherit their money, they earn it.

2. Because she said this:

I believe in public education. I'm proud of my family's many, many years working in our schools. I hope my claim to fame, believe it or not, is never that I'm Alaska's first female governor. I hope it continues to be, "You're Mr. Heath's daughter." My dad for years has been teaching in the schools and even today he's inspiring students across the state. So many students around this land came up to me not saying, "Oh, you're Sarah Palin ... you're running for office ... you're the governor." No, it's been, "Sarah Palin, wow! Mr. Heath's been my favorite teacher of all time."

3. Because "Among her first decisions in office was to list the corporate jet that her predecessor had acquired for sale on eBay, and she fired the executive chef from the Governor's Mansion because she and "First Dude" Todd believe they're perfectly capable of cooking for their own family." ~ BeldarBlog


4. Because pictures of her, dressed like this, are not posed for photoshoots.

4. Because nearly all the political establishment does not like her. That works for me.

5. Because she said this about my hero, Ron Paul: "He's a good guy," she added. "He's so independent. He's independent of the party machine. I'm like, 'Right on, so am I.'"

6. Because she makes sense.

sarah palin, election 2008

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Rx

My nice sister took me to the doctor where I promptly fainted. It was decided that I have a virus (the headaches and high fever) with a secondary ear infection (ear ache, sore throat, golfball-sized lumps in my throat), so I got some lovely antibiotics and am expected to live.

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yikes

As much as I love all things LUSH, this is taking things too far.

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WHOO HOOO: Sarah Palin

Do you remember this post, back in Nov of 2007: Ron Paul & Sarah Palin? Or this on back in Juneof 2008: Palin as Vice President? I announced that Sarah Palin would be a great VP choice? YES YES YES. Sarah Palin has integrity and common sense and I would be PROUD to vote for any ticket that she is on. Check her out.

This from her Wikipedia page:

Palin's husband is a commercial fisherman. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP energy corporation at an oil field on Alaska's North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated from college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, [ . . . I love this part . . .] they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins' eighteen-year-old son Track, eldest of five, joined the Army. He now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17; Willow, 13; and Piper, 7.

On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?

___________________________________________________

All this excitement wore me out - back to sleep for me. And if you are wondering how I am writing blogposts while hovering near death, I'm not; those were all pre-written and on auto-publish. This one is live, but that's it for my day.

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Technorati tags: Sarah Palin

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Friday Poetry: I Saw My Youth Today by Richard Shindell

The lyrics from this song keep nudging me, so I'm going to count them as poetry and share them.

I saw my youth today
He passed me on the street
As he walked by I stood frozen
On my dreaming feet

He had a kinder face
The kind I've learned to hide
Behind these cold unyielding stones
That used to be my eyes

A moment please, my boy
Don't you know my name?
Do you remember when
We used to play a hundred games?

And is your mother well?
Kiss her once for me
And if she should ask you why
Why you could say just for no reason

Remember that old troll
Who lived inside the tree?
He was never dangerous
That's just the way it seemed

The day you climbed the tree
And ran to show me how
The troll was never seen again
So where could he be now?

A moment please, my boy
Don't you know this face?
Do you remember when
I used to let you win the races?

Please don't run away
I did not mean to scare you
I'm the one who told you
You should never talk to strangers

And is your mother well?
Kiss her once for me
And if she should ask you why
Why you could say just for no reason

I saw my youth today
He passed me on the street
As he walked by I stood frozen
On my dreaming feet.

Listen



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://charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com/"><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 Charlotte's Library.

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parents can't be trusted

Very amusing . . .

hat tip to FiveJs

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happy birthday to me

Yup, it's my birthday. I'm 45, and yes, this is pretty much what I look like.


To celebrate, I'm going out to lunch with my mom, sis, and nieces, and then home for dinner and games with my honey and kids. Would it be okay to ask you, dear reader, in honor of my agedness, to click on the magic wand in the footer line and then leave a comment wherever it is that you end up?



Change of plans. My Mom, sis, and nieces went to lunch. I stayed home under 7 blankets and alternately shivered and sweated. My best friend brought over a beautiful from scratch chocolate cake and I am too sick to even be tempted. Poor me: I have a birthday flu.

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printer-friendly

I finally did it! Last week I added a print icon to the footer of individual posts and today I figured out how to make it NOT print the headers, sidebars, and footers and to print just the blog post, full page width. Yipee.

Not that I imagine that everyone in blogland is printing my posts and sleeping with them under their pillows, but it is possible that a few people want to print the recipes.

Anyway, I'm right pleased with myself. If you do happen to print something, please let me know how it worked for you.

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Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson

Successful homeschooling,
after all, is a kind of educational self-sufficiency,
a farm that produces precisely what it needs without drawing on public funds. Such self-sufficiency should be promoted rather than mistrusted;
It should be recognized as a legitimate and reasonable alternative to other educational possibilities.

If you read Snow Falling on Cedars, you may recall how fun Guterson is to read. His prose is quirky, though not ever clumsy. In this non-fiction book, he informs, educates, inspires, and entertains. You need to know that he is awkwardly placed as a public school high-school English teacher who home-schools his own kids in the Pacific Northwest, so he has a rather unique view on the complexities of the home-school vs public school discussion.

Guterson opens Chapter One: Teacher, Parent, with these words: "We schoolteachers constantly complain -- into a steady, implacable wind -- that with much smaller classes and more one-to-one contact we might make better academic headway" (p. 11), which leads nicely into his observations about the parent as the teacher, pointing out that -- in a homeschool environment, the teacher student ratio can't be beat.

In Chapter Two: What About Democracy, Guterson addresses the concerns that home-schooling somehow undermines democracy, pointing out that "your average classroom is more like a little Kremlin than a little congress [ . . . ] more like totalitarianism than democracy. There are bells and PA systems and student cards and hall passes and classrooms where you listen day in and day out to authoritarian voices" (p. 42).

Chapter Three: Homeschoolers Among Others capably addresses the concern about socialization -- that homeschooled won't get socialized properly if they are not with their peers. Guterson points out that "Schoolchildren may be openly and consciously obsessed with their peers, but their unconscious desperation for meaningful relationships with adults can be plainly seen in their eye" (p 65). In addition, a child not tied to the school clock has the opportunity to live "as an integral part of a community, among the elderly, store clerks, gardeners, carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, and electricians in their world, [ . . . ] are apt to develop a sensitive social understanding and a sophisticated feeling for the lives of others as they are lived on a daily basis" (p. 64).

I sure see this in my children's lives. They do errands with me and see the mechanic at his work, the flourmiller and his mill, the grandfather and his care-giver; every week they get to practice their manners and their social conventions, carry groceries to the car for the old lady, go with me as we help a neighbor. I have many concerns, but lack of socialization is not one of them.

Chapter Four: My Father Comes to Class, cleverly presents the legal aspects (via Guterson's attorney-father), as well as provides a polite primer on regulations, statues, court decisions, and constitutional interpretation. Regulations are set by state agencies, but are ultimately held up or overturned by state statues. Of course, state statues are interpreted and these interpretations are rendered into court decisions which are (we hope) in alignment with the state constitution. And of course, the state constitution has to be consistent with the federal Constitution. Why does this matter? Because regulatory agencies across the country vary in their restrictions on home-schooling. Though these agencies may be the most visible aspect of the law to the home-schooling family, "the real questions -- for home-schooling families is what the federal Constitution says about what they're doing" (p 82).

And what does the federal Constitution say? Nothing. Why not? " [ . . . ] the Constitution doesn't mention homeschooling in part because its writers didn't have the word in their vocabulary. Learning outside of schools, back then, was pretty common. [ . . . ] In the past, governments didn't take it upon themselves to see to education. They didn't think of it as their proper role as governments do today." So in 200 years we've gone from one end of the spectrum (families are responsible for educating their off-spring) to the other (families can barely be trusted to educate their young, and even then must be supervised by a state employee and submit reports and show results lest they lose their grudgingly-granted privilege). Indeed, "Every child is entitled to a public education," as Texas Governor Rick Perry asserts, then adds, "but public education is not entitled to every child."

Chapter Five: School, Home and History, presents a very succinct overview of the history of schooling, at home and in institutions.

Chapter Six: Abiding Questions, asks and responds to the essential question, "what is education?" and laments the fact that very few educators bother themselves with reading or discussing educational theorists. Remember, Guterson is a high-school teacher. He remarks that, "in fact, I know of very few teachers who have, for example, read Plato, not to mention Dewey or Rousseau" (p. 119).

In Chapter Seven: The Matter of Money, Guterson addresses the economic concerns of home-schooling, acknowledging the very real economic impact of staying home to educate the kids rather than sending them off to school and using that time to earn money. Yet, Guterson points out, "This state of affairs seems particularly ironic in an age widely characterized as postindustrial [ . . . ] at no time in the past one hundred years has working at home been as feasible as it is today, when many Americans hold the kids of jobs that do not really require a daily commute to a central place of business. [ . . . ] Whereas the industrial age meant adults left home to work in the plants and factories, the information age might well mean that many are free, should they so desire, to work at home again" (p. 135-136). In addition, Guterson points out, schools used to have an advantage over a family home, in that it had the educational stuff (maps etc.) that were not readily available to an ordinary family. Not so in these times, "Home is no longer necessarily the kind of information vacuum that once made school seem mandatory" (p. 136).

Chapter Eight: Before Schools, takes a closer look at life before schools, admonishing us to not naively over-simplify the 'native' education (a heads-up to the un-schooling movement), and clarifying that in earlier societies "To be rich was to have a life in the web of one's people; to be poor was to have few children or to rarely see them or to work apart from those one loved. [ . . . ] With industrialism, as Robert LeVine and Merry White suggest in Human Conditions: The Cultural Basis of Educational Development parents began to provide for their children as opposed to working, teaching, and living with them" (p. 166). Huge difference.

Chapter Nine: What We've Learned About How We Learn, presents a very readable overview of Learning Theory. Anyone going to a teaching college should read this chapter just to get their bearings before starting their coursework.

Chapter Ten: Schools and Families: A Proposal, discusses the relationships between schools and families, advocating that "Families rightly should look to schools to assist them in meeting their educational needs, and schools should take seriously their constitutional mandates to provide for the education of every child -- even the children of families who want to guide that education themselves" (p 185). Guterson then shares several examples of excellent school/family cooperation. He also acknowledges (and laments) the current trend towards "espous[ing] schools as full-service institutions designed to do what families once did: Schools, [some reformers] assert, should be open dawn to dusk in every season fo the year, providing day care, m,meals, advice about birth control, counseling for teenage alcoholics, sex education, AIDS education, late-afternoon volleyball, basketball, and badminton, and finally Home and Family Life course in which children learn about -- what else? -- the home and family life they have left behind" (p 184).

Guterson argues that "a school district should encourage more families to homeschool privately, without recourse to district resources -- if the families can do so with good results -- since this frees the district to devote greater energy to those families truly in need of what it offers. Successful homeschooling, after all, is a kind of educational self-sufficiency, a farm that produces precisely what it needs without drawing on public funds. Such self-sufficiency should be promoted rather than mistrusted; It should be recognized as a legitimate and reasonable alternative to other educational possibilities" (p. 198).

Chapter Eleven: A Life's Work, wraps it all up, but not before articulating an aspect of our society that I have never been comfortable with. "In should be easy to understand how friendly conversation in America -- where probing into the particulars of other lives is considered courtesy ("Always ask about their lives" is the advice we get as teenagers about making polite talk)-- [ . . . ]" Guterson goes on to make his point but I stopped right there. He said "probing", didn't he? I hate asking people for details as it seems so snoopy, so rude, yet I recognize that I fail the polite conversation test at nearly every opportunity. So if you know me face-to-face and have wondered why I am so rude and never ask you a lot of questions, just know that even though I acknowledge that I should, in my heart it feels like probing, and I am tickled pink to get even the littlest hint from Guterson that I may not be the only one. If you are still reading this very long post, and have any wisdom to share on this, please do so.

I can't tell you what else Guterson discussed in Chapter Eleven, as I was completely derailed by the aforementioned probing.

All in all, I was found the book informative and the writing very enjoyable; Guterson has a droll sense of humor that had me chuckling throughout.

home-schooling, books

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Book Roast

Laurel's book is coming out today. Drop by and cheer with with her.

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Dutch Babies

On one of the cousinly visits earlier this summer, my cousin's eldest child shared this recipe with us, which we have made numerous times since. Dandy is especially pleased to be able to make it.

Dutch Babies

Turn your over on to 400 and put in it a cast iron pot.

Into the pot, put:
2 T butter

In your blender, combine:
3 eggs
3/4 C milk
3/4 C flour
dash salt

When the butter is melted and butter, pour the batter in and set the timer for 20 minutes. Serve with powdered sugar and jam.

or,

saute some vegies and pour the batter over them.

or,

saute some vegies and after taking the Dutch Baby from the pot, it will fall in the center. Pour the sauteed vegies into the well and sprinkle grated cheese on top.

To learn more about Dutch Babies, visit the wikipedia entry.

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.

recipe

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blog tweaks, widgets, gadgets, and customization

I got to spend some time this evening with a niece who is crafting her first blog. Of course we ran out of time as I was trying to distill two years worth of bloggy-wisdom into an evening full of people to see, cake to serve, and children to mind. I'll post here what I would have shared, in case it is helpful to anyone else.

1. Go right now to IntenseDebates and install their comment widget. It allows for threaded comments, and that is worth the install alone, though it does offer other nice features (like the recent comments widget). It's an easy install.
2. Go sign up at StatCounter, cause it is fun to see where your visitors are from.
3. Ditto with ClusterMaps

Other then that, all my blog toy sources are in the Credits Tabwidget in the lower right corner.

Happy tweaking!





edited to add Library Thing, which I almost included in the original post but got distracted by a little muffin who had a tummy ache. Anyway, just go to LibraryThing, sign up, add some books, and then look on the far right of your personal Library Thing home page for the 'blog widgets' tab and from there it is pretty self-explanatory.

One of the things I like the most about LibraryThing is that after I loaded up a lot of my favorite books, I started to get book recommendations that were actually reliable.

edited to add this great post on how the blogger html template actually works.

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pics from Russia database

Have I shown you this before? This was Chickadee's photo from her listing on the Russian Federal Database. It is the only picture we have of her prior to our meeting her in April of 2006. In this shot, she is about 3 years old (July 2004) and about 18 pounds.

Why so small? She explains it well. Here is a conversation we had in February of 2007:

She sings all the time. This morning's song:

I love my mama.
Yes I do.
I love my mama.
Yes I do.

My Ruskie mama.
No I eat.
My Ruskie mama.
No I eat.

I love my mama.
Eat. Eat. Eat.
I love my mama.
Eat. Eat. Eat.

My mama loves me.
Eat. Eat. Eat.
My mama loves me.
Eat. Eat. Eat.

My Ruskie mama . . .

The song stops. A small voice asks, "Mama, did Ruskie Mama love me?"
"Yes."
"Why no I eat?"

And here is Dandy's database picture. We are less sure of when it was taken.

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summer goals check-in

cloudscome, over at a wrung sponge, reminds me that it is time for the summer goals check-in.

1. go geocaching with the kids - nope, too hard to do without a GPS thingamagummy.
2. take children strawberry and blueberry picking - did some blueberry picking, will do more this week, along with the blackberries in our 100 acre wood
3. go swimming very often - yes. We get an A+ in swimming
4. grow and eat lots of home-grown heirloom tomatoes - still awaiting these
5. have my fall classes fully prepped by the end of June - ha ha ha, aren't I amusing.
6. make progress on manuscript - don't even know where it is
7. make lots of jam - done, strawberry and raspberry
8. install pavers into south flower garden - nope
9. stay home a lot - not recently
10. get children to at least one week of VBS - two weeks, actually
11. declutter basement - nope
12. move mill end pile out of driveway - yup. I don't remember what he did to earn this, but Dandy moved all of it (approximately 2 cords) over a weekend.
13. continue to make own bread and yogurt - off-and-on
14. reconquer the north and front flower gardens - nope
15. go to Darrington Bluegrass festival - nope

But I still have month left as we go back to school Sept 22 (that is, our homeschool co-op starts up and I start teaching at the community college).

How did you do with your goals?

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how to add little pictures to your comments

Want a cute little picture of yourself that shows up when you leave comments?

1. Go over to face your manga and make an avatar (little pic) of yourself. When it is just right, save it and check your email box. Your manga avatar will arrive in your inbox from which you will save it to your desktop or somewhere else where you can easily locate it again.
2. Go over to gravatar.com and follow directions. You will enter your email address and upload your avatar so that any place where you use an email address on the web (in a comment submission, for example), your little pic will show up.
3. Come back here and leave a comment so we can admire your new avatar.
4. If you want to know if avatars show up on your comments, leave me a comment and I'll come say something on your blog and we can see if your comment server is avatar-enabled.

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Daily Strength for Daily Needs

We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ~ROM. xv. 1.

The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. ~ISAIAH 1.4

If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on;
If a blinder soul there be,
Let me guide him nearer Thee.
~J. G. WHITTIER.

Opportunities of doing a kindness are often lost from mere want of thought. [ . . .] Ask "What should I like myself, if I were hard-worked, or sick, or lonely?" Cultivate the habit of sympathy.

Ask Him to increase your powers of sympathy: to give you more quickness and depth of sympathy, in little things as well as great. Opportunities of doing a kindness are often lost from mere want of thought. Half a dozen lines of kindness may bring sunshine into the whole day of some sick person. Think of the pleasure you might give to some one who is much shut up, and who has fewer pleasures than you have, by sharing with her some little comfort or enjoyment that you have learnt to look upon as a necessary of life,--the pleasant drive, the new book, flowers from the country, etc. Try to put yourself in another's place. Ask "What should I like myself, if I were hard-worked, or sick, or lonely?" Cultivate the habit of sympathy.
~Jean Nicolas Grou in Daily Strength for Daily Needs edited by Mary W. Tileston

:: reposted from last year because I just like it.

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a question for attachment-savvy parents

Okay, so, here is the situation.

1. Dandy wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and Chickadee and I, well, we are very fond of lazy restful mornings.
2. Dandy wakes up starving.
3. Dandy loves to cook.

From an attachment point of view, I'm supposed to be the great food-dispenser, the goddess of all things yummy. From a practical point of view, he is the obvious choice for breakfast cook.

Am I doing him a disservice by letting him provide breakfast?

attachment, adoption

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vacation pictures

Last Thursday we snuck off to a wedding in California where the children got to charm and be charmed by many new relatives, some as remote as their dad's brother's mother-in-law's daughter-in-law, but our kids don't care; they just savor their riches: an endless supply of relatives.

We spent our first day there in our little rented cabin and the nearby pool and our first evening at the big shindig hosted by the groom's family, whereat Chickadee met two brand new (to her) first-cousins-once-removed (children of her first cousins).


And Dandy and Chickadee were very silly.

The next day we went to Sly Park on Jenkinson Lake which I thought was very beautiful although My Gift was sad to see the lake so low. Apparently all the rocky shore "isn't supposed to be there".

After an afternoon of splashing in the water and napping in the shade, we prettied ourselves up to go to the wedding.

Here is Dandy, in a rare moment of stillness and contemplation before the wedding began.

The maternal Grandmother of the bride looks splendid.

And finally the bride and her papa arrive.

Vows are exchanged,

as is a very thorough kiss.

Chickadee and the beautiful bride.

The bride and my father-in-law. Don't you think he looks like Doyle Lawson?

My lovely mother-in-law and her lovely sister.

My Gift with his big brother.

Dandy and the very fluffy new cousins.

Our nephew and his daughter.

We danced and sipped champagne and chatted well into the night and navigated the next day in a drowsy haze.

Monday we went to Lake Tahoe where we buried the children alive,


but they got out, so we fed them lunch and headed home.

On the way we dropped by the their Uncle's firehall for a tour.

Then we packed up and came home.

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Christ with Us

My dearest Lord,
Be Thou a bright flame before me,
Be Thou a guiding star above me,
Be Thou a smooth path beneath me,
Be Thou a kindly sheperd behind me,
Today and evermore.
~ St Columba

from The Wisdom of the Celts, compiled by David Adam

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Friday Poetry: Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond by Mary Oliver

I'm posting this today for the lovely herons that grace our back marshes.

Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings

open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks

of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself--
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn't a miracle

but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.

~ Mary Oliver What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems p. 29.

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/"><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.








Mary Oliver poetry

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a new look

Well I think I have finished remodeling the blog. How about a tour?

Take a look at that cute header (made with Wordle and Picasa's collage feature). Now refresh/reload the page. What happened? Thanks to the coding I found over at Vincent Liu, we now have rotating banners: twelve different pictures from my adventures in Scotland, England, Vancouver Island, and at home.

Then there is the rotating quotes which give you something to think about while the rest of the page loads.

Next up is the nearly empty left-sidebar. It loads first and then quickly gets on to the good stuff, the daily posts.

In the posts, I'm real happy with the new threaded comment feature from Intense Debate that does NOT require you to leave the home page. To comment, just click on the comment line, and the little input box drops down from there. Everything just nudges over to make room for it, much like the neighboring houses did for the Order of the Phoenix headquarters.

From there we move on to the right sidebar, which I am particularly proud of. You know that I have a deep and abiding appreciation of blog widgets and tend to accumulate them in such quantities that the blog takes forever to load and looks cluttery. I have solved this, I think (let me know, eh Kate?). The right side-bar loads last, while you are reading posts, so I put all the 'clutter' over there and then I used Hoctro's very cool tabview widget to get rid of the clutterly look. I must admit that this was a very tricksy installation and required a great deal of modification. Someday, I'll post a step-by-step of how it works for me.

So, the right side-bar. First we have another rotating quote full of thought-provoking comments from my political hero, Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman - Texas. Then the widgets begin.

See the me! me! me! header? Click on one of those things beneath it. Cool huh? Click on another one. I've tucked into that widget all the things that a new visitor may want to have, but that old-time readers are probably getting sick of.

Next is you! you! you!. Those tabs have the most recent comments listed as well as a list of the posts that have the most comments. I use this tab to quickly see where the new comments are.

Then we have the posts widget. Here you'll find a list of the 15 most recent posts, as well as the linked posts (posts that someone else has linked up - your blog could be here, just find a post in my blog that you find worthy of sharing and link it up into one of your posts) and my technorati rating.

Next up is books tabwidget. What am I currently reading? reading next? regret reading? recommend that you read? reviewing? It's all there in the books widget.

Then there is shopping. Want to spend a couple of $100 dollars on me? I make it easy with my wishlist. Want to buy something for yourself and give me a little commission? Click through my endorsements or favs links and I'll earn a nickel or two for Chickadee's orthodontia fund.

Then is the label cloud which I may move into a tabwidget when I figure out how to do that, same with the bloglines reader, with which I keep track of new posts on the blogs I read, I'd like to put that into the you! you! you! section, but it didn't cooperate. And archives clearly needs to move into posts. And I still need to tidy up the stats tabswidget which is currently sitting in detention at the very bottom of the page (avert your eyes, it's not pretty).

And while we are chatting about the blog itself, it is designed for, and works best in Firefox. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, it's time to upgrade to a modern browser. Web browsers all (except for MSIE) conform to a set of guidelines that make webpages look the same no matter what browser is being used. So, if this blog is not wowing you with its beauty and grace, it's time to join 621,675,859 other people and get Firefox. Besides, it's free, it's fast, it's easy to install and navigate and it has a whole bunch of nifty add-on features which I can tell you about on another day.

So, what do you think? How is the load-time? the gnomes? Is it all working for you?

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WOW! That kid is hired!

I've been under the weather the last week -- hence all the blog fiddling -- and the kids are really trying to take care of me so that I can start cooking again. Today, Mr. Dandy offered to make my latte. Sure, I said, figuring that it would be a big mess, but would keep him occupied for awhile.

NOPE! He just delivered to me a perfectly foamy and delicious latte. I now have my own private barrista!

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alas

At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as "whole persons" — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren't among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who "feel good" about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.

Read the rest at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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ponderables

Three Things to Ponder:
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments

C O W S
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.


T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this:

You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.


:: thx to K. M. who sent this to me, I don't know who authored it.

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twiddling

bear with me as I twiddle with the layout.

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new comment widget

Okay, I took the plunge and left behind my old comment server (haloscan) in favor of intensedebate which is now up and running. It offers threaded comments for discussions and several other features which I like.

Could you all do me a favor and flit around the posts from the last few weeks and leave comments? I want to put the new widget through its paces.

Thanks!

:: edited to say "thanks" for helping me test-drive it. So far, I am really pleased with it. How is it working from your end?

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Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

From For a Child - Great Poems Old and New edited by Wilma McFarland.





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://blbooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/poetry-friday-round-up.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 Becky's Book Reviews.

poetry

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The Day We Met You by Phoebe Koehler

This is a sweet and simple little book addressing infant adoption which Chickadee loves to have read to her. Our favorite page in The Day We Met You is the one that describes the feeling of love.

You felt like the sun shining inside us.

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how to help a family with a medical emergency that lands them in I.C.U.

A family in the circle of my circle (i.e. we don't visit each other's homes, but would always stop to chat if we ran into each other) is in a bad spot. Their Dad was injured and is in ICU, which reminds me, of course, of when my Dad was hurt. I've been meaning to jot down what was helpful during those days, so here we go. You'll note that most of these are things that help the injured person's family, not the injured person. Go love on the loved ones.

While they are in the first few days:

Cards. We collectively -- and I individually -- received piles of cards from people - often from people that were just in the circle of our circle. Every single card was a blessing. In a way, it is just saying "Hey, this IS a big deal and even those of us way out here in acquaintance-land can see that it is a big deal." Of course no one says that out-right -- they all say the same thing, really -- but the meta-message is that they noticed that our world had just crashed.

Care Package for the family members who are sitting vigil. We received these and they were SUPER appreciated:

Go love on the loved ones.

• slip-on woollie slippers for those sitting at bedside. Hospital floors are cold.
• notepads and pens - encourage the family to establish a medical log-book. Why? See the medical log-book post.
• a pretty blank journal that visitors can sign in and leave love notes for savoring later
• chapstick
• hand lotion - lavender is clean smelling and has a bit of a perking-up effect, as does lemon
• healthful snacks with shelf-life or small portions of protein snacks that have no shelf-life. A bit of cheese with a handful of good crackers in a pretty napkin - wonderful. A small cup of hot brothy easy-to-sip soup.
• boxed juices
• a little lavender sachet
• a mini-manicure kit (we were amazed at how often we reached for this)
• a long bit of string or ribbon and a box of paper clips for a greeting card garland - much wiser than tape if they expect to be discharged or transfered very soon.
• prayer shawls for drafts (for the patient or the watcher)
• postage stamps and note-cards
• SOFT tissues
• if you are making up a care package, avoid baskets that -- though cute -- take up a great deal of counter-space.

If you have ideas to add to this list, let me know in the comments.


If the injured person is going to be there for awhile, or at a nursing home:

• scotch tape for posting family pictures on the walls
• reading material - My Mom said that she really appreciated these: Christian Science Monitor "they always have an article about something pleasant"; Peace Like a River - "books where people overcome hard things and give encouragement that maybe someway my world will be okay too."; The Week: all you need to know about everything that matters.
• I remember glancing through Reader's Digest& National Geographic, things that you can look at and read and forget that you read over and over again.
• a little ice-chest for keeping snacks
• snacks: little cheese, whole-grain biscuits, fruit, juices
• more notecards and postage stamps and nice pens
  

When you phone or visit:
Most importantly, DON'T ask the family of the injured person to make you feel better. I can't tell you how many times I found myself trying to comfort others. They didn't intend that, but it went that way anyway, like this:

Other: Oh I can't tell you how badly we feel.
Me: Thanks. It's pretty scary.
Other: I can't image how awful this if for you all. Your poor mother.
Me: Mom's holding up pretty well, considering. . .
Other: Oh but if it were me, I'd just . . .
Me: No, you'd be stronger than you think; you have to be.
Other: Well, it's sounds so awful, I just feel terrible. I cried all night for you all.
Me: We'll be okay. It will all be okay.
Other: Such a terrible accident . . .
Me: I'm sorry, I have to go now.

They didn't intend it at all, but we ended up talking about THEM! When my Dad is in ICU/life-flight/ward 7/nursing home/rehab, I don't care how they feel. I do care very much what they can do to help.

Better:

Other: What a hard time for your family. How can I help?
Me: Go pick up the family dogs and make sure they are safe and fed.
or
Me: Drop by the house and make sure the mail is picked up and there is ready-to-eat food in the fridge, that the kitchen garbage is empty and the garbage can gets to the street on the right day.
or

In other words, express your care and then keep your conversation to practical aid, and not about how badly you feel, because, no matter how badly you feel, they feel worse. Which brings us to the topic of encouragement and support.

If the person you are interacting with is actually taking a much bleaker view of things than the medical situation warrants, then indeed offer encouragement. But if the situation is rather bleak, as ours was, please offer support. Here is an excerpt from my thoughts on encouragement vs support that I shared about 5 months post-injury.

[ . . . ] It is the difference between offering encouragement versus offering support. Encouragement says, 'have hope that things will get better'. Support says, 'wow, this sounds really tough.'

The underlying theme of encouragement is, 'it had better get better, because as is, it sounds pretty hard,' but encouragement doesn't go to the hard place with you. It just tries to rush you past it and onto better days. If your situation is not going to resolve quickly, the rushing appears to be for the other's benefit (not having invest anything into sharing empathy). It is certainly not to the benefit of whomever is struggling.

Another way of looking at is is that people who give empathy are joining me where I am: sad, grieving, fearful. People offering encouragement are asking me to join them where they are: hopeful, optimistic, un-burdened. I think on whole, we have handled Dad's injury as positively as possible, but this doesn't mean I don't grieve. And when I am grieving (approximately every day that has a y in it), I don't want to be pushed back to the happy-place. I need to be supported in the sad place.

So, I have learned that I far prefer empathy over encouragement. How about you?

How then can you provide support?

• Ask if the on-duty vigil sitter would like a little break. Would they like you to stay? or to accompany them on a little walk? Try to get them outside for a bit of air.
• Ask for a chore or errand. Accidents happen in the middle of to-do lists at home. If you can step in and take over one of the dangling tasks you can give a little relief. We were out of goat hay and needed a bale picked up. Ask if you can drop off the library books, pick up stuff, drop-off or eggs & bread, take the garbage out, and so forth.
• Ask "how may we pray" and then ask "would you like to pray now, or shall I take these requests with me". Sometimes we needed prayer right that minute, sometimes we needed to know that we would be lifted up later. Sometimes both.
• Ask "Would you like to tell how this happened? or are you sick of it for today?" On some days Dad wanted to tell all the gory details, someday he dreaded it.
• Ask the family members, "How are you doing?" Be prepared for them to either look glibly resilient or to sob on your shoulder, or both, simultaneously. They don't know how they are doing, they've never done this before.
• If the family has small children or grandchildren, take them off their mom's hands for a few minutes. People came to see Dad and ended up touring the nursing home with my kids so that I could serve Dad. They will never know how much we appreciated them.
• Recognize that the nursing staff does not meet all the patient's needs, just all the medical needs. The family does the rest and they are busy and tired. Help them. Dad was very very high-maintenance, though I bet he does not remember this.
  

When the family returns home (with or without their patient)

Cards. again. It's a new stage and they need to know you are with them.

LotsaHelpingHands ~ a terrific free and easy-to-use website for coordinating helpers when we got to that stage. This website acts as a hub for listing and filling needs and saves everyone from tiresome phonecalls. (edited to add this link to a great post on LotsaHelpingHands.)

Here is a short list of really useful ways to bless them:

• Mow their lawn.
• Load them up with paper plates, napkins, and glasses.
• Meals, obviously. And for A LOT longer than you think. Meals that can be a lunch or a dinner are especially thoughtful. Here is a link to two recipes that were brought to our home. Deliver meals in containers that are clearly labeled ("OK to toss or give to Goodwill"). The family you are supporting does not need to be burdened with casserole dish tracking.
  
• Fill up their pantry with healthful beverages - if they are in shock, thirst returns before appetite, help them quench their thirst with nutritious beverage.
• As you move though your day of errands and chores, ask yourself who is doing that for your injured family. Seasonal changes are especially problematic if the man of the house is flat on his back. Storm windows? Snow tires? Anti-freeze? Do they have school-age kids that need to get school supplies? Do they have little kids who need their stockings stuffed?
  

When they do get to take their partially recovered person home:

• don't stop visiting. When the injured person is out-of-it, you visited to show love and support the family. Now that the patient is halfway recovered he or she is well enough to be bored and ill enough to be house-bound. Bring the world to them. Visit in person, even if it just 20 minutes on your way home from work. My Dad is 20 months post-injury and though not house-bound, is not exactly traipsing about either. He is very blessed by a handful of friends that visit regularly; he looks forward to it all week.
• give the #1 care-giver a break. If she or he won't tell you what they need, call their kids and find out. While the injured person was hospitalized, the care-giver had a bit of time-off, going home to rest or feign normality. Now that the patient is home, the already-weary care-giver is now a full-time nursemaid. Ramp up your support of this tired person.
  
• take meals over long after everyone else has stopped.
• pull weeds, mow. They are all at risk for getting depressed right about now. Help their environment look lovely.
• do some stealth cleaning. Over for a visit? grab a broom, sweep a walk, deadhead a potted plant, slyly toss out the rotten food in the fridge, wipe down a counter, shine the sink. Life is overwhelmingly tiresome for them right now. Every little help is a blessing.
  

That is my gleaned wisdom from a been-there done-that perspective. What have I missed? What should I add?

Also, if this post was useful to you, please let me know. There is something healing about enduring hardships and getting to help others thereby.

If you think this post deserves a vast circulation, please help it along: . Just remember to insert the post address -- http://adventuresindailyliving.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-help-family-with-medical.html -- in place of the whole blog address so that anyone following your recommendation gets to this post and not to my blog in general. Or - and better yet - right-click on the link-icon in the footer line and use that address in a post on your blog that sends folks over. I really really want to share this; I suppose it is part of our healing process. (Also, links on your blog get track-backed to here under LINKY LOVE, so you get some google-points if you care about that sort of thing.)

Best,

:: 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.

:: edited to add HUGE thanks to Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for including this post in her saturday linkage and helping me share it.

:: to read an other perspective, check out this What I'd Like For You To Know post.

ICU, paraplegia, life-flight, medical crisis, emergency, accident, trauma

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medical log-book

If you have a very ill or injured hospitalized loved on, whip out your notebook and start recording things. Vitals signs taken? write them down. What he ate? write it down. WHY?

Because there are many wonderful nurses, aides, and care-givers out there. Dozens of conscientious hard-working and underpaid people who are looking after your loved one. And there are a handful of duds who regret their career choice and are not doing their best. If they know you are vigilantly documenting your loved-one's care, they are less likely to take out their frustrations on your family member.

I can't tell you how many medical workers, when noticing that we were logging, took us aside to whisper encouragement to us. They too know that there are a few bad apples, and family members who log are part of the solution.

This post is an offspring of my how to help a family with a medical emergency that lands them in I.C.U. post, but I put it here separately so that you can print it and take it in to the family you are concerned about.



edited to add in this great addition by Shelby:

This is great advice. The notebook is also a great place to jot down any questions you have for the doctor. We found that if we wrote things down immediately when we thought of them, we didn't forget to ask the doctor. We also took notes every time the doctor visited the room (depending on the condition, this may be once a day or it may be more). Even when it seemed like we would remember what the doctor said, we wrote it down anyway, and invariably we ended up going back to the notebook and saying, "Oh yeah, the doctor mentioned blahblahblah--I'd forgotten."

It's also a good idea to continue the notebook once you're home, particularly with a chronic condition. We found it made a huge difference when we were trying to square away my medicine as far as getting the right dose, figuring out what was causing what side effects, and what seemed to be helping (or not).

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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go read this

Just go read this post on a blog of a family that has been waiting for their second child for almost three years.

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they're back . . .

Yes the cousinly mob has returned. Last night ten of us spent the night on the deck watching for shooting stars (we saw one with a half-sky tail) and satellites and bats and owls. My girl cousins are going through old bins of stuff; here they are modeling their finds ~ woolen (!!) bathing suits.

We spent the day on water balloon fights, treks to the 100 acre wood, 1 beesting and many ensuing tears and lamentations, a great deal of pool splashing, naps, relocating a misplaced frog, reading in the hammock, multiple scrapes and bashes, hamburgers and watermelon for dinner on the deck, a visit from my folks, and many wails of sorrow when it was time to part. All of us will sleep deeply tonight and dream of next time . . .

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keeping track of medical insurance

Can you help us? We are buried in both "Explanation of Benefits" and bills for medical offices. We do not have an efficient way to keep track of what insurance should pay and have paid and need to be harassed into paying.

Somewhere some clever person must have a system for this. Certainly not all households are floundering, and if so, some software company could make a pile. In the meantime, what do you do?

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slip & slide

NO! You may NOT pour buckets of water in the upstairs hallway and use the hallway as a slip and slide.

And if you do, and you get your sister involved, and you don't get caught, you may want to coach that sister to NOT coming running to mom & dad to tell mom & dad how fun it was, because right at that very moment that she speaks, the fun is over. OVER.

GRRRRRrrrrrr.

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Swiss Chard & Pasta

This is a super yummy recipe for chard.

Harvest a lot of chard, wash, and cut off the stems at the base of the leaves. Save both parts.

In a big pasta kettle, boil some water with a little salt.

Chop the stems up into 1 inch bits and pop them into the boiling water for 3 minutes. While they boil, heat in a saucepan:
3 T butter

When the chard is ready, fish it out and put into the smaller saucepan. Add (then turn down really low):
3/4 C heavy cream

Into the pasta kettle, pop your:
yummy heavy pasta to boil

While it is cooking, chop the chard leaves into ribbons. Two minutes before the pasta is done, add the chard leaf ribbons to the pasta.

Pour cream sauce over drained pasta/chard leaves. Add salt and pepper and garnish with tomatoes.

:: modified from a recipe found over at SimplyRecipes.

recipe

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library thing

Well was cloudy and damp all last week so I finally got all my books cataloged at LibraryThing. Want to know what I have read? am reading? hope to read? Looking for recommendations? It's all here at my LibraryThing.

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bing cherry ice cream

Yum. yum. yum. We picked the last of the bing cherry tree today, chopped them up, and added them to our ice cream.

We'll just torment you by posting a picture of it.

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Sunday Garden Tour

Every week I mean to participate in the Sunday Garden Tour hosted over at a wrung sponge, but I head out to the garden with my camera and end up gardening! Silly me. This week however, we had a guest in our garden that inspired me to actually follow through on my photoshoot.






This is Bliss, who is no longer speaking to me and muttering something that sounds like "who is she calling geriatric?"

:: edited to add, for the curious, that Mr. Bliss is a Blue Miniature Rex.

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bunny went home

Chuck the Rabbit went home today and we will miss him. Our own housebunnies are rather geriatric (they are 12) and we had forgotten how cute and perky young bunnies are, especially ones that are released from their cage and allowed to frisk about the vegetable patch. He is a darling little fellow, affectionate and entertaining. We'll miss him. We did obtain exclusive bunny-sitting rights for future travels, so we look forward to the Return of Chuck.

In the meantime, here are some useful bunny links:

1. an illustrated guide to bunny ears
2. BunnyTalk: What is your rabbit trying to tell you?
3. Understanding Rabbit Behavior


:: edited to add link to geriatric bunny response.

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Friday Poetry: All Goats by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Another lovely poem from Elizabeth Coatsworth, a woman who knew her goats.

All Goats

All goats have a wild brier
grace;
they are as elegant as
thorns,
with little bells beneath
their chins
and pointed horns.

So quick are they upon their
feet,
so light and gaily do they
prance,
their hoofs seem sportive
castanets
to which they dance.

And as they raise sagacious
heads,
disturbed by some crude
passer-by,
they gaze upon him with a
most
satiric eye.
~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://wellreadchild.blogspot.com/2008/08/poetry-friday-roundup.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 The Well-Read Child.

poetry

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