Poly is Born!

Yesterday, Wm. shouted that the moth had hatched! Inches from the cat's paws lay a swollen caterpillar looking thing. It was Poly. Though I knew that moth's are born with their wings furled, it still was a strange sight. She looked all caterpillar and no moth. She squirmed and squirmed, her gross abdomen wiggling as she looked for a place to hang. She began climbing my arm, a rather unnverving feeling, like having a Japanese beatle attach itself to you.

We got some tree branches and got her settled. She held on tightly and hasn't really moved since, except for expanding her wings. I worry that she's not yet stretched them outright and that they are a bit wrinkled. Females, however, really do not fly around much, I read, but rather wait for the males to come to them. (I like that idea.) I'm not sure if Poly is early or not, but we intend to put her on the front porch and see if she can "call" any males to her tonight.

And the winner is....

The local Spend A Lot has staple can goods, such as tomato sauce and chicken stock, for less than even StuffMart, so I loaded up recently, buying two whole flats of cans. Wm. played for a good amount of time, stacking, counting, building and rearranging them. Who needs toys? After a time, he tired of them and left them scattered about the room.

He sat in the sunroom eating his lunch and watching his favorite PBS show. I suppose I should know better than to talk during a show but I asked him to please, when he was through, pick up the cans and put them in the cardboard tray. He replied, "You can't make me."

After the lightning bolts shot from my eyes, and I was able to gently ease my eyeballs back into their sockets, I picked up his lunch plate and asked him, "How would you like dry toast for lunch? Who makes your lunch? Who turns on that TV? ....and for that matter, who buys all your toys?"

"You do," he said with a smile.

"Right, and if you want to have a fight about this, who do you think is going to win?"

"You are." Another smile.

I gave him back his lunch and walked out satisfied that I'd made my point.

Later, I found the cans all neatly arranged in the trays. "Wm! You did such a good job putting the cans in the tray." I beamed.

"I got Lauren to help me (read: do it)"

Who do you think won that round?

...And One of These

I still haven't found the solution to TC's puzzler, but in searching for things that cost $5,999, which is what she says is the price tag, I found that this is a common price for motorcycles and for that price you can buy a mounted rhino head for your wall. On that same page, however, I found a real bargain: a beaver lamp. Who can live without one of these?

Better Stay Outta Mom's Way

Fish in My Hair is having a contest. She wants us to guess what this weird thing is. I'm guess a weird kitchen appliance of some sort. Thinking to use my advanced degree in Googling to bald-face cheat, I googled "weird kitchen appliances". If you want to know what kind of day I'm having and the mood I'm in, I want one of these:







Now, THAT's a cool kitchen accessory!

How Sublime - January 26, 2006

I'm doing a little archiving today - that is printing out my blogs and putting them in a binder so that someday, someone might find them and say "that was one crazy weird woman". I thought it might be fun to spend a little time sharing my favorite blogs, or ones which seemed to generate the most interest by readers. This one was just too much fun. (Disclaimer: do NOT try this at home. It is dangerous! And fun! But don't do it.)

How Sublime - January 26, 2006

Today, we received a gift in the mail from Omaha Steaks. Now, you might think that the gift was meat, and certainly, there was some in the package. But the real gift was a bag full of dry ice. We were headed to the library, but I recognized the fleeting opportunity for a fun science experiment. So, I took it upstairs and cautioned everyone not to touch it! That was instant permission to squeal. We put some in water:



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We talked about CO2, how the solid sublimes directly into gas, whether hot or cold water was more effective. Then, we put out a flame with the gas. What else could we do? Well, we filled up some baggies and watched them pop. After the first squeal or two, that just wasn't enough bang, you know? So we tried something more: (note for you safety geeks, we were behind a protective door)

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So much fun. Life is like that you know? You have to catch those moments when you can.

A Warning to the Jammin'

Two pews in front of us at church, a young girl fawned over her boyfriend who would have liked to have been anywhere else. I guess it is a sign of my age that I had to laugh at the boy's pants. Had it not been for his over-long tshirt, we would have been treated to the sight of his boxers. My mind wondered as I pondered how he sat down with such pants. The style reminds me of "pillow head people" that often were included in variety shows of my youth: long torsos created with pillow cases, low riding pants, with very short legs. Obviously, I needed to pay more attention to my prayers.

On the way home, dh warned the girls not to be so taken with a guy. I snorted. It will happen, I predict. However, I warned, should you girls bring home a boy who chooses to wear his jeans around his kneecaps, you should warn him in advance that your mom will give a good tug to his pants and pull them down. Just as I am unable to walk behind someone on the stairs without goosing them, I have an irristible urge to tug on jeans worn in such a fashion. And I will do it....

Flying Pigs

The Louisville Metro Mounted Police Patrol has a sense of humor. This is apparent as soon as you walk into the barn. This pair of jeans was occupied when a horse named Pete decided they needed a little more ventilation.

Pete, named for Officer Peter Grignon killed in the line of duty days after the horse's purchase, seems to be one of the horses in the barn with "character". During our tour of the barn, we learned that stencils of flying pigs painted on the walls of the stalls signified the number of officers unseated by that horse. Pete had twenty-one.

Accustomed to ponies, we were amazed at the size of these animals. Here is Dd#1 with Jim, who weighs over 2200 pounds. You can see his head is almost the same size as her torso.

On the way to the tour, Ds moaned frequently from the backseat that he wished we didn't have to go to this field trip. After learning that we were going to see police officers that rode horses, and that yes, they did carry guns to fight the bad guys, his protests increased. After the tour, told me that he wasn't wanting to go on the field trip because he didn't want to see the police fight the bad guys. I guess he envisioned a shoot out at the OK Corral. What is surprising about this is that he will climb over people and things to catch a glimpse of such a thing on TV.

Sounds like a dream job to some of us, grooming horses for two hours, riding around the city four to six hours a day and leading VIP parades for Presidents and the like. That is, until you find out that you have to be a police officer for three years before applying to the Mounted Patrol. Bottom line is that they are police officers taught to ride horses, rather than riders taught to be policemen.

Is this any clue as to why I am crazy?

He needed the cardboard tube to make a guitar.

Eagle Cam

I've been watching a Bald Eagle in Maine sitting on her next via http://www.nwf.org/eaglecam/link2.asx. This morning, I saw her get up, walk over to the side of her nest. While she was there, I think I saw a white fluff peek up for a moment. Have her egg(s) hatched?

My New Pet, "Poly"

Meet my new pet, "Poly Phemus". One day at a neighboring farm, I espied what looked like a bat hanging from a tree. It caught my eye because it would have been quite unusual for a bat to be hanging outside in the sunlight. On closer inspection, I found that it was a very large cocoon. I plucked it from the tree and took it home. It has lived all winter on my front porch in a Ball canning jar (lid punctured for air).

I thought surely it was undeveloped until one day, I took it out and it began to move!

Internet research and Rod, a neighbor who loves bugs, have led me to believe that this is the cocoon of a member of the Saturniidae family, or giant silk moths, likely Polyphemus, hence her name. We'll see if she might actually be a cousin of this moth when it emerges.

Holding the cocoon is really quite strange. You can feel the moth scratching at the inside, and if you hold it to your ear, you can hear it scrabbling. This appears to be quite distrubing to some people. So, of course, we hold it up to every vistor's ear to share!

I saw somewhere that Luna moths emerge in June, so likely, Poly will be with us a little while. We are hoping for a girl, as she will "call" to males, mate, and then lay eggs so that we can continue this project. Sadly, she will die after that. If it is a male, we will set him free to go sow his wild oats. Stay tuned!

Someday, He'll Love That I Wrote This

Even if I don't write this, there were enough witnesses that this story will be retold when he is older. All families seem to have a few embarrassing, yet hilariously funny stories that they like to tell over and again, laughing until the tears form in their eyes. I think this might be one of those.

My mom was visiting for Easter. As we hadn't visited in awhile, we chatted away, trying to cram a month of visiting into just a few hours. Dear Son, hearafter referred to DS, was becoming bored and the ancient child whine went up, "I have nothing to dooooooooo!" (As if this was my task in life, to keep him endlessly entertained.)

"Here," I said, grabbing an old digital camera that still sorta works sometimes. "Take some photos. Take a picture of Grandma." And he began to take photos. Here is one of of our dog, Paris:

He experiemented with making faces:

And he did take one of Grandma and me:

After coming up for breath from our conversation, I looked around for him, calling his name. He was in the bathroom, door locked. Call it mother's intuition, but the first thing out of my mouth was, "I don't EVEN want to know what you are doing in there." I banged on the door, ordering him to come out. He claimed to be going potty.

When he emerged, he brought the camera to me. He did not want me to look at the photos, a clear indication that my intuition had yet again not failed me. Why, I asked him, was the camera wet? He replied that he might have dropped it in some pee. Oh, terrific. I wiped it down and promised not to show the camera to anyone. I suspected that the photos would be best viewed in privacy and quickly deleted. In today's world, could I prove that they were self-portraits, if you could call them that?

Later, I looked at them with him. Fuzzy and indistinct, it was still clear as to what was the subject of his photography. Oh, Lord, I'm raising a pornographer! We'll be able to look back at his early start in his career, which is why he'll be so good at it, having had so many years of experience. We, of course, had a discussion of why we don't take such photos, funny to DS though they seemed. As to why the camera was wet, it seems he was trying to catch the shot, uh, mid-stream, an action shot you might say.

So next time I am busy, perhaps some crayons or playdough might be in order. The camera is taking a little vacation.

Happy Easter!

May this Holy Day lift you up with the promise of wonderful days to come.

One of the best ways to lift one's spirits is with laughter. Click here for my Easter laugh to you.

Cocksure

I found this quote in today's paper:

The great mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell once said,

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

So true!

I'm Taking Them With Me

(Disclaimer: Dh says I can blog about HIM - he's hoping I'll practice my writing, write a book, and make enough that he can take early retirement.)

"Did you notice that I'm putting a new liner in the garbage can?" Dh asked after pulling out the full bag.

"You mean just like I do a bazillion times a year?" I asked, obviously not giving the right response but unable to help myself.

"Yes, but that's part of what you do," he replied. Just call me the Garbage Queen.

"Someday," I whined in my best martyr voice, "I'll die and all of you will appreciate all the things I do unrecognized on a daily basis, like the garbage bags, feeding the dogs......"

"Oh, no," Dh interrupted. "If you die, I'm tucking the animals into the coffin with you. You have to take them with you."

"How will you find the chickens if you don't have Daisy?" I asked, referring to our amazing chicken-tracking dog.

"What chickens?"

I was left cleaning the kitchen while pondering if that is how pet mummification started in ancient Egypt. While we may think that Egyptians revered their cats enough to mummify them, too, it may have been as simple as Akmed sending his wife's pet to the grave with her.

Thanks alot.

When I die, no one is going to get up and eulogize about my housekeeping skills. Looking down, hopefully, from heaven, I will not hear them say, "Boy, did she keep a clean and organized house." The way I look at it, there are four of them, twenty-one if you count animals, and only one of me. I am marginally organized, but there just isn't enough time in my day and blog, too. And yes, I "do" Flylady. She obviously doesn't have a five year old.

My sister, despite having children and animals and a husband like mine that works long hours, somehow manages to keep her house sparkling. Okay, she DOES have a part-time housekeeper, so really, that must explain it all! Doesn't it?

In How to Know When Your Cat is About to Die, I posted a photo of Lazurus lazily reclining on our grand piano. Only Diane would notice, by clicking on the photo and blowing it up, that the cat had swished his tail, revealing the layer of dust on the piano. Oh, so be it. The day is warm and spring is here. The dust will be here tomorrow. I'm going outside.

The Walking Dead

We're back from a beautiful weekend at the Kentucky Horse Park, hob-nobbing with the British teams and people from all over the U.S. Several years were carved off my life when I saw two riders, whom I know well, have some seriously scary moments. I'm sending them the bill for the hair dye. Both girls rode exceptionally well, their teams placing fourth and sixth out of nine teams. Considering these teams are some of the best and they've just begun in this division and both are on new ponies, this is quite an accomplishment. Here's a nice article about the weekend.

We're all exhausted, walking around like zombies. We'll recover in a week or two.

Some People Live This Way All the Time

I received an email from dh on a business trip to India. I found it fascinating, as a world I've never quite experienced: business class.

Business class seating is pretty deluxe. I could not help getting a huge grin across my face when I first sat down in the business class “cockpit”. Unlike the oversize lazyboy chairs of the past, the new bc seating is like a little canoe that you climb in with controls to tilt the seat, lighting, air,etc. Each seat has its own TV screen, phone, and plug-ins for various accessories. Champagne is offered upon arrival along with a menu of the meal service (filet mignon, of course with a nice cabernet). I wonder what they are having in the cheap seats? After being bored by the constant pampering and refills of wine, coffee, mixed nuts, etc I decided to tune into a movie called Deja Vue ( a time machine concept starring Denzel Washington). OK, now tired a bit the seat completely reclined and a little stool pops up to rest your feet on. Too bad the little canoe was designed for a 5’8” adolescent. My arms kept getting the circulation cut off from being cramped against the sides but it sure was better then the alternative.

Did I mention we get free use of the captains lounge at the airport while we wait for our flights? More free drinks, snacks, newspapers, internet access, full showers, etc.

The scary part is some people live this way all the time

Also away at the time to a riding competition with the girls, I, too, can be a travel writer:

At the Micro-no-tell, they gave us some teenee little bars of soap. Evidently, people staying here don't was their hair (no shampoo) and usually share the one towel. It's clean, but the breakfast buffet includes coffee and a pre-packaged muffin. I must have missed the champagne hour. I've not slept much either. The room temperature control unit has two choices: freeze your ass off or hot as hell. It beats tent camping, however, and it's quiet except for the slamming doors and cars rev-ing their engines in the parking lot.

You know what's scary? Some people live like this all the time!

This morning, as I got my morning cup of coffee so that I could actually speak, a man with a strong New York accent proclaimed the breakfast area, though of course he didn't really want to say, but of course he did, pathetic. After getting his coffee and moving aside, he asked me if I'd gotten my creamer. I said, no thank you, that I didn't use it. What he meant was where IS the creamer??? He walks around in circles, proclaiming to his family that they didn't even have creamer. Finding a box with packets of powder creamer, I showed the man.

Loudly: "THIS is my creamer?" He turns toward the desk one step away. "This is the creamer??"

The desk clerk, bless her heart, merely smiled. It was on my tongue to say, "Dummy, you're at the Micro-no-tell, not the Waldorf." Gees. You book your family at the cheapest hotel and expect pure cream, freshly squeezed from the cow out back? But of course, I could say nothing, not having had my coffee yet. I smiled back at the clerk and went my way.

Why 5 Year Old Boys Shouldn't Have Small Pets

Growls come from under my desk. It's my son, not the dogs.

Mom: LEAVE the dogs alone!

Son: I'm just playing dinosaur and I'm the T-Rex.

How to Know When Your Cat is About to Die

He went from barn cat to this.

Okay, So I'm a Big Mouth

Writing happens. In my head.
Can't keep it quiet 'til I'm dead.

We've been reading Shakespeare this week (A Midsummer Night's Dream), and couplets just pop out and words like "I beseech you to clean thyne room". So, yes, I'll still blog, dear readers, but only positives about my lovelies. No funny rhymes, no jest of our tymes.

Stop it.

Okay, today I had a great idea. More people, it seems, vote on the show American Idol than for the president. Granted, three-fourths of them are 11 year olds, but still.....

Here's my idea. Candidates for president will be required to submit to a 8 week reality TV show, combining the best our media has to offer. Okay, not the best, but whatever they have to offer. Each week, we'll vote by cell phone, of course, and the lowest rated candidate will be waved off with a misty look back (via video) at the previous weeks.

Week 1: Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
I think this should knock off several candidates right away. Think "vocabulary" and "countries of the world". Can you locate Darfur on a map?

Week 2: The Apprentice
Each candidate will assemble a team and be given a domestic crisis to handle. Members of the audience will vote based on the candidate's team answer. The Donald will kick off those that aren't hard-*ss enough to handle difficult situations well and mange their team.

Week 3: Curb Appeal
If I'm going to have to look at this person over the next four years, are they easy on the eyes? Can we round out the edges, get rid of annoying gestures and facial expressions? How about a new hair style?

Week 4: What Not to Wear
As Leader of the Free World, presidents should look presidential. Stacy and Clinton will go through each candidates wardrobe and shoes, throwing everything out and replacing them with pointy-toed shoes and a fitted jacket.

Week 5: Survivor
I want a strong candidate that can physically survive the brutal schedule of the White House. Does he have an attitude of we're in this together or is it all about him/her? I suggest having them go to live in New Orleans or in an inner city projects. Can they survive?

Week 6: Whose Line is it Anyway?
The candidate should be funny and spontaneous, good at improv.

Week 7: Who Wants to be a Model?
Here, I envision tempting the candidate with models. Are they susceptible to sex scandals?

Week 8: American Idol
Candidates will be judged based on how much we like them and their entertainment value, not whether they have talent, work hard at their job, are smart and actually capable of running the country. Because we all KNOW that Americans want someone they like and not someone that has anything to do with icky politics.

I believe that this course of action will improve our chances of getting the right candidate. If not, at least it will be entertaining and get us in no worse shape than we are in now.

My Grandpa by Anna

I am allowed to brag

Yes, posting about the kids' accomplishments is still permitted. And there still is William to blog about, since he can't yet read. (He's working on it though, so my blogging days with him as the subject are probably limited.) Therefore, here are today's brags. Indulge me if you will.

Anna is headed to Germany next month to compete in German Pairs Mounted Pony Games. This article appeared in today's Courier Journal. One correction: the photo is mislabled. Anna is on the left.

Girls heading for international games

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070321/ZONE09/703210595/-1/ZONE09

(Blogger html isn't working AGAIN!!! hence, the lack of embedded hyperlink.)

Lauren wows them! Lauren performed spectacularly at her recital earlier this month. Her ability to perform astounds me. And, she's beautiful on top of it.

At a Loss for Words

I'm not sure what to write anymore, since the wind was taken from my sails. My funny bone has been stolen and buried. My family, half jokingly but at the same time serious, dislikes being the topic of conversation. Something about my tendency to exaggerate to the point of untruth. Dang, I come from Italian stock on one side. Exaggeration is Everything. I guess I'll have to peruse the news for items of amusement. Perhaps I can blog about unsuspecting members of that public that catch my eye. I don't know. I'm at a loss for words.

At Least He Was Listening

Dh came up to me this morning and kissed me. "One," he said, and then gave me a hug. "Two."
He rubbed my back, "Three."
"What are you doing?" I asked, glad for the attention until it began to dawn on me what he was doing.
"Four, five, " he said, patting first my right shoulder and then my left.

Yesterday, I told him about the reference I found that said:

Touch often. UCLA researchers determined that meaningful touch is crucial to maintaining an intimate relationship. Other studies have found that women in particular need eight to ten meaningful touches a day to stay mentally and physically healthy.

"No, no, no," I protested. " That doesn't count. There has to be a minimum of 15 minutes between each touch." I made that part up, not having access to the original data, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere, that is, if the study wasn't conducted by men only.

He hugged me around the shoulders, patted each shoulder again. "There. Six, seven, eight."

At least he was listening.

Am I the Only Female That Hates Shoes?

I have a confession to make: I'm not normal. Those of you that know me are nodding in agreement already, knowing that I speak the truth. Not so fast, compadres. I speak only about my feet. My feet have been deformed by bunions since I was a child. A podiatrist told me this resulted from the natural tendency for my feet to turn in. Mom bought only the best shoes when I was a child, but the die were cast in my genes.

So, why do I blather about my ailments like the aging person that I am? Well, my bunions have affected my lack of enthusiasm for shoes. All shoes cause me pain, its just the degree to which they cause pain. Let me take that back: ugly, really ugly, shoes are comfortable. Podiatrists are no help. They tell me to wear shoes that give me plenty of room (read: UGLY) and with good arch support (read: ORTHOPEDIC). You might as well knit me a shawl and give me a walker. But, they say, insurance will not pay for it if it does not cause pain when wearing appropriate shoes (read: UGLY AND ORTHOPEDIC). And, should you have he operation to fix them, you really should not wear those awful, fashionable shoes, or risk returning to bunion-land.

Pain? They want pain? How about emotional anguish? I can't wear just about any fashionable shoe. The long, pointy toes make me laugh. The European and Birkestocks just don't go with my limited evening wear. How about physical pain? Anything with a heel just shoots pain with each step.

Over time, I've just given in to apathy. I've tried wearing comfortable shoes. I had a pair of brown leather, expensive mules I loved. Because they were so comfortable, I wore them all the time, and I'll admit, they looked it. Dh called them my "cow pie" shoes, because, he said, it looked as if I were wearing two cow pies on my feet. Remarkably, these shoes suspiciously disappeared from the garage one day. I mourn my cow pie shoes.

Dh says someday, we'll get my feet fixed. Some day, like when I don't have to be on them all day long and can actually manage to have time to sit down and recover. By then, I will be in my house dress and slippers, and won't care that I can now wear killer boots.

When I read on Notes from the Trenches about What Not writing about the shoe sale at Endless, I'll admit I went to look. I momentarily dreamed about having dainty little shoes and maybe a pair of kick-ass ones. Then, I looked at the prices and again wonder where my cow pie shoes are. Luckily, it is almost spring, and in Kentucky, that's barefoot season!

Portrait of Aidan

Anna continues to amaze me with her artistic abilities. Here is a portrait, commissioned by my friend, Christine, of her son, Aidan. I wish you could see the original, which is so wonderful in detail, but this scan gives you an idea of how impressed we all are!

More Excitement Than I Need

Fences, Robert Frost says, make good neighbors. Though I enjoy his poetry, I guess I would have to disagree. Fences delineate my property, but seem to serve no purpose. The dogs all laugh among themselves, knowing as they do all the holes for easy passage to the other side. Fences will not keep out the highly motivated (think illegal immigrants).

Testosterone is a powerful thing. Imagine it coursing through the blood of a two year old Morgan stud horse. Separated by only a rolled wire fence topped with electric wire, his nostrils flare at the scent of Ginny, our five year old mare in heat. He leans a bit against the fence. I called the neighbor, verifying that the horse was a stallion, and warning him that he was leaning over the fence. For horses, fences are a suggestion. For a stallion, fences are a simple obstacle.

The horse reared, and slid right over the fence, landing in the middle of our four horses. Lauren was already yelling, and we all ran for our mud boots. What to do? The most dangerous situation I can imagine is trying to separate a stallion from a mare in heat. Throw in three more horses, one of which thinks he's still a stud (though he's not, we all know men like that), and you have a powder keg.

So there we were, the three of us, brandishing rakes and brooms, looking like some yokel farmers against an impossible force. My first concern was for the girls, that they not be trampled or get in the crossfire of charging horses. The horses at first tried running from the stud, but he pursued. Bay, our old TW horse, would stand with the mares, while Jorgen, a little 12.3 hands gelding backed up to the stallion and began kicking for all he was worth.

For about what seemed like days but was probably a half hour, we tried cornering and stealth maneuvers to get close to a horse to catch at least one. The dangers were that the horses would break the fence and run down the road or hurt one another.

The stallion finally chomped onto Jorgen's leg, making him nearly go down. I whacked him hard with a broom handle, which of course, set them all to running again. The bite, however, slowed Jorgen down and he was tiring. I was able to catch him, which reduced the sexual tension in the crowd. We offered the remaining horses grain under the fence, and Lauren was able to reach through and get a lead rope on the stud, who thankfully had on a halter. We removed our horses, and all that remained was to walk home a crazed, out of his mind, walking testosterone factory. By now, he was tired, too, and I was able to get him home without problems, locking him in the barn.

The owner had come home by now, maybe because of my call to him on my cell phone "GET HOME NOW!" He apologized and has called me many times since to check on all the horses and offered to pay the vet bills, if any.

At this point I learned from Lauren that she had seen that the stud had gotten to the mare. I called the vet. "Do you have a horsey version of the morning after pill?" I asked.
Indeed they do, a shot given after five days from the end of her heat. Gee, the things that I continue to learn.

We are all calmed down now. I reminded the neighbor that stud farms generally are double fenced with four board fencing. So do fences make good neighbors? Perhaps the right kind of fence, but it might be easier and cheaper to geld that horse. As for me, I got my exercise for the next month.

Unfaithful

He strolled into the bedroom and sprawled across the bed, smelling like another woman's perfume. Tired and cranky, he was in no mood for talk or stroking. After making sure he got every meal and every advantage, he's two-timing us. Or at least, we suspect as much. It has to be that he's visiting some other woman's home. I can smell it on him.

I don't use perfume or perfumed products in my laundry, so it can't be that he's sitting by the dryer vent. Yes, Lazarus, newly neutered cat, still strays some days from home. I wonder who he's visiting?

Technology, Part II

It's crazy, but I started having night sweats about changing all my technology providers. (Or is this early menopause, early meaning I don't want to have this happen to me until I'm like 78 or something). I woke up the morning that the satellite people were to come install the dishes, thinking I'd made a mistake. Apart from not having DVR or HDTV (don't you just love our age of acronyms?), I'm pretty happy with my service. I just didn't like the big monthly ding in my wallet.

I went over the numbers again, and called my current provider. It seems that if you threaten them with "you'll never see the likes of me again", they are magically able to give you a new price that was previously unavailable. Imagine that! Okay, I gave up the second phone line that I never wanted in the first place, and I gave up the Movie Pak that I didn't know I had and never watched. My monthly bill went down $40 a month. Amazing! Just for the asking. I'm wondering what other bills I can get down by threatening to defect to another provider?

I was thinking about all these bills. This "bundle" is my cable, internet, and phone line with caller ID and call waiting. Thinking back to my childhood, we didn't have any of this. If someone called and you didn't answer, the phone rang and rang (no answering machine) or was busy. They just called back another time - no irritation was expected that you weren't instantly available. We had no cell phones, though I don't remember that being a problem. Mom was at the grocery and you could ask your question when she got home. She actually could shop in solitude - imagine!

The thing I don't think I could now do without is the internet. Information that is available to me at the touch of the keyboard was unimaginable in those days. A friend and I were talking about the incredible changes in technology that my great-grandmother, no, even my grandmother, saw: the TV, cars, planes. But think: I can look up almost anything on the internet. I can self-publish. I can answer my kids questions. Truly amazing.

So, I am not making any changes in my technology package right now. What a relief!

The Perfect Post Award

Suburban Turmoil and MommaK invited me to tell you what blog post I liked the most in the month of February for their Perfect Post Award. It was an easy choice. Fish in My Hair, my sister in spirit, wrote about taking her teenage daughter shopping for jeans, one of those things that parents should be warned about in preparing for the job. Having BTDTSTTS (Been There, Done That, Shrank The T-Shirt), I'd say she summed it up perfectly. Go here to read her post.

If You Give a Girl a Riding Lesson.....

Have you ever read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? If not, run out to your nearest library right now, read it, then come back to this blog. Go ahead, I'll wait.....(waiting, waiting, waiting....) Okay, I see you're back, so now you'll understand this blog. It's really more of a "boy, ain't that the truth" type of book for parents, but I imagine it in a children's book format. BTW, if I CAN use this idea somehow to write a book, I thought of it first, so don't go stealin' it.

Based on my experiences:

If you give a girl a horseback riding lesson, she's going to need a helmet to keep her safe. And of course, she'll need riding boots and jodpurs. She'll enjoy riding, and get better at it. Because she's better at it, you'll want her to have a pony of her own.

If she has a pony of her own, she's going to need a place to keep it. You'll have to build a barn. The pony will want to eat, and you'll have to buy hay and grain. To get the hay home, you'll need a truck. Once you get the hay home, you'll have to unload it (picture of round bale in truck), so you'll need to buy a tractor. You can use the tractor to move great piles of manure around to hiding spots in your yard.

The pony will eat well and grow sleek and pretty. The girl will want to show off her pony, so she'll need a trailer to pull the pony behind the truck to horse shows. You'll spend lots of time at horse shows, trying to keep warm, and watching with pride the result of those horseback riding lessons.

And of course, as she grows, she'll need a better pony. She'll begin to complain a little about the trailer you bought with the clown decals on the side, the door that won't quite shut, and the duct tape over the window that fell out. She'd like a nice three-horse, slant load trailer. And of course, with a bigger trailer, you're going to need a heavier truck......

Just $5 a Month Extra

Did you ever try to get a straight answer from service technology folks? Through enough ads to wallpaper my entire house, I was convinced that by changing my technology package (phone, internet, and TV service), I could save billions of dollars per year plus they'll give me money outright. For the past two days, I've been on the phone checking and re-checking the details. No matter the company, the fine print is unbelievable.

One company promises a free four TV system and free installation. However, having four tv's on the system costs $5 a month extra. How's that? Well, the system and installation is included, but not the service. So add another $5. And, they'll give you free DVR, just you can't use it unless you pay an additional, you guessed it, $5 a month extra. And, you should go ahead and get the HD box in the event we ever replace the old tv's we have and upgrade to the modern age. Except, in accepting the box, you have the service which costs (are you getting the refrain?) $5 a month extra.

So I went back to my original company, declaring myself a loyal customer who'd rather not change companies, but was told sorry by Buffy that they had no reduced costs to offer me. The following day, I called to cancel my existing service and was told that they could offer me a substantially reduced cost to my current monthly bill. When I complained that I had been told the opposite just yesterday, they said "well, you didn't talk to the right person." Excuse meeeee. And I was supposed to know this?

I am going to change everything, which changes my email address, websites, channel numbers, everything that makes you feel like you are keeping up with the modern world to a small degree. Now, I am going to jump off the shelf in the ocean, not knowing how far down it goes. I'm expecting some serious disruptions for awhile, and will probably in the end wish I hadn't disturbed the status quo.

The Heart of the Matter

Reading: There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith

Synopsis: How an inner-city eacher - winner of the American Teacher Award - inspires his students and challenges us to rethink the way we educate our children

Excerpt of the day in reference to some students that had chosen a less than desirable path in life and/or were angry with him:

"They taught me not to confuse academic excellence with character. When I came to the Jungle [inner city school where he taught], I was shocked and upset by the incredibly low academic achievement of the students there. Over the first few years I was so determined to inspire students to achieve academic excellence that I was confusing my best students with my best people. Now I'm focusing on students who strive to reach the highest levels of humanity, which means that I'd better reach those levels as well. "

Okay, I can't just stop with one quote:

"I knew that I had to be ther person I wanted the kids to be. I never want my kids to be depressed or despairing about any bad breaks or failures that they've had. Well, that had to apply to me as well. I now knew that if I wanted the kids to work hard, then I'd better be the hardest-working person they'd ever known. If I wanted them to be kind, I'd better be the kindest human being they'd ever met. Teaching must be by example, not by lecture."

Recommended reading: To Kill a Mockingbird
Next stop: the library

Lazarus (Continued)

Back in November, a red tabby was hit by a car on our road (http://lifetimelearning.blogspot.com/2006/11/lazarus.html), but when I went to pick him up, he got up and ran off. In January, the same cat showed up in our barn. We decided to get his "wings clipped" so he wouldn't roam and let him live in the barn, kill the mice and varmits. Here he is catching mice:

My Daughter the Artist

Anna is doing portraits to earn money for her trip to Germany. This was the brainchild of my friend, Christine, who commissioned the first (and second) portrait. I was truly amazed at the results. She is so talented! And the daughter of two engineers has this talent! God certainly works miracles.

My Son, the Drag Queen

We've always noticed the resemblance of my son to my second daughter. I guess I just never realized, until this week the depth of that resemblance. We were digging in a box of old photos for photos of our house, pre-makeover and happened upon a few of Anna at the exact age Wm is now. As soon as we saw them, we all busted out laughing, for they were photos of Anna when she was about to go onstage for a ballet recital in the makeup that the ballet studio insisted the kids wear. And for all the world, the photo looks so much like Wm in drag! We tried to convince him that it was his own self, in a dress. Wm was not amused. However, I'll let you judge for yourself.

Somethings Are Just Too Damn Funny

Had to share:

Cathy -- [adjective]: Sexually stunning 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Thanks, Kim, for the link. You've made my day.

The Eyes Have It

Outside of the exam room, people probably momentarily thought that the doctor was removing a twelve inch splinter from Wm's eyes. pulling it out slowly. In reality, she'd only put one drop in the eye to dilate it. The exam was interesting on several levels. Wm was fascinated with the poster of diseased eyes hanging on the wall and interupted the doctor frequently to ask her what was wrong with each one. Though mostly very patient with him, it began to wear thin with the fifty-third question.

Trying to distract him with the fact she was shining a light directly into his light-sensitive eyes, I jokingly asked if she saw worms in there. Wm then graphically described the scene last week from "House" where a 25 foot tapeworm was pulled from the stomach during surgery. The doctor turned to look at me. "He doesn't watch that show, really," I sputtered. "He walked in at that moment."

"That show is quite graphic at times," she said.
"Yes, I know, that's what attracts him to it." (All you have to say is something is scary or bloody or gross and he's right there. Normally, we tease him out of the room by letting him watch something upstairs with Anna.)

The only distressing part of the day was that the technician quickly gave Wm a color-blindness test, declared that he was red-green colorblind, and sent us back into our room. I sat wondering, what does that mean? What does he see? Questions flew around the room in the air. Finally, the doctor came in, confirming that he was red-green colorblind.

Internet junkie that I am, I came home and scoured the internet. Google-ing it, I found many references, many photos of what the world might look like to a person with this, considered a disability. All day, when I had a moment, I looked it up. No cure. Can be rejected for military -hmmmm maybe an advantage there. No fighter pilots - yeah! Oh, but what paintings look like! Will he not see the colors of the master paintings, the reds of a sunset, the leaves in the fall? My heart sank. As disabilities go, I guess this was one that we could live with, but not something you wish for a child.

As I continued to read, I found a website that said RG colorblind people cannot distinguish between red and green apples. Having both. I asked Wm which he preferred. He said he liked the green one. He also was able to see the lines of the online color-blind tests I found. I am now thinking that he isn't colorblind, that there was some communication thing going on or misunderstanding, and that they didn't take time to do more. Now, I'm pissed! They sent me off thinking that this was unmistakeable and unchangeable. I'll have to continue to investigate further.

Oh, and you people that make those little pictures for eye exams - telephones don't look like that and haven't for the past, oh, twenty five years. Time for an update. Wm creatively said it looked like a chair to him, and it did.

As for me, I survived my exam as well but went about the day with dilated eyes, looking like either a bush baby or drug addict. "I've been to the eye doctor," I told everyone I met, hoping to forestall their speculations that I'd gone over the edge. My kids had a good ha-ha at my expense. Glad to be of service.

Next, He'll Be Asking for the Car Keys

Wm turns five this week, and just today, I saw an important milestone reached (sniff, sniff). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he learned to use the volume control on the TV remote. Before I know it, he'll have complete control over the TV. Oh, wait....he already does.

I love those child development charts, don't you? The ones that tell you if Johnny is progressing at age level and is ready to go to school? They missed a few really important ones:

• Can play PlayStation for 8 hours straight without needing a bathroom break. Shows control of bladder
• Can wipe his own arse, but may still need help washing hands to get "it" off of his hands
• Speaks phrases of Spanish from watching "Go, Diego, Go", necessitating the employ of a translator.
• Can make his own "manly" food, like microwave popcorn and chicken patty sandwiches. Makes them repeatedly without bothering anyone else for help, eating his weight in them daily.
• Is adept at manipulating all the adults around him to do his beck and call
• Dresses and undresses without help, fifty times a day.
• Shows creativity in language development: "I knowed it because Aidan telled me."
• Can snore like his daddy
• Can quote SpongeBob

I'm sure those of you having experienced five year olds can join me in revising these lists, which are obviously missing key milestones.

Getting Warmed Up

A previous blog listed some of my reading and listening material right now. All true. But TC shamed me with her comment "You're much more refined than I am" because I realized that I hadn't told the whole truth. I also have "The Devils' Daughter" hiding under my bed with my chocolate stash. You, know the kind of book, the one where the woman is fabulously wealthy, gorgeous (though she doesn't pay any attention to that, tomboy that she is), and always lives happily ever after the life-threatening adventures that just make life so much more interesting.
I don't know why I read such crap, but I guess it takes my mind away from the fact that ocean levels are rising and the world is heating up.

I guess if I were shallow, I could say that the good news is that I won't have to buy a retirement home in Florida, which will be underwater. The beach is coming to me. That's convenient. Of course, all those people that live there now, will be migrating north and want to come live here.

All that talk of global warming seemed remote as cars slid into ditches on Saturday. Our roads weren't cleaned off at all and I wondered where all the tax dollars go. Though we live in a wealthy county (we're the poor relations), our roads were untreated. Dh said that we were just driving the wrong vehicle. In our county, you're expected to drive a Hummer when it snows. No road clearing necessary. It has warmed though, and we're about to enter my favorite (not) season - MUD.

At the Tractor Show

Is there anything that can make a little boy happier?

It is 13 @(#*%& DEGREES FARENHEIT outside and we're headed to Lexington with the horses, if I can pull the trailer up a small slope through several layers of snow. Anna and I, both of us disliking cold, have decided that in our next life, the girls will have to take up some indoor sport - like bowling or ping pong. This cold, outside sport stuff is for the birds. The girls are calling, so I'm off. I need a bumper sticker: I rather be blogging.

Snow

Today, we didn't go to Lexington as planned. Several of us felt a little under the weather, and the threatening snow and cold kept us home. We had a beautiful snow. Dh and Wm still made it down to the Farm and Tractor Show, as the van drives well in the snow. (My whimpy truck pulling a horse trailer with two horses is another story.) Dh reports that he and Wm traded our house for a combine.

The girls and I stayed home and watched the movie, "Marie Antoinette". I finished watching the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore.

Reading: Holy Lane, Whose Land by Dorothy Drummond
Listening to: The Three Muskateers by Alexander Dumas

Maybe He'll Be an Engineer

In my last post, I wrote about my five year old's problems with tolerating clothing. Though it is 6 degrees F here during the day, he's likely inside wearing only his briefs. It makes one cold just to look at him. TC wrote in response:

I think he's destined to be a brilliant but eccentric engineer. Those engineering guys are... quirky. My father-in-law is 72, and he's still fussy about underwear fabric, socks, and his t-shirts HAVE to be line-dried. Oy.

Well, there you have it. It's a genetic defect, double recessive. Both my husband (agricultural) and I (chemical) are engineers by degree (BS - meaning, bullsh-t). Just call me Quirky.

And for how I spent yesterday, visit the blog at http://www.goodshepherdscare.blogspot.com/

Note to self: Curse blogger, which is having trouble today.

Shopping

I've written before why I detest shopping. Fish in My Hair detailed shopping with teens for jeans. (New reality show title, eh?) Honestly, I might as well stop blogging and just post a hyperlink every day:

What She Said

It will save me a lot of time typing. We are evidently living the same life in a parallel universe. Only, she's funnier. I have commented to her that I vote her Erma Bombeck's replacement. Either she gets syndicated soon, or I'm going to have to steal her material and make some money on it myself.

To continue on the clothing theme, I'd almost rather shop for jeans than try to clothe my near-5 year old. He has some kind of clothing hypersensitivity. He literally crawls in his skin at night, and can only sleep in his underwear, no shirt. Shirts bunch up around his armpits, he says, and he can't stand them. Problem? He also kicks covers off, so in the middle of the night he's freezing and wakes up. As I try to read to him at night, he pulls and tugs and wrestles alligators.

The fun continues in the morning. He wears no socks, even on the coldest days, as socks bother him. They don't line up right, the line on them often slipping to the sole. Tube socks, you say? They slip down. On to shirts. He can only wear short sleeves, as he cannot stop himself from chewing on long sleeves. This bothers him, but he cannot stop, so short sleeves only. No zipper or velco closings around the neck, no turtlenecks. Still, this is easy compared to pants.

Pants can have no elastic around the ankle, as they ride up. With a long torso and tall, he's more slender than most and the pants we have are too big around the waist. And so on. We're down to about 3 pair that are acceptable. Today, he's wearing shorts, the only thing we could find that were "comfortable".

I picture him as an adult male, having to get a job where they let you wear a white tshirt and a pair of baggy shorts, since that's all he'll wear. Kind of narrows the field, doesn't it? At present, I think he's headed for a career testing PlayStation games, so maybe that will take care of itself.

Happy Valentine's Day

Want some unusual, steamy verse for your homemade Valentine card? I can tell you where to look: The Bible. I'm serious. Go read the Song of Songs. Here is a sample:

I belong to my lover
and for me he yearns.
Come, my lover, let us go forth to the fields
and spend the night among the villages.
Let us go early to the vineyards, and see if the vines are in bloom,
If the buds have opened,
if the pomegranates have blossomed;
There will I give you my love.

How about:

O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you, let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.

I note that my Bible does have a preface to the book explaining that this poetic form portrays the love of the Lord and his people, using courtship and marriage customs of the time the text was written. "It is a parable in which the true meaning of mutual love comes from the poem as a whole." It is also possible to see it as "an inspired portrayal of ideal human love...and a descriptions of the sacredness and depth of a married union."

So get out your Bilble and brush up on your Songs, and have a lovely Valentine's Day.

Germany

Anna and her riding partner, Kristen, have been chosen as the novice pair to represent the United States in Germany this April. Keep an eye on our new website for updates on our progress to raise money to send them there.

http://usmga.home.insightbb.com/

Pin Yourself on My Map

I found a fun item over at Bravenet. Click on this

to place a pin on your place in the world. I've put this in the sidebar under "Visitors" so that you can check back later to see who's been here.

It's All in the Perspective

A law was passed recently in the county where I reside banning smoking in all public places. Based on irefutable data that second hand smoke endangers the health of bystanders, the county magistrates thought to clear the air.

Local business owners weighed in, complaining that they would lose business to the nearby largest city, which I doubt, as that city has imposed a similar ban. Yet, one magistrate in particular was able to get the implementation of the ban postponed in the hope of find a way to kill this law.

Smokers decry their right to smoke in a section designated for them. Not having any sense of smell left and having coated the lining of their nose and lungs with tar, they have little sympathy for those of us that get intense headaches and have allergies to the pollutant. Often, they compare their right to smoke with other activites that hurt only the user, such as overeating.

Dh says that the comparison doesn't wash. Smokers need a change of perspective. For example, let's say that a certain candy tastes very good to you, satisfies your oral cravings and nervousness, gives you a little (sober) buzz. Sounds good so far? Suppose this candy causes the user to have an outrageous amount of, shall we say, silent flatulance. You know the kind? The silent bombs? The ones that burn as they come out?

Let's say that not only is the smell unpleasant, but it penetrates your hair, your clothing, causing you to have to wash everything when you get home. The smell is pungent, giving you the feeling of a red hot poker near your eyes, which feel dry and itchy. Just about as the air clears, another wafts by.

In addition to the smell, it has been, let's say, been determined that these farts contain particles from, well, you know, and that these particles are known to cause colon cancer. And people die from colon cancer. And yet, the sulfur-causing candy is widely used, widely available, with users claiming to have a right to emit whenever and wherever they wish.

Dh says that the next time you read a letter to the editor from a smoker, insert the word "fart" for "smoke" and see if it doesn't make you see the light.

Kentucky Grammar

In a year and a half, I will have lived in Kentucky as long as I previously lived in Ohio, where I was raised. In terms of time spent living here, I will soon be a Kentuckian. I think the transformation has already occurred, as was evidenced by my (serious) discussion with my older daughter about Kentucky grammar.

We decided that your'alls is plural possessive: Is it in your'alls house?
Not to be confused, of course, with you'all, which is obviously a pronoun: Are you'all coming with us? Any well versed Kentuckian can also make use of the contractions where'all, as in "Where'all did you look?" and what'all as in "What'all are you doin'?"

Pronuciation has also seemed to take a turn for the, shall we say, country sound. Wha-d-jeat? often comes out of my mouth and my crisp "What did you eat?" has faded. In time, no one will know that I was ever ed-ji-cated.

I'm also told that directions to my house heralded my conversion to Kentuckianism: the barn is up closer to the road than the house and our driveway is blacktopped (not the norm in our neck of the woods).

My younger daughter, a writer and grammar-ologist, shook her head at us. I don't know what'all her problem is.

Fifteen Years Younger

My dear friend, Becky, came by with a gift that could only be given in a truly cemented friendship - a book entitled Fifteen Years Younger. Next, she'll be secretly videotaping me and sending it in to that show that puts me in a box and judges my age before and after my makeover. Perhaps I could use it?

But I mislead you a bit. The book is on yoga, and how fifteen minutes a day of stretching can make you look and feel fifteen years younger. Becky said she could do fifteen minutes. A week has passed and I'm still trying to find that fifteen minutes. In an email today, Becky asked if I'd skipped ahead, (knowing me well, she suspected I had), and I have to admit I have.

I do have one of the postions mastered, however, showing my comittment to the program:

New Chicken Lickin'

We drove through the back roads of Kentucky in the dark, looking for a chicken hatchery in Wincester (probably named after the gun). We'd had a long day at a riding competition, but through an internet search, I found a family that raised Blue Silkies, a bantam breed. Blue Silkie chickens have three colors: blue, a white with gray and tan, and the desired (for us) black.

We were looking for a young chick to tame to replace the beloved Chicken Lickin', murdered before her time by the neighbor's dog. Well, if you look at Wm's face, you can see that the drive was worth it.

We came home with three, the only black one available that was bigger and two whites. I eyed the adorable week-old chicks, more easily tamed but more fragile, as Will pointed directly at the older, bigger black chicken. "I want that one."

When I assured him that the little ones would grow up to be like Chicken Lickin', he said, "But look, this one is ALREADY the right size." So he went home with us. Yes, he. As luck would have it, two of the three are roosters. How do I know? Have you ever seen two goofy boys butting their bellies together? Roosters do that. They prance around, threatening each other. Mostly, they get along, but I think the white one will be looking for a new home.

We are off again tomorrow to a horse competition, and a long day.

The World's Best Horse

My girls laugh at me when I declare "Bay", my Tennessee Walking Horse, as the World's Best Horse. And he is....to me. His value to me is priceless, though anyone else might see an aging, scruffy and sometimes, pushy, horse.

Isn't it true, though that "best" is often a very personal thing? The "best" show horse in the world would be useless to me. A horse that knows me and I, him can't be bought.

Parenting and family issues are a lot like this. What works for one, may not work for another.

Here we are practicing for our next costume party. He's going as a human and I'm going as a horse.

Photo compliments of Christine

Wednesday

Yesterday, I was running low on laundry detergent, a serious situation, and ran to StuffMart to get more. Of course, I could think of dozens of other things I needed, and $123 dollars later, I returned home to unpack. No laundry detergent - the main reason for the trip. It was not on my receipt, so evidently the man behind me got a surprise purchase!

The girls have discovered a fancy score for "Chopsticks" and I am going insane. Okay, I'm happy that they, two sisters, are sitting together, laughing, working together, that they have this time together - BUT I'M GOING INSANE, PEOPLE!!! Wm, is sitting at my feet, using my meat tenderizer hammer to bust apart his least favorite Hotwheels cars. I'm going upstairs to hide in my room.

Posts Coming

I suppose I'm going to have to take up writing in my sleep, for there isn't enough time during regular business hours. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame says he spends two hours a day on his blog.
I think I spend 15 minutes. How is one to write anything meaningful?

In addition to our regular activities, I attended a homeschooling moms' night out on Thursday, hosted a teen costume party for about 25 teens and maybe 8 adults at our house on Friday; left early the next morning for Lexington and a competition where I was in charge of registration, did some announcing over the microphone, drove from there east to a chicken farm to pick up a new "Chicken Lickin'" and then back home; Sunday morning was Anna's religion class and Church. What a week! It was all fun and well worth it but I'm still recovering.

My mind is full of things to write.

A Cherished Moment

Yesterday, I was getting ready to leave for the afternoon. Lauren and Anna were to watch William for me. Generally, I try to be home for them. Book study has a way of not getting done when I'm not around, although if you count reading for pleasure, plenty of that gets done.

This board meeting (I jokingly said they don't call them "bored" meetings for nothing) seemed important to go to. And, William can be quite demanding, though I suppose I could record the time as learning what it's like to parent a four year old. That is, if I kept good records.

So, I was about to leave. Wm sat on the floor playing, fashioning guns out of the expensive connecting learning cubes I bought to unsuccessfully teach him patterns and math ideas. Lauren was playing the piano. Anna sat a few feet behind her, drawing. What a nice moment, I thought, both together, doing the thing that gives them joy. I needed to get out of the way, leave them to this moment.

Here is the drawing Anna made:

She has a real talent, self-taught. I love this drawing because I've seen this very image in real life so many times. Someday, I won't be seeing Lauren sitting there everyday, and photographs, at least snapshots, don't quite catch the moment the way a fine drawing will.

Seeing his sister drawing motivated William to also draw Lauren:

I love how happy she looks, and how she is looking to the side.

And the bored meeting was long, but not too bad. It is interesting to see the inside workings of our sports organization.

Carpe Diem

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.

It's the life in your years.

~Abraham Lincoln

Now that I have teenagers, I am often asked what they are going to study, what they are going to do with their lives as they become adults. Increasingly, I am seeing this as an interesting cultural question - what are they to become. To become, as if they aren't already what they are. As I continue to homeschool, I ponder this reality of our culture.

Children and teens are in a holding pattern, preparing for "real life". Choices are made in late teen years about what to study in preparation for getting a "real job". This way of looking at childhood as only a boot camp to prepare for the working world overshadows the chance to actually live in the moment of the day.

My girls and the way we live are slowly changing the way I look at childhood and education. Anna isn't just intent on becoming a writer, she is one. Each day, she writes and writes. Very private about it, I'll likely not read this writing until I buy the book. She is not, however, going to be a writer - she already is one. Getting published is an eventuality.

When people hear Lauren play the piano, they ask if she'll go on to study it in college. A normal parent, I can't help but hope that she does something with her study of piano and her beautiful playing. Unlike others, I know, however, that her intense study of it is not and will never be wasted. Piano playing is in her very skin. It has already affected who she is, and she has already done something with it. I know she will always play. She is a pianist.

Already, they are gifted horsewomen. Will they become horse trainers, competitive riders? They do, already. Perhaps you'll not hear of them, but they've already accomplished more with their horses than most people dream of.

I think our young people act out often because they aren't recognized for who they already are, what they already are doing, and given the space to be. And often, there aren't the opportunities and the mentors to help them find who they are right now. My girls are gifted with wonderful mentors, adults who share their love of their own specialties. Would that all young people find such adults in their lives and live dreams today.

Big Breasts

Now that I have the attention of all my male readers, I will have to disappoint you with the subject matter: the size of chicken breasts. I write to you now only because I sit waiting for my dinner to finish cooking. Four chicken breasts have been in the oven for well over an hour and they are still pink inside. My family dances in front of the stove. "WHEN? When will dinner be ready?"

Well, how am I supposed to know? Chicken used to take about 45 minutes to cook, but that was in the day before they exposed the chickens to steroids or growth hormones or whatever it is that makes them so big. Resultant mutant chickens are now a good six inches thick and weigh in like turkey breasts. I may have to buy new, larger pans to hold them.

Why do we need Dolly Parton chicken breasts, I ask you? Nutritional guidelines state that we should eat the amount of meat that would correspond to the size of a pack of playing cards or the palm of your hand. Yet, they are growing and cutting meat that each piece would feed a family of four in a third world country. Heck, it would feed a family of four in OUR country.

And in our family of five, that would do it, because William is now a confirmed vegetarian. Recently, he was eating a chicken patty. We had the following conversation:

W: Is this chicken?
M: Yes.
W: What part of the chicken is it?
M: Well, they chop up all the parts to make the patty.
W: Was the chicken dead?
M: Yes, they killed it.
W: How did they kill it?
M: Likely the men in the factory cut off it's head, hung it upside down.....
W: Why did they kill it?
M: So you could eat it.
W: Do chickens have bones?
M: Yes.
W: So if you cut open a chicken, you could see the bones?
M: Yes, you could.

The chicken conversation continued for some time with William conceding that he WAS willing to eat chicken patties, but not chicken, because he didn't like eating animals. By now, all the visualization of the killing of chickens 'bout had me turning vegetarian, but don't you worry. The first smell of a good steak would shake my convictions.

You can see why we don't raise and kill our own chickens. It's hard enough to explain to him why the mom who will tend to most any hurt animal she finds, will set traps and kill mice in our house. Well, I'm going to go stare at the chicken in the oven again and see if I can get it to cook any faster. Maybe I can nuke it.

De-Lurking

Did you know this week is de-lurking week? January 8-12

I'm sure most lurkers are just very busy, and though knowing how to comment, are often called at that moment of wanting to comment to wipe Johnny's, uh , nose, or maybe the dog is trying to eat the ham off the counter that you were going to fix for dinner. And, then you get sidetracked and forget to leave a comment and are unintentional lurkers.

For some readers, though I'm sure they're few, they not only don't know how to make a comment, but they also don't know what "lurking" means. It means reading in the shadows, being there unseen. So, who are you out there? I know from my stats you are reading!

Venn Diagrams

Math is intriguing to me because it all fits together so nicely. You don't have to have an opinion. It seems logical - until you apply it to real life. Remember those Venn Diagrams from sixth grade?



If you have three subsets of information on a given subject, the area where they overlap is an area where all three subsets have something in common.

Last week, I took the girls shopping for jeans or pants. One of my girls had but two pairs of pants in total. While shopping, I realized why.

Here is a Venn Diagram of my shopping experience:




























Notice there is no overlap, no common area. Pair after pair was tried. Too much decoration, leg too straight, leg too flared, fits too high on hip, fits too low. Too tight in the bum, too tight in the leg, too loose in the waist. And sizes seem to have no meaning these days. A size 4 in one department can be too big, while a size 5 in another can be too small. It's enough to make me hate math! (Not really, but shopping......)

Mirror Image Twins

Discussion of cow twins led Lauren to remember seeing a TV show in which "mirror image twins", human twins, were shown. Are there really mirror image twins, she asked? I've Googled it, and yes, there are, which fits in nicely with our Biology discussions of late:

What are mirror image twins?
Mirror image twins are identical twins that result when a fertilized egg splits later in the embryonic stage than usual, typically from day 9 to 12. Mirror image twins tend to exhibit characteristics with reversed asymmetry (e.g., one twin is left-handed and the other is right-handed). If this split happens much later than this, then the twins can be co-joined. A DNA-based zygosity test cannot determine is twins are mirror image twins.

Tying It All Together

One reason I suppose I love homeschooling so much is that I have days like today. It wasn't a remarkable day in most respects. It was overcast, feeling colder because of a brisk wind. We tried going to an indoor playground so that William would play with his friend while the girls and I studied together. We didn't accomplish as much as I'd have liked.

So, you might be thinking, what did happen that renews my spirit? The feeling that the way we are conducting our learning ties together, follows interests and is natural in its progression. This is a welcome feeling, after feeling rather alarmed and down-trodden on Monday.

We'd attended the open house of a newly formed cottage school with "Classical Education" offerings. The speaker decried that even most educated people hadn't studied Homer, Socrates, Aristotle. Vaguely, I know who they are, but I'd never studied them despite my years of schooling. Anxiety easily grips the heart of traditionally schooled homeschool mom. Am I covering enough? Are they learning enough? Have I ruined them???

But this week, today in particular, made me feel better despite the fact that Flylady would cry in shame at her student. I'd just recently finished a book Lauren had asked me to read - Annie Between the States by L. M. Elliott - so that we could discuss it. Set in the Civil War, Lauren and I have discussed that the central issue in the war was states' rights, and only later, slavery. I marvelled that we still fight this same issue today - states' rights, something I hear about on National Public Radio or in the paper quite frequently: Does the central government or states have the right to legislate on issues such as abortion and gay marriage? Fortunately, this battle today is fought in courts and not on battle fields.

Speaking of battle fields, the main character of the book, Annie, had a great love for her horse, which she had to allow her brother to ride off to battle. Horses featured greatly in the Civil War. As avid horse lovers, we followed this thread to a DVD called Horses of Gettysburg: Civil War Minutes IV. So far, we've watched half an hour of this documentary about an estimated 72,000 horses and mules which served in the Civil War. Tonight, we learned that Kentucky in particular was noted for the strong, fine mules that it bred.

And speaking of mules, we were studying cellular reproduction in biology when I ran across an interesting item in a 4H publication, Horse Science. (I'd saved it for years, thinking some day, we might use it.) In it, it said that horses crossed with donkeys, producing either a mule or a hinny, are usually sterile. I'd heard this before, but never knew why. This booklet explains that "they have 63 chromosomes, with 32 from the horse and 31 from the donkey parent. the resulting chromosomes are not in pairs and the sex cells usually end up without a complete set. The unbalanced chromosome situation prevents functioning of the sex cells, resulting in sterility." So there you have it, from the horse's mouth!

Sterility. Lauren remembered hearing her relatives, who'd run a dairy farm, that if a cow gave birth to twins, one boy, one girl, that the heifer was often sterile. Why is that, she asked? So we are off on another path, finding answers, learning along the way, tying it all together.

Follow - Up
A heifer born with a male twin is called a free-martin, and they indeed are usually sterile. To learn more, read at that a female calf, twin to a male, is usually sterile, is no myth at the bottom of the page. If you Google it, you will see that, as one website puts it, it happens often enough to have a name.

Creativity

Janet, a cyberspace friend, sent this to a list of which I am a member:

http://tinyurl.com/y4gj84
The speaker is Sir Ken Robinson author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. (Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA.)

It is 20 minutes long, funny and well worth our time. It left me wondering how I could go to this conference that is held every year in California. From the website:

Each year, TED hosts some of the world's most fascinating people: Trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses. The talks they deliver have had had such a great impact, we thought they deserved a wider audience. So now - with our sponsor BMW and production partner WNYC/New York Public Radio we're sharing some of the most remarkable TED talks with the world at large. Each week, we'll release a new talk, in audio and video, to download or watch online. For best effect, plan to listen to at least three, start to finish. They have a cumulative effect... "

Happy Listening! (And thanks for the link, Janet!)

A New Start

It must have been a female mouse, for she underestimated the size of her hips. While replacing games on the shelf of a closet I was cleaning, trying to make room for and organize new toys, I noticed a dark shadow near the back. I got a light, and decided that it was dh's turn to take care of this one. A mouse had tried to squeeze through the bars of the shelving, and gotten stuck by the hips and died. This was a grotesque beginning to my effort to get organized.

As I took out toys and matched pieces, Wm. expressed joy as if with long lost friends. Running away with a handful, my organization spreading to chaos. I push on today, against monumental odds, tossing out the old, in with the new.

After a week away, it's enough to find my shoes in the morning. New school work to do, activites outside the home resuming. I want to pack myself with the now deflated Christmas stockings.

Outside the window, the sun shines and it promises to be almost spring-like. I vacillate between loving the mild winter and feeling terribly guilty because maybe it's because of global warming. Today, I think I'll give myself one day to just enjoy it.