Christmas Craft Question

We have some strings of Christmas lights that are being tossed because they don't work.

I've seen the craft where you turn an old Christmas lightbulb into a reindeer with a pipe cleaner and a couple of googly eyes. Boring.

I found this one making a festive hair clip, and I think I could adapt some of the smaller 'fairy lights' to use with it.

You can make Santa and penguins from old lightbulbs, but we don't do much Santa and the penguin is not boring enough, i.e. requires too many steps and we have to wait for the paint to dry.

What craft idea can you share for us to do with our used Christmas lights?

Moral Obligation to be Intelligent, part 2

The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent, by John Erskine
Part two (part one is here)

The disposition to consider intelligence a peril is an old Anglo-Saxon
inheritance. Our ancestors have celebrated this disposition in verse and
prose. Splendid as our literature is, it has not voiced all the aspirations of humanity, nor could it be expected to voice an aspiration that has not characteristically belonged to the English race; the praise of intelligence is not one of its characteristic glories.

"Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever."

Here is the startling alternative which to the English, alone among great nations, has been not startling but a matter of course. Here is the casual assumption that a choice must be made between goodness and intelligence; that stupidity is first cousin to moral conduct, and cleverness the first step into mischief; that reason and God are not on good terms with each other; that the mind and the heart are rival buckets in the well 'of truth, inexorably balanced- full mind, starved heart- stout heart, weak head.

It is true that intelligent people can also be quite immoral people. But so can people of average intelligence. Folks with slow and steady rather than lightening speed intelligence are not thereby protected from sin and girded in virtue. Ill-educated, uninformed, or simply 'not very academic' people are not more protected from the human faults that assail us all. An intelligent person might become puffed up with knowledge, true. But a less intelligent person might be just as puffed up because he has no time for books, busy as he is with more important things.. Neither ignorance nor average intelligence are charms against failings of temper, selfishness, profligacy, gluttony, or any other all too human faults.

When Peter said that 'knowledge puffs up, but love builds up,' I do not think he was saying, "So be ignorant." No. He was saying, rather, 'be sure not to neglect love, however knowledgeable you are.'
Innocence is a virtue. Ignorance is not.

To be continued
Part Three is here.

Canaries in the Minefield

Spunky is talking about unschooling again, and she is on a roll. She quotes a comment from a previous unschooling post, where unschooling Jeanne, says this:

I think it is probably wise to look at unschoolers as "canaries in the coal mine." If they will come for me (regulate me; prohibit me from customizing my children's education), an unschooler (who lives a very organized life), because *I* am not using a standard enough approach, then "regular" homeschoolers are also at risk.

I think she's right.

Spunky also links to this hilarious, very tongue in cheek post, where one of the more humourless comenters says Spunky's kids won't be able to function around anybody who isn't a WASP, which I thought was pretty funny and displayed quite an insular mindset on the part of that commenter. I can't speak for Spunky's neighborhood, but I currently live in a town of five thousand, and maybe fifty of those people are black. Of those fifty, about forty of them are homeschooled kids. It's the public schooled kids in my town who never spend any time with people of color. When we lived in Nebraska we lived in a similar small town. I asked several students in the public schools if they'd ever had a person of color in their school, and they told me no, not only were there no children in their schools who were not white, they didn't even know anybody in any part of their lives who wasn't white. My homeschooled kids, sheltered, protected, and 'isolated,' knew more diverse people than any of the public schooled kids in town did.

curmudgeon in those same comments says

"I had a cousin who homeschooled. When her oldest reached 18, she decided to send him to the local junior college so he could get some exposure to a structured school setting before attempting a four year college. I couldn't help but think that 12 hours in the typical public JC would undo 12 years of homeschooling... or at least confuse the heck out of the kid. (Mom, there were people there with metal stuck in their tongues! And they were smoking! But they were nice: One of them offered to let me have one of the pills he was taking....)
I haven't heard about how the experiment's been going lately....

I don't know how the cousin's experiment is going, either, but in my own house that's pretty much what we did. We've homeschooled since 1988, and the HG graduated from homeschool and went to Junior College. She found it frustrated dealing with kids who didn't care about learning. She found it a challenge to adjust to the schedule, but please, show me a college student who didn't. She consistently made the honor roll. She's now at the state university where she continues to do well. It did not confuse her or undo 12 years of homeschooling. Criticisms like this are kind of funny, really, because they reveal so many false assumptions on the part of the critic. Just because we homeschool, that's no reason to assume my kids have never seen anybody with body piercing and don't know any better than to accept a pill offered by a classmate...

We don't unschool, but we have several friends who do, and I've been pretty impressed with their kids. I'm also pretty impressed with the parents, and I think maybe they don't often give themselves enough credit for how much of an impact they really have on their kids' educations. They are usually such interesting, intellectually curious, and generally fascinating people that they naturally create an incredibly enriching, nurturing environment and pass on that intellectual curiosity to their kids.

What this all reveals is the one area where public schools are fairly successful. They call it 'socialization,' but I don't. I would call it indoctrination into conformity. And it isn't really all that funny. People so successfully indoctrinated into conformity are easily led to regulate nonconformists into submission to the 'norm.' They rarely realize how conformist they really are, but you can always spot them- if you are a nonconformist yourself. Their strongest criticism of an idea or is usually that it's 'weird.' They are always concerned about something they call 'the real world,' by which they really mean, a world where it's best to just fit in. Don't make waves. Don't be weird. These people claim to value difference and that they can't be pigeon holed, but the differences they value are only skin deep- they really are uncomfortable with true nonconformity.

Unschooling is apparently under attack, and it would behoove us all to defend it. Other forms of homeschooling will be next.

* Er, yes... about that title. Should be Canaries in a Coal Mine, of course. My brain entertains itself by playing word association games when I'm not looking. Embarrassing for me, but delightful for my brain.

No, this is not yet the Extended Version of the Victiorian Feminism Diatribe.

Actually, The Equuschick has no idea what this post is going to be, because throughout the day she has had two or three thoughts for a blog post, forgotten two or three others, and has in general given upon the whole post-planning thing altogether in favour of a stream-of-conciousness attitude towards life in general. This is because she feels that such a method reveals her true self more accurately, is a more honest approach to art, and is form of self-expression necessary for her emotional well-being.

Actually, it just requires less actual thought, work, and talent, which is why is so many authors, otherwise completely without actual ability, do it all the time and get called "brilliant".

Just call her Brilliant.


The Equuschick is going to be in a Christmas parade tomorrow. This is for work, and she has to do it even though she loathes parades and this one will be in the cold and she'll be WALKING, hello, has anyone ever heard of FROSTBITE OR HYPOTHERMIA?

She has been in parades before. It involves days of preparating and planning for a one ten-minute display in front of total strangers, and is therefore not a worthwhile idea.

Christmas Crafts- and a Request for Assistance

Top: Jenny and the FYB cut mitten and stocking shapes out of felt. Then Jenny showed the Boy how to sew them together on the sewing machine. Then he glues random shapes in random order on them. You can add a loop of thread to these to hang on the tree or clothespin them to a improvised indoor clothesline for a cute decoration.

Bottom left- this is still in process. The FYG painted craft sticks (.25 cents for a big bag of them at the thrift shop. I've also seen them at a Dollar store. The paint also came from the thrift shop) and glued them together to make a tree. Later she'll glue some sequins (also from the thrift shop) and maybe a small wooden ornament to it, and add a cord to the top to hang from our tree.

Bottom right: I bought a box of 50 Chenille Twisticks in "X'mas Green/White" from the thrift shop for .50. The wooden bead also came from the thrift shop too long ago to remember the price When it's not being the base to a pipecleaner tree it's one of the beads the Cherub uses to string beads. Because it's a macrame bead it has a larger hole, easier for her fingers. The black 'beads' also are in her bead box, but they really go to something else. I'm not sure what. They say 'Deltron' on them, but they have wide enough holes that she can string them easily. After Christmas she'll get her beads back. I was just experimenting.

Other easy Christmas crafts posted here.

Help! I have two bottles of Aleene's Tacky Glue, great stuff. But the contents have congealed to the consistency of damp silly putty. We can pull some out and stick clumps of it to things and it still works, but is there a way to thin it out a bit and refresh the consistency somehow?

What are our virtues?

THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT
John Erskine
1915, and 1921

IF a wise man should ask, What are
the modern virtues? and should answer his own question by a summary of the things we admire; if he should discard as irrelevant the ideals which by tradition we profess, but which are not found outside of the tradition or the profession -ideals like meekness, humility, the renunciation of this world; if he should include only those excellences to which our hearts are daily given, and by which our conduct is motived,-in such an inventory what virtues would he name?

I daresay the virtues Mr. Erskine's contemporaries might have named in the first two decades of the twentieth century are rather different from those we might list in the first two decades of the 21st. What virtues does our culture value? What virtues do we admire? What virtues do we actually try to practice?

This question is neither original nor very new. Our times await the reckoning up of our spiritual goods which is here suggested. We have at least this wisdom, that many of us are curious to know just what our virtues are. I wish I could offer myself as the wise man who brings the answer. But I raise this question merely to ask another-When the wise man brings his list of our genuine admirations, will intelligence be one of them? We might seem to be well within the old ideal of modesty if we claimed the virtue of intelligence. But before we claim the virtue, are we convinced that it is a virtue, not a peril?

To Be Continued

Part Two is here

ABCs of Hymns

Stolen from here. I, however, could not do just one song for each letter of the alphabet. Some of them have two.

A - A Common Love
B - Be Thou My Vision and Be Still My Soul
C - Consider Him
D - Do You Know My Jesus
E - Everybody will Be Happy Over There
F - Fairest Lord Jesus and Faithful Love
G - Greatest Commands
H - He Is Wonderful
I - I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say (Kingsfold tune)
J - Joy to the World or Jesus, Let Us Come To Know You
K - King of Kings and Lord of Lords
L - Lord, Be There
M - Master, the Tempest is Raging
N - Nearer, my God to Thee
O - On Jordan's Stormy Banks
P - Prince of Peace, Control My Will
R - Rabboni!
S - Servant Song
T - Theophany
U - Unto Thee O Lord
V - Victory Chant
W - We Will Stand (maybe just because it has good memories attached to it...)
Y - You Are the Song That I Sing

Ibsen

Our anthology does not appear to have The Doll House in it, a fact the prof must have missed when he created the syllabus. It does, however, have Hedda Gabler as a selection. I read that tonight... and it has got to be one of the most depressing and pointless plays ever written. Wow.

And I found the editors' notes about the boredom of Hedda's situation very irritating. Oh, yes, let's all feel sorry for poor Hedda Gabler because she was a ruthless gold digger who married the man she thought would make her rich the soonest. And while we're at it, let's feel sorry for her heartbreak because the man she hoped would commit suicide actually died by the gun she gave him. Yeeeah.

There was also reference to her husband as a boring academic, another thing I found irritating. He's only boring through Hedda's eyes, and she clearly has a skewed way of seeing things. He is interested in her. She makes no such attempt for him.

Carnival of Homeschooling!

Updated to give a HUGE Thank-you to the good Baron at Gates of Vienna. He tidied up my slopping scanning work and fixed up the banner at the top of the post for me. Isn't it lovely?

Welcome to the Carnival, and thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy yourself. It's a huge carnival this week with a divers selection of topics and blogging styles, so there's sure to be something for everyone. Please enjoy, give us a link, and share with your friends.

Tami, over at the eponymously named Tami's Blog, tells us, "I love homeschooling!"
Tami uses a real-life example of why she loves homeschooling.

Mama Squirrel presents Thinking like a history teacher posted at Dewey's Treehouse.

Read about Growing Without Schooling at Why Homeschool
Henry explains that Growing Without Schooling was one of the early magazines on homeschooling and unschooling (I, the DHM, used to read it on mimeographed sheets. That's how old I am). The wealth and information from Growing Without Schooling is being made available on the internet, which is exciting!


Spunky Homeschool writes about An Army of
Homeschoolers I missed the memo, too, but reading this makes me want to shout BOO at somebody, somewhere.


Who: Family School
What: My daughter was a little young for Star Wars and missed some of the finer points
Where? Chewbacca Was a Fuzzy Little Bear

Marcy wrote a post regarding Dr. Milton Friedman's quote about homeschooling,

Friedman: Economic freedom is key - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Q: I'm sure you're familiar with the home-school movement, which
has arisen over the last 10 years as form of competition to schools.

A: It is. And the fact that it is a form of competition shows how bad
our schools are. Can you think of any other sophisticated product
in which the home-made product is superior to the factory-made
product?


She says he has made a couple of incorrect assumptions about homeschooling, and in this post she will discuss those and try to correct them.

Susan Ryan at Corn and Oil writes Commentary about Diane Flynn Keith’s passions and services along with homeschool resource links in a post titled: Woman of Many Hats


Let's Play Math! writes about Historical Tidbits: The Pharaoh's Treasure
You'll find Tidbits, quotations, and math puzzles from history there.

One of my favorite bloggers, The Carrot Queen, at Introducing the World
shares a post called Homemade Cars and Factory-made Books She says it all happened when s quote from Milton Friedman lead to musings on the nature of education and how it best occurs.

Feeling competitive?
Homeschoolers Can Single Handedly Break Guiness World Record And they can break it just by reading. How cool is that?

Home Where They Belong has more:

Homeschoolers are being called to action to help break a Guiness World Record for the "Most People Reading Aloud Simultaneously in Multiple Locations" using a passage from E.B. White's classic book, "Charlotte's Web."

ANDREA HERMITT presents Early start, early finish, more time for play posted at Notes From A Homeschooling Mom. I'm all for that!

Dana presents American history and the sampler posted at Principled Discovery.
Ben and the Quad- A Lesson In Self Directed Learning

trustthechildren has a:
Story about the holy grail of home schooling. Developing kids who are self directed in their approach to learning.
Knowing you have it when it shows up.

ChristineMM presents My Thoughts About What Homeschooling Parents Do, Opinions of Others, Finding Support and Friendships posted at ChristineMM.

You can have a Christmas Around the World Unit Study from All Info About Home Schooling- A very basic introduction to making a fun unit about Christmas celebrations around the world...easy, fun, and even educational...and it allows you to do your Christmas baking as a subject....

The Imperfect Homeschooler posts about the NYT on Unschooling
No less than The New York Times goes after unschooling, with the help of a reporter who didn't do her homework.

How Many Planets?
Alasandra explains that Pluto has been demoted. She also names the 3 dwarf planets and provides links to resources and lesson plans.

Great Spiral, Mom! from Pass the Torch is from a new homeschooler, and in her fifth week homeschooling, Kelly at Pass the Torch, finds that there are many ways to get it right, in her post, "Great Spiral, Mom".

Katherine at No fighting, no biting (we love that book) shares reading tag and explains that 6 questions about reading can tell a lot about our life-long love of books.

Paul presents How to deal with information overload posted at Paul's Tips.

Getting Science Down to a Science is one of the Memoirs of a HomeschoolerURL of Blog, and that blogger says, "After having some guilt over not using a science curriculum and doing nature study instead, I reflected on how much more science we were doing in our everyday observations than I realized!"

In A Community of Learners Just Enough, and Nothing More explains "Why I love hanging around homeschoolers." I'm sure they love hanging around you, too.

Better Grades with Drugs? by APMFormulators.com shares a short list of dangerous effects Ritalin has on students using them for better grades.

If you sent an entry and do not see it here or find any other errors in this post, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as possible.

Whoops Postscript: I forgot to include MY entry to this week's Carnival! My entry is not specific to homeschoolers this time. Last year in December I shared several easy crafts, home-made gifts, and frugal seasonal decorating ideas. I'm collecting the links all in one post for easy access. That post is here, and you'll want to keep checking back to see the new links!

What I did over TG Break...

... cooked a beef tongue

... read the first few chapters of Pride and Prejudice

... read approximately 1/3 of my Latin American history book

... talked 'til the wee hours with a visiting friend.

... played the card game Rage for the first time. 'Twas fun -- and enraging.

... woke up on Friday, thought it was Saturday, and then realized again how delicious breaks from school are.

... read bits of Winnie the Pooh to the Girl.

School is back in session and I am to the point in the semester where one counts down not in weeks but in projects left to do.
The list:
* finish reading The Politics of a Colonial Career
* Take a quiz on aforementioned book
* start (and finish) reading Funny in Farsi
* write a short paper on aforementioned book
* at least skim Henrik Ibsen's The Doll House
* read some of Celan
* write 10 page analytical paper (for English class -- leaning towards one on Wilfred Owen's war poetry)
* six or seven dozen more math problems
* And then finals. :-D :-D :-D

Scattered & Opinionated Thoughts On North and South

Becuase The Equuschick finished it a couple days ago. She enjoyed it immensely, but has one or two gripes. She, oddly enogh, is not overly fond of the main character. She does not dislike Margaret entirely, but occasionally she annoys. She is too "swoony" for one thing. For another, she has a seriously, morbidly, over
developed sense of duty. And last, and most seriously, she does harbor for nine-tenths of the book, an overwhelming, if unconscious and not malign, sense of superiority to those around her. But she gets over it, most of it.
Of The Equuschick's two largest quibbles with the book, which she does prefer overall to the movie, the first is the dated and patronizing portrayal of the Higgins family. The alcohol issue, where a drunken man is swayed by the calm beautiful power of a woman, is outrageously aggravating to The Equuschick and she has huge issues with that sort of Victorian feminist approach to alcohol addiction. DRIVES.HER.NUTS.NOT.LOGICAL. And very, very, feminist. Brutish caveman swayed by beautiful, educated, and "sweet" woman. Gah. Later on she will expound at great lengths upon her opinion of just what that sort of concept has done to create some serious cultural, moral, religious, and yes even doctrinal, issues that Christianity is still fighting today. We became a culture of PANSIES because we decided that the solution to every moral and doctrinal and cultural issue was the more soft-gloved feminine approach, the only virtues are the "feminine" virtues of gentleness and tolerance and the "masculine" virtues of strength and focus and yes, even aggression (there are things worth fighting for) have been rejected and reviled. How despicable.

So that had not alot to do with North and South, because that chapter was one out of forty-something chapters that were all enjoyable.



The second quibble involves the anti-Irish sentiments, which were annoying.

But the book itself, she enjoyed. The Equuschick is fond of Mr. Thorton and his mother, very much so.

My Anglophilia is Fading

All my life I have wanted to visit England. Posts like this one make me waffle a bit in that dream.

England's self-defence laws are just immoral. A 98 pound woman carrying pepper spray can be arrested in England for any act of self-defence, while her 200 pound attacker just might get away scot-free. Use karate to defend yourself against your attacker, and you become the criminal.

I liked the drippingly sarcastic comment #27:

But a society in which you are forbidden to carry any means to defend yourself with, and in which you are thus utterly at the mercy of someone bigger than you, is still morally superior, right?

Everybody on the planet should be encouraged and if necessary forced to live this way, no?

Orthodoxy Affecting Orthopraxy

What group represents fifteen percent of the general population, but represents one prisoner out of every three in British jails? Junkyard Blog shares.

Good Stewardship Does Not Mean What She Thinks it Means

Recently An Najar, the mother of eight and grandmother of 41, blew herself up in murder/suicide attempt. Only the suicide part was successful, but her relatives are very proud of her. I'm sure the fact that they won't have to care for her in her declining years has nothing to do with that. Also quite recently, the newest Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, gave an interview to the New York Times in which she claimed that the declining numbers of Episcopalians were because "Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations."

The Times interviewer responded to that by asking, "Episcopalians aren't interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?"

Here's the 'good Bishop's' answer,

"It's probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."

Mark Steyn poses an interesting story problem for us all:

Here's the question for Bishop Kate: If Fatma An-Najar has 41 grandchildren and a responsible "better educated" Episcopalian has one or two, into whose hands are we delivering "the stewardship of the earth"?

Diogenes has the family friendly excerpt from Steyn's column and the link to the original article (mature reading only), as well as the perfect endcap. Read it all. It'll only take a minute, which may be about as long as the Episcopolian church has left.

Reading...

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Found at Athena In a MiniVan's blog.

Sunday Hymn Post

Alpha, Omega, beginning and end,
Who is, Who was, and Who is yet to come—
May grace and peace now upon us descend
From Father, Spirit, and Christ the Son.

Lord Jesus Christ, First and Last, faithful e’er,
Once You were dead; now You live evermore.
The keys to death and to hell You now bear.
You rule the kings of earth by Your power.

To Him Who loves us and shed His own blood—
All of our sins in His body He bore,
Made us a kingdom and priests serving God—
To Him be glory, pow’r evermore!

Look, He is coming! With clouds He’s adorned.
All eyes will see Him when He comes again.
Because of Him, all earth’s peoples will mourn.
So shall it be! Amen and amen.

Found on Cyberhymnal

Scientific Phenomenon Somebody Should Investigate

Door bells and telephone bells seem to have a sympathetic connection. When one rings, the other almost always will ring too. IF you are still in pajamas, the probability of both ringing at the same time increases by a factor of fifty.

The septic tank never backs up when I've had my shower, the dishes are clean, and I'm all caught up on laundry.

Children never get sick enough to make you wonder if they ought to go to the doctor on Mondays. No. This only happens on Friday night.

Likewise, puppies.

The quickest way to find something you've lost is to go ahead and buy a replacement.

Scheduling a family picture is a sure way to bring up a crop of cold sores, bad hair, and blemishes, as well as a stopped up septic tank.

The most brilliant, erudite, and lyrically written blog-posts are the ones you forgot to save when blogger or your computer cease to cooperate with you.

It really is the big fish that always get away.

Give the Gift of Free Time

Over the years, both in real life and in the last year specifically on this blog, I've often said something like this:

I think kids need free time to think and to play and to experience their own thought life more than they need all the stuff we give 'em.

I've also said something like this:

We have confused real intelligence with rote memory. We think the 4 y.o.child who can write and recite the alphabet, count to one thousand, name the 50 states, all the continents and the oceans is somehow further ahead of his peers. We especially think this is better than the child who cannot do these things, but who can and does play in mud puddles, create rope traps to ensnare passing siblings, build elaborate block castles, and who can enjoy sitting and watching ants around an ant-hill for an hour or more. We are wrong.

The child who squanders, or has squandered for her, her `play' years can never gain them back completely. The play that occurs in the early years is invaluable, and it cannot be replaced by pen and paperwork.

Organized team sports, VBS, 4-H, Scouting, summer camps, and other activities organized by adults and scheduled for kids are not much of a substitute for the right kind of play, either. Research confirms this need for extensive free time for play, exploration, and just sitting around in the tall grass and on tree branches thinking about things. One of the greatest things parents can do for their children is to guard and protect their free time and provide great outside places for them to play- whether that means an empty sandlot, a ditch of water, or a patch of trees.

E.O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize winning naturalist and author of the book Naturalist (a great read- review here- although I disagree with him on evolution and behaviourism), grew up with that sort of freedom and territory to explore, and he credits that background with providing the foundation for his life's work. He thinks this should be a birthright all our children have:

"Parents and teachers have to work harder today to be sure their children don't miss out on one of the great physical adventures of science- to go and explore and re-explore the natural world. I grew up in a generation in which boys and girls were allowed to the kind of freedom that a child needs to find himself or herself. And that includes ideally, in my opinion, that they have access to what Henry David Thoreau famously called the wood lot, which every town should have, or a river in the woods, anything.

Kids deserve a natural environment to explore on their own, to identify as their place, to make a hiding place to study bugs, figure things out, watch people while hidden, and so on and on, and have adventures; that is the natural way for children to grow up. Children are little savages, in the best sense of the word.

That was the kind of childhood I had. I went out after breakfast and if I didn't go to school, then I said I would be back by dinnertime. And if I can quote an authority to make my point, Rachel Carson said, "Take a child to the seashore and let them explore. Don't tell them what they're seeing, not right away, but let them explore."

The end of that kind of childhood is something very important that's happened in American education. And I'm going to make an extreme statement: Soccer moms are the greatest enemy of natural history."

~Taken from the Opinion section of Live & Learn, Fall 2006, published by AARP. They took the above selection from an interview in Museum Magazine.

I don't know that I would put all the blame on soccer moms, because soccer moms didn't develop in a vacuum. Somewhere, somehow, our entire culture has absorbed some faulty information about what education truly is, how children learn, and what is valuable and important in life.

A full schedule is no substitute for a full life.

----------------------------------------------
Footnote:
I don't wish to distract from the issue of the importance of free time for growing minds (all minds, really), but for those who don't know, Rachel Carson is the author of The Sea Around Us, a lovely book, suitable for family reading and nature study, highly recommended. She is also the author of Silent Spring, the book where her persuasive, poetic, and evocative writing convinced the western world to make a decision responsible for millions of deaths by malaria.

Round-Up of Christmas Crafts and Decorating Ideas, homemade gifts, and more

I'm putting together links to all my previous posts on things to make and do for Christmas. I'm about half way through, but I thought I'd go ahead and post this now. I'll add more links to the bottom later.

Woven paper heart baskets

Getting organized for the holidays.

Easy craft for children- the paperbag gingerbread man

A plaything that entertained children of the depression and WW2 era.

A toy made with a corncob and chicken feathers.

Projects with a tin can

Origami 'balloons' (scroll to the bottom of the post for the balloons. The rest of the post is easy group games to play, games that require no parts or pieces).

German Papercutting- a craft made easy even to the ten-thumbed, thanks to scanners and copying machines.

Some of our favorite ornaments, two home-made.

A very easy and attractive Christmas ornament- even a toddler can make it! I stole borrowed this idea from Blest with Sons, and I LOVE it. It's really lovely and very easy for even a small child to do.

Frugal Wrapping Paper

Christmas Balls, decorated, and Christmas balls as a small terrarium.

Homemade crackers and cheese-balls

Paperbag Mitten/Christmas card craft

Wax cookie cutter ornaments (simple, attractive, and they smell nice, too!)

Instant hot cocoa mix

Little House on the Prairie baked Christmas hearts

HOlly marshmallow cookies

Felt Mice to go over Candy Canes (cute- we just save the felt mice and use them again each year)

Crafts using Christmas cards.
Another Christmas card craft.

Glue dough ornaments and glue dough paint (I love these)

Some easy Christmas treats (suitable for gifts as well)

Glitter birds (these need a few days to dry, so start now)

Craft suitable for tiny tots- uses Christmas cards and toothpicks.

Easy Monkey Bread

Tiny folded paper lanterns, easy to make from a bit of ribbon and scraps of wrapping paper (or attractive paper of any kind), very pretty over Christmas lights.

Several small home-made ornaments and gifts our young neighbors made for us.

Make your own 'corker' and make a scarf

Easy Origami crafts

Frugal Christmas Cards

A sweet, sort of toffee flavored oatmeal topping, easy, frugal, tasty on apples, ice-cream and other sweet treats.

Frugal and classy Christmas Gift- notebook

Make a Ribbon Bulletin Board

Christmas ornaments (pictured) easy for very young, adaptable for the more grown up. Pierced envelopes for sachets (linked).

Use old Christmas cards to make lovely Christmas balls for the tree (other uses suggested as well). Lovely, easy for a child of about six or over (if a child of six cannot do it, I probably can't, either).

pierced paper ornaments, ornaments using a nail and a juice can lid- the pierced paper designs are suitable for toddlers and preschoolers and look pretty nice when finished.

What Do You Have In Your Hand?

In one of the Bible stories in Exodus, God speaks to Moses and gives him a task to do- to go down to Egypt and tell the Israelites he is to lead them out of captivity and into freedom. That's a remarkable task. Moses thinks he is inadequate, feels unprepared, incapable, unready. He says he can't. He asks "What if they don't believe me?" God answers him with a question. God asks of Moses, "What do you have in your hand?"

What do you have in your hand? What kind of a question is that? God has just directed MOses to go to the Hebrew people and tell them he is their new leader, that God has spoken to him directly and that he's going to get them out of Egypt. Clearly, if Moses thought anything he had in his hand was adequate to the task, he wouldn't have asked, "How can I do that? What if they won't believe me?" What did Moses have in his hand? It was a simple shepherd's staff- a common, every day tool that he always had with him. It was as significant and remarkable as your mop, a wooden spoon, a rake, or a box of diaper wipes. It was a common, ordinary, tool Moses used every day in his regular and very humble work as a shepherd.

The story goes on to tell how God worked a mighty miracle through Moses and that very ordinary staff in his hand, and Moses went on to lead his people out of Egypt. You can read it in the first few chapters of Exodus. I have a more homely message in mind for this (re)post, though.

If Moses were alive today and was a typical speciman of our century and culture, he'd be explaining that he couldn't go do what God wanted Him to do until he bought a suit and tie, went back to school for specialized training classes, paid for extra textbooks, learned to 'dress for success,' got his hair done properly, bought a few publicity photographs, hired a public relations guy, went down to the Christian Bookstore and picked up a few self-help books, and.... every one of those things would cost money. That's how we tend to be, too. We get a bright idea of something we want to do, and our first step is to go buy something to make it happen.

The first step on the road to frugality is to learn to ask ourselves instead, 'What do I have in my hand?' Look around you and see what your resources are, and make do with what you have.

What do you have in your hand? In one place we lived we had a problem with
thistles and wild cucumber vine. I made some gifts and household decorations using the thistledown to stuff small sachets and glass ornaments. I used the wild vine to make a couple wreathes.

Being a military family, we moved- no more thistle or wild cucumber. Instead, we had wild blackberries, apple trees, johnny-jump-ups, and pansies that grew all year long. Blackberry jam, apple butter and pressed flower pictures came out of that.

We moved again- we had no trees, no thistles- we lived on a prairie at 6 thousand feet- little grew. But I can found tiny cactus plants to plant in small pots, and I had healthy spider plants that were making babies. I had access to a very thrifty thrift shop, and I bought used coffee cups for between .10 and .25 cents apiece. I filled them with potting soil (composted in our worm bin) and rooted plants in them. They made very pretty little gifts and contributed to my home decor.

That's what I had in my hand. Instead of asking yourself, "What do I want/need to buy," ask instead, "What do I have on hand that I could use? What can I do with what I already have?"

Here are a few 'what's in your hand' things we've used at different times:

Buttons- people see a large family and donate lots of clothes to us when they clean out their closets. The clothes are not always clothes we would wear. We look through everything, regardless, and take off attractive buttons for crafts and repair of the clothes we would wear.
You can also use scraps of clothing for doll clothes, doll quilts, patches, applique, and other sewing projects. Or rags. If the clothes are nice enough, we sometimes take them to the consignment store.

Boxes: We have reused cardboard boxes to make dollhouses, trains, play-houses, and storage. Covered with contact paper they can make an attractive extra shelf on a bookcase, under the bed storage, or a nice toybox for blocks.

Newspaper: Learn a few basic paperfolding tricks and entertain small fry with hats, boats, and other toys (check your library for some cool paper folding projects). Cut paper dolls. Use for wrapping paper.

Unmatched socks: sock dolls, puppets, dusting rags for small people (put the sock over a hand like a mitten, let them dust with it), scrunchies, knee protectors for crawling babies, leg warmers for same.

Plastic bread bags- Okay, I've never done this, but I own a braided rug made from plastic bread bags, and I think it's pretty cool. It's easy to wipe clean, and it's comfortable to stand on. It would make a nice 'sit-upon' outside, too.

The juice from canned fruit: drink it or use it in another recipe- quick bread, muffins, or pancakes.

Spinach- when you have a recipe calling for frozen spinach, thawed, and drained- save that drained liquid and make a delicately flavored cream of spinach soup or sauce for crepes. At least use it to cook some pasta in for spinach lasagna or a sauce for 'eggs florentine.'

So share with us, what do you have in your hand, and how have you used it?

(Updated and adapted from a December 2005 post)

Cooking with boys is different

Pip tells me that while making cookies with the FYB recently he turned the mixer into a gun.

And none of the girls, not one, ever, while making a cheese ball stabbed the cream cheese with the fork, lifting it up en masse over the ball and cackled, "Ha! I've got you, cream cheese, and now you're going to pay with your life!"

The Menu

I'm just going to confess up front that the menu is insane. It is ridiculous. It's probably gluttonous. It's certainly an indulgence in conspicuous consumption. In spite of all that, I still keep thinking of other recipes I'd like to make.

We're having the Dinner at Granny Tea's house. Ours is bigger, but her main floor is an open floor plan and that makes the meal work better for crowds.

She's making the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, a squash casserole, and something to drink. She's only supposed to be providing crackers and an oyster cracker snack for appetizers, but I expect she'll disregard all my attempts to prevent her from doing more than she should and make something else anyway. I think she's making a pie.

My middle brother, his wife, and their four children will be there, but they are driving down in the morning and won't arrive until two. So they are bringing some rolls, a couple desserts, a few gallons of iced tea, our grandmother's apple-orange bread, and a side dish casserole of some sort.

A single mom and her newborn and toddler are coming. They asked what they could bring, and I suggested she bring whatever side-dish really made Thanksgiving Dinner for her. She's bringing some sweet cooked carrots.

A friend from the homeschool group is coming, and they have four boys. They are bringing a salad and some non-pumpkin dessert. Probably peach or apple cobbler.

Some very old and dear friends are coming- I've known them since I was 8 years old. When I was growing up in Arizona we all had Thanksgiving dinner at their house almost every year- about fifty people or so it seems like. They are my parents' age and happened to be traveling through last week and their motor home broke down, so they're getting it repaired and staying for Thanksgiving. They are bringing a ham, a relish tray and a snack tray for hor d'hourves.

A friend of the HG's who goes to college up north is coming. She's come the last two Thanksgivings and she usually makes a pie while she's here, but this time she may not have time. She doesn't get in until about ten this evening.


Then there are the nine of us. We are bringing:
appetizers: Brie, spinach dip, home made cheese crackers, pumpkin seed dip, pate, tongue and mustard sauce, a cheese ball, a bisquick and cheese rolled snack thing, walnut/cheese bread, and some flax seed corn cakes for dipping. All of these are already made except the cheese ball and I expect to finish the cheese ball tonight. I thought about making sushi, but decided that really was overkill. Yes, you smarty pants Progeny, Mother really did not write down every food item that just popped into her head. Oh, we're also making popcorn because you have to have corn something at Thanksgiving. I think there's a law.

Side dishes: Pretzel salad, sweet potatoes, a beet/gelatin relish sort of thing, cranberry relish in orange cups, and I am thinking about either some stir fried zuchinni with peppers or a broccoli salad because I am not seeing enough green here.
All of this is done except the sweet potatoes and the zuchinni-or-other-green thing, I'll do those tomorrow. The cranberry relish is mostly done. The HG will finish the last of the relish will be done tomorrow A.M.
Rolls: Whole-Wheat flax seed rolls. These are mostly done. WE baked them about 3/4 of the way done today and will freeze them and finish the baking tomorrow so they will be hot.
Butterhorn crescent rolls- a refrigerator dought. Equuschick is mixing that up right now. The dough refrigerates overnight and then the Boy and I will roll them out tomorrow morning and bake them.
If I can't keep her too busy to distract her from it, the Equuschick will make carrot-raisin salad, but I hope we can avoid it. Too much orange already.


Desserts: the FYG made her own cream pie- a box of flavored gelatin mixed with two cartons of delicious yogurt and whipped cream in a graham cracker pie crust. Hers is cherry vanilla. The FYB made one using apricot gelatin and apricot mango yogurt.
Pip made a chocolate caramel cream pie that I am afraid needs cloning. The HM made a minced meat pie yesterday (sorry, y'all, we used a jar). Equuschick is making pumpkin pie today from freshly baked pie pumpkins. We also have some special cookies for The Cherub that she can eat. We're having pumpkin custard, a crockpot recipe we'll start tomorrow morning.

The HM is responsible for the coffee.

I don't know who is responsible for the antacid.

We're setting up tables for games in the basement, and Granny Tea has plans for some Thanksgiving games. She's also printed out several coloring pages for the season, and she and the small fry made some lovely napkin rings using toilet paper cardboard tubes, felt, and some fall trimmings from the local discount store.

We expect people to hang around all day (some of them through the weekend), and we don't really expect to cook again for a few days, so this should be enough for us to graze for several days.

If you're in the neighborhood, drop on by. We'll have plenty.

Harvesting the Corn

FYG and The Boy get to ride on the combine (is that really the name?) while the Farmer harvests the field next to us. They enjoy it a whole lot, and FYG took a video this morning. (If the video makes the Common Room hard to load, let me know, and I'll leave a link instead of embedding it.)
FYG took a picture of the combine while it was harvesting:

Cool, eh?
______________________________________

Pretzel Salad

I don't know why this is called a 'salad.' It's really so sweet that one of the Progeny has requested it instead of birthday cake. It's a little complicated in that it takes several steps, but you can make the layers on different days, spending just a little bit of time each day.

You need:
2 cups crushed pretzels
1 1/3 cup melted butter
8 ounces of cream cheese
1 cup of sugar
1 large carton of whipped cream
6 ounces of strawberry jello powder
2 1/2 cups of boiling water
1 large package of frozen strawberries (or two small- you need about 16-20 ounces)
1 cup crushed pineapple

Bottom Layer: Mix the melted butter, crushed pretzels and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Spread this evenly on the bottom of a 9X13 pan, pressing down. Bake this at 350 degrees for ten minutes. This is the bottom layer and it needs to be completely cool before you add the next layer. It will keep overnight in the fridge.

Middle Layer: Cream the remaining sugar and cream cheese together until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Spread this over the cooled crust. Chill- this will be better if you let it firm up a bit before adding the top layer.

Top Layer: Dissolve jell-o in boiling water. Add frozen strawberries and pineapple. Stir. Let stand until it makes a thickened syrup. Pour this over the cream cheese layer. Chill overnight.

Slice to serve. It's very pretty and festive looking, and it tastes so yummy.

Thanksgiving Music

We've been enjoying the CD Penny Merriment, English Songs from the Time of the Pilgrims. You can order it and many other fascinating things from the Plimoth Plantation gift shop. I am sure the Pilgrims would be proud.

You may find a nice list of Thanksgiving Hymns here.

From the Index Card File

Simple toys: a boat
Stick a dab of dough inside the lid to a jar.
Cut a triangle (for a sail) out of cloth or paper. Decorate it as desired.
Use a toothpick for a mast and poke it through (or tape it to) the sail. Put the other end in the dough.
Set sail in a bathtub or dishpan.

Call it the Mayflower and have boat races on Thanksgiving Day. Everybody makes one. Launch the 'boats' in a puddle outside or inside in a large pan. Blow on them to try to get them across the water first.

Thanksgiving Recipes

Pumpkin Whip, or pumpkin pie on a cookie

24 ounces of cream cheese (can use less)
2 ½ cups of powdered sugar
1 small can pumpkin
1 teaspoon each:
cinnamon
nutmeg
ginger

This is a pretty easy-going recipe, and you needn't worry about exact amounts. Combine this together in a medium bowl. Mix/blend well. Serve the dip in a pretty bowl on a platter of cookies to dip in the pumpkin whip.
We like it with gingersnaps, Teddy Grahams, or cinnamon graham Crackers.


Crockpot Pumpkin Pie Pudding

1 15 ounce can pumpkin
1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bisquick (we have made this using our homemade biscuit mix, but it just wasn't the same)
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoon melted butter
2 1 /2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spices (we never have this, so we just use spices like allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves)

Mix ingredients together. Put in a greased crockpot and cook on low for 6-7 hours. Delicious with whipped cream.

Parmesan Walnut Bread

3 cups of flour (we used whole wheat)
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cups grated Parmesan cheese (we used Romano because we had it)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 3/4 cups of milk
1/3 cup vegtable oil
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (ours were not so 'fine')

This is enough for one loaf. We tripled it and made 9 small loaves.

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients (except the walnuts), stir well. In a smaller bowl mix the egg, milk, and oil until smooth.

Pour this into the dry ingredients and mix just until moistened (this is the way to make all 'quick breads.' If you mix just until moistened it looks lumpy, but the bread will be moister and have a better texture and flavor).

Gently fold in the nuts. Pour into greased loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees. Large loaves will take about 50 minutes. Smaller loaves take about 25 minutes- watch them and take out when you can insert a dried spaghetti noodle in the center and it comes out clean.
Cool a few minutes before removing from pan.

This came from a sixy year old issue of Quick Cooking and we had it for the first time this week when Pip made it. It is outstanding and would be good with butter or a cheese spread, or just steaming hot from the oven as we ate it. It would also be good with a bit more cheese and perhaps some chives or minced onion.

We are still experiencing technical difficulties

I'm typing this from Granny Tea's computer, which moves s-l-o-w-l-y. Since it does move so slowly, I'll just give a quick run through of some of the things going at the Common Room:

Cooking, baking, steaming, and stirring:
Cream pies
Pumpkin custard
Walnut cheese bread (mmm, so fragrant and delicious we ate two loaves already)
soup
pretzel salad
snappy cheese appetizers
mince meat pie
Tongue. Yes, tongue.

Playing:
movies
CDs
a complex puzzle of a preRaphaelite painting
the piano
Dutch Blitz
20 questions

Reading:
REader's Digest- this month's interview with Will Smith was FANTASTIC!! More later.
The Bible
a Ngaio Marsh mystery
The HM has two pages left in reading The TWo Towers to the Two First Year Hooligans
War and Peace (Pip)
World Magazine

Shopping
at a thrift shop where the FYG scored a toy baby swing wide enough for three baby dolls, which were included, all looked brand new and she spent .50!
an organic/natural foods store where organic butter was 1.99 a pound
the grocery stores all over everywhere as we bring our food from afar.
Macy's, where Granny Tea wanted to buy some flatware on sale, and the FYB said, "Don't they have anything for boys here? This looks like a girl-store."

Smelling:
All the spices in the natural food store's bulk bins.
Cardomom in pods was the surprise of the afternoon. The FYB says, "This kind of makes a breeze in your nose."


Planning:
about a dozen more things to bake
Where the Christmas Tree will go
several posts
to finally clean the craft room
to have a glorious Thanksgiving day with the grandparents, cousins and several friends.

Thanking God for:
sea salt
the purple flowers that surprised me by blooming this week
chocolate
cream of wheat
pens
calendars that fit in my purse
small boys
small girls
their older siblings
Friends who read our blog
Friends who don't

Technical issues

Headgirl here...writing in from her university's library. Our internet antenna was apparently fried sometime yesterday and because the internet provider is only open three days this week and already rather full-up with appointments, we aren't sure when we'll get it replaced. Thus things in our little internet corner will be quieter than usual until the problem is fixed.

We did the calculations today and found out that there will be a crowd of 29 people at TG supper. This excites us. :)

Sunday Hymn Post

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Refrain

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.

Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind’s delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.

Refrain

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.

Refrain

For Thy Church, that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love.

Refrain

For the martyrs’ crown of light,
For Thy prophets’ eagle eye,
For Thy bold confessors’ might,
For the lips of infancy.

Refrain

For Thy virgins’ robes of snow,
For Thy maiden mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled.

Refrain

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

Refrain

Cyberhymnal

Purring Piggy & The Queen-

The Equuschick recieved today, much to her immense amusement and delight, a thickish envelope full of home-made with love and care,rubber-stamped bookmarks. Horses, hippopotamuses, and dogs and kitties, oh my.

She intends to put them to good use as soon as may be, and one of them shall be privileged to settle between the pages of North and South (which is currently marked with the cardboard leftovers of a microvable convenience meal box), and another to nestle in the arms of Calendar, which is currently unmarked. The rest shall be reserved for the various horse books in The Equuschick's collection.

She is touched.

Baking Bread?

You gotta read this post. Bookmark it. Save it. Print out all the linked posts and create a fantastic bread baking resource.

You don't have to bake bread to be a Proverbs 31 woman.
You don't have to bake bread to be a good mom.
You don't have to bake bread to be a good Christian.
You don't have to bake bread to be good person.

But I think it's a lot of fun.

My mother and I got together yesterday to plan Thanksgiving Dinner. I think there will be a couple dozen people there. I said I'd make the bread, and the Boy said he wanted to help. I said good, 'cos cracked ribs make bread kneading a painful thing. Granny Tea suggested this easy bread recipe she has that requires no kneading. It tastes good, too. You just mix it all and put it in a large tupperware bowl until the bowl 'burps.' Then roll it, make rolls, and bake. Nothing to it, and it tastes just fine.

But it's boring. I like experimenting with bread recipes and shapes. Some people sew, knit, or watch baseball. I like blogging and baking.

Plus the books. I guess I have a thing for things that start with B.=)

So let's combine two posts in one and list some things I'm thankful for that Begin with B:

Books

Blogs

Baking

My husband

Babies

Brown eyes

Blue eyes

Big dogs

Button jars

Butterflies

Buttercups

Butter

Butterscotch

Blind poets

Really, the world is so full of beautiful things
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings.

(Stevenson)

Winter Nature Study Ideas

Charlotte Mason expected her students to engage in nature study throughout their lives, not just as preparation for the study of other sciences. She said, "The study of natural history and botany with bird lists and plant lists continues throughout school life, while other branches are taken term by term." She herself set the example for her students by spending many hours several times a week out of doors, studying God’s creation, keeping a nature journal, and learning about the animals and plants of her own environment. Irregardless of the field of study or career path chosen, the invaluable skills of observation



Children first should be learning about the world as it is- no matter how brilliant and academically gifted children are, they should all have plenty of opportunities to climb trees, play in mud puddles, go for long walks, run in meadows, wade in streams, sort rocks, shells, and acorns, collect bugs, watch butterflies emerge from a cocoon, run, skip, ride, swim, and more.


A child who has splashed in a puddle has a richer understanding of a pond. A child who has climbed a tree has a broader grasp of what was involved when explorers first climbed Everest. A child who has collected stones or shells has a deeper grasp of what is involved in scientific classification later.

Keep a piece of black wool, felt, or velvet in your freezer (we just used a black mitten that had lost its mate. When it snows, grab it and catch some snowflakes on it. Hold your breath while you look at the snowflakes through a magnifying glass. You keep it in the freezer to help the snowflakes last long enough to see them under magnification.

Play a version of `Kim's game'- pick a scene outside a window, look at it carefully enough to be able to look at it again on another day and describe what is different.

When you have been able to take a brisk walk, go home, and over hot cocoa ask who can remember what you passed on your walk and tell each other all you remember.

Observe the trees, note their changes- pick one or two trees and check them every week to see what's different. You can do this from inside with a good pair of binoculars. We've tied a bit of scarlet ribbon around one tree branch in the past, and checked just that branch a couple of times a month to see if we can spy any changes.

Learn to recognize bird calls- set up a bird feeder, check out enature.com, and once you have identified a bird, go to the website to hear its call.

The Sun:

Observe its position at various times throughout the day

Note times of sunrise and sunset as well as their direction

The place of the sun at the hottest part of the day

Distance and direction

In addition to noting the location of the sun

Note the time it takes to walk/drive

A foot, a yard, a block, a quarter mile, a half mile

To frequent destinations- a friend's house, the store, the library,
the barn, the corner, around the block (wherever it is you do walk-
learn how far that is and how long it takes to walk that distance)

Wind

Direction, learn what a western wind means (it is blowing from the
west, not toward the west, just as a Canadian is _from_ Canada)

Clouds

Observe their shape, size, style, color and note the connection
between clouds and weather

WE bought the book _Exploring Nature In Winter_, by Alan Cvancara
through Abebooks.
I found a few useful ideas, although it is primarily for adults to
use to learn to enjoy the outdoors in winter as well as warmer
months. One of the many ideas between its covers is how to preserve
snowflakes to sketch.

You need microscope slides, which you put on a sturdy surface, like
cardboard. Spray the slides with something like Krylon- clear,
plastic spray generally for preserving artwork. Then allow snow
crystals to land on the sprayed slides. Bring the slides in to dry.
If it worked, you will have replicas of snowflake crystals that
remain clear. You can sketch them, examine them under the
microscope, or use a magnifying glass. Of course, to do this, your
slides and the spray should be below freezing, or they will melt the
snowflake on contact. (I will tell you that this sounds very interesting, but we have only tried this once and it didn't work for us)

He suggests noting weather conditions, air temperatures, wind
direction, speed, and what type of snow crystals predominate. These
things, of course, could all be admirable additions to the Nature
Notebook.

Another way to study snowflakes is take out a a piece of black
cardboard, or black felt stretched on a board, (or wear black wool
mittens), and a magnifying glass and study the snowflakes outside.
Just be careful not to melt them with your breath as you gasp in rapt
admiration;-)

Another nice nature study book for winter is the Winter ecojournal. It has lots of ideas to help children journal their own nature study adventures.

Another neat thing to do is to sketch the moon each week, on the same
night, to let the child discover for herself the cycles of the moon. You can do this just by looking out the window every night.

I am embarrassed to admit that I never realized that the moon does not always rise
from the same direction until I did this with my children?

Evergreens are always good subjects for winter nature study. Learn the pattern their needles grow in, look at pine cones, study what wildlife, if any, hangs out at the evergreen tree in winter.

You can also bring in a rock, a bit of wood, a seed pod, a pine cone or small log with lichen on it and sketch it from the dining room table.

You can sketch a leafless twig, noting the placing of the leaf scars, the color of the wood, the shape, etc. These will vary by type of tree, but see if your children can figure that out for themselves.

We have tied a string around a twig or tree branch you can see from a window, then sketch it once a month, observing seasonal changes.

YOu could look for old seed pods and sketch them, or animal tracks in the snow.

Force a bulb to bloom indoors.

Keep a calendar of nature firsts all year long- this should include things like first snowfall, first ice storm, first bird to your feeder, first goose seen flying south, first goose seen returning, and even the i.d. of the birds you see at your feeder every day.

Miss Mason did suggest that the children go outside everyday, rain or snow or sunshine, but I am sure she had experienced nothing quite like the blizzards we get on the prairies in North America. We do what we can with the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

The child who does not know the portly form and spotted breast of the thrush, the graceful flight of the swallow, the yellow bill of the blackbird, the gush of song which the skylark pours from above is nearly as much Most children of six have had this taste of a naturalist's experience, and it is worth speaking of only because, instead of being merely a harmless amusement, it is a valuable piece of education, of more use to the child than the reading of a whole book of natural history, or much geography, and Latin. For the evil is, that children get their knowledge of natural history, like all their knowledge, at second hand. They are so sated with wonders, that nothing surprises them; and they are so little used to see for themselves, that nothing interests them. The cure for this blasé condition is, to let them alone for a bit, and then begin on new lines. Poor children, it is no fault of theirs if they are not as they are meant to be- curious eager little souls, all agog to explore so much of this wonderful world as they can get at, as quite their first business in life.~Charlotte Mason

Frugalities with Turkey and soup

We have three four ways we like to eat leftover turkey:
1. In sandwiches
2. Turkey Soup
3. Turkey Enchiladas
4. Turkey and Stuffing Casserole

Sandwiches are self-explanatory, although I will say that the HM likes his best with horseradish and green onions, and I find the addition of sliced avocados and a slice or two of sweet onion (vidalia, for instance) most agreeable, although not very frugal.

Turkey Soup- making soup from the bones of any meat is a frugal art every cook should know. The truly frugal cook will always save meatbones for soup and stock for cooking. If you don't have enough from any one meal, you can keep them in a bag in the freezer until you accumulate enough for soup. With the turkey carcass, of course, you already have enough for soup.=)

For a truly frugal soup, there are other things you can save in your freezer. The skins and trimmings from onions and garlic will flavor your soup, add some color and nutrition, and cost you nothing. Save these in a jar or ziplock bag in your freezer (naturally, since you are using the skins, wash the vegetables well first). The leaves from celery are edible and work well in soup broth, too. IF you have onions or garlic that begin to sprout you can use the sprouts (these are also tasty in sandwiches). In fact, if an onion begins to sprout at my house, I plant it in a pot and keep it on the kitchen window sill where I snip a few green bits off for color and flavor in sandwiches, salads, and soup garnishes.

There are other things you can add to your freezer soup jar- the last three teaspoons of peas or green beans from supper, a few bits of carrot nobody wanted to finish, that 1/2 a baked potato that nobody wanted. Vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli also work but they can have a stronger flavor than you want, it just depends on how much you have. This soup jar is a bonus, though. All you really need is the turkey carcass.

Sally Fallon is the author of the excellent book Nourishing Traditions. On this webpage she summarizes some of the information on soups and broths that you can find in her book:

"Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain."
When broth is cooled, it congeals due to the presence of gelatin...
...Although gelatin is not a complete protein, containing only the amino acids arginine and glycine in large amounts, it acts as a protein sparer, helping the poor stretch a few morsels of meat into a complete meal. During the siege of Paris, when vegetables and meat were scarce, a doctor named Guerard put his patients on gelatin bouillon with some added fat and they survived in good health.

The French were the leaders in gelatin research, which continued up to the 1950s. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk. The American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that as gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut. Even the epicures recognized that broth-based soup did more than please the taste buds. "Soup is a healthy, light, nourishing food" said Brillant-Savarin, "good for all of humanity; it pleases the stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares the digestion."

If you can afford it, the free range birds will yield better tasting, richer, and healthier broth than the grocery store birds, but we make a decent broth with the turkey carcass from the grocery store turkey, too.

You need a large stock pot- preferably one with a heavy bottom, but make do with whatever you have. I've done this in smaller batches in a two quart saucepan when that's all I had, and I've done it in a stockpot with a thin bottom that burned everything if you didn't watch it very carefully. Now I have a nice heavy bottomed stockpot AND a stainless steel colander that nests inside it. I like to put the colander in it, add the soup bones and vegetables, and then cover with water. This way, when it's done simmering I can just lift the colander out and dump the contents directly in the garbage/compost pile/dog food bowl, depending on what is appropriate (meat bones don't go in the compost pile, chicken bones don't go in the dog food bowl, but beef bones would).

Whatever pot you have, put the bones in that pot and cover with water. If you break up a few bones that will add to the flavor of your broth (I've used a hammer to snap a few bones in half). Add a couple tablespoons of vinegar, because vinegar will pull minerals into your broth, making it even more nutritious (we like apple cider or balsamic vinegar. A bit of wine may be substituted). Add two to four cups of vegetables such as onions, carrots, and celery if you have them. Be creative and remember the principle 'what do I have in my hand?'. The vegetables should be chopped very coarsely- onions, for instance, can be quartered, celery chopped into four or five large pieces. If you have purslane growing in your yard, that works, too.

Very frugal cooks, as I mentioned, will also use the skins from onions and garlic cloves (they keep in the freezer) because these are nutritious and will add onion and garlic flavor to your broth without adding cost. The leaves to celery are also edible, and can be added to your broth for extra flavor. You may also add garlic cloves (even cloves that have started to sprout). Include these in your 2-4 cups of vegetables.

Let this pot of bones, veggies, and water soak together for about half an hour or a little longer. Bring it to a boil and skim the surface as scum rises to the top. Discard this scum or feed it to your pets (you can put it over the top of a bowl of dry cat or dog food).

Reduce the heat to simmer, cover the pot and simmer it for hours, even overnight (if you have a wood-burning stove in the winter, just set the pot on the back of the stove to simmer gently). Check periodically to make sure there is still plenty of liquid. Sally Fallon says to simmer from 6 to 24 hours. Just a few minutes before removing it from the heat, you can add some fresh herbs for added nutrition and flavor- fresh herbs such as parsley, rosemary, basil, sage, and bay leaves. YOu don't need all of these- use what you have and do not fret if you don't have any of them. It's still good, nourishing, frugal broth. If you have a large enough crockpot, you could use it once you've gotten passed the boiling stage.

When it's simmered long enough, pull the bones out with a pair of tongs (or, as I do, just lift your colander out of the pot). If there is any meat left on them, you can let the bones cool and then pick the meat off with your fingers or a fork. This is not a job I find pleasant, but I do find it best just to do it and get it over with. When you've removed the meat you want to remove, discard the bones. Strain the broth into a large container- I use double folded cheese cloth for this because I like a very clear broth, but a colander works just as well if you don't mind a less clear version.

Discard the vegetables (in a compost pile or feed them to pets or livestock), because you've just cooked the vitamins out of them.

Refrigerate your broth. The next day skim the fat off, which will have risen to the top and solidified. I save the fat and use it for the fat in gravies and sauces. Other people just throw it away. Still more accomplished women save it, purify it, and use it in soap. If you live in a cold enough climate, you can put it in a sealed jar and set the jar outside where the cats won't knock it over to let it chill. When we lived in Alaska we had neighbors who made an outside icebox out of the space beneath a camper shell.

The broth should be congealed, like gelatin- because this is real gelatin. It will liquefy when reheated. Keep this in jars in your refrigerator or freezer. Reheat and use as needed when chicken stock or broth is called for in one of your recipes, or use it as the basis for any soup. We love to cook pasta in the broth, as it adds a delicious flavor to the pasta.

It only keep in the refrigerator a few days, so if you're not going to use it fairly soon, freeze it. You can freeze it in ice cube trays, which is a good idea for smaller families who only need a small amount for a meal.

Thanksgiving Break Approaches!

There is now only a math exam standing (in an imposing and glaring sort of way) beween me and Thanksgiving Break. This week-end will center around studying for the aforesaid exam, but I'm also making plans for the break... I'm going to get through as much of Pride and Prejudice as I possibly can before it's time to head back to classes. What a treat! :) There's also some school reading to do, though. Shortly after break ends we have a quiz in Latin American History for the book Politics of a Colonial Career: Jose Baquijano and the Audiencia of Lima.

Yesterday's English class spent a great deal of time with the theories of Foucault. Ugh.

The Headmaster's Lunch

For those of you wondering, after our hectic morning, the HM did, indeed, get a packed lunch.

We had some leftover macaroni and cheese- not just any macaroni and cheese, but some organic, whole wheat, macaroni and cheese. I mixed that with a can of tuna fish and reheated it. He had told me before in a 'hint, hint' fashion that he really likes this. I put it in a nest of stir fried organic carrots, peas, and onions, and it looked very pretty. I meant to do some garlic tobasco sauce in a heartshape, but I forgot.

For a side dish he had a generous salad made of diced apples, grapes (I had some globe grapes with seeds, so I sliced them and cut out the seeds), diced bok choy (also called 'Chinese Celery' but it isn't), walnuts, mayo, and asian-sesame dressing. I sprinkled flax seed over the top of this.

For dessert he had pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (organic whole wheat flour and sugar), two pieces.

For an appetizer he had two fish oil pills and a vitamin E capsule.

There were no pretty shapes, but I think it'll hold him over until he gets home for supper at 10:00 tonight.

Updated to add: I don't know what he'll do for supper, though. I fixed him a plate at dinnertime, but while I thought Equushick was watching her and Equuschick thought somebody else was watching her, and somebody else thought I was watching her, the Cherub realized nobody was watching her and she scooped up his homemade potpie in two hands and finished it off. She was well on way through the broccoli and sweet potatoes before everybody realized that nobody was watching.

The DHM Takes a Refresher Course in Parenting

As most of you know, we have a new mother, her newborn, and her toddler staying with us. This morning before I got up, the HG left for school and the Equuschick went to work. The HM woke me up and I got up and fixed breakfast for him, our houseguest, and me. JennyAnyDots got up and got dressed because she's spending the day with an elderly friend helping her vacuum and tidy her apartment.

I held the newborn while his mama ate her breakfast and the HM ate mine and his, and they all left for her apartment (about an hour away) so she could pick up some of her clothes and things.

That left me home alone with three yappy dogs, a newborn, a toddler, an 8 y.o., a 10 y.o., The Cherub, who is, for all practical purposes, two, and Pip, who is 16.

Naturally, they all got up at once and all needed help at once (except Pip) and all made noise at once. The cream of wheat boiled over and made a mess on the counter, the microwave, and the floor. The toddler had a meltdown over the Donovan-dog licking his face. The telephone rang several times in a row, all calls I had to take instead of letting the answering machine take them. The BOY dumped raisins on the floor by accident. The FYG had a sour attitude about something trivial.
The baby wanted to eat and all I had to give him was a bottle of glucose water. I hate giving babies glucose water. The HM went without lunch two days in a row and I really wanted to fix him a lunch.

Finally things calmed down somewhat, everybody was sitting down and eating, and I thought I'd grab a few minutes to type out a funny post about all this kind of stuff. Just as I sat down with the baby at the keyboard I had a thought.
I handed the baby over to Pip and said, "I really need to get out of my housedress first and get dressed for company, because you can tell this is just going to be that kind of morning. Somebody is going to drop by any minute. I just feel it."

So I got dressed, took the baby back and sat down at the keyboard and sure enough, the phone rang. A friend was in the area and wanted to drop off a bag of clothes and toys for the family staying with us, she'd be here any minute.
I started to laugh.

And it is now 1:28 and Pip is cleaning up the kitchen from lunch, I haven't thought about supper, we've done no home-schooling, and this is the first chance I've had at the computer.

And I have a question. How do you young mothers of young children do it??????????

So. Do You Think We're Spoiling Him?

We've been minding this most adorable toddler since Monday. His mama came home from the hospital today. The two of them were having a little playful banter, a ritual they've obviously played around with before. She hugs him and tells him she loves hime, and he hugs her back and tells her he loves her more, and she hugs him again and says, no, she loves him more, and so forth.

And then she asks, "Are you my little boy?" and sometimes he says yes, and sometimes he says no, he's a big boy, but tonight he threw her a new one.

She'd didn't quite catch it. "You're my what?" she asked.

"Cute," he said clearly. "I just too cute."

And he's absolutely right.

Found in a Magazine at the Physical Therapist's Office

Take just a few minutes each day to jot down things that make you thankful, from the generosity of friends to the food on your table or the right to vote. After a few weeks, people who follow this routine "feel better about themselves, have more energy and feel more alert," Emmons says. Feeling thankful even brings physical changes, studies show. List-keepers sleep better, exercise more and gain a general contentment that may counteract stress and contribute to overall health.

From Psychology Today

Ten Things I'm Thankful For Today (in random order):

Adorable toddlers (and all toddlers are adorable)

Peppermint Tea

Daughters who drive

Daughters who bake

Brown Cow Whole Milk Creamtop Yogurt

Comfortable boots

A mother who loves me

That Ngaio Marsh wrote mysteries

That my pancho is warm

My tea-ready hot water tap

When Assistance Really Isn't

A while back the HG met single mom expecting another child. They worked together at the library. The single mom had moved to this area fleeing a pretty bad situation. She came with the clothes on her back and her child.

She quite working at the library because, as often happens with 'official help,' the agency 'helping' her found her an apartment in another town. The rent was great. But she has no transportation, so she couldn't keep that job. Another job will be opening up in that town in January, and she might be able to get hired on there. That job pays mimimum wage and is an evening job, so daycare will be a problem. We'd be willing to provide free daycare, but we live 45 minutes away and I don't always have a vehicle available, and she never does. Had there been an apartment in town she could have kept her job and we could have worked out transportation problems.

Meanwhile, she's expecting a baby and all her prenatal care is set up here, and this is the hospital where she's registered to deliver. There is no hospital in the town where the new apartment is. That's okay, though, because the state funded medicare program she's in pays for transportation to medical appointments. What this means in practice is that a cab driver from a town a couple hours north of here (the nearest cab service) drives down, picks her up and brings her about an hour west to the doctor, and then, supposedly waits around and takes her home. She's been stranded a few times when the driver decided to go back north and she had to wait for another driver to come down and take her home. Her entire day can be spent hanging around waiting for state funded drivers. A more practical solution might be to give her the money for the cab and let her find a friend or co-worker who needs a few extra dollars and is willing to do the driving for her. But it's the government, so we don't do practical.

There's a toddler to be cared for, too, and the plan when she had the baby was that the homeless shelter would keep her toddler- but he doesn't like the woman in charge at that shelter. He's afraid of her. That doesn't matter to the government. It matters to his mother, and it matters to me.

I met them on Sunday night. On Monday afternoon her doctor told her he wanted her to check into the hospital that night. So she was stuck in town for several hours (on a cold blustery day) with no transportation and some concerns about the shelter because the woman her toddler dislikes was on duty that night.

Soooo, I went to town and picked her up and brought her home. We're keeping the toddler until she is released from the hospital. I took her back to the hospital and stayed with her until lights out, and then went back the next morning and stayed until shortly after the baby was born.

Official help will provide her, the newborn, and her toddler transport at their convenience back to her apartment when she is released from the hospital. In a town where she knows nobody and has no transportation.

We're still keeping the toddler, who is a delightfully precocious and adorable little boy, as well as remarkably sweet natured and easy going. The FYG is in baby heaven because he's such an agreeable little fellow and he lets her wait on him hand and foot. The FYB complains that his sister is hogging him.

We've offered to bring home mother and baby for a few days as well, so she can have a little bit of time to recover. Then we'll bring her back to her apartment and offer to help out with doctor appointments and grocery shopping trips as we can.

I can, of course, point to many areas where bad choices directly affected the situation the family is in right now. It's true that probably most of them are hers, but that doesn't change the current reality or make it somehow go away, and the children didn't make those choices. There are other poor choices being made that are fairly minor in the vast scheme of things, but when you are at the bottom of the barrel of life you have no margin for error and the ramifications of a misspent two dollars have horrible consequences equivilant to you or I misspending an entire paycheck.

Some of the problems are the choices and decisions of the people the state pays to help with situations like this, and all the increased funding in the world won't make a lick of difference when decision makers like these are involved. NO amount of money will make her toddler unafraid of a gruff and difficult personality at the shelter. No amount of federal aid will replace somebody willing to be with you when you have your baby because she wants to rather than because she's paid to.

Some of the circumstances are outside of her control (she didn't choose her parents, she didn't know the man she was engaged to for a year was a secret psychopath).
Neither will all the welfare money in the world encourage, coax, and tutor her into making some wiser decisions. A relationship just might.

This isn't the first time we've tried to help in similar circumstances, it won't be the last, and we count among our friends many, many people who also get personally involved and help in various ways and means when they can.

If is for this and other reasons that I get a little impatient at the characterization of one political party as 'generous' and the other as 'stingy.' For one thing, if you're spending other people's money instead of writing the checks on your own personal bank account, that's not generosity at all.
For another, some generosity is enabling rather than helping.
And for yet another, there are studies like the one Tarranto talks about here. Yeah, I know that was three or four months ago, but I have had it bookmarked for a while and it came to mind again this week when we were busy with this other stuff.

Here's Gene Edward Veith's take on that same study:
"Republicans were stingy, giving less to everybody. But they were principled, not varying their generosity according to race. Democrats, though, were generous, giving far more money. But they were the ones who would vary their giving according to race!"

The study didn't involve their own money, only other people's, so we could also say that the Republicans were careful stewards. And since Republicans claim to believe in self-help and personal responsibility, giving fairly, but less is consistant with their stated philosophy. There was no race-based difference in the amount of charity Republicans were willing to give, but there was quite a substantial difference among Democrats. Giving less to victims based on race is rather hypocritical.


Since I don't believe that government assistance is very wise, effective, useful, or helpful in the long term, I'd have answered those questions in what appears to be a 'stingy' fashion, too, and the researchers would be free to misinterpret and publish their conclusions about what those answers mean.

Meanwhile, government assistance has contributed toward this woman finding herself in a small town with no transportation, geographically accessable medical care, or job.

Psycho-analysis and Books

recently Mr. Krutch has given us a psychological biography of Poe, interesting in itself, and calculated, we are told, to increase our understanding of the poet. Of the man, rather. Assuming that psycho-analysis is a science, and that Mr. Krutch's brand of it is the correct one, we learn from the book that Poe had certain complexes and inhibitions. What on earth has that to do with his poetry? Other men have had the same complexes and inhibitions- that's how the psychoanalysts know about them. But the other men did not write as Poe did. What makes him of importance as a writer is precisely that part of his equipment which did not share with others. Literary or other artistic genius shows itself not in a man's life but int eh work he produces. Until he writes a book, we refuse to believe our neighbor is another Dickens. If we can't see it before he writes, I fancy it's an illusion which makes us recall afterward the early promise of his talent.

From The Delight of Great Books, by John Erskine

Moroccan Chicken

Moroccan Chicken
3 lbs. chicken pieces
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 Spanish onion, chopped (2 cups)
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes (2 cups)
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes or 1 can (14.5 oz) whole tomatoes
2 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cumin
2 cups chicken broth
½ cup raisins
½ cup frozen green peas
Chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish

Heat oven to 450° F. Pat chicken pieces dry with paper towels. Cut
each breast crosswise into two pieces. Place chicken parts on
greased baking sheet and liberally brush top of each piece with
honey. Bake for 20 minutes or until chicken is golden brown on top.

In a large, heavy pot with a lid, heat oil over medium heat. Sauté
onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients -
except broth, raisins and peas - and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.
Add broth and chicken pieces; bring to a simmer. Cover, lower heat
and simmer for 25 minutes. Add raisins and peas and cook, uncovered,
5 minutes more. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. (The
recipe can be made a day ahead to this point and reheated before
serving.) Serve chicken and vegetables over couscous with harissa.
Garish with chopped fresh cilantro.

Egg--Free Rice Pudding

No-Egg Rice Pudding
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 cup rice -- uncooked
2 1/2 cups milk (soy, rice, or almond milks will work)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup golden seedless raisins (or the regular dark ones, or any
dried fruit you have on hand)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 lemon rind -- slivered (I save citrus rinds in the freezer)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream or half-and-half -- chilled (I almost never use this, just a little more milk, so milk substitutes will also work fine)

Place all the ingredients except the cream in the crockpot and
stir once. Cover and cook on Low for 4 to 6 hours. Serve lukewarm
with chilled heavy cream or half-and- half. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Having a timer on the crockpot would be prime. Otherwise, put the ingredients in the crockpot and set your alarm clock. Get up 4-6 hours before you want breakfast and turn it on low. Go back to bed.

I supposed you could also set the crockpot in your bedroom next to the bed and just reach over and flip it on when the alarm goes off. Then the smell of it cooking would wake you up.;-)

Such trustworthy parents.

The library has a 2 DVD's per patron limit. Tonight a mother and her daughter (roughly aged 3, I'd guess) were in picking out a DVD. The girl repeatedly asked to get two, and the mother repeatedly said no. I was beginning to be very impressed with the mother's firm parenting skills... that is, until she told her daughter, "Look, honey, there's a sign up here at the desk that says you can only get one DVD." Not wanting to make the mother look bad to her daughter if the case was simply that the mother misunderstood something, I quietly told her that 2 was really the limit. "Oh, I know," she said, "I just wanted to get one tonight, and that was the agreement we reached before coming in to the library."

I was rather speechless for a moment. So she reached an agreement with her daughter, but when it came down to it, she wasn't actually going to enforce it? She made the library seem like the bad guy simply because she couldn't be the adult and keep her end of this agreement?

And I have to wonder what happens when this little girl learns to read...

So Much For Positive Psychology.

Here follows a conversation between The Equuschick, and just two of her many Inner Selves.


Inner Self One: I was going to go outside and work, but on second thought, look at the wind. It will probably snow.
Inner Self Two: You need to get these things done!
Inner Self One: The horses are happy. They have hay, and fresh water, and shelter.
Inner Self Two: Just do them today. While you have the chance. You'll feel so much better.
Inner Self One: No, I won't. I'll just be colder.

Unfortunately, Inner Self one is probably correct.

Another Book on My Wish List

This is a great read.

And the Survey Says

In our homeschool group we have nice bunch of ladies of fairly different religious beliefs- which means we all different approaches to Christmas. Which means, nobody signed up to do the December meeting and we weren't sure how to approach it. So I put together a little survey and asked the gals to pick one or two things they'd like best to do for the December meeting:
Cancel. December is too busy.
Have a cookie exchange.
Have an ornament exchange (inexpensive or handmade).
Have a gift exchange.
Have a regular meeting.
Bring a few presents and wrapping paper and wrap gifts while visiting.
Show and Tell; bring one of your favorite Christmas items and explain why it's special.
Bring small wrapped toys or food to collect for the battered woman's shelter.
Turn the lights out, put our heads down, and enjoy some quiet.
--------------------

It wasn't much of a surprise to me that at our homeschool meeting last night what just about everybody wanted to do was bring things in for the shelter. But the ladies did me one better. They wanted to know if any of us knew a specific family who needed help so that they personally could be sure that they were doing some good (one lady shared that a former shelter resident told her that he'd been in a homeless shelter and he just took anything he was given and either sold it or took it back for a refund if it was new and used the cash for drugs or booze, and that he thought that's what most of the folks at the shelter did).

As it happens, there is a woman two of us know who needs help, so that's what the homeschool group will be doing for December.


In a recent discussion the HG tells me that last year one of her fellow college students took a survey for some class. It had only one question. She went around campus asking the students something like this:

If you had a friend who through a series of misfortunes outside his control lost his job, his apartment, and his bank account and found himself with nowhere to live, would you help the friend out, and how?

To the HG and the rest of us at the Common Room this was a no-brainer. The HG told the girl that if those were truly the circumstances, she'd put the friend up at her house until something else could be worked out.

The HG tells us the girl doing the survey stopped in astonishment. "You'd do that?!" she asked in astonisment. "You really would? Wow. What a nice friend. You're the only person today who has said that."

That world is a world I don't understand. It's not my home.

Carnivals

Kid Comedy, get your Kid Comedy here.

Grab a bite to eat at the Recipe Carnival.

Make the most of your ticket money by visiting the Festival of Frugality

God's Noblest Work

I held a small and cuddly newborn baby today, just seconds after he was born. Last night we picked up a single mommy and her toddler, kept them for the afternoon and then after dinner Granny Tea took the Mama and I to the hospital to check Mama in to the OB ward. The very charming and precocious toddler has been staying here in the care of the Progeny. The HM had today off, but as best I can tell, he spent it in various borrowed vehicles running errands and chaufeurring.

He started his chaufferring when he took me back to the hospital at 6:30 this morning where I stayed with the single Mama until about an hour after the baby was born. I got to cut the cord. I held the newborn long enough to feed the baby hunger.

The HG took me to a local thrift shop to pick up some baby clothes, then the HM picked me up and took me to physical therapy appointment. After that he dropped me off at my monthly mom's homeschool meeting. I had thought about skipping it, but it was just a couple blocks from my physical therapy so I went. It was productive and useful and I am glad I went. Plus, you know, I got to watch a newborn being born today, as well as cut the cord and hold him.

Then we went back by the hospital where the adorable toddler was visiting his Mum in the company of several of the Progeny. We loaded them all into Granny Tea's van and went to renew my prescription on pain killers. Then we went to pick up Pip from her piano lessons. Finally we drove back home, arriving home about 10:00 p.m. At one point in the van I said to Jenny that I felt like we really ought to be catching up on the chit chat since I'd not seen her all day long. She agreed, and then sighed, "But I am just too tired to think of anything to say." Did I mention that I cut the cord?

I reintroduced myself to the Progeny, admired the bouncing Donovan, hugged the adorable Progeny, swallowed vitamin C, sucked zinc, put on my comfiest pajamas, and gave the Equuschick instructions on the HM's lunch tomorrow. And earlier today there was that baby, being born, and me watching. And I got to cut the cord.

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are." - Louisa May Alcott

*pokes head in*

Our virtual life has been quiet today only because our real life has been quite, quite busy. The DHM spent the day with a young mother in labor and delivery. The baby has been safely born, and is too cute for words.

Donovan the puppy is doing much, much better, but on a rather strict diet of chicken broth right now. He'd much rather have Real Food, but we know what's best for him. A visiting toddler, however, missed the memo and fed the dog some cheese. We'll see how that goes.

The semester ends in approximately four weeks and I am ready. Every class but math continues to go well. Between the logarithmic equations and the very important exam next week (how she does on it will probably mean the difference between a B and a C) I'm getting to be really tired of it all. I'm also done protesting to my family that I'm not stressed about it all...
I'm now clerking at the library rather than paging. There are different hours involved and they've rather added to the stress of the school week, but (again) that will be resolved in four weeks.
Clerking is fun. One friend who works at a library shared a gem of a story recently: a woman came in asking to look at a world atlas. After glancing through several of them, she said, "What I'm looking for is the date the wheelbarrow was invented." Oh.

Granny Tea has the two youngest children at her place this evening to do a Thanksgiving craft with them. It's hard to believe that the holiday will be here so soon... exciting! A few days ago all the TG decorations were put up, and they look fantastic. An old 3-D Mayflower had to be pitched, though. One decoration that has survived is a cloth tipi the Equuschick & I made when we were really small. It's been all over the world and now looks slightly battered, but still Thanksgiving-ish.

And now it is time to get back to real life to take Pipsqueak to her piano lessons. :)

The Equuschick's Very Own Survey That She Wrote Herself

First of all, The Equuschick would like to thank everyone for their prayers and kind thoughts regarding Donovan, who now appears to be on the road to recovery. She is sad and distressed that he is in a strange vet clinic all by himself all night, but she will not think about that.

Moving on.

Surveys, surveys, all over the internet. Who makes them, and why, and why can't The Equuschick, she wanted to know. She could not discover why, and therefore she decided she would entertain herself with such an activity.

Ergo, she gives you- The Equuschick's Alphabet Survey.

*A- Favourite Animals: Horses and Dogs.
*B- Favourite Bad Habit: (You know, that one that you like too much to even try to break. You like being addicted.) Daydreaming. Not as in, letting your thoughts wander aimlessly, but as in, spending an hour telling yourself a fictional story you've made up yourself and are visualizing perfectly. It sounds harmless, but it really isn't.
*C- Favourite Cookie: No Bake Chocolates.
*D- Favourite Drink: Orange juice.
*E-Favourite Egg Style: Fried, in a yummy sandwich with tomato slices, cheese, and onions.
*F- Five Favourite Fiction Books: (Having been driven nearly insane with surveys that limited your selection of favourite books to Exactly One of Any Kind, The Equuschick is broadening the topic. Still difficult, but not quite as miserable.) "Inkheart," "Inkspell," "The Never-ending Story," "Anne of Green Gables," "Anne of the Island," Oops, she's at six. This survey still needs work, obviously. Sorry.
*G-Favourite Gadget: The HG's ipod.
*H- Favourite Hymn: "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" at the moment.
*I- Favourite Ice Cream- The Equuschick loves her new Soy Delicious Mocha Fudge Almond.
*J- Favourite Jam: Orange marmalade.
*K-Favourite Kid's Books: "Goodnight Moon," "The Griffin and the Minor Canon," "When I Was Young on the Mountain."
*L-Favourite Love Song- Eew. The Equuschick can't believe she even put such a smarmy question in here.
*M-Favourite Memories: Dancing with the HM to Candle on the Water, various fantastic and wonderful ones involving her lovely animals, the vacation on the Al-Can highway, any involving the ocean, and any involving old friends.
*N-Favourite Nonfiction Books: "Mere Christianity," "Centered Riding," "Komodo Dragon," etc.
*O-Favourite Operatic Song: Vittoria. (At least, she thinks it is from an opera.)
*P-Favourite Piece of Music at the moment: The Lonesome Boatman
*Q-Favourite Quiet Spot: The bed, if its clean. It usually isn't, though.
*R-Favourite Reading when you're sick: Dorothy Sayers or Ngaio Marsh.
*S-Favourite Song that you want played at your funeral: (Obligatory weird question, sorry. It isn't a real survey if it doesn't have at least one very strange question.) "Into the West."
*T-Favourite Task: The Equuschick does enjoy cooking.
*U- Favourite Ugly Animal: (Can you think of a better question for u?) Komodo Dragons.
*V-Favourite Vintage Book: Dennis Magner's book on horse-training.
*W-Favourite Writing of C.S Lewis: Very hard, but "Mere Christianity" or "Till We Have Faces."
*X-Favourite Word That Starts with X, Because The Equuschick Couldn't think of Any But xylophone: Xylaphone.
*Z-Favourite Zoo: Henry Doorly.

Imaginary Numbers, Real Children

Do you think parents should have the right not to education educate (sorry, the cut, paste, and edit function failed. Er, that would be... me) their children?

If you're a homeschooler you have heard that question or some variation on it from somebody advocating greater restrictions on homeschoolers. Often it will be accompanied with a sort of backhanded compliment something like this, "I know you'll educate your children, but what about the parents who won't?"

Well, what about them? How many are we talking about? Five? Fifty? A thousand? How many homeschooled children are there? Homeschooled children in America count for about two percent of all school age children. If even so much as half of them fail to teach their children to read, that means a subset of half of 2 percent of all children will be illiterate because of bad homeschooling. Whoa, big numbers. But, hey, every child counts, right? And we are asking these questions because we really, really care about every single child, right?

Well, since we're being so concerned about uneducated children, every single one, no matter how small that number because each one counts, why don't these same concerned people ask some questions about other groups who might not fulfill their responsibilities to children?

What about public schools who use taxpayer's money in order to fail to fail the children compelled by law to sit in their classrooms? What puzzles me here is that with the question about homeschoolers who fail to educate we are not only dealing with a minute percentage of a minute percentage, but we are also dealing with a largely mythical population- a rhetorical group of people assumed but not proven to exist any amount that would justify all the attention they get.

When addressing illiteracy in publicly schooled children we are talking about nearly a quarter of all public schooled graduates, and that's a substantial percentage of the vast majority of children. Furthermore, those mythical homeschooling parents who fail to educate their children would be failing on their own dime and time. The much larger and more significant number of public schooled grads who are illiterate are produced on your dime by an institution which only demands more of your money and more of your children in order to produce more of the same failures.

So why shouldn't parents have the freedom to do with their own children exactly what the state is doing to other people's? Those all but mythical parents who don't educate their homeschooled children are at least failing to educate their own children for free, while state schools charge taxpayers a pretty penny for the same service. Since nearly one quarter of high school GRADUATES with a diploma are illiterate, it's kind of a bizarre assumption that the same organization producing so many illiterates with a diploma should have the right and authority to define education, set the standards, and whistle all the tunes parents are supposed to dance to.

I think 'should parents have the freedom to not educate their children (interesting pronoun, their, isn't it?) is the wrong question and it neatly evades that much larger problem that directly affects a much larger number of children. More important questions (such as the foundational 'what is education') would be, "should we continue to fund educational institutions that fail to educate?" Let's set that bar low and assume that literacy is all we expect from education. Should institutions that have a 25 percent failure rate be the gatekeepers and standard makers for systems that have closer to a 90 percent success rate? Should public policy focus on private persons who have over a 90 percent success rate, or on public institutions who operate on public property using public funds and still have a 25 percent failure rate?

Given the huge discrepancy between the number of 'possibly uneducated homeschooled children' and the 'known to be illiterate public schooled grads' we're talking about here, I think anytime we see this mythical issue brought up (I know YOU would educate your children, but there are some parents would wouldn't), we're seeing the result of a successful indoctrination and public relations campaign by Educationists (distinct from educators). In fact, indoctrination is really what it's all about. One reason public schools fail to teach so many children to read is because they are most interested in teaching them something else altogether.


According to this fascinating article, a Canadian history professor at University level leveled the same charges at Canadian public schools as Rudolph Flesch did here in his wonderful book, "Why Johnny Can't REad."

Neatby delineated “the intellectual barbarism and moral anarchy which are threatening Canadian schools.”12 She found a “mania for equality and for the ‘socialized’ existence”and “a scorn of the intellect” that were rooted in Dewey’s slogan, “Not knowledge or information, but self-realization, is the goal.”13 But Deweyite efforts to prepare children for socialized participation in democracy would be ultimately contraductive: “Experts talk constantly of training for leadership, but their whole system is one of conditioning for servitude. This is disastrous to the well-being of democracy which depends for safety on the free development of the highest qualities of gifted individuals.”14 Neatby perceived incipient tyranny: “For all his talk of democracy, the educator is generally authoritarian and dogmatic. Teacher-training institutions in general exist to indoctrinate; their task is not to discover truth, but to convey ‘the truth.’”

Rather than asking if possible handful of parents should be free to refrain from educating their children, we should be asking if the state should continue to be free to take my money and yours to substitute indoctrination for the education of other people's children.

Bernard Iddings Bell in 1949 stated the widespread belief that “the millions of dollars which we devote every year to high-school education are, for the most part, money spent for the retarding of intelligence, the discouragement of efficiency, the stunting of character.”

Public schooling is not only default choice for too many people, it seems to have become the default standard maker- and why should that be? I refuse to cede to other people or institutions the right to redefine education for me and my house. Concerns about homeschooling are misplaced and slightly ridiculous when compared to the sheer number of public school failures.

The ritual herding of the young into state-prescribed confinement persists mainly because it is just that, a ritual of such hoariness as to be largely unquestioned.

It's long past time to start questioning those assumptions and hoary rituals.
Those who are truly concerned about uneducated children should focus their attention on the institutions producing the largest number of illiterate children- public schools.

Donovan Update

This morning Equuschick took the puppy to the vet. After spending almost the entire weekend in lethargic listlessness, interrupted only to throw up and lap an eye dropper full of water, he awoke today spunky and ready to go. He was jumping up on me, trying to get the other dogs' food, and as energetic as a puppy who's lost 1/3 of his body weight in four days can be- which was surprisingly energetic.

His sudden burst of energy at the start of a vet appointment where she was going to explain that this was a terribly sick animal exasperated the Equuschick and tickled me. She used to do the same thing.

It appears that he's going to recover, surprisingly, because he tested positive for Parvo. He never had bloody stools, but the vet says that it appears he has an incredibly strong immune system, that the attention and careful monitoring of liquids helped him, and he's definitely older than 12 weeks (we don't know how old). They are keeping him overnight so they can monitor his condition, keep him on an I.V. to bring his hydration levels back up to par without stressing his tummy, and we'll pick up tomorrow morning.

Equuschick will spend the day sterilyzing her bedroom, washing blankets and bedding in disinfectant, and missing the puppy.

She sat on my bed looking woeful and telling me, "I just hate leaving him. He'll miss me. He'll look for me and I won't be there. He doesn't know those people, and it's not his home. He doesn't know why I left him there and he doesn't know if I am coming back. He'll be all alone tonight and I should be with him."

Which reasons slightly redirected are pretty much why I never left my babies in daycare, so I had some idea how she felt and I felt pretty badly on her behalf. I made what I hope were all the right noises and extended my fullest sympathy. Then she said, "And you're probably thrilled that I have to disinfect my bedroom, aren't you?"

Which I hadn't thought of, but once she mentioned it, it was kind of hard to keep the smile off my face. Behind every cloud....

Continued prayers that Donovan improves and does well at the vet and comes home safe, healthy, and well tomorrow would not be amiss.

Loving Others

On Saturday the HM didn't go to work until noon, but he and the HG left our house early in the morning to take some things to a single mom in a nearby town.
I had planned on cooking chicken for his lunch again, and I'd left a bag of raw chicken in the fridge for that purpose. I slept in a little secure in the knowledge that I already had the lunch thing all planned.
Heh. You see where we're heading, don't you? I opened the fridge door and there was NO CHICKEN, and then I remembered telling JennyAnyDots that of course she could use the chicken in the fridge to make our lunch the day before.
Gulp- no defrosted meat, no decent left-overs, no time, no plan- and the HM still hadn't had breakfast. What to do, what to do?

I called for Jenny to come help me out and here's what we put together:
Tortilla Roll-Ups: cream cheese, cumin powder, horseradish, green onion, pickled peppers, lunchmeat, a dab of grated cheese, and a bit of lettuce. We rolled these tightly and stuffed two and a half in the main-dish compartment of his lunch container.

Coleslaw, already made, just enough leftover to fill a side compartment.

Deviled eggs- Equuschick had boiled some eggs for her breakfast before she left for work, and she'd boiled an extra one for me. Instead of eating it I made two deviled eggs using horse-radish, mayo, and, of course, that dash of paprika for color.

Soup- tomato vegetable. More about this below.

I also made him breakfast, just a quick bowl of oatmeal with ground banana chips, flax seed, and cinnamon. I 'cooked' it by adding rolled, thick-cut oats to a couple cups of water from our instant hot water heater (a separate tap at our sink, usually used for teas and coffee) and covering it while it soaked a few moments. He added raisins to it by the fistful when he came in.

The lunch plate looked rather pasty and pale since all the food was some variation of white. Even the carrots in the cole slaw and the paprika on the eggs didn't help. We had no green leafy veggies, no tomatoes, and no time to do something like fry up a sweet potato, and then I remembered the dilled pickled brussel sprouts in the fridge. This is a small jar, and remember, I bought it just for him because he loves brussels sprouts and he's the only one who does. The jar has lasted all week long because he just gets five or six in each lunch. I added a few slices of celery and then it looked a little better balanced.

Meanwhile, I'd been simmering a small pan of homemade soup, improvised entirely on the 'What's In Your Hand' principle. Among the scant leftovers and skimpy bits and pieces in the fridge (we're going grocery shopping today, so it's getting to be slim pickin' in there) were 1/2 an onion, a limpish carrot, a stalk of celery, and a tupperware container of leftover tomato soup. In the freezer we had 1/2 a bag of baby lima beans. That went in the microwave to defrost and begin cooking. While Jenny was making the tortilla wraps I was dicing and sauteing the onion and celery. I peeled the carrot and diced it, adding it to the saucepan of sauted vegetables along with a bit of salt. I would have added garlic if this were for home eatin', but the HM spends the day in contact with the public. I added the leftover tomato soup to the saucepan and added the beans from the microwave. This simmered and steamed merrily while we diced, sliced, and spread the rest of the lunch.

Jenny found a small fat thermos in the back of a seldom used cupboard and we put a cup of soup in it. I sliced a chunk of swiss cheese with a larger heart shaped cookie cutter and put it on the top of his soup before we put the lid on. Jenny was concerned that the soup was so hot that the shape would melt by the time he ate it and then he wouldn't know what it was. I thought she had a point, so I sliced the cheese pretty thick before using my cookie cutter on it. It was so thick that it promptly sank out of sight when I added it to the soup. Oh, well. After all, didn't the poet say "the best laid plans of wives of men, how oft they sink in the soup?" If he didn't, he should have.

Why share all this in such detail? What reason other than the fact that I tend to go on and on and on, I mean?

Notice something else besides lunch happening in this post as well as the other lunch posts?

One super happening thing, my friends, would be that I had competent teenage help with preparation, and many hands make light work. I had competent teenage help keeping The Cherub, the dogs, and the two youngest Progeny out of trouble. I didn't have to stop what I was doing to hold a fussy baby, change diapers, nurse a baby, or prevent a toddler from electrocuting himself by sticking keys in a light socket.

My ever so competent teens and grown up daughters are not the only thing I have going for me here. The Proverbs 31 woman had her maids, I have mine. Not The Progeny, but handy helpers such as an answering machine (the phone rang repeatedly that morning), a blender for the flax seed, the microwave for speedy cooking of frozen lima beans, the tea-ready hot water faucet in my sink, the refrigerator that kept our tomato soup from spoiling, the stove that heats the soup without requiring me to fill it with wood and keep it burning properly. You have some of those helpers, too, but you may not have them all. I LOVE that extra tap that dispenses water hot enough to make coffee, tea, and cook oatmeal.

Something else going on is a whole lot of improvisational cookery. If I hadn't had the tomato, I might have made soup using the vegetables, a cube of chicken bouillion, and maybe some corn. Or, if I'd had some leftover rice, I might have made hoppin' John instead, or maybe succatash. If I hadn't had the brussels sprouts, I would have added a handful of raisins or maybe some olives for extra color, or the pickled peppers could have been on the side instead of in the tortillas. If I hadn't had the egg, I might have done cream chese and walnuts again, or a bit of cottage cheese, dill, minced onion to be eaten with a celery stick or two. If we hadn't had the leftover coleslaw, I might have chopped an apple, some celery, added walnuts and dressing and called it a Waldorf Salad. If I'd had no lunchmeat I could have used the egg for egg salad inside the tortilla, or added it to tuna salad to make it go further. Sometimes I core a carrot, fill the center with cream cheese, and then slice it for orange carrot rings with a cream cheese center. Apple slices might be served with peanut butter, or the apple might be baked with a bit of butter and maple syrup. I might have just fried cheese tortillas, or I could have made a peasant's lunch of friend apples and onions with cheese.

I did have pickled beets, which I adore. They would have made a lovely and dramatic splash of color on his plate, but he only likes pickled beets as a garnish on a huge leafy green salad, so I didn't use beets. I did have rice cakes and cream cheese, a combination which I think is scrumptious but he thinks tastes like cream cheese over styrofoam, so I didn't include a rice cake in his lunch. I could have put together a quick and tasty batch of hummus in the blender, but he doesn't like hummus, so that's not on the lunch menu. He would probably eat all those things (except maybe the rice cake) if I put them in his lunch, but it wouldn't be very loving of me (unless that's all the food we had or could get) since I know he really doesn't like them very much.

Improvisational cookery is based on both 'what do I have in my hand,' and 'what does he like in his lunch?' Your life circumstances, stage in married life and age, ages and number of your children, income, time, and household logistics might determine that the best meal you can fix for your husband is an opportunity to spend his lunch hour fasting and praying. Or maybe the perfect lunch for you to fix in this season of life is a DIY peanut butter sandwich (send him to work with a bag holding a loaf of bread, the PB, and a knife) or a coupon for a free Happy Meal. He might be better pleased by always being able to find a clean pair of socks, backrubs, taking a walk with you, hearing a great joke, having you laugh at his great (or not so great) joke, reading a book together, or something as simple as a newly swept porch or a private wink across a crowded room.

About Lunches Would You Know
More of your love to others show?
Make yummy meals, desserts, or tea
However you cook, it's love, you see.


But cooking isn't the only way to show and share your love for others. You can do lots of different things.
Like... create handsewn composition books

Give up something you want to give somebody else something they need.

Sharing a public domain text by placing it online so all can benefit from it.

It might be showing up for yard work.

Letting somebody know their work has touched you.

Bragging about your husband's job.;-)

Care packages

How do you show love for others? How do the people in your life hear 'I love you. I think you're special. I appreciate you for who you are?'

Sunday Hymn Post

1. Crown Him with many crowns,
The Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own.
Awake, my soul and sing Of Him
Who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity.

2. Crown Him the Lord of love,
Behold His hands and side,
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends His wond'ring eye
At mysteries so bright.

3. Crown Him the Lord of life,
Who triumphed o'er the grave,
Who rose victorious to the strife
For those He came to save.
His glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high
, Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

4. Crown Him the Lord of heav'n,
One with the Father known,
One with the Spirit through Him giv'n
From yonder glorious throne,
To Thee be endless praise
For Thou for us hast died;
Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days
Adored and magnified.

5. Crown Him the Lord of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise shall never never fail
Throughout eternity.

From this website.

Lunches -- HM view

I have eaten more at work for lunch that just anytime in my recent memory . . . Which is getting really short though! Delicious lunches, tonight I had to have some of the prodigy come the store to help me get some things done (still spent 12 hours there) anyway. They brought me another large plate for food from the grandmother. Needless to say, it may be midnight but I am not having my midnight snack!

Good night ;-)

More Concerning Donovan the Puppy

It would appear, further research and the advice of a kind veterinarian friend have suggested, that Donovan has eaten something that was not intended for consumption by canines and it is now obstructing his digestive processes. There are no local vets that are open on week-ends, so we are praying that things hold together till Monday am.

And that, so far as we know, is that. And if you could pray too, we would appreciate it.

And many thanks to firefly, the vet friend also suggested ice cubes and The Equuschick is feeling rather stupid for not having thought of that herself.

Donovan the Puppy

Donovan has been unable to eat or hold down much of anything for two or three days.
We are very worried about him.

The children are very attached to their animals, and I am very attached to the children and hate to see them go through what I am very much afraid they are going to be going through.

Not Much of a Plot

A friend and former co-worker of the HG's is a single mother, expecting another child, and very much on her own. She just moved into an apartment in another nearby town and has very little. How little, we wanted to know? What can we bring?

She mentioned a few things, and then said her toddler was getting out of hand at times and she found it hard to keep up with him so near the end of her pregnancy.

The HG asked a few more questions and learned the child has two books. 2. TWO. BOOKS.

I went through the picture books here and sent over a huge box of picture books. The FYB and FYG sent over a crate of toys.

When the HM and the HG delivered them there was joy all around.

And then there was this statement, which just haunts me.

"Oh, wonderful!" exclaimed the Mama when she saw all the books. "Now he can stop reading the telephone book to his teddy bear."

What a resourceful little fellow.

Bingo!

That's what I was going to reply when the Queen of Carrots left this comment:

I've been pondering whether I should put more effort into the Duke's lunches, but since he quite frequently forgets to eat altogether I think he'd appreciate my efforts more if I put them into another sphere.

Ezackly, as the FYG says. I don't usually bring my husband breakfast in bed, not even on Father's Day, because I know he dislikes it. Neither does he care much about clutter around the house, toys, books, or other detritus on the floor. I do not fix him fancy desserts because he's not really a dessert man. Likewise, he knows that his wife really does like kitchen tools for presents rather than jewelry, and he knows I like home-made cards better than storebought (he's the other way 'round).

Keep in mind, too, that he's having a particularly rough time and needs some extra attention. He lost his grandmother and his mother, for all practical purposes, in the same woman when his grandmother died last month, and he's had no time to grieve.
And I focused on his lunches for several reasons. I know his 'love language is food,' and I do know how to cook- I learned in childhood because my mother worked full time and she didn't like to cook (she's a great cook, she just doesn't enjoy it). I also picked fixing lunches because they are about the most pain-free thing I can do at the moment, other than sit at my leisure and read a book.;-0

Sooooo, if you want to trade places, then let's trade. We can start with my damaged ribs for your good ones.=)

Another smart lady has pointed out to me more than once that odd human reaction where it doesn't matter WHAT we do, how much, or how much heart we are investing in our family lives and homes- whenever we hear just One Neat Thing that Somebody Else is doing that we are not, we have that sinking feeling of failure.

It seldom occurs to us that we may be secure and comfortable in the knowledge that whatever that One Neat Thing is, very likely there are a dozen other things we do that we can (but don't) take for granted that S.E. is not doing.

Here is an embarrassing confession for those of you whose gifts aren't in the kitchen. I haven't ironed my husband's clothes (except on rare and special occasions) since he was in military technical school immediately after basic training. . I remember precisely the last time I ironed his clothes as a matter of course. It was in 1984. Every time I ironed his uniforms he hovered anxiously nearby pointing out creases that weren't sharp enough and pocket flaps that weren't flat enough. Exasperated one morning, I asked, "Would you rather do it yourself?!" and he grabbed the iron with alacrity and a resounding "YES!" So he did. And he still does.
That's one chore I never took back, even though he no longer requires such military precision when his clothes are ironed (this is a man, by the by, who ironed his cammies!).

Sometime back a single mother I know was telling me about her boys and how they were complaining about something another family did that they didn't get to do. I don't remember what it was, except that it was fairly time consuming. "How come, Mom?" they wanted to know. "How come we can't do that, too?"
"Well, we can," she said. "But if we are going to trade lives with the Jones's, we have to go all the way. If you want to do what they are doing, then we're going to have to NOT do the things they aren't doing that we ARE doing. Choosing one thing always implies NOT choosing something else. So what do you all want to give up."

You can put a stunning piece of gorgeous art anywhere you like in your house. But what you can't do is put two stunning pieces of art in the same space. Only one thing can occupy that space at a time. If you choose to center it over the piano, then you are, by default, choosing NOT to put the other piece there.

These week I've chosen to show my husband a little extra care and attention in his lunches. By default, that means there are other worthy, admirable, and wonderful things you are doing with your time, money, and groceries that I am not doing. Think of that when you are ironing your hubbies clothes, and be at peace- or not, if you are neglecting something you really shouldn't neglect.

It's a trick, it is, to balance with care that frame of mind whereby we are open to improving what needs improving without despairing over things we aren't doing that maybe we just can't be doing just then. It's a trick to practice being content without being complacent.

Words

I debated with myself about posting a link to this website. It is tremendously fun, somewhat instructive, and definitely addicting.

Unfortunately, it also includes bawdy phrases and definite profanities. Please use great care.

With that said, though, the World Wide Words website is a rich & delightful resource for people who love to learn obscure things about words. If you don't want young ones traipsing through it unmonitored (did I mention that great care should be used?) it's still a great place to print out less-controversial discussions to share over the dinner table or to read at the doctor's office.

Everywhere a book, book

The Oxford History of the American People by Samuel Eliot Morison- this is one of the best American histories written for high school and college aged students (and their parents).

The White Robin, by Miss Read, hardback with jacket.

The Travels of Birds by Frank Chapman, 1916, hardback, a children's book about bird migration.


Then There Were Five, by Elizabeth Enright, a beautiful Red hardback with black and cream illustrations on the cover. Published in 1944 and somewhat soiled, as this is a book children love to read, read again, and share with their friends. But it's exceedingly sturdy and wellbound, so we'll be reading this one down to the third and fourth generations.

Burns Complete Poems, Cabinet Edition, 1900, a green hardback with a gilt harp on the cover and gilt lettering on the spine. Very pretty inside and out. I wish I knew what 'Cabinet edition' means.

Birds of a Feather Stories by Murlie Burns Wike, illustrated by Marjorie Hull McIntire, published in 1925. The text us blue in this and some of the other children's nature books we bought, and it makes the pages pretty and a bit easier on the eyes for some reason.

Candy Floss, by Rumer Godden, hardback, 1959, one of Godden's dollbooks. I don't much like her books for adults, but we do like her doll stories.

A 1946 copy of Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski in very battered condition.

Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1929-1932- I love her writing. Her journals are thoughtful, contemplative, interesting, and alternately funny, charming, poignant and tragic. This one covers the period where the Lindbergh's lost their first son.

A Little Dixie Captain by Katherine Verdery, about a little lame Southern girl and her family after the Civil War. Her uncle lost his leg in the battle of Gettysburg and he's afraid he isn't good enough his True Love anymore. The little Dixie Captain (Annie May) brings them together, naturally. First Edition.

And finally, the last book from the second to the last box- The Delight of Great Books, by John Erskine, published in 1928. According to the blurb, Erskine makes it difficult not to learn and impossible not to enjoy. He says in his first chapter that too often, 'a book is famous enough to scare off some people who, if they had the courage to open the pages, would find there delight and profit.' The remaining chapters hold his proofs of that statement as applied to speicfic books- Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, Candida, Modern Irish Poetry and The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, for example. Modern Irish Poets includes Yeats and Synge and several others I do not know anything about. I'm particularly pleased about this one, but I must say that as a true book glutton there's really very little from this booksale that I wish I did not own.

There a Book... (PG?)

Beethoven, Days With the Great Composers- This is another we picked up entirely for its cover, so superficial are we. It's by May Byron, published by Hodder and Stoughton. No printed date, but the inscription inside the cover says 1912, and it was donated to the library in 1917. It's damaged and turns out to be missing the first five pages and one of the coloured plates, but it was worth the fifty cents I paid.





Some of The plates have the feel of William Blake's illustrations- ethereal, fey, fantastic in the original sense of the word rather than as a superlative. Superlatives apply, too, though.
There is this painting of Joy personified by N. M. Price, intended to illustrate the Ode to Joy symphony.

N.M. Price is Norman Mills Price, a Canadian artist born in 1877. He died in 1951 and illustrated many books, including a very nice edition of Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare. He illustrated for several magazines, including covers for the children's magazine St. Nicholas.


There is a representation of fairies from Moonlight Sonata by A. C. Michael (his representation of the Pastoral Symphony has been perfidiously removed from the book). It's a bit darker in tone, isn't it? And is it just me, or do these fairies look a bit goblin-like as they troop underground?
A. C. Michael also illustrated This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall.


There is also a picture of Beethoven and a lady strolling past a pool in front of a white domed palace (not pictured here)

E. B Lintott has a Blakesque personification of another piece ('...anguish...love...rapture...misery...rage....sorrow'), also not pictured here.

E. B. Lintott was born in 1875 in England, but he came to America to study and is considered an American artist. Like Price, he died in 1951.

Scroll down to the sunflower on this page for more information.

May Byron apparently wrote a number of books in a series called 'A Day with..." She had several books about a day with individual poets, composers, and authors. I think we might have also picked up one on Schumann, but I haven't come across it yet.

Here a book...

Good stories for great birthdays,: Arranged for story-telling and reading aloud and for the children's own reading, by Frances Jenkins Olcott. Published in 1922. "Here are over 200 stories celebrating 23 great birthdays of patriot-founders, and upbuilders of the Republics of both North and South America... These tales are not packed full of dry facts and dates... it is the strong personalities that moved the big events of the world, it is the forceful lives of themen themselves, their preparation in boyhood for successful careers, their struggles for right, their heroism, devotion and high adventure... which make history an intense reality to children and young folk...
'There are stories of Washington, Hamilton, John Adams... Light Horse Harry, Old HIckory... Mary and Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Andrew Jackson's mother, the mother of John Marshall... and the children of our foreign born, with how much greater pride may they say, "We are Americans!" when they read about Lafayette, Kosciuszko, Steuben, Haym Salomon, Pulaski, De Kalb...
Our school children, too, may be surprised to learn that there are 20 robust American Republics to the south of us with aspirations like our own and having devoted Patriots. Among their national heroes are Miranda 'the Flaming Son of Liberty,' San Martin the great and good, Bolivar the brilliant and victorious, O'Higgins the soldier citizen, and Brazil's patriot Emperor, Dom Pedro the magnanimous..."

Lunches

I overslept this morning and only got up in time to see the HM off, not in time to get him breakfast. He does have a big lunch today, though.

He has a big microwavable bowl of tortellini soup. To make it seem less like leftovers I used one of my handy cookie-cutters and cut some pepperoni in shapes slices and added them to the soup.

He has several divided plates with lids for his lunches- we pick them up at yardsales whenever we find them.

In one compartment has a salad similar to the one he had yesterday (he told me he liked it)- dilled/pickled brussel sprouts and chopped cauliflower. This time, however, I added a few picked onion slices from the bottom of the last jar of homemade pickles Granny Tea gave us (these are delicious!) and some black olives.

In another compartment he has a scoop of cream cheese. I smoothed out the top and pressed a heartshaped cookie mold down inside it. I put walnuts in a half circle around it (walnuts are very healthy, being high in anti-oxidants and Omega 3s), and put a few thinly sliced celery and carrot strips on the other side.

In the main dish compartment, he has a single large chicken thigh cooked in white wine, smothered in mushrooms and artichoke hearts on a bed of cooked peppers. This sounds really upscale, but it was fairly easy and not too expensive.

Boneless, skinless chicken thighs were on sale, and I bought a couple packages for other recipes. Taking one out to cook for him in the microwave last night really wasn't that big of a deal. We had two mushrooms left in the vegetable drawer, and what else can you do with only two mushrooms? I sliced them very thinly to make them cover more area.=) We recently made spinach-artichoke dip and still had an open jar of artichoke hearts in the fridge, so I pulled out a few of those. I buy chopped frozen peppers at the grocery store every time I go, so I just cooked about a cup of those to make a bed for the chicken.

For dessert he had a bag of grapes, also on sale at the store recently. He didn't want any candy or other sweets today.

Other lunch ideas:

If he can't reheat his food, you can still send nourishing hot soups and chilis by using a thermos.

Make several mini meatloaves and freeze them, sometimes with goodies stuffed
inside (cheese and spinach; a dollop of mashed potato and sour cream
in the center, etc). These can be made in small loaf pans OR in muffin tins. Two make a good lunch for my guy if they are accompanied by generous side dishes.

Calzones- Make bread dough, pinch off enough for a bun, but roll it in a circle, spread pizza toppings and sauce around half the circle and then fold the dough over, pinching it to seal. Bake and freeze. If he likes cold pizza he can eat these cold.
Variation: make bread dough and roll it out thin. Sprinkle with cheese, meat, and other pizza toppings. Roll up like a cinnamon roll and bake the loaf as you would a loaf of bread. Slice into pinwheels and freeze. To serve, reheat and pour sauce over them.

Garnishes: Use cookie cutters to make shapes when you cut slices of bread for croutons or a garnish of toast, cheese, cucumbers, bits of lunch meat, or slices of turnip or other veggies.

Stuffed tomatoes (tomato stuffed with tuna salad, chicken salad, crab salad)

Make several burritoes at once and freeze them. For lunches defrost one or two the night before and add them to lunch boxes in the morning. You could use the same basic bean and cheese filling and then set up an assembly line production to add some variety. Lay out several tortillas on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle some with diced, cooked chicken, some with ground beef, some with bits of bacon, some with extra onion or chiles, some with different kinds of cheese. Then spread the basic bean and cheese filling over the top, roll, and freeze.

For cold lunches you can do cold fried chicken or sandwiches. You can make wraps with tortillas or use pocket bread. You also make tortilla pinwheels (tortilla spread with cream cheese, topped with lunch meat and chopped green onions and cumin powder, roll up) My husband loves horseradish and hot sauce, so we keep some in the fridge. A dollop of that will spice up a sandwich so he's not bored.

Quiche slices using the rice crust from the Frozen Assets (this crust does not get soggy).

My dh doesn't mind leftovers, but I know it's even nicer when I can plan leftovers so that I can doctor them up a bit for his lunch the next day. For example, if we have chili for supper, the next day I might make macaroni and make him chili-mac for his lunch one day and macaroni and cheese another. Or if we have meat and veggies one
night, I might make shepherd's pie of the leftovers for lunch the next day. Stir fried veggies over rice for dinner might turn into fried rice for lunch. Meatloaf might become a meatloaf sandwich.

At the Doctor's

Our son likes to make plans in advance, to know exactly what's happening when and for how long, and he likes to have everything laid out in perfect order in his mind (he also prefers burritoes to tacos because the burrito is folded neatly. No, Mom, I don't know where he gets it from).

He hasn't been to a regular doctor's visit in a long time because he's been so healthy, and he didn't remember what the doctor's office would look like, so he asked me to explain it to him, tell him what would happen, what the office would look like, what the doctor would say. I did my best to comply.

He's definitely a type A personality, but he's pretty funny, too.

Once we were actually in the examining room waiting for the doctor he wanted the next few steps again laid out for him.

I explained that our records were in the pocked just outside the door.
He nodded his head in understanding.
I told him the doctor would come along and pull those records out first and look them over to help him see who we were and why we were there.
He nodded his head.
I said that then the doctor would tap on the door just before he came in to let us know he was coming, and then he'd walk in.
He nodded his head in understanding.
"Then," I told him, "the doctor will ask you why you're here, he'll ask if anything is bothering you and where, and that's when you tell him your complaints."

"Ooooooohhhhhh," he said, with a gleam of mischief in his eye. "I can tell him," and he started counting his complaints off on his fingers, "NObody ever gives me as much candy as I want. I have to make my bed..."

Notes scrawled in English class

We've been discussing Conrad's Heart of Darkness in English class, and I thought it would be fun to post a picture of what notes for that class look like.

The smaller piece is when I took notes from it over lunch time. Lugging out the notebook was too much trouble, but there were things I wanted to remember for future use.

The "Introduction to the Classics" on top is a reminder for me to look up their analysis of the work because I'm rather suspicious of my professor's. I have yet to finish the work, though, so that needs to be done too. I checked out an audio version from the library, though, and will make it my listening-material-of-choice for the next several days.

The doodle is just that, a doodle. When one is thoroughly disgusted by material being discussed, the doodle is a handy rescuer from eye contact with the Prof.

--
Reading back through class notes I am amused to find an argument with my professor on paper:
[Professor] insists third stanza is bad poetry. I disagree.
Why can't the evening have corners?!

Tortellini Soup

I was sure we'd already posted this recipe, but I can't find it anywhere. Odd, because it's a winter standard.

This serves 9

Saute one or more cloves of garlic and 1/2 cup of diced onion in olive oil- use a large saucepan.

Add:
8 cups of water
2-3 tablespoons chicken broth powder (or just use chicken broth if you have it, instead of water)
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach
Approximately one pound of canned tomatoes
2 teaspoons of basil
1 teaspoon of oregano
two cups of pasta- we used dried cheese tortellini last night because it was on sale. We've used fresh and frozen pasta, including ravioli, tortellini, and just plain macaroni when that's what we had.

Simmer this for 20-30 minutes or until the pasta is done.

Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese (optional)
Stir in salt as desired.

Serve hot with french bread.

This is slightly on the thin side. I usually end up adding more pasta for my hearty eaters. If company drops in you can always add more soup, tomatoes or pasta. You can add meat if you want a more protein rich version.

It freezes well, too. You can saute the garlic and onion and then just add it to a freezer container of uncooked pasta, spinach, tomatoes and spices and seasonings. On cooking day just boil 8 cups of water, add the bag of ingredients and you have almost instant soup.

Thankful Thursday

My stomach disagreed with something I ate yesterday, and I was up and down a few times this morning between the hours of 3 and 6. I'm thankful for that.

Here's why:
What with one thing and another and another and another, I realized yesterday morning that somebody around here has been badly neglected just when he really needs some extra attention. I was badly shocked when I started to think about it and realized just how neglected. It's easy to see how it happened. We've had an emergency which left both of us very focused on the children and on the urgent and immediate needs. I've let the tyranny of the urgent distract me from the important. He's a morning person and I am a night-owl. He's very self-sufficient, has an incredible work ethic, and he seldom complains. I'm not so self-sufficient (especially of late), I have no work ethic to speak of (especially compared to him), and I complain all the time. We've also been very focused on the two youngest children in particular because of their health problems (the boy's appetite is still not back and he's still skin and bones) so it's been all too easy to coast in the same habits that developed while we were in crisis mode. Some things can't be helped. I can't drive yet, so he's been taking me to appointments, which means he also has to make them because his schedule is the one that matters. He's been doing his own laundry and ironing for ages, and both of these tasks are painful to me, and as for breakfast- he grabs a bite to eat if he has time, and he gets lunches when one of the girls remembers to fix him one, and all around it's just a shocking state of affairs.

However, as happens with me all too often, such shocks are rather shortlived as I get distracted by everyday life. And books.

So I am thankful that I had to get up and down so many times this morning. Because in the wee hours of the morning as I was getting in and out of bed I had time to think about this further, and as I was reading old magazines we keep in the magazine rack in our porcelain and tile library, I came across an article about those good healthy fatty acids that help with brain function and other good things, and this is something that the HM and I had been talking about just a few nights ago. It had some easy recipes and suggestions as well as lists of healthy foods that provided specific nutrients for specific health issues which I know the HM is concerned about.

Still, it takes time for ideas to percolate into action in my head, and I was getting into bed when the HM's alarm went off at 5:30. He groaned and hit the snooze button. I drifted off to sleep for a few minutes before I had to get up again, and while I was once more in our porcelain and tile reading room I heard him groan and hit the snooze button again. And again. I realized I'd been up often enough that I didn't feel like going back to bed. And then I remembered anew what had so shocked me yesterday and finally decided to do something about it.

Instead of going back to bed I got up and made him breakfast. It wasn't fancy- just oatmeal cooked with a diced apple, cinnamon and nutmeg with coconut oil and ground flax seed stirred in. I brought it in to him, expecting to find him in the shower. He was still in bed, so he ate while we sat and talked a few minutes, sans children, dogs, and incoming phone calls. We did not talk about insurance, money, broken things in this house or the rental, children, surgeries, or schedules.

While he was in the shower I fixed him his lunch. One of the girls actually had remembered to do this yesterday so there was one in the fridge, but I know he likes it better when I make them. This is why:
His main dish was leftover enchilada pie, which he loves. I spooned organic salsa over the top. In the shape of a heart.

For a side dish I sliced a sweet potato very thinly (I used a vegetable peeler) and fried it quickly in coconut oil, seasoning it just the way I know he likes it.

For a salad I opened a jar of dilled brussel sprouts I bought a while ago just for him but he hadn't tried yet (he loves brussel sprouts). I diced some raw cauliflower (high in antioxidants and other good things) and mixed it up, adding a green onion (he also loves these) I snipped with kitchen shears.

For dessert I put a small Snickers bar (quick energy, and his favorite candy) and three slices of homemade chocolate chip/pumpkin bread (organic, whole wheat, tasty) in a separate Tupperware container.


For garnish- I always add a garnish- I got out a dried pineapple ring and a small star shaped cookie cutter (I think it's actually for canapes) and cut out four star shapes from the pineapple. I put those on top of his pumpkin bread in an attractive pattern. Then I got out a stick-it note and told him he was my superstar, and I stuck that to the inside of the lid. I wanted to use the heart cookie cutter, but I was in a hurry and couldn't find it. I have quite a collection of small cookie/canape cutters I pick up thrift shops whenever I find them for just this purpose. Sometimes I include slices of cheese cut in shapes, or bread, lunch-meat, or even carrots.

I wrote x's and o'x (kisses and hugs, for those of you who, shockingly, do not know this) on a napkin, along with a short note telling him I love him and am praying for him today, and I wrapped up his fork in the napkin and put the two tupperware containers and the fork on his planner where he wouldn't forget them.

Then I told him what he had for lunch (not about the star shaped pineapple or the heart design in his salsa, just the general foods). I think it's more fun to surprise him and let him find out what he has when he opens his lunch container, but he prefers to know in advance so he can be anticipating it. Sort of like my biscuit story, one day I realized that if I really fix these lunches for him instead of for me, I would aim to please him instead of myself. Likewise, if YOUR spouse hates fancy garnishes, mushy notes, and hugs and kisses on his napkins, then you won't be doing something nice for somebody else if you add them anyway.

I used to make his lunches like this all the time and his co-workers used to ask to see what he brought in for lunch each day. He told me he had the best lunches from home of anybody he ever worked with. It hasn't been that way for far too long.

I offered to make him coffee if he'd tell me how (he grinds the beans and does it in a coffee press, and I have remained ignorant of the process because if I know how then I might have to do it sometime. Isn't that horrible?!). He said he couldn't give me directions, he had to do it himself. So he made it and brought me coffee in a cup that says "To my friend."

So that is why I am thankful that I was slightly ill and had to get up so many times this morning before the sun was even up, and I am even more thankful for a kind and patient husband.
Rebecca, again, has more things to be thankful for.

for the information of Certain Family Members

(you know who you are)

What Do I Have In My Hand?

Help me out here, please.

Jenny and I had a grand idea for a useful project. We needed a large flat surface, and I knew there was a huge marble slab over at the Rattery that I thought would be perfect. It's about an inch thick, 23 inches wide and almost 30 inches long.

I wheedled a bit and my husband agreed to stop and pick it up on our way home from my dentist appointment yesterday. It was filthy, and not so nice as I remembered, but we got it home and Jenny, Pip and I spent hours cleaning it up. By the light of day it was too pitted for our purposes and Jenny and Pip thought it was ugly anyway (it's a streaky brown and cream color). Then I remembered another flat surface almost the same size but much lighter- the laminated counter top they cut out to put in our kitchen sink, and we're using that for our project.

"What will we do with this?" asked Jenny and PIp about the marble slab.

"I don't know. Let's think of something," said I.

"I just love toting around 80 pound objects just in case we think of a use for them" grumbled the HM.

It's too pitted for a good bread or pastry board, and anyway, I have a marble slab in a more practical size. It came from the Rattery as well, and I already use it for that purpose, and it's smoother. There is a monument place in town where I think we could get it ground smooth again, but I don't know if the cost would be worth it.

Concerning Chimeras

And not the mythical Greek creature, either.

Chimeric, is in fact, a genetic condition in which a person (or in some cases, an animal) carries two distinctly different sets of DNA. As far as The Equuschick has been able to understand it (which isn't much) this is supposed to occur when twins are concieved, but then fuse in the embryonic stage. In other words, as some have said in The Equuschick's research, they are the most extreme form of Siamese twins. Two DNA strands, one person.

Looky here, it sounds like science fiction but it isn't.

And here's the Official Medical Definition from Webster's Medical Dictionary.

And in yet another freakish case of science, two cases of equines with the condition were just discovered. By what seemed to be impossible odds, the two horses, while the condition was still unknown, were bred to each-other and a huge investigation was launched when the resulting foal's DNA did not match that of either parent.
Both horses shared a brindle colouring, and now the speculation centers on whether there is a connection between the brindle gene and the chimeric condition, brindle itself being a very rare horse colouration. And there is known to be a connection between the tortiouseshell gene in cats and the chimeric condition, so one wonders.

This would be the stallion, whose double DNA had both male and female tendencies.

The world is just too weird for words sometimes.

Note: Links fixed

Going to church in two cars

Because we don't all fit in one...
HG says she's driving the white car.
Pip leaps at the chance, "I want to ride with you!" she says.

"Awww," says the HG, "I love you, too. I'm glad you're riding with me.

"Well," confesses honest Pip, "I do love you. But I am riding with your iPod."

Bookswapping and Frugal Gifts

This post was going to be about three sentences long, and then I got carried away. Somebody ordered a book from me through PaperbackSwap and while I was there pringint out the wrapper I realized that my book credits could be put to use as frugal Christmas gifts in what is going to be a very tight season this year.

If you are a member of PBS and you have bookcredit, you could create a cute gift certificate for a family member or friend who would appreciate it, and offer your book credit so they can pick a book of their choice.

You could also just use your credits to order presents you pick out. You can get audio cassettes and hardbacks sometimes, as well as paperbacks. Save the swaps (or your home-made gift certificate) for Christmas and birthday gifts, hostess gifts, stocking stuffers, something special for Thanksgiving, and just for something small but special for no reason at all.

So that was the basic post. Then I remembered that I can get book credit for referring others to PBS and I remembered that there are a number of free bookswap sites on the internet, and LibraryThing lists most of them. I decided to check them out and share my findings here.


Paperback Swap still looks like the best one to me.
You get three credits right away, just for listing a certain number of books. You don't pay anything for books you receive. You only pay to ship the books people order from you, and it's usually only 1.59 since you can ship everything bookrate. Paperback Swap also offers credit to members for referring new members. If you are not already a member and you want to sign up, AND you 'know' us rather than our pseodonymns, you can give us credit when you sign up by using my regular email address (the one ending in '_ _ _ peh' atyouknowwhere dotdotdot etc. Sorry for the silly obscurity, but that's the way it is. We have a small internet stalker problem). I've been a member there for a few months and I've gotten several nice books (the sequel to The Gammage Cup; A Severe Mercy in hardback; The Lifetime Reader by Clifton Fadiman) in exchange for mysteries, mostly, that I wouldn't read again anyway.

FrugalReader looks good- I just signed up there. You get credit for listing books so you can start right away, and you get credit for referring new members who list you as their referrer (I'm the DHM there, if you want to join and give us credit), and I don't see any other fees except what it costs you to mail the books requested by others.

With Bookins you pay 3.99 for every book you order, which makes it less frugal, but still, for that certain book you've been looking for it might be just right.

What's On My Bookshelf seems to offer more tapes and movies than the others, if their website is a good reflection of their holdings.

With TitleTrader you have to wait for your first positive feedback for credit. If nobody wants the books you list, that could be a while, but as soon as you get that first positive feedback you get three credits! Title Trader offers extra credits based on the book's value at Amazon. I just signed up there, too, because they also offer referral credit, and if you want to sign up giving us credit, here's the link to do that.

SwapThing offers a trade for trade site and you pay 1.00 to Swapthing for each swap.

SwapSimple also charges two dollars for every item you order, or you can join their Ambassador program and earn one dollar for every so many transactions which result in your referrals. It wasn't one click shopping, and the first book that showed on the page when I looked ought to have been thrown away, or at best in the backroom behind a plain brown wrapper and only visible to those proving they were 21 or older, so I didn't investigate further. I am pretty sure the book titles on that page rotate, so I would not always find such nasty surprises, but I wasn't impressed with their judgement.


With LendMonkey you get credit for the first ten books you list, and then you get credit for each item you send out, similar to PaperbackSwap (except PBS gives three credits for the first nine books listed). I didn't see any credits for referrals and the list of members, transactions, and items listed is much smaller than other sites. You can get books, games, movies, and music here. There are 143 games listed (Xbox, Sega, etc). It may grow, but if you need quick credit, you might want to look elsewhere. Sign up with LEndMonkey if you have time to wait help a little site become a big one.

For those in the United Kingdom, Bookhopper has some very generous terms. Readit Swapit is also a UK based program.

Paperback Swap still looks best to me if you want to join just one.

For more ideas on frugal living, see this weeks Frugal Fridays.

A BAker's Dozen

First Person Rural, by Noel Perrin a 1978 hardback in lovely condition. I'm very tickled with this one because it's been on my wishlist for a while.

Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott, part of The Home Library series, maroon cover, gilt lettering on spine, no date, added to the library's catalog in 1926.

A hardback field guide to birds by Roger Tory Peterson. I've used the inside pages of these where they show outlines of birds to make a geo-safari card on bird I.D.

Conquest of Peru by Prescott, Volumes 1 and 2, J.B. Lippincott's New Popular Edition, 1874, and they appear NEVER to have been checked out, more fool they to pass this treasure by every day. The covers are dark green with a stylish black line across the outside corners and running parallel to the spine, gilt lettering on the spine.

Mosses from an Old Manse, by Hawthorne, part of The Home Library series, in maroon and guilt lettering. Add to library catalog in 1920, splitting inside cover.

Anything Can Happen on the River, by Carol Ryrie Brink and illustrated by W.W. Berger. Brink wrote the wonderful book Caddie Woodlawn, which is another book every young person should read, ideally, somewhere between 8 and 12, but it won't hurt to read it outside those boundaries.

The World I Live In, by Helen Keller, published by The Century Co. A collection of essays published in 1908. Looks intriguing. The first chapter begins:

I have just touched my dog. He was rolling on the grass, with pleasure in every muscle and limb. I wanted to catch a picture of him in my fingers, and I touched him as lightly as I would cobwebs; but lo, his fat body revolved, stiffened and solidified into an upright position, and his tongue gave my hand a lick! He pressed close to me, as if he were fain to crowd himself into my hand. He loved it with his tail, with his paw, with his tongue. If he could speak, I believe he would say with me that paradise is attained by touch; for in touch is all love and intelligence.

You can read the rest of that first essay online here.


Forty Years of Scotland Yard by Frederick Porter Wensley, published in 1933.

Story of the Great Republic, by Guerber, 1899. Yes, another one.

Warren Hastings, by Lord Macaulay, a beautiful little green hardback with a gilt medallion on the cover and a lovely black floral design, published in 1886.

Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, part of the Macmilan pocket classics, published in 1927. I really like the MacMillan pocket classics. They are a handy size, well bound, and charming on the bookshelf, and they chose admirable titles, so the contents are special as well.

Twice Told Tales by Hawthorne, part of the Home LIbrary series published by A. L. Burt in the twenties.

Stories of the Wagner Opera, by Guerber again. This is gorgeous. The cover is green with gilt lettering and a gilt medallion and there is a very florid floral engraving with scrolls an curly-ques all around the lettering on both cover and spine. Published in 1899 and originally given that year to one Elizabeth Hawkins by one T.F. Roughcut pages from the days when books came uncut and the buyers had to slit the pages apart.

Hectic

After the morning run around on the telephone with our medical clinic (see previous post), we all heaved a sigh of relief. Everybody was up and dressed at an unprecented time for us to all be up and dressed right down to our shoes, and we didn't have to go anywhere and could look forward to a quiet and peaceful day at home.

And maybe we will, but I am not sure it was a good omen that very shortly thereafter at *exactly* the same time bedlam broke out as the UPS man rang the doorbell, the dogs went wild, the puppy escaped, and one child was screaming for toilet paper from the downstairs bathroom while another child on the second floor was bellowing something from the upstairs, we couldn't understand what between the dogs and the child in the downstairs bathroom. So we added to the noise by yelling, alternately, "I'm getting it! What? What do you need? How do you spell what?!"
What the upstairs child was bellowing was, "HOW DO YOU SPELL TONGUE? TONGUE! HOW DO YOU SPELL TONGUE? LIKE 'I AM LAUGHING OUT LOUD WHILE STICKING OUT MY TONGUE?"

I don't know if he was sticking out his tongue, but I am pretty sure the UPS man was laughing out loud while he walked away.

Red Tape

Red Tape really annoys me. INflexible policies really annoy me. Right now, my doctor's office really annoys me.

We live 45 minutes of country driving away from our medical clinic. One child has an appointment today, one tomorrow (the parent who scheduled one didn't know about the other when the appointment was made, and I only realized this conflict today).

We have two working cars right now, neither of which seats our entire family, and we have three drivers who have jobs and school obligations in separate parts of the county (and outside the county for one), plus me, and I have two physical therapy appointments each week plus dental appointments to work on three teeth that broke in the accident. Logistics are a little... complicated.

So I call and ask if we can reschedule one of them, it doesn't matter which one, so that they are on the same day and in the same half of the day. I don't mind waiting a couple of hours, there are errands we can run in that town (it has a great thrift shop, a good farm supply store, and a super-Walmart). She tells me their next opening for two appointments would be two weeks from now. I ask if there are any openings for today or tomorrow for just one more appointment. She looks at tomorrow and tells me it's impossible, they have no openings and they are already doublebooked all day long.

Happily, there is a cancellation this morning and we could get both children seen on the same day in the same two hour period instead of expending three hours of driving for two appointments. Ecstatic, I grab the appointment. The receptionist apparently cannot retrieve our information from the already scheduled appointments because she asks for all the information all over again. That's okay, because she's just saved me 90 minutes of redundant driving.

There's a bit of confusion of the boy's birthday. She keeps telling me it's in their system on the seventh of July. Right month, wrong date. She stubbornly insists it's the one in the system and seems to think I am giving her the wrong information, perhaps the appointment is for a different child and I am mixed up. I explain laughingly that we have seven children and while I can get confused about things, but the fact is that nobody in our family has a birthday on the seventh of any month, so it seems the system is mistaken about the Boy's birthday. It's his appointment we want to reschedule, not another family member's. I hear the click, click of her keyboard, and an exasperated sight.

Sadly, because he hasn't been seen in three years and it was a different doctor at the clinic (one who has since moved on) he's considered a 'new appointment,' and they won't give him a fifteen minute appointment. The doctor only needs to look at his incision this time to make sure it's healing well and listen to his cough. The other child only needs to be told the results of some testing (which results we already got from the lab) We don't need thirty minutes for this. The receptionist can only tell me "It's our policy, and the system won't even let me schedule a 'new patient' for fifteen minutes."

Always a rebel against the more mindless elements of 'the system' I ask if we can schedule in one of us 'old patients,' and then take the boy in instead. This is shocking to her. I wheedle and plead that given our distance from the center and our hardship circumstances because of the very car accident that is prompting one of these appointments that I am confidant a medical center as impressive as ours, with a reputation for friendliness and putting people first might find a way to work around a distinctly unfriendly policy and make an exception just this once. She can only repeat what she has already told me about the system, which it seems we all exist to serve. I suggest that surely there's something we can do to fill that cancellation that just opened up. She relents and tells me she can leave a note to ask the doctor if he will be willing to see this new patient for fifteen instead of thirty minutes.
Joy. I am thrilled and am thinking her gratefully when she cuts off my thanks with a statement delivered in monotone:

"But he won't be able to call you back and tell you if you can bring your son in until thirty minutes after the appointment."

Imagine the stunned and confused silence on my end.

"Ummmm," I stutter, "Then I am not sure how helpful that will be. Would that mean I could come in for the earlier appointment and my son would be seen and then the doctor would call me later and tell me whether or not he was willing to give my son the appointment he'd already had thirty minutes before? And why would I have to wait thirty minutes to hear back from the doctor? If we are blocked in for that appointment, couldn't he just tell me then?"

"No, you can't come in until you hear from the doctor that it's okay, and you won't hear from him until thirty minutes after the appointment. But I can leave a message that you want him to call if you like."

"There doesn't seem to be any point in that, does there? I mean, what I want is not to make two round trips when I could make one, and you're telling me I cannot have that open fifteen appointment today unless a doctor approves it thirty minutes too late, and since I can't time travel, I don't think that will work."

She asks again if I want her to leave the message.

I am so confused, so very confused. Is she trying to be helpful, or is she being rude, or have I completely mistaken her meaning? I decide to assume it is my misake and say, "I must be misunderstanding you, and I'm sorry to be so confused, but could you explain how this will work so that I can avoid two round trips? If the appointment is at 9:30 I have to leave in five minutes to be there on time because I live 45 minutes away. So I will arrive at 9:30 and sit in the waiting room and the doctor will call me at 10:00 to tell me whether or not I could have that appointment, and if he says yes, then I'll just be 30 minutes late? Is that what would happen?"

Silly me. If I am thirty minutes late then I am a no-show and the appointment is canceled. So then, how, I ask again, is leaving a message for the doctor going to help solve my problem of needing to move one of the two appointments to a different day? I know it's not her problem, it's mine, but it is a problem and I was so hoping she could help me.

She sighs and says the nurse will have to call me back. I begin writing this post and have almost finished it when the nurse calls me back to cheerfully tell me that of course I should not have to drive out there twice two days apart and we now have back to back appointments tomorrow afternoon.

So for this day in November, I am thankful for that nurse and her sweet reason, and I am resolved to get our family calendar under control so that we don't have anymore scheduling tangles.

Elections

You won't get any doom and gloom here. I figure if the Republicans had both the House, the SEnate, and the Presidency for as long as they did and we STILL have the legal but foully immoral atrocity of partial birth abortion, they don't deserve it.

I just found this blog which covers the third parties- looks pretty interesting.

There's a table of how Libertarians did across the board here. I MUCH prefer this formatting to the more common one where you must tediously click on state after state to see the results.

The Constitution Party (in some states known as The TAxpayers' Party, neither of which is, oddly, covered in the Third Party Watch blog that I could see) has an official website here.

Any other offbeat political news?

I was annoyed. Listen to me roar.

Occasionally I go back and read journal entries to see what I was thinking on this day in 2005, or 2004, or any year, really. Mostly I'm bored with how commonplace I writer I am. Every once in a while I'm pleased to find a passage where I actually wrote something good. And sometimes I find a passage so vitriolic it surprises me. This entry, written a year ago, falls into that category:
"[complaining about some of my classmates] They've been force fed garbage for years and have been told that they're uber smart even while having their brains numbed. Sad, because they are smart, but that native intelligence is lost in the overweening sense of politically correct virtue."

Wow. I was feeling super charitable that day, huh?

Winterizing

Adapted from a November, 2005 post, and entered in the NOvember 16th Frugal Friday.

The new house is very nicely insulated and all the windows are well sealed, and we are very toasty warm. Our only problem is that the door seals keep coming off two of the four outside doors.=(

Last year at this time we were living in yet another old farmhouses where the curtains billowed in the breeze when the windows were shut, where water froze in glasses left in bedrooms overnight, and where we could our breath inside on a frosty morning.

These are low-tech methods for winterizing when you live in the sort of housing we're more used to:

A friend of ours refers to his home in winter as a saran wrapped trailer. I think you get the idea.

You'll want to copy and save this website. You need a table knife and some cotton batting for quilts. We did this last year and it really did help (some of our windows do look just like those in the pictures). I've heard tinfoil also works, but you can at least claim the cotton batting is a Christmas decoration. I don't know what you'd say about foil.

You can get glazing compound to seal the windows, but I don't know much about this.

You can do some professional window warmers.

You can do your own window quilts.

You can make your own thermal window shades.

We had bookshelves lining every single outside wall in our house, and we think that improved the insulation value of our walls.

We also used some old, antique rag rugs for curtains in some of the windows with the most gaps.

Make your own draft stoppers. BAsically this is a cloth tube the length of the door or window. You fill it with something heavy to block draughts. We've used buckwheat, but rice, corn, sand, newspaper, clean kitty litter, or pea gravel would work. About.com has some information here, but I really hate trying to use About Dot Com- nothing I want is ever there when I go back to it.When we made our draft-stoppers we used a hideous old pillowcase that came in a box of linens from my uncle. IT was striped in bold rainbow colors and nobody wanted it. We cut it lengthwise to make the tubes. I think we got five good ones from one pillowcase. You can also use the legs of old pants, tube socks (maybe two or three sewn end to end).

In some cases you can use your dryer vent on your clothes dryer to add heat to the house. You need an electric dryer, a special box to filter the air inside the house, and you may need an extra filter. Some caveats here. We've done this before, and it was very helpful. We purchased a vent box just for this purpose, and then we covered it with an old nylon stocking to add extra filtering. If your dryer vents to the outside make sure that vent is well sealed so that cold air isn't coming back inside.

Check all the places where water pipes come into the house- especially in an old house, these places may be very unprotected from outside elements.

Use candles. One candle adds the equivilant of one person's body heat. Watch for sales, pick them up at thrift shops and yard sales- it doesn't matter how ugly the candle is, you want the wick, wax, and warmth.

Make lots of hot foods, soups, casseroles, hot teas, etc. Bake and stay in the kitchen.

Dress warmly. I once knew a Californian who thought he ought to be able to run about the house barefoot, shirtless, and in shorts all year long. In the winter he was constantly pushing up the thermostat and complaining about the chill. Get dressed! There's no reason you should feel entitled to ignore the season. Put on warm socks, sweaters and sweatshirts, wear long underwear, dress in layers, and cover your head if you have thin hair or are balding. Leave out fleece lap robes, afhgans, and small blankets about the house. When you're sitting still, snuggle up under a blanket.

This blogpost is a keeper- directions to window insulators you make yourself from corrugated cardboard and fabric. You take two pieces (it must be two) of corrugated cardboard measured to fit inside your window. They suggest making it just an inch shorter than the window so that you can easily get them in and out. I'd just make a strap on one side. Duct tape the two pieces of cardboard together and put them in your windows at night. TO make it look prettier, cover one side with fabric, paint, wallpaper samples, or whatever your creative mind devises. The original suggestion includes covering the side that goes inside the house with foil and then contact paper, but we didn't have enough heat on the inside of the old house for this to make a lick of difference.

You can buy plastic to cover the windows. You can either nail it up inside and out, tape it, or buy the shrink to fit sort you blow-dry. We often could not afford it.

Warm bricks (or hot water bottles) to put under the covers. The HG slept with a hot water bottle all winter long in the old house. Her bedroom was upstairs in an attic garret of strange proportions and it does get chilly up there. Filling up a hot water bottle and using it to warm up otherwise chilled sheets is a great help against the bitter cold. Keeps the feet warm, too.

The Equuschick used another low-tech sheet warming device. The HM used it for therapy a couple years ago when he needed to warm up his muscles before trying to work damaged muscles and tendons- it's a kind of a bag or pillow shaped little thing full of some man made beads of some sort. You heat them in the microwave and then use them like a heating pad. We like to heat them in the microwave and then put them under the covers to keep chilly feet warm.

You can make your own. They can be pretty pillows stuffed with corn, rice, buckwheat, buckwheat husks, etc. They can also just be mismatched knee socks (soccer socks also work nicely).

You do have to be careful not to heat them too long. They can start a fire.


Wool blankets.

Unused fireplaces will sometimes be drafty even when the flues are closed. Last year when I posted this, a friend explained how friends of hers made a fireplace cover with plywood velcroed to the opening. The side facing out was covered in fabric that matched the room and I'm told it was very attractive.

Dress in layers. YOu can find some very warm clothes at the thrift shop that may not be attractive, but if you use them for undershirts, nobody will ever know.

Hats, shawls, and lap-robes are must-haves for when you are sitting down and slowly finding your body heat disappearing.

Lots of cuddling.

Pack everybody up and go to the library

----------------------------------------
What are some of your ideas?
Frugalwinterizing

Critical Thinking 101

Although laced with profanity which falls harshly on the sheltered ear, there is much good food for thought here, and it's even funny.

Election Day

And I ought to care and be more interested than I am, but in case you haven't noticed, I've been rather apathetic about politics of late. All politics is local, said somebody, and here in my town, all the local offices that I know of are running unopposed. ADvice to get to the polls early is laughable, as in these parts we consider 8 people in line to vote a massive crowd.

I do like Carmon's advice for election day.

I like this young man's politics.=) (warning, one scatalogical reference)

Hearing rumblings about Diebold? Here's some thoughtful commentary.

For those who expense more substance than my first paragraph, Betsy at Betsy's page is a good start.

But if you're looking for political coverage here, we just aren't in the mood. Sorry.
We'll be spending the day with each other and having friends over in the evening. We'll probably read some books, have a Bible study, play a few games, sing a song or too. Jenny's baking pumpkin chocolate chip bread, we'll have some spiced tea, light a few candles and enjoy a rainy day at home.

Books from Childhood.

A few days ago I wrote this in a community of friends:

"I've confirmed tonight that I am not built to be an English major, just in case I ever had any doubts on that score. Writing a short analysis of the last two lines to Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn. I love the poem, but for some reason, writing an analysis of literature just does not make me as happy as analyzing a battle or some other historical event. I prefer the straightforward, I suppose. This is what happened vs. This is what someone said, and maybe they meant this one thing and maybe they didn't and golly isn't all this guesswork fun?
There's guesswork with history too but it still feels more concrete. I like the concrete. There's a common variable: humanity, and yet when you dig into it even more humanity turns out to be less common and more variable than you thought. English deals with words (duh) and those are some of the most fluid things in nature."

An acquaintance who has just started her freshman year of college majoring in English but who is now wondering if she would do better with Social Studies responded by saying that she really connected with a lot of that post. And then she said a few things that I really connected with: that she had always loved literature, but when she thought back to the books that she devoured in childhood, she loved them because they were based on history. Doing a mental scan of my favorite books from the ages of 8-12ish, I realized that could apply to me as well.
Some favorites:
* Twenty and Ten (World War II history)

* The Courage of Sarah Noble (early American history)

* The Matchlock Gun (ditto)

* The Singing Tree&The Good Master
(these books are fantastic for themselves, but the things that stuck to my memory most are the bits about war in Hungary)

Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee

Where we went camping in Tennessee. Supposedly these falls are higher than Niagara, all though not half the width. They were lovely!

Miscelanneousage

That is a very hard word to spell, and a harder one to pronounce. The Equuschick should always only make up words that are easy to spell and pronounce. She'll make a memo of that.

She just opened the copy of North and South she's reading to discover, with a shock to her startled senses, that late last night when she was done reading and turning out the light she marked her place with a used band-aid. She doesn't know what possessed her to do that, really. She has now replaced it with a very sanitary used candy wrapper that marks the place just as nicely.

She was at the library this afternoon and randomly picked up Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year, by David Ewing Duncan. She can't believe she thought she had time for it, but it looked so interesting she couldn't help myself and she's read a couple chapters all ready. For the record, there are parts of it she does not understand because mathematics confuse her and the concept of atomic time BLOWS HER MIND AWAY but no doubt it is good for her to read things she does not understand, and try to understand them.

Speaking of the incomprehensible, she suddenly grasped the grammatical concept of the split infinitive today, after 21 years. An infinitive is when you have two verbs like "to" and "go" and you split the infinitive when you put another word between them. All so simple! And all so stupid that it should be abolished as a grammatical rule altogether, but in the meantime it is nice to understand the rule The Equuschick has every intention of defying for the rest of her life.

Coloured Plate from How and Where We Live

Isn't it adorable?!

From How and Where We Live, an Open Door to Geography by Nellie B. Allen and published in 1924. There are several colored plates in the book by several different illustrators. They are so lovely. Marguerite Davis is the illustrator for some of the colored prints, E.M. Wireman did others, and a few have no illustrator credits.
Davis was a Boston artist who illustrated several children's books.

I haven't found any good samples of either of these illustrator's works on the web, so I posted this one. It's by Wireman and reminds me of our son and nephews playing down by our creek.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Oats

I'm trying to put together my co-op order for this month and I couldn't decide if I wanted to get oat groats or thick-cut rolled oats. This website has plenty of information and lots of recipes for those interested. The author wrote it for use on a 'Zone diet' related list, but it's still informative for the rest of it. It's also well-written, and who knew oats could be so entertaining?

Interested in finding a co-op near you? Here's one directory.

Onward, Rejoicing, I List My Books

Ever, I'm cleaning out my book-nooks.

A tidy guestroom'll soon be in view!

Where we'll put purchases new!

(To be sung to the tune of "Hilltops of Glory")

The HG tells me that her university is having a library booksale soon and very soon. I don't really feel up to a library booksale, in fact, I am surprisingly uninterested just now. But she further informs me that she's going and she's taking her sisters so I might as well come, too. We'll see.

This is, I believe, my second to the second last box before all the library sale books from the LAST sale are out of the bedroom. We did get the winter clothes out, and the only thing left in there that doesn't belong is one of those misc. boxes of loose ends and bits and pieces of unrelated items from tidying up the garage. If I do this in a timely fashion, I might have a clean guestroom for an entire week before it fills up again. But you don't read these posts to hear my lament about my untidy habits. You read them to vicariously enjoy my recent library booksale, or perhaps so you can enjoy my lack of self-control while feeling superior for your own sales resistance, or maybe to rub salt on your own wounds because I got to go the sale of a century and you did not, or maybe it really is to read about my untidy habits.=)

No, in short, (oops. Too late), it's for the books, for the books, for the books, books, for the BOOOOOKS, for the books, books, books (tune of Bonanza Theme song). So here they are:

Pumpkin, Ginger, and Spice by Margaret G. Otto and illustrated by Barbara Clooney. The inside is lovely, clean, unmarked, intact. The binding is good. The covers are soiled and the corners and spine edges are rubbing clean through to the boards. It's a really cute story for dog lovers, especially dachsund fans.

The Wonderful Day, by Elizabeth Coatsworth, a delightful children's author who wrote 90 books in her lifetime. She traveled and led an interesting life, marrying at 36. She and her husband had two daughters, and she and her husband apparently continued to travel. Nevertheless, she could write, in her eighties, ""After so many travels, I am home, and my happiness here is no less than it was in foreign lands and my sense of wonder has not dulled with all these years. I am as happy as an old dog stretched out in the sunlight." " Bethlehem Books has republished this one (I love Bethlehem Books, don't you?!) in paperback. My copy is a hardback, first edition with many years of happy reading left within.

Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson, a hardback published in 1956 because we didn't own one, and, um, I don't think I've ever read it. I think I have only seen the Disney movie. How embarrassing. I can't believe that I just admitted that here.

The Heart of Pinocchio by Collodi Nipote, a sequel to Pinocchio published in 1919 by Harper brothers. Adapted from the Italian by Virginia Watson, illustrated by J. R. Flanagan. Sadly, the very charming cover illustration, the sort pasted on to the cover, has had a corner peeled off by an inquisitive child.

How and Where We Live, an Open Door to Geography by Nellie B. Allen and published in 1924. The colored plates are worth the price of this book. They are so lovely. Marguerite Davis is the illustrator for some of the colored prints, E.M. Wireman or Mireman did others, and a few have no illustrator credits.
Davis was a Boston artist who illustrated several children's books. I haven't found any good samples of either of illustrator's works on the web, so later I may scan in a copy to post here.

Europe Since 1914, by F. Lee Benns, 1947- this for sentimental reasons. 'Flea-bins' as he was called by his grandson, is unknown to me, but I knew his grandson, briefly. I called him Uncle Sky, a courtesy uncle rather than a blood relation. He was an only child of an only child, and Uncle Sky died young and childless, ending the line. Uncle Sky, as I knew him, was a kind man, full of laughter and he treated children (or at least this children) with a friendly respect rather than the usual adult condescendence.

The Story of the English by H.A. Guerber, a very nice hardback published in 1898, acquired by my library in 1920.

Uncle Tom Andy Bill by Charles Major, 1916, The MacMillan Company. A story of bears and Indian Treasures- by the author of the glorious Bears of Blue River.

Wilbur and Orville Wright, Boys with Wings by Augusta Stevenson, a Childhood of Famous Americans.

George Washington, Boy Leader by Augusta Stevenson, a Childhood of Famous Americans book.


The Great Brain At the Academy by John D. Fitzgerald

The Story of Edward, by Phillippe Dumas, a picture book about a waltzing donkey.

A 1946 copy of Miss Hickory, a charming and lovely book about a hickory nut doll, one every little girl should read.

Kippie the Cow by Esther Gretor, 1951 picture book published by Messner (an excellent publishing group I wish were still around).

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace, another delightful series for girls, must reading. Illustrated by Lois Lenski and published in 1941.

Joan of Arc by M. D. HOlmes, illustrated by Edwin J. Prittie, an elaborately gilt and colored cover, a red book, beautifully designed, large, published in 1931 by The Children's Book Club of America.

Between the Lines In Belgium, A Boy's Story of the Great European War by Franklin T. Ames, illustrated by Walter S. Rogers, published by Dodd, Mead and Company, 1915

A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls by Nathaliel Hawthorne with 60 Designs by Walter Crane, published in 1892 and added to the library in 1906. I love Walter Crane's illustrations (who doesn't?), and these are gorgeous. The cover is very faded, but the inside is beautiful.

She's Nitpicky, I Have a Passion for Accuracy.

I'm inquisitive (some say nosy) by nature and I like to know the hows and whys and wherefores, the background history and more besides. One of my traits which my family finds very hard to deal with is that I find it interesting to trace the thought processes behind their actions, especially those that we might call mistakes. When I ask, "What were you thinking?" it is a genuine desire for information to satisfy my academic curiosity, but those without that craving to know things just for the sake of knowing them seldom wish to go into such detail, especially about those things we might call mistakes.

I also have what charitable people might call a passion for accuracy. Others might say I am regrettably (and irritatingly) nitpicky. I try to curb it, I really do, but sometimes the reflex is just too strong. It's how I was brought up. My parents still correct my grammar at times, and I have been embarrassed to find myself blurting out corrections to other people's word usage from time to time as well.

This preference for accurate terms has gotten me in trouble on more than one email list, especially when certain topics come up. Unit Studies and Charlotte Mason would be one of those red flag topics. I do not disparage unit studies, and I don't have an objection in the world to people using them. I find it hard to let it pass, however, when somebody calls a unit study the Charlotte Mason approach. This is, to me, like calling a violet a rose and ought to be corrected. A surprising (to me) number of people not only do not share my persnickety tendencies, but they are annoyed and even resentful with those who do.

This also comes up when I am trying to investigate and understand the Charlotte Mason method in some situations- I want to understand as accurately as possible what it is she meant and said- not because I worship her, but because I value correct understanding. This, too, annoys some people.

I began to understand something about this when I read The Wholehearted Child, by the Clarksons (yikes! It seems this is out of print and selling for nearly fifty dollars now!). In my older copy there is a pesonality/learning style test around pages 110-113.

How many of us with just such a passion for accuracy, I wonder, are "shapers?" According to the Clarkson, the Shaper asks "why?" a lot, insists on logical explanations, is interested in ideas more than in people, likes to analyze and synthesize a broad range of ideas... is individualistic, holds firmly to beliefs, is more interested in "is it right?" than "is it fair?" (and so isn't as likely to get feelings hurt, or as patient with those who are led by their feelings).

I know that all these personality tests have their shortcomings and most of us have tendencies in more than one area. I think it's a mistake to rely overmuch on any one in particular, and I've seen a few people use them much like others use a horoscope. Still, I find them interesting and fun, and comparing the results of several can give us some useful insight into ourselves and others.

Gary Smalley has a similar program, only he labels the categories with animal names, lions, beavers, golden retrievers, and otters. The Clarkson's test uses the terms Shapers, Doers, Helpers, and Movers.

Doers are more hands on, value fairness over feelings, they are active and pragmatic, and they can be stubborn and resistant to change. They like things to be done in a timely fashion, and they like facts. They are organized and like making things work. They are resourceful and competent. They don't like doing things they consider are a waste of time.

Helpers avoid conflict (sometimes at the cost of ignoring problems that need addressing), are people pleasers, and they love to help, having willing hearts to serve. They value emotions over logic, use intuition rather than logic to solve problems, and (this is my experience rather than the Clarkson's), like Golden Retrievers, they get downright annoyed and offended by Shapers.

MOvers are imaginative, idealistic, dramatic, creative. They are flexible, but can also be impulsive. They think outside the box, but are bored by routine. They prefer intuition over facts and feelings over logic. They are not at all nitpicky, but they can be sloppy and imprecise.

Where I see an attention to detail and accuracy, others see nitpickiness. But where others see intuitive thinkers I see intuitive *guessers,* and I can't tell the difference between that and flipping a coin to decide whether something is right or wrong. A passion for accuracy is offensive to helpers, but emotion based thinking looks just like sloppy thinking to Shapers, and it sets my teeth on edge. Still, we all have to get along in the world, and one place to start is by trying to understand one another and not being quick to take offense, either on our own or on somebody else's behalf.

Bandana Crafts

Because we just came across about a dozen bandanas, including some in some remarkable shades of pink and purple, I thought it would be fun to look online for some crafts using bandanas. I'm pretty happy with what I've found and I'm collecting the links here primarily for my use, but I thought somebody else may like them as well.

1. Bandana covered composition notebooks. This looks really neat. The basic idea is to soak the bandana in starch and water, much as I did the cloth borders in my son's room, and then spread it over the comp. notebook, trim, dry, decorate.

2. Bandana Pillow using the same techniques as those fleece blankets that just have a fringe and knots all around the edges.

3. Bandana lampshades? I'll keep those in mind.

4. This specifies white hankies, but we could use colored bandanas for quirky bonnets for the dress-up box.

Being True to His Roots

The probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an
overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient
mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident
for comment. Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and
institution for the feebleminded cries out against the evils of too
prolific breeding among wage-workers.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

"I don't think you are going to go very far in reforming the country until we have a better educated, healthier, wealthier population.... Start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country [through abortion].... There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as discriminatory, mean-spirited and...well...so Republican."

Ron Weddington in a letter to then President-Elect Bill Clinton

Ironic, isn't it, since treating people differently based on their race and socio-economic status is pretty much what defines the current Democratic platform.

From Brothers Judd

Cautionary note- the Weddington quote was first reported in World Net Daily, a source about as reliable as the New York Times.

Sunday Hymn Post

Alas! my God! my sins are great,
My conscience doth upbraid me;
And now I find that at my strait
No man hath power to aid me.

And fled I hence, in my despair,
In some lone spot to hide me,
My griefs would still be with me there,
Thy hand still hold and guide me.

Nay, Thee I seek—I merit naught,
Yet pity and restore me;
Be not Thy wrath, just God, my lot,
Thy Son hath suffered for me.

If pain and woe must follow sin,
Then be my path still rougher,
Here spare me not; if Heaven I win,
On earth I gladly suffer.

But curb my heart, forgive my guilt,
Make Thou my patience firmer,
For they must miss the good Thou wilt,
Who at Thy teachings murmur.

Then deal with me as seems Thee best,
Thy grace will help me bear it,
If but at last I see Thy rest,
And with my Savior share it.

Cyberhymnal tune, lyrics, and background information here

"A walking, never-ending, run-on sentence."

That is what the HG called The Equuschick yesterday.

This was after she told The Equuschick that if she "could just stay on topic" she was intelligent.

Tofu Sour 'Cream'

Makes 1 cup
1 cup of tofu, drained
1 Tbsp. olive oil (or other)
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. white rice vinegar (or apple cider, though it will have a stronger taste)

Put all ingredients except the oil in your blender. When this mixture is smooth, gradually add the olive oil for the creamy texture.

You can use this in baking.

Leadership styles

"Although good leaders use all three styles, with one of them normally dominant, bad leaders tend to stick with one style."

I found this quote regarding leadership styles here. I first studied these three styles in the late 80's. Due to some issues at work I enjoyed going over it again.
(Even if it had some references to Army handbooks . . . See Air Force.)

The Hebrew writer says that "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. " Heb 2:1

Gods Word tells me that our minds (mine for sure) are leaky vessels that needs to be reminded of important things.

I hope I can remember that!

In which the HeadGirl wishes she were the Energizer Bunny.

Because life keeps going and going and going...

Signed up for spring classes yesterday: Am taking History of the British Empire & Commonwealth from 1783-1960. Very excited about that one. :) Other classes are Spanish, History of Mexico (taught by my current Latin American prof, whom I like very much) and Intro to Jewish Studies. Also will probably find an elective class to throw in, but I'm rather picky about my schedule and want to find one that fits in nicely. I'm going down five days a week in the spring, which stinks, but it was the best way to fit classes at the moment. I keep telling myself it's only for four months, and then I can resume a less insane schedule again.

No Frills Handkerchief Doll

1.

Step One: Take any square or rectangular piece of cloth. Paper napkins and paper towels work, as do bandanas, cloth napkins, old fashioned handkerchieves.
Roll the left and right outside edges in toward the center, sort of like a double scroll.

2.
Step Two- fold in half backwards, so that both sides show the 'scroll' fold (i.e. if you turn your handkerchief over it will still look like the above picture).

3.

Step Three (here you can see that one of the smaller Progeny has used my linen napkins for paint clean up): Begin unrolling the 'scrolls' that face you- unroll them carefully (you don't want to unroll the back half) - the picture above isn't quite finished yet.

4.

Step four- bring the unfolded hem up to the top edge of the folded handkercheif, bring the unfolded corners around to the back and tie in a knot. This step requires a bit of tweaking, as usually it first looks like one of the dolls arms is up over her head and one is dangling uselessly limp at her side, but if you fiddle with the knot a bit, pull at the 'head' and arms of the dolly you'll get it in reasonable shape.

She's not a fancy dolly, but there are many things to like about her:
1. She can be made in a moment with things you usually have on hand or can find.
2. The process of making her is itself a distraction for fractious kidlets.
3. She's quiet- she makes no noise if dropped, flung, or banged on a restaurant table or a church pew.
4. Teaching the kidlets how to make her is also entertaining for them.
5. A handkerchief takes up almost no space in your purse and it doesn't weigh anything.
6. If you make her with a napkin or paper towel you can draw faces on her.
7. Fold and knot her arms the other way and he's wearing long pants.

Other Dolls:

A prettier but more involved version is online here (some sewing required)

These rolled/folded paper dolls are unusual and look like a lot of fun.

This hanky doll uses cotton balls, ribbons, and lace in addition to the handkerchief.

Here's another way to fold a hanky baby, but I couldn't tweak it to my satisfaction.

Tweaking them a little more than I did here dramatically improves their appearance. These can be fancier and you can use them in different ways.

I used a vintage handkerchief belonging to my great-grandmother to make an angel doll for our Christmas tree.

I've used one to decorate a rustic grapevine wreath.

I think it would be cute to give a 'hanky doll kit' to a child for Christmas. In googling information for these dolls, I've learned that people sell them for a ridiculous amount of money when you could easily make your own for a few cents. You could print out instructions and maybe add some trimming accessories and put these with a hanky or two in a Christmas stocking.

These also could be sweet party favors and crafts for a little girl's birthday or tea party.

Pillowcase dolls are very similar in design. All our older girls have made their own pillowcase doll. They added ribbons and trim around the edges and cross stitched on a stamped pattern along the bottom. These were fancier and obviously took more time, but it was a fun way to practice several skills.

For more ideas, google Handkerchief doll, fold, knot, roll and see what you find!

Those Who Can't, Shop

Commentor Itazurakko, in the comments to this post, notes a difference between the older women's magazines and those of today:

"...the old ones have many many tips in there about cooking and making crafts (as opposed to the modern ones, which seem to be about looks and consumerism).
... I appreciate that the old magazines, when it comes to self improvement are about "what can I DO" and the new ones are more about "what do I look like and what can I buy."

Kitchens

"A quiet revolution, started in the late '20s by New York's Famous department store, Macy's, introduced color to the American kitchen. By 1931 Apple green, beige, and Chinese red were kitchen favorites, tinting everything from the handles of culinary gadgets to the stripes on mixing bowls."

Here in 2006, my kitchen is basically apple green, Chinese red, and a nice shade of Devonshire cream. I can (and do) use some of those vintage kitchen gadgets to decorate.

That little blurb was from the updated foreword and introduction of a 1975 reprint of Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes, published by the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics. (See also The Sheep That Shopping Shaped)

The foreword includes several pictures for advertisements for kitchen appliances. In the 1930's or so, I could by a two slice toaster for 4.95, 7.50 regular value elsewhere. Oddly enough, today I can get a four slice toaster for five dollars or less at the thrift shop.

I'm really tickled that I went ahead and picked this up at a thrift shop recently. I looked at it several times, picked it up, put it back, and finally couldn't resist the allure of an old cookbook any longer and brought it home with me.

Over a quarter of a century ago I had a room-mate whose mother had given her an old cookbook, and she let me use it sometimes. I loved that old cookbook. I made the best piecrusts when I used the recipe from that book, and there were many helpful tips. The room-mate and I parted ways, and I could never remember the title of the cookbook.

No, it's not Aunt Sammy's, but the foreword explains that Aunt Sammy was the first in a long line of successful radio cooks, the others basically following the Aunt Sammy format, and one of her successful imitators was The Mystery Chef, and THAT is the cookbook I've been trying to find. Now I know what I'm looking for.

Aunt Sammy was a composite, the creation of the Department of Agriculture. Recipes and scripts were put together by Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman and the scripts were read aloud over the airwaves from many radio stations around the country- by several different women.


During Aunt Sammy's first month on the air, they received over 25,000 requests for copies of her recipes. She read the recipes over the air, but of course, as one correspondent explained, if you sneezed, you lost the recipe. Reception was bad, too, and sometimes other stations would break in.

The first cookbook sold out fifty thousand copies within a month. It was the first cookbook printed Braille. The 1931 version, which my copy is a reprint of, was especially designed to help frugal housewives get through the hard times of the Great Depression.

This funny little cookbook includes menus for breakfast and lunch, as well as dinner menus for each different month in the year and special feast day menus for New Years, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Recipes are 'arranged in groups as nearly as possible according to the order in which these dishes would be served a meal.'

Name-brand, prepared gelatin mixes were available and extremely popular in 1931, but Aunt Sammy preferred the old fashioned method and all her recipes called for gelatin made from scratch. The author of Nourishing Traditions would be pleased.

This 1975 reprint contains some helpful hints for those reading any older cookbooks, and especially trying to use them. My vintage cookbooks were published before milk was separated, homogenized, and often before it was pasteurized. When an older recipe calls for 'rich milk' or 'top milk,' it means cream. Heavy whipping cream is what we should use for recipes calling for 'double cream.

Scalding milk for bread is also no longer necessary, unless you get your milk unpasteurized.

Pasta in previous decades was a heartier product than our pale, emaciated stuff now, so cooking times for pasta in old recipes should be reduced.

The dinner menus for November are:

Hamburg steak on onion rings
Baked squash
Spinach
Green-tomato pickle
Quince preserves, cream cheese,
and crackers

Oxtail stew
Whole hominy
Celery and olives
Apricot tarts

Casserole fowl with vegetable rice
Broccoli or another green vegetable
Gooseberry jelly
Orange sherbert

Spaghetti, tomatoes and codfish
Buttered onions
Asparagus salad
Jellied grapes
Cake

And for Thanksgiving Dinner she recommended:
Fruit cup
Roast turkey or chicken
Mashed potatoes OR candied sweet potatoes
Brussels sprouts or another green vegetable
Cranberry sauce
Celery and olives
Cider gelatin salad
Pumpkin pie
Coffee

I don't about you, but that makes our own Thanksgiving feasts seem more than a little bit gluttonous.

Silly Mommy

When the Boy was in the hospital another little boy, sweet of spirit, tender of heart, and all boy, came to visit him, anxious to cheer him up. He brought some of his own toys to give away, and amongst those treasures were a few small dinosaurs.

Sadly, the day he came, the Boy wasn't feeling up to talking or visiting much, but he carefully put his dinosaurs in the hills and valleys of the blankets on his chest so he could look at them always. I noticed that if one fell, he always picked it up and put it back.

Now that we are home he's still not 100 percent up to speed (his appetite, for instance), but he's much more interested in play. Yesterday he came downstairs in excitement to announce that he had the match to one of the dinosaurs his new friend had given him. He brought the two dinosaurs to show me, and they were indeed a matched pair. Naturally, being a Mommy, I assumed this meant they were a Mommy and Daddy and I said so.

"Eeeeeeew," came the Boy's forceful reply. "Of course they are not a Mommy and Daddy. They are twins."

There is No Frigate Like a Book...

And I am getting seasick. Still, the Captain must stay with her ship.

Amelia Earhart, Kansas Girl, a Childhood of Famous Americans in the brown hardback with pictorial cover, glossary and questions in back, 1961, this one in very good condition.

Luther Burbank, Boy Wizard, by Olive W. Burt

Alec Hamilton, The LIttle Lion, by Helen Boyd Higgins

A Lantern In Her Hand, by Bess Streeter Aldrich, I think I picked up two copies of this. This one is published in 1928 and is in reading condition only.

Water Babies, by Kingsley, lovely blue cover with gilt floral border at the top and gilt lettering. 1904, "new edition with 104 illustrations by Linley Sambourne"

Little Britches, by Moody, a 1950 hardback in very good condition.

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, abridged by Edith Freelove Smith (I had an ancestress named 'Freelove'), illustrated by Harriet Savage Smith, published by The Atlantic Monthly Press in 1923. The illustrations are silhouettes.

Oops, forgot to add:

300 Ways to Serve Eggs from Appetizers to Zabaglione, from the Culinary Arts Institute in 1950

Family Fare, Food management and REcipes, plublished by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and picked up more for its horror value than for the recipes. It's also from the 1950's and has recipes for things like jellied eggs, tongue and egg mold, and liver stuffed eggs...

A Messner biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Man of Destiny, by Weingast.

Miracles on Maple Hill, by Virginia Sorenson, a delightful children's classic.

The Middle Sister by Miriam Mason, illustrated by Grace Paull, published in 1947. I like Mason's books, but she doesn't seem to be much in print anymore.

The Little Girl with Seven Names by Mabel Leigh Hunt, published in 1936 and also illustrated by Grace Paull. This looks wonderful. The dj blurb pasted inside the book says it is 'a delightfully humourous story of a little Quaker girl with seven names and how she gave two of them away. This irresistible young heroine did not enjoy her first day at school when the teacher asked each pupil to stand and give her full name, but she had enough Quaker spunk to overcome her difficulties without offending any of her loving relatives."

Ouch

Good words to remember.