June in review

So, it's been awhile since I posted... a lot has been going on. There was

• a graduation in Virginia (fun!)
  
• a car wreck (not so fun) (don't worry, I'm okay, it was just the car that was totalled)
  
• a trip to Chicago (mostly happy and very busy)
• first and second Rock Hill students (both at Winthrop, about .5 mi. from my condo)
• and a new [to me] car at the tail end of the month (sigh of relief, mostly).

And in between, babysitting, tutoring, and once again stretching myself a little *thin. (*Figuratively speaking only...)

People ask me how the sitting is going. Here is my take on it: they are a lot easier to manage when they are someone else's kids. Also, this: raising/caring for children is just like doing math...it takes a lot of persistence, creativity and patience; there are a lot of things you have to do over and over again; people don't understand why you like to keep doing it so long; and it helps if you get a good night's sleep once in awhile.

Thank you to all of you who gave me the support I needed in so many ways to get through June, as well as the prior year. I couldn't have made it without you.

a week of respite

During this week off from medical appointments and other medically-related time constraints, Mom and I are relaxing a bit and catching up on things that we've gotten behind on in the past month or so of Mom's intense cancer treatments. So, I've been catching up on looking stuff up on the web. This morning I came across this article which gives me a lot of hope, not so much for the immediate future but for the long term. A breath of fresh air amidst the mainstream media glut of campaign "news", dire predictions of financial disaster, people hanging upside-down, and so on....

More photos...this time, my own!

Here are a few photos from my recent trip to Baltimore. Some are from the Longwood Gardens, and some need no explanation :)

A newsy week...

...but most of it is other people's news, so I'll keep mum for the time being and let them share it, or in other cases, just let the story unfold.

So in the meantime, I have a movie recommendation: The Painted Veil. I just watched it, and it is wonderful. The acting (mostly panned by Lawrence Toppman, but I'm not so choosy as he is, I guess), the story, the score, the cinematography -- all so well done, so rich. Those of you who speak French -- you would love this song that is in it near the end, and if/when you do see it, I wish you would tell me what the song is about.... I am very sad that I never learned French. The music reviewer linked above doesn't agree with me about this, but I thought the song very appropriate, and quite beautiful.

Another item of interest -- completely different topic: Kay McSpadden's latest column will resonate with those of you who are regular readers of this blog (well, as regular a reader as you can be when I'm such a sporadic writer!) Actually, it will resonate with anyone who is a regular reader of anything -- books, magazines, cereal boxes, billboards, whatever. Please consider her plea seriously and do what you can to help. My reading this column this evening came on the heels of reading an article I had clipped awhile ago about the alarming number of, and rise in, dropouts from high school and middle school. I believe there is a very close connection between the two issues of early reading experiences and students failing to complete their education. As many of you know, I am a strong supporter of homeschooling, but the reality is that the vast majority of the young people in this country do not have that option. So I believe that it is only right and just that we do whatever we can to improve the schools and enhance opportunities for students who are attending school. There is a lot of bad going on in education today, but there is a lot of good, also. Kay McSpadden is an example of the best of the teachers out there, and I believe she can help us all find ways to participate in improving the futures of schooled students. (She recently published her first book, Notes from a Classroom. I have it and started reading it just the other day...a great read!)

Okay, I know these are really two different blog posts, but I'm too tired to try to figure that out now. I've been battling the flu since Wednesday night and hope to get past it soon.

Update: I realized this morning (3/9) that there really is a connection between my two topics above: there is scene near the end of the movie, not really essential to the plot or anything, that has a bunch of Chinese orphans lining up and receiving a book each, one by one... I don't know why the director put that in there, but it did serve as a reminder to me that I wanted to write about the article by Kay McSpadden.

Books, reading, and good news....

The thing about reading slowly that frustrates me is that there are waaay more books that I want to read at any given moment than I have time to read even if I had years to read them all... For example, I have three books on tape out from the library (I listen to these in the car; I'm currently in the middle of two of them) and I am reading at least four books (mostly from the library) and have at least two others out from the library that I want to get into asap -- one is about one of the current presidential candidates and the other is Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston, the author I referred to in yesterday's post. (I couldn't get his latest book at the library so I decided to try this one in the meantime.) Anyway, "book greed" is how I like to think of it, but that's really too charitable a description. There was a period of about 6-8 years when I couldn't get through even the shortest novel (for reasons that are still somewhat unclear to me) but ever since I got back into reading a few years back it's become sort of an obsession. When I was a kid I read all the time (albeit very slowly) and now I feel as though I am getting like that again.

On another topic: I have my first real Rock Hill student next Friday! Finally the next phase of the transition has begun!

p.s. Don't hesitate to click on the link in the title. It cracked me up -- and I think I'll still be chortling about it when I wake up in the a.m., like when Lizzie posted her "That's an airplane?!" comment....

Expanding my vocabulary

I've never seen a myrmidon
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one!

p.s. This exercise (but not the word!) reminds me of my father, whose birthday it is today. He would pick a vocabulary word (out of a 1000-word box we kept handy) and post it at work. He "required" his apprentices (? interns? I hesitate to call them myrmidons...) to use the word appropriately in a sentence sometime during the day. He also liked it when we did that... and it became our habit to ask him what the "word of the day" was and talk about it a bit, at dinner? breakfast? (My memory is so fuzzy -- maybe one of my brothers can help me out here... I wish we could recreate some of these long ago moments...) Anyway, Dad loved words (as does my mom) and it appears this love of words is shared by his grandson -- and Dad would have relished this new exercise instituted by Z!

Dad

Driving down the road early this morning I noticed a sign I'd not seen before... It read:

Honk if you love NAPA... unless your horn is broken!

If you knew Frank Lackie,this sign might have reminded you of him and brought a smile to your face, as it did for me. He made a lot of people smile with his offbeat humor, in humorous speeches and in conversation.

I'd write a whole lot more, but I've got to run. If you remember my Dad, please say a prayer for him today, the 24th anniversary of his death.
Also, if you have a memory you'd like to share with the other readers of this blog, post it as a comment. (Don't worry if your posted comment doesn't appear right away -- I have the comments' parameters set so that I can look at them before they are posted to avoid spamming problems.)

Thanksgiving adventures

I'm just back from visiting family and friends in Baltimore and Virginia... Great trip, I had a wonderful time! One of the things we did this weekend was eat good food at several venues.... Most outstanding, of course, was the bountiful blessing of Thanksgiving dinner with the L's! A great visit.
The link above will lead you to the delightful restaurant where Frances and I ate lunch Wednesday. They serve lots of in-season, locally grown food. The Afghani restaurant we went to last night, The Helmand, had a quite varied menu of vegetarian food, very delicious.
Aside from the food -- that's just an easy thing to put links to -- I just can't say enough about how good this weekend was, but I don't have time to go into detail now. It was great to be with the newlyweds in Baltimore; they are settling in nicely. And a special bonus: I learned some math in an area I never understood before....

Raising adventurous kids...

I found this article awhile back and thought it was great. Read and enjoy!