A response to great loss

I have been continuing my part-time work for WomenArts... Currently my work involves systematically researching broken links on the website and fixing them.  Sometimes -- actually very much of the time -- this research exposes me to new ideas and/or women artists that I have not known about, or knew about but hadn't investigated before.  One of these is Isabel Allende.  In my searches today I uncovered this short video and it resonated with me, so I want to share it with my readers.  (It somehow seems appropriate for Easter also -- a day when we celebrate the ultimate act of giving, and its joyful outcome.)

  

Support Women Artists Now!

It's March, which means that SWAN Days are here!  I've been working with WomenArts for the past six months or so, and the SWAN Day project is one of the many things that WomenArts has done/is doing.  Check out the link below for a good example of a SWAN Day event -- this is just one of the 77 SWAN Day events/locations taking place this month!

SWAN Days in Jamestown, NY  

Bookmobile

This morning on the way back from my PT appointment I saw something I haven't seen in awhile:  a Bookmobile!  (I didn't get a photo of it -- I was not quick enough -- but if you click the link in the previous sentence, you will see what it looks like.)  It brought back such memories... when I was a little girl, we would sometimes get books from the bookmobile in Minneapolis.  At least, I remember being in one when I was very little. 

Of course I have loved libraries for as long as I can remember, which is probably why I remember the bookmobile.  I can remember vividly many of the libraries I have visited in my life, which is saying a lot: my memory isn't all that great.  One of the first public libraries I ever went to was the Children's Library, which I think was in Edina, Minnesota, or perhaps in Minneapolis quite near to Edina.  The librarians were all very nice to us kids, and there were little tables and chairs, and we could sit and look at the books for a long time.  I remember this place as a free-standing children's library, but perhaps it was just the children's section of a branch library.  In any case, it was wonderful. 

Later on I went to libraries in other places I lived and many of the places I have visited.  The downtown branch of the Atlanta Public Library, which I visited often as a teenager in the late 60's, was a particularly memorable place.  The librarians there were very strict about silence.  Also, there was a certain place on the mezzanine, a pass-through from one section of the library to another (all lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, of course) where the floor was squishy, as though it were made of that stuff that now often forms the surface under a jungle gym or the swings in a public park.  It looked like solid floor, but was actually probably rotting out underneath.  I always found that place and walked across it when I went to the downtown library.  More often I would visit the Ida Williams branch in Buckhead, which had its own particular charm.  It was our library, the one my family most often went to and where they always knew us.  It is not there anymore -- it's been replaced by a newer building.  But it still brings back fond memories, as I am sure the new building will bring to its visitors many years hence.


  

Morning thoughts...

This morning's observations:

• There is so much that medicine and science still don't know.  I read an article about gluten sensitivity this morning in which one of the researchers stated, w.r.t. the how to reasonably identify it, "We have absolutely no clue at this point." The researchers/doctors/scientists don't really understand why this affects some people and others not at all, but they have recently classified this as an actual medical condition, separate from celiac disease. 
• Vectors are very interesting...  I had the opportunity to work with a student who is taking precalculus yesterday and we worked on vector problems the whole time. I would love to learn more physics.
• I love books, and libraries.  We have one where I work and I get to work with it some.  I would like to read about half the books in it. I sometimes wish I had become a librarian...
• It is important, if you have an earworm, that it be one that you appreciate.  I like mine this morning.  Most of the time I do, actually.
• Math is everywhere.  I already knew this, but was reminded of it again when Frances brought some Broccoli Romanesco (see photo below) home from the market a few weeks ago and then again last weekend.  (It is also delicious!)
• It is hard to think of something to post about every single morning.  But I'm going to keep on for as long as I can! I just need to start a little earlier in the morning... 

Habit-forming

After posting briefly yesterday I thought, Maybe a daily post will be possible...?  Worth a try.

Perhaps posting links to some of the things I am reading or listening to, or sharing a great side trip, or just a photo with or without comment...

I took this photo at Stuff, a store near where I am currently living, that has lots of it.

Good job!

You know how it is...  you're not looking for the next thing to write in your blog, you don't even have time or energy to write blogposts these days...  but then in searching for something very specific on the web, you find something else that you would love to post to your blog.  Well, that just happened to me.  And here is the article that distracted me.  This article addresses something that has been bothering me for awhile, but I never took the time to write about it... and the author of this article does a Good Job, so I'll let the article speak for itself.  

Children, crafts, and beyond...

Tonight I had an email from a good friend who asked for my thoughts on children and crafts: if my children ever sold their creations when they were young, and whether I have any ideas on what to do if a young child wants to sell some of the crafts she has made...  I've written her back with some of my ideas, but I thought maybe I'd put this question out there for my readers (if I still have any!)  I'd love to hear ideas from those of you who have children as well as those who have been children :-)  Also, I'll post some of the websites and books I have found on this topic as I come across them.   

One website that I just found is a blog, Made by Joel, that is all about doing crafts with kids.  It is more down-to-earth than some of the other sites I found on this topic.

I'm also hoping to begin posting here more often, as I have lots to share about my adventures and mis-adventures in San Francisco...   

Surprising things found while looking for work on the internet

I've been using the internet to find job openings the past few weeks.  I've found some good opportunities and a few great ones, but there are also a fair number of scams out there, and some ads that are downright offensive or hysterically funny.  Here's one that amused me just now:

Part-Time group exercise class assistant instructors needed to help out in senior citizens classes!
OPPORTUNITY TO GROW!

Class Times: Morning and Evening Classes Tuesdays through Fridays
...

ABOUT OUR PROGRAM:
Our classes offer internal exercise to senior citizens to help them avoid getting old, [emphasis mine] sickly, and dysfunctional....

I was right with the post until I came to the part in italics.  If they have found an exercise program that can help people avoid getting old, I think it would be better publicized than this!  

Encouragement while moving away

Found while sorting and tossing tonight -- this one's a keeper!

You can kiss family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

                      -- Frederick Buechner  (by way of Aunt Carrie, many months ago.)

I'm holding onto this idea and encouragement of my friends here, because sometimes I think I might lose my nerve and not be able to do this move.  I know I'm going to miss everybody here so much!!

Found gems

I found the following quotations when I was excavating in my bedside table drawer, getting it emptied and ready for packing today.  Sorting and tossing over these many weeks has been both a chore and a blessing...

Desire is the flow of life we yearn to swim in, the urge to be one with Spirit, and the way to stay in touch with this flow is through knowing what we want without insisting that we get it.  It is staying with the feeling of desire, following it with curiosity, that leads us ever closer to what we most want.  --Jennifer Louden

and

The spiritual law at the core of our being requires that we reach out.  We are fulfilled to the extent that we are in relationship.  We cannot disobey or even resist this law without suffering.  So wondrously are we made that we are happiest when we are loving and miserable when we are not loving.  --Elizabeth O'Connor in "The New Community" (quoted in the Charlotte Observer, date unknown.)

Both of these quotes speak so much to where I am right now, that it was eerie to find them.   The first one makes me think about how long I didn't even know what desire was...  this feeling of desire is so important that is we lose it, we are like a ship sailing without a rudder, and there is no telling where we might end up.  The second one affirms the act of loving. Our culture might tell us that the most important thing is to be loved, but actually our own acts of loving and reaching out are crucial to our happiness and well-being.    

For all you "smart" phone users out there

I just had a disturbing thing happen...  I received a text message yesterday that looked like this:

     IQQuizApp Fun Facts billed @ $9.99/mo 3msgs/wk renews on 05-01-2012. Reply HELP for help, 
     Reply STOP to cancel. Msg&Data Rates May Apply. 8888906150 for help

So of course I immediately replied "STOP"...but then today I realized there was this mysterious $9.99 charge on my Verizon phone bill, which actually happened from another one of these messages last month!  I thought I had replied STOP to that also and for sure I didn't ever authorize a charge...so I called Verizon just now and got it all straightened out very easily.  The kind lady that helped me immediately removed the charge from my bill, made sure the one from yesterday won't be charged, and blocked "Premium messaging" on my phone (which I figured out I could have done myself -- it's free, either way -- except I didn't know what it was.)  Anyhow, it's disturbing that this kind of thing goes on, and apparently it isn't illegal.  So here's a heads up to all of you with "smart" phones to watch out for this kind of thing, and if you're on Verizon you can circumvent the nastiness by blocking premium messages on your account on the Verizon website or calling them and asking them to do it.

LP nostalgia... input welcome!

Okay, I've been doing some research...  A couple of the records I have are just about irreplaceable (well, of the ones I've chosen to research) and a couple others are hard to find.  But I don't have a turntable and am not likely to get one, ever.  I can do a little more research and see if anyone in this area is making copies of these for $$ or I can send them to one of you.  The records are:
 "17 songs from The Pooh Song Book, starring Jack Gilford"  (Jack Gilford's Wikipedia bio is very interesting...) This music is special to me as it is the first music for children I remember listening to.  (We had an old 78 of the music when I was little; this record is not the one we had, but the music is the same.)
"The BabySitters", is an album of "folk songs for babies, small children, parents and baby sitters" by the group, The BabySitters which was Alan Arkin, Keremy Arkin, Lee Hays, and Doris Kaplan.  The group only made this and two other albums, in the late 60's, and then Vanguard made a compilation CD of these in 1991 which is unavailable.

Other albums which I have but am getting rid of I'm not too worried about, as Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon and Garfunkel are pretty widely available, and the few other albums I have I am not so attached to. 

One other that I have a sentimental attachment to: my Dad's copy of The In Crowd, by The Ramsey Lewis Trio. Unfortunately, the autographed jacket is badly damaged on one edge, though the record itself appears to be unaffected by the damage.  The autograph is intact: "To Frank -- Ramsey Lewis".

Where do I go from here?

Kay McSpadden

Kay McSpadden's columns are some of my favorite.  I'm posting the link here so I can find it easily when I am away from home but I also recommend her column to anyone who appreciates good writing and interesting stories from the world of education.

Responses to/comment on Harper's March 2012 breastfeeding article

Just going to link to a few of the responses here...  I think the readers of my blog know where I stand on breastfeeding!! 

Commonweal/Mollie Wilson O'Reilly

Karen le Billon

Mom, JD  (I don't agree with all of this writer's take on LLL, but she nails it on just about everything else.)


When did I get like this?

Elisabeth Badinter - a bit of background info

Recent flashmobs...

Sydney, February 2012

(Not exactly a flashmob but still wonderful)

Gotta share

Gene Kelly...

National Sweater Day (Canada)

Books, part 4

Random books, by category:

Preganancy/childbirth/parenting:
  The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Chidbirth (HC),  
  The Experience of Breastfeeding,   
  Breastfeeding your Baby (large format with great photos), and  
  The Crying Baby, all by Sheila Kitzinger.  
      (click on the link for MUCH more info about this great author.)

  Loving Hands: The Traditional Art of Baby Massage, by Frederick Leboyer, MD
      (beautiful large format quality paperback with photos)

  Special Delivery, a guide to creating the birth you want for you and your baby,
       by Rahima Baldwin (a guide I used when planning for my third experience) 

  Emergency Childbirth, by Gregory J. White, MD (small, spiral-bound book.  A classic.)

  The Continuum Concept; In Search of Happiness Lost, by Jean Liedloff


Very Random:
Always Looking Up, by Michael J. Fox
Cleopatra's Nose, Essays on the Unexpected, by Daniel J. Boorstein

Books about TV/Media:
What To Do After You Turn Off the TV, fresh ideas for enjoying family time,
         by Frances Moore Lappe and family
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and In the Absence of the Sacred,
       both by Jerry Mander
The Plug-In Drug;Television, Children and the Family, by Marie Winn (not the revised edition)

Homeschooling Books

Again -- up for grabs.  Unless noted all are paperback books.  Sorry there are not more annotations, but I have a lot going on this morning...  Feel free to ask me for more info about any of them.

(There may be more, but I'll make a separate post if this is the case. These were all in one box.)



Back issues of Growing Without Schooling, Pennsylvania Homeschoolers, and a few other related
  items; 50+ issues/items including several "recommended books" lists; mostly mid- to late-90's
  and a few from early 2000's.  They are in two magazine holders :-) )


By teachers, about school experiences and alternative schools:

  An Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto
  The Exhausted School, ed. by John Taylor Gatto (a collection of pieces from The First   
    National Grassroots Speakout on the Right to School Choice at Carnegie Hall, Nov. 13, 1991)
  Deschooling Society, by Ivan Illich
  Our Children Are Dying, by Nat Henhoff

  How to Survive in your Native Land, The Way it Spozed To Be, 
     and Notes from a Schoolteacher (HC),  all three by James Herndon
  The Lives of Children, by George Dennison (1969)


About individual homeschooling families:

  ...and the children played, by Patricia Joudry
  Child's Work, by Nancy Wallace

College and/or college & homeschooling:

  And What About COLLEGE? by Cafi Cohen
  College Admissions/A Guide for Homeschoolers, by Judy Gelner
  Colleges that Change Lives,  by Loren Pope (revised edition)
  Teenage Homeschoolers: College Or Not?, by Pat Farenga (a pamphlet)



Philosophy/methodology:

  For the Children's Sake, Foundations of Education for Home and School,
       by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (NO we are not related!! ...but if I had a nickel for every time
           someone asked me that question in the 80's and 90's I'd be rich!)

  Home Style Teaching, A Handbook for Parents and Teachers,
         by Dorothy and Raymond Moore (HC)

  I Learn Better by Teaching Myself, by Agnes Leistico
  The Relaxed Home School, by Mary Hood
  
Resources/methods:

  The First Home-School Catalogue, by Donn Reed (second edition, revised)

  Open Education, a Sourcebook for Parents & Teachers,
      ed. by Ewald B. Nyquist and Gene R. Hawes

  Who Does What When? and Who Did What When?
      (curriculum planning and record keeping in the home school) and
     Building Blocks for Mathematics: Being at home with math,
      both by Kate Kerman (both are small booklets but packed full of ideas)
  On Learning to Read; The Child's Fascination with Meaning,
    by Bruno Bettelheim and Karen Zelan.  (HC; this is the book that was a great resource for me
    when I was teaching my children to read, especially Joseph because he was the first.) 

  Division Learning Wrap-ups -- okay, this isn't a book, but it was in with the books
  The Words You Should Know, 1200 esssential words every educated person should be able to use 
    and define, by David Olsen

Books by John Holt :
  Learning All the Time (2 copies -- 1 HC and 1PB)
  Freedom & Beyond

  What Do I Do Monday


Other books published by Holt Associates, the organization formed to continue John Holt's work:  

  The Beginner's Guide to Homeschooling, by Pat Farenga
  Child's Work, by Nancy Wallace
  Teenage Homeschoolers: College Or Not?, by Pat Farenga (a pamphlet)

Books, part 3

Okay, more books found in boxes, on shelves, etc.  Let me know asap if you want any.


Light, A Quarterly of Light Verse (Winter 2007-2008, Issue 59)
[This includes the poem Still Life with Dead Microbes, by David J. Rothman,
  and the poem Librarians on Skis by Jim Siergy:

   Shush
   as they
   schuss.         

I might have to keep this. :-)  ]


Alphabet / Pour les tout petits, texte de Marcelle Verite; illustrations de Josette Boland, 1947.
   [Why do I have this??? It was in a box of books labeled "Save for Em and Frances" that also contains music books...  Oh, never mind -- I am going to seal this box and send it to F & E.]

POGO's Will Be That Was, by Walt Kelly (the two Pogo classics G.O. Fizzickle POGO and Positively POGO in one volume)  [Pogo was my Dad's favorite comic.]

[Wow -- a discovery: Sweden, Land of Many Dreams (HC) discovered in a box that has been closed up for at least 4 years...  I had no idea I had this!  May have to keep it...]

Numeracy

Just wanted to share this excellent, though short, article:

Numeracy: The Educational Gift That Keeps On Giving?

 

 

Books, part 2

More books found today, same format as previous post:
Exercise:
Yoga for Busy People, by Dawn Groves (HC)
Walk Yourself Thin, by David A. Rives
The Book of Pilates, by Joyce Gavin (HC)
The Wisdom of Menopause, by Christiane Northrup, MD (HC)
Age-Proof your Body, by Elizabeth SomerMA, RD (HC)
Walking, a complete guide to the complete exercise, by Casey Meyers

Miscellaneous, excellent condition:
Gardening Life, by Lee May (HC, autographed)
Great Lakes Lighthouses, by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones (large format photo book)
A Year with C. S. Lewis (HC, daily readings from his writings)
Fierce Pajamas, An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker
Latin for Americans (1943 -- this was my mother's Latin textbook)

Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World, by Rosalind Miles
Take Heart, Catholic Writers on Hope in our Time; Ben Birnbaum, ed.