The Adventures of Melody Yellowvan

Did I just read that?

2012-02-10T16:19:00.003-07:00

From an official email from Longmont City today: "Water Board Vacancy"

Anyone want to apply to be tortured?

Did I just read that?

2012-02-05T14:49:00.002-07:00

" It appears as if the vehicle went off of an adjacent road. The Sherriff's office has launched a large-scale repelling operation and are calling in helicopter supports to check on the scene." http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19131781&title=police-may-have-found-vehicle-of-missing-colorado-men-&s_cid=featured-1

Does a repelling operation consist of trying to force two giant magnets' south ends together? Producing smells that are noxious? Putting up repulsive billboards?

Or did they mean rappelling?

I finished Kindergarten

2012-02-04T22:16:00.002-07:00

After 6 months of work, I finished Kindergarten.

Making an online Kindergarten, that is. It covers math, language arts (literature, spelling, reading, grammar, handwriting, composition), social studies, history, art, music, and science.

And it's really good.

Have a peek: https://sites.google.com/site/learninglynxclassroom/awakeningwoods

Or use it for Kindergarten. It's ready to go, complete, and 100% FREE. Yes, free.

Interesting phenomenon

2012-02-03T04:06:00.001-07:00

Normally, in Colorado, December is relatively mild and then January and February are freezing and below freezing. Normally, in January and February we see snow and more snow, and single-digit temperatures for several weeks straight.

This year, we had snow in October, and then more snow in December, and single-digit temperatures in December. And then January was in the 60s most days, and plenty warm.

The result? Both the kids and the trees felt like it was spring. Me, too, actually. I could take the trash out at midnight barefoot most nights and not be uncomfortable in the least. In January!

About 3 days ago, the maple and cottonwood trees in our yard put out their buds. Naturally, today a blizzard rolled in and is dumping dumping dumping snow. But I digress.

When Anda and I walked outside and noticed the buds on the cottonwood tree, we also noticed an interesting thing: there were buds coming out on all the broken off branches, too. Even the twigs that came down in October in that unusual storm now had buds--it was like all those branches, downed in the middle of the fall by snow, had no idea they were no longer on the tree. So we had buds all over the yard!

We wondered if there was a way to stimulate root growth?

But now it's a moot point, what with all the snow. Now I'm wondering if trees bud in January, and then freeze in February, will they bud again in April, or will the trees die?

Benji says,

2012-01-30T01:10:00.001-07:00

"I'm un-vincible!"

Getting the good days to come....my 10+ tips for surviving fibro

2012-01-29T23:23:00.001-07:00

With fibro, I don't have a lot of control over how functional I'll be from one day to the next.

But I'm starting to discover I do have a little control.

There are certain things I can do that help me be MORE functional (and, surprisingly, not eating sugar is not as high on the list as I thought).

Here are the things, in order of importance:

1. Sleep enough. If I don't get enough sleep, none of the rest of these will help me at all. Sleeping enough means I have to sleep when my body wants it (not when society says, so for me at 3:00 am) for as long as my body wants it (so no alarm clocks allowed). I usually need to sleep a minimum of 9 hours to have a good day. If I don't have a vivid dream that I remember when I wake up, I didn't sleep long enough.

2. Take vitamins. At night before bed, I have to take a prenatal vitamin or multivitamin, 2 calcium, and a magnesium. I can skip the prenatal vitamin, but not the calcium and magnesium. In the morning, if I remember, I take potassium and fish oil. I can take the fish oil at bedtime, but if I do it too many nights in a row, then I can't fall asleep. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the fish oil worked out right, but it definitely makes a difference.

3. Make myself get up and move around. It's so SO tempting to sit in my comfy chair all day every day, but I really feel better when I get up and do very gentle exercise every day. The key is that it has to be easy, gentle exercises that don't stress my body at all. No impacts, no tensing muscles, no breaking a sweat or getting the heartbeat going. A nice gentle walk in cool weather works wonders. Hiking, calmly and in a relaxed way without carrying anything, is also great--I think because the mountain air keeps me cool, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I love being out in nature and that makes the exercise more relaxing--it's kind of the opposite of a gym. Gym=evil for me.

4. Eat and drink enough. Drink only water. ONLY. Healthy food helps a lot, but sugar has less impact than I thought it did if I'm doing the previous three things. If I'm not, then sugar is really bad stuff. Mostly, though, I find that the advice in the Word of Wisdom works well: Lots of fruits and veggies, lots of grains, meat (but sparingly), and then don't worry too much about the details of it. Often, when I'm already hurting, drinking hot cocoa, hot postum, hot cafix, hot cider helps immensely. I think it's the holding the hot cup more than anything, though, not what's in it.

5. Control my movements, especially avoiding holding a position (doubly especially with any muscle tensed). Never repeat a motion more than 5 times without changing the activity a bit, never hold my arms out or up, especially with anything in them (holding a cup half full of water out to a child has been known to make me lose my temper because it causes pain). Never tense a muscle and hold it that way. I read once that people with fibro should imagine an old fashioned hoop skirt hanging from their shoulders and never move their arms outside that shape. It really does help. I have to be careful to let my body "float"--not let my wrists and hands push down into the keyboard, not hold the steering wheel tensely when I drive, not hold things tightly or move with any kind of jarring motions. I can't carry heavy things because that requires me to "tense and hold" my muscles, and that's bad. Standing (like in line) for too long is very bad because it is a whole body "hold," and holding a position is painful. Sitting in a car for a long time is the same.

6. Avoid impacts. Kids banging into me, bumping into objects, walking hard (stomping my feet, for example, or jumping), getting hugged or kissed too suddenly--all are not good. This includes all kinds of sensory impacts, not just touch impacts--sudden bright lights, sudden strong smells (like from perfumes and lotions) and sudden noises are impacts, too. Emotional impacts are also on the "out" list--no fighting, no getting yelled at, no emotional extremes without any buildup or let down--I try to stay as level as possible. My lucky kids--I pay if I get mad at them, so I try not to. (Sometimes this is inevitable--I do have six kids, after all, and sometimes they get in trouble; often, though, if I'm losing my temper it's because I'm in pain, not because of something they did; pain is common, so I ignore it until it must be dealt with, and then I often experience it emotionally first, through anger, and physically afterward, when I realize I'm hurting all over). This one is the hardest to control--by nature, impacts are not expected.

7. Stay away from tight and bulky things--especially things you wear that are tight or bulky. Anything that squeezes at all is too tight--nylons squeezing my legs, socks squeezing my ankles, skin-tight shirts squeezing my arms, waistbands squeezing my waist, earrings pinching my ears, hats squeezing my head--all are bad. Even gentle squeezes from clothing can make a whole limb ache. And I can't stand to have shirts (or anything else) tight around my upper arms, or have anything touching my armpits. It's just bad. I can barely stand to wear glasses because they squeeze my nose and ears (or else fall off). I am very limited in hairstyles I can use because I can't blow dry my hair (that's a tense-and-hold position) or put anything in my hair that makes it squeeze my head. Interestingly, I find it especially important to not have anything pushing on my toes. I can't wear nylons because they squeeze my toes. I can't wear shoes that touch my toes almost at all (shoes, in fact, are a serious issue for me--finding shoes that don't make my whole body hurt within a few minutes is very difficult, and when I find them, I wear them until they literally fall apart and can no longer be worn. My shoes have to be easy to get on, not touch my toes, soft to wear, loose but not take any effort to keep on....it's tricky!). Also, no layers (too bulky).

8. Sit when I get the urge to sit, and then only on my soft chair that reclines a little too far and cradles my back in just the right way. Sometimes I only have to sit for 5 minutes and then I can get up and get moving again, but when my body says, "Sit now," I HAVE to sit--right then--or I pay for it. Sitting on hard chairs, benches, the floor, or even the wrong kind of "soft" chair is a nightmare that makes my whole body hurt. Church is especially hard because of this.

9. Avoid temperature extremes, but especially cold. Getting too cold makes my whole body ache. Ironically, though, the things you usually use to bundle up and stay warm are all tight or bulky, and both of those are bad. My husband got me a pair of leather gloves lined with something soft, and those have been heavenly--they're a size too big, so they don't squeeze anywhere, but they keep my hands warm when I drive. I wear coats that are a little big, and my mom got me a scarf that has a hood sewn into it, so I can keep my head warm in the winter without anything ever squeezing it. I also very much enjoy the hot wax bath for my hands that I "adopted" from my mother.

10. Avoid medications as much as possible. The side effects as so much worse, usually, than whatever I'm dealing with that it's just not worth it.

11. Get in the sunshine often, but without getting hot. Sitting in the sun and getting hot doesn't help, but sitting in the sunshine when there's a cool breeze, or when I'm eating a popsicle--that helps. Sitting in the pool DOESN'T help. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because the reflection of the sun on the water is too bright, or because a pool is rarely quiet, and calm, or maybe because I don't like getting my face wet, so being around the threat of getting my face wet is too tense, or maybe it's too much chemicals. I try to avoid chemicals.

What doesn't work? Exercise (other than the extremely gentle ones I mentioned before), high anything diets (for me, fibro control is all about balance, levelness, gentleness to myself), massage (feels so nice when I'm getting one, but my whole body hurts for a week after), "toughing it out," pushing my way through the pain, walking it off, working when I'm tired, getting 8 hours of sleep on a regular schedule,

Interestingly, if I can a) get enough sleep, b) get my vitamins, and c) control my environment to adjust to all the rest of these, then I am a fairly functional person. I still can't pick up toys, but I can get a lot of things done, can have meaningful interactions with my kids, can avoid taking any medications (for sleep, for depression, for anxiety, or for pain, all of which most people with fibro need). What more could I ask?

I have a lot of friends and family with fibro, and as I write this, I'm curious: What do you do to survive? Any tips or tricks that work for you?

Ten Years Ago....

2012-01-28T20:51:00.002-07:00

This is what Tim was doing: http://straycat.net/photos/slc2002/Feb-19/slc2002-044.html

See that firefighter with the beard? Yup. That's Tim.

And I narrowly missed being killed by a hockey puck because I dropped my ticket and bent down to pick it up....

Did I just read that?

2012-01-28T03:36:00.002-07:00

From KSL.com: "BOUNTIFUL -- Last March, Julene Weaver gave birth to her daughter Sarai in her home, the first of her three births carried out that way. " http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19029387&title=more-women-opting-for-home-births

She had three babies at home since last March? That's tricky. She has 3-month gestations? That would be nice...

Latest from the Kazoo Man

2012-01-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

And I bet you didn't know Tim can make a kazoo rap.

Did I just read that?

2012-01-25T18:06:00.002-07:00

"Wednesday, the Utah Legislature considered changes to the state sex offender registry, mandating college entrance exams for all high school students as well as changing the definition of emotional abuse in nursing homes, among other bills." Another from KSL.com's home page today.

So right now the sex offender registry apparently doesn't mandate high school students take the ACT, and the sex offender registry has defined what consists of emotional abuse in nursing homes.

Does that mean the state sex offender registry is another name for the Utah Legal Code? What does that say about Utah's congress?

Did I just read that?

2012-01-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

"A man is holding himself hostage at the Rite Aid pharmacy on 150 N, 900 W in Salt Lake City." From the home page of KSL.com today.

That is tricky. He's not allowing himself to leave? Hmmm....

Nathanael says,

2012-01-22T21:20:00.002-07:00

Nathanael's primary goal in life is to get big.

Yesterday, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He didn't understand what I was asking, so I tried to clarify: "Do you want to be a doctor?"

"No," he answered solemnly. "I want to be bigger than the doctor!"

Tim has a strange job

2012-01-22T17:29:00.002-07:00

This is what he did this week:

Diaper Duty...

2012-01-21T02:30:00.001-07:00

I have two kids in diapers right now. I've had two in diapers for years now, and three in diapers for a little while at one point. And last night I finally hit a wall where I suddenly realized I was sick of changing diapers. After over 10 years of having someone in diapers all the time (and usually more than one someone), I finally got sick of it.

So I started doing a little math. I estimated that the kids average out at about 6 diapers a day for 3 1/2 years before they're potty trained. (8-10 per day as newborns and for a big chunk of the first year, but it peters off to about 4-6 per day for the last two years, depending on the kid.

That means I've changed around 39,420 diapers as of today.

Yikes. And at least 6500 to go just for Nathanael and Elijah. And if we have two more kids (we've planned on having 8 for many years now), that would add another 15,330 diapers to the total....I guess I'd better stop thinking about it. I have a long way to go, and a lot more diapers to see before I'm done.

(And I estimate I will have changed over 61,000 diapers by the time I potty train my last child.....YIKES!).

Reviewing Reading Resources--ouch

2012-01-18T04:22:00.001-07:00

I don't know why people who write educational content are not very accurate with their content. It's driving me crazy!!!

Funny does not mean "full of fun."

'wh-' makes a different sound in "Who" and "What"

"Ankle" is not an example of the short a sound.

And "ink" is not an example of ANY 'i' sound, short or long. It makes the long e sound, as does "pink."

Oh, and "sight word" means you cannot sound the word out using the rules of standard English. "Girl" is a sight word. So is "margarine." "Light" is not actually a sight word (it follows the rule that says that "igh" makes the long i sound). "That" is not a sight word. Neither is "She" or "go," but "do" is.

Biggest pet peeve, though, is "leveled readers" that include words and sounds the student hasn't learned yet. And also "leveled readers" that have too many words in them. Reading, at first, is exhausting. First readers for K-level emerging readers should have 2 words for the students to decode.

There.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I have come to the conclusion that the best reading educational program is a reader and someone who wants to know how to read, a pen, and a paper. And lots of time. All the programs in the world can't compensate for a lack of one-on-one reading teaching. It's really the best way.

Strawberry Shortcake

2012-01-16T01:35:00.001-07:00

Daniel informed me this week that we needed to have strawberry shortcake. Since strawberries were on sale, I thought that was a good idea.

So today we tried it.

When my family had strawberry shortcake, we really meant strawberries and cream on angel food cake. Some people mean strawberries and spray cream on those little fake sponge cakes they sell in the stores by the bread.

I had read recipes for strawberry shortcake before, though, and I knew it was supposed to be more like a biscuit than a cake.

So tonight I pulled out four cookbooks and compared recipes. I picked the one that was the least amount of work (Thank you "Bed and Breakfast Cookbook"!). It said it made six, and I was going to double the recipe until I saw it had four cups of flour in it. I didn't think I needed to double it, and I was right. I made eight shortcakes, and they came out HUGE--as big as a small plate, not nearly the size of a biscuit like I had guessed (those, it turns out, belonged to the recipe in the 1950 edition of the "American Cookbook"--in that recipe, though, you had to roll them out and cut them, and then stack two biscuits and bake them that way).

And our conclusion:

There is a reason strawberry shortcake ends up in so many cookbooks. That was GOOD. It would have been better with real whipped cream, but when I was shopping yesterday I stood in front of the cream for a long time and couldn't remember why I thought I needed to buy it, so I didn't buy it. So we were stuck with cool whip. But with real fresh strawberries and real shortcakes--YUM.

Yet more yogurt adventures

2012-01-16T01:25:00.001-07:00

We tried more than one new kind of yogurt this week.

One of them was almond milk "yogurt," raspberry flavored, sweetened with fruit juice. It was called amande, I think.

One word: Inedible.

More Yogurt Adventures

2012-01-15T03:05:00.002-07:00

The guy at the Sunflower Market today told me that Noosa yogurt was very popular and that the word on the street was it's more addictive than drugs.

And it was on sale.

So I tried it.

He was right.

Noosa is a local company, though, so you might not have this most yummy of treats in your area, and I'm so sad for you if you don't. It might be worth driving to Colorado to get some.

Nathanael says,

2012-01-14T21:12:00.001-07:00

Upon being handed a bowl of chicken and broccoli soup for dinner, Nathanael said (in the most plaintive voice), "Aaahh. I wanted a plate of marshmallows for dinner!"

The "New" Living Room so far

2012-01-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

The wall gallery. There are 14 pictures hung on this one wall (not all are in the photo). Eventually, we'll have a piano where the two computers are, I hope, but for now we need the screens. Also, ignore the stuff piled everywhere--we're emptying cupboards and bookshelves to move them.

The ceiling fan I put together and installed, plus the temp shade. We're watching for a smaller one, but this is the only glass shade at the store the day we looked. For now, it works.

So that's the start in here. Moving forward...next step is moving bookshelves and cupboards. Then building a new full-wall shelving system with two built-in computer stations. Hooray!

Re-doing things part 2

2012-01-06T01:12:00.001-07:00

We aren't just re-doing the living room.

I've noticed lately that Tim is on the cusp of a music revolution.

It's not all that new--he's been developing it for 10 years. But he's just right on the verge of going over the cliff now, and it's kind of exciting.

What we both noticed is that invariably, a cappella music, both recorded and live, is mixed as solo vocals with background vocals. This makes sense at first glance because all the music is being produced vocally.

But it doesn't leave the finished product with a deeply satisfying sound. It sounds rather vapid, bloodless and soulless (although harmonic). Even when a cappella groups cover dance songs, they never make you want to get up and move. They're just kind of there, being a cute novelty.

Two days ago, Tim sat me down in front of his great studio speakers and said, "Listen," and he began to play songs for me, starting with one by Nine Inch Nails (who I've never listened to ever before. Ever.). We went through a few songs--NIN, the Killers, a couple of rock groups with Eastern European folk influences, Midnight Oil, and more--and I started to hear what Tim was hearing. In the mixing of these rock songs, instruments are not treated the same way as vocals. Especially in rock music (not as much in Pop, especially since modern boy bands came along 20 years ago) instruments are pushed way more forward in the mix than background vocals, so that they are almost competing with the lead vocals (but not quite). Rock is mixed more like live orchestral music or live big band music--every part makes an equal sound to every other part, with the lead or solo line being pushed front and center, but not by too much.

I've been telling Tim that I wanted his recordings and live performances to not hold back, and to have an edge that they have been almost hitting but not quite, and when I listened to all the rock music, I understood what was missing: the background vocals needed to be mixed like instruments, treated like instruments, and given the musical status of instruments, not of background singers. The instruments are core, essential parts of the music. The background singers in most songs are color. Can you imagine if they put the drums, bass, and guitar into a rock song in a sort of secondary role? The songs would be vapid, bloodless, and soulless.

Just like a cappella is 99% of the time, especially in recording.

And with technology the way it is now, there is no excuse for this.

Tim doesn't want to go from doing things all vocal to fronting a band. There is a sound quality that voices produce--even heavily effected voices--that is unique. You wouldn't want to substitute a tuba in for an electric bass, right? It's just a different sound, even if they can hit the same notes. Same with voices for Tim. But he wants the voices colored and mixed and "placed" right in the performances and recordings.

Interestingly, one of his good friends stopped by this week with a new toy--a super-cool mega effects pedal. When they were playing with it, I was upstairs and couldn't tell if they had turned on a professional music track or if they were looping. It sounded AWESOME. And the new effects pedal pushed everything into that realm that Tim was looking to reach. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, it's an instrument effects pedal, not a voice effects pedal.

Tim's friend, Matt, pretty much summed it up. He told Tim, "I don't want to sound like a voice anymore."

So the revolution has begun.

And I predict that very soon people will no longer try to class Tim with the singer-songwriters at events, and nobody will ever again try to put him in a little cafe in the corner at festivals...any more than you would put the Killers there.

Tim is finally defining his sound, and I think it's going to surprise you. In a good way.

We're re-doing things around here....

2012-01-06T00:54:00.002-07:00

I stared at my house for a long time the week before Thanksgiving, and I realized that we never really moved in to this house.

We've been here for a little over 2 years now (this second time around), and we never really unpacked boxes. Never really unstacked the boxes, even.

Consequently, everything was everywhere, and when we cleaned it was just boxing up the chaos again and moving the boxes to a different spot.

I decided I needed to do something about that.

Then Tim got us a couch for Christmas, and that spurred the change. We needed to make a space to put the couch in. Right on the heels of that, the one lamp we had in the living room burned out and I couldn't find the right specialty bulb for it, and it was broken anyway--propped up in the corner by a table because it could no longer stand on its own.

I sat down one night and thought through every single room and what I wanted to do to make it right. And I sent the list to Tim. The next day he came home with the shelf I wanted for the bathroom.

Not long after, we sat up one night after the kids were in bed and talked through the whole living room, puzzling out how to rearrange it.

So when Tim went to Vegas, I took down the Christmas tree. Then, as soon as he was back, we started changing things up.

First, I re-did the living room arrangement--took out the table full of mostly-unused computers, moved a bookshelf and my rocking chair, put in the couch.

Then I tackled the lighting problem. For a couple of days, Tim and I searched for one of those lights you hang from a hook and run a chain to the outlet--swag lights, I learned they were called. No good. Nobody's made those for years, and even the people at the thrift stores hadn't seen one come through in a long long time. But on one of my loops through Home Depot, I discovered they make a swag chain kit for a ceiling fan!

Every summer for years now, since 2004 when we bought this house, I've wished for a ceiling fan in the living room. But we don't have an overhead light fixture in the living room, and, to complicate things, we have no attic or crawl space, so installing a ceiling fixture seemed impossible, and a ceiling fan doubly so. So finding a swag chain kit for a ceiling fan got me all excited.

I bought that. The next day, I went out in search of a ceiling fan to install. I finally found one in a box at the local thrift store for $6. There were others, some even all put together, but they cost more. A quick survey let me know that all the parts--including the installation manual--except the glass cover for the light bulbs was there. Even the screws were all in the box. The fan was dirty, but it was complete. So I bought it, brought it home, and started searching for instructions for installing a ceiling fan.

Turns out there are tons of instructions, but none for installing one directly to the joist, not to an electrical box. Finally, I took the hanging bracket to the Home Depot and asked for the right hardware. Turns out there is a kit for installing ceiling fans directly to the joist! So I bought that.

Then, with three kits, three sets of poor-written instructions (one set with no words, and pictures that were so tiny they were impossible to read), and no overall instructions, I set to work. I opened everything and examined all the parts, dragged the ladder in from the garage roof (where it's been for 3 months because I was too lazy to move it), and got to work.

I quickly discovered that people with fibro arm pain shouldn't install things on the ceiling. I also discovered that Elijah likes ladders and is perfectly willing to climb them. Still, I got the mounting plate up working 5 minutes at a time, resting 10 minutes to half an hour between. Every time I got off the ladder, I had to fold it up and lay it on the floor again so the baby wouldn't go up.

The biggest problem I had was the ceiling mounting box had a hole for the swag chain kit to attach to, but it was the wrong shape and size. I tried a zillion different things (or it felt like it anyway), but nothing would hold for long enough for me to get the box and the mounting bracket attached to the ceiling plate--especially since I couldn't do it without immense pain in my arms.

Finally, I MacGyvered it with a couple of paper clips, and it worked. Tim had to mount the box and the hanging bracket (which go on at the same time), though, because I just couldn't hold my arms up over my head that long. (Sometimes, I am reminded dramatically that fibro is a disability).

Once that mess was solved, the rest of the installation was very straightforward. We got the motor mount and canopy up, the fan blades assembled and installed, and the light fixture installed without too much trouble (from them anyway--the kids were another matter). Plugged it in, and--voila!--an overhead light and ceiling fan, in the living room. They're elegant, too. I am very excited and pleased.

Thank goodness Tim came home to do the overhead work though. He had spent most of the evening giving a lecture on the historical origins of modern college a cappella, comedy a cappella, and the Yale Whiffenpoofs at DU for their music series (my husband is a genius, by the way, in case you hadn't noticed...).

Now I just have one more swag hook to install (it got to be bedtime, so I had to quit working), and the glass piece to buy tomorrow, and then we'll be on to part 3 of the living room: designing and building built-in shelves/cupboards for the living room so we can put away all the junk that has been sitting around in boxes for 2 years.

Six

2012-01-03T00:56:00.001-07:00

Tim showed me a few pictures of my best friend from 3rd grade on facebook. She's all grown up now, of course, with her own family. And when I saw her family, my first thought was, "HOLY COW! Look at all those kids!"

And then I counted.

She has six.

Oh. Um....

I have six.

No wonder people stare at me when I go to the grocery store with everyone!

Nathanael says,

2012-01-01T17:49:00.001-07:00

Nathie and I went to the store on New Year's Eve. As we walked past the milk, he noticed the cartons of milk (we always buy jugs). The Horizon Brand especially caught his eye--it has a picture of a cow on the carton.

"Look, mom!" he said, "Cow juice! Wait.....um?"

Christmas

2011-12-25T14:58:00.001-07:00

The only thing I've wanted for Christmas for 4 or 5 years in a row was to hear Tim sing "O Holy Night". And this year he got to!

But Elijah was fussing because he wanted to go up and be with Daddy, and Benji was seriously on one--as hyperactive as I've ever seen him, all over the stand, sticking his head into the piano, running, throwing fits....Out Of Control. So half way through the first verse, it became imperative I take them both out (since this was all happening during sacrament meeting).

So I stood in the lobby sobbing while one sister took Elijah, another took Benji (who ran across the chapel one way, and then across the stage the other a minute later). He escaped from both of us, so she took the other kids and I had Benji, and then his teacher had him (Tim said it was like watching the Keystone Cops routine).

And I just cried and cried and missed it.

Even after the song, the bishop's talk, the end of the meeting, Benji was running off, caught, running off, caught. It got so that every time I passed someone in the ward (afterward, when they were all socializing), they would just point and say, "He went that way" so I managed to navigate the maze of humans along the path Benji squirmed and ran over and over. And then we were getting everyone else's coats on and someone came in and said, "He's out playing in the snow" and by the time we got out there, he was down the block to the corner, half-way home.

And by the time I got home, he was in the back yard playing on the swings, and Tim was exhausted, and I was a wreck.

Merry Christmas to us. Some day no doubt I'll laugh (no doubt the rest of the ward was laughing), but for now, I'm discovering that it's possible to be so disappointed that you feel it in your gut, and it makes me sick with sorrow.

Maybe next year....

Did I just read that?

2011-12-24T20:54:00.002-07:00

"Depression and Sleep: Getting the Right Amount" http://www.everydayhealth.com/health-report/major-depression/depression-and-sleep-the-right-amount.aspx?xid=ob_cs_abilify

Because there is a right amount of depression you need to have...

Did I just read that?

2011-12-24T16:07:00.004-07:00

from ABC news: " "His recovery was really remarkable considering the extent of his lethal injuries."" http://abcnews.go.com/Health/arizona-accident-victim-emerges-coma-poised-donate-organs/story?id=15208351#.TvZamdRSSbE

Recovering from anything lethal is remarkable, indeed.

Also, sometimes doctors say stupid things.

Descent into sleep madness

2011-12-18T21:03:00.003-07:00

Last Wednesday, we slept from about 6:00 am until about 3:00 pm. That was our normal last week--and I was trying to figure out what to do to fix it because it's just the wrongest hours I can think of.

Wednesday night, I got the kids into bed by 4:00 am, and the little kids at 6:00 am. Big kids were supposed to sleep a few hours before they had to get up for their one-day-a-week adventure with school. When I came to wake them at 7:30 am, I hadn't gone to sleep at all yet, and it turned out neither had Caleb or Anda, and Dan had only slept an hour or 90 minutes.

But they got up and I got them to school. Daniel, overtired, had a hard time letting me leave, so I was there until nearly 9:00 am. I came home and went to bed for my Wednesday night but it was clearly Thursday daytime. I couldn't fall asleep until 11:00 am. Then I had to get up and get everyone else up at 1:00 so I could take the little kids to see the big kids' Christmas concert (which was great--the kids performed a bunch of times and did well).

When we got home, Caleb and Anda went to bed by 4:00 pm, and so did the rest of us. Except, amazingly, Nathanael, who stayed awake playing computer games. Elijah woke up at 7:30 pm, and an hour later Nathanael crashed to sleep, and Benji and Dan woke up an hour later. And then Nathanael woke up at 11:00 pm. That's Thursday night.

So then Anda and Caleb woke up at 3:30 am for Friday morning, and Tim went to sleep for Thursday night at 4:40 am, and then the little boys and I didn't get into bed for Thursday night until 6:00 am, but then Elijah couldn't sleep because people were awake--until he crashed out at 8:00 am. Or was it 10:00 am?

Friday we were supposed to go to a homeschoolers party, but Tim had to call an emergency rehearsal, so we just slept right through the party--couldn't get there anyway, with no car and all.

So we woke up around 4:00 pm, and Anda and Caleb had been awake and on their own all day. Anda went back to bed at 8:00 pm, and Caleb drifted around until I forced him into bed at 1:00 am, many many many hours after he woke up the previous morning at 3:30 am.

With the big kids sleeping, I was delighted I could get the little kids into bed by 3:15 am. Everyone was asleep--success! So I made the cheesecakes for the ward party on Saturday and rejoiced.

I was ready for bed by 6:00 am, and then Anda woke up. And so did Nathanael, Benji, and Daniel. And then Caleb. And they woke Elijah. At 8:00 or 10:00 (sometime in there), Tim took the wide awake baby and let me sleep some. Eventually he came back to bed, too.

So baby and I slept until about 4:30 pm. And then we had a crazy time getting ready for the ward party and going. The kids all sat at the table picking at their dinner and begging to be allowed to go home and to bed.

So we eventually came home and by now it was 9:00 on a Saturday night, and everyone went to bed. Everyone. Even me and Tim. I rejoiced in our miracle--our sleep schedule was fixed!

I rejoiced too soon.

Elijah woke up from what he considered at afternoon nap at 11:00 pm. Nathanael, Benji, and Dan followed at 4:00 am (and Elijah hadn't gone back to sleep at that point). With everyone else up, Elijah was delighted--and he wouldn't go back to sleep.

At 7:30 am, I went to bed anyway, and Tim woke up from Elijah crawling all over him and Tim, who had been asleep the whole night, got up. Unfortunately, Tim hadn't slept at the right hours for his internal clock, so he was deeply exhausted still. I tried to sleep, but, being a mommy, I don't sleep well when kids are awake.

Elijah finally FINALLY came back to bed and fell asleep. 4 minutes later, my alarm rang to get people to church. Dan apparently went back to bed at some point, too, because he was sleeping in the crib in my room.

I went back to bed, hoping to sleep some, and Tim took all the kids to church, where Nathanael promptly fell asleep and, while Tim was dealing with him, Benji slipped away and was caught by our home teacher--walking home by himself!

So Nathanael was carried home and put to bed (and didn't wake up until we woke him at 8:00 pm--he fell asleep around noon). Benji went back to church, finished church, but went back to sleep before I got up for the day at 5:00 pm--and he was also wakened at 8:00 pm but refused to stay awake.

Caleb wanted to go to bed at 6:00 pm, but gamely stayed awake until 8:00. Anda went to bed at 9:00 pm. Elijah had a short nap at 9:00 pm.

And we got to Sunday night with no resolution in sight--big kids are in bed on the right schedule. Nathanael thinks he's on Monday morning, but sleeping noon to 8:00 pm is totally unacceptable, even for us. I doubt Elijah will go to bed again until dawn because he woke up at 5:00 pm. By then, the big kids will be awake, and neither he nor I will be able to sleep....

This is more of a nightmare than before! At least in the past we were all sleeping at the same wrong time....

Did I just read that?

2011-12-18T19:52:00.003-07:00

" Adults with ADHD scored less well on seven EF assessments compaired to adults with ADHD." http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201112/the-curse-being-gifted/adhd-and-high-iq-still-impaired

Compaired? Adults with ADHD score less well than adults with ADHD. That's tricky.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-17T23:34:00.002-07:00

From Boulder Craigslist gig ad today: "I want to illiterate that is film is NON pornographic" http://boulder.craigslist.org/tlg/2758771896.html

Illiterate indeed.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-16T23:20:00.001-07:00

From the LL Bean Holiday Catalog that came in the mail: "Premium suede make these classic gloves more durable than similar styles you'll find--and at this price you can buy more than one!"

Good thing because I have more than one hand!

(Oh, and PS: suede makes, suedes make. Just an fyi.)

Nathanael says,

2011-12-14T02:57:00.002-07:00

"I'm not firsty. I'm firsty for the frosting on top of my cookie!"

Did I just read that?

2011-12-13T22:32:00.004-07:00

""I've never had any discussion that resembled that with Speaker Gingrich," Linda Upmeyer said of Bergman's remarks. "I have no doubt there are people that reject Mormonism but I've never engaged in a conservation regarding that, ever." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57342648-503544/gingrich-iowa-staffer-resigns-after-cult-of-mormon-comment/

Never engaged in a conservation? What?

Did I just read that?

2011-12-12T18:56:00.002-07:00

"24-year-old woman breaks both legs after UTA bus hits her"

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=18465328&title=24-year-old-woman-breaks-both-legs-after-uta-bus-hits-her

She was so mad at that bus that she went and broke both her legs. I wonder how she managed it?

The first line of the story gives a little hint: "WEST VALLEY CITY — A 24-year-old woman had both her legs broken after being hit by a UTA bus Monday." So she got someone to help her--maybe a mobster. They have experience.

Hint for the journalist: adverbs are not interchangeable. "When" is the one you wanted, not "after."

Google is obeying the law--and making kids cry

2011-12-12T00:31:00.001-07:00

Federal law makes it hard for kids under 13 to have accounts on the internet except through their schools. Homeschooled kids are out of luck--we can't get Google Education products because you have to be an accredited school to get them.

I needed my kids to be online. I wanted them to write blogs. I wanted them to be able to make and post videos. I wanted them to email assignments to me, and to be tech literate. I assign them to make websites for school. They share google docs with friends and cousins in other states so they can work on collaborative projects. They turn in assignments via google docs.

But I couldn't legally get them their own accounts. So I set up accounts under my name and let them use them. At least, I was pretty sure that's how I arranged it.

Yesterday, news started leaking out that Google was cracking down on kids using the service, deleting the accounts without warning--not even enough time to back up your work, download letters from Grandma or Dad, copy your blog posts to a word document. All to follow Federal law (which once again takes control from the parents, since obviously we can't keep our own kids safe).

So today I set out to figure out if I set up the accounts right--as my own accounts, which I was letting the kids use--since I know at least two of those accounts were set up before that law went into effect. Turns out it is nearly impossible to find out what information you gave google when you signed up. It isn't in your profile anywhere. We did find one hint--you can set your YouTube account (which is a google account) to tell your gender and age, and you can't modify those two pieces of data on your YouTube profile. So presumably that information comes from your original login information. For both Caleb and Anda, those were listed as Female, 35. That would be me--so I set them up right. I think. But I can't be sure Google will honor that, given that I allow my children to use the accounts. I don't see that as any different than if they were sending emails from the account I use most, or not. I also have a google account that is used exclusively by my phone. Large companies can be both arbitrary and capricious, and once the info is gone, there is no guarantee I'd ever get it back.

But I couldn't be absolutely sure, so I spent a big chunk of the day backing up and downloading copies of everyone's accounts onto my computer. Every blog post, every google doc, every email. We used dataliberation.org and some of the tools they have there to even download backup copies of the kids' google sites (and I backed up my sites at the same time). I also set up a new hotmail account and have the kid's email accounts forwarding to that (via POP mail) into their own back up folders on hotmail (since you can't just download backups of your email--you have to use a POPmail service).

So now I'm confident we won't lose everything if Google decides me letting the kids use my accounts is a TOS violation.

I'd still be pretty devastated if they did that, though. Too bad they discriminate against homeschoolers!

Baked Alaska

2011-12-12T00:18:00.001-07:00

I realized the other day that the kids always eat the ice cream and the frosting when we have birthday cake, but never the cake. So I thought it might be fun to have an ice cream cake.

While I was researching how to make one, I came across several recipes for baked alaska.

I've always wanted to try that. So for Elijah's first birthday party tonight, we had baked alaska.

It was fairly dramatic to pull an ice cream cake out of the oven. It tasted great, too. But as soon as we broke the meringue shell, the meringue all slid off onto the baking sheet. I think we had too much meringue on it (the recipe called for 8 egg whites, and I'm pretty sure we only needed 3), so when the top browned and set, it became too heavy for the underneath layer, which didn't cook. That's my guess anyway.

That was a fun adventure. This time I used vanilla ice cream and strawberry ice cream, with a layer of frozen berries and mangoes in between. Next time, I think I'd like chocolate chocolate chunk ice cream with raspberry ice cream, with a layer of fresh raspberries frozen between.

Turns out ice cream cakes can be more work than a regular cake--especially if you turn them into a large baked alaska.

Fun adventure, though! Worth trying, for sure. Tim said, "Next time, we should do it for an adult party. They'd appreciate it more". Next time I'm using a smaller bowl to mold the ice cream "bombe," too.

I don't want to miss it.

2011-12-11T01:12:00.001-07:00

Robert Downey, Jr., said, "“It’s so easy in life to get caught up with the ‘now I am in a good spot, now I am in a bad spot’ but the thing is to turn it up to 110 degrees and stir slowly. I don’t want to miss what is actually happening.” http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/12/10/robert-downey-jr-embarrassed-that-his-wife-watched-him-cross-dress/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1gDBtOw64

I need to remember that. I don't want to miss what is actually happening.

A few weeks ago, Nathanael insisted he wanted to come to the store with me. So I put him in the car and while we drove, I tried to have a conversation with my 2 year old. "What's your favorite thing to do, Nathie?" I asked him.

"Come to the store with you," he replied. And that was that. No matter how much I asked him other things, reworded my thoughts, tried to figure out his favorite things to do, he insisted his favorite thing was to sit in his car seat and drive to the store--which is exactly what we were doing.

It hit me that a 2 year old lives in the moment. What we're doing right now is either the best, most desirable thing, or it's not and we throw a fit until it changes.

Later, when we were coming home, he was tired and told me his favorite thing would be to get out of the car and never go shopping again.

I thought about that for a long time--what he was doing right now is his favorite thing.

I decided I could learn a lot from that--like RD,jr. said, "I don't want to miss what is actually happening." On the other hand, it's a good thing to live outside the moment, too. Someone has to plan ahead, make decisions based on the greatest possible good, and respond in a thoughtful way. Living in the moment has its advantages, but avoiding knee-jerk reactions and always responding instead of acting are two of the not among them. Maybe that's why 2 year olds throw fits--side effect of being stuck in the moment, either loving it or hating it but nothing in between.

But living so that you don't miss what is actually happening, here and now, well that sounds like a good idea.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-10T22:52:00.001-07:00

"Police suspect foul play in LDS church parking lot shooting" http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18439122&title=police-suspect-foul-play-in-lds-church-parking-lot-shooting

They suspect foul play? I would assume foul play was involved. Is there a kind of shooting (of a human, I mean) that isn't foul?

Did I just read that?

2011-12-10T22:49:00.001-07:00

"DOJ awarded to prosecution team of Elizabeth Smart case" http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=18429690&title=doj-awarded-to-prosecution-team-of-elizabeth-smart-case

They totally scored on that one. Not only did they win their case, they got the whole Department of Justice as their reward!

The joys of having kids

2011-12-10T01:19:00.001-07:00

Tonight I was looking at pictures of my nephew's wedding, and I thought, "Oh, how pretty! Her dress has a blue ribbon across it!"

Then I scrolled down.

Uh...nope.

Crayon on the screen of my laptop.

Sigh.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-09T02:06:00.001-07:00

In case you think I only target Fox News, here's one from CNN: "Own a piece of Liz Taylor"

Gross.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-08T22:05:00.001-07:00

"Currently, two women are pregnant with his child."

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/08/fda-says-man-donating-sperm-is-breaking-law/?test=latestnews#ixzz1g0jnvPOd

Now that's just tricky, getting one baby into two wombs at once. Like twins, only in reverse.

Did I just read that?

2011-12-08T22:00:00.001-07:00

"The Misplaced Stuff: NASA loses moon, space rocks" (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1012&sid=18413432&title=the-misplaced-stuff-nasa-loses-moon-space-rocks)

Doggone it! They're supposed to know where the moon is. My 2 year old could probably help them out.

Regrets of the Dying

2011-12-02T18:26:00.001-07:00

http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

This is really fascinating. Since I know a lot of you don't click links, here is a recap. The dying regret:

Working so hard at jobs, living as someone else expected them to be instead of as themselves, not expressing their feelings, not staying in touch with friends, and not allowing themselves to be happier.

In other words, they regret buying into those goals we learn as teenagers and invest our lives in as 20-somethings: conforming socially (being socially "in", or not being seen as "weird") and being rich (which makes us work too much and not connect with people as a result)

What a shame.

Good thing we have time to do it the way God recommends, where families and friends and using our talents are important, where the purpose of existence is Joy, and where work is to enrich our lives and provide for our needs, not to be all-consuming or make us rich. In fact, those things are the focus of commandments from God. Obviously, he knows what it's all about.

A Peek into the Future, or, 2 Dozen Reasons you should donate $10 to Mister Tim's Kickstarter

2011-11-26T20:14:00.001-07:00

Tim might kill me for this, since none of these songs is truly ready for release yet, but I want you to get a taste of what I hear every day coming from my basement to give you an idea of why I'm so anxious for Tim to get to go down to Vegas and work with Angel Angelov, a producer he knows who I really feel will be able to give Tim's recordings a commercial "edge" they need.

These are almost all drafts. Some are not finished songs. Even through the unfinishedness of them, though, you can hear the brilliance and the poetry.

I am anxious for his kickstarter to get enough funding that he can go and make music. He won't get to record all these songs--just 3. But 3 is enough to get started, to open doors (hopefully) to allow him to make more.Have a listen. You won't regret it. (If you're seeing this in an email, hop on over to the actual blog post to hear the songs: http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2011/11/10-reasons-you-should-donate-10-to.html). It's a sneak peek of unreleased material...you don't want to miss it!

One of my favorite songs, "Upper Crust":

I find this an intensely compelling piece of storytelling. "Crimson Skies":

Peter Pan was walking to the hall of fame....."Red Hot Blues":

My kids love to listen to this in the evenings. It's hauntingly beautiful and made me cry the first time I heard it. "Down and Down":

LoveLoveLove this song. "Bang on the Door":

Tim often opens his theater shows with this song. "Beatnik":

Just a snippet of a comedy song he's written. "If I":

The first time I heard this, I told Tim, "You Can NOT put comedy words to that. It's too pretty." So he didn't. "Rumba":

Tim wrote this after holding his newborn baby. First time I heard it, I could feel the love infused all through it. "So Warm":

This is a horrible live recording of a remarkable, powerful song. "The Sound Goes Around":

You won't be able to get this out of your head...."Sunkist Mountain Tops":

First time I heard this one, I couldn't tell if it was hopeful or sad, or both. "So Long Old Song":

Every time I tell Tim I love this song, he says, "Just wait until you get to hear the finished version!" "Fire Can":

One of the first looping songs Tim wrote, almost nobody has heard this one, and I love it! "Mr. B":

This song first strikes you as silly, but it's actually astonishingly emotionally powerful when you hear it live. "I Have Become":

Sorry for the robot voice in this--Tim used audio technology to move his voice into the female register. "Sweet" has some of the cleverest lyrics I've ever heard:

Many people have said this is a really catchy, appealing song. Tim wrote it on an airplane flying home from a gig. "Momma":

I adore this song. It really hits home for me. "Half n Half":

LOVE this song. "John Brown":

I think this is one of Tim's best songs, and he's won awards for it, but he doesn't think it's one of his better songs. Ha! "LaaDeeDah":

Can't get this one out of my head. It's a really sweet love song, but I don't think it's finished. "Do You Believe":

This song is really touching. It's the Dad's point of view at graduation. "Goodbye":

This song was pulled from the 9th Chapter and 15th verse of several books in the Bible. LOVE it, but it's also 9 minutes, 15 seconds long. It, too, has won awards. "9:15":

A song sung by the Christmas Tree, the day after Christmas. Also, it's about the people we forget at Christmas, like the elderly, the widows, etc. "In the Corner All Alone":

And finally, a song that is layered with meaning. It is about ancient Israel, about the life of an artist, about Jackson Pollock, about Tim. You can find some of the lyrics in the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament:

These are mostly rough recordings, and some of them unfinished songs, that I hope some day will be made into finished products. If Tim gets to go to Vegas to work with the producer we are excited about, he will get the tools and connections he needs to both get an agent (to help him book more shows so he can afford to keep spending hours making new music) and to record more songs, and these might actually get finished.

Did I just read that?

2011-11-24T03:12:00.001-07:00

So, I was checking out the list of people running for president in 2012, and I found some interesting names on the list (which you can find here: http://www.fec.gov/press/press2011/presidential_form2nm.shtml):

President Emperor Caesar

and HRM Caesar St. Augustine de Bounaparte of the United States of Turtle Island, whose principal campaign committee is The Sole Royal Embassy of the United States of Turtle Island (I did NOT make that up!)

and Jonathon the Impaler Sharkey

are all candidates who have file to run for President.

My guess? You don't have to be a real person to run for US President. Just a hunch. (I'm also guessing you don't have to show an ID to file....)

Did I just read that?

2011-11-21T01:15:00.001-07:00

"North Carolina officials have tracked down less than three dozen of the thousands of residents forced to undergo sterilizations between 1929 and 1974. The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that state officials believe at least 1,500 of the 7,600 people sterilized under a state program are still alive. But only 41 files have been matched to living survivors or relatives of the dead." http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/11/07/in-nc-only-41-sterilization-victims-found-so-far/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz1eKFvdFeY

So a dozen is 15 now? Because last I heard, less than three dozen meant 35 or fewer. And they found 41.

Tim's show that week

2011-11-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

After all that trouble had getting there, it sounds like the audience thought it was brilliant anyway.

Watching this, it's hard to believe leading up to it Tim had 3 dead cars and only 8 hours of sleep--all over 4 days.

Wow. Just Wow. Really long story and I hope most ofit never happens again.

2011-11-14T03:14:00.001-07:00

So....how was Tim's trip, you ask?

Well....I had been really nervous and unsettled all week. I felt like Calphurnia, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, telling Tim I was really nervous and wished he wouldn't go. It came to a head as he packed and started putting stuff in the car. I found I was really wishing he would fly, even if I couldn't justify it, and as he filled the car, I got so overwhelmingly nervous I was nearly sick. I figured it was because his last tour was impossibly difficult--a freak snowstorm in the middle of October had down a bunch of limbs in our yard--one right on top of Daniel (he was fine, but I had PTSD for a couple of days from watching that)--and it knocked out our power. (We prayed and were saved within 5 minutes by a friend who took us to her house for the night--all while Tim was in Utah.) So I swallowed my fear and actually told Tim, "This is good you're going because everything will be fine, just like every other tour is, and I'll realize that and not be scared of you going anymore. This will stop my irrational fear from developing into a phobia."

I was wrong. Oh, so so SO wrong.

The plan: Drive to Nebraska, do a radio show. Drive to Ohio. Do a couple of coaching/private lessons, 2 days of workshops and 2 shows. After the last show on Saturday night, leave and drive as far as possible, sleep, and then drive all day Sunday to get back in time for shows in Colorado on Monday. That's 20 hours of driving each way, the first set spread over several days, the second trip crammed into one long day.

So, on Tuesday night, armed with borrowed gas money because the budget has been really tight lately, he left after Scouts and drove to Nebraska. Got there in the middle of the night and slept in the van. In the morning, he did a radio show.

Then Wednesday afternoon and evening he drove. And drove. And drove. He had to get to Ohio by Friday. Ohio is 20 hours from Colorado.

He was going to drive until late at night, sleep some, and then get to Ohio on Thursday with plenty of time to visit friends, rehearse, edit video.

He called me from St. Louis and we talked, wished we were together, normal trip stuff.

A little over an hour, he called me again. Driving down the freeway at regular freeway speeds, he had a deer step out into the road right in front of him. He swerved away, but the deer ran into his path and he hit it. Deer went flying. Car was crunched, but still driveable. So he drove to the nearest exit, car steaming and smoking, and found himself at a WalMart. Couple of cops saw the car was broken and stopped to help, but had to call a sheriff because he hit the deer on county, not city, property.

And all of a sudden, Tim was stuck in the middle of Illinios, in Vandalia, with no way to get on to his shows, no money for a new car, no options we could think of. It was a devastating and hopeless feeling.

So he waited. And waited. And finally the sheriff showed up and took a report, and he called the car insurance company--it was an old car, so I hadn't kept the good insurance on it, and they couldn't do anything. at. all.

At least Tim wasn't hurt, despite the fact that he his a deer at 70mph and the air bags never even deployed. And his cell phone worked! Often it doesn't when he travels. But he was stuck stuck stuck.

So Tim did the smartest thing he could think of at 4:30 am. He unrolled his sleeping bag in the back of the broken car and fell asleep.

So, next morning I was awakened by a certified letter. I signed for it and then got online to see what was going on with Tim. It was 11:30 am here. He was online with my mom, chatting.

Stuck in the middle of Illinois, he had to figure out what to do with himself and a car full of sound equipment. My mom lent Tim all the money she had, plus all she could borrow from her overdraft (and I feel so guilty about that because she's a missionary! And I hate having to borrow money, besides). I started posting on facebook--anyone know somebody in the middle of Illinois? Any ideas what to do?

There were no vans for sale in our price range in Vandalia, IL. And there were no car dealerships there. And Tim had to be in the middle of rural Ohio, 8 hours away, by midday the next day. He called around everywhere and finally discovered the only way to rent a car that he could return somewhere else was to rent it from an airport. The only airport he knew of was an hour and a half back up the road in St. Louis. But a shuttle that far was horrendously expensive and we couldn't get ahold of the bishop in town.

And then into the picture came my cousin Deborah. I have not seen Deborah in over 10 years, but we have interacted on facebook for a couple of years. She lives an hour and a half from Vandalia, IL, and she said there was another airport--in Springfield, IL, near her house, and she offered to come pick Tim up, but couldn't come until 6:00. There was a scurry to see if that gave them enough time to get to a rental counter at the airport--it did, but barely--and then Deborah managed to rearrange her schedule so she could come earlier, and she left right away. It took 4 hours from the time I signed for the letter until we got it figured out to that point.

The new plan: With Deborah on her way, Tim was going to Springfield, IL, to rent a car to get him to Dayton, OH, buy a van there, continue his trip and come home.

While she was en route, Tim took the little crunched van (Still running, but no radiator left, so not for long) a mile up the road to a shop for an estimate. They were nice and gave him the estimate free. $4500 damage. He said the car was worth $3000. We think it was worth less than that, but still! Tim thanked the guy and drove back to WalMart, ate a little, and got ready to head to the airport in Springfield, IL.

That trip, at least, was uneventful. I was relieved--surely things would go smoothly from here on out. Problems solved, right? I got online and there were vans for sale that were possibilities.

A little while later, though, the phone rang again. Tim was at the airport, and they wouldn't rent him a car because he had a debit card instead of a credit card, but if someone was willing to accept the liability, he could use a different person's credit card.

So I started calling around, and so did he, and my brother agreed to do that for us.

So Tim stood in line again, got to the front, and the car rental guy said, "Sorry. Credit card holder has to be here with you." They wouldn't let my brother call his own card number in! And since my brother was in Utah, being there in person was laughable. Except we were too tired and frustrated to laugh.

Frustrated and exhausted from little sleep, Tim went to find a different car rental place. Fortunately, the next place rented him the car on the debit card, but charged him twice what the first place charged.

So Tim headed back the hour and a half to the little broken van to load his sound equipment. I was sure when he got there, the equipment would be stolen. It had been that kind of a day. Every step of the way something seemed to be going wrong!

Fortunately, the sound equipment was there.

Tim cleaned out Melody Yellowvan, closed her up, and left, and I couldn't stop crying. I have never much cared about a car, but that one I loved. 270,000 miles was a lot, though, so I knew she was going to die soon. But it was still really difficult to know he was driving away and that was that. She was gone. He planned to get back on Sunday in time to get a junk dealer out to pick her up, so he left the plates on. Later, we'd both regret that....

All of that took all day. By the time he was leaving Vandalia, IL, it was dark. But he was on the road and I had some hope. The new plan was to get to Dayton Ohio, sleep there for a few hours in the rental car, and then spend all morning searching for a new van and buying it. Dayton, OH, was supposed to be 5 hours away.

We didn't count on the freeway being closed in Indianapolis. Everyone was being routed toward Chicago.

Tim had to get off and go through town, find the freeway again--and it was still closed. Off again, through town more, find the freeway...and he was moving forward again, but it took 40+ minutes.

By the time he drove into Dayton, it was a dawn on Friday. He slept a couple of hours in the passenger seat of the rental and then set out to find a van.

Meanwhile, back home, I had been searching online classified for possibilities and finally found him three that were promising. So he called them in the morning. One had 200,000+ miles on it (and, the ad claimed, seated 150 people). One, it turned out, had a broken steering column. Running out of time, Tim let the salesman at the lot show him a cargo van. It worked, it looked terrible but solid, and it was cheap. But they wanted cash. $950 cash.

So Tim went to get cash. The ATM had a limit of $500. No banks would take his debit card and give him cash from his account in Utah.

So he called me, and I got online and found the nearest WalMart, where he could get a cashier's check from the debit card. When he got there, he didn't get a cashier's check. Instead, he bought 5 candybars, one at a time with 5 different cashiers, and got $100 cash back each time.

That obstacle overcome, he headed back and bought the van, loaded it with his sound equipment, and left it on the lot. He had to return the rental car and take a cab back to the lot in Springfield, OH. (Turns out Ohio and Illinois have all the same towns....). He had no title for the van, though, and so couldn't get temporary tags. See, in Ohio, you have to get the title from a title office, and it was closed for Veteran's Day. So the dealer left the dealer plates on it and Tim agreed to mail them back when he got home to Colorado, and then they'd mail him the title. Easy-peasy. Then, when he got home, we could sell the cargo van for what he paid for it, plus gas, and buy a family van.

He hung up from telling me all that at 11:11 am on 11/11/11. I noticed the display on the phone had a line of 11s on it and thought it was odd.

All of that took way way too long, and Tim still had to drive 2 hours to Albany, OH (outside Athens, OH), where he was supposed to workshop some students and then do a show.

He got there 2 hours late. (Of course, he had warned them what was going on...). But he made it. And the kids LOVED him, loved the workshops. And the show went fantastically, amazingly well. Really brilliant. The audience loved it, and Tim called as he left and sounded tired, but really good.

He was really really looking forward to sleeping in a bed for more than 3 hours. It had been two days in a row of not getting any sleep as he drove all night and then dealt with problems. I was so relieved that he was going to get some sleep, in a hotel where he would be comfortable. So relieved that he would get to let the stress go, and everything surely would go smoothly from there on out.

A little while later, I got a call.

The new van had DIED. He'd checked the oil before he left and added some, so he was surprised when a car passed him and he saw the engine smoking. Rearview mirror revealed sparks and little flaming things falling off the van behind him. Then it made a whole lot of noise and then died. Completely. Once again, he was stuck in the middle of rural mid-west in the middle of the night.

But he was loosely caravaning with an old friend who had come to see the show and was then staying at the same hotel as he was, so he was going to text Mike Yanchak for help.

He hung up the phone with me, and I looked at the time on my computer. 11:11 pm on 11/11/11. That cargo van lasted exactly 12 hours.

And Tim was once again stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in the midwest in the middle of the night. Again! How to get him home with all his equipment? He had gigs in Colorado on Monday and Tuesday, so he couldn't just mess around finding another van.

We needed a new plan. So I got online, in tears, and I looked it up and found out he could fly home for $230. So I bought him a plane ticket right there. At least then I could get him home and worry about the sound equipment later.

Luckily, Mike got the text and turned around and came back for Tim. They loaded as much stuff out of the cargo van into Mike's car as they could (because, it turned out, the cargo van's back doors had no lock.).

And then discovered that Mike's car had died!

I'm not making this up. I would have stopped long ago because this is too outlandish.

You remember the "mom" parts of Home Alone, where she is trying desperately to get back to her house to get her son who was alone, and every step of the way something went wrong that got her into deeper and deeper messes? That's what this was beginning to feel like, and it wasn't over yet.

So Mike called AAA. And they couldn't find him.

A cop stopped and talked to AAA. And they STILL couldn't find him. An hour later the tow truck found them and got the car started--the battery had died.

And they were off to Dayton to their hotel. At close to dawn. Again.

Unfortunately, Tim had to start his next day's work at the a cappella conference at 8:00 am!

So, once again, he only slept a few hours.

And once again, he left a car on the side of the road with stuff in it he had to go back for. (Except this time, Mike went back--what a life saver!).

The next morning, Saturday, he got a ride to the venue with his stuff and workshopped kids all day.

Meanwhile, I called the place that sold him the bum van and said, "That van you sold us died and is on the side of the road with your dealer plates on it. I don't know where exactly it is, you'll have to call Tim."
Then I settled in to Tim's day must be okay, and I went to bed. Finally.

A few hours later, the guy who sold Tim the van called me back and woke me up. Remember, the title office was closed? Yeah, so suddenly this guy is really really motivated to go get that van back because the title is in his name and so is the registration. He even said he'd buy it back, but for junk (so not the full amount Tim spent on it. Bummer.). So he was going to call Tim, and I went back to bed.

I felt terrible. We had spent a bunch of my mom's money to get a van and it died. She was really nice about it, but I was devastated. Tim was even more devastated. And that left our family with no car again. Mom and I talked options, but there were no good ones. Mom concluded our only option was to sell her wedding ring to buy a van. But I couldn't even entertain that idea.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my Aunt Mona had been reading the facebook updates I had put up over the course of the last few days to my Uncle Brent, who owns a car dealership. They decided they needed to help us. Also unbeknownst to me, my Mom, Brent's sister, emailed him and asked if there was anything he could do (and I had emailed him to ask if there were any laws that might help us with the dealer in Ohio because even a used car ought to last more than 12 hours). And, also unbeknownst to me (and to each other) my sisters (and a bunch of other people) had all been praying that someone would help us get a car somehow.

So I was back in bed sleeping and unhappy when the phone rang again. I hopped up, and it was my brother in law, Jared, saying he had been online with my parents and my mom wanted me to call the dealership. I told him I had, and he said, no she means your Uncle Brent. So I got online to chat with my mom, and then I called my Uncle Brent and explained everything to him.

He talked me through a bunch of stuff and said he wanted to help us, but it wasn't very promising because we have 8 people in our family, but it's really really difficult to find a van that seats more than 7. "Like a needle in a haystack" were his words. I thanked him for being willing to help and said I'd check with Tim when he got a break and see if we could make 7 passengers work.

I hadn't even gone back to bed again when he called back. "You're in luck!" he said. Someone had just that very morning traded in a rare 8 passenger mini van. He had even had his sales manager go out and count the seatbelts for us to be sure. And he decided it would be best if he just gave it to us, to help support a musician (he is a musician himself), and for love of my mother and to support her on her mission. I couldn't believe it. Few phone calls later, my sisters had the van and were taking it back to one of their houses to keep it until we could get it.

I cannot express how grateful I am for this. I really can't. There are not words to tell Uncle Brent enough Thank Yous.

That settled, I was much happier (how could I NOT be?).

Then the car dealer who sold us the bum car called. He was mad at me and wanted to know where that van was, and I had no idea ("Not here in Colorado!" I said.). So I had to track Tim down and get him to call this angry guy. And I did the math and realized Tim was on stage--no way he would answer his phone. He doesn't even take it on stage with him (how tacky would THAT be?!). The organizer of the event was in the audience, and I had his number. So I called and texted Tim and left messages, called the organizer and left a message, and then realized Mike Yanchak would know where the van was and if it was empty and ready to be towed. But I didn't have his phone number.

But how many Mike Yanchaks from Pennsylvania can there be?

Turns out three.

I called the number in the phone book and got his Grandma. She was really nice and gave me his cell phone number.

So I texted Mike.

And then I talked to the home teachers, who came to visit, and also was babysitting a friend's kids (who are actually easy to babysit because they distract my kids), so I had to feed them something (they'd all been eating the caramel I had made to cheer myself up on Tuesday).

When the home teachers left, I found Mike had texted me back.

So I called the angry guy and Tim had called him, too, so he wasn't as angry, and between us he got enough information to get the cargo van, and he promised Tim he'd pay him back some (but not all. Sigh.). (One of my home teachers is a very good attorney, though, and he threatened to write mean letters if it comes to that.)

Then Tim called me. He had finished his set. He didn't get to watch SONOS even though he'd been really excited to see their show (they're really really good) because he was on the phone trying to figure out what to do with his sound equipment, with the dead vans (both of them!), etc.

Plus he was bone-deep exhausted from sleeping no more than 3 hours a night all week. It's actually a miracle that he could do his shows. Mike Yanchak actually gave him some good advice on that: "So the energy is different than you're used to. Just run with it." Tim is also really really really good at his job. And since performers don't really get days off when life gets crappy (the show must go on, right?), it's good that Tim is good at that part of his job. His muscle memory is fantastic.

When the event finally ended, the organizer let Tim lock all his equipment in the high school equipment room, where it would be totally safe, and Tim went back to his hotel to sleep 4 hours. Again.

Then he got up, got to the airport in Vandalia, OH, and came home. Despite the unbelievable difficulties and obstacles, he actually made it to both days of workshopping and both shows. He missed a workshop with some college kids and a private lesson (with Mike Yanchak, actually), but everything else he made it for and was able to do. Amazing.

I have never been so happy to see him walk in. Woke me up and I was so SO glad.

And then we all fell back asleep, all of us exhausted from not sleeping all week as we tried to work out the problems, and we slept all the way through church--I didn't even hear the alarm ring.

Tim got up after just a few hours, though, to get to the very end of church.

And then he spent the afternoon catching up on emails, arranging a way for him to get to his show tomorrow and contacting THAT show organizer, etc.

We still aren't sure how he's going to get his equipment back. He can't do much with no mics and no looping pedals! But we're working on that....

Meanwhile, my siblings decided it was important to them that we get a chance to do what we had planned before all hell broke loose and come out for Thanksgiving. So my sister-in-law is actually driving out the new van in the morning (Monday) and will fly home. What a huge blessing for us!

So the story isn't completely over, but it's mostly over. We still have to find someone to take Melody Yellowvan away, and hopefully mail us her plates (doggone it!). Have to get the sound equipment here. Have to find out what happened to the cargo van for sure. We're working on all that...

I discovered that the right insurance coverage (at least on the new van) that would have saved us $1200 costs $35 every six months. So guess what kind of coverage the new van has? Yeah. Comprehensive is not so expensive as everyone says it is. At least not on a chevy venture van. That was a very expensive lesson to learn.

And very exhausting.

I also learned that people are anxious to help.

And that sometimes in the middle of the dark, with shadows looming, it's easy to think that God has forgotten you. Faith requires patience sometimes, too.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this while Tim was gone (and he said he did, too):

And my brother sent me a great quote that hits me just right (since I'm a writer and often have seen my life as a story):

""But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled for us without our permission. If we wish life to be a system, this may be a nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is an essential. ... A man has control over many things in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much hero that there would be no novel. ... The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect. ... To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance."
- G.K. Chesterton, Heretics"

It's true.

Kickstarter

2011-11-04T18:13:00.001-06:00

Tim has the opportunity to go work with a great producer in Las Vegas. We have to find a way to get him down there and to pay for studio time.

We don't know anyone who has the full $2500 we need, but we do know over 250 people. If everyone we know can donate $1-$10 before Dec 4, we'll have enough to send him down there.

We set up a kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106967712/mister-tim-ep.

If you have any spare, consider helping out? (There are rewards--if you go through Kickstarter, you're not actually donating $10, for example, you're actually buying $10 worth of music from Tim. Kickstarter is just a way for us to collect and dedicate the funds for this specific project).

Thank you!!!!!

Pizzabet Soup

2011-11-02T23:56:00.002-06:00

I invented a new recipe tonight!

It was really really good, too.

So I'm posting it so I can find it again. (I always forget the recipes I create....)

1 can kidney beans
1/8-1/4 tsp garlic powder (depending on how much you like)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp italian seasoning

Mix these in a large soup pot, mashing the beans slightly. Then add:

2-3 ribs of celery, split in half lengthwise and then sliced thin
2 carrots, split in fourths lengthwise and sliced into small triangles
1 tbsp minced dried onion or 1 med onion, minced
1 can crushed tomatoes
3 c water.

Bring this to a boil and then turn the heat down, cover, and let simmer for half an hour. Then add 1 beef bouillon cube and 1/3 c alphabet or tiny star noodles. Return to a boil and cook 15 minutes or until the noodles are done.

Top each serving with:

grated cheese
2 slices of pepperoni, cut into fourths

and any other pizza toppings you like (olives would be fantastic).

Home Made Laundry Soap

2011-11-02T06:01:00.002-06:00

On some social network or other I found a recipe for home made laundry soap. It was cheap, and the reviews were pretty good. And I discovered that two of my cousins make their own laundry soap, so I thought I'd try it.

The recipe I found was 1 c borax, 1c washing soda, and 1 bar of soap (preferably laundry soap because harsh soaps can destroy all the elastic in your socks, waist bands, etc.). You grate the soap and then stir all these things together until it looks like corn meal. The recipe said 5 minutes. It took a lot lot longer than that, and I ended up blending it in small batches in the blender. And then I was scared to use my blender because even though it's glass, it held on to the smell of the soap. Since borax and washing soda are both toxic, and nobody wants to eat soap, that wasn't very good for my kitchen blender. The recipe insisted multiple times that you only need 1 tbsp for a load of laundry, or maybe 2 if it's a heavily soiled load. The people who really really loved it also mixed in a box of oxy-clean, but I figure if you're going to spend all that money (since oxy-clean is not cheap), you might as well buy Tide and not have to mix it all up.

The recipe source said these are all natural and safe ingredients, and, they concluded, therefore non toxic. It's not true. People so often forget that natural doesn't mean gentle, safe, or nontoxic. Deadly nightshade is natural. So is poison ivy. So is radium. Borax has boric acid in it. Boric acid kills cockroaches and ants, and it's so toxic that you're not even supposed to breathe the dust that kicks up into the air. And washing soda is also used in swimming pools, and the swimming pool chemicals bag is clearly labeled poison. This might be all natural, but it's not nontoxic--and safe for what? Clothes? Kids to eat? That's just a nice phrase that is totally empty without elaboration. So it comes out a pretty white toxic powder that you have to keep away from your kids.

The first thing I discovered is that, while grating soap is surprisingly easy, I can't stir anything for well over 5 minutes straight. Even when I cook, I can take breaks. My arms just don't handle that kind of action. So it was really hard to get it mixed up properly. Also, I'm generally allergic to the perfumes they put into soaps. So when I grated that bar of Zote and released that smell, I wasn't a happy breather for a few days.

The next thing I discovered is that whoever decided you needed one tablespoon per load must have been washing for one, with the smallest load possible. I needed four times that to get moderately clean clothes.

So, the results?

About as good as using Sun brand laundry detergent (cheapest one in the store). In other words, not great.

It only took one washing for all my whites to turn dingy. When your clothes are old anyway, having them go dingy is a bad bad thing. It makes worn clothes look ready for the rag bag--and we can't afford to throw everything that's worn away.

Heavy duty spots didn't come out--things like breast milk, baby spit-up, baby poop, food spots all required a second washing with a spot remover on them. My normal washing choice, Arm and Hammer, got those things out really well (although it didn't remove grease spots--but what does?!). Since I am a nursing mom with a baby, a toddler, a very messy preschooler, and three big kids, not getting everyday spots out on the first washing was kind of a big deal for me.

Also, I just didn't feel like the clothes were really, deep-down clean. For one thing, Benji's underwear (which he pees in every single day still) didn't look clean. Even worse, they didn't smell clean. I'm not talking about "they lacked the perfumes detergents leave in the clothes." I understand that the perfumes are used to convince you that something is clean and it's all an artificial experience. The problem was, Benji's underwear still had a faint odor of urine around them. Just faint, but enough that I was afraid my poor kid was going to walk around attracting attention for smelling bad. And my clothes didn't smell really clean. Alas, sweaty person though I am, I don't really want a faint odor of homelessness to follow me around. Don't get me wrong--it was very very faint, and only on certain items, like my nylon garments. But it was there and it said to me "I'm not clean."

Call me crazy, but I think I should be able to even press warm-from-the-dyer underwear to my face and smell nothing--not perfumes, not dryer sheets, and not people.

So I'm guessing by the smell that the people-dirt didn't wash all the way out, and I'm guessing by the dinginess that the soap didn't rinse all the way out, either. But I already run my laundry on a double rinse cycle, and with 6 kids, I can't really rinse it more than that. Maybe that's why most people use detergent instead of soap? Just a guess.

So today I gave up and bought a big box of Arm and Hammer (why that, when I find that Tide gets things cleanest? Well, Arm and Hammer is cheaper than Tide, and it gets the clothes clean, and it's consistently good for rashy-skinned kids, like Daniel. Even better (by far) than the hypoallergenic-free-of-everything detergents. I think that might be because Arm and Hammer actually washes away more completely than the others.). I won't throw away the home made stuff. I'm just going to use it for what the boxes of ingredients say it really is: a laundry booster, not a detergent replacement.

Did I just read that?

2011-11-01T01:26:00.001-06:00

A caption on a picture in an article about food on KSL.com: "Cellulose, or wood pulp, is an increasingly common food additive which allows foot to maintain a moist, smooth mouthfeel without adding sugar or fat to the product." (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1070&sid=17899791&title=whats-in-your-food-wood-it-turns-out).

Just in case you happen to put your foot in your mouth....

(It's actually an interesting article, by the way. Worth reading, despite the typo.)

No, No NaNoWriMo

2011-10-31T23:39:00.000-06:00

I'm a writer and a writing teacher, and I have confession. I don't do NaNoWriMo. (That's National Novel Writing Month). Every November, lovers of writing take to their computers en masse to try to pump out an entire novel in 30 days. That is, to try to pump out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

And I don't do NaNoWriMo.

Why?

Well, I have six kids. But that's just an excuse. Even with the kids, on a good day I can pump out 10,000 words. I don't have those days very often, but I could do 5 in a month if I made a point to do it. My record is 11,000 words in one day, three days in a row, while still caring for the kids. I can put out 1,000 words on the most heinous day. In fact, I write at least a 1000 words a day in my journal.

And it's not that I have no ideas. I have the first chapter written for six novels, outlines for at least a dozen more, and ideas for hundreds more. You can give me an object--any bizarre or mundane object--and it's likely I could come up with a plot, characters, and a setting for a novel based on that. Ideas are candy to me. (Not to say they are good ideas, but I have enough that I can afford to pick through them).

In other words, I have no trouble producing words or stories.

But I have a serious problem with someone interfering with the process. Sometimes I spend a day writing 11,000 words in my spare time. Other days, I spend all my free time pouring over a single sentence, trying to figure out how to get it to have the impact I want. Other days, I don't put my fingers to my keyboard at all, but spend the whole day wondering about a character, thinking through what would they do if ____ happened, or what it is about them that makes them a Bella (cardboard cutout placeholder in a story instead of a compelling, loveable/hateable person). Some days I spend time reading the first line (or middle aha moment, or climax, or introduction to a setting or character, or whatever) from every book I can get my hands on. Some days I sit and read influential novels, or great novels, just to take notes on how the great authors do it. Other times I spend a lot of time reading agents and publisher's blogs, getting tips on the business side of writing. Sometimes I edit (but never for friends--I'm a nitpicky, somewhat harsh editor, and I value my friendships too much. The question is always "Do you want to be my friend still, or do you want a good manuscript instead?").

The point is, all of these are important parts of writing, and I can't afford to have the process messed with so I can say I wrote a manuscript in 30 days. I already know I can do that, if I wanted, but why would I want to? What benefit would it have other than messing with the rhythm of my writing style?

Bottom line: I'm too busy writing novels to take time off to write a novel in 30 days.

The other reason I don't do NaNoWriMo is so petty that it's almost not worth mentioning, but it's a big deal to me. They define a novel as 50,000 words.

The problem is that's too long to be published as a novella by 20,000 words (and novellas are hard to get published anyway--nobody's reading those). And it's 25,000 words too short to be published as a novel. So unless you write middle grade fiction, you are completely wasting your time writing something unpublishable. And it's not just the publishability of it. People don't sell 50,000 word novels (except in genre romance, actually) because 50,000 words is not enough to truly develop the "comic throughline" of the characters or the problem/solution or the mystery/quest or the conflict/resolution or any other aspect of a well-developed plot.

The 50,000 words makes the "novel" seem do-able to most people. If I did it, it would also make the final product half-baked.

So I don't do NaNoWriMo.

But for you who are doing it, have a fun time and good luck!

Benji says

2011-10-31T02:11:00.001-06:00

For Halloween, he wants to be a butterfly. If he can't be that, he says he wants to be a cactus.

The religious question in marriage

2011-10-30T00:37:00.002-06:00

This Archbishop has the same questions I do about the whole same-sex marriage debate: what about protections for religion and religious people?

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700192892/Defending-the-faith-How-Americas-Pope-is-redefining-the-battle-over-same-sex-marriage.html?pg=1

Everyone says there isn't any threat to religions, but his experience (churches being threatened with lawsuits if they don't rent their facilities out for gay marriage ceremonies) is what I think is in the cards. That is, if we don't fight for our rights as religious people.

Snowstorms in fall=not good

2011-10-27T18:40:00.000-06:00

That was an insane few days.

Ice and heavy wet snowstorm before the trees had dropped their leaves wreaked havoc in our city. At our house, an enormous branch fell off our giant cottonwood tree--12 inches or more across at the break, 50 feet up, covered a fourth of our yard, and the "Fringes" of it landed on Daniel with all the heavy snow that pulled it down. Somehow, it knocked him over but didn't hurt him. I, of course, freaked out because it could have killed him, and when all I could see was falling snow, coming down right on top of my son, after hearing the crack of the branch breaking....well, let's just say it was like living in one of my worst nightmares.

A few hours later, the power went out, and it was still snowing. Within 10 minutes, Tim left for Utah for a tour, so it was me and 6 kids with no car, no phone, and no electricity. By 3:00 yesterday afternoon, there was still no power, and it was getting cold in the house, so we prayed for the power to come on quickly and for us to be warm enough until it did. Five minutes later, a friend from the ward knocked on the door and said she'd come to take us to her house for the night. Phew. Rarely is a prayer answered so quickly and so dramatically.

Apparently the storm broke trees all over the city, knocked out power to 1200+ people, and they could only restore power en masse to 500 of those. The other 700 were in groups of 1-20 houses with no power, and they had to deal with each of those outages one at a time. The estimate for our house was 3 days, so it was another miracle that we got back into our house before 48 hours were up.

So we spent the night at our friends' and managed to get the kids to school, even, and sometime in the middle of the day, the power came back on at our house (but went off at another friend's house).

So we're back at home. And, by a series of several miracles, none the worse for the wear. Also very grateful and very determined to get emergency candles and a prepaid cellphone for emergencies like that. (We have a 911 cell phone for emergencies, but we need a "call a friend" and "call the power company" cell phone for emergencies, too--one of those $15 ones would work fine).

New Business "cards"

2011-10-25T17:32:00.001-06:00

Tim's new business cards came today.

They are kazoos with his web address printed on them.

He got them from Kazoobie Kazoos. Kazoobie are sponsoring Tim, and I'm glad. It means he has kazoos for his videos, in all colors. Plus an electric kazoo (for real!). And they are really really good kazoos. They are well-made (and all in America, too--the only brand of kazoos that aren't imported), and they have the best sound of any kazoo I've ever heard (and we've had lots of kazoos around here!).

So, to celebrate, a kazoo video:

Did I just read that?

2011-10-22T20:26:00.002-06:00

"Missing WWII Airmen to Be Buried at Arlington With Full Military Honors"

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/22/missing-wwii-airmen-to-be-buried-at-arlington-with-full-military-honors/?test=latestnews#ixzz1bZGmUXOZ

That's tricky....burying someone that's missing.

Making Websites

2011-10-20T18:53:00.001-06:00

My project for the last few months has been learning about how to make a website. I'm already fairly well-versed on design principles--I've taken design courses and Tim and I have spent hours analyzing design.

So Tim and I have spent the last month in fairly intense website redesign for his Mister Tim site. I've learned how to edit HTML, and how to embed gadgets, pictures, text, calendars, mp3 players, and links on webpages.

The place I got hung up was finding a free mp3 playlist player that would work with google sites (where I'm doing all my design--because it's easier than WordPress--and then we'll attach the site to Tim's regular URL). There are a lot of playlist players, and a lot of playlist creators, and nothing seemed to work with google sites because of their weird limitations on Java and Flash.

After hours of working on this, I finally figured it out! You can pop out the music players on facebook band pages, and that gives them a unique url, which you can then plug into an iframe wrapper on google sites, and you have the same player running in both places! The big plus of this is you only have to update it in one place, and it automatically updates the player (including the picture) on both Facebook and the website. Phew.

Now on to the next challenge: Getting the dishes done.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-20T16:15:00.004-06:00

"America's Declaration 'Illegal,' U.K. Lawyers Say" Foxnews.com home page today. And the actual article's headline: "Declaration of Independence Was 'Illegal,' Grounds for Treason, British Lawyers Say" http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/20/declaration-independence-was-illegal-grounds-for-treason-british-lawyers-say/?test=latestnews#ixzz1bMYk5tee

Wow. Have they been pondering that for 235 years?

Did I just read that?

2011-10-19T03:48:00.001-06:00

This is tricky. The caption under a picture on an article dated Oct 18, 2011: "Oct. 28, 2011: Ali Reza Shahsavari, 29, of Indialantic, Fla., is escorted by Amarillo Police and FBI officers after causing a disturbance on a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City." http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/18/southwest-flight-lands-after-cockpit-break-in-try/?test=latestnews#ixzz1bDfwGx6d

Apparently Fox News can tell the future! This is a photo taken next week.

Caleb says the greatest things!

2011-10-19T01:39:00.000-06:00

Today at Scouts the boys were paired up to work on passing off requirements. Each pair was working with a leader, and Caleb and his partner worked with Tim.

Tim later told me that other boy in the pair, who is just as strong-willed and bossy as Caleb, was struggling to pay attention through the activity, so he was, when asked a question, tending to just repeat what Caleb had said, but he hadn't been paying much attention, so he repeated it imperfectly.

And apparently it frustrated Caleb--first that he was being copied, and secondly that he was being copied imperfectly.

So later I asked Caleb about it and he said, with a resigned tone in his voice, "Oh. Yeah. It was corrupted redundancy."

That phrase just made my night. Corrupted redundancy. I just love that phrase.

My 10 yo says the best things!

Interesting article on Bible Translation

2011-10-17T18:20:00.000-06:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-joel-hoffman/five-ways-your-bible-tran_b_1007058.html

He lists 5 legitimate reasons English bible translations are often wrong.

What he illustrates but does not include on his list is the biggest one: incorrect doctrinal understanding coloring your interpretation of the words.

He says it's a problem to translate the phrase "God's hand" because God doesn't have hands! Well, there's your problem. If you lack understanding of the true nature of God (he, in fact, does have hands), or any other doctrine for that matter, you can really mess up the translation big time in trying to force it to make sense according to your understanding, instead of just telling us what the words say and letting us parse it out.

He also fails to address the fact that most modern English "translations" of the bible are actually translations of other, older English translations, which makes them multiples removed from the original text. So no wonder they're terrible translations!

There is also the issue of who is translating: a linguist or a religious expert? Are they translating the words or the doctrines according to their understanding? There's a lot more to it than just cognates, metaphors, historical traditions, etc.

He also doesn't give people enough credit for having brains. Nobody is going to misunderstand Shakespeare's "Juliet is the sun." It is not a lost metaphor in our culture. In fact, it's a very effective metaphor--we all know the sun is the source of light, of understanding, of heat, and of nourishment. We also know that saying something is the sun puts it in the highest esteem as the most important thing in your life. Any confusion there is imposed by a desperate writer struggling to find an example of a metaphor that no longer makes sense. (I might suggest the references to the angels troubling the waters at the pool of Bethsaida as a better illustration of what he ought to be talking about--not metaphor specifically, but all the loaded cultural references that make it so we don't get a joke from another language, even when it's translated, or so we start searching for metaphor when, in fact, all the locals at the time the text was written recognized common geographical locations, slang, objects, etc.)

You have to realize that translation is an effort of someone to express in their own language (including all its cultural references, etc.) something in another language. To "get" the King James Bible, then, we have to truly "get" both the original language and Shakespearean English. In other words, it helps to know what a cucumber frame is if you want to read Isaiah. And you have to remember that "turtle" was a dove in England at that time.

And you have to know that God has hands.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-16T23:50:00.002-06:00

""We're the country that built the intercontinental railroad," Obama says. "So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads?"" http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/columnists/2011/10/government-job-killer#.Tpuvnhlp2O8.facebook#ixzz1b11AC9jJ

Did we do that? I wonder how we got the tracks to float?

Today's project: DIY printing press

2011-10-16T21:04:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it's not really a printing press.

I explained to the kids how a printing press worked in the good old days (like Gutenburg through the industrial revolution).

Then we got out abc noodles that I bought for $.80 at the grocery store (in the Mexican food section for some reason!).

We glued them onto paper backward and in reverse, and let the glue dry. Then we inked them with stamp pads and pressed a clean fresh paper down on the inked letters. The noodles are not all the same thickness, so you have to press down pretty hard--hard enough that the paper gets a sort of reverse-embossed look to it. But the letters printed out nicely.

Fun projects!

You could print cards this way. Or make letter stamps by glueing the letters onto blocks. The hard part is that you have to press the paper onto the letters (instead of the letters on to the paper) that you want to print on. If the kids were older, I'd set them to carving new letters out of wood blocks, and we'd make a printing frame. But they're too little.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-16T16:40:00.001-06:00

"Helping Hands collects milk from mothers who produce excess milk to create the fortifier, Estler said."
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=968&sid=17576359&title=human-milk-fortifier-developed-to-save-premature-babies

Perhaps if they had known it would be used in that sentence, the company would have picked a different name. As a nursing mother, I find that sentence rather...uncomfortable. What do those hands do again?

Campaign Finance Reform

2011-10-15T18:52:00.000-06:00

If the Occupy movements can focus their ire on campaign and other political finance reform, I might just join up. That part of their message resonates with me and with a lot of other people.

I think there are a lot of problems. Poor people really can't run for president, or even congress, for example, because it costs too much. But if you force all donations into a pool that it split evenly, then people don't feel like they are supporting the candidate who best reflects their own values and interests (and people should be allowed to do that). Lobbyists are another problem. Earmarks are another. Taxes are another. Social Security and Medicare are another. All these money-based problems that we can't just keep putting bandaids on. Even outside problems, like Education, are tied tightly to funding issues. And when the funding is coming from someone with special interests, they expect they are paying for their way to be THE way, and in a lot of ways that's what's happening. Anyone with money can get things done in their favor, even at the expense of what's good for the nation, and that's what has Occupy mad. And in that, I agree with them. (Not so sure about their methods or lack of suggestions for solutions, though, and I'm still pretty sure they're throwing too many things into the pot and refusing to identify precise issues that can and should be solved....so I'm still not joining them.)

And any solution meets with resistance because the people who are benefiting from the corruption are the ones who make the laws. Hard to combat that! No wonder Occupy is mad.

I have begun to wonder if the solutions aren't deceptively simple.

What if all donations to all political candidates and parties were required to be anonymous and all donations had to be made via the internet or direct deposit into funding bank accounts--so no more fund-raising dinners, etc.? And what if the candidate ever found out who the money came from, they would forfeit it? I don't know enough about how the government works to know if this would cause other problems, and it doesn't solve the poor people can't get elected problem, but it would make it so candidates were not beholden to any one person or corporation. (Would it be too hard to enforce? What would stop someone from getting a phone call at midnight?)

What if all political candidates were limited in the amount they could spend, and all excess they raised (from their anonymous donors) was put into a fund to benefit poor candidates--or all candidates--in the next election cycle? Or the excess was all donated to reducing the national debt? (This would only work if the total raised for each candidate was kept secret until after the election cycle was over--so that people would keep donating to their chosen candidate even after they reached their limit).

What about a flat tax?

What about banning paid lobbyists? Or requiring lobbyists to only talk to their own representative or senator, who represents the area they actually live in?

Personally, I was delighted to get my municipal ballot in the mail this year (we do mail-in voting here, and I LOVE it!) and to find that there was no mention of political party on any of the candidates on the ballot, or on their own websites. So instead of having a bias based on their party affiliation, I was able to just look at their proposals and their qualifications to make my choices. It was refreshing! Is there a way to get that on a national level? Is there a simple, straightforward way to reduce the power of the political parties--because right now they have as much or more sway over the candidates in office as the corporations who fund the campaigns. Obama was totally a pawn of his party, as are most of the people in office right now--and Obama's attempts to think for himself have caused him serious problems. It almost doesn't matter what candidate you vote for because the party and the party bosses are actually in charge. So is there a way to minimize that power?

While I disagree with a lot of what Occupy does, I think they will have done a great favor to the nation if they can get enough ire up to get these things changed (even if the ideas are coming from people who actually believe in solving problems instead of just complaining about them, and even if the change ultimately comes from people who occupy the polls and their representatives' inboxes instead of the parks). Because, really, do any of us like the good old boy system? I think only the good old boys do.

My new favorite brownie recipe

2011-10-15T17:37:00.001-06:00

I've always been a box brownie girl. I make almost everything from scratch, but I just couldn't get the right brownie recipe--they were always too cakey or not chocolatey enough, or just too expensive (cream and baking chocolate? Sorry.).

But Dan was bored the other day, so I handed him a cook book. It happened to have a whole chapter on brownies, and the first recipe he picked came out pretty good, so he decided to try another. It was called "Marshmallow Brownies." No doubt he was thinking Rocky Road brownies, minus the nuts (since we don't do nuts around here).

What we got was something akin to fudge, in a brownie form. It's not a sticky-chewy brownie (although I love those), and it's definitely not cakey. It's just a nice, dense brownie with a fantastic dark chocolate flavor. No marshmallows in sight.

And no added sugar! But never fear, these are far from healthy. The main ingredients are marshmallows and chocolate chips. As the processed food industry has discovered, not adding sugar as an ingredient doesn't mean something has no sugar in it!

With marshmallows in the recipe, this sounds like a kids' treat, but it comes out quite elegant and not really kiddie at all--in fact, it's too dark and rich for some of my kids.

So the recipe, modified. (I didn't change the ingredients, but I did change the process significantly. The recipe book was a pre-microwave one and the process was much more difficult. We use the microwave to simplify things. I also changed the name. "Marshmallow Brownies" is accurate, ingredients-wise, but not accurate in regards to the final product or the "eat".).

Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies

1 1/2 c mini marshmallows
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c margarine or butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
dash salt

Put the marshmallows, chocolate chips, and margarine in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave, stirring every 30 seconds or minute, until everything is smooth. Let it cool. Then add the eggs and vanilla and stir until well mixed. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, in that order, and then stir until it's mixed. Pour this into a greased 9x9 pan (a perfectly square one, without sloped sides--these are usually old metal ones--makes a better brownie by FAR). Bake for 20 minutes at 350.

We topped these with the "frosting" suggested in the original recipe. It wasn't really a frosting, though. It was more like half-way between a frosting and a glaze.

Here's the recipe--again modified to make it easier, and also to use chocolate chips instead of baker's chocolate squares:

1/2 c mini marshmallows
1 tbsp butter or margarine
2 tbsp chocolate chips
4 tsp milk OR orange juice
3/4 c powdered milk

Microwave the marshmallows, butter, chocolate chips, and liquid (milk or orange juice) for one minute. Stir. Heat again at 30 second intervals, stirring between, until the mixture is completely melted and smooth. Add the powdered sugar and stir until smooth. Spread or pour onto the warm or cool brownies.

Let the whole thing cool and set up for a few minutes. You can still serve them warm--just not piping hot, or the frostinglaze runs off. These were really really good with ice cream and fresh raspberries, although the chocolate flavor completely overwhelmed the raspberries. A good fresh raspberry sauce would have worked better.

Easy and worth it! These are so rich, though, that you really can cut them into 1" or 1 1/2" squares and it's big enough.

Worth Reading!

2011-10-15T16:02:00.001-06:00

"The first dreams we ever had were to be held. And loved. And to explore this amazing world with love in our lives." Read it. Changes how you see parenting, doesn't it? Family IS the dream.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/15/opinion/levs-parents-sacrifice/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Read it. It's short.

"Because when we give up something for a time to make sure we're putting enough focus into our families, we're not giving up dreams. We're committing to our biggest, deepest ones."

"Make those dreams happen. And don't let anyone make you think you can't. But along the way, keep in mind that the best, most amazing, most rewarding and, ultimately, most fulfilling dream is the first one we all ever felt."

Did I just read that?

2011-10-14T03:57:00.002-06:00

From here: https://www.mheonline.com/

I guess that's why kids graduate from elementary school not knowing their math facts.

Baby formula causing diabetes and obesity?

2011-10-13T18:27:00.002-06:00

I had not heard of AGEs before, but this seems like a legitimate scientific study, not some crackpot review by a guy selling his own herbs: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111005170730.htm

A Mommy Salary?

2011-10-13T18:06:00.000-06:00

I don't know about the mommy salary thing, but I think this woman gets it:

"WL: I don't think they are, I just think that we need to create an environment that allows women to make the choices that they want to make. If women choose to have children, they must be able to have the support structure that they require to do that joyfully, so that we can bring up children who are healthy, because the opposite side of that is we have children who are growing up without parents.... Who are raised by nannies and that creates its own problems in society, so if I had to choose I would choose a society where women make the choice to be at home to bring up their children, because they know that contribution will be valued and secondly when they go back to work they won't be penalized for having taken some time off to go and bring up children. So it's really an idea that needs to be embraced by society, not so much for the benefit of women, but because we recognize that creating a society where children are properly brought up, preferably by their mothers, would create a much healthier society, a more stable society."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/13/living/mothers-salary-wendy-luhabe/index.html?iref=obinsite

I love this quote, too, even if the editors at CNN used a comma where they should have used a semi-colon:

"The world was never changed by people who have normal ideas, the world is always changed by people who have absurd ideas."

Sometimes you wish you'd google searched first....

2011-10-12T21:54:00.001-06:00

Everyone who is going to be naming a band should do a google search first. Seriously.

For example, there is a really great vocal group called SONOS. But when you do a google search to find them, the first results are all for an audio technology company with the exact same name. The wikipedia page and twitter account both go to the tech company, not the vocal group. Oops. It's not that anyone is going to think they found the band page when they find the audio equipment site--it's just that it's harder to find the band page, and that's not a good thing. When you name a product, you don't want to make people have to think to find you.

Another group I recently found that should have thought carefully before they named themselves: Karmin.

For one thing, even their die-hard fans don't realize the girl's name isn't Karmin. It's Amy.
For another, it's hard to spell. If someone says the word, "Karmin" to you, and you want to google search it, you're going to look for 'Carmen' first. If you know it's spelled with a 'K,' you're going to search Karmen first (and get a russian marriage agency as one of the top results), and Karman second. There are very few words in English that end with "-in"--especially compared with -en and -an endings. Again, hard to find. They're going to get past it--they signed with Epic Records recently (if rumors are correct). Still, if people are finding a russian marriage agency before they find you when they are actually looking for you, you have a problem.

Strengthening the Family

2011-10-12T16:38:00.004-06:00

This looks like a great symposium. My brother is involved with it, and I think it is a good voice in favor of families. It's also inexpensive. Have a look:

Students for the Family invites you to attend Strengthening the Family: Engaging Issues with Courage and Civility on October 28th and 29that the Provo Marriott Hotel! (See full event schedule here.) Lloyd D. Newell, Ph.D., voice of the oldest continuous nationwide network radio broadcast in America, Music and the Spoken Word, will offer the keynote address. Register today!

· Network with students, young professionals, scholars, and others interested in family issues

· Support and participate in family-centered student scholarship

· Learn how to effectively strengthen your own family and community

With pre-registration, the cost is $7 for students (enter promo code "student") and $12 for non-students. To get a better feel for this unique event, watch a short documentary about last year's conference. Contact strengtheningthefamily@gmail.com with questions.

Interested in helping out? Sign up to volunteer at studentsforthefamily.org!

Sincerely,
Students for the Family

Some of the many presentations to look forward to include:

Richard & Linda Eyre (Authors and Professional Speakers)
“Parenting: the Ultimate Career”

Sally Olsen (2011 Utah Mother of the Year)
“Motherhood Matters: Rejoicing in Your Family”

Donald L. Hilton, Jr., MD (University of Texas)
“Pornography and Sexual Addiction: A Disease of the Motivation and Reward Pathways of the Brain”

Jenet Erickson, Ph.D. (Brigham Young University)
“Marriage, the Dream that Refuses to Die: What that Means in a Culture of Hanging Out, Divorce, and Same Sex Marriage”

Teaching Using Google + Hangouts

2011-10-10T20:55:00.000-06:00

It worked!

I held my first Hangouts class today, using Google + group video chat feature. It was very cool. We had 5 students on three webcams in Utah, Colorado, and Quebec, and everyone could talk and learn and see each other.

It was a little awkward that if I was looking at the students, it looked to them like I was looking down away from them--for me to look "at" them, I have to look directly into the webcam, which is great except then I can't see them--and I need to see them to know if they "get" it or not.

Still, it worked great. I was a little nervous, but it came out okay and I now have a little bit of a sense of how things will go so I can tailor my lessons directly to the kids.

So we had the visual and audio contact with each other. We also had a "blackboard" in the form of the chat box on the side, which anyone could write on--and that was really kind of cool. We could make lists that way. There are some new features coming out in Google+ Hangouts soon that Caleb and I tested last night that would allow you to share documents and drawings--effectively giving you a blackboard and handouts in class--and you can already share YouTube videos, which you watch right in the Hangout and can pause to talk about. All VERY helpful educational tools.

The class I decided to teach is "The Writer's Toolbox"--pretty much the writing parts of everything I've taught before. It focuses on what other writers do (so we can be better readers, too!), and what we can do--things that work and things that don't, things that create and "experience" in the reader and things that don't. I chose this because I'm confident teaching it, and, since I'm not confident with the technology (and the fine points of the techniques for teaching online) yet, I thought I'd better be confident with the material.

I also made a class website, giving each child a personal web page that only they (and I ) have permission to edit. That way they can post their own writing online to share with each other. My kids were all excited about that. Nobody else has used it yet, and they might not--I wouldn't have been brave enough to share my writing when I was a kid, but my kids were so excited about it they started writing new stories right away to add to it.

This could open a lot of cool doors for homeschoolers because anyone with expertise can teach anyone with interests--real time, live, over the internet. And free. You could get an expert to give a presentation, a guy in a lab to do science experiments real time and live, give language or music or art lessons--or anything else. Everyone could get their Saxon math books, and a teacher could actually teach the class.

The limitations are in size--you only have 10 "slots"--but can put more than one kid in front of each webcam. The teacher needs one of those. So there are only 9 slots for students. That's okay, actually, because smaller classes have better results in terms of learning and making friends.

After we finished I had 2 more students ask to join, and one more just emailed me.

As one mom said today, "This gives the penpal concept a run for its money."

Virtual school students failing?

2011-10-07T02:08:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine told me recently that there is a big stink going up right now in Colorado because the students at the virtual schools (those half-way homeschooling, half-way public schooling spots) are doing extremely poorly on state tests compared to brick-and-mortar public school kids.

Why does this not surprise me?

Because with public schools, it's very clear who is in charge of your child's education: the teacher is, and the parent is a support.

In homeschools, it's very clear who is in charge of your child's education: the parent is.

But virtual schools take the power out of the parent's hands, some more aggressively than others. The parents don't decide what to teach or when, they don't decide what assignments actually need to be done and what to skip, or even how the assignments are to be completed. They are relegated to a support role. (In some states, this isn't as true with the virtual schools, and no doubt all virtual schools are different, but in the virtual school we went to here in Colorado, they made it very clear that the parents were not to consider themselves experts on education--they had the same disdain for parents that most public schools do). This is especially damaging because most of the parents who jump into virtual schools want to homeschool but have some reservations about their own abilities to do it--so they're getting the help of experts, but they don't have the confidence to buck the system and do it their own way (which is usually what makes homeschool work best--the parent doing it in the way that is most effective for them and for their own unique child).

But because the professional teachers are not the ones teaching the kids face-to-face, and they aren't interacting with them on a daily basis (or even at all--most schools require a once a week phone call or email with the parent), and they aren't actually looking the kid in the eyes to see if they get it, they are also relegated to a support role.

That leaves nobody primarily responsible for the child's education.

Is it any wonder the kids fall through the cracks?

Thinking about Fibromyalgia

2011-10-07T01:57:00.001-06:00

My mom has fibro. So do I. So do probably all her sisters (some aren't so sure, but the symptoms seem to be there). Probably one of my three sisters does (even though she denies it--but we can see the characteristic "fibro behaviors"). And a handful of my cousins do, but many of my mom's cousins don't. But her paternal grandmother probably did.

Over the years, we've had discussions about what exactly causes fibro--and even what it actually is (metabolic disorder? psychological disorder? overreaction? potassium disorder?). People say it's an adult physical manifestation of the pain from childhood abuse, but that's not true--I was never abused. Ever.

Mom has tried just about every treatment out there, and nothing has worked.

But recent conversations with her left me thinking about what exactly this is.

I've come to some pretty solid conclusions and consistent observations:

1. True fibro is 100% genetic. There is a parallel disorder, a pseudo-fibro, that people can "catch" from car accidents and diseases, but true fibromyalgia is genetic (not even just a genetic tendency that gets triggered by stress or trauma--it's as genetic as your eye color.)
2. Fibro is present from birth but not bothersome until after the hormone shift that happens sometime in a woman's early-to-mid-twenties, about the same time most women put on 15 lbs that they can never get rid of and mostly stop getting acne. Even then, they don't really "notice" it until they hit their first bad cycle, which is usually associated with stress (new baby born, car accident, serious illness) because stress makes fibro take a bad turn. But the stress didn't CAUSE the fibro. It just brought it to the forefront.
3. Fibro is related to hormones. It cycles with a woman's hormone cycle.
4. Fibro reacts poorly to sugar, stress, exercise (too much, too little, too long, or not gentle enough) and lack of sleep (leading to more sugar cravings, more stress, and worse sleep in a nasty cycle) as well as certain physical movements (bend and hold, holding your arm up or out, standing in one place, moving outside the "cone" that extends from your shoulders out and down like a hoop skirt, repeating a motion more than 5 times in a row) and physical stimuli (sitting on a "wrong" chair or getting kicked, even gently, in the ankles, for example).
5. Many women with fibro must eat before they can fall asleep--like eat while sitting on the edge of the bed or while actually lying down to sleep.
6. Fibro also cycles separate from the hormone cycle--good days and bad days "pop up" seemingly randomly (although I have a sneaky suspicion there is a trigger and it's a delayed trigger, so I haven't pinpointed it yet).
7. Fibro causes a bizarre delayed response in some physical things, usually with the reaction showing up 24-48 hours after the trigger. For example, if I exercise too much, my muscles get stiff 2 days later, and the fibro pain increases 2 days later. If I stand up for too long (say, at a doctor's appointment for one of the kids), I pay for it in "fibro pain" 2 days later. Another example--the heaviest day of my period is the second or third, instead of the first, with my body responding to the shift in hormones that triggered the period 2 days later.
8. People with fibro have a strange relationship to energy. I'm not talking "energy work" in alternative medicine. I'm talking actual electricity energy. Science has found the ATP in fibro sufferers doesn't work the same as in normal people. Anecdotal evidence points to people with fibro draining 5-year watch batteries consistently in 1 year. Always. And fibro forums are full of accounts from women who say that street lights go off when they come by way more than would be expected by chance.

Previously, I had come to the conclusion that Fibro is a metabolic disorder--something like PKU. I also have thought it is tightly tied to female hormones and energy.

Here's my newest conclusion, based on a cursory family study on my very large extended family:

Fibro is genetic, and based on fairly simple genetics, too (as in, it's a trait controlled by a single inherited gene that could be explored using a punnet square--that simple). It moves in a straight line through families, not skipping generations, but is primarily expressed in the women (so it might appear to skip a generation if the father was a carrier). The gene that controls fibro (or genes) are isolated on the X-chromosome. It is a dominant trait (meaning you only have to have it on one of your X-chromosomes to have fibro). The reason I don't think it's on the mitochondria (which you inherit from your mother and which are involved in cellular energy production) is the expected inheritance/expression isn't 100%--not all daughters of fibro sufferers have fibro, even though all children get their mitochondria exclusively from their mothers.

I suspect the expression of it is hormone-dependent (somehow triggered by/fed by/attached to estrogen, estrogen production, estrogen processing, estrogen receptors? Or perhaps another predominantly female hormone, like oxytocin?--there are ways to begin exploring this. For example, find the men who claim to have fibro and see if their hormones are out of balance, with high levels of the "female" hormones, since all people have at least trace amounts of both "male" and "female" hormones). Why attached to hormones somehow? It's primarily expressed only in women, and the symptoms very clearly interact with a woman's hormones (in fact, my mom's fibro got a LOT worse after her doctor prescribed estrogen pills when she hit menopause, but my grandmother's seems to have stayed the same or even gotten better after menopause).

In my mom's family, I suspect both her parents were carriers (the stories that they tell of her paternal grandmother sound like fibro behaviors to me), which is why she and all her many sisters appear to have fibro, even though not all her aunts or female cousins or female nieces do. In the rest of the family, it appears to follow the simple ratios you'd expect from a dominant gene using mendelian genetics.

Mom's family is particularly suited to a genetic study of fibro, actually. It is strongly expressed in multiple generations, and there are MANY women in each of those generations. My mom's mother came from a family with 17 children and my mom's father came from a large family (although not that large), too. Each of those children had many children, and each of those has had many children (3 or more). So there are a LOT of people to test and compare, some of whom have fibro and some of whom don't. (My mom has something like 100 first cousins on just one side, and I have 35 on her side). Interestingly, I have a large family on my dad's side, too, and none of my 35 cousins on that side claim to have fibro. (I vaguely recall my paternal grandmother saying her sister had fibro, but my grandmother did NOT, so my dad wouldn't be a carrier, which would explain the ratios in my immediate family, with half the girls having it and half not).

Somebody with more expertise and funding than I have should do the research. If I'm right, it would be a huge breakthrough for fibro research, which is still hovering in the "no, it's just female hysteria--it's all in your mind" realm. If they could find the actual gene that controls it, that wouldn't cure it, but it would be a huge step forward. Even if I'm wrong, that would be a huge breakthrough. The more things you can eliminate, the closer you are to the truth.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-06T22:59:00.003-06:00

From an educational pdf on rice: "Rice is synonymous with Asians." (http://itde.vccs.edu/uploads/penglish/Rice-paul-english.pdf--first line).

The rice people speak many languages and have many different cultures. Some of the rice's languages share written characters. Japanese, Chinese, and Korean peoples are all rice.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-06T02:44:00.001-06:00

From ABC news today: "FDA Proposes New Drug Labeling for Women"

Warning: this woman might get really cranky every 30 days....

I guess some guys might consider a woman their drug of choice.

Where are they going to stick the drug label? On my back?

Did I just read that?

2011-10-02T21:57:00.004-06:00

That animal at the bottom--she's the freakiest one of all.....

\\\

Another reason writing is important

2011-10-02T20:46:00.001-06:00

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."--G.K. Chesterton

Did I just read that?

2011-10-02T03:25:00.003-06:00

"Another in the opposite direction marched against poverty organized by United Way."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/01/500-arrested-after-wall-street-protest-on-nys-brooklyn-bridge/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ZcBIFIVZ

I guess United Way is keeping themselves in business by organizing poverty as well as combating it.

Did I just read that?

2011-10-01T06:28:00.003-06:00

"Color Noxious Weeds are weeds you can color! Each noxious weed coloring page includes information about the noxious weed and a drawing you can color." http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/kids/coloring/index.shtml

Because everyone has a favorite noxious weed....

Occupy Wall Street

2011-09-30T04:19:00.002-06:00

So we're watching our own "spring" unfold, like the Arabs have, as our own young, angry, poor people are starting to protest nationwide.

But I don't think Occupy Wall Street is going to succeed at changing the world. Here is their manifesto: http://nycga.cc/

Why do I think they are going to fail?

Historically in the US, movements that gained a lot of traction and went really far (like Temperance) had a single goal, not a laundry list of grievances. I KNOW the Declaration of Independence is a laundry list. And they did succeed in rebelling and changing their entire world. But other movements, since then, have alienated possible members when they start making laundry lists, and they end up with too few people to really get behind them and change things.

Occupy Wall Street's manifesto starts out saying they are protesting the overwhelming corruption in large corporations that is controlling the government, the people, health care, and everything about our lives. And there are a lot of angry people who can get behind that. This is a pretty strong stand.

But then they actually make a laundry list. A laundry list seems to make sense to angry people--they want to tell you exactly WHY they are angry. But a laundry list also serves to narrow down the people who will side with you because it introduces a lot of places where people can disagree and jump off the bandwagon. They also open the door to losing support as people dispute the facts, especially if the document is hastily written in anger.

Like this line from their manifesto: "They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices."

Okay, first of all, "Nonhuman animals" is a stupid phrase. The average human being understands that when you say "animals," you don't mean "humans and all the members of Kingdom Animalia." Animals generally means, by its very definition, non-human animals. Only the most full-of-themselves people would have to say "Nonhuman animals." So instead of drawing support, the language they chose is alienating people.

On top of that, they've moved from a general "We're angry and you can't do this to us" to a very definitive political stance. If you're not a Vegan, they're saying, we don't want you in our club. Do I think big corporations mistreat animals? You bet I do. But I don't think that statement, and the dozens of others that surround it, are going to help the movement build the kind of momentum that changes the world. The less the you say in cases like this, the more support you can get (because everyone can imagine they are all on the same page, even if they are only in the same general book, or even section of the library).

The reason the Tea Party changed the direction the government was going (even against the protests of the news media and the ruling parties) was they got a massive amount of support from a lot of angry people. More than a bunch of angry college kids and 20-30 somethings who lost their jobs and houses and are mad-mad-mad. How did that do that? They kept their message simple, straightforward, and focused on the key point: we want the government to be HUGELY more fiscally conservative, and we're willing to fight for that.

Simple. Straightforward. Easy to get behind if you believe that. Not a lot of places where people who generally agree can begin to parse the message and disagree and leave you hanging with less people at the rally than you need.

Occupy has a basic stand that a lot of people agree with--a lot of people from all walks of life, from all political parties, and both conservative and liberal: The people in power (corporations, government, and all others) are corrupt and motivated purely by money and self-interest, and that's not in the best interest of our nation or its people. I'd probably even say that their claims that they represent 99% of the country could be closer to accurate than I'd normally think. People are angry. People are getting cheated and hurt by big businesses, big banks, big government that are in the corporations' pockets, big government that are in the big political parties' pockets. It's hard not to be upset that the banks are stealing houses by foreclosing on homes they don't even own. It's hard not to get upset that the drug companies are just stopping making some necessary, but less-profitable, drugs. It's hard not to be angry that our food supply is tainted and processed to the point of causing epidemic health problems. (And yes, I wish they would treat animals more humanely).

But Occupy has their laundry list, and most of the items they included and the way they talk about those things has planted them firmly in the "extremely liberal" camp, but some, oddly, at the same time in the "tend-to-believe-conspiracy-theories" camp (which is usually associated with conservative Republicans, strangely enough)--they are anti-government and anti-business, all at once, and that alienates a big chunk--maybe even most--of the 99% that might be willing to support them.

When you pair "They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices" (traditionally a liberal complaint) with "They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media" (traditionally a conservative argument) and "They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil" (liberal complaint) and "They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance" (liberal), "They have sold our privacy as a commodity" (both, depending on the spin), and "They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses" (Tea Party's usual ire!). Suddenly you're all over the map in terms of liberal/conservative traditional "complaints"--and instead of including everyone, you leave them wondering what stand you're really taking, who you are really siding with, and you end up with fewer supporters.

Not only that, what are they fighting for? The Egyptians were successful in their protest and rebellion--but they had a single, central message: We want Mubarak gone. The American Revolutionaries, despite their laundry list in the Declaration, had a single message: We want a government on our own soil (whether you give us representatives or we have to do it ourselves).

The Occupy "General Assembly" (They call themselves the General Assembly) more closely parallels the French Revolution, with its vague "we hate corrupt rich people" and it's laundry lists of grievances, and they caused anarchy and a lot of trouble, but didn't get the same results the American Revolutionaries did, and the French Revolutionaries don't have nearly the heroic reputation. They also are reaching into the realm of socialism, and that's a bit scary for many Americans still.

If they want to change their world, they need to simplify it all to a message the whole 99% can get behind--not a socialist message, and not a liberal message, but an anti-corruption message. And it has to start with "We want...." followed by a concrete goal that everyone can get behind. While protesting the existence of problems is appealing--and can help unify people in finding the solution to those problems--suggesting and working toward a concrete solution is even more powerful.

The Temperance movement--one of the most unlikely successful movements ever--succeeded not by saying, "Alcohol causes all these problems ______" but by saying, "We want a constitutional amendment banning alcohol." When you asked them "why?", they had a lot of answers, and a lot of reasons. But the "why" was not the message.

Our government is set up to respond to people with issues about how things are going. But writing manifestos and camping in public places doesn't get the job done. Not unless you pair it with a concrete goal, and you go out and start working to elect people who support your goal.

No matter how much you may dislike the Tea Party, they got the process right. And they are having an impact. Occupy is having and exciting angry social moment, like the same-age, same-idealism protesters did in the '60s. They'll hit the history books. But they might not change the world--because what are they intending we do about it? And who do they think is going to implement their ideas? Sitting around getting pepper-sprayed by police officers gets your picture in the papers. It doesn't get your agendas into the law books.

And I don't think anyone is brave enough to oust the government in a radical way over this (like the Arab Spring has). And the government is already set to be ousted in the traditional, constitutionally-sanctioned way starting with elections this year (locally) and next (nationally). And while all the Occupiers are out there complaining, the Tea Partiers are out there getting candidates trained and ready, and they're out there voting.

It's a revolution, all right, but if the Occupy people don't get smart, they're going to get the opposite of what they're bargaining for.

Finding the Purpose

2011-09-30T03:00:00.000-06:00

One of the most valuable tools in my "thinking woman's toolbox" is "Finding the Purpose."

If you can find the purpose of something, so much about it becomes clear. And so often, when things are messed up (like in education), it is because someone in charge hasn't properly identified the purpose.

Some examples:

If we want to fix the education system, we first must know the purpose of education. Is the purpose of education to score higher than other countries on international math and science tests? That seems like a pretty shallow purpose, doesn't it? Is the purpose of education to teach people a bunch of facts? To teach them how to think? To give people the tools they need to become informed, active citizens? To help them discover their talents and prepare to use them to support themselves and their families in the future? To help people contribute to society? To keep them from getting tricked/scammed/cheated/taken advantage of? What is the purpose of education? If you can define it, you can fix the problems in the system by creating a system that intentionally fills its purpose.

But without defining the purpose of education, you really can't fix the system because there is no aim.

Likewise, understanding the purpose of having a job completely changes how you approach work. Do you have a job to get status? To get wealthy? To support yourself and your family so you can do things you love without being a burden on society? To use your talents to contribute to your society?

Understanding WHY you have a job makes it possible to prioritize, to make decisions, to organize your time, to choose what kind of career you want, to choose how you interact with co-workers.

What is the purpose of having dinner? What is the purpose of having FAMILY dinners?

Finding the purpose of advice helps me implement it. What is the purpose of Family Home Evenings?

I would not pretend to be able to answer the question, "Why? What is the purpose of this?" for every activity for every person. The answers are different for each person. Sometimes there are no answers. Often we begin to understand the answers as we go along. Sometimes there are many answers.

But I find that the pursuit of the answers to this one question end up being a major factor in many of my actions and decisions. Sometimes I make poor decisions based on it--if I don't find a purpose right away, I am sometimes inclined to reject things that shouldn't be rejected (like doctors' advice). I sometimes have to force myself to ask more questions when I can't see a purpose right away. Often, though, it's liberating and fun.

Like a small child, I find the intellectual curiosity--the "But WHY?" is endlessly appealing.

I find it extremely satisfying, too, that God is okay with that. The gospel instructions, unlike things produced by committees, governments, organizations, etc., always have a purpose--or many purposes. And I find it amazingly vital in our ability to have faith in and believe in a religion to have God's purpose laid bare for us. He says it, so clearly, even, that his work and glory are "to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man". And he also says that "Men are that they might have joy." Without the Plan of Salvation made very very clear, I don't think I could grasp hold of any religion--I need to know why, and Gospel makes the why abundantly clear.

And I find it immensely helpful to know that our purpose, as people, is, in part, to have joy. From that knowledge, the purpose of so many things becomes clear. Suddenly God isn't imposing archaic and arbitrary restrictions on us--He is giving us a hint about what will make us happy (or unhappy, or fail to make us happy, as the case may be). Suddenly the answer to question like "What is the purpose of education" or "Why have a job?" are answerable.

So what is the purpose of all this I'm writing?

I guess you'll have to tease it out yourself. I don't have answers. I just enjoy asking the questions.

Did I just read that?

2011-09-29T20:43:00.005-06:00

from CNN.com's home page today (the headline is different on the article): "Man bitten by shark despite warning"

"Don't you dare touch me, shark! If you touch me, I swear I will sue your fins off. I'm warning you!"

Lies we like to believe

2011-09-25T21:58:00.002-06:00

I keep seeing sweet little quotes popping up in the social media that always get lots of re-shares and lots of positive comments, and some of them are starting to really bug me.

"Once you convince yourself of something you will go out of your way to prove that you're right. So why not convince yourself that you can do anything you put your mind to?"

and

‎"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.” — Jim Rohn

and

"Our circumstances don't determine our freedom, our choices do."

There was another about success that basically said if you aren't successful it's because you didn't want it badly enough.

Nice sentiments--but they're all lies.

No matter how much I convince myself that I can fly unassisted, when I jump off that cliff in full faith, I will still fall. No matter how much I convince myself that I really can play in the NBA, it's not going to happen. No matter how much I tell myself that I WILL get this job I'm applying for, I really cannot control that. No matter how hard a diabetic believes, they still can't go without insulin (at least, not for very long). No matter how sure I am that I can sing bass, it's not going to happen. I call it the "Blues Clues Fallacy"--you really can't do anything you want to do, so we should stop telling people they can. Empowering them to set themselves up for wasted time and heartbreak is not a favor.

Sometimes people are successful who were just in the right place at the right time. Seriously. And sometimes people apply all the basic fundamentals consistently and NOTHING HAPPENS. We always have to leave space for the two variables we tend to ignore: innate ability (talent) and God. Ignore those two, and you're in for more heartbreak.

And I'm sure that those two men who were just freed from prison in Iran would disagree that only our choices determine our freedom. So would all the adults who are imprisoned by the creatures in the back of their minds that were planted there by abusive parents, teachers, or spouses. Our choices are quite powerless to free us from those things, if you take Christ out of the equation. Try telling the Chinese or the children suffering from famine in Africa--or the parents who are watching their children starve to death because of the corrupt government they can't escape--that they are only not free because of their choices and see how far that takes you.

And if desire is the primary cause of success, then every person who ever dreamed of fame would be famous. I know people who wanted it so bad it hurt, but they didn't have the talent.

And then there's this gem: "The only time you should use the word "NEVER" is when it's followed by the words "Give Up.""

Well, I can name dozens of times it's a good idea to give up. Sometimes, it's the best thing you can do for yourself. If we never give up, we waste a LOT of time on things that are never going to benefit us, succeed, or make us happy. For cryin' out loud, do yourself a favor and give up already! Or at least find an easier way to do it.

It's not a favor to spread nice little platitudes that lead us away from truth.

What elementary AND middle school teachers don't want you to know

2011-09-22T23:40:00.003-06:00

They're superfluous, educationally speaking.

Yes, I just said that.

Every Single Thing your child learns in elementary school they will learn again in High School, when they have the ability to abstract, so they can get the big picture much more easily, and then again in College. That includes all of the social stuff, all the academic stuff, all the cultural stuff. Everything. They will make new friends both of those places, too, on the whole (very few people stay really close to their elementary school buddies for their whole lives. It happens, but not often).

The only thing they won't get again unless they want it is arts and crafts.

Even if they miss reading and math facts, the two really important things they learn in elementary school, provided they don't have a learning disability, they can catch up on really fast when they're older (although they might curse you for the joys they missed because they couldn't read well when they were young--being able to read and do basic math is a blessing to children that gives them a great deal of confidence, independence, and a means to satisfy their curiosity and feed their brains, and, when paired with writing, gives them a way to express themselves).

And here's the other secret nobody's telling you: Their grades don't count for ANYTHING until high school, and then they only count toward college acceptance. And even then, if they do a year or two at a community college and get good grades, the high school grades are forgivable. And those standardized tests don't count for anything, either, even in high school. The only test that matters is the SAT/ACT, and even those are becoming less weighted in the overall admissions scoring.

The most important thing kids need to learn is how to learn, followed closely by creativity in solving problems, how to express themselves effectively, and how to interact with society in a responsible, meaningful way. They also need to discover and develop their own talents and gain some confidence. And here's the really big secret: all of these are best developed OUT of the classroom! In fact, they can all be developed very effectively by sending your kids outside for some unstructured play time, and research is starting to emphasize this.

So I'm very open about not being an unschooler, but I do think homeschooling moms (and all moms) should stop worrying so much about those "educational gaps" the schools are telling us we are condemning our children to, and whether or not their 5 year old is learning everything he needs.

At least, until the kid hits high school. And then you have to decide what you care about.

Did I just read that?

2011-09-21T15:33:00.002-06:00

On a post from a cousin about finding black widows at her house, Facebook tried to be all clever and show me related posts and related ads:

Trying to figure out how AC/DC, Jesus, Teachers, makeup, and Lady Gaga are related to each other and to black widow spiders......

Found another job search engine

2011-09-21T00:02:00.001-06:00

I know dozens of people who have looked for jobs for a long time, just like we have. I usually use Indeed.com for my job search engine because it is a meta-search engine. Recently, someone from Jooble contacted me and suggested I might like their site, so I had a peek.

http://jooble-us.com/

It's a lot like Indeed.com, searching other job search sites for you. Seems pretty solid. Easy to search by location. I would definitely add it to my job-search-sites list.

What Jooble has that I haven't seen a lot of elsewhere is the ability to search for jobs internationally. Here: http://jooble.org/.

Since I know a lot of you are fluent in many languages, and a lot are interested in working all over the map, you might have fun playing on Jooble.

More favorite toys....

2011-09-19T02:05:00.000-06:00

Tonight I heard whispering way past bedtime, so I went to check on the kids. I found Benji fast asleep, tucked up with a toilet plunger on his pillow next to him, lovingly tucked in.

And I thought the fly swatter was a strange choice of "lovey"!

Benji calls it his "Kluncher".

(Don't worry, it's a perfectly clean, new toilet plunger that has only served as a stage prop.)

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!

2011-09-18T23:49:00.001-06:00

Sept 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. To celebrate, Tim recorded a parody of a Ke$ha song.

Enjoy "We Arrr Who We Arrr!"
http://listn.to/MisterTim
or
http://mistertimdotcom.com/store?playthisone=139

(And, as I write this, free download! Who knows how long that will last, though). Spread the word!

Elijah's favorite toy:

2011-09-17T18:50:00.001-06:00

Elijah is now 9 months old. He can crawl. He loves cruising around the house holding on to whatever he can reach. He's trying really hard to learn how to walk--he can walk across the room holding just one hand, even.

He's a fun-loving, strong willed boy.

And he has a favorite toy.

The Fly Swatter.

Yeah--who would have guessed that one?!

Choir or not?

2011-09-16T03:38:00.000-06:00

(Note: there are a lot of videos embedded in this blog post, and you really need to watch them to "get" it. If you're on an e-reader or you got this via email and it didn't have the videos, click here: http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2011/09/choir-or-not.html)

One of the most surprising things Tim discovered during his study of Choral Conducting was that academic choral music is still tangled in the knots of "What IS this discipline, anyway?"

You wouldn't think the study of choral music would be in any kind of identity crisis. I mean, a choir is a group of people who sing together. Pretty much everyone agrees on that definition.

But it turns out that it's a huge issue. Part of it is the discipline trying to distance itself from the sacred tradition. They don't want to define "choir" as "a group of people who sing together, usually in church" (which is how most dictionaries define it) because there is a LOT of fantastic secular music out there, and, let's face it, academia is pretty anti-religion right now. No problem, though, because choral music has always had two faces: a secular (Rennaissance Madrigals, songs of love and death) and a sacred (religious, church music like masses).

That's not the big issue actually. The big issue is what counts as a choir!

Nobody disputes that this is choral music:

That one is clear-cut.

But what about this? It's obviously still a choir, but the music is...comedy.

Actually, it's still pretty clear-cut. That's accepted as choral music.

But the lines can start getting really muddy.

Choir performance. Not a choir song, traditionally. But it still sounds pretty choral.

But what about this. Same choir.

Or this. Same song. Now we're pushing the limits....

And now this one (same song) crossed the line, even though it sounds better than the previous example.

Interesting that contemporary a cappella is not included in choral music even though it is produced by a group of people singing together (fits the definition of "choir"), and even though contemporary a cappella can be traced in a direct, straight line all the way back to Rennaissance Madrigals, which are totally acceptable as choral music now (even though when they were being performed originally, they functioned, culturally, exactly how contemporary a cappella functions today).

Choral programs everywhere (except BYU) are constantly bemoaning the fact that the programs are shrinking and they can't get kids to sing--because those cursed a cappella groups are taking all the singers. So they try to ban a cappella groups, when the more reasonable approach would be to incorporate them into the program. But that completely shakes up the definition of choral music that they've set up for themselves. And, even though they won't admit it, it puts their fine, elite art into the hands of amateurs who doggedly insist that they can do it themselves--and, if you judge by the number of singers involved, do a better job at furthering "harmony singing" than any choir program (except BYU, where they have actually incorporated the a cappella groups into the program...funny thing.)

The problem is, while there aren't a lot of casual street-bassoon groups out there, anyone can sing, and there are thousands of street choirs (we call them a cappella groups, barbershop singers, gospel choirs, boy bands, folk ensembles, but they're all choirs by the dictionary definition). So while it's clear who the experts are with woodwinds, the people who want to be elite, to be the experts, with vocal music are having a really hard time holding on to their status. If anyone can sing, and anyone can sing in a group, and anyone can put together a group, and the "anyones" are getting more singers into the groups, and more people out to the concerts...well, where do the elites stand? In quicksand.

But they're fighting for their status.

Because, darn it, this CAN'T count as choral music:

Even though this probably does:

And this totally does:

And even this does:

I KNOW--now we're on shaky ground. But it's a show choir. So it's obviously choral music. Even though this isn't:

And no, it's not that there's a soloist. This is choral music:

and so is this:

It's as though choral music's traditions ended in two places, stylistically: the "choral" music that we all recognize as choral, which descended from religious music, and all this other stuff, which descended from the secular music. And the academic discipline of choral music is trying to straddle the fence, without exclusively embracing the origins of one or the end-point of the other. It's not that they are rejecting the religious music--they still embrace that. It's just that they also want to include secular choral music, and even pop, jazz, and folk music--but only on their terms. If someone else--like some kid who wants a bunch of guys to sing Lady Gaga songs--is in charge, somehow, they can't embrace it all as choral music. It's an identity crisis.

Really, though, I think they're asking antiquated questions.

Instead of wondering if groups of people singing pop music really are choirs or not, they should be wondering if a single person using technology to create multiple voices singing in harmony counts as choral music or not.

Does this count?
(Sorry, there's no video of these songs yet, so you'll just have to listen to the link)

Ashes

or

Stone on Stone (excerpt).

Those were written for choirs. They sound choral. But the performances are actually all Tim's voice, multi-tracked in the studio and layered together electronically. But it still seems like choral music.

So what about this:

It's all voices....There are no instruments in there. Tim used the same techniques he did in the previous example, both in the songwriting and in the recording, layering many voices in the studio--like a choir, except all the voices were his.

So then what about this? What if he does the exact same thing live, layering voices to create music with many voices, all singing in harmony? Does it matter that there's only one person on the stage? If he functions as a choir, can he, by himself, be a choir? Or is that going too far?

So what if we put more than one guy on stage, but they're still singing multiple parts themselves:

No? You're pretty sure that's not choral music, aren't you.

Well this counts, unequivocally, as choral music:

Not so different....

(And if that counts, then what about this:

)

Now THERE is a space for scholarly inquiry.

Did I just read that?

2011-09-14T15:41:00.003-06:00

Also from FoxNews home page today, again different from the article's headline:"First View of Invisible Tank"

Tricky.....

Did I just read that?

2011-09-14T15:39:00.003-06:00

from Fox New's home page (different from the article's headline): "Flying Horse Jailed for Stabbing Man at Birthday "

Must have been a pegasus-unicorn who hates cake.

Which has more sugar?

2011-09-14T03:48:00.002-06:00

You know I love stuff like this--I'm always comparing.

This one was really good:
http://www.ivillage.com/which-food-has-more-sugar/4-b-299573?obref=obnetwork

Which has more sugar--Doughnut or bran muffin?

Did I just read that?

2011-09-13T22:26:00.000-06:00

First line of the article: "An Illinois woman has died after injecting hot beef fat into her face, WLS Radio reported."

Second to last line: "According to an autopsy performed Friday at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, Hardt died of peritonitis, a severe abdominal inflammation caused by a bacterial infection, which was not related to the injections." http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/09/12/woman-dies-after-injecting-hot-beef-fat-into-face/#ixzz1XtiNLINn

So....bad reporting?

The Adventures of Melody Yellowvan

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

I finished Kindergarten

Interesting phenomenon

Benji says,

Getting the good days to come....my 10+ tips for surviving fibro

Ten Years Ago....

Did I just read that?

Latest from the Kazoo Man

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

More reading program frustrations...

Nathanael says,

Tim has a strange job

Diaper Duty...

Reviewing Reading Resources--ouch

Strawberry Shortcake

Yet more yogurt adventures

More Yogurt Adventures

Nathanael says,

The "New" Living Room so far

Re-doing things part 2

We're re-doing things around here....

Six

Nathanael says,

Christmas

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Descent into sleep madness

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Nathanael says,

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Google is obeying the law--and making kids cry

Baked Alaska

I don't want to miss it.

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

The joys of having kids

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

"The Misplaced Stuff: NASA loses moon, space rocks" (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1012&sid=18413432&title=the-misplaced-stuff-nasa-loses-moon-space-rocks)

Regrets of the Dying

A Peek into the Future, or, 2 Dozen Reasons you should donate $10 to Mister Tim's Kickstarter

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Tim's show that week

Wow. Just Wow. Really long story and I hope most ofit never happens again.

Kickstarter

Pizzabet Soup

Home Made Laundry Soap

Did I just read that?

No, No NaNoWriMo

Benji says

The religious question in marriage

Snowstorms in fall=not good

New Business "cards"

Did I just read that?

Making Websites

Did I just read that?

Did I just read that?

Caleb says the greatest things!

Interesting article on Bible Translation

Did I just read that?

Today's project: DIY printing press

Did I just read that?

Campaign Finance Reform

My new favorite brownie recipe

Worth Reading!

Did I just read that?

Baby formula causing diabetes and obesity?

A Mommy Salary?

Sometimes you wish you'd google searched first....

Strengthening the Family

Teaching Using Google + Hangouts

Virtual school students failing?