Books the kids recommend

My kids are avid readers. I'm always asking them, "What books do you recommend again?" as people email or post on forums asking for books for kids.

So here is my kids' list of favorite books. We skew toward fantasy, light sci-fi, and nonfiction around here. Please add your favorite middle grade and YA books in the comments!

The kids' favorite books and authors:

What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World, by Henry Clark (this is one of my all-time favorite books, too)

Anything by Diana Wynne Jones

Anything and everything by Brandon Sanderson

"The Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Mayer

"The Castle Corona"

The Artemis Fowl Series, by Eoin Colfer

The Underland Chronicles Series, by Suzanne Collins

Warriors Series, by Erin Hunter

Wings of Fire Series, by Tui Sutherland

Keeper of the Lost Cities Series, by Shannon Messenger

Rick Riordan Books (all of his)

Dr. Seuss Books

Calvin and Hobbes books (all of them), by Bill Waterson

The Maze Runner, by James Dashner (this one is very dark and the rest of the series is morally ambiguous, so I would preview this as a parent before you give it to your kids)

The City of Ember Series, by Jean DuPrau

The Magic Treehouse Series

The Ender Series, by Orson Scott Card

The Pokemon Manga (and games)

Geronimo Stilton series, by Geronimo Stilton

Dragonbreath series, by Ursula Vernon

The 39 Clues series (authors vary)

Shark Wars, by E. J. Altbacker

The Ever Afters, by Shelby Bach

Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker

The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

The NERDS series, by Michael Buckley

How to Train Your Dragon Series, by Cressida Cowell

The Space Station Rat books, by Michael J. Daley

Jean Craighead George's books

The Dragon Slippers Trilogy, by Jessica Day George

The Tuesdays at the Castle series, by Jessica Day George

The Dinotopia books, by James Gurney

Redwall series, by Brian Jaqcues

The Dragon Keepers Series, by Kate Klimo

Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist by R. L. LaFevers

Guardians of Ga’Hoole, by Kathryn Lasky

Wolves of the Beyond, by Kathryn Lasky

Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull

Actually ANYTHING by Brandon Mull

Mouse Guard Series (graphic novels), by David Petersen

The Silverwing Trilogy, by Kenneth Oppel

Darkwing, by Kenneth Oppel

Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker

Alcatraz vs The Evil Librarians Series, by Brandon Sanderson

Walls Within Walls, by Maureen Sherry

Escape from Mister Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein

Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller

The Animorphs Series, by K. A. Applegate (these start out really sweet and the 50-book series ends up kind of morally ambiguous and dark, so read spoilers before you give it to your kids)

Harry Potter Series, by J.K. Rowling

The Narnia Series, by C.S. Lewis

Beverly Cleary books

Hardy Boys books

Little House on the Prairie Series (believe it or not, this is a favorite of 4-6 yo boys, too)

Sherlock Holmes stories, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson

The Book of Mormon

The Big Bad Book of Botany, by Michael Largo

Deadly Outbreaks, by Alexandra Levitt

Nazi Hunters, by Neil Bascomb

Garfield books, by Jim Davis

Tales of the Cryptids, by Kelly Milner Halls

Blender for Dummies, by Jason van Gumster

Software Synthesizers (but this has a language alert!), by Jim Aiken

Captain Underpants books, by Dav Pilkey

Ripley's Believe it or Not books

That's Weird, by Kendall Haven

What Makes Flamingos Pink, by Bill McLain

Bill Pete books

Spirit Animals Series, by Brandon Mull and various other authors

Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula, by Andi Watson

Rapunzel's Revenge--graphic novel (Shannon Hale)

Books recommended to my kids by others (many of my favorite books are on this list):

The Hero and the Crown (by Robyn McKinley)  --kids tried it and found it slow starting but "pretty good"

The Blue Sword (by Robyn McKinley)

The 'Bet You Can' and 'Bet You Can't' science series

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (Astrid Lindgren)

Poison (Bridget Zinn)

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)

Stargirl (Jerry Spinelli)

The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

The Last Unicorn (Peter S Beagle)

The Ordinary Princess (M.M. Kaye)

The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)

The Dark is Rising series (Susan Cooper)

The Jungle Book (Lisa Church)

Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)

Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)

The Tale of Desperaux (Kate DiCamillo)

Half Magic (Edward Eager)

The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams)

The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)

Dune (Frank Herbert)

The Scarlet Pimpernel (Emmuska Orczy)

Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)

Inkheart (Cornelia Funke)

Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier)

Shadow Spinner (Susan Fletcher)

Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage)

The Earth Dwellers, Adventures in the Land of Ants (nonfiction,Erich Hoyt)

The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren)

The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)

My Hundred Children (Lena Kuchler-Silberman)

Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Uglies series (Scott Westerfield)

Seventh Son series (Orson Scott Card)

My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George)

The Graveyard Book and Coraline (Neil Gaiman)

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

Finn the Wolfhound (Alec John Dawson)

The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson)

The Great Brain (John D. Fitzgerald)

Howliday Inn & Bunnicula (James Howe)

The Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White)

The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnford)

Heidi (Johanna Spyri)

Where the Red Fern Grows

White Stallion of Lipizza (Marguerite Henry)

The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)

Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott)

The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)

The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie
(George MacDonald)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series (Douglas Adams)

An Them There Were None (Agatha Christie)

All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot

Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien

My Sparkling Misfortune and My Royal Pain Quest (absolutely hilarious!)

Which Witch by Eva Ibbotson

White Fang

Cinder (The second book in the series, Scarlet, might not be considered clean because of the kissing scene, but the first book is fabulous)

The Time Machine

The Wizard of Oz

Treasure Island

Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery

The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor (inspired by Alice's Adventures in wonderland)

Queen Zixi of Ix by L. Frank Baum.

Books by Heather Choate

The original 1923 Bambi, A Life in the Woods (Felix Salten, translated to English in 1928 by Whittaker Chambers)

 Taran Wanderer series (Lloyd Alexander)

Black Stallion series (Walter Farley)

Leviathan series (Scott Westerfeld)

Earthsea trilogy (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Pit Dragon Trilogy (Jane Yolen)

A Little Princess (Francis H. Burnet)

Dragon Drums trilogy (Anne McCaffrey)

A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L'Engle)

Peter and the Starcatchers

Hatchet

Holes

Island of the Blue Dolphins (I loved this when I was a wee one).

The Water Fight Professional

The Sisters Grimm series

The Key of Kilenya series by Andrea Pearson

The Beyonders series

Ranger's Apprentice

Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck

The Alliance

Cryptic Hunters series

The Emerald Atlas Series

Lemony Snicket's books

The Westing Game

The Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright (starts with The Four Story Mistake.) 

The Trolley Car Family

Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.....has a few words that I didn't know, as it was written in 1919.....But GREAT book!

Did I just read that?

"Musician Dies Between Sets at Lakeview Bar"   (http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Musician-Dies-Between-Sets-at-Lakeview-Bar-288339721.html?_osource=outbrain_recirc=obinsite)

What I want to know is how did he manage to do the second set?

Love this

Jack turns on the cute

Jack has always been exceptionally cute. Last night took the cake, though.

Tim was holding Emmeline on our bed so I could get ready to sleep, and Jack climbed up and sat beside him. Tim was doing the universal baby bounce-and-sway to keep Emmeline content (you know the one--same one you find yourself doing to that bag of flour while you're waiting in line at the grocery store when the newborn is a month old).

When I came into the bedroom, Tim said, "Look at Jack."  I glanced over and Jack was drinking his milk and doing the same bounce-and-sway that Tim was doing.

SO cute.

A little later, Jack looked at me and said, "Daddy Dance." and started doing the little swaying bounce again.  "Daddy dance with Embaline." 

Jack, 2, teacher Emmeline the important things

Jack is pretty excited about his new little sister.

Today, he found his first chance to teach her the important lessons of life.  I was changing her diaper--messy--and he saw her flailing her arms around.   "Oh! Oh! Don't touch poop!" he said earnestly to her. "Yucky! Oh! Don't touch poop!"

Important lessons from one diaper-clad child to another.

Baby 8 Came!

Finally got baby #8 here, and we're all so glad.

It was super fast.

At 5:40 am, I woke up because Jack said something beside me in bed. I noticed I was having tiny contractions and thought I should time them.

At 6:00 am, I realized the contractions were 3-7 minutes apart and thought maybe I should get up.

At 6:15 I realized I had to get up because I had started bleeding.

At 6:30 I woke up Tim. I got Jack distracted, Tim showered, I collected the stuff we needed and asked Anda to get up and watch Jack (as we had planned).

At 7:00 am, we walked into the hospital and I was very, very uncomfortable.

It just so happened that it was shift change time right then, so I had two teams of nurses at my disposal. As a result, they got everything done double quick, and by 7:30 am I was comfortable with an epidural/spinal combo (best kind--numbs the belly and not much else!).  Phew. So glad that worked out fast fast fast. Too bad the labor moved so fast that within half an hour I was uncomfortable with contractions that were so strong I could feel them through the epidural--but at least the edge was off. I can't imagine surviving those without the epidural. Yikes!

At 8:21 am, Emmeline was born. That fast. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, just like Caleb did.

We had a little laugh that our 8th baby came at 8:21 am on the 8th weighing 8 lb 2 oz.  Lotsa 8s!

She was gorgeous. I was relieved. Nurses all came and went and said she was so healthy...soo healthy they didn't even really NEED the doctor to look at her, everyone knew he would sign it all off.

By 9:30 am, Tim was back home with the other kids, feeding and diapering them and telling them the baby came and then having a nap. Now that I write that, it seems kind of unheard of that we'd leave to have a baby and 2 1/2 hours later, Daddy was back home with the other kids because we were totally, totally done and ready to nap.

8 hours later, after Tim had napped (he'd been up all the night before suspecting I was in labor and waiting for me to get up and tell him that, so he'd slept about an hour when I woke him up) and I had napped (childbirth, even the good times, is exhausting) and Emmeline had napped, the kids showed up to visit us at the hospital. I was so happy to see them.

The kids doted on Emmeline and loved her and held her and talked to her and sat on the hospital bed (endlessly fascinating) and pushed the buttons on the bed (I wasn't so happy about that).

Just as they were getting ready to leave, we put the baby down and someone said, "What's wrong with Emmeline?"  I turned and saw she was choking on spit up--clear, thick liquid was coming out her mouth and both nostrils. I sat her up and suctioned her out and she started turning blue and was still choking, so I called the nurse, who rushed in and tried everything I had just tried and then ran her out the door, shouting, "Open the door to the nursery!"  Just so happened that our own baby nurse was standing at the door to the nursery and got it open quickly, and the whole rest of the family just stood there in shock in my room.

When we had arrived at the hospital, we got the last room available--almost directly across from the nursery--and then hiccups kept them leaving us in there even though we were supposed to move to a different room much farther from the nursery. I now consider those hiccups to be miracles. Every single second when your baby isn't breathing is a terrifying eternity.  Trust me. It's horrible.  So the fact that a nurse was at the door of the nursery, that we were directly across from the nurses station and the nursery, that a nurse was available to step in instantly when we needed help (often they just can't come that fast)...all of it was a miraculous combination of circumstances that saved our baby.

To distract the kids, we turned on cartoon and Tim went to check on the baby. The nurses did their jobs well, and Emmeline was fine. They had to use some special suction equipment and essentially vacuum her breathing passages, throat, stomach...and then she needed some pressurized oxygen and a whole bunch of wires and sensors and we all agreed she should stay in the nursery for a while. Reassured that all was well, Tim took the kids home.

I had multiple nurses pop in over the next hour and say, "Good job working fast."  "Good thing you were alert to that."  "Nice work moving so quickly, Momma!"  I wanted to say the same thing to them. Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew that perfectly healthy, gorgeous baby had been a real risk of brain damage or death.

She was barely pink again 2 hours later when it happened again! I was in my room, but the Nurse Practitioner said it took them by surprise because Emmeline was absolutely silent, and had the alarms not gone off, the nurses wouldn't have noticed even that she was choking. They saved her life again, and a couple hours later baby was ready to nurse but so sleepy from all the trauma.

So we all agreed she should stay in the nursery overnight because what if that happened while I was sleeping? She made nary a peep and would have died.

Overnight, though, she improved and soon could spit up and spit it out without choking. They got all the mucous and gunk out. Apparently slow birthing processes squeeze all that junk out of the baby's airways, and quick births like we had get them swallowing even more gunk and not squeezing any of it out. Most of my other kids who had quick births just vomited it all up and it was okay, but Emmeline's gunk was too thick, and she tries to swallow it instead of spitting it, so she was in serious danger.

She was good enough by today, though, that she got to come home with us. Didn't have to stay the extra day we anticipated (thank goodness!), and we all have watched her take care of spit appropriately.

But it was very scary for me.

And, even though I longed for a home birth for my last baby or two, I am so glad we went to the hospital for this one. Even if we'd had a qualified, properly equipped midwife for the birth at home, we still would have lost this baby because the issues showed up 8 hours later, after baby had been so perfectly, gorgeously healthy that no midwife would still have been around with pressurized oxygen and vacuums for airways. Even if she had survived, the time it would have taken for an ambulance to get here would have probably left her brain damaged.

So now I understand why all the nurses I know say, "Just have your baby at the hospital. You never know what will happen."

As much as I craved the peace and serenity of a good home birth, and as much as I despise the trauma and hurry and stress and needles and being subject to everyone else's systems and lack of privacy and discomfort of the hospital way of giving birth....

I can't deny it saved my baby's life.

It's worth it.

Thinking about police in the US

How can you not think about the police in the US right now?  It's all over the big cities and the news.

I keep feeling like people are missing asking the right questions, though.

I would love to see two questions addressed thoroughly:

1.  Why don't people follow police officer's instructions? (I have yet to hear a story that didn't involve someone refusing to follow officers' instructions as the catalyst.) This is not, in my mind, a rhetorical question.  I really want to know--what is going on in people's minds that makes it seem like it is a better idea NOT to obey?

and

2.  Why are the cops apparently overreacting? (or are they?)


I guess the third question that should be asked is 3. What do we want our society to look like and how do police fit into that?

Of course, each question leads to many, many more...

Like Are the cops scared for their lives all the time? Why?

And  Are people so afraid of what cops will do that they can't fathom obeying them? Why?

And Where is the line between understanding that criminals are human beings (and so treating them with dignity and respect as humans) and letting them get away with crime rather than enforcing the law (which might hurt their feelings or interfere with their activities)?

In the 1980s, people were so horrified at the criminality of big cities that they insisted that the police fix it. And they did--by working hard to enforce the "little laws" (ie not urinating in public, no graffiti, not selling unpackaged cigarettes), which cut down on breaking of the "big laws" (ie murder, rape, carjackings).  But lately it seems like people are coming down on the side of allowing people to break the "little laws" rather than....hurting their feelings?....without any sense that any amount of lawlessness leads to massive amounts of lawlessness really, really fast.   While there are many cases of the police using force where someone actually didn't break any laws (except for not obeying instructions from a police officer), there are many more cases where the person involved was breaking a "little law" and then resisted the police officers. And ended up dead. And yes, that does seem excessive, to end up dead for some misdemeanor offense, but does that mean we don't allow officers to enforce the "little laws" for fear they will do something wrong themselves?

I end up with lots of other questions that aren't be addressed, like is the militarization of police a cause or an effect?  If we disarm the cops but don't disarm the robbers (because really, how do you disarm the robbers? They are functioning outside the law as it is, so more laws won't help.), where does that leave the average citizen?

Also, I keep finding myself asking, "If you, as a member of a group (religious, cultural, racial, whatever) see members of your group doing heinous things (jihad, being thugs, running drugs), and you DON'T come out publicly to condemn that, how can you insist that you don't own part of the reputation the group gets from the idiots and criminals?" Reputations are rarely created whole-cloth and imposed on people. They are usually earned by someone (and then sometimes unfairly applied to others).   But if the Muslims don't want to carry the reputation as terrorists, and the inner-city minorities as criminals, and the hispanics as drug cartel members, shouldn't they be actively fighting those "members of their group" (even just those perceived as members of their groups)--or at least speaking out against them?

Did I just read that?

"Crash tests with human dummies have confirmed the material efficiently absorbs energy and protects passengers from “secondary impacts”—i.e., slamming into the wall or a seat back when the train lurches unexpectedly. "  http://www.wired.com/2014/12/aluminum-foam-trains/

I guess you'd have to be a dummy to volunteer for crash tests.   Human dummies abound. Some animals are dummies, too.

Did I just read that?

From the 3rd paragraph of the article, the mixed metaphor of the week:

"Whether it's a few leaky apples or the sign of a larger morale problem is unclear. " 

 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/31/tough-week-for-obama-as-frustrated-officials-air-their-grievances-to-media/



What is a leaky apple?

Did I just read that?

"Polygamist women in ninja costumes attacked two adults in West Jordan, police say"

http://www.kutv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Polygamist-women-dressed-in-ninja-costumes-attacked-two-adults-in-West-Jordan-police-say-41660.shtml#.VB3HpJRdX3P

Hahahaha! This is completely grammatically correct. And so very, very amusing.

Did I just read that?

Google news summary of an article from the NY Daily News: "Manhattanite Kira Kazantsev is only 23-years-old but the blond bombshell is a scholar who speaks fluent Russian, advocates for domestic violence, plans on attending law school and can sing a mean cover of Pharrell Williams' “Happy." (It's the same in the actual article, here: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/meet-america-kira-kazantsev-article-1.1939672)

Maybe if she goes to law school she'll learn that domestic violence is something we are against, not for.

Later, the article makes it clear she advocates for VICTIMS of domestic violence (big BIG difference there).  But then it goes on to say, "To combat her fight against domestic violence, Kazantsev volunteers with Safe Horizon, a group that provides shelter for abused women. "

So her work is useless--she's fighting against herself.

Side effect of gay marriage being so visible

One social side effect that NOBODY is talking about in relation to the gay marriage debates is this: by making gay marriage just another option, we open the door to children to the idea that all relationships are potentially sexual relationships. It completely redefines friendship and relationships as we understand them.

Take this quote I lifted off a comment stream on FB (posting it anonymously as I had no way to get permission from the author, who is not on my friend list): "My daughter, at 7, thinks she's a lesbian. I've asked her to wait until puberty to decide. Also mentioned that bisexual is another option, which made her eyes gleam. She loves her best friend to bits, I've told her that sexual orientation is based more on romantic love and it's hard to say what is or isn't romantic love before puberty. "

A 7 year old thinks she is a lesbian because she loves her best friend.

That's so sad.

Is it no longer possible for girls to have a BFF without thinking the relationship has to be sexual?

Also, in context of this, nobody is talking about the fact that there is no research on whether children's sexual identity is fluid during puberty. The majority of women do have a fluid sexual identity, according to research. What about junior high kids? Does opening the door to the idea that they have to discover their sexual identity mean that there will be more bisexual and homosexual lifestyles going on, when they would have been heterosexual before? Does it make teens spend way too much time focusing on their sexual urges instead of focusing on developing skills and talents?

It's all murky, but not a great thing to experiment with.

Did I just read that?

From KSL.com today: "Nighttime 'bio-blitz' nets hundreds of environmentally challenged toads"

Now what on earth is an "environmentally challenged toad"?  They live outside all environments and can't quite fit? They lack personal environment?

Uh....

#YesAllWomen

You may have seen #YesAllWomen, a movement on social media that encourages women to tell their stories of being sexually harassed or physically threatened by men. It's supposed to be a bonding thing that lets women know that they aren't alone--other women have suffered through these kinds of things, too. And I can see value in that. Truly, I can.

But every time I see it pop up, I just groan.

First of all, it's not ALL women. I can't remember a time I was sexually harassed or physically threatened in the way these women are describing. And it bothers me when they say, openly, "You know you've experienced this, too."  Um...nope. Not ALL women, apparently.

Secondly, their unstated message is that not only have all women suffered, but all men are in line (or at least sympathetic) with these perverted men who do these things. Even if you never acted on it, the women seem to be saying, you know you think about it.  I just don't believe that. I do believe there are horrid men in the world. But not ALL men.

And finally, every single time I see another story pop up, I think how completely inappropriate it would be for men to start a movement talking about all the horrid, mean things women have done to them. Especially if it implied that all men were mistreated by all women all the time.

I find it completely baffling that these same feminist women who are publishing these stories refuse to acknowledge that women can be, and are, jerks too. And that jerkiness is not a function of being a certain gender any more than sexiness is. Some people are jerks. Some aren't. We don't need to expand that to say all women are controlling or all men are lecherous simply because some are. And it doesn't further any conversations about real problems that really exist when we demonize and entire gender because...well ...because we have fallen in line with other people who do that? I find it even more offensive when in one post online women bemoan the objectification of women, and in the next they talk about how "hot" some male movie star is.

I guess what I'm getting at is you can't have it both ways. Either everyone gets to objectify, or nobody does. Either everyone gets to point out things the other gender does that are unacceptable (because, ladies, we do things that are unacceptable, too!), or nobody does. You don't get to make men the bad guys and then expect our culture to somehow magically improve.

Mostly, I'm starting to block people who advocate feminism online. They might find it pitiful, and I find it ironic, but the more they talk about their agenda, the less I feel like they are actually in touch with the experiences of average women, and the less I feel like they can actually help any women anywhere (especially the ones--males and female-- who seem compelled to defend womenkind against most of us women out there, without realizing they are trying to force us all to conform to an arbitrary standard upheld and created by an elite group, which is the very thing they are supposedly fighting against). Which is probably fine. They seem to relish talking to each other more than solving problems or engaging in real discussion anyway.  You know, like the traditional stereotypical gossipy exclusive nagging women's club. Only minus the aprons and hats.

Ironic.

Happy Mother's Day!

People always confuse the satellite duties of motherhood with motherhood. You know--you've heard the talks. "My mom always came to my baseball games" or "my mom made the best cookies" or articles saying a mother's work is worth $119,000 a year (and defining a mother's work as chef, chauffeur, teacher, laundress, etc.

It's true mothers do massive amounts of work for free. And they do show up and cook and do all those satellite things. They're all closely attached to the job.

But imagine if those things went away. Suppose a mother was in a car accident and suddenly paralyzed from the chin down. For a long time, and maybe forever, many of those satellite things would disappear. No picking up the floor. No cooking. No attending baseball games. No driving or laundering.

And you know what? She would still be mother.

Motherhood is not defined nor created by the work a parent does.

A mother without all of those extra things would still be a mother. She would still be invaluable and one of the strongest influences in a child's life. Her voice would still calm a child in distress-even when the child was an adult. (Did you know there are scientific studies proving that just the sound of a mother's voice--even over the phone--can relieve stress more effectively and more quickly than anything else?). Just simply the way she lived and viewed life and interacted with the people around her would define so much of her children's futures.

Motherhood is not the work we attribute to it. It's not the dishes or the laundry or even the tending to people when they are sick. Even wicked, abusive women do those things, but they aren't really mothers. Motherhood is this other, nearly indefinable thing that is not so much a thing we do as it is a thing we are. Many women become that when they have their first baby, but all women can become mothers. And many women who have children never do.

I can no more define motherhood for you than anyone else, but mothers are an amazing influence for good, for strength, for the future.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. And thank you.

Did I just read that?

"Head of sunken ferry's owner in S. Korea detained"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-2622154/Head-sunken-ferrys-owner-S-Korea-detained.html

They let the rest of him go, though.

D-ribose in pregnancy

I've been studying the effects of d-ribose on pregnancy this week, curious if it's safe to take d-ribose when you're pregnant.

So far, the usual forums, doctor-moderated boards, and public health sites have been of zero help. So I turned to Google Scholar.

What I learned, from reading scientific papers, is that, at least in mice, high doses (like 158 grams a day for a human; the usual therapeutic dose for a human is 15 grams a day) of ribose delivered intravenously causes dementia and is highly toxic to cells. (The regular human therapeutic dose was studied, too, and had no ill effects). So don't overdose. (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0024623)

But I also learned that, at least in rats, dietary ribose supplementation, even in extremely high doses (up to 789 grams per day for a human) has absolutely zero affect on pregnancy or babies. The babies, placentas, etc, were physically indistinguishable from the control group.  (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027869150600250X).

That would indicate that ribose is safe for pregnancy, at least for rats.

It does cross the blood-brain barrier, and enters cells through diffusion, so there is a good chance that it would cross the placental barrier as well, though.  And, since ribose is unsafe for diabetics, I imagine it would be unsafe for those with gestational diabetes as well.  Also, there was no research regarding the mental development of the rats.

Someone has also submitted a patent to use ribose to treat newborn stroke. http://www.google.com/patents/US20130196934.  This doesn't prove it's safe of course (lots of wacky patents are submitted), but at least one scientist thinks it is.

More thoughts on modesty

There seems to be an ongoing discussion among some of my friends about what modesty means and how it should be taught. Many of my friends say that teaching modesty (or "the way it is taught") is wrong, and their reasons are very persuasive but feel very wrong.

I realized today that Anda is going to be taught about modesty by someone other than me in the next few years as she joins Young Womens. And I realized that I'd rather her be taught the traditional way, not the "new-and-improved" way some of my friends are proposing.

Why?

The new way doesn't appropriately or accurately deal with the true, biological nature of men. It, in essence, says  that men should be women and see the world the way women do. This is neither fair nor realistic. While I agree that boys should be taught that they are responsible for their own actions and for learning to see women as people, not just bodies, it is important for women to understand that men notice bodies, too, even on women they like as people.

The other thing I want Anda to understand is that her clothes choices are her chance to inform every person she meets how she wants to be treated. While it's a lovely idea that we should be able to dress however we like, our clothes are really a text that informs people how we wish to be perceived. If we treat ourselves as bodies only, people will treat us as bodies only. If we treat ourselves as people, we will be treated as people. And how do we inform others of how we wish to be treated? By what we wear. And all the theories and lovely ideas about how stupid that is are totally disconnected from reality, no matter how appealing they are.

If we want to be treated with respect and dignity, we have to dress with respect and dignity. Period.

I'm Okay with Elder Oaks' Talk.

I have a lot of friends who are having emotional/spiritual crises of varying intensities because of Elder Oaks' talk about the Priesthood in Conference. I think it's because he said that the Lord said the Priesthood is only for men, and it won't help to petition the brethren because they don't even possess the keys to change that, no matter how much you beg.

The problem many of my friends are having stems from the fact that they decided they were right and essentially gave the church an ultimatum. Giving women the Priesthood--now--was non-negotiable because it makes a lot of sense to them.

I feel sad for my friends. They're all suffering right now, trying to reconcile their personal beliefs that conflict--because as of Saturday night, they no longer had the freedom to say, "Apostles speak for Jesus Christ and direct the Church according to His commands" and "God wants women to have the Priesthood." (And my friends were, surprisingly, uninclined to question the second statement. Instead, they were all struggling with how to reconcile the first to the second). Why? Because they've all thought through it thoroughly and truly believe that their understanding of both women and the priesthood leave no space for women not to have the priesthood. They've really considered this deeply, and it makes no sense to them to do it any other way. It's just not fair.

So why did Elder Oaks' talk give me not one whit of distress?  Because I believe that women should not have the priesthood.

And I can tell you nearly a dozen reasons I think that's a good idea.

The thought process that led to those nearly a dozen reasons was like this (in a series of questions that I prayed about--over many years):
1. Is God real? Yes.
2. Does he care about  me? More than I do.
3. If God is real and wants us to know about him, would He have more than one right church out there, all teaching different things? No.
4. So if there is one right church, someone must be in charge or there is chaos with all people believing what they will. So who is in charge? A prophet.
5. If it is truly God's church (and Jesus is in charge of it), would He leave the prophet to figure things out himself? No. That would be silly.
6. So is it reasonable to accept that God created the structure of His church to be led by a prophet and apostles, and that they are in active contact with Jesus to direct the Church according to His will? Yes.
7. Are people, including prophets and apostles, fallible? Yes. But would God ever allow them to lead the entire church astray on important matters (like who holds the Priesthood of God)?  No. So we can assume that if a matter is important, God and His prophets have conversed about it.
8. Is it possible for me to comprehend or see all that God can comprehend or see? No.
9. So if God and I are at odds on some point of doctrine or practice, who is most likely to have made the mistake? ME. He can see and know more than I possibly can, and he care more for me and the people I love than I possibly can even comprehend. So I should probably trust Him, and if I don't understand, try to see it from His perspective (as impossible as that task actually is) instead of insisting He see it from mine (because He already does, thank you, and that doesn't mean He's going to do it my way).
10. Who do I have stewardship over (and therefore the right to receive revelation for)? Well, not the prophet or apostles, that's for sure. But they do have stewardship over me. And I do over me, too, and also over my children while they are young. Probably not anyone else. Maybe my spouse. Maybe. Not assuredly, though. So therefore the right questions to ask God would mostly likely be about me--my beliefs, my behaviors, my attitudes--and not about what the whole Church should be doing, or even what God should be doing.

So, once I had answered those questions (which didn't happen in one night--it was a journey), I was fairly confident that if the prophet or apostles gave us direction, it would be wiser for me to pray for understanding--of the instructions, of the doctrines, and of what I should do--than to sit around asking the Lord to change his mind.

In other words, I asked, "So you don't think women should have the priesthood. I can accept that. Can you help me understand why?" instead of "Please give me the priesthood--I think I can serve best that way." (That's a silly statement anyway--we can all serve to our capacity without the Priesthood. Nobody is required to have keys and ordinations to see suffering around us and try to ease it).

Anyway, I now have lots of reasons not to need the priesthood, and some new insights into the fact that we've devalued women's assignments but that doesn't mean the Lord has.

I do not believe women need or should have the priesthood. Maybe some time I'll write down why.

Did I just read that?

From Slate.com: "The cases were consolidated and argued Tuesday morning by Solicitor General Don Verrilli and Paul Clement, who argued the ACA cases before the court almost two years ago, on a spring day in 2012, when it was not—as it was Tuesday—snowing."

 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2014/03/sebelius_v_hobby_lobby_supreme_court_hears_oral_arguments_in_the_contraception.html?google_editors_picks=true

Because snow has so much to do with contraception, government mandates, and legal cases....

Did I just read that?

"You can only enter from outside."  http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/us/texas-immigrants-stash-house/

Yes, because if you are inside and going through the door, we call that exiting.

How to Embed a Google+ Pages Photo Album into a Google Sites Website

Just spent 2 hours trying to figure this out, so I'm going to write down what worked to hopefully spare any of you the frustration I just went through.

What I wanted to do: Put up a photo album in Tim's Google+ Mister Tim page and then embed the album on his www.mistertimdotcom.com website. Seems simple enough. I'm even using all Google tools, so it should be possible, right? Google SHOULD give you a link or a snippet of code in Google + like they do in Picasa, right?

Not so much. It is possible, but it requires a very convoluted workaround, especially since I was trying to use a Google+ Page instead of a straightforward Google+ account.

Here's what worked:

1. First, log in to Google+ and use the left dropdown navigation bar to go to your Pages. In our case, I logged in to Tim's Timothy Jones Google+ account and then navigated to his pages screen, which has three options on it. I chose "Manage this Page" under "Mister Tim".

2. Use the left dropdown navigation to choose "Photos". Now click on "More" in the top navigation bar and select "Albums", or upload photos and create a new album. Either way, once the album is created, go to the albums page again (Photos>More>Albums) and choose the album you want to embed. Click on the dropdown arrow (white button) on the far right of the screen, and choose "Sharing Options" and make sure that the option under "Visible to" is "Public". Click "Save".

3. Now, on the left dropdown navigation menu, choose Settings.

4. Scroll down to Third Party Tools. Copy your page's username and set up a password for it.

5. Now go to this site: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1

6. Log in using your Google+ Page username that you just copied and the password you just created.

7.  If you aren't on the "Home" tab, click there. If your album shows up under "Recent Albums", choose it. If not, click on "View All" next to Recent Albums and select your album there.

8. In the right sidebar, double check that your album is set to "public on the web". If it isn't, choose edit. If it is, then click on "Link to this Album," also in the right sidebar.

9. Select "Embed Slideshow". A popup box will appear. Select the options you want and then copy the html code from the box. (You can select "Embed album" but you get fewer formatting options.)

10. Log in to your website and use the tools there to insert the html code into the right page. Save the page, and the slideshow should be fully functional. Here is our result: http://www.mistertimdotcom.com/lyric-art-book.

On putting your house in order

A year ago I complained--rather heavily--about the misinterpretation of the scripture that says to put your house in order.

Today was Ward Conference again, and the bishop asked us to think back on the year and how we put our houses in order. He asked if we had more gospel-centered artwork around our houses now.

I consciously turned my brain to what he was actually asking (not about art, but about if we pondered the scripture he felt inspired to make our ward theme, and what we did about it).  

I was quite relieved to discover that, after pondering the verse quite a lot last spring, I did work throughout the year to put our house in order.

And you know what? I have never, in my life, had a messier house.

How is that, you wonder, when I worked to put it in order?  Well, each day, each  minute, I tried very hard to choose the most important things to do, and do those first. I tried to focus on what the Spirit was telling me to do, what my children and husband needed, what the people around me needed, on using and developing my talents and helping my children do the same, on helping people to find light and joy in the lives they are in, whether chosen or not.  Of course, I wasn't perfect at choosing. But it seemed to me that the right order in life is to put God's work first, and focus on doing what He would do at any particular moment.

And that left me far, far too busy to clean the floors. Most days. Some days there was time left for that. Some days there was both time and energy for that. Sometimes even the best possible choice was to work on the house, and I got some important things done in that area. But I have fibro, and my energy is very limited, and, in making the best possible choices I could, the floor suffered more often than not.

I find that kind of ironic, that we were told to put our houses in order, told to ponder the scripture, and then everyone somehow expected the measure of success in that to be the emptiness of the floor and if you cluttered your walls with more pictures of Jesus or the temple. By that measure, I failed. Big time. Although my walls did get cluttered with more art--even some of it pictures of Jesus, but most of it drawn by my children (sometimes right on the wall). But I feel like I succeeded at putting my house in order and surviving what was arguably one of the hardest years of my life.

Makes me really, really glad that the Lord doesn't judge by the living room floor or the state of the kids' bathroom toilet, but that "the Lord looketh on the heart."

Did I just read that?

From an article on KSL.com: "Walter died of congestive heart familiar while on vacation with his wife of 57 years."

Read more at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=711&sid=29081467#F53Cefw1sLfzhSiE.99

Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is that a witch's animal partner is called a familiar. So witches got him?

"The Funky Introvert" is done and here

Tim's CD is done. We have physical copies here, at the house, ready to listen to. Thank you everyone who adopted tracks (your copies are coming to you soon as I can get them there).

Thank you everyone who has listened.

And thank you SO SO much to everyone who has shared the news and encouraged their friends to listen.

Please do listen. You can listen on Spotify (http://open.spotify.com/album/7ekcDt0iVTtcxI2Np3mNaa), although those are the singles versions. The album was designed to be listened to as a whole, in order, and if you get a physical copy (or a digital download of the "album version"), the best experience is there as some of the easter eggs in the album blend one song into another, and the tracks ebb and flow nicely as a whole. One of the most significant parts of the whole album is the easter egg verse in "Monument" (it's not hard to find, but it takes a little technological know-how to decode it).

You can find the whole version on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-funky-introvert/id822228885 or cheaper on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Funky-Introvert-Mister-Tim/dp/B00IHFWC3I/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1393151251&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Funky+Introvert+Mister+Tim. It's also on Tim's store, although the whole-album download as the "album version" is still coming. http://mistertimdotcom.com/store/  Scroll down to get a physical CD copy.


I know this is not the kind of music you hear every day. But it's cool. It tackles some challenging topics, and is musically challenging in some ways (all vocal, some vocal-but-instrumental stuff going on--including a whole song, looping, art music, variety of styles, some of it poetry set to music with all the challenge that poetry brings along with all the challenge that music brings.). It's really good music, though, even if you need a copy of the lyrics in hand in order to really get the full impact of it (you can get a low-res copy of the lyrics book here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B86ydLtT5M65LUc2WlYwalVtR0E; I can send you a link to the high-res copy if you want it, but it's a hefty download, or else a whole lot of one-page-at-a-time downloading, but it's super pretty. Tim did a great job on the design).

This is NOT moosebutter. If you are expecting moosebutter, you will not get this. If you love moosebutter and want more, you probably won't even like this. It is NOT moosebutter. The Funky Introvert is not funny. It's not silly. It's not comedy--not even a little.

The Funky Introvert is 21st century art songs. Like good art, the songs have broad and deep meanings, which can be completely personal--there is no one right way to hear these songs. For example, the song "Tango" is about addiction, or living with the fallout of having been abused as a child, or about bad habits, or about mental illness, or about unrepented sins, or about nightmares or anxieties that won't leave you alone, or about the "muse" that won't leave artists alone and compels them to work or about any number of other demons that interfere with our lives.  "The Fire that Consumes Your Eyes" is about depression, or about being afraid to fall in love, or about mental illness and clinging to those we care about who are suffering, or about the creative process, or about being in love.  So many things you can hear. So many things Tim was saying. So many things you can learn or ponder or see. Even the songs that tell a story do it the way poetry does--so that each person hears a different story. When the kids and I first heard "A Question, A Tiger," one of us thought it was the story of thieves, one of lovers, one of spies. "Outdated" was, at different times, the story of war, and a commentary and warning about the reality of being famous, and the story of Icarus.  "Stick Around" was an invitation to stay and hear something awesome in the music and ponder it, but it was also Las Vegas speaking to us, trying to entice people to come and stay.

Tim is awesomely okay with people "owning" these songs and hearing from them what they need to hear. He had specific ideas of what he was talking about when he wrote the songs, but he recognizes the nature of art. If the whole album is Daedalus talking to Icarus, or an exploration of Altars and what is stopping us from making this world into heaven, or the story of one man's journey through life (as more than one person has commented), or an unfinished tale, or a collection of loosely related (or unrelated) songs, or some kind of biography--it's all up to you. What you hear is. It's all in there, layer upon layer like a poppy that is just starting to unfurl its petals.

But no, the songs are not nonsense, although Tim has been accused of pulling words out of a hat and stringing them together however they appeared. The songs are jam-packed with meaning.

Even so, I'm still not sure what a "ballerina shotgun" is, or why we should "trust in the dude, we conclude he has got one." And, while it's super fun to say, "whining, whinnying, guppying, minnowing," I have no idea what that actually means. And that's part of the fun of it. Sometimes the words are, it seems, acting as sounds that make music together instead of as words that make meaning together. But sometimes I think something is aurally pleasing only, and then suddenly it snaps into place and I understand what Tim was saying. But he won't tell you how to listen. It's for you.

19 tracks. Two are different songs over the same background music, which is neat to hear. One is purely "instrumental." Two ("Heartbreaks" and "I Have Become") are the ones produced in Vegas thanks to the kickstarter a couple of years ago.  Several are older and have been performed many times. Several are new, written in the studio during the recording process. Lots of super cool easter eggs (for example, there is a snippet of an unreleased verse to the first song, "Beatnik," hidden in another song in the background parts; also that significant verse of "Monument" I mentioned that's easy to find but harder to hear). Well worth listening on a good sound system, and again with a computer than can help you decode them.

I like to listen to this album loud. It sounds good loud. It sounds good soft, too, but it feels good loud.

Let me know if you want a copy, and I can arrange that. I'm really thrilled with how this project came out, and now I want other people to hear it. Even if I have to give it away free. The music is good, it has merit, and I think you're gonna like it. Have a listen?

Tim's album is now available

You can find it on Spotify, Amazon.com, iTunes... https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-funky-introvert/id822228885

Go have a listen. Review or rate it if you can. (or both!)

I so much love this music and am very excited to share it.

How to Fix Stuff

People have started asking me to help fix their things, too. (LOTS of people). I keep insisting I don't know how to fix things, but they beg to differ. Often. So here are my secrets (and then you can fix your own things!):

1. Have no other options (ie no budget for another washer and dryer) so either it's you or nothing. Start searching craiglist's free board for a free one that works, just in case it comes up (because then you don't have to fix it).
2. Figure it's already broken so you can't make it worse.
3. Google it. If you have the problem, someone else did, too, and someone who knows more than you told someone else how to fix it.
4. YouTube search it. Usually the make and model of whatever's broken and the words "how to" (and more terms if you've discovered them in your Google search). Watch people fix it.
5. Try to fix it. Fail. Repeat six or eight times, making sure you get hurt on the fifth or seventh time (usually). Pray for help after the third and eighth times. Or more often.
6. Take a break and repeat steps 3 and 4. Several times if necessary with whatever new words or ideas you've learned.
7. Call someone you know who knows more than you and see if they have any ideas.
8. Repeat steps 3 and 4 again. Several times if necessary.
9. Pray about it.
10. Try again and get the darn thing fixed. Or else throw it away and pray for a new one (you've been watching Craigslist just in case, right?). Or, if necessary, get someone else to help. (See if you can trade favors somehow because, you know, you're doing this because you didn't have the budget to get help in the first place).

Honestly, the secret is pray--google--try, over and over until you figure it out or you know you can't fix it.

The other secret is call your Dad and get his help. Dads can fix anything.

Did I just read that?

From facebook:

Ehem.  Bocelli is blind. So it obviously cannot be an argument that all people should see. Maybe that all people should not abort, but not one that all people should see. Or hear. Or...whatever.

Fibro theories--some more

I've been reading a book about Zombies . The end of chapter one tells about an experiment someone did on mice. When mice are lacking food, they go into a state of slowed-down animation (not fully suspended animation, but definitely a metabolically slower state) called torpor. Scientists discovered that the starving, torpor-induced mice were overloaded with 5' AMP (adenosine monophosphate). So, being scientists, they injected the 5' AMP into normal, healthy, food-secure mice and, lo and behold, the mice had an overreaction to the AMP and instantly dropped into a severe torpor.

So, reading about that and how AMP messes with thermoregulation, and I remembered reading about AMP before.

AMP is what happens when a molecule of ATP (adenosine triphosphate--the cell's energy molecule) uses up two of the phosphates in a sort of double-energy reaction. In normal cellular energy use and production, ATP and ADP cycle to each other, back and forth, rarely needing to use two phosphates and turn into AMP. When ATP does get turned into AMP instead of ADP, there is an enzyme called adenylate kinase that takes an ATP and an AMP and combines them to form two ADP molecules, which are then easily used to form two ATP molecules. There is not direct way to recycle AMP into ATP, though, and the body usually considers an excess of AMP a waste product.

Apparently it is well-documented scientifically that the energy production systems, on a cellular level, are broken in people with fibro. And they're broken in a way that leads to an excess of AMP (you see where I'm going, right?).

Current theory (of the vein that pushes the idea that ribose is good for fibro--like here http://corvalen.douglaslabs.com/D-Ribose%20Abstracts/Ribose%20in%20Fibromyalgia%200505%20Revised.pdf) says that the AMP is considered a waste product and broken down and thrown away by the cell, leaving the cell with no building blocks to make more ADP and therefore more ATP, and that is why people with fibro lack energy.

But I have a different idea, based on the mouse studies. I have no idea what the difference between AMP and 5'AMP is.  It's really hard to look up online (oddly--most everything else is easy to find online). As far as I can tell, they are the same.

So what if the excess AMP is not actually being broken down in people with fibro, but is instead inducing a state of torpor? Torpor includes a reluctance to move, a lower metabolism, and a lower body temperature, all of which are hallmarks of fibro. What if the enzymes that usually "babysit" the ATP cycle are broken, so they don't regulate the ratio of AMP:ATP like they're supposed to. That would mess up (if my research is right and I understood the chemistry right) all kinds of metabolic processes, including the insulin and lipid production/ break down processes (which are also known to be broken in people with fibro).

Because an excess of AMP in the muscles usually happens in time of stress or in times of heavy exercise, the body of someone with fibro would constantly be giving itself messages to rest and recover, and to stop muscle movement (like holding the arms out) way way way before it would be normal because the muscles would be getting the message that they were tired and hurting from too much exercise right off the bat. That would explain why Tim's muscles and mine feel the same when we hold our arms outstretched too long, but too long for him is several minutes, where too long for me is several seconds.

The ration of AMP:ATP also is related to what runners call the anaerobic threshold--the line where your body stops using energy effectively and your blood and muscles get bogged down with lactate, causing a lactate lethargy--that heavy feeling that you can't move your legs, and achy muscles. Science has apparently also proven that people with fibro reach the anaerobic threshold much faster than average healthy people do--like in response to regular life movement rather than exercise (which may be why so many of us have 2 "good hours" in the morning where we can get stuff done, and then we just feel like we don't want to move anymore...just like an athlete that hit that threshold).

Interestingly, the diabetes drug metformin can actually treat this AMP imbalance if it's caused by a breakdown of the enzyme 5' AMP-activated protein kinase (or AMPK), but there is some question if doing so can cause Alzheimers because having too much AMPK is connected with the development of Alzheimer's.  This might simply be a case of correlation and not causation. (People with Alzheimers have too much AMPK, but maybe that's because of the Alzheimer's and not the other way around).  I'm curious if anyone has tried to use metformin for Fibro?

There are other enzymes that could be the broken ones, of course, like adenylate kinase.

I am really curious if there is a messenger or regulatory enzyme that could be attached to many (most? all?) of the systems that are broken in fibro. Of if it could be something else? (For example, low ATP levels in cells make cell membranes unstable--could fibro patients be shedding cells at an abnormal rate? Fragile on a cellular level? Is the ATP issue causing the body to suck up phosphorus from the blood, which causes some of the symptoms of fibro and is scientifically correlated with chronic fatigue?).

Interestingly, the mouse study with AMP indicated that AMP is a key component of thermoregulation (namely, it can disable thermoregulation in mice). The link between thermoregulation breakdown and fibro is well established, but the cause has remained unclear (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23887348 theorized it had to do with brown fat, for example, and a recent study found a connection between nerves, blood vessels, and thermoregulation in fibro http://www.examiner.com/article/new-study-indicates-a-cause-for-fibromyalgia-pain-to-be-found-the-skin).

So why does ribose help? Taking ribose increases the body's supply of adenosine, which allows it to make more ATP than it otherwise would. This increase in ATP once again balances the ratio of AMP:ATP. Apparently having this ratio right (not just having enough ATP) is the key to cells functioning properly and taking them out of the anaerobic threshold (allowing the body to process the lactic acid normally, removing the lactate lethargy) and also informing the cells that the muscles are no longer in a post-exercise recovery state all the time. It would also cancel the torpor and the metabolic issues associated with it, since they are regulated by an overabundance of AMP.   As one set of doctors suggested, it "reduces the metabolic strain" on the muscles.

Hmmm. All that from reading a book on Zombies.

I need to take some biochem classes so I can dig deeper.

Food allergies

For a year or so now I've wondered about the whole "Modern Life causes food allergies" claim that is being tossed around. I've heard it's because we eat too much processed food, because we don't play in the mud enough, because we go to doctors for all our problems so our immune systems are too weak. While the proponents of these ideas make strong arguments sometimes, the arguments don't seem to answer all the questions or clarify all the data exactly right.

Today it dawned on me:

Our grandparents didn't know anyone with food allergies because those people died the first time they had a bad reaction to food, which is usually in childhood. Modern medicine allows us to save the life of people with food allergies, so you meet them now. And they live to bear children, which would allow them to produce more people who potentially have food allergies.

People also didn't go to the doctor as often back then, for sure. And they died of that, too.

If you eliminate all the people with food allergies from the population by killing them off (or allowing them to die naturally, from their allergies), then of course you had fewer food allergies showing up in the population.

Also, people's diets were far more restricted--there was less choice by far. That means people were statistically less likely to be exposed to all the food allergens, giving them less chance to discover they had a food allergy.

So you either died from the food allergy right away or never found out you had one. There may have been just as many food allergy families back then--they just didn't know it or didn't survive to have children with more food allergies.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

It was Tim's turn to speak on Sunday. Funny thing, since two weeks before, after church he turned to me and said, "Have we spoken in this ward since we moved back?"  Nope. I guess God or the Bishop heard him say that.

Anyway, it was an awesome talk, especially considering he left all his notes and everything at the studio the night before and didn't have time to go back to Erie to get them before he had to speak.

The topic, predictably, was gratitude. It is that week after all.

I found Tim's talk profound. I hadn't ever thought about gratitude on the grand scale, or even that there might be a grand scale to consider.

So here are some of Tim's thoughts (from the notes he retrieved today) on thanksgiving that I've been pondering this week and would like to share.

"Gratitude and thanksgiving are more than gladness or happiness. All the lepers were glad; they were all happy about the miraculous change. Yet only one felt the need to return and express thanks. A sincere expression of thanks is an act of humility.

"True gratitude is related to a shift in universal perspective. The natural man orients the universe on self. Around me the galaxies revolve, and I only deserve consideration. Honest thanksgiving is a re-orienting of the soul to align with things as they really are. We are dependent...The grateful heart acknowledges reliance on others and is not diminished by this knowledge."

"By design we depend on others: Friends, family, and the goodness of God to merely survive; depend on the atonement of our Savior for ultimate but also daily spiritual salvation...What is worship but fervent and soul-deep thanks to the Father?"

"Our willingness or refusal to express gratitude might be the soul's barometer, a measure of how I am aligned in relation to the Universe."

"True thanksgiving leads the faithful to a life of obedience and service and action."

"As our ability to comprehend spiritual things increases, we become aware of the true magnitude of what our heavenly parents have done for us: the great plan of happiness, the condescension of the Lamb, the Father's work and glory, the whole of creation and the intimacy of the still small voice--all for us."

He also talked about how who we are--our worth and value and personality and character--should not be defined by what we have or our circumstances, whether impoverished or wealthy.

Anyway, it was a lot of new ideas for me, and I've enjoyed pondering them for the last couple of days.

Adopt a Song

Early reviews of the album are coming in fantastic. I am so so anxious to get it out and available to people, but we can't get this CD mastered without some help, thanks to all the car repairs last month.

So, instead of doing a Kickstarter to get Tim's CD mastered, we're asking anyone who wants to help to adopt a song. $30 masters one song, and there are 19 songs. If you adopt one of the songs, the song gets mastered, and you get:
         An advanced copy of the song emailed to you as soon as it is done being mastered
         Both physical and digital copies of the album as soon as they are done
         Recognition in the liner notes for the song

If you want to adopt a song, you can do it here: http://mistertimdotcom.com/store/

There are 18 songs to adopt (possibly 19--we have one additional track that is ready to be mastered, but we're not sure if it's going on this CD or the next--it's marked with an asterisk below). That means if you love a particular song that you, personally, want to adopt, you could email Tim tonight to be sure you get the song you want most (tim@vocalitysingers.com).  Some of the songs are new ones that almost nobody outside my household has ever heard before, so if you want to have the first listen of a new song, adopt it. You'll get the first copy that goes out.

The track list for the full album:

Beatnik
Bang on the Door
Clearer Skies
Momma
Monument
The Fire That Consumes
I Have Become
There Must Be Something More
Fly
Intermission
A Full Set of Heartbreaks
Fine Fine Line
Outdated
Fire Can
A Question Like a Tiger
Tango
Are You Satisfied*
Bubbles
Stick Around

Did I just read that?

Google usually does pretty well at transcribing voicemail for me.

Today, it totally scrambled one--a pretty mundane voicemail, too, and easy to understand when I listened to it.. Transcription fail, with hilarious results:

"Hi. This is *******. I was listening back for the info box. I'm going to be helping a bowel. I have to the park it okay. I can swing by. Ami wayback. I just wanted to get your. I just real quick. Because, I hate you briefly in tired and box. I've talked to Mr. Simpson the other day. Pink you know I don't have anything important here and then I do have a that's I did and it was your address. Hello. If you can gimme a call back and just tell me. I just. I remember it on, told her across the street from 12. Hopefully you'll just find and I'm a if you can by. I don't know, okay. Give me your address are just give me a Irene, Thank you so much. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. "

Well, I hate you briefly, too. Have fun helping a bowel. Oh, and here's your Irene.

Did I just read that?

"Keep all your social media set to privacy and really only accept friends with people you know for sure and not someone who could be misinterpreting themselves," Hasty said.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=27646892#iGBer5IlGBK0qtdu.99

"Oh, I'm sorry officers. I misinterpreted myself. I didn't understand what I was saying."

Positive Attitude

Today I finally made it to church. Benji was his usual hyperactive self times ten, so I didn't hear any of the meeting except two or three times I heard, "My topic is 'The Light of Christ and Having a Positive Attitude.'"

I did not hear a single talk. I was chasing Benji around the building. So I just want to clearly state that this is not a criticism of anything anyone said. I didn't hear anything anyone said, so how could I criticize it?

But, since that was the topic for the meeting, I thought about it some while I followed the boys and watched them throw ice from a pile they found on the lawn at the church.

I realized I have some hangups about the "having a positive attitude" part.

1. I don't see how having a positive attitude is related in any way, shape, or form to the light of Christ. So I'm guessing the bishopric speaking assignment was actually about something other than what I interpreted those words to mean. (So this isn't to say the bishopric gave a bad speaking assignment, either--just to say that particular phrase has meanings to me that bother me).

2. Speaking only about adults and children (teens might be different), my experience is that people don't need to be taught about having a positive attitude. Generally speaking, being positive is a self-rewarding behavior. It is its own reward, and most people seek to be positive and happy because it's inherently better. Most people have a generally positive attitude most of the time. And the people who do not have a generally positive attitude usually need help, not a lecture, because they are suffering from some disorder or other challenge--ADHD with a negative outlook, depression, and intensely difficult stretch of living they have to suffer through. None of those people is helped by being told, "Well, just change your attitude." People become negative when there is something wrong in their lives, and it seems like it would behoove us to find out what's wrong and help rather than lecturing people on their attitude. So this is a non-issue, or its a major issue that is best addressed in a more healthy, realistic, psychologically sound way. Or maybe this is a real issue and I've just been blessed to be surrounded by generally positive people in my life.

3. The scriptures never advise anyone to "have a positive attitude." Prophets have advised the people to not despair. There are scriptures about cheerfully doing all things in our power. And they push hope heavily. But it's not hope in general--it's hope in Christ.  Clearly, God wants us to choose happiness--and I recognize it is a choice. So I don't know why I get hung up on the phrase "Positive attitude."  Maybe it goes back to the business philosophy that says that if you're  a failure, it's your own fault for not believing hard enough because if you just have a positive mental attitude, you can do anything. And that's just a bunch of baloney. I think there is more to the "cheerfully going about" thing than just having a positive attitude.

4. To me, teaching "have a positive attitude" is teaching the gospel of me. The philosophy attached to that, in my mind, is that you can just try harder and things will magically work out. And, if you happen to be unhappy or miserable, it's your own fault for not being more positive, regardless of the circumstances.

I have a real issue with that last one.

Because what happens when you get to that point in life where you hit the wall? Where you've done everything you really truly can do, worked hard, had faith to the breaking point, and you really cannot go on? That point when your heart is truly broken? That point when your enemies are rallying against you, your friends are sure you're doing it all wrong, you need help and neither God nor man will step in and save you, and you are completely powerless to save yourself despite all you've done?  What about when you're hanging on by your fingernails, and the best possible outcome is terrifying or miserable, and everything else isn't worth living for, and when you cry out for help, the people around you cannot hear, or, worse, they mock you and criticize and tell you it's too bad you got yourself into trouble?

Surely I'm not the only person in this whole wide world who has been to that spot and tasted that despair, fear, sorrow, and exhaustion that comes from trials that just don't go away.

And I can tell you that, when you hit the bottom, having a more positive attitude just doesn't cut it. There really are times when you have literally--physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically--done everything you can possibly do. And you cannot find the willpower or the energy to just be positive so that everything will work out. And where you know, deep inside, that smiling at that dragon isn't going to stop him from eating you.

But the other thing I know is that God never leaves us alone, even when he refuses to rescue us, and when we get to that hopeless spot where you have truly done all you can do (and therefore cannot even dredge up even a mite of positive attitude, which is a lie and won't fix things anyway), that's what Jesus came for.  And you don't have to be sad, and you don't have to despair, and you don't have to hang on by your fingernails and you don't have to cry any more. You don't have to live in that dark place, and you don't even have to stay there, despite the trials not going away.

The thing is, you can go forward, cheerfully and with patience doing the will of the Lord, waiting on His time. But it's not because you tried harder to have a positive attitude. It's a gift from God that comes from choosing faith (the active kind, not just stating that you know God is there), from praying for patience, from having hope in Christ, and from turning to the atonement to heal your broken heart and help you through. It's not because YOU can do any more, but because God can. And will.

The answer is not a positive attitude. The answer is Jesus.

So what's it about?

That's the question I failed to answer.

I know, I know--I keep writing about Tim's album. It's kind of a big deal for us here--lots of work and sacrifice has gone into this project, and I really like how it's turned out. And I'm anxious to share it, but I want people to go in prepared for what they're going to hear. So far, when we've tried to share Tim's music with people, it doesn't go well because people's expectations for what they're going to hear don't jive with what they experience. So we get comments like, "I can't dance to this." Or "You really can't sing along to this." (We hear that one a lot).  I think those are the reactions we hear because I say, "This is really cool," and the person I'm talking to (rightly) translates that to "Oh, it must be the same kind of music I think is really cool," and then they're disappointed. Because often it's not that, whatever "that" is.

You would never pick up a Andrea Bocelli album and say, "Well, I can't dance to that."  Of course you can't, but you go in not expecting to. Or, likewise, you wouldn't pick up a dubstep album and say, "But there's not really a singable melody here." That's not what dubstep is for.

Setting appropriate expectations for Tim's music, so you can evaluate it on its own merits for what it is (instead of what it isn't), is particularly tricky because if I say, "It's classical music," you expect a different instrumentation and might be offended by the fact that Tim used pop and rock sounds and styles to write art songs. And if I say, "pop" or "rock," you would be expecting different content, different song structure.

Anyway, I've written about what the music is about musically (combining modern, contemporary sounds, instruments, musical idiom with classical vocal song structure and aims). But I haven't talked about what the album is about thematically.

Like any good poetry collection, "The Funky Introvert" is full of layers and has many meanings and layers of meanings. And Tim is usually fairly tight-lipped about what he intended when he wrote the songs. He says if he tells you what it means to him, you might not be able to find your own meanings in the songs. He wants to express things, but he also wants to leave it open to you to own the songs and have them speak to your heart what you need to hear. And he wants you to discover the meanings--and he trusts you can. (Obviously it's not wide open, but he keeps from listing out the meanings on purpose).

But I like a little direction going into a poem or collection of poetry. I like a framework to hang meaning on. So I'm telling you what it is about, to me. Obviously you can find your own meanings once you hear it. To me, "The Funky Introvert" is a collection of art songs about all the voices and experiences in life that compete to give meaning to life. There are songs about discovering that intellectualism is actually quite shallow, and songs about how consumerism actually makes you feel like you're locked out of life instead of giving it deep, satisfying meaning.  There are songs that delve into love, heroism, money, secrets, tradition...all the things that claim they are the way to have a valuable, meaningful life. The centerpiece of the album's meaning, to me, is track 4, "Monument". Everyone in life is seeking to make their lives a monument to something, to find satisfaction and solid meaning.

And, like in real life, the answer is there but it is hidden--not because we don't want you to have it, but because in life, the wrong answers are louder, more prominent, easier to access.

And, like in real life, you go through a bunch of ideas--including the one that has the secret right answer in it--before you even get to the question the songs are answering. At some point, everyone stops and says, "There must be something more to this...." And that question song is in the middle of the album, after you've committed to and tried many things and found they aren't the answer. The album starts with someone stepping back and noticing that the intellectual "nonconformity" that is actually alternate-conformity is really quite shallow and just a different face on the same old story everyone is telling. It ends with what I see as Las Vegas (and, by extension, the idea that money is the key) promoting its approach to life.

And, if you find the secret...the hidden verse (hidden in plain sight, but like a still, small voice instead of a big flashy show number) that is the key to everything--you'll see the album is about the journey a man takes in trying to become a Son of God, and everything that tries to stop him from getting there. It is about the experience of being a man in this world, about making this world into something important and making yourself into something valuable against all odds. It's about monuments and about altars and where you choose to sacrifice yourself (since we all sacrifice ourselves to one god or another--it's inevitable that the sacrifice is made; the altar upon which its made is the choice you have, not whether you participate) and what kind of monument you hope to become, and all the things that try to entice you into their camps.

And because all the songs are also poems, you can find all kinds of wonderful, specific meaning in them beyond this.

We're trying to work out how much more it would cost to include all the lyrics in the liner notes because these songs really beg to be listened to with the lyrics available because, like other poetry, the words beg to be analyzed, re-read, digested rather than just heard.

So, what's it about? You'll have to listen and find out, I guess. But now you know what it's about to me.

First attempts at drawing cartoons

I am trying my hand at cartoon characters to see if I can illustrate my own little books. It won't be fancy, but my goal is for the pictures to be better than the Bob Books (whose illustrations are rather awful). So I've done a lot of online tutorials in using the drawing program of my choice, and some on cartooning. And I've spent a lot of time saying, "Nope. It looks terrible" and putting it away, coming back the next day and saying, "Well, maybe if I just fiddle with this line using the skills I just learned...."

I illustrated 35 books in level 0 and the first 5 books in level 1 using public domain clip art. But I'm at a point where I need to start telling stories. I did a lot of editing pictures on the first 40 books and learned a lot about how people put things together. Now I'm just trying to learn how to make pictures from scratch.

So here's my first attempt at a person:

I can see things I can fix (like the lines being not the same weight, and the clothes being a little boxy still, and his hand being on backwards--oops!), but I'm encouraged. I might just learn this new skill after all!

Art Songs

I realize I might be creating confusion by calling Tim's album "art songs" and a "song cycle." I don't want anyone to be surprised or confused when they turn it on.

"Art Songs" brings to mind a guy standing by a piano singing Schubert or 19th century German Lieder. And "song cycle" calls up Wagnerian images.

And those aren't exactly it. Except they are. But not how you might think.

When you turn on Tim's album, you're not going to hear "classical" music. He didn't write a bunch of 19th-Century parlor songs. But he did do exactly what classical composers have always done. It's just "The Funky Introvert" are art songs for the 21st century, not the 19th. So if you're expecting pretty melody and a piano, you might be surprised because Tim's album is full of contemporary sounds--electric guitars, drums, heavy bass, etc.

But it is still an album of art songs. The lyrics are complex and poetic, the music is experimental and pushes boundaries (although not in an unpleasant way. No German boys screaming or long minutes of silence).

Like almost all of the famous composers, Tim is writing songs that use modern sounds and modern technology to express ideas and emotions. It's hard to experience most classical music that way now because we're listening to it many many years later.

But Beethoven wrote his songs using the most cutting-edge sounds and instruments and musical structures available to him. He even had a pianoforte made especially for him that pushed the boundaries of all pianofortes at the time. Mozart's operas were made for public consumption, not scholarly analysis. He was writing in a popular idiom, using new sounds, new instruments, new ideas, telling stories that were commentaries on popular themes and events.  Handel did not write "The Messiah" for a music professor somewhere. He was writing using a popular instrumentation (choir and orchestra) for real people to listen to. But it's not simple pop or parlor piece by any means. It's complicated and fascinating and....classical. I could go on and on: Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Paganini, Strauss....Strauss was a rockstar in Vienna in his day. We think of him as the composer of stately waltzes, but he was writing dance tunes. Paparazzi followed him around, writing down what he wore and where he ate in detail, and women swooned when they saw him and tried to get pieces of his clothing. You know....like the Beattles. These people wrote amazing music that has stayed popular not because some scholar said it was good. It's stuck around because people liked it. And people liked it because the composers made it accessible, familiar, and appealing by using the newest, coolest, in-style-est instruments, rhythms, musical styles, performance techniques, lyrics, sounds.

I'm not saying Tim's music is comparable to any of these masters. Or that it will stand the test of time. I'm just trying to point out that "classical" music was "popular, modern, cutting-edge, contemporary" music when it was written. It used new, interesting, "up-to-date" (for its time) sounds and styles and rhythms. It was never, ever written academically in an old-fashioned style.

So, what I'm saying is Tim has written art songs. And what makes his songs art songs?

Well, an art song is sometimes defined as a vocal song written in an old tradition for voice with piano. We have no art songs by that definition. But Art Songs also means a song (intended for voice) which is a musical setting of a poem (or other text) that is meant to be performed in a concert setting or other relatively formal musical event.  By this definition, Tim's songs are art songs. They are musical settings of poems. And they are intended to be performed in a concert setting. And they are a song cycle, very carefully arranged to be played in the order they appear on the album.  They're not Wagnerian. But Pink Floyd also wrote art songs that appear as a song cycle--think "The Wall".

Tim has spent the last 10 years (or more) doing an intensive study of all vocal music, in all genres he could find and study. He's delved into everything from Bulgarian women's choirs to 1920s men's collegiate a cappella clubs to opera to jazz...rock...pop...alternative rock...candy pop...classical choral...contemporary choral...modern...avante garde.... If sounds came out of someone's mouth and someone called it music, he wanted to hear, to try, to learn about that.  And, all the while, Tim, like a sponge, was sucking up all the good and filtering out all the bad, studying, learning, analyzing, writing, composing, writing more.  He would get up from dinner in the middle of a conversation and I'd find him three hours later emerging from his studio, music in hand. Our counters collected hundreds of little scraps of paper. Tim started carrying around little notebooks and a tape recorder everywhere, recording ideas, thoughts, snippets of poetry, observations, analyses of what he was seeing and hearing.  He went everywhere from rural Nebraska to Vegas, coast to coast both teaching and learning, observing, studying.

And writing.

Always songs. Usually for solo performer with a looping pedal, but sometimes with a vocal ensemble ranging from 2 to hundreds of people. I think there's a piece for violin, voice, and looping pedals (now if we can find a violinist who is interested in collaborating....). He became well-known for kazoo and comedy, but his computer filled up with Christmas cantatas, hymns, experimental choral pieces, solo-with-looping-pedals songs, amazing arrangements of choral works and popular songs alike. Art. That's what his soul produces. Commentary on society, poetry about finding God that can only be performed electronically because parts have to be played in reverse to fully express the ideas.

Ten years, Tim studied what makes something sound good. Or bad. What makes this chord right and that one wrong. What rules can be broken? What can you do with looping technology. He was writing looping songs--real songs, not just DJ beats--wiring the guitar effects pedals together himself, long before the looping technology was advanced enough to allow him to play the songs live. The technology has almost caught up. Tim has a looper designed, with six loops, on which he thinks he could perform any song he's ever written, live, using only his voice to make all the sounds. Nobody has made it yet, and when he's reached out to pedal companies, they have brushed him off. No demand. Really, that makes sense--no other loopers can do what Tim is doing, so there is no money in making a looping pedal that only he could use effectively.

And, despite the car troubles, he finally finished an album--one of many that the songs are already written for--that showcases his art music. His poetry. His heart and soul. It's not rock or pop music, even though you can hear lots of rock and pop sounds in there. It's not electronic music, even though you can hear that. You can hear jazz. You can hear all kinds of stuff. You can hear the poetry, and it begs to be parsed and played with. But what he's written are art songs for the 21st century, using (same as Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, Liszt, etc) the instruments and sounds of our day to express ideas that apply to our day. It definitely pushes the boundaries of what is "choral" music, and challenges the definitions of choral, solo, vocal, live, looping...but it is all those things.

I just don't want anyone to be shocked when they turn it on. If we ever get to produce it (car repairs took the entire finishing and production budget. Grrrr....).  There are no kazoos. There are no pianos. There are lovely vocals, but there are also robot voices. There are lighthearted moments, but it's not comedy.

This is art music.

With rock and pop sounds.

But it's really, really good.

Tim's new album

So, you might have noticed I used to blog a lot more.

Why did I cut back? I was waiting for a chance to share some good news. And it was a lot longer in coming than I thought it would be, so I just kept waiting.

But we're finally close to something good, so I'm going to write about it.

Fourteen months ago, Tim realized he needed to record a solo album. So, for a little over a year, every spare moment he has spent at the studio recording. Most of the songs were already written--he was performing a full-length live show, after all. Lots of them have been rewritten as he's worked, though.

There were several months where we spent long hours searching for someone who "got" the music enough to mix and master it for us. Tim, obviously, could hear it in his head. Somehow (not sure how this happened), I could hear what it was supposed to be. A very small handful of other people could hear what it was supposed to sound like, or at least when it wasn't hitting the mark. And nobody else could, including most of the sound engineers we sent it to. We tried getting songs mixed by several top-notch engineers, and the songs sounded great--but had been transformed into a different feel and sound than they were supposed to have. It quickly became apparent that the mixing engineers were all very talented, but somehow Tim was failing to convey to them exactly what he wanted the finished product to sound like. All the finished versions were shiny and pretty and poppy.

But that was a problem.

Because Tim wasn't writing an album of pop songs. It's an album of art songs.

With a lack of funds to pay engineers anyway, Tim took himself to the studio and learned how to do it himself. And he did so well that other engineers started telling him he should be taking clients--his mixing was superior. Even the mastering engineer he worked with said, when given a few tracks to master, that there wasn't very much for him to do. It all sounded great.

And now, 14 months and lots and lots of learning later, Tim's car broke down near the studio. So he walked on over there and worked all day, is spending the night, and will work all day tomorrow, and then it will be done. At least, the music will be. Then he has to get the songs mastered and the album mastered, and do the liner notes and CD cover design. But the music is done.

And it's really really good.

"The Funky Introvert" is an album of art songs--of lieder.  Truthfully, it's a song cycle, but Tim doesn't always perform them together live because the entire cycle is an hour long (and, when the companion album is finished--yes, it's half-way done, too--will be 2 hours long.).  Most people probably won't recognize them instantly as "art songs" because Tim is not a classical music nazi. He believes that all kinds of music have something to offer the world, so he's spent a decade studying every form of vocal music and has taken the best of all he's learned and incorporated it all into these songs.  There are elements of jazz, rock, pop, electronic, classical, etc. It is an exploration of the human voice, and the intersection between voice and technology (and, thematically, between humanity and technology). Technically, the songs are performed a cappella--there is nothing on the album except the human voice. But it doesn't sound like "Acapella" stylistically, and you'll swear you are hearing instruments.

We openly and frequently acknowledge that there is nothing truly "new" out there--that everything is part of a tradition, is derived from and influenced by something else. So I make no claims that you've never heard anything like this before. It's never true when people say that. But I will mention that one of the mixing engineers who listened to it said that, while there is nothing truly new out there, this is the closest he's ever heard to something that is truly unique.

It's an amazing piece of work, complex and layered and poetic and interesting. I can't wait until we have physical copies available that I can share.

For now, though, I'm thrilled that there's finally good news. The music is ready.

Did I just read that?

"Skydiver in Florida after parachute fails to open"

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/20/skydiver-in-florida-after-parachute-fails-to-open/?intcmp=obinsite

So does that mean Florida is heaven? Or hell?