Funny kids

Jack's grammar is just delightful to me.

Tonight he said,

"The sun is go nigh-night."

And also,

"Turn the 'puter on school me." (He wanted to turn the computer on to do his online preschool.)

Easter Candy Season

It's Easter candy season! And since I'm on a big DIY junk food binge, I'm making a list of the things I want to try:

Pies (or just eat this stuff as pudding):
Chocolate marshmallow pie
Peanutbutter marshmallow pie
Nutella marshmallow pie
Or swirled pie with more than one flavor of marshmallow cream filling...

Homemade marshmallows

Chocolate bunnies (this is where the whole Easter Candy tradition started--cheaper to make than buy chocolate bunnies, and a whole lot more fun)

Candy fillings for chocolates:
     peanut butter
     marshmallow
     peanut butter and marshmallows
     orange cream
     nutella cream
     vanilla cream
     caramel
     coconut cream
     mint cream
     caramel and marshmallows
     dulce de leche (since I made some by accident)
     graham crackers
     graham crackers and marshmallows
     graham crackers, marshmallows, and peanut butter
     graham crackers, marshmallows, and caramel
     cherry
     cherry with vanilla cream
     cherry cream?
     chocolate cream

And what Tim proposed:  No bake cookies made from graham crackers, caramel balls, marshmallows, and chocolate

And I'm trying to figure out an easy and quick way to coat the candies with chocolate. It's always a pain to do them one at a time on a fork. I probably should just give in and buy some molds. Then I could make some goopier fillings, too.

I also need to remember to buy some milk chocolate chips. They're more expensive, but often the semi-sweet chips are too strong of a dark chocolate flavor for the fillings (like for caramel).

Given that I've been going overboard with treats lately, I likely will try all of these. But I'm trying to convince myself to work in SMALL batches. Like divide one batch of filling into four different flavors instead of making four batches of filling.

I'm excited, though, because I finally made a perfect batch of sweetened condensed milk, and I remembered to buy a bunch of powdered sugar, so I have plenty to make into fillings for my chocolates!

Home Made Sweetened Condensed Milk

So I had a kind of pie-making binge weekend, and in the process I ran out of sweetened condensed milk, since I made two batches of homemade caramel (in the microwave! It's SO easy--just mix it up, microwave until it's thick stirring every 3 minutes. Way easier than stovetop. But I digress) last week, and then two pies that had sweetened condensed milk in them, and I just plumb ran out. Unlike tomato sauce, it's not something I usually keep dozens of cans on hand.

But a friend of mine had mentioned that a mutual friend makes her own sweetened condensed milk, so I thought I'd see if I could make some myself, since I really wanted a key lime pie and the main ingredients are lime juice (I had that, weirdly) and sweetened condensed milk (sc milk, combined with any acid, turns into a gel, which is why it is the foundation of many pies, including my favorite: cherry cream) and I had no car. (Also, I realized that easter candy season is upon us, and my cream candy filling recipe is based on sweetened condensed milk).

I emailed my friend for her recipe and found my mom's old homemade sweetened condensed milk recipe (on the back of her caramel recipe, of course). I looked some up online and found a thousand variations. My friend's recipe is:

Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 c. hot tap water
2 c. sugar
4 c. dry milk powder
1/4 c. melted margarine

Put hot water into the blender. Add the sugar, dry milk powder and melted margarine. Put the lid on the blender whirl it around for a full minute. The mixture will be kind of thin, but will thicken up after standing for about an hour. Store in frig or freeze. Makes about 4 cups = 3 cans condensed milk.

So I tried making powdered-milk-based sweetened condensed milk. It worked! Unfortunately, I could still taste the powdered milk flavor, even through the lime flavor in the pie, and I'm not a fan of powdered milk flavor, to put it mildly.

So then I remembered that I had seen a lot of recipes where you actually condense the milk on the stove as I had been prowling around the web looking for powdered milk based recipes. But milk is expensive. So I spent an hour doing a little math and calculated the cost of making sweetened condensed milk using two other recipes I found vs just buying a can.

Buying a can of sweetened condensed milk at WalMart in Longmont costs $1.68 a can, or $1.34 a cup (1 can is about 1 1/4 cups even though it's 14 oz--it's oz weight, not oz volume in a sweetened condensed milk can, and, unlike with tomato sauce, they aren't equal). And they're often out, so you might have to buy it somewhere else in town where it costs significantly more.

The easiest looking recipe I found, which I haven't tried yet, is to take a can of evaporated milk, stir in 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and heat it until the sugar is dissolved and it's "thickened" (whatever that means. I hate finding that word in recipes--HOW THICK does that mean, thickened? Drives me nuts.) This recipe costs $0.63 per cup because evaporated milk is that much cheaper than sweetened condensed, and sugar is cheap, too.

And the more complicated recipe that I liked was written up by a Malaysian lady.  Of course I researched dozens of recipes and concluded that most were plagiarized from one original (although I couldn't tell which was the original)--and this on supposedly professional recipe sites. Embarrassing. Do they think they're the only site people look at and nobody will notice?

So of course I took a conglomerate of different recipes and tried it. I mixed up sugar and milk in the crock pot and cooked it until it had reduced by half, and it was still pretty thin but people on blogs and in comments had assured me it would thicken as it cooled, and it did but it was still kind of thin.  But they all said it was thinner but worked fine in candy recipes and stuff.  I also stirred in butter, like some recipes suggested, and that just floated to the top and solidified there as the milk cooled, so that was a fail. And I stirred in vanilla, which made a delicious flavor but not the pure sweetened condensed milk flavor I was looking for.

So we made rainbow fudge with it.  Aside from the fact that it was far too sweet to be edible, the stuff never did set up. It was just as runny as could be. Obviously the too-thin sweetened condensed milk was not sufficient.

Back to the drawing board. I googled. I read comments on recipes that said stuff like "Mine didn't set up so I tried this...." And I made another batch in the crock pot.

Cooked it on high instead of low until it reduced by half. Cooking it on low (the first time round) took 16 hours to reduce by half. On high it only ("only") took 12. (You have to do it with the lid off or it doesn't reduce, by the way). But it was still far too thin. So I added baking soda, like some commenters swore worked.  No good. Still too thin. Extra sugar did nothing. Frustrated, I poured the stuff out of the crock pot into a sauce pan and boiled the heck out of it.

While I was doing that, I realized something. Altitude. The recipe was written for Malaysia, on sea level. I'm at nearly 6000 feet. Boiling sugar at this altitude never works the same because the boiling temperature is different, so I have to make candy by the cold water test rather than by a candy thermometer temperature or it doesn't work.

I boiled it until I thought it was thick enough, and then put it in jars and refrigerated it over night. Success! Except I'd cooked it too long this time and had just hit the line between sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche. SUPER delicious. Slightly overcooked. I made it into a key lime pie anyway. I really wanted one that didn't taste like powdered milk!

Anyway, that all got me thinking--of course I should look up dulce de leche recipes and see if they were any better than sweetened condensed milk recipes. Because sc milk is just undercooked dulce de leche. The ingredients are the same.  And that was really, really helpful.

For one, the dulce de leche recipes reminded me what I knew and forgot--the thickness of the finished product is not based on cooking time but on cooking temperature when you're dealing with sugar, which is why a sea-level recipe won't work at high altitude in the crock pot to thicken, only to reduce.

So here's what worked up here in Colorado.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe (DIY)

6 cups of whole milk (I hear skim milk doesn't work, but cream does--that would be amazing, but not cheaper)
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda (totally optional--it browns if it you're into that kind of thing)

Stir all ingredients together in the crock pot and cook on high with the lid off until the mixture has reduced by half--about 12 hours. (I checked this with a skewer. I dipped it straight into the liquid when I started and then drew a line around the skewer at the liquid line. Then I measured with a ruler and drew another line around the skewer exactly half way down. When the liquid reached the lower line, it had reduced enough.) Pour the condensed liquid into a large sauce pan (use a really really big one, like a soup pot, because it climbs). Boiled it on medium and then low until it thickened enough. (You can test it by putting a little in a spoon and setting the spoon on an ice cube--when it cools to the right thickness, you've cooked it long enough.) I did NOT stir the whole time--after I turned it to low, I stirred just every 5 minutes or so to let the steam out. If you want dulce de leche, cook it until it's light brown and thicker.  Pour it into glass jars, cover, and refrigerate. If it looks like there are hardened bits in it, pour it through a strainer into the jars.

This recipe cost only $0.43 per cup. And it made a little over 2 cans worth (about 2.5 - 3 cups). So it's definitely cheaper, and not very hard.

I'm not completely satisfied yet, of course. I need to try:

--cooking it on the stove the whole time (I hear it works but that it can require you to strain the milk at the end), for 2-4 hours total

--cooking it in a pan in the oven. I read you can use that to make dulce de leche, so I'm wondering if you can do sc milk that way, too

--boiling the milk and sugar together first and THEN putting it in the crock pot with the lid off, so the crock pot can maintain the higher temperature (it never did actually get to boiling when I started it cold, on low or on high)

--using the caramel method (microwaving it). It works for white sauce and caramel, so maybe sweetened condensed milk, too? Probably would have to reduce the milk first, though, on the stove or in the crock pot.

--trying it without the baking soda. Most recipes don't use it, and I suspect it's extra. Dulce de leche recipes say it's just to help it brown.

I liked using the crock pot because it was so gentle--it didn't burn or scald or otherwise ruin the milk. Nothing grainy or lumpy or needing straining. But it also didn't thicken it. Combining that with the stovetop worked fine.

Those might all fail, but at least I know now how to make both sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche without a can.

(With a can, the best dulce de leche ever is made by boiling the can, unopened, for 2-4 hours. But you have to keep water over the can or it can explode. Tim exploded a can once doing this, so it really is not a myth.)

Just asked Jack if he wanted some pie. He said no.

Baby came 2 months ago, and now I have energy like I haven't in a year. It's lovely. I tend to go overboard on things as a result.

Last Saturday was Super Pi day (3/14/15--the first digits of the mathematical number pi).  We couldn't go to our friends' pie party to celebrate because it was also St. Patrick's Day Weekend, which is a super busy time for Irish bands and the band Tim sings with, Delilah's Revenge, had the day booked full and they needed our van to drive themselves and their gear around.  (And our other two cars are broken. Of course.)

So we decided to have a pie party at home.

And I kind of got carried away.

I only own 4 pie pans, one of which I really need to send to Aunt Donella since my kids destroyed one of her pie pans. But that's a tangent. Only own 4 pie pans, so I could only make 4 pies. So I started poking around online to see if it's possible to make chocolate pie crusts (it is). And then I found myself wandering around a website called Mr. Food, which had a lot of good recipes that were easy.

And we ended up with four pies: Marshmallow Cream (based on this recipe but highly modified), Peanut butter cream, cranberry cream (only we left the pineapple out), and key lime.  Then Monday we found strawberries on sale, so we made strawberry cream cobbler, which was really good. And then Tuesday we made rainbow fudge (didn't set up and was far, far too sweet, looked tie dyed by the time we were done, and was very beautiful) and another marshmallow pie because some people didn't get any from the first one.

They were all good, but the marshmallow pie was my own modification of a recipe and it held so much promise!  So today we made a mandarin marshmallow pie, and I remembered having pineapple cream that was made with marshmallows, so I found that recipe and we're going to try that, too.

See, I get carried away!

But I did want to share the marshmallow pie recipe because it was so yummy and so versatile and not written down anywhere else.

Marshmallow Pie

24 large marshmallows (2 1/2 cups of mini)
1/2 c milk
1/3 c ice cream (any flavor--this will flavor the pie)
8 oz tub of whipped topping or 2 c whipped cream
Graham cracker or chocolate cookie pie crust

Heat the marshmallows and milk on medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows melt completely. Set aside and let it cool for 15 minutes. Stir in the ice cream until it's melted completely. Fold in the whipped cream. Put the mixture in the pie crust and freeze for 2 hours or until set up.

This was super yummy, if you like marshmallows. It would taste fantastic with anything that tastes good with marshmallows stirred in or drizzled on top (chocolate syrup, chopped peanut butter cups, fruit, etc). The finished product tastes like marshmallows flavored like whatever ice cream you put in.

So from there we made a Mandarin Marshmallow pie.

The recipe:

24 large marshmallows or 2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 c milk
1/3 c liquid from a can of mandarin oranges or orange juice
1 small can or 1 cup mandarin orange slices (canned)
8 oz or 2 c whipped topping or whipped cream
Graham cracker pie crust

As with the plain marshmallow pie recipe, melt the marshmallows with the milk over medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows are completely melted. Remove from heat and let it cool 15 minutes. Stir in juice from mandarin orange can or orange juice. Fold in whipped topping/cream and then fold in orange segments. Pour into crust and freeze 2 hours or until set.

So now my brain is buzzing....chocolate marshmallow pie, snickers marshmallow pie, coconut marshmallow pie, etc.

So tonight when it was time to taste the mandarin orange marshmallow pie, I asked Jack, "Do you want some pie?"

He said, "No. Fish."

So I ate pie. And he ate fish.

Might have gone overboard with the pie, I suppose.

Did I just read that?

Really really sad story about a kid who committed suicide. But the parents said this about it: ""He is a good kid and has no substance abuse or other issues," they posted. "This is the first time he has ever done anything like this.""

Granted, the parents probably posted that on facebook when it was a search-and-rescue operation and didn't know their son had killed himself. But the news reporter who put the article together put the quote after a paragraph about how devastated the parents are that their son killed himself.

And that makes it a funny quote.  Because how many times can you do something like that?

(Still, it's a really tragic story. Just poorly written.)

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2015/03/09/body-philly-area-teen-who-vanished-after-getting-homework-note-found/?intcmp=ob_article_footer_text&intcmp=obnetwork

Did I just read that?

"Woman dies after collision with street poll"

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33748322&nid=148&title=woman-dies-after-collision-with-street-poll&s_cid=queue-1

Seriously--you have to be careful around the guy wandering the street with the clipboard and microphone. Those street polls are dangerous to run into.

Did I just read that?

This whole article had me laughing--not so many mistakes (although there is one) but the phrasing just put a comedic spin on things.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33741923&nid=148&title=2-hospitalized-after-churchyard-crash-vehicle-fire&fm=home_page&s_cid=topstory

Lines that made me laugh:

"According to police, the car left the road for the lawn of an LDS meetinghouse. It went through two fences and hit a tree before coming to rest alongside the church. "The tree slowed it down quite a bit," said Unified police detective Ken Hansen. "Had it not hit the tree, it probably would have gone inside the church where there was a funeral going on." Hansen said the car's abrupt stop lit the bushes and shrubs next to the church on fire. The greenery, in turn, lit the car, endangering both passengers. A man attending the funeral soon extinguished the flames with a church fire extinguisher."

I don't know what it was about that passage that cracked me up...but just imagine it! Like a keystone cops episode.

And then this error: "Police are investigating potential impairments, including speed."

Speed is an impairment? I guess maybe that's the problem you have when you've got ADHD.

Funny Kids

For 9 months I was too sick for makeup. And for the last 7 weeks I've been too sleep-deprived for makeup. But today I felt good, so I put makeup on. Jack just looked at me, looked again, and then said, "Why dirt on eyes, Mom?"  He tried to wipe it off, and then said, "You have a goopy on eyes, Mom."  :)

Energy-making home

Anda and I have spent a lot of time over the years dreaming up ways people could harness "people energy" to make electricity for their homes.

Things we've thought of:

Mini solar panels that charge just one lightbulb, mounted around the house on the outside or on the roof. The technology exists, but it's used for shoplights and for camping bulbs (or lights used in rural third-world areas).  I'd like to make some can lights that mount into an outside wall near the roof line, with the solar panel on the outside of the wall. I'd put a line of them all across the living room wall and use them in addition to regular lights. You'd have to wire them to a light switch, but that shouldn't be too hard since those camping lights and shed lights have switches.  Each bulb would have a battery that charged through the day and lighted the bulb at night--the bulbs aren't particularly bright, but a bunch of them would be fine.

Windmill

Moving water. Lots of water moves into, around, and out of the house. There should be a way to harness that moving water energy on a micro scale to produce power.  Like, Anda said, why not a little generator that makes a bit of electricity when the toilet flushes and fills (on the clean water end, of course).  Or on the water main--they already have a meter there. Why not make the meter also a mini generator/battery charging kit?

Walking around. Anda says why not pressure plates under flooring and on stairs to use the impact energy to convert to useful power for the house?  They're doing this under a road in the Netherlands. Why not on a micro scale in your house?

There is a lot of thermal energy in houses. Why not put in a passive attic fan--the kind that vents heat out in the summer (these are all over in Las Vegas)--and capture the energy of the heat rising out of the attic?

Also, recycling heat. We are constantly venting heat off things--back of the fridge, back of the air conditioner, off the processors in computers. We wondered why we don't find a way to capture that heat (especially since it's the form of moving air a lot of times) to "repay" the cost of venting it (running the fans that get it off the machines).

None of these would make a lot of power. Nothing worth any money commercially.  But the idea we have is that each house might be able to collect enough little sources of power to make their own energy, at least in part, supplemented by the power company.  So the power company powers your fridge and computer, but you charge your phone and run all your lights from energy you make yourself.

Most of these are not possible for us to make ourselves, so we just keep dreaming.  But if I ever buy a new house or have money for remodeling, I'm totally going to make the can lights that are wired to mini solar panels outside.  That will be so easy.

Did I just read that?

"The technology could later be used to repair spinal chords, improve epilepsy, and diabetes." http://www.rawscience.tv/nanobots-fight-cancer-first-human-clinical-trial-in-2015/

I'm not sure what "to diabetes" means...

Funny kids

The kids asked me to start recording funny kids things again here.

So a couple from today:

Nathanael categorically refused to eat the cupcake he decorated for his Kindergarten class party.  He said the teacher said he should decorate it, but since she didn't mention eating it, he didn't have explicit permission and therefore should not eat it. He made me email the teacher to ask if it was okay.


For this next one to make any sense at all, you have to know that all my boys have their molars crowned. All their molars. And their front teeth pulled. And it usually happens before they are 3 years old because they are born with corrupt baby teeth, so they don't remember getting the teeth pulled or crowned--from their perspective, the teeth have always been silver.

Okay, so today Elijah peeked into Emmeline's mouth when she was "talking" to Tim (oh, so so cute to see her, at 5 weeks old, trying to have a conversation with her daddy).  Anyway, Elijah rushed over to me all excited and said, "Mom! Emmeline is getting teeth already!"  I said, "She is?"  He replied, "Yes! When she opened her mouth, I saw silver!"

:)

I guess the teeth just come in that way...

Now that I think about it, that would be less trouble if they came in crowned already.

Did I just read that?

"President Obama asks to end violence against women at Grammys" http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/02/08/president-obama-asks-to-end-violence-against-women-at-grammys/

The women attending the Grammys have traditionally been subject to violence, and the president is opposed....

Seeing a picture

The other day, a friend posted a picture on facebook that her 2-year-old daughter had created. It was a pretty picture, of a rainbow of lines drawn on lined paper.

I looked at it and thought, "Wow. That little girl is a scientist! See how she saw the pattern on the page (lines) and then recreated it, changing the variables (the color of the lines) to see what would happen.  That's amazing."

Her mother posted, along with the picture, a comment about how her daughter is clearly an artist, having created something so beautiful at such a young age.

It was the same picture and the same little girl, but our interpretations of what was going on in her mind, and the long-term results of that way of thinking, were profoundly different. And probably equally right. Or wrong. Obviously we can't guess what a little girl is going to become based on one picture (although her mom has a much better grasp on that than I do!).

It made me wonder, though, how much of what our children become is influenced by how we, from the outside, interpret them and their actions. Actually, that's kind of scary. What if she was born to be an artist, and I looked at the picture and saw the mind of a scientist at work and therefore provided her with science tools and toys, science camps, science magazines....all in good intentions of giving her what she might love most.  What if my interpretations of my own kids actually holds them back from developing into what and who they are?

Yikes.

Being a parent is scary. There are a million billion ways to do it wrong and mess it up.

Good thing kids keep giving us feedback, so that we can adjust course when we screw up or misread something. Good thing kids don't have to be just one thing or another. Good thing it's not my job to make them into that one thing (whatever it is), to mold them or create them or determine who and what they should be. Good thing I'm not the boss of their lives or futures, not the determiner of their souls.

Good thing most kids turn out just fine despite us parents and our mistakes. Hopefully they forgive me some day when they realize all the ways I did it wrong (because they will, at some point, realize). My intentions are good. They really are.

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.