moosebutter on YouTube with Corey Vidal

This is a very clever take on one of moosebutter's most popular, long-lasting songs, "Star Wars." And Corey does a mighty fine job of lip-synching the parts, although he doesn't always identify who is singing with complete accuracy (who would guess that sometimes it's Tim on the low notes, and sometimes on the tenor line!) Still, it's a fun video and he did a good job. The video has so many hits so fast that a news story has already been written about it. You can read it here:
http://www.11alive.com/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=123017&catid=186



NOTE: Please read the comments for Corey's take on my statement above. Corey was working with the 4-man sheet music, performing it as it is performed live, to a great extent (except that Tim really does say all of Luke's lines in the live performance, too) and I was going by the recording, which has even more than 4 parts, with someone multi-tracked here or there. So my apologies to Corey. Regardless, he did a fantastic job.

Great video!

Halloween in Jonesville

We had more than our usual share of frustration going into this holiday. Benjamin threw up last night. Tim's been sick for a week, and, judging from how deeply exhausted I've been, I have too. The car battery completely died and had to be replaced this afternoon. There was a moderate tragedy in the extended family that could get better or could get worse--we don't know yet--that we found out about early this afternoon. Oh, and I voted. Tim checked out the lines and said they were long, but not impossible, and sent me instead, figuring one of us had to vote on the 4th, and he would probably handle the longer lines that day better than I (and he's right).

So this is house the day went, divided between me and Tim but in this order: clean up Benji. Get car fixed instead of going to the birthday party I promised the kids we'd go to. Absorb bad news. Go vote. Try to get a confirmation of my pregnancy for Medicaid, but the office was closed for 'nevada day'. Come home and eat. Find costumes and dress everyone, complete with the usual changing of minds, lacking of pieces, and frustrations. Go buy candy to hand out. Go to the ward trunk-or-treating party, which included dinner and was really fun.

This was the first trick-or-treating adventure I remember where Tim got to participate, too. So I got to sit down and watch and hand out treats while Tim took our scientist, cheetah (that jaguar costume has been pretty flexible for us over the years!), mouse, and suave 'james bond' kitty around to get treats. Benjamin loved the 'punckin-mins' (I think this is a derivation of pumpkins and pikmin) and the 'calloween' (candy+halloween, but referring specifically to the candy). All together everyone seemed to have fun. I walked in to dinner area of the parking lot party and immediately noticed the brand of speakers the sound guy had set up, and how many and which directions they were aiming, and what kind of laptop and size of mixer he had set up, and which software he was running to choose the songs, and that (as usual) the sound was far far too loud for the audience. I guess I've been married to a musician for a while! Even with loud music, I far far prefer trunk-or-treating to trick-or-treating. You get the same amount of candy much faster, with less walking and everyone there are 'safe'--or at least you've met them in church before. I was surprised to find our neighborhood, which is totally ideally set up for trick-or-treating, with lots of houses in a circle, was deserted, with most of the lights off. Nobody in the neighborhood really has kids anymore, so nobody was really doing the holiday, although a few houses were decorated.

So we survived another holiday with no tears. That means its a glowing success, right?

Oh, and halloween in vegas? Pleasant. It was the first year ever I didn't have to find costumes that fit over coats, hats, and gloves, or worry about snow.

Holidays are hard for me because I dont' really care about them, but I know the kids do. The funny thing is, they won't remember any one particular holiday so much. It's more of the conglomerate of Halloweens they'll remember. That's why, despite the fact that I'm not big on an overload of traditions, I try to follow a few simple ones for the major holidays--or at the very least do it in the same simplified way every year--because the sameness every year is what will make it so the kids will remember that we 'did Halloween' (or christmas, or easter, or thanksgiving).

Besides--it's less work for me.

ADD jokes

How many kids with ADD does it take to change a lightbulb? Hey, lets go ride bikes!

from a T-shirt: "They tell me I have ADD. Look! A Chicken!"

good writing quote.

"After plot comes style. But in that order. You have to have a skeleton underneath your skin or else you're just an unappealing pile of flesh." Nathan Bransford, on what he would do for an MFA writing program (instead of what is being done right now).

The Illustrated Essence of Larynx

"Political Babes"

A different version of this should be posted tonight, and it should hit youtube, too, but here, for your listening pleasure, is Tim's latest finished song, featuring him and a lady named Judy on solos. I'll update the video when we get the visuals done.

gender

I saw this ad on craigslist today: "Seeking models of all genders...."

Gee....I thought there were only two genders. What am I missing?

our latest fun adventure

Mac-n-cheese=yuck.
Mac-n-cheese made with tub margarine and reconstituted powdered milk=double yuck.

(Hey--why is margarine spelled that way but pronounced as if it followed the rules for a soft g? It's the opposite problem of 'girl.' If you follow the rules, it should be pronounced 'jirl'. Once again betrayed by the vagaries of English spelling!)

So today's fun activities for the kids included getting out a little blow-up kiddie pool we bought for $1 off the clearance shelf at Food-4-Less, and combining that with 3 cans of shaving cream we've been carrying around for 5 years even though Tim hasn't used shaving cream in that time, and adding 4 young children and a little instruction on how to shake and spray. It was really really fun. Caleb ended up coated with slippery white, and we decided that, in the future when everyone's old enough to do slip-n-slides, we'll use shaving cream instead of water. Then a little hose action, and we had a whitewater wading pool to play in.

Later, the kids continued their dig for buried treasure in the back yard. The hole is getting quite big, but no treasures have come out of it yet except good memories and dirty hands, and a couple of scoldings for taking my best serving spoons out to dig with.

Making plans for upcoming holidays: so far we have requests for 3 kitty costumes and a vampire costume for halloween. Anda just has to be a cheetah. She has become absolutely fascinated by reading about animals, and cheetahs are the latest favorite. So last year's jaguar costume is going to become this year's cheetah. Dan and Ben just copy.

And the only thing we know for sure about thanksgiving this year is that we're going to have a cool whip pie. That was all the kids ate of the pies last thanksgiving, so we're even going to skip the crust, and just spoon cool whip into the pie plate and serve it that way. Jello was the only other thing the kids ate, and I'm wondering if I can get away with having a jello-cream-feast and skipping all the other stuff, except for me and Tim.

Do you know what's growing in your dishwasher?

Honestly, I don't know why dishwasher manufacturers don't make easily removable gunk screens like dryers have for lint.

Our dishwasher stopped working again, and I got fed up and prayed for a working dishwasher. The next morning, I went to work on google looking up how to remove the spray arm assembly so I could clean it. I figured that was the last thing I could try before we had to throw the whole thing out and start over.

Didn't ever learn how to remove the spray arm assembly, but I did find a bunch of forums discussing my exact dishwasher, with questions by regular folk and answers by handymen, that gave me a bunch of new ideas and enough instructions to pursue them.

I discovered very quickly that it's much much harder to work on the inside of a dishwasher when you are six months pregnant but the size of an average 8 months pregnant, with the baby all out front. I couldn't maneuver my body right to get into the dishwasher, reach things, etc. And the awkward positions made my sciatic nerve act up again. And just getting down on the floor and up again to, say, grab a different size socket for the socket wrench was difficult.

Following the instructions online, I removed the pump cover and found the pump was clean, but the inside of the cover had at least 1/4 inch pinkish crud on the inside, with a little black mold to even things out. How do I write YUCK as emphatically as I felt it?

So I removed the screen assembly in the back of the machine. That was easier said than done--two of the bolts are literally an inch under the heating element. I managed it, though, and found 2 inches of crud stuck behind the screens, gumming up the pump thing back there. Plus the screens were plugged with calcium/lime deposits from the hard water. So I cleaned all that up.

Then I had to run the machine several times empty to get all the gunk rinsed out of the spray arms, etc.

And things are looking better on that front--at least, freshly dirtied dishes are getting clean. The ones that were washed before are not getting cleaned and will have to be scrubbed by hand with a chore girl before they can be considered cleanable again.

What a pain.

And who would've guessed what gross stuff can collect inside a machine that processes soap and hot hot water at least once a day. Makes me wonder what kind of gunk got into the kids while we were using the dishwasher dirty!

I suppose if they were going to die from something, they would have already....

So that's two major appliances that have taken my time this week. No wonder my plan to work on one room a day hasn't made the house look any better (although Tim's work has...)

Duct Tape

I have now fixed a major appliance with duct tape. Hooray!

The washing machine wasn't draining, and, in desperation I lay my head down on the dasher inside (what the kids call the 'chugger') to bemoan my fate before looking for a free washer on craigslist when I noticed a bit of metal poking down. A little exploration revealed that the switch that indicates the washer door is closed was mounted with plastic screw mounts. Washers vibrate when they work, and apparently the vibration had slowly cracked the plastic screw mounts, and they broke off, dropping the switch too low for the door to trigger it. I duct taped it back up and once again am in the race to keep up with the mounds of dirty laundry.

It's not a permanent fix. The moisture in the washer loosens the duct tape, and I have to tighten it before every load. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out a way to wire the thing up using the screw holes. A plastic cable tie might be just the thing, and I think I have a few around here somewhere.

I am cursing Kenmore, though, for using a cheap plastic part. Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned nuts-and-bolts technology? Sure those sometimes worked themselves loose over the years--but then all you had to do was tighten them up and you're good to go!

Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with the dishwasher. I can't wash by hand because it hurts me terribly to stand in one place for very long, and it hurts to hold my arms up to wash dishes, and my hands lock up while I'm holding the dishes, both painful and annoying, as well as a claustrophobic experience. So we HAVE to have a dishwasher that gets the dishes clean. And mine sometimes does. But the water jets get plugged so often that I've come to the conclusion that, to keep the thing quiet, the water pressure inside isn't powerful enough--it certainly doesn't spray sauce off dishes. I think if I can fix the float somehow to make it so more water comes into the dishwasher, that might help. The water level does seem rather low. But this is one of those dang new-fangled, computer-driven dishwashers, and I don't know where the float is, or if it even has one! I am seriously considering moving to a run-of-the-mill, no-fancy-schmanzy-parts portable dishwasher. You know, the kind that you hook up to the faucet, and all you have to worry about breaking is the belt? I've always had good luck with those.

You really ought to read this....

This is a blog post by a 'publishing professional' about a book and discussion about the book she was involved in about how difficult it is to get truly non-partisan information, and why that is. Very interesting. I'll have to look up the book. I'm especially interested in the author's assertion that most people in her area are not with one of the major political parties in actual beliefs. So why do we grant those two major parties so much power, if we don't agree with them? I know I don't.

http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2008/10/your-information.html

Who to vote for....

Everyone I know is as puzzled as I am about who to vote for. McCain seems to be more of the same-old same-old, and he seems 'slimy'. Obama is charming, but so deeply entrenched in democratic same-old same-old, and he's extremely inexperienced. Both seem out to serve themselves and their friends over the American people.

Neither of them fills the need our country has right now. What we need is a person who is experienced with taking broken systems and fixing them. Someone who can take in all the input, work with corrupt or slimy or deeply entrenched politicians but not cave to them. Someone who can consider novel plans and implement new ideas without falling for whatever fad comes along. Someone who will consider what is right and best, and also what his people want, and not be swayed by special interest groups or lobbyists. Someone who can stand on his own two feet, but still listen to the people he is supposed to be serving. And someone with a proven track record in these things.

What we need is Mitt Romney.

I had just decided to write the man in, just so I could say I voted with my conscience instead of trying to 'psych out' an impossibly corrupt and mixed up game, when I discovered to my horror that Nevada doesn't allow write in votes at all because they use touch-screen voting machines!

Back to square one.

health care problems

This article really highlights for me, in statistics, what the health care problems in America are: lack of access to care, poor quality care, and overall poor health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/health/16infant.html?em

And the candidate's plans do nothing to really fix the problems. Both candidate's health plans are big bandaids that don't really address the problems, but actually feed them in the long run. We have a socialist bandaid (Obama's plan) and a capitalist bandaid (McCain's plan), and both require people or try to entice people to buy into the insurance system--which, as I see it, is actually the CAUSE of the health care problems in America.

Think about it--what is the crisis anyway? It's that poor people and sick people can't get care except in emergency rooms, which then overtaxes the hospitals by forcing them to take on all the welfare cases while also forcing them to neglect the true emergencies. And, since it's so unpleasant to get care in an emergency room, and since you can't go there except in an emergency, preventable problems are killing people.

Even poor people who have bought into the government's existing welfare health plans, like medicaid, don't have access to care--nobody takes medicaid. A boy in NY died because he couldn't find a dentist who would take medicaid. (So how Obama's plan to just put more people on medicaid will help is beyond me--not only does nobody take it, applying is impossible if you don't have a graduate degree, and the things they require to prove you exist can cost up to $100/person to obtain!).

Honestly, this crisis isn't going to be over until we get rid of the insurance companies and find a new way for people to pay for medical care. And the insurance companies, protest though they will, really are the part of the 'crisis' that needs addressing. They cost too much for many many families to get into, even if they are paid for in part by employers, they (instead of doctors) determine what care is acceptable for patients (nobody's talking about the hundreds of patients who die every year because the insurance companies wouldn't approve the care the doctors wanted to give, or wouldn't approve it on time), they deny access to care to those who need it most either by outright denying access, cancelling coverage, or making it so expensive people can't get it, they own the hospitals and doctors that give the care (why isn't anyone crying 'conflict of interest'?!). In short, they have blatantly put their profit margins ahead of the health, welfare, and financial stability of the people and the doctors.

The problem is, the insurance companies are all caught up on their bribes. As long as they continue to fund the politicians, what honest chance is there of the kinds of changes in the health care system we need?

I realize the socialize it-privatize it debate is not so easily brought to a happy conclusion, but right now medicine is essentially socialized anyway, but by a private, for-profit industry that has placed access to care into the hands of the people who can pay the most, and they're milking them for all they're worth.

That article says we pay more for care and get worse care than other countries in the world, and we're getting worse. Worse, even, than the socialist countries. Think about this....how is encouraging more people to buy into this corrupt system going to fix things?

Personally, having been denied access to medical care or given poor-quality, demeaning care for many years, I am starting to get anxious for a REAL solution. Would Christ run the medical system the way it runs now? Absolutely not.

what I've learned this week

I have learned this week that, to the world, chicken pox doesn't matter. Neither does strep, pregnancy, 'invisible' disability like ADD or fibromyalgia, teething, the sewer overflowing into the house, poverty, people being out of town, or stress.

They still hold you to a standard set by healthy women with no kids.

It isn't fair.

monsters

Daniel just informed me that there are monsters under my chair in the bedroom.

Anda added, 'Like most monsters, these are carnivores. Most carnivores don't eat people, but these do.'

So there you have it.

I Don't Think They Know What 'Simple' Means

From the side of the Ivory Soap packaging:

"simply ivory
simplement ivory

INGREDIENTS/INGREDIENTS: SODIUM TALLOWATE AND/OR ET/OU SODIUM PLMATE, WATER/EAU, SODIUM COCOATE AND/OR ET/OUT SODIUM PALM KERNELATE, GLYCERIN, SODIUM CHLORIDE, FRANGRANCE/PARFUM, COCONUT ACID*, PALM KERNEL ACID*, TALLOW ACID*, PALM ACID*, TETRASODIUM EDTA.

*CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THESE INGREDIENTS.
*CONTIENT UN OU PLUSIEURS DE CES INGREDIENTS."

'Simply' Ivory, huh?

I don't think I have ever seen a less exact, more complex list of ingredients. It's like a list of cookie ingredients that says, "May contain one or more of: eggs, flour, sugar, butter and/or shortening, vanilla...."

What exactly is in that soap, anyway?

Where do they get these questions?

Raising kids, I get more difficult questions than ever I answered in college.

Today, Dan asked, "Mom, do monkeys have fingernails?"

Um....I think so. I'll have to look up monkey pictures online to be sure.

Always a new trauma....

And this one is silly...

So the last agent who requested my book got back to me with a "it moves too fast--both the readers and the characters need a pause here and there to rest and get to know each other." This was a variation on a comment I got from another agent who read the book pre-rewrite, and I had tried to fix the problem. You can see my reaction on the previous post about this. And it was even a quick response, well-phrased, and kind! I guess I just had to cry it out once, since I don't remember crying over any other rejection ever. She wasn't even an agent I've been following online for any amount of time, or anything like that.

Still, I went through several days of "Do I change it, or is the book what it is and it's time to move on?" and also "So I know I can write a killer query--can I write a book, or am I wasting my time?" and also, "Being mormon is an integral part of me and my outlook on life, and therefore the output of my writing. Is it possible that there really aren't any other women who want squeaky clean, plot-driven books--is the outlook too sweet for the content to be sellable?" and also, "Some of the stuff I want to write is driven by the conflict a main character has between their Mormon beliefs and their interactions with the real world, but one agent told me that Mormon references are a no-no in literature, even if it's a cultural rather than didactic reference (in other words, even if the character is mormon and neither of us is preaching). If I get tied up in a career as a writer, would I lose the freedom to tell these stories, too? Is it better to give up and feed my writer soul and never be published than to be constrained to fit someone's view of what should be written?"

I decided the only answer is that I can only tell the stories I have to tell, not anyone else's. And that nobody else can tell my stories. Orson Scott Card, in a lecture at BYU years ago, said that if you don't tell your stories, they are lost to the world, and that's a tragedy. I also concluded that the reason I write is because I need to write like I need to eat and need to love. To feed that need, I have to just write, and not worry about what is going to come of it.

That settled in my mind, I was perfectly content to never even pursue publishing again.

THEN I found my thoughts drifting to the reality that in times of turmoil and stress (think the '30s and '40s, for example), people need an escape and they seek out music, dance, social events, and the so-often disdained 'escape fiction'--just the stuff that I like to write. Many of the enduring forms of art in America really took hold and became a force to be reckoned with during those hard times, including jazz, American-style partner dancing (swing, etc), and the ever-popular murder mystery. Bad times promote good art, and also create consumers of fun art--not the depressing, 'literary' stuff, but the stuff that takes you away for a little while. So if this time of turmoil continues and gets worse, which I think it will, wouldn't it be a favor for the 'lightweight' artists of the world to provide an escape for people?

So, with all that floating in my mind, I checked my email and discovered an agent got back to me. I had emailed her the day before I got the previous rejection because on her blog she had expressed a new-found interest in a genre I write. I had been following her agency's blog for over a year because they have a fantastic reputation, and I liked their blogging personalities. I also really liked the insight and encouragement I got from their client guest-bloggers.

I assumed it was another rejection, since she's a top-of-the-game agent, and not a 'baby agent' in a good agency. Still, I always read them.

And I nearly fell out of my seat--she wanted to see the first 3 chapters of the book.

Instead of being excited, I was horrified and absolutely overcome with doubts about my work.

It took me 24 hours to open my manuscript and see if I could fix the chapters and still mail them in a timely manner. It was another hour before I could make myself read it. And I had the same experience I did when I was studying for finals in college and got to a point when I was just done, regardless of whether I felt like I knew enough to pass the test. I realized that I am done with that book. It is what it is, and I'm ready to move on. For now. If an agent or editor wanted to work with the book, I'm sure I'd have no problem dusting it off again, but for now, I just can't go on changing the manuscript for every person's opinion. I mean, really, the agent before the one who said it moves too fast said it moved too slow!

It was another 8 hours before I printed the pages and decided to send them. 25 pages won't hurt her to read much (and she could quit after 1 or 2; I've heard agents can tell right away if they're going to like something). The worst that happens is she says, "No thanks." If I never send the pages, it's an automatic "no thanks."

But what happened to my resolve to settle myself happily in a private, non-published world and feed my writerly soul and spend happy hours with my children? Can I take the continual ups and downs of trying to get published, or will I finally be content to let it go and not care as much about the outcome?

(and isn't it when you finally adopt that attitude that things start to happen?)

Anyone know any resources for this?

I absolutely love the curriculum we use from Compass Learning that we access through Time4Learning.com. The lessons are age-appropriate, interactive, animated, and truly educational.

They are also only accessible through a subscription to Time4Learning, and usable only online. That means we have to have internet access and continue to pay for each child who wants to use the curriculum.

What I wish I could have, and want to know if anyone has ever heard about anywhere, is a curriculum as well-made and thorough as Compass's Learning Odyssey, and as interactive, computer-based, and in tune with the educational possibilities of computer-based learning, but that I can purchase on cd and then use for all the children like people do textbooks, handing it down to each kid as is appropriate. I realize I would lose the continually-updated status of the curriculum as it is now--it would become static--but it would be bought and paid for and I wouldn't have to worry about losing it if we missed a month of paying for the internet, or the subscription, or whatever.

The only thing I have been unhappy about with the Compass curriculum is that their math program is not well leveled (introduction to money for first graders includes adding total values of mixed coin sets; lessons on money for 2nd graders include several that are along the lines of 'sort this pile of coins by type of coin; put all the pennies here, all the nickels here,' etc. Many of the math quizzes that accompany each lesson test things that were not taught in the lesson, which is a source of great frustration to new learners, and very discouraging. It's also not a 'spiral' program, like Saxon math is. I don't mind that they include elements of 'new math' (the numerical equivalent of 'whole language reading') because they still teach the basics, but it seems like it would be so easy to program a spiral kind of math program!

Anyway, if there is anything out there like this for homeschoolers that you know of, point me in the right direction. If not....I know a couple of designers and programmers. Wanna pick up a side project?

I'm sure I'm not the only homeschooler who would like to own and interactive e-curriculum, especially one that is fun and solid educationally. And I imagine there are some school districts that wouldn't mind investing in a product just once, instead of having to subscribe year after year--especially in foreign countries. You could partner with that guy who provides laptops for kids in third world countries, and the curriculum could be provided for local neighborhood home schools worldwide, or developing schools around the world (like in Africa), where you might not have competent teachers available--or the money to access the internet or the resources to pay for a subscription to a program like Compass Odyssey--and for volunteer tutoring organizations that work with at-risk populations like kids in inner cities or in mental institutions.

Latest Benjamin Chaos

So the landlords made a surprise visit (only 22 hours after I got notice they were coming, too, so illegally), and I spent the day before cleaning like mad so the house would be clean. Didn't make it all the way there, but I got the bedrooms, hall, bathrooms, and the worst of the kitchen done.

They came, they left, we started getting ready to pick up Tim from the airport, and I realized Benji had been quiet for a long time, and when I listened, I heard splashing.
Bad sign.

I sent Caleb into the bathroom, and he brought out a drippy Ben, who submitted to being cleaned up.

Episode over, right?

Oh, no.

I went into the bathroom a bit later and found the little monkey had fished wads of toilet paper out of the toilet and they were now plastered to the shower, the walls, the outside of the potty, and all over the carpeted floor.

I am reminded of the story my mom tells of the time she went to the doctor and said, regarding one of her babies who was colicky or something, "One of us needs a tranquilizer. I don't care who."

fishy fishy fishy

This was the funniest thing I've read in months:

"...and there's just no way to sanitize live fish."

I found it stated seriously in a serious article, which can be found here:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432132,00.html

And don't bother trying, because we now have it on the strictest authority that there's no way to sanitize a live fish.

Benjamin

Just 17 months old, this child has become the largest source of work I have ever encountered.

He has a lot of energy, for one.

And he's a climber, so he can reach just about anything in the house.

He's smart.

And he's pretty sure that he knows more than anyone else. Even me. He's so sure he's right that you can't even negotiate with him. He just gives you this look and then, the instant your back is turned, goes back to what he was doing.

Strong-willed, which I am and have done 3 times already, doesn't begin to describe this child.

Benji is the little duck from the old cartoon "I want to flush it again," Dennis the Menace, Calvin, and that kid from "the Ransom of Red Chief," all rolled into one and too young to punish.

Oh, he knows what 'no' means--he says it to the other kids all the time, scolding them for getting in his way--but he doesn't care if someone says it to him. They don't really know what they're talking about.

And he loves to empty things. Like a new box of paper, down to the individual sheets. The dirty dishes out of the dishwasher onto the floor as fast as I get them into the dishwasher--and then he closes it on your hands while you're loading it still. Water out of anything--sink, pot soaking on the counter, toilet, etc.--especially onto the floor. Boxes of toys, books, garbage, fabric, clothes, or anything else. Keys off the keyboards. Generally speaking, the increasingly full floor is the receptacle of these things. It's bad enough when he tosses a plate full of grated cheese onto the floor. It's so much worse when he's already dumped onto the same spot a box of toys, a box of baby clothes, and every dirty dish that was sitting on the table. The ants think he's wonderful.

The 3 year old and 5 year old think he's wonderful, too. Half the time, they joyfully join in the shenanigans, more than tripling the trouble that can be--and is--caused.

Ben's the kind of person who, when Tim said, "Don't touch my mic stand," he moved his hand down two inches and grabbed it again, and then looked at Tim, grinning, to see what he would do. They repeated this behavior until Benji had been told not to touch every inch of the mic stand--one inch at a time. I don't think he's touched it since then, but the process of getting there is enough to get any parent pulling their hair out and any teacher calling for ritalin. I can just hear him at 13 years old, saying, "But you didn't say not to touch the legs of the mic stand." or "But you didn't say anything about not touching the mic." or "Did you mean the whole mic stand? I thought you meant just don't touch it right there on that spot."

Tim literally had to take him off the chair and out of the room, saying, "Don't touch my computer" 6 or 8 times before Benji took him seriously and burst into tears. For about 15 seconds. And then he found something else to do.

But what parent has time or energy to teach a child a lesson ten times before he realizes you're serious about not putting spoons in the microwave or drinking from the toilet?

Benji loves an audience, so it's getting difficult to keep any number of children in the room with him still and quiet--like for bedtime, or singing time in nursery--because he sees quiet people as his own personal audience, and immediately and determinedly begins to entertain. And he's good at it. He knows exactly what to do to run the show, get the kids going (even kids who have different things that get them riled up), and then keep the show rocking and the audience focused on him and entertained. This may be a great asset to him if he goes into Tim's field. It makes putting 4 kids to bed in the same room (and they insist on sleeping in the same room) impossible. Last night Dan, who is sick, fled to my room. Benji followed him, climbing on my bed and standing in the middle, singing at the top of his lungs 'I know we can do it" (a song Anda wrote that Ben and Dan sing together often) and dancing the dance that goes with it. He was earnestly trying to entice Dan into one of his favorite games--do a show on Mom's bed. I finally left the big kids reading Calvin and Hobbes while I put me and Ben in a dark, quiet room to calm him down, where he protested sincerely, "I'nna sing. I'nna dance."

To his credit, he also loves to cuddle. He loves to sing and dance and gets great delight from making people happy. He works incredibly hard, and rarely gives up, despite opposition or difficulty (see, this is an asset that, at this moment, drives me nuts because I can't get him to stop doing a wrong thing), and even when people won't help him. I have watched him more than once cry because he can't move something that's too big and heavy for him, but keep working through his tears until the task is accomplished. He is loving and devoted. He's a born leader, hard worker, and sensitive to other's pain. He gets over sorrows quickly, and is generally cheerful and friendly. In fact, most of the things that make him a difficult toddler will make him an exceptionally incredibly adult. If he makes it that far.

This child will grow up to be a force to be reckoned with. I just hope he is a force for good. And that is not something anyone is going to be able to coax him to--he's going to have to decide for himself.

something to think about

Something to think about:

Consider all the systems in our nation that are widely considered broken. Education, health, welfare, etc. Consider all the major issues that have the country divided, like abortion, homosexuality, gangs, or what to do with sexual predators, the mentally ill, kids who don't fit the mold, etc.

Now consider what would happen if we stopped for a minute and asked, not "how can I offend the fewest people and guarantee my re-election," but, "what should our mantra be in order to build the strongest nation possible?"

It would entail something like changing our focus from non-offense and appeasement to building strong families, since they are accepted widely as the basis of society. What if, instead of focusing on laws and policies that excuse and support (or even just refuse to condemn) promiscuity, for example, the national leaders accepted as a standard that there should be no sex before marriage, fidelity within marriage, and a sincere focus on raising healthy children.

It would not erase the problems or the issues. Not right away. And it would offend a lot of people, but the policies now offend a lot of people, too.

What it would do is change the discussions. When people talked about, say, abortion, you wouldn't get the two unrealistic extremes--absolutely none ever no matter what or go ahead whenever you want and the government will pay for it. People would suddenly be asking, not, 'how can we patch _____," but "what needs to be done for things to be right?"

Such a paradigm shift would not automatically solve all the issues or prevent new ones from arising. It would, however, change the debates in such a way that it would be possible to solve the problems. Right now, nobody can find the answers because they're asking all the wrong questions.

a not-atypical evening

Quite sick, Caleb got a blessing, which I juggled Ben through.

Very late, I remembered I was supposed to edit a paper for a sister-in-law who has gone back to school. It's too late for her to get any benefit out of my help before her students-reading-student's papers session (why do teachers do that?! It's totally useless and only serves to intimidate everyone--the blind leading the blind, often coached, unfortunately, by the blind). Anyway, it takes longer than it should because Benji pulled both shift keys off the laptop, and the hyphen key randomly falls off and must be replaced. While I was working on that, I looked up to see Daniel shoving a king-sized sheet into the kitchen garbage can. When questioned, he said he was keeping it away from Ben. Anda helped resolve that one for me--I'm not sure why Dan thought the garbage was safe from his brother, since Benji spent a great deal of time throwing toys into the same garbage can today, while Anda stood by and rescued them. He also spent a great deal of time pulling things out of the garbage, even after he cut his finger on a can lid.

As I finish that, everyone is leaning on me and whining, literally. So I get up and change a poopy diaper. Then I change a wet diaper. Then I make a floor bed for Caleb in the living room by my chair, which entails help from several people in clearing enough floor space for a seven-year-old to lie down.

Then I make Caleb some spiced cider. He has a horrid sore throat, and I'm hoping he'll manage to eat something. Tim is printing a 200-page document, and I promised to make gingerbread man cookies with Dan, so, despite the fact that it is well after 1:00 am, I start that. Caleb liked his cider, so I turn the molasses bottle upside down to get every bit out I can, knowing we have too little anyway and will have to augment with corn syrup and start getting water to make cup o noodles and tomato soup so that everyone gets something.

Meanwhile, Benji has gotten to the printer, and he pulls all the paper out of the paper tray. While I'm fixing that, he climbs up and turns off the computer that runs the phone system. While I'm fixing that, the kids start arguing over the jello powder that has been sitting in a bowl on the stove for at least 3 days because someone wanted to make jello and got going without me and then lost interest waiting for me. While I'm solving that, Benjamin gets into the printer again. While I'm fixing that, he turns off the phone computer again.

I get back to the stove to boil the water and discover the kids have poured cold water into the jello powder and are stirring. Frustrated, I get them moved to the table, get the stove cleared off, and get the water heating to boil. Then I chase Ben away from the computers again, and come back to the table, where the kids are spooning jello water into their mouths and spilling red jello liquid everywhere. When Benji comes to join them, I get frustrated and put all three kids and the bowl of jello into the tub.

I come back and cut cheese for Caleb's soup and get the boiling water poured into everything that needs it except the jello, put more paper in the printer, and go back to check on the kids. Some are naked and some are fussing and someone is poopy again (I can smell it!), and they've emptied the whole bowl of jello liquid--onto the walls of the shower, where it sticks. It's an old shower, and I'm sure it will stain, so I shower the whole thing off and scold everyone, who are now busy at the sink making more jello powder into jello juice.

I come back, serve the soup to Caleb, dress Anda without bathing her first because I'm too tired and the bottom of the tub is now covered with red jello. Then I go back into the bathroom and find Dan playing in the tub with the red jello, and Ben playing in the potty and licking the water off his hands (at least this time it had been flushed first!). I close the potty and before I can grab him he adds a few more lines to the fingerpainting he's made on the lid of the toilet. He lets me clean him up at the sink and chase him out of the bathroom, change his diaper again, and then everyone eats cup o noodles and tomato soup.

I suppose I should have started back a couple of hours to when Tim was packing, and Benji was helping by adding his bottle to the suitcase, full of milk, naturally, and walking on the clothes, and pushing all the buttons on the computer, and pulling down equipment, and jumping from the back of the couch onto the seat of the couch, and turning on and off the other printer, and tasting the printer cartridges. Anda was begging me to get working on sewing the skirts we planned for her, so I was searching everywhere for the boxes that hold my thread and elastic (which I never did find), and
Dan was jumping on Anda until she screamed, and the house was too hot and not cooling down because I can't keep the cooler pads wet.

And now I have to go. Ben is alternately pushing and pulling off keys on the keyboard, and I just noticed he dumped a half-full cup of noodles all over the kitchen floor, and he stinks again, so I either have to track down where he threw up or change his diaper AGAIN.

Oh, and while I was writing that paragraph, he managed to turn the chair upright and get onto Caleb's computer, which Tim's file is printing from.

That kid never stops! If he's not emptying the silverware drawer, he's pulling the clothes down in the closets, typing on someone's computer who doesn't want their files ruined, or drinking his bottle sitting in the fridge, holding the door closed with one hand so only his little feet poke out!

I think the cookies will have to wait.

General Women's Conference

Apparently, the church has a new video player available that never buffers, can be paused and restarted, and works better. Watching conference could be a whole new experience!

http://www.lds.org/broadcast/grsm/0,6220,285,00.html

Also, I highly recommend listening to President Uchtdorf's message from the women's meeting, even if you are a man. It gives, first, a suggestion that we stop focusing on the things we aren't good at and start focusing on using our talents to build the kingdom--focus on the things we are good at, just like a recent article from Orson Scott Card said. Then he gave a fantastic discourse on two ways the sorrowful or otherwise heavy heart can be gladdened without removing the trials that afflict us. This was a talk for me today, I guess. At least, I suspected he wrote the talk for me personally.

He said that the keys are creativity and serving others with compassion.

I really needed the lesson on creativity and it's value in our souls. Especially since I got a very nice rejection from an agent the other day that came on the heels of me deciding to start writing again without regard to the marketability of the story or idea. I think it was my 50th rejection on that manuscript, and, despite the incredibly nice and helpful nature of the rejection, I cried. It was the first rejection that made me cry, and I suspect it has something to do with my very pregnant state, but I couldn't write the story I wanted to--I was all hung up on marketability again, and the story was all tied up in Mormon culture, and the agents have informed me that Mormon culture, in particular, is anathema in novels. (Which is funny because Jewish culture isn't....).

Anyway, Pres Uchtdorf said not to let the critics--the external or internal ones--silence your voice, and talked about the value of doing creative things--not for the acclaim but for the doing. Not the value for the world, but for our own souls.

Sister Beck, who has been vilified by "mormon" feminists (who are not really Mormon, even if they were once baptised, and who are doing a great deal of harm to the cause of righteous women everywhere) gave a fantastic, intelligent, inspiring talk on the purposes of relief society and of women in God's plan, saying that God's work can't be accomplished without the women--and she wasn't talking about our wombs. She said something my dad has said throughout the years, but it was good to be reminded:

Without personal revelation, we can't succeed. With personal revelation, if we obey it, we can't fail.

President Uchtdorf echoed this, with the promise that if we live faithfully and obedient to God's commands, all things will work together for our good.

All together an inspiring meeting that I very much appreciated.

more dishwasher woes

After all my work, the dishwasher still wasn't working. It left a gritty mess on all the dishes, and a white film, even after I spent several hours cleaning out the spray arms and stuff.

So I googled it. Honestly, you can solve almost any common problem with the help of the internet.

Turns out this is a common problem with lots of solutions, many of which I had already tried, including running a dish cycle with yellow koolaid in the dish soap cup.

So I tried more. I ran the water in the sink until it was HOT before turning on the dishwasher. Then I put in only half a dishwasher soap-cup-ful of dishwasher soap, with no overflow or filling the open cup, despite the fact that both the soap and the dishwasher say use MORE soap with hard water. I added to this a half a dishwasher soap-cup full of salt. I already had white vinegar in the jet dry dispenser, so I figured the salt would be useful, since salt followed by vinegar is a fairly standard folk washing suggestion. This was counter-intuitive, because we have extremely hard water here (something like 3 times the amount of minerals in the water than the definition of 'hard water' required). And, finally, in the open dishwasher soap cup, I put a tiny squirt of regular liquid dish soap--like the amount you'd use to wash your hands.

It worked.

Unfortunately, and also typically of me, I changed so many things at once that I have no idea if all the changes were required, or if just one or two would work. I did try just the liquid dishsoap thing, and that didn't help by itself. And I tried just cutting the amount of powder I put in, and that helped some, but not as much as the whole package.

Whatever the key, I am once again on the path to having a functioning dishwasher.

wheat

I am a firm believer in the idea that the less processed a food is, the healthier it is for you. I figure anything I can do to food at home is okay, but the stuff they do in factories is suspect.

Given that, it should come as a surprise to people that I have never canned my own fruit, and, until yesterday, had never actually ground wheat and made bread from the flour. I've made flour before, but only a cup or so because first I didn't have a wheat grinder. Then I borrowed my parents, but forgot the pan. Then my dad made me a pan, and I had a new baby. Then we moved.

But yesterday, I was busy making "Pulla Yeast Coffee Bread," purportedly a Finnish treat, and discovered after everything but the flour was in the bowl that I had about 5 cups of white flour, and needed about 9. So Tim dug up the borrowed wheat grinder, and I dug up the very old cans of food storage wheat, and we had a little (noisy) adventure.

Turns out that home-ground wheat is a little coarser as flour than storebought, overprocessed wheat flour. But I followed the instructions closely and let the dough sit for 15 minutes before I let my kitchenaid knead it, and the dough came out smooth and satiny and soft and tender and just perfect. I was floored. The "chewing on a kernel of wheat" flavor disappeared, too, leaving us, in the end, with the tenderest, best-textured wheat bread. It was really good, and, even with half white flour, really filling and nourishing-feeling.

So now I'm fairly satisfied that home-ground wheat CAN make good, soft, pleasant-textured bread. Now I have to see if it can be done without any white flour added. Just as soon as we finish these 3 big loaves of braided coffee bread.

Benji loves to play ball

Lately, Benjamin has been mad at me multiple times for not giving him the ball that he's sure I'm hiding underneath my shirt. I've even shown him my pregnant belly, and explained there's a baby in there, and he just looks at me like I've totally lost it and asks me to give him the ball.

Nevada....hmmmm

I finally got my driver's license here. It took two visits to the DMV because it turns out Nevada is the only state I've lived in that requires a wedding certificate for women to get a driver's license.

The funny thing was, they didn't want to see proof of residence.

So they don't really care if you actually LIVE in Nevada. They just want to know you are really married.

Bad writing can be so funny!

Now, keep in mind what Snopes says about this. It is NOT accidental bad writing by high school students. It was all intentionally written to be as bad as possible, and it's hilarious!

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/metaphor.asp

Read it because..."her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever" and "He was as tall as a six-foot-three tree." Oh, and numbers 18 and 19--you gotta love those....

Um...it's still hot here. What happened to Fall?

Everyone I'm related to is enjoying cool fall weather. It's still a hundred degrees every day here--and muggy at least once a week, so then the swamp cooler doesn't work.

Still suffering from writer's block. With a dozen good, fully outlined books I was anxious to get to, you'd think I could get to them. But no.

So instead I went to get a Nevada driver's license. Turns out you have to have a marriage certificate on hand unless your birth certificate was made out in your married name. I never bothered to go down and spend the ten bucks to get a real marriage certificate. Even the Social Security people took my temple certificate when I got married, and I've had two different states issue me a drivers' license in my married name, but not Nevada.

So I went to order a Marriage certificate. Utah doesn't give them. They provide "certified copies of your marriage license". Good enough. If you order online, it costs $30 and goes out the next day or day after that. If you call the office and give them your info, it costs $5, and they mail it the same day.

I also spent some time working on the dishwasher again. It was leaving dishes dirtier than they went in! I discovered there's a spray arm at the top of the dishwasher that was plugged with dirt and mineral deposits. And you can't remove it without removing the entire dishwasher, which I wasn't willing to do. So I took the trays out and spent a couple of hours on two different days cleaning the thing out. I ran the spider snake through it, washed with vinegar and with lemon kool-aid in the wash, and finally took the water-pik to it. Finally got the thing cleaned out, and now we're running a test load of dishes to see what happens. I'd hate to have to pull it out and replace the whole thing again, but I MUST have a working dishwasher. It's like having a washing machine in the house when you have kids. Not really optional.

Also I spend a little time every day looking for jobs for Tim, holding kids, fixing meals, and wandering the house looking for something to do that doesn't require me to sit on anything hard or bend over (darn sciatic nerve!).

A 3-yr-old's answer to literary criticism

"Mom," Dan said, waving a page in front of me that was covered with squiggly lines. "I wrote a story. You can tell it's good because it has lots of letters in it."

Well, I think that pretty much covers it!

Also, his answer to cooking problems:

"Mom, let's make yogurt."
"Well, there are two problems with that. One is...."
"Well if we just made the yogurt, there wouldn't be any problems with it."

Computer woes

I've been busy the past few days trying to make our phone system work.

See, the phone runs through the computer. And, despite the fact that we have seven computers, this has been a major problem. Here's the issue:

Computer number 1 is Tim's laptop, and therefore isn't home all day. Plus it tends to run hot, and he runs music software on it, so he can't have all kinds of extra stuff running all the time interfering with the music software. Plus it doesn't have enough usb jacks for his necessary peripherals and the phone.

Computer number 2 is also a mac laptop, but it's the other kind of mac (intel based), so it doesn't support the usb phone. No good.

Computer number 3 has no usb jacks at all and runs happily using windows 98, which is great since the thing is about 10 years old and I use it to do all my writing. But it won't support the programs required to run the usb phone, even if I put in usb jacks.

Computer number 4 also has no usb jacks and was designed for pre-windows 95. It runs windows 98. Barely. It is Benji's computer--we use it to play old dos-based pc games like Commander Keen.

Computer number 5 functions fine, has usb 1.0 jacks, but was built for windows 98, and it has windows xp installed on it. It runs too slowly, even optimized every way I can learn how, to make phone calls possible. We wanted to switch it to Linux, but the usb phone doesn't support Linux yet, and the computer wouldn't load the linux live cd--it said it has an EDID error, which has something to do with the monitor and the BIOS and I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Computer number 6 would work, even though it's just a little slow, but Caleb has claimed that one as his own, and with all his game-development software running most of every day, it is too slow to run the usb phone. Honestly, at any given time, Caleb has 2 or 3 game-creator programs running, plus graphics programs so he can edit and create "sprites" for his games, plus firefox so he can google answers for his questions. He keeps the thing so busy that he does school on the laptop!

So that leaves us with Computer number 7. It's fast enough. It has ONLY usb ports. It has windows xp running. And it tends to freeze randomly. Totally randomly. Sometimes it will run for a day, sometimes for 3 minutes, and then it's totally frozen and has to be completely rebooted. It's been doing this off and on for a while, and I had accepted that it was the way things were going to have to be until I sold my novel or we got a job and could save some money to buy a new computer.

So I prayed for a computer to run our phone. Then I started watching craigslist for computers, and started trying to fix the only one I have or build two of them into one functioning one.

I have tried everything to get this stupid computer to stop freezing. A couple of different tech people told me to try replacing the memory cards. So I did that. Consensus online (and I saw some evidence for this in comp 7) is that computers freeze when they overheat, so we cooled the computer and put it in a cooler room. Helped for a while, but the problem has grown increasingly worse.

I won't go into all the details about everything I tried to fix this computer, but I'll tell you some things I've learned:
--if the keyboard is broken, editing the BIOS is really hard; just using windows you might not know if the keyboard is broken--you have to get out of Windows to find that out.
--if you push F1 when the computer tells you its name while it's loading Windows, it kicks you into this nifty thing called "setup", which is the BIOS. There, there's this nifty thing called "power management". On some of my computers, the power management options look like jibberish (you'd swear computer geeks talked in just the first letters of the words in every sentence, the way they shortcut things!), but in some you can turn power management to "disabled" and the whole computer runs Tons faster.
--if the computer slows down, some updater is probably running, and you can turn it off in the task manager by ending the process. It'll run again later, believe me, but you might get a break while you work on whatever it is you need to do.
--computers come back from screen saver a lot faster if you set the screen saver to "blank" and turn off all the power management options in windows, too.
--I can not only find the processor inside the computer now, I can take it out and put it in!
--That orange goop on the processor is "thermal paste". It's okay. You can leave it there.
--not all processors have the same number of pins on the bottom, and not all motherboards have the same number of holes for pins, so you can't really swap processors willy-nilly.
--I can change out memory cards.
--Computers don't power up properly if you don't have the memory cards pushed in hard enough.
--Linux live cds don't run linux properly if your cd player in the computer runs slowly.
--but I can download linux live cds, now, and I learned how to "burn an iso"
--there is this list of "services" that you can access in two ways from Windows xp, and most of them run all the time but aren't necessary for most people. If your computer is going slow, or freezing, you can turn some of these off and speed things up considerably. Google them first, though, so you know what you're turning off and if you need it or not. On the list, it specifies "necessary" services--and there are only 3 listed. There are also some, like the event viewer, that can't be turned off.
--there is this thing called the 'event viewer' that you can also access in two ways from windows, and it keeps track of everything windows is doing. If there's a problem, you can go there and look for patterns.
--tons of non-geeks online have complained on geek forums about this certain message in their event viewer "computer browser service has stopped", which precedes windows xp freezing up. All the geeks agree that's a nothing, and it must be the computer overheating. Windows, naturally doesn't acknowledge this is a problem. Nobody knows what the heck is going on with that and so it must be you non-geeks not running things right.

Well, that was the problem on my computer, too--same error message, same behavior. So I found the computer browser service in the "services" list and disabled it. I figured it can't be stopped if it never starts, right? The computer froze twice immediately, and then went on and has run smoothly now for over 24 hours--a record! I even talked to both my parents on the phone today, and the phone didn't hang up on them! That's the first time in months we've been able to do that. I gave the usb keyboard a bath because it acted like someone spilled soda in it. It's drying right now, and we'll see what happens. You can run a computer sans keyboard, but it's awfully hard to use the internet that way, so for now the computer is only a phone computer.

It will possibly freeze again, but for now I am once again grateful that my prayers were answered and I was able to learn the things I needed to learn in order for my needs to be met when we have no monetary resources for them.

Since there would be no debate without two sides

There can be no debate without at least 2 sides talking, and we've all heard plenty of the media's side on this one. So here is an excellent analysis of the other side of the homosexual marriage debate. Not the "it's not fair that you can express your love and I can't express mine" side, but the "marriage shouldn't be messed with" side--and, lo and behold, there are good reasons. Logical reasons, not entirely based on religious doctrine reasons.

Read here: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-divine-institution-of-marriage

writing and reading and other misc. stuff

We went to the 5 Browns concert today, me and Dan (since it was his birthday). It was nice to see the cousins before the show, and the show was fantastic. I had almost forgotten how much I like well-done classical music. It feeds my soul. Good music (and theirs was) is like a good kiss--you can get lost in it and forget even that your body exists. Dan loved the concert, too, almost leaping from his seat before intermission (that's all we could stay--he was waiting for his birthday cake and presents) to applaud when Gregory played the piano with his foot and hollered in the song. I highly recommend their show--it's a lot of fun.

Anyway, I resolved to fill the house with classical music again, like I did before I had kids, because it soothes and calms and feeds my soul, and (and this has always been true) makes me feel like a queen, instead of a pawn, in my life story. Music speaks to my soul in a way that not many things can.

Anyway, I mailed out a full manuscript last week to an agent in California. Today another agent requested it--mercifully by email so it didn't cost me almost $8 for shipping again--and I sent it right away. So the novel is not forgotten. I opened the file before I emailed it to make sure I had the right one, and I read some and liked it a lot. I guess that's a good sign.

I've had writer's block since I finished it. I ought to work on the one set in Vegas, since we're here, but I want to work on the retelling of an arthurian legend as a mystery, but I just can't get myself to start. Normally when that happens, I fill my days with quilting, but we only just found my sewing machine, and I have no place to set up any of my quilting stuff, and I can't even find the lap quilt or the thread to finish it with. And there's always that question of if we're leaving here in a couple of weeks, do I really want to get a quilt going? It's a lot of mess to have to take out and then re-pack. But with no quilt and no book to work on, I've been doing a lot of wandering the house.

I did install a swamp cooler, which works fine. It would work better if the house fan didn't keep coming on and sucking all the cool air up into the attic and spitting hot air down into the house. Very annoying. It's on the list of things to talk to the landlord about (along with the cats, which have started coming indoors again, and other things).

I have been reading the Oz books to the kids, and having a great time. Especially since we took a small sidetrack--Baum wrote a trilogy of "Trot and Cap'n Bill" books, the third of which is also an Oz book. We decided to read the whole trilogy in order, instead of just reading the Oz book, and it's been really fun. I'd never read them before. I highly recommend the Oz books. Some are heavy on the catalog of creatures and places in Oz aspect of the stories, but others are wonderful, engaging plots, with fantastic characters that are a lot of fun. If you read the books in order in a short amount of time, the inconsistencies in the world-building are glaring, but make sense when you consider that Baum never set out to be famous for the books and tried to end the series more than once.

I also read the Chronicles of Narnia finally. I know. I should have done it years ago. I read "The Lion, the Witch, and the wardrobe" when I was a kid, but I wasn't into heavy fantasy, so after "prince caspian" I gave up. They're short, though, and were sitting there when I was bored, and I read them--and really enjoyed them and will probably read them to the kids. Like most traditional fantasies, the books were a little tedious for me at places. Well worth it, though, and the spiritual messages in them were much appreciated the week I read them.

I also started reading the Book of Mormon again. I just couldn't make myself start over at the beginning, so I started with the last book and am reading the chapters in order, but the books in reverse. And this time through, I found the literary structure of the whole work not only appealing, but downright beautiful (and so tragic!). Since I consider the Book of Mormon a work of scripture primarily, I'd never looked at it as a work of literature, but that really struck me this time. Mormon was a literary genius, although I doubt he considered himself such.

I was also struck by the story that's told and re-told throughout the book of small families journeying to what is promised to be a better place, although they have never been there, and how they struggle and suffer but keep going, always finally, after years of trouble, settling down on a pleasant beach only to be told they're not there yet. So they build boats and pack everything up and leave, praising God in the darkness and the storms and hoping for a better place. And He does eventually bring them there. It's kind of a work and suffer and work and suffer and willingly give up paradise to work some more and then hold on tight because God will carry you through to the end if you don't stop believing in him when the seas get rough kind of story.

I guess I relate because I feel like we had settled down on our beach, and now we have to let go of our paradise, and build a boat, and push off into the ocean. I hope we eventually get to that kind of a "promised land", too.

And that is the power of great literature--it sticks to our ribs like a nourishing meal, helps us sort through our lives, and, hopefully makes them richer and fuller and more worth living. Just like music. The benefit of the great literature also being scripture is that it can guide, comfort, heal, direct, and also give us hope and faith as well.

long time, no see

Sorry I've been gone for so long. Benji pulled the shift keys off the keyboard on the laptop, so it's become incredibly difficult to blog. I had no idea I used the shift keys so much!

With the end of Toxic Audio, Melody Yellowvan has been on the prowl again, and we're starting to feel like gypsies once more. Tim has now done 2 auditions for Disney, had one cancelled because of a threatening hurricane (which ended up being a tropical storm instead), done a cruise (without me!--he was singing, not vacationing), and taken the family to LA (since he had an audition and had to get a passport in a hurry--2 days, and he had it!).

In LA, we went to the beach. That's pretty much it. The beach and Universal Citywalk to watch the indoor airdivers "fly". The kids loved the beach. Tim hadn't really ever played on the beach either, and he had fun body surfing and playing with the kids. Benji and Dan were terrified of the water at first because I warned everyone not to go too deep, and they were pretty sure the waves were going to wash them away. Eventually everyone played in the water, and now Caleb says the beach is his favorite place on earth. It's one of my favorite places to play, too, so that was cool. No sunburns, no crowds, and it wasn't hot. So much for the stereotypes of LA in August!

We also fled the heat (and the $500 electrical bills to keep the house merely 80 degrees instead of 110) and went home to visit family. We ended up very busy, despite not planning much--2 wedding receptions, both of which were outdoors in places where there was water, so I didn't get to visit my cousins as much as I'd like to have, a farewell party for friends who have since moved to Poland, visiting relatives at their houses, a stake party where the kids got to ride ponies, make rockets, slide on all those big blow-up slides, and watch a hot air balloon go up and down and up and down and up and down for a long time (Anda got to ride it, too!). They loved all of this, but especial favorites were playing with cousins on Grandma Wilson's farm and in her fantastically kid-designed yard, and picking and eating Grandma Jones's tomatoes in her garden. Naturally, travelling, we managed to be exposed to sicknesses. This time is was adenovirus and strep. We caught the adenovirus but so far have shown no sign of the strep, which is good because, with no insurance, it's hard to get antibiotics for things like strep, and adenovirus you only treat symptoms with over-the-counter meds.

It was an incredibly busy month, at once frustrating and fun.

The thing that amazed me most is the response we got to Tim's show closing. Almost everyone we knew advised him to quit performing and "get a real job," which, in all practicality, would mean abandoning 10 years of work in his field and going to work flipping burgers or stocking shelves. Honestly, I can't see how that is a wise choice, although I can understand that being everyone's response. Music is one of those mystery careers that nobody knows much about, and part of the image of success is a mystique that can't exist with someone you know--therefore, the only people who can succeed at music are someone else, not someone you know.

But you know, nobody would say to a computer programmer, "Gee, IBM cut your division and you have no job now. That must be a sign from God that you should quit programming and go work at McDonald's." But we heard that a lot. And this with auditions for jobs practically coming out our ears--tons of things to apply for as a musician!

The last week, since we've been home, Tim has been feverishly putting together an audition tape for Cirque du Soleil. It's close to being done, I think.

Meanwhile, I rebelled against the "central air" mentality that predominates here and got on craigslist and bought a swamp cooler for $50. I had to clean it thoroughly--all the troughs were plugged with mineral deposits, which is why it didn't work for the previous owner--the pads weren't getting wet. I had to buy supplies, including new pads, and hook up the water, and build a stand for it, and now we have a functioning swamp cooler. That keeps the house the same temp that $500/month of a/c did--80 degrees--or less. For the cost of running a fan and a little water. What a relief to dare to be comfortable and not have to pay our entire food budget for it!

If you throw out the best idea, what you're left with is....

This showed up in my google news health section today:


"Gift cards key to new AIDS prevention strategy
The Associated Press - 37 minutes ago
ATLANTA (AP) - Could the AIDS virus be stopped with gift cards? Desperate for a way to stop the escalating spread of HIV among young gay men, public health officials are looking to novel strategies, such as enlisting local gay opinion leaders to urge their peers to practice safe sex....The idea is to give gift coupons to popular, influential men in the gay community and encourage them to talk up condom use, regular HIV testing and other responsible actions.

It may sound frivolous, but little else has proven effective for the men most affected by the epidemic.

Last week, new figures showed still-rising HIV infections in gay and bisexual men, with about 53 percent of new cases in that group. Meanwhile, HIV rates among injection-drug users and heterosexuals is declining."

Frivolous? The idea is frivolous?

I, actually, am deeply saddened by the HIV epidemic. Thousands of people are suffering , and thousands of children are being left parentless. I am not trying to negate that this is a major problem, and also an immense tragedy.

But it seems to me that the best solution is not gift cards. It's the one they defined out of the equation in the first place: monogamy. Abstinence. Self-control.

More condoms and a few gift cards just won't cut it....

I think the greatest tragedy of all is that we, by our choices, are enabling the crisis to continue because, darn it, we don't want to take the risk of offending anyone.

It reminds me of the section in Nephi where he scolds his rebellious brothers, and they get mad at him for saying "hard things" against them--for offending them. I agree with Nephi--the truth sometimes is hard, especially when it requires you to change not just your behaviour, but the paradigms that make it okay.

Nephi says, "the wicked take the truth to be hard." I hate to say, "the wicked" and "repent" because not all the victims of this plague are in need of repentance or were wicked themselves--the wives whose faithless husbands brought it home, the children, the victims of rape, and, unfortunately, all the people who are caught in the cultural morays that have changed and encourage risky sexual behavior--the ones who ought to know better but have been taught from a young age to experiment and follow their body's natural inclinations (the ones who were taught that bad is good from such a young age--like children whose fathers take them to prostitutes or introduce them to porn when they should be hearing fairytales--that it honestly never occurs to them that it might be wrong).

But repentance is the right concept--not just for people who are wantonly sharing their bodies with others, but also for the entire culture that decided that not offending someone was more important than truth.

What a sad state for our world to be in.

I am reminded of when I said to my mother, "I would do anything to lose this extra weight." And she replied, "Not 'anything'. You know what you could do--you just won't do it, so it must not matter THAT much to you."

Stung, I realized she was right.

The same principle applies here. If they were really 'desperate' for a way to stop the spread of HIV among young gay men, they might consider teaching true principles,like abstinence and monogamy, instead of offering gift cards. It might just work.

I liked this article

Turns out Grandma Brown's doc was right--living in a spotless environment isn't good for kids' immune systems. If these researchers are right, it actually causes them to develop improperly, causing trouble for the rest of their lives! Also, kids with more siblings have fewer immune problems. Go figure. Obeying the prophets actually causes us to physically develop better bodies!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25968435/

fun clothes catalog

http://www.modbecatalog.com/

This site exists to sell modest clothing. Cute and stylish modest clothing. Check out their "2-piece" swimwear that is more modest than most 1-piece suits--and cute!

The quest

Caleb noticed yesterday that the novel we were reading, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, had the perfect plot for a computer game (adventure game, like King's Quest, which Caleb tells me are called "RPGs") because it has a clear quest with multiple steps required to collect the final treasure. So we had a nice long discussion with Caleb and Anda about the fact that most novels have some kind of quest in them, and we identified the quest in a whole bunch of novels we've read together. It was thoroughly delightful. Then today, Caleb took the book and used it as a script and began making the game. He uses RPG Maker 2003, which lets him make the maps, put the characters in, and actually produce a full, functioning game. He learned somewhere else that he can open the "sprite sheets"--pages you choose your characters from--in MS Paint and modify them any way you want, so he's making characters that look like the descriptions in the book.

It's all very cool, and not the first RPG he's developed.

All of this wouldn't be possible if he were wasting his time in public schools just between 1st and 2nd grade. Where you don't read novels at all, and making a computer game is something nobody even dreams of except as a job when you grow up.

Why the small print matters

An ad came in the mail that claimed, "Green is the new color of clean. Through Green Seal Certified housecleaning chemicals, HEPA vacuums, and microfibers, The Cleaning Authority is committed to caring as much for the planet as we do for your home.*"

So I followed the asterisk and found this, in very small print, at the bottom of the page: "...Not all franchised locations will use Green Seal Certified products for residential housecleaning services, or follow US Dept. of Health and Human services recommended practices such as using HEPA vacuums and microfiber dusting cloths."

So not only might they not do what their main advertising point is--"green" cleaning, they might not even do the minimum suggested by the government! Yeah, they really sold me on their product.

Actually, if you read it carefully, they never claim they will use those things. Just that through them they are committed to caring as much for the planet as they do for your house, which apparently isn't much. It's not a very grammatical claim in the first place, is it?

Lip Injury and other stuff

I finally found the perfect soap dish. I've always been annoyed by the kind that drain sticky soap water onto the counter, and the kind that let the soap slide off, and the kind that collect it into a marshy mess that I have to look at and clean up, and the kind the soap sticks to. And leaving the soap on the counter coats everything with soap scum. The solution? A dry sponge. Set the soap on it, and everything stays clean and tidy, the soap doesn't slide off or stick, and no scum on anything. If the soap does stick, get it wet and it comes right off. If it gets gross--wash it with the next load of laundry and let it air dry. My bathroom counters look so much better!

As for the lip injury....You know how you can sometimes use your teeth to break that 2" wide clear packing tape? I was doing that for the kids, and had been for 20 minutes or so as they "wrapped presents" by stuffing random toys in boxes and closing them up. Out of the blue, one of the pieces of tape didn't just break and tear across. It outright exploded in my mouth, cutting my lower lip open in 5 places that are just now, several days later, healing. I've never had a bloody lip from biting tape before! We switched to using a broken popsicle stick to break the tape (since scissors are never around when you need them, right?).

2/3 done with my novel--yes, the same one--yet again. This time around it's about 91,000 words long, with a clear plot, clear character development arc, and (gasp!) romance element. I personally miss the epic-style "telling everyone's stories and showing how they intertwine in the long run", but everyone who read it said it was too confusing that way, and that the audience who really would love the book is not the audience who loves, say, The Gunslinger series, where both the length and the complexity are the joy of the series. So we have the pared-down, straightforward, more beautifully written version with more foreshadowing and other literary elements, fewer characters, more descriptive passages, and an easy storyline, focusing on just Kate's story and not all the others'.

I don't know if it's better, but it certainly keeps me distracted!

Pure cane sugar was cheaper than regular white sugar at the store so I bought some. It's less processed than white sugar (or even brown sugar anymore), and it's not quite as sweet, ounce for ounce, but it also hits the kids less when they eat it. Interesting find--more natural seems like it's always better. I think the processing that's going on in the food industry might be actually causing a lot of the health problems in the nation.

Babies are all crying.....more later.

More Funny Kids

I just asked Benji if he wanted to play with Pooh Bear. He looked at me funny, and then grabbed his diaper and said, "Ewww!"

Anda

First a funny:

A couple of years ago we were given a pair of stuffed bears. They have magnets in their noses, so when you put them together, they "kiss", and that completes a circuit, causing the "girl" bear's cheeks to glow pink.

I don't know where the girl bear is now, but the boy bear has become a favorite toy, especially when the kids discovered he can slide down the metal pole of our bookshelf, holding on by his nose. "He's a fireman!" they said.

Anyway, they wondered why he had a magnet in his nose, so I explained the girl bear thing, and concluded with, "When the husband bear kisses the wife bear, she blushes."

Anda said, "What is 'blushes'?"
I replied, "It's when her cheeks turn pink."
Anda thought about it for a minute and then said, "I guess she got a really cold kiss!"

Now a serious:

Every pre-kindergartner gets excited to go to school for different reasons. Caleb really wanted to raise his hand in class and answer a question right and get praised for it. My friend's daughter thought riding the bus every day would be the best thing ever.

I finally weaseled out of Anda her reasoning for wanting to go to "a big school"--one of her math lessons was too hard and she didn't get every answer right on the quiz, she "will get to go to the park more often" (I think she thinks the playground is a park) and she thinks all the kids in the school will be her friends and she wants lots of friends.

I'm afraid school will be a bitter disappointment to her. Math won't be easier when a teacher is explaining it. It will be the first year, when she's repeating kindergarten, but after that? It's more intimidating to ask a question in front of the class than in front of Mom, and Anda has the same hangups about making a mistake as I do--the first mistake she made doing school, she cried, deeply devastated, and refused to do school for weeks (which was okay because she was just barely 4 years old). So now I find out that weeks ago she got 3/5 on a math quiz after a lesson (it was a vague lesson that I had to re-teach Caleb, too, and the quiz tests things not taught in the lesson; I tried to explain this to her, but she took the failures to heart as her own instead of as the designers'), and she wants to give up on homeschooling all together.

That's Anda for you. Just like me. I can't count the number of times I failed at something, or perceived I failed, or was mildly criticized, or just got embarrassed (usually needlessly) and had the strong strong desire to quit and never try again, or to move, or to never go back. Some things I did quit--I didn't sing when I thought people could hear me from the time I was 12 until I had kids because a friend teased me. I never have played basketball again since the girls at church laughed when I tried to make a shot at a practice and didn't know what I was doing--and I've avoided other sports, too, just in case. I still remember the one worksheet I got less than an A on in elementary school (Fifth grade, doing math with Time; I still don't get how the teacher was doing it, with adding and carrying and borrowing to figure out what time it will be when she gets there). I also remember that the other kids in the class teased me because it was the first (and only) time I didn't say my score out loud when the teacher was collecting grades (he always gave us the option to pass, and I did, and they openly mocked me for it). Or the time I wanted desperately to move because the Relief Society President rolled her eyes at the condition of my house and refused to come inside, clearly uncomfortable.

The trouble is, the jabs of peers are much more painful than not understanding one assignment, and the damage is far more lasting. I read once that the only long-term negative parts of having Tourette's syndrome actually come from the way the child is mistreated by other children at school, not from the disorder itself.

And I'm not sure sending Anda to school will teach her to "get back on the horse," so to speak. In fact, I'm afraid all the positive attention she gets for being so darn smart will only exacerbate the problem. So then is it a favor to send her to school?

Not only will Anda be bored out of her mind in school, I'm afraid she'll be sorely disappointed in the "having friends" thing, and in the "easier to do math" idea and the "playground is like playing at the park" thing. I suspect she'll have more success at making friends by joining a home school group that meets at the park once a week or so, and going to the "science for homeschoolers" and "art for homeschoolers" classes at the local rec centers. And both of those things would be less work for me, and cost less than school does, and would not require us to be somewhere at 8:00 am every day, which would be so difficult as to be almost impossible for me. (Don't laugh or say I should try harder--the mixed up sleep schedule is something that I suffer from constantly; many tears have been shed, many options tried, and it's still a serious and very real problem for me that is not so easy to solve as you'd think).

There are good things that come from school, and Anda would probably do well. She's social, bright, pretty (the clerk at the store yesterday said she looks like a porcelain doll!), creative, fun. But the negative things that school does to children are so powerful and long-lasting that I hesitate to send my children there, even when they want to go.

Job Hunting Again

So, it's official: Toxic Audio is closing on July 30. At least, the V Theater's website isn't selling any tickets after that. I guess that's as official as you can get.

It all has something to do with the complex "recession-proof"-ness of Las Vegas. In other words, Vegas is very much NOT recession-proof, despite their claims to the contrary, and, with the gas prices preventing visitors from driving or flying in as much as they did last year, the entire city is in shock. Even the schools are funded by taxes on the tourism industry (read: Casinos), so having all of them losing billions of dollars each quarter this year puts everyone in a bad state.

Especially the theaters, from what we've heard (of course, since we're in that part of the industry, that's what we _would_ hear). Even the visitors who come aren't buying show tickets. Big shows here--headliners that don't ever offer cut-rate tickets or worry about selling out--are modifying their theaters to hold fewer people so they still look full. Little shows, new shows, and experimental shows (like Toxic) are all being cut back or cut out.

We don't know why Toxic didn't get continued, but I personally think we are victims of the economic state of the nation. After all, the show only had one bad review, and that was from a poker professional who fell asleep during the show (and that was the extent of his bad review--"I fell asleep during the show"). And we've had dozens and dozens of good reviews, both from news outlets and on "regular people" blogs. And the comments of the guests after the show have been consistently good, consistently along the lines of "I love this--you belong in a bigger theater". Comments and reviews don't sell tickets, and neither did the V Theater (I have theories about this, too, but I won't go into it). Word of Mouth does sell tickets, and the buzz was just building enough for this to really take form, but it didn't get a chance.

So we have to move on.

Tim is auditioning for shows produced by Disney, and we're tracking down audition notices from other big companies (Cirque du Soleil, Dragone, etc). We were going to go back to Colorado and finish school, but it turns out they aren't offering the last two classes he needs this semester. Go figure. So we're looking for work.

If you know of any jobs that are open out there....

Today

Right now...

Anda is cutting all the corners off a big piece of paper. I don't know why. She says she doesn't want there to be corners.

Daniel is throwing English muffins at the walls. I don't know why.

Caleb is having a potty break while he thinks about whether or not his character on the RPG (a kind of computer game) he is creating needs a weapon or is strong enough on his own.

Benji is eating. As usual.

I am pondering how would a college freshman from BYU respond to a tree suddenly swooping down and grabbing her. Would she be terrified, amazed, looking for the trick, etc? Would she gasp or scream?

Tim is sleeping, since he was up all night with a migraine.

It's been a fairly normal day. I'm just glad English muffins don't leave as much gunk on the walls as watermelon or ice cream.

Speaking of ice cream, last night I was craving ice cream. Had to have coconut, not the other six flavors we already had open, so I went out the chest freezer on the back porch and got the coconut ice cream (tampico brand--really tasty stuff, as it the guava ice cream). I noticed it was unusually soft. Several hours later I went out again and noticed that the last popsicle out there was melting, and the last box of ice cream out there was soggy, and the frozen pizzas were all flexible, and....

At 2:00 am I had to empty the whole freezer into the inside freezer because it was apparently not working any more. Must have shorted in the massive rainstorm we had.

Naturally, I had to crave ice cream in the middle of the night so I would notice before we lost any of the meat that was out there. Fortunately, we had used a lot of our meat lately and when I went to stock up, the store was out and gave me a rain check.

This seems like a disaster, but since we are job hunting, and therefore possibly facing a move in the next few months, it might be a blessing. One less big thing to try to cram into a truck! Again. Plus, thanks to the midnight cravings and a constant nagging feeling 2 hours later that I needed to go check the freezer again, we only lost one popsicle. That's it. And some things (like a chicken and some mystery meat that was frozen in 2003) that we should have thrown away a long time ago.

Funny Kids this month

Today, Tim was painting new designs on a T-shirt, and Caleb came in and said, "Mom, Dad is editing his shirts."

A couple days ago, I looked down and found Benjamin trying to pull off his belly button. He has a slight hernia, so his belly button is a pronounced outie, which means he could easily pinch it. So he was trying to pull it off. I finally said, "What are you doing Benji?" and my little one year old replied, "I want a ding-dong!"

What's Been Going On Around Here

Sorry for the long absence from blogging. I've been sick.

Yes, morning sick. At least as bad as my second pregnancy, maybe as bad as my first--and at least twice as bad as either of the last two.

Plus I developed a severe headache that comes and goes but gets worse when anything touches my neck--including my pillow. So I've not been sleeping well, which makes it all worse. Tension? A sinus infection? It would be more convenient to find out if I had insurance....as it is, I have to look up the clinics in town that do "Pay on a sliding scale based on income", find proof of our income (where did I put those pay stubs?), and pray the care is half-decent, in English, and respectful of human dignity (none of which have been my experiences with welfare clinics).

To make things more convenient, I am exhausted and cry over everything. Everything. Harry Potter counting down to his eleventh birthday? General Conference address that says mothers should develop their talents but not surf the internet? Tim singing "Stand By Me" in the show? News articles? Recipes...oh, let's not go there. Put together the phrases "emotional" and "train wreck," and you have me.

Oh, and it gets better. I have all the strong cravings a first-time pregnancy gets. For a week all I wanted was pizza--and now I can't stand to even look at it (not since the one we bought to bake at home came out moldy....) Then I just HAD to have a couple of tacos from Jack in the Box, which I've only tasted one other time in my whole life--ten years ago, the day I met my parents at the end of my mission. Then the other day I had to have Arby's ham and swiss melt. The next day it was steak and mushrooms. And I'd pay a lot right now for a toasted turkey-and-avocado sandwich, but I don't even know who makes those. Oh, and when we ran out of nectarines I thought I would die. I actually ate a whole Juan Canary Melon the other day. HAD to have it--and I'd never even tasted one before! (It's a lot like honeydew, if you wondered).

I also have food aversions. Don't make me drink soda. Or eat candy. Even ice cream looks nasty, and I barely tasted Tim's birthday cake and didn't even touch Anda's. And I can hardly look at tuna without gagging. This is only significant because Tuna is everyone's favorite lunch meat lately.

So, to make things worse, my usual distraction, working on my novel, is tied up in writer's block. Everywhere else I look there are messes because I feel to tired to fix them, and Tim is already handling all poopy diapers, his regular jobs (performing, composing, working on school, etc), the dishes, the laundry, and feeding kids.

Plus it's now 107 degrees in the shade every day, so going outside brings on waves of nausea. Apparently the local roaches are opposed to the heat, too--they've decided to come into the house.

Then the kids got ahold of an old sleeping bag and ripped a big L-shaped tear in the bottom. The would be no big deal, except it happened to be an honest-to-goodness down sleeping bag and they happened to be in the room where toys are spilled all over the floor, so vacuuming up the mess in time was impossible.

You wanna know what sleeping bag down blowing in the air conditioner looks like? Roaches.

Vitamin D in babies

The latest study to hit the news wires today was that 42% of babies and children are vitamin d Deficient, especially nursing babies because breast milk contains no vitamin D.

I read the reports and was fairly shocked. I am a strong believer that mother's milk is perfect for babies. If God didn't make it with vitamin D, then babies don't need dietary vitamin D, and taking supplements is a bad idea. Further, who set the amount of vitamin D infants need? What constitutes deficient?

The thing that shocked me most was that doctors only gave passing mention to the cause of the deficiency--the Doctors themselves! For years they have been telling parents to keep their children out of the sun and, if they MUST go out, do it when there is no direct sun and even then wear sunscreen (which interferes with Vitamin D production, according to the article I read). My doctor told me to put sunscreen on the kids every day, like we brush teeth every day.

When my doctors first told me that 6 years ago, I smiled and nodded and came home and said, "God designed humans to work outside. They've been doing it for centuries healthily. We aren't made to stay out of the sun completely. Someone is going to discover in a few years that this is a BAD idea, and they will have damaged thousands of kids' health over it." Besides, I have always worried about exposing kids to chemicals every day--and slathering on the sunscreen as part of the daily routine would certainly count as chemical exposure every day.

I, personally, have always encouraged my children to play in the sun every day. Not excessively, but kids need to play outside! It helps regulate their sleep, it keeps their skin healthy and cures eczema, it awakens their brains and keeps their muscles and lungs healthy. For all our playing outside, we've never had a sunburn (which, I understand, is what leads to skin cancer, not simply exposure to sunlight). And we've only used sunscreen when sunburn was a real risk--at swimming pools, when hiking, etc.

Instead of doctors saying they were wrong and now thousands of kids have weak bones and immune systems and are at risk of type I diabetes and multiple sclerosis (linked to weak immune systems caused by lack of Vitamin D), the doctors said, "It's because ALL children need vitamin D supplements!"

The problem with that is other studies I've read indicate bodies don't process dietary vitamin D the same way as sunlight vitamin D--and it doesn't have the same health benefits. Of course, it benefits the drug companies--why would they want you to get free vitamin d?

Doctors are not people to admit mistakes, generally, so I predict it will be years yet before they say, "That stupid previous generation of doctors hurt lots of kids--send your kids out in the sunshine every day!"

Granted, I do understand that sunshine can cause skin cancer. Our bodies were made to work in the sun outside. They were not made to suntan or to have massive amounts of skin exposed. I wonder if someone has done a study on whether the amount of skin you have tanned (ie is your belly and back Tan? upper limbs as well as lower limb?) is related to the chances you'll develop cancer. Is a farmers' tan healthier than a bikini tan?

Mowing the Lawn

We finally went and bought a lawnmower that works, since the one the landlord left leaks gas, sends out blue sparks, and won't shut off unless it feels like it. And that's when the pull cord doesn't stick!

Dan hopped up this morning to watch Tim mow. This is the first time in his memory that he's seen a lawnmower in action. He was IMPRESSED. The lawn was knee-high in some places, so it was a dramatic change.

First he said, "Dad's making pools for us to play in!"

Then he said, "Dad's shaving the grass!"

He ran from window to window watching and yelling, "Hi, Dad!"

It was all very exciting.