tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138051482024-03-05T03:14:59.902-06:00The Knitting MuseLord, what fools these mortals be!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-13496462163840956442010-11-23T17:06:00.000-06:002010-11-23T17:06:11.866-06:00New blog!It's time. A blog needs a focus, and this one has none. I started a homemaking blog months ago, and even for as infrequently as I blog, it was getting difficult to decide where to put which thoughts. Besides, "theknittingmuse" sounds like it ought to be a knitting blog, and I just don't turn out projects fast enough to have one of those. So, I point you to my new internet home (well, Facebook is my internet home, but maybe someday I'll be good at blogging too): <a href="http://afriendlyhome.blogspot.com/">http://afriendlyhome.blogspot.com/</a>. And you should definitely stop by, because otherwise you won't get to meet my new daughter. <a href="http://afriendlyhome.blogspot.com/2010/11/introducing-heidi.html">http://afriendlyhome.blogspot.com/2010/11/introducing-heidi.html</a><br />
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Alternatively, you could just accuse me of being a serial blog-starter like my dear friend <a href="http://eatingbreadandhoney.blogspot.com/">eatingbreadandhoney</a> (ok ok you're right, that's not her real name). I prefer to think of it as experimenting while I find my groove. Though as I've mentioned before, I kind of think Facebook is my groove.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-33439001432256248712010-07-12T10:54:00.001-05:002010-07-12T11:25:43.829-05:00Moving...The 15th is the date of getting the keys. After weeks of searching, only to find that everything in our new town is woefully out of our price range or absolutely squalid and cockroach infested, or not dog friendly, and having all the houses that looked like they MIGHT be habitable and we MIGHT be able to stretch the budget to afford them mysteriously slip from our fingers, we finally made the terrible decision that the dogs are of secondary importance to our family life, and that continuing to drive an hour and a half each way is so bad for our family life that if the dogs have to go, the dogs have to go.<br />
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One day after making that decision, we found a wonderful downtown apartment, the entire top floor of a Victorian (architecturally, yes, but don't think gingerbread and wrap-around porches) house. It is old and charming, right across the street from a park, two blocks downhill from the church, and half a block from the best coffee shop in town. (The last was entirely accidental, though I WAS the one to find the house. I promise.) It needs much cleaning, and the landlords need to do some repair work, but I am excessively pleased, just the same.<br />
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NB: my husband doesn't think it's "wonderful." He walked into the foyer and saw the hole in the ceiling plaster where they'd fixed the toilet above and hadn't put the ceiling back, he saw the window that needed to be re-sealed, the one crooked door that the landlord had already told me they were going to fix, the window sill with termite damage, and the uneven floor in the original screened-in summer porch (whose floors are always uneven, at least in every old house I've ever seen - those porches were almost always afterthoughts, after all) and said "you thought THIS was CUTE??" Well, c'est la vie. He was desperate enough to tell me to look for mobile homes, but apparently not desperate enough to snap up an apartment that was affordable and livable but which needed repairs and cleaning from the nasty previous renters.<br />
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And the best part? We can still keep one dog! They have a 2-dog, 50-lb total pet limit, and if our dogs weren't Aussies we'd be keeping both, but unfortunately one dog just about meets the weight limit, so one dog it is. We don't know which one we'll be bringing, and which one we'll be re-homing, because it all depends on the homes we can find.<br />
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I know mostly only people who I can trust read this blog, so I will give a shameless plug for my dogs here. <br />
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Gwenivere (yes, spelled the Welsh way) is a year and a half old black tri, has had one litter of puppies, ASCA and AKC registered. She has followed a herding dog around and has proved her abilities/instincts, but has not been trained. She is absolutely sweet, loves people, loves kids, I have never seen her growl or lash out at any provocation. However, she is very very high energy, and needs space or an owner committed to giving her enough exercise. She's happiest when she has a job, and I'd like to place her with someone with sheep or cattle to herd, or at least a farm to watch over. She smiles with her teeth and loves to lick faces. I have not been able to break her of the habit of jumping up on people. She's the one my husband wants to keep because of her sweet temperment, and she's the one I want to re-home because I she would be so much happier on a farm than in an apartment yard. She would be an amazing show dog for conformation or agility.<br />
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Sir Gawain is an 8 month old red merle, intact, ASCA and AKC registered, and Gwen's half brother. He is much more laid back and lazy, and loves to sit and look at you adoringly. He is a wonderful companion dog, but his energy is much lower, and I doubt he has much of a herding instinct. He also loves kids, but he's bigger and clumsier than Gwen and more likely to knock very small children over. He is very patient, but he has one black mark on his record: he bit my husband once when he was a very small puppy. He has not bitten anyone since then, though he has definitely been provoked, but he likes to lick you with his whole mouth, not just tongue, so sometimes there is teeth contact though it's never nipping or biting. Again, these are considerations for having him around children, especially if children are likely to say "he bit me!" when all he was doing was licking. I have not seen him be aggressive once since the one biting incident, which based on the circumstances was definitely puppy fear-biting. He injured his shoulder when he was a puppy and it grew somewhat crooked, so he will never be able to peform for conformation. I honestly don't think he's smart enough to perform for obedience. He's just a perfect dog to have around a family, and he's never happier than when he's stretched out across your lap getting his tummy rubbed. He's the one I want to keep, because I think he'd be happier in an apartment yard with daily walks. Also, I'm his favorite person, which naturally makes me love him more.<br />
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It breaks my heart to have to get rid of one of these dogs, but it is so necessary for our family. If anyone who reads this is interested, or knows of anyone who might be, please send them my way. We won't be finally out of the old house till the 1st, and driving back and forth to pack till then, so we have a little time to work dog details out. It's my biggest priority just to find a good home for them. I'll be asking $100 for whichever dog I can find a good home for, not that that comes anywhere close to what we paid for them or what even their papers are worth, but my object is not to make money. I put a price on them more as a litmus test for their future homes, whether their future parents are willing to invest in them or are just willing to accept freebies.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-64777671045723467012010-06-30T00:04:00.001-05:002010-06-30T00:11:47.358-05:00A brief period of housewiferyWhen my husband acquired a much more lucrative job an hour and a half from our current town, I bit my nails, crossed my legs, and waited two! weeks! before giving my two more weeks' notice at the Small Clothing Shop of Exhaustion and Sore Pregnant Legs. I celebrated the end of my clothing retail career this weekend by going to the Nearby Small Town Sweet Corn Festival and thence to bellydance, and now am closing the second weekday of my new and blissful existence as a housewife.<br />
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It won't last forever. The idea, once we move to the new town, is for me to work again, albeit under my own employment and on my own terms. While the last thing we want with a baby on the way is for me to be stuck in an hourly job that barely covers the daycare costs, if everything goes to plan I will have to spend some of my time out of the home, perhaps a good portion of it. Permanent housewifery is the ultimate goal, but not suburban housewifery - we want a farm, and farms cost money, and money must be earned and saved before it can be spent. I'm not complaining (ok, so I do complain) about being a working mother; at least, while I complain about it, I also know the necessity. I also know that while one must be discerning about giving one's child into another's care, it is possible to find wise, loving and caring people to help with childcare. People who understand that I will be sending breastmilk, and that they are not to use formula because it's easier. People who understand that the TV is not to be turned on while my child is in the vicinity; perhaps even people who make it their policy not to have TV at their establishments, because children should be playing and learning instead, and they are after all in the business of raising children. It's not ideal, it's not the same as being at home with a child all the time, but it is what looks to be necessary to break our family free of the wageslavery of suburban Wal-merica, and therefore I believe it will be worthwhile to go to the trouble and expense of finding a nanny who will not compromise the upbringing of her charge for the convenience of leaving the baby in front of a flashing box while she talks on the phone.<br />
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I digress with my speculations on childcare.<br />
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We are a little over three (is it possible? only three?) months from meeting our Heidi-pumpkin, and it appears we are a month away from being able to move and let my husband cease his ridiculous commuting. No house has been fixed on, and there is only so much I can pack until we are sure of a moving date. There is much, much to organize, but after all, the towels and plates don't need to be packed up for weeks while we eat on plastic and dry ourselves on two towels that are washed every couple of days. I know there is so much for me to do, but it is hard not to feel that I have plenty of time before me. It's a deception I've fallen for over and over again, and it so happens that if I actually begin all the things I need to do, I only barely finish them before crisis time. That didn't stop me from taking a nap this afternoon, though. Well, maybe I was entitled. I did only get five hours of (broken) sleep by the time I battled off my insomnia, woke back up to send my hubby out the door at 3 am, battled insomnia again, and woke when the sun got too bright. Regardless, I felt luxurous and rather lazy. I did work today; the house is much better ordered than it has been for ages. But... but.<br />
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There was a time in our culture when a woman's place was considered to be in the home. If her house was well managed and she could manage a midday nap to refresh herself and her unborn child, who could blame her for catching a bit of well-earned rest? I have yearned for such a time, for such a situation for myself. I have envied my friends who already have such a lifestyle. I have even argued with my husband, pushing for the "right" to be what most women nowadays consider either unattainable or degrading, depending on their ideological bent. But now that I have a short time of being able to live my dream, I feel like I'm not contributing, not doing enough to make our lives better, lazy. Am I just so used to the way things have been since the beginning of my marriage that I have a hard time adjusting to a change? Or have I really begun believing the lie that I'm only worth something if I have a corporate boss telling me I am?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-27857140298686698432010-06-21T15:53:00.000-05:002010-06-21T15:53:56.518-05:00Dear Heidi,While I know it is natural for flutters to turn into pummelings at about this point in gestation, there are some organs that I prefer to not have pummelled. Please learn to avoid them in the future.<br />
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Sincerely,<br />
MammaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-67245130634799887602010-05-04T12:18:00.001-05:002010-05-04T12:22:48.768-05:00Women should make less money than menMy dear friend L posted a link to a consciously and humorously chauvenistic <a href="http://www.inmalafide.com/2010/04/13/the-fallacy-of-higher-education-for-women-part-one/">article </a>about how women should not receive higher education - the sort of article that has a point, but delivers it on purpose in such a way as to make people mad, possibly because otherwise nobody will pay attention. The basic gist is that if women are biologically intended to bear and raise children, why are they going into debt to receive educations that they don't need? Do you really need a physics degree to teach your children to add?<br />
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Naturally, I am a well educated woman who believes that women do have the right to be educated, even if <em>all</em> they are going to do with their lives is raise children. I don't think that a college degree necessarily makes a woman more fit to be a mother, unless she majors in consumer sciences or home economics or some other such vocationally-oriented field, but that education makes anyone a more complete person. It all centers on the simple fact that humans have intelligence, and that it is a crime against human nature not to use it. Now, is it worth going into massive amounts of debt to get a degre that proves that you are intelligent? Absolutely not. Is it possible to stay at home and read good books? Sure, but we tend to be lazy, and the best intentions of self-improvement, without structure or guidance, often lead to sentimental Christian novels from Walmart as the basis of one's knowledge of culture. So I do think that higher education is a noble goal for women, even that subclass of women known as stay at home moms, and if I were to get into a discussion of the assumption of school debt in American society it would turn into a gigantic rant of all of its own, and I want to stay on topic. So we will leave loans out of the question, and take as a given the assumption that somehow this higher education is (though it's almost never the case) being paid for as it is acquired, in a responsible fashion.<br />
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So much for why I disagree with the article which sparked this inspiration. What I want to discuss is only related insofar as it began a chain of ideas which lead me to a completely different conclusion.<br />
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I actually want to discuss the issue of wages, and specifically the fact that women in the working world have fought for years to have the same wages as men. I'm sure it made much sense at the time. After all, a man could get a job and make enough money to support a family. A woman, however, might only make enough for a little supplementary income. This was criminally unfair, right? Women aren't a lower class of people than men, and they don't deserve to be paid less than men simply for being women. Obviously.<br />
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Only, it doesn't work.<br />
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It's a beautiful idea, that two people working could bring in enough money to effectively run two households, and could combine it to have a household of absolute luxury. Combine that with the fact that many families with two working parents have either no or relatively few children to spend money on, and it looks like it should necessarily be part of the American Dream. Wealth and luxury for a few hours of sitting behind a desk. What more could you want?<br />
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Well, I for one could have wanted employers not to have caught on to the fact that with wives entering the workforce, they could afford to equalize the pay scales by paying men <em>less. </em>It has long been a simple fact of our economy that it is very very difficult for one person to make enough money to pay for an entire family. Any time any girlfriends or I express the desire to be a housekeeper and a stay at home mom, the first reaction we hear from anyone except a very conservative person who already agrees with us is "nobody can afford that."<br />
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The sad thing is, they're almost right.<br />
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I do want to be a housekeeper and a stay at home mother. I am not lazy, and I am not unwilling to work. I have a full time job right now, and though life is more difficult for my husband and me, sharing housework and cooking when we are already dead on our feet from working our jobs all day, it's what we have to do, so we make the best of it. Our paychecks combined cover our modest house, our grocery bills, and a little to tuck away in savings. I will have a baby soon, however, and I anticipate that daycare costs will come close enough to matching my meager paycheck to make it completely unreasonable for me to continue working. I will probably have my dream of being a SAHM more from necessity than from a true ability to realize my dream.<br />
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And my husband will not receive a raise for being the sole breadwinner. There are higher paying jobs out there, and he is doing his best to get one, but unless we were willing (and we are not) to go into even more debt for even more school for him, he will not be able to get the sort of highly salaried job that would support us in anything more than very modest comfort. I am happy with this - I "don't want marble halls," and I didn't come up with the expression. But the fact is that he has everything he needs, except a hundred grand in school debt, to merit a higher paying job - he is intelligent, works hard, and is diligent and ethical. In other words, he has all the qualities to provide us with a comfortable life, not a meager just-get-by life, except for a workplace system which will allow him to do it.<br />
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And thus I desperately want the status quo to be for men once again to make twice as much as women. Or at least twice as much as married women. Or at least for my husband to make twice as much for me. Because, you see, if he could make enough money at his calling to be the breadwinner for our family, I could follow my calling to create comfort, beauty and efficiency out of a frugal home, and to be the wife and mother for our family.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-12086874148262843312010-04-28T18:56:00.001-05:002010-04-28T19:14:04.123-05:00Dogs who are too smart for their own goodBefore our girl dog went to live with a friend, I called our Australian Shepherds the Tailless Terrors.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW5cqN3MjpedBJr3eOkf2bsm7bRhrCsJ2b93BUX6OlL69KNTMbQ75yntPJroa2H17IhPpNgKfrOooh7H3wydqOP_IrzDDEoNAK3LHgEtyLtM6x0dUgKq5OAfgNn0jqrKskiTueMw/s1600/nika.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW5cqN3MjpedBJr3eOkf2bsm7bRhrCsJ2b93BUX6OlL69KNTMbQ75yntPJroa2H17IhPpNgKfrOooh7H3wydqOP_IrzDDEoNAK3LHgEtyLtM6x0dUgKq5OAfgNn0jqrKskiTueMw/s320/nika.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nika the Too Smart For Her Own Good</div><br />
Every day when we came home from work, they had knocked over their food and water bowls and pulled them into the middle of the yard. I was just waiting for the day the Humane Society would come and take them away, since they were outside all day with no water. Nevermind the fact that it was entirely their own fault they had no water. "Whatever," I thought to myself, "dogs knock things over when they play. It happens. They're not doing it on purpose."<br />
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So I thought. Until one morning when I was out feeding them, and Nika was more than usually obnoxous about jumping up on me and wrapping me around with her leash. I stepped on her leash and put a stop to the rowdyness. The problem was, she could no longer reach the food I had just poured into the bowl? So what did she do? Reach her paw out and knock the food over, entirely on purpose.<br />
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It was later that we discovered that they had been meticulously removing the fastening pins from their kennel and taking it apart. Perhaps they considered the kennel a symbol of their captivity. Perhaps it was their Bastille. Nika had long ago figured out that if she tangled their tie-out chains enough she'd be able to pop the clip that fastened to her collar and run free, while Sir Gawain barked in rage and frustration and alerted us to the situation, if we were lucky enough to be home at the time. It was quite a surprise discovering her out and about with her collar perfectly intact that first time.<br />
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They dug up an arrowhead during one of their last days together in the yard. Half of it is gone. Knowing these dogs, I wouldn't be surprised if they had eaten the missing half.<br />
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However, we are now oh so thankfully a one-dog family, and I rather feel that we have the easier to control half. I'll tell you this, though: Sir Gawain is not above pulling his blanket out of his kennel and depositing it at my feet if he wants me to wash it. How he figured out that I'm the laundry lass I really don't know. He's not smart enough to figure out that I'm the one opposed to feeding him scraps off our plates, obviously, because he still loves me.<br />
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<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmOEh9h4y89kLXy9x8yOVnDj8LhvAC2dq6AhbX9pHT-16iIC-iyXOBGLxYBFjHdiXreKbUon7Q37muzN1qY2XXeEotkLnP6e4516v4ffyFpGVo1IEwdRf0rlKzx-Kv3wil5D0tg/s1600/sir+gawain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmOEh9h4y89kLXy9x8yOVnDj8LhvAC2dq6AhbX9pHT-16iIC-iyXOBGLxYBFjHdiXreKbUon7Q37muzN1qY2XXeEotkLnP6e4516v4ffyFpGVo1IEwdRf0rlKzx-Kv3wil5D0tg/s320/sir+gawain.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Sir Gawain the Very Expensive and Starry Eyed From Having Choked on a Persian Carpet and Needing Oxygen for 24 Hours</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-17606680885430250092010-03-30T12:31:00.002-05:002010-03-30T12:34:56.752-05:00toothpaste and the healthcare billMe: I'm starting a campaign to keep the toothpaste and toothbrushes put away instead of left out on the counter.<br />Love: Well, I'll have to see how the Democrats and Republicans vote on the issue before I determine whether I support your campaign.<br />Me: It's just toothpaste.<br />Love: But before you know it, the House will emend it to include taking out the trash, and the Senate will start talking about vacuuming.<br />Me: I promise, this bill is only about toothpaste.<br />Love: We'll see. I won't support it if it includes any other issues in the final draft.<br />Me: Like how the health care bill started out being about insurance companies and ended up being about student loans?<br />Love: Exactly.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-6838050518946469382010-03-10T20:21:00.002-06:002010-03-10T20:48:47.194-06:00DaffodowndillyI'm still planning on posting the fishy sock cable pattern. I just haven't felt like figuring out how to yet. Sorry. It's coming.<br /><br />Last week I was walking my girl Aussie, the one with two healthy shoulders and way too much energy, and on a whim I crossed to the other side of the street from the one I usually take. What a surprise! In an wide empty space at the top of a little hill, there are large spreading trees and lush grass already, though it is early spring. As I walked along the side of the street, I noticed rows of daffodil sprigs popping up, though there were no sidewalks for them to border. They were perfectly parallel, and occasionally more parallel daffodil rows would wander off to the left at a perfect right angle. I amused myself for a while walking up and down the vestiges of forgotten sidewalks and trying to find bits of foundation where the houses used to be. I imagined the houses, probably like all the other old houses on the street, with little housewives planting daffodil bulbs in the fall, up and down the walk. I imagine they had no idea that their ephimeral flowers would survive their sturdy houses. How surprised they would be to know that the only evidence that their homes were ever there now is the sweet garden they planted.<br /><br />And yesterday the daffodils began to flower! In a few days the empty hill will be full of a riot of yellow, in perfect rows along forgotten sidewalks. I also pulled out all the bulbs I forgot to plant last fall - daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and tulips - thinking of putting them in the fridge, to find that many of them had sprouted like onions. I tucked some of them along the front of my house, though the soil is too rocky through most of my yard to allow a shovel to penetrate more than half an inch, threw two hyacinths in pots (ah, the beauty of soil that comes prepackaged at Walmart! Even the noble art of gardening succombs to commercialized lazyness), and, yes, packed up into the fridge the ones that hadn't sprouted too much yet. Many bulbs are still sitting in a basket waiting to have something done with them. Maybe I'll just find lush places here and there in the middle of the yard to plant them. After all, by the time the grass needs to be mowed, the flowers will be finished anyway, right?<br /><br />I think I will plant bulbs everywhere I live, now that I know how a garden can be longer-lived than a home. As I thought of the thriving gardens that outlived their houses, I remembered one flower from this summer. My husband was showing me where an old house used to stand, right behind one of my favorite restaurants. Local legend said it was haunted, and high school boys used to go in at night for dares. It was abandoned for many years, and finally condemned and demolished. There is no trace of foundation to be found any more. Yet this summer, while we were searching for remnants of the old mansion, we found a single Amaryllis bravely holding its own against the weeds and gravel. The family who last lived in the house over 50 years ago has long been forgotten, and now even the house is gone, but the Amaryllis that once adorned a graceful garden still come up every year. The memory of that gardener will last as long as spring comes to that spot, or at least until the Cafe decides to pave the parking lot. (Sorry, even gardens can't be THAT permanent. Concrete trucks know little of poetry.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-778394047324945612010-02-09T18:14:00.004-06:002010-02-09T18:33:23.200-06:00Fishy socks!Last August a woman in my knitting club brought in skeins of alpaca yarn from her own personal alpacas, and my husband decided he wanted a sweater. With cables. Oh, wait, no, how about a sweater with a Norse colorwork pattern? Well, maybe there's not quite enough yarn for that... how about SOCKS with a Norse colorwork pattern?<br /><br />I tried. If anybody knows how to make Fair Isle or other color knitting stretchy, please tell me. In the meantime, last August, I announced that unless he had size 2 feet and didn't mind his socks being completely slouchy, these stars and reindeer weren't gonna work.<br /><br />So he drew a couple squiggles on a page that looked vaguely like a fish, and said, "do cables like these." And I said, "I don't know how to do cables like that!" And he said, "figure it out" and left the room.<br /><br />He sounds really mean, doesn't he? I thought so too. Only, an hour later, I had completed a swatch that looked quite a bit like fish, which proved to me that I <em>did</em> in fact know how to do cables like that. So he wasn't being mean, he just knew my abilities better than I did.<br /><br />Now, I am going to beg a favor from my readers. Please kindly ignore the fact that by my own admission this project has been on my needles since AUGUST, and be duly impressed at the completion of...<br /><br />THE FISHY SOCKS.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXYexVLO4zM3La-UH4m7YylBF-LjZtbwUBUL_gQx7WCW-YHL936x8HXFMYPFscFz1PnfFAvsWz-bH3Zkh0XAV1-et4VoT5EdOeqRk0u2UGSyOd4ZhTa0RtM7IEZIt729jZ6qRsQ/s1600-h/fishy+socks+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXYexVLO4zM3La-UH4m7YylBF-LjZtbwUBUL_gQx7WCW-YHL936x8HXFMYPFscFz1PnfFAvsWz-bH3Zkh0XAV1-et4VoT5EdOeqRk0u2UGSyOd4ZhTa0RtM7IEZIt729jZ6qRsQ/s320/fishy+socks+1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436404981044802850" /></a><br />They're not green, they're gray, but my phone was on life support, and the life support cord didn't reach from the kitchen table where the light was good to the plug in the living room. And I'm not about to let you see the state of my linoleum; it's embarrassing. Not dirty embarrassing, but should-have-been-replaced-fifty-years-ago embarrassing. Thus we have distorted colors. Such is life.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_RlLpiXBBLYAiEiIuxJ9WKBjeyYH6D8opxvYGpraSLXnSaa5bpTM4C_j_iC-Z5muJURBsUzkdRNzn_3J8qYTgYMHIZ5WpqMf7WeLK5IXcA9R3f1Oix5WautY_2wRKJoB8eUjZkA/s1600-h/fishy+socks+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_RlLpiXBBLYAiEiIuxJ9WKBjeyYH6D8opxvYGpraSLXnSaa5bpTM4C_j_iC-Z5muJURBsUzkdRNzn_3J8qYTgYMHIZ5WpqMf7WeLK5IXcA9R3f1Oix5WautY_2wRKJoB8eUjZkA/s320/fishy+socks+2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436404983084879362" /></a><br />I'm modelling because, well, the socks are warm and fuzzy, and I wanted to try them out first. Am I a bad person?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-15942119650614083662010-02-08T16:10:00.002-06:002010-02-08T16:18:32.080-06:00Conversations about dogs...(I'm looking out the window)<br />Him: Are the puppies ok? Are they still fighting over their bone?<br />Me: They're fine. They're just eating some vines.<br /><br />************<br />(He walks in the door)<br />Me: What are the puppies doing?<br />Him: Sir Gawain was chewing on glass.<br />Me: HOW did they get glass?<br />Him: You think I know???<br /><br />************<br />Him: Well, I guess I have to go get the puppies in trouble. They're chewing on fiberglass insulation again.<br /><br />************<br />Him: Sir Gawain isn't going to have any teeth left if he doesn't stop chewing on metal!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-34363921977782211312010-01-30T17:25:00.004-06:002010-01-30T19:41:10.247-06:00Little things that show me I'm lovedMy husband read my previous post and thought that "flowers on the table" was about his gift-giving skills, not my gardening skills, so he bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and tried to sneak them under my nose at the grocery store. I asked about them, but then he was so disappointed I had to lie and tell him I hadn't seen them after all. Shh, don't tell him. And then I carefully didn't look at them while we were putting the groceries on the conveyor belt. Well, maybe I sneaked a peek or two.<br /><br />And now my living room is all yellow and pink and red and purple and more pink. Beautiful.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6x-mG3JtHUZ5q_I31_lzhmTm7YdXfRt3wfskfMWrPvRzwVWaz1O4iZa0zSyU-MztihAkvnCBknqhzurR_ulm0ZOej4xqZurMh3LrldQpH4OL7vO_kS1bc244TWnmP58STq-HYA/s1600-h/flowers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6x-mG3JtHUZ5q_I31_lzhmTm7YdXfRt3wfskfMWrPvRzwVWaz1O4iZa0zSyU-MztihAkvnCBknqhzurR_ulm0ZOej4xqZurMh3LrldQpH4OL7vO_kS1bc244TWnmP58STq-HYA/s320/flowers.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432712902830149810" /></a><br /><br />Tell me I didn't marry a wonderful man. Just try to tell me.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-89096970103658502022010-01-28T21:13:00.002-06:002010-01-28T22:13:20.697-06:00The rain is falling...and freezing as soon as it touches. Tomorrow the world will be covered with crystal frosting like a big crunchy wedding cake. Ice scrapers will probably be thoroughly ineffective on the car windshield, and the power lines will probably have fallen, like they do every time Oklahoma has an ice storm. Thus I spend the precious hours of electricity meditating online about the fact that at least my stove and water heater are gas powered. So technically is the central heating, but we'd have to figure out a way to bypass the electric thermostat. Any clues?<br /><br />Before I got married, I expected wifehood to be a blissful world of aprons and baby-tummies. I figured that I would be the sort of wife who had fresh flowers on her kitchen table and handmade doilies on every surface, and who knew the natural remedy for every possible ailment. Somehow marriage would enable me to become this person, because obviously as a single girl I didn't have time for it. Oh, I had hours to dream about it, but no time to put it into practice. Besides, I was an ideological aspiring housewife who in practice tended to leave her socks in the living room floor. Laundry? People do laundry? Without having to wash clothes three times over because they sat in the washer so long they got musty? What? And doing dishes everyday? I thought this was why we engaged house-elves!<br /><br />Intellectually, however, I knew that once married I would in fact still be the same person I was when I was single. I thus buried myself under countless resolutions to become the perfect housewife BEFORE I was married. They would generally last about a week before my messy habits would resurface. And those dreams of potted herbs? Still dreams. I have a brown thumb.<br /><br />Does marriage really change you, the way I thought it didn't? Is it just because I've discovered from experience that with two people making the mess, if I don't keep it under control it will eventually reach nervous-breakdown proportions? That might be an explanation for why I do laundry on occasion, but does it explain the frustrated sigh at seeing dead grass on the carpet and immediate vacuuming frenzy when I came home from work this afternoon? <br /><br />The fear of disproportionate messes also doesn't explain the simple satisfaction I get from perfecting my house. It must be simply because it IS my house: not my parents' house, not a house I share with roommates, but my house, mine and my husband's, and I am the wife and mistress of the hearth. The sunlight falling past the blue windowsill onto my drying dishes could only be more satisfying if there were a lace curtain (with roosters!) filtering the light (and hiding the ugly windowshades that the landlord won't let me take down, but we're not discussing that right now). I fold the blankets and arrange the pillows on the bed, taking care that the seams on the striped pillow shames mirror and don't chase each other, because it must be symmetrical. I turn on lamps, I open blinds, I arrange, I tidy, I stress out when things are messy and I can't help it anymore! There are currently a tissue, a jar of peanuts and two empty bowls on the cedar chest/coffee table and it's driving me CRAZY. However, I'm warm under a blanket and not going anywhere (c.f. note about the ice).<br /><br />You might think I'm bragging about how I'm a perfect wife. I could demure and say that I don't cook very often, having been lucky enough to marry a much better cook than I am, and therefore I don't live up to wifely ideals. I could more justly say that there's a big pile of laundry, and then give the excuse that since my dryer is on the fritz, the clothes have to air dry, and there are only so many loads that can air dry at once inside a house in the middle of winter.<br /><br />Instead, I think I'll be honest. The point of being a wife isn't keeping a beautiful home, or using your handmade apron to pull a from-scratch cake out of the oven, or having many children with starched pinafores and shiny clean faces. The point of being a wife is to love your husband. And how can I love my husband when all I do when I'm home from work is stress out about the mess in the house? I get so irritable when I'm distracted from a task that I feel is important; even (and I'm ashamed to say it) when what is distracting me is a tender caress. What I need to learn is that no task is more important than my man is.<br /><br />How insidious pride is. I deceive myself into believing that I am performing acts of love and service by spending so much time and energy in minding my house, when in fact all I am doing is feeding my own newfound clean-freak ego. What I need to do is accept the fact that I am not a stay-at-home wife but a working wife, and my few hours at home need to be spent in giving my Lord and Master what he really needs: less of the sweet smell of Simple Green and more of my undivided attention.<br /><br />That said, I have been boldfacedly lying all week when I tell my customers that I hope it won't ice as badly as the forecast says. I hope it ices fully that badly, and more. The more time I have at home, the more time I have to fulfill my cleaning bug needs and still have many hours in the day for cuddling and talking. And this makes everyone happy.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-58229724490520716152009-12-10T11:13:00.002-06:002009-12-10T11:24:38.839-06:00Why it's been forever...because Google doesn't let you just switch settings over to a new gmail account. You have to do it manually. And who wants to do that when there are Australian Shepherd puppies to chase around?<br /><br />But I'm back, posting under the same old blog name (though I'm sure at some point I'll want to find a more appropriate title for a blog which is more about everyday life than about knitting projects), with a new email address. The old one still works so don't worry about it, but my new email address is my new name, formatted firstmiddlelast at gmail.com just like the old one.<br /><br />As most of my readers know, I got married this summer to my best friend (man, I love these puns!) and I hope the excuse of settling into married life is a good enough one for my blogging hiatus. Except for the one we lost to miscarriage we have no babies yet, but we have had four Australian shepherds so far, one of whom stalked bugs until he got hit by a car, another of whom stalks deer at the in-laws' house now, and two who just tackle each other in our living room floor.<br /><br />I'm happy to be able to blog again and brag about how beautiful every day is in my life. Hurrah for internet connections at home!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807549835143586427noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-34519353897661275902009-06-22T14:36:00.003-05:002009-06-22T14:48:46.180-05:00Thank you, everyone, for your prayers. I have been overwhelmed with grace this week, and have recieved so much peace and guidance. I know it's because of all the prayers (and good thoughts, since I have some friends who don't pray) that have been coming my way.<br /><br />I have much reason for sorrow in my life right now, but I also have much reason for joy. I have a wonderful man who loves me and is going to marry me just about as soon as I can finish making my dress. I have God's faithful promise that He wants me to marry my man, and to be happy with him. I have amazing friends who rally and prove their love for me, even when they don't know what's going on. The love of my friends is worth more than gold. Thank you. I've had a week-long retreat to get my spiritual life back in order and to pray about God's plan for me. And I sang at the wedding of two wonderful people whose love is an inspiration, and whose Tridentine Nuptial Mass filled me with a certain amount of Nerdy Catholic Pride for knowing the responses. Chelsea and Martin, congratulations, and may God bless your life together abundantly.<br /><br />So thank you all for your prayers and good wishes, and please keep them coming, especially in the next couple of weeks while I wait for the inevitable-and-painfully-final. But don't worry about me. My life is still awesome.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-59750206167217144562009-06-14T16:25:00.002-05:002009-06-14T16:27:58.031-05:00Three days ago, I feared and lamented people's judgment. Today, I would give anything to have the reason for their judgment back.<br /><br />My Philomena Grace, pray for me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-81093460659944804512009-06-12T19:31:00.002-05:002009-06-12T19:32:33.379-05:00Prayers would be appreciatedThe Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />No storm can shake my inmost calm<br />While to that rock I'm clinging.<br />Since Christ is Lord of Heaven and Earth,<br />How can I keep from singing?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-75979649549402778132009-04-01T09:30:00.004-05:002009-04-01T10:14:55.974-05:00Love Story, Part 1School started, you know, sometime in the middle of January. I hadn't wanted to go back to school this semester. I was tired of it, felt it was useless, was ready to do more exciting and productive things than stress out about assignments I wasn't even interested in. As a result, I registered for classes just a couple of days before classes started, and discovered that my schedule didn't quite fit. Everything I needed was on Tuesday night, it seemed, and Tuesday was choir, and I knew I'd go crazy with another musicless semester. I juggled and schemed, and signed up for Curriculum Development, Educational Research, and Learning Styles (Part Two).<br /><br />Enter the Learning Styles class Wednesday night. (I promise, it becomes a love story soon.) Jackie B walks into the classroom with her box of learning games (what would be the point of a learning styles class if we had to sit still all class and listen to a lecture, as if we were all low-mobility and auditory?) looks at me, and says, "but you passed this class last semester!"<br /><br />Right. Learning Styles Part Two? Happening in Broken Arrow, on a totally different night. I signed up for the same class I'd already taken. And, as she pointed out, passed. With flying colors, I might add.<br /><br />So, five minutes later I was in Dr. C's office saying "What do I do? I have to be full-time to get health insurance, and this was all that fit in my schedule!" And she said, "Do you have to be in choir?" And I said "YES." And she said, "ok, here's what we can do. I'll put you in this super-useful undergrad class which will actually teach you HOW to teach, and not just tell you about theorists, and you will contract with the professor for extra work for grad credit." And I said, "super."<br /><br />Enter said undergrad classroom the next Monday. Actually, we're going to skip till the next Wednesday, since the prof was gone on Monday. There's a very opinionated auburn-haired boy in a baseball cap across the table from me. He has a charming smile. His nametag says "Ryan." End of story.<br /><br />Several weeks later, he still had a charming smile, but this time he was smoking outside the Education building as I walked in. I waved and kept walking. He finished his cigarette and started walking behind me. I really wanted to turn around and say something, but I couldn't think of anything, so I continued awkwardly walking in front of him and pretended I wasn't acutely aware of his presence behind me.<br /><br />February 16, I was wearing Leokadia's beautiful blue dress, a lacy white shirt, and black leggings.<br /><br />Ryan: You look nice!<br />Mc: (didn't even hear him. Was staring vacantly at the wall, or something.)<br />Beth: I don't think she heard you.<br />Ryan: Well, fine then. Nevermind.<br />Me: Huh???<br />Dr. G: Just to remind you, we're not having class on Wednesday the 25th. Don't show up.<br />Ryan: That's Ash Wednesday.<br />Me: Catholic Identification Day!<br />Ryan: (huffy) Well, then I guess I'm gonna have to be identified, because I'm a Catholic.<br />Me: You are?? That's awesome! Me too!<br />Ryan: ...oh. (feels silly for being huffy)<br /><br />And that, my chickpeas, is how we met. Later that day he asked me if I knew about Clear Creek Monastery, and I said, "oh my gawsh." You know, that's only why I MOVED here. He "knows the B----- family really well." Begin flashback to one of the B---- girls telling me, months ago, that "we have this friend who goes to (decently large school where hopefully I'm anonymous enough not to be stalkable, but I'm still not gonna say the name) named Ryan, and we really want you to meet him! He's funny, and you're going to like him a lot." So I decided to give him a chance, or at least to let him keep following me around like a puppy dog.<br /><br />And the rest, as they say, is history. We started dating two days later, and two weeks later we'd decided to get married. Six weeks after we met, I have a ring on my finger, but that story is for a later installment.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-33201502695877290992009-03-26T13:10:00.002-05:002009-03-26T13:25:00.456-05:00The Passion of Christ in Lego!Please watch this. You will not be disappointed. Bonus trivia: the gigantically talented kids who put this together probably aren't even eligible for a high school diploma yet (though you never know, maybe they're homeschooled). Yet another reason why our present school system is S-I-L-L-Y.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/the_passion_of_christ_in_lego#When:18:00:00Z">http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/the_passion_of_christ_in_lego#When:18:00:00Z</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-39766385384365648052009-02-14T11:19:00.007-06:002009-02-14T17:51:23.586-06:00Ice storm photos!As promised, pictures from the ice storm a few weeks ago. On Monday, Jan. 26, to be exact, it rained, and that rain froze. Then it sleeted. Then it snowed. Then it sleeted again. And then we couldn't get out the driveway. Stranded! So... I played photographer! (Northerners, especially some I know on facebook, shut up about how much worse your winters are. There's a reason I live in Oklahoma.)<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY5iB1cNJkpiSKsm0nZaj7s-YpbgXStGWQVbvkvEcYicDaP-3GpbG2KsRL13mEGAbxhZhak2CBDGT1guzYkdiYWRBLxZkF2QrW8Ged0K4cDh3cCWDTmCw0USh9oCc-vq74xcn4/s1600-h/IMG_4414.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY5iB1cNJkpiSKsm0nZaj7s-YpbgXStGWQVbvkvEcYicDaP-3GpbG2KsRL13mEGAbxhZhak2CBDGT1guzYkdiYWRBLxZkF2QrW8Ged0K4cDh3cCWDTmCw0USh9oCc-vq74xcn4/s320/IMG_4414.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302707326725339458" border="0" /></a>It looks very sweet and pastoral, but Lulu (the puppy) is really about to bite Esmerelda's (the cat's) head. Esmerelda doesn't fancy this fascination with the flavor of her head very much, but what can she do? Lulu is rather bigger than she is.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUOmAbSa2msMyrTgZErCeYbRD_cihmgQhdu8IjpSTki1HbzZ2wwF4xibgRMRphTYjPro0CWnykofzJ8S4joRKzEqmmUQ8RUZYFiifsjzsXQIqEcyF1DhOpm2WwWYN1FjcMm30F/s1600-h/IMG_4484.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUOmAbSa2msMyrTgZErCeYbRD_cihmgQhdu8IjpSTki1HbzZ2wwF4xibgRMRphTYjPro0CWnykofzJ8S4joRKzEqmmUQ8RUZYFiifsjzsXQIqEcyF1DhOpm2WwWYN1FjcMm30F/s320/IMG_4484.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302794883686422466" border="0" /></a>Some of the chickens huddled under the house. They don't have names, my dear readers, so you can't anthropomorphize them. More importantly, we can't anthromorphize them, which makes them easier to eat later on.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5S95j1BnMErlucZbqATUkZA-V-mjvOVYqYfPqaP_FhI4N5Tto94FRw6oqYU0Wwp-1ga6cj04-dsgElsRUYDDM_JO4s5ocXiurWDAUZJtBeC1la1GLdqCqxRXMm2T08wItPGC/s1600-h/IMG_4444.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5S95j1BnMErlucZbqATUkZA-V-mjvOVYqYfPqaP_FhI4N5Tto94FRw6oqYU0Wwp-1ga6cj04-dsgElsRUYDDM_JO4s5ocXiurWDAUZJtBeC1la1GLdqCqxRXMm2T08wItPGC/s320/IMG_4444.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302716377199477170" border="0" /></a>Bread crusts soaked in warm water is comfort food for chickens. Here Ridiculously Obese Rooster #1 (sometimes called Turkey, sometimes called Food) shares a moment with his favorite hen...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgxq5jQZOhnQZSs1XpoVB6aJUepIdZT26SS_vZcBpq_005ls1ZTN8GYdug7KE3ev_dOkUfHon4D_RVVBE8JGn1HT_dY3jXPfAw-zEdCS4lfT3n-qnmm4Ye_sEkqDL8wb7MTOv/s1600-h/IMG_4445.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgxq5jQZOhnQZSs1XpoVB6aJUepIdZT26SS_vZcBpq_005ls1ZTN8GYdug7KE3ev_dOkUfHon4D_RVVBE8JGn1HT_dY3jXPfAw-zEdCS4lfT3n-qnmm4Ye_sEkqDL8wb7MTOv/s320/IMG_4445.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302716383838945330" border="0" /></a>...and the guineas don't seem to know when they're not invited. They lack social graces.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgxq5jQZOhnQZSs1XpoVB6aJUepIdZT26SS_vZcBpq_005ls1ZTN8GYdug7KE3ev_dOkUfHon4D_RVVBE8JGn1HT_dY3jXPfAw-zEdCS4lfT3n-qnmm4Ye_sEkqDL8wb7MTOv/s1600-h/IMG_4445.JPG"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIL1hkT9vijxWW9ip0OxxbrSx_Mdd6T51_TNONUP0odZlxOSDKn_r1k1h6E02l-Jmcjy9mr25yFTRjq5Ebrl6IZOm9mDDfhO-pwpDV6PhVtIBIv3LDxmLhEVML8UwwkKGmyU7/s1600-h/IMG_4377.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIL1hkT9vijxWW9ip0OxxbrSx_Mdd6T51_TNONUP0odZlxOSDKn_r1k1h6E02l-Jmcjy9mr25yFTRjq5Ebrl6IZOm9mDDfhO-pwpDV6PhVtIBIv3LDxmLhEVML8UwwkKGmyU7/s320/IMG_4377.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302716364163808050" border="0" /></a>Ever heard the phrase "Cocky as a bantam rooster?" It's true.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUPshi_yH5MDERX9I-6L0Hnj-7XcL0kHfRxfSy3F3KVnkGU0FSVeOG58brTZ6KR8dAG0uWEhBxL3fkWzSMgHK9YiQIT17sdrLVcAi_qj7Wp9tsICsxa15qWALLjwVVnooOA4w/s1600-h/IMG_4431.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUPshi_yH5MDERX9I-6L0Hnj-7XcL0kHfRxfSy3F3KVnkGU0FSVeOG58brTZ6KR8dAG0uWEhBxL3fkWzSMgHK9YiQIT17sdrLVcAi_qj7Wp9tsICsxa15qWALLjwVVnooOA4w/s320/IMG_4431.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302716374412554706" border="0" /></a>They don't have mirrors, and therefore happily live the fantasy that they are the biggest men around.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYK-RHwj80YRXnGf7vmt78Q0iCM2HfyNrxnIe0RFXjYPh-L4yujj424gobtB7IKsD3WJcRgbEUOyoK5i9EzJLXAI1awyzZQsO-0tSVMal4uqUNzMnYsnCCy5tUKhoVo7WprphB/s1600-h/IMG_4424.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYK-RHwj80YRXnGf7vmt78Q0iCM2HfyNrxnIe0RFXjYPh-L4yujj424gobtB7IKsD3WJcRgbEUOyoK5i9EzJLXAI1awyzZQsO-0tSVMal4uqUNzMnYsnCCy5tUKhoVo7WprphB/s320/IMG_4424.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302716370509425922" border="0" /></a>This (really) big man (Chanticleer) wants you to know that he is most emphatically NOT a bantam rooster. Excuse the dirty window - I wasn't about to clean it in this weather, and he would have stopped crowing as soon as I went outside. I've tried to catch him crowing many times, and he always stops as soon as he sees the camera. Standing on the porch railing , surveying his territory and crowing is one of his favorite pastimes.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirk3Pc7WnDW8fKqw3_KvGsJuXIu_b1dJbwXuASRjKuNk5uSsOTGVyRnzIlCIWxN2tPMVZ2W_EwesL3eE8aOFoXA_BmbuIe0YTkRO_cpSvgPxTPRaXjsff304lK5-Y3OOvEYvZo/s1600-h/IMG_4474.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirk3Pc7WnDW8fKqw3_KvGsJuXIu_b1dJbwXuASRjKuNk5uSsOTGVyRnzIlCIWxN2tPMVZ2W_EwesL3eE8aOFoXA_BmbuIe0YTkRO_cpSvgPxTPRaXjsff304lK5-Y3OOvEYvZo/s320/IMG_4474.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302794872282581506" border="0" /></a>You live in the country when you have t-posts keeping your mailbox from getting knocked down.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeB0gGRzfXMSBVvUkEQr9SZrT1dGMprvV42vBOZBOUJ01kxXuPPy89UrXO5Las1eZzLbaZMrshV9DFG228hKGS8UE20JHOdnvFKzRWVh6yHvCPK0mTUAuHe7l08IrzuHxcBLin/s1600-h/IMG_4506.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeB0gGRzfXMSBVvUkEQr9SZrT1dGMprvV42vBOZBOUJ01kxXuPPy89UrXO5Las1eZzLbaZMrshV9DFG228hKGS8UE20JHOdnvFKzRWVh6yHvCPK0mTUAuHe7l08IrzuHxcBLin/s320/IMG_4506.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302794885362897010" border="0" /></a>The porch at night. I was mostly playing with camera settings and getting the icicles at the same time, but check out the super-classy shoe organizer on the bench with the bowl of cat food on top of it where the dogs can't reach it. The chickens can, though, so we just chase them off the porch.<br /><br />The end! More pictures are <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/MaryCatherineFerguson/IceStorm#">here</a> if anybody wants to see them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-55580408099616230452009-02-13T15:12:00.003-06:002009-02-13T15:24:19.308-06:00Lookee mee, I'm posting!<br /><br />oOmigosh I'm so accomplished. Today I have:<br />*put new bedding in chicken coop<br />*spread mulch over garden<br />*hoed rows in garden<br />*planted carrots, broccoli, mustard greens and cabbage in rows<br />*planted swiss chard, kohlrabi, spinach and a whole bunch of lettuce mixes in planter boxes on porch<br />*cleaned up kitchen<br />*baked bread<br /><br />And it's only 3 pm!<br /><br />I'm currently trying to edit pictures from the ice storm a few weeks ago and post them, so if anybody within several counties of me hears an unfamiliar soprano voice wailing "WHY THE HECK IS MY IPHOTO SO SLOW????" it's me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-42305621860831489272008-12-07T18:08:00.004-06:002008-12-07T18:49:48.580-06:00Another chicken postAll right, I get the point, I haven't posted in a while. And since the person who poked me and told me to post again is the same person who asked me forever ago for my advice about chickens, I'll just take care of both responsibilities at the same time (kill two birds with one stone? Only if they're guinea fowl).<br /><br />Ok, so, you asked about breeds. I have Rhode Island Reds, and I love them. They're friendly and gentle, they're good egg layers, and they're a heavy breed so they do well in the winter. Perhaps you would want a light breed like a leghorn, since where you live it's significantly warmer, and since (I'm guessing) you won't be slaughtering these birds? Heavy breeds are good if you plan to use them for meat birds as well as layers, but I somehow doubt that you're planning to have them as meat birds. <a href="http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html">McMurray Hatchery</a> has lots of info on the different breeds, and the reviews are helpful for finding out what breeds really are the gentlest, and won't attack your kid when he toddles out into the yard.<br /><br />In the spring, I'm planning to get some Buff Orpingtons, Silver Laced Wyandottes, and Brahmas. I also really really want some <a href="http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/category/crested_breeds.html">crested birds</a>, because OH MY GOSH they're so funny, but I'm afraid for their chances of survival, given that the poofs on top of their heads obscure so much of their vision.<br /><br />I had a couple of bantams this spring (who died, and broke my heart), and I loved loved loved loved loved them. Since you're in the city and don't have a whole lot of chicken predators around, I'd really recommend them. You might be able to have more per your square footage since they're smaller - you should find out if your county has separate rules for bantam birds.<br /><br />About the coop. Mine is a big elaborate contraption that came with the house. It can probably house about a hundred birds. I'm only using it to house about 35 birds right now, and most of my guineas sleep outside anyway. (Side note: guineas are LOUD and OBNOXIOUS and STUPID, and not an acceptable substitute for chickens. Not that you were planning on getting any anyway.) You said you were thinking of getting what, two hens? I'd say, just build a little shed, basically like a little doghouse on stilts, with nesting boxes and roosting bars. Or, if you're following the Garden Girl's plan for movable chickens, her design seems pretty good. Keep in mind that chickens (like most livestock) can handle cold, but not drafts or dampness. Make sure you have a way to keep the winter wind from getting them, and that their bedding is dry. And most importantly, make sure your coop will keep predators out! Racoons and possums will still get to your chickens in the city, even if bigger animals like coyotes won't.<br /><br />About feeders: I have a lot of birds, so I have big hanging feeders and waterers, and my birds probably go through a bag of layer feed and a bag of scratch feed in a week and a half. My neighbor recently upgrated from two birds to all of five, and she has a little bowl with a jug of water sitting next to it which she refills whenever it's dry, and she keeps grain in a bucket (with a lid, of course) in the coop and drops it on the ground to feed them, about a handful per bird. I think your setup will probably be closer to hers than mine. Don't believe the feed store or the websites when they tell you you need expensive feeding and watering equipment - you don't. Chickens are smart enough to drink out of a bowl. Baby chicks are not smart enough not to fall into the bowl and drown, so you'll need a quart-sized chick waterer, which should cost you all of two dollars at the feed store. If you do want to use a regular waterer, the gallon sizes are still really not all that expensive. I've seen wall-mounted rabbit waterers for chickens advertised, but I still don't understand the point. Sure, they keep the water clean, but you have to go out there every day to fill up their water, so why not just rinse out the bowl then and keep it clean for much cheaper? And as far as feeders go, chickens prefer to scratch on the ground anyway, so if you have few enough to make it practical to just put the feed on the ground, why buy a feeder? Just make sure to feed them on bare dirt (which they will create in abundance around their coop - chicken manure is so nitrogenous that nothing grows immediately around a chicken coop) and not in their hay or pine shavings or whatever you're using for bedding, or else you'll just end up with bedding lined on the bottom with chicken grain, and hungry chickens.<br /><br />One last point: Rhode Island Reds are super super active. You may or may not want active birds - I love them, but this year they did eat everything my garden produced except the corn (which they couldn't reach) and the cucumber (which they just didn't like). They ate an entire PUMPKIN, and picked at the other one so that I had to harvest it when it was still green, just to save some of it. And they didn't wait for my tomatoes to ripen - they liked the green ones just fine. My friend David babysat them when I went down to Dallas for graduation - they were still chicks - and kept them in his brooder, where he was putting his meat birds that had leg problems: he said they scratched in the bedding and buried the feeder, the waterer, the thermometer, and several of his lame Cornish Cross birds. Apparently, his poor sad birds' heads were sticking out of the bedding, and he had to dig them out and rescue them. The positive side to having active birds is that they're always doing something funny. My roosters like to stand on the porch rail and survey all their territory, and flap their wings and crow. They're such big strong men.<br /><br /><br /><br />In other news, I danced on my birthday till my feet bled (I turned 21 again).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-4763110565578537122008-09-07T18:02:00.003-05:002008-09-07T18:34:07.659-05:00Goodbye to Ladies Against FeminismLadies Against Feminism, I'm disappointed in you. So disappointed. Among all the Sarah-Palin-should-stay-at-home-and-raise-her-kids posts you've posted, has anybody thought to talk about how a Palin-McCain administration would, you know, be GOOD for the unborn babies, and maybe GOOD for other moms who want to stay at home by making that decision more financially viable, and maybe GOOD for families who want to decide where to send their own kids to school?<br /><br />That is, McCain is pro-life and pro-cutting taxes and pro-school vouchers, but Sarah Palin is what he needs to get elected. You'd think you'd be happy that she's there getting everybody energized.<br /><br />And much more importantly, what about that Christian idea of throwing the first stone? What, the idea is that we're NOT supposed to throw the first stone? You ladies could have fooled me. As far as I can tell, Sarah Palin is not beating her kids or turning them into slaves or selling her daughters off as young brides to 40 year old polygamist fellows. These are the sorts of things a Christian expects to see condemned, but a loving mom who tries to raise her family well and balances a job too, and maybe feels called by God to serve her country? Condemn the trend of mothers who abandon their families to their careers, sure, and there definitely are mothers who abandon their children to their career, but please don't presume that you can judge the individual circumstances of someone if they're not being immoral but just doing something you wouldn't do yourself. My cousin, for instance, delivered both her babies in the hospital (by her own choice, not necessity), bottle feeds, plastic diapers, feeds Gerber baby food, and works while her aunt watches the kids, which are all things I would not do with my children, but her children are so well behaved and obviously so well loved, groomed and polite and smiling all the time, that I have to say that even though she makes all the decisions I wouldn't, she is an EXCELLENT mother. Just, you know, to drive the point home that you might know everything about raising families, but you still probably don't.<br /><br />I'm sad, I really am, to stop reading LAF. I've enjoyed the articles on homemaking and the attitude that one finds contentment and joy in living with love the life one is given, and not in trampling everything underfoot to make one's dreams come true. And a whacked-out article once in a while, I could handle that. Even when the first anti-Palin articles started coming out, I thought, "well, I don't agree, but it's a decent discussion, and whatever." But as more articles come out, they become more and more strident, and there have been no articles even suggesting that she could be doing God's will, or that God's will could possibly ever be different from what these writers expect. I don't know if she IS doing God's will, but the refusal to believe that she could be is worrisome to me. As more articles come out on the subject, I see gigantic pride. I see commentators saying "I'm doing it right, and I know she's doing it wrong," because she's not doing exactly what they want every woman to do. And that is why I will not read the site anymore - because instead of love, they're spreading condemnation and judgment.<br /><br />My dear friend Sarah made an excellent point in the comments on the post below, which merits repeating: "I don't believe that women belong on the battlefield, and yet I'm sure that God knew exactly what He was about with St. Joan of Arc."<br /><br />So here's to our own Joan of Arc. (I hope I'm not being sacrilegious by suggesting that.)<br /><br />And finally, an <a href="http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/the_politics_of_motherhood">opinion</a> on Sarah Palin's motherhood from <a href="http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/">Faith and Family</a>, which will replace Ladies Against Feminism in my sidebar.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-35150043043818620772008-09-01T20:07:00.004-05:002009-02-13T15:25:38.421-06:00I guess I don't really hate political posts as much as I thought.So who else is excited about Sarah Palin? I AM! My inbox today contained a gem, a whole list of Sarah Palin jokes, Chuck Norris style. Already, guys? I'm impressed.<br /><br />And because they made me laugh, I'm sharing them here.<br /><br /><div id=":yw" class="ArwC7c ckChnd"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-style: italic;">Did you know that…</div> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin does not have 5 kids, she actually has 7. Their names are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig, Chuck Norris, and Jack Bauer.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">The Northern Lights are really just the reflection from Sarah Palin's eyes.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">The Russians sold Alaska to America because Sarah Palin would not submit to autocracy.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">The Arctic Circle runs through Alaska so the Sun can have some relief from Sarah Palin's bright glare.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin is allowed first dibs on Alaskan wolfpack kills.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin is so pro-life that she personally hog-tied two reps from Planned Parenthood who came knocking at her door.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">It's not raining in DC. Those are God's tears of joy that McCain picked Sarah Palin.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin's hotness is the largest single contributor to melting polar ice caps.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin is the "other" whom Yoda spoke about.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin's presence in the lower 48 means the Arctic ice cap can finally return.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin fired Jack Bauer because he was too soft in dealing with terrorists.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin's pageant career ended early so other women could have a chance.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin's son Track is going to Iraq after the Surge, because a Palin during the Surge would have been unfair.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin wears glasses lest her uncontrollable optic blasts slaughter everyone. (X-Men reference)</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin actually has Big Foot in her freezer.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin gave a speech in Texas after her water broke before flying home to Alaska to give birth. (Actually true)</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin doesn't need a gun to hunt. She has been known to throw a bullet through an adult bull elk.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin once spilled coffee on Joe Biden & one of his $400 ties from Pink.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin keeps her hair in a beehive to hide her ninja weaponry.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin will personally open a homemade can of whoopa** on Ahmadinejad, Putin, and Chavez as soon as she's done making mooseburgers for her kids.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">A grizzly bear once tried to stare down Sarah Palin. Once.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin will send Joe Biden a pre-debate cheat sheet. The sheet will have tips on defending against Kung Fu Death Grip.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin became governor because five children left her with too much spare energy.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin will give birth to the man who will lead humanity's war against the machines. (Terminator reference)</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Three of Sarah Palin's 5 kids came out sideways and she never flinched.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Global Warming doesn't kill polar bears. Sarah Palin does. Generally with her bare hands.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin was the original "Deadliest Catch."</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin paid her way through school by hunting for Kodiak pelts with a slingshot.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Alaska is the 49th state solely because they knew even in 1959 that Sarah Palin never finishes last.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Chuck Norris wishes he was Sarah Palin trapped in a man's body.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin once won the Iditarod without any dogs. She simply willed the sled to victory.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin wears half the makeup that John Edwards wears and still looks like twice the woman he does.</p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin once guided Santa's sleigh through an Alaskan blizzard with the light from her smile.</p> <div><span style="font-style: italic;">Sarah Palin fishes salmon by convincing them it's in their interest to jump into the boat.</span><br /><br /><br />end email.<br />But really, that's not the point of my post. The point of my post is that, guess who's not excited about Sarah Palin. The left, predictably, but also, surprisingly, the super-right! Over at <a href="http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/">Ladies Against Feminism</a> (which I usually like quite a lot, but they've lost mega points in my book over this issue), apparently, <a href="http://www.visionforum.com/hottopics/blogs/dwp/2008/08/4273.aspx">Sarah Palin</a> is <a href="http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2008/8/30_Did_McCain_Make_a_Pro-Family_Pick____.html">not the pro-family choice</a> (trust me, it's a story on their page even though this link goes elsewhere) because she <a href="http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/Hot_Button_Issues_21/Woe_to_My_people1003377.shtml">ought to be at home</a> raising her kids. Also, really, click the "not the pro-family choice" link, because there's some fantastic stuff about how McCain isn't pro-family, he's just pro-victory. Because not being pro-victory is going to do much for us? Well, ok, I guess I could have guessed that that would be their line. But oh? guess who else thinks that? the feminists! (not counting the Feminists for Life, because presumably they would approve of one of their own) Wow, so, the feminists and the anti-feminists agree on this, and they're using the <a href="http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/08/31/palin-bad-mother-bad-woman/">exact same talking points</a>! (p.s., I love the Anchoress. And I'm going to let you read what links of hers you want to, but I'm tired of linking) (not to mention that the feminists are suddenly gigantically concerned about the welfare of five children of a working mom, because they've been telling moms to get back in the kitchen this whole time, right? right?? huh?) Weird, no?<br /><br />So, to chronicle my list of surprises re: the appointment of Sarah Palin:<br />1) The left doesn't like her. Whatever, not a surprise. Actually, I get the impression that she scares the pants off of them, and rightly so. She's probably shot more large game than the whole Democratic National Convention put together.<br />2) The Ladies Against Feminism don't like her. What? Oh, right, she should be at home raising those kids. But what if she's what it takes to get McCain (and her too, natch) in office so's we can keep our ammo and bibles and continue being bitter people clinging to God and guns? Well, she can't because she's a woman. Fine.<br />3) But what now? The feminists also say that she can't because she's a woman? You've got me there, guys.<br /><br />for good measure,<br /><br />4) Her DS kid isn't hers, it's her daughter's. He was begotten in incest, and thus is severely disabled. Or, you know, just slow enough at learning maybe not to know how hateful people can be. Lord knows, we need to rid the world of these people. (didja know 90% of Downs Syndrome babies are aborted? I didn't until this news came out)<br />5) OH. But that daughter's pregnant. Five months pregnant. And Trig is four months old. Oops, guess we counted wrong, folks. But it's ok, we can still have SCANDAL! because there's a TEENAGE! GIRL! PREGNANT! And we know that the pro-abortion crowd doesn't know that teenage girls ever get pregnant. (Shall we also mention that she's keeping the baby and marrying the dad? That's ok, we'll just shun her for ruining her life and having a kid. Whatever.)<br />6) So maybe we have to accept that Trig is Sarah's son. We can still shun her for ruining her life with a Downs Syndrome baby.<br /><br />As <a href="http://theanchoressonline.com/">the Anchoress</a> says, <a href="http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/09/01/sew-the-scarlet-a-for-sarah-palin/">let's sew a red A for her</a>. But wait, I thought this was what the feminists fought against, the sewing of scarlet letters?<br /><br />WHO. KNOWS. You've got me, with your supperyur logik. Me, I'm just a country girl who's excited to have a potential VP who wants to save the babies and let me keep my gun, and who, sexy-wise, just might be able to kick Obama to the moon. And by sexy, I mean intellectually, of course.<br /></div></div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-2612523865552508142008-08-25T10:35:00.004-05:002008-08-25T10:43:20.029-05:00The Lost ChildrenThis post from <a href="http://www.conversiondiary.com/">Conversion Diary</a> was so good that I'm posting the entire thing. If you like it, go tell <a href="http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/08/lost-children.html">her (link to story)</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br />"For as long as I can remember, it's seemed to me that something is different about children today -- and not in a good way. I know that children and teens have always teased one another, talked back to their parents, yearned for independence, etc. But it seems that over the past couple of decades those behaviors have gotten worse, and become somehow darker, more sinister.<br /><br />"When we lived in Littleton, Colorado, at my junior high I would frequently see some group of kids corner one of the awkward, shy, "weaker" children in the class and torment him or her mercilessly (sometimes physically) as the teachers looked the other way. Kids were angry, hostile and cruel. There was an unnatural, "Lord of the Flies" type feel to the culture that went way beyond the type of behavior you'd expect from young adults. (Many my classmates from that junior high went on to a high school called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre">Columbine</a>, which you may have heard of.)<br /><br />"I see teenagers sulking through the neighborhood as they walk down our sidewalks, usually alone, many of them dressed in a manner to present themselves as hostile, reclusive, or threatening. I would certainly know about that -- in high school and college I wore all black (including black lipstick), had a nose ring and dyed my hair various crazy colors, and listened to angry, dark music like Nine Inch Nails, Alice in Chains, Korn, and Helmet. I frequently felt depressed, and had a sort of inner angst that just didn't seem natural, even by teenaged girl standards.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375760288?ie=UTF8&tag=buttafly-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375760288"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9_dGzgu9Y3eEVsLGvZN5D2cNreETZJ4MriiL6Q2JhlFy65t7ZO8w-oD6_oPuwNcCH-bv0XOq4A-RLjTO7yRYubN0Co0bsQiQi7Lo_1rcFFn6TTX11J3ydum3gSBM87EQIc8w/s320/hold_on_to_kids.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5128000292555375554" border="0" /></a>"For a long time I've tried to articulate what exactly I think is wrong and what might have caused it, but I could never quite seem to hit the nail on the head. Then I came across the great book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375760288?ie=UTF8&tag=buttafly-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375760288"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hold On to Your Kids</span></a> (recommended highly by commenter <a href="http://www.conversiondiary.com/search/label/Thoughts%20From%20SteveG?max-results=200">Steve G</a>.), and I think I finally understand it.<br /><br />"In the book, authors Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate describe this dark new peer culture, and lay out their theory that the problem is "peer orientation": <span style="font-weight: bold;">children using peers instead of parents as their compass point for orienting themselves in the world, for discovering their identity, morals and values</span>. The authors write:<br /><br /><blockquote>As children grow, they have an increasing need to orient: to have a sense of who they are, of what is real, why things happen, what is good, what things mean. To fail to orient is to...be lost psychologically -- a state our brains our programmed to do almost anything to avoid. [...]<br /><br />What children fear more than anything, including physical harm, is getting lost. To them, being lost means losing contact with their compass point. Orienting voids, situations where we find nothing or no one to orient by, are absolutely intolerable to the human brain.</blockquote><br />"The authors go on to explain that various conditions in our culture have combined to leave children with a huge orienting void -- that, unfortunately, they fill by orienting themselves to their peers:<br /><br /><blockquote>In adult-oriented cultures, where the guiding principles and values are those of the more mature generations, kids attach to each other without losing their bearings or rejecting the guidance of their parents. In our society that is no longer the case. Peer bonds have come to replace relationships with adults as children's primary sources of orientation...Children have become the dominant influence on one another's development.</blockquote><br />"And what happens when children no longer orient themselves to their parents, their families, and other adults? The authors offer a perfect description of modern youth culture when they write:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Hey" is the universal greeting. "Sup" substitutes for "what's up" as the replacement for "how are you" or "how's it going"...Such "conversations" can and do go on at length without anything more meaningful being said. It's tribal language, foreign to adults, and it has the implicit purpose of making a connection while revealing nothing of value about the self.<br /><br />"Today's teens are a tribe apart," wrote the journalist Patricia Hersch in her 1999 book on adolescence in America. As befits a tribe, teens have their own language, values, meanings, music, dress codes, and identifying marks, such as body piercings and tattoos. [...]<br /><br />Although we have lulled ourselves into believing that this tribalization of youth is an innocuous process, it is a historically new phenomenon with a disruptive influence on social life. It underlies the frustration many parents feel at their inability to pass on their traditions to their children.<br /><br />In the separate tribe many of our children have joined, the transmission of values and culture flows horizontally, from one unlearned and immature person to another. This process...is eroding one of the underpinnings of civilized social activity. [...]<br /><br />"Children throughout Western civilization," declared an MTV announcer not long ago, "are coming to look more like each other than their own parents or grandparents."</blockquote><br />"The results of this are disturbing not just because of the implications for society as a whole, but for the individual child. I found myself nodding vigorously as the authors described the defense mechanisms that peer-oriented children are forced to adopt. I moved around a lot, and in the schools I went to where there was a higher level of peer orientation, I saw these behaviors a lot more:<br /><br /><blockquote>If many kids are damaged these days by the insensitivity of their peers it is not necessarily because children today are more cruel than in the past, but because peer orientation has made them more susceptible to one another's taunts and emotional assaults. Our failure to keep our children attached to us and to the other adults responsible for them has not only taken away their shields but put a sword in the hands of their peers. [...]<br /><br />No wonder, then, that "cool" is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue...It connotates an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes. [...]<br /><br />Peer-oriented kids will do anything to avoid the human feelings of aloneness, suffering, and pain, and to escape feeling hurt, exposed, alarmed, insecure, inadequate, or self-conscious. The older and more peer-oriented the kids, the more drugs seem to be an inherent part of their lifestyle. Peer orientation creates an appetite for anything that would reduce vulnerability. Drugs are emotional painkillers.</blockquote><br />"So how did we end up in this situation?<br /><br />"This was the part I found particularly interesting. When I read the author's description of a small town in France that has a traditional, multigenerational, family-oriented culture (the type of culture that always existed in America until the breakdown of lifelong communities over the past 60 years), it became glaringly obvious that our society is nothing like that today, and that that is not a good thing:<br /><br /><blockquote>[In Rognes, France] children greeted adults and adults greeted children. Socializing involved whole families, not adults with adults and children with children. There was only one village activity at a time, so families were not pulled in several directions...Even at the village fountain, the local hangout, teens mixed with seniors. Festivals and celebrations, of which there were many, were family affairs. The music and dancing brought the generations together instead of separating them...One could not even buy a baguette without first engaging in the appropriate greeting rituals. [...]<br /><br />The attachment customs are the village primary school were equally impressive. Children were personally escorted to school and picked up by their parents or grandparents. The school was gated and the grounds could be entered only by a single entrance. At the gate were the teachers, waiting for their students to be handed over to them. Again, culture dictated that connection be established with appropriate greetings between the adult escorts and the teachers as well as the teachers and the students...When the children were released from school, it was always one class at a time, with the teacher in the lead...Their teachers were their teachers whether on the grounds or in the village market or at the village festival. There weren't many cracks to fall through.</blockquote><br />"I don't think I need to detail the differences between this and our own culture today. The difference is striking, and it's clear which one is more natural and facilitates healthy bonds between children and their families.<br /><br />"So what should we do?<br /><br />"The authors have a wide variety of suggestions that all basically come down to putting structures in place to help foster kids' "attachment" to their parents, as would have happened naturally if they lived in a traditional village setting (e.g. eat dinner as a family, seek activities that include the whole family, don't let kids spend all their free time with their friends, etc.) I actually didn't get as much out of this last part of the book because I didn't agree with all of their suggestions, particularly concerning discipline. But that didn't really matter -- for all I care, they could have skipped the entire section on solutions -- because this is one of those cases where by being able to name the problem you're half way to solving it.<br /><br />"Now that I understand the concept of peer orientation, I'll never see our society the same way again. So many things make so much more sense now. I finally understand what's going on with the kids who sulk around the neighborhood in their black baggy clothes, why I did that myself when I was younger, why so many kids at my high schools committed suicide over petty difference with friends, why I get a really bad feeling every time I watch MTV, and so on and so on. Sorry this is a longer post, but I found this topic so interesting and enlightening that I wanted to share it in case others find it helpful as well.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">8/25/08</span>: Updated to note that if you find the subject matter of this post interesting, Steve G. also highly, highly recommends the author's <a href="http://www.gordonneufeld.com/course_powertoparent.php">Power to Parent</a> DVD series, which expands on these subjects. I'm looking forward to checking it out soon."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></span>Again, if you liked the post, go <a href="http://www.conversiondiary.com/2008/08/lost-children.html">tell her</a>. (I wouldn't want to copy a blog post without linking to the original a million times, you know)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13805148.post-66714125863402198762008-08-14T20:21:00.001-05:002008-08-14T20:23:04.878-05:00Georgia"We must make clear to Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."<br />~<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121867081398238807.html">John McCain</a><br /><br />Damn skippy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1