Loving Amelia

I started reading the Amelia Peabody series this summer,  due to the MOB (Mothers, Objectivists, Bloggers) reading group.   I have found them absolutely delightful!  First, I need to say that I've only "read" the first eight of the twenty novels and only via recorded books performed by Barbara Rosenblat.  I'm sure some of my enjoyment is based upon the engaging performance and distinctive voices that this reader shares, but certainly not all.


What I love most about this series are the endearing characters.  They're fun and adventuresome and spunky and I love spending time with them!  The heroine, Amelia Peabody, makes me smile again and again as she sallies forth to attack the challenges of being a lady archeologist in the Victorian era.  She is properly armed, with a parasol, and about as passionate about vigorously pursuing her values as you get!  She is not just a fiery lady without substance though, she has well thought out positions and uses her intelligence in solving the mysteries.  One of Amelia's top values is her husband Emmerson who is a truly captivating curmudgeon.  He is supremely talented and delightfully unashamed about his attraction and love for Amelia.  The other characters from their devoted helper Abdullah to their precocious child are excellent accents, but these two definitely steel the show.  They are a charming, efficacious pair as they work on archeological excavations in Egypt and somehow manage to solve engaging mysteries too.


I said "engaging mysteries", however I am notoriously bad at figuring out mysteries.  I don't think I've ever figured out a mystery beforehand though.  From Sherlock Holmes to the Dick Francis novels,
I'm always stumped, so you may figure them out.  I've loved the story lines, but again my favorite is these characters that make you want to join in the fun.


Finally, there are many humorous moments which are key to the enjoyment of these novels (see my friend Jenn's post with quotes at the end).  But, there are also some beautifully descriptive passages:
"The beauty of the night was unbelievable.  I have never seen stars so thickly clustered as those that bestrew the night sky of egypt; they blazed like a pharaoh's treasure against the dark.  The cool, sweet air was as refreshing as water after a long thirst, and the silence was infinitely soothing.  Even the distant howls of the jackals seemed fitting, a lonely cry that mourned the loss of past splendor."  That was just a little gem that caught my eye, but if you don't fall in love with Peabody I'd be shocked!  Here are some of my favorite quotes from her website:
"Abstinence, as I have often observed, has a deleterious effect on the disposition."
"Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point."
"I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it."
"It is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments . . . especially impertinent compliments."
"High-minded individuals are more dangerous than criminals.  They can always find hypocritical excuses for committing acts of violence."
"One may be determined to embrace martyrdom gracefully, but a day of reprieve is not to be sneezed at."
"Though I had slept only a few hours, I felt quite fresh and full of ambition. Righteous indignation has that effect on my character."


So, I highly recommend this series for light reading that is lots of fun.  The first book sets the context, but I think my  favorite so far is The Lion in the Valley.  Enjoy the adventure!

After these books and much history studying, I think I'd enjoy visiting Egypt..

...much more than I did at this time...

...when I was about 7 and my sister was about 5. (I remember loving the camels.)

Monopoly

That has been the new game of the week and talk about an awesome tool for practicing addition and subtraction!  My kiddo has even been prompt in telling me how much change I owe him when paying rent :)  He was delighted when he beat me when I rolled snake eyes and landed on his hotels on the greens twice!  Ouch, $1400 swamped me... he'll tell anyone who'll listen every detail about how he destroyed all my houses on the yellows.


Other things to share:
A cool video from my dad of a harmonica performance in Carnegie Hall... it gets so fast!
A particularly amusing version of Cake Wrecks!
This week's Objectivist Round Up.


Cute antics:
• a monologue that could not have been less than thirty minutes about what would happen if giants cut the earth in quarters or bombs in the arctic blew it to smithereens or a host of other catastrophes occurred... occasionally he paused to ask my opinion of the outcome of a particular disaster.

• smugly declaring the next thing that was going to happen in his latest Beverly Clearly book. (He wanted me to read and to know that he knew when the characters were wrong in their expectations.)

The sleep of the fully exhausted

Cioppino

It's a new family favorite!  This fish soup with white wine and sweet touches of sauteed celery / onions was served at a recent Objectivist social.  Every one of us loved it!  Andrew then made a huge pot for us based on the same recipe.  I never thought I'd see my kiddo have fish soup for four dinners in a row!

Other things to share:
This week's Objectivist Round Up.
Cute antics:
• commenting while very focused on his homework and after I sharpened a pencil for him, "Thank you for your assistance." (Okee dokee, getting a wee bit official in his old age!)
• setting his mentor laughing by unintentionally washing his hands with lotion instead of soap.
• calling from upstairs, "Mom!  What's "lube"?!?!"  (Ya... turned out he was reading about a trip for an oil change in a Beverly Clearly book.)

My 2010 Done List

I compiled a "done list" each month for 2010 and now I'm trying to decide if I want to do the same for 2011.  I write weekly updates that cover most of these things, but they are much more lengthy.  I did enjoy looking back at this concise list and realizing how much I had accomplished.  I think I gain most of the same though from scanning the past year of updates, so I'll probably discontinue the practice.  Here are some of my favorite accomplishments from 2010 though :)

Organized Scott Powell lecture in Seattle

Tempered chocolate (lots of tricky temperature modulating)

Skied with Andrew (my challenges with this sport are the stuff of legend)

Saw Olympic skating (a delightful dream come true)

Hiking trip (first of several outings we organized to include friends)

Cameron met his Athlete buddy, Jordan, for the first time (loots of coordinating efforts on my part)

Took Cameron to his first drive in movie theatre

Read "We the Living" for the first time

Visited a personal trainer for the first time to do Body By Science training

Tried bone marrow for the first time.  Yum!

Began Mommy School with Lindamood Bell Verbalizing and Visualizing focus

Enrolled as a history teacher apprentice (and completed the intensive, beginning training)

Got back to Sea Ranch for first time in more than ten years

10 years of married bliss celebrated with an Arvid print, "Inspirational Living" (See below) 

Learned new directions for canoeing (our new favorite family outing)

Harvested my first irises, cauliflower and tomatoes from the container gardens

Learned about economics for the the first time

Visited a race horse vet hospital

Shot a revolver and semi-automatic for the first time.  Powerful.

Learned the call in system and started being a TA for History at Our House

Hosted Toni, Debbie and Keebler the guide dog for several days. Cameron got cozy with a bigger dog :)

Visited Theo's Chocolates when the factory was operating for the first time... love that decadent aroma!

Weekend of sharing Cyrano with friends and bottling our cider to make the first hard cider

House listed for sale with Al (neighbor)

Multiple garage sales and craigslist ads working well to sell items

Cameron went trick or treating as "the daytime sky"(fun costume to make together)

Found the Claudio Corallo store in Seattle (my favorite chocolate... especially their balls of 100% chocolate around crystalized ginger)

Hosted our last Northwest Objectivists social

Hosted Andy Bernstein visit

Took the train to Sacramento, 20 hours!

Root canal survived... no desire to repeat that accomplishment

First cookie bake for wounded troops

Seeing The Lion King on Broadway

First good snowball fight with Cameron (lots of guiding for the different social interaction)

Here's to a 2011 of new accomplishments and adventures!

Illness Ickies

I'm afraid the fever, shakes, chills, and massively-ouchy-aches struck our home!  Now, we've all moved on the coughs and sneezes phase which may be irritating, but at least we're all vertical and getting things done!

Other things to share:

This week's Objectivist Round Up.

Cute antics:
• writing in one of his thank you notes, "My favorite board game is chess and I think I can be famous at it too.  Eventually, I'll beat the computer at it and maybe even come home with twenty dollars because I play chess so well."  

• informing me, "I have to break the machine.  How else will I get out of check."

• naming his toilet which has been flushing very slowly "Mr. Slowpoke" and then, after I'd done extensive plunging, "Mr. Mediumpoke".

Eclipse, Holidays, Germs

That about sums it up!  Our fun before travel was viewing the lunar clips.  Our travel to New England for a bustling, vibrant holidays with family was filled with warm visiting.  Our resistance to germs was challenged as we were surrounded by tummy and respiratory viruses too... my husband and son succumbed after getting home.  So... we're healing :)


Other things to share:
This week's Objectivist Round Up.
Hysterical take on if you're ready for having kids.
I'd like a little more clarity about his service comment, but this is an inspirational 15 minutes from the founder of Amazon.  It's all about choices :)
Awesome, easier way to tie shoes!


Cute antics:
• coining a synonym for sleepy: Honk-shoowy [snore sound]
• referring the Hindenberg as "the biggest blower upper in town".
• asking this alarming question, "How in the heck will I take the applications out of the trash?" (The computer was not destroyed.)
• chiming in during our voice lesson after a series of decending tones ya ya ya ya ya, Cameron added, "Yo."
• looking at our book titles and grinning, "It's the order of the capitol of Arizona."  (Yep, the Harry Potter book, Order of the Phoenix.)
• showing his math progress and his new passion to get an iPod touch which would require he save another $100, "Can we do an allowance every day so that in twenty days I'll have another hundred dollars?" (Um, no.)
• Emma [niece] cheering for Cameron on the iPad in her high, breathy voice "Yay, Cameron!"
• filling in nicely for me in my singing of Old McDonald... apparently, this farmer had a lady bug with hydrophobia on his farm that went "flutter flutter splat".
• exclaiming "Gee whiskers!" instead of gee wilikers.
• using yoshabelle (Moses's mother) as a nonsense word

My son offering a "friendly" snowball fight!

Fun with my three year old niece

Glorious, morning stroll in Brooklyn

Finding Objectivism

This is an odd first post of the new year, but, as I returned from holiday travels, I thought that this philosophical journey was one worth sharing.  I've told this story so many times, but rarely the full version and, because my path to finding Objectivism was particularly unusual and dramatic, I wanted to finally write it down.

I graduated high school at seventeen and decided that I would spend my first year of college in Israel.  I joined a program called Nativ that was "dedicated to creating and inspiring the Conservative Jewish leaders of tomorrow."  I took ideas seriously and went filled with enthusiasm for the adventures I felt sure awaited me.  I did have adventures and became quite proficient at hopping buses for solo travel to any destination picked by my curiosity.  One day, about four months into this experience, I was strolling down Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem.  I had finished another university class and knew I'd be leaving for a couple months of working on Kibbutz Sa'ad soon.  I was stocking up on books to read, something to do when I wasn't milking cows or strolling the almond orchards.  One of the books I picked up was Atlas Shrugged.  It was one of many I gathered from the used book store.  I knew the author.  I had read The Fountainhead in high school and thought it was a just another good book.  I did not have any clue what I was in for when I began reading Atlas Shrugged.

My kibbutz days were mellow.  I loved taking care of the calves and grabbing a carrot or pomelo from the fields while on a stroll.  From the top of the water tower, you could see Gaza and the kibbutz was surrounded by protective fencing, but I didn't have any experiences of danger.  It was just a secluded spot and I began to read through my books.  I don't have a clear recollection of the process of reading Atlas Shrugged, but I vividly remember where I was when I finished it.

There was a trip offered by Nativ.  It was not a pleasure trip.  It was a trip to Poland.  It was called The March of the Living because, in addition to other experiences, those who attended walked the path from Aushwitz to Birkenau which had been called the "March of Death".  Aushwitz Birkenau was the largest concentration camp built by the Nazis.  I decided I wanted to participate in this trip and took a summer job to pay the additional costs.

I was in Poland when I finished reading Atlas Shrugged.  I was in a desperate moral crisis.  I remember the concentration camp of Majdanek especially with it's buildings full of shoes, double barbed wire fences, and ovens for the bodies.  I sat on the edge of mausoleum looking at a small mountain of people's ashes and every fiber of my being "naturally" wanted to pray.  The atrocities were so great and the tears and anguish so close.  Every thought of "My god!" was answered by another though, "Do I believe in god?"   My coping strategy was to give myself permission to answer that question over time.

It did take time.  I was so immersed in Jewish culture and I had so believed that the religion was true; I had years of intellectual work and honesty ahead of me.  I still love to bake hamentashen, dance Manavu, sing yerushalayim shel zahav, play dreidle and enjoy many other aspects of Jewish culture.  I don't, however, find any truth or joy in fasting on Yom Kippur to ask a god for forgiveness of sins against biblical rules.  I don't deal with the guilt of never being able to fulfill all those commandments, of always needing to be forgiven, of always being in someway bad.  I have Ayn Rand to thank for that joyous philosophy that has made living so much more of a delight. It was truly a precious gift.

Decluttering

Hooray!  One room decluttered!  Part of the herculean attempt to keep the house orderly and ready for relators coming with potential buyers is attacking the excess junk priceless stuff in our home.  We're making progress and I'm glad to report one room down!   Spell check seems to think "decluttered" isn't a valid word, but it's precisely what we've been up too :)

Other things to share:

This week's Objectivist Round Up.

One of Cameron's highlights this week:

Beating his athlete mentor at chess... fair and square!  He'll tell anyone who asks all about it :)

Cute antics:

• noting while reading us a book about antique fire engines, "Of course, there were no skyscrapers in those days.  So, the ladders didn't need to be very tall."

• jumping right in to my goofy "Old McDonald" song as I tried to challenge him with unusual animals.  He asserted the ostrich would go "bonk, bonk" because it's eggs were falling to the ground and the turtle would go "in out, in out" because of it's head.  I stumped him with Old McDonald having an octopus though :)  (Hey, Andrew said the car was too quiet... that's an invitation in my book!)

• singing on our bus tour of the holiday lights, "I want a pet dementor."  (Anyone else for a magical pet that sucks happiness and destroys souls?  I mean, it's such a cheery thought.  At least the next verse was a little more innocuous, "I want a baby walrus.")

• referring to the long bus ride, "I started to feel like a catfish in a wet sack." ( I requested clarification and got, "just slapping around in a sack."  Hmmm, he's getting a wee bit too much out of my idiom dictionary?)

• requesting for dinner, "I think I want some cowhides for meat." (Reading too much "Old Yeller"?")

• getting up at midnight and preparing for school because he thought it was morning time!

• and one that his speech therapist sent me:
SLP: Are you staying home or going on a trip during winter break?
Student: I'm going somewhere cold!
Cameron: He's going to coldville! 

Photo Editing!

Yay for my mom's awesome photo-editting!  Her efforts resulted in a family photo where we're all smiling :)

Other things to share:

• I loved learning about the man who has saved more lives than anyone else in history.  The guy is amazing!!! Maurice Hileman developed nine vaccines and has such an endearing, cantankerous, go-do-it attitude! (Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases)

• The best cake wrecks in a long time... my husband and I were both laughing out loud!

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2010/12/little-too-much-ginger-perhaps.html

 Cute antics:

• chanting to a lulla bye tune, "Take the pawn.  It's a good move."  (Um, ya, pawn for queen sounds like a grand trade!)

• wondering why the narrator of my Conquistador film was saying "spanish", he assumed they used to say "spinach" differently.

Holiday Letter

As Chanukah begins, lets get the annual holiday letter out there!

... and the text in an easier to read format although I'm not going to fight with making everything line up. Remember, we're in low maintenance blog zone until moving is complete :)

Hello to all our friends and family,

We have had a full year of fun and lots of changes!  Once again, I've reviewed the year's calendar and come up with a multiple choice quiz.  So, here's a fun review of our news for everyone!  :-)

1. This year Cameron turned:

a) seven and had a party at GymStarz Gymnastics

b) seventy and tottered up Everest

c) seventeen and left for college early

2. Leaving Microsoft: Live Labs to work at Kima with his two best friends, Andrew has:

a) started the process of working one week in San Francisco and three from home each month

b) become an expert at Craigslist and Ebay ads while we de-clutter and try to sell the house

c) regained his passion for long hours spent tackling a problem that fascinates him

d) intensified his passion for his new iPad and shared computer games like Zelda, Myst, RushHour, Angry Birds, and TrainYard with his son

e) become a fan of his son's indoor butterfly habitat or all of the above

3. While Cameron has been excelling in first grade and successfully working through challenges with the help of both his classroom and special education teachers, he spent time outside of school:

1. indulging his new passions for legos, chess and visiting his Athlete Mentor
2. listening to Mom read the full Harry Potter series, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and reading himself  Beverly Cleary novels like Henry Huggins and Mouse and the Motorcycle
3. jumping all over his parents as he practiced Jiu Jitsu and the house as he showed off his new appreciation of goofy slapstick
4. dressing up as the "daytime sky for Halloween" or a through d

4. Rachel and Andrew took a(n):

a) trip to Crystal Mountain where Rachel didn't die skiing, but did get tobogganed off the mountain

b) group of many hundreds of essays to grade for the Ayn Rand Institute 

c) weekly voice lessons and dip into artistic bliss with the arrival of a huge painting titled "Inspirational living" in honor of our 10th anniversary

      d) pause in our routines for hosting pleasures with visits from blind friends, grandparents, and Objec-

tivist lecturers in history, economics, and values.

      e) polar sled ride or a, b, c, d

5. As a family we:

a) went on our first overnight tent-camping trip

b) paddled our new canoe on local lakes / rivers

c) shared our fondness for musicals including HMS Pinafore

d) gathered and pressed our backyard apples into cider

e) built a tree house where we now eat coconuts all day or a through d

6. Rachel relished mom-hood, her new love of connoisseur chocolates, beginning a parenting blog, creating autobiographical memory boards for Cameron, growing a veggie container garden, visiting her favorite childhood spot (Sea Ranch), and extra fun with: 

a) attending the Olympics 

b) apprenticing as an online history teacher

      c) tackling the challenge of her funky thyroid and her bronze statue's whacky wax issues

      d) hiring an in-home masseuse that pampers her every hour and happens to be a gourmet chef or just 

too content with a-c to turn over that much time to pampering... yet :)

We hope you've all had a wonderful year!

Happy Holidays,

Happy Husband

I have a very contented husband :)  He's working on thrilling stuff.  He's comfy and enjoying desk deliveries of tea, coffee, goodies.  He can video chat with his buddies / co-workers whenever needed.  He's still fighting a nagging cough, but hard work on interesting stuff is good medicine for making him happy.  So, first week of working from home was a full success!

Other things to share:

• awesome poem

• History Through Art FREE lectures continue!  This is great fun for elementary grade kids :)  

• This week's Objectivist Round Up

Cute antics:

• responding to Andrew's comment, "You may be getting better at chess than I am." with, "Then we might as well play a game!"

• after reading about how Sauron "lacked" only the ring to gain full power again, he asked us to explain what lack meant and then he commented "He wants to un-lack it!"

• comments from Lord of the Rings Clue:

"Suppose Galadriel was a bad guy carrying an axe in Rohan."

"I've never seen Sauron with arrows in his backpack."

"Suppose Sauron is guilty of sneakily holding a battering ram on his head in Hobbiton."

• Now, the Lord of the Rings Clue is slipping into our regular Clue game.  Just put on your imagination cap and picture each bit of this suggestion from my kiddo, "I suggest Colonel Mustard took one huge revolver, big as a battering ram, in the ballroom."  (Hmmm, under such a weight did he waltz or perhaps tango?  Such actions would certainly give away the identity of the murderer!)

Awww, my happy reader sound asleep with a book on the chest.

Key Article On Perspective Taking

I've shared this article with my son's teachers and special education team because I think it so nails the key issues that I see with my kiddo.

This is the most relevant part for me because I find these challenges consistently describe him:

Impaired Interactive Perspective Takers (IIPT)

The impaired interactive perspective taker (IIPT) is the student who looks like everyone else at school, at least initially. The IIPT students have solid to advanced cognitive skills with solid language development. They have a lot of information about the world and will comment openly about their areas of interest. Socially they are very interested in pursuing peer relationships and they understand the “superficial social rules,” meaning they are aware that there is an underlying rule-based system that helps to negotiate social situations. They can tell you the more concrete social rules “stand in line,”, “say please,”, “don’t interrupt,” however, they have a great deal of difficulty perceiving how those rules apply to them. They have poor self-awareness. They are far less aware of the more subtle or sophisticated rules or non-verbal signals that help to mitigate social relationships as students’ age. While these students may appear “normal” on the outside, there are differences in how they process and respond to the more socially abstract information. It is not uncommon for younger students with IIPT to turn in their peers for breaking rules on the playground, while not being aware that the act of turning in a peer breaks a far greater social rule. Their struggles with social interpretation and abstraction become more evident as they age given the increasing complexity of social interaction and academic interpretation.

They are called “impaired interactive perspective takers” because their greatest deficits become apparent at the moment of interaction with their peers. Adults are far more flexible in accommodating to a single-minded conversation, but peers are unrelenting in their requirements that interactions be reciprocal. Peer based interaction requires not only the formulation of thoughts one might wish to communicate, but also persistent monitoring of how others might be interpreting or responding to the message so that the message can be adjusted as needed to meet the needs of the communicative partner. This is a social executive function task...

...In addition to the social challenges (which often lighten up a bit in high school), as these bright students go to college some of their greatest challenges will come from their failure to seek assistance or clarification, and from their organizational/problem solving weaknesses. While we might describe these folks as having a “mild” disability, given their many academic or cognitive strengths, actually due to their difficulties learning the complex skills of functioning as adults, their deficits are not at all mild. Many parents call my clinic to seek assistance for a 20 or 30-year-old child with IIPT who has not developed skills for independence with regard to life and work skills.

This group has the greatest likelihood for full adult independence, however, they may be slower than their neurotypical peers at achieving it. As they get older they also become more keenly aware that they are not able to process social information quickly and efficiently. This can be a source of great frustration that does not calm just because they are getting older.

Even if these folks make the choice to live with fewer opportunities for social interaction, they desire to be able to function in groups and to have close friends. They are generally terrific, friendly people with a good sense of humor when they feel comfortable."

I think it will be especially helpful for me to work on these areas where kids, who have had challenges similar to my son's, have found difficulties as they grow.  Of course, my kiddo is unique, but I love to take advantage of knowledge and strategies that others have discovered! :)

Not so wobbly

A crazy, hectic week, but... things are coming together!  The moving idea isn't quite so new and startling.  I've had the juggling challenge this week of getting ready for a massive garage sale and keeping the house in some semblance of order for prospective buyers.  Lots of hot and sweaty days hefting boxing and sorting through piles of junk, um, valuable stuff I mean :)  It's amazing how your perspective changes when you want to de-clutter!  


Other things to share:
Brilliant guy lays out some key economic issues!

Cute antics:

• climbing up, past where he was supposed to, at children's therapy center, jumping into the pillows, and then:

Therapist- I was scared.  Were you scared?

Cameron- No. It was a great acrobat performance!

• chucking his glasses in the sink (A bit of a surprise for me when I came across them under a plate while loading the dishwasher.)

• recommending bad chess moves, "Want to trade a queen for a pawn?"

• declaring gleefullly, "I got kentucky!" (loving a new iPhone game where he stacks the states) 

•Conversation:
Me: You're my little boy.
Cameron: I'm nobody's little boy.  Yes, I am an orphan you know.
Me: Oh?  What happened to Daddy and me?
Cameron: You died in a car crash.  Luckily, I had a rope tied on so I didn't die.
(????  Well, I'm doing pretty well for a walking corpse!)

Quick Questions

Because I so enjoy my friend Lynne's blog and she asked for answers to this list of questions, I'm complying with a smile.  I'm definitely classifying this as a "personal" post, so feel free to skip if my tastes or experiences in various areas make no different to you.  I  even like her enough that I'm answering both sets of questions :)

Question set one:

1. What book from your childhood do you remember the most, and why?

The Count of Monte Cristo

My dad read this to me when I was about ten and I just loved how everything clicked into place.  It was absolutely a gleeful delight to me!  Reading it as an adult, it's still masterful, but the primacy of revenge makes it less appealing to me.  As a kid, it was all about joy that everything worked so perfectly in the intricacies of the story.

2. What type of music do you enjoy the most? Please include examples!

Old musicals: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Slipper and the Rose, Oklahoma, Hello Dolly, My Fair Lady, Singing in the Rain, Sound of Music

Disney: Brazzle Dazzle Day, It's a Jolly Holiday with Mary

Sappy love songs: As Time Goes By, Always, It Had to Be You, I Swear, Through the Years, Always and Forever, Unforgettable, The Vows Go Unbroken, You and I

Some jazzy stuff like "In the Mood" and Natalie Cole and lots of oldies

Almost ALL secular holiday music.. all year round

Classical is usually spotty-

Rachmaninoff... nearly sobbing at the symphony

Ravel: Bolero

Chopin: nocturnes

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty

The overture to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves when the french horns come in.... mmmm, mmmm that's powerful stuff!

3. What subject do you find most challenging (to teach or to learn)?
Teach: singing.  It's a skill that I never practiced the academic way and I have no clue how to teach someone anything but the lyrics.  I don't mind breaking into song with the most tone deaf of friends though!

Learn: precise stuff.  Computer programing would drive me batty (even the idea of hours spent finding a misplaced comma makes me cringe).  Painting tiny figures where every dot counts or decorating a cake with a geometric pattern by hand.  I find those kinds of strictly precise requirements brutal to even attempt and no fun!

4. What is your favorite hot drink? Bonus points for including the recipe!
Decaf Americano with heavy cream and two teaspoons of a cocoa macca blend (you can get the powder at Whole Foods).  

5. About what new book, movie, or TV series do you want to let others know?
Hmmm, Star Trek: Next Generation and Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes are the two TV series I've most enjoyed with my husband.  We don't get TV so these were purchased and certainly aren't new.  My back log for books is so huge, that I don't usually get to them new.

Question set two:
1. What is the most exciting thing you’ve ever done?

Take off for Israel when I was 17 and travel the country on weekends alone.  Perhaps a little foolish at times, but it was thrilling! (Picking up Atlas Shrugged in Jerusalem, during that year, and finishing it in Poland was pretty earth shattering too.)

2. What is the most meaningful thing you’ve ever done?

Parenting.  Parenting as a career focused on excellence gives me a deep joy as I see my son grow into a different human being because of my actions.  Seeing his peers, especially in the special needs classrooms, and how the parenting effects them, I know how different a person he would be with poor or even eclectic parenting.

3. What is the general activity you enjoy doing most often?

Parenting. 

I do love baking (even though I'm gluten intolerant) and singing (hours at a time) too.

4. What do you like most and least about blogging, if applicable?

Most: The community.  I have found so many dear friends with fascinating insights :)  I also like that I can clarify my thoughts.

Least: The rare feeling that it's a chore.  I just don't blog then though, so there's not much negative.

5. How do you feel about Colin Firth?

I've never seen or heard of him except mentioned on my buddy's blog.  Maybe when I get through my backlog of Hepburn, Grant, and other movies, I could be initiated?  Recommendations?

OK, out to enjoy a day full of sunshine!  I may see more of these in San Francisco, but they're a glorious treat in Seattle during the fall.  The air is so clear too... it's going to be grand :)

We're in a no-regular-smiles phase... just goofy ones for anyone who  is given permission to take his picture.

Our Own Cider

It is very cool that Andrew got to bottle hard cider made from our own apple trees!  We couldn't have guzzled enough before the apples rotted and now this will keep nicely and be delightful to share.  Yay for our friend who has lots of experience making beer which is, apparently, quite a similar process.


Other things to share:
This week's Objectivist Round Up.
Where Andrew starts work November first... I booked his flight to San Francisco!
I'm going here for my birthday tomorrow... so looking forward to a non-moving focus for a few hours!  (Oooo, just realized that's a bad pun because the restaurant moves (rotates) and part of what I'm anticipating is watching the sunset!)
Cute antics:
• commenting frequently when watching a movie he'd already watched with Daddy, "I thought so", "As I expected".
Story:
Yesterday, I tried again to see if my kiddo could pay attention to a full Lower Elementary History class (thirty minute recording) because I'd so love to enroll him with my teacher. (Results still ambiguous, but we'll see.)  Anyway, I played him the first class and today we were picking out a spelling word for the week and I suggested the new word he learned from Mr. Powell.  He didn't remember, so I prompted "puh".
He grinned and declared, "Pinocchio!"
Ya, well that is more complicated to spell, but I was shooting for "plethora"! 

That would be a very kind auntie tipping the bowl of potato leek soup so Cameron could use two spoons to scoop every last morsel... no shortage of enthusiasm here!

Wobbly to Wobbled

Yep, that means we've progressed from wobbly ground to shaken loose.  My dear husband is hooked on the prospects of working with his two best friends in San Francisco.  So... we're moving.  There's a house to sell and a million different things to address.  I just finished getting a big husband hug and being told that he wouldn't have branched this far from his comfort zone without my support.  He considered the idea off the table until I pointed out this may be an opportunity not to be missed.  I think this will make him gloriously happy.  That doesn't change that this is going to involve wrenching up a lot of roots.  I'm finding myself thinking about all the dear friends that I'm going to miss and often getting teary in the most awkward places.  I don't know how frequently I'll be blogging over the next two months.  I may find this a relaxing outlet, but I'll more likely want to crash into bed after dealing with all the challenges.   So, on to new adventures and nurturing my son through this wobbly time.  I have high hopes that we'll find many new joys and delights in our new home.

Scotch Search

Treasure hunts are so much fun!  We wanted to see if Cameron could be trusted with a secret, so he helped me make the clues and had to keep the secret from Daddy for three days!

1. These are the clues to find your gift
you will find them if you're swift
Your next clue is downtairs where it's bright
Look inside the kitchen light

2. By the wall
but not too tall
Near the statue
is your next clue

3. Under the couch cushion
you'll find your next one

4. Be sure to look in Cameron's shoe
That is how you'll find your clue

5. In the closet you will see
There is a clue for thee

6. Behind the Goals picture you will find, easy as pie,
Your next clue, if you try

7. The next place isn't too far
Look inside Mommy's car

8. Where you put your coffee grounds
That doesn't make grinding sounds

[French press]

9. Under the sink, by the pail
Is your last clue, so don't fail

10. On Mommy's chair, by her desk,
You will find the end of your quest 

[New bottle of Scotch]

Other things to share:

This week's Objectivist Round Up.

Hysterical video of singing anesthesiologists.

A delightful autumn poem from a friend:

Autumnal Delights
The sudden cool of morning brushes skin,
Air scented thick with ripened apples mulls,
Piquantly spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon,
A breeze, a whoosh of fallen leaves, then lulls.
Perhaps still green, remains a supple leaf.
As maple bursts in orange-red, umbered oak,
And aspen’s deepest gold, explode! In brief
Calliopes of color: Nature’s cloak.
Surrounded by the changing atmosphere,
Imbibed in richly, flavored, shades of earth,
Awash in subtle, brilliant, bracing air, 
My senses wake! I breathe autumnal birth.
Outside grows cold as inside’s glow ignites, 
With Fall’s imbued sensorial delights.

Cute antics:

• playing dominoes with rhyming responses like, "Blank six and one, none of those are fun." (He also calls the game "Marlboro" because we have an old set that has that label on the back of the pieces.)

• enjoying the treasure hunt we put together for Andrew so much that he wrote me a clue after hiding one of his own dimes and pennies, "look in a box".

• ready for school Sunday morning :)  Shoes / coat / lunch all set!

• singing to the part of Sound of Music Lonely Goatherd, instead of "She yodeled back back to the lonely goatherd", we got, "sevens are so hip-er-oni"

Thyroid: Tinkering

Successful weaning, I've been off thyroid medication for three weeks and I didn't see any significant changes.  I weaned very slowly, by quarter tablet of T3 over many days at each dose.  At the end, I got ill, cold etc. with the same frequency as before.  Just to clarify, my most exasperating symptom is getting a headache with nausea and fatigue anywhere from noon-fourish and having my body basically check out for the day.   Before using iodine, this was happening 3-4 times a week.  Now, it's decreased to several times a month, often bunched together.  (It always resolves with sleep.) 

Just prior to starting tapering off the thyroid medication, my hair started falling out again.  I'm wondering if that is iron related, so I've started supplementing with iron for one week each month and we'll see how that goes for my next labs.  (I had stopped since my level had reached normal.)  I've removed all the other regular supplements too except for 1/4 tab of iodine and fish oil.  I even take the multivitamin only on weekends and I've decreased Melatonin to 3mg each night.  So... I'm eating healthy whole foods and quite pleased to focus on that for my complete nutrition!

Happily off lots of pills, but still getting ill.  What next?  About one week ago I decided to try the Low Dose Naltrexone.  It is a medication that can take two months to show effect and supposedly has no side effects at this dose (3mg instead of the 50mg it is prescribed for for non-autoimmune issues).  I've been taking it for about a week and haven't noticed anything negative.  On the positive side, the few times I've been feeling ill it hasn't progressed to the same degree of discomfort and once it actually resolved (highly unusual for me to start feeling ill and rally without sleep)!  The pilot studies appear well done and show great promise.  As something autoimmune (thyroid or other) seems the most likely cause and this trial appears safe to me, that is my next attempt.   Here's to figuring this all out with some trial and, hopefully, not too much more error!

Still having tons of fun... I taught my kiddo very basic sewing to put patches on his Halloween costume :)   He's going as the daytime sky.  Blue with birds, dragon flies, clouds, and a smily sun... gotta love that creativity!