Some stuff done

The thing is, it seems as if I do a lot of work almost every day, and yet despite that, my to-do never shrinks. It grows. What is up with that?!

Anyway, in keeping with my tradition of being late for almost everything, I'll finally post a picture of my Halloween costume. I don't usually dress up for Halloween, but I had an arrangement with my beloved BFF Elizabeth--she was going to dress up as Rapunzel in Tangled, I was going to dress up as Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon, we were going to have a whole "kids' movies" theme going on... Elizabeth got the Rapunzel costume pretty well, but I discovered that there are very few items available for Astrid costumes, and absolutely NONE for a fully grown woman. I did some quick thinking, and decided that I could probably make do with a costume based on another beloved character from a popular series of films: Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter!

I think I didn't do too badly. I was able to pull together the outfit from clothes that I had on hand, and then ordered an authentic Ravenclaw tie (as well as hat and scarf, but they're not pictured here) from Amazon, as well as some spectre-specs. I hand-made radish earrings and a cork necklace, a wand, and a copy of the Quibbler. I actually really loved how most of it turned out, and I hope I have many reasons to wear the costume in the future. It helps that I think I share a lot of characteristics with Luna, including long blonde hair, an surprisingly analytical mind, and an otherworldly perspective. And of course, I'm a Ravenclaw!

To-Do, mostly still undone

I was going to clean today, but some things came up that were essentially low-level emergencies. So my to-do list is mostly undone, and I'm not sure how it will get all done by Monday. Lots of interesting, important, maybe fun stuff coming down the pipeline, but it does tire me out just thinking about it. It's hard being a grown-up sometimes.

To-Do This Weekend - Updated

Things to do this weekend:
School paperwork
Aetna paperwork
Bank
Mow/rake
Compost
Laundry
Clean floors
Clean bathrooms
Clean car
Install booster seat
Bake bread
Bake cookies
Home Depot
Black & Decker
Call plumber
Recycling
Grocery store
Sort/file paperwork
Other?

Done:
Dentist
Pay daycare
Call school

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me

A friend posted on Facebook several weeks back, asking for people's input on "things we wish someone had told us when we were in high school", as she'd been asked to speak at a high school retreat and wanted to make the message as meaningful and practical as possible. I gave her some input, and didn't think much about it for a while, but then I thought more about it tonight. Here are a few things that I wish I'd known (or just understood better) when I was in high school.

• Embrace being a late bloomer. Early bloomers fade fast.
• Respect and obey your parents. It's not just a pragmatically good idea; it's commanded by God, who doesn't take it lightly. Look at Romans 1:28-32 and notice that disobedience to parents is grouped with "every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity".
• Things get better. College is a huge step up from high school.
• Stand up for people, especially underdogs.
• Learn to be a good follower, so that in the future, you can be a good leader.
• Know what it means to really be a leader. Leadership isn't a popularity contest; it's a series of decisions founded in integrity.
• Pray daily. Petition the Lord for many good things that He lays on your heart, but don't forget to also ask Him to (1) ready you for His service and (2) reveal step by step the path He has laid out for you.
• You are braver, smarter, and more capable than you realize.

Boring: To-Do

Things to do this weekend:
Dentist
Pay daycare
Aetna paperwork
Bank
Clean floors
Clean bathrooms
Clean car
Install booster seat
Bake bread
Bake cookies
Home Depot
Black & Decker
Call plumber
Call school
Recycling
Grocery store
Sort/file paperwork
Other?

Dishwasher!

My dishwasher did finally get installed, and it works wonderfully. It's nice to not have to do all the dishes by hand and everything goes a lot faster in the kitchen. It's amazing how much we in developed countries can take for granted the labor-saving devices that are commonplace. Trust me, I will never again take a dishwasher for granted!

And as a bonus, a rehash of some thoughts that I may express on occasion: The secret to a fulfilled and fulfilling life is not in getting more but rather is in wanting less.

More on TV

I was hoping to be able to watch a TV show and recap it for you here, dear readers, but as it so happens, this evening has not been conducive to such activities. I did a lot of useful things, like pick up my child from daycare, go home, make dinner, do some dishes, clean the cat litter box, talk to my SO on the phone, etc. But I didn't watch a recommended TV show and blog about it yet. I'll try to do better in the future (goodness, in what universe do I live, in which promising to watch more TV is considered a positive thing?).

One Week In - I FAIL

Hello, dear readers! I'm so sorry that I already failed to post on at least one day of NaBloPoMo. You see, I intended to post on my blog last night, but I fell asleep while putting my Little Bug to bed, and so that was what happened. That's life when you're a single parent with a preschooler.

This week has marked a few adventures already.

• On Sunday, the Little Bug spent several hours in a pair of undies without any accidents. This is a huge milestone in our one-step-forward-two-steps-back journey through potty training.
• On Monday, I started my low-key fitness routine that I hope to incorporate into our lifestyle. I've been doing some simple yoga in the mornings to build up my strength, balance, and flexibility. I haven't exercised regularly for a few years (since I was pregnant, in fact), so I'm very out of shape. Once I've achieved a basic level of fitness, I'll add more challenging routines and increase my cardiovascular workout. I'm doing exercises that can be done in my home, because it's really close to impossible to do outside workouts without a jogging stroller (plus winter is coming, which will preclude any outside stuff for 5 or so months) and joining a gym is too daunting (especially with having to put the Bug in yet another childcare situation while I do classes or a circuit, because I would hate just shuffling him from one caretaker to another when I just want to spend time being a real parent) and too expensive. My sister gave me a Jillian Michaels DVD that looks as if it will be incredible in a few weeks, when I finally will be able to do the workout all the way through instead of dying in the middle.
• I've cooked and baked, and I'm pleased to report that the new stove is just magnificent so far.

Teluhveeshun

I may have mentioned before (or maybe I haven't) but when I watch a TV series, I become slightly obsessive about it. I prefer to start from the beginning, and watch to the end, which means that overall, I prefer to watch series that have already run their course. I've been burned before. I've started watching, gotten emotionally invested in a series, only to have it canceled mid-season or at the end of a season but with poor closure (see: Firefly, Angel, Veronica Mars). Other shows may as well have been canceled, having become so lousy that I didn't even follow through to any kind of closure (see: Bones). Still others I tried but I couldn't get into them (see: Lost). I've recently realized that while it may be on the verge of unhealthy, I need some TV in which to invest. I enjoy being able to lose myself in another world for just a little while, particularly when there are also cute clothes to be observed.

When in California last month, a few friends made recommendations:
Dr. Who
Downton Abbey
Warehouse 13
Sherlock

I've also gotten recommendations for:
Dead Like Me
The Vampire Diaries (the GFY girls like it, which is close to a recommendation)

I'm looking for other recommendations. Let me know in the comments.

Soap

I was reflecting recently on how many kinds of soap there are. Not just brands of soap, or scents, but the actual forms that the soap may take. For example, most people are familiar with bar soap, and then there's shower gel, and liquid soap, and foaming liquid soap, and the granular soap that is usually dispensed in less-well-kept public bathrooms. I've found, however, that most people in the US are not at all familiar with a certain sort of soap that is an opaque jelly that comes in plastic tubs. In fact, I've only ever seen it in developing countries. When I questioned some coworkers about it, none of them had even heard of the soap that comes in a tub or jar. Does anyone know why? Is it considered somehow a sort of lower-class or "third world" soap? Just wondering.

More singing

You can imagine how proud I am that, in addition to sometimes singing "When He Cometh", the Little Bug now sings along to the theme song for Daria.

"La-la-la-la-la."

Precious Children

I put my Little Bug to bed nearly every night, and he always asks me to sing him a song. He specifically requests a song he has termed "the precious children song". And I always comply. Sometimes I ask him if he wants to sing too, and he just shakes his head. So imagine my surprise when, night before last, he suddenly piped up and sang with me on the choruses (with almost all the words being correct!):
Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty:
Bright gems for His crown.

The song is one that my parents sang to me when I myself was a tiny tot, under the title of "When He Cometh". It was one of the first songs I taught myself to play by ear on the piano. I don't know how widely it is sung in the general population, however. Here are the lyrics as I learned them.

When He cometh, when He cometh
To take up His jewels,
All His jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty:
Bright gems for His crown.

Little children, little children
Who love their Redeemer
Are His jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty:
Bright gems for His crown.

The Cyber Hymnal has a MIDI of the tune and slightly different words for the lyrics. I have to pull out my keyboard to play it, and learn it on the guitar as well. I want to pass on to my Little Bug all the sweet, simple songs that my parents gave to me, because they are a part of our heritage as a family and as believers. I've never forgotten the hymns that I learned as a child and consider them to have played a tremendous role in the development and sustainment of my faith. I have reason to think that my Little Bug is responding to the words, and though he does not yet understand the full import of what Jesus has done and is for him, he knows that somehow, somewhere, there is a Redeemer who loves him and holds him as His own precious child.

True Thoughts About Greatness

Perfection

Some mornings, when there's just a hint of chill in the air, I emerge slowly into the world of wakefulness under my pile of blankets and realize that all three of my boys are snuggled up with me in a jumble of coziness, and it's a moment of perfection that I want to somehow preserve and remember forever.

November already

Can you believe it? November is upon us already, and with it, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the bold and National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) for the rest of us.

Today, November 1, is also Tuesday, so perhaps the time is ripe for a Tackle-It Tuesday assignment (even though it's already 4 pm in my time zone). For today, I guess I'll set up eye doctor appointments. [Hey, the key to succeeding is setting small, easily attainable goals... or so I've been told.]

In other news, I've been trying to get my little family on a healthier diet, and I'm still getting back into the rhythm of being able to create tasty, filling, but still healthful bag lunches. The end result is that I end up starving by mid-afternoon and have insatiable cravings for burgers and fries. Yikes. I need to make time to cook this weekend.

Oh! Speaking of cooking, I have big news! I've made a major purchase that will, I think, vastly improve my quality of life. I am now the proud owner of a new stove, a new refrigerator, and a dishwasher. When I bought my little cottage, it came with some appliances, including a washer and dryer (replaced a few months ago), a stove (30-40 years old, by my best estimation), and a fridge (20-30 years old). There was no dishwasher. I muddled along as best I could, because appliances are expensive, but while the fridge was at least functional, the stove was dying by inches. The oven never really worked, and then one of the four burners quit. I could still cook, but when the second burner went out, I said, "Enough!" I'm a frugal person, but when I'm down to a creaky old fridge, no oven, and only two working range burners, and I'm STILL having to do all of my dishes by hand, I will scrape together cash to bring my kitchen up to the 21st century. The fridge is great, and is rated at the highest level of energy efficiency. My nice new stove has worked well so far, and I've tested the oven with some excellent chocolate chip cookies. And the dishwasher is due to be installed this week (it's a more complicated process in an old kitchen than just plugging in a fridge or stove).

Well, I'm off to call the eye doctor. Cheerio, all!

Weekend Random Post

I'm filing this under Friday Five, even though it's not Friday, because it still counts if it's still the weekend, right?

Remember when Candace did the "10 Day You Challenge", those series of posts on her blog? With answering different questions that counted down from 10 and all that? I tried to do it for one post, and half-heartedly at that, and I didn't do any more of those posts, mostly because I couldn't figure out enough stuff to write about myself. I just wasn't up to the challenge. Dear readers, I had to confront the fact that I'm not that interesting a person. I know lots of interesting people and a fair number of interesting facts, but I myself am the sort of individual who is paralyzed when required to make small talk, so I end up staring awkwardly at the walls and wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. Sigh.

But anyway, one of the challenges in the 10 Day You Challenge was 10 Secrets. Now obviously, if I posted ten secrets about myself, or even just one secret, on my blog, then it would be automatically self-negating because as soon as I pushed the Publish button, the information would cease to be secret. But I thought it might be a reasonable approximation to post a few items about myself that are not actually secrets but some things that people might not know. I couldn't think of ten, so here are five.

1. I was switched at birth. No, really. It's a somewhat long and involved story and my mother tells the best version of it (I myself cannot even recall the events in question), but the gist of it is that due to a logistical error, the hospital brought two babies each to the other's mother on the day when I was born. The other infant in question was Hispanic and male, so the mix-up was readily discovered and corrected, but it does make one wonder how often those mistakes could happen without being detected.

2. I have super powers! Just kidding, my powers are pretty much useless so I'm more of a simple freak of nature. I'm a synesthete, specifically possessing grapheme-to-color synesthesia. It means that I see individual letters in particular colors. It's not a useful skill.

3. I'm extremely clumsy. This is an odd confession for a graceful dancer to make, but the truth is that I have a habit of dropping things, tripping over things, bumping or walking into them... I'm notorious for hurting myself in bizarre ways (I've sustained more than one umbrella-opening-related injury). I suspect that most of my klutziness is rooted in absentmindedness, as I always have my head in the clouds and forget to pay attention to my physical surroundings. Dancing is easy: You have steps you've learned and choreographed routines that you've practiced, and as long as your stage isn't so small that you can't move, you should be fine. Life, on the other hand, is difficult and dangerous: You never know what could be coming at you at any given moment.

4. I consider myself to be an Asian-Pacific-Islander-American. It's no secret, nor is it particularly complicated, but many people don't understand this. I am a citizen of the USA and live in the good old Midwest, but was raised in Indonesia and New Guinea. I have identity issues, I guess.

5. I'm becoming more beautiful as I get older. I've thought this for many years, and it seems to just keep getting truer and truer. I'm definitely a late bloomer, a proverbial ugly duckling. I always felt plain in high school and college, and my experience with the opposite sex didn't build my confidence at all, but now that I'm 15-20 years older, I get a lot of attention based on my looks. I'm not convinced that my metamorphosis is related to any actual physical improvement, except perhaps the cliche about someone "growing into her looks", but rather I think that many people improve with age because we become more and more comfortable with who we are and who God has made us to be. We become lovelier because we love ourselves more in the sense of accepting the self that God loves, redeems, and sanctifies day by day.

Lions and Tigers and Bears FOR REAL

YOU GUYS! It seems as though my plan to input Animal Control as a saved contact on my phone was utterly prescient. As everyone on the planet now knows, there were wild animals (including, yes, lions and tigers and bears) on the loose in central Ohio the very week after I wrote that, some miles west of my house.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/20/us/ohio-animals-on-loose/?hpt=us_c2 [Please ignore all the idiots posting in the comments section. This event ended up as a tragedy, but it is pretty obvious to any rational observer that it would have ended as a tragedy no matter what the outcome, because it was tragic to begin with.]

I was in California during the time when this whole thing went down, which is probably good, all things considered. I just wanted to post this to remind everyone that it's okay to be wary and alert, and bears (even black bears) DO get aggressive and try to attack people.

Speaking of Sharks

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/10/11/shark-infested-australian-golf-course-believed-to-be-worlds-first/?intcmp=obnetwork

Golf with sharks! But what I really want to know is, are these bull sharks now adapted to freshwater living? They washed up in a river and live in a lake. I must investigate further...

Sharks (The Bears of the Deep)

For some reason, yesterday's post about encountering terrifying beasts in the great outdoors sparked in my mind a memory of reading somewhere (interview? Twitter feed? I don't remember) a comment from Mark Hoppus to the effect that surfers are the most hardcore athletes because they always have to be wary of sharks while doing their thing. Surfing, he says, is the only sport where monsters try to eat you while you participate. [I guess he's implying that World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons don't count as sports. Oh well.]

Now, I know that the actual percentage of surfers and other aquatic athletes who have been attacked by sharks is actually very low. But for the sake of comparison, I'd like to point out that the percentage of people who have been attacked by sharks while watching TV in their living rooms is approximately zero.

BEARS!! (Forget the Lions and Tigers)

[Speaking of lions, tigers, and bears, those are all names of sports teams. I just noticed that! And they're all in Great Lakes states. Crazy.]

When I was a little girl (so, some decades ago now) my family used to sing a song that started out "The other day, I met a bear, up in the woods, away up there". Now, thank God, I have never actually met a bear up in any woods; all my bear-related experiences have been confined to zoos, except for this one time that I'm pretty sure I heard a bear getting into the garbage can at the cabin up in Three Rivers at Sequoia National Park, but since I didn't actually see the bear, I can't claim to have met it. I don't have anything against bears qua bears, but I just like them in their place, and their place is as far away from me as possible. I don't have a lot of fears (though the ones I do possess tend to have a paralyzing effect on me, but that's another story) and I'm really not a big "outdoorsy" person, but I have what I would term a "healthy respect" for Nature, particularly with regard to things that can kill and/or eat me. This plays into my unenthusiastic attitude toward camping, among other things. I'm not a citified wuss; I have jungle cred. It's just that I'm really not interested in leaving the comforts of civilization, if it means I have to sleep outside with only a thin sheet of synthetic fabric separating me from vicious hungry predators such as grizzly bears and mountain lions. WHO THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA? But I digress.

Today's story is not about me. I've been seeing, for a few months, a very nice young man who happens to be native to Ohio, more specifically to a small town in Coshocton County. He (the Significant Other, or SO) invited us (the Little Bug and me) to join him at a family event at his ancestral home (his parents still live in the house where his father grew up). So yesterday evening, we hopped in the car and drove east on the freeway (through the city of Coshocton itself, which happens to have a Walmrt, and it's THE ONLY WALMART IN THE WHOLE COUNTY, which tells you a lot about this general region, i.e. IT'S RURAL OHIO, i.e. IT'S AWESOME), got onto a country road, drove a while longer, passed a little country church with some hilarious signs (one said "THE ONLY GHOST HERE IS HOLY", which immediately begs all kinds of questions about that church), then turned onto a rather narrow unmarked road that began to wind back and forth up a hill through a forest, and at that point, I started to wonder exactly how far back into the woods we were going to go. Not too much later, though, we pulled up to a house with several cars parked outside, and I figured that had to be the party place. And when we got out, we saw an old tractor under a tree. AWESOME!! The Little Bug wanted to play on it (because IT'S A REAL LIVE TRACTOR) but my SO said it wasn't safe because there were probably bees in it. Bummer. But still: TRACTOR BEES. Awesome, right? Then we were met by a coterie of nephews and nieces bearing tales of paintball shooting and black bear sighting. The bear story seemed rather doubtful, but the paintball story was real, and it was taking place on the far edge of the rather large yard, but I had the Bug with me, so I had to be diligent about keeping him away and I couldn't partake myself, though I might have wanted to otherwise. I glanced at my phone, though, and saw that I had no signal.
Me (to my SO): I don't have any cell phone signal!
SO: Yeah, me neither.
Me: I'm pretty sure almost every horror movie starts this way.
SO: Now you know the story of every day of my life growing up.
But with a couple dozen people milling around, most of them tiny tykes with energy to spare, there was little time to contemplate our severance from the outside world. Inside the house, we were greeted by hot dogs, birthday cake, and (apparently) a Waltons TV show marathon. I found this fascinating because I'd heard of something called The Waltons but never seen it before, and it is (apparently) about a big family that lives in a big old house on a hill out in the woods, and also it's (apparently) my SO's dad's favorite show. COINCIDENCE? I think not. But I digress (again).

After dinner, we toured the garden on the slope behind the house (very nice, if slightly grown over now that it's autumn), admired a mysterious fossil that the SO's dad had found while digging in the garden, and played some Scrabble. All too soon, it was late in the evening and high time for our return to our upscale metropolitan life. We said our goodbyes and headed out to the car, accompanied by a very large, very old German shepherd (I saw his food dish--it was the size of one of those big tin washtubs we used back in the old country). We were met outside by two older nephews who had been amusing themselves by wandering through the woods in the pitch blackness, and they told us, "Hey, you should go up and check out this deer carcass we found. It's just over there." We demurred, and I pointed out that if there really was a rotting dead carcass, I would prefer to stay away from it rather than seek it out. Also: WHAT IF THE DEER HAD BEEN KILLED BY A BEAR? I buckled the Bug in his car seat, jumped in the car post-haste, and was ready to head out as soon as possible. In reality, though, we had to creep back down the hill at about 20 miles per hour because it was that windy road and there were no lights anywhere.

On the journey down, I asked my SO if he thought there was a bear killing deer by his parents' house.
SO: There's any number of reasons why there would be a dead deer around, but probably not a bear. If a bear kills a deer, it eats it and doesn't leave much to be found.
Me: So there are too many people up there for the bears to stay around?
SO: Oh, there's black bears up there for sure. I've seen one.
Me: !!!!!
SO: That bear's gone now. It got captured and put down. Someone started feeding the bear, so it became dangerous.* It learned to expect the food and it would go up to houses expecting to be fed. So it came up and opened the kitchen door--
Me: Wait, it opened YOUR kitchen door?
SO: Yeah. That kitchen you were sitting in? It pushed open the door right there.
Me: A bear came in your house?!
SO: It didn't come inside. It just popped open the door because the door didn't latch. If it had come in, that would have been a problem.
Me: ?!?!?!
SO: My mom slammed the door shut really fast, and she and my dad shoved some furniture, I think a pot-bellied stove, in front of the door. And then my dad grabbed his camera to try and get some pictures. I was there in the house when it happened so I saw the bear.
Me: At least the bear just opened the door, and didn't come in. That was pretty polite, considering it was a bear.
SO: Well, it would've been nice if it had knocked first.**
...
Me: (several minutes later) A BEAR OPENED YOUR DOOR AND TRIED TO COME INTO YOUR HOUSE. THAT IS THE SCARIEST THING I HAVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME.
SO: And can you believe it? Our dog didn't even bark once.

YOU GUYS. It was a long, roundabout way to get to the point, but this kind of thing is the reason why I live in a fairly populated area. Somewhere, less than an hour's drive from my home, a bear tried to go into someone's house. A BEAR. I always had a sense that if you were in a house, you were at least kind of safe, but it turns out that isn't necessarily true. I don't want to go into my kitchen one morning and find that I need to slam the door in some bear's face and barricade it with my kitchen table. What if the bear got mad? What if it wouldn't go away, like it was trying to make quota selling cookies or magazine subscriptions? Living in a house up in the woods really IS like living in a horror movie (no cell phone signal!) except that you don't need a serial killer with an axe or a chainsaw. The local wildlife can handle the murdering duties with no problem whatsoever. And while I do live within city limits, the thing is, there are miles and miles of wooded hills and empty fields all around this area. I am SO putting Animal Control as a contact in my phone, plus I'm planning on spending the vast majority of my lifetime in a place where I get four full bars.

Excuse me, I have to go hyperventilate now.

*Editor's note: Why would someone feed a bear? You can feed little puppies and kitties who've lost their mommies. You can even feed the birds (tuppence a bag) if you are so inclined. But you don't need to feed a bear. Bears are KILLING MACHINES, plus they are omnivores, so they can eat plants and nuts and berries and stuff, as well as innocent slaughtered animals and people. The bears can get their own dang food, is what I'm saying, so you don't need to feed them.
**Hilarious! I love his sense of humor.

The Adventure Continues

Note: I wrote this at Christmas time, when I was with my family and we were watching Lord of the Rings, as we are wont to do. Somehow, this never got posted. I have no idea why. Maybe I wanted to edit it, or expand on some of the ideas. If so, I've forgotten now what I planned to do, so I'll just post it and if I have additional thoughts, I'll post with follow-up.

The LOTR film odyssey has proceeded apace through The Two Towers. I find a bit less faithfulness to the book in this adaptation, and it never fails to bother me. My father agrees with me that Jackson's most disappointing departure is a sheer misfire, a true detriment to the film version of this story: the total ruination of the character of Faramir.

In the book, Faramir is possibly the most truly and essentially noble character, not least because he is given many reasons and many opportunities to be less than noble and he rises above them all. Frodo is the central character of the story and Aragorn the standard epic hero born to greatness, and they offer many nuances to the trilogy. Like Sam (the courageous and noble everyman, or rather, everyhobbit), however, Faramir is relatable and provides lessons on rising above adversity and consciously choosing good over evil. Tolkien's view and his created world are essentially medieval, and a reverence for the code of chivalry and the feudal system is absolutely implicit in his writing. A titled but not royal character, Faramir represents every aspect of the ideal knight: a natural leader who inspires courage and faithfulness in followers both human and animal; a skilled administrator and commander; a great but humble warrior; a loyal subject; a devoted son and brother; a brilliant and disciplined scholar and student; a gentleman with consideration and respect for women and for people (and hobbits) that others might consider lesser and unworthy of regard. He is one of the few individuals who is able to resist the lure of the Ring, this being all the more remarkable because his own brother falls prey to that weakness. He is secure enough and wise enough that he accepts his father's injustice toward him and partiality toward Boromir, and dedicates himself to the service of Gondor. And he ends up marrying a strong woman whose fame and courage may exceed even his own, and he admires rather than resents her abilities.

In the movie, Faramir is unfortunately shown as a weakling who cannot resist the Ring, and he is rather whiny and petty, to boot. Ultimately, he makes the right choice after a series of wrong choices, but the damage to his character's integrity is substantial. I guess we just have to return to reading the books to enjoy the true essence of the greatest Captain of Gondor.

Failure on Civil Liberties

I've been saying this for two years, but nobody paid attention. Why doesn't anyone listen to me?! Anyway, a liberal writer (Turley) in a liberal paper (LA Times) is calling Obama, former liberal darling, to account for his flagrant failure to follow through on his campaign promises to reverse previous administrations' policies that may be damaging to American civil liberties. Turley concludes that continuing Democratic support for Obama in the face of his repeated assaults on liberal values amounts to nothing but a personality cult. OH SNAP! I'm not one to count Mr. Obama out of the 2012 presidential race at this juncture, but when his once-slavish acolytes are now raking him over the coals, his chances are looking ever dimmer.

Technology again

It's great to be able to blog on my phone but now I can't think of anything to write. Technology isn't an end goal; it's only the means to an end. Humans will never become obsolete because they provide the telos.

Technology

I'm blogging. While at the zoo. Just because I can. Mind-blowing.

I'm in the reptile house and it's bedlam in here.

Mobile

Got an app.

Joined 21st century.

And there was much rejoicing.

10 Day "You" Challenge: Three Films

Candace is doing a daily meme that requires lists on a daily basis. I'm joining in the fun rather late, as she's already at #3 and it starts with #10. I might play catch-up, but for now, I'll list three films that I love (or enjoy).

1. Legally Blonde - I despise cheesy romantic comedies with inane plots and dialogue, unlikeable characters, etc. You know the kind of movie, churned out by the dozens and often featuring repeat offenders such as Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl, or Julia Roberts. I have my idiosyncracies, however, and I'm allowed an exception to my rule of loathing. Legally Blonde is my exception. I love that movie, because it transcends its genre in a way that few films do. It's fresh and funny enough that I can watch it again and again, and some of the dialogue still cracks me up after all these years. One time I said "My hair's so now" and my sister automatically knew what I was quoting. Reese Witherspoon's fantastic performance is part of what really makes the movie. My one little complaint is that I find Luke Wilson 100% unattractive and unappealing, so I really wish they had found someone handsomer and more compelling as the male lead.
2. It Happened One Night - I'm doing a random sampling of movies I love, but this might make a list of my top ten favorite films of all time. What can I say? It's a classic, and if some of the elements (e.g. runaway bride, wisecracking newspaper reporter, flirty banter, upending of class/social conventions, to name just a few) seem cliched now, it's only because It Happened One Night did it first and best, and all those other movies copied its successes. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert won Oscars for their roles, and they're more fun to watch with every viewing. If you've never seen It Happened One Night, give yourself a treat and see it soon!
3. Ball of Fire - Since I've wandered into the light comedy camp, I'll just stay there for my third pick. Ball of Fire is another classic rom-com, this time with deft performances from dependable performers such as Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, ably assisted by a whole host of some of classic Hollywood's greatest character actors. What do you get when you mix a houseful of nerdy professors with a nightclub performer on run from the police? This movie! And when you add some gangster shenanigans, conga dancing, and a high-speed chase? More of this movie! A lot of the fun focuses on linguistic research, so clearly this is a crowd-pleaser, folks. But don't take my word for it. See it!

Conversations on Facebook

Me: I truly thank the Lord for His many blessings in my life, including an ever-abundant supply of Snark Bait!
Vincent: Snark Bait is the name of my Jonas Brothers tribute band.
Roland: Vincent stole my joke!!

Interesting

Facebook just suggested Nancy Pearcey as a "Friend" for me.

Oh! What Sadness We Reflect...

...When our blogs we do neglect.

I saw a coworker posting on Blogger this morning and was shamed into remembering that I just haven't kept up with the blogging lately.

Things have been busy but fun. I'm relearning all the complications involved in being a homeowner. I'm working some overtime. I'm coping with being a parent of a 3-year-old. I'm doing stuff in my life, often failing, but then picking myself up, dusting myself off, and starting over again.

Saturday's child

I like Saturdays. Really, who in western culture doesn't? One usually doesn't have school or work on Saturday, and it's the beginning of the weekend, so one can enjoy it without yet facing the Sunday evening let-down. I was also born on a Saturday, which makes me Saturday's child. In the old nursery rhyme, "Saturday's child works hard for a living". Oh, wait, that's kind of a downer, especially when compared to Monday's child ("fair of face"). But it's pretty upbeat compared to Wednesday's child ("full of woe"), so I'm not complaining. Fortunately, I do like working and being productive, so it's not as much of a drag as it could be. I'm sure my Saturdays will be pleasantly full and busy, as I'll be readying the house for move-in at the same time as I'll be packing up and readying the apartment for move-out. But it will all be worth it!

Spring 2011 Update

Hello, faithful (I hope) readers! There have been many developments in our happy little life in Buckeye Land. The Little Bug and I have bought a house and will be moving into it soon. Exciting, to be sure, but also a lot of work and responsibility. We've also weathered some intense thunderstorms and a few close calls with tornadoes, and are really hoping that the weather will take a turn for the balmy and sunny.

Take care!

An Education

I can count it a matter of good fortune, for many reasons, that last week included a visit from Debbie of Debbie's Garden, who came to spend several days with us and relish the Ohio not-quite-spring weather. Debbie and I have always enjoyed one another's company, and can while away many an hour over a pot of tea, discussing everything from theology to interior decor to home schooling. We are both very interested in education in general, not just home schooling, and we ended up having a conversation yesterday that, combined with a recent trip to an art museum, led me to ponder the roots of my own educational experience.

For the most part, I've had a tendency to perform well and achieve highly in school, which might cause others to think that I like school and embrace it as a positive institution. Not so! I spent the first few years of my formal education considering school to be boring drudgery and a huge waste of time, and found it to be intermittently so for some years following. I learned to read at the age of 3, and knew all my numbers, and I could do basic arithmetic not too long after that. Consequently, kindergarten through third grade, I performed rather poorly due to the fact that I believed school was a place one went for several hours a day in order to stare out the window and daydream. Why pay attention and apply oneself when the teachers just kept teaching things (such as letters and numbers) that one already knew years ago? To this day, I don't know why I wasn't given opportunity to perform more advanced work. My schooling nearly murdered my inherent love of learning.

Enter educational salvation in the unlikely form of the Calvert School Grade 4 curriculum. A year of being homeschooled provided the proper milieu, wherein I was removed from the traditional school setting that bred indifference or even hostility, and the subject matter revealed to my eager 9-year-old mind the great ideas, entire worlds just waiting to be tasted, then devoured. I can easily point to some of these books, for they are even now sitting (worn but still fully functional) on my bookshelves: Mighty Men and Famous Legends, small volumes of epic tales and historical figures that were specially adapted for young people, and A Child's History of the World, an archaic* but still readable tome that quickened my soul and truly changed my life. Literature and history flowed together in a torrent of humanity (aha! the humanities!). The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon leapt into my imagination and lingered there. I stumbled wide-eyed into high classical cultures and found myself doomed to wander between Troy and Athens, between Homer and Plato: a fate from which I have never since been freed, nor would I wish to be. I read the watered-down Beowulf, and Grendel (not to mention his mother) terrified me. Arthurian romances left me cold (still do) but I found myself resonating with tales from the Celtic, Germanic, and Nordic worlds. It might not be too strong an assertion to state that in those months, when I had not yet even two digits to my age, I managed to find and define myself in a profound way. I discovered the great sea of "other" and wrestled with the eternal struggle for balance between "same" and "different".

Those revelations of Grade 4 would have been enough to carry me, I think, through college and beyond. But as fortune (or God) would have it, Grade 5 held surprises of its own: none so soul-impacting, but still important in defining my life and the direction it would take.

The fifth grade found me once more in a traditional school setting, and once more, I resorted to daydreaming and window-gazing, to the (no doubt) frustration of my teachers. It was not rebellion but rather a retreat. I simply live better and more happily inside my head; I always have. But Grade 5 was the year that I ventured outside my head to first encounter SCIENCE, in the form of basic life science as taught by Mr. Renshaw. Somehow, it all just made sense to me, it was easy for me to learn and remember, and I liked it. Taxonomic organization appealed to my sense of fitting things into systems, and the cell operated in a manner that seemed utterly reasonable. Single-celled organisms fascinated me in a special way, and I particularly recall the thrill of seeing hundreds of them scooting around in a drop of pond water under a microscope: a tiny, previously-unknown world in which I could partake, if only as an observer for a moment in time.

My other courses that year were taught by Mrs. Renshaw [It has not yet been revealed to me why the Renshaws were chosen to play such a large role in the formation of my educational self, but such is the case.], and while I can't claim to have liked many of them except for social studies, one subject I really did love was Bible. Naturally, I'd read the Bible before, learned it, knew plenty of Bible trivia, but never before had I been trained in the methodical study of just one book of the Bible (in this case, Acts) over the course of an entire school year. I definitely remember filling in blanks in a workbook, and I am sure we also did contextual work by looking at maps and learning about Jewish, Greek and Roman history and culture. It was a strategic and disciplined approach that worked very well with a little girl of my temperament, and at 10 years of age, I did not find it too challenging at all. While I was not at the level of parsing Greek verbs or writing theological treatises, the work that we did for Acts was on par with what Bible classes did in my Christian high school. Be that as it may, I can definitely trace my love of scholarly study of God's Word back to Grade 5 Bible class.

I really believe that some essential part of who I am, who God made me to be, was formed and fed by my early education. Certainly, I have never lost interest in those topics that caught my attention during those years. Classical languages and literature, ancient and medieval history, the sciences, and most of all the Bible and theology, are still my favorite things to read, think, and talk about. Perhaps I was just immensely fortunate that God reached my heart through my mind, and at so young an age.

I'm interested in finding out how other people were formed by their educational experiences. Leave a note in the comments! Was it a book you read, a class you took, just one specific idea that you encountered?

*Editor's note: First published circa 100 years ago, A Child's History of the World is a product of its time and place, i.e. very Eurocentric. Deal with it. If you read it, judge it on its merits in a proper contextual format. If you use it as an educational tool, don't criticize it for its lack of political correctness; rather, supplement it with other materials that provide alternative perspectives and a fuller view of world history.

Spring Cleaning

==> Drinking Triple Sec because you just want to finish it up and get the bottle out of the cupboard.

Jane Russell died

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jane-russell-20110301,0,7435427.story

I wish comfort to her family and friends. She was actually a fellow believer, so while her dear ones may mourn, they can have hope for the future.

End of February

And the end of Black History Month (which is kind of an odd concept, when you think about it).

I always remind people that there are lots of black people all over the world, not just in the US or even Africa, and many of them are still in conditions of marginalization or even outright persecution.

February already!

It was 8 F when I came into work this morning at 6:30 am. I'm pretty sure my brain can't actually comprehend that, because I was reasonably okay walking from my car to the building (it wasn't windy) but I just kept repeating "COLD COLD COLD COLD" in my mind.

The Little Bug's daddy has been visiting us for several days, so that has given me a welcome respite from bearing the entire burden of parenting. I've had a few nice early mornings at work. I haven't had to plan and cook dinner after work. The Little Bug has been able to spend all day with his daddy instead of going to daycare.

Speaking of the Little Bug, he turned 3 years old on Super Bowl Sunday!

Anyway, that's the summary of the past week or so. I never like cold weather, and naturally, I like it less and less as winter wears on. I'm looking forward to spring with a wistful eagerness.

Update

I can't believe I let nearly two weeks pass without posting anything on my blog. To be honest, though, life has been kind of boring. I live in the midwest. It has been cold and snowy. The Little Bug and I have both been afflicted with the particularly virulent strain of flu that is going around this winter. We go to daycare and work, and make regular forays to church and the store as necessary.

Any energy I have to spare has been funneled to a giant cleaning/decluttering/organizing project that I have going on this winter. You can read about those efforts over at Simple Pleasures Magazine.

I've never liked winter, and I was ready for it to be over before it even started. Now, I'm VERY ready for it to be over. I'm hoping for it to get above freezing, at least, by the end of February. *shiver*

Human Trafficking Awareness Day!

On this day, millions of people are in slavery, having no freedom, forced to labor with little or no pay and no hope of change, bought and sold like property. In fact, there are more slaves today than at any other time in history.

If you want to know more about this issue, check out a few resources:
International Justice Mission
Not For Sale Campaign
US Dept of Health and Human Services

Newark Earthworks could become World Heritage Site

The Newark Earthworks are, along with a few other Ohio Hopewell-related sites, being considered for inclusion on a list to be submitted to UNESCO for possible designation as World Heritage sites. In other words, they're short-listed to get short-listed.

It would be a wonderful (and, to my surprisingly optimistic mind, not entirely unlikely) thing if the earthworks would make it to the official list of amazing things on the planet. First of all, Newark seldom is recognized for anything positive, and having a World Heritage site would raise this area's profile in a very good way. It could possibly even have a beneficial financial impact by bringing in tourist revenue.

Second, this would be good not only for Newark but for the earthworks themselves. Anthropologists and archaeologists have been surprisingly reluctant to invest much in studying these huge relics that are essentially the North American equivalent of Stonehenge. Becoming a World Heritage site would drum up interest in the earthworks from a scholarly perspective, AND it would increase interest and effort in preserving what (comparatively little) remains of these amazing monuments.

Third, the inclusion of the earthworks into the list of World Heritage sites will serve as yet another reminder of our shared heritage and experience. We have differences, yes, but in reality, we are all people and more alike than we are different. Whether I visit the Newark earthworks or another Ohio mound site, or Stonehenge, or the Colosseum in Rome, I get a sense of being connected with it all, a participant in the great stream of humanity. Anything, even just a really big pile of dirt, that causes us to pause, put down weapons, and look at one another as human beings, is something worth saving and promoting.

YOU can be involved in this effort. Read the article from the Newark Advocate, and consider possibly writing to the Office of International Affairs (e-mail jonathan_putnam@nps.gov) or signing an online petition. I sent an e-mail, so I can't vouch for how well the petition site works. The basic text of my e-mail to Jonathan Putnam is below so that you can just adapt it for your purposes if you don't want to write your own e-mail from scratch. The deadline is January 12 (this upcoming Wednesday).

Dear Jonathan Putnam,

I'm writing to urge that you and the Office of International Affairs continue to pursue the nomination of major Ohio earthworks, designated as Hopewell Ceremonial Centers, to consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage site. I would also urge you to add Ohio's Serpent Mound to the nomination to add to the possibility of recognition for this entire cluster of ancient monuments.

Despite being little-known even in the international anthropological community, these earthworks are among the most important and impressive prehistorical structures on the planet. The Ohio earthworks sites deserve to be recognized and appreciated for their significance and contribution to human history and culture.

Sincerely,
[signature]

No way!

Watching LOTR today, and I look online to discover that there is a LOTR wedding today!

Many happy wishes to Billy Boyd on his nuptials, and he looks to be having fun with his hobbit home-boys, Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan.

The Road to Adventure

Every few years, my family will watch through the trilogy of the films of The Lord of the Rings. We're watching Fellowship of the Ring right now. We all prefer the books to the movies, but it's still fun to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of the epic brought to life before our eyes. I'm known for the litany of complaints that I lodge against these films and Peter Jackson, but there are also a few ideas/moments that I really like and think were represented well by the films.
Vistas: The gorgeous scenery of New Zealand is a more-than-credible stand-in for Middle Earth. This is equally true of rolling green hills, rugged mountains, and ancient-looking forests.
Bad-Asser than Thou Part 1: Aragorn singlehandedly takes on five Nazgul on Weathertop.
Bad-Asser than Thou Part 2: Christopher Lee as Saruman. Because he's CHRISTOPHER LEE. As SARUMAN. (I wish the world had the chance to see him as Gandalf, per Tolkien's own desire, but he has gift to create Saruman as someone deeper and more real than a plotting comic-book villain, which is how some other actor might have portrayed him.)
Bad-Asser than Thou Part 3: Sam slowly coming into his own as a humble hero, particularly in the scene of the skirmish in Moria, when he starts whacking orcs with his frying pan.
Music: Occasionally repetitious, but undeniably beautiful and atmospheric.
Supporting Performances: Not all are of the same caliber, but a few do stand out. The aforementioned Lee as Saruman, Ian McKellen as Gandalf (though that is more of a lead than supporting role), the unfairly (in this case) maligned Orlando Bloom as a Flynn-esque Legolas, and, particularly key to the Fellowship book/film, Sean Bean as the conflicted but ultimately repentant and redeemed Boromir.
Bonus Wonderful Moment: The Little Bug, observing a battle with trolls and orcs, exclaimed, "Bad monsters, go to time out!" Time out, of course, is the most terrible punishment he can imagine.

Incarnation Celebration! With Felicity!

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Think about that. IT'S CRAZY, RIGHT?!

Stealing Another Meme

From The Collective.

Why were you given your particular name?

I'm guessing that my parents just liked the name Deborah. And there is the precedent of the truly awesome woman named Deborah in the Bible (Judges 4-5). But my secret theory (which won't be particularly secret if it's posted on my blog, and also my mom reads my blog anyway) is that my mom wanted to name me after her favorite heroine (Harriet Vane) of her favorite writer (Dorothy Sayers) but couldn't bring herself to burden me with the name of Harriet so she picked Harriet's middle name (revealed to be Deborah in Gaudy Night for sure, perhaps in other books as well) instead.

What is your favorite thing to do?

Have long earnest talks with close friends, while sipping a frappucino and nibbling a yummy treat.

What is your favorite food?

I can't pick just one, but I really like sweet potatoes and guavas.

What is your favorite book?

Again, I can't pick just one. But a book that I truly enjoyed and that influenced me in a profound way is a pithy volume by the name of A Child's History of the World. It was part of my 4th grade Calvert curriculum, and it awakened in me a profound longing for and fascination with the world of antiquity, particularly the languages, literatures, and cultures thereof.

What is your favorite candy bar?

Oh wow, this is hard. It depends on my mood. Butterfingers is often a good choice, or peanut or dark chocolate M&Ms.

What is your favorite cookie?

Fresh-baked homemade chocolate chip cookie.

What is your favorite sport?

To watch or to play? I like to both view and participate (even if I'm not any good) in dancesport, hockey, and football (soccer to some people).

What is your favorite song?

Oh, so difficult! But really, one song that never fails to reach deep into my soul is the overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Wife mama writer scholar journalist theologian archaeologist scientist inventor musician singer songwriter dancer advocate for the vulnerable.

What place would you like to visit?

Classical sites in Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

What is your favorite thing about your mom?

She is amazing and a great role model, because she is dedicated to doing her best at the tasks that God has given her, and she is passionate about things that she believes in.

What is your favorite thing about yourself? What are three adjectives that best describe you?

My favorite thing about myself? Oddly enough, it's also my least favorite thing about myself. I'm actually pretty good at a lot of stuff. The sad part is that I'm not really great at anything. Three adjectives that describe me? Loyal, determined, chilly (as in, I get cold a lot).

In five years, what kind of person will you be?

I don't know but if I had to guess: Exhausted. I'd like to be more organized and disciplined, though.

In ten years, what kind of person will you be?

Even more organized and disciplined! Also, (I hope) probably I will be the kind of person who can be resilient and meet any situation with maturity and a good sense of humor.

Bookish Meme

This has been making the rounds of the internet, and while I find the particular selection of books suspiciously fad-tastic (It includes entries such as The Time-Traveler's Wife and The Da Vinci Code, but nothing by, say, Jules Verne or even Mark Twain, for crying out loud?), it will do for now, as I don't want to spend a lot of time hunting down "the perfect 100-book list on the internet", or (heaven forbid) developing my own list. Also, I have good reason to believe the copy editor was snoozing on the job, since there are oddities such as #33 on the list being The Chronicles of Narnia, whereas #36 is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is PART OF The Chronicles of Narnia. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road – Jack Kerouak
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Pearl Harbor Day

A date... which will live... in infamy!

History IS important, and we can learn much from it.

World AIDS (not confined to just a) Day

This is what God our Father sees as authentic and pure-hearted religion: To take care of orphans and widows in meeting their needs and countering their despair, and to refuse to participate in the filthiness of sin in the world. (James 1:27, NIV paraphrased by Deb)

There are millions upon millions of orphans all over the planet. In the reality of this cruel world, orphans have little chance of survival, and what lives they have are usually marked by abuse, neglect and abandonment, exploitation, starvation, disease... Any human being with a heart must be moved by the fate of helpless children lacking any caring parent to provide and protect; as a mother, I can barely handle even thinking about the lives that most of these children lead. Small wonder that God in His Word has made it abundantly clear, over and over, that the righteous, His people, are commanded to shoulder the roles of provider and protector on behalf of the disenfranchised. But there are so many in need; the problem is so huge as to be overwhelming. I am a single mom who can barely deal with one child. How can I confront the needs of millions?

Willow quoted Mother Teresa as saying that "we cannot do great things, we can do only small things with great love". Many of us give sacrificially but even in our sacrifices, our resources meet only a few tiny needs. But if each one of us does even just one thing, that's a lot of little things adding up to something bigger. And if we each do our one little thing with love, all of us together will become something even greater still!

There are many organizations dedicated to the care of orphans, and probably the majority of them are reputable and provide incredible positive impact on behalf of the people that they serve. My family have been fortunate enough to become aware of Ugandan Lambs, and we personally know many of the people that work with and for them. Ugandan Lambs is unique in that it is designed to provide for the children of one extended family whose older members have slowly been destroyed and killed by AIDS. Ugandan Lambs really focuses on keeping the children's lives as stable and family-oriented as possible, for they are not sent to institutions but rather remain together with siblings and cousins in their village, cared for by surviving relatives (many of whom are AIDS widows). Ugandan Lambs provides education for the orphans, so that they become self-sufficient adults who can break the cycle of poverty and dependence and are then able to reach out and care for orphans and widows of future generations. My parents have sponsored one particular young man for several years, whereas my choice has been to offer gifts that meet needs for the group of children as a whole. If you are a believer and God has impressed upon your heart His command to care for orphans (or if you are an unbeliever but still have compassion for orphans) and you are looking for a responsible organization to support, we heartily recommend Ugandan Lambs. Please feel free to explore the website (it's http://www.ugandanlambs.org/) and contact them for more information. If you have a different organization that you choose to support, we are excited and encourage you to continue in that.

I should have mentioned this first and not as an afterthought, but remember: Prayers are free. Find even just a name of an orphan and intercede for him or her daily.

World AIDS Day

Today, 1 December, has been designated World AIDS Day by whomever it is that tells the whole world what to do and when to celebrate (probably FIFA, come to think of it). I’m not particularly known for my AIDS activism, although I have been quietly trying to raise awareness of certain aspects of the AIDS epidemic for several years. In fact, I found a post that I wrote 5 years ago pertaining to this very topic, and sadly, very little has changed since then. Perhaps I’m not working hard enough on that awareness-raising stuff. I don’t know.

I think that AIDS has captured the world’s attention in a way that few things, and particularly very few diseases, have been able to simply because not only is it a tremendously harrowing epidemic but it is one that highlights the frailties of our societies and the devastating effects of sin. The suffering of the innocent, particularly the young and helpless; the sex trade and human trafficking; the abuse and marginalization of women; the constant drive of the fallen human race to turn to darkness and destruction rather than healing and hope: In a Ven diagram of the AIDS crisis, all of these issues would be circles having a hefty intersection with AIDS itself. Maybe I should work on making an actual diagram along those lines.

Well, one thing that I know is utterly important is the care of orphans and widows, and at this time, I am seeking to raise awareness of AIDS orphans in particular. So, it being nearly midnight and I being very much in need of sleep, we will continue to discuss this tomorrow.

Winter Set

I awoke this morning to find snow falling outside the window (and not inside the window, fortunately). It's almost as if Mother Nature yawned, stretched, glanced at her watch, and then realized with a panic, "Holy crap, it's December already and I haven't put out the snow yet!"

NaBloPoMo: Accomplished!

Well, it is slightly after midnight (and thus December already) here in the US Eastern time zone, but it's still November west of here. I have already posted 32 entries in November 2010.

As far as my wisdom teeth are concerned, I'm doing all right. Not much pain to speak of, but I have swelling and bruising on the right side of my mandible and I'm still on some medication, which has the lovely side effect of making me dizzy and lightheaded at times. I'm almost done with that stuff, though.

My life has some struggle centered around the fact that I'm just overwhelmed and exhausted, and the Bug is not making anything easier. I spent 3 hours putting him to bed tonight, and he just refused to go to sleep. I gave up at 11:30 and went to shower, but when I got through with that, I found him in the bedroom still awake. It is now past midnight, as I mentioned, and he is STILL awake. I just can't do this anymore. I can't be a single mom. I can't spend hours and hours of my day just trying to get the child to sleep so that I can get some sleep (because, remember, I'm EXHAUSTED). I have to work tomorrow. I have to be productive at work so I can remain employed and we can avoid being homeless and starving.

Haute Couture: Sesame Street Edition

Well, it's more pret-a-porter than haute couture, really, but still: Harper's Bazaar interviews a few Sesame Street style icons.

Side note/spoiler: I'm disappointed at the exclusion of Kermit the Frog. The omission of Miss Piggy is arguably forgivable in that she was specifically a Muppet Show fashionista; I don't know if she ever even made an appearance on Sesame Street. But Kermit? With current industry emphasis on eco-conscious "green" design and production, certainly Kermit is THE indispensable style icon of Muppetry, from Sesame Street to Carnaby Street to any rue in Paris.

Another night

Well, it's the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and while I can't claim to be completely healed, I am feeling slightly better with a little bit more energy. I'm able to eat things in the 9-12-month-old baby spectrum: mashed up food, applesauce, etc. I had yogurt and watery gruel for dinner. Yay. I wonder if I really have lost weight this weekend.

I'm hoping to be well enough to tackle work tomorrow, and as long as I go to bed and sleep soon, I just might make it. I just really miss food. And brushing my teeth.

News Flash

In a stunning display of understanding of current events, Mr. Al Gore reveals something that no one else has ever known or guessed:
Students in the United States are lagging behind other countries in math and science skills.

Gasp! I'M SO STUNNED! I'm so glad that Mr. Gore is around to provide to the public these shocking revelations.

In other mind-blowing news, Mr. Gore reveals that water is wet and the earth is round.

Best of chats

Sometimes, I like to chat with friends on instant messaging, whether it is via Windows Live, Facebook, or Gmail chat, or whatever. A recent gem from my friend Victor.

Context: We were discussing epistemology.
Victor:

why Deb

I am impressed

did you ever take geivett's epistemology class at Talbot?
Deb:

No

But I am smarter than I look.
Victor:

well, you look so simple and innocent

but behind that is a interdisciplinary maniac

wooips

I meant braniac
Deb:

Keep digging, Victor.

Victor:

it wasn't me

it was a virus

Haha, smooth! I might include this in my upcoming publication, "Reasons Why My Otherwise Great Male Friends Are Still Single".

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pictures

So I mentioned previously that I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 over the weekend. A fun time was had by all. The ladies got together for a picture. Jill was wearing a Prisoner of Azkaban shirt and I was sporting my Ravenclaw pride. [Hey, we can't all be Gryffindors, and some of us prefer it that way.]


However, Bill got to wear a Gryffindor scarf because he IS a Gryffindor. I'm not sure what is the deal with his t-shirt, though.


There were some people in costume, even though it wasn't opening night. We saw a likely Dolores Umbridge talking with someone we thought might be Bellatrix Lestrange.

And there was a possible Hagrid walking around with a guy in a black coat whose face was also painted black. Not sure about either of those, and unfortunately, my picture of them is not good at all. There were actually some pretty good costumes at the theater but I just wasn't fast enough with my camera to capture them.

Thankful Thursday

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm heading toward the end of Day 2 of my great recuperation. The Little Bug is settling down a bit better, but now the hunger is getting to me. You really don't appreciate being able to eat until, well, you are unable to. I have not had real food for more than 48 hours. I don't know how much more applesauce and yogurt I can handle. I am going to be donating money to organizations that provide food to needy people because my situation is temporary but there are millions in this world who suffer from hunger daily.

Meanwhile, in news of thankfulness, I am truly grateful for so many people in my life. I am thankful for Spencer and Amy Tannenbaum, who generously invited us to share Thanksgiving dinner with them. [I partook of soup and some mashed sweet potato, and both were very tasty.] I am thankful for my dad, who came to Ohio to take care of Nathan and me during and after my surgery. I am thankful for my darling Little Bug, who is growing and learning every day, and who teaches me so much about life.

I am also thankful for rest, and a safe place in which to sleep, because sleep is something I'm getting a lot of these days.

So far so good

Shhh!! The Little Bug has finally quieted down, and I think that the Bapa, who is in sitting with him, may be asleep as well.

I survived the surgery (three total teeth removed, only one impacted) well enough. The general anesthetic is pretty good, in that I just went to sleep and when they called me to wake me up, I felt as if I was waking up from a long nap. So far the pain is manageable, especially with some good medicine.

The worst part is dealing with the Bug. It's difficult because I'm a very "hands-on" mommy, and it's our custom to do a lot of physical stuff, like rough-housing and rolling around on the ground. He often sleeps next to me in bed, and he still nurses almost every night. The poor Little Bug has had all of his routines and comforts interrupted, and he can't understand why.

Well, I'm off to get ready for bed so that I can get the rest I need.

Tackle-it Tuesday

Today, I had to try and make sure that my insurance was in order.

• It was the last day to effect any changes for my 2011 benefit choices.
• I was trying to juggle information from dental insurance, medical insurance, and the oral surgery center in order to confirm coverage for tomorrow's scheduled removal of wisdom teeth. Should be loads of fun.

Fun times ahead

Wow, I am really failing at keeping up with NaBloPoMo. The bottom line is that I keep falling asleep while putting the Little Bug to bed, which means that my amount of sleep is getting rather pleasing, but I'm getting nothing done in the evening. For example, I still haven't done all my dishes from the weekend.

Saturday Catch-up

So, I didn't post yesterday. Sorry. I was just out really late watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

It's hard to provide any sort of feedback or review of the movie because it really is unfinished. All I can say is that so far, the film has been less emotionally riveting than the book was, but there were still moments that got me in the gut.

It was just special to be able take time and go see it with Potter-loving friends.

Tackle-it Sunday

Lunches
Laundry
Clean kitchen
Scoop litter
Take out trash
Set out clothes
Put stuff in car
Upload pics
Post on blog
Clean front room
Return stuff to Target
Shower

Updates

First, a note about "Calvin and Hobbes". The artist/writer, Bill Watterson, has never licensed or merchandised his comic strip. Never purchase anything except a book of "Calvin and Hobbes", as anything else (t-shirt, sticker, decal) is an illegal and inferior knock-off.

Second, I bought a craft table! I got it on sale at Target (thanks for letting me know about the sale, Debbie) and I'm quite excited about it. I'm going with my friend who has an SUV to pick it up tomorrow because it wouldn't fit in my car.

Calvin and Hobbes

Happy Anniversary, "Calvin and Hobbes"! Apparently, it is the 25th anniversary of the great comic strip.

I have always loved "Calvin and Hobbes". Watterson managed to capture flawlessly the zany inner life of an imaginative child, and did it without being either condescending or overly cutesy. I love almost every strip he ever wrote. Yet when I recently discovered that Watterson is actually from Ohio, it added a whole new layer of meaning for me. The scenes where Calvin deals with snow and sledding, the colorful leaves in prints of autumn woods... all these things had seemed as fantastic to me as the adventures of Spaceman Spiff or Stupendous Man. Aside from spending a year and a half in Chicago area when I was quite young and well before "Calvin and Hobbes" started running, I had never lived in a climate that experienced real seasons with any sort of regularity or intensity. When I moved to Ohio, I discovered such things through the eyes of an adult but they served to illuminate so much about Watterson's writing and drawing. I loved it so much before, but love understanding it better now.

But I think that may just be me reacting to genius.

I know you'll never read my blog, but thank you, Bill Watterson! You and your work touched and changed my life and made it truly better. Wherever you are, you should know that your fans respect and treasure what you have given us.

Furniture Update

I still have not yet obtained more furniture. A few people recommended looking into World Market, as they have a 25% off coupon for furniture this week. I did browse their collections online, and they are not selling anything that fits my needs or coordinates with my overall furniture look. So, I'm still looking more toward Target and Big Lots, and I hope I can get to them tomorrow while sales are still on.

Still Thankful

I'm posting now because I'm putting the Little Bug to bed and I just might fall asleep here.

And tonight I am grateful to the Lord for a comfy bed in a warm home. So many people don't have those things.

Tackle-It Tuesday

No new furniture purchased for me so far. However, I did look online for a sofa bed, and I received a hot tip about folding craft tables being on sale at Target this week.

Wow, real-life proverbial illustration

Everything but the kitchen sink. Literally.

Price is good, though.

Hazards of the Profession

Missed another day. Sorry!

My usual blogging time is in the evening, after the Little Bug is in bed and before I myself stagger off to lay myself down in a horizontal position and drift into unconsciousness for a few hours.

Unfortunately, last night, I was putting the Bug to bed as usual, and I fell asleep. This happens on a rather frequent basis, and while I don't appreciate it (because I get nothing done and then I have a messy apartment in the morning AND I have to shower and do all kinds of stuff that I typically do the night before) I do realize that I probably really need the sleep.

Tackle-It Tuesday

I've been keeping up with a lot of responsibilities in my life, as per usual, but haven't taken advantage of posting anything for Tackle-It Tuesday. Today, I've decided to confront some pressing furniture needs that are looming in my life. I desperately need a few items, and would like to invest in some other items that would simply make my life easier and more productive.

New dresser - My current dresser is in a lamentable state of disrepair. It is more than 20 years old, having been the dresser that my parents bought for me when we moved to the US in 1990. It has been moved more times than I care to calculate at this time, and has been slowly disintegrating for at least 5 years. The lowest drawer does not really work any more; the front has detached from the rest of the drawer, and that bottom cardboard piece has fallen out. I've tried to repair with tacks and wood glue, but it hasn't really worked. Now, the bottom has fallen out of the top drawer. I think this dresser has had a good life, and I can replace it, in good conscience.
New shelves - I own some working bookshelves, but my largest set literally fell apart on my most recent move.
Work table - I don't have any place where I can spread out crafts or work with my sewing machine. The dining room table is where we eat and where lots of action happens, so there is no place for getting creative. I set up the back bedroom as a work/play room, and if I get a folding table, it will be very useful.
Sofa bed or futon - All I have right now is a loveseat that sits maybe two adults comfortably. I have no chairs for guests except my dining room chairs. And if I get a sofa that is multi-functional, then it will also serve as a place for guests to sleep if they visit overnight. I'm thinking of putting the loveseat as a comfy spot in my work/play room and having the newer (longer) sofa in the front room.

And, of course, I have to shop for and obtain all of these items at some point during my lunch breaks, because it is just really difficult shopping for high-stress items with the Bug in tow. Oh, and I have to find useful strong people who are willing to help me bring home, move, and rearrange furniture. Usually, offering food as compensation is a key point in the latter endeavor.

I'll keep you all updated.

14 Nov

Here we are: Another post for today, so I'm caught up!

First of all, I wish a very happy birthday to my dearest Elizabeth! I lament the fact that she is far away in Texas, but I hope I can see her some time in the next few months.

Second, I must admit that I am very tired. I'm sure everyone is bored reading my lists of "what I did today", but I enjoy posting them because they give me a sense of accomplishment. Today:

• posted on blog twice
• went to church
• went to grocery store
• made lunch and dinner
• put the Little Bug down for his nap
• sorted through some computer files, doing electronic decluttering
• washed dishes and did the dishwasher and put away dishes
• added bedding to my worm compost
• moved compost bins to the garage
• did laundry
• bathed the Bug, clipped his nails, and put him to bed
• baked cinnamon rolls
• made lunches for tomorrow
• folded laundry, put it away
• set out clothes for tomorrow
• showered and got ready for bed
• took out the trash
• called my BFF

I'm sure I did more, but I can't recall. It is nearly midnight here, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow for any more tales of my housewifely splendor.

13 Nov

I fell asleep before posting yesterday. Sorry! I ruined NaBloPoMo. If I post twice today, it's all good, right?

We had a good and productive Saturday. I spent the morning doing chores while the Bug played with his toys. We took a little nap mid-day, then went out to run errands in the afternoon. The weather was glorious (sunny and high 60s F) for mid-November, so we went to the park to run around. Our friend Bill met us there with one of his dogs and we walked partway around the Big Circle. Then we went home and ate a hodge-podge of food for dinner because we were cleaning out the fridge. Then we went to bed because a full busy day of chore-doing, errand-running, and park-going can really take it out of you.

Thankfulness

November has the distinction of being known for a few things: "fall back" time change, predominantly dreary weather in most places in the northern hemisphere, and US Thanksgiving. I like the time change, myself, because I enjoy having more light in the mornings and also the fact that we have returned to actual normal time. However, I have never been a fan of autumn or winter, and particularly not the weather. So far, November is a draw. But one thing I can say is good about November is that many people make it a point to focus on things for which they are thankful.

I know I am very thankful for the job that God provided for me more than a year and a half ago. It is not easy to be focused on productivity, and I fail often. However, I know I am very fortunate to have a job at all, much less one that I truly enjoy much of the time. This past week was very stressful, not because of anything related to my tasks at work, but because this was the week that we had to select our benefits for 2011. So many options! What plan should I select? What is the best decision to make for the Little Bug and me?! I must admit that having a child really bumps up the pressure to make the right choice. But amid the pressure, I forgot that even having the opportunity to make the choice at all is such a blessing at a time when so many are without employment and/or insurance.

Fortunately, it is all over now, and I am trusting to the Lord that I did make all the correct decisions. Our health and our finances are in His hands every moment, and while we should make use of resources He has given us, ultimately, He will provide and protect and He doesn't need paperwork.

Marketing 2

For the first time EVER, the Little Bug actually ASKED to wear pajama pants! They have Thomas on them, of course.

Now I have high hopes regarding the Thomas bedding that Meema Debbie is sending him for his special new big boy bed... He may soon be ready to sleep on his own!

Wednesday

Inspiration is failing me.

My day was long and in some ways productive.

It's late enough and I'm tired enough for me to just want to go to bed and sleep... without showering even. Wow.

Marketing

Conventional wisdom would have us believe that the marketing of popular children's characters is aimed at children. Seems reasonable. However, my theory is that much of the marketing is actually directed toward parents. Case in point: Thomas the Tank Engine outfits from Wal-Mart. I bought three sets (shirt and pants) as winter clothes for the Little Bug. True, they cost $1 or $2 more per set than would a more generic non-branded product. HOWEVER, from a parenting point of view, this relatively tiny markup is MORE THAN WORTH IT. If the Bug has Thomas on his shirt and pants, his resistance to getting dressed in the morning is greatly reduced. It's worth $2 to me just to have one easy morning. Amortizing this cost over an entire winter? PRICELESS!

VALUE isn't just a question of how much something costs in money; it's a question of how much money and effort and some other intangibles are required in outlay, versus utility (and even enjoyment) you will obtain from it, and the appropriate cost-to-use ratio that you yourself are willing to assign. Nobody else can assign value on your behalf. And that's a beautiful part of being a wise and responsible consumer.

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?

The Potter-related question of today is, which character would you be?

Clearly, I am Hermione Granger. I first watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in a Talbot class, and by circumstance, my older brother was also in the class. Hermione is quite a little girl in that film, and is a Muggle-born witch whose first trip to Hogwarts is also her first experience ever in the magical world. She tries to make up for her insecurities by being a perfectionist and an insufferable know-it-all. When she first came on the scene, my brother leaned over to me and hissed, "Hey, Deb, THAT'S YOU!" I guess he would know. But one of the great pleasures of the Harry Potter books (and to a lesser degree, the films) is the experience of seeing Hermione grow through both the horrors of encountering ultimate evil (though her cool head gives her ability to handle the frights, I think) and the even-more-terrifying trials of adolescence (not to mention occasional forays into social justice, teen romance, and organized rebellion) into a self-possessed young lady who kind of does know it all but puts her formidable brain to work in service of loyalty and the greater good. I hope I could do even half as well in my own life.


Photo courtesy of emma-watson-pictures.blogspot.com

Mommy's Little Helper

Kneading the dough for some rolls.
They're never too young to start learning how to cook!