All I Want

This week we took Miss Dog Lover to see the Cinderella movie. There was a Frozen short feature shown first, where Elsa is preparing for Anna's birthday. Elsa obviously loves Pinterest - she had all the amazing things - ice sculptures, fruit, flowers, matching tableware and furnishings, a beautiful cake. And she says, as if it is a reasonable desire, "I just want everything to be perfect."

As if that is a Just. Which it is not, in a fallen world.

It made me think of this New Yorker cartoon, which we had hanging on our fridge for several years: 

And me? I'm trying to learn the secret of being content.

Some School Years are Like That

By my count I am finishing twenty years of homeschooling. This gives me some sort of perspective point (though I am not sure how meaningful it is). 

At the beginning of the year I bought a pack of sticky stars to mark our schooldays on the calendar. Sticky stars have motivated me ever since I was in first grade so I thought how cheerful a calendar full of stars would look. 

This is how school looks at the beginning of the year, all shiny and perfect, with everything in a row.

And now last week I looked at the sheet of stars being used. It turned out the pack that was so shiny and perfect was NOT. The machine had only cut around 3 points of them and so points tear off when you try to get them off the sheet. I am too cheap to buy a new pack when I have several hundred still unused and too obsessive to put torn stars on my calendar, so using them proved to be something of challenge. Which is so often just how the whole of life goes.

This is how school looks at the end of a year. 

And after twenty years, what I know is, that's OK.

My Front Porch

I have decided Facebook is the social equivalent to my parents' front porch when I was little. My reasons:

• both are used at your convenience to pass leisure time pleasantly
• a front porch is public to your neighbors, FB is public to friends.
• when you are on the front porch, you can go back in when you get uncomfortable. On FB you can choose exactly how you present yourself, who sees the information, and even block people from whom you want privacy.
• in both settings you get a general idea of what is going on with acquaintances but it is in rather a hit-or-miss fashion and requires no planning or special effort on your part.
• you can wave or smile from your porch, or hit the like button on FB
• you can talk if it suits you by waving someone up to your porch or patting the swing, or by leaving comments.
• gossip is easy in either setting.
• it is important to remember that although FB asks us to call many people we would just smile to if on our porch "friend" they are more of casual acquaintances.

most porches are friendly and relatively quiet places; but every neighborhood has someone who has ball games going too loud on his radio for children across the street to sleep, and occasionally loud fights start on the porch. At least there they tend to move inside, while on FB they tend to go on and on in comments. I prefer to save strong opinions for my blog, which to me, is more like my living room. When you enter my living room, I think you expect to be on my turf. Don't be surprised if I am opinionated here. :)      
                                            

Latest Theory

Most colds I kill off with a large dose of vitamin C. But not this one. It is atypical. Good thing.

Today I have hatched a theory. It is not a cold at all. Some sort of alien cousin of this thing

has invaded the nooks and crannies of my body and occasionally attaches himself to my "cough center," whatever that is. 

Maybe a phaser would be effective. Or maybe Dr Who.

App Development Time

I am working on new apps for my iPod and open to suggestions. Sadly I do not know any coding stuff so I am a bit light on the details of how to make these things actually work, but the idea is the main thing, right? right?

Virtual Cuppa - this app gets you through rainy days, boredom, slight illness, or anything else that cries out for comfort. You pour a mug of water, hold the mobile device over it, and type in what sort of tea you want and if you want any sweeteners. The app even heats it. There will definitely be a beta version for hot chocolate (gotta figure out how to whip the cream) and probably some coffee lover will insist on yet another similar app.

Not Today - allows you to hit the button and bump a crisis into the future. Bad day for the washing machine to flood the basement? Just access Not Today and it will be moved forward. (One guess what may have happened here today) I am pretty sure you will not be allowed to bump a particular crisis more than once, so use it carefully.

TruPaint - I have been thinking about the need for this one from way back in Commodore 64 days. This app Truly Paints your walls, furniture, car, whatever, just as quickly and smoothly as a paint program fills in areas on the screen - no drips, no spills, no missed spots, no brush strokes or gnats stuck in the paint. Just take a photo of what needs to be painted, highlight the area to color, and click on the desired shade. Voila - your item is immediately and perfectly painted, in just one coat! Did I mention it dries instantly to the exact hue you chose, no matter what the lighting is?

Math Meld - This app is pricey, sorry about that, but I call it a bargain. It allows the homeschooling Mom to simply wirelessly convey math skills to the somewhat frustrated child by accessing the app and placing her hands on the child's head, Spock style, assuring success in everything from decimals to factoring pesky trinomials to basic differentiation. 

ReDo - This is the biggest idea yet. It quite simply moves you back five seconds so you get a second chance to not touch that live wire, drop the casserole, or say the smart aleck remark. 

got more ideas? I'm sure I'll be adding more as soon as I figure out the details so the apps work.  :) 

Friends or Foes?

Good, Better, Best
Never let it rest
Till your Good is Better
And your Better is Best ~ rhyme Miss Duffer drilled into my brother in 6th grade.
~ ~ ~

And Oswald Chambers said, The good is always the enemy of the best. This fits in with the demonstration where you fill a jar with SO MUCH stuff by first putting in the big rocks, then the pebbles, the sand, and finally filling in the tiny gaps with water. Good point that you must choose those things which are best, or the merely good eat up your time and resources (ie, life). I try to apply this in school - make sure we are studying The Most Important things and not trivia, reading The Best Books, and thinking Biblically about the world we study.

But.

I am starting to think there are also times when The best is the enemy of the good. Example: dinner. If I wanted the Best dinner every night, I would spend all my time shopping, preparing, cooking. It would be a never-ending task, and since I am no chef, I would not be able to do it. If I insisted on Either the best or nothing, my family would starve. They have to make do with something between good enough (occasionally) and pretty good (hopefully most days). Perhaps once or twice in my life they may hit the best. And good enough is still a lot better than nothing, at least in many many areas of life.  :)

Blanks

In our new town, we often pass a street sign with some of the letters blacked out. What is left says:

HOOL

REN

US   TOP

HEAD

It always makes me wonder how much you really have to see to be able to fill in the gaps.


Edited to add: we drove past another sign, missing some letters, so it now says:

ED

ING

Seen in the Antique Store :)

Spring Brain Virus

Yesterday was nice and sunny and warm. Today is chilly. And I learn another illogical function of my brain. In fact, if my brain were a computer, I'd be running the anti-virus software to see what on earth is going on.


Why would I be surprised that the weather forecast button on my iTouch I kept pressing at lunch to see if the outside temp was improving, I say, why would I be surprised to see that conditions did not change for the better even though I set my hot tea right next to my iTouch?

Anyone Happen to Have Some Iron Filings?

Well. We are "sort of" moved now. And what with being in a new house, surrounded by boxes of who-knows-what, and a baby grand piano whose legs were left behind so we have this thing only Schroeder could play... well, my mind is going to some places that I can only wonder at.


I fell asleep last night after having realized suddenly that our beds are lined up so that we are all sleeping in parallel. I am pretty sure I have never lived in a house like that before, except when Devastatingly Handsome and I were childless. And it seemed perfectly rational to wonder if that means we will all make some sort of giant, house-sized magnet. Some of the stuff I may have learned in grade-school science morphs in strange ways in my brain. 

Maybe I should test it out. What would such a magnet attract?

Eggs

Some things work the same way InRealLife and in schoolbooks and some things don't. Though, to be honest, at the moment, I cannot think of anything that does work the same way.


Anyhow. The thing that has been bugging me lately is eggs. Mr Music is at one of those fast growth periods where he eats and eats, especially protein. So I have become a big fan of The Egg. 


And the thing that stands out to me about eggs is the way they are sold by dozens (is this the case all around the world? It does seem rather arbitrary). In math books a dozen also works out to be such a handy number when you do fractions - it can easily divide in halves, thirds, fourths, or sixths. Then WHY IS IT that I never seem to exactly finish a carton of eggs? No matter how many Mr Music wants to eat at a pop, or no matter how many my recipe calls for, I always seem to have ONE left in the carton or need ONE from the next carton. In Other Words, despite the superior divisibility of 12... it just doesn't work for me.  :-P

Serious Wrongdoing

We were in the Big City today when the driver in front of us turned left on a red light. Devastatingly Handsome commented and Mr Music wanted to know what was so bad about it. So we talked about that being the kind of mistake that is more likely to kill people than to result in a fender bender.


And then came one of those moments when I am pretty convinced I have been homeschooling a little too long.


I heard myself say, "It's not as bad by dividing by zero, but it is very dangerous."

Art Class, Again

We finished our art projects, based on this post about Rizzo's style. 


Starting with Mr Music's salute to the Pierogie racers at the ballfield (notes: 1. Mr Music says it's not done and 2. I loved that my camera knew the eyes on the pierogie to the right were eyes):

Then Miss Dog Lover's awesome self-portrait:

and my alizarin crimson whale:

I am amazed when we do a project like this with clear instructions and end up with such different results. Creativity is a great thing.  :)

Benedict Holmes

I have loved Sherlock Holmes since I met him in junior high school. Now I am enjoying the Benedict Cumberbatch series - so much fun.

The other night I realized one reason I like the way he is dressed, his scarf, and his hair - he reminds me of another literary character I love: 

Watch out for baobabs, Benedict!

Songs of My Life

Today I am sharing lyrics of three songs I love.


First, Bargain, by The Who. I hear this in terms of my life with Christ. I give everything I have (which is worthless anyhow) to Him ~ and receive His love and righteousness. There could be no greater bargain.
I'd gladly lose me to find you
I'd gladly give up all I had
To find you I'd suffer anything and be glad

I'd pay any price just to get you
I'd work all my life and I will
To win you I'd stand naked, stoned and stabbed
I'd call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had

I'd gladly lose me to find you
I'd gladly give up all I got
To catch you I'm gonna run and never stop

I'd pay any price just to win you
Surrender my good life for bad
To find you I'm gonna drown an unsung man
I'd call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had

I sit looking 'round
I look at my face in the the mirror
I know I'm worth nothing without you
In life one and one don't make two
One and one make one
And I'm looking for that free ride to me
I'm looking for you

I'd gladly lose me to find you
I'd gladly give up all I got
To catch you I'm gonna run and never stop

I'd pay any price just to win you
Surrender my good life for bad
To find you I'm gonna drown an unsung man
I'd call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had


Next, By My Side from Godspell. I just love the image of the pebble in the shoe. One day that pebble will come out.
Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold
And needs warmth
Where are you going?


Far beyond where the horizon lies
Where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh please, take me with you
Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself

I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk (watch me walk)
I can walk and walk!
(I can walk!)


I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will talk, we will talk together
We will talk about walking
Dare shall be carried
And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing:
"Meet your new road!" 

Then I'll take your hand
Finally glad
Finally glad
That you are here
By my side
By my side
By my sideBy my side


and finally, Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. I would not be surprised if I were singing the final line when I die.
Climbing up on Solsbury HillI could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night

He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
I had to listen had no choice

I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom, boom
"Son," he said, "Grab your things, I've come to take you home."

To keeping silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut

So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
'Till I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut

I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey," he said, "grab your things, I've come to take you home."
Eey back home

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free

Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes, but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me

Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey," I said, "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."

Thistle Digging

When I go out to dig up my thistles each day, I feel like The Little Prince tending his volcanoes. 

*maybe I should start wearing a long scarf*