Photos from Christmas Week

I wanted to open this portion with the front of a card my Aunt Joanne had printed up before she died. She knew she might not be around for Christmas, and wanted to have the cards ready. For quite a few years now, she's printed her own artwork on the cards she would send. Still hard to believe she's gone, but I'm glad she left so much of her handiwork behind and shared her gifts with the family.

Here is a photo Karen posted on their blog... taken before Christmas:

Our modest little tree after Ron wrapped presents...
Cold front is moving in and wind was blowing snow up onto the porch. These poor frozen apples ended up being tossed out for the robins later in the week... deer also and some critter that crawled into the box at night and gnawed away... leaving a pile of peelings behind. I'm guessing a possum? Will be so glad when Ron closes in the eaves and we can chase the vermin out of the overhead. :-/
Kristine took this photo while the snow was coming down. The next shot was from me a day later after the sun emerged.We had a mini Christmas with Robert and Rachel's family on the 20th. They left for Florida on the 23rd. Thank goodness their flight was scheduled for Tuesday. The airport was a mess over the weekend and travelers got stranded there or had to abandon their plans of leaving until later in the week. They arrived on schedule as far as I could tell. They spent a few hours with Diane on Christmas Eve and she took them to some places in Disney World. I was glad she could spend a little of her Christmas with family. She especially enjoyed the time with Charlotte. :-)

In this next photo we can see some of the family gathered around the table, being entertained by Charlotte. :-) Burt is on the left, Alex and Kristine, and Rachel to the right.

Lynda has gotten herself a chameleon and the family wanted to see it. I'd show a photo if I'd gotten a decent one, but it was hiding in the greenery. So far it seems to be thriving.
Colette trying to hold Calvin while we were in Lynda's room. I'm not sure what he's thinking of the experience. ;-)Rachel crocheted (or knitted?) hats for Michael and Amber's kids and you can see them here...
Everyone chatting after the opening of presents on the 20th. At this point, Robert thought they might still be driving home that evening.
Edward couldn't resist climbing into the car seats sitting in the entry.

Charlotte and Colette watching Christmas specials (the oldies on DVD).Next day (Sunday afternoon)... Robert's family ready to pull out of the driveway for Enumclaw. It was still snowing at this point and it took them 3 hours to get home... twice as long as usual.The next ones start on Christmas Eve, when we usually have dinner and open presents that evening. It's also Karen's birthday (her 25th) and we got on Skype and sang to her. They had a quiet Christmas in Rexburg.

First... you'll see Alex and Kristine on Skype with Alex's family in Bellingham. His brother called home from his mission (Chile) to talk to the family and this way they could all enjoy it. His mother is holding their cell phone up to the microphone on their computer so Alex and Kristine can hear him.
Meanwhile, Michael was up front enjoying Edward. The little guy already seems pretty smitten with Dad. Michael arrived home from San Diego on the 19th after working there all summer. He had quite an adventure getting through the snow and it started right after he got north of Los Angeles. It snowed in Malibu that week as well. Crazy weather!The family in our (messy) room, chatting with Karen and Niklas via the wonders of computer (Skype... love it!). Part of the room is not this bad... the part that isn't showing!

Adrienne loved her Pikachu from Diane.

Adrienne and Colette posing with their toys from Diane (Lynda to right).

Kristine with Edward.
Kristine and Alex posing with Diane's gifts... since she couldn't be here to see them herself. :-) She's going to be packing up her stuff ASAP and flying to Utah on Friday! I probably mentioned that already, but can't remember (in a former post). The following Monday (Jan. 5th) or Tuesday, she'll drive her car from Provo to Rexburg and start school again. I hope the roads will be clear for her. They had a lot of snow the week before.
Wish I'd gotten everyone in a photo on the 20th, but this was better than nothing. The snowstorm on that day was a bit distracting. Before we all hit the door to take Alex and Kristine to a late ferry on Christmas Eve, I asked them to sit on the couch for a few pictures. I think one or two kids might have one shoe on and one off at this point! Ron wasn't in the living room yet either.This last photo is of Lynda, taken at a gathering of her high school friends on the 27th. They had kind of a "formal" Christmas party. One of her friends did up her hair and it turned out really pretty. :-)Think that's enough pictures for now! :-) I hope you all have a Happy New Year! :-)

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Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!

What a month it has been! :-) I hope all are well and had a lovely holiday with loved ones. We not only enjoyed the visits of family members... we were visited by the most beautiful and impressive snowfall (for the Pacific Northwest). The above photo (saved as a desktop image if you click for the larger version) was snapped on the 22nd of December, after the flakes had stopped for a bit. It was simply gorgeous. Kristine and Alex were here from the 19th until Christmas Eve and this day was their first anniversary. Last year we had a horrible rainstorm on the 22nd, but at least we all eventually made it to the temple for their wedding. Would have been a real fiasco if this stuff had come down a year ago!

And... if anyone in the Booth household is reading this... I asked her to thank you for sharing them with us (they paid for the trip). She kept forgetting to relay the message. :-)

I've not written for so long and a lot of pictures have accumulated from our visit to Utah, etc. I guess I'll start with the current and work my way backwards. Off topic and on a personal note, I just did something Saturday that I'm alternatively excited and apprehensive about. I signed on to go on a garden tour to Scotland and Northern England next September (2009). A local garden personality (Marianne Benneti, who I met years ago while attending one of her classes at the NW Flower and Garden Show) was pitching it on the radio and when I first heard, I sighed with envy at the thought of visiting those places and gardens. When I found out it would be probably be cheaper at this time because of the British pound, I began to wonder if I could actually justify such a thing. Then I worried I might be too late to get on the limited list (20 people). Well, I emailed a couple of folks and heard back yesterday that I've been added. So... if it all gets firmed up, maybe it will happen. That part of the world is in my ancestry and has been calling to me for a couple of years in various ways. Actually being there will be exciting. They make all of the arrangements and most of the time we will travel as a group on a chartered tour bus... so for a novice traveler as myself, it's perfect. Gardens, castles and pubs... that's the plan. If it comes off as they hope, we'd start in Edinburgh and end up in London. Two famous gardens they have on the list are Sissinghurst and Great Dixter. So... we'll see if it actually materializes. :-) I'll pay for as much as I can from the soap earnings.

Before I get to Thanksgiving... here is a photo from November... one of the many visits to our apple trees by the local deer:
Out of the garden and back to the holidays ...

We traveled to Utah for Thanksgiving this year and spent it at Kristine and Alex's. The house they are watching is huge and they can put up a number of people in the spare rooms. Niklas' elder brother (Nolan) is there for a bit while he relocates to Salt Lake City for a new job, so he was with us, along with Karen and Niklas and two of Karen's former BYU-I roommates. It was the first time in years we had Thanksgiving somewhere other than our humble home. Since we were there the month before, I'd already baked some rolls to put in their freezer for Thanksgiving and did pies and a molded salad the night before. The Kirkman's brought an apple cake and the day of the kids did the turkey and the Kirkman's pitched in and put the green bean casserole together (maybe the first time I've eaten it... or might have as a child and forgotten). Oh... Ron did the mashed potatoes and I don't recall who did the gravy. It was great to get everyone together, but Niklas had to leave only a few hours later so he could work on Black Friday (four hours away in Idaho Falls). Kind of a bummer... but it was nice he could at least spend that day with us. Karen stayed until Saturday and road the shuttle back to Rexburg.

First photo was snapped from the plane as we approached Salt Lake City. I loved it when we took off on the way home from this trip. There was a nice family from Whidbey Island behind us and their eldest girl (maybe 7 or 8?) was directly behind me. At lift-off, when many adults close their eyes and try to block out the fact they're flying... this little girl let out a "Whee!" Take-off is my favorite part, even though I'm a slightly nervous flyer. It's such a miracle to break free of gravity... we so much take it for granted.

The kids playing "Guitar Hero" on Thanksgiving Eve.
This one was snapped shortly before Niklas had to hit the road for Rexburg. Taken on Thanksgiving day, after dinner.Before leaving for Washington, we drove to Temple Square and saw the light displays. Kristine got better photos than I did. It was like walking around Disneyland... there were SO many people! I'm sure it's nicer now if you go, without the need for crowd control. ;-) This first photo was taken inside the visitor's center. I got a better shot of Nolan outside, but liked the backdrop of the Christmas tree in this picture (Ron is looking a bit grim also!). Kristine and Alex usually look good in most of their pictures.

The day we returned home (Dec. 1st), there was the most spectacular sunset. They have a stunning view of Provo from the deck, but this one really outdid any sunsets I'd seen so far. I'd raked up a few leaves that day and Ron was helping me pick up the piles while this sunset was changing moment to moment. I must have run out onto the deck at least 10 times to keep taking more photos! The first picture shows Ron setting the dinner table with the sunset behind him. We only had about 40 minutes to eat and load out to the car after Kristine got home from work.

One week later, this sunset happened from our own deck (this is also a desktop if you click for the larger image):

While we've been enjoying the holidays with various members of the family in Washington or Utah, Diane has been finishing up her internship at Disney World in Orlando, FL. She's had a great time, but was feeling somewhat isolated during the holidays. She got gifts for everyone but was not able to see any opened. :-/ I spent this weekend putting a DVD together especially for her, so she can the faces of her nieces when they opened their Disney plush toys, etc. Here are a few pictures of Diane, enjoying some of the perks of working for Disney. When she's not working, she gets to visit the park for free and enjoy it like everyone else:

This next photo was snapped of my computer screen toward the end of a Skype show and tell chat with Diane. She was really tired from her long day and was waiting for her roommate to vacate the bathroom so Diane could brush her teeth for bed. I thought the picture was cute with the little chipmunk looking over her shoulder. :-) Her one eye tells the story of how worn out she was.


When we got home from the Utah trip, there was a TON of stuff to get done before the 19th, when the kids were coming up for Christmas. It's also a busy time with the small mail order soap business, which disrupts the normal flow of getting things done. At least this year was easier with using the Click 'n' Ship deal at the USPS website. Thank goodness! Saved some gas money and time it would have taken to make trips into Silverdale to drop off packages. I could just put them into our mailbox.

I'd decided to get some old videos onto DVDs for the kids, which meant importing, editing and hours at the computer doing titles and transitions... and finally burning copies. I'd finished all but one when we left for Provo. Didn't think we were going to make it. If Christmas had been very elaborate with more gift giving, we wouldn't been ready, but this year there was not a lot of excess cash floating around to allow extravagance. It was a pretty costly one with medical and weddings, trips, etc. Ron got some really good news shortly after our return. His most recent lab results came back with a virtually non-existent PSA number... so that's great news. I think he's had three tests since the surgery. So far, it's looking like he won't need any kind of follow-up treatment. Happy day! We'll hope that trend continues.

With the tree finally decorated, cookies and rolls baked and in the freezer, packages mailed, newsletter done and shopping completed... we were ready to receive company. Snow moved in with a vengeance the week the kids were slated to come and we drove some slick roads to pick them up at the ferry. The next day the big front hit and church was canceled by Saturday evening. Burt came and left before the snow got too deep but Robert and Rachel ended up spending the night. They'd originally planned to come for a day visit. Michael's family was here that evening as well, but were able to drive home in his truck. When they first arrived, Amber and the kids got in the house first and I could see Michael squirreling around (driving) in the field ... like old times, I guess. So... it was an interesting but still fun weekend in retrospect (now that the fatigue factor has worn off... the night Kristine and Alex got in, we were up until 3:30 or 4:00 a.m.). Thankfully, the power never went out with this storm. The snow was so DRY and cold, nothing came down on the power lines.

There are so many more photos to post from last week, I think I'll start another entry and break this up. :-) I'd love to be up front with Lynda, who is watching some episodes of Sledge Hammer!

More coming...

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Food for thought

I've had my head in the proverbial sand lately while working on some pre-holiday projects and the usual... but have gotten occasional emails about the Proposition 8 business in California. A friend has sons living there who experienced firsthand some pretty hostile behaviors against them as LDS church members. Ron was reading an online column tonight by Orson Scott Card and at the end he quoted a letter that has been going around the Internet (after checking out the statistics). It was written by a seminary teacher who noted many of his students had received targeted negativism from others during this dialogue and voting process in California. I thought it was worth quoting below... it was quite interesting...

Well... it won't let me paste it in here... so I'll put in a link for the article. The email I wanted to post is at the end. Hoping this will work...

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?linkTrack=mtEmail&id=5002

According to voting statistics, the Mormon vote in California was less than 5 percent of the Yes vote and approximately 2.4 percent of the total Proposition 8 vote. Exit polls indicated 70 percent of black voters supported Proposition 8 and the majority of Latino voters the same. So, it's interesting that there have been rumblings about a boycott of the Utah tourist industry and others have demonstrated outside LDS temples. It would seem that many who call for tolerance, are not so tolerant of the democratic process when it goes against their wishes. It's always difficult to see that, no matter who's doing it... whichever side of an issue.

The old saying that "we become what we hate" is so often demonstrated in history and our own personal lives. Better not to become SO impassioned that all perspective goes out the window.

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Phooling around with Photo Booth

Looks like a Statue of Liberty impression! I received a cute notepad thing from Charlotte and thought a visual thank you would have more meaning for her than just writing or calling. This was a reason to open and for the first time use Photo Booth on the computer (iMac). I knew Kristine and the Booth kin had hooted and hollered over it when she first got her laptop, but I'd not investigated the program in all the time I've had this computer. Well... the first image below was what I wanted to send to Charlotte, but after that, I played with the effects. There are others besides this "Funhouse Mirrors" section (my name... not theirs). It was all I could do to squelch my own laughter (to the point of tears) while taking these photos. I thought one of them made me look like the guy from The Incredibles. ;-)

Anyway... before writing, I'll drop those in... enjoy. :-)


I just realized this is in mirror image of my actual face and bedroom layout. I don't wear my wedding ring on the right hand! I'll have to flip this and see how it compares.

That's how my face actually looks. I think I liked the backwards version better. ;-)
Now for the goofy stuff... backwards but does it matter?!





Aah... that's gotta' be the best one. ;-)

Here are a couple of the screenshots Diane got the other day (Skype). The first one is cute with bird's head showing above Diane's inset frame:


On my screen, birdy was seeing a large image of Diane's face as she talked to him and whistled. It was funny to see him react to her.

[Warning... this is doubling as a journal so the following is a personal indulgence that will surely be less interesting to others.]

I had an interesting encounter yesterday after getting done at the dentist's office and running a couple of soap orders to the post office and UPS Store. I almost didn't stop but on a last minute impulse, swung into the Walgreen's to replace the horrible hair gel I've been using instead of the one I'd really wanted. The containers looked nearly identical and I'd tossed the old one before making a note of the exact name. Anyway... I cruised in there to check for a replacement and the first person I see when I entered was a classmate from the old Chico Elementary School (now the home of King's West Christian School... near Erland's Point). The last time I bumped into her was a couple of weeks after her mother had passed away and we'd had a little chat at Costco. I'll bet that was two years ago because the cute little granddaughter she had with her is three years old now. Her mother was a girl who was part of Michael's high school crowd and she'd been here a few times. Her little girl is very friendly and verbal and looks a bit like her mother in the face.

Anyway... the "other grandma" and I ended up chatting and it stretched into a trip into our pasts... maybe 30 minutes worth of talking? I'm not sure. We'd been friends when we were little but she was pulled into the popular crowd by junior high (she said they came after her) and I'd become ostracized by then, thanks to a kid in the class who became very popular and chose to use his influence in that way. She was friendly with him then and has bumped into him quite often even now and was more aware of his family dynamics than I ever knew. He's had a very high profile job in this town for a long time and has been successful in his career, but troubled in family and personal life issues. Hearing her perspective was somewhat enlightening. He just had to be the best and first at everything... the pressure he felt as a kid to be the "star" of his family must have been horrendous. It doesn't excuse some of his bad behavior (thank goodness I was never an actual girlfriend), but it fills in some blanks. It shouldn't matter at this point, but when you've suffered at the hands of someone over a period of years as a kid, it forever changes who you are... especially when it's in such a publicly humiliating way and you feel you are standing alone. I'm not angry at him anymore over it, but it's still part of my personal history.

After she mentioned some family stuff I'd never known, I told her the fact I ran faster than he did back then probably didn't help me any (he was a gifted athlete) and she said, "You were his intellectual equal... and he couldn't handle that." I never thought I was any smarter than she was, but I was probably less likely to agree with him if I thought he was wrong (and like most of the girls in our class, I had a huge crush on this kid... I was getting more of his attention than anyone and even though it was negative, it was some sort of notice).

Leanne has been a school teacher for years and just retired about a year ago, so she has a different perspective than me about our childhood and school experiences. She was probably more critcal in retrospect of some of our teachers and the fact she felt we didn't learn much from them. Also, she asked if I hadn't noticed how many kids from one particular gradeschool were brought into the accelerated class in junior high (they'd call it gifted now). She felt that was rigged and that the school in question had graded kids too high that were not really qualified to be there. I never thought much about it and didn't know what everyone's grades were... so never gave it much thought. Maybe her experience now as a teacher made her realize that such things can happen and likely did.

We laughed about the trouble we got into in first grade with some of our recess games (I'd come up with the whole sitting on eggs thing... rocks we gleaned from the playground... and the boys would try to steal them). I got sent out of class one day after smuggling one of my "eggs" into class and proceeding to lay it at the back of the room. This exercise was accompanied by loud clucking, etc. ;-) That poor teacher was the same one that one day in frustration said to me, "All right, Kathy... if you're so smart, why don't you come up and teach the class?" (Which confused me at the age of six, but I walked up front, took the yardstick from her hand and proceeded to do what she'd been doing... pointing to words on the blackboard and calling on students to read them. Looked pretty simple. Five years later it dawned on me that she was trying to get me to pipe down!)

Leanne laughed at a memory of my ponytail at one point being straight across the bottom because my dad had cut it off to even it out. I don't remember him ever cutting my hair, but maybe he took a whack on it for some reason. :-) The most surprising thing she shared was how she was mistreated by the mother of a mutual friend during her interface with them. The mother was her Bluebird leader and she apparently didn't like Leanne and pulled some sabotaging stuff you'd expect more from a teenage girl... not a grown woman. I guess she was going to be the Campfire leader when the group moved up and that was a deciding factor for Leanne to just drop out. The mother was always nice to me, although she was an unusual person... somewhat nervous temperament. When I was about 10, her daughter announced to me that her mother was an alcoholic. I'd never paid close attention to what she was drinking when I stayed over... it was always in a cup on the TV table. I suspect she would have handled some things better if she'd not had that issue and it surely shortened her life.

Having this sort of chat with someone from your past is not unlike one you can have with an adult sibling... where you compare notes and realize how differently you experienced some of the same events and context. Leanne had no clue how much I was suffering in my daily clashes with Danny... she thought I was handling it just fine. She said if that had been her she would have really come apart. I think I felt at the time I was handling it okay, although it was very uncomfortable. I remember wishing things were different but vowing that no matter what, he was not going to make me cry or show weakness under attack. I guess I did too good a job... or kids are just often not aware because we're all surviving and dealing with our own stuff. Everything about me seemed to be open to scrutiny and ridicule when possible, but at the same time this kid wanted to know what grades I was getting. One particular day in 6th grade, he demanded to know what I got on a Science test and I'd gotten an A. He asked if I'd read the chapter and I said I'd read part of it, but no... I'd not gotten the whole thing finished. His comment, "I read that chapter three times and I got a C on that test!" It almost sounded like I'd purposely done something to injure him with his tone of voice. Wasn't my fault. Excuse me for goofing off but somehow managing a good grade on the test. That was my crime, I suppose.

My advocate and hero during those two difficult gradeschool years (5th and 6th grade) was a wet behind the ears English teacher... Mr. Joe Hopkins. He was nearly 25 years old when he came onboard and at the end of one of those years, was getting married. He had wedding bells on the calendar for the week of his marriage... each successive set of bells getting larger and larger until the day of. He was a little disheveled around the edges with unruly straight blonde hair, dark horn-rimmed glasses and a tendency for one eye to drift when his glasses were taken off to shoot a few baskets with the Science teacher. He cried openly the day Kennedy was shot (we were informed while in class) and was unknowingly the butt of some jokes dished out by the kid who gave me such a hard time. Mr. Hopkins was not "cool" and maybe today he would be called a little "nerdy" around the edges... but he cared about people. This teacher tried to stop what was going on and talked to the two of us a couple of times alone and pulled me aside after one of the most demoralizing class periods (class elections) and gave me some words of comfort and told me that someday he was going to have a daughter just like me. He let me know that someone saw what was going on and they didn't think it was okay. I still get choked up when I remember that minute I was held after class... he reached out and straightened my collar as he said it. In my twenties I wrote him a letter after tracking down an address for him and he said receiving it really made his day. He'd gotten out of regular teaching and was working more in a special needs environment in Oregon at that time.

Getting back to the visit with Leanne... one other thing she commented on was how different our lives might have been if there had been the opportunities and resources for girls then that they have now... particularly she was speaking of sports. She would have turned out for baseball in a heartbeat and I would have turned out for track and field, had they had such a thing for girls. I was a fast sprinter back then... just barely caught the bus more times than I can name! These days I can barely walk briskly without some kind of ache and pain setting in! ;-)

Well... it is what it is. We'd have to have lived now to appreciate and take advantage of those opportunities, because we wouldn't have had the sense of entitlement this generation does... male and female. If we felt we were breaking some kind of social rule or were not wanted in those areas, we were less likely to push the issue. For my part, I don't know that it would have changed my choices in a profound way... but it might have been a lot of fun. :-) I always looked forward to being married and having a family. It wasn't a popular or glamorous choice in the era in which I did it... but it's been fine and I have no regrets on that front. You just don't get a lot of appreciation for what you do the same way people receive in a career. There are daily rewards, but also tons of tedium and frustration and often feeling unfulfilled and undervalued... but it's the bigger picture that matters most. It can take years for those payoffs to be evident. :-)

Well... that's my personal trivia for the day. Not nearly as important as the recent election that I've not mentioned. I was not totally smitten with either candidate, so I'm neither devastated by the outcome nor thrilled beyond measure. I hope Obama will be safe as he enters his years in the White House and that he will be blessed with wisdom. He has a huge task ahead of him. He'll need all of our bi-partisan prayers.

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The Last Lecture, Etc.

I wanted to share a bit out of a book I'm picking away at. I don't get a lot of reading done these days, in book form. Most is spent at the computer terminal and is correspondence/problem solving related. I'm halfway through a wonderful little book by Randy Pausch (thank you again, Debbie!). He's the educator from Carnegie-Mellon who passed away this year. His "Last Lecture" can still be viewed online and if you've not heard it, I highly recommend you take the time to do that. Below is a link where you can find different ways to experience his last lecture:

http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

The bit I was reading today struck a chord with me. This topic has come up more than once in my conversations with children who are now raising children. I thought his comments were valuable... I'll type in a couple of pages (it's not as long as you'd think... it's a small book):

From Chapter 24, A Recovering Jerk

It is an accepted cliché in education that the number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.

I always saw the value in that, sure. But in my mind, a better number one goal was this: I wanted to help students learn how to judge themselves.

Did they recognize their true abilities? Did they have a sense of their own flaws? Were they realistic about how others viewed them?

In the end, educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve – as Coach Graham taught me– is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that, how can we tell if we're getting better or worse?

Some old-school types complain these days that higher education too often feels like it is all about customer service. Students and their parents believe they are paying top dollar for a product, and so they want it to be valuable in a measurable way. It's as if they've walked into a department store, and instead of buying five pairs of designer jeans, they've purchased a five-subject course-load.

I don't fully reject the customer-service model, but I think it's important to use the right industry metaphor. It's not retail. Instead, I'd compare college tuition to paying for a personal trainer at an athletic club. We professors play the roles of trainers, giving people access to the equipment (books, labs, our expertise) and after that, it is our job to be demanding. We need to make sure that our students are exerting themselves. We need to praise them when they deserve it and to tell them honesty when they have it in them to work harder.

Most importantly, we need to let them know how to judge for themselves how they're coming along. The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor's job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.

To that end, I've tried hard to come up with mechanical ways to get people to listen to feedback. I was constantly helping my students develop their own feedback loops. It was not easy. Getting people to welcome feedback was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an educator. (It hasn't been easy in my personal life, either.) It saddens me that so many parents and educators have given up on this. When they talk of building self-esteem, they often resort to empty flattery rather than character-building honesty. I've heard so many people talk of a downward spiral in our educational system, and I think one key factor is that there is too much stroking and too little real feedback...

It's interesting to note the generational differences in how parents and educators have approached children. Diane had an article posted recently about the "Millennial Generation" and their sense of entitlement and fragile egos. Maybe in the next generation we can find that middle ground... the best of both approaches. It always seems like the pendulum swings too far when people are reacting against anything. The good news is... people tend to be pretty resilient, no matter how their parents and teachers manage to screw them up... and we all do it in some way or another since none of us is perfect. ;-)

On another topic... Diane posted some cute photos last night. After having a conference call on Skype with she, Karen and Niklas... Diane and I had a two-party video chat. Toward the end I brought in birdy from the other room and had him on my shoulder. It only took him a few moments to zero in on Diane's onscreen face, as she made his favorite birdy noises. It was pretty entertaining. You can't hear the loud whistling he was doing... but if you click on this small image, you'll get a larger one and can better view of her post with pictures... or you can click on the link for her blog in the lefthand sidebar.

Well... I've successfully avoided fixing dinner and answering emails... so I'd best get moving. I got a little soap package ready to add to some other parcels in the mailbox, recorded a neat Education Week talk on C.S. Lewis for a couple of the kids and brought many of the ripe tomatoes in from the garden. There has been a break in the rain this afternoon... I hope it's like this tomorrow. Some narcissus bulbs still wait to be planted.

P.S. - Today I've had someone knock on the door, passing out Obama door hangers that urge me to get out and vote (for him) and also received a phone call this afternoon. The Obama people are looking for Michael... does he live here? Nope... not for a long time. They want him too. I've never seen so much co-dependent harassment about voting in my life. Yes... it's important and I've already sent off my ballot... but we are grownups and don't need to be contanstly harrassed about it... do we?

It's been assumed by most of us that Obama will win this election, but I'm thinking his people are still a bit worried... it's closer than they'd like. I'll just be glad when the election hoopla is over and the country can get back to the real business of running the country and not just running their mouths.

Sorry... I'm so tired of campaign ads. :-/

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