Throwing Marshmallows

Sometimes I am amazed to hear the things that come out of my mouth as a mom. For example:

Jason, please stop eating Kyle’s legos…

What makes it even more wonderful is that this is the second night that I have said this…

In other news, I am still working on getting my old blog posts migrated over to the new Throwing Marshmallows. Hopefully it will be up and running soon! I will be sure to let you know…

I mentioned earlier that I had been good about not starting a new creative endeavor before finishing my photobook. So of course now while I am waiting for the book to be delivered (it has been shipped!) I have had time to start playing around.

So if I am a bit scarce around here for awhile, it is for a good reason. I have decided to make a leap and have registered the ThrowingMarshmallows.com domain. I am currently working at getting the new blog up and running (and getting my old posts moved over).

I will most definitely miss homeschooljournal (you can’t get any better than Andrea and Ron!) but I will still be around, obviously.

As soon as things are more finalized, I will let you know!

Stay tuned…

I am not a fan of Chris Matthews by any stretch of the imagination, but even blowhards can get something right sometimes.

Today, he had conservative radio host Kevin James on his show to talk about President Bush’s comment which compared Obama to Nazi appeasers (choosing guests who do nothing but shout is one reason why I usually do not like his show). What followed, I have to admit, was extremely enjoyable.

MATTHEWS: You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kevin. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me what Chamberlain did wrong.

JAMES: Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser, Chris. Neville Chamberlain was an appeaser, all right? […]

MATTHEWS: I’ve been sitting here five minutes asking you to say what the president was referring to in 1938 at Munich.

JAMES: I don’t know.

MATTHEWS: You don’t know, thank you.

But it got even better. Matthews rebuked James (and Bush) for “being blank slates of history”:

You don’t understand there’s a difference between talking to the enemy and appeasing. What Chamberlain did wrong, most people would say, is not talking to Hitler, but giving him half of Czechoslovakia in 1938. That’s what he did wrong. Not talking to somebody. Appeasement is giving things away to the enemy.

You can see a video here.

This type of political rhetoric drives me crazy…when all else fails, compare the opponent to Nazis or Nazi appeasers. And people wonder why we can’t have a real public conversation about real issues.

Not to mention, since when it is a crime to talk about diplomacy? If you are not willing to talk, then how can you expect to ever make progress?

OK, so I got a real kick out of this one…

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

- Anonymous

The rain started again, mid-afternoon and has been getting steadily stronger. It is so bad that Ellie is refusing to leave the garage. She keeps standing by the door, but when we open it, all she does is run around near the garage door…she won’t set a foot outside. Can’t say I blame her…it is coming down in sheets.

I even carried her out under my umbrella, hoping that once we got out she might be ok. But she immediately high tailed it back inside. Let’s hope that she can last until tomorrow morning. Of course that is assuming that the rain stops by tomorrow morning! Hmmm…just checked the forecast and they are calling for 90% chance of rain tomorrow…so it is not looking good…

I have a feeling that my rain gauge is going to be overflowing tomorrow. Especially since we have not emptied it from two days ago.

Here’s hoping that we do not float away overnight…

I finally get to cross one thing off my “big” to-do list (as opposed to my daily ongoing to-do list). I have finally finished my first Blurb photo book!

One of my Christmas presents to our parents was an IOU for a great photo book of the boys. I had planned on doing a fairly easy to pull together book from QOOP but then around Thanksgiving I discovered Blurb and realized that even though it would take more time to pull together, I just had to do it.

What I love about Blurb is the variety of layouts that you can choose for your book. In most of the other photo books that I had looked at, you pretty much just got to choose how many pictures on a page, maybe a few captions and that was it. Blurb’s layouts give you far more flexibility than that (and if you know photoshop, you can even design your own layouts). The layout options make it really stand above the crowd as far as photobooks. It became much more of a creative effort, as opposed to merely a compilation of photos.

The free software was very easy to use (although it is a resource hog). I am currently uploading my completed book and will order 1 sample copy and hopefully if all goes well, will be able to order the ones for our parents really soon. I can’t wait and am a bit nervous. It is one thing to see it on the screen, another thing to see it in print!

I had not planned on it taking quite this long, but between things like Christmas, birthdays, homeschooling, planning two seminars, getting a new laptop and other stuff, life happens I guess. I will say that I was good…I have been wanting to move on to another creative project I have in mind, but I made myself finish this before starting something new.

I will say that I really enjoyed this process…it was hard for me to consider it done…I kept finding more edits and adjustments to make. I am sure that next time I will do some things differently. But it is done and ordered, so now all I can do is wait and see how it turns out!

Whew. When it rains it pours! We have actually been having quite a nice spring, but today we were completely deluged with over 4 inches. A couple of weekends ago we got 5.5 inches in one day. Our new rain guage is getting quite a workout. I love the design…as the gage fills up, the blue plastic section floats up, so you can tell how much rain has fallen by how much of the blue section is extended. Which actually makes it much easier for me to get a general feel for how much rain we have gotten by looking out the window (of course it is more fun to send the boys outside to read it!)

Of course it could be worse (Fredricksburg is only 1 hour south of us…luckily it appears that most of the homeschoolers I know from the area have come through with minimal damage).

The boys really like rainy days. There is something exceptionally fun about running around outside in the pouring rain.

Or scootering outside in the pouring rain.

Especially when there is a huge puddle at the bottom of the driveway!

It does not get much better than this. And on a school day no less! Ahhhh…the simple joys of homeschooling. Letting your children splash around in the puddles during school hours….

And we missed it! Seems as if there was a 1.8 level earthquake this afternoon at 1:30 and its epicenter was just down the road from us.

At 1:30 however we were miles away in Fairfax at the NoVaUnschoolers parkday and did not notice anything. A friend of mine who came later said that she had been on the phone and heard a rumbling that she recognized from her years of living in California.

No damage was reported and I am sure that folks in California would laugh at the excitement our little “microearthquake” has caused.

A friend (thanks Dena!) introduced me to American Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett program awhile ago and I have been meaning to mention it here. From their website:

Krista takes a narrative, or first-person, approach to religious and philosophical conversation. She draws out the intersection of theology and human experience, of grand religious ideas and real life.

I have been thoroughly enjoying these programs and have been surprised at the effects some of them have had on me. I think the thing that really appeals to me is that it is about people’s experiences with faith and how faith (or lack thereof) has affected their lives. There is no preaching, no trying to convince, no one religion is better than another. Just good honest discussion about meaningful ideas and what they mean. And their webpage for each program contains an incredible wealth of resources for learning more.

I have learned a lot about different religious traditions that I was unfamiliar with as well as found some programs that spoke directly to my heart and have helped me on my own spiritual path.

There used to be an explanation about why they took the approach they did but I can’t seem to find the link now. But here is what I had copied in a previous email I had written about it:

Hearing people talk from their experience, out of their story, is fundamentally different from hearing their conclusions and doctrines first. With Speaking of Faith, we are introducing a new way of talking about religion, one which will be both informative and illuminating as well as complementary to existing religion news coverage.

Journalistic reporting about religion often asks people to speak for a tradition, or for God. And for understandable reasons it favors guests - including religious leaders - who are willing, even bound, to do so. Therefore many discussions about perspectives that religion/faith/belief
could bring to our civic life begin like this:

“Christians believe…”
“Judaism asserts…”
“Muslims insist…”
“The Bible says…”

The trouble is, these kinds of pronouncements put listeners on the defensive. In fact, they even foster division within traditions.

The first-person approach behind Speaking of Faith sidesteps the predictable minefields and opens the subject wide, making it inviting, both in ambiance and substance. It insists that people speak straight from the experience behind their own personal beliefs. How did they come to hold the truths they hold? How are religious insights given depth and nuance by the complexities of life?

This way of speaking also has the effect of opening the listener’s mind. I can disagree with another person’s opinion; I can’t disagree with his or her experience. Because I know where they are coming from, I am capable of some understanding - even compassion - about why they think that way. Moreover, because I have heard their story I am able to attach a person, a humanity, to their conclusions, and I will never quite be able to dismiss that position or denomination in the abstract in the same way again.

Speaking of Faith, however, doesn’t stop at the story. The first-person approach, after all, could be just another dead end if it didn’t move beyond personal confessional. That is where my role as a theologically-trained journalist is critical. I engage people at that personal level, but I also invite them to articulate the important ideas and the deep, relevant perspectives that faith can add to our private and public lives.

I highly recommend checking it out. Some of my favorite programs have been:

• Listening Generously: The Medicine of Rachel Naomi Remin
• The Buddha in the World
• Beyond the Atheism-Religious Divide
• Liberating the Founders
• Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hahn
• Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Charles Darwin
  
• Quarks and Creation
• Truth and Reconcilliation
• The Religious Roots of American Democracy

And I have not even made my way through half the programs. These programs are very thought-provoking and most importantly to me, very respectful of everyone’s journey. Well worth checking out.

You can listen directly from the website or you can subscribe to their podcast.

I hope that you enjoy them as much as I have!

What you are looking at is a picture of my car in our garage. Yes, you heard me right. At long last, my car can actually reside inside the garage. I had to include a photo because without photographic evidence, I am sure that friends and family who have actually seen the state of our garage would never believe me.

Now there is actually still a lot left to sort through and get rid of organize and I did not take a picture of our front porch (which is holding all the stuff I plan to freecycle). I am also not under any delusions that it will stay this way forever (as proven by the fact that I have written on this subject before). But I can enjoy it while it lasts.

And here is a wider look:

(yes, I finally got my signature back!)

Hmmm…it has been a year since I have had anything to post in this category. This does not mean that the boys have not argued in that long of a time. Just that they had not argued over anything so utterly ridiculous that I felt a need to post about it.

The qualifying argument occurred this afternoon while we were driving home from Jason’s pottery class. As is typical for spring in Northern Virginia, our weather has been bouncing up and down…wet and rainy and cool, 50s and 60s one day to hot and muggy 80s the next. Today was an 80s day and the car had been sitting for awhile, so we had turned on the air conditioning (have I mentioned that my boys are heat wimps?)

This was fine, until about halfway home (which, by the way takes all of 10 minutes), Jason decided to turn off the air conditioning in the back because he could not hear the audio book we were listening to (Sir Thursday, book 4 in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix - highly, highly recommended!) This was not acceptable to Kyle who was hot (yes, whiney, cranky hot). Thus ensued the battle for the control over the air conditioner dial.

I was successful at holding the battle at bay for the remainder of the 5 minutes it took for us to get home by telling them that there was less than 5 minutes until we got home and to cool it. We got home, I got out and went inside. When I came back outside a few minutes later to let Ellie out, I realized that they were still in the car…arguing over whether the air conditioner of the car which was parked in our driveway, with the engine off, going absolutely nowhere should be left in the on or off position.

Realizing that the argument was getting physical with each boy pushing the other in an attempt to turn the dial to the desired position, I went in to negotiate, only to find that each kid was completely vested in their desired outcome (complete with justifications explanations why it was completely sane and reasonable for them to be fighting over this).

I threw up my hands in complete exasperation and said that this argument definitely qualified to be blogged about as a Really Stupid Thing The Elms Boys Argue About, which, believe it or not, broke the stalemate (well, that and my grand pronouncement that the dial would be placed in the half-on/half-off position, yes, please call me Solomon).

Ya gotta love ‘em…or at least that is what I have been told…

- Stephanie

- Stephanie