I am so sorry. We have had our scared times, too. We try to walk the fine line between acknowledging the problem and the hurt and keeping things calm and cheerful at home so that home can be an escape from one's problems. It's hard. We talked about ways to escape. Healthy ways to escape for a while and get a break from grieving and anxiety. In our family animal companions are important. Sometimes somebody will ask if we can bring the dog to them. Then we know they're really struggling. Hugs Nan Eta that we try to find out whether the person wants to be asked how they are or does not want to be asked how they are. Mostly they don't want to be asked how they are. That makes them think about it at a time when they are trying to forget.

Yes. I was blown away by the Tiffany series and am sad it won't go on. I am deeply grateful to Pratchett for getting it as much finished up as he did. That was very difficult and loving thing to do for us all. Nan

Tadpole - Mass.

I am so sorry. How utterly devastating! Many hugs. Don't worry. She isn't all you have left of your mom. She just was an excellent substitute. Now that she is gone, you will see other things. Your mom is inside your head and you couldn't get rid of her even if you wanted to. And as far as the guilt goes, death is usually either accident or illness and of the two, I think animals prefer accident. I am sure your dog forgives you. Dogs are like that. Holding you and your family in the light. Nan

Video game designers Nurses (if you can't afford a ton of education) Activists Teachers Social workers Here at least... Nan

Ack Stacia! Terry Pratchett died right after I discovered him, too. Ug. I adored The Plover. Usually, it is a high compliment to say that a book sticks with you but I can't say that about The Plover. The book didn't stick with me because I feel like it was inside me in the first place. Nan

We have known quite a few follow-your-passion people over the years, so there has been quite a lot of family discussion about this. They know that they all have to have a way to supply their needs, and that their needs will change when they have children. We have talked about seasons in one's life. We have talked about doing what you love for work even though you have to work long hours at it versus doing something you don't mostly mind that pays well enough that you have enough time and money to pursue a passion as a hobby. We have talked about safe jobs versus risky ones (like working for a small startup) and they have seen clan examples of both. We have talked about working hard at college right away to get going on a career versus playing hard for ten years first. We have talked about a general education versus a professional education. We have talked about the advantages of sticking together as a clan so that everyone has a better chance at doing something they like (because it costs less if you stick together). We have talked about flexibility and creativity and jobs that can only be done by ignoring your morals and jobs that have known hazards (like the tendency towards alcoholism that tends to go with certain jobs). We have talked about how sometimes doing what you love for a living destroys your joy in it. They know we would encourage them to get training in something that they can work as a second job if they try for something either low paying or with few jobs. Other than all the talking and examples and the urging them to stick together and double up on their education, we have left what they do up to them grin. Nan

I understand this. One might feel that in order to be a writer, one must publish and sell one's work, but but when one is doing that part of being a writer, the business part, one is not creating. How much of one's time does one put into the creative part of being a writer and how much into the business part? This is a problem with any creative career. This publishing house is for the writers who need to maximize their writing time and cut their business time to almost nothing. It is a brilliant idea. It is an unfortunate coincidence that burning books has also been done for political reasons, I think. : ) Nan

Hugs, Angel!

Just making sure you didn't mean most. Totally get the baggage. The library site where I get my audiobooks has been pushing Vinegar Girl for months as a group read, always popular, read if you don't know what you want sort of thing and I have been ignoring them. If you had meant most, I would have reconsidered. I'm willing to make lots of allowances for time and author but Taming of the Shrew is over my tolerance level. The awful part is that that plot still is the basic plot of so many romances. Nan

VC - Haha. And I know what you mean about the cover in. I have had that problem. People don't understand that popular classics are usually popular because they are ... well ... popular - good books that are not too hard to read or understand .

I would have found it hard to follow if I had spaced out the last 3 or 4. I had to read those back to back.

Grin- I have noticed before that unlike so many of you, I have almost zero curiosity about why things are classics. I have lots of blind faith that classics are classics because they are readable by many people and popular with many people over a long time. I might read something out of curiosity about the subject, or because it is a classic dealing with a subject I am curious about, or because it sounds like I might enjoy it, but I am not literary enough to want to join the people who are reading critically and being part of the great conversation. : ) Ok - I think I have thoroughly talked myself out of joining you. Not that I needed to. My mother's "Good Lord!" did that well enough. : ) She said I would be better off reading Moby Dick skimming the whaling bits. Not that she was recommending that. She was the one who gave me Dune to read in college because she had liked it. Dune is more our sort of thing. Nan

I should probably add that I spent the spring riveted by Dune, in which one intelligent species exploits another much less intelligent species which causes the first to evolve into multiple species who try to exploit each other, sometimes very messily, while trying to avoid the extinction of the less intelligent one, while dealing with several philosophical problems, all in something like 2400 pages. : ) Nan Eta that I read it because I liked the characters and setting, and then continued it past those characters because of the philosophical problems it explores.

Hmmm.... So... Some of you are reading it because you are trying to educate yourselves and it is a classic that isn't about something you can't deal with, like an intelligent species exploiting a different intelligent species by messily dismembering them. And some of you are reading it because you have read other Russian books and liked them and think you might enjoy this one. And some of you are reading it because it explores philosophical questions that you find intriguing, like why intelligent species exploit their own species by messily dismembering them? Or something like that? : ) Nan

Almost?

Right-program combined with close-to-home worked out to only one good choice for youngest. It made senior year extremely stressful for both of us, and my sister's attempts at reassuring me by saying that she firmly believes that there isn't only one right school really annoying. : ) It worked out ok because the school isn't super selective, and because youngest told them he didn't want to go anywhere else, and because they were very open and straightforward about their application process and worked with him to get what they needed. He just graduated and is working in his field now and it is evident that he made the right choice. Make sure the terms of any scholarships are doable for your child. Maintaining a high GPA can be really difficult if your health is poor or you have family troubles like the death of a grandparent or your program is a difficult one. Nan

So so many hugs

Middle one did an interview at a local state school, just for practice. Other than that, mine only interviewed at their first choice colleges and they did it on the second visit, either at the very end of spring junior year or early fall of senior year. They each only had one college they really wanted to go to, which made it easy. During the interview, they made it plain to the college that if they were accepted, they would come. I think that helped them to be accepted. At that point, the colleges worked with them to make sure they had what they needed, including having oldest take a refresher math class. Youngest's even told him not to do extra testing, when he asked. None of these schools were super hard to get into. None of them made any mystery about the application process. We felt like they were trying to get what they needed to accept them, since they wanted so much to come, rather than find reasons to eliminate them. Ditto with the financing. Nan

This is probably a stupid question, but why do you all want to read War and Peace? I haven't read it, but my impression was that it was an exceedingly long and depressing tragedy? Nan

Now you are a duck! Isn't it fun!

Well, I think the first book is easier to read than the next 5. The rest feel more remote. That is probably a good thing, for the emotionally squeamish like me. The series is not an easy read, in general. It deals with lots of adult subject matter, so nobody give it to a child without prereading it, ok? Books 2-6 deal with far more philosophy. The first book just sets the scene and introduces the beginnings of the problems he attempts to solve in the books. One of the things I found intriguing about the series is that although I could see problems near the beginning, the author reveals the true magnitude of the problem and its ramifications slowly throughout the whole series, not by adding more events and elements in a car-crash-on-the-way-to-the-wedding sort of random events, but by following through on the original setup. If I were more intelligent, I might have been able to see where the series was going earlier? Maybe? If I had to pick one word to describe the subject matter, I think it would be evolution. Nothing the author said struck me as wrong, scientifically, anthropologically (a common stumbling block for me), or philosophically, but I am not a very critical reader so I am probably not a good judge. I downloaded the audiobooks from Boston Public Library, and although I did a lot of relistening to tricky bits, that method of reading doesn't lend itself to deep reading as well, for me. If you do that, be sure you get the unabridged version. If you read it, I would love to hear your thoughts. Nan

I finished the 6th book of the Dune series and am still mulling it over. Nan

Which school will still be affordable if she has drop seim?

Well, I guess getting at the truth is important for dealing with the future effectively in the long run, awful as it is at the time. For me, finding out the full truth colours the past as well as the future, which I hate. It makes it seem like the destruction is never going to stop. I hope you can focus on your other children today (your tomorrow) and get that bit of a break. I hope the weather is nice for you and you can get outside and try to move and breath a bit. I freeze under stress and I find that forcing myself to walk helps me to cope with the stress. Another aspect of the fight/flight/freeze instinct. If I stomp a bit on my walk, it is even better, I think because that feeds the fight part in a way that is acceptable to the rest of me. You have to find some way of dissipating the physical part of stress if you are to survive. You are the center of your universe, whether it feels like it or not (and as a mother, I am sure it doesn't), and sometimes just focusing on that for a bit will help the rest of you cope. But you know that, I am sure, and have your own way of dealing with things. I'm just reminding you, just in case... I am so sorry, Sadie. Lots of hugs, Nan