Kalmia
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Posts posted by Kalmia
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My local writers' social group friend, Ellen Baker, just published a gripping novel, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. Her research on traveling circuses and orphanages of the past makes for fascinating settings in this novel.
I am also reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Lots of new research on the smartphone--mental health crisis conection.
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I use them to cover plants if it looks like a frost will come up in the night. And I have one queen size white top sheet I use with my UV moth lights that the moths land on and I photograph and identify them. I am the only one in the house that uses a top sheet. None of my bedding matches so I just use the top sheet in the clean pile. If the others wear out their bottom sheet, I would just buy them a new fitted sheet rather than a set.
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I will be on the lookout down at the pond down the road and our neighbor's vernal pool tonight if it keep raining! Thanks for the head's up.
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We were out for 2.5 days and just got the power back around 6 p.m. today. We have a medium sized portable generator so heat, water pump, fridge, chest freezer, and two lights work when we are out, so I don't have much to complain about with that backup. This will be the 4th power outage in my town this month. A strong wind, and bam! Down goes a tree on a power line. They have about 900 crews working on the outages in Maine, so hopefully everyone's power will be restored soon.
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I have been in charge of bill paying. My husband has earned most of the money. I am frugal compared to the general population. My husband has a great deal of anxiety surrounding money and is super-super-super-frugal (you'd swear this Gen-Xer grew up in the Great Depression). We have not worked together as a team, possibly because his anxiety gets out of control whenever he sees our real cost of living or an unexpected expense comes up. This has NOT been a good strategy. I am trying to learn to budget properly this year with cushion and sinking funds etc. As soon as I wrap my head around the "how" (I have two months of data, which is enough). I am going to call a meeting and we are going to budget together. I think it will make our marriage better and eliminate meltdowns on one person's part when unexpected vet bills or car repairs come up and cause us great financial strain.
Edited to add: I would NEVER combine finances with someone I wasn't married to. We also got married young (26) and have only had one marriage, so I am not an expert on second marriages of older people who have established their financial lives separately. Because we married young, we have always been in agreement that what is mine is yours. Our money is both of our money. We both work equally in terms of hours and effort for our family so we share equally in the money. And we are at very low risk of divorce.
I credit these three videos on relationships and money on helping me realize I have to change this pattern. Watch them together.
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My MIL had an old Subaru Forester (new at the time, maybe 1990s) that was like the Pope-mobile. It was like driving surrounded by big windows. Such good visibility. My New Subaru Outback has tinted rear passenger windows and I hate them, makes it much harder to merge. Now I am curious and I will compare our Honda CRV front blind spots to our Subaru's tomorrow when it is light.
My college daughter crosses a 4 lane "stroad" to get from her dorm to campus and back again several times a day. She's almost been hit twice crossing with the pedestrian light. Once the she looked the guy in the eye and he just kept coming--not a blind spot issue. She signed up for housing next year that is not across the road from the campus.
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I am so glad you woke up and that everyone got out of the house in time. We care about our WTMers and I couldn't help crying when I read your story to my young adult, which I did that he would have a story (with a happy ending) embedded in his mind regarding the dangers of carbon monoxide.
I think all my "smoke detectors" are dual purpose for fire and carbon monoxide (more expensive, but more of them as I have one in each bedroom, one in each hall, and one in the entry near the kitchen so if one stopped working, hopefully the others would still be on the job). I am going to check them to make sure, today. I also had been thinking about getting an explosive gas detector as we have a propane stove. We got one for my MIL once she was unable to smell the propane. I think I should get one right away.
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Knitted cotton dishcloths made by me or by my best friend. She makes them in colorful yarn. I make them boring white so I can put them in the bleach/hydrogen peroxide load. This is the brand of yarn we use; it is more absorbent than regular cotton yarn: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001683JHQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
12 x 12 bar mops from Walmart. I have several that are 23 years old and still going strong (though don't know if the new ones will hold up as long).https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-18-Piece-Kitchen-Bar-Mop-Dishcloth-Set-White/722790283?athbdg=L1600&from=/search
Surgical cotton huck towels (new not reclaimed) instead of paper towels (you have to wash them twice first to get rid of the lint, then they are great for cleaning, super absorbent) for cleaning counters and appliances. Use three: soapy, wet rinse, and dry in succession for a beautiful clean. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CNWK816M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
Small-link chain-mail cast-iron scrubbers. These are good for stainless steel or cast iron. Not good for ceramic. I have some with the larger links, but they don't seem to work as well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKBR1ZG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1-
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- What is your current favorite podcast, blog, or person you follow? Jessica Sowards Roots & Refuge Farm
- What was your favorite book last year- fiction and/or non-fiction? A Caravan of Brides by Kay Hardy Campbell
- Favorite purchase last year: 10 lbs Caribou Russet seed potatoes, grew enough to last me until this spring.
- Best life hack: Reusable and money saving cleaning swaps: Small-ring chainmail scrubber instead of Brillo pads and Blue Surgical Huck Towels instead of paper towels.
- Biggest regret -Despite trying everything, not being able to mediate my husband's family's sibling fighting during the months leading up to their mom's death.
- What did you do to make your life easier this year? Started tutoring so finances won't be so tight.
- High point of last year: Spending one warm, clear night staring up at the Milky Way.
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I love words. I am quiet and good with animals and they seem to like me. I am happy with my hands in the soil growing food. I am very friendly. I am funny and quick and clever. I notice things in nature. I love to learn.
Not sure what that adds up to except being me!
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We live in Bangaluru (Bangalore), India for 6 months on business. This is in the south, and less populated than Mumbai. But we traveled a lot and had great many great experiences. It is a beautiful country and developing fast, the cities aren't that different from what we have here in terms of commerce and entertainment.
The driving (or riding with your driver) is not for the faint of heart. Everyone and everything is in the road: cars, busses, motorbikes carrying impossible loads (large panes of glass, rods laden with hanging dead chickens, ladders, are some of the things I saw carried on motorbikes), Vespas, oxcarts, horses, pedestrians, dogs, cows, chickens, etc. At first, I just had to shut my eyes when riding, but soon, I observed kind of a intricate dance, punctuated with horns sounded like sonar pulses, in which everyone weaves together and almost misses each other by centimeters, but the mostly miss each other! To cross the road, you just have to be bold and be ready to walk in a non-straight line. They will miss you, as I said, by centimeters, but you also have to dance, missing them.
If the company is paying for a five star hotel, your traveler will have the finest experience. The food is often prepared by renowned chefs who can also cook to order dishes from many countries. He should be able to eat anything prepared in the hotel safely. We were unable to eat raw vegetables even after six months of being there, our gut bacteria had not adjusted. It is possible to get apples and other produce from New Zeland in India and we were able to eat those. One of the more international grocery stores is Foodhall. In terms of the hotel, staff will be able to book tours of local attractions.
If your traveler is white, there will be some curiosity, but probably less in Mumbai than in the countryside. When visiting historical monuments and heritage sites in the countryside, we would often be asked to take pictures with people, and my daughter who is very pale would often be surrounded by school children also on the tour, some of whom would pinch her to see if she was real! We didn't mind the curiosity and we developed some compassion for of how hard going out in public must be for movie stars. But we did draw the line at pinching, and nowadays with what can be done with digital imaging we would probably decline photos as well.
He will want to see Elephanta Caves, a World Heritage site which is close to Mumbai. There are many more heritage sites to see further out depending on his free time. Tigers Zone National Park is in the region, also the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. If he likes wildlife these are incomparable opportunities. The hotel will know which one is best. We very much enjoyed our jeep/bus wildlife tours, saw elephants, water buffalo, birds, and yes, sometimes people see tigers (not us, but other people).
Random things: men hold hands in India but married couples or men/women don't. The areas around ATMs attract petty theft. There are many small jobs around business and tourist areas that don't exist in the US, like "umbrella carrier" who will hold your umbrella for you while you walk into the hotel and there are staff to carry your bags. We always tried to carry our own bags, but that just ended in confusion. Tip well.
In terms of small gifts: Our drivers loved the NYC baseball hats we gave them. Children in some regions asked for American quarters, but that might have been some kids interested in coin collecting as they lived in a tourist area.
Unlikely he'd go to a movie while there, but I was surprised to find out that the movies have intermissions. If traveling in the countryside, bring some sanitary supplies: toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes. Bathrooms like we are used to are few and far between in some areas. Oh! Also wear sturdy sneakers or shoes and bring an extra pair. We were always teased for our hiking sneakers by our friends from my husband's work who wore sandals everywhere, but I was fully prepared to die on that hill rather than fit in. The germ-load, animal excrement, trash piles, and stormwater pooling was just too much for me to risk my feet in the areas I frequented.
India is a wonderland of a country. I can't wait to go back after all my kids are launched.
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I am now doing a lot of tutoring of high school students who also cannot write coherent paragraphs or understand complex paragraphs written by others. Having never been taught grammar (or perhaps not learning the grammar that was taught) underlies many of these students' struggles. After I get them up and running with the grammatical underpinnings of sentences, how to structure a paragraph becomes the next goal. But almost always, when asked to be a writing tutor, I find I have to go back to the basics of grammar before tackling writing.
Depending on the kid's personality (basically if the kid hates workbooks), the mom might want to look at Michael Clay Thompson's grammar and vocabulary stuff from Royal Fireworks Press as an option or a supplement to a more structured grammar curriculum. It is very engaging, not workbook style. It works best as a back-and-forth exploration for parent and student, and when done as a discussion, not everything would have to be written. My kid has severe dysgraphia, writing in workbooks would exhaust him, and so we had to find work-arounds, which meant a lot of discussion and answering questions aloud.
Even though the student is in 7th grade, they could start at with MCT "Town" level grammar and vocabulary and not be embarrassed by it (it is designed for gifted 4-5th graders): Purchase Grammar Town, Practice Town, & Caesar's English I. All the writing is in Practice Town, where they parse one sentence a day. There is no need to buy Paragraph Town (a very weak writing program) or Building Poems (unless the kid already loves poetry and wants more).
https://www.rfwp.com/mct-language-arts/seven-levels/level-2-the-town-level/
We found that SWB's grammar and writing curricula paired well with MCT. That SWB's stuff is taught out loud in a question-answer format is great for kids with dysgraphia. All the learning is in place without having to pick up a pencil. Then application of the learning in the workbooks can be done a little at a time.
I second Logic of English for spelling. Denise Eide has good teacher/parent training videos on YouTube which can help with using her curriculum (which is scripted).
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I hear you. My sibling is smart, well-educated, and legally blind therefore has always been limited in her job opportunities by not being able to drive and by living in an area with terrible public transportation and a cold climate. Sibling has so many stories of the sidewalks not being plowed and having to walk in the road and getting splashed by slush or having to jump out of the way of cars. Sibling also has been denied jobs after several interviews because sibling has no driver's license. When asked why this office job requires a driver's license, they will say that once a year they have a meeting upstate and she'd have to be able to get herself there!?!? They don't accept, "I could take Uber, bus, train, friend will drive me." Nope. This is a very rural state, most destinations require driving. No driver's license no job. So sibling has always been underemployed considering the level of skill and intelligence.
This plus people are worse drivers than I have ever experienced before. It is like they don't know they have a brake pedal. They just go. Our local bus drivers say that people pass their stopped (red lights flashing) busses weekly and they are getting better cameras so that they have proof to prosecute. I was sad they paved our bumpy road, because I knew drivers would go much faster without any feedback from the road, and I was right. An Amish carriage driven by a young boy in our region was hit by a speeder (horse and boy survived). There is no consideration at all for walkers, riders, or slow drivers. It is often depraved indifference for human life. And of course for those with disabilities, who may not be able to fling themselves off to the roadside to avoid a distracted or aggressive driver, it is life-limiting.
There are organizations like Strong Towns, America Walks, and Walk Friendly Communities work to push redesign of roadways to accomodate walkers, bicyclists, children, people with disabilities. It will be slow process, but maybe they will make a difference.
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It seems there are two different issues. One: What to do about family members whose behavior crosses your boundaries or your sense of basic morality (such as medical care for a child). Two: How to be around family members whose beliefs are radically different than your own, but their behaviors are not in question. You also express that you want to improve your own ability to accept people with differing beliefs. A lot of posters have had good ideas about establishing boundaries on behavior. I won't address that, but as a person with half her family from the south and half from the northeast; I have always been an adept fence straddler in terms of coming to terms with the fact that different beliefs aren't often as dangerous as we make them out to be in contemporary society. In fact, I am refreshed by the differences.
One advantageous decision I made was to take anthropology classes in college. In the ethnographies and accounts of humankind from the distant past to the present I learned that the mind's attention to stories and the ease with which the brain is convinced by a good story has led to a world where in some places we have people believing that being bitten by a rabid dog will get you pregnant with the dog's babies or that touching a woman during her menstrual cycle will make you unclean or that (thank you, my young adult neighbor who watches too much YouTube) any food containing "natural flavorings" contains aborted fetuses!?!?!?!? Humans are not rational creatures. Humans are very susceptible to stories and propaganda and the words of authority figures. Kurt Andersen's book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, about Americans' history of susceptibility to con artists and conspiracy theories posits that this is nothing new. It has been going for hundreds of years.
Knowing this, that different peoples create different stories to explain things in the world and that all people are highly attuned to stories and have the potential to be manipulated by stories, one can look at people with different beliefs through a more compassionate lens. Would one be surprised to encounter different beliefs in other cultures? Probably not. Why be surprised that there are different beliefs in a large, diverse population like the United States? When are different beliefs useful? When are wrong beliefs useful? For every differing belief in history one finds ridiculous, there have been other "wrong" beliefs that have broken open the understanding of how the world or universe works (our heliocentric solar system, anyone?)
Add to this the Internet: non-stop pumping of millions of stories (many told by commercial and political interests) directly into everyone's home (and phone) 24/7. For millennia, humans were only able to access storytelling, song making, or other entertainments if the tellers, performers, singers, or athletes were in their town! Then the printing press was invented and stories were more widely disseminated. Add radio and TV (think of the panic that ensued from the radio play broadcast of The War of the Worlds!). The load of stories is getting heavy. The brain has so much to comb through for good information. Then the Internet firehose releases untold amounts of information and millions of stories. It's really too much for one person to grasp. And so, what gets attention? The loudest most obnoxious voices and the most ridiculous claims. It's no wonder people are spouting nonsense. Anything sensible is being drown out. It's amazing that anyone can function in such an environment. One must muster compassion for those who are manipulated by these stories.
Stepping back and recognizing that all humanity shares this storytelling ability and emotional susceptibility to other people's stories helps one to be compassionate. One might think about how the development of language, art, writing, cooking, fashion, etc. could never be as diverse if people were only allowed to believe the "right" stories. One also might fear what would happen if people were only allowed to believe the "right" things. Who dictates those things? Maybe one's "side" get's to choose the "right" things this year, but what if the other side takes over next year? What has happened historically when governments or cultural groups engage in belief-policing? Valuing freedom of speech (and belief) above our personal comfort with that speech or those beliefs, as American used to do, is necessary to protect our chosen form of governance, democracy. But that does mean, on occasion, we have to have tolerance toward some individuals whose words and beliefs are repugnant. (That does not mean we have to invite them in our house!)
Taking the long view, the anthropological view. Allowing that humans are more often than not fallible. That humans are creative and enjoy storytelling as a social activity, regardless of the value of the story. Being interested in people as unique beings with their own complex histories. All these things help one develop compassion.
And lastly, if I am feeling judgy, I like to keep in mind a slightly modified version of anthropologist Wade Davis' quote:
“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” Wade Davis
And if one substitutes "people" for "cultures": "Other people are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”
(Not directing that "you" toward the OP, just using Wade Davis' term from the original quote.)
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10 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:
She shouldn’t have to and its a dumb idea from the district, but realistically she can learn quickly. Plenty of homeschool moms have no experience but we read a book or two, follow a decent guide and teach our kids.
If she wants to she can read Understanding the Logic of English, the book not the curriculum. That’s a quick Saturday read that will refresh her phonics knowledge. Then she can get something easy like Webster’s Syllabary (which is free and public domain) to work through on the board. Even just a few exercises a day in addition to whatever they give her could yield tremendous results, if the issue is decoding, which it probably is to a certain extent. Get AI to generate reading pyramids, or from TPT.
Lots of homeschoolers use only 15 minutes a day, every day, to drill phonics and spelling rules and often teach reading through spelling (which would be less insulting to middle schoolers) then that leaves the rest of the class time for her to have the kids read science books, so she won't have to be totally depressed that no science is happening. Science literacy is useful too!
I agree with getting her the Understanding the Logic of English book: https://www.amazon.com/Uncovering-Logic-English-Common-Sense-Approach/dp/1936706210/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WI8E0PVA74ZD&keywords=Understanding+the+logic+of+english&qid=1705983354&sprefix=understanding+the+logic+of+english%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1
Denise Eide also has free teacher training series on Youtube:
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Wow those turns were tight! Great job.
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2 hours ago, KatieJ said:
Absolutely it was a landline. The base needs a phone line and power. Handset just needs power.
Honestly if we had not moved and had to give up our landline, I would still be using this phone.
I really dislike doing “business” on my cell phone.
We had that phone! I have a newer model Panasonic, now. They are the perfect size to hold between your shoulder and ear so you could work in the kitchen while talking on the phone with some privacy (without speakerphone on). Try washing a sink full of dishes with a cell on your shoulder...
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Eleven would have been very early in the 80s for me. My mother had stayed home until my younger sister went to school and had made all our food from scratch, gardened, and canned before that (partly from not having much money and partly from loving cooking). After my mother went to work full time, the family had more money and my mom had less energy so convenience food started creeping in. I was a very picky eater, very picky with a no-touching rule and texture rules for food. So I will say that my mother and father and sister would be eating normal foods such as scrambled eggs, casseroles, sandwiches, pasta dishes, salads, soup, pies, pizza, meat with sauces, stir-fries (maybe, that might have happened in the later 80s), salads, etc. I, on the other hand, ate a very small variety of food despite my mother's best efforts:
Breakfast: Cheerios or Wheaties, toast, and milk. On weekends, homemade pancakes or waffles.Lunch: Canned tuna or fried chicken strip, peanut butter crackers, carrot sticks, celery sticks, lettuce (all vegetables separate), Devil Dog (wrapped Hostess? type cake), grape juice
Dinner: Pork chop, chicken breast, steak or hamburger, corn on the cob, oven fries, dinner roll, apple, milk
Desserts: Ice cream, popcorn, homemade chocolate cake, brownies, or fudge.
The late 80s diet advice completely wrecked my Mom's delicious old-fashioned bacon-grease and butter southern cooking. Canola oil, margarine, trans fats, low-fat milk, high carb, she fell for it all... and they all gained weight, except me. (I saved my weight gain for adulthood.)
Up until that time we only ate out if we were driving halfway across the country to visit relatives. Late 80s, if Mom was exhausted from work, takeout might come home once a week.
I do remember that in elementary school in the 70s, the lunch ladies cooked everything from scratch (none of which I would eat.)
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An interesting read is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wholleben. He talks about how the trees use the fungal networks to communicate (in addition to communicating by releasing chemicals into the air) and to share nutrients with other trees. The natural world is so complex we can barely comprehend it.
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Got some Sili-seedlings brand silicone, re-usable seed-starting pots for Christmas. This will replace the annual Jiffy peat-pot cost and avoid supporting the peat mining that goes into making those. Even though I live in the north and gardening won't start until April, I will be planting some greens in them under the lights to supplement salads this winter until seed-starting season starts in earnest and I will need them for tomatoes and peppers.
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Some reusable silicone seed-starting pots, a book about wildflowers, a Field Company cast-iron skillet, a woven wool winter hat, two of my new writer friend's mystery novels, and some pewter ornaments. Several of those I bought for myself.
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We really enjoyed the swamp tours in Slidell, LA. and the Graveyard Tour in New Orleans.
Cajun Encounters Tour Co. (They have more tours than just the swamps.)
https://www.cajunencounters.com/tours/swamp-tour-new-orleans/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAvdCrBhBREiwAX6-6UmQ1sHMs0of3JuU-Nj-er-cv9nye90BKNOOEMMW7Q3oLxHXYL0L2EhoCXoIQAvD_BwEDr. Wagner's Honey Island Swamp Tours
https://www.honeyislandswamp.comSt. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Tour
https://cemeterytourneworleans.com-
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On 11/11/2023 at 11:07 PM, Melissa in Australia said:
I assembled all the finished squares of my crazy quilt wall hanging
This is amazing!
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Cursive should be taught and used to the point of fluency, not taught and then abandoned. Reading cursive should also be covered (historical styles in documents in particular).
Oxford comma should be law. (and it is, sort of: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/think-commas-don-t-matter-omitting-one-cost-maine-dairy-n847151
Both Star Trek and Star Wars are good... fun.
Mountains top beaches! The sea just wants kill you. Mountains would like to, but you have a greater chance of outwitting them.
Sleeve tattoos and facial tattoos kind of creep me out, because they seem to obliterate the face or arm itself, but as the sleeves become ubiquitous, I will probably stop being startled by them. My husband has three individual tattoos, one on each arm and one on his back. I have no opinion on them, though the Celtic knot is the better of the three.
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We need prayers right now (update in OP)
in The Chat Board
Posted
Praying!