LostSurprise
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We played Among the Stars again last night with ds14 (the RPGer and wargamer).
Among the Stars is a game with some similarities to 7 Wonders. It has a similar pass and play dynamic. You're building and passing square rooms to create a space station. Unlike 7 Wonders which is dealing primarily with trade and ancient civilization building, Among the Stars has a distinct geographical (or puzzle) aspect to it. You pay for rooms and earn points depending on other rooms you own and where you place the tile.
Certain rooms gain more points by being near other rooms (or further away). Some things need to be powered by engines. Some things give points immediately and others at the end of the game. Players each have an alien race card which gives them a certain ability and a goal card which can give them a small number of points at the end if they fulfill it (something like 'have the most A rooms of the all the stations').
It turned out to be a very close game. DS14 wasn't sure he liked it more than 7 Wonders, but we haven't played with the more aggressive cards either...just the start set. I like it better than 7 Wonders but I like the geographic tile laying (or puzzle building) aspect more than the trade and set collection of 7 Wonders. DS14 is usually a military dictator in that game and I think he misses that.
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Ways to find a licensed Christian therapist:
*ask around the Christian community for suggestions
*ask someone in the church office (if you feel safe doing that)
*call the larger local churches that you feel comfortable with and ask for suggestions
*look for a Catholic hospital/clinic system (even if you are not Catholic..I'm not..many of their therapists are Christian or Christian-sympathetic)
The crying thing is hard. I know every single time I go I am going to cry at some point. Just do some kind of preparation which helps you feel more comfortable...bring kleenex, write out your thoughts so what you want to say won't get lost, etc. Know that they see crying all the time. They aren't disturbed by it the way others can be. They treat crying as the necessity it is. It's okay to get all the crying out and then continue. You're not wasting time; you're processing important emotions in a safe place.
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I'm so sorry Ottakee.
It's so hard to explain this kind of thing to other people unless they've dealt with it. So far we've been lucky with State coverage and unlucky in personal insurance and home medical care companies. There are months I just don't sleep because I don't know if ds's special food supplements (which can mean seizure stability or instability) will be covered and if they will be covered if the care company will deliver them. Then the chain of people you call to see where the system broke down with no one talking to you and everyone claiming they will call you back. Ugh. Sometimes I hate the world.
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I usually go with Thriftbooks. They have sales every few months too. You can sign up for reminders on their site or Facebook.
Bookfinder is a good search tool too.
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I have a special needs child.
While this sounds terrible, I can understand her anger, frustration, pain, fear. Perhaps her special needs child has attachment problems. Those can be more emotionally challenging than your average physical disability...at least my child can show affection for me.
In general I think Special Needs groups should be safe places to be sad or angry (away from the child of course). I would feel sadness for this woman and her child, and I would listen (because most of the time this is all they want from you) and I would gently steer her to getting professional help for herself.
It's a long road. There are days I'm angry, sad, depressed...and I have a sense of attachment to my child and a normal birth/infancy/toddlerhood I can fall back on. I can't imagine how hard it would be with an unattached teen.
Of course, maybe all this would change with time. There are people who feel deeply sorry for themselves and can't pull themselves out. It's harder to watch a person demean a child or be overly strict. It would be much harder to remain compassionate in that circumstance.
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My mom crocheted me a similar hat for my birthday in December. She called it a 'rasta' hat. My mother is such a quiet Midwestern woman it cracked us up. My brothers were asking me if I was working on dreads. I'm not sure she got it.
I finished my creepy face mask. Black embroidery floss is no where to be found so it will have to wait until I get to the store.
I'm working on this shrug. The pattern is usually $5 but it's free right now with a coupon code from the patternmaker.
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How many syllables in your last name? A longer last name usually means a shorter first name.
We have four boys. During number two we just could not agree on anything. Nothing. I think we decided his name the week before and we both severely compromised. Number three we each picked a name and decided after we saw him which he looked more like.
I love Elias.
Alec
David
Henry
Graeme/Graham
Neal
Thomas
Kurt
Neal
Evan
Wyatt
Clark
Ward
Calvin
Lane
Jude
More like Signe:
Ivar/Ivor
Per
Soren
Tor
Leif
Erik
Magnus
Nils
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Hmmm...I think it's important to get what you need from a spouse. Most of the time we just kind of feel what that is. To some it might be emotional stability, support, humor...to others it's a good conversation.
DH thinks I'm 10 or so IQ points above him, and it's true, a lot comes easier to me. However. my personal needs veer more into good conversation, creative enough to keep me guessing, intensely curious about the world, always learning, generous, emotionally supportive, similar beliefs about the world and how we act with others. DH fulfills all these things, and more.
As I see it, his undiagnosed ADD (which he's found a multitude of ways to cope with) gives me an advantage in straight academics and logic. However, he's worlds more creative than I am, and has gifts in subjects of which I have little knowledge. It's been interesting learning new things with him, and most of them have not been in either of our comfort zones. He's fun that way.
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Stacia, I read one by Hemingway in high school. I looked at both "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises." And to this day, I can't remember with certainty which one I ended up reading... :leaving:
I *think* it was TSAR. To be fair, they're both set in WWI and I'm sure they were written in much the same style. :lol: But, if that tells you anything about the incredibly memorable storylines....
The Sun Also Rises is not set during WWI (although the characters are influenced by that time). It was about the "Lost Generation" during the '20s and moves between Paris and Spain. His WWI novel is A Farewell to Arms which is very plot-y and kind of boring and impersonal for a love story.
Ah, Hemingway bashing! Now that's a train I can jump onto. I was forced to read The Old Man in the Sea in my (parochial) high school, and hated it. Seriously, hated it, even before we were bashed over the head with all the Christ-symbolism. I did not pick up another Hemingway book for 25 years, and then only because my book group was reading it. I got through A Moveable Feast ok, but then I read the one about the bullfights in Spain - and I remembered that I really don't like Hemingway. Still.To be honest, The Old Man and the Sea is not iconic Hemingway. It's an experiment he did to see how far he could take his minimalist style. Of course that is the one they teach in schools because its vocabulary and structure are so dead simple and it's oh-so-short.
I read it first in middle school and hated it for its perceived (to me) shallowness (it gives the lure of eternity while never getting past grit as the heart of a man), although it was interesting to reread it in college to compare and contrast with novels that reflect his style better.
Sigh. Here come the Hemingway bashers again, picking on me as they always do. ;)
My favorite Hemingway is For Whom the Bell Tolls which I really need to reread. Despite being a fan of Papa Hem, I think it is a mistake to assign A Farewell to Arms to high school students. The Nick Adams stories are a far, far better choice.
For Hemingway haters, the Nick Adams short stories are really well done. I do like those the best and they are the most accessible. Actually, Hemingway is a pretty good short story writer. Like Salinger, he's much more to the point and less likely to get on your nerves in a short story.
I love For Whom the Bell Tolls because that is probably as poetic as Hemingway gets. It's more like a dreamy idyll then his usual minimalism. Time slows down because 2 people are infatuated with each other in a very intense situation. This can either drive you crazy (plot plot plot...come on move it) or strike you as wonderfully strange for Hemingway.
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How much liquid is he really drinking? At least 40oz/1liter? If you don't really know fill up a bottle at the beginning of the day and have him drink only from it. You can see how much he's really getting and how much is missing.
If he'll eat muffins you can get a lot of fruit and fiber in there.
Senna/senna-lax/etc. is a slightly more natural stool softener that is available over the counter. Also, if it has gone on too long it may be too impacted for miralax/water/fiber to work. A glucose suppository can be done rectally (and by that I don't mean you have to insert it rectally but just kind of squirt it in there from the outside) which will soften the impacted bottom of the stool and the rest slides out because you've been taking care of water/fiber/etc. This does happen. We start treating as a reaction and the treatment can't get to the bottom of the colon.
Lastly, is it possible he's dealing with a lot of anxiety? Some people just don't deal with change well or are more anxious. If he's an anxious kid you may want to talk to your pediatrician about therapy, diet, exercise, natural supplements, etc.
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That sounds like Wildlife Adventure, although I would substitute "not really competitive at all" for "never seems highly competitive." :laugh: We played it with the boys when they were little. They didn't really want to compete. They just liked placing the arrows and getting their animals.
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Last night we played Expedition: Famous Explorers. It's a reimplementation of 2 older games by Wolfgang Kramer. One is Wildlife Adventure and the other is Expedition. I'm not sure how Expedition worked, but we used to have an old Goodwill copy of Wildlife Adventure (1985) and it was a point-to-point movement game where you were seeking animals in different parts of the world. In the game players had cards and tried to control a limited number of arrows on the board to go to the areas detailed on their cards. It wasn't very competitive or strategic but it had cute little animal facts. I haven't played Expedition but I think it was just a further development of Wildlife Adventure.
Expedition: (insert topic here I think there are a group of them) is just a further development of these 2 games. It is more competitive but it keeps all the main points of the other games. You have a handful of cards. They detail areas/explorers that you want to travel through for points. You choose 6 of your most likely areas and you mark those with a disc. If you can bend the travel arrows through these areas you earn more points. The rest of the cards remain secret but if the arrows travel through them you can claim them as points. There is also a row of cards above the board. These are public locations that can be claimed by any person.
Everyone gets a chance to control the movement of 3 colored arrows. You can move 1 per turn (unless you fall upon a red or green location...red gives you a ticket, green gives you 1 free movement). The travel of these colored arrows is shared. If someone moves you through a place you have a card to you can claim it on your next turn (only one place claim per turn).
This could quickly devolve into a tug a war or a frustrating inability for anyone to get what they want. However, each player has a number of tickets. These tickets can be played at any point during your turn (before or after your movement) and can give you an extra movement, an extra place card, subtract a movement someone else made. Using these tickets at the right time, and replenishing them when you can turns a tug of war into a strategic use of others moves and your own possibilities.
DH and I enjoyed it. I liked the explorers that they chose. Our 12 year old had a great time until the end of the game where he was frustrated in his travels. Because we were all actively trying to fulfill our final cards it got quite competitive and upset him. I'm not sure it will become a favorite here because it seems a bit simple to me and it can aggrevate those who are more competitive (where direct competition leads to frustration). I'm looking forward to adding the advanced cards for dh and myself.
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Julie~nice video! I love that he calls himself The Rule Dictator. We love San Juan. The fact that cards can be properties to be built, currency, or even point holders is such an elegant concept. And it's easy to play and moves quickly. We usually have close scores.
Our boys like miniatures too. I think dh usually uses fishing or craft boxes for that stuff. It's cheaper than the stuff they sell straight to gamers for the same purpose. I think the X-wing Fighter game is the biggest one dh and the boys play right now, but DS16 got a zombie game for his bday and his brothers were talking about how the miniatures could be painted. I have one who is a wargamer as well which is totally beyond my gaming self. He'll play hideously long wars of attrition all by himself. He's also the RPGer. I'm not sure where he gets the patience.
How did Once Upon a Time go? I love that game but can't get it to work here.
We love Nordic Countries! My favorite TtR. It's balanced so well.
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Yesterday, I learned the various groupings of seizure drugs by how they work so we could pick a new medication. We're ditching a sodium channel blocker so I opted to not try another sodium channel blocker. And the new drug is not a member of the benzodiazepines so it can be started or taken away much quicker.
Of course, there's not much information about blocking calcium channels in terms of it's effect as an anti-convulsant so I may have to do some PubMed searches later, but you would be surprised how many treatments and medications are in use because they seem to work...not because we have any idea of how they actually work and the other repercussions on the body.
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An HSA is just a special checking account where you can only pay medical bills. You have a debit card or checks (or both) to access it. Money is taken out of your check pre-tax and placed in the account. Often the same bank is used that does your 401k. Because it functions like a checking account would, you can pay the bill whenever you have the money in the account and want to pay it.
At our clinic they ask you how much of your bill you want to pay. If you have a limited amount in your HSA account you can pay some then, and more later, just as you would any clinic bill.
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Yes, an HSA is also pre-tax. The difference is that your total at the end of the year rolls over and can even be used after you quit the HSA plan (all money in the account it still available to you for medical expenses).
We've had an FSA and an HSA and I much prefer the HSA for this reason. Also, some FSA plans only apply to certain expenses (say, dental and vision) which can be a royal pain if your husband over-estimated the year before.
We've had an HSA for the last 3-4 years and a child with severe medical needs. It's helpful to have the money available at the beginning of the year when you haven't met your deductible. It also can be used for braces, glasses, medications, hospital visits, well visits...pretty much any credible medical expense (dental, vision, medical, mental health therapist).
I would add that you do have to fill out an additional form for your taxes which details what you put into the account (you'll receive a notification from the company), but it's fairly straightforward.
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Regarding House-Keeping or Marilynne Robinson or being influenced by discussion with others in general:
Could you say more about this? I'm intrigued.
I'm not sure which one you want, but I'll do my best. ;)
House-Keeping is an earlier, more poetic/symbolic novel of Marilynne Robinson (Gilead) which I read 10-15 years ago. (Ok, that's for all the newcomers.) When I first read the novel I was frustrated by it. It really does not have much plot and the language is so gorgeous and it's so mysterious. I liked it. I wanted to understand it better because my liking had an under-current of frustration. I read it a second time and liked it even better but still felt I was missing so much of the impact.
Within a year of that I had a very interesting online discussion with a librarian friend which really opened the novel to me. Not that she told me anything new (she hadn't even read it), but describing it to her and struggling to express the book in words opened a whole new aspect of the novel to me. I've had that happen with other books on here. Just struggling to summarize the book and analyze why you feel the way you do about it draws you into a greater connection with various levels of the story. I think that kind of epiphany can increase the affection you have for something (or decrease it), even though the thing itself has not changed.
A few years after that I found another person who'd read the novel and we had a deeper conversation. She preferred Gilead to House-Keeping (I felt oppositely) and the give and take, the disagreement, the intellectual struggle to put everything straight and put a light to what the other person is missing strongly connects you to how you feel about a story.
Looking at this I see a few interesting things at work. Intellectually analyzing something to other people (which motivates you to push yourself and really connect and communicate) can push the boundaries of how you understand a story. It makes you think. Debating and sharing (squees and quoting are a part of this) can also re-connect you to the feelings and emotions you have about the story....deepening what was already there.
We're social beings. We affect each other by being together. It's fun to wash in the ocean of this thread and feel the undercurrents of different books as they come up and then disappear.
I hope I described what you were looking for without being too wordy. :)
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Lost Surprise: "Wuthering Heights: Perhaps part of the problem is that so many people consider it a romance. It's like Romeo and Juliet...it's not a romance (or it's a terrible romance). If everyone insists it is the harder it is for the rest of us to swallow as a work of literature."
I spent much of last year reading Possession-A Romance, and this reminded me of the beginning quote. I can't pretend to fully understand it (no lit major here), but a Romance in literature doesn't necessarily mean "love story". Here's the quote, and, next connection, it's actually from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Preface to The House of the Seven Gables (Chrysalis Academy), which I think I read the summer of 2013.
"When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of a man's experience. The former--while as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation....The point of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone time with the very present that is flitting away from us."
This would be a great paper topic--in what ways are The House of the Seven Gables, Wuthering Heights, and Possession Romances? How do they fit Hawthorne's definition? Does his distinction between Romance and Novels still exist today?
So while not claiming to fully understand the Romance catagory, I don't equate it with "love story", and I think all of these books bring in fantastical elements to allow the author to explore what s/he wishes to explore.
Thank you for this Ali! It really got me thinking this morning.
I think to Hawthorne Romance was similar to Gothic...or Fantasy..for us. Not a love story as much as a story of Fancy. And like Magical Realism, it need not be 'true' in the strictest sense, but it does need to bring a lens to reality (or create connections between realities).
For me, I think the problem is that I pull back like an old mule when faced with something that does not make any sense to my experience and imagination. If the vast majority of people claim Wuthering Heights is a lovey-dovey, tragic romance (little r), then I pull back and refuse to go any further. It's not a romance and the characters are horrendous people who are a chore to follow. The prose is dull and repetitive to create a mood that makes me roll my eyes. Fie on you and your stupid tortured souls, I think.
Other people can really make or break a book. Not in the details. I can find a book dull or interesting, but other people can really take it down or up a notch. I didn't love House-Keeping by Marilynne Robinson until I talked through it with a similarly minded friend. It went from good to beloved.
It's also fun to follow the flow of books around here. This thread is excellent for hyping up books and verbalizing things about them that we only felt before. I see things people might find just generally good suddenly hyped into greatness and I marvel at the human social animal and how our emotions and socializing reinforce and build on our original positions. Another aspect of how we view a book (in addition to age and experience mentioned earlier) differently at different times.
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LostSurprise - My sister and I met Folktales of the Amur when we were in college and drooled over the illustrations. Is it the same one?
Nan
Yes, isn't it gorgeous? Pavlishin is a wonder. Someone used the bear illustration as an avatar last year and I had to seek it out. I got the last $20 used copy on Amazon with my birthday money. So worth it.
Thanks for the van der Wetering suggestion, Jane!
Wuthering Heights: Perhaps part of the problem is that so many people consider it a romance. It's like Romeo and Juliet...it's not a romance (or it's a terrible romance). If everyone insists it is, the harder it is for the rest of us to swallow it as a work of literature.
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Thank you whoever left the Historical Mysteries link! I'm going through a light binge of them right now.
Someone mentioned Robert van Gulik here at some point. He's a Dutch Orientalist who translated and also wrote Chinese mysteries in the Judge Dee cycle. Judge Dee is a fictional official in 7th century China who solves crimes. I guess there are quite a few Chinese stories about him, and some also by van Gulik. Interesting so far. I'm reading a book with his The Haunted Monastery (Taoist monastery) and The Chinese Maze Murders.
And I've thrown in Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors. It's in my Finally Finish pile.
I threw back Galatea 2.0. Couldn't get into it. Finished Beauty by Robin McKinley. She did a great job with description. Not too much. Good sense of wonder. I enjoyed it very much.
I like to read fairy tales in the darkest part of winter. I have Folktales of the Amur and Russian Fairy Tales waiting for me.
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Love those mittens! Are you using DPNs for those? If so, what size?
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Well...a lot depends. What your child is like socially. What kind of school it is. Whether they know anyone or can make connections quickly.
The beginning of middle school is not so bad. There is a lot of forming of new groups and your child can break in and find a group fairly easily. If your child is uncertain in social groups and flounders it can be very hard. Middle school in general can be hard.
My 6th grader has a lot of friends, but is not a part of any groups. He says there's a lot of nasty talk and he just doesn't hang around it.
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I'll cover a few other games dh either bought or received.
I've heard about this one from a friend who's in a large gaming group. It's a fairly easy trading game that moves quickly. Players can take gems or buy gems. Players taking gems take either 2 discs of one color (if the color has at least 4 in it's pile) or 3 discs of different colors. Players buying gems are really buying cards with gems on them. These cards give them 1 or more gems of a certain color that can be used indefinitely. The cards stay in front of you and are like free gems which automatically add to your total. When discs are used they are spent and go back to their piles.
Photos: Daniel Thurot, Creative Commons License
You can buy more and more complex cards (a little bit like Dominion), building up your 'free' gems which can be used to buy even more cards. The more complex cards have victory points on them. The game ends after a certain number of points is achieved.
It's fairly simple to play. Collect colors and spend them for more gems. It's fast. More players make more chaos, but it's pretty fun. The boys liked it.
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I have a lot of early childhood memories, so although I think primarily in words now I have a lot of sense memories of thinking in pictures. In 6th grade I used to do an exercise to help me remember what it was like when I was younger. I also associate visual thought with emotion. There's an interesting connection.
Done with 1177BC: the Year Civilization Collapsed. I think it's a good synthesis of modern archaeological and historical thought on the mid to late Bronze Age. I learned a lot about all the primary players in the eastern Mediterranean and I thought the mystery was interesting. What caused the major civilizations of the Bronze period to collapse, all with 75 years (or so) of each other, right before the advent of the Iron Age? Cline did a good job not falling into imaginative thought and helping you realize just how little straight information of the period we have. Also, how much ancient history is serendipitous archaeology and the logical examination of a 100 details. Despite the decent historical outline, I thought this was a bit dry, and Cline never did expand his thesis much. A good paper on the systems collapse of interconnected Bronze Age societies or a decent book on late Bronze Age trade and communication, not really both.
Almost done with Why Children Succeed. This is trying to be a Malcolm Gladwell book (even references him on one or two pages). I found the initial section on poverty, stress, neuro-biologic response, and executive function very interesting, but ultimately it doesn't really hold the promise of the title or beginning chapters. There's a lot about character here...most of which we can probably all agree with in one way or another. How we respond to things does help us succeed or undermine our efforts to get the things we want. Certain character traits can be developed. A lot of the anecdote was also interesting in a passing way. It's nice to see teachers and schools struggle with these issues and try to help kids in poverty. I think it's simply too large of a topic for Mr. Tough and he hasn't done much more than try to bring together some interesting articles he's done under too broad of a topic. Fast read though, for those who are interested, only 200 pages or so and mostly anecdotal.
any PaperbackSwap users here?
in The Chat Board
Posted
I've been thinking it over. The changeover happens Feb. 15. I did not mind the fee (.50 per transaction) on PBSs sister site CDSwap, but since I was always book trading and transferring credits for CDSwap it becomes a bit moot. I'm not getting the books I really want to continue paying for the bother of increases in both USPS and PBS.
So far, it's been equitable to the cheaper prices on Thriftbooks and I enjoy the surprise when a book pops up, but I think we're moving past that. It feels like fewer people with my interests are on PBS and I don't think this increase will improve my chances. It may be easier to quit and look for the books on bookfinder.com.