Swinging in the Clouds

Someone is finally going to have to take this camera away from me...or else my morning ride to work needs to be much duller with no orange sunrises and junior high girls singing Gloria Domine en Excelsius (or something like that). If you look closely at the first picture, you can see seven little birds perched on a line and coddled by the clouds? That's what I feel like sometimes on mornings like this--I have six carpool riders so we are seven, traveling along. It seems like I'm a very insignificant, very ordinary little gray bird--surrounded by extraordinary cloud beauty and song beauty and just reveling in it all.

A Rainy Sunday

Claye and I went for a drive this afternoon.
She drove and I took pictures.
It wasn't hot...or cold...just misty and muted.
Tiny droplets of rain hung in the air and there was hardly any wind.
It was perfect weather for the freshly plowed fields, and even the cows out in the pasture seemed to enjoy the feel of it on their backs as they munched peacefully beside the little farm roads.




Anyway. Here are some of the best pictures.

Puptuplets

These early fall mornings are perfect for walking around the town. Of course, I don't usually have time for that, being a working woman and all, but every morning, just about the time I go rushing out to start the Suburban, I see this determined lady walking her dogs, who seem to be delighted to be out and about. They nip at each other occasionally, but don't waste time brawling. I've never seen her use the stick anyway. Maybe it's just to keep predators away from the precious pooches.

She and I are alike, I think... except my charges nip a little louder and swap places occasionally without tangling their leashes. As long as I keep them moving swiftly along, though, they are busy, and content. I see my job as guiding, cajoling--encouraging them to follow the right paths. Yes, I do carry a big stick; mostly, it's to keep the predators away from my precious cargo.

Somehow--with camera in hand--I

stumbled into a foreign classroom, on the other side of the building, where I found abandoned bones in a big glass box, a bustle of boys by a bunsen burner and one young science madonna, preparing a slide by the cool blue light of the biology lab.

Two Mornings in a Row

I think it's beginning to be a habit with the morning sky. Look what we got to see this morning, my riders and I, that is. They love for me to stop and take a picture of the sunrise, hoping in vain that we'll be late for school. They won't be counted tardy if the van is late, and five minutes they don't have to sit in class is five minutes of FREEDOM. (never mind that they are sitting stuffed into a warm, Suburban beside the road, sharing a hand held video game or wiggling enough to annoy each other into "stop-its") Ah the obstreperousness of junior high kids! If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see the sunbeams streaming from the top of the cloud.

Sunrise Sunrise

This morning I got an extra special sunrise as a gift from Heaven.
Anybody who doesn't feel great after enjoying ten miles of this...
must have stayed up too late and drunk prune juice for breakfast!

Well at least they aren't normal....

My grandson Zaya is now five years old, and his little sister, Mim, is four. When they came in the door for a visit today, their faces were excited and they both began to talk at once. Zaya wanted me to help set up a simple potato growing experiment he had been reading about on the trip over. He proceeded to lay the book on the floor and read me every step. Meanwhile, Mim was delivering a present she had made for me and watching while I opened the envelope. There was an autographed, decorated card along with a hand drawn picture of...
"what did you draw for me?" I asked. "
Without a moment of hesitation she told me, "It's the inside of a dog. You know, his egestive system."
So,of course, I taped it to the refrigerator while I opened the crisper to search for a potato with eyes.
"In a few days," Zaya assured me, "several buds will appear, but if you see white flowers, stop watering it."
"Oh, why should I do that?"
"Because if you don't, the potato will rot."

Then they were off--Mim to drag everything out of the toy box and Zay to see if the wii was up and running and if any new video games had magically appeared.

Later, while jumping on the front room couch cushions, Zaya cut the bottom of his foot. As I ran warm water over it and applied antibiotic salve, I tried to get in a lesson on the dangers of jumping on couch cushions and opening ones foot to bacteria. He quickly re-assured me:
"Don't worry, Grandma, those bacteria that manage to escape into my foot will be killed by macrophages and neutrophils."
"Neutrophils?"
"Well, and other leucocytes; they are lining up right now to attack"

...And they are, of course. I'll go straighten the couch cushions and consider another strategy: simple commands perhaps.

Why I Love Mornings

I took these pictures in front of my house this morning. It was quiet--so still the squirrels were sleeping, and the ground under my slippers was soft from last night's rain.

The Corral

Homecoming week at school. It's wild and crazy. Hard to get a lot done with characters like these sitting at the desks, but--for all the silliness--it does bring joy into this process we call education. We love to dress up and dress down...and I should have shown a shot of pajama day. Oh well. Some things are better left to the imagination.

Weeds Like Us--A Book Worth Reading

I've just finished a new book that came to the library as a gift. Hopefully, we will buy more of them...enough to make them required reading for every student. The book is just that good. It's called Weeds Like Us.

Gunter Nitsch, in the simple style and language of a young boy, relates the events of his life beginning with the closing year of World War II. He lived in Germany--in the province once known as Prussia--when the war ended and the Russians invaded. Not allowed to flee to Germany, Guntar's family was caught in a deadly trap. Since their sons-in-law were fighting in Germany, Opa and Oma, the grandparents, determined to keep their two daughters and seven grandchildren alive and sane in the middle of a terrible situation. Their faith, love, and endurance; the women's self-sacrificial intrepidity, and even the children's labor and diligence, played a huge part in Gunter's survival and character development. The horrors of those refugee years are interspersed with accounts of his youthful mischief, and we see not only through his eyes, but past what he could understand at the time to the courage of the people in his life. Every teen-ager who has always had food to eat and a warm place to sleep needs to read this book, especially if said teen complains about his or her pampered life.

The author does include some graphic situations, but compared to the brutality of what actually went on in that part of the world, they are presented as gently as possible. The holocaust is not ignored (at one point the Grandfather has to re-bury victims and realizes that the atrocities were committed by his own countrymen. He is stricken with a sad, haunted, horror)but most of the book centers on the Communist takeover and their treatment of those left in the occupied lands. German, Russian, Jew--their hardships are not ignored...neither is the evil in the heart of man, nor the goodness found in unexpected people.

Read the book. You will see what I mean.

Hunger...Well Thirst Anyway

The Sunday Scribblings prompt was Hunger, and all I could think of was that verse in Psalms where David "hungers" for the Lord ...but when I looked it up it was all about thirst. Ah well. I thirst for Him too. Here's that great passage from Psalm 63:

O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.

School, School, Wild and Weary

I know I haven't been posting nearly as much lately, but that's because I've been weary. School is great--don't misunderstand me--but the fast pace of teenagers keeps me on my feet. You will notice that in all of these pictures there is very little classwork going on. Well. That's because I can't take pictures when I'm teaching...and when they are quietly working, I'm quietly helping them, scurrying like a plump little mouse among the sleek little tigers. (Our theme this year is WILD*so I had to throw that in)

*Within the Lords Design


Here's a couple of diligent freshmen who came early to school...quietly reading in the science room, and you'll see some students playing with the math geometry toys, building stars and towers and being creative. (Don't think the older kids don't love these too; their endeavors are pretty amazing. In a few minutes they build a city on the table.) When their work is done, they love to play stratego or chess...even if it's only for a few minutes. (Most days I have junior-high boys in my room during lunch to finish these games.) On game days, the pep band plays for us in the hall at the end of fifth hour. Last week I took my sophomore class to the nursing home to sing for the older people there. They practiced for a couple of days and came up with four numbers--Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, God Will Make a Way, and Rock of Ages. It was a little slow, but I think the people enjoyed it anyway. One girl played the piano and a guy played the guitar. We were going to walk the five blocks to the home, but it rained, so we all--almost all anyway--piled into the school suburban. On the way back we stopped in at the only restaurant in town and bought schnetka.

Wordless Wednesday

Western Oklahoma Countryside

Late summer evenings
and the sun so slowly passes,
stretching for one glimmer on the rocks,
one last glowing
on the grasses




Hurry now, for the clouds are crowding
and this green will all go black;
Even the rocks are changing--
yellow gold to dark and cold.
and it'll be hours before they're back!









Oh, let's run down this little road;
for I know the house
that sits just over that hill.
I've never seen a cloud
that made it past the door,
and lavish light's on every window sill

Visiting an Oklahoma Village

Little prairie towns in Oklahoma deteriorate slowly, their once bustling buildings sitting vacant, or going through a string of hopeful small business ventures before they become a storage place for old stuff nobody wants...except antique collectors who come to sniff, sort, and scavenge. Schools move out of town, consolidating with the neighbors, and the buildings become museums and libraries, which try to keep alive those memories of the valiant prairie souls--sodbusters and homesteaders who tamed this land and are buried beneath it.


Clay and I went down to Mangum last week to check out the "art street" there. We had read that there was a potter shop, and wanted to see for ourselves. Unfortunately, it was election day in our town, and staying long enough to vote meant we arrived one minute after five o'clock. Everything was closed except the ice cream shop. So while we slurped on waffle cones--mine was peach and hers was some kind of murky-looking chocolate delight--we roamed around the town and took pictures. The natives were friendly, and the evening cool just right.

In the Fog

Early morning, hazy light
Every day, he walks the dog.
Sees me watching, gives a nod.
Knows how much we both
enjoy the fog.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Well--Known Proverbs... Well, it Depends on Who's Saying Them.

Whenever we study Proverbs, I give my seventh and eighth graders common proverbs to complete. If they don't know the proverb, they try to guess at the answers. Then we discuss them. This gives me lots of fun, and helps them learn at the same time. Here are some samples of their answers. Some of them show a lot of good thinking, even if it changes the original idea. (If you can't remember the original proverb, look at the bottom of the page.)

1. You can't make a silk purse....

...without a worm

2. A little learning...

...goes a long way

...a lot of earning

(I think both of these are overly optimistic about the
job market.)

3. Don't cross the bridge

...until they build it (smart)

...until the trolls are gone (smarter)

...until you know what lies beyond it (smartest)

4. It takes one...

to make a difference
(He should be a motivational speaker, I think)

5. Don't throw the baby...

if you can't catch it. (Very scary...)

6. Don't make a mountain...

if you can't climb it. (Sounds like a good plan)

7. Don't cut off your nose...

if you want to breathe (Technically....well, we didn't go there.)

8. Don't count your chickens...

until you kill the fox. (Now this one really makes sense.)

9. Two's Company; Three's ...

... a gaggle, ( but that's geese... so would it be a giggle of girls?)
... a crunch,
... a party,
... business (I like this one)

10. A Bird in the hand is ...

....a lovely feeling. (someone is a bird lover...or a fried chicken eater)


The Real Answers
1. out of a sow's ear 2. is a dangerous thing 3. until you come to it 4. to know one 5. out with the bathwater 6. out of a molehill 7. to spite your face 8. until they hatch 9. three's a crowd 10. is worth two in the bush

Death of a Computer

I came home to find a dead computer, and all my frantic attempts at resuscitation were in vain. Nobody admitted to seeing the actual demise of the PC, so it must have quietly expired while I was at work and Turtle and Claye were gallivanting around the countryside.

Not that there hadn't been signs, mind you. For two weeks now, something has been nibbling away at the computer innards. We first noticed it when Turtle exploded: "Hey! Where's Free Cell? It's not on here! Of all the stupid..." And though we tried to calm him, it only resulted in muttered threats of how we'd like it if someone deleted Puzzle Pirates, or worse yet--Facebook!
Nobody was deleting anything...and yet the fact remained. Not only Free Cell, but Spider Solitaire and all the standard games that stock the basic set-up were gone.

The next noticeable glitch came three days later: I did a print screen and tried to save it in paint. No Paint. Where was paint? How can there be a windows without paint? And yet...it was gone...spilled messily throughout the modem, no doubt, and dumped osmotically into that vast chasm called the "void of lost foreverness" where it joined, very probably, a malicious hoard of run-away homework assignments and painstakingly filled out income tax forms.

This was a ravenous bug indeed.

So today, when I walked into the house and saw a black screen instead of my computer generated screen-saver aquarium fish, I panicked. However, after only a moment in this hysterical state, I regained control and promptly began CPR--computer procedures for resuscitation. I restarted the system five or six times, plugged and unplugged all the cords, struck all the magic F keys, and hurled insults at the stubborn monitor, but one cold truth remained written indelibly on the screen after every feeble attempt at re-bootation: the virus had finally swallowed a vital organ--something nameless and only referred to as number 32. tum-tum-tum.

Well, it looked like I'd stumbled onto a hopeless situation, but I wasn't giving up yet...I had a shock disc--a re-installation CD--ha ha! I pulled out the paddles and said: "Stand Back!"

No biggie. It only took three hours to reformat and reload.

So here I am on my new computer; the sound isn't working yet, but I have e-mail, facebook, and picture it again. Interestingly enough I also have all those little games that come with the computer--Turtle will be happy to find free cell...and...I didn't lose any documents or pictures; they were all safe on my external hard drive. (As you can tell, this has happened before with more tragic results.) Life is grand in computer land.

A Book Young Children Will Love

Here's a book that children absolutely love. It's all about manners. Yes, that wasn't a typo. Manners. It's called, "Do I Have to Say Hello?


Years ago, my own children received it as a gift from their own "Aunt Delia". They enjoyed it. I packed it away, and now the grand kids have discovered it. The format consists mainly of multiple choice questions dealing with correct behavior and polite responses in various situations. The wrong answers are so inappropriate that everyone cracks up, but the lesson is taken, nonetheless. As an added bonus, the drawings are ludicrous and particularly amusing to elementary children.
I recommend that every adult read it aloud to a child. They both might learn something and it's great to laugh together.

Storms, Shadows, and Sunshine

Yesterday afternoon it rained...poured is more like it...Standing on my porch, I felt like I had been trapped behind a waterfall in a secret, dark cavern. It was wonderful. When the light broke through and the drips diminished, everything was colored a dull yellow gold. I stepped outside to see this rainbow stretching across the heavens. If you look closely, you will see another arc behind it...a shadow, if you will of the rainbow.

Am I All Grown Up?

So the Sunday Scribblings topic today is "Adult". When are you an adult?

Well, that's a relevant topic for me. I just sent my son off to his first, full-time job, teaching music to elementary children, and when he comes home he regales us with tales of his tactics. (This week he serenaded his students with O Sole Mio on the accordion) My second daughter is doing interviews for work and considering possibilities far removed from here, making pottery or working in a museum, and my oldest is enjoying a little quiet at home, working on that novel, now that the grandkids are in morning pre-school and kindergarten. Yes. They are all quite grown up.

Yet, as they were visiting today, laughing and lounging around the house, enjoying the children and the general bustle of life, even playing Mancala, it didn't seem like I was sitting in a room full of stodgy, old adults. We were all just kids. Occasionally though we had to grow up: Carina tending little ones; me, cooking, washing, picking up after; Turtle putting finishing touches on his sermon, and on the edges of the front lawn; Elijah and his visiting girlfriend cleaning out the car for a trip to the fair, where he has a music gig; and Claye sorting clothes and cataloging paints. Now that they are all gone for a few hours I should really be acting more mature. There are dishes on the counter; the floor needs mopping, and the carpet could stand a vacuuming, but I'm blogging--because being an adult can be tedious.

Oh I know it means freedom--making all the decisions for yourself: what time to go to sleep or get up; what groceries to buy at the store, and which of those to eat and which to let rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator; what kind of clothes to wear; what kind of people to befriend; which church to attend. It's heady and thrilling. But that's not all.

Being an adult means doing things that need doing--before someone asks you to do them. It means taking the blame for your own mistakes instead of blaming everyone around or every circumstance. It means looking at the consequences and plodding along--working, working, even when it's not fun. That's not something you just grow into. It's more like a mantle that gets thrown onto your shoulders. Sometimes you wear it like a royal robe; sometimes you spread it on the floor, get down on your knees and play Mancala with the grand children.

So I wonder sometimes...am I all grown up yet?

Little Boys Need Their Dads

I don't really have to say much about this one, do I?
Do you have a son? Why don't you go talk to him?

Wordless Wednesday