Projects – Page 3 – My Truant Pen

Thirty-four (34)

September is one of my favorite months. I love the crispness of the air, the brightness of the sun, the blueness of the sky and the sense of change and possibility that rides on the adventurous breezes. It is back-to-school, new-pencil time. I often return to Tolkien, the progenitor of so many of my childhood daydreams, in September – fondly remembering that Bilbo, Frodo and I are separated in birthday by a scant day. (There was a time in my life where I attempted to figure out whether if, what with time zones and all, I could in any way be considered to be born on September 22nd. There is not, for the record.)

And here we are, on the first welcome day of autumn after a delicious and delightful summer, looking at my birthday. My thirty-fourth birthday.

My mother in law painted my dining room for my 34th birthday

Is there any birthday less consequential than your 34th? I’m no longer young, but not quite middle aged yet. I feel no biological clock ticking down because I’ve had my children. I still can’t be president. It’s not divisible by any exciting numbers. There are no (known) science fiction or fantasy references that make it significant (like 42). It’s just another birthday.

But this year, I find myself wildly and unreasonably excited by it. Look at that! I’m having a birthday! Isn’t that marvellous?! Maybe we should have cake! Although I still find myself melancholy on reflection of my lost little kitty, and although I have been somewhat tired and worn of late, my birthday is still (unexpectedly) exciting to me.

I reflect on why this might be. I come to the conclusion it’s because, for the first time in many years, there’s something I actually want for my birthday that I do not have and have been waiting to obtain for months. A new guitar. A grownup-size guitar. A guitar that says, “Yes, Brenda is really actually playing the guitar now.” A pretty guitar with a graceful body and mother-of-pearl inlay. (I hesitate to confess how much my heart was set on mother-of-pearl inlay.) A guitar with a darkly beautiful sound and an easy way of laying in my arms. I have sought, daydreamed and wanted, and for my birthday I have obtained my heart’s desire.

There are other things too, of course, that make my birthday delightful. There is the delight of a guilt-free chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and rather fewer than 34 candles. There is the delight of watching my sons learn the joy of giving. The New England Patriots are even obliging by playing an 8 pm game on my birthday (although one ardently hopes that this week’s performance is better than last’s – UGH! Eds note: QUADRUPLE UGH!).

Finally, this day initiates the fall for me – coming as it does so close to the equinox. Bring on the orange and brown palette. Let there be pumpkin stickers. May the fridge hold apple cider and the kitchen be fragrant with boiling apple butter. Let us open the windows during the day and close them during the night. Let me wake to the sound of the furnace turning on to heat the room for morning ablutions. Let there be birthdays and Halloweens and Cthulu games and apple picking and Mocksgiving and Thanksgiving and Advent and Christmas. I am ready.

For lo: I am 34. I am not young. I am not old. I am not even – quite yet – middle aged. I have learned how much there is to love of fall, and stand ready to lay down another layer of memory to build the beautiful patina of age.

Dear Trumpet

Trumpet and I getting together for Easter

My Dearest Trumpet,

You were absolutely my first love. Obviously, you weren’t the first instrument I dated. Piano and I went out for a few years before we met, and I had a crush on voice when I was a little girl. But I fell head over heels for you. I remember the time we played Cappriccio Italien together. There were all the good times at the Evergreen Music Festival or with the Tacoma Youth Symphony. We had fun in pep band (well, even though we rolled our eyes. I still have the third trumpet part – the best part – to “Sweet Child of Mine” memorized). I used to drag you everywhere. Do you remember that 15 days driving trip across the US when I practiced with you at rest stops and behind hotels?

I don’t think I’ve ever been more in love with you than I was in high school. You made me feel like I was flying on a dragon when we played Gabrieli together. You were with me in one of the best moments of my youth, when Dr. Cobbs winked and told us – for an encore – that we were going to “crash the ship again” in Scheherazade.

I cannot imagine how my life would have been without you, and I wouldn’t trade our time together for anything.

In the normal course of events, though, I went to college. And although I formed a brass quintet (I cannot BELIEVE that site is still up!) and tried playing in the college symphony, it just wasn’t the same. I don’t want to say we’d grown apart, but we both moved on to other things.

After that, it was like we were Facebook friends. Oh, we’d get together a few times a year at Easter or Christmas or for special occasions. But even though I tried to rekindle the spark by looking for a nice symphony orchestra – or even a brass ensemble – where we could be happy together… it just didn’t work out. I spent a long time pining for you. Over a decade, I remained true. Ok, so there was that one fling with the cornetto, but it that was over quickly.

Finally I had to admit, though, that it was over between us. Things would never be the way they were. I guess that’s the way it goes, isn’t it? You can’t go back to the way things were when you were 17. And I moved on.

You know that I’ve been seeing a new instrument – guitar. And it’s been good to me. I mean, the guitar is patient and kind. It gets along a lot better with my friends than you ever did. I could see guitar and I building something beautiful together – not like what you and I had. Nothing could ever reach that. But, you know, a comfortable life together. We were just starting to get serious, you know. Talk about some investments together. Sign some papers. That kind of thing.

Then all of a sudden, you want back in? Really? That wind ensemble that reached out to me; with the amazing looking repertoire, and the schedule I could actually do… but that is on the same night as guitar lessons… let me get this straight. You want me to break up with guitar, and come back to you? And you’re saying that it won’t be just like it was, but it will be great again between us.

The question is, my dear Anduril¹, do you mean it, or are you just playing with my heart again? I don’t want to break up with this good and loving instrument just to have my heart broken again. But I can’t really pass up the change to be with you again, either.

I’ve asked to audition in December – gives me some time to see how guitar and I are working out. But… don’t break my heart, trumpet.

-Me

¹ Yes, that really is the name of my trumpet. What can I say, I named it when I was like 14 and the two things I loved best in life were trumpet and Tolkien. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

Roller Coaster Ride

It’s taken me years to finally figure out the rhythm and the schedule of the grownup me. It’s hard when you leave behind the beginning and conclusions, the milestones, the counting down of your school life. All of a sudden, there are no logical breaks. You do not get a fresh start every fall. You do not matriculate, commence or otherwise change. It feels as though life is now a blur of barely differentiated days: a gradient instead of an ordinal scale.

But finally, after more than a decade of careful attention, I think I have it figured out. Beginning in January is a long, slow slog up the tracks of the year. We go seven or eight months with only a handful of three day weekends. There’s a particularly appalling stretch from mid-February to the end of May when every single week has five workdays in it. Before I had kids I resented this time of year as boring, undifferentiated, tedious. Now I find it enjoyable in its own right. That slog-uphill time is the time of year when not every weekend is claimed, when I have time to read novels or play video games, when yes-I-can-get-together-this-Friday happens. You spend a weekend doing something that doesn’t Make Great Memories and somehow it doesn’t matter as much. I mean, it’s not like you wasted great weather this weekend.

As the weather warms, the snow melts and May arrives, things start heating up. Suddenly, “it seems like a pity to waste” re-enters the vocabulary on Saturdays. I realize that the next three weekends are fully committed. Whole blocks of the calendar disappear under markings like “Camp Gramp”, “Gen Con” or (this year) “London”. These are, of course, completely awesome things. Summer is the high season for adventures. The pictures pile up on the memory cards, the laundry is carefully calibrated around how many bathing suits my eldest son has (and his !$@#$ summer camp t-shirts that must be worn twice a week) and take-out menus get a good workout. But still, there’s that feeling of space in life. It’s summer. Vacation is coming. This is going to be great!

Sitting in Ashland, sipping my 93rd cup of coffee at Dragonfly while reading “A Civil Campaign” (again), I had this sensation of being on a roller coaster. All winter and spring it had chugged its way up the mountain of tracks as I gazed around at the altitude-revealed scenery. That moment in Asland we were at the very top of the tracks, and only the weight of the cars behind us kept us from our full plummeting speed.

So today… wheeeeee!!!!!

From here to 2013 is a crazy ride. I’m conducting a wedding on Saturday. Adam goes to Gencon soon. I have approximately 93 batches of jam to make. We’re camping again. School starts. My MIL arrives. My birthday happens. I get started on the labor of love that is my Christmas cards (yes! In September!). Then Grey’s birthday. Somewhere in here we go apple picking and then make at least two batches of apple butter. Two weeks later, Adam’s birthday. A week after that, Thane’s birthday. Three days after that, Halloween. Two weeks after that, Mocksgiving. Two more weeks to Thanksgiving. (Ironically, the only breather in this schedule. Unless I get inspired to go somewhere … which knowing me I probably will.) Then holy-cow-how-is-it-Advent-already? Then Adam’s gone for a week for a work conference. Then Christmas, followed by New Years. And all that stuff? That’s the EVERY YEAR stuff. (Well, except the wedding this weekend.) There are always exceptional and unusual events added into that mix. Zoom! No wonder I feel like my schedule is picking up speed.

I find it funny that this month, of all months, I would decide to start a big new project (http://technicallypretty.com) that requires consistent attention. I think I do this every year. It takes me a few months after that ride to get my breath – and my courage back. But then my lizard-brain notices a pattern of several months of under utilization! Obviously circumstances have changed and I now have more disposable time! Let’s come up with some new ideas we want to try, ok? Great idea. My lizard brain has not figured out the pattern that my mammal brain lays out here.

Still, maybe this is the year that, uh, somehow that schedule is not jam packed? Maybe my new writing time plan (on the bus on the way home on a teeny netbook) will somehow mean I actually DO have more disposable time for my new blog? Even if not, in the most hectic days of October I will be able to remind myself that come January it won’t be quite so crazy.

Does your adult life have a consistent seasonal pattern? How much does it line up – or do you make it line up – with that old academic calendar? When are your busy times and your free times, or is it more consistent for you?

OK, ok, so the paint color wasn’t what I was hoping it would be

My mother-in-law just left after a ten day visit. The usual thing for me to tell you about now would be which room got renovated/painted/completely redone/stripped to the studs. In past visits, we’ve redone the bathroom, repainted several rooms, removed the carpeting in the entryway, painted the basement floor, added a psuedo closet to my bedroom, and indubitably a few other home improvements I’ve forgotten about. In fact, this might be just about the first trip she’s made here where nothing has gotten painted.

I took this picture from the couch while playing Fable III because I was too lazy to stand up and get a real picture.

We did, however, buy new curtains, a new bookshelf (as yet unassembled), throw pillows, remove the living room carpet, and make plans for the complete annexation of the living room and dining room walls. Also, I have been excoriated on the color in the living room which my husband TOLD me wouldn’t work and doesn’t work. I was going for restful green and got off-puce. Ah well.

In other thrilling news, my generation of appliances is failing. My theory is this… you build a new house and you buy all new appliances. All your appliances last a multiple of ten years. Washer and dryer: 10 years. Oven: 20 year. Furnace: 40 years. Etc. You can tell which multiple by finding the 10 year increment after the warranty runs out for. Example: if you have a 10 year warranty, your appliance will likely last 10 years and 2 days. That means that, for the most part, you have 10 years of appliance peace and happiness. Then, in a 3 month period, the majority of your appliances will fail. Here’s a rundown on my appliance health as of three weeks ago:

Hot water heater: bought last year with 11 year warranty to try to outsmart 10 year issue
Fridge: too small, light broken, need to replace load bearing wall to upgrade
Oven: beeps and flashes F10 error message after it is turned off
Washing machine: would not agitate unless you thump on the lid after it fills up – declines to spin
Dryer: Not bad
Standup freezer: ancient and running perfectly, thanks
Dishwasher: older than me and does not actually clean dishes. Effective for spreading grease evenly between glasses.
Furnace: lalalal! I can’t hear you! I’m sure it will be fine for another 30 years! (Thanks, not going to worry about it. I spend all my time worrying about the roof instead.)

Anyway, I finally hit the boiling point with greasy dishes and soggy clothes. I spent one weekend researching and buying, and my husband spent the next weekend installing.

I bought a new washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher. I do wonder if I should have bought the dryer, but it seemed foolhardy to buy just the new washing machine and leave the old dryer. So far I’m pleased. Actually, of the three I’m least pleased with the dryer, which I feel does an inadequate job of, you know, drying. And also does not have an “earshattering” setting for the buzzer, which is convenient when you’re a floor away. Also, I had to buy completely and 100% new soap for all of them, since they are clearly too good, to modern and too important to use my old, lousy soap. So there.

Adam saving us $150 by plumbing the dishwasher himself. Also: increasing Grey's vocabulary with some key phrases.

The dishes are done. The laundry is done. The shopping is done. The boys rooms are clean. I can finally relax! And it’s only 9:45 on a Sunday – that’s early for relax time! I might actually, you know, read a book!

This thesis-less post brought to you by the day “Sunday”, Ikea, and the appliance department at Best Buy.

Hello World!

A bit of background is probably in order, before I launch into my most recent adventure. Despite being a language-oriented person, I somehow stumbled into a career in web application development. No one was more surprised by this than I was, but the year was 2000. Even more to my surprise, I turned out to be a pretty good developer. My favorite part is database development (SQL/datastructures), but I’m also strong through the middle tier and display layer in a dissed programming language called Coldfusion. Javascript and I have an uneasy truce much relieved by the introduction of packages like jQuery and PrototypeJS. I spent 10 years as a full time developer.

But I always thought to myself, “I have a windy tongue! I am a people person! I therefore cannot really be a coder.” And so I got a job that used all my people skillz and none of my technology skillz. I thought with a pang at how hard I’d worked, but this seemed the way to go.

Now I’m leaving that job, and going to one where I will be much, much closer to the technology. My new boss already sent me the APIs, and I’m extremely and muchly excited to get back to technology – much to my surprise! I mean, who knew I really like code and technology and programming?

In the lull between jobs, in addition to reading novels, taking naps, and cleaning the attic… I thought I would crack open the ol’ development tools and remind myself of the problems and delights of code, if only for a few days.

So our heroine began here: http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html

Here’s a secret: the very hardest part of starting to do development (if you are not already a developer) is getting your development environment up and running. I mean, I am a programmer and the computer I’m working on used to be my dev environment. But I needed a new version of Eclipse (free & not so hard), a JDK (very very hard – I have a 32 bit Windows computer and you have to KNOW which JDK will work for a 32 bit computer and everyone who writes stuff for programming assumes that you have this perfectly obvious to them piece of knowledge and Google was failing me and I even ordered a new computer because then I could get 64 bit Windows and plus I need a new computer anyway but its not here yet and my time is running out and my husband who is of the programming cognoscenti finally helped me identify a sufficiently up to date version of the JDK I could install – but it still took several days) and the Android SDK. And you have to pray that you configured them all correctly so they can talk.

GOOGLE KEYWORD BREAK TO HELP THE NEXT SCHMO:
What is the right JDK if I have 32 bit Windows?
The right JDK for 32 bit Windows users is Windows x86.
(http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javasebusiness/downloads/java-archive-downloads-javase6-419409.html)
Windows x86 76.81 MB jdk-6u29-windows-i586.exe
Windows 32 bit JDK for JDK 6.0 is Windows x86
END GOOGLE KEYWORD BREAK

(I mean, isn’t it perfectly obvious that you need x86 if you have 32 bit Windows? No? Yeah, not for me either.)

Once you’ve done all that, three lines of code take a base application and turn it into “Hello World.” With no further ado, I give you:

Yay! I have an app in mind (A Christmas list manager, to help you figure out who you’re buying for, what your budget is and how you’re doing vs. budget. Also to help you so you have equal number of presents per child and do not find a bag of presents in your closet a month later… WHICH I JUST DID.) I do not believe this app will take the app world by storm, but at least it’s a quasi useful something to work on with a very simple first stage and a lot of opportunity for me to muck around. Actually, in all truth, I do not believe I will ever finish this app but I MIGHT! And if I did, I could actually use it.

Now all I have to do is figure out what mobile app developers use instead of databases. I’ve spent my entire professional life clinging tightly to databases, but I think it’s different out here in the wild wild west. I need to figure out a whole new paradigm for display – I’m REALLY hoping it’s easier to make an average looking app than it is an average looking website. I am not so good at making pretty stuff online. Also, DROID app development is based on JAVA, and I’m not really a JAVA programmer. I mean, some of my best friends are JAVA and all. Coldfusion is written in JAVA and some of the advanced development is more or less JAVA… and I took a class on JAVA 2 in college which introduced stuff like inheritance… but yeah. I’m not a JAVA developer.

But hey. I got my development environment working after five days of intermittent effort, so how hard can the rest be?

Now that the half of you who are my developer buddies are rolling your eyes at my naivete and the other half of you who read for cute kid anecdotes are completely lost, I will leave you there. Because the next stage is to use XML to handle my layout instead of doing it directly in the JAVA. Ooooooohhhhh…..

Yours in supreme geeky bliss,

More or Less

I, more or less, have the life I want to have. I am married to the right person. I have kids I really like. I have friends, hobbies and fun activities. I have a career that is well positioned for the present and future, and which I (usually) enjoy. I like my house. I’m somewhere between liking the way I look and being at peace with the way I look. I do meaningful things in my religious life, and in a more limited way in some volunteering activities. I would not want to make sweeping changes to my life in this new year.

But, as always, it is a time for reflection, readjustment and readiness.

The very biggest thing I would want to change, I have changed. I sincerely hope the new job waiting for me in January will be even a portion as well-suited to me as it seems from the interview stage. I believe this will have cascading effects on my energy, enthusiasm, cheerfulness, attention and other areas that have been lacking of late.

That one big one out of the way, here are my mores and lesses.

More: paper art. I have this huge collection of stamps and papers and brads and fun things. I believe that rubber stamping is somewhat waning as an “in” art, but I never did it because it was popular. And in truth, I could scrapbook and stamp for years without having fully utilized the complete extend of what I already own. I want to make and send cards. I want to scrapbook big events. I want to sit at my desk and feel creative.
Key constraint: time & attention. It requires 15-20 minutes where I have no supervision over my children whatsoever. The stamping stuff is, by necessity, physically distant from the main living space, so it requires intention to find myself doing this.
Next step: Clean off stamping area and make inviting.

Less: fussy meals. I’m a good cook. I cook several full big serious meals a week. I like to think that my children benefit from meals with real ingredients, and that I do too. But the prep, fighting over “yes you must take one bite” and cleanup afterwards consume a tremendous amount of my already limited discretionary time. Time spent chopping onions is time not spent playing Quirkle with Grey, reading Scooby Doo to Thane for the umpteenth time, or modelling that reading is a thing our family does by sitting on the couch and reading instead of making dinner. This one is a hard one because cooking good healthy meals is generally something one aspires to do more of. I still want to have that outcome, but somehow magically spend less time doing it.
Key constraint: Habit & preparation. I would need to identify “lower prep” meals and make it easier to make those meals – this would require test driving some more recipes. I need to quash my instinct to add “just one more thing” to the menu, which invariably makes the meal 15 minutes past what I wanted. And I need to not take this too far — this is a striving to moderation.
Next step: Perhaps a list of 30 minute or less recipes? Add a “Friday forage” night to the weekly menu? Challenge myself when I think, “Gee, I don’t have anything planned this afternoon, why don’t I make moussake” with a “Or I could make pork tenderloin and stamp three cards instead”.

More: reading & video games. Sometimes I feel like our lifestyle is a hot air balloon, and one by one I’ve dropped all the “fun but not really productive” activities like bags of sand off the side. Each choice was valid and necessary, but all work and no play makes Brenda cranky. I suspect that this feeling has a lot to do with the massive push that always happens to me in the last quarter of the year, with birthdays, Mocksgiving, Christmas, etc. and this is a somewhat self-correcting problem. Still, I want to feel as though it’s ok to waste time and goof off and not do something useful, and I think that I need that. The Economist recently had a series on video games, and talked about the ingrained human need for play. In an attempt to maintain altitude, I’ve tried to ignore my own need for play. That’s ok in short durations, but I do not think it is durable.
Key constraint: Time. Both of these are absorptive activities – this is an area where I have weak willpower to stop, which means I can be afraid to start. For me, opening a novel at 9 pm is a very bad idea, since long experience has taught me that the most likely outcome of that evening involves 1 am and a very cranky husband. This is also time I’ve used in the last year or two to be social (yay neighbors!) which is also a really important and valuable thing to my mental health.
Next step: Well, I just got a co-op game for XBox (my poor husband must be all like, “I thought this was MY present?!?!”). With the reading, I have yet to solve this problem. Audio books have helped a bit, but I’m not sure that’s the entire conclusion.

Less: clutter. Time, once again, to take a hard look at the objects that inhabit my living space and question their right to exist and take up the rays emitting from my eyes. Perhaps a few visually distracting areas can be redone to be more contained.
Key constraint: energy. Just looking around now, the last thing I want to do is to start tackling some of those rats nests, and it’s relatively early and I have tomorrow off. If not now, when?
Next step: Discrete periods of time. Saying to my husband, “Let’s take half an hour and go through the china cabinet” has proved an effective strategy in the past.

Other mores:
– Playing music
– Going to concerts or musical events
– Healthy and fun exercise (no longer mutually exclusive with video games!)
– Seeing friends I rarely see
– Do all my pt for my knee

Other lesses:
– Fewer empty calories
– Less conflict with my three year old (and I want a pony too!)
– I would love to in general be less rushed and less efficient… a little more leisurely and less hard on myself

So, what about you? What do you want less of in 2012? What do you want more of?

Hex heaven and hell

So, here’s a funny story I failed to share with you at the time. As you all know, bated-breath-daily-readers, my son began Kindergarten in our public school this year. What this really means is that we entered the Realm of the PTO Fundraiser. Now, I’m delighted by the Japanese drummers and such that the PTO helps pay for, so I cheerfully forked over my dues. Then there was the big Halloween fundraiser. Every family was expected to sell 12 cash raffle tickets at $5 a piece (or $25 for six). I toyed with offering to swap purchases with our similarly be-Kindergartenered neighbors. But when I jokingly mentioned this “great opportunity” to my mother-in-law, she actually professed a desire to part with money for these tickets and demanded I offer said opportunity to my parents as well. Bemused, I did. And thus I disposed of our 12 obliged tickets, end of story.

Or not. We left the Halloween party prior to the great unveiling of winners, but not being the optimistic sort thought nothing of it. Until the day my mother-in-law arrived home to find a $500 check. She was the grand prize winner!

Now, long time readers of the blog will know that one of my mother-in-law’s favorite hobbies is home renovation. Namely: our home. It started with painting the basement floor the week we moved in. Then we had Thane’s prenatal bedroom renovation (she painted), our bedroom repainting (while I was gone one day), the kitchen repainting, the hallway repainting (she’s a genius with paint), the entry-way transformation early one post-Piemas morning, and the infamous “I’m sure the tile under the carpet is in fine shape” bathroom renovation just this September. All this she has accomplished despite living 1000 miles away and weighing 90 pounds wet. (To be fair, my parents helped demo Thane’s room and repainted the living room 3 years ago this week. But they don’t daydream about our attic the same way Laureen does.) And I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two more minor renovations she instigated or executed. So she decided what she wanted to do with her money was to “update” something in our house – generously leaving the choice of what up to me.

"Before" picture... from before we painted the living room

Watching how hard it was to use the XBox Kinect in our smallish living room as currently configured, I finally decided it was time to pull the trigger and get rid of the ancient CRT media center we had gotten for free because they didn’t want to move it when we moved into our last rented house. So Thursday was planned as a trip to IKEA.

Both boys are now old enough to go to “Smaland” – which was great. It gave us just enough time to scope out the available options, attempt to decide if glass shelves were advantageous or disadvantageous, and put together A Plan. We blessed our larger vehicle with the roof-rack as we vibrated home up I93. Then we had dinner with friends, put the kids to bed, and sat down with massive amounts of cardboard, Swedish instructions, hex wrenches and the Mythbusters. Half an hour past midnight, the pieces were all assembled, but we were too tired to put them in place. So this afternoon, we attached, wired, organized and otherwise prepared for our new configuration.

I confess I’m pleased as punch about just how nice it looks. Here it is in daylight:

I just took this one, so the light’s different but you can see more:

I can hardly express how much BIGGER the room seems!

And as a bonus, here’s my husband hard at work:

Herodotus (II)

Our new car was named Herodotus. It’s pretty cute to hear Thane ask, “Can we ride in Her-od-o-tus??” Now, the inspiration came because Herodotus is theoretically “Tuscan Olive”. Back when I was a kid, we used to call that color “Green”.

So I think I whine here sufficiently about how I have no time for anything, ever. But somehow, I sneak a few things in. One of my sneaky additions is a humanities book club run by some friends of mine. I first argued I didn’t have time. But I thought about the reading list. And I thought about my intellectual starvation. And I decided that I would aspire. I would try.

I recently read a very interesting blog post about intellectual obesity, talking about how the same cultural influences that lead us to eat too much of the wrong food also lead us to the easiest forms of entertainment. As the author says, “Given infinite choice and no fabricated pressures, you will consume the least effort, most enjoyable information.” This resonated with me. After college (actually, after reading the entire Canterbury Tales) I decided I had nothing to prove. I knew I could read the hardest literature and derive pleasure and knowledge from it. So I piled up the fantasy novels and YA literature. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with those. Nothing at all. But after Grey was born, I began to feel the effects of intellectual malnutrition. I subscribed to the Economist, but was still hungry. At the same time, I have so little leisure and reading heavy literature is, well, hard. It really is. I have the skills, but they’re rusty.

So. I have tried. I missed the first book. I read the Odyssey (for the first time!) on my own, and became enraptured with Homer. He’s good! Who knew!!! I read significant parts of Plato’s Republic, and was completely underwhelmed by it. But by golly, I got through all 800 pages of Herodotus’ Persian Wars. I even read many of the appendices. (Note: if you’re reading hard literature in your precious precious slivers of free time… go for the very best version you can find, not the cheapest.)

I must confess that this gives me, in addition to more intellectual grist for my poor starved mental-mill, a tremendous sense of satisfaction. I did a hard thing, not because I had to, but because I chose to. I did something challenging with no external validation or reason. It was a lot like running a race after being a couch potato for years. It felt excellent.

And I’m doing it again. I’m well into Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, which has rather more good speeches and rather fewer digressive stories.

So, for those of you who are curious, here’s our reading list. We’ve been at it for about a year. At this pace, we should get through our curriculum by, oh, 2020 or so. But that’s ok with me.

Humanities Book Club Reading List

Homer, Odyssey & Iliad (Homer is good and quick!)
Plato, Republic (Ugh. Historically important. Needs a teacher. And an editor. You begin to understand why they killed Socrates for being annoying.)
Aesop, Fables (We skipped this one)
Herodotus, Persian Wars (Hard, but I did it!)
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (Next up)
Aescylus, Oresteia
Virgil, Aenid; Caesar; Conquest of Gaul
Plutarch, Makers of Rome
Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe; Cicero on Duty
Old Testament, Selections*
New Testament*
St. Augustine, Confessions
Two Lives of Charlemagne; Song of Roland*
Memoirs of the Crusades
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (this is the guy I tried to name Thane after, but that was for his De institutione musica)
St Francis, Little Flowers
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales*
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Cellini, Autobiography
Shakespeare, Henry IV*; Hamlet*
Descartes, Meditations
Gibbon, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Scott, Ivanhoe*
Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution
Parkman, The Oregon Trail
Newman & Huxley, Selection on Education
Dostoyevsky, Crime & Punishment

*I have already read

A day to myself

Today should be written down on the calendar. For reasons obscure to me, today is a holiday in my company. Not in my husband’s not-for-profit company that takes Columbus Day off, or my son’s preschool. No, just for me.

It’s like one of those daydreams you have, “What would you do if you suddenly had $100,000?”… the object of my fantasies has become reality. Better yet, it comes at a point where I’ve caught up on sleep, have no laundry to do, the dishes are done, the house is clean, the pictures are uploaded, the church web site is up to date and I’ve gotten clean through my backlog of blogging ideas. Bliss!

Although I’m at the snot-phase of a cold, I’m actually feeling quite energetic. So I did get up with my husband (instead of moaning inarticulately and covering my head with pillows which is my standard method of pleading with my husband to please let me sleep in just this ONCE! — I do this at least once a week.). I hied my sons to school. Thane looked trepidatous to return, but Grey was delighted. As I left he was busily comparing t-shirts with Nicholas. (Nicholas had gotten a Mario shirt, for the record.)

8:15. I was home and awake. So… I broke my fast, made a pot of coffee, made the bed (I NEVER make the bed, ever), checked my email upstairs, called two financial planners to talk about financial planning (I’m hitting the point where I need help, I think) and my OB to schedule my annual. Then, I tackled the attic.

Ah, the attic, repository of all that is not needed! As part of my energetic New Year’s burst (it’s astonishing how much energy I have when I don’t have to work!), I went through all the boys’ toys (with at least Grey’s help) and we set aside the ones that aren’t played with, or have been outgrown or broken. I called Salvation Army to schedule a pickup, so now its open season on “things I really don’t need”. And the attic figures prominently in that role. But there is a catch.

Bats. You remember when I said that “I know there is a population of bats in our area”. Confession time: the real reason I know is because they live in my attic! Such a welter of conflicting impulses there. The homeowner is all “BATS OUT! NOW! NO BATS!” while the environmentalist argues, “But their habitat loss is sooo bad you wouldn’t kick them out would you?” and the mother argues with herself “I don’t want those rabies and histoplasmosis vectors in the same building as my children, but I won’t kick them out until after hibernation and baby season is over because that’s just mean.” The mom voice is winning here. I set up a bat house to give them a place to go, and I MEANT to evict them (gently!) in the fall… but I got busy. Plus, all the bat eviction places I googled looked… histrionic. “Bats, the great bug scourge of the skies!” (Extra credit for getting the reference.)

So, I cleaned up all bat-related evidence, fixed the temperamental light fixture, plugged a few more holes (not so it would prevent them from getting outside, but prevent them from getting further inside) vacuumed and rearranged the attic. That’s as good as it gets until fall! I worked up a sweat going from attic to first floor and back again, moving the outgrown baby things to the porch!

Then I showered. Don’t worry, I had a mask on for that work.

A “what I did next” list is probably boring (well, if it’s not already too late for that!), but let’s just say my errands involved EIGHT different stores in three different zip codes. Then I came home and started a batch of bread.

Because I am a domestic goddess.

I’ve noticed a trend on Facebook and Twitter so far that points to 2011 getting off to a rocky start for many of my acquaintance. Although I have a small and unrepresentative sample so far, let me just be a voice of dissent to that trend. I’m totally digging 2011 to date!

It’s also interesting to see how much I like myself when I’m not incredibly tired and busy. It took me 10 days to get to this point (with significant help from my MIL who was primary child-carer, cook, maid & chauffeur for 9 days!) but this sense of energy and enthusiasm is very pleasant. I’d like to have it more often. I don’t know how to do that.

PS – SCORE! One of my 8 errands was to our local used bookstore, The Book Oasis to drop off and acquire new books. I brought the list of books we’d be reading for the humanities book club I belong to, and having struck out, I gave them the list and asked them to keep an eye out for the titles. I just got an email from the proprietress who did research on the best version of Thucydides and is working to get it for me. WIN! Now to make it through Herodotus. Not light reading. Even with all the leisure time (see above) I only made it through to Book 4 this Christmas!

Jeweled Dreams

Labradorite, flourite and jadite necklace

This week of the year is an excellent one for projects. Like 80% of the other people in my company, I took the week off. I hied to my mother-in-law’s house, where I’ve been royally spoiled. So here I am, with my brand new camera, and a promise to my mother-in-law that I would help her get her jewelry online. If you’ve met me in person, you’ve likely seen some of my mother-in-law’s jewelry. She spent about 30 years gathering beautiful things from around the globe. Now she is putting them together into works of “wearable art”, and is ready to sell them.

Carved jade with rough unakite and coral beads

If your mother-in-law had gorgeous hand-crafted items for sale, where would you tell her to sell it? Of course. So we set up an Etsy store for her called Jeweled Dreams. She’s got about 12 of her items up now. And I’ll have you know that while I helped her set up the store, she’s done all the posting all by herself! I’m very proud.

But then comes the great labor. So…. I have this brand new camera I’m learning to use. She has about 75 completed necklaces. And heaven help me, I took pictures of each and every single one of them. Practically, I think they look pretty good – at least up to standards for Etsy. It was also frustrating. The second day, I simply couldn’t get the lighting right. I know enough to mess up the settings on my camera, but not to make it obey me. I can see progress on the photography, but I am also starting to see just how far I have to go to accomplish what I want to. On the other hand, it was probably excellent practice to take a gazillion images of beautiful jewelry for practical reasons. With the number of pictures I took, she should be all set to make postings to her store for months.

So I am feeling very proud of myself and very accomplished. I’m also feeling like I have a lot of room to grow. Finally, I’m really really hoping she actually sells something at her Etsy Store. She says she needs to sell them to make room to make more. I thought she was exaggerating until I had to take pictures of all of them!

So… if you know someone (or are someone) who loves beautiful, exotic, one-of-a-kind jewelry, consider browsing through her store (or pictures). Valentine’s day is only like 6 weeks away!