Memory Capture

If I want to capture all or part of my screen, I can use a program called SnagIt by TechSmith. I used this to grab the Google Earth images of our vacation. I really like the program. It has lots of options, but I won't pay $39.95 in a several days when my 30 day trial is up (Plus, my brother can probably tell me how to do this for free)! I wish it were as easy to capture memories.

Even if I carried my camera everywhere (which I know some people do), or if I had a notebook to jot down the things that happen as they happen, I would still miss things. It's not realistic to catch everything or keep it in memory. Besides, I'm not very good at stopping to take pictures (I'm usually the only parent in the room--every time--who forgets their camera). I'm also not very good at getting a journal out and writing.

Obviously this is on my mind a lot and my blog is getting a lot of overkill on the subject. It's just so intriguing to me! Going through all this stuff is getting to me; I've already said that. Also, Brigham is our last baby and he's turning two which in some ways is the end of babyhood. When I was in the middle of lots of little kids and not knowing when the end of it would be, I didn't stop and appreciate it so much. Now that I'm entering a new phase of life, I'm realizing that it's my last time to enjoy some of these little moments within my family.

Sometimes I walk around in peak awareness of the specialness of each moment. I haven't figured out which ones to record and which ones to leave, knowing that they will be there if I need them. Every so often I have remembrances from yesterdays gone by. Joseph and I share them together or we share them as a family and in a way they serve to bind the family together. They are here one moment and gone the next. Lately, I want to grab them and hold them down.

We are getting rid of all the little plastic animals and dinosaurs. When Nathan was three or four he used to play upstairs for hours setting these toys up in designs and in the end he'd tell me, "Mama, I'm making a birthday cake." At the time I thought it was cute, but mostly I was just glad he was up and playing and out of trouble while I attended to his two young siblings.

I'll sometimes get a glimpse of my little girl when she was sick and undiagnosed with asthma. I told her to bring her two blankets upstairs so we could use them for her nap. Diligent as she was she struggled to drag them upstairs and as I laid her down for her nap I noticed how labored her breathing was, her nostrils flaring. More air! Joseph took her to urgent care and the doc there said it would be faster for Joseph to transport her to the ER than to wait for the ambulance while she turned white, then blue, struggling for her life. In the days before cell phones were so prevalent, I waited in fear.

At times I remember the walk I took one spring day five or six years ago where I watched the ice churning and melting in the little lake next to our home. I learned a lesson about myself in that ice. It was amazing to me that I "happened" to be there to witness the miracle.

Occasionally I think of the one and only blue bird I've seen and wonder when I'll see another one!

I remember the day Elijah was born. I looked down at him, the very image of Nathan when he was born. It's humorous now, but I waited a whole month to get a glimpse of Elijah that was something other than what I remembered of Nathan when he was that age. Did I really have a different little baby in my arms? They were so alike.

On the drive to and from Florida I marveled at springtime in Georgia. It was like a mini-autumn. The leaves and blossoms were coming out in so many colors. I've never seen anything like it. Astoundingly beautiful. I made a mental note to try to remember it.

And on and on. Most of these memories aren't recorded anywhere. I'm trying to decide whether or not to use my blog to record these memories. It seems fitting to me because my blog is my family journal.

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A couple of fun things from the past few days:

In Primary on Sunday, the presidency did the spotlight as usual. Sariah was standing next to her new friend Brooke. Although they've been in class with each other for the first time, they seem to just have noticed each other ("Hi Sariah!" Brooke called. "Hi!" "Do you like my dress?" queried Brooke. All girl, isn't it?). I started to hear things in the spotlight that indicated Sariah. Finally, she stopped her chatting and started to take note of what they were saying, "This person likes Halloween best because they like candy." "This person likes to go to singing and storytime." And finally, "This person's birthday is on January 17th." Even from my seat in the row behind Sariah, I saw her head jolt out and a smile spread on her face. She went proudly to the front of the room to get her prize and then spent the rest of singing/sharing time glowing. Everytime I looked at her, she beamed.

Yesterday, we took cupcakes to Elijah's classroom. On the way out of the school, Brigham spied the buses waiting for the lines of kids to come. He started running, "Look, bus. Look, bus." (I want to look at the bus.) We went over and walked by the buses until he got his fill and then headed for the van.

Where are Memories Stored?

Joseph and I really like to conjure up ideas and build toys for our kids. Over the years, we've done some pretty neat things. We made a whole set of wooden blocks. We made a ball pit. We made a puppet theater. We made a doll house plus many of the fixins' (clothes, bedding, furniture etc.) for the dolls (see this previous post). For Nathan's fifth birthday, we threw him a Thomas the Tank Engine party and made these trains for each of the kids who came:


I found the extra trains that we had the other day and let Brigham play with them. I went back and forth deciding whether I would keep them or not. In the end, the face fell off of the Thomas and that decision was made easy.

All in all, I'm working to get rid of things even in the face of my version of practicality. For instance, why get rid of boy clothes that Brigham will eventually grow into? On the other hand, what is the price to store them for another five years until they fit him (and the elastic waistbands are likely shot)?

I also want to get rid of a lot of things that I think my memories are tied to (like the Thomas trains), because we just can't keep storing all of that stuff. (Do I sound like a broken record? Probably!) I was on the phone the other night with a lady whom I hope to get to know better (hi Jenny!). She talked about not letting the things that are in our homes define our memories. I thought that was wise. Somehow as I look at these things, it seems like the memories are captured inside them. If I remove the object, it seems like I remove the memory. In reality, I believe I just project the memory into the object. They are really stored inside me.

I haven't figured out how to keep memories differently. Maybe I do know how, but I've not effectively done it in the past. Surely pictures and journals are a big part of it. Sadly, I haven't done a very good job in the past of taking and making pictures available or of writing things down. My friend mentioned sending me the letters I had written to her over the years. I'm grateful for that because my journals are a desert during that time frame. (Wish I'd thought of sending people their letters before I rashly threw them out!)

My memories are important to me. I don't want to lose them.

P.S. For some bed-making fun, check out Lara's blog!

Happy 7th Elijah!

Yesterday Elijah came to me asking for 18 pieces of paper. "Eighteen?!?!" I said. He told me he thought he could use less by cutting each paper into four pieces and asked how many would he need to make 18. I told him and then asked what he was doing. "I'm going to make a card for all the people in my class telling them what time to come to my house for my party," he said, real cute-like. Ooohhhh! I had to explain that each kid had a big party last year and that we weren't having any friend parties this year, only family parties. But I spent last night and this morning wishing I would do a party for him because that was just so cute!

Elijah is excited for his birthday and to celebrate this morning he had cheese melted in a tortilla. But, he wasn't too keen on us singing to him because it's just not time. He chose basketball and soccer ball cupcakes for school and a chocolate-vanilla swirl cheesecake for the family party.


Elijah through the years (including two of the four scrapbook pages I've ever made):







Elijah is a special boy to me. He had such a struggle with language acquisition and I'm so happy that I got right down on his level with the help of some wonderful ladies through the "Early On" program here in our town. I've got a special bond with him because of it.

Just the other day he made me a paper airplane which he somehow cut to look like a heart. On one of the wings, it says, "happy mother's day. love ya!"

Love you too, E. Happy birthday!

Our Dilapidated Shed

The first spring we moved to this house, the neighbor girl dropped by to give us some mail that had accidentally gotten delivered to their house. We were working the back yard and she came back and sat down and proceeded to say, "What are you gonna do with that shed. It is UG-ly." We lived with it for a while and then one year Joseph painted it, but it has become more leaky and rodent filled so today is the day we say good-bye. He's also breaking up the picnic table that has rotted out underneath.


We rented this lovely sight (above). I'm sure the neighbors love it, one especially, is probably waiting on pins and needles hoping this means we'll be moving.


That sledge hammer is the best purchase we ever made! Man, that husband of mine can do anything! Good luck with the big cement pad, honey!

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States and Countries

My kids are always wanting me to list the states and countries I have been to, so here goes:

Countries:

1. Guatemala (as a missionary)
   
2. Mexico (to visit my dad's childhood home)
   
3. El Salvador (unauthorized excursion as a missionary)
   
4. Canada (for a professional conference)
   

States:

1. Hawai'i (construction work)
   
2. California (construction work, professional conference, job interview, vacation)
3. Nevada (scouts)
4. Arizona (vacation, professional conference)
5. New Mexico (driving through)
6. Utah (lived there)
7. Idaho (vacation)
8. Montana (vacation)
9. Wyoming (vacation, scouts)
10. Colorado (vacation)
11. Texas (professional conference, work, visit relatives)
12. Oklahoma (driving through)
13. Kansas (driving through)
14. Nebraska (vacation)
15. South Dakota (vacation)
16. Minnesota (consulting)
17. Iowa (work)
18. Louisiana (professional conference)
19. Tennessee (consulting, professional conference)
20. Kentucky (consulting, vacation)
21. Illinois (vacation, professional conference, work)
    
22. Indiana (vacation)
23. Ohio (vacation, job interview)
24. Wisconsin (consulting, professional conference)
25. Michigan (lived there)
26. New York (vacation)
27. Maine (vacation)
28. New Hampshire (vacation)
29. Massachusetts (vacation)
30. Rhode Island (vacation)
31. Connecticut (vacation)
32. Pennsylvania (vacation, professional conference)
33. Maryland (professional conference)
34. Delaware (professional conference)
35. Washington, DC (professional conference)
36. Virginia (professional conference)
37. North Carolina (work)
38. South Carolina (professional conference)
39. Georgia (professional conference, vacation)
40. Florida (professional conference, vacation)

What's missing?

1. Alaska
2. Washington
3. Oregon
4. Missouri
5. Arkansas
6. Mississippi
7. Alabama
8. North Dakota
9. West Virginia
10. Vermont
11. New Jersey
    

Vacation

To go with my poll that is running right now, I want to hear from you about vacation.

My friend Megan and I walk together. She loves to travel and travels at every opportunity. She's been to some really cool places. Last summer we talked about how people who like to travel give up other things and economize so that they can vacation. I'm intrigued by the idea. I'm interested in it for myself and for my kids. There are things you can learn from seeing the world that you can never learn in school. For instance, Nathan swam with a manatee in Florida. Can you imagine how much more he thinks about protecting manatee populations? Can you imagine how much more he must admire and respect nature? Can you imagine how this might increase his hunger to learn and see more? Another example. I've never seen a third world country. In my Geography class in college, I learned a great deal and my eyes were opened to things I had never considered, by an excellent professor. Still, imagine how much more I would feel and understand by actually seeing it!

Here's a list of the places I'd like to go. These have been on my list for a very long time. I never imagined being able to visit them, but now that I've seen some things that I never thought I would (Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Florida) I'm seeing myself going other places as well:

1) Monterey, CA. This will always be #1, I believe.
2) Guatemala
3) Italy
4) Israel

Within the U.S., I still want to take my kids to Southern Utah, to Washington D.C., to upper New York state, to Boston, Maine, and Cape Cod.

My vacations in the works:

1) Upper peninsula of Michigan (as a family)
2) Houston, Texas (Elijah and I)
3) Guatemala (Joseph and I)

A list of where I've been:

1) Eastern & Southern Utah
2) Southern California (Disneyland, Sea World, etc.)
3) Central California (Monterey--lived there, Yosemite, Sequoia Nat'l Park, Pinnacles)
4) Cape Cod, Plymouth (lived there), Martha's Vineyard, Boston, Maine
5) New York City
6) Washington D.C.
7) Bethlehem, PA
8) Central Ohio (Cuyahoga River Valley--beautiful!)
9) Upper New York State (Niagra Falls and Palmyra, NY)
10) Kirtland, OH
11) Nauvoo, IL
12) Chicago, IL
13) South Dakota (Rushmore and Badlands)
14) Wyoming (Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, and Martin's Cove)
15) Northern Utah (lived there)
16) Several locations in the lower peninsula of MI (live here)
17) Mackinac Island, MI
18) Kentucky (Mammoth Caves & Shaker Village)
19) Cincinnati & Columbus, OH


I'd like to hear where you've been (what's your favorite?), where you want to go (realistically), and where you'd love to visit but probably won't.

Ok, I'm going to try to stop talking about vacation now.

Just a Question

Have you looked under your children's beds lately? I'm stunned to silence, except to ask, "How is it done?"

I Have a Thing for...Dirt

I have a lot of interests. The more I write on my blog, the more I realize how complex life is, how many things I'm involved in, how much I have to be grateful for. The irony is that it's also very simple when you stop and take things at a slower pace.

The thing that I'm really interested in today, besides the Mexican Rice I have rolled up in a tortilla with cheese and sour cream, is DIRT.

Last night we had one of our family yard clean-ups, complete with treats, of course. We spent the night raking the leaves out of the flower beds, pruning trees and pulling out grass and weeds. This morning when I came back from my walk I looked over all of that fresh dirt and the perennials that are beginning to show themselves (& I might add the splinters in my fingers for refusing to wear gloves). I'm so excited! How can I not share pictures of my dirt!! Doesn't it make you wonder what this dirt holds in store for summer?



Maybe I'm a little weird? Oh well, I got it from my mom. AND, she even used to give me permission to blame things on her, so I will! Joseph uses the politically correct term of "off-the-wall."

Readability Redux

Just for kicks, I plugged in the addresses of my kids' blogs. The results:

Nathan (age 11): High School
May (age 8): Genius
Elijah (age 6): Genius
Sariah (age 5): Genius

How about that for some smart kids!

Remember?

Remember when we used to write each other letters and send stacks of pictures? It's hard to believe. Some years back, I got rid of all the letters I had been saving my whole life, but then they built up again. Since I'm determined to go through every box and bin in my house, I have to sort through these letters and decide what to keep (very little).

I wrote weekly to many missionaries as Joseph's siblings and my siblings served their missions. Unless my memory serves me wrong, it wasn't until my youngest brother served his mission, that e-mail was a form of communication. I'm not sure I ever sent him a paper letter! I'm sure that's standard now. I can't imagine fitting that into my life now! At one point, I was writing three to four letters per week plus occasional other letters. It seems weird to me now that we communicated that way. Our kids will hardly relate at all, although they do get the occasional letter and birthday card. Mail just isn't what it used to be!!

My prize possession in all of these letters are these letters below:

After my Grandma Burris passed away, my aunt gave me these letters. They are the ones I wrote to my grandma. I'm wondering if I still have the letters she wrote to me saved somewhere. The longer my grandma is gone, the more I miss her. I don't think I realized when she was alive, how important she was to me. I can't wait to see her again! I love you Grandma Jennie!

Good-bye Zoloft!

And this time, just so you know, it's for good!

I actually have no idea how big the stigma is for the mentally ill. I've heard it exists and I've heard things said, but I guess, since I am on the inside, I see it differently. I have no problem telling you that I've been on Zoloft for about 6 years and I've been in therapy for 5 years. I think of myself as a sort-of normalish person with some issues.

I never got an actual diagnosis from my therapist. He doesn't handle things that way. I know from a medical standpoint that I was given Zoloft for depression and anxiety from my family doctor. The anxiety came on in the middle of a pregnancy and it was so terrible I felt like I needed to get out of my skin or climb walls or something. I think I'd trade anxiety for depression any day. I'd been suffering from depression, maybe since third grade or so (ugh!), but didn't really know it. I definitely had post-partum depression, but didn't get help, maybe because of the stigma!? Maybe because it's hard to ask for help.

Contributing factors:

Family history
Seasonal Affective Disorder (a big deal here in MI where there are a lot of grey days)
Pregnancy and the aftermath (hormones)
Low thyroid function
Bad diet habits
Plus some other things that I won't go into on my blog

I've gone off the medication twice before. The first time was a disaster because neither I nor my Dr. realized that a person had to wean themselves off this medication. I spent a whole month dizzy and thinking it was something else, like a sinus/inner ear issue. Plus, after about a month I realized I just wasn't emotionally ready to do it.



The second time I cut my tablet down and down until finally stopping altogether and that was much more successful. I think I would have been o.k. but I unexpectedly got pregnant with Brigham and needed to go back on the medication part way through the pregnancy. I actually cried before I took that first pill.

Several things are on my side this time!

::I'm a happier person than I ever have been before.

::Spring is here with summer to follow. We will see more sunny skies.

::I just began exercising again last week, so I've got the endorphins.

::I'm starting to eat better too.

::I'm clearing out my house. Less clutter, open space, cleanliness will feel better.

::I'm planning to have a really fun summer with my kids. We are beach bound!

::My doctor is really serious about getting my thyroid under control and I'll visit her every six weeks until we get this all ironed out.

My State: Are You Jealous?

This post is for everyone except the person who voted, "I don't go on vacation," on my poll.

Check out the videos on this website (except the golf one, I don't golf).

If I've made you want to come visit, please do. You can stay at my house!

Readability

This is just from my recollection in the late 1990s, not from original documents of the research on readability.

The first readability formulae were based on a small set of passages that had been rated as appropriate for specific grade levels by a single person in the 1930s. That set of passages, and the associated grade level ratings continued to be the benchmark against which the validity of all readability formulae were measured lasting into the 1990s. Most existing formulae, therefore, continue to be based on a single person's ratings of grade level appropriateness from 70+ years ago.

There are two basic measures in the vast majority of readability formulae:

• Vocabulary load, typically measured as (1) the percentage of words in a passage that do not appear on lists of frequently used words, or (2) the average length of words in a passage (in letters or syllables). Other measures are used as well. Each of these options has its own set of problems.
• Syntactic complexity, typically measured as (1) sentence length (in words), or paragraph length (in sentences). Other measures are used as well. Each of these also has its own set of problems.

When I was working for the BYU English Language Center on an educational software product called SoftRead, I programmed over 30 different readability indices into the software. There were about as many different measures of vocabulary load and syntactic complexity as there were readability formulae.

For the stats geeks like me, the typical methodology, and an oversimplified methodology at that, is to run a linear or non-linear regression of the benchmark readabilities (the criterion for validation is always an expert human judgment of readability) on the measures of vocabulary load and syntactic complexity. One has to wonder why readability formulae are used at all for legal purposes, since the ultimate validation criterion is expert human judgment of grade level.

In very simplistic terms, this is using a statistical procedure to estimate what is already an estimate given by a human. Pretty difficult to defend.

There are some more sophisticated approaches to readability, which essentially use the statistical sub-specialty of psychometrics using cloze tests (passages with a few words strategically removed where readers have to supply or select an appropriate word to fill in the blank) where passages are rank ordered statistically to identify harder passages and easier passages. Some of the problems with this is that the selection of words removed is very important and still remains a subjective portion of the procedure. One pro of this approach is that it does not rely on human judgment of passage level, even though it does rely on human judgment of what words should be removed. I tend to be more accepting of this type of readability formula, though still quite skeptical.

I thought I was going to do my dissertation on readability, until I decided that it was all smoke and mirrors, and I had better not base my future career on something I thought was not sufficiently valid to have a strong place in education.

Some of the reasons I came to that conclusion were the following:

• The genre of reading (e.g. story, information, poetry, test items, instructions) is typically not varied in the development of readability formulae. It is typically narrative (story) passages that are used to create the formulae, but then the formulae are applied to all kinds of genres. This is a very strong assumption that the relationship of vocabulary load and syntactic complexity can be extrapolated from the sample of passages to a completely different type of passage.
• The literature indicates that high vocabulary load and syntactic complexity are less important in predicting comprehension than people's level of interest in the subject of the passage.
• The literature indicates that at best readability identifies a rough level of comprehensibility, but should not be used to guide writing. When readability indices are used to guide writing, very complex writing may be done with short words and short sentences, be nearly incomprehensible, and show up as a very low level text (and vice versa).
• The literature is rife with applications of readability formulae to short passages, yet the literature is also full of cautions against using readability formulae to evaluate the reading level of short passages.

At the same time, I did notice something interesting about the measures of readability. Almost all measures of readability use in their formulae measures of the average (the average word length, the average number of words a common word list, the average sentence length, the average paragraph length).

None of the formulae look at variation in these measures (e.g. the standard deviation of word length, sentence length, paragraph length). It seems to me that changes in vocabulary load and syntactic complexity across different portions of a text would also change the comprehensibility of a text. I never carried out the study I had planned to include these things because I became convinced that even if I could achieve better relationships between computed (estimated) readability and expert ratings using these new indicators, I still could not overcome the issues described above.

Despite this, I think readability results probably give some useful information. I just wouldn't want to use it for anything important. Using readability formulae to satisfy curiosity is probably safe. Any type of evaluation really seems to be taking it too far for me.

I wonder how readable this post is. D'oh!

The Picture of (Im)Perfect Health

And so opens another chapter of my life to the semi-public.

I had a Dr. appointment last week. The news was really not good. Though my blood pressure tested normal, it is actually high which is really not normal for my age. I have high cholesterol. My thyroid, which is under-functioning, has some bumps on it. I had an ultrasound today and I'll get results for that in a week. I'm OVER-weight. :(( <---that's a double chin frowny. I have about fifty pounds to lose. At the end of last summer, I had lost forty of those fifty pounds. Then a combination of my low thyroid (a.k.a gland problems) and some emotional baggage that I had to deal with, I gained it back at a rate of five pounds per month. The sad news is that even with taking Synthroid (synthetic thyroid hormone) at the right dose, I still have to lose weight just like anyone else. Hopefully the weight loss will affect both the cholesterol and the blood pressure. And hopefully I don't have a cancerous thyroid gland. Last summer I had people cheering me on in my weight loss and my good friend, Shelley, who just happens to be a personal trainer/fitness guru, really gave me a lot of good tips. Well, I'm getting started again. Joseph and I are planning a trip to Guatemala as a carrot at the end of the stick.

I'm looking for a widget for my sidebar. The one I have so far won't work because it's too wide and not adjustable (see below). Anyone know of a good one? And any of you who want to offer encouragement, go right ahead!

Red Dog, I Think I'm Gonna Puke!

Red Dog is safely stowed away in the basement, I think. Do doubt he'll be uncovered in the next few weeks as I make my way through the house. More on him later.

Today I was grilling Joseph on our way back from eating at Panchero's for lunch. Mmmmmm! I was asking him what he would do if he were in my shoes. I wanted to know what he'd do with the dolls my mom made for me when I was a kid. These are lovely dolls, folks. She specialized in Raggedy Ann and Andy. She has seen much less quality dolls than the ones she makes sold for $100. I still have the pair she made me when I was one year old. They are tattered looking, but in pretty good shape. I have a three foot tall pair as well. Plus, my mom also branched out and made a few other kinds of dolls. They are beautifully made. I never really got them down for my girls, I guess with the idea that we'd keep them nice and pass them down. I just didn't realize that for items to carry meaning, they needed to be held and loved. With my space issue, these are a real dilemma! Joseph didn't make this any easier. He simply told me that he'd not make any decision about them because they are mine.

At that point, somehow, Joseph remembered Red Dog. Red Dog has been with me for a long time. I'm not sure what age I was when he was given to me, but I know that he was washed many times. One day, at about age 3 or 4, I remember sitting on the bottom stair of the staircase and crying. Red Dogs stomach had ripped open and the little beads and stuffing were coming out. Mom saved the day and sewed him up for me.

When Nathan was born, we put a shelf up in his room to display some of the dolls and, of course, Red Dog. I used to pretend that Red Dog would talk to Nathan and sometimes Nathan talked to Red Dog.

When we moved to this current house, the shelf was again installed in Nathan's room over his crib. He always liked to say good night to Red Dog, who was up on the shelf, before he went to sleep. At that time I was pregnant with May and apparently often said, "I think I'm gonna puke!" One day I took Nathan in for his nap and suddenly, he looked up at Red Dog and said, "Red Dog, I think I'm gonna puke!"

Red Dog stays. Good dog.

Help! This is Harder than it Looks: A Hike Down the Trail of Reminiscence

After taking a break yesterday, I'm back on the warpath of removing schtuff. After moving our 72 hour kits to one of the shelves that Joseph built on Saturday, I proceeded into our room. This is the closet that holds the binders of college notes. It wasn't that hard to get rid of the Stats notes. Don't get me wrong. I actually loved Statistics. They say it's all in the teacher you get. Dr. Hilton was a fabulous teacher. He patiently and sometimes not so patiently (he was sarcastic, so I was right at home) explained the principles. During our take-home exams, he'd allow us into his office to ask him questions about the exam if we didn't understand the question. I remember more than one time, he actually gave the answer right to me! Still, the notes don't mean much to me, so many matrices, so little time!

Then I found my advanced invertebrate notes and my notes from when I studied in Monterey, CA at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. These notes are more than notes. They are works of art. Dr. Lee Braithwaite taught these classes. He was the kind of professor that expects you to write down every word he said and then memorize it all. That was exactly what I did. He'd give your hand a break every now and then by drawing a diagram on the board (which you were also expected to copy to the last detail and memorize). See below:





One day, he didn't have time to give the lecture and color-photocopied his own notes for us. Get a load of this:


I don't think I can get rid of these notes. They are a part of me.

Every year Dr. Braithwaite chose 16-17 students to go with him to Monterey. Someone dropped out last minute in 1993 (just four short months after my marriage) and Dr. Braithwaite offered me their place. Joseph agreed to let me go (Thanks Joseph!). Once we got our classroom set up, we started having lectures, waiting for low tides at the right times to go on our 8-9 field trips. We'd get up EARLY to hit the low low tide. One morning we'd be at the Great Tide Pool looking at nudibranchs, sponges, sea stars, and chipping barnacles off the rocks for research. Another morning, we'd be on the mud flats digging up the worm Urechis caupo and looking for his roommates the crab and the fish (sorry, I have forgotten the Genus and species of those). We dissected specimens and drew them. We got water samples and looked at and drew the microscopic plankton creatures. We induced sand dollars to release their eggs and sperm and then watched as the larvae developed: one cell, two cells, etc. The divers brought up a holdfast from the large kelp that grows in Monterey Bay and we collected the octupi, crabs, brittle stars, etc. that were living inside. Good memories. I love invertebrate sea animals!

I also found my slides of my fish (Redside shiner) and the larval tapeworm that invaded them which I was studying for my Master's Thesis. Good stuff.

Was I really that person back then? Since I have always been a stay-at-home mom, I've never really used that stuff and I've all but lost it. Well, I'm keeping those notes! I can use them to prove to my kids that I actually went to college and used my brain cells!

Readability Update

Since the website that provides the readability scores doesn't give any links so that we can figure out what equation they are using, I decided to research a little on my own. Side note: Megan got a genius level grade for her blog! Super blogging Megan. None of us little people can understand your blog though, you might have to dumb it down for us.

Here's a blog post that talks more about the score. He provides a link here that explains how to get a reading score from Microsoft Word. This blogger thinks that the criticsrant.com website only looks at your most recent blog post. Interestingly, I entered a few different posts into Microsoft's test and found that they were elementary level and not the junior high level that the website gave me.

These tests usually use lists of words as comparison. They also look at sentence length and syllables per word. With this further information, I'm still hoping that Joseph can make a comment (hint, hint Joseph) There is more than one test out there and they all have their pros and cons.

A $300 Haircut

Due to the fact that I was very tired yesterday from my decluttering efforts (and secretly due to the fact that I might be a little behind Joseph in value of services provided) and because he wouldn't pose properly for the before picture, I'm charging extra for my barber services. The supply and demand principles of economics were still in play. It was past closing time at Fantastic Sam's.

Before:


After:

Cheap Handyman

The other day when we pulled out of my Dr.'s office, Joseph saw a sign that said "Cheap Handimen." I looked over at him. I said, "I don't need a cheap handyman, I have a free handyman." He scoffed, "Your handyman isn't free, he charges $50.00 an hour." I'm pretty sure the amount of annoyance I felt didn't exude from my face. "Well," I retorted "I just hope that when all of the fees for the jobs we do are calculated, you don't owe me too much!"

Still, it's so nice to have a handyman! He's far from free (he came home yesterday with a new table saw), but he does gud wurk.

Remember my broken wall? He fixed it! Doesn't it look nice?





And yesterday he put shelves in the tops and bottoms of some of the closets. I'll keep him around.

Here's the before picture of Joseph's closet (names have been removed to protect the guilty):


Here are the after pictures:



Many of those binders actually contain my college notes, so they have yet to be dealt with.

The Blog Readability Test

Have you ever wondered what level you write at? I really haven't. I'm still running off the fumes from the time my cousin's girlfriend tested my reading when I was in second grade. She told me that I read at a sixth grade plus reading level. I got a big head from that and spent my grades 2-9 thinking I was sooo smart. Then I went to school in Massachusetts. All I can say is "Whew!" BYU was actually easier than my high school!

However, Steph posted about this readability test for your blog. It's really easy. You just go to the website, plug in your blog address and click the button.

Movie Reviews

I really like to see my kids stretching their vocabulary which is usually done while they do their free reading. Since my kids do like to read my blog, when I remember, I add in words they might not be familiar with. Nathan, is especially good at stopping his reading to ask the meanings of words. If we aren't familiar enough with the word to give a concise definition, we tell him to go get the dictionary. He used to get really riled up about that, but recently, he just goes and gets it. It's so exciting for me to see that!

Click here for this readability test. Try it out, it's kind-of fun. Maybe we can all stretch our own vocabularies a little bit.

(Joseph, please leave a comment to let us all know how these tests are performed and what kind of reliability you think this test might have.) Joseph has worked extensively with a well-known reading researcher. He has above average knowledge of this type of test.

Getting Rid of Clutter

In our family Christmas letter that we sent out, we announced that we would be putting our house on the market this Spring and moving to a bigger house. As unexpected things have come up, we've begun to realize that we are in this house to stay. There are some big challenges associated with that decision.

1. We don't have enough room for all of us to sit down at the table for dinner.
2. We only have one bathroom, which translates to one toilet. We have five young kids. Take a moment to imagine the chaos.
3. We are "bulging at the seams," as I like to say.

A couple of years ago, I went through our possessions and weeded a ton of stuff out and had a yard sale. Then, last August before we went to Utah, our basement flooded. I decided that since I had to move everything anyway, I might as well sort through and have another yard sale. Plus, we rented a huge garbage bin and the whole thing was hauled away full.

Here I am again, already needing to de-clutter. We have so much "stuff" that I feel like I can hardly clean my house. The goal this time is to really strip away many of our possessions. It's really painful. I have kept a lot of things over the years. For instance, though I got rid of most of my college notes, I still have the ones for my favorite classes (Advanced Invertebrates, Marine Biology, Parasitology). Things like these are going to have to go.

I can see the benefit of having gone through these things several times. It makes it easier. I saw things in August that I thought I couldn't or shouldn't part with that just make sense to get rid of this time around. In fact, this time, I plan to go through everything twice. I'm working on the first time through right now and for the past week since we got home.

My vacation really prepped me for this. The house we stayed in wasn't cluttered, of course. I want to live like that. I think our house will always be a bit crowded, but it doesn't have to be cluttered. The time off also cleared my mind and helped me get rested in preparation.

My kids aren't going to like it. I've already had some discussions with them, telling them that we're going to get rid of most of the toys. I've told them that it's going to be difficult, but that we are going to do it. I've already had some run-ins with one of the girls over some of her toys. I might not be very popular for a while.

We're also going to put some work into the cosmetics of our home. I'm excited about that part. We've lived here for nine years and little has changed. We painted the whole house white and have left it that way. We'll shake things up a little bit. We still want to keep it light because of the winter months here, but it will feel good to have some change.

United Fruits and Vegetables of America

Isn't this picture great? I cut it out of a health food store ad. I taped it up in my kitchen and my kids have taken it down several times. I keep retrieving it, but decided I better scan it so I won't lose it fo-ev-a.

Michigan is so great! Despite my recent doting on Florida, Michigan really is tops. I know that Heidi also agrees! Four of the five Great Lakes border on Michigan. It's the state made of onions surrounded by blue flowers. This summer, the kids and I (and Joseph when he can make it) are going to frequent the lovely beaches of this state. ALL...SUMMER...LONG!

Free Car Wash Anyone?

Brigham has stepped up his water play to include car washes. All are invited!

He's just starting to try to string words together. It's so cute.

"I play cars...lots."
"Where goin' Papas?"
"Bebes walk" He calls himself baby or bebe. I guess it's much easier to say than Brigham.
And here's one he pieced together thanks to Sariah today, "Buy gum."

I can't think of any more right now, but it's fun to see him communicating.

The Wonders of GPS

Mapquest and AAA maps seem antiquated to me now. I don't have GPS on my phone, but Joseph does, and it was a great help on our recent vacation. Knowing that there are lots of jokes out there about men and directions, I made the comment to Joseph while we were driving one day, "GPS, made by men for men." Imagine their slogans, "Never lose face while driving again," or "GPS, the last word in all directional arguments." O.k., so those are kind-of dumb, but you get the picture.

A couple of days after I made that joke, I woke up to the fact that the voice for GPS is FEMALE! What do you make of that?

Squirrels

Growing up in Utah, we didn't see squirrels much unless we went to the mountains. When we moved to Massachusetts, I thought it was great that there were squirrels running around the back yard all the time. Our devil-cat Pepper, used to kill them and leave them as prizes on our door step.

Here in Michigan there seem to be about three species of squirrels running around and I now think of them as rodents, not cute, unless Brigham catches sight of one and gets excited. They eat up all of the suet cakes meant for the birds. They get into the garbage and also into our garden.

Today while driving down the road, one darted out to run across the road. If you've ever witnessed this, you know how crazy they can be, zipping back and forth trying to wrap their dumb little minds around the fact that there is danger and they should snap out of it and run to the side of the road. If I'm driving and I see wildlife (it happened in Florida when I saw a Great Blue Heron sauntering across the road), I usually slow or stop if possible, but I don't usually swerve. It would be useless to swerve with a squirrel anyway. In swerving, I'd probably hit it.

Long story short, I hit the squirrel with one of my back tires and it died instantly, contrary to the one my dad hit once that writhed and wriggled on the road for a while. My kids, who still like squirrels, were concerned and Sariah started singing the "Squirrels" song starting with, "Don't kill us squirrels." and continuing with, "We're cute and harmless, we are squirrels." Which brings me to my next point.

Who says squirrels are cute and harmless? I may have already blogged this story, but I don't want to go back and check. About nine years ago, when we were moving out of our apartment into our house, I was baking cookies in our apartment and since it was unseasonably warm, I opened the door so the sunlight could come in through the storm door. This crazy squirrel must have smelled the cookies from all I can guess because suddenly it hurled itself against the door. Then, it would run back some distance, get a running start and throw itself against the door again. Several more iterations! I don't call that cute. I don't call that harmless. That wretched, probably rabid squirrel is on my mind today.

Oh, the reason there's no picture to go with this post is because Joseph didn't want to get out of the van and take a picture of my road kill with my cell phone. The nerve!

Enough Already!!??

I decided to post more pictures over at Our Blossom Og, if you're still aching for more of Florida!

Do You Like to Watch the Waves and Hear the Sea?

Then, this is the post for you. First the beach at Pine Island and then the beach at Shell Key:





I'm even throwing in a sunset to sweeten the deal:

The Many Moods of Sky and Sea