Twitter

I admit it. I’m a luddite.

I joined Twitter, but I can’t figure out how to follow people. I’d Tweet this, but no one I know knows I am on.

Poem a day: Daydreams

Daydreams echo in my head,
I’m awake and not in bed.
The house is clean and uncluttered.
I am rested and unflustered.
While Ron and I stay late asleep,
The boys into the kitchen creep.
They make their breakfast everyday
and then put all they’ve used away.
I throw the laundry in to wash
and put up
3 dishes cleaned of pizza sauce.
Ron takes a shower and grabs food to eat
and kisses me on the way out. How sweet.
His office is here at our place,
but he still pretends to go and race.
He locks the door; has his own phone.
We act as if he isn’t home.
The house sits on a plot of land
t see neighbors from where I stand.
The trees are thick, the water near.
We spend a lot of time out here.
The boys are learning French today
so we go to the creek and play.
I know the words for everything
and even know some songs to sing.
When we get home we make lunch together,
soup, salad, queso, depending on the kind of weather.
We did two science experiments
and made two sets of artsy prints.
We go out to the library and book store.
We thumb through books and read galore.
I find a biography of a man I admire.
The boys borrow books on space, dinos, and spires.
Tomorrow’s Spanish. That’s a thrill.
It’s a tongue I love and always will.
The boys are learning it quite well
and listen to the tales I tell.
Tomorrow we’ll go to the nursing home
and visit the residents and roam
the halls wide seeking out
someone who doesn’t get about.
I’ll give to them the art we made
and sit with them in a slice of shade
and tell them of the things we’ve learned
and all the accolades we’ll someday earn.
When we get home, the house is neat.
I sit down and read––a treat.
The boys go play a video game.
It’s something good. I forget the name.
Then I start supper cooking
and make sure my face is still nice looking.
When Ron comes home it is a joy.
He spends time with me and with each boy.
Some friends are coming over for dinner.
I’ve made enchiladas. They’ll be a winner.
We’ve plenty of seats for everyone
and while grownups talk the kids will run.
Once the boys are fast asleep
I go to the grocery store to creep
down the aisles searching avidly
for the food we’ll all eat happily.
We have no debts. Our bills are met.
When we need something, it’s not hard to get.
When the grocery shopping’s done
I take the food and head for home.
Ron comes out and helps carry in.
Then we both go read in the den.
At eleven or twelve we head for bed
–in the daydreams in my head.

1998-1999

Poem a day: After Shower

The soap slides down my skin
and eddies into the drain
with the water that soaks my frame
and leaves me dewy wet.
I briskly brush my body with the towel
but it seems the water loves me
Dripping hair hangs down my back
and adds to the drenching
after I have already begun the drying.
The sounds of harsh water hitting the tub
fades away
as the curtain quits dripping.

1998-1999

Recipe for White Tea

When my grandmother-in-law was a little girl, she wanted some of her daddy’s coffee, but her folks wouldn’t let her drink coffee. Instead they would make white tea. She and her sister Thelma loved it.

White tea:
coffee mug
milk
a bit of sugar
(optional: dash of vanilla)
heat up

Poem a day: An Ode to my Refrigerator

An Ode to my Refrigerator,
at least the outside,
an ode to my refrigerator
it is a symbol of my life.
Graced by a casserole dish
of blue and black
made by the potter’s hands.
Hiding, under its weight,
the works of baby’s crayons.
The freezer offers a tableau
of Doric and Ionic columns here.
The spires, though, are Romanesque
and reach up to the sky.
The door to the fridge itself
is covered now with pictures.
Christmas this and Christmas last,
Hawaii, and a new house.
Plus Crash Bandicoot and an escape pod.
And a tiny magnet with a girl
in the rain saying, Thank you, God.
One side is empty.
I want it to look clean.
The other side is full
of calendars and old Mom’s Day cards
that say I’m wonderful.
I hide them there for me.
I’m the only one to see
that he said thank you
for cooking peanut butter sandwiches
and taking him to play at Mickie D’s.
My refrigerator
holds a great amount of food,
but the best parts
are on the outside.
t miss the importance
searching through the foods.

1998-1999

Thanksgiving has been great

I’m a little stressed out though.

I guess it is because I said I would write some things that are due January 1. I just got the approval for both of them this week. So I haven’t been expecting them. Now I have a little over a month to write them both.

Of course, I don’t really expect them to take too long, but I don’t really have time to start them now.

Well, I guess I do. I could do that instead of this. But it’s work and this isn’t and I was trying to take a break.

Of course, I brought papers to grade. I’ve graded the rewrites of research papers. Now I am starting on the papers from one school. Then I have the papers from the other school too. But it’s totally doable. It’s just work.

And I wanted to work a little, on grading, and not really on anything else.

But I guess if the whole thing is freaking me out, I can start on them now. Better to be making progress than to be worrying.

Thankful for…

I am thankful for
God who loves me
a country where I can write that on a blog without fear
a country where I can worship God
a country where my family and I are safe
my family who loves me
my husband who is wonderfully supportive and bought me dance lessons for our anniversary
my eldest son who is a math wiz and thinks his mom is great
my youngest son who is a history brain and feels comfortable talking to his mom
my parents who are still supporting each other in bad times
my sisters who have become better friends
my brother who calls me regularly
my nieces and nephew who love their Aunt Suzi
the memories of grandparents who thought I was the best
a comfortable house
drivable cars
cheaper gas
a safe trip to Arkansas to see the inlaws
improving work situation
etc

Happy Thanksgiving!

Take a moment to thank the Creator of the Universe, the Almighty God, the Protector and the Great Physician.

Thank you, God, for my many blessings.

Poem a day: Oak Tree by the Gate

Oak tree by the gate
Beauty quiet and deep
standing by while I sleep
All my life you wait.
Gray–browed in bark all rough.
Deep green leaves drop down
Branches forming your crown
To stop the sun, strong enough.
Silence standing guard
I grew under your limbs
Singing rock songs and hymns
In your yard.
Thick trunk growing so wide
Never hands got around
Growing up from the ground
And embracing the sky.
Summer sun shelter true
While I rest in your shade
In its coolness I wade
Back to you.

1998-1999

Yeah, for Marines! Especially one corporal.

250 bad guys attacked 30 Marines.

It sounds like the beginning of a massacre or a joke. It was a massacre, on the bad guys’ side. But it was not a joke.

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.

“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”

God bless our guys as they come out of this combat.

I can’t fid the URL but I saw it on several sites. The Marines published the article the quote comes from.

(I have managed to remove the URL site from Safari and don’t know how to get it back. Dang. Tech Angel!)

Eat more protein to burn more fat.

Higher-protein meals may help overweight and obese people burn more fat, the results of a small study suggest.

Research has shown that overweight people are less efficient at burning fat after a meal than thinner people are. In the new study, Australian researchers looked at whether the protein composition of a meal affects that weight-related gap.

They found that overweight men and women burned more post-meal fat when they ate a high-protein breakfast and lunch than when they had lower-protein meals. That is, the added protein seemed to modify the fat-burning deficit seen in heavy individuals.

from Reuter’s

Poem a day: The Wedding

Green grass spread wide for a wedding.
Angels rained confetti seeds on the garden.
White calla lilies bunched with heirloom carnations
and a single white rose
held together with white silk ribbon
heralded the matron of honor and the bride.
The bride, in high heels which sank into the dirt,
danced in the arms of the groom,
dashing in Italian silk.

The minister held the rings out flat on his palm
and spoke of precious metals;
giggles suppressed over stainless steel
died into sparkling tears sniffed back
over vows exchanged.
The mothers let theirs drift down their faces
and onto their gowns of burgundy and navy.

California trip

The wedding was sweet. My dear hubby took some great pictures which they were amazed to see an hour after the ceremony on a DVD created in the car with a Mac.

We went to lunch and I had a good BLT and an exquisite chocolate truffle dipped in almonds.

R and I had a great time hanging out together and enjoying being married ourselves. Enough said.

Poem a day: The Plains

It was not reasonable
a man should love such land,
but he did.
Though he left and took us with him,
he suffocated in the mountains of upstate New York,
felt trapped in the miles of trees
of East Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina.

He missed the flatlands–
the plains my junior class could not believe existed.
He loved the trees announcing like billboards
a family home, just out of sight.

My mother loved it.
Once.
Returning from her folks
the train was slower than her homesickness
which raced ahead with her heart
toward my dad.
The final hour the lights of Lubbock
twinkled through the evening sky,
beacons proclaiming
“Almost home.”
She loved the flatlands once.

I loved the flatlands too,
though many times, not once or always.
Swimming in the irrigation ditches,
climbing squat trees and swinging on old tires,
hiding from the heat in the dugout,
finding dinosaur teeth in the cornfield,
eating cherries while cradled in the boughs.
The plains were stickers and caliche pits,
cotton hard in husks,
and those grass snakes Debbie used to scare me.

I miss the house on the farm,
moved to town and placed on a new foundation.
I miss my grandparents
and our summerwide family reunions.
I miss the land where little rain and fewer people
make the world harder and hardier.
The plains used to hoard my family.
The plains are faithful;
my family dispersed.

I loved West Texas, not because it was beautiful, but because in it I created such memories.

Poem a day: I Miss

I Miss

Icebox, a simpler thing to fix, say, and spell.
It kept in the coolness and let out the smell.
Dugouts, cool and dark, smelling musty,
home for snakes, cans, and hiders who’d get dusty.
Polecats striped in dark and light
getting at chickens late at night.
Well house, where the water came,
where lettuce stayed crisp and we raced in a game.
Bright yellow school bus, home of rebel bees,
d run through the pasture and skin up our knees.
Tower tanks to fill tractor, truck, and combine,
more fun for Popeye, to jump from and climb.
Irrigation ditches and stock tanks ready made for a dip,
go swimming––accidentally––following a slip.
A tire swing, old rubber made new,
for swinging, flying, and changing the view.
Cherry trees and apple, close to the ground,
easy to pick from, easier to get down.
The hen house full of grain, eggs, and chicken;
most ended up in my grandmother’s kitchen.
Freezing our bottoms cranking ice cream,
hand aching turns till we’re ready to scream.
Sunday beef and potatoes, early bites of heaven snitched.
Coffee and Prince Albert, Grampa smells that bewitched.

My grandparents are dead. Their house was sold to a family in town who moved it off the lot. My cousin bought, begged, and was given the land and he lives their with his wife who paints. He is a public defender.

Homeschooling is now mainstream?

Homeschooling Goes Mainstream says:

Though parents and tutors have been teaching children in the home for centuries, in the late 1960s and 1970s there emerged for the first time in the United States a political movement that adopted this practice as a radical, countercultural critique of the public education system. Conservatives who felt the public schools had sold out to secularism and progressivism joined with progressives who felt the public schools were bastions of conservative conformity to challenge the notion that all children should attend them. By the early 1990s they had won the right to home school in every state.

Journalist Peter Beinart found that Wichita’s 1,500 home-schooling families had created “three bands, a choir, a bowling group, a math club, a 4-H Club, boy- and girl-scout troops, a debate team, a yearly musical, two libraries and a cap-and-gown graduation.” “Home-schooled” children were meeting in warehouses or business centers for classes “in algebra, English, science, swimming, accounting, sewing, public speaking, and Tae Kwan Do.”

Maybe soon colleges will quit requiring GEDs for homeschoolers.

Poster Girls

My sisters are poster girls for the things you do not want to do.

My baby sister got a tattoo with her fiance’s name on it. After they were married he cheated on her and that was the end of that. But the tat remained. Until she needed to have it removed for work. So she began the excruciatingly long and expensive process. (For those interested, the extended version of this story.)

My middle sister, after struggling with her weight through some pretty severe dieting and getting nowhere, decided to have her tummy tucked. Her wonderful tattoo of cowboy boots and a hat is entirely gone, except for a small black dot that looks a bit like a mole. And she has a huge “Frankenstein scar” from the middle of her side to the other middle of her side and across her body not too far under her belly button. She says (now) that if she’d known how bad it would look she wouldn’t have done it. (Good. Saves me going under the knife.)

Those are my sisters. In these instances, at least, poster girls for what you should NOT do.

And just because of the title and the fact that I love this song so much (though the rest of the album is depressingly negative, as one would expect of a newly divorced singer), “Poster Girl on the Wrong Side of the World” by Beccy Cole.

Dang. It always makes me cry.

Thanks to all the soldiers who ought to be the great poster folks.