FLASH - BOOM!

Chicken Little was right. The sky IS falling, at least in the Pacific Northwest. We had a meteor enter our atmosphere yesterday morning. My beloved and I were woken up about 5:30 AM by a BRIGHT flash of light and then a rolling thunder-like boom that shook the roof of our house. "What the heck was that?" we asked ourselves. Turns out it was the meteor.

Lots of folks have been buzzing about what they saw or heard. I guess the scientists are out searching to see if they can find evidence of where pieces may have landed. Jury is still out whether it came down on the Oregon or Washington side.

Then tonight there is supposed to be an eclipse of the moon. Regarding that phenomena, I got this message from my long time pal, Sylvana:

There is an Eclipse tonight. It is a perfect time to get out the sage, burn it as a purifying blessing and turn your troubles over to the God's universe and for your ancestors to work things out for you. Let things go as the moon fades... allow nothing but positive energy to fill you as the moon returns. Give thanks for all things you have experienced, good and bad, and welcome the new.

Sounds good to me!

The universe seems to be giving some powerful signals. Since these just happen to be coinciding with some big personal and professional shifts in my life I am paying special attention.

On a lighter note - my stepson, Greg, is getting married in Arizona this weekend. Greg will turn 41 next month and this is his first wedding. We keep joking with him that the universe is in such shock over his impending nuptials after decades of confirmed bachelorhood that the very sky is going bonkers.

Resiliency

I'm sure the family of Doris Anderson is feeling blessed today. After the 76 year old woman had been lost for two weeks in the rugged Wallowa mountains she was found alive, conscious and alert.

I have spent some time in that country. I can only imagine what those days were like for her. My prayers are with her for a full recovery.

Grandpa's Pants

There is an old saying about living frugally that says: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." In today's disposable society few Americans see the point in that adage. Still, it is something that guides many of the choices I make.

Years ago I went on a road trip with a group of 10 college students for a graduate course in social psychology. We rode in our professor's motor home from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Eureka, Illinois where we stayed for three days in a Mennonite community. It was a great trip that taught me a lot. However, one of my most powerful memories I have of that trip is not of the Mennonite people we got acquainted with. What I remember most is the obvious distress of one of the twenty-something co-eds when she was told that due to limited space she could only bring one small bag of luggage for the week long trip. Apparently, up to that point in her life, she had never worn an item of clothingother twice without washing it after the first wearing. That blew my mind. The rule at my house had always been to wear things at least twice unless you could see the dirt on them, and even then if they passed the sniff test they might be good for another go.

We all have different ideas of how to make use of what we have. Some people throw away their table scraps after dinner is over. Some people give them to the dog. Some people save them to use as ingredients for the next meal.

Or, for that matter, there are very different views about "wasting food" in general. Some say if you drop your food on the floor it is contaminated and must be thrown away. Some say there's a three second rule, that if you pick it up right away and don't see dirt on it, it's still good. Some people say it depends on the nature of both the food and the floor. I will pick up a dropped bannana. I will not pick up dropped spagetti.

While talking on the phone with my older brother this afternoon, he reminded me of a family story about our grandfather. Once when our family was visiting, our other brother got up early and discovered Grandpa stirring up some clumps in the fireplace, removing a zipper and a few other charred bits. Apparently he was burning his Levis. Grandma was so frugal she would just keep patching his pants over and over any time they began to get tattered. Grandpa had had about all of that he could stand. So he burned his Levis before Grandma woke up, sheepishly admitting "it's the only way I can ever get any new pants."

At what point do I try to get more use out of things and when do I say enough is enough and buy new? This came to mind recently when the dog got hold of my cell phone. The thing still functions. It just looks terrible (all those teethmarks and the trim broken off) and it doesn't hold a charge very long. So I've really been considering getting a new phone. However, so far I just can't justify it. After all, it DOES work. Besides, to just go buy one retail is spendy, and I'm not willing to extend my service contract just now to qualify for a rebate. My husband just did that because his cell phone went through the combine while he was harvesting garbonzo beans.

Our family is tough on phones, it seem. Our plan will insure them for $7 per month per phone which I think is highway robbery, so we've just taken our chances. Our chances here lately have not been so good.

Things I now absolutely throw away that I used to try to keep and use over:

Margarine and cottage cheese containers.
(I finally got a decent set of plastic containers to use for left overs so now other plastic containers from things we buy go immediately into the trash as soon as they get empty. I got tired of finding science projects of hairy mold in the back of the fridge that was actually three week old spaghetti masquerading as margarine.)

The GOOD shoelace from a pair when one breaks.
(Life is too short. If I replace ONE shoe lace in a pair of shoes, I put in new ones in BOTH shoes even if the one seems perfectly serviceable. It's just a matter of time till it gives out too and I got sick of having one extra lace laying around in a drawer.)

Stubby pencils. And all pens that skip.

Things that I WILL keep and use over that other people might find silly include:

Zip lock bags.
This drives my husband crazy. Every time he catches me washing them to reuse he raves at me "for crying out loud we can afford a new bag!" But I can't help but cringe every time he throws one away. It just seems so wasteful.

The white Styrofoam packing peanuts that come in boxes from things I order online.
My kids always called them "ghost turds". Because I live in a podunk rural town with no stores, I buy a fair amount of stuff via the Internet. So I generally have a bag of these things in a closet somewhere just in case I need them. I have a bag now that has been "just in case" for a very, very long time. Maybe I should reconsider this?

Birthday candles.
Yeah, I know they are cheap. But it is so easy to rinse of the frosting and put them up in a cupboard to use again. What's the point of throwing them away after just one cake?

So there's a partial list from me. What sort of things do you keep and what do you throw away??

Leapin Lizards! NO - it's RAINING FROGS!

In four separate instances between October 1987 and February 1988, small pink frogs rained down from the sky on to various parts of Great Britain. Scientists are still uncertain as to where these frogs originated, although some have traced them back to the Sahara desert. Source: The World's Most Incredible Stories, 1998, page 66. SOURCE

Or you can read more about it HERE

What an odd world we live in.

990 lb SQUID

Have you heard about the 39 foot long "Colossal Squid" that was caught in the Antartic Ocean last month?

According to the BBC News: There have only ever been six specimens of this squid recovered: five have come from the stomachs of sperm whales and the sixth was caught in a trawl net at a depth of 2,000 to 2,200 metres.

Scientists admit they know little about the large squid"It's been known since 1925, but no one really paid any attention to it," Dr O'Shea said.
"Now we can say that it attains a size larger than the giant squid. Giant squid is no longer the largest squid that's out there. We've got something that's even larger, and not just larger but an order of magnitude meaner."

In considering the demotion of "giant squid" to be second fiddle to "colossal squid", I'm reminded of when Pluto got robbed of full planet status.

All I know is that thing would make one heaping pile of calamari.

To Fold, Spindle and Mutilate....

Wanna give your wait staff a smile along with his/her tip?

Try a little Origami with your bills. For step by step directions,

go HERE

Girl Scout Cookie time

Over on the Simple Human blog there is some good info on finding Girl Scout Cookies. Back in the day I used to sell 'em myself, so I'm always a sucker for a few boxes.

Blogging = Brain Power??

I ran across a rather intgriguing post about how blogging can inrease your brain power. You can check it out HERE.

Prayers for Amillia

I was blown away by the MSNBC story about the infant from Miami born after just 21 weeks & 6 days of gestation. Amillia Sonja Taylor was just 9½ inches long and weighed less than 10 ounces when she was born.

Sorta makes you rethink that whole question about when a fetus becomes a person, eh?

Ethically though, I am also troubled by the etreme measures people are willing to go through in order to create a new baby when there are so many thousands of babies alive today who have no one to love and care for them. This infant was conceived through invitro fertilization and then required hundreds of thousands of dollars of special care after birth. I'm certainly not suggeting the parents did not have a right to conceive a child of their own if that was their desire. I'm just raising the question about why so many folks are hell bent on perpetuating their own genes and chromosomes instead of lovin' on one of God's kids already here.

Tamastslikt

My brother and his wife came up this weekend from Boise to bring my beloved his new guitar. (my brother found a really nice Martin in one of the music stores in Boise - knowing my hubby was in the market for a new piece he called to let us know this one was pretty special and was priced reasonably. We sent a check in the mail and now it's here....perhaps more about that later.)

So last night we cooked green chilies and talked, made music, generally had a great visit.

Then today we headed over to Tamastslikt Cultural Institute, the Native American museum on the nearby reservation, adjacent to Wildhorse Casino.

Some "cultural interpretive centers" linked with Native American Casinos are little more than glorified gift shops. Tamastslikt, however, is the exception. It's really a very powerful place full of lots of significant displays and has been very well done.

It had been a couple years since the last time I visited the place so I expected there would be some changes, but I was quite astonished by how much they have added. Whether it be the information on the journey of Lewis & Clark, the history of Native American boarding schools, the impact of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers or just the "day in the life" displays of tools, beadwork, etc it was all done exceptionally well.

I've been a museum junkie from way back and have been to my share of both big and small, grand and funky. This one is a real gem. For anyone travelling through Umatilla County, Oregon, I highly recommend it.

Chance Meeting

I'm in Portland right now attending a conference on Student Success & Retention. There has been some good information presented, but I'm just sort of going through the motions. I came to this same conference last year, and I saw how people came back from it with all sorts of ideas about how to improve things, but nothing much ever came of it. The culture of the college where I work is not very open to change. So I was feeling a bit cynical about the value of my being here.

When I was done with all the sessions I needed to attend for the day I grabbed a bite to eat and took a short break. Most of the others were planning to all go out to dinner together and maybe go do some fun things in town. I, however, had lots of work to do so I passed on the chance to go along. I came downstairs with my laptop to find one of the few spots where there is a decent internet connection so I could go online to grade papers from my two online classes. For the past three hours I've been tucked away in a quiet corner slaving away while everyone else was having fun. Sigh. The price of responsibility.

Then one of the hotel housekeepers came into the room where I'm working to check the set up for tomorrow's seminars. She was surprised to find me in here. She asked if she could get me anything, and then brought me a pop and chips. She was a really sweet woman who obviously wanted to do anything she could to make me comfortable.

We struck up a conversation and I asked her if she liked her job. One thing led to another and we started talking about hopes and dreams and what she would do if she could have any job she wanted. She got all bubbly and animated talking about how she is a real people person and likes working with people. However, she has never finished high school and now in her mid 40's feels like working housekeeping / laundry jobs are really the only options she has.

I encouraged her to consider going for a GED and taking some further education if she would seriously like to change her circumstances. She got very doubtful for a few minutes, saying she wasn't sure if she could do that. I told her how I had dropped out of high school at 16 and pretty much made a train wreck of my life prior to going back later for a GED and then on to college. Her eyes went all wide and she was stunned that this professional person at a conference for college teachers would ever have been a drop out.

I told her about some of the programs that are available for non-traditional students and resources available to help if she really wanted to do it.

It was like lighting a firecracker.

She got so excited to think that maybe it was not too late, that perhaps she really could still open up new avenues for her life. She asked if she could have my phone number so she could keep in touch with me to talk about this. I gladly gave her my contact information and got hers in return.

She gave me a big hug and then went on about her housekeeping duties. However, her step was much lighter and she was grinning from ear to ear and she gave herself full permission to dream big.

Right now I'm feeling pretty darned good about being stuck in this quiet corner to work instead of going out with the gang.

Who would you Morph With?

My oldest brother is a computer whiz, and has mastered the art of "Morphing" digital images. This means starting with two still images he creates an animation that slowly turns one picture into the other picture. For instance, he has a blind friend that he created a morph of that changes Ryan into his Guide Dog. It's really amazing to watch.

However, he has also come up with another interesting use of the technology. He has a photo of himself that he has tinkered with so that it is 75% him and 25% Mel Gibson. You really can't tell he's doctored the image at all....it's still at the stage that it is very much recognizably HIM, yet somehow a bit more - powerful? Hard to identify exactly what is different. But there is a definite Mel factor going on that makes my brother looking much hotter in this particular picture than he does in real life. Hey, he's a GREAT guy, but no movie star!

So who would YOU morph with to "spice up" your own physical features? I know this is shallow and silly, what I find interesting about the question is to discern what other people find attractive.

Absolutely there is more to being comfortable in one's own skin, smiling sincerely, and the light-in-the-eyes that comes from spiritual peace that exudes a sense of beauty than full lips or high cheekbones.

Still... how we define what features are attractive is intriguing just the same.

I'd love to look like Reba McEntire.

That doesn't mean I am going to despise myself for being who I am.

Who would you morph your image with - to still be you but maybe add a thing or two?

Choosing Colors

I'm hoping to get my bedroom painted sometime in the next couple months. However, I'm having a tough time selecting a color. Right now the ceiling and top half of the walls are sort of a buttery yellow and the bottom half of the walls are a bluish-purple, with the two colors separated by a wallpaper border of flowers and ribbons incorporating both colors against a white background. There is white carpet and white battenburg lace valances over the windows. The whole thing is MUCH too Martha Stewart looking for my tastes. So I'm ready to pick something new. However, after looking at dozens of paint chips I'm baffled about what to try next.

The fact that the room is 18 x 20 with 14' vaulted ceilings makes painting the place a bit of a challenge...but also makes it that much more important to me. That's A LOT of yellow right now and I just don't care for it.

It's amazing how much color can influence mood. I read once about a jail that painted all their cells a certain shade of pink because it was supposed to be "calming".

I definitely don't want pink.

I'm looking at several shades of beige, sage green, and about 47 different colors of white. I'm thinking I want very neutral background and then may do a bold mural all across the one high wall and part of the ceiling.

Or I may do some sort of sponge-paint or feather-paint to give the walls a textured look. Dunno...

But this yellow definitely has go to go.

If it were just up to me I'd probably paint one wall a very BOLD color and then some quieter color to complement on the rest of the room. But hubby dearest isn't crazy about that idea. Last time I tried somethng BOLD I slected "Library Red" for the office nook under our stairs. My beloved decided after it was done that it looked like a murder scene - the color conjured up images of dried blood for him every time he went there, so he painted over it with some neutral beige. Based on that experience, I probably won't want to go with anything quite so dramatic this time. But I definitely want some WAKE UP AND SEE ME color in there somewhere.

What sort of colors do you like?

Baby Bear Eggs

Both my husband and I have the day off from work today in honor of MLK, so we've enjoyed a slow, relaxed morning together and then drove the six miles to the next town to have breakfast at the Adams cafe. It's places like this that make me appreciate living out here in the middle of rural nowhere land. The waitress was friendly without being intrusive, The atmosphere of the place charming without being cliche. I was served what can only be called "baby bear eggs"...not too hard, not too soft, but JUST RIGHT! Goldilocks would have loved 'em. The fresh biscuit was to die for yummy. The hot chocolate to wash it all down completely hit the spot. The only bad part of breakfast there was that afterwards I was much too full to even consider sampling either the fresh home-baked coconut cream pie or the blackberry cobbler they were offering. I guess we'll have to go back another time to check out the pie.

Happy Solstice

With the official first day of winter (also known as Solstice), we cross over to having our daylight hours beginning to increase again instead of continuing to get shorter. The extra few minutes of sunshine won't really be noticeable for a while, but just knowing they are there gives me hope for tulips and daffodils and that bright green of brand new leaves popping out on trees. Granted, for those of us in the northland springtime is still months away. But it doesn't seem that long ago I was raking leaves and carving pumpkins. Now I'm sprinkling salt on sidewalks and navigating ice. Soon enough I'll be tilling the garden and beginning the whole cycle over again.

So as the season of Saturnalia comes and goes, I'm reflecting on how it feels as if we are living in accelerated times. Weeks morph into months into years and holy cow, where does the time go? Seasons spill into one another faster and faster. Was it really so long ago we watched the world go into wacko phobia over Y2K? Now we are already six years into this brand new century. Has it been what you expected?

Perceptions of time are fickle things...

As for me, after months of frantic Type A over-scheduling, I am very much looking forward to have the next week to do pretty much what I want. I plan to lie in a lavender bubble bath reading my printed out chapters of The Promised King, to put together a couple jigsaw puzzles, and take several well deserved naps. I may bundle up and go do a bit of geocaching. With the new year I am sure I will find plenty of new "to do" lists and make commitments for all manner of activities. But for now...I will gaze at seed catalogs and sort through a closet or two NOT in effort to get it all tidy, but rather to just enjoy the pile of old letters, concert ticket stubs, travel maps and other junk I have stashed there. I'm officially off duty for being busy and responsible for the next little while. It's time for me to stretch out and relax.

Gout Boy's Amazing Recovery

Monday morning my beloved woke up with terrible pain and swelling in his right foot. He was quite baffled by this, as both feet had been in full working order the night before when he had gone to bed. Could he have some mysterious "turned-over-too-many-times-in-his-sleep" injury? He is a strong, stoic stud-muffin type of guy with a generally high tolerance to pain but this was really bad. He could barely walk. So off to the doctor he went. There he was told he had gout.

I've known a few people who have had gout in the past. It is a form of arthritis that comes on quite suddenly, most often overnight and most often in the foot. However, it can affect just about any joint in the body. It can linger quite some time and be very debilitating.

I'm not one to put much stock in doctors and pills, so I did a little research to see if there might be some natural remedies which could be helpful for him. I came up with THIS website that offers an extensive report about Gout, along with several different home remedies.

At first it did sound a bit far fetched. While it had lots of good information, the idea that a simple thing like taking two teaspoons of baking soda in a glass of water every two hours could cure the problem sounded too good to be true.

However, hubby decided to give it a try, figuring he could fall back on traditional medicine if this did not work. He followed the directions and I'll be darned...by the VERY NEXT DAY he was feeling MUCH better. He still had a little tenderness, but he was vastly improved and was able to walk with almost no discomfort. By Wednesday he was absolutely fine. Anyone who knows gout knows that's just plain amazing.

Score one for the natural home remedies - wahoo! I'm glad he's feeling better AND glad that he did it without more meds with all their nasty side effects.

So I've been doing some reading about various "home remedies" for all sorts of ailments. Interesting stuff! Do you have any favorites?

I'm gathering a collection of them which I want to put together in a report I will print here on this blog under the title "Old Husband's Tales...folk widsom and health." It will have two categories - the most wild, absurd, dangerous or silly things that people think will help them get well when they are ailing AND things that have been shown to actually work.

Then I plan to do some exploring about the whole idea of sickness and health. How do we decide when we are just "under the weather" and when we are seriously ill?? Why are some sorts of sicknesses viewed as trivial and others as significant, even when the symptoms are not all that different?

So if you know about any old remedies, whether it's something you or your family actually tried, or something you've just heard about, please let me know.

Plug for a Pal

KATÄRI
to perform at
Seven Stones Café

See and hear songwriter / musician Katäri Brown, and enjoy the amenities and ambience!

7:30 pm to 10:30 pm
Friday
October 20, 2006

Seven Stones Café is at 24 South Plum St., Media, PA
(610) 627-2077

Performance free of charge to café patrons.
CDs available for purchase!

Endangered Species

On my way to work this morning I heard an NPR report about the Giant Palouse Earthworm. Apparently there are some folks who want to get the thing declared an endangered species. I'm not quite sure how I feel about protecting a rare three foot worm.

Yeah, I know all about that stuff about how we are all part of a web of life and anything that effects one part ultimately effects ALL parts. But there are some things I just squish. This sound a bit too big for squishing. However, advocating for its protection is not a biological battle I'm signing up for any time soon.

The Power of Intention & Prayer

If you would like to help Dean Radin, Ph.D. in his second experiment looking at the effects of distant intention on water crystals, then please click HERE and assess 50 pictures of frozen water drops. It should take about 10 minutes. This study is a triple-blind version of his initial study. Results will appear in the Explore (explorejournal.com) in Sept., 2006.

Magic Ju Ju Beans

For the past several months, I have been experimenting with homeopathic remedies.

Not one willing to take traditional sedatives, I was hoping to find something that would address my raging insomnia. Learning about Homeopathy has been an interesting journey. My RATIONAL mind scoffs at any possibility that this stuff could work. It defies all logic. But my EXPERIENCE tells me there is something to it.

However, homeopathy is more an art than a science. The remedy selected must be just the right match, fitting the individual like a key in a lock. I've tried three different things that clearly did not work. Each time I was ready to just quit, determine the whole thing to be a bunch of nonsense and move on in my usual sleep deprived way.

But the particular practioner I have been working with has been doing an incredible job of listening well, paying attention to what worked and what didn't, and trying with all diligence to find just the right match. He's somehow managed to have just the right blend of expressing confidence in the process without discounting my reservations. He's been respectful of my need to understand what I'm getting into and patient with my balking and suspicious mistrust. Little by little the guy has genuinely earned my respect. So, after very nearly throwing in the towel, I've begun a new remedy recently and this one SEEMS like we might finally have made a good fit.

The sense of well being I am finding goes far beyond being rested. This is no "happy pill." Yet there is no question in my mind that I am feeling calmer, more balanced, more at home in my own skin.

I've gone through so many phases with this stuff... from outright skeptism to guarded willful suspension of disbelief to wishful hope. I'm still not entirely convinced. But I'm exploring, trying to stay open to the possibility that not everything has to be rational and logical to be real.

The whole premise of homeopathy still rather baffles me. But I'm quite certain that there is much truth in this world I do not comprehend. This might be one of them. It may just be some mysterious thing that has real power to heal.