Walk

You'll be happy to know that tenth graders can spell much better than third and fourth graders. At the lower grades, they are told to sound out words they don't know how to spell.

The people at work think I am totally nuts to bring a camera to work. For you, my blog readers, and only for you, I am willing to tolerate shame and ridicule! I have my morning break and lunch with the coworkers, but for the afternoon break, I like to go outside and take a walk, and see that the world outside still exists.

Waiting

Back when I was making slide shows (not that I don't make slide shows anymore, it is just that I get my best ideas when I am in the middle of a project), I imagined making a slide show showing the progress for a quilt. All the way from the inspiration stage, the fabric selection, the cutting, etc. I imagined also including the part where the quilt was resting. The calendar pages would flip while the photo of the resting quilt would appear and reappear.

I am afraid that my kaleidoscope quilt is going to be sitting in this limbo state while I go through the peak season at work. We have finished the reading project, at least my part. I had a wonderful team. We finished third grade (we were the first ones done!), then our group helped another group finish fourth grade, and then I moved to seventh grade for a couple of hours. This weekend, I will try to help another group finish yet another reading project. Then next, I move on to another project, working on fourth grade math, the same one I worked on last year.

This is not a good type of quilt, and is not in a good state to be left waiting. It is a challenging quilt, and those types of quilts are best started while the excitement is at its peak, without thinking through the pros and cons, and the difficulties that are yet to be encountered. Hopefully that same excitement will be back when I finally get a chance to really work on it.

In the meantime, I asked my mother whether she would be willing to make some frozen dinners for me. I told her she could just freeze up a portion of whatever she was eating that day. She has a key to my house, and when she brought food (yes, it comes delivered!), she even washed the dishes (by hand) and cleaned my kitchen!

Maybe I will get to press the fabric and make small progress. Then I can show the quilt with time lapse photography. The photos are going to have to go really really fast to show any progress!

Education System

We've been complaining about the education system again. I guess it is a normal thing in my line of work. One man was saying how we are missing the basics, learning how to spell, doing mental math, memorizing the times tables. I think that the "system" expects kids to have help with a calculator or spell check, and so they don't need to figure things in their head.

One woman was talking about the skills one needs as a mother - basic nursing skills, knowing how to teach, cleaning and organizing, time management, etc.

Another woman said she was in a financial management class at a library, and very few people came, so she got personalized guidance on her finances. This is yet another set of skills that we don't teach our children. I was one of the lucky ones who was taught how to balance my checkbook at school. At that time, it seemed too simple and I knew that there was more to learn, but I didn't know what questions to ask to learn any more.

I think that if the teachers don't teach it in the schools, then it is the parent's requirement to teach it at home. I'm not sure I did such a good job keeping up with my requirements. Luckily, my job isn't over, and I can continue to help her with these tasks when the time comes. I think I've taught her the philosophy of these things, but I don't think she is ready to sit down with me to learn a lesson about mortgages right now.

There are a lot of good books available to review right now - they come in surges, there were three I wanted, so it was hard to choose. I requested a money answer book. I expect it to tell people to maximize the revenue by get a good job that maximizes their skills and talents, to keep going after that promotion. And it should talk about mortgages and investments and paying off the credit card, and retirement. It should talk about minimizing expenses.

Cooking Continues

I am really enjoying this idea of cooking once a week for the entire week. I freeze the meal into individual serving size containers, and a healthy lunch is very easy to pack, and dinner is easy too.

I got smart this week, and decided to double the recipe. Instead of making three different things out of a package of family sized meat, I decided to make two. Yesterday, I made chili and curry out of ground beef. I also bought a package of chicken which I have to cook today. The problem is, I kept running out of plastic containers. I bought another package of 5 when I went grocery shopping, but apparently I need more. I am hoping to also make salad and put them in individual packages in the refrigerator for quick lunch packing as well.

I used up the rewards for my Staples free stuff - I bought a clip on lamp for my sewing table, and head phones for Skype, and a snow scraper that was on clearance. They had a $10 coupon off $50 worth of stuff, so I managed to get a good deal on a good deal. I also bought a lot more free stuff from Office Depot, although they had a lot, and I restricted what I got. I still have some office things I want that can wait until the rebate comes in - a shelf, Adobe, and a small camera. I'll have to decide what I want when the rebate comes in.

The lawn has been mowed - half each day. Purple and yellow fabric has been washed. A few more seams have been sewn into the Quilts for Kids. Progress is slow but steady.

Working

This is where I work. Isn't it just beautiful? No I wasn't the last one to leave, there were a couple of cars behind me.

I'm feeling much better. The back pain is gone. There is just enough ache left to remind me to no overdo it. Then Thursday, I got an allergy attack. I sneezed all morning, even though I had taken an allergy pill. People really feel more sorry for me when I have allergy problems than when I have back problems. I would rather not have either problem, but I'm not used to back problems, and I don't like being in pain. Remember I work in an office with 350ish desks, everyone staring at the computer and very few people are talking. I took another allergy pill, because I knew I was bothering everyone, and by afternoon the allergies had subsided a bit, but I was really sleepy. I went straight to bed when I got home, woke up to eat, and went back to bed. Friday, I was better on both the back and the allergy. Sometime during the week, I bought fabric for the optical illusion quilt. Solid purple and pale yellow.

This weekend, I am anxious to get to work on finishing designing and starting to cut the optical illusion quilt. However, the lawn needs to be mowed, and groceries have to be shopped for, laundry needs to be done, and lunches have to be cooked and frozen. Some housecleaning wouldn't hurt either. And the Quilts for Kids are taking up sewing space and I want to make progress on those as well.

Book Review: If I Could Ask God Anything

This book has a lot of different questions that children ask, and provide parents with answers so they can sound like they know what they are talking about. There are cute questions like "Does God ever sleep?", to knowledge questions, "What is Lent?", to real life questions, "Why do people have to die?" They are answered in simple, easy to understand language, and provide good guidance for both the children and the parents.

I do have to admit that after reading the Islam book, this book did irk me in little ways. Let me give you a couple of examples. In the question, "What's the biggest difference between Christianity and other religions?," the answer was

Christianity is not just another religions that teaches about God. Christianity is a religion centered on having a personal relationship with God. This is possible because Christians believe that God is alive. God is real. God has a special plan for the world and for each person in it.
Most important, Christians believe that God loves the world and all the people in it (John 3:16). God loves you!

That's the whole answer. First of all, it doesn't really answer the question. And there is an implication that people in the other religions don't center on having a personal relationship with God, which is absolutely not true.

Another example, in a similar vein. The question is "Can I have friends who aren't Christians?" The answer:

Yes, it is possible to be friends with people who do not know Jesus. God loves all His children. God wants us to love everyone too. At the same time, it is important to remember that because we are human, we are easily influenced by others. Good friends can be a good influence. Bad friends can be a bad influence.

It is absolutely true that there can be good friends and bad friends, but it seemed irksome that that warning was put right there, again because of the implication. There can be good and bad friends of any religion.

It is a good book, but as with any book about any topic that deal with answers for children, you may want to read them first and be sure you agree with them before you read them to your child, and / or supplement them with information of your own.

Full disclosure: Thomas Nelson provided me with a free review copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Weekend Activities

My back is still hurting, so I spent a lot of time this weekend reading a book, The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood. I got it from the library. Sherwood has interviewed people who survived harrowing experiences to see if there was anything that they had in common. It is a great book. One of the things he said in passing was that survivors, especially people with long term illnesses and caregivers didn't wait for "normal" to come back. They accepted their new "normal." I realized that I was waiting for normal to come back. When I dropped a cup of paperclips as I was rushing off to work, I left them there, to avoid being late. When I got home, I decided to leave them there until "normal" returned. I cleaned it up this weekend. I can't wait for normal. I have to accept that it will take me twice as long to do anything, and choose my activities accordingly.

I made some progress on the Quilts for Kids. I am making two of the tops at the same time, because they use the same fabric for the four patches. It took me one day to make the first top, and it's taken me two weeks to make the rows, but that's okay. I'm making progress.

I really enjoyed my week of eating the chicken I made last week. As you may recall, I bought a big family size pack of chicken breasts, and made three dishes, and froze them in individual serving size containers. Made packing lunch and eating dinner very easy. I ate all of them this week. I learned it is as hard to cook salt free as it is to eat wheat free.

It was triple coupon day at the grocery store, but after last week, I decided not to deal with coupons much. I just bought things that didn't have coupons, although I did have my coupon box with me, in case I found something I just had to have. I managed to stick to my list.

This week, beef was on sale, so I did the same with beef. They had a package that had three different kinds of meat - a roast, steaks, and beef stew. There is variety. I am hoping to eventually get to a point where I have variety in my freezer. I also bought ground beef, but I got a late start, (had to wash the dishes first) and didn't get a chance to make that. Since I don't think I should be eating red meat everyday, I'll probably freeze up a vegetarian or chicken dish so I can have variety. I think I'll have to cook during the week to get ahead and have the variety.