bits of fourth

 It's the Fourth of July.  I have the day off from the office job, but still have 'double duty' postal route tomorrow so I don't know if we are going to try to go do anything late night tonight.   We're still waiting for the HVAC company to get the equipment and come install it, probably next week.  I've written a little bit on a few books but I've taken up teaching E some work skills like inventory management, spreadsheets and table formatting.  She is going to help me set up a printer today.  I told her we also need to work on some phone skills, and of course, preparing more for her driving test.  We need to focus on getting her a car to drive - but the HVAC was unexpected and we've had to do that first.  Next week we go and make sure she has all the classes she needs to graduate this year, as there have been some changeups required.

 

I've wondered what other online courses I could get her to take that might be of use for her, certificates etc.  I took that financial literacy course with her late last year, but haven't been chomping at the bit to take any more on that site, either.  But she is appreciating learning more about computer skills that I actually use daily at work, and her school experience has pretty much thrown her out into word processors and spreadsheets and said 'go do something with it' without giving her anything useful to do with it or any instruction.  It's a far cry from when we had entire classes in typing and ten-key (which she had never heard that term before), computer programming and word processing.

 

I've been studying French and Welsh - both of those are advanced level stuff so it's not as easy as just playing around in low level Japanese or Czech, but still not as annoying as  trying to keep Spanish separate in my head, and started a different world in the Minetest to see how I adapt to building now with knowing how everything works and how to survive in each environment.   And that isn't getting any more books released.  I've just put a lot on my plate right now and some of it - like E's extra computer lessons - are things I probably should have been doing for a good while.

Mikki Mack book released for sale

Mikki Mack!

 I released this book on Amazon today, It is available for sale in paperback and in Kindle.  

I had been working on it since last November, but mostly in fits and starts.  Esme made the beautiful cover image, which continues to the back of the paperback with a glorious long fluffy tail, just like the description says.  I didn't feel, at first, that I could do anything to match her talent on the digital images - but I pushed myself to go out there and do something, so that the story could get out.  Mikki is a very sassy little cat - and she tells the stories of several cats of our own, and of friends, all wrapped up in one fluffy gray ball.

I am spurring myself to put out more of my stories just to get them OUT - I have so many just sitting here that I don't feel are good enough, or were waiting for some larger anthology... but in this day and age... getting it out and into the world is more important.  You never know when 'someday' isn't going to happen at all, for one reason or another.  Especially when you have social anxiety in general.

*sigh*  so yes, today is an 'oh my introvert' day.  I'm going to have to drink a lot more coffee and finish my Japanese and see where my brain is at before continuing with either : the little pig story, loosely based on a story Esme told me when she was a toddler, or setting up one of the House of Sunlight stories to edit separately and see where that gets me for page count.

I could comb through the Pinocchio's Grandniece is a Dachshund story sometime soon.. but as I said, I have so many things piled up that I freewheeled and had a great time writing, and then put in the drawer and said no one will like it.  They won't get a chance to like it or not like it if it never goes anywhere other than the drawer.  (That's easy to say, not easy to do).

And I did a video interview for online tutoring.  Another 'oh my introvert'.. but I just went and did it - because I do feel the experience was important and that I did have something to say about what I could do to teach words and reading.  I have a lot of experience with learning not only English, but other languages - and with having the kind of brain that doesn't immediately get it from the regular perspectives, so I can see lots of ways other people might get lost, and try to help them get to the goal.

1.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 20 : done

2.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 11 : did some but then I fell over for a nap

3.)  babadum to 50 cards at least : done

4.)  Baltoslav to 25 or more : 90 done

5.)  Clozemaster Japanese and Chinese 10 sentences each (that is their free daily limit)    : done

//I went and did some WaniKani - it's been such a time since I did that.. and I've forgotten so much of the onyomi and konyomi spellings but not doing it isn't going to help me get them right.

6.)  work on some more book stuff

:: started a Kindle Vella.... based on a writing prompt I have in a file.  It's called 'Tiger Stories' and it says it will take up to 72 hours for the first chapter to become live online

And I made lasagna - I'm about to go check on it in the oven right now.

Recipe at Patreon Neurodivergent Cooking : warning, it's leftover meatloaf in there... but you use what you got, use what you keep, keep what you use, that's one of the mantras of this style of cooking

Thursday thursday

the list

Japanese routine :

Duolingo profile at level 20 : done already, first thing, before schoolbus even

Clozemaster (Japanese then Chinese, 10 sentences each)  :  done

BaltoSlav Japanese words and pictures : at least 25 cards up to ? : done 75+

Babadum Japanese at least 50 cards : done to 75

Duolingo profile at level 11 : done, second thing, when I turned my second daily alarm off on the phone

*growl* I should do some more WaniKani review, but I don't wanna -------------

I did fifteen cards the other day and that felt like a lot as I had to make notes on ten out of the fifteen.   The format is much tougher - it's wrong it's just marked wrong AND doesn't come back up anytime soon unless it is related to another it is asking about - and it has konyomi readings which have to be spelled out perfectly as well as translation meanings.

 

I took a picture of the rosehips on the wild roses for someone I had given another type of rose plant to earlier this year.  She keeps wondering why her rose cutting I gave her is dying back and then getting just a few new leaves etc... I told her just keep watering it enough and when it gets to be winter it will be dormant, then in the Spring she'll see the magic. (ie: pink 'confederate' style multilayered roses)  The new leaves are a very good sign that it has grown much more root (it had 2 inches when I repotted it for her). 

Should I go and get chicken feed today?  It is in a different town than the place I went for groceries yesterday.  It is perhaps going to rain tomorrow, and then I work for three days (also raining).  There is still plenty of chicken feed - but I'm twitching whether I should go and do it while I have brain and time, and if the vehicle wasn't being tetchy it wouldn't really be a question of anything more than pushing myself out the door.  I should find some sort of plastic bin to put the backup battery in in the back of the truck, and then I'd feel better about that.  It would fit temporarily in my big toolbox if I took everything else out of it.

One of our older dogs, the one that hardly ever goes outside for more than two minutes, decided to go out the front door when I was getting the elderly cat in this morning.  She ran off up the road nose to the ground.  And she finally came back in with Charlotte now after about an hour.  I would have chased her this morning but she was doing the 'ha ha you can try but you can't catch me' and hasn't actually wanted out there in months... so I shrugged and said 'ok'.

Drink more coffee... think.  I sort of feel like today is in a holding pattern as I'm waiting on our paycheck to pay the bills, but don't have work or anything else that is actually required.  I don't feel fired up to cook anything in particular.  And that chicken feed bin is nearly full.  They will eat the stuff from the other store (that is open more hours than the one I would go to today, and also open on Sunday where this one is not), but I can definitely smell the difference between the two (commercial bigbox store stuff is darker, and smells like soy sauce) and have noticed that they eat this Amish-feed-and-tack-store stuff so much more willingly than the other, chasing handfuls of it across the yard etc.

timmas spred sig bra:

illustrations for the little cat book

my daughter had made me a really excellent cover image, but she was too shy to make any more for the interior of the book

I keep telling myself I should do a bit more on that.  I should really do a lot more on several of the stories that are 'ready but not ready.... '  They say if you keep holding it back because you don't think it's good enough it is really just that you're scared to give it away into the world where others will now see these thoughts.  That is very true with House of Sunlight, because those stories are of a 'wait, what, you broke my brain' twisted nature, as most of them began as dreams.  But the cat book is 'safe', mindless little cat story that is about being cute and even so, the grammar doesn't really matter as much because it is told by a cat.  Like that fox nine book I read.  But still, I never wrote the last story I had intended to (and my undercurrent says so?  make that the sequel, if it ever happens) but the book has well enough to stand on it's own at the same time with the five stories that are written in it. 

**lots of work today**... with still trying to keep it simple

I got somewhere: 

illustration from 'Mikki Mack' book

I submitted my little cat book for final review, without ordering a proof of it - I think it has one spelling error in it, maybe I can fix after they review it, the ebook thing pointed that out to me (it was in a name).

Throughout this heat, I've been making sure to water some every night.  And it is finally supposed to rain some tomorrow.  Harvested more basil and arugula tonight, washed and chopped them, and put them in the freezer.  I think I'll have to put that in a tomato sauce if I want Esme to eat any of it at all.  Or I can make another egg frittata with it.  There is another flush of little green tomatoes coming on two of the plants, and the cucumbers want to do something, again.  The peppers aren't sure, they took a beating in this hot weather, shedding some of their leaves, but they're thinking of blooming again.  There are little tendrils of potato leaf coming up above the soil where I had planted the potatoes last week. 

languages

Someone asked me again just how many languages I'm learning, which is an interesting twist on how many languages I 'speak'..  and I still say the number I'm making progress in is about ten - but to lay them out, it's hard to be so specific.  So I thought I'd lay it out here, instead, for my own reference.  So - I've had interest or am currently interested in 20 languages up to an introductory level.  I've only gotten a good working knowledge in maybe six, ten if I stretch it.  I've tasted a few others than these - Bulgarian and Navajo, and Zulu, Guarani, Dutch, Indonesian, Hindi and Chinese - just to get an idea what their structures were, but can't say I know more than a word or two here and there.

1. Welsh : I can watch TV and listen to radio and read simpler books without a dictionary - but some of the past and future tense grammar in books still can make me go 'huh?'  I can think up lots of simple things to say and feel I would catch on fairly quickly to the rest if I had a week immersion.  I need to make more time for it, as I often almost forget that I 'speak' it in between the long bouts of jumping around all the others.  Duolingo level 25+, have not done any other tests

2. French : Some of it is built in from way back in childhood, but I also can feel the sense that all that I learned was a bit archaic (and bad child grammar etc.) and things have changed in 'modern' French, again - more tv and radio immersion would help - and I can read a LOT and get the drift but when I go into more in depth grammar analysis again I wonder what I know and how much it is smoothed over in between the cracks etc.  Duolingo level 25+, have tested many places and come out with A2-B1 status.

3. Spanish : Still feels like I'm drawing all of it through the French, and that makes it difficult feeling, although I do have some fluency and can read and understand a lot in it.  I should pick up more podcasts, as there are a lot available.  Esme is taking Spanish next year in school - and I wanted to learn it better to help her out.. although, I'm not sure how much day to day she'll share with me either on that.  Duolingo level 23, have tested to A1-A2 status.

4. German : I can say a lot of easy stuff in it, from my language learning in high school.  I can read a lot of it, but not as much as I want.  Duolingo only level 14 or so, but that is because I don't focus on it.  Have not tested any further.

5. Czech : I always felt that somehow I was being helped by my knowledge of French with this one - because I've gotten to level 19 on Duolingo and I understand a lot of what I read.. have not done much pronunciation, and am doing a run at learning more vocabulary and spelling with the set of tiles Mark made.  Czech really helps with learning Russian and Bulgarian.

6. Japanese : Level 19 on Duolingo and some work with Kanji, but I still feel 'at sea' with more than hiragana - there is a lot there to take in, and I can't say too much useful although I can understand some basic restaurant stuff.  I would like to get back in the mood to want to do more of it, but I'm having too much fun over here on the other side of the map, Czech and Latvian and Russian and so forth... 

7. Romanian : Level 17 on Duolingo, started it after French and before I hit Spanish and Czech.  Again, it felt some other language as helping my understanding here - Latin knowledge from a child, and French.  I feel there is a link there to several other languages and would appreciate more time to work on pronunciation but there aren't as many resources.  I don't know how I'd do at a market or restaurant with this one - but I'd like to give it a whirl.  I found a news radio station in it once on radiogarden and it was moving way too fast for me - would like to try another station that was more pop music etc.

8. Russian : level 11 on Duolingo - and halfway through an A1 course on Busuu.  I feel I can read Cyrillic much better now after doing this much - and my pronunciation of things it has asked me to try isn't half bad, but Czech is definitely helping me out on this one.

9.  Finnish : Level 13 on Duolingo.  I have been able to read a very simple children's book story - and I just tested to my phone with it and I didn't remember a lot of the spelling.  I can't say I know Finnish well at all, based on that.  I can remember some words, count, colors etc - but I'm less than A1, definitely.

10.  Catalan - it's between French and Spanish - level 12 on Duolingo, some more on my phone account - I feel I would probably come close to understanding this if I lived in an area or took a vacation there etc.. it matches a lot of my natural 'patois' of French and Latin.  I don't give it a lot of time - because it's hard to practice and Duolingo and wandering around Barcelona google maps is about all I can do to work on it.  Out of the more obscure languages, I feel this one would be one of the best fits for my brain, and it really really helped me learn Spanish over the 'hump' that I was stuck at, because it was that in-between stage with the Spanish interface.  // insert here I've also done up to level 14 of Spanish from the French interface, but not before I had gotten pretty far in the Catalan and realized those connections were helping so much

11.  Portuguese : level 16 on Duolingo.  I pick it up and drop it off pretty easily - when I come back to it after a long time, I remember a lot of it.  I should find that cookbook site again that I was using, because it was very good practice - nearly got me dreaming in it.  I might get along okay, or not.  I can't say I actually speak it, because I know French and Spanish would come out and I would have to correct myself a lot to get in the proper channel.

12.  Greek : Level 14 on Duolingo.  I have taken a few other lessons with Greek101pod etc, and I've tested really well on reading the alphabet, but have a long way to go with learning the grammar.  I can understand a lot of what I hear when it's simple - but it feels like it is slingshotting through the Spanish and the Spanish feels like it is slingshotting through the French, so... there's that.  I could give it more time - I pick it up on my phone app sometimes for a brain change with the alphabet.  I can't say I know it, but I have an interest in working with it more.

13.  Italian : Level 15 on Duolingo.  No, I do not know Italian.  I don't know what I know on this one - I get by because of all the other languages I know, and adapt.  But then, I studied Romanian and Spanish and Portuguese to make the attempt at Italian, because I wasn't getting any of it before that.  So, I've made progress.  I know some Latin, which has helped.  If there was more reason for me to look at it as more than 'another one in the big wheel to spin', I'd study some more of it.

the meme I had made back in 2019, 2020? 

I'm on par *ha* so far

14.  Swedish : Level 11 on Duolingo.  I get by on here through my German language learning - and could put some more work into it.  It's another resource thing, and time, and interested in other things.

15.  Norwegian - same thing as Swedish - level 11 on Duolingo, haven't really felt like going further with it, and interested in other things.

16. Hungarian - level 10 on Duolingo, I have no idea what I'm doing there and poking in the dark, mesmerized by the grammar, but not enough to give it the study it deserves.

17.  Turkish - same as the Hungarian, mesmerized by the grammar changes and the SVO (subject verb object) but I haven't went beyond level  10 on Duolingo.

18.  Ukrainian - did a little of this, up to level 10, but Czech draws me more, and then I began learning more Russian because it was in the Cyrillic alphabet and I wanted to get that under my belt.  Ukrainian is it's own language but I haven't focused on it, and the programs were available more for the other languages.

19.  Latvian and Lithuanian - I'm in the vocab stage on these, done a little bit reading children's books, game sites, and I know they are also two separate languages with a bit of overlap here and there.  There aren't a lot of resources and I'm lucky to have what I do have to poke at them with.  

so, tonight - after thinking this through here, I went and did a bit of Catalan and a good dose of Italian (an hour of VERY rapid-fire answers, maybe I'm not so bad at it.. but the spelling still gets me, and it's picky about the spelling) and then I decided to do a different kind of chart for a week to see where I'm at - here is it with today filled out - the bottom bit should be that A1 Russian for every day, if I keep at it, it's about 10 minutes a day and a little review, so it's not a big commitment, I just have to remember to head to that site sometime after I get home from work usually.  Vocab only is baltoslav or babadum, and I will count that but I didn't do any of it today... instead I went over to the audio site Clozemaster and did some Romanian.

bit

We did those two flea market days in a row, and that was a bit much for us, social introvert wise.  I did some gardening yesterday, and will go out there again in a little bit to look everything over.   And today we did some shopping, and glad to be home.  

I've studied a little less of the Lithuanian the past day or so, give myself some time to see how much I've soaked in.  I did a bit more today than yesterday, and found myself getting about 1 in 8? of the 'non-super-easy' ones wrong - I wasn't counting the ones like 'galaktikus' for galaxy, but more the ones that are very specific to the language, like 'pamesti' (to drop/lose)  - not obviously borrowed words.  That is still pretty good for a week on it.  (and hundreds and hundreds of words)

 

I've added some Greek review the past few days, and continued with the Russian site (Busuu) and Spanish and French on my Duolingo profiles (with the Greek there, and on Greekpod101).  I dropped the Bulgarian except for a word or two here and there because I tried to join their site as a birthday gift and it wouldn't let me pay for less than 6 months.. and I didn't want to commit to that much money on it yet.  Instead, I'll buy myself a longer garden hose closer to my birthday.  We've also still got to pay for what the mail truck is in the shop for, and fix the kitchen faucet that has sprung a leak, but not a major one.

Today at the supermarket Esme brought me this little cooler thing that Mark wanted to use in the greenhouse for cold-stratifying seeds - and I didn't know what in the world they wanted it for when she came up to me carrying it.  I asked her 'Apparata se quoi?' loud enough that people turned heads next to me.  She knew what it meant (fairly easy - what is this apparatus? in pseudo-latin-french which my brain seems to operate in).  Then : I kept myself from saying the next thing that was not quite-English 'ya apres nostri a seguir' (it follows after us) and instead said the English translation from my brain of 'I guess it's coming with us then', with a note of resigned sarcasm.  That last bit isn't Latin, it isn't Catalan, it isn't French - but it has elements of all three.  

I really don't know what language my brain 'speaks' in before it translates to English - at one time I thought it had to be only French, because that was what was present in my childhood - but the answer lies somewhere between several languages - so I must have picked up more from reading, dictionaries and encyclopedias, (my dad had a set of language books from Simply Teach Yourself ...something in red leather-bound volumes, there were also math, accounting and other books in that series but I adored the multiple languages), other television? and so forth.  And the more languages I learn, the better I am at interpreting that what comes 'pre-installed'  isn't just nonsense, it actually does have roots in somewhere, and that it's grammar, of course, is absolutely horrid.

note : a friend looked at what I had written and said 'you were speaking a patois' - a pidgin, especially of French, that includes regional dialectical differences and/or adaptations to nearby languages, sometimes called a creole in other countries, but also referring to the 'country speak', 'colloquial' or 'rough way of saying things (what patois means)' vs. the refined correct grammar forms.  I like that, I'll take it.  

 I don't know what form of French my grandmother spoke, as she was French and Indian (Ojibwa from Rolla, ND, her parents did not live on the reservation, her mother was half or full Indian, from what I was told and remember (I was five when she died, and my mother told me some of it - so this is how I remember what I was told:) my great-grandmother's name was Bessie Gannon on my grandmother's birth certificate, and a gravestone I've seen - but didn't have any birth record for Bessie that we could find - and her father was many nationalities, in-and-out moving around, gambling and doing odd and long-haul type jobs - Grandma was third or fourth youngest out of ten children, several of the girls had already gotten married and moved away - so after Grandma was seven years old (and her younger sister four, and maybe another younger boy, and then the baby girl) their mom got sick and their father had been away for a long time, and all the children at home, right down to the 18 month old baby, were sent to an orphanage near Owatonna, Minnesota, very far away from their home.  The boys and the girls got split up.  The baby was adopted out (Grandma's sister, when I was a kid, found her and met with her).  

In the orphanage it is possible they learned Latin from the nuns? but she did tell me they were nuns, and they definitely spoke some German, and that she and her sister were in a German speaking household for a while but the lady gave them back because Grandma was stubborn and talked back, she said the lady called them 'dumkoff' (dumbhead) all the time, and that Grandma wouldn't stand for them beating her littler sister who still wet the bed, she made them beat her instead and she told me that once when she fought back the lady locked her in a closet and she screamed and hollered and beat on the door and after that I guess the lady decided Grandma was too spirited for her and both girls went back to the orphanage).  

Grandma's name was Vera, and her little sister was Inez, and the youngest I think was Priscilla by birth? perhaps Patricia.  The older girls were Nora and Eva and Ava and another name that sounded like Eva... and then there were several boys Arthur and Clyde.. Claude? and I can't remember the other maybe a William?  What I did find out I had written down in a notebook for Esme for the future - but I can't find it now.. it's somewhere around here with a bright turquoise cover and has all of my father's family's info  and my mother's father's family's info in it as well (which I found much more of).

On Baltoslav tools - I am playing the pictures game in multiple languages - it goes very quick and gives me a good random selection of words to test - and in Bulgarian, I am getting today maybe a score of 5 or 7 before I lose the three lives over 4 times, in Latvian, about 40, in Lithuanian also about 40 - both of those about 4 times played, Catalan 55 (high score, 2 times), in French 280 (one time played)!  I find it really interesting what French words I have not learned, like wild boar, or trace (it left no trace, not to trace something) etc..  they tend to be high tier ones you would only get in certain circumtances.  In Catalan I'm still getting some of the next tier down wrong - faucet, sparrow etc.

After that, did a comparison with babadum on the French and went to score 125 - with probably about ten mistakes in there on again (it doesn't show you how many mistakes, and there are no 'lives lost' there.  Again, it was mostly high level words that I had not heard and/or positively identified before - even in all the time I've studied French - but I felt the mistakes harder, and also felt the 'I can figure that out from it's parts' stronger, as well - on words that I had an idea about, but had not heard the combination before.  I also like that I knew a lot of the 'abstract' words in French that I have learned the Lithuanian word for on the same system, but how that feels different in my head now because I know the French from a different level, and understand that picture better now (since it is all pictures there, and no explanations).

language learning vocabulary

So this is the fifth or sixth day I've done comparative Latvian<->Lithuanian vocabulary and Russian and Spanish lessons on the same day.  And my brain is in the 'drawing connections, remembering patterns' stage.  I just have to keep it up.

Notes on learning language method - when I begin to point at pictures and say the word, instead of just hear it and choose it - I know I'm actually taking it in at a deeper level, the way children learn vocabulary.  This is also the stage where I begin to ask myself later - what WAS that word, do I remember it?  What is the word for this?  For that?  Hey, those four similar words all have *x* sequence in them, or something very similar to them - maybe, they all share the same root or have the same 'form' (like fireman - runner - mechanic - garbage man, all have the 'is a person who does something' added to the end of them) - or that the other suffix actually means 'thing that <--' etc.  Lots of verbs, but not all of them, end in i 

 

And my brain begins to ask : Hey, do we know all the numbers yet?  How about the colors?  We know *x,x,x,x* body part words, but do you know what X is?  This is because I'm using that babadum and baltoslav tools sites which randomly give you words and pictures in your target language - so you are learning it more realistically, bit of everything all mixed up, then repetition at random intervals.  What I am finding the most intriguing is the way the brain wants to fill in the gaps and begins running 'discovery' 'fill in the blanks' and 'if this, then ?'

Notes : (don't take these as firm meanings, this is me poking holes and trying to work out the language as a non-native learner)

niekas - nekta - nothing

kazkas - something

kas - what (perhaps who?)

atidaryti - to open pradėti - to start / begin

uždaryti - to close to finish / end : užbaigti

skaityti - to read

žiūrėti - to see, view  (also : matyi - to see, witness)

mokykla - school, mokyk - to teach mokytis - to learn

rašy - to do with writing (parašyti)

----rašytojas : a writer   parašas : a signature 

--- laikraštis (time+write?) newspaper  laišką (a letter)

piesti - to do with drawing (pieštukas = pencil) 

tapyti - to paint (teptukas = paint)

sokti - to do with jumping

šaukštas - a spoon

šepetys - a brush  šluota : a broom

ilgas - to be lengthy, to be long

trumpas - to be short, not having length 

spinta - closet, spintele - cupboard  (Latvian  : skapis)

stala - table (Latvian : galds)

kėdė - chair (Latvian : krēsls)

suolas - bench / desk 

kilimas : rug  also uzklotas (a cover, duvet?) Latvian : paklājs

blanket : antklode, antklodas

grindys - the floor

aukštas - weird word?, meaning 'great / grand / tall' but also, sometimes, the floor?

dangus - the sky / heavens / above

aukščiau - above  virš - over   ant - onto, on top of

laba - generally meaning 'good'

blogas - generally meaning 'bad' / evil, wicked

zalingas - harmful, dangerous

zeme - having to do with the ground Zeme means 'Earth'

gėlių  / gėlės : flowers

gyvūnai - animals, gyvūlai  : cattle  gyva (alive)

daržovės - vegetables, greenstuffs 

ūkis  : farm  daržinė : barn  tvartas : barn / stable

višti : chicken  vištiena (chicken to eat)

kiaušinis - egg (Latvian : olu)

virti - to cook, to boil  garai - to steam (garas : steam)

kniga / knyga : books  (this is the same word in Czech)

žvaigždė - stars žvaigždynas (constellation)  -dynas ?  system / pattern?

tinklas - net, also to do with netlike things 

tvora, tvorė- a fence, and fence like things 

----a hedge is : gyvatvorė where gyva means : alive

virvė - a rope, and rope-like things  

lyna / lynus - a line like thing  pynė : string

saltys - having to do with cold

ledo - having to do with ice

maistas - mitalas - food, maitinti - to feed / nourish 

---laistyti - to give water to  

---gerti - to drink

-ninkis? - a person who does something

---aha! 'karininkas' means official, officer, someone appointed to do something

augalas - having to do with plants

ugnis - having to do with fire

jūra - the sea  jūre, jūro- having to do with the sea, from the sea

saule - having to do with the sun

karsta - hot

lenta - having to do with a board / shelf

langas - having to do with a window

siūlas - having to do with sewing,  thread  siūti : to sew

zve- prefix: - having to do with fish   žuvis : fish

upė - river,  upelis -  stream, creek, brook

udens / vandens - water

lašas - droplet, a drop of water, a small glob dew, tear

ašara - a teardrop 

būda - a house, a hut 

----however,  namas : a house, dwelling (in Lithuanian) and mājas : a house (in Latvian) 

urvas - a cave, cavern, burrow  also : ola, ala (Latvian)

anga - a hole also urvas, pramusa

mediena / medis - having to do with wood, sometimes, (not medved, that is bear) 

kirtys - having to do with cutting (medkirtys = woodcutter)

vanikis - karuna, crown

spyna - a lock,  raktas - a key 

burnas - the mouth

akis - the eye

vilk - having to do with wolf

avis - the sheep

stačia : stable, upright

kampis : angle   stačiakampis : rectangle trikampis: triangle 

senas, senia - old, aged  senelis - grandfather 

jaunas - young  jaunamis : young person, jaunikis : bridegroom??

vyras - man, male  vyriškis - a gentleman

kudikis - baby,  vaikas - young children  jauniklis - offspring, younglings

pirst - having to do with a finger (antpirstis - thimble) (pirstina - glove) 

delnas - the palm of the hand

ranka - the hand

galva - the head

laik, laikas - having to do with time? maybe?

arbata - having to do with tea

puoda - a pot, puodelis - a cup (a little pot?)

šalmas - a helmet

-tukas - implement / object ??  

greitas : to be fast, rapid, quick

-siukas / liukas, having to do with offspring?   a small thing?

plakti, pliekti - to beat, lash, whip, also to clap : plaktukas : a hammer,  

--ploti, suploti, paploti  : to flatten plojimai : to clap hands, applause

-plauti - to wash / rinse,  to clean : valyti

kauliukai kauliukas is dice, and kaul is a stone

but also kumeliukas is colt, and versiukas is calf  avenelis is a lamb

gaudyti, sugauti, pagauti : to catch

rinkinys rinkimas : a set or collection

įrankiai  / rykai: tools  (see above : rankinis - by hand, manual)

maišas - a bag 

du- dvi - / sometimes to do with the number two (dvinia - twins) dvigubai - double

pienu / pieno - milk   (I've seen this before, but can't remember what language)

geležies : having to do with iron (ferrous) 

---geležinkelis (railway (tracks)) 

duoti - to give, rodyti : to show off   davona : gift 

petnešos : suspenders, braces   nešos (will carry)

stiklas, bokalas : glasses, mugs etc.  stiklainis : jar

skalbinai - laundry   to wash : skalbimas (washing machine : Skalbimo mašina)

vaista - drugs, medicines   vaistine - apothercary, pharmacy

parduotuvė : shop, magasin, store   parduoti : to sell (verb)

vėje : the wind, but I see it in several words that mean to carry, to have, to dispense 

vaisių sodas : orchard   vaisių meaning fruits,  sodas meaning garden

liesti - to touch

for later :

also : https://www.spokenlithuanian.com/how-to-make-a-question-in-lithuanian-language

The work weekend has finished out - and the mail truck is back at the mechanic getting it's gas leaking issue looked at.  We have the other vehicle back, and Mark wants to get our groceries bought and go try the other flea market in the afternoon tomorrow.

I'll be looking forward to sleeping in just a little - and of course, continuing with this language learning stage.

Made Pad thai from the package for Esme and I again tonight - I really like that and it was fairly quick when we just made it with eggs.  She was really into some online game today.  I did about four and a half hours of packages today, took a nap, helped Mark make peanut butter fudge, then immediately made dinner, and then the mechanic called.

faire le ménage ou apprendre quelque chose?

One small layer of my brain says I should be cleaning - I'm doing some laundry - I should be baking more madeleines because I'll eat them, but there are no eggs (except under chickens) as they were all boiled and fed to dogs.   Instead I'm practicing my French to Spanish, because I keep reaching 'through' the French to get the Spanish from the English... and that is just how my brain is set up.  I will be doing my Russian lessons later, as well, but for now, this seemed to be the rubber-band effect I needed in my brain.

Spanishdict.com : using that for 'blind' retrieval of Spanish words from English - and that is hard - spelling them and not grabbing the French word.  When I consistently keep reaching for the French, I've been writing it down on a list of things to practice, to connect the three angles of the triangle (French--English--Spanish) a bit better.

Mark made me the extra colors of the pushpin magnets I was asking for - the red for French a week or so ago, and now the blue for Spanish - and I've been putting them to use this morning putting up the words I have a hard time grabbing the Spanish word (blue) for from the French (red).  And as I was reaching through this brain network I sat down and drew a little map of some of what it feels like where languages are stored.  Of course, the more I work with a language recently, the more it takes up more space and connects in with other things.  That 'pool' of blue for Spanish isn't completely a good thing - because it is pooled there half isolated and hard to retrieve.  But there is always the base of French, ASL And English that were there in my infancy.. wrapped and flowing through everything - and everything else gets connected and shoved in and around it like a big squishy purse or drawer where the files are not well organized.

(separate thought : perhaps Latvian shouldn't be such a tiny dot, I recognize and can insert words on Clozemaster far better than I do many of the others - although I get 10/10 on French there, and 9/10 on Spanish, getting 7/10 on Latvian, which I've barely studied, is nothing to sneeze at, and I do a pretty good job on BaltoSlav languages on Latvian words and Ba ba dum has Lithuanian that is closest, flag striped yellow/green/red : I have played a bit more on Bern Istaba as well, the children's site for Latvian similar to the English site Starfall Esme used to play on)

But I have swept and put the rugs in the laundry - I'm afraid perhaps the valve is leaking again, but we have to pull everything out to look at it, take the screws out of the wall and shut off the water - I've cleaned the floors in several places, looked in the fridge for anything to chuck out and so forth... with the truck not easy to get to town in, I don't want to get into a plumbing job or other major project.  If the valve is leaking, it is a tiny trickle that I have only barely noticed from a low spot in the garage floor that holds the water there if it gets there...  So many more things need to be dusted and cleaned, it is neverending.  And this is my first day off that didn't automatically come with 'ten other things' planned for me to do, so I've been sort of drifting from one thing to another and not held fast onto any one big thing I have to do today.  I haven't done a shred of art in a long time, well maybe a sketch or two, and the language map above probably counts in some way.

I did go look at the garden - everything has been very wet and is wanting warmth and sunshine, maybe even some fertilizer.  I pulled some weeds, fed the chickens, gave them fresh water - and Mark and Esme are doing things with the greenhouse plants.

language clock

 

 

this is one of the things I do sometimes to get an idea of how I am using my time in languages, and spaced repetition (golden time, as they call it, in several language learning platforms)   Even before I really figured out what that was - I noticed I WAS using that method, of separating things out by 6, 12 or 24 hours  I really do much better spacing it out like that than trying to go all one language or in really large blocks - sometimes 5 to 10 minutes is enough to 'make my ears smoke' - especially in Spanish and Catalan, and other times I can work for a half hour or more and not feel overwhelmed

so when they say I could really be fluent if I focused on just one language?  No, I don't think so.. I think I'd get so overwhelmed and swimming with multiple things in the one language that I would stop and not go back to it for days - which, I do sometimes... but since I'm rotating through 10 to 15 languages, I'm never static or frustrated for very long - I just go to other content, and then bounce back when I feel I'm ready, whether that is 6 hours later, or three days, or even a few months  And other languages REALLY help me understand more - I was studying Romanian when I tried to learn Spanish, (and already A2 in French) and it was so VERY hard... and then I tried to learn some Portuguese, and bounced in a little Italian, and dove deep into Catalan, and then came back to Spanish and said 'Oh - there's MORE room for this, in the right places now, in my head - and it's not mixing with the French so badly I can't keep them separate'  That is definitely a synesthete thing

 

of course, languages isn't the only thing I do all day - although, looking at that clock, you'd wonder maybe?  I've gotten little girl off to school, worked driving postal route a few hours, came home and did some laundry, cooked dinner etc.. but this is a good example of how I smatter / scatter languages throughout the day and make progress over time, and this is three years into my 'goal' so it is not a passing fad.  I continue to recognize more and more in many foreign languages when I watch videos, television and movies.

I also did an audio test in French during that larger block, and came out with 80% recognition of the words.  I watched a children's video in Latvian, and did some more clozemaster in Bulgarian - all the rest was on my two Duolingo profiles (one mobile)

 

Catalan meses : Surface practice with sound, DuoLingo learning from Spanish

gener

febrero

març

abril

maig

juny

juliol 

agost

setembre

octubre

novembre

desembre

I'm in that 6:30 pm block right now doing Czech grammar on the whiteboard - mostly just writing down sentences from Duolingo for reinforcement of the grammar topics I know I'm weak on - then I can look at them all together

Rhai Geiriau yn Gymraeg / Some words in Welsh

A little musing type drawing last night in my sketchbook.  I was not going for 'artistic' at all.. but trying to see how much I could remember and work into the sketch.  I see I spelled 'rabbit' wrong in the drawing.  I spelled bell as 'cloch' which I am sure it is in my lessons - but it says 'gloch' in the dictionary/

Bore da! / Good morning
Croeso! / Welcome
smygu / smoke
pili pala / butterfly
aderyn / bird
Mae hi'n haelog a braf / It is sunny and fine
iar / hen
Triongal a sgwar fenestr / Triangle and square window
Cylch fenestr / circle window
Ci / dog
Dw'in adre! / I'm home
Wal / wall
llawr / floor
porffor tŷ / purple house
gardd / garden
cath / cat
dafad / sheep
dw'in mynd am a dro / I'll go for a while (used like 'I'll go for a walk)
pêl / ball
mêl / honey
llaeth / milk
pys / peas
caws / cheese
pysgoden / fish
cwiningen / rabbit
prynu moron / buying carrots
llygoden / mouse
bwch / cow
gloch / bell
nos da / good night!
hwyl am a tro / goodbye for a while (I'll see you later)

language processing

Just a little note mostly for myself.

I have noticed when I am listening to languages that most foreign languages process into my audio 'eye' instead of my actual audio 'ear'...  This might be because I am synesthetic (synesthesia, senses blending together) or because I am also dyslexic or  maybe it is how the two meet in the middle.

When I hear most foreign languages I 'see' the words in my head and that is how I process them, from the 'sight' of the words transferred from what I hear.  However, this makes the recall of what I just heard slower and it has to go through layers to remember what words I heard in what order.

English and Welsh, surprisingly both process through my audio 'ear'.. as in, I remember in an audible recording in my mind what was said instead of a visual picture of what was said.  If you had said something to me in English while I was listening to something else I can 'pick up an echo' of what I heard and respond to you.  People do it all the time.  And I've noticed that if I heard a sentence in Welsh I can use this same channel for Welsh.  It is there for me to 'echo' as I heard it, and then try to pick it through if needed but usually the words I know translate over almost immediately and the others are left to visualize.  With other foreign languages, almost the entire thing is visualized first, with the audio being lost until I try to pronounce the words separately.

I'm not quite sure what it means, but it is pretty amazing to me.  Each time it hits me I feel : 'This is the way it should be.  This is why this comes faster to me than other languages.'

French is in between -I know many things but the sentences need to be rearranged to match English's sentence rhythm and pattern.  Things that are 'so French', like 'je ne sais quoi' are there, but not other phrases. 

I also notice a lot of 'back and forth' feeling with the French as if I am visually hopping back and forth over the sentence to rearrange it for myself before translating.  But even listening to some children's stories I was able to work it out quickly enough to understand without having to pause over and over.

With Welsh, the hopping and back and forth happens like a skip recording on a tape player, and 'echoes' when I ask it to, without a visual overlay of words as an automatic part of the information.  I think this is a much more 'natural' way - the way children learn a language - so it has been easier for me to pick up phrases and get the accent for Welsh than it ever has been with any other language.

I've described trying to listen and respond in Spanish as 'rolling down a hill'.. I feel like everything is crazy wrapped up and spinning and I'm not sure of enough of what is happening to do anything but hold on tight until it stops (which in real Spanish conversations, it hardly ever does) and then I can sort it and try to figure out what I heard and try to answer.

This is why I couldn't learn to speak and hear Spanish the many times I have taken a try at it.  Although I've succeded in being able to read it on a n elementary level.  I've tried with Esme when she wanted to learn - but it just never will be useful for me in conversation and I definitely couldn't teach her.  She didn't want to learn French.. although I tried that and had a bit more success with her, she just started saying she only wanted to learn Spanish.  She still says she wants to learn it - but she won't stick to any program to try.

Tuesday Wednesday

2015-1-14

8am - long conversation about learning, schools, women's roles in other places in the world, work, what it takes to learn the skills for 'society now' (reading, writing, spelling, math), comparison to her public school experience (extension from talk she started last night)...

We discussed she had to find what she wanted to do and tell us - so we could make 'the days not all boring' (which is what she said when I said today was not a town run day) - but somethings took time and others we wouldn't know she wanted to do until she told us (like the weight lifting, or the rollerskating obsession).

I told her she had choices now, in this time and in America (Liberty's kids came into play here, and talk about China, Japan and women in the military), to learn all things, whatever she wants - if she tells us we will help her explore until she finds what she wants to do.  I said she didn't have to learn just carpentry, or farming because her family did that - she could learn anything.  Then she took the conversation by the tail (as she often does) and said she wanted to learn more farming things.. and came up with wanting to milk a cow and learn how many days a chicken takes to hatch from an egg.  I think I have a lead on a dairy goat farm we can go to - but the cow would be a bit tougher.  We can definitely look into the egg thing.  And she wants to help me more in the indoor greenhouse planting things tomorrow morning 'for school'.. she was so happy the geraniums are still alive.  I brought her home some parsley and coleus seeds to plant.

9a    - math worksheet (greater and less thans)
9.15a    - copy poems
10.15a    - PE (250x jumping jacks, 50x 5lb deadlift, 30x 10lb squats,
      100x 10lb bench press)

10.45a    - building birthday card
11a    - wrapping presents
11.30a    - break

12p    - Liberty's Kids (ep 37, 38, 39, 40)
1.30p    - done

---------------------------------------------
2015-1-13

7a    - store & town run, why streets are where they are, etc
8a    - break

9.30a    - copying poems
10.30a    - break

11a    - co-op and bank
11.30a    - break

12p    - pbskids.org
1.30p    - Liberty's Kids (ep 36)
2p    - done

Esme bits

Yesterday she had this idea she was going to glue her plastic farm animals into a box and take it to school.  I vetoed the plastic animals, and told her she could draw animals and I would help her cut them out and glue them onto the box.  She refused, at first, to draw anything - saying it was too hard.  Finally, after much sulking and staring at the tv, she tried several times to draw a cow.  She was messing up almost on purpose it seemed - frustrated about this head being too big, or that neck being too long, or that smudge between those legs meaning it was all ruined etc...  She fussed and fraggled about it for a while.. and then we had dinner and I insisted she come back to it and try again.  She did, and completed with a nice job.  We glued it on to the box and put it in her bag for the morning.

At the beginning of this week she had told me the dentist at school said to brush morning and night, so you do not stink in the morning and the 'sugar bugs' don't eat your teeth at night.  So, Monday and Tuesday were not trouble - she brushed her teeth, and was fairly happy about doing so... but she didn't get to make the farm drawing before school because of all the time she took brushing her teeth... so the glamour wore off.  Today it was a sulky fight to get her to hold to her word she would brush all week.  But, she did it.  We'll see how this goes.  It would be great if she could get in the habit of doing both - it was so hard to get her into the habit of brushing at night but that finally sunk in.

She has been taking on a lot more responsibility these past few months -- bringing her lunchbox home and putting it where it goes, homework then play, taking her bath and washing her hair almost every single night (which it is down to her waist so it is a task), packing her own lunch with minimal help, brushing her teeth night (and morning, now, we hope), putting her lunch in her backpack in the morning when it is time to go... it is a lot for her, but it is good to see her capabilities develop.  She even has been trying, without success, to tie her own shoes.

Last night we introduced her to Algodoo, a physics/mechanics free program.  She picked up on things right away - here and there, drawing circles and gears and bars and chains, liquifying to play with water, adding motors to make things turn, cutting items with the knife and making lasers that cut things in motion.  She made a 'stomach' with a chain and water and used a laser to make it 'throw everything up'.  Ha.  She said cutting the piece of ice that floated in the water was just like ice cubes in the lemonade.  The really cool thing is once we showed her something she remembered how to do it almost perfectly, would restart the scene from scratch and do it herself to have it all done her way, and was having such a good time she didn't want to stop.

Esmes Minecraft and second day at school

 This is a 'recipe ingredient room' for her to read all the books with all of the letters and words jumping into the books telling her what the next ingredient is.  The chickens will give eggs, which are ingredients.  It is enchantment tables, surrounded by bookcases (she asked me several times why the books were not putting letters into her tables and I gave her a few directions, but she placed everything herself after hearing the reasons why it wasn't working).  with glowstone on top so that it lights up when it is dark.  It is built in 'creative mode' where she doesn't have to go find and/or make every piece herself to use it.  She just has to 'go to the inventory' and every possible item in infinite quantity is available.  That can be good AND bad :)

This is the bigger house I was building in my game yesterday and the day before.  It is 'hearts mode' as she calls it, survival mode - which she does not like because the hearts can go away and make you die *ha*, but it keeps my world free of millions of chickens, lava and unwanted water springs etc..  I think this picture gives some light on what she was doing in her world here... although she did this on her own before I got home.

'Her pink house with the roof and window so she can watch sheep.'

I have not seen her use stairs like this before...

She amazes me with the new ideas and how she 'learns over our shoulders' as Mark says.

She also had a second day of school today,less eventful, but she had fun.  I made a play dress yesterday for home use and hope to do another one today... we've been having her switch out of her school dresses to keep them from being puppy chewed the rest of the day!

spurts and attitude

We talk about spurts, both cognitive and physical growth spurts, in Esme's group often. I have to say she is in a spurt, although an oddly timed one. She has been saying things to me like 'I understand the rules now, Mom' and 'I promise I can do it' and other things that are another level up for her. She has picked up little random skills in fine motor. But, she has also been in a terribly disagreeable mood for days going on a week. She has forgotten her courtesy words lately and has been craving and demanding me to play with her and only with her instead of doing tasks or chores.

Really bad attitude changes are parts of spurts. We know this, and know they will not (usually) last, especially if due diligence is paid to correcting the behaviors. During a cognitive spurt lots of things are happening - and it is opportunity for learning as much as it is a display of new things they are already learning.

The night before last Esme, in her spurt disagreeableness, was very upset about my going to bed early. This is my early weekend shift rotation - so I need to go to bed much earlier than she is ready for. She can stay up - if she is good and allows me to sleep. She was beating her fists on my legs and pushing me, crying and growling at me she did not want me to go to bed. She stood by my bedside and growled some more at me - only running off to her bed when Daddy rose from his chair to come see why I was talking sternly to her and she was yelling at me. She dove into her bed and was asleep very quickly but with a tear soaked pillow.

She has also been getting in trouble for having Daddy put a movie on, putting it on 'pause' with the remote and never coming back to it for more than a few minutes at a time. Daddy has been turning it off completely on her and she has been upset about not being able to fix it.

We had a 'talk' yesterday about these things and about what it means to be 'big and strong and GOOD'. I told her she was growing up but she had to be a GOOD girl and say her please and thank you and not 'play' with the TV like that, and help instead of throwing fits if she wanted to have privileges like helping me with my seed collection, playing ball, making things etc etc... She seemed to agree with these things and listen some to what I was saying but not intently. She likes to try to change the subject in these circumstances.. but I repeated what I meant and after she said 'ok' only then did we go on to the next thing.

Later that night I was getting ready to go to bed early again, and she was winding up for her fit. I told her it was up to HER if she was going to be a big girl and help or be a baby and cry and be sent to bed. Daddy reiterated that, and offered that she could watch his dragon game even if Mom (who had been playing ball with her) was going to bed. She thought it over and then took me by the hand, marched me to bed, pulled down my covers and said 'this looks like a good spot for you, sleep well' and blew me a kiss. OK, that seems to have worked much better. Daddy said she watched dragon game beside him until she was nearly falling off her chair and then went and crawled into her bed without much fuss.

garden bits and projects

I got the first dried Bosnian beans today from those I had put on strings two weeks ago. It is a lovely variety that I do want to help preserve! The Provider green beans from last years seeds are starting to put on beans and are producing well. There was a pumpkin the other day and a tiny blue Hubbard that said it was finished and wasn't getting any bigger. The lima beans are beginning to put on pods and there is a tomato or two that is ripe nearly every day - and a few that are working on pinking up. There are eggplants and zucchini and a single cucumber. One ear on the field corn looks ready and all of the rest are still very tiny... end of the row and pollination etc.


The grey basketweave scarf/shawl thing I was working on




Esme is actually wearing two dresses - one over the other, because she thinks it is pretty. It is, but I swear it must be hot! She wants to help me cook and sew in the house and pretended the other day that she was going to work and her toys were children who had to stay home and be good and eat their crackers and watch tv and play. She 'likes you go to work Mama' now.. but of course that won't last very long and she is just working things out to see what results she gets.

She calls this orange dress her cook apron - and is happy she can put it on almost all by herself. She wants me to wear my 'work cook dress' as well and we can cook food downstairs. She helped me make garlic bread last night. I got the garlic down, melted the butter, got the pan and aluminum foil and asked her to spread out the bread, spoon on the butter and then sprinkle the garlic over it. She did all of that very happily! Afterwards, and while I stressed we keep an eye on the garlic bread to see when it browned, she helped spoon ravioli and carrots from cans onto our plates and dump the excess into tupperware containers. She thought she was so big and helping to make dinner - and she ate every last little bit on her plate!

I also got her to eat a piece of cucumber today - not that she liked it. I told her she couldn't be good at cooking unless she knew what things tasted like. She agreed to that idea. Her favorite pretends lately are 'super mailman' who rides a bicycle and throws mail, and a cross between chef and magician. She takes her big rubber frog out in the sand with this tiny 'dissection' looking kit of a playdough plastic knife and a tray and a pot and I ask her what in the world she is pretending - she says she is making pie for the frog to eat and she needs the plastic knife to cut the pie for the frog and the pot has soup and the tray is his plate. Never assume with this child - as Daddy said as well today, you ask her she will have an explanation, but it will rarely be anything we could have thought up ourselves!

Our science experiment today is what will and will not be floated by a helium balloon. I am asking her to 'estimate' if something is heavy or light. If it will go down (be heavy) or go up (be light). She brings me two things and I ask her which one is the heavier one and she has to estimate or guess. She really likes the game and I can see her gears turning!

She is also getting VERY tall. There is this top shelf we store games on so she does not get into them all of the time without asking. She can now get her black chair and reach all the way up there to put something back after she is done with it. She can't quite reach all the way up to get something off yet - but she is so close. It is only a short matter of time!



I saw this pattern in a Japanese craft book and spent about an hour trying to figure out what the English name for it was. I really wanted to try it. For the record the quilt pattern is called 'apple cores' and after using that as a search term I found a template very quickly. I made two patches and put them together and decided this would be a new scrap project for me - build up some little scraps and then take a day to make a few patches and sew them on. It is so pretty and looks a lot more 'complex' than it was, which is always nice! I saw a beautiful Grandmother's Garden (hexagons) pattern again as well... but one thing at a time. Wait, was that ME that said that? I am never one thing at a time. I am, however, often limiting myself to one thing of a TYPE at a time... sometimes not even that.

I have a cotton tank top I was working on knitting last month that may be done soon. And I have that knit garter stitch blanket that is about 3/4 done now (after nearly two years). I have laundry going and soup cooking and an eggplant to decide how to prepare. I cut up and froze everything from the garden that did not go in the soup and prepared all of the dried herbs from a few days ago to put in containers. It has been a nice Friday off :)

Things on my Mind
With vacations (two shorter ones than last year - broken up this year because of scheduling conflicts) coming up I need to keep my eyes on what I want to accomplish.

a.) zippered lunchbox. This is a big project, and one I need to do. My lunchbox is coming to the end of its long useful life. Hey, it's me. Yes I could go buy one. But, I know I don't have to.

b.) harlequin or chevron type blanket - this is just an idea to add to the list, not something to 'get done.' I'm thinking larger squares or triangles at least 4 to 6 inches across.

c.) brush case - Mark says this is a little more 'Martha Stewart' than usual for me - but I am actually basing the idea for this off of what I saw in nomadic household items during my research into weaving. And also, they keep showing up in the Japanese books I am looking through. I'm thinking a sewn one, with a zipper or a button. It keeps the brush (and the hair oil it collects) from gathering dust from the air around it. In our case the brushes are sometimes also hard to locate again after we have used them - and a simple box sometimes collects lots of other things as well.

d.) skirt for me - I have several large swathes of fabric I have been reserving to make some clothes for myself. I have gotten so much use out of the yellow one from last year that it would be worth time to make another one.

e.) Other clothes for Esme, of course... need to finish sewing the sheep shirt I cut out and never sewed while she still has a chance of fitting into it!

f.) sashiko

randomness and a homeschooling book to look up

+plus magazine <--magazine about math=refreshing
formulary
how to build an octagonal frame. This is one of those things that my brain twitches about when I'm doing really boring things (like pacing aisles asking 'can I help you?' and can't really do anything 'in real life' about it... I need a miter box to make it in reality. Eh, we probably have one around here somewhere? I want to look further into roof trusses as well... they intrigue me but also scare me in the 'really big thing I can't get done myself' sort of way.

I came home to find Esme asleep in her bed covered in blocks. There were even blocks inside her socks.... ?? We have a strange strange child. She is still napping, so I am wandering around in my own studies and browsing.

I was also looking for a map of the U.S. for her - a puzzle maybe. I think there is a placemat at WalMart I'll go look for another day. She saw me looking something up on Google maps the other day and asked questions about what it was and was interested with the idea that people live here, and it takes sunrise-to-sunset to drive in a car that far.

homeschool rambling
We will not need to file any paperwork for a few more years if we do choose to homeschool. It will be nice to have enough information in hand to go ahead if we choose or see what the local school district can offer, if anything. Thinking about other science and learning experiments to put to use at a later date. Mark and I have discussed some basic science experiments with kitchen items and growing bean sprouts in jars over the winter. Yesterday afternoon I read part of a book called 'Homeschooling for Excellence' by Colfax. It was reccommended by a Memphis area homeschool advocate I had emailed. I was impressed by it and hope to get it from a library or used bookstore. Unlike many other homeschooling books it did not start out with a religious mission statement. The author's point of view (from the introduction only) was that the homeschool environment was not primarily for the adults to control what the child learns/doesn't learn but instead to provide an environment that caters to the child's natural tendencies, established communication and shared experiences while providing some direction. It also acknowledged that there will be successes and failures, and that these are learning experiences for everyone involved. The adults are encouraged to choose a breadth of subjects and curriculum based not on 'grade-level lists' but instead relating to what the child shows interest in, what questions are asked and encouraging related experiences that are readily available (farm/woods/city/museums/library).

LONG RANT : Esme's stories, interests and etc...

I was talking to someone at work the other day about Esme watching Muppet Show and singing along with actors this coworker had never heard of (Danny Kaye, Lou Rawls, laughing at Don Knotts and Milton Burl etc..) and making up elaborate stories with her toys and blocks etc.... She said something to the effect of 'why would you do that to a child her age?' I asked 'What?' She said: show them something that OLD like that! like it was 'normal' tv, and not let them watch Dora and the Wiggles and Yo Gabba Gabba... things other kids their AGE will watch. She won't be able to RELATE to any of her peers in school! She also went into all of those electronic toys (Dora dolls etc) she is apparently missing out on being a 'normal' kid of her 'day and age' etc.. because I tend to like non-electronic toys and we don't watch 'modern' children's programming.

uh huh...*as if that will make her a weirdo?* really now...

And there was a discussion on a board I saw about parents who would like other parents to stop actually teaching their children 'boring' things other kids their age 'wouldn't know' and instead let them watch Nick and listen only to popular music and 'nursery rhymes' (no classical or even stuff we like) and then they would end up normal. This mom believed kids under five wouldn't ever ask questions about anything in a BOOK or about anything not shown on a children's television show etc...and anything else would be pushing a child to learn things 'above' them.

uh huh... again.

There is some to 'growing up different' that these people are talking about... but everybody grows up differently, and parents can't try to be something they are not just to 'be normal.' Mark and I are geeks, and we kind of like it that way ;) Esme will come to some of that by proxy and everything else by her own interests.

I try to follow her interests. If she is interested in 'tick tocks' (clocks) I read her the numbers. If she likes colors lately I will let her pick out her clothes and say 'oh you want the PURPLE shorts, they're pretty' etc and then let her pick out fabric at the store the same way... When she started to play with the money in my wallet I made her play money and told her what each piece was. Now she asks me for a 'quarter' or a 'dollar' at the store etc... If I am making a quilt with hexagons, I tell her what they are and am prouder than punch when she brings me the hexagon out of her shape puzzle. She always makes connections I don't expect - and I find them cool. She did that before she could talk as a way of communicating with us, and they are only getting more interesting now that she can talk better.

She also likes her letters and numbers - has been very interested in the idea for a long time when she would see them in books, on signs, at the supermarket and on Electric Company. She traces her fingers over some letters and sometimes says them out loud - but she really isn't a performer just because we ask her to etc.. She is often VERY stubborn about showing what she knows to anybody (I remember hearing 'NO 5, NO 8' etc.. when she saw them drawn out and then she would erase them angrily and tell me what she DID want me to draw. _I_ didn't think she knew those numbers, which is why I drew them on there to see... and hey, she knew them.. and wasn't amused!

I also used to get begged daily to go to Starfall.com but she has mostly outgrown that now. She does want me to open my wordprocessor so she can play with it quite a bit lately. And just try to put away the PAIRS in PEARS game once she has begged it out onto the table.. or telling her I don't want to play MEMORY for the fifth time today etc...so instead her kitty toy begins to eat the cards and she finds all the food cards and shares the food with her dolls etc...

If Mama is reading about it or she finds a picture of it - she wants to know what it is, even if she can't pronounce it or have any way to understand it right now. She wants to be involved. She will open magazines, and textbooks and anything she can find - sometimes it is just to get attention and other times because she really truly likes what she sees (our atlas, for example, or the science book with all the diagrams).

She goes through her collections and asks me to identify all the fruit, or all the colors of something, or all her shape cards. She will take something away too, and play keepaway not letting me see the card - and still expect me to answer *hate that*. She loves to match pairs of things and thinks it is cool and funny to find two of something. She is creative and likes to make up stories so she can have fun with us. She will ask me to draw aliens and bears on the magnadoodle and dress them in hats on every 'head' and boots on every 'foot'. Her animals and dolls have interesting busy lives doing things sometimes I have NO idea what it is etc... Tonight her new cow toy had to meet every single other toy and say it was a cow. I didn't understand much more of it but Daddy was pretty sure that was the gist of it.

She would ALSO love electronic toys that make lots of noise like any other kid her age.. but for how long? Would she get bored quickly when they just say the same thing every time you push the foot or hand? And those bother Mark's ears after a bit, so it becomes more about getting a reaction out of the noise than it is about playing with the toy.

She does watch a lot of TV, compared to the 'reccommendations'... but we don't sit her in front of it all day, either. We play TV during and after mealtimes for a bit. She has quite a few shows she really likes, and usually it is something we like or at least tolerate. We have no broadcast TV, all DVDs. We rented Yo Gabba Gabba once on Netflix, she HATED it. She cried NO NO,NO. I asked her if I should put it back on the next day and she again cried NO. She likes things with long storylines best, like Pixar films or cat/dog movies. She does like Shaun the Sheep a lot.

As for music, Mark listens to hip hop and 60s and 70s and Beatles and Zappa etc... mostly when I am at work. I put on the classical and the folk music and jazz, and enjoy some of what Mark does as well. He says he has a copy of Beethoven's Ninth besides the one I have - and he guards it heavily so it will never be scratched! Esme has her own tastes as well. She doesn't like some of the music that we really like, but we give her a chance to listen to a lot for someone her age. Sometimes she surprises us like when she dances 'mosh' to Digital Underground's 'All around the world' with Mark or when she talked to the 'Ode to Joy' the other day like it was a phone conversation ??

In most every way she is completely and utterly a two year old - running and screaming and spinning around in circles and loving the carousel at the fair, playing with cats and dogs and in mud puddles and throwing tantrums over potty training or not getting a lollipop etc... and to us everything else she does is perfectly normal, too. And I'm not going to stop listening to what she wants to do (letters, reading, asking me hard things) because a few people at my work are uncertain if it is possible for a three year old to know who Don Knotts is or read off the letters in the breakroom signs to me and say 'YEA THAT's RIGHT' etc.. They've either never had kids, or never had curious ones ;)

I think the basic thing is she knows what she wants and we listen to her - she has a good memory and a curious streak and isn't afraid to show it when she wants to. AND, she hasn't been made to think she is 'bothering' us every minute of the day by showing it. Sometimes I feel that is what my sister and sister-in-law have beat into their kids - leave me alone and stop asking questions, stop wondering, stop imagining, be quiet etc.... I don't want to do that to Esme - I want her to be able to think and express and ask away - even though sometimes I will have to say 'wait a minute' or 'after X' or 'let mama finish typing this' etc.... She is getting better at that, too...