soup and rain and cats

 

It is a rainy day out, slightly cold compared to the sunny days we've had recently

Minion (the tortoiseshell) is taking advantage of Loki (boy Manx) having such a warm fuzzy belly

bit of soup: sort of like french onion soup, but not - and a bit spicy

 

chicken broth, oliveoil, black pepper, oregano, salt, celery seed, whole chopped onion, one carrot thinly sliced, handful of (plain brown) lentils and handful of green peas, one deseeded dried guajilio pepper (sweet paprika nearly, not very hot), a small piece of bacon from the fridge cut up fine, bit of kale, cook until the lentils and carrots are soft, run immersion blender in pot

 

I'm reading two books right now:  

How to Find Love in a Bookshop, by Veronica Henry (library, online)

and 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmus (physical book, bought at library sale for a dollar)

 

but the rainy weather is making it difficult to keep reading...

so I have eaten some soup and poured the rest up in a jar for keeping in the fridge

and now I am going to nap a bit 

This morning : Welsh (so much Welsh the past few days), Romanian, Chinese, Czech  - I don't believe it at all when it says I am pronouncing the Chinese properly.  I like the little children's poems I've been finding in Czech and when I finally - FINALLY (it takes so long) - finish these advanced Welsh lessons then I should go back to the grammar work I was doing on Czech

some of the lesser known signs of cataracts in younger people

 If I had known these were cataract symptoms - I would have pushed harder for them to diagnose and treat them.  But, it took me nearly two years of rapidly declining vision, among all of the other anxiety-causing and terrible upheavals in my life, for them to finally 'see' that problem.  And now, after all that time, I am reading my screen again without a magnifier - and with black text on white background.

The signs I missed (and they did, too)

Everything seems dark or dim - even when you have the lights on!  You seem to need to a lot more light for everything, and especially direct or 'sweet spot' light on what you are doing.  Going outside is amazing, things are sparkling beautiful colors, but as the months progress - it produces a 'London Fog' type effect that makes it very hard to see long distances.  

Anxiety - You have a definite sense something is wrong, but you probably ascribe it to other things.  You probably have been adapting to doing things differently, but your body knows something is up, even if you're ignoring it.

Small text was hard, and now is nearly impossible. Up until now, your closeup vision has been what is mostly affected, but you're getting older, right?  It should be 'natural' in your thirties or forties to need stronger and stronger glasses to see small text.  But, every three months or so your prescription isn't good enough, anymore.  You need magnifiers over your glasses or small magnifying glasses to see phone numbers, mail and magazines.  You didn't need these last year - and even bifocal glasses only help at some distances with 'most' type.  You may feel depressed, or incompetent, or both. Everything has gotten harder, paying bills, reading recipes, checking receipts, cleaning up and sometimes when you set paperwork down on the desk or table you have trouble finding it later without looking closely at every item.

Clear shapes in your vision:  The one that confused my ophthalmologist the most?    I was complaining of these 'clear overlays' like patterned glass that would show up in my vision.  Some people might call these artifacts - but they are not the typical type.  They were not 'floaters' or strands of white blood cells like most people describe.  These were bullseye patterns, small triangles, bumps and circles like pixels that would appear and then 'travel' with my gaze across my line of sight.  They would be there worse in some lights, and disappear in others.

Polarized or Fishing sunglasses help some : I would put on polarized glasses towards the worst part here and the London Fog would diminish a lot.  I couldn't see a person on the other side of the room before I put them on, if fluorescent lights were on overhead. The polarization stops certain wavelengths of light from getting to your eye, which cuts down on the interference overall. But, those clear overlay patterns were STILL there.   That was because they were caused by light reflecting wrong inside the eye, through and bouncing between the separated layers.

You want Dark Mode for everything, even in the daytime.  Dark mode on facebook and tablets and readers helps SO much - you can read small type in white on black background fine, but not the other way around. 

Night Driving is difficult or impossible:  Every car that drives by in the opposite lane fills your eyes up with the headlight glare, and it doesn't go away for several seconds.  You find yourself having to slow down for every oncoming car, and/or weaving off the road and missing turns.

Streaming Eyes : Your eyes seem dry a lot, but then at other times they stream for no reason.  

partial Double Vision : You may see 'double vision', partial double vision, or one and a half vision, especially when focusing at near distances but not far.

You keep getting a new prescription, but it only lasts a few months.  It gets worse and worse as the months progress

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I was diagnosed with posterior subcapsular cataracts (PSC) in January, after noticing changes for more than a year, and only getting new glasses which failed the solve the problems.  I was told they are VERY hard to see, and if they aren't thinking that is the problem, they might not look for them in the right places under full dilation.

They can also progress VERY fast.  At the beginning of the year it is just a magazine that is difficult but possible with a magnifying glass.  By the end of the year you can't see yourself in the mirror (but can still see the road to drive, but not read the street signs or exit signs!) or read your own handwriting or phone screen.

They are becoming much more common in younger people, but the medical profession has not yet started looking for them as routine in these age groups.

What Causes This?

They can be caused by diabetes, genetic conditions (like collagen disorders, yay me), any condition that causes excess inflammation or has trouble with healing, those that have been regularly prescribed steroids for lungs or other conditions, or the result of head, eye or face trauma.  They can also be caused by lots of UV exposure, stress or past alcohol abuse.  Put any of those together and it increases the risk.  It sounds like they're still sorting out what 'really' causes it, and how to identify it early - but a little knowledge to the public can only help.

The layers of the back of the lens get separated for some reason (you might not even register it as a real injury or think 'I'm fine' - because this takes months to years to develop the initial condition, and then it begins to grow & change exponentially after that like a nick in a windshield that one day begins to crack all the way across...), and the cataract forms as a 'bubble' in between these layers, in the back inside of the lens, where the problem can only be seen 'through the axial lens'.  

But - won't I know?   It's obvious, right?

It's invisible to the naked eye, and hard to find even under dilation by the eye doctor.  So, no, you probably won't know, and their job is to get you glasses - so that is what they will try. One of your first signs in the office will be that the little floating balloons or Aladdin swirling lights machine - the spectroscope - will try and fail to get your prescription.  Your ophthalmologist may or may not say anything at all about it, or may brush it off - 'that's weird, this never happens', 'you can't trust the machine, it's just there to get a basic reading', etc.  That machine works by bouncing light into your eye and measuring how fast and at what angles it comes back to measure the shape of your lens.  If your lens has bubbles or clouded areas in it that is not going to work as expected.

So, how does your Ophthalmologist recognize it early?

If you see these symptoms listed above, you need to tell them, or they'll just keep up with glasses until they can't match you up any more.  Enough warning signs, we hope they will look, but nowadays everybody is in a rush and they have to have enough reasons to look and check everything.  That is what finally alerted them that I had a 'real' problem.  The vision machine - spectroscope - could not read the worst eye.  The problem was already progressed quite a bit, but at that point they still hadn't identified it.  

They failed me on the vision machine with the floating balloons twice.  I failed the reading test in the chair as well.  Then - they gave me another dilation and looked hard and detailed at my eye, and found the problem after looking back and forth through the lens across my optic nerve and cornea for several minutes checking and rechecking.  This occurs on the inside back of the lens and can only be seen by looking at the 'axial' or side of the lens and realizing you are seeing the problem in the lens - like a spot on your glasses when you keep trying to wipe your computer screen.  

After seeing this finally, the eye doctor referred me to the specialty clinic, which also had to go through all the same things, including the spectroscope confusion.  But, the specialist doctor knew what he was looking for, any and all types of cataract.   As a note, there is a cataract in my OTHER eye, as well, but not as large, and they were still able to get prescription on that one.  

Why does cataract surgery fix it?

I was a bit pessimistic, after all this, that it wouldn't be entirely fixed.  I thought the overlays would still be there, because they were there even with the polarized glasses.   But they remove the entire lens, and replace it with an artificial one.  This problem is in the bottom inside of the lens- if it was a plastic cereal bowl and you placed it upside down on your counter, it would be a separation in the layers on one side near the countertop, flaking upwards.  They remove all of that - not just the top section of the lens, and put a new 'fake' lens in, that reflects light properly.

Will they come back?

Once upon a time, I've been told, they used biological lenses, donated from cadavers to replace the lens after cataract surgery.  These lenses were susceptible to the same stresses, fractures and cloudings as the original lens you were born with.  So yes, THEN they did come back.  Now, with artificial lenses, they should not come back.  But, you do have to protect your eye from UV much more with an artificial lens, to protect your retina from macular degeneration.  The retina is in the back of the eye, and with improper diet, dry eye or blocked eye drainage or other genetic conditions, it can be damaged even more by UV exposure after cataract surgery.  This is why most people after cataract surgery will continue to wear sunglasses outside whenever possible.

Will I still need glasses?

Maybe. But they won't be able to tell until a week to four weeks after your surgery, because the new lens has to settle and your focusing power (your eye bends the lens to see near or far) will be different for each person.  Once your eye has settled, any prescription you get should be the one you will have the rest of your life.

The outcome for me:

With the cataract gone from the left eye - I am reading with no glasses at all, and I only did the basic replacement because of insurance, not the fancy ones.  The ever-stronger prescription in my glasses was not because of 'age' only - as we often think of it - but because the specific cataract type disrupting the light reflecting in my lens.  Cataracts can come with age, but this type specifically can hit anyone of any age, if the conditions are correct.   

I've tried to hit as many of the keywords and search terms as I can in my text that I was looking for when I was going through this problem in the beginning.  Maybe, it will help someone.  If I could go back to the 'everything is dark - turn on the lights' stage and whisper into their ear - it might be a posterior subcapsular cataract.. I would.  I would definitely tell myself it wasn't that I was suffering from depression and anxiety - my dad had just died, I had quit a soul-sucking job .. all of that -- But I wish I had known it was possible that it was a physical problem with my eye, and it needed to be taken care of.

Book Sounding or Book Dowsing

Apparently some people have not heard of this.  It's called 'book sounding', or 'book dowsing', depending on which one you like better.  You can practice it in libraries, on your shelves or on a friend's book shelves.  You run your fingers (or eyes, depending on rules) along the books almost randomly, until one just FEELS right or stands out in some way that is impossible to deny.  You take that book down, go to a comfortable chair and give it a very good try to read, not just one page like you might at the shelf, but a few chapters.

You might 'accidentally' pick up a book about rope, or growing herbs, or a love story that takes place at the turn of the century, or a zombie child that goes through time.  It really could be anything.  Maybe not accounting or rocketry tables.. put that back, maybe.  It could be your thing.

The point of book sounding is to open your mind and have an adventure.  I also love to do it in 'friends of the library bookstores' and thrift shops.  You NEVER know what you'll find - or does it find you?  For a quarter you may be reading a selection of short stories edited by Isaac Asimov that is no longer in print, or suddenly realize a favorite author wrote something you missed, somehow, and now it is right here in your hand.  It has happened to me.

I wrote this article because a Google search for 'book sounding' showed nothing, and 'book dowsing', still nada, no description of the activity!  But I've seen people do it in real life, in movies - what do they call it?  It is so obviously a vibration thing when they are doing it with their fingers - something calls to the fingertips.

So, go try it.  See what the Universe tosses your way. 

bits

I'm finding some new resources for Welsh, like Stori Tic Toc on the BBC radio Cymru.  I am understanding more of it.  It is an interesting feeling to hear one or two words at a time that you understand.. and wade through things.  A sentence to remember: 'darllen ar hyd' means 'read along'.

During the thunderstorm the other morning I was repeating after the speaker in the 'Say Something in Welsh' lesson, and getting a fairly natural rhythm on it as it is the second time around, and Minerva dog was very confused.  She kept perking her ears up and walking over to me after I would say some of the sentences, and especially after lightning flashes, and nuzzle my knee and hand and look at me with raised eyebrows.  Minerva usually doesn't do this - so it was very social of her.  She was puzzled I was talking funny during the scary storm *heh*

I've also been using the fitness tracker for a full week now.  I'm still ending up with 30 to 40% fat and much less protein.  It has a nice little bit to the program to track minutes exercised to, to try to meet the weekly standard.  We have the exercise bike downstairs and I've been hopping on for a few minutes at time when something needs to boil, or the washer needs to spin etc.

We're almost to the end of Serafina and the Black Cloak.  Serafina just realized who her mother is, and Esme finds that exciting ;)

Waiting on my pattern to come in the mail.  Tried to get a dental appointment but they are booked up for the next two weeks (on any day I had available).

reading list updated

The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert (25% through)
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys
Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh
Heartburn, by Nora Ephron
Serafina and the Splintered Heart, by Robert Beatty
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, by Mark Haddon,
Darker Still, by Leanna Renee Heber


I might just have to finish 'signature' and go right into Serafina... I've been waiting for that for a long time!  But I'm still reading volume one to Esme, so maybe I should wait until we are at least done with that... hmm... two weeks to read the last five.. a few days to read the Lahiri and Sepetys books.. 20 hours left on Signature.

painting progress

Did an hour on the painting last night.. just to block things in but not to get too entrenched.  My next step might be to start the fish but also I want to take some more sketches of the plant in the middle in a light study so I can get the highlights correct.

Doing laundry (sale linge) and a Welsh lesson, and making rice for my dinner tonight.  We've all been getting up quite early to get used to school schedules again, which tonight I close, so it will be a long one.  I've noticed my brain really doesn't feel 'active' in the same places when I am studying Welsh as studying French.  The Welsh feels like a 'shorter distance' from English because of the tenses, while the French (although I know more of it) seems like I'm going through more hallways between thoughts, making more turns and 'curlicues' to get to the same places.  The Welsh just feels like I'm remembering to pick up different things on the same routes most of the time, with a few oddities.

Finished 'The Other Language', although I admit I skimmed and skipped through most of the last story because I was just ready to be 'done'.  I have three more loans that have come available from the library and my Paul Auster book 'In the Country of Last Things' has arrived (which I can read anytime).  The beginning of that book really does have reminisces of  'In the Cities of Coin and Spice' by Catheryne Valente I read a few months back...

Esme starts school next Tuesday.

bit o bits

Still reading 'The Other Language' by Francesca Marciano.  Some of the stories are sweet, most are tragic and leave you with a sense of 'other' but 'why' at the same time... I'm not sure why I'm still pushing on through it, because it is very different probably, and the whole reason of the book is to show how all of these people change - some slowly, some drastically (and not all for the better) when they encounter a new language that separates them from something, then joins them to something, and then many of them (but not all) play a balancing game between wins and loss, change and stability, progress and regression.  I've got at least four other library books that are waiting on the queue on my Kindle..

I'm waiting on a book - Paul Auster's 'In the Country of Last Things' to come in the mail.  And a CD (used buy), Seven Nations... something I used to listen on Spotify discover back when that was free.  Both of these I bought with my survey-taking rewards... hoping I like the other songs on the CD... 'Under the Milky Way' is the one that earwormed back into my brain while I was working freight the other day - an echo from years ago.. a little piece on repeat - not even full lyrics, just the 'shape' of the sounds, then trying to catch that bit and 'taste' what song that was from, turning it over in my mind like pieces of a tangible wooden puzzle.. then suddenly remembering it and really wanting to turn up the volume and hear the whole thing again enveloping my eyes and skin until it reminds me why it has become a part of me.

I have an hour before I need to put Esme to bed.. I've started her on the early routine again.  She doesn't like it, but she isn't digging her heels in and making a terrible face as much as she did the first night.  And I'm getting her up twice during the night.  I think there is some anxiety about back to school happening.

I didn't work much on the new painting - we did grocery shopping tonight and I didn't want to get into it when I had so much to read and I knew one dip of mixing one color to fill in one space would probably be two hours.  I'm tired enough to nap now, but staying up an hour until it is 9:30.  Maybe I could do a sketch... colored pencils aren't half as addictive as paint that is one more dab before it dries, one more drop before that color is gone, one more dab, etc etc.. in repetition.

book reviews

 Book reviews on Niume:  Click the titles to read more.

 The Guardian Stars Trilogy : Nora Roberts

This is the romance series about the seer, the magician, the mermaid, the werewolf, the time traveller and the immortal.  I've read two of the three and the third is due to come out late this year.

 

"Cottage by the Sea", by Ciji Ware

A historical romance with some psychotherapy to it.  I like the way they have the character deal with her recent problems by re-examining (although reluctantly) the past faults and tragedies of her ancestors. 

Getting things done

I feel as if I've been getting some things done.. although they aren't things easy to show off on the blog.  It's one or a dozen... I could either slump into doing nothing or burn off extra energy in a frenzy.  Instead, I'm trying a few things that aren't exactly 'fun' to many people but they energize me more because I feel like I'm getting things accomplished and things are nicer because of it.

I've been working here and there to earn a gift card by entering in receipts and doing small programming jobs on Amazon.  I tried it at a start just for something to do after I dropped Esme off at the bus - and have found that the mathematics and patterns in it are interesting in itself.  I'm sure very few people are able to say that they see beauty and elegance in the patterns formed by shopping receipts and mean it... but my brain works that way.  I got to do a handful in Spanish and another in French the other day - and that was truly interesting.  And I do get a small (this week not so small) monetary benefit out of it besides that.  I'm about to order a lightweight dustbuster vacuum thing that I probably  would never buy outright but it feels like when you sold enough cookies as a kid to earn the bicycle instead of just the visor.  *heh*  Mark really helped me out yesterday by putting a second monitor on my screen so the receipt entry isn't switching between tabs... I think that sped me up tenfold.

So, beyond that side job - the house is looking much better organized.  Much fewer things are going bad in the fridge because I am trying to pay close attention to using almost everything I open.  And I have lost a little weight.  The laundry is keeping up... things are clean.  There are nice kitchen towels hanging up and Lucy has a clean dog bed today.  I found a melted through bottle of pine-sol in the cabinet (eek) and cleaned that up... and the bathroom floor is now quite clean using up the rest of it.  Probably tackle the kitchen a bit with the last dregs tonight.

Best of all Esme is happy in her school and although getting up in the predawn is still a challenge it is a physical one not a mental battle.  She wants to go to school.  I tell her she has to keep on her schedule with making lunch, taking a shower, going to bed - and she grumbles a second and then realizes it really is for her own good. 

We're reading My Haunted House in the Araminta Spookie series.  Esme thinks it is quite funny.

Wednesday is for bikes

 Zombies are coming, pedal fast!

my silly crew :)

9a    - CC math workbook
9.15    - reading: Felicity Saves the Day chp 2
9.30    - reading: Borrowers, to pg 60
11    - math: counting attendence record (17 days left!)

//We bought a stationary bike at the flea market for 3.00 yesterday.  It needed some repair, as the chain kept coming loose.  Mark and Esme planned to fix it today as part of school - and it works and works well.
11.30    - repair / adjust stationary bike
12p    - PE: 30+ mins stationary bike riding
12.30    - break

3:00 -  Nutrition: What's in a meal, and vitamins
3:30 - done

bits and pieces

Sinus headache hit me hard this weekend- just when I finally get a day off.  The stiff problem with my one foot was a really good reason to want to just sit for the day...but the sinus headache means nausea and headache and can't sleep, can't read etc etc....  I ended up cutting off three inches of my hair again... and a big dose of Alka Selzer, and then we went to town for some supplies.

Esme had wanted me to make a watermelon backpack pillow she had drawn a picture of.  We bought some backing fabric and ribbon for it at the store.  Onion rings and some spicy soup allowed me to sleep once we got home.  After crashing for a serious nap we watched San Andreas (the movie) and I made the pillow.  It didn't turn out half-bad.  It could double as a Halloween costume this year, actually...with a crocheted green hat to match.  I can probably pull that off in time.

Reading : In the Night Garden by Valente.  Wow.  The tapestry of stories is still spinning in my head, as she weaves them in and around and back through themselves as she goes...so it all ends up being the same characters although you were sure the cast was larger as you were reading it at first, it all ties up into the same small handful of people-- you just didn't know the 'King' was that father AND also the son from the other story, and the brother of the princess in the other story, and the evil wizard is the same guy all through his life young and old etc etc.... I'm really only halfway through it and it is spinning.  I wouldn't doubt if she ran some more threads through the second half here... we'll see.

Dinosaurs Got Fashion Friday

The dinosaurs had a fashion show, today - Esme made the purple vest and I made the fancy dress.

We also did an hour of math, with the tens worksheets and the number bonds.  She did the worksheets well, but her comment was that they were making simple math very complicated with all of this breaking down the numbers...  I introduced 'America the Beautiful', she read the words and then listened, although she really didn't want to.   She did some drawing, read the rest of her library books (which I had gotten all new ones on Tuesday!) and played more Snail Bob.  Daddy and her went grocery shopping and took care of puppies, then came and picked me up from work.  We made more for the dinosaurs and she is now planning a wedding for them.  The boy is 'Drago', and the girl is 'Celia'.

We are hoping to have a fun weekend.  I have the days off from work and if the weather is nice we will go to the park and maybe play at the lake.  We will refresh our library books tomorrow when we take Grandma to town.

Thursday + free worksheet 2nd grade math Number Bonds and Bar Models

Another day list... maybe I'll do one a week.

7.45a    - G&T book; math - missing numbers in equations
              single digit addition drill,
              making tens worksheet from Math Spheres.
             making 2,3,4,5,6 (multiple ways)
-----somehow we turned into P.E. before I noticed, and then back to math, and then back to P.E.
             80 jumping jacks, 1:20 tripod headstand
             reading 50 states names happened several times in there, too.
8:45a     - break

9:00a     - dragon craft - construction paper and tube .. I should get a picture of it, it is cool.
9:30     - Spanish lesson Phrases Duolingo - She is now finished with Level 2
10:00     - reading: "Oranges", Zack Rogow
10:15     - break

1.30p    - reading: "Big Chickens" : Leslie Helakoski
1.45p    - reading: "Backyard Bestiary", several entries, it is a long book
2p    - reading: "The Cloud Spinner: : Michael Catchpool
2.15p    - review state names
2.30p    - walking outside
2.45p    - done

When I got home she was doing a program called Snail Bob which is a lot like the IQ ball game she used to play in Kindergarten.  It is problem solving and doing things in the right order to achieve a goal. She was on level 22 by the time it was getting where she had to think very hard to get it right.. and it was late.

I've planned a patriotic song for her Social Studies tomorrow and am about to go collect up a few more worksheets for her math.  The next steps are decomposition of numbers by groupings (making friendly numbers) and also by place value.  I'll focus on a bit more graphing exercises next week.

I'm not that much into their Common Core, but I can see some utility in this exercise and thinking about numbers in different ways.   I couldn't find a worksheet set I liked - so I made this one, and it's free for personal use (non-commercial)

This should print out on 8.5 by 11 inch paper.  The small set up top is to write your own example for the learner so they can see what is expected.  I did the bar models with + and = in them so they make sense.. and then on the next sheet I will remove the symbols.

Example : 2                 
                 \                  2    +   3
                  5            ----------------
                /                =      5
              3                0 tens      5 ones
 

bits

We went to the library yesterday - and then on to work for me.  I need to close again tonight...this week is just too long...that six day stretch.  But, on to the bits.  I finished reading 'Girl with All the Gifts'...scary as heck..I bawled about a third of the way through...disgusted with 'crunchy reality' halfway through it and the end left ashes in my mouth.  So sad...poignant, I guess one would say.  I read 'The Road' and 'Blindness' on reccommendation a few years ago...also chilling human-horror/disaster stories. I couldn't not finish them, but they don't ever leave the brain either.  I'm on to 'The Green Ember' now...such a different thing - it's like Watership Down and Nimh put together, so far.

Esme's 'Gifted and Talented Reading, Writing and Math' workbook came yesterday.  I had worried it had gotten lost in the mail.  But, it's here, and she paged through it and said it looked great.  The writing is high-end for her (that is where she struggles) but has good ideas for 'how to proceed'. The reading/English activities and the math are going to be great go-tos for her this year...things Mom couldn't easily dream up for her to work on when we come to a blank space. I enjoyed paging through the math puzzles myself before bed...she'll need some help understanding the question, but I know  she can figure out the math once the question is posed correctly.

I am an overplanner of sorts... I was sketching out idea trees at work yesterday during a break about each 'subject' she wants to study this year and what our 'pull out of a hat' type options are for each subject...I can't really turn that stuff off- overplanning etc.. I was trying to work out just what we should be working on as 'every day' stuff and how often the 'electives' should work in...eventually we usually have Esme direct that part herself...I do want to stress the Social Studies/History stuff as a bit more than an 'elective'...a two to three times a week activitiy/lesson sort of thing.  If she is really going to go for Spanish we need to schedule that at least once a week intently or more for practice through the week.  I think she will self-direct on all of the Science as she is interested, and we can throw the Art, P.E. and cooking lessons in wherever they seem appropriate.

Mark said she cooked a scrambled egg sandwich with minimal help (lots of supervision) the other day, and was very proud of herself.  She needed help cracking a tough egg and he pulled the hot pan off the stove and served the egg onto the plate - but she helped wash it in the sink with the brush.  She said the sandwich was good :)

We picked up a few Spanish dual language books while we were at the library.  We read one before bed.  I have been learning French for the past year or more...and now she wants to learn Spanish (her friend is learning Spanish in school).  That means Mom has to learn Spanish...a language I've tried to avoid really diving into over the years (I've done German and French...Latin and Japanese before...modern Greek with her last year). But, I've found her some good online resources and I'm using them, too. I know the fact that Spanish has multiple similar words for the same thing (mono, mico for monkey) is going to be a potential arguing point. 

Minecraft Freeway World

This is in the Freeway world she has been working on with Daddy:

It is a flower stand - pick a flower, and put a dollar (gold bar) in the chest to pay

We have been playing with fireworks and also with making a 'currency system'.

They have really expanded the map lately.  They found a desert village and connected it to the Freeway, and this flower stand and a new 'mushroom soup' (Mushroom Dooshroom Family Restaurant) restaurant was built with fresh Mooshroom cows in the back pasture to assist the chef in his preparation.  She put hoppers for the tables so the waiter could dump the food order right into the hopper and the customer could leave their payment there.  She was using book and quills to write the orders down in shorthand and depositing them in the chest by the kitchen :)  

The serving area in front and the kitchen in back.  We built the walls of this together but she had the floor and counters laid out and the colors picked out for everything.

 The 'secret ingredient' ala Willy Wonka

The other project lately was the hospital - which Daddy gave her over an abandoned building of his and she built in ideas from a little map I sketched so there was a waiting room, and operating room and a recovery room.  We did a 'mock operation' there like the appendicitis operation she saw in the Emily of New Moon episode.  I wrote her several books in Minecraft about appendicitis and the names of bones to have in her hospital library.

 hospital outside -it was Daddy's build, and she put the cross on top and made the inside

The operating room.  The stone cylinder on the table in the foreground is a 'cylinder of coffee - for the doctor, when he needs it'.  There are beds to the left for recovery - in the 'broken leg ward', 'sleepwalkers ward' etc etc..

Tonight I made a large building out in some flatland just for the architecture of it -and because Mark said I needed to make something 'big enough to show up on the map'... should post the map soon.  His smiley-face bank building and her giant red T-rex do show up prominently :)

 Mama's build - it looks a lot like the civic center I grew up near..although I didn't have any plan when I started building it last night.  Mark says it is asymmetrical and that bothers him ;) heh.

Alien spaceship and lander - this was a pretend she really wanted to do the other night.

She then filled the spaceship with chickens *facepalm*


A cropped down map of Freeway World.
The T-Rex is left of middle... the hospital is in the right side edge...Daddy's smiley face bank is upper middle-right.. my civic center is lower middle-left

Unrelated Note:   I had her read more with me in the Little House book (we need to buy the next one...we're more than halfway through going a chapter at a time).  Her reading is getting more natural- still runs between her sentences sometimes where she has to stop and look back...still has some pauses and 'errs' while she is reading ahead faster than she can say the words.  But, she is retaining what she is reading -and some of what she is listening to (even though she was fidgeting and playing with flower petals while she was 'listening')...she was able to tell me several specific details from the story later while we were doing a bit of writing.

bits

Capture this before it passes me by. 

I have seen Esme grabbing cards off of our bulletin board -ones sent by her great aunt and others, and reading bits of them, and putting them back.  There is an element of 'you didn't tell me to read that' in it.. curiosity... and sometimes I see her expression flicker and I wonder what she has found.   I an glad to see it.  And she has been scanning the spines of the books on our non-fiction shelf -and saying she has seen those before.  I told her she could take any book from that shelf and look through it, even if all she wanted to do was look at it for a minute... or read a lot, as long as she takes care of it and puts it back.  She said she thought those were our books, so she had been leaving them alone.  We said she could look at any book in the house -if it was fragile or looked very old we would appreciate her asking for help with it.

I wonder if that would be a good time exercise for homeschool, too, a day or two here and there ...pick anything you want to look at - and get to know what is in the shelves. We have so many books - it can be intimidating!  And as I mentioned before - she has always taken books sort of 'for granted'...seeing any curiosity is a good thing.

Last night she read a page or two of the chapter in Little House in the Big Woods I had been reading to her. She really wanted to get up and run around the room in laps.  Mark was a bit exasperated by this behavior.   I know she is getting some out of reading this- but it doesn't use up all of her energy..and she has been having huge bursts of energy whenever I get home she just can't sit still etc... something we need to work on and figure out what is the best method.

We went to the flea market this morning, and bought some more wool, some vegetables, and saw goats, chickens, ducks and more.

Thursday bits

It has been a long week - I finally get a day off tomorrow.  We went out for a few groceries today, and I showed Esme what a rutabaga looks like.  I brought one home and had her watch me peel it and cut it up - put it in an oven dish with a little water and olive oil and sprinkle spices on it.  Then it went in the toaster oven on bake for an hour.  I'll take it to work for my supper, with the rest of what we had cooked the other night.  When we checked out with it (and all the rest of the groceries) the cashier said she had never seen one before.  Esme said it smelled nice.. but I won't have her eat it this time around (and I really do want to eat it!)...Mark has planned porkchops for their dinner tonight and she already had lunch.

She wants to go to the park tomorrow -and I did promise if the weather is good.  She wants to see if the ducks are there yet.  Her other ideas were all a bit much -- go to Kentucky Lake (it is not yet warm enough) and swim, go to the roller rink.. and we had talked about going to the Land Between the Lakes homestead sometime next year.  We were reading the next few chapters in Little House and they baked bread, made butter, made bullets for the hunting alongside their father, and are getting ready for Christmas. 

I started and finished Call of the Wild again, had forgot a few bits here and there - like when the sled goes through the ice just after Buck was rescued.  I need to download a few more of those free books.. as I have worked my way through quite a few of that era lately...brings back memories as many of these books were in my brother's classics collection or cast-off at library sales at the time I was really wanting things to read as a kid and had very few in the house.  I know reading so many books of that era-1850-1940, effected the way I grew up, and what I came to value.. I have been sort of saving Dora Deane for a while - reading the others by the authoress that I had not known existed before... that was a quarter book from the library when I was nine or ten, and I read it although it may have been a little 'old' and romantic for me at the time...I likened little Dora to the matchgirl in the fairy tale that dies in the cold, except she was rescued at the last moment.  I finished Homestead on the Hillside and the English Orphans by her recently, as well as the Rice Corner pair...and told Esme little bits out of them that were the most memorable.  I have some Horatio Alger (the other side of the coin, poor boys work hard and make their fortunes) downloaded, and am working towards finding the rest of the Tarzans and Princess of Mars series, as well.

Monday

11.30a    - community center - walking, schedule
--We checked out the schedule and events at the community center - they have a basketball court and walking course.  We talked about the pool, taking swimming lessons next year, and found out the costs for the family to join and use the gym. 
12p     - thrift store, changing room, clothes sizes
--Esme found a dress in her size, we talked about ugly vs. pretty clothes, what made them different -- still not quite meshed on that.. she said she had dresses that were a little bit ugly, but pretty and she wouldn't change them etc.. I guess we'll return to that another day?  She tried on the dress and we bought it.  We found a cheap book that was on our reading list!  The Little House by Virginia Burton.
12:30     - break

1p     - library, seashells, books, playing music game
--There is a case with shells, crabs and seahorses and other shells in it on display at the library.  We got a reference book of shells to look at, and read part of another book The King on Stilts, trying to wait for a family to get done reading aloud.  Esme then introduced herself to the daughter - tried to play, but the mother was insistent it was time to leave... they were a homeschool family as well, but not one open to talking to strangers.  After a while playing a game no other kids came - and Esme said one thing she would like to learn about is how one gets glasses, and vision tests, and to look at glasses in a clinic.  We decided to go to the optometrist center at the Walmart and talk to the lady if she wasn't busy.  She talked to Esme about it, told her the fees.. we tried on glasses, sunglasses and then bought her a pair of very weak magnifiers so she could understand some about wearing and cleaning glasses.

2:30p     - vision center, birthday for Daddy plan, shopping

3p     - helping Grandma load car, unload - take groceries inside
4p    - reading aloud (The Little house)
4.45p    - break

5.45p    - 30x situps, 50x 5lb bench, headstands
6p    - done

She also began looking through her Science Starter book from the series Aunt Dot sent us.
She has been wearing the magnifier glasses here and there to read... hope it is not too bad for her.  She has 'cleaned' them several times.

//Notes:  I've finished reading the Farseer Trilogy, and began the Tawny Man Trilogy.  I had finished the vest portion of the purple sweater for Esme - it is a little large on her, almost fits me.  I have to think hard about whether to put sleeves on it.  I have one done and another half done of a pair of tall socks for myself, not quite knee high.  They are held up with ribbons, so they are not too tight around the calves.

The New Year and bits to remember

I post less frequently lately, but there is a lot going on... just not things that can be easily photographed or reduced to one liners... and that is a good thing.  As someone said today to me - time to catch up on life.. and for me, also, time to record some tiny bits of it because otherwise I may forget the essences... those that fade and change and transmute 'just so'.. some quickly, some so hard you do not see it until one day you realize it is different. Like the puppy being twice the size she was last week, or the old toddler dress in my scrap pile being half the size of the one I made for Esme just last week etc etc...

And that ties into several things for me in this New Year.  I didn't make any resolutions... except to keep working at the good things, the things that are important.. and I would do that anyway.  And I like where we are - know things will change, and getting ready for whatever we can, how we can.

This little bit of patchwork pictured is an embodiment of that... it is filled with little bits of this and that collected and saved over the entirety of Esme's lifetime.  It contains (not in the first picture, but in the second) bits from her very first baby blankets all the way up to clothes she is still wearing.  And I don't have any immediate plans for it.. except to try to keep it and keep it nice... for whatever it will become, and add on to it as it seems fitting... or onto other pieces, that might one day become other things, or the same thing... it is kind of a philosophy of memory and effort in fabric... and that says a lot about me, and my view of the world.  One of my oldest memories - probably before five years old, is going through the multitude of fabric in our house, seeing every different pattern - the fabric that was not things, the fabric that was part of everyday things... how were they different, how were they alike, which ones were in both piles. I didn't think so deeply on it then - it was just color and pattern and hey - those match etc... but it was important to me, and as I grew up sewing in the same household, using fabrics and collecting bits here and there, recycling a shirt, patching something with a bit from another project - I felt time and memory crystallized in those objects, and the memories around that time they represent - like riding the elevator with my mom at Kremers for the very last time to get the flannel fabric for my eighth grade quilt...

so now I look at the little red and white flower fabric in the bottom left corner and I see a rabbit Esme held onto the leg of, and her pink rabbit quilt I made as her receiving blankets, and the blue and white star fabric that was a sundress when she was three, and a multitude of other things.

I like that, it is my own private treasure trove.. with nothing more than my memory.  And I fear a little there, with my mom and her memory problems, but... that is somewhere in the future and the past.

And the other bits I want to remember now : Esme has 'changed phase' since she started school.. it is scary and amazing all at once.  She can open many more things with her hand coordination - like twist ties on bread, and ziplocs, but still has trouble getting a knife through bread.  Her processing is much better at big tasks - still easily distracted, but she has a good idea of where she is, and what comes next if she is motivated.  She uses big words like 'vanishing act', and 'horrifying nightmare', seen on Shrek 3 when he is dreaming), asks if I have checked my text messages and expounds on where the living room is in our house (which is atypical) or what today is when you said it yesterday vs tomorrow when you said it today etc... She asks me if the line of water from the top of the windshield means it is cracking or if the antenna is melting because of the ice or if it is the ice melting.  She wonders if things are a boy lunchbox or a girl lunchbox, because boys have this lunchbox and no girls do, and it is not pink.  She pays attention to all sorts of little details I don't realize are important to her until she communicates them - which she does and often...

She reads over my shoulder now, can read most level 1 books and today tried to read the word 'seventeen' as 'Steven', until I covered up the 'teen' and she rethought.  She can grasp the idea of less than zero in subtraction although that makes her little eyebrows wrinkle up and she wonders why... She can compare January to February or March, understanding one is further away than the other,.  She can also read the clock in 'thirty-sevens' and 'twenty-fives' etc... instead of just saying which number the hand is pointing to.  Her sense of tense, pronouns and connecting words is still just a tad bit 'strange' but she has come light years even since leaving her preschool class and sounds fairly normal until she gets into complicated questions or descriptions.  I do know she still 'sees in pictures' especially when remembering... she commented on the antenna on the truck this morning and then got that 'faraway' look saying look its the fat boy he is hitting his head because he was looking at the antenna... I asked her if she was remembering that and she snapped her eyes back to me like 'of course - can't you tell?' but then told me about a boy on the bus who had been trying to look out the window and hit his head on the top of the bus on a bump.  I don't know what that had to do with antennas.. but apparently it did. ;)

I was reading a journal entry from last June, before we went to the zoo, the other day - in my paper journal I write in at work or late at night etc...  and I was remarking on making her dresses for school and how she didn't understand the calendar or read very well.  I read some of her quotes and saw just how far she has progressed in that time.  Her view of the world is so much wider and her questions are so much more complex.  I am proud, and often feel the 'here we go' but by the time I've realized it lately, it seems we're another mile down the road.  And if I had read this, or thought all of this was possible, three years ago I would have been relieved... and when I read this three years from now... how much will have changed?

Childrens books

Esme has enjoyed these recently:

The Mitten by Jan Brett.  Esme found this very funny, although I did the reading.  I told her the house was a lot like the one I grew up in (my grandparents, actually), with snow outside and mittens and a fireplace (ours was a woodburning stove) and Finnish/Norwegian decorations.

Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse by Leo Lionni.  We read this one tonight and Esme enjoyed it - especially after Alexander went to visit the magic lizard and got his 'quest' for the purple pebble.  She was a little sad he didn't get his dream, and was a little unhappy that he got a friend at the end - because she wants a friend, and it was mixed feelings.

Red Fox and his Canoe by Nathaniel Blanchert.  We are halfway to 2/3 through this and Esme is doing most of the reading on this one herself, thus the slowness.  The words get a bit harder as you go... she is sounding out some quite well and asking me about a lot of others.  Very fun - I remember this one from my own childhood.

Snow Trouble by Melinda Melton Crow.  Very low reading level - but a confidence builder as it was quick and she knew almost every word without guessing/sounding.  This was from the school library.

A Bug, a Bear and a Boy by David McPhail.  Fairly low reading level - she can read almost every word but it has some length to it so she is ready to be done when she gets to the last page.  This was from a library sale and she does like it quite a bit.