My Quasi-Random Album March 6, 2009
Posted by Beth in Just for Fun.Tags: fun
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Initially I wasn’t going to “play” but this ended up being a quick, fun diversion. The game is putting together a music album cover by “your” band. Give it a name, an image and song titles. Instructions follow my “album.”
A Different World
Song Titles:
1. My mind is my own church. by Thomas Paine
2. Don’t betray them. by Robert Pollack
3. Delicious Ambiguity by Gilda Radner
4. Resemblance to the First by Ronald Reagan
5. With Diligence and Attention by Sir Francis Bacon
6. Real Money by Sen. Everett Dirkson
Here’s how to play:
If you’re curious about what your own randomly generated album cover would look like, here are the instructions found over at Gus Van Horn via 3 Ring Binder .
1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random,” or click here. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. [My first was GTCO so I cheated and clicked til I got one I liked.]
2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click here. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. OR, if quotationspage.com is down, try going to Brainy Quotes and use the Quote of the Moment as your quote. [I decided to make a whole song set by taking the last few words of any quote that sounded like a good song title.]
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click here. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. [OK –I cheated on this one too and just took one I liked.]
3 good things (“stimulus” pkg antidote version) March 4, 2009
Posted by Beth in 3 Good Things.Tags: 3 Good Things, fun
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With all that’s going on in our government that will decrease our freedom and our prosperity, identifying good things becomes even more important.
1. Our 1989 Toyota pick-up passed its smog test
2. Texting with my son
3. This morning’s
rainbow
CPL, Part 2 March 3, 2009
Posted by Beth in Parenting, Personal.Tags: Parenting, Personal
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(for CPL Part I see here.)
My Central Purpose in Life is to create and maintain a loving, nurturing environment in which to raise my children and assist them in preparing to live independent and happy lives.
To get a better handle on what such a purpose would involve, I needed to think about just what would constitute a loving, nurturing environment and what I need to do in order to accomplish it. I was able to identify three major categories.
I would like our home to be:
1) Supportive and nurturing of individuals and relationships
2) Aesthetically pleasing
3) Efficient in the operation of its “infrastructure”
#1 immediately stuck me as the most important and the hardest to define and implement–so I will save discussing it for last. Today, I will quickly and briefly expand on the other two.
2) Aesthetically pleasing
a) tidy, comfortable, clean
b) furniture that is functional, comfortable, visually attractive
c) Other decor: simple, well-maintained, adds something positive (i.e. not just clutter)
d) Art: adds beauty, has personal meaning
e) Yard: low maintenance but a source of visual pleasure
This outline gives me a set of criteria with which I can evaluate the physical aspect of our home. Contemplating this list reminds me I have several places in need of attention and improvement. It provides me with a simple check list against which I can evaluate the current state of our home, and a specific image to guide any changes.
3) Efficient operation of the “infrastructure”
(By infrastructure I mean the organization and implementation of activities which are necessary to support our lives, but which only indirectly are key to the achievement of our higher values.)
a) Create an order that serves a purpose, in the tasks as well as the materials of daily living (meals, cleaning, personal care)
b) Maintenance of labor-saving devices
c) Minimizing time spent on chores in order to free up time for more meaningful activities
d) Facilitate communication and co-ordination of activities – again in order to maximize the achievement everyone’s individual values within the context of shared resources, including time.
e) Appropriate division of responsibilities for the care of shared resources
In addition to the physical atmosphere of the home, part of my work entails attending to the structure and coordination of our ADLs (Activities of Daily Living.) Efficient and orderly operation and maintenance of our home and our personal health provides a foundation which frees us to achieve what is more important or simply more fun. Much of the structure which currently exists has evolved through trial and error—but by explicitly defining what the various tasks and structures are helps to focus my attention on what is going well, and what could use some fine-tuning.
So that briefly summarizes the physical and organizational parts of the home environment. Next is the biggie: the aspects of the environment which more directly support and nurture individual family members, with special attention to the needs of dependent children in their growth toward maturity.
Any thoughts on something I have missed? I’d love to get some feedback as I see this as a work-in-progress.
Global Warming: Was it Ever Really a Crisis? March 2, 2009
Posted by Beth in Miscellaneous Musings.Tags: musings, Politics
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Hundreds protest Global Warming
This was sent to me in an email from a friend, who got it from another friend, and so on, so I am unable to give it proper attribution. Let me know if you come across the originator’s name. I would love to give him/her credit.
On this subject, I would like to alert those interested in this topic to the existence of a conference which will occur next weekend in New York City: The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change “Global Warming: Was it ever really a crisis?” March 8-10 NYC The Marriott Marquis
I attended the one last year and found it very informative and encouraging. It was exciting to see and meet several of the authors whose scientific works and blogs I had been reading– Willie Soon, Bill Gray, Patrick Michaels, Roy Spencer, Ross McKitrick–and the absolute highlight of the conference, the keynote speech by Vaclav Klaus. So much was going on, it was hard to choose which lectures to attend. I really regret not being able to attend this year, but since I am “self-funded” -it is a luxury I cannot quite justify after seeing our savings shrink in half. This year Richard Lindzen is speaking–perhaps the one major dissenting climate scientist who was absent from last years program. I regret I will not get to hear him speak.
If you are interested in listening to any of the talks from last years conference, you can access them here. I especially recommend the talks by McKitrick, Spencer, Gray and Klaus–though many others were very worthwhile.
In addition to the conference, I ventured out on my own and learned how to use the subway–no small accomplishment for this rural girl– so I could visit the Met–another wonderful experience. I also was able to meet up with my brother-in-law who lives in NYC. Well, maybe if the economy turns around, I can attend next year…..
Or better yet, enough people will hear what these scientists and economists have to say, and there won’t be a need for such a conference.
I can hope an dream, can’t I?
Central Purpose in Life February 27, 2009
Posted by Beth in Parenting, Personal.4 comments
Around 3 weeks ago I announced on my econ blog that I was taking a break to “regroup.” The trigger for this was some very helpful feedback I had received after posting on a new group econ blog, simply Capitalism. The comments made me realize I had gotten very far away from the original purpose for which I had created Wealth is Not the Problem. In doing so, I was sacrificing quality for quantity and allowing myself to be distracted by the chase after a fantasy of recognition and influence. (I am still working on an explicit formulation to reclaim my original purpose for that blog. When it is complete, I will post it over there.)
I have learned a lot about during this break, and am pleased with the recentering that I achieved. I’d like to share some of what I learned here. I see this blog as the place where I connect with people on matters of life, homeschooling and parenting–and my recent discoveries touch deeply on all of those areas.
In thinking about what it was I wanted to accomplish with my econ blogging, I first had to settle how that fit into my overall life goals and plans. An incredibly helpful tool was the construction of my Central Purpose in Life. I mentioned this before, but I would like to reference it again as it has been so helpful in bringing me order and peace of mind.
For more details on what it is, see “What is a Central Purpose in Life?” by Burgess Laughlin on his personal blog Making Progress.
Here’s what I have come up with:
My Central Purpose in Life (long version) is to create and maintain a loving, nurturing environment in which to raise my children and assist them in preparing to live independent and happy lives.
My Central Purpose in Life (short version) is to create and maintain a loving and supportive home for my family.
I really had to wrestle with whether or not being a mother and homemaker was a sufficient “central purpose” for me. Although my work supports my husband’s ability to earn money, and I personally do not (currently) earn any, I could not get away from the idea that a central purpose ideally should be connected with productive work in support of one’s life. Up until 6 years ago, I was both the primary homemaker and the primary income earner—-so it nagged at me that “mother and homemaker” wasn’t quite worthy enough to be my CPL. When I finally came up with my formulation of the actual “job description” (see CPL long version) and outlined all that I needed to know and attend to in order to accomplish that work, I had a much greater appreciation for the scope and difficulty of the task–and the realization that it is indeed fully worthy of a CPL, although one that has a built in time limit. (A nice reminder of the importance of bringing into sharp focus key concepts which we tend to hold as fuzzy approximations.)
So what am I producing? I am working to produce an environment of safety and support during my children’s dependency. This includes creating and maintaining a home which serves as a place of rest and recharge for my husband in order for him to more easily and enjoyably work to support us and achieve his own highest values as well.
The next phase in my discovery process was to flesh out in greater detail just what it means to have a “loving and nurturing” environment. I will share my thoughts on this next post.
AisA Academy 