Today I’m thankful that we have insurance, and that we can get our health issues taken care of with really very little trouble at all. I found out today that my corneas are scratched – enough that they’re causing me pain and impacting my vision – and after I was diagnosed at the optometrist (and given a prescription for medicine that would cost $75) I went over to Kaiser and right to their ophthalmology department, and walked out with an appointment for tomorrow where I will most likely get a prescription for the same medicine, and it will cost my copay. I am extremely blessed to have that ability, to be seen by doctors who know what they’re doing, and to not have to go into debt to do that. It brings such a peace of mind, and I am so so grateful for that.

I am also grateful that Z’s flu shot experience wasn’t completely traumatizing for any of us – she really did a spectacular job.

Today I’m thankful for church. It was good today. Good lessons, good participation, good songs, good spirit.

And I suppose I’m thankful that the notes to the song I’ve been practicing for the last couple days are cycling through my brain non-stop because that should mean they might be getting imprinted there so that I can actually make them come out of my mouth? At this point I think I might have to listen to a Beyonce song to get them to stop. I’m definitely going to have to listen to something so that I can go to sleep. Which is where I’m going right now, which is why this is short.

Today I’m grateful for my Daddy, and that he lives close enough that I could go over to his house this morning and work on a song for church. It was seriously hurting my brain and I was considering backing out (don’t tell Becky! Um, hi Becky!), but now I’m feeling much better about it. We’ll see if I’m still feeling good about it tomorrow when we all practice together. But it was really nice to be able to go work on it, and Daddy was really patient as we went over it again and again. He’s a wonderful Daddy, and I love him. And I got to see my Momma too, and that was wonderful too, and I love her too.

And now I’m grateful for my bed, and that tomorrow is another day, hopefully full of 100% less defiant screaming than today.

Today I am grateful for museums, and the opportunities we have to experience different forms of art and culture. We’ve been visiting different museums with our adventure day group, and yesterday we returned to the museum at Stanford, this time for the Africa and Oceania sections. I love that museum (tons of stuff, and it’s FREE!) and luckily the kids seem to like it too.  From yesterday:

Zoe’s interpretation of this Rodin: “It’s a little kid riding on his daddy’s back.” I can kind of see it.

I love the teeny tiny hands on the carving above.

This (above) is from the Ivory Coast, and is a female figure. This was the description, which I found really interesting: “The Baule believe that before we were born into this world we existed in a spirit world where we each had a mate. Sometimes that mate, or “spirit spouse”, becomes jealous of the new partner and disrupts that person’s earthly life, especially his or her marital life. A diviner may prescribe the carving of a figure to depict the spirit spouse; the carved figure should not resemble the harassed person’s actual spouse. It should receive earthly signs of attention: food and clothing, and visits at regular intervals. ”

“the carved figure should not resemble the harassed person’s actual spouse” – that part cracked me up.

Doesn’t this little guy look just like:

?

I love it.

This one was also FASCINATING: ” Within Bamana culture [from Mali], secrecy and power go hand in hand. This zoomorphic sculpture is said to contain messages about life and death that can be explained only by men in the highest levels of the prestigious Komo association. It is made of layers of earth, bones, blood, beer, millet, and expectorated kola nut juice, over a metal or wooden core. These mysterious objects sometimes resemble an animal but are sometimes totally abstract. They are treasured by the Bamana people for their nyama, a force so potent that they can be handled only by the wisest members of the Komo association.”

This was my favorite of the day – it’s a gibbon!

While we were there, we also watched Berni Searle’s video installement called Spirit of ’76, which was incredible – thought provoking, visually beautiful; metaphorical, but rock solid in concept so that the themes came through in a really compelling way.  It let the viewer meditate over the meaning, in a way that was ultimately quite haunting.

It began with a red acetate (I’m assuming) cutout resembing the three musicians in Archibald Willard’s painting, The Spirit of ’76 floating in water. (You don’t know there’s water until things start happening and you realize there must be.)  Red dye underneath the acetate flowed out and through the water, and then a wreath of black roses (not actual roses) was put around the image, and black dye bled out and around, mixing with the red, sinking in on it and overtaking it at points.

From the information provided, Searle was invoking not only events that occurred in the US in 1776, but also a protest that occurred in South Africa in 1976 against apartheid.  More than 500 children were killed when police shot into the unarmed crowd.

I really was so moved by this piece, and by the opportunity to meditate on passion, life’s blood, battle, death, and the cost of freedoms. Based on the information provided, I don’t know that I came to the exact conclusions she had in mind, (hers included “calling into question the viability of democracy and its ideals in today’s globalized and politically complex world”, which I didn’t see, but I guess I can see how you could get there); but I love that about art (or at least about my UCSC informed deconstructionalist attitude toward it) – you take from it what you take.

And the kids loved it, they called it “the flower movie” and wanted to watch it over and over.

I’m thankful for the opportunity and ability I have to introduce all of these amazing images to my kids at such a young age, and to be able to experience and think about them myself. Despite my reservations about some museum collections, I AM very thankful to be able to become acquainted with the beautiful creations of people from all over the world.

Today I am thankful that sane heads prevailed in the world, and that I awoke to this:

rather than the cover proclaiming that Robert Pattinson  won. (It turned out that cover was faked. Do no news agencies fact check any more?)

I’m not going into any anti-Twilight rant or anything, I just have this observation to make.  Somehow we went from

mmmmm, Kiefer., (Lost Boys was my first vampire movie and turned me into a fan for life)

and

David Bowie, truly one of the sexiest men alive, (seen here in The Hunger, one of the oddest vampire movies ever made)

and

Brad Pitt, who is just SO pretty,  and fantasticly cast as Louis in Interview with the Vampire- much better casting than Tom Cruise as Lestat, who should only ever be played by:

Stuart Townsend, who was PERFECT. And also, so so gorgeous,

and

Antonio Banderas, who while he looked completely wrong as Armand, who was supposed to be a cherubic blond, is insanely good looking,

and

David Boreanaz and James Marsters from Buffy, who are also, “rilly, rilly good looking”, ala Zoolander

to

a guy who on a good day  resembles Frankenstein, and on an off day shows up at actual events looking like this:

Seriously, what are we teaching the young women of America? Vampires are supposed to epitomize all that is gorgeous and sexy and dangerously attractive in the world.  Robert Pattinson does … not.

So today, I am apparently thankful for good looking men playing vampires in movies; for Johnny Depp, who has not played a vampire, but should; for Bruce who reminded me about David Bowie (seriously, how did I forget that?); and for the internets for providing me with pictoral evidence for my thesis today.

AND for the universe at large, which is apparently listening to me, because it seems that Tim Burton is going to make a film version of Dark Shadows, with … Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins. I might die.

Today I’m thankful for books. Oh, books, how I love thee. (Can thee be plural? I think it can.)

I just finished Nurture Shock by Po Bronson, which I feel like I’ve been reading FOREVER. But it’s really exceptionally good, and it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t read it all in one fell swoop, because I had more time to absorb all of the different elements.  It’s a book I think all parents would benefit from reading – the chapters on lying and sleep (being two separate chapters,  not about lying and how it connects to sleep)   are seriously fascinating. All of it is, really.

I also finished Soulless: The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger, in much less time that Nurture Shock took. It was a delightful read, exactly what I wanted it to be. There were indeed vampires and werewolves and dirigibles  as promised, though it was a bit light on the dirigibles.  But the story of a 25 Victorian spinster who happens to have no soul and who finds herself embroiled in a mystery of appearing and disappearing supernatural entities was really pitch perfect. It did run slightly into romance novel territory, but only barely.  (There’s a scene at the end that might offend sensitive sensibilities, but the rest is ok.)  On the whole it was witty and highly amusing. I’m thrilled there’s a sequel coming in March. Brandy, I think you would LOVE it.

Right now I’m reading 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy, which is incredibly well put together. It has you consider not only your own thoughts about how teaching/learning should take place, but also the learning style of your child, and other factors (time, energy, monetary resources), and then, with brilliant charts, guides you to the curriculum style that combines all of those factors.   I think it might be magic.  I’m only part way through, but it’s already confirming that my instincts toward Charlotte Mason were solid.  (And that Z’s apparent learning style is actually really well suited to Charlotte Mason, whew!)  What surprised me, however, was that apparently my mindset also lines up with unit studies and the Classical approach.  I would not have guessed that in either instance, so I’m going to have to take a longer look at them and see what I think.

I’m also reading the behemoth that is Jesus the Christ, and am behind and need to catch up! (But I just found out that it’s available on the haunted kindle – for 99 cents, no less! – which means it’s available on my phone! Woo hoo, catching up!)

Anyway, I’m thankful for books, for the wealth of information and knowledge they provide, for the escape they can be, the fun, the joy. I’m grateful to live in a country where we have freedom of the press, freedom to write and freedom to read. I’m thankful for libraries, for bookstores, for Amazon, and for the ability to partake in each of those copiously.

Today I’m thankful for traditions; those I grew up with, and those I’m enjoying now with my own family. I posted this  on my other site today, but I figured I’d repost here:

As I was growing up, our Christmas tree was always an eclectic conglomeration of ornaments that my parents had collected across the years and countries they visited. Each ornament had a story; where it was purchased, why, or for whom.  There was the ornament I snagged off of the Christmas tree at the bank as a little tyke (the bank people said I could keep it), the corn husk angels to remind us our our great grandmother, the ornaments that we made as children,  the birds.

There were two birds that sat in the Christmas tree, just regular looking birds, nothing fancy, but to this day they are my favorite ornaments. I’m not really sure why.  But I remember being so excited each year if I got to be the one to put them in the tree- always up toward the top.

Last year I saw a bird ornament in a store, and decided that our Christmas tree needed a bird. Doesn’t it make sense that birds would have been present at Christ’s birth, raising their voices along with the angels? So I bought the bird, and then another, and another. And this year it continued.

Some are shiny and ornate, others are kind of homely and sweet:

(Seriously, I die over that owl. )

I have about 16 now, and I have no intention of stopping.  My goal this year is a tree with silver ornaments,  full of visiting birds.

And four of those silver ornaments will look like this:

I found these little boxes years ago, before I had kids. I snatched them up instantly, in preparation for another tradition.  Growing up we had 5 little shoe ornaments that we hung on the tree. On Christmas morning we would each find the quarter that Santa’s elf left for us in the shoe ornaments. I loved that as a kid, and when I saw these little boxes, I knew they’d be perfect. Instead of a quarter, the girls get a little treat, last year it was a little toy necklace.

A new tradition that we’ve started is that each year the girls get an ornament that reflects their interests of the year. The ornament is delivered by “Peter Pan”, our shelf elf.  This year Z is getting a Lightning McQueen ornament, Tiny is getting a fish. (What can I say, the girl loves fish.)

I love traditions, I love the link to the past that it gives me, and I love that I can share them with my family.

Today I am incredibly grateful for the bullets I have dodged in my life. Looking back at guys I dated and the choices they have since made, I’m so glad I got off those trains when I did. (Are you enjoying my metaphors here? I’ll see how many more I can fit in.)  (And for the record, I don’t usually sit around thinking back over the guys I’ve dated, I just heard about one of them this evening, and it got me thinking.)

There’s inactivity, divorce, infidelity …  and I’m so not full of myself enough to think that those things wouldn’t have happened had I been the one they married.  So I’m very thankful today for the promptings -either to me or to them (both happened) – that we weren’t supposed to be together, as hard as it might have been to go through at the time.

I’m so thankful to have a wonderful, loving husband who cherishes me and our kids, who honors his priesthood and magnifies his calling, who supports me in everything I even think of attempting, and who works so hard to take care of all of us.  I know we were led to each other, and I’m thankful that we listened.

Today (and again, all days) I’m thankful for my gorgeous, beloved sister. She hosted a birthday party at her house today of truly insane proportions, and did it brilliantly.  15+ kids, all dressed in Star Wars costumes (which she provided — viva after Halloween sales) went through Jedi training camp, two pinatas, and a bounce house.  And Darth Vader showed up and was pummeled with water balloons. It was lovely.

And through it all, she kept track (as only an Auntie can) of this little padawan:

making sure she was ok in the midst of bigger kids, giving her the 1st piece of cake after the birthday boys, making her feel loved and cherished, as she always does.

I am thankful for her for so many reasons, these are just my reasons of the day. Well, those and that even though she claims her brain just stopped when the bounce house tipped over, she still got right in there to pull kids out.  But that’s a story for another day.   (Seriously though, have you ever seen a bounce house tip over? Dramatic. And they’re heavy to pull back upright too.) (Don’t worry, no one was hurt.)