I have a couple big posts lined up for this week, but in the meantime…
I’ll just leave some Platypuses with fedoras for you.
Enjoy!
Category: Uncategorized
I’m Publishing A Poetry Journal. You’re Invited.
A few years ago I was the editor for an in-house poetry journal titled, “Illume.” It lasted 3 seasons, and it was a fantastic collaboration of poets.
After that, I self-published my own poetry book, “Petals of Magnolia.“
I think it’s time for me to publish another poetry journal.
There is a movement out there…and I can feel it. I just know it’s there. It’s like…a field full of kids. Wild, curious, punchy kids with suspenders and rusty bikes just talking. I’d like to get the words we’re saying and make them real.
If this happens, plan on speaking in SF at a launch night.
Msg me if you’re interested.
tamarah.rockwood@gmail.com
The Last 4 Months of 2014…Go!
As of today, we are in the final homestretch of 2014….WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!!
We are big pony fans over here.
Seriously, it feels like the year just begun, and it’s already the last quarter!
Get out your bucket lists people. 2014 is going to be remembered for being AWESOME. We are DOING this:
1. I am going to lose 5 pounds a month until the end of the year.
Yes, I realize how heartbreakingly cliche this is. But I know I can do it, and it is a realistic goal. Dude, if you just cut out carbs, you lose weight. I know this. I just have to do it. That’s the hard part. But I really, sincerely want to get to a healthier weight. The older I get, the harder it is going to be. Plus, my Dad is beating me and he is very close to weighing less than I do….and this is not going to happen. So, that’s my motivation, and I have you all to witness my dedication. I say: 20 pounds by Christmas.
Suck it up, Rainbow Dash!!
2. I am going to finish projects I always think about, so they don’t become 2015 projects
-bench and vertical garden in my backyard
-move the chicken coops so they’re connected
-get a new Free Little Library cabinet, with doors (prep for the rain season, if it ever comes)
-My kids’ name-applique` banners (I already have 2 done, I just need to finish the other 3)
3. Ben gave me 4 frames for my watercolor paintings…and the paper, paints, brushes have been sitting next to my desk for 2 years.
It’s pathetic.
I am painting them and putting them up. I already know what I need to do.
4. Start the process of freelancing writing.
This is a goal of mine, and I need to get the wheels turning a little faster.
5. Finish Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving.
This is my goal every year, and although I totally do it…I also have to keep a list of what I got handy. Because I may forget what I got people by Christmas. So, it’s kind of a surprise to us all…
But this opens up the entire holiday season for important matters, like cider by the fire with the kids, or handmade ornaments, or finding new ways to enjoy squash. Like, put it on the counter for decorations (or you could always eat it, but that’s too easy).
So, 2014: You have been warned!
Book Reading and Avoiding Laundry For Dummies: 101
I’m sure I am not the only one who starts a few books at a time…doesn’t your mind get tired of reading just one book? Wouldn’t you rather be bombarded with the inner workings of a few authors, and enjoy the juxtaposition of worlds, finding common themes between them and further relating to the layers and layers of your onion mind? I love this unraveling of layers, slowly exposing and rebuilding myself with every turn of the page. It is truly delightful.
Like a girl in every port, I have a book in every room.
So here are the few ports I’m visiting now:
The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
“Jesus says the kingdom of His Father is not a subdivision for the self-righteous nor for those who feel they possess the state secret of salvation. The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.”
I got this book around 10 years ago, and I flipped through it then; but I never finished it. At the time I was deeply immersed with Donald Miller‘s writing, and that was where I was at spiritually during the time.
Right now, I’m definitely in a growth period…but not in a “Joyce Meyer” devotional kind of growth. This is a much more “Rich Mullins,” and “Brennan Manning” growth. This is when I am sitting in a garden with barefeet, digging my toes in the dirt and picking grass with my green, stained fingers, having a quiet discussion with God and trying to figure things out, kind of growth. My body is rejecting cliche phrases, and locking in on things that I can chew on:
“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal: I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”
I wish I could thank Brennan for writing this, but unfortunately his time here has passed. I am so grateful he took the time to scribble the painful throes we wrestle with in our lives, though. It can be hard to find reality when you are living in a well-irrigated desert, and the illusion of green grass lays on top of the barren ground underneath. Sometimes it’s nice to help someone pull the sod up, and finally appreciate the beauty of life in the desert, however small or prickly it may be.
This is another book that speaks from a different perspective…the perspective of the creative artist.
Artists have it bad, because we see everything from a different angle. We get distracted on Sundays because of the way the light is shining on the curtains. We find it interesting how the Pastor uses different words than we do, and spend time writing down these different words on index cards during the sermon, rather than listening to the sermon. Artists are going to argue and fight and roll their eyes over really basic things: like the use of the color beige.
So to throw theology at them is like throwing paint onto oil. You might get some of it to stick, but it’s still going to be just colorful oil in the end.
You might be able to change the color of the walls in a church, but you aren’t going to be able to change the color of an artist. They’re stubborn, and they’re opinionated…and most of the time they’re repressing the daylights out of the nonsense that is engrossing their mental energy.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this book because it is a relief to read someone with the same ridiculous ideas interwoven with thought-provoking theology:
“Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve wondered what God looks like. At first I figured He was just like a puff of smoke, since He was a “spirit” and didn’t have flesh and blood like me, but then I remembered reading in Genesis that He decided to make man in His “image,” whatever that meant…Maybe it’s just my odd mind at work, but if, by some chance, we aren’t the only ones He created, and out there in the vastness of the universe is another life form, another planet and another people He is trying to have relationship with, would He have created them in His image as well, or would He have thought about throwing a curve ball, spicing things up a bit? These are the things I ponder, and they are probably the stupidest things I could spend my time pondering.”
And that is why I am reading this book.
Well, the kids are reading this for a Literature class, so naturally I have to read it with them.
Naturally.
The funny thing is, since I haven’t read it in so long, I had forgotten how very long Austen’s sentences are.
So very, very long.
The sentences Austen wrote were as long as the wandering, speckled verdant highlands road in late spring, well after the last toilsome, precipitate showers pelted the intemperate soil in such a way as to wonder if Miss Lucas’ afternoon parlor chatter may have summoned the impenetrable riot of showers and clatter of thunder, in order to bequeath a polite farewell to her monologue; which may have, in fact, allowed the younger ladies leisure to take a sip of their tea without the uncertain moments when they felt the very requisition of their eyebrows to raise, in so much as to suggest that they were, indeed, following along with the story all along.
I shall look forward to returning to my stomping grounds with the Bronte sisters, who made much more sense, with clearer grammar, and outside of drawing rooms. That is the biggest difference that I see: Austen’s settings were always inside. The Bronte sisters wrote stories which involved travel. I enjoy the Brontes’s world a little more, for that reason. Less sitting, more moving.
Hello Kitty Is A Girl, And So Is The Brave Little Toaster…
I totally can’t think at all when I am in pain.
I haven’t just had this dense, chilled mercury brain-fog all week because of pain: I have had an entire body fog. I haven’t been able to move much, sit much, or do much without the express aid of Motrin. My “give a care” meter for decisions has also been on the low side: macaroni for dinner for the kids? Yep. And I am positive every step of my “low carb diet” plan has been foiled, burned and tossed into the nebula of gluten free pizza.
On the plus side, I’m finally coming out of it! FINALLY. I am just so done with this.
So now I have enough brain power to feel guilty for the gluten free pizza again.
You need to buy more vegetables, missy.
Anyway, the real reason why I am back ENFORCE is because the earth stopped spinning for a second:
Sanrio declared that Hello Kitty wasn’t a cat.
Which is stupid, but they said it: “I was corrected — very firmly,” she (University of Hawaii anthropologist Christine R. Yano) told the Los Angeles Times. “That’s one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
This didn’t shake the foundations of reality for me. She looks like a cat. She has whiskers. She has cat ears. She has a cute little cat nose. Her friends are penguins and frogs.
Oh yeah, and her name is “Kitty.”
So this stupid idea that she isn’t a cat is…stupid. Even though Sanrio said she isn’t a cat because she has a pet cat. Wanna see a paradox?
Guess who is a dog with a pet dog. I rest my case.
So, Hello Kitty not being a cat didn’t rock my world…probably because I rejected it entirely. But “The Brave Little Toaster” bombshell is still killin’ me:
The Backstory On This: Reddit does AMAs every day (which is “Ask Me Anything,” and it’s an open forum for questions…it’s very awesome), and some are really interesting. The top scoring AMAs can be seen here, and they feature people like Barack Obama, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye and LeVar Burton (to name a few, but there are many).
But there was one day that Jerry Rees did an AMA, and people just went nuts. Everyone loves “The Brave Little Toaster,” and people came out of the woodwork to talk to Mr. Rees.
The thing is, he dropped this bombshell that The Toaster was a girl…and no one knew. I didn’t even know, and I have seen that movie (and cried) many times. The rest of the thread was filled with awestruck fans, having to reevaluate one of their childhood heroes.
The Brave Little Toaster is a girl.
That, my friends, is a bombshell.
Hello Kitty isn’t a cat? Is not a bombshell. It’s stupid. She’s a cat.
Chapters 6-9
Chapter 6: Progression
What has “progressed” during this chapter?
Why has she come to Wildfell Hall? (as a refuge)
What views of marriage does his mother express, and how are these contrasted with those he holds? (78) Why do you think the author includes this interchange?
On what grounds does Mrs. Markham suggest that Helen would make an unacceptable daughter-in-law?
Chapter 7 The Excursion
What does Gilbert observe during the group excursion? (Helen’s seriousness at painting, dislike of conversation while painting, willingness to accede to his suggestions)
How have his emotions toward Eliza changed?
Chapter 8: The Present
What are some implications of the gift Gilbert gives to Helen? How does she receive it, and how does he react to her reluctance?
Chapter 9: A Snake in the Grass
What is referred to in the title? What scandal is suggested by Eliza?
Do her suspicions seem likely? What emotions do they prompt in Gilbert? (jealousy) What hostile interchange occurs between him and Mrs. Graham’s landlord Lawrence?
(using external notes for this week: http://www.uiowa.edu/~boosf/questions/brontetenant.html)
Boosting Your Serotonin Levels Through Homeschooling
This semester we are starting a Literature class with the kids.
Can I get an AMEN!!
Yeah, so this is my territory and I am super stoked. Bonus: the first novel we are reading is none other than Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” I’ll just be in a delirium of heaven over here.
The problem is, the kids in the Lit class are in 4th and 5th grade, and Jane Austen is a little tough for this age. We’ve been reading the first few chapters a few times, and it just wasn’t getting through. Reading it alone, reading it out loud, reading it together. There are a lot of characters, a lot of Bennets, a few Bingley’s, and a slew of gigantic, 18th century words like, “ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises;” or “I honour your circumspection. A fortnight’s acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight.” I mean, we are getting through it…but it’s taking a while.
So I had this plan.
Let’s break this book down. We’ll read 5 chapters, and then we will watch the 1995 BBC version of “Pride and Prejudice,” which is neatly broken up into 6 parts, so we can watch only what we have read. So we started this today.
And I am dead serious when I say that the whole time we were watching Episode 1, the kids were excitedly saying, “Oh, that’s Mrs. Bennet! And that’s why she is foolish! I didn’t understand why she was foolish, but that makes sense now.” They watched what they read, and they saw the characters, and they were able to put faces to the names.
IT. WAS. AWESOME. The kids were excited about the ball, and excited about seeing the characters, and they were excited about the story. We really have been working on reading these first 5 chapters for a few days now, and when I finally made the breakthrough with them…I was overcome with pride. Big, fat, warm squishy happy pride. We did it.
Now, the infamous Simon Sinek wrote a book about the release of serotonin as a result of these moments. He actually broke down the features of quite a few endorphins in his book:
(you can buy it here…but I would suggest the eBook. There are videos in it, which are really nice)
I am very interested in what he has to say about this balance of endorphins in our life. Stress is good…it pushes us to innovate. Goals are good…they get us to create. Serotonin is good…it gives us a satisfaction that drives us forward. But how do you balance it all?
I found a great summary on GirlFriendCircles.com
“Sinek relied on human biology to illustrate what motivates behavior, saying basically that our actions boil down to the good feelings we get from four key chemicals in our body: dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin. When we trigger any of these chemicals in our bodies, we get a shot of something euphoric whether it’s extra energy, joy, calm, or pride. Here’s how we receive those good feelings:
- Dopamine is the result of accomplishing goals, it’s designed to help us find what we’re looking for. Every time we see a finish line, cross something off our to-do list, or see movement toward our goals– we get that shot of dopamine!
- Endorphins mask our physical pain and help us keep pushing ourselves to where we need to be. For most of us who live more sedentary and safe lives, our most common form of endorphins come from exercise. If you’ve ever had a “runner’s high”– you know this feeling.
- Oxytocin is one I talk about a lot in connection with our friendships as it reinforces bonds, builds trust, and relieves stress. We get this from touch, meaningful conversation, breast-feeding, and when we see/experience acts of human generosity.
- Serotonin happens in moments of pride, recognition, and status. When we receive our diploma on stage, say “I do” in front of friends and family, or are the recipients of a meaningful award– we get that shot of serotonin that boosts our joy.
Now, what I thought was super fascinating is that the first two chemicals you can get all by yourself. You need no one else present to get your dopamine from crossing something off your to-do list or to exercise and feel the endorphins. Sinek called these “selfish” hormones.
The latter two–oxytocin and serotonin– are “unselfish” chemicals since we need someone else present in order to receive the rewards that our body wants to give us. He gave the example of someone who could just receive an email telling them that enough credits had been accomplished and the bill paid so therefore they earned their diploma– and that person would have most certainly received a shot of dopamine for reaching their goal. But it’s when that person dons their cap and gown and walks in front of everyone that the serotonin is released. We need an “audience”– someone to cheer for us or witness our success– to give us that sense of pride and recognition. And the best part of these unselfish chemicals? BOTH people get the shot. Not just the graduate on stage, but also the teachers who taught that student, the family that supported them, and their friends who did it with them. Oxytocin and serotonin need others present to initiate them, but they also benefit all parties.”
(I was trying to find Simon’s list of these 4, but GirlFriendCircles.com did such a great job summarizing it, I would love to give her credit for what she said!! http://www.girlfriendcircles.com/blog/index.php/2013/07/friendships-stress-and-hormones-simon-sinek/)
Blogging With Kids
Most of the time when I am writing, it looks like this.
But I get interrupted often.
By very cute people who sit on me.
A lot of the time, I can’t even see my laptop.
But I know they won’t lay on me forever.
One day they will be too old to cuddle with Mom.
So, for now, I get to smile with them and hug them while I can,
and blog when my hands are free.
Coloring Inside The Lines
This morning I was just about to start mopping, for obvious reasons, when I found a square out of place:
This was from my very artistic 4 year old. She has been hiding crayons in her pockets forever so she could color her crib (when she was in a crib), and the walls surrounding her crib, in peace. I don’t want to overreact and say her need to color on the house is an epidemic, but we’ll just say it’s a bit of a habit. One that I thought we had grown out of, since there hasn’t been a crayon outbreak lately.
But armed with new crayons, to her, this particular square of kitchen needed to be filled. Apparently.
Now, I’ve already talked with her about drawing on the house (again), and I imagine that since we just got fresh crayons for the school room, this won’t be the last time I see something on the house colored. And today won’t be the last time I talk to her about not drawing on the house.
But here’s the thing: it’s really not that big of a deal.
I’m not too worried about it because I can wash this off. I was going to mop anyway, and it will come off. It’s just crayon, and it’s drawn on tile. Even permanent marker isn’t permanent (nail polish is a little tougher).
But the heart of my daughter is. And I take that into grave consideration when I scale the discipline with my kids.
There are some things that are inexcusable: lying, betrayal, violence, rage…things of destructive natures.
But drawing on tile is not destructive…it is an instructive moment. I can teach her why we don’t draw on the house in this moment. She can get a sponge and help me clean the crayon, so she sees how hard it is to get off. We can discuss this together, and I can make this moment a learning moment for her.
Honestly, when I saw this, the first thing I thought was, “If you teach your kids to color inside the lines, sometimes we have to also show them where the lines are.” Because, as you can see, she did color inside the lines very well.
I just need to show her that we color inside the lines on paper.
The Platypus Directive 
