"As we have seen, there are other ways to see things."

From The Happiness Myth by Jennifer Michael Hecht. What a fun book. I am sad that I have to return it to the library today before I am really done with it but I am excited for the next person on the library list who gets to read it. There is alot of good stuff in this book- history of why we (in this Western culture) do what we do and why we worry about what we do.

These are great quotes from the book-
"It is worth paying attention." [Isn't it though!]
"Present-day convictions about what normal people do are much too certain...it is all tremendously dependent on time and place, and it is not all the same."

Did you know that if lab rats are forced to try new things, they experience stress. But if new cages and gadgets are just sort of put around they will go VOLUNTARILY and choose novelty! I love how this relates to kids, to unschooling, to learning, to allowing people to be who they are...

Hecht also suggests we think about what makes us happy, make a list of the things we love to do and things we would like to do. Make three lists- Good-day Happiness, Euphoria, A Happy Life and fill them up. Then do the things that are on your list. Try them and reflect and wonder if you want to do those things again or do you want to try something else...or a little of both.

"We seem obsessed with motivation, rallying ourselves to something beyond the life available to us right now, and we treat this motivation as if it were a major part of the history of wisdom, which it is not."

Eva photos

Eva self portrait, age 4 (and almost a half)



Eva self portrait, age 4 (and almost a half)



Eva with roses. She lined up all of these petals for me and then went and picked a rose and set up the photo to show how much she loved me.



Eva and baby splashing in the puddles in their rain gear.



Eva painted her face with face paint we found at the art supply store. I thought it would be just the thing because she is enjoying lots of body art these days. Too bad the paint was itchy. She had me wash it all off shortly after we finished painting.



I painted Eva's toes and legs with the paint.



Eva painting.



Eva painted my feet. A masterpiece. And they looked good in sandals too!

input

-Yesterday we went to see the Oregon Ballet do their once a year practice in the park. The tent is set up in the south park blocks in Portland's Cultural District, just south of Downtown. Anyone can go and watch the dancers and it is all free! Eva really wanted to watch and also let me know she does not want to actually dance because she has some practice of her own to do. I was surprised actually how quickly she tired of watching the rehearsal. There were several breaks between action when the choreographer would talk with the dancers and show them moves, etc. We are going back on Friday morning to watch a free kids class, just to see what that is all about and I am hoping we can make it to one of the performances on Saturday, after the farmer's market. That may be more interesting to her. Samuel actually really enjoyed himself and was also surprised when Eva wanted to go.

-We just finished up Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Mary Norton. We enjoyed it but really wished there had been more exploring and as Samuel said, less about their lives. I ordered the movie from the library and am curious about it now that we have finished the book. Samuel is generally disappointed by movie adaptations of books (James and Giant Peach, for example). Not sure how this one will go over because if I have seen it, I do not remember it.

-Season 3, volumes 1 and 2 of Lost in Space finally came in through inter-library loan. That is currently playing in the background. Samuel and I did the math about how many episodes that makes and I have conveniently forgotten at this point. I would say many, several, a lot. And so far they are still trying to get off of that planet...

-Eva has been enjoying the Peep website and its games. This is a new series we found on DVD at the library and I believe is a partial inspiration for her own character Chicky, along with her own stuffed chick who she carries around in a small basket, like a portable nest.

-I am still reading the Happiness Myth and have added to that And the Skylark Sings with Me by David Albert, a book about one family's journey homeschooling their two musical daughters. It is an inspiration to parents whose children are following paths that the parents do not necessarily share. Neither Albert nor his partner were particularly musical and yet were able to help their daughters pursue their musical interests. I am really enjoying his thoughtful ideas about the public school system as well.

-I am also reading Spineless Wonders by Richard Conniff and I highly recommend it if you enjoy spending time with bugs. It is a perfect time of year to read it, what with all of the spider webs and ants and flies and bees...

-Oh and also Suze Orman's Women and Money. I have read her before and she can get pretty hepped up so I made sure I was in a relaxed state of mind when I picked up the book. It is geared toward empowering women and has some interesting commentary. I am skimming quite a bit of it because as I said before, she gets pretty hepped up and I was hoping to feel good reading it, not more hepped up myself. I like reading organizational books sometimes though and tend to enjoy them more if I let myself skip around and skim quite a bit, take some here and there and then move on.

-Samuel spends quite a bit of time looking over the lego website, particularly the parts with the bionicles. He has the first of the newest Toa Mahri, the red guy (a.k.a. Toa Jaller). Today I noticed the two of them looking at pictures of the Toa together. Don't worry if you don't undestand this last paragraph. There are a lot of bionicles around my house these days, all set up and ready for something or other. I have been following this saga for years.

-Berenstain Bears

-Jay Jay the Jet Plane

-Geronimo Stilton

-Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs and other Tomie dePaola

-Stephen Kellogg

-Wildlife of Star Wars, A Field Guide by Terryl Whitlatch and Bob Carrau

-Oh and this is a pretty funny take off on Star Wars that is a lot of fun to watch

hallelujia!

The hamster came back! Not twenty minutes after I wrote the last post (which is mis-dated, by the way, because I wrote over a post titled Treasure Hunts... that I started on Thursday. The missing hamster just seemed more relevant. I'm not missing the irony that the missing hamster, Fluffy wanders off, is a sort of treasure hunt in and of itself, surely not to be outdone by the other treasure hunts I was going to write about a couple of days ago!). I was in the kitchen making food for Eva and she started pretending she was a character she just came up with, Chicky. Chicky was peep peeping at me to follow her, as she crawled into the next room, to put her into her *nest* which is a pillow inside the plastic climbing structure we have in the living room. I followed her and looked over and there!, Fluffy came out from behind the ONE-BOOKCASE-I-COULD-NOT-MOVE! He moved slowly and yawned a little (ok I am embellishing for effect here), he just moved a little slowly and stopped and I went over and scooped him up and gave him some banana which he took and nibbled and even stuck some in his pouch for later. Then I put him in his little cage and he went over and got into his bedding nest and started grooming himself. End of story! What a happy ending. Everyone had been so distraught they could barely get excited when I presented Fluffy to them and instead looked at him in wonder. But the relief is palpable in the house now that Fluffy is back and we have each taken turns to go and check on him, safe in his cage, asleep.

missing hamster

Well, the hamster is missing- again. I am feeling very tired over missing hamsters. Weary. My sister and I were recounting just a couple of weeks ago the different hamsters that we had when we were growing up and which ones went missing or met untimely ends. My second hamster Inle (any Watership Down fans?), after my first very-long-lived hamster Garfield who died at age 4 of some sort of eye abscess, went off to live with the mice at one point. We trapped her and caught her. She just never adjusted to cage life. One of Ellen's hamster, Sunshine, escaped from her cage (truth be known, it was a styrofoam cooler I used to fly her? or did we drive? to Ohio from Wisconsin. She used her sharp little teeth to gnaw her way out.) and was caught by a large dog named Wimpy (dog to my Dad's second wife, Debbie). They told me that she must have died of a heart attack, although now that I think about it, I am not sure how they knew that at the time. I seem to remember-yes!- a third hamster, Ellen's again, that we found several months after she/ he had gone missing. We found said hamster, whose name I have forgotten (Ellen's third and I believe last hamster), in the heater vent in the basement when it was being cleaned out for the winter.

That brings us to now. Here I am, an adult now, still looking for lost hamsters. Our first hamster, Fluffy, escaped a couple of times and was found, once behind a bookcase in a nest of ripped up carpeting she had prepared for herself over night. She escaped several times and went behind the couch, etc until finally one night she stood on her little house in her cage and pushed UP. She pushed the lid off of the cage and climbed out. We had actually seen her practicing this move and thought it very optimistic of her. Cute. Wow, check out what the hamster is doing... I usually stored a large bag of hamster food on top so that she could not move the lid up far enough to escape. For some reason I did not have something weighing it down that night and she escaped.

It was so sad when she escaped because she found her way out to the garage and eventually into the crawl space below via the only little hole behind the heater, far back in the corner. I actually caught her once in a trap I set but the box was not strong enough to hold her (remember she had been lifting weights...) and she got out and ran off again. For a few days she would come out and get almonds I baited her with. I have to believe she got caught down in the hole and wasn't able to get out. We like to believe she found her way outside to freedom but I have to admit, the chances were slim. Several months later there was a severe smell coming from under the house where the heating vents (again!) had broken and filled with water. The fix-it-guy who came over surmised she might have gotten into the vents looking for water and died there. He didn't believe there was any way out of the crawl space but up. Unfortunately it was lined with plastic, not dirt and grasses like I imagined. If anyone WAS going to get out of a crawl space in another way, it would be a hamster. They are, as I have been told, masters of escape.

And that brings us to the cats. Generally, one of our cats leads us to the escaped hamster. You know, you walk into a room and a cat is sitting staring intently but sort of relaxed too, at an undetermined spot. Magoo is the best at this and you know something is up with the hamster. Ah ha! You have found the spot. All you need to do now is move whichever piece of furniture is under or around the cat and usually cat-marks-the-spot, you have a hamster, usually dozing away or grooming or just relaxing. So on the one hand, you want the cat to help you find the hamster and then again on the other hand, you don't. Because remember, cats generally eat hamsters. So they can be helpful in some ways and not so helpful in others.

This hamster, Fluffy (Yes, it is the same name but not the same hamster. This hamster is a male teddy bear hamster and was named Nibbles at the humane society. I did pause at that but the kids really took to him. The other hamster was a regular female hamster whose name was Marshmallow at the humane society. Completely different except that they both like to escape.) has escaped a few times but it has generally been to very controlled spaces, like inside the couch or just over by the futon. Today was different. He was sitting with Eva and had been out with her for a while and then she set him down to sit in front of the fan and a couple of seconds later he had wandered off and quickly at that. We turned the room upside down, closed all doors to places like OUTDOORS and the GARAGE and then picked up furniture, toys, cleared a space and finally brought out his cage, baited it with a banana and set it in the middle of the living room floor in the hopes that he will get hungry and come out for food. Again, we are hoping for some help from the cats, but not too much help, if you know what I mean. I will do my best to keep them very well fed tonight (as if they aren't already!).

What I told the kids earlier is that when a hamster escapes during the day time, the most likely scenario is that he has gone to find some place to sleep. We hope he is right around here this very minute, behind a bookcase or in a little crevice that looks too small from our eyes to fit him, just sleeping away. We hope that when he gets hungry he will come out to find the banana. We hope that Magoo will point the way. We hope he is old and loves us enough to not take off on his own. I have to admit, it is a bit galling to think of him sleeping nearby while all of us are quite disturbed by his escape. Eva is just beside herself and has gone to "imagine what life will be like without Fluffy ". Samuel, of course, is "never going to let Eva forget that she lost Fluffy". As for myself, I am feeling very weary and tired, tired and weary, about lost hamsters right now and really just hope this one comes back.

art class

This is the art class the kids are taking at the Multnomah Art Center. The class has four different stations set up each time to do different projects and the kids can move around to any of the areas depending on what they enjoy and what they are up for. It is very loose and the teacher is there to set it all up and take care of finished projects and be really enthusiastic! Today was the last day of this class and we are going to sign up for another of the same kind in the fall. We are hoping that the next teacher is as open and enthusiastic as the one we had this time. She is on her way to work at the Portland Art Museum.



Samuel is working on a collage with glue and tissue paper on aluminum foil.



Samuel and Eva working on collages with colored glue and feathers and pasta and different types of paper, all on coffee filters with paint or origami paper. The number of different supplies is really exciting for the kids.



Eva pointed out this photo is her in purple but with the red paint and Samuel in red but with the purple paint. She wished I had taken one with her with the purple paint and Samuel with the red paint. Ah, if only I had thought of it!



And here is a big pile of art projects from the different classes. There was clay and different painting with spray bottles and salad spinner paintings where you put the painting in the salad spinner and added glitter. Lots and lots of glitter! And lots of collages and colored glues and eye dropper painting on coffee filters and shiny paper and feathers and lots of colored pasta. Today they had oil pastels on black paper and different types of chalks. I liked too how she mixed up the projects each time because the kids moved around and did all of the different projects and then did others they didn't think they would like if some of their "favorites" ended up not being there that day. And they enjoyed those as well. A real discovery class.

And on that note of discovery, I found another unschooling blog today that I am thoroughly enjoying. I agree whole heartedly with her sentiments that, "we are trying to be a buffer for our children, so they can lay claim to their own gifts without the weight of second guessing themselves." Very aptly put. She had a link to this ode-to-creativity article that is well worth reading. I get shivers reading the last lines. It can be an effort to find what we truly love and what inspires us, but surely that is what this life is about.

kimchi revisited

Oh I forgot to mention that I finally tasted the kimchi. I have to say I didn't really like it. It is awfully salty. It has been in the refrigerator for a couple of days now and today I finally decided to give it a try. I have to say that the Chinese cabbage does not look appetizing but the turnips and whatever else I put in there (I should check out my previous post) were more appetizing and crunchy. It doesn't, you'll be glad to know, smell bad and that is a good thing! I actually have nothing to compare it to and am looking forward to Ellen returning to Portland so that she can taste it and tell me if it tastes like kimchi. If not, maybe I can try again!