What's the Matter?

I'm beginning to discover that everything we endeavor to learn and research about, has a background to learn first, or more connected things to learn after. I guess that's where the eternality of learning comes in - I'll need eternity to get it all down!

JD wanted to learn about electricity, having just completed his merit badge for Radio (and consequently, his Technician's Amateur Radio License). Easy, right? Not so fast.

Everything I found about electricity connected it to magnetism. So maybe we need to study that. Question is, do we study it BEFORE or AFTER electricity? I've found books doing it both ways.

Then, there came a new problem. We will be talking about atoms of electrical energy. We haven't ever talked about that. Now, we have to study matter.

I decided that, rather than stretch the subject out for weeks, matter could been discussed competently and understandably in one day. A quick run-through of atoms (and a short perusal of the periodic table of elements), molecules, and the states of matter, ended in two experiments. One showed the three states of matter in relation to water - we melted an ice cube and demonstrated how it could go from a sold (ice)to a liquid (water) to a gas (steam).

That was fun, but I had a topper for that. Using a bottle with vinegar in it, we topped it with a balloon that contained some baking soda. Mix the two and - voila! -carbon dioxide gas that inflated the balloon. It was striking and exciting!

But it didn't end there. JD found more information on atoms and molecules in a favorite book of his, and AR drew her own little picture of a hydrogen atom and another of three states of matter (a cup, water, and - ahem - flatulence).

It seems they got it. If only magnetism and electricity were that simple.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Too Cool to be a True American?

The newsline reads: "Suddenly, it may be cool to be an American." Why? Because the "rest of the world" likes the new choice for American president. He is more like them. Sorry world, but I don't want to be your kind of cool.

I don't want to be cool if it means that the values of the founders of my country are downplayed as old-fashioned, bigoted or evil. I don't want to be cool if it means that religion and God are despised, but nature worship (worshipping the created instead of the Creator) is undisputed.

I don't want to be cool if it means that my hard-earned income goes to every "cause celebre" but not to me, my children, or our future at our own discretion. I don't want to be cool if my liberty is erased for some vague and limiting universal equality.

I don't want to be cool if it means YOU are raising my children while I helplessly stand by. I don't want to be cool if it means that evil individuals find us (truthfully) weak fools and exploit us as such.

I don't want to be cool if it means that having a differing voice makes me evil and bigoted. I don't want to be cool if it means that tolerance is agreeing only with your side.

I don't want to be cool if it means I cannot own anything, including myself. I don't want to be cool if it means that believing in God and the right to bear arms makes me a frustrated ignorant yokel.

Sorry, world, I just don't like your brand of cool.

Pumpkin Patch

Make a Smilebox photobook

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Spider in the Tub

The other day, I found a lone spider sitting in the bathtub in my back bathroom. Generally, my feelings toward spiders are very benign, but my husband harbors an intense phobia of the little fellas. I didn't have the energy/desire to chase the thing, scoop it up, and relocate it to my garden, so instead I turned on the spigot, and down went my little trouble down the drain.
I don't mourn the small loss and I have no guilt over it, but I did find myself making a most interesting analogy. Does a spider belong in a bathtub? I suppose if it felt there were enough bugs living in the near vicinity, it may have "thought" (since I don't know about the mental gyrations of arachnids) that a tub is a nice place to make a web. But there was no insects or web there, and - with my human eyes - I could not see one in progress either. So the spider had no place in my bathtub, and it was not in a location where it could do what it does best.
Are we like spiders? Are we doing the good things that are the point of our living, or are we "hanging out" where we have no place to be? And, do we notice the incipient danger when we are "out of place"?
I'm sure my tub was a pleasant place, porcelain, smooth and cool to the touch. But, it held an element of danger that did not - could not - occur to the spider. When we are doing things that detract from living up to our potential and making the world a better place in our small sphere, we don't realize that it is hazardous. Outside of our natures lies catastrophe when situations spiral out of our control.
It is not to say that someone couldn't come along and knock us off of our web when we are busily spinning, or that our latest trip to the bathtub was absolutely uneventful, but our chances for disaster escalate when we take it into our hands to do and be where we should not. It is a gamble each time we are away from the safety of our web and our duty.
Our comfortable web gets tired-looking and ordinary quickly, I know. The bathtub is so enticing. We cannot live awry from our paths without cost. Go to the tub today, some may say, you will be okay. But then, perhaps someone may turn on the spigot, and then you are lost. The web is not perfect and not without some risk, but life is like that. Yet, staying within the web, we know who and what we are and what we are to do, and those lines that hold it together give us opportunity to move, avoid, and - if needed - escape. It is our natural habitat and its familiarity brings us peace and security; something you cannot get from that unknown, slippery tub.
What about fun? So many "spiders" ask far too often about entertaining, "getting away," but there are safe places for a spider to retreat, gardens, dark corners, what have you. You have to think, in your pursuit of leisure to a) not seek it beyond renewal and refreshing, and b) to seek it in safe places. Nothing ruins a vacation faster than a tragedy and, in nature, I see no mice taking a holiday in a cat's bed, no fish partying in a shark's mouth, and no antelope jumping around a pride of hungry lions. Like the Country Mouse said to her City cousin, "Better crumbs in peace than riches in fear."

The Kindness of Others

I have been overwhelmed lately by how kind people have been to me. It isn't always just help, either, like the treatments Rebecca has offered for my foot and other things. Sometimes, it's just nice little things, like giving me a bouquet of flowers after I admired them at church, or bringing me a set of Disney scrapbooking stickers when they heard I'd recently gone to Disneyland. Too, are the things that I can give to others - like organizing files or kitchens, helping with gardening, or leading children's music or playing the piano - that give me a sense of personal contribution. I like to feel needed.

The liberal give and take - without thinking of payback - is refreshing and cheering. It makes me feel part of the sisterhood community within the church. I feel confident - I have friends. Life is sweeter because of it all.