Today's Oregon Mama

2008-01-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

I just read an interesting book called, Out of Islam. It’s an amazing peek into the real life difficulties of a Muslim becoming Christian. I am so accustomed to the freedom of religion in the United States (such as it is) that it is alien to me to read about the death knell that sounds for a converted Muslim.

The main character, Christopher Alam, grew up in a well-known Muslim family in Pakistan, his father was a general in the Pakistani Army. His step-mother was abusive and his father was distant and never pleased with anything Alam did, but when Alam chose Christ, his father eventually ordered his son’s murder. Alam managed to escape, through many miracles, and is now living in the USA preaching of his conversion with a family of his own.

Alam tried to explain how hugely it hurts the reputation of a whole family to have a converted child, and how in his culture family reputation is paramount. Still, I can’t fathom how a son can become worthy of murder. How a father can bring himself to order it and be willing to do it himself? To break the natural bond between father and son twists the very foundation of what it means to be human.

The man who baptized Alam was murdered for baptizing a Muslim. Murdered. And his murderers unprosecuted. Unfathomable.

Part of what made this book interesting to me is that I know of a man (a friend of my sister's) in Egypt who converted in his homeland, an African country, and had to flee the country before being murdered by his own family too. In this man's case, he was put in prison in Egypt for 14 years on a technicality (lots of Muslims don't like converted Christians) and had to find friends willing to put together $14,000.00 in order to be released even after 14 years of jail time.

The Muslim-Christian tension is a very real problem for many people. A problem that I don't ever consider--I am so out of that world. Thankfully, I am not part of that world. The freedom of religion I enjoy is a blessing that I don't appreciate enough.

This book was a good reminder for me.

The American Plague--Book Review

2008-01-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

I am in my early 30’s and I hadn’t heard about the Influenza Plague of 1918 until I read a Quilter’s Legacy, by Jennifer Chiaverini. I know, an epidemic that killed so many people world-wide, and I know more about Madonna or Marilyn Monroe than I do about an earth-wide tragedy that tore so many families apart. But I know something about it now, and so it was very interesting to discover yet another plague that I had no idea existed: the yellow jack fever plague of the 1878, it’s huge re-appearance in 1898 during the Spanish-American War in Cuba and the saga of tragedy that followed the various scientists who gave their lives to discover the carrier--mosquitoes.

Reading about the history of yellow fever may sound absolutely boring, but I was riveted almost the whole time to the story in The American Plague, by Molly Caldwell Crosby. Her writing and the personal stories she told brought the history alive. What also made it fascinating, is the historical effect the disease had on governments, sewage systems and the Panama Canal. This was one disease that changed history.

I warn you, stop here if you're not interested in reading excerpts of the book. I went overboard as I kept finding the paragraphs that struck me. As it was, I had to stop part way through the book, it was getting so long. But I want to post this for myself, so I can remember the parts I enjoyed.

I liked reading Crosby’s description of the virus—“A virus is one of the smallest beings in evolution’s survival of the fittest, mutating and coalescing in order to thrive, its ultimate goal being epidemic” (8). It’s marvelous writing—and I was a Humanities not pre-Medical student. “As a virus, yellow fever is not one of the stronger ones. It cannot live outside of the body for more than a few hours. It does not spread through the air or by touch. It does not mutate as easily as some viruses…what makes yellow fever unique is its choice of vector. What the virus lacks in evolutionary prowess, the mosquito makes up for” (9).

“In the blood, yellow fever looks something like a fuzzy snowflake, but it is actually round with twenty smooth sides that protect the virus’s single strand of RNA at the center. The coating of the virus is made up of proteins, and human cells are attracted to those proteins—the virus doesn’t need to look for the healthy cells; they look for it…The healthy cell eventually enfolds the virus, taking it in and closing the door behind it…That is why a virus cannot be treated by antibiotics; human cells give it refuge, and anything that could destroy the virus might also destroy the cell” (10). I never understood viruses as well as I do now with her description.

“Yellow fever, more than any other disease, would seem conjured by God and divinely directed. When the slave trade first began, every European country that profited from the purchase and sale of Africans would soon see a yellow fever epidemic: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal. Though Asia had the ideal climate and the right mosquito, it has never had an epidemic of yellow fever. It also never participated in the African slave trade” (11). It’s connections like these that make the history come alive for me. “During its tenure in this country [United States], yellow fever would inflict 500,000 casualties and 100,000 deaths…The U.S. capital would move from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. after a devastating yellow fever epidemic in 1793. Alexander Hamilton suffered the fever, while George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson fled the city; the united States government was paralyzed…Napoleon would abandon his conquests in North American after losing 23,000 of his troops to yellow fever in the colony of Haiti. He made a hasty and fearful retreat from this pestilent hemisphere, selling his large Louisiana holdings for cheap to Thomas Jefferson” (12). Fascinating! The history made by a swath of suffering from a fever---our U.S. capital changing location, Napoleon selling the Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson—I actually can’t believe I never heard of it for over 3 decades of life. This fever shaped history.

Crosby goes on to explain that the mosquitoes from Africa, carrying the fever, would come on the slave ships, and the Emily B. Souder slave ship brought the fever to Memphis at the 1978 Mardi Gras, when 40,000 people revelers congregated, were bit by mosquitoes, and carried them to their homes all over. And until quarantine was declared in August, many ships floated the Mississippi carrying the mosquitoes and yellow jack.

In mid-August, an epidemic was finally acknowledged by the Memphis Board of Health. In five days 25,000 people fled Memphis. By the next month, 19,000 people remained and 17,000 were suffering yellow fever (47). Over 5,000 died (77).

The next year, with the weather looking like the previous year (they knew warm weather had something to do with the plague, but they didn’t realize that their sitting water + warm weather = lots of mosquito eggs hatching) Memphis decided to get a sewer system. Now this gets interesting—this sewer system was the first to use separate pipes for sewage and fresh water. Incredible that this is the first use. The engineer and inventor was named George Waring and “his idea was relatively simple, involving earthenware pipes sixteen inches beneath the ground, which would carry foul sewage only and exclude all rainwater. The straightforward plan to use separate pipes for sewage and fresh water would become known as the “Waring System”…The system proved so successful that cities all over the country soon adopted the design…The sewer system was created to clean up the foul, disease-ridden city, but it had another benefit that would not be appreciated for years to come. In eliminating cisterns and providing an efficient means for drainage, Memphis destroyed a large number of breeding places for the striped house mosquito” (88-89). Again, history is made as a consequence of this disease—a two pipe sewage system. Not glamorous, but I’m thankful for that development.

Yellow fever influenced history in the building of the Panama Canal. This path started in 1901, the mosquito having been (finally) established as the carrier of yellow fever, Major and Doctor William C. Gorgas fought to destroy all mosquito breeding grounds in Havana (flower vase, puddle of water, cisterns or barrels used for water storage). Gorgas had to send his men into every home in Havana for inspection and he made mosquito control a personal responsibility, sending out inspectors and fining citizens when mosquito larvae were found on their property and that practice is still used in Havana (204). Jim Writer wrote, “Yellow fever had been constantly present in Havana for 150 years and was nearly wiped out in less than 150 days” (204). It seems so invasive, to have my vases and puddles checked by an inspector, but I wouldn’t be able to argue with Gorgas’s results. And yellow jack fever is a horrible way to die. His results in Havana got him assigned as the medical officer to American’s Panama Canal project.

In 1881 the attempt to build the Panama canal had been disastrous—as many as 1/3 the men were lost to yellow fever and malaria (the project had been headed up by the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps who had built the Suez Canal). So in 1904 Gorgas was assigned to the project. He used his aggressive techniques to destroy the mosquito and its breeding grounds (amid lots of criticism) and the cases of yellow fever and malaria dropped off the charts and he was the officer on duty when the first ships sailed through the Panama Canal in 1914 (205). I vaguely remember from my History lessons that the Panama Canal had lots of obstacles to surmount, including sickness, but I would have thought it malaria alone. Now I know better and am amazed at the history made by yellow fever.

I hope you enjoyed the summary of the book. If you found this at all interesting, know that the book is packed with much more.

I love history, when it’s interesting. How about you?

Great Christmas Gift idea-Musing

2008-01-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of my five children. I had this great idea for Christmas presents to the Grandparents on both sides that needed a photo. I took ten and this was the best one. And yet two are sticking out their tongues!

The great gift idea is a picture frame ornament.

In previous years we would gift our Grandparents (my children's great-grandparents) with a family photo. But the truth is, they have loads of grandchildren--they can't hang pictures of all of them. Or if they did, it would take a whole wall. And perhaps they don't want a whole wall of those photos.

So I thought instead of sending them a photo that perhaps they don't know what to do with--what if we started a tradition of sending them a picture frame ornament with the year engraved on the bottom. They'd see us growing up over the years, they'd take it out every year and hang us on their tree, and we wouldn't be assuming that a family picture of us fits their decor.

I still think it is a great idea, but since our family photos we had taken professionally are horribly late (they will be worth it, once we get them!) I realized I'd have to take the photos myself.

With all the preparations of eight siblings and their families coming into town, this photo session just didn't happen until the last minute. And you see the results. None of the photos are perfect!

The down side of a picture frame ornament is that the photograph space is small. That means the children's heads must be close together. I tried to have them lay on the floor like spokes of a wheel, and this is the best shot from that. Alas, I am very much an amateur picture taker. And my new computer with all the latest software that could help it out is at the computer hospital. So, this is as good as it gets.

But family is very forgiving and they'll love it anyway. And they'll only see it once a year. So it is still a great idea, I just need to get the hang of shooting it right. Any advice?

Bridal Bouquets--musing

2008-01-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

I just came home from a wedding reception. The second in a week. It must be after Christmas, but before school starts again, because college students are getting married in between semesters. I did it that way myself.

As I watched the bride throw her bouquet to a small crowd of girls that included my eleven year old daughter, I remembered how excited and hopeful I felt to catch the bouquet when I was a pre-teen. I would fight just a bit for it. Like at a pinata. I could tell the pre-teen girls there felt the same way.

Things changed as I got older. I still wanted to catch the bouquet, but I didn't want to appear too aggressive for it. Like I wanted to reach out and casually grab it, but not jump or push for it because that would show I wanted it too much. So the pre-teen girls would snag it first. Because they didn't care how they looked, they just wanted to win.

As an older teen I remember feeling a bit of consternation towards the pre-teens, and I think it is common to the age. The females who are of marriageable age (or close to it) feel like they deserve to catch the bouquet because they're closest to using the "luck" that comes from catching it. The pre-teen females treat it like a competition, like its the tip off of a basketball game. It's probably a common statistic now--the younger the female who waits to catch, the more likely she is to catch a bouquet, because she'll push for it.

But I think brides have noticed the trend--have you seen them try and fix it? I've seen brides try to rig the throw so they can get the bouquet to their eligible friends. The older females stand in the rear of the group (and then they don't appear too eager either) and the bride hucks the bouquet as hard as she can over her shoulder so that it reaches her friends in the back. I've even seen brides pretend to throw it the first time, look over her shoulder so she can see where her friends are, and then throw it.

I don't know what older females do with the bouquet after they get their photo with the bride. I never caught it as an eligible maiden. I know what pre-teens do though. They're so excited to win the toss, and get a picture with the bride (who's always a princess to a romantic pre-teen) that they hang the flowers up in their room. Even after they are long dead and dusty. I know, because that's what I did when I was a pre-teen who caught the bouquet.

My daughter missed today's bouquet toss. She was up at the front with all her friends, and the bouquet went to the bride's new sister-in-law in the back. An eligible maiden. And she didn't even have to jump to catch it.

It was rigged.

Dinosaur Birthday cake-how to

2008-01-03T22:19:00.000-08:00

One of my sons had his fifth birthday party. All he wanted was to eat a dinosaur cake and open presents. He didn't even care about inviting any friends over, until he heard they bring more presents. Ha.

This picture to the left is of a dinosaur birthday party in 2006 for a son turning six. My husband did the cake and I thought it turned out well. I would've made it a flat cake in dino shape. But he created a cake sculpture and my son was thrilled.

So, fast forward almost two years later and another son wants a dinosaur cake. My husband couldn't come home from work early enough to do the design. But I'd seen it done. I felt confident I could repeat the work of art.

I forgot, for a moment, that my creatively lies elsewhere. That when it comes to creating with my hands, I am all thumbs. That I can see a picture in my head, but when I try to create it, it has never worked out unless it was a kit and I just put together the pieces. My twin sister is amazingly creative with her hands (see http://www.jenvranes.com/) and a beautiful artist. I should have called her in to help! The photo at the left is what I was able to put together.

The irony is, until I put the nerd "dragon scales" on, I thought it was going to turn out. I kept having kids walk by (I had some nieces and nephews visiting early for the party) and saying, "That doesn't look like a dinosaur." "It will," I reassured them. Hmmm, it does, if you have a great imagination. I laugh every time I look at the photo. I think it looks hilarious.

My birthday boy loved the cake (see photo left). What a reaction. I will make him a funny looking cake anyday!

I did learn something while making this cake. A tip that I want to pass on to those of you who make creative cakes (I wish you success!).

When I covered the cookie sheet with wax paper, I laid one sheet of foil on top of it, down the middle, on which I built the cake "sculpture."

When I frosted the cake and added the candies, it make quite a mess. But I was able to tear the foil around the cake (see photo below left) and it cleaned up really quick. The cake was ready to display in seconds.

Enjoy your cake making and remember, it's all about how the child feels about the cake, not the cake artist. At least that is now my philosphy.

Two More Blogs

2007-11-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

I've started two more blogs. This blog, http://www.todaysmama.blogspot.com/ is turning into my musing blog. It's a peek into whatever I'm thinking of at this time. The other two blogs are more specific.

http://www.sotourist.blogspot.com/ is about family-friendly things to do in Southern Oregon. I love the area I live in, and can't find personal recommendations about the things to do around here. So I'm starting my own. My first post is about a "secret" place to pick blackberries--the best place!

http://www.valerie-harmon.blogspot.com/ is a place for sharing my parenting ideas. I have some parenting ideas that I want to write down so I can remember what I've learned before I forget it. Plus, I'm a better parent when I'm consciously thinking of ways to be better, and blogging helps that. My latest post is about the dilemma of controlling Halloween candy.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to add your comments, I'm no expert and I'm always wanting to learn.

Miracle for Morning Sickness

2007-11-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

I've birthed five children, and my sixth is on the way. Since I'm sick the whole nine months (normally), I have spent 3.75 years of my life fighting morning sickness. I know something about nausea. So when I tell you I have found a miracle for my morning sickness, you'll know it's a significant event in my life and I won't need to apologize for my enthusiasm!

It's called EmergenC and you can buy it at almost any grocery store. It's a Vitamin C powder

(with minerals and ascorbates) that fizzes when you add water.

I've used it before to help with jet lag and boost our family's immune system, so when I started to feel nauseated in the morning, I happened to have it on hand. Today I'm three months along in my pregnancy--and I've been off the couch for most of it!

I say most of it, because last week we ran out of it for four days. Four awful days! Several times during the previous 2 1/2 months I had wondered if I really was pregnant. Running out of EmergenC reminded me what my pregnancy normally feels like. One of those mornings I got out of bed, read scriptures, made breakfast, dressed my two youngest, and then --I went back to bed. I was ready to throw up and exhausted. We bought some more and after 3 days recovering, I'm back to feeling almost un-pregnant.

It's possible that I've found a remedy that only works for me. But I will tell you, that I have helped another pregnant friend with her nausea.

With her last pregnancy she was in and out of the hospital getting IVs for her dehydration--she was throwing up that much. She vowed never to be pregnant again, and then got surprised a couple months ago. I saw her at a field trip with a white face and moving in that delicate "I'm doing to throw up" mode, and told her about EmergenC. The next week she ran up to me and said "That stuff is a miracle! This is day FOUR without throwing up." Her face had more color in it and she was walking with vigor. So I started to think that my discovery might help more than just me.

My favorite flavors are LemonLime and Tangerine. I'm not fond of the Raspberry. I've tried a cheaper brand (sorry, I forget the name) and it didn't taste as good or work as well (for me). I tried Airbourne (another fizzy Vitamin C drink) when I was out of EmergenC and it got me off the couch enough to dress the kids for church, but I still walked delicately and had to keep eating every 1/2 hour to hold off the nausea.

In Southern Oregon, the cheapest place (not online) is Wal-Mart. I love Winco and normally shop there, but it charges three dollars more for EmergenC, and the local health food store adds two more dollars to Winco's price. So shop around, the price is not standard.

If you are pregnant, or know someone who is, please let them know that EmergenC worked for me. It would have saved me several years of nausea and that is no small thing.

Any of you ever tried EmergenC or have another remedy you use for nausea?

The Consequences of "To Do It Right..."

2007-04-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

We bought a fixer upper house in December and expected to finish the remodel and move in by late January. And then the deadline was the end of February. And it is now nearing the end of April. And we are still not finished with the remodel nor are we moved in. (Photo of our house as we began the remodel-Aunt Chris (who spent a day of her Christmas Vacation helping us demolish walls) and I)

As I was thinking about how the last couple months have transpired, I finally pinned down--to the sentence--the idea that got us here. Here being, living at my parents' house with paint and spackle decorating my hands. The sentence begins with, "To do it right...." and it ends differently every time.

We planned from the beginning to paint our house and tear up the flooring. The house had been just entering foreclosure and the previous owners hadn't wanted to move. So the whole house smelled like an animal restroom. And we hoped it was animal waste. Thus, we knew we'd be sealing the walls and floor.

The upstairs bedrooms and the downstairs living room were both configured weirdly. Upstairs was a whole floor of five bedrooms, the size of walk in closets, all in a line, with entrance and exits doors into each other. Very strange. (Photo-In Technicolor, you can see some of the doors two of the doors on one of the upstairs rooms)

And downstairs the living room had a bump out wall into the master bedroom that wasn't big enough or useful for anything. Just existing. So....To do it right, we decided to move a couple walls. We'd turn upstairs into two large bedrooms and a storage room, and we push a wall into the living room and make the extra space into a master walk in closet. I was excited for this. I've never had a walk in closet and I admire them. (See the photo? We're tearing down the funky wall and getting ready to build a new straight wall for the closet (my husband Theron is scraping up three layers of glued on carpet and pad))

Downstairs the master bedroom had two full master bathrooms. The first opened a door into the second, which also had a door off the hallway. And just kitty corner from the second master bathroom was a half bath, that only opened from the other side--across from the front door. Um, the first front door. The second front door opened into the living room. Obviously, the previous owners loved doors. Since one of the front doors had been kicked in by the police, I can only interpret all these doors as being bolt holes. Emergency exits for people worried about being caught with nowhere to run. Their house reveals their psyche.

To Do It Right....we decided to make the half bath into a full bath, and change the second master bathroom (I laugh every time I write that) into a nursery/guest room. The small remodel to make it livable had changed into a gutting of large portions of the house.

And that is why, on April 25th, 2007, I sit at my parents' computer and ponder how I ended up living with my parents and sister for two months (so far), with five children and a husband, and most of our stuff piled up in the great room of our unfinished house.

To Do It Right... plus While We're At It, has got me here. Good thing the house is worth it to me!

Anyone else ever had remodeling woes?
~Valerie Harmon

Putting on a Musical--Sheet Music Aids

2007-04-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

I am directing a musical production with about 150 youths, ages 12-18. It is exhilarating and back-breaking and I mostly love it.

Since I have very little directing experience, my learning curve looks more like a straight line pointing up. Today I'm going to share with you what I have learned about music and software.

With nine songs for my young actors to learn in a few short months, with most of them inexperienced musically, and with most of the songs shortened versions of the original or with significant word changes to fit our theme, I knew I had to do two things: create sheet music that looked exactly as the actors were supposed to sing and make a Music Practice CD.

Because of time constraints, I shortened seven of the songs. And I changed words around, had a friend write several verses for another, and turned an song in Nigerian into a song with English words. I had made these changes in pencil on the actual music, but I knew I couldn't give that to my actors. It was too confusing to read my writing while trying to learn new music. I had to find a way to create actual sheet music for my versions. And it had to be FREE. Thanks to a friend's recommendation, I found Finale Music Software. I started with Finale Notepad, a free, no strings attached sheet music software that is uses about half intuition and half sweat to figure out. But it worked beautifully! I learned to input note by note and add lyrics and it looks so professional when I print it out. AND, Finale has a cool feature--I can hear how the song will sound by clicking on Play. It sounds exactly how the notes look (no human interpretation) but it was what I needed.

Finale Notepad did have two limitations that stymied me for a bit. Notepad wouldn't let me change key signatures within a song. Notepad also cannot make an audio file of the sheet music. I needed both those features, and I finally found them on Finale Songwriter (which could read Notepad, I didn't have to re-enter the music, whew).

I could only use Finale Songwriter for 30 days and be able to print and save for free, but Songwriter can change key signatures and make a great MIDI sounding audio file--and it was exactly what I needed. I made audio files of the accompaniment, and was even able to split out parts (with a bit of sweat) so my actors could hear their particular section as they practice.

During my search for helpful software, I came across Sibelius music software. My Regional Music Director swears it is better than Finale, but I didn't like it. Mainly because it wouldn't allow me to try it out for 30 days with printing and saving abilities. All I could do was look at it. Very Disappointing.

A software that I spent a lot of time mad at was Voyetra Record Producer AudioSurgeon. They let me try their product freely, for 30 days, able to save, but it wasn't very intuitive. It did help me take percussion from a recording and add it to my Nigerian song. But it was very limited. I'm sure there's a better mixing/cut and paste software out there, but I don't know it. Anyone know a good mixing/splicing software?

I had a friend who used Cakewalk (not free software) to record her voice to the songs (such a nice friend!!), and April 18th my actors received their Music Practice CD.

Putting the sheet music and practice cd together was tough work, but I was beyond glad to find Finale and use it for my production.

~Valerie Harmon

Putting on a Musical-The Value of Google!

2007-04-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

I am currently directing a short church youth production with around 150 youth ages 12-14. I've learned a lot, something I want to put into a separate blog, but today I want to sing the praises of two Google products: GoogleGroups and Google Video.

My actors have 6 songs to memorize in just 10 practices, spread over a couple months. Many of them don't have musical experience, and they need to hear the music and get it into their heads. I put together a Practice Cd, but knowing that some of them will lose it, I wanted to upload the songs somewhere online. I tried to upload it onto this blog--but Blogspot no longer uploads MP3s. A bit discouraged, I discovered the ease and flexibility of GoogleGroups (disclaimer: I am in no way connected to the Google company and don't make a dime off this "Ode").

GoogleGroups makes it possible to combine a website-type homepage, a discussion area, a file upload area (up to 100 mb)and a collaborative document area. For Free. You can imagine my enthusiasm. If you want to check out what I've done on our Youth Production Googlegroup, goto: Youth Production GoogleGroup

Because so many of my actors don't know what a musical production is like, I knew I needed to put together a visual picture for them. I combined video footage from a Newport Beach Youth Celebration with our songs to make a music video of sorts. Having put the hours in to make it (I like the movie making software Pinnacle Studio, but a couple times it deleted parts of my work or froze, so it took many hours, yuck!) I wanted the actors to have it, but I didn't want to burn individual dvds. I wanted to post it online somewhere and link it to my Google Group.

I first tried YouTube, but they only allow an upload of 100mb or less. And no matter how I changed the format, I couldn't get it below 100mb and still have it look good. Then I discovered Google Video. They have an "above 100mb" option. Free. It worked and now my GoogleGroup links to the "music video" I made AND some YouTube video footage of a Youth Celebration in Sacramento that I found while figuring this all out. AND I linked to a video of the 2006 Portland Dance Festival--who are lending us our costumes.

So my GoogleGroup has turned into a great place for information on our youth production. And the teaser lines of "costume sneak peek" might just bring them to the site. I don't expect it to be my only information outlet, but I consider it another way to help our communication.

I'm so excited about these technologies that I just had to share.

Anyone else tried them?

~Valerie

Review-Art-Painting A Day

2007-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

I just came across what I think is the best art idea I've ever seen. Duane Keiser is an artist who started a movement within the art world that I think will change the way artists and galleries connect to their clients.

Keiser calls it "Painting A Day." He paints a postcard sized painting every day, and posts a photo of it on his blog with a link to its auction on eBay. Their prices start at $100 and Peter Togel of ArtByUs.com says, "The consumers of the art are people who have white walls and midsized incomes, who could never pay for a painting in a gallery but don't want to go to Wal-Mart to buy a poster." I couldn't agree more. Many more artists have joined in the movement and suddenly owning and collecting original art is not just for the rich!

What I love about the idea is how technology connects the buyer directly to the artist. Art is so much more meaningful when I know the artist, and know the story behind the painting.

I know one artist very well. While studying English at BYU, I bought a couple original paintings from my twin sister, Jennifer Vranes, at college student pricing. She has gone on to be a very successful artist, selling all the paintings she creates, but that success means I can no longer afford her art. Unless she draws my name for Christmas, and between my seven sisters and one brother the odds are against me.

And that is why I am so enthusiastic about this a Painting A Day concept. Jennifer just started her own version of the idea at www.painting-a-day.com and suddenly her art is in my budget range again. Her first 6x6 painting is a window sill surrounded by a thick paint-textured brick wall. I love the vibrant color!

Which is good, because she didn't get my name for Christmas last month.

Do you care about more about originals than prints? Had you heard of this "Painting A Day" idea before? What do you think?

Advice-Christmas Card Connections

2006-12-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

I love getting Christmas cards. Well, I love getting mail. But knowing it's Christmas letter season has me running out to the mailbox to see who loved me enough to write me and send a picture.

As I review the years and the Christmas letters and photos I've read, I have created a list of Do's:

At the top of the list is: Put your contact information on every piece of mail--your name, mailing address, email address and phone number.

If the whole purpose of Christmas cards is to stay in touch, then contact information is actually the most important part of the letter. Some people put their mailing address as a return address on the envelope and that is it. If the envelope gets separated from the letter then contact may be broken. If you finish your letter with your name, addresses, and phone number, then your recipient can throw away the envelope and your contact info remains intact.

Next idea: The Christmas photo is important--if you can get it together enough to have one. Part of the idea of staying in touch is being able to recognize your friends next time you see them. Adults don't change as much as children, so I think a photo is particularly important for children.

There is room for a short greeting on the Christmas photo. Instead of merely wishing your friend a Merry Christmas, see you if you can also include your contact information.

This year I added our contact information to our photo. I used an online photo company, Winkflash, and one of their stock designs had room for a "Merry Christmas", all our names (and we are seven) and four lines of contact information--as well as three photos. I was very pleased with the result.

The only problem is not Winkflash's fault. We're closing on a house next week and when we move in January, my photo will have an obsolete mailing address. While I had prepared the photos early, I had not foreseen a new address on our horizon. The good news is my email address and phone number will remain the same, and they are on the photo as well.

Third: Send Something. Some people don't like to write a Christmas letter. They worry they have to be funny or creative and so decide to send nothing at all. Send something. If you want to keep in touch with the friends of your past, then send them something. Send a photo all by itself. If it has contact information, then you have accomplished your goal. You have visually updated your friends and let them know where you are.

Fourth: Reference your Blog. If you include your blog in the Christmas letter, then those who really want to know what you're doing and what's on your mind, will read your blog. Just make sure you post often enough to keep them looking.

Fifth: Use Labels. If you take the time one year (try to do it early in the year, not right before the holidays when time gets busier) to put your addresses in Excel, then you will be happy come Christmas card time.

Print out your Excel list and as Christmas letters come in, check the accuracy of your list with the incoming address. If I get a Christmas card from someone not my list, I can add them easily.

I also keep my Friends and Family list by my calendar and throughout the year I am updating it in pencil, and can input the information when I have time.

Once the initial information is in Excel, it is easy to update. And when it is time for your Christmas mailing, just put the addresses on labels. Print out your return address on labels too. No one minds if each envelope is hand addressed. These are your friends. They are just glad to hear from you. And they are really glad to get your contact information. :)

What do you think? Do you have any more suggestions for making Christmas Card Connections easier and better?

MyLife-The Warning Cough and a Christmas Tree

2006-12-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Today's topic is the warning cough that proceeds vomiting. So you are warned.

I am feeling grateful for the warning cough that proceeds vomiting because I have been listening for it day and night for the last 36 hours as the flu makes its way through my family.

It started with my 7 year old who caught the flu bug at night. He had one vomiting episode that night and two the next day. The warning huffing cough helped me keep the mess at a minimum.

Then my 10 year old caught it. She's good at catching her own messes, so I was mere moral support.

With that night spent uneventfully, I decided we were going to the mountains to cut our Christmas tree. My husband had to work, so I enlisted his Mom and two brothers and sister to come with us, and my youngest sister as well. We had planned to leave at 10 a.m., but like all travel with more than one person, we left late. After filling up our cars with gas and tires with air and finishing the other loose ends that seem to unravel a schedule, it was 11:30 a.m. by the time we were pulling out of Central Point, Oregon, headed for a treed area outside of Prospect, Oregon. All of us were enjoying just being together (in other words, no one was stressed out by the late departure) and I had reason to be grateful for the relaxed air of the group.

By the time we'd reached Prospect, I'd pulled to the side of the road three times to the sound of that warning cough that signaled a food expulsion. My 18 month old and 3 year old had both caught the flu.

Sharing a car with vomiting children normally would have had me heading back for home. The stink alone could do that! But I was set on cutting my own Christmas tree. My years of childhood "wild tree cutting tradition" wanted me to share the good times with my children. So I pushed on. My 18 year old brother-in-law stuck some AireMaster bars into the vents of my car (my in-laws own an
Airmaster franchise) and we continued on toward Prospect to the smell of apple cider with an underlying, but easily ignored, smell of vomit.

This is a photo of me with my 18 month old--the snow suit hides the smell and mess.

We cut our Christmas trees out of douglas fir. A douglas fir tree does not look like the bushy evergreens sold on tree lots. At least not if they are cut wild from a mountain. Their boughs are more widely spaced--perfect for showing off ornaments. I like a tree that acts like a display shelf for the ornaments, rather than like an I spy game of hide and seek. And a wild grown tree lasts until the new year before dropping lots of needles. And the tag only costs $5.00. If you ignore the cost of gas and a day of work (if your days of work are paid for in money), then cutting a wild tree for Christmas is a good deal. And even if it doesn't pencil out entirely, the experience of taking my suburban children into the snow and beauty of the mountains to find the best Christmas tree ever (it's the best every year) is priceless. And no flu will keep me from giving that experience to my children. And of course, they WILL enjoy it.

This is a photo of my 15 year old BIL holding a douglas fir Christmas tree.

So now you're wondering if the experience was worth it. It was. The sick children forgot their ills for most of the time we were there. We took happy pictures, which always defines how we remember the event. True, I spent yesterday sick and today my 3 year old is still sick. So I am still listening for the warning cough (which sounded its warning in the car after I dropped the rest of the family off at church). But we have a Christmas tree leaning up against my roof ready to be fit into its stand and decorated tomorrow for our Family Night.

And it's the best Christmas tree ever! Or do you think yours is?

MyLife-When I Got A Paycheck

2006-11-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

With my husband's support, I have been a stay at home Mom for 9 years. My eldest will be turning 10 next month, so you can see that for most of her life, she's had the quantity time as well as the quality time. During that almost decade, however, I have earned a paycheck twice, for 2 months each time.

The first time was for American Promotions, Inc.. American Promotions is an advertising specialties company. That means they sell and have logoed any product you can imagine. Most companies want mugs or pens or t-shirts. Think about how many times you opened an account at a bank or attended a conference--most of the freebies were one of those three, right? Well, that is what most companies seemed to want. But if a company wanted a product outside the box, well, AP had six filing cabinets with catalogs from companies who did far more than mugs.

One of my favorite products was a zippable coconut. It was a real coconut, with a zipper around the middle that you could open and shut and thus use the inside as a container. Who would ever throw that away! And that is, of course the whole point of advertising specialties--for a company to keep its name in front of you so when you want what they sell, you'll think of them first. Of course, a coconut might not be thrown away, but people won't wear it, write with it or drink with it (well, maybe that last one is possible). And that's why pens, mugs and t-shirts remain such a popular choice. Because they get used (and keep the company name in front of customer's faces). I still like the zippered coconut though. I would keep my jewelry in it!

My husband, Theron, was the President of American Promotions, and needed my skills temporarily, so I obliged. I enjoyed it, knowing it was temporary, and then returned back home ready to work where my heart is, even if it's without a paycheck.

The second job I had in the last 9 years was for two months as a legislative aide to my Oregon State Representative, Dennis Richardson. He's also my dad, and so, knowing it was temporary, I bridged his gap between aides.

I loved it. Not everyone would like to be a Number Two guy--but I do. I liked organizing his office, scheduling his day, and anticipating his needs. I liked having him ask me about a paper, and knowing right where it was. I liked having him call me en route to a meeting and asking for the best route to get there. Maybe because I like controlling and organizing things, and his office stayed in control and organized far better than a household with five children. Or maybe because I like making a difference, and Representative Richardson's work made a visible difference in people's lives. I had never before met a politician so concerned with answering constituent's problems--and actually finding answers, not just commiserating.

Ironically though, my current and constant "job" of the last 9 years has been making a huge difference in people's lives. Particularly the lives of one man and (now) five children. I cannot control or organize as consistently as I can in an office. But I make more of a difference in those six people's lives than any person can in any other job. So, after a great two months with Rep. Richardson, I again left paid work for the unpaid kind (thanks to the support of my husband).

Are you making the same choices? Why or why not?

Food-Canning Applesauce, A Saga

2006-11-16T22:13:00.000-08:00

Canning feels so cozy-old-fashioned. I like to jar something at least once a year. I will only make the effort (and it is actually a great deal of effort) if I can find a great deal on the food. Free is best. Last year Harry and David's had a super sale (for locals) on their fresh peaches. I put up over 70 quarts of peaches and we currently have two quarts left only because I hid them and then forgot where I hid them. The other quarts didn't last past Christmas. And we tried to ration them.

This year I found a friend with yellow apples that she wasn't going to pick--seven trees worth. I grabbed my sister-in-law (age 13) and brother-in-law (age 15) and bribed them with visions of homemade applesauce to come help me pick apples and then can them. They came! And we filled the back of my mini-van with bags of apples.

We then started to prepare them the traditional way. We cut them in quarters, put them in water to boil. Then we pushed them through a Victrola Strainer and out one side flowed the apple waste parts and out the other flowed real applesauce. I had heated the lids and sterilized the jars and prepared the rings--everything was working so well. Then I realized I couldn't find my steam canner. I tried calling my Mom and twin sister, but neither of them could help me. That's when I had a brand new idea that should have worked.

I felt like I was figuring out a whole new way to process lots of canning jars at once. A path unavailable to the old time canners. A canning conclusion that perhaps I was the first to conclude: Use a Dishwasher!

A steam canner processes the jars of food using hot steam. A dishwasher, set on the hot water setting, on ultra wash (so it washed on the longest setting) could hold 25 jars at once--and how could its steam be any different than a steam canner? Steam is steam, right? And the outside of the jars would be sparkling clean too. It was the perfect idea!

So I loaded up the dishwasher, turned the settings on, and by the end of its cycle, only four of the lids hadn't inverted. It worked! So I did it to all 54 jars. By the next morning, only five lids hadn't sealed. So, we ate some fresh applesauce, gave my dear relatives their share, and put the sealed jars out in the garage.

The garage was as cold as a refrigerator until we hit our Southern Oregon October Week of Warmth (it comes every year). It was just after that warm spell that I decided to make granola, which requires applesauce, and I walked out to my garage for a jar of that tasty, homemade applesauce. As I picked up closest jar, I noticed a hairy blue growth on the applesauce surface.

I put it down, thinking it an anamoly, and then picked up another jar. It had orange spots "icing" the applesauce. My heart beat fast now. Another and another and another jar. Every jar but five had hairy spots of black, blue, green or orange mold growing on top. Ah, the variety of colors. But how could it be? The center of the lids wasn't popping up. So I tried to take off a lid. And off it flipped off with just a bit of effort from my pointer finger.

I could push every lid off every jar with a push from my finger.

I felt sick.

I tried to do something with the wasted applesauce. I mixed it with glue and cinnamon to make some great smelling sachets. But it required too much cinnamon to make it worth it for 45 jars of applesauce. So I threw the rest out.

And when I made pears the next month (only $1.00 a box from a church pear farm!), I used a steam canner.

So I learned the moral of the story, which is...Well...what do you think the moral of the story is?

Review-Charlie Bone is NOT Harry Potter

2006-11-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

Does it seem to you that a lot of fantasy coming out of the publishing houses in the last 10 years seems an imitative shadow of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter? The publishing mantra seems to be: if they bought Harry Potter, then they will buy ____fill in the blank___.

The Charlie Bone series comes directly to mind. Sorry if you are a fan, but I found the writing weak and I didn't really like Charlie Bone. It's impossible to like a book if you don't like the main character! There is plenty of action and potential in the books, but I couldn't help but wonder how many times Jenny Nimmo read Potter before she created the Bone world. The magic school adventures Bone experienced forced me to compare it to Potter. And Charlie Bone suffered from comparison.

There are five books in the Bone series. And I dragged myself through them all.

Re-read Potter instead. Don't you think?

Review on Author Shannon Hale

2006-11-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

I was going to talk about one book, Princess Academy, by author Shannon Hale. But I can't limit myself to talking about just one. She has four: Princess Academy, Goose Girl, River Secrets and Enna Burning. That order is how I rank them. If you read them, however, the order should be Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets and then Princess Academy is a stand alone book. They are books I'd like to suck up with a straw. Delicious! I devoured them like I was starving. Perhaps because I had so recently finished reading a whole row of poorly written fantasy. These books were like breezes that brushed aside the tasteless writing I had just endured, and left me satisfied--although I hated for them to end. A bit of magic, royal blood, battles, true love, with a depth in the characters that is surprising complex in a fairy tale world.

Read one! Then tell me what you think.