bright eyes + blue eyes

we love our time timer

{This post was originally published in 2008 on my previous blog. Wow -- I re-read the part about Pumpkin dropping her afternoon nap...that seems like ages ago! We still love the timer. I wanted to re-post this info in case you didn't get to read this the first time.}

 

The "Time Timer"

I bought this timer at our local school supply store and we've used it about 43 million times since then.

Here's the way it works:

There's a little plastic tab attached to the red portion of the clock. By pulling the tab counter-clockwise, you set the timer to whatever increment you choose (up to a maximum 60 minutes.) Silently, the red portion starts to creep back behind the white portion. When the time is up, the clock is entirely white again. There is never any sound--even when the time runs out.

Here are few of the many reasons I love this timer:

Quiet Time in Room: We'd already purchased this timer prior to the month that Pumpkin began to slowly drop her afternoon nap. Like we did with her brother, when the afternoon nap was dropped, we planned to start a new habit of quiet playtime (solo) in her room each afternoon. This timer made the transition from nap to playtime very smooth. It was so easy for Pumpkin to understand. Even at her young age, she knew that if she could still see the red bit, she needed to keep playing in her room. With another type of timer (the more typical kind, in which the time counts down to zero and then beeps at the end), she would've had no idea how much time she had left to play. With the Time Timer, she always had a visual reference for how much playtime remained. An added bonus: when she became absorbed in her play, and therefore forgot to look up at the clock, she would keep playing until coming to a natural stopping point. In other words, there was never any surprising BEEP to interrupt her imagination mid-stream. Sometimes this meant that she kept playing much longer than the required time.. Other times she came out immediately when the time was up.

Piano Practice: Same thing as above. If Superboy is absorbed in the moment & is making great progress on a certain song, this clock will not interrupt him and tell him that it's time to stop.

Understanding an Analog Clock: These days, with so many digital clocks everywhere, it can be difficult for elementary school children to learn how to read a good, old-fashioned analog clock. What's more, learning to understand the concept of time is more difficult when the child's first exposure to the concept of "a clock" is a sequence of three or four numbers with two dots in the middle. Young children are such concrete learners: a visual demonstration of the passage of time helps them begin to understand what this "time" thing is all about. When Superboy grew old enough to encounter his first math page about telling time, he understood the general concept of a clock face and the time ticking away pretty well. I think the use of this timer over the years has helped both kids understand the difference between 20 minutes and 45 minutes, for example. They have a clear mental picture of what each one actually looks like.

Here's the website for the Time Timer -- Time Timer: Make Every Moment Count

It looks like the current versions of the Time Timer have an optional audible signal when the time runs out. I'd definitely use the audible signal in the case of "...See if you can finish getting ready for school in the next 15 minutes. Try to beat the buzzer!"

 

November Retrospective

This November I've been meeting project funders, preparing for presentations, and brainstorming essay topics. Those aren’t particularly photogenic events. Things I’ve done in recent Novembers-past have been much more picturesque.

2009 – Sunset in the Serengeti

2008 – Neema’s Wedding

2007 – Knocking on Wittenburg’s Doors

2006 – Wedding Proposal in Rock Creek Park

2005 – Apple Picking in Virginia with my DC Roommates

2004 – Eating Waffles with College Friends

2003 – Visits with Scottish Rotarians

2002 – Schmoozing with My Sister

Bread Routine

Abbie, you said you wanted some details on my bread routine. I’ve been baking bread about once a week. I use the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day master recipe, more or less. It's essentially their recipe, but I change some things. I don’t put seeds on top, for example. I’d like the seeds, but when I’ve tried it, they just fall off. I’m sure I could figure out how to make the seeds stick, but I just haven’t spent much time on it.

I make half a recipe and mix it up the night before I bake. Then I put it by the heater to rise overnight. Mixing the dough really does take zero effort. I like that they have you dissolve the yeast and salt in the water first because then you know that those important ingredients are evenly distributed through the flour.

I don’t use the vital wheat gluten because I couldn’t find a good source for it. I tried, but the health food stores thought I was nuts. They said people want gluten-free, and they didn’t really understand why I was asking for more gluten. Then I tried ordering it online. With one order, the courier refused to deliver because I live in the city centre (?!). I cancelled my order with that company. With another company, they were selling something for fishing bait, but said it was the same thing as vital wheat gluten and thus could be used in baking. I don’t know about that.

But anyway, it doesn’t matter because the bread works just fine without the vital wheat gluten. I don’t know if it makes a difference that I can buy ‘strong’ flour here. Apparently 'strong' means more gluten, when it comes to flour. Also, I replace some of the whole wheat flour with Hovis granary flour, which has little chunks of malted grain in it that taste really good.

I make half a recipe because two loaves last us about a week. I save fridge space and oven energy by making both loaves at the same time. When I’ve made dough the night before, I roll out of bed early in the morning to take advantage of the off-peak electricity rate that we have until 7:30. I shape the loaves and turn on the oven to preheat. (Sometimes I roll back into bed while the loaves are resting and the oven is warming up. It's early, but something about bread-baking and early-morning just jives.) The bread bakes for about 30 minutes and smells earthy and nourishing while it’s baking. The best part is having delicious bread for lunches every day!

It’s really an easy routine, once you get it down. I like other methods of bread making, too, but out what I've tried, the 5 Minutes A Day method is the perfect nexus of easy and yummy. I think my main nugget of wisdom about bread baking is that it's an art more than a science. Recipes and equipment are good, but really baking good bread is about intuition. And that only comes with practice. I loving having a hobby where I can learn something nearly every time I do it.

National Day of Listening

Who has been the kindest to you in your life?

When in life have you felt most alone?

Can you describe the moment when you saw your child for the first time?

How would you describe a perfect day when you were young?

Have you experienced any miracles?

Do you look at your life differently now than before you were diagnosed [with your illness]?

What traditions have been passed down in your family?

I think these questions are so interesting. They’re on the great questions list for the National Day of Listening. I love the idea of interviewing family and friends. It seems like such a luxury to set aside time to learn more about them, especially if they’re people who you’re already close to – your spouse, your brother, your daughter. Doing an interview with questions like this would allow you to probe into the parts of life that you don’t usually get to in everyday conversation. The recordings would be so priceless. This coming Friday will be the third National Day of Listening. I’ve never participated before, but I want to start. I think it would be such a cool annual tradition, to pick a person you’re close to and interview them. I don’t think I’ll be able to start on Friday, but maybe while we’re home for Christmas, I could interview someone. Any volunteers? If anyone who reads this decides to participate, let me know how it goes.

Light Read

I recently read the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I’ve heard people talking about it for a long time, and I can see why it became such a popular book. It was so sweet! The book was exactly the type of easy, pleasant read I was looking for – especially after such heavy reading about statistics, poverty, and stillbirth for work and school. What are some other light reads that anyone has to recommend?

I’ve never been to the Channel Islands. I wonder if they look anything like the Orkney Islands. I was there in 2004, when I saw this double rainbow. :-)

Money Strands

Despite our best intentions, since we got married we haven’t gotten into a good routine on budgeting until now.

We tried in Berlin, but it never really gelled. Most of H’s costs during the week were reimbursed because he was travelling, and that was hard to keep track of. And we had two incomes for most of that time, so while we wanted to keep to a budget, we knew we were spending less than we earned. Thus, we didn’t really have to turn every penny over twice [as they say in German].

In Tanzania, we also tried to budget. But it was boring to budget there because we spent our money on exactly the same things every month. There weren’t that many options as to where we could spend money. Plus, we had other things to deal with – like plumbing catastrophes and puff adders.

Well now, we’re both students and living on savings and one half-time job at the moment. So we needed to find a way to budget that works for us, and we have a winner. We’ve started using a website called Money Strands. We’ve been really good at keeping a budget for four months now. These are the things I like about Money Strands:

• It’s in the ‘cloud’, so we can enter expenses any time we’re at a computer – not bound to one particular computer on which a piece of software is installed.
• We can input items in any currency. That may not be a selling point for most people, but we routinely use three currencies, so it’s great to see the overall picture at today’s exchange rate.
• The graphics are very attractive and dynamic. I particularly like the monthly pie charts with the breakdown of budget categories – you can keep on clicking on pie segments to get more and more detailed information about expenditures. I also like the splash page bar graph that moves as you spend throughout the month, tracking your “progress” in reaching the budgeted max for a category.

They also have a feature that allows Money Strands to sync with your online bank account and credit cards records. It’s a cool services, I guess, but we don’t use it. I suppose we still like to have that element of privacy, even in these linked-up, modern times.

Like a lot of things in life, I think budgeting is something that you have to figure out what works for you. So if you’re a paper-budgeter, an envelope-budgeter, a got-it-all-in-your-head-budgeter, or good-ole-excel-spreadsheet-budgeter, keep up the good work. However, if you don’t have a system or don’t like what you use now, then you should have a look at Money Strands.

A Priest’s Best Friend

Several times, I have seen a terrier come tearing out of the doors of this Catholic church on a busy street near campus. At first, I went on high alert. Experience with our parents’ dog has taught us that you can never trust a tearing terrier.

But my alarm quickly gave way to delight as I saw an old priest follow his dog out the door half a minute later, bouncing a ball. I’ve seen the pair on campus several times now, both looking adoringly at each other. I’m glad that God made dogs, and I’m sure that this priest agrees.

izzy : our new puppy

izzy : our new puppy from ellie and abbie on Vimeo.

 

make something good today

1. We'll be celebrating T-giving with our friends Buck & Rachel in a couple of weeks. I'm going to try to bring simple pilgrim & indian costumes for the kids. I was looking up ideas online earlier today. As I browsed Family Fun's website, I came across this idea for a Halloween costume. How hilarious! Alien Encounter.

2. Did you know that Condoleezza Rice's name comes from the musical term con dolcezza, which means "with sweetness"? Her mother was a music teacher; her parents used that Italian phrase as the basis for her name. I happened to read that little tidbit in an interview she gave as part of her book promotion. I'm always fascinated by how people come up with baby names--her name story is one of the best ever. What a great idea. I want to find a musical term and turn it into a name as well-- Dictionary of Musical Terms

3. What is the deal with shoes like this? Sort of like a cross between a heel and a ankle boot--frequently seen with lots of straps. These are not elegant, nor are they flattering. Why do people want to wear this type of look on the red carpet? (or wherever.)

4. Given his fascination with Rube Goldberg machines, I predict that Superboy would absolutely love this DS game: Logic Machines. I happened to see an ad for it recently. Fun concept.

5. Someday my children will drive cars. When they do, they'll need guidelines. Here's one family's "Teen Driver Contract.": The TerKeurst Teen Driver Contract.

6. Why Are Christian Movies So Bad?  by S. Nehring : I liked this article. "Culture is like a garden..."

7. I also like this print : Make Something Good Today .

8. 22 Healthy Lunch Ideas : Beautiful lunches!

9. Vegan Lunch Box Around the World : We aren't vegan, but I've read the author's blog occasionally over the years. The author comes up with great (and so visually inspiring) combinations of foods, and she utilizes such a huge variety of fruits & veggies.

10. News from the orthodontic front here at home : Superboy now has his expander in the roof of his mouth. For the first two or three days it was a challenge for him to eat. He seems to have figured it out now. Every morning, one of us parents does "two cranks" on the expander, to continue the process of getting his skeletal structure to the right size & position. (He's also sleeping with a face mask thing at night. I forget what it's called exactly. He *loves* the face mask part of this process & really delights in giving me a "robot kiss" goodnight before I leave the room at bedtime....i.e., he presses the metal mask up to my cheek and makes a kiss sound. So cute.) Anyway, his top jaw and his crossbite are already noticeably different. Isn't that AMAZING?? The bones of 8 yr olds are certainly more pliable than I ever expected them to be.

 
My brother's dog, Angus, as he catches a frisbee.

Rob & Al, these pics were taken back when we visited you in Athens. I think you were engaged. That trip seems like it was yesterday--but also like it was 20 yrs ago. (strange how that's possible!)

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Happy dog news: After our sad experience with the little chihuahua, we were all four feeling a little dazed....we'd prepped ourselves to enter the dog world, but, as I posted about recently, it didn't work out.

Hunter felt strongly that we should just take this opportunity to JUMP feet first into the puppy world. He began researching puppies (again--since it's something we've done off and on for the last decade.) His vote was: Let's go for it! Without much hesitation, I agreed.

So, we decided on a Boykin Spaniel, and we found a litter of puppies advertised online. It took us a couple of hours to drive to the breeder's house--and that's where we fell in love with our little puppy! I'll never forget getting back to our house that night & having that tiny little puppy snuggled up in my lap--it was really true...we had a puppy...finally!

The last couple of weeks with her have been SO much fun. I'll post pictures soon.

goodbye, efficiency (part three)

goodbye, efficiency (part one)

goodbye, efficiency (part two)

And now, without further ado, I bring you the conclusion to this series:

goodbye, efficiency (part three)

So, there I was as a young bride, trying to get all of my systems on to the computer to make them all more efficient.

But here's what I've learned over the years: There are a few downsides to having everything on the computer.

(1) When there is a computer problem, EVERYTHING in your life is affected. All of your daily productivity is tied to the healthy functioning of your computer.

(2) Computer programs tend to have issues now & then. For example, my lovely recipe software has crashed at least twice over the last decade. When it crashed, it erased all of the recipes that I'd entered. Yes, I had a back-up of the recipes, but there ended up being problems with the back-up as well. (I'm sure some of this might've had to do with user error--but still, it's a huge hassle, no matter why the crash happened.)

(3) {I saved the biggest downside for last} Going to the computer every time I need a recipe, and every time I need an address from my personal address book, and every time I want to listen to music, and every time I need to enter an item into our family budget is a huge distraction in my day-to-day living! While I'm at the computer, I end up checking "just one other little thing", and suddenly I've blown 15 minutes instead of 15 seconds. Add up all those 15 minute chunks over the course of a week, and suddenly efficiency doesn't seem quite so efficient anymore.

Here's my metaphor:

Time = A gallon of milk

Small dishwashing sponge = Computer

Imagine pouring a gallon of milk out onto your kitchen floor. Then imagine dropping the little sponge right into the middle of the puddle.

Slurrrrrrrp.

Before you know it, quite miraculously, the little sponge has absorbed ALL OF THE MILK.

{conclusion of metaphor.}

SO: about a year ago, I said "goodbye to efficiency," and decided to use the computer only for things which required a computer (i.e., email, blogging, digital photo storage, etc.)

I now have paper-based systems for my calendar, my recipes, my addresses, etc. {My recipe system is definitely still a work in progress. I'd like to crank that system into a well-oiled machine, but haven't been able to carve out the time as of yet.}

Sidenote: Also, over recent years, I've developed a new appreciation for the art of handwritten "life details." For example, if you close your eyes and think about it, you can probably envision the handwriting of people who you love. I can immediately call to mind the distinct handwriting of all four of my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, my husband.....

In fact, just the act of remembering handwriting characteristics of people I love makes me happy. (Which is sort of amazing in and of itself--how is it that the inky curves of particular lines can bring to mind the essence of a person I love? Pretty nifty.)

Whenever I'm at my grandmother's house, one thing I like to do is go in her kitchen & open up the built in drawers to the right of her refrigerator. They're little drawers (one drawer? more than one? I can't remember) about 6 inches wide--perfect for her collection of handwritten recipes. There are TONS of recipes in these drawers. Many of those recipes have been in those drawers for decades. They're well-loved and yellowed with age. And they're precious to me. I flip through them with appreciation for all the love and care which has been experienced in my grandmother's home. I think about all the thousands of family meals which have been enjoyed around her table. I think about the friends and family members with whom she's shared recipes, and how many of the cards in her collection carry stories of their own. I flip through my grandmother's recipes, and I'm inspired.

A year or so ago, when I was looking at those recipes, was when I decided that I'm done with efficiency. I'm currently working on editing/refining my handwritten recipe collection. 

As an added bonus: Now, instead of someday handing my grandchild a jump drive with all the family recipes, maybe I'll have some yellowed-cards-with-stories to pass along.

A few related books/links:

The Hidden Art of Homemaking, by E. Schaeffer

Script and Scribble, by K. Florey

Hamlet's Blackberry, by W. Powers

NPR Morning Edition: Hamlet's Blackberry, To Surf or not to Surf {mom, remember when you told me about this interview? I haven't read the book yet, but I want to.}

Letter Writers Alliance

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unrelated photo:

A couple of years ago....

Riding bikes and playing football at the high school track/field...