The Lads, musical guests for VBS

This is a shameless plug for this awesome band that is playing our church's VBS this week. The Lads are three-guy group from New Zealand, currently based in Nashville. Go to their website and take a listen to some of their music. They are awesome with the kids and play some really kickin music. It has been a blast getting to know them and listening to the kids scream their heads off when they take the stage. I highly recommend their music and their talents to all of my readers! (And no, no one paid me for this, I just really like them!)

Modor is on the rise...

This is what happens when you have school work to catch up on, unexpected dinner guests, expected dinner guests and Vacation Bible School all in a week's time. Modor gets an advantage on you. You see Modor is my clean laundry pile. When everyone needs clean clothes I have little problem getting the laundry in the washer and drier but folding it is a whole nother ball game. For the past couple months I've been pretty good at not letting Modor get too big but this week it really got out of hand. I think a small child could easily get lost in there!

Last night, I spent two "House, M.D."s (I've totally hooked Hubby on House. Very cool!) that I'd DVRed folding clothes and reduced Modor to about 1/3 of its size. Whew! I thought Middle Earth was doomed this time!

Books I read on vacation

I have finished 4 out of 6 chapters in my history book in three days. My government book is so borning and awful to read that my history book is like a breath of fresh air. I'm remembering that I really liked history the first time I did this college thing. When I said history is like reading a story, a friend said, "Yeah and the government book is like reading an instruction manual." Very insightful and very very true!

So on vacation I read...

1. A Wise Birth by Penny Armstrong, CNM. Insightful and a little depressing. Hospital brthing is so, just, wrong in so many ways. (This coming from someone who wants to help women give birth in hospitals and who has had 3 hospital births herself.) Armstrong highlights particularly that birth is about power and without the power of birth creating a mother we really undercut a woman's ability to effectively mother her little one. The story's that contrasted hospital birth were Armstrong's experiences with the Amish. That culture and community is so vastly different than anything else that it is hard to imagine that the comparison is helpfulbeyond being depressing. I hope I can maintain a sense of wonder and awe about birth and help women tap into the power of it without losing a little part of my soul to the medical machine.

2. How Doctors Think by Jerome Groupman, M.D. A doctor friend of mine recently hosted this guy for grand rounds at his hospital so I got the book from the library. Really really good and readable. Empowering for someone like me who researches stuff and will happily tell the doc what I've found and expect him/her to listen. The book describes various decision making models and how doctors can fall victim to "cognitive errors" while trying to treat a patient. Heavy on case studies, which i love, and also on advice to patients to help your doctor avoid these mistakes. Well balanced between pointing out doctors mistakes without villianizing them and encouraging patients to be respobsible without recommending a trip to medical school before entering the hospital. I really liked it.

3. Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick looks a Disease by Sharon Moalem, Ph.D. This books looks at disease from an evolutionary perspective. What benefit might certain diseases confer that might make them likely to surivive natural selection's process? Interesting perspective on things like diabetes but a speculative too. i don't know anything about this guy except that his book got published so I took a lot of it with a grain of salt. He described on theory of the development of humans that describes us being descended from a "semi-aquatic ape" and uses the efficiency and safety of water birth as supporting evidence. That definitely perked up my ears but the semi-aquatic ape stuff is a little fringy to take too seriously. (And I'm not opposed to long term evolution as a method of species diversification.) He also talks about the possibility of viruses providing huge genetic variability within humans over a short amount of evolutionary time, "infectious design" he called it. Ha ha. I liked the biology and the physiology but I'm very skeptical without some decent resource to back it up.

And two chapters in "An Instruction Manual For Creating Democracy - How to Take an Amazingly Brilliant Governmental System and Describe it in a Way Guaranteed to Make you Fall Asleep".

God bless my mother

My mom took the younger two to the movies this after noon while the older one is babysitting for another family. I have read and taken quizzes on two chapters and gotten my house cleaned (relatively) and organized for our dinner guests tonight. Teri- the McCarty's are in town. (Where are my emoticons when I need them?)

Now I need a shower and some lunch. But the college anxiety dreams are fading a little.

Today's Accomplishments

1. Wrote paper on Warriors Don't Cry, a memoir written by one of the nne students who integrated Little Rock, Arkansas' high school. Great book. Worth a read. Pretty good paper too.
2. Took an online quiz over above book. Easy. Finished in under 5 minutes. Basic did you actually read the book type quiz.
3. Read chapter in history book. One down, five to go.
4. Took quiz on history chapter. Got a 96. Not bad. Book's pretty readable.
5. Worked in yard for an hour. Sweated like a pig. Seriously needed Gatorade or face heat stroke. Love that Houston weather!
6. Went to Wal-Mart to get groceries for out of town dinner guests tomorrow and Friday.
7. Hosted Natalie's friend for a play date. Their fun together allowed me to get all of the above done.

I'm tired!

Anxiety dreams

So Teri read my last blog and said she still has dreams of being in school and not being prepared for a test or not have finished a paper. SO DO I! And now am living it!

Things are looking up though. My govt instructor said I have until Aug 2 to take the test I missed but I will have to come on campus to take it. So rather than try and fit that in now I am going to move ahead and come back to that at the end of the semester. Since the material doesn't build on itself I think I'm better off getting back on schedule and working ahead to have time at the end of the semester to do that. Besides, then I'll know what I need on that test to get a B in the class! My history book arrived yesterday. I haven't had time to look through it yet but hopefully it has a high readability factor.

So today, two of my girls are going to help my mom and dad in the church bookstore. The other girl has a friend coming over. Hopefully, that will give me some pretty large chunks of time for school work. One of those chunks I'm going to take right now, while they are all still asleep!

Hi Teri

My site meter says you are on here so here's a post just for you!

Vacation is great but the aftermath aiyiyi

So, here we are in the midst of vacation aftermath. I am going to whine about all I need to do while wasting (is it really wasting? My public has demands on me too!) time blogging about how much I have to do.

I am so behind on my school work it isn't even funny. I don't know how I'm going to get caught up. I missed a test because I totally forgot to get the password before the weekend when I planned to take it whch of course was the last day to take it. I emailed my instructor begging for mercy (literally I begged him for mercy) and he said to call him today during office hours to talk about my options. Lovely. I know he hears excuses every day from stupid students and i hate hate hate putting myself in that group! I ordered my history text book from Barnes and Noble after the college bookstore was closed the Friday before we left and had my text shipped to my sister in laws house. Over a week later it missed me by a day. AIYIYIYI!!!!!! I still don't have it. I think I am going to have to buy it from the college store and ship the B&N one back when I finally get it. So I'm several chapters behind in history.

And of course there's trying to run the house: plan meals, go to the store., get the laundry done, plan something relatively interesting and or fun for the girls to do and be prepared to host out of town guests and go to a big shindig for my father in laws 80th b-day this weekend.

There. I'm done. Back to work. And yes, I'd like cheese with my whine.

Life's a beach

Should any one be able to create a blog post with this as the view? It just doesn't seem quite fair to those of you who are stuck in less scenic locales right now. We are in Orange Beach, Alabama which is litterally about 1/2 mile from the Florida border. I think since it is alabama it is less popular overall but the beaches are the same as the ones on the Florida Gulf Coast. Gorgeous white sand and clear emerald green water.

Glad to report that no one has sunburned yet. Mom is considered a sunscreen and swim shirt Nazi. But hey, who is going to be awake with these little lobsters when they are dealing with chills and sweats from a bad burn! Madeline and Natalie have become quite the little body surfers and Isabella has opened her sand pedicure stand. Anyone sitting still is liable to see their feet disappear into a hill of sand.

Here are a few pics!

Mickey says Hi

To all my readers:
I am on VACATION!!!! Yahoo!!!! We have spent three lovely days with Mickey Mouse and accompanying princesses and wll soon be off to the beach. Catch ya later!