It’s hard to believe that we’ve been together six month already. His predecessor took her final walk just three weeks before on National Dog Day, August 26th. How strange is that? One of the best creatures I’ve ever had the good fortune to know and … Continue reading The Buddy Update for Buddy’s Buddies
I spent my day yesterday at Saint Cloud State University with several hundred middle and high school students and a hearty crew of adults.
I was one of those hearty adults, a History Day judge. It’s a good way to spend a day.
Minnesota is a part of a larger organization, called National History Day, that’s been around since 1974. More than 600,000 kids each year take part in this event competing locally, regionally, and for some, at state and national events. They’ve worked for weeks or even months to prepare for the contests creating websites and displays, writing papers, and developing presentations and skits. Each year the kids get a theme. This year was about tragedy and triumph. They take the theme and individually or as groups use it to explore a topic in history of their choice.
It’s neat to see how it makes history come alive for these kids when they get to choose what they want to study and they get to lead the research and figure out for themselves how they’re going to learn. It’s a little disarming to find how events in my own lifetime are now finding their way to History Day. Walking through the exhibit hall was actually a chance to see quite a few events I could remember– the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Jacob Wetterling story, and the OJ Simpson case, along with many that were really interesting and outside the realm of most classrooms. These kids are exploring things like the Radium Girls, the Stonewall Riot, escapes from Alcatraz. Their eyes are opening.
I got to judge junior group websites this year. These are middle school aged teams of two or three kids who are designing Weebly sites on a specific topic. It was pretty cool. The “penicillin girls,” as my fellow coach and I called them, brought us bacteria and mold they’d collected to complement their website work. The “hockey boys” had gotten an interview with on of the US players from the 1980 Olympic Hockey team. This is a really cool way to touch history.
How great it is when we let our kids lead the way and simply act as the supportive guides that we are meant to be. We are born with a natural inclination to explore, discover, and learn. It’s why we reach out for toys, crawl, and eventually run. It’s our nature to learn. We do it with many of the same tools we did when we were babies. We reach. We test. We try different methods. That’s what these kids were doing by nature with the help of teachers, parents, and others who just gently nudged when needed.
I love it when kids get to do things like that whether it’s History Day, playing outside and learning about science by licking slugs (yes, at least some types of slugs will make your tongue go numb. Try it.) or getting on stage with the play they’ve been working on or the new piece of music they’re playing because they want to make music or act.
Do what you can to support a kid learning through experience. You won’t regret it. In fact, you may learn quite a bit through the experience too. I know that I do!
In some ways January 1st seems so long ago. But, here in west central Minnesota I can just look out the window and it seems like only yesterday. We’re still knee deep in snow with the promise of a really exciting blizzard in the upcoming day or so. Right now, it’s in the upper 30’s so the snow is melting and rain is coming down. The streets are running with rivers and many Morris residents are busy moving everything in their basements to higher ground and making sure their sump pumps work. I, meanwhile, am being thankful at being a renter without a basement.
So, where things from that list of lofty goals I made back in January. Well, here’s the update.
So, that’s where it’s at. While I’m not quite where I aimed to be at this time, I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve been able to do and am glad that I set goals this year. What about you? Who else set New Year’s goals and where are you at?
Every week I have my students write down two goals for themselves. One is a project goal to remind themselves about what they want to accomplish on the effort that they are working on with their community partner for the semester. The other, and this is maybe the more radical one for college students, is a self care goal. Most of my students are pretty generic in their self care goals. They want to sleep, to eat vegetables, or to study. But, that’s o.k. It’s makes no difference to me if they have some simple goals or even if those goals stay the same all semester. I just want them to write that self care goal every week for 15 weeks. I want them to leave the program thinking that it’s important to take care of themselves as well as to have a direction in the work they choose.
That’s why I put together my New Year’s goals this year and why I am coming back to them now in March to check in and see how I am doing, because I am important enough to take care of. We all are. I hope that you’re finding a good way to care for yourself today.
I grew up within just a few miles of where my mother, her parents, her grandparents, and I think even her great-grandparents had lived. I lived surrounded by siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. It was to the point that there was an older man who sat just a few pews ahead of us in church that we called Uncle John. I thought it was just a nickname. I think I was a teenager when I discovered that he really was my great-uncle and I had a whole other crew of cousins that I thought were just neighbors and friends.
My teachers had taught my older brothers and sisters as well as many of my cousins. The lunch lady was my aunt’s mom. I didn’t often know all the connections, but there were always people who knew me, who knew “who I belonged to.”
I left that place nearly 30 years ago. I’ve visited many times since then. It’s a good place to go back to. I’ve been thinking about it lately, realizing how I haven’t had a home since then. I’ve lived in at 10 different towns and more than 20 different houses and met a lot of great people, learned good things, had wonderful experiences, and yet not found a home.
How do we get home? I suppose I could go back to Dacada where I grew up, but would I be home or is that place gone? So much has changed since 1990. I’m not who I was, none of us are. Yet, I need to find a place that is home. Is it right where I am right now? What makes any place where we happen to be become home or not be home?
What would it be to be happy or content, connected to the place where I am? What would it feel like to feel that I am a part of the community and truly belong?
Do other people face this too? Has it become an unrealistic expectation to feel a sense of home? Did I have a special gift that I didn’t realize in the situation in which I grew up?
It seems that today’s blog is simply a series of questions, but it is important for me to write and put my thoughts out into the world. I welcome the insights of others.
peace,
amy
We’re already 27 days into the new year. It’s sometimes amazing how quickly time flies. The holidays are gone. The students are back. And now, everyone is hiding away from the frigid temperatures as we dip into the negative double digits. It seemed like a good day to check in on where I am with my New Year’s resolutions.
Here we are with blog post number 4. That seems a reasonable pace toward my fifty for the year. I don’t know that I’ve written much of anything to inspire myself or others, but I’ve written. Maybe the words of inspiration will come.
Thanks to wonders of audio books, I am on track with my book reading too. This exercise is a reminder of how I have come to multitask. Write and listen to a book. Knit and listen to a book. Do housework or office work or drive or whatever else and listen to a book. I question how well I take in all that I listen too. I have found though that it easier to listen to an audio book than a movie. The good books for the month? “The Education of Will” by Patricia McConnell. I’ve loved Dr. McConnell for a number of years. She’s a wonderful dog trainer. The book is an powerful look at who she is as a person and how her relationship with her dog, Will helped her move through some deep pains. It made a lot of sense. “Driving Miss Norma: One Family’s Journey Saying Yes to Living,” another excellent book. It’s a beautiful story of the end of an elderly woman’s life, how it brought her family together and changed their lives and many others.
Getting back to my healthy eating? Well, it’s a lot better without being surrounded by Christmas cookies.
Running? Nope. But, I have been doing more yoga lately and getting out walking quite a bit.
Guitar? Sometimes I think about picking it up. That counts, right?
I am more than half way on finishing a baby blanket for my first knitting project of the year.
Buddy is doing well with his good canine citizen training which is his first step toward being a therapy dog. It remains questionable whether he will pass the test, but each week gets a little easier. We started the class a few weeks late and his first session was a near total disaster. It was impossible for him to focus with other dogs in the room. The second week he did better, except when practicing stay and come. Then he decided he’d rather go check out the gymnastics equipment on the other end of the gym. And, there was the moment during puppy playtime. Young Buddy is a teenage boy and he was rather smitten with another dog who was several inches taller than him. Suddenly, I had a mess on the floor to clean up! Yep, young Buddy ejaculated across the gym floor. He also pooped in the hallway, but at least we were alone then and I had plenty of poop bags. Last week’s session’s only moment of excitement was coming in to the building. Poor Buddy somehow got his front paw stuck under the heavy entry door for the building. I have never heard a puppy scream like that! Thankfully, there was no significant damage, as confirmed by a classmate who is a vet.
As for cutting my screen time, I think maybe a little, but not all that significantly. Still it seems good. I am happy with the start of the year. Let’s see where it goes.
Buddy had his first canine good citizen class tonight. I am counting it a success that we didn’t get kicked out yet. I am not fully confident that it might not happen next week.
It was a small group, just Buddy, two other dogs in the class, and the trainer’s dog. Thank goodness there weren’t any more there tonight or Buddy might have completely exploded! You see Buddy likes to play. He’s a big fan of other dogs, as long as he can chase, wrestle, and more recently, try to mate with them. Trying to work separately on basic skills causes his little mind to overload and for him to simply quake with anxiety.
The plan for the night was to start with practicing loose leash walking. That’s a tough one for Buddy. Add in the other dogs in the room and that his foolish human was remembering to use the clicker and praise, but failing to consistently provide treats, and we weren’t getting very far. The class was held in a large gym in the local high school. Every time we got in the within 20 feet of one of the other dogs Buddy would start to pull and whine and move into a full on bark. “MOM, LET ME PLAY!” and we’d need to turn and go the other way.
Then the trainer suggested that we work together on stay. I explained that Buddy and I had worked on stay quite a bit and that just yesterday he started a strange new response. Every time I say “stay” he confuses it with “lay down” and he lays down. The trainer gave it a try and sure enough each time she said stay, he laid down. When he didn’t get a treat for laying down he tried rolling over to see if that might work. She suggested that we start over with that piece of training and gave me some guidance on doing a short stay and using a release word. But, by now Buddy was far too entranced with the other dogs in the room and cared almost nothing for treats, not even the really good ones. She encouraged me to treat him for just being quiet.
So, Buddy and I found our corner of the room and just worked on a little bit of sit, stay, lay down, and look, while mostly just getting praise and treats for every moment that he was able to let another dog near us without whining and barking.
Thank goodness for that last bit of the hour together when the trainer let us all let our dogs off leash and Buddy was free to play. Still, that wasn’t all the best either. First of all, gym floors are really hard to get a grip on if you’re a bumbling puppy trying to speed after the big guys. Buddy did a lot of slipping and sliding and at least one flip that I think may have worried the other people in the room for a moment. Then there were Buddy’s teenage hormones. Thankfully, all the young lady dogs had already been spayed. Buddy will be neutered soon, but for now is still testing his manhood as much as possible.
We’ve got some work to do. But, for now Buddy is a happy and tired puppy. School was quite the adventure! More stories next week!
About one and a half years ago I changed my diet. I didn’t go on a diet. In my experience, diets are almost always temporary fixes that don’t lead to long term solutions. I opted instead to change the foods I eat for a lifetime in order to live longer and better with hopes that it would help decrease my seizures and help with the bouts of depression that I’d been facing.
I worked with an old friend who now is a medical professional to test my food allergies. We found nine. Not surprisingly, most were things that I was eating daily, things like potatoes and cane sugar. I was craving these items just like any other addict would crave the substances that harm them. So, my list of harmful substances in hand I cleaned out my kitchen and began again.
It was tough at first, but I began to quickly see the benefits and they kept me going. Over time I lost 50lbs, found greater energy, began to be able to sleep through the night again, felt mentally clearer, and stopped needing to run to the bathroom every two hours. The change of eating habits definitely has helped my life a great deal. It’s hard to say whether it’s cut my seizures or not, but I’m down to about one a year which is much better than bouts of them every few months where I was a few years ago.
Over the holidays I decided to try an experiment to see how my body has healed in the last one and a half years. I decided that while I was visiting family for the week between Christmas and New Year’s that I wouldn’t stick with my healthy food choices. I wouldn’t go overboard, but I would allow myself things like sugary Christmas cookies and cheesy potatoes if I wanted them.
It is amazing to me the impact that food has on our bodies. There were many meals this past week that told me immediately that they weren’t right for me. I wondered how I handled the food roller coaster for the first forty-five years of my life. I’d find myself eating some food that I’d once loved; processed macaroni and cheese, buttered noodles from Noodles and Company, rice crispy bars, all these heavily processed, sugar laden, super carb foods that were one minute tasty on the tongue and the next causing me to say “ugghhh, I should not have done that.” Food should not elicit that kind of response.
Over the week I found that most of my allergens I can live with or without and not care too much, but there is that one demon. Yes, you probably guessed it, sugar. I am only allergic to cane sugar, but just eliminating that from my diet significantly cut my overall sugar use. When I reintroduced it this past week, I suddenly found myself reaching for more and more Christmas cookies even though I knew that within the hour I’d want a nap. Every day I slept for about an hour in the afternoon. Every night I got up at least once. I could see and feel the changes in my complexion and just my body overall even in just nine short days. And, the cravings were amazing. It is a strange thing to find myself thinking about the next cookie or piece of chocolate or whatever.
I am glad that I did the experiment and glad to be home and going back to my normal way of eating. I’ll probably be juice fasting for a few days to rid myself of toxins. Then, I hope I can keep passing all the sugary processed stuff everywhere and get back to being healthy. Wishing you all the best of health in the new year.
It’s probably been more than 30 years now since my father and I made that trip to Canada. I remember sitting in passenger seat asking Dad about the old days. I wanted to know about his life, about where he’d come from and how he’d become the man he was. He told me stories of my grandfather who I’d never had the good fortune to meet. Grandpa died in 1935 following an appendicitis attack. My father was seven years old and emulated grandpa who was a well respected dairy farmer in the area.
It was in that conversation so many years ago that I asked my dad about what he wanted to do with his life. He told me about wanting to be a dairy farmer like his father had been. He told me about how life had gotten in the way of following his dream. He made choices, choices that were difficult but that he felt were right. He set his dream aside for marriage and children. He chose a full time job off the farm to keep his growing family fed and clothed. He put his family first and though he did crop farming he never got cows.
When I looked into his eyes and saw the sadness of a dream never realized I made a decision that defined my life. I decided in that moment that I would never look back on my life to see I hadn’t fully lived.
That decision has led me to living in eight different towns in three different states, leading community organizing efforts and fighting multinational corporations, traveling on three continents, hiking hundreds of miles, and now working at a university.
It’s been good so far, but recently watching my now aged father and a much younger family member who’s been dealing with major health issues, I’ve been thinking. My life has become rather routine and there is much to do, to see, to learn. It seems a year to write down some of those things that I’d like to have happen as a reminder to myself and a public commitment. So, here it goes. Presuming that I succeed with my efforts, there will undoubtedly be updates throughout the year. I hope you’ll read on and share the experience with me. I wish you the best in the new year! Here’s what I’ll be doing to grow.
Those are my big goals for the year. My hope is that these will bring me more happiness along with some new skills, improved physical health, knowledge, and some cool projects. I hope you’ll find positive growth in the new year as well. Take good care!
I don’t like small dogs. Let’s just start it that way. I mean I’m not one of those actively anti-small dog people who really wants to boot them down the street, but I don’t like small dogs or at least that’s what I thought. I … Continue reading Small Dogs
I had a dream a few days ago. It’s that time of year when the dreams come to the surface and I have to ask myself where the stories are coming from. It’s strange sometimes being a white girl who’s had the good fortune of having traveled with traditional Anishanaabe people. It makes the questions much tougher, the more you know about yourself the more questions that you have sometimes.
Anyway, in my dream I’d gone home and was visiting my 90 year old father and while there he passed on in my arms. It wasn’t a nightmare, not at all. In the dream, I got to say my goodbyes, watch the life leave his eyes, and hear the death gurgle as I lay his head down on the pillow. It was gentle and it was ok. He was ready to move on and see those who he misses and hasn’t seen in many years.
It’s a strange thing to have a dream like that. Dad is still kicking. I talked to him later that day, told him I love and that I see him in my siblings and my nieces and nephews. I think perhaps the dream was a reminder to let him know that even when he’s gone, he’ll still be here. We won’t forget him. He has made all the difference in our lives.
Still it’s a hard time. Dad has been graced with good health and a strong mind for most all of his life. In his ninth decade he’s slowing and his mind isn’t working as it once did. I find myself wondering how to deal with this. I want to go home and see him for the holidays and at the same time I want to see the man that I knew when I was growing up and he’s gone.
The man who taught me so much no longer recognizes some of the people and places that he’s known for years some days. He doesn’t have Alzheimers or anything like that or at least nothing has been diagnosed. He has old age. He knows that his mind isn’t working as it used to. He misses his memory and his cognitive capabilities. As his mind leaves, it is almost as if who he was is already dying while his shell remains. He is getting to mourn his own death while we watch it together.
I am reminded that death is not all about sadness. It is about a transition to the next phase. I wonder how this transition goes? How do I simply sit with this both feeling the sadness and being open to the joys. I suspect that there must be joy and other feelings too. It’s just a question of feeling them.
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