Snowflakes - February 2014

It snowed a bit longer than forecast yesterday morning. The snow did not stick to the streets or sidewalks; the heat from the previous days was held in the concrete and asphalt. But on the grass and roofs and wooden decks, the big flakes accumulated quickly. The temperature was just below freezing. It did not seem like the best day to try photographing snowflakes but I put the red glass plate, a towel and loupes outside to cool down. I’d learned previously that the camera battery was sensitive to cold so I put it in my coat pocket instead.

After waiting for 15 minutes in the warmth of the house and watching the snow, I made a first attempt. It was not successful sing the red glass plate. The snowflakes melted as soon as they landed on the plate. It needed more time to cool down. I tried using the underside of an old aluminum pan that had been left on the deck. Success! The ‘flakes’ turned out to be conglomerations of snowflakes so they had much more of a three dimensional quality. I took the series of pictures below before retreating inside to give the red plate more time to cool down.

The wait was worth it! Yes - the flakes were clumped. Yes - it was warm enough that there could be no dawdling to get the image before they melted. But - I enjoyed capturing the flakes. Some of them reminded me of jacks. I find myself hoping that we have a few more snows this season so that I can try again! This particular snow had mostly melted away before the end of the day.

3 Free eBooks - February 2014

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for February 2014.

Michaux, François André; Hillhouse, Augustus Lucas. The North American Sylva, or A description of the forest trees of the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia. Paris: C. D’Hautel. 1819. Volumes available on the Internet Archive: volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4, and volume 5. This series fit perfectly with my planning to look at trees more closely this year. Once I found the first one - I went through all 5! They are full of illustrations.

Malonyay, Dezso (Desi). A magyar nép mvészete : számos szakért és mvész közremködésével. Budapest: Franklin-Társulat. 1907. Volumes available on the Internet Archive: volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4, and volume 5. This series is about Hungarian folk art. I enjoyed the art work rather than trying to wade through the machine translation of the Hungarian text. There is a lot included - ordinary room arrangement with bedding piled high on the single bed, embroidery on clothes (jackets, skirts, shirts, aprons, scares), furniture - painted with stylized botanical motifs, some elaborately carved, decorative facings for doorways and gates, carved or painted canes and knife handles, and dyed eggs with designs created with wax.

Crockett, William Shillinglaw; Smith, William, jr. Abbotsford. London Adam and Charles Black. 1905. Available on the Internet Archive here. This book is about Sir Walter Scott’s country house in the Scottish Borders written at a time when his great-granddaughter had created a ‘catalog’ of Abbotsford. I enjoyed the illustrations more than anything else.

Garden Dreaming

My gardening areas have snow on them right now but I remember them from last summer and am dreaming about the garden for this next summer. I am full of plans as soon as it is a little warmer.

• I trimmed the hydrangea away from the window and house last fall but I need to be sure it was sufficient to keep it away from the wood. I’d like to try dividing the bushes again this summer (last summer my attempts were just putting out new buds when the deer found them). This year I plan to buy the deer repellent scent to keep them away from the garden.
• Our deck is a full story off the ground and underneath is very shady. Ferns might grow well there with enough mulch….maybe another area I should put the partially decomposed leaves from last fall.
• The deck pots will be mostly herbs this year although there are zinnia and cardinal flowers that will come back in a couple of pots at least (the hummingbirds and butterflies like them so I’ll cheer them on. Mint, stevia, basil and parsley are my favorite herbs and they do relatively well in pots. The mint will probably come back from last year. I’m going to look at seeds (and try not to go overboard) for the others.
• I’d like to do some composting directly into the garden - veggie scraps, tea, and egg shells. I think I’ll use a bucket outside the door and take it down to the garden every few days.

I can hardly wait to get started!

Snow Day - February 2014

I am delaying the weekly gleanings post until tomorrow so I can post some pictures of our snowy Thursday and Friday of this week.

It snowed all day on Thursday. I tried to capture some snowflake pictures first thing Thursday morning but it was already a mix of snow and rain - too warm for snowflake pictures. It did mean that the snow was very sticky. I piled up quickly on just about any non-vertical surface and made graceful curves over the pots on the deck.

By 10 AM we had at least a foot of snow and we bundled up for the first clearing of the driveway. I wore an old gardening hat on top of my fleece because there was rain mixed with the snow that was falling. My husband and I managed to get half the driveway done before taking a break for lunch. Later in the afternoon we got one side completed and he backed out over the remnants of the pile left by the plow when it made a pass through the neighborhood.

In the evening we noticed the snow was coming down again and we measured another 6 inches before we went to bed on Thursday night. I got up early on Friday morning and took some pictures of the sunrise.

The streetlight gilded its nearest tree before it went out for the day.

We got out to do the weekly grocery shopping and I managed a picture from the car window of snow caught in last summer’s crepe myrtle berries while my husband broke up the new pile the plow had made at the base of our driveway.

The sun was out all day Friday and the temperature got up to 40…..but there is still a lot of snow on the ground this Saturday morning. It is bumpy from the melting that must be going on underneath. The big piles on either side of the driveway are going to take many days to melt away!

Russet Potato House Plant - February 2014

At the end of January I posted about the russet potato that has sprouted…and been planted in a pot to grow as houseplant. The sprouts have grown very rapidly in the past 10 days. One of the sprouts has averaged in inch of growth per day and both are thriving better than the sweet potato that is growing in the same pot (the yellow leaves in the picture are the sweet potato; perhaps the temperature even in the house is too chilly for the sweet potato to thrive).

I have added another grow light and hope that both plants will manage to get through the winter so I can put them into the garden after the last danger of frost this spring.

I like watching the early rapid growth of plants. The russet potato leaves unfurl from a stalk that has bumpy ridges. And on the stems there are fine hairs. Every day there seems to be something new to notice about its growth.

Telescope Memories

My telescope memories are all aligned with my husband: he’s the one that had a telescope from his early teenage years onward. By the time I met him in the early 70s, he had an 8 in reflector with a mount that was mostly cast iron. It was a team effort to assemble the mount because it was so heavy! I vividly remember a night during the summer before we got married when  we took the telescope out to the astronomy club’s observing site to observe a lunar eclipse. We discovered when we got back that my mother had gone out to see if there really was a lunar eclipse….that it wasn’t just an excuse we’d concocted for a late night date!

Now - over 40 years later - the telescopes have improved significantly. My husband has a new one with much more sophisticated electronics and a lighter weight mount. He set it up on our deck. There is too much light for the deck to ever be a prime observing spot and it was a marginal night weather wise…veils of clouds kept rolling by….but it was good enough for him to check out the equipment. Everything worked. I took a picture of the moon by aligning my camera to the eyepiece of the telescope!

So - it seem that both my husband and I are reverting to some hobbies we put aside when we were crunched for time during a peak career years…..me to my microscope and him to his telescope. 

Outdoors in Maryland - February 2014

February is a stark month in Maryland. On a sunny day, I bundled up to take pictures - noticing that there is a lot of drab brown - texture becomes important in the scenes: the forest,

Hydrangea flowers from last summer,

And wood grain on the deck in the afternoon sun.

I’ve bought a bird feeder - advertised as ‘squirrel proof’ - and hung it so that we can see it through several windows.

A few days ago there was ice and that added a glistening coat to everything. I took pictures standing in doorways rather than venturing out on the icy surface: the frozen drips on the sycamore,

The tangled branches of the cherry with a pine providing background,

And a pine weighed down with a burden of ice.

That’s the outdoors scene from our area of Maryland for this month!

Rainy Day Mending

Most of my mending is for clothes but yesterday I polished off two non-clothes mending jobs that had accumulated. The jobs were particularly satisfying because they took very little time and prolonged the useful life of the items.  

The last time we laundered a comforter used in the guest room - a side seam had come open and the stuffing was hanging out. Having recently discovered that this particular comforter was just the right size and thickness to make the sofabed comfortable for an adult, I decided it was worth mending.

I sat in a rocking chair beside a window looking out on the gray, rainy day…with the mound of comforter positioned so that I could pin the seam closed and stitch it up. When I got started, I realized that the fabric of the 15 year old comforter was not in the best shape…..but the mending will probably get it through a few more washings. Mending was faster than buying a new comforter (and cost less too).

Another mending job for the day was to re-stitch the hotpad I had put around a handle of the laundry basket after the grip had broken. The original work had been done about 10 years ago and the knot of the hand sewn edge had unwound. The pad had extended the life of the basket since otherwise the sharp edge of the plastic made it very uncomfortable to carry. Now - the laundry basket handle padding is good for many more years after the re-stitching today.

Russet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I started a sweet potato vine back in October when I found a sweet potato had sprouted before I could eat it; I posted about the lush houseplant it has become earlier this month. Just after that post I discovered a russet potato that had sprouted. I cut of the end that had sprouted and put it in the same large pot as the sweet potato and it is growing very rapidly. The two short stalks to the left in the picture above are the russet potato. The sweet potato vine winds around the pot and some of its leaves are visible to right.

Tomorrow I’m going to rig a grow light so that both plants with thrive until I can put them outdoors for the summer. The pot is large but maybe not large enough for both of them!

I’m eating more…..

Today I am thinking about foods that I am eating more frequently now that I was 5 years ago. Some are foods that are new to me within this time period. Some of the foods are ones that I’ve always eaten but I just each more of them now….or I buy different forms. My success in getting down to the ‘normal’ weight range for my height has a lot to do with the transformations I made in my diet. So - here is my list of the food I’m eating more this winter:

Pomegranates. The pomegranate season is something I look forward to. I eat 1/4 at a time….and managed to eat one a week for almost the entire season. But they’ve only been available from regular grocery stores in recent years. The first one I ate was on a visit to my mother; it is an easy fruit to like immediately.

Kale. Did you know that 1/4 cup of kale provides 131% of the Vitamin K daily requirement, 27% of Vitamin C, 28% of Copper and 12% of Vitamin A? It is a powerhouse leafy green. I use it in the winter time in soups and stir fries. I’d seen it in winter gardens long before I found it in the grocery and decided to try it in food. I prefer it cooked so I eat it more frequently in winter.

Mushrooms. I’ve purchased and eaten mushroom for a long time but have only recently started eating them more often. They are rich sources of Riboflavin, Niacin, and Pantothenic Acid as well as minerals like Copper and Selenium….and they contain protein too. I like them better in stir fries than I do raw….and I buy another package virtually every time I go to the grocery store.

Bell peppers. Until recently, I’ve generally eaten the green bell peppers but the packages of yellow, orange, red, and green peppers are what I have been buying recently. They all add color to stir fries - and the strips can be used to dip hummus during the summer.

Almond milk. I switched from cow’s milk to fortified almond milk a few years ago…and like it well enough to no longer need to take a calcium supplement!

Soy nuts. I like dry roast soy nuts. They are high in protein as well as good quality fats. They've replaced dry roasted peanuts almost entirely in my diet over the past year.

Quinoa. A grain that is a complete protein (i.e. includes all the essential amino acids)! And it cooks quickly too. I use it instead of rice under stir fry, in salads instead of pasta, and for breakfast instead of oatmeal or packaged cereals. It is my favorite grain. Quinoa has only recently become available in the grocery store.

Chia seeds. I tend to have a tablespoon of chia seeds with my almond milk almost every morning. It is quite a nutritional boost: Omega 3 fats, protein, and minerals like calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, selenium, and zinc. When I first tried chia seeds back in early 2012, I had to order them. Now they are available in my grocery store.

Butternut squash. For some reason, I tended to buy acorn squash if I bought winter squash at all. Then several years ago, I discovered butternut squash and now I buy it exclusively. I helps that the grocery store has packages of the squash already cut into chunks - perfect for roasting in the oven or cooking in broth to make a soup.

Plain yogurt. I used to always buy flavored yogurt….until I discovered how easy it was to make smoothies with plain yogurt and fruit. This winter I have been heating up frozen blueberries in the microwave and then putting a dollop of plain yogurt on top. Yummy….and I like the pretty purple it becomes when it is stirred into the blueberries.

Organic celery, oranges, beef, poultry, eggs. I seem to be buying more and more organic items over the past few years….but for different reasons. Celery was the first item I started buying organic after I read about it containing so many pesticides; I eat more of it during the summer than I do in the winter. I buy organic oranges because I want to make zest from the skin…where most of the pesticides would reside in the regular oranges. The organic beef was recommended by my husband’s nutritionist and tastes better too; I really don’t want the antibiotics and hormones that are part of the regular beef. The same comment about antibiotics goes for poultry and eggs as well….plus organically raised chickens are not raised entirely in a cage. I’m sure that over time I’ll be buying more organic produce - particularly when the price difference is not very significant.

What about you? Has your food consumption changed in the past 5 years?

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - January 2014

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for January 2014. I’ve grouped them into 4 categories this month: food, my past, looking outdoors and learning something new.

Food

Scones. I’m not sure why I thought scones were too difficult for my cooking skills….but I avoided trying to make them for long time until I saw a recipe that used a food processor for the hardest part! Now I make them a couple of times a month and vary the recipe. The original was pumpkin and ginger. The scones I celebrated this month were raisin and ginger (I like the slivers of crystallized ginger so they are part of the ‘basics’ for all my scones!

Baked Apples. I’ve always liked baked apples but I tend to forget about them. This January we had apples that needed to be used up quickly….so I got back in the habit. I had baked apples three days in a row! I bake the in the microwave for 2 minutes then add other ingredients before microwaving for another 2 minutes. My favorite ‘other ingredients’ are orange zest, pecans, and marmalade!

Homemade soups. Soup is my favorite food on cold days - and I never buy soups in cans these days. Many times I enjoy the leftovers used in soups more than the original meal they came from!

My Past

Wedding Anniversary. I celebrated over 40 years of marriage this month. Noting the date always reminds me of the broader need to celebrate and appreciate the durability of our family ties overall.

Friend from Long Ago. Rediscovering a friend from a long time ago is such a pleasure. It is invigorating to rediscover that the kernel of our younger selves is still within us!

Look Outdoors

This January has been too cold here in Maryland to do much outdoors….but the views through windows have been intriguing.

Snow. The snow has stayed on the ground for a long time. At first it is pristine and there are bits on the larger branches of the trees. Then the tracks of deer and squirrels are evident the snow on the trees either melts or is blown away.

Fog in the forest. One morning the humidity and temperature combined to create a dense fog. The forest behind out house looked as if it were holding the fog in its branches.

Robins. The flock of robins from a few days ago was a pleasant surprise.

Learning Something New

The new semester on Coursera. I’ll write a longer post early next month …when I’ll have more experience with the courses. What I am celebrating right now is that the first week of the courses I’ve started has been so good!

Soil science. I went to a lecture on this topic and was surprised at how much I learned…..and that I followed up to check the soil suitability for my neighborhood (It was quite a relief to know that the soil was suitable for houses with basements!).

Pancakes for Dinner

Pancakes are one of my favorite meals, any time. Last night - we wanted something warm for dinner because outside is was so cold and snowy; we also needed a comfort food after hearing the news about the shootings at Columbia Mall which is not that far from where we live. Pancakes are both - warming and comforting.

I make buttermilk pancakes using the recipe on the powdered buttermilk package; the only change is I make half the flour whole wheat rather than all-purpose….and I add a tablespoon of flaxseed meal. My husband topped his pancakes with butter and maple syrup; turkey sausage completed his meal.

I topped my pancakes with a baked apple concoction:

• Two small apples cut up and cooked in the microwave for 2 minutes
• A tablespoon of marmalade, a sprinkle of cinnamon, a sprinkle of orange zest, and 1/4 cup of chopped pecans - stirred into the apples - cooked in the microwave for another 2 minutes.

Tasty!

Robins in Maryland

A flock of robins came to our neighborhood with the sun after the big snow storm earlier this week. It was bitterly cold (in the low teens and breezy) so they fluffed their feathers for warmth and looked very round. They seemed to like the maple tree that is visible from my office. I took the pictures for this post through the window!

There were other birds around that morning too. A blue jay sat in the top of the maple - very alone compared to the robins. There was a small flock of blue jays in the neighborhood last summer and I hope to see them frequently again. There was a woodpecker that was examining our tulip poplar but must not have found anything interesting since it did not stay long. On the other side of the house, the juncos are eating the seeds left on the stalks of the blazing stars from last fall; the cats watch them through the window.

Catching Snowflakes

Snow was swirling around my house a few days ago - and I decided to make an attempt to photograph snowflakes. The wind was blowing enough that even the covered part of the deck was getting a dusting of snow through the screens. I put a red glass plate, a magnifying glass and a camera into a covered plastic bin and put them out to cool down.

About an hour later, I bundled up in coat and gloves. I waved the plate around to catch some snowflakes from the air outside the covered part of the deck. The flakes were very small. The magnifying glass was enough to hint at the magical shapes snowflakes can have.  But ---- it was too cold and windy to perfect my technique. I took a few pictures and went inside.

Later with I looked at the images I'd captured, I  was encouraged by the blurs (caused by being on the edge of the field or bad orientation of the individual flake or clumps of broken crystals rather than intact snowflakes). I'll definitely try again next time it snows! Next time I'll rig a light box (so there will be light under the red plate), cool down a towel along with the other gear to wipe off the plate so I can make multiple attempts, and find a place out of the wind to work!

Messy Desk

Periodically I clean off some of the surface area of my desk - which is really a table rather than a classical desk with drawers for folders. I try to keep ‘files’ electronically rather than in paper these days but there seems to always be little pieces of paper around and ay cleared area gets covered over relatively quickly. Sometimes I feel guilty that the desk is always messy. More often I tell myself that I, deep down, must like it just this way - not loaded down with tall piles of stuff but covered with items that make it mine. It is very much like making a house into a home.

I have a low bookcase whose top surface is filled with a tissue box, hand lotion, and ceramic mugs filled with pencils, letter openers, emery boards and scissors. These days the scissors and emery boards are the most popular items. The surface never gets cleaned off. There are stacks of papers with directions to volunteer activities that I printed out. I printed the pages to take with me to the car…to get the address into the navigation system…and then they become a record of the activity. I’m not sure why I don’t just carry them around on the Kindle rather than printing the papers. It would clear off that corner of the table. I also have a lot of small pads of paper. I make quick notes while I work at my computer and I’ve noticed that the small papers dominate the recycle bag from my office (and it takes a long time to fill a small bag to take down to recycle bin).

On the other side of my laptop - the side I cleared off most recently - is my new project: the microscope. There is some unrelated flotsam already around it - a coupon cut out to be taken down to the pile for the next grocery shopping, a washcloth that was used for a napkin and a blank book that needs to go someplace else.

Closer to the laptop is a tea tin used for cables when I travel, a collection of green paperclips, and a stack of coasters. I’ve recently added a ball that I used for grip exercises while I read news feeds.

Yes - this messy desk is uniquely mine!

Sweet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I am enjoying a sweet potato vine as a houseplant this winter. It all started back in mid-October when I discovered a sweet potato had sprouted.  I cut off the sprouted end before I cooked the rest of the potato.

The sprout grew so rapidly in the saucer of water that within a week, I bought a planter box and soil. I included some shells still in the bag brought back from some beach vacation years ago on the top of the soil; pouring water onto shells works well to avoid holes dug by water.

At first the pot looked huge compared to the tiny plant but it continued to grow rapidly. It got pretty tall by early November before falling over and beginning to act like a vine about a month from the time it was planted.

The vine twined around a stick in early December.

In late December, I threaded the end of the vine through a metal sculpture.

In just 3 months indoors the vine had grown around the planter box and leaves spill out over the side. The bright green foliage is welcome in the deep of winter. It sits on the window end of the kitchen table where it gets sun on sunny days and supplemental artificial light for cloudy days and extra hours. It’s the best houseplant I’ve ever had!

I’m going to put the box outdoors after the last possibility of frost and anticipate that the planter box will be full of sweet potatoes by next fall!

Reducing Trash

Periodically, I take an inventory of what is still ending up in our trash and think about what changes I can make to reduce it. I buy in to the notion that sending things to the landfill is ‘bad’ from the perspective of right now and for the future. No one wants to live on or near a landfill now and yet they are ever growing; how will our children and grandchildren avoid living on our trash heap if we continue as we have in the past? And who wants to be wasteful? It isn’t about being rich or poor. It is about being good stewards of our home.

The inventory was a great project for a cold winter day when the best plan-for-the-day was to stay indoors. Here’s what I found (grouped by the action I am taking…or plan to take)

Tissues and paper towels - The only way I can imagine to reduce this trash is to avoid creating it. In the past I have considered using handkerchiefs….but only for a few seconds; the tissues are just too convenient. Using a dish cloth or towel rather than a paper towel reduces our paper towel consumption but I still keep a roll on the counter for extra messy or contaminating jobs like wiping up chicken juice or cleaning the inside of the microwave of oily residue (from microwave popcorn). So the amount of tissues and paper towels in our trash will stay about the same. We have very few napkins because I switched to washcloth napkins after a previous inventory.

Small pieces of paper - There were all kinds of small pieces of paper in our trash until recently:  stevia packets, wrappers from tea bags, paper used in other packaging that is not recyclable, and Post-it notes. I’ve made it a point to collect it in a small box (like the box the stevia packets came in originally) and then put it in the recycling. It does not reduce the trash by very much - but every little bit that does not go to the landfill is a good thing. I’ve even started emptying tea bags into the gold mesh basket of my tea maker (a coffee maker that has never seen coffee) so that the tab and tea paper goes into the small paper box too!

Fruit and vegetable parings - In the summer time, I try to compost these directly into my garden but the only thing I compost in winter is tea leaves (which go into houseplant pots). On the plus side, the county is expanding the curbside compost program; hopefully it will come to my neighborhood within the next year.

Egg shells - Again - I manage to compost these in the summer. Should I save a few to use as mini-pots for sprouting garden veggies indoors before the last frost?

Microwave popcorn package - We are using up our last box of packaged microwave popcorn. I bought a bowl with a vented lid to pop the corn in the microwave (without oil or other harmful chemicals). It works with the least expensive popcorn in my grocery store (which comes in a recyclable plastic bag that makes many servings of popcorn).

Dryer sheets - I did a little research and am going to look to see if my store carries any that are recyclable.

Worn out underwear - Clothes that can still be worn are candidates for donation. Items with holes and rot still end up in the trash.

Used cat litter - There does not seem to be any other possibility….it stays in the trash.

Plastic wrap - If it’s clean it can go into the same recycle as the plastic bags! I just learned this from reading my county’s recycling list. If it has food on it, then it still is a trash item.

Clam shell type package - I try to avoid these because they cannot be recycled. It is better to use the plastic produce bags for tomatoes, for example. Unfortunately, some products (like small electronics, kitchen knives, etc.) tend to come in this kind of packaging and there often is no other packaging option.

Frozen food bags - These are not recyclable in my county. Even if they were it might be difficult since they often end up messy on the inside. I do try to buy the largest bag that I can us in a reasonable time.

Foil lined packages- I seem to have more of these that I realized from cat treats,Christmas chocolates, and tea bag wrappers. I’m going to look to see if there are any alternative forms of packaging. The tea bag wrappers are probably the easiest.

Pre-cut veggie containers - I have just recently noticed that the pre-cut salads and veggies come in clam shell packages or a material that is different than the plastic produce bags….and neither one can be recycled. Maybe grocery stores will help out by changing the package. I can buy bell peppers in a package of pulp paper with plastic wrap….which can be re-cycled.

Flip top lids of cat food - The recycler recommends putting sharp lids into the trash. Perhaps it is a safety issue?

Straws - The recycler does not like very small items in the stream they are processing…so straws are relegated to trash. Maybe I’ll use up the straws I’ve already purchased and simply stop using them.

Everything else I found in the trash was an infrequent item. Nothing stands out as an opportunity to reduce the trash volume dramatically so the main action I am taking from this inventory is a tweak to my grocery shopping:

Avoid clamshells and other non-recyclable containers. 

Memories of my Paternal Grandfather

My paternal grandfather was the oldest of my grandparents and he was the first to die. It happened over 35 year ago. I was still in college - old enough to have clear memories. I find myself comparing him to myself:

• He was more gregarious than me;
• He made an effort to be fair to everyone and he passed along that emphasis to me;
• He took care of household things so that they lasted 'forever'; I still have his hedge trimmers with his repair and  marvel at the other things I have around the house that are 40+ years old because I care for tools in the same way;
• Both of us only had one child and we were in our 30s when that child was born.

I look on the Internet Archive for books published around the time he was born and realize how much the world changed over the course of his lifetime. When he was growing up, farming was done with horses…then tractors. The farm houses had no electricity or plumbing but that too changed. He moved to town in 1950s because of drought that reduced the profitability of farming. He picked up odd jobs to supplement his savings. He was a quick study and a savvy one at ‘networking’ although he would have never called it that.

He was ahead of his time in another important way too: he bought me wooden blocks in a little wagon when I was very young. At the time, most people probably gave dolls to their little girls. He did construction projects with boards and nails in the garage with all my sisters too. He gave us the opportunity to enjoy activities that were not typically done with little girls and, by that example, showed us that our horizons were not limited by gender. Each of my grandparents probably contributed to that foundation, but from a different perspective and at different times of my growing up. My paternal grandfather was the first - when he gave me wooden blocks rather than a doll.

Today would have been his 113th birthday...and I'm thinking of him today.

Signing up for New Classes in the New Year - 2014

Just like traditional universities, Coursera has classes starting this month. It is challenging to pick - and I have probably overindulged by enrolling in 4:

Roman Architecture from Yale University because I’ve never taken an architecture class - it’s a different perspective on history. Also - this will be my first course from Yale.

Moralities of Everyday Life from Yale University because the increased lack of civility within political discourse in the US seems linked to ideas about morality. That makes the topic much more reality rather than theoretically focused.

How to Change the World from Wesleyan University because I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Roth’s previous course on Coursera: The Modern and Postmodern.

An Introduction to the US Food System: Perspectives from Public Health from Johns Hopkins University because it seems like our food system has been changing very quickly although it is difficult to grasp the changes as a whole…and the impact on health. It is a complex topic.

In addition, I signed up for Nutrition, Health, and Lifestyle: Issues and Insights from Vanderbilt for the one new lecture: Food Allergies and Intolerances: Separating Fact from Fiction. I took the course last spring/summer and it honed my understanding of nutrition in a way that helped me take off the last 15 pounds (to down to the weight I was at 25!).

I’m sure they will all have some extra reading that will supplement the videos. I’m planning on allocating a day of each week to each of one….and then using the other days of the week to catch the overflow. The courses do have to fit into the rest of life. I generally do the multiple choice knowledge checks embedded in the videos but not the quizzes or other assignments. I’m not after a grade and I prefer to talk about topics from the course with people I interact with face to face rather than other students virtually.

There was an article recently about MOOCs not living up to their original goal of online education approaching the quality of traditional colleges to the large population all over the world without access to such institutions. That is probably the case but, through refinement by iteration, they could improve on that goal. I’d like to suggest that MOOCs have an even larger role in society in the realm of lifelong learning - in enhancing the quality of life particularly for those that are long past the traditional college age. I’d like to see the end of course surveys probe this aspect. It would be interesting to know not just how many people did everything the course required to get a certificate or credit but how many students completed a subset like:

• Watched all the videos
• Read the online (free) references
• Scan parts of the discussion form
• Read all the references

In my case, I generally do the first three --- and get what I want from the course. A certificate or credit is not something I need.

It would also be interesting to find out how many people would be willing to pay some amount for the lectures to defray the cost of producing them. What amounts would be tolerated? Or does a charging scheme get too complicated to administer?

The bottom line for me is - I enjoy the Coursera offerings. I applaud the universities and professors that are participating. It is a positive development in education and the experiment has already succeeded for those of us that see these courses as a potent addition to lifelong learning.

A New Year Begins - 2014

2014 begins today. It’s a human designation that it is today so whatever meaning it has is also ours.

I like to get up for the sunrise rather than stay up until midnight. This time of year it is very easy to get up well before the sun comes up and I was thrilled to find a dove in our oak tree when I went out to capture the event this morning. At first the dove was quiet, but then it started cooing at me. What a gentle sound to start the year!

The first light of the new day synchronized with the first day of the New Year reminds me of the potential there always is - to savor the moment and grow into a satisfying future.

In years past - I made list of things I wanted to make different. Sometimes I made a lasting change. One year I decided to learn to use my mouse with my left hand rather than my right; that was almost 10 years ago and I have made the change permanently. Last year I decided to have one last sprint of weight loss and get down to the weight I was at 25; I did it by September and have maintained it easily since then. I started gradually increasing my reading goals beginning in 1985 and now I’m combining reading with taking online courses since they are so freely available; learning this way is one of my favorite pastimes so I need nothing to push me onward at this point. Travel and visiting family/friends is another favorite pastime; no encouragement needed there either. The volunteer gigs I started in 2013 are still lots of fun and worthwhile…I won’t be making a change away from them in 2014.

So I am left with a generic goal of exhorting myself to live more in the present in 2014…to refrain from over-planning (which I sometimes have been known to do)!