Saturday, December 29, 2007

Gingerbread House

Kim Archuleta had a party on Christmas Eve, and the main activity was assembling a gingerbread house. She made the gingerbread and the frosting and the "glue" (frostening that will harden like sugary cement), and let people go at it.

If you click on the photo you can see several other views. I did the wagon that's slightly visible in the rear to the left, and in more detail below. That started people in on building other stuff for the yard, and it was entirely fun.

I did the miniature paper chain, which is the only non-edible part, because we were making full-size paper chain for the house. I think that might show in some of the photos. Oh, the roof wasn't edible, either. It was cardboard laid over drinking glasses so it could get a chimney and a sleigh.

The candy canes sticking up are Keith's century plant. Marty did a prickly pear with green M&Ms and a cut-up gumdrop for the blooms. The yellow gumdrops are supposed to be farolitos/luminarias.

Good project, fun day.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Nativity Pog

It's not a tortilla, and it's not a miracle, but among the things Kirby declined to keep forever and ever were hundreds of pogs. Of the many manly-boy designs on those pogs, few appealed to me, but I like the Middle Ages and I like Christmas, and so one pog seemed to have been designed just for me to keep forever and share on my blog. It's medievalish and woodblockesque.

The original is 4cm on glossy but cheap cardboard. Popular art of the 1990s, pretty much, overall.

Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Snow, lights, moon

Our newish electric back gate has associated electricity, so we could put Christmas lights on the bamboo inserts!



My choices was with a flash or without, but neither makes it look as it does in the real world.




And the moon was out, but not as clear as usual, because of an icy sky.


I love that gate, I love snow, and Christmas, and Keith, and I love this house.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Eight things about me

I got this from Circle the World in Big, Jen Lynch's unschooling blog.

My blog has been too serious lately, and I have been so forthcoming with details of my life, I don't know if I can name eight things nobody who reads this will not already know. Probably not. So I'll go with things 95% of readers probably don't know (meaning only one of the twenty who might read this might have known). I'm thinking of really old and really new things.

1) My half-brother, who was born when I was 19-nearly-20, got a three-month chip from AA last week. At the age of 34, he finally stopped drinking (or has for a while). I'm sending him a Christmas package, for the first time in many years. Keith and I had custody of him when he was 13 and 14 and Kirby was born.

2) I could read music before I could read English.

3) I didn't have a pacifier, but I used to suck the nose of a rubber scalping Indian toy I had, and I still have it. It still squeaked until just a couple of years ago.

4) I was ashamed to know a lot of country music songs when I was a hippie teenager, but I played for a little dance once (rhythm guitar and sang harmonies, with a band formed of those present) and was surprised to know so many lyrics. Nobody there knew me but my mom, and we were in Tres Piedras, a little cowboy town in NW New Mexico.

5) In my early teens I really, seriously planned to be a Baptist missionary when I grew up. That plan lasted four or five years. I got a Bible for it, and would be named in church on Lottie Moon day as someone to pray for because I had that intent. (Baptist readers might understand "Lottie Moon day.")

6) I think my mother was brain damaged.

7) My dad had two brothers. They both, separately, after I was grown, confided in me about their sex lives. So did my dad, to some extent. So had my grandmother. People just talk to me. I've gotten used to it. (Those three brothers were names Kirby, Rex and John Quincy. Adams, yeah. They were all born near Rotan, Texas, which is near Roby, which is near Sweetwater.)

8) None of my grandparents or parents finished high school, and now my kids didn't go at all, so my high school graduation was an anomaly in my family.



Well... I don't know if that went very far to lighten the tone of the blog this month. I wish Deb Lewis had a blog so I could tag her and she could cheer us all up! For Christmas, I want Deb Lewis to have a blog.

The inevitable "rules":
* link to the person who tagged you
* post the rules
* name 8 things others don’t know about you
* link to 8 other bloggers

So of actual blog owners I know about, I tag
Miranda Demerest in Las Vegas
Katy Jennings in Alamogordo
Vicki Watkins in her bus somewhere around here
Kelli Traaseth in Bemidji (where I have been!)
Schuyler in Cleveland (not Ohio, in northern England)
De in Ohio (not Cleveland. Well maybe; I have no idea.)
Mary Gold in Corvallis
Madelyn in Georgia

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Stress I should NOT complain about

For three months and some I stalled and piddled around about going through the last few boxes of stuff Kirby left. He packed his closet and straightened what he was leaving on the shelves in his room. We told him we'd keep it as it was for a year, as it was, in case he wanted to move back.

Holly commandeered his bathroom, and photographs it frequently for MySpace. The XBox that Marty bought Kirby's share in (Kirby bought a new one in Austin) is still in there, and my computer, recently, but that's changing soon (my computer and the printer are going back downstairs).

Yet in the front room were five boxes of toys and hats and comics and books that Kirby was undecided about. He didn't want them, but he said Holly and I should go through and see if there were things we wanted, or what would be worth giving away.

Each time I started in on that, I felt angst and agitation. I asked Marty and Holly for help sometimes, and then we all three stalled.

But it's done now. Marty pulled out things he wanted a few days ago, I got some advice from both of them, and this morning I finished off the job. There are boxes of things for the thrift store (in the trunk of the car), a trashbag of things not worth giving to the thrift store, half a bag of recycling (better-quality plastic single-substance parts and items), and one box of things I thought might be useful for Halloween someday or for grandkids to dig through in an imagined possible future. There's a small box of parts and pieces to be re-filed with the proper collections or games.

Now I have space in that room and in my emotions for a Christmas tree. Sheeeesh, it wasn't easy. Every thing I touched was something Kirby had touched when he was four, or six, or ten, or fourteen, and then chucked aside when he was twenty-one. His whole life was passing before my eyes.

And another level of anxiety was added to the other (though I was keeping myself calm and amused and happy with happy-thoughts). I was feeling a light sorrow and regret, partly for burdening him with so much junk. Yet every single thing in there was something he played with and learned from and outgrew. That's good! The anxiety I was fighting down involved guilty feelings about my self-pity.

Kirby is alive and well. He sleeps in a warm place. He has a job, a car, and food. He has a roommate he gets along well with. He has an intact family to come home to, and on January 13 he's scheduled to arrive here for a visit

I think it was related to a sort of survivor's guilt, although that states it too strongly. My three children are at magical ages on the doorstep of adulthood. Three pregnancies, three grown to the age of reproduction and independence, without major injury or disease. I wish all moms could have that. And in thinking of those who were not so fortunate as I am, I'm kind of ashamed of my strong feelings about toys and childhood set aside by Mr. Kendall Kirby Dodd who outgrew his need for the nest and moved on into the world.

This mom-job isn't as easy as some people make it look.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

mountain view and radio afterword

This is how the Sandias look from our house today.

There's not a dark smudgy cloud in the sky. There's a cloudy smudge on the outside of the window. I need to clean that.

You might click that smaller mountain photo to see what it looked like last August. The bamboo has its seasonal look. The sky is always artsy.

I was on the Alan Colmes show. I was on in the first half hour of the middle of three hours. My "opposition" was Sandy Rios, another radio show host who's head of some conservative organization that seems designed to tell fundamentalist Christians who to vote for and what to think. Luckily, that didn't come up. She knew nothing about unschooling, and wasn't a homeschooler. She let me know her son was as honest with her as my kids were, even though she used to spank him, and that I was lazy to unschool instead of structuring my children's lives. I think she said that disciplining kids was disciplining oneself (or maybe she said structure was structuring... either way, it was just noise).

Her son won't be honest with her if it involves sexuality, homosexuality, or if he starts getting the wrongheaded idea that people should be able to make choices in their lives. If he looks at porn, he won't share that fact with his mom. That doesn't affect my own family in the moment, though.

I wasn't able to say half of the things I had hoped to say, and even though I had short phrases pre-written to try to work in, I was interrupted mercilessly, so I named the webpage twice, figuring maybe those who wished they could hear me could go there later. Alan, the host, also named the site twice, which was good of him to do. It seems I got a few hundred extra hits from that overnight, according to the week's average. I had 1420 site views yesterday, and this week has been a thousand-a-day week, give or take.

For people who don't know me but heard the program, if you find this post please consider reading here: sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit This is a collection of those "aha!" moments when someone struggling to understand unschooling finally got it. It never happens in a half hour of radio listening, nor even in an hour of reading. It does take a while, and that's a point I was trying to make last night. It's simple to condemn the total misunderstanding of it. It's not easy to breathe out and take in the tip of the iceberg of the reality of it.

I had hoped to say something my husband, Keith, wanted conveyed: "We wanted our children to become thoughtful intelligent, undamaged adults." I never got to say it but I can say it here. I'll add it to my quotes generator. I love that quotes generator. It's here.

Although I rarely write or talk about school, it seemed all the questions last night were about school. "Cookie cutter students" or some such phrase was used, but school doesn't use any kind of template but the overall sorting (literally "grading") of students into gifted, honors, average, special needs, lazy/trouble, failure (and many subdivisions). School creates failures. They know in advance they will, and they must. Then they blame the kids for falling into the category and reality the school itself created and requires. An A average means nothing unless some corresponding number of kids have failed. I'm serious as a heart attack about this, but it must be a topic for another radio show.

I didn't ask to be on that show. I was contacted by a producer who had seen an article. I wasn't proselytizing. I was minding my own business at home. But by being willing to go on there, some people will know unschooling exists and that's fine. If they come and want help to get it, my website, this blog, the connected blogs, Joyce's website, the other authors whose pages I've made... all those people and resources are at their disposal.

A couple of friends of mine wrote to me concerned that the host was too rough on Roger, the first caller. I thought so too, and had planned to defend him with my next utterance, but I was thanked and dismissed at that point. I had hoped to leave Roger a message here, but he e-mailed me, so we've had an exchange about it and I felt better. There were two supportive calls and one fairly negative (but not totally negative). The next hour was about another topic altogether, so it was brief and a little rough, but will probably be positive for lots of people in the long run.

While I was on the phone, Marty and Holly were listening to the show on the computer, with headphones (sharing a set of ear buds). When the first set of commercials came on, Marty advised me to chill—he said I was being defensive. He and Holly coached me and said I was smarter so I had the responsibility to be nicer.

A sixteen year old girl and nineteeneighteen year old boy with the freedom to have been watching movies, playing video games, eating ice cream (to use a repeated example from the show), or to have gotten in the car and left the house were sitting listening to their mom on the radio, and counseling patience and courtesy.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Holly; me on the radio; odd week in review

I love Holly. She's fun to be around. The photo to the right is Holly, by Holly. My baby is sixteen. Wow. I remember being worried when she only weighed five pounds.

On December 11, Tuesday night, I'll be on the Alan Colmes radio show from 9:00 to 10:00 my time (11:00 in New York where the show originates), talking about unschooling. There will be someone to represent "the other side," but I don't know the nature of it yet, whether it will be a structured homeschooler or a pro-school person. You can listen to it online here: AlanColmesRadio.com Click the box/icon instead of the text. That worked better for me. (Alan mentioned the unschooling debate on the show tonight.)

I've been sleeping extra much and having weird dreams. It's not really bothering me. It's interesting. I don't feel sick, but I'm sleeping as though I were sick. It's been a peaceful week. I was thinking for a minute I hadn't done anything for a long time, but then I remembered that in the past few daysI've been to a movie with Holly, talked to several friends by phone, cleaned the hot tub, worked in the yard, made cookies and several meals, had nearly a dozen people over to play a board game and talk about Shakespeare... Still, it seems "not busy," which is perfect! Christmas gifts are coming in by mail, and I shopped, and I've wrapped. Holly and I are making up a box for Kirby, who's working on Christmas, in Austin. He'll be here to visit in January. Cool!

Maybe I'm sleeping because I need to sew and I'm procrastinating. I put that in writing partly so I can stop pretending I haven't had the thought.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Responding with images

I'm doing this because I enjoyed Kelli's and Ren's so much.

1. My age next year:

2. Place I'd like to travel:

3. Favorite place:

4. Favorite Object(s):

5. Favorite food:

6. Favorite Animal:

7. Favorite Color:

8. My nickname:

9. Town I was born in:

10. Bad habit I have:



Ren's    
Kelli's

That was fun!
And the last image is from my friend 'Zann's blog. How cool it came up there!

Friday, November 30, 2007

Quote Generator is Working!

THANK YOU SCHUYLER!

SandraDodd.com/unschooling has a random quotes generator! I have fewer than 50 quotes in it, but will add more. It's kinda fragile, as things go... It took me a long time to find the little errors that were keeping it from working.

In the course of getting it on that page, I messed with other formatting, so the page isn't as... stable? Familiar. Something about that page I don't like... (to be heard in a Zoombinis voice). Holly and I are going out to see a musical at the university so I'll have to mess with it later, but still I'm very excited that the quotes can be seen, and that more can be added (v-e-r-y carefully).

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Unschooling Quotes

It helps unschooling and mindful parenting to be aware of *your* kids and *their* unique needs rather than treating them as generic kids with all the worst possible traits.

Joyce Fetteroll, November 29, 2007


Joyce wrote that on a discussion list this morning and I put it on my quotes page. I've kept meaning to ask for help collecting quotes by unschoolers.

I have a small collection started here: http://sandradodd.com/quotes

Sunday, November 25, 2007

cat, watermelon, and background problems

This isn't an announcement of new pages. I really did mean to put this on my own daily-life blog.

Working on webpages a few weeks back, I accidentally deleted my backgrounds folder. Most of the stuff was older, and I use photobucket now more than my own site for images. I think the main unschooling page looks better without that pattern I had had since my page was on some old free hosting site I can't even remember the name of anymore.

But anyway, I discovered today that one of the backgrounds that was gone was the photo to the right.

We've been writing (and have before, and will frequently in the future) about reading, and how kids learn to read gradually but naturally, and seemingly suddenly, when they become fluent.

Lately I've begun to feel fluent with html. I used to panic a bit when I didn't know what to do. Things were awkward and frustrating and flustering. Today when I noticed that watermelon gone, I knew to look at the source code, find the image name, and search on my computer. It was there. Now it's back where it was before, too: How Unschoolers Watch TV. Jacki's daughter had done a BEAUTIFUL meal, and it's documented there.

I lost the background to this page, too: If you give a kid a Nintendo... which has a photo of Crystal's cat that I'm also going to use for the Lyrics Game

...but luckily, now I know how to find images from code. And if I can't find it, I can make another one.

It's good to feel a surge in competence. As I get older, that might happen less often, so I'm trying to savor the feel of this one. I can read html by looking at it! Woohoo!

The down side is that I feel I should go through all my pages and fix what I didn't understand before. Eventually, if I live long enough, I guess I might. But I keep adding new pages, and that seems more important that upgrading older ones.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Images of Marty

There are several pictures of Marty on Diana Jenner's blog here: http://hannahbearski.blogspot.com/2007/11/marty-experience-meet-ambassador-of-joy.html Down near the bottom there's a highlighted "enjoyed" that's a link to more Marty photos.

Each time one of my kids is appreciated or bragged up, I get a little internal mom-commission. It's wonderful to see them reflected in others' eyes, and words, and photos.

I appreciate those who were generous with Marty, gave him rides and places to stay, fed him and let him experience a different part of the country and make new friends. Thank you all!

Friday, November 09, 2007

Team Holly

Holly's birthday continued a bit tonight, when our friend Bo delivered his gift in dramatic fashion. There was a speech and then he and Marty appropriately tore open their outer layer to show the "Team Holly" shirts beneath, and then Bo gave Holly one to match.
Updated in 2021: They WERE (long ago...) available on CafePress at http://www.cafepress.com/boking They're a reference to similar shirts and sentiments on "We Need Girlfriends," a short series Holly really likes that you can see on YouTube. http://youtube.com/watch?v=omE_8VJN9Eo Holly says the t-shirts start in episode 4 (of 11). When she asked me to watch it I was afraid I wouldn't like it, but it's way sweeter and less obnoxious than it seems right at first. It's potentially offensive, but the goodness outweighs the yuck. Slightly added to when the link was brought, 11/10/07.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

End Results

Kelly Lovejoy sends good quotes from the UnschoolingBasics list pretty often, but here's one I couldn't stop thinking about.

Someone new to the ideas wrote:
I still find it hard to believe that allowing kids full rein of
electronics for months on end will actually help them learn
self-control. Is there anyone that has seen the end result of it?
Caren wrote:
Not to be snarky, but... how can *you* controlling someone else teach
them *self*-control?

I was "disciplined" as a child - meaning someone
else controlled my actions (around them, anyway) through coercion and
punishment. I did *not* learn self-discipline. I learned distrust of
and alienation from that parent. Perhaps most harmful, distrust of my
own inner voice. It has taken years (and years and years) to regain
that. "The end result" of not limiting games, TV, etc. is that my kids
are learning to listen to *their own* inner guidance about how much is
"too much". They are learning what *they* enjoy, not what I think they
should enjoy


Wow.

There was more, and it's good. It's at the bottom of the page on Control. I'm not on that discussion list, and didn't get to comment directly, but because my children are good examples of results, it's been running through my head since I read it.

"End result..." When do we measure "end result"? Each of my children is on a landmark year at the moment: The boys are 21 and 18, and our only girl just turned 16. Is this the time to measure "end result"?

We started from when they were babies, and didn't take a previously controlled school kid and make the transition. I have helped a few hundred families make those transitions, though, and collected their reports and comments.

If there is ever an "end," the results won't matter anymore. But as long as life continues, the results unfold. Are my children better friends and better employees because of the freedom they had? It seems so.

When they marry will they be good partners? Would that be an "end result"? What kind of parents will they be? What kind of managers will they be when they've worked for years and are in a position to make decisions about other people's employment? What kind of neighbors will they be? How will their longterm health be affected by their early freedom to make their own choices? Will they be more or less likely to be binge eaters, substance abusers, hypochondriacs? When they're old, will they still be active and interesting? Will their early freedoms affect their geriatric physical and mental health?

Some results along the way look promising.

Caren wrote:
And the end result, for me, is not that ultimately they'll watch or
play less. It used to be, before I really understood unschooling. (and
when I still demonized TV) I used to think "OK, if I "let them" watch
all they want, eventually they'll tire of it and move on." Now, the
phrase "let them" seems foreign to me, and I have the attitude of
hoping what they're doing is bringing them joy, whether that's
watching TV, gaming, building a Lego city, or playing outdoors.

It's a bit difficult to explain how that shift occurred, but the word
"allowing" comes to mind. I let go, then let go some more, and in the
process discovered a deeper connection with my kids than I knew was
possible... and because of the inner work involved, a deeper
connection with myself.


Our lives are surrounded by the "end result" of people who grew up with too much parental control. The hurts can last a lifetime and be passed on to all around. Some adults are catatonic with indecision and fear when faced with the simplest of life's decisions, because they were never allowed to make decisions when they were growing up, and were assured they would have screwed up everything if the parents HAD loosened control.

I see those results every day. I still see them in myself sometimes, and I'm 54 years old. I see them in people I've known since we were kids, as they still must negotiate with the voices in their heads saying, 'No, don't.'

Before Marty and Holly were ever born, Kirby played video games. He wasn't very good yet. (Keith and I had an Amidar game we bought when an arcade was clearing out old games.) He also had Broderbund's Playroom (in black and white at first), to play on the Mac IIsi, and a few other computer games.

When he was five, though, we got him an original Nintendo system. He would ask me to get past the koopas on the second level, but from there he was good.

Now he works for a video game company that does online games. But that's not "the end result." That's another moment in a life full of moments in which he was free to choose.
"I still find it hard to believe that allowing kids full rein of
electronics for months on end will actually help them learn
self-control."
It's not "for months on end," it's for life. And it's not "self control," it's self awareness.


Joyce sent me a link this morning to an article I didn't have on my videogames page. It's not a new article, but it's a good one, and it's at the top of new links there.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Holly is Sixteen Years Old




Sixteen...

That's pretty old for a baby. My third of three children is sixteen today. She's gone to a movie, and I'll be asleep when she gets home, and for a mom, that feels kinda...

I'm wordless. I have the feeling but not its name.

Holly and I spent most of the day together, went to eat with Keith, watched most of a movie, I admired her birthday greetings on MySpace and watched her play Halo3. We talked about important things, and goofy things, and I enjoy her company, but I am no longer her source of food or her shoe-tie-er. I'm not even her driver; she got the car keys and left merrily.

I feel less crucial, but not less appreciated, which is a pretty good deal. For a mom, that feels kinda wonderful.


two nights ago


ten years ago


all of them small



Thursday, November 01, 2007

Marty has left town *again*

Marty is on his way to Portland and then Corvallis, to hang out with unschoolers he knows.



He'll miss Holly's birthday tomorrow, and will miss another couple of things this week, and will return Wednesday night, the 7th.

He's wonderful and I'll miss him. When he gets home he's going to Las Cruces for the weekend for an SCA event. He's a busy, happy guy.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Holly and Marty and Halloween

Marty and Holly are being characters from Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a Super Nintendo (and SEGA) game. Marty needed his hair spikey. Holly wanted him to hang his head down.



They really do get along well, and I say that and I think people might doubt it, so I sneaked a video:


They're going to hang out with friends, and here are the first peeks at their costumes:



And here's my jack-o-lantern. It's very windy, so we put a little oil torch in it, and it created an effect.

Zombies on Halo3

For Halloween (and until 3:00 on November 1, Marty has heard, but what time zone I don't know), there's a zombie game for Halo3 players. When you go to matchmaking, one of your options is zombie.

Zombies have swords, others have guns, and when you "die" you become a zombie. The game's over when time is over or when everyone's a zombie.

Marty and Holly tried to play two at a time, but there were problems. They took turns.

Neopets on Halloween

  TODAY, on Neopets, you can gamble once, anytime, to raise your pet one level. The dice are cute, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. And if you don't have a neopet, you profoundly won't care. But the dice are still cute. Dice game

And just in case you cared about that, there are Halloween gifts on Neopets.
There's a list of them here:http://petpages.neopets.com/~Neo____Zafara,
scroll down just a little way.

Sometimes I go through phases of what seems to be cocooning. Lately I've played video games while I was thinking. It seems the thinking leads up to burst-of-energy phases. I used to feel guilty about it, but now I relax into it and I don't worry. The urge to go too fast and do too much will return before long, and some of the thoughts that come during the more still times are good ones!

Maybe this is another advantage to having older children. Mine are asleep right now, and later they're going out together to do Halloween things. They made costumes I hardly had to help with at all, and all I have to do is hang out and distribute candy to strangers. I guess it's candy-from-strangers day!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Halloween and other spooky things



Halloween used to be more fun when all the homeschoolers were in one discussion pool.
After shunning psychology for years, some of Halloween's detractors have adopted it (an outdated form), and plan to condition their children to think about Jesus (and other Biblical figures) when they eat certain candy and see jack-o-lanterns.
http://sandradodd.com/halloween
Wait... only click that link if your kids' Halloween costumes are ready, because you might be in there a while.


Scary, but amusing, about "Peaceful Parenting"
http://sandradodd.com/peace/lawsuit


DOH! This was intended for the unschooling site news blog. I'll leave this, and put it over there too.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Unschooling news and other blogs of mine

http://aboutunschooling.blogspot.com/

I do realize that some blogs can be set up with all kinds of categorization of posts, but I would forget to categorize. My own blog organization has been to make another blog. Few are interested in *all* my stuff. So I have the following blogs to report:

News of the Unschooling pages (see above, and the sidebar to the left)
News of the SCA pages (to the left and Duckford dot blogspot)

Unschooling in the news, in a blog Laura Derrick started and that she's shared out since with Joyce Fetteroll, Pam Sorooshian and me: Unschooling dot blogspot

The lyrics game (the only blog I go to every day) LyricsGame dot blogspot (and that one has an adjunct blog for discussion of that blog... yeah. Really.)

And then there's the odd one, the one about love. Love: Romantic Biochemistry. It's usually very quiet, and that's fine. It should be prescribed to those who are contemplating whether they're in love, or whether the hot passion of early love can last. It, too, involves song lyrics as historical proof that rhyming philosophers have thought deeply about those questions. I've only posted there three times this year, but I really like it. I have it set so people can read from the beginning on. There are fewer than 20 posts altogether, but they're good ones!


Then there's one orphaned blog at SandraDodd.com/blog that wasn't easy to edit, and kept getting irritating spam.

This is the full disclosure of my blogs, once I note http://www.myspace.com/SandraDodd, where I don't write much, but where I admire photos of Holly and other young friends.

Below there's a question about something in a photo. The object is here and here.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Holly and Ben



This is Holly and Ben doing a dance, kind of based on a noise/gesture combo he made up last spring to make me laugh when I was getting depressed. It still makes me laugh, even without the sound.

Holly did the gif file. And Holly took the photo of Ben below.

I like Ben a bunch, and I like Holly's photos of him. In the SCA he's Dermod.



More of Holly's artsy photo work is here:
sandradodd.com/holly

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Marty in El Paso

I talked to Marty a bit ago, and he was in El Paso. Yesterday, he was in Austin visiting Kirby. The day before yesterday, he was home.

Marty, Brett Henry and Julie McClure went to visit Kirby. They left 10:45 or so Sunday night and will be home tonight. I hope there will be some photos.

photos added a week or so later: