Random Weirdness from the World of Science

Posted by wkathenaon May 13, 2014May 13, 2014Leave a comment

Recently, I heard an interview with a scientist who has been researching aging and how to reverse the aging process in mice. I lovingly refer to this as “The Vampire” theory, because it is based on the premise that aging can be slowed, or even reversed, by transferring blood from young mice into older, genetically identical mice. I just can’t stop thinking about whether or not this is why vampires, in books and movies, always targeted the young, hip set? You never saw Edward Cullen skulking around outside the nursing homes! Just sayin’!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/science/young-blood-may-hold-key-to-reversing-aging.html?_r=0

My new favorite thing!

Posted by wkathenaon January 10, 2014January 10, 2014Leave a comment

Often times, by the time I get really into something it is already half-way toward becoming completely passé, Facebook, notwithstanding. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to share my new favorite thing: Vitamin String Quartet. My sons have enjoyed listening to their interpretations of modern pop music while working away on their homeschool studies. I love that it is 1) super innovative, 2) sounds like the classical music that I find so relaxing, and 3) it isn’t distracting while they work, though every once in a while someone belts out the chorus to whichever tune is playing! It’s become a bright ray of sunshine in the often-gloomy days of winter! Check them out on You Tube, Pandora, I Tunes or however you get your music these days!

A note to my fellow homeschoolers

Posted by wkathenaon November 6, 2013Leave a comment

This month, I sent the following email message to the homeschool families that I supervise. I like to send them monthly updates that hopefully engage, educate, and encourage them in their homeschool endeavors. When I went back and re-read the email, I felt like the message might be able to help even more than just my families, so I decided to post it here, as well. I hope you enjoy it!

Hello my fellow homeschoolers!

This month, I have some good news to share and some bad news. I like happy endings, so I will lead off with the bad news….November is here already! Do you know what that means? For many of us, it means the beginning of the holiday season, which is informally known, in our house, as the time of year when hardly a week goes by that we have all 5 weekdays to commit to school. Family commitments, church rehearsals, and holiday preparations creep into our weekday schedules and at least one day per week gets sacrificed for the good of the holiday cause! Heck, the week of Thanksgiving, we hardly get any school work done at all! I had to make peace with this fact of life years ago, but for many of us, who have just wrapped up the first quarter of our school year, it is hard to see our productivity plummet! Take steps now to have a plan for those days when you spend more time in the car than in the “classroom.” Remember that learning takes place in many different ways and now might be a great time to bring along the Fandex to help keep them learning along the way. Keep your bookshelves stocked by visiting the HSAP library so your students can keep their memories and their imaginations engaged even when you can’t give them your full attention. Lastly, I have found that game time is perfect for those days when you feel frazzled and your children are easily distracted from their school work. Games like Scrambled States, Math Cubes/Story Cubes, or even old fashioned Scrabble can help encourage learners who need a break from the books. Hopefully these tips can help you all as much as they have helped me in the past.

As far as the good news goes, I have finally moved! We have found a wonderful home that we hope to spend the rest of our earthly days in, celebrate graduations in, and where we will welcome grandchildren someday! Time will tell, but for now, we are blissfully blessed to call this new house our HOME.

In closing, I want to share a quote from Ann Voskamp about comparison. As homeschoolers, we often compare what we do in a day to what we think our children would be doing if they went to “regular” school, or what we accomplish in a day to what other homeschool families get done in a day. Comparison isn’t helpful to you or your family and Ann’s words strike the perfect tone when dealing with comparison. “Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else’s and you’ve just picked up a stick and bashed your own soul.” YOU are uniquely equipped to educate your child/children. Never allow the seeds of Doubt that comparison can plant in your soul to take root.

I believe in you! Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Dairy-free, Nut-free Apple Crisp Muffins

I made these the other day to usher in the long-awaited break in the unseasonably hot temps we had been experiencing this month. They are my new favorites for these reasons: #1) They are delicious and make your kitchen smell amazing! #2) They don’t even require a mixer to make them! So easy! #3) They are made out of whole foods without anything artificial added, and as my son pointed out, #4) you can lick the bowl because they don’t contain any raw eggs!!!

Old Beginnings

Posted by wkathenaon September 16, 20131 Comment

Okay, so I haven’t found someone to come over and actually clean my house for me. Those who know me would “out” me in a second for my meticulous desire for perfection. Translation: No one could ever do a good enough job for me to feel they were worthy of being paid to do a job that I could do better. Let’s just say that I like things a certain way and leave it at that. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in your work.

Lately, I have found myself lacking direction when it comes to deep cleaning my house. A few years ago I made weekly, monthly, and quarterly checklists for my housekeeping. I went through each room of my house listing out everything to be done in each room. Then I assigned those chores to either a weekly checklist, monthly checklist or quarterly. (ie: dusting and vacuuming get done weekly, while cleaning the curtains is more of a quarterly thing.) These checklists worked great for good long while, but lately, my time has been even more scarce and with the demands of prepping a house for sale this spring, I felt overwhelmed and ill-prepared to get the job done. Then I met the FlyLady.

On her website and Facebook page, she suggests taking 15 minutes a day to de-clutter and clean a particular space in the house. The “zone” for the week is the Master bedroom. Let me say that this strategy even has my husband helping clean and de-clutter his dresser and closet this week! WHAT?!?! It has been nothing short of a miracle! The big thing for me is that you do not bite off more than you can do in 15 minutes. You don’t say to yourself, “Alright, I’ll go upstairs and clean out my closet now!” Who wants to do that? Instead, you say, “I’ve got 15 minutes. I’ll go clean out my t-shirt drawer. When I’m done, I’ll treat myself to a latte!” Treat myself indeed! If only there was a Starbucks on the way to the Goodwill!

Those who have been around the organizing block a time or two, or perhaps just those of us who watch “Hoarders” on A&E, are not new to the sorting concept of Keep, Trash, and Donate. In our house, we use the “Love It,” “Use It,” “Someone else can use it” strategy. It seems to lessen the blow of giving away items my two young sons think are too precious to give away, but not cool enough that they actually want to play with them! Whatever your pile titles, apply them to this 15 minute tidy process and have at it!

Admittedly, for me, I struggle to stop at 15 minutes. As long as I don’t spend an hour cleaning, I feel like I’ve honored the spirit of the thing! Today, I conquered the side of my closet I typically avoid: the side with all the clothes that don’t currently fit me. It pained me to give away those Calvin Klein jeans I wore back in college, or the dress I wore to my first job interview after college (like I’m ever going to wear that again!), but in the end, as I hauled the three bags full of clothes downstairs for Goodwill, I felt so good, as if my load had been lightened and my shoulders weren’t as heavy.

Funny how facing those things which we hide in the back of the closet aren’t as bad as we think they are going to be; how those challenges that we feel we can’t possibly face…the “I’ll deal with that some other time” issues carry more weight and power as long as we avoid them. They are but shadows that lose their power and disappear once they are brought out into the light.

Thanks Flylady!

http://flylady.net/

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22FEB / 2012

God Is Near

So often we forget how close God is and how deeply he wants us to let him help us.

When I was a child, I was stubborn and strong-willed. I like to attribute it to the fact that my siblings and I were taught to be very independent: doing dishes, helping with the housekeeping, cooking for our selves, all at a young age. (It could also be that I am just naturally stubborn, too!) Often I would rebuff help as a three year-old might, “No, I can do it!” I would say to anyone who offered a helping hand. I am embarrassed at how long it took me to learn what my fierce independence had meant to those who tried to help me with the best intentions. I had been robbing them of the chance to show me friendship, kindness, and most importantly, I wouldn’t let them bless me! How selfish of me! I used to think I was being selflessby not needing others to stop what they were doing to help me, but I have learned over the years how deeply selfish it is to deny help when you need it most.

Recently, my husband was going through a crisis of faith. He had let the stresses of his job, his demands as a father to two young sons, and the weight of being the sole financial supporter for our family drive a wedge in between him and his Almighty Father. (Isn’t it funny how busy-ness and business are the same word?) When he would think about getting back into a prayer routine, he would feel defeated, wondering where he would find the time to read scripture or talk to God. Overwhelmed with the situation as he saw it, he would give up, affirming to himself that he was a failure, spiritually.

One afternoon, while walking our dog, I tried to offer some advice for how I had dealt with similar feelings or circumstances in my own life. He confided, “I just want you to understand that I am really struggling here. It isn’t that I don’t find your ideas helpful; it is just that I don’t even know where to start! I know what I should be doing, but I simply don’t do it, and then Sunday comes around and I feel terrible all over again!” I realized then, staring into my husband’s eyes, blazing blue as he looked into the setting sun over my shoulder, that what he needed was for me to recognize that he was drowning. He needed someone to swim out to him and save him.

It was then that I said, “Let me offer this last piece of advice. Stop trying to claw your way UP to God, and just let him come down to help you. He is as close as your breath, right behind you, and he is just waiting for you to ask for help.” My husband had been floundering around in the water, waving his arms, splashing, and making a ruckus as he tried to swim out to meet God, but what he needed to know at that moment, was that God doesn’t make us swim out to him, he walks on the water to help us where we are drowning.

A number of years ago, I was taking part in my first sprint triathlon. The first leg of the race was a .33 mile swim in a small lake. There were lifeguards in two small fishing boats posted at the perimeter to render aid as needed. Before getting into our groups for the start, the announcer instructed, “If you can not complete the swim or if you find that you are struggling, simply remove your swim cap, wave it in the air, and tread water until the boat gets to you. DO NOT panic. Relax, wave your swim cap and we will be there shortly. “ Sure enough, when my wave of swimmers had hit the water, less than ½ way through the swim leg, a woman behind me began to panic. She was screaming and splashing, creating a commotion in the water. I wanted to look back and make sure everything was okay, but I knew that I couldn’t help her, and that there were so many swimmers that I would only get churned up in the water if I stopped moving. I took a deep breath and refocused myself on the buoy just ahead of me for the turn around. As I was swimming back to the shore, I saw the woman in the boat with the lifeguards, safe and sound. In that moment, when she found herself struggling to keep her head above water, surrounded by other swimmers’ arms and legs, and she began to panic, surely she didn’t realize how close the lifeguards were to her. She must have feared she would be out there for a while before they could get to her. In reality, they were closer than she could have known from where she was out in the water. They were merely moments away.

God wants to help you. When you are exhausted, simply take off your swim cap, wave it in the air, and he will be there. Sometimes the simplest prayer is all it takes. Just cry out, “help!” God is as close as your breath. He hears your prayer. He will provide.