Progress and Change – Shaw
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10, 2023
23
10, 2023
Change is Coming
You can feel it in the air.
You can see it in the shifting of colors on the trees–shading from green to red to brown.
Shadows are lengthening as the sun shifts.
I’m sitting on my swing porch with a cup of tea. I can feel the change and at the same time dread it.
The constancy of seasonal changes can be comforting. If you live where leaves put on a show of color, nature supplies a master class in how change can be beautiful.
I definitely welcome the cooler temperatures after the sweltering summer we had.
The annual shift from Daylight Savings Time–that’s a major problem for me. My body protests the loss of an hour’s sleep and takes weeks to adjust.
I’m not a tree willingly changing color and shedding foliage. I’m a Texas tree that slowly fades to ugly, boring brown instead of glowing with reds, yellows, and oranges.
Grumbling and complaining, I remind myself there’s not much I can do about the weather or the time change except adjust my clothing, our thermostat, and our clocks.
I know Spring will roll around again and I will get back that hour of rest I lost. But the change tends to steal my peacefulness. It doesn’t have to.
A better approach to the change is with pliancy instead of frustration. Flexibility keeps our happiness steady. That’s why I take a cup of tea to the porch swing and relax.
Others recommend these three things when any change is stressful.
- Breathe –By breathing slower and more deeply from your stomach, you signal your nervous system to calm down when you can’t control the situation. Purposeful breathing allows you to calm down and think rationally.
- Smile – Smile even if whatever change has thrown your way is not funny. You’ll find a certain amount of detachment can lead to acceptance.
- Pray or Meditate – To refocus the mind.
Most importantly, remember that change is the only constant in this world. Whatever the catastrophe or circumstance, eventually it will change.
What about you? What strategies do you use when change stresses you?
20
10, 2023
New Puzzle Challenge
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
I have always enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. I cannot set one up during the school year because I will work on it to the exclusion of everything else.
I am actually pretty good at them, and I enjoy puzzles of all kinds. When I was visiting our grandsons this weekend, I encountered a new type of puzzle that was most challenging.
Alex loves trains. He has a set of tracks which he loves to put together. These tracks came in a box with a picture. While I was there, Alex decided he wanted the train tracks put together like the picture.
No problem, I thought as I got down on the floor and began to work.
I’m not sure whether it was my old eyes or my lack of spatial awareness but I could not make the train tracks look like the picture on the box.
The curves were going the wrong way and there were gaps in the track that did not match any available pieces. My daughter came to the rescue. She had watched her husband put the track together for Alex recently so she had an advantage. We finally got it all together and Alex enjoyed running the trains around the tracks.
When Alex tired of playing trains, Theo took over.
It was worth the team effort to make the track look like the picture.
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10, 2023
16
10, 2023
Dictionary Day
This day honors Noah Webster, the man who fathered the American Dictionary. It’s one of my favorite holidays because I love dictionaries.
As a child, I’d spend hours poring through the pages of my grandmother’s eight-inch-thick Webster’s New International Dictionary (of the English Language). It was a fertile resource for a blossoming logophile or, as I prefer to call myself – a wordsmith.
The ancient leather-bound book with its India-skin paper had leather alphabet tabs cut into the pages. The detailed illustrations and maps are gorgeous. There were diagrams, charts, and thousands of words.
With so many dictionary resources readily available online, it’s easy to believe a hard copy isn’t necessary anymore. I disagree. Every home should have at least one realio-trulio paper dictionary available.
All sorts of wonderful magical stuff can happen when you use a hardcopy dictionary instead of looking up definitions online.
Your finger glides over other words as it scrolls down the printed page. Words that you might never have seen right there at your fingertips. You can see a word’s origin and its root without clicking to a different screen for synonyms and antonyms.
Yes, all that’s included with online dictionaries, but do you scroll down to discover the rest of the entry?
Probably not.
Understanding meaning is important. I learned that from my British antiques business partner. His British accent and my Texas drawl tended to muddle discussions and complicate purchases for the shop when the English and American definitions didn’t match. The King’s English Dictionary he gave me saved us many times over.
Spelling can be a problem no matter what type of dictionary you use. I stump spell checkers 90% of the time. Plus, spell checkers don’t give definitions.
I keep 20,000 WORDS by Louis A. Leslie side-by-side with my dictionary for fast lookup of commonly misspelled words. This little jewel gets me through my writing day.
While you may never love dictionaries as I do, I still recommend you have a hard-copy dictionary handy. You never know what you might learn.
13
10, 2023
Peace
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
As I met with friends on Zoom to pray this morning, Honor curled up on my lap asleep,
She is blissfully unaware of all that is going on in the world.
Furthermore, she trusts that I will take care of her regardless.
I want to be more like Honor.
I want to rest completely in God who cares for me and has the world in His control.
9
10, 2023
Columbus Day – Indigenous People’s Day
Which day do you celebrate?
The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus believed he’d reached East Asia when he sighted Cuba and thought it was China. When the expedition landed on Hispaniola, he thought he’d found Japan.
Columbus’s discovery introduced Europeans to the New World, which led to cultural exchange, commerce, and exploration, and eventually to the discovery of the real westward route to the Indies.
His accomplishment has been celebrated as Columbus Day since the 18th century and became a U.S. federal holiday in 1937.
But Columbus Day and the man who inspired it also generated controversy.
Many argue that Europeans got land, slaves, and gold, while the natives were dispossessed, enslaved, and infected the indigenous people in the lands they claimed.
Protests of Columbus Day celebrations resulted in the creation of Indigenous People’s Day in the 1990s, but that did not solve the controversy. Only twenty states have adopted the new Indigenous People’s Day as a holiday. The other states ignore the designation and have various other celebrations on the day.
Italian Americans honor their heritage, not Christopher Columbus. Various Oklahoma tribal governments designate the day as Native American Day, naming it after their tribe.
Whatever you choose to call the day or celebrate, I will always think about the three ships Columbus sailed, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, and remember the jingle I learned in school.
Christopher Columbus sailed in the ocean blue in 1492.
Turns out the jingle comes from a poem by Winifred Sackville Stoner, who was known for poems, rhymes, and mnemonic jingles to aid in the recollection of information.
The poem “The History of The U.S.” is found in Yankee Doodles: A Book of American Verse, edited by Ted Malone and published in 1943 by Whittlesey House (NY and London). You can read the entire poem here. It’s quite long and covers American history through WWI.
Today, I’m celebrating that my teachers never made me recite Stoner’s entire poem.
6
10, 2023
Really Good Day
A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
Because I teach many different grade levels, I have several different systems of positive reinforcement for student behavior. For the youngest students, ages 3-4, I have found stamping their hands to be most effective. I have a paw print stamp which works perfectly since we are the Panthers. It becomes part of their lining up routine. They put their hand on their head and if they have done a good job in music, they get a stamp.
The Kindergarten through sixth grade classes each have a sticker chart. When the class is doing well, I put up a sticker. When the chart is full (35 stickers) the class gets a free day. They choose what they want to do. Usually, they go outside. This process usually takes about 6 weeks and they really enjoy it.
I also have individual rewards – happy notes – that I give to students who are especially cooperative and helpful. I am surprised at how much these happy notes mean to them.
One day I looked down and noticed I had inadvertently stamped my pants.
Then I realized I had a sticker on my palm.
I must have been behaving very well so I wrote myself a happy note. It was a really good day!
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10, 2023
2
10, 2023
My Favorite Dog Breed
Old English Sheepdogs are not seen much in Texas, but they’re my favorite breed. The OES loves people and can be quite the clown. They are good-natured and sociable, enthusiastic and bumptious.
Our first OES, Obadiah came to live with us after our move from New England back to Texas and we’ve had one ever since.
Obie never quite understood he was a dog. Our daughter treated him like the little brother she never had. Such a kind gentle soul. He never once complained or growled.
The sad part of owning an OES is their short life span of ten to twelve years.
When we lost Obie, we found Micah at a breeder in Colorado. Our furry bundle of energy arrived for Christmas and filled our sad hearts with fun and laughter.
Micah took it in stride when our granddog Bernie came to live with us when our son went off to seminary. A short time later, a rescue OES, Rhinestone, joined us. They made quite the trio walking through our neighborhood. 
We lost Micah and Bernie (at age 17) close to the same time. Rhinestone, already skittish from her early life, became even more attached to me. When we had hardwood floors installed, she went to stay with my sister-in-law, who had recently lost her dog. Two lovely ladies found one another and became best buds. Rhinestone went to live with Keta.
I wrote about their story in The Dog Next Door.
After Rhinestone, we were dog-less for a time. we hated it and began yet another OES search.
Finally, we found a breeder in Florida with a litter ready to go to furever homes.
Tobias (Toby) arrived one hot summer day. It was love at first sight.
A couple of years later Buster, a twelve-pound Maltese, came to live with us. And once again we were a big happy family. Buster loved to sit on my lap and help me write.
When Toby crossed the rainbow bridge, we thought Buster would be a fine only dog. But the three of us missed having a big guy around.
After another OES search, we found Micah’s breeder in Colorado had puppies ready. We picked up Finnegan MacCool on a crisp October day. Buster was delighted to share his bean bag again.
Sadly, we lost Buster in 2021 and now Finn is an only dog. It’s working fine. Finn misses Buster but Buster bossed him around and wouldn’t share my lap willingly. Now Finn has my lap all to himself. He’s a happy dog.
