Teething

Miss M is trying to get things straight. It was news to her that she used to put toys in her mouth when she was a baby and teething. We had to go through every one she knows: friend C chewed on toys when he was a baby, Daddy chewed on toys when he was a baby, Tim chewed on toys when he was a baby . . . she finally got it and added, "and when dragons are babies, they chew on people's heads!"

No More Windows

I've taken the plunge and installed Linux Ubuntu. I didn't even partition my drive so I could fall back on Windows if I run into a software I can't install - I erased my whole hard drive and started over installing just Ubuntu.

So far so good. Mostly, it's as easy to set up, configure, install things as Windows. It recognized my printer and internet automatically (easier than WinXP). My main concern was that I wasn't sure I'd be able to listen to my beloved WDAV classical streaming MP3 station, but I installed the "codec" that allows the computer to read MP3 files (a copyrighted format) and it works - I'm listening now!

And blogging is apparently no problem.

I Need a Vacation

I need a ticket to Narnia. That's what I think every time I hear Roar of Love by Second Chapter of Acts.



I don't know of any music that so captures any story or place - I think this CD is even more effective than any of the movie variations. I can't believe that every time I see this CD brought up, all anybody can say about it is, "It's really dated."

I wish they had used the song Roar of Love as the ending credit song when they made the Narnia movie. It would have been a nice nod to this effort, and provide a sense of continuity - that this story isn't just for our time, but has affected people in the past, too. The datedness would have communicated that perfectly as the movie closed.

Connecting the Dots

"...The things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. ...This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately."
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland

"To us a man's character is that which is peculiarly his own; it distinguishes each one from the rest. To the Greeks it was a man's share in the qualities all men partake of; it united each one to the rest. We are interested in people's special characteristics, the things in this or that person which are different from the general. The Greeks, on the contrary, thought what was important in a man were precisely the qualities he shared with all mankind."
- Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way, Chapter XVI: The Way of the Greeks

(Both excellent books, by the way.)

Book Manners and Creative Art

Miss M has a definite pattern when it comes to reading books, especially when they're new. I read the book aloud twice. Then she says, "Will you go away, please?" because she wants to read it herself. (And her readaloud version is always way more interesting than mine.)

. ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~

She painted with watercolors this afternoon. Most of her time was spent spreading water around on her paper and dipping a paper towel into the jar of water. She called me over when she was done.

Her paper was a puddle of muddy-looking water dripping off the table and covered with blobs of soaked, disintigrating paper towel mush. But she was proud of it. "Hang it up, Mommy!"

Not Sure Who to Vote For?

Then do what I did - take USA Today's Candidate Quiz.

I didn't match with Huckabee or Ron Paul, but I didn't match with Hilary Clinton, either.

Bibliophile in the Making

The other day Miss M was in my room keeping me company while I did my schoolwork. She found a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring on my desk, which she took down and began to "read". I saw her out of the corner of my eye, and did what any cautious book-lover would do when one of his prized possessions is picked up by a four-year-old child.

"Put it back, please, Miss M."

She replied, as any four-year-old child would, "But I want a book to look at."

It so happens that she has a whole shelf full of her very own picture-books in the family room; so I quite reasonably asked, "Why don't you look at one of your books?"

Upon which, without hesitation, she replied, "No, I need a real book."

Needless to say, she got to keep the book, and did just fine with it.

What I'm thinking about today

"There are branches of learning and education which we must study merely with a view to leisure spent in intellectual activity, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas these kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary and exist for the sake of other things."

- Aristotle, Politics

"Play, by demanding all of our energies and skill to perform either badly or well, takes us out of ourselves. We are at our best when we are looking at something besides ourselves.

...

Aristotle...meant that play was something for its own sake, something that need not exist, something that was free.

...

The closest most people come to pure contemplation is in the beholding of a good game, in being fascinated with the play, the strategy, the uncertainty of its results."

- James V. Schall, On the Meaning of Sport

"What is the very best thing, I ask in conclusion, that can happen to a young man or woman during his years in college? Earning a degree? I doubt it. The very best thing that can happen to us is, as Socrates put it in The Apology, “to know that we do not know.” And this knowing that we do not know is a very active kind of a thing, it is something that wakes us up, gives us a thirst, as it were, for being, for what is."

- James V. Schall, What Think You of the Peacock's Tail?

Miss M's New Game

You take a sheet of paper and cut it up into little pieces. Then you throw it up into the air - and, as it comes down, you dance in it.

I think she's been watching a little too much of the Nutcracker ballet!

Cleaning Glass Fireplace Doors

I searched online for an environmentally safe way to clean the soot off our fireplace/woodstove doors and found this page. I tried the ashes and newspaper, and it worked great! The soot almost dissolved. We're going to burn candles in there more often, and now we'll be able to see the flame!