Best of 2009 Blog Challenge

Here we go, all in one post, 31 days' worth of the Best of 2009.

December 1 Trip

So many to choose from! Do I have to pick just one? Yes? Okay. I'll pick visiting family and attending Good Vibrations in San Diego in September.

December 2 Restaurant moment

Frank talked about our hot date at Ruth's Chris, so I'll pick a more routine but no less special kind of night. The four of us regularly dine together at Romio's in downtown Everett. We feel comfortable there, which makes for a relaxed and chatty family meal. Blissfully ordinary.

December 3 Article

Another tough choice, but the one that wins by virtue of coming to mind first is Why Don't Students Like School? Well, Duhhhh..." by Peter Gray.

December 4 Book

Fiction: "The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister. I reviewed it here.

Nonfiction: "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach.

December 5 Night out

Partying with Beth and Dana and Shonna and Jacinta and Robin at Casa Que Pasa. In memory, the night is one long laugh.

December 6 Workshop or conference

LIFE is Good, Vancouver, WA, May 2009. It was an exceptional weekend. MJ said, "It was as fun as camp!" High praise indeed.

December 7 Blog find of the year

Linda Hessel's "navel gazing" blog, Cottonwood. I am thrilled to have another place to read Linda's thoughts.

December 8 Moment of peace.

The class I took in Vipassana meditation. The sessions were themselves calm and interesting and soothing, but the tools I learned there have provided many hundreds of peaceful moments, during and since, and many thousands more to come.

December 9 Challenge

Being laid off threw me for an emotional loop. Getting hired again has done it again. The whole unemployment cycle has been the proverbial growth experience.

December 10 Album of the year

No album (yet?), but it's The Greybeards that have really rocked my world. Making music with my friends is FUN.

Note: If you really want some album recommendations, check out Craig's Top 28 Moments in Music :: 2009.

December 11 The best place

Where the unschoolers are.

December 12 New food

I can't think of one.

December 13 Change you made to the place you live

We converted the homeschool room (itself formerly known as the diningroom) into a music room where the keyboard and guitars and amps can be in a constant state of readiness.

December 14 Rush

The whole frickin' year was a rush, let me tell you. But if I'm picking one specific rush, it would have to be learning to shoot a bow and arrow and actually hitting the target. I can tell that there will come a time when archery is a passion of mine, but for this year I just had the appetizer.

December 15 Best packaging

???

Oh, I know! The conference bag for Good Vibrations was mega-cool.

December 16 Tea of the year

The fruity stuff Gillian kept me supplied with while I was at her house earlier this month. Tea cozy!

December 17 Word or phrase

You probably know the old curse/blessing: May you live in interesting times. Well, I do.

December 18 Shop

Everett Optometry Clinic. I got new glasses! With this slick little sunglasses attachment! And trial hypoallergenic contact lenses!

It's been a long time without all of these things.

December 19 Car ride

I'd have to say it's the ones I don't have to take now that MJ is driving herself around. We are all loving her new independence.

December 20 New person

Nope, I can't choose just one, so I'll just give a shoutout to all the new babies in my world, especially Gabriella, Rudy, Jackson, Ryan, and Connor.

December 21 Project

Three-way tie here:

1. The Maier Family Cookbook, 2009 Reunion Edition. Sonya gets primary credit on this, but I'm proud of my desktop publishing contribution. I also ran the reunion Web site and organized lodging for the Marty Maier branch, all while preparing...

2. My "RATS in the House" talk for LIFE is Good. (RATS stands for Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support.)

3. The Greybeards performance at Good Vibrations.

December 22 Startup

Guadalupe's Coffee Roaster! (I'm the startup in this case; Dana has been selling her fine coffees for a long time.)

December 23 Web tool

Facebook. By all means, Facebook. It has filled a need I didn't know I had.

December 24 Learning experience

Life.

December 25 Gift

Friendship.

December 26 Insight or aha! moment

There were many. I'll go with Chloe's return to school and the chance it provided me to see what a mostly positive experience school can be when the student is there by choice and without pressure.

But I'm glad she's home again. :-)

December 27 Social web moment

Exchanging double entendres on Facebook was really fun.

December 28 Stationery

I love paper, but the only kind I use anymore is printer paper and notebook paper and sticky notes and the backs of envelopes. The Internet is my real stationery.

December 29 Laugh

Giggling with my girls. This happens with some regularity, so I can't pick just one time.

December 30 Ad

I hate commercials. But, okay, I like the one where the guys rent puppies to help them pick up girls. "Ohhhhhh, he's so cute!"

December 31 Resolution you wish you'd stuck with

Ahem. See here. It's not that I didn't stick with them, but my consistent application of these new habits is spotty.

Unconscious mutterings #361

I'm trying this out for the first time this week. Click here if you want to play.

1. Classified :: Biology


2. Praised :: Punished


3. Censored :: Lame


4. 2010 :: Ready or not


5. Lamp :: Worm (this makes perfect sense if you visit Moltara on Neopets)


6. Alternate :: Reality


7. Script :: Handwriting


8. Handsome :: Duck (NO idea!)


9. Eager :: Minds


10. Meeting :: Place

Literal minded? Me? Nah.

NYR #1: I love you because

I have a friend who went to a psychology/self-improvement seminar once. The facilitator had everyone write on a sticky note a negative trait about themselves that they wished to improve. My friend wrote, "Judgmental." Then they all stuck their notes to their shirts and wandered around chatting with each other. After a bit, the facilitator asked people to talk about what that had been like, having their worst failings exposed in that way. A man stood up and said, "I was feeling okay until I talked to somebody whose tag said 'Judgmental'!"

Well, another of my friends, Crystal, posted this to Facebook about me the other day:

[I] was given many gifts in 2009. One was a statement made by Ronnie Maier. I said, "Ya'll love me anyway..." She replied, "We love you because..."

Those 4-words birthed an entire new story for my world. It was a moment where I realized that people will love me for exactly who I am and some won't love me at all and that I don't really want those people to love me anyway. I want people to love me for everything I am and chose to be. I can be loved simply because I am me.

I've brought this here to my blog because I, too, am subject to judgmentalism. We all are. It is both critical to our survival and the most prevalent and pain-inducing of our human frailties. But I want Crystal's words here to remind me that even our smallest interactions can have a profound effect on other people. Whether that effect is good or bad is largely under our control. In this case (a comment on someone's Facebook status), I said something loving, and it mattered. That feels really good!

But I wonder how many times I've caused pain during one of those small interactions. I wonder how many times I've neglected to offer someone the benefit of the doubt the way I know I do with unschoolers. I wonder how many times I've failed to love someone because. I wonder how many times I've done these things to myself.

All this wondering has led to my first resolution for 2010. I want to muffle the critic in my head, or at the very least disconnect her from my mouth. It comes down to a simple intention: Be kinder.

My how Christmas has changed

MJ started receiving "Merry Christmas" text messages at 6:28 a.m.

When we finished opening presents, we took turns getting on Facebook. A great many of our friends apparently did the same.

And in and around all this newfangled communication, the old-school telephone has been getting its usual good use.

I love how gadgets and gizmos and the Internet have given us so many more ways to say we love each other!

The evidence

One of my best gifts ever!

Awwww...

A Godiva breakfast

A pause in the frenzy

For remembrance

(Re)Action shot

The Doings Report

MJ and I went up to Vancouver Island to visit Effie, Fergus, Craig, and Gillian for a couple of days. It was a lovely little retreat. We were in the midst of a cold (for us) snap, so our walks on the nature trail adjacent to their house were frosty and intriguing, with fabulous ice sculptures decorating the rocky areas and ice thick enough to stand on over some (but not all) of the ponds and puddles. But the best times were indoors, where we played games and talked and laughed and made concoctions and just generally bonded. Craig posted some photos here.

We got back to the mainland ferry dock to find the MR2 had a flat. MJ and I got the car jacked up and the lug nuts loosened (aka, the hard parts), and then a BC Ferries guy showed up to help. This was fine and nice of him except he was the type to lecture while he worked. "You know, you oughta..." I would have preferred to finish up myself and skip the lecture.

We had a pretty quiet week at home after that, doing a little Christmas shopping and I don't remember what else. Then we had baking day in anticipation of a cookie exchange at Randi and Kauleen's house. Frank and I continued north from there for Greybeards rehearsals at the Anguishes' house. It was really fun to see everybody, and I fell in love all over again with making music.

(In case you hadn't heard, a variant of the Greybeards are playing at Zenmomma's Non-Con and 50th Birthday Bash Extravaganza. Alex and Jeff and Marc can't make it up, so Scotty and future Greybeards Matteo and Chris are filling in. Should be a fun party!)

The border guards are beginning to take mild interest in the frequency with which we cross the border. "When was the last time you visited Canada?" they ask, I suppose to see if we evince any nervousness about replying. Should I have warned them we're probably going back up for more rehearsal in mid-January? :-)

While we were gone, MJ and Chloe had a party. Yes, we knew about it, and I made a point of letting our neighbors know we knew about it. Seems like it ended up more girls' sleepover than the dreaded wild teen party.

This week has been about finishing up the shopping. I'm really pleased with how much Christmas we've been able to squeeze out of our limited budget, but it means I have too much wrapping to do! At some point, I started a little tradition of providing my nieces and daughters with a couple of small gifts to help them survive the endless hours until the official gift-opening time Christmas Eve. We're up to eight girls now, so that tradition alone leads to a lot of wrapping. Oh, well, I love it anyway!

Friday fill-in

1. No, we will NOT give up.

2. Much measuring and mixing is going on at the old kitchen table.

3. I watched the steam rising from the hot cup of coffee and thought: I can already tell this isn't going to be strong enough.

4. Almost everything is going to be okay.

5. I'll take two, thank you.

6. It's a messy, marvelous world, at least from my point of view.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to samples, tomorrow my plans include a cookie party and a light flirtation with a Canadian border guard, and Sunday, I want to rock with the Greybeards! And roll.

Dedicated to Christmas

Here's what today is all about at our house:

Rosie's Christmas Cookies
This is only the third time we've made these in more than 18 years in this house. That might have something to do with the fact that the first time we made them, MJ and Chloe were about 5 and 3. It was messy. I had to leave the room. By the time Frank and the girls were done, there was flour literally from ceiling to floor, and the rug in our breakfast nook (where most of the mixing took place) looked like a Destin beach. And then there was the girls' hair! Oy. We made paste in the bathtub.

A year or two ago, we were finally ready to try again. The girls were tidier and more skilled, and we had by then incorporated a big mixer into our kitchen (no more hand stirring!). It was a piece of cake, or rather, a full yield of some yummy cookies.

Nina's Chess Pie
I'm trying a simple variation on this one today. I'll let you know how it turns out.

And last but not least:



Tons and tons of wrapping. I'm not sure how we ended up with so much to wrap when we slashed our gift list down to the bone this year, but there you go.

This is why I believe in Santa Claus.

12 days of Christmas, MJ style

Have you been receiving your daily gifts from MJ? Check out her blog. (Hint: She loves comments!)

Our holiday letter

I am once again foregoing holiday cards. But here's the letter I would have included had I been sending them out, with the added bonus of links to more details.



"Let the unexpected changes of 2009 commence!"
Ronnie the Fate Tempter
January 9, 2009

Dear family and friends,

Holiday greetings from the Maier family! I'm sitting here, listening to the rain, thinking back over a challenging and amazing year and feeling glad so many of you were a part of it.

We started the year with both girls away from home, something that happens more and more as they get older, due in no small part to the fact that our unschooling lifestyle has led to our having friends all over the country. This time it was the Santa Cruz area, south of San Francisco, where they celebrated the arrival of the New Year at friend Harper's. Chloe (15) came home with bus-driver Frank soon after (he spent the interim sailing and having some alone time), but MJ (17) stayed forever, or so it felt to me at the time. She did some camping and learned to shoot large guns. Yes, really.

And then we hit a sad note with the death of Frank's dad, Marty. He had been pretty frail for a while and just sort of faded away, fortunately with all of his kids by his side. The girls and I joined Frank in New Orleans for the funeral, and Frank's brother Chuck's family came into town from Houston, too. It was a huge comfort to have the whole family together.

We got home and immediately (and I do mean immediately) learned that I had been laid off from my shiny new job at Microsoft. And thus we discovered that grief and stress really do not go well together.

Compared to those tough times, the rest of the year has been a lark!

After six years as an unschooler, Chloe decided to give the local high school a whirl. She took a variety of classes, ranging from guitar and drama to Algebra and science. It only took her a couple of weeks to get what she wanted out of the deal (mostly the assurance that (1) she can excel in school if she wants to, and (2) she hasn't been missing anything she cares about very much), but she chose to stay and complete the six-week grading period. Then, in true unschooler fashion, she promptly flew to Georgia to hang out with friends.

But before that, some other friends came to visit. This set a pattern for the year: we have had unschoolers here just about every month, and if we didn't, it was because we went to them. In fact, Frank and I just thought it through, and some number of us "went to them" in every month except February. We're ending the year in kind, with MJ and me just back from a visit to Vancouver Island and the girls planning to spend New Year's Eve in Salem, Oregon.

But we can stop anytime we want. Really.

It's been a big year for conferences. In April, a much-altered Chloe and I attended Sakura Con, Seattle's annual anime and manga convention. May brought our annual jaunt to Vancouver, Wash., for the LIFE is Good Unschooling Conference, and in September we traveled to the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego. Between the two conferences, I gave two speeches and hosted two funshops, and Frank sat on the Dads Panel in S.D., which all went well and was fun (at least after the fact), but the main high at these events is always the chance to connect with so many wonderful people who parent with joy and kindness. Not to mention the amazing kids they travel with!

We've also had several chances to connect with family this year, having hosted Frank's nephew Jerry, his wife, Cori, and their wonderful 3-year-old bundle of energy, Molly, for two weeks this summer, with Jerry's sister, Lori, and her husband, Bobby, in for a couple of (hot!) days at the end, all in advance of the big Maier Family Reunion in Manzanita. After that, my dad and his wife, Reneé, came for a too brief visit, sadly interrupted by my unfortunate need to complete a work contract.

And did I mention the unschooler party on Vancouver Island, or the numerous trips to Oregon, or MJ and Chloe's trip to South Carolina for another unschooler party? No? I must have been too tired!

As you can see, we've been very busy this year. It's probably a good thing I haven't been able to find much work; I wouldn't have known where to fit it in! Still, I'm very glad to report that it looks like I have a long-term contract lined up for the new year.

This is getting long, but how can I close without talking about the music... And the words (MJ completed NaNoWriMo). And the meditation. And the driver's license. And the babies (Gabriella, Rudy, Jackson, Ryan, Connor, and probably a couple more new friends all arrived in 2009). And then there's the college planning both girls are doing (MJ is thinking psychology and Chloe is thinking set design) and the hints we're getting about what the next several years might look like.

It's a lot, and it all adds up to a happy, healthy, busy life with more fun and adventure than we sometimes know what to do with. But that's not a bad thing to cope with, eh?

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and not too busy holiday season and a New Year that is very fun and as adventurous as you would choose it to be!

Ronnie and the krewe

False false prophets

A gift of "could this get any more ridiculous?"

"The 1,073 e-mails examined by the [Associated Press] show that [University of East Anglia] scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions." [emphasis mine]

E-mails stolen from climate scientists show pettiness, not fraud

Friday fill-in

Another gift of fill-ins



1. Good times: helping Effie and Fergus make reindeer and sheep poop.

2. Welcome to my home. Pardon the mess: it's the maid's lifetime off.

3. Sleigh bells ring somewhere, but it's not a sound we hear much in the Puget Sound area.

4. You may not know this about me, but I enjoy spending time with kids. Yes, really. Just a little.

5. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. I will probably return to work before the end of the year.

6. Am I happy to have paychecks in my future? Indeed. Am I happy my dedicated family time is coming to an end? Not so much.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to catching up with Frank and Chloe, tomorrow my plans include a Minshull family Christmas gathering, and Sunday, I want to wing it!

Linky linky

A gift of jumps

I'd prefer a female driver, thanks
"...males were involved in roughly 6.1 million crashes in 2007, of which more than 40,000 were fatal. By comparison, females were involved in about 4.4 million crashes and logged about 14,000 fatal car accidents."

Insecurity at the airport
"We have asked TSA to find the tools terrorists use and prevent both from boarding a passenger plane. We have unintentionally created an agency that now seeks efficiency and compliance more than any weapon or explosive."

Fun, it is
"Convert your English into Yoda-speak."

And speaking of Star Wars
"If they had Facebook in Star Wars..."

You can just rock me tae sleep tonight
"So as you curl up in bed tonight, think about the trillion tiny, thriving, vigorous bugs that are nestling with you all over your skin. They're there to help you. Really."

Wordless Wednesday

A gift of sneaking one in
(yes, I posted this late)

Engage

A gift of boldly going

Virgin Galactic unveils the VSS Enterprise:

Photo credit: Robyn Beck

The continuing mission

Phone home

A gift of insight

I caught a tiny bit of some self-improvement show on PBS last night, a woman talking about different emotional types. She was describing her "empath" type, which, hmm, sounded rather familiar, as did her "intellectual" type. (As a Gemini, I would be shocked if I ever fit into only one type.) Anyway, at one point she said, "Empaths always want to go home."

Well, that struck a chord. For years and years my reaction to a particular type of sadness (despair? discouragement? feeling like I can't be good enough?) has been a strong desire to go home. I say "I want to go home" out loud with some regularity, even whilst sitting in my own livingroom. This definitely does not refer to my childhood home. Instead, I think it's a desire for internal peace.

Abort... maybe...

A gift of wimping out

I started NaBloPoMo because I was in the mood to blog. Then it went away. Unless the writing mood returns tomorrow, I am calling it quits.

It's a good thing I'm blogging without obligation or I'd feel really lame right about now.

Okay fine

A gift of obligation

I don't feel like blogging, but I'll only "win" NaBloPoMo if I post every day.

There. Done.

P.S. Frank has put more effort into his post for today. Go see.

Friday fill-in

A gift of fill-ins



1. You get what you need. You just might find. If you try sometimes.

2. It's only right to be kind.

3. It's cheer-and-stress time.

4. My fear of dentistry is slightly ridiculous!

5. I feel more optimistic than I did the other day.

6. Here's your moment of Zen...goodnight!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to having my dental cleaning over with, and the series finale of Monk (*sniff*), tomorrow my plans include odds and ends, and Sunday, I want to watch the Seahawks win without freezing!

F-e-m-a-l-e power! F-e-m-a-l-e power!

A gift of girls

We saw some friends today. They have two daughters, 4 and 8. It was so fun! We spent a long time playing in the kids' area at the downtown REI, and then we spent some more time playing in the lobby of their hotel.

On Tuesday, MJ and Chloe and I went up to Bellingham to get acquainted with some people in the Bellingham Radical Unschoolers group (BRU-Ha-Ha). There were three little girls there, 5 and 4 and 18 months. We built with Kapla blocks and ran around the house, and MJ let the 4yo listen to her iPod. (Rudy was there, too, but I'll save him as a gift for another day.)

On Thanksgiving, we were at my mom's and got to spend time with three of my six local nieces (for a total of eight granddaughters for my mom). These three nieces are 10 and 6 and 3. We drank Martinelli's and ate fudge (among other things) and watched a movie.

We have for several years been surrounded by little girls. I love it! This is not to in any way disparage little boys, because I love hanging out with them, too. But I suppose because I have daughters, there is just something amazing about having so many girls in our sphere, some essentially female chemistry that gets going when we get so many of them together in one place or, as with this week, have visits with so many in quick succession.

Frank is perpetually outnumbered. I don't think he minds it too much.

A long day on the set of Castle

A gift of goofiness

Wordless Wednesday

New unschooling summer camp

A friend of mine is starting a new summer camp for unschooled teens. It will be in East Tennessee probably the first week of August 2010. For breaking news, go here.

Blessings and commandments

A gift of choices
The theme for National Blog Posting Month in December is mitzvah. Not being terribly knowledgeable about Judaism, I started by researching the word itself. According to Wikipedia, it has in more recent times come to mean an act of kindness. (Wikipedia actually says "act of human kindness," but I think we can assume the "human" part is understood.)

Traditionally, though, a mitzvah is a commandment of Jewish law. The plural is mitzvot, and the plural is appropriate because there are a lot of them.

So. If I am to participate in NaBloPoMo, I can write about gifts or rules. Hmm, let me think... ;-)

Actually, I don't find either theme terribly inspiring, so I'm not sure this is going to be my month for NaBloPoMo. But if I proceed, with 31 days to account for, I'll probably hit on both over the course of the month.

I might also loop in some posts using the prompts here. The prompt for today is Best Trip of 2009. I don't have to do that one because Frank took care of it. I'll just add that we also had a few impromptu drives to Oregon and British Columbia that were really fun and added a lot to our Joy Quotient for the year.

Friends who let you sleep over are a blessing indeed.