Versatile (chaotic?) blogger

Shan gave me an award. Cool! You can read the meme rules and stuff on her blog. I am breaking all the rules except the fourth one, which requires me to tell you--my versatile (chaotic?) audience--seven random things about me.

1. I can't resist a blog meme.

2. I've been neglecting my blog and various other online spheres because my attitude is not the best since we lost Tom. It feels rude to jump into someone else's life and spew negativity.

3. I have not been neglecting Pinterest because, there, I can tuck all my negativity in one place and those who don't want to see it don't have to follow that pinboard.

4. About the time Frank got some relief from the pinched nerve that had been making his right arm alternately numb and painful, my right arm started wigging out. It aches, my fingers tingle, it makes me cranky. But ice helps, so I am so far resisting going to the doctor.

5. After a couple decades of settling for inadequate garments, I have found a style of bra that fits me, meets my strict requirements for comfort, and is reasonably attractive. I periodically buy a new one as older ones wear out, so I currently have this bra in four colors in varying states of repair. I don't care that each new one is $60. I would pay more than that. It is pure joy to know it will fit (without having to try it on, which I hate), feel as good as a bra can feel, and work under all my clothes. If Wacoal ever stops making this bra, I will cry bitter tears.

6. As of two weeks ago, I have no children. (Chloe turned 18!!!)

7. My favorite ice cream is rocky road, but I always, always dish it into a tall glass and pour milk over the top to make a quicky milkshake. The nuts left at the bottom of the shake are my favorite part!

A Must Read for newbie unschoolers

A few weeks ago, Chloe and I attended a talk by Blake Boles. He's a staffer at NBTSC and an advocate for unschooling and teen (ad)ventures of any stripe. During his talk, he recommended Drive by Daniel H. Pink. I put a hold on it at the library and have been waiting my turn.

Well, I started reading it tonight, in between trick-or-treaters and football plays. In the first few pages, I found all the reassurance I would have needed back when I was a newbie unschooling mom.

You should read the book. But I think this is too important not to summarize.

In the 40s, Harry Harlow and a couple of other researchers gave some rhesus monkeys some mechanical puzzles to play with. Their intent was to give the monkeys time to get acquainted/comfortable with the puzzles before they began testing their ability to learn to work the puzzles. They thought that without basic-needs motivation (food, water, sex) or extrinsic motivation (punishment or rewards), the monkeys wouldn't learn. What happened instead was that the monkeys learned to work the puzzles just fine, thank you very much. Just because it was fun to work the puzzles. Just because they were curious.

This was a major psychological and cognitive discovery: intrinsic motivation not only exists but works.

But what really surprised the researchers, and what would have made a big difference to my nervous newbie self, was that when they began their formal study of the monkeys' learning and began to introduce rewards, the monkeys' performance got worse. Harlow wrote, "Introduction of food in the present experiment served to disrupt performance..."

For some reason (and maybe Pink attempts to explain it later in the book), our educational system has completely ignored this research. Our educational system is entirely based on extrinsic motivation.

But unschooling? Unschooling is entirely based on intrinsic motivation.

Q.E.D.

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Update 11:09 p.m. -- A friend directed me to this cool animation based on Drive.

Pulling up my socks

When I get into a funk, I always throw everything I can think of at it, which makes it hard to tell if one of those things in particular is what helped, or a combination of things, or a hormone shift, or just pure coincidence. That means I can't get on here and share with you Ronnie's Sure-fire Cure for the Blues.

I can share my most recent collection of things I've tried. Something in here has helped!

Morning Pages which often include...
The Work

Green smoothies for breakfast and...
Huge reduction in gluten and refined sugar consumption as part of...
A new diet that is about 50% raw

Daily #gratitudelist post on Twitter

Going to the pool with Emma once or twice per week

A limited surrender to what I cannot change
An attitude of acceptance toward what I need and what I don't have energy for right now

Body love, body unschooling

In response to this piece about the reality of The Biggest Loser, my friend Miryam said this (among other things):

"Love the body you live in, people."

It got some thoughts swirling: Love my body. Love where I live. Love what is. It sounds like unschooling. I could unschool my body.

Wait. Unschool my body? What would that look like?

If I were going to unschool my body...
I would make lots of cool stuff available to it (gear and hikes and massages).
I would spend time with it.
I would have fun with it and do things it enjoys.
I would enjoy it.
I would provide it with a fun and colorful variety of foods.
I would feel good about it.
I would feel good.

I would not disparage it.
I would not feel ashamed of it.
I would not compare it to other bodies in negative ways.
I would not abuse it.

And I absolutely would not let society or any individual tell me what it should be.

(Update 7/2/10: Tara Wagner continues exploring this concept here.)

Breasts reduced

Can't wait to see the spam I get with a title like that. :-)

MJ lost 8 pounds at Not Back to School Camp. At her height and weight, that is a lot. I noticed it right away and still get a little jolt when I look at her. She says she ate plenty there, but the vegetarian food, lack of fat and sugar, and constant activity took the pounds off.

We had a little conversation about it this morning.

Me: How do you feel about losing the weight?
MJ: It freaks me out a little.
Me: To look in the mirror, you mean?
MJ: Nooo. I don't look any different.
Me: Yeah, you do. [MJ goes off to look in our full-length mirror] Maybe it came off your breasts.
MJ: Well, that's not good!

I love her attitude. It's a marked contrast to my own adolescence, when I went around ashamed, with shoulders hunched as I tried to hide my breasts. It took years to get over that, and I still have my hangups. I am more comfortable all covered up, for instance. But I enjoy my body now, and I have some friends who are encouraging me (leading by uninhibited example mostly - Dana!) to let it all hang out reveal tiny glimpses of skin.

So, when MJ says she would hate to lose a cup size, I am amused and very happy for her and just a little envious. I know there's a big debate going on about the sexualization of "our" young girls. I'm staying out of the debate. As always, I prefer to respond to the reality of the young women I'm living with rather than some nebulous statistical group. And what I see in my kids is a healthy enjoyment of their own bodies. I see them embracing sexuality as part of their identity.

That's exactly as it should be.

Beauty tips for people who don't care

I am not a girly sort of girl. I think I am plenty feminine, but I have never cared much for makeup, lotions and potions, eyelash curlers, hair curlers, curling irons, flat irons, and the like. Until recently (when my hair got long enough to cause a chill if I leave it wet), I didn't even own a hair dryer, having long since donated my old dusty one to MJ.

But I do have some little tricks that I have learned/developed/adopted over the years. Here are a few of them.

• Quickie hair defrizzing. I have a tendency to get hangnails, so I put body butter on my hands most mornings. When I'm done, I run my hands over the top of my hair. It flattens down most of those flyaway strands.
• Quickie moisturizing. I have had brief periods where I faithfully moisturized my bod each day. It is kind of a pain. Lately, what I've discovered is that exfoliation does more to smooth and moisturize my skin than any of the goop I've tried. Instead of soap or shower gel or body wash, I use a sudsing body scrub on one of those poofy scrub thingies (what the heck are those called?). It's time I would spend getting clean anyway, and my skin gets a quick buffing in the process.
• Freebie flossing. Maybe you don't think of flossing as a beauty routine, but it really is. Pink gums are ever so much more attractive than red ones! I keep a pack of those dental-floss-on-a-toothpick dealies in the car. I can floss one handed while sitting in traffic. And as a special treat, I get to tell the dentist that I floss four or five times a week. (At least I could until my need to commute went away. Replacing that routine with regular flossing is being a little hit or miss.)
• Inner glow. It's a little hokey, and Sam Levenson said it way better than I can, but being happy, smiling, having sparkling eyes, saying nice things, and just generally reflecting out the joy you have found in your life—those are the best beauty tips of all.