A Prayer for Courage

A Prayer for Courage
by Grace Noll Crowell
God, make me brave for life,
Oh, braver than this!
Let me straighten after pain
As a tree straightens after the rain,
Shining and lovely again.
God, make me brave for life,
Much braver than this!
As the blown grass lifts let me rise
From sorrow with quiet eyes,
Knowing thy way is wise.
God, make me brave. Life brings
Such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight,
Help me to see aright,
That out of the dark comes light.

Thank You Friend

Thank You Friend
by Grace Noll Crowell
I never came to you, my friend,
and went away without
some new enrichment of the heart;
More faith and less of doubt,
more courage in the days ahead.
And often in great need coming to you,
I went away comforted indeed.
How can I find the shining word,
the glowing phrase that tells all that
your love has meant to me,
all that your friendship spells?
There is no word, no phrase for
you on whom I so depend.
All I can say to you is this,
God bless you precious friend.

This too will pass

This, too, will pass. O heart, say it over and over,
Out of your deepest sorrow, out of your deepest grief,
No hurt can last forever -- perhaps tomorrow will bring relief.
This, too, will pass. It will spend itself -- its fury
Will die as the wind dies down with the setting sun.
Assuaged and calm, you will rest again,
Forgetting a thing that is done.
Repeat it again and again, O heart for your comfort:
This, too, will pass as surely as passed before
The old forgotten pain, and the other sorrows
That once you bore.
As certain as stars at night, or dawn after darkness,
Inherent as the lift of the blowing grass,
Whatever your despair or your frustration,
This, too, will pass.
-- Grace Noll Crowell

Poems

I've run onto this poet lately, and have been really touched by her poems, so I am going to share some over the next few day, like it or not. (Or whether or not I have already imposed them upon you)

Quiet Things
by Grace Noll Crowell
These I have loved with passion, loved them long:
The house that stands when the building hammers cease,
After wild syncopation, a sane song,
A tree that straightens after the winds' release,
The cool green stillness of an April wood,
A silver pool, unruffled by the breeze,
The clean expanse of a prairie's solitude
And calm, unhurried hours -- I love these.
I have been tangled in the nets too long;
I shall escape and find my way again
Back to the quiet place where I belong,
Far from the tinseled provinces of men.
These will be waiting after my release:
The sheltered ways, the quiet ways of peace.

Be Still My Soul

I tried to schedule this post for later, but blogger refused for some reason, and insisted it had to be posted NOW. So, here it is.

I like this hymn, a lot. (The whole poem has a couple extra stanzas not in our hymn book.)

Be Still, My Soul
Words: Katharina A. von Schlegel
Translated: Jane Borthwick
Music:Jean Sibelius

1. Be still, my soul:
the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently
the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God
to order and provide;
In every change,
He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul:
thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways
leads to a joyful end.

2. Be still, my soul:
thy God doth undertake
To guide the future,
as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence
let nothing shake;
All now mysterious
shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul:
the waves and winds
still know His voice
Who ruled them
while He dwelt below.

3. Be still, my soul:
when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened
in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know
His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe
thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul:
thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness
all He takes away.

4. Be still, my soul:
the hour is hastening on
When we shall be
forever with the Lord.
When disappointment,
grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot,
love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul:
when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed
we shall meet at last.

5. Be still, my soul:
begin the song of praise
On earth, believing,
to thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him
in all thy works and ways,
So shall He view
thee with a well-pleased eye.
Be still, my soul:
the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds
shall but more brightly shine.

Liquid pencil

Everything I write needs a lot of editing. Easy enough when I am typing on a computer. I just backspace like crazy.

But at work, I have to write a lot of things by hand. I like my mechanical pencils, but they tend to be smudgy, and I can't write most things in pencil.

The kids ran onto the new Liquid pencil at an office supply, and liked it so much that they requested it for Christmas.

This is my new friend at work. It looks like a pen, but erases well. After a while it becomes permanent too, which can be both a plus and a minus, when I wish I could go back and erase, but means I can use it on permanent documents.

It has a couple of downsides. It doesn't write as smoothly as smoothly pens, and has to be held at particular angle, unlike pencils, and the pressure of writing with it tends to leave an indentation even after it is erased. But those are my only complaints.

The students at school are all impressed with it. "Whoa! you can erase?!?"

And I've even gotten it at my local supermart, and not had to hunt it down at an office supply. Or you could get it pretty cheap at Amazon.

Maybe not everyone feels the need to erase all the time, but it sure helps me out!

decisions, decisions

Interviewed with Jordan first. She talked to my references first and was so excited to have someone with experience that it felt like she was going to offer me the job before I even had the interview.

But Jordan is so far north. And even time I pass one of the new schools, I think, hey, I wish I could work there.

Richard did so much leg work trying to find the person to talk to in Alpine (which I already knew) that I finally gave in and gave him the contact information for the person. She gave a somewhat encouraging email, so I gave in and called.

And got what I considered to be a "yeah, yeah, stop bothering me" response.

But then they asked for an interview, which was very positive. And I realized that what I took to be a "leave me alone" response was more of a "yes, sorry, we are getting to people as fast as we can"

And I won't ever know for sure if my calling triggered the interview or not, but the timing is good either way.

But I kinda wish Lakeview, with its closeness, its familiarity, the part time schedule that I could make match up with the kids' schedule. I wanted a new administration, but they are getting one. So, I'm sad.

For convenience sake, I would like the school right behind Lakeview. But as that is attached to the special needs school, they are likely looking for someone with different experience than I have currently.

Alpine offered me a job in the interview. But they can't tell a location until maybe July, which is nerve racking. After much debate I decided to trust that Alpine will work out somehow, and accepted that job, and sent an email turning down Jordan (though they sent a follow up email offering to work something out).

Lakeview's SLP fell through, and so they are contracting with the other company that I work for, though my contract with the current company probably still precludes staying at the school, but just switching companies. Either way it makes me feel pretty unsettled.

So confusing.

as He said!

Matthew 28:6 He is not here: for He is risen, as He said.

The quotes I have heard today leave off the "as He said." But the rest of the quote would ring in my head.

I think that part is important.

Jesus told his disciples He would rise again, but it seems they had trouble believing Him. So the angel reminded them, this is -as He said.

I wonder how many things there are in my life that might need an angel to say "as He said" before I believe?

Zenni Optical

I started scrolling through old posts to see if I had ever posted about Zenni Optical, but why does that matter?

I tell people about them over and over, so I can post it over again if I want to, especially since I can't remember the first time.

I have gotten my glasses from Zenni Optical for years now.

I love that I can get a decent pair of glasses for under $20 shipped, and I think everyone should know about it.

The prescriptions have been right, and they hold together as well as glasses that I have paid much more for.

I've read some online reviews of people having trouble with their support, but since I've never contacted support, that hasn't been a problem for me (I rarely contact anyone's support, so I rarely have opinions on that)

They have recently updated their website, and I haven't really used the new one much, so I don't know how user friendly it is.

You do need to have them adjusted somewhere, but I just walk into a Lenscrafters or other vision place, and they have adjusted them for free. With more people buying glasses online, they may be getting testier about that, but it has worked for me so far.

Any questions?

Intiut review

I used Quicken for over a decade, but got frustrated when they started "sunsetting" previous versions after only two years, turning off the sync with the bank feature. I hated that they were forcing me to pay for an upgrade when what I was using was meeting my needs just fine, I never wanted the new features that just complicated the system.

Just rude I say.

Also used turbo tax for years, great program. Then I missed a filing deadline last year, and they trashed all the data that I had entered. How hard would it have been to keep the data so that I could print?

Again beyond rude.

So Intuit has lost my business for both of those.

I was using Quicken online, but when they bought out Mint, they closed out Quicken online. I guess that should have come as no surprise.

I'm using Mint a little now, but under protest. I just hope that Mint survives the handicap of being under the Intuit umbrella.

This review would be scathing if I had actually finished it when I started it months ago. But the scathing has gotten lost, and just the sure knowledge that their business practices are cutthroat intentional obsolesce.

Of the financial software I have tried, I like Mvelopes the best, but it was also the most expensive. I've pretty much gone back to just using an excel spreadsheet.

Chore Charts

Yep, time to post, been three or four months since the last one.

We've been using a fairly basic chore chart that i got from idea door.
It worked for a long time, but really needed updating.






I looked at various free charts you can get online, but even the "customizable" ones weren't quite what I wanted.

I finally decided to make my own, but then I had so many options that I got bogged down and didn't know where to start.

I did finally get something done and up on the wall.

I just saw this hyper cute chart and wished I had seen it before I made mine.

But really, where would I put that giant board? Mine attach to the pantry door with tape. And when I clicked on the list of chores she so nicely provided, it was nearly the same as my own chore pictures.

Hmm, did I finish the charts before or after the power connector broke in this computer?

Looks like after, cause they aren't on this computer, and I'm way too lazy to either take a picture or to switch computers either.

This post is too long anyway. I'll hunt down pictures for a later post.

Christmas Magic

Santa doesn't really figure into our Christmas celebrations, a subject for a different post, someday somewhere.

One of my kids was talking about how his friends were wishing that they were younger because the magic is gone now that they don't believe in Santa anymore.

He thought that it was sad to have lost the magic just because of loss of belief in a mythical figure.

(Just curious, how many people stop believing in Santa because of a gift they didn't get?)

But this same child has been very distressed because his aunts and uncles have been making changes to how we celebrate Christmas.

For him much of the magic has been lost because we no longer all willing to all pack ourselves into a single house overnight as part of our Christmas celebration.

He doesn't recognize, nor would he listen if I told him, that part of the magic is lost for both him and his friends, not because of loss of Santa, nor loss of sleepovers, but just because they are teenagers.

Year round school?

Wow, been a while.

I was in a meeting with a parent beginning of the year where she was saying that she was just waiting for Utah to get with the program and go with year round school.
I think we all made some inane comments about agrarian culture inspiriting school schedules or air conditioning complicating matters or something, and went on our way.

But it stewed around in my brain a bit, and I remembered something about year round school as something Utah had tried and given up on. So I did about 40 seconds of research. Some '08 ksl article about with Huntsman saying "Why would we let schools/teachers sit idle 3 months a year" A whole page dedicated to
stop year round schools. And trib article about how there are less than half as many year round schools as there were 15 years ago, none in my district. Comments got rather heated on both sides on that one.

Gather most folks really don't care for the year round bit generally.

The "sit idle" comment rattled around a bit, and came out with this. Huntsman had the state move to a four 10 work week, because having buildings and workers sit idle 3 of 7 days in a week saves money.

Maybe the sitting idle ain't such a bad thing, for building, or for peoples.

Stablizing rockets.

I just remembered that I ran onto this when I was packing up the rocket stuff.
I was frustrated with how to figure out just where the center of gravity should be, without doing complicated drawings or math. This page explains why you want the center of gravity in front of the center of pressure:http://www.midsouthrockets.com/tech_004.php but it doesn't provide any easy answers.
There is this option: Buy a copy of RockSim from Apogee Components and "build" your rocket there.

But looking at the basic Estes rocket info that came with an Estes' kit I found their easy answer.
The swing test.
Put a string around the rocket at the point that it balances (with everything in place, including an unused engine) and swing it around your head. If it goes straight, you're good. If it doesn't, put some weight in the nose cone (or take some out) and adjust until it does swing straight.

So there you go for next time.

Hit the ground running

Watched a Mythbusters about idioms, such as "you can't polish poop" (which it turns out you can), and "hit the ground running."

They found that whether they were running, or biking, or in a car, literally hitting the ground running slowed them down compared to a standing start.

For some reason that reminded me of some motivation thing I remember from somewhere about how lions have to hit the ground running first thing in the morning, and outrun the slowest zebra, or they will go hungry. And that zebras have to hit the ground running or they will be food. So to make it in this world, we have to run for all we are worth.

Aside from the fact that hitting the ground running isn't helpful speed wise, I have to wonder if the writer had ever seen lions? They sleep like 20 hours a day. And zebras mostly stand around and graze. The whole running thing is pretty infrequent. So there, dumb motivational thingy.

But that reminds me. I just read a Time article that said that humans are really good at long distance running. In fact, we can outlast nearly every other animal on the planet on distance running in searing heat. There is an African tribe that chases antelope until the animal is so exhausted that it just give up.

Weird.