Websites

Free Rice
A vocabulary game which donates rice from the UN to Third world countries. Goes to a higher level when you get a bunch right. www.freerice.com

The Visual Thesaurus is a beautiful thing.
magazine@visualthesaurus.com I get the word of the day sent to my email and I pay $2.95 a month to be able to read the articles by English teachers and writers about language and to have unlimited mind mapping of words. You can get it delivered for free and check out one or two words without getting charged. This week was the word Oneric which means dream; when you click on dream you get words pinging out like stargazing, wool gathering, reverie, pipe dream....zzzzz. Best words: "touch", "light" is amazing.

Brain Games: try Dragger and Counterfeit at www.gamesforthebrain.com where classic works of art are broken up into puzzles and memory games.

Shape note singing website about the film Awake My Soul with a nice trailer of it- www.awakemysoul.com.

the first posting

Happy winter! Here's my first pair of felted mittens!

A Thought from St. Augustine

"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering."

-St. Augustine

Poem

The seemingly impossible tasks assemble:
sort, practically on an unconscious level;
find economic sustenance,
learn how to move safely in the face of danger
pay attention to the cadences of emotional life
take water, go to the source,
repair relationships, know what you know
listen to the stirrings of nature,
remember the culture, face mortality
and choose life- this is an old wifes' wisdom.
Maybe love is like rain. Sometimes gentle,
sometimes torrential, flooding, eroding,
joyfully steady, filling the earth,
collecting in underground springs.

to stay that there are two roads,
one leading to life and one to death
and therefore choose life, is to say in effect to choose love.
We have a map. We know the way.

- Carol Gilligan, The Birth of Pleasure

Sam and Marian at a wedding this fall.

Thanks Zara!

Thanks to Zara Bode for helping me set up this cool blog. She's a pro, design queen that she is.
Glad Stefan found her. Love her latest blog about their new home http://crudecraft.blogspot.com

Stefan's graduation song

The tune is based on "Cornbread, molasses and wheat germ bread, make you feel so good that you'll wish you were dead"; lyrics by me. Congratulations, Stefan! Oberlin was the place.

A pink ukelele and a big red car
spif straw hat that marks how tall you are
lime green sneakers and a black checked shirt
cool black glasses and no longer a squirt

chorus:
cool baby cool down slow,
Stefan John Amidon is ready to go
cool baby, cool down slow
Stefan John music man is ready to go

Long and lean, got your head in a book
an elegant swimmer now just take a look
Best hugs on the planet and don't you forget
All the "cats" and the "brothers" that you played with and met

Black leather jacket and a big broad smile
timpani percussion come and play a while
red drum set and a clarinet
is it Miles of Thelonius, now take a bet

Well he played with Assembly and the Me and Willie Band
The Amidon family played across the land
The Seven Deadly Singers and the Dirty Half Dozen
Untempered Harmony and now he's a buzzin'

He sang with singer Zara at the Northern Harmony
And with Emily Miller had a party of three
The Sweetback Sisters had a sound so fine
Off to Prairie Home Companion now just in time

And its off to Brooklyn and we shall see
with all your travel plans how its gonna be
this world is your oyster and now your free
Just what will be your cup of tea?