The Power of Modeling

I heard this story from Mum. When my niece was about 11 months old, she was crawling around on the floor and found a piece of string and was playing with it. Then she wrapped the string around her fingers and took it to her mouth and pretended to floss her teeth.

Miss Ruthie always says to model the behaviour you want to see in your children. I doubt that my niece will ever need to hear a lecture on the importance of proper dental hygiene. Nor will she need to know the importance of reading or spending time together as a family. All those things are modeled to her. Everyday, consistently.

Kind of makes you think about patterns and behaviour and choices....

Getting It Done

If you had to know everything there is to know about something before you wrote a book, no books would ever be written.
~ Larry Winget

P.S. And I forget the exact quote, but Purple Cow Guy says something like:

Well done today is better than perfect tomorrow.

P.P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISS RUTHIE!!! LOVE from Miss Halimah

Perhaps

"You sure like books," he said. We were standing in my little library, and I was showing my visitor around the house. Ron was the original owner and builder of my river house. Super-nice guy and I felt like I already knew him from stories my friend Fisherman Willie has told. I was so happy to meet the person who created such a beautiful place here and to be able to express my gratitude. Thank you for the pantry in the kitchen and all the wonderful workspaces. Thank you for the huge back porch and for the front porch, too. Thanks for the wood shed with 2 years worth of wood! There is so much I am thankful for, being here.

"I hate to read," he confided to me. This is so sad to me. As a book-lover and teacher and parent, books open up worlds of new learning and possibilities. In my family when I've not talked to my sibs in a while, one of the first questions is: What are you reading?

This is what I would surmise about a book-hater, based on my experience in the education field: he has a learning disability OR he had crappy teachers. Or both. Strong feelings, positive or negative are created through conditioning. My nephew announced that he hated art last year. Who could hate art? Someone with a v. mean teacher. Yes, mean. Not even well-meaning. My nephew who is brilliant and smart and funny and whose favourite book when he was 6 months old was Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

Hating books is not the same as hating raw green pepper. Perhaps we hate what we're not good at. Perhaps we avoid those things where we feel less than. Perhaps we are stuck in a pattern from a previous experience, and whenever we think about it we are transported back to all those sensations we initially felt. Perhaps it's helpful to think of resources we have now that could help us work through and create different associations now to those things we hate. And perhaps, we will then update ourselves into a new appreciation. For books or art or whatever. Perhaps.

Heart Rocks

My friends Bess & Val are here for the weekend. Bess is my dear GSF from massage therapy school & her hubby is also my web-guy. He commented v. dryly as he was surveying my collection of heart rocks in my bay window, "Hearts seem to be as important to you as labyrinths." This is a shot of the cross part of my labyrinth. The center rock is one I salvaged from my first labyrinth in WV, and I have some great chunks of quartz. The center ring of the labyrinth is all heart rocks, too. Will show a pic of that sometime... altho, Mum says you have to use your imagination with some of them. haha
Bess & I are off to a bookfair...great barns FULL of books!! Ah, heaven! Yay, us!

Update, Guests, & Flying Squirrels

I'm going to take a break from blogging. It's not that I don't have anything to say--lots going on. However, I'm working on a new labyrinth script, I've got some art things that have a dead-line AND I've taken a job with John Morgan, "America's most FAMOUS hypnotist." The latter of which requires a lot of phone time. So here's a lengthy update and then I'll send an email out when I start posting again.

THANK YOU, Ruthie :-)
My sister Ruth came for a visit a couple weekends ago, read my blog post "Labyrinth Mourning," and said, "I think it's clear what we need to do this weekend." So we gathered river rocks and built a new labyrinth. It's half the size of my one in WV, but since I don't know how long I'll be here, I didn't want anything too permanent. I have pictures--but of course they won't upload. Stupid dial-up.

The piece of junk mail worth $19!
Friends Bess-from-massage-school & husband Val-who-did-my-website came for a few days. We went to Luray Caverns and I got in because I could show a Page County address. Yey, me! The caverns are AWESOME! And here's my Seinfeld/Larry David episode: A tour guide who yaks the entire time and manages to say NOTHING. "These formations are called the drapes. As you can see, [indicates with flashlight] the curves of the rock here resemble drapes." And then later, "These formations are called 'the fried eggs.' " Let me guess...because they look like fried eggs? And then! She's quizzing people! [Points with flashlight to rock formation] "What do you think this formation is called?" And she's not asking for anything scientific. There were lots of guesses, all WRONG, of course. What's wrong with silence? What is this obsession in our culture to fill up every empty space? As my old director Ed Steele at Wayside Theatre used to say, "LESS IS MORE."

Red raspberry season!!!
YUM! Bess & Val & I went hiking & berry picking. We also found some wild blueberries. In fact, I'll be picking some more today....

Squirrels can fly?
I have little bird houses on trees around the house from the previous owner. I was sitting in my chair near the telephone pole reading my book, and I heard a rustling in the box above and out pokes a furry little head. Too small to be a squirrel, and it didn't look like a chipmunk. Some sort of rodent, but not pointy enough to be a rat...mystery solved when Val, who's v. tall, tapped on the box with his water bottle and out scampered a little squirrely thing up to the top of the pole. There it turned to face us, unbushy tail twitching at us. And then--THEN! It leapt from the top of the pole into a nearby tree a good 2o feet. It was the most amazing thing to see, right before our eyes. It happened so fast. And there is such a thing as flying squirrels, I remember seeing something on Discovery, or TLC or National Geographic back in my TV-watching days.

Another Seinfeld episode:
As I may have mentioned, I have dial-up. Hehhh.... So I got a package with Embarq (AWESOME customer service!!!) who has a deal with Earthlink (CRAP customer service). Now that I have Embarq, I can cancel my Earthlink account and it will be handled by Embarq. Except I can't. Earthlink cut off my service because I didn't pay the bill--which I didn't because now I have Embarq. 4 live chats, and countless transfers to India and back to Embarq--4 HOURS of life force sucked out of me that I will never get back. My mother was with me for the first 2 of it, and it just became a joke: No! Don't transfer me! And then it was back to India to the v. polite person who would then transfer me to Embarq. So I just went ahead and paid Earthlink. I just got an email notification from Earthlink that my bill is due. Hehhh...stupid dial-up.

4th of July Celebration
Went to Mum's annual concert followed by fireworks. I recorded the fireworks because my nephew Ian was SO EXCITED that it made the experience that much more special. I have him on tape saying, "WOW! This is better than Christmas!" I LOVE fireworks, so it was really great to be able to share it with such an enthusiastic audience. For Ian's birthday on the 11th, I printed out one of the fireworks photos and glued it on top of a Christmas card. I love that he was born on the 11th...because it's one more, innit?

And for Entertainment
No TV, but I have DVD's, so I have had a Christopher Guest Fest. Favourites: Spinal Tap, Best in Show, and Waiting for Guffman. All including with commentary.

Books: I rarely read fiction, but re-read Clan of the Cave Bear. It's different reading a book again 20 years later. It's not even the same book. Right now I'm reading Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin. It's a fascinating account of her work with animals. She's autistic and has an uncanny ability to see as animals see and understand their behaviour. It makes me think of Dave Dobson who says that we are "herd animals."
A friend lent me Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, which I've not read yet. You know what's funny? That's not a labyrinth on the cover, it's a maze.

Well, that's the update. If I find myself feeling chatty, I may post again. For the most part tho, I think I'll take the rest of the summer off. :-) H.