Hug a Librarian

I complain too much about grad school - so here is something I am immensely grateful for:

Librarians! Especially medical reference librarians who take time for lowly grad students trying to plow through reference databases. There's a special place in Heaven for librarians. And interlibrary loan. Need a book that sits on a shelf in Florida? We'll get it for you! Need an article published in 1980something in an obscure European journal? No problem - it is on its way! Our amazingly helpful wonderful medical reference librarian also introduced me to SCOPUS. Oh SCOPUS, my life was so empty without you. Now I have six brand new articles sitting on my table ready to be incorporated into my manuscript. (The manuscript that was essentially ready to go - that is, until I found more information.)

OK, I'm a little silly - but truly, thank God for books and journals and knowledge at our fingertips to explore His big, wide world - and thank you, God, for librarians, who help us search.

Absolutely, Utterly, Mind-Blowingly Ridiculous

It's official - Kathleen Sebelius and Barack Obama have decided, based upon their own opinions and misguided beliefs about the burden of children, that all Americans must now purchase health care plans which directly violate their deeply-held moral and ethical beliefs. (This is a public space and I did just get to confession yesterday, so I will refrain from saying what I really want to right here.)

The exemption for religious beliefs is extremely narrow and will affect only a tiny minority of those who object to the use of their funds to enable the destruction of human life. And why just contraceptives and sterilization covered without a co-pay, funded by fellow Americans? Why not something truly necessary, like chemotherapy agents, insulin, or beta-blockers even? Why should women who don't want to become pregnant be treated as a special class as opposed to those women who would like to become pregnant (with associated decreased cancer risks, not to mention the social benefits) but must pay large amounts of money out-of-pocket for their medications and procedures?

Faithful Catholics and others will have to choose between being forced to cooperate in the destruction of innocent human life and paying stiff penalties for not buying health coverage and risking their financial well-being. Such a cold-blooded disregard for peoples' deepest-held convictions is deplorable. One is not obligated to agree with others' beliefs; such calculating intolerance belies the administration's motivations for what they are.

http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-013.cfm

Cardinal-designate and USCCB chair Archbishop Dolan speaks out. He encourages us to publicly express our disdain for this ruling as well as contact our representatives. So get to it.

Anti-Pink Rant, continued

Earlier I posted about the public frenzy of breast cancer awareness and pink saturation in Octobers. This is a follow-up to that conversation. The Oncology Nursing Forum is a peer-reviewed journal I receive through my membership in ONS. The articles are excellent, and here is the evidence:

"Several women stated in a rather frustrated tone a need to be viewed by providers as a whole person and not in a reductionist way limited by the disease of breast cancer. Women overwhelmingly described not identifying with common breast cancer symbols. Several stated 'I do not even like pink' or 'I am sick of the whole pink campaign'. Others noted, 'It feels like we are being marketed.' One participant captured that sentiment.
'I do not see myself as a breast cancer victim and I really hate... the pink ribbons, the bracelets, the walks, the fund-raisers. I want to scream when people who are really only trying to be nice give me pink things. I'm so much more than that. I do not identify with breast cancer and this "I'm a survivor" thing.' " (pg. 73) ....

"Both the focus group leader and observed noted that none of the participants who came to the focus groups worse any pink items, breast cancer bracelets, or any other symbols associated with breast cancer. As a result, the authors asked the women who participated by phone whether they wore such items and the response was a loud, collective 'No.' " (pg. 73)

"Lastly, the participants in these focus groups did not identify with breast cancer as a disease and found the need to do so limiting. They wanted to be known by more than 'pink ribbons' and 'breast cancer pins, walks, and yogurt.' That suggest congruency existed with the theoretical assumptions of Rogers (1992), who stated that human beings cannot be reduced to a disease entity." (pg. 76)

Flanagan, J., Winters, L.N., Habin, K., & Cashavelly, B. (2011). Women's experiences with antiestrogen therapy to treat breast cancer. Oncology Nursing Forum, 39(1), 70-77.

My personal opinion is that the pink campaigns exist as some sort of a public coping mechanism. We are all terrified of cancer and saving pink yogurt lids gives us some sort of sense that we are doing something about it. The pink campaigns do not exist for the cancer sufferers and survivors, as we like to think they do, but as a way of expressing our personal discomfort with our own mortality. Research also indicates that most people have unrealistic views and attitudes towards cancer ("a death sentence", "never curable", etc.), so if we can pour money into research, perhaps we will never have to face these demons. I may be reaching, but I think there might be something to this.

Favorite Children's Books

I'll admit that I love a well-written children's book. One of my favorite things about being a mom is reading to my boy. I'm so glad he loves to be read to - we've done it together since he was a tiny baby and just kept on. Our library has a decent children's collection, although I've coming across a couple books about gay penguins (really?!?) and such.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of our favorites:

-Shirley Hughes' "Lucy and Tom" books - sweet English books about childrens daily lives, including a visit from the cement lorry, going to the market with Mum, and so on. Michael loves the pictures and I like the simplicity.

-Robert Munsch - especially the ones illustrated by Michael Martchenko. These were a staple when I was growing up, and Michael loves the funny ones like "David's Father" and "Fifty Below Zero"

-Lisa Wheeler (author) and Poender Goembel (illustrations). Wonderful rhymes and puns paired with some of the best artwork I've seen in a long time. "Sailor Moo" is our personal favorite.

-Lois Lenski - most of the books I've read by her are longer chapter books (which are excellent - they provide accurate historic, geographic, and ethnic stories with her own lithographs), but we've also found little children's books by her about Mr. Small, Cowboy Small, etc.

-Richard Scary's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" - the coolest vehicles ever (would you drive a pickle car?) plus some real ones, too.

-"Saint George and the Dragon" by Margaret Hodges. Amazing pictures and totally a boy book.

-"Alphabet Soup: A Feast of Letters" by Scott Gustafson. Otter makes soup with his friends Aardvark, Bear, Cricket, and so on. The illustrations are excellent - one of our favorite "A is for" books, but with a twist.

-Marjorie Flack - "Angus" the dog books, "Ping", and others. We were reading these books when Agnes was born and that's how the nickname came about.

-Margaret Wise Brown - more than just "Goodnight Moon". We have found "The Color Kittens", "The Little Island", and others.

Happy reading!

The New Bed

M. has been growing out of his toddler bed so we asked Peter to build a simple bed for him. Peter was happy to oblige (see his blog for the details) and what a nice bed he built! Michael loves sleeping in it, and is quick to tell anyone and everyone about his really cool fire truck bed that Uncle Pete built for me.

Getting it all set up with help from Grandpa, Poppa, and Uncle D.

We got a good deal on a nice mattress. Hard to believe he's going to be sleeping in this bed until he's ready for college. Hopefully he keeps on liking fire trucks!

All tucked in for the night! I am hoping to make a quilt for his bed, but it will have to wait until spring when I graduate. For now he is using the quilt I made for 4-H a long time ago. It's a little beat up but it will work for now. Sweet dreams, sweet Boy!

Holiday Festivities

Here it is - 2012! We have been blessed to have the time to celebrate Jesus' birthday this year. We kept a few of our own traditions and had a wonderful time celebrating with family. And, for the first time I can remember we had a brown Christmas. According to the weather service, the last recorded brown Christmas prior to this was in 1959 - that's a long time ago. I wore heels and a skirt to Christmas Eve Mass - no snow down my stockings this year! It was two Christmases ago that we had the Christmas blizzards - I wore my parka and snowboots to Church, changed into regular shoes in the basement, and then back again before leaving. Although many people were hoping for a white Christmas, we enjoyed our brown Christmas greatly. I believe there would not have been snow in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, so it felt authentic enough.

Our plan was to use our little scruffy Christmas tree one more year and then buy a new one on the after-Christmas sales. Well, we seem to have lost our Christmas tree. Seems kind of difficult to do, but in the course of our move it is nowhere to be found! So we bought our new Christmas tree and had fun decorating it - Michael especially!

It's turned into a little tradition to make our sugar cookies together as a family on Christmas even morning. Michael was able to be quite involved this year - he did almost all the sprinkles and learned how to drizzle the frosting this year, too.

Matt's fancy frosted sugar cookies.

My Christmas baking turned out not so pretty this year. But the fudge turned out well - and that's all that matters!

After Christmas Eve Mass (no midnight for us - Michael would never make it through) and a family supper, we took a drive to look at Christmas lights and then came home to open our gifts to each other. "A fire helicopter! It's what I've always wanted!" - actually, he has been wanting it for a year or so. Dad and Mom are quite glad Michael likes Legos - it gives us an excuse to built and play with them, too.

Michael likes Christmas! The suit was a rummage sale find this summer. It was too big when we found it, but he has been growing a lot this winter and now it fits him well.

The best part of Christmas - spending time with my two wonderful boys!

Putting together the brush breaker fire truck.

We went to Mass in the morning and Matt played music. He gave Father a nerf gun, which he proceeded to use immediately. Then he let Michael shoot him with it which of course Michael liked very much! Matt made yummy Christmas waffles, and then we spent the afternoon and evening with Grandma Kay. Michael got a few more fire-themed presents! It was a relaxing afternoon.

On the day after Christmas, we celebrated with my family. Everyone was home for Christmas for the first time in a few years. Rev. Mr. Matt even got to fly home - what fun to see him! And it was great to spend time with Agnes on her first Christmas. Here is Uncle Matt reading books to Michael - and who is getting a trash can for Christmas?!?

Rose directing Michael's gift-opening. They are hilarious together.

Dan and Tim with some strange packages - cans of tuna? Tubes of tennis balls? Cool t-shirts from Dad, of course!

Uncle Pete is the man of the hour! Michael has on his John Deere hat and gloves (from Nana and Poppa). He would have worn them to bed if we had let him.

We ladies stayed inside and played Bananagrams and visited while the boys went outside to go wind-sailing. When we were kids we did this a lot (our neighbors thought we were crazy until they saw how much fun it was). The basic principle is to take a big tarp, hold onto it, and ride the wagon with the direction of the wind (need about 20-30 mph sustained with good gusts - not a problem around here, usually). Here are the boys setting up the sail. The bigger the tarp, the faster you go. It was so nice and warm on Christmas day - no big coats required!

Wind-sailing down the road!

Michael getting a trail bike ride with Poppa. After supper Deacon Matt gave us a family blessings and then we played Balderdash. Mom won by a large margin - she is so tricky! It was such a fun day together.

We went to a community New Year's Eve celebration and had fun. They had a lot of things to do this year - art projects for the kids (Michael made a snowflake, a poster, and a funny hat), bouncy games (Michael had so much fun in them that he now has another pair of jeans with holes in the knees), plenty of local musicians, and even a roller derby. We tried roller skating a little but Michael had some balance issues. And we rang in the new year by sleeping - it was new year's somewhere while we were still up!

Grandpa Harry came to visit over the New Year's weekend. We certainly appreciate him making the long drive to see us. Matt and his Dad worked on several projects - they put up shelves in our storeroom for my canning and jars, shelves in the basement for our painting supplies and "basement things", and a shelf over the washer and dryer for my laundry supplies. The old shelves were falling apart, and the new shelves they put up are great! Michael loved having Grandpa here and kept him busy reading books, playing Legos, and talking his ear off!

Merry Christmas (it's still Christmas season) and happy new year to each of you - many best wishes for the year ahead.