Author Archives: Amy Jane

Defining Goals

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I think the thing the struck me most about the INFJ-personality description (the result I got back when I wrote this post), was the part about continually re-evaluating how you do things

They (INFJs) put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives.

I can’t say how reassuring it was to read that. There is a population where this is just the “normal.” Constantly I would overswear that now I have found the way I want to do things, and can *quit* wasting time reevaluating how things should be done.

“Not being the only one” has only sometimes been reassuring when going through various trials (like waiting and grief). More helpful to me are the precise words of those others, articulating what I’m feeling, so my (frequently tired) mind can can grasp a clear image and rest, without the time and effort of doing it myself.

All that said, I felt strangely justified in reevaluating yet again. Most of my goals have to do with my home life, which I don’t go into detail about here, but for the sake of completeness here’s the broad picture:

  • Short-term: Create more structure to the children’s and my day.

  • Medium-term: Get Novel presentable

    • Have rough draft of Lindorm story completed by July. (earlier w/ an extra revision included would be nice/ideal)
    • Have at least one revision by Editor’s Day, September 22

  • Long-term: Work in daily habits to make natural and make life easier

Having a deadline (for the novel) is helpful for me. Makes things more concrete, and that’s always seemed helpful for me. These goals also put the novel in context with the rest of my goals, which keeps me from compartmentalizing too much.

Thinking About What Children’s Songs are Saying

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(I can’t believe this is my first post about music. Music is a *big* part of my life. But so is eating, and sleeping, and I don’t blog about those, so… Anyway.)

As a word-person I’ve always been very clear on any song’s lyric and content before letting my kids hear me sing it. My tip/challenge (as the nit-picky, literal-interpretor I can be):

Don’t just sing “children’s” songs because they’re children’s songs. Make sure you agree with their message too.

Many of them are sweet, and we can sing things that go over their heads if we feel like it, but at least let’s not be unaware.

The types of things I’ve modified:

  • Down by the Bay— the fun rhyming-song Raffi made popular (I’m not sure who wrote it.)
    • DH inserted, “back to my home I want to go” (replacing “Back to my home I dare not go.” Don’t we want our kids thinking coming home will be fun?).
  • Row Your Boat
    • Changed the last line to “life is full of dreams” (replacing “Life is but a dream,” an unhealthy philosophy that’s been around for centuries.)
  • Lavender’s Blue (dilly dilly)
    • “Call out your men, set them to work… while you and I… keep ourselves warm.”  (Oh, look, a new euphemism for Mom and Dad  to use.)
    • It makes me smile but also is something I don’t much want my kids singing.

Am I word-obsessed? You could argue that. Over-analyzing?  Probably.

But these are words I’m planting in my young children’s minds as the way things are. They know the bit about “A llama eating pajamas” is nonsense, because of the context, but they are only just entering the age where we can say, this part is real, and this part isn’t. And I’ve been singing to them their whole lives.

And they’re *really* not ready to understand that philosophy (somebody want to remind me of the name? I’ve mis-placed my book).

I prefer just to avoid the stuff I don’t want to explain later. And that, I guess, is my “standard” for now.

More ideas at Rocks in my Dryer.

~~~

Added 2-3-07:

If you’re looking for a playable collection of children’s songs here are a bunch with chords.

I’m reading a novel again.

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It’s when I get pulled into a story that makes me forget myself—or, more accurately, just as or after I am yanked out— that I want most to write, and write well. I want to make that kind of magic.

~~~

Lately, I’ve been hesitant to start (or continue) an unread novel, almost for the same reason I can’t take any kind of sleep aid (“Before taking our product, make sure you have 8-hours to devote to sleep.”), but I finally did.

Personalizing Books

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I have something of a ritual I go through with books that I buy. Like many people I write my name in the front of the book, then I add the month and year (1/07) under my name.

Best as I can remember I started this the summer I was 19. I has attended a 2-week… camp? seminar? called Summit.  Where I bought a stack of books. I think I put the dates in as a reference point (8/98), to gauge how long until I finished reading them (some of them, never– they’re still sitting unopened on my shelves).

Since then the labeling seems to have become something of a “need” for me. I just finished dating a stack of books I bought in the last two months (vacation and going-out-of-business buying), along with several I’d found with no dates.  With those I had to do a little homework and associative remembering to nail down the exact months.

But with it done I feel a ridiculously comfortable sense of accomplishment.

~~~

My next big-deal will be finding a home for all these new acquisitions and loosening my hold on a few special ones I really did buy for the kids, so I shouldn’t hold too tightly to them myself…which means letting them endure

the comfortable abuse
of frequent use.

*sigh*

First torn page this evening. I see a sort of parallel between a nice book’s first tear and a guitar’s first ding.

Alaskan Snapshot

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My sister sent me this forward under the title, “Forget rednecks…here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about Alaskans…

Here were the ones (or their modifications) that rang the most true with me, along with my own.

  • If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Alaska.
  • If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you know several people who have hit a moose, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you have switched from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you can drive through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you may live in Alaska. Continue reading »

Gifts

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I might do another post someday about gifts, but for now I’ll say that my favorite kind to give or receive is the kind that “fits.” Something that the recipient can use or enjoy.Some gifts, I’ve noticed, are just given because it’s the way the giver expresses s/he values the recipient (I’m thinking here of the sometimes-useless wedding gifts every couple must decide what to do with).

There is a quote (in a slightly different context) in the book I read for Sunday school some months back. It was said to be an old Chinese proverb:

“Nothing can atone for the insult of a gift except for the love of the person who gives it.”

The author’s point is that the gift represents a need of the recipient, and insults by implying he or she can’t meet that need alone.

Especially in terms of the weird/useless gift category this proverb means something else to me: The love of the giver adds value to a gift that otherwise has none. Picture the wilting bundle of dandelions, their hollow stems half-crushed by excited little hands, being put in a vase on the table. Its whole value comes from

“the love of the person who gives it.”

WFMW– Throw Away Your Lens Cap

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When I was a photography major in college (grad in 2002) my Basic Photo teacher pointed out one of the best ways to get more great photos was simply to take more pictures. And the way to get more pix (other than always having your camera with you) is to make it easy: ditch the lens cap.

That extra half-second to be ready can reduce the number of pix you take, the way having to maintain a food journal reduces the amount some people eat. It’s one more step.

My favorite thing now (and the first thing I do after buying a new camera) is to go buy a simple UV filter to screw on the front of the lens. This

  • Provides basic protection (like a regular cap)
  • Is relatively inexpensive (especially compared to the cost of the camera/lens)
  • Has the advantage of being clear, and eliminating the lens-cap lag-time.

Works for me! (More ideas at Rocks in my Dryer)

First Fig

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My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

This summarizes quite well the lunacy being enacted as I write now. I am stretched beyond words (physically, that is), but I can’t want to go to bed. After I post this I will be working on my novel until I can’t see straight or until Jay comes in from the garage. Which ever happens first.

Currently he is disassembling his baptized snowmachine. Snowmobile, for you non-Alaskans. (Though he did get a nice picture of the freshly changed headlight fluid first.) He says he wants to get the engine to turn over before he comes to bed. I have prayed. And now my thoughts are too thick.

I learned in November I can still write in this mind-state though.

Discovering Pronunciation.

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In my mind, the words collaborate and corroborate are tied together. I would always mispronounce corroborate as “coraborate,” with a short-a sound. Maybe this was just because I never saw them together in print. In fact, I can’t remember seeing corroborate in print at all. I certainly didn’t know how to spell it, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t pronounce it properly.

My mom has corrected me twice this month (once yesterday) and so I’m making a post to remind myself ;-)

Her correction yesterday (we were working on dishes in my kitchen) led her to reminisce about when I was learning to read, and the first times I’d come across one of those words that aren’t pronounced as they’re written.

I could remember two: Colonel (as in, Mustard) and quay, as in, a landing place. Both times I remember coming across the word and not finding meaning in the sounds from the page. And both times my mom would (without even looking– maybe with a smile in her voice) inform me of the proper pronunciation and say that’s just how it’s done, and I’d just have to memorize it.

She asked me yesterday if those things were troublesome (not her word), and I (in one of my moments of spontaneous discovery) said, “English is kind-of like a rich, eccentric old uncle. He sort of does what he wants and we just get used to it.”

I would add to that, the reason we put up with him is because he’s so rich. I wonder if we’d put up with so much if he didn’t enable us to do just about anything we want.