A Place Like This......

On the Road and a Boy's Alive Online Event

Greetings everyone ! We're on the road again. This time we've been hitting the sights of the North Eastern United States. In our minds there is nothing better than a road trip. 

 

While we're away I did want to share with you a wonderful event that I'm having the priviledge of speaking at.

Boys Alive An Online Event

Boys are in trouble.  The world is placing increasing importance on communication and relationship skills.  Most boys (and men) don’t have these skills naturally.

If you’re raising a boy, you’ve likely read all the books, watched countless videos, and been given advice by well-meaning family and friends…

But STILL you’re at a loss for how to raise your boy to be a confident man ready to serve the world with his energy, creativity, and skills.

We know you worry…and wonder…about your boy.  If you’re a teacher, we know you worry and wonder, too.

It’s time to blaze a new trail for your son.  Before you can do that, though, you have to know about:

·         His Education:  Schools generally disapprove of the reading and writing choices that boys make.  Add to that the rules that don’t fit his need to be physical, social (in his own way), and he withdraws, resists, acts out, and, yes, drops out.

 

·         His Inner World:  Knowing the way he learns best means you know how to motivate him.  Help him connect to his own inner wisdom and he’ll have strategies and strength to navigate the peer pressure ahead.

 

·         His Wider World:  Understand the pressures that your boy faces every day and find out how you can help him be the best man he can be.

Janet Allison and Kiva Leatherman have joined together to bring you experts from around the world!   There is so much noise out there – we’ve sifted and sorted for you – we’ve found the experts that will give you a new MAP of your son…they’ll help you blaze a trail of success for him!

Janet and Kiva are leading this never-before-together GATHERING OF EXPERTS who will help you Discover HIS World!

I am thrilled to announce that I am one of the speakers for the Boys Alive! On-line Event.  This free, on-line event brings together authors, coaches, doctors, and parenting experts to help you Discover HIS World!  Boys approach life and school in their own unique way and this Event will give you the MAP so you can blaze a trail and lead him to being a confident, capable man.

Be ready to hear why we need to be worried about our boys.  And what we can do to make the changes THEY NEED US TO MAKE! 

If you’ve been puzzled, frustrated, angry, or just plain exhausted by your boy…just ONE of these expert insights or strategies may be the spark that changes everything between you.

Register now for this free, on-line Event at www.boysalivevent.com  With 15 experts, these interviews are going to change your perspective about boys and men – FOREVER!  We begin on October 10^th but you can get started right now:  REGISTER and you’ll be taken immediately to the “treasure chest” filled with free gifts from our speakers to you.

Be sure to join me on:  October 28th at 1 p.m. Pacific as I talk about Reading with Boys and Giving Back to the Community through Books.

“See you then!”

 

Squish Painting Tutorial

 

 

It's not as messy as it sounds but it is fun. My Tivo/dvr is all programmed to catch those important shows I won't be watching this week like Deadliest Catch. It's TV turn off week and I have plans chocked full of fun projects and events to get me away from the TV and even more time with my family. 

You see it's not the kids who are the TV hounds, it's their mom. It's only in the evening between 8 and 10 pm but it's nice to mix it up a bit. Honestly, it's my winter habit of watching tv in the evening while I'm knitting or something. In the summer I get too busy with my garden and being outside. That confession admitted, ......it's still Turn off you TV Week.

A great activity to do with any age is Squish Painting. You'll need some acrylic paint you have around the house, printer paper or newsprint, a rolling pin and a small paint brush which is optional.

 
1. Fold the paper in half.

 

2. Place little splotches of paint on one half of the paper.

 

3. Fold the non-painted side of the paper onto the painted side of the paper. Use your rolling pin rolling back and forth from side to side, width wise. This is your squishing action. The squish sound effect works very well here and actually helps the painting action.

 

4. Open it up and see what you have.

 
We thought our painting looked like a butterfly. The fun part of squish painting is that you don't really know what you're going to get when you open up the paper. Here are some other examples of how we placed the paint and what we ended up with. We have a lot of fun guessing what each painting is. As they say, "Art is in the eye of the beholder". We can have five people in the room and everyone sees something different.

Be sure you lay your paintings flat to dry. Once dry we like to hang them up on a clothes line for a new sort of artistic banner. 

 
 

 
 

Here are a couple more links about Turn Off TV/ Screen-Free week April 18-24. I hope these links give you a bit of encouragement and information as to what this is all about and some ideas on what to do.

Screen-Free Week

101 TV-Free Alternatives

Unplugged Family Activities

Please join us for Screen-Free week. You can share your challenges and successes here in our comment section.

For Japan With Love

Though yesterday was the official day of silence for Japan, I've been silent for well over a week. We've all seen the images and videos of the devastation in Japan caused by the earthquake and tsunamis.

 

I've been literally haunted by the suffering being endured by the Japanese people. I've felt for the last week like I've wanted to get on a plane and head over to Japan. I've just wanted to do something, anything at all. We've given to the Red Cross and then in the blogosphere I discovered that Utterly Engaged and Ever Ours are sponsoring a fundraiser to provide ShelterBoxes for the victims of the Japan Earthquake.

ShelterBox provides emergency shelter and lifesaving supplies for families around the world who are affected by disasters at a time when they need it most. Each large green shelterbox contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage and purification equipment, cooking utensils, a stove, a basic tool kit, and many other vital supplies. Each box costs $1000 US dollars.

Every little bit helps another's suffering. Please join Utterly engaged, Ever Ours and many blogging friends to help Japan.

The Japanese have a saying/greeting "Gambattemas" which means we're all in this together.

Thanks so much for your help.

Luna

Thank you so much for all of your incredible feedback on yesterday's post. Today I'm still creating but I wanted to leave you with a little something that has truly touched my heart. Though Julia did something really incredible and way out there, for me anyway, her message was simple. I hope the next 4 minutes and 17 seconds will inspire you, it has me. Have a great day everyone. Oh there's a new post over at Jump Into A Book.

I Can Write My Name

 

This sign was made for me by my father when I was 8 years old and learning how to write in cursive. I wasn't really sure how I was going to get all of the curly ques going in my name. The other reason that I got a sign for my bedroom door was because of all those little trinket key chains, bike license plates etc which have children's names on them but never had mine and if they did it was always spelled wrong or at least not they way I spell my name. Dad made me this sign so that I could properly identify myself with my very own sign.

All these years and all over the world, I've carried this sign with me. Now it takes a humble place on a shelf in my office but it's always a reminder of that special time.

The last few months have had me thinking about where I am in my life and more importantly how I can make a positive impact on the planet and the people who live in it. After I read the book Half the Sky, I realized that it didn't take much to make a great difference in another's life. I have been blessed with a wonderful music writing career which pays some royalties. I decided to take my royalities and sponsor as many women as I could with Women for Women.

Over the holidays, envelopes started arriving with the names and short bios of the women I have sponsored. Two are from Africa, 3 are from Afghanistan, and one is from Bosnia. As I read through their stories all have endured great hardship and have many children. I was amazed that the greatest luxury in their lives is having well water for their communities. The most shocking piece of news is out of the 6 women who I now call sisters only one can write her name.

These women do not know what their name looks like written down. They can not write their names. This question keeps coming at me, How do you prove you exist if you can't read or write your name? Though these women come from different countries on different continents, they have one thing in common and that is they are muslims and have muslim names. In Islam, they use the Arabic language regardless of nationality.

For 23 years, I've been married to "This man from Lebanon". Early on we decided that we wanted our children to be fluent in Arabic and not to feel like strangers in their own family. So I learned Arabic along with the children. Life uses our gifts in interesting ways. Maybe I really learned Arabic so that I could write these brave women's names.

On this very snowy day I am pulling out my embroidery thread and will write their names on a little banner or maybe I will make them a little purse and send it to them via Women for Women. I haven't decided how I will design this project. I do know that along with the education my donation is giving them I want them to know and see their names, and to know that I see them and that they exist.

To be continued.........

Much of the US is in snow today. So I wish you a happy snow day or just a happy day wherever you are.

Sail Away Kids

Remember when you were small and you had a dream of what you might want to be, like an astronaut, fireman or woman, work a cash register, whale trainer etc ?

Well over the summer I had the pleasure of watching one such dream come true.

For the last few months I've been following the around the world sailing trip of Zac Sunderland. Zac wanted to be the youngest to ever circumvent the earth in a sail boat. He was 17 at the time.I was fine tuned into his blog so when he arrived at his global goal on July 17th I was absolutely thrilled. It was a  journey which had many twists and turns.

I didn't expect that his record would be broken only a month later by another younger 17 year old Mike Perham. As I was watching his story another voyage was announced......this time a 13 year old girl ,Laura Dekker, is trying to thwart the child protection agency of Holland by becoming a New Zealand citizen, just so she can sail around the world by herself.

For whatever reason their stories greatly inspire me. It brings back the age of exploration. It's on a grand scale like climbing Mt.Everest, Columbus heading towards the horizon even when those around him thought the world was flat. Perhaps the greatest part of their journeys are to discover themselves. I cannot think of a better example of child-lead learning. As outrageous and dangerous as these trips sound there had to be a lifetime of preparation for these two young people to be able to succeed in their goals. They didn't just wake up one morning and get in a boat and start sailing. It was a test of an already established life.

Could I send my teen out on a sailboat to go around the world? Not today,but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't support a major goal with the appropriate prep time and work. Like playing piano in a foreign country, or taking photos in a recently quieted war zone, studying in a different country, going to the moon as a tourist or building a school in Africa.

In our family, whatever our dreams of the moment are, we support them fully. Is there nothing better than to create a dream into reality?

what dream would you like to become real ?

Stayed for one year

I saw it on etsy.com. I read it on bloglines from many of my blogging friends. The CPSC grants one year stay of testing and certification requirement. I'm so relieved. Please read more about it from here.

Though this is a short post and I've been missing in action for most of the week, I just wanted to let you know that we have a year to make our case. I'll be back tomorrow with my whereabouts. Until then have a great Sunday evening! I feel like having a party....I think I will. Enjoy !

                    

In Remembrance

For all of the men and women who have courageously served our country, I personally thank you. For those of you who haven't returned, we place a flag in your memory.