School conferences yesterday! I am so proud to be mama to my girls. They are learning what they need to learn, they are kind, they are polite, they are doing exactly what they need to do and are where they need to be.
I was a handful for my parents. Our house was total chaos, literally and figuratively so perhaps there is some truth to the nurture over nature. I mean, I don't remember my parents ever sitting down with me to do homework, there were three babies younger than me to worry about and my mom's favorite firstborn to help along. The second child, it was texbook. Oh and physical safety wasn't a big concern either...roaming free on a farm...the only real injuries I sustained were stepping on a rusty nail. Oh and there was the trauma of being tasked with holding a large heavy fence by myself to block 20 steers into the barn only to have one 1000lb cow knock the fence down with me under it while he walked over it. My ankle hurt, my dad told me to sit on the side of the barn and informed me that if I really needed medical attention, it would be an escort by ambulance as he didn't have time to take me, what with all the steer wranglilng that was going on that night. There was another time when I was riding on the back of a hay wagon while picking rocks and swung my leg under the tire and cranked my ankle. Or the time where I was riding on the back of a tractor with my dad and he dropped a large, HEAVY axle bar on top of my foot. Then there were all those times where my parents would first pick me up HOURS after that Brownies meeting ended, or volleball practice or whathaveyou. The teachers never cared and were glad they didn't have to wait around like that poor, pathetic kid whose life they were suppose to have a hand in. One time, during the dead of Feburary, my dad picked me up outside at about 8:30 (past a structured kid's bedtime for sure)...pitch black, in Barton, WI...I waited for hours outside my school during the winter? I tried to get the nuns who lived in the house right next to our school to offer a little shelter but for some reason, there was nothing they could do either. So Harry Potter esque in its beginings. I wondered at times if they wanted me maimed or killed...not just my parents but all of them.
Parochial schools, and society, are a little different these days. But, my childhood was a bit extreme.
So, yeah, nurture. I can't feel guilty for what I did as a kid anymore but I am so glad that my kids aren't dealing with the same. Those girls are making the most of the time they are spending in their activites...soccer, softball, dance, school and it is so different from they way I approached things. Keep it up, girls. Mama's got your back. Right now, I am loving teacher conferences. And I always hope to provide a safe and SANE landing at home, God help me.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Four little princesses
I've found that a really, really kind thing to do to myself is to eat out on Fridays.
Saturday morning was 9 am soccer. The Wands v the Parrotts. We really aren't at the stage, U9, where the score is emphasized but I happened to notice that the Wands won 3-2, with two goals by our lil Miss Natty Rodenkirch, and the other being a run down the field and pass to mate right at goal (strategy) by the very same Miss Natalie. I mean, that's pretty unbelievable at any level but especially when she has my genes. She is going to try tennis after soccer ends. I can help with that. But, soccer. Soccer is her thing. She's a pretty awesome player too.
At 11:30, Miss Jamie and Izzy Bowser joined us for the next 24 hours. That was fun. The girls are being a lot more polite to each other after the playdate/sleepover. It was a big sis/lil sis matchup with an amazing Fall day to pull it all together. The Bowsers are originally from TX and they have some cute mannerisms and emphasize the polite. It was fun, and exhausting.
Chicken and dumplings for dinner and then baths and early bed. Pack is up 33-27 v the sketchy Vikings of MN. Go Pack Go Pack Go Pack!
Saturday morning was 9 am soccer. The Wands v the Parrotts. We really aren't at the stage, U9, where the score is emphasized but I happened to notice that the Wands won 3-2, with two goals by our lil Miss Natty Rodenkirch, and the other being a run down the field and pass to mate right at goal (strategy) by the very same Miss Natalie. I mean, that's pretty unbelievable at any level but especially when she has my genes. She is going to try tennis after soccer ends. I can help with that. But, soccer. Soccer is her thing. She's a pretty awesome player too.
At 11:30, Miss Jamie and Izzy Bowser joined us for the next 24 hours. That was fun. The girls are being a lot more polite to each other after the playdate/sleepover. It was a big sis/lil sis matchup with an amazing Fall day to pull it all together. The Bowsers are originally from TX and they have some cute mannerisms and emphasize the polite. It was fun, and exhausting.
Chicken and dumplings for dinner and then baths and early bed. Pack is up 33-27 v the sketchy Vikings of MN. Go Pack Go Pack Go Pack!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
If a Tree Falls in the Forest
Competitiveness. I work with a lady who told me her "game" is "thinking she's better than other people."
Self talk is everything, amongst the crazy that surrounds us.
Bring it outsiders who compete with me, I will ignore you and rise above. My new attitude that I will share with my dear and lovely daughters.
Self talk is everything, amongst the crazy that surrounds us.
Bring it outsiders who compete with me, I will ignore you and rise above. My new attitude that I will share with my dear and lovely daughters.
Friday, October 7, 2011
RIP SJ
Mr. Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford.
In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
---
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In February, Steven P. Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began.
The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Mr. Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller.
Some asked if they might try again tomorrow.
Sorry, she replied. He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left.
Mr. Jobs spent his final weeks — as he had spent most of his life — in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, a preventive health advocate, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants, Jin Sho in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues including the venture capitalist John Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger. He offered Apple’s executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope.
But, mostly, he spent time with his wife and children — who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, in addition to their grief, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man.
“Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs’s home — a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood — was surrounded by security guards. His driveway’s gate was flanked by two black S.U.V.’s.
On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the S.U.V.’s were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed.
“Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve,” said one acquaintance who, in Mr. Jobs’s final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. “He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples’ expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies.
“But once you’re gone, you belong to the world.”
Mr. Jobs’s biographer, Mr. Isaacson, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote Thursday in an essay on Time.com. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”
Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Mr. Jobs’s heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Mr. Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple, perhaps surprising given that he is best known for the computer company he founded.
Mr. Jobs’s emphasis on secrecy, say acquaintances, led him to shy away from large public donations. At one point, Mr. Jobs was asked by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates to give a majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside a number of prominent executives like Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett. But Mr. Jobs declined, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s decision.
Now that Mr. Jobs is gone, many people expect that attention will focus on his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has largely avoided the spotlight, but is expected to oversee Mr. Jobs’s fortune. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mrs. Powell Jobs worked in investment banking before founding a natural foods company. She then founded College Track, a program that pairs disadvantaged students with mentors who help them earn college degrees. That has led to some speculation in the philanthropic community that any large charitable contributions might go to education, though no one outside Mr. Jobs’s inner circle is thought to know of the plans.
Mr. Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford.
In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs became even more dedicated to such sentiments. “Steve’s concerns these last few weeks were for people who depended on him: the people who worked for him at Apple and his four children and his wife,” said Mona Simpson, Mr. Jobs’s sister. “His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would have to leave us.”
As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Mr. Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards.
He turned down the offers. On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple’s offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Mr. Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out.
“He was very human,” Dr. Ornish said. “He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That’s what made him so great.”
In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
---
With Time Running Short, Jobs Managed His Farewells
Related Quotes
| Symbol | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| AAPL | 372.65 | -4.72 |
, On Thursday October 6, 2011, 9:25 pm EDT
Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, Calif., called an old friend’s home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time.In February, Steven P. Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began.
The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Mr. Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller.
Some asked if they might try again tomorrow.
Sorry, she replied. He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left.
Mr. Jobs spent his final weeks — as he had spent most of his life — in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, a preventive health advocate, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants, Jin Sho in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues including the venture capitalist John Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger. He offered Apple’s executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope.
But, mostly, he spent time with his wife and children — who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, in addition to their grief, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man.
“Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ”
“But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs’s home — a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood — was surrounded by security guards. His driveway’s gate was flanked by two black S.U.V.’s.
On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the S.U.V.’s were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed.
“Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve,” said one acquaintance who, in Mr. Jobs’s final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. “He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples’ expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies.
“But once you’re gone, you belong to the world.”
Mr. Jobs’s biographer, Mr. Isaacson, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote Thursday in an essay on Time.com. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”
Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Mr. Jobs’s heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Mr. Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple, perhaps surprising given that he is best known for the computer company he founded.
Mr. Jobs’s emphasis on secrecy, say acquaintances, led him to shy away from large public donations. At one point, Mr. Jobs was asked by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates to give a majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside a number of prominent executives like Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett. But Mr. Jobs declined, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s decision.
Now that Mr. Jobs is gone, many people expect that attention will focus on his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has largely avoided the spotlight, but is expected to oversee Mr. Jobs’s fortune. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mrs. Powell Jobs worked in investment banking before founding a natural foods company. She then founded College Track, a program that pairs disadvantaged students with mentors who help them earn college degrees. That has led to some speculation in the philanthropic community that any large charitable contributions might go to education, though no one outside Mr. Jobs’s inner circle is thought to know of the plans.
Mr. Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford.
In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
In his final months, Mr. Jobs became even more dedicated to such sentiments. “Steve’s concerns these last few weeks were for people who depended on him: the people who worked for him at Apple and his four children and his wife,” said Mona Simpson, Mr. Jobs’s sister. “His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would have to leave us.”
As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Mr. Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards.
He turned down the offers. On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple’s offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Mr. Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out.
“He was very human,” Dr. Ornish said. “He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That’s what made him so great.”
Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman, Quentin Hardy, Claire Cain Miller and Evelyn M. Rusli.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Come to pass...
The nights are quiet, the days are loud. We don't talk. The schedule we keep is busy. I stay on top of it as best I can, get the paperwork in on time, volunteer in the lunchroom, the classroom. Enjoy and be present until they ween me off the time I get to see them during the day. Over the top, he says. Not well done. Barely enough to maintain, I think. All along, there is conflict, button pushing, strain...enough to snap, and snap over again and then, beyond repair. Broken. It is. Likely over.
The sun set over the tree today and stayed in the middle of a clearing for a few seconds. And then it passed on like these moments. They cannot be tainted. Presence.
The sun set over the tree today and stayed in the middle of a clearing for a few seconds. And then it passed on like these moments. They cannot be tainted. Presence.
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