Comment: whatever stand you take politically, you can’t help laughing at this.

I recently asked my friend’s little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?”

She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’ … Her parents beamed.

“Wow…what a worthy goal.” I told her, “But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and rake my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where a homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”

She thought that over for a few seconds; then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you just pay him the $50?’

I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’ ……… Her parents still aren’t speaking to me!

This week is our Book Fair and Spring Sing. Spring Sing is on Friday at 3:00. Music is an important part of our curriculum, and Miss Amy is a wonderful music teacher. She is always happy to take the children and teach them something new. We are very grateful to have her.

Our Book Fair follows the Spring Sing. But parents may look for books and buy all week. Please look in Miss Leigh’s room Monday through Friday before and after school. There are some delightful books available at nominal cost.

As all our presentations, every child must have an adult at 3:00 p.m. Please plan on bringing a snack to share. Drinks will be provided.

If you will not be at the Spring Sing, please let Miss Amy know.

We will be having regular classes all week.

Please sun screen your own child in the morning before school. If you would like us to sun screen in the afternoon after snack, please leave a bottle of sun screen with a teacher. Children need some sun exposure to get ready for summer in the sun at the Garden School.

If you have not paid for your field trips this summer, time is getting late. If you are unsure of your cost, please see Miss Judy.

Please look at and KEEP your copy of our summer field trip schedule going home in your folder this week. Summer begins June 3 with our first day at the Garden School to make sure that we have all paperwork, and equipment necessary to begin.

We are looking into school swimsuits. This would help dramatically with keeping an eye on our children swimming. More about that later.

If you have any questions, please ask.

Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies – loaf givers. – Ruskin

This is the forward to the original Fannie Farmer 1896 Cook Book. It’s one of my finds while I was having some adult down time at one of my favorite haunts – Feather Your Nest.

What I like best about this book is that it actually teaches you how to begin at the beginning with things we take for granted. When modern recipe books read: add two eggs to the vanilla cake mix, you know that you are placing and pressing the tiles to cooking, but you are not really cooking.

In the FF Cook Book, it begins at the beginning as with salad dressing, and it tells you how to make your own mayonnaise. In fact it assumes you will be making mayonnaise because it was not available to buy back then.

One of the things I love making for my husband is stuffed baked trout. I had to teach myself how to bone fish, and now I see what I was doing wrong. Years ago, I am sure that many men brought fish home to their wives, or vice versa, and this job of preparing fresh fish was one of a gazillion jobs that women did routinely. Today, most women would laugh. But the taste of whole baked fish stuffed with delicate stuffings made from ground assorted breads and vegetables and seasoned with fresh garden herbs is too good to laugh at. The missing link for me was to cut the fin off with a small strip of skin the entire length of the fish. The boning is easy with a very sharp boning knife swept from tail to head just under the rib cage of the fish. You pull out the bones in a strip.

One of the baking gems of this book is a complete and detailed list of cake fillings and frostings. No more limits! There are two dozen different flavors and all of them are natural. It’s a feast! And there are dozens of cakes to bake separated by sponge and cup and pound. The book goes on to talk a lot about oven temperature, mixing and bowls. A cake should always be made in a earthen bowl. Of course all of these things were made without appliances.

There are many recipes for confections, and one I would like to make for the kids is called spun sugar. You make the sugar over broom handles.

One of the wonderful extras in the book is the ads. There is an add for kitchen equipment called Choice House Furnishings by F.A. Walker & Co. The ad advertises things I never heard of like: Marmites, Hateletts, paste cutters, Parisian potato cutters and more.

So glad to get the book. So funny to read, so informing…I always tell the children to begin at the beginning to clearly understand what they are doing. It’s no different with adults and the activities in the adult life. By beginning at the beginning, and learning to work from scratch, anything is possible without a hurried trip to the store…

The Warmest Place of All
By Licia Rando, M.Ed.
Illustrated by Anne Jewett

A day of winter fun in the snow comes to an end when Sophie’s mother calls her inside. Sophie wants to find the perfect place that will make her feel toasty warm, but no matter where her mother suggests, the chill of winter creeps back into her bones.

From the kitchen with a hot cup of cocoa to her cozy bed, Sophie cannot seem to find the warmest place.

Packed with similes, this delightful tale concludes with the discovery that true warmth and comfort is found in the abundance of family love. Ideal for cozying up, The Warmest Place of All is sure to become a bedtime favorite and warm the hearts of little ones as they wait to see if Sophie finds the warmest place of all.

The Warmest Place of All speaks the words in a child’s heart. All children want their parents to know that the warmest place of all is with the people who love and care for you.

List $16.95
Hardcover 32 pages Ages 3 to 8
Published by Pleasant St. Press September 2009
ISBN: 0979203589

Available at bookstores online and nationwide. For more information visit www.LiciaRando.com

About the Author:
Licia Rando, M.Ed. is a writer and a former elementary school teacher who serves on the executive committee of the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence. She lives with her husband, and three daughters outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She is the author of several guides and articles including The Caring and Connected Parenting Guide which uses the latest research in neuroscience to form healthy connections between parents and children. The guide has been endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Betty Williams.

Anne Jewett is a professional illustrator. She lives in Chuluota, Florida.

What People Are Saying

“This is a lovely book, one to warm your heart. And it’s great for a cuddle! Your kids will love it.”

It was a glorious trip to New Harmony. We had a nice little breakfast of sticky buns and then boarded the bus at 9:00. It was a bit overcast, but we knew we would out run the rain clouds. The park was gorgeous. There were lots of tents set up to teach children about Settler Days. It’s important to know how to do things, because as I’ve told the children many times, we are a tankful of gas from starvation. Learn how!

The first tent we visited made hats from sheep’s wool. The process of carding, wetting, rubbing, and then shaping the hat is a feat of engineering we don’t always understand. Hat making was an important industry in New Harmony. What fun to have the choice of hats!

We moved on to rope making. CJ was especially polite and asked if he could help make the rope. Because he was so polite, he was able to take home the rope he made.

And speaking of polite, our little kids were the most polite children at the park and all of the volunteers who were making things gravitated their interest towards us. Our children were delightful, answered questions, said please, thank you and excuse me.

We visited the kitchen garden, the spinner, the paper making, the paper cutter, the bee keeper, the butter maker, the oxen driver and the goat and sheep herders.

Some of the children loved it, and some did not see any point to this at all, and that’s a shame. These are crafts which for the most part have been forgotten in favor of store bought. Knowing how to do things yourself is an important part of independence. Knowing that these things can be done at home is an important part of a child’s education.

This summer, we will have the spinner come to school and teach us to spin some yarn from some of Miss Dannye’s sheep. We will make our own butter, mill our own flour, make our own bread and make our own paper. The paper man made some of the prettiest paper I’ve ever seen, and I would like to make some for our children and let them make their own.

What was gratifying were the answers our children gave to the questions asked. They knew a lot, and the volunteers were constantly amazed by how gracious and bright out little guys are. We were so proud of them.

We went to the playground for lunch and ate a hearty lunch of whole wheat bread and cheese, tuna, egg and peanut butter. We had carrots, apples, chips, and pickles and milk. Teachers had a marvelous little salad of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, vinaigrette, and crab. Delicious!

Last Saturday I went to the movies with my beautiful daughter, Molly, and her lovely children, Jack, ten, William, seven, and Robby who is three. We saw the movie, “How to Train Your Dragon.” I was touched by the movie and charmed by it as well. As my daughter said, “That movie had morals the children can identify with. It had a happy ending, and everyone learned a lot.”

I was touched by one fact especially. It was the tenacity to know when you are right, even if it goes up against what the whole world is saying. If you KNOW you are right, you should never cower to the idiots!

Years ago I stumbled on the word hyperactive. I was quick to be interested in this word because it seemed to describe me, my children, and my weltanschauung – or world view. It fit like no other thing. Call me an American, and it fits. Call me a Catholic, and it fits even better, but call me a hyperactive mesomorph and you have me to a tea.

As a child I was butchered by those who knew better and called me names like strange because I could rise at 4:00 a.m. and climb the hills all day, swim the lagoon all day, build a raft and head out to sea, and still find time to clean my room and do my homework and help out at home.

As an adult, I was despised because the package of store bought cookies required for an event that everyone else brought was upstaged by a cake, two different kinds of homemade candy, three new cookie recipes and two stunning pies. I had energy to burn and the interest to make it work.

As an older adult, I gasped at the very idea that hyperactivity is a “dysfunction.” I quickly took the Hiccup approach and decided that hyperactivity is an attribute not a disease. Just like Hiccup in the move “How to Train Your Dragon” tried to fight the error of his Viking family’s wrong thinking about dragons, I have tried to fight the error of wrong thinking about hyperactive children. See Judy Lyden Hyperactivity on any search engine.

Now let’s get serious. Let’s look at two children named Stockwell and Brisbane. Stockwell is the captain of the swimming team, the debating team, the golf team, and vice president of his class. He mows all the lawns on his street in the summer. His room is immaculate. He is an honors student, holds down a job after school and paints in his spare time. No genius social worker, counselor or psychologist would ever say that this kid is hyperactive. That’s because for Stockwell, it’s working.

Now Brisbane, on the other hand, spends most of his time arguing, rolling on the floor, finding messes where there was order, creating chaos for the pleasure of chaos, and doing ridiculous things that cause destruction and disaster. He is labeled hyperactive and is medicated out of his mind because…that’s what you do.

Truth is, Stockwell IS hyperactive. How could he possibly get all this done if he didn’t have the energy and the drive and the direction to work so hard and produce so much. Hyperactive people manage to accomplish twice what others do in half the time – IF they are directed.

Brisbane, however, is labeled hyperactive for one reason: he is undirected, annoying and seems to be restless. He has not a shred of self discipline, order in his life, or anything close to a sense of the world in any real sense. He is horribly behaved BECAUSE he has no order in his life, no self discipline or any sense of the world. His weltanschauung is turned inward toward himself.

This is the model for hyperactive children that is in error.

Let’s dig deeper: the cause for Stockwell’s behavior is one single thing: HOMELIFE. He comes from a home managed by an adult or two who have created an ordered world and have directed all of Stockwell’s energy into production rather than destruction. In other words, they CARE.

Poor Brisbane. He comes from slackers who whine and snivel about him and everyone else. They can’t create order to save their lives, and everything is too much for them including Brisbane. So Brisbane’s direction has been neglected in favor of mirroring his parents’ chaos. Parents who can’t create order will have children who are non directed.

So Brisbane is dragged off to the “fixer” and gets a dose of drugs that dull his senses and allow him to become slack jawed enough hours of the day to get passed the school clocks and return to his home where he can create the predictable and tattle-able havoc again.

For as many years as I can count, I’ve been a child advocate for children drugged by slackers and error mongers or what I consider the real child abusers. To destroy a child’s sense of order and push him into chaos is a hideous abuse. It’s slacking at its best.

I once read in a manual for psychologists setting up clinics that “You never let your hyperactive child get away because he or she is your bread and butter.” That in itself sounds vaguely criminal.

And back to the movie where all of this began… Hiccup knew he was right. He saw another side to the world and developed a broad and caring weltanschauung that saved the day. Teaching children to learn is only one part of education. The other parts are trust, openness, and the ability to look past what everyone else is screaming, andto think for themselves.

Tick Removal!

Spring will be here soon and the ticks will soon be showing their heads. Here is a good way to get them off you, your children, or your pets. Give it a try.

A School Nurse has written the info below — good enough to share — And it really works!!

I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it’s some times difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.

Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20), the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away.

This technique has worked every time I’ve used it (and that was frequently), and it’s much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.

Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can’t see that this would be damaging in any way. I even had my doctor’s wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn’t reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say, “It worked!”

It’s Monday and a brand new week. We will be going to New Harmony this week. It’s a pioneer day with all the bells and whistles or so I have been told. We will leave about 9:30 from school on Friday, and will return by 1:15. Children will need to wear their school shirts. It will cost $10.00 per child.

This week we will be working on math extras, reading extras, and all kinds of extras because our dear little guys have learned all that they need to know to go on next year, so the rest of the school year we will be exploring new things and testing out their determination and their sense of curiosity.

One of the little games we have been doing in math is Suduko. To play Suduko, one needs to check, recheck, ask questions, guess, and try and then recheck work. It’s a very helpful tool for the inquisitive child.

The game rules: There are nine squares, which are made up of nine columns and nine rows. One must use each of nine numbers to fit into the nine squares, nine rows and nine columns without repeating the number in any of the nine squares, rows or columns. It’s a real thought provoker.

If you’ve been out to the playground, the work that has been done out there is the work of Miss Leigh. She has painted, moved, torn down, and put up equipment and re-arranged the whole yard. It looks wonderful. I am so pleased with all that she has done.

Miss Dayna is adamant about the food garden and is beginning to work on that. It’s a chore and we are grateful for her interest.

We have started a geography lesson on the United States. We touched on Alaska last week, and will continue with a new state every week. We hope the children enjoy this.

Miss Amy continues to create a vocabulary book in her Word Power class. The children seem to be able to do so much this year.

Spring Sing looms in the near future. It’s just two weeks away. The children are all reviewing the songs they have loved from this year.

The Scholastic Book Fair arrives today. It will be opened for sales as soon as possible. The sales will be in Miss Leigh’s room.

Have a great week!

From Food Navigator

Food addiction: Fat may rewire brain like hard drugs

By Stephen Daniells, 29-Mar-2010

Comment: This is a wonderful if not scary article on those of us who love food. Read it with caution. It’s a doozy.

Related topics: Trans- and saturated fats, Science & Nutrition, Fats & oils

Over eating may be driven by a same neurobiological mechanism in the brain as drug addition, says a new study from the US that adds clout to the theory ‘food addiction’.

Just a note to readers to say I’m sorry about so few entries on the blog. Time has vanished in the last few weeks. With Edith out, it’s been my job to cover for her time, teaching, and regular school housework. Pulling a double every day has not been as easy as I would have liked to think it would be – Go Edith – miss all the work you did!

My Tuesday Column, which I used to write on Tuesday mornings will become Thursday’s column because Thursday is my only shorter day now. Thursday’s teacher column will appear on Tuesday.

It’s a labor of love to write this thing. Finding interesting articles, doing a column, writing something about food, presenting new things, and the news about what’s happening or going to happen in school is a lot of work and time, and it’s something I need to do by myself.

In the greater scheme of things, a well rounded person has many interests that require his or her time. In my own life, I have several interests that seem to have been put on hold. I don’t want the blog to be one of those things. As a person who has had a public voice for many years as a columnist for Scripps Howard and a writer for a subsidiary of NBC, I enjoy a public voice.

In addition, I have a garden which I am fond of keeping. It’s a dark garden and filled with many many illusive and interesting plants like toad lily, wild ginger, orchids, penstemon and perhaps thirty other little goodies that all need care from time to time.

Another little project has been a postage stamp pattern king size quilt I now need to quilt. I’ve worked on this for many years. Each diamond piece is about the size of a postage stamp. Finding time to buy the quilt bat and lining is eluding me.

I write books. I have written seven and have been trying to finish the eighth called “Romancing Rachel.” It was supposed to be a catharsis for my mother that has turned into something quite different. Writing takes a lot of time. Writers don’t generally notice time drifting away – truly a liability. I have a publisher who is interested in a collection of short stories, and will want this book soon after.

I cook at home and at school. I am always looking for new foods and recipes for the children at school and to make at home. I spend at least three hours a day in the kitchen. Last week Miss Leigh and I were talking about possible picnic goodies and we came up with a kind of bread pocket baked meat and cheese deal that I could make with a ravioli cutter. Takes time to experiment…oh the time… but the end product sounds like something the kids would love, plus it would be very healthy and contribute to their delight in food.

As a long drawn out project, I live in a house built in 1830. It requires a lot of maintenance which eludes me most of the time. Getting to all five bedrooms, and corresponding downstairs rooms is a feat of time engineering that is mind boggling. I do manage to really clean my kitchen every Saturday morning. My kitchen has a real brick floor and antique furniture which needs to be washed down about every week.

I walk as often as time permits. Today, after I do the school shopping and cleaning the pet room which takes about an hour a day, I will hike over to see what work has been done on the new walking trail down by the water in Newburgh. I truly enjoy the new stretch between Water Street and Jennings Street.

I do have four grown children and six grand children I like to be involved with even by facebook. It takes time. I have three grandboys I see for several hours every Friday evening. I enjoy their company, and try to have something planned to do on these evenings. I have a wonderful 88 year old aunt, Gertrude, who I love to chat on the phone with. She’s a magnificent woman. She has two of my fifty cousins who I am very fond of but don’t have time to really keep up with.

And there is a life – partly lived, and partly put on hold. So when I fail to keep up with this blog, please forgive me. Summer is coming and I want to put a lot of time into the summer field trip schedule, new picnic foods, a schedule that will keep my teachers, and one that will keep the school fairly clean in our traveling absence.

Life – anyone’s life is a wonderful challenge. Mine is no different from anyone’s. It’s a nice balance between creating, doing, involvement and being well through the right movement and diet. I highly recommend a good life. I highly recommend a fine husband. I have one; he’s wonderful.