jennytales

G-burg

Ben, you are a great brother!

Here are some reasons why:

Laughing with me when the snowman head came off and we had to start over.

For asking to see the video of you I took every time you see me with my phone.

For playing “Door Knob” with me (especially because you always forget to say “safety”).

For not getting mad at me when I cheat at Monopoly just to make the game go faster.

For all those great inside jokes that we have.

For not getting mad at me when I help you build Legos and accidentally break them.

For making me reach into the bottom of your cup to fish out a really soggy cookie aftermath.

For helping me with really hard puzzles even though you are terrible at them and you never find any pieces.

For telling me every time you see a dead raccoon on the side of the road so we can have a funeral (even though the raccoon doesn’t know about it).

For saying sorry every time I accidentally knock into your abnormally hard head.

That is why I love you Benny!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/

photo courtesy of Mike Licht

I admire people who are strong. People who lift objects with ease. Someone who moves quickly and works hard and appears to be tireless. My neighbor stands out in my mind as an unusually strong woman. I watch her fearlessly tackle household projects that many men would avoid. Up high on a two story ladder scraping and then painting the outside of her house, mowing her lawn, building a stone walk way in front of her home, moving a bureau twice her size. She is amazing and carries it all off with a feminine flair. She has to be tough living in a household filled with men. I wish I could be more like her. Of course, coordination helps. Sometimes I feel like I'm all thumbs. I would trip on my own shadow if it were possible. I drop things, I bump things, and my senses sometimes fail me. I want to get stronger though. And its time to get serious. A little less thinking about it and talking about it and a lot more action. It will be my New Year's resolution. Not like I want to be a female Atlas. Just a little less flimsy and flamsy and a lot more firm! 

How have the ways you used the Internet changed over the years? How did you use it ten or fifteen years ago compared to how you use it now?

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My first experience on the world wide web stands out very clearly in my mind. Probably because I was one of only a few people to have access to this new "research tool" in a company with 2,300 employees and branch offices in 10 different locations across the city I lived in at the time.  Fortunately, this situation didn't last long as it quickly became apparent that the internet was something that shouldn't be limited to the research department but could benefit everyone. What amazes me more than how I am using it is how my children are using it. Wikis, podcasts, homework assignments involving the internet in virtually all courses, integrating ipods and lesson plans. My kids are fearless about technology and I am glad for it.

I have a tendency to dwell on things. Like I think I can think things through to resolution only if I try hard enough. I doubt I'm necessarily unusual in this regard. ELO could clearly relate in their hit single, "Can't Get it Out of My Head", a favorite of mine. Yet recently

I picked up a book by author Eckhart Tolle called

"Oneness With All Life". I don't consider myself a new-ager by any

ELO - Can't Get It Out Of My Head Live In London Stereo Remaster

means. Yet this brief book really struck a loud chord in me. It has stuck in my mind hopefully in a good way. Tolle espouses that peace of mind comes when we can get out of our heads and truly observe ourselves. "Thinking is only a tiny aspect of the consciousness that we are". I am finding this isn't easy to do. Peace is to be found in conscious Presence and absorbed focus on the moment. Its hard to hold onto yet worth trying for again and again and again.

Smiling Ben

My son's mouth has been a study for quite awhile. A source of consternation and concern for me. I am surely a big part to blame. Most recently at issue has been his missing front tooth. As you can see above, he has only one front tooth, the other one stuck firmly in his gum. He doesn't complain about it. The plan is to pull the two baby teeth on either side of the front tooth above so that (according to the orthodontist and oral surgeon) the missing front tooth as well as three other permanent teeth can finally erupt. I know what needs to happen. Where I'm stuck is on the chewing? 

Hallow's eve is rapidly approaching. Its almost that time of year again. Strange things go bump in the night and my kids gain a hefty stockpile of candy. Maybe that's why I am thinking about ghosts. When push comes to shove, I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts. On one hand, its easy to believe in life after death, particularly when I think about those I have loved and lost. Certainly their souls live on maintaining some essense of their former selves. As saints they have attained eternal peace - at least that is what I like to imagine. What age are they? It varies and I guess primarily a similar age to when I last spent time with them. Yet for some reason, I most easily think of my recently departed grandmother as a young woman, an age I can only recall from photographs. She and my grandfather are a happy young couple again, replete in each other's company.

So while saints are easy for me to believe in, what about ghosts and zombies? You know those spirits that get stuck in the in-between zone. Their supposed wickedness has left them neither dead or alive. It seems that most ghost stories are about people in this "stuck" mode. They haunt the living and dwell in places of their past. They engage in repetitive activity all in an effort to achieve final resolution and a lasting place to rest - or atleast that's one way to think about them. This is the ghostly group I'm not so sure about. I've heard plenty of stories, even experienced some things that were odd and not immediately explainable. Plenty of people have made a boat load of money on the notion that ghosts exist. They happen to be in particularly plentiful supply in my hometown. There is even a picture of me on the battlefield with an image of "the Lady in White" floating along behind me. This photo has been shown to plenty of naysaying tourists to encourage them to buy haunting souvenirs in my Uncle's giftshop. I guess for ghosts' sake, I hope they are all just figments of our collective imaginations.

photo courtesy of avmaier

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kookyworld/

photo courtesy of BenedictFrancis

Laundry piles await. The chore that keeps on giving. I wish I could take a load off but it's time to fold.

Cousins

All the signs are there. Carolyn is changing, at times seemingly overnight. While still a silly young girl in so many ways, I start to catch glimpses of the sensible young lady she is becoming. We are fortunate to live in a community with good schools. I had the opportunity to re-experience seventh grade and walk through one day of my daughter's weekly schedule recently. From my recollections of seventh grade, the curriculum appears to be more challenging these days. Biology is the focus for science which I could have sworn I studied in tenth grade. English will read poetry and the classics with field trips to Stoneham Theatre and Mark Twain's home. Social Studies will learn about continents around the globe and a French teacher is seriously  pondering a field trip to Paris. My eyes were rolling by evening's end. She is certainly being exposed to a lot.

My seventh grade journey culminated with gym class. Apparently, the latest philosophy for gym is less focus on competition and more focus on personal best. In other words, no one gets picked last and everyone's a winner. I'm not sure that will hold up very well in the real world but I guess it helps boost middle school self esteem. Two thoughts passed my mind - whatever happened to those flash and dash gym showers of my middle school years? I guess in the past thirty years, some wisened teachers decided that gym shower torture could be foregone in favor of a little post-gym sweatyness in the classroom. And no sex education, not a hint of it. Unless of course biology counts for that. But the science teacher made no mention of  "the birds and the bees", only the bugs that kids were finding on the window seal earlier that school day and studying under the microscope. Of course there is Nature's Classroom in november when the whole seventh grade class heads for two nights of camping in the Berkshires. So driving home that evening, I realized its high time for lengthier discussions about birds, bees and boys before nature takes its course. 

photo by Ronald Mosbaugh

I grew up playing on Culp's farm and farmlands a short stone's throw from my parents' backyard. I'm sure years ago, the farm included their backyard. Culp's Farm and its neighboring fields venture a couple miles back to a tree line, woods and the rising of Culp's Hill. While I've always had fond memories of this place, its not til this past week that I realized just how deeply connected I am to this land. I do think life at times has a way of circling back on itself if you look hard enough for the re-connections. I reconnected with a distant cousin (actually my mother's first cousin, Bev) at my grandmother's funeral in August. I knew she had done some serious study of our common geneology and asked her if she would share what she knew. I inquired specifically if she knew anymore about our connection to the Culps and if she had traced our ancestors to a specific region in Germany. She shared a great deal of information about the Culps but said she hadn't traced as far back as Germany. I did some googling off of her information and uncovered the German link.

Mathias Kolb (arrived on the Ship, the Phoenix in Philadelphia, PA on October 20, 1744 having departed from England after sailing down Rhine River to Rotterdam from an area known as Palatinate in Southwest Germany probably near hamlet of Wolfsheim in Kreis Mainz-Bingen)

his son, Christopher Kolb (americanized name to Culp) moved to Gettysburg in 1787 and purchased 239 acres of land - Culps Farm and Culps Hill

his son Mathias Culp

his daughter Sarah A. Culp Ziegler

her daughter Sallie Ziegler Rupp

her daughter (my Nanny) Helen Rupp Shaffer

her daughter (grandma) Sara Shaffer Smith

her daughter (mom) Sally Smith Crist

Me!

Special Thanks to cousin Bev Shaffer Gardiner and David A. Culp of Indiana, PA for their research efforts and shared interest in our common ancestry.

photo courtesy of Waka Jawaka

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakajawaka/

I had a very unusual Tuesday night. In honor of my sister-in-law's birthday, we ventured to a Loggins and Messina concert. I truly wasn't sure what to expect. I like Kenny Loggins and have a few of his songs on my Ipod. But I was unfamiliar with this combo and their songs. I you-tubed them the night before and realized I did know a couple of their songs that received heavy air play such as Mama Don't Dance and Danny's Song. Still, I envisioned for the most part a mellow performance of their classics and possibly a bunch of Loggins songs thrown in to fill the play list.

So with such low expectations, I was amazed by what transpired over the three hour show. Their keyboardist, a young Gabe Dixon, www.gabedixon.com, and his band opened the show. He has talent and I think is headed for great things. I liked his song "Disappear" the most in his set.

Then Loggins and Messina took the stage. Loggins is still looking good in his black leather jacket with his limber body and dark flowing locks. Messina seems a character with his cowboy hat, boots, and shared bravado of having a three year old at home at his presumable ripe age. They both still have their pipes and are exceptional guitarists. The concert would have been enjoyable enough just listening to them play and sing. But what really took it over the top for me was the addition of their six background musicians. Talk about talent layered over talent. This ensemble can really perform and collectively it seemed they played just about every instrument imaginable on stage last night. They each did extended solos throughout the show . And Loggins and Messina seemed to enjoy sharing their center stage with all that talent. Song after song, the whole group jammed and drew us into their collective sound. Two of these unknown master jammers had an extended musical duel with their saxaphones. I think overall my favorite song in the Loggins and Messina set was "Peace of Mind". It was a great show. I know its very short notice, but I wanted to get the word out to all my kin that they are playing in Shippensburg, PA tomorrow night, Sept 17th. Check it out at www.logginsandmessina.com

Trust me it will be well worth the short trek to Ship!