- Moran entryway storage, Blacksmith Shoe rack, Samantha entryway bench, or Kellan Shoe rack from Pottery Barn. Also modular storage or square cabinets and from CB2.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Things to Do in PA
Buy some sort of shelf/bookcase unit for our bedroom. Possibilities include:
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Scholar Athletes
I've always found that during the football season -- when my sons spend most days either at practice or at games -- they are more focused on their homework. They don't worry, they don't procrastinate -- they just come home and get it done. Other football parents have seen similar scenarios with their kids.
And now it is official: according to Shape, "A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showed that competitive athletes are better at juggling different mental tasks and have quicker reaction times boht on and off the field than those who don't play sports."
And now it is official: according to Shape, "A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showed that competitive athletes are better at juggling different mental tasks and have quicker reaction times boht on and off the field than those who don't play sports."
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
20 Questions
The latest Boden catalog posts questions next to each model, along with (supposedly) their answers. Here are my thoughts about each:
- What makes you feel proud? Working hard until a task is done.
- What female obession will men never understand? Our shoe collections.
- Which living person do you most admire? DH - he's come so far from his roots and did it all by himself.
- How do you celebrate the end of winter? Put away all my heavy clothes and get out my summer stuff.
- Whose advice would you take if you wanted to look fabulous? Stacy and Clinton's from What Not to Wear.
- What's your favorite piece of art? Anything by Kandinsky - I love the colors and shapes.
- What are you famous for in your family? Interrupting.
- What book do you wish you had written? Too many to list.
- What are you addicted to? My sinful delight coffee.
- What would improve your life? An assistant to take care of mundane tasks.
- What's your motivation to work (apart from money)? Leave a legacy.
- What do you look for in a holiday getaway? Sun, sand, and/or museums.
- If you had the time, what would you like to learn? To become fluent in another language, maybe Italian.
- How will you know when you're successful? When I'm content with what I've achieved.
- When is it ok for a man to cry? Always.
- Where will we find you 20 years from now? Still loving life in NYC.
- When was the last time you felt ridiculously happy? Shopping (always).
- What's your fancy dress costume of choice? A little black dress with lots of bling and a shot of color.
- What male obsession will you never understand? Porn (why just watch?).
- What do you want to return as in your next life?
Friday, February 3, 2012
Teaching Good Sex
As my older son was approaching adolescence, he developed a habit of asking me thought-provoking questions just before his bedtime. Inevitably, he would be able to stay up an extra 20 or 30 minutes as we discussed things like why I believe in God, why I think capitalism generally works while communism generally doesn't, and why life isn't always fair. In time, I caught on to his games, and would cut the conversation short, realizing that that all he wanted was to stay up late.
So when he started to ask questions about sex, I was conflicted. Certainly he knew how things worked technically (he had first asked about the birds and the bees in a crowded elevator when he was about 2 or 3 - not surprisingly everyone got out on the very next floor!), and I knew my husband had already addressed issues of protection from disease and pregnancy with him. But his queries seemed to offer an opportunity to talk about all the other things -- about intimacy and love, for example -- that can make sex so special. I'm not sure, though, these conversations were all that effective. I was embarrassed, of course, and I'm sure he was, too, since all he would do is nod knowingly, hoping to keep the conversation going long enough to stay up for another 15 minutes. It became almost a contest, to see who would give in first.
I thought about this when I read Laurie Abraham's article Teaching Good Sex in the New York Times. I wish I had been brave enough to go beyond safety and even healthy relationships to talk about common body and performance anxieties, emotional complexities, and even giving and receiving pleasure. I also wish I had been brave enough to talk about porn -- not that I want to ban my kids from watching it -- but that I want them to know how unrealistic (and often completely one-sided) it is and that foreplay (which porn generally ignores) should always be part of the experience.
Abraham ends the article by describing a lesson in a wonderfully frank and open sex ed. class:
“So let’s think about pizza,” Vernacchio said to his students after they’d deconstructed baseball. The class for that day was just about over. “Why do you have pizza?”
“You’re hungry,” a cross-country runner said.
“Because you want to,” Vernacchio affirmed. “It starts with desire, an internal sense — not an external ‘I got a game today, I have to do it.’ And wouldn’t it be great if our sexual activity started with a real sense of wanting, whether your desire is for intimacy, pleasure or orgasms. . . . And you can be hungry for pizza and still decide, No thanks, I’m dieting. It’s not the healthiest thing for me now.
“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do?” he continued. “You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment,” Vernacchio hurried on. “So ideally when the pizza arrives, it smells good, looks good, it’s mouthwatering. Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of anticipation before sexual activity, if it stimulated all our senses, not just our genitals but this whole-body experience.” By this time, he was really moving fast; he’d had to cram his pizza metaphor into the last five minutes. “And what’s the goal of eating pizza? To be full, to be satisfied. That might be different for different people; it might be different for you on different occasions. Nobody’s like ‘You failed, you didn’t eat the whole pizza.’
“So again, what if our goal, quote, unquote, wasn’t necessarily to finish the bases?” The students were gathering their papers, preparing to go. “What if it just was, ‘Wow, I feel like I had enough. That was really good.’ ”
Not surprisingly, the comments section related to the article was long and contained opinions on all sides of the spectrum. Many feel, as I do, that kids lucky enough to attend such classes will be well prepared for dealing with relationships, and that this kind of preparation is as important as learning traditional subjects. Some blamed religious organizations (specifically the catholic church) and the extreme right for being repressive (e.g. proponents of abstinence only curricula). Interestingly, the Episcopalian minister who conducted the confirmation class I took in 8th grade made it clear that the Bible doesn't prohibit premarital sex, and the pastor of the Lutheran church I currently attend talks about Martin Luther's teaching that sex was to be enjoyed. So in my opinion, it is as much as a cultural repression as a religious one that leads to the sorry state of sex ed that exists in most schools today.
A number of commenters expressed hope that Vernacchio will write a book and/or post his lessons online. I couldn't agree more.
So when he started to ask questions about sex, I was conflicted. Certainly he knew how things worked technically (he had first asked about the birds and the bees in a crowded elevator when he was about 2 or 3 - not surprisingly everyone got out on the very next floor!), and I knew my husband had already addressed issues of protection from disease and pregnancy with him. But his queries seemed to offer an opportunity to talk about all the other things -- about intimacy and love, for example -- that can make sex so special. I'm not sure, though, these conversations were all that effective. I was embarrassed, of course, and I'm sure he was, too, since all he would do is nod knowingly, hoping to keep the conversation going long enough to stay up for another 15 minutes. It became almost a contest, to see who would give in first.
I thought about this when I read Laurie Abraham's article Teaching Good Sex in the New York Times. I wish I had been brave enough to go beyond safety and even healthy relationships to talk about common body and performance anxieties, emotional complexities, and even giving and receiving pleasure. I also wish I had been brave enough to talk about porn -- not that I want to ban my kids from watching it -- but that I want them to know how unrealistic (and often completely one-sided) it is and that foreplay (which porn generally ignores) should always be part of the experience.
Abraham ends the article by describing a lesson in a wonderfully frank and open sex ed. class:
“So let’s think about pizza,” Vernacchio said to his students after they’d deconstructed baseball. The class for that day was just about over. “Why do you have pizza?”
“You’re hungry,” a cross-country runner said.
“Because you want to,” Vernacchio affirmed. “It starts with desire, an internal sense — not an external ‘I got a game today, I have to do it.’ And wouldn’t it be great if our sexual activity started with a real sense of wanting, whether your desire is for intimacy, pleasure or orgasms. . . . And you can be hungry for pizza and still decide, No thanks, I’m dieting. It’s not the healthiest thing for me now.
“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do?” he continued. “You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment,” Vernacchio hurried on. “So ideally when the pizza arrives, it smells good, looks good, it’s mouthwatering. Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of anticipation before sexual activity, if it stimulated all our senses, not just our genitals but this whole-body experience.” By this time, he was really moving fast; he’d had to cram his pizza metaphor into the last five minutes. “And what’s the goal of eating pizza? To be full, to be satisfied. That might be different for different people; it might be different for you on different occasions. Nobody’s like ‘You failed, you didn’t eat the whole pizza.’
“So again, what if our goal, quote, unquote, wasn’t necessarily to finish the bases?” The students were gathering their papers, preparing to go. “What if it just was, ‘Wow, I feel like I had enough. That was really good.’ ”
Not surprisingly, the comments section related to the article was long and contained opinions on all sides of the spectrum. Many feel, as I do, that kids lucky enough to attend such classes will be well prepared for dealing with relationships, and that this kind of preparation is as important as learning traditional subjects. Some blamed religious organizations (specifically the catholic church) and the extreme right for being repressive (e.g. proponents of abstinence only curricula). Interestingly, the Episcopalian minister who conducted the confirmation class I took in 8th grade made it clear that the Bible doesn't prohibit premarital sex, and the pastor of the Lutheran church I currently attend talks about Martin Luther's teaching that sex was to be enjoyed. So in my opinion, it is as much as a cultural repression as a religious one that leads to the sorry state of sex ed that exists in most schools today.
A number of commenters expressed hope that Vernacchio will write a book and/or post his lessons online. I couldn't agree more.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Lefty
When they were young, both of my sons exhibited signs of being left-handed. But while my older son naturally phased through stages of being ambidextrous and ultimately favored his right hand for writing, eating, ball-throwing and such, my younger son has remained a lefty for just about everything. (One exception is golf: he first picked up clubs at about 3 years of age, before his handedness was well established, and has continued to play as a righty.)
My curiosity about lefties is probably similar to my mother's feelings about twins: I didn't know much about why some people are left-handed and how they are different until it was clear that my child would always favor his left hand. So I found this article, video and series of comments about lefties in the Wall Street Journal to be rather interesting.
My curiosity about lefties is probably similar to my mother's feelings about twins: I didn't know much about why some people are left-handed and how they are different until it was clear that my child would always favor his left hand. So I found this article, video and series of comments about lefties in the Wall Street Journal to be rather interesting.
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