Maribeth Boelts's Blog, page 3

A Good Day for Dixie

I bought a baby pool on clearance, jammed it in my car, filled it up and waited to see what Dixie would think of it.  A few minutes later, she was "swimming".  Now, every time she heads outside, she wants to get her laps in.  Will caught it on video.

The same day, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt invited readers and authors to submit photos of their pets enjoying books, for a feature called "Bookpets".  I quick snapped a photo of Dixie and "The PS Brothers", since it's the house that published it.   Dixie cooperated, but the only reason she looks like she's smiling is because her new pool is in sight.  Here's the link to look at all the other submissions, too, if you're into cats, dogs and chickens reading books--which obviously, I am! Also, if you have your own "bookpet", submit his/her photo!

http://hmhbooks.tumblr.com/tagged/bookpets

Say YES

A few months ago, I read, cut out, and taped these thoughts to our bathroom mirror and they've been inspiring me since...

"Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, see the glass full, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young."
----Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google

 

Boys and Girls Can Be Different

The son heals, the garden grows, our nest empties back down to three, and two manuscripts sit in the inbox of over a dozen editors.  In the midst, I've been making lots of trips back and forth to Wildwood Hills Ranch, outside Des Moines.  Wildwood Hills Ranch is a camp for under-resourced and at-risk children ages 8-18, and it's a place that is beyond incredible.  Wildwood's target audience is the child who may be in foster care, the child who may have troubles at school, the child with a challenging home life.  It's a unique camp with a well-trained staff who understand the often fragile, yet full of potential children they are serving.  They offer the kids not only the most high-intensity camp fun you can imagine (horses, aquatics, art, athletics, team-building, etc.) but a non-denominational, faith based foundation as well. 
Our Waterloo campers, ages 8-12 go to Wildwood for one week each summer.  But having been involved for multiple years, we now have a small group (7) of young teens who grew up attending camp and have now been selected to enter a "Leaders In Training" program for ages 13-18. These lucky ducks get to attend camp multiple weeks each summer, so they've required lots of  trips to and from Waterloo.  Last week, I took two 13 year old boys to Wildwood, then picked up two 13 year old girls to bring back home. 
As a former tomboy with continued leanings, and as a parent, I've tried not to stereotype the genders of our kids,  but the contrast between the ride down to camp with boys and the ride back home with girls made me laugh as well as ponder.
Being careful not to wall in either gender (can you tell how careful I'm being???) , here are specific examples from the boys....
1)  The boys commented on cool cars.  We played a long game of "the next car is yours", which kept them entertained for at over an hour.  They thought it was hilarious that I always got the mini-vans.  Fitting.2)  We played "would you rather?". One of the boys asked the question, "Would you rather have your eyes plucked out by a buzzard or be shoved in a cage with a grizzly?" 3) They talked bodily functions.4)  They did the arm gesture that signals semi drivers to honk and were SO EXCITED when they actually honked.
Onto the girls....
1) Girls used many, many more words.2) They talked about the friends they had made and the little relational dramas that took place.3) They analyzed boys of every type, including the one who "looks-cute-but-he-knows-it-but-not-in-a-bad-way-you-know-what-I-mean"?4) They did much more stream of consciousness talking, flitting from one subject to another effortlessly then back again.
 It could have been this particular mix of boys and girls, I don't know. All I know is that it was fascinating to see such clear, concrete examples of differentiation. 
Back to the grizzly and the buzzards?  Grizzly, all the way.

Update in Photos

A new book comes out June 16th, with the first two copies arrived Fed Ex yesterday. Hello, Kitty!
The garden grows.  I can't even believe it.  We've eaten spinach, lettuce and radishes so far. If Mel Bartholemew (author of Square Feet Gardening) was my neighbor, I would bake him a pie.  No, I would make him a SALAD.  Next year, we're going to add two more boxes--one for strawberries and one for other vegetables.  Darwin doesn't know this yet.


More garden. Is that kohlrabi in the lower left corner--why yes it is!


Hanna and Noah graduated from the U of I and are living with us this summer until they move to Minneapolis for grad school and work.  Hanna is an incredible cook.  Not sure how she'll feel about being represented by a head of garlic, but it is in so many of her dishes. We like, as well as love each other, so it's a gift to be together this summer.

Will had a semester long honors English project. The only criteria was to learn something you know little about, then create and present what you've learned.  We found out that Will needs open-heart surgery to correct congenital heart defects.  This will happen June 8th at Mayo in Rochester.  On his own, he decided to spend the semester learning about the heart, since he knew nothing about it, and had avoided the subject at every turn.  He then wrote and illustrated a children's book. For his presentation, he read the book, shared his process and demonstrated how to take blood pressure, using a "volunteer" (who also happened to be a friend) from the class.  He got an "A".  :)


When I have a lot on my mind and heart, long walks outside help immensely. My shoes are wearing out and our middle-aged dog is as fit as a fiddle.  Wondering if she sighs when she sees me pick up her leash? Canoeing the beautiful Upper Iowa tomorrow.  This photo is of Chimney Rock, where we'll be paddling. With the river levels up a bit,  it might make for a read adventure!

Square Foot Gardening

 Our house is surrounded by master gardeners who tend all growing things faithfully and expertly.  We, in comparison, can grow standard flowers, but our vegetable gardens have yielded weeds, mammoth, inedible cucumbers, squash vines with no squash, tomatoes that rotted before they ripened,  etc. etc.  We call it the Boelts family "Gardening Hall of  Shame".  It might have something to do with not knowing what I'm doing, and with forgetting things like weeding and watering.  It just might.  But enter my new best friend, Mel Bartholomew and his Square Foot Gardening book.  The last few months, a friend and I have studied his philosophy on why gardens like ours fail year after year and how a 4x4 raised bed with 12" grids and a special soil mixture practically GUARANTEES success, even for beginners.  Even for me!  Mel Bartholemew is to gardeners what Cooks Illustrated is to cooks.  He tells exactly, and I mean exactly,  how to set up, plant and maintain a garden, and we are exactly following his unique and inside-the-box ways.  Here goes...

                                                                                                                                                         
We built three 4x4 boxes for the gardens which are supposed to be big enough to supply a plentiful harvest for our family of five this summer.  My job?  Taking pictures and  annoying him by reading aloud Mel's book as he worked.

    We ran around town picking up vermiculite, peat moss and three different kinds of compost, then dumped them all on a tarp and began the mixing process.  I used a shovel to mix...the big boy did not listen to Mel's suggestions and started mixing it with his bare feet.  A neighbor started asking questions. 


These are the finished boxes with the lath grids! 


 
I bought seeds from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa and according to the book, planted my spring seeds today... lettuce, spinach, radishes, etc.  Neighbor asked me, "anything growing yet?"  The soil is loose, light and full of promise.  With a weed guard cloth on the bottom of the box, we should never have to weed!

 We built these rabbit protecting "lids" last weekend.  They have a frame at the bottom and all we have to do is lift them off to work in the box.  Take that, all the rabbits that live under our deck!  
This is what I'm hoping to harvest, with the exception of the eggs.

New Paperback Cover

The PS Brothers cover got a makeover for the paperback edition coming out soon. This is a very typical Rottweiler held tilt and expression, and it's what won our hearts over when we adopted Dixie.

Yoga for Writers

Caught a certain youngest son in this position as he wrote an English paper tonight. Had a good laugh trying to picture myself trying this tomorrow.

Thoughts for the Day

"Worry is the misuse of imagination. .."  Dan Zandra

"Consider the lilies of the field... " Jesus

JK Rowling's Plot Outline

These are JK Rowling's notes for "The Order of the Phoenix".  Can you imagine juggling not only the central plot but ALL the subplots and minor characters, too?  Funny, I don't see groceries anywhere on this paper. : )

Happy Like Soccer

 Lauren Castillo just finished the art for a new picture book, "Happy Like Soccer" that is being published by Candlewick Press.  I've mentioned before how much I love Lauren's work, so I can't wait to hold a whole book of her artwork!  Here's the skinny on the plot of this book...

"A young girl from the inner city, Sierra, is chosen for an elite soccer team that plays its games at a complex far from her apartment. Sierra longs to have a game in her own neighborhood so people who know and love her, like her auntie she lives with, can attend more easily. Sierra gets courageous enough to try to make that happen."