Barbara Curtis's Blog, page 197

President Bush rides with Wounded Warriors

Say what you will about President Bush, he is a gracious, authentic person and he loves our military as much as they love him.

He really gives meaning to the title Commander in Chief:

Wounded Warriors & President Bush (July 4th, 2011)

HT: Tripp

Last day to enter giveaways

Ten MommyLife giveaways end tonight. So scoot over to my giveaway page and leave a comment for anything and everything that would be useful for you and your family.

 Meanwhile, I'll keep on packing.

Last call for giveaways!

Don't be shy! Enter MommyLife Giveaways now!




Posted four giveaways Saturday and have a bunch more this morning. All will end Friday, so scoot over to my giveaway page - and don't forget to check back later today for at least a half dozen more!

Update: 10 giveaways posted now!

Moving Blues - so many moves, so little time!

My history of moves:

birthplace: Kansas City, Kansas -> Fort Smith Arkansas -> Atlanta, Georgia -> Rockford, Illinois -> Fairbanks, Alaska -> Long Beach, California ->

Those were all before I was six years old. Always dodging bill collectors, my dad would pack his family up and leave by night. No one ever told me in advance. I remember being carried out to lie on piles of stuff in the back seat and my parents passing an old-fashioned thermos - the kind with the lining that could shatter into a million pieces - between them in the front. One black and stormy night my mother spilled the hot coffee on my baby brother. As she pulled his clothes from him, she became hysterical as his skin peeled away too. I remember my father trying to find a hospital. I don't remember anything else.

My dad left when I was sixth, immediately following the birth of my second brother. He left for another woman, but she would not be the last. I know I have at least four half-siblings from one, but there are probably more.

My mom must have been devastated. A poor uneducated girl from Missouri who'd been taken away from her roots and never anywhere long enough to put down more, she headed for Washington DC to look for a job. My brothers and I were sent to live in a foster home in Camp Springs, Maryland (in those days, people could advertise homes for kids and moms sent money - like the Thenardiers in Les Miz).

When my mom found out about the abuse there, she brought us home to live in Washington DC, where I went to school at Barnard Elementary. Then sent me to live for a year with my dad in Oklahoma City. Then home to Falls Church, Virginia where she had managed to buy a house by marrying someone and divorcing him.

I went to school at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh for a semester, then came home to work in DC (I finished my degree at George Mason University 1970-72 and San Francisco State University 1983).

Things haven't gotten much more stable for me as an adult:

Rockville, Maryland -> Alexandria, Virginia -> San Francisco, California (5 different addresses) -> San Rafael, CA (3 different addresses) -> San Anselmo, CA -> Petaluma, CA -> Novato, CA -> Petaluma, CA (after 7 years, we were able to buy back the ranch we almost immediately regretted having sold) -> Philomont, VA -> Waterford, VA -> Bluemont, VA -> Lovettsville, VA.

So it looks like this will be my 29th move. There it is in black and white, the trail I was trying to piece together as I fell asleep last night after tumbling into bed after my second heavy day of packing. I mean, I've been dabbling in packing for five weeks, but now as M-Day nears (Sunday we pack the truck and Monday drive it from Bluemont to Lovettsville) we are going full bore. And every cell of my 63-year old body is screaming No! You can't do this!

I mean, if I were a normal 63 year old grandma, living a quiet life with my husband and a few visiting grandchildren, it would be one thing. But we still have four kids at home - plus two college girls whose stuff stays with us until they have homes of their own. Actually, Sophia has a whole separate set of furniture for college since she lives off-campus and that is also part of what we have to deal with since it comes home with her for the summer.

We tried something new this time - rented a POD which we will finish filling tomorrow and have dropped at our new address Saturday, thus making room for the truck in our driveway. It was one way to keep the pressure from building inside our house, which is covered with boxes and bubble wrap and butcher paper - all courtesy Craig's List and a dozen trips to buy them from those who've emerged from the other side of Moving Hell alive and well.

Which gives me hope. . . .

I am trying to get rid of everything we don't need, but finding it so difficult. I mean how ridiculous is i when my mind says, "Oh, maybe you will need/get around to using (fill in the blank)" when you know that you have moved it two or three times and never unpacked i or thought once about this oh-so-very-important artifact in between?

And now - crunched for time - I'm at the point where I'm throwing things into boxes, putting off making decisions until after we move. What sense does that make?

But what sense does any of it make? If my body weren't aching so badly to remind me otherwise, I'd say I was having an out-of-body experience as my life - as well as the entire universe - has begun to take on a surreal aspect. I feel like a teensy weensy ant scurrying toward my destination while dying from the load I'm carrying around. Pretty existential.

In fact, I think that the best thing about going to Heaven may be no longer being responsible for THINGS. Like, just me with no encumbrances. What a glorious feeling to be free of the collection of THINGS I've carefully picked to entertain/delight/reflect me. Nothing like a move to remind you the price earthly attachments exact.

No, I will not go off to be an ascetic. Unfortunately, my family needs me.

And then there's the issue of the washing machine - an integral part of my battle against chaos around here - which seems to be on its last legs, straining and refusing to thoroughly wring the excess water out of the clothes I have entrusted to its care. I spend my days running back and forth between boxes and the laundry room, where I turn the lazy machine back on. Usually this strategy - and if I don't forget to keep going back to coax it along - can get a load done in three hours. The appliance repairperson our landlord sent - a really nice guy - checked it over and said it was a mystery to him and he would consult with a more experienced colleague. That was a week ago and I haven't heard back.

Oh, and then there are the endless phone calls/arrangements. And the dread that my Internet service in the next rural area will be lousy. And the ideas scampering in my head about the things I want to write as soon as I have time.

So what am I doing here, when I should be packing more boxes? Because a communicator has to communicate. I just can't help it. I was talking to my writer friend Ann last week and she says she has the same experience: for writers, there's the story we live and the stories we tell.

And there are the friends we make along the way.

No matter how much I move, this blog is a home for me. Thanks for making it feel that way!

One mom's modesty manifesto

My current article at The Catholic Herald:

One Mom's Modesty Manifesto
Barbara Curtis
7/27/2011

Summer is here, which means shopping with daughters, which means
tiptoeing around clothing landmines to avoid department store
explosions.

"Yes, it looks cute on you, but ... ."

Too much cleavage, too much midriff, too much thigh. Not appropriate. Too immodest. Sends the wrong message.

"Honey, I know your friends wear bikinis. Curtis girls don't."

Once upon a time it wasn't this hard. My oldest daughter,
Samantha -- now mother of six -- will soon be 42. My youngest daughter,
Maddy, is 18. What this means -- besides chronic exhaustion -- is that
I've really raised two generations of children.

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And let me tell you, it's a lot harder now than it was in the
80s. I'm reminded of the proverbial frog: When thrust into a pot of
boiling water, he will jump out -- but when his cold water is heated
gradually he can be boiled to death.

In the past 25 years, along with the coarsening of our culture,
there's been a complete breakdown in natural feminine modesty. Yes, I
said natural because, like Wendy Shalit, a young Jewish college student
and author of the bestseller A Return to Modesty, I believe it is part
of woman's nature to be modest.

Read more at Catholic Herald

Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Mozart " Eine kleine Nachtmusik" Allegro

Isn't it beautiful? Don't you think your child would grow up differently if you played lots of this kind of music when he was young?

My experience is that if you fill them with lots of good music, when they are making choices as teens they will automatically reject garbage.

And classical music can make it so much calmer in your home.

Your children might enjoy watching the actual musicians play on YouTube. And look for Symphony for Kids opportunities where you live.

Related:

Classics for Kids - Musical Treasure Trove

Tantrum-Proof Your Child: Classical Music

Teaching children about the orchestra, classical music

Harp concertos for calm home, calm kids

Head Start on the Arts

Queen Michelle not satisfied with McDonald's changes

From one of our favorite sites: ObamaFoodarama, which chronicles the epicurean delights and party hearty sensibilities of the current occupants of the White House, as well as their do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do dictates to everyday people like us:

Tuesday, July 26, 2011







First Lady Michelle Obama Issues Statement About McDonald's Happy Meal Changes



Kids meals will automatically include a fruit/vegetable, right beside the French fries...

McDonald's
Corporation this morning announced that it will make efforts to improve
the nutritional quality of its children's foods by automatically
including a small portion of produce in its boxed Happy Meals, as well
as trimming some fat and calories from its offerings. First Lady Michelle Obama
issued a statement in response, calling the plans "positive steps"
toward her goal of ending childhood obesity, but otherwise Mrs. Obama
adopted a wait-and-see attitude, saying she "looks forward" to the
company's "efforts in the years to come."



McDonald's has put a toe into the Let's Move! pool, but the changes were
neither broad enough nor deep enough to warrant Mrs. Obama inviting
executives to the White House for their announcement, as she did last
week when she joined executives from some of America's largest grocery
chains for an East Room announcement of their commitments to open stores in food deserts.  Instead, McDonald's USA president Jan Fields unveiled the Happy Meal changes during a video appearance on ABC's Good Morning America.

Read more and experience more propaganda at ObamaFoodarama

America the new Argentina? Obamas the new Perons?

Sue sent the link to the Anchoress today, who is also pondering how a concentration on politics can become undesirable: Politics Destroys the Soul

I agree with her - it is becoming increasingly difficult to accept the posturing and posing of politicians, who seem completely to have lost any sense of simplicity and humility. Seriously, how hard can it be with all the money at their disposal to slash funds to ridiculously unnecessary programs so that our country can survive?

Obama's constant references to corporate jets vs college loans are not only tiresome, they are straw man argument supreme. But the sad thing is that his ture believers don't think beyond what he says. Pray for enlightenment.

I know I said no politics, but the situation is so grave - and so sad, really. Since Obama took office, i have been posting links to Evita and the history of Argentina. But this is laid out so well.

It takes a while to download, and you need to click to make the slideshow change. A good history lesson and warning for America. But do you think it's too late?

Don't Cry For Me AmerintinaView more presentations or Upload your own.

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina

HT: my favorite blog Michelle Obama's Mirror (MOTUS)

Press rips Beckhams for too many babies

Population boonMore people leads to more prosperityJuly 20, 2011|By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist

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DAVID
AND VICTORIA Beckham were overjoyed by the birth last week of their
fourth child, a baby girl they named Harper. "We all feel so blessed and
the boys love their baby sister so much!!!'' the former Spice Girl
exulted to her vast following on Twitter. A few days later she posted a
picture of her husband cradling his new daughter, with the tender
comment: "Daddy's little girl!''

Whose heart wouldn't be warmed by the Beckhams' delight in their newborn?

The Observer's wouldn't.

In
a remarkably churlish article on Sunday, Britain's influential
left-leaning newspaper (the Observer is the Guardian's sister Sunday
paper) pronounced Harper's parents "environmentally irresponsible'' for
choosing to bring her into the world. Headlined "Beckhams a 'bad
example' for families,'' the piece was a blast at parents who raise
good-sized families. "One or two children are fine but three or four are
just being selfish,'' Simon Ross, executive director of the Optimum
Population Trust, told reporter Tracy McVeigh. "The Beckhams ... are very
bad role models.''

McVeigh
also quoted natural-history broadcaster David Attenborough, who
recently "made a passionate speech about how the world's baby-making was
damaging the planet.

Read more at the Boston Globe

They Left is not pro-choice at all.

And btw, Jeff Jacoby is a great pro-life conservative columnist - when you come across his stuff, be sure to read it.

Katyn - 1940 Soviet massacre of 22,000 Poles

Katyn (english subs) part 6

Not for the faint of heart, but for anyone who cries at injustice and man's inhumanity to man, Katyn is an exquisite and heart-wrenching film about one of the worst war crimes ever committed - the 1940 execution of nearly 22,000 Polish military leaders, professors, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests by the Soviet Army in a Russian forest.

Directed by The Academy Honorary Award recipient Andrzej Wajda - whose father was murdered during that time - the film focuses on the fate of some of the mothers, wives and daughters of the Polish officers slaughtered by the Soviets. There is something deeply resonating about Polish films, writing and acting sensibilities. As you can see from the clip above, each shot is carefully framed and packed just beneath the surface with carefully controlled emotion as these women face dangerous situations because of their relationship to their dead husbands.

In 1940, Poland was in the hands of both the Nazis and the Soviets - both aiming at domination (I'm putting this very simply, because the history as Tripp explained it to me is so very complex). In the film clip above, the Katyn Massacre has just been completed and the names of the dead - the Katyn List - are being read on the public loudspeakers. The younger woman in the first scene is thrilled that her husband's name is not on the list, but her mother-in-law is not so sure, as her son's best friend - whose name is on the list and who was in in prisoner's camp with her son - has been to see them. Perhaps she intuits that they switched places?

The second scene is the wife of a murdered general who is brought in by the Nazis to sign a statement that her husband was killed by the Soviets. The tension is that the Soviets - who have the upper hand - are broadcasting propaganda that the Nazis committed the massacre, showing films of the mass graves in the public square and claiming the Nazis did it. The general's wife doesn't know that the statement is true and refuses to sign, so the Nazis show her the truth with film footage.

In the third scene, the maid of the general's wife returns his sword to her. Because her husband was allied with the Soviets, she is now in a position of power and wealth, even as the general's wife and daughter have lost everything.

Through such dramatic scenes, the history of the Polish people - squeezed between two godless and totalitarian regimes becomes so real you wish you could somehow take on some of their pain for them.

Once the Soviets took over Poland, the history of Katyn was wiped on and lived only in the minds of the people. Those who tried to document or speak the truth were denied jobs, university placement - and even killed.

This is the kind of film that earns a 92% from movie critics collected at Rotten Tomatoes, yet only 75% from audiences - not a piece of entertainment, but a film lover's film. Katyn will move you, change the way you look at the world. If you use film as part of your homeschool curriculum, this could be an important part of your child's understanding of the difference between a culture based on Christianity and one where man prevails.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tripp and I watched this together last night (seeking out unusual films has been a cornerstone of our relationship since we met in 1982). It helped that he knew some of the finer historical details.

We got our copy from Netflix, but you can buy it at Amazon (check out the reviews there, too) or ask your library to order Katyn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

On April 10, 2010, on their way to a memorial service at Katyn arranged by Vladmir Putin, the jet bearing Polish president Lech Kaczyński and his wife, the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Poland's deputy foreign minister, Polish government officials, 15 members of the Polish parliament, senior members of the Polish clergy, and relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre crashed in the forest, killing 96. The Soviets quickly took command, placing Putin in charge of the investigation. Despite some cries of conspiracy. if you read Wikipedia today, it was all just an accident.