Jan Krause Greene's Blog, page 7
August 28, 2013
Coming Soon…
When I first started this blog, I said that my first novel had been accepted for publication. That was months ago, and my book is finally going to be “officially” released on August 30.
Cover of my novel!
In honor of the official release, I will be sharing the entire first chapter tomorrow.
Here’s a video trailer to whet your appetite.
That’s all for now.
August 17, 2013
Chime for change
This is from the great site poet4justicedotwordpressdotcom.
It needs no introduction.
August 15, 2013
A shopping cart full of good news!
Thanks go out to Roberta Hyde for sending me another good news story!
This one appeared in TBO.com Tampa Tribune
Published: August 14, 2013
BRANDON – On Aug. 4, in the middle of Staples at Regency Square, Rodney Burton heard God speak to him.
“He said, ‘There’s someone here you need to do something for,’” said Burton. “I felt like He was talking about a teacher.”
Burton lives in Valrico and attends The Crossing Church.
“It’s a respect thing. They give so much, every day,” he said. “They should be the highest-paid people out there. They inspire kids, transform parents and change lives for good, never knowing the impact one conversation might have. Why not give back to the people who give so much?”
He looked around and thought, there’s got to be a teacher in here, but how do I find one?
When Burton and his wife, Audra, got in line at the register, “this lady in front of me had so much stuff in her basket; I thought she’s got to be a teacher.”
The woman was Brandon-resident Sharon Leto, a science teacher for Hillsborough High School’s International Baccalaureate program.
“The most wonderful thing happened,” she said. “While I waited in line, the man behind me asked if I was a school teacher. When I said yes, he said, ‘Today is your lucky day! I’m going to pay for everything in your cart.’
“My cart was full, but he didn’t seem to care,” said Leto. “He said, ‘We don’t do enough for our teachers,’ and he just wanted to pay it forward. …I was speechless and moved to tears, right there in the checkout line.”
Burton, a personal trainer and award-winning bodybuilder, said it seemed like the right thing to do.
He owns Results Health and Nutrition, 626 Oakfield Drive, where he tries to give hope to people who’ve lost hope “and transform people who never feel like they’re good enough,” he said. “Life gets easier and a whole lot simpler when you feel good about yourself.”
Burton’s action amazed Leto, who has taught 26 years in Hillsborough County. She admitted she grumbles from time to time about funding cuts and morale-busting mandates.
Having been a teacher for years and working in the field of education after leaving the classroom, I feel a huge sense of gratitude to Rodney Burton. His respect for all that teachers do and his desire to show that respect by paying for the cart load of supplies warms my heart. Maybe because of this act of kindness more people will come to realize how much of their own money teachers put into supplies for their classroom and for their students.
Kudos to Sharon Leto for filling up the cart in the first place. She had no way of knowing that someone else would pay for it. She was probably just doing what she always does -thinking about what her students will need to learn and succeed.
Click on the link below to see a picture of Leto and Burton.
August 14, 2013
Good news on tiny wings!
More good news…
So our broccoli crop had some problems this year and went to flower after the first yield. Yesterday, my four-year-old grandson went over to see if any more broccoli was growing and he discovered that the flowers were being visited by at least two dozen honey bees! I am so glad that my lack of skill at growing broccoli resulted in a feast for some honey bees. I took this picture this morning, but it was so windy that there were no bees. I hope my sweet, little, winged farmers come back soon. They do so much more for us than we know. As a child, I was taught to fear bees, but really what we should all fear is a world without honey bees.
Here is a link to a brief article about what would happen in a world without bees.http://www.naturalnews.com/032296_honey_bees_pollinators.html
By the way, you can eat those little yellow flowers – slighty sweet and refreshing. But now that the bees have found them, I’ll leave them on their stalks.
Some good news for the day!
From Beth Ramos http://celebration34747cares.com/about-us Local residents making sure children do not go hungry. Of course, it seems that in a country as rich in food and resources as the U.S, child hunger should not even be a problem. But it is. These people are doing something about that. Kudos to them and thanks to Beth for sharing!
August 11, 2013
Okay, then, I’ll do it myself if I have to!
Soooo, dear readers, I made a request at the end of my blog on August 1.(http://whataheartcanhold.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/a-year-of-good-news/
I asked everyone to post a reply that contained some good news, or to tweet some, or to email some, or to post some on Facebook. Sad to say, only two people replied with good news. Now, for all I know everyone else has been tweeting and emailing good news like crazy.
I hope so, because even though I am very much a realist, I think learning about good things helps us to feel empowered to do more good to and for each other. I believe that good news lets us know that we can find solutions to complex problems, overcome adversity of all sorts, and be kinder to everyone we meet. We can live with less fear and more love.
Since that blog post did not get much of a response, I am going to post some more good news myself:
In the Really Massive Good News” category: Mercy Ships!! Really, if you don’t know about these, check them out! They will give you renewed faith in humanity. https://www.mercyships.org/about-mercy-ships/ Their website says: “A dream that began 35 years ago in a young man’s heart has become reality—a big, white, state-of-the-art hospital ship that delivers hope and healing to people around the globe living in dire circumstances.”
Not only are doctors and nurses giving free, state-of-the-art medical care to the poorest of the poor, but also, they have to pay their own way to do it. I have to admit, that level of generosity astounds me. Again, from their website:
Volunteers with Mercy Ships are responsible for paying all costs associated with their service, including crew fees, travel expenses, passports, immunizations, insurance and personal expenses. Because of this commitment, Mercy Ships is able to use direct contributions from its supporters to bring hope and healing to the poorest of the poor.
Crew members typically pay for their service by raising support from family, friends and churches or by saving money for their time onboard. A financial-health service for crew members – Financial Accountability, Coaching and Encouragement (FinACE) – helps volunteers develop a budget, determine the best ways to fund their service, and provide support raising tools, including a personal support raising web page.
Think about it! It humbles me to know that there are such generous, compassionate, loving people traveling around the goal to ease the pain and suffering of people they don’t know. You may have seen the story of the Africa Mercy Ship on 60 Minutes recently. If not, it is definitely worth finding and watching. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57596889/africa-mercy-hospital-of-hope/
And wait, just one more thing, a little note from CBS: Since “Africa Mercy” first aired, a $20 million donation toward a new ship was made by philanthropists Sue and Bill Gross.
In the Hope for the Future category: I attended a workshop sponsored by 350 Massachusetts (of 350.org fame) and A Better Future Project. Everyone who attended was there because of their concern about the environment. This was a group of people who not only care, but also, who actually want to do something about it. There were about 20 people in attendance. Some people traveled a couple of hours to get to the meeting!
One of the things that I really loved about it, but more importantly, that gave me the most hope was the make-up of the group. Male and female, older and younger, native-born Americans and non-native born, including a man in a wheelchair who came with his aide. I will continue to be part of this group and I expect everyone who attended will do the same.
And another in this category: City Growers used Kickstarter.com to fund a campaign for urban farms. Their goal was $15,000 and people pledged donations of $29,305! This is how the money will be used – City Growers is producing green jobs by creating nutrient-dense food farms on vacant lots throughout Boston’s urban neighborhoods. You can check this program out at http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/default.aspx?id=6264
I’m sure you have some good news. Please share it here or tweet to @CallMeEarth Girl. Let’s spread good news, create optimism and do some good!
I Believe in All That Has Never Yet Been Spoken
Reblogged from Teacher as Transformer:
I am getting back into a groove after my first full week home. I let things flow a bit this week. Rilke suggested letting go or not contriving in this poem. When I don't over plan, I find I am more open and accept the flow of things much like the beginner's mind of a child. Watching children engrossed in play is a reminder that can happen for me as an adult and, as it does, the river widens and flows in every widening channels.
I was a teacher for years and I have never lost my interest in education. This particular blog is about way more than teaching. I found the paragraphs before the poem to be especially meaningful to me and to add meaning to the poem itself.
August 1, 2013
A Year of Good News
I listen to the news. A lot. I do it by choice, even though it often stresses me out. To me, it seems that the news reporting concentrates on what is wrong. Maybe the fact that I perceive it that way says more about me than it does about the news reports. But I don’t think so.
We hear about the countries that are in conflict with each other. We hear about the countries that have inner conflict. We hear about the inability of our own government to solve problems. We hear about how polarized liberals and conservatives are. We hear about people all over the world who want to harm us in some way. We hear about the various parts of the world that we think we need to harm before they get the chance to harm us. We hear about crimes of all sorts. We hear about the increasing rate of infections that are contracted during hospitalizations. We hear about the dangers of serious disease from ticks, mosquitoes and amoeba lurking in lakes and ponds. We hear about weather disasters. We hear about the failure of our schools. We hear about the crumbling of our infrastructure. I could go on, but you get the point.
Am I saying that we don’t need to know these things? Not exactly. I am saying that we need balance. We need to hear at least as much good news as bad news. We need to understand that the good news is not the exception.
Am I over-simplifying? Yes, of course. For the sake of brevity, I have eliminated any sort of complexity. But if you google the term “ratio of bad news to good” you will find that most analysts agree that the overwhelming majority of the news reported by mainstream media is negative.
Sure, there are feature stories about someone who has overcome a tribulation of some sort. They are interesting to us because we perceive them to be an exception. But mostly we hear about people and situations that make us fearful or angry. And, predictably, we make choices based on this fear and anger.
But what if we are making those choices based on a false premise? What if most countries are not in conflict? What if most people have not been victims of crimes? What if, in fact, there is more good news than bad?
What if the stories we read in newspapers and heard on the radio and TV were stories about the thousands upon thousands of times a day when something good happens somewhere in the world?
Right about now, you might be thinking, “But that is not news, that is just regular life.” Exactly my point. The good things that always happen are not considered to be newsworthy.
I would like to try a worldwide experiment in which mostly good news would be reported for a whole year. I wonder how different our perception of the world would be. How different would our perception of each other be? How different would our perception of ourselves be?
Would we find that there is less to fear and more to celebrate, less to be angry about and more to be grateful for? Would we be less stressful? Would we feel that we are more able to solve the problems that do exist? Would we think that far-out, wildly unrealistic ideas like world peace and ending hunger were possible?
I don’t know the answer to this. But I would like to find out.
Let’s start our own experiment. Please post one piece of good news as a comment after reading this.
Then, for the rest of the year, blog, tweet, tumble, instant message, text, or email some good news every day. Sure, all the bad news will still be out there, but we can flood cyberspace with lots of good news too!
Here’s one to get us started. I left my change purse containing $75 in cash on the counter in a convenience store one afternoon not too long ago. The purse had no identification in it. I didn’t realize I had left it until about 10 p.m. I was pretty sure that I would never see it again. But I went back to the store to see if it was there. The young man behind the counter said, “We were hoping the owner would realize she left it here.” He handed it back to me. I thanked him and drove home. All of the money was still in the purse. I have to admit, I was surprised. It would have been so easy for the clerk or another customer to take the purse and the money. But, most people are honest. Good news!
One last idea, you might even be able to BE the Good News in someone else’s report.
May 30, 2013
His First Sunrise
a day to remember
The first time my five-year-old grandson spent the night at our house he woke up before 5:00 a.m. This really should not have surprised me because I know he wakes up early every day at home. As a matter of fact, part of the reason I had him sleep over was so his parents could get an extra hour or two of sleep. Of course, with a three-year-old and a seven-month-old still at home the possibility of that happening was rather low.
Nevertheless, we planned the sleepover and he was extremely excited about it….so excited that he woke up around midnight and could not get back to sleep for two hours. Although I wished he would fall right back to sleep, I consoled myself with the assumption that he would make up for those two hours in the morning and sleep until 7:00. This was an erroneous assumption.
By 4:45 a.m., he was wide awake and ready for the day to begin. I was wide awake too, but not ready for the day to begin. I kept trying to find a way to make him fall back to sleep, but nothing worked. Back-rubbing and lullaby-singing did not work. Logical explanations about how tired he would be later on did not work. Pathetic descriptions of how tired I would be later on did not work.
So we got up and began the day. But we had to be quiet so that we didn’t wake anyone else up and it didn’t seem to me like he could really being having much fun with me saying, “Remember we have to be really quiet” every five minutes. To be honest, it probably wasn’t much fun for him to see the look on my face when he would forget and make a lot of noise.
I thought about this for a few days after the sleepover and decided that the next time he slept over I would take him to see the sunrise. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I would wake him up (turnabout is fair play!) when it was still dark. We would dress quietly and leave the house. I decided to add a sunrise picnic to the plan. He was more than enthusiastic when I told him what an adventure we would have.
Memorial Day provided the perfect opportunity. No pre-school for him. No work for my husband. Nothing that had to be done early in the morning. He came at dinner time Sunday night and had his two favorite foods – plain pizza and applesauce. I expected to get him to bed early because he usually goes to bed quite early….no doubt exhausted from rising at the crack of dawn. But he was too excited to sleep. We were using the bed in the guest room which has a great view of the sunset. So I kept the blinds open and watched the sunset. Then I closed the blinds, assuming he would drift quickly off to sleep. Another faulty assumption on my part.
Just thinking about getting up and leaving the house in the dark was so exciting that he could not fall asleep. He would look and sound like he was asleep. Just as I would start to tiptoe out of the room, he would pop up and ask “Is it time to get up in the dark yet?”
His level of anticipation was so high that he woke up about once an hour all night. Luckily, he was able to fall right back to sleep. Until…..
Until 3:30 a.m. This was a full hour before I planned to get up. Again, I tried back-rubbing and lullaby-singing to no avail. As I rubbed and sang, a pitiful thought crossed my mind….wouldn’t it be nice if someone would rub my back and sing to me every night. I want to be asleep. He doesn’t. He should be rubbing my back and singing lullabies to me….
Realizing that would never happen, and also realizing that I was simply making my self more tired, I laid back and told him that we had to wait until 4:30 to get up so he should close his eyes and sleep. I think he tried to comply. If tossing and turning is any indication of trying to fall asleep, he was definitely trying. Covers up, covers down, feet hanging off the side of the bed, arms across my neck, feet wedged between my calves, arms behind his head. He tried one position after another and eventually it was close enough to 4:30 for me to give up.
We got up, dressed quickly, grabbed the pre-packed picnic bag and headed into the night. It was just beginning to get barely light out and I was beginning to wonder if I had waited too long. We drove to my chosen spot – one recommended as the place where one of the local churches has a sunrise service on Easter. But this chosen spot happened to be across the street from the town’s baseball diamond and this looked way more appealing to him.
Picnic on baseball diamond
So we carried our gear across the street, walked down the hill and laid out our picnic on the baseball diamond. The view was definitely not as good, but he seemed happy and the sun would have to rise above the surrounding trees eventually. A ten minute wait can be very long to a 5-year-old. It can be pretty long to the grandmother of a 5-year-old too. So I decided that if we stood on the bleachers we would see the sun appear sooner.
waiting for sun on top of bleachers
By now, it was clear to me that this was not going to be one of those spectacular gold and pink streaked sunrises. I was disappointed. I wanted his first sunrise to be gloriously impressive. This one was going to be run of the mill. I thought of telling him that this wasn’t the kind of sunrise I had planned. But then I looked at his face, lit up with anticipation and I realized how silly I was being. This was a great adventure no matter how pink the sunrise.
It was early morning. We were the only people there. No cars were going by and the birds were singing. It was peaceful. It was beautiful in its simplicity and it was joyful. I stopped for a minute to take it all in. The sun was just beginning to show over the trees.
sun rising above trees
Once the sun crowned the top of the trees it became too bright to look at. But I didn’t want our adventure to be over. So I drove to a lake where I knew the reflection of the sun on the water would be beautiful. When we got there he recognized it as a place we had hiked during the summer. I asked him if he wanted to follow the trail and he said yes. It is a short trail that leads to a field and a tiny beach. We were the only people there and the sun was shining softly through the leaves making shadows and patterns of light. I kept pointing out how pretty it was.
watching ducks just after dawn
I don’t know if he was even paying attention as I pointed to the way the light shone on certain leaves, or how the shadows played on the rocks. It didn’t matter. He was enjoying the moment for whatever it was to him. As we reached the water’s edge two ducks swam into view. The sun sparkled on the water. He watched with fascination. When the ducks left our view, we headed back down the trail to our car, holding hands and singing “Zip A Dee Doo Dah Zip A Dee Ay, My oh my, what a wonderful day.”
view as were leaving
It had already been a wonderful day and it was only 5:45 a.m!
May 25, 2013
Engaging Peace!
Reblogged from What a Heart Can Hold - visit my website at www.icallmyselfearthgirl.com:
As someone who believes in the possibility of a more peaceful world, Kathie Malley-Morrison of Engaging Peace knocked my socks off when she appeared as the featured guest on Oneness and Wellness, a local access cable show out of Dedham, MA.
(You can view the segment by going to the show's website: www.onenessandwellness.com Click on the "shows" link and look for Engaging Peace through Book and Blog.)
Read about someone who is really trying to Give Peace a Chance!
