http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/464
Internet friend pointed me here – guidelines for how to evaluate a student paper. (Thank you Sue.) Apparently “re-write until it is publishable or I get sick of it, whichever comes first” is not the best way to run a homeschool. Haven’t looked through the whole site, so don’t have an opinion. But figured if I stuck it here, I wouldn’t lose it. And could be of interest to others.
Painful news: Sophia is looking for a buyer. My eldest is going to cry if these turns of event delay the publishing of Emperor of North America. So would somebody please purchase this company. And then print my boy his book. Thank you.
H/T to Bearing for posting this. Here is the website for the study, if you are interested in participating.
Here is the entry at clinicaltrials.gov to see if you qualify. (Scroll down on the U.Utah page to the bottom if this last link doesn’t work. There’s a link there.) The point is to find a bunch of people using the Creighton Model, and follow them to see how effective a method it is.
(The hypothesis is a 1% method-failure unexpected pregnancy rate. I think that sounds ballpark to me, wouldn’t be surprised if study confirmed that.)
FYI’s for the uninitiated: “Natural Family Planning” means learning to read your body’s natural fertility signs, and then you either engage or avoid in intercourse depending on what results you would like. Men are crazy easy to read — barring a medical problem, they’re fertile all the time. Women are on-and-off: You cannot actually get pregnant any day of the cycle, but there’s a real trick in figuring out which days are the baby days, and which are not.
The Creighton Model is a very effective and obsessively scientific type of NFP. Trust me your instructor will not tolerating any ‘winging it’. If you wish to understand cervical mucus, there is no better way. No better.
[But, but. You will have to toss that thermometer. No thermometers for CM, nosireebob. Back awaaaay from the thermometer. Handy in the wilderness, yes.]
Check it out if you are a Creighton user, or have always wanted to be one. Now’s your big chance.
***
FYI The Creighton Model can also be used for achieving pregnancy. As a first line for trying to solve an infertility problem, this is where you want to be. Catholic or not. Creighton has the corner on “We Help You Figure Out What Is Going Wrong So You Can Get Pregnant”. And bunch of options for treatment that are not one-size-fits-all expensive dangerous craziness. Top notch work there. Worth a look if you are trying to conceive and not having much luck.
Here. That would a tremendous thank you to those of you who prayed on command. And please keep going. Thanks.
. . . from Pithless Thoughts: Annotated New Year’s Resolutions.
(And yeah, I have a totally serious resolution post sitting in my drafts folders. Maybe it will see light of day. In what form, who knows?)
And now, to work. My resolutions are impinging on my hobbies. Presumably that is a good thing. If I seem to be blogging too well, someone slap me and tell me to get back to real work.
Can’t believe I didn’t post this earlier today. Anyway, please pray for John Hathaway. You can be confident he will return the favor.
He is requesting the intercession of Bl. Herman and Bl. Margaret of Castello.
Thank you.
(His blog is here, for those who don’t know him. If I could only have one other family in my parish, the Hathaways would win. Utterly delightful to people know.)
I don’t see an update on the Livesay’s blog saying a volunteer has come forward yet. So posting this request since there are known Austinites roving the internet even as we speak. Please check their blog first to make sure another driver has not already volunteered before you deluge them with offers:
We are in looking for a person that might be traveling from Austin to Waco between this very moment [12/29/10] and 5pm on Friday.
There is one 50 pound bag of supplies for the Heartline sewing program that is needed in Haiti. It was left behind by a traveler due to issues at the airport yesterday. We are unable to get to Austin and back without losing what is left of our minds.
Any of you Austinites headed north soon? We can have the bag brought to you in Austin if you will meet us in Waco before we bail out on Friday afternoon.
Please contact us if you are!
T. & T.
Twitter: troylivesay
Email: tl7inhaiti@yahoo.com
The request was posted (last night) Tuesday night 12/28/10.
Contact them (not me! I know nothing! I am a random internet fan!) if you are running that route and have a little cargo space.
***
PS: If you forward this to ten friends in the next half hour, you will get 60 additional days in purgatory and/or your internet license suspended.
PPS: Bill Gates will know nothing about it, and there is no free trip to Disney for anybody.
Dorian wants a gingerbread house recipe. I’m sure some handy person will help her. But though I have a horror of MDF “lumber” and other such confections in real houses, I’m sold on the pre-fab SIP of culinary architecture.
No, graham crackers do not taste anything like real gingerbread. But are you really going to eat the house after it has been sitting out for ten days? You? No. Your kids, yes. They will pick off the ants if they must, just to get all that hard dried frosting. And they won’t care that the thing looks like it escaped from the mobile gingerbread home park pages of Dwell magazine. Or something.
One tip for the truly crafty: Sugar Cubes. (No I am not that smart. My friend Jen A. told me about it.) Brick-and-mortar construction. The third little pig would be proud. Looks nice. Tons of fun.
Dr. Boli exceeds himself. Never was there more truth in advertising.
Simcha says what needs to be said. (Again. It needs be said every year.)
And so I leave off my rant about a certain otherwise excellent homeschooling magazine that devoted a disproportionate number of pages to Advent Crafts. No. No. Just say no. Advent is for catching up on your math and maybe chopping up a lot of firewood. My goodness are families really sitting around trying to think up one.more.thing. that must be done in order to properly mark the season??
I think not.
Then again, if you have a lot of nervous energy you need to work off, crocheting O-antiphon doilies and making a special set of Jesse Tree shaped cookies is no doubt better than chain-smoking and raiding the eggnog ahead of schedule. So I condemn you not, Craft People.
You are crazy, yes. But then again I’ve got Bethlehem built in my living room (getting crowded now that the seven dwarves have rented out rooms — you begin to see why Joseph should have hit the road sooner), and no doubt some poor reader will feel inadequate for want of their very own pseudo-medieval Playmobil version of Herod’s fortress. With kangaroos.
I suppose we chalk it up to man’s need for penance? For lack of a strict orthodox-style fast, we punish ourselves with craft guilt? One more week of Advent, and then we can all switch gears and complain about people who celebrate Christmas for the wrong number of days.
Happy Holidays.