Nice!

My son is finishing his last semester of an economics degree. I helped proofread a paper Monday night and one of his section headings was "Trade Goods and Bads."That was cute, and was a good header, as the text went.

The next morning, my friend called from Clearlake, in California. I was asking about the neighborhood, and she said that up and around the lake was a place called "Nice." Nice!

Nicer things can make you smile. Smiling is nice.


SandraDodd.com/happy
photo by Amy Childs

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This post used to end with "Smiling is better for peace and calm."
That's true, but I think the ending is better without it, rhythmically, poetically.
(Edited the evening of the day it went out by e-mail with the longer ending.)

Moment

It's better to think of good moments or bad moments, rather than to curse a whole day with "this is a bad day."

The next moment can be better.

SandraDodd.com/moment
photo by Colleen Prieto

A world that is kinder

"As I've gotten older, I focus more and more on kindness. I want to be kind, I want my children to be kind and I want them to be in a world that is kinder." —Jenny Cyphers

SandraDodd.com/virtue
photo by Sarah Elizabeth Douglas

Limited time offer

I wrote this when I was frustrated, so it's not as poetic as some:

Kids have their whole childhoods to learn to tie shoes, wipe ass, make a sandwich. Parents do NOT have that whole childhood to slowly mosey over toward being a little closer to unschooling. If you don't do it soon and well, it will be too late to do it at all.

SandraDodd.com/doit
photo by Ester Siroky

Flowing thoughts

What you know can be added to, or amended, but rarely deleted. Some things are best not learned, which is why it's so important to be careful what you say and how you say it (and to drive carefully, and all that). Some people do try to encapsulate ideas or experiences and forget them. Sometimes other memories are shut off along with that. That’s a good reason for analyzing traumatic events and sorting through instead of trying to encase them. Too many "do not enter areas" in your mind will slow down connections, and also will inhibit the biochemicals that help make learning fun and easy.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Ester Siroky

Still

Still: quiet, calm; without motion, at rest, not moving from a place, not disturbed; moving little or gently; silent; not loud; secret; unchanging, undisturbed, stable, fixed; not vehement, gentle
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"Still" has meant those things for a thousand years. Longer. Still.

Be with your child, still.

Wiktionary is where I got the Old English definition
photo by Gail Higgins

This is better.

"This is better. It’s just better." —Jen Keefe

To read about what Jen found that was better, her writing is queued up here:
Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
photo by Heather Booth
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