Warm (not cold)

If every conscious decision is taken with the intention of getting closer to the way one wants to be, then in a "getting warm / getting cold" way, it's not nearly as distant as one might have thought. You never even have to leave your regular house, car, family. It's right where you are, only the thoughts are different.


May you have warm relationships, warm feelings, a warm home, warm food and a warm bed.

The top paragraph is a quote from SandraDodd.com/factors
photo by Sandra Dodd

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In 2011, this went out in January, during summer in the southern hemisphere. Greetings, readers in Australia and New Zealand! Have some warmth in a better season. I don't think Brazil or South Africa need much heat, and most other readers are equatorial or northerly.

The whole world could use the warm relationships and feelings, and I wish everyone good options!

What is needed?

There is personal growth in quietly providing what is needed. The world is made better by those who notice and attend to needs.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Gail Higgins

What ARE these things!?

In 2007 trying to talk someone out of using "screentime" for purposes of limiting a child:

When you're driving, the glass in front of you can be called a windscreen. Americans usually call it "wind shield." But is that screen time?

I think you should call things computer, tv, movie, etch-a-sketch. But even computer, sometimes I'm watching movies, sometimes I'm writing. Sometimes I'm reading e-mail or looking at my kids' MySpace. Sometimes I'm shopping. Sometimes it's research (quite a bit lately, reading in and about 16th century Bibles in English, early editions of The Book of Common Prayer). So I can't even call it "computer time" as though it's all the same thing.

Sometimes Kirby is playing World of Warcraft. It's partly keyboard, and partly talking to his team on a headset.
Sometimes he's playing Guitar Hero, with the guitar controller.
Sometimes he's playing stand-up-and-move Wii games.

Are those three "screen time"?


The original is about 2/5 of the way down at My 4 year old and the DVD player
Newer (post-MySpace) writings about screentime are at Screentime Index Page

photo by Belinda Dutch

Playful lives

My three children grew up around adults who played, not just putting on feasts and tournaments and buildingmedieval-looking camps, but also playing strategy board games and mystery games, having costume parties when it wasn't even Halloween, and making up goofy song parodies on long car rides.

Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.


SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Sharing time and space

Connections are the best part of learning, in unschooling, in life, for fun. But if it’s too noisy too often, a quiet moonrise over a lake will get all sound-polluted. And one person’s thoughts of beauty might be overrun by someone else’s free associations.

Gaze without speaking / Explore Connections
photo by Janine Davies

Easier to jump

Humor is a great warm-up for any thinking. If one's mind can jump to get a joke, it will be easier for it to jump to synthesize any ideas, to make a complex plan, to use a tool in an unexpected way, to understand history and the complexities of politics. If a child can connect something about a food with a place name or an article of clothing, parents shouldn't worry that he hasn't memorized political boundaries or the multiplication table.

SandraDodd.com/connections/jokes
photo by Janine Davies
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Changes in the parents

I think the most common changes parents have reported are that they are happier and calmer, and have become clearer in their thought processes. The "reports" I hear are often in online discussions, so that might explain the latter. When people help each other work through confusions in thinking, writing becomes clearer.

Slack and other rare and priceless things
photo by Elaine Santana