Playful Actions (Photos)

As background for the following, I invite you to read my Brief Self-Introduction, which appears here; and my Current Activities page, which I’ve incorporated into my About Me area on a separate page, here. Also, I'm delighted to report that as of Wednesday, 19 September, after enormous effort, I posted the most detailed summary of my worldview that I've yet displayed on this website, here.

Playful Actions (Text Summary)

• helping Dad get up in the morning
• helping Dad climb the stairs
• helping Dad shower and dress
• helping Dad descend the stairs
  
• bringing Dad to outpatient rehab
• catnapping
• homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading, also with singing
• conversing via telephone for one-and-a-half hours with my brother, Steve
• reading more of Ender's Game
• audio listening
• housework
• exhaustion and, in the evening, falling asleep unintentionally

Playful Reflections (Text)

Today, I often felt tired. I guess I've been having a busy week. Helping Dad take a shower is a time-consuming project, but I was glad to help him, as I know he feels more comfortable being clean.

Pictures of Aliana, such as those that I've posted today, stimulate such warmth in my heart. Viewing them adds tremendously to my joy in blogging.

Gratitude

I'm grateful to myself for completing all the forms of housework that I did today. This helped meet my needs for order and progress.

I'm grateful to Aliana for giving me an opportunity to contribute with our homeschooling efforts.

I'm grateful to Cherita and Aliana for their companionship and communication.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her productive, professional work and economic support.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her help developing my website.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her help caring for Dad.

Playful Actions (Photos)

As background for the following, I invite you to read my Brief Self-Introduction, which appears here; and my Current Activities page, which I’ve incorporated into my About Me area on a separate page, here. Also, I'm delighted to report that as of Wednesday, 19 September, after enormous effort, I posted the most detailed summary of my worldview that I've yet displayed on this website, here.

Playful Actions (Text Summary)

• helping Dad get up in the morning
• bringing Dad to outpatient rehab
• homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading, also with singing
• library homeschooling with Aliana, spanning reading, anatomy, rhyming, puzzles and more
• caregiving for Dad
• catnapping
• reading more of Ender's Game
• audio listening
• treadmilling
• housework

Playful Reflections (Text)

At the moment, I'm feeling calmer than I have in days. I attribute this to having fulfilled my needs for balance, progress and peace more lately than I have in some time.

As I've previously indicated, on December 3, Dad suffered from a stroke and remained hospitalized until December 27. Since then, he has undergone rehabilitation (involving speech, occupational and physical therapies) at home. During the last two weeks, he has graduated to outpatient therapy. Since Cherita, Aliana and I live with Dad, this has created many challenges for us and has consumed much of our time.

One of my most difficult challenges involved finding the time to devote as much attention as I prefer in my homeschooling efforts with Aliana. I'm delighted that during the last two weeks, she and I have sustained a steady process of homeschooling together, made dramatic progress in our learning, have enjoyed our time together - and have managed to combine this with Cherita's schedule in a way that has contributed to her efficiency, as well.

In addition, I've felt profoundly grateful to Cherita for the additional assistance that she's provided to me lately in caring for Dad, such as when preparing him for bed at night.

I've been enjoying my interaction with Aliana immensely. Last week, during our homeschooling, although I don't remember precisely how it began, during the natural, spontaneous evolution of our dialogue, it developed that Aliana expressed that she wanted me to read to her using my impersonation of the voice of Grover, the Sesame Street Muppet. Since then, each day, we've enjoyed making the learning process as playful as possible by proceeding as if Aliana is enjoying her homeschooling with a full cast of characters from Sesame Street, whose voices I impersonate.

Prior to these developments, I was experiencing emotional ups and downs in relation to my efforts to meet my needs for balance, progress and peace. One dramatic sign of how much Cherita and I have managed to improve our coordination and efficiency has involved my managing to do some reading in recent days.

Over the last couple of days, I've really enjoyed continuing my reading of the science-fiction novel, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. I have experienced ever deeper intrigue as I have read further. I'm really looking forward to learning how the story develops and concludes.

Another source of satisfaction has involved my more consistent exercise. Although not quite every day, I have exercised most days, and I've certainly increased the frequency and intensity of my exercise by comparison with how much I did in prior weeks.

I've also continued to listen to various audio recordings. These have spanned lectures, seminars, interactive presentations about communication, and music. Some of the material has involved discussions relating to Objectivism. I've enjoyed listening to these in part because doing so has helped me to clarify for myself both 1) those elements in that philosophy with which I still resonate, as well as 2) the respects in which my own worldview has dramatically diverged from one that had exercised so much influence on me during my young adulthood. I'm eager to write more about this in the near future.

In a sense, however, I'm even more eager to write about my own worldview. It's far more important to me to clarify what my own views are, and why, than it is to distinguish my views from ones that previously held appeal for me. Even so, I do believe that I would find it clarifying - and that many others might, as well - for me to write about my present thoughts and feelings about the philosophy and literature of Objectivism.

One source of frustration during the more difficult times over the last couple of months has been my opinion that I've reached perhaps the most fertile interval that I've yet experienced in my development of my worldview - yet I've found it so difficult to devote anything close to the amount of time that I would like to writing about and expressing myself on the basis of such development. I am feeling more hopeful today that in the near future, I may find the time to do so more than I have lately.

Although at the moment I'm feeling calm about recently having fulfilled my needs for balance, progress and peace more fully, this scarcely means that I've felt no pain or overwhelm in relation to how difficult I've often found it as I've struggled to meet all the needs that I wish to meet. I've especially wanted to devote more energy to writing. So I'm especially glad that, for example, in this blog entry, I've expressed myself in my writing in more detail on my blog than I have in quite some time.

I'm grateful for your attention and interest, which have helped meet my needs for self-expression and communication.

Gratitude

I'm grateful to myself for completing all the forms of housework that I did today. This helped meet my needs for order and progress.

I'm grateful to Aliana for giving me an opportunity to contribute with our homeschooling efforts.

I'm grateful to Cherita and Aliana for their companionship and communication.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her productive, professional work and economic support.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her help developing my website.

I'm grateful to Cherita for her help caring for Dad.

running the acoustic and language model optimizer for my dictation software

helping Dad get up in the morning

bringing Dad to outpatient rehab

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

caregiving for Dad

catnapping

reading more of Ender's Game

audio listening

weight training

hanging upside down with anti-gravity boots for stretching

assisting Aliana with her exercise

treadmilling

CCCG (Communicating Compassionately Covenant Group, which meets monthly, for which I facilitate) meeting at CCUU

housework

helping Dad get up in the morning

bringing Dad to outpatient rehab

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

caregiving for Dad

catnapping

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

weight training

hanging upside down with anti-gravity boots for stretching

treadmilling

CCRC (Compassionate Communication for the Resolution of Conflict panel) meeting at CCUU

housework

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

driving Dad to Outpatient Rehabilitation

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

going to the library with Aliana

catnapping

the Enlightenment class

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

housework

snow shoveling

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

breakfasting with Cherita

treadmilling

catnapping

chatting with Fran

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

grocery driving

housework

updating my home page with a new, Brief Self-Introduction

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

bringing Dad to outpatient rehab: OT, ST and PT

breakfasting with Cherita and Aliana

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

weight training

hanging upside down with anti-gravity boots for stretching

treadmilling

catnapping

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

chiropractic appointment

housework

taking out garbage

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

breakfasting with Cherita and Aliana

catnapping

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

housework

wheeling carts in from the curb

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

bringing Dad to outpatient rehab: OT, ST and PT

catnapping

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

reading, composing and sending church-related email

weight training

hanging upside down with anti-gravity boots for stretching

audio listening

CCSP: Communicating Compassionately Support Group

housework

taking out garbage

weighing and measuring

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

website editing

catnapping

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

Atheism, Agnosticism, Humanism discussion at CCUU: Dawkins, others

housework

weighing and measuring

helping Dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

website editing

catnapping

homeschooling with Aliana, with a focus on reading

weight training

hanging upside down with anti-gravity boots for stretching

reading, composing and sending church-related email

audio listening

Enlightenment class: Montesquieu and Mandeville

giving a friend a ride home

groceries

housework

overhearing Dad watch a History Channel (I think) special on Star Wars technology and real science

wishing I were writing more

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

Cherita's continuing back pain and recovery

church day

Open Forum Discussion

worship service

composing, sending email to friends and family

audio listening

locating Dad's tax documents

receiving a welcome massage from a friend

wishing others would read my Worldview Summary and engage me in compassionate dialogue about it

helping dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

Cherita's continuing back pain, ice, recovery from chiropractic adjustment

composing, responding to, sending email to friends

audio editing and listening

watching a Teaching Company DVD lecture, "Montesquieu and the Problem of Relativism," from The Birth of the Modern Mind, Disc Three, presented by Professor Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania

my dictation software repair attempts eventuating in success!

weight training

hanging upside down with antigravity boots as a stretching exercise

relaxing

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

Dad's ST

Cherita's continuing back pain

chiropractic appointment for Cherita

driving to grocery shopping

homeschooling with Aliana

composing, sending email to friends

audio editing and listening

watching Doctor Who, Buffy and Babylon 5 episodes

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

Dad's ST (final in-home; outpatient starts next week)

Cherita's continuing back pain

chiropractic appointment for Cherita

driving to grocery shopping

homeschooling with Aliana

composing, sending email to friends

audio editing and listening

watching Doctor Who, Buffy and Babylon 5 episodes

helping dad get up in the morning

preparing and bringing Dad his breakfast

caregiving for Dad

Cherita's continuing back pain

scheduling a chiropractic appointment for Cherita

reading with Aliana

homeschooling with Aliana, including by helping her spell words as captions for her illustrations

correcting internal hyperlinks on my website

picking up Dad's prescription

stopping briefly at the library

audio listening

hanging upside down with antigravity boots as a stretching exercise

online chat with Fran

Cherita's back pain

reading with Aliana

walk to library

library book return

shoveling

audio listening

caregiving for Dad

sheer exhaustion

gratefulness to Fran for our conversation

speech therapy

quality time with Cherita

Worship Service

Coming of Age: Communicating Compassionately

visits for dad

caregiving

weight training

hanging upside down

treadmilling

listening to audio

shoveling

audio listening

hanging upside down

treading the mill

much appreciated massage

Open Forum Discussion

worship service

later: CCCG at church