Plenty of thinking going on here

Ooh, my hands are just freezing, can barely type. You'd think I was making snowballs or something, rather than sitting in my nice house in relative warmth. Speaking of warmth, it occurred to me that all these months of non-pool activity seems to be easier on my knees than being in the pool. What does that mean? Or is it my imagination?

                                         

                           This is the type I bought

At the store the other day I found a jar of olive bruchetta which I thought might take the place of the muffaletta I like from Basketique. It is a smaller jar in size but less than half the cost of the muffaletta. The sad thing is, the flavor is lacking, but I don't know what it is lacking. Can I fix it? I put it out on FB last night to see if any of the foodies in the crowd would know what to do. My friend, Jacquie, seemed to think it was a difference in the oils used, which means I cannot fix it. The bruchetta does not have a bad taste, but is more like no taste at all.

The other day I had a conversation with my mom, not interrupted by driving. I was actually at home, and so was she. Mom had big news to report, having gotten a phone call from a woman she used to babysit for in the early 1940's. To compress this story---the caller is the mom of the choir director who came with the LPS group last Tuesday. Through a conversation, Randy and I made the inevitable WELS connections, and voila!, Mom is reconnected with this lady. They talked for an hour, comparing notes and matching up information with the caller, Carol. It was a great trip for Mom to take down memory lane, and I love it for her. It seems Carol was at my cousin, Rochelle's, funeral a couple years ago but we never realized it. Cool!

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I was listening to a program yesterday where the hosts were talking about some of the elected leaders, and men in general, being shaped in their adult lives by what their father was. Tiger Woods (not an elected official) was one example, a negative example, of following in his father's footsteps. His dad had a history of infidelity and had it overlooked, and Tiger expected it to be the same for himself. 

Some of the elected guys, those in the forefront of many discussions, are who they are as a result of their father's influence. Like it or not. Even the president has done it---what his father  said and did in life is how PresBO learned to think. His cultural influence, and the others cultural and familial influences, come into play in adulthood. 

"The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible." Woodrow Wilson (How is that for a tragic goal?)

In the book I read about a mom's influence on their son's lives, Mom, as the nurturer, helps to influence the "style" of the son, how he is going to treat others and conduct himself. The same is true for the relationship between fathers and daughters, according to the author. 

I just love these type of conversations, or programs, as the case might be, especially when discussing the upcoming changes coming into popularity in education. They really get my brain busy! New standardized curriculums, data/information collection, based on states getting stimulus money. Dangerous! The education system will measure everything about a child from preschool through graduation, directing their path for them rather than the student doing so. Right now it is in the gov't. schools but we should not be surprised to see these problems getting into the private and parochial schools at some time. Talk about insidious influences!