Old Mongolian Cart

"It was the beginning and the end of all imagination all at the same time."

-Seabiscuit-

* Howard Buick referring to the Industrial Revolution -

Downtown

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sure
Downtown - everything's waiting for you
-Petula Clark-

Store Front and Flats

Classical Clock

Impressive Columns

Hard Rock Cafe/Bar at the K Street Mall

Federal Courthouse - Jim's Building

Victorian Arquitecture

with Mounted Street Lamps

Friendly Flowers

La Anticipación de la Primavera en mi Jardín

The Anticipation of Spring -
Nature gives to every time
La naturaleza en cada estación



and season
some beauties
nos brinda alguna belleza




of its own...
a su manera...
Charles Dickens

The HOME Part of Homeschooling

No nos quedamos mucho en casa, al contrario de lo que muchos piensan de los "homeschoolers," los que se educan en casa. Pero, son tan agradables los momentos cuando sí estamos en ella, ¡qué me gustaría que fueran muchísimos más!

We're not home much -just the opposite of what most think of "homeschoolers." But, the moments when we are, are so pleasant that I wish we had many more of them!



Reading to the neighbour boys.
Mark dando una hora de lectura a sus vecinos.



Research and more research!
Investigaciones y más investigaciones. Sara (13), en su curso de cultura clásica, hablando con su profesor y compañeros.



En el recreo, un sitio donde pensar y soñar despierto.
A place to think and daydream.



El cuarto de Mamá es el mejor lugar donde leer. ¿No lo sabias?
Didn't you know Mama's room is the best place to read?

The Gift of Giving Back Nepal

My best purchase at the San Diego Zoo was the middle bowl, which like all the others, is made entirely from trash by artisans in a recycling program from the mountainous regions of Lapa, Tipling and Shertung, Nepal. They collect plastic bags and other garbage to weave into bowls and other artwork. Their earnings provide the livelihood for these artisans and is the basic support of primary healthcare and for the hospital in this Himalayan region -
http://www.himalayan-healthcare.org/
http://www.spiralfoundation.org/

Mi mejor compra en el Zoologico de San Diego fue la escudilla del medio. En las aldeas montanosas de Lapa, Tipling and Shertung, Nepal, artisanos participan en un programa de reciclaje. Coleccionan bolsas de plastico y tal basura para tejerla en escudillas de muchos tamanos y otra artesania. Las ganancias financian estos artistas y es el apoyo basico de salud y del hospital en la region - http://www.himalayan-healthcare.org/

Feliz Día de San Patricio

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Starting with morning pinches for anyone not wearing green, this day is special in that my children's father is half Irish and my kids are a quarter of the same rebel blood. I, on the contrary, don't boast of that unruly breed, my closest kin from that region of the world being Welsh. And while speaking of that country, I will point out that St. Patrick himself was Welsh, not Irish! He simply traveled to Ireland to share the message of salvation to those heathen on the heather worshiping druids and Celtic beings of the sort.

¡Feliz Día de San Patricio! Empezamos esta mañana pellizcando a cualquiera de los niños que no vistan con el color verde, este día es especial porque el padre de mis hijos es mitad irlandés y mis niños un cuarto de esa misma sangre rebelde. Yo, al contrario, no presumo de tener nada de esa raza indisciplinada, mi parentesco de esa región del mundo es galés. Y hablando de ese país, señalo aquí que el Santo Patricio era galés, no irlandés! El simplemente viajó a Irlanda para compartir el Evangelio con aquellos paganos primitivos adorando los druidas y dioses celtas semejantes.

Now, while these pictures are all taken in lovely Holland from last July's visit, I imagine it's the same blinding and fresh green that symbolizes Ireland and the Irish.
Bueno, mientras sacamos todas estas fotos en bella Holanda durante la ultima visita en julio, me imagino que tiene que ser el mismo color brillante y refrescante de verde que simboliza Irlanda y los irlandeses.

In a shady nook one moonlit night

A leprechaun I spied.

With scarlet cap and coat of green

a cruiskeen by his side.

'Twas tick tock tick his hammer went

upon a tiny shoe.

Oh, I laughed to think he was caught at last,

But, the fairy was laughing, too!

-Angela's Ashes
autobiographical fiction by Frank McCourt

The Next Seven Days

S a n D i e g o, CA!
Soy un viajero y navegante; y cada dia descubro
una nueva region dentro de mi alma - Gibran Jalil Gibran

Seaport Village -
Esta aldea con un encanto de otros tiempos
se encuentra en al centro de un parque paisajista
a la orilla del oceano. Tres plazas tematicas reconstruidas
a imagen de los pequenos puertos de hace un siglo tienen
tiendas, restaurantes y bares. Mi lugarcito favorito es
El Nido del Cuervo que sirve de cafe y libreria.

T u e s d a y:
After nine long hours of driving south -
We'll visit my college days stomping grounds,
Seaport Village for a good cappuccino
at The Crow's Nest.

W e d n e s d a y:
Mark and Shane (both 11) and Holly and I are
spending all day at the world famous San Diego Zoo.

San Diego Zoo -
El zoo mas grande dee America del Norte:
4,239 ejenplares que representan a 816 especies
viven en mas de 40 ha de vegetacion tropical u subtropical.
Los animales se muestran en recintos a cielo abierto
que imitan sus habitats naturales. El SD Zoo tiene
muchas especies raras o amenazadas. Entre ellos,
un koalla albino, condores californianos,
y el primer panda gigante vivo, nacido aqui en los EEUU.
While we're at the beach, Risa and Hannah
will enjoy Coronado Beach, and its
many sights and sounds.

La Isla de Coronado-
Se llega bien por el Coronado Bay Bridge,
puente de casi 3 km. de largo construido en 1969,
notable por sus 30 torres de hormigon que
recuerdan la forma de los arcos de las misiones.
La isla encantada que separa la bahia de San Diego
del oceano Pacifico. El hotel victoriano
inaugurado en 1888 se llam "The Del."
Fue uno de los primeros hoteles de lujo de CA.

T h u r s d a y - S a t u r d a y:
USD hosts the next tournament.

The beautiful hilltop campus of Catholic
University of San Diego.

El Desafio/The Challenge

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion,

it is easy in solitude to live after our own,

but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Sacramento en Invierno

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance

Dave Lane - Out in Space

Acabo de llegar de una exhibicion de arte hecho por un amigo, Dave Lane, con construcciones enormes de acero. Con equipo antiguo industrial y del campo ha hecho unas esculturas asombrosas durante los ultimos cinco anos o mas que se presentaron por ultima vez en la Galeria Nelson de la Universidad de CA, Davis. Nos dio un tour privado y luego salimos a comer Thai. Pasamos una noche fascinante.

Grandma Planet

Keyes, Heart of GoldTonight a high school friend and artist Dave Lane, gave the girls, our friend Bruce and me a private tour of his fascinating exhibit for its last viewing. Dave uses found and modified agricultural and industrial steel relics of the 20th century to embody his personal cosmology. It's a mad maze of monstrous machinery contrasted by minute, but prolific puzzles, grids, circles, triangles, diamonds and lines of text/writings.
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/03/artseen/lost-in-space-outsiderness-and-the-art-of-dave-lane

Socrates

The Best Things in Life: A Contemporary Socrates Looks at Power, Pleasure, Truth & the Good Life, by Peter Kreeft

*"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates
*Socrates is on campus at Desperate State University challenging common misguided beliefs by his classic form of pedagogy-questioning, or the Socratic Method, as we've come to call it.

Being a stone cutter, he once sculpted a pedestal without a statue, and cut in the inscription "to the unknown God." This was the very inscription Paul of Tarsus referred to when he preached to the philosophers on Mars Hill, where statues of the gods stood. Acts 17, Paul connected his God and Socrates' god in this way; he said, "the god you worship in ignorance, I now declare to you." Socrates questioned the old gods; Paul introduced the new God.

Con Gripe/The Flu