A little celebration

This morning I'm celebrating the fact that my desktop computer is out of surgery and doing well. Hooray.

It had been grinding along slowly for at least six months, and I kept postponing the chore of taking it to the Apple repair store and getting it fixed. I'd also been trying not to think about the surgery's expense.

But last Thursday I'd had enough of the computer's antics, so I decided I'd take the bull by the horns, as my mother used to say, and deliver it to the repair shop.

Initial diagnosis didn't sound good: The shop owner said he suspected, from my description, the hard drive needed replacing. Many, many dollar signs danced in my head. I figured I'd better brace myself for a bill of $500, minimum. I like to plan for the worst, then it if doesn't happen, I can celebrate.

He said he'd have the tech guy look at it on Monday and give me a call with the official diagnosis.

The tech guy did call, as promised, but he surprised me by saying the problem was simply that the computer needed more gigabytes (I think that's what they're called) of memory.

I gave the go-ahead, he installed the additional memory yesterday morning, and I brought my precious baby, still a bit drowsy from the anesthesia, back home at noontime. I was out a little over $100, but that seemed fair enough.

She's working like a charm: much, much faster and, if I'm not imagining it, rather happily.

*******

Meanwhile, my older sister surprised me on Friday by sending me these two snapshops of my middle sister and me. It's fun to receive photos from my childhood, especially photos I didn't know existed.

In the top photo I'm the one on the receiving end of the trumpet's blast. I must have had tremendous faith that Roberta wouldn't render me deaf.

My older sister, Shirley, included a note asking who'd given us little sisters permission to play with her trumpet! We probably took it upon ourselves to give it a road test while Shirley was at school. (Roberta and I used to enjoy prowling through Shirley's belongings while she was at school. The funny thing is, recently my niece Cheryl, who is Shirley's daughter, confessed to me that she and her sister used to enjoy prowling through Roberta's and my things while we were at college! What goes around truly does come around.)

In the second photo, we're standing in front of our playhouse. We were lucky girls: friends of the family gave us this playhouse on loan after their daughter had outgrown it. We had a lot of fun, and many fights, in this playhouse. We also committed our share of small crimes, if memory serves..

What caught my attention in this photo, though, is our attire. I'd completely forgotten about these drop-dead gorgeous creations: red/white/green plaid with matching shoulder bags. We were runway-ready once fully decked out. I was thinking as I looked at the top photo that I'm sure my mother made our sweaters and dresses. How she had time to knit and sew for us, in addition to her many household and farm chores (and four other, older kids to raise) I'll never understand. The dresses in this second photo, are "store bought," which I'm sure Roberta and I considered a special luxury.

We also seem to be sporting fresh Toni home permanents. How my mother loved Toni home permanents. How Roberta and I hated them! How we dreaded hearing Mum announce, "I'm sending you girls down to Mrs. Norton" (I think that was her name), "for new permanents." Mrs. Norton was a nice-enough lady, but she took her home permanent-giving a little too seriously. She would chop our hair short, twist the curlers so many times that our eyebrows would be yanked up to giddy heights and we'd swear our hair was being pulled out by the roots, causing us to stifle cries, and send us home with curls so tight we couldn't get a comb through them for days.

There. I managed to get from a computer's repair to Toni home permanents in one fell swoop. I started this post feeling happy about my computer's new health, but now I'm feeling depressed about those darned Toni home permanents. I guess I'd better take Molly-the-dog, who's waiting patiently here beside my chair, for a walk. A fresh snowfall last night and sunshine today make for a beautiful world, and today I'm the one in charge of my hair. (I'm not saying it looks any better; I'm just saying I get to choose the style!)

Throwing a party

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

On Saturday we members of the Maine Beta chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa threw a Valentine's Party for the residents of a local assisted-living center.

We've been doing this for several years, and it's always one of our favorite activities.

We members bring to the party two or three small, wrapped gifts: luxury soaps, nail polish, candy, notepads, postage stamps, fancy socks, etc.

We also bring refreshments: punch, ice cream with strawberry topping, cookies.

Two of our members always volunteer to have their students make Valentine's cards and placemats, which our guests get to keep. The Valentines this year were gaily decorated with lots of glitter. I heard one member ask the teacher who brought them in, "How did your first graders manage to use the glitter so well?"

"I added the glitter myself after the kids went home," I heard the teacher reply.

We play rousing games of Bingo with the residents. Each resident is "allowed" to win twice, thus receiving two gifts. If a third or fourth win should happen, that resident gets a warm hug. Many hugs are given.

We have so much fun bringing laughter and small gifts to these lovely people. This year we had so many gifts that each resident received a third gift at the end of the party.

 The residents always thank us warmly for coming to their residence and throwing a party for them.

It's a simple gesture, but it means a lot to our guests...and to us.

"Praise the deed, not the do-er"

Several years ago, in the early-to-mid-90's, I'd guess, when the self-esteem movement was alive and flourishing in the school system where I taught and, I think, in the rest of the nation's schools as well, I signed up to take a course in self-esteem.

My motive for taking the course was purely selfish: the course, offered by my school system, gave 3 recertification credits to its teachers, and I needed those 3 credits before certificate renewal came up.

The school psychologist taught the course. I don't remember much about course content now, but one lesson really had an impact on me and how I did business from then on.

The lesson was on giving praise to our students. The instructor started the lesson by saying one should not praise the person but, rather, praise the person's action.

This baffled me. Why on earth should we not praise the "do-er"?

It took awhile for the point to sink in, but gradually I got it.

When we're told we're "amazing" or (heaven forbid) "awesome" or "fantastic," or "sweet" or "adorable," we're left with an uncomfortable feeling that doesn't feel much like pride. It feels like insincerity, perhaps, or a huge overstatement, or a comment which we have not earned.

But when we're told we've baked a delicious cake, or our drawing is excellent in detail, or we take wonderful care of our pets, those are praises of substance. We feel good knowing our efforts have been noticed and that we are doing a good job.

My school system, however, was so hell-bent on developing positive self-esteem in all of its students, whether each student had earned it or not, that elementary-level kids were taught to sing songs about themselves: "I am wonderful, I am lovable, I am...."

I developed and instituted a K-through-12 writing contest just before the self-esteem movement hit our town. Children of all grade levels submitted entries to the contest, community citizens met one morning in the spring to select the best three entries from each grade, and the winners and their parents were treated to a "tea" at which each first-place winner read aloud his or her winning piece. The icing on the cake was a booklet given to each contest winner, containing all of the winning writings with, of course, the writer's name included. These students, ages 5 to 18, were now published authors!

I thought this was a great little contest. In fact, I usually sat in the audience with tears about to spill over as I watched little first- and second-graders churn their way up to the podium, climb onto the footstool,  and share their work. To this day I remember one little boy, Adam, who read aloud a poem he had written about a pickle.

Then the self-esteem movement hit, and one of the town's two K-4 schools dropped out of the contest. The reason? The principal felt it was not fair for only three students in each grade to be declared contest winners if the rest of the students couldn't be called winners, too.

I was floored and disappointed. It was the end of our K-12 writing contest.

I remember reading an article in either Time or Newsweek a few years ago about the negative impact of the self-esteem movement. Our country was graduating many students who had egos the size of Alaska but had nothing concrete to show for it. Worse than that, many students actually had poor self-images because they knew, in their hearts, that the repeated praise they'd been given had no or little foundation in fact. The self-esteem movement had backfired, it seems.

This is perhaps, too, why extraordinarily good-looking people often have poor self-images. If all they've ever heard is praise for their "exteriors," rather than praise for their accomplishments, they feel empty.

Praise the deed, and not the do-er.