Dyspareunia is one of the common symptoms of fibromyalgia, or as a co-existing problem. I don’t usually look at Wired for this kind of thing, but the article When Sex Is a Pain has some good ideas for dealing with dyspareunia.
Month: May 2006
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FAQ
Katie showed this blog to Malika, facilitator of the womyn’s writers group, today. Malika suggested that we might want to add an FAQ, for those who aren’t familiar with homeschooling. I’ve decided to start by updating and moving over the information that was on my technomom.com site, so as to keep all the homeschooling info in one place. The FAQ stuff will all be in one category, but we’ll also add some to the About page and make more pages to compile it all into one place.
Writing Wednesday
Today was the rescheduled date for Katie’s writing group, so off we went to one of our favorite bookstores.
Unfortunately — due to the rescheduling, I think — Katie was the only “member” who showed up. The group is just for high school “womyn,” and the only other person to attend was the facilitator. As it turns out, other people (not high schoolers) wandered in and out throughout the scheduled time. I think the girl got a lot of attention, which isn’t a bad thing at all. She missed seeing her sister writers, though.
I hung out in the front of the store, stitching. I was insanely early for a Stitch ‘n Bitch session scheduled there for 7, but I got a good two hours of time in on the Fairy Tale Sampler, along with some good conversation.
The official SnB was the first they’ve hosted. I was a little uncertain about going, as the focus was clearly on knitting. I needn’t have worried, as people were doing a variety of needlework.
Katie wrapped up the little test piece she was knitting, but she ran out of yarn. She picked out her next piece, though, which will require a trip to Nease’s. Oh no! The horrors! 😉
We got to educate at least four different people about homeschooling, too, which was a bonus. Meeting Katie is the best answer there is to the “S question,” as she’s clearly not lacking in social skills. We definitely left people with good impressions.
I think I’ll go to their next adult women’s writer’s group, as well. It’s been so long since I’ve written anything but non-fiction that I feel a bit odd, but Katie is a good influence.
Arguments against homeschooling — too sheltered?
I’m not worried about Katie being “too sheltered,” although that’s one of the “dangers of homeschooling” according to its opponents. This study is something to remember the next time someone brings up that old argument.
People who have suffered life’s hard knocks while growing up tend to be more gullible than those who have been more sheltered, startling new findings from the University of Leicester reveal.
A six-month study in the University’s School of Psychology found that rather than ‘toughening up’ individuals, adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence meant that these people were vulnerable to being mislead.
The research analysing results from 60 participants suggest that such people could, for example, be more open to suggestion in police interrogations or to be influenced by the media or advertising campaigns.
The study found that while some people may indeed become more ‘hard-nosed’ through adversity, the majority become less trusting of their own judgement.
From Science Daily via OmniBrain.
SciFri: Bionics & Tissue Engineering
I just listened to this epidsode of a podcast that I like a lot; Science Friday: Making Science Radioactive.
In this episode, several people are interviewed about things relating to the topic. Here’s some of the things that they discuss:
- A milestone in science: Bladders are grown in labs and then put into children who were born with bladders that didn’t work very well.
- If and when we’ll be able to grow other body parts such as other organs, or even limbs.
- How expensive this might be.
- Mechanical hands, arms, and legs.
- Making humans so that they could actually regrow a lost limb, like creatures such as starfish are able to do.
It’s very interesting. Go check it out!
Good homeschooling day
Katarina went out with me and we drove around, taking pictures of things.
OK, that sounds vague, but really, Katarina enjoys taking pictures of things, and these things are highly random yet they all have certain qualities:
- They’re frequently old, cracked, rusted, or broken/trashed
- They can be cast in some sort of juxtapositional light
- They are frequently interesting even when very close up to them
We had a long discussion about gentrification and what that is after taking pictures of some places that were being remodeled and gentrified in particularly bad parts of town.
We had a lot of discussion, as well, about economies, especially the economy of Second Life, and also the economy of such virtual worlds as presented in Cory Doctorow’s short story, Anda’s Game, which was read as part of the Podiobook “New Media Voices.”
All in all, it rocked the house.
Podcast 2 is up!
I’ve just posted the second episode of the Fibrant Living podcast, with much help from Sam.
Episode 2
Episode 2
This week we talked about distractions, delegating, and defining yourself.
I recommended Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
I also referenced Dr. Irene Tracy’s study on the value of distraction to change the perception of pain, which is summarized in Imaging how attention modulates pain in humans using functional MRI.
Next week, we’ll continue the series on delegating, learn about creating Wellness Recovery Action Plans, and more.
This week’s music was provided by the Podsafe Music Network. The song was “Morning on Haleakala Hwy” by Kimo Watanabe.
Your Turn
Please share your favorite distractions and how you define yourself.
Stitching
Katie wanted to go by Nease’s Needlework a couple of weeks ago, and you know I really resisted fiercely 😉
While there, I saw a shop sample of Dragon Dreams’ Fairy Tale Sampler, and could not leave the shop without it. It’s getting most of my stitching time now, because I just love it. Of course, the fact that it’s the first thing I’ve really made especially for Sam makes it special, too. And what better to work on while gaming?
