Book idea - The story of quinoa

I have been debating what I want to do with this blog.  I have not been very dedicated to posting, as the few of you that check have noticed.  I had an epiphany that I would update from my phone instead of logging in to the computer and writing, but blogger I do not think is Google's top priority. They cut the iphone app and even cut sharing links from youtube and google+.  I have thought about cutting over to a different provider or paying to get a dedicated website, but for now I will leave it as it is, because that is the lazy way?

Meanwhile, I have thought about what things I would be more dedicated about writing about and what people may be interested in reading.  I wondered this morning if it would be worth trying to get the framework of a book about quinoa written here.  I studied the genetics of quinoa for my masters degree in 2000-2002 at BYU.  Quinoa was not a superfood then.  You couldn't buy it at the supermarket or eat it on a salad at Panera.  It was an orphan crop of interest to the Benson Institute at BYU and to indigenous farmers in Bolivia, Peru and Chile.

But, the foundation was there for it to become a food fad.  Production was increasing thanks to the almost solitary efforts of  Alejandro Bonifacio and a few others in Bolivia that had rescued the germplasm collection from destruction and developed improved varieties with decreased saponins - bitter soapy chemicals on the outside of the seeds, and increased yields.  PROIMPA was starting to promote it and other "superfoods" were talked up on Oprah and other talk shows.

Kate swimming

The rain never ends.

Luna Moth!!!!

I found this Luna moth in the parking garage yesterday morning as I was biking in to work.  I was worried that someone had hit it with their car and it was injured, but it was just hunkered down for the day.  This is one of the prettiest moths.  I would have assumed they are pretty rare since I have never seen one before, but Wikipedia says they are common but are rarely seen because as an adult they only live a few days and are mostly out at night.  Based on the pictures there I think this is a female.  

Can you imagine all of the effort it takes to make the biological conversion to this, only to wear the wings and color for a few days? Or that the adult form moth doesn't have a mouth and so doesn't eat anything, just existing to mate, avoid predators and then die of starvation?

Art Show Highlights

park

Being 4 is hard

Becca has been frustrated with life lately.  I keep thinking as a parent that I would have figured out how to parent around temper-tantrums by now, but this kid is stretching my patience.

40. . .

Thoughts on turning 

The Curse of the Missing Glove

Somehow I have a pile of gloves, yet not one pair. Either I have been gardening as Michael Jackson or there is a nefarious glove stealing gnome.

Birthday in LA

Becca's Mexico pictures

Kate is FamilyTree's biggest fan

This is Kate. This is why I love the FamilyTree app.

You can add photos ,recordings and you can see your ancestors and it is just fun!

Will it pancake?

Today we answered the age old question of will chocolate cake pancake?

Yes, yes it will.

Test email with video

I have been playing around with how to update my blog with my phone, since google has retired its iphone app.  There is no mobile support for the normal blogger interface.  I am afraid this means that google is planning on retiring blogger.  I am hoping that isn't the case.

I have felt almost exactly like this recently about social media, except I love having a smart phone.  I love being able to look up things on maps and get email and my calendar.  I didn't have it for a few weeks at work and I felt like I was going crazy.

What do I do when Blogger shuts down?  Should I transfer this blog to another site, buy some internet space of my own?

Test multiple photo load from email

New Recording

Becca post

Mexico

Testing email blog post

My blog has been particularly silent recently. A couple of reasons: my work has been crazy, then blogger shut down the iPhone app, Trump was elected and my words to describe my feelings about it were particularly angry and obscene, and then as the days went by I used Facebook more and more. I have decided to try and revive it, but google seems determined to eliminate blogger from its portfolio. I am testing using the email upload since there is no mobile solution for this blogging platform.

Prodigy - the math game we have to yell at our kids to stop playing

I am so proud of Kate.  When we were at student-teacher conferences on Tuesday, her teacher praised her math skills and asked what we had done to work on them.  I told her that we did not do much, but that Kate had practiced a ton on an internet game called Prodigy.  She was intrigued and asked if Kate would be willing to show the class sometime.

Her teacher must have went home and checked it that night, because the next day she asked Kate to give a presentation and demonstration to the class about the game.  Kate showed them on the smartboard how to set up an account, chose a character, their clothes and decorations, and then start playing the game.  She showed them the different parts of the world in the game and how to have a battle.  Battles earn you points, gold, and pets.  To fight a battle you challenge another player, a pet, or a monster.  You cast spells by solving math problems that are grade level appropriate.  I wasn't there, but I can imagine little Kate talking about this game excitedly to her class because she and her sisters love this game.

As a parent, I hate flash cards.  Helping my kids to memorize and learn math facts, spelling, and state capitals is so painful for all of us. They hate doing it and so do I.  At Ballard, Colleen's teacher introduced the kids to an online-math game called Prodigy.  The game is kind of like Pokemon, I think. I never played any of these games, but it seems similar to me.  You set up a character that explores this world and fights monsters, other players, collects pets, and go on missions in order to get gold, advance levels, earn new spells, evolve your pets, and get into the Academy.  In a Battle - you can cast spells, but in order to do so you have to solve a math problem.  The math problems seem to match very well with grade level expectations in common core standards and include not only addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but also story problems, graphing, money, time, and set theory.

The problem with this game is that it is totally addicting. we have to yell at them to get off the computer all the time.  They talk about their missions, pets, levels, and battles.  It has helped immensely with their math facts, but it is almost too fun.  We showed it to our friends in Ankeny, and now they too have to limit their kids time on Prodigy, otherwise they play all the time.  Their math skills are getting way better, but would spend hours a day on the computer playing Prodigy.

So if you don't mind nagging your kids to get off the computer, but want them to learn their math facts, this game is for you.

Cardinals game

When I got back from looking at plots I was invited to go to a Cardinals game with some of the guys on my team from work. Neil won tickets in a drawing as part of a fundraiser for diabetes.  I can't bear watching baseball on TV, but in person I like the pacing and time to talk and socialize.