Leaders, Followers, and Chance

Just a little post here. (Thought I had disappeared didn't you.)
ADHD takes a lot to live with sometimes even as you get older. In fact the AD part is worse and the memory slows at the same time.
Jumping from one thought and investigation to another yet not forgetting any of my “great ideas”, is a crazy maker. Yet I cannot always remember the why of the "great ideas".
Now add in “life gets in the way” and you have me.
Which brings me to these thoughts.
While reading a short article on genetics, leaders, and followers recently, I read what I think is most of the truth of it all.
Basically it is this: genetics, early environment, and chance can make all the difference. I think especially for leaders chance is important. Chance may not be the right word. Perhaps I should say an occurrence that allows or forces one to lead. For some the society in which they live can be an obstruction to leadership. Gender, and or youth for example in some societies can force a “born” leader to become a follower. Remember, for instance, the old sayings about the “woman behind the man”. (best example I can think of).
Note I wrote “most of the truth”.
I guess you can lump many other influences in the above words, genetics, early environment, and chance. I was thinking of birth order or being an only child.
Anyway, it was a pretty good article and I have lost the reference. However, this is very similar:
Link here

So here ya go a little post for what it is worth.

Hope your “holidays” are good and happy.

Trying to Stay Positive and See the Steps Taken

Why haven't I written lately?
Several reasons actually. I just felt I had nothing to contribute.

Seems as though we, my family, have been somewhat in turmoil since September here. Nothing really major as far as that goes but just one of those spells. You know the spells I'm sure. One thing after another until we get worn out and then the small problems become large problems.

The roof is now done. (that even had its funny moments as well as the frustrating moments. another post?) There is some much needed reorganization done. Not nearly enough but some. I'm so tired I forget the progress made sometimes.
Some have mentioned the hectic Christmas season as the reason. Not in this case just on-going stuff and the times in which we all have been living taking their toll.

I enjoy Christmas and feel it has actually helped me get through some of this mess. I love "fluffy" Christmas movies and, some days, Christmas music. I love to watch parents that got to sneak off to shop for their kids and each other. This year I noted that people are smiling quietly. They are not laughing aloud nor are they arguing with the little kids as noted in the past. It is more low key. I really expected the stress levels to be higher but I think the bad times have been going on long enough that people are just deciding better ways to shop. I'll bet the debt levels of many families won't soar as in the previous 7-8 years.

Politically, I got very disgusted when "we" decided to send so many to Afghanistan.
I was already frustrated with the typical junk in the health-care "debate". I don't even read the NY Times right now. I just peruse the front page. I am sure many others feel the same. I had several days of "I give up" thoughts and living in a fairly red state doesn't help any. I grew up in this state and then came back years later. I have watched the changes for many years now and wonder what really happened. This is not the state for which I had such pride.
No I don't want to move out of state; I would have to move across country-politically speaking.
Not so sure the others in the family would go for it.

Another time but fun to read Mark Twain, as always, makes you smile. The site generally keeps me engrossed. I end up searching and reading with amazement at the brilliance of Mr. Twain. Thus I get lost in time. I hope you take time to read a little. My gift to you today.

Anyway, those are a few of the reasons I was not able or in the mood to post a thing.

I hope all who read this are having a good season, whether it be religious or just a beautiful December. Peace and quiet are my wishes. May all our problems be problems we can resolve by taking it one baby step at a time. I, for one, will try to remember the small positive steps we take and try to see the beauty of the world around us all. I am already forgiving myself for not getting everything done. To me, the Christmas season is a beautiful time even if I don't have cards sent or even the tree "up".
So...

Joy to you and yours,
Kanna

The photo is of a little Carolina Wren at the feeder.

Writing for Kids

Years ago I wrote a series of children's stories. I wrote them for storytelling and reading together with children. By today's readability tests, on each paragraph, the story parts are for about the 5^th grade. The narrator parts are about grade level 10-11. They include little sections to stimulate conversation and exploration of the happenings in the stories. At the time I was doing parties for a small school class of very bright kids, so I became for a while a scarecrow who couldn't scare crows. Instead “Friend Lee Scarecrow” became a “traveling teller of tales.” Hey, the kids liked it and the teachers liked it.

These are stories with morals and hopefully educational in other ways too. When I sent them, with illustrations, to a few publishers, I got a couple of handwritten rejection notices. I have since read that receiving a handwritten rejection was pretty good.

I was also told, remember this was years ago, that they were too moralistic.

So maybe the time has come to try again. How does one go about getting published these days? Now there are so many new ways. E-publishing, web-zines, self-publishing are a few of the new ways.

Since our society is not reading “Hard Copies” or real books, I am trying to educate myself about these newer ways.

Then I wonder why I still want to try it at all. I went back over the stories and they are pretty good but I don't think I can rely on myself for a fair critic. So I include here an introduction to the series: Seasonal Tales for Telling and Sharing and chapter one of Snow in Summer. Let me know what you think. I will take suggestions too on getting them published if you have any.

Narator:

Hello everybody. My name is Friend Lee Scarecrow.

I am a teller of tales.

There are good reasons I choose to tell tales instead of silently standing in the garden all day. I tried to scare the crows away, I really did. I just wasn't any good at it. When a scarecrow is not good at scaring crows, there are more problems than just the loss of part of the garden. Can you think of some?

There is a good thing about not being a good scarecrow too. I get company stopping by.

The crows actually use me as a place to perch, which is how birds rest, while they look for the best corn or other seeds to snatch and enjoy. The first time the crows came they were cautious and for some time they were quiet. Then they started. The arguing and the yammering would make your head hurt. It did mine.

These crows argued over everything. They tormented each other over things like one being bigger than another. The quarrels might be about being too old, or about being too young. They might just be bored so they would start something. By now you get the picture, don't you?

After some thought, and trying to reason with my visitors, I found that telling them tales would settle them down and I enjoyed it too. So now when not required in the garden, I, Friend Lee Scarecrow, am a traveling teller of tales.

Glad to Meet You!

Excerpt from Snow in Summer

Imagination (pictures in your mind of what is not actually around you) is a very useful tool. I am not a hot weather person so I look out the window on a hot, bright, summer day and imagine winter. Maybe this is a strange way for a scarecrow to feel about the growing season but there it is.

Before I imagine winter everything is beautiful and green, but too hot for me. Don't you think it would be a great imagining to combine the seasons of summer and winter. Since I'm only picturing hearing, smelling, and touching in my mind; it won't upset the summer-lovers or nature.

What if (powerful words, "what if") someone imagined so hard that the two seasons actually did get together? Here is a tale about some things I thought might happen.

One hot July day Ricky sat looking out his window. The hayfield, even after the first cutting of a few weeks ago, was tall and green. The woods on the other side of the house were green. The trees there were mostly mixed deciduous and evergreen. Because of the mixture of trees and other summer plants, Ricky saw yellow-greens, blue greens and lots of in-between greens.

In the flower garden, Ricky could see yellows, oranges, and some whites. Even though the flowers were a welcome break from all the greens, they made him itchy and hot. (No, Ricky wasn't allergic.) He remembered the chiggers and the scratchy stems from the times he helped cut flowers for the table in the front hall. That was almost as itchy as pickin' green beans and corn. (His mom always let him help her "put-by", freeze and can, for winter.)

Ricky thought how strange his feelings were about the heat of the sun. In the winter, he loved the warmth of the sun as he used his sled on the snowy hillside. Yet in the summer, he wished for a little less warmth from that white-hot circle in the sky.

Ricky smiled and thought a lacy snow just on the cedar at the edge of the yard. The mother cardinal dropped her seed in mid-air and flew straight back to her nest. She tried to cover her too-large fledglings. All the while she was calling angrily. Ricky thought she looked pretty silly. Her babies were almost as big as she. Heads and beaks, feathers, legs and tails, stuck out from under her.

The boy now turned his attention to the hayfield. Suppose the itchy biting insects in the hayfield had to leave. He dropped a light blanket of snow over them. Ricky hadn't realized how many critters lived in that hayfield. The grasshoppers came hopping out. The caterpillars inched out. The beetles came flying out. There were young rabbits, mice, quail, and doves hopping, crawling,and flying out too. The large farm black snake slithered out, not paying a bit of attention to what would normally be his dinner.

When Ricky was called to dinner he lost his snowy pictures, but the next hot afternoon he made it snow in spots. Ricky had fun snowing small circles here and there. Ricky did not know it but a little bug was sitting in the corner of his room. The little bug watched with interest as Ricky made his snow spots. After a while Ricky got a little bored and went to find something else to do. As soon he turned from the window, the spots quickly melted. The little bug crawled out a small hole in the window screen.

(end of chapter one)