Meanwhile – here are the details about the webinar.

Are there really whales in Minnesota?

Hope you will register as soon as possible.  Looking forward to “seeing” you there! 

Has retirement made an old codger of me?  (Have you noticed that there appears to be no female counterpart to the word codger?  Men can be irascible and loveable. Women apparently are just “old bags”!) Have I been reduced to starting all my sentences with “Hmmmpff!”?  Have I become ….gulp!…. a Republican?  You know – resistant to a changing world, unable to embrace anything new, paralyzed in the past?  Sorry – my political prejudices are showing.  Don’t hate me.  Some of my best friends are Republicans….but my Irish-American and British Labour Party forebears would turn over in their graves at the very thought.

OK – it is with much disgruntlement that I embark on giving Feedly a go.  Mainly I was ticked off at Google for giving so little notice.  Doug tells me that we have till June 1 – but the message I got before I commented on his blog was that we had to make the switch by March 20.  Perhaps I misread it. Failing eyesight you know…

Interesting take-away as I transition from GR to Feedly….  I am struck by the preference of graphic literacy vs print literacy.  All of the feeds default to “magazine view”.  I much prefer title view as this allows me to quickly scan the titles to decide which ones to read.  I am evidently able to “drink in” and digest great hunks of text in seconds.  The graphics are pretty – but they confuse me.  I am obviously very graphically illiterate.  The riot of color and images just  muddles my mind.

As near as I can figure – I have to change EVERY SINGLE BLOG feed to “title view” one at a time.  If anyone knows a way to do this in “one-fell-swoop” – please share.  The flip side  of my annoyance of having to go through the feeds one at a time is that it gives me the chance to weed-out the defunct blogs.

Where does a defunct blog go?  Bleaven? Blell? Blurgatory? Blimbo?  How does one mourn the death of a blog?  I SO miss Alice In Infoland’s Blog! I did NOT delete it. There is so much there to go back to and savor….

I am putting this here so I can watch it once in awhile when I need to smile and feel peaceful.   Cute animals AND lovely music, which (alas!)  I have been unable to find on iTunes.

   READING THIS POST COULD CAUSE EXTREME DROWSINESS.

Cutting to the BASICS – I wonder if anyone has experience with Wegener’s Granulomatosis and also suggestions for tasty alternatives to wheat bread?  And there really IS a library connection.  I promise.

OK.  It has been a long time since my last post.  Retirement has been busy – and mostly fun – but too much of the “busyness” has revolved around doctor appointments.  It would seem that we are finally closing in on a diagnosis of Wegener’s Granulomatosis.  Say that three times fast…I dare you!  Yuk.  Nasty, rare, immune disease.  Leave it to me to be different.

In addition to my GP, I have been to 2 pulmonologists, 1 ENT, 1 Allergist, and 1 Rheumatologist, and it has taken 18 months so far to get a diagnosis that makes some sense.  Maybe I should ask my hairdresser.  He is a smart guy and has about the same chance of a correct diagnosis as some of my specialists.

I have had a constant cough, have felt mildly ill and have had hoarseness, loss of smell and sinus infections, and periods where I was short of breath.  Asthma/COPD meds gave only very limited relief.  I was in the hospital for a week in August.  Lots of antibiotics and prednisone, x-rays and CT scans throughout the past 18 months. All the health professionals I have seen are convinced that the asthma/copd drugs they give me are going to give me instant relief and I am going to shout “Hallelujah!” Then they watch me take the medicine and are surprised when, indeed, there is very little improvement.  Well, duh!  That’s what I have been telling you!  But I guess they just have to see for themselves.

The allergist said testing showed only mild allergies to grass and trees. But she became concerned about an elevated ANCA level in my blood work and sent me to the rheumy who has diagnosed “mild wegener’s”.

From all I read, I am very skeptical of the diagnosis, because, with the exception of the hospital visit, I don’t seem anywhere near sick enough to have Wegeners. Right now I have no symptoms other than a constant cough and a wheeze on expiration that won’t go away. Still…I have plenty of energy, and have felt good most of the time since December. From my research, I did discover the difference between limited and systemic Wegener’s. But both seemed pretty serious to me – and way beyond the degree of sick I am right now.

After all, I can walk three miles. Granted, the first mile I sound like Darth Vader, but I am getting plenty of oxygen. After a mile, I can finally clear my throat and do the last two miles comfortably.

I don’t want to take the Imuran the rheumy has prescribed. It seems a bit like swatting a fly with a baseball bat. On the other hand, the doctor tells me if I don’t take it, I might develop full-blown WG. The treatment for that is prednisone and a chemo drug called Cytoxan….which would be more like swatting a fly with an atom bomb!

Right now my plan is to insist on a biopsy, since that is the only way to know for sure.

My PCP, who is a wonderful doctor, feels that I should not take an imunosuppresant at this point. She is an integrated medicine doctor and likes to look for natural cures. She has prescribed me plenty of “traditional” meds – but wants me to try cutting out GM wheat, corn and soy from my diet before trying Imuran. I know the research connecting those foods with immune problems – but if it has lead to WG, it has taken about 63 years to do so. Dropping them now does not seem like a quick fix to me. I switched to about 80% organic two years ago, and now plan to purchase a heavy-duty mixer so I can make my own bread with organic flour. I think we would be healthier as a population if we eliminated GM products from our diet. However, as a cure of this ongoing illness I have? Not so much….

I have to wonder why it takes so long to get a diagnosis. When my sinus problems began to linger on for more than 2 month, I started doing research and Wegeners kept coming up as a possibility. I should have said something to my doctors – but reading the symptoms, especially from those who have the disease, I just decided I was not sick enough to have it. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say….

I just do not feel entirely comfortable about this diagnosis. I guess no one can satisfy me. I have been complaining about how long it has taken to make a diagnosis, and then when a new doctor makes a diagnosis after two visits and a few lab tests during a period of time when I feel almost normal…I complain that the diagnosis is too fast!

TAKE-AWAYS FROM ALL THIS?

1. I need to know if cutting out wheat, corn and soy are worth the agony.
   
2. Will organic wheat be less inflamatory?  I REALLY do not want to give up bread.  I keep getting inconclusive answers – and I sure would love to kill all those “research articles” AKA ads for wheatgrass juice!!
   
3. It all makes me hope that I have taught my students well –  to research deeply and think with an OPEN MIND.  None of us fits into a formula.

Read her story and pray with and for our nation.

A Trained Librarian is….

These Photos are Proof Albert Eisntein Was Correct About Technology

Perhaps the attitude Doug talks about is because computers in the olden days (before the advent of social media and ebooks) were used almost exclusively for work.  Now – not so much.  Also – perhaps we value multi-tasking with multiple screens more than we value concentration on one issue or problem. Thinking is not active enough to suit us anymore.

Could this attitude be standing in the way of the common core standards which require close reading, analysis and critical and creative thinking? These standards require deep thinking – but does our society actually value deep thinking?

One of the biggest thing librarians have trouble with is getting teachers to allot enough time for students to do serious research.  And once they do bring their classes  in – the sight of students busily tapping away at computers appears to satisfy the adults that work is being done. But…how about building in thinking time?  How about actually READING the sources? What about questioning what they read?  What about spending time examining different opinions on the issues being researched?  Quantity seems to be winning out on quality.  Many teachers and admins are in a panic over the common core.  Perhaps they should take a deep breath, get away from the computers, and just let themselves relax and think a little.

Why I’d Still Choose Paper Books Over Digital Books

The Desire for Fragrance

I swear, the printing presses are all involved in a conspiracy to make us bibliophiles even more addicted to books. Don’t you ever wonder what the pages of books are laced with that they must smell so good? Walk into any old bookshop and you’ll understand what I mean. Aside from the fairy dust, you’ll get a whiff of “old book” smells that stay with you happily ever after. One fateful day, I finally discovered the long-held secret when I stumbled through this Tumblr post. To quote completely from Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’ Perfumes: The A-Z Guide (because it just seems like desecration of holy words if I don’t):

Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.

That’s 66 words of divine revelation. For me, this just proves that God knew what He was doing when He created books for mankind.

Gartner, a technology research center, says that paper books are being read less frequently now in favor of digital books. Presently, I doubt that digital is going to completely replace paper, but nostalgia still tells me to urge you to not deprive yourself or your kids the experience of reading paper books. It was depressing to say the least when I scrolled through these photos of bookstores that have closed down.

There is beauty in reading the printed word. Ask anyone who has ever held, slept with, and breathed in a book. Reading a book, not the digital kind, is a story on its own.

Well –  long story short – we are now what my son refers to as Apple Snobs.  I am working hard to make the mental shift needed to use an Apple computer – but it is finally beginning to sink in a little so I am not spending as much time hunting around for stuff.

My main hope for the switch is that the huge money investment will pay off.  That was the hardest part of the switch.  Macs sure are expensive little buggers.

Unexpectedly, the set up was a little confusing to me.  I couldn’t seem to get rid of the annoying voice over.  I am one who finds voice instructions very annoying,  Once I got rid of that – then things went well.  I have an iPad, so I knew it would connect easily to the wifi etc. – so I was surprised how much trouble I had navigation through the basic setup.  But I made it and everything else seems to be going smoothly.  I have ordered a few books to help with the transition.  I do learn a lot by checking menus etc. – but there are always little tips and tricks that help and that newbies don’t know enough to know what it is they don’t know!

Most of all – I hope to not go through another install for the next 8 years!  Am I dreaming?

Wish us well!