Privacy in the Works

After some thoughtful reading and researching for a way to share family happenings but still keep our girls safe on the world wide web, I've decided to strip the personal names from our flickr photos, blog and facebook. Oh boy, is this going to be a lot of work!

All this started because I wanted to post more photos of the girls and started looking into a family-friendly alternative to YouTube. I want to be able to password protect, limit access and searchability and control who, what, when, where and how our family videos would be shown (if I was going to start putting more up and spending resources sharing those fun videos). Of course, in researching this I came upon lots of resources and tips about how to keep kids safe (usually teaching kids how to stay safe themselves and what not to share over the internet), but it is all relevant to parents who are sharing about their kiddos online too.

So... that leads us to the great Privacy Purge of 2010. That means only using nicknames (where you can't tell their real names) or first name initial on all our blog posts, photos (and maybe soon videos!!) Phew, this is going to be a doozy of a project. Forget spring cleaning... this one takes the cake.

Btw, if your family, I will also be contacting you all to strip down name references to the girls in your pictures online too. For friends, first names are fine... just not first and last together. We appreciate it and are sorry for any inconviences... but it's all for the safety of our quickly growing up girls. :) THANKS!

Bible in a Year - Let's Go!

When I (Gilda) ready this post by a family friend (Katrina), I remember thinking "Good for you Girl! I wish I could be disciplined enough to do that."

Today as I was reading my Lent reading, I noticed that I was on Day 32!. Wow, how did all those days go by so fast? I still remember Day 1 and thinking, "Am I going to be able to stick with this?". After a few days of stumbling here and there and some double-up (and triple-up) reading, I'm happy to say I'm all caught up and so far I did stick with it. Now I have a mini-habit (oh, nothing so solid that I could do it out of habit) of reading at nightly (instead of watching TV). But what to do when my 40 days (minus Sundays) are done? Well, in the spurring on from Katrina's New Year's commitment, I decided to find a plan to read the Bible in a year!

Sure, I'm starting at the end of March. :) But spring time is a good time to do a little spring cleaning in my life, right? So, I found a website that has a plan for a year. Not only that but the readings can be set up on an iCal calender. How cool (and techie) is that? So now I have all my readings on my Google calendar that shows up on the web, on my computer calendar (on my desktop, visable while I work) and on my iPod. It's like electronic accountability reminders. Of course, nothing beats real accountability though, so I am giving an open invitation to ask me how it's going and what I've been learning.

To supplement this I discovered a diary program for my computer and I've been posting my "stream of thought" reflections and pasting in quotes and generally journaling there. This has helped me to get my thoughts out and even get them out on my other blog. Wow, could this be the sign of some growth in spiritual disciplines that as of late have been lacking. I hope so!

Back to School...AGAIN!!!

So two days before Thanksgiving, I successfully defended my dissertation (yay!). My tome was unprecedented, I was told, in a number of ways and I was told by several of my committee members that they've highlighted numerous sections as things to follow up on in their own work. So overall, it was a fair success. That makes me Dr. Spencer now (or the Doctor :)). It was pretty eventful, especially since the very next evening at the Thanksgiving Eve service in the church I grew up in, my brother Jordan and I got baptized (I'm such a procrastinator!). Since then, Gilda's moved to working from home full time and I'm the house husband! In the meantime, I applied for lots of jobs.

Job prospects, however, are pretty bleak right now. Apparently it's the worst philosophy job market in quite a few decades. The number of listings is probably a quarter or less of its usual number and there are hundreds and hundreds of applicants for many positions (but fewer than two hundred job openings!). Not to mention that many higher-level junior faculty have decided this is a good time to move laterally to a different department - therefore saturating the market with (this time, more "experienced" and proven) applicants even further. This makes getting a first-time job extremely difficult, particularly if you're coming from somewhere which isn't named "Princeton", etc. Most jobs now have already been filled, offered, or narrowed down to a short list. Since no one's bit on any of my applications, I'm almost certainly not going to get a job for next year.

So what am I going to do next year? Well, I applied for the GTU in Berkeley for a Masters of Arts in Biblical Languages (a 2 year program, but where I can also take evening classes and other useful things). The GTU is a large affiliation of a number of member schools which feature everything from the evangelical to the Catholic to the way wacky Liberal to even non-Christian religions (you can even take classes at UC Berkeley and use their library when enrolled there). Today I received a letter letting me know that I've been accepted into the program and that I will be affiliated with the Dominican School for Philosophy and Theology - my first choice for primary school of affiliation (which means I have to take a certain number of classes from that school and will have one of its faculty as my advisor). So here I am, a PhD in philosophy going for an MA in biblical stuff. Yes, I am crazy.

Photo Catch Up

It's been three months since I've uploaded pictures to our Flickr account. When you've just spent 8+ hours on the computer for work, the last thing you want to do is spend an hour more uploading, tagging, exporting and blogging about your (although admittedly cute) photos. Not to mention it turns out that our Canon software wasn't compatible with Windows 7.

But alas, Picassa to the rescue. So without further ado... photos from the last 3 months (including Christmas... yes, Christmas photos in March!).

Enjoy!




Grandma and her girls in matching PJs.


Great Uncle Kevin and R, jumping off the step. They did this about a hundred times, no joke. Someone LOVED it (as you can tell).


Auntie Andrea and E fairy dusting each other.


Hmmm... a whole plate of something tasty.


Grandma Yvonne, Grandpa Terry and the girls.


What would Christmas be without a little bit of crying...
Bekah: This microphone is so fun!


E: Hey! That's mine!


Bekah: Wahhhhh...
So then Grandma had to go out a buy a second one the day after Christmas.


Auntie Gennie and E doing dance dance.


E's first time in a ball pit (The Jungle in San Jose)


I'm surrounded my balls!


Auntie Gennie and E


E gets a haircut!! Good buy blond streaked locks. Hello cute "I'm a big girl" hairstyle.




Everyday cuteness.


Reading a book together. It is so cute when they're not fighting and they can enjoy the same things together.


Silly face making, it runs in the family.

And there's more... just click on our photostream to the right to see more.

BKah Babble

R is starting to say words! Last week she even said her first sentence (in kid speak) - "Aww Waa Mama!" (translated as "I want Mommy"). I was very surprised, mostly because I don't get to hear her all day and see her progress step by step. So it seemed to me that all of a sudden she was saying words and trying to copy us and then was asking for things. Wow!

Here's her current vocabulary:
"Mama" = Mommy, although she uses it for several people in the care-taking mode
"DaeDae" = Daddy
"BehBeh" = for E (possibly trying to say the end of her name)
"Dawg" = Dog
"Bubbuh" = Bubble
"Aah Pool" = Apple
"Mao" (with hands rubbing her cheeks) = Meow (for cat)
"Ball" = obvious... Ball
"Dah" = That
"Galg" = Golf (E taught her that one on the way to church, there's a driving range and golf course just before our exit in Livermore)

Other signs that are R is growing up fast. She's walking. She's talking. She's getting frustrated when she doesn't get things her way and in her timing. She's wanting to do everything her sister does (eat milk with her cereal, read long paper books and paint her toenails). And I've had to twice pull handfuls of pants from her drawer because they were too short.

And not to forget E ... here's signs that she is growing up fast too. Making up her own songs (so cute). Having complex stories to her playing. Sitting down and "reading" books she knows all the words to, to R. Getting excited about going to school next September (3 mornings a week!). And trying to argue her way out of things and getting frustrated when our answer is still the same ("Sorry, honey, the answer is still no." "Arrr, you're not listening...!") .

Twittered out

Oh and I took off the Twitter feed. My twitterastic experiment was a flop. I did not twitter (unless it was conversing with family) and I did not twitter for E or R (which was a big draw). Actually I'm not even sure I really like Twitter. Too much disjointedness and the tweets are too short and too quick for my taste. I think I'm finding I'm the long winded love a good story kind of reader and writer. Not to mention I could use some slowing down and some deep conversations versus a twit and and twat.

So, you can still find me at @sillyporcupine but it may be a bit light on the new tweets.

New Year.. New Blog

Say what? Yes, you read that correctly, the girl who can barely blog once every three months is trying her hand at a new blog.

I'm participating in a week long online conference called A Woman Inspired - An Efficient and Creative Life Conference. And in one of the first sessions they talked about Writing for Worship. Sure they meant journals or a bible study, or maybe even a book to be published. But what about a blog? What if, in trying to revitalize my devotions, needing to journal and wanting to develop a knack for writing for an audience I could do something that develops me and encourages others - just maybe.

As much as I love my girls and I love my family and I have so many stories I want to tell, I just can't find time or the energy to blog as the events are unfolding. A week goes by and all those "Oh, I have a great story to tell" becomes old news. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and then it's almost like the gap is too long. Sigh. So really, I need to grow some discipline... and what better way to do all those things with a new blog. But it's a blog with a twist (well, a twist for me anyways). Instead of writing for my family or even for me, I'm writing for worship. At least I'll try.

So without further ado, here is the address to my new blog - http://meibydesign.wordpress.com - and let me know you've visited.