Lord De La Warr

In fourth grade I can remember going to the auditorium to watch a movie. This movie was about Jamestown and the settling of the East Coast colonies. As I sat and watched (as much as any fourth grader paid attention) I saw this man. This name is Thomas West. As soon as I saw him, I knew that we were related. I don't know if it was inspiration or childish vanity. I just knew that his last name was the same as my mother's maiden name and I felt like we were related.

I went home that day and told my mother about it. This man's formal name was Lord De La Warr. I remember my mother calling and talking to my Grandma West, although it could have had nothing to do with this movie or ancestor, but I imagined that she was calling to let Grandma West know that I had learned something for her about family history. The humorous thing about this particular time in my life was when we were living in Wilmington, Delaware.

I clipped a little for the caption of his pictures from Wikipedia below. After the Powhatans killed the colony's governor, Lord Ratcliffe, and attacked the colony in the first First Anglo-Powhatan War, Lord De La Warr headed the contingent of 150 men who landed in Jamestown, Virginia on June 10, 1610, just in time to persuade the original settlers not to give up and go home to England. As a veteran of English campaigns against the Irish, De La Warr employed "Irish tactics" against the Indians: troops raided villages, burned houses, torched cornfields, and stole provisions; these tactics, identical to those practiced by the Powhatan themselves, proved effective. He had been appointed governor-for-life (and captain-general) of Virginia, and he outfitted their three ships and recruited and equipped those men at his own expense. Leaving his deputy Sir Samuel Argall (circa 1580 – circa 1626) in charge, Lord De La Warr returned to England and published a book about Virginia, The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, of the Colonie, Planted in Virginia, in 1611. He remained the nominal governor, and he had received complaints from the Virginia settlers about Argall's tyranny in governing them for him, so Lord De La Warr set sail for Virginia again in 1618, to investigate those charges. He died at sea,en route to Virginia, and it was thought for many years that he had been buried in the Azores or at sea.

Thomas West, 3rd and 12th Baron De La Warr (9 July 1577 – 7 June 1618) was the Englishman after whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, an American Indian people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named.

To sleep or not to sleep...

Doesn't this look cool? I always enjoy searching for pictures on-line. This baby cost $15,000. Although you have to admit it looks really cool. This is one of those things I'd get if money were no concern. Ah well, it is and so I am thankful to have a new mattress and box spring.

We got a "Beauty Rest" which is our attempt at upgrading. While we upgraded in quality, we down graded in size (to queen). We are having to get use to a firm bed (our last one was ultra saggy. I had to use pillows in bed with me at night to stabilize myself. Now the bed is so firm that I don't need pillows and am learning to sleep on my back. We are also adjusting to not having to climb out of the bed. It is a bit cozier than before but we seem to be adjusting to the smaller size just fine.

We may eventually decide to do a foam pad or the like to make the bed a bit softer, but we think we need to give it a week or so first. We had such a saggy bed for so long, we may have over-compensated. Unfortunately when I am in a frustrating situation for too long, then I have a tendency to over compensate (I know, I am human!). Jeff and I discussed this a bit before we decided on a bed and we felt that if it were too firm we could always do a topper, but if it were too soft, there was not a whole lot we could do to adjust it, so we decided to err on the side of caution.

bread and water...and that is it...

Well, this week this is what was on our menu. Well, that was what was on my husband's menu and he was tickled about it. This week was started out by Maggie and Rosi puking all night long. Andrew and JJ followed suit in the next couple of days. Jeff woke up Thursday not feeling well and decided to stay home (an unusual event in and of itself).

Jeff thankfully did not get it as bad as his children, he did however decide that bread and water were the most exotic foods his stomach could handle. Around noon time he joked with me that it was like being in jail. By that time we had improved to Ramen Noodles by then. He thought it was delicious. As for me, well I felt crumby too, but it could have been from being up with everyone, or a very mild (thankfully) case of it. All in all, we are back to feeling good and doing better.

Fun on the way home from the park

Why it is always good to have a camera with you. We got these fun shots on the way home from the park one day. The kids were exploring a neighbors front yard.

eating in duplicate

I just love the repetition of this picture. It looks really cool design-wise to me.

Good bye high chairs, the babies have moved on. They are fairly certain they do not need high chairs anymore and often steal our chairs. So we gave up on the high chairs and are letting them sit in regular chairs (we had booster chairs for about months, but even those are passe` now, so it is "big kid chairs for our big kids.

Hard to believe I don't have babies anymore, but these two are definitely intent on becoming big.

Ripples in the pond

Lately I have been reading a book which one of the characters talks often of "ripples in the pond". I don't think the idea of our actions affecting not only ourselves but those around us is a deep insight on my part. What I have been contemplating so much is how living a balanced life causes the needed ripples in our lives.

As individuals we often think of ourselves as an island where we pick and choose actions mainly focusing on how they will achieve what we are seeking. As a young married woman I quickly realized that my husband and my decisions had strong rebounding ripples on each other. For example, it is much easier to be in a happy, productive mood when my spouse is in a similar mood. We found that when we recognized this effect, we were able to be better united with each other. We also found that we had to sacrifice something for this. We had to be less of an island unto ourselves. As children blessed our home we found that this same relationship existed with them. I find that a simple decision of what to have for breakfast requires reflection on not only past breakfast meals, but also on mood, temperament, and conversations I had with my children the previous day. I can not decide to have my favorite breakfast meal two or three days in a row without causing consternation with several in my family. Again these observations are probably not new to most.

Now add a twist of what is rattling around in my brain. I sincerely believe that our skills are able to be moved from one area of our lives to another. For example, I am an artist by training (I have a BA of Art), however I don't think that anyone will ever think of me as an amazing artist. I feel one of the biggest gifts I received as an artist and in my years of learning more about art is that it developed a tremendous sense of patience within me. Now most don't know that I was an extremely impatient child. I think part of that is that "black and white" thinking my brain often functions in. I have a tendency to want the world to function logically and for everyone to just "follow the rules" which I feel helps things to fall into place. What I have come to realize is that I believe our talents are given to us to develop skills which will help us to overcome our weaknesses. As a mother of 6 who each seem to have their own struggles, I have often been complimented on my amazing amount of patience. I do have a lot of patience with them. I see them much like a work of art that takes slow, thoughtful development. I hope to some degree all will see them in future years and feel that they are indeed masterpieces. I feel a lot of what I need as a mother came to me through principles I learned in developing my interest in art. I think this is part of why we need to have balance in our lives.

I think that those who do not take the opportunity to develop true talents (I don't feel that activities like video games are talents) will be left without the skills to overcome their weaknesses. The ripples we need in our lives come often from within ourselves through the actions and relationships of our past.

Sometimes I come across weird things

As a mom I am use to random and unpredictable things around me. Most of these take a lot of my energy as I try to be the stabilizing force in my family's life. I walked in the bathroom and found a half eaten sandwich. Wow, I would not have guessed that one. Now mind you I have have found milk in cupboards, peanut butter in the fridge, and other misplaced items. I have even occasionally been to blame for such misplaced items, but I just had to laugh when I found this abandoned sandwich in the bathroom.

Sometimes my family is so easily distracted that even things that seem as elementary as eating gets interrupted. It is a struggle to help my family to learn the skills of staying on task until task completion. Some members of my family are having great success with this lately. My cute hubby has taken it upon himself to develop this area of his life and is finding great satisfaction in the peace and direction it brings to himself as a result. It is also improving things within our home and we are seeing greater success at projects getting completed in available free time.

I have found for myself I can keep multiple activities going simultaneously and usually (unless severely sleep deprived) am able to keep up on them until completion. I have concerns about how to teach my children how to develop these skills. I know of many adults who struggle with completing things in their lives. I have observed highly talented people who because of their inability to complete tasks, have been passed up by those less talented but capable of task completion. As a mother, I want to help my children to develop talents which can be of great benefit in their lives, however I also realize without the ability to complete activities their talents, no matter how great, will be wasted.

I also think that ability to complete tasks can have a "spill over" effect by building self confidence and increasing success in interpersonal relationships. Hmmm, something more to ponder upon...

Some action shots

The middle of the dancing. We did not have a "routine" memorized for our dance number. We just turned on the music and spontaneously danced. This was difficult for many students as it places a great amount of responsibility on the individual student. I thought it was great because I feel like I could dance to any type of music and did not have to follow a set pattern. Although it did make it a bit more difficult when I hit those points where I had to think, "what do I do next?"

The beginning of our dance

The finale

Belly dancing (Middle Eastern dance)

Here is a picture of my costume. You can't see the harem pants underneath, but they are the same color as the veil. I made (with some help from my mom) this costume myself. It is highly representational of the type of authentic costume worn by women in the Gaza or North African areas. Unlike Americanized belly dancing, these costumes are usually extremely modest. It is most important to have the legs covered. Covering the belly is an optional thing, but this particular area of the middle east has a full length costume.
Here is a picture of my cute 9 year old daughter with me. I adore her. She is growing up so fast. She came with Jeff to watch me in the dance show. They got to see a lot of different styles of dances that night.

I hope to be able to develop more skill in the belly dancing area of my life. I think I will have to wait until after the new year starts as I am hoping to take a Russian class this fall to help me learn and prepare for our trip to the Ukraine.

Our first...uh I mean Andrew's first pinewood derby!

Andrew and Daddy learning how to sand the car after Daddy cut it.

MaggieMae wants to make a car too. She got the left overs which sort of look like a car shape.

This is Andrew's car - the green racer. She won her first race!

Family picture

A nice family picture may happen someday. But this is what I have available right now. This was a very spontaneous picture. Not very clever background or anything, just the family, mostly happy, some matching...but we are all there.

I have a tough time with getting professional pictures because they cost a lot and they rarely get better than we do. Unfortunately we don't have success with professional photographers because they have a tendency to upset my kids when they are playing with them. And if I am going to end up with eyes closed, kids not cooperating, I'd rather spend 10 minutes that 2 hours doing it.