Monthly Archives: May 2013

Joy Jar

Posted on by

P1040284Two weeks worth of happy moments:

  • getting our big kennel back
  • beautiful day
  • a twilight walk with Zodiac
  • chocolate
  • blooming trees
  • same day crown on my cracked tooth
  • finishing Zodiac’s paper work
  • finishing Zodiac’s farewell party invites
  • how good Zodiac was today
  • a good day
  • Dune doing good at the dentist
  • the power of computers and the internet
  • another twilight walk
  • beautiful spring morning
  • getting some work in on the Key West history
  • finding two of Dune’s siblings
  • a good week
  • puppy club shirts came
  • cleaning up old emails
  • super beautiful day
  • “girl” time with Dune
  • finding a white backdrop
  • having enough gas to get home
  • walking dogs in the spring sunshine
  • update from Diane and Yakira
  • chatting with Karen
  • petals like snow on the ground
  • walk with Zodiac
  • Bill home early
  • spring snow storm
  • Zodiac’s last choir practice
  • Zodiac maturing
  • Sunday nap
  • hot lemon and honey tea

 

Pupdate – Zodiac’s Book

Posted on by
puppy in training for Guide Dogs for the Blind

Zodiac

I’ve been working on Zodiac’s book as often as I can since he is leaving in 9 days and I’d like to send a digital copy of it when he gets on the puppy truck. I’ve made pretty good progress, though not at all they way I planned it. (Sometimes plans just have to be adjusted.) Anyway, I’ve got the text all finished and some of the photos placed. I need to get some more photos of him taken before he goes. I have lots of him sleeping and sitting and being calm but not many of him in his wild and fun-loving moments. That is a big part of who he is.  I think I’ll post the finished pages once a week on pupdate day after he leaves. With some luck he could be graduating by the time I get done. So for now, here is the rest of the text.

  • Zeus – supreme deity of the ancient Greeks: Though Zodiac has always been cute with maturing he now has a certain presence when he wants to, maybe even a little Zeus like in his demeanor. Zodiac started to show signs of maturing at the year mark but it really started to accelerate when he turned 14 months old. Since he was about 9 months old we have been going to the local grade school a couple of times a week to listen to kids read. Zodiac has always been attracted to kids and their happy energy. But with his maturing he can now sit calmly in the hall and watch hundreds of kids walk by. I’m so proud of him. He is really grown-up.
  • Zigzag – a course with sharp turns: Zodiac like most labs has his wild moments when he dashes around the house. Some times I’ve heard this called labby loops. With Zodiac it is more of a zigzag than loops. He runs full speed one direction then abruptly changes direction and then changes direction again. He does this for just a couple of minutes and then he is back to normal.
  • Zillion – an extremely large number: Zodiac is on in a zillion. Though he looks pretty much like many other black labs, he has a unique combination of personality traits that we have come to love and usually appreciate. He has this adorable way of looking up at you without really moving his head. This makes it so the whites of his eyes show. He has a slightly scruffy coat and really thick toenails. Zodiac is curious about everything and always wants to help when you are doing something usual. He loves to supervise me when I’m vacuuming. He is an excellent traveler and enjoys seeing and doing new things. Though he is the sixth puppy we have raised for GDB and he won’t be the last he is the one and only Zodiac.
  • Zingy – full of zing; lively; zesty; exciting: Zodiac has had the best of relationships with two other puppies in training. First was Yakira (puppy #5). When Zodiac was you she was is guardian and mentor. As he grew older their relationship evolved into buddies. Through it all they two of them had many a lively and exciting romps. When she returned to GDB for training he truly missed her. A few months later Dune (puppy #7) came on the scene and Zodiac got to be the mentor. Yakira taught him well and he did many of the same things that Yakira had done for him.  Though Dune’s personality is very different from Yakira’s, Zodiac and Dune have just as close a relationship. They can run full tilt around the house and a few minutes later be snuggled up together for a nap. Dune is going to miss Zodiac when it is his turn to return to GDB for training.
  • Zion – where the pure in heart dwell: Even though Zodiac is far from perfect, you always know where you stand with him. He has a pure heart with no concept of deception. He loves with all his heart and is always happy to see an old friend or make a new friend. This trait will serve him well the rest of his life, no matter what the future brings.
  • Zippy – full of energy; lively; peppy: Zodiac has an odd quirk that he picked up after he was neutered. He loves to rub on people and couches much like a cat. Only problem is he is much more energetic and lively than a cat. So while a cat rubs gently against your leg, Zodiac tends to zip by with a not so gentle shove. I wonder if it is his way of scratching an itchy spot? It seems kind of fitting for his name since the U.S. Navy call their rubber rafts, zodiacs, I figure that Zodiac is our rubber boy.
  • Zoic – relating to or having animal life: Well since Zodiac is actually an animal he certainly is zoic. He has just two siblings, Zenith (male black lab) and Zulu (female yellow lab). His brother Zenith has a white spot on his chest, while Zodiac has just a few white hairs between his toes called Bolo marks, named after an English dual Champion Banchory Bolo because he produced many of these marks in his offspring and future generations.
  • Zonked – exhausted or asleep: Zodiac is great at being zonked. Especially after a challenging outing or in the evening. He is very content to curly up on a dog bed or stretch out on the floor. Usually he has an ear listening for anything interesting happening but sometimes when he is really tired it takes some real effort to get him up and moving again.
  • Zoom – to move quickly or suddenly: Not surprisingly Zodiac loves to zoom around our back yard. We usually keep a Jolly Ball out there at his favorite game is to grab the ball and run from one end of the yard to the other as fast as he can. Once his mouth got big enough he started carrying it around by the ball and not by the rope. He has to crush the stiff plastic with his teeth to do it, but he is plenty strong enough. While he loves to run he isn’t the fastest dog around. He is built more for sturdiness than for speed. I love watching him run happily in the back yard.

step five: link with the DOABLE Approach to Telling Your Family’s Tales

Posted on by

Step Five: Link

Having made it this far, you deserve to celebrate! That is much of what this step is about, sharing your accomplishment with your family, friends and anyone else who might be interested. There is a good chance that your “why” included hoping that this story project would impact others. Now you are ready to make that happen. Depending on your project some ways of sharing make more sense than others. Here are some ideas on ways to share your story project:

  • share it in person at a family gathering or one on one
  • send it by mail, hard copy, cd or dvd etc.
  • send it by e-mail, dropbox or other electronic methods
  • share it by social media – Facebook, twitter etc.
  • post it on a blog, YouTube or website etc.
  • share it at other kinds of gatherings like conferences
  • talk about it with friends or other people you meet

Be excited to share your accomplishment. You never know who might be interested. Think about some creative ways to get your story project out there. Just be patient and look for opportunities.

step four: build with the DOABLE Approach to Telling Your Family’s Tales

Posted on by

Step Four: Build

Now is the time to start the real work on your story project! How exciting it that! Hopefully in the analyze step you made a detailed plan with a path to follow to complete your project. If so than follow that plan. If your plan is not so well thought out or detailed than pick a task from your plan and get to work on it.  A few things to keep in mind as you build your story project:

  • make short-term goals
  • adjust your plans as needed
  • when you are feeling overwhelmed move forward in an
  • area that you know how to do
  • you might need to learn some new skills to complete your project
  • remember your “why”
  • find ways to motivate and reward yourself
  • enjoy the journey

The key to this step is to keep moving forward. When an obstacle blocks your path find a way around it. Simple to say, but not always simple to do. But with time and effort you can and will complete your story project.

step three: analyze with the DOABLE Approach to Telling Your Family’s Tales

Posted on by

Step Three: Analyze

Assess:
Now that you have gathered all of your resources it is time to take a close look at what you have. Is it enough to complete your project or do you need to gather more information from other sources? Be honest with yourself and your time. If you don’t have what you need and can’t see having the time to get what you need than take a second look at your project and adjust it to work with what you have. I think it is better to complete a story project than to get stuck on the “perfect” project and never get it finished.

Plan:

Think of planning as the blueprint for your project. You wouldn’t dream of building a house without a blueprint. It would be asking for disaster if you did. Think back on your vision for the project and how you want the finished product to look. I like to start at the end and figure out what I need to get there. There are lots of ways to do project planning so do what works for you. The main thing is to break it down into smaller tasks so you don’t feel overwhelmed and you can measure your progress with the completion of each task. The more detailed you are at this stage the less unexpected hurdles you will find later on. There is no substitute for good planning.

Time Line:

Next step is to give yourself some deadlines. If you have a concrete time when you need the project to get done, I would start with that deadline and work your way back to the present. If all your deadlines are self-imposed you can be more flexible. Look at each task a give an estimate of how long it will take. Add that all up and then give yourself a good buffer, maybe even doubling it to give yourself a deadline. Then I’d look at the first task on your list and give yourself as realistic a due date for that task as you can. Take into account all the other obligations you have. You don’t want your deadlines to make you discouraged. But you also don’t want to procrastinate getting your story project off for over and over so it never gets done.

step two: organize with the DOABLE Approach to Telling Your Family’s Tales

Posted on by

Step Two: Organize

Once you have taken on the challenge of doing a story project and having worked through the first step of deciding what you want to do, you have a pretty good idea of what you want your story project to be. Now it is time to gather and organize everything you have that might help you complete this project. Find any photos, documents, letters, etc. that you or your family already have. If you are already fairly organized this might be a simple step. But if you are like most of us, your family documents and photos are not very orderly and they are in many places.

Have a long-term strategy:

Take some time to think about a long-term organizing philosophy so that anything you do now will work towards that goal. I don’t recommend trying to put all of your family photos and documents in order before you tackle this story project. If you try to do that you might never get to the project. But if you have a plan in mind than with each story project your documents and photos will be come more and more organized and more easily accessible.

Digitize:

With this long-term plan in mind sort through you family memorabilia for those items that might be useful for this project. Those items like photos and documents will need to be scanned. Some other items may work in a scanner but others will need to be photographed. Make sure your scan resolution is at least 300 dpi depending on the size of the image and the project you have in mind. While usually jpeg is a good format, tiff files are better for long-term preservation and storage. It will be easiest in the long run if you come up with a good naming convention for your images that you can remember and give you the information you need. Metadata is a great place to store the little details about the images. If you are familiar with metadata you can add that later. Besides letters and journals it is good to transcribe them too.

Share your images:

While all this can be tedious remember that by scanning them you are helping to make sure that these priceless items are saved for the future even if something should happen to the original. Sharing your images with your family is a great way to help insure that no disaster will destroy all the existing copies.

Repeat with extended family:

Having digital files to share with your family could also help to smooth the road for you to get access to any items that they might have that would be helpful for your story project. There are good portable scanners that make it possible to visit a relative and scan their collection without those precious items ever having to leave their possession. Find any family histories that have previously been written. Also check for online sources of information from extended family.

So what shape is your family archive in? While I’ve made progress over the years I still have lots to do. I’ll keep working on it and slowly it will get there, one project at a time. Do you have a file naming convention that you like? I’d love to hear about it. I’m still not happy with what I’m currently doing.

step one: decide with the DOABLE Approach to Telling Your Family’s Tales

Posted on by

Step One: Decide

If you have made it this far there is a good chance that you have decided that now is the time to commit to doing a story project. If you are still on the fence keep reading and hopefully you will be inspired to take on the challenge.

So how do you go about deciding just what this story project is going to be about? There are many ways to get there but we will help you through the process. You could be lucky enough to already have a person and/or project in mind. If so skip down to decide on a focus. If you already know what you want your story project to be about you can probably skip to Narrow the scope. Be careful about skipping all they way down to Pick a Medium because if your story project is too broad you might get discourage and give up before it is complete.

QUESTIONS:

A good starting spot is to ask yourself why you want to do a story project? From the BYUtv series called The Generations Project they asked these questions to help people find their why:

  • What do you spend a lot of time thinking about?
  • What do you hope will happen to you in the next year or two?
  • Tell us a story about a life changing experience.
  • What is the biggest challenge you’re facing in your life now?

It is good to let these question percolate in your mind for a few days. Make notes and notice where your thoughts go. Listen to your intuition on what story project you want to do now.

Try looking at your family tree or start listing names of people in your family.  Here are some more questions that might help you decided on your story project:

  • Is there someone you are drawn to?
  • Is there a time in history that you are interested in?
  • Do you know an ancestor from that time period?
  • Is there a place in your family’s past you would like to learn more about?
  • Have you considered doing a story about your own life?

Again it might take you sometime to settle on a person or place or time that you want your story project to be about. Being thoughtful during this step will reap big rewards later on.

NARROW IT DOWN:

At this point you have probably come up with several possibilities for story projects. If one has come to the forefront then you are ready to move on. If not ask yourself more questions until you feel good about one. File your notes away for future projects. Just because you don’t decide on that project now doesn’t mean you can’t do it in the future. Chances are the project you have in mind is still rather broad in its scope and too big to tackle in a reasonable amount of time. Now is the time to narrow it down. Let’s say you picked a person. Now is not the time to take on telling their whole life story. Unless you are different from most of us you don’t have time or the experience to succeed in that kind of project. Instead pick a time frame to work on first. If you really do want to do that life history then keep that in mind and design this project to become part of that big future project. It is easy to think we can eat the whole elephant or maybe just one of his legs. A huge key to success in learning and sharing about our family stories is to break them down into palatable pieces.  Don’t try to write “War and Peace” here. A short story is more what we are after. Down the road if you want to you can combine lots of story projects into your “War and Peace”.

FOCUS:

The next step is to bring focus to your story project. Go back to your “why” and how it relates to this project and what you want to do. Can this project be broken down into smaller pieces? You want to have a very tight focus on what this project is and how to accomplish it. I have a tendency to dream up the most elaborate projects but it is important to keep them from getting out of hand and grow into something that is difficult to get done and might not really carry out your purpose any better in the end. Now is the time to be honest about your available time and resources. It is better to break it up into several smaller project. You gain a sense of accomplishment which the completion of each story project.

Make notes and write a good description of what you want your story project to be. Give it some time and some serious thought. Always keep in mind who you plan to share your story project with.

MEDIUM:

Finally you want to pick a medium for your story project. Is it a book, an eBook, a video, a slide show, an audio, a song or something else altogether? There are lots and lots of possibilities. For many story projects once the first project is done it could easily be shared in another format. For example a book can be converted to an eBook. It might also be the basis for a video or slide show. Start with just one medium but keep in mind that other projects could spin-off from the original story project. Browse through our project ideas for some inspiration on the possibilities.

Are you still with me? Then it is time to move on to step two!

Pupdate – Zodiac’s Recall

Posted on by
studio shot of Zodiac ( black lab) - 3 months old - close up of his head and shoulders with just a little bit of pink tongue sticking out

Zodiac at 3 months

I’m working on my post about step one of the DOABLE approach but it probably won’t get done until tomorrow. But I have some late breaking news about Zodiac our puppy in training for Guide Dogs for the Blind. I just got a call that Guide Dogs wants him to return for his harness training on the next puppy truck. So on the 19th of May early in the morning we will be putting our fun-loving boy on the truck. A couple of weeks ago he wasn’t going back until June. But par for the course in puppy raising things change and now he is on the truck. They usually don’t take neutered males until 15 months old and Zodiac turns 14 months on Friday. So he will be on the young side.

There are lots of things to do before he goes back. I’ve got an extra report to write and I’d love to finish his book so I can send a pdf along with him. Plus we like to throw a farewell party for our pups before they leave to give family, friends and neighbors a chance to say good-bye. I’m trying not to feel panicked about this because I know everything will be fine but my stomach isn’t sure it agrees.