I have heard so much about this film and its message that I agreed* to post information about their upcoming event called “The Sleep Challenge.” You can find much more information on End the Race.org.

In honor of National Sleep Awareness Week (March 5-11), the people who brought you the film, “Race to Nowhere”, are offering physicians and medical professionals across the country the first-ever chance to view the film via a free, online live stream at http://www.racetonowhere.com/physicians

Their hope is that every medical professional in the country will see this film and will support the effort to propose, create and nurture school policies and practices that prioritize balance and health in students’ lives—including making time for sleep.

Hard-Hitting Education Documentary Urges Action on Student Sleep

Now, in recognition of National Sleep Awareness Week (March 5-11, 2012) the team behind “Race to Nowhere” calls on schools to take targeted action on student sleep. The Sleep Challenge, launched on the film’s online action platform End the Race.org, helps students and their families understand the importance of sleep to learning and health. It rallies schools nationwide to explore a range of policies—including later school start times, block scheduling, mandatory study halls, and school-wide bans on caffeine—that shift student schedules to allow for healthy, consistent, nighttime sleep. The challenge is one in a series of calls-to-action supported by the End the Race.org movement.

National Sleep Awareness Week is an annual public education and awareness campaign sponsored by the National Sleep Foundation, a charitable, educational, and scientific not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving sleep health and safety through education, public awareness, and advocacy. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that teenage students receive 9.25 hours of sleep each night but reports that that 15% of teens report sleeping 8.5 hours on school nights.

“Having toured thousands of schools with “Race to Nowhere”, I’ve seen that making time for adequate, healthful sleep is among the most overlooked priorities among schools, parents and teachers,” says Vicki Abeles, the first-time director of “Race to Nowhere”. “An incredible consensus is building that we need to align our educational practices—in the home and in school—with what we know about children’s and adolescent health. And that means committing to school policies that put student sleep first.”

The film has already ignited change in dozens of schools and districts in the wake of “Race to Nowhere” screenings, including:
• Campbell Hall (Los Angeles, CA), which shifted to a later start time.
• Ridgefield High School (Ridgefield, NJ), which shifted to block scheduling.
• Loudoun County Public Schools (VA), which started a district-wide later-start-time initiative.
• Millburn High School (Milburn, NJ), where more than 200 students and parents signed a national petition
for later school start times.
• Bishop O’Dowd School (Oakland, CA), which shifted to a later start time, and restructured the school day
to include more study halls and time for socializing.
• Fairfax County (VA), where over 2,000 survey respondents voted in favor of later start times.

Unique Distribution and Outreach: An independently produced and distributed film—boasting no studio backing or commercial distribution and untethered to third-party corporate or advocacy interests—Race to Nowhere has been distributed uniquely through grassroots, community platforms. Director Vicki Abeles notes that this distinctive distribution approach reflects her priority to link the film to action and on-the-ground social impact. “When you step outside the conventional distribution approach and encourage audiences to engage with film not as consumers but as activists and stakeholders, you begin to see the incredible power of documentary to effect change in our communities,” Abeles says. The film will not be released on retail home DVD until 2012—part of a deliberate strategy to enhance brick- and-mortar community engagement with the film before it’s available for private, home use.

Press Attention for Race to Nowhere:
The Washington Post: “Riveted to this disturbing tableau were more than 300 parents and educators, including Elise Browne Hughes, 46, who wiped away tears one recent evening in Bethesda while watching the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” which is becoming a growing grassroots phenomenon in the achievement-minded Washington area and beyond. “It’s in the culture, and it kind of feeds on itself,” said Hughes, a mother of two sons who paid $10 for a ticket and braved the heavy rain to watch the film at Walt Whitman High School. For her and thousands of others nationwide, the film has raised difficult questions about how to raise well-adjusted children at a time when schools seem test- obsessed, advanced classes are the norm and parents worry that their children will not go as far in life as they have.” (10/7/2010)
Katie Couric, former CBS News Anchor: “I interviewed Vicki Abeles on my web show today and was struck by her message. ‘Schools are not factories’, she argues, ‘and children aren’t products to be fixed and tested.’ Over- scheduled, stressed-out kids aren’t just less competitive, they are miserable. One study found that 15% of U.S. high school students had seriously considered suicide. This film is a poignant reminder that straight A’s and high SAT scores are not the Holy Grail. We all want our kids to excel, but I’d take a happy child over a ‘depressed success’ any day of the week.” (3/1/2011)
The Washington Post: “If Obama really wants to help promote education films, he could take a look at “Race to Nowhere,” a documentary that isn’t backed by a Gates grant but explores the strains of competing in a pressure- packed academic culture that is highly test-driven and pushes some students to the edge. His time would better be spent by talking to education experts who aren’t enamored with his policies and using his extraordinary intellect to come to understand how he is getting education so wrong.” (10/11/2010)
The New York Times: “Spurred by the medical and emotional problems of her own three children, Ms. Abeles embarked on a deeply personal inquiry into the insanely hectic lives of too many of our offspring. Rushing from class to sports practice, from community work to homework, and relying increasingly on stimulants and sleep deprivation, these kids seem more pressured than the average C.E.O. Documenting consequences that range from depression to eating disorders to suicide, the film’s medical professionals share Ms. Abeles’ alarm and her awareness that blame, if it exists, is systemic and with little current incentive to change.” (9/9/2010)

____________________

* I received no compensation for posting this content. I posted it because I think it’s important information.

I like it. I don’t like it. It’s reasonable then it’s not reasonable.
Its inconsistent policies on privacy are frustrating but I can tolerate the evolution.

But, how do I describe my thoughts to my kids about why I don’t want them to use it?
It’s been tricky. Then I saw this:

Thanks, Glove and Boots.

Your video just…well, it just really makes me chuckle. What can I say?

Well you may be as excited as we were to discover that Starbucks barristas will make drinks that are off the menu.
Drinks that you may never have heard of or even imagined.

For example:
Today, my daughter and I walked into our favorite Starbucks, she ordered her usual beverage, and I paused.
“I don’t know what I want today. I always order the same thing, but today…”

Our local barrista had suggested something the last time we were here that I really liked, so I opened the door:
“Last time you suggested something really delicious but I have no idea what it was.”

He tossed out a few ideas and I said, “You know what? It’s the milk. I don’t like having a ton of milk but there’s not much to get if I don’t want a lot of milk.”
He said, “Oh, sure there is!”
I looked at the wall of items and felt puzzled.

He said, “how about a marble mocha macchiato?”
“What’s that?”
He described it, it sounded great, so I added, “with skim milk?”
He smiled, grabbed the cup and started making it.
And it was fabulous.

As we were leaving, I ordered a drink to go for my son and he asked,
“So, how’d you like that one?”
And I said,
“Fantastic. It was perfect. Just what I wanted. And I never would have ordered it if you hadn’t suggested it.”
“So, thanks!”

As he was making my son’s beverage, he said, “Oh, there are plenty of other drinks we can make.”
Then he got kind of quiet until he put a smaller cup on the little bar and said, “This is an example. For you.” and confidently nodded.
Then, “Feel the cup.”

I did.
It felt weird.
Hot but cold. Sort of hot on one side and cold on the other. What the…?
“Yeah, now taste it.”

Whoa!
Hot but icy cold and then? Sweet!
Delicious.
Different.
Special.
Fabulous.
Who knew?!

And it has a name!
If you want to have one of these little gems,
ask a talented barrista for
an Undertow.
The coffee that starts out hot then cold then finishes with a swoosh of sweet.
Mmmmmm…..
Made my day.

I particularly liked the part where she talks about vulnerability. We live in a world of vulnerability, she says, and those who feel uncomfortable with it often tend to feel afraid and then choose to numb their feelings of discomfort. But when we numb shame and pain, we also numb joy and pleasure, don’t we?

Brene Brown’s research showed her that people who are courageous enough to accept their imperfections and be vulnerable seem to be what she describes as whole-hearted people.

Gosh I want to be a whole-hearted person. To be authentic, vulnerable, and real. To love my family and friends with my whole heart and most of all have the courage to be imperfect. And to just be grateful to have another day to spend with them.

Thank you, Brene Brown, for all of your research and for continuing to teach us about human connection.

BTW, she speaks rather slowly, but stick with it. Her words have great value.

Final note: Hat tip to my sister for forwarding this TED talk to me.

Formerly located on soapboxmom.com, my blog’s new home is here on Moments We Treasure. You’ll find the same great content as the old blog, just a new address as well as a fresh, new, updated look!

Even ordinary moments can be moments we treasure, and MomentsMom aims to help you find the treasure in those moments. She wants to make life easier and more fun for parents and kids, so she’ll tell you about great technology, gadgets, apps and video games as well as books, homework helpers and organizing tools. She also appreciates great design and good humor, so she will share funny videos, educational videos and well designed products.

Thanks for visiting. Come back any time (and leave a comment or two)!

- Nicole

Now we hug a little longer, put the personal technology devices down a bit more frequently and make a point of expressing gratitude several times a day. We try to live more fully in each moment. We appreciate the moments we share, try to tolerate our differences a little bit more and let all “the little things” go.

We are basically looking at every aspect of Christmas and the holidays through a slightly different lens.

But what we see through that lens is something that’s always in focus: family.

That’s what the holidays are all about. Well, and celebrating the birth of Christ, and tolerance, forgiveness, and … LOVE.

I know that many of us are enmeshed in the stress, drama and pressure that often fills our holiday moments. Sure, we still have plenty of those days, too, but I keep trying to return to that focus on the family. The fact that we’re all still here. Warts and all, maybe, but still here.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Happy Holidays.

Happy New Year.

Hugs to everyone!

This topic seems to ruffle feathers. Check out this wonderful clip from The Talk on CBS:

If you haven’t seen The Talk yet, give it a little bit of your time. It’s like sitting around your kitchen table with a bunch of girlfriends. Don’t expect The View. The women actually seem to respect each other and to honor each other’s different points of view.

Refreshing.

_____________________________________________________

Originally posted December 6, 2007 (and annually rerun):

Yes…the holidays are upon us.

Stores blare Christmas music, commuters face nasty holiday traffic, shoppers swagger through crowded shops, busy busier frazzled parents lose patience with tired kids, and families spend hours (or days!) decorating their homes. It’s a time filled with ritual and traditions. And every family has its traditions. Some families go nuts every year on the outside of their homes hanging lights and signs…we don’t get crazy with our property — maybe we’ll put a few strands of white lights here and there, hang a couple of wreaths with bows, that’s about it.

But our Christmas tree inside our house? Ah, now that’s different.

We give heartfelt attention to our trees. My mom loved decorating Christmas trees. She trimmed beautiful trees. So did my grandmother. She had two trees at Christmas time with an elaborate, magical, snowy Christmas village underneath both of them, complete with kings on horses (or were they camels?) pointed toward her fireplace which had a beautiful creche inside. She spent a lot of time putting puffs of cotton underneath cotton batting then sprinkling glitter around to make it look like a shimmery, snowy fantasy land. She had little houses, animals and figurines spread all around and then a lovely little wooden fence on the edge of all of it. When we were old enough, my sisters and I would help her assemble this (what was in our minds massive) world. It was absolutely delightful.

We don’t even try to replicate that magic, but, sort of as a tribute to my family of origin, I put some effort into our tree. I enjoy decorating it. It all starts with the search for the right tree. We go out to a tree farm and my hubby uses a wimpy little saw (provided by the farm) and a whole lot of brawn to chop down a tree.

This year, our son spied a Norwegian Spruce (super prickly but great for holding lots of ornaments). It’s a funky tree, and we actually heard another family rejecting it because its branches were a bit wild and dense. We didn’t mind. So, in a Charlie Brown (well, Linus) kind of way, we decided that was the one for us. With a little TLC, we trimmed it, removed some of the sappy branches (and the twisted weedy thing that was growing up the trunk) and took it home.

Hubby and I put it in the stand without incident and then it was up to me to do the rest. I turned on some Christmas music, got a cup of tea and just sat and looked at it — not because I was feeling contemplative and pondering all my Christmases past, rather because I couldn’t find the box of lights. I had the tree topper, so I climbed up the ladder and set it on top, then I went back through the dozen or so boxes of decorations to search for the lights. I was just about ready to give up when, almost an hour later, I finally remembered that I stowed them in the attic.

Thank you, God! I mean, I needed the lights, because it’s the first step in the system. Yes, I have a decorating system that I’ve developed after years of advice and assistance from Mom. I start with the lights (I used to do a spiral around the tree, now I just zig zag up and around it and place them in spots that will optimize the sparkle factor). Mom always said that the key to making a great tree is to put some of the lights deep into the tree (in toward the trunk) to give it depth and provide maximum twinkle. Can’t skimp on the lights.

Ornaments are another place to be generous. I try to find great ornaments each year (preferably after Christmas, to get a good deal on bulbs I wouldn’t otherwise buy) and I have a color scheme to which I am loyal — clear lights with red, gold and white (but very few white) bulbs. So when I see a special red or gold bulb after Christmas, I scoop it up, add it to the collection, and look forward to putting it up the following year.

Mom insisted that the general idea is to hang the largest bulbs around the bottom and the smallest bulbs at the top, but I save a few small bulbs to sprinkle here and there around the middle (where I need more color). The shiniest bulbs go closest to the lights to maximize the sparkle. All of this is probably basic, basic tree trimming knowledge.

So now I’ll share some of my favorite Mom tips. First, how to use very effective little trimmings called sprays.

I’m not much of a crafty gal, but this trick is worth a trip to Michael’s (or AC Moore or whatever craft stores you have near you). Mom gave us some red and gold sprays that I carefully place in those bare spots that are otherwise just big, bland sections of green (Mom also used to add feathery birds to her tree, but I chose to omit them).

Another important Mom tip: ocassionally stand back a few steps and look at the whole tree to find the bare spots and fill them in with just the right decoration. I did just that and tweaked until I was satisfied. Then, I gathered up my french ribbon (the kind that has wire on each side — I use red ribbon with gold beads on the sides) and carefully wound it & twisted it around the tree. Finally, I used strings of beads and draped them around the tree, up and down the branches like this:

Then, when I finally finished, I made another cup of tea, got a little plate of cookies and sat and looked at it.For me, it’s the most special part of my ritual. That’s the time when I reflect back on all the past Christmases, back when mom was still alive. I think about my mom and grandmother and silently thank them for all the wisdom they passed on to me. I think about the time in college when my mom took me shopping for Christmas decorations because she wanted to help me set up my very first tree (away from home). I remember marveling at her attention to detail and understanding what a difference it made.

When I spend that special time looking at our tree, I am so grateful for the many warm, loving memories. I feel blessed to have had all those years learning Mom’s tips, decorating with her, buying new decorations, laughing and singing carols. All sorts of feelings start rushing through me. I start to wish she could be sitting there with me, also having a cup of tea and some cookies. I wish I could see her beautiful, sparkling eyes as she gazed approvingly at the tree.

At this time of year, I miss my mom the most. So my ritual often ends with tears. Sometimes I cry, other times I just sit and smile. No matter what, though, just before standing up and going on with the rest of my day, I always say, “This one’s for you, Mom. Thanks.”

2007 Christmas Tree (during the day)

2007 Tree at Night

Merry Christmas!

Happy Chanukah.

Happy Eid.

Habari Gani.

Happy Winter Solstice (that one’s for you, Dan!)

Kudos to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and everyone else at Apple.

Look how far you’ve come. People seem to forget your status as the underdog just a decade or two ago.

I remember.

I remember being reluctant to switch from the industry leader, to move from a PC to a (gasp!) Mac. The PC was king. IBM was a player — a blue chip/work-there-for-50-years-get-a-pension-and-a-gold-watch company. In fact, I remember having IBM as a client, touring a facility in Poughkeepsie, New York and marveling at the mainframes.

What a different world it was. It was all about the software. Or so some people thought.

Who predicted that you would be bigger than Microsoft?

Not many.

But you are. I consider it a magnificent accomplishment, worthy of some applause and respect.

Instead, you get an uproar over death grips and faulty antennas.

Many (most?) iPhone owners don’t mind a little frustration and imperfection.

My guess? The vast majority of iPhone 4 owners (okay, well, at least my husband and I) believe the product is marvelous. Beautiful and efficient. Elegant and powerful.

Yet some critics delight in their schadenfreude over a pseudo furor that’s actually relatively insignificant.

Why?

It leads me to wonder (with some degree of sadness) why people like to knock other peoples’ success. Why they expect (demand?) perfection and then pounce (shine a spotlight on it?) when they discover the slightest flaw.

I believe in a principle of abundance, where people support one another and trumpet the greatest achievements of friends, family members and respected colleagues, then support them and encourage them through hard times or whenever they stumble.

So I applaud you, Apple.

And you know what?

The iPhone has improved the quality of my life. I often forget that it’s a phone because that’s the least important part of the device. People who don’t use the iPhone don’t understand that fact. It’s not about the telephone. Even the word, telephone, is so…last millennium.

Now, it’s all about the apps…and the developers’ passions. Not to mention the passion of each and every iPhone owner. Each device is so customized, so specific to each user that it becomes special. Each owner makes it special, depending on his/her own interests, needs and passions.

Oh, and FaceTime?

It’s now. It’s tomorrow. It’s very Jetsons. And it works. Simply. It helped me endure some recent trips away from my family. Heck, it made them feel as if they were right there with me. It affected our quality of life. It brought us immeasurable joy.

So forget about those naysayers, haters and foes.

Congratulations on another extraordinary creation.

http://media.theonion.com/flash/video/onn_player.swf
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

No, seriously though, what do you think about the burgeoning privacy issues? No big deal or the beginning of a world ruled by potentially corrupt mega-corps-as-big-brother(s)? Or something somewhere in between? Heh.