Taking a mental vacation

School is all back in session now for us all.  I didn't take pictures of the kids on their first day back to school; they looked half-put together and excited as always.  Josh didn't take a picture of me on my first day back to school; all spiffed up in my teachers clothes.  Frankly, this is all back to normal.  We are back to the regular ins-and-outs of daily life.  It is all wonderful and an experience worth having.  Nevertheless, my mind is still rolling over the amazing times we had on vacation.  It seems that as we were away we could focus on our main purpose: being together having fun.  Even though we had nearly a month of break time once we got back home, it wasn't very summer vacation-y.  Perhaps it is because it was being compared to all of this:

Boating out on Boise reservoir with the Ricks family.  Noah was so kind to Danny the whole trip, an real exemplary young man.  I am impressed with all my nieces and nephews for sure, and there is an extra soft spot this summer for Noah and how amazing he made my son felt.  We will forever refer to the 'epic' wave that thrashed Rowan, Faith and Noah while they were on the tube.

Riding in the car with these three clowns was always fun.  Really, always.  They came up with the most creative stories and kept entertained and happy with one another.  A couple times, I let Mom Button drive (awesome East-West travel companion) and the kids wanted me to lay back my chair and so they could give me a massage and do my hair. I am a truly blessed woman.  Just look at those three cute faces!

The majesty of Glacier Park was awe inspiring.  

Little things with little people.  We watched a movie on Lemurs in 3-D.  Who would have thunk? Lemurs jumping at your on a very very large screen.  We sure did learn a lot about them.  Also, the company was amazing, Butt-olke family vacation 2014 was such a blast!  How many people still hang out with their best friend from the 3rd grade? I do!

Sunny summer days with cousins.  Nothing better, especially at this stage.  I could just put my camping chair in the edge of the water to keep cool and just sit back and listen to the glee.  We stayed at Lucky Peak park for hours; the majority of the time the kids were just playing in the sand.  Ages 13-2 all perfectly happy.

Lazy cabin days.  Thank the Heavens for Hancock Haven!  The weather was perfect.  The river glistened and glided along so nicely we couldn't help but nearly worship it.  I fell in love with watching my kids re-enact all the things I loved most about the cabin as a kid: fishing at the fishing hole, rolling your pants up to wade in the water, playing in the canal, rock hopping on the island, pulling apart link grass, gathering flowers, listening to nature, and being together or alone as it felt best.

"Mom, the ground is boiling!" I had forgotten, having grown up so near to Yellowstone National Park, what a natural anomaly the park is.  This stage of wonder in the little ones reawakened all sorts of vision as we walked around seeing gyser after gyser, each one as phenomenal as the first.  Even the unpredictable wait for Old Faithful with its groans and moans totally paid off as their level excitement grew with each foot of water height.

Family and flammables makes the Fourth of July real.  We had 19 grandchildren gathered at the Hancock Haven to honor our forefathers with a variety of fireworks.  The ending display of 'the big ones" had us all cuddled together on the lawn.

A detour worth taking.  Thanks to my parents' recommendation we headed off the beaten path to see Devil's Tower.  A geological wonder!  The small march around the base was holy in a way.  There are a lot of legends and history in that landmark worth respecting.  My favorite memory - Danny peeking around various trees, trying to be hidden just out of view on the path ahead with a smirk on his face and a playful pounce once we reached him.

I got my gumption in order and had the kids got through the rig-a-marole to become Jr. Rangers at Mt. Rushmore.  I figured it would make the very small stop more engaging.  It did to a degree.  The highlight was watching them study through the visitor center windows to make their own sketch of our National monument.

Hi-ho Summer Away!  I suppose all these memories shall motivate me to make sure each day has something special in which to rejoice.  Yep, I reckon we need more fun in our lives year round.

Academics

Just the other night Josh and I had a conversation about what being an 'academic' meant.

I was sharing with him the connective revelations I was making about change and faith from the combining definitions of two books Falling to Heaven by James Ferrell and The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.  Dr. Ferrell is a gifted scriptorian and his book illuminates the paradoxes of the teachings of Jesus that can help us understand our relationship to God and dependence upon Christ for needed changes.  I had started with Ferrell's book a while back but had become frustrated with the over generalized use of loaded terms such as guilt and admit.  I had paused on his second part of the book called 'The Gift of Guilt" because I could not fit the term 'guilt' into any gift wrapping.  I understood the use of the title - obvious alliteration, sensational paradox - however Ferrell was not specific about what or how he was using the word guilt. I found I had to dig through his analysis of paradoxes too much to find his meaning.  It frustrated me because I wanted to feel enlightened by his scriptural analysis, not frustrated by his poor writing.

I realized my frustration had developed into the complaint "Ferrell is not being specific enough in the use of his words as an academic would."  Josh, of course questioned my complaint.

In contrast, through the gift of a generous friend I had started in on The Gifts of Imperfection and finally found some specified terms that would help me to sort out Ferrell's intensity.  Dr. Brown, having been trained in a specific academic research modual, is very careful to define the usage of any term that may have multiple meanings.  Her research likewise touches on the need to recognize our vulnerabilities and use them to instill confidence in self and action to change.  To me, both books were speaking to the very principle I have been pondering and striving to understand on a personal level: humility.  Yet, it was the combination of the two that allowed me to finally embrace where I am on my personal journey and identify where I am in relation to my Savior and where I would like to be.

So how is it that being more 'academic' about writing allowed me to clarify my own feelings?  I believe it comes down to being open to multiple definitions and allowing your writing to generate continued dialogue between reader and author through turning words and concepts into different points of light.  I had not been able to discuss what guilt was with Ferrell's text; his presumptions statements were so definitive that they could not be defined in any different way.  Brown offered her use of a term and then shared ways in which it would best work in the given research.  Both scholars are equally intelligent, whereas, in truth, one wrote in a style that I have been inculcated in while the other wrote to a different type of audience.

In Josh's opinion, Brown sounded like "one of those hippie-dippy philosophical types of self-help books that don't make any sense" initially.  For him, Brown was opening the subject too wide.  Yet, when I showed him how Ferrell's use of loaded terms without explanation created a whole different set of feelings in the reader, Josh began to understand how being more open in definition develops more personal understanding.  My term for this development of definition was "academic writing."

"So what is academic, then?" asked Josh.  He reminded me of the anecdote of the building mechanic who refused to teach his son any practical skills because he wanted his son to grow up to the be like the professors in the university buildings he maintained that just sat at their desks all day and thought.

Of course I can see how that perception is held.  Academics and research require a lot of reading or studying what others have said and then rolling them around in your head to see if there are other possibilities.  It is through the exploration of possibilities that new solutions or discoveries are made. If we had just accepted the first guesses on any subject there would have been no advancements made.

I offered the second anecdote that illustrated my point of view about academics: A humble worker had once heard a teacher say that they must find ways to expand their mind at all times.  She was skeptical for she sat on steps in an alley way and peeled potatoes everyday.  What was there in her world to expand her mind?  She began to observe the very small ants around her that scavenged the bricks at her feet and found pieces of potato peel.  Her curiosity grew as she watched them more intently and she began to notice patterns in their behavior.  On her day of she went to a library and found that there was very little written about the ants and their behavior, although she was given their name.  Over time, she developed some of the most accurate information about ants and their living systems and habitat that was later published.  All the while, she was just a potato peeler.

Before returning to the academic world, I have spent 6 years as just a homemaker.  Gratefully, my time in undergraduate studies had helped me to understand that my brain could be active at all times so I began doing more than just vacuuming.  I heard the rhythms of the vacuum as I pulled it back and forth and created rhymed meter poems about my vacuum.  While standing for hours at my kitchen sink paring fruit for canning I calculated the average time to fill one quart jar and the average numbers or jars needed, all the way down to knowing the amount of time I spent canning to the ratio of food I prepared for my family in one year to the second.  I learned about landscaping patterns, sustainability practices, psychology of happiness, and early child development.  During the mundane tasks my mind was able to roll around thoughts and feelings to the point of understanding.

 That, to me, is academic.  It is training the brain not to be idle and the heart to desire more than is just placed before you.  Therefore is the reason Josh and I hope our children will chose to attend a university.  Honestly, in today's economy, one is better of learning a specific trade for financial stability than securing stable employment as an 'academic.'  However, the academic person can fulfill any trade and expand their humanity if they have been taught to think and explore new possibilities.

Danny boy is older

Last night as I lay in bed recounting the day to Josh, I realized yet again how cool Danny is.  He has an awesome sense of humor and keen timing.  He had heard a phrase I used earlier in the day and played it back perfectly that night as only a brother could.

We were nestling restlessly into our beds, doing our best and restructuring our sleep schedule the week before school starts and the stall tactics were epic.  Faith remembered that she needed some lotion for the sadly dry spots all over her body left from an ambush attack of random harmless hives.  Of course, once the lotion was on the extremely dry skin, it burned like searing fire.  She began to squirm and moan and thrash on her top bunk of the bed.  I was exasperated and had no retort, but Danny did!  "What, are you giving birth or something up there?"  He asks with an evident under-chuckle in his tone.  Perfect timing!  He can perfectly diffuse a situation.

Comedic timing and situation bomb-control are a couple of Danny's many talents.  I love this boy.  He is Golden.  Yes, he passed yet another milestone while on our family vacation.  He is six years old.  That's my baby boy, and he has grown!  Just everything about him makes me love him to his constant "forgetting" that I gave him a night time kiss just so I will come back and give him a zerbert on his fleshy cheeks to his determination to become an astronaut.

Riding cross country in a car of girls finally got to him when Viv requested, yet again, to listen to Taylor Swift.  I can't blame the guy.  He certainly did not get as much music air time for his playlist as the girls (read Viv and her music obsession) even though everyone agrees that the song "Happy" is definitely amazing for changing one's mood.

Danny quietly concentrates on most of his projects with a very clear design in his head of what it will be.  Notice the mountain forming with only a streak of red up the middle.

"It's Pompeii!" he told me.  "Where did you learn about Pompeii?"  I ask.  "From the National Geographic and the book we recently read in the Magic Tree House.  You can see the lava tube inside the mountain before it explodes." 

Since we were in WA on Grmpa Dan Button's 60th birthday and Josh was with us, we celebrated then the two Dan's birthday with family and food, the Button way.  Grandpa and Danny traded back scratches for gifts.

Again, the humor! We went to a fry specialty shop in Boise and Danny loved the blueberry ketchup.  He loved it so much he decided he ought to have a blueberry nose.  

On Danny's actual birthday on the 14th we had "The best birthday ever!" with his Ricks cousins.  We went to the perennial favorite of mini-golf and then shared a round of laser tag with all his boy cousins.  For his first time around, Danny was the sharp shooter for the kids in his age range.  He divulged to me how he had strategized by following certain older cousins in direct routes and going back to the recharge station before he was out of lives.  I was so proud of him.  Tactically minded at six years old.  Josh and I are planning on grooming him for West Point.

Another amazing gift: patience.  The boy his my namaste.  He is peaceful and calm and really enjoys just throwing a pole in the water and observing what is going on.  He also is a hard worker.  Danny's favorite times a the cabin were just following Grampie around and doing various man chores, learn to shoot pool, or sit next to the river.  Neither of them talk much, but they sure enjoyed each others' company, which warmed my heart.

When we visited Mesa Falls Danny was my buddy observing all the little nuances of geography and waterfalls.  He noticed the rainbows in the water and the formation of rocks.  He looked for wildlife and found his favorite souvenir of the trip: a guide to all the fish of the Mountain West.  He had to sleep with it and couldn't hardly put it down to close his eyes.

The boy is still super excited about fighter planes.  

Crowning moment of the trip: Danny asked to jump off the Fun Farm bridge.  No small matter for a small person.  With full trust in me, he climbed over the outer edge, more confident than his father.  We counted to 3 and went for it.  I was a bit concerned as he popped up out of the water after a 20ft drop, until I saw his face - absolute joy!!!  He had his first adrenaline rush of his life and loved it!  "That was BAWESOME" (better than awesome)

Grace and a visit with Grandpa

I have been lurking around the blogosphere since our recent return from a long and lovely vacation.  It is like getting reacquainted with an old friend and just enjoying listening.  I am content not to get into all the posting of my own life because I enjoy other people so very much; their creativity, their realism, their love and heartache.  Life is beautiful from every sphere.  Even when life is coming to an end.

First and foremost in my mind from our trip was my most favorite part: a visit with Grandpa Alonzo Bowman and his angel wife Alice in Packwood, Washington.  The inception of our cross-country vacation came from the realization after a semester-long biographical project on Grandpa's life that there was so much more to know about this great man.  He turned 90 in April.  The fragility of life loomed around the corner and we knew it was time to act. ( I wished I felt that same pleasant pressure to line up our life and finances to enjoy all the people I love in our life, or at least had the resources to act upon them)  In God's good grace, and it is extremely gracious and loving, we were able to plan out the extreme vacation through 10 states, over the two major rivers in this grand country, through 4 National Parks and over the continental divide with the peaceful valleys of family visits in between.

Josh found a medical conference in Seattle that allowed him to join us for time in Washington and the two most meaningful days of our whole trip.  As Josh finished out his speed-learning session on basically everything a PA needs to know and I had rounded up the kids from 4 fabulous days with my best friend Kristen and clan, we went south around Mount Rainier into the peaceful retirement community of Packwood.  Grandpa and Alice had agreed to let us visit with him with audio recorders, video recorders, and a whole lot of curiosity.  During my 4 month ethnographic and archival research surrounding the life of Alonzo Price Bowman I had learned so much, and thirsted for more.  There was a beautiful development within the family as we all turned our hearts and eyes inward on the jewels of history that were right within our family.  Josh and I talked almost weekly with Grandpa for about 20 minutes, but his attention span did not go beyond that, leaving me with more inquiries on the tip of my tongue.  We would research around the details he had given, then wait for another conversation on Sunday nights.

While in Packwood we had two glorious hours of stories and smiles.  Grandpa sat at ease in his favorite rocker casually talking with me, looking past the iPad I held to record it all.  Grandma Alice entertained the kids with tricks and coloring and interjected her humble and faithful opinions throughout Alonzo's narrative.  Before arriving we had arranged to meet with them the following morning but had to be sensitive of their comfort and energy levels.  As we closed our evening talks and determined to meet for breakfast at a local diner, I was gloriously happy.  My love for Grandpa and Grandma Alice had increased almost as fast as the Grinch's heart.

As we phoned Grandpa on our way to the hotel to tell him the breakfast joint didn't open until much later than we had decided upon for breakfast, he declined from meeting with us the next morning at all.  I was heartsick. Even as the kids (especially Danny) were SOOO excited that there were elk in the fields surrounding our hotel room, I felt so cheated.  We were spending the night in a hotel so we could see Grandpa the next morning and that was not going to happen.  We went to bed that night, together, looking forward to breakfast alone the next morning.

Josh is the early riser in the family and had gone for an early run as he awoke (our hotel strategy for not waking the rest of us up quite yet, he goes to the workout room) in the quiet misty mountain streets of Packwood.  He, as I, was praying that we would find a way to meet with Grandpa one more time before we left and felt the impression that he might see him on the roads.  So Josh turned his run around toward the hotel, and with a small miracle, ran right into Grandpa Alonzo as he was turning out of our hotel parking lot.  Grandpa had not seen us in the breakfast area (seems that these too men have an inherited trait of waking early) and thought to move on.

I awoke to Josh's jubilant voice opening our hotel room door and ushering Grandpa in.  No one was upset to be awakened to the soft and sweet voice of Grandpa Alonzo's polite excuses.  He spent an hour with us, having brought a special momento from his war days to share with us: a hand carved wooden shoe with his infantry symbol (the Cross of Lorraine) and the names and dates of every city he fought through during his 18 months in World War II.  I was giddy.  A bit bleary eyed, but giddy.

Just as we arrived back home in Indiana after another 3 weeks on the road, we heard from Mom that Grandpa was rapidly loosing weight.  Having a medical provider as a husband, we both knew what rapid weight loss meant after relatively good health.  Grandpa is now on hospice, back in Packwood after asking to have "no more pokes' from the good staff of Providence hospital in Olympia.

With grace and an open heart we thank God for letting us be with Grandpa Alonzo this summer.  And with some grace and agency, we hope to be with him, and many other revered family members who have gone on to their heavenly home, once our journey on earth is complete.  Family is everything.

Weighing Measurement

I had a two mile conversation with myself yesterday while on a relaxing jog in the beautiful weather that went something like this:

"Why do you feel compelled to weigh yourself on the scale at least once a week if you are finally at the beautiful point in your life that you can just love your body regardless of pant size?"

"Because I still like knowing how much I weigh."

"Why?  It doesn't have any bearing on changing your eating habits or what exercise you are going to be able to do?"

"True.  I have dealt with enough fatigue and illness now to know that eating is to sustain life and exercise is to stay strong, not for getting skinny.  I don't care about skinny.  I just feel more secure when I know what range I am in, and sometimes get a little excited/happy that I have 'lost' weight."

"But you know that your body weight fluctuates 5-8 pounds depending on which part of your menstrual cycle you are in.  Scales aren't accurate.  The one at the doctors always puts you 3 pounds heavier than the one at home, and that is not just clothing."

"Right, but I use a measured average to know which way I am going.  Doctors use your body weight as a measurement of health.  Obviously I don't feel obese and I am strong and have good cardiovascular health, we are running right now.  I think my tie to the scale is not about my actual size but more about measuring progress."

"You are trying to argue that scales are measurements of progress?"

"In a way.  They are like 'To-Do Lists' for me.  Early on in my home-making days I would make crazy long To-Do lists and then expect to get everything done.  I would push myself all day to keep moving because I had so much "To-Do."  Well, then I had kids and through experience got wise.  I still made To-Do lists occasionally to organize my thoughts, but used them as a mark toward progress made, not a measurement of my success.  A successful day was doing one thing on the 'To-Do' list and staying happy with the kids.
I feel like I have mature and become wise with the scale too.  Admittedly, 4 years ago I bought this fancy scale to be daily vigilant of my weight and body fat percentage to get to my 'Peak-Performance.' I got there.  And it was cool at that time in my life.  My 'Peak Performance' then looks a lot different than it does now.  So now I just measure performance.  I just step on the scale to see how my body is reacting to life and helps me keep in perspective the goal of staying healthy and within a good range for my own daily performance and average things out overtime without obsessing over the fluctuations or being at the 'Peak' of anything but happiness."

"So why can't you just get rid of the scale if you are measuring happiness not weight?"

"I like numbers.  I feel like that on good days I can exaggerate things and likewise on the bad days, when probably the numbers are the same.  I feel better having something giving me data as feedback. For the same reason I wear a heart rate monitor and GPS/Timer watch when I exercise.  I know when I am working out hard, or pushing it a little, but it is nice to have the numbers there to confirm that I am not placing myself in a delusional fancy place.  Sometimes I am surprised that my head and the numbers don't agree, but when I feel my body objectively with the numbers as a guide I see where my brain is being silly.  Numbers help measure a lot of things, I suppose even sanity.  And happiness is being sane.  Is that a good enough justification?"

"As Josh would say, 'You are a lawyers daughter.' But really, what we are trying to figure out is if we have finally come to a point where stepping on the scale is a healthy habit or not."

"I think we are finally there, at that healthy body and mind point.  The point where we can look at the numbers and feel where we are at physically and then make a mental note for progress if things are not so positive, or if they are unrealistically positive, keep it in perspective.  Fact is, I love my body and fully embrace the mom butt that I have.  Changing shapes is weird, and expensive (as we know from this past weekends second-hand shopping spree to size up into more wide hip loving shorts), but it is also part of learning grace in aging."

"Do we want to talk now about how we feel about getting old?"

"We'll save that one for later, for now let's just enjoy the run and the fact that measuring progress is part of who we are and what we like."

Needs more

On February 1st Danny hit his cheek, hard, on the side of his metal bed slide, hard.  He was in obvious pain and tears streamed down his rounded little cheeks.  As he cuddled in my lap, the heaving sobs subsided a moment for him to say "I wish my cheeks were bigger."  I was surprised into a giggle.  That was not the response I had anticipated.

Usually children rain down pledges of vengeance on inanimate objects that animate themselves to inflict pain on the unsuspecting little people (walls and doors have the most vicious tempers and will burst upon them regularly).

No, Danny's wish at this moment was for augmented cheeks.  My gleefully kissable boy wanted even more fleshy pillows on the side of his face.  "Why"  I asked, wondering what childlike logic had brought upon the wish.  "Because then I would have just bounced off the side of the slide instead of getting hurt."  His sniffles turned to snickers.  "And how large would your cheeks need to be to give you this buoyant bouncing effect?"  I asked, wondering if the logic would fail when put to the test.  Now fully recovered, Danny pounced to his feet, pulled his shirt tight around the middle and pushed out the perfectly protruding little belly he could to its maximum capacity "As big as my belly!"

*badump ching*

Finding my soul in one semester past

 Somewhere in the organized jumble of my office wall, a small paper has been holding blog posts unwritten.  I jotted the idea down as they came somewhere between all the other writing I have been doing.  And they will wait a bit longer.

This past semester I have written - composed and typed on the computer, sometimes handwriting them on back pages of texts books - more pages of text than ever before in my life.  It should be expected, of course, since I am a composition and rhetoric emphasis in a master's program. Here is there real break through though - I HAVE LOVED IT ALL!

Seriously.  When in my life have I ever had to seriously edit back my thoughts so as to not exceed my 20 page limit for a research project?  When you have been writing 1-3 page responses on 75-150 page readings for two classes every week for 16 weeks and you are still mega excited about writing your final project such that I was NOT up until the last minute turning them in.

What has been so intriguing Nancy?  I feel like I have finally found my soul in writing.  Things that I have believed are meaningful and I have wanted to present somewhere in written form are finally finding their niche.  Two courses guided me into this happy valley of compositional bliss: Family History Writing and Composing Communities.

The two courses converged in giving me a space to write academically about the influence of literacy on the concept of identity and how communities affect that self-identification as well.  The literate world, or the way in which we learn to learn, whether it be by text or other means, is where we shape who we are and cannot be considered in isolation.  I have felt this concept so strongly in three places; Myself as represented in years of journals, My family where I have learned the most and still claim the largest parts of my identity, and My faith and religious training throughout my life.

In my final synthesis paper for the Family History Writing course I was able to kick start what I feel will be a massive and wonderful venture for a career:

Over a four month period, I was introduced to the nuanced and burgeoning possibilities of family history writing within literacy studies.  As a developing field, our course goals aimed to review and reap as much academically relevant material to define the scope of this writing community.  Benedict Anderson wrote in Imagined Communities that boundaries of communities, although defined, are elastic.  He theorized that membership within a community may not necessarily be based on face-to-face contact, as it once was, but on the largely text based boundaries that maintain unique identity while encompassing larger more vaguely defined groups.  This definition of community is useful in looking at the group of people engaging in family history writing, as well as the communities they are writing about – families.

Because of the marginalized position of family history writing within composition disciplines and methodology, much of the synthesis and defining of what family history writing comes from the contextualization of personal family history writing as supplemented by the ongoing understanding of where that writing would fit within an academic framework.  Although the purpose of this synthesis is not to argue the validity of family history writing academically, it does hope to carve out a meaning and purpose for writing done within multigenre and multimodal rhetorical and literary studies.  What I feel is most poignant therefore, is to define the family and theorize by whom it should be written to emphasize that meaning within academia.

Theorizing and synthesizing family history writing has allowed me to feel more a part of the community of family history writers as well as a more aware part of my own family community.  Being part of a community is more about the individual investment in the meanings, values, and relationships of the community than about defining boundaries.  No specific methodology or theory can teach so many of the intrinsically felt spaces within a community, even within a writing genre.  As boundaries are crossed, extended and expanded, writing studies are becoming more elastic and stretching the abilities of our understanding about literacy and relationships.  We family history writers make our own meanings, and in that way, prove to academia that our subject is of worth.  It is writing essential to a broader definition of identity, and close enough to home for all of us to make changes.  What becomes accessible through the diligent and mulit-modal work of family history writing is more than stories, lineage, and historical facts, it is the identity that creates us all from the very foundation up.  We give testimony and permanence to the sensitive and nuanced definition of who family is and where they fit in a broader spectrum. 

That is the beginning and end of 18 pages of passionate writing combining two courses that led me to the gate.  Here I finally am, where I start on my real journey to fulfilling one of my dreams to write, and I am passionate about it!  I have a list of books to read over the summer, none of which would sound interesting to anyone outside of literacy studies, unless they really loved me and were patient enough to fein interest.  One square of that messy wall of cork board (the original Pintrest ya'll) is covered in articles I have found during research that I have read and will use in a thesis paper next year or just enjoy reading.  The other squares help keep me grounded and rounded; my dreams and positive statements square, the landscaping and home improvement square, calendaring square, home management, and kid school stuff.  I am a well squared person you might say.

At the end of a blissful semester and stressful season of life, my husband ordered me a rad gift to celebrate all the time I had spent typing in front of the home office computer.  I think he is finally realizing that I will be doing more writing, not less, and wishes to save my aching back.  Although my alley trash duct-taped 3-legged chair was functional in the sense I could sit on it so long as I jammed the 4th leg in at the right angle and sat quickly, this new gift is a fine improvement.