We see exceptional intelligence as a blessing. So why, asks Maggie Fergusson, are so many brilliant children miserable misfits?

1843

I recently read a piece in the magazine 1843 called The curse of genius that really resonated with me. (1843 is the sister magazine of The Economist.)

The article left me thinking. And it made me want to share things that I don’t normally share.

Some things are hard to talk about. There are a lot of pretty deep topics that I’ll open up about. Maybe not on my blog for the whole world to read, but to the people close to me.

This is a topic that I rarely broach even with those that I’m closest to.

Being smart. Like really smart.

I’m talking here like traditional test-taking smart. The ability to remember and synthesize information. Math smart. Being able to figure things out.

I’m not on the level of some of the kids mentioned in the article. I might not claim the title of genius, but maybe of borderline genius. If you put me in a room with a hundred random people, I’ll probably be the smartest one there. In a room of a hundred thousand people… probably not.

That’s not an easy thing to write. It’s not the sort of thing that you make friends saying. It doesn’t lead to positive responses. Even typing that out, I imagine I’m not making friends with you, my imaginary reader.

When I was in the eighth grade, I went to a combined middle school and high school. I took pre-calc with the high school seniors and felt bored to tears.

I didn’t even have the opportunity to take calculus for another few years. I can still remember my high school principle telling me she didn’t think I could handle a college math class.

Looking back on it, I realize she could not have handled it and she couldn’t imagine that I could. At the time, it was just frustrating. ( When I did go on to take calculus later, it was so easy for me.)

This lady told me I needed four years of math credit to graduate. She also told me I couldn’t take any of the classes the school offered because they were below my level.

So basically I was screwed and more than anything I just wanted to finish with high school and move on to something more challenging.

I started college when I was 15. It was officially my third and last year of high school, but by this time I had transferred to a different school.

My new guidance counselor was someone I only met briefly, but was like an angel in my life. She was forgiving with my transcript. She entered in a P for Pass for Algebra II even though I’d never taken it. (Yep, I’d taken pre-calc without the pre-reqs.)

This lady made everything work out so I only had to take one class at the high school and could spend the rest of the time at the local community college. She got out of the way and let me move on with my education.

A few months after I turned 18, I had my associate’s degree in General Science. I transferred and had my bachelor’s in math before I turned 21.

Through all of this, I never found the intellectual challenge I craved. By the end, I did feel a bit burned out by school, in part because I never did find that challenge.

If it had been hard or stimulating, I would have dug in and really engaged. I love challenges. Instead it just felt easy and monotonous.

Looking back on it, I think I could have found a field of study that I found more satisfying.

The thing about math is that it’s sort of thought of as a right or wrong sort of field. It’s all about who can figure out a problem or figure it out faster. My quick wits were not appreciated by my (mostly) male professors.

On the other hand, I minored in biology and hit it off way better with the bio profs. Biology is a field where there is just so much that isn’t known. It’s a messy field. If I pointed out something to a bio prof that they didn’t know, they were excited rather than embarrassed.

When I was in elementary school and everything came easily, everybody told me to wait until middle school. Then they said to wait until high school and then for college.

When I was at the community college, they told me to wait until I was at a 4-year school. By the time I had finished my bachelor’s degree, I had still found most of it boring and easy.

Which is not to say that some of it wasn’t fun stuff to learn. I particularly remember physics and biology as being topics that just had cool stuff. Even if they were easy for me to understand, they were interesting.

And pottery. I took a lot of pottery classes in college.

So once I had my bachelor’s I had no interest in pursuing further education.

This makes me a bit of an under-achiever by my family’s standards. I have an aunt that jokes that she’s the under-achiever in the family because she ‘only’ got her master’s degree and her three siblings have doctorates.

(I still leave open the idea in my mind that maybe someday I’ll go get a PhD. It would have to be the right topic and I’d have to feel that I really needed the resources of a university for it. There are so many things I could just learn on my own and save the money. Of course being self-taught lacks the prestige of a fancy diploma.)

I want to go back a moment and mention something about my earlier years in school. School was a struggle for me. It was AWFUL.

I didn’t find learning new things to be hard. I found the snail’s pace at which classes moved to be excruciating. There is no flexibility in most of our schools for kids that learn faster or slower.

In addition, nobody likes a smart kid. Of course, it didn’t help that I was shy and awkward. (I also switched schools every year due to my parent’s custody agreement.)

I didn’t know that people would like me better if I hid how smart I was. Certainly I was, at times, rather insensitive about how I presented my intelligence which did not help. I yearned for the approval of my peers and teachers. Since all I had going for me was brains, I tried to use that to gain said approval.

I didn’t have the right sort of brains. Like many ‘smart’ people, I didn’t have any social intelligence. I didn’t know how to make friends.

While I’ve made huge strides along those lines, it’s something I can still struggle with. Social interactions can be really hard for me.

These days, I don’t like to let on to anybody how smart I am. I let other people be wrong and don’t correct them. I keep my mouth shut. It helps a lot not being in an environment where it comes up. The whole basis for school makes it a little harder to hide intelligence without an intentionally stealthy approach.

A lot of people have this idea that they ‘wish they were smart’. I have had many people express envy for my abilities. Unfortunately, envy is not a basis for friendship. There is no explaining to these people the challenges.

Being smart does not lead to being happy or wealthy or well-liked. It may give a slight advantage on the wealthy goal, but emotional/social intelligence actually gives a much higher advantage there. As far as being happy or well-liked unusual intelligence is probably a disadvantage. (Of course, I wouldn’t actually trade it in.)

One of the things I loved about the 1843 article was that it brought up these disadvantages. It talked about how so many parents want their kids to be smart, but the parents of these genius kids just wish they were normal.

I want to say, “If you envy those people that are smarter than you, STOP IT!” My saying that probably won’t change anything. It’s really no different than the other traits we envy in people. If you’re not that person, you have no idea what it’s actually like. I also recognize that getting from Point A of knowing that to Point B of squashing out envy is not straightforward.

Also, it should be noted that I spend my time envying people that have other talents or skills or types of intelligence. I sit around wishing I could make friends or had sales skills.

That’s just what we all do. We envy other people because we think if we had what they do, we’d be happy. Meanwhile, the person we’re busy envying is envying somebody else.

I just feel like being smart has it’s own stigma to it. It’s so much more acceptable to show off being pretty or successful or talented. I’d rather share about my short-comings than mention my brains. (Which is actually part of why I’m writing this. I want to reach that person that is 1 in a 100 with a message that they’re not alone.)

On a side note, I don’t find myself admiring people for innate skills. I admire the people that work their asses off for something.

When I was a math tutor in college, I had so much respect for the people taking the most basic math classes, showing up and putting in the work because they had some sort of goal.

This was when I was at the community college and a lot of these people were three times my age, going back to school for whatever reason and taking something like Math 050 which is not even actually college level math.

It was so hard for them. And yet they showed up and worked their asses off.

I still get riled up when I think about my experiences in school. I recently read an article about a country where they look for their smartest kids and have special programs and schools to help them excel. It makes me think, “Why couldn’t I have had that?”

It’s sort of funny because while I do sometimes wish I were different or that I had different skills and strengths, I would not change who I am.

Over time, I’ve grown much more comfortable with me. I think this happens to most of us as we grow older. The differences that made us miserable as teenagers turn into things we maybe even like about ourselves.

Ironically, the single thing I found the hardest to deal with as a brainiac was school. Once I got past that stage of my life, things got a lot easier.

Now I can learn about what I want when I want. (Reading a book on a different topic while sitting in a high school class just doesn’t fly. Come to think of it, some of my college professor’s didn’t look too kindly on that sort of behavior either.) Now I can learn at my own pace.

The revolution of this thing we call the internet has opened up so many options for learning things that it is ridiculous and amazing. The internet DID exist when I was in high school, but it had no where near the information available that it does today.

These days I’m busy mostly with things that don’t even involve my brand of smarts. I haven’t opened a math text book in over a decade.

Brains do not make parenting a two-year old easier. At times, I find the way my brain works to make it harder. I have an incredibly difficult time switching my mind away from a problem I’m contemplating or a project I’m working on to the immediate issues of parenting.

Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining. This may not be a more difficult problem that switching focus from Facebook to one’s child is for some people. (I do find that having a predetermined idea of my priorities make it a lot easier. I do not want my kiddo to feel like I am too busy for him.)

I have also found that I get a ton of satisfaction working in areas I’m not innately talented. Challenges engage me.

I enjoy things like wood working and riding my bike which go against my natural skills. Power tools and riding over rocks spike my anxiety big time. Every time I have a small success in these types of pursuits, I am thrilled.

So these days you won’t find me in a classroom. You’ll find me and my bike out on some dusty, rocky, steep trail that is above my skill level and me enjoying every second of it in a slightly sadistic sort of way.

Either that or I’ll be trying to make my son laugh by rubbing the top of my head on his belly which he has found inexplicably funny since he was like four months old.

Or maybe you’ll find me reading him books and talking to him with over-sized words so he’ll grow up to be smart.

If you didn’t read the article I linked at the top that was the inspiration for this post, here’s another link to it. I thought it was excellent and if you read all the way to the bottom of this post, chances are you’ll like it too.

Note: I actually wrote this post about a year ago… and then didn’t publish it. It felt too vulnerable. It almost still does. But reading it with fresh eyes, I like it too.

Also, these days, you just might find me in a classroom. I’ve recently taken on a job for a Data Science Bootcamp, which I love. Being smart by itself is not really fulfilling. Being able to use it in a way that helps others is awesome. I love teaching and helping others to learn things.

The post Too smart for my own good: the curse of borderline genius appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Like a lot of people across the world, we’ve been staying home a lot lately.

Some people are doing really cool things to give back… making masks, designing ventilators, helping their neighbors, sharing their talents online. One thing I’ve found really cool about all of this is just seeing the vast community spirit, kindness and desire to pull together.

I feel kind of bad because I don’t feel like I’m doing any of those awesome things. I have to keep reminding myself that the ‘mom of a young child’ phase of my life is temporary and that it is okay to say no to all sorts of other awesome things to focus my energy on said young child. Which in itself is a form of giving back to the world.

But I did start a light-hearted project of taking (almost) daily pictures of Hoppy at home which I have titled #HoppyStaysHome.

There are so many things that I want to be doing with this time at home and on a daily basis, I feel like I’m not doing much of it. I never get ALL the things done, but I almost always get one or two of the things done each day. It’s actually adding up to rich days and seeing all of the Hoppy pictures I’ve collected reminds me of that.

A few things Hoppy and I have done:

• Cooked a lot of stuff and tried some new recipes
• Bake bread and muffins and a few frozen pizzas
• Taken afternoon naps
• Gone on hikes and bike rides
• Checked the mail for special packages
• Played in the snow and the sun
• Ate Easter candy after B went to bed
• Spent time exploring our own yard
• Appreciated flowers
• Yoga
• Taken time to journal and read
• Updated my laminated recipe card collection with new favorites
• Planted seeds (most of which already died)
• Replaced said seeds with a few plants from Walmart
• Colored pictures
• Played drums
• Made some new coat hooks
• Read a ton of books to B
• Made root beer floats
• Watched the sun set
• Talked to friends and family on the phone
• And I’m working part time too

Here are a few of the behind-the-scenes pictures too. B thinks it’s great fun taking Hoppy around.

P.S. If you’re interested in learning how to bake bread during your time at home (or any other time) I highly recommend The Tassajara Bread Book. It has super detailed instructions to help you get started.

The post #HoppyStaysHome appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Over the last year, I’ve become increasingly interested in digital security.

I’m obsessed with things like the podcast Darknet Diaries and other cyber security stories. To me, hacking stories are the perfect combination of true crime, intrigue and nerdiness.

The more I learn, the more frightened I am.

Also, it pisses me off. So many breaches are the result of people exploiting known vulnerabilities and not following security best practices. They are often the result of pure carelessness.

Counter-intuitively, the barrage of security breeches in the media can kind of make people just pay less attention to the issue. It feels like something out of our control.

We think things like:

“I don’t have any secrets anyway. I don’t care who knows my entire digital life.”

“What are they even going to do with my social security number?”

“There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

A frightening number of cyber security issues ARE completely beyond our control.

Take for example the massive Equifax data breach. Nobody opted-in to them being able to track our intimate financial details (and them storing them on a public-facing server with the well-known username/password combo admin/admin).

Read the news article: Equifax used ‘admin’ as username and password for sensitive data: lawsuit.

Or read the lawsuit: http://securities.stanford.edu/filings-documents/1063/EI00_15/2019128_r01x_17CV03463.pdf

Just because some things are beyond our control doesn’t mean that we should ignore the ones that we DO control.

We should actively do what we CAN to be more secure

One of those things is picking good passwords and not reusing passwords.

So let’s talk about a couple of password stories.

Examples of bad password habits gone wrong

Hacking Microsoft AND Google AND all the major game companies

Darknet Diaries has a couple of episodes on this long and fascinating story about this group that was super interested in video games. Among other things, they ended up hacking into basically every major gaming company out there – including Microsoft and Google – due to the simple fact that developers reused passwords.

They started out just hacking into this gaming forum and getting the usernames and passwords for members. Then they used those usernames and passwords to try to login to other sites and networks… and it worked.

Darknet Diaries Episode 45: XBox Underground (Part 1)
Darknet Diaries Episode 46: XBox Underground (Part 2)

This is an extremely well-known technique and is one of the issues with data breaches. Similar, but related is the technique of just using lists of the most common passwords and trying to log in to accounts with those.

Now most of us aren’t developers with access to the networks of major tech companies (if you are though, this applies like 100x to you). So what happens if this technique is applied to a more average person?

Spying on an eight-year-old via Ring camera

A recent story to make headlines is this one of a ‘hacker’ talking to a young girl over the Ring camera in her bedroom.

It sounds appalling and headline-worthy. The family makes sure to talk about it like it is Ring’s fault.

When you read all the way through the story though, it makes it clear that the login credentials for the account had been compromised. Either the same login was used as that for another service (that had been hacked) or it was just a weak password.

How to actually use good passwords

We all sort of know that reusing passwords is a bad idea, but we like to not think about it because it’s impossible to remember different passwords for every site.

This is what password managers are for. They make it so you can use a different, randomly generated password for every account. You don’t have to worry about forgetting your password.

People that use password managers know how essential they are. But there are actually a lot of reasons why people don’t use password managers, some of which are sort of legit.

Why people don’t use password managers

After I started getting more into hacker stories, I knew I needed a password manager, but it still took me a while to find a service I trusted.

Figuring out if a password manager is secure

It is hard, maybe impossible, for the average person to know if a password manager is secure. Putting your login information for EVERY account you have in one place is a HUGE leap of faith.

Do you just trust the claims on a company’s website that they will keep your data secure? I certainly hope not.

For most password managers, it is impossible for even a technically savvy person to know if it’s secure. Most password managers are run by companies looking to make money off of them and it’s impossible to know what their security procedures actually are.

Solution: Use an open-source password manager.

I actually don’t know enough about programming and encryption to know if a password manager is secure even if I can see the code for it. With a widely used open-source option I know that people who are smarter than me have vetted it.

Deciding which password manager to use

There are a lot of password managers out there and it can be really hard to figure out which one to use.

Many of them offer affiliate programs so that if somebody signs up using somebody’s special link, that person is paid a little. So it can be hard to trust recommendations online.

Most of them also require a subscription and I hate getting trapped in situations where I pay recurring fees. Once on a service, it can be hard to switch off due to the difficulty of exporting data, setting up a new service, etc.

Again: Use an open-source password manager.

It’s free. Nobody who leaves good reviews for it is doing so to make money.

The time to switch over and set everything up

Sadly, there is no easy solution to this. It takes a little time to setup a password manager and more time to get all your passwords entered in.

The thing here is just realizing that it is worth it. In the long run, it will save you so much time not having to reset passwords all the time because you forgot them or have them stored on a different device.

One option is to just save different logins as you actually use them. A password manager makes this easy by offering to save them for you when you login to a new site.

What password managers do

Features

All good password managers share certain features and others have extra features. Here are some of the common ones.

• Cross-platform options. You should be able to use it on all of your devices and browsers. This means plugins/extensions for all major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge, etc). This way the password manager can auto-fill login pages. Also, Apple, Linux, Windows, Android and iPhone apps. Plus a website where you can login.
• The ability to generate random passwords for you. This way it is easy to use a strong password when you are signing up for a new service or changing your password for an existing account.
• The ability to store credit card info. This information is encrypted and stored securely. It’s really just about the convenience of having that information at your finger tips when you’re shopping online. I also like it because if I lost a credit card or something I’d have a record of the numbers.
• Password security features. Many password managers provide features like comparing your passwords to lists of known breaches or keeping track of the last time you changed a password or how many times you’ve reused the same password.
• Encrypted storage for important notes. This lets you save information you want to keep secure like back-up security codes for two-factor authentication or the answers to your security questions. (TIP: You can actually use randomly generated ‘passwords’ for your security question answers instead of just answering the questions. The problem is that questions like ‘What color was your first car?’ really just aren’t that secure.)

How password managers keep your information secure

Password managers require a master password that ‘unlocks’ your other passwords.

This master password is more than just a password. It’s used as an encryption key which basically means feeding your data through some weird math that uses that password to turn your data into a random meaningless combination of characters.

That password or encryption key is also needed in order to decode the random meaningless combination of characters.

One of the very important features of a good password manager is that the master password never leaves your computer.

The password manager company NEVER sees your master password. Even though they sync your encrypted file across your devices, they have no way of decoding it.

Your data is decrypted on your device using your master password.

What about logging in to the service? Don’t they see the password then?

If it’s a good password manager then the answer is actually ‘No’.

Before your password is sent to them, it is passed through an algorithm on your computer. This is a one way algorithm. So it takes your password and turns it into a ‘hashed’ password.

A specific password will always return the same value when passed through the hashing algorithm so they can check if the input matches the last time you signed up.

BUT, there is no way for them to go from the hashed password back to the original password. That means that even if a rogue employee or a hacker has access to all of the data the password manager company has, they can’t see what passwords a person has stored using the service.

They can see the hashed password but they can’t figure out the original password from it so they can’t decrypt the file that stores all of a person’s other passwords.

Again, the caveat here is with a good password manager. This is how services should work. It doesn’t mean that all companies set things up how they should.

Red flags: Things you don’t want in a password manager

Some password managers offer a feature where if you die or something else happens, you can provide access to your passwords to somebody you trust.

They send a request to access your passwords and the service emails you. If you don’t respond in a certain period of time, then the request is granted.

To me, this is a huge red flag. If your data is really encrypted so that even the company (or a hacker on their network) can’t view your passwords, how are they able to provide them to a third party?

Now maybe they have some system worked out that is actually secure, but the ones I checked out did not provide enough documentation to make me feel at all comfortable with that feature.

If you forget your master password you’re screwed

One thing to note about all of this is that if you forget your master password, there is no way to recover it or reset it and keep your existing data.

The company providing your service would have the ability to change the hashed password that is stored for being able to log in, but they would be unable to decrypt your existing data.

Picking a good master password

On that note, a few tips for picking a good master password:

• Pick something fairly long – this makes it a stronger encryption key
• Use a sentence that will be easy for you to remember. It’s very important that you remember this one password.
• Consider using uncommon words – things that won’t appear in the dictionary or commonly online
• Mix in some capitol letters, numbers, symbols, etc.

Think along the lines of I<3April20ththeMOSTEST!! or PythonIsTheVeryGR8TESTEver.

What I use: Bitwarden

I spent quite a while researching password manager options to figure out which one was best. I finally settled on Bitwarden. (Definitely not an affiliate link. I don’t think they even have an affiliate program. Just what I actually use and recommend.)

• It’s open source so I feel confident that people smarter than me have reviewed the code.
• It has a clean design and is easy-to-use.
• It is available on basically all devices and browsers
• The free version is ‘really free, not a fake “free trial free” ‘
• Provides all of the features you might want

It does have a paid option that unlocks some cool extra features. It is not at all necessary. Plus the paid option is only $10 per year which is far less than any of the other options out there.

I do have the paid option mostly just because I like to support things that I think are important in the world.

Do you use a password manager? Let me know why or why not in the comments.

The post Password managers: what to use and why appeared first on Live Hoppy.

31 days. 4 states. 200+ miles.

In July I did the 30 day ride challenge hosted by Trailforks and Anthill Films. The challenge was simple: ride each day, including at least one full trail as mapped on Trailforks.

Tijeras, New Mexico trails

My month started off with lots of rides close to home. Luckily, I live close to some of the best mountain biking trails in New Mexico.

I tried to ride some different trails and extend my reach a bit, but there were also a lot of days when I just rode my favorite loop.

While I still can’t ride one difficult section of my fave trail, by the end of the month, I did get to where I could ride the entirety of the rest of the trail which felt like a huge accomplishment.

One thing I’ve noted before about New Mexico is that our roads and our waterways tend to be one and the same. This means it’s a really good thing it doesn’t rain that often.

Out in the desert, we just drive in the arroyos which are normally dry and our towns and cities generally lack good flood planning so when it rains, the streets just flood. Now, I have come to realize that this might also apply to bike trails.

Pagosa Springs, Colorado

I also made a trip to visit an old friend and some family. So I took my bike along and made some people babysit B for me each day so I could go ride. Priorities, right?

Farmington, New Mexico

Farmington is my other hometown. My mom lives there and I went to college there. But I didn’t mountain bike when I lived there, so the excellent mountain bike trails were something of a surprise. A pleasant one.

I was out to ride early on the two days I went on these trails and the sunrises were amazing. Also, sweeping views and bushes that smell like home. And crazy fun bike trails. Not the gnarly, rocky, hardcore trails I’m used to. Smooth, flowy, trails with little bitty hills that are just big enough to be a ton of fun but not a ton of work to pedal up.

One of the joys of this challenge was biking in places I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. Most of the time when I travel, I leave my bike at home, but I may rethink that.

Aztec, New Mexico

I also went for one ride outside of Aztec, New Mexico: The Alien Run. It was a blast. I’m totally riding it again next time I’m in the area.

After my trip, I returned home for a few days and then it was off on another adventure. This time for work, but with a bicycle stop thrown in on the journey.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas

My last ride of the 30 day challenge was at Palo Duro Canyon, which has more pictures than it’s fair share for only one ride.

I have a thing for State Parks with cabins because I wish I lived in an RV and traveled everywhere, but I don’t actually have an RV right now so I need alternative accommodations.

I’m all for tents under some circumstances, but July in Texas is not a circumstance where I’m all for living without an AC and a shower. Also, business trips and tents don’t really go that well together.

Anyway, on this trip, I was staying at the Lighthouse cabin on the rim of the canyon which made me feel a sort of obligation to make it out to my cabin’s namesake and the park icon: The Lighthouse Formation.

I was at the trailhead for this ride before the sun was up. But it was still by far the hottest ride of the month. By nine in the morning, I was totally miserable. Still, my ride through the canyon was worth it for the cool views and the neat rocks.

Tulsa, Oklahoma

So after doing the 30 day challenge, I figured I was only 1 day away from riding every day in July. So I went out for the 31st day in Tulsa.

I loved discovering the Turkey Mountain wilderness area because it is a great pocket of nature in the city. But I felt sad I hadn’t discovered it sooner since I’ve been traveling to Tulsa for work for the past 12 or so years.

The only downside was that it was just so humid. I am not at all used to the humidity and I suffered from it, feeling all wet and sweaty and gross and also missing the cooling effect that happens when sweat can actually evaporate.

Miscellaneous

First off, a few real selfies:

Fitting in a ride every day was tough. Sometimes I rode at sunrise, other times at sunset. A lot of my rides ended up being mid-day because afternoon thunderstorms ruled out the afternoons and left the trails too wet in the morning. Riding during the hottest part of the day was not my idea of ideal. But it happened and I’m so proud I rode every day.

This challenge was amazing. My strength and endurance improved. I lost weight. I saw some amazing places. I pushed through the days that it was tough. And I’m super pleased with myself.

The post 31 Days of Mountain Biking in Pictures appeared first on Live Hoppy.

April was a great month. Spring made itself felt. It was a nice change after the misery that was March. I found myself outside, riding my bike, enjoying the nice weather, looking at flowers, and creating lots of stuff.

This squirrel above had raided our bird feeder but I didn’t care because it gave me the perfect photo op.

Nature photos- wildlife & plants

Also along the wildlife line of things, I found this butterfly outside one day. It was vibrating it’s wings and it was basically impossible to get a really sharp shot- plus the sun was setting so there wasn’t much light.

Still, the butterfly was cool and it was good practice learning to take pictures in difficult conditions. I’m slowly figuring out all the settings on my camera.

A bird couple moved into the birdhouse I made last fall and it makes me so happy to see them and think of them all nice and snuggly in there. I put it up right outside my bedroom window, so I get lots of opportunities to see them come and go.

Our flowers are starting to bloom and I learned something new. I always thought tulips looked like this:

I had no idea that they open up when it’s sunny.

Speaking of tulips, one day S came in and said our flower fell over. I went outside to see and sure enough it was lying on the ground. This seemed very strange since I had seen it a few hours before and it had been fine.

A while later S came and asked me if I’d taken the flower. I said I hadn’t, that I was going to so I could take some pictures of it, but hadn’t had the chance yet. He said it was gone.

Did the mailman steal it when he dropped of a package? Did the lady who delivers us eggs steal it? We started coming up with theories.

Then we looked closer, and not only was the flower gone, the whole plant was gone. And there was a hole. A tunnel hole.

Apparently a gopher stole our tulip plant. I like to think that he brought the flower to his gopher wife.

It turns out that S was quite protective of our flowers and I don’t like to think at all about what happened to the gopher and his wife next.

Creative projects

I learned how to use the laser cutter at Quelab and started experimenting with it a bit.

My first real project was making little garden stakes to label my plants. I’m proud of these because they are the first thing I made that I really designed from start to finish for the laser cutter.

The first thing B did was come along to pull out my stakes.

I also made a cool step-stool that also converts into a desk for B. (You can read all about the process and see a zillion pictures of it here.) I am so proud of it. The above picture was part way through the process.

Bikes!

It’s my personal opinion that what’s in somebody’s car says a lot more about them than the type of car.

Toddler B

I save the most important for last.

Easter was exciting for me because it was his first year actually being able to participate. Once he discovered there was candy in the eggs, he just sat down in the dirt with his basket and went for it.

I just let him eat his jelly beans off the ground, but when he tried to eat chocolates with the wrapper still on, I had to intervene.

B loves his new stool. He watches everything I do. Here he is helping me run the salad spinner.

B is dressing his train cars with doll clothes. Isn’t that just the cutest?

Do you have a favorite picture out of the bunch? Let me know in the comments.

The post Favorite Photos – April 2019 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

But I’ve been enjoying these monthly photo posts I’ve started just because they give such a good wrap up for the month.

March was overall not the best month. It was snowy. It was cold. And I was sick of snowy and cold after the winter. Plus, we were all sick. Basically, I’m glad it’s over. But there were a few good things I want to remember.

I went to a painting class and came home with this painting. It was so much fun, and I love the bunny. Plus, they made it ridiculously easy.

Also along the creative lines, I was happy to make my first photo from the pinhole camera I made. I didn’t care at all about quality, I was just psyched to have a real image.

I stopped by the Little Free Library at the park before taking B to play. He was way more interested in reading the books than he was in playing. A little man after my own heart.

I’m not even sure what to make of this next one. It was a random park in Albuquerque that B and I stopped by. It also had a needle disposal box for drug addicts. Um, yeah, so I’d rather not find needles lying around at the park, but the fact that a needle disposal box is needed is kind of scary/sad.

We won’t be coming back after dark. Actually, we probably won’t be coming back at all.

That’s a wrap for March.

P.S. I now have an Instagram account @kylabendt if you want to keep up with my photos.

The post Favorite Photos – March 2019 appeared first on Live Hoppy.

It makes it so much harder to figure out how to get support. It’s hard to talk about it without being gossipy or feeling like you’re bad-mouthing the person. It’s hard to feel like it’s yours to talk about.

At the same time, it can be something that affects you deeply. Something like a family member with an addiction, mental illness or other problem can be so taxing on a person.

The addict has the option of asking for help by saying “This is my problem. I need help.” But for the bystander, it’s trickier.

Often, our closest confidants are also people that know or have relationships with the person in question, which makes it even harder for us to feel comfortable sharing.

For example, I can share on my blog my struggle with the fact that I still haven’t lost the ‘baby weight’. This is just my problem. But the problem that’s on my mind today isn’t something I can share for all to read.

The post Not my problem appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Today, I got it back and it seems to be like new! Actually, I swear it’s better than it was when it was new. It used to be slow to respond when I hit the power button to turn it on or off and now it’s quicker to turn off and on which is nice. I’m so excited to have it back and really want to keep learning more about how to use it.

Despite the camera issues and not taking pictures every day, I was more mindful about taking pictures because of my goal. I know the every day stuff now will one day be the basis of my fond memories. It’s just easy to take it for granted now.

So, here are some of my favorites from this month.

B and I went to the zoo to do a bit of walking around one day. I’ve learned the hard way that zoo pictures normally don’t turn out that well. That cool animal just looks like a sad zoo animal in a cage in the pictures. But these rhinos about cracked me up. I think they’re both totally asleep and I love how the one is face-planted on a big tree stump for a pillow.

I made it out snowboarding for a day. After not going for a few years, it was totally exhausting. I snapped this picture while taking a bit of a rest.

Who doesn’t love a good cat picture?

January has been pretty snowy here. The roads are plowed eventually and the snow melts on them a bit anyway. Our driveway is another story. So far this winter, I’ve gotten my car stuck once, S’s car stuck once and once I drove S’s car into the snowbank. It’s a tricky balance between going fast enough not to get stuck and slow enough not to go sliding and I don’t seem to have mastered it yet.

The snow and the cold and the dark of winter have had me feeling a bit down lately. Especially since I know the people in Albuquerque only 20 minutes away have barely had any snow, it’s normally 10 degrees warmer there and more likely to be sunny. The whole comparison thing always gets me. But then I remember that it’s totally gorgeous here and come spring and summer and fall, we’ll have amazing weather… and those people in Albuquerque will still be 10 degrees warmer and sweltering.

We got a bird book for Christmas. I think S said these are Siskins.

And… now for pictures of B!

My mom brought me a big tub of my old stuffed animals and after I snatched out Simba, B had a blast playing with them.

B has been into climbing into and on things this month. It totally freaks me out. Sometimes he gets stuck and sometimes he falls off of things like the coffee table. But also, I want him to learn how to climb and do stuff.

The workbench was one of the places he got stuck.

B got a camel for Christmas, so we built him a house.

B is also obsessed with stealing paper towels and shredding them into itty-bitty pieces and leaving them all over the house.

And camel went on a ride around the living room.

And look! He’s doing a kid thing instead of a baby thing! He’s really drawing!

Oh, wait… no, back to just sticking everything in his mouth.

All in all, January was a pretty good month. Except for the week we all got stomach flu, but I didn’t take any pictures of that.

The post Favorite January photos appeared first on Live Hoppy.

In fact, I had three of a certain set of plastic Lion King characters. Nala had a mysterious tendency to go missing and then I’d need a new set. My older brother lost a Nala in a mud puddle and I remember he was nice to me all day because he knew how much I loved my little lions. I don’t know what happened to the other Nala, but today, I have three Simbas and three Mufasas and one Nala. One of the Simbas wasn’t so lucky either: my step-sister chewed off his back legs.

These little plastic lions were the center of hours and hours of imaginative play for me as a child. I made up all sorts of stories for them that had nothing to do with the movie, but I digress from my real topic which is stuffed Simba.

When I moved out of the house into my own apartment, I left my stuffed animals behind and poor baby Simba was with them. This wasn’t intentional: I simply had other things that I moved first because they were a little more essential to my every day life. Somehow, I just never picked up my stuffed animals but I never forgot about them.

A few years back, I asked my mom if she had Simba around somewhere. She said she didn’t think so and that she’d given a lot of toys to my sister for her kids. So I asked my sister and she said her kids had so many stuffed animals and things she couldn’t keep track, but didn’t think there was a Simba in them.

I sort of figured that my mom had given my stuffed animals to my sister and Simba had ended up at the thrift store when my sister decided she had too much kid stuff. I was heartbroken. I had never meant to leave Simba behind and felt so much guilt for not just packing him. I missed some of my other stuffed animals too, but none as much as Simba.

So when my mom recently told me that she’d found a box of my old stuffed animals in a closet, my first question was if Simba was in there. She said he was and she’d bring me the box the next time she came to visit. I wasn’t going to believe Simba was really there until I saw him for myself.

When I finally got the box, the first thing I did was dig through to find him. And he was there! So with my mom around to watch baby B for a bit, I snuck off to my room for a nap… and made sure to take Simba with me.

The post Simba appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I do take a lot of pictures of B, but some days slip by and he changes so fast. I also want to challenge myself to find other things to take pictures of and to develop my skills as a photographer.

Ironically, I have been unable to get my new camera to work recently, but I’m hoping that it is just having trouble charging the battery and that an external battery charger will solve the problem. In the mean time, I’ll just use my phone.

I’m sure I won’t post my pictures from every day, but I’d like to share some of them. I’ll start by sharing the ones from the last two days.

We have had so much snow in the last week. Yesterday I dug out a path to the compost bin and then since it was the only clear path, it was the obvious place to take B. So here are S and B posing in the snow by the compost bin. This must seem like a lot of snow to B.

Here’s another canvas print that I made a frame for. This picture is from the trails a few miles from our house.

Today I paid somebody to plow our driveway since it’s really long and there was no way I was going to be able to get my car out otherwise. The plow got down to the ground in some places. B was unimpressed when I took him out into the snow today, but was quite happy when I plopped him down in the clear area.

I am sitting in the cold, pokey, slightly wet gravel and holding my hand out so that he can pile cold, pokey, slightly wet gravel in it. I am not sure why, but it was terribly important to him to do that which meant it was terribly important to me to be obliging. Part of my parenting philosophy is that things like this are very, very important.

This is the same path that leads to the compost bin. It snowed another inch or so after I shoveled the path and this morning there were lots of bird prints on the path. I was very amused that the birds had chosen to travel on my path.

The post 2019 – Picture a day challenge appeared first on Live Hoppy.