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What to Do in Isolation/Quarantine

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We’ve got our milk, bread, toilet paper, and kids home. It’s only been a few days, and we are in it for the long haul: two weeks, four weeks, six. We just don’t know right now. What can we do from the sanctity of our homes without risking our health or the health of others? Here are a few suggestions. (UPDATED 3/26/20)

Children’s Book Authors Read-Aloud

National Aquarium in Baltimore – Livestreams of The Blacktip Reef, Jellies Invasion, Pacific Coral Reef

New York Public Library – (for NYC residents with a library card) (CONTACT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY ABOUT THEIR E-BOOK PROGRAMS)

NASA makes their entire media library publicly accessible and COPYRIGHT FREE

33 National Park Tours You Can Take Virtually

15 Broadway Plays and Musicals You Can Watch on Stage from Home (best filmed and where to find them)

FREE Coloring Books from 113 Museums

Virtual Field Trips – including San Diego Zoo, Yellowstone National Park, Mars!!!, Animal Cameras, Virtual Farm Tour, US Space and Rocket Museum in Hunsville AL, Discovery Education, The Louvre, The Great Wall of China, Boston’s Children’s Museum

12 Museums Offering Virtual Tours – including British Museum (London), Guggenheim Museum (NY), National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Musee d’Orsay (Paris), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Pergamon Museum (Berlin), Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), The J. Paul Getty Museum (L.A.), Uffizi Gallery (Florence), MASP (Sao Paulo), National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City)

14 Beautiful, Dramatic Waterfalls in North Wales (this is primarily a travel article, but they’re still pretty to look at! And Wales!

Metropolitan Opera offering Nightly Met Opera Streams – see the link for details and limits.

Five Gardens You Can Virtually Visit – Waddesdon Manor (Waddesdon, England), Claude Monet’s Garden (Giverny, France), Chicago Botanic Garden (Chicago, IL), Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden (Papaikou, Hawai’i), Kew Gardens (Richmond, England).

Hogwarts Digital Escape Room

Ivy League Courses Online for FREE

How to Be Happier in Your Daily Life (popular Yale University course – ONLINE FREE (Source: Business Insider)

NEW Tour New York State Parks (virtual)

NEW Activities at The Spy Museum

NEW Twitter for Voice Actors Read. There are many voice actors reading books aloud to you and your children.

NEW Tour The Winchester Mystery House (virtual tour)

NEW Tour the Paris Catacombs (virtual tour)

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES MORE COMING SOON!

The Parents’ Guide to Google Classroom

What to Do with your Kids When Schools are Canceled

Harry the Dirty Dog read by Betty White

The Very Hungry Caterpillar read by author, Eric Carle

Outdoor Scavenger Hunts from Buttonwood Park Library

Easy Toilet Paper Roll Crafts (when you use up your stash of toilet paper!)

Outdoor and Indoor Scavenger Hunts from Leicester Library

Home Safari at the Cincinnati Zoo

50 Ways to Keep Kids Engaged at Home During the Coronavirus Shutdown

Miniature Bookshop DIY – cost $36.99

Election Connection: 36 Weeks: Leave it All on the Field

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Crooked Media is promoting and supporting the 2020 Election. One way they are doing that, in addition to Fair Fight 2020 and Vote Save America is Leave it All on the Field. We know that to win in 2020, we need to be in the field, on the ground, organizing, informing, talking to voters about the future they want to see, and doing everything we can for the Democratic nominee in order to get Trump out of the White House, his cronies out of the Senate and further down ballot, and begin to repair what’s been done to our country.

Leave it All on the Field is starting with Organizing Corps 2020 from the DNC. Their goal is $500,000 and they’re more than halfway there. Let’s get them there!

Black History Month Information and Resource

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By happenstance, author and activist, Charles A. Preston appeared on my Twitter timeline through the retweet of someone I follow, and I consider myself lucky to have found his amazing resource for Black History (this month and every month of the year). The multi-folder Google doc is chock full of information about many aspects of Black History from Afro-Futurism to Zora Neale Hurston and many others in between. I believe he is continuing to update it. When using his folders, remember to give him credit as well as linking to his Twitter or website.

Black History Month Library

In addtion, you can follow Mr. Preston on Twitter or visit his Website.

Election Connection: 38 Weeks: Voter Registration Deadlines (General Election)

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Voter Registration Deadlines (by date)

For more specific information, visit Vote Save America and check out your state for both the primary and general election. Thanks Crooked Media!
States with Early Voting have an *
First Time voters require ID in states that have +
ID required for states that have #

Continue reading

Election Connection: 40 Weeks: Democratic Primaries

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Beginning next Monday is the first of nineteen voting days to choose the Democratic candidate for President. Voting will take place in fifty-seven primaries and caucuses from the fifty states and seven territories. What follows is all of the primary/caucus dates. Find your state, make sure you’re registered, and vote for the candidate you feel passionate about. Be part of the process; make your voice heard. Then after the Democratic National Convention in July, unify behind the candidate (more on that in later weeks) and return the country to the rule of law and common decency.

Before you review the primary schedule, visit Vote Save America. They have tips on how you can help the candidates, stop gerrymandering, volunteer, donate to the eventual nominee, check your voter registration, and other resources to make your vote count. Check them out.

February 3

Iowa (caucus) 41 delegates

February 11

New Hampshire 24 delegates

February 22

Nevada (caucus) 36 delegates

February 29

South Carolina 54 delegates

March 3 (Super Tuesday) 1344 total delegates

Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, American Samoa (caucus),

Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennesee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia

March 10 365 total delegates

Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota (firehouse caucus), Washington

Democrats Abroad voting period ends

March 14

Northern Mariana Islands (caucus) 6 delegates

March 17 577 total delegates

Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Ohio

March 24

Georgia 105 delegates

March 29

Puerto Rico 51 delegates

April 4 107 total delegates

Alaska, Hawaii, Louisianna, Wyoming

April 7

Wisconsin 84 delegates

April 28 663 total delegates

Connecticutt, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

May 2 46 total delegates

Guam (caucus), Kansas

May 5

Indiana 82 delegates

May 12 57 total delegates

Nebraska, West Virginia

May 19 115 total delegates

Kentucky, Oregon

June 2 215 total delegates

District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota

June 6

United States Virgin Islands (caucus) 7 delegates

July 13-16

Democratic National Convention, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Election Connection: 41 Weeks: Be Informed

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Being informed is not simply about the 2020 election although it is important to keep up to date on news. In order to do that, it is especially imperative to only glean your news from reliable news sources. This graphic should help you with that. Note the key on the right side of the graphic.

MediaBiasChart.com (c)2019-2020

In addition to using this graphic as a tool, Google is your friend. I can’t tell you how many times I correct a cousin or an uncle because what they’ve posted on Facebook is untruthful when the truth is only a Google search away. (It’s practically a full-time job.)

As you know from previous posts, I listen to several podcasts that relate to the news, politics, and current events including the impeachment and the upcoming election (which will have separate posts as needed). It is possible that you have noticed that I am a big fan of the Crooked Media group. I listen to almost all of their podcasts and follow most of the major players on Twitter even when I don’t listen to their particular podcast regularly. Joking aside, they really should put me on their payroll!

Their new one, What A Day is something that I can’t remember how I managed without it. It is about fifteen minutes each weekday morning with what’s going on in our world and some headlines with a really needed dose of humor. I do not start my day without it and highly recommend giving them a try. There is also a read-only update that you can receive nightly by email subscription.

What a Day from Crooked Media. (c)2020

While What a Day is my favorite, two others out there with a similar idea of getting you the news on a daily basis are:

Today, Explained from Vox

What Next from Slate

National Tea Month

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January is National Tea Month. Sometimes it’s nice to get a random reminder of the wonderfulness of tea. After the holiday season, I’m ready to get rid of the sweets and sugar-filled drinks like hot chocolate and eggnog, and even hot apple cider. I’m not a coffee drinker, so tea is my real go-to for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is taste.

It’s getting better, but in the past, I have found it somewhat difficult to find the teas I like to drink. I went through a spate of only drinking chai masala or ginger tea. Unfortunately for me most ginger teas come in lemon flavor or green tea, and I prefer black tea as my base. With this first post, I want to share some of the places you can find teas nationally.

1. The Fresh Market has a wide variety of teas from your basic Lipton to imported from the United Kingdom, India, and China. They have nearly every flavor that you might want to try or add to your repertory of tea selections.

2. Adagio is a mail order tea company that has a fandom section. I’ve enjoyed teas from them in themes of Harry Potter, Supernatural, The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, and more. They also have the opportunity to blend your own although I haven’t made use of that yet. They also offer reasonably priced sample tins so you can try something new.

3. PGTips is quintessentially British tea. Best taken with milk added first in a hot cup. Find Douglas Adams’s guide for making the perfect cup of tea. It is worth the Google.

4. Twinings has a wide variety. My favorites are the British and Irish breakfast and afternoon teas: English breakfast, Irish breakfast, Scottish afternoon, Prince of Wales, Earl Grey, Lady Grey among others. Afternoon teas tend to have less caffeine so less chance to keep you up at night.

5. Stash is the only place that I was able to get my Ginger Black Breakfast Tea that I originally and randomly found one box of in an overstock store.

Check your local directories for small tea shops or tea blenders and sellers. They are more and more popping up in localities around my neighborhood, and also probably yours as well.