Maxwell 33: Managers of Their Vests

[kpmom]

3 hours ago, terranova said:

And at dinner with Eldery the poor girls have to sit alone in the corner with an Elderly, while Jesse sits with a terrified looking GYW and what I can only assume are their chaperones.

You might be right.  It is unusual for an unmarried Maxwell to sit next to someone of the opposite sex, unless it's a sibling.

He owns his own home and you know in Maxhell, first comes home ownership, then comes marriage...

[PennySycamore]

@terranova,  it took me several tries to understand the sentence about the fire house as well.  You know what would have been a much better idea to bring in a fire truck?  Going to the damn fire house!  That was a classic field trip for elementary school kids.

And the part about the girls sitting with an elderly person at dinner, at first I thought you meant the grandchildren, not Sarah, Anna and Mary.  I was hoping it wasn't the grandchildren.  I remember once years ago when we got a name from the Angel Tree at church.  We bought this woman some clothes and took them to the nursing home.  The poor woman had dementia and was completely non-responsive.  It scared the hell out of my girls.

[Hane]

@terranova , I’m often frustrated by Sarah’s overuse of the passive voice. It has its place, but the way she uses it makes her writing awkward and confusing. It reeks of being taught that using “me-first” language is always bad.

[Jana814]

4 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

  I remember once years ago when we got a name from the Angel Tree at church.  We bought this woman some clothes and took them to the nursing home.  The poor woman had dementia and was completely non-responsive.  It scared the hell out of my girls.

Your poor kids. I was forced to go a nursing home once a month through Hebrew school. For what ever reason we went to a large room with a bunch of people who had dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. It scared so many of my classmates that a few refused to go back. 

[IReallyAmHopewell]

Today's gem:

"For one of the days at Bible Club, Anna applied for and was granted the firemen to bring in their truck and talk about it with the kids."

Poor Sarah! She must have been thinking impure thoughts about firemen as she wrote this mess.

[freejugar]

Quote

At this point Sarah, should just write a script that automatically makes posts for her, since the Maxwells claim to be great at IT.

Title: Random life from %noun to %noun

We've been having such %adjective_season weather! Lots of %noun_season.

This past month has been busy with %chore and looking forward to %newest_maxwell_addition

%insert nephews and nieces photos

%caption "these two" "this crew"

%insert Ellie and Arnold pic

%random bible verse completely unrelated 

Love Sarah!

Sarah seems to have written the latest post with the script, how nice!

[anjulibai]

11 hours ago, terranova said:

And at dinner with Eldery the poor girls have to sit alone in the corner with an Elderly, while Jesse sits with a terrified looking GYW and what I can only assume are their chaperones.

Looking closely at the picture, that's not a GYW, that's someone probably around Teri's age (though having aged much better). It's probably why he's allowed to sit next to her like that. 

In any case, that dinner set up seems really odd to me. They could have easily had everyone at only two tables, and they could have pushed the tables together. That's what I would normally encounter with a large get together like that. 

[Myfanwy]

?? *Wipes tears from eyes from all the laughing*

Spontaneous nights out!! As freaking if.   I would bet cold hard colourful Aussie cash that Axton's parents (who am I kidding) Axton's father, planned that thing to within an inch of its life. 

 

[raspberrymint]

10 hours ago, Hane said:

@terranova , I’m often frustrated by Sarah’s overuse of the passive voice. It has its place, but the way she uses it makes her writing awkward and confusing. It reeks of being taught that using “me-first” language is always bad.

How do you stop doing that?  

I quit a creative writing class and two separate creative writing workshops, all a number of years apart, because that criticism kept coming up and I couldn't automatically change my natural verbiage with each new thing I wrote.  I can edit, sure, but the automatic verbiage is still automatic and either I overlook it or I stop enjoying writing altogether (and stop writing) if I am looking for it.

[Bethy]

53 minutes ago, Myfanwy said:

?? *Wipes tears from eyes from all the laughing*

Spontaneous nights out!! As freaking if.   I would bet cold hard colourful Aussie cash that Axton's parents (who am I kidding) Axton's father, planned that thing to within an inch of its life. 

 

Maybe...I think of all of Maxwell: The Next Generation, the one most likely to do something spontaneously would be John. Or maybe Joe. He seems to be a wild card since getting married.

Not gonna lie, though...I zoomed in on Axton's bib to see if it was a "big brother" announcement. I do figure Chelsy wants a huge brood like the one she grew up in and I'd be very surprised if there wasn't already a bun in the oven. But nada. Some tripe about needing Grandma.

[MamaJunebug]

5 hours ago, raspberrymint said:

How do you stop doing that?  

I quit a creative writing class and two separate creative writing workshops, all a number of years apart, because that criticism kept coming up and I couldn't automatically change my natural verbiage with each new thing I wrote.  I can edit, sure, but the automatic verbiage is still automatic and either I overlook it or I stop enjoying writing altogether (and stop writing) if I am looking for it.

1–Try reading books, articles, etc., that use a lot of  active voice. Youll start to incorporate the style  

 2–It’s no shame to edit your passive voice into active! You’ll get closer to writing actively with every edit. 

3– Try to go for a certain period of time without using the verb “to be.”  Even in conversations. Listen for others’ overuse of passive voice and think how You would change what they said or wrote to be in the active voice. 

Don’t give up!  Practice is so important. Or to put that sentence another way (without the verb “to be”), Keep practicing! 

(it’s late (or said without”to be,” “My bedtime approaches”) and I have given up on editing this . I apologize for the mess!)

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

27 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

3– Try to go for a certain period of time without using the verb “to be.”  Even in conversations. Listen for others’ overuse of passive voice and think how You would change what they said or wrote to be in the active voice. 

One of my high school English teachers essentially banned "to be" verbs from our writing. He allowed us to leave in a small number (maybe up to 3?) of them per paper, but only if we indicated in the margins that we had purposefully used that verb. (For example, both similes and metaphors tend to use "to be" verbs.) 

I found his limits annoying at that time, and often muttered "To be, or not be be. That is the question" to myself as I checked my papers for passive voice and the dreaded "to be" verbs. I imagine it helped my writing, though. I don't censor all of them (be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been) from my writing anymore, but I am able to, if I so choose. 

Edited October 29, 2019 by WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?
forgot a bold

[terranova]

12 hours ago, anjulibai said:

Looking closely at the picture, that's not a GYW, that's someone probably around Teri's age (though having aged much better). It's probably why he's allowed to sit next to her like that. 

In any case, that dinner set up seems really odd to me. They could have easily had everyone at only two tables, and they could have pushed the tables together. That's what I would normally encounter with a large get together like that. 

I don't know if she's Terri's age. For sure older than Jesse, but maybe Sarah's age, or inbetween. She looks very washed out which doesn't help.

[Melissa1977]

15 hours ago, Jana814 said:

Your poor kids. I was forced to go a nursing home once a month through Hebrew school. For what ever reason we went to a large room with a bunch of people who had dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. It scared so many of my classmates that a few refused to go back. 

Respect for elderly includes making sure than volunteers enjoy their work. Forcing kids to entertain elder people unable to speak or with dementia is bad both for kids and elders. Bad for the children because may end thinking that aging is horrible and bad for elders because they may notice the disgusting looks of the children.

I don't think children learn anything that way. In general, adults are much more able to be caring to people with dementia, because we adults understand why they are that way and have enough maturity to know how to treat them. But not all adults, unfortunately.

In general, volunteering with animals, little children and disabled/elder people should not be done as a lesson or as a punishment. It's not fair! Also, before starting a volunteering activity, a serious training must be done. And I'm sorry, being a religious person does not equal to be trained!!!

[SassyPants]

8 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

One of my high school English teachers essentially banned "to be" verbs from our writing. He allowed us to leave in a small number (maybe up to 3?) of them per paper, but only if we indicated in the margins that we had purposefully used that verb. (For example, both similes and metaphors tend to use "to be" verbs.) 

I found his limits annoying at that time, and often muttered "To be, or not be be. That is the question" to myself as I checked my papers for passive voice and the dreaded "to be" verbs. I imagine it helped my writing, though. I don't censor all of them (be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been) from my writing anymore, but I am able to, if I so choose. 

My daughter had a teacher that had this same rule.

[HereticHick]

How does one apply for and acquire a fireman? Asking for my single friends.

[Leftitinmysnood]

Volunteering should be just that- voluntary, without the familial guilt trip. I started helping my grandma run bingo games at the nursing home her mother lived in when I was 10 or 11. I went of my own free will. Many of the ladies liked to have several cards in play at a time, but had a hard time keeping track of them,  or hearing the numbers, so I was a spotter. Prizes were dollar store things: Kleenex packets, wrapped chocolates, cologne, etc. The ladies loved it, and I learned to steer wheelchairs, listen attentively to someone who told the same story every three weeks, appreciate the home's spelling bee champion, who had been a one-room school teacher, and unobtrusively compensate for failing senses. I was never really scared of the residents who sat in the hallways talking to themselves, or mistook me for some long gone relative. Now I'm a nurse and I still use the skills I learned then. And grandma kept running bingo games for the "old folks" long after she became a resident herself. No one was being proselytized, though. We had f*n.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

 

 

 

1

10 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

Respect for elderly includes making sure than volunteers enjoy their work. Forcing kids to entertain elder people unable to speak or with dementia is bad both for kids and elders.

I always loved it when, as an AHG leader, I'd take my daughter and our group to the annual Christmas Caroling at the Old Folks Home. Inevitably, some kid in the Keep-White-Folks-in-City-Schools-Gifted-or-Magnet program school would hog the piano and belt out songs Mommy had made her rehearse for a year, while the rest of us traipsed around to spread good cheer and I tried to find a song everyone knew that wasn't Rudolph. But what I especially loved were the old folks who kept the door closed ("Preferred not to interact") and, even better, those who'd freakin slam their doors just before we got there. Christmas With the Cranky. Funny how small the crowd was the year those girls were all primed to recite half the Bible (Christmas story, but by 7 year olds it takes a while). I think of these outings every time the Maxwells mention the Oldies.

[Hane]

When my daughter was little, her ballet class used to perform at a local nursing home. The folks there loved it: no proselytizing and only as much personal interaction as each person felt comfortable with.

[kmachete14]

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? did we have the same English teacher !! 

and now I teach English . . . middle school so we just focus on using "strong verbs"!

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Hane said:

When my daughter was little, her ballet class used to perform at a local nursing home. The folks there loved it: no proselytizing and only as much personal interaction as each person felt comfortable with.

I spent a lot of my childhood in a nursing home. My mom could bring us to work with her because she couldn’t afford a sitter. So we hung out with old people a lot. It gave me an appreciation for the elderly that my friends didn’t seem have. 

[VodouDoll]

My 12th grade English teacher wouldn’t let us use the word it because all pronouns must have clear antecedents. He called them ambiguous its and they were forbidden.

[fundiefan]

When I was in college we often had to write papers void of certain pronouns. At any given time we'd have to write without I, me, you or he, she, it, or any/all combinations thereof. It was insanely maddening. It wasn't for anything our professor was particularly adamant about, it was to force us to find other ways of stating things and getting points across. I got the hang of it probably half way through the semester except for indefinite pronouns. Never managed to write a paper without one no matter how many times I tried. And it got really confusing when it was a mixed bag of pronoun types we had to avoid. 

Can't say I kept any of it up, but there are times when I read things and my mind is like "why didn't you just write...." or "that sounds weird" or some such response. 

I am eternally grateful for my college education but sometimes, the things I still carry from it kind of piss me off. 

[FloraKitty35]

Here are my random observations on Random Life in Maxhell.  Danny actually found something exciting to do in Maxhell (watching the coffee maker).  At first sight I thought that that was a photo of Stevehovah, Anna, &, Mary spying on their sinful neighbors.  The photo of Elizabeth & Ellie was cute.  Calia is adorable in the hat & raincoat.  I hope that guy in park that Christopher is harassing witnessing told Christopher off.  

[NancyDrewFan1989]

After reading the recent random life post my only thought is how did Anna manage to convince the local fire department to have one of their trucks and a few of their men go to church to talk to the children in her bible group. The caption said she applied. I just want to know how she managed to pull it off. I've heard of firemen going to schools for talks with children on fire safety and field trips to fire departments. I just wonder what she wrote to ensure the children in her group wouldn't have to go to the, according to Steve sinful, fire department.