Website changes! Things are good.

I am happy. I am relieved.

In May 2019, things were changed at the hosting company where SandraDodd.com had been for years. It had changed hands, from yahoo small business, to a couple of other things, and one day I woke up and most links were going to the error page. Almost every link from Just Add Light and Stir was going nowhere. Many images had only error boxes.

Pam Laricchia was finishing up a new edition of my book, which has a link on nearly every page. I panicked! Pam and her son, Michael, brainstormed and wrote some code for the error page which worked well to get people through to pages. That was wonderful, even though some of the routine link images were broken.

Google's crawl did not wait around for a redirect, though, and so it became harder and harder to find anything on my site with google. That's how I locate things there myself, too.

I did appeal to the hosting company, after much frustration, and resorted to a paper letter in an envelope with a stamp, which got me a long explanation (by e-mail) that what they had done was to bring their site up to current code (and it sounded like nonsense, really) and they were sorry, blah blah.

Had I touched any of the dozens of foreign-language pages, all the code would've turned to ashes. That lasted half a year.

BUT TODAY! Today, this very day, things are all much better. The site is stable, at another host company. The images are working. The search is working. GOOGLE IS WORKING! Google has had a week to gather up some links, since SandraDodd.com was moved, but just as the site went live at its new home, Photobucket went haywire for a week. A whole week. So images that had been working before disappeared, on the site, and also in most of the early years of Just Add Light and Stir.

Vlad Gurdiga has been generous and patient, and altogether heroic, having offered to help me move. I'm grateful for his knowledge, time, ability and understanding. He's not used to helping old women maintain their cottage-industry-class html pages, but he said lots of families have benefitted from the site, and he wanted to help.

For the past seven months, if people found glitches or typos on the site, I was either afraid to or unable to fix them, but now if you find something, let me know! It will take a while to get through all the scraps of paper and notes I have to myself to fix this or that when I can, but I hope to keep on repairing and adding as long as I'm able.

Thanks for reading, and if you want to poke around a bit and look for some errors I can repair, here:
SandraDodd.com/search

photo (a link) by Lydia Koltai

"Not your mom," Support, Always Learning

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A look at the oddity of moms complaining that they want to be treated (in a discussion) the way we treat our kids.
http://sandradodd.com/notyourmom.html

New writing on the list of supportive statements, right under the list of short quotes—a longer one, and feedback.
http://sandradodd.com/support.html

The Always Learning discussion group has been moved from yahoogroups, where it had been since November 2001,
to its new home at groups.io ! You can read it there (and 18 years of archives, too!) or you can read and respond through e-mail.
https://groups.io/g/AlwaysLearning

photo (a link) by Gail Higgins

Becoming an unschooler; Rescued Archives (x3)

New writing on Becoming an Unschooler, at the bottom of this cleaned-up and rearranged page:
http://sandradodd.com/becoming.html

Archives of three groups have been rescued and ensconced on my site, by Vlad Gurdiga who knows how to do it, and did.
Yahoogroups will not keep archives, starting soon.
Always Learning is archived in two places now (having been moved to groups.io, with its archive) but two other dormant groups' archives are here now:

UnschoolingDiscussion
UnschoolingBasics

I was never on Unschooling Basics, but one of the founders used to send me quotes and posts to put on my site. It will be good to be able to change the links, as I come to them, to the new archive. Unschooling Discussion was given to Joyce to own and rename after the owner of unschooling-dotcom got tired of it.

photo (a link) by Ester Siroky

Unschooling is...; Principles; Waking up for work

Addition of an explanation of how unschooling works, by Meredith Novak, to definitions directory page:
http://sandradodd.com/definitions.html

Brief interview recording added to the page about Principles
http://sandradodd.com/principles/

New page for a saved response about the perpetual question about of how, without childhood bedtimes, will one ever get a job?
http://sandradodd.com/wakeup.html

photo (a link) by Destiny Dodd

Moderation, Books, Detox

Response to a claim about needing "a happy medium," added to the page on moderation:
http://sandradodd.com/moderation.html

Book reviews/updates on a book list I made in 2001, of books that had inspired me and that I thought could help others.
http://sandradodd.com/conference/Sacramento2001.html

Clean-up on an antique transcript on Detoxing from school (a more pointed sort of deschooling). Good stuff.
http://sandradodd.com/detox.html

photo (a link) by Manessah Ellender Garcia

Help (here is some); Hate (don't do it),

Help (page updated)
http://sandradodd.com/help.html

Two stories / examples added at the top of the (very short) page on avoiding hating things. "I hate..." doesn't lead to a good place.
http://sandradodd.com/hate.html
The links from those to their originals go to two newly-available things, too... you'll see.

photo (a link) by Janine Davies

News ("the news"), sugar, relax (don't battle)

Addition to "When the news is bad"—reasons NOT to follow news programming, if you have young children, or if you like peace
http://sandradodd.com/news.html

Two sugar stories added a the bottom:
http://sandradodd.com/sugar.html

New, third section down, Jen Keefe and Sandra/me about NOT struggling, not battling
http://sandradodd.com/battle.html

photo (a link) by Megan Oriah

Words, Oddities, Bedtime, Patience

"How words affect thought, belief and action": short podcast embedded, all links cleaned up, and I'm working on the pages it leads to.
http://sandradodd.com/words/

This page has lots of interesting things—English oddities, trivia and mysteries
http://sandradodd.com/english/oddities.html

Additions to the page on bedtime, bottom half, and replacement of a missing (working) clock. It's working in my time zone, anyway. 😊
http://sandradodd.com/bedtime.html

About patience with explaining how unschooling discussions work, added to the bottom of "Patience"
http://sandradodd.com/patience.html

photo (a link) by Jonathan Medina

Philosophy, Benefits, Reading

Philosophy or That's what it's all about!— spruced up, slight addition in the side box. Good page.
http://sandradodd.com/philosophy.html

Benefits of reading on the Always Learning discussion (even beyond just "be a better parent"), cleaned up. Worth a read for those who missed it earlier, and worth a second read for the rest.
http://sandradodd.com/alwayslearning/benefit.html

Clean-up and photos added to an article from 2005 about how my kids learned to read, at "Three Readers"(I quoted it in Just Add Light and Stir)
http://sandradodd.com/r/threereaders.html

photo (a link) by Amy Milstein

Food problems, sugar, "natural diet"

Touched up, cleaned up, three pages on sugar:

Sugar, gathered from various sweet discussions 😊
http://sandradodd.com/sugar.html

Sugar as a scary substance
http://sandradodd.com/eating/sugar.html

This page had lost its candy-corn lines, so while I was in there I dusted it off.
http://sandradodd.com/eating/halloween.html

Humorous video added to the page on orthorexia
http://sandradodd.com/eating/orthorexia

Diets and Unschooling (added some and cleaned up; link to a long discussion on diet and human culture)
http://sandradodd.com/eating/diets.html

photo (a link) by Jo Isaac

Peace at home, and witnesses

Big Noisy Peace has the sound file of a conference presentation. I've added a quote and image, spruced it up.
http://sandradodd.com/bignoisypeace.html

Parenting Peacfully is an older page, newly touched, sound file fully there (in Safari and Chrome, anyway)
http://sandradodd.com/parentingpeacefully.html

Two pages lead in a trail from there, and haven't been announced. The second one was finished this week.
One is "Witness" and the other is called "Where no one can see."
http://sandradodd.com/witness.html
http://sandradodd.com/witnesschicken.html

photo (a link) by Jennie Gomes
and her words are there, too

New Book (new edition), problem, solution

If you're subscribed to this blog, sorry for three posts in one day, but the last one was in February. I'll tell you why: My husband, Keith, had a cardiac arrest March 3, and two more that same day, and a fourth arrest on March 11. He was in the hospital for over a month, half of that in intensive care. He's much better now! It's amazing, how well he's doing.

Meanwhile, my webpage provider made some "improvements" that nearly ruined access to much of my site. Pam Laricchia and her son, Micheal, made a little miracle code patch that saved the day (the year, the future). There are still some images missing (mostly very minor), and some formatting glitches, but I'm gradually working through it. It's like cleaning up after a flood, but it's worth doing because so many people have entrusted me with their writings and ideas. All the text is there, and most of it looks as it did before.

Ten years after its 2009 initial release, The Big Book of Unschooling is back in a new edition, thanks to Pam Laricchia's "Forever Curious Press."

In paperback: from Amazon (more bookstores will carry it soon)

Several options for ebook: Click here to choose a store and format.

If you're unfamiliar with the book, click the book image.

Questions about teeth, worries about food

Addition to page on children and dentistry, link to article, discussion, and a passage by me, about a young Kirby
http://sandradodd.com/dentist

Humorous video added to the page on orthorexia
http://sandradodd.com/eating/orthorexia

If dietary considerations are becoming like a religion, please try to relax enough that unschooling isn't hampered by it, and that the marriage and relationships are still strong. Some families have ended up with crippling problems, from an unschooling point of view. Families are important. Logic and truth are good for unschooling.

photo (a link) by Karen James

Issues, Anxiety, Negativity (rising up and above)

I've added "Emotional Challenges of Unschooling," by Amy Childs, to the page "When Parents Have Issues"
http://sandradodd.com/issues/

New, at the top, by Heather Booth, reminding parents that children grow and change:
http://sandradodd.com/anxiety.html

A quote from that page, and a link, were added to the "Negative Approaches to Peace" page
http://sandradodd.com/battle.html

While all three links here are about negativity, and would be a bit much to read all at once, those collections are important for reminding people that phrasing things in negative ways is a barrier to joy, and eventually the whole family can slump into sorrow. There are positive ideas and links within all of those.

Click on the Just Add Light link (the photo at right), and don't forget that Learn Nothing Day is coming on July 24!

photo (a link) by Roya Dedeaux

Dishes, Instinct, Smell a baby's head

Newness—image, writing, poem by Zann Carter—at the bottom of the page on dishes:
http://sandradodd.com/dishes

New page on the benefits of smelling a baby's scalp or a child's head.
http://sandradodd.com/smell

It has a relative, created a year ago, about smelling other things, and they should be linked back and forth, and to instinct.
http://sandradodd.com/smells
(If some of those links aren't there, or working, someone let me know, please.)

"The last sunset of 2018"
by Karen James

The photo is a link.

Happy 2019!

I posted this at Sandra Dodd in person—
notes on gatherings and visits. I have no "in person" plans, but I'm still building the site and writing every day.

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No speaking plans for now

I announced in Phoenix in 2017 that I was going to take a break. That was mostly because of some activism I was going to participate in that could affect the conferences. Unfortunately, it was made to affect one of them anyway.

More than that, though, my husband retired, and was planning a shoulder surgery, and I had two pregnant daughters-in-law, and I was tired of being away from home. (Here you can see some of 2018 in review, including grandchildren I didn't have the year before.)

I'm still active on facebook, I still add recordings to my site, there is a YouTube collection (of other people's interviews of me, mostly), and I'm keeping Just Add Light and Stir going. Early February will see the 3000th post.

To keep up with newness and additions, please subscribe to Site News. That has a randomizer, too, so if you're in the mood to find a page you haven't seen before on my site, or to see some of my favorite photos from Just Add Light and Stir, then aboutunschooling.blogspot.com could be a good place to visit.

Thank you for your interest and kindness over the years. I also add to this collection nearly every week, as people send reviews of their own progress. http://sandradodd.com/feedback/

Photos of people at my house on Christmas Day, 2018:

Devyn, Holly, little Kirby


Original Kirby and the baby-girl Kirby, Keith, Marty, Ivan