Categories
Recent Posts: M Thomas Apple Author Page
Uranus and Neptune may be rocky…but who cares?
The evidence that Uranus and Neptune must be icy is “all indirect, it’s all circumstantial,” says Jonathan Fortney, a planetary astrophysicist at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz. “This was always in the back of people’s minds: that the planets could be more complicated.” https://www.science.org/content/article/uranus-and-neptune-may-not-be-ice-giants-after-all But all the claims are based on computer models, […]
The Broken Valley: The Hidden German Civil War of the American Revolution
This is the third of a series of posts introducing the five-part historical fiction novel Unbowed, which will be published in November 2026. All five parts are based on true events and real people – my ancestors. The first post described the outcome of the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and one of its survivors, […]
Mind your own business!
If you had to sum up your life philosophy in one sentence, what would it be? As my Anglo-Irish immigrant ancestor Thomas Bushell wrote in his Will and Testament: “Live and let live.” Far too many people want to know what’s happening in other people’s bedrooms. You do want you want to do, and leave […]
Top Posts & Pages
-
copyright disclaimer
© Matthew Apple and Taking Leave, 2009-2020. Duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. If you would like to post or copy brief excerpts from the blog, please provide a link to the original URL along with an author’s credit.
Category Archives: parenting
Home for the holidays (Part 2)
As I wrote a couple days ago, I’ve been spending the New Year’s holidays with my wife’s family in Kagoshima for a decade now. In that span of time, there have been five children born into the immediate extended family, … Continue reading
Sleep, perchance to…
One of the biggest differences since we moved into a house is the sleeping arrangements. When our oldest daughter was a baby, we were living in an apartment with a traditional Japanese straw mat (tatami) room and no bed. So … Continue reading
Posted in gender roles, Japan, parenting, roles
Tagged child-raising, cultural differences, Japan, parents
Leave a comment
Organic dining with kids
I owe my love of organic gardening to my father, who started growing his own vegetables on the Methodist Church property behind our apartment in the “oil crisis” of the early 1970s. From him, I learned how to compost, properly … Continue reading
