Homeschool on the Edge of Nowhere

Grumblican

2012-01-15T19:36:00.000-06:00

If you are a free site that caters to homeschoolers and "teachers of all kinds," you should really give everyone some notice when you decide to become a pay site. Otherwise, some will drop you like a hot potato.
If, for example, you give no notice whatsoever, and some unsuspecting mama, who has bookmarked your site because the spelling lists are good but has never even looked at the rest of your site, is suddenly confronted with the fact that even though she just used your site last week and everything was free, but now is not free, you will get blogged about.
If you have a poor-me explanation of why you are suddenly, overnight-like, charging for your site, you can anticipate that people are going to dump your site from their bookmark lists. No notice about a major change like that is insulting. You need to trust that people will continue to use your site after you require payment. Updating folks on Facebook (a possibility that I am entertaining you did) is not enough; not everyone (gasp!) is on Facebook. You need to fully disclose that information on your site, all over the danged place, if you expect folks to pony up. Offer them 5 free downloads of their choice, or something for their loyalty, but don't be surprised if they don't take you up on it. Expecting sympathy-loyalty from Internet consumers is hilarious.
$20 a year for so-so worksheets is kinda silly. If there weren't hundreds of other sites, some with customizable worksheets of superior quality out there, you'd probably get my money. But since I'm still printing the darned things myself, I'm going to keep my money in my pocket and use other free sites. Yours was a convenience that I can easily replace elsewhere. Also, because of the lack of notice about your site change, I don't trust that after you nab five or six hundred dollars, you won't belly up and disappear.

*Why am I even bothering to complain? I'm not arguing that it wasn't this guy's right to charge for his site and products, I'm arguing that he did it in a way that casts suspicion on his site and makes folks like me annoyed that we have to go out once again and search for 2nd and 4th grade spelling lists. If your site is a beta preview, then say so....then people know that eventually it will become a pay site and prepare for that eventuality. Or if circumstances force you to become a pay site suddenly, you really should forewarn your potential customer base, or give them some freebies that have value to them...or you may lose them altogether.
**Why not post the site's name? I thought about it, but I decided that while it's fine for me to complain on my personal blog about an experience I had, it would be libelous to chant the site's name all over. While I didn't personally see any notice on his site about an upcoming change, it's a tiny possibility that there was something I missed. I'd hate for the guy to lose business because of my big mouth. Ultimately, internet purchases of downloadable content are always risky, and it's up to the individual to decide whether they trust a site with "a year's worth of access," when in reality that site could disappear next week without a trace. Caveat emptor!

Life Going on as Usual

2012-01-13T20:22:00.000-06:00

This is one of those awesome posts where I tell you that life has been going on as usual. But the truly awesome thing about that, is that we are doing really, extremely well. As a sort of Homeschooling New Year's Resolution, I initiated the We Are Well-Planned plan. What the heck's that, you say?

Every Sunday, I plan the week. That way, the whole week's worth of school is planned, and set up, ready for us to complete. I print worksheets, I gather materials for labs, and make sure that there is a plenty of supplies, like freshly sharpened pencils ready. Every morning we eat breakfast, get dressed, and work on school till it's finished. Usually we are getting everything done by 11:30 or so, with plenty of the rest of the day to visit friends, go to appointments, or goof off. I know that this schedule isn't for everyone, but for us it totally rocks.

I have kids that are highly distractable, one with some learning disabilities and possible ADHD. I have heard all kinds of solid ideas, gimmicks, and complete baloney to get kids with these issues to sit down and work on things. Some of these things include drugs. We use no drugs, and I'm not about to argue the point that for some kids, and some situations they really work. We use lots and lots consistent calm redirection and schedules. Also, brute exercise; like running around a 1-acre backyard. This particular set of schedules and plans have been working solidly for us.

The major reason that my blogging life has been lacking lately has more to do with lack of Internet. Right now, I am blogging from my sister's laptop, using her awesome high speed wireless Internet connection. At home, we use something that burns wood, I believe. So you can imagine how awesome that is. It's been extremely painful to even view pages, much less create something online. So there ya go.

So life is good, thanks to the miracle of scheduling. Also the occasional evening wine beverage. :-D

Craftus Vomitus

2011-11-18T09:32:00.000-06:00

I am not a crafty person.

There are those who would argue that point. I do sew, and I do knit and crochet, albeit inadequately.

But crafts that require glue sticks, craft sticks, sequins, glitter, stickers, construction paper, chenille sticks, googly eyes, or wooden multicolored toothpicks are beyond me. I can make a photo frame, maybe.

My kids did not inherit my lack of craftiness.

With 10$ of "craft" supplies from the local dollar store, my kids have created bizarre snakes, photo frames for grandparents that are pretty spectacular, dolls, houses for their dolls, play food (also for the dolls), caterpillar cutouts complete with sparkle, cemeteries for said-caterpillars when they die (they tend to play in a whole-life-cycle sort of fashion), and many, many other things. They are picky about color choices, shape, and size.

Who are these kids? I don't have a crafty bone in my body, and I certainly didn't teach them a single thing about art or crafts.

But I think I know where it comes from.

You see, Daddy's side of the family is arty in an extremely talented fashion. Daddy went to art school, and did extremely well in ceramics, Daddy's sister has created amazing painting-recreations on gowns, which she then wore for prom, and which went on display, darn near professionally. Daddy's mom is an art teacher, who is an incredibly talented sketch-and-paint artist. She's pretty darn good at ceramics too.

So they come by it honestly. And while neither one of them can draw anything that resembles anything (it's like sausages and stick figures), I have it on good authority (Grandma the art teacher) that many artistically creative people tend not to draw that way as children; they follow an inner eye we can't see. Aunty K drew that way till darn near Middle School, and only learned to "draw correctly" once she began to take classes specific to drawing. So there's some hope in me that they didn't inadvertently inherit my inability to draw anything but water from a well (yuck, yuck, yuck).

Fear(less)

2011-11-11T10:12:00.001-06:00

I haven't had a panic attack for a year and a half.

Until last night, that is.

Panic attacks are insidious things. One minute, I'm blithely going though the day in my head while I lie there waiting for sleep to overtake me, then next I'm soaked in sweat, gasping for breath, and am living in literal terror. For me, it's as if Shel Silverstein's What-If's have taken over my head and every conceivable mishap, error in judgement, accident involving extreme pain or death are all happening at once. They crowd me in on all sides, while next to me, The Bear Snores On, blissfully unaware that his wife is frozen, unable to think straight.

It's about as fun as it sounds.

In Season 5 of Charmed, Piper Halliwell suffers from panic, so much that she is unable to save her sister from a baddie. She locks herself in the attic, terrified that she will hurt her unborn child by trying to fight evil, and eventually, she comes up with this spell:

Fearless spell
Locked in, boxed in, full of fear,
my panic grows manic, till I can't hear.
In need of reprieve, so I can breathe,
remove my fear, please, make it leave.

The spell has predictable results, she kicks some major butt, saves her sister, nearly dying herself in the effort. She's effectively cut off her fear response, but to the point that she cannot distinguish the difference between an irrational fear and a real one. The lesson being that to be utterly fearless is to become something not quite human anymore; fear guides us to survival.

Every time I watch that episode, I somewhat envy Piper's ability to take four lines of poetry and turn it into a charm against panic. I have tried medication, which just makes me a sleepy dope, and I have tried therapy, which helped (at least until now). The nasty trick that panic attacks play on you is that every time you have one, your brain creates this super-highway rut straight and true, so that it becomes even easier to follow that rut again. Meditation and exercise (and sex...mustn't forget that) helps break those ruts up, makes them harder to find, because of the lovely endorphins swimming around in your brain. So the nasty trick you play back on panic is to create so many good short term memories, that your brain links up to the memory of those awesome endorphin highs, and effectively blocks what panic creates.

My lifelong assignment is to be busy, creating good clean endorphins so that my days and nights are panic-free. Now for a word from my friend and yours, Rudyard Kipling:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

I think Rudyard knew panic, and knew that to meet it head on and not let it get the best of you, regardless of the situation or peril life threw to you, was to be the best you could be. That's what I strive for.

Deep Thoughts With Ruralmama

2011-11-06T16:04:00.000-06:00

How is it that the guys can go out into the woods, looking for deer to hunt, and find nothing, while I can walk down my county road and see three does, about 100 yards from me? Do deer have hunter radar or something? Why do I use a walking stick on my walks instead of a rifle (bearing in mind that it would be totally illegal for me to hunt these deer on an open county road and that fact that I have no license)?
Why is beer so incredibly tasty smelling when you can't have any? I've been avoiding wheat once again, and once again beer smells fabulous. Drat.
Where have all the cowboys gone? Why do I suddenly feel a Paula Cole moment coming on?
Does anyone else have a secret passion for Greek-Style Yogurt like me? God, I could eat the stuff all the time. Leave me alone for awhile with my yogurt tub, would ya?
Who knows of an awesome Science program? Someone's gotta have a fabulous one--one that I could use for both a 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th grader? One that has no-nonsense experiments (and not just growing seeds--we've DONE that one to death).
Do you have a remodeling horror-story? I don't have any to share, but I'm not finished remodeling yet, either. I bet a good one is just around the corner.
When is girl's night and why do I have to wait so long for it to happen? Fer cripes sakes, it's already been...a week since the last one? Man--that's too long!
What fabulous thing do you do (or get, or make) for a BFF for her birthday? She's going to read this and giggle that I'm soliciting your ideas...but there it is. I wanna do something FABULOUS.
Why do my dogs insist on eating cat poop and what can I do to stop them from doing it? I know, this is a gross one, but man! I am so sick of their tootsie-roll snarfing....give it up already!
Does dirty laundry reproduce? Discuss.

Wants

2011-11-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

As a mother-teacher, I tend to feel put upon. In a general sense, it's somewhat like choosing a lifetime career that you think is vitally important, but you're not wholly sure you like. The career of teaching my children is highly important to me--I know in one case my child would end up labeled and put on medication in a public school scenario, and I want more for both them, academically, than what I feel is possible in that same scenario--but that doesn't mean that I always feel like I'm personally fulfilled doing it.

I take these great 30-minute walks each morning. These walks are very enlightening to me, mostly because I talk aloud to myself about what's bugging me, or what's currently on my mind. Since my neighbors are mostly cows (literally, that's not a dig on my neighbors), nobody much minds a solitary woman musing aloud to herself. I play a game of "What If?" with myself on these walks, and the questions have run the gamut of "What if I were a millionaire?" to "What if I wasn't quite as cranky as I currently am?" The answers might surprise you, but on this current morning, the question was "What if I weren't a mother?" the corollary being, "What would I do if I weren't a mother?"

I was stuck for the longest time. The question was sort of foreign to me. My kids are so much a giant hunk of my life that I started to ask myself what I was when I subtracted children from the equation. If you take out the "wife" chunk too--there's not a whole lot left! Or, at least I thought at first. I added "wife" and "mother" back in, but thought of the kids being in a high-quality classroom somewhere (the idea being that they would be in an ideal educational situation, be that public, private, or whatever). At that point I could breathe somewhat again, and resumed thinking about the core idea, "What do I want for me?"

When I was in college, I thought I wanted to teach. I went through the ropes of becoming a teacher, and made it within a year of graduating before I realized that I detested it. I disliked what was happening in public schools, I disliked all of it--except tutoring. So when our family decided that we'd homeschool our kids, I looked at it as an opportunity to practice my love of tutoring, while not being a part of that public school scene.

But it hasn't exactly worked out that way--tutors, in general, don't have to plan lessons--they just help you to understand the fundamentals of whatever it is you are already learning. Tutored people are also, usually, invested in the process--they want to be there for a reason. Also, most tutors are experts in one or two areas, and you see them for those areas alone. You may see where I'm headed here.

No matter how much a child may love to learn, they aren't generally thoroughly invested in their learning. They don't see the point to learning how to tell time, count money, or understand history. These are things that we, as a adults, understand intrinsically. To be ignorant in these areas (and many others) seems ridiculous. So as much as I explain to Boo about why telling the seconds on an analog clock are important and valuable to learn, she resists because her understanding of why it's importantfor her to learn hasn't happened. Her resistance leads to a standstill of learning, frustration for the "tutor" and her.

Also, my understanding of all the various areas of learning for a second-grader and fourth-grader are not whole. So there are times where I'm flailing for answers to questions I haven't answered for myself. Why did slavery exist? Good question, and I have no idea why...or why it still does. Which kind of triangle is that? Um.....OK, after a bit of thinking, I can figure it out...but the point is that they see the hesitation and sometimes (not always) that makes me lose credibility. Sometimes it leads to a discussion of how nobody knows everything about everything...but with Boo, that also leads to, "Well then, why do I have to even try to learn it, if there are adults out there (her mother included) that can't remember it? My answer is not awesome: because at some point I had to learn it, even if I can't remember it. Is this a failure of "education" as a whole? Do we put too much emphasis on things that aren't totally necessary, unless you are going into a specific field?

So, in practice, homeschooling is a lot more like being a teacher in a multi-age classroom. There's some finagling, some bribery, some strictness, and sometimes tears. There's less camaraderie, because there's always the sense that "Mom knows-it-all and I don't"--there's hierarchy, or anarchy when it turns out that Mom doesn't know-it-all and why should we have to do this stuff, anyway? In tutoring, there's less of that. Surely the person in need of tutoring is coming to the tutor---but that's exactly my point--they are coming to the tutor to learn.

Where does that leave me, with the question of, "What do I want for me?"

I want to love this. I want to be the mother-teacher that goes cheerfully into her career, works for 18-20 years, and retires knowing she did a job well. I want to stop feeling like this is just a resting point--that I'll get my life back once the girls graduate and move on with their own lives. After all, it's my chosen career, and I think it's vitally important. I would rather that I didn't have to search for that perfect educational opportunity elsewhere--I'd rather that it was right here in my own home. I want high-quality curriculum that helps me explain the things that I'm not awesome at explaining, and backs me up on the things that I'm better at doing. And that, folks, is what this one mother-teacher wants.

A Beautiful Thing

2011-11-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

The picture is fuzzy (camera phone) but it is a lovely thing:

Happy Samhain (Halloween) everyone!

(Homeschooler Stereotypes I Hate) Homeschoolers I love!

2011-10-28T11:38:00.000-05:00

*Warning: What you are about to read is Stereotype and a Parody of Not-Quite-Real Homeschoolers (NQR-Hs). These folks don't actually exist, except in my head. Even there, they are a bit unreal. But if they existed, I would hate them (or just really dislike, hate is such a serious word).

The NQR-Hs's that I Hate (really dislike) include:

Those that are doing better than me. These people tick me off! How dare they educate their offspring better than me! What a way to make me feel inadequate (because it's all about me). I'm disgusted.
Child geniuses. C'mon already! Really?!? As if getting my kids to potty train by 4 1/2 years of age wasn't hard enough, you are now telling me that little Madysoen (who is a boy, girl, or neuter) could accurately play Suzuki-style viola by 3 1/2 years of age? Give me a break. Or at least another glass of wine.
Mom's who do-it-all. They are size 8, they have a successful home business of lawyering/therapy/massage-but-not-the-kind-that's-kinky. Their house is neat and tidy, well appointed, and have hubbies who think they are "remarkable." They punctuate correctly every time.
My "beliefs are better-than-your's-ers". This should be trademarked. I cannot understand why it's anyone's business what I believe! After all, even if we were both Buddhists, chances are we wouldn't see eye-to-eye. My beliefs belong in the tiny, airless closet I leave them in, and yours should be left there too. Otherwise I'm going to start offering my "literature" to you at the door. Believe me, the closet is a better option, my literature is probably full of incorrect punctuation and wine stains.
"My children are free-range." Literally, these children are chickens. They collect the eggs daily and sell them for $1.50 a dozen. Honestly, most children I know need to have SOME kind of rules, discipline, or order. I've met a few of these chaos-children; I prefer (and so do most adults) children that have been brought up to respect others, and occasionally wash. Really, it's not too much to ask.
"I really like you, but I talk about you (negatively) to everyone else." Really, just grow up. I never thought I'd say that homeschoolers do anything the way public schoolers do, but this is one category that we seem to have forgotten to leave behind...in the eighth grade where it belonged.

Now onto some homeschoolers I love (and not just because they give me awards.
MamaTea over at The Hmmm...schooling Mom, was just a sweetie and awarded me with the The Versatile Blogger award:

There are some rules I must follow, but of course, I want to thank her for the award. I'm eclectic, that's for sure, but Versatile? That's really a sweet thing to say. ;-)
The Ruleage:
First, I must thank the awesome hotness that awarded me such a thing. Check--did that business.
Second, I must tell my readers 7 things about myself.

I am rarely serious. Except when I am. It's a catch-22 scenario.
My Hubby says that "My Tone" is always crabby. Huh. Here I thought I was super-funny and maybe had a bit of a whisky-voice. I guess not.
I thrive on creating order out of chaos, even if I have to first create the chaos.
I love Caesar dressing. I know! The calories...and the anchovies. It's bizarre, but there it is.
I drive a red Aztek. Make fun of it, if you must, but it's much roomier than it looks. Which = love for me, because I like to fill it with thrift store finds, and free stuff from my dad.
I deeply want chickens. But the cost of start-up is holding me back. But I love chickens. So much that I'll babysit them if you ask, and your name starts with 'A'. But if your name starts with 'B'? Your chickens better be extremely cute.
I have a deep affection for my daddy. He's like the best dad ever. And if you say he's not then I'll be there to kick your butt. Because he's the best. Ever. People have accused me of liking him way more than he's worth, but I'll tell ya, the guy rocks. What other guy (other than the one that married my craziness) can work from dawn till way-past-dusk, eat whatever's put in front of him and praise it, drink a case of beer and still be able to build a perfect deck? No guy. He can shoot a squirrel, cook it up in bacon grease and potatoes, and then sit with granddaughters that want to play dress-up and Polly Pockets, and not see any difference in it at all.

Thirdly, I must praise, award, and link 15 new bloggers. I admit, this is the most difficult part. Because I don't know 15 new bloggers, and some of the best blogs I read are private and can't be included! But, there are many whom I've loved, either a long time, or recently. Here they are (in no particular order, and you'll note that I blew it and don't have 15):

Thanks again, for the love, guys!

A Weighty Issue

2011-10-19T10:58:00.000-05:00

For those that know me well, you know I ~~can't 'effing stand~~ have issues with my weight. It wasn't always this way.

When I met my hubby, back in college, I was thin. Nearly too thin, but not from secret anorexia or anything like that--just from being very busy and a vegetarian lifestyle. I was too young to drink in college, so that also had a positive effect on my weight. I roller-bladed or biked to classes that were all over the place (the U of M, Twin Cities campus is enormous). I had no money, or very little, and relied on the dorm's cafeteria for my meals. Often I missed them, since getting your classes and mealtimes to match up well is nearly impossible. My hubby-to-be could encircle my waist with his two hands, with some room left over.

I try hard to not blame my pregnancies on my weight struggles. After all, I was already approximately 15-20 lbs overweight when I got pregnant with my Boo. But pregnancy meant that I got free license to eat whatever the heck I was craving, and I have a very indulgent hubby. If I asked him to get me ice cream at midnight, he dutifully packed into the car and drove the 2 miles to the grocery store. But I don't blame him, after all, he was only doing what I asked him to do, and who says "no" to a pregnant woman? After my 1st daughter was born, I was close to 40 lbs overweight. After my 2nd daughter, 4 years later, I was 100 lbs overweight.

After Pickle was born, I tried very hard to create a new path for myself. I lost 40 lbs pretty quickly... but there I have been stuck. For 6 years, I have teeter-tottered in a 10-lb range that has baffled, angered, and humbled me. Sometimes I wonder if this is just where I'll remain: 40-50 lbs overweight. As I age, those "ideal ranges" scale a bit more upward...and I like to joke that I'm just getting ready for my 50's and 60's--that I'll only be 20-30lbs overweight at that point. But I would dearly love to get back to where I used to be, or to a realistic nearness to it.

I am the kind of person who is very driven, but I get equally easily frustrated with lack of progress. When I work hard on a thing, I expect results as fantastic. When that doesn't happen, I get unhappy and give up. Also, I know that one of my weaknesses is that I can talk myself out of good habits pretty easily. I get lazy, or indignant with my plan for weight loss or exercise, and then it just gets pushed to the side, and once again I feel like I failed (even if I never gave it a good chance to begin with). I feel like I'm lying to myself each time, but I'm not totally sure what the lies even are.

My family has weight issues, but I know that's not an excuse for my overweight. I've seen a therapist, and feel that I've mostly dealt with the family issues that existed for me there. So what's holding me back? Is there something that I've missed?

I want to be a healthy mom. I have friends that are healthier than I, and they seem to have more energy, more patience, and more fun wearing clothes. The question that I need to focus on is, "Do I want that more than what I have right now?" and I need to ask myself that question a whole lot more than I have been.

Homeschooling when you are not at home

2011-10-17T09:37:00.000-05:00

I write today on a computer not my own.

We are house-sitting for a good friend of mine. Her house is "farmish"--meaning that there are plenty of dogs, cats, chickens, and small pets. That's about an hour's worth of work every morning, before I'm usually even stumbling about! But it's been a treat, and a joy, and insightful.

We debated about whether to even try to homeschool being in someone else's home. The materials involved in our schooling do travel occasionally to the library, however we usually do something like "homeschool lite" when we do that. So should we even bother?

We bothered. WOW! I am so thrilled we bothered. Right now, my eldest is finishing up her language arts lesson, and shortly after that we will finish off the day with a spelling lesson. I can say that in our entire homeschooling career, we have never been finished before 10AM. Math, Reading, Handwriting, Language Arts, and Spelling. All done. Already.

Something about getting up with the chickens really gets the blood pumping and the body ready for doing all the things needful. Like school. The kids were focused and ready to learn. Maybe it's just the novelty of being up so early...and getting to take care of critters that are totally different than ours. Maybe this too shall pass and tomorrow will be "back to normal" But for now?

McDonald's parody here: I'm Lovin' It!

Out of It

2011-10-14T08:06:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been "Out of It?"

By "out of it," I mean out of your brain, our of your patience, energy, time, money, everything? Just completely "out?"

Wearying, isn't it?

I want back in. I want back into feeling enthused every morning; to feeling healthy. I want back into feeling like I'm in charge of my time and money.

I want back in. Like yesterday. Any suggestions?

A Moment...Alone?!?

2011-10-08T10:42:00.000-05:00

Brace yourselves.

Ruralmama is out on the town, on her own (the occasionally let me out of the asylum). As fellow homeschoolers, you must be in perfect understanding of why I'm so thrilled. What on Earth could she be doing out on her own, you ask?

Shortly I will be volunteering at our local library for their annual book sale. I guess my name rang fear in the hearts of my fellow townspeople, because I will be working alone. All by myself, for 2 hours!

I didn't realize I was that repugnant...OK, I really AM just kidding, there.

So, why the blogging? Well, in my earnest excitement to get out of my house for the adventure... I left a full 2 hours too early.

I live 8 miles away from the library.

So, with an hour and a half to kill, here I am blogging my silliness to you.

I am so bloody excited to be out on my own. I can barely stand it.

In the Spirit of Understanding

2011-10-06T10:46:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am thoroughly enjoying Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. You would think that I would just intuitively know if my children were "spirited," but it seems helpful to go through a list of qualities and determine where they are most spirited, in order to understand better what kinds of things can trigger spirited behavior.

My next exercise is to go through these qualities and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. Each quality has examples of low and high-scale behavior, to help me figure it out. I won't spoil it for anyone who wants to go get her book and do it for themselves, but I will show you the example that best characterizes my kids, to give you a flavor of what the scales are like.

Intensity: the strength of emotional reactions.
Boo has a pretty high score here. An example that really fits her is "easily frustrated." Nothing can convince her of success of a task, unless success is the first thing that happens. Boo gets a 4.5-5 on this scale.
Pickle scores pretty low on this scale, which surprised me. One thing that's easy to do with two children is to treat them as a "unit" of kids; each gets the same amount of treats, discipline, etc. But personality is individual. I'd score Pickle a 2.5 on the scale.

Persistence: Locking in, not giving up a task for something else.
This is where Pickle shows her spirited qualities. If an answer is "no," you can bet that she'll be back shortly to see if that answer has changed. I'd give her a 4 on this scale, because there was one item mentioned on this scale that rarely happens (crying for hours), otherwise persistence is her middle name.
I think Boo is in the middle on this one. While she will pout if asked to give up an activity and can sometimes do that for quite awhile--she can accept "no" as an answer, as long as there's an explanation along with the "no." I'd put her at about 3.

Sensitivity: reactivity to sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.
Both of the girls score high on this scale, 4-4.5, at least. But it manifests in different ways: Pickle is sensitive to sounds and smells (to the point of it being embarrassing if she smells something bad at a friend's house, or in a store), Boo is sensitive to textures. Tags in clothing are a big deal--they itch, scratch, and otherwise make her miserable. Foods with strong textures have been known to make her gag, and have since she was an infant.

Perceptiveness: I would categorize this as distractability.
Boo is highly perceptive. Things I would never notice are instantly cataloged by her brain, and she feels the need to study and understand them before moving on. Asking her to perform a simple task, such as getting dressed, will invariably get forgotten because the fish in the tank have new babies and she wants to name each one. Boo gets a 5 here.
Pickle is on the low end of the scale. If her sister is involved, she will get distracted by things, but on her own she does not. I'd put her at about a 2 on this scale.

This is less than half of the scales in the book. I'm learning that the goal is not so much to give them a score and "label" them, as to understand individual areas where it will be necessary to help them adapt to outside (and familial) expectations. I will continue to work through these exercises and share with you our results!

Do you have spirited children? Do you see something here that rings with you?

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do...

2011-10-04T12:31:00.001-05:00

I have this really great friend. She recommended a fabulous book when we were thrift store shopping (I told you she's really great, right?), so I bought it. But after buying it and reading the first chapter, I set it aside for a book of fiction (ever escaping reality, I guess) and even though I thought that the first chapter was awesome and written just for me, I hadn't gone back to it.

Well, after yesterday's horror, I decided that it was time to crack Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and get to work.

I. Love. This. Book.

She has the same irritation of labels that I do. But she takes it so many steps farther (and it makes so much sense) than I do. She says that the internal labels we slap on our kids affect our perception of our kids just as much as the labels on soup cans can affect what we want for lunch. Her first exercise (which I will do, right here, in a few paragraphs) asks parents to use all the labels they can think of right now about their spirited children, all the negative ones we think when there's a tantrum, a fight, or a disagreement about clothing choice. Then think of a positive label that is connected to the negative one--we could look at being demanding as having high standards instead. Having high standards is important as an adult, and is something that is direct-able, in a positive way. Good labels are contagious too, and help us and our kids feel better about ourselves and our relationships with them.

But take a step back: what's this "spirited" children thing? Spirited children are "more" according to the author; more energetic, more intense, perceptive, persistent, and sensitive than their fellow kids. They don't have ADHD, or some other kind of medical designation: they are normal kids, just "more". As parents of spirited children, we can get bogged down, exhausted, crabby, etc. more easily because they burn so bright and so fiercely.

So here I go, on this first assignment. I'm going to do it by kid, as I am pretty sure I'm living in a household of two spirited children who move in different directions. Some of these labels will make me (and you) cringe, even if they've never been said aloud. That's the nature of the exercise and is nothing to be ashamed of; the focus is positive change.

Pickle

Loud becomes: Enthusiastic.
Evil Child becomes: Experimenter.
Intense becomes: Energetic.
Bossy becomes: Assertive.

Here's how it works in my head:
Pickle is usually pretty ~~loud~~ enthusiastic about anything she wants to tell you about, and she can be ~~intense~~ energetic when she wants your attention. She can be quite the ~~evil child~~ experimenter, sometimes this requires the direction of an adult to keep her from using up all of the toilet paper in the sink, or dumping the entire contents of our hair care products into the bathtub. Pickle likes to be ~~bossy~~ assertive; I will probably never have to worry about her being in an abusive relationship.

Boo

Whiny becomes: Analytical.
Self-critical becomes: Cautious of failing.
Angry becomes: Has high standards.
Nosy becomes: Curious.
Pokey becomes: Focused.

Again, in my head:

Boo is pretty ~~whiny~~ analytical when we do school because she is quite ~~self-critical~~ cautious of failing. Her ~~anger~~ high standards can make her ~~pokey~~ focused on a task, so extra time at school is essential. Her ~~nosiness~~ curiosity is limitless, as is her intelligence, so it's wise to keep private conversations quite a distance from her hearing.

In a way, it reminds me of Mad Libs. It's like two different stories, with only a few of the adjectives changing to make it so. I'm looking forward to learning more about spirited children from Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

Really Freakin' Cranky

2011-10-03T16:56:00.001-05:00

So you know it's a day when I blog twice. Ugh.

You want to see some of the dark side of homeschooling? Come peek through my windows today. There you will see, Boo (10), sullenly doing part B of her language arts assignment, the part where she has to write (4) four sentences (I'm so damned mean!) about what she likes to do in the summertime. Well, it's obvious that there's practically nothing she likes to do, at all, ever. Duh. How stupid of a mother can I be? What could she possible write about? Tantrums, are apparently her favorite thing to do, regardless of the season. Also adding, "Oh well," to each of her written sentences, as if apologizing for her lameness in interesting things to do during the summer.

Then there's Miss Pickle (6), who, true to her name, is being sour, sour, and more sour. Why? Because she's been asked to read the second half of a story that she started brilliantly on Saturday.

For Grandma.

Naturally, nothing could be farther from her mind than to read the remaining 6 pages for her mother with any sort of style, flair, or dare-I-say-it? Competency. Nope, those words and their sounds are utterly lost on her today. The letter 'Y'? Never heard it's sound before...oh, wait, I have--it makes the hard 'I' or 'E' sound, right (the sound it can make at the end of a word)? Naturally. So the word y-o-u is pronounced "Eeeaaahhuuuhh"--right. Thanks. "'Eeeaaahhuuuhh won't eat me?,' said Hen," is exactly right. I'm so glad we had that sentence to read today, it was enlightening. I'm sure Hen is trembling in fear at "Eeaahhuuuhh". Me too.

Additionally, it is within my kid's power to completely forget how to count by tens, even though they both mastered that long ago. Afterward they crave candy, pop, and chips (which we cannot afford, and wouldn't buy if we could, at home, but had piles of up at the cabin). A meager PBJ? How gauche, Mom. Where's the hamburger patties, bratwurst, candy, pop, chips, and other junk food that was so plentiful up with Grandma and Grandpa?!? Where is the satellite television broadcasting Spongebob Squarepants 24/7? We don't have that?!? What, so we live on an Amish farm now?

I tell you, it's days like this when the good 'ol ISD 333 looks pretty fancy and flattering. What a freakin' day.

Cabin Fever

2011-10-03T10:04:00.000-05:00

It was simply wonderful and dreamlike.

In MN, we "Go Up North to The Cabin"--which generally means a place, 30-200 miles North-ish of home. There is usually "The Lake" involved too, although for my family it is "The River." We don't get to go up there as often as we would like to, but when we do it is always an ideal vacation for us.

I rarely take pictures. Sorry. You'll have to imagine it.

The river was down again, after having flooded earlier this summer and covering nearly every dock along it, with the exception of our family's dock, because my dad is a little paranoid over it being up high "enough"--his paranoia paid off this year, so he was quite gleeful (most of the neighbors lost giant chunks of their docks, ours made it through without any trouble).

I had to spend my 11th wedding anniversary away from my guy--he was on-call for work--but this was the next best thing to being together with him. The girls ran free for three whole days--no fences, and no worries. The area is like a ghost town in the Fall, with only a few year-round neighbors to watch for on the roads. Our street has a cul-de-sac, and the girls had a great time riding Grandma's adult tricycle, with Pickle in the back in the basket, and Boo working on her leg muscles to get them around. Grandpa and Grandma make sure that the kids have plenty of fun things to do, and built a little 4 swing/slide structure in the backyard, complete with 2 different kinds of tire swings.

For me, it was a more relaxed atmosphere. While I did get out into the road and ride around on a pair of Rollerblades (hilarious, since I haven't been on any in 15 years), I mostly got to sit and chat (while knitting, of course!) with my dad and stepbrother, two of my other favorite guys in the world. I got to help with the taking down of a few trees that had wind damage, and pulling the pontoon out for the year. Somehow, the work was different from the work at home. I've never wholly understood that, but it's always true up there. Maybe because the work is shared?

In any case, it's hard to come back home. While the hubby is gone, it gets pretty lonely around here, even when he's realistically only home and awake with us for 3-4 hours each night. The house feels emptier, somehow. The ease and luxury of the cabin (where everything is done by hand and there's little of what other folks might classify as "luxury"), lingers in my mind.

What on Earth Do Those Kids Want?!?

2011-09-29T19:57:00.001-05:00

My BFF, MamaTea, has got me thinking once again (OMG!). Go read her post here, and you'll see what I mean.

Back now? Good.

The gist of it, is that even though we think we're trotting down the road of life with our little perfect homeschooled children, learning exactly what they need in life (always in a totally non-threatening, naturalist, commune-like sort of way), sometimes those same perfect homeschooled teenagers (and young adults) don't always see the same gleaming picture of freedom-perfection that we do. In fact, sometimes they wish that we parents had exerted a bit more...discipline, shall we say, in the "deadlines, paper-writing, and group projects" departments of life.

Surprised? Good. Stay that way for a bit.

Oddly enough, I have a few things to say on the topic (I know, you're still surprised, right?). My first thoughts are: people will invariably find some fault with the way they were raised. Even those of us that had perfect childhoods (anybody? huh, it got quiet in here), know that there were moments less-than-stellar. Homeschooling will be no different. My kids, for example, hate "doing school"! I know, it's like the big open secret. But when they sit down to learn things, they end up engaged. Especially when they finally "get" something.

Another thought is that (I know, cynical me) when you poll teenagers, expect the unexpected. Expect them to answer you in ways that you never anticipated, and to point out things that you probably will cringe to hear. Now--that's not to say that these particular teenagers were being facetious--they were answering honestly and are probably pretty articulate and knowledgeable about what they are looking for in life. It's just that naturally they will point out hardships on the road to adult life. It was no different for me--and I was public schooled. Transitioning to college is extremely stressful and frustrating--fraught with all kinds of setbacks. It's something to keep in mind, anyhow.

But take everything at face value, our kids may rail at a bit of structure, but really, really need it in order to get by in life--that's an important thing to consider. It is worth it, to expose them to group work (easily done with friends, or in a co-op when they reach their middle-school years), it's a good idea to give them the opportunity to write papers and have deadlines for them. After all, mostly what's needed is exposure. I personally believe in math, reading, and writing each and every day. Chemistry, Piano, Dance, Ceramics? Those can come if the interest arises. I try not to worry about electives unless there is a strong interest. As my dear friend put it earlier today, "C-- really wants to learn gymnastics, but I wait on those things until he's asked me a lot. It's been 4 years of asking (not really), I should probably look into that."

So there's my $1.50. What are your thoughts?

Schooly Plan for the Week

2011-09-27T10:09:00.000-05:00

I'm motivating myself to get a better sense of what we are doing each week, so I am posting a plan of what we are going to learn this week ~~even if that plan goes horribly awry~~. This might not be the most exciting post, but it will serve as a reminder for me, so thanks for putting up with it.

Human Body: Lungs (I want to sing Regina Spektor songs right now--hey, maybe we'll listen to that!)
Math: Money (Now I'm grooving out to Pink Floyd--is this going to be a theme?)
Reading: Let's Be Friends for Pickle; Various books for Boo
Sequential Spelling: each day, should be up to lesson 7 by next week.
Language Arts: DoDEA Grade 1 Skill Builder for Pickle, DoDEA Grade 4 Skill Builder for Boo (What's this? It's Free!)

That's the plan. Now let's see that sucker jump into action!

The Equinox that Wasn't: or Being Flexible in the Face of Yuck

2011-09-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

I had the following plan for Mabon, Friday the 23rd of September (the Autumnal Equinox for those outside our beliefs):

Canning the last of the cucumbers
Leaf Raking/playing in leaves as symbolic harvest for the girls
Harvest what is left of the green tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc.
Find our Thanksgiving Branch (a fallen branch we find each year and attach paper leaves to, each bearing a single thing we are thankful for, we continue this through Samhain until Thanksgiving Day)
Take a woods walk and see what's new out there.
Make cinnamon cornbread and buttermilk cake.
Make God/dess eyes from twigs and my abundance of leftover yarn. These we could hang around the house.
Have a lovely campfire.

Well, that was the plan. Mabon is important to our family, because it gives us the opportunity to be thankful for the bounty of summer's harvest; what has grown in our garden, what has grown in our lives. This year I am thankful for the fact that we have made it though another year without "going under" financially, that food has been plentiful, that my kids have grown in many ways, and that my friendship cup is full of wonderful people.

What happened, instead, was a giant dose of contrast. A migraine of epic proportions, barely able to get out of bed, blinding pain, kids having to care for me, instead of me caring for them. I was miserable, and my plan flew out the window as if blown by the 40-degree winds whipping past. Literally, the entire day, I stumbled around or lay quietly on my side, unable to bear the slightest noise or light.
It got my attention, I'll tell you.

The message that became pretty apparent to me (the next day, when I could think again) was that there is even more to be thankful for, that I take for granted every day. Things like the ability to see, to experience life without pain on most days, to hear my kids voices (even when they are annoying to me!), and to enjoy (in a philosophical sense, if nothing else) even the bad moments, the ones that drive me nuts.
I think I may be spending a lot of my life complaining, which is complete dross. I have so many things to be thankful for, even on a day that doesn't go "as planned". So thank you, many Gods, Goddesses, and Quantum Mechanical Energies for your message. I read it loud and clear.

So what did we do about our celebration? In true homeschooler fashion, we just bumped it to the next day. It actually worked out fantastically, the awesome dad was home and together we canned 10 half-pints of apple butter (we were blessed with a box of apples, just that morning!), made 2 apple pies, and 2 quarts of apple cider. We took the time to soften 4 cups of dried beans for chili and baked beans--an all-day process. The kids played outside most of the day in the falling leaves, and that night we enjoyed apple cider, brewed with spices, by the campfire. It ended up being a fabulous Mabon celebration, even if it was on the wrong day.

Defying Lazy

2011-09-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

I have a bad case of the homeschool lazies. This hits me approximately 2-3 times per year, when I feel mentally overloaded, or when the girls are just playing so nicely and quietly together that I don't want to jinx it.

I handle these lazies in different ways, depending on my mood or the weather. If it's nice outside, we may chuck school to the side, take a long walk, open all the windows and dance with the music turned up loud, hang some laundry on the line, fly some paper airplanes or kites, and just generally relax. If the weather is uncooperative, we may still chuck school to the side, watch a long movie together, pop some corn, play endless board games, snuggle up in bed and read together, organize a bedroom that's in deep need, bake something fabulous, and just enjoy a rainy day mini break.

But sometimes these lazies crop up because we are reluctant to do school. That's when I start to question how we are doing something. I ask myself these questions:

Are we in a funk because the subjects are boring? What can we do to liven them up? Could we try a different approach by making it hands-on, or borrowing a movie about the subject?
What else is going on in the household? Are we missing Daddy, because he is on-call and therefore gone all week? Is everyone feeling well? Is there some underlying sibling-thing going on?
How is the momma-teacher feeling? Is there a case of the blues going on? Am I crabby about chores/projects/household duties not getting done? Am I procrastinating school because I am bored?
Is there just too much to do? Have we overloaded ourselves with too many subjects, materials, books, etc.? What can be set aside for later and what is necessary?

I find that if I ask myself these questions, I usually get a pretty good picture of what is going on. Does it surprise you that it's usually more than one category of thing that's holding us up? To veteran homeschoolers, it's no surprise. That's because a homeschool family's school and home life are completely interconnected; there is no division of "school work," "homework," "housework," and "family care." They are all blended. This can get confusing, especially when it comes to priorities. What is most important? The short answer is that they are all important, but the longer answer varies day to day.

We have chosen to make sure that each day, regardless of what else is happening, we get the 3 "R's" in: Reading, (W)riting, and (A)rithmetic. This means Pickle reads a short story aloud, Boo reads at least 2 chapters of a book chosen by me (usually on a historical or scientific subject), both girls work on a math subject (currently they are both working on fractions) in the form of a worksheet, and both practice their handwriting lesson. As long as we get those three subjects done every single day, I am satisfied. Most days we add in more elective subjects.

I make sure that the following items get taken care of, each day (with the exception of a mama's-sick-as-a-dog-days): dishes, meals, a load of laundry (start to finish), and beds made. Everything else is cheesecake and can be accomplished on a weekend day (we do no school on weekend days). I should add that the kids are responsible for feeding our pets each day.

Family care is all the time. Family care includes: kissing boo-boos, answering questions about our non-mainstream religion, listening to impromptu plays, making Barbie/ Polly/ Littlest Pet forts out of Legos and blocks and watching the ensuing destruction, chasing kids into the bathtub or shower, chasing kids out of the bathtub or shower, petting cats and dogs, etc. That list is endless.

When we do slack off, when the family care or housework component takes over our day, we don't sit around beating ourselves up over it. We chose to homeschool because we wanted the deep flexibility that it offers. We wanted the moments of laziness to be free of guilt and explanations to institutions. We wanted those boo-boos and questions to be important, to have priority over things that the girls will learn without much intervention on our part. We remind ourselves that "it's just fractions" or "it's impossible to be a member of this family and illiterate." That doesn't mean we excuse ourselves from work; work is important. But it's all relative and you only get to see that impromptu play, for the first time, once.

Catching Moments

2011-09-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." Anais Nin

I am possibly the most blessed person on the planet. I have some incredibly amazing girlfriends and I just cannot say enough about them. Each of us is a little different from another; a little the same. These are women who are strong, independent, creative; awesome.

We don't often get to spend a lot of time together without our kids, connected by our homeschooling as we are; we nearly are always at a park, or in a home, with our darlings playing, arguing-then playing again. The few times we have spent together "just us moms" are like rare precious jewels just discovered in your jean's pocket.

I have never laughed harder, my sides literally hurting, my cheeks sore from grinning, my throat roughened from laughing--than when I have spent time with these incredible people.

These women are the sisters that I never knew I had, the ones I'd beg my parents to create, somehow. They are the ladies I kept hoping I'd meet in college, to have a deep connecting band of love to tide me through the stresses and rigors of life there. They are the fellow mamas that I would pray and pray for when my eldest was merely a mite.

Somehow, in the course of plain living, when the concerns and worries about friendship had melted down into a tiny lump in my chest, and I quit panicking when I met someone new--these awesome people had quietly snuck in and made a home in my heart.

I wouldn't trade you gals for anything. Thank you for blessing me with your fantastic friendship.

Stripping Once Again

2011-09-14T16:15:00.000-05:00

That got your attention.
But what I'm referring to is the exciting art/activity of re-purposing, re-using, and refurnishing furniture.

A Kitchen Cabinet Door

An awesome desk I got for free

Take a dresser. Or a table. Or a something-made-of-wood. Use some chemical stripper. Wear gloves--that stuff if caustic.

Have a blast scraping the gunky crud off.

Isn't the bubbling paint neat to watch?

The kitchen cabinet door, after scraping

Wipe it all over with some mineral spirits, using steel wool. Let it dry for a bit.

Dried and ready to stain...er, repaint, since the darker "wood" was particle board. Doh!

Then, stain it.

Viola! Awesome item is yours.

This is now my sewing table.

Recently, I've stripped and refurnished an ancient desk, my kitchen cupboards, and today I redid a lovely dresser, which will become my sewing-stuff holder. It's really amazing to take things that are unattractively over-painted and make them beautiful once more.
Strippers unite! ;-)

The High Price of Feminism, or Why I Don't "Work".

2011-09-12T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm about to embark on a controversial subject.

My thoughts, lately, have turned onto the idea that the feminists just plain had it wrong. Not all wrong, mind you, but somewhat wrong.

Women were once semi-revered for their homemaking. It was once considered quite out-of-fashion and backward-seeming for a woman to earn a wage--to work in a man's world. When suffragettes began to argue for the right to vote, for equal pay (for jobs that they had taken on for the war effort), and for equality in all "man's things," they unknowingly cast out the honored and respected title of the homemaker. In demanding that they be treated "as men," I believe that, over time, we have lost our ability to appreciate and acknowledge the usefulness and necessity of a homemaker (regardless of sex) in the family.

"Homemaker" no longer gets any veneration, except in very select groups of people; namely homemakers and their families. Yet homemakers provide such incredible opportunities to their offspring, their spouses, and to themselves. Children are often much more balanced and healthier when they have a full-time homemaker. I hazard to say this, despite opposition from fellow mothers(and fathers, but I'll get to that later) whom work, but I believe it is true. Children thrive on repetition, consistency, and some form of order in their universe; a parent (notice, I didn't say it always had to be the mother!) at home is all of these things. Food is often more freshly prepared this way; contact with contagious disease is more often thwarted (because the homemaker won't "lose their job" for taking too many sick days). I believe that homeschooler homemakers actually have cornered the market on these two ideas, plus a third: the ability to customize learning to their child's specific, skill-appropriate needs. Homemaking is the quintessential "attachment parenting."

For their spouses, having a designated homemaker offers up the warm situation in that both parties can be utterly thankful for being unique to their marriage. One spouse "brings home the bacon" the other makes darned sure that the bacon is clean, organized, and well prepared. It's only fair to both people. I'm not suggesting that the homemaker gets trivialized in this arrangement, either. Hell no! The person at home is just as important as the one "out working." They both are the backbone to a healthy household--but only when they work in tandem.

Homemakers have a wealth of growth and learning available to themselves. Learning various homemaking crafts, such as sewing, yarn arts, household repair, cookery, and raising small farm animals can be rewarding and enjoyable, especially when the children help take part (as they should!). Aside from the more domestic aspect of homemaking, these folks have the chance to "feed the elephant child" and teach themselves virtually anything they want to know, free from obstruction (aside from hauling another load of laundry to the clothesline). We make our own hours, which can sometimes lean too far in the wrong direction, in that we work till we collapse, but a savvy person can work around that.

So how did it all go wrong? Well, I think it's pretty simple. In an effort to appear "as men" we trivialized the need for someone to stay home and keep the home fires burning and care for our own children. Think about it...when you think of a powerful woman, what do you first imagine? Typically the image is of a business woman, either in a power suit, or at least in the "job world." Very rarely do people first think of the lowly stay-at-home mom. And for a man to stay at home with the kids while the woman "pays the bills?" Very emasculating, or so I'm told. Because the impression is that if a man is at home, he's "no better than an housewife"--that, of course, being the very worst possible thing in the world.

So we succeeded; we became men in every way except genetic and physical. But we lost something in the translation. We lost our ability to appreciate the homemaker and treasure him or her. We give parents "education credits," and "daycare assistance," instead of having an economy stable enough to support single-earner households. Homemakers are folks to pity, people to be sad for, that they didn't have "loftier" goals.

And here I am, proud to be one, despite the bad publicity.

Things found on my country county road

2011-09-11T19:25:00.000-05:00

9 Beer cans. I worry about this many people drinking on my road.
3 Soda cans. Don't people know these are worth money?
Puzzle pieces where the picture has been worn away. This somehow made me sad.
A shell. We live in MN. Not near enough to a lake. And this was the wrong kind of shell anyhow. I'm concerned that sea animals are migrating "up north" and are going to get blasted by our fantastic MN winter weather. Poor things.
A dead animal, possibly a cat...but it wasn't obvious without poking it with a stick...and it wasn't decayed enough for me to do that.
A dead mud turtle. That's what my dad and I have always called painted turtles. I usually can be seen rescuing them from the middle of the road.
A very nice OP tank top, white--one of those tissue thin tank tops that you layer. Size 7/9, I washed it up, hung it on the clothesline, and may give it to a friend who is (guessing) around that size. She won't mind that it was a found tank top; those are the sorts of friends I roll with. ;-)
A gallon sized, plastic milk bottle, without lid.
A mile later...the lid to the plastic milk bottle. Why a mile later?
Several agates. These I rescued from the harms of being in the shoulder (I brought them home).
A piece of mail, for a neighbor's son's student loan. This I delivered, wet, to their house. The lady was quite thankful...apparently a loan check hadn't been received yet. Her 3 dogs liked me too--the one was sniffing me like I was some kind of new tasty dog treat.
Another neighbors local Sunday papers--they had fallen out of the mailbox (a common occurrence around here, I think the delivery people are in a hurry).
A flatish, very rusty, very manky, piece of metal. It weighed several pounds, for being something the size and shape of a bumper sticker.

Tomorrow I will take a bag and tidy up the things I found (barring the dead animals, although this will sadden the kids--they do so love checking out roadkill). I always mean to do this, but somehow constantly forget to actually do it.

A Deep Sense of Upset

2011-09-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

So we're tooling along on the road of life and school, when I find that there are areas where we have sorely missed the mark. I should mention, first, that my eldest daughter has a special set of circumstances which require a bit more help in some areas...but apparently I've forgotten totally about them and have let her end up mired in handwriting muck.

OK, handwriting isn't such a big deal, right? I mean, everyone nowadays types everything out. Except it is a big deal. When taking notes on something, most folks don't whip out the laptop. Most take notes by hand, and do at least some of their writing by hand. Grocery lists, for example. There are many, many reasons why having halfway legible handwriting is a good, necessary thing. Also, typing apparently uses some similar areas of the brain, and so she's still lost...even when we use the computer.

So Handwriting Without Tears has been suggested to us many, many times. By Neuro-psychologists, other homeschoolers, even my own mother! So I thought I'd be all smart-like and go online for samples, to get a feel for where my two daughters might place in the program, so that I can then order what I need (and it's not cheap, so I want to make the right choice). Now Pickle, who is officially still in 1st grade (we school year round and she just turned 6) could possibly get away with the 1st grade HWT curriculum, but I think she'd benefit from the K program because there are stylistic issues that need to be addressed, that I'm very sure the K program could help her with--this is not a problem for me, because Pickle is pretty relaxed to teach and doesn't have issues with fine motor skills. But her sister...who is 10 and in the 4th grade...she is going to end up in the same K program.

One part of me is already shoring myself up...saying, "Boo's got dysgraphia...it's no wonder she'd be in the K program," and "Even though she flipped out working on the 1st grade work sample today... I'm sure the K program could work wonders for her." This is the rational, soothing part of my brain talking. The one that doesn't panic. The one that remembers that she is micro-cephalic, that there are going to be concerns and areas where she struggles...for life. It's the part that is thankful that she appears and acts in the normal "quirky" range most of the time.

The other half of me? Raving like a lunatic. Crying hysterically. I feel like I've failed my older daughter in some way. Because I know there's going to be issues in this area, I think I've avoided them because the tantrums are so awful...she gets so bewildered even being corrected on how to hold a pencil...I don't think even my closest friends know how incredibly frustrating, scary, and awful it can get in this house when a new concept is lobbed in her direction. She's got poor pencil control, poor fine motor skills, and I just feel like I've let her down, letting her get to age 10 with little to no help in this area.

So here I am, with two girls who are 4 years in age difference...who are going to be starting the K version of the Handwriting Without Tears program. I have a sneaking suspicion that my youngest is about to eclipse my eldest in this area...and that makes me feel simultaneously sad for her...and scared for me. Because if that happens...Boo is going to explode and feel like a failure.

Quick! Quick!

2011-09-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

I am not the world's most relaxed person. Driven, I believe it's called.

Also: impatient, competitive, and somewhat monomaniacal.

Sometimes this is a fantastic thing. I'm highly motivated. I tend to change things up a lot in my environment. Like my house; a friend commented recently that it never quite looks the same way twice. I don't stagnate. While I've set down deep roots in this place, I like to see how different the interior can look--I like to move stuff around so that it flows better.

But often, particularly with parenting, these very same qualities make me a difficult person to be around. Especially when it comes to learning games online. Why does it seem like there are so many competitive, timed, race-inspired games online? Particularly when my kids are not driven, competitive, or eager to be under pressure, but want to play online learning games.

This morning:
Me: "Quick, quick! What's 4-1? Better click the right answer! Oops! The game's already over."
Pickle: "Did I win?"
Me: "Hon, you didn't. You were 10th place. You have to think of the answer quickly. Especially when the question is 4-1... I mean, you know the answer right?"
Pickle: "Uh...3?"
Me: "(sighing) Yeah, hon. 3. Do you want to try again?"
Pickle: "No. I don't like the race game. I want to do this one! (points to another race-style game)."
Me: "(sighing, again) That's a very similar kind of game, hon."

There are two obvious things going on here: 1.) I should not hang around, hover, cheer-lead, antagonize, frustrate, and otherwise annoy my children when they play competitive games online, 2.) There is a definite need for more games online that just work on the skill, rather than the speed of the skill.

When your kid is freshly 6, and is working through upper level addition and subtraction, you expect that their more basic skills in those areas are polished. But they aren't! They still use fingers, abacus, counting bears---all that jazz, for the basic skills and just tessellate them for the advanced skills. So working on speed of the thing can be really trying and frustrating.

Thinking back....I hated timed tests. Absolutely. They were very anxiety-producing things.

So, online children's learning game makers....ease up, will ya? I would love my kids to be able to say, "Yeah, I wanna play that again, and again!" Do you agree?

De Plane! De Plane!

2011-08-29T18:27:00.000-05:00

The Grandparent's cabin has a delightful mix of books from my childhood, as well as a mix of books that appear to be brand-new to me. We borrowed this series while on vacation:

In it, are wonderful histories of individuals that took to the air, as well as some pretty neat experiments, crafts, and things that fall somewhere in between, like this:

So if you take two industrious girls, and give them a diagram:

They will end up needing to decorate the finished product, of course:

But, eventually, what you get are some awesome airplanes:

Sometimes you have to hold two at once, planes akimbo:

Pickle, demonstrating the proper launch sequence:

Ready to launch:

Sometimes there are dog hazards on the runway, especially while landing. Beagles like chasing landing airplanes:

It's particularly hard to capture planes in flight, or children chasing them, for that matter:

Afterward, it's necessary to contemplate the sky, with your plane, and imagine it being real, flying it yourself:

Or, if you are Boo, it's necessary to pretend you are a bird in a giant grass nest, sitting on your eggs. Whatever. It's all about flight, right?

Invisible Thrift

2011-07-13T17:04:00.000-05:00

Sometimes thriftiness is silent, stealthy, and passive.

It's the times when you bypass the thrift store, because even though you LOVE the thrift store, you don't currently need anything.

It's leaving the lights off when it's getting to be dusk and you're having supper with the family, but you don't really need to see everyone super clearly...just well enough to chat and eat.

Sometimes thrift means not driving around looking for deals or entertainment, but rather staying home and working on projects or playing card games with the kids instead.

It's all about whether being thrifty is worth the payout. At times this can be quite obvious, like when we went to the new Shopco in town and each of us got a free 10$ gift card for being 3 of the first 400 people to come visit. Or when we transferred a prescription to the same store (that was already needed) and got an additional 20$ gift card for doing so. And when the same store had great deals on markers, crayons, and notebooks? Sign us up, we're in.

But not always. Sometimes being thrifty means waiting, being patient, or making do with what's already available. Not buying. Not traveling.

It's harder to define, but well worth the lack of effort, because the savings can be huge.

What kinds of passive, invisible thrift do you employ?

Grocery Shopping Revisited: Price book edition

2011-07-06T18:45:00.000-05:00

I really thought I knew most of what I needed to know to be a thrifty shopper. I thought that if I just bought items that were store brands, avoiding national brands, buying items in bulk if I could, that I would save tons of money.

Well, I was mostly right.

Making a price book is kind of a big job. You have to "shop" in several different stores, taking down the least expensive item's price and weight. It's important to remember, while you do this, that the largest container isn't always the best price, you really need to break the price down into the smallest form, by ounces, pounds, whatever--and compare the price on the smallest level. This is important because sometimes pricing for similar items can be vastly different and confusing. For example, we get dry milk. Dry milk comes in a variety of sizes, but I compared two different sizes (25.6 oz and 64 oz) of the same brand (the one that was the least expensive of the types). The smaller size was $7.99 and was the one we had purchased in the past, because the price was lower than the larger size at $15.99. Since I work with a limited budget, the lower price seemed better, but when comparing the price per oz, I found that the smaller size was 11 cents more per ounce! That's a huge difference in price, for the same product.

I found that overall, shopping at Aldi was the least expensive option, for me. But grocery prices have gone up all over the place and it will still be important to compare prices of the same item at the same store to make sure that the savings is still true.

I challenge you to try to make a price book. You might be surprised what you find out!

How to do it:
Get a 3-ring binder with loose-leaf paper. Or a notebook will work too. Take each page, divide it in half horizontally with a pen line. Each half will be a single grocery item. Write that grocery item down, then underneath it write a code for the store, the item type, the price per unit, and the price per ounce/lb/whatever. It should look something like this:
Dry Milk
Amz     Saco Mix and Drink (makes 40 quarts) $34.42   $.27 per oz
Co    Food Club 25.6 oz $7.99    $.31 per oz
Co        "              " 64 oz                                      $15.99 $.24 per oz

Be sure to make notes, if need be, about brand name, or any special information with the item, because once you leave the store, it will be harder to remember these things.

Good Luck!

Dog Dinner Debacle

2011-07-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

Dog food can be confusing. Many of the items found in dog food are unnecessary and harmful to your pet. I'm not going to argue those items. If you want to learn more about what should and shouldn't be in your dog's food, please visit this site, or this one, or even this one. You will learn all about how corn, wheat, and other items that are harmful and cost you higher vet bills, as well as learn about contamination (pesticides and other items) that have gotten into dog food and can hurt them.

I'm going to talk about dog food strictly in terms of thriftiness. Is homemade dog food possible? Is it cost effective?

Here's some numbers for you: a 20lb bag of Boots and Barkley Original Formula dog food (Target) costs $8.99. My dogs (a Beagle and a Corgi-Blue Heeler cross) each get 8 oz (2 cups) per day. That works out to a pound of dog food per day, so this bag will last 20 days and cost us $.45 per day to feed them.
But it has corn, among other no-no's, so this food is not ideal for them.

We used to buy Nature's Variety Prairie formula. A 20-lb bag costs us $28 (Chuck and Don's). The amount to feed them was the same, so that works out $1.40 per day! Whew! But it only had healthful items in it, so we felt (at the time) that it was a better idea.

We are now considering homemade dog food. The first part of this problem is finding a dog food recipe that is healthy and nutritious, as well as economical. There are many sites that boast different recipes, but I'd like to get to the bottom of how healthy they are before I dive in. Most reputable sites will dump you off at someone's book for sale on the subject, so I'm having trouble locating one that I don't have to waste $40 just to find out about. This site lists many items that should not be in your dogs diet. Going by one of their recommended dog foods, I see one that lists these items: Deboned Turkey, Deboned Chicken, Turkey Meal, Chicken Meal, Potatoes, Dried Ground Potato, Tomato Pomace, Natural Chicken Flavor, Canola Oil, Chicken Liver, Salmon Oil, Flaxseed, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Kale, Broccoli, Spinach, Parsley, Apples, Blueberries. In another dog food, I also see Brown Rice added to a similar mix of ingredients. Frankly, that sounds like a very lot of work to re-create, and expensive to set up, without even crunching the numbers.

What about raw dog foods...they have to be easier to "make". My "best pal in the world's" mother has a raw pet food business. I know from pet sitting for them that a raw food diet is healthy, but somewhat messy. But it's basically raw chicken parts (like wings) and ground up vegetables. The dogs get to eat the uncooked bones and yes, this is OK for them (as long as they are uncooked!) They also give their doggies fish oil, a little garlic powder, and glucosamine/chondroitin for joint health. So lets break that down. A 50 lb bag of chicken wings costs approximately $50, and you feed your dogs 2-3% of their body weight of that per day. For my dogs that works out to be .5-.75lb per day, times 2 dogs, which works out to be 1-1 1/2 lbs of chicken per day, with a 1 day fast every week (for digestion). Let's be conservative and go with the 1lb; my dogs are kind of fat right now. So that bag would last us 57 days (.87 per day), so around 2 months. Add in the veggies, they recommend 2 TBSP per day of mostly green leafy veggies, ground up. I can get free green leafy veggies out of my garden daily, and we can freeze ground up extra veggies as well for the winter. She gives her dogs 1/4 tsp garlic powder (sprinkled on top) to ward off bugs and ticks. I can get garlic powder from my local unclaimed freight store for $.99 (.02 per day) for 2oz. Even if I had to replace that container every 2 months (I highly doubt it), it would be fairly cheap. One of my dogs needs the glucosamine/chondroitin and we can get it from Costco for $24 (.14 per day) for enough pills to last him 6 months and both of the dogs could use the fish oil, which we can get at Costco for $14 (.08 per day) for enough pills to last them 3 months. I'd break these and drizzle them on the raw food. All of this works out to $1.11 per day. If I wanted to be a little cheaper, I could probably add some whole grain brown rice, reducing the amount of chicken a bit, to get this closer to a dollar a day. So this method would be cheaper than buying a pre-made kibble that was healthy, but still more than 2 times as expensive as feeding them the cheap kibble. But it's a healthier diet, and they would have less likelihood of ending up at the vet's office. They wouldn't need expensive flea and tick applications either, due to the garlic. So there are sneaky savings involved.

Ultimately, homemade dog food isn't going to beat out the prices of the cheap kibble dog food. If you are struggling to feed your human kids, you aren't going to go out and feed the equivalent of a steak dinner to your 4-legged kids. It is possible, though, to feed them a homemade meal that beats the more expensive, healthier kibbles, so if you were planning to feed them a higher end dog food, the raw, homemade option is a more economical choice.

A Break in the Thrify Action, but not really.

2011-06-30T21:22:00.000-05:00

We have had ungodly temperatures here in MN today. Yesterday was warm too. So...what did I do, in this house with no AC?

I:

Built a greenhouse. Yep, you read that right. I need to be able to start seeds next year and it's been promised to me for so long that I got bored and did it myself.
Finished half the remodeling job on the kitchen, by myself. I don't sit around much.
Took the kids to the library, the park next door, the natural foods store, and the grocery store.
Cooked up a mess of black beans, for black bean brownies, which then I later made. I froze about 3 more cups of cooked beans, as well.
Canned 4 quarts of tomato sauce. Tomatoes, pureed carrots, onions, garlic powder, salt, Italian spices. Too many of the sauces out there have wheat in them, or are just plain expensive, so I bought canned peeled tomatoes to do this (my tomatoes aren't in yet).
Watered plants every day. It's been tooooooo hot.
Chatted with a pal via texting and may have a line on a reel mower--the old fashioned kind that you do under your own power. Rock on!

So what's on the schedule for tomorrow?

Gluten-free bread making, GF sugar cookies, and homemade pasta. The hubster comes home tomorrow from a very loooooong week of on-call, so we'll have a nice dinner together and maybe dress nicely for it. Then have a fantastic 3 day weekend!

Happy 4th of July, fellow Americans! Enjoy your day!

Groceries on a Shoestring Budget

2011-06-28T19:58:00.000-05:00

There have been times in our family's shared life that we have had little money. Heck, that's been most of our shared life! With a single-earner in the household, we get by with very little and are, for the most part, satisfied with our choices. We have lived on as little as $25 a week for groceries, sometimes we've spent as much as $85 per week. The key to this kind of living is that you need to be prepared, flexible, and grocery store savvy. It's really not as complicated as you might imagine!

Shop, shop, shop, and shop.
The first key to buying groceries on a shoestring budget is to remember that no 1 store is going to have all the best deals. I try to limit our grocery shopping to 4 stores per time, because I do this by myself with 2 children and it can be a big hassle if I go to more than this. My two favorite places to shop are: online at Amazon.com and Aldi. If you have never been to either, check them both out. Amazon (and no, I'm not getting paid for mentioning either of these. I simply like them both a lot and want to share what I've found with you.) has a newer feature called "subscribe and save" that you should definitely check out. For groceries, the savings on non-perishable or slowly-perishable (things like flours) can be immense. You need to be prepared to buy 4-6 packages at a time, but their listed price is for the whole lot, not each package. There are no shipping charges and no sales tax. For us, a family that recently went gluten-free, the savings on our flours is comparable to purchasing regular generic wheat flour in 10-lb bags. If you have a gluten free household, you know how incredible that is!
Aldi is a little different, the first time you visit. You'll need a quarter for the carts (and you get it back at the end) and you need to bring your own bags. You won't leave with the same cart you walked in with, so make sure that you don't leave anything in your original cart. At check out, they whip through your items like they are on speed, but I have yet to see them break or damage anything. They don't bag your groceries; after they have finished checking you out (they check your items right into a different cart), you go to the tables provided and bag your own items however you desire. That means you determine, without being pushed along by other shoppers, how you want your groceries distributed, and your kids can help with the process. Their prices are phenomenal, but I want to stress that we still shop with a list and we still shop mostly for items that are basics (more on this later).
We were very blessed to be given a Costco membership this year. This is actually not my favorite place to shop, mainly because it's over 50 miles away from us, and not all of the "deals" are deals. Meat, for example is pretty costly here. Hamburger was higher at this store than at Aldi, and I have never seen turkey burger there (a staple in this household). But, every few months, we get some really great deals on a few items. Milk is around $1.70 per gallon and is hormone free (you can freeze this!), vitamins and supplements are really inexpensive and you get way more for your money, and dishwasher tablets come in tubs of 100 for around 7-8 dollars. That can last this household for months. But generally we have to time this visit with other errands to the area or have my husband (who works 70 miles away from home) pick it up on his way through.
Finally, we visit our natural foods store for items that we just can't get anywhere else, or would be too costly to get anywhere else. Yeast is $6 per pound. We also try out things in bulk here that we don't want to commit to a larger quantity without knowing what the item is like.

Plan, plan, plan, and plan.
I love my sister, but shopping with her is like watching a hummingbird involved in a train wreck. She flits from item to item, no list, many calls home to ask about "if they have that already". She buys certain brand-name items because she is unwilling to try the generics (like Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Cool Ranch Doritos) and unwilling to give up high fat, high sodium, high processed sugar. Her grocery bills are usually in that 60$ range...per time she visits, which can be several times a week. I admit that it's hard to shop with her (or rather just tag along when she shops--she goes to the one store that I only visit in a pinch or when they have an incredible sale running).
The day before I go grocery shopping (and maybe even several days before), I walk through the house, cataloging all of the items we need. Would you be surprised to know that this can save me 50-60$ per trip? Planning for your needs goes a very long way. We only shop to fill in our pantry, never for specific meals. This too can save us bucks, because when you plan for single meals, it's easy to forget about leftovers, and equally as easy to over-plan the meal. Take taco night. If I "plan" a taco night, we'll end up with tomatoes, onions, taco shells, taco seasoning, taco sauce, cheese, olives, sour cream, hot sauce, hamburger, soft taco shells....the list could go on. I'm fully aware that we'd use some of those items later for other meals...but it makes for a big grocery bill. Instead, I check the pantry, deep freezer, and fridge/freezer for the items that are missing. Typical items on our list are: GF flours, eggs, milk, cheese, apples, bananas, 1 in-season fruit (unless there are some incredible deals), broccoli, carrots, celery, potatoes, turkey burger, chicken leg quarters, whole chickens, frozen fruit, frozen vegetables, dry beans and whole grain brown rice. Occasionally I need to add baking items, like baking powder, salt, vanilla, etc. Our budget also includes: pet needs, stuff to make our household cleaners (that's another blog!), and personal care items. Notice how that list doesn't include hamburger helper, mac and cheese, canned soups or canned vegetables? No fudgsicles? That's because we don't buy them. If my kids deeply want mac and cheese, I whip up a white sauce, add some cheese, and pour it over some corn or rice pasta. It's a rarity, because they haven't developed the taste for that particular meal.

Cook (and bake) and reuse like your Grandma.
My grandmother grew up in the Great Depression. So her baking and cooking style was thrifty, tasty, and big. It was big because she would "put things up" in the freezer. Generally, leftovers were divided- most went into freezer containers, a few would get packed up in a Tupperware container and put in the fridge for Grandpa's lunch. Grandma didn't throw out containers, either (frankly, she was a pack rat), but reused them until they were used up. We honor this tradition, to a degree. Cereal boxes are a rarity around here, but when there's cereal and it gets eaten, we take the plastic bag out, dump out any little bits that may be hiding in the bag, and fold it up. It works great for bagging up homemade bread. You can use it almost like you can use wax paper, on cold surfaces too. We also take the box apart, cutting the tabs off so my 10-year old can make bookmarks for her 15 consecutively-open books, and save the rest of the cardboard for presentations, bookmaking projects, lapbooking, or just when the kids want to doodle on a harder surface. Since we don't have stacks of them lying around, unused, I feel like this is an OK reuse. When we get those little cups of yogurt (again, not often), we reuse them as snack containers, planters for seedlings, scoops for stuff. When they get worn out or cracked or broken, we throw them in the recycling. We sometimes save pie tins when other people have brought a store-bought pie over (and we all end up agreeing that my homemade ones are much better). It doesn't amount to stacks and stacks of containers and lids, but it is handy for when the moment arises. Periodically I get sick of what we do have and wholesale recycle it. Then we start over. It pinches pennies that we might lose in buying containers.
Be the queen of the lowly casserole (like my Stepma --her pasta salads are legends)! The way you become good at this is to start simple. Pick: rice or pasta base, tuna, chicken, or cheap seafood as a protein, frozen veggies that you've thawed out, a little diced or shredded cheese for splash, and maybe a mixture of light sour cream or white sauce that has cooled with herbs and spices you prefer. The difference between a "salad" and a "casserole" made this way is what you do next: refrigerate (salad) or bake for 20 minutes in a 325 degree oven (casserole). They are generally inexpensive and feed everyone in the house in one bowl or pan, sometimes for several meals!
Make breakfast! The other morning I took leftover broccoli-with-cheese and chopped it fine. I added it to a scrambled egg and presto! Instant breakfast. I usually make one scrambled egg per person eating, and then add in veggies, diced leftover meat, and spices to make an "omelet" of sorts. So many people get by with bagels, but this can be spendy. A whole package of bagels can disappear from this house in a single morning! I'm a big fan of protein for breakfast in the form of eggs, or oatmeal any-way-you-like it. Cheap, fast, and easy to make.
Use your leftovers! I can't tell you how many leftovers get thrown out all over the place. Even if you are composting these, it's a huge waste of money. If you are sick of the leftovers, freeze them for later and label them carefully with the date and contents. Another idea is "fairy stew". Fairy stew is when you have a dutch oven that lives in your freezer that contains similar types of leftovers. All beef leftovers, or all pasta leftovers, whatever. When it comes time to make the "fairy stew" you take out the dutch over, placing it carefully in a low-heat oven. Let it thaw, and decide if it needs some beef or chicken stock. Then you bake it or put it on the stove top till the approximate time it's ready. This is a great option for families that regularly have odd little bits of leftovers (and no doggies that need a treat). It can become a casserole, or a soup, or a stew. How convenient!

Be green in odd ways
This may be a TMI moment, but like some babies wear cloth diapers, I use reusable pads for my monthly "fun" visit. The kind I bought online were called New Moon Pads . The initial price threw me for a bit, but having had mine now for 3 years, I can say that they are durable and wear well. I personally went the cheaper route and bought her"discontinued bundles" which are sort of the odds and ends of various fabric designs. They work just as well and are made the same way because they are just pads that didn't sell. She has an immense selection of fabrics, which makes it nice to pick from, and makes a great gift for a "new woman" in the household. She offers 8 different options in size and thickness, so you are pretty much guaranteed to get something that will work for you. It has saved me hundreds of dollars a year and has none of that "funky odor" issue that comes from using disposables (it's actually a reaction between your...um, period...and the chemicals in the pad that create that problem...then they can sell you "feminine odor" products--oh joy!) They are easy to wash too--just toss them in with everything else! Seriously, that may squick you out, but I promise, it works very well! A side effect of these pads is that you don't feel nearly as uncomfortable because the fabric is a very soft flannel. So there, I went all weird on you. But try it, seriously. They work extremely well and are very, very cost efficient.

Next we are going to discuss the variety of options in feeding your dog or cat. Stay tuned!

Extreme Couponing: Obnoxious Fad or Thrify Lifestyle?

2011-06-27T07:45:00.000-05:00

Go Google the phrase "Extreme Couponing"--go ahead, I'll wait right here till you get back...

Ah, there you are! Did you get "About 4,490,000 results (0.12 seconds)" too? Or thereabouts? It's staggering, simply staggering. People saving $1000's of dollars in one grocery run on all of this stuff. I gotta tell you, it makes a person who doesn't coupon feel like a slacker.

Don't. Because I'm sitting right next to you there. There are several problems with this fad, but I'm going to talk about 3 of them: 1. The Deal, 2. The Involvement, 3. The Quality.

                  1. The Deal
One of the things I'm noticing about most of these sites is that they all want something from you. Some are pretty innocuous, they just want an email address and a name. Since I have a "junk email" address that I regularly do something I call "wholesale delete" with, that's not such a giant thing to give them. But other sites want more information. They want your name, address (ostensibly to give you local deals), email address, sometimes your telephone number and a credit card because they are a pay site. These sites are typically the ones that offer the insane deals where people are getting thousands of dollars worth of merchandise for $40. That's because you are, in reality, paying them to hunt down the deals for you, and bring them to you, either by mail, email, or printable coupon on-site. They set the price, some are "inexpensive" for this service (1-2$ per month) others are exorbitant (10-15$ per month). There are free sites as well, but I see that many of them don't have their coupons organized in any real fashion, and are often the same coupons you can find in your newspaper (or your neighbor's newspaper!). The other problem is with downloading "coupon printer" apps. Who knows what's in that file? I once tried a site, several years ago, and then I suddenly had major problems with viruses. Guess who the culprit was? So finding a reputable one is somewhat complicated.

Another option is the so-called "online coupons" for online retailers. These I actually like, because they are often just a code you type in at checkout, often good for free shipping or free shipping combined with a discount on certain items. But these are few and far between and often not on items you really want or need (more on this subject later). One thing that I like is that Amazon.com has started a "subscribe and save" feature which combines discounts on items you agree to reorder on a regular basis (you get to choose how often and you can cancel the subscription at any time), with free shipping since you were so kind to throw business their way. Since Amazon has a little bit of everything in the grocery department, this can be a huge savings (especially if you like to buy 4 or 5 of a thing at a time). But online coupons can be tricky too--there are many sites devoted to this kind of coupon and give you "rebates" for doing certain tasks, filling out surveys, writing "columns" for sites, etc. That strikes me as a little bit hinky because ...where is that information headed? Call me paranoid, but I seriously have seen "articles" written by "experts" that my 9 year old could have done a better job doing. That's a lot of "expert advice" in a place where the unwary can get access to it pretty easily.

           2. The Involvement

So say you go ahead and find a free, reputable site for coupons online, and you get your hands on free newspaper inserts from a neighbor, or several neighbors. You have all of these coupons for products that you assuredly want and need. What to do with them? How do you keep track of the sales vs coupons vs when things expire? I have seen elaborate books, bins, and receptacles of all shapes and sizes to house these suckers (presumably they've gotten these receptacles with coupons?). People track all of this stuff with elaborate computer programs (or just Microsoft Excel), or notebooks full of dates, coupon doubling days, and coupons you can use in tandem. It's like the DaVinci code: it all means something...to someone. Possibly even them! Keeping track of the coupons, and coupon paraphernalia is a full time job. Let's think about that, shall we?
If couponing is a full time job for a person who is already home, say a person like me...then I need to figure out what my "wage" is doing that job. One method for doing this is to add up all of the time that it takes you to clip, sort, organize, collate, reorganize, plan, and shop (and argue with stores!) in a month and divide it by the actual savings. This is your hourly wage for this "job." So say you are like me, and you mean well, but you have other "jobs" in the day too. You save $50 a month using coupons, and it took you approximately 10 hours to do that job that month. That means you just made a 5$ wage per hour for your trouble. Not so lovely, right? What about one gal I read about...let's take her numbers. She saved $1000 (I'm rounding here) in one month, and it took her 3-4 hours per week to do her "job. That's 12-16 hours for the month. That's $62-83 per hour! Sounds really awesome, right? Guess what? That's one of those "results are atypical, your results may vary" sorts of things. Most folks are closer to my end of the dollars-per-hour scale. Plus, people love to talk about their "BIG HAUL" and tend to forget the time that they saved $.95 for that month because they were sick or had other concerns.

      3. The Quality

Have you ever noticed how most manufacturer coupon deals are for national brands of pre-made foods? Or the brand-newest toiletry items? That's because they would love to get you hooked onto a new idea with a sweet deal, and then you'll keep coming back because you just can't live without that specific brand and scent of deodorant. The problem is that, for the most part, coupons are just a draw to high fat, high sodium, high processed sugars foods, and toiletries chock full of all the chemicals to make you go blind. You rarely see coupons for items like organic fruits and vegetables, whole grain foods (that aren't chock full of other problems), milk, eggs, or for basics or bulk items. That's because those aren't convenience items! If you look at the majority of the "take" from these extreme couponing sites, shows, blogs, etc. you will notice that most of the foods are not good for the people eating them. They also end up with odd items, like 30 jars of mustard because of some strange deal. So you have 30 jars of mustard. Great. Let's pour it over the 15 containers of cake batter ice cream we ended up with!

So what's the alternative to this fad of complicated and unhealthy consumerism? Well....that's the next blog post! :-)

**I want to add that there are folks out there that will take extreme offense to this extreme couponing blog o'mine. I want to reiterate that I have found for me that extreme couponing is a waste of my time. There are many ways to go about thrift, and mine is just a different slice of the pie from theirs. For some people, couponing is a hobby that gives them great joy, and I wish them the best of it.

***Part of my ire with "couponing" is that "couponing" isn't even a real word. I hate made up words. Thank you.

Black-Belt Thrift

2011-06-24T07:01:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine and I were having a conversation:

Thrifty Friend: "Where the heck are the black-belt tightwads (we are both avid fans of the Tightwad Gazette, a "zine" of sorts that had completely awesome cost effective ways to live--but it was written in the late 80's-early 90's and the author has 100% retired, much to our bummage)? I looked up all kinds of things on Google for thriftiness, thinking maybe, just maybe, that Amy Dacyczyn chick had a blog...or something! I found nothing."

Me: "Nothing? Like Nothing-nothing? Truly nothing?"

Thrifty Friend: "I found a blog that had interviewed her, and so I thought that if she came out of retirement to do this one interview, she must have bestowed her interview on someone worthy...but I'm starting to think she did it because she felt bad for the guy! I mean, his tips? 'Quit buying coffee, bagel, and newspaper from Caribou every day. Quit golfing. Quit my etunes account'...um hello? Done! And where's the 4 grand I'm supposed to be saving by doing these things??"

Me: "I see. That is truly lame."

Thrifty Friend: "Really. And his catchy little tagline? 'Thrift for the rest of us'. I must need 'Thrift for the crazy-assed of us'.

Me and Thrifty Friend: Discussion dissolves into giggles.

I don't repeat this conversation to embarrass the guy, I'm not linking his blog to "troll" on him or anything...it's just that kind of thriftiness isn't really for "the rest of us"--the "us'es" that have reduced our grocery budget to $150 per month before coupons, the ones that consider "fast food" to be the economical lunch that you brown-bagged that morning (tuna salad sandwich, carrot sticks, and apples). When you make 5 loaves of bread at a time and freeze 4 loaves, make a roast and then after the fabulous dinner you have, create meals for the next 3-5 days from the leavings...well, you aren't going to be impressed with tips like, "Quit downloading entire albums online," "Only go on road trips once per month (does visiting friends 50 miles away count as a road trip? How about a visit to the library?) ," "Don't visit both New York and London this year (when was visiting one of them even an option for us?)"

So to redeem this lack of black belt thrift online, I'm going to spend the next few posts (approximately however many I feel like doing), on thriftiness. I'm not claiming it's your kind of thrift, or that you haven't already done half the things on my list, but I'm hoping that it will spur a discussion about thrifty behaviors.

Some things I hope to tackle:

"Extreme coupon-ing"- obnoxious fad to get you to buy over-processed crap that's unhealthy and addictive for you or thrifty trend?
Bagged dog and cat food vs. homemade dog and cat food (and is it even safe to do?)
Thrift Stores and how they can work for you...Yes, you!
Are garage sales even worth it to have and to visit?
Do I HAVE to meal plan to be cost effective?
Constructive reusing and recycling: what are you throwing out that you could put to good use?
Organic foods vs being able to pay the mortgage vs giant health bills
Just say "Yes!" to hand-me-downs from spendthrifts (this is the term for someone that spends lots of money on items) and other well-meaning folk.
Do I build credit, or do I do everything with cash?
Homeschool vs Public school vs Private School (strictly in terms of thrift)

I'm sure that list will build, because every time I look at it, I think of six more things to write about. I hope you enjoy this series, because I will truly enjoy writing it!

I love Mother's Day/ Father's Day...and I'm not afraid to admit it.

2011-06-17T10:46:00.000-05:00

Dear Offended People of the Internet Community:

I understand that not everyone has the perfect childhood. Living with drunks, abusers, absentee parents/foster parents/ guardians. Some people had great childhoods, right up until their wonderful parents died and celebrating Mother's Day/ Father's Day is painful. I get that.

What I don't get is why it's suddenly novel, cool, and trendy to hate Mother's Day and Father's Day. I see it all over the internet, and no, I'm not providing you with links. Go out and Google--you'll find 3 million hits in a heartbeat. It's all over. They are advocating getting rid of these special days because it's "not fair to everyone else". People protesting (!) these special days for the special people that put up with our crap, cleaned up after us...people who were good parents. Parents that occasionally sacrificed goals and dreams...hell, even the ones that didn't and showed us that you can be a good parent and have a life! People that sometimes did spank their kids because their kids were those kids---the ones that sometimes needed a paddlin'. I'm not talking about abusers, I'm talking about PARENTS.

That there are people out there that had pain and suffering and bad experiences, I feel for ya. I really do! I hate to see your hurting soul fried out of control because you had someone in your life that didn't care enough for you. But that's not your fault; it's theirs; don't celebrate them! It's also not my Dad's and Mom's fault that they did OK and deserve a day of recognition. ONE DAY A YEAR should be sufficient for raising me to adulthood with limited need of a therapist. It makes them feel special. It is worthy of them.

Does that mean that I trivialize things by buying them expensive, over-priced cards and gifts? Hell no! I SPEND TIME WITH THEM on their special day, or the day before (now that my hubby and I are also parents, and since we have step parents in the mix too, scheduling can get tricky). We eat a meal together, cooked at home, drink a few beers, and talk about all the times where parenting got tricky. Where it was hard to do a good job. It reminds me that on the days when I'm ready to tear my hair out, that I'm still not doing a bad job. It's just a normal part of the process.

So to all the people out there that think that we should stop celebrating these days, I say, "Suck it up. You got a raw deal, and that blows. Kids deserve loving homes and people they can celebrate, but not everyone gets that. That's life. I didn't grow up rich and have my meals served to me on a silver spoon, but if there was a Rich Folks are Awesome day, I wouldn't complain. I'd make up my own event and celebrate that instead. Let our good, decent, hard-working, kid-loving parents be. Let them have their day in the sun. Because they deserve that much. I do too."

Sincerely,

Give Everyone Else A Break and Feel Free to Disagree

The Path to GF

2011-05-25T13:09:00.000-05:00

Really long story, be prepared, grab an apple and your water!

When my eldest daughter, Fuchsia, was born she was average weight, average length. Her APGAR scores were dandy, and she refused to nurse (I pumped milk for her for 6 months, the little turkey!). She had, however, the teeniest head. Like under 5th percentile tiny...more like under 1st percentile. The doctors would measure her and measure her and she'd hit milestone after milestone. We assumed it was just part of her makeup (my grandmother, for example, wore wigs for a time and had to use a child-sized wig because her head is also tiny) until the day when that all changed for us.

It was in early spring, and she was just about to turn 2 in a few months. In MN, they test the tornado sirens every Wednesday at noon throughout the spring, summer, and fall months. It's a fact of life for us and most of us tune it out, unless it's not a Wednesday (ha ha ha). Fuchsia was napping, the sirens tested, and naturally she woke up...a bit crabby, shall we say? I was consoling her in the living room, and she finally got to the point where she would stand on her own in front of me. I was just about to ask her if she wanted a snack when she began to shake. Her eyes were glazed, her tongue was sticking out, and she just stood there...shaking. It was the weirdest moment, because I thought that if someone had a seizure they'd fall over and flail around. The "episode" lasted a few minutes, then she tuned back into me and wanted food.

Of course I was concerned. I grabbed a snack for her, put her in the carseat while calling the pediatrician, and hoofed it to the office. Once there, the looked her over, ran a few tests and they came back inconclusive...no sign of a seizure. We'd have to run an MRI to be sure, but as far as they could tell, she was dandy. I got asked A LOT of questions about the "episode"--was she just overly hungry? Startled from waking up suddenly? I felt a little attacked at the time... I know the difference between startled versus totally creepy situation.

We ran the MRI. Fuchsia was shown to have a Rathke's cyst, not all that uncommon. The cyst forms in the pituitary in utero when all of the brain stuff is forming and reforming. Sometimes they are "symptomatic"--they mess with your growth hormones and eyesight. So we had to visit an endocrinologist to be sure that her endocrine levels were good. Lots of blood later, we came back clean.

The head size thing came up again after this. Suddenly it wasn't apparent that she had been proceeding normally, because of the "episode". We brought her to a neurologist, who watched her play and asked her to perform some simple tasks. By this time Fuchsia was nearly 3 years old and she cooperated well. The report came back: normal little girl.

At this point, I was ready to say to hell with it. We'd spend hundreds of dollars tracking...nothing. It's not that I wanted something to be wrong with my kid, but it's very draining to visit specialist after specialist, to get all worked up over what unknown factors there could be...just to be told, "Eh? We don't know...she looks normal."

A few years passed. Fuchsia grew normally, albeit on the very slender side and again, that tiny head. Her eyes were checked regularly for any changes, since the pituitary sits right next to the optic nerve, changes in eyesight can be an effective signal that something has changed with the cyst. Her sister was born. When Fuchsia was 6 and Trixie was 2, I was surprised to find that the little sister's head size had outgrown the elder's. We were having some difficulties in school too (we homeschool, so the difficulties were very apparent to me). Time to visit the next specialist, I guess--now the geneticist.

Visiting the geneticist was nerve wracking. You can't change your genes, there's the fear that whatever is going on with your child is permanent; life changing. More blood gets drawn, important-looking people talk about your kid in the coldest of terms...it's awful. Luckily, our geneticist was a very nice gentleman. When the test results came back, we met with him and he assured us that while Fuchsia might be a bit outside the norm for certain markers, she looks great and so do her genes. He called her an "attractive child" and pointed out to us how beautiful her features were, and how well-proportioned she was, despite the thinness and microcephaly (small head). He suggested that we visit the neuropsychologist for the learning issues we were experiencing, as we have cousins with LD and Asperger's.

Months passed. Getting into the geneticist had taken the better part of a year, because their schedule is ungodly. Getting into neuropsych was easier. Again, we trudged down to the U of M for a very long day of testing. It was boring and harrowing all at the same time. I couldn't be in the room for the neuro tests. I had to fill out questionnaires by the handful. I think that they give you those so that you aren't constantly saying, "are we done yet?" The results come back: possible ADHD (but they won't give her a firm diagnosis, because she isn't in a traditional school--interesting, eh?) and a visual-spacial processing disorder. Finally some answers to why map skills, math, and handwriting were so incredibly difficult. But sadly, no real recommendations. "Just try to accommodate it" was the answer, along with a sheet of websites to check out (and they were already one's I HAD checked over).

Again, years pass. We meet some really nice friends who have a daughter that could be the spitting image of my Boo, only with different features and hair color. Same body frame...it was uncanny. The mom starts to talk about Celiac and I start wondering...could this be our problem with underweight?

We just tested Fuchsia, and while all of the preliminary results look promising, the Celiac test hasn't come back yet. In the last week, in which we have gone gluten free, Fuchsia has consumed so much food--I'm completely astonished. She ate 6 corn tacos the other night. Unbelievable! So even if it turns out that Celiac isn't our culprit, I know in my heart that going GF has done something profound for our daughter.

Working on the Fun

2011-05-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

It's not a huge confession, as far as confessions go, but here it is: I'm not much of a "fun" kind of gal. Meaning, while I enjoy watching the kids play a game, I'm not too excited about playing it with them. For me, it ends up being a lesson in patience. For them, it's a lesson in how Mom can wreck a game by making them stick to the actual rules. I know, lame of me.

Bear with me, this is all related, in a way. Growing up, I had 2 sets of grandparents. One set pretty much sat around and fielded the family squabbles (or rather watched them...it was reality TV without the TV on that side). They liked kids, but they really didn't have much time for them. Plus, there was always the uncles-you-avoid, a whole other topic that still makes me wonder if my parents were medicated throughout those years. So the 30-some odd cousins did their thing, and the grown-ups (8 "kids" and their spouses and the grandparents) did their thing when we got together.

On the other side of the family, I was 1 of 7 grandkids, the oldest, and born several years before the rest. Since my grandparents on that side were pretty much small family farmer-stock, they had always played with their kids, but not in the way you might expect. I was taught how to play cribbage when I was 7 or 8 years old, and Grandpa stole points from you if you forgot to count them. We played Cribbage over and over and over. Dominoes too. Grandma would have had a cow over using the dominoes in that stack-them-up, tip-them-over type of way--these suckers were for playing DOMINOES. I do remember very occasionally getting to play with them that way, but it was a rare treat. We also played Tri-ominoes. So my math curriculum was pretty set the twice-a-month, Sunday afternoon's we went there. I eventually inherited the marble board game my Grandpa made. It was a sort of low tech version of Parcheesi, with these beveled holes drilled into a board in the traditional shape of a Parcheesi board. You played it with 4 different colors of marbles and a set of dice. It was fun to hop the marble into the next hole, but if you took to long to count out your turn, Grandpa would make this "Hrm," noise and you knew that you needed to speed it up.

As a teenager, I got to play more games with the adults: Trivial Pursuit (where I knew none of the answers), and Scrabble (where I got trounced, everyone else knew the "Scrabble words" to use for the letters 'q', 'x', 'z', but me.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that gaming fun was either a by-the-rules, play-it-like-an-adult sort of way...or go play Barbies in your room with your sister. There was no Disney Princess Monopoly. There was the linking plastic monkey game, and the ants-in-the-pants game...but we tired of those quickly.

So where does this all lead me? I think I emulate my grandparents when it comes to games. I don't want the Life money getting wrecked, I get frustrated when individual dominoes go missing, and Disney Princess Monopoly is a joke. For me.

But maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is to have fun. Together.

So I'm trying. I'm trying it from both ends,actually, giving the kids opportunities to play the game with dad and I as grown-ups would play (sometimes on teams, for Pickle) and other times I just let them make up their own weird games and try not to worry about the rules shifting. It all comes back to balance, always, always.

The Importance of Being Different

2011-04-24T09:49:00.000-05:00

Are you different?
How do you handle your different-ness? Do you share that with others, or hide it?
I've tried both approaches, and neither has worked out spectacularly.

I love differences.
I have friends from super-different socioeconomic backgrounds and we trade stories of being frugal vs getting to shop at an Ann Taylor store without even blinking.

I have friends that were born into religious households, with parents who are the head of their church...and friends that are atheists.

I have friends that really enjoy hobbies and past-times that I wouldn't waste 4 minutes on...and yet I enjoy hearing them talk about those same hobbies, and getting to see the results of their passion.

I'm not suggesting that I'm the Angelina Jolie of differences... I enjoy sharing similarities with my friends and acquaintances too.

But, I understand that not everyone is going to share all of my likes, hobbies, and interests. I'm OK with that.

What about you...are you comfortable hanging around people that are different in a major or minor way? What about those that have beliefs that are in opposition to yours...how do you handle that?

All is Quiet on the Eastern Front

2011-04-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

~~I can't believe I made it through last week.~~

Ahem.

This week, on the homeschooling front, we have our annual Peabody test. I look forward to this test every year, because it shows me a snapshot of where Boo is in her studies, and where we need to shore things up. I'm not overly fond of nationally norm-referenced based "super tests," but I do like the Peabody. Here's why:

The entire test is oral. That means you get a tester and a kid in the same room and they ask questions and the kid answers them. It's less about how to take a test.
The flip-book-chart thingy they use has 4 multiple choice answers to each question, just like your average standardized test, only you don't have to fill in bubbles.
The kids gets the opportunity to test above "grade level" and you get to find out exactly where they are. Say in reading comprehension, your kid tests 3rd grade, 1st quarter, but in reading "ability"--literally their ability to read the words on the page-- they test 4th grade, 3rd quarter. You get a very clear idea what to work on, you also get a very clear idea of where they excel.
For kinetic or oral learners, this test kicks a lot of butt. While they may not have things to manipulate, per se, Boo finds it easier to point to an answer and say it, rather than write it.
Our tester is a homeschooler. No, that doesn't mean she lets the kid cheat to make homeschoolers look good. It means that she understands how homeschooled kids need breaks, even if it's just for a drink of water, or to use the bathroom.
They get to take as long as they want, or as long as the tester has. We know (usually) ahead of time what her schedule looks like. If it take Boo 30 minutes to take the test, great, if it takes her an hour and a half, great too.
The kid gets 3 opportunities to "fail out" of an area, but they never know that they are missing answers. The tester simply moves onto another area. While that is cool, it can also be tricky with subjects like math, if you don't go the traditional route.
You get your test results immediately. The tester chats with the parent after the test is completed, explaining scores and answering questions. She even shows the questions your child missed, if asked, so that you have a clearer understanding what to work on. Last year we realized that we never had truly discussed place values, and even though she had a rough idea what it meant, asking her to identify the thousandths spot was a question she missed.
The test is taken in a location both you and your tester agree on. In our case, since we live approximately 60 miles away from our tester, we drive to her house (or there's be an additional mileage charge). It's younger-child and sibling friendly. Plus, no nerves about a sterile room filled with strangers.

The price tag of the Peabody varies (for us it's $45 for one kid) and some people might quail at that (especially if you have multiple kids), but for us it's a perfect fit.

On the Topic of Isolation

2011-04-11T18:39:00.004-05:00

I'm going to make a very strange statement: Poverty is very isolating.

"What?" you say, "How on Earth is poverty isolating?"

Let me clarify that statement by saying that poverty in a rural area is very isolating. Lonely, even. When we lived in a bigger, citified area, we had no more money than we do now, but we had parks within walking distance, friends we could meet there, a grocery store we could walk to for a free cookie (each day, if we wanted). We lived within walking distance of the business my parents owned and there was forever an invite to lunch, a hug, a chat, and customers I'd known my whole life to show the kiddos off to.

Don't get me wrong, that area had it's problems too. A growing crime rate, higher taxes, assessments for improvements we could barely keep up with. But it had people I knew, neighbors that knew and cared about us, and faces.

In the sticks, it's sometimes like the good parts about the old home; friendly faces, hugs here and there, librarians (who are some of the coolest people I know in the world). But it's harder to get to those warm, cozy places. What happens when you have no money for gas to go out to a park, not to mention to go out for groceries (and no money for those either)?

I tell you, friends, it gets isolated. Even when it's only a state of mind, and you know that you've got support in the form of phone-calls and visits from friends, it's a lonely place to live. You feel like you can't talk to anyone about the scary-in-the-dark feeling of "What are we going to eat tomorrow?" and "I'm not going to hang my head in shame when I visit the food shelf, but rather be thankful that they exist."

Heck, those feelings are scary in broad daylight.

Plus, it feels like failure. I feel like such a failure that while we are making our mortgage, insurance, electric, and telephone payments, we have very little afterward. Talking about it with friends, whether they understand or not, just feels like admitting to something awful. Too, I worry that they will want to fix it for us, and while I love my friends and family a lot, this poverty situation isn't going to be fixed with a band-aid or a monetary gift. It's something we've dealt with before and doubtless will again in the future. It's wholly our problem.

I get frustrated though, when I hear people talk about their new things, or complain about some frivolous thing they want and can't find. Or when they talk about getting rid of some perfectly good thing that they just got bored with, or suddenly didn't like the color of. My roof is slowly falling apart. My driveway is a giant mud suck-hole. My septic needs pumping, and the backyard is flooding from excessive snowmelt and rain. My old van needs front tie rod ends and wobbles ridiculously. Yet these things have to wait for amazing circumstances to be attended to. I'm not complaining, necessarily, just pointing out that everyone's circumstances are different. It's all perspective. And cold, hard cash.

I'm incredibly lucky to be married to the most incredible, amazing, thoughtful husband ever. Who understands the dark, scary feelings, but always sees the silver-lining in the storm cloud. Who's not too proud to bring home a pile of scrap metal and help process it for cash so that he can make it to work, so that we have a bit for essentials. Who sees the necessity of the emergency food assistance, even when he doesn't totally love the idea. He works his ever-loving ass off. He goes to work on days that pretty much everyone else I know (including me) would call in sick, beg for a snow day, or claim as paid time off. I feel so guilty sometimes, knowing how hard he works, seeing how often he's absent from our daily lives in the name of the dollar. He deals with some of the most disgusting garbage imaginable, just to put a roof over our heads and food on our table.

I see couples living on assistance and every year having another child just to get another subsidy. At least, that's what it looks like from this angle. People who hold their hands out constantly for their share of money they didn't work for and then toss away half (or more) of it in the trash as wasted food, or spend it on utter garbage. I don't begrudge the needy, I begrudge people that are wasteful spendthrifts. People that take for granted (what should be) short-term assistance and grow to expect it, feel entitled to it.

We don't qualify for any of that help, yet the qualification for emergency food assistance for a family of 4 (our family size) is $44,000.

$44,000!

When I was growing up, that was a fortune. Now, it will qualify you for 3 days worth of food once a month.

That's hard to chew and swallow.

Dear Total Homeschool Newb or Things I Wish I had Tried a Long Time Ago

2011-04-05T10:27:00.002-05:00

Dear Homeschool Newbie,

I know, I know. This business of homeschooling can take a lot out of a gender-neutral personal pronoun. As if the business of raising kids "the right way" (whatever that means) wasn't enough, we go and up the ante by designating ourselves as their sole teachers. OK, that's a bit dramatic, because most homeschoolers consider the wide-open world to be the teacher, but give a girl a chance to make an argument here. We are responsible for what they learn, whether or not we like or totally agree with that responsibility is a different argument, but legally we have a duty to perform. I know I'm frosting your rosy cupcake right now with a lot of sticky reality, but hang around, I promise this will be entertaining (and hopefully enlightening).

When I was a newb homeschooler, I made a lot of mistakes (OK, to be fair, I still make a lot of mistakes). This is a natural phenomenon, unless you are from off-world and then your superiors are going to annihilate you. They hate it when their progeny makes their alien race look bad. At least, I'm assuming they feel that way.

Moving right along! I have compiled a list (literally, it took me minutes of slaving over-- you should feel gratitude here) of things that you, as the Newbie Homeschooler, should try. I'm not saying they'll all work, but sometimes it's nice to have a bullet-ed list to look at and it makes my blog post look bigger. I'm going to forewarn you that we are a school-at-home sort of family, with workbooks, textbooks (not necessarily a complete curriculum--we'll get to that), and that you can expect my advice to reflect that. Unschoolers and other types of "schoolers" do things differently and while that's fine and dandy for them, it didn't work so well for us. And away we go:

Treat your homeschooling like a job (it is, legally, in most states). Set a time of the day that works best for your family and stick to it.
Get dressed. I know, I know. People everywhere talk about homeschoolers "doing school" in their jammies and while that works for some people, it doesn't work for all. If you find that you and your kids aren't taking things seriously (or aren't doing school at all) try dressing for it. Faces washed, teeth brushed, appropriate clothes firmly on.
Set up an area for "school". OK you know what? I'm done saying "school," like it's uncool to just say school. So there. School, school, school. Back on track. This area can be teeny, or it can be an entire section of your basement (ours is the second category). Organize the clutter, get the pencils sharpened, have bins for crayons, markers, stuff. That way, when it comes time for the 1st grader to shade in a math pattern, you don't have to stop school for 35 minutes while you locate the crayons. Individually.
On par with treating school like a job, don't answer the phone. I'm still learning this rule. It's so tempting, since Boo and Pickle are reading, to just pick up the phone, iron some shirts, and chatter away. Only it doesn't work. Boo and Pickle sense a disturbance in the mommy-Force and the schooling goes down the drain. Or some other kind of mixed-metaphor. Leave an outgoing message on your phone to let folks know that you haven't been ravaged by wild animals and that you'll get back to them at 4pm, or whatever time you are generally done with school. They'll respect you for it, or not (and really, if they don't- get rid of your loser friend!)
Pre-Packaged Complete Curriculum: Some people adore these. They are expensive (tax write off, anyone?) and have simply everything. The downside? Sometimes parts of them suck rocks and you are stuck with it because you paid $800. Some parts you already have and then you are stuck with more of those parts. Sometimes simply suggesting that it's time for school, while using one of these, makes everyone involved burst into tears. Caveat Emptor. Big time.
Perfectionists: Treat your kids like they are someone else's. Perfectionists will be nodding there heads here, the rest of you will be scratching your heads. Here's the deal: we perfectionists are so kind as to transfer our internal perfectionist tendencies onto our children, usually resulting in yelling matches about addition, or handwriting. When we pretend that they are someone else's kids we are much more relaxed.
Organize the output. I'm talking a file box, here. Any worksheet or school-related piece of paper that your darling produces, please put it in the file box. One file box to a kid. I know there are people out there with much better organizational systems (and some states require much more proof than ours does), but I find that if I put it all in one file box, I can usually find what I need to show someone. Even if it's just bragging to Grandma.
Find yourself a homeschool group that is focused on play. Commit to it and go as often as you possibly can. I cannot emphasis this enough. These other gender-neutral pronouns will become your support network for the next umpteen years. Some of them will become your best friends, others you will quietly (remember your manners) tolerate. Your kids will pass through phases of "I hate all girls," "I hate all boys," "I hate everyone," but despite this, you will find that socialization is important. For you. Your kids will be social with every greengrocer, librarian, pet groomer, and gas station attendant they meet. You, however, will not. You will crave the company of other sane adults like a Tweeker needs Ice. OK, I admit, I don't know that druggie terminology, like any tech-savvy woman, I Googled it.
Play nice with your homeschool buddies. I don't mean that you should ignore insults or racial epithets. I mean that there will be change, flux, violent uprising (maybe not) within your social group and instead of becoming a troll on the Yahoo group site, just let it be. Some people are always looking for a fight, or an argument, or to exclude someone. Try to ignore this childishness and move on. I will sound like a lunchroom lady when I say this, but don't talk about others behind their backs, treat others how you want to be treated, and if you hear someone playing badly and pulling a no-no, the very best thing you can do is walk away and not participate.

Well, if you are still here (are you still here?) hopefully you aren't feeling overwhelmed right now. Homeschooling is like anything else. There are pitfalls and joys, rewards and agonies. Just keep at it and do your best. We're pulling for ya.

The Big Iron on My Hip

2011-03-28T08:29:00.002-05:00

Don't you just love spaghetti westerns? The good guys are good (white hats, clean shaven), the bad guys are bad (black hats, ugly mustaches) and the good guys almost *always* win. No one ever wonders if the the bad guys had difficult childhoods, were mentally unstable from a chemical imbalance, and they certainly never get time off for good behavior. I mean, a 3-year old knows how to work that system. Just behave until you get what you want, then WHAM! Back to naughty.

Same goes for the good guys. They didn't have crises of conscience about whacking the bad guy or hauling him off to jail (if they had the option, bad guys are notorious for violently resisting arrest). The bad guy was BAD. The good guys were attractive, Men with a capital "M". The exuded confidence, security, and righteousness. They didn't whine about their good guy status. The didn't suffer from PTSD after the fact, they got in there, kicked the bad guy's collective ass, and then moved on. Of course their job was made easier by the fact that the townspeople generally supported their good guy job description.

The townspeople didn't sit around, secretly in cahoots with the bad guy, sucking up to the good guy, but simultaneously suing for "peace and understanding". They didn't receive kickbacks from the bad guy, while publicly roasting him. If there was a shady townsperson, they were outed pretty quickly (the ugly mustaches gave them away every time). Events were just polarized in those movies.

While I understand shades of gray in real life, there's a certain magnetic attraction to the simplicity of black and white. Gray is where it gets goosey, where things aren't so decidedly good or bad.

Take my eldest, for example. Boo's 9, and has what I consider vast intelligence. But common sense? Zip, Nada, Zilch. I say that with all the love of my mother's heart. I would love for her to wake up one morning and be capable of the black and white sorts of decision-making processes. Draw on the wood wall in the sun room with pen when I get bored? Nope, ma would kill me. Stick my gum to my headboard and risk getting a wad of it in my very fine hair? Nah, that's crazy and gunky. Risky.

When it comes to that knee-jerk sort of thinking, Boo's in traction with patella failure. For her, the situation is a impulsive sliding scale. Things that my 5-year old Pickle would never attempt are possible and probable with Boo.

So then it comes back to my spaghetti-western. Treat this sort of thing as a bad guy/ good guy scenario? Take away the pens, the gum, the markers, the scissors? Insist upon hours of her scrubbing and sanding, picking up and remodeling? I do have another impressionable child to impress, for gossakes. But the shades-of-gray, sticky wicket thinking kicks in--gets me to wondering. Is this impulsiveness, this issue with attention just a part of her makeup? Was my kid born with an ugly mustache that is un-shaveable? If so, how do I continue to treat her as a good guy in her bad guy guise?

The townspeople don't make this problem any easier. We have the younger sibling that deliberately sets up situations where Boo's impulsivity is going to get tested. Then that sibling disappears into the wilderness, only to return when she hears the sound of mom clearing leather (that's a reference to drawing a gun from a holster, don't report me for suspecting that I use a whip on my kids). It's the "Woooeeee-oooheeee--ooooh" time on the range. Pickle can't resist being on the sidelines for the showdown.

"Townspeople" in the guise of doting grandma's, who "pooh-pooh" mom being so hard and unforgiving, with the "give her time off for good behavior" routine. Slipping her the proverbial metal file in the jail cell. Where did this lady come from? Is this the same woman that raised me up?

My deputy isn't so hot some times either. While daddy can be very persuasive himself when pushed into a corner, he's also usually patrolling a different neighborhood. Just the fact that he's not home for most of the "fun" means that he has a very different method when returning home. It usually involves a heart-to-heart chat with the guilty girl, followed by a bedtime story and lights-out.

So I would love to know, from all of you out there--whether your kids are "exceptional twice-over" or not- how does Mama Sheriff play this spaghetti western?

Freestyle Friday#4...uh, whoops

2011-03-27T14:28:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so it's not Friday. Whatever.

Soon, very soon, my Aztek will be mine in legal name. Yep, we're getting hitched. Considering I love it so very much, it makes sense. Will it take my last name? I never asked, maybe I should. Please, don't throw uncooked rice, it's going to hurt the birds.
My very favorite fictional character, Betsy Taylor, was killed by an Aztek. Well, killed isn't exactly the right way to put it, since she then became a vampire Queen immediately after. Whatever, it's still is one of those "connections" that makes me feel cooler than I probably should. Except Betsy hates Azteks. Her loss, I guess.
Mother Nature: I give you permission for a "do over" on Spring. This version is pathetic, un- stylish, and needs the 'ol heave-ho. You're welcome.
Residents of the House (and no, I don't mean representatives, I'm talking about my children): if I find gum, pencil drawings, or pen drawings on my walls, smashed strawberries in the carpet, hot-sauce "finger-painted" on the inside of the fridge, or any other seriously destructive messes, I have cause for eviction. You have been warned. I'm going to start expecting a hefty damage deposit and monthly rent. Pony up.
You know that Tori Amos song? The one with "...or a civilized syllabub to blow your mind" in it? Syllabub is an English dessert. Basically sugary whipped cream with wine for flavoring. Later people flavored it with stuff like lemon. The English are crazy. Just take Blancmange for example. Insanity making, there.

What's in yer noggin today? And by that, I don't really want to know what you've been drinking.....

Freestyle Friday#3

2011-03-18T09:01:00.003-05:00

Fridays are our favorite day here on the Edge of Nowhere. We all get to kick back, enjoy the daddy-man being home, and goof off. In honor of how fabulous Fridays are, I am devoting the Edge to wacky fun, off the top of my head bites. Enjoy or not, it's all the same to me!

My sister gets married in 2 days. Then next 2 days are going to be c.r.a.z.y.
I should be getting ready for story time, but instead I'm blogging. That's just how I roll.
I have the best homeschool group in the world. Hands down. Nope, yours isn't better.
We've been slowly getting back into the swing of things, homeschooling-wise. Thank whatever deity is your favorite.
Deer use my yard as a super-highway. The yard is littered with deer prints and 'poo'. Ironic that we see no deer during hunting season where we can hunt, which isn't my yard.
I turned the heat off and opened my windows last night. We live in Eastern MN. Yep, it was chilly this morning...but so worth it.
I'm going thrift-store shopping today. That makes me feel giddy.
I grind my teeth in time to music. Music that's playing only inside my head. My dentist recommends a mouth guard. What, am I going to wear it constantly??
I've been playing a lot of Fallout New Vegas lately. It's starting to affect my daily thinking...I so wish that I could use VATS in real life. Also...magazines that make me better at barter, medicine, speech, and guns? Who wouldn't want that?

So...whatcha got for me?

Freestyle Friday #2

2011-03-11T11:20:00.003-06:00

This Freestyle Friday is not wacky or fun, in light of events in Japan.

We have friends in Hawaii and in Japan. We have heard from the Hawaiian friends that they are OK. Nobody's heard from the Japanese friends yet. I truly hope that they are OK and that they are safe. I wish that they were all safe, but it sounds like between the earthquake, tsunami, and the apparent failing of their Fukushima-Daiichi power station, much of the island is becoming unsafe. Please, send your positive thoughts, prayers, and good vibes to all of our friends in the Pacific.
For a live account of what is happening in Japan, and other areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami, please visit the BBC website. They seem to offer some of the best accounting of what's happening available in English.

***Update*** While much of the region is in turmoil, it turns out that my friends in Osaka, as well as their immediate family, are OK and safe. That's a personal relief. I wish the same could be said for all the families of Japan.

Overload

2011-03-07T11:51:00.002-06:00

Today I just don't wanna.

I've been stretched to the point where my skin feels tight. If I hear the phrase, "I'm telling...MOMMY!!," once more, I might lose it and decide to become a nun. Which would be interesting, as I'm not even remotely Catholic and I like the fringe benefits marriage has. Plus, me...in a habit? Puhleez. The only way I carry that off is if I'm also wearing thigh-high fishnets and a miniskirt.

Sometimes the thing about being overloaded, is that I get this floaty, out-of-body experience. I start moving beyond feeling overwhelmed, pouty, and a victim. I become this machine of getting 'er done. I plow through the housework, just to check it off the list. I accomplish the things I've promised others...because, dammit! I promised them and I stick by what I promised. I sit with the youngest through her reading, even if it makes my eyeballs itch. I help my eldest through her lesson of mathematical triangles, despite not being able to keep straight the difference between an isosceles versus a...a...whatchacallit? Can't remember.

It's all about attitude, right? Making these choices. Keeping promises. Not throttling the little darlings because they trashed the living room AGAIN when you took that 1/2 hour nap because you feel like crud. Not rolling your eyes when they whine about "doing school" for the first time in several days.

Square your shoulders, partner. It may be a bumpy ride, but nobody's grading me on my seat.

Freestyle Friday #1

2011-03-04T16:48:00.002-06:00

I listen to the most awesomely trashy music on Pandora when I exercise. Earbuds are a must for this because the list includes explicit tracks from: Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Kesha, Lady Gaga, Metric, Enur, Timbaland, and Sean Paul. That's not even the tip of the iceberg-- when I get on the elliptical it's wild.

I would love to take my girlfriends out for a night in a club. But, since we live in the middle of nowhere, it's going to be adult beverages in my basement. Which is like a club, with fewer drunks.

My cats are mental. One is grossly fat and not graceful and the other is skinny, drools, and gives me love bites. I love my cats!

My very favorite color ever is red. Red, red, red. Friends know this and know that I'm likely to wear red lipstick to the library story time, the dentist, or the doctor when I'm seriously sick. My motto is "Slap on a little (red) lipstick, you'll be fine."

Counter-intuitive to that previous statement, I am a huge tomboy. I love to ice fish, hunt, target shoot, get mucky, and wear Carhartts. With red lipstick.

I am not a morning person. My kids are not morning people. We all wake up crabby. Refreshed, energized, and crabby. It's not a pretty combination.

Hubby-man is the finest father and hubby you could ask for. He's like a down-to-earth Superman. Plus he's gorgeous. What more could a girl want?

So that's all the Freestyle for today, what kind of off the wall things are you thinking about??

The Bittersweetness of Life Going On

2011-03-03T08:49:00.003-06:00

Amidst gearing up for my sister's wedding (only 17 days away, now!) and us being sick, then sick (and again, sick), our goofy, fun, crazy, loving family has suffered a terrible loss.

Gretch (left) with her daughter, Bino (another nickname) for Thanksgiving 2 years ago. Taken by my FIL.

Our beloved Gretch, my hubby's only remaining grandmother, passed away on February 23, 2011. She was a legend in our family, the stories too numerous and intensely personal to share on something as public as a blog. My personal impression of her (built over a very short 15 years) was of a genuine lady. She cared deeply about others, was the consummate hostess, would love to feed you full, and listened. She sent Christmas and birthday cards to each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and never once forgot--my hubby's birthday was 14 days before her passing and that card was in the mail and delivered on his birthday). Gretch was her nickname, for the first year I didn't even know that she had a different name, until a card came in the mail from a name I didn't recognize. Apparently, she didn't care for her given name. I never found out why.

Gretch's passing has been difficult for my husband's family. She was pretty sick for the last year, but the last few months were especially hard. It's assumed that she had cancer in a few different places, but Gretch was a firm believer in natural healing. She didn't want her body polluted with man-made chemicals. Ironic then, that she smoked. To be fair, she grew up in an age where smoking was "recommended by doctors" and was considered a completely acceptable thing to do. But she never once smoked in the presence of her great-grandchildren. Even in sub-zero weather, she would pop outside for her cigarette, because she knew that modern parents would be horrified to have their kids exposed. Like I said, a lady, through and through.

The surreal part about her passing is that life continues. We still have to eat, sleep, get sick, go to work, visit friends, parent our children, marry off siblings, and deal with all of the myriad stresses of life. In some ways, that's a good thing--it keeps us from succumbing to depression. In other ways, it seems downright unfair. How dare life keep going?!? We want to stop. STOP.

We want to mourn.
We want to cry.
We want to remember the sound of her voice, her hugs, her snappy way of dressing.
We want to eat her fabulous home cooking.
We want to hear her say how proud she is of us.
We want to tell her that we love her, that she's forever in our hearts.

Just one more time. For just one more day.

Gretch was a lady, through and through. She will be deeply missed.

A Farmish Kind of Giveaway

2011-03-02T10:10:00.003-06:00

Hey all! It's been awhile, I know.

I just wanted to tell you about my fabulous real-life girlfriend, MamaTea, over at A Farmish Kind of Life. You see, she has a rant up about "food rules" and it's worth the trek over there to read. Also, if you want to play, she has a fabulous giveaway offered!

Go check it out!

I've been checked into my own personal food-rules lifestyle farm as a result of some really spectacularly bad thinking. I grew up a member of the clean-plate, we're-poor-eat-it-or-it's-wasting-it, your-mama's-overweight-and-needs-to-be-on-a-constant-diet, you-skinny-little-thing-you-never-need-to-worry-about-what-you-eat club. I went to Weight Watcher's meetings as a child with my mom (not for me, remember, I was a skinny little thing) and soaked in all of the rules about points, fat, etc. I went to college and BAM! When I started making my own food choices, instead of being told what to eat (and how much) all the time, I gained 30 lbs. Then I got married and had my first child and BAM! I gained 60 lbs. Then I lost some weight, then 4 years later I got pregnant again and BAM! I gained it all back, plus some. I'm 5' 3" and when I was in college I weighed 110 lbs soaking wet. My fiance could circle my waist with just his hands (with them touching one another) without strain. I was underweight. The day I had Pickle, I was 235 lbs. I was grossly overweight. I am currently 180 lbs and working toward the goal of 135 lbs.

I have tried many diets.
I have been to a nutritionist.
I have been to my family doctor.
I have felt like a failure again and again.
I have punished myself with high amounts of exercise, followed by gratuitous amounts of bingeing.
I have lived a no-fat, low-fat, high protein, South Beach, Weight Watchers, count-the-points, fat grams, sugar, salt, calories, cholesterol lifestyle. I have been miserable.
I've had a body that I used to take for granted.
I have a body that I have hated, vilified, and have literally envisioned myself taking a knife to in strategic locations to "cut the fat out". It never occurred to me that this was dangerous thinking. That I was hurting myself with that thinking.

I am now in recovery.
I have a fantastic therapist who actually grew up the same way, understands the machinations of family loyalty, love, guilt, stress, and how it all plays a dangerous food role for people like me. People like her. People like us.
I'M not alone! I'm NOT alone! I'm not ALONE! Wow.

So while many food rules out there are unjustified, dangerous, and just plain icky, I do live by 20 rules that shape the way I look at food. Eventually these rules will become background noise in my life. I'll be able to navigate eating in a natural, non-anxiety fashion. Until then, these rules govern me, guide me:

1. Stop in the middle of your meal. Put down your fork, wait 2-3 minutes.
2. Try drinking a small, 2-3 oz glass of OJ when you are *starving*. It will help bring your blood sugar up and take the edge off.
3. Look up from your food, enjoy your company.
4. Use a fork, even if a meal doesn't warrant it. Sandwiches, pizza, toast, for example.
5. Sip a beverage between bites.
6. Break food into smaller pieces. It will help you slow down. Savor each bite.
7. Get away from food if you are pleasantly full. Cover it up with a napkin, walk away, but stop eating at that point.
8. True hunger only shows up 1-4 times per day. Wait for it, it doesn't always come at "Breakfast," "Lunch," and "Dinner."
9. Hunger is a polite burning sensation, the feeling of a knot inside your stomach.
10. Family meal time: you can bypass hunger and eat with your family, but don't make it a habit. If need be, have a small meal beforehand and just sip a beverage at the meal if it's going to be a problem.
11. Drink non-caloric beverages between meals. Sugary ones mess with your blood sugar and makes your body confused about it's hunger signals.
12. Rate foods and eat the ones you like best.
13. Wrap up leftovers, you can always have them later when hunger returns.
14. Use carryouts when eating out. Never eat a full restaurant portion.
15. If you take medications that require "a meal" to take, only eat a few crackers or something similar. It doesn't require a 5 course meal.
16. Expect your food consumption to decrease by 1/2 to 2/3 of what you were eating as an over eater.
17. Eat the snack you want to eat. The trick is eating a small portion. Don't choke down a bag full of carrots or a diet shake if it doesn't appeal to you. Have the miniature candy bar, savor it, roll it around on your tongue and really taste it!
18. If you feel like you are going to binge, distract yourself. Call someone, wash your face, do a load of laundry, take a bath. If the desire is still there, make a conscientious decision to have a miniature version of the trigger food. Better to eat with thought and control than on impulse.
19. Savor every food you eat, healthy or not. Tell yourself that you deserve it. Don't allow shame or guilt to ruin a pleasant experience. Eat what you want and break that negative magnetism.
20. Don't be afraid to "waste" or throw away food. If it just going to go to your waist, it's wasted anyway. Let your kids make their own food choices so that they learn for themselves what they like and dislike. Don't make them eat if they don't want to. Don't use food as a reward, even treats. Do something active with them instead as a "treat."

I discovered in therapy that I have a few rules of my own that have been background noise for awhile that are healthy. These include:

1. Limit alcohol. I'm more likely to binge when my inhibitions have been lowered.
2. Avoid HFCS. Your body doesn't know what to do with it and it messes with your hormones.
3. Eat full-fat foods. Low fat, no fat is usually chock full of chemicals that your body has no idea what to do with. Fat tells your body that it's full faster and it's natural.
4. Eat organic, grow our own in the summer.
5. Exercise every day. 20-40 minutes on the elliptical does wonders for my mental attitude, the natural endorphins shove my depression away, and I feel like a rock star afterward.
6. Don't ask others to be my police officer. It strains relationships and takes away my power.

That seems like a lot of rules, eh? At first, it did to me too. It was overwhelming, and I wanted to stay in denial about it. But denial is a river that only leads me back to the ugly town I already resided in. Admitting that it was a huge problem was the first step. Adopting the rules was accepting the responsibility as my own and moving forward. It's a better place to live.

-If you suspect that you are suffering from an eating disorder, the very best advice I can give you (and it is just advice, I'm not trained to be anything other than a "me") is to see your physician or a therapist. There's just too much ugliness that we can convince ourselves of on our own and having an extra mind to bounce off of has been priceless.

Take care of yourselves!

Sauce Packets and Scrappiness

2011-01-12T12:24:00.003-06:00

I knew it was going to be an interesting dinner when my two starting ingredients were saved, left-over sweet-and-sour packets from an earlier (once in a rare while) splurge of packaged egg rolls, and ramen noodles.

I know, it sounds like that commercial about the woman making soup from ketchup packets for her starving family, but it's not as bad as all that.

I just don't throw things like that out; sauce packets, I mean. They come in handy for picnics, car food, and the rare lunch box situation.

This time they were going to help make dinner.

Yes, for those that care, the food cupboard is pretty bare. I find that we get really creative (and sometimes eat a hell-of-a-lot healthier) when we are down to staples. We aren't much for packaged frankenfood, but comfort comes in easily-dreamt, easily-made meals.

Tonight is was going to be slapdash Asian in a pan. Here's what went in:
1 package of ramen noodles, crushed (the chicken flavoring packet went into the seasonings drawer, naturally!)
1/2 stick of margarine
a sprinkling of sesame seeds

I browned these three items together until the ramen and the sesame seed were golden brown. Folks that make Asian Salad will recognize this step from that recipe as well.

Next:
1lb turkey burger
approximately 20 sweet-and-sour sauce packets
generous splash of soy sauce
1 can peas

Again, using my awesome powers of browning things, I browned the burger. Once fully cooked, I added the sauce packets and soy, being careful to turn down the heat so that the soy didn't fry everything to a crisp. I gently folded in the peas, as they can smoosh easily, and then the ramen/sesame crispies.
The end result was something akin to goulash, with an Asian twist. It might not have been the healthiest dish, but it fed us and we enjoyed what we had.
In fact, it was delicious.

Keepin' it Real

2011-01-07T08:32:00.003-06:00

As I sit here at my computer, looking out at the snow falling (for the millionth time this winter), listening to the girls enjoying their morning hard-boiled duck eggs, I am struck with how real this moment is. Unrushed, lazy even, it's a snapshot of our life I can't take with a camera to show you its beauty. The day is filled with these moments, when I take the opportunity to look for them. Some of them are unpleasant: trying to identify a smear of something on a towel (do I want to use that to dry my hands?) to oh no we are sick, again?!? Others are enjoyable: playing 3 in a Row with Pickle, folding warm laundry fresh out of the dryer, and looking at Boo's newest "book creation," but all of them are real, undiluted, 200-proof moments. Straight up.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T16:18:00.001-06:00

My new year's resolution is to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy what I've got, come what may.

What's yours?

More than you bargained for.

2010-12-26T23:55:00.003-06:00

The plague came to visit us this winter.
I don't literally mean the bubonic or the ever-exciting pneumonic plague.
I mean the delicious cocktail of viral gastroenteritis, acute viral rhino-pharyngitis (think: Common Cold), ear infection, bronchitis, and general funk.
That plague.
Did we get it all at once? Were we knocked out for a week?
Nope.
Dominoes. Not the pizza kind, either. That kind would be fun. This was not fun.
One...by...one. Knocked over.
Have you ever had to unbuckle yourself in a moving vehicle to dump out the garbage can on the vanmobile's floor to catch your 5-year old's barf? I truly hope you've never had that pleasure.
I have.
Have you been woken up by different children, each night multiple times, for 5 nights running, each with a separate, serious complaint?
I have.
Have you had to discuss the...ahem, excretions from your child's backside, in a public restroom, because said child was concerned about the content, color,....ahem, liquidity? Dear God, I hope you haven't.
I got to. Ick.
Did you get to cancel play dates? Holiday plans? Wake up X-mas morning with the stomach flu yourself?
Good lordy, I really hope you didn't.
Cause then you'd be exceptionally lucky, gloriously fashionable me.
And wouldn't that be quite the coincidence?

A Work in Progress

2010-11-29T09:07:00.005-06:00

Dear reader,

I had this idea for a blog post about (homeschooling, parenting, special needs kids, personal boundaries) once. Or maybe twice.

I'd be (witty, clever, insightful, interesting) and people would flock to it and comment like crazy.

There would be lots of fabulous (photographs, artwork, recipes, quotes from famous people).

But then (the dog barfed on my foot, the kids got sick or fought, the laundry/dishes/floors needed attention, I needed a personal day, I started reading a old/new blog) and I got distracted by it.

So the post never posted. Instead my blog sat empty for months and you wondered if I was even alive anymore. I'm sorry about that.

I hope you understand.

Sincerely,

Ruralmama

Mabon Moment

2010-10-21T11:37:00.003-05:00

On September 21st we celebrated the second harvest, called Mabon in our tradition, (apples and pumpkins up here in the northern mid-west). Sadly, the apples suffered a great deal from our May freeze and many pick-your-own apple farms just weren't; you could pick up bags of apples, but not pick-your-own. We chose to pick up local apples from our local grocery store instead because the lure of an apple farm, for us, is getting out into the trees, hunting down the "perfect" apples, dragging our finds back to the pay booth, and experiencing the ambiance. I understand perfectly why the farms chose to not have a pick-you-own option this year. With the trees stressed out already, having a pile of folks climbing up and down them, pulling branches, and ignoring slightly imperfect apples would just make for an even bigger loss. We still enjoyed our apples.

The girls were learning about patterns in nature for Science and I thought it would be nice for them to get to color in their own patterns (hindsight being 20-20, I think it would have been even better for them to design their own). Interestingly enough, both of them chose to color their patterns in a balanced-color fashion.

Boo's wheel is nearly in perfect color balance. Purple signifies enlightenment, yellow signifies joy and creativity. While she doesn't know that, I find it significant.

Pickle's wheel makes me giggle, because she's got balance and yet she's got some serious impatience showing with the project. Green is for stability and blue for patience; things we need more of in this household!

Balance is a theme that runs strong in our tradition. Balance in nature, balance in spirit, balance in life. It's a theme that I'm slowly relearning, finding that I've strayed pretty far from a balanced life. I'm finding that it's necessary to sometimes defocus from what is on either end of the balance- to walk away from the the definitions of what either end means to me; to just be and live in the moment. My kids are picking up on that, spiritually. Neither girl picked out her "favorite" colors, but chose colors that are significant nonetheless!

Later in the day we had a giant campfire and enjoyed a dinner of turkey dogs roasted over it, along with hot mulled apple cider and caramel apples rolled in nuts. It was such a peaceful and joyful day and I'll hold it in my heart forever.

~ Kat Dyer created Meagan Stories for Wiccan children. These are stories told from a little girl's perspective, much like the American Girl series. They follow Meagan through a year of Wiccan celebrations, and other significant life events. You can find an index of these stories here.

When Life Gives You a Shock, Stop Rubbing Your Shoes on the Carpet

2010-10-20T09:00:00.005-05:00

First a little lovely business. I've been absent for awhile and when I popped in for a quick check-up, there was this darling award waiting for me, from Queen Bee over at Lost Person's Homeschool:
I am truly honored by the distinction. Thank you, Queen Bee, for giving me a jolt of sweetness.

This award comes with some rules, which I will duly follow, being a rule-follower:

Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. (Check. Got that one done.)
Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered. (Done, and done.)
Contact those blog owners and let them know they’ve been chosen. (Working on it!)

I am translating the "newly discovered" into "newly re-discovered" because I've been so uninvolved with blogging lately, they are new to me, all over!
So here it goes:

Thanks guys for cheering me up when I'm blue, getting me angry about injustice, and just being fabulous!

Life has been...interesting, shall we say? Discovering that "maybe you aren't as stable as you once thought your were" has been an interesting road. A road with potholes, maybe, but also a road with historic landmarks, scenic...um, scenery, and the occasional beautiful, breathtaking vista.
To back up and give you a better picture: not all is "normal" in the house-mind of Ruralmama. Well, maybe normal... I guess that's the part I'm figuring out. It seems that I've got some really whacked-out stuff going on in my head about my body image, and by "really whacked-out", I mean "this stuff doesn't work for me anymore and is making me miserable so I need to get it sorted out" stuff. As in the radio commercials for plastic surgery for the "mommy makeover" have gone from being "what the f---?" to "hmm, that sounds awesome!" As in, "Did I eat this morning? Of course I didn't, that would make me fat and miserable". Oh the irony.

"Oh the irony," because that misery already exists, up there in ye olde Ruralmama's head. Thankfully, I come equipped with a fully-functional BS meter and StubbornShield (tm), so now that I'm aware of the misery, I am facing it head on with my bullish horns lowered . I'm on the path to enlightenment... or at least the very bumpy and confusing road to healthy thinking, with the help of therapy and awesome books. I may visit this from time to time and I know that "you-all" won't mind too much because this blog is all about learning whether it's in the classroom or in my own head.

Thanks for being here.

The Lure of it All

2010-09-07T08:54:00.004-05:00

Today is a love-hate day. The first day of school in our neck of the woods, for anyone going to any kind of "away from home" school. I get a little misty, thinking of how my darlings could be gliding onto a bus, walking into a daisy fresh school, opening up brand new schoolbags full of brand new school supplies, wearing their brand-new sneakers and school clothes.

Then I remember my very first day of school.

My mom had made 3 kinds of breakfast: oatmeal, lucky charms (?!? did she think it was a treat?!?), and eggs. I ate a pile of all three, then promptly lost all of it at the bus stop, just as the bus came. I was dressed in one of three "brand new" outfits my mother had sewn for me, as we couldn't afford to buy new and my mom was a very talented sew-er. I loved my new things. I had a brand new Hollie Hobby metal lunchbox, complete with plastic drink container, that I'm sure one set of my grandparents bought. Or perhaps that was the one special brand-new item I got as a treat for my first school year.
I had a great "school day", and loved my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Heberlin, with all of my heart. No one mocked me for my hand made things. I was lucky to have a mom that worked from home, doing daycare.
Then came the bus ride home. I was very distraught that my bus driver would be unable to locate my home, a single-wide trailer in a trailer park full of other children and their trailers. My parents chuckle about it now, how big my ego must have been that I would know better than the adult bus driver how to get home, but I was truly panicked. Would I ever see my mom again? We had talked about strangers, was the bus driver one of them? Could I talk to him and tell him how to get to my home? Should I even be on this bus? He was a man, would he try to touch me in the "bad touch" way that the Kindergarten teacher warned us about? The list was endless and when I finally saw my mom, waiting for me at the end of our tiny driveway, I burst into tears and shouted "stop"!
I was home. Home was safe, home was good, and warm, and had snack time.

As an adult, I know that I magnify that day, that I idealize it and highlight the parts that make the story one worth telling. I'm probably forgetting a hundred details, glossing over the actual school day, and exaggerating things. I'm probably substituting my 3rd grade teacher's name for my Kindergarten's. But what I remember best, what seems truest to me, is that home was where there was a warm safe mom, waiting for me to come home and show her my drawings, and that somewhat later there was a daddy that I would lie in wait for, so that I could "scare" him at the doorway to be scooped up and fed and snuggled and loved.

I know that my children will have their own memories, good and bad. There are days that our voices are raw from yelling at each other, and others where our bellies hurt because we are laughing so hard. I'm sure there are days where the lure of school, a place full of other kids, is fascinating and desirable. That's fine; our way has lures of its own. Sleep in as late as we need, freedom to run when we like, go where our fancy takes us, play with our friends as long as we want. Sing loudly, roll on the floor with the dog, bake bread with mom, stay outside and play. Learn and grow together. Every day. All day long. Safe and warm and well-fed.

Homeschooling Pet Peeves

2010-08-31T09:52:00.006-05:00

Wow, did I just write that title?
It seems like I never see that title anywhere. Folks just plain don't want to talk about the less-than-savory aspects to our child-rearing choice. Possibly because we'll scare off potential initiates, or garner smirking, know-it-all looks from well-meaning friends, family, and strangers who believe (maybe even secretly) that our choice to school our children at home is wrong, weird, or evil. We'd justify that somehow, by complaining. Well, too bad folks. Go sugar coat things on your own blog.

And off we go! Pet Peeves include:

Other homeschoolers: Some of the biggest pests are your fellow homeschoolers. Remember when you (mistakenly) took little cutie pie to ECFE and everyone was comparing everything from Johnnie's Apgar score to when he learned to pee-pee in the "big boy potty"? Multiply that by 75,000. We are snobs; our way is better than your way, our curriculum is more advanced, has a fresher scent, wipes our backside better than yours. Our kids are smarter, more talented, more socialized, quirkier, have more "special needs and allergies", get along better with their siblings, and listen to us much better than yours do. Oh! Johnnie just laid the smackdown on your little Tiffany? Well, Tiffany is just a snot nosed brat. But we'll smile sweetly, give Johnnie a "time out" and take away his "privileges" for the whole day. Of course, in the car we'll ream him a new "exit strategy" as neatly as the next mom. But you won't see that.
The "Well-Meaning Public":this includes relatives and friends that don't homeschool, but think they know *everything* about it because of their long-standing relationship with you. I've had complete strangers tell me they know "all about homeschooling" and how "those kids are so advanced" as my 9 year old picks her nose and stares vacantly into space. Not to say that she's not advanced, she is (see bullet point #1). But how do they gather this information? From other homeschoolers bragging about their kids in the check-out line to bored cashiers. Again, see bullet point #1. The friends and relatives part is trickier. They mean well, they want you to know that they support you, which is nice. But. They. Don't. Get. It. When my kids are driving me up the wall, and I want to scream, the last thing I want to hear is about how lucky I am that we "have the means" to stay home with my kids. Also, if you call when we're in the middle of school and I don't answer the phone? It's. Because. We. Are. "Doing". School. Leave a thoughtful message, not a screaming, "Answer the phone..... I *know* you're home!!"
Other "Public": If I hear the question about "going back to school" one more time, I'm going postal. I swear. I don't ask your kids (that I don't know) if they like 4th grade, or would rather have the teacher with the larger breasts; don't ask my kids if they like schooling at home, what "grade" they are in, or if they would like to go to "real school" someday. This is our real school, bite me if you don't like that. Also, I might be crabby sometimes.
Your own kids: Yup, I said it. The little ankle-biters themselves. Some mornings are idyllic; then "they" wake up and the day is shot to hell. They whine about doing schoolwork, they want your constant attention, they interrupt your conversations incessently, they expect you to "play with them" all day long. You ask them to clean their room? They have a giant mind-blowing tantrum. You say no to a toy or candy at the store? They act like you beat them. You try to explain to them that you don't *have* to homeschool them...that they can pack up and go to the nearest PS down the road, that you have a career you'd like to pursue one day? They cheer like they've been chained to a wall all day, or cower like you've threatened them with death. You can't win. Little Johnnie will be an all-star reader one day (after all, see bullet point #1) but the next day getting him to admit that he knows the soft 'a' sound is like pulling teeth without anesthetic. Your teeth. You take them to a playdate that they've been waiting for all week and they hover over you like there's a 15-foot bungee cord connecting the two of you and they're afraid it's going to break. If you have siblings they constantly fight, bicker, and harbor bruises and scratches from when the fighting got serious over the Polly Pockets. You love them...and that's why you don't commit....well, you get the drift.
Your spouse: Oh, sure. (S)he supports you. But when? Between their job and the occasional "honey-do" list item, there is about 3 waking hours of the day that they can listen, offer advice, and actually *do* something with the little darlings. And the advice? "Calm down, dear." Gosh, I hadn't considered that. What a fabulous plan! I'll just "calm down" while little Johnnie is in full-power tantrum over adding single digit numbers (when he's capable of adding 4 or 5 digit numbers without using an abacus). I bet that's going to help tremendously! They also have no clue what you "do" for school and really don't want to hear about the newest fabulous technology in handwriting. Really. They'll listen, but they don't really care. Just make your choices, spend the money, and we-as-the-spouse will be happy as long as our kids speak decently and aren't too ignorant. Also, when's dinner?
Librarians: Actually, I can't complain about librarians. They are fabulous and one day when I grow up I want to be one.

That's the short list. There are individual annoyances and irritations in each of those categories and someone should write a book about those (winks at best girlfriend, MamaTea). But there it is.... I believe it includes....everybody? Everything? Yep. Just about.

A new challenge!

2010-08-23T08:07:00.002-05:00

Here's my big confession: I have an Inner Mean Girl.
She's judgmental, a gossip, a "compare-r", and she expects too much of me.

So we're getting rid of her. Hopefully, for good!

I'm taking the Inner Mean Girl Cleanse challenge.

Wanna get rid of your Inner Mean Girl? Come join us and we'll all kick their rears out.

Life on Fast Forward

2010-08-20T17:10:00.004-05:00

Make and bake 3 loaves of bread while simultaneously boiling half a dozen eggs for the family breakfast. Feed dogs, cats, and fish. Take dogs out for a pee break. Dress self in workout clothes, wake kids, prod kids into dressing, brushing teeth, and brushing hair. Chop veggies, eat hard-boiled eggs and chopped veggie goodness, chase kids downstairs. Remember to drink a glass of water. Breathe.

Clean "zone"- new idea for keeping household looking halfway decent: clean one area each day thoroughly, wash dishes, throw in a load of laundry. Workout for 45 minutes on fabulously free new Crossbow (think Bowflex), do at least 90 sit-ups, drink some water, take a shower, re-dress. Breathe.

Deal with some more laundry, run errands, come home and make lunch, eat, drink some water, remind kids that school starts soon, take out something for dinner. Take dogs out for #1 & #2. Breathe.

Sit down with girls. Work on math (multiplication for Boo, number bonds with Pickle), reading/phonics, handwriting, spelling, language arts, science, and social studies. Handle tantrums that erupt. Chase kids outside, drink some water. Breathe.

Take dogs outside for a brushing, brush those doggy teeth!, read for a peaceful 30 minutes. Pick ripe veggies in the garden. Admire garden. Push a kid on a swing, push a another kid on another swing, field argument that erupts about who got more/better pushes. Take veggies and dogs inside; leave kids in yard to argue. Breathe.

Begin making dinner, answer phone call from dad/hubby/sister/best friend. Calm said person down/ congratulate them/ console them/ complain at them. Hang up phone, call kids in, check on dinner. Wash more dishes, have I checked the laundry in a while?, chase kids downstairs so that mommy can have 10 minutes peace and quiet, thank you! Breathe. Pant a little, but breathe.

DADDY'S HOME!
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK......SCREEEEEAAAAAAM!

"What did you do all day, my lovely?"
"Aw, nothing much."

Drink some more water. Breathe.

The Play's the Thing

2010-08-02T14:10:00.004-05:00

I am so incredibly proud of my darling eldest daughter. Recently she auditioned for Prairie Fire Theater's summer rendition of Robin Hood. She was guaranteed a part, so we weren't worried about not getting picked (these plays are put on through Community Education and we paid a fee to participate). What we weren't prepared for was that she'd get a speaking role.
Here she is, in the orange outfit and puffy pigtails as Rimshot.
Literally, her role was to say "Ba-Dum Ching!" when the blond gal in the Marx glasses told a joke or riddle.
What she ended up doing was stealing the show(Grandpa, a very non-objective audience member agreed). They cast her so perfectly, captured her personality so incredibly well, it was just....erm...incredible.
I think we're in major trouble, because this kid is now addicted to theater. Somehow I'm not surprised that we produced a drama queen. But when your reward for a job well done is close to 30 roses and carnations (12 came from her boyfriend and his brother and mom) I guess it's no surprise she wants to do it again.

Bugs Don't Bug Her

2010-07-16T21:23:00.005-05:00

Remember those daughters of mine?

Well, Boo, the eldest is infatuated with bugs. She calls butterflies "faerie folk" and builds them houses and play equipment. Seriously.She rescues drowning June bugs.
She kept a house spider named Starcross above her top-bunk bed (near her head!) until Starcross had babies and died. The babies moved elsewhere.
Maybe it's because I think bugs are neat too and we've never shown any fear of the critters.
Maybe it's because we play catch-and-release with them and learn all about them as they flit into our life.
Maybe this should have been a sign.

Maybe it's because bugs seem to have a similar fascination to us.

But what it all amounts to is a kid that just plain likes creepy crawly stuff.

I like that kid.

Take these kids fishing...please!?!

2010-07-15T09:45:00.004-05:00

You see, I have these two daughters.

They are clearly insane, sometimes.

But they love to fish. Love every part of it- from baiting a hook with a wriggly worm or sticky leech to watching the adults fillet them (hey, we want to actually eat them--the filleting lessons come later). They think it's hilarious when one flops a bit when you have it all cut open. The find it amusing that the fish heads "talk" even after they are bodiless.

Like I said, clearly insane.

But their parents love to fish too and this poses a problem. Their casting skills are fine, as long as you want to be hooked in the eye. Their parents get tired of re-casting their lines every 30 seconds (because they catch the teeniest sunnies and perch, which hit their line approximately every 35 seconds)

Enter the cane pole.

The beauty of a cane pole is that there is no reel. Just sturdy line, attached directly to the end of the length of pole, with a cork bobber (attached with rubber band, so it can be adjusted) and a hook tied to the end. We even learned the fancy fisherman's knot at a state park event in order to attach the hook. Fancy. But not. No casting, just lift the pole up out of the water to see if you still have bait, then drop it back in.

So drop your line in the water girls! Fish away.

It's Oh! So quiet.....

2010-07-12T09:30:00.007-05:00

It's oh, so still!

My darlings are spending a few extra days "up north" with Grandma and Auntie.

Mama is getting some much-needed alone time. Not that I was becoming unhinged or anything....no, really! But I need a major curriculum overhaul. I've been feeling a little insecure without a framework in place. Since that feeling bubbles up annually, I'm at least not panicking. So I've been researching up a storm, picking my darling friend's brains (a little mushy, but top shelf!), and making a few choices:
*(asterisks indicate curriculum that both girls will be using, at different levels)

*Handwriting Without Tears- Because Dysgraphia and other "quirks" run rampant in our home and this program was designed to be therapeutic.
*Singapore Math- I have heard at least 5 personal friend gush about this curriculum. That's good enough for me!*Scott Foresman Science- a free science curriculum, thanks to Arty Grandma, who nabbed grades 1-3 for us from the school system she works for. I love it when schools get rid of the "samples" they receive every year. We've gotten some amazing stuff this way. The site has some freebies that appear to be open to anyone visiting.Dance Mat Typing- Since Boo has trials with handwriting, I thought a fun stab at typing would boost her confidence in a somewhat similar area.
The Mosaic Introduction to Timelines- If you have trouble keeping your historical ducks in a row, this is for you....and me.Sequential Spelling- Path finding is a skill that children with different "quirks" find difficult. Oddly enough, spelling is a sort of path finding (think "rule minding") activity. What I like about Sequential Spelling is that words are grouped together by adding on to a root word. Ex. all, tall, stall, install, installment, installation. It's not about "rules", it's about grouping words together that build onto one another.
Hooked On Phonics- Pickle has completed (quite a while ago, actually) HOP 1, and so we're moving onto HOP 2. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow this from my sister, who has children similarly aged. Since her kids have "quirks" too, we find it pretty easy to borrow a set at a time and not both need the same set at the same time.
Premium Education Series Language Arts for Grade 3- This is easily found on Rainbow Resource. I just like that it's uncluttered and non-stuffy. It gets you right into the nuts and bolts of nouns, pronouns, etc. We pair this up with some fun games over at Sheppard Software.
Learning Horizons Grade 1 Ultimate Skill Builder- You can find these all over the place. I think we got ours at Walmart (aside: they actually have school supplies out already, can you believe it?!?). Since I think the most important thing you can learn in Grade 1 is how to read well and basic math, this works pretty effectively for Pickle.

So I think I'm ready. I think I've got nearly everything covered. Whew!
Onto some more Summer fun then, Ma!

Make With the History

2010-06-28T15:01:00.005-05:00

Those of you that know me through my blog, or in real life, know that I have a real problem with "revisionist" style history. Blunt edges and cute fables do not teach our children diddly-squat. It might teach them how to write creative fiction, although they'd then need to understand that it was creative fiction they were learning, instead of historic fact, right? Right.

In an effort to teach my kiddos true historic facts, I've learned one important thing: nobody writes it! Or, only a few, obscure people write it...and always with an adult, college-professor level voice. It takes a patient mom to read this stuff aloud to her kids, one that is willing to stop constantly to define terms, explain circumstances, and dole the stuff out in bite sized chunks. Daily, if possible. But still, you've got to find the great resource first.

Well, I've got a doozy for you. It might be a little much, actually. But we're going to give it a shot, because Boo asked why we celebrate the 4th of July. I generally wait until this type of question gets asked before I tackle a big historic event like this, because then she's committed to the subject in some way. The resource is They Signed For Us e-book on the fabulous-looking site Free K-12 Education.

The e-book is utterly free(duh! Free K-12 Education?), which I love. No signing up for anything, no hoo-hoo. I also love that each chapter talks about 5 or so of the signers at a time, outlining some of the scary trials and tribulations, scandal and life-threatening danger these men went through in order to give us democracy. It's real history folks, not a bunch of WASP guys sitting in a hot room in white-powdered wigs talking about their privaleged lifestyles as some folks would have you believe. These folks were FED UP and wanted serious real change (side note: are there REAL MEN [or PEOPLE, if you're going to get cranky] in politics anymore? Discuss.). They were willing to go to war and fight for their rights, not just discuss them in a committee (and I ALWAYS here Queen Padme Amidala in my head when I think the words "discuss them in a committee").

Back on track. I'm really excited about this e-book and even if it takes us awhile to tease out the meaning of each chapter, I'm all for it. I want my 9-year old to really understand that this upcoming weekend isn't about fireworks, beer, and hot dogs (although we'll celebrate that part too). It's about freedom. It's about 56 patriots who were ready to stand on their own and not take any crap from England anymore. And no-George Washington wasn't one of them!

(By the way, I snagged the above image from US History.org)

Thoughts

2010-06-24T23:19:00.006-05:00

I know. Before you get all cranky on me and ask me where the heck I've been for most of a year, hear me out.
Do you know how homeschooling can be sometimes, when your kids are totally "on" and you work for 3 months straight and they leap halfway through the grade they're in, in just 3 months? And big important things happen, like your Cecropia moths, which you've tried raising from caterpillars for the 3rd year running, finally make it and hatch?
And I know that you know how it is when you can't remember when the last time you did something...you know, school-y. You just free-learn, absorbing every moment like it's the last great moment you'll ever have.

Well, that's the way it's been. Both ways. So the blog took a big, long nap. I can't promise that we'll be here every day, sharing our path. But we're still on that path and living it. :-)

The Columbus Trap

2009-10-12T15:13:00.004-05:00

Remember "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492"--that obnoxious song they'd make you sing in grade school? I caught myself humming it this morning after reading about it on Facebook. Then considered teaching it to my children. But I stopped myself just in time when I remembered that it's part and parcel of the Columbus Trap....

The Columbus Trap is really only one of many aspects to the National Holiday Trap. The National Holiday Trap lures us into thinking that "this year" we are going to tackle teaching the history of things like Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, and President's Day to our very young children (pre-4th or 5th grade). This necessitates us dumbing down the events to the point where some kids think Martin Luther King Jr is still living, because they weren't allowed to learn that he was foully murdered. In public. With lots of onlookers. We also don't learn important aspects of the the history of why Martin Luther King Jr. was important, that Malcolm X was chatting up folks around the same time and why their two philosophies were so different. Nope! We learn that "folks of all colors should just get along". Good advice, and I stand by it, but the why is just as important. Learning ridiculous rhymes to remember dates and names hearkens back to sitting in my 3rd grade class with drool running down my chin because I had fallen asleep with my mouth open. We homeschoolers aren't immune to the trap either; the conversation on FB was pretty much an all-homeschooler event.

I understand the concern behind wanting to teach about these important historic moments/events/sections of time. We just went through a unit on the Alamo with the girls using a very clever book about a woman named Susanna who played an important role in the battle and aftermath. But rather than dumbing it down to the level of "bad guys hurt people and they were not happy about it so they stopped the bad guy" we read about "El Presidente" from Susanna's point of view as a young mother. It's a true story and very gripping. The illustrations gave just enough information too--you got the impression that men had died, but without the gore and "vomit factor". Kids need to understand that our history isn't perky and sparkly--it's bloody and violent, but fascinating. I hated history as a kid; as an adult I am gripped by it. Now we are doing a unit on the attack of the Bay of Pu'uloa, also known as Pearl Harbor. It's told from a child's point of view, of a woman who was a child civilian living in the bay at the time, whose parents chose to stay there after the attack (her mother was a native and it was the only home she'd ever known). But again, it's not dumbed down, there are real pictures of her and her two year old brother in their gas masks, demonstrating how to wear them. Rationing is discussed, as well as scavenging and finding shell casings stuck in the kitchen wall. It rivets my kids to their seats. And, it's true.
So much of what we learned in grade school history was flat out lies, or dumbed down so much that it was nearly a lie. Take Thanksgiving, for example. Cracks me up every time I hear that someone's kid participated in the Thanksgiving Day Play--the Addams Family rendition of it in the movie where Pugsley and Wednesday go to camp is more accurate! We need accuracy, we need truth when talking about history, otherwise people like Martin Luther King Jr. become "that nice man that was in that black and white video we watched who talked about dreaming". And President's Day becomes the day we all get good deals at the car dealership.

My solution is to take these events and find one good honest book with good pictures or honest illustrations to read with my kids over an extended period of time, say 3 or 4 weeks. We talk about each chapter afterward and during. We don't suddenly decide to teach the entire philosophy and journey of Columbus on the 12th of October, because it would be somewhat insulting to him and us--we all deserve to discuss the ramifications of his errors and triumphs at length. And to understand his drive and his blind-sightedness and his brilliance. It gives us the opportunity to look at both sides of the historical coin--our book on Pearl Harbor discusses the Japanese mind-set during this period and there are photos of their side of the event as well. Sure, we aren't always working on a historical moment on the day our nation celebrates it, but who cares? The importance is in the understanding, not to be able to dress up like pilgrims and turkeys and natives on a specific day. Avoid the trap; it's not satisfying to fall into it.

Goblins of the Flargg

2009-10-07T19:52:00.004-05:00

It got your attention, didn't it? To answer your question: it's a Magic the Gathering card.

Speaking of Magic and Mysterious Mayhem, Super Dad and I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival (cue sweet music here). It's a yearly event for us to celebrate our anniversary (13 years ago I said "Sure, I'll marry you," and 9 years ago we actually tied the knot--yes...the 4 year engagement was on purpose, we were in college!) Here's us all decked out before leaving in the AM....
Yes, that's cleavage, Virginia. Lots of it.....

We met up with MamaTea (bug her for pics--she's got some good ones, I'd fathom). I'm going to post another pic later (it's on Super Dad's phone) that has her, her mom, and Ooky in it. Iggy stayed home; apparently duck hunting is more interesting. :-) We went sans kids (remember: anniversary!) but I guess she took some flack from somewhere or another about taking her boy. Because of all the BOOBS, naturally. As if they aren't there, underneath the clothing regularly.
Barmy, if you ask me.
'Scuse me, reading too much Harry Potter lately. I'll get back to speaking standardized American English sometime next year. Really, it's in my New Year's Resolutions list and everything.
Enough! Go bug MamaTea for pics. And yes, all the garb above was hand fashioned by me. MamaTea's too (but not her mom's or most of her son's).

Return to the Edge

2009-10-02T19:16:00.003-05:00

Yep, I've been-shall we say- absent from the Edge of Nowhere, for nearly a month. Call it a blog-cation, if you will. I needed a major break. So it happened.

We've begun doing a sort of "workbox" related school day. The girls both have several subjects (math, reading/phonics, writing, Spanish, music, science and history) that they can choose from, my only requirement is that each subject is tackled in some way each day. There are several options for each subject. Some subjects I have to coordinate (history for example, many of the books would be a major chore for the girls to read themselves, but having it read to them works dandy) others they are completely responsible for. We have this nifty magnetic chore board that has cute little magnets to stick where you've completed a task: when all tasks are completed for the day they get to watch a movie. It seriously limits our TV time, which can only be a good thing, in my opinion.

The funny thing is: it takes them about 2 hours to complete every single thing! So from 9 am to 11am they work like bunnies and then the rest of the day is blissfully free of worrying about what subject they may not have tackled. Most of the time they are finished by 10:30. It's been a really great option for us; I feel like they are actively doing stuff (remember, we live in MN, so pretty soon it's going to be long, cold, dark days!) that constitutes as "school" and then we do chores and baking and all sorts of "non-school" stuff (ha ha ha, I know some of you are chuckling over this "school" vs "non-school" thing as well). So I'm deeply in love with the concept.

Boo will be participating in a homeschool group project fair this winter and I'm so excited for her. Her topic choice? Making your own books. Since she's pretty much an expert on the subject, I suppose all of the books we are checking out from the library on the subject might be construed as overkill, but it's something she truly loves. On the "disgraphia" note, since we are talking about writing here, we have since learned that it's actually "symbolic disorder"--another kettle of fish to stir, I guess. But at least we can enjoy the idea that her handwriting could see improvement.

The neuropsychologists also mentioned in their report that, while they cannot fully diagnose ADHD without observation in a 2nd setting (ie. school), they are suggesting that it's present. I find it interesting that they can't fully diagnose my daughter because she doesn't participate in school; does this suggest to anyone else that ADHD is a fabrication of the education system? Particularly when we ask children to sit at a desk for 8 hours straight, I find it incomprehensible that any child isn't diagnosed with the "disorder". I'm surprised they don't hand out the pills with the school lunch! Strangely enough, I'm not opting to dose my 8 year old! I know it's so radical!

Pickle has rapidly progressed from knowing her letters and their sounds to reading! Magical. Simply magical. Again, life presents me with the example of how two children, coming from the same genetic material, can have such different experiences with learning a new concept. We also had an odd moment; a cousin was over who is only 6 weeks younger than Pickle. She's plowing through learning all about tally marks in math and my nephew was unable to identify any of the numbers beyond his age. It was weird because I get a bit of crap from my sister about homeschooling on occasion and here was an excellent example of how, although she's been adamant about sending her kids to preschool 3 days a week when they are 3 years old because "they'll be so much smarter (her ideology, not mine), here was evidence of the opposite. The child at home is plowing through (with ease) Kindergarten work (what is expected of K now, when I was a kid it was little better than daycare with a milk break) while her son is clearly just a normal preschooler. Mind you, the only reason Pickle is doing what she's doing is because she's chosen to do it. She's driven to match her sister's abilities and it's an internal thing, not something I actively promote.

Well, Boo's begging for a bedtime story--gotta pull back!

Minute Update

2009-09-10T15:36:00.000-05:00

Call it a brag sheet or whatever:

* 22 half pint jars of apple butter.
* 3 pint jars of apple butter
* 2 quart bags of frozen kholrabi.
* 2 quart bags of frozen zuchinni.
* 7 quart jars of galic,dill, and coriander pickles.
* Pickle has sucessfully completed the 1st HOP cards and now knows her ABC's and their sounds backwards and forwards. That doesn't mean we'll stop practicing, however.
* We are 1/4 through 2nd grade math for Boo and K math for Pickle. I love year-round school!
* 8 sunfish and 3 small mouth bass caught and eaten over Labor day weekend. Yum!
* Joined a new homeschool group for fall/ winter gym-time.
* Completed 3-month goal of weight lifting and cardio. Two sizes smaller, 3 months later. Yeehaw!
* The aforementioned apple butter? Picked 5 full paper grocery sacks of apples from Great Aunt Harriet's. I'm keeping one bag, which netted us the butter and probably will create at least 12 pies to freeze. Didn't even make a dent in her supply, either.
* Super dad is participating in the early antlerless hunt this year. Not to count my chickens too soon, but jerky and venison sausage here I come!

Who Knew?

2009-09-03T09:41:00.005-05:00

It's really such a short amount of time.

4 years... it just flew by!

I remember holding you for the first time. So tiny. So perfect.

Happy Birthday, little lady!

Sucked In

2009-08-29T09:06:00.000-05:00

Ihave been bloggy-negligent! My sister is marrying her high school sweetheart (after they both had other, failed marriages) and I've been swept up in the wedding planning process. Bridesmaid dress here I come! The wedding is set for May and while we have plenty of planning time, neither spouse-to-be had a special first wedding (my sister's first was in our parent's livingroom and I missed the actual ceremony because I was changing her firstborn's diaper! Her hubby-to-be's first was in a hospital chapel).They are also paying for everything themselves so the extra time is good--we can look for good deals that way.

I've also been incredibly busy proofreading and editing my dear mom-in-law's dissertation. It's a big job, and it'll be fun to call her Dr.Gramma when it's all done. Oh, and get paid big bucks too
No wonder I'm so absent!

Our "Classroom"

2009-08-21T06:39:00.008-05:00

When we "sit down and do some school" (my kids think of this as a sort of game we play) we do it in our "classroom"--other times these rooms are known as the dining room and the sun room, respectively. We were blessed with a gigantic dining room when we moved "up north"--in an average split-level home built in the 1970's (in MN), this room would have traditionally been the living room, but the previous owners preferred having a place for their 4-person family to eat instead of vegetate and I approve of their choice. Who needs all of this space for watching T.V. when you can have it to play school in? Oh, and eat.

Left side of the "classroom", looking southeast.

Right side of the "classroom", looking westerly. Yes, that is a wax-resist watercolor of Darth Vader.

Our sun room doubles as a library. These are only the "school" books.
The girls have two more bookshelves in their room devoted to leisure reading.
Super Dad and I have our own library down the hall, attached to our bedroom.

But aren't we wild, rogue, unschoolers? Don't we sit in a happy circle, braiding daisies into our hair and wearing hemp? You know better than to make that mistake! Besides, hemp clothing makes me itch and daisies in the hair would make poor Boo collapse in a heap of allergy-ridden sneezing. Think work boxes and rewards. Think of lots of options with satisfaction at the end. Think of kids who've never been in a real classroom, so they think this stuff is fun and choose to do it.

A Day in the Life: Father Hennepin State Park

2009-08-18T17:15:00.007-05:00

I love state parks. For 25$ a year, you can travel to any of the 60-odd state parks in MN and have amazing adventures. Here is a photo diary of our recent one:

Let's find shells on the beach...

and use them in our sandcastles.

The 3-year old wants to dig and get soaked? Why not...

Let's find crayfish and minnows in Lake Mille Lacs...
and look at their boneyard above the tideline.
"My spirits are flying!" says Pickle. Mine too.
Let's go geocaching..
and have fun looking, even if we don't find the location.

Let's hold hands on the trail...
and find weird toadstools,

and giggle when stick-insects climb on Super Dad.

Let's trek the 1/2 mile to Pope Point, and marvel at the house on the tiny island.
Let's wonder: How did they build it? How do they get to and from home? Do they have a mortgage and insurance?
Let's enjoy a day in the life of the free.

Frass Revisited

2009-08-14T09:20:00.004-05:00

I think I may have a weird reputation now; that's fine, it's cool.

Topsy raised the question of "why do you raise caterpillars?" and I thought that there may be a few more folks out there wondering as well. The short answer is that we are complete nutjobs and it gives me good blogging material.

The long answer is that one of the best ways to truly understand how something happens is by observing it and directly interacting with it. Sure, we could pore over 30 websites about caterpillars, watch a dozen videos, go to a butterfly garden, and gather up books galore on the process, but something really magical will happen for my girls when those Cecropia Moths pop out of their cocoons next Spring. They will have directly interacted with, observed, and cared for these moths.

Both of them already know that there are very distinct differences between moths and butterflies (something they never quite understood before). They anticipate each instar and enjoy watching the bigger, greener caterpillar emerge from its old skin with multicolored spines now, instead of just black. Who knew that Cecropia caterpillars have red, yellow, and blue bases to their spines? Sure, they could have seen that from a picture, but up close and in-person is so much better.

Then there is the environmental side of raising the caterpillars. Prairie is becoming a thing of the past, wildlife refuges, and the occasional soul that feels the drive to revert old farmland to prairie. While I personally don't have the resources for massive projects like that, I can encourage prairie life to exist and appreciate its growing. I can choose to release them into our backyard (we will do this with several of the caterpillars, only keeping 4 or 5 in the cage to watch the cocoon over the winter) and encourage their numbers to flourish (they are native to the area; we are not introducing non-native species into our ecology). I can encourage my kids to have a direct appreciation for wildlife, even on our little green acre.

That's why we raise them and put up with all the frass.

Oh Frass!

2009-08-13T13:05:00.003-05:00

We are raising Cecropia moth caterpillars. We got them from a very nice lady who's mission it is to return an ancient farm to prairie, (you should visit her to see pictures--she does a fabulous job of showing you all that is involved) and while the experience is cool and interesting...there is the issue with frass.

Frass is caterpillar poo. It's black and spiny; when the caterpillars are tiny their frass is tiny, but as the caterpillars grow, so does their frass. Frankly, it's a pain the 'frass' because you need to clean it out of the cage, lest the caterpillars get sick and die. My father, Landscaper Grandpa, finds this especially amusing. "Teach them to potty in a toilet, dear" is basically the kind of humor I'm getting at here, "You know, wild caterpillars clean up their own poo, maybe yours are just mentally deficient". And so on. He also finds it hilarious that I'm out clipping Oak and Lilac leaves for them to munch, "You know they can find those on their own in the wild, where they're from". Ha, ha, daddy dearest. These caterpillars are, alas, dependent on our good natured interest in their life-cycle, at least enough to feed them. And apparently deal with their frass.

I decided not to include pictures of what cleaning the cage looks like--it would nauseate you.

We have perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-50 caterpillars, all 'frassing' themselves silly--since their cage is outside on a table we were very nearly "knee-deep in frass". Their cage consists of a winter dog dish (the large kind that plugs into a wall in the winter so that the water stays defrosted), with a column of two-layered netting (chicken wire and aluminum screen to keep out predators), topped with a piece of 2 ply plastic held onto the top with a headband. Inside the cage is a ice-cream bucket with lid, with holes punched in the top and water inside--this is for keeping the leaves from drying out too fast. The caterpillars cling to the leaves, chomp their way through 5 instars (stages where they outgrow their skin and get bigger) and create lots and lots of frass. Oh, and the water inside the bucket gets nasty too, even though technically the caterpillars come nowhere near it. Cleaning the cage involves pulling out the dead leaves, pulling out the water bucket, washing it and the base with soap and water, and then putting the entire setup back together with fresh leaves. This you must do once a week, sometimes more when the caterpillars get bigger and eat more.

I encourage you to imagine the frass involved. No, really, I do. Enjoy the mental image.

Te Quiero, Ich Liebe Dich, Kimi o ai shiteru, (Mä) rakastan sua!

2009-08-12T13:08:00.004-05:00

My Girls on National Night Out (with face painting)

(The title is "I Love You in the following languages {each of which someone in our family speaks}: Spanish, German, Japanese, Finnish)

Um....

2009-08-10T22:34:00.004-05:00

I've been having one of those weeks where my brain is just numb and dumb, ya know? I nearly can't even speak properly, let alone be....um, smart sounding. You see? It's all just wonky in there this week.

Low level cold? Allergies with sinus headachy thingy? Stroke? Can't figure it out.

Must just be August.

Interruptions

2009-08-06T11:52:00.005-05:00

I hate when our day gets sidetracked. Now, I'd classify myself as a Type-A personality: a bit obsessive about order and sticking with 'the plan', but I can be pretty flexible as well. However, when we are in the middle of a major learning breakthrough (this time it was in Math) I hate this:

(Ding dong) "Bark, bark, bark, bark!'

(Me slowly walking to the door, grumbling, then stopping to open the door) "Hello, what can I help you with?"
(Cheerful missionary for the Jehovah's Witnesses) "Oh Hi ____(my name, she knows me--remember, small town?). I thought I'd just stop in and see how you are all doing"
"Fine ____(her name), say we're right in the middle of school--now's not a good time..."
"Oh! OK! Homeschooling is going well then?" (My cat, who is an indoor cat, sneaks out)
"Oh shoot! I gotta grab him, he's not an outdoor cat"
"Oh! I'll get him"
"Uh, that's OK--he's going to just run.....(chase cat, catch him) there, I got him (and now my nice clean white socks are sodden and dirty, thank you very much)".
"Well, is it OK if I just leave these current newsletters with you? I just love looking over your garden....my tomatoes don't look as nice as yours....."
"Uh, yeah. (distracted by kids jumping up and down inside, to see if I got the cat....frantic, impatient noises)"
"Oops. I'll let you go. I'll catch up with you later" (over my dead body, I think).

What is acceptable here, people? With the phone, I can shut the ringer off. Our house is built with this huge picture window, which looks right out over our entry (it's a split level house)--I can't pretend I'm not home effectively enough, plus I abhor the idea of hiding out in my own home. In fact, it makes me a little mad! I don't tromp around to other's houses chatting people up about Wicca and how we'd all be better off if they'd just profess their undying love for the Lord and Lady (not that I even particularly do....but it's the principle of the argument here). I try to live my life by the principle that "good fences makes good neighbors" and for the most part I find that to be working. I don't want to gut this lady--she's a genuinely nice person, who's been told multiple times by both myself and my husband that we are not interested. But she continues, probably because it's a part of her faith to spread the Jehovah message far and wide.

What would you do, dear readers? I'm not asking about faith here, so don't get confused--I'm not looking for a dissertation on how I should become a faithful Christian or that I'm being tested because I'm an evil Pagan and this is God's way of trying to wake me up-- what I'm looking for here is an acceptable way of ignoring or avoiding the door when it's obvious we are home, but are busy. Is it just a change in my mindset that I need to make--that the door isn't a priority therefore I don't have to answer it? Help a girlfriend out here!

School Supplies

2009-08-03T10:55:00.002-05:00

If the school supply fairy came to your door today and gave you carte blanche, what would you ask for?

I ask this, because Teller Grandma has suddenly become the school supply fairy (probably because of the great deals right now) and I'm compiling a list for her. It's heady and exciting and fun. My nephew is in public school, but she feels the grandmotherly pull of making things equal for all of her grandkids, even for us homeschooler folks that don't get as crazy about the "back to school" frenzy.

So what would you ask for?

Pheasant Nuggets

2009-07-30T16:55:00.003-05:00

I know that this is going to sound like a totally off-the-wall recipe, but trust me my kids loved them, gobbled them, and asked for more.

Here's what you need:
1 pound of pheasant, cut into small chunks
1 cup all-purpose flour
seasoned salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup dry potato flakes
1/2 cup Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

A deep fryer

Pulverize cereal. Mix dry stuff into a bowl; set aside. Mix milk and egg. Dip raw pheasant into milk mix, then dip into dry mix. Deep fry at 375 degrees until golden brown.

I served these with the best dinner rolls I've ever had. The dough was formed and mixed in my bread machine and then baked. When making anything in a bread machine, it's imperative that you do so in the order listed, or it tends to come out all wrong.

You need:

1 C water

2 TBSP softened butter

1 egg

3 1/4 All purpose flour

1/4 C sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tsp yeast (either regular or bread machine)

My machine calls for using the "sweet dough" cycle. When finished, grease a cookie sheet. Divide into 15 or 16 balls, place on sheet at least 2 inches apart. Brush with butter. Cover and let rise for 30-40 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

Bon appetite!

Pancakes Anyone?

2009-07-28T07:32:00.003-05:00

I didn't include the recipe, as it's been in every Betty Crocker Cookbook since the 1930's, but you already know how to make pancakes, right?

I included this picture, of a very upset Boo, eating her pancakes to illustrate how moody my child can be. You see, she is cutting her own food now (Dysgraphia messes with fine motor function, so up till now she's been essentially unable to) and she was very frustrated with her results, a very common side-effect for children with Dysgraphia.

Here's Pickle, diving into the food as usual. This child will eat nearly anything, especially if it's not moving too fast. Each time we are outside in our wooded acre she finds something she thinks is edible and will bring it to me to check out. Obviously these pancakes were fabulous, just look at that face!

Kids should bake. Yeah, it's messy. Yeah, it takes some parent involvement. Yeah, sometimes they lose interest and you're stuck with a mess of cookie dough to bake (or worse, eat raw), but it's worth it. Because what they bake, they eat. There was only one pancake left over from the batch and I didn't get a single one.

Dala Girls

2009-07-26T22:08:00.002-05:00

Our local county fair was this last week, and while we looked at tons of chickens, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, horses, cows, goats, and pigs; this horse and the cute girls guarding it was the picture that nails it for our area. This is in fact, the largest Dala horse around. Aren't you jealous?

Seatwork Inspiration

2009-07-20T11:53:00.005-05:00

I was really inspired to teach some art units by reading about the art units that Sadie at It's a Boy's Life is doing with her boys. They are really amazing and when you learn that she created them herself (with some Waldorf inspiration) it's even more impressive. You should go check out her Art Unit 1, 2, and 3 to see what I mean.

We did a pile of seat work today, with no tears! This is what I mean about unschooling; if the kids are interested in the work, seat work should not be banned for unschoolers. Remember: It's all kid-directed!

First, both girls worked on some Math. Artist Grandma had grabbed a bunch of Math textbooks and manipulatives off of a pile of them left at her elementary school by representatives. These materials were going to be tossed, or given to the university (she also works there) as examples for new teachers. Instead, some came to us for use in our homeschool. Boo is currently working on adding 3 numbers together; Pickle is working on number formation (a handwriting skill since she already knows how to count). Both did very well. I noticed that Boo is very capable of writing her numbers inside of the little boxes provided on the sheet. Why is this any different from writing on a line? I have no clue. It just is. Maybe that's something we take away from math; boxes for writing in work somehow.

Next up was reading. Boo consistently picks books at the library that are way beyond her skill level! While I encourage her to give them a try, after a while all of us are bored and frustrated; I usually give her Pickle's less complicated (although still challenging enough in most cases) board books to read from. These are usually limited to 1 or 2 sentences of moderately difficult words per page, rather than 2-3 paragraphs per page of extremely difficult reading.

After that came ART! My girls love Art, but I was concerned that if I imposed structure on it they'd become bored---THIS WASN'T A PROBLEM! Following Sadie's method, we first worked on straight, parallel lines.

Next came working with angled lines; for this we traced triangles.

Then came the diagonal lines. My girls both wanted to arch there lines, like rainbows. I think next time we'll use rulers for the straight effect.

We looked at some line-inspired artwork online. Then, both girls created an original artwork, using lines.

This was Pickle's final line work.

And this was Boo's final work.

Lastly, we did a Weighing and Comparing Mass activity. We have these great counting bears, in three sizes (and weights). You can get them from Rainbow Resource (see my sidebar). The object was to compare the masses of each bear size and then find out how many bears equaled 1 oz. The girls did a stellar job, finding that 2 large bears, or 4 medium bears, or 8 little bears all equalled 1 oz. They found that the largest bears were the heaviest and the little bears were the lightest (we talked about how this isn't always true though--my example was small lead ball versus a feather). Here's our fabulous spring scale in action:

This afternoon we have a cousin coming over for backyard water play. What a really busy day we are turning out to have!

Spatial, Motor Dysgraphia

2009-07-17T09:35:00.004-05:00

Boo's testing is finally complete. I am relieved to report that she only showed some minor signs of hyperactivity--namely the blurting of answers and (not too shockingly) interrupting, as well as looking like she was modeling an ad for Energizer, to replace the bunny. She has trouble multi-tasking--a problem that is very common on her daddy's side of the family. So interrupting her while she is doing any kind of work where her focus is needed can be a big problem. However, she shows no signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder or ADHD. That was a big relief.

However, we have learned that our dear daughter suffers from a visual-spatial processing problem called Dysgraphia. You've undoubtedly heard of Dyslexia...Dysgraphia is related to writing rather than reading. It's independent of her other abilities: she proved herself to be highly intelligent during the testing, showed herself to be educated "at grade level" (the neuropsychologists applauded this, since I could not accurately say what grade she was in; we don't really pay attention to grade level), and doesn't show any symptoms of ADHD or other disabilities. The above picture is a sample of her work, and as you can see her ability to decipher where her letters belong is compromised--she can't "see" where her letters should begin or end and when she's corrected she tends to make them minuscule so that they will "fit". In addition, she tends to mush her words together, words with spaces between them don't appear to her to be any different than when the words are sandwiched together. She can write very neatly, but it takes her an unreasonable amount of time (we are talking 10-15 minutes for a sentence) to do it and causes her physical pain in her hand, which is common for kids with this problem. Lastly, Dysgraphic children tend to have a more difficult time with spelling. My personal opinion is that this is because they have to doubly focus on how the word is written, and therefore can't remember how the word is spelled.

There is no treatment for kids with Dysgraphia. It's a processing problem inside her brain, not a developmental issue that could be practiced over and over to correct. If she were in public school, she would undoubtedly have a difficult time as each year the demand for handwritten work skyrockets. Also, public schools tend to view kids with this disorder as "slackers" because they eventually give up doing anything more than the bare minimum when it comes to writing. It's probably not even considered a "real" disability for most schools. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that. I have seen the output of her upset and tantrums go up exponentially when she is given written work to accomplish; it's a hellish situation. There are options for accommodation, however. Typing "written" work is one such option and we are looking into purchasing a child-sized keyboard to allow her easier use of the computer. Word processing programs that speak the words as she types are also another option. For the times where she has to physically hand write, a guide that provides physical barriers at the top and bottom edges of the writing field will help her to stay within boundaries and we have already implemented (without knowing that we were doing it!) the practice of her putting a finger in-between words as she's writing (so that there are spaces between words). Another accommodation revolves around Mommy becoming a much more patient teacher! So there is plenty out there to help accommodate her enough to still be a completely functional 8-year old learner. As I mentioned before, Dysgraphia appears to be unrelated to her intelligence or other abilities: it's a very target-specific problem with handwriting.

Soon you will see a sidebar listing resources for information, equipment, and support for folks with Dysgraphia and I hope that if you suspect that your child suffers from this problem you will take the time to do a little research and check those links out. I do not look at Boo getting diagnosed with Dysgraphia as an excuse, but as an opportunity to learn more for myself and to help her learn more about it in the hopes that she will rise above her difficulties and still grow into a perfectly functional adult.

The Awesome Random Pictures of Recent Life

2009-07-13T22:54:00.006-05:00

I have been taking quite a few pictures lately that haven't fit neatly into a category. Since they were all taken while the girls and I were out with Super Dad and we ended up discussing a myriad of different subjects (refraction, rainbows, metal sculpture, art, dragons, a short history of castles, and tree houses and people who live in them) I have nicely decided that this all fits under the heading of "unschooling trivia" and therefore give you a prime example of how homeschooling can work nearly anywhere you are, no matter what you are overtly doing.

First, a little light refraction magic.

I admit it, I'm still fascinated by rainbows. The mythology, the science, the art; it's all amazing. A double one is doubly delightful. This one appeared at a birthday party immediately after a short downburst.

This is the mansion of tree houses and resides just a block away from where Super Dad works.

Sadly, the owners must have had too many trespassers. There are cute, yet specific, signs asking travelers to not park in the driveway or come into the yard.

The next two pictures come from a house that Super Dad has entitled "Sculpture House".

Since Super Dad's focus in college was ceramic and metal sculpture, you can imagine how intense he was about a yard filled with interesting metal pieces. Art welding is such a difficult task!

Lastly, just down the road and around the corner from Super Dad's work: a castle.

This house is actually for sale. I imagine that must be a very target-specific market.

No that's not a lynx on my lap

2009-07-11T21:43:00.005-05:00

Remember 'Sweet Pick'? Well we headed back to the same strawberry farm today, with Super Dad in tow. We picked double the amount of strawberries as last time and SD really thought that the event was awesome goodness. Ditto Boo and Pickle.
But we got something a little extra at the berry farm, something free, something...dare I say it? Alive.

Now introducing: Captain Jack Eats-Sparrows.

He was part of a 3-kitten litter, the only boy, raised with free-range ducks and chickens and lots of kids. Raised on a berry farm with his Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle and Aunt (who just got done having a litter of their own). His original name was just Jack, but we thought a little piratey/Native American name was pretty appropriate to our household. He's about 10-12 weeks old (we didn't ask, but he's eating crunchy food and was no longer nursing Mum).

So far he's getting along famously with Harley the half Corgi, half Australian Sheepdog and Loki, our other male (fixed) cat.

His coloring is a little interesting. He looks like a silvery-tawny colored Lynx. He's currently "helping" me type, so if the entire Internet crashes you will know why.

Here's the wee beastie, fast asleep on my lap.

The girls were super excitedly thrilled to get another kitty, completely spontaneously. Boo kept bringing up how getting Jack was going to be a big, important responsibility and that we needed to be very careful because "he's just a baby". I guess all those conversations with her have been sinking in. Pickle crawled into her bed with him for 45 minutes before Dad noticed, just snuggling him on her chest as she lay there on her back. He's very savvy about kids and just kind of does this little boneless snuggle thing-no biting or scratching at all.

The only odd thing that Super Dad noticed is that he's very interested in wine. Very interested. We would never intoxicate an animal, so he's in safe hands, but it makes me wonder if his name isn't already influencing his behavior. Weird eh? At least he's not pulling a wonky compass out every now and then and reciting "Drink Up, Me Hardies, Yo Ho!"

New Look; Still Us

2009-07-10T01:40:00.001-05:00

I recently learned that there are a number of free Blogger Layouts available online, so in an attempt to break away from the humdrum, I fiddled around and...here she is. I'm hoping that this style is easier to read, friendlier, and more interesting.

So, whatcha think?

Sweet Pick

2009-07-05T16:58:00.002-05:00

Tuesday we went to Dunsmore Family Farm of Mora, to pick strawberries. They have a very nice, small farm with wide, clean, straw-filled rows and lots of berries. We met Jodi Dunsmore and her kids at the farm (aside: when you tell folks in the area that you were out picking berries, they ask you "Oh? Out at Jodi and Adam's place? Nice, eh?"). She claims that her kids haven't overdosed on berries -yet. Mine either.Here are the girls, hamming it up with empty buckets.

And with a full bucket.

Our lovely box full o' berries.

We really enjoyed our trip. I thought that 5 quarts of strawberries were more than plenty, but since they were all gone within the week (read: not within 7 days, but within 4 days!)--I guess we could have picked at least double. One note about fresh picked strawberries: they don't keep in the fridge for long. Ours were looking a little wilty by Friday. If we would have picked more I probably would have made jam or frozen a bunch for later.

We learned that the straw covered rows are to protect the berries from bugs, to highlight where you should walk, and to keep customers from becoming muddy or otherwise dirty. We also learned that you should only pick the very dark red berries--anything else isn't fully ripe (makes you think twice about those grocery store berries, eh?). One thing I was grateful for: that the kids weren't weighed on the way in and on the way out--I'm sure they were much heavier leaving! :-)

Reactions

2009-06-30T08:55:00.002-05:00

Where are all the people who hate homeschoolers?

I have yet to meet one. My in-laws think that we've hung the moon, my two sets of parents range from muted awe to blatant applause. Even my sister, who thinks homeschoolers are nuts thinks that my kids are better off being homeschooled, even if she feels that she's not qualified to do so. We've bumped into people from all walks of life at grocery stores, libraries, thrift stores, restaurants, everywhere--not a single one of them was rude, nasty, or even contrary. Many of them expressed their wishes that their _____ (grand-kids, nephews, nieces, cousins, neighbor's kids, etc.) were homeschooled as well.

Are we just in a microcosm of homeschooler-utopia? Are the folks out there that think that homeschooling is just a fad, phase, or fool notion just too polite to speak up to a homeschooler face-to-face? Or are they afraid? I have no idea, because I have yet to meet a single person who was anti-homeschooling.

OK, there was the school district we formerly were living under. They were a bit....persnickety. Wanted information out of us when my kid was 4 years old, not 7 years old, and wanted way too much information at that. But we moved from that district and now I get letters like this one:

Dear____,
I hope all is well and that you have found this year to be successful for your child! Just a quick note to communicate to you that as of today's date I do not have a record on file of your quarter grades circled below as required by state statute. If I am in error, please forgive my oversight and give me a call or drop me a not as soon as possible. Feel free to call me at any time should you have questions or need assistance in providing for your child's educational needs. Thank you.
Kind Regards,
(signed by the Elementary Principal for our district)

Since I had forgotten to send in half of the year's grades to the district (I have no degree, therefore I have to send in grades quarterly), I was quite surprised by his upbeat mien.
They also send out a packet including the Minnesota Department of Education's Home School Education packet, a MACHE and a MDE reporting form (they point out that you are not required to use one of these, you can use your own), as well as information on how to participate in MAPS if you so choose and a disabilities packet should you need one. All of this is sent with a cheerful attitude toward homeschooling and a willingness to cooperate with homeschoolers in a friendly, helpful manner.

I ask you, fellow homeschoolers, do you have it this good? Are we just charmed?

Special Needs

2009-06-29T07:13:00.002-05:00

Boy Boo, my nephew, is autistic. In the ever-expanding world of Autism, saying someone is autistic can mean anything from "completely scary" to "huh, really?" In Boy Boo's situation, his Autism shows itself in little ways: repeating himself (repeatedly), being pretty antisocial (except with family--they're a "known"), speech delays (he forms his words much like a 3-year old would), and has an interesting learning curve (he can read, but not summarize what he's read; he's detail-oriented, but won't remember which Aunty I am).

Additionally, her other son, Boy Bug, has an immunological disorder which leaves him barely protected against anything. It's baffling, and at the same time is no longer being taken seriously by his physicians (he should have outgrown it by now, since it's supposedly related to his prematurity--but obviously he hasn't, so should we still be assuming it had something to do with that?). Pile on top of that her boyfriend's children, who both had a lovely mother who decided to wreck their lives by drinking throughout her pregnancies with them. They both are suspected of having FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder). There's is a very chaotic household.

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about special needs and children. With all of the testing going on in our family and extended family, it's no surprise. I keep being preoccupied with internal conversation about how I would "handle" her situation, or what I would do if it turns out that Boo has a condition that needs further attention. I haven't come up with any pat solutions, and so far that's fine by me. My only conclusion so far is that all children have one very important special need and that is to be loved in a safe environment. And that's enough for now.

Kissed

2009-06-28T15:57:00.003-05:00

Mama has been in turmoil.
Boo turned 8 on the 15th and now, on the 27th she decided to kiss a boy at a birthday party, who is 10 and WAS NOT INTERESTED.
I understand that this is totally normal and totally innocent; she wasn't even trying to kiss him on the lips, but OH LORDY! Frustrated. I. AM.
Especially since she wouldn't desist, after being talked to by both parents.

LOVE AND LOGIC-HELP!!!

Pickle, all by her lonesome

2009-06-24T08:52:00.002-05:00

I had forgotten how incredibly involved life is when you only have one child. And she is only 3.
Pickle is very demanding on mom when her "sissy" isn't around to entertain her, pick fights with her, read to her, and generally occupy most of her waking hours. It's exhausting.

Clearly, I need to give Boo a raise. :-)

I've been utterly incapable of having more than 5 minutes of time to myself this week so far, but I'm not really complaining. We've hung out in the kiddie pool, had a play date with friends we don't see often, gone "out to lunch"--a very big treat in our household, and snuggled in bed without arguments about which side of mom which girl gets. Since Boo is at Grandma's house with her cousin, Boy Boo, I'm thinking that she's being spoiled as well.

Boo will be home soon; then it's back to this: