Wooden Bucket Class

canoeing

Stream of Consciousness Whilst I Await Library Renewal

I have a huge list of books checked out from the library.
I don't want to return them; they now feel like they're my own.
I'm attempting to renew most of them via our online library service.
The service is having a hard time processing my request; I think I've overwhelmed it.
I wonder how many times I can renew these books before I absolutely have to return them.
I wonder how many people are waiting for these same books, which will make renewal impossible.
What will I do then?
How long will I have to wait before I get A Child's History of the World back into my clutches?
One month is not long enough to have a book.
I wonder how much it would cost to purchase all these books with which I've become attached.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to afford it.
Bard's biology textbook costs $72.00, and I had to pay for that, because they don't have it at the library.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a home-ed budget?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could walk into a bookstore, like the library does, and spend a set amount on books each year?
I have such a long list of what I want.
I'd love to reward the kids for every thing they do with a new book.
When Bard was young, I'd reward her for reading a book by buying her a new book.
I once bought her Little Women and told her that if she read the whole thing, she could buy any book she wanted.
The renewal page on the library site just timed out; I guess it can't handle my renewal requests.
I'll try again.
I started a wishlist on Amazon. I've done this before.
I always hope I'll find the books used at a yard sale or a library sale.
Problem is, I rarely go to yard sales or library sales.
The library has accepted my renewal requests, so, for one more month, I have:

1-2-3 magic by Phelan, Thomas W.
The amazing Mr. Franklin, or, The boy who read everything by Ashby, Ruth
American tall tales by Stoutenburg, Adrien
Applying algebra by McCabe, John L. P
At the back of the North Wind by MacDonald, George
B. Franklin, printer by Adler, David A
Bard of Avon : the story of William Shakespeare by Stanley, Diane
Beethoven : 1770-1827 by Koolbergen, Jeroen
Benjamin Franklin : a photo-biography by Riley, John
Benjamin Franklin : a photo-illustrated biography by Usel, T.

Apparently, blogger thought I was taking too long, too. After entering the other gazillion books, it told me I had to log in first and ate the rest of my post.

Sigh.

Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame

Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame is a unique history book written by a father and his twelve-year-old son, Anthony, who travels through time and meets amazing people from history.

"I walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I played baseball with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. I flew from New York to Paris with Charles Lindbergh. I was with the brave soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. I cried with survivors of the Holocaust. I watched battle-weary marines raise the American flag on Iwo Jima. I heard the first words to come out of Thomas Edison’s talking machine. I saw the glow of Edison’s first electric lamp. I met FDR. I saw Doctor Jonas Salk conquer polio, and I counted the dimes that made it possible. I crouched in the trenches during World War I. I stood in a breadline during the Great Depression. I crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a steamship one hundred years ago, when my great-grandfather first came to America; I walked with him through the doors to America on Ellis Island. I was with my great-grandfather the day he became an American.

I did it all by stepping through the Picture Frame on my bedroom wall.

My name is Anthony and I am twelve years old. This is my story."

Have you read this book? Seen it? Recommend it? I'd like to hear your input!

The Baby

"It's raining outside! It's going to be Christmas! And there's going to be presents. For me! And for you! And Dad! And Pop! And for everybody! It's going to be ALL Christmas ALL day!"

Bard recently mentioned that I should do a post focusing on each child in the family, telling about them and their abilities and interests. The two-year-old Baby's words this morning gave me the perfect jumping-off point for a post about her.

Have you ever seen the movie Prancer? The movie about the girl and her quest to save one of Santa's reindeer? You know how the little girl sings Christmas songs all year long?

That's The Baby.

Last year during the Christmas season, while we were shopping for gifts, she formed her first full sentences by singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Shortly afterwards, she added Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She sings them quite regularly.

Actually, she just loves to sing. She sings her ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider and She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain, though she wants me to skip the first couple of verses and get right to the part about chopping off the rooster's head and wearing pink pajamas. This summer, I got her accustomed to playing in the water at the lake by singing Comin' 'Round the Mountain, replacing the verses with things like, "She'll be swimmin' round in circles when she comes," and "she'll be kicking her feet when she comes." We swirled and danced and kicked around the lake, singing, blowing bubbles in the water, jumping up and down, and it soon became her favorite game.

The Baby's a smart one. She knows her ABC's and her numbers to twenty (except for that little bit about fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, which all sound pretty much the same coming from her little mouth), knows most of her colors, and can recite "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" all the way to "my platter's empty!" but she prefers to stop at "9, 10" because she favors the "begin again" ending to the "big fat hen" middle.

Her first word was "duck," taught to her by her big sister Bard. The Baby had a little yellow duck on the bottom of her ruby slippers and learned to identify it with Bard's excellent coaching. Her second word was "boogie," which came with much force, the "b" getting stuck behind her lips until it would finally burst forward, the "oogie" rushing quickly behind, with the "ie" rising up an octave. That word came courtesy of Houdin.

Before she was verbal, she would get so excited about her surroundings that she would rotate her hands and feet in unison, round and round and round and round, attracting the attention of little old ladies everywhere we went.

Her favorite pasttimes are:

• nursing
• watching Franklin the Turtle on video
• drawing armless, bodiless people with a pink marker
• catching and holding baby chicks
• swinging on the swing
• picking flowers from the garden
• running down the hill skipping "like Carrie" (from Little House on the Prairie)
• eating broccoli, yogurt, carrots and cottage cheese
• playing with her siblings
• pointing out butterflies
• sleeping with mama and daddy
• carrying around her Kiki Cat she built with her grandma at Build-a-Bear
• and is currently learning to use the potty (her idea, after watching Once Upon a Potty about four hundred times, much to her siblings' dismay).

Oh, and singing Christmas songs, of course.

Now she requires my attention. Kiki Cat is missing, and life just can't go on until she's found.

It's pronounced "MEEM"

Chris from The Big Yellow House posted this little history assignment.

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

The fifth line of my 23rd post reads:

"Years of prayer often felt worthless."

This line comes from my post about our dream for a home where we could extend a hand of hospitality to others, the vision that fed that dream, and the symbolism of the acorn in my life.

Like Chris, I'm not going to tag anyone. If you want to post the fifth line from your 23rd post, I'd love to read what it says, so leave me a comment if you do it.

Next Year's Garden

As the leaves begin to change, I find myself already thinking about next Spring's gardens. Last year at this time, we were focused on finishing our house. This Summer, we focused mostly on the outside. I started my little kitchen garden outside my kitchen door, which is the little door you can barely see on the left side of the porch. In it, I planted jalapenos, cherry tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes, Big Boy tomatoes, several different herbs (cilantro, bush basil, marjoram, chives-chives-chives, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme--seriously!), a pot of nasturtiums and lots of marigolds. Along the side and front of the porch, the kids and I planted different herbs, some perennials, swiss chard, lots of tomatillos and lots of basil. In the front of the house, we planted a whole host of perennials, including Hollyhocks, Balloon Flowers, several different types of sage, butterfly flowers, hyssops and horehound, chamomile and echinacea, and a bunch of things I can't remember right now. Next year, I hope to revive my deep beds, filling them with onions, peas, lettuces, cilantro, broccoli, peppers, and whatever else I fancy. And I will move the tomatoes to a larger space ( I never allow enough room for tomatoes), create a Rabbitat with lettuce and nasturtium gardens for our bunnies, and plant a sunflower house like we did a few years ago.

I think I'll re-do the porch beds, moving the herbs and keeping the perennials, lining the beds with allysium and petunias. I think I'll like that neater look better.

And I plan to move the tea garden into our native wildflower area as soon as the flowers fall off.

Bard has bugged me for several years to create a "snacking and sipping garden" like the one proposed in Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots, so we'll carve out a spot for that. And I definitely want to plant a vine garden, filled with cucumbers, watermelons, canteloupes and pumpkins.

Are you thinking about next year's garden already?

What's That You Say?

Sweetheart: "What does 'no comprendo' mean?"
Monet: "'I have no idea what you're saying.'"
Sweetheart: "What does 'no comprendo' mean?"
Monet: "'I have no idea what you're saying.'"
Sweetheart: "WHAT does 'NO COMPRENDO' mean?!?"
Monet: "'I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE SAYING'!"
Sweetheart: "WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT 'NO COMPRENDO' MEANS?!?"
All of us in unison: "'I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE SAYING'!"
Sweetheart: "Oooohhhh! I get it!"

Humility

Bard: "You should do special posts about each of us."
Me: "About what?"
Bard: "I don't know. Just telling how great we are."
Several seconds go by.
Bard: "Actually, you should just do one about me."

It's a MIRACLE!

I have to post this, because it's a photo of a rare moment. My kitchen is CLEAN and I have proof because my new friend Irene took a photo of my spotless space today during music appreciation class. So, when you come visit me, I just want to give you some idea what NOT to expect. :-)

Thanks, Irene!

Goodbye, Summer

Well, Fall has arrived and the days of summer are gone. Our local pool has been drained, removing any hope whatever that we'll veer into that parking lot on a whim when the kids yell from the back seat, "LET'S GO SWIMMING!"

It's time, instead, to get out the scarecrow's clothes, hang up the harvest wreaths, start eyeing the pumpkings, wondering how long they'll last if we carve them now and whether it really matters because, hey, wouldn't it be fun to carve them again?

It's time to run through the yard and try to catch a leaf before it hits the ground, touching something that has never before been touched by human hands.

It's time to get out the sweaters and put away the shorts, forget about the watermelon and start mulling the cider, put sunbathing behind us and start stoking the bonfires.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Summer may be over, but I'm still looking forward to our first camping trip, a few good bike rides, at least a couple of hikes and a shot at bobbing for apples.

What are your favorite things about Autumn?

The Baby

Houdin and his friend Adrienne.

Ketchup

Ketchup: Free Verse

I am so relieved to give my tired feet a rest.
I wonder if the ketchup I'm making will be edible;
I hear echoes of my aunt telling my dad, "I couldn't wait for Ma's ketchup to run out. I hated that stuff."
I see my grandmothers garden in my mind's eye, her hoeing in the midst of it, and
I want to raise a garden just like hers, filled with red currants, delicious tomatoes, and tender carrots.
I am on my own in this; my grandmother has gone on to a different kind of harvest.

I pretend I'm self-sufficient, but I know that's a joke.
I feel inadequate; the Amish and Mennonite women in my neighborhood, like my grandmother, put up peaches, can corn, toil over tomatoes. They hang out their handmade clothes every Monday, gather to clean each other's houses, have a support system about which it exhausts me even to dream.
I touch the Victoria Strainer borrowed from a friend, plunge the tomatoes into its mouth and turn the crank, listening to the noises that come from it that sound like a scene from Willy Wonka. I think about the seasons of harvest that have passed through its sieve.
I worry about this ketchup, whether it will be edible, whether I, too, will have a child who says, "I can't wait until Mom's ketchup is gone. I hate that stuff."
I cry for the mother that I once had, over the times I, too, said, "I hate this stuff."
I am ashamed. I am a motherless daughter now.

I understand what my children do not, and they understand what I do not.
I say that it's important to treasure every moment, yet I know that I spend too much time worrying, crying and complaining.
I dream of the day when my kitchen will stay clean, when my floor will stay swept, when the toys will not trip me in the night.
I try to push the dream away, to appreciate where I am, right now.
I hope that my ketchup will be edible, that my grandmother's harvest is plentiful, that my children's toys will trip me in the night, that I will learn to be content.
I am a mother, a daughter, a granddaughter, and I am learning what that means.

*This is a poem written using a template that was posted on Hind's Feet's blog. Why don't you try it, too, and send me a note in my comments when you're done?

I am
I wonder
I hear
I see
I want
I am

I pretend
I feel
I touch
I worry
I cry
I am

I understand
I say
I dream
I try
I hope
I am

Monarch Butterfly Egg

When I shared my collage of our Monarch butterfly rearing experience, I lamented the fact that I didn't have a photo of an egg because of their tininess. Doug Smith sent me a link to this photo of a Monarch butterfly egg that he took with the macro feature of his digital camera. Amazing!

Check out Doug's site, Simply Charlotte Mason. Thanks, Doug!

It's Worth It

A friend recently wrote this piece about the importance of letter-writing. I know that sometimes our kids despair over any kind of writing, and we soft-hearted mothers, who feel like we're torturing our darling children, despair along with them. But don't give up. It will be worth it, I promise you, and they'll someday thank you for the gift you gave them.

"My mom, even when I was 7, taught me to write letters when things were both worthy of praise, and when they weren't right. I earned my first paycheck at age 8 picking berries outside of Portland. $3.23 for about 2 weeks work and I was elated. I sent away for a toy from a cereal box (we were serial cereal box readers) and it came broken. My mom sat down with me and had me write in my own handwriting to the company to send it back. The company must have liked it, because they sent me the whole SET of these toys. I can't remember a thing about those toys, but it's a story I love to tell my kids, as they never met their stunningly brilliant grandmother."

~Cynthia Fisher Rose

Daily Grammar

Do you or your child have a question about grammar that you just can't seem to remember how to answer? Check here for answers and miniature lesson plans!

The Whole of a Child's Existence to Be Used as his Education

"It is worth while to point out the differing characters of a system and a method, because parents let themselves be run away with often enough by some plausible 'system,' the object of which is to produce development in one direction––of the muscles, of the memory, of the reasoning faculty––were a complete all-round education. This easy satisfaction arises from the sluggishness of human nature, to which any definite scheme is more agreeable than the constant watchfulness, the unforeseen action, called for when the whole of a child's existence is to be used as the means of his education."

Charlotte Mason, Home Education

My Favorite Chair

I can't begin to tell you how very inviting my favorite chair looks to me right now. It's not an expensive chair by any means. I hauled it away from an estate sale after noticing the "FREE! TAKE ME!" sign that was pinned to it.

Of course, I've fantasized about other chairs, even shopped around for a few--maybe a nice leather one that's super pricey because the saleswoman can pour Coke on it and it won't eat away the finish. Or maybe a deep, fluffy oversized chair where two or three of us can sit at one time without fear of dislodging one of the arms. But my free chair is quite comfortable, reclines very nicely, and it's just the right funky color of split-pea-soup yellow that I happen to like. Plus it's all I can afford.

Today was one of those killer homeschool days where I'd rather have curled up in the fetal position in my free pea-soup chair; I hit the ground running at 6:00 AM, and even though my throbbing feet are currently standing still, my mind and my worries and my two-year-old are not.

I really enjoy learning with my children. I'm not lying when I say this. I live for those moments when they say, "Oh! I know what this is about! Remember when we watched A Man for All Seasons? Wasn't it King Henry who wanted to divorce his wife? Wasn't he the one that chopped his wives' heads off?" or "Adding nines is so easy, Mom, if you know the secret," or "MOM! I PEED IN THE POTTY! COME AND SEE! IT'S JUST LIKE ONCE A POTTY POTTY!"

But there are days--like today--when even my best-laid, color coded, color-copied in triplicate plans seem to be nothing but dust on a chalkboard.

Today presented me with:

a sick son, to the tune of, "Mom? What is this green stuff I just coughed up? And why is my right hip tingling?";
a sick husband who I actually asked, "Just tell me; are you honestly sick? I mean really and truly sick?";
about a finity of tomatoes just waiting to be made into pico de gallo;
about a finity of toys waiting to be removed from the floor, the bathtub, the porch and the ceiling;
an empty crock pot waiting for beautiful soup;
a broken crockpot that will never see beautiful soup again;
and another empty crockpot ready to receive about half as much beautiful soup as I'd planned to make.

Today, talented woman that I am, I juggled:

Two Amish Taxi jobs;
an algebra class for my daughter and the panic that ensued on the way there (hers, not mine);
a trip to the Stuff*Mart for the stuff I needed to complete the pico de gallo that was, unbeknownst to me, being eaten incomplete;
a library program before which Monet ripped his pants in a very unfortunate and quite conspicous location while climbing out of the van which is notorious for eating pants;
a trip to the Stuff*Mart to buy a new pair of pants for said embarrassed son;
a quick trip home to see the disaster area that is my kitchen and the imcomplete salsa that decorated the kitchen table;
another trip to Stuff*Mart for the milk I forgot during the first two trips;
and a play audition that ran much later than I had anticipated.

At various points during the day, I lost my temper. I cried. I felt totally and completely abandoned. Those antidepressants were looking mighty tempting, lemme tell you.

But those moments...those precious validating, uplifting, encouraging, miraculous, throw-away-the-prescription-for-antidepressants moments keep me going. Like:

When I take my children for assessments and the assessor is impressed with our organization, our curriculum and the quality of our work;
When I decide to try the copier one more time in hopes that I won't get horrible black streaks across my page, and it actually works;
When my daughter auditions for a play for which she didn't think she had a chance and the director tells her how well she read her lines and asks her what role she'd like to play;
When the kids all tell me that the beef-vegetable soup is awesome--even the baby and the picky eater;
When we sit together after dinner and read A Child's History of the World, even though it's 10:30 P.M.and we're absolutely pooped, just because there was something interesting we wanted to discuss--just because we wanted to do it;
When my son finishes reading a chapter of Heroes, a book about Roman Mythology, and wonders aloud, "How do we know Christianity's legit?" and a frank discussion about religion takes place in the kitchen;
When a friend happens to call just as the other son asks, "What killed the dinosaurs?" and the friend actually has a well thought-out response for him;
When my daughter, who insists she can't read, reads the word "jam," and I ask, "How did you know what that said?" and, before she can catch herself, she answers, "I read it," and when she realizes what she just said, she grins from ear to ear;
When my fourteen-year-old son says, "I thought I'd hate Greek and Latin, but it's actually a lot of fun;"
Or when he tells his private-schooled, homeschool-skeptical friend, "My mom asks us to tell her what we know, doesn't test us to find out what we don't know," in response to his question about mid-terms;
Or, better yet, when he tells me about how his friend who is a girl was giving her mom lip service while he was talking to her on the phone and I said, "If you were a gentleman who was truly concerned with your friend's well-being, you'd have told her to go help her mother and you'd call her back later," and he says, "That's what I did."
When a veteran public school teacher tells me that she's never seen an inadequate homeschooling family, but she's seen plenty of inadequate public school students, including an eighteen-year-old who can't read cursive and a sixteen-year-old who spells worse than a first-grader;
When the girls from the homeschool support group approach my daughter whom they've never met, address her by name and invite her to play Capture the Flag, like civilized human beings, NOT social misfits;
When my daughter puts her arms around me and says, "Thank you for taking us to science class tonight, Mom. It was a lot of fun."

Those things should always be before me. I should always focus on them. I know I won't, because I'm a fallible human being with a vitamin B deficiency, but I should.

I do recognize, however, that while that comfy chair looks really good to run to in solitude, it's so much more comfy when I'm relaxing in it while listening to my daughter play "It's a Pirate's Life for Me" on the piano, watching a son draw the corn snake we found in the front yard, hearing another son read about Perseus, having another daughter proudly show me her thumbprint art, and a baby singing her ABCs followed by every Christmas song ever written, even though it's only September or looking up at me from the breast and saying, "Thank you for nursing."

Now that's a chair. That's a chair worth sitting in. That, my homelearning friends, is the kind of comfy that simply can't be bought.

To the Moon and Part-way Back

: "When I was a child, I memorized that the average (mean) distance to the moon was 238,857 mi. Now it's 238,856 which is probably more accurate. The moon's orbit is elliptical, and the distance varies quite a bit (it varies from 225,745 mi. to 251,967 mi.)."

After thinking about the distance around the earth, my darling husband wondered about the distance to the moon. I, being the sharp cookie that I am, knew where he was going with this one.

Alas, our Jeep has driven to the moon and part-way back!

What is the circumference of the earth?

What is the circumference of the earth?: "The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers)."

My husband had me look up this little factoid. I didn't know why he wanted to know the circumference of the earth until he said, "Wow. Then I've driven my Jeep around the world ten times."

BIL, SIL and the adorable new niece!

The Baby with an armload of chicks.

Papa and The Baby on the porch

The Piano Room: Houdin and The Baby playing a duet. :-)

Drawing from Life: Sweetheart sketching a Monarch caterpillar.

The Build-a-Bear Event

Production of the Latent Good

"If a human being were a machine, education could do more for him than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of systems.
But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power. "

~Charlotte Mason, Home Education

Still Life of a Homeschooler

I hate insurance

Doesn't it seem ironic that you go to the doctor so you can find out what's wrong with you and feel better, and you walk out even more confused and feel so much worse?

I was prepared. I really was. I'd looked up the doctor's office on the insurance website (I hate insurance) and saw that my favorite doc's office was covered. I was certain of this because each doc in the practice was listed separately along with a notation of whether they were taking new patients.

So I made my call and went through all the repetitive questions they ask when you call the doc's office, including whether this would be self-pay or insurance (I hate insurance). I told them I was insured, and that was the end of that.

I cleared my day; luckily for me, that just meant arranging to have all of my five children occupied and asking my father to be home between 2:00 and 4:00 to do damage control, which is a joke because there's more damage done while he's here than if I'd have left the kids alone with a wild orangutan and a gallon of Hershey's syrup. Still, I think it's wise to have someone here to at least represent an adult, since Bard was off for the weekend with her friend at a campout.

I've only gone to see my favorite doc a few times, and it's always been for my kids. He became my favorite doc when his son and Monet were on the same baseball team. Through talking to his wife, I discovered that she'd used extended breastfeeding with her twins. He became my very favorite doc when he rushed over to check The Baby after she'd been hit by a foul ball and didn't charge us. He didn't even turn it in to our insurance company (I hate insurance).

The down side of seeing this particular doc is that I have to go to his far-away-from-me office because his close-to-me office is too full and they wouldn't possibly be able to take another paying customer there, so I drive to the next town, which cuts down my waiting time, but now that gas prices are so high, the drive costs more than my co-pay (I hate insurance).

But I made the drive, because, frankly, I'm tired of being afraid that I'm going to die in my sleep of a heart attack or that I have some watermelon-sized tumor in my head that prevents me from completing sentences and speaking plain English to my children, who currently look at me as if I'm a wild orangutan when I tell them to take out the trash or pick up their underwear.

I proudly handed the receptionist my insurance card (I hate insurance). She obviously had no idea what an amazing feat it was for me to actually know where it was and be able to present it in one piece. I don't exaggerate at all when I tell you that I have dropped very important documents only to find them later between the black lab's teeth or floating in the toilet. So I was slightly taken aback when she handed me the card without copying it and shook her head.

"We don't take this insurance."

Have you ever wanted to murder someone?

"What does that mean?" Do you see why I'm worried about that watermelon-sized brain tumor?

"We don't take this insurance," she repeated. She didn't even say it more slowly.

I must have looked a bit dumbfounded, though I can't for the life of me imagine why.

"I checked the insurance company's website. Your office is listed there. Actually, each of your doctors is listed there. I'm sure you take this insurance. Can you check again?"

"We don't take that insurance," she repeated. But at least this time she was kind enough to add, "Other people have made that mistake, too."

"No. Nonononono. This is a mistake," I assured her. "Do you have web access? I'll show you where I saw it. I can show you the exact page that lists every single doctor in this office." She shook her head reluctantly.

"Do you have a fax machine? I'll have my husband fax you the page." She looked kind of afraid. I knew I was on the right track.

"Will you step outside with me into the dark alley behind the office?" She agreed to call the insurance liason (I hate insurance).

I sat in the tiny empty waiting room on one of the ten chairs and waited. I hadn't brought a book and there were no magazines with Johnny Depp on the cover, so I just sat there. In a desperate attempt to be proactive, I did call my husband and asked him to fax that page to this insurance-forsaken office.

Turns out that the problem wasn't that my insurance company didn't cover my favorite doctor. The problem was the my insurance company didn't cover the doctor I would be seeing that day--the only doctor in the office, the "new guy." A quick call to my hubby and a determination that I needed this appointment, and I was off to the unpleasantries of getting weighed and sitting in the examining room.

My blood pressure's not low, which is what I suspected, and it's not high. It's completely normal. This is both good news and bad news. It's good news because I don't have to worry about my blood pressure at this stage of my life. It's bad news because now I have no idea what's wrong with me. The doc says it's tension, wants to put me on antidepressants. I'm not thrilled with the potential side-effects, so I haven't yet picked up my prescription. Anyway, I think he's wrong.

So now it's more tests--blood tests, EKGs, CAT scans and all that fun stuff.

But here's the miraculous thing; after waiting in the waiting room for another fifteen minutes so they could get one of the other out-of-office docs to write a prescription for bloodwork, I approached the receptionist to pay my bill. Had my heart had reason to fail, then would have been the time.

It was stamped, "NO CHARGE."

How's that for stress-relief?

So, thank you for all of the prayers and notes of concern. I'm fine, though very curious what could be causing me such discomfort. Time, and a few involuntary blood donations, will tell.

By the way, I just want to mention one little thing. I hate insurance.

Request for prayer

Well, I'm finally doing what I should have done a long time ago.

For about a year, I've been dealing with tightness in the chest, severe headaches, light-headedness when I stand up from a sitting position, irregular heartbeat and slight nausea. I'm sick of it. I had a headache for two days that no medicine would eliminate, so I'm going to the doctor at 2:30. It's the first time I've been to a doc in about ten years.

Prayers for me, please.

A wonderful weekend

I had a wonderful visit with my parents-in-law and sister-in-law this weekend, who brought my BEAUTIFUL six-month-old niece to visit! What a lovely, smiley, pleasant little darling. I know you think I'm only saying that because she's my niece, but you just wait until I can get her picture up here on this blog. You'll most assuredly agree.

The weekend was filled with music, shopping, more music, eating, lots of pictures, staring at the stars, good conversation, learning to do Su Doku, playing with a new language (Kung nung-o wung wung hung-a tung-i mung-e a nung, Sunga Runga?) and more music. I loved listening to the boys play their pianos and Lil Sis sharing what she learned during the short time she took lessons. She really should continue!

On Sunday afternoon, we feasted on an excellent chicken barbecue with Memphis Style sauce along with sour cream biscuits, Tasha Tudor's macaroni and cheese, fresh tomatoes and corn.

And then we went shopping.

My mother-in-law began a tradition of taking each of her grandchildren to choose their own Build-A-Bear. Each of my older childen have one that they made while with their grandmother and each bear contains a coin bearing the year of their grandparent's birth. The "bears" (or turtles or cats) are very special to my kids and they have slowly added to their clothing collections. This weekend was The Baby's turn to choose her own Build-a-Bear. She chose a white kitty with pink ears and great big eyes and has thanked me for her "favorite kitty cat" about a million times.

But my favorite part of the weekend was listening to my husband sing. Have I mentioned that he has a voice that turns my knees to jelly and makes my heart go pitter-pat? This weekend's obsession was getting him to sing Sara Smile, a song he'd done on a friend's karaoke system, making our jaws drop to the floor with his perfect inflections and excellent pitch. He can even hit all those Daryl Hall high notes! (Daryl Hall [photo left], I just learned by visiting their website, has Lyme Disease which cancelled their o-HI-o shows. You can read about it on their blog.)

I'm so blessed to have a husband who is so very talented and a family who is willing to cross the miles to visit us.

Now, it's back to lessons. :-)

Expend Healthily That Energy

"To enable them to swim with the stream is the least of the benefits this early training should confer on the children; a love of Nature, implanted so early that it will seem to them hereafter to have been born inthem, will enrich their lives with pure interests, absorbing pursuits, health and good humour. 'I have seen,' says the same writer, 'the young man of firece passion and uncontrollable daring expend healthily that energy which threatened daily to plunge him into recklessness, if not into sin, upon hunting out and collecting, through rock and bog, snow and tempest, every bird and egg of the neighboring forest...I have seen the London beauty, amid all the excitement and tempation of luxury and flattery, with her heart pure, and her mind occupied in a boudoir full of shells and fossils, flowers and seaweeds, keeping herself unspotted from the world, by considering the lillies of the field, how they grow.'"

~Charlotte Mason, Home Education

I have a son with that fierce passion and uncontrollable daring. Through the summer, we dubbed him "King of the Log Roll," as he found his niche at the water hole atop the spinning cylinder in the middle of the lake. That's him in the photo above--the one in the orange shorts.

Sometimes, when I see him go after something so strongly, my fears almost simultaneously increase and dissipate. Increase, because I fear that this passion will find its way toward something unhealthy, something that threatens daily to plunge him into recklessness--yes, even sin. There is so much around us in our culture that pulls at boys, fights for their hearts and attempts to strip them of their joy and tenderness, preys on their curiosity and desire.

And then, pressing its way to the forefront comes hope to overcome my fears, reminding me that I am the director of my son's education, that I am here to guide him towards healthy pursuits. I can see when the monsters of destructiveness rise up to swallow him and I can steer him away. The pressure is great to yield to endless hours of zombie-like video game comas and mind-numbing television programming. Programming! I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in allowing someone to program my child!

So I make it a point to offer that which is wholesome. It's not easy. It's rarely ever easy. But I believe it's a race worth running, and there are moments when the reward is in sight.

As I type this, fourteen-year-old Houdin is playing the piano with fierce passion, inventing for himself new sounds and chord combinations, new rhythms and feelings. When he is plugged into things like this--a piano that comes alive at the command of his mind and fingers, and a spinning cylinder that is tamed beneath his moving feet, I see him thrive. On the keys of the piano, he explores and discovers; on the log roll, he runs backwards, juggles, laughs and absorbs the sun until his back is as brown as a biscuit. His moodiness disappears. He is filled with purpose. He feels accomplishment. There is no electronic replacement for that.

I think it's so important to give our boys opportunities to succeed, feats that they can accomplish that help them feel good about themselves. Let him work with wood and power tools, give him a unicycle or a pogo stick, provide him with the opportunity to apprentice with a craftsman, allow him to explore the workings of an ant hill or the power of a living stream. Give him real books, exciting books with beautiful words, whether you read to him or give him a quiet, sunny corner where he can read independently.

And then, stand back, and watch him light up, expending healthily that energy that will not be allowed to plunge him into recklessness.