Wanna waste a few hours? (And who doesn't!) Check out the snowflake-making feature at Popular Front: SnowDays. You can just sit and let your mouse hover over the gorgeous hand-cut (okay, mouse-cut) snowflakes, or you can make your own. Each snowflake has a number. Here are a couple of mine:
922115: for Bo
922127: for The Baby
922138: for me. ;-)
If you make a snowflake, let me know!
Have fun!
Friday, March 11, 2005
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Opiate
She yields to slumber.
There is no known sedative
Like a mother's breast.
Sien Nursing Baby
by Vincent Van Gogh
NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
Since this blog is actually called Today's Lessons because I want to use it to record what my family is learning, I'm going to post about our field trip today. Funny thing, when I post about things like this, I feel like I'm letting you down, you person who comes to read my blog.I've been thinking about making a new blog called, like, "Today's Records" or "Today's Activities," or something so I can post all the little stuff we do everyday that I want to record for our yearly portfolio, but I'm not sure I'd keep up with it.
Anyway, I say all that to say this: I'm sorry if my life bores you. It rarely bores me. ;-)
Our field trip today, organized, and I do mean organized, by the oh-so-organized Blue, was to the NASA Glenn Research Center. This was very timely for us, because we've been reading Neil Armstrong: Young Flier as part of our Five in a Row curriculum. When you read a Five in a Row book, you say that you're "rowing" the book, so if you see that term in my blog or in my sidebar, that's what it means. So, right now, we're "rowing" Neil Armstrong.
Here's the way mobie cool part. Because I've been working with the family on being organized (which has been no picnic, let me tell you. I'm getting five changeback messages for every positive comment I hear about the fairly organized state of our house), our laundry was all clean, the beds were made, the dishes were done, and the van was in decent shape to hold all of us and our junk. I got up early and woke the kids shortly after I got up. Usually I wait until the last possible minute, then I wake them up. My idea is to get some peace and quiet before we have to rush, rush, rush out the door. This is a stupid strategy. With the kids up when I got up today, I was able to adjust our schedule for the few kids who procrastinate and get sidetracked almost hopelessly. Plus, they actually got to EAT before we left (which still didn't keep them from moaning that they were hungry during the ride). I even had the time--and the clothes--to change The Baby when she had a full-scale diaper blow-out two minutes before I walked out the door.
And when I walked out the door (now, don't hate me for this), I didn't even have to look for my purse, my checkbook or my keys.
It's totally true. I would not lie to you about something so sacred. I'm so serious about this, I may even post a picture of my kitchen for you. Later. If you're good.
After a quick stop at Panera for a chicken salad sandwich for breakfast (For me. Not for them. They only got breakfast. And danishes. And part of my lunch. And pizza.), we were on our way. And we were, even with getting lost once and going in the wrong building once, totally and completely ON TIME. Don't you dare hate me. I so deserve being on time once in a while.
The NASA presentation was cool. The guy giving the presentation was wearing a little cross for a tie-tack, so I ventured to ask him his impression of how astronauts' faith is affected by their space travel. He mentioned James Irwin and Alan Shepard as two astronauts who were greatly affected by their time in space. Irwin, he said, went on to become a minister. The Apollo 8 team read from the book of Genesis on their Christmas Eve broadcast.
When we first walked into the center, there was a wall full of airplane models of airplanes that were manufactured in the U.S. from the 20s on. We looked for the Tin Goose, or the Ford Tri-Motor, which was the first airplane Armstrong had ridden in when he was just six years old. None of the employees seemed to know what it was, so we looked through the list and found it. There it was, in the 1930s category, just like we remembered. That was kinda cool.
After a slide show, the kids were given free reign of the exhibits where they were to do a scavenger hunt for facts. What I seemed to find while doing the scavenger hunt is that the kids didn't really have a true hunger for the knowledge they were seeking--they just wanted to fill in the blanks. So they'd read a piece until they found the answer for which they were looking, and then they ran off to find the next answer. I don't think it was until all of the blanks were filled that they began truly learning stuff.
After the scavenger hunt, we went back into the theater for a movie about what the astronauts did that summer, which included taking supplies to the International Space Station. It was entertaining and informative, and the video even showed a demonstration of one of the astronauts using the toilet. Well, pretending to, anyway. The narrator for the film, one of the astronauts, said that "How do you go to the bathroom?" is one of the most frequently asked questions they get from kids. I'd imagine most adults wonder, too, but are just too chicken to ask.
After the film, we hung out in the hands-on exhibit area for a bit longer, then we headed to Malley's Chocolates to pick up some goodies for our Easter baskets. We knew we'd found the place when we saw the giant pink inflatable bunnies on top of the building.
Dinner at Steak and Shake and we were good-to-go. Patty melts and Steak and Shake fries may be the death of me.
It was quite a fun day. I hope to head out to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum after we've finished rowing Neil Armstrong: Young Flier.
Have I mentioned how much I love field trips? I'm hoping to score this t-shirt before my next adventure. :-)
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Answer Me These Questions Three...er, Five
We're here today with writer and domestic goddess, Thicket Dweller, who is being interviewed by the autodidactic Dogwood Blue, a wife, mother and former homeschooled person who is currently living in Korea. DB has asked some very thought-provoking questions, and it has taken TD a few days to even get the courage up to tackle them.
But here they are...at least the beginnings of the answers to the questions Dogwood Blue and all the rest of you Gentle Readers are just dying to know. ;-)
(Oh, and if you want me to interview you, check out the bottom of this post for more details!)
Dogwood Blue asked the intriguing question, what is your view on the value (or lack of) pain in childbirth? (I know you have five, and that you are a natural birth person like myself.)
Well, I could write a BOOK about this one. But I won't. Hey, I heard that sigh of relief from you over on the West Coast. Let's settle down, shall we?
Lessee...I had my first two babies in the hospital. Too chicken to jump right into the whole home birthin' thing. But let me tell ya, with my first child, I knew EVERYTHING about natural childbirth, so I was gonna have the next best thing to a home birth. I'd read all about the Bradley Method, had taken Lamaze classes, and had even taken a course on natural childbirth from a lay midwife. I knew how to make my own "laborade" and had been trained on how to sneak healthful snacks into the delivery room. I was S-O-O ready.
Here's what I didn't count on: an intern with a vengeance for us "natural birth" people. She was cruel, impatient, unkind and downright nasty. You don't want an internal fetal monitor? Fine. Sign this paper that releases me from your or your baby's death. Oh, poor baby. Are we having a contraction? Heh heh.
I gave in. After about thirty hours of labor, I begged for an epidural. What else could I do? I had little to no moral support, my husband just wanted to see me get some sort of comfort, and every doctor on the floor was in a hurry to get me out of their only PRIMO birthing suite (read: a hospital room with a dresser and a lamp). Customers are waiting, Lady! Let's pop this puppy out!
I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't turn over or stand. This might seem like a good thing, considering the condition I was in...until push came to--well, push. The whole design that God gave us with pain was meant to HELP us push that baby out. Take away the feelings, the pangs, the pushing urges, and it's like driving blind.
"Okay! Push when you feel like pushing!"
"Uh...when I...wha...?"
Lots of counterproductive work to get that baby out. I couldn not feel a THING down there. They could have cut off both of my legs at my butt and I wouldn't have known the difference. The epidural wore off just in time, though, for the Intern with a Vengeance to start stitching up her lovely cutwork.
Didn't help much, either, that the placenta wouldn't come. That heartless woman (and to this day, if I saw her, I'd scratch her eyes out) put her ENTIRE HAND inside of me and, I swear, she had razors attached to the ends of her fingers. She scraped out that placenta until I was bawling with pain.
"This is the natural birth you wanted, Honey," she sneered.
Second baby: Okee dokee. I've learned a few things now. I want THIS doctor, and I will NOT accept any substitutes. And NO female interns! Here is my birth plan. I will NOT deviate.
Ten days after my due date, the doc was all, "We gotta induce labor. This baby's gonna be huge." So in I went for more intervention. Prostaglandin gel, Oxytocin, and finally, Pitocin. Still, labor progressed slowly.
Even with that much intervention, everything sailed along fairly smoothly until the doc sauntered into the delivery room, and as my mother-in-law says, rocked back on his heels and said, "This is gonna be a big baby." Break out the episiotomy scissors. Pump in the demerol. Pray to God for strength.
The doc came in repeatedly and asked if I were ready to push. This time, with the moral support of my mother-in-law, I held on.
"She's not ready yet," she said. She could tell. She knew what birthing grunts sounded like, and I wasn't makin' 'em.
"Do you feel it yet?" She asked me.
"Feel what?" I asked.
"Didn't you have pushing urges with Bard?"
"Uh...what's that?"
"Like you feel like you really have to have a bowel movement. It's a grunting feeling..."
"Ow, ow, ow, ow. No. Didn't. Have. Those."
"You're not ready."
So I waited. Laid on my side and waited for my mother-in-law to tell the doctor when I was ready to have this baby.
And then, I felt it. That bearing down pain. But it wasn't a pain. It was an urge, a compulsion. I didn't just feel like I could push, I felt like I WANTED to push. Like I NEEDED to push.
That was productive pain, let me tell you. It was the kind of thing that made me feel like a woman. Towanda! It helped me to realize that my body was MADE for this.
But then...oh, what's THIS? Whaddya mean there's not enough room? Whaddya mean you have to make more room? What the...?
And then came the episiotomy. That was an unkind cut. Not the kind of pain I wanted at all. And, if you've ever had an episiotomy, you know that it's the kind of pain that lingers. Ouch.
And then came the arrogant, rocking-on-his-heels doctor, sewing up his lovely cutwork. "We'll do this up right," he snickered. "This is what I call The Husband Stitch. Heh heh."
And then came the jaundice. "Oh, that's normal with Pitocin and Demerol babies. They have a hard time getting that stuff out of their little livers. We'll just take him down to the bili lights and feed him some sugar water. You get your rest, Deary."
And so, with the courage and insights that I gained from those two experiences, I decided to have the next baby, Monet, at home with the assistance of my mother-in-law and a lay midwife. Aside from family tensions, this birth was so awesome. And even with those family tensions, it was so, so much better than either of my hospital births. It was a lot of work, to be sure. My body had to recover from those traumatic hospital experiences where some other chemical or mechanical substitute tried to do my body's job. And I was scared to DEATH of another episiotomy.
But there was none. There was no cutting, no scraping, no Husband Stitch, and no arrogant doctor rocking back on his heels and tsking at me.
There was stretching and moaning and bearing down and pushing. There was more stretching, and more stretching and MORE stretching. There was a nine-pound baby. But no tearing. Not even with the nasty scar tissue from the TWO previous slices!
There were no bili lights or sugar bottles or maternity nurses telling me that I'd nursed too long or that I'd roll over on my baby if I kept him in bed with me.
There was relief and rest and relaxation. There was cuddling and nursing and spooning with my husband and our beautiful son. There were homecooked meals, chinese food, visits from friends and family. And there was triumph.
Monet's birth brought me to life. In his journal, I wrote:
complete and total saturation of pain that it took to bring forth a child into
this world.
My last three babies were born and home. And my next three, God willing, will be born at home, too.
Did I say I wouldn't write a book? Sorry, West Coast.
Speaking of books...
(2) What are five or ten of your all time favorite books?
Oh, heavens. Okay. Lemme think.
When I was a child, I listened to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I listened over and over and over at night. It was recorded on a big record which I renewed from the library as many times as they would allow. I love that book.
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Awesome book. Written by a fellow homeschooler.
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Did you know she was homeschooled? It's true! I related to this book a bit too much. Love Anne Tyler's clean, conversational writing style.
The Family Cloister by David Robinson. A very inspiring book on entering into worship and prayer as a family.
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado. I love his writing style, too. Very simple yet powerful.
How to Write Your Own Low-Cost/No-Cost Curriculum by Borg Hendrickson. Awesome book on setting your goals for your child's educational future. Very adaptable.
Oh, and another set of childhood favorites: The Black Stallion series. I devoured those things. Thinking back on any of my assigned reading during that time, I can only remember The Black Stallion, which was a book I chose from the library myself.
And finally, The Secret in Miranda's Closet. Does anyone remember this book? It was very magical to me as a pre-teen.
The next three:
...I'll have to save for later. They're gonna require some sweatin' of blood. Did you say this was supposed to be fun? ;-) Nah, really. It is.
*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*
Okay, so, do you want me to interview you? If so, just let me know and we'll follow the precedure below. Let's have fun!
Here are your instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some :o)
I'm looking forward to interviewing YOU!
But here they are...at least the beginnings of the answers to the questions Dogwood Blue and all the rest of you Gentle Readers are just dying to know. ;-)
(Oh, and if you want me to interview you, check out the bottom of this post for more details!)
Dogwood Blue asked the intriguing question, what is your view on the value (or lack of) pain in childbirth? (I know you have five, and that you are a natural birth person like myself.)
Well, I could write a BOOK about this one. But I won't. Hey, I heard that sigh of relief from you over on the West Coast. Let's settle down, shall we?
Lessee...I had my first two babies in the hospital. Too chicken to jump right into the whole home birthin' thing. But let me tell ya, with my first child, I knew EVERYTHING about natural childbirth, so I was gonna have the next best thing to a home birth. I'd read all about the Bradley Method, had taken Lamaze classes, and had even taken a course on natural childbirth from a lay midwife. I knew how to make my own "laborade" and had been trained on how to sneak healthful snacks into the delivery room. I was S-O-O ready.
Here's what I didn't count on: an intern with a vengeance for us "natural birth" people. She was cruel, impatient, unkind and downright nasty. You don't want an internal fetal monitor? Fine. Sign this paper that releases me from your or your baby's death. Oh, poor baby. Are we having a contraction? Heh heh.
I gave in. After about thirty hours of labor, I begged for an epidural. What else could I do? I had little to no moral support, my husband just wanted to see me get some sort of comfort, and every doctor on the floor was in a hurry to get me out of their only PRIMO birthing suite (read: a hospital room with a dresser and a lamp). Customers are waiting, Lady! Let's pop this puppy out!
I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't turn over or stand. This might seem like a good thing, considering the condition I was in...until push came to--well, push. The whole design that God gave us with pain was meant to HELP us push that baby out. Take away the feelings, the pangs, the pushing urges, and it's like driving blind.
"Okay! Push when you feel like pushing!"
"Uh...when I...wha...?"
Lots of counterproductive work to get that baby out. I couldn not feel a THING down there. They could have cut off both of my legs at my butt and I wouldn't have known the difference. The epidural wore off just in time, though, for the Intern with a Vengeance to start stitching up her lovely cutwork.
Didn't help much, either, that the placenta wouldn't come. That heartless woman (and to this day, if I saw her, I'd scratch her eyes out) put her ENTIRE HAND inside of me and, I swear, she had razors attached to the ends of her fingers. She scraped out that placenta until I was bawling with pain.
"This is the natural birth you wanted, Honey," she sneered.
Second baby: Okee dokee. I've learned a few things now. I want THIS doctor, and I will NOT accept any substitutes. And NO female interns! Here is my birth plan. I will NOT deviate.
Ten days after my due date, the doc was all, "We gotta induce labor. This baby's gonna be huge." So in I went for more intervention. Prostaglandin gel, Oxytocin, and finally, Pitocin. Still, labor progressed slowly.
Even with that much intervention, everything sailed along fairly smoothly until the doc sauntered into the delivery room, and as my mother-in-law says, rocked back on his heels and said, "This is gonna be a big baby." Break out the episiotomy scissors. Pump in the demerol. Pray to God for strength.
The doc came in repeatedly and asked if I were ready to push. This time, with the moral support of my mother-in-law, I held on.
"She's not ready yet," she said. She could tell. She knew what birthing grunts sounded like, and I wasn't makin' 'em.
"Do you feel it yet?" She asked me.
"Feel what?" I asked.
"Didn't you have pushing urges with Bard?"
"Uh...what's that?"
"Like you feel like you really have to have a bowel movement. It's a grunting feeling..."
"Ow, ow, ow, ow. No. Didn't. Have. Those."
"You're not ready."
So I waited. Laid on my side and waited for my mother-in-law to tell the doctor when I was ready to have this baby.
And then, I felt it. That bearing down pain. But it wasn't a pain. It was an urge, a compulsion. I didn't just feel like I could push, I felt like I WANTED to push. Like I NEEDED to push.
That was productive pain, let me tell you. It was the kind of thing that made me feel like a woman. Towanda! It helped me to realize that my body was MADE for this.
But then...oh, what's THIS? Whaddya mean there's not enough room? Whaddya mean you have to make more room? What the...?
And then came the episiotomy. That was an unkind cut. Not the kind of pain I wanted at all. And, if you've ever had an episiotomy, you know that it's the kind of pain that lingers. Ouch.
And then came the arrogant, rocking-on-his-heels doctor, sewing up his lovely cutwork. "We'll do this up right," he snickered. "This is what I call The Husband Stitch. Heh heh."
And then came the jaundice. "Oh, that's normal with Pitocin and Demerol babies. They have a hard time getting that stuff out of their little livers. We'll just take him down to the bili lights and feed him some sugar water. You get your rest, Deary."
And so, with the courage and insights that I gained from those two experiences, I decided to have the next baby, Monet, at home with the assistance of my mother-in-law and a lay midwife. Aside from family tensions, this birth was so awesome. And even with those family tensions, it was so, so much better than either of my hospital births. It was a lot of work, to be sure. My body had to recover from those traumatic hospital experiences where some other chemical or mechanical substitute tried to do my body's job. And I was scared to DEATH of another episiotomy.
But there was none. There was no cutting, no scraping, no Husband Stitch, and no arrogant doctor rocking back on his heels and tsking at me.
There was stretching and moaning and bearing down and pushing. There was more stretching, and more stretching and MORE stretching. There was a nine-pound baby. But no tearing. Not even with the nasty scar tissue from the TWO previous slices!
There were no bili lights or sugar bottles or maternity nurses telling me that I'd nursed too long or that I'd roll over on my baby if I kept him in bed with me.
There was relief and rest and relaxation. There was cuddling and nursing and spooning with my husband and our beautiful son. There were homecooked meals, chinese food, visits from friends and family. And there was triumph.
Monet's birth brought me to life. In his journal, I wrote:
Your birth-day was an unleashing of joy and creativity in my life. I thinkI had no doubt in my mind that I would, from then on, allow my body the
that perhaps you possess a great amount of creativity and, as you emerged,
you released a bit and allowed me to retain it.
complete and total saturation of pain that it took to bring forth a child into
this world.
My last three babies were born and home. And my next three, God willing, will be born at home, too.
A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but
whenher baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child
is born into the world. ~John 16:21
Did I say I wouldn't write a book? Sorry, West Coast.
Speaking of books...
(2) What are five or ten of your all time favorite books?
Oh, heavens. Okay. Lemme think.
When I was a child, I listened to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I listened over and over and over at night. It was recorded on a big record which I renewed from the library as many times as they would allow. I love that book.
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Awesome book. Written by a fellow homeschooler.
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Did you know she was homeschooled? It's true! I related to this book a bit too much. Love Anne Tyler's clean, conversational writing style.
The Family Cloister by David Robinson. A very inspiring book on entering into worship and prayer as a family.
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado. I love his writing style, too. Very simple yet powerful.
How to Write Your Own Low-Cost/No-Cost Curriculum by Borg Hendrickson. Awesome book on setting your goals for your child's educational future. Very adaptable.
Oh, and another set of childhood favorites: The Black Stallion series. I devoured those things. Thinking back on any of my assigned reading during that time, I can only remember The Black Stallion, which was a book I chose from the library myself.
And finally, The Secret in Miranda's Closet. Does anyone remember this book? It was very magical to me as a pre-teen.
The next three:
(3) What are one or some of the most difficult trials you have overcome
thus far?
(4) What do you look forward to most in the future?
(5) How did God lead you to be a part of the particular church you attend?
...I'll have to save for later. They're gonna require some sweatin' of blood. Did you say this was supposed to be fun? ;-) Nah, really. It is.
*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*
Okay, so, do you want me to interview you? If so, just let me know and we'll follow the precedure below. Let's have fun!
Here are your instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some :o)
I'm looking forward to interviewing YOU!
Monsters R Us
If you have ever felt depressed, if you've ever been told that you had the "Baby Blues," if you have ever felt that you were looking into the endlessness of hell, if you've ever felt like you were selfish, hysterical, a monster, a bitch or that your family would be better off without you, you must read Amy's posts. But do beware. This is not light reading. Thank you again, Amy, for your courage to write.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
From Walking Circumspectly: Be Anxious for Nothing
Kristen at Walking Circumspectly had a word just for me today. I'm convinced of it. The struggles I face this morning are, in my mind, enormous and have no solution. Yet Kristen offers the Word of God that hits right where I live:
"Philippians 4:5-7 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
You can go read the rest of her post admonishing us to release the rebellion from our hearts and let anxiety fall away.
What a tall order.
"Philippians 4:5-7 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
You can go read the rest of her post admonishing us to release the rebellion from our hearts and let anxiety fall away.
What a tall order.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
A Dead Fish
Bard and I took our first creative writing course tonight by Debbonnaire Kovacs. This might actually push me to pursue an actual--gasp--career in writing.
That scares the crap out of me.
Why does it scare me? Well, I suppose it's because I'm really afraid. The whole "you can't fail if you don't try" kind of thing. Aside from that, what do I have to say that hasn't been said a million times before? And more cleverly, succinctly, authoritatively?
I guess Deb was afraid to pursue writing as an occupation, too. One of the things she said was that, as a writer, she really wanted to write about having a relationship with god, but she didn't feel that she was qualified to write about having a relationship with God because she felt she didn't have a relationship with God. Yep. That really struck home with me.
See, I have a strong desire to write inspirational stories. Now, by that, I don't mean writing lilting romance novels of young perfect girls and how they just don't know if God means for them to marry or not marry, then long about the middle of the book, they bow their heads and pray and then everything is alright and they marry the perfect man for them. Uh, no offense if you write lilting romance novels about such girls. Then again,why do people say that? If you're offended, you're offended? I guess I'm saying that I intended no offense.
What I intended to say is that I'm more into the gritty inspirational novels, things that look like a dim and dismal river on the surface, but spring forth with Hope eternal. Did you see Magnolia? That's my kind of depth.
But I have fears that paralyze me from writing beyond a few chapters of the ever-elusive novel or the daily journal. Fears like, what if my main character recognizes herself? What if my main character gets angry about what I've written. What if my main character is me?
What if I try to write about God's grace, and I don't really fully understand God's grace? Or forgiveness?
What if I invest my life into this really cool story, and no one gets it? What if no one understands it? What if I don't understand it?
Deb Kovacs talked about a story of her own that had originated as an interjection into her pastor's sermon. He'd asked her to repeat a theme she'd discussed earlier, expound on it into a five minute aside during his teaching. By the time she had finished speaking, everyone was affected, bleary-eyed and grasping for her garments, maybe hoping for a bit of healing or something. As she made her way shakily back to her seat, her friend leaned over and said to her, "You know you have to write that now, don't you?"
So she wrote it. She wrote it all out with confidence, word-for-word, just as she had spoken it during the service. And then she said it just laid there like a three-day-old dead fish. She said the connection just wasn't there. It didn't pack the punch like the spoken presentation had. But she sent it off anyway. She sent it off first thing Monday morning--mailed it to a Christian women's magazine.
And Tuesday afternoon, the editor of the magazine was on the phone, telling her that they loved it, that the only thing they wanted to change was the male character's name.
They've reprinted the story several times. It's one of the articles that's most commented upon by their readers. Now they've asked her permission to put it into a collection of their best stories.
A dead, stinking fish.
So many times, I've abandoned my writing because I don't think I'm making any connection. Sometimes I feel like I don't really know my character, or the subject about which I'm writing is a bit too foreign for me. Or, I don't know, it just stinks.
And sometimes, I just plug on with it, and I learn something new. Or I just toss it out there the way it is. And someone catches it. And then, the energy they give it from the value they get out of it drives me on. And then I feel energized.
There are a lot of people rattling around in my head. This class may just give me the feedback and energy to flesh them out, put them into a story. Even if it is a dead fish.
And maybe there's a sea lion out there somewhere just waiting to catch it.
That scares the crap out of me.
Why does it scare me? Well, I suppose it's because I'm really afraid. The whole "you can't fail if you don't try" kind of thing. Aside from that, what do I have to say that hasn't been said a million times before? And more cleverly, succinctly, authoritatively?
I guess Deb was afraid to pursue writing as an occupation, too. One of the things she said was that, as a writer, she really wanted to write about having a relationship with god, but she didn't feel that she was qualified to write about having a relationship with God because she felt she didn't have a relationship with God. Yep. That really struck home with me.
See, I have a strong desire to write inspirational stories. Now, by that, I don't mean writing lilting romance novels of young perfect girls and how they just don't know if God means for them to marry or not marry, then long about the middle of the book, they bow their heads and pray and then everything is alright and they marry the perfect man for them. Uh, no offense if you write lilting romance novels about such girls. Then again,why do people say that? If you're offended, you're offended? I guess I'm saying that I intended no offense.
What I intended to say is that I'm more into the gritty inspirational novels, things that look like a dim and dismal river on the surface, but spring forth with Hope eternal. Did you see Magnolia? That's my kind of depth.
But I have fears that paralyze me from writing beyond a few chapters of the ever-elusive novel or the daily journal. Fears like, what if my main character recognizes herself? What if my main character gets angry about what I've written. What if my main character is me?
What if I try to write about God's grace, and I don't really fully understand God's grace? Or forgiveness?
What if I invest my life into this really cool story, and no one gets it? What if no one understands it? What if I don't understand it?
Deb Kovacs talked about a story of her own that had originated as an interjection into her pastor's sermon. He'd asked her to repeat a theme she'd discussed earlier, expound on it into a five minute aside during his teaching. By the time she had finished speaking, everyone was affected, bleary-eyed and grasping for her garments, maybe hoping for a bit of healing or something. As she made her way shakily back to her seat, her friend leaned over and said to her, "You know you have to write that now, don't you?"
So she wrote it. She wrote it all out with confidence, word-for-word, just as she had spoken it during the service. And then she said it just laid there like a three-day-old dead fish. She said the connection just wasn't there. It didn't pack the punch like the spoken presentation had. But she sent it off anyway. She sent it off first thing Monday morning--mailed it to a Christian women's magazine.
And Tuesday afternoon, the editor of the magazine was on the phone, telling her that they loved it, that the only thing they wanted to change was the male character's name.
They've reprinted the story several times. It's one of the articles that's most commented upon by their readers. Now they've asked her permission to put it into a collection of their best stories.
A dead, stinking fish.
So many times, I've abandoned my writing because I don't think I'm making any connection. Sometimes I feel like I don't really know my character, or the subject about which I'm writing is a bit too foreign for me. Or, I don't know, it just stinks.
And sometimes, I just plug on with it, and I learn something new. Or I just toss it out there the way it is. And someone catches it. And then, the energy they give it from the value they get out of it drives me on. And then I feel energized.
There are a lot of people rattling around in my head. This class may just give me the feedback and energy to flesh them out, put them into a story. Even if it is a dead fish.
And maybe there's a sea lion out there somewhere just waiting to catch it.
Movie Meme
From Donna over at Quiet Life:
Quick! The first five movie quotes that come to mind!
Here are mine:
1. Inconceivable, from The Princess Bride.
2. Whatever I feel like! Gosh! from Napolean Dynamite.
3. I'm with you fellers, from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. Are you not entertained? You can't handle the truth! You had me at "hello!" from Shark Tale.
5. You're upside down, from What's Up Doc, one of the funniest movies ever.
By the way, did you know that movie quotes themselves are a kind of meme? It's true.
Quick! The first five movie quotes that come to mind!
Here are mine:
1. Inconceivable, from The Princess Bride.
2. Whatever I feel like! Gosh! from Napolean Dynamite.
3. I'm with you fellers, from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. Are you not entertained? You can't handle the truth! You had me at "hello!" from Shark Tale.
5. You're upside down, from What's Up Doc, one of the funniest movies ever.
By the way, did you know that movie quotes themselves are a kind of meme? It's true.
Got Borax?
And School Glue?
And Water?
Make Flubber!
Keep your kids entertained for hours!
From this site, we learn why this counts as science:
Have fun!
And Water?
Make Flubber!
Keep your kids entertained for hours!
FLUBBER
Borate solution:
2/3 cup warm water
1 1/2 teaspoon powdered Borax
3 drops food coloring
Mix together in a 1 cup measuring cup using a
wooden spoon
Glue Solution:
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup white
school glue
Mix together in a mixing bowl using a wooden spoon
Pour the borate solution into the bowl with glue solution (This is the way
mobie cool part! Resist the temptation to do it yourself and let the kids do
it!).
Use your hands to gently lift and turn the mixture until only one
tablespoon of liquid is left. Flubber will be sticky for a moment or two.
After the excess liquid has dripped off, Flubber is ready. Store in a
plastic bag in the refrigerator.
When you are through, discard in a waste can. DO NOT try to wash it down
the sink. If it dries on carpet or clothing, cover it with a cloth soaked in
vinegar to de-gel it, then wash the area with detergent and water.
From this site, we learn why this counts as science:
What has happened? How does it feel? What happens if you stretch it? If you roll
it in to a ball? If you place it over another object?
Polymers are made by a chemical reaction, they are long chains of repeating units. When the two solutions are combined, polyvinyl acetate chains (from the white
glue) are linked together in a three-dimensional arrangement by Borate ions
(from the Borax) and other chemical bonds. This produces the sticky polymer
that we call Flubber.
Have fun!
Secrets of the Kitchen: Part Two
Debunking the "Boys Don't Cook" theory (and you need look no further than Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef to see that cooking dudes are sexy), I now interview nine-year-old Monet, who is not presently naked, but is aspiring to be a chef. Well, uh...at least a cook.
Me: Why do you cook?
Monet: You get rewarded by getting food and testing it before anyone else does, and it's just really fun. You get to measure things. You get a lot of compliments, especially from your mom. When your grandma comes over, you get to cook with her, so you don't waste her time. And if you know how to measure, you can make other things, like Flubber, the thing that I'm holding.
Me: What's your favorite thing to make?
Monet: Um...pancakes.
Me: Why's that?
Monet: I get to make them all the time, so I get to eat them all the time, and I get used to making them.
Me: What else can you make?
Monet: Muffins, bread, pretzels, eggs, cookies, burritos, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza quesadillas, pizza bagels. And I help with other things. But I can make pancakes all by myself.
Me: What would you like to learn to cook?
Monet: That is a hard question. Hmmm. I'm not really sure. Uh...I think I might want to make candies. Like cotton candy, and that kind of stuff.
There you have it. A real live male cook. Next up, Houdin, another cook of the male persuasion.
Me: Why do you cook?
Monet: You get rewarded by getting food and testing it before anyone else does, and it's just really fun. You get to measure things. You get a lot of compliments, especially from your mom. When your grandma comes over, you get to cook with her, so you don't waste her time. And if you know how to measure, you can make other things, like Flubber, the thing that I'm holding.
Me: What's your favorite thing to make?
Monet: Um...pancakes.
Me: Why's that?
Monet: I get to make them all the time, so I get to eat them all the time, and I get used to making them.
Me: What else can you make?
Monet: Muffins, bread, pretzels, eggs, cookies, burritos, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza quesadillas, pizza bagels. And I help with other things. But I can make pancakes all by myself.
Me: What would you like to learn to cook?
Monet: That is a hard question. Hmmm. I'm not really sure. Uh...I think I might want to make candies. Like cotton candy, and that kind of stuff.
There you have it. A real live male cook. Next up, Houdin, another cook of the male persuasion.
Secrets of the Kitchen: Part One
Michael from Blogin Idiot asked:
So, I decided to interview my cookin' kids.
Interview #1:
I'm here with my fifteen-year-old daughter, Bard, to find out how I get her to cook.
Me: Hey, Bard...
Bard: What?
Me: Why do you cook?
Bard: Uh. Because you make me, sometimes. If you say, "Hey, Bard, why don't you make manicotti?" and I say, "No," you'd probably chop my head off. But that's not the only reason I like to cook.
Me: I've never once chopped your head off. Not even one time. That's a really gross exaggeration. What are the other reasons you cook?
Bard: Um, 'cause it's kinda fun afterwards when everyone's like, "Hey, Bard, this is really good."
Me: What's the first thing you remember cooking?
Bard: Eggs. I cooked eggs, but that's not really cooking.
Me: How old were you?
Bard: Oh, probably like five or six. I don't really remember a specific time. I just remember helping you in the kitchen.
Me: So if that wasn't really cooking, what was the first thing you really cooked?
Bard: Probably banana bread, but I don't remember how old I was. About eight.
Me: Yeah, about eight. I have pictures of you.
Bard: Oh, that's good. I'm glad I won't go through life completely undocumented.
Me: No, I mean pictures of you making banana bread when you were eight.
Bard: Oh. Yeah.
Me: What's the best thing you've ever made?
Bard: The best thing I've ever made? Probably that time I made dinner for you for your birthday. Lasagna and the cake that tasted like a ho-ho.
Me: Yeah, that was awesome. Vegetarian lasagna with a ton of fresh basil. How much basil did you use?
Bard: I don't know. A lot. We didn't have a garden, so I probably got a package. Like ten leaves.
Me: Do you appreciate knowing how to cook?
Bard: Yeah. I mean, it's not that hard. It's just kinda like...if you follow the recipe, you can't really mess it up. Unless you burn it. And baking, that's hard if you don't pay attention. So when people say, "That's really good," I feel like I didn't do anything.
Me: Well, I'm glad you know how to cook. I appreciate it, that's for sure.
So, there you have it. Cook with them from an early age, use fresh ingredients, give lots of compliments, and threaten to chop their heads off.
"How do you get your kids to cook?
My older son will do without eating before he has to do any sort of cooking."
So, I decided to interview my cookin' kids.
Interview #1:
I'm here with my fifteen-year-old daughter, Bard, to find out how I get her to cook.
Me: Hey, Bard...
Bard: What?
Me: Why do you cook?
Bard: Uh. Because you make me, sometimes. If you say, "Hey, Bard, why don't you make manicotti?" and I say, "No," you'd probably chop my head off. But that's not the only reason I like to cook.
Me: I've never once chopped your head off. Not even one time. That's a really gross exaggeration. What are the other reasons you cook?
Bard: Um, 'cause it's kinda fun afterwards when everyone's like, "Hey, Bard, this is really good."
Me: What's the first thing you remember cooking?
Bard: Eggs. I cooked eggs, but that's not really cooking.
Me: How old were you?
Bard: Oh, probably like five or six. I don't really remember a specific time. I just remember helping you in the kitchen.
Me: So if that wasn't really cooking, what was the first thing you really cooked?
Bard: Probably banana bread, but I don't remember how old I was. About eight.
Me: Yeah, about eight. I have pictures of you.
Bard: Oh, that's good. I'm glad I won't go through life completely undocumented.
Me: No, I mean pictures of you making banana bread when you were eight.
Bard: Oh. Yeah.
Me: What's the best thing you've ever made?
Bard: The best thing I've ever made? Probably that time I made dinner for you for your birthday. Lasagna and the cake that tasted like a ho-ho.
Me: Yeah, that was awesome. Vegetarian lasagna with a ton of fresh basil. How much basil did you use?
Bard: I don't know. A lot. We didn't have a garden, so I probably got a package. Like ten leaves.
Me: Do you appreciate knowing how to cook?
Bard: Yeah. I mean, it's not that hard. It's just kinda like...if you follow the recipe, you can't really mess it up. Unless you burn it. And baking, that's hard if you don't pay attention. So when people say, "That's really good," I feel like I didn't do anything.
Me: Well, I'm glad you know how to cook. I appreciate it, that's for sure.
So, there you have it. Cook with them from an early age, use fresh ingredients, give lots of compliments, and threaten to chop their heads off.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Updated Reading List
If you check my sidebar, you can see our updated reading list for current March reads and our February reading list. I still have some things to add and finish, but there it is.
Speaking of Manicotti
We've been focusing a lot on the domestic arts in our house. Saturday morning, we had a meeting about the importance of keeping a clean and tidy home. It was at once encouraging and discouraging...but more about that in a separate post.
One of the focal points of our current domestic training is providing healthy, tasty meals.
I love to cook. I love the process of buying groceries, stocking the pantry neatly with food, preparing the meal, setting the environment and serving the finished product. I despise the cleanup, but I plug away because the meal-making is so satisfying.
I love making family favorites as much as I love trying new recipes. I hope to pass this passion for providing sustenance to my family, especially to my children. But I also hope a bit of it rubs off on my husband Bo as well.
Along these lines, Monet has been providing the family with delicious pancakes every morning. Bard, a recent vegetarian, took some time to make a grocery list of healthy recipes from Honest Pretzels, a kids' cooking book by Mollie Katzen of Moosewood fame. You can find the recipe for the original "Honest Pretzels" here.
Anyway, fifteen year old Bard accompanied me to the grocery to gather our supplies for this week's meals. While perusing the pasta for Tasha Tudor's Homemade Macaroni and Cheese recipe (or "receipt" as Tudor writes), we saw a box of manicotti noodles which featured a yummy-looking manicotti recipe on the back.
Last night, Bard made the manicotti.
Can I just say "yum?"
It was heavenly. Delicious. Fantastic. She said it wasn't that hard. The hardest part was stuffing the manicotti noodles.
Whatever. The meal was delicious. And I say "meal," even though it was just the one main dish. There was nothing lacking. And because she made a double batch, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch.
Oh, yum.
One of the focal points of our current domestic training is providing healthy, tasty meals.
I love to cook. I love the process of buying groceries, stocking the pantry neatly with food, preparing the meal, setting the environment and serving the finished product. I despise the cleanup, but I plug away because the meal-making is so satisfying.
I love making family favorites as much as I love trying new recipes. I hope to pass this passion for providing sustenance to my family, especially to my children. But I also hope a bit of it rubs off on my husband Bo as well.
Along these lines, Monet has been providing the family with delicious pancakes every morning. Bard, a recent vegetarian, took some time to make a grocery list of healthy recipes from Honest Pretzels, a kids' cooking book by Mollie Katzen of Moosewood fame. You can find the recipe for the original "Honest Pretzels" here.
Anyway, fifteen year old Bard accompanied me to the grocery to gather our supplies for this week's meals. While perusing the pasta for Tasha Tudor's Homemade Macaroni and Cheese recipe (or "receipt" as Tudor writes), we saw a box of manicotti noodles which featured a yummy-looking manicotti recipe on the back.
Last night, Bard made the manicotti.
Can I just say "yum?"
It was heavenly. Delicious. Fantastic. She said it wasn't that hard. The hardest part was stuffing the manicotti noodles.
Whatever. The meal was delicious. And I say "meal," even though it was just the one main dish. There was nothing lacking. And because she made a double batch, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch.
Oh, yum.
The Barmy Blogger
The Barmy Blogger, who also happens to be my daughter, wrote a hilarious analogy about stuffing manicotti as opposed to stuffing babies. You can read it here. And the link works now. :-P
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Born Too Late
My struggle with home care and passing on the same to my children has taken me on a search for home economics instruction manuals. Sounds boring, huh? Can I confess that this is an awakening for me? The words that I'm reading are giving me permission to realize that it is OKAY to enjoy keeping a home? In this culture where laughing about our inadequacies is the current trend, where being woefully incompetent at keeping house is the norm, I have felt out of control and frustrated. While I don't want to be labeled a "Martha Stewart" or a "Donna Reed," neither do I want to fall into the popular ranks of those who speak disdainfully of those "compulsive cleaners" and "neat freaks." Yeah, sure it's fun to announce to the world that my laundry has molded in the washing machine, but, in reality, it's not funny at all. It's inconvenient, unhealthy and doggone expensive.
So, I will stand up and admit it. I LIKE having a clean home. I LIKE clean corners and orderly pantries and organized bookshelves. I LIKE a clean sink, fresh sheets and a tidy laundry room.
There is a book that is helping to give me the courage to make these confessions. From our local library, I borrowed Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson, a book that was recommended by several of my blog visitors. So far it has been, to me, more riveting than almost any novel I've read in the past ten years. Her words are insightful, encouraging and well-written.
One of the stories she relates in Chapter 1 is given the heading "Born Too Late:"
The words that stand out to me in this passage are "proud," "respect," "looked forward" and "WANTED." This reinforces for me that the art of keeping a house is all about the attitude. And why would we have a good attitude about providing a clean, loving environment for our family, our friends, ourselves? Our culture offers very little respect for this aspiration. Focus is given to the visual, the aesthetic. If it looks good, it is good. Many of us define a clean house by what we visual from the decorating books and magazines over which we drool, lusting after their almost unattainable perfection as if it were pornography. We have been sold a bill of goods. A beautiful home requires one of two things, or possibly both: a lot of money for fancy furnishings and/or endless drudgery.
My dear friend Penny has been an inspiration to me since I met her almost five years ago. She does not just keep house. She creates environments. Stepping inside her home evokes a feeling of just that--home. There are no fancy furnishings in her farmhouse. In fact, the majority of her home is appointed with second-hand furniture that has been refinished by her husband and life-partner, Richard. There is simplicity, order, a welcoming air. It exudes from her kitchen, her barn, her gardens. For her, it has been a passion since she first began tending a home as a child. She has always loved creating environments, and she neither rebels against nor balks at her passions. She accepts them, cooperates with them. Indeed, she embraces them. I believe it is this attitude, not the degree of work or the amount of money she spends on the care and keeping of her home. For her, it is both an art and a science.
I recall a revelation I had years ago which I'm sure Penny would support. I planted a very showy vegetable garden, eager for the nostalgia of my own grandmother's massive garden. I had very little actual gardening experience, and most of what I knew I had learned from books or gleaned from my parents' gardening. I had an area tilled that was probably ten times the area I actually needed for a garden, and I planted ten times as many vegetable plants and seeds as I could actually use or even harvest. That spring, our weather provided weeks without rain, and then weeks with nothing but. My tiny seedlings that had struggled to grow during the period without rain were soon engulfed in weeds. I was embarrassed, mortified. I was not concerned for the health of each plant, but instead for the appearance of the garden. I spent oodles of energy hoeing and pulling weeds from the paths between the rows of corn, tomatoes, and beans, yet the seedlings continued to yellow, failing to thrive. On my hands and knees, I studied a tiny stalk of corn. It was literally being choked by the weeds surrounding its roots. While I has succeeded in making my garden attractive by clearing neat paths between the rows, the plants themselves were suffering.
That's when the revelation came to me: tend the plant, not the environment.
That lesson has continued to present itself to me as I work to care for my family. I can clear the floors, organize the toys, make the meals and fold the laundry, but if my focus is merely on the aesthetic, I'm not truly caring for my family. I'm only attempting to make a show of it.
Cheryl Mendelson talks about my kind of housekeeping in her book:
While my home is not forbiddingly perfect (far from it!) the attitude is the same. Tend to the environment. That strategy fails miserably. Not only do the seedlings in my care suffer, in spite of my vain attempts, the environment still suffers, too.
I don't believe that Cheryl, or Penny, or you or I were born too late. I believe that we live in a culture that is on the cusp of remember why keeping a home is an important role, a science, an art. I believe respect for that role is on the rise.
And so, I am on a journey to embrace my longings, to rediscover my passions and to encourage that respect.
Care to join me?
So, I will stand up and admit it. I LIKE having a clean home. I LIKE clean corners and orderly pantries and organized bookshelves. I LIKE a clean sink, fresh sheets and a tidy laundry room.
There is a book that is helping to give me the courage to make these confessions. From our local library, I borrowed Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson, a book that was recommended by several of my blog visitors. So far it has been, to me, more riveting than almost any novel I've read in the past ten years. Her words are insightful, encouraging and well-written.
One of the stories she relates in Chapter 1 is given the heading "Born Too Late:"
I was raised to be a rural wife and mother, but I was born to late to find many openings for farm wives. Until I was thirteen, I lived in the Appalachiansouthwest corner of Pennsylvania, for most of the time on a working farm where I received an old-fashioned domestic education quite unlike the experience of the
average girl in the 1950s. Early on, I learned baby care, housecleaning, laundering, gardening, cooking, embroidering, knitting, and sewing. I slopped the pigs, herded the cows, and helped out with the
milking. I was proud to be able to pin a cloth diaper around a baby when I was six, and cook breakfasts of eggs, bacon, toast and coffee for a large family and the hired help when I was nine.
Because housekeeping skills got respect in my world, I looked forward to keeping a house of my own one day. It was what I wanted.
The words that stand out to me in this passage are "proud," "respect," "looked forward" and "WANTED." This reinforces for me that the art of keeping a house is all about the attitude. And why would we have a good attitude about providing a clean, loving environment for our family, our friends, ourselves? Our culture offers very little respect for this aspiration. Focus is given to the visual, the aesthetic. If it looks good, it is good. Many of us define a clean house by what we visual from the decorating books and magazines over which we drool, lusting after their almost unattainable perfection as if it were pornography. We have been sold a bill of goods. A beautiful home requires one of two things, or possibly both: a lot of money for fancy furnishings and/or endless drudgery.
My dear friend Penny has been an inspiration to me since I met her almost five years ago. She does not just keep house. She creates environments. Stepping inside her home evokes a feeling of just that--home. There are no fancy furnishings in her farmhouse. In fact, the majority of her home is appointed with second-hand furniture that has been refinished by her husband and life-partner, Richard. There is simplicity, order, a welcoming air. It exudes from her kitchen, her barn, her gardens. For her, it has been a passion since she first began tending a home as a child. She has always loved creating environments, and she neither rebels against nor balks at her passions. She accepts them, cooperates with them. Indeed, she embraces them. I believe it is this attitude, not the degree of work or the amount of money she spends on the care and keeping of her home. For her, it is both an art and a science.
I recall a revelation I had years ago which I'm sure Penny would support. I planted a very showy vegetable garden, eager for the nostalgia of my own grandmother's massive garden. I had very little actual gardening experience, and most of what I knew I had learned from books or gleaned from my parents' gardening. I had an area tilled that was probably ten times the area I actually needed for a garden, and I planted ten times as many vegetable plants and seeds as I could actually use or even harvest. That spring, our weather provided weeks without rain, and then weeks with nothing but. My tiny seedlings that had struggled to grow during the period without rain were soon engulfed in weeds. I was embarrassed, mortified. I was not concerned for the health of each plant, but instead for the appearance of the garden. I spent oodles of energy hoeing and pulling weeds from the paths between the rows of corn, tomatoes, and beans, yet the seedlings continued to yellow, failing to thrive. On my hands and knees, I studied a tiny stalk of corn. It was literally being choked by the weeds surrounding its roots. While I has succeeded in making my garden attractive by clearing neat paths between the rows, the plants themselves were suffering.
That's when the revelation came to me: tend the plant, not the environment.
That lesson has continued to present itself to me as I work to care for my family. I can clear the floors, organize the toys, make the meals and fold the laundry, but if my focus is merely on the aesthetic, I'm not truly caring for my family. I'm only attempting to make a show of it.
Cheryl Mendelson talks about my kind of housekeeping in her book:
People who think badly of themselves take these feelings out on their
homes...just as they may put excess stress on personal appearance in an effort
to overcome self-doubt, so they may make their homes look forbiddingly perfect
in an attempt to impress themselves and others.
While my home is not forbiddingly perfect (far from it!) the attitude is the same. Tend to the environment. That strategy fails miserably. Not only do the seedlings in my care suffer, in spite of my vain attempts, the environment still suffers, too.
I don't believe that Cheryl, or Penny, or you or I were born too late. I believe that we live in a culture that is on the cusp of remember why keeping a home is an important role, a science, an art. I believe respect for that role is on the rise.
And so, I am on a journey to embrace my longings, to rediscover my passions and to encourage that respect.
Care to join me?
Friday, March 04, 2005
Tasha Tudor's Pancakes Recipe
This makes a whole lotta pancakes, so if you don't have five kids, you can halve the recipe.
Tasha Tudor’s Pancakes or Waffles for the Whole Family
The KID FRIENDLY Version!
Ingredients:
3 cups of unbleached white flour
6 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of sugar
4 eggs
2 ½ cups of milk
6 tablespoons of butter
PLUS butter for the griddle and butter for the pancakes
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Wash your hands, and make sure your cooking area and cooking utensils are clean.
1. Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Soften the butter in the microwave by cooking it for 40 seconds on 40% power.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
3. Break the eggs into a small bowl. Make sure you don’t get any shells in the bowl!
4. Pour the eggs into another mixing bowl. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or mixer.
5. Stir the milk and the softened butter into the beaten eggs.
6. Add the egg mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix them together so that it is all blended well.
7. Heat your griddle and butter it.
8. Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the pancakes onto the greased griddle.
9. While the pancakes are cooking, soften some butter by putting it into the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl and cooking it for 40 seconds at 40% power.
10. Set the table, or ask someone who isn’t busy to set it for you.
11. Cook the pancakes until the tops are bubbly, then flip them over and cook them a few minutes more, until they are golden brown.
12. Make sure you clean up all of your cooking utensils and put away all of your ingredients. A good cook cleans up as he goes along. That way you are mostly done by the time you finish your meal!
13. Clean up the table and put everything away.
14. Pat yourself on the back. You made breakfast!
6 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of sugar
4 eggs
2 ½ cups of milk
6 tablespoons of butter
PLUS butter for the griddle and butter for the pancakes
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Wash your hands, and make sure your cooking area and cooking utensils are clean.
1. Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Soften the butter in the microwave by cooking it for 40 seconds on 40% power.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
3. Break the eggs into a small bowl. Make sure you don’t get any shells in the bowl!
4. Pour the eggs into another mixing bowl. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or mixer.
5. Stir the milk and the softened butter into the beaten eggs.
6. Add the egg mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix them together so that it is all blended well.
7. Heat your griddle and butter it.
8. Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the pancakes onto the greased griddle.
9. While the pancakes are cooking, soften some butter by putting it into the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl and cooking it for 40 seconds at 40% power.
10. Set the table, or ask someone who isn’t busy to set it for you.
11. Cook the pancakes until the tops are bubbly, then flip them over and cook them a few minutes more, until they are golden brown.
12. Make sure you clean up all of your cooking utensils and put away all of your ingredients. A good cook cleans up as he goes along. That way you are mostly done by the time you finish your meal!
13. Clean up the table and put everything away.
14. Pat yourself on the back. You made breakfast!
From the Tasha Tudor Cookbook, adapted for kids by Thicket Dweller
Pancakes!
Monet loves pancakes, and I have a fear of making breakfast. Yes, I'm serious. It's just that I like to start the day with everything clean and organized, and making breakfast throws a mess into the pot right off the bat!
A perfect breakfast, in my opinion, is a cup of Stonyfield Farms yogurt with some maple almond date granola and a bunch of very yummy fresh fruit on the side with a great big glass of ice water or Emergen-C. Low mess, healthy, and very tasty.
But my kids like SUBSTANCE. They want something that FILLS THEM UP. One of those things is pancakes.
Pancakes=lots of mixing, standing over a griddle and cleaning up a bunch of sticky syrup. Not on my list of priorities. BUT I do feel good when the kids have eaten pancakes, especially My Favorite Yogurt Pancakes or Tasha Tudor's Pancakes.
This morning, I typed up Tasha Tudor's pancake recipe for Monet, who not only loves pancakes but also loves to cook. I made all of the instructions very step by step and easy to follow, and I included things like, "Wash your hands first," and "clean up as you go," and "set the table while you're waiting."
I handed him the paper, and with a few minor issues, the pancakes are done, waiting on the table for me to partake.
Now this is what I meant by home economics.
I think I'm on the upswing.
A perfect breakfast, in my opinion, is a cup of Stonyfield Farms yogurt with some maple almond date granola and a bunch of very yummy fresh fruit on the side with a great big glass of ice water or Emergen-C. Low mess, healthy, and very tasty.
But my kids like SUBSTANCE. They want something that FILLS THEM UP. One of those things is pancakes.
Pancakes=lots of mixing, standing over a griddle and cleaning up a bunch of sticky syrup. Not on my list of priorities. BUT I do feel good when the kids have eaten pancakes, especially My Favorite Yogurt Pancakes or Tasha Tudor's Pancakes.
This morning, I typed up Tasha Tudor's pancake recipe for Monet, who not only loves pancakes but also loves to cook. I made all of the instructions very step by step and easy to follow, and I included things like, "Wash your hands first," and "clean up as you go," and "set the table while you're waiting."
I handed him the paper, and with a few minor issues, the pancakes are done, waiting on the table for me to partake.
Now this is what I meant by home economics.
I think I'm on the upswing.
The Friday Five
This comes from Donna over at Quiet Life.
Friday Five--Combo Platter
1. Did you have a pet when you were a child? What sort and name please?
2. What word/words do you spell incorrectly every day?
3. Do you have an ancestor with an interesting name? Do tell.
4. What is your favorite beauty product?
5. What is your favorite bird?
My answers:
1. I had several. We had dogs, a cat, a bird, a hamster and a hermit crab. Names were Fuzzy, Patches, Petie, Wilbur, Kitty, and Nubbins.
2. I often spell broccoli wrong. Or is it brocolli? Or broccolli? And vacuum. Or is it vaccum? or vaccuum?
3. I have an ancestor who changed his name, because he was a priest who left Spain and ran off with the young organist. Legend has it that he threw his collar from the train in Texas and changed his name to the first one he could think of.
4. My favorite beauty product is water. If I drink plenty of it, my skin feels so much better, my body feels so much better, and I have more energy. If I wash my face regularly, my complexion is much better. If I brush my teeth with it and some Tom's of Main tooth gel, I'm not completely repulsive. ;-)
5. My favorite bird...hmmm. I don't know that I have one, but cardinals and blue jays have special meaning to me because they have stories associated with them that remind me of my grandparents.
Now, go and post these questions and your answers on YOUR blog and then let me know where you are!
Friday Five--Combo Platter
1. Did you have a pet when you were a child? What sort and name please?
2. What word/words do you spell incorrectly every day?
3. Do you have an ancestor with an interesting name? Do tell.
4. What is your favorite beauty product?
5. What is your favorite bird?
My answers:
1. I had several. We had dogs, a cat, a bird, a hamster and a hermit crab. Names were Fuzzy, Patches, Petie, Wilbur, Kitty, and Nubbins.
2. I often spell broccoli wrong. Or is it brocolli? Or broccolli? And vacuum. Or is it vaccum? or vaccuum?
3. I have an ancestor who changed his name, because he was a priest who left Spain and ran off with the young organist. Legend has it that he threw his collar from the train in Texas and changed his name to the first one he could think of.
4. My favorite beauty product is water. If I drink plenty of it, my skin feels so much better, my body feels so much better, and I have more energy. If I wash my face regularly, my complexion is much better. If I brush my teeth with it and some Tom's of Main tooth gel, I'm not completely repulsive. ;-)
5. My favorite bird...hmmm. I don't know that I have one, but cardinals and blue jays have special meaning to me because they have stories associated with them that remind me of my grandparents.
Now, go and post these questions and your answers on YOUR blog and then let me know where you are!
Much Needed Encouragement
Please, do yourself a favor and read this post by the Happy Housewife. With all of the issues I've been mulling over regarding homekeeping, her words were like honey, like a balm to my blistered soul. Thank you so much, HH, for your refreshing, encouraging thoughts on God's plan for my life.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
My Biggest Problem
I picked Joe and Edna up at the end of their drive at 8:35 this morning. They were ready for me, waiting in the snow, though I was supposed to arrive at 8:45. If it were anyone else, I might be bothered. "I said I'd pick you up at 8:45!" I'd say, defensively. I'd make a fool of myself so that they wouldn't think me a fool.
But Joe and Edna don't wait at the end of the drive ten minutes early to make me feel badly. They're not there waiting to prove to me that they are better or more prepared than I am. They're waiting at the end of the lane, in the snow. on the ice, because they're kind and considerate. They don't want me to have to wait for them.
Edna is one of the sweetest souls on the face of this earth. Even as an elderly Amish woman, she has the face and the smile of a schoolgirl. When she likes what you say, she has this gleem in her eye that shows just how ornery she can be. But it's always ornery in a good way, never in a malicious way. Not that I've seen.
This morning, I'm driving Joe and Edna to an appointment where I'll drop them off and then I'll head for home again. They have another way home later today, after their appointment.
I'm a bit disappointed, because I like to listen to what they have to say. I enjoy Joe's stories about the community, about his family, about this Amish neighborhood into which I only recently moved. And I enjoy Edna's girl-like laughter and her womanly wisdom.
Today, Joe talks about how things used to be. The Amish don't farm so much anymore, he says. He tells me this because we're passing a young man standing on a cart pulled by two draft horses.
"He moved to his wife's daddy's house," he tells me. "That's the only way an Amishman can farm now, if he moves to the homestead."
"Is that because land prices are so high?" I ask.
"Well, yeah," Joe says, "and because they can make more working away. Or making furniture." I nod. There are many, many Amish furniture makers in the area, and they're selling as much furniture to the English, as they call us, as they can produce. It's not uncommon to purchase a piece of furniture and be placed on a waiting list. And that's with a furniture maker on just about every corner, and several in every small town.
We pass the sewing machine shop and Edna says she wishes she would have brought her machine. She hasn't had it tuned up since she bought it.
"When did you learn to sew?" I ask.
"Oh," she claps her hands together thoughtfully. "I guess I was about thirteen or fourteen. Why do you ask?" I wonder if she's suspicious of me, if she thinks I'm writing a book. I tell her I'm just curious, that I've been thinking about things lately, about how little I feel I was prepared for adulthood. I share with her some of the comments people have made about the Duggar family, what a shame people think it is that the young Duggar girls have to make meals for their siblings and parents.
"Oh!" she exclaims, now slapping her knees with her hands. "Why! Those chiltren are better prepared for life than most! It's GOOD for them to take care of others!"
"When you were young," I venture, "did you ever feel you were missing out because you had to care for the people in your family and your community."
She pauses to think about this. "No. No, I never did."
Here's the thing: I've never heard Edna complain about a thing. She doesn't complain about doing chores, about working in her garden, about making meals, about walking in the cold on the ice, about taking the horse and buggy to market, about caring for her grandchildren, about making lunch for her husband, or about giving to her neighbors when they're in need.
A friend of mine sent me an e-mail, and while I won't mention her name, I hope she won't mind if I quote from it (edited for clarity):
And I'd venture to say that it's the predominant problem in our home.
My husband has a bad attitude.
My kids have bad attitudes.
My live-in father has a bad attitude.
And, yes, ::gasp!:: I have a bad attitude.
I'm forever saying, "I didn't make this mess. Why am I cleaning while they're watching a movie/reading a book/using the computer?" I hear the same complaints from my children.
Today I decided to do one of the things on my 101 list--ask for someone's advice and take it.
From sparrow:
"Mrs. Dunwoody's Notes for Planning a Superior Day
1. Make a plan for your day.
Start each day by making a general schedule, with particular emphasis on two or three major things you would like to accomplish.
2. Concentrate
Concentration is a key aspect of effective use of time.
(I would imagine this means work when the small children are asleep)
3. Learn to rest and catch your breath.
Never hard for me to do.
4. Don't procrastinate.
Start off the day by doing the most unpleasant chore first.
5. Sift and sort.
You must sort through the day and categorize.
6. Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Excellence is attainable, gratifying, and healthy.
Perfection is impossible, frustrating, and neurotic.
7. Never lose sight of the "big picture."
People (especially children) are always more important than things.
I decided to start with the biggest thing that was bothering me: my bedroom. Laundry, vacuuming, making the bed, cleaning the tub. These are all things that were bothering me and weighing heavy on my mind. So I jumped right into it, and as soon as I started, I felt better.
I still feel better.
I know that I have a bad attitude, and I know it's my biggest problem. I don't know how to fix it. I can only offer it, as I have many, many times, up to the Lord.
Dear God--please, please heal me of my selfish attitude. You know how much I long to serve others through hospitality, and this attitude in my household is completely killing that longing. I pray for your wisdom and your gifts.
Amen.
But Joe and Edna don't wait at the end of the drive ten minutes early to make me feel badly. They're not there waiting to prove to me that they are better or more prepared than I am. They're waiting at the end of the lane, in the snow. on the ice, because they're kind and considerate. They don't want me to have to wait for them.
Edna is one of the sweetest souls on the face of this earth. Even as an elderly Amish woman, she has the face and the smile of a schoolgirl. When she likes what you say, she has this gleem in her eye that shows just how ornery she can be. But it's always ornery in a good way, never in a malicious way. Not that I've seen.
This morning, I'm driving Joe and Edna to an appointment where I'll drop them off and then I'll head for home again. They have another way home later today, after their appointment.
I'm a bit disappointed, because I like to listen to what they have to say. I enjoy Joe's stories about the community, about his family, about this Amish neighborhood into which I only recently moved. And I enjoy Edna's girl-like laughter and her womanly wisdom.
Today, Joe talks about how things used to be. The Amish don't farm so much anymore, he says. He tells me this because we're passing a young man standing on a cart pulled by two draft horses.
"He moved to his wife's daddy's house," he tells me. "That's the only way an Amishman can farm now, if he moves to the homestead."
"Is that because land prices are so high?" I ask.
"Well, yeah," Joe says, "and because they can make more working away. Or making furniture." I nod. There are many, many Amish furniture makers in the area, and they're selling as much furniture to the English, as they call us, as they can produce. It's not uncommon to purchase a piece of furniture and be placed on a waiting list. And that's with a furniture maker on just about every corner, and several in every small town.
We pass the sewing machine shop and Edna says she wishes she would have brought her machine. She hasn't had it tuned up since she bought it.
"When did you learn to sew?" I ask.
"Oh," she claps her hands together thoughtfully. "I guess I was about thirteen or fourteen. Why do you ask?" I wonder if she's suspicious of me, if she thinks I'm writing a book. I tell her I'm just curious, that I've been thinking about things lately, about how little I feel I was prepared for adulthood. I share with her some of the comments people have made about the Duggar family, what a shame people think it is that the young Duggar girls have to make meals for their siblings and parents.
"Oh!" she exclaims, now slapping her knees with her hands. "Why! Those chiltren are better prepared for life than most! It's GOOD for them to take care of others!"
"When you were young," I venture, "did you ever feel you were missing out because you had to care for the people in your family and your community."
She pauses to think about this. "No. No, I never did."
Here's the thing: I've never heard Edna complain about a thing. She doesn't complain about doing chores, about working in her garden, about making meals, about walking in the cold on the ice, about taking the horse and buggy to market, about caring for her grandchildren, about making lunch for her husband, or about giving to her neighbors when they're in need.
A friend of mine sent me an e-mail, and while I won't mention her name, I hope she won't mind if I quote from it (edited for clarity):
Care for family and home take so very much of us ourselves. You commented about the young Amish girl in your post. She willingly helps her sister and she is content. She isn’t saying, "Hey this isn’t fair! Why can’t my sister care for her own kids – she had them! All my friends get to go shopping at the mall. Why can’t I just enjoy being a kid?" Amish live with a focus on community not individual wants and needs. From infancy, they are ingrained with attitudes of self sacrifice and participation for the sake of family and community. Adults that say they were caught by surprise are often those from whom little was asked growing up. I don’t think they suffer from lack of home economics knowledge. My guess would be what they lacked was guidance in the attitude of desiring to meet the needs of others (particularly at the expense of ones self). Children need to be involved in maintaining the home because they are part of a family and allMy friend hit the nail right on the head. Yes, my bigger problem is not the ability to clean my home, because I CAN clean it, and I can clean it better than anyone else who lives here. My bigger problem is, indeed, attitude.
share in the health of the home (and mother and father). Attitudes of complaint and selfishness should be the larger concern.
And I'd venture to say that it's the predominant problem in our home.
My husband has a bad attitude.
My kids have bad attitudes.
My live-in father has a bad attitude.
And, yes, ::gasp!:: I have a bad attitude.
I'm forever saying, "I didn't make this mess. Why am I cleaning while they're watching a movie/reading a book/using the computer?" I hear the same complaints from my children.
Today I decided to do one of the things on my 101 list--ask for someone's advice and take it.
From sparrow:
"This, from Elizabeth Elliot helps me: "Just do the next thing." Just do the thing in front of you to do, and don't worry about the rest."And from Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping via Miss Booshay:
"Mrs. Dunwoody's Notes for Planning a Superior Day
1. Make a plan for your day.
Start each day by making a general schedule, with particular emphasis on two or three major things you would like to accomplish.
2. Concentrate
Concentration is a key aspect of effective use of time.
(I would imagine this means work when the small children are asleep)
3. Learn to rest and catch your breath.
Never hard for me to do.
4. Don't procrastinate.
Start off the day by doing the most unpleasant chore first.
5. Sift and sort.
You must sort through the day and categorize.
6. Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Excellence is attainable, gratifying, and healthy.
Perfection is impossible, frustrating, and neurotic.
7. Never lose sight of the "big picture."
People (especially children) are always more important than things.
I decided to start with the biggest thing that was bothering me: my bedroom. Laundry, vacuuming, making the bed, cleaning the tub. These are all things that were bothering me and weighing heavy on my mind. So I jumped right into it, and as soon as I started, I felt better.
I still feel better.
I know that I have a bad attitude, and I know it's my biggest problem. I don't know how to fix it. I can only offer it, as I have many, many times, up to the Lord.
Dear God--please, please heal me of my selfish attitude. You know how much I long to serve others through hospitality, and this attitude in my household is completely killing that longing. I pray for your wisdom and your gifts.
Amen.
Extremely heteronormative?
I just read this article and am totally flumoxed. :-/ We are truly experiencing some Times of Noah-like behavior, aren't we?
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
A Show of Solidarity
The Happy Housewife posted pics of her "messy" house so that I wouldn't feel so bad. This was awesome. I often wish I could walk into people's houses on their worst days just to make myself feel better. Isn't that twisted?
I took this picture about a month ago:
I took the picture with the intention of creating a "before and after" meme. I thought it would be cool to have a "Before and After Thursday" where readers could pic a room in the morning, take a photo of it and post it to their blog, then clean it, take another photo and post the "after" photo to their blog. I thought it would be sort of inspiring to do this, an encouragement to clean, organize, create environments or however you want to put it.
A month later, here's what my kitchen looks like:
Ahem...
I took this picture about a month ago:
I took the picture with the intention of creating a "before and after" meme. I thought it would be cool to have a "Before and After Thursday" where readers could pic a room in the morning, take a photo of it and post it to their blog, then clean it, take another photo and post the "after" photo to their blog. I thought it would be sort of inspiring to do this, an encouragement to clean, organize, create environments or however you want to put it.
A month later, here's what my kitchen looks like:
Ahem...
A Little Diversion
I found this diversion by way of Miss Booshay over at Quiet Life. If you haven't visited Miss Booshay's blog, do so. She often offers gentle encouragement, and I love how she always admonishes her readers to encourage one another.
The Diversion:
1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!
And so, in keeping with the theme of today, I will grab the two books that are closest to me and have something to do with my day.
The First:
The Second:
The Diversion:
1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!
And so, in keeping with the theme of today, I will grab the two books that are closest to me and have something to do with my day.
The First:
"No T.V."
"Grounded."
Do you think these kids changed their performance? Carefully think through
the relationship between the behavior and the consequence.
~From 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough
The Second:
No, she had tried to imagine it thousands of times, drawing on her ideas of
all the villains she had ever read about in books: Captain Hook, crooked-nosed
and thin; Long John Silver, a false smile always on his lips; Injun Joe, who had
haunted so many of her bad dreams with his knife and greasy black hair...
But Capricorn looked quite different.
~From Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, the book I'm currently reading
Bad Day
Spent most of yesterday cleaning with great intentions to do more. Today, the house is more of a mess than it was yesterday.
Can't catch up with the laundry. It would help if I actually folded it and put it away.
I feel tired, cranky.
The kids are in no mood to straighten up or do chores.
It's a bad mommy day.
These are the days I think of when I talk about being ill-prepared. This TOTALLY isn't the life I planned. It's not that I don't enjoy my kids...I do. It's just that I also enjoy a clean house. I can't help it. I've tried to compromise. I've tried to let it go. I've tried to teach them to do it. I've tried to do it all on my own. I'm still left feeling...depressed.
Why do I feel like money would solve everything? I could just hire housekeeper and we could world-travel on a whim.
But I will NEVER have that kind of money. Ever.
I'm doubting my life choices today. Prayer would be appreciated.
Can't catch up with the laundry. It would help if I actually folded it and put it away.
I feel tired, cranky.
The kids are in no mood to straighten up or do chores.
It's a bad mommy day.
These are the days I think of when I talk about being ill-prepared. This TOTALLY isn't the life I planned. It's not that I don't enjoy my kids...I do. It's just that I also enjoy a clean house. I can't help it. I've tried to compromise. I've tried to let it go. I've tried to teach them to do it. I've tried to do it all on my own. I'm still left feeling...depressed.
Why do I feel like money would solve everything? I could just hire housekeeper and we could world-travel on a whim.
But I will NEVER have that kind of money. Ever.
I'm doubting my life choices today. Prayer would be appreciated.
What We're Lacking
I stood in the educational materials aisle at the local bookstore with my head cocked sideways, trying to take in all of the titles, looking for one that would change my life.
I do this to myself. Often.
I can't help it! I see all of these incredible books that promise my children will have FUN learning the math they so hate to learn, or actually ENJOY learning to conjugate verbs and diagram sentences, and I get the fever. All of those bulletin board ideas and reproducable worksheets fill me with new hope. New passion. New direction.
But I wasn't looking for any of that.
Lately, I've been feeling as though I've overlooked a very important part of my children's education. For years, I've sought materials to help them with their math skills, to give them an appreciation of history, and to guide them towards writing well in order to communicate well. These are all important, but they really aren't the reasons I chose to allow my children to learn at home.
One reason I chose to homeschool was so that they could pursue the paths of education that are most interesting to them. I want them to be able to focus fully on where they feel God is directing them in their lives without having to wade through all of the twaddle they would encounter in a public school setting.
Another reason I want them learn at home is so that they can learn lessons that are truly valuable, things that will be necessary for them to know to carry them through their lives, things that will contribute to their happiness and well-being, things that don't always get fair air-time in a public education setting.
I found myself staring into the spines of books that made me want to grab them and take them home and change my life forever. I also scanned over others that just made my head ache with their temporality and evanescence.
I found books that covered how to pass proficiency tests, how to build self-esteem, and tons of advice on how to handle students with special needs. There were books on Art History, Geometry, Foreign Languages and Theater Groups. There were books that informed teachers what was wrong with the system, how to handle smoking in the bathroom, and why our children can't read. There were books on very broad subjects, like providing a classical curriculum, to very narrow subjects, like how to use Lord of the Flies as a teaching tool.
But I could not find what I wanted.
It became clear to me that there is really no priority given to teaching children the skills they need to operate a home. I could not find a single book on teaching home economics.
Somehow, I always believed that my children would just learn homekeeping skills by osmosis, but as they have grown, I have realized that this hasn't happened. It's my fault, really. I'm usually too busy or too stressed to let them make the bread or to teach them the proper way to do laundry. I've always focused more on language arts and fine arts than the art of keeping a home.
I was recently reading a blog (forgive me, I can't remember where or whose it was) that talked about how ill-prepared we are for motherhood, how the Christian mothering market, especially, puts such a sweet spin on mothering in order to try to sell it to as many women as possible that many women walk into motherhood completely unprepared. And then we get blindsided.
Sure, there are a lot of heartwarming aspects to parenting, but I have to say that I was definitely blindsided. While my mother could knit, crochet, sew, garden, cook, can, clean and launder, she never passed these skills along to me. My high school struggled with budgets, like every other high school, so the football program stayed while the Home Ec. program got canned.
So, growing up, the most I ever did was mix the meatloaf, feed that cat and take the clothes out of the drier.
Now, here I am with five kids, and I'm still trying to figure out how to keep a home.
Yeah, I guess I'm a little preoccupied with it. But, hey, I live in a community of Amish and Mennonite women who begin passing their skills along to their daughters from the time they leave school at the end of eighth grade.
One of my Amish neighbors gave birth to her fifth child. For the past month and a half since the child was born, I have been transporting one of Katie's neices to her house several times a week so that she can care for Katie's home and children. When I pick Leah up at the end of the day, I ask her how her day went. Her self-satisfaction is amazing to me. Without a sense of frustration, rebellion or embarrassment, Leah tells me about the laundry she washed, the meals she made, the rooms she cleaned and the dresses she sewed. "Do you like to sew?" I ask her. "Oh, yes," she says. "Sewing is my favorite."
Leah is not just content. She is happy.
Now, I'm not saying that my daughters will only grow to be keepers of a home. But, let's face it, they will most likely have to keep a home. After all, very few of us escape this lot in life, and while I believed growing up that I would marry a man who would share all of the homekeeping chores, it just didn't work out that way. I can spend every day of my life reflecting on my liberal schooling, telling myself that Marlo Thomas was right and that mommies and daddies should both share the chores, but it won't change where I am in my life. It will just make me bitter.
I am the keeper of my home.
So, while it may be beneficial for my children to learn quantam physics and algabraic equations, I would be a fool to believe that they will never need to learn how to get stains out of a dress shirt or make a healthy meal for their families.
I think the thing that pushed me over the edge to begin my search for a home economics curriculum was reading this post about the Duggar Family and all of the post's responses. I was floored by the superficiality and shallowness of the opinions expressed there. My eyes were opened wide to see the kind of people who believe it's "wrong" that a fifteen-year-old can make a MEAL for a family as opposed to throwing a mug of ramen noodles in the microwave for herself, or can SEW AN OUTFIT as opposed to spending the day at the mall with her daddy's credit card.
I believe that I was ill-prepared for adulthood, and I believe that I struggle with this every single day of my adult life. I want my children to have all of the tools necessary to be productive members of society. Yeah, my daughter may marry a rich guy who shares all of the homekeeping responsibilities between the days their maid comes. She may become a famous author, have tons of servants and never marry at all. She may be a marine biologist or an astrophysicist or a neurosurgeon. But she'll still need to know how to mash potatoes.
We can continue to live in denial, or we can prepare our children for life.
Here are some of the materials I've found that may be beneficial for teaching my children--an myself--some of the life skills that would make everyone's lives a lot easier:
Keepers of the Faith
Christian Light Education's Home Economics Course
Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson
LifePac Home Economics
I haven't chosen any of these, and I'm still trying to think of ways to incorporate living skills into our daily lives. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
I do own 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough, which gives a checklist of skills that children can strive towards and the ages at which they can feasibly have mastery. This is a book I've wanted to look into more closely for many years. Maybe it's time.
I do this to myself. Often.
I can't help it! I see all of these incredible books that promise my children will have FUN learning the math they so hate to learn, or actually ENJOY learning to conjugate verbs and diagram sentences, and I get the fever. All of those bulletin board ideas and reproducable worksheets fill me with new hope. New passion. New direction.
But I wasn't looking for any of that.
Lately, I've been feeling as though I've overlooked a very important part of my children's education. For years, I've sought materials to help them with their math skills, to give them an appreciation of history, and to guide them towards writing well in order to communicate well. These are all important, but they really aren't the reasons I chose to allow my children to learn at home.
One reason I chose to homeschool was so that they could pursue the paths of education that are most interesting to them. I want them to be able to focus fully on where they feel God is directing them in their lives without having to wade through all of the twaddle they would encounter in a public school setting.
Another reason I want them learn at home is so that they can learn lessons that are truly valuable, things that will be necessary for them to know to carry them through their lives, things that will contribute to their happiness and well-being, things that don't always get fair air-time in a public education setting.
I found myself staring into the spines of books that made me want to grab them and take them home and change my life forever. I also scanned over others that just made my head ache with their temporality and evanescence.
I found books that covered how to pass proficiency tests, how to build self-esteem, and tons of advice on how to handle students with special needs. There were books on Art History, Geometry, Foreign Languages and Theater Groups. There were books that informed teachers what was wrong with the system, how to handle smoking in the bathroom, and why our children can't read. There were books on very broad subjects, like providing a classical curriculum, to very narrow subjects, like how to use Lord of the Flies as a teaching tool.
But I could not find what I wanted.
It became clear to me that there is really no priority given to teaching children the skills they need to operate a home. I could not find a single book on teaching home economics.
Somehow, I always believed that my children would just learn homekeeping skills by osmosis, but as they have grown, I have realized that this hasn't happened. It's my fault, really. I'm usually too busy or too stressed to let them make the bread or to teach them the proper way to do laundry. I've always focused more on language arts and fine arts than the art of keeping a home.
I was recently reading a blog (forgive me, I can't remember where or whose it was) that talked about how ill-prepared we are for motherhood, how the Christian mothering market, especially, puts such a sweet spin on mothering in order to try to sell it to as many women as possible that many women walk into motherhood completely unprepared. And then we get blindsided.
Sure, there are a lot of heartwarming aspects to parenting, but I have to say that I was definitely blindsided. While my mother could knit, crochet, sew, garden, cook, can, clean and launder, she never passed these skills along to me. My high school struggled with budgets, like every other high school, so the football program stayed while the Home Ec. program got canned.
So, growing up, the most I ever did was mix the meatloaf, feed that cat and take the clothes out of the drier.
Now, here I am with five kids, and I'm still trying to figure out how to keep a home.
Yeah, I guess I'm a little preoccupied with it. But, hey, I live in a community of Amish and Mennonite women who begin passing their skills along to their daughters from the time they leave school at the end of eighth grade.
One of my Amish neighbors gave birth to her fifth child. For the past month and a half since the child was born, I have been transporting one of Katie's neices to her house several times a week so that she can care for Katie's home and children. When I pick Leah up at the end of the day, I ask her how her day went. Her self-satisfaction is amazing to me. Without a sense of frustration, rebellion or embarrassment, Leah tells me about the laundry she washed, the meals she made, the rooms she cleaned and the dresses she sewed. "Do you like to sew?" I ask her. "Oh, yes," she says. "Sewing is my favorite."
Leah is not just content. She is happy.
Now, I'm not saying that my daughters will only grow to be keepers of a home. But, let's face it, they will most likely have to keep a home. After all, very few of us escape this lot in life, and while I believed growing up that I would marry a man who would share all of the homekeeping chores, it just didn't work out that way. I can spend every day of my life reflecting on my liberal schooling, telling myself that Marlo Thomas was right and that mommies and daddies should both share the chores, but it won't change where I am in my life. It will just make me bitter.
I am the keeper of my home.
So, while it may be beneficial for my children to learn quantam physics and algabraic equations, I would be a fool to believe that they will never need to learn how to get stains out of a dress shirt or make a healthy meal for their families.
I think the thing that pushed me over the edge to begin my search for a home economics curriculum was reading this post about the Duggar Family and all of the post's responses. I was floored by the superficiality and shallowness of the opinions expressed there. My eyes were opened wide to see the kind of people who believe it's "wrong" that a fifteen-year-old can make a MEAL for a family as opposed to throwing a mug of ramen noodles in the microwave for herself, or can SEW AN OUTFIT as opposed to spending the day at the mall with her daddy's credit card.
I believe that I was ill-prepared for adulthood, and I believe that I struggle with this every single day of my adult life. I want my children to have all of the tools necessary to be productive members of society. Yeah, my daughter may marry a rich guy who shares all of the homekeeping responsibilities between the days their maid comes. She may become a famous author, have tons of servants and never marry at all. She may be a marine biologist or an astrophysicist or a neurosurgeon. But she'll still need to know how to mash potatoes.
We can continue to live in denial, or we can prepare our children for life.
Here are some of the materials I've found that may be beneficial for teaching my children--an myself--some of the life skills that would make everyone's lives a lot easier:
Keepers of the Faith
Christian Light Education's Home Economics Course
Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson
LifePac Home Economics
I haven't chosen any of these, and I'm still trying to think of ways to incorporate living skills into our daily lives. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
I do own 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough, which gives a checklist of skills that children can strive towards and the ages at which they can feasibly have mastery. This is a book I've wanted to look into more closely for many years. Maybe it's time.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Child-Rearing Wisdom from Cattiva
Why do I even blog? Wait. Don't answer that.
Cattiva, over at Does This Mean I'm a Grown Up, has done it again. She has given some excellent, albeit hilarious, advice on raising children in her two part series on handling child-raising issues.
Part One
Part Two
Enjoy!
Cattiva, over at Does This Mean I'm a Grown Up, has done it again. She has given some excellent, albeit hilarious, advice on raising children in her two part series on handling child-raising issues.
Part One
Part Two
Enjoy!
The Poll Results
Poll Results
What keeps you coming back to Today's Lessons?
I haven't come back. This is my first time here: 25%
The Witty, Insightful Essays: 11%
The Interesting Links to Other Blogs and Stories: 0%
The Gorgeous Photos: 0%
The Fascinating Blogroll: 0%
The Intriguing Homeschooling Tales: 8%
The Stream of Consciousness Posts: 0%
The Whining and Complaining: 8%
All of It. I can't get enough: 44%
None of It. I'm not coming back here. Ever: 3%
36 votes total
The Witty, Insightful Essays: 11%
The Interesting Links to Other Blogs and Stories: 0%
The Gorgeous Photos: 0%
The Fascinating Blogroll: 0%
The Intriguing Homeschooling Tales: 8%
The Stream of Consciousness Posts: 0%
The Whining and Complaining: 8%
All of It. I can't get enough: 44%
None of It. I'm not coming back here. Ever: 3%
36 votes total
Monday, February 28, 2005
Well, they have ME pegged...
| Global Personality Test Results |
| Stability (31%) moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness (60%) moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun. Extraversion (70%) high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity. |
personality tests by similarminds.com
The Thing About Field Trips
I love field trips.
I wish we could have field trips every single day. I wish I could organize my life so that we had "field trip clothes" that were always clean, always ironed, always fit and were always spiffy. I wish we had "field trip mode," where everyone knew whether or not they needed a shower, how to do their own hair, which field trip clothes to wear--though they would all be color- and fashion-coordinated so you really couldn't mess up, and what to pack in the car. We would have designated field trip snacks, a field trip diaper bag, and a field trip kit that would include a camera (which always had film/empty smart-media card/batteries), sketchbooks, journals and writing utensils.
Oh, and lots of money.
Lots and lots of money.
Heck, if we follow through with that fantasty, we could even have a designated field trip car, one that would always be clean, well-maintained and filled with gas. It would have room for all of the kids, all of our field trip supplies, bicycles, the baby backpack and sling, winter coats, scarves, hats and gloves, a cooler (which, by the way, would always be clean and never ever EVER have baked beans from the last field trip molding in the bottom), and a wagon full of blankets and pillows.
Then, I would REALLY love field trips.
Because, see, as much as I love field trips, there's something I desperately hate: leaving the house.
No, it's not that I don't like going places. I love going places! It's just that I hate the actual act of preparing the children and leaving the house. It usually goes something like this:
"Mom, I don't have any pants."
"What do you mean you don't have any pants? I just bought you pants! They just fit you yesterday! How can you not have any pants?"
"Well, I was a size twelve yesterday, but I'm a size sixteen today. I don't have any pants."
Or this one:
"The dog chewed up my shoes."
"Oh! You've GOT to be kidding! Which ones did he chew?"
"All of them."
And of course, there's the classic:
"You need to take a bath."
"Why?"
"Because you're dirty."
"But I LIKE this dirt."
Getting out of the house, for me, is torture. I admit that it's mostly because of my own ideals that I have a nervous breakdown every time we have to go. After all, we're homeschoolers. I don't want to be the family that's discussed around some anti-homeschooler's dinner table.
"You should have seen these kids. One of them had two different shoes on. And they looked and smelled like they'd been devoured by a rabid skunk."
So, when I leave the house with my five homeschooled children, I try--I really, really do--to put my best foot forward. I want to be the poster family for homeschooling. Clean clothes, clean hair, clean faces.
Invariably, however, something goes awry.
"Houdin, where are your socks?"
"Oh. I didn't know I was supposed to wear any."
"It's seven degrees outside. You're wearing sneakers. I've been telling you that you have to wear socks every time we leave the house for your whole lifetime. You didn't know you had to wear socks?"
"I forgot."
Sigh.
So, if I had that whole field-trip-preparation-in-a-box thing going on, I'd love field trips even more. We'd go on a field trip every day.
But with things the way they are, even the best field trips can be a gamble. Organizations who provide the field trips aren't always organized. Or kind. Or intelligent.
For instance, we had the field trip to the art museum where the guide interviewed our six-family group about homeschooling for the first fifteen minutes of our alotted hour with her. "What's homeschooling? Who's the teacher? How do you know they're learning? Who's the teacher? Do you all meet in the same house or do you have a school building? How do you know what to teach them? Who's the teacher?"
This same guide went on to seat our group on the floor of a gallery and proceeded to explain to us, in case we had been living under a rock, what paints, paintbrushes, circles and lines were.
"Some painters apply the paints to the canvas with...with...does anyone know?"
After forty-five minutes of that, we were totally done with her, ready to peel the layers off of every Jackson Pollack painting in the joint and then cut off our right ears.
Last week, we did our best to prepare ourselves for a field trip an hour and a half away. We were going to witness maple sugaring! We would get to see how maples were tapped, how the sap flowed, how the liquid was boiled down, and how the final product tasted. We were all very excited, albeit very cold.
The location: Hale Farm. I have this linked in my sidebar and it's one of my favorite historical field trips. From the website:
On this occassion, we were the first, and this worried me.
School groups were everywhere, lines of forty-five kids being shuffled from one display to another, anxiously raising their hands to ask questions but being told to wait, to put their hands down, to be quiet. Some were doing that "I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom" dance. Some where just gliding along with the others. I felt completely out of place.
And then Blue arrived.
If she'd had a designated field trip car, she wouldn't have had a flat tire and she wouldn't have been late. We'll have to work on that.
Apparently, the cold weather scared the other homeschool families away, or they couldn't get their cars started, so we headed off, Blue's family and ours.
It was cold outside. Very, very cold. We bundled up the best we could, but the babies weren't too thrilled with having their hands covered with those pesky mittens. They liked the idea of their digits turning blue and their mouths screaming instead. When the going got rough, I got out the M&Ms. That helped.
Most of the displays left us a bit...wanting. We stood in the cold and watched the guides pretend to drill holes in dead trees, and pretend to carry sap to a hollowed out log, and pretend to take rocks from a pretend fire to pretend to heat up the water--which wasn't pretend but was frozen solid. There were sap buckets everywhere, but they were all covered, so we never saw any actual sap. And while there was a wonderful dredlocked guy there who told us about his own homeschooled kids and let us pet his great big yoked ox, he informed us that a cow and an ox are the same thing. This doesn't bode well with children who have already been taught that a cow is a female bovine and that this was a 
male ox. Still, it was fun to pet him. The ox, that is, not the dredlocked guy. Although I would have liked to have felt his dreds. I restrained myself, though.
After all, the candle-dipping was hands-off. The sap-gathering was hands-off. The sap-boiling was hands-off. And we never did actually taste any maple syrup because we were told to do that after we did all the other stuff, but the display was gone when we got back. We did have one cool gal who allowed the kids to drill holes in the dead tree and tap the spouts into the holes. That was nifty.
But the whole thing was made very worthwhile after lunch, when we decided to visit the log cabin.
As we approached the cabin, smoked billowed from the fireplace. Before we reached the door, it was opened by a large woman with an even larger smile, dressed in period clothing and speaking with a slight New-England dialect. She greeted us warmly with a "hello!" and brought us all inside "her brother's cabin." Maybe it was just the atmosphere of the cabin, maybe it was the fact that we were finally warm, but I believe that this woman was more than a guide. She was a teacher. I may even go so far as to call her a mentor.
She encourged the children's questions. She said, "Touch this," and "feel this" and "watch this." She had their attention.
She had them all at "hello."
She showed them how to strike a flint, how a flint made sparks in the gun, let them climb the ladder to the loft to see the children's sleeping area, let them lay on the rope bed, let them try on her rabbit gloves and so much more.
But it wasn't just what she showed them. It was how she listened. She asked them questions and she listened to their answers. She invited curiosity and she listened to their questions. She complimented them, attended to them, interacted with them, and she interspersed it all with a hearty dose of laughter.
We didn't want to leave. And it wasn't just because the little log cabin was warm and cozy. It was because we had encountered a real person and we wanted to sit at her feet and learn. She wasn't haughty or presumptuous or chastising. SHE was warm and cozy.
As we were reluctantly leaving, and only because the place was shutting down for the day, she pulled Houdin aside and imparted some important guidance.
"You're the man here. You watch out for these women and children," she said. "There is a lot of danger out there, and they will need you to protect them." I saw my thirteen-year-old son grow six inches in that moment. And it didn't matter to her at all that he wasn't wearing socks.
She waved at all of us, invited us to come again in the summertime, and we assured her that we would.
As we made our way down the path away from the cabin, Sweetheart shouted, "I didn't say goodbye!" She ran back to the cabin and knocked on the big wooden door. The smiling woman appeared in the doorway, delighted in Sweetheart's words of farewell.
Indeed, if we could have field trips like that every day, I would. Even without a designated field-trip car.
I wish we could have field trips every single day. I wish I could organize my life so that we had "field trip clothes" that were always clean, always ironed, always fit and were always spiffy. I wish we had "field trip mode," where everyone knew whether or not they needed a shower, how to do their own hair, which field trip clothes to wear--though they would all be color- and fashion-coordinated so you really couldn't mess up, and what to pack in the car. We would have designated field trip snacks, a field trip diaper bag, and a field trip kit that would include a camera (which always had film/empty smart-media card/batteries), sketchbooks, journals and writing utensils.Oh, and lots of money.
Lots and lots of money.
Heck, if we follow through with that fantasty, we could even have a designated field trip car, one that would always be clean, well-maintained and filled with gas. It would have room for all of the kids, all of our field trip supplies, bicycles, the baby backpack and sling, winter coats, scarves, hats and gloves, a cooler (which, by the way, would always be clean and never ever EVER have baked beans from the last field trip molding in the bottom), and a wagon full of blankets and pillows.
Then, I would REALLY love field trips.
Because, see, as much as I love field trips, there's something I desperately hate: leaving the house.
No, it's not that I don't like going places. I love going places! It's just that I hate the actual act of preparing the children and leaving the house. It usually goes something like this:
"Mom, I don't have any pants."
"What do you mean you don't have any pants? I just bought you pants! They just fit you yesterday! How can you not have any pants?"
"Well, I was a size twelve yesterday, but I'm a size sixteen today. I don't have any pants."
Or this one:
"The dog chewed up my shoes."
"Oh! You've GOT to be kidding! Which ones did he chew?"
"All of them."
And of course, there's the classic:
"You need to take a bath."
"Why?"
"Because you're dirty."
"But I LIKE this dirt."
Getting out of the house, for me, is torture. I admit that it's mostly because of my own ideals that I have a nervous breakdown every time we have to go. After all, we're homeschoolers. I don't want to be the family that's discussed around some anti-homeschooler's dinner table.
"You should have seen these kids. One of them had two different shoes on. And they looked and smelled like they'd been devoured by a rabid skunk."
So, when I leave the house with my five homeschooled children, I try--I really, really do--to put my best foot forward. I want to be the poster family for homeschooling. Clean clothes, clean hair, clean faces.Invariably, however, something goes awry.
"Houdin, where are your socks?"
"Oh. I didn't know I was supposed to wear any."
"It's seven degrees outside. You're wearing sneakers. I've been telling you that you have to wear socks every time we leave the house for your whole lifetime. You didn't know you had to wear socks?"
"I forgot."
Sigh.
So, if I had that whole field-trip-preparation-in-a-box thing going on, I'd love field trips even more. We'd go on a field trip every day.
But with things the way they are, even the best field trips can be a gamble. Organizations who provide the field trips aren't always organized. Or kind. Or intelligent.
For instance, we had the field trip to the art museum where the guide interviewed our six-family group about homeschooling for the first fifteen minutes of our alotted hour with her. "What's homeschooling? Who's the teacher? How do you know they're learning? Who's the teacher? Do you all meet in the same house or do you have a school building? How do you know what to teach them? Who's the teacher?"
This same guide went on to seat our group on the floor of a gallery and proceeded to explain to us, in case we had been living under a rock, what paints, paintbrushes, circles and lines were.
"Some painters apply the paints to the canvas with...with...does anyone know?"
After forty-five minutes of that, we were totally done with her, ready to peel the layers off of every Jackson Pollack painting in the joint and then cut off our right ears.
Last week, we did our best to prepare ourselves for a field trip an hour and a half away. We were going to witness maple sugaring! We would get to see how maples were tapped, how the sap flowed, how the liquid was boiled down, and how the final product tasted. We were all very excited, albeit very cold.
The location: Hale Farm. I have this linked in my sidebar and it's one of my favorite historical field trips. From the website:
Explore life in Ohio's Western Reserve region just as it was being settled and the population was starting to boom. In Hale Farm's village area, the gardens and the characters are firmly planted in the year 1848. Meet settlers like, Jacob and Hannah Meredith, a prosperous dairy farmer and his wife who are quick to tell you that their house is a little more substantial than most of the other homes you'll see.When we arrived, Blue, The homeschool mom who organizes the trips, hadn't arrived and we were the only ones there from our group. This is unusual because we're usually the last ones to arrive. This wouldn't happen if we had a field-trip routine. But we don't.
On this occassion, we were the first, and this worried me.
School groups were everywhere, lines of forty-five kids being shuffled from one display to another, anxiously raising their hands to ask questions but being told to wait, to put their hands down, to be quiet. Some were doing that "I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom" dance. Some where just gliding along with the others. I felt completely out of place.
And then Blue arrived.If she'd had a designated field trip car, she wouldn't have had a flat tire and she wouldn't have been late. We'll have to work on that.
Apparently, the cold weather scared the other homeschool families away, or they couldn't get their cars started, so we headed off, Blue's family and ours.
It was cold outside. Very, very cold. We bundled up the best we could, but the babies weren't too thrilled with having their hands covered with those pesky mittens. They liked the idea of their digits turning blue and their mouths screaming instead. When the going got rough, I got out the M&Ms. That helped.
Most of the displays left us a bit...wanting. We stood in the cold and watched the guides pretend to drill holes in dead trees, and pretend to carry sap to a hollowed out log, and pretend to take rocks from a pretend fire to pretend to heat up the water--which wasn't pretend but was frozen solid. There were sap buckets everywhere, but they were all covered, so we never saw any actual sap. And while there was a wonderful dredlocked guy there who told us about his own homeschooled kids and let us pet his great big yoked ox, he informed us that a cow and an ox are the same thing. This doesn't bode well with children who have already been taught that a cow is a female bovine and that this was a 
male ox. Still, it was fun to pet him. The ox, that is, not the dredlocked guy. Although I would have liked to have felt his dreds. I restrained myself, though.
After all, the candle-dipping was hands-off. The sap-gathering was hands-off. The sap-boiling was hands-off. And we never did actually taste any maple syrup because we were told to do that after we did all the other stuff, but the display was gone when we got back. We did have one cool gal who allowed the kids to drill holes in the dead tree and tap the spouts into the holes. That was nifty.But the whole thing was made very worthwhile after lunch, when we decided to visit the log cabin.
As we approached the cabin, smoked billowed from the fireplace. Before we reached the door, it was opened by a large woman with an even larger smile, dressed in period clothing and speaking with a slight New-England dialect. She greeted us warmly with a "hello!" and brought us all inside "her brother's cabin." Maybe it was just the atmosphere of the cabin, maybe it was the fact that we were finally warm, but I believe that this woman was more than a guide. She was a teacher. I may even go so far as to call her a mentor.She encourged the children's questions. She said, "Touch this," and "feel this" and "watch this." She had their attention.
She had them all at "hello."
She showed them how to strike a flint, how a flint made sparks in the gun, let them climb the ladder to the loft to see the children's sleeping area, let them lay on the rope bed, let them try on her rabbit gloves and so much more.But it wasn't just what she showed them. It was how she listened. She asked them questions and she listened to their answers. She invited curiosity and she listened to their questions. She complimented them, attended to them, interacted with them, and she interspersed it all with a hearty dose of laughter.
We didn't want to leave. And it wasn't just because the little log cabin was warm and cozy. It was because we had encountered a real person and we wanted to sit at her feet and learn. She wasn't haughty or presumptuous or chastising. SHE was warm and cozy.
As we were reluctantly leaving, and only because the place was shutting down for the day, she pulled Houdin aside and imparted some important guidance."You're the man here. You watch out for these women and children," she said. "There is a lot of danger out there, and they will need you to protect them." I saw my thirteen-year-old son grow six inches in that moment. And it didn't matter to her at all that he wasn't wearing socks.
She waved at all of us, invited us to come again in the summertime, and we assured her that we would.
As we made our way down the path away from the cabin, Sweetheart shouted, "I didn't say goodbye!" She ran back to the cabin and knocked on the big wooden door. The smiling woman appeared in the doorway, delighted in Sweetheart's words of farewell.
Indeed, if we could have field trips like that every day, I would. Even without a designated field-trip car.
Bard put together a collage about our trip here.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Two Songs for Bo's Birthday...
The first, a piece that is very dear to our hearts. This is a tune that we can often hear in the Thicket Dweller's household, being sung loudly, and oh-so-wrong. Now WHO would DO such a thing? ::shrugs::****************************
Why do birds suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
Why do stars fall down from the sky
Every time you walk by?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled sawdust in your hair of...um...brown
And flecks of gold in your eyes of...what are they...hazel? Or somethin'?
That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around. (Okay. All the girl CATS. Thanks for feeding them. Without you, they'd be...well, they'd be dead.)
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled sawdust in your hair
And golden highlights in your eyes of...kinda greenish...I think. What color are they again?
That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around. (Well, I do, anyway. And your three daughters.)
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
Just like me (Just like me)
They long to be
Close to you.
::cue the dramatic, arms-flailing ending::
Wahhhhhhhhhhh, close to you.
Wahhhhhhhhhhh, close to you.
Hahhhhhhhhhhhhahahaha, close to you.
Lahhhhhhhhhhh, close to you.
**********************************
Okay, enough with the sappy stuff. Now on to the REAL dirt. A sentimental selection by The Arrogant Worms...
**********************************
Once a year we celebrate
With stupid hats and plastic plates
The fact that you were able to make
Another trip around the sun
And the whole clan gathers round
And gifts and laughter do abound
And we let out a joyful sound
And sing that stupid song
Happy birthday!
Now you're one year older!
Happy birthday!
Your life still isn't over!
Happy birthday!
You did not accomplish much
But you didn't die this year
I guess that's good enough
So let's drink to your fading health
And hope you don't remind yourself
The chance of finding fame and wealth
Decrease with every year
Does it feel like you're doing laps
And eating food and taking naps
And hoping that someday perhaps
Your life will hold some cheer
Happy birthday!
What have you done that matters?
Happy birthday!
You're starting to get fatter
Happy birthday!
It's downhill from now on
Try not to remind yourself
Your best years are all gone
If cryogenics were all free
Then you could live like Walt Disney
And live for all eternity
Inside a block of ice
But instead your time is set
This is the only life you get
And though it hasn't ended yet
Sometimes you wish it might
Happy birthday!
You wish you had more money
Happy birthday!
Your life's so sad it's funny
Happy birthday!
How much more can you take?
But your friends are hungry
So just cut the stupid cake
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday, dear Bohemian...
**********************
You are the love of my life. Thanks for putting up with me. Now thank me for putting up with you.
Friday, February 25, 2005
I'm Deb
You are Deb and you could drink whole milk if you
wanted.
Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by
A Parody Protected
From Kirkcentric: a response to the Arizona Daily Star's anti-homeschooling cartoon.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
My New Baby
Okay, so it's not MY new baby, but I get to love on her and stuff. And besides, it takes a village and all that. Right?My sister-in-law, Lil Sis, who is a regular reader and commenter on this blog, has given me a new neice. I spent so much of Lil Sis's pregnancy praying for her as a pregnant woman that it didn't occur to me that there would actually be a baby until about three weeks before Lil Neice was due. As soon as I realized it, however, I knew, knew, KNEW she was going to be a she. And, of course, I was right. ;-)
Welcome to the world, darling Lil Neice. I'm so thrilled to know you're here, and I can't wait to meet you! I really, really can't! I can't wait to nuzzle that little baby neck of yours and hear that little baby cry. I can't wait to shower you with little baby things and see you grow up and watch you play with your cousins and feed you pancakes and smoothies and buy you hershey's kisses and take you to the movies and celebrate your birthdays and read you A.A. Milne poems.
You are awesome, Lil Neice. Truly. Awesome.
And Lil Sis, I really appreciate you going through all of that pregnancy stuff just so I can have a new neice. That's kind of you. Thanks.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Flexibility's the Key
When I have days where I think I'm so totally screwing up, when I think my kids are brats who can't learn and I'm a mother who can't teach, I need to think back on this day.
The theme for the day: flexibility. I awoke this morning feeling like I didn't really want to do much of anything. I've been feeling that way for the whole weekend. Oh wait. Today's Tuesday. Okay, so I've been feeling that way all weekend and all week. I wasn't sure I'd get very far today, either.
I had a driving job for an Amish woman down the road. Maybe that just put me in a good mood--I don't know. I always enjoy driving for this woman. The conversation is meaningful and her attitude is always warm and encouraging. She and her daughter were taking her grandchildren to a medical appointment, so I took a jaunt down to a local Amish bakery to see if they had any of their killer croutons, the kind that are deep fried and coated with italian herbs and cheese, and I got a brainstorm. Since we were planning to begin using Five in a Row again, and since that's a relaxed, enjoyable approach to learning, we would kick off with a tea time.
So I brought home cakes and cookies, and the children got out the tablecloth, tea sets and cake pedastals. Sweetheart set out the goodies while Monet made the tea. I made it clear that teatime is a time to speak only pleasantries. No unpleasant conversation or behavior at the tea table! This was about the most inflexible rule I made today.
While they were enjoying their teatime, I straightened up our reading area--cleaned off the couch, swept and straightened rugs, set out the beanbag chairs and rocking chairs and fluffed up the pillows. When they were finished with their tea, they gathered around and we began reading They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson.
After the book had been read, we discussed the Civil War, occupations, beekeeping, relatives and war terminology. Sweetheart and The Baby strayed from the reading area a little bit to play with the wooden treehouse set, but they played quietly for the most part and absorbed our conversation, or at least bits of it.
When we were finished with our discussion, I encouraged the kids to choose a book from the Five in a Row box that I would either read aloud or they could read independently. The boys chose to have me read aloud from a book on bees and beekeeping while Bard chose to read a book on her own, albeit a picture book. When she finished that, she went on to do the rest of her schoolwork.
Houdin commented on the Civil War which prompted a discussion on other wars, including the revolutionary war. He had watched part of Gettysburg and pointed out that there was a general who shared our last name. We looked up a bit more information on The Battle at Bunker Hill and ordered Gettysburg from Netflix.
Most of the day was used discussing bees and other insects. Monet asked me to read another book from the Five in a Row box, so I let him choose. He chose a book on mealworms which I read aloud. Since we have a chameleon, I keep live mealworms. The book included several experiments with mealworms that we plan to do tomorrow. I looked on Netflix and through our library for a DVD about bees, but I couldn't find one. Any suggestions? I was pretty surprised. We do plan to visit a friend's hives, and we may start a hive of our own. There's a naturealm not far from us that has a hive observatory, so we may take a trip to see that as well.
The younger kids helped me take my winter decorations down from the kitchen and put up my springtime decorations while Bard read and Houdin took a walk.
Aha. But I've been away too long. The kids have concocted a house-rules game of soccer with a huge blue ball and they're starting to bicker. All in all, though, it's been a good day. After I break up the soccer-game fiasco, we're heading to the library, and then home for more reading aloud.
Note to the future me: balance planning with flexibility, and everyone's happier.
The theme for the day: flexibility. I awoke this morning feeling like I didn't really want to do much of anything. I've been feeling that way for the whole weekend. Oh wait. Today's Tuesday. Okay, so I've been feeling that way all weekend and all week. I wasn't sure I'd get very far today, either.
I had a driving job for an Amish woman down the road. Maybe that just put me in a good mood--I don't know. I always enjoy driving for this woman. The conversation is meaningful and her attitude is always warm and encouraging. She and her daughter were taking her grandchildren to a medical appointment, so I took a jaunt down to a local Amish bakery to see if they had any of their killer croutons, the kind that are deep fried and coated with italian herbs and cheese, and I got a brainstorm. Since we were planning to begin using Five in a Row again, and since that's a relaxed, enjoyable approach to learning, we would kick off with a tea time.
So I brought home cakes and cookies, and the children got out the tablecloth, tea sets and cake pedastals. Sweetheart set out the goodies while Monet made the tea. I made it clear that teatime is a time to speak only pleasantries. No unpleasant conversation or behavior at the tea table! This was about the most inflexible rule I made today.
While they were enjoying their teatime, I straightened up our reading area--cleaned off the couch, swept and straightened rugs, set out the beanbag chairs and rocking chairs and fluffed up the pillows. When they were finished with their tea, they gathered around and we began reading They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson.
After the book had been read, we discussed the Civil War, occupations, beekeeping, relatives and war terminology. Sweetheart and The Baby strayed from the reading area a little bit to play with the wooden treehouse set, but they played quietly for the most part and absorbed our conversation, or at least bits of it.
When we were finished with our discussion, I encouraged the kids to choose a book from the Five in a Row box that I would either read aloud or they could read independently. The boys chose to have me read aloud from a book on bees and beekeeping while Bard chose to read a book on her own, albeit a picture book. When she finished that, she went on to do the rest of her schoolwork.
Houdin commented on the Civil War which prompted a discussion on other wars, including the revolutionary war. He had watched part of Gettysburg and pointed out that there was a general who shared our last name. We looked up a bit more information on The Battle at Bunker Hill and ordered Gettysburg from Netflix.
Most of the day was used discussing bees and other insects. Monet asked me to read another book from the Five in a Row box, so I let him choose. He chose a book on mealworms which I read aloud. Since we have a chameleon, I keep live mealworms. The book included several experiments with mealworms that we plan to do tomorrow. I looked on Netflix and through our library for a DVD about bees, but I couldn't find one. Any suggestions? I was pretty surprised. We do plan to visit a friend's hives, and we may start a hive of our own. There's a naturealm not far from us that has a hive observatory, so we may take a trip to see that as well.
The younger kids helped me take my winter decorations down from the kitchen and put up my springtime decorations while Bard read and Houdin took a walk.
Aha. But I've been away too long. The kids have concocted a house-rules game of soccer with a huge blue ball and they're starting to bicker. All in all, though, it's been a good day. After I break up the soccer-game fiasco, we're heading to the library, and then home for more reading aloud.
Note to the future me: balance planning with flexibility, and everyone's happier.
blissful contentment -- schooling-related rant
From Rachel at Blissful Contentment, a short essay that wonders, how did we get from there to here?
Gary the Giant
One of the best and worst things about my childhood growing up in the country was our very long lane. I can't even begin to count how many times I had to run to the end of that lane to catch the schoolbus, the bus that I could see coming up over the hill three driveways down, giving me just enough time to get from my front door to the big yellow bus door. Sometimes I still have nightmares that I've missed the bus. In my nightmares, I'm a full-grown adult, standing at the storm door in the front room of my childhood home, and I don't have my schoolbooks together, or I don't have any clothes on, or I don't have my wild, rat's nest hair brushed. So I stand there helplessly, and I miss the bus, even though I can see it coming from three driveways down.
Most of the time, in my nightmare, I miss the bus because I didn't have my hair brushed.
As a child, having my hair brushed was a very, very big deal. An ordeal, really. When I was very young, my mom would rake my long, stubbornly curly hair into two sections and place them as pigtails on either side of the top of my head. I have pictures of this, and it was the only time that my hair looked even remotely cute. Mostly, it was an unruly mess. Yes, a "rat's nest," as my mom would call it. Eventually, when I got to second grade, she cut it so short that everyone thought I was a boy, including the cute eighth grade boys that I had crushes on. But when I was in kindergarten, curly little pigtails it was.
On one occasion, when I was in kindergarten, I tromped up that long driveway to the road and got on that big bus full of kids who were all older than I, and I made my way to my seat. As I sat in that huge bus, on that huge bus seat, with those huge kids, I felt something.
A yank.
And then a bigger yank.
And then pain. Hot, searing pain on my head.
I turned in my seat to look up at Gary. He had to have been one of the largest, cutest eighth graders on the whole bus. Maybe in the whole school district. Maybe even in the whole world. And something had prompted Gary, this absolutely gigantic eighth grade boy, to use one of my pigtails as a stress-reliever or source of entertainment or something.
I didn't say anything. I didn't even cry. I just sat there, perfectly still, facing the front of the bus and let him pull my pigtails.
Every day.
I think I was so intimidated by or in love with Gary the Giant that I didn't even tell my parents that my hair was being yanked on. Hard. Every day. If my mom had yanked on my hair every day (and she did) I would have screamed bloody murder (and I did). But no one ever heard me complain about Gary the Giant yanking on my pigtails.
But one evening as my mom was taking the pigtails out, she noticed that my head was red and swollen, which, believe it or not, was not a normal thing, even with all of the brushing and yanking she did to my rat's nest on a regular basis. I don't remember how, but she finally got it out of me that this big kid, Gary the Giant, had been pulling my hair. She knew Gary the Giant. She knew Gary the Giant's mother. I expected her to go right to the phone and call Mrs. Giant, but she didn't. She didn't say much, as I recall. She just kept brushing my hair.
I rode home on the bus, as I did every day, and Gary pulled my pigtails, as he did every day, and the busdriver, Gib (who was my busdriver from the time I was five until I graduated from high school) made a left turn onto Lovebury Road, as he did every day. It was all very predictable. Very normal. The bus even groaned to a stop in front of Gary the Giant's house and Gib even creaked open the schoolbus door in front of Gary the Giant's driveway, just like he did every single day of my kindergarten life.
But what was very NOT normal--what did NOT happen every single day--was that my mother--yes, MY MOTHER--was standing there, at the end of Gary's driveway, waiting, her arms crossed over her ample bosum. Wow, I thought, I wonder why my mom's picking me up here? There was always some wacky thing going on in our house, so I figured it was just another wacky thing. But it turned out that my mom wasn't there just to get me. She was there to get vengeance.
She got on that bus, and Gib didn't even stop her. She walked down the aisle, fists at her side, and walked straight up to Gary the Giant's seat. She pulled Gary the Giant out of his seat while every other kid on that bus sat there, mouths agape. She grabbed two fistfulls of Gary the Giant's thick black hair in each of her hands. And she yanked. Hard. And then she yanked again. And again. Until Gary the Giant was crying. Crying!
And then she stuck her finger in Gary the Giant's tear-streaked face and spat between gritted teeth, "If you every touch my daughter again, I'll take every one of your fingers off with my teeth and you'll get off this bus with two handfuls of stubs instead of fistfuls of my daughter's hair." And then she took my hand, pulled me off that bus, and walked me home. And Gib didn't even stop us.
Gary stopped pulling my pigtails after that.
Most of the time, in my nightmare, I miss the bus because I didn't have my hair brushed.
As a child, having my hair brushed was a very, very big deal. An ordeal, really. When I was very young, my mom would rake my long, stubbornly curly hair into two sections and place them as pigtails on either side of the top of my head. I have pictures of this, and it was the only time that my hair looked even remotely cute. Mostly, it was an unruly mess. Yes, a "rat's nest," as my mom would call it. Eventually, when I got to second grade, she cut it so short that everyone thought I was a boy, including the cute eighth grade boys that I had crushes on. But when I was in kindergarten, curly little pigtails it was.
On one occasion, when I was in kindergarten, I tromped up that long driveway to the road and got on that big bus full of kids who were all older than I, and I made my way to my seat. As I sat in that huge bus, on that huge bus seat, with those huge kids, I felt something.
A yank.
And then a bigger yank.
And then pain. Hot, searing pain on my head.
I turned in my seat to look up at Gary. He had to have been one of the largest, cutest eighth graders on the whole bus. Maybe in the whole school district. Maybe even in the whole world. And something had prompted Gary, this absolutely gigantic eighth grade boy, to use one of my pigtails as a stress-reliever or source of entertainment or something.
I didn't say anything. I didn't even cry. I just sat there, perfectly still, facing the front of the bus and let him pull my pigtails.
Every day.
I think I was so intimidated by or in love with Gary the Giant that I didn't even tell my parents that my hair was being yanked on. Hard. Every day. If my mom had yanked on my hair every day (and she did) I would have screamed bloody murder (and I did). But no one ever heard me complain about Gary the Giant yanking on my pigtails.
But one evening as my mom was taking the pigtails out, she noticed that my head was red and swollen, which, believe it or not, was not a normal thing, even with all of the brushing and yanking she did to my rat's nest on a regular basis. I don't remember how, but she finally got it out of me that this big kid, Gary the Giant, had been pulling my hair. She knew Gary the Giant. She knew Gary the Giant's mother. I expected her to go right to the phone and call Mrs. Giant, but she didn't. She didn't say much, as I recall. She just kept brushing my hair.
I rode home on the bus, as I did every day, and Gary pulled my pigtails, as he did every day, and the busdriver, Gib (who was my busdriver from the time I was five until I graduated from high school) made a left turn onto Lovebury Road, as he did every day. It was all very predictable. Very normal. The bus even groaned to a stop in front of Gary the Giant's house and Gib even creaked open the schoolbus door in front of Gary the Giant's driveway, just like he did every single day of my kindergarten life.
But what was very NOT normal--what did NOT happen every single day--was that my mother--yes, MY MOTHER--was standing there, at the end of Gary's driveway, waiting, her arms crossed over her ample bosum. Wow, I thought, I wonder why my mom's picking me up here? There was always some wacky thing going on in our house, so I figured it was just another wacky thing. But it turned out that my mom wasn't there just to get me. She was there to get vengeance.
She got on that bus, and Gib didn't even stop her. She walked down the aisle, fists at her side, and walked straight up to Gary the Giant's seat. She pulled Gary the Giant out of his seat while every other kid on that bus sat there, mouths agape. She grabbed two fistfulls of Gary the Giant's thick black hair in each of her hands. And she yanked. Hard. And then she yanked again. And again. Until Gary the Giant was crying. Crying!
And then she stuck her finger in Gary the Giant's tear-streaked face and spat between gritted teeth, "If you every touch my daughter again, I'll take every one of your fingers off with my teeth and you'll get off this bus with two handfuls of stubs instead of fistfuls of my daughter's hair." And then she took my hand, pulled me off that bus, and walked me home. And Gib didn't even stop us.
Gary stopped pulling my pigtails after that.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
What's Your Opinion?
Take a gander at this cartoon and let me know what you think.
When you've savored that one, you can check this one out, too.
When you've savored that one, you can check this one out, too.
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