I'm a little shell-shocked right now...we got a preliminary loan approval this morning. It was really bizarre and surreal and I'm not sure yet that I'm not going to wake up. Yikes. We won't be going ANYWHERE for the next thirty years. I just can't believe it.

We have a couple of things that have to be finalized. First, because of the dollar amount, they have to get two other loan officers to approve the loan. The underwriter approved the loan, and had it been $5,000 less, that would have been the final approval. Ah, well. One more day, it sounds like, and we'll be on our way. This is such an astronomically big deal to me. I just can't, can't, can't believe it.

I'm bigtime nervous. The loan approval was much too easy. We were expecting a very big deal and a lot of bleeding, but it was very painless. I think God led us to this exact place. First of all, it turns out that I went to school from Kindergarten through graduation with the underwriter's brother-in-law. No way. We rode the school bus together every day (give or take a few, of course) for 13 years. Amazing. Secondly, the underwriter lives an hour away, even though he works right in our town. His water pump was struck by lightning a couple of years ago and he called Bo's company to come out. They were out the next day, pulled the pump and he was a happy customer. He had called Bo a couple of years ago to look into costs for drilling a well. Bo pulled out his laptop, punched in the guy's name, and up came the estimate. Was that ever impressive! Here's a guy asking for a loan to build his own house, and the biggest question is "How organized can you be?" And he whips out his laptop and BOOM, he proves to this loan underwriter how organized he can be! There was NO WAY he could have been prepared for that!

Amazing.

We're in the process of designing our new kitchen and preparing to build the new house. We hope to begin digging in about four weeks. The bank has approved our loan, and now we just have to get the final plans for finish work before they will let us begin. It will be time consuming, I'm sure, but it will be a lot of fun, too!

We received a loan approval for our house, so Habitat for the ***** is just around the corner! I'm in the process of choosing my kitchen cabinets, flooring, bathroom layout, etc. I'm excited and nervous! Hopefully we'll be into our completed home by April 2004. We should be able to move in before winter, but it won't be completely finished. We're in the process of trying to determine whether we should put in a wood floor on the first floor or put in linoleum in the kitchen and dining room and carpet in the family room and living room.

We've decided to go with our original plan. We had chosen a different plan through a builder, but what we discovered is that after we made some of the necessary modifications for the things we really wanted, it ended up being the same price as the one we designed, so we're staying with our original plan. Our bank is allowing Bo to be the general contractor, which should save us money. It's what we've always wanted to do, so I hope it works out well for us.

I am always and forever amazed by the wealth of information on the web. There are so many quality learning materials and cool things to do, I just don't know what I'd do without them all. I think I'd give up my indoor plumbing before I'd give up my internet connection. While I was exploring the First Grade Backpack, I found a link to author/illustrator Jan Brett's page. Wow! She has a ton of printable activities on her site! The site says that there are 2, 007 pages of activities, artwork and projects. There are alphabet flashcards, math flashcards, lesson planners, doorway borders, recipe books, printable notecards with envelopes. I'm so impressed, that I'm actually going to buy her books online, though I don't own a single one now. Anyone who puts that much effort into knowledge and literacy deserves my cash. Go check it out!

Whew! Everyone completed their goals for the day! It was actually a fairly good day, with the exception of Monet's hyper attititude, my messy cabin, and the fact that I got a note from the library telling me that I have a $24.00 fine and several overdue books. I'm kinda frustrated about that because I can't renew my books online anymore, which I used to be able to do. I'll have to see what I can do to get that fixed.

I messed around with the SOS a bit. Very cool! I think this will be quite helpful for our school program. The only challenge I see arising is that we only have one computer. There could be some fights and logistics problems.

Especially since I found so many cool websites today that will be fantastic learning tools as well as buffers in between lessons (and during Mama's potty breaks!) that I'll gladly share with you.

One of the fantastic sites I found was Our First Grade Backpack Very impressive! I found it while looking for simple online stories that Monet can read instead of me running to the library (and paying outrageous fines!!!) for books that he can read. I was especially impressed with the reading page. I found some great stuff like a realplayer reading of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day read by the author. There are a bunch of cute stories that children can follow along with while they are read to (I know the rules...but I don't feel like restructuring that sentence right now!) if you go to the Cbeebies site--stories like Jack and the Beanstalk starring Noddy or The Lion and the Mouse starring Angelmouse. There were so many stories and so many links on Our First Grade Backpack, I haven't even begun to explore them all. I hope to put several good ones in a folder for Monet and Sweetheart to enjoy while I'm doing other things during the day.

One great site that I discovered on Our First Grade Backpack is Learning to Read at Starfall. It's a free online phonics program that uses interactive games, animated stories and short movies to teach children to read. The site also provides free journaling page and worksheet downloads for each lesson. Very useful! Much better than spending hundreds of dollars on a phonics program. I may try it with Sweetheart. We've always used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (hokey title, good book) but only get about half-way through it before the kid catches on and we don't need to continue with the lessons. This may be just the little program we need to get Sweetheart started reading! Bard began reading at 3 years old and is now an incredible reader...voracious, I would say. Edison didn't really start reading until recently. Monet just started to learn to read in October and is now quite adept! He's very excited about joining choir because the two requirements were to learn to read and to be in second grade. He meets both requirements! He's very excited.

Bard babysat for the first time tonight. Read her blog to find out how it went.

Ah! And Edison won his scrimmage! Good for you, Edison!

And while we're talking baseball, yesterday Monet was at baseball practice and got hit right on the tip of the nose by a baseball. I wasn't there, but I was told that he bled like a stuck pig. But he didn't cry! Now I call him my "baseball hero." He's pretty proud of the blood on his glove. ;-)

Monet and I just finished our History lessons...sheesh, was that a chore. We talked about Self Government as it relates to our own lives and as was illustrated by Leif Erikson. It seems that Monet takes everything so personally. When I would talk about a person being self-governed in contrast to being disciplined or governed externally, he would say, "Stop talking about me!" Is that a guilty conscience??? I finally had to say, "LOOK! You can choose to be the kind of person people like or the kind of person people don't like. Which one do you want to be? You can be the kind of person that makes people angry, or the kind that makes people happy. Which would you like to be? If you are self-governed, you get priviliges. You get special treatment. You get promotions. If you have to be governed by someone else, you may be demoted, punished, or simply overlooked. Which do you want to be? Self-governed or governed by someone else?" He said self-governed. Since the discussion, he's been saying things like, "I'm going to put this away. That's being self-governed." I guess sometimes the behavior just needs to be given a name in order for a child to accomplish it.

We're working on Saxon Math right now. I like it, though I wish I could find a way to work through it a bit faster. Some of the things we're working on are a bit too elementary for the kids. The Switched On Schoolhouse stuff should help that, though.

Lots of chicken eggs today! Three blue ones and one brown. Cool!

We're trying something a bit different today. I'm assigning the lessons the kids have to do with me to certain times of the day, just like (duh) a traditional classroom. So far, we're behind today. Ack.
Monet is quite a challenge today. What the heck? He won't do his lessons quietly. He just keeps talking and asking silly questions and chattering and singing and playing...I can't get things done with a clear head! Back to math lessons...

Oh! And the Switched On Schoolhouse materials came. I hope to set those up after Edison's baseball scrimmage.

A storm is brewing, yet the birds are singing. It's a beautiful day anyway.

I was so exhausted last night. It seems I'm exhausted every night. Around 8:30 P.M. I was so very ready to head for bed. Instead, I headed for the local coffeehouse to enjoy music by Boheme and a friend of ours. They got started much too late, and only played for an hour, but I think they enjoyed it.

I awoke this morning thinking about how I was going to structure my day. While evaluating my daily goals, I have realized that there are a couple of areas of our routine that need a bit of help...

Every day, I present each of the kids with their own daily goals sheet.

dailygoals.pdf

If you look at the pdf link (which comes up a little funky for some reason. If you know why, e-mail me and tell me how to fix it!), you will see the actual sheet Bard was given to complete yesterday. The first thing they have to do each morning is, of course, their morning goals. Usually they do alright with this, though Monet drags his feet and whines quite a bit, it takes a while for Edison to get started, and Bard usually isn't even UP in the morning. Still, they get it done without much "encouraging" from me. This has taken many, many, many months of practice to get it to this stage in the routine.

Next is Household Goals. While I try to have the kids do their goals in order, household goals are the exception. I have decided that it's much more important to get their academics done than to clean house. Do I like it that way? Absolutely not. It's very frustrating for me because we have so many neighbors without phones, so they will just stop by on a whim, and then I have to clear papers, boxes, projects, etc. off of the table so we have a place to sit and chat (because my living room is my kitchen is my bedroom, is my dining room...). My hope, however, is to get our generous porch to a state where we can sit and chat there and people will never need to enter my cabin.

If I don't do the Household Goals that way, it will be afternoon before we get to academics. I know, I know...we should just get up earlier. That is SO hard for me! While, most mornings, I'm up by 7:30, it's the only time of the day I have to write, think, and prepare. So I don't wake the children most days...I let them awake on their own schedule. The benefits and banes of homeschooling...

Another thing I notice is that there are a few things every day that simply don't get done. I'm embarrassed to admit what they are. But, looking at Bard's Daily Goals, I see everything but the following checked...

"Spend time over tea or something discussing with Mom what you've read so far."

"Discuss Self-Government with Mom."

"Discuss your Daily Goals with Mom."

Do you know who's not meeting their daily goals?

MOM!!!

It's just that I get so doggone busy doing the other things that need to be done...staining the deck, making or going out to pick up meals, feeding Baby, cleaning up spills and other can't-wait messes...How in the world can I add another hundred hours to my day???

The problem in this is that each of the children get to choose a reward for completing all of their daily goals. Now, they can work hard all day, complete everything within their power and learn an awful lot, but if they can't get their time in with Mom, their daily goals arent' reached and the goals aren't given. I'm trying to think of a way to hand out rewards on some kind of a scale.

Complete 5-7 goals, get a ten cent increase in your allowance this week.

Complete 8-15 goals, make a phone call to a friend.

Complete all of your goals, choose a new car, a pony,...etc. etc. etc...

I'll have to think on it...

While we didn't get up early (up too late taking a bath and getting ready for today) we did prepare for breakfast this morning. I got up at 7:00, and I messed around with blogs and with my daily journal. I kept telling myself, "I'll get the kids up at 7:30. Okay, I'll get them up at 8:00. I definitely want them up by 9:00." Well, it was 10:00 before they were all up and eating breakfast! We did Saxon math during breakfast. I can't wait to get the math curriculum for Bard. While I think this Saxon time is building her confidence (something much needed in the area of math) I don't think it's nearly challenging enough. We'll continue using it because it reinforces the basics, but it will be much nicer for her to do the Switched On Schoolhouse math, when it arrives. I got an e-mail yesterday saying that it was on the way, so we should have it soon. I'm so excited about how it will give her the ability to do a lot of her lessons independently.
The kids are doing their independent work right now. Bard is doing her spelling book, Edison his italic handwriting, and Monet is drawing faces on rocks--not an assignment. He seems to be having a problem staying with his work. Sigh.
Edison had a great idea for art. Check out Edison's Blog. I'm not sure if he has anything on it yet, but he should soon enough.

Finally, a Shower!

Or

The Days of Washing My

Hair with a KitchenAid Mixing Bowl are Over

There are a lot of unconventional things about living here at Thicket Cottage. We don't have an indoor toilet. Our bedroom is our kitchen is our dining room is our schoolroom. We don't have a television. Most of these things are pretty easy to get used to, but one of the greatest challenges of living at the Thicket has been the lack of an indoor tub and shower.

Having an outside bathtub is truly magical. During the summer, baths are wonderful, day or night. During the daytime, the titmice and chickadees visit the feeder that hangs above the tub.
At night, the star luminaires and candle sconces throw a romantic glow on everything. When the kids take a bath at night, they say the feel like kings and queens. It's true!

Even in the winter, a bath in a tub of hot water feels deliciously rebellious when there is snow on the ground beside you and icicles hanging above you. Steam rises from the water and from every above-water body part.

One thing I have not liked about the tub has been the lack of a shower. I have a lot of hair. Thick, curly hair. It's a pain to comb, a pain to style, and definitely a pain to wash. For these past couple of years, I've been washing my hair by either dunking my head under the water (which results in a mass of tangles) or taking my KitchenAid mixing bowl out to the tubroom with me. That has served well, and has been reminiscent of a hillbilly japanese bath, but I never realized how nice a shower would be.

Until I got one!

Last night, Bohemian installed a removable shower head above the tub. It was a gift for my birthday, along with candles and bubble bath. I couldn't wait to try it. So, after I'd finished all of my days' activities and prepared for the next day, I ventured out to my tub. It was about 1:00 AM, and the moon was full. I lit every candle, took a book (The Dan Riley School for a Girl by Dan Riley), and indulged for an hour.

Life has never been so decadent.

It's nearing the end of the day. Bohemian has gone to pick up the boys from church. They insisted on going, and even though their goals weren't all met, I said they could go. Bard's doing the dishes and I'm thinking about the coming day. Today was alright...we got several things accomplished. Bard and I worked on her 12 times table, which is still hard for *me* to remember. We actually practiced them together. Monet surprised me in a big way. I got out the sight word flash cards to occupy him while I was waiting for one of the other kids to complete a goal. I really didn't think he'd know them, but I thought it would be good to practice them. He knew them *all*! Pretty impressive for a kid who says he can't even read. Very impressive for a kid who refused to even try to read as recently as October '02. So now he is old enough and meets the requirements for attending the Choral Society auditions. He's incredibly excited. Actually, I am, too. Really, we've just practiced reading together. I read to all of them when I can. I've used a method of spelling words that is actually pretty simple and very effective. I have printed out all of the Dolce sight words on 4x6 cards (there's a site with a printable table of the words at ). Each of the kids keeps their spelling words in an index card file box. Every day, they take out the cards and their spelling notebook, and they "study, cover and spell." Basically, they read the word aloud, then they trace it with their finger, then they turn the card over or cover it up. After that, they write the word in their spelling notebook. They check their word against the index card. If it's right, they get to write the date on the back of the card. If it's wrong, they correct it. After they've spelled the word correctly four times, they can put it in the back of their box. However, if they can't get it right during our weekly spelling bees, it comes back to the front. It's working well for Monet, but Edison, who would be diagnosed ADD in a more conventional setting, doesn't seem to be able to retain any rote memorization. We're working on better ways to approach such things with Edison.
Now it's time to go over their daily goals and get ready for tomorrow. I hope to have goal sheets printed out today and be ready for breakfast before I go to bed. I don't really like such rigid schedules and hyper-organizing, but I'll try it. It just may help.

I've been thinking about how we organize things as a family. So many times half the day slips by and we're just getting started with our academics. Here's a post from my lifejournal :

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate… to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
--Leo Rosten

Our problem areas:

• Not enough Mom.
• Getting up too late (especially Bard)
• Taking too long to get breakfast and other
  meals
• Not getting meals on time and everyone being too
  tired and grumpy
• Too much housework each day
• Not enough storage space for school
  materials
• Not preparing for the school day in the evening
  before

 
How to solve those problems:

• Find a way to involve Bohemian (dh).
• Getting to bed on time and getting up
  earlier.
• Have breakfast foods ready the night
  before
• Making sure to plan meals, like getting food in
  the crockpot, etc.
• Not sure how to solve the housework
  problem.
• Not sure how to solve the storage problem, except
  to buy a small storage barn
• Have an evening meeting before reading time to go
  over what was completed and set goals for the next day. Keep notes from that
  meeting on LifeJournal.

Peace Like a River
Telegraph Education Keep it in the family

I just finished reading the book Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, a wonderfully compassionate book about an asthmatic boy whose older brother is a fugitive from the law and whose father is a conduit for the works of God. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Engers are a homeschooling family. Leif Enger left his job with Minnesota Public Radio to spend more time with his family, a point that didn't exactly encourage my dh, like I hoped it would. More about this in a later blog entry.

I don't care for a couple of points of this article. For instance, the author of the article refers to the problem of homeschooling children not being "socialized."

"The boys mix far less with their contemporaries than they would at school, and participation in team sports is also often difficult to arrange."

Also, the author says, "But the Engers are living proof that families do not have to be religious zealots or education obsessives to choose the home schooling option." Maybe Britain just isn't up on homeschooing yet, but I thought most people realized that homeschooling isn't just for "religious zealots" anymore. And even so, being a Christian is not a nasty disease.

This reminds me of a point a friend made to me recently about the concept of calling Christians judgemental.

"This is akin to your child saying that you're 'lecturing' him/her when you tell them the evils of drugs or staying out late or whatever. By labeling it 'lecturing,' then your words are made meaningless. By labeling your moral position on something as 'judgmental,' then your words are dismissed as invalid. This has become a characteristic of our culture--there are no absolutes anymore."

Anyway, while this is a tangential entry, it relates to the book because...um...it also follows a tangential flow. After all, it *is* written from the viewpoint of an 11-year-old boy. :-)

Infection

Blogging.

It's amazing to me. I can see why people think it's the revolution of the writing trade. Basically, I can write an entire book--my memoirs--about my adventures in homeschooling, parenting, knitting, writing, birdwatching...whatever I want, and it's here for all the world to see. Published. When I was in high school, my journalism teacher said you can call yourself a "published" author if you've had anything submitted for mass human consumption. How many published authors there must be with the advent of the web! Has the definition of a published author changed?

Well, I will begin my life as a published author (according to my journalism teacher's definition) by writing my memoirs of my life as a homeschooling parent. And to begin, I'll start with some background.

I can't really tell you exactly why I decided to homeschool my children. What I do remember is that I read an article about a homeschooling family when I was in high school. I don't know who it was, but I do remember that they were being given a hard time and, if memory serves me correctly, actually had their children taken from them due to "truancy." This seemed to me very radical and unfair. After all, the parents seemed to be on the right track. They wanted to give their children an excellent education. They seemed intelligent, caring, attentive. They certainly didn't seem like the kind of parents who would just allow their children to permanently play hooky from school. I guess, upon the reading of that article, a seed was planted.

High school, to me, wasn't necessarily completely unpleasant. However, I did lack motivation in certain areas, mostly because the teachers in those areas also lacked motivation. I don't think it's a mistake that my most passionate teachers were my language arts teachers. Mrs. Wise had introduced some of the most fantastic literature to me in the fourth grade--The Red Badge of Courage, A Wrinkle in Time (which I listened to on a borrowed library phonograph record over and over every night), and so many others. In seventh grade, Mrs. Jones introduced me to Eleanor Rigby. I remember being fascinated that she kept her face in a jar by the door.Who was it for? My four favorite teachers in high school were Miss Gradwell (speech), Mrs. George (journalism and English), Mrs. Berry (English Lit) and Mrs. Hunt (Humanities), all language arts teachers. Years later, I would see Mrs. Hunt in the mall and swell with pride as she nodded approvingly at my homeschooled children. I had the chance to tell her just how much her love of literature had meant to me and how she had always inspired me to learn more. I would also have a chance to see Miss Gradwell again, watching in amazement as she received a writer's award at a seminar I had attended on just a whim. Judy Gradwell had endured and conquered breast cancer and decided to use her love for words to share her struggle with other people.

I'm not saying that I homeschooled because I loved language arts.

Necessarily.

What I am saying is that I recognized that a love of learning was contagious. It was contracted by those who also had a love of learning.

I wanted to infect my own children.

I journal. I write. I homeschool. I love photography. Therefore, a homeschooling blog seemed like a darn good idea. So, here it is.

Let me tell you what's going on...give you a bit of an introduction. Forgive me if I don't indulge personal information...it's a crazy world, and I don't want mine to get much crazier. To you, I will call myself Tyler, since my favorite author is Anne Tyler, who just happened to be homeschooled.

I'm a mama, and I have five children. I'll call them Bard (13), Edison (11), Monet (7), Sweetheart (4) and Baby (baby). We've been homeschooling for many, many years. Since Bard was 3. We've tried a lot of different curricula, experimented quite a bit, and gone through some wonderful and not-so-wonderful adventures.

Ah, but Baby calls. More later,

Tyler

::: from the green book :::

What a gorgeous day! Went to Ken and Andrea's to give him a check. He was taking down pool to give to Rs. Monet played with goats. Ken took us to the barn to see baby horses. Put Monet on one and rode him around a little. Showed us chickens, too.

Made peanut butter cookies (Bard made dough!). We had a picnic under the apple tree. Wedding spread sandwiches, pineapple, mandarin oranges, almonds, bananas, kiwis, chips and lemonade.

::: from the green book :::

Monday--tilled veggie garden w/Laura and Aden's tiller and had to leave to take kids to choir. Strawberries doing okay. Picking off blooms.

::: from the green book :::

Last night, Bard and I went to see Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains, Left Behind) speak at B****n High School. The worship, with Jeff Deyo of Sonic Flood, was very good. It made me miss being in church. I've felt for so long that, because we had a good worship foundation when the kids were little, they'd absorb that. But last night, Bard said she barely remembers attending SFChurch. It makes me sad because I felt like we put a lot of work into SFC for the sake of our kids and now they don't even remember it. While Bard and I were there, I looked into church services at BCF and think we may visit there.

Yesterday:
*worked around cabin
*planted strawberry bed
*Bo mowed lawn
*went to an auction
*got three kitties (pussywillow, chloe and tasha)
(rest of page destroyed by water)

Today:
*Cleaned cupboards
*Cleaned windows
*Hung birdfeeders
*Bo moved tent to the barn
*Bo fixed the grill
*Ate hamburgers for dinner
*Watched the sunset

Ideas:
Guestbook
Bucket for dirty silverware
Bring down wardrobe (for clothes and fridge)
Make a little sign for the outhouse (instructions for use)
Make a checklist for cabin
Corkboard for inside cupboards
Chalkboard
Get Ken to move dirt, grind stumps
Pole barn for cars/workshop/freezer/washer
Cupboard around water heater and next to cupboards with bin for trash
Clean/stain cabin
Support beam
Shower w/3/4 wall on corner of cabin
S'mores basket
Eucalyptus wreath in outhouse