Raditude

Messy Houses Are A Gift

2011-07-14T10:11:00.000-04:00

I used to worry about having a tidy house. Not that I ever achieved tidyness, but I certainly coveted it! Wouldn't it be nice (I thought) to have one of those houses where the dishes were always in the cupboard, the floors always looked freshly swept and mopped, and the toys were all in their places? I've gotten over that in recent years, not because I've come to love living in a messy, cluttered house. (I don't think I'll ever get there!) But because I realized what the lack of the"mess" and "clutter" would mean. If the toys were all in their places, that would mean my kids weren't here to play with them. It would mean they were somewhere else, not here with me. Ditto for the dining room table covered with craft projects. And the patio filled with bikes and scooters. And the bathtub overflowing with dozens of rubber duckies wet washcloths. And the sofa covered in stuffed animals while the pretty throw pillows get thrown around the room and on the floor. (Whoever named those things must have had kids!) And, yes, even the sink filled with unwashed dishes! I've stopped seeing these things as just more work for me to do and instead choose to see them as evidence of our full and happy life.

We are surrounded by abundance. We are wealthy beyond belief. Whenever I doubt this, whenever I feel I am lacking anything, all I have to do is look around me. The evidence is overwhelming. We are BLESSED. Not just by things, but by what those things represent.

"Messes", when I look at them in this way, are really AFFIRMATIONS. When I look at the dirty dishes, I see the evidence of healthy, home cooked meals and full bellies. They attest to the fact that, unlike many people in this world, we never lack fresh water to drink or go to bed hungry.

The bikes and the scooters scattered across the patio don't just keep my husband and me on our toes when we walk out the door in the morning. They are also proof of my kids' health. Instead of cursing the bikes as I step around them, I say a quick prayer of thanks because my kids are able to ride them.

The dirt on the kitchen floor? That's just evidence that my kids spent the day running and playing outdoors, in the fresh air, in our FABULOUS back yard. A backyard that, because it isn't "perfect", is absolutely perfect for digging, climbing, running, catching bugs, chasing rabbits, picking wildflowers, and lying on the grass watching the clouds make pictures in the sky.

The projects and books on the dining room table speak volumes about the creativity, passion, excitement, and exploration that my kids and I experience here each and every day. Each time I move the projects, books, and toys off the table as we sit down to eat yet another nutritious meal, I remind myself that there are much worse things in life than a "messy" house.

As I pick up my husband's socks from the bathroom floor, I feel so blessed to have him...so thankful that he chooses to come home at night to be with his family. He's not in a bar, or out with another woman, or any number of other places some husbands and fathers choose to be. I think about the fact that he comes home to his family after working all day to make this life of abundance possible, and that he spends every minute of his free time helping others. Is a perfectly manicured lawn or finished house REALLY more important than that? No matter how much I would like to have painted walls and finished floors, my answer is always "no". I would much rather be married to a man who has spending time with his family at the top of his priority list.

Whenever I find myself wanting to make excuses for the way our house looks, I recite a couple of my mantras:

"Our home is for freedom of expression, not impression."

and

"People before things."

That usually puts my thoughts back on the right track.

Where Did the Time Go?

2011-05-31T13:34:00.002-04:00

I just joined a group for mom bloggers, so I thought I should probably check in on my blogs since I hadn't done so in a while. I was SHOCKED to find that I haven't blogged in well over a year! Egads, where did the time go?

The older I get, the more I find myself saying that. When did my son get to be over 6 feet tall? When did my baby become such a wise young girl? When the heck did I turn 40??? Where DID all that time go?

That's the difficult part about truly loving your life, I suppose. It's never going to be enough. No matter how long I live, there will never be enough time to do all the things I want to do, say all the things I want to say, think all the things I want to think, be all the things I want to be. I will never, ever have my fill when it comes to kisses, and hugs, and cuddles, and caresses, and kind words, and loving thoughts. There will never be enough time to LOVE and to LIVE as much as I want to.

I hope I have quite a few decades left on this earth, but even if I get to be 100+ years old, I'm sure my last thought before I die will be "Where did all the time go?"

Kids Teach Themselves to Read

2010-02-24T10:05:00.003-05:00

I just read a really good post on how unschooled children teach themselves to read that I just had to share. I usually like his blog anyway, but absolutley loved this one entry particular.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201002/children-teach-themselves-read

I loved the article in its entirety, but my favorite part has to be when he states that "Children learn to read when reading becomes, to them, a means to some valued end or ends." YES! YES! YES! People need to hear this more. I have said that same thing over and over and over again, and not just about reading, but about everything - math, grammar, writing, geography, history, EVERYTHING. A person will not truly *learn* something until they have a *reason* to do so.

Organic Sprouted Grain Kefir Brownie Recipe

2010-02-21T23:33:00.003-05:00

Our new and totally AWESOME brownie recipe!! We at the whole pan in about two hours.

1/2 cup butter (preferably from grass-fed cows)
1/4 cup organic cocoa powder
1/2 cup water
1 cup organic sprouted wheat flour
1 cup organic unrefined sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt or Real Salt
1 egg, slightly beaten (ours came straight from our backyard chickens!)
1/4 cup dairy kefir (we make ours out of raw milk from grass-fed cows)
1 tsp organic, fair trade vanilla

Mix the butter, cocoa and water in a saucepan and bring just to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir together flour, sugar, soda, and salt. Mix egg, kefir, and vanilla, then add cocoa mixture. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well. Pour into a greased 9x9 pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

My Son, the Writer

2010-02-17T10:23:00.004-05:00

A few days ago I was just talking (typing?) on one of the unschooling lists about children what they need to learn, when they need to learn it, and about how there is no need to force them to learn certain subjects or study them on a regular basis. People, including children, really will learn everything they need to learn when they have a reason or desire to do so. My kids have given me lots of living examples of this over the years, but now my son has given me another BIG example for me to share with everyone. People seem to be able to grasp that younger kids can learn on their own without a curriculum or formal schooling, but they have trouble with the concept with older kids. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "But what about algebra/calculus/chemistry/high school?" I'd be a very rich woman.

My son, Cameron just turned 13 and he's always been unschooled. Cameron recently decided he wanted to write a book. Not a picture book, not a childrens book, a chapter book. He came up with a unique idea several weeks ago and has been talking about it ever since. It's top secret stuff, unless you are one of the chosen few that have been privy to the basic plot, so I can't tell you what it's about other than to say it has vampires in it. I will say I was very impressed at the amount the depth in the story idea and the amount of detail he was putting into it. It was obvious that he had been mulling this story over for quite some time and was putting a lot of time into thinking it through. This week he decided to start putting his ideas into writing and he's already a few chapters into his book. He's been sitting at the computer for HOURS every day tapping away at the keyboard. He'll come ask me how to spell a word or ask me if I will proof read what he has so far, but other than that it's a very solitary pursuit.

Lots of kids probably go through a phase where they write stories, so some of you may be wondering what the big deal is. The "big deal" is that he is doing this without EVER having been *taught* how to do the things he is doing to write this book. He's never been interested in knowing how to punctuate sentences, had no interest in writing anything, let alone a full book, and didn't give a hoot about spelling. He was also a "late" reader by school standards and didn't even start reading chapter books until the last year or so. He's a very auditory learner and still prefers to listen to audio books rather than sit still and read, yet he's WRITING A BOOK.

He started by coming up with the basic story. That part took a couple of months. If some of the critics of unschooling were correct, he should have stopped right there. I mean, he hasn't been taught how to write, didn't know how to spell, had never studied grammar, etc. But he *didn't* stop. He kept going because he was doing something he had developed a passion for and he was fully engaged in the process. I could literally see the excitement, the fire, in his eyes when he talked about his book, and that light stayed there even when he got frustrated, or tired, or ran into a problem. I'm honestly not doing the process he is going through any justice. You would just have to see it for yourself to understand how *driven* he is right now. It's been fascinating to watch.

Next, he decided to study the parts of a book. I don't mean he did worksheets where he filled in the blanks with lines pointing to the physical parts of a book like I've seen school kids do. I mean he sat down with a stack of his favorite books and started really *looking* at them. He paid attention to all the parts, including those he probably skipped in the past. I'm willing to bet that he was doing the same with the audiobooks he listened to lately too, but since I can't get inside his head to know for certain, that part will remain a mystery. Then he took his stack of books, placed them by the computer so he could reference them, and started writing. First he wrote a teaser for the back cover, then he wrote the prologue. (I didn't even know he *knew* the word prologue!) That was when I got my first glimpse at his book and my initial reaction, to be totally honest, was utter shock. I had heard the basic story and knew a few details, but I had NO idea all of this was going on inside his head! It's already a really GOOD story and he hooked me with the first few lines. I could tell that he *gets it*. He's never written a book before, but he knew, from years and years of listening to stories and now reading them himself, that he needed to grab the reader's attention right from the beginning, and that's exactly what he did.

**Hitting the virtual pause button for a moment to admit to my wee bit of jealousy as well as huge amounts of admiration. My first attempt at writing a book was a complete disaster. I was so traumatized by it that I didn't attempt to write another story for pleasure again until just recently. That first attempt was 30 years ago!**

I won't say that his writing was perfect. Far from it. But he was open to learning how to make it better. He asked me to help him with the spelling and punctuation, so I told him how to spell the words he got wrong, showed him how to punctuate dialogue, and corrected a few homonyms. He took the criticism without the slightest bit of irritation, then sat down and got back to work. Over the course of the next couple of days he worked off and on, only coming to me when he couldn't figure something out on his own. I haven't been invited to see the latest chapter yet, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Will he finish his book? I don't know. Does it matter? I don't think so. Lots of professional authors have multiple books that they've never finished. Finishing really isn't the point. The point is he's doing something he's absolutely passionate about at the moment, and in the process - purely as a byproduct of following his passion - he is learning things in a matter of *days* that, had he been in school, he would have spent *years* studying over and over and over. He is proving, once again, that compulsory school is both unnecessary and monumentally inefficient.

Box Elder Bug Coinkidink

2009-11-15T20:07:00.003-05:00

I just walked into the bathroom, saw a cool looking bug hanging out on our shower and wondered what it was. We just happened to be looking at science blogs at the time. I was about to open a new window to look up "my" bug, but decided to click on one more science blog entry first and, lo and behold, there was "my" bug on the computer screen! LOL What a coincidence! So, the boxelder bug gets our nature find of the week award thanks to a well timed entry on a blog around the clock.

Cameron's Recommended Books

2009-08-17T16:54:00.002-04:00

The Mistmantle Chronicles by M. I. McAllister
Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
The Redwall Series by Brian Jaques.
Anything by Neil Gaiman!
The Oliver Nocturne series by Kevin Emerson

The Skullduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy

The Kids' Garden

2009-08-17T15:52:00.005-04:00

Catherine's mini bell peppers. She harvests a pepper or two from this every couple of days.

Catherine and our Japanese bantam, Sakura.

These Jack-be-little pumpkins are growing like wildfire all over the kid's garden. We've already harvested about a dozen and there are still lots of little green ones on the vines.

Cameron and Peony, the most pampered chicken in our flock.

The kids' bean/gourd teepee is taking over and we have gourds galore!

Sewing & Cooking

2009-08-14T22:54:00.007-04:00

The kids have been on a cooking and sewing kick for the last few months. Cameron has been sewing on the machine and by hand. A few weeks ago he made a bunch of bags made out of some funky brown batik fabric that he thought looked like tree bark. They were all different sizes from dice bag size to small shoulder bag size. They were primarily for his Richard Cypher costume that he's been putting together. Last week, he created a custom belt bag for his heelies wheels out of denim.

And here are some of Catherine's creations. She's 5 and has never done hand sewing before, yet she made these by herself over a couple of days. She only asked for help getting the needle through the fabric on the bottom seam of the blue doll and sewing up a couple of small holes where her stitches were loose. She copied the pattern from a book, traced it onto the fabric (different fabrics on front & back), sewed them, stuffed them, & sewed on the buttons. She has carried these everywhere and even sleeps with them.

Cooking is an ongoing interest for my kids, but once in a while they get in the mood to find new recipes. We took a trip to the library and these are some of the ones they checked out and made things from:

Well, except for that Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook in the upper left. That was my favorite cookbook when I was a kid and I went on a search for it a few months ago. Found a used copy in really good shape on amazon and snatched it up. The kids love it as much as I did! They've made almost every recipe in it several times. Here are the "Batnana Split" and "Batnana Sundae" that they came up with because of a recipe in that book:

They were made with homemade cottage cheese instead of ice cream, homemade yogurt, bananas, strawberries, and raw nuts.

Snakes & Rats & Chicks...Oh My!

2009-06-02T21:38:00.004-04:00

First of all, Uno the snake has found a new home. We took him (her?) to the local nature center last week and they thought he was just as cute as we did! They also thought that since they didn't have a snake like Uno that he'd be a good addition to the animals that they use for kids' programs. The fact that he has is so tiny and also has that "awwww" factor because of his missing eye, they thought he would make a perfect snake for kids who think they don't like snakes. So, now he's living at the nature center and (providing they can get him to eat) we will be able to visit him when we're there. And thanks to the naturalists we found out that he is a brown snake. No wonder he had us so stumped! He wasn't either of the snakes that we usually find on our property. Brown snakes are apparently very common around here, they just aren't seen much because they're so small and tend to stay well hidden. Now if we ever see another one we'll know what it is. Of course he was the first one I've ever seen in all these years, so who knows if we'll ever see one again!

The second happening in the pet department was "the rat accident". Catherine fell a few days ago while holding her pet rat, Cornflower, and the poor rattie was injured. The skin was scraped right off the toes on her back foot and her toes were swollen and red for a couple of days. She's recovering well and her toes don't seem to be broken as we feared, but she sure gave us all a good scare! Cornflower was going stir crazy by the time we took her out this morning because she was confined to her cage until her foot healed enough for her to put her weight on it again. That's apparently torture to a hyper, free roaming rat like her, but she survived and is extra happy to be held and cuddled now.

And just today the chicks we've been waiting so long for finally arrived. We were just getting ready to head out the door for a day at the park when someone knocked at the door. I was expecting the chicks this week, just not TODAY. They were supposed to call the morning they came in so that I would know to expect them and not leave for the day like we were about to do. Anyway...here's the sight that awaited us as we pried open our cheeping box:

Aren't they sweet? It's been difficult to keep the kids from holding them ALL the time, but then the little fluff balls are rather irresistable. The two bantams get held the most of course. Cameron's Japanese bantam is particularly fond of him. She falls asleep in his hand almost as soon as he picks her up and starts rubbing her tiny little head, and she eats right out of his hand. He named her Sakura because she's sweet as a cherry blossom. We named all eight of them flower names - Lily, Daisy, Orchid, Poppy, Rose, Sunflower, and Peony -so I sure hope there are no surprise roosters in the bunch! We've spent a lot of time today just watching them go about their chicky business. I'm sure that in a few weeks we'll be ready for them to go to the barn, but for the time being we're enjoying watching them and trying to figure out their personalities. Poppy the Polish crested is definitely the quirky one of the bunch, but then that's why we picked a Polish crested. We like quirky. Lily the Easter Egger is already showing top hen potential. She tends to walk all over the other chicks (literally). Catherine's silky bantam is Rose and she's a sweetie. I think my favorite is probably Daisy the Golden Laced Wyandotte, but I'm not sure because they're all so cute. The others all have very similar markings and personalities so they're difficult to tell apart unless they're all right together. I've just been calling them the triplets and probably will continue to do so until their feathers come in and I can tell them apart more easily.

Uno

2009-05-12T20:39:00.002-04:00

We'd like you all to meet our latest critter, Uno! We found Uno while weeding in our garden today. He looked just like a piece of dried grass and only Catherine's keen eyesight alerted us to the fact that he was there. We caught him in order to take a closer look at him and instantly decided that, even though it's only Tuesday, "he" is definitely our nature find of the week. We actually aren't sure whether Uno is male or female, or even what kind of snake it is. We're pretty sure it's either a common garter snake or a ribbon snake, but because he's so tiny (only about as long as my finger and about as big around as a piece of string) and his markings are so difficult to make out, it's not easy for us budding naturalists to figure it out which one it is for certain. He definitely has the stripes of either a garter or ribbon snakes, but it looks like he has a white stripe in front of his eye, which I believe is more indicative of a ribbon snake than a garter, but it also looks like he may have some markings around his mouth as well, which ribbon snakes don't have. Right now the markings are no bigger than a pencil dot so it's really difficult to be sure. We'll be taking him to the local nature center later this week to see if anyone there can tell us more about him and help us figure out how to best take care of him. For now we have him in a tank with some moist sod and a few worms...and a fake log with some fake leaves that the kids thought he might like. You can see him resting in the leaves in the pic, so obviously they were right. He's really quite cute, don't you think?

The reason why we call him Uno, and the reason why I agreed to let the kids keep him rather than insisting that we let him go like I normally would, is because he only has one eye. Obviously, you're looking at his "good" side in this pic! The other side of his face is completely featureless and his mouth is somewhat deformed on that side as well, which suggests that he was born this way as opposed to being injured. It's doubtful that he would live very long in the wild, so I agreed to keeping him...at least for a while.

Because of Uno, we spent a good portion of our evening looking up snakes on the internet. We are most familiar with some of the more common snakes in our area because we see them frequently. We see garter snakes and ribbon snakes in our yard and the fields around us all the time, and banded water snakes on the lake and in the creeks around here a lot. I've seen a few black rat snakes and blue racers over the years as well, and we've seen a milk snake at the nature center, but that's about the extent of my knowledge of snakes in this area. We found out that there are some really interesting and beautiful snakes around here. Unfortunately, many of them are uncommon or endangered. We live in a place where there are no common venomous snakes, but I still warn my kids to be very careful about observing and handling snakes. Even if a snake isn't venomous, if it has a mouth it can bite!

It's almost spring!!!

2009-03-15T14:23:00.006-04:00

We've all got spring fever around here, and it's really showing this week by how much money we've been spending! We decided that we didn't want to order the minimum of 25 from the hatchery we had planned to order from and chose to order 8 chicks from mypetchicken.com instead. We spent as much on shipping as we did on chicks, but we're getting the smaller flock that we wanted. We didn't have any references from anyone for mypetchicken, so we're taking a bit of a risk. Hopefully it works out in our favor. If not, then we may end up ordering 25 chicks later on and having a larger flock afterall. Either way, we're soon to be "egg farmers" as my son used to say.

These are some of the "working girls" we chose: Black Australorp, Golden Laced Wyandotte, and "Easter egger"

And these are the "pet" chickens that the kids chose: a Japanese true bantam and a Silkie bantam

They won't be arriving for several weeks, but we're already preparing by running around to various farm stores looking for feeders and waterers, checking prices on litter, and reading lots of chicken books and websites. Our biggest hurdle has been finding organic chicken feed. No one in our area seems to carry it, so we're looking into ordering pre-made organic feed online vs. making our own with grains that are available from our food co-op. So far, making our own is in the lead, especially since I'm already a big believer in raw, organic food for both people and pets.

We've also been ordering gardening seeds, plants and gadgets this week. I ordered a small seed dispenser for planting lettuce, carrots and other small seeds. I've put that inexpensive purchase off for years, yet I continue to grumble about "wasting" seeds every single year. How silly! So, I finally added one to my cart this year. On a whim, I also added a pot maker. It's a cool little gadget that makes pots for starting your own seedlings from paper.

We spend a small fortune in seeds and plants each year, so I want to start saving more seeds from year to year and growing more of my own seedlings. We start a few things from seed that are difficult to find, but I'm still buying most of my tomatoes and peppers and a few other things as plants. That gets kind of expensive with the large garden plot we have. Besides, there's something extremely satisfying about saving seeds from plants that you grew yourself and watching them turn into healthy, thriving plants again the next year.

We have several varieties of many of these fruits and veggies, but this is a general list of the things we are growing this year: bush beans, pole beans (for the bean teepee), beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, chard, sweet corn, pop corn, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, ornamental gourds, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce (leaf and romaine), watermelon, okra, onions, peas (shell and snap), sweet bell peppers, hot peppers, pumpkins, shallots, spinach, yellow summer squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. Oh, and lots of flowers for Catherine, of course. She fills many, many vases of flowers during the summer, so we have to make sure we have plenty to pick. We don't have any potatoes, sweet potatoes, herbs, or garlic yet, but there's still plenty of time for more shopping!

The kids are also in the process of planning their own garden alongside the family garden. We haven't had a separate kid's garden for a few years. They've just been helping out with planning and taking care of the family garden, but when they saw the kid's pack from Seeds of Change last week, they decided they wanted to plant that this year. Together we came up with a 12x12 "garden in the round" plan with a statue surrounded by flowers in the middle. They are mostly planting miniature versions of things such as Tom Thumb lettuces, little round carrots, mini corn, mini bell peppers, and cherry tomatoes. In the big garden they also wanted to try different colors of some of their favorite foods, so we will be planting multi-colored carrots, various colors of tomatoes, red okra, green, orange and purple cauliflower, multi-colored sweet corn, red lettuce, and a few other rather psychadelic looking veggies. Boy, are we going to have one colorful garden this year!

Can it get any better?

2009-02-07T14:53:00.003-05:00

The short answer... ABSOLUTELY!!

What the heck am I talking about?...The Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering, of course!

I thought last year was fantastic, but this year blew last year's UWWG out of the water! (No pun intended.) The worst thing I can say about this year's UWWG was that it was impossible to be in two places at once. I just couldn't get to all of the things I wanted to do and see! I didn't get the mehendi area at all. I only got to glance at the kids marketplace while going from one presentation to another, but I wish I could have shopped! There were some really cool things there! The kids missed the DS funshop and the Webkinz gathering, and we all missed out on the ATC funshop. I wish I had a timeturner so we could go back and do all the things we didn't get to do! The kids got to do the one thing they were looking forward to most, which was spend lots of time in the waterpark. And I did get to most of the things on my "high priority" list too.

I made it to both of Kelly Lovejoy's presentations. I've enjoyed her posts on unschooling lists for quite some time and was surprised to find that she is exactly as I always imagined her! She's a lovely, lively, engaging speaker and I enjoyed her presentations immensely. Although, in retrospect I think that perhaps "presentation" isn't the right word for what transpired at all. It sounds a little too stuffy for the interactive, spontaneous exchanges that occurred.

I went to the unschooled teens and young adults panel discussion too. Very interesting stuff there, although I will admit to being ever so slightly disappointed that there wasn't a totally unschooled teen on the panel. I sometimes feel sort of like the odd woman out, even around other unschoolers, because it seems that so very few of them have been doing it from the beginning like we have. We've never done highly structured "school at home" either, so we seem to be in the minority even among other unschoolers. It was still interesting though. I'm on lots of unschooling lists and read lots of unschooling blogs, but they are most often from the parents (usually the mother's) perspective. It was refreshing to hear from the kids themselves.

I also made it to Bethany Hagensen's raw foods demo (www.bethanysstory.com). What an inspiring story she had! It was just the kick in the pants that I needed too. I was eating a high raw diet most of the last year but had dropped to about 50% (some days even less!) since the holidays. My health issues were starting to flare up again but I still was having a difficult time getting back on track. Eating a non-standard diet is difficult enough, but I was having the most trouble with the lack of support. I don't know any other raw foodies IRL and my online support just wasn't working for me during the really difficult patches around the holidays and the start of my usual season of depression. I was so excited to see that a raw foods demo was scheduled and made it a top priority. I wasn't sure what to expect since I've never even met another raw foodist, but it was WONDERFUL!! The food was fabulous and the people who have been at this longer than me were so inspirational. Best of all, I wasn't *alone*. I had a room full of people who were high raw, totally raw, transitioning to raw, or interested in eating more raw. I can't begin to express what a boost just being in the same room with all those people eating delicious raw foods was to my resolve. And the healing stories I heard there were just amazing. I had already been eating more raw foods and was motivated even more after going to the program. I've been high raw all week and am feeling great...and I actually *lost* weight while on vacation! How often does that happen? LOL

Cameron was inspired by someone at the UWWG as well. He was interested in stage magic for quite a while, but lost interest about a year ago. Just a couple of weeks ago he pulled out all of his magic stuff again and had been talking about the possibility of learning some tricks for Catherine's birthday party this summer, but he hadn't really done a lot with it. It was like he was waiting for something. Then off we go the the UWWG where we see a young magician perform several times during the week. Cameron was totally engrossed in each and every performance and he talked about them all week long. Then this morning I went downstairs to find him curled up on the sofa looking at magic kits in a catalog. The spark is back in his eyes when he talks about magic and he's planning on spending a nice chunk of change on some new magic supplies in the next couple of weeks. Yay for happy coincidences!

I also led a bellydance funshop this year and I had such a blast! I'm now convinced that there is no better place to share something you love than at an unschoolers convention! It was a totally freeform hour long whirlwind tour of bellydance without any real structure. I decided not to focus on any one style of bellydance but encouraged everyone to do their own thing. We just kind of went with the flow and the interests of the attendees, and it turned out so cool. I have never had so much fun teaching bellydance!

And then there was the carnival with all the cool games and prizes. The kids came away from that with lots of ideas for projects and contraptions to build at home! And there was the dance on the final evening. I think Dave and I enjoyed that more than the kids since we so rarely get to dance with each other anymore. And I can't forget getting to meet so many interesting people either. Some of them I've only known online until now, but now I've got faces and voices to put with those names. I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting at the moment, but oh, what a wonderful time we had each and every day!

Let's not forget the Kalahari itself! It was as awesome as it was last year and then some. Cameron struck out with a friend and rode many of the rides that he wasn't ready to ride last year. Catherine isn't quite big enough for most of the rides, but she was perfectly content to spread her time in the waterpark between the Lazy River ride, the wave pool and the spray grounds. The weather was kinder to us this year too. Last year it was so cold outside that they had trouble keeping the waterpark warm enough. No problems with that this year though. It was like a warm summer day inside the waterpark, and if you were there at just the right time of day you could even bask in the sun through the overhead windows. Ahhhh!

We were all sad when it was over. It goes by far too fast! But true to form, by the time we were on the road home the kids had already started the countdown to next year. UWWG 2010, here we come!

Light Bulb Moment

2009-02-05T01:34:00.002-05:00

Catherine made a neat discovery this evening while we were reading bedtime stories. She discovered a very powerful word - the word "I". Not only is it a letter, but it's a word all on it's own too. How cool is that!

We are spending the week at the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering in Ohio (which is *AWESOME* by the way!). We brought a few new books to read while we're here, because we don't go anywhere without books. Cameron brought Fablehaven to read on his own, Catherine chose Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which is her current favorite book. We also brought the Faraway Tree series from home. And both of the kids wanted to get the Skippyjon Jones books to bring. We all love Skippyjon Jones, so I surprised them with several Skippyjon Jones books and a Skippyjon Jones stuffed animal. Skippyjon was the favorite the last couple of nights, but not tonight.

Cameron was down in the arcade with a friend. Dave went down the street to the store because we already used up the 5 gallons of drinking water we brought from home. Catherine and I found ourselves with a little "girl time" on our hands. We danced around the hotel room in our pj's for a while, had a snack, then settled into bed to read some books. She picked Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We read it through just like we've done dozens of times, but tonight she noticed the alphabet in the front and the back of the book. She started looking at them and pointing out the letters that are in her name, then other letters that she knew. She talked about which ones were big and which ones were little. Then she noticed that the big "I" didn't have the serifs on it. We talked about how sometimes the big I has those little lines on the top and bottom and sometimes it doesn't and talked about how without the serifs the big "I" looks just like the little "L". We talked about those letters for a while longer and then I noticed something different about the way she was looking at them. She was really studying them, and then there was this sudden *explosion* of understanding. I don't know what the exact trigger was, but I could tell she just *got it*. She understood what I was doing when I read to her. WOW! That realization was so POWERFUL for her, and the amazement in her eyes was absolutely priceless.

She closed her book and studied the front. Suddenly those letters "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" had *MEANING* to her. They were *WORDS*. She ran her finger across them over and over, saying the words again and again, imprinting them in her mind. I just watched her for a while, then she started playing with the words and I joined in. We covered up the "m" in "Boom" and that made a totally new word! What a discovery! She covered up every single letter in each word and wanted to know what it said *NOW*.

I told her that that "I" that she was looking at earlier was a word too. I told her it said "I" as in "I went to the store". She repeated that phrase over and over, letting it roll around in her mouth, then *CLICK*...another light bulb went on. I could *SEE* it and it was amazing! I happened to have the book I was reading lying on the table next to the bed, so I picked it up and showed her how in my book the big "I" had the lines. She gasped and said "Mommy! They're EVERYWHERE!!" She sat there for a good 15 minutes flipping through my book and pointing out every single "I" she could find. ("There's another one! And another one! Look, Mommy! There's one on this page too!") She couldn't get enough! Then she noticed a lower case "i"...and another...and another. She noticed there was an "i" in the middle of the word "Chicago" and wanted to know what it said. Then she wanted to know what words followed that word "I", so I read those sentences to her and she repeated them, running her finger over the words as she did.

Right about that time, Dad returned from the store. She yelled "Daddy, Daddy! I want to show you something!" and proceeded to show him how she could read the words "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" on the front of her book, and the word "I" in my book as well. Within a few minutes she had moved on and started working on the jigsaw puzzle we brought with us. It was such a *BIG* moment, yet she took it in stride. I, however, am still reeling from the "bigness" of it.

Sheltered?

2009-01-25T15:34:00.004-05:00

I've been hearing this one a lot lately. I thought perhaps it was dying off, but no...it's back lately and seemingly as strong as ever. IT is the idea that homeschooled children are "sheltered". It seems that people who know very few homeschoolers have this idea that we all sit around our kitchen tables forcing our kids to do school work for 6-8 hours a day just like kids in school sit around doing school work in desks all day. I've been in the homeschooling community since my oldest was born 12 years ago and I honestly don't think I've ever met a homeschooling family quite like that. Granted, that may be because they are at home sitting around the kitchen table and we never see them (lol), but in all seriousness I just don't think that type of homeschooling family is very common. People are by nature social creatures. Even the most reserved of us crave human contact and a change in scenery on occasion. And even the most reserved homeschoolers I know get out more often than your average school child for field trips and learning opportunities outside their homes.

Forgive me. I'm getting side tracked by trying (once again) to explain that homeschoolers aren't as "sheltered" as people might think. Flogging that horse was not what I inteded to do however. Where I was really going with this diatribe was slightly different this time. I was thinking about this whole "sheltered" business again the other day while explaining to a mom on a forum about all the interesting things we do in an average day, when it suddenly dawned on me that maybe I should turn this question around. Maybe the question isn't "Are homeschooled children sheltered?", because in reality all children are, and should be, sheltered (i.e. protected) to a certain extent. Maybe the question should instead be which group, on average, is REALLY more sheltered in our society? Is it the children who are at home or those who are in school? Many people whose experience is solely school based seem to think that homeschooled children come up short, but having been a public schooled child myself and now seeing the other side of the coin, I beg to differ.

In an average week, my supposedly "sheltered" children go many different places and communicate with many different people. They might take swimming lessons from a beloved swimming coach with children of various ages, learn Japanese phrases and culture from their sensei who is from Japan, or call the naturalist on staff at the local nature center to talk about the cool snake they found. They might get into a dinosaur discussion with a childrens museum staff member while on a field trip (which is very different from a lecture by the same staff member!). They might go stargazing at midnight, watch and discuss world news because it's INTERESTING to them, chat on line with friends from all over the globe, ask the vet questions about instruments and tests and animal health while taking the dog to the vet. They might scour our cookbook collection looking for something new to fix for dinner, spend time catching snowflakes and looking at their shapes, or spend days on end watching birds at the birdfeeder and learning to identify them by their cries ("here comes a nuthatch!"). They might decide they want to try their hand at cartooning, rocket building, gourmet cooking, piano, or ballet. They might grow their own food in the backyard, take "behind the scenes" tours of the local museum (because they are the only kids who come in there during the day), or ask the waitress at our favorite Indian restaurant about her trip to India, or do any number of other things.

These are just a sample of the average, every day types of activities and interactions my kids have. They aren't special, once in a lifetime experiences. They aren't things that we go out of our way to do specifically for their "educational benefits". We don't live in a big city. As a matter of fact, we live in the country outside a small rural town. We don't drive long distances very often or spend a lot of money going exotic places. These are all things we do within a short drive from our home on a single income, yet, we communicate with people of varying ethnicities, economic levels, and backgrounds regularly by simply going about our lives and doing the things that interest us.

Compare this with the average experience of public schooled children. Unless they move several times a year, the vast majority of public schooled students are limited to a small number of teachers and a small number of classrooms. They go to ONE school with ONE cafeteria serving limited food selections. They are exposed to ONE pre-determined set of children, all of whom are the same age, and most of whom are from the same geographic area and most likely from a similar economic background. They are expected to learn ONE lesson at a time from ONE pre-chosen curriculum and ONLY when told to do so. They are never allowed to leave the watchful eye of their teacher, nor are they allowed to leave the "safety" of the school walls and fenced in playgrounds, except on rare field trips, during which they are kept under even stricter supervision than at school. Their daily experiences are, on average, extremely limited in number and restricted by highly controlled circumstances. Even after these children leave the school to go home, what they do with their time is STILL determined by the school via homework and at home assignments. It seems to me that it is school children, not homeschooled children, who are more "sheltered" - from themselves, from others, and from learning.

The Holidays Came Early

2008-11-13T12:19:00.004-05:00

It all started because we were looking for Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet for Catherine. She's dancing to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in ballet class this month and wanted the music so she could dance to it dance at home. While we were looking for Tchaikovsky we came across a bunch of other holiday music that we wanted to get too. (More than we could get on our card, as a matter of fact, so we had to put back a few that we really wanted.) We didn't have anywhere to be today, so we decided to hang out in our pj's and make cookies and tea while listening to all the crazy music we picked out. We started off the morning with The Brian Setzer Orchestra's Boogie Woogie Christmas, then moved on to a compilation of Doo Wop Christmas songs. Now we're listening to Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All-time.

I started swing dancing around the living room to Boogie Woogie Christmas, so in order to prove to my son that I wasn't completely insane we took a break from our premature holiday celebration to watch a bunch of swing dancers on youtube. We talked about things like prohibition and fashion for a while, then we talked about the changes in the way people dressed and wore their hair from the 20's to today and why some fashions that don't seem bad by today's standards were considered risque back then. We talked about women voting again (that's been a frequent topic the laste month or so) and racism. We talked about the way dancing has changed too, which brought up dance dance revolution and the kids' wish lists. (Cameron recently became hooked on DDR and it's at the top of his list.) That led us to talking about what they would like to get for other people, so Cameron called his friend's mom to ask some questions about what her baby brother would like. That sort of stuff went on for a while, then we put in Doo Wop Christmas and a similar thing happened. We stopped listening to it for a while to watch some Sha Na Na, Chubby Checker's The Twist, Elvis, and a few others. We talked about their clothes and hair again and discussed when Elvis went off to war, which sent us off on a tangents on the Viet Nam war and tuberculosis, then WWII, and several other things that I don't even remember anymore.

I've said many times and I'll say it again...ANYTHING can send us off on a learning streak, and this is a good example. We started out going to the library to get a book, ended up getting The Nutcracker Ballet on video, which reminded us we wanted to look for the music. We ended up with music we didn't even plan on getting, which led us to all sorts of questions and discussions on everything from history to the origins of words. It always starts off so simply. Something sparks a conversation or question, which leads to explanations and searching for answers, which leads to even more conversation and questions, etc. and before you know it...KABOOM! A learning explosion! This is just the way learning happens for us. Very naturally and effortlessly and based on whatever our interests are at the moment. Even though I've watched this process more more times than I could possibly count, it's always interesting to see where one will lead because you never know where they will lead. Who would believe that Doo Wap Christmas music could lead to a discussion on tuberculosis hopitals? LOL

I'm sure we'll be having lots more conversations and looking up many other things today as we listen to our music and go about our day. We've still got several Celtic Christmas CDs, the Bob Rivers Comedy Group's Twisted Christmas, and Windham Hill's Winter Solstice to listen to. (Oh, and New Wave Halloween too. LOL)

And yes, amazingly enough, we actually DID remember to get the Tchaikovsky CD!

10th grade graduation?

2008-11-07T12:45:00.002-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081107/us_time/shouldkidsbeabletograduateafter10thgrade

I read this article earlier and was completely befuddled by it. One the one hand I might be able to agree with allowing kids who are ready to move to do so, but on the other hand, I also think that the way they are proposing doing this will exacerbate an already out of balance educational and socioeconomic system. In other words, it won't change anything for most kids, it *may* change for the better for a select few, but it will very likely make it worse for others.

Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education, was quoted saying some things in the article that sounded good on the surface, but that didn't make as much sense to me when I really thought about them. First he said that those kids who were "ready and able to move on" should be able to do so. Sounds good. But then he said that educators could then "focus more on those kids who need more help getting there". Hmmm...that didn't sound quite so good though. It probably sounds good from the educator's perspective, but what about from the kids'? Imagine being one of the kids who "needs more help getting there" for just a moment. Not the ones who choose to stay in school so that they can go on to prestigious universities, but those who don't pass the tests in order to move on to community or technical colleges and are *STUCK* in school for another two years. I think it will perhaps have the opposite effect on those kids. (I also predict that universal pre-K will eventually add to our drop out rates as well, because kids will be so burned out by the time they reach high school. But that's a topic for another post.) Do they honestly think that most of those kids are going to just suck it up and stick out those last two years? I doubt it. Some of them will probably look at the situation and see no way that they can "win". They probably hate school in the first place and would love to move on, but they couldn't pass the test to be allowed to do so. They may also know that even if they stay in school they will never go on to college. If I were in that position, dropping out would be sounding like an awefully good idea.

There were a couple of things in this article that had me excited at first. One was when Marc Tucker, co-chair of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and president of the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington, stated that "most American teenagers slide through high school, viewing it as a mandatory pit to stop, hang out and socialize." YES! Yes, they do! But why is that, Mr. Tucker? Why do our kids consider high school a "mandatory pit"? Perhaps because it *IS*? Thank you for actually saying so, Mr. Tucker.

Another point that excited me was when the author asked "But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age?" YES! Yes, it can! The author goes on to mention that outside the US the idea isn't as radical as it sounds and that some of the very countries who are passing us by in the education department expect their children to be college ready at 16. But that was the end of my excitement because the author then goes on to quote William Brock, one of the chairs for the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce and a fromer US Secretary of Labor. Brock said that "40 years ago, the United States had the best educated workforce in the world. Now we're #10 and falling." That may very well be true, but how is more testing and a more rigorous curriculum going to put us back on top? If US education was so much better 40+ years ago, why not go back to some of the fundamentals of that era? Or better yet, why not go back even further to a time before mandatory education when literacy rates were at their highest. (Since the implementation of mandatory education, literacy rates have declined fairly steadily. Check out this link for some more reading on the subject of literacy rates: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3b.htm)

It was the last line of the article really irritated me though. "We're simply telling students that it's okay to go at your own pace", Mr. Tracy says. That part sounded really good...too good to be true, as a matter of fact. Maybe that's because it WAS too good to be true, because Mr. Tracy then went on to add "especially if that pace is a little quicker than the status quo". Grrr! Arrrg! *gnashing my teeth in frustration* It's okay to go at your own pace AS LONG AS YOU GET THERE QUICKER???? Why did he even have to say that? What about those kids who will NEVER be "quicker"? Not every child is going to go on to college, or even trade school, but EVERY child is important. Why not let every single child in our educational system go at their own pace? Get rid of all your useless "standardized" tests, your one-size-will-never-fit-all curriculum, and your mandatory education policies and meet the children's INDIVIDUAL educational needs. Then maybe you'll start to get somewhere close to an educational system that really does work for everyone.

The way I see it, the so-called "experts" in education are still focusing on the wrong area. They continue to focus on the teachers - how much training they should have, how much they should get paid, etc. They focus on the curriculum - what should be taught, when it should be taught, how it should be taught, etc. They focus on the tests - what should be on the tests, how often they should be administered, what are the consequences of failing said tests, etc. They aren't focusing on the REAL issue, which is THE CHILDREN. As long as our education system is focused on TEACHING and EDUCATING (things that are done TO the children) instead of LEARNING (which is an internal process that can not be controlled by another), it will not succeed. It will continue to decline because they aren't addressing the REAL problems with our education system.

More money, more tests, more time in school, more teachers, more schools...none of these things will ever be able to change the APATHY in our students, which is what I consider to be the real problem in American education. Continually re-creating slightly different, more extensive version of the same failing system will never fix it. Adding more and more of the very policies that created the conditions in which student apathy took root in the first place will never fix it. Getting to the source of the apathy is the only thing that will. I believe that apathy takes root when a person (no matter what their age) is put in a situation in which they feel they have little or no control over their own life. They may fight it at first, but eventually most of them give up. They give in. They stop caring. They may continue to go through the motions because they feel they have no choice, but they don't actually care about what they are doing. That pretty much describes most of the public schooled children in America, doesn't it? They have no control over where they have to be, when they have to be there, what they get to do with their own time. They have no control over what they get to read, watch, listen to, see, etc...most of them don't even have control over when they get to go to the bathroom. They go through the motions of "learning" but they really don't care and only truly *learn* when a topic or a very special teacher brings to life a spark of their innate desire to learn. (It's rare, but it does happen in public school.)

Imagine spending your every waking moment under the control of other people - being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, when to rest, when to have fun. Imagine being told that you don't have to right to even complain about the way you are treated because you aren't capable of understanding. (Not that they would explain it to you anyway.) And then imagine being told that they are "doing it for your own good". ("Someday you'll thank me for this.) Ugh. I don't know about the rest of you, but the very idea of living life like that is sickening to me. No...there's no way that more of THAT will never fix our education system. The way I see it, giving students more control over their education, not less, is the only thing that will fix this system because that is the only thing that will fix the apathy that is at the core of the "educational crisis" in America.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2008-07-02T12:04:00.004-04:00

Someone on one of my lists just posted a link to this speach by a 12 year old girl at the UN Earth Summit in 1992. Her words are just as potent now as they were at the time, so I thought they deserve repeating. I have seen this clip several times, yet I am moved to tears every single time...perhaps moreso now because I know what she will say, but I also know that we have moved *backwards* from where we were when she first said these words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q&feature=related

Rambling Thoughts

2008-06-19T22:03:00.003-04:00

Why is it that whenever a discussion turns to unschooling *someone* will come back with something to the effect of "that's great for your kids, but if I let my child do whatever he/she wanted, he/she would do nothing but sit around and play video games/watch tv/use the computer all day"? What is up with that? Do people REALLY believe that, or is that just what they are AFRAID will happen? How do they know that's what their child will do if they have never tested this theory for longer that a few days? And why is sitting around doing workbook pages or reading a book BETTER than sitting around doing anything else? Sitting around is sitting around.

Yeah, I realize there's not really a point to this post. Just thinking out loud.

Nature Find of the Week

2008-06-16T16:51:00.002-04:00

I wish I had had my camera with me this morning, but I'm not in the habit of taking the camera with me to work in the garden. I went out to the barn to get my gardening gloves so that I could pull weeds before the kids got up, and guess what I saw. All over the side of my barn there were teeny tiny praying mantids! I mean these were seriously small. They were smaller than the fingernail on my pinky. We have praying mantids all over our yard in the summer, and we've seen plenty of little ones, but these must have just hatched because they were the tiniest things I've ever seen! So freakin' cool!!!

Some Fun Questions

2008-06-12T16:15:00.004-04:00

On one of my favorite e-mail lists, someone posted a few questions as a convo starter. I had so much fun answering that I thought I'd post my answers here too, especially since I'm not exactly coming up with new blog posts on my own lately!
These questions originally came from:
http://www.bzoink.com/S53948/

If you could rid the earth of one thing, what would it be?

child abusers, especially child molesters

If you could eliminate one emotion from your life, which would it be?

unnecessary guilt

What is one personality trait you've tried hardest to change in yourself?

Impatience. I feel like I'm very impatient, yet some of my friends think I'm uber-patient for some strange reason. Maybe because I've worked on it so much? I don't know. But my kids and husband can tell you otherwise!

What would you say is the most beautiful word in your own language?

YES!!

If you had the gift of magic for one day, what would you do?

Use a time-turning spell over and over and over. I could visit people who have died, right some of my wrongs, and relive some of the bestdays of my life so far.

If you were 6 inches tall for a day, what would you do?

Well, first I would raid my daughter's doll clothes because obviously nothing I own would fit and I'd be running around naked. Then I would sneak up on a bird and take it for a ride just to see what it's like. I would take up residence in the fairy house in the woods behind our house and take a nap on a bed of bird feathers and thistle down. I would sip flower nectar straight from the flower and dine on berries from a wee little acorn top bowl. Then I would go for a walk in the forest of grass in my yard (because it hasn't been mowed in two weeks). Of course I would have to steer clear of all the snake holes and spider webs. I should probably avoid the mud puddles too since I can't swim. And the cat. She doesn't see very well anymore and I don't want her to get me confused with a mouse. And I should probablyavoid the dog too since she's a better mouser than the cat. And we have hawks and owls, so I'd have to watch out for them too. And...hey...wait a minute...this isn't sounding like so much fun anymore!

Did you ever have an imaginary friend? How would you describe them?

I had lots of "fantasy friends" and they changed quite frequently. Some were stuffed animals that would come to life and some were completely imaginary. If I wanted to have a koala or a polar bear or an alien as a pet *poof* I had one! Others were people - both people I knew in real life and totally imaginary people. As I got a little older many of my imaginary friends were characters from favoritebooks. For instance, I remember going through a phase where I pretended that the big tree outside my bedroom window was the Faraway Tree (from the Enid Blyton books). All the characters from the book who lived in the tree were my friends. I visited every day and we would climb to the top of the tree to visit the different lands that were there. (Oddly enough, both of my kids do this too.) As I go tolder I began to use my imaginary world to work through things thatbothered me in real life. I would bring imaginary versions of real people into my fantasy world to make things go the way I wished theyhad, or I would practice how I wanted something to go if it hadn't happened yet. Heck, I guess I still do this to a certain extent!

If you could invent one new home appliance, what would it do?

Damn, how can you possibly beat Rosie from the Jetsons?
If I couldn't have Rosie then I guess I would either invent an automatic laundry machine that would sort, wash, dry, fold AND putaway the laundry.
Or I would just invent a robot that would do nothing but go aroundand pick up after my kids. That alone would give me so much more freetime!

Sheltering One's Child

2008-06-10T10:22:00.000-04:00

This dreadful topic has come up in my life yet again...the idea that "sheltering" ones child is somehow a bad thing. Why is being a buffer between your child and the negative things that happen in the world so horrible? Saying that my children need to have he experience of dealing with bullies and negative peer pressure in order to learn about the "real world" makes about as much sense as saying they need to be handed a loaded gun to teach them that guns are dangerous. I wouldn't starve my children to teach them that the world is full of people who don't have enough food. I wouldn't throw them in the lake to teach them about drowning. I wouldn't let them play in traffic to teach them how dangerous cars are. Most parents would not *purposely* put their children in harms way in order to "teach them a valuable lesson", so why do so many parents think it is acceptable to purposely put children in situations where they are in danger of being teased, ridiculed, beaten up, or otherwise harmed by other children in order to teach them that the world has nasty, mean people in it? I just don't get it.

I'm a PARENT. It's MY JOB to protect my children from harm. To do otherwise would, under different circumstances, be considered neglectful or abusive. If one were to suggest that parents should put their children in situations where they were in danger of the same treatment from an adult, most parents would be outraged, and rightly so, but in the case of schoolyard behavior parents are willing to accept the potential harm to their child because it's "normal".

Just because most adults in our society managed to survive the kind of pressure and abuse that is so much a part of the school experience does not mean it's OKAY! People need to get over this idea that just because they were forced to endure something and "turned out okay" that that somehow makes it acceptable to continue forcing the next generation to endure the same thing. It's reprehensible.

Gratitude Moment

2008-05-29T21:50:00.000-04:00

I'm having a gratitude moment - one of those times when I'm almost totally overwhelmed by this feeling of *THANKS* - and I needed to share it with someone. I don't having anyone here with me at the moment however, so I'll share it here.

I can usually pinpoint what starts a gratitude moment, but this time I think it was a combination of things - a touching story here, a sweet gesture from my child there, an unexpected display of affection from my husband. This time no one instant triggered it though. It just sort of...built up. It's especially strong this time too, perhaps because I have been very UNgrateful these last few weeks.

I've been having a "bad mom" phase. I feel like I'm failing at everything where my children are concerned. Logically, I know I'm not, but I *feel* like I am. I'm unhappy with the way I look. I've also been having a minor mid-life crisis, I think. I've just been so unsatisfied with my life, and that's not really normal for me. I find myself saying "I want" a lot lately. I want to go back to school but can't afford it. I want to travel in order to take some training, but I can't afford that either. I've considered getting a job but I can't figure out how I could possibly fit it in and not lose my sanity. Besides, I know a job wouldn't help with this problem anyway. I've just been in a funk and have had trouble pulling myself out of it.

Then suddenly, today, it was like the sun broke through the clouds and I felt this wave of *thankfulness* flow through me. Nothing in particular caused it. It just happened. Out of the blue...just like (snap) that. And it was beautiful!

It seems like there should be some ritual, some ceremony, or...something to mark an occasion like this, but I'm drawing a blank as to what such a ritual would look like. Maybe just noting it is ritual enough. Or perhaps I should say *acting on it* is ceremony enough. What better way is there to celebrate gratitude than by showing it?

I have no idea where I got this or who wrote it, but it is fitting, so I'll leave it here for someone else to find, just as I once found it.

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations, because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge, because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes. They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary, because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things, but a life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks. GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive. Find a way to be thankful for your troubles and they can become your blessings.

~ Author Unknown ~

Our New Neighbors

2008-03-07T14:01:00.000-05:00

We've been enjoying so many things about being in our "new" home these last couple of months, but one of our favorite things has been the wildlife. Many mornings when I get up, this is the first thing I see out the bathroom window. It may be difficult to see, but there are two deer standing in the small clearing in front of the barn. They are part of a herd of deer that comes through the area behind our house almost every morning. As a matter of fact, the very first morning after we moved in about 12 deer came sprinting and leaping through the field beside our house and passed *right* behind our house! It was beautiful! We also catch sight of lots of other critters like rabbits, groundhogs, foxes, hawks, owls and lots of water birds out this window as well. We even had a pair of pea fowl out there once! Wildlife viewing out the bathroom window is such a regular event at our house that we've started keeping binoculars on the windowsill. I can't help thinking about how odd keeping binoculars on our bathroom windowsill would be if we were living in town! LOL

This is the daily view from our downstairs kitchen and bathroom. It is so relaxing to stand at the sink doing dishes while watching "our" birds. We have a large collection of bird feeders and with the different environments immediately surrounding our house (woods, lake, field, meadow) we get a wide variety of birds. The day I took this, I must have taken at least a dozen shots in a row and each picture has a different type of bird in it - there were three types of woodpeckers, three types of sparrows, flickers, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, wrens, doves, and more. We see at least 2 dozen types of birds on a daily basis, but cardinals are just so cheerful during this dreary part of the year that I knew they needed to be our "models". It's not unusual for someone to go into the kitchen for something and yell "everybody come here...quick!" We all know that that's the call that signals a new arrival to our backyard and we all come running to see who our new visitor is. We just love our new neighbors! (Too bad some of them are going to become a nuisance when the gardens get going.)

UWWG & Coming "Home"

2008-01-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

Look at those beautiful, happy kiddos! I love those smiles SO MUCH!! I took this at the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering in Sandusky this past week, and this is the look that was on their faces the majority of the time we were there. We all enjoyed ourselves immensely, but it seems that I, in particular, was deeply moved by the experience.

What a mixture of emotions I'm feeling at the moment! I feel the need to talk about them and examine them to figure out what they mean, but I'm not even sure where to begin...with the feelings I associate with the UWWG seems most approprieat since it's fresh in my mind, although these feelings go back farther than that. Anyway...the UWWG...it was the first big unschoolers gathering that we've had the money to go to and I'll say right now that it was worth every penny! It's one thing to be on lists and forums with other unschoolers, but it's a totally different experience to be in a gathering of hundreds of them. TOTALLY different.

I have spent the last few years feeling very isolated much of the time, even with the awesome bunch of more traditional homeschoolers that surrounds me. My ideas about so many things, the way I try to respond to my children, the laid back lifestyle that we strive for...so much about us is just so foreign to most of the people I'm around most of the time. I feel like I'm speaking a different language more often than not and that I never REALLY get my point across. Words seem so inadequate most of the time. That separation between myself and the homeschoolers I've been around for years feels like it has just gotten bigger and bigger over the last few years. I think a lot of that has to do with the ages of our children and that the pendulum will swing back the other way to a certain extent as the kids get older, but for the last few years I've just felt so *separate*. I know a lot of that is my own perception however, and that there isn't really that big of a gap, I've just been *feeling* like there has been. I've also become very aware of the tension that develops within me when I'm around people who parent and/or homeschool more traditionally. It's almost unbearable at times and I have to physically separate myself from other people for a while to regain my balance. It's been difficult because I truly love these people and want them in my life, but I haven't been able to be around them *too much* for quite a while. I couldn't handle it. The tension would just overwhelm me and I would start to behave in ways that I didn't want to behave. Being an "empath" really sucks at times like that, when you're vulnerable and picking up on whatever stray energy happens to be floating by. Ick.

But at the Kalahari I didn't feel that way. The one night that we got to hang out in the lounge and just *BE* was perhaps my favorite time of the whole trip. While I obviously loved spending the time I did with my kids and husband in the waterpark and in our room, it was *THAT* time - the lounge time - that I will forever associate with this....awakening that I'm feeling. I keep trying to figure out what that awakening feeling is, exactly, and what it means, but I think that may take some time and lots of thought. The things that have been getting to me at other homeschool gatherings didn't get to me there, perhaps because I didn't see or hear go on there. That sense of tension, of people being at odds with one another, that is so prevalent in most places was almost totally absent there as well. I felt peaceful and at home in my own skin. It was sort of the same feeling that I've had at times in deep meditation, but my eyes were wide open. That feeling of being "at home" in my own skin seems to be at the heart of it all in some way.

But it goes much deeper than just the UWWG and being around other unschoolers. This feeling seems to be attached to our move into our house and to belly dancing and art and to the way I'm feeling about my body and the way I'm eating and to EVERYTHING. I honestly think I have hit some major turning point in my life - one of those ones that you don't see coming, it just sort of takes you by surprise. After spending so much of my life feeling at odds and out of synch in so many areas and feeling just plain STUCK, I suddenly find myself very much "in the flow" and "at home" in many of those same areas. For whatever reason, it all just seemed to come together while I was physically away from home in the middle of a bunch of strangers! I find that rather amusing! I feel at peace. I feel like I'm EXACTLY where I should be at EXACTLY the right time...a feeling I haven't felt this intensely in so many areas of my life in quite some time. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I did feel this sense of "rightness" in so many areas at once. Maybe that's the word I'm looking for..."rightness". Yes...I think that's it. And "home". I feel at home, at peace...like everything is RIGHT, even with all of the "buts"...as in "but the house is a mess"...."but I don't have this or that or the other thing that I want". Even WITH all of that, everything feels RIGHT at this moment. All is right with my world.

We 've MOVED!!

2008-01-03T12:51:00.001-05:00

It's been quite a while since we updated any of our blogs, but it's been for a very good reason. After six and a half years of work, we have FINALLY moved into our house! *whew* (wipes brow) There were times when I honestly did not think we would ever actually LIVE in this house. I worried that we'd run out of money before we could finish. Which we did - several times - but more money always came later. I also worried that our family wouldn't survive the stress. We did, though not totally unscathed. It's been a long a bumpy ride, but we made it.

We haven't finished all of the work yet and won't for some time, but we have at least "achieved occupancy" (said in the same tone of voice as NASA's "we have achieved lift off"). We've been mudding and taping, moving boxes, grouting tile, and on and on for the last few weeks. I've stayed up until 5 or 6 a.m. several time this week just trying to get this place in some sort of order...and we haven't even finished moving all of our stuff in yet. Our essentials are here, but the rest won't be here until tomorrow evening. As I type this I am sitting in an unfinished room that will soon be my office/studio surrounded by huge buckets of joint compound, bags of grout, piles of tools, and various pieces of furniture that haven't found a home yet. The beautiful new hickory laminate flooring we've been putting in is covered by newspaper, the carpet installation has been delayed because of the holidays, and my keyboard is sitting on a table that bumps my knees because the desk is still at the apartment until the truck comes tomorrow. But the kitchen is clean and functional, the cat has resumed her post on my lap, the birds are starting to visit the feeder outside the window, and the house is starting to feel like "home".

Makin' butter

2007-09-25T08:57:00.000-04:00

For numerous reasons that I won't get into in this blog, our family was on the search for *REAL* milk for quite a while. We joined a food co-op in the hopes of having access to fresh, raw milk, but the co-op was just starting out and didn't have enough people at that time to make the minimum order from the farm. We're still in the co-op, but just couldn't get our milk through there, so our search continued. Then I ran across a family who owned a single jersey cow and was setting up a small cow share program. I was interested in two shares and she happened to have two shares left. We went up to her small family farm to visit "our" cow. I wanted to see what kind of conditions she lives in and how the milk was handled. Elsie is a well taken care of cow with access to plenty of clean pasture. While we were there we also got to meet their barn cats and their chickens (which they ordered from the same place we're planning on ordering our chickens in the spring, so I also took the opportunity to ask her about that). Everything looked great! So now we travel about an hour away from our home once a week to pick up our "Elsie milk", as Catherine calls it. (She calls everything else "other milk". lol)

Several people have asked about the milk and what we do with it besides drink it, so we thought we'd blog about it a bit. When our co-op order comes in this month it will include the vegetable rennet and kefir starter we ordered. We've made yogurt and soft cheeses in the past, so now we'll get to try our hand at kefir and other cheeses. We've made some of the yummiest ice cream we've ever tasted. We'd like to make some sour cream and cultured buttermilk too, but we only have a couple of gallons a week, so we have to stretch our experiments out a bit.

One of our favorite things to do is make our own butter, which we do once a week.There is absolutely nothing like fresh, raw butter! And it is so simple to make. Someone always asks, and no, we don't own a butter churn. Quite honestly we don't need one. We are only using the cream from about 1/2 to 1 gallon of milk, but that's just about the right amount for our family. As you can see from the picture above, Elsie's milk has quite a bit of cream. That's a half gallon jar and the cream has separated from the milk. You can see the line between the bluish milk on the bottom and the yellowish cream on the top running right through the top of the "B". If we were going to drink it we'd just shake the jar, but for butter, we skim off most of that cream and put it in a separate half gallon jar. I use a large jar to make butter even though it will be less than half full because the butter seems to come faster if there's lots of extra room for it to move in the jar. We let the cream sit at room temperature until it starts to sour (about 12 hours). I usually take it out of the refrigerator at dinner time and make butter the next morning. Once the milk has soured slightly, we sit down and shake the jar. That's it. Just sit there and shake the jar. After doing it a few times I figured out that shaking the jar in a certain way brings the butter faster, but it's difficult to describe exactly how I shake it. Within a few minutes the cream will start to feel a bit "heavy" and you'll see tiny bits of butterfat starting to collect in the milk. Keep shaking! Quite suddenly it will look like this:

At this point we drain the liquid. This liquid is "old fashioned" buttermilk. (Not the same as the cultured buttermilk you find in a grocery store.) We save the buttermilk to use in pancakes, baked goods and other recipes, then we put the butter into a small bowl. We rinse the butter in cold water several times as we work all the liquid out of the butter. When we're done it looks something like this:

At this point we have to go through the ritual of *tasting* the butter. I don't know why, but every single time we make butter we all have to stick a finger in and taste it...and proclaim it the best butter ever, of course. lol Then we salt it and put it into a small glass bowl that we use just for our homemade butter. That's all there is to it! I'm sure spelling it all out makes it sound more time consuming than it actually is. It probably took more time to type this all up than it takes to actually make the butter.

Pirate boy!

2007-09-19T12:10:00.001-04:00

My pirate name is:

Iron James Kidd

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Ready...Aim...

2007-09-14T09:51:00.001-04:00

FIRE!!

How often do you get to shoot *your* mom and get away with it? LOL Cameron wanted to see if we could actually capture the foam dart coming out of the gun on film, so guess who gets to be the target? He shot me in the forhead a dozen times or more before Cameron decided that maybe we should switch places.

MY TURN!! (insert evil laughter here: mwahahaha!)

Unfortunately I only got about three shots in before Cameron actually managed to actually capture that dart coming out of the gun. But guess what. Mom (that would be me) accidentally deleted it from the camera. :-( Way to go mom. Things got ugly after that and it turned into an all out dart gun war...until we ran out of ammo. Who ever thought that shooting at your family could be such fun! And to think I used to dislike toy guns.

Fairy Crowns for Catherine

2007-09-14T09:25:00.001-04:00

Catherine was having a bit of a rough spot yesterday. She was trying to dress up her animals and the darned clothes just wouldn't cooperate! It was quickly becoming meltdown time. I spent a few moments helping her get the stubborn fairy dresses on her cats, but I could see that a change of pace was still needed in order to help her transition, so I opened up the craft closet to see what we had to mess about with and she instantly perked up. From the uppermost shelf I pulled down a pile of wire decorations that we had left over from a kid's craft booth at a festival a couple of years ago and we spent quite a while making crowns for Catherine and all of her favorite stuffies. If Catherine could read this she'd be correcting me at the moment because they aren't just crowns, they're *fairy* crowns! They simply *must* be *fairy* crowns because EVERYTHING is fairy related at our house right now. lol

Thanks to an RPG called Faery's Tale that several of the kids in our homeschool group have been playing, my kids have been fairy crazy for the last couple of months. We've had fairy movie marathons where we watched any movie we could think of with a fairy or fairies in it. (Labyrinth, Fairies, Fern Gulley, The Last Unicorn...) We've read several books, both old and new, about fairies and while looking for new ones at the library we found a cute little series called The Fairy Chronicles. It's about a group of young (mortal) girls who find out they have fairy powers and can use them to create change in the world. My 10 year old was elated to find that one of the characters is even homeschooled! (Not unschooled, but we'll take it.) I pulled out my old copies of Brian Froud's fairy book and other books that had been in storage until now nad got to share some of my favorite fairy stuff from when I was a kid with my kids. We've also been reading lots of fairy lore and myths, looking up information on "real" fairies and other little people, searching online for places around the world where people claim to have seen fairies and other such creatures, and more...all because of an RPG. Just one more example of delight driven learning in action!

Monarchs

2007-09-01T22:48:00.000-04:00

We're raising monarchs again this year and it's the first time we've ever had any trouble with them. A couple of them died just as they were changing into chrysalids and several of the smaller caterpillars just didn't seem to thrive. We've done this several times in the past and only had one that didn't make it in all of that time. I can only guess why so many of them have died this year. I can rule out things like pesticides because we harvest them from our own land and we don't use pesticides, so I suspect it has something to do with the unusually hot, dry weather we've had this summer.

These pics are of the first two that emerged from the latest batch. We could tell that the first one was ready to emerge, so we sat around with the camera in hand waiting to catch it on "film". (It's a digital camera but you get the idea.) I got up to answer the phone at one point and just as I hung up my son started yelling "It's out! It's out!" I can't turn my back for a second. lol Then as we were sitting there watching the first one dry we looked over just in time to see the second one crawling out. You can see in the second pic that it's wings are still crumpled and wet. Missed capturing it on film again. The others since then have all emerged while we weren't at home or while we were sleeping, so we haven't managed to video tape a single one. We're down to two now, so it's not likely that we'll document them emerging this year either. But that's okay. We enjoy it nonetheless.

I think it's interesting how we can "raise" so many of them yet never tire of watching them. We sit around them for long stretches of time, watching them eat, sleep, grow, change and emerge. It's just so darned fascinating! One of the most amusing moments was when I got up one morning before everyone else was awake and heard a strange crunching sound. I looked all around downstairs for the source of the odd sound for quite a few minutes before I realized that I was hearing the sound of the caterpillars *eating*. It was odd to hear it so clearly all over the downstairs portion of the house. It also illustrated all too well how *UN*quiet it is around here most of the time! We've had monarchs several years and that was the first time I could recall having heard them munching and crunching away like that. It reminded me of the first time I *heard* snow falling. It was very late at night and I was out walking alone when the snow started falling around me. All of a sudden I realized that I could hear a faint tinkling sound when the flakes landed on the snow that was already on the ground. I stopped and just *listened* for several minutes. Definitely a *WOW* moment. Watching the monarchs has kind of the same effect on me.

"Best Ever" Pizza Sauce Recipe

2007-08-14T09:44:00.000-04:00

As much as we talk about pizza you'd think my family ate nothing but pizza, but actually we haven't had it in several weeks. We've been too busy to make it. We just got back from a long camping trip/festival on Sunday and had very little food in the house because I had completely cleaned out the refrigerator before we left. But we did have cheese and loads of veggies from the garden, and we always have baking ingredients on hand, so we cobbled together some of the best pizza we've ever had. The dough was our usual bread machine dough, but the sauce was absolutely killer this time! If only I'd had fresh herbs on hand when I made it....but, alas, my herb garden at the house is only in the planning stages and the pots I have on the back patio have suffered terribly in the hot, dry weather we've had this year. The fresh garden ingredients and explode in your mouth flavor still rated a "Mom, we've GOT to blog about this!" from Cameron and about 20 repetitions of "This is THE BEST, Mom!" from Catherine. Dave even commented on the sauce more than once and said that it would be good on pasta, which is high praise indeed from the man who hates pasta. LOL Okay, enough chatter about how good it was. Here's the formula:

"Best Ever" Fresh from the Garden Pizza Sauce

Saute 1 small finely chopped onion and 2 tsp (or two cloves) garlic in a little oil until the onion is soft. Add a generous handful of grated carrot, one small zucchini or summer squash (grated) and 1 finely chopped green pepper. (I used a large banana pepper for this batch since that's what I had on hand, but bell pepper will obviously work too.) Saute another minute or two then add a couple of bay leaves, 1 tsp thyme, 2 tsp basil, 2 tsp parsley, and 2 tsp oregano. Then add one 6 oz can tomato paste and about 8-10 finely chopped fresh tomatoes and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper and sweetener. (I used about 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and about 1/2 tsp of agave syrup.) It should be pretty thick, but the actualy thickness will depend on the size and juiciness of the tomatoes. We like our pizza sauce really thick so it stays put on the pizza, but if I were going to use it for pasta I'd thin it with broth or water. Absolute ambrosia! (I think we ate half the batch before the pizza dough was done!)

Like I said before, we let the bread machine do all the work for the pizza dough so I made the sauce while the bread machine was running. We use a very basic pizza dough recipe so that we can jazz it up with herbs and spices or whatever, but if anyone's interested, here's the recipe:

Basic Whole Wheat White Blend Pizza Dough
(for breadmaking machines)

1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour (we use organic from the bulk section of the health food store)
2 cups whole wheat flour (ditto)
2 tsp yeast

Put everything in your bread machine on the dough cycle and let the machine do all the work! We alter this basic recipe by adding herbs and garlic (especially if we're making bread sticks with it). We've also tried things like using beer in place of the water, adding sundried tomatoes and basil, adding chopped olives, and other things like that. One thing I haven't tried yet is adding curry powder to the dough. Curried topping on pizza is awesome but I haven't tried putting the spices in the dough. (Maybe with a caramlized onion and/or roasted veggie topping?)

Something to Do, Boys!

2007-07-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

I sometimes love to pick up old children's books because of the different perspective they give on raising children over the last few generations. Sometimes the differences are less than positive of course, but just seeing how many things have changed and how many things stay the same is fascinating to me. Anyway, we picked up a most awesome old children's book at a garage sale a while back that we have been getting a lot of use out of this summer. This particular book was copyrighted in 1916 and is entitled Something to Do, -Boys!: A Book for Wide-Awake Boys. I've tried to google it to see if I could find any other copies but haven't had any success. It is somewhat similar to The American Boys Handbook that has been reprinted and is easily found nowdays, but I think it is much more accessible and understandable without losing the charm of an older book.

The first thing that jumped out at me about this book was the fact that there was only one overtly "educational" project in the book. Only one "educational" project...how incredibly refreshing! It was the very first project in the book and consisted of the plans for making a number dial to help a smaller brother or sister who is "having trouble with number work at school". Yet, at the same time I can see that the editor is becoming aware of the idea that the "educational value" of the projects might be important. One can't help but *learn* something from this book and be *excited* about it, it's true, but at the time it was written there wasn't yet the ovarching educational agenda that is so prevalent today and so the focus of the projects is still on something *fun* to do.

There is such a plethora of projects in the book - from woodwork and metal work to raising various animals, story starters, pictures to color or copy, music, and lots more. Cameron has plans to make the racing sulky and some of the boats because they are similar to the ones he drools over in the expensive Waldorf style catalogs we receive in the mail. We've already made several of the simpler craft projects and played many of the games. The pictures above are of one of the games we played called "scammels". Basically, you take a piece of paper and crumple it up. Then you use a source of strong light (the book recommends playing just after tea when the lamps are lighted *grin*) to project the shadow of your crumpled paper onto a plain piece of paper. Trace the shadow of your crumpled paper very carefully, making sure to get all of the "queer little ins and outs". This is shape is your scammel. Once everyone has a scammel, you fill them in. The game begins when you try to make the prettiest, funniest, or whatever-est scammel. There is a suggestion for using flower shadows to make scammels in the summer. We haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like a good project for one of our nature hikes. There is also a suggestion for having your friends make scammels and sign them as a sort of autograph book. The pictures are of the kids' first scammels (a fairy and a chair), but we've had fun making lots of scammels since then.

Our homestead is starting to take shape!

2007-07-02T22:44:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of pics of our garden taken a few weeks ago...and then yesterday. We have had a very hot, dry spring. We went out and waterd almost daily so we wouldn't lose any of our "babies", but they were still not growing quite as well as I would have liked. Then last week we finally got some real rain and our garden responded by EXPLODING! (Of course, so did the weeds. If you look closely, you can see the lifeless bodies of many of the poor weeds strewn about in the second pic.) But doesn't our garden look fantastic for this time of year! This is not a big garden by my standards. As a matter of fact it's only about half of what it will be next year, but it's the first decent sized garden we've had in several years.

We have had our share of set backs. The hot, dry weather, some seeds that refused to sprout (and other that didn't sprout until we bought plants to replace them!), and the latest - pumpkins that try to overrun every other plant in their path and beyond. We've also had a few territorial disputes with the local wildlife. The rabbits had claimed every last morsel of the chard I was so looking forward to, along with most of the beets, peas and beans, and the deer had begun to nibble on a few things here and there as well before we declared war. I don't mind sharing some of my garden, but when they get greedy it's time to put a stop to it. We discovered an absolutely foul smelling product called Liquid Fence seems to work really well. We haven't had any critter damage since the second application and only a small amount after the first application. We have a lot of critters though, so I have to reapply the nasty smelling stuff every week or so, and it never fails...I *always* get the stuff (whose main ingredient is "putrescent egg" btw) on my gardening shoes. Every single time! I have to leave my gardening shoes on the porch for a couple of days after I spray the gardens.

Before I end this I have to point out the corn patch that is doing particularly well. That was Cameron's doing. He likes to make sure that everyone who comes into the garden sees that his corn isn't just knee high by the fourth of July, it's well over head high! He wanted to plant lots of corn and pumpkins so that he could sell the overflow, and boy did he get his wish. The corn and the pumpkins are both growing like crazy! You can't see the pumpkins in the pics because they are behind the corn and the tomatoes, but we have more than just a "patch" out there. It's more like a small field. We planted a few seeds of five different types of pumpkins plus some mixed gourds. You can't tell from the pics, but we left LOTS of room in between the plants, giving approximately half of the garden space that we had, but the greedy things have taken over their half and then some. And it's only the first part of July! I wonder how big they'll be before the garden season ends. Next year we are going to try planting about the same number of pumpkins but we'll plant them near the crops that will be petering out about the time the pumpkins are trying to take over.

Cameron plans to add chickens next year so he can sell the eggs as well as produce. I'm looking forward to the free chicken manure as a byproduct of this little venture of his. I'm paying a rather hefty sum for the stuff at the moment! We were going to wait until spring to get the chickens, but now I'm wondering if maybe we should get them this year. We will be converting a section of the small barn to house the chickens and will be adding an enclosed pen next to the barn (on the other side from the garden) for them to run. We'd prefer to have free range chickens, but since we live on a busy road and we also have lots of predators like foxes, owls, racoons, and hawks that would just love to get their claws on our chickens and their eggs, we feel a large chicken run is the best we can do. Whether we get the chickens this year or next depends primarily on whether we get the house finished fairly soon, or later in the fall.

We are making lots of progress on the house, btw, but that update will have to wait for another time. We had a very fun but very loooong day today including swimming followed by a 4 mile walk and then several hours on three different playgrounds. I'm tuckered out, but my soon to be three year old daughter (who spent most of those 4 miles in the stroller) is just now getting sleepy. (The 10 year old on the other hand has been in bed for several hours.) It's after midnight now, so I just might be able to get in a good 8 hours if we crawl up to bed within the next hour or so.

Paper Twins

2007-06-14T19:17:00.000-04:00

Last week we were outside playing with sidewalk chalk when Catherine decided to just lie down right there on the sidewalk. Cameron asked her if she would like him to trace her and she said yes. They spent the next 20 minutes or so tracing Catherine and then drawing her clothing, hair, etc. As soon as they had finished she stood up to look at "herself" when...it started to RAIN. Poor Catherine was beside herself! "She" was washing away and it really upset her. She stood there in the rain, crying as she watched their drawing wash away.

Then Cameron suggested making another Catherine drawing on paper inside the house. After shedding a few more tears Catherine decided that sounded like an acceptable substitute for the Catherine drawing which had just been turned into colored puddles in front of her eyes. We all went inside and the kids got out the large rolls of paper and colored pencils and began to work on a new Catherine drawing. When they were done she was *SO* happy! (In case you couldn't tell by the light in her eyes in the picture.) We hung it on the wall at the foot of the staircase and she sat in front of it just looking at"herself" for a very long time. Cameron decided that he wanted to draw a picture of himself too, so he took his turn lying down on the large roll of paper while I traced around him, then he drew and colored his own picture and hung it up next to Catherine's. But the fun didn't stop there! They have spent chunks of time here and there over the last week adding to those drawings. All of the space around their pictures are slowly being filled in by smaller drawings, labels, descriptions and diagrams. There are drawings of Mom, Dad, their pets, their house, and their favorite toys, as well as of some of their favorite games like Club Penguin and movies like "Kiki's Delivery Service". Every time they think of another thing that they feel is important enough to be added they get out the colored pencils again and spend another 10 or 20 minutes adding to their creations. It's like an ever changing mural at the foot of our stairs. The drawings have become very important to my kids, especially Catherine. She even had to tell them "goodnight" last night as she was heading up the stairs to bed! (I believe her exact words were "Wait! I forgot to tell myself goodnight! LOL) My favorite part has got to be the word "IMAGINATION" curling out from the tops of their heads though. That just says it all, doesn't it?

If it's Monday, it must be pizza...or is it?

2007-06-12T22:24:00.000-04:00

(I'm blogging this topic because Cameron says every Monday night: "We need to put this on our blog, MOM! This one is SOOOOO good! So, here you go, Cameron!)

For many months now the kids and I have been making Monday nights homemade pizza night. I didn't think the kids would ever get tired of pizza! Week after week we made the standard favorites in our household - cheese pizza for Catherine, sausage for Cameron, black olive and mushroom for Dad, and soy cheese or cheeseless veggie for me. Every week we'd follow the same routine. We would come home from our regular Monday classes (swimming and drumming...the only "classes" my kids take) and put the dough ingredients into the bread machine. While the bread machine did all the work we would do whatever it was that we had going on at the time. After the dough was done Catherine would help me roll it out and then we'd each put our own toppings on our individual pizzas and bake them. And every week I heard the same thing..."I love pizza nights!" (from Cameron) and "Yummmm! I love our pizza, Mom!" (from Catherine)

But somewhere along the line someone started to get bored with the "If it's Monday it must be pizza" theme. I'm not sure if it was me or Cameron, but someone decided that we needed to try something new with our weekly pizza nights. A couple of months ago we started experimenting in the pizza department. We still have pizza on Mondays, or at least it *looks* like pizza, but sometimes looks are about all our creations have in common with pizza.

So far we've come up with a few favorites and a few so-so recipes, but no duds. One of our favorites was the cheeseburger pizza with "the works". We've made that one several times because Dad didn't get any the first couple of times we made it. It was gone before he got home! We use catsup instead of pizza sauce and top it with soy burger crumbles and lots of soy cheese. When it's cooled a bit we put all of our favorite burger fixin's on top - mustard, mayo, lettuce, pickles (but only on Cameron's half!), onion, and tomato. Better than a burger imo, especially when the lettuce, onion and tomato come straight from our garden!

Another favorite was the chili cheese dog pizza - a "chef Cameron" creation. Instead of pizza sauce we used chili sauce and topped it with sliced hot dogs and cheese. Served with frosty mugs of root beer, of course!

One of my personal favorites was the Mediteranean bruschetta topping and provolone style soy cheese pizza. We usually have plenty of pizza left over for lunches for a day or two after pizza night, but that night I ate the whole thing by myself!

All of this pizza experimentation started because of an old favorite family recipe. Ever since dh and I were first married 15 years ago we have been making pizza with fresh spinach, feta style cheese, mozzarella style cheese, black olives, and Italian salad dressing drizzled over it in place of the pizza sauce. We were discussing how long it had been since we'd made our "Greek pizza" one night and someone said wouldn't such-and-such a topping be good. The ideas for alternatives to traditional pizza toppings and sauces just started flowing and we started writing them down so we wouldn't forget.

Our next gourmet pizza is probably going to be reuben sandwich style. Or maybe buffalo wing pizza. Or maybe roasted vegetable and pesto. We have a very long list of ideas and haven't decided which one will be next!

We're baa-aack!

2007-05-25T12:03:00.000-04:00

There's nothing so frustrating as having a great idea and then not having the time to implement it, is there? Soon after we started our unschooling blog the "outside world" intruded on our little unschooling bubble and demanded to be answered. We received what amounted to an ultimatum from the local planning commission concerning the house that we've been re-habbing for the last few years. Basically, they said "get it done or else". They didn't specify what the "or else" part entailed, but we didn't really want to find out, so we - meaning mostly my husband - have been busting our butts trying to get it done on their schedule instead of our own.

I can't complain too much though. Afterall, before the Planning Commission imposed a deadline *I* was the one saying "get it done or else". (Again, the "or else" part being rather foggy, even in my own mind.) The difference, however, was that my husband could live with *me* being frustrated because *I* don't have the right to take away his permit! lol

While dh has been doing work inside the house, I've been playing in the dirt! I love to garden and plan on growing most of our own food once we move. I put in a large garden this year - about twice the size of the gardens I've had in the past - and I'm at the house planting, weeding, watering, and tending that garden pretty much every day. I'm taking a short break at the moment, but I'll be heading over in a few hours.

Every other week or so I just HAVE to take a break and spend a little time here at the apartment though or it starts to look like a tornado hit the place. It's tough trying to live in two places at once! We seem to be at the apartment just long enough to make messes but not long enough to clean them up. We get up in the morning, get dressed, eat and then leave. Then we come back - often between 10 and midnight - to eat (if we didn't eat at the house), take baths and get some sleep. The next day we will start all over again. It's exhausting and makes me feel very disconnected. It's impossible to feel settled when you can't really call any one place "home".

So, anyway...here we are a few months later and we're still not ready to move in, but we're a whole lot closer to moving in than we were in January! Dh is over at the house today waiting on the inspector to come out and okay the insulation phase of the project. After this we're on to drywall and flooring - the final phase! Woohoo!! I'm still hesitant to set a definite move in date, but I can finally say with certainty that it will be *this* year.

Of all the things we feel we've been missing out on, it has been this blog that we've talked about the most. At least once a day either Cameron or I will say "we should put *that* on our blog!", but then we never seem to find the time to even turn on the computer let alone make any entries on the blog we started with such good intentions. We were talking about what we want to do over the next few weeks though and both of us agree that making time for this blog is high on our priority list. So here we are, back again after a long absence. I'm sure we'll have several more silent periods before we finally get settled in our "new" home, but hopefully not too many. (Cameron's taking a break from drumming for the summer, so we've actually put "blogging" on our calendar in the place where "drumming" would usually be.)

Water Bears!

2006-12-30T13:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks once again to Animal Planet's Most Extreme, my son has a new fascination - water bears! I don't recall ever hearing about water bears (tardigrades) before, but now that we have we're hooked. They are totally fascinating! Water bears are wee microscopic beasties that look like some weird combination of moles, frogs and bears. Although they are microscopic in size (measuring about 0.3-0.5 mm) they have legs (4 pair), a mouth (which they use for sucking the liquid from moss and lichen), a brain, and eyes. They have skin, muscles and nerves. Some even have tiny claws! Just watching them walk is mindboggling because they look so familiar yet so foreign. And they're actually quite cute! There are two sexes and they exhibit sexual behavior and lay eggs. But perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that they can "dehydrate" themselves (called a "tun" state). In that state they can withstand extreme conditions such as radioactivity, intense heat and cold, pressure, and acids. But it only takes a drop of water to revive them! We don't have a good microscope at the moment, so we have been scouring the Web for pictures and videos of these little critters. Our favorite by far is this one:

http://tinyurl.com/55yab

This site has some interesting clips and pics as well (including the one above):

http://www.baertierchen.de/wbwb.html

Once we move into our house, which has a wooded area with lots of mosses and lichen (a great place to find water bears), perhaps we can finally get a good microscope and go on a "bear hunt" of our own!

How We Came to Unschooling

2006-12-12T18:02:00.000-05:00

I find that the way I was lead to unschooling was rather complicated yet also fairly easy to trace. Looking back, I can see how my parent's parenting styles influenced my own. They were not "permissive" but neither were they overly authoritarian...at least not with me. My sister was another story. To keep the explanations short let's just say that I was what might be called "compliant" while my sister was what some people might call "defiant". I feel like my parents did pretty well overall, but I can certainly see how they treated my sister and me differently because of our different personalities. I just don't think they were prepared to cope with my sister's strong sense of self, so they did the best they could. Unfortunately, that often meant that they (especially my dad) tried to *force* her to be more compliant, even though they weren't usually overly forceful people. So essentially I had two styles of parenting right there within my own home that contrasted strongly with one another - the heavier handed discipline that was used most frequently with my sister and the more thoughtful approach that they tried to use with both of us but which went out the window when my sister's "willfulness" entered the picture. Seeing both reactions gave me a lot to think about and strongly influenced the way I wanted to parent my own kids. My own parenting style swung largely in the direction of the more thoughtful approach that I recall seeing most frequently, but the reactive style still comes out at times when I'm under stress. It's something I'm working on and will likely be working on for the rest of my life. What was it that Haim Ginott supposedly said in response to a question about how long a parent needs to work on communication skills? His response was something to the effect of "how many times does a musician have to tune a violin?" Definitely food for thought.

Anyway...back to my parents. Most of the time my parents (especially my mom) were very much UNlike my friends' parents. I remember being over at a friend's house once when I was around 12 or 13 and her mother threatened to "ground" her. I'd never heard of that before and asked my mom about it. She explained what it meant and said that she never believed in it. She thought such tactics were stupid and pointless. They don't teach the kid anything and it usually punishes the parent as much as the child. Around that same time I also began to notice that we were different in other ways as well. We didn't get allowances. Again, Mom thought they were pointless. "If you need something, just ask" was what she used to say. But the idea of having *my own* money appealed to me so I persisted. Eventually she told me to pay attention to kids who got allowances. She pointed out that they go through a lot trouble of deciding on allowances and then they just turn around and take them away to try to get their kids to behave. She basically said that if wanted to change the dynamics of the situation she would go along with it, but after really paying attention I had to say she had a point. I quit asking for an allowance and decided that the way we were doing it was definitely better for all of us! We also didn't have bedtimes. She believed we would sleep when we got tired. We weren't forced to eat at certain times or eat certain foods. She figured we'd eat when we were hungry. Actually, both of my parents were and still are very big on the idea that we needed to listen to our own bodies to tell us when and what to eat, when to sleep, etc. It was a stark contrast to my friends' homes where desserts were witheld until the plates were "clean" and children were left to cry over their uneaten peas long after everyone else had gotten up from the table. No wonder I was traumatized by visiting friends' houses!

As I got older I didn't really experience the need to "separate" from my parents as other teenagers seemed to. I was very close to my parents and still am. My mom was and still is the type of mother who respected us and our needs. She very rarely forced her ideas on us and instead invited us to think for ourselves. She just gets better and better at it as the years go by too. She was (and still is) a fun person to be around. I don't understand the whole "you can't be your child's friend and their parent" thing because I have living proof that you *CAN* because that's exactly what my mom was and is to me.

By the time I got married and was thinking about having kids, I had lots of things from my parent's bag of tricks that I wanted to re-create in my own family and a few things that I *didn't*. It was several years (five to be exact) before my husband and I had our first child, so I had lots of time to think about these things and sort them out before I had the chance to put them into action. Once our son was a part of our family I figured out rather quickly (within days) that *HE* would be the one who would teach *ME* what it meant to be a parent and that all of the plans I had meant little. All that planning did give me an overall "ideal" though, which gave me a little light to see by, but mostly I forgot all about my lofty plans and just tried to figure out what this little guy needed and how to give it to him. That was my main goal at that time in my life: figure out what he needs and find a way to make it happen.

Cameron came into this world a highly sensitive soul. As an infant was sensitive to foods, textures, sounds, tastes, etc. He also needed to be close to me at all times, otherwise everything felt *wrong* to him. He would not go to other people and rarely left my lap. He didn't sleep without being in physical contact with me for years. He still to this day feels most comfortable when I am within reach most of the time. Some people who are used to being away from their children for large amounts of time would probably find that wearing, but for us it's just a way of life. He is moving away from me, slowly and surely, but at a pace that *HE* is comfortable with, and I'm okay with that.

I can only remember being sure of a couple of things - that I was committed to breastfeeding, and that I would NEVER send my son off to public school - and it seems that everything else that eventually happened stemmed from those things. It's difficult now to remember what came first, but it's enough to say that during those first couple of years I got a crash course in attachment parenting, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, child-led weaning, and many other child respectful practices. Those ideas led me to information on gentler schooling which eventually led me to homeschooling and then unschooling. At the time it seemed that this process of making one leap of faith after another took a long time, but looking back it seems so short. By the time he was a toddler I was pretty certain of the path I wanted to take. I made adjustments here and there as he grew and our needs changed, but overall my ideals have changed little since those first days. That doesn't mean we haven't had difficulties along the way though. We most certainly have! The most obvious one would be the fiasco after Catherine was born.

There are 7-1/2 years between my kids, primarily because Cameron needed that time to become more comfortable with himself and the world around him and he needed me to be there for him during that time. We waited until he was ready to have a sibling as much as we were ready to have another baby. Unfortunately, Catherine's arrival came at a time when stress levels were extremely high for my husband and me. It also coincided with the time when Cameron decided to "do school". It went okay for the better part of a year. While I was pregnant, Cameron and I had a good time "doing school", but after Catherine was born my stress level shot through the roof for a combination of reasons (mostly due to prolonged work on our house which is *still* going on). My reaction to the stress was to become much less patient and more coercive. (After 7 years of gentle parenting!) I was feeling overwhelmed and my life felt out of control. I was angry and disappointed and I reacted by trying to control other things...like Cameron's "schooling". One day I actually heard the words "after you do your reading then we'll do science" come out of my mouth and I decided that was enough. That may not sound like much to some people but to me it was a wake up call. Not only were those not the kinds of things I used to say to my son, they were *harmful* to him and I could see it. I could see it on his face and in his eyes and in the way he related to me in a less open way than he used to. I started looking at other areas of our lives and could see how I had become coersive, obsessive, controlling, and manipulative in other ways and I was *apalled*. How did I come to this, I wondered. I never used to yell. I never even used to raise my voice. It wasn't necessary. But there I was doing it quite frequently. And what a difficult habit it was to break too! I didn't anticipate that. I thought that going back to my former ways would be a fairly simple process, but Catherine is now 2-1/2 and I'm *still* working at it. It's a difficult process but the results have been worth any amount of work it may take.

I feel I must point out that we weren't totally RU before. I was more of a gentle/peaceful parent and an unschooler, but I was not 100% committed to all of the ideas behind radical unschooling at that time. I was on some of the RU boards for a while but many of them felt too...negative. By that I mean that the focus on the lists (though not necessarily in the list members' lives, mind you) tended to be on the negative, on what NOT to do, on how NOT to act, on how parents SHOULD/SHOULD NOT act, etc. It really put me off. But after my revelation I needed help and support and was willing to take it even if it were of the negative type. Luckily I found a link to the Shine with Unschooling list. Though it is more moderated than some unschooling lists, it has the more positive focus that I was desperately in need of. I have very little time to actually talk on that list because I'm still in the thick of my "recovery", but it has truly been my lifeline during the last year or so.

And that's essentially where we are today. Committed to the idea of a *positive* RU lifestyle, yet still growing, still learning, still in the process of "figuring it all out"...but making progress none the less. I know I've said very little about the *kids'* experience of unschooling, but I think that they, or at least my son, will do that for himself as he lives his life and perhaps posts about it here.

Welcome to our family blog!

2006-12-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

Cameron (almost 10):
Our family is so cool! This is where we will write about the fun stuff we do. This is my first time writing in this blog. My sister and I are playing right now and watching "Go Diego, Go!". I did some really fun stuff today. I made a holiday wreath and some paper decorations.

Jessica (aka Mom)
Welcome to the first post on our new family blog. Cameron wanted a place to write about what we do and why it's so cool to him, so we started this blog for that reason. He's watched me blog and even had me put things on some of my blogs for him, but lately he's been itching to do it himself. We are a busy family so we probably won't be adding to this daily. We do like to talk about our unschooling life though, so we'll be adding to it fairly regularly.

In case you haven't guessed, this pic is of me and my two kiddos, Cameron (who is now almost 10) and Catherine (who is now 2-1/2). The picture was taken last year, so we've all grown a little bit since then. I wish I had a more recent picture of all of us, but unfortuately I'm usually the one taking the pics. I have LOADS of pics of the kids though! I'm sure you'll be seeing quite a few of them here.