It seems there will always be someone to offend and I will always find a way to offend them. My husband and I crack up (after a significant period of time passes after each incident of course) because we are pretty quiet people who pretty much keep to ourselves yet always end up under attack. He says it's typical bully behavior, I agree for the most part. We are quiet, we are polite and for some reason this leaves us open for criticism. I don't know, though, the more I listen the more I hear of similar things happening with everyone else around us too, so it's ridiculous to think this only happens to us.
I think the solution to the problem, however, is that more people should keep their opinions to themselves. I was thinking of this today while I was making our final preparations to begin our school year, then a friend fell under criticism for her family's decision to school their children at home and I'm really just fed up with the whole thing. Granted, I am speaking my mind on a public blog with provided space for comments, so any negative feedback I get is to be expected and the honest thing to do would be to accept it graciously. Soap boxes can get pretty slippery, I know.
Personally, we decided to home school with no great convictions in either direction. We aren't too opposed to sending our kids to school and have always left it up to them. There were no religious reasons behind our decision to home school. I grew up in private school which I never really liked. I just didn't get it, why I had to sit there all day and then go home and do hours more of homework. Home schooling would have been a dream come true. My husband grew up in public school and couldn't find much he liked about it.
Before we had children we toyed with the idea of keeping our kids home. I just couldn't see what was wrong with devoting my time to my kids and giving them the gift of the freedoms that home schooling could allow. We still hadn't decided either way when our older son was getting close to school age. When he was ready for preschool, we enrolled him as all "normal" families do even though I was home during the weekdays at the time. When my mother learned that she had cancer, we took him out of his class, knowing we would be traveling the 3 hours to her place of treatment and to her home with no idea what the duration of time would be. Fortunately, her treatments were few and successful, but not long after, we were required to make a move to another area for my husband's new job.
The move was pretty touch and go and we didn't end up getting our things transferred until the day before public school in the new county was scheduled to begin. I didn't have the heart to move our little guy into a new house, new town, and then dump him in school the very next day. I knew he would be fine, but home schooling for kindergarten was the answer for us. We loved it so much that we have never stopped. This will be our ninth year, in fact.
Now I'm not going to detail the complaints and I'm just plain sick of the "social" subject so won't even go into that, but my gripe is that because we have made the decision to home school, others think it gives them the right to point out the major problems they see with the lifestyle we have chosen. It never fails to irk me when I think of this. Honestly, people think, imply, and have come pretty close to saying that we haven't taken our children's best interests to heart in our decision. I have even had someone say to me, "I'm not saying you aren't doing a good job with them academically..." First of all how do they know?! I might be an utter failure at teaching my children what they need to know. They aren't in our home during lesson time, they don't sit at our table with us while we do our work. I have never shown anyone our boys' end of the year test scores but the state home school office, as is required by law. No, they were saying our children were being neglected in other ways and they know as much about that as they know the color of my pajamas on any given night.
Do I grill people on their decision to send their children to school? Would I be so bold as to pull another parent's child aside to ask them what they want as others have done with my children concerning home schooling, as if it had never occurred to me to ask them myself if they wanted to go to school or not? Of course not! I wouldn't be so rude. And anyway, who am I to say I have any idea what is best for their children? And as my dear friend is fond of pointing out, do you think we home school to make parents of schooled children feel smaller? Do parents of "traditionally" schooled children honestly think that we spend hours educating our children, weeks preparing to educate our children, and allow the government access to such a enormous aspect of our personal lives just to one-up parents of schooling children? Do they really think we devote our lives to their education only to imply that we are the better parents, all without stopping to consider our children's needs, feelings, rights, likes, or wishes along the way?
The two most important things that some are SO concerned with my boys missing out on? Prom and a chemistry lab. Really? Heaven forbid my boys miss out on prom night and I guess that shark dissection they participated in did nothing for them, since it wasn't performed in a "lab" and neither will the myriad of other animal dissections we will be doing when my boys begin high school biology. Lessons sitting by a river in a national park, hours spent just playing with friends at weekly home school meets, field trips with other home schoolers, parties, science fairs, craft days...all the things we can do as a home school family...worthless in their eyes. Not enough in their opinion. Never enough. And the worst part is that they have to fill our ears with this flack as if we've asked.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The Edible Rose
The rosaceae family of plants boasts hundreds of varieties of the pastel and jewel-toned flowers that are so popular as ornamental shrubs and climbers in the landscape. But roses are not only gorgeous as decoration and to be used for shows of affection between lovers, parts of the plant are also edible and have been used in cooking from the times of early man.
Most people are aware that rose hips, the bulbous fruit that appears when the bloom is spent, can be used to make tea. The flavorful, red fruit also makes a wonderful aromatic jelly and is a great nutritional source as it is high in the antioxidant Vitamin C which is known for its immune boosting properties and ability to repair blood vessels.
Rose hips can be harvested from any organic rose bush, wild or domestic, that has not been treated with chemical pesticides or synthetic sprays for at least an entire year of growing. Plants near major sources of traffic should not be foraged, as the steady assault form vehicles' exhaust can contaminate the shrubs and fruit as harmful pesticides do. Another reason these plants should be avoided is that government agencies frequently spray roadsides to keep down growth and you can never be sure of the spraying schedule.
Rose blossoms and petals can also be eaten or used to make rose flower water which is popular in Middle Eastern cuisine and as a perfume and skin toner. You can distill your own rose water by collecting fresh, untreated petals and setting up a distilling arrangement on your stove top. Instructions are widely available on internet websites and by doing it yourself you can save hundreds of dollars on this pricey, natural extract.
Roses require consistent amounts of water to bloom, but too much can be damaging. Heavy mulching of rich, organic matter at the root crown helps the plants to build up disease and pest resistance. Try growing the beautiful rose with culinary uses in mind.
Sources:
Roadside Rambles by Ila Hatter, Editor
Based on the original works by Marie B. Mellinger: Out of Old Fields and Roadside Rambles
2001 Cookbook Publishers, Inc.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/rose-water-how-to-make-your-own.html
http://www.thereallygoodlife.com/3406/foraging-for-wild-food-do-you-forage-near-roads/
Most people are aware that rose hips, the bulbous fruit that appears when the bloom is spent, can be used to make tea. The flavorful, red fruit also makes a wonderful aromatic jelly and is a great nutritional source as it is high in the antioxidant Vitamin C which is known for its immune boosting properties and ability to repair blood vessels.
Rose hips can be harvested from any organic rose bush, wild or domestic, that has not been treated with chemical pesticides or synthetic sprays for at least an entire year of growing. Plants near major sources of traffic should not be foraged, as the steady assault form vehicles' exhaust can contaminate the shrubs and fruit as harmful pesticides do. Another reason these plants should be avoided is that government agencies frequently spray roadsides to keep down growth and you can never be sure of the spraying schedule.
Rose blossoms and petals can also be eaten or used to make rose flower water which is popular in Middle Eastern cuisine and as a perfume and skin toner. You can distill your own rose water by collecting fresh, untreated petals and setting up a distilling arrangement on your stove top. Instructions are widely available on internet websites and by doing it yourself you can save hundreds of dollars on this pricey, natural extract.
Roses require consistent amounts of water to bloom, but too much can be damaging. Heavy mulching of rich, organic matter at the root crown helps the plants to build up disease and pest resistance. Try growing the beautiful rose with culinary uses in mind.
Sources:
Roadside Rambles by Ila Hatter, Editor
Based on the original works by Marie B. Mellinger: Out of Old Fields and Roadside Rambles
2001 Cookbook Publishers, Inc.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/rose-water-how-to-make-your-own.html
http://www.thereallygoodlife.com/3406/foraging-for-wild-food-do-you-forage-near-roads/
Friday, September 2, 2011
"No...just blogging..."
I have an acquaintance who is a published author whom I met through a small writer's group that she started with another local author. In this group, the members, about six of us, would share excerpts from our work by reading aloud with the intention of having the others critique the writing. Nightmare. Absolute nightmare for someone like me. Hell. I don't know why I went. Yes I do, I wanted to learn. I did learn, but I always politely declined when asked to show my work, which was actually kind of rude since I was the only one unwilling to lay my guts out on the table to be picked at by some very kind, knowledgeable buzzards. Because it wasn't fair to critique their work when I wouldn't show mine I only gave encouragement when it was my turn to give an opinion and couldn't help countering everyone else's criticism of the work of the person in the hot seat by pointing out what I liked about the piece they had shared.
All this came on the cusp of getting reacquainted with a childhood friend who writes and asked me to read one of her books to critique it. Then a friend of hers who writes asked me to read something she was working on and suddenly I found myself, a person who has always written with the idea that no living person, not even my husband would ever see anything I had written, surrounded by writers and in this little writing community that I couldn't have found if I'd tried. I believe in fate, destiny, serendipity...and luck...so I decided to go with the flow and accept what life had given me as inspiration.
I'm not the best writer, and that's not modesty or humility speaking, it's true. But my husband once said that if I can't stop the itching in my fingers to get down on paper what I have to say or quickly jot down dreams of people I don't even know and snatches of dialogue between them from the dream that sound like a story, then I'm probably a writer. He's right. If I need to write, whether my writing is any good or not, then I am a writer. I am a writer. I have so much trouble saying that, but I am a writer.
Another thing that I find inspiring is a talk that I had nearly twenty years ago with my college writing instructor. She simply told me that I needed to try to get published because my short stories were well-written. I believed her. I did. It meant a lot to me. I started writing a novel soon after. I started another a little over a year ago, and then a third in the spring. I still lack the confidence to show my work even though I have since begun blogging.
A couple of years ago I wrote a short story about my grandfather's sailboat and what it meant to our family and after a year and a half of messing with it, got up the gumption to send it to two editors. The second wanted to publish it, but asked for pictures to go with the story. I sat on it and sat on it. Even at the time I knew the reason behind the delay was that I was still afraid to show my work. She published it a couple of months later without telling me, saying it was a touching story for their Christmas edition. It was to be a birthday gift for my dad, but I still had trouble telling him about it. Finally I did and he showed the family who responded with such encouragement that I knew I needed to get over my confidence problem.
I started blogging. This sounds strange, but Facebook, sharing my thoughts and ideas in daily posts, broke the ground for me to begin blogging. Blogging to me, is a glorified Facebook status post, I can handle that just fine, but still quiver a little just before I publish a blog post and 9 out of 10 times I change something after I read the published version. I am an obsessive "fixer".
So I've been blogging for nine months, putting "my guts out there", as I call writing of any kind, for people to see. It hasn't always gone smoothly. I have deleted things I've written and many posts disappear before I "publish" them, but I like having that control too. I also started writing for one of those web content sites to grow in writing.
So with all of this working, I was stunned to hear what came out of my mouth the other day when I met with one of my writer friends. She asked, "Are you writing?". I replied while having trouble making eye contact, "No...just blogging...". I did stammer and sort of apologetically add that I do content writing, but emphasized that it doesn't pay very much and they will let anyone write for those sites.
Did I tell her I have three novels working and that I obsess over them in my spare time, which isn't really spare time? No. Did I tell her I've had something published? Of course not. Because I don't consider myself to be a real writer yet. I have a lot of work to do. Yes, I need to hone my grammar and punctuation skills, work on character development, flow, and I have a real problem with dialogue, but the biggest thorn in my side is still in the self-esteem department. Lesson learned.
All this came on the cusp of getting reacquainted with a childhood friend who writes and asked me to read one of her books to critique it. Then a friend of hers who writes asked me to read something she was working on and suddenly I found myself, a person who has always written with the idea that no living person, not even my husband would ever see anything I had written, surrounded by writers and in this little writing community that I couldn't have found if I'd tried. I believe in fate, destiny, serendipity...and luck...so I decided to go with the flow and accept what life had given me as inspiration.
I'm not the best writer, and that's not modesty or humility speaking, it's true. But my husband once said that if I can't stop the itching in my fingers to get down on paper what I have to say or quickly jot down dreams of people I don't even know and snatches of dialogue between them from the dream that sound like a story, then I'm probably a writer. He's right. If I need to write, whether my writing is any good or not, then I am a writer. I am a writer. I have so much trouble saying that, but I am a writer.
Another thing that I find inspiring is a talk that I had nearly twenty years ago with my college writing instructor. She simply told me that I needed to try to get published because my short stories were well-written. I believed her. I did. It meant a lot to me. I started writing a novel soon after. I started another a little over a year ago, and then a third in the spring. I still lack the confidence to show my work even though I have since begun blogging.
A couple of years ago I wrote a short story about my grandfather's sailboat and what it meant to our family and after a year and a half of messing with it, got up the gumption to send it to two editors. The second wanted to publish it, but asked for pictures to go with the story. I sat on it and sat on it. Even at the time I knew the reason behind the delay was that I was still afraid to show my work. She published it a couple of months later without telling me, saying it was a touching story for their Christmas edition. It was to be a birthday gift for my dad, but I still had trouble telling him about it. Finally I did and he showed the family who responded with such encouragement that I knew I needed to get over my confidence problem.
I started blogging. This sounds strange, but Facebook, sharing my thoughts and ideas in daily posts, broke the ground for me to begin blogging. Blogging to me, is a glorified Facebook status post, I can handle that just fine, but still quiver a little just before I publish a blog post and 9 out of 10 times I change something after I read the published version. I am an obsessive "fixer".
So I've been blogging for nine months, putting "my guts out there", as I call writing of any kind, for people to see. It hasn't always gone smoothly. I have deleted things I've written and many posts disappear before I "publish" them, but I like having that control too. I also started writing for one of those web content sites to grow in writing.
So with all of this working, I was stunned to hear what came out of my mouth the other day when I met with one of my writer friends. She asked, "Are you writing?". I replied while having trouble making eye contact, "No...just blogging...". I did stammer and sort of apologetically add that I do content writing, but emphasized that it doesn't pay very much and they will let anyone write for those sites.
Did I tell her I have three novels working and that I obsess over them in my spare time, which isn't really spare time? No. Did I tell her I've had something published? Of course not. Because I don't consider myself to be a real writer yet. I have a lot of work to do. Yes, I need to hone my grammar and punctuation skills, work on character development, flow, and I have a real problem with dialogue, but the biggest thorn in my side is still in the self-esteem department. Lesson learned.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
No Man's Land
It's the time of year when I feel like the garden is just about to be put "to bed" for the winter, we are ready to start school, and the temperature is in the 50s at night and up to the 90s during the day...not quite summer, but not quite fall. I like it. It's like that Monday morning feeling when you anticipate getting back into the swing of things after those couple of "anything goes" weekend days. Feels like limbo or No Man's Land but in a good way, a really good time to catch up on things, finish up projects, and get everything as organized as possible before our days are dominated by schoolwork.
It's been crazy here in our little cottage. Most things good, some things bad. We have a major issue going on with the farm right now, but everything else feels like those first warm late winter days when you can feel spring coming. "This too shall pass". We are all healthy and happy and that's all that matters.
I gave one of our chickens to a friend the other day. The poor thing had suddenly become shunned and outcast from the rest of the flock and had started to refuse to stay in the coop with the others. Up onto the hen house she would hop, down over the covered duck run and into the garden. Her flight feathers had been trimmed and the hen house roof is a good five feet in the air, but she and our Bantam managed to build up their leg muscles enough to squat and flutter up that high. Eventually she just gave up on going home altogether. I wonder what she did that was so offensive, to be so ostracized. We let her be and fed and watered her separately and on the day we gave her away, I found the nest of eggs she had made. I'd wondered what she had been doing about that. Finally, I decided that if we were going to get anything more out of what is left of the garden and try to plant cool weather crops again, she would have to go. Our little Bantam still scratches around, but if I keep them wet she seems to stay out of the the vegetable beds. Hoping for lots of fresh kale, carrots, brussels sprouts, and potatoes come fall.
It's Labor Day weekend in a few days. We will avoid the crowds as usual and stay home camping in our backyard as we do every Labor Day weekend. It always seems a little silly until we wake up in the morning, unzip the tent, and are met with a view that we would be hard-pressed to find in any of the wooded camp grounds around. And when our three day family weekend is over so will our time in No Man's Land and we can finish letting summer go and start the next phase of life together. I can't wait!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Ready, set...
Not quite ready to GO, but I'm so close! A cold snap that brought our night temperature down into the fifties and an entire day at the lake have almost convinced me that summer vacation should be winding down. I had been feeling as if I were being dragged kicking and screaming to the edge of fall and as if the world and Mother Nature were conspiring against me to snatch my summer away. Like, because we had a fabulous trip to Florida in May, I didn't need or deserve any more fun in the sun this season. A chilly beginning that lasted into June and enough thunderstorms to fool me into thinking I'd never moved from the lightening capital of the world made for a lackluster, short summer.
When I wasn't listening to other homeschool moms chatting away about curriculum purchases, while I resisted the urge to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut to block it out, I found myself staring forlornly out the window waiting for the clouds to clear while simultaneously being grateful that I haven't needed to take the precious ground water from our well to water the garden, thanks to Nature doing her thing. Waiting, waiting, waiting for summer to "start". An additional round of unexpected frustrations and a series of minor illnesses that we seem to be passing around among the four of us has convinced me to just let it go. I hate that phrase, but I'm learning to adopt the concept and use it when I need to. So this week, I let summer go and buried myself in my lesson planning. The community pool in our town and the one in a nearby town that we always use have closed for the year, without even one visit from us, and public school has started, so letting go, though I resisted, was easier than I'd thought it would be.
The boys and I had never done a themed school year until the last which was a pirate theme. We all learned a lot, and no we didn't just sit around watching Captain Jack Sparrow, as many people have asked. Our pirate study led us to learn all about the Atlantic coast of Canada, the Caribbean, particularly Haiti and Jamaica, trade routes and government laws. We studied manatees, earthquakes, construction, ospreys, trees, sea life, underground water systems...things I never knew we could tie into a pirate theme. It was so much fun that the boys requested that we do a theme again.
It will be our ninth year as a homeschool family and I was sad to realize that after this year, we will only have four more with my older son and that's only if he doesn't graduate early or decide to school outside of our home. Every year I ask them if they are sure they want to continue homeschooling. This year our medieval themed lesson plan was already in the works before I asked. I was happy to see how enthusiastic they were about our plans and both, even the older, independent boy said they couldn't wait to start.
We already had our math curriculum figured out and are continuing where we left off last year, but I was really overwhelmed by the prospect of pulling our lessons together. So much is involved with the theme that we've chosen and while I know the boys would be content and probably expect to only learn about knights, castles, and medieval weaponry, I knew I had to build a good solid base of information as my curriculum "skeleton" and save the fun and exciting subjects for the rest. During my denial period, that summer was going too quickly, I had messed around a little looking online for a place to start. It was daunting to say the least, and for a while I didn't know how I was going to pull it off. Then I discovered Medieval Ages for Kids. My thirteen year old balked at the juvenile cartoon pictures at the top of each page when I showed him, but the information is fabulous and because it's outlined in such a simple format, we will be able to fit many subjects into one year and avoid those long, drawn out, less interesting medieval history subjects I remember from school. Which is, for me, one of the main reasons for homeschooling at all. I told my son not to worry and to trust his momma, that I would just use the site as my skeleton and make sure everything else was up to his maturity level. He responded by reminding me that he tested at a college level for vocabulary. He's right. I'll have to keep that in mind. He sure knows how to make me giggle.
So with a six coarse medieval feast planned, that my food blog followers will get to experience first-hand, an extensive Viking study, lessons on kings, queens, knights and jousts, heraldry, dragons (yes, I know they're not real), village life, geography, sea exploration, Black Death, castles, and the Inquisition lessons all printed, organized, and filed away I am just about ready. It only took numerous packs of computer paper and almost an entire laser printer toner cartridge, but each boy's year of work is hanging neatly divided by subject in their own hanging file system. Getting it divided up into semesters, quarters, months, weeks, days and scheduled into the lesson plan is always the tricky part and I still have a few weeks left to do that and to buy our school supplies. I haven't even thought about language arts yet, but a trip to Barnes & Noble always does a good job of taking care of that for me. Science is going to be so much hands-on that, like last year, there will be models and experiments all over the lesson room.
German...now there's a problem...a real, ongoing problem. It will be my fourth or fifth year teaching the boys German and because I'm not fluent (pretty clueless as a matter of fact) we really aren't getting anywhere. It happens to be the one language that our library doesn't carry in a nice, high quality, "learn a language in 3 mos." type of program so I've really been winging it. They learn vocabulary words, there's a fabulous chart on the lesson room wall that they do drills from, they ace the questions I put on their tests, but then it's gone... right out the window and they nor I can speak it at all. I know more than I think I know, I find out each year, but like the boys, it's not a part of my life so none of us are getting it. I think I will just have to buy one of those very expensive programs and just get us speaking and quit worrying for now about vocabulary and grammar.
Music. I grew up in a family of musicians and my husband and boys are distant cousins of The King himself, so it's ridiculous that none of us play anything. We bought a guitar from a friend's yard sale two summers ago and it sits in the corner of the lesson room under a guitar notes poster and music notes chart, but like German, I don't know how to teach the boys something I don't know myself. I bring up the subject of finding an instructor, but my younger boy, who is as shy as I was at his age, flat-out refuses to go and my older son hasn't had enough interest to actually learn from one and practice every day.
Well, one day this summer, when my creativity level was at its peak, I literally woke up in the morning and decided that I wanted to play an instrument, that I HAD to play an instrument. Music is such a necessary thing in my life, but the fact that I couldn't make it suddenly seemed unbearable. I picked up the boys' guitar and thought, as I often do, about my dad pulling his out and playing sixties folk songs for my sister and me. I could almost smell his red velvet lined guitar case that held the beautiful instrument and for the millionth time in my life I realized what a travesty it is that I never showed any interest in learning how to play and that I never even once asked him to teach me. I started messing around with the boys' guitar case while I gave up looking at the guitar, wishing I could somehow know how to make it sing, when I found a beginner, basic instruction manual in the a zippered pocket. I am happy to say that I have made it most of the way through the book. An added bonus is that both boys were inspired enough by how quickly I learned a few tunes by using the book to pick the guitar up for themselves and learn too. They are following right along behind me and very soon we will need to be buying the next book in the series of manuals. And..at this very moment, my son is watching an item on Ebay, keeping up with the bidding, trying to decide when the best time will be for us to jump in and go for it. The item for sale a violin. It's never too late to get excited about playing an instrument, I guess.
So now that I am almost ready for school, I am torn between the desperate need to milk every last bit of fun from this summer and wanting to jump right into all of the interesting lessons we have ahead of us. I think I'll compromise and just sit down with the boys on one of these rainy afternoons and watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yeah...that should do the trick.
When I wasn't listening to other homeschool moms chatting away about curriculum purchases, while I resisted the urge to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut to block it out, I found myself staring forlornly out the window waiting for the clouds to clear while simultaneously being grateful that I haven't needed to take the precious ground water from our well to water the garden, thanks to Nature doing her thing. Waiting, waiting, waiting for summer to "start". An additional round of unexpected frustrations and a series of minor illnesses that we seem to be passing around among the four of us has convinced me to just let it go. I hate that phrase, but I'm learning to adopt the concept and use it when I need to. So this week, I let summer go and buried myself in my lesson planning. The community pool in our town and the one in a nearby town that we always use have closed for the year, without even one visit from us, and public school has started, so letting go, though I resisted, was easier than I'd thought it would be.
The boys and I had never done a themed school year until the last which was a pirate theme. We all learned a lot, and no we didn't just sit around watching Captain Jack Sparrow, as many people have asked. Our pirate study led us to learn all about the Atlantic coast of Canada, the Caribbean, particularly Haiti and Jamaica, trade routes and government laws. We studied manatees, earthquakes, construction, ospreys, trees, sea life, underground water systems...things I never knew we could tie into a pirate theme. It was so much fun that the boys requested that we do a theme again.
It will be our ninth year as a homeschool family and I was sad to realize that after this year, we will only have four more with my older son and that's only if he doesn't graduate early or decide to school outside of our home. Every year I ask them if they are sure they want to continue homeschooling. This year our medieval themed lesson plan was already in the works before I asked. I was happy to see how enthusiastic they were about our plans and both, even the older, independent boy said they couldn't wait to start.
We already had our math curriculum figured out and are continuing where we left off last year, but I was really overwhelmed by the prospect of pulling our lessons together. So much is involved with the theme that we've chosen and while I know the boys would be content and probably expect to only learn about knights, castles, and medieval weaponry, I knew I had to build a good solid base of information as my curriculum "skeleton" and save the fun and exciting subjects for the rest. During my denial period, that summer was going too quickly, I had messed around a little looking online for a place to start. It was daunting to say the least, and for a while I didn't know how I was going to pull it off. Then I discovered Medieval Ages for Kids. My thirteen year old balked at the juvenile cartoon pictures at the top of each page when I showed him, but the information is fabulous and because it's outlined in such a simple format, we will be able to fit many subjects into one year and avoid those long, drawn out, less interesting medieval history subjects I remember from school. Which is, for me, one of the main reasons for homeschooling at all. I told my son not to worry and to trust his momma, that I would just use the site as my skeleton and make sure everything else was up to his maturity level. He responded by reminding me that he tested at a college level for vocabulary. He's right. I'll have to keep that in mind. He sure knows how to make me giggle.
So with a six coarse medieval feast planned, that my food blog followers will get to experience first-hand, an extensive Viking study, lessons on kings, queens, knights and jousts, heraldry, dragons (yes, I know they're not real), village life, geography, sea exploration, Black Death, castles, and the Inquisition lessons all printed, organized, and filed away I am just about ready. It only took numerous packs of computer paper and almost an entire laser printer toner cartridge, but each boy's year of work is hanging neatly divided by subject in their own hanging file system. Getting it divided up into semesters, quarters, months, weeks, days and scheduled into the lesson plan is always the tricky part and I still have a few weeks left to do that and to buy our school supplies. I haven't even thought about language arts yet, but a trip to Barnes & Noble always does a good job of taking care of that for me. Science is going to be so much hands-on that, like last year, there will be models and experiments all over the lesson room.
German...now there's a problem...a real, ongoing problem. It will be my fourth or fifth year teaching the boys German and because I'm not fluent (pretty clueless as a matter of fact) we really aren't getting anywhere. It happens to be the one language that our library doesn't carry in a nice, high quality, "learn a language in 3 mos." type of program so I've really been winging it. They learn vocabulary words, there's a fabulous chart on the lesson room wall that they do drills from, they ace the questions I put on their tests, but then it's gone... right out the window and they nor I can speak it at all. I know more than I think I know, I find out each year, but like the boys, it's not a part of my life so none of us are getting it. I think I will just have to buy one of those very expensive programs and just get us speaking and quit worrying for now about vocabulary and grammar.
Music. I grew up in a family of musicians and my husband and boys are distant cousins of The King himself, so it's ridiculous that none of us play anything. We bought a guitar from a friend's yard sale two summers ago and it sits in the corner of the lesson room under a guitar notes poster and music notes chart, but like German, I don't know how to teach the boys something I don't know myself. I bring up the subject of finding an instructor, but my younger boy, who is as shy as I was at his age, flat-out refuses to go and my older son hasn't had enough interest to actually learn from one and practice every day.
Well, one day this summer, when my creativity level was at its peak, I literally woke up in the morning and decided that I wanted to play an instrument, that I HAD to play an instrument. Music is such a necessary thing in my life, but the fact that I couldn't make it suddenly seemed unbearable. I picked up the boys' guitar and thought, as I often do, about my dad pulling his out and playing sixties folk songs for my sister and me. I could almost smell his red velvet lined guitar case that held the beautiful instrument and for the millionth time in my life I realized what a travesty it is that I never showed any interest in learning how to play and that I never even once asked him to teach me. I started messing around with the boys' guitar case while I gave up looking at the guitar, wishing I could somehow know how to make it sing, when I found a beginner, basic instruction manual in the a zippered pocket. I am happy to say that I have made it most of the way through the book. An added bonus is that both boys were inspired enough by how quickly I learned a few tunes by using the book to pick the guitar up for themselves and learn too. They are following right along behind me and very soon we will need to be buying the next book in the series of manuals. And..at this very moment, my son is watching an item on Ebay, keeping up with the bidding, trying to decide when the best time will be for us to jump in and go for it. The item for sale a violin. It's never too late to get excited about playing an instrument, I guess.
So now that I am almost ready for school, I am torn between the desperate need to milk every last bit of fun from this summer and wanting to jump right into all of the interesting lessons we have ahead of us. I think I'll compromise and just sit down with the boys on one of these rainy afternoons and watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yeah...that should do the trick.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Up, up and away...no more.
Even before I gave birth to a child who would become obsessed with space flight and exploration, drawing his younger brother toward the same passion with his enthusiasm, the Shuttle program has been a large part of my life. I grew up thirty miles from Cape Canaveral and if we weren't at the coast, parked in our station wagon or later in our VW van watching launches up close, we were in our backyard or in my school's parking lot, both of which were a direct shot down Highway 50 from Kennedy Space Center. The only time I remember watching a launch on t.v. before moving away from Central Florida was the day of the Challenger disaster. I was home sick from school that day so was watching from inside while my parents watched from the upstairs, east-facing window of the home we were building, my sister watching from the school parking lot with her classmates. I have always been grateful that I wasn't watching it in the sky that day, it was traumatic enough for a 13 yr. old to comprehend. I don't think any of us ever worried until that point that anything could ever go wrong. Watching Shuttle launches was like watching a fireworks display.
I'll never forget the day I was playing in my East Orlando backyard and looked up when a low flying plane came over the tree tops. It was huge and very, very low, like I could touch the underbelly of the colossal aircraft. We had planes cross in a flight pattern over our house very high up in the sky, but never like this. While I stood with my jaw hanging open, I realized that on top of the plane was the Space Shuttle riding piggy-back from its landing place in California, home to Kennedy Space Center where it would be readied for another flight. I watched until it was out of view and ran back up the property to tell my family what I had witnessed. I had really wanted to see a Shuttle up close, but even at the Kennedy Space Center visitor center you couldn't get near one. My dad did a little mental calculation and figured that if it was going to land at the Cape which was only a 35 minute drive, it had to be so low to already be preparing to land.
As my first-born son grew it was obvious that he had a passion for science. Even at age two he said he wanted to be doctor and at three would grill his pediatricians on medical posters and charts that hung on the walls of the examining rooms, wanting to know what everything was and what it did. Very quickly his interests switched to space flight, planets, anything to do with astronomy. By age nine he was determined to be the first man on Mars. I used to tease him and ask him why, when he knew how hard it was going to be for me when he grew up and moved away, did he have to go the absolute furthest from me that he could? Well, with the future space program that had been set in place to follow the Shuttle Program it was possible that he could very well make his dream come true if all the conditions were right and he planned his life accordingly. We knew he had the drive to reach his goal, but as a mother who wants her children to have anything they want, I worried about the enormity of that dream. When the current administration took office and scratched the space program from the drawing board we were worried that he didn't have a back-up plan. "Don't worry," he tells me all the time, "I have a plan B, C, D, and E." Smart boy. I was such a silly child at his age with no goals for my future in mind whatsoever, so this boy's mature attitude just blows me away.
Well, he really wanted to go to Space Camp. He needed to go before he turned twelve because though there were other programs, the basic Space Camp was for kids under that age. We didn't see how he could go it was so expensive and two states away. I couldn't send my son at age 10 that far. Just couldn't do it. My husband surprised the boys with a sensible alternative-- a weekend, parent accompanied Space Camp program for himself and both boys. So nice to be so young and have your biggest dream come true! They all got so much out of it and had the most amazing time. Last summer they took me for the day to show me all they did and guess what I found at Space Camp? A full-sized, fully functioning Space Shuttle on display. Too cool!
Another of my boys' dreams was to see an actual Shuttle Launch. They knew that I had grown up watching them and we felt that it was important for an aspiring astronaut to experience it for himself. This time I was in on the secret when my husband came home with a package that had come in the mail. Inside were tickets to Kennedy Space Center for the day of a launch and special parking passes. He had already taken time off work for those days. Could I ask for a better father to my children?! We had the best time! Another bonus was that I was able to see my grandmother on her last Mother's Day. It was such a special time for our little family and the launch was amazing viewed from Space Center property.
Today's launch marked the end of the Shuttle Program that was almost as old as I am. I am proud to say that I watched the first Shuttle launch with my naked eye and though the last I viewed miles and miles away through my t.v. screen, it was just as poignant. I had no idea it would be so moving until the commander gave a speech from the cockpit and my little guy said, "It's like they're taking Disney away and no one can ever go again". That's when I lost it. I can't help thinking how different our country is from when the Shuttle first launched. It's like that spirit of adventure and patriotism has come to an end. They say we are opening a "new chapter", but with no plans for a space program it seems to me as if the book has just closed. For my son and other future pioneers I am hoping that the sky is not the limit.
I'll never forget the day I was playing in my East Orlando backyard and looked up when a low flying plane came over the tree tops. It was huge and very, very low, like I could touch the underbelly of the colossal aircraft. We had planes cross in a flight pattern over our house very high up in the sky, but never like this. While I stood with my jaw hanging open, I realized that on top of the plane was the Space Shuttle riding piggy-back from its landing place in California, home to Kennedy Space Center where it would be readied for another flight. I watched until it was out of view and ran back up the property to tell my family what I had witnessed. I had really wanted to see a Shuttle up close, but even at the Kennedy Space Center visitor center you couldn't get near one. My dad did a little mental calculation and figured that if it was going to land at the Cape which was only a 35 minute drive, it had to be so low to already be preparing to land.
As my first-born son grew it was obvious that he had a passion for science. Even at age two he said he wanted to be doctor and at three would grill his pediatricians on medical posters and charts that hung on the walls of the examining rooms, wanting to know what everything was and what it did. Very quickly his interests switched to space flight, planets, anything to do with astronomy. By age nine he was determined to be the first man on Mars. I used to tease him and ask him why, when he knew how hard it was going to be for me when he grew up and moved away, did he have to go the absolute furthest from me that he could? Well, with the future space program that had been set in place to follow the Shuttle Program it was possible that he could very well make his dream come true if all the conditions were right and he planned his life accordingly. We knew he had the drive to reach his goal, but as a mother who wants her children to have anything they want, I worried about the enormity of that dream. When the current administration took office and scratched the space program from the drawing board we were worried that he didn't have a back-up plan. "Don't worry," he tells me all the time, "I have a plan B, C, D, and E." Smart boy. I was such a silly child at his age with no goals for my future in mind whatsoever, so this boy's mature attitude just blows me away.
Well, he really wanted to go to Space Camp. He needed to go before he turned twelve because though there were other programs, the basic Space Camp was for kids under that age. We didn't see how he could go it was so expensive and two states away. I couldn't send my son at age 10 that far. Just couldn't do it. My husband surprised the boys with a sensible alternative-- a weekend, parent accompanied Space Camp program for himself and both boys. So nice to be so young and have your biggest dream come true! They all got so much out of it and had the most amazing time. Last summer they took me for the day to show me all they did and guess what I found at Space Camp? A full-sized, fully functioning Space Shuttle on display. Too cool!
Another of my boys' dreams was to see an actual Shuttle Launch. They knew that I had grown up watching them and we felt that it was important for an aspiring astronaut to experience it for himself. This time I was in on the secret when my husband came home with a package that had come in the mail. Inside were tickets to Kennedy Space Center for the day of a launch and special parking passes. He had already taken time off work for those days. Could I ask for a better father to my children?! We had the best time! Another bonus was that I was able to see my grandmother on her last Mother's Day. It was such a special time for our little family and the launch was amazing viewed from Space Center property.
Today's launch marked the end of the Shuttle Program that was almost as old as I am. I am proud to say that I watched the first Shuttle launch with my naked eye and though the last I viewed miles and miles away through my t.v. screen, it was just as poignant. I had no idea it would be so moving until the commander gave a speech from the cockpit and my little guy said, "It's like they're taking Disney away and no one can ever go again". That's when I lost it. I can't help thinking how different our country is from when the Shuttle first launched. It's like that spirit of adventure and patriotism has come to an end. They say we are opening a "new chapter", but with no plans for a space program it seems to me as if the book has just closed. For my son and other future pioneers I am hoping that the sky is not the limit.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
3 a.m.-- the dreaded hour for sensitive people.
'Round and around we go. It's 3 a.m. -- time to mentally beat myself up for everything I've ever done. I hate it. I'm better than I used to be at stopping what I call "thought attacks" before I get myself into a real funk and start thinking that I'm just plain broken and need to be "fixed", focusing on everything in my life that I think is less than perfect. Since learning that I'm sensitive and this is just one of those things sensitive people do, it's much easier to deal with. During the daylight hours I can "change the subject" in my head or dive into a project, stop everything and play or snuggle with my kids, get outside to get a little sun on my face and fresh air in my lungs, cook something, do some breathing and yoga poses... In the middle of the night I just lay there critiquing everything about me, hearing the criticisms of a lifetime that I refuse to allow in my life today.
Tonight it has been the usual "I'm not doing enough as a mother", worrying that my kids will grow up with a negative view of our relationship and certain from experience that it's not possible for mothers to have a healthy relationship with their children. I've been laying there driving myself nuts wondering when I will make the big blunder that will stretch the bond I have with my boys creating an irreparable rift between us, like it's inevitable because my own mom was never concerned with having a good relationship with her children. I know it doesn't have to happen. I know it's up to me to make sure that nothing will come between my boys and me. I know I've kept that desire foremost in my mind since the first moment I saw a positive sign on a home pregnancy test, but it's there. My problems with her are there, always have been. As the child in the relationship I know it was never my responsibility to make sure it was strong. I won't take that responsibility now. I know that I put my relationship with my boys above all else in my life, even far above my marriage which I feel is as it should be, but I can't help feeling like I won't always be able to pull this off. Somewhere along the way, maybe without even knowing it, I will do something to screw it all up and there's no way it will be alright in the end. The frustrating part is that I honestly know this to be untrue. I never worry about this in the middle of the day when we are going through our daily routine, laughing and giggling together over silly things, or on family outings, movie nights, long talks about life, just in the wee hours of the morning when my defenses are down.
Tonight I was able to get over it when I remembered my son telling me as I was tucking him in that I am the "best mom in the whole wide world" and to tell his daddy that he was the best dad in the whole wide world. I remembered cracking them up on our way into town this morning by turning up the radio to "concert mode" and doing a pseudo head bang (on my way to see the chiropractor about a stiff neck, not a good idea) as I tried to maneuver around the corners of our street. Then after a 3 a.m. mental chiding on not getting everything done this school year that we had planned to do, I remembered that their state test scores came back above average, as usual, and told myself that obviously we were doing enough. I can do this now, the attitude readjustment. Up until a couple of years ago I would have fretted into the day hours and my worries would have affected my productivity the next day. It is possible to see the glass half full for the first time in my life, I just really wish it didn't take a boxing match with myself to get there.
When I'd decided that I was pulling this mothering thing off for now, I started to worry about Dad. The usual debate with myself, weighing the pros and cons of having another baby or two before it's too late, got me to thinking that if I did have more kids right now, I would almost be my dad's age when they were leaving home. My dad is the youngest 60 something I know. I can't even believe he's in his 60s he's so fit, healthy, and just plain young looking. But then I think of my grandmother who just died at the ripe old age of 86, my other grandmother who passed at 63, Grandpa who died in his late 70s and I just don't think it's fair to do that to a child, give them between 20 and 40 years of my life and just leave them. I've ended up in a real funk just thinking about it. Whether I decide to have more kids or not, I am sure that I just don't want to do the next 20 yrs. of my life. I don't want to watch Dad and his siblings age. I don't want my children growing up and moving away. I think of my husband's father and grandfather and I don't want him to be the ages they just were. I'm not ready!!
Then there was the whole, "why the heck did I just start my third novel that I will never have the confidence to finish and attempt to get published" thing, the pine bedding in the farmyard is saturated with rain from the last two storms and I didn't get out there today to change it, should we have gotten a kitten when cat dander makes me break out into a rash, how could Casey Anthony be found not guilty, how is JL faring tonight knowing he's off to war in a few days, I shouldn't have had that darn Moose Tracks ice cream after dinner when I still have so much weight to lose, why didn't I finish losing weight before bathing suit season, was it really smart to start a cooking blog when I still had weight to lose, should I get up and put the head phones on with really loud music to let people do the screaming for me or do I get up and blog my frustrations to the world?
And now that I've written this, because I'm sensitive and shy (not like anyone would EVER know that by the way I type my guts out) I will fret and worry over it like I've done with every single blog post, recipe post, FB status post I've put down. I know that everything I blog is a record of my life. Do I want to leave such an honest legacy? Have I remained anonymous enough to do it? I've learned that some people will always see me as ridiculous rather than accepting me for who I am, but I worry that if my anonymity is compromised that feelings could be hurt. Then I think, to heck with it. I've spent most of my life smiling politely while trying not to step on toes and those same people never considered my feelings or the benefit of holding their tongues. One of the reasons behind blogging for me was to gain the confidence to put myself out there, anonymously or not, so that maybe I would have the gumption to try to get those novels finished and published some day. I will never gain that by deleting everything I write which is always my first impulse after reading my posts.
And maybe someone out there can relate to what I have written. I hated not knowing why I had certain "quirks" that not everyone else had. I was tired of being told that I needed to "be" a different way by certain family members and all but a few kind and loyal friends while growing up, which always made me feel like I just wasn't acceptable the way I was. If you are sensitive, you don't know that you are okay, you just worry that others think you are not. But that's a whole other subject for a 3 a.m. blog. It's okay that my brain works this way night after night. It's not okay that it's almost time to get up and I still have a full day ahead of me with little sleep behind me. How much you wanna bet I delete this after breakfast...
Tonight it has been the usual "I'm not doing enough as a mother", worrying that my kids will grow up with a negative view of our relationship and certain from experience that it's not possible for mothers to have a healthy relationship with their children. I've been laying there driving myself nuts wondering when I will make the big blunder that will stretch the bond I have with my boys creating an irreparable rift between us, like it's inevitable because my own mom was never concerned with having a good relationship with her children. I know it doesn't have to happen. I know it's up to me to make sure that nothing will come between my boys and me. I know I've kept that desire foremost in my mind since the first moment I saw a positive sign on a home pregnancy test, but it's there. My problems with her are there, always have been. As the child in the relationship I know it was never my responsibility to make sure it was strong. I won't take that responsibility now. I know that I put my relationship with my boys above all else in my life, even far above my marriage which I feel is as it should be, but I can't help feeling like I won't always be able to pull this off. Somewhere along the way, maybe without even knowing it, I will do something to screw it all up and there's no way it will be alright in the end. The frustrating part is that I honestly know this to be untrue. I never worry about this in the middle of the day when we are going through our daily routine, laughing and giggling together over silly things, or on family outings, movie nights, long talks about life, just in the wee hours of the morning when my defenses are down.
Tonight I was able to get over it when I remembered my son telling me as I was tucking him in that I am the "best mom in the whole wide world" and to tell his daddy that he was the best dad in the whole wide world. I remembered cracking them up on our way into town this morning by turning up the radio to "concert mode" and doing a pseudo head bang (on my way to see the chiropractor about a stiff neck, not a good idea) as I tried to maneuver around the corners of our street. Then after a 3 a.m. mental chiding on not getting everything done this school year that we had planned to do, I remembered that their state test scores came back above average, as usual, and told myself that obviously we were doing enough. I can do this now, the attitude readjustment. Up until a couple of years ago I would have fretted into the day hours and my worries would have affected my productivity the next day. It is possible to see the glass half full for the first time in my life, I just really wish it didn't take a boxing match with myself to get there.
When I'd decided that I was pulling this mothering thing off for now, I started to worry about Dad. The usual debate with myself, weighing the pros and cons of having another baby or two before it's too late, got me to thinking that if I did have more kids right now, I would almost be my dad's age when they were leaving home. My dad is the youngest 60 something I know. I can't even believe he's in his 60s he's so fit, healthy, and just plain young looking. But then I think of my grandmother who just died at the ripe old age of 86, my other grandmother who passed at 63, Grandpa who died in his late 70s and I just don't think it's fair to do that to a child, give them between 20 and 40 years of my life and just leave them. I've ended up in a real funk just thinking about it. Whether I decide to have more kids or not, I am sure that I just don't want to do the next 20 yrs. of my life. I don't want to watch Dad and his siblings age. I don't want my children growing up and moving away. I think of my husband's father and grandfather and I don't want him to be the ages they just were. I'm not ready!!
Then there was the whole, "why the heck did I just start my third novel that I will never have the confidence to finish and attempt to get published" thing, the pine bedding in the farmyard is saturated with rain from the last two storms and I didn't get out there today to change it, should we have gotten a kitten when cat dander makes me break out into a rash, how could Casey Anthony be found not guilty, how is JL faring tonight knowing he's off to war in a few days, I shouldn't have had that darn Moose Tracks ice cream after dinner when I still have so much weight to lose, why didn't I finish losing weight before bathing suit season, was it really smart to start a cooking blog when I still had weight to lose, should I get up and put the head phones on with really loud music to let people do the screaming for me or do I get up and blog my frustrations to the world?
And now that I've written this, because I'm sensitive and shy (not like anyone would EVER know that by the way I type my guts out) I will fret and worry over it like I've done with every single blog post, recipe post, FB status post I've put down. I know that everything I blog is a record of my life. Do I want to leave such an honest legacy? Have I remained anonymous enough to do it? I've learned that some people will always see me as ridiculous rather than accepting me for who I am, but I worry that if my anonymity is compromised that feelings could be hurt. Then I think, to heck with it. I've spent most of my life smiling politely while trying not to step on toes and those same people never considered my feelings or the benefit of holding their tongues. One of the reasons behind blogging for me was to gain the confidence to put myself out there, anonymously or not, so that maybe I would have the gumption to try to get those novels finished and published some day. I will never gain that by deleting everything I write which is always my first impulse after reading my posts.
And maybe someone out there can relate to what I have written. I hated not knowing why I had certain "quirks" that not everyone else had. I was tired of being told that I needed to "be" a different way by certain family members and all but a few kind and loyal friends while growing up, which always made me feel like I just wasn't acceptable the way I was. If you are sensitive, you don't know that you are okay, you just worry that others think you are not. But that's a whole other subject for a 3 a.m. blog. It's okay that my brain works this way night after night. It's not okay that it's almost time to get up and I still have a full day ahead of me with little sleep behind me. How much you wanna bet I delete this after breakfast...
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