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Wednesday, August 31, 2005

prayers, please

Those of you who pray, please lift up my mother-in-law, who is in her very early 50's and who was diagnosed last week with lung cancer. This week she had a PET scan and discovered that it has moved to one of her lymph nodes and is possibly in one of her kidneys. Prognosis is not great -- "a few months to a year" is what the specialists are saying right now -- and she goes in for chemo and then radiation early next week.

She's so young for this, and she quit smoking years ago. She's also not a believer, I don't think, and I know her husband isn't.

I certainly don't need anything else this week to put my minor problems in perspective.

Books for August

August:

1. Eleven On Top -- Janet Evanovich -- 3.5
   • I'm not sure how much of it is me and how much of it is these books, but I just don't like them as much as I did when I read the first ones last year. I think I've re-sensitized myself a bit to the vulgarity in them (which is a good thing, I guess) and I find myself losing patience with the writing style as well. I'll probably keep reading them, to see what the author does with the characters (will Stephanie ever marry Joe?), but I'm not going to be recommending them to people.
2. The Taming of the Shrew -- William Shakespeare -- Shakespeare transcends any rating system ever invented, not necessarily because he's the best, just because he is the standard by which other works are judged. So no number rating from me.
   • I liked this play, a lot, until the end. It sounds so crass to say this of Shakespeare -- the nerve of me -- but I felt like Katharina's last speech was just tacked on. It didn't seem to fit her character. I'm going to go outside and wait for the lightning bolt now.
3. The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1) -- Franklin W. Dixon (the Stratemeyer Syndicate)
4. The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1) -- Carolyn Keene (the Stratemeyer Syndicate)
   • My kids are reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys respectively right now, and I wanted to go through a few of them really quickly just for fun, and so that I could remember more accurately what they were like, and because the kids wanted me to. :) I always did like the Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew, but neither of them crosses the line from children to adult very well. What I find most interesting about these books is that there was no such person as Franklin W. Dixon (or Carolyn Keene either); both series were the brainchild of a man named Edward Stratemeyer, written by various ghostwriters. Which, honestly, you can kind of tell. I always liked Trixie Belden better myself. Which brings us to...
5. Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion -- Julie Campbell -- 4
   • Trixie doesn't make the same stupid mistakes in every book. Trixie's dialogue flows a good deal more naturally than Nancy's or Frank & Joe's. Trixie is a country girl who loves to ride horses. Trixie didn't get a car for her birthday, and Trixie is only thirteen/fourteen, and Trixie's family isn't rich, and Trixie's friends and siblings seem far more like real people than the cardboard cutouts tossed into the Stratemeyer books. Whenever I see a girl reading Nancy Drew, I tell her about Trixie Belden.
6. Watership Down (book on tape read by John MacDonald) -- Richard Adams -- 5
   • This is easily one of the most amazing books I've ever read, and it's been on my short list of favorites since I was in school. It's utterly unique, and luminously memorable. The characterization is spot-on, the themes are handled brilliantly -- some very heavy stuff here, but you never once get the feeling you're being preached at. The descriptions of the natural world in this part of England make me want to visit; the internal language and folklore fit seamlessly into the story and manage to add to it rather than detract from it. (For one thing, the language is one you can actually remember, so that when characters use it you can understand what they're saying, unlike the long passages of Elvish etc. in a certain series we all know and mostly enjoy). All in all, quite a list of accomplishments for a book about a bunch of bunnies. The reader's voice took a while to get used to -- I was expecting someone British -- but he did quite a decent job.
7. Everything is Illuminated -- Jonathan Safran Foer -- 2
   • I really wanted to enjoy this book; the themes are important, the storytelling is original (if a bit gimmicky) and the characters are memorable. A few things kept me from really liking it, though -- the humor in it (yes, humor in a Holocaust novel) just wasn't my style, the folk-story flashbacks annoyed me tremendously and didn't pull me in at all, and (the largest factor here, I think) the vulgarity in this story was just over the top. I know there's a modern school of writing where this sort of thing is essential -- I just don't like it.
8. Outlander -- Diana Gabaldon -- 3.5
   • This is another book/series with which I used to be quite obsessed, and now I kind of shrug about it. They're good stories, but maybe after five readings or so the novelty has worn off to the point that I notice the errors and moments of awkward writing as much as I do the storytelling. I'm reading through this series right now because the next volume is due out at the end of September, and the list of characters and the series is so long and complicated that without a recent re-read when I read a new addition, I find myself not knowing who a great deal of the people are who keep popping up in the pages. I keep waiting for the "magic" to start again, where I get swept into the story and really enjoy it... haven't given up hope completely yet.
9. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- Jonathan Safran Foer -- 4
   • I liked this far, far better than Everything is Illuminated, largely on the strength of the protagonist, Oskar, and the fresh, believable, enjoyable way in which he was written. This novel takes on another serious topic -- this time both the WWII bombing of Dresden, Germany, and more centrally the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11, in which Oskar's father was killed. Oskar's grieving process is well-described; I especially liked the way he was constantly devising "inventions" which would keep people safe in disasters, because that's the kind of way I think too. "If only we had..." His search for answers turns into several literal searches through the city of New York (congratulations, Mr. Foer, for writing a book that makes that huge metropolis seem appealing even to this bucolic country girl), and the resolutions of these searches, or lack thereof, really add a lot of depth to the story. Again, the flashbacks in his grandparents' stories were, I thought, less deftly handled than the other aspects of the book, but they were not badly done, even so. I definitely recommend this book, and I do hope someone is writing a screenplay of it even as we speak, because I think it would make a great movie.
10. Dragonfly in Amber -- Diana Gabaldon -- 3
    • The second volume in the Outlander series, and always my least favorite. I do like the new characters, and some of the storylines are still very interesting. On the fifth re-read, though, you do notice the infodump quite a bit. And I really don't like all the "intrigue" in it. Confession: I skimmed a lot.
11. The Information -- Martin Amis -- 3
    • This book was... interesting. Very masculine in its tone and subject. Interestingly written, with a good amount of skill and an original (if occasionally... pompous? is that the right word?) style; the dialogue especially was extremely well-rendered, in my opinion. Parts of the story were riveting, in a train-wreck sort of way, and parts were very humorous. It was a bit confusing, though, to sway back and forth from dark, bleak comedy to what was I think an attempt at literary depth (see above re: pompous). The best thing about this novel is the way it exposes and depicts the ego -- of men, of writers in particular, and of people in general. That made it worth reading, and worth continuing, even when I was a bit tired of the book overall.

traumatized

I just had a moment of panic when I realized that due to a recent growth spurt, we had no cowboy boots for LT to wear to our county fair, which starts the day after tomorrow. For nine years, since he was too little to walk, LT has worn cowboy boots to the fair, like a proper country boy descended from a long line of Okies and the like. LT quickly put my panic to rest, though, or at any rate caused it to veer off in another direction, when he told me that he didn't want any. The same little boy who used to run to his room and scramble into his size 3T overalls and little tiny boots whenever Grandpa came over! The one who had Wranglers so small that they must have taken less than half a yard of indigo denim to construct, and the pocket tag was almost as big as the whole pocket! Doesn't want cowboy boots for the fair!

Deep breath. It's OK. I'm glad he's old enough to make his own decisions about what he likes and doesn't like. I guess.

The news, it makes me sad (and mad)

I am not a current events blogger, and words fail me when I try to even talk about the devastation in New Orleans and the vicinity. Not just for the people who've died or lost everything (although obviously that's the most important loss and I certainly don't want to downplay it), but for the city of New Orleans itself. For better or worse, that was a city with its own distinct personality, with centuries of history and antiques and architecture. How long will it take to rebuild? How much of it can never be replaced?

And if all that's not bad enough (it certainly is) now we have the sinful nature of man on full display down there. I guess it got far worse overnight, but yesterday I was reading an article about a man stealing jeans from a store, in full view of law enforcement personnel, and I was thinking -- have people no shame? I can just picture the guy a few years from now, wearing a pair of Levi's and complacently declaring that 'yep, these are my Hurricane Katrina jeans.' So, I guess the answer is no. Some people have no shame.

And also, while I'm complaining, gas is $3.33 for regular unleaded at the station down the hill from my house. Local gas station owners hold a special place of loathing in my heart, because they take the concept of price-gouging to new and amazing heights. It's summer? Cool, tourists expect to pay a lot for gas in remote areas, jack it up a dime. They have to carry that gas all the way up the hill to town, let's push it up another fifteen cents. Ooh! Oil-related disaster! Right on! Profit margin just went up. Seriously, I think it's about fifty cents a gallon higher than it is in the San Joaquin Valley. Not that I'll know, because I'll have to save up for three months before I can afford to drive down there.

Monday, August 29, 2005

The First Day

Debi asked in a comment on my last post (this is my third post today. Yes, this is the same person who didn't post for, what, a week? Shut up) how our first day of school had gone. I feel kind of dishonest calling this our first day of school, because like most homeschoolers (and many families in general) our days all involve learning, some more purposeful than others -- but it is only during the school year that we have "sit-down school" as I call it, where we, well, sit down, and do regular subjects one after the other like people at regular school do. Anyway.

The first day has gone really well so far. We read our two chapters of Exodus, made animal classification collages:

... had a good talk about who came to California when and who was here first (tomorrow we'll go to the library after school and get some good books about this subject, and start studying California Indians before we move on to exploration and missions and all that fun stuff), had our book discussion, played geography games, and did all the usual journal writing/printing practice/math worksheets kind of thing. We had a half-hour of free reading (my favorite time, even though the rest has been fun) and a half-hour of playing catch, wherein both kids made progress. I am definitely not a stellar example of What To Do Right When Throwing And Catching, but somebody's got to do it. If they can just learn the basics, practice will help a lot. I hope. If not, I'll enlist someone (like the neighbor boy who, at 11, is adept and coordinated at every physical thing I've ever seen him do) to help. The kids have been really cooperative. The day took from about nine-thirty till three-fifteen, including break and lunch; the collage project took up a lot of time.

Today was a pleasure, in other words, and I'll cherish the memory of it when I'm having a tear-out-my-hair-and-run-for-the-hills day. Or I'll try to remember it, anyway, as something other than an impossible fantasy.

School poem

This is the result of our Crazy Lib for today. (Mad Libs are a huge part of the reason that I ever learned parts of speech; what better tradition to carry on in my own personal private school?)

Without further ado:

The Garbage Gatherer
by Alfred Noyes
(with a little help from the students of Liberty Christian Academy)

The clock was a torrent of pain among the thin trees,
The fork was a squeaky tank tossed upon stinky seas.
The book was a ribbon of moonlight over the pink moor,
And the garbage gatherer came flipping,
Flipping, flipping,
The garbage gatherer came flipping, up to the heavy inn-door.

He'd a French cocked-hat on his skull, a ton of paper at his chin,
A steak of the claret velvet, and breeches of windy doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His bombs were up to the thigh!
And he ran with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilts a-twinkle, under the slippery sky.

And over the stairs he clattered and melted in the silly inn-yard.
And he cuddled with his horse on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.
He whistled a tune to the boy, and who should be falling there
But the landlord's black-eyed warrior,
Herbert, the landlord's warrior,
Pushing a dark purple toy into [his] long lavender hair.

-- Corrupted excerpt from "The Highwayman," by Alfred Noyes.

the start of school (and Henry)

We start school this morning. We were going to start after Labor Day, but of all things, the kids bugged me to start earlier. Today was the soonest I could really feel ready. Here's hoping that this level of enthusiasm lasts, eh? If I were going to set up a betting pool about it, I'd put $5 on... Thursday. Thursday is when the enthusiasm will wane and the griping begin. But hey, I am darn sure going to enjoy this while it lasts. Here's what our day looks like (schooldays get longer and longer as they get older):

1. Prayer and Flag Salute (the latter is largely a concession to T, who is a school-at-home homeschooler if ever I saw one, but honestly I'm that way in the beginning of the school year too)
   
2. Read two chapters of Exodus, taking turns (this will happen every day until we finish the book, and is preparation for the 40-week-long study of Exodus on which we're about to embark in our chapter summary study)
   
3. copy work (printing/cursive practice. The text they're copying today is Philippians 2:14 -- "Do everything without complaining or arguing." This has been our first-day-of-school verse for three years now. After Awana starts on Thursday, they'll each have one of their Awana verses to copy each day.)
   
4. History (discuss early California)
   
5. Geography games on the computer
   
6. ---------BREAK-----------
   
7. Math
   
8. Science -- collages of animal groups cut from magazines (mammals, insects, birds, fish, etc), with discussions of characteristics
   
9. Read Chapter 1 of The Indian in the Cupboard; discuss, and look up vocabulary words
   
10. Crazy Libs (parts of speech)
    
11. ---------LUNCH------------
    
12. 1/2 hour free reading
    
13. P.E. -- play catch, then ride bikes. (ordinarily we haven't done PE in the past, figuring that outside play was enough. However, our kids are a little behind on things like throwing and catching, etc., and so we decided that a little structured practice on large motor skills each day would probably be a good thing.)

So that's our day. By spring it'll look more like:

Read a lot. Do a page or two of math. Talk about whatever. Maybe do a little writing.

I've come to realize that this is OK. Our kids are at or above grade level in everything (except the aforementioned PE), so something about this entropic system must be working OK.

P.S. Our cat Henry disappeared over the weekend. In the grand scheme of things, especially this weekend (plenty happening on both a grand and a small scale), that's a small thing, but we're sad about it. He was the friendliest cat I've ever met. We've decided that we'll keep Mary but we won't get any more cats while we live here -- apparently (since this is the second of our pets to disappear this year) we live in a bad spot for them. Ironically, we had just started letting our now-flea-free cats be mostly indoors again when Henry went out at 2 AM and never came back.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Thunderstorm

We had a HUGE thunderstorm last night. It was really spectacular. It started probably around 2:15 a.m.; LT woke up scared of the thunder and came into our bed where he promptly fell asleep with his hands over his ears. He's been tolerating storms better than he used to but this was some LOUD thunder; I can hardly blame him. I went out on the couch (scary that my baby boy, that little boy who used to cuddle next to me like a comma and nurse, is now so big that there's no room for both his parents and himself in our double bed!) and was actually kept awake by the lightning and thunder. It rained, the power went out, it was all very exciting. C slept through it all until about 7 this morning, when it was either still going or had started up again. By this time T was up getting ready for work so I was back in the bed; it ended up being me and both little ones in there.

--------

Thursday, August 25, 2005

in case you notice and wonder

I'm going to be manually importing (that is, copying and pasting -- my grandfather would scoff at the fact that I call that "manual", but whatever) my old entries from diaryland into this journal, a few at a time. Just wanted to give a heads-up for those of you who use bloglines or a similar rss-reader; it's gonna look a little strange seeing posts from February, then January, etc, and now you'll know why.

Other than that, nothing, same old same old, except that I took the kids to the dentist yesterday for fillings, and C talked the guy's head off and thanked him "for a good time" afterward, while LT had an anxiety attack and didn't have anything done to his teeth. Good thing his cavity is really minor.

And when that's the blog-able highlight of my week, you can see why I haven't written in here since Saturday.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

blocking

These are the crochet pieces I'm entering in the fair. They have to be turned in at the fairgrounds by seven this evening, so I figured today would be a great time to sew the buttons on the sweaters and block everything (that's when you spritz it with water, put it in the shape you want it to naturally fall into, and then let it dry). I thought I'd have another afghan done in time, but that'll have to be next year. Oh well; the entry clerks would think I was an imposter if I didn't show up with at least two or three no-shows. (the daisy afghan under the baby things is also entered).

Friday, August 19, 2005

survey I borrowed from Carrie, whose journal is usually locked so I won't link it

Top 10 Favorite TV Shows, Ever
I don't know if I can come up with 10.  I'll try.
1. Who's the Boss?
2. Between the Lions (it's educational TV. It has to be good for you.)
3. Sesame Street
4. Jeopardy!
5. um, the winter Olympics? that doesn't count, does it.
6. Little House on the Prairie
7. Whose Line Is It Anyway?

And that's all I can think of.  Really.  I mean, if I were to come up with TV shows that I liked at one time but wouldn't watch now unless I had to, that list might include:

8. Saved by the Bell (SHUT UP.)
9. Doogie Howser, M.D.
10. Coach


Top 9 Favorite Movies, Ever
1. Pride and Prejudice (the 1995 BBC version)
2. Persuasion (Amanda Root, also 1995 I think)
3. Return to Me
4. It's A Wonderful Life
5. The Phantom of the Opera
6. Amadeus
7. While You Were Sleeping
8. To Kill A Mockingbird
9. Sleepless in Seattle

Top 8 Favorite Books, ever
1. Persuasion (Austen)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
3. Anne of Green Gables and those following (L.M. Montgomery)
4. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
5. Fifteen (Beverly Cleary)
6. Into the Wilderness (Sara Donati)
7. David Copperfield (Dickens)
8. the Bible (which is actually 66 books, but who's counting)

Top 7 Favorite Albums, ever
oh sheesh.  I haven't bought albums in AGES. I loved when downloading music became possible, because I hated paying full price for an album on which I'd generally like three or four songs.
1. the original cast recording CD of Phantom of the Opera
2. Evanescence
3. my "Masters of Classical Music" series.  That's ten albums. Whoops.
4. George Winston: December
5. Alison Krauss and Union Station: Now That I've Found You
6. Chanticleer: Sing We Christmas
7. the P&P soundtrack

Top 6 Favorite Foods, ever
1. Chicken Scampi from the Olive Garden
2. the garlic/mushroom/swiss burger at Denny's
3. really good meatloaf (with wine gravy, not tomato sauce)
4. a really good steak
5. fried zucchini sticks with garlic ranch to dip them in
6. philly cheese steak sandwiches -- good and greasy

Top 5 Favorite Drinks, ever
1. Diet Cherry Coke
2. Diet Coke
3. plain strong iced tea
4. peach Snapple, regular or diet
5. a chocolate milkshake

Top 4 Favorite Desserts, ever
1. warm brownies with a hot fudge sundae on top
2. mint chocolate chip ice cream
3. chocolate mousse
4. pudding/whipped cream parfait

Top 3 Favorite Holidays, ever
1. Christmas
2. Thanksgiving
3. any day that T has off work :)

Top 2 Favorite Restaurants, ever
1. The Olive Garden
2. The Red Fox (little local restaurant)

Favorite Quote, ever
This is hard.  I used to keep a collection of quotes I liked, but I haven't in a long time... I find it harder to think in soundbites, I guess.  But here's a line I like a lot from Austen.  It's in Sense and Sensibility, when Elinor is having a conversation with an utter dolt (who happens to be the brother of the man she loves), and he says something that is typically (for him) doltish. And... "Elinor agreed to it; she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."  BLISS. That is a great example of why I love Austen -- the language, the sly wit, the irony. Yay Jane.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
I'd been married a year and a half (almost); I was six weeks pregnant and hence just starting to have morning sickness.  I was working as a nanny three days a week and as a teacher's aide for two days a week.

What was I doing 5 years ago?
I was nursing C, who was almost a year old, getting ready for the start of LT's first year of sit-down school (he was 4 1/2; I was a very eager first-time homeschooler).

What was I doing 1 year ago?
The same kind of thing I'm doing this summer, really.  Blogging, living in the same house, everyone healthy, same old same old.  Oh, wait, I just checked my old journal to find out if anything else was going on, and that reminded me that I was also sewing a dress for my friend's wedding which was to be the first of September.  This was quite a project.

What was I doing yesterday?
Went up to visit T at work and then into Yosemite Valley with the kids to spend the afternoon.  Took a few pictures, none of which made me go WOW. Between the two of us, LT and I managed to drop my Nikon manual and my filter case (with only one filter in it, fortunately; the others were on my camera) into running water; I managed to barely rescue them before they could be swept into a culvert and under a road.

What am I doing today?
Today was crazy.  I went to the valley with the kids, and on the way there I discovered my cell phone wasn't working, so I tried to have it replaced while I was down there, but it was no longer under warranty, and I didn't have $150 lying around to buy a new phone. In fact, I barely had $35 lying around to buy groceries. On the way home it occurred to me that based on evidence, it was probably just the speaker that wasn't working, so in the evening we went BACK to the valley (this time with T, who needed derby car parts) and I spent $10 on a hands-free headset.  Problem solved.  In January I can upgrade my phone for free.  Anyway.  The first trip down there was very stressful.  It was one of those days when the laws of physics (especially that bit about gravity) conspired against me, and for some reason C kept stepping on my feet (I: sandals; she: clunky tennis shoes), and the crowds and the noise and the unhelpful salespeople and augh.  Wal-Mart twice in one day, I'm surprised my hair's not white.

What will I do tomorrow?
Hopefully nothing beyond the bare necessities of housework and people-feeding, with considerable sitting-around-reading, and I want to go out and take moonrise pictures in the evening.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. potato chips
   
2. peaches
   
3. cheese sticks
   
4. ice cream
   
5. cold cereal (yes, for a snack. so sue me.)

Five bands I like:

1. Evanescence
   
2. Alison Krauss and Union Station
   
3. the Marine band (ha ha)
   
4. Rubber bands (ha ha ha)
   
5. um... bands. Oh. The Cranberries, I like them too.

Five things I would do with a million dollars:

1. Buy a house
   
2. pay off our bills and my parents' bills
   
3. buy a Nikon D70
   
4. make a nice donation to our library, and several middle-ish ones to Christian charities like homeless missions etc.
   
5. buy my husband a new Dodge Ram diesel crew cab dually, and myself a Chrysler Sebring convertible

Five locations I would like to run away to:

1. Morro Bay
   
2. Bailey Flats (nobody's heard of this place and that's a large part of the reason it's on this list)
   
3. San Francisco, if I had a ton of money to spend there and could leave when said money was gone
   
4. Florida
   
5. the library

Five bad habits I have:

1. Overeating
   
2. Talking too much
   
3. procrastinating, especially as regards housework
   
4. tuning out people who talk to me while I'm reading (I hesitate to put this down, because really, aren't they asking for it?)
   
5. Spending too much time in front of this machine

Five things I like doing:

1. Reading
   
2. Going for walks, with my camera or my family or both
   
3. singing
   
4. taking photographs
   
5. looking at photographs other people have taken

Five TV shows I like:
n/a

Five famous people I would like to meet:
Is it OK if some of them are dead? Also, my desire to meet these people is tempered by two things: 1) the realization that I would make an utter fool of myself if ever I did meet them, and 2) the fact that I might be disappointed once I knew them as real people with flaws like everyone else.  Maybe not, though.  Anyway.  Shut up Rachel and get on with the list.

1. C.S. Lewis
   
2. Condoleeza Rice
   
3. Jane Austen
   
4. getupgrrl
   
5. Jim Henson

Five joys in my life at the moment:

1. My family, the way we all love each other so much and are getting along really well
   
2. the fact that my husband never leaves in the morning without kissing me, and calls me a few times a day just to hear my voice
   
3. that there are two books coming out this fall that I've been looking forward to for quite some time (Outlander #6 and the last Mitford book from Jan Karon)
   
4. playing the flute and the piano again, a little
   
5. singing with C, who has decided that in addition to her careers as mom, zookeeper, horse trainer, and "seller" (person who works at a store), she's also going to play Christine on stage

Five favorite toys:

1. my Nikon Coolpix 5400
   
2. my cell phone
   
3. my N50 (film SLR)
   
4. I can't think of any others...

Five people to tag:
I won't tag anyone but I can think of a few people who have been neglecting their journals; perhaps this would be a good excuse for you to write again, hmm?  You know who you are. :)

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Socialization Issue

Thicket Dweller has an excellent post today about socialization and home-schooled kids. (For those of you recently landed on this planet, "the S word" is bandied about with regularity as evidence that homeschoolers are depriving their children of a normal upbringing. Or something.).

You know, the issue for me isn't "can you tell the homeschoolers apart from the public-schooled kids?" Because you can, in most instances. The question is, do we WANT our kids to blend in perfectly with public-schooled kids -- and for me, the answer to that is a resounding no. I like that my kids know more about 19th-century English usage than they do modern slang; I like that their facial expressions and body language speak of openness and interest, rather than sullen eye-rolling "whatEVER" when they're around their parents and other adults. I like that they can speak respectfully and intelligently to people of any age. I could go on. My answer to the socialization question is not, "oh, my kids get plenty of that." It's, "why would I want my children to turn into clones of every other child in their generation?" Homeschooled children mix with people, yes, but they don't do it on a playground filled with several hundred people their own age (and two adults to keep them from drawing blood). How much like the real world is that scenario?

And this is all aside from the point that school shouldn't be about socialization. But our culture has embraced school as this universal bonding element that all people go through on their way to adulthood, and so a childhood without it is somehow lacking, and where will kids make friends and how will they learn to tough it out in life without bullies stealing their lunch money and calling them names and AAUUGGHHH HOW CAN HOMESCHOOLERS THINK THEY CAN DO IT WITHOUT US? is what it comes down to, basically.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

cardboard sign says "yard sale"

We spent the afternoon preparing for tomorrow, when I hope that many obliging people will come to my house and pay staggeringly small amounts of money to haul away things I no longer have space to store. Oh please. Today was such a better day than yesterday, which ended up being one of the few days when I really really WANT a break from my kids. Or, in this case, my kid, but I won't tell you which five-year-old I'm talking about. I had an "I am the worst mother ever" headache (that is to say, a headache brought on by high levels of stress compounded by an excess of yelling), and it took "Ocean's 11" on the DVD player, some sugar-free ice cream, and a drawn-out relaxing discussion in the dark with my husband to make it go away. Then this morning I had him bring C in for a snuggle before he left for work, and by the time we got up I felt much better in every way.

And then of course today was full of that feeling of satisfaction you get when you finish a task. Drat it, why can't I get that same feeling without all the work? How manifestly unfair.

I'll leave you with a short list of seminars which my child or children are fully qualified to teach:

• Bathtime as Recreation
  
• How To Get Completely Sidetracked Without Even Trying
  
• Mud: Its Manufacture and Use
  
• Heart-Melting 101
  
• The Healing Magic of Malapropisms (with labs: Backward Letters and Cute Misspellings)
  
• Construction Workshop: Tall Piles of Stuff You Don't Want To Put Away
  
• Nutrition 17A: How to Convince Grandpa that Pop-Tarts and Sugared Cereal are Good for You
  

Hurry and book now; the conference season is just around the corner.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

I really am more cheerful than this entry would imply

Things I don't want to do today, but must:

• Catch up with laundry, again, before it gets to be too daunting a job
  
• Clean the kitchen. Ugh. One corner of one of our (admittedly generous, for the size of our kitchen) counters is completely taken over by T's clutter. Some of it is stuff that he sets down there and abandons. Most of it is stuff that he sets down somewhere else in the house, but I later corral in "his spot" so that he'll deal with it. Every few months, either I empty the corner into a box and put it in his garage, or he spends an evening going through the pile and putting everything away. Then, for a few days, it's actually worthwhile to clean the kitchen, because I can get it really clean. (Don't think I'm being critical of T here. He's way neater than I am by nature. And yes I've heard of Flylady, BTDT, the thing is that Flylady doesn't account for a beloved spouse whose things are not yours to throw away or mess with too much).
  
• Avoid eating everything in the house. (Yes, Rachel's on 1300 calories a day again. Rachel had a very unhappy scale moment when she got home from Morro Bay* and is determined to regain control. sigh.)
  

*Morro Bay was a wee bit of a disappointment this year. It was nice to see the family (which, let's face it, happens every week at home anyway), and to have T off work, and to have no projects or chores beckoning to us. And the food was, of course, really really good. But the sun never came out, and yet I managed to get one of the worst sunburns of my notably sunburn-ridden career. The campground was really noisy at night, and we were only there for three days/two nights. Worth going, but we're definitely hoping for better weather and stuff next time.

Things that have annoyed me so far this week:

• "Finding Nemo". The kids checked this out of the library and I was reminded yet again why we don't own it. Enough with the "kids know everything, so parents, shut up and quit trying to protect them" nonsense. Sheesh. Yeah, my five-year-old has madd decision-making skillz, doesn't yours?
  
• "Tom and Jerry: The Movie". Ditto with the checked out of the library thing. THEY TALK. Ugh.
  
• The way the National Weather Service keeps teasing us with slightly cooler temperatures, far away in the weekly forecast (ooh! next Tuesday the high temp in the local range is only supposed to be 99!) but then, as the days get closer, the numbers go up. It will be a hundred and five on Christmas, I am convinced of this.
  
• Working hard to help C clean her room so her friends could come over, while C kept getting sidetracked and playing/staring into space (definitely her mother's child, that one), only to have the room destroyed completely within five minutes of the friends' arrival
  
• I had several other things on this list when it was merely floating around in my head, but God has mercifully allowed me to forget them. Thank you.
  

Fortunately, life is still more than good. I've been carving out lots of time for reading (see above re: laundry). Our chapter summaries are done for tonight -- we did them yesterday like good boys and girls. My parents are coming over for supper before Bible study (see above re: cleaning the kitchen). I've been going for nice evening walks, and if I bribe C with a trip to the elementary-school playground, she'll come with me. Things are peachy-keen marriage-wise, like they almost always are, and we haven't had any disasters worse than a pile of books falling off LT's bed and landing on my foot (which is the sort of thing that I think only happens to me). So I can't complain, except sometimes I do anyway because I'm a dork.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd better get out of my jammies and wring something productive out of myself.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

one hundred things I like

This is going around right now and I couldn't resist.

1. California winter
2. geese flying overhead
3. freckles on children
4. board games
5. good books
6. accents
7. red licorice
8. the moment when the focus is just right, just before the shutter clicks
9. old letters (mine and other people's)
10. air conditioning on a hot day
11. the library
12. the smell of insect repellent
13. horses
14. old barns
15. long hair
16. woodsmoke
17. pie
18. old friends
19. new friends
20. old books
21. new books
22. weddings
23. towels dried on the clothesline
24. blackberries
25. sunflowers
26. narcissus
27. ladybugs
28. earnest worship
29. piano music
30. sunrise
31. shopping
32. changes in the weather
33. sewing
34. rain -- the sight, smell, feel, and sound of it
35. losing myself in a story
36. cats in twilight
37. hazel eyes
38. beavers
39. long car rides
40. female friendship
41. the beach
42. ordering things online
43. romantic comedies
44. strong winds
45. sunset
46. wit
47. going for walks alone
48. making something organized
49. singing
50. the astounding intricacy and creativity of God's creation
51. blue eyes
52. pleasant music, loud in the car
53. finishing a project
54. going for walks with my family
55. clothes that fit
56. holding hands
57. the freedom to stop to take a picture if I want to
58. the sound of a car driving on a wet road
59. planning something fun
60. swimming
61. Sunday-afternoon naps
62. cinnamon toothpaste
63. losing weight
64. brown eyes
65. astronomy photographs
66. comfortable new sandals
67. great-smelling shampoo
68. getting up early to go somewhere to have fun
69. my parents' relationship
70. prepaid prints at snapfish
71. Yosemite
72. book recommendations
73. capri pants
74. long, deep discussions
75. occasionally looking pretty
76. new hair gadgets
77. long shadows
78. going to sleep in a place that's miles and miles and miles from where I woke up
79. the right kind of sentimentality
80. butterflies and bumblebees
81. intuition
82. eating outdoors on a summer evening
83. visiting new and interesting places, even cities
84. compliments (giving and receiving them)
85. my children singing
86. a nicely set table
87. being a mother
88. spontaneity
89. knowing people really well
90. stories of other people's childhoods
91. logic
92. evening sunshine
93. clean, wet laundry, hanging on the clothesline with the afternoon sunlight shining through it
94. long loose skirts
95. affectionate banter
96. my hair off my neck
97. cadbury roast almond bars
98. doing something right for a change
99. interesting architecture
100. making lists

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

tradition, tradition

We're at the point with the planning and preparation for our mostly-annual beach vacation where I'm starting to mentally tally the number of hours of enjoyment will be required to offset the stress of packing. We're only taking a three-day trip this year, so this may be the first time where I end up with a negative number when all's said and done. Well, except that time we went in December and there were really amazing rain- and windstorms and our tent nearly blew away and you could hear the snapping of the tarp we'd stretched across our campsite to keep things dry all the way to the beach -- over the roar of the waves -- and we ended up cutting our trip short. That trip may have wound up as a negative, even though LT learned to ride his bike without training wheels between cloudbursts. But every year some of the same issues crop up surrounding the traditions I've erected around the whole adventure. Is it really necessary for C to have her last year's Morro Bay t-shirt on when we arrive this year? Will Morro Rock crumble into the sea if she just wears a generic gray t-shirt? Do the kids each need a book-bag full of things to do in the car on the way there? We've listened to all the Secret Seven books on tape we can get through the library; should we "read" something else in the car on the way there, or would it be better do one of the Secret Sevens for the second time? Traditions enrich experiences for us as they do for most people; It's hard to let go of the ones that have meant so much to us in their small way in the past.

Likewise, my husband drives a car in our local destruction derby every year. At the end of each fair, after the derby, he and his derby buddies generally decide that the next summer will possibly be their last, and at any rate they'll only do one car each year from here on out. Yet every year, the same six or eight guys go through all the hassle and work (and expense) to fix up two cars (so that they sometimes they frankly look better and run better than our daily drivers, if much more noisily) so that they can go smash them up against cars fixed up by other similarly early-middle-aged men (and one woman). I think they'll be sixty years old and saying, "only one next year... I'm having that hip replacement in December, after all...". How much of this is because of tradition and how much is because of actual enjoyment varies from one discussion to the next, but the fact is that if it didn't matter that they'd run two derby cars in every county fair since 1992, they probably would have stopped long ago, as their families got larger and their free time got smaller.

Which (kind of) leads me to my point. How much of what we do as Christians is done because "it's always been done that way"? Is it really necessary, or Scriptural, to have one man up in front who does all the studying every week to present a message to the people who sit in the pews and listen? What about the "worship by proxy" element of a church choir? What about all the emotion that surrounds a boy wearing a ballcap into a chapel building for a club meeting? What about having a chapel building at all? Responsive readings (eighteen years in a lukewarm-to-cold denominational church fraught with responsive readings and the like has left me with a severe aversion to any kind of unison speech beyond the Pledge of Allegiance)? Saying the rosary? Our worship and communion and fellowship experiences are all fraught with tradition from beginning to end. Tradition is comfortable; it's what we're used to; in a lot of ways it defines us as a group. It can even be really valuable, more so to some people than to others. The question is, how much is necessary? To what extent does it get in the way of real life, real worship, real study, a real relationship?

For three years our family was part of a home fellowship, where we basically threw tradition out the window. We met in homes, as the defining phrase "home fellowship" would indicate. Each week, any of the men who had something to share could prepare a message and give it when we met. We took requests for hymns and praise songs and sang them a capella (for a while we had a pianist, but she left for a place where she could be in charge of a Music Program). The music wasn't professional, or sometimes even very good, but it was stirring and heartfelt and I think God liked it just fine. We did not have a proper nursery (which was sometimes a problem, honestly); our pulpit was an old music stand; we had no committees or teas or elders' meetings or pews or bulletins. We did eat a potluck lunch after every Sunday meeting and my mouth still waters at the thought of it. And most importantly, we were all thriving in our personal relationships with God, and growing closer to Him and to each other. The learning and loving and helping that went on from week to week was phenomenal. Which made it terribly sad when the whole thing fell apart gradually, as first one family left and then another (and when you only have about six families meeting, each departure is keenly felt) for various reasons.

I like the place we worship now. I really do. I like the people there; I like that my kids have friends and that there are activities we can all take part in. I like that my whole family attends in one place so that every Sunday is like a miniature family reunion. And I can overlook or work with the things I don't like. But I miss the bare-bones Christianity we experienced for those three years in the home fellowship; I miss the intimacy and the pressure (I use that word with its best possible meaning) to be in the Word often and intensely. I miss the fact that if we didn't like the way we did something, we could discuss it and just change it if it was appropriate to do so. Most of all I miss the stripping away of traditions to leave us with the important, genuine, life-changing aspects of a life spent loving God.