The March of the Penguins

Last night, we went to see The March of the Penguins movie. I had heard so much about how great it was, that it paled in comparison. Or maybe it is because I see so many really good PBS documentaries these days on television. While it was enjoyable, I don't get the hype and three and a half stars. I had hoped also that our three year old would love it, but he'd seen an airplane video game in the lobby, and asked me several times during the movie if he could go "do the airplane". We left the girls to watch the last 15 minutes so he could visit all the video machines. I guess I better save my quarters.

Saturday - September 24

Reading: The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas
Watching: Elizabeth, DVD
Doing: Nothing - it's my birthday!

Yesterday evening, I attended the "viewing" of William's godfather, Bob Artner. My heart goes out to their children. Bob was only 46 at his death of a heart attack. If you care about your children, take care of their parents.

Another Birthday

Today is my 45th birthday. While I don't appreciate being older, the alternative is not acceptable.

Fall Days

Rat Snake

On Thursday, we'd noticed a "baby snake" in our garage on the way out. I told Lauren to leave it. Mice are always a problem where we live and perhaps it would live in the garage, keeping out mice. Today, however, I found the above pictured snake in my bathroom, two floors up from the garage, hanging out by the commode.

I was on the phone with an equine hospital when I spotted him. Lauren shrieked, giving the lady on the other end a busted eardrum, I'm sure. We got a bucket and I plucked him up by the tail. We did a search on the internet and are sure that he's a juvenile rat snake. Not poisonous, they are mean though and will bite. Lauren lifted the lid and the little rat lifted his head and hissed, causing another shriek. He was about 2 feet long, but we read that they get to over 100 inches.

I only hope that he's the snake we saw in the garage and not one of many siblings! We released him in the barn, where there's a multitude of mice for good eating.

I'm off now to go practice kicking soccer balls at my daughter, who is learning the goalie position.

Busy Days

Our days continue to be full, and we strive to fit in the traditional academics with our other interests. Since Wednesday, we've been to a Mounted Games practice. William filled that time with learning the mysteries of a giant mud puddle, and the feeling of it oozing through your toes. I finished reading The Mermaid Chair while I waited. A good book, but I liked The Secret Life of Bees better. The rest of the day was filled with piano lessons, errands and running downtown to the Wayside Christian Mission where we delivered 10 personal care kits and underwear for Katrina survivors.

Yesterday, we used the entire morning talking to our equine chiropractor. About a month and a half ago, Lauren purchased Nova, a half Arab pony. He's been in training for the past month and towards the end of it, we noticed a bump, right behind the saddle area. The chiropractor is sure, and I agree, that the spine is actually curved there. He was able to move it, though the prognosis is sketchy. I have, yesterday and today, been trying to get an answer from equine hospitals as to whether or not it can be x-rayed. One has said no, and that it would really require nuclear imagining, costing nearly $2000 or maybe more. Another says it might be possible. I'm waiting on their call.

The point of an x-ray would be to see if vertebrae are cracked. If they are, he's a pasture ornament. If not, it may be that with chiropractic care, we can make him better. Either way, it is a devasting blow. We had done everything we could to make sure he was sound before we purchased him. There is no way to know what caused/is causing the problem. Disease? Back injury? Or whether he'll ever be whole. I hope for an appointment next week.

Lauren later went to her work at a stable, and Anna to soccer. She reports that she'll be a goalie this coming game. She seems to like the idea. Wm. watches too much TV. I need to work on that.

Gabaldon

I wonder how they're doing, Claire and Jamie. After many months of re-reading the Diana Gabaldon books on time traveler Claire Beauchamp Fraser, I've finished the fifth book. I've done this in preparation of the release of her sixth book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, due out this September 27th. It is difficult to move onto other books, as her books were of such length (the last was over 900 pages long), that read in sequence, the books became part of my life.

I suppose I've admired the character of Claire, because of her deep love for Jamie, but also because of her intelligence, strength and confidence. She is like someone I strive to be. I must move on in my reading, but look forward to the next book. My only regret is that once I read that book, I know it will be some time before another is released.

If only I could find it in myself to become such an author....

Old Age Hair

There are many deep and meaningful things about which I could write, but today, I ponder such paradoxes as old age hair. I've read about the reasons for gray hair, and that scientific studies show that it is some mechanism turning off to protect the body from cancer and such dangers. Yet, I ponder the evolutionary advantage to the prevalence of hairs that in old age, sprout from places they didn't in the body's younger days.

Now, maybe I shouldn't publicly be admitting to old age, and indeed, I daily either try to refute that it is happening to me or ignore the effects. If I must say so myself, I have very nice eyebrows, or have until now. Short, light brown hairs arch nicely over my eyes, so that I really don't need to indulge in the female torture of plucking them. Lately, however, I've noticed that two hairs, which don't seem to belong to me, have decided to plant themselves among my eyebrows. They should be on some grandpa somewhere, and I don't know how or why they've come to be on me. Much longer, darker and thicker than my others, I viciously pull them out when I notice them. I can't help thinking what the advantage is to developing "grandpa" brows.
I have been reminded, however, by older un-named relatives, that I should be happy to pluck these few wayward hairs from my brows, and not elsewhere!

Friday - September 16th

Katrina
We went shopping today to find items for personal care kits for Katrina survivors. Though I was tempted to just make a donation, I wanted the girls to be involved in actually doing something. We have ten kits put together that I'll drive downtown next week. We brought a lunch and put the items together at the park. William enjoyed playing for awhile.

Mice
Having once raised hamsters, I have no aversion to rodents as a rule, but dislike herds of them in my barn or even one loose in my house. I have made it my personal mission to erradicate as many as I can. My count so far is a total of 38 mice, most from the barn.

My weapons of choice are two traps that basically electrocute the mice. It seems the most humane way, as often the old-style traps could catch a mice by the arm, and not kill it. I try not to think as I fling them from the trap, but cats are not an option, and the one we have is lazy.

Academics
So far today, little accomplished. I despair.

Thursday - September 15

I'll admit I do a lot of running around. Lauren today worked, necessitating a trip back and forth to drive her there. The girls both had orthodontic appointments, followed by a short time at home before driving Anna to soccer. I suppose that a good deal of the running around is due to the fact that some of our "learning" is done outside the home, rather than contained in one building called "school". A good deal of the difficulty with handling this feeling of being a marble swirled around in a box is that I have a three year old to contend with, and two eating machines called teens.

I suppose given the alternatives, I should consider myself lucky to have a full and meaningful life. I wouldn't trade the chubby hand reaching up to pat me and tell me "you're a dood (good) mommy" for anything. Much of the time in the car is spent in engaging conversation with my girls. But some days.....

Wednesday - September 14

Days slip by. Though I don't write, I am always writing in my head as I go about my work. I just find it harder these days to get those thoughts into the computer. We've added school now to our already busy schedule, but I've been pleased with the girls' response. I think we've succeeded this year in finding some interesting things to study.

Today, we hadn't much time for ordinary academic material, but not that we weren't learning. This morning was filled with mounted (pony) games practice. Anna continues to progress so that Lauren has asked her to be her pair in an upcoming competition. William happily played in a mud puddle, slapping great goops of it on his tractors, and making mud pies. We hosed him off at noon, and headed home. After unhooking the horse trailer, and getting William's lunch, I quickly changed, and took Lauren over to piano lessons. While she was there, Wm and I ran over to Burger King, less for the lunch than the hope that there would be little kids, preferably boys, to play with in the playplace. There were two! He had a great time. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long, as it was back to pick up Lauren.

After several errands on the way home, I spent a good deal of the remaining afternoon mending the electric fences around our place. By the time I came in, the night was through. Lauren skipped Dog 4H tonight, chosing instead to ride her new horse, who is now home. The day goes by so quickly. I am going to get a bite to eat now.

Thursday

We did well this week so far in accomplishing some of our goals for education. Still, I wonder how this year is going to go with Wm. (age 3) needing so much attention. He is not the type of child that will sit and play, he detests crayons, and enjoys seeing how to use common household items in new ways. Yesterday, he used our salad tongs, detached from each other, as "win-wipers" (windshield wipers) and ran alternately chasing the dogs and Anna. He did enjoy some time playing in the barn while I split wood. (I did use the neighbor's log splitter, so don't feel too badly for me - though the wood is heavy to lift.)

Oh, and that gets me on another subject - exercise. Recently, we've applied for new life insurance. The company requires a nurse to come to your house to ask all kinds of silly questions, like "do you smoke pot or do cocaine". Do they really think anyone is going to admit such a thing while trying to qualify for life insurance??? Anyway, I digress. One question is how often do you regularly exercise or participate in an organized sport. I asked if housework qualifies. No. How about working in the yard? No. How about running after my three year old? No.

So let me get this straight. My husband can sit at his desk for eight hours, come home and walk his treadmill for 10 minutes and he gets a "yes", but I can never sit down all day, eat my lunch on the run, but I don't exercise? Obviously, a man wrote the rules.

Starting School

Yesterday was the first full day of an organized schedule. It went well, all considered. I think I will find this year challenging with a three year old. The other day, Wm found a set of headphones used for hearing protection while driving the tractor. This was his helmet. He completed his attire with an empty box over one hand (shield) and a spike from the garden (sword). Where he got this idea I'll never know. Did you know that a one pound weight makes a perfect implement for distressing tables so that they look antique? Wm. did. Ah, well, at least he likes to sit and have someone read to him.

Anna progresses well in her writing, something she enjoys doing. Yesterday, I found a poem she'd written. I hope to get her to post it on her website.

Lauren continues with training Nova, her newest horse. I believe she's learning a lot from his training.

Myself, I cannot get the images from the hurricane from my brain. I struggle daily with what response we'll make besides a monetary contribution, which doesn't seem enough. I worry for the babies.

Reality TV....

...isn't real. No big surprise, though, eh? My daughters were invited Friday evening to attend the taping of a "reality" TV show. We've been advised not to talk about it much, though I don't remember the release obligating me to hold my tongue ;-)
It was a veritable spectacle. It was a learning experience for my dear daughters, who saw that the entire evening was not only staged and faked, but basically an acting job. Back to the beginning:

Dds' are friends with some kids in their 4H club, who invited them to a "salsa party" with the caveat that the party was to be taped as part of a reality tv show in which their family was one of the two featured families. I was curious, yet reluctant, having seen the show before. The show revels in chosing families as diverse as possible, and deliberately creating controversy. My distaste for the show has a great deal to do with the fact that homeschoolers are often the target of the controversy. I also find it objectionable to subject very young children, who have no real understanding, to such an event. In this case, the youngest child, a friend of my 3 yo, was 4 years old. I cannot understand ever being parted for two week from such a young child. Yet, I digress....

The girls had a great time dancing, yet they saw that it wasn't a real party. They were acting like they were at a party, rather than really attending a party. The dance area was very small, staged to look like there were more people than actually were there. Often, the action stopped, so that another scene could be staged. Lauren will probably be featured quite a bit, as one of the boys of the family takes quite a shine to her, and she danced with him. Lauren learned Salsa dancing while in Germany, and enjoys it.

I will reserve my opinions of the things I saw until the show airs, at which time I think I'll be more free to discuss more details of what I observed, limited though it might be. The girls now know that what they see on TV isn't what you think you are seeing, so it was an educational experience, all in all. Now, I hold my breath that they don't somehow twist something that reflect badly on my girls - though I think they have enough "dirt" on the family involved. I'll let you know when it's airing.

Catching Up

Flylady says that you are not behind, just start where you are. Really though, I have been behind. In addition to traveling, it seems that things to do pile up like dirty laundry. Both computers have had problems, which broke my habit of blogging and writing. I have been planning out the school year so that there is some appearance of organization. And, the kids of course keep me busy.

I long for the long summer days of my childhood where we did nothing but swim and climb trees.

County Fair

County fairs are an interesting event. There are many sights, sounds and smells that assault the senses. I enjoy watching all the people, especially those that run the fair - the "carnies". I wonder about their lives and what it must be like, living in a trailer and driving all over the country to small communities to give little tikes a ride on the carousel. What decisions did these folks make that lead them to become gypsies of a sort? All seemed very kind to the young kids.

After going around and around the circle in little cars and in strange looking animal seats, William enjoyed the obstacle course so much and went through so many times, that he could barely drag himself up the steps. Even so, he was reluctant to leave. I asked the girls, closer in age to remembering what it is like to be so young, what was the attraction of climbing the same course over and again? The long, high, fast slide at the end, they said. Perhaps I've gotten old, for one trip through would have satisfied my curiosity.

We watched the lawnmower pulls and some sort of demolition derby. The girls saw a bit of the beauty contests and declared no interest in participating. Instead, they enjoyed rock-wall climbing. We all dragged home weary, and with a mom glad that the county fair occurs only once a year.

Mini-Einsteins

Around this time of year, I struggle with remembering the reasons that we homeschool and what it is going to look like next year. Each year, I start with renewed promises that I am going to be more organized in my reporting of our rather eclectic way of learning. Indeed, I even sometimes try to plan out curricula! Yet, I remain convinced that it isn't our objective to raise mini-Einsteins or grand scholars. We are committed to raising decent people that love to learn and can find meaning in their lives.

Recently, I borrowed a book from the library for dh, On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt. I found myself browsing through this small epistle to find a very pertinent (to education) paragraph:

"Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frquently impelled - whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others - to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country's affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person's opinions and his apprehension of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for someone who believes it is his responsibility, as a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world."

Amen to that. My opinion is that school is often founded upon these beliefs, and children are subjected to being crammed with knowlegde which they will never fully master or maybe never even use, in the hopes of producing citizens that can participate in society. Often, it isn't about learning to learn, or about education at all.

I'm Back

My computer suffered a major meltdown, literally, as my ethernet card was fried in a storm. At the same time, it got a virus and so it has taken me awhile to get it all back together. I will try to get back in the writing saddle again. But right now, William is hanging on my neck and hollering!

Biology

I am working on developing the curricula for Lauren's freshman year in high school. We were given all the high school Saxon books in great condition. I assumed that was a message from God that we should continue with Saxon math, so she'll hopefully be able to do Algebra I in the fall (we're working on Algebra 1/2 this summer.)

I have purchased her Spanish program (Switched on Schoolhouse, secondary) and have a number of other Spanish resources (the Learnables, year one).

Music is set, for she has an outstanding Suzuki piano teacher. He is also supplementing the normal lessons with a class on theory this fall for his R.A.C.E. students (see previous posts on this) and it is high school level.

She'll be doing equine studies and work, and of course, physical education is covered by all her riding and horse competitions. So, that left Biology, Language Arts and History. So much to cover!

Someone suggested to me to purchase a college Biology text for an outline of what should be covered. Have you looked at the cost of Biology texts lately???? The most popular one on Amazon, Biology by Campbell, Reece is $137 new plus S&H. I fortunately found a used one on eBay for $5.99 with S&H. Combined with using Critical Thinking Skills materials, I guess that's decided. Now, on to Language Arts.

Hot!

Today, the heat index (temperature and dew point calculation) is to reach 105 Farenheit! We had a brief downpour yesterday afternoon, but our children are learning the meaning of the word "drought". We were under a restricted water usage (outside watering) this week. I suppose those flowers I planted are doomed.

Sciencewise

We just did one quick experiment from the Book 2 Sciencewise from Critical Thinking Books. My girls loved it. It had a little accompanying story that the king's egg had sunk, and the servant had to bring it to the top of the water, but no one is allowed to touch the king's food.

Here are the basics:
Put an egg in a container (we used a Pyrex 2 cup measuring cup) filled with water. The egg will sink. Without touching the egg directly with their fingers, the experimenters must think of as many ways as they can to bring the egg back up to the surface. Directions say to accept all reasonable solutions. Anna suggested using air bubbled in or a spoon. She tried, unsuccessfully, the addition of pepper, oil, a small amount of salt and dishwashing detergent. She is as I type, trying one last experiment - baking soda and vinegar - knowing from another experiment that the result of mixing the two cause gas to be formed. She's just called from the kitchen - it didn't work.

The "teacher" solution is to add salt slowly while stirring. It will take quite a bit of salt (1/2 a container), but eventually, you'll change the density of the water and the egg will float. Lauren immediately asked was that why it was easier to swim in the ocean than the pool? We discussed natural salt bodies of water (Dead Sea, Salt Lake) and what happens to a cargo ship that goes from salt water to fresh water.

Didn't take much time, but made a lasting impression. I think we'll like this book.

In the back of the book are "projects" that can be done in groups. I am thinking of forming a club of local hs'ers that would come together once in awhile to test their designs. One example is the design of an egg catcher with the egg dropped from a window or ladder.

Flies

We went to a park today to play before attempting to shop for shorts with a three year old boy. We ate a picnic lunch and played for awhile, and it helped to some degree. I noticed that the flies are biting now, though.

A member of our local homeschool list sent this link to me for beneficial bugs: http://www.buglogical.com/ There is a type of fly predator that one can order, put in the horse manure, and it eats fly larvae before they become biting flies. Worth a try, eh? I thought the prices looked good for other insects as well and might make a good summer biology project.

Speaking of flies, and time does fly, I was amazed at the changes to this state park we visited. When my girls were young like my boy, there was nice playground equipment, swimming in the lake, and in the winter, there was a ski slope. We notice that much of the playground was gone. There was a sign posted that the beach was closed, no swimming. The ski lodge and operation was obviously defunct. It seemed only yesterday....

A Little Vacation at Home

This past week has been oppressively hot, 95 degrees and very humid. So, we all look for a little shade. We have for the past years, taken our vacation at Holden Beach, North Carolina. There, we enjoy the porches with rocking chairs looking over the ocean. While we don't have an ocean, we have beautiful Kentucky greenery. Here is our back deck, where I sit with a book and some iced tea and watch William in the sand.

What I'm Reading

While I'll admit to devouring a good number of mindless pocket novels while I watch my son in the sandbox, I have also filled my mind with a few good books. I recently read The instinct to heal : curing stress, anxiety, and depression without drugs and without talk therapy by Servan-Schreiber, David. This book is about alternative therapies. I found it very interesting. One therapy mentioned, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy (see emdr.com), sounded intriguing but I am a skeptic and cannot see how this works, unless it is hypnotism.

For fiction, I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Kidd. I loved this book, and gave it to my 14 yo to read. Taking place during the time of the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1960's South, a young girl learns to be loved and that she is worth loving. The interview of the author in the back of the book said that she doesn't plan a sequel. I am hoping she changes her mind. In the book, the young (white) girl is growing to love a young black man, who aspires to be a lawyer working in civil rights. They know that a relationship could mean death for him, and trouble for her. Rosaleen, a black woman who starts out as Lily's nanny, is just beginning to blossom in the book as a courageous civil rights advocate. These three people and their experiences in the troubled South during the late 60's would be a natural sequel. In the meantime, I hear Sue Kidd has another book out, The Mermaid Chair.

Now, I am working on Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austin. I am trying to read a non-fiction, good fiction, and some classics in with my reading for fun.

A Rude Awakening

The door bell rang yeasterday at 7:30 a.m., an event unusual enought that I "sprang from my bed to see what was the matter". Before I could get to the steps, I could hear the neighbor telling dh that our three horses were in his yard across the street. It never ceases to amaze me that in the handful of times our horses have escaped their confines, that they don't eat all the plentiful grass that is our yard, but instead cross our dangerous road for that across the road. The grass, indeed, seems greener on the other side of the fence.

I dressed quickly as dh roused the girls from their tent in the backyard where they slept the night before. Stealth, our white pony, was quite worked up, and all three were feeling the freedom and not wanting to return home. Before we could get grain to entice them to come, Stealth took off down the road, the other two following in hot pursuit. I could hear their hoofbeats on the road. They were gone.

I ran to the truck and the girls hopped in. We drove down the road, meeting our neighbor who was checking straight down the road. Following a hunch, I turned instead down a road that we often used for pleasure rides. "Bay" would know this way. Sure enough, we found them 1 mile from our house running along a fence holding in a herd of mini''s (miniature horses). Our grain got their attention this time, and we haltered them and led them home, the girls walking them the mile while I drove behind.

The girls worried over the fact that I hadn't taken time to put on my contacts, and that I was driving, though in truth I can see well enough to drive, just not read signs. Dh laughingly asked if I'd taken time to put on my bra before running after the horses down the road. (I had ;-)

So, all's well that ends well. The horses survived a run through rush hour traffic, and I've inspected the gate. The girls swear that the gate was latched the night before, but the clip that held the chain was un-bent. Therefore, either someone let them out (unlikely) or the gate was shut but not latched. I have today purchased a strong gate latch to install in place of the chain.

Three Year Olds

My greatest challenge these days is keeping my cool when my three year old starts hitting, chasing dogs, yelling and tormenting my 12 year old. She wanted to know why he so enjoyed fighting with her, and not with my (almost) 14 year old. She reacts to his three year old attention-getting schemes, and I told her that it was more fun to light a firecracker than wet tissue. She was a firecracker, and so, to his mind, he got more reaction (albeit negative) from her than the other sister who reacted more calmly.

It is difficult to not react when he hits or yells, yet I've learned to decipher his moods as his frustration for whatever reason. It is a signal to us that he needs something. Yet, it is hard on the patience because he does get so very much attention. It is going to be even more trying when school work gets underway.

Going anywhere is a study in patience, because he cannot understand the many reasons we need to get going, why he needs to be in his car seat, why we can't take home that neat bicycle that he can now peddle.

Finger Painting Anyone?

SOS Language Programs

Not too long ago, we purchased the Switched On Schoolhouse Spanish 2004 Secondary Education program. This program necessitated beefing up our computer's memory, but once done, we were well pleased with the program. The lessons are interesting and move forward in a logical sequence. My daughter, age 13, and I (never having studied Spanish before) are moving forward at a reasonable pace. The format is similar to the use of a high school text with audio added in. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed a certain comfort level with it, as that is how I was taught French many years ago.

My younger daughter, now age 12, has been using Rosetta Stone French, but was seeing our Spanish progress and asked to use the French Secondary SOS program. I have been disappointed with it thus far. Using a more "mother tongue" approach whereby you learn the language by using it, it is disorganized and expects the user to pick up much of the language intuitively. While I understand this approach, I don't think it is well done in this program.

In addition, the program directs the user to a website that isn't working. While I could tolerate this if it was merely supplemental, this website is intended to be part of the lesson. Hopefully, the site is just down, but AOP Technical Support couldn't say. Having studied French for several years, I am able to work the lessons fairly quickly. I'll write more after my daughter has a shot at it.

The Little Things

Our farrier came today to trim the three horses. All were in good condition despite the lush grass. Generally, while trimming, there is a good deal of conversation that goes on as well. "P" likes a good story and has many to tell. Lately, though, his family has had some tests of faith and challenges.

His son, "N", served in Iraq. Each time P would trim our horses, he would tell us of his prayers and anxiousness for his son's safe return. And then the day came when he returned to our communities welcome and yellow ribbons tied for him. Not too long after, we were saddened to hear that N had gone four-wheeling with some friends late at night - without his helmet - and had an accident. He had survived the war unscathed, but not the accident. He now is battling brain injury and infection.

You might think that such a tragedy would sour P and his wife. Quite the opposite, he seemed softened. He talked of the people he's met at the hospital, the small miracles they've experienced. He talked of meeting people that showed courage with even greater challenges. More than once, he's had chance encounters of people that somehow were unknown before but connected back to his life. "I don't sweat the little things anymore," said P.

P thought God would give his son back in some fashion some day, for why would they see such promising developments so far? Perhaps this journey has more to do with just N. It seems that N's tragedy has drawn together many people. I hope his recovery does, too.

Please consider a prayer for this fallen soldier and his family. And if you have a loved one, make them wear a helmet.

Anna learning to jump "Stealth"

You couldn't ask for more beautiful weather this week. The girls enjoyed a day of riding in the pasture and practicing vaulting on their ponies. Today promises to be just as beautiful. This photo was taken in the horse pasture.

William-isms

I wanted to record some of my favorite 3 year old William-isms.

nemowade= lemonade
ariel = oil
"I not need help"
"OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK......."
"I do it myself"
"lello" = yellow
"Lo-when" = Lauren
"Ya-Ya" = pet name for Lauren

A Special Bulletin

William was taking a rare nap and it was laundry day, so I turned on the last few minutes of Oprah while I sorted socks. Ironically (it would turn out later), the show, about a man sexually molested as a boy by a priest, was interrupted by a "special bulletin".

Oh, no, I thought to myself as I saw images of long black, bullet-proof limos driving slowly on my TV screen. I braced myself for the worst. Did a plane crash? The President shot? Some new terrible act of terror? My fears were relieved when finally the talking head came on and announced that the world had come to a standstill because the verdict was in on the Michael Jackson trial.

I watched, half fascinated, half disgusted. Here is one trial of one man that used so much energy of people both on and off the air. If only we could, as humans, devote one third of that energy and concern for all the millions dying in Africa.

A Sour Note

After the music ended at Mass this weekend, a man two pews in front of me and my two daughters said, "We need the three of you in the choir!" I smiled and thanked him, reminding myself to sing more quietly next time.

When I got home, I relayed the encounter to dh, who's turn it was to mind the 3 year old heathen. "Was the man old?" he asked.

"Well, about five or ten years older than me. It's not like he was flirting or anything. We were in Church! He was with his wife, and I with the girls..." I began, completely missing where he was going with that comment.

"No," he said. "I thought maybe his hearing was bad."

Arg.

A double rainbow we saw from our front porch one day.

Anna on left, Lauren on right.
On Friday, we went shopping. I found a skirt and top I liked. Well, so did my daughters, as you can see. They found that it came in three colors, so we each picked one. Last night, we went out to dinner and enjoyed our swinging skirts. Tell me, how many teens would enjoy dressing like their mom and going with them out to eat? I am so lucky. Aren't they beautiful?

Efforts to Get Home Schoolers Back Into Public Schools

Please click on the link above to watch a clip about Efforts to Get Home Schoolers Back Into Public Schools.

Here are some of my thoughts:
1. They show primarily only one aspect of the reasons for homeschooling. Even so, most homeschoolers I know are more complex than just one reason for homeschooling. You wouldn't be able to just change the curricula to get them back.

2. This is about money, not education. In a capitalistic society, when the consumer doesn't like the product, they go elsewhere. So, should the manufacturers continue to try to convince people the product is good, or try to change the product so that it truly is? I think schools as they exist today are becoming obsolete and too expensive. There will have to be big changes in the future.

3. In one segment, an educator says "this is about education and preparing them for life." I believe that isn't the case. This is purely political and financial for these districts. While I think these men (women) have good intentions, they are deceiving themselves about the bottom line. Also, why would putting my child in a building all day prepare them for life? They are too busy living a life right now to confine themselves to one place.

4. I will admit to wishing there were classes here in my county that were rich with experiences and opportunities - interaction with adults that have expertise, not just textbook based classes. The way to achieve, IMO, this is not through partnership with the public schools (which will exact a price with accountability read: control) but through development of another market. Only through this competition will the schools change and improve to help those students who haven't the option to be homeschooled.

5. I would be extrememly offended to go to my Church and be given a talk that tried to convince me, using my own religion, that my kids should go to school. The roof would be raising on that church from my outrage. Where were all the parents in that discussion that followed the service? I saw only teens and one man. I do go to a Church that has a private school. Once or twice a year, they will speak during announcements and talk about the school, "sing" its praises and mission and how it is a great place to send your kid. BUT, they aren't trying to say that it is what God wants me to do, which is what it seemed this man was doing.

6. I thought it amusing that when he met with one family (why'd they let him in the door???), he told the girl sitting to his left that "based on your past experience as a homeschooler" he was was going to put her in an accelerated class. HUH???? This tells me that she was doing well homeschooling, above her peers, so why, oh why would she want to go to a public hs?

Now, I gotta go get ready for church, where they better not try to convince me to put my kids in their school.

Homeschool Talk Radio

This week I am doing a lot of driving, so I much enjoyed borrowing my daughter's mp3 player and finding stuff on the internet to download and listen to while I drive.
I really liked the talks by Steve Moitozo. He has my 12 yo (but not my 13 yo :-) excited about high school and CLEP tests.

Here is another place to get files to listen to:
http://www.homeschooltalkradio.com/
You can download the mp3 files and listen on your computer, or if you have an mp3 player (about $50-75 for the cheap ones) you can listen whenever.

Suzuki Institute Week

This week is Suzuki Piano Institute week - a weeklong "camp" for children and their teachers that play the piano using the Suzuki method. Dh would quake with anxiety as the week approached each year, for being out of the house all day, every day and on someone else's schedule was more than this gentle homeschooler could handle. I would literally turn into a raving lunatic. I wonder how I would do as a working mom?

So far, however, this week has been pleasant. Lauren is the only pianist in our family at the moment, and at 13 years, is old enough to conduct herself becomingly from class to class and find a few friends with whom to each lunch. So, I drive her 1/2 hour each day to the University, drop her of and come home. William comes along for the ride, watching the marvelous invention - the personal DVD player. Anna delights in staying home and is now using a bulldozer to clear her room in preparation for an overnight guest.

Last night, Lauren played in the Student Recital. Her song was right after a young pianist who played a Beethovan Sonata. Somewhere in all the repeats, the young girl forgot how to get to the ending and played for over eight minutes. I was sure that her arms would fall off, exhausted. At first, I thought maybe I just didn't know the song length, until I saw two teachers glace at each other and then whispering - which they rarely do in a recital.

I think all this waiting and anticipation threw Lauren off a bit, and she had some bobbles in her playing, which she rarely does. Still, she played beautifully. I told her that I was more impressed that she was able to recover from a mistake and finish the song than I would be if she was a piano genius and never made a mistake. Life is full of mistakes, and it is the ability to finish the song and maintain your composure that carries one through.

The Irony of It

I was so excited to learn that Lauren had passed the R.A.C.E. Piano Exam Level 8 that I phoned her at the house where she was spending the night with two of her best friends. I told her that I had very good news for her - she had passed her piano exam! I heard her whisper the reason for my call to her two friends in the background.

"Oh, she said. " I thought you were calling about Nova." (Sounds of parental bubble bursting.)
Nova is a pony for sale that Lauren found on the Internet and dreams about owning. What is it about horses that takes over a young girl's very soul?

Confessions of a Slacker Wife

I am having great fun reading Confessions of a Slacker Wife by Muffy Mead-Ferro. She won me over early in the book with

"..It's easy for all of us modern-day wives to feel like slacker wives. We don't have it in us, or in our schedules, to be Mrs. Ward Cleavers, and in the meantime, she's turned out to be an underperformer anyway."

This humorous look at the role of the wife in marriage and as a mother has given me a few chuckles.

Finished with Ready or Not....

I finished reading Ready or Not, Here Comes Life. I think the book can best be summed up for me by the following passage:

"Becoming acquainted with oneself is often a highly confusing teenage mission. It can be almost impossible for some adolescents to distinguish between who they actually are and who they want others to believe they are."

and

"Throughout high school and college, students seldom get any respite from performing and being judged - academically, socially, and often in other arenas as well. Their teachers, their parents, and their classmates are constantly checking out how they're doing. The relentless pressure to impress can make it hard for a person to get to know himself. So much energy may be channeled into performing that there's not much left in the way of resources for exploring the caverns of one's true self.

and

"People have to live a life that's right for them, not an existence that sounds right."

Across the nation and in my own area, there is a push to improve high school performance. From all accounts, the idea seems to be to increase standards and measure performance through testing. I am left wondering why we aren't hearing people like Dr. Levine and Bill Gates (see Gates Foundation) more loudly in the press. They are saying our high schools are obsolete designs, and that we need to redesign them completely, not just test more. I would guess that it boils down to money and politics, like many issues. Perhaps I can effect my own small change as we move into the high school years.

Education

After many years of private schooling followed by four years of college and a few graduate classes after that, I found my self contemplating how I used this education. This weekend, I laughed, wondering what classmates would think about how I spent some of my time: dismantling a rabbit hutch, cleaning house, and a good deal of time cleaning horses' sheaths.

Okay, if you are not a horse person you may not want to know anymore, but it is a nasty job that someone has to do. In my family, I am that lucky person. It's not a talent you talk about in polite company, something that you brag about at a party lest someone thing that you have a psychological abnormality. Dh laughed at me when I crowed because I had found a "bean". He said I acted as if I'd found a pearl. In essence, I had, because this dirt, which forms a kidney bean sized stone on the inside of a horse's penis can cause him a great deal of discomfort, as you can imagine. Enough said.

I would say that today, I was thinking about one thing my education did give me - the sense that I could figure about anything out. That's good and bad. Good in that I can often repair appliances myself. This past year, I took apart the dryer and fixed a broken fan. (Okay, so it was broken because I left nails in my jeans pocket from working on another project.) This morning, I had to take the washer arm apart and super glue it together after an unnamed party jammed the rack into the dishwasher despite objects impeding it from closing. (Hint: if the rack won't shut, there often is a problem that isn't solved by shoving harder.) Now, on to the oven/range. Bad in that I often think I CAN repair it myself, when really I should call a repairman on my oven. It's still F2-ing me, and I know that means that I have a bad sensor or maybe welded contacts, but I'm of such small stature, I can't get the blamed thing pulled out to look at it.

My engineering education empowered me to know I can try to do just about anything. I used to think that being in engineering failed me, because I, like many, many other engineers never became an "engineer". In continuing to read Ready or Not, Here Comes Life, I ran across this passage:

p. 237
"I was once given a tour of a superb vocational high school in Lexington, Massachusetts. I asked the principal, "What percentage of your auto body students go on and do auto body work for their careers, and what proportion of your electrical students actually become electricians?" I was somewhat surprised by his answer; "Very few of our students have ended up doing what they specialized in while they were here, but in the process of focusing at this school, they picked up skills like decision making, brainstorming, collaboration, and time management. Then they were able to apply these in whatever trade offered them the best opportunities at the time." His was indeed a growth process school. Early specialty education should never close out any options for a student...."

While homeschooling, I hope to give this sense of empowerment to my kids. Instead of spending hours learning useless facts, I hope to teach them to learn, to have the spirit to figure things out, and the strength to keep going when the going gets tough. Now, back to figuring out how to pull out the oven.

The Finish Line of the RACE

It is sometimes difficult as a parent to know what to do sometimes. Thursday evening, Lauren was ready to throw in the towel. She was very sure that she could not take the RACE piano exam the next day, and hoping that we would agree to let her out of doing it. I am all for following your child's dreams, instincts and respecting them as people. There comes a time, however, when a little push is required when the confidence lags, but it is difficult to say to a child that they have to do something anyway, even though they fear the outcome.

Her teacher felt she was as ready as any of her other students. I passed on to her that he had said that she takes for granted the things she does do well, in particular the way she plays some of the pieces. Because of this, she doesn't realize her ability compared to other students. We all knew that she could have been more prepared by the teacher, have started sooner, have worked harder. BUT, we all knew that given that we were all new at this, we wanted her to have the guts to try. And...so she did.

She walked into the exam with great poise. In less than 40 minutes, she was finished and saying that she did pretty well on her pieces, and not as well on technique, though that is what we knew was to be expected. She was glad to have done it, and surprisingly, said she might do it again. I breathed a sigh of relief for having made the right call to insist that she take the exam after all her hard work. Exam results won't be in for weeks, and honestly, it doesn't matter. The learning here had little to do with the exam itself.

Perfectionism

Lauren is still working toward the piano exam on Friday. I am so proud of her that I could bust. Not because she's taking the exam, but that she has handled the IDEA of taking the exam. It has opened up to us both that we are both first-born perfectionists and what that means. As I've discussed before, she has had to examine why the exam stressed her so. It was not only the lack of time to prepare, but that she prefers to have pieces perfected before performing them. It has been difficult for her to relax and let go of that.

For me, I've examined my own perfectionism. I was raised to strive always for the best grade in the class, to do everything the best I could. In parenting, it is difficult sometimes for me to let go, to not push the perfectionism on to them. In this exam, before we started this journey, I would have said that Lauren is exceptional in her ability to play the piano and I would expect that she would pass the test if not have high scores. Given the circumstances, I would say that Lauren has already passed the test by putting in a tremendous effort to get the work done, to learn to speak up when she didn't understand, to examine her own emotions about it all, and sticking with it without freaking out. I know she reads my blog, so I say "Congratulations, Lauren. Only two more days to go. I'm proud of you!"
Love Mom

More on Ready or Not, Here Life Comes

I was able to renew the book, which is only a 14 day - yippee.

I am reading now about Enhancing Working Capacity at Home. He has a list that are interesting. Here are a few:

Establish consistent times for mind work whether or not your child has homework (call it "mental workout time").
Assist with time allocation, prioritization, and scheduling.
Teach your child how to break big tasks into stages, manageable chunks of work.Try not to let your child quit a job when the going gets rough or dull.
Be a role model; do mind work yourself while the child is engaged in mind work.

There are some other guidelines, but the above I found most intriguing. As a homeschooler, I was particularly interested in the breaking of big projects into manageable chunks, as my daughters have never had any big projects with a deadline.

Recently, Lauren has been preparing for a piano exam. A week ago, with two weeks before the exam, she began to panic. There are many reasons why she was behind in her preparation, and the panic was well founded. Some of the materials arrived late, and the teacher hadn't yet covered some of the subject matter. All of us are new to this exam, and didn't realize the amount of work involved, so she didn't work hard enough earlier. She took a week off to go to Germany.

We didn't let her just throw in the towel though, having committed herself to trying, though she very much wanted to quit. We learned important lessons doing this, such as how to lay out what needs to be done, and how to accomplish it in small chunks. We learned about "perfectionism". She's always learned piano Suzuki style, perfecting one or two pieces from a perfectionist teacher before moving to another song. This exam requires competency, not perfectionism, in seven songs, plus reading and technique (scales). We have had the chance to examine the cause of the stress: not so much the exam, but the difficulty in not being able to play each song perfectly.

We have asked her to work hard to prepare for the exam, which is Friday. Whether she takes the exam will ultimately be up to Lauren and her teacher. As parent, my goal was to see that she learned a little about life from the experience, which was much more valuable than the exam itself.

Learning Tractors

Yesterday, I learned to drive our big tractor, helping to mow our neighbor's pasture in return for board there for our three horses. K did most of it, but it takes four hours every four weeks, so I figured the time had come to learn. I have resisted learning in the past because my son loves tractors and riding on tractors more than anything. I didn't want him to know that I can operate the tractor, or otherwise, he'd be after me for a ride everyday. But, the time has come.

Tractors are built for men, not small framed women. My feet dangled from the seat, not reaching the platform. I sat forward so that I could reach the pedals. Growing up on a farm, K said he first drove a tractor standing up, so that he could reach the pedals. I nearly need to do that. I went very slowly, trying to remember where all the levers were and what they did.

As I settled down, I found time to think. I watched the birds landing and hoped they were looking for food and weren't one of the types of birds that nest in tall grass. Do men worry about such things as they mow? I didn't see any nests, and hoped that since the grass was not that tall, I hadn't run over any. I think the girls could learn to run the tractor soon. They're as big as I am.

Learning Plants

Wm. is a little older this year, so I am hoping to spend a little more time gardening. At 3 years, he enjoys the watering job. He also enjoys putting in the little metal staples that hold down the black cloth/plastic that I use to keep down weeds. We finished one side of the garden yesterday.

My dear husband asked why I had left that one particular big weed at the corner of the garden. When I told him that it wasn't a weed, it was rhubarb that I'd planted last year, he laughed. He's been weed-whacking it and trying to kill it, as rhubarb resembles a week we have that grows here in Kentucky.

Just a few weeks ago, my MIL and I stood shaking our heads at that plant, wondering why it wasn't bigger since, at her house, the rhubarb is enormous. Maybe, we discussed, it just doesn't grow well here. Yeah, I guess not. Hard to grow when you get weed whacked. :-)

Confusius say....

Tonight, we went to the new Asian Buffet restaurant. That reminded me of my favorite fortune cookie saying:
"A good statue never comes from a bad mold."

Red Tailed Hawks

The nest was about 30 feet in the oak tree at the V-shaped junction of four branches. When we first arrived, there was no movement or sign of birds. I thought they had either succumbed to the hail storm from the night before, or maybe the babies were grown and out of the nest. But, William and I had to wait for Lauren's one hour piano lesson, so we settled down in the truck to watch with our binoculars and lunch.

Finally, I saw the flash of a wing and wondered how the mother bird had gotten in there without me seeing her arrive. The answer came shortly after with the sound of the mom approaching. The wing I saw was one of the two immature hawks, almost full size now but still sporting a fuzzy hairdo. A shadow circled overhead as she continued to call. Was she looking for danger or simply calling "hello, I'm back?" I whispered to Will that the mommy was coming.

She landed, but then turned that unblinking eye directly toward me. Though I was in the truck with binoculars, I could swear she knew I was there and was looking at me. She immediately took off, landing again only one more time in the next few minutes. The two young birds ran back and forth a bit in their nest. I wondered if they get in trouble for running around too much. Did they ever get in arguments and try to push each other out? Occasionally, the mom would fly into the area, calling. Was she saying, "I see you are okay, I'll be back soon with food" or was she saying "I can see you from up here, so you better behave?" I would imagine the former, her reassurance that all was well.

One youngster leaned over the edge of the nest to uh, not mess the nest, and nearly fell out. He flapped his now three foot or so wingspan and I heard him "eek". I am sure he thought he was going to fall.

I look forward to seeing if they are out of the nest next week.

Hotel Rwanda

Last night, I watched Hotel Rwanda (PG-13). It saddens me what humans do to other humans, to children. I am thinking of letting my 13 year old see it. I want my kids to be sensitive to the troubles of the world, without tramatizing them. This film is well done, in that it imparts the terror without the gore. It is a "must see" for adults.

Note: it contains several swear words

More on Mel Levine

I am still reading Ready or Not, Here Life Comes by Mel Levine. Now, what action to take??

http://www.detnews.com/2005/lifestyle/0504/05/E06-139440.htm

"These kids have no idea how to assess their strengths and weaknesses, how to follow their passion and how to communicate and work with others and how to survive on the bottom rung," he writes.

And he blames parents and teachers, who are so busy with college prep that they ignore life prep.

It isn't just that our children leave the nest without learning how to balance a checkbook, make a decent meal or do their own laundry, although there is certainly plenty of that.
"They have never worked on finding a good fit between their minds and their jobs," Levine writes.

Race for the Finish

Back in the fall, Lauren's piano teacher started a class to study for the Royal American Conservatory Exam, a demonstration of proficiency at a certain level of playing if you pass. Lauren was skeptical about joining because of the amount of work involved, yet agreed to do it. She enjoyed the weekly classes and a goal was set for the exam in the Spring, which seemed ages away. Well, the exam is in one and one half weeks, and the pressure is on.

"Cramming" is a word that my dh and I learned well though our schooling years. Lauren is learning the meaning of it now. She'd like to be released of this monumental task, but we've persisted in asking her to work hard toward her goal. Some of the lessons we've learned are about not waiting until the last few weeks, how to break down a seemingly impossible task into small chunks, and how to focus and prioritize under pressure. Very valuable lessons for a young girl.

Lauren talked about not enjoying piano anymore, since she began this study for RACE. Several good lessons came from this. One is that we discussed her feelings that she disliked the stress of preparing for the exam, and that she still enjoyed piano, just not how she is playing. Her teacher discussed that now commited to doing the exam, she might in the future decide to not do it again.

The exam brought up an interesting point about Perfectionism. Suzuki Piano epitomizes perfectionism. You play one or two songs at a time, and work to perfect the way you play the song. Yet, this RACE expects the pianist to play seven songs, plus technique and reading for proficiency, not perfection. This is a big difference for both Lauren and her teacher, both perfectionists. The hardest thing for Lauren to prepare for the exam is to let go of not playing each piece perfectly, but just getting to a place where she can play each piece. She can even use the music, if necessary. She grumbled that that would be points off her score. Like the first born that she is, and I know because I am one, too, it is hard for her to imagine just trying to take the test without getting a grand score. It has been a great learning experience.

Forensic Science

A tragedy befell us this past Saturday. The girls found all but one of our half grown chicks dead in the barn isle. Five little bodies had been mauled, but left largely intact. Those of us used to the occasional chicken thief know that varmits (raccoons, opposums, weasels and even foxes) will generally only come in the mask of dusk, dawn, or into the night. Varmits also generally will eat the chicken, leaving little behind. This was murder in broad daylight.

The chicks were in a homemade chicken tractor on legs. The rabbit wire was curled back from where it was nailed on the inside, pushed up from the bottom by an obviously large animal. Varmits won't go to such effort, pulling the wire back only enough to squeeze in, and they can squeeze into holes you might not believe until you've seen it. This could only have been accomplished by a large dog, and our neighbor's unruly border collie/black lab mix was seen in our yard that morning. She has before been observed harrassing our chickens in our other chicken tractor. Yet, we did not witness the event. I am debating on whether to notify the neighbor that his dog is a suspect in this crime, yet I wonder what it would accomplish. Perhaps he will understand why I call him to come get his dog every time I see it from now onward.

As I said, all but one was dead, my girls distraught. One chick was missing. Frankly, I had hoped that the bird was dead and in the jaws of the perpetrator, so there was no mistake how this happened. Daisy, our beagle/lab mix, however, was following a scent. Picking up on this, we gave her the "find it" signal and off she went. For awhile, we looked around in the brush for the chick, an Aracuana hen, the chick I would have chosen to live if I had only one choice. Out of the corner my eye, I saw the chick running with Daisy in fast pursuit. We called her off, but not before the chick escaped in the underbrush and according to Daisy, through the fence into the neighbor's yard.

Daisy was put on a leash, and I gingerly climbed the fence which is topped with barbed wire, had Lauren hand 40 lbs. of dog over the fence, and said "find it" without giving my command much thought. Now, 40 lbs. may not seem like much, but 40 lbs. on a scent is determination. She pulled me so that my arm shot out and I leaned backwards to try to stop her. Just as I came to a more upright position and rounded the neighbor's greenhouse, we hit a mud slick. I went down like a stone. My entire backside was oozing, stinking mud. My girls cackled at me through the fence. Very funny.

Daisy kept coming back to the same bush, on the OTHER side of the fence, our side. Sure enough, the hen was there. Heaps of praise were given to Daisy. In case you may wonder if she were the murderer, think again. She is afraid of chickens for the most part, except when tracking which has less to do with the chicken than the game of finding, and she wouldn't even look at the chicken once she found it.

High Schools Fail

From today's Courier-Journal:
Education Chief: High Schools Fail (click for link to full article)

Clips:
Many American high schools are failing to prepare students for work and college and must make changes, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in Louisville yesterday. ......

.....graduation rates and academic expectations are too low.

...Nationally, just 36 percent of seniors are proficient in reading and only 17 percent in math, according to a recent national exam.

...About 68 percent of ninth graders eventually graduate, while the rest drop out or earn a General Educational Development certificate. Many who go on to college need remedial courses."

My commentary:
Spellings (grand name for someone in education, isn't it?) is in town to promote Bush's high school reform agenda. From my reading of this article, it appears that the plan involves raising standards, expecting more from the students and more testing. Schools not meeting their goals will be punished!

Spellings, Bush and others pushing this movement might do well to read the book I am reading by Dr. Levine. My reading so far says that it isn't a matter of teaching harder, working harder but a need to work smarter with students. In this book, he discusses how even with successful students in successful schools, we often don't produce successful "starter adults", those entering a career for the first time. It often takes years to figure out the right path to take, and tragically, some people never find the right career to follow.

I am interested in his concept that we ask kids to excel at all subject, despite the fact that they might have an extrordinary ability in one area and little potential in another. Yet, when we enter the work force, we specialize most of the time. Perhaps the Bush administration would do well to throw away the old school paradigm and look at how we can raise successful people (adults) rather than feed more money into a system that obviously isn't working to produce "students".

As for me, both my kids can read well beyond their years, and they are on level for math. Therefore, I must be doing okay with homeschooling.

Histopathology

A new word we learned yesterday, among several others. The biopsy came in on Jorgen (pony), and thankfully, it wasn't cancer. I will give you the executive summary. It was basically found that he had a bacterial infection embedded within a dense bed of granulation tissue. No foreign bodies were found, nor infestation of any kind. The vet had not seen this before and has no idea as to the cause. The fact that it was bacterial in nature explains why the swelling was reduced when we used Neosporin, but the cream wasn't enough to completely cure the infection. I am hoping that this takes care of it, and that by disturbing the infection, it doesn't spread.

What We're Learning Today - Vet Science

Jorgen, as I have written, has a large swelling on his buttocks, between the cheeks. Today, we are going to try to treat it. The test results show an infection that is granulated. The vet said it is a new one on him, never seen anything like it. The good news is that it isn't cancer. We don't know what caused the infection. There doesn't seem to be a foreign body, as it lacks an entrance point. Such a wound usually presents a hole that stays open and some pus. This is a completely closed sweling. What we are going to do today or possibly tomorrow, is sedate him, clean out the swollen area of infection and give him antibiotics.

Dad, Age 5

My Dad

One of my first blogs was about my Grandpa, about how little information there is about him. His personality, his words were lost when he died early in his 40's. So few memories are ever written down, and they are so rich.

I encouraged my dad to write some of his memories, which is a monumental task, overwhelming, when put that way. He had written some, but then stalled for a little while. So, I asked him just to write about the cars he's owned. Here is the result: www.mylife.homestead.com At the bottom, you'll see the story about the cars. Though I didn't know it, he is a talented writer with imagery. He's afraid it's turning into a book. So what's wrong with that? What a gift he's given me with his words.

Sick

The girls were complaining of their cold symptoms yesterday, so having heard enough, I took them to the doctor. To my surprise, Lauren has strep. Well, sort of surprise, as the rest of us that have had colds have not taken to bed, and she has slept off and on for the last day or two.

Interestingly, she felt that now that the problem was diagnosed and medicine dispensed, she was ready for her pony games practice today. Not so fast, I told her, as IF you are up to pony game practice you will also go to your three hour work commitment at the stable and your piano class. I am not sure that she should go to any of it and need to research strep contagion.

Organization

My new goal of late is to try to do the one assignment Flylady sends me each day. One day this week, it was to clean the kitchen counters, and yesterday, to clean out the refrigerator. My greatest challenge at the present is keeping up with bills and books. We have so many books, for which I am grateful, but they are everywhere. I have been weeding them out, taking out books that I no longer want, so that there is shelf space for the truly worthy books. It will take a longggggggg time.

What I'm Reading

Ready or Not, Here Life Comes by Mel Levine, M.D. America's top learning expert shows how today's society makes it hard for kids to grow into productive adults and what we can do about it.

My favorite part so far, page 10:
"Rearing and educating children involves establishing some long-range priorities. I believe there is a present a vas gulf between what is taught in school and what is essential to learn for a gratifying adult work life. We overemphasize a host of facts and skills that will be of little or no use in the workplace. Often such educational practice has been ingrained in schools for generations without being sufficiently reexamined for its present-day relevance. Multiple-choice tests do not prepare a child for anything important in the adult sphere. Making a child feel terrible because his scrawl is barely decipherable is callous and needless; many adequately successful adults (the author included) are hardly paragons of legibility. How accurately a child can spell, how thoroughly he conquers trigononmetry, how precise he is at the game of memorizing and regurgitating historical facts, and how athletic he may be are irrelevant to almost any career you can name. On the other hand, the ability to think critically, to brainstorm, to monitor and refine your own performance, to communicate convincingly, and to plan and preview work are among the important skills that could make or break startup adults across countless occupations."

I am still reading the book, so I can't tell you what the solution is according to this author, but it is a very interesting look at what we are not doing today to prepare our young people to become successful adults.

Golf

It started innocently enough. As a newly married couple with no children, we filled some of our leisure time by enrolling in a class for beginning golf at a local university. It was interesting and fun to do together. For a beginner, I had some success and enjoyed being outside learning something new. I'd played golf only once before, and this class, I thought, would keep me from looking the fool when we went to play once or twice a year. Little did I know that the "fool" part would come from another direction.

We played casually, sometimes with another couple. I enjoyed being outside and golf courses are generally well-maintained beautiful land. I found, however, that if I tried to show my budding ability at hitting a small ball to a hole in the ground, that my playing deteriorated rapidly. In other words, if I tried to care about beating my female partner or show off, I'd start playing very badly. Putting was never once of my strong points, and I'd storm off in frustration after 20 little putts trying to get the dang ball to roll just right. "Stupid game," I'd mutter and walk off.

Dh's game, on the other hand, improved exponentially. Tall, well-balanced and graceful in movement, his ball sailed into the clouds with a satisfying whack. He began playing more often and reading about golf. Did you know that there are whole magazines and books devoted to nothing more than hitting a small white ball around with sticks until it drops in a hole?? That grown men can devote hours to TV watching of other people hit a little ball into a hole?

My frustration grew, as I wasn't willing to study golf for my MBG (Masters of Business and Golf). Finally, and I remember it was near my birthday, I was driving home when I reached a decision. I was going to tell dh that though I was going to support his game, I was disgusted enough with the game myself that I was never going to play again as long as I live, so help me God. I walked in the door and before I could speak, I saw it laying there. For my birthday, dh had given me a custom-made (read - can't return it to the store) set of women's golf clubs, cut down for my short stature. So much for quitting.

So how does it end years later? Dh's game continues to improve, and my clubs gather dust in the garage. Children filled my leisure time, and as they grew, their interest in horses took up some of that time. I still don't mind going for a day out in the sun, though I can't help the thought that golf courses are a good waste of a cross country (horse) course and trails.

Who is Junosmom?

For those of you that don't know me well, you may well wonder why I call myself "Junosmom". Juno was my Great Dane fawn female dog that I had for 8.5 years, and lost last April to bone cancer. She was the light of our lives, one of those dogs that only come once in awhile, both protector and friend. I named myself Junosmom early in my emailing career, and because there are people that know me by this nom de plume, I cannot change, though Juno has gone to the great pasture in the sky.

The other day, however, I "Googled" myself with a search for "junosmom". Weird, but many hits came up that someone was using this handle for themselves. Now, really, what is the chance that someone else would consider themselves the mom of something/someone named Juno??? Who is this person, I wondered and were they masquerading as me? Mostly, the second Junosmom was on bulletin boards that I've never visited. I'd love to email this person and find out why they are Junosmom, too. Just when you think you're unique, you find out that you aren't. mmmmm.............

Ad Content

I love watching the ads to the right and how the content links to what I write. I wrote some days ago about sarcoids and that it might be our pony, Jorgen has one. I laughed today to see that my ads are all about ringworm and excema. It takes several days for the content to change, so sometimes they don't match up with what I wrote.

I hope to send a check to the relief services someday soon, but won't get a check until the amount reaches $100.

Flylady

For those of you that know me, you know that I am a fan of the Flylady, who has a method of keeping the house and life in order (though you'd not know it from looking at the state of my own house). I have determined, however, that Flylady must not have a three year old. Yesterday, we had a horse that needed to be observed, so I decided that I would paint our "chicken tractor" which was near the paddock where he was confined. AND, I would let the three year old help. He always wants to paint, and the chicken tractor needed not so much to be painted to improve it's looks but to have a protective coating. What a great opportunity for him to paint, right? Wrong. In one second of inattention, he dumped out one-half of the paint onto the grass.

Flylady must also not homeschool. Her refrain is to shine your sink. My two daughters eat all day long. All day, there is activity in our kitchen like a beehive. Many a day you will hear me saying such profound things as "who left their plate on the table?" and "who dumped this oatmeal in the sink?" I do keep after them, but I've determined that there is something in the brain of a developing teen that can't understand picking up after oneself. It takes a constant nudge from a cattle prod to keep them from turning the house upside down. THIS is why people send their kids to school.

Enough complaining for today. William is using a glue stick on the windows of the office so I have to go.

Junosmom and my husband

Spring

Lauren commented that she thought it was supposed to be spring (and not this cold, rainy weather). This is actually how I envision Spring. Most years, Louisville weather jumps right from freezing to 90 degrees. I love nothing better than laying in my comfortable bed at night and listenting to the gentle rain fall. My lettuce and spinach in the garden is coming up nicely, instead of bolting to seed. I love the rain.

Rain keeps William inside. William has learned to use all the locks in the house, and lets himself out often. At three years old, this just isn't safe. I'll have to send for a locksmith this next week to deadbolt all the doors and maybe put chains on high up. This may not work, however, as I found him standing on the kitchen counter yesterday looking for the piano key. He'd pushed a kitchen chair over and climbed on up. Watching him is a full time job.

Over the Coals

My dh expects this post, and I wouldn't want to disappoint him. As we unloaded the new grill, he paused and looked up. "This is going to be in the blog, isn't it?" he asked. Well, how could I dismiss such obviously good material?

It took both of us to unload it from the truck, not so much because of the dimensions but because of the weight of it. All stainless steel with sharp edges, I envisioned it slicing right through the palms of my hands. From the main body, two wings jutted out to the sides. "Can't it just fly itself up to the deck?" I asked. It has about the same number of controls as a small engine plane.

I won't bore you with the cost of the thing, but suffice it to say that I could've replaced my refrigerator that is held together with packing tape and that has limped along for 16 years now. "I knew you'd say that," he laughed. Well, how could I not? I suppose the grill is a symbol of having arrived in the male kingdom.

Once, when I worked at Colgate's very male-dominated, very rough factory, I listened to the guys discussing their boats. I tried to repeat a phrase that I had heard my mom say before - that you can tell tell the men from the boys from the price of their toys. Only, I got it wrong and what I said was that "you can tell the men from the boys from the size of their toys". My co-workers rolled around on the floor laughing for about an hour after that. It took me awhile to understand their mirth.

So, I am retiring from cooking meat at least. We now have a summer kitchen, complete with a burner, rotisserie, and grill. This is good, because the back burner of my stove doesn't work anymore and sometimes the oven, for no apparent reason turns off mid-bake. (It displays an F2 error that I don't even want to decode in case the stove is cussing me.) I'll get a lot of mileage out of this purchase!

Sarcoids

We learned a new word today - sarcoid. Jorgen, Lauren's pony, has a growth between his buttocks. Nice topic, eh? One interesting cure we heard of, by chance, was that a friend's horse also has a sarcoid which the vet is treating with a bloodroot compound rather than surgery. We are scheduled for surgery on Jorgen this coming Tuesday. I am considering having the vet biopsy it first, rather than remove it and try the expensive (yet not as much as surgery) compound. My internet search turned up many references (including veterinary websites and vet websites) to the successful use of this salve to cure sarcoids.

The girls learn a lot from direct care of these animals. We have discussed a neighbor's horse after taking care of it for the weekend. The horse is skin and bones, and balding rather than shedding. The owner feeds lots of oats and blames the loss of weight on having had a case of colic. The girls and I know colic doesn't cause weight loss alone, and have learned that oats are for energy (they're carbohydrates), not weight gain. I've discussed with the owner that something was wrong with the horse, and she is calling the vet. We're interested to see the results.

Updates

Dad is home from the hospital, resting comfortably at home. He received a pacemaker/defibrillator on Monday. We had a nice visit yesterday.

Lauren flew home from Germany on Monday, getting here around midnight. We've just begun to hear her stories, but it sounds like it was a wonderful opportunity.

I wrote about Will in my blog under "Play Doctor" and that the intern was upset that he had dropped to about 15th percentile in height. I maintained that he was just not in a growth spurt and it would come. Since that appointment, about two months ago, he's grown a full inch, jumping to about 45th percentile.

Except for a few finishing touches, Anna's room makeover is done. I learned to install laminate flooring, measure, cut and install moulding, use a miter, jig, and table saw. I learned how to make moulding corners and how useful is caulk. I have yet to install the ceiling fan, but I know how to do it.

Horses: Jorgen has some kind of growth on his rear-end that is going to be surgically removed on Tuesday. That should be an interesting learning experience for my kids. They gave the horses their West Nile Virus shots yesterday, apparently not a moment too soon. We found an adult starling dead in our field.

Chickens: One of the two Araucana's I purchase is a rooster. Even as tiny as he still is, he rushes at anyone reaching into the cage as if to protect the other little ones. I am going to work on taming him.

Some of our chickens are older, and apparently not laying much. Anna brought the funniest egg down from the barn. It was about the size of a robin's egg, but brown like our chicken eggs, maybe a little darker. She found it in the chicken stall. I thought at first that a bird had gotten into the hen house, but they live in a converted horse stall. All openings are covered with chicken wire (to keep out varmits that eat chickens) and there is no way a bird could get in. So, one of the chickens laid this mini-egg, perhaps one of the older ones. Unfortuately, it was cracked, and thrown to the dogs, or I'd post a photo.

Coincidence?

I was trying to leave a message on a cell phone for Lauren, my daughter, when my call-waiting beeped in. It was Lauren calling from Germany to tell me she had a ride home from the airport. This past weekend, with my Dad in the hospital, twice I picked up the phone to call my sister, but before I could, she had called me. Many times it has happened that I'll be thinking as I drive the car, and then say out loud what I was thinking, and Anna, my daughter, will say "that's weird, that's just what I was thinking about!" This connection has happened also with my husband and my mom. More than once, I've pressed the button to get a dial tone to call Mom, only to find her already on the other end.

Probably one of the strangest occurrences was the morning I awoke and my first thought was "Something's wrong with Dad." I brushed it off because I knew that my sisters would call me if anything was wrong, yet all day I kept thinking that perhaps I should call. Later, my sisters did call, and Dad had spent the day in the hospital due to polyps that had caused bleeding.

I do not question that there is another sense or connection, perhaps like natural cell phones of which we humans are often oblivious. Our world is so full of noise and activity that it drowns out all my intuition and quiet messages. I don't think these are all coincidences, just times when the world quiets for a moment.

Prayers for Dad

My dad suffered his third heart attack yesterday. It was so good to hear his voice this afternoon on the phone. We are going tomorrow to visit him. He indeed has been blessed by God to have survived. He will have surgery tomorrow to install a defibrillator. I appreciate your prayers for his recovery.

Traffic School

The cop wasn't interested in any explanation two months ago when I was pulled over for going 13 miles per hour over the speed limit. He didn't want to know that I didn't know I was speeding, for the limit had just changed a few feet back, and I hadn't noticed, occupied as I was with a three year old screaming the same phrase over and over. He didn't care that I had two pre-teens talking at the same time or that I'd just spent two hours trying unsuccessfully get one daughter signed up for soccer in a very loud gymnasium. Perhaps he was right, I was speeding, he was waiting for me, and excuses are just that. It was a very bad day best forgotten.

In order to save my insurance rates and not get "points", I subjected myself to traffic school. Along with 42 other individuals, I sat for four hours of films on how to properly attach my seat belt, road conditions and statistics. Here are some of my more interesting learnings:

It is legal to drive barefoot in Kentucky.
It is legal for an adult to ride unrestrained in the back of a pickup truck.
It is legal to make a U-turn anywhere in Kentucky as long as the conditions for doing so are safe.

I am not sure safety school is going to make me safer after all.
Signed,
Barefoot Cathy who drives an F-150

SOS History of Kentucky Review

I grew up in Ohio, where part of the curricula is learning the history of Ohio. I can recall from this class that Ohio has 88 counties, which is the only piece of trivia I retain. Yet, I thought it might be wise to cover something of the state, make that Commonwealth, in which we live. I purchased the Switched-On-Schoolhouse Kentucky History program.

The lessons in the program are short and sweet, though not particularly exciting or enlivening. Focusing too much on dates and facts, the content misses some key points. For example, we delved into the issue of slavery in this border state. One interesting point was that Kentucky was the only state that had members in the cabinet of both the Union and Confederate governments. It was stated that Kentucky did not have a large number of slaves, but did not at all touch the reasons why. From other reading that I have done, I know that Kentucky was a breeding state: many slaves here were coldly used, like livestock, to produce more slaves, which were then sold South.

The program is most entirely about white settlement. There is a brief mention in the beginning about the Indians that built the Wickliffe Mounds, but only in passing. No mention is made of how the white settlers came to control the land, or what happened to the populations displaced because of their settlement.

While it has served as a starting point for further study, it concerns me greatly that this shallow look at Kentucky History might used by some as comprehensive, which it most certainly is not. I would purchase it again though, as we have used it as a basis for further discussion. For example, we recently talked over dinner what it means that Kentucky is a Commonwealth, and not a State.

Visiting places in Kentucky, tied into good, real books, is a more lasting way to learn about Kentucky. I don't want to teach my children how many counties there are, but no real understanding of this beautiful place. I leave you with a list of books I have really enjoyed, but are for the older reader. I'd love to put together a list of good books on Kentucky History for the middle school age, and would like to hear from you if you have suggestions.

The following is a series by Janet Holt Giles, a Kentucky author, dealing with white settlement. Some graphic violence, particularly in The Kentuckians, is not suitable for young children.

The Kentuckians
Hannah Fowler
The Believers

At the Zoo

Unschooling

By necessity, we are unschooling these days. Lauren, who is in Germany, is learning about German culture. At least I hope so. In her first call home, she said that they had gone to a pizzeria their first night there. I envisioned her eating sausages and sauerkraut. It will be interested to see what she learns from this trip.

Though she is reluctant to do so because they are so loud, Anna is learning a little about using the saws (see article below) and measuring. She is also working on web design, writing, and she is keeping up with a few of the programs I have for her independent work.

Yesterday, because the day was so beautiful, we took a break from our work to go to the zoo. What a wonderful day it was.

I think unschooling is terrific, and more meaningful learning. It does, however, require more journaling on my part and I wonder where I'll fit one more thing I need to do?

Cardinal Sin

This week, I did something I swore to myself I'd never do - I learned to use my husband's saws. Refusing to learn something basic is a survival instinct in our house. Not knowing how to run the saws, I had the mental excuse why I could not fix some of the many things around the house and barn that should be fixed. Dh just isn't home enough to fix all those things, and though we've hired someone for most of the remodeling, I am annoyed at the pace of his work. I suppose a determined woman can out-work a man anyday.

Other reasons for not running the saws is the mental picture of severed body parts, caused by inattention while sawing. Sawing is not a multi-tasking type of activity. It requires total attention. I am finding, however, that small dogs and small children are afraid of the sound, and will stand back.

Few men would tolerate my working conditions. I am replacing the floor with laminate flooring and the moulding in my daughter's 2nd floor bedroom. The saws are in the walk-out garage at basement level. Here is a typical "cut": I make my measurements, change Will's diaper, get him a drink of water, carry his 30 pounds downstairs, accompanied by our three dogs. I plug in the saws, which I unplug each use for safety around a three year old who is smart enough to turn them on. By now, I've forgotten my measurement, unplug the saw, and run back upstairs with paper to write it down. On the way down, answer questions of daughter. Make cut, and carry wood back up two flights of stairs, accompanied by son and three dogs. There, I realize the wall isn't square, and need to cut off 1/4 inch of the moulding. Sneak out quickly to run back downstairs to make the cut before my parade of kids and dogs realize I'm gone. Will has his toy, or sometimes, my real hammer when I return, and declares his intent to help me. Somehow, I manage to get through the day and actually get some of the work done.

Lauren on Jorgen at the Bluegrass Open

Out into the World

I remember once saying that I would only want to homeschool if we had the means to show the world to the kids through travel. (Silly me, I envisioned that I would be involved in the equation!)

Yesterday, Lauren embarked on her adventure to Germany. She will be in the Mounted Pony Games Pairs Competition for the United States team. I am so proud of her that she has the confidence and and is responsible enough that I feel comfortable letting her go. What an exciting world this is!

Slam Dunk

Huh! This morning, my husband (dh) was remarking that our three year old insists on putting any razors he finds in dh's shaving kit back in the original packaging (thereby mixing the duller razor with new ones). He is very insistent that they all stay together.

"He seems to have an organization gene," says dh. He pauses and looks at me, "Though I don't know where he gets it." Huh. Back to reading the Flylady.

Signs of Spring

We stop by a pond nearby to look for signs of spring. Last week, we saw six turtles the size of dinner plates. This week, we spied two Canadian geese with five goslings. My three year old remarked, "Look at the tiny geese! Not the big ones are tiny, but the tiny ones are tiny!"

Shopping Hell

If you know me, you know I'd rather shovel manure than go shopping. Seriously. Shopping with a three year old for two pre-teens is challenging enough, but the selections available today make it impossible. Who are the people designing these clothes??

My daughters have just now crossed over from the big girls' section into the juniors section, which is when all the trouble began. There seems to be no standard for jeans manufacturing, and each brand's size fits differently. My long-waisted modest eleven year old will not wear hip huggers, which seems to be about all that is sold these days. She says they feel like they're falling off. My petite thirteen year old will wear hip huggers, but the jeans today are all made skin tight around the thighs, and that bothers her.

I suppose it is a sign of my advancing age that I am amused by the young girls I see shopping in the stores, wearing these jeans. Since when is showing your butt crack like a construction worker considered sexy?

And what designer decided that women want to go around dressed like Easter eggs? All the colors this year are lime green, robin's egg blue, orange, bright pink and yellow. Everything we saw were those colors, or worse, a combination of those colors. All departments were like that, including those where I'd normally shop for myself. As I looked yesterday, I saw the alternative: I was next to the "granny shop" where I could outfit myself in nautical themes though I've not been on a cruise and there seems to be no boat on the horizon.

After more than once having a heart attack because Will, our three year old, was in the middle of a clothes rack hiding, we called it a day. A few plain t-shirts and a pair of jeans each for four hours of shopping. And other women enjoy this?

Is It Safe?

The most common response to the news that my 13 year old is going on a (chaperoned) trip to Germany is "Is it safe?" Safety. It is an interesting question to me, because it is based on an assumption that world in which we live, here in America, is "safe". I suppose relatively, it is. My children are not in a war torn county, they have all their needs met, they have clean water to drink, and they have parents that love them.

Increasingly, the evening news and newspapers point out, however, that even here, where we consider life "safe", it isn't for many people. Daily, I read about crashes on the local, unsafe highways. The news is full of violence on children, violence by children. Children abducted as they sleep from their own beds, or on their way to the local store blocks from their homes. Methamphetamine labs seem to be the new cottage industry around here. TV shows and video games intrude into our homes with material that no child should see, and perhaps no adult.

One of my most fundamental wishes for my children is to protect them and keep them safe. So how does one send them out into such a large world? If I could, I would go with her, not making her anymore safe, but assuring myself daily that she is indeed safe. The hard part isn't letting her go, it is staying home and waiting for her return.

Photo by Anna

Spring

I know it is spring when the girls beg for chicks from our local farm store. We started our chicken house several years ago, and it has been a rewarding learning experience. We've learned a lot about chickens and eggs, life and death. This year, we got two Aracanas in my mistaken hope that we might actually own a hen that lays an egg. (Of course, that is if the two we chose are female.) The remaining five were bantam chicks (miniature replicas of full size breeds) which the girls prefer as pets.

The next day after purchase, Anna brought one chick to the house, its head lolling off the edge of her hands. The shock of the new home was too much for it, or it was weak in some way. Being close to animals, we have learned more just how fragile life can be.

We have one rooster and seven full size hens, which are aging. I get only one egg from the same hen daily, yet they all eat my chicken feed. Now, in the good old days, a farm wife would've taken care of these slacker chickens on a Sunday afternoon. Not here. We now run a retirement home for old chickens.

Mowing

I set the mower deck lower to try to cut off the offending heads of the dandelions, but they hunkered down below the grass, waiting until I'd passed by to pop back up. I spent hours grooming our now emerald green lawn, riding around on our mower, but surveyed the results with satisfaction. The next morning, from my window I could see a sea of yellow flowers, and that some had had the audacity to turn to seed.

As I cut, I wondered why this obsession with having a cut lawn. As I sit on the mower I think what a waste, of gas and time. I have read that perhaps it is a leftover instinct from our African ancestors, my own savannah where I can see enemies approaching because the grass is not too high. It keeps trees from sprouting in unwanted areas. More importantly, it keeps the neighbors happy. There is some sense of satisfaction in completing the task. A job well done, a bit of control over my own little world.