Waldo Found!

Yay Andrea!! Thank you! Waldo has been found.

Finally I can use the K2 theme I’ve wanted. Andrea has finally fixed the image header problem that was not allowing me to use my photo of Waldo, Florida as the banner. THIS is what my banner is supposed to look like. It wasn’t too bad with the Freshy theme, but it was so squished up that you really couldn’t see the beauty of the lake and sky. You can really see the rainbow now.

I can’t wait to go back to this lake next month!

THIS is Waldo.

June 27, 2007 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | 7 Comments 

Happy Homeschooling Anniversary (aka “I was a newbie once”)

Today is the one year anniversary of my kids’ last day of public school. It is also the one year anniversary of this blog, and it looks like I’ll top 10,000 hits today. Unbelievable!

Here is a little story I started writing a few months ago and decided to finish in honor of the occasion.

Hello. I’m the new or prospective homeschooler at your park day. I found your group online. I have a 1 yr old, a 3 yr old and a 5 yr old. I can’t imagine sending any of them to public school. I can’t afford private school for three kids. I’m investigating my options.

I’ve been thinking about homeschooling my children, but all the homeschoolers I know are weird. I’m here at your park day to observe you. You may not realize just how much observing I’m doing. I’ve introduced myself, and told you my desire to homeschool. Now I’m watching you. I’m trying to figure you out. I want to see if your kids are weird. I want to know if you are “training up a child.” I know better than to ask outright.

Wow. You seem amazingly — well — NORMAL! Your kids are really friendly. My kids are having a great time with them. But are you weird? Are they weird? I already know that I’M weird! I already know that my kids are weird. Will the world be able to see that? Will they blame our weirdness on homeschooling if we choose that route?

Unfortunately, I think they will. They do. That scenario was ME 5 years ago. And the impression that I continue to get from friends and family is that homeschoolers are weird and socially awkward. That homeschoolers are conservative Christians who want to protect their kids from the secular world. Have any of them ever stopped to think that some people choose to homeschool because their kids ARE different? That perhaps their kids were abused in school and would never thrive? Have they ever stopped to think that perhaps some of those “weird” kids are just not comfortable around their age peers because they are so far beyond them intellectually? Not that this fits my own children, but I know it fit my sister’s kids.

The 7th Country Fair is up and this issue celebrates the incredible diversity among homeschoolers. There is no way one can make any blanket statements about a group that is so heterogenous, so why is it that people continue to judge others based on a few personal observations? What is weird anyway? Who defines it? What is it with stereotypes?

We have certain expectations of children based on our beliefs about school and age-appropriate behavior. We judge by what we know. We project our worldview on others. It is human nature. I did it, and I continue to do it, but I am aware of it and try to be more objective.

It took me four years of observing, researching and questioning to come to grips with the realization that my educational paradigm was way screwed up. It was all I knew. I followed it faithfully without question. It worked for me. It has worked for countless others. Regardless, I never felt quite right about sending my kids down that same path. So I entered homeschooling with all the stereotypes that anyone who hasn’t followed that educational path has. I took a leap in faith that what I believed about education was more limited than what was really possible.

I am happy to have spent those years observing and then finally, one year ago today, entering “their” realm. My kids are not 1, 3, and 5 anymore. They are 6, 8, and 10 and have one successful year of homeschooling behind them.

Happy First Homeschooling Anniversary to me!

June 20, 2007 | Filed Under Homeschool Issues | 9 Comments 

I Could Never Homeschool

Nance posted on “Cocking a Snook” yesterday about her “aha” moment regarding people who say “I could never homeschool.” Her post brings up what I think is a very valid point regarding the perspective of those who don’t believe in homeschooling

“So picture yourself and your children having attended institutional school for years. Since you were very young. You have always been told not to trust your own judgement, to study what is next in the curriculum whether it interests you or not, to view the world as a set of tasks and tests set out by someone else. You are compelled to participate in this system by your family and the law.

Try to imagine what homeschooling, especially unschooling, must look like from that point of view. It must be quite frightening. Chaos!”

So if that little snippet sounds intriguing, go read the rest of the post. It really is quite well done.

The reason I agree with her is that I had that perspective. It took YEARS of research and discussion of homeschooling for me to let go of my educational paradigm and do something that seemed so weird and scary.

Where I disagree with her is with this point

“None of the information that homeschoolers share with non-homeschoolers really matters.

Because they are absolutely right. They are not capable of homeschooling. It would be cruel to ask them to. (Not that anyone was asking them to . . .)”

If it weren’t for those discussions, where homeschoolers thought they’d never get through to me, or worse, wouldn’t even bother trying, I would have never found the resources necessary to make that paradigm shift.

I’m closing in on the one year anniversary of beginning this journey, and it is the best decision we ever made.  Thanks to all the people I’ve met along the way who have taught me so much about how people learn!

June 18, 2007 | Filed Under Homeschool Issues | 2 Comments 

Making up for lost wine…

OK. OK. So the saying is a little different than that. However, I’ve been away at a family camp (homeschool) since Sunday and it was alcohol free. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but in this case, well, I could have used a drink!

The camp was GREAT! The kids had a blast. The coordinator of the camp must pretty much give up her entire life for several weeks prior to and during this event. It was the most amazing example of a cooperative effort that I have ever seen. Kudos to Dee Dee!!

The thing I am NOT used to is being around about 60+ children at the same time for 4 full days. Yikes. I thought my three boys were a handful! Apparently I haven’t been around much.

We escaped with one bee sting, one humiliating “pantsing” episode, and one band-aid. The last item being a true miracle given the slope of the paths and the speed of the scooters! I’m sure that given a few weeks, I will be remembering this camp as the best thing we ever did. But at this moment, I’m still recovering — thanks to my Argentinian malbec.

In this photo, we are making sushi (that’s me with the sunglasses on my head, because you never know when the sun might get too bright indoors). The boy to my right in orange is Alvin (8), and to my left in light blue is Theodore(6), and across from me in orange is Simon (10):

Sushi

I’ll bet that just looks like so much fun! It was. We went through about 100 sheets of nori, which means a shit-load of sushi for dinner. It was a most amazing sight. There were two tables full of ingredients (tuna, salmon, imitation crab, cucumber, avacado, carrots, sauteed sweet potatoes, grilled red peppers, creamed cheese, spring onions, etc.). The more amazing thing was that it was delicious. Thanks to Lyla and Lisa for coming up with such a neat activity!

It all sounds and looks so neato, until you think about sleeping on a cot in a room with 15 people. Since there were 8 dorms that could handle 15 people each, it was quite an amazing thing. Luckily, not all beds were filled. A rough estimate would be that there were 25 empty beds among the 8 dorms. Regardless, our particular dorm was damn-near full and it was not easy sleeping.

Dorm

Imagine a scooter rolling across a linoleum covered floor on a raised wooden platform floor at 5:45 a.m. Yes. That was a real situation here! It wasn’t until I acquired a can of WD-40, that I was able to say I would stay after the first night. The bathroom door (center door in the picture ((oh yes, I’m complaining, and there was actually a bathroom in the dorm)) was sooooooooooooo loud! I had to nip that in the bud or leave. It is that simple.

So we are home. Safe. Relatively unharmed.

We know a lot more cuss words now. And we can burp while we say things.

Thank god for homeschooling and socialization! :)

June 15, 2007 | Filed Under Trips and Travel, Learning, Parenting | 4 Comments 

Music Meme (I’m on a meme roll lately)

Another meme. This one from COD (btw, Google Analytics says I got a hit here from the search term cod ugly!).

How it works.

1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/

2. Pick the year you turned 18 (left column)

3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year

4. Write something about how the songs affected you

5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

When I first read this meme, I thought it would be great. I am a music addict afterall, but then I looked at the list for 1982 and I realized that I skipped the 80s — musically that is. Oh, and mentally too, because while I know I lived through them, I don’t remember a thing.

Here’s the best I can do with a list of songs that bring back absolutely no memories:

Juke Box Hero - Foreigner
One of my favorite bands at the time. This song was great and reminds me of their concert tour to promote the 4 album. We forgot to take our tickets with us and didn’t realize it until we parked the car at the Capital Center. Had to drive all the way back to Virginia to get the tickets and completely missed Billy Squier’s opening act.

Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar
I sang and still sing Pat Benatar songs at the top of my lungs (when I’m alone in the car). I adore her. I always thought it was kind of cool that she was tiny like me.

867-5309 (Jenny) - Tommy Tutone
Didn’t EVERYONE know this number by heart? And to think all these years later, not only do they still know it, but they FIGHT over it?

Leather and Lace - Stevie Nicks and Don Henley
This one brings back “mean girl” memories of our high school talent show. A girl several of us liked to talk about behind her back performed that song with another friend of ours. Some of us on the yearbook committee thought it would be funny to completely edit her out of a photo of the two of them singing. What ended up in the yearbook was a picture of a guy sitting on a stool playing his guitar and the right foot of this girl (she was on a stool next to him with her legs crossed, so when we cropped her out of the picture, her foot was still showing). We wrote a caption that said something like this, “Serenading this shoe, Mark [last name] strums and sings to ‘Leather and Lace.’” Oh such proud memories. No wonder I’ve blocked so much from my mind.

Truly - Lionel Richie
I played this song over the phone for my long-distance boyfriend, love of my life at the time, because the words really meant something to me. After it was over, he said something I’ll never forget — that he’d never like a song written by some [insert ugly racial word beginning with N here]. That was the beginning of the end for us.

I won’t torture my readers with a Lionel Richie video.

So that’s it for me. I’m now tagging:

Stephanie
Kris
Dawn
Theresa
If you want to be the fifth person, feel free to tag yourself!

June 8, 2007 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 2 Comments 

The Birds and the Bees and the Okracoke Ferry

(Note: For some reason, I am unable to upload photos to my blog, so I had to load these pictures from a different site.  Hopefully it won’t take too long.)

We’ve been vacationing in the northern part of the Outer Banks for, well, forever it seems — at least 25 years. We’ve driven down to Hattaras several times, but we’ve never ridden the ferry to Okracoke Island before. This year, I was determined that we would do it. We rented a house for two weeks this year, so there was no reason not to spend one day making the trip south.

We waited about 30 minutes to drive onto the ferry. Here I am hanging out in the car:

Ferry Ride

We were all sitting in the car and I noticed that the sea gulls were sitting on the pilings by the car (see poles to right of car). They were kind of neat, so I popped out of my window and sat on the car door snapping pictures. I was particularly intrigued by the pole that had two gulls on it, because most of the poles only had one.

Birds1

I snapped several shots in a row, showing their different movements:

Birds2

Birds3

Birds4

They were so neat. I got tired of snapping pictures of them though and I hopped back into my seat. All the sudden, there was this shrieking and squawking and we all looked up and saw this:

Birds5

LOOK MOM!! They’re fighting!! I think that big one wants the little one to get off that pole!

June 5, 2007 | Filed Under Trips and Travel, Learning | 7 Comments 

8 Facts/Habits Meme

Kris at Paradise Found tagged me for this 8 Things Meme the other day, but I’m vacationing at the beach and have limited internet access. I figured I’d try now before I forget.

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

  1. I get my morning caffeine in cold form — Diet Coke — every day. Three of them. I’m gonna die from it, I’m sure.
  2. I like to study maps of all kinds. When I was a kid, my friends teased me because I knew where every street within a 5 mile radius of my house was — even little cul-de-sac streets. Google Earth is the coolest thing ever to be available to me. Now I can see aerial photos of places rather than just lines.
  3. I take off my shoes in restaurants and sit Indian style criss-cross-apple-sauce while I eat. Don’t tell my mother.
  4. When my hair gets too long and needs a trim, I mess with the dry split ends. It isn’t very attractive, but I can’t help it.
  5. I love Skittles and Neccos. Chocolate is OK, but I really prefer hard candy.
  6. Between summer 2004 and fall 2005 (for many reasons) I gained 45 pounds. In 2006 I lost 25 of it, but I can’t seem shed the rest. Now I look like a 43 year old mother of three — like I should, I guess. It’s the inside that matters, right? That’s what I tell my kids anyway.
  7. Perhaps number 6 is due to the fact that I send a monthly donation to the gym rather than actually visiting there 3-4 times a week the way I used to.
  8. I count things — like stairs, my steps when I’m walking alone, telephone poles, little screw holes in metal bathroom stall doors where hinges have been moved (yes, there IS a story behind that one)…

Since I’m at the beach and have other priorities (sunning on the beach, collecting shells, drinking beer) I’m not going to tag anyone for this meme! I don’t do chain e-mails either, and I’m still alive.

June 1, 2007 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 1 Comment