Of California and Other Catchings-Up

I'm not sure, but I may have quit blogging altogether.

Oh, no, wait... I'm here, so I guess I haven't.

Whatever. So here's a quick (ha ha; yes, I know you don't believe me; I don't believe myself either)... anyway, a quick rundown of life since I last posted:

DRAMA:

Cheez ran off to California with a guy she met on the internet. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not joking. No, I didn't build up to this and ease you in nicely. That's too much work. BAM! That's how it is.

Well, okay, she didn't really "run" off to California; she drove off. And he drove. They both drove. He flew in on a Saturday, slept on our couch, had breakfast and conversation with us, and helped her pack the Cherokee she hasn't finished paying us for. Then off they went.

He lives with his family, understand, and so Cheez is living with his family as well. That was apparently his Mom's idea. (Thanks, lady; I so appreciate that.) Supposedly the two of them are "just friends", although my Facebook Spy (a sporadically-used necessary evil since I am blocked from her page) tells me otherwise.

Yes, it was weird. It felt strange to be having breakfast and making conversation and almost having a nice time getting acquainted with this person. It was as though we were perfectly fine with the whole thing, which we weren't. Although he is not a Christian, he is very nice, polite, well-spoken, well-read, and short. We would actually like him if he weren't... well, you know... taking our daughter to live with him in California. 

Before they left, I gave her the new markers I'd bought for our homeschool. Cheez may be old enough to move across the country, but she loves coloring and loves crayons & markers. She was touched by my gift. So was her friend. "Way cool! You're giving these to us?" he asked, clearly pleased. The "us" annoyed me. They're just friends, right? "Us" makes them sound like a couple. I had been nice & friendly with him up to that point, but no longer. I looked him in the eye and said without the hint of a smile, "No. I'm giving them to HER." Later when he shook my hand and said goodbye, I looked him in the eye again and said... and you have to understand that I am in no way a confrontational person and that even looking someone in the eye and making a strong statement is very out of character for me... I said firmly, "You don't share markers unless you're married." He nodded and scampered away. I thought it was a very clever thing to say, and I was very proud of myself for making my point. Somebody had to. About half an hour after they left, I realized that it was actually a really stupid thing to say. Oh well. At least now he knows why Cheez wanted to move as far away from me as possible.

She keeps in touch. So far she seems to be happy and enjoying herself. I packed up a box for her with a canvas bag she'd left behind and stuffed it with notebooks and crayons and more markers. I didn't cry.

MORE DRAMA:

The night before Cheez left, I went to my Happy Place, a.k.a. Facebook, only to find it not such a happy place for the moment. Turns out I had been rather publicly chewed out by one of my "friends", an interesting and complicated young man who is only a few years older than my own young adult kids. Though I remember him fondly as a little guy, I'd lost track of him for many years and have only recently been getting re-acquainted, primarily via Facebook. Much of our dialogue there takes the form of light-hearted repartee. Apparently, however, I'd committed a Banter Gone Awry and had hit a nerve with one of my comments. Oops. Way to go, me. So much for getting on Facebook to escape and chill and be happy.

Given that I was already a bit of a basket case over Cheez, I really had no other option at that point than to just totally lose it. But I quickly realized that, just as my tears were not really about him, his tirade was not really about me. Between the lines, it said, "You have it good, but my life is really hard, plus I get lonely." So I apologized profusely for my insensitive comment and then invited him for dinner. What else could I do? The invitation was gladly accepted, and to top it off, I received both a private and a public apology from him as well. It was wonderful to have a crisis that was so easily fixed. And with my heart already ripped wide open, there was room in it for somebody else, and I kind of wanted to adopt him. Given the general infeasibility of such an arrangement, however, I decided to settle for simply making sure he has a place to come to for dinner sometimes and someone he can kinda sorta think of as his local family. Even if it's just boring old us.

And I'm thinking that maybe God will send someone to do the same for my kids when they need it.

DRAMA OF A MUCH LIGHTER VARIETY:

One evening between dishes and soccer pickup, Fuzz and I had "the talk." Yes, that talk. You know, the crowning moment in which all the little bits & pieces I'd thrown out over the years and especially over the last year are pulled together and the full details are revealed. That one. She was in the kitchen asking questions and it was just time. Her reactions were predictably amusing: "Ewwww. Really? Ewwww... When? Where?... Why would anyone WANT to?... More than once?????... Ewww.... You're too old, right?"

This, by the way, made for a GREAT Facebook post and ensuing conversation. Yes, I "hid" the post from my underage friends. And no, I have no shame about embarrassing my kids on Facebook.

THINGS THAT MADE ME SMILE:

*Six days after Cheez left, I was in Home Dropout buying paint when a kid came running up to me asking, "Hey, how's Cheez? Where is she?" It took me a minute to realize that he was one of her friends from high school. I was tickled that he recognized me and happy that he'd asked about her.

*I wanted to take dinner to a family in our church who's going through a crisis, so when I saw Spaz chatting on FB with the 18-year-old son, I hi-jacked his chatbox and asked if I could bring dinner over and when and what did they like and so on. I suppose I took the kid by surprise. His answers were very nonchalant, consisting of such highly-affirming words as "i guess so" and "sure", until I typed "chicken enchiladas sound good?" The answer came back immediately: "omg YES!!!!!" I felt suddenly buoyed and couldn't wait to make that dinner.

FUN STUFF:

A friend and I took the kids out to the Big Lake. Is it sad that we live 20 minutes away and hadn't been there yet this summer? I think so. Hubz is not a beach guy, so that rules out family outings (except in the off-season when it's cold and everyone wears clothes and we walk the pier). If I want to go, I have to take the kids myself or find a friend to go with. I was not about to let the summer go by without a Lake Michigan outing, so I made it happen. Of course, we happened to pick about the coldest day of the entire summer. I pretty much sat in a chair wearing my hoodie, except when I was up taking pictures wearing my hoodie. The water was freezing, but thanks to a stiff wind, the breakers were fantastic.

MORE FUN STUFF

*We had a few longtime friends over for food & games. They were supposed to be outdoor games, but it was really stinkin' hot (note: this was two days after the freezing-cold beach outing), so we made it an indoor event. I tell you, there is no antidote for a glum mood like fresh veggies, cold Mike's, Apples to Apples, and REALLY GOOD FRIENDS. Especially all at the same time. And especially when the good friends are real people with whom we can really be real about our real lives. Really. I don't know why we don't all get together more often.

*On Labor Day (today), we got together at my parents' with family and a few church friends. Instead of hiding behind the camera, I played volleyball for the first time in decades-- and did not make an utter fool of myself. Close, but not quite utter. I did get off a few good serves. It was truckloads of fun.

STUFF I DID THAT WAS PRODUCTIVE:

Well, this should be a short list, which is good since this post is much overlong.

I picked veggies from my garden. I painted Cheez' old room. I continued researching curriculum for our upcoming schoolyear (and yes, I know that is hopelessly pathetic, and I know you had your curriculum all purchased last March and have been doing school for three weeks now). I started my second stint of seasonal work at the school portrait company where I worked last fall, because I am utterly insane and don't have enough to do. I may have cleaned the house once or twice.

I finished my eighth and final "frivolous" book of the summer (six fantasy fiction & two memoir, and by the way, that is about eight times the number of just-for-fun books that I generally read in an entire year) and began reading the distinctly non-frivolous The Ragamuffin Gospel. This time I plan to make it beyond the first chapter, and in fact, I already have.

THINGS I DID TOO MUCH OF:

Coffee. Facebook. Agonizing over decisions. Staying up late. Getting up late.


WELL. That is quite enough catching up for now.



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Yes, As a Matter of Fact, I Did Fall Off the Face of the Earth

So apparently I am on some sort of extended blogging hiatus. Had I known about this ahead of time I could have made some sort of announcement to that effect, thereby saving myself all the guilt of having a sadly neglected blog (or two). Because, you know, when you announce ahead of time that you are going to neglect your blog for a while take a "blogging break", you are being intentional. When you just sort of let your blog sit without any sort of preliminary statement, you are being a slacker.

Now that I've made an announcement somewhere in the middle, I'm not sure what that makes me. An intentional slacker, maybe.

I suppose you all are wondering what I've been doing during my hiatus. Nothing earth-shattering, sorry to say. Mostly stressing and obsessing-- and planning, among other things, the location of my padded cell. Because, although I never did say so here until now, we are, in fact, homeschooling Spaz for 9th grade. (And probably 10th and maybe just all the way through, but for now, it's enough to think about 9th.)

Yes, of course I should blog about how we came to that decision. There are a lot of things I should or could or would blog about. And perhaps I will...

But right now I'm on hiatus.

Or maybe I'm on sabbatical. That sounds even more intentional.

Or whatever. Maybe I'm just being a slacker.




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Weekly Wrap-Up: In Which It is Very Hot and I Cease to Be Forty-Four

Only a two-week WrapUp this time? I seem to be getting somewhat less slothful.

So here's my last two weeks...

It was hot. I was lazy. I hung laundry and watered my veggies. I drove somebody somewhere. I read Tolkien. I carried on an email conversation. I made something resembling supper.

Repeat. Repeat again, and again, and again. Repeat several more times.

The end.

Okay, not quite. There may have been a few other things. Such as...

*I turned 45. I celebrated by unintentionally waking up early, intentionally reading The Fellowship of the Ring in bed while eating chocolate, falling back to sleep, waking up to the phone and realizing I should be leaving to take the kids to my mom's, taking the kids to my mom's, having a nice chat with my mom before leaving kidless, and having a late lunch at Logan's with Hubz. Then I planted my 3rd or 4th batch of carrots, read some more and maybe did some puzzles, felt too blah for much dinner, and read some more until the Return of the Kids. It was not a very exciting birthday, but it was a relaxing one.

*I took Fuzz and my niece (my brother's daughter) to Michigan's Adventure amusement park as a reward for learning all their memory verses in Kids' Club this past year. (Church paid for our tickets.) Since my sister lives five minutes from the park --which is an hour's drive for us-- we invited her and her two girls to meet us. It was a mostly-fun day peppered with a few "moments," which I suppose is inevitable when there are several stubborn female children who want to do different things at the same time. The waterpark portion of the day ended with the four tired girls splashing in one of the wave pools while the newly unencumbered moms made one trip after another down the nearby Snake Pit slides in defiance of our old age.

*Fuzz gave up on The Fellowship of the Ring (which, to my dismay and amusement, she had swiped from me almost as soon as I'd checked it out of the library) after only one-and-a-half chapters and decided to look for something else in the same genre. She settled on Eragon and its sequels and has been reading happily ever since, with short breaks for chores, meals, and sleep.

*We left the kidlets home to fend for themselves one night (it is so nice to be able to do that) and had dinner at the home of some friends.

*We went to fireworks with my parents on July 3 and then had nothing to do on the fourth or fifth. (Hubz hates crowded beaches, we deemed it too hot to watch a parade, our ill-shaded yard gets too hot in July to throw parties, and no one invited us over. Boo-hoo.) I felt down in the dumps about this.

*Hubz redeemed Independence Day for me by deciding to (finally) have my family birthday celebration. When this was announced, I promptly declared it to be my Second Birthday (not the day I turn two, but you know, like Second Breakfast) and dragged a chair out to the shade underneath the willow tree where I spent several hours reading The Two Towers while waiting for the "party" to begin. We were tired of trying to work around the older kids' work schedules and their lack of communication, so we invited my parents over to replace them. Since it was my Second Birthday, I made everyone play Five Crowns, a game which no one except me ever wants to play because it takes too long. I won by two points. 

*I went for my re-certification as an election worker, which basically consists of listening for two hours to an Important Person of the County go through all the how-to's and wherefores of working the election. Now I am all set to work both the primary and general elections this year. It is less interesting than jury duty, but it pays better and it beats settin' home.

*I took Fuzz to the library for her first volunteer stint at the Reading Club help desk. She was so excited she could hardly stand it.

*We picked out a new dishwasher to replace the one we haven't used for eight months because it just kinda quit getting the dishes clean. Although it may well be (as I'm sure Hubz supposes) that Real Women wash dishes by hand anyway, I finally decided I was just plain fed up with being a Real Woman. So was Spaz (and what teenage boy wouldn't be?). Unfortunately, we'll have to be Real Women for a few weeks longer until our friend has time to install the new dishwasher for us. I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

*I managed to finagle an invitation from some Friends With Pool (which are definitely the Best Sorts of friends to have during a scorcher). Of course, the day we went was the day the heat wave broke and it rained. No, it poured. The sun did come out again in the nick of time, but the kids --my kids, anyway-- would have been in the pool regardless.

*Hubz and his sister went three hours north to be with their mom and stepdad since their mom was undergoing surgery. She came through it fine. 

*Spaz went to yet another party for his "Friday School" classmates. We had dawdling issues with chores during the hours prior, so I was a mean mom and made him finish them and go 45 minutes late. (It helped that Hubz wasn't around; he generally chooses mercy over meanness.) For the entire half-hour drive, I resisted my normal tendency to attempt to verbally pound into his head the fact that his lateness was a consequence of his earlier dawdling. He knew it anyway. Yay, me. 

*I picked Spaz up from a post-party sleepover and stood out in the heat at his friend's house watching, not for the first time, three teenagers having an absolute riot horsing around in one of those little pop-up pools that we'd both contemplated and resisted buying for years. Then we said phooey on our well-water worries and went and bought one. Yes, it is a 2-1/2-foot deep pool, and yes, my kids are 11 and 14. They still think it beats the sprinkler-under-trampoline thing with which we've tried to appease them for years. They were and are ecstatic and jumped in shortly after it was filled. (Yes, it was cold. Ask them whether they cared.) I am less than ecstatic, but not the least bit surprised, about the orange-ish water, which turned greeny-orange-ish after we threw in chlorine granules. Oh well. Aesthetics aside, I doubt it'll kill them.

*I finished reading The Return of the King, twelve days after I began the series. That's an average of about a hundred small-print pages per day. Toldja I've been lazy. Waiting for kids at activities and appointments helped a lot, as did First and Second Birthdays. I rarely read for pleasure during the school year, so this was a real treat.

By the way, did you notice? I have managed to write my WrapUp using a unique and beautifully monotonous writing style consisting almost entirely of sentences with Subject Openers. We must be on summer break. Mr. Pudewa would not be proud. If you prefer to read WrapUps with more varied sentence openers, you can probably find some here.


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Random Questions Because I Needed a Post and Was Too Lazy to Write One

I got this from both Marsha's and Melissa's blogs. That was last week, but when am I ever timely? I rarely do these things, but it looked like fun, and besides, it's a lot easier than actually writing a blog post. These are really, really, really random-- a little too random for me, actually, but that’s good for me. I was really good and resisted the temptation to re-arrange the questions (except in one place, I think) or edit them for consistency, and I didn’t leave any out, not even the ones I thought were dumb. Be proud of me. I even added a few of my own here and there, just because I felt like it.

What color are your socks right now? The same colors they always are: most are white, but I have a few of various shades of blue and a few of other colors. They’re all in my drawer, though. I don’t wear socks much in the summer.

What are you listening to right now? Were I doing this at some other time, I could say something mildly interesting such as “Spaz playing Skillet on the piano,” or “The annoying drone of vuvuzela horns from the upstairs TV,” or “Frogs croaking in the pond,” or “The annoying dog barking her fool head off at the UPS man,” or even “The running of the shower.” Alas, all I can say at the moment is… The fan. (We live really exciting lives around here.)

What was the last thing you ate? A sugar snap pea pod from my garden. (And that really makes me feel like I Am Woman See Me Plant or something. I still can’t get over the fact that I actually have a successful garden this year.)

Can you drive a stick? No. I tried to learn back when we were first married and the only vehicle we owned was Hubz’ stick-shift Toyota pickup. He really didn’t try very hard to teach me.

Last person you spoke to on the phone? My mom. But when I was first doing this the other night, my answer was, “A kid my son met at camp, who called at 10:50 pm. I was nicer to him than I wanted to be.” That’s far more interesting.

How old are you today? 36,442 days. (Or if you want the math-free version, 45 years and 6 days.)

What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Short-track speedskating at the Winter Olympics.

What is your favorite drink? I suppose that would be coffee.

Have you ever dyed your hair? No, and I intend to never do so. When I go gray, I will wear it like a crown. Or so I say now.

Favorite food? Chocolate. Duh.

What is the last movie you watched? Up until last night, I’d have happily said The Return of the King. Unfortunately, having been somewhat coerced by my family into watching, I now have to say Prince Caspian-- which bore even less resemblance to the book than I had anticipated. For that reason, I hated it.

What is the last book you read (or the book you are currently reading)? Finished The Fellowship of the Ring late Friday and will probably finish The Two Towers today. I’m immensely enjoying my first reading of these books-- and I now understand why some who have long loved the books do not entirely care for the movies. (See above.)

What’s in the CD player of your van? I think it’s currently Devotion by the Newsboys. (I had been listening to The Purpose Driven Life on CD, but my kids howled and complained every time they rode with me, which is nearly always since most of my driving time consists of chauffeuring them around. They find the Newsboys a little more tolerable.)

Favorite day of the year? The day after Thanksgiving. The house is clean, there is lots of food in the fridge, and I can just sit around in my pj’s. (In all honesty, I probably like Christmas Day even better, but that seems like such a lame answer.)

Best place you’ve ever visited? That would have to be Acadia National Park off the coast of Maine.

How do you vent anger? I usually yell and say things I later regret.

What was your favorite toy as a child? I am supposed to remember that? I don’t know. Ask my Mom.

Favorite Season? Really, I like them all. I guess fall would be my favorite weather-wise, but I like spring because it is full of newness and anticipation. I enjoy the general laziness and fun of summer and the cozy, hunker-down-at-home feelings that come with winter.

Cherries or Blueberries? Blueberries.

Living situation? What: Mid-70’s daylight/walkout ranch. Where: 3 acres in semi-rural suburbia within a major metro area. With whom: Hubz and the two youngest of our 4 kids. (Kid #2, aka Cheez, may be moving back in a month, which will make life a little more… um… interesting stressful interesting.) Oh, and a mischievious cat & an obnoxious but lovable dog. 

What is on the floor of your closet right now? A bin of stuff, a tub of Hubz’ loose change that he’s saving for a convertible, some extra purses, and shoes-- lots of shoes.

When was the last time you cried? I cry at the drop of a hat over the stupidest things. I know, that didn’t really answer the question. That’s because I don’t like it.

What are you most afraid of? I don’t like this question either. In all honesty, I’d probably have to say, my kids not “turning out well.”

Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? Huh? Who writes these questions??? Hamburgers should be eaten with lettuce, tomato, onion, and either ranch dressing or guacamole.

Favorite dog breed? I suppose I’d have to echo Melissa’s answer and say Australian Shepherd, since we own one.

Favorite day of the week? Probably Sunday, because I can relax without feeling terribly guilty. (I relax on all the other days, too; I just feel guilty about it.)

How many states have you lived in? Three: Pennsylvania (5 years), Illinois (2.5 years), Michigan (that would be… 37.5 years)

Diamonds or pearls? What are those? My answer has always been the same as Melissa's: I'd far prefer a camera lens. However, if someone were to buy me jewelry, what I’d like is a ring set with a ruby, a topaz, a peridot, and a sapphire. You can probably figure that one out.

What is your favorite flower? I’m not picky about flowers. Anything that’s pretty and doesn’t require much care.

Did you get an H1N1 vaccine? Um… speakiNg Of raNdOm... This is a very straNge questiOn. NOw I feel like all the rest of them were just a front and this is the iNfOrmation that the perpetrators of this q & a were really after, like it is part of some sort of goverNment cOnspiracy to ascertaiN hOw compliant I am about coNfOrming to the coNventiOnal wisdom about flu vaccines. NOtice I’m NOt answering.

Well, that was an easy blog post.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: In Which We Have Good Intentions and Not Much Else (Except Rain)

"Some people converse with their kids; I do cryptograms and coded crosswords with mine. Works for me. Conversation is over-rated anyway."

I am getting pretty good at this Tri-Weekly WrapUp stuff. I live such an exciting life these days that Weekly just wouldn't cut it.


Notta lotta school going on these days. Some years we do some "summer school" and some years we don't. I guess this year we aren't. I had good intentions of at least doing math a few days per week, but we all know which road is paved with those. Good intentions, I mean. Or math books. Yes, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the road to hell is paved with math books.

Ha. A stream-of-thought WrapUp. I like it. My brain has been wound way too tight lately, so I am just going to let it unwind and see what comes out. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Anyway. The plan was to get through chapter 12 in Spaz' Algebra book during the three weeks between Memorial Day and camp. Didn't happen. We made it through about three lessons and, for the first time ever, I suddenly felt as though Algebra was kicking my butt. So I made an executive decision that June and Quadratic Equations don't go together. Maybe they'll seem a little more comprehensible in August. Fuzz' math was going fine, but still. Maybe it was the whole vacation-at-the-end-of-May thing that did it, but summer math was just seeming like a big no-go. So I declared an End To All Things Mathematical and that was that.

We did manage to get the kids' vacation power points and scrapbook pages finished. I never did do mine. Funny how it's easier for me to "make" them do their things than it is to make me do my things. Even funnish sorts of things.

That's that on the school front. I haven't even been requiring much independent reading. I know, bad mom. Fuzz has been reading a lot anyway, and Spaz has done a fair amount as well, though not as much as I'd like.

So what have we been doing? Well, here's a partial list of all our highly interesting activities. Try not to fall asleep...

Gardening. I've never been great at veggie gardening and had practically given up on it the past couple years, but this year I tackled it once again with renewed vigor and determination, not to mention more space and a greater variety of crops. As it turns out, I picked a great year to do so. With all the rain, everything is growing splendidly. It has really been encouraging and fun. I haven't made the kids help me as I did with previous attempts, but I think they are learning by osmosis. :-)

Weeding. Weeds are not a big problem in the veggie garden, but they are in my flower garden and in the landscaped rock areas around the house. I'm not terribly fond of the rock areas (they were here when we bought the house), but keeping them weed-free does make a great summer chore for kids, and of course that's a good thing. Otherwise I'd have to think up other things for them to do. ;-) Previously I've just assigned weeding on an ad-lib basis, but I've always had this idea of dividing up the various rock areas between the kids and making them responsible for their own sections all summer. I finally did that for this summer (now that we are down to only two kids; go figure). Instead of "chores" they are "responsibilities"-- and there is money involved. They get a certain amount for the initial weeding (determined according to the size and difficulty of the section) and will get a small weekly "maintenance fee" for keeping up on them. So far it's working pretty well.

Neurofeedback Brain Wave Training for Spaz. I've mentioned this before. Having to drive into town three days a week for this keeps life from getting too boring. While he does the program, Fuzz and I either run errands or sit in the waiting room working (playing) in our puzzle books. She's decided she finds my variety puzzle book more interesting than her sudoku, so it's starting to become something we do together. I actually don't mind this too much. Some people converse with their kids; I do cryptograms and coded crosswords with mine. Works for me. Conversation is over-rated anyway.

Bike riding. Well, okay... Fuzz and I did this once. But we have good intentions to start doing it regularly.

Piano. Spaz has just been doing his own thing on piano since I cut him loose from lessons last fall, but he agreed to undergo some "mentoring" this summer if I'd take him back to his old teacher, a fun guy who really teaches according to Spaz' bent. Fuzz is going too, even though she's done well with her new teacher. (We switched mostly for convenience; the old teacher is a 35-mile round trip whereas the new one is just down the road.).

I just realized I'm not doing stream-of-thought anymore. Drat. It was more fun that way. Anyway....

Softball & Soccer for Spaz. Both are casual, just-for-fun homeschool games. Both also meet on Thursdays- one in the morning and one at night, with piano in between. Thursdays are a little busy.

Watching World Cup Soccer. I never think to turn this on myself, but Spaz does, and then I often end up watching as well. Beats cleaning the house.


Socializing. I know; homeschoolers aren't supposed to do that. Oh well. Some of our socialization has even been with other homeschoolers.

Partying. (Okay, now we are really getting into dangerous territory. See what socializing can lead into?) Ever since the party we threw in May for Spaz' "Friday School" classmates, Fuzz had been hankering to have a party of her own. She gets competitive with Spaz like that. So we threw a party for the little girls' club she belonged to this past year. (It's the club that's little, not the girls.) We also went --all of us-- to yet another Friday School party thrown by another classmate. That makes 5 or 6 parties for that bunch since fall, with another coming up next month. So much for that unsocialized homeschooler thing.

Oh, and it rained. And it rained again, and then it rained again, and... well, you get the picture. 

That pretty well wraps up the first two weeks of the three-week wrap. (I'm sure we did other stuff, too, but you get the picture.) This week just past was a little different, since Spaz was at camp. No neurofeedback, no soccer and softball, no piano. And I totally forgot to watch any World Cup, but Fuzz and I did watch all three LOTR movies. That's way better than watching soccer any day.

It rained last week, too, though camp went well regardless. Camp even survived a big thunderstorm which knocked out their power for 22 hours. Here at home, we lost ours for only 15, though it was supposed to be 36-plus. Because we have a well, no power means no water, either. Of course it would just happen that I went to bed the previous night with a pile of dirty dishes on the counter, so of course i then had to look at those stinkin' dishes all day long. Funny how I never want to wash dishes... until I can't. Also funny how I finally capitulated to the electric company's prediction of a 36-plus-hour outage and hauled the entire contents of our frig & freezer to church and loaded it in theirs.... and then on my way home, Hubz called to say the power was back on.

Well. Are you still awake? Really? I'm impressed. Now you can go read more Wrap-Ups here.

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Boys Will Be Boys, Especially at Camp: A Re-Post

Mr. Sociable, aka Spaz, has spent the last four days at church camp, a place he dearly loves. This is his fifth year and his last as a camper; next year he will be a worker, which will probably be just as much fun and is quite a bit easier on Mom & Dad's wallet. (Although having said that, I should mention that Spaz earned almost all of his $225 camp fee this year doing yardwork, collecting pop cans, helping unload trucks, and participating in various other work opps set up by his youth leader, as well as doing some yardwork for his grandparents. Total outlay from Mom & Dad's wallet: $46. Go, Spaz!)



Miss Homebody, aka Fuzz, tried camp two years ago and did not exactly dearly love it, so she has been home as usual and enjoying the relative peace and quiet along with some extra attention. Among other things, she and I have done small-town window shopping, errands, lunch out with Dad & Biz, and three straight nights of Lord of the Rings movies (her first time watching and only my second). Today, our last full Spaz-less day, we took a bike ride and cleaned & organized her desk, and we'll soon be heading out to her Favorite Eating Out Place in the Whole World, better known on this blog as Pahookey Bread.


But before we head out, I offer you this: a story from a blog post written in June of 2007, shortly after Spaz' second year of camp. I consider it well worth a re-post. Enjoy!




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Spaz was at church camp this past week; it was his second year. All in all, he had a great time, and his counselors, despite spending 4 days with a bunch of 9-to-11-year-old boys, seemed to have most of their sanity still intact.


While helping him pack for camp, I’d kept in mind that it always helps Spaz if things are kept simple. (I also make sure HE is the one who actually puts everything in the suitcase, in hopes that it will help him remember what he has & where it is.) So he & I packed "clothing rolls"-- socks, underwear, T-shirt & shorts rolled up and secured with a large file-size rubberband. (Socks are not normally a staple around our house in the summer, but state law mandates that kids at camps wear socks and close-toed shoes.) One roll for each day, plus one extra. A couple 'pajama' rolls, too (which of course, since he is 11, are not actually pajamas, but rather T-shirts and knit shorts that he uses specifically as sleepwear). He thought this was great. I figured that, like last year, he'd come back with a couple rolls yet unworn, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.


Post-camp conversation at the ice-cream shop:


Mom (observing Spaz' filthy camp T-shirt, swimsuit, and lack of state-mandated socks): So, Spaz, how many of the clothes we packed did you actually wear?


Spaz: Um, what I came in. Plus this shirt they gave me. And I wore my swimsuit all the time.


Mom: Spaz!!! Didn't you put on clean clothes after showers?


Spaz: ShowER, you mean. I just put my swimsuit back on. It was clean from the pool.


Mom: You didn't by any chance wear your pajama shirts & shorts to bed?


Spaz: The first night I did.


Mom (not really wanting to know): And then...?


Spaz: I told you, I wore my swimsuit the whole time.


Mom: Ooo-kay. And did you, perchance, use your toothbrush?


Spaz: Yup! Once.


Alrighty, then.


Though not apparent at camp & the ice-cream store, the smell became quite noticeable upon our arrival home, and he was sent almost immediately to the shower.


At least I don't have a ton of laundry to do.

That was three years ago, when Spaz was a little boy of eleven-going-on-twelve. For the last couple of years, I think the conversation could have been more or less the same. This year, however, as he approaches his 15th birthday, he has suddenly taken more interest in such odd and foreign activities as showering, hair-combing, and teeth-brushing. Now I know that the inclination toward such activities may wane a bit in an environment such as camp, but then again, at camp there are girls. I'm thinking --hoping-- that this year's post-camp conversation might be just a little different, and that there might actually be more dirty clothes than clean ones in the duffle bag tomorrow.


I guess we'll see.

Quirks and Strawberries and Deep Thoughts on Schooling

I have this little quirk about things having to “go together.” Like, you shouldn’t order the Asian chicken salad with the Mediterranean veggie sandwich. Asian and Mediterranean don’t go together. Even if you like the Asian a little bit better, you need to get the Greek salad with your Mediterranean sandwich.

You shouldn’t serve tacos for Sunday dinner. Tacos are casual, and Sunday dinner should be… nice. And you shouldn’t wear a nice blouse with blue jeans, either. T-shirts go with blue jeans.

And of course, you should never read a book that takes place in 19th-century England when you are studying the Vietnam War, or take a trip to the planetarium even though you are studying animal science. You should wait until you are doing astronomy, so it all goes together. It only makes sense. Everything has to make logical sense.

And red tea kettles do not belong in earth-toned kitchens. (Neither, for that matter, do black appliances.) This drives me crazy.

Sometimes it’s a harmless little quirk, this pursuit of ultimate consistency, this need to have everything fit into its own little box… but sometimes it becomes an obsession. Sometimes it factors too strongly into my thinking and makes things more complicated than they need to be.

Renegade strawberry plants should not be allowed to grow in a flower garden. They’d be out of place. They wouldn’t fit in. How could that be a good thing? Strawberries and flowers don’t go together: the former are for eating and the latter are for looking at. Two different worlds.

And homeschool families should not send their kids to high school. That doesn’t go together. Then you don’t fit in with the homeschool community, and you don’t fit in with the school families. Too hard.

Especially, white middle-class homeschool families living on 3 acres in semi-rural suburbia should not truck their kids into the city to a reduced-tuition urban school. What sense does that make? Even if they like the school, how do those things belong together? Two. Different. Worlds.

Never mind that we’ve already done it for years. It still feels like starting over, and it still feels uncomfortable.

Maybe we should just do what’s comfortable, what’s logical, what’s sensible. Stay firmly entrenched in the realm of homeschooling, or at least go with the very-homeschool-friendly, nearby, suburban, conservative, homogenous school.

Because everyone knows that strawberries don’t grow in flower gardens.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: In Which We Try to Make Vacation Sound Like Education

Blogger wasn't letting me in yesterday (Bad Blogger! Bad, Bad Blogger!), so I had to post this on my HSB blog. It took me like five stinkin' hours because I am still trying to figure out the new system over there.

Anyway... So yeah, it's late. But this time it actually isn't entirely my fault.

How about a Three-Week WrapUp? That’s about how long it’s been. I should have posted this last week. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Oh and well.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of “school” going on here lately. While a few local schools got out this past week and the rest continue through this coming week, we cut out on May 19 and have already been on “summer vacation” and back. Summer vacation before Memorial Day, because… well, Just Because We Could.

But just because we took time off school doesn’t mean there wasn’t any ejamacayshun going on. Or should I say, ejavacayshun?

We ejavacayted ourselves on the road…

LITERATURE

We never take a road trip without audio dramas, and we love Focus on the Family Radio Theater!

MATH, LOGIC, LANGUAGE ARTS
Good car stuff

ART APPRECIATION: FOLK ART

Artisan Center, Berea KY off I-75

...and we ejavacayted ourselves at our destination.

U.S. GEOGRAPHY

 

EARTH SCIENCE

Tuckaleechee Caverns, Townsend TN

This was a great place to be on our lone drizzly day

 

HISTORY

Mill at Cades Cove

Ogle Cabin, Roaring Forks Loop, GSMNP

 

NATURE STUDIES

Along Newfound Gap Road, GSMNP

"Chimney Tops" as seen from Newfound Gap Rd, GSMNP


This guy (?) liked to hang out by our front door

Part of a series of pics entitled 'Butterflies on Bear Poop', taken in the Park. I spared you the graphic ones with the huge lumps.

 

ANIMAL BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

Coyote, Cades Cove

Bear cub, Cades Cove

This guy came to visit us almost every night. The kids named him Gregory. BAD Gregory!

 

REGIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES

Taken from the tram up the hillside at Hillbilly Golf, Gatlinburg

More Hillbilly Golf. Cheapest fun in Gatlinburg!

 
Even more Hillbilly Golf. Where else can you play in a setting like this?

MUSIC
(cross-reference under 'Regional Cultural Studies")

Pre-show at the Dixie Stampede- our lone "touristy" splurge

We got lucky. Yes, it's Dolly, live and in person, if only briefly. She made a surprise appearance and did one song.

INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES

Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum, Gatlinburg, with over 20,000 shaker sets

P. E.

Picnic Area near Cades Cove, GSMNP

Picnic Area near Cades Cove, GSMNP

Hiking along the Appalachian Trail, GSMNP

Picnic Area, Gatlinburg, just outside the Park

Pigeon River, Hartford TN

FIRST AID

You have to be pretty talented to get smacked in the face by the T-bar end of your OWN paddle. I had help from a nasty rock.

And probably best of all,

RECESS!!!

Over the mountains through steep hairpin turns, to our lovely cabin we go... (Bluff Mtn, Wears Valley TN)

Breathtaking ...Why we chose this cabin

View from the deck

That was called, “Posting vacation pictures under the thinly veiled guise of a Weekly WrapUp.” I am clever like that.

When we got home, there was a garden to put in, so the kids & I did that. Log under "Nutritional Studies" and/or "Home Ec".

Now we’re on a relaxed “summer school” schedule, which for the time being consists of a little math and scrapbooking/ power-pointing our trip. (That’s language arts, layout/design, and computer skills, you know.) Although I must confess that after all that fun stuff, pulling out the math books this past Wednesday just seemed sort of wrong.

You can read more WrapUps here. (But they probably won’t be like this one.)

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Do I Like It Here or There? I Think I like It Everywhere!

Well. Life just gets more and more complicated. I try to quit HSB and try my hand at Blogger, and what does HSB do? Goes and upgrades to an entirely new, very user-friendly platform with all sorts of very cool bells and whistles including a pseudo-facebook feature. Now how am I supposed to leave?

 Ironically, when many HSB users were jumping ship to Blogger, I stayed. And at a time when many Blogger users have been jumping to Wordpress, I’ve finally jumped to Blogger… but now HSB itself has jumped to Wordpress. Is that fair? And if Blogger was a step or two above HSB, and Wordpress is a step or two above Blogger, then where on the scale does the new HSB/Wordpress hybrid fall? It’s all so… confusing. (Not really. I’m being melodramatic.)



I was keeping up my HSB blog for a while by double-posting the homeschool-oriented posts so they appeared both here and there. But when HSB converted to its new interface a few weeks ago, I was just too darn busy to deal with it. I’ve just been doing everything here. Not that it’s been a whole lot. But I have finally gone to play around over there a bit, and I have to admit, I like it. I might like it better than Blogger.


So... I’m still learning the ropes here, and now I have to decide whether I want to learn this new HSB-- and if so, whether I will continue to learn both or just quit Blogger while I’m still young at it. Decisions, decisions.


Meanwhile, all you Blogger users who found it so difficult to download and/or comment on the HSB blog-- go see what you think. Pull it up, try to comment, and tell me whether it's easier now. I'm just curious.


That’s my ramble for the day. Oh, and thanks to ComfyDenim for the inspiration for the title of this post.

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To Send or Not to Send (and I'm Not Talking About E-Mail)

We've been... (Wait. Is there a rule against beginning a blog post with a contraction? No? Okay, I didn't think so. Sorry; carry on.)

We've been undergoing the agonizing process of deciding whether to send Spaz to high school next year (as we did with his older sibs) or to homeschool him for high school. After more than a year of thinking and avoiding and contemplating and processing and PRAYING and thinking and avoiding some more, it's time to actually make the decision.

Okay, I know. It's well past time to have made the decision. We're very good at trying to prolong the inevitable. Why make a difficult decision in a timely manner when you can put it off until the very last minute? Procrastinating on such things keeps life interesting and stressful. You ought to try it.

Being a Person Who Thinks Too Much, I have long been compiling a mental list of Relevant Factors We Ought to Consider. And I have indeed been mentally considering said factors. Being a Person Who Likes to Have Everything on Paper or Screen, I have long intended to type out said mental list. Being a Person Who Procrastinates, I did this on the day that was my self-imposed deadline for making our decision. Being a Person Who Is Compulsively Persnickety About the Structure and Order of Any Written Material Including Lists, it took me forever to (being a Person Who Does Not Dangle Participles, I did not just almost write that) I spent a couple hours typing out said list.

And being a Person Who Ought to Write More Blog Posts, I have decided to turn my list into one and share it with you, for whatever it's worth.

Keep in mind that this is my kid and my family and my situation. "Your experience may vary." (Or, "Don't try this at home." Or something like that.)

Oh, one more thing- although we've considered both public school (for about two minutes) and charter school (for a little longer than two minutes), our decision has come down to homeschool or Christian school. Since this is West Michigan, we have approximately 73,000,000 Christian high schools within a 25-mile radius, but we've narrowed our choices to two: the reduced-tuition, socio-economically-diverse, becoming-college-prep urban Christian school that Biz & Cheez attended, and the full-tuition, very-homeschool-friendly, conservative, Classically-bent suburban Christian school that two of his friends attend.

That said, here's my banged-out, not-necessarily-comprehensive "list", just the way I typed it out for Hubz & myself. (Well, except for the blog names.) You'll be happy to note that it contains far fewer Randomly-Capitalized-and/or-Hyphenated Words than did this introduction.

Things to consider:

CHARACTER, FAITH, DISCIPLINE, ETC:


How would each option-- homeschool or Christian high school-- be likely to influence his spiritual and personal growth?


Is it time for a new “stage” in his life? Is it time to “release” him?


*Going to school would be another step away from us and toward independence. It would be an intermediate stage between homeschool and college /adult life.


*Our own personal limitations don’t allow us to be “everything” to our kids, esp as they get older. It may be time to enlist the help of “the village” to nurture faith & world view & leadership skills & discipline in ways that we can’t or don’t, and to release him to be more influenced by other (hopefully godly) adults as well as peers.


*He needs at his age to have other godly people speaking into his life besides just parents & grandparents. Do church/youth group and homeschool activities/classes provide enough of that? Would school provide too much?


*School provides more opportunities for both negative AND positive peer influence on his faith & character.


*Going to school, even Christian school, would provide an opportunity for him to be a little more “in the world” and deal with a few more issues of life while he is still under our guidance.


*At TPH, he is likely to be exposed to questionable views & media that one or both of us might feel is bad for him. Are we as parents equipped to deal with this and guide him in the right direction w/o alienating him or causing strife?


*Going to school would be a broadening experience-- for better or for worse?


*God has a call on his life, although we don’t know exactly what that is. Would one environment --homeschool or Christian school-- better equip him than the other to grow into that call?



PERSONAL, SOCIAL, & OTHER FACTORS :


*Going to school may leave less time and energy for pursuing his music.


*Does our family “fit in” at TPH? I've often felt like we don't. We aren’t urban, globally minded, or committed to diversity. Would we fit in at FCS? We don’t quite fit the conservative stereotype. At either place, would we feel at home? AND… does this really matter?


*Going to school would wrench him away from the homeschool friendships he’s formed, but he’d be likely to form other friendships that are just as good for him. This worked out fine with Biz & Cheez.



FAMILY:


How would each option impact our family?


*Would going to school pull him away from family? Would a little bit of pulling away actually be healthy for him & us? Is his relationship w/us strong enough to prevent pulling away to an unhealthy degree?


*If he goes to school, we would “lose” a certain dynamic & togetherness that we seem to finally have achieved as a family. But might this be OK? How much would we really be losing? Would we really lose it, or would it just change? Family life does go through different stages.


*If he goes to school, “what other parents do” would become much more important.


*If he goes to school, esp TPH, we’d be doing that “living in two worlds” thing. This felt very difficult to me with the other two. It was hard for me to “embrace” school & be involved, and I felt like the kid in school was more “separate” from our family.


*If he goes to school, Fuzz would get a lot of 1-on-1 time and might blossom better out of his shadow.


*Am I going to pursue a career or at least have some sort of paying job? If so, do I really want to commit to at least 4 more years of homeschooling?


*Spaz & Fuzz will be in high school together for a year or possibly two. We have to consider what we will do with her. Might we end up with kids in two different schools?


*Is homeschooling high school going to cause too much stress for Mom? I would have to be teacher, administrator, and guidance counselor!


*Will there be more tension in the home with him staying home or with him being in school?


*Would his relationship with Mom be better if I am only his mom and not his “schoolmaster”, too?




ACADEMICS/COLLEGE PREP:


Which option-- homeschool or high school-- is more likely to (a) prepare him for college and (b) foster a desire to go to college?


*Would I, with the help of outside &/or online classes and good resources, be able to give him a good high school education that will prepare him for college?


*Would I be good about “making” him do hard things in the classes I am in charge of? (He would always have outside classes in some subjects.)


*Is it true, as some claim, that the customized education and potential for independence provided by homeschooling is better preparation for college than conventional high school is?


*Is his lack of motivation & self-management going to be a bigger problem with school or with homeschooling?


* Would the rigors of high school academics be more likely to “burn him out” or “spur him on”?


*Would I do a good job with college admissions prep -- ACT, AP classes, dual enrollment, transcripts, etc?

And now, being a Person Who Ought to Go to Bed Soon, I am ending this post without much of a proper conclusion, except to say this: We did actually make the decision. Now we're giving ourselves that 3-day "buyer's remorse" period, also known as the Waffle Period or the Second-Guess Period. Okay, so it might be more like 5 days. Because we're very indecisive like that. Or wait-- maybe we're not. I don't know. At the very least, we tend to be kinda sorta tentative. I think.

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