I'm It

Darcee tagged me, so here I go a-rambling...

1. I like to wander. Many times when I am driving somewhere with no time pressure, I will take a different road just to see where it goes. I used to take special trips - esp out where there are few people - just be out and about before the kids had classes to get me out of the house. The flip-side of this is not being a very good housekeeper because I dislike being home (and all the stuff that comes with the house) so much.

2. The wandering trait runs in my family and usually presents itself first in the form of 2-3 year olds who can amaze Houdini at their ability to get out of secure locations just so that they can wander the neighborhood (so far I have had only 1 child like that, but also a nephew, brother, uncle, grandfather and grandmother who all did the same thing as toddlers).

3. I have strong opinions on a lot of things, but I can be made to change my mind, frequently even, with logical and/or reasonable arguements. The only exception being that I don't question the Church's stand on issues (however the Church's stand has always been based upon reasonable and/or logical arguements that are only further bolstered with secular research, in my opinion anyway). My changing opinions make Jeff crazy because he likes to settle an issue and be done with it, fighting to defend his position "to the death" (or until he doesn't care anymore - which is how I won the homeschool battle). This could cause a real clash, but fortunately Jeff also tends to not care about much, and we avoid the few issues we clash on.

4. I love to learn and I look for opportunities to pick up something new regularly - knitting being the latest trick. I also tend to "file data" I pick up through observing the world around me. I remember doing this as young as 6 or 7 and being frustrated that others didn't make connections like I did because they missed things that were in the backround or happened over time.

5. If I could, I would pack up the family and travel across the US, visiting as many states as possible before we got too homesick. It would take a larger vehicle and a nice chunk of change for things like gas, food, lodging and souvenirs, plus a lot of vacation time for Jeff to accompany us. At this point the larger vehicle and uncertain economic times are the only things holding me back. The sense of adventure traveling like that would offer makes me want to throw caution to the wind and head out even if Jeff had to stay and work and we were crowded in the little van. On the other hand, the kids and I had a hard time when we went camping 2 days without Daddy, so I'm not so sure it would work out well for us, plus what fun is a family trip if we cannot share it as a family?

6. I could easily live without a TV, but not so easily without a computer and high-speed internet. Jeff is almost the opposite (I think he is equally attached to both), so I try to avoid complaining about the TV and watch shows with my husband to be a good wife.

7. I'm not very good at following rules, so I am going to break rules 4-5, at least until I can find 6 people I know with blogs who haven't already been tagged.

Here are the rules:
Rule #1 ~ Link to the person that tagged you.
Rule #2 ~ Post the rules on your Blog.
Rule #3 ~ Write 6 random things about yourself.
Rule #4 ~ Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
Rule #5 ~ Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their Blog.
Rule #6 ~ Let the tagger know your entry is up.

When the wind blows...

We used to live next door to the family that had this happen. In fact the tree that you see was on the property we were renting. We were always a bit nervous having so many big trees around, but I wouldn't have had the heart to cut them down either. Kinda makes me glad we have smaller trees or trees that would be unlikely to hit structures (there is only an apartment parking lot the direction the wind would blow a tree down) now that we own our house.

I remember once when Ariana sat at the base of that now fallen tree to draw and she ended up with so much sap in her hair that I was afraid I would have to shave her head to get it out. That was when I discovered the peanut butter treatment. It took an afternoon of peanut butter treatment followed by shampooing then more peanut butter, but by the end of the day the sap was all gone. I'm pretty sure that will be a lesson Ariana and I remember forever.

I'll have to try and get pictures of some of the collapsed cyclone fences around my area with stumps nearby. It is a pretty common sight. I think there are 8-10 on the main roads within a couple miles of my house. I didn't pay that much attention to the news on how gusty the wind was, but it was likely in the 60mph range for about 4 days (with constant wind in the 30-45 range). All I know is when a gust blew by you had to turn and hudle up a little to keep from being blown over. Last winter (or was it the winter before?...) we had 65-75mph gusts that took off my chimney cap. We never found any evidence of where it went, it was just gone. That is the price we pay for living near the Columbia Gorge!

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

God should have invented a way to temporarily freeze time - for Moms to use

Christmas has come on a bit faster than I was hoping. I did manage to figure out why the season took me by surprise though. My parents come for Christmas every year (and are here for between 6 weeks and 5 months one year!), and this year they were going to come for Thanksgiving and stay until early Jan before going back home. My dad has been working on a truck - completely rebuilding it over the last 6 months - and he didn't finish until last week. They came up as quickly as they could after that, but it still put them getting in late on Dec 16th. I had in my mind that they would get up here, we'd have a few days to get settled in, do some cleaning, then break out the Christmas decor, take the family picture (my mom would be photographer to save us the $ going into a studio) and get copies of the picture for the Christmas cards and then finish the extended family Christmas gifts and any shopping. Well, when I knew they were going to be late, I couldn't manage to readjust my thinking on the rest of my holiday preparations. We have been doing things exactly how I was thinking, but we are about 2-3 weeks late. I have never been good about sending Christmas gifts off on time, but I try to get things before the end of the year and there are a few people that I like to get by Christmas. At this rate we are looking at going well into Jan before I have it all ready.

So that this doesn't happen again, for next year I am putting together an Advent/Christmas binder with a calendar and To Do list written in. Then the binder gets set with the Christmas stuff, but not packed in it. I would love to do one for Lent as well, but I'm thinking not this year. We'll see. I am great at things like making up a binder, but not-so-good at implementing what I have in the binder - though having a To Do list with due dates should help there.

Back to Christmas plans for this year, I also think I am procrastinating because I am nervous about what I plan to send to family for gifts. Most of my family is not Catholic or at least not really practicing, and my big idea was to send a painting or picture of a saint on something sturdy like a wood backing. The idea is to send the nice picture with the Saint's life story, a letter explaining why I chose that saint for them, and how and why saints fit into the Catholic faith. I started with a list of about 25 people which became about 35 and then I went through and found saints for almost all of them. Now I have to find pictures to print because there is not enough time to paint or draw pictures. I plan to use a glossy spray to protect the pictures once they are glued to the wood or whatever I manage to find that will make them more lasting than a piece of paper. I really should do a test page to make sure my grand scheme will work out. I keep getting distracted with all the cleaning, preparations, kids needs, etc. I am nervous about backlash too. Hopefully most of them will think I am a little more nutty than they originally thought and will not get upset. I think that is the main reason I wasn't working on this months ago when I had the idea and knew it would take a long time to get it together. Part of me wants to put it off until next year, but I know I will end up in the same situation next year with procrastinating. Plus, I'm sure I will find another great idea for next year. Best I get back to work on it with the few minutes of peace I have.


On a totally unrelated topic, we have been fighting mice! My housekeeping skills have improved since we moved (which is not saying a whole lot), yet at the other house we never had rodents or pests of any kind! Here we get ants in the spring, summer and fall, flying critters in the summer (one of the disadvantages of having no screens) as well as giant spiders in the basement, and now mice for the fall and winter. I couldn't bring myself to harm them at first and I still cannot handle the dead bodies nor the thought of killing them, but I relented and put out the poison. Jeff has been bugging me about putting out poison for months (our problems began in late Aug-early Sept), and I finally gave in once the mice got into the heater ducts. Before that we would let a stray cat in the neighborhood in to hunt, but he failed to get them all and then the mice got into the ducts forcing me to turn the heat off and that was it. I am very allergic to anything with fur, so I don't do well with mice running around, esp in a place where air will be circulated - I have been sneezing as if it is spring all fall. Of course, within a week of turning the heat off, we were hit with the coldest weather we've had in a long time. I think it was this cold a few years ago when we had ice, but instead of ice we have snow! I love the snow and will try to get some pics of the kids playing in it up, but it made the heater situation rather dire. We had poison in for about a week, then vacummed the best we could and changed the filter, removed a couple dead bodies and I installed metal screen material in all the vents and sealed the holes. So far so good on keeping the critters out of the heater, but now we have at least one mouse in the house. Fortunately where it is hiding I was able to drop a block of poison without fear of the baby getting it, but I don't know where it is getting its food and water (though arguably there is enough around the kitchen table where it hides). I just hope that one of these mornings I will not be greeted with rustling and chewing noises, then I can feel bad about taking the life of one of God's creatures and have Jeff get rid of the body. Of course we still have mice in the basement that need to be dealt with too, and I think we will go back to the traps for those. That and cleaning anyway. I will try and keep up with the Great Mouse Hunt as the nightmare continues.

A reason to love unschooling...

Damien and Ariana turned 10 and 12 this last week, and from Grandma Dawn they got a card with the same number of dollars as years they have been born. They were both very excited and counted out all the money they have stashed around the house (theoretically all the money should be in their wallets, but they are kids), including missing money that they hope to find someday. Damien then asked, "who is on the 10-dollar bill?" this sent him off to the picture of all the presidents to see if he could find the mystery man. I commented that I didn't think "he" was a president as did Ariana, and once Damien had satisfied himself that we were right he moved on to the next step in solving the mystery. I asked him who the man was and Damien sounded out Hamilton, so then we looked him up online and read all about him for almost 20 minutes. My deficient public school education left me with no knowledge of Hamilton, but over the course of trying out different styles of homeschooling, I had seen a documentary and had a little knowledge of who Hamilton was. Damien and I talked about Hamilton's character quite a bit, since he was a rather impulsive man who could have spared himself a lot of suffering if he had learned to control his temper. Damien found it particularly interesting that Hamilton's oldest son died in a duel at the young age of 19. Since Damien struggles with impulsive outbursts, it is interesting that he honed in on that aspect of Hamilton. Our discussion led us to talking about the infamous duel with Aaron Burr, Mr. Burr's character and whether Hamilton really missed on purpose or not. With unschooling you never know where a "lesson" will take you, and I love the freedom to go wherever the kids lead. If I had planned this lesson (or if I hadn't managed to shed most my teacher training), I would have focussed on learning more about the history of money esp since Hamilton was Treasury Secretary, and maybe gotten into who the other men were on the bills, but I don't think I ever would have thought to talk about the good and bad aspects of Hamilton's character.

Advent Conspiracy

This is awesome and I had to share.

I am so excited to finally figure videos out! Now I just have to be careful not to add too many...

A New Outlook

With the trip to California finished I find that it is harder than I thought it would be to get back into the "daily grind." I am relieved that we are taking at least this month off swimming and that the co-op classes are almost finished (though we will still be involved in bi-monthly Catholic celebrations like an immaculate conception tea party, mardi gras party, etc). I have a few schemes to keep me busy this month and next month, so hopefully I won't overcommit when everything gets going again. I am pleased with the impression I made on the other families in the co-op with my teaching style (and they were excited to have a new way to do things), but overall I think it is more trouble than it is worth doing official classes. My kids love them and I really love teaching them, but I have a lack of tolerance for office politics and the long drive and late nights preparing for class. With my experiences in CA, I am beginning to think I lack finesse in general when it comes to politics and other "taboo" topics of any kind. It doesn't help that the election happened while we were in CA and that almost everything I cared about lost, but more than that I think I am finding resolve in my opinions and since I love a good debate, I can't manage to keep my opinions to myself.

I had a wonderful time bonding with my BIL and SIL as well as my cousin-in-law (I guess that is the term). Lisa is only 16 and she and I disagreed on pretty much everything, but we had a great 90 minute conversation about religion, history and politics and while neither one of us walked away with different opinions, it was awesome to have a non-heated debate about where we stood and why. I have not had that much fun disagreeing with someone in a long time. Lisa's small-town public education shined through as being far better than anything I have seen the city public schools churn out. It almost gives me hope in the public schools - though they are still very biased, at least they give some foundation so that the children can sound like they know what they are talking about (they may even be able to draw on that knowledge in the future to learn to think for themselves!). My experience with larger city-run public schools is that the kids come out knowing how to be "popular" or at least not picked on, all about how unfair society is and how the government can fix it if only the 'people' will get out of the way and where to go to get free condoms or abortions (they've also probably been to Planned Parenthood at least once to render one of those services). Of course there is more than that, and I'm sure my oversimplification will inspire indignation in many individuals, but this blog is for my opinions so tough luck! Those are the things that stick out most in my mind from my own city public education.

Another huge thing both J and I realized after the trip is that we are good with taking long extended family visits for quite a while. It was nice visiting, but we have established a routine within our own family that doesn't lend itself to imposing on another family very easily. There are just too many of us. When your family is outnumbered almost 3 to 1 for an entire week (8 of us to my in-laws 3), there is going to be stress and it isn't fair nor conductive of a good visit. I figure we will find our way down to visit again, but it will be in the context of a larger trip and we will take a day or two to go out with family, but we will have our own space at night. I would love to see all the missions along the El Camino Real, Yosemite, the CA beach and a smattering of other sites in CA with the kids. We'll just have to see how it goes. I also discovered that a trip to sites would not be as expensive as I feared. I'm even tempted to try for an East Coast trip this summer if gas prices stay as low as they are. I am so excited to be spending $2.25/gal for gas! It feels like I can drive again, but since I have lost many of my wasteful and expensive habits (like family outings to the store, running errands and eating junk food) we will be able to better afford and enjoy those trips.

I am looking forward to time at home with the kids to prepare for and make our extended family gifts, hopefully getting rid of lots of junk around the house, getting caught up on housework, making house repairs and things like my garden prep bigger priorities and accomplishing (or at least starting) my homeschool goals for this year. I am hopeful that the next couple months will be productive on those fronts. We will see...