No Fighting, No Biting!

Julia overload

2012-02-09T17:16:00.005-05:00

No, not my Julia, but Julia Child. Last weekend I watched Julie and Julia, which was cute, despite the unnecessary occasional swear word and then proceeded to hit the library for every Julia Child book on the shelves.

I read the novel Julie and Julia, which I didn't care for since every chapter showed that Julie was suffering from a serious case of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) in the 2001-2004 time frame she was writing as well as exhibiting an unhealthy fixation on foul language, ingesting large quantities of booze, and her friend's sex lives. But now I am simultaneously reading Julia Child's biography and a collection of letters between Child and her penpal Avis Devoto, which are both fascinating. I also checked out THE book: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and am finding that all this reading about complicated cooking techniques is prompting me to bake a homemade yellow cake requiring buttermilk, heavy cream, and orange zest with white chocolate and cream cheese frosting for Mary's 12th birthday tomorrow. Schoolwork is cancelled in honor of her big day and we will be making valentines as well as dirtying every bowl in the house to make her birthday dinner and dessert.

time to fight back

2012-02-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

I could write a long essay about the religious liberties being attacked by the Obama administration by this HHS mandate, but I as I told the nice lady who answered the phone in Congressman Michaud's office, "I've been meaning to write a letter for days now, but I have 6 kids and I had to lock the door just so I could have enough quiet time to simply call my political representatives." I was pleasantly surprised by her enthusiasm over my call, "I know it is a lot of ask a Democrat to oppose Obama, but this is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment." Richard Malone is one of the 80% + bishops in the country who have made statements and written letters against this mandate to violate one of the tenants of our religion.

The decision to implement a contraceptive mandate on nearly all of the nation’s health care plans is a blatant and capricious affront to conscience rights and religious liberty. This mandate shows a complete disregard for religious freedom, as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires nearly all private health insurance plans to cover contraception and sterilization prescriptions as “preventative services” for women. Contraceptive coverage includes drugs that are known at times to result in an abortion.

Although the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services claims the Act exempts religious organizations, the reality is that while parishes likely would be exempt, other Church-related institutions such as Catholic Charities, Catholic hospitals, nursing homes and schools would not qualify since they serve a wider population.

I ask that you too find the 5 minutes to call your Senators and Congressman and tell them to represent Catholics who find this from on-high pronouncement unconscionable.

that was short-lived

2012-02-06T11:09:00.000-05:00

On Friday night I picked out Karate Kid (the 1987 original version) for movie night. The premise is that bullies can not be pacified, they will continue to come after those they see as weak. One must give them a reason to show the former victim respect, which in the film comes after Daniel defeats his nemesis in a Karate Tournament, despite injury.

The Susan Komen Foundation could learn a thing or two from young Daniel, that to give into bullies such as Planned Parenthood does not earn respect or show strength. What women who are fighting for their lives desperately need are both of these qualities. If they can't get them by example from a supposedly women's empowerment group, then why does it exist?

baking success #2

2012-02-02T07:57:00.002-05:00

Last night we had homemade chicken noodle soup and ate 2 loaves of my new discovery, No Knead Artisan Bread.

On Tuesday morning I made delicious cinnamon rolls. Maggie took one bite and exuberantly said, " Oh, Mommy! You have to promise to make these again. These are soooo much better than the ones from the can!" I can imagine, as it takes about 1 minute to crack open the Pillsbury ones and throw them in the oven, whereas these took 2 hours from start to finish, and that was with the dough all ready in the fridge. But they were worth it and I plan on getting up early and making more on Saturday. (I only remembered to snap a picture after 6 rolls had been snatched off the platter so it makes enough for 5 children to have seconds and Mommy to have 1)

The pizza was a big hit as well and actually more convenient than bread machine dough as it was already in the fridge and I didn't have to plan at least an hour beforehand to have the dough made.

Baking is such a great project with the snow coming down outside and the roads too icy to drive on (I don't want to miss out on my no-accident present!), especially rolling out dough on my new granite counters (aren't they pretty?) and baking in my new gas oven.

a small pro-life victory

2012-02-01T07:51:00.002-05:00

I was thrilled to read this article this morning:

"In what looks to be a break between two organizations dedicated to women’s health, a national breast cancer awareness group said it would stop providing funds to Planned Parenthood centers for breast cancer examinations and other breast health services.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a leader in fundraising for breast cancer research and famous worldwide for its iconic pink ribbon, said Tuesday that it was halting all partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates because of recently adopted criteria that forbid it from funding any organization under government investigation.

In September, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., launched an inquiry to determine whether Planned Parenthood uses public money to fund abortions. Planned Parenthood receives federal money but cannot use it to provide abortions. (Yes, but if they receive federal money for other "services" that frees up money for abortion, plus you don't think they do those abortions for FREE, do you?)

Komen has a long history of providing funding to various Planned Parenthood affiliates for such services as manual breast exams (Wasn't there an ad that proved that PP does not do mammograms? Yep, and here it is.)and referrals for mammograms and biopsies to check suspicious lumps for cancer. Although that money is not used for abortions, the KomenFoundation may have yielded to demands from antiabortion groups to sever its ties to Planned Parenthood."

baking success

2012-01-27T16:55:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I read a novel called Friendship Bread. While the story was entertaining, the recipe at the back of the book that the story was premised on sounded intriguing so I xeroxed the recipe and started my own batch of sourdough. After 10 days, I mixed up a batch for pancakes and found that they didn't have enough "lift" to be able to get a spatula under. I threw the whole mess away after a very long cleanup of my kitchen.

This morning I gave another recipe a try, a No-Knead Artisan Bread that has people raving. I copied an article about it in Mother Earth News in 2009 and decided to finally give it a try. With public and private school cancelled for the day, I let the kids sleep in (Will slept until 10am) and with the only noise being the sleet rattling on the windows, mixed up the simple dough. After a 2 hour rise, I shaped a small round loaf, let it sit for an hour on the pizza peel, and slid it into the oven. The result was a small perfect loaf of bread that looked like it came from a fancy bakery. It was gone in a matter of minutes after I cut off a slice and we made another loaf, which disappeared just as quickly as the first. It seems I have found the perfect bread, crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside. The master recipe seems to be only the tip of the iceberg so I will be checking this one out from the local library and seeing if I can even make perfect pancakes with it as well.

3 cups warm water
1 1/2 TBL yeast
1 1/2 TBL salt
6 1/2 cups flour
cornmeal

Pour warm water into a large bowl, add yeast and salt, then mix in the flour all at once until it is uniformly moist. Cover loosely and let rise for 2 hours. Sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel and sprinkle the dough with flour, pull off a grapefruit size piece. Gently stretch the dough around to form a round ball and place on the peel, leaving it to rest for an hour. Preheat the oven to 450 F for 20 minutes with a pizza stone on the center rack and put a pan on the bottom rack to hold water. Slash the top of the dough with a very sharp knife. Slide the bread dough onto the stone and pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan below. Quickly shut the oven door and bake for 30 minutes or until the bread is brown and sounds hollow when you thump on it. Allow to cool before slicing. Refrigerate the rest of the dough covered for up to 2 weeks.

I'm just about to go into the kitchen to attempt to make pizza with this dough, which I usually make in the bread machine and tomorrow am going to try my hand at sticky caramel rolls.

(update: for pictures of my pizza, bread, and cinnamon rolls: baking success #2)

upside down prayers

2012-01-27T08:15:00.000-05:00

Every evening before bed we all kneel in a semi-circle before a small crucifix and pray for a quiet night, ask each of our patron saints to pray for us and say the Our father, the Hail Mary, and the St. Michael prayer. We used to recite many more prayers, but with the little ones flopping about and two exhausted parents, eager to get children in bed, we have pared our family prayers down to the basics for the time being. Julia Ellen wanders about, first sitting on my lap with her little hands folded just so, with thumbs crossed, and perhaps taking a breather on Will's lap, before clambering up on the big blue armchair, where she flips herself upside down and positions her hands again in prayer. I have learned to close my eyes at this point so I don't start a contagious giggle fit.

Yesterday while waiting for Mary to emerge from her elementary school gym class, I was flipping the radio back and forth between Glen Beck and EWTN. The Catholic station had just started praying the luminous mysteries of the Rosary, so I flipped it back to Beck, but Julia Ellen piped up from the backseat, "Hail Mary, Amen. Hail Mary!" so I quickly switched stations and we spent the next 10 minutes listening and praying along with the radio. Julia Ellen might not assume the most pious pose when we pray, but she does recognize the words and obviously loves praying and going to Mass.

Reason #897 to homeschool

2012-01-24T08:06:00.002-05:00

The federal government is quietly collecting massive amounts of personal information on all children, starting at age 5. Over time, the files available on each US citizen will be able to be used in Orwellian ways we can't even begin to imagine.

Privacy experts say the problem is that states collect far more information than parents expect, and it can be shared with more than just a student’s teacher or principal.“When you have a system that’s secret [from parents] and you can put whatever you want into it, you can have things going in that’ll be very damaging,” says Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “When you put something into digital form, you can’t control where that’ll end up.”

According to a 2009 report by the Fordham University Center on Law and Information Policy, some states store student’s social security numbers, family financial information, and student pregnancy data. Nearly half of states track students’ mental health issues, illnesses, and jail sentences.Without access to their child’s data, parents have no way of knowing what teachers and others are learning about them. US News

My favorite comment:

Just like the old Soviet state schools. They're coming to your neighborhood too. Data collection, personal information on the parents and family members. YOU can't see what they put in there, can you? GESTAPO sounds pretty familiar too. Revolt people. Don't furnish information, give the wrong SSN, and make sure you kid tells you what the teachers are asking them. Raise hell with your school board and get in their faces. Make them squirm and sweat.

There is more. The College Board is experimenting with requiring digital DNA ID cards for students taking the SATs. (But somehow it is discriminatory to ask for a photo ID to vote)

It begins with mandatory pre-registering at a student’s home school with official legal ID documents only.

“All of that is uploaded to an I.T. system of wireless connections called the ‘CLOUD,’” Dr. Hayward said.

The student’s unique digital DNA code is created and assigned to an ID card with covert authentication marks printed onto it. Proctors can verify instantly with a simple UV light and smart phone scan.

“Now you can compare the image on the phone with the image on the ID card, and the image of the student,” Dr. Hayward said. CBS

Does this remind anyone else of the rumblings of a totalitarian state? My favorite comment:

Since they are now wanting to collect student academic data in a permanent record maybe they can just compare what they think a student’s score should be to what the results are and then surmise that a student was someone else! In fact, why have an SAT at all? Just tell every student what they can do with their life and what they will achieve like in the Soviet Union. Obama and his minions need to go before we are all treated like caged animals. Life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness not DNA identification, strip searches on planes, etc. This country has gone to the dogs – and taxpayers are forced to subsidize these dogs who receive generous Federal benefits.

things I've learned this winter...

2012-01-22T07:40:00.000-05:00

1. If the snowplow truck is coming, quickly run to the other side of the road. (luckily I didn't have to learn this one the hard way)

2. Stacking wood is much easier in September than in December when you have to kick the pieces because they are frozen to the ground or in January when they are hidden under a layer of snow.

3. Your body can't differentiate any temperature under 0 F.

4. Even "real Mainers" get excited when the daylight lasts until 5pm, as opposed to dusk at 3:30pm in late December.

5. Maine really does look like the cover of the LL Bean catalogue, the trees all beautifully flocked with snow, the ice fishermen in their little huts, the skiers in their adorable hats. Swooshing through the woods on my cross country skis, with the snow gently falling I feel like the cameraman is just behind a tree ready to put me in an advertisement.

6. Wool mittens keep your hands warmer than fancy gloves.

7. The basement is going to be 60F no matter how much oil you use trying to heat it so you might as well bring all the schoolbooks to the living room and work on the floor in front of the wood stove.

8. The best way to feel warm is to eat hot soup, drink hot cocoa, and read aloud books about really cold winters, such as Julie and the Wolves or The Long Winter.

I never got a push present...

2012-01-19T17:24:00.000-05:00

despite delivering 6 children, some completely without drugs, but I am "pushing" for a pair of .25 to .50 ct. sapphire earrings if I don't get into an accident between now and Spring. This being my first winter driving in the snow and ice, with no 4-wheel drive, I have hinted enough that I deserve some sort of prize if I make it to May without running off the road.

The other morning I almost lost my sparklies when a yahoo in a big truck came racing up behind me, but the joke ended up on him when he gunned his engine and almost slid right off the hill. Slow and careful, that's my plan for the next 10 weeks so I can collect.

Weather forecast: another 4-6 inches starting tonight.

I think I broke my tailbone

2012-01-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

It was my own fault and now I have to buy a new sled to boot.

All afternoon yesterday I took turns taking little children down the toboggan and one of the plastic sleds while racing the others down our very long downward sloping backyard. The intermittent rain made a thick crust of ice over the snow, adding more speed to each run. Everything went well until I got the brilliant idea of building a little mogul so we could catch some air. Timmy and I went racing down the hill, and on the third try hit the bump head on. We both went flying, Timmy landing on the soft snow and my fanny coming down firmly on the front of the sled. My impact extended a small crack halfway down its length. I still hurt this morning and now have to shop for a couple of new boards at Walmart. Will and Mary instructed me on which style to purchase, but I'm afraid if they go down any faster then they will go right into the woods and hit a tree. No, sledding might not be the smartest or most dignified thing for a mommy to do, but it is certainly more fun than washing dishes or vacuuming.

snowed in

2012-01-13T08:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we experienced a rather small blizzard and everyone stayed nice and cozy inside around the woodstove as the wind blew in from the north. The kids attempted to sled down the hill, but gave up after 20 minutes, the snow just blew down their collars and up their noses. I went out in my parka with fur edges (thank you Melinda for the useful hand-me-down!) and shoveled 1/3 of the driveway by hand so Tim could pull into the driveway after work. I doubt I would have finished before it got dark (4:30pm), but thankfully, the lady next door who was snowblowing her driveway came over and completed ours. We certainly are going to drop off some fresh baked lemon bars and ginger cookies today as a thank you. We have a snowblower attached to our lawn tractor, but I haven't got a clue as to how to work either machine so the handy snowshovel is the only way I can clear snow. A snowblower can't be any more difficult to figure out than a huge tractor, but learning to drive and mow on a beautiful sunny day in June is far different than learning to manipulate the blower direction in the blinding snow at 20F.

Due to the kid's public school classes being cancelled we started the day off very leisurely, I didn't even know that Will was still home until 9:30am. All the children finished their schoolwork, including Will, since we just pretended he was still being homeschooled. The rest of the day we watched movies, visited with the neighbors, read books, and played on the computer. Today will likely be much of the same, sans Will, but at some point I will bundle them all up and send them outside to sled and build forts.

Almost all their schoolwork is already completed, lately they have started wanting to do their work "early" by sitting down in the evening and finishing page upon page of phonics, math, and spelling. It does make a rather long day for me since yesterday morning they did school and then last night were at it again to complete today's assignments. But I'm not going to complain since I didn't have to track down a single child to stay on task. It certainly is freeing to know that besides a few subjects, all we have to complete today is practicing the piano, leaving the whole day open to bake, clean, snuggle near the warm woodstove, and gaze upon the winter wonderland outside.

quilting again

2012-01-11T08:01:00.000-05:00

After at least a 12 month hiatus, I set up a little sewing area in the schoolroom downstairs and Tim has almost finished putting together my quilt frame. I have several tops that need to be quilted, but the project I'm working on now is a t shirt quilt for another homeschooling mom's son. I made one for her older son a few years back, but have really enjoyed putting this top together. Susan sent along some lovely baseball fabric, enough for the sashing and outer border (and I mean just enough).

Perhaps I can solicit other orders in our area, there must be dozens of greeks and jocks at the local college with dresser drawers overflowing with t shirts that they would like made into a memento of collegiate days. It is so exciting to open the box of shirts and contemplate different layouts, which leads to the nervousness of them cutting apart (after all, you can't put them back together), and gradually progressing to a neatly finished top. Next I will piece the backing and roll each part onto the frame and slowly quilt it all together. A contrasting binding and a small label on the back will result in folding the completed project into a box and mailing it back to the sender. It must seem almost miraculous from the other end, sending a box of old shirts and receiving a warm colorful bed covering with memories from past years gracing the cover. I'm happy to be quilting again, especially with enough room to spread a project out on the floor to admire my efforts.

Will's first week

2012-01-08T17:25:00.001-05:00

After a week of waiting outside in the van to drive Will home, helping him a tiny bit with his homework, buying yet more school supplies, and reminding him about 10 times every evening that just because he started private school doesn't mean he can stop playing the piano, I have to say that we are doing/have done a more than adequate job homeschooling our children. The rest of the year in pre-algebra should be easy since it all seems to be a review of what we have covered so far this year, the teachers have been very impressed by his work ethic, and he proudly boasted at having the largest necktie collection in the 7th grade (his new tie featuring the planets was a big hit with the science teacher).

Will's first ever "first day of school" picture

Will's "away" school attendance has been a major change for everyone in the family and there is a touch of jealousy for his being around other kids, getting special foods for lunch, and the attention he receives at dinner (after all, I know what everyone else did all day). Tim has to leave earlier for work to drop him off and I have to take an hour out of every afternoon to pick him up. But the main purpose of this endeavor, keeping Mommy sane, is being accomplished. My mornings are spent more pleasantly than they have in years and some days the other 4 children are finished with their work by 11am.

I have to say that our homeschooling curriculum is much, much more rigorous and authentically Catholic than the top-notch school he is now attending, which is why we are still supplementing his courses at home and of course still homeschooling all the younger children. Do I feel guilty for putting him in school? Maybe a little, but every family has to reevaluate the academic choices that best work for each year and each child. Parents constantly have to say no to opportunities due to lack of time, interest, or energy. Every kid can't be simultaneously involved in the arts, music, academics, sports, Scouts, volunteering in the community, field trips, home economics, trades, and the hundreds of other options available to school age children.

Homeschooling Will has been a wonderful experience, a heady challenge, and a daily search for the truth. Whatever his future academic career might include, I do not regret for one moment the 8 and 1/2 years of homeschooling my boy.

(almost) wordless Wednesday

2012-01-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

My bet is that this guy who lives in our town would likely be voting for Rick Santorum over Barack Obama...

Also check out the totally awesome 6th anniversary edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

tutor your own child, who would've thought?

2012-01-02T05:49:00.000-05:00

One of the books I recently checked out from the library is titled How to Tutor Your Own Child, by Marina Ruben, a tutor at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how homeschool-friendly the author seems to be, after all, homeschooling is simply tutoring in a classic sense. The authors covers organization of materials and time, effective methods of instruction, what parents can learn from homeschooling methods such as lapbooking and Susan Wise Bauer's cycle of instruction, mnemonics, putting information in front of children via Frank Gilbreth's painting Morse code on the ceiling a la Cheaper By the Dozen, using new technology, and the ethics of helping vs doing the child's work for them. Despite the liberal slant (promoting NPR as "high quality news"), this book gives many ideas to both public school, private school, and homeschooling parents.

I was tickled to find so many of the things we do as part of our daily lives, such as reading aloud, making time lines, going on field trips, having multiple library cards (we have cards to 5 libraries in Maine) mentioned as ways to boost grades and inspire learning. That said, I was instantly inspired to pick up some new laminated placemats for the kids featuring maps, money, and a diagram of the solar system (actually I have been meaning to get new ones to replace our damaged ones, but serendipitously happened to find some at Goodwill on Saturday). In addition, we have spent this past week of vacation reading aloud several big kid books (the little ones are already read to every night), including Julie and the Wolves, The Incredible Journey, and by Maggie's insistence, The BFG.

Most homeschoolers are familiar with many of the methods and ideas presented in this book, but if you happen to see it on the library shelves, pick it up for a little boost of inspiration for yourself.

10 points!

2011-12-31T15:09:00.009-05:00

This morning I ventured out in the light icy rain and participated in the 1st race for the new sub5 track club series. Little did I know that back home, minutes after I left, the power went out (and all over midcoast Maine). Tim was congratulating himself profusely on our purchase and installation of a whole house generator, especially since he was able to wash and dry all the yucky clothes produced last night when Charlie had one of his splitting migraine headaches. A recent CAT scan ruled out any serious causes, but it is agonizing to watch your child be in such pain, getting barfed on isn't so lovely either.

But I pulled off my sweatshirt at the last minute and running in a longsleeved tshirt and tights in the 31F weather was inspiration enough to finish the 3.1 miles rather quickly. I don't know my exact time as the results aren't yet available on-line (I forgot to start my watch until 40 seconds into the race), (edited to add: 22:46) but I placed 1st in my age group for a $25 gift certificate and 10 points in this year's series. The 2011 series results were posted in the newsletter, "The Women’s 40-49 group has Margaret Jones winning, with 48 points. She managed to stay ahead of the next two at 46 points each. Newcomer Katherine Collins was able to break the 46 point tie with Mary Parsons by virtue of a better finish in her 6th Series race. This was yet another exciting finish grouping!"

My New Year's resolution is to train harder and run faster. I know it isn't the most noble resolution, perhaps this evening we will all pick a virtue to improve upon this year, but the better I run the less stressed I am in daily life and the longer (hopefully) I will be around to raise my children and help with grandchildren. And that must encompass at least one of the virtues.

if you don't like the weather...

2011-12-28T18:37:00.000-05:00

wait 30 minutes.

Yesterday I ran up to Bangor for a bunch of sleds to enjoy the 6-8 inches of snow up on the farm since I don't have room or the inclination to pack them in the van for our week's vacation. Our van is large, but I already have to squeeze in 6 children, 2 cats, 2 mice, food for above mentioned animals, clothes for 7 people, snowshoes, snowboots, snowpants, 1 pair of skis, and at least 2 toys per child. Apparently the best sled purchased was a Whammo brand one with 2 sets of handles ($20 retail at Walmart), but Julia Ellen really enjoyed flying down the hill on her back on a $5 huge green plastic disk. Over the course of the day Will carved out a 1/4 mile long run extending from the corner of the front porch to the tree line. I went down face first a few times while letting the kids try out my skis and it really was fun and fast, but the long trudge back up the hill was a chore. Yes, the children have already asked for the construction of a tow rope, they must think we live at the Camden Snow Bowl or something.

This morning, after a night of rain, there wasn't a flake of snow left anywhere. I ran in a tshirt and shorts, but by afternoon the temp had dropped so much that I was back in a coat and gloves. We might get another chance this trip for sledding as it is supposed to snow Friday and Saturday, just in time for my next race, the Epic 5K Finale, the first sub5 race of the new season. As I came in 2nd this year, I figured a good strategy would be to be in some of the smaller races with a better chance of placing well.

So far this winter, the weather has been similar to Virginia in a cold year, but we haven't even gotten to the "real" winter yet, as the neighbors tell me. After a semi-jokingly said recently on a 10F day, "This is as cold as it gets, right?" They said, "Oh honey, you haven't seen anything yet."

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2011-12-23T09:22:00.000-05:00

After running yesterday in a tshirt and shorts, we awoke this morning to at least 2 inches of snow and at 9 am it is still falling fast. Armed with a slightly inaccurate weather forecast, "will snow on Thursday night with a TOTAL accumulation of 1-2 inches," I ran all 8 of my errands yesterday and don't have to venture out at all today. We are spending the day watching Charlie Brown's Christmas special, baking cookies, and playing in the snow.

the view out the back door

the view out the front door

Have a very Merry Christmas!

last day?

2011-12-22T07:28:00.000-05:00

This is certainly our last day homeschooling in 2011 since we are taking Friday off to make cookies and pick out countertops and a faucet for our mini-kitchen redo. The appliances all went bad very soon after we bought the place (the dishwasher has to have a towel stuffed underneath as well as the upper rack listing dangerously) so we decided to get new countertops while we were at it.

But this might be Will's very last day homeschooling, since he starts Catholic school on January 3rd. Perhaps he will hate it, maybe he will flunk out, but I don't want him to and I seriously doubt either of those things will occur. He is a consciencious worker for the most part and I think he will enjoy being with other boys. The things that worry me are slight. Will he be responsible enough to remember to bring home all his books and write down his assignments? Will he be able to study for tests well? Will he remember which locker is his?

I have also been prepping him in another way by having him repeat (my favorite method of teaching catechism questions), "Girls are gross," "Girls have cooties," Girls are yucky." He has been pretty sheltered from the opposite sex other than at church and, of course, his 3 sisters. I don't want him to become obsessed in thinking about girls, I want his social interaction to be limited to making friends with other boys and being polite to grownups. But this is one of those things that I can't control, after all, he is 13 and that is what many boys that age start thinking about. But I can still think going away to school will be a positive thing and I will continue to have him repeat after me, "Girls are gross, yucky, AND have lots of cooties."

hot soup to warm cold toes

2011-12-21T11:53:00.001-05:00

Tim and Will are very good at starting fires in the wood stove, me not so great. I guess I better figure out the right placement of kindling and amount of crumpled paper before Will starts at Catholic school in January or we will be heating with expensive oil as opposed to not quite as expensive wood this winter. Two cords are on their way to the house this week after my nagging at my husband for weeks about getting some before the snow comes. A fire is so cozy and really warms up the house quickly and if I ever get around to putting the kettle on top, makes for some lovely hot cocoa.

What I have been doing is attempting to make soup that warms the bones and toes. Last week I used up 5 or 6 onions I grew this summer and made the worst french onion soup ever known to exist. Too many bouillon cubes made the broth overpowering so I pitched the whole batch in the trash. Big mistake. The soup leaked out of the trash bag all over the garage floor and truck bed leading to Tim having to scrub both out and becoming very angry. He did later scrub off the "NO LIQUIDS" notice on my kitchen trash can lid that he had marked there in a fit of pique. But yesterday I tried again with canned beef broth and the result was better, but still not close to La Madeleine's signature soup. Today's cooking experiment will be beef and barley, served with a loaf of homemade bread. There is nothing like a thick bowl of hot soup to ward off the cold so in the weeks to come, the family should expect to smell lentil and sausage, chicken noodle, and beef stew simmering on the stove.

brrrr!

2011-12-18T11:13:00.000-05:00

This morning I woke up and looked at the thermostat outside the kitchen window: 10 F. By the time we were driving back from Mass it was up to a whopping 18 degrees. I've never been in weather this cold in my life, my ribbed tights didn't do a thing against the cold wind as we left the Basilica this morning. Of course we were late because I didn't anticipate how long it would take to get 5 children bundled up in coats, hats, and mittens, especially trying to find matching items in the two large baskets I have in the front closet. (Tim takes Will early to serve Mass)

We haven't had any snow since Thanksgiving so I've been running almost every day, but I've got to figure out how to keep my tummy warm while running- the fleece jackets bounce up and the thin t-shirt material doesn't protect my skin. I really don't relish the idea of going for a run today, but with the first race in the upcoming Sub5 series on New Years Eve, I have to be prepared both physically and mentally for the possibly the coldest race I've ever run.

"All I want for Christmas..."

2011-12-13T14:58:00.000-05:00

Reminder to myself and other moms with many children: keep a stash of $1 bills handy in case your 7 year old loses yet another tooth at 9pm. I had to get change for a $10 from Mary, who keeps all her babysitting money up high enough and hidden enough so no one will take any. I put the rest away because after a trip to the dentist yesterday (talk about a fun-filled afternoon!), 3 children were mentioning wiggly teeth.

My clan is not the most attractive bunch right now with one child needing to go in for braces with slightly buck teeth, two who refused to smile, one who has no hair on the top of her head due to yet another recent self-imposed haircut, and one who looks like he was in a bar brawl because he has no front teeth. I did the best I could with the Christmas card photo, so if you get one, don't laugh too loudly, I'm still hopeful that one year they will all be cooperative as well as cute.

Christmas shopping in "the big city"

2011-12-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about living in Maine is the lack of crowds or traffic. 5 cars in line at a light constitutes rush hour (one of the downsides is a lack of shopping options). To avoid the twice-a-year crowd the weekends before Christmas, I dressed and brushed my teeth in the dark on Saturday morning before heading out to Walmart and Lowes just to avoid long lines at the cash register. Luckily I hit Wallyworld first because as I was picking up our Christmas cards the power went out in the building. After the backup generator kicked on a few overhead lights the sound system beeped, "Attention all customers: please come to the front of the store to check out." I overheard the employees being directed (as I stood in a line 4 people deep, exactly what I attempted to avoid) to make sure the building was cleared and lock the doors. If I had slept in for another 30 minutes I would have been like the other poor souls in the parking lot and had to wait another 2 days to pick up my order. But all is well since as of this morning all my boxes are taped up, the cards addressed, and all the stocking stuffers are hidden in my closet. With the lack of a multitude of shops to select gifts, I bought some items on-line and became creative in my efforts to purchase gifts that are lasting and inspire creativity.

S is for saw and Shakespeare

2011-12-10T14:12:00.002-05:00

Timmy is in Kindergarten and, despite 5 years of being read to aloud, going through Seton's preschool books last year, and hearing his many older siblings sing the ABC song and practice their phonics, he started the year not exhibiting any letter recognition. Part of this is that he is male and in our home that means he is going to learn later than the average and part of this is that he has so many older siblings so Mommy's time to focus on preK concepts is non existent.

But when he wasn't understanding his letters this fall I resorted to an item Charlie and I made several years ago: the letter book. Some moms make fabulous ABC books for their kids, scrapbook-worthy with pictures of items all decorated and framed and placed on the page "just so." Not this mom (remember I don't have any extra time). Charlie and I had gone through a stack of magazines and old phonics workbooks (these are the best for those hard letters like Q and X) and cut out pictures of items, stuck them in blank book (I used some large drawing paper that I folded in half and stapled), wrote the capital and lower case letter neatly at the top and labeled each item.

Every morning, our first schoolwork is to review the letters we have covered this year by having him say aloud the name of each item on the page and try to remember the sound and name of that letter. After 3 weeks he can now recall 8 letters and is adding a new one every 3-4 days. Timmy doesn't care that our book is not anything Martha Stewart would touch with a ten-foot pole, but so far it is doing the job of helping our 5th child start on the road to reading.

at least we can turn up the heat

2011-12-07T07:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday started out warm, but wet, but as the day wore on and I took/picked up each child from their public school classes it got progressively foggier and colder. We didn't light the woodstove, but I kept the house at a relatively toasty 63F. I thought I was being frugal until I read this account this morning of a headmaster at a school in England who, for the sake of curbing imaginary man-made global warming, turned off the heat for a day.

Pupils shivered in coats, hats and scarves as temperatures fell to just 1°C (34°F).

"Nobody could work properly and kids could not even grip a pen through their gloves." The mum of a 12-year-old at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, said: "She was shaking when she came home. I was absolutely furious."

But Mr Benzie, 52, defended the "successful" experiment last Friday — locally the coldest day of the winter so far — and vowed to stage regular "eco-days" at the 640-pupil school.

He said: "We cut the heat to see if we can lower our carbon footprint. We let pupils wear as many jumpers as they liked.

My favorite line, which is just what I imagine some Occupy XYZ protesters would come up with:

"The idea was actually thought up by a small number of pupils from our student eco-group."

fulfilling a promise

2011-12-04T15:21:00.001-05:00

Follow the directions carefully or it will not work.

I told Will a few weeks ago that I would let him post his video on my blog. He has been doing a lot of stop-gap animation with stuffed animals, using a great deal of computer space and camera batteries. After forgetting about it, I hit upon the ultimate incentive for my 13 year old: a promise that once he finished his book report on The Yearling and his essay on Maine’s natural resources, I would publish his first video. So… enjoy!

delay, delay, delay

2011-12-03T16:09:00.000-05:00

It is early December and I'm trying not to be frantic about preparing for Christmas. Our Advent calenders with chocolates are being opened every evening and Tim took over our little Advent nativity calender schedule so every child gets an equal number of turns lighting the Advent wreath candle, putting up the shepherd or animal figure, and blowing out the candle after prayers. We don't decorate the house until Guadete Sunday and I plan to harvest some greens and winterberry branches to fill the window boxes tomorrow. However, I wanted to take the children's picture for our Christmas card/letter. Yes, I'm one of those people that radio hosts make fun of, including a cheerful note that tells folks where we now live and highlights some of the bright spots of the year with our Christmas card.

Today was the day I was going to make all the kids put on a red shirt, jeans, and a Santa hat, but several things conspired against me. Will worked at the local grocery store all day collecting food for the local food bank and didn't even get home until 3:30pm, which means dusk up here in Maine. Julia Ellen went outside and played with the neighbor's children, but refused to wear her mittens so she ended up screaming and had to be carried home and put her hands against my exposed belly to warm them up (the things we moms do for our babies). Then after she asked for a blanket, she promptly fell asleep in a chair ( I refuse to wake her up and hear her wailing, plus that doesn't make for good photos). Maggie asked for the camera to take a picture of said sleeping child and found that the batteries are dead because of Will's making stop-gap motion videos and I discovered that we don't have any replacement batteries here, even though I bought a huge package of them last week (I know exactly where they are in the farmhouse kitchen, along with my stand mixer which I need for making Christmas cookies).

So... now in addition to my other chores/errands, I now need to pick up some batteries and reschedule photo taking day, find a place to buy a Christmas tree in our new town (one thing that is cheap here in Maine), and look for some cookie recipes that don't involve a great deal of beating.

so, that's why they call it classic literature

2011-11-28T07:53:00.000-05:00

On our recent trip up to the farm I made a decision not to check out any books at the Bangor Public Library or to even walk through the door. The director's decision to invite the Occupy protestors to camp out in the park next to the children's entrance makes me furious. I don't want the kids to be exposed to the lies written on their signs or the violence and disease that these unwashed and uncivilized lay-abouts seem to produce (apparently that is isn't all they produce).

Instead, I had to rely on the 3 bookcases full of books up in Tim's study to choose from. Mostly they are military, which I don't care for, and Catholic books, which I have already read and make me feel guilty for not being holier, but on a lower shelf is a leather-bound collection of classic books. Except for Pride and Prejudice I was turned off of the classics by a brief stint in Honors English in 8th grade because the class was reading one of the most boring books known to man; Silas Marner. But on Wednesday morning in the midst of a snowstorm and desperate for something to read, I pulled out Jane Eyre and found it riveting and then started in on The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

Well, I think I can boycott the Bangor library far longer than the occupiers will stand a Maine winter living in a tent, so come spring likely I will be more educated and entertained and be able to venture back into the stacks and catch up on a 6 month backlog of new books.

holiday prep = snow?

2011-11-23T16:45:00.001-05:00

A few days before Halloween, Maine experienced a freak snowstorm, dumping at least a foot on our driveway. Luckily it melted away in a few days. This morning I awoke to snow covering the lawn and more falling sideways. It has snowed all day, a dry snow combined with frigid winds, making even a trip out to dump kitchen scraps in the compost bin a long tough slog (and I ran 8.5 miles yesterday).

I didn't anticipate this weather and hurriedly packed for a long week at the farm, letting the kids pack the hats and gloves. A mistake on everyone's part for sure, since there aren't enough of anything for more than 3 kids to go outside, and no snowboots or snowpants for anyone. But we are safe and snug inside with the gas fireplace going, Maggie reading Matilda aloud to the boys, everyone progressing on their book reports, and Thanksgiving dinner thoroughly prepped. Hopefully, Tim will make it up here unscathed and we will give thanks for each other, our faith in God, and the foresight of purchasing a automatic generator a few weeks back.

last race of the series

2011-11-22T06:57:00.001-05:00

The past few weeks I have really pushed myself to improve my speed, a free turkey was on the line as well as a chance to break a 3-way tie in the Sub 5 track club series standings. I was so sure that I would win my age bracket that I made room in my fridge for the prize bird.

However, despite a 21:18 time (7:07/mile pace) I came in 4th in the middle age women category. No free turkey, but Mary did win a pound of Tim Horton coffee. So after a late lunch the kids and I stopped on the way home and picked up our Thanksgiving bird ($9 after coupon).

I have to admit that whoever wins the series deserves the prize (I came in 2nd), there were some tough races (the Labor Day 5 miler with the steep hill up to Steven King's house comes to mind) and some easy ones (the Garelick Milk Run 1 miler - all downhill) and I know that I can do even better next year having some idea about the courses. Perhaps I will never run another race above 10 miles, but I want to keep running until I'm too crippled to do it, the lure of racing and competing is strong.

my life is a giant jigsaw puzzle

2011-11-20T07:10:00.003-05:00

NFP is not an exact science, and when I was 4 days late recently, my mind raced between picking out baby names (Henry James or Elizabeth Ann, if you care to know) and utter panic (a year without running, where would I put a baby in this house?). Since everything I do, from the moment I awake to the instant my head hits the pillow has to be fit in like a giant 500 piece puzzle, I didn't relish the idea of having to fit more pieces into my daily life.

Tuesdays are my worst days: Mary at the elementary school at 8:50 for art and gym, Charlie at the primary for gym at 10:00, pick Mary up at 10:10, pick Charlie at 10:35, Maggie at the primary for gym at 11:15, pick up at 11:55, drop off 3 children at piano at 2:00, drop off Will and pick up 2 children at piano at 3:15, pick up remaining children at 4:00, fit into all of this school for 5 children ("Will, this is how you do this algebra problem, I want to see the rest completed before I get back."), laundry, breakfast, lunch and dinner, tidy the house, etc. etc. etc. There are always errands to run, doctor/dentist/orthodontist appointments, groceries to buy, and a phone call, "Can you do this?" thrown in for good measure. At any moment I feel like the whole puzzle is in danger of being tipped off the table by one or more of the children. Yesterday Julia Ellen got hold of a pair of children's scissors and not only cut her own bangs days after I trimmed them so carefully, but cut up the first page of a library book, and cut off the kitten's whiskers.

I just don't think I can add one more thing to my day, my life, my world. So, when Parents.com, of Parents magazine emailed me asking me to be in contention for their new homeschool blogger position, with the obligation, under contract, to produce 3-5 posts a week about homeschooling, I was pleased about the recognition, but knew in my heart that I could not accept. When I say I will do something then I try my best to honor that promise, whether that obligation be daily prayer, marriage, children, art lessons, or employment. I didn't think I had a table large enough right now to work on a 1000 piece puzzle, no matter how much I wanted to.

However, I realized on Friday morning that if God asked me to take on the 750 piece puzzle we could make it work. I can say no to some things, but not to another precious life. There are only so many hours in each of our days and we must pick and choose how we will fill them. In 2011, I have chosen to teach my children at home, supplement with public school classes, and be a homemaker. In 10 years that situation will likely be different, but I do hope and pray that one day I will see the completed puzzle of my life, including 6 (or more?) beautiful children and a happy husband.

edited to add: it was a short-lived false alarm, but I found that 36 hours are plenty of time to be horrified, be resigned, and be prepared, before being disappointed.

serving penance

2011-11-11T05:27:00.000-05:00

I could never be a hypochondriac or suffer from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (when parents make up illnesses in their children for attention). Both are simply too much work when you have more than a couple of kids. Yesterday we had an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist to check out a heart murmur that the nurse-practitioner heard a few weeks ago when we took Timmy in for a checkup. Tim said it would be nothing to worry about and this turned out to be the case, but I felt that we had to go just to be sure. After sitting in a 10' x 10' room with 4 children for well over an hour, I was ready to admit myself to the hospital just for a little peace and quiet. We exhausted all our books that we brought, blew up a "balloon" made out of a laytex glove, and Julia Ellen played "open and close" with every drawer in the room. By the second hour, the little boys were climbing all over the examining table, the chairs, and me.

Finally the doctor did a quicky ultrasound which showed Timmy's heart pumping away, while the toddler repeated, "Want the lights on," over and over and over. Finally we drove home in the dark and rain with the same 2 year old screaming from boredom and exhaustion. I am so grateful that there is nothing seriously physically wrong with any of our children, since more than one doctor's appointment a year for each is beyond my capability, mentally and physically. My heart goes out to those parents who do have to repeatedly suffer through long waits in the doctor's office with not such happy conclusions and their children are in my prayers.

early birthday present

2011-11-10T06:43:00.000-05:00

The other day I was out running my 9 mile loop, a little later in the day than usual and was almost to the turn for home when a car pulled over ahead of me and a man got out of the car. He was holding a blaze orange hat and offered it to me, "You look like a deer to any hunter out there." Turns out he works for Fish and Wildlife and didn't want me to be shot on the way home. "Do I look cute?" I asked after I put it on and adjusted the fit. "Yeah," after a slight hesitation. I figure either he was afraid of a sexual harassment charge or was honestly thinking that few people look good after running 8 miles.

On my birthday Tim brought home a basket of flowers, the children made me a card and gave me a pin that I swear I gave to Mary from my mother's jewelery box, and my dad called to wish me a Happy Birthday (I thought it was an hour earlier because I haven't changed my computer's time yet). No, I didn't receive a trip to Hawaii, but a lovely pair of cross country skis so I can continue to exercise despite the cold and long winter arriving soon. The important thing is that Tim thinks I look cute in my new baseball hat and he didn't hesitate to tell me so.

smushed pew syndrome

2011-11-08T20:20:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday we did not attend the TLM in Lewiston, but instead went to the NO Mass in Bangor. While Tim was heading up to pick up Will from his campout at Acadia, I took the remaining 5 children to the 10:30 service. I forgot that they had changed the time and arrived 20 minutes early and snagged one of the back pews. While the children behave better when sitting up front, I choose to sit in back so I can be sure to receive Communion from the priest and am able to "switch sides" to make that happen. But in the last 5 minutes before Mass began we first made room for an older lady on one side and then a couple squeezed in on the other side while I wasn't paying attention. Then Charlie announced he had to go potty and in the period of his absence the first woman scooted over to make room for 2 more people. So, what started out as spacious accommodations, turned into our large party of 6 being smushed into a space that could really only accommodate 3. As I was getting my tights snagged by the toddler's velcro shoes and listening to children complaining about being elbowed by their siblings, I uncharitably told them to elbow their adult neighbor instead.

What were these people thinking? Why would you deliberately box in a family with lots of little children that need room to breathe and access to the aisle? All this relates to Father Z's blog post about obnoxious ushers and the comments by perfect parents with children who never utter a peep inside the sanctuary for fear of being beaten. I'll refrain from commenting there, but I wanted to share with the childless adults who attend Mass: you reap what you sow, if you smush my 2 and 5 year old children who just want a little room so they can color their Catholic coloring books you deserve the glares and elbows that will inevitably come your way. Yes, I will pray for you, but it will be likely, "Dear Lord, please induce this person to sit somewhere else next Sunday."

chased by cows

2011-11-07T06:49:00.000-05:00

Every night, several times a night, Julia Ellen wakes up screaming. I hold her tight for several minutes, pour her a cup of water, and hold her again on her bed before she sleepily puts her head back on her pillow for another 3 hour "nap." I asked her if she had bad dreams and she said, "Yes." "What was so scary?" No response. "Were there scary animals?" "Yes." My mind raced with the possibilities and wondered aloud if she was frightened by rampaging heifers. The mind thinks strange thoughts in the middle of the night, especially after being awakened out of my own nightmare of sorts by piercing screams.

Today is the first day of the younger children taking supplemental classes in gym and art at the local public school so that was the topic of my nocturnal musing. The daily logistics of getting 5 children educated sufficiently, as well as cleaning the house enough so it won't be condemned, preparing adequate food so no one will go hungry, and squeezing in my daily run is difficult enough, but now it might be impossible. In this nightmare that Julia Ellen mercifully cut short, not only did I not get a chance to run, but between dropping off and picking up children for these extra classes, we didn't get a single assignment completed, nor practice one piece on the piano, nor read a single book.

Not that this scenario is likely to play out today with only one child taking one class, but it reminded me to focus on the importance of the basics of our curriculum and not be focused on marauding cows, however frightening they may appear to be.

farmer Kat

2011-11-05T06:42:00.000-04:00

Tim took a few days off so we could come up to the farm this week and I have been very busy. First I worked on clearing the brush alongside the driveway (and it is a long driveway) so we can see the stone "wall" separating our land from the hay field on the other side of a narrow strip of woods. After wrestling with the crummy loppers for several hours and getting a huge blister on my palm, I'm almost finished with that task. Then, with Julia Ellen's help, I staked out where some fruit trees will be planted in April and fertilized, limed, and covered each spot with a big pile of wood chips.

Thursday and Friday were spend making umpteen trips to the dump to collect more wood chips to cover another of my four long garden beds. I was able to cover most of one in October with horse bedding/manure before the dump got rid of all their piles available to residents (they now just have shredded wood chips from brush). It took 2 days because I had to pitch into the truck bed and then remove at the garden one scoop at a time. I did become more efficient at removing the chips when I lined the truck bed with cardboard boxes (yes, I scavenged these from the recycle container at the dump) and pulled them out onto the garden, but it was still slow going for most of the day. I think I shoveled and spread 7 pickup truck loads in the cold and my arms really can feel it. I know that my plants will appreciate all my hard work next year by the addition of all this organic matter. And since I'm not hauling another 14 loads to cover the two remaining beds, I will be able to scientifically compare the effect in next year's vegetable production.

shadow a student

2011-11-02T08:18:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Will went to his first day of school and loved it. He went to all the 7th grade classes with a nice, polite boy we met at the open house. Why 7th grade? Tim and I decided, with Will's input, that transitioning from being taught at home to a highly competitive environment in the middle of 8th grade, with 9th grade looming would be too hard on all of us. Will has never studied for a test without me, never taken notes in class, and never had to listen to and contribute to a lecture. On the other hand, he has focusing on his work with a myriad of distractions around him down to a science. He would be a very young 8th grader and a slightly older than average 7th grader and this allows him to take Algebra 1 next year and be able to advance to Calculus by 12th grade. As he has always been interested in engineering, I would like him to have the prerequisites on his transcript.

Apparently he had the most fun in gym class playing dodge ball, was the only child in science who understood the process involved in wastewater treatment, and contributed the fact in geography class that he had lived in Italy. I am sure that we will continue to teach him Seton's religion at home, as the classes at school are a watered down version of what he currently studies and much more touchy-feely than I am comfortable with. Of course we will be very involved parents, I can't imagine being any other type as Will's and his sibling's education has been the main focus of my life for the past 9 years.

open house

2011-10-31T06:56:00.000-04:00

After shoveling out the driveway on Sunday morning following the earliest snowstorm anyone locally can recall, our family headed out to attend an open house at the local Catholic middle/high school. We sat through the presentation when students and alumni stood up and extolled the virtues and praised the education available there. We met the middle school faculty and the cross country/track coach who was a proud coach of Joan Benoit Samuelson, the first women's winner in the Olympic marathon. Then, by some freak coincidence, Will won the raffle for $1000 off next year's tuition (we never win anything, except races).

This is the first school where I felt that my child would receive an education equal to or better than the one using Seton at home. So, it looks like a new chapter in our lives is beginning, sending our first-born off to school. Most parents experience this when their child is 5 or 6, putting them on the big yellow bus and waving goodbye. I asked Will if I could take his photo on the front porch for my album tomorrow as he is going to spend the day shadowing another boy to see what the school is really like as a student. I have a feeling that he is going to come home enthusiastic about his day and want to start immediately. If his homeschool career ends at the close of this year, I know that I and his father have provided him a good foundation for learning and success in our 8+ years of learning at home.

rethinking this whole "living in Maine" thing

2011-10-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I ran 11 miles and wore a tee shirt and shorts, but yesterday I had to wear a long sleeved shirt and tights. Then last night the girls and I went to the mall and Walmart to find Maggie a birthday gift. She had her heart set on a horse to go with Jessie from ToyStory, but as I reminded her, we live in Maine with only a few options for toy shopping. That doesn't bother me, but I realized while we were driving home that it was SNOWING.

Yeah, I know that winter in Maine means snow and cold, I mean I've already stocked up on sleds, snowshoes, and a pair of spikes that slip over my running shoes, but I don't think it hit me until last night. Snow on the ground in October means that it is cold and it will stay cold for months and months and months. When Mainers talk about the summer as really short, I guess they aren't kidding.

wedding anniversary

2011-10-26T19:04:00.001-04:00

I can't believe that 15 years ago this morning I pulled a fluffy white dress (size 4!) over my head and walked down the aisle at St. John's Church in Portsmouth, Virginia to marry Tim. What a wild and crazy decade and a half we have had: 9 moves, 4 states, 1 foreign country, 8 pregnancies, 6 children, promotions, retirement, and all the ups and downs of normal life.

As a child I never thought I would marry someone so kind and good as Tim, and I pray that we will have many more years together, but if I never see another moving crew or set of khakis to press I will be grateful.

carnival of homeschooling

2011-10-25T08:08:00.000-04:00

Dewey's Treehouse is hosting this week's carnival, the 304th edition with lots of interesting posts.

Just call me Noah...

2011-10-24T08:21:00.000-04:00

'cause I swear I'm living in an ark. Last summer we had no animals, but since then we have adopted a turtle (but then we released Skipperdee when we realized he wasn't happy), a Beta fish named Bubba Blue, 2 mice named Peanut and Butter, and 2 kittens named Star and Night (though I realized a few days after they came home that Benedict and Scholastica would have been far better names). This past week the pet population was thinned dramatically.

Poor Bubba, who survived 1 week-long move from Virginia to Maine in a Tupperware container, succumbed to over cleaning the tank. We have never dealt with a water softener and apparently soft water doesn't rinse out soap or bleach very well. With trace amounts of bleach left in the cleaned tank, the poor fish didn't have a chance. Then the 5 big kids and I went up to the farm for swimming lessons and returned on Saturday night to complete chaos. Apparently the kittens overturned the mice tank, released the mice and killed Peanut. Tim found Julia Ellen in the top bunk holding her lifeless body. He frantically searched for her sister, only to find that the baby had hidden Butter under the sheets so the kittens couldn't get her too.

We are back up to our home's pet carrying capacity with a new red Bubba and a new white girl mouse named Cream (get it? Butter Cream) A new, secure habitat for the traumatized mice and a policy of keeping the girl's door shut will hopefully protect them from the rapidly growing kittens. We have discussed this summer growing chickens for the freezer and with butchering at approximately 8 weeks of age, I think I can make room on the ark for a short-term feathered flock.

am I doing a good job?

2011-10-21T10:47:00.000-04:00

Last night, due to the remnants of a cold and a heightened state of anxiety I worried about my children's academic accomplishments. We are seriously contemplating sending Will to a local Catholic school in January and I have signed Mary up to take several classes each week at our town's public elementary school. She doesn't have any opportunity to meet other little girls and since she has strong work ethic she finishes all her schoolwork everyday by 11am. But the question of if any of the children could easily transition into a school environment worries me.

To put it in perspective I made a short list of each child's strengths and weaknesses and realized that with a little more time and effort most of these deficiencies could be overcome. Maggie and Mary need to work on the times tables, Mary needs to study her spelling more, Charlie's reading skills would likely improve if I go back to the first grade readers and have him read them aloud again, and with everyone's assistance Timmy will soon gain letter recognition.

One of the hardest things I have found about homeschooling is that my time is so fractured by trying to teach 5 children, keep the toddler fed and entertained, keep the house tidy, cook the meals, keep up with the dishes and laundry, run the errands, be a good wife, and still have some time for myself. Apparently I'm not doing a very good job. My children are not always obedient, constantly fighting, not helpful around the house, and most days I'm not a good example of a Catholic mother. Would sending them all out to school fix some of these issues? Would it make them worse?

Well, I can't sit and dwell on my challenges and deficiencies. Mary needs to practice the piano, Maggie needs to work on catechism questions, Charlie needs to do a book report, Will needs to start his math and I'm the one who has to prod them all to get cracking.

this one they should have called "Mud in Your Eye"

2011-10-17T07:26:00.000-04:00

Last winter I ran in a cross country 3 race series with that title, but since the ground was frozen, there wasn't any mud, just frozen grass. This past Saturday I took the 3 big kids up to the farm in the pouring rain (Tim stayed home with the little ones so they could go to a birthday party) for a race to benefit the local Catholic school and swimming lessons. I also had a page-long list of items to bring back such as a dictionary, atlas, cookbooks, and all the pumpkins we could wedge in between the children and bags of groceries. Bangor now has the only military commissary in the state and knowing that staples such as gravy, pumpkin, and toilet paper are almost 1/2 the price of the local store, I stocked up while I had the opportunity.

We ran into trouble when we finally pulled up the driveway and unloaded our gear to find that Maggie had left her backpack behind. No shorts, no bathing suit, and I found out the next morning, no running shoes. Luckily Mary shared underwear, I contributed a tshirt for a nightgown, and we scrounged in the closet and somehow came up with a slightly too small pair of shorts and a slightly too big bathing suit. I didn't get any sleep after drinking coffee at Friendlys to stay awake on the drive and not getting there in time to adjust the spotlight on the barn so it blazed away all night, shining right in my eyes. But we managed to get up, get some breakfast (we had no bread or milk in the house so I made fresh bread), and get up to the field where the race was located.

After raining all night, the air was windy and cold and the fields were wet, I went up to my ankle in a puddle within 5 minutes of arriving. Perhaps Maggie was the smartest of us all, for when we got out of the car she was wearing Crocs. At first I wasn't going to let her run the kid's fun mile, thinking that she has left them in the mudroom on the farm, but after figuring out that she left these too at the other house, I signed her up a few minutes before the race began. The priest led the children in prayer and after he said Go! they were off like a shot. 7-8 minutes later the fastest kids started returning, mud streaming down their feet and legs and sprayed all up the backs of their shirts, Maggie right up there in 4th place. I guess the open holes in her shoes allowed the water to just flow out rather than make her feet heavy. Mary and Will tied for about 10th place.

I heard, "Ready, Set, Go!" myself about 40 minutes later and slid my way over the slick grass and churned up mud to a 5K time of 25:23, my slowest time at that distance, but fast enough to take 2nd place among women. We didn't stick around for the awards, hopefully they will mail mine, because I had to get my crew home for hot showers and fresh clothes before swimming lessons, lunch, and errands. I think for next year the school should promote the event as a mud run, perhaps they would get a much bigger turnout in the process.

pancakes anyone?

2011-10-13T06:12:00.000-04:00

The other day Mary and Julia Ellen accompanied me to the local grocery store to stock the pantry and fridge in our new home. As we were standing in front of the syrup selections Mary and I discussed the price difference between maple syrup and the commercial brands of "syrup." We decided to conduct a taste test comparison and see if boiled tree sap tastes 3 times better than the fake stuff, since it costs over 3 times as much. After reading a book last week about where our food comes from, which dedicates a chapter to the effort in making maple syrup I was eager to pour the real thing on my pancakes. I figured I shouldn't live in Maine, one of the top maples syrup producing states and NOT use it, but at $30 a quart, I've stuck with Log Cabin, which only contains about 2% syrup. So, last night I made pancakes for supper. Each child cut their 12" round in half and, after pouring from each bottle on top, they tasted the difference between "real" and "fake." Everyone agreed that the maple syrup side was much tastier. With 6 kids who love to drench their pancakes and waffles with sweet syrup, I might have to mix the two to stretch it, but we will still be supporting a local industry and eating better tasting pancakes.

the hills are on fire

2011-10-11T08:23:00.000-04:00

Now that we packed up the truck with furniture, curtains, clothing for 7, 2 mice, 2 kittens, food, and all the little things that must travel with us such as 5 boxes of schoolbooks, we are now residing at our "winter" home. One of the selling points of this house was the beautiful view of the western mountains. The leaves are at their peak and this morning combined with the pink of the sky at sunrise it was a beautiful sight. (the view from the 2nd floor was more impressive, but I didn't want to take out the screen to be able to take a picture)

I am partly sad at leaving the farm, but a little excited about living in a new place and finding hidden treasures such as pretty hiking trails and new friends. On the down side I have to find a piano teacher, which is proving harder than I anticipated, as well as get into a good routine for getting school done as well as household chores. Every time I turn around, listening to the radio, overhearing chitchat at the apple orchard, and talking with the neighbors I am reminded that winter is 'acoming and with it snow and frigid temperatures. "Enjoy the warm weather and pretty views of leaves now, because white and brown are the only color we will see for the next 6 months," they tell me. So for now, I'm looking out my window at the fiery hills every chance I get.

The Wilder Life

2011-10-06T07:16:00.000-04:00

I love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder. My copies of the original series, the faded yellow paperbacks and my hardbound copies of the first 2, inscribed from my grandparents as a Christmas gift in 1976 are precious mementos I have packed and unpacked in over 12 military moves. My favorite book is the most depressing, The Long Winter, because it amazes me how anyone in that small town survived 9 months of blizzards and biting cold with very little to eat. Apparently not one settler went mad, though Charles Ingalls did raise his fist against the wind and yell that it would not defeat them.

Many thousands of other have been similarly touched by the Little House books and so there are spin-off books, cookbooks (I still have my copy that my mother and I used to make a Little House dinner when I was in 5th grade), crafts and touristy trinkets, and museums at all the homesites where the Ingalls family lived. Wendy McClure is a writer about my age who has recently published a book, The Wilder Life, about her obsession with all things Laura. She churned her own butter, twisted a hay stick in South Dakota, contemplated filling her pocket with pebbles on the shores of Lake Pepin, spent the night in a covered wagon, and marveled at the tiny houses that the Ingalls family of 6 lived in. It was a wonderful opportunity to visit these places in her book since I have little desire and no reason to drag my family across America to see these sites myself.

However, I do have one gripe with Ms. McClure and her recollections. Her liberal political mindset permeates her book to the extent that it is uncomfortable to read portions. She lambastes homeschoolers, libertarians, and all things Christian in every chapter. Her determination extends to rewriting the Ingalls family's story to imply that Ma and Pa were only churchgoers for the social aspects of living in deserted, lonely places on the prairie. She forgets that Ma insisted on the Sabbath being a day of rest throughout the whole series. She forgets the reference in Little Town on the Prairie when Mary won a competition at college for knowing more Bible verses than any other student. She forgets the relief Ma showed when DeSmet finally gained a church of its own. No, it wasn't just a social outlet and deep down Ms. McClure knows this, after all she could tell the guide at the DeSmet museum how many acres were included in a homestead claim and the name of Laura's corncob doll.

There are many, many Laura books out there and this one gives something new, an overview of how meaningful the Little House series is to so many people around the world, if you can just mentally skip the author's bias against the very values and beliefs the Ingalls family held dear.

slow blogging

2011-10-04T18:30:00.000-04:00

It isn't for a lack of something to say, but my laptop is dying a slow death by shutting down between 5 and 60 minutes after I turn it on. It immediately crashes if I go onto blogger.com so I'm waiting to research new laptop models until I have access to Tim's computer at the other house. I'm leaning toward an Apple, but don't know if I'm capable of figuring out how to use one. They do seem to be more sturdy than my dying 3 year old HP, I accidentally washed my IPod and it still works fine.

our town had a fabulous dump

2011-10-04T18:25:00.000-04:00

or, I should call it by its proper title: transfer station. Instead of curb-side pickup of trash and recyclables that is common in suburbia, most small towns, at least the ones in Maine, have a unobtrusive location to bring all the household trash, plastic milk jugs, cardboard, paper, and yard waste. Some small cities, such as uber-liberal Belfast, charge $5-10 for a sticker and then $2.50 per bag, but our conservative town only charges $1 for a sticker for your car and no fee for dropping off garbage. The best part of our dump was the piles of shredded leaves and tree branches, horse manure and bedding, and other organic matter free for the taking. It was all neatly organized and I could fill up the back of my truck with my handy-dandy scoop I bought specifically for this purpose, but apparently now I can't. Early on Saturday morning I left the children all snug in their beds and headed over to the dump and found nothing- all the piles were wiped clean. When I went back later with my garbage in the back I asked the attendant and he said the town decided to not offer this service any longer. With only 1/4 of my garden prepped for winter with a coat of horse bedding/manure, I will have to find another free source of "fertilizer" this week.

3 things a runner needs

2011-09-26T06:37:00.000-04:00

I have been in a lot of races this year, 16 to be exact. They have ranged from a 1 miler to a half marathon. Almost all of those races were put on by track clubs, some for profit, but most for some local charity. The race I participated in on Saturday was not put on by a running club or even a runner because they did not give the participants those 3 things that are essential to any good race: bathrooms, good course layout, and plenty of water at the finish.

Granted, most of the participants in this event were walkers, but even slowpokes need to go potty before setting off for 40 minutes through unfamiliar neighborhoods. Luckily I shyly asked at the nail salon up the road if I could use their facilities and the nice lady working there acquiesced. The course went around a park's gravel paths 1.5 times and then up onto the road. With few markings, several runners got off course and on the return trip we had to go around the last walkers on a steep hill, avoiding dogs on leashes and strollers. At the end of the race there was confusion as well as to where the finish line was, leading me to almost be decapitated by a utility guide wire.

At the finish line there was only enough bottled water for a dozen or so people, not nearly enough for the 200 people participating and with no bathroom or gas station nearby, no way to obtain more easily. Despite all these issues, I finished 3rd overall, only being beat by a 13 year old state track star and a high school football player who was determined that he wasn't going to be by any girl, especially by one as old as his mom. Time: 22:13, new adult PR.

another 2 members of the family

2011-09-25T07:32:00.000-04:00

The other day the kids finished up school early so we took a trip up to the Bangor Humane Society to look at the kitty cats up for adoption. There have been several articles in the paper and on the radio about the huge number of cats dropped off at the shelter this summer and how they are running adoption fee specials to relieve the crowding. Ever since our cat, Fat Freddie, died several years ago (at the age of 17), we wanted to get another kitty, but couldn't due to being in rental housing. Now that we don't have the 14 hour semi-annual drive to deal with as well, I put off this excursion until things had settled down a bit.

The children talked me into adopting two very active 8 week old kittens- not what I had anticipated and neither eligible for the discounted fee. But Night and Star are home now and we are clipping nails, teaching litter box skills, snuggling with warm furry bodies, playing, and encouraging Julia Ellen to be gentle and not squeeze or chase the kitties. I think it is important for kids to have pets and the girls are being very responsible about feeding, cleaning up and refilling spilled water bowls, and making sure the kittens receive more than ample amounts of attention.

car schooling is for weightlifters in training

2011-09-21T07:25:00.000-04:00

or at least for those who have fewer than 5 children doing school. We are in a transition between our farm, where we spend summers, and our new winter house, spending 3-4 days a week at each place. The 2 hour drive is certainly not as dreadful as our previous annual 14 hour trek back to Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina duty stations, but doing it every week is tiring. The logistical planning involved in schlepping 6 kids, their school gear, clothes, and whatever items we need at one house but are located at the other is wearing me out. Something is always forgotten (this week it was Will and Mary's piano stuff) and Julia Ellen is not the best traveler. As soon as the garden is put to bed and we find a piano teacher we will only be going up to the farm on Fridays and Saturdays for swimming and riding lessons.

Our school books fill up 3 huge tote bags, leaving me with sore arms in hauling them up from the basement schoolroom in one house, out to the car, out of the car, and down to the basement schoolroom in the other house. But we are getting school completed each day and still have time left over for the inevitable boatload of errands that come with moving to a new place.

traveling back in time to 1962

2011-09-19T07:28:00.000-04:00

Maine is a very large geographic diocese, the entire state is under the direction of one bishop. Currently the bishop has a moderate bent, but in the past apparently there have been some real doozies. There isn't much orthodoxy, though there are pockets and this translates into few vocations to the priesthood and religious life and only one priest willing to say the Traditional Latin Mass. We are blessed to be able to now attend one of his two Masses offered each Sunday, despite the ordeal of awakening all the children at 6am to attend. The Basilica in Lewiston is by no means packed with traditionalists, the church can hold at least 900 people, but there is a fair crowd and many families with lots of little ones. Will started serving yesterday after an early morning practice to acquaint him with the slightly different rubrics. Every parish we have attended does things a little differently based on the priest's preferences. I'm looking forward to being able to worship Our Lord in the Mass of the Ages, but not so enamoured of having to get there before 7:30am to get into Confession.

super neurotic, frantic mom... for good reason

2011-09-17T08:21:00.001-04:00

On Friday morning the kids and I, along with my father and his wife hit the road in the easterly direction to visit Acadia National Park. We didn't stop at the visitor center and since my father navigated we somehow took a very non-traditional route that circumnavigated Mt. Desert Island without going through the park tollbooth. We stopped at several locations including a lighthouse overlooking a sound and saw impressive stone cliffs, crashing waves, and dolphins (I think, or small whales). Another stop led us on a 2 mile hike giving glimpses of shoreline and culminating in a broad expanse of rocks at the water's edge. I had been walking with Julia Ellen and Timmy and when I came up to the other grownups. Charlie and Maggie were nowhere to be seen.

I have read many accounts over the years in books and the newspaper of people being pulled out to sea by large rogue waves along Maine's coast. The library on Monhegan Island is dedicated to two children who were swept away in 1926 . Last summer 3 people were drowned and several others from Belfast were rescued after they were swept away after going too far out on the rocks at Acadia. They had been entranced by the huge waves produced by the remnants of a hurricane. The locals who were watching from farther back warned and yelled at the tourists who were killed to come away from the waves, but they didn't understand the danger.

Well, I understand it perfectly and was terrified for my children's safety. The children were found around the bend on the point and I decided we should head back to the car. A picnic lunch with a breathtaking view and a later attempt to admire the wild spray hitting the rocks led to me declare that we were going home if the children would not obey and stay near me, away from danger.

The very next morning the Bangor Daily News featured an article describing the tragedy of a man swept out to sea off of Monhegan Island on Friday. He had been standing too close to the sea and a wave lifted him right off the rocks in front of his friends.

His body has not yet been found.

2 pies, oh my!

2011-09-13T06:02:00.001-04:00

This past Saturday the kids and I rose with the sun at 6am, put on our running gear, and hit the road to participate in the Pie In The Sky 5K and 1 mile fun run in Orono, Maine. Home to the main campus of the University of Maine, the town was hosting a festival, of which the race was a small part. There was a pancake breakfast in the firehouse (no, we didn't partake right before racing), crafts, a bike safety course, and all sorts of other things, but we spent half the day running and playing on the playground. Mary beat her brothers and sister and Charlie trailed behind, which surprised me. The situation was ideal in that the oldest watched their small siblings on the fenced in playground while I raced and waited for the race results.

The title's reference to pie didn't dawn on me until I saw that instead of useless ribbons or trophies, the top prize for each age bracket were homemade pies. For finishing 1st in my age group (and 3rd female overall) I received a pumpkin pie and for having the most family members participate (5) we won a delicious chocolate chip pie. Both the pies were consumed in rapid order, one for dessert on Saturday night and the pumpkin we ate for breakfast on our first official day of school for the 2011-2012 school year.

10 years later

2011-09-12T06:14:00.000-04:00

I have never seen the video of the planes hitting the World Trade towers. I have never seen them fall. But I can picture exactly where I was 10 years and 1 day ago as if it happened yesterday. We had picked up Tim at the military airport in Norfolk a few days before and were preparing for a family vacation to Maine before he started his new position on a amphibious assault ship, the USS Wasp. He came in the door and said, "Turn on the radio!" and we sat transfixed in the kitchen listening to the announcer (Tom Brokaw, I think) state breathlessly how the first tower had fallen, the plane hitting the second tower, and then its collapse as well. I remember wondering aloud if someone (who, I don't know) needed him to help identify bodies, but he assured me that there were plenty of people in the NY area that were capable.

With the command not needing him yet (they insisted he take his leave), we drove up the East Coast, seeing American flags and encouraging signs along every road. What impressed me the most were the individuals in Maine. It seemed as if every yard along Route 1 sported dozens of tiny flags spaced evenly along the road. The concept that "our nation will prevail" was palpable to everyone. I recall not being frightened, but full of righteous anger.

Today, we seemed to be a weaker people, one that meekly accepts being treated like terrorists ourselves at airports rather than offend Muslims. We have downplayed the threat to our country at any moment. I pray for those those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001, pray that the souls of their dearly departed are in the hands of God, and that we will never forget or let their sacrifice be in vain.

we didn't get arrested

2011-09-09T07:05:00.000-04:00

My father and his wife are visiting for the week and the kids are having a marvelous time. There is always someone willing to put together a jigsaw puzzle, play another round of Clue Mystery or Stone Soup or Parcheesi (with made up rules), read a story, or go for a walk. Unfortunately it has been raining most of the week so they haven't done many of the typical Maine touristy things. They did take Will for the afternoon on Tuesday to the Maine Maritime Museum and today the plan is to go to Acadia National Park, somewhere I have never managed to go. Yesterday we decided to take a shorter excursion up to the top of Mt Waldo, a hike that isn't too strenuous for even Julia Ellen's 2 year old legs.

When we pulled up at the rocky road that led to the base I was surprised to find a new gate across the access point with a huge sign: NO TRESPASSING VIOLATORS ARE SUBJECT TO ARREST AND PROSECUTION. Since we didn't have an alternative outing I decided to risk said arrest and the possibility of an irate farmer pointing a shotgun at us and we started up the road on foot. After a quarter mile a large dog barked at us from behind a fence and we didn't see another soul until we were resting close to the top. We had passed the now empty blueberry field and scrambled up the patches of slick granite stone that are visible from our farm as huge white patches. The children discovered patches of wild blueberries nestled among the rocky outcroppings and filled their hands with sweet berries. "I collected these for you," Timmy and Charlie said over and over to each of the adults before filling their own tummies with fruit.

As we sat there enjoying our snack and the view I saw a lone figure coming up the road. Assuming it was the farmer wanting to chase us off, we got to our feet and climbed the rest of the mountain so that we could enjoy the panoramic view from the top before we were forced to descend. After a lot of huffing and puffing from the steepness of the ascent and having to drag the children away from the berry bushes, we found the view worth the effort. The Penobscot River leading out to the bay was off to the southeast, Swan Lake was sparkling in the southwest quadrant, Bangor's and Brewer's multi-story buildings (the only city for 50 miles) were visible to the northeast. For the first time all week the weather was clear and we could see mountains 40 miles away, including one large one that I will have to look up in the Maine Gazetteer once I buy another copy to replace my ratty one that had pages missing. Our group descended the mountain with a cup full of fresh blueberries to put on our morning cereal, a very muddy Timmy and Geraldine who fell on a slick patch, and aching legs and backs that were only relieved by a bottle of Rolling Rock and a good night sleep. So, for all my fears of imprisonment and shotguns, we had a very lovely day trip.

Who was the man coming up to "get us"? An elderly hiker with his shirt tucked up so his huge belly was exposed to the sun. Nothing to fear but a little too much flab for public decency.

harvest time

2011-09-06T06:17:00.001-04:00

Some days my children are real blessings and some days I would like to send them far, far away. Right before we left for Virginia to pack out I stopped by the local wild blueberry grower and bought a 15 pound box of berries to freeze for winter. I also have been shredding carrots for carrot cake, putting up green beans and broccoli in the freezer, and cooking up paste tomatoes to freeze as well. A trip to Sears to buy a chest freezer has been in the works, but in the meantime I put all this produce in the freezers in the house and apartment. Well, you likely can figure out what happened this past week.

Will was attempting to be frugal by seeing that there was nothing in the apartment fridge and turned down the dial inside, ruining all the food inside the freezer: 3 huge ziplock bags of blueberries, 3 bags of shredded carrots, and a couple of bags of green veggies. He was very apologetic, but I made him bag it all up and bring it down so I could take it to the dump. All that time I spent planting, weeding, mulching, harvesting, washing, and blanching were wasted. You can't buy blueberries now, the season only lasts a few short weeks in August. Luckily we still have plenty of green beans and broccoli left in the garden, some carrots still in the ground and some of each in the house freezer. We still have lots of pumpkin to eventually roast and freeze so a big free-standing freezer is not a waste, but I'm very disappointed that we won't be eating homemade blueberry muffins all winter like I planned. There is always next year and I think Will learned his lesson, but I'm sure this won't be the last time one of the children acts like a thoughtless child.

the school bus soon returns

2011-09-01T15:46:00.000-04:00

Not for our family, but it does instill a funny little "better get a move on" feeling when I sit on the front porch with my morning iced latte and hear the distinct "beep, beep, beep" as it turns around at the end of our road. We won't be starting school for another week or so since my father and his wife are coming up to Maine on Saturday for a week's visit. Whether we will be visiting Acadia National Park with them is still up in the air, but my official homeschooling notification letter is printed, signed, and sealed in the envelopes ready to go in the next few days.

Our books are organized by grade on the bookshelf even though our schoolroom is not yet finished (we have commandeered the music room for our school supplies) and the children's binders are all ready with tabs for each subject's lesson plans and tests for the first quarter. I have also been stocking up on pencils, pens, index cards, paper, notebooks, and markers during the back to school sales, sometimes scoring items such as 24 packs of crayons for free.

So, come September 12th, we will be sitting down at the large table for our first day of the 2011/2012 school year. I'm hoping that it will be a peaceful, fulfilling, and educational fall, winter, and spring and that it won't yet again drag too far into next summer.

Carnival of Homeschooling- Logistics of a Homeschooling Family

2011-08-30T11:08:00.001-04:00

As the mother of 6 children, my life is complicated already. Just getting all the children up, dressed, teeth brushed, and fed before noon is a major accomplishment. Add homeschooling 5 of the children to the mix, ferrying them all to various extracurricular activities, and fitting enough time to keep the house tidy and at least one cooked meal on the table each day keeps me moving at a frantic pace.

We have never put our children in "away school" so this will be our 9th year sitting at the table learning phonics, arithmetic, spelling, science, history, English, and religion. If our family continues to homeschool all the children, we could conceivably still be sitting at the table each day reading and working out math problems for the next 15 years since Julia Ellen won't even be starting Kindergarten for another 3 years.

Logistical management is what every homeschooling mom spends much of her time doing: planning days so learning occurs in whatever form that takes, while also fitting in housework, cooking, shopping, bill paying, doctor's appointments, errands, volunteer work, exercise, children's activities, and squeezing in a tiny bit of alone time to renew her spirits. Some families also sign up for extras for the kids such as music, sports, arts, and/or scouts outside the home. Making the schedule "work" is sometimes a difficult task, but sometimes it all clicks, such as me signing all the kids up for this fall's swimming classes on Saturday afternoon. Let us learn how others homeschoolers cope with "trying to fit it all in."

Summer is a great time to try out all those extra classes and projects. Neo at The Tiger Chronicle shares her son's summer vacation in Summer: Part 1 and Summer: Part 2.

Denise presents More Than One Way to Solve It posted at Let's Play Math!.

Kim shares some great ideas to learn art, poetry, and science outside in A Child's Garden: How We Conduct Nature Study posted at A Child's Garden.

Read Aloud Dad shares one of my favorite children's authors, Robert McCloskey, with his kids in Burt Dow, Deep Water Man. The setting for many of Mr. McCloskey's books is just across the Penobscot Bay from us and my kids love getting out the Maine Gazetteer (page 14 and 15) and tracking the rainstorm in Time of Wonder as it goes across from the Camden Hills to Little Deer Isle.

M.O.B. Mothers of Boys shares some ideas to get those creative juices flowing in Storytelling Games for Boys.

Annette at A Net in Time share her upcoming year's routine for her son at Organization of my school year.

Amy at Hope is The Word has already started her school year and shares a typical day in School Day Snapshot.

Linda and Arby of The Homeschool Apologist share the difference in their homeschooling methods and styles since they started teaching their kids years ago in He Said/She Said #2: How Has Your Teaching Changed?.

Christina at Home Spun Juggling shares some great advice in What I've Learned This Summer.
Alejandra at A Guide to Raising Great Kids shares some tips on making sure our kids are having fun and learning to be good hosts in The Perfect Play-Day.

Linda Dobson presents Just One of the Many Reasons to Choose Homeschooling for Your Family posted at PARENT AT THE HELM.

Gidget shares a resource to help kids learn those multiplication tables in Favorite Math Resource - EVER! posted at Homeschooling Unscripted.

Mrs. Gaddy gives us some tips on Using Life Experiences to Teach practical living skills to our kids at momSchool.

Jamie at Homeschool Online Blog reminds us that we homeschooling moms need to care of ourselves and exercise to maintain a positive attitude and stay healthy in Too Busy for Exercise?

Miss Nirvana shares an easy and recognizable craft in Eric Carle Style Art posted at Nirvana Homeschooling (we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar just last night to the little ones).

Kelli presents September as Chicken Month (!) in Monthly Unit Study posted at 3 Boys and a Dog Deals.

Victoria reviews Lesson Planning via Bento posted at Teaching Mommy.

Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers shares A Typical Homeschool Day at her house.

Pamela at Blah, Blah, Blog writes about her method of trying to logically fit in all her children's activities in I Guess It's Fall.

Merit K gives us some ideas about higher level classes in Back to School with AP | Your Mission, should you choose to accept it posted at Mission Possible!.

Janice at Why Homeschool shares some of the challenges of having a homeschooler apply to college in Homeschool to College- Part 2.

I had some logistical challenges hosting the carnival this week with my computer performing the "black screen of death" early in the week and a planned 2 day trip with the big girls to go down to our new home (with no internet access) to clean and receive delivery of our new washer and dryer. Luckily the Auburn, Maine library is WiFi capable. But these are just the sort of little time-consuming glitches that we homeschoolers have to deal with every day.

Thank you for coming to the Carnival of Homeschooling and hope to see you next week at The Common Room.

death and destruction

2011-08-29T07:33:00.000-04:00

Well, the little baby mice didn't make it, but that was expected. Mice need mouse mommy milk, not cow milk and they need the warm nest of mommy mouse fur to stay warm and thrive. The children were sad, but the excitement of Hurricane Irene gave them something else to focus on. The winds were pretty strong and the bands of rain explained how this type of storm moves better than any book could. Of course we pulled out a book about hurricanes as well as of course reading Time of Wonder aloud, since the story features a hurricane hitting Maine.

This morning I went out at dawn to haul downed branches out of the road and fields, but mostly the damage was confined to my garden. The once tall corn stalks are now bent over to a 45 degree angle. I don't know if we will be able to harvest much past the two dinners of wonderful white sweet corn we had this past week. The sunflowers took a beating as well as the squash (no big loss since none of us like it much), and the tomatoes got knocked down.

The girls and I are heading out this morning for the 2 hour trip down south to clean and organize the other house. Tim starts work Thursday and needs ice cream in the fridge, a coffee pot on the counter, and towels in the bathrooms. My job is to provide all those things, receive the delivery of the washer and dryer from Sears, and clean the place of all the crumbs and slime that the previous owners so rudely left for me to deal with. It amazes me that if you rent a house it has to be pristine at move-out, but when you pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a place, the house looks grungy and gross. Since the western part of the state got hit harder by rain and wind than we did, I'm not sure what we shall encounter on the drive down, but I'm sure we will be able to handle whatever comes our way.

feeding with an eyedropper

2011-08-26T17:35:00.000-04:00

On Monday or Tuesday evening Will went out to the barn and accidentally scared a mother mouse who was nesting on the deck of the riding mower. Her two babies were still there the next morning so Tim and Will carried them into the house and set to work feeding and attempting to rescue the little guys. So, for several days they have been fed around the clock tiny drops of milk and have miraculously stayed alive.

They don't have any hair, their eyes are still shut, and they don't even squeak. It seems very strange to be expending so much effort trying to keep field mice alive while trying to decide between poison and traps to keep the barn rodent-free. My job in the next week or so is to find if there are humane traps to set up in the barn so we aren't inadvertently killing the babies' mother or father.

we escaped Virginia just in time

2011-08-24T07:57:00.001-04:00

Last night's Drudge headline:

5.8 MAG QUAKE ROCKS DC-NYC
HURRICANE NEXT?

I did attempt to call my grandmother at her assisted living place outside of DC right after the earthquake, but couldn't get through due to everyone else calling their friends and relations for the same reason. Later I talked to her and she related her experience of being evacuated from the doctor's office, "Everyone ran out! Well, I didn't run." Since Grandmother hasn't been able to walk without assistance for many years, the ground shaking didn't help.

The forecasters have been predicting that Hurricane Irene might be a cross between Hurricanes Gloria and Floyd, both of which I witnessed. Our hearts are with those in the path of this storm. While exciting to see, the aftermath of power outages, long lines at the few functioning gas stations, property damage, and flooding are expensive and frustrating to live through.

In the meantime, Our Curious Home is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. I'm hosting next week, so if you are a regular reader and have posted anything about homeschooling this summer, especially pertaining to planning for this rapidly approaching school year, email me your blog title, name, and URL of post to me (the official carnival submission form has not been functional the past few weeks) at katherinecollins2000 at yahoo.com (insert @ for at, I don't want tons of spam in my inbox to wade through).

only 9 days of summer break?

2011-08-22T07:39:00.000-04:00

I don't know exactly how it happened, even after very few field trips this year, not many days of Christmas or Easter break, and no sick days, but Will, our 7th grader and oldest child, is finally finished with school for the year. Actually, he has 1 last section of the CAT left to take today before he is officially finished. All the other children did school on the same days, Charlie didn't even get his 1st grade books until January, but they all completed their assignments by early summer and could enjoy their days in Maine without anything hanging over their heads. Of course Will wasn't exactly tethered to his seat all day watching everyone else play outside, he got to go to summer camp, spend 2 weeks at sailing camps, go to various lakes and ponds, take swimming lessons, and become proficient enough to be designated our family's grill master.

This week I will order the upcoming school year's curriculum, with an official start date of September 1. We will jump right into our lessons and get a running start before the majority of extra curricular activities begin so when we move down to southern Maine for the winter we will actually be ahead of schedule. I seriously doubt this will happen, but it is always better to have a positive attitude (at least the appearance of one in front of the children).

packed away

2011-08-19T06:18:00.001-04:00

When the packers arrived down in Virginia I walked around the house and as we passed the children's bedrooms, I told them, "Do not pack the items on the kid's beds or the box fans, everything else is fair game." Unfortunately, Timmy's stuffed giraffe, Geraldine, the one he has slept with for 5 years, the animal we have had to retrieve from the car, the barn, the next door neighbor before he could go to sleep, must have rolled off his bed and onto the floor. Last Monday night we could not find Geraldine and after opening a few newly sealed boxes to search, managed to put him to bed with promises of asking the packers to retrieve her in the morning. Well, even after intense grilling (though not quite to the level of involving water boarding), the crew could not recall seeing a tan giraffe among the myriad of other stuffed animals, dolls, and toys we own. After all, they wouldn't know how precious that particular item is to our little boy and in turn, our whole family.

But Timmy has shown maturity beyond what I expected and patiently waited for almost 2 weeks to find his precious companion. I dread the thought of Timmy possibly having outgrown needing a lovey, a precious toy to snuggle against his soft little neck every time he goes to sleep, a comfort he can see and touch. When our boxes of dishes and blocks, books and toys are moved down to southern Maine this upcoming Monday I will ask all the children to assist me on the urgent mission to "rescue Geraldine." I just hope it isn't too late for her to resume being his faithful sidekick once more.

not summer people anymore

2011-08-15T10:59:00.001-04:00

After several days of driving a van full of crabby children up the East Coast, we pulled into our own driveway where I jumped out of the car and let Tim handle our youngest who had been screaming for the last several hours (she wasn't hungry, thirsty, or in need of a new nappie, she just wanted out). Every mile we traveled I kept reminding myself, "This is the last time I have to sit in traffic, go through a toll booth, or see the state of New Jersey." After all, we have done the annual family migration north to Maine and south to whatever urban duty station Tim was assigned to for a dozen years so it might take until October for the reality of his retirement to fully sink in.

For the first time I don't have to use up the 15 pounds of blueberries I bought a few weeks ago (they are safely in the freezer) or the green beans the children are currently picking (I blanched and froze the first of many batches this morning). Maggie proudly collected 2 quarts of cherry tomatoes, over a dozen cucumbers, and many yellow squash before I had even finished unpacking the car yesterday. I think a chest freezer and a pressure canner are on our list of necessary new purchases to handle the excess from our garden, but I'm still planning on taking a box full of produce to the food pantry on Wednesday to share.

We will still enjoy the lovely, but short Maine summers, but now we can take full advantage of the opportunity to work in the woods this fall, play in the inevitable winter weather, and plant fruit trees and delicious raspberries in the spring.

It has been a long difficult slog getting to this point, we have been bounced around every 2-3 years by the military, career low spots, and long separations, but we always have had our summers in Maine to rejuvenate and restore our spirits. I thank the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Benedict for their assistance and prayers.

We are now full-time Maine residents!!

long ride

2011-08-08T10:07:00.000-04:00

2 days in a van with 6 children, one of them a fussy toddler, is enough to make anyone wish for a little break away. A good choice is perhaps a week at a luxurious spa with unlimited massages and gourmet food. Instead I got to return to a house that hadn't seen a dustcloth in 8 weeks and the packers arriving the next day. In the next 3 days I have to supervise everything getting boxed up and put on the truck, clean the entire house, and make sure no one wanders away or goes hungry.

The drive itself was uneventful except for heavy traffic, rain, and many, many bathroom stops. If you want to know how many times a 7 and 8 year old need to go potty: every 90 minutes on average. By the end I made Charlie utilize the little blue potty in the car so we didn't have to stop on the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to get an up close view of the bay. It took a total of 17 hours in the car and about $35 in tolls to arrive in Virginia. It dawned on me this morning as I slogged through the steamy heat just to get a bag of ice at the store that I can't recall the last time I was here in August since we don't usually return form Maine until mid-October. I'm acclimatized to Maine summers where you might need a jacket in the evening, even in July. The positive is that this is my last trip south, the negative is that we have to pile back in the van on Thursday to make our way slowly back up the East Coast.

preparing for snow

2011-08-05T08:15:00.002-04:00

No, Maine weather is not so frigid that it snows in August, but since this will be our first winter in New England, I'm trying to get ready now. Down in Virginia if it snows once during the winter then it is a hard one, so I've been stocking up on gloves and turtlenecks.

You can find some great deals at Goodwill during the summer such as LL Bean gloves for $2, thick socks for $1, and I found a pair of classic duck boots for $25 (normally retailing for $89). Every year I pair up all our outerwear in a big basket, but by February many of the mittens are orphans and there aren't enough hats to go around. I figure that phenomenon is going to happen at twice the rate with actual snow and below zero temps so I better have many more than the usual number of each to start the season.

don't need to decide now

2011-08-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

This morning Will and I drove 2 hours down to the southern part of Maine to the only Catholic high school in the state. The house we are buying just happens to be nearby and we have seriously contemplated sending the oldest 2 children there this year or next.

Homeschooling has become more complicated and sometimes exasperating with more children "doing school" and the oldest one's work taking longer and longer to complete. Seton's program is intense, some days there are 3 day's worth of work crammed into 1 day on the lesson plans, but Will tends to drag out any complicated assignment, his 4th quarter reading test took him almost 4 hours to finish. One of our options in Maine is a good, academically rigorous, wholesome Catholic school so today he and I toured the building, looked at some of the textbooks, and read some of the syllabi crafted by the 8th grade teachers.

Naturally I want the kids to be in a more social environment, after moving 4 times in 6 years, it would be nice for them to make long-term friends and be able to play sports, be in clubs, etc. On the other hand, after looking at Seton's high school curriculum again after supper it was so apparent how superior academically and Catholic homeschooling truly can be. The choice of novels, the rigorous textbooks, the lesson plans all contribute to a sublime education which only a very few private schools could boast. In contrast, modern secular textbooks tend to be visually jarring with lots of color and boxes on every page, the novels selected tend to be more modern works with less literary value, and the lessons are a mystery. We could be paying $13,000 a year for a pig in a poke or a wonderful experience that allows the older children to expand their minds and world, leaving me more time to focus on the younger children's academics.

But we decided that this is not something we are going to jump into in the next 3 weeks so for the upcoming year our decision is to continue on our 9th year of homeschooling. Homeschooling has been our one constant and being in a new house, having new teachers/leaders for music and scouts, attending a new church, and transitioning to a new civilian lifestyle is certainly enough change for the children.

carnival of homeschooling

2011-08-02T07:56:00.000-04:00

This week's carnival is being hosted by Home Spun Juggling with lots of pictures of art her kids have made.

Speaking of homeschooling, I filled out our enrollment form for Seton yesterday and have been stocking up on cheap, cheap school supplies from Walgreens and Staples like $0.10 index cards and highlighters, $0.39 notebooks, free pens, $0.25 reams of copy paper, and free Crayola markers.

Before we start school in a few weeks we have to drive down to Virginia, supervise the packers and movers, visit the aunties in Maryland, have our household goods delivered, attend the closing of our new house, and move some of our stuff again. I think I'll wait until the last minute to send off for our books, if I piled up the huge stack of lesson plans I think it might send me over the edge.

eating out of the garden

2011-07-31T09:08:00.000-04:00

Well, the tomatoes haven't ripened yet, except for the cherry ones and the corn is just approaching the height of my shoulders, but we are starting to be inundated with produce. Julia Ellen and I sit on the front porch every afternoon shelling peas and throwing the empty pods onto the front lawn. Tim and I are eating salad every day because I planted whole packets of Buttercrunch and Romaine. I'm contemplating taking some heads to the pool and Mass this week just so I don't feel pressured to eat it all ourselves. Today I wanted to see how the carrots were doing, so I pulled up a few and marveled at how big they were. I planted 2 rows so we could treat the horses after riding lessons, but they looked so juicy I declared that we would have some ourselves.

After perusing Joy of Cooking and Fannie Farmer, I decided to make carrot cake, but the recipe I found was too difficult with no mixer so I improvised with one of my favorite recipes Applesauce Cake and substituted grated carrot for the applesauce. Even though the kids knew it contained a vegetable they scarfed down the entire pan, asked for thirds, and begged me to make it again soon. Since the labor in this recipe is the prep, Timmy and I went out after the supper dishes were cleaned up and harvested a few dozen carrots, washed them, cut off the tops, and grated them by hand. I put them in a freezer bag so that in a few days I can whip up a delicious dessert using veggies we grew ourselves.

another cool, humid race day

2011-07-30T15:39:00.001-04:00

This morning I headed over to Bucksport for a 8am 5K race. I'm beginning to see the same faces and have some other ladies to hang out with afterwards. I didn't come home with a prize, but I did get a pretty good time: 23:06. Right now my running seems to be all mental, my body can run faster, but my mind keeps saying, "Stop! You are too old, have too many kids to do this. Just stop and walk." But I don't want to be a back-of-the pack runner, at least not until I'm pushing 65. Perhaps when we get back from Virginia and all our household goods are settled and I can resume a good running schedule I will get my mojo back, but I haven't felt that flying feeling that occurs when I'm in perfect form.

am I a sadist?

2011-07-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

My pathetic orchard consists of 6 fruit trees that were neglected almost to the point of death when we bought our land. I have weeded, mulched, and fed the little trees, pruned their branches, and been rewarded with a harvest of exactly 2 Golden Delicious apples in 3 years. Only 2 of the trees have set any fruit, I am hopeful that the others will bear once they have another variety to help pollinate the blossoms and will give me some peaches and pears.

In the meantime I attempt every summer to keep the Japanese Beetles from devouring the leaves with traps and manually dropping each bug into a jar filled with oily water. This method has its flaws as many of the beetles fly away in the day and fall to the grass during the evening round if the branches are jostled. Last night at dusk the baby and I ambled down past the swingset with our jar and a new weapon: a flat white bed sheet. I spread it under the tree and shook the trunk a bit to see over 30 beetles fall onto the fabric. Julia Ellen and I picked them up and plopped them into the jar with more than an appropriate amount of glee. "Yucky bugs!" the baby chirped as she scooped them up. By the time we shook each tree, our little container was full of dozens and dozens of dead beetles. I don't know if our efforts violate the 5th Commandment, but I do know with certainty that no one will consider me the next St. Francis.

all together again

2011-07-24T06:48:00.000-04:00

Last week Tim wore his uniform for the last time so yesterday we picked him up from the airport. The years of being separated for months at a time are over. Technically he is on leave and we must all drive down to Virginia in 2 weeks to supervise the packing and moving of all our household goods one last time. I'm not looking forward to the 14 hour drive, having to camp out in a hotel with 6 kids, feeding movers for 3 days, driving back to Maine, and having to organize our boxes and furniture into 3 destinations: farm house, house in southern Maine, and farm apartment, organize yet another move for our stuff going to the new house, and begin stocking our home with all the pets (2 mice for Mary and 2 kitty cats for the little boys) the children have been promised for several years now.

However, once this logistical nightmare is completed then I can sit back and take a long sip of lemonade on the porch and enjoy the rest of my summer. Until then my life is going to be a little frantic so I need to keep my mind focused on the end result: our family all in Maine, the beautiful and now much cooler Vacationland.

first harvest

2011-07-22T06:13:00.000-04:00

The garden is coming along very nicely, as I like to go out in the evening when it is a bit cooler and weed, water, and check on the status of the plants. We haven't had any animals come to nibble except the ravens eating melon in the compost bin, in the morning I find the rinds stripped of any fruit and flung about on the grass. Julia Ellen is more damaging, yesterday she ripped up one basil plant, knocked over 3 corn stalks, and stomped on 2 onion plants.

With some of the pumpkins not sprouting, we had lots of empty ground so I let the kids loose with all the leftover seeds and they have been hoeing out the weeds, planting, and labeling markers. Who knows if any of their efforts will bear, I have the feeling that everything is planted on top of each other and they might forget in a few days to keep watering. I think next year I will give each child their own plot to do as they like, buying veggies that they might find interesting such as purple carrots, pole beans grown in a teepee (I did start these a little late, but you see, they are mine and it is NOT the same for the kids as ones they planted in their own patch), miniature corn, tiny white pumpkins. Who knows? We might discover some great new veggies and gardening techniques in the process.

But as for my established vegetables, the cherry tomatoes are ripening and Julia Ellen and I are eating salad twice a day. My routine is to take a basket and paring knife out, thinning the romaine and buttercrunch by cutting off the tops where the plants are too closely planted, washing them off, spinning the leaves, and ripping them up before tossing them with a little Marzetti salad dressing. Time from harvest to savoring the tender leaves? Less than 10 minutes.

going 90 mph all the time

2011-07-18T19:16:00.001-04:00

Summer is supposed to be fun right? Picnicking with friends by the pond, reading a book on the porch, canoeing on the lake are typical Maine summer activities. I am squeezing in those things, but my typical day looks more like this:

awaken at 5am with a toddler kicking my fanny because she crawled in at 2am and likes to sleep sideways

go out to the garden to dump the compost bucket and enjoy the quiet and the birds

sneak down to the furnace room for a little time reading email and my favorite blogs

fix 7 breakfasts, empty dishwasher, fill dishwasher, clean up counters and table

direct older children to practice the piano and finish up those last stubborn school subjects (Mary is down to spelling, Charlie has 3 stories left, and Will has vocabulary, spelling, and reading left)

wash, dry, and fold 3 loads of laundry

make lunch and clean up

run 7 miles

recharge the riding mower after some little kid drained the battery, direct Will to mow the grass

get on the big tractor and mow around the edges of the fields

sweep all the floors in the house except the kid's bedrooms and bathrooms

mop the entire 1st floor after Julia Ellen spills red Koolaid

sit on the front porch with a cold bottle of beer, enjoying the view

decide what to have for supper and make it, clean up afterwards and run another load of dishes
go out into the garden to escape the children, only to have the little ones follow to help and peer into the compost bin
trudge inside at dusk to bathe the 3 younger children, brush teeth, and harass the older ones into showering make sure all the garage and barn doors are shut
read aloud on the sofa
put the baby and little boys to bed
crawl into bed and read until my eyelids droop shut
turn off the downstairs lights so the big kids will go to bed
fall asleep at about 10:30pm

rise and shine ready for a slight variation the next day , and the next, and the next...

I do realize that my life is a bit easier now than it was with a newborn or infant, but I know that lazing around eating bon-bons on the sofa while watching TV is not going to be a major part of my daily routine for many, many years to come.

parenting as a spectator sport

2011-07-16T14:52:00.001-04:00

I don't think the suggestion of taking fat kids out of their homes and putting them in foster care is what Hillary Clinton had in mind when she declared that "it takes a village to raise a child."
It seems, judging from the recent news stories I have come across and their accompanying comments that the parents are simply doing the best they can and "the village" is a mob of critics standing around screaming "Unfit! Incompetent! Should be made sterile!" every time the parents does something not deemed perfect.

Take the horrific story of the 8 year old Hasidic Jewish boy who walked home last week and was kidnapped and found dismembered. "See, you should never let your child out of your sight until they are 43," the critics scream. Who knows what they would think of me for letting my 3 oldest children ride their bikes to piano lessons, a whole 4 miles away.

Also last week up here in Maine a mom of 2 was arrested for leaving her kids in the car when she ran inside the grocery store. Instead of standing by the car and patiently waiting for the obviously frazzled mom to arrive, keeping an eye on the kids, some busy-body decided to call the police pronto. Now that 30 year old mom could have her kids taken away, will be hounded by the social service Nazis for the rest of her life, and has to admit on every job application that she was arrested. She will never be able to care for a foster child, never be able to adopt, and likely never be able to teach in a public school. But the 200+ comments following the article rant on and on about how it is so dangerous to leave a child in a car because the brakes might spontaneously fail or the engine might explode, in addition to all the premonitions of death due to heat and child molesters prowling the parking lots in small towns in coastal Maine. Today when I left 4 of my kids in the car while I ran into the gas station minimart to go potty, I was almost expecting when I emerged from the building to see a cruiser with flashing lights parked behind my van. This is the way I felt when we lived in Washington, DC, with cameras on every stoplight, a lawyer with a cellphone in every car, and police on almost every corner.

Another local incident this past week was a 911 call after a 2 year old fell down a shallow open well. The dad quickly rescued the child and followed directions from the dispatcher over the phone to revive her. But the commentors on the Bangor Daily News website started pointing fingers as soon as the story was posted, "No fit parent should let their child fall down a well, why were they not watching her..." Do these folks not eat, shower, read, look at the internet, cook, take care of another child, or even sleep until their offspring is 18? Obviously the adults were watching as they quickly hauled her out.

Whatever did happen to the genteel habits of minding your own business and saving judgement until you know all the facts? It is as if real life is some form of reality TV where viewers have 20/20 hindsight and criticise, slander, or call the police as a fun game of gotcha. When was the last time any of these people offered to help a struggling mom and actually followed through? My bet is never, because actually watching a child for an hour so an overwhelmed mom could grocery shop alone doesn't give them the same jollies as seeing their name in print condemning another human being.

busting through the wall

2011-07-13T18:31:00.000-04:00

Charlie only has 6 stories left in his last Faith and Freedom reader to finish up the 1st grade. The stories began with very simple tales in very large print, but have progressed in difficulty over the 3 book set. As recent as last week it was taking 20 minutes per 5 page story to slowly sound out each word, including ones that he has read hundreds of times such as "said" and "the." The whole experience was painful to him, leading to his constant wriggling and sliding down the pillows of my bed until he was almost lying flat, unable to see the book. I also dreaded "reading time" because I knew that inevitably the other children would act up and I would be trapped with my finger stuck under each word, waiting for him to put together the sounds.

But in the past few days Charlie has been reading faster, speeding up so my finger is darting forward rather than resting still until I have to almost restrain myself from reading it aloud. I know that his reading skills will only improve even faster now and soon he will be picking up picture books to test his reading independence and before I know it, he will be reading all 13 books in the Lemony Snickett series, much to his mother's dismay over fluff books.

no vocations?

2011-07-11T07:57:00.001-04:00

About 3 weeks ago during the announcements during Mass the priest asked parents to fill out a survey as to why in the past 10 years the CCD programs has gone from 1000+ children to under 450 children participating. I didn't bother to fill out the survey since we aren't members of the parish, but even if we were I know that I wouldn't send my children to CCD. Why? Because after the dumbing-down of the curriculum and contrary-to-the-Faith teaching I have seen and heard about over the years, I don't trust the instructors. My kids have only attended CCD at St. Benedict's in Chesapeake, VA because I know how pious the teachers are, know that they use the Baltimore Catechism, and know that the other students are kids who come from good Catholic homes. When we go to the Novus Ordo Mass in Maine I am usually the only woman wearing a hat, my kids are the only ones not wearing shorts and flip flops, and we are certainly the only ones who receive Communion on the tongue. I know that these outward signs are not a indicator of holiness because I certainly sin more than I should, and the lack of these things are not a direct correlation to sinfulness, some of the parish families could be praying the rosary every night. But in general, those who take their religion seriously tend to be a bit more orthodox in their Mass attire and attitude toward the Blessed Sacrament.

That said, it didn't surprise me too much when just before the recessional yesterday morning, the priest at St. John's in Bangor made an announcement, "Father Tony (the Indian priest on loan to the diocese) will not be returning. With only 2 priests then covering 5 churches in the cluster parish, we cannot have 12 masses per weekend so some things are going to have to change."

The diocese of Portland, Maine has been headed by 2 very liberal bishops in the past 15 years. The leadership of liberal bishops leads to an increase in happy-clappy liturgy and a suppression of orthodoxy, such as the Traditional Latin Mass. Vocations do not occur in an environment where it is evident from all outward signs that the lay people do not take their faith seriously. Only when the liturgy, preaching, and the priest's attitude all convey a sense of love for God, a deep meaning of Him in our daily lives, and a cause for sacrifice are there genuine vocations to the priesthood and religious life. That is why our little parish in Virginia with all of 175 families has 4 men currently studying for the priesthood and the diocese of Portland, Maine has 69 priests stretched to the limit serving 139 parishes. My suggestion to increase vocations? Turn the priest around to face the Tabernacle, restrict servers to boys only, start preaching some serious homilies about sin and the need for holiness, ask the FSSP to send priests to say the TLM, and throw away all the fluff books used in CCD. Start from the ground up and teach people the Catholic Faith, encourage them to love Our Lord in recognizable Catholic practices, and challenge them to be more holy and I promise that Maine will see an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

where do they all go?

2011-07-08T06:54:00.000-04:00

The children's shoes, that is? When I packed clothing and toiletries for the children back in May, I laid out 1 pair of tennies, 1 pair of church shoes, and all the complete pairs of Crocs I could in a duffel bag and put it in the back of the van. Along the edge of our new porch was decreed "Croc, rubber boot, and boat shoe zone" while tennies went in the mud room. Since then we have misplaced at least 5 pairs of rubber shoes, even after replacing 3-4 pairs from Goodwill. My lone pair of light blue Crocs that I bought 2 years ago are sitting on the porch, damp from an early morning walk around the garden, but I could only count 4 pairs of children's shoes. Timmy had to wear his sister's pink shoes to dinner last night after searching the car and not being able to find the mate to the ones he swore were in the van. When we pulled back in the driveway I spotted the missing shoe where it had fallen out in the mad scramble to pick up Will and Mary from sailing, drop off Will, Mary, and Maggie at swimming, and go to Dysarts, our favorite truck stop restaurant for supper.

This mystery of the missing shoes is perplexing. The kids don't come home with only 1 shoe most days, I don't find them in the grass when we mow, and I don't think the wild animals eat them. But perhaps I am mistaken, just maybe there is a critter stalking around the house at night, waiting for his chance to snatch a brightly colored Croc and drag it back to his den. There is the slightest possibility that my children are not to be blamed for misplacing their shoes on an almost-daily basis, but that we will spy a nest in the trees constructed of rubber strips of their footwear.

Yeah right.

a 34 year old in a 40 year old body

2011-07-07T06:36:00.000-04:00

Monday morning I dressed the kids all in patriotic red shirts for Independence Day. Will had changed his mind about running 2 miles, so we negotiated that he stay home with the little ones and play with them. The rest of us headed up to Brewer for "Maine's fastest road race," a 3K 4th of July run. The course actually is really fun, as the pre-parade entertainment, thousands of folks line the route to cheer us on. I told the kids that the fastest child of mine to finish would get a special treat from the candy aisle at the grocery and that I would see them at the finish. I ran across the bridge and spiraled around downtown Bangor in a time of 12:19, Mary crossed the finish line soon after, followed by Charlie, and then Maggie. Due to a fluke in age brackets (Charlie was competing against 10 year old boys and the girl that won Mary's age group was at least 12" taller), Maggie was the only children's medal winner with a 2nd place finish. Yet again, I won my age group, even though I felt sort of off the whole race, likely due to the fact that I didn't know I was going to run until that morning.
We stayed to watch the parade and then hiked the 2 miles back uphill back to the car. A cool frosty drink in hand helped mitigate the cranky whining from my hot and sweaty crew. The runners rightly didn't receive as much applause as the veterans who marched and rode down Main Street, but the kids liked being able to celebrate our nation's birthday by both being "in" the parade and being able to watch it as well.

my longest day of the summer

2011-07-06T07:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I actually retrieved the alarm clock from the barn and set it for 6am so I would be sure not to oversleep on the first day of sailing lessons. I probably needed it more this morning to recover from the day's scheduling and activities. Needless to say, I did not get a long slow run in to clear my head.

7am: get children up, pack gear, slather up Maggie and Charlie with sunscreen. Make list of schoolwork for Will and Mary to complete at home.
8am: leave house to drive 15 miles to harbor and fill out umpteen forms.
9am: drive 2o miles to Julia Ellen's "Mom and Tot" swimming lesson.
10:30am: swing by grocery store for nappies, milk, and fruit.
11am: pull in driveway at farm to unload groceries, feed 4 children, pack another bag of sailing gear, slather up Will and Mary with sunscreen, explain to my husband that now is not a good time to chat.
11:30am: strap tired toddler back in her car seat for the 15 mile trip back to the harbor.
12 noon: sign out 2 younger children, drop off 2 older children, head home to feed Maggie and Charlie lunch and do school with him. Throw a load or 4 of wet towels and bathing suits in the wash and call Tim back. Negotiate offer on 2nd choice house with realtor.
3:30pm: drive 15 miles back to harbor to pick up Will and Mary with the idea of dinner out, but Will begged to stay for racing until 7pm.
4pm: attempt to drive like a fiend back to pool for Charlie and Timmy's swimming lessons, but get stuck behind jerk who drives under the speed limit on the 2 lane portions, while speeding up to 70 where the road widens to allow for a passing lane. 10 minutes late to swimming.
5:30pm: back to grocery store to pick up items for potluck supper after sailboat races.
6:30pm: after a quick stop at home to make salad, put items in cooler, and grab jackets, the final trip back to the harbor (a check of my gas gauge shows a fillup is needed soon) to sit down, relax, chat with friends, and watch the children race around playing.
9pm: finally lie down after baths and turning off all the lights.

My reward?

10 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

thanks Obama

2011-07-04T07:04:00.001-04:00

You know those tacky shirts that say, "My grandma went to Jamaica and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"? Well, I feel the same way right now. Our president and the Democrats have spent trillions of dollars on bailouts for public sector union jobs, cash for clunkers, bank bailouts, shovel ready projects that weren't quite so shovel ready, dozens of exotic vacations for themselves on corporate jets, an illegal campaign ad, and thousands of other sleazy things.

Last week I researched internet options for our farm. I was tired of hoofing it to the library to check my email and with no TV either, I was completely clueless about what was going on in the world. Our phone company only offers dial-up for us country folk and when I called the cable company, they sent someone to estimate our hookup cost. "Due to the distance of 950 feet from the nearest road and with only 2 residences on the property, you do not qualify for a subdivision rate. The cost for running the cable to your home will cost approximately $3200. Please call us if you would like to proceed with service installation." Uh, no, thank you. Then I pulled out a year-old postcard from the satellite company and called them. "Due to the federal stimulus and reinvestment act, you are eligible to receive free installation and dish for internet access."

So, 3+ trillion dollars later, I got a little gray dish stuck on the back of my house and am surfing the net in my furnace room. Apparently the big bucks from Obama only cover the modem coming in to one location and the cord is only 12 inches long. So until the electrician comes to connect a splitter and install a special plug upstairs, I'm the epitome of a basement-dwelling blogger typing away in her jammies.

grow, veggies, grow!

2011-07-02T07:41:00.000-04:00

Last year we had a fabulous garden. We harvested green beans, tomatoes, carrots, enough pumpkins to make pies and bread all winter, more squash than a family of 8 could possibly eat (especially since only 2 of us actually eat squash), lettuce, a few melons, and at least one bushel of corn. This spring we arrived in Maine and got the garden tilled and planted earlier than before, but the weather and seeds haven't been as cooperative. A few days have been hot and sunny, but I'm still wearing my jacket over a tshirt most mornings and perhaps buying $1 packets last year out of Johnny's bargain bins wasn't such a great idea. I've replanted the pumpkin after the crows ripped out the seedlings and only 1/2 the corn and peas sprouted at all. On the other hand, the potatoes I bought on a whim at the local hardware store are a lush dark green and Maggie and I have hilled them several times. If I can keep the wild turkeys out of the lettuce then I will have a bumper crop (they took a dust bath in my leaf lettuce last year) and the broccoli is growing like gangbusters. Here is a view of the patch from the boy's bedroom window a few weeks back and today:

a tale of 2 races

2011-06-29T18:46:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago the kids and I got super-early and headed to Bangor for the Garelick Milk Run, a one mile downhill race. I convinced Will a few days beforehand to watch the little kids during the race, “It’s only for about 6 minutes,” while Mary, Maggie, Charlie, and I ran. I only found out after we arrived that the race was not in a loop, but ended downtown, making me change my promise to, “I’ll run, turn around and run back to the start and collect y ‘all.” I also soothed a nervous Tim on the phone the evening before, “I will finish and go back to run next to Charlie,” but apparently that promise wasn’t necessary to keep.

I decided to run the family race as opposed to the competitive one that started 20 minutes later (I guess this was so little kids wouldn’t be trampled in the fast start) and with no men, I quickly took 2^nd place and almost beat the 20-something girl in front. Finishing with a time of 6:19, I grabbed a bottle of water and headed back up to find Charlie. But he surprised me by flying through the chute in 7:30, followed by Maggie at 8:00, and Mary at 8:30. After getting them all situated with chocolate milk, I sprinted back to the start and drove them down in time for the door prize giveaway and awards ceremony. While we didn’t collect one of the Styrofoam coolers of dairy products, I did receive 1^st place in my age group, a $25 gift certificate to the local sports store.

This past Saturday a huge thunderstorm woke me up at 4:30am and woke a very scared Timmy up at 5:00am. He climbed in bed with me while I debated whether the Tour de Lac 10 miler in Bucksport I had signed up for weeks before was going to be cancelled. I changed my mind several times about going, but by 7am the rain abated as I pulled into the town pool parking lot wearing several layers for warmth. The kids had been left at home in the care of their older siblings with strict instructions to change the baby’s nappie as well as to please not burn down the house. I have been paying Willand Mary to babysit for the past 9-10 months while I have gone running, but this was the longest I had left them alone, so I promised Tim I would call home as soon as the race was over. I strapped on my IPod shuffle, cranked it up and punched my stopwatch as soon as the signal was given. After only training on hills for about 4 weeks, I was a little nervous, but quickly settled in a 7:30/mile pace, dropping down to 7 minute miles on the more downhill sections. I finished strong at 1hr, 15 min and was told that I was the 3^rd female, so I quickly changed into dry and warm clothes (by now it was misting and very chilly) and called the kids. They were fine, promised to immediately change Julia Ellen’s nappie, and checked in with Tim to reassure him of the children’s safety. After the awards ceremony, in which I received a jar of raspberry jam for finishing 1^st in my age group, I made it home to put the dirty breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and fix myself some toast smeared with my newly gotten gains.

Will was jealous of his little brother’s racing success that he convinced me to let him run in the 4^th of July 2 mile race in Bangor while I watch the little ones, so I will be in the strange position of cheering on my children, rather than them standing on the sidelines shouting, “Go Mommy!”

soon to be a Navy retiree wife

2011-06-21T13:38:00.000-04:00

It is now official that Tim will be retiring from the Navy in just a few weeks and starting a new job here in Maine. The family went house-hunting for a new winter home, the farm will continue to be our “summer place,” though it will certainly be easier to take long weekends and holidays here, but as the job is a couple of hours away, we need to consult a realtor. After the kids and I went back to re-look at several houses, we put an offer on one, but were unsuccessful (the owners don’t seem to grasp the reality of the current economic conditions, to be polite about it).

So back we go with another set of listings and the bribe of Friendly’s for dinner to keep all the children on their best behavior. I insisted on Wednesday because with $1.99 kid’s meals that day, I can walk in with 6 hungry kiddos and walk out without too much of a dent in my wallet. None of the houses compare to the one we are sitting in, built with our family’s needs and wants as the top priority, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find a nice home with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths on at least an acre. We aren’t asking for that size lot in Manhattan, Maine has plenty of room plus millions of acres with not a soul in residence. After all we have been through the past few years career-wise, it has been such a pleasant surprise to have the job and the retirement with all the thousands of logistical pieces fit together like a beautifully made jig-saw puzzle. Here is to finding a “winter home” that fits our needs and has plenty of room for the kids to play in the predictable Maine snow this winter.

Maine is certainly wild

2011-06-17T11:18:00.000-04:00

While I have never seen a moose, the emblematic animal of Maine, there is plenty of wildlife to be seen every day here. In just two weeks I have been woken up to the gobbling of a tom turkey, strutting and fanning his tail feathers in the middle of the driveway, let the kids out of the car to chase a woodchuck, and almost stepped on giant earthworms in a copious embrace while on an early morning stroll around the fields.

Julia Ellen apparently has an inclination toward entomology; she finds a shiny green beetle wandering in the dirt, a moth flitting among the tops of the grass stems, and a lowly ant carrying a crumb equally fascinating. While doing an outdoor chore I have found the best way to keep the toddler out of trouble is to point out a small bug to her, leaving her to crouch down staring intently at its actions.

Our first excursion to a local pond resulted in captured (and released) frogs, minnows, long black leeches, and a tiny red salamander. Even while running on back country roads I have stopped to turn a red eared slider turtle back towards the safety of the grass and jumped over a grass snake no thicker than a pencil. I didn’t touch the alligator snapping turtle possibly laying eggs in the gravel bank on the other end of our road, but watched for a while before resuming my run home. Last summer the coyote den at the bottom of a field was abandoned, leaving us to believe that now there were humans in residence so close by, they had retreated to the safety of the deep woods, but we found out the other night that another family has moved in and is raising pups, evidenced by the sight of fresh dirt. I don’t mind most of the other animals that we share our land with, but coyotes give me terrible premonitions of them attacking the children.

The kids aren’t scared of all the critters out there, with the possible exception of coyotes and the blackflies that like to take bites out of their necks. Julia Ellen’s cooing over a fat black and yellow spotted salamander (or is it a newt?) makes me smile and grateful for the opportunity to show all the children the wonders of the world in which we live.

more freedom for me

2011-06-14T16:20:00.001-04:00

Every summer my daily life gets a little easier. For the past 13 summers I have had an infant to nurse or a baby who has to be protected against falling down the stairs, drowning in a pond, or running out into traffic. I have had to haul around one of those huge infant car seats or lug around a 20 pound baby who is too active to stay in one place, but too mobile to play without constant supervision and assistance. This summer however, every one is a year older, including Julia Ellen. She doesn't require a highchair or baby food, she listens to directions most of the time, and even when we forgot our life jackets on the latest trip to the pond she only had to be hauled out from the deep once. Here is a little montage of her past few weeks....

welts, sore back, and a trip to the dentist

2011-06-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

After 16 hours driving the truck following Tim at the wheel of the van (after last year's jack-knifing incident, I was too chicken to pull the trailer), we hit the gravel of our Maine driveway. No traffic, no accidents, very few potty breaks all contributed to our speedy arrival. However, the house is not quite as finished as I thought, the schoolroom floor is not installed and there seems to be several weeks worth of work left before we can move in. So, instead of hoofing furniture across the pavement from the garage apartment, we have spent the past few days mowing, tilling, and planting.

In just 24 hours Tim rototilled my garden and I discovered the lovely Maine phenomenon of blackflies. Yes, I've heard the warnings and the songs, seen the bumper stickers, but it is very disconcerting to see your children covered in bloody welts behind their ears and on the back of their necks. I got hit many times as well, realizing once their season ends in a week or so, it will be just in time for the deer flies and mosquitoes to hatch.

But I have pushed onward and put in tomato and cucumber seedlings and planted corn, onions, pumpkin, lettuce, peas, beans, and various flowers. The kids raked cartloads of grass clippings to mulch the garden. While I was hammering in stakes for the tomato cages, I swung poorly and hit my mouth, busting my lip and chipping one of my teeth. A quick visit to the local dentist made my tooth as good as new and Tim took over stake pounding duties (note: next time buy the shorter stakes). We have all been collapsing into bed by 9pm with no one, save myself, emerging from their room before 8am. Julia Ellen is getting so much fresh air and exercise (especially attempting to swipe away the blackflies) that the previous 2 hour nightly effort to get her to go to sleep has disappeared.

At this rate I will have our garden put in by Saturday, the children's school finished by next Wednesday, and be volunteering to help the builder lay floor by Thursday. Perhaps not. I'll be glad to take a break from my current frantic pace and relax long enough to enjoy our summer in Maine.

one last hurrah

2011-05-29T08:02:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning the big girls and I woke at dark o'thirty and headed downtown to the Elizabeth River 10K Run. The lovely course goes through Olde Towne, the historic residential area of Portsmouth where I grew up, along the seawall with views of navy ships in drydock, and around Hospital Point with the oldest Navy hospital in the US (where both myself and my oldest child were born). It would have been more pleasant if the weather hadn't been quite so hot and steamy at 8:00am, but after watching the girls run their 1 mile run, I started out strong for the first 2 miles and slowed down for the next 2. But after I hit the 5 mile marker I knew that I could finish and despite having been passed all through the course, managed to place 2nd in my age group. All my running buddies assured me that placing in this race was a real accomplishment as it is one of the bigger 10Ks in the area.

I'm proud of myself not only for my speed, but for doing it while squeezing in packing, company for the weekend, and mentally prepping for the 14 hour drive we will undertake within the next 18 hours.

our last day homeschooling in Virginia

2011-05-26T08:11:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow I have a morning doctor's appointment and Tim informed the family last night at supper that we will be leaving for Maine at 0500 on Monday morning so we can escape at least some of the Memorial Day traffic. So today after we learn a little bit more, I am packing up the last of our schoolbooks, taking down the alphabet and vowel posters, and steam cleaning the carpet. I'm leaving the vast majority of our supplies and books behind for the packers.

Tim was offered a position up in Maine and we are patiently awaiting his final set of orders. The bad news is that the job is just out of commuting distance from our farm, so we are going house-hunting next week. The good news is that the job is in Maine and we can adjust our flexible schooling schedule to accommodate short trips up to the farm every week, allowing us to be back on Sunday in time to attend one of the only 2 Traditional Latin Masses in the diocese. To say that I'm excited about being real full-time Mainers and not just "summer people" would be a gross understatement. To be able to have most of my furniture be able to stay in one place, and not have to make that long 14-15 hour drive twice a year is just a dream come true.

So, farewell Virginia with your byzantine homeschooling laws, with your homeschool liason in the public school administration who doesn't know the law, with your selfish policies that take tax dollars and don't allow homeschoolers to participate in classes or sports. Hello to Maine with simple homeschooling requirements and an inclusion that will allow my children to run track and play soccer on the local school teams. Hello to a much more live-and-let-live attitude among most of the population. My roots will always be in Virginia, the first of my ancestors came to the state in 1618, but it has grown and become too crowded and too much of a nanny-state for my taste. I'm sure some of those long-dead relatives must be rolling in their graves, but my heart is in way up north in Maine.

we survived the jam-packed weekend

2011-05-23T07:04:00.000-04:00

There are many times in my life that if I had been given a heads-up, I would have done things differently. I wouldn't have dated until I met my husband, wouldn't have picked such an obscure major in college, and would have continued running competitively in college and afterwards. Luckily, I'm sure that I would have picked the same man to marry and would gladly welcome the children God has blessed me with.
But one thing I would have changed recently is I wouldn't have signed the girls up for dance this year. The teachers were fine and perhaps they learned something, but the hassle of parking a block away 3 afternoons a week, having the girls in a messy unprofessional studio, not being happy with one costume and dance selection, as well as having to sit through two 4 hour recitals (as well as the prior day's dress rehearsals) was not worth it.

The girls did fine in their numbers, but I think we will take a break from dance and focus on some other activities as well as exploring some new ones such as track and horseback riding. After all, I like watching kids run and horses don't care for hip-hop any more than I do.

all homeschoolers are "green-ribbon" schools

2011-05-19T07:55:00.000-04:00

(CNSNews.com) – Next year on Earth Day, the Obama administration plans to announce which U.S. schools have been selected as “Green Ribbon Schools,” a designation that will “honor” schools for “creating healthy and sustainable learning environments” and for “teaching environmental literacy.”The Green Ribbon Schools program was announced in late April, but details on how schools will be picked or what the honor entails have not been released.

Jo Ann Webb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, told CNSNews.com that the program is still under development.

[...]

Webb said the program would recognize schools for “engaging students on environmental issues and producing environmentally literate students; increasing energy efficiency and using renewable energy technologies; and creating healthy learning environments by addressing environmental issues in the schools.”

As soon as I heard about this while on my daily run listening to Rush, I thought that homeschoolers could inundate the Dept of Ed with applications. After all, homeschoolers use less carbon because they don't ride the bus or require mom to drive them to school, recycle their books and clothes, don't waste food at lunch, don't require massive buildings to house one aspect of their lives, and shut off the lights when they leave the classroom (plus school only takes 1/2 the time it does in public school). The savings in electricity and temperature control alone make every homeschooling family so environmentally friendly that the standard tree-hugger is "green" with envy.

whoops!

2011-05-18T08:46:00.000-04:00

Tim thought it humorous that I wrote this response to this education article on American Thinker and used the wrong article, 'a' instead of 'an'. No one seemed to catch my grammatical error and since I only get about 30 minutes on the computer each day to check my mail, write a post, skim blogs, and read the news, I give myself a little slack.

"There are certain things that every person should know: basic arithmetic, reading comprehension, basic science and history, practical economics, and how to write a understandable paragraph. Most of these things can be accomplished by about age 12. What needs to happen is letting the floodgates open for innovation such as charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling; all without the double whammy of paying for the broken public system (75% of property taxes in our town go to the public school, it boggles my mind to think of how many more activities and lessons we could afford with that money) on top of paying for your own child's education. Some children won't go to college and don't need a college prep program, but they still need to be able to function and have enough learning so they can move up from dead-end service jobs if they become motivated past age 18.

Homeschooling is the best option right now, we have been doing it for 8 years and have seen much more acceptance among strangers than in years past, but it takes dedication and sacrifice, not something found among the vast majority of parents."

chugging along

2011-05-17T07:54:00.000-04:00

I'm amazed at how quickly the children's schoolwork is progressing. Maggie finished up English and religion yesterday and only has about a week left in math. Charlie, despite officially beginning 1st grade in January, starts the 3rd Faith and Family reader today and has about 8 days left in phonics and math, and finished religion, science, and history weeks ago. Mary has been down to spelling and Latin for at least a month, and Timmy only has about 3 pages left of his last preschool workbook. Will finished science and art for the year and is currently studying for his final religion and history tests.
That only leaves spelling to continue for everyone for many weeks to come, at least 3/4 of the Algebra 1/2 text for Will, and since he is now on the 3rd quarter book report, that leaves a whole quarter worth of work and yet another book report before he finishes up 7th grade. We will persevere and utilize our brand-new schoolroom on the farm, doing about an hour of school each morning before releasing them for fun and lessons. I'm in the process of scheduling summer activities and the list makes me a little dizzy: 6 children swimming, 4 sailing, 3 continuing piano lessons, 2 in riding lessons, 3 going to camp, and at least 1, perhaps 2 in the Hershey Track and Field meet in June. Ideally all the activities would mesh so I don't have to drive 10 miles to swimming lessons on 5 different days, but I'm grateful we have the opportunity to get them involved, the resources to afford it, and the beautiful Maine scenery to enjoy while doing it.

4 miler results

2011-05-14T15:25:00.000-04:00

This morning I had the easier job of getting out the door at 6:30am and driving up to Hampton to run, while Tim had to get all the kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door to have Will serve Mass at 9am. By the time I returned home he had 1/2 the laundry washed and folded, lunch in preparation, and the children's bed's made. He certainly isn't like some husbands I have heard wives complain about, either in his or my homemaking skills. I recall another Navy wife saying that every evening her husband would 'inspect' the apartment and if he found anything out of place or not clean would pitch a fit. I thought she had enough on her plate living overseas with 3 children under the age of 5, but he couldn't manage 2 for more than a day while she was in the hospital giving birth without calling on the neighbors for help. So, I'm grateful that I have such a giving husband who volunteers to haul children hither and yon for their activities as well as some of the household duties.
So, while Tim was managing the kids, I ran 29:33, for a per mile pace of about 7:30. I placed 3rd overall and brought home a useful beer glass as my prize. My next race is the Elizabeth River Run 10K and then we have a bunch of short races in Maine to look forward to as well as a 10 miler that offers homemade jelly as prizes.

clarification on the Traditional Latin Mass

2011-05-13T14:08:00.000-04:00

Today the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae (UE) has been released. Father Z has a synopsis and discussion over what this means to those Catholics who are faithful to the TLM. I still don't know what would happen if I asked our local priest in Bangor, ME to offer the older form of the Mass, but am so grateful that the idea of female altar servers at the TLM has been put to rest (it happened last week in England), by this portion:

… Furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962.

So, no altar girls, no communion in the hand, no extraordinary ministers at the Traditional Latin Mass. The Mass that has nourished thousands, perhaps millions of Saints, sustained those who brought Christ to heathen continents, encouraged those who brought loving care and education to those who needed it, and by its graces saved many more millions from hell will hopefully be more free than at any time in the past 40 years and will expand and bring many more souls to Our Lord's feast in Heaven.

carnival of homeschooling

2011-05-11T04:00:00.000-04:00

Dewey's Treehouse is hosting this week's carnival. Go check it out!

What happens when public schools run out of money

2011-05-09T07:56:00.000-04:00

Public schools spend approximately $10,000 per pupil for staff salaries and retirement, books, food, gas money, equipment, supplies, etc. This does not include the money for the building or the buses used to drive them to school. Parents pay private schools anywhere between $4000-$12,000 per child in addition to already paying property taxes for the public school system (Our town in Maine states that 75% of the annual tax we pay on our home goes to the local education budget). In contrast, homeschooling costs between almost nothing and $1000 per child (for a full enrollment school-in-a-box enrollment).

There is obviously a great deal of waste that can be cut from any public school budget, but what is the first idea suggested in Michigan (with 41% of the residents of Detroit now considered functionally illiterate) and California? Cut the school year with the result that children are not receiving even the basic 180 days of schooling. It is increasingly obvious that the public school model is not functioning. Children are not being educated, the teachers unions are growing richer and more powerful, and the financial dam is about to break. What will it take for large numbers of parents to break free from the warehousing that is going on now? If they were offered freedom with their pocketbooks to choose their children's education enviroment then things would change in a big, fat hurry. Those in charge of the current system know it and are holding on for dear life for their own benefit.

Teachers and parents throughout the region and state have grown accustomed to significant cutbacks in their public schools, increased demands for fundraising and threats to layoff faculty as California copes with its relentless fiscal crisis.

But schools could face a financial hit so severe in the coming school year that many may be shut down as many as six weeks early, under an extreme cost-cutting measure that was first suggested in January with little fanfare and has been gaining traction ever since.
That means children could be cut lose (sic) from school in April next year, just after Easter. Sign On San Diego