Follow the Muse

Holiday Giveaway

2009-11-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

I just ran across a very creative site for custom-created jewelry by Lisa Leonard. It's so simple and elegant. Usually, I'm not a girl who desires great gobs of bling, but one look at her site and I'm hooked!

Check out her designs and a giveaway at: Simple Mom's Holiday Giveaway

Just deal with it already

2009-03-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

Do you have junk drawer in your house? Come on, admit it. You're among friends here. Maybe you have one. Or maybe you have one for each room. Or maybe you're a total clutter freak and you have an entire junk room?

Introduce Exhibit A: My throw-in room. Or maybe it's just a throw-up room. Whatever.

It's been getting from bad to worse for ~~months~~ years. When you homeschool, you tend to accumulate a lot of STUFF. Board games at garage sales beckon. The friends of the library book sales become your personal fave time of year. A copy of the classics at 10cents each? I'm so all over that. Oh...yeah, right, get home and find 2 copies already on the shelves. ooops.

Plus all the great 'finds' at used curriculum sales, shoe boxes saved for the next impromptu history diorama, stacks of paper in every imaginable color, drawers of yarn saved for the craft projects that go along with all the fun stuff and you see my problem. So many great resources, and a room that I can't even walk into anymore.

Every time I walk past the ~~resource~~, ~~school~~junk room, it screams at me to do something already. I get screamed at a lot since it's across the hall from my bathroom. I used to close the door. It's so bad now that I have to put my fingers in my ears and hum the theme from Mission: Impossible to ignore its whines to clean it up.

I'm good at ignoring whines. I have two little girls. Enough said.

So, today, my jury servitude finished. Yay! But the girls bailed on me about 20 minutes after I left the house (Daddy, can we go to grandma's house?), so I returned to no kids and the screaming room.

Today, I will conquer it. I feel the energy. I (along with my 11 jury members) heard the evidence, weighed it and rendered a verdict. How hard can sorting through my (never-used) scrapbooking supplies be compared to that?

Will keep you posted. Although the jury's still out on this one.

Out of the mouthes of babes

2009-02-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

Conversation in the mini-van last night:

LittlestSquirrel (LS): I want to eat at the fish restaurant tonight.
Mommy: Nope, Daddy doesn't want to eat there, so we're bringing him home subs.
BigSquirrel (BS): Daddy hates fish and I hate pork.
LS: What's pork?
BS: Pig.
LS: I hate pig too.
BS: No, you eat it all the time. Bacon, you know.
LS: Oh.
BS: And you eat cow too.
LS: WHAAAAAAT?
BS: Oh yeah, burgers and steaks are made of cows.
LS: (looking in horror at snack in hand) So, what are pretzels made of? Turkey?

Jury Duty

2009-02-27T21:47:00.001-08:00

So, somehow I managed NOT get out of jury duty this week. Seems so easy, no? Answer a few questions and poof, be excused. Apparently not so easy. Seems as if one potential juror's "My mother is the sheriff in this county" carries more weight than my "I have a friend whose husband is in law enforcement". Who knew it had to be a blood relative to make the attorney's wince?

Eh, sonny...what's that you say?

2009-02-25T22:37:00.001-08:00

Can you hear this? http://trainhorns.net/sound/

I can, although I'm (ahem) a wee bit older than 25. Ok, more than a wee bit since I'm closer to 40 than 25. Can you hear it? And, if you would...are you closer to 25 or 40?

Being in the moment

2009-02-23T19:15:00.001-08:00

You know how every self-help parenting guru says "Just be in the moment" and "Ignore the dishes, they're only young once". Well, I think I may have taken that too far.

In this moment, I can't see my hallway. It's covered in dirty clothes. I finally managed to clear out the dishes from the sink, but I suspect that some dish dirtying elf is going to fill it right back up again. I won't post a photo. It would just be too disgusting to look at and then you'd have to go wash your eyeballs out.

I was looking around my house and fantasizing about having the power to bend space/time, like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes. We're way behind the current season, but thanks to Netflix Streaming, I haven't been left completely in the dust and am half-way (or so) through Season One.

Can you picture me, all squinchy faced like Hiro? Ok, so you'll have to use your imagination. I was picturing it today, standing there facing my loads of laundry. I did the face squinch, willing the world to STOP, freeze frame, do-over! Or at least just keep everyone still for 30 minutes, so I can catch up! It's like a temporary cyrogenic chamber of goodness that you can just keep dipping into again and again. Like the freeze time cookie jar :)

What would you do with Hiro's "freeze time" powers?

Mayday, Mayday...we've landed in Suburbia

2009-02-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

Isn't it weird when you walk out your front door and see this?

Grabbed the camera, told the kids to grab whatever shoes and jackets they could find and we ran down to the park to investigate further. Did a hot air balloon really hit the ground in my neighborhood?

Nah. Turns out someone was having a Wizard of Oz Birthday party, complete with costumes and rides in a tethered balloon for all the birthday guests.

My kids stood there, mouths open as they watched it fill up with guests and go up and down. The grandpa of the birthday girl was such a kind soul. He saw my kids looked bug eyed at the balloon and asked if we'd like a ride up after the birthday guests had a chance. Would we?! OMG, yes, thank you, we most definitely would!

So, we went up. The littlest squirrel huddled on the floor of the basket, peering out the port hole at the bottom. The big squirrel clutched the side of the basket and peered over. I, camera in hand, madly shot the burner

the playground,

and the inside of the balloon.

Good friends, good wine

2009-02-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

I went to a Mom's Night Out Pajama Party last night. We laughed, drank wine, ate vegan meatballs (a first for me, but they were tasty) and drank some more. Did I mention there was copious amounts of red and white flowing? We laughed so hard while playing "The Game of Things". You know you've hit the money when a nebulizer has to be located to keep one of the girls breathing!
It felt so good to laugh that deep belly laugh that leaves you wheezing and gasping at the end. Thank you guys, I feel as relaxed this morning as rubber chicken.

Hi, I don't think we've met...

2009-02-20T03:24:00.000-08:00

...it's been so long since I was here. The place seems a little barren and deserted like the people moved and left the place to the mice and the lizards.

Well, move over vermin, I'm baaaaaaccckkk!

Tune in at 11 o'clock for more breaking news.

Squeeze out the goodness

2008-07-21T02:13:00.000-07:00

Go and read this post at Poohsticks, especially the last two paragraphs. That is so what I want to say, except she says it so much better.

It reminds me of making jelly. When it's all said and done, just keep the nectar of the day.

Today I am a model

2008-07-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

For one hour, I sit for make-up and have a stylist choose my clothes.
The photographer adjusts the lights, the photo on the back of the gray cubicle wall, calls for wardrobe to remove a wrinkle from around my waist.
With an upward glance, he exchanges looks with the art director and then goes back to dressing the set.
For one minute (and another and another, until my smile is frozen in place), I think of how my children make me glow when they laugh.
I think to myself, "Make the eyes smile too."
The assistant holds my jump rope made of ethernet cable and gives my tired, aching hands a break from holding the heavy prop.
I am like the molded plastic chair in the corner, serving a purpose, telling a story.
A story without words, a story from within.
For one day, I am a model.

Homeschool Survey - Dispelling the stereotypes

2008-06-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

While reading Tammy's blog at Just Enough and Nothing More, I found this questionnaire about homeschooling. In an effort to help dispel homeschooling stereotypes, I thought I'd add my own answers below.

Why do you home school? It's so hard to answer this question because there are many reasons. I home school so that my children can learn at their own pace and not feel either rushed or held back. I home school so that they can spend enough time with adults to learn social skills, rather than primarily from their peers. I home school so they can develop their own identities apart from the pressure cooker conformity that is prevalent in bricks and mortar schools.

What technique or curriculum do you use? We use a mixture of different things. This year, we've been using RightStart math curriculum, together with suitable living math books (http://www.livingmath.net) and games. We use a handwriting practice book and the oldest sometimes does some copywork. We do unit studies for social studies and science. We read a lot everyday, everything from picture books to chapter books. We spend as much time outside as the weather and our schedule allows. And they play. A lot.

Do your kids work above or below grade level (or both!)? Both, it depends on the area. What is designated as "grade level" by the various Departments of Education is rather arbitrary, so we just learn things at the pace that works for us.

What is your educational level? I have a Master's degree in Educational Psychology and my husband has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology.

Do you feel this has an effect on your teaching (both limits and abilities)? I think it gives me a very healthy skepticism about what "should" be required. There is an amazing difference between what is taught at the graduate level in Education and what is actually practiced in most schools. Educational psychology has a lot of powerful things to say about how individuals learn. Unfortunately, schools can not implement most of it, because each class is a herd, and the teacher can't spend much time with each individual. I find it interesting that what educational psychologist would term "best learning practices" can be very effectively implemented by home schoolers because of our very low student-teacher/mentor ratio.

What does your daily schedule look like? The kids get up and then get me up. We pile onto the sofa and read books for about a half hour. Then comes breakfast and dishes clean-up. After that, no two days are the same. Sometimes they play for a long time after breakfast, while I do house chores. Sometimes we set up the math manipulatives on the living room floor and do some of that for a while. Sometimes I'll pull out a craft or the paints and they will get creative for a while. Once a week, I teach a science class to my kids and a small group of other homeschoolers. Some days we'll take a country and learn about the culture and work on our mapping skills. No two days are alike. Afternoons are reserved for out of the house stuff (park days, play dates, field trips, classes, etc)

Are your kids always polite and ready to learn? (*snicker*) Well...not always polite to each other, since one has a short fuse, but always ready to learn. 95% of what I teach, I'm highly enthused about. When Mamma's fired up about something, the kids tend to get excited about it too. Learning isn't something you "should" do, it just "is".

Do the kids (or you!) get frustrated? I get frustrated with the bickering and they get frustrated with each other sometimes when they play. Which is the same with all families, homeschooling or not. The only difference is that we spent much more time together than a brick 'n mortar school family, with just _that_ much more opportunity to drive each other crazy. The other main frustration for us at the moment is that I have one kid who loves one-on-one instructional time with me and the other who isn't ready for much direct instruction yet. It gets frustrating for the little one to wait for her sister to finish up what she's learning, so she can get her playmate back!

How has this affected your parenting? Sometimes it brings out the cranky in me and sometimes it makes me reach deeper inside to find some patience. And other days I just reach for the chocolate instead.

How much free time do they have? Depends on the day. Some days are pretty full with outside activities (soccer/gymnastics/library visits/field trips/park days) while others are much more laid-back, at-home days. It just depends on our other commitments and how much they want to play vs. how much to they want me to teach them something new.

What do they do during their free time? Play. Play. Play. Create plays, songs, dances. Play with stuffed animals, move the furniture around and create imaginary worlds, etc. I heavily limit the amount of TV/video time to car trips and the occasional pre-dinner change of pace, so they have lots of time for...play. Sometimes they play computer games for about an hour, couple times a month.

What hobbies do they have? It's hard for me to make a separation between hobbies and everything else they do. They are still young (one just finished first grade and one is "preschool"), so they love almost everything they do, including lessons. Other than picking up their messes and putting away their toys. That they hate.

What difficulties and challenges do you have with homeschooling? Keeping the younger one happy while I do a focused lesson with the older one. Keeping up with the housework, which results in our house having a very "lived-in" look.

What makes homeschooling enjoyable? Helping them learn stuff. Seeing the progress they make in different areas, some of which are important to them, some of which are important to me. Seeing how much they have blossomed and how much having a positive social climate has helped my anxious child come out of her shell.

How do you get involved in the community? In terms of the homeschool community: I found some like-minded families through home school classes offered in my area. I found some people through our statewide support group. Others have been friends since our kids were babies and we've all taken the homeschooling path when our kids got old enough. In terms of the larger community: I joined a local Mom's club for playdates, I became the Team Mom for my daughter's soccer team (which my husband also coaches).

When do you have opportunities to interact with public or privately schooled children? Primarily through our participation in gymnastics, community soccer and swimming, where my kids are the only home schooled kids (that I know of). They also play with kids in our neighborhood, all of whom go to public school (or will in a year when they start kindy).

Would you like more of these opportunities? I think we get enough opportunities to hang out with other kids, both home schooled and bricks and mortar schooled.

How can they be created? n/a

What is your least favorite homeschool stereotype? :-) That we're all religious. Some of us are very happy freethinkers :)

Seven Interesting Things About Me

2008-04-06T11:08:00.001-07:00

I was tagged by Sandra at On Living by Learning to play this meme game. So I'm....game. The idea is to list seven interesting things about yourself. Not sure if anyone else would find this interesting, but here's the flotsam that makes me, well....me.

1) I hate wet socks. If a certain someone (who shall remain nameless) drips his wet feet over the floor after a shower and even the teeny, tiniest bit of it gets my socks wet, they have to come off.

2) Pancakes are at their best with with peanut butter and maple syrup. Just syrup seems half-dressed to me.

3) I work in cycles, that without some effort on my part, resemble the boom/bust economy of the Gold Rush. What that translates into is that my office resembles a walk-in closet more than a room where anyone could get any work done. I love projects (in my former paid life, I was a Project Manager and it fit me perfectly), but have a tendency to start too many simultaneous projects at once. So, the um....office, has about 4 ongoing projects in it, along with all my curriculum stuff. Which leads to:

4) I collect curriculum and books. Over many moves, I've had to purge my books many times, but the collection only diminushes for a short time. Just as a falling rock gains speed until it reaches terminal velocity, my bookshelves fill up quickly and any empty spaces are a temporary thing.

Hmmm. Gack...I'm at four things and I need to think of three more. Let's see.

5) My favorite show is Mythbusters. Adam and Jamie rock! I'm such a builder geek. I think the trebuchet on Little People, Big World is awesome and I used to love Junkyard Wars when it was on. For those who missed it, two teams would be given a real world problem to solve and then free reign in the junkyard to cobble a machine together from junkyard parts. They built some of the best stuff.

6) I'm not the most patient person in the world. Many of my friends and extended family think I am, but just ask my kids, they'll give you the straight goods. I have to work at it. Like, really work at it. My natural inclination is to just tell everyone to get at it and stop dawdling already.

7) I hold fairly strong opinions on things, but at the same time am always open to new information that may change the way I think. I'm all about following the muse and seeing where she leads.

And that's all folks :)

Any job worth doing....

2008-01-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

....is worth doing right. Or so my grandfather used to say. He drilled it into his children and my mother, with a slight roll of her eyes, passed this chestnut on to me. Not with the certainty and fervor that my grandfather used when he intoned it, but with a firm resolve that we should always do our best.

I've always thought that his words and then hers had a logic about them. After all, why set about to do something if you don't intend to take it seriously? Tonight, as I sat down to edit my NaNo novel (read: cut and slash huge amounts out before painstakingly (and painfully) trying to piece the decent bits back together), I wondered if perhaps that nugget of wisdom only really applies to bankers and accountants and others of that ilk. After all, in certain professions there IS a RIGHT answer. My bank account had better not fluctuate for any other reason than my spending. But for those of us that pursue art and creativity and well....the muse...getting it right the first time is counter-productive to getting it done at all.

I see so many creative people get bogged down because their efforts don't match their excessively high expectations. When I wrote in the distant past, I expected my first draft to be as wonderful as the books I had read. Never mind that those authors first drafts didn't look like their finished works. None of the paintings or sculptures that have moved me in museums were the artists first works. Why is it so hard for me to remember that they messed around a lot before becoming the masters that we revere today?

To those who have let "getting it right" stand in the way of messing around, do what I did and send your Inner Critic on a nice vacation to the Fijian Islands. I hear they're beautiful; maybe she'll forget about you and never come home. To be so lucky...

School Silliness

2007-12-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I don't think that all institutionalized schools are silly. Some have some great teachers and administration that cares about the students and not just filling the seats and collecting their per student grant money. Some schools see the person behind the desk, rather than just a number.

But apparently that's not the case at Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala, Florida. A 10 year old girl was arrested and charged with felony possession of a knife. Was she threatening another student? No. Was she flashing it around or using it in an unsafe manner? No. She was using it to cut up her food in the lunch room.

http://www.local6.com/news/14857286/detail.html

What is happening to putting the situation in context? When will the Zero Tolerance madness end?

Math Product Review: Rat-a-tat-cat

2007-12-12T21:59:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd put up a review of a product that we've been playing with at our house lately. I got A. a new card game called Rat-a-tat-cat.

The basic rule of the game are:

Each player is dealt 4 cards face down. They peek at two of the cards and leave the other two face down, unless they think they can get away with peeking at those ones while Mom is distracted. Hey! hang on, those aren't the official rules! Put the other two down!

Anyway, the goal of the game is to trade out your high number "rat" cards for lower number "cat" cards. You take cards from the draw pile and discard from your face down cards, always aiming to replace your highest numbered card with lower numbered cards. When you think you have a lower sum than your opponent, you yell "Rat-a-tat-cat" and all players turn over their cards. Each player adds up the sum of their four cards and the person with the lowest score wins that round. Continue playing rounds until Mom has to make supper or younger sibling starts giving the cat a haircut.

It builds skills in determining greater than/less than as well as basic addition. The recommended age on the box is 6 and up. It's an Oppenheim Toy Portfolios "Best Toy Award - Platinum", as well as Mensa Select winner.

A. and I like to play this game. She hates games that aren't really games, in the true, competitive sense of the word. What can I say...she's her mother's daughter and we both like to play where someone actually wins! I've seen many educational activities labeled as "games", but unless there is a competitive component, it doesn't quite seem like a game to me. We both give it a two thumbs up!

Plant, water, and leave it alone to grow

2007-12-05T22:22:00.000-08:00

We're pretty eclectic around our house. On more Mommy-structured days we do literature based unit studies or Charlotte Mason style reading and narration. Today was an unschooly flavored day though. I thought I'd share with you an example of doing math, without even really noticing it.

At lunch, A. noticed that the magnetic fridge letters were one of four different colors. The vowels were all red and the other letters were either yellow, green or blue. She sorted the letters by color, making long lines of color down the face of the fridge. She noticed that each color ribbon was the same length as the next and then counted each letter, arriving at a total of 21 consonants.

I pointed to the fridge and said, "Did you notice that you actually have three groups of seven letters?", pointing to the shape she had made. She noticed and agreed that it was so. I took this opportunity to plant a little seed about multiplication and offhandedly commented that once she was old enough, she could memorize her multiplication tables and she wouldn't have to count out each letter anymore, she could memorize what the answer to three groups of seven was.

I moved on, clearing the lunch dishes. Plant now, water a bit and leave the idea to grow.

She protested that no, in fact she was old enough to memorize her multiplication facts now. I responded that usually one memorized the addition facts first and she asked me to start today. So I showed her the pattern that it makes if you start with one number (say 2) and add an escalating number to it (say first 1, then 2, then 3) that the result forms a pattern of being one larger than the last one. It looked like this:

2+1 = 3
2+2 = 4
2+3 = 5
etc

She thought that was interesting and we played around with ascending sums for about 5 minutes.

Patterns, it's all about being able to recognize patterns. She wanted to do more sums at bedtime and so we laid down together and talked about different patterns 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, etc

Plant, water, and leave it alone to grow. I predict December with be a math-heavy month around here. 'Cause watered seeds can't help but sprout.

Into the Mouths of Babes

2007-12-05T00:18:00.000-08:00

Heard in my kitchen today:

Me: "S....(who is youngest daughter and almost 4), Is that your sister's candy cane you're putting in your mouth?"

S: "No, I ate my sister's already. This one is mine."

NaNoWriMo

2007-12-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

I will blog everyday. That is my new mantra. I was a little busy in November. I attempted and WON NaNoWriMo. For those that haven't heard about it, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.com I can't begin to type how excited that makes me. I had serous doubts whether I could write 50,000 words in 30 days. Apparently I can. Actually, it turns out that I can do it in about 25 days. That works out to 2000 or so words per day. So a blog entry each and every day should not be too hard.

I also discovered that we can survive just fine on boxed/frozen food and that my husband rocks.

More later.

...and she's back!

2007-10-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, this whole getting back into the swing of things is killing me! I'm trying to be more focused and organized with our homeschooling efforts this year with A. officially in grade 1. Somehow though, the kids don't really seem to care one way or the other. If mommy plans a wonderfully integrated unit on the planets, we learn and have fun. If we do random art, pop bottle science experiments, read lots of interesting things, we learn and have fun too.

We did a unit (that I thought was going to be 5 weeks long) on Oceans. Kicked off the new school year with it actually. Apparently A is not done though. Eight weeks after we started, she still wants to explore the depths of the ocean, so today we signed out 4 more books about the ocean from the library. Meanwhile, I had mentally prepared myself to start a unit on space this week, so I'm trying to get my head back into Oceans!