Before and After

See if you can detect the difference between these two pictures:

About 6 pounds! Yes, she stayed with us and here she is in her current, obese glory. She is a bather--constantly keeping her and everyone around her shiny clean. She is getting so she can't quite reach everywhere as well as she used to be able to...

Question of the day

Why does mucus, unlike every other liquid I know of, get thinner and runnier when it gets cold? You'd think it would be disadvantageous, evolutionarily-speaking, to have icicles hanging from your nose.

This crazy weather has had the advantage of allowing us to be home, guilt-free, for five nights in a row (that is, guilt-free because we aren't home because we are flaking out on anything). I do hope we get a window of nice weather tomorrow, though, because A is dying to see her drama club friends, and M has a special outing with Grandma planned (and loafers may be involved, so his excitement knows no bounds). If not, it will be a great opportunity to do our Christmas baking. So far, we're actually not especially stir crazy, but we do miss seeing our friends. If only you guys lived on our block!

Snow!

OK, OK, I guess they were right about the big storm after all. Who'd a thought? I do wish I would have picked up a gallon of milk last night, at least!

Quiz:

What is more fun than a snowy day?

Answer: A big outdoor fire on a snowy day!
Until you fall down and wind up with a gaping 3/4-inch jagged tear across the under side of your chin. M did that, not me. I'm sure he would have had stitches if I had felt safe driving, but the little band-aids seem to be holding it together. And, it didn't really bleed that much, given the size of the gash. Since M had been playing outside for a good couple of hours at that point I think it was kind of numb and maybe didn't have a ton of blood circulating at the surface? Anyway, he'll have a lovely scar to show off.

Check out this snowball--it was there for a full minute before I got this picture

Improvised Dinner

I went to New Seasons with a dinner idea in mind, only to be thwarted by the masses of people there--stocking up for the big storm, I guess. There were no regular-sized carts left *at all* and the meat counter was a solid mass of people. So we had dinner from the "pantry" tonight, that is, improvised with the materials at hand. If you are in a similar pinch, here are a couple of ideas...

Lemony rice:
Olive oil
1 c rice
2 c chicken broth
zest of 1 lemon (or 1/2 of a dried up lemon in the back of the crisper box plus a lime)
1 grated zucchini, which was getting on in life and needed to be used up
1 grated carrot
2-3 cloves garlic
Parmesan cheese (1/4 c?)
juice from aforementioned dried up 1/2 lemon, which was actually surprisingly juicy

Saute the rice in the olive oil until it starts to get a little brown. Add the zucchini, carrot, and garlic and stir around for a couple of minutes. Add the broth, bring to boil, then simmer like you normally cook rice (12 min or so?). When liquid is absorbed, stir in lemon juice and Parmesan and let sit for a couple of minutes. Very tasty. This is also great (even better, actually) with orzo rather than rice.

Broccoli with Pine Nuts:
Olive oil
Pine nuts (1/4 c? or walnuts or whatever nut you like that you have on hand)
4 c broccoli florets
2 cloves garlic
salt
2 T broth
2 T white wine (or substitute rice vinegar + a little sugar if you have no wine)
2 T Parmesan cheese.

Saute the pine nuts in the olive oil until beginning to brown. Add broccoli and garlic and stir around until the broccoli is nice and bright green. Add a little salt if you'd like (not too much because you'll be adding Parmesan later), and then the liquids, and steam for a few minutes until broccoli is done. Toss with Parmesan.

Add a smoothie and a little loaf of freshly baked no-knead bread (thanks for the idea, RedMolly, I'd cut this recipe out of the FoodDay months ago and never tried it). Voila! All stuff scrounged from the supplies on hand.

Memories

When I got on my bike today this great feeling came over me. It's Friday for me; I have strong healthy legs and it felt great to use my muscles pumping my bike; the cool air felt great on my cheeks. Suddenly, I was 8 years old, riding my fantastic bike with the polka-dotted banana seat, wearing my favorite purple shirt and a zip-up-the-front sweatshirt, feeling the cool fall air on my cheeks.

You know the great thing about a childhood free of major trauma or dysfunction? It is the deep well of great memories you have at your fingertips. The feeling you get when all is right with the world and you are just cruising around on your bike, enjoying being alive and well. The smells and sensations that can trigger these good memories, the feeling that you are strong and well and could run or ride your bike forever. The feeling of being in the middle of a big, loud, chaotic family gathering--that these are your people. That you have people.

I remember one Thanksgiving gathering at my Grandma and Grandpa's house when I was probably 6 or 7. My older cousin Jenny got a call from her then boyfriend (and future husband), and the tiny house was packed with people and so loud I couldn't imagine how she could hear what he was saying. Her face lit up with surprise when someone said "Steve's on the phone!", and with a big smile on her face she took the phone and crawled under the kitchen table. She was under the table, laying down with her feet propped up on a chair, relaxed and happy as could be, smiling and laughing and talking to her boyfriend. This is the first inkling I had that maybe it is a nice thing to have a boyfriend. Not that I wanted one, but maybe it would be nice, one day. These images are so sweet, and what a wonderful gift to have these kinds of memories waiting in the wings, to be brought back by some momentary smell or sight or sound.

A (Brief) Glimpse of the Promised Land

So I've been jogging (I call it running, but let's be realistic, it is jogging at best) 2-3 times per week for a few months. I had big plans and a 4-day-per-week running schedule figured out, but I haven't quite been able to make that happen. Needless to say, my aerobic capacity is improving at quite a slow pace, and I still can't even always make it 2 miles before having to stop and walk.

Back before kids I used to run a lot, and was in the lovely state where I looked forward to running, and was bummed out if I had to miss a day. I even had many pretty exuberant moments running through Forest Park. I can't say I'm feeling especially exuberant when I'm running (jogging) these days. In fact, I'm pretty miserable the whole time.

BUT. Today I was jogging and busy thinking about something at work and I suddenly realized that I had passed my 2-mile marker and I was actually feeling pretty good! Of course, within about 10 steps I was gasping for air and dragging myself miserably along and had to stop and walk, but still! It felt good for a minute! It will feel good again. I'm within striking distance of enjoying jogging, I just know it. With Christmas vacation coming up, maybe I can make some faster progress and get to that point where I don't have to talk myself into it every time.

Score!

Today we had our holiday event at work, which is always lots of fun, the highlights of which are the silent and oral auctions. As I was perusing the Star Wars video tapes, ceramic knick knacks, rooster clocks, and John Grisham novels, my heart skipped a beat when I saw a K'nex set with no bids on it. I think K'nex are pretty cool, but my determination to get those K'nex went far beyond "pretty cool." Let me back up to two Christmases ago.

I bought 3 packs of K'nex that covered 3 or 6 of the basic machines (I forget if there were one or two machines per pack). It was a teacher pack that included physics lessons for later elementry grades, and this was going to be the kids' big joint gift, plus it was going to be our science curriculum for a little while. The box arrived and I managed to sneak it in the house without anyone seeing it. I opened up the box and pulled out and fondled the K'nex boxes, aquiver with anticipation about how much fun they were going to be. Then I carefully hid the box. Carefully, as in really well hidden. Not as in, taking great care to remember where I hid it. To this day, $60 worth of K'nex are hidden somewhere in this house. I'm thinking of them as my retirement plan, now that my 401k has mostly disappeared: by the time I find them they'll be collectors items--pristine condition, original packaging, never opened!

So I bid on the K'nex at the auction, and then as the end of the auction drew near I used every obnoxious silent auction tactic I could think of to make sure I got those K'nex. I hovered over the sheet and badmouthed K'nex, I told everyone my sob story as proof of how I deserve to win those K'nex, and if someone actually made it through my gauntlet and bid on them, I outbid them again as soon as they were out of sight. And yes, I did actually win the K'nex. Now, having spent $71 on K'nex, there is a 1/2-way built K'nex roller coaster sitting in the front room. Take that, K'nex gods!

Nice Try

Darn! Ever since my blog entry about all the wonderful music we've been playing around here, I haven't been able to talk anyone at my house into playing music with me. I'm going to have to start borrowing random people off the street to play music with me. Good thing my quartet is coming over this weekend. Unfortunately we're reading through Beethoven Op. 59 No. 2, which I'm sure none of us but our diligent 2nd violinist has practiced, so it may be a little hard on the ears. Perhaps not as inspiring to the other members of my household as I might hope.

Oh well, those crazy kids of mine will come around. They'll be begging me to get out my cello any day, I just know it.

Academic Excellence

At our recent family meeting I was somewhat disheartened to see that "academic excellence" got no votes as a family priority. However, I figured out later that the kids had no idea what that meant. My initial explanation was, you know, being really good at school-type stuff. Huh? These kids don't have any frame of reference for knowing whether they are really great or really bad a school-type stuff, since they aren't really sure which of the stuff we do is the traditional school-type stuff. The main subjects that leap to mind for them when I say "schoolwork" are math and spelling and punctuation (for Anna) and reading (for Mickey). They both mostly enjoy math, but the reason we spend time on these particular language arts activities is because they are my kids' weaker areas. So, when they hear "academic excellence" that sounds to them like slaving away at these topics that are not especially fun and somewhat difficult for them.

It got me thinking. What *do* I mean by academic excellence? Getting straight A's certainly doesn't mean anything in our world. I guess the thing that is important to me is that when they get to high school or college or whenever they enter a more traditional school setting, that they will be able to do well. The earliest I could see my kids going to school is high school, and how much do they really need to know to do well in a typical public high school? Or even an academically rigorous high school? A good grounding in math, preferably with algebra already well under their belt (though certainly many kids take algebra in high school and do perfectly well); the ability to read something, think about it critically, remember it, and integrate it with other things they know; the ability to translate their thinking into writing that is clear and well-reasoned (preferably without a lot of spelling or punctuation errors).

So how do I achieve these goals? By plugging away at math, at their own natural pace, I'm quite confident that my kids will be ready for high school math by the time they are 14. I find homeschooling extremely efficient when it comes to math--you can cover topics for exactly as long as you need to and can capitalize on the times when their math brains are really working.

Being able to read something and think about it critically does NOT come from reading comprehension worksheets, but from conversations about real books and about life in general. Once you learn to read (which A has down pat and which I'm quite confident M will get by the time he is 14), it is the thinking that is important. Actually, the thinking is important from the moment you are alive, and the reading gets picked up along the way. Being skeptical, observing people, wondering about the physical and social and political world, and having conversations about all these things are how kids learn to think critically. Plus, I think homeschooled kids have the advantage of not wondering what the "right" answer is (i.e., the answer the teacher is looking for), but can just come to their own conclusions. There aren't that many leading questions in real life--where someone asks you something because they want to find out if you know some specific thing, so you have to guess what they are after before you can answer the question correctly. In real life, people ask things because they don't know, and if they can think and read, they can probably find out the answer, if there is one.

Writing is tricky, because I am certainly no great writer. But, I write technical reports for a living, and the editors who go over my writing don't change all that much, so I must be reasonably clear and well-reasoned. I may never write fiction, but I can think through what I want to say, and can usually organize and articulate it well enough to get the point across. Fortunately, A does love to write, so if I can just nurture her writing impulse, she may actually be someone who could *really* write. By high school I'm sure she'll be ready for some help from a real writer, but at this point providing the structure for her to spend time writing and editing her writing will get her a long ways. I don't know about M yet, but at the very least, I do think that by 8th grade, he can be clear-thinking enough to be able to get his thoughts organized and written out. Now whether either of their writing will be mostly spelled correctly and with correct punctuation, I'm not quite so positive...

So, really, when I am thinking of academic excellence, I'm not really thinking that I need my kids to be writing 10-page papers on Beowolf or reading Shakespeare in the original at age 11, though I wouldn't object to that. Rather, I think that a steady diet of good books, videos, games, and activities that provide plenty of exposure to good language, history, science, and psychology, and the conversations that arise out of them are the things that will prepare them to be intelligent, thoughtful people. Add in plenty of music, art, and exercise, plus enough math and the mechanics of English and I think that will get us there. I am constantly encouraged by how little I remember learning in grades k-8, and how much I enjoyed and felt stimulated by (and was perfectly well-prepared for) my academically rigorous high school. I was able to spend most of my k-8 years doing the stuff that I loved doing--playing music, playing pretend and putting on plays with my friends, running around outside, reading, etc. These are the things that prepared my for high school. Plus, I did have some good math instruction.

Music Together

Wow, I'm catching a nice strong signal from my neighbor's wireless at the moment so I'm going to seize the opportunity and do a blog entry. (Don't worry, I'm helping pay for the signal--I'm not stealing it!)

We had our first ever family meeting a few weeks ago to figure out what our top priorities are, as a family. Healthy eating, exercise, music together, and art came out on top, so we've been concentrating on those things lately. Since music is my thing I'm incredibly delighted that others found this so important.

I've been changing my mindset about music from having music lessons at the core musical activity to playing with others as the centerpiece. To become a good musician, you need to put in a lot of hours playing your instrument, which is much easier to do when you're having a good time. Also, to learn to play well in a group, you need to play a lot with other people. Fortunately, the very funnest thing about music is being able to play with others. With A, who takes piano lessons, I'm realizing that the drudgery of practice is killing her love of music. But, she does love to play when she is doing chords for fiddle tunes, or playing the right hand melody line along with folk songs or Christmas carols. And, since we've been playing so much, she has not only spent a lot more time at the piano than usual, but she is getting better and better at listening to what else is going on AND she actually got inspired to write a song yesterday, for the first time ever. I'm not saying that music lessons are unimportant, but I'm figuring out that music lessons don't necessarily create a love of music, which is the thing that will really keep you playing all your life.

For M on cello, I'm not that familiar with Suzuki, since I didn't do it myself, but I think I'm taking a philosophically similar approach. I want to start with playing by ear for a good long while before pulling in music or notation of any kind to help him develop his ear and his memory. As long as he is happy playing songs with mostly or only open strings, we'll stick with that. I think I'll introduce the idea of playing a melody every once in a while, on the assumption that one of these times he'll get excited about it and be ready to put up with the difficulty of figuring out how to use his left hand correctly for the fun of being able to play a recognizable song. In the mean time, I have probably a hundred songs I can pull up that involving almost exclusively the notes C, G, D, and A for a bass line (or could easily be transposed to use them). And if we plug away at these songs in the fiddle, folk song, and traditional song repertoire, he'll have a lot of great songs in his ear after a while. And, he can spend a nice long time developing his bow arm and hand, his sense of rhythm, and his listening and ensemble skills. Again, I do plan on hooking him up with a real teacher as soon as he seems ready to practice, but in the meantime I think we can make lots of progress and have lots of fun along the way.

Also, we've gotten D playing with us, and since he likes blues and rock and mainly likes to improvise, he has pulled in a whole new dimension that is great for all of us. The kids don't really know how to improvise yet (not that I'm any good at it, either), but they are hearing D and I playing around with it and starting to get the idea, and every once in a while one of them will grab a drum or something to try to play along with us. Very cool!

Songs of Joy and Peace

A new CD by Yo Yo Ma. Here is a clip of him playing one of the songs on the Colbert Report. This one must be joy! Or maybe exuberance.

Check out this beautiful song

In case there is anyone out there who reads my blog but doesn't read Magpie Ima, check out this video. I can't figure out how to embed it, so you'll have to click on the link.

Historic Vote

Maybe I'm just caught up in the hype, but it does feel historic. I believe Obama is a thoughtful and intelligent man of integrity. I trust him to think about the implications of his policies and to place a high priority on the effects on regular working people. I understand that he is pragmatic and probably more conservative than I would like on some issues, but I am truly glad I have the chance to vote for him. Now that I look at the mark, I'm a little worried it isn't filled in heavily enough! If I open it back up and make it darker will it look like my ballot was tampered with and risk getting thrown out? Is it maybe the photo that just looks kind of washed out? Hmmmmm.

Latest appraoch to schoolwork

I'm swinging back over to a Charlotte Mason-lite/Sonlite-lite approach to schooling. I made a list of 10:00 chores for the kids to do everyone day that they're home in the morning (just basic stuff--get dressed, comb hair, brush teeth, make beds, pick up rooms.) Then on my work days I'm writing a list of chores on the white board for each of them do that day, usually 1-2 household chores, 2-3 school assignments, and practice for A. Overall, I'm trying to hit math in some form 4-5 days per week for each kid, reading 3-4 days per week for M, writing (freewrite, copywork, dictation, or working on a writing project) 3-4 days per week for A, copywork and spelling for M 1 time per week each. I'm trying have them do a lot of this while I'm at work. For history we're going back through the first _Story of the World_ and I'm having the kids listen to the audio (a couple of chapters each week), and we're using the reading list and study questions from Sonlight Core 5 for read aloud. For variety I'm throwing in a grammar CD for M (basic parts of speech stuff, mostly, set to music), geography and math games on the computer, and board games, some of this done as part of their 10:00 chore list. We chose a composer to focus on this fall, Bartok, and I'm just trying to play something of his every week or so. Also, we still read a bedtime poem every night, and I play folk songs on the piano every night while they brush teeth and get into bed.

I'm trying to make sure we go slowly, just reading one chapter of the read-aloud each day and also doing 15-20 minute from a related history book (not a historic fiction chapter book), so we'll spend plenty of time in a few places in history. I'm trying to incorporate the history stuff in the freewrites occasionally, and I think I'll even do the Charlotte Mason thing of having an exam when we're done. I think the "exam" will actually be lots of fun, and I think the kids will also like the closure and will enjoy seeing how much they have learned. And, I hope it will consolidate what they're learning.

Right now we're going ancient Egypt. We just read _The Golden Goblet_ and a picture book about Tutankahmen. We've been looking through a non-kids book with beautiful photos of stuff from Tutankahmen's tomb, plus other Egyptian antiquities, and I'm planning on reading the chapter in that book about the "curse" on his tomb, since both kids were wanting to hear more about that. We're also going through _Egyptology_ and I found one of those "How to draw..." books on Egyptian gods and figures that I've been assigning them to draw. We're trying to be diligent about looking at the map as we hear about different cities and geographic features in Egypt. After a while I was going to have A draw a map of Egypt, and include major cities and landmarks, and have M fill things in on a blackline map.

The main challenge is stay here in Egypt a little longer, and not move on to Rome fully just yet. We actually already started _Detectives in Togas_, our Rome read-aloud, before I had the idea to slow down and spend more time in Egypt, but I'm drawing it out and I figure by the time we're done with it, I'll call an end to Egypt, have an "exam" day, and then we'll really move into Rome more fully.

Of course the list is long of things we're neglecting (art history, foreign language, nature journal, grammar (not that I'm really sold on grammar) and no doubt more that I'm not thinking of at the moment), but at least this feels manageable for now, and as in all things, I'm a tortoise, not a hare, so it suits me to work steadily away making progress where we can and not fret overly about what is not being covered at the moment.

A Dream Come True

My daughter's wonderful piano teacher has put together two books of simple folk songs that only use two or three chords. Her approach to teaching is to have them learning the finger patterns for the first 5 notes of every scale from the very first lesson. She developed an ingenious manipulative to show them where to put their fingers, and they start out at the piano learning a simple song by ear, and then moving this slider around to anywhere on the piano and playing the song in every key. So, transposing is introduced at the very first lesson.

Another thing she introduces early is how to play the I, IV, and V chords to accompany a song, which are also transposed everywhere on the piano. These folk song books provide the words and the chords, and the kids play the accompaniment and sing along, transposing them into all different keys.

This has been an amazing boon to us, as my son has become interested in playing the cello (yay!) which has open strings that amount to the I, IV, and V notes for the keys of G and D. This means that we can play any of the songs in A's folk song books, with A on piano playing the accompaniment in the keys of G and D, me on violin or cello playing the melody line, and M on cello playing the bass line. This is what I have been dreaming of from the moment I got pregnant! It is so much fun, and it actually sounds really great. M asks to play music almost every day, and A always want to join in also.  And, now I've figured out that we can also play out of fiddle books, which have lots of songs that can be played using the notes C, G, D, and A in the bass line. They tend to be longer and harder to remember for M (who isn't reading any music or notation), but we've got the "A" parts worked out for a couple of them, and they sound great!

This is truly a great way to start the cello. For one thing, the cello we have is too big for M (we have a 3/4 size and he needs a 1/2 size), so I don't really want him to start fingering just yet, since he'll have to use poor finger positioning in order to get in tune. It is kind of iffy even to bow open strings on a too-big cello, but I just have him use the part of the bow that is right for his arm length, and set the end pen low so he's bowing at the right height (but there is no way to make both the left and right hands hit at the right height at the same time with this too-big cello). And, even if we had a right-sized cello for him, it is better to work on each hand separately, since there is so much going on in each hand, and they are doing completely different tasks. It is too much to try to do them both at the same time to start out. When you're just playing by yourself, it quickly gets quite boring to just play open strings. But as a member of a string band, a kid can be happy for quite a while with open strings. 

Reading Slump

Remember when you used to end each day by snuggling into bed with a great book? How enriching and relaxing this ritual was? Some of you may still do this, but, alas, I've joined the bleary, red-eyed ranks of those who go down only after exhaustion overcomes the pain of jabbing earbuds. What have I become?!

True, I'm up on Anderson Cooper's take on the stock market roller coaster and I know how to handle a bear attack, being caught on an erupting volcano, how to spot Lion tracks, and how to catch piranhas, if I'm ever desperate enough to want to eat one (and in a jungle). I've learned how to make an LED fan sign, to convert a hot glue gun to a web-making machine, to make an amplifier from an Altoid tin, and a gigantic smoke ring machine from a garbage can. I've learned all about the amazing Science Museum they've been building in San Francisco and caught every Wired Science podcast in the past month, but I'm only about 40 pages into my book that I've been reading for at least 2 weeks.

I think part of the problem is my approach to finding books--that is, randomly picking books of the fiction shelves whose titles or book covers grab me. I've thought that I just wasn't fiction mode, but it occurs to me that maybe I'm just not reading great fiction. I've found some great memoirs on the New Arrivals shelf, but there hasn't been anything new there for a while that has really appealed to me. So I'm turning over a new leaf. Tonight, thanks to Worducopia and Wacky Mommy I have 15 books on hold at the library. Adult fiction, young adult fiction, memoirs, biographies. Surely something will grab me and help me tame the electronic monster that has taken over my bedtime ritual!

Yikes!

I'm traveling to Maryland for work in November, as I do occasionally, but it turns out that rather than tag along after my boss while she does all the presenting and paying for taxis I'm going to have to go all by myself! Make two fairly large presentations without her! Figure out how much to tip the taxi drivers! Figure out how to use the hotel iron without it spraying water all over my shirt! 

OK, I'm a big girl, I can handle this. I'll just have to find some kind of polyester shirt that won't wrinkle.

Hoyt Arboretum Tour

We went on a third walking tour with the incomparable Peter Chausse this week, and this one was just as great as the others. I've lived in this city all my life and been to the Arboretum literally hundreds of times, yet I learned and saw all sorts of new things on Tuesday. He covered wildlife, history, and art along the way, and even got the whole group to be silent and listen to the sounds around us for a little while. Not an easy task with 13 kids holding plastic bags in a graveled area. 

Check out the amazing root system on this tree. The picture doesn't do it justice, unfortunately.

And the bark on several of the trees we saw was just beautiful.

Trip to the Columbia Gorge

We spent a beautiful couple of days with Aunt Teen and Uncle Carl this weekend in the Columbia Gorge. We hiked around their place on Saturday and then had a nice dinner at their house. After dinner we played a board game and then the kids watched Andy Griffith episodes while the grownups got to hang out and visit. On Sunday we took a short hike near the mouth of the Klikitat River. Apparently you can sometimes see bald eagles during the salmon runs (which are now), but we didn't see any on Sunday. The spot was just beautiful and well worth the trip there even without any bald eagles. The only thing that slowed us down were the burrs.

Foreign language study

Here is M demonstrating his mastery of a rare and complicated dialect. We can thank our strict adherence to Charlotte Mason principles for this brilliant translation effort, no doubt.

Just what the doctor ordered

I have been on vacation this week, and it has been a great relief to everyone in the house to have me home. Like many families, mom is the backbone of the family, and things seem to fall apart when mom is (I am) gone to much over too long a time period. This week everyone has had an outing or two (or three, in the case of dad!) alone with me, and the pent-up need for mom-time seems to be more or less satisfied. At the same time, we've passed around a cold, which has kept us home a little more than usual, which has also been a good thing for getting everyone feeling right with the world again.

I haven't quite met my goal of jogging every day of vacation. In fact, I haven't jogged yet, and don't see it happening in the next few days, but I am very inspired by my brother-in-law's completion of the Portland Marathon last weekend. If I'm remembering correctly, he started jogging in January of this year, lost 50 pounds, and ran two half-marathons and one full marathon by the first weekend of October! He actually had some really good tips for me that I think I can put into action, but not until I'm done with this cold. Nevertheless, it has been lovely, sleeping in until 8:00 or later, getting one-on-one time with everybody, eating some delicious dinners, playing cards, and watching a few more movies than usual. Very lazy and luxurious. Next week I'll get serious about jogging!

Greek Dinner

No, we didn't make it to the Greek Festival this weekend, unfortunately, but managed to celebrate Greece anyway, with some of our homeschool friends. We had an amazing Greek feast, and some of the kids dressed up as their favorite Greek Gods (and these kids really know their Greek mythology, so these are seriously informed choices) and we shared tidbits we'd learned about Greece in the past month or so. The menu wound up being pita bread, hummus, kalmata olives, spanakopita, lamb pastitsio, a lima bean dish whose Greek name escapes me, beet and feta salad, Horiatikia salad (cukes, feta, sweet peppers, etc.), baklava, koulourakia (like sugar cookies), and Greek coffee.  Unfortunately I didn't get pictures until after much of the food was gone, but here are some of the remains:

The kids played scatter and some acting/pretend games and impressed me tremendously with how well this big group of 10 kids ranging in age from 5 to 13 could play together in the tiny space of our upstairs. There was plenty of thumping, exuberant shouting, and swords keeping the enemies on the stairs at bay, but an amazing lack of voices raised in anger or frustration. 

Hike in the Gorge

We went on a beautiful hike to Horsetail Falls a few days ago with our homeschool friends. It has some stretches with big dropoffs near the edge of the trail, which feels quite treacherous with a group of excited kids, but it was just beautiful and so much fun. The highlight of the hike is where the trail goes behind this waterfall: 

Here is part of our gang looking out at it:
And the happy crew towards the end of the hike:
A perfect way to spend a mild fall afternoon.

The next generation of unicylcers

I just imported everything from the camera and came across this picture of my nephew:

Wow! Notice the crutch in the lower left? He figured out how to ride the unicycle by using his crutches (left over from his broken leg last winter) to help him get balanced. I saw him out there with the crutches a week ago or so, but I never saw him go on his own.  Now it looks like he's go it! There is even a video clip of him going for about 10 or 15 feet. My sister and I rode unicylces when we were kids, and we've had some unicyles hanging around our houses which the kids occasionally pull out and try to ride, but this is the furthest anyone has gotten on it. Yay!

The fruits of my labor

My moonlighting job from this summer is now online! For a fascinating tutorial on systematic evidence reviews, follow this link and click on Systematic Review Module. OK, maybe "fascinating" isn't quite the right word, but it looks pretty snazzy, don't you think? (Not that I had any input on how it looks)

Oregon Garden

We had a beautiful day at the Oregon Garden today. The sun was shining,

the garden was full of interesting and clever sights,

and beautiful paths leading off into magical little spaces.

We started off with a tram ride hoping to find our friends,

and who should appear at the second stop to board the tram? This was lucky because the place is big and it would have been easy to miss each other. Being there with friends made the day even more fun. A especially is in a place where she would like us to do everything with our friends. When we're back home and her legs are so tired from running around that they are sore, I know it has been a good day. 

The garden is really well done and since today was a special homeschool day they had activity stations set up all over the garden, which were lots of fun. M liked the flower dissecting one best, and A liked the crafty one where you could make a stamp of animal tracks. She made one of animal tracks and then made a second one that said "Caution." A warning for her brother? General advice for the world at large? A self portrait in one word? Anyway, it was definitely worth the drive.

Lost Tooth

Here's M's showing off his (second) lost tooth, and the grown up teeth that are well on their way into the space.

Quilting with Grandma

Check out this beautiful quilt that A made with her grandma! They've been working on it for months, and A is so proud of how it turned out. They original idea was to use it as a picnic blanket, but I don't think we want to get this wonderful piece covered in mud and grass stains and food stains. It is being put to very good use on the couch and our fancy new bean bag chairs, and A takes it upstairs every night to bed with her. This took a lot of work--I'm so impressed with how she stuck with it, and with how pretty and functional it is.

Peer Pressure?

I think of myself as someone who is more-or-less immune from peer pressure when it comes to fads and fashion, but maybe I'm not so immune after all, as evidence by two recent purchases. Did I really need to spend $20 to get a water bottle that won't leach scary chemicals into my water? It is kind of alarming how easily I can justify spending $200 on an iPod (It will help me run farther! I'll be able to use my exercise and commute time so productively! We'll be able to download all sorts of great educational material from iTunes U to listen to in the car!) I got a little extra money because of this extra job I did this summer, and the idea was to put it toward paying off the loan for re-doing our bathroom, but it seems to burning a hole in my pocket...

Mr. Perfect Robinson

Well, we gave up on Swiss Family Robinson about 1/3 of the way through. When we all started hoping that the hero would get attacked by a wild animal, it seemed better to take the higher path and just quit reading it. If I had to suffer through one more amazing stroke of luck or McGyver-type invention that Mr. Robinson was praying would work, though never so bold as to believe it would, and then have it work better than he ever imagined, and in fact turn out to be a perfect coconut picking device as well as building crane or whatever, I think I would have thrown the book in the fire. And it's a library book, and I *really* don't want to have to pay for it, of all the annoying books. 

I just couldn't take any more displays of Mr. Robinson's encyclopedic knowledge of tropical flora and fauna and all their uses, or hear one more amazing stroke of luck. The ship was stocked with provisions for a whole colony for a year! What luck! The island is packed with useful and delicious plants and animals and fresh water! There is a little boat stored away inside the hull of the ship that is undamaged! What luck! When the sons aren't working like slaves because they *so* want to be cooperative and helpful, they are engaged in games of strength, endurance, and skill to help them become better hunters and builders! Isn't that special. And every time they come upon an animal they kill it or imprison it. Lovely. By the time we quit the only thing keeping us reading was the chance to snicker about their ass and their pinnace, which we heard quite a lot about.

Back to Basics

We started out the summer gearing up our academic homeschooling as we have for the past couple of years, since most of our regularly schedule activities don't go through the summer and we have more time to do that kind of stuff. Then I got this moonlighting job and began working more than usual, and we are on our fourth round of evening swimming lessons, and now we've gotten sucked into the Olympics. 

It is nice to break with the normal routine (such as it was), but after a couple months of little routine, I'm ready to get back some of the basics we've let go this summer. First, I need to get back on top of a housecleaning routine. My and D's laundry folding routine has fallen apart since we've all been watching the Olympics together and there are now little bodies where the folded clothes usually go. Swimming lessons have put a kibosh on making good dinners and we've been living on quesadillas and sandwiches. Since we aren't having people over here every week or two, things like sweeping and decluttering and cleaning the bathroom are really slipping. The kids and I spent much of Sunday cleaning house, and I was reminded again how cooperative my kids are about helping clean up. I'm sure it feels good to be productive and be contributing something useful to the household, and it can be pretty fun to all work together.  

Tonight we took the night off from watching the Olympics and actually spent a couple of hours doing a little schoolwork and having a nice long read-aloud time. Before that A and I were looking over our schoolwork checklist and found that it is out of date, even though we just made it at the beginning of the summer. Funny how things are constantly changing. We seem to be much more into reading and literature than history and science at the moment. 

We're reading _Swiss Family Robinson_ and a compilation of "rascal" tales, and the vocabulary and language are really satisfying. We've been reading more modern fiction in the past year or so, and have read some wonderful stories, but we are all really enjoying the slow pace and richness of our current read-alouds.  A started doing an online book group that is a bit of a stretch for her, but so far she is keeping up. The books they'll cover this year include some great literature, old (Jane Austin, Charles Dickens) and new (Chaim Potok, Theodore Taylor). One routine we've mostly maintained and that we all really love is a bedtime poem. It is the perfect way to end a day. 

D.I.Y.

We have this stroller that still works perfectly well but that we don't need anymore since our kids are past the stroller stage. And, I've been wanting a bike trailer for grocery shopping. You can see where this is going. The maiden voyage:

Heaven knows, I'm not picky about how things look, but I think we'll have to work on this one a bit before I take it out on the open road. Don't worry mom, we're not going to pull kids in this!

A Miracle Occurred...

We actually managed to do a craft today. Glue guns and all.

Seriously Beautiful Houses + Modern Farming

Check out these amazing houses. 

Oh, and this slide show, too. 

Darn, I just noticed that the last several books I've added to my list of grown-up books aren't on there. I must be forgetting to click on "Add to List" or "Save." And now I can't remember the titles and authors!

Free to Good Home

This sweet kitty showed up at my neighbor's house crying and crying for someone to let her in. We finally let her in, and she has not so much as sniffed at the open door since we did. She has no desire to go anywhere. She is a funny kitty. We took her to the vet and found out that she is about 7 months old and in good health but with no chip and hasn't been spayed. She was the mellowest cat I have ever seen going to the vet. She walked right into the carrier and just sat and looked out the door the whole time. She fought hard when the vet gave her shots and looked in her ears and stuff, but until then she was completely unfazed by the whose experience.

Something seemed a little off about her, but we couldn't put our finger on it at first. She was healthy, yet she seemed unusually mellow for a 7-month old. Also, she would get scared and cry when there weren't any people around, but she didn't really want to be petted. She was smart enough to figure out where the food and litter box where and to catch on to the cat treat routine, but would cry and cry when she was out in the little room where we keep the cat food and couldn't seem to figure out how to get out of there. Well, if turns out that she is deaf. I clapped loudly a few feet away from her and she didn't flinch. 

I've been checking Craigslist and looking at posters on telephone poles to see if anyone is looking for her, but if no one turns up I think we're going to try to find a home for her,  since our other cat is totally freaked out about having another cat in the house. So, let me know if you're interested in taking a very sweet, deaf cat. She'll be hard to say goodbye to, though, I'm getting pretty attached...

Learning Styles

I've been working on this teaching module at work, and its got me thinking about how people learn things. A's piano teacher once said that when she is learning something new, she has to see the big picture, and how the specific piece she is working on fits in, before she can take in the information. 

I'm the opposite. I'll take some basic outline of the big picture, but I really learn by taking random pieces and working with them until I start to see how they fit together. If someone gives me the whole pictures, all neatly laid out, I can't really take it in. The process of struggling with the pieces and figuring out for myself how they fit together seems to be central to the acquisition of the information. Otherwise, it just doesn't stick. I've been wondering lately if this is because I don't have a great memory, but I have good analytic skills. I can't remember information if someone just tells it to me strait out, but if I have to spend some time trying to figure it out, then I have a much better chance of remembering the details that I pick up along the way.

I'm trying to watch my kids and see if I can figure out if that are parts-to-whole people (like me) or whole-to-parts people (like A's piano teacher). I can't really tell. At this point in their lives, it seems like they are more into basic physical skills and facts acquisition, without a lot of actively trying to figure out abstract things. They have much better memories than I do (fortunately), and I think are generally more balanced than I am in the way their brains work. I'm great at some things and really awful at some things, but they seem to be more consistent across cognitive skills. I have a very even temperament, but a rather uneven brain, now that I think about it.

I love to identify dimensions along which people differ, and I guess most people are probably somewhere in the middle on this dimension, just like others, so I shouldn't rush to try to categorize people at one end or the other. But, it is worth keeping my eyes open to how my kids learn, so we can figure out what works best for them. It is useful to have some insight into how you learn.

It's Too Darn Hot

Check it out--a bicycle made out of zome, courtesy of A:

We're playing hooky from park day today because, in the words of Ann Miller, it's too darn hot! We had to do some running around this morning and everyone was very droopy and red-faced by the time we got home. We had actually planned on skipping park day to do a drop-in back handspring clinic at our gymnastics gym, but, again, it's too darn hot for that. We were also planning on doing an all-comers track meet tonight at the park where the kids are taking swimming lessons, but our mission to find tennis shoes for the kids failed, and anyway, it's too darn hot. I'd like to try out my fancy new running shoes that I got today, but it's too darn hot. It actually isn't as hot as it could be, but spending the morning in the car with no A/C kind of did us in. And anyway, I'll take any excuse to quote Ann Miller.

The One Who Hears the Flushes

A: sthva; ;asdljv sdjerkcvpdm  cocamv'pfl (i.e., something in a made up language that I cannot reproduce)

M: I know you just peed.

A: dfjkwe cerm d;fej vfoame vcal;m  (ditto)

M: Do not lie to the one who hears the flushes!

We had a relaxed, kicking around the neighborhood kind of day today. After we went to the library we walked over to our neighborhood locally-owned barber shop to see if they could cut my and M's hair. The first spot with two simultaneous openings was in 2-1/2 hours, so we just hung around and killed time going out to lunch, going to Tuesday Morning to finally buy a table cloth so I don't have to put sheets over table-like objects when we have people over to eat anymore (yay!), etc. M got his hair cut by an older ex-military man who gave him the "Air Force officer's" cut. Looks snazzy! And it will be so much easier to side-breathe at swimming lessons.

Tomorrow A has her 5th grade testing (we only have to test for grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 here) and she is beside herself with excitement. I guess you get excited about tests like this when you don't have to take them all that often. She did really well on all of her 3rd grade test except for the mechanics of writing (i.e., spelling and grammar), and I won't be surprised if she again comes out low on the mechanics of writing. We've actually been working on grammar and spelling quite a bit, but the sad fact is that I fear she inherited my bad spelling gene. If it wasn't for spellcheck, I'd be in big trouble. In fact, half the time I don't even actually see the difference between my spelling of a word and the version spell check is suggesting, but after I click on "replace" the little dotted red line underneath the word disappears, so apparently some changed has occurred.

Work, work, work, Part II

I have indeed been working like a dog for the past month or so (hence the lack of blogging), and we've been a touch grumpy around here. But, everyone is happy at the moment and I actually managed to get caught up on all the immediate stuff at work, and in fact can't move forward on most of my projects until others do their pieces. Ah, the luxury! Even more important, today I had one of those days where it was really clear to me that I get a lot out of my job. 

I'm in the most fun part of a review, where I'm just learning about the field, figuring out the lay of the land, developing the protocol. Another woman is starting a related review at the same time so we've been working together to try to keep our methods as parallel as possible, for lot of good reasons. Our collaboration has been a great help to both of us. It has saved us both time and undoubtedly smoothed our paths for our reviews because we each brought up issues that hadn't occurred to the other, and that were good think through. This afternoon we had a 2-hour meeting with our boss and some other team members to hammer out the details of our inclusion/exclusion rules and it was fun and stimulating. It is so great to work with this group of smart, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and fun women--the debates were lively and thought-provoking and useful and good-natured. I left work full of energy and feeling productive, competent, and well-respected by people I respect.

So, I may complain about having to work at times and sometimes it feels like I have too much on my plate, but more and more I see that in many ways I truly have the best of both worlds.

Seven years old!

We had a lovely birthday weekend recently, in which M's current obsessions (science and fancy men's wear) were fully satisfied. Unfortunately I don't yet have a picture of his fancy new velvet vest (thanks, Grandma!), but I'll get one up soon. M is just a happy fellow, blessed with an even temperament. Here's what life is like in M-land...

Park Day, Finally!

After being rained out for the first two park days, we finally got to kick off our summer homeschool park day. What a lovely day--so many delightful homeschooling parents and kids, and so much fun to see some families we haven't really seen since last summer, and it was also great to meet a couple of new moms. I love how families are getting connected and the network is getting more intertwined all the time. One set of families is doing campfire together with their boys, and another coop has sprung up in the past year. And it was so cool to ride up on our bikes and see several families-worth of bikes lined up against the rail. Life is good when you find yourself surrounded by such great people.

Proud Gymnasts

We had our last end-of-year event this Saturday, which was the kids' gymnastics show. When I signed them up I was grumbling about how much I had to pay for the trophies, and where we'd put another bit of useless junk in our tiny house that already seems crammed with stuff. The show was incredibly fun--from the tiny 3 to 5-year-olds proudly showing off their forward rolls to the wonderfully strong and skilled bigger kids. The thing that was really surprising, though, was how proud my kids were of their trophies. They carried those things around all day, admiring the way their names were written and how heavy they are, worrying about leaving them in the car when we went into the grocery store, wondering if they should take them over to their cousin's house to show them or if it would be better to bring bring the cousins over to our house to see them. A said "Getting a trophy makes me feel like someone has recognized how good at gymnastics I am."  Is that not so sweet? If they go on to do this show every year and get more trophies, no doubt the magic will wear off, but what a memorable day it is, when you get your first trophy.

Robert Dudley, Jr.

Hair style inspired by the actor playing Robert Dudley's son in the Masterpiece Theater production of Elizabeth I the Virgin Queen.

Great 2-part series. A was glued to it, but M was in and out, more interested in trying out the hairstyles than the actual movie. Not too gory, though the kids did close eyes and plug ears several times when things got dicey. 

Work, work, work

I was offered a chance to do a little moonlighting this summer, for really good pay, and after going back and forth about whether I really wanted to, last Thursday I committed to doing the job.  I'm really, really hoping that this is going to be a 2-3 month job, no more than 50-60 hours total, and at the end I'll be able to make a big dent in paying off the loan we got to refinish the bathroom and help pay for our new (used) car. I really hate being in debt, and with the price of groceries and gas and everything else going up, it is a good time for some extra cash to fall in my lap. Nevertheless, I'm moping around and feeling sorry for myself, and it will be hard for me to rest easy until I'm mostly done with the job. 

When I was on the phone with the person hiring me I tried hard to sound enthusiastic, but I can't help feeling a little sick to my stomach at the thought of spending more hours at work. All the people involved in the project seem like they will be great to work with, and I don't think the project will be all that difficult, and like I said, I really want to pay down that loan. I'm glad I'm not unemployed, and I'm glad I don't have a job where I normally have to work more than 32 hours in a week. But mostly, I'll be really glad when this extra job is behind me.

Honeymoon

This weekend A made up a schedule of what she thought we ought to be doing for schoolwork. Day 3, we're still in the honeymoon phase. The pleasure of checking off a box makes it all seem fun. The great thing is that A made it up herself, of her own accord. So it is heavily weighted in favor of things she wants to do and that allow her to use her brain to learn in a way that is satisfying for her. She gave herself several language arts assignments each week (work on an essay, freewrite, vocabulary on FreeRice) and geography (on the internet, using our talking globe). She has herself doing more math on the computer than in the Singapore workbook we're working through, but that is totally fine with me. Anyway, I'm delighted that she feels such ownership of her education; this was one of the goals of homeschooling. Also, a new chart is kind of like rearranging the furniture--suddenly everything looks so much more interesting!

Art Museum Excursion

Since we're downtown most weeks for church now, I bought a membership to the art museum and we've actually managed to get there quite a few times. This morning before church we went on the Portland Art Museum's interactive kid's website and found some great games that are based on some pieces in the Portland Art Museum collection. We made a list of a seven pieces that came up in the online activities and were going to try to find them. I naturally left the list at home, but we remembered that the first pieces on the list were two 19th century American portraits done in contrasting styles so we thought we'd just look for them and the statue of Grant out front and take a quick look at the featured exhibit of works by Klaus Moje. His fused glass pieces were incredibly beautiful and I'm delighted we got to see them. It would have been well worth the trip just to see his stuff. Plus, I splurged and bought a book of 500 glass art pieces that we've been oohing and aahing over.

 

Despite searching and searching for the two portraits we set out to see and the statue of Grant, we never found them. You'd think they'd have the portraits in the room of early American portraits, eh? Well, they probably do, in the Portland, Maine art museum, which sponsored the website we went to this morning. What is it they say about the best laid plans?

Walking Around and Doing Stuff

M was going to the bathroom after reading and before toothbrushing tonight. A and I were waiting around in the kitchen discussing the events of the day. Our conversation went on and on, and pretty soon we heard some thumping and rustling from the bathroom that didn't sound like going-to-the-bathroom noises.

"M, are you just about done in there?"

"OK, OK, I'll finish up."

"What are you doing in there anyway?"

"Oh, just walking around and doing stuff."

Walking around and doing stuff? In the 6 square feet open for walking around in our bathroom? Here's the evidence:

Yes, that is a mirror sandwiched between the seat and the lid. Turns out he was hoping someone would pee on it, not noticing it was there. I guess he's not that impressed with our powers of observation...

Jam Session

I regularly read the wonderful blog of an amazing homeschooling mom with a houseful of musician children. This is the kind of family who goes and plays music for dying members of the community and at nursing homes, among a million other worthy and community-minded activities that leave us looking rather wanting, to be honest. I try not to be jealous, but rather inspired, which I usually am. I do admit, though, that I feel just a twinge of jealousy when I hear of all the amazing music they play. Today, however, I was roused off the couch by the sound of the jam session in my driveway, which has so far lasted for about and hour and a half! I see great things ahead.

Walk Tour of Portland Bridges

Today we went on a wonderful guided walking tour of Portland bridges and the area surrounding the river between the Broadway and Morrison bridges. We started at the Max station by Lloyd Center, rode it down to the Rose Quarter, and ended up walking over 4 miles and crossing 4 bridges.

Our tour guide, Peter, was a wealth of great information and stories about the art we saw, Portland history, and the buildings and bridges we saw. It was rather terrifying standing in the middle of the Broadway and Morrison Bridges, but I just kept a death grip on M and tried think of things other than children plunging into the river and whether I should jump after them if they did. (I shouldn’t, since I can barely swim, but I can’t imagine standing there and doing nothing). Fortunately A was happy to keep a respectful distance away from the railing.

We had some really good luck, in addition to the great planning of our tour guide. The weather was actually perfect, overcast and cool--no rain, no wind, and no sun beating down on us. Also, while we were walking along the Eastbank Esplanade, the paddle- wheel steam boat fired up, let out some truly remarkable toots, and headed downriver, where both the Burnside and Steel bridges opened up for it. We also saw a sea lion swimming around in the river. A great time was had by all.

Attitude

Boy, I really woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I went out for a walk/jog, and only went about 2/3 as far as I usually do, even though it was cool and moist and really quite nice out. When I came back home the kids were full of ideas of things they wanted to do today, and it just felt like a big list of demands. This was purely my own fault, that I felt put upon by these requests. First of all, we do almost always have some activities we three do together on my days off work, so naturally the kids assumed that I was going to do some things with them today. If I want the day off from activities with the kids, I can just say so--no need to act put-upon or resentful. 

In any case, I told them to think of what they wanted to do while I took my bath, and we'd figure out a plan for the day when I was out. I laid in the bathtub and felt sorry for myself while they came up with a list full of worthy activities (M: make a crystal, bake something yummy; A: watch a DVD about Queen Elizabeth I, play a bean bag throwing game she likes, do an art project, make a list of places on the map for her to find, and all dance together). I couldn't get interested in any of their ideas, even though I actually checked out the Queen Elizabeth dvd for myself.

In fact, I was tired and grumpy and wouldn't have minded doing any one of those activities normally, but was just feeling buffeted by their "demands", which of course weren't demands at all, just requests. In my head I'm adding all the other things I had to do: make breakfast, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, make lunch, clean the kitchen again, make dinner, make sure the kids take baths, make sure A practices, do a little math practice, and I really wanted to go to OMSI to watch the landing of a probe on Mars...). My whole attitude was stupid, though. Of course I couldn't do everything the kids wanted to do and get everything done on my list, so my job was to sort through the to-dos for the day and come up with a plan that would work and that would leave me feeling neither exhausted nor resentful nor neglectful. 

It is easy for me to think that I have to do everything, but actually the other members of my household are quite cooperative when it comes to household chores. We actually wrote out a schedule for the day, which made my schedule-loving daughter's heart sing. In the end, the kids each got to do two of the things they wanted to do (M: crystal, making something yummy (Dutch baby for breakfast), A: bean bag game, and the Queen Elizabeth dvd). They also helped by making breakfast, helping with dinner, bringing in and putting away the groceries, and doing the dinner dishes. I got most of the stuff accomplished that I wanted to do, and got to watch the Queen Elizabeth dvd (which I had also wanted to watch, actually) and take a 3-hour nap!

After dinner M took at least and hour to do the dishes, while I relaxed on the couch and tried to read, in between his conversational gambits (covering Dracula (from numerous angles), speculations about whether a really strong metal could disable a metal detector, rabies, speculations about whether someone will someday discover something that goes faster than light, etc. etc.) and A practiced her piano almost the whole time. Talk about diligence. A used to have such a hard time playing with the metronome. In fact, for the first couple of years of piano lessons there was usually absolutely no relationship between the metronome's clicks and the speed of her playing. But tonight she played several pieces perfectly with the metronome, at many different speeds, and switched between clicking on eighths to clicking on quarters. Truly, tremendous progress.

Anyway, today was a good lesson in how my feelings of resentment and being put upon are purely of my own making. I just need to do my job of balancing my needs with those of the household, and I can't get dragged down by thoughts of all the things I'm not doing. I'm doing enough.

Vashon Island

Last weekend we went to the beautiful Vashon Island, off Tacoma, WA. We had a fabulous time with four other families from our homeschool group (alas, we were missing 2 families). We stayed at the hostel there, sleeping in teepees and fixing our meals in a kitchen that was in building made of whole logs from the property. We actually had the use of two kitchens, and there was a third building that had a piano in it. The feature that probably got the most use, however, was a huge grassy field--probably 200 yards long and 100 or more wide. A was wishing that Capture the Flag was an Olympic sport because she thought we could put up a credible team (she suggested Zac for captain, by the way, for his calm head and good sense of strategy). At one point they tried wheelbarrow tag, though it didn't last all that long (see above). We spent one afternoon at a beach at low tide that had a tide pool (? I guess it was a tide pool--it looked like a stream but was salty) filled with various types of crabs and little fish and other miscellaneous wildlife. We even found a couple of small razor clams that we got to see live, in action. The kids made a bunch of little pools that they filled with living creatures they collected, along with rocks, shells, driftwood, and seaweed. They probably gathered up at least 50 hermit crabs amongst them all.

It poured rain on the last night, which highlighted the down-side of staying in teepees, but it was actually nice to have something to motivate us to get up and on the road. It is perfect to be able to leave with no regrets that we were going back to our warm, dry house. I'd love to make that trip an annual event, but unfortunately the woman who runs the place is selling it after this summer, and I doubt it will remain the reasonably priced hostel that it is now.

Sunny Skies

I consider myself someone who is perfectly happy in gray, drizzly weather. And yet, I've been rather grumpy these last couple of weeks, and the grumpiness kind of melted away when the sun came out.

M planned out his agenda for tomorrow and had me write it down for him so he doesn't forget:

1. Run through the sprinklers

2. Bake cookies 

3. Lay in front of a fan and listen to a book on tape

4. Make one of the crystals in my crystal kit

5. Go to OMSI

6. Eat the cookies.

If I was setting the kids' agenda, this is just the kind of list I'd want to put together. Sometimes I fret about not doing enough structured schoolwork, sometimes I'm perfectly content doing maybe 3-5 hours worth of structured school work per week, and sometimes it seems like most of the structured work is a waste of time. The thing I repeatedly come back to, though, is that a reasonable amount of structured work is good, and it is good to take breaks from it. When the kids are filling their time with baking, doing science experiments, drawing, writing stories and plays, playing outside, using their bodies and imaginations, living in the physical, natural world or the world of imagination, I'll almost never interrupt them to do schoolwork. But my kids also like to use the analytic/academic parts of their brains, and sometimes they look to me to feed these parts of their brains, and this is when structured school work is just the ticket. Also, there are some particular skills I think it is important to learn (like basic math), so we find a way to fit those things in on a fairly regular basis.

On beautifully summer days like today, after what seems like 10 months of cold and rainy weather, playing with friends, spraying each other with the hose on the trampoline, swinging, watching ants wrestle crumbs along the driveway, and laying around in the shade staring at the trees are exactly the right things to be doing.

A Beautiful Day

Yay, I played chamber music (string quartets) today for the first time in about 3 months and it was just glorious. Not that we sounded glorious, exactly, but it was so much fun. And we did have some pretty good moments. Even imperfectly played, the second movement of Dvorak's American gives me chills. My calluses are almost completely gone, and my fingers were the first to give out (cello strings are much bigger than violin strings!) I've got to get practicing again. And, a new violinist sat in for our second violinist who is out of town, and she was wonderful to play with. She is looking for a regular group and is wanting to play piano trios, so I'm going to try to set something up with her, me, and a really wonderful pianist I worked on the Schumann quintet with a couple of years ago. I'm not sure how to squeeze it in, but I've just got find a way. I've improved a lot in the upper registers in the past 5-10 years, and I don't want to lose what I've gained.

My husband and I also played some fiddle-guitar stuff that sounded not too bad, considering I'm a cellist and not a violinist and don't have a very good violin. A little screechy and out of tune on my part, but we had a great time, anyway.

The kids and I cleaned the house like crazy this morning--skipped church to do it. Since we usually have people over every week or so, we manage to clean it about every week, but we haven't had anyone over for several weeks and things were looking pretty bad. This was one of those perfect days when I had time to do all the things that I really wanted to do--played music, worked in the yard, cleaned the house, finished our read-aloud sitting outside in the shade on the trampoline, had a delicious dinner. I guess we didn't get any schoolwork done, but it still felt like a productive and good day. 

Something to Add to the Resume

Here is yet another example of the boundless talent that can be found at our house.

His lips are a little tired by this time of day, but still--don't you just want to scoop him up because he's so darn cute?

Creative Endeavors

Wow, a big burst of creative energy today! I came home to find them deeply immersed in some dramatic scenario involving the usual suspects, Charlie Pie and Smoochy-poo.

Then I came upon a couple of drawings of A's. First one of Mr. B, her beta:

Then one using her favorite canvas...

A wrote another installment in her retelling of the story of how the main Greek gods (Zeus and his siblings) started out, this time from Rhea's point of view. (After discovering that Cronus had been swallowing her children, she wrote: "Whell, you can emagon how mad I was. I stormed away to find my husband. He was lounging in his boodwa! I rushed at him to confrunt him and knoked his boodwa over. I was fuming in my room and trying to think of a way to protect my coming baby when an idea hit me so hard it almost knoked me over." OK, maybe we still need a little work on the spelling) Now A is playing her clarinet and M is drawing dinosaurs. Funny what a little taste of sun will do to a kid.