Wordless Wednesday: Too cool for skool

Why I'm 20th-Century Dumb

So bear with me here, cause I've been going through my yearly life crisis. This is the time when we enter the last quarter of the "school year," and I have to re-evaluate what we're doing and if we're still gonna be doing it next year. This year has been worse than ever, honestly.... mainly because I thought I could make my own curriculum, from the internet, for absolutely free.

And, well... I did.

And it sucked.

So, this year's schooling has had some good times, but mainly it had a lot of bad times. Mainly, I've just been feeling like a failure as an educator, as a parent, as a competent person, really.

But I'm about 90% sure right now that we're sticking with it next year.

I got here for a few different reasons:

Because I'm 20th-Century dumb and so are today's students

As I started preparing for our 4-week unit on the roaring 20's and the Great Depression, I found nothing in my normal online resources. One of the staples that I've used has been some free online chapter summaries from some 5 - 6 grade public schooltextbooks. They are reading comprehension worksheets and vocabulary reinforcements that just go over the basics of the chapter, which have been great for my 2nd grader. The bad thing is that the public schools don't really teach much after the Civil War. So, if finally hit me why I know a TON about the founding of our country, and nothing really about the 1900's. This is how it was when I was in school, and this is how it still is.

5th graders learn about the Indians, the Revolution, Expansion, and the Civil War. It takes all year. 6th graders seem to learn all of our history, but they start back at the Indians again, so for the 1st semester, they're reviewing. Second semester, they get to cram in everything that's happened from Reconstruction on.

Because I never got that I was supposed to actually get science

I was trying to figure out where to go for science. I'm tired of the same old, same old. I've gotten a little bored of animals and plants, and I wanted something a little bit.... well, cooler. Again, curricula online failed me. What is this! It's like everyone thinks that kids only have the capacity to learn about cute, furry things and seedlings. I was think something a little more in depth like... you know... chemistry or something. Cause when I got into chemistry, I didn't get it. I mean, I got the grade. I did fine on my report card and all. I could do the problems; I could pass the test. But I didn't get it, you know. I always felt like if I had understood what I was really supposed to be learning, instead of just memorizing which formula to use, I would have really liked chemistry. I want Eve to have that chance.

Because there's more than one opinion and we ought to hear about them, even if we don't agree

Also along the lines of science is a documentary that Billy and I watched last week from Nova. It was about Intelligent Design being thrown out of public education as a theory to be mentioned as something a student could investigate on his own. Seriously. These schools in Pennsylvania had some copies of an Intelligent Design text book donated. The school board voted that science teachers should read a 1-minute statement that reveals that evolution is an un-proven theory with gaps in it, and that there are scientists who research other theories, such as intelligent design. The books were to be available at school libraries for students to look at independently if they were interested. ID was not to be taught in the class.

In typical America fashion, some parents sued. And the judge declared this statement to be unconstitutional as establishing a religion. WHAT?!!?!?!

I don't believe in macro-evoluion, but my daughter knows about it. I don't believe in Buddhism, Islam, or Greek gods either, but my daughter knows about them. I don't believe in big government, but she hears about that, too. I teach her. I let her watch debates so she can hear things from the people who believe it. (Not saying she gets it all yet at her age, but I expose her to it.)

Because believing something without investigating other options and opinions is mindless, and I'm not interested in mindless education.


So, I remember now that part of the reason I home educate is that I just don't think public schools teach kids what they ought to know.

Start 'Em Out Early

I believe in the idea that housework is fun until you learn that it isn't. Combine that with the concept of "If you can get it out, you can put it away," and suddenly you have your 2 year old doing the cleaning. Boy this is the life!

Other responsibilities include putting plastic bowls away, answering phone calls, and flushing the toilet. :)

Precious Chef

For Christmas, a close friend of my mom's surprised my family with a box of presents shipped straight to our door. It was awesome. Ashlyn got a doll, I got a bread serving tray (which I used for my delicious Tastefully Simple Beer Bread - thanks, Jean!).

Those presents were great, but Eve really hit the jackpot with her gift. It's a vintage-y Better Homes and Gardens Jr. Cookbook... a new book that is an exact replica of the 1955 book. She was thrilled. I've been bringing her into the kitchen with me a little more often lately, anyway, so this gift gave us a great way to really help her learn to do things. In fact, she actually made our Christmas Eve meal, mostly on her own.

It took me a while to get things organized after the holidays, but here are some pix of what we feasted on December 24th.





That girl is one precious little chef.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Wow..... it's been forever.

This has been a crazy season for us. Kids have been sick; homeschooling (without pre-made curriculum) has been consuming; church has been precarious.

But now, we're in the holidays, and I'm all about relaxing during them. I'm all about enjoying the celebration of both Jesus' birth (Christmas, duh) and God's provision (Hanukkah). If you don't celebrate Hanukkah, btw, you're totally missing out. C'mon... the whole holiday is about eating food fried in oil. Jelly donuts, fried apple rings. Steak fondue. Oh, yeah... I'm totally excited.

So, yeah.... this is definitely the most wonderful time of the year.

So Excited!

I picked up my Angel Food for this month, and I'm totally geeked.

They have a great menu for next month. The regular box is pretty, uh, regular. Normal stuff, although it seems like maybe they have more meat than this past month had.

But their specials this month are great. I'm particularly excited about the fresh fruit and veggies. They always have really good quality here. This month, I got a cabbage, and it was NOT your run-of-the-mill white head of chemicals. This was a nice farm-grown green leafy thing that I can't wait to use. I may break down and get some ground turkey from the store so that I can make stuffed cabbages. Mmmmmm. Or I may make cole slaw as that's a little more seasonal.

But next month also has a great special of 5 fully-cooked meals for 4 for only $20. In case you're slow on that math, that's only $4 a meal. That's 1 dollar per person. And it's zero effort. You just heat and serve. I'm looking forward to that. :)

Well, I got to get to decorating for Eve's party. But I had to share. If you haven't found an Angel Food location near you, be sure to check it out.

This Week on This One Goes Out...

This week is the beginning of a powerful "event" called the 40 Day Fast. The deal is that various bloggers will be fasting one day each and writing about a cause that they are focusing their prayers on. I'll be participating on July 3rd to write about... something. I'll also to putting up a link in my sidebar to the featured bloggers. Be sure to check that out.

In a somewhat related topic...

This week, I'm also focusing on one of my goals for June. We were hoping to save money on groceries while keeping the health of the family in mind. This is a task and a half sometimes, as a lot of the money we currently spend is on fresh fruit and vegetable, whole wheat bread, and fresh meat. This is as opposed to canned foods, poser wheat bread, and frozen foods like chicken nuggets.

After the month's over, I'll give an update on all my goals. But for now, I thought I could share some of the things I'm doing to try to cut back on our grocery spending.

Hope you'll stay tuned and offer your own thoughts on both of these topics.

Insomniatic Slacker

I am in a bad cycle of not being able to sleep. And it's catching up to me today in the form of a horrendous headache. Ouch!

On another note, if you're interested in reading my short column on coming to terms with post-second child slacking, you can access it on the bottom of page 5 of this month's Evansville Parent.

A Run for My Money

It's been a little while since I wrote much about our little one, but today she just showed so many new skills that I can't help myself.

Here are some recent milestones in little Ashlyn's development:

1. Falling off the couch headfirst.
2. Climbing into the cabinets.
3. Playing in the toilet water.
4. Climbing into the bath while the water's running, while fully clothed.
5. Sticking letters on her head.
   

This is where it gets fun!

When the Living's Easy

Today was quintessential summer.

And I've had Sublime stuck in my head because of it.

After a couple of hours of school, the girls and I headed to the pool to catch up with our neighbors. It was the intense sunny time, so we lathered on sunscreen and dipped in the pool for some cooling down. After about an hour and a half, Ashlyn began falling asleep in her intertube, so I decided to head home and give her a proper nap. She slept for 2 1/2 hours. Amen!

During that time, Eve played here and there, but eventually went outside to run around with the kiddos across the hall. This is where summertime burst in.

Playing outside for hours on end. Dripping with sweat and loving every minute. Coming in for rushed drinks and bathroom breaks.

It made me happy to see my daughters with a normal and healthy childhood.

And it's days like this that remind me why being home is the best thing for all of us.

Crappy Mom

My 16-month-old got a sunburn on her arms today because we were at the pool for 2 hours, and I only applied sunblock once. Needless to say, a lesson was learned, but I still feel like a loser.

Why Apartment Living Beats the Snot Out of Owning a House

When Billy and I moved here, we had lots of people encouraging us to buy a house, but we opted for an apartment instead. Oh, I am so glad we did!

Here are some reason I like renting an apartment instead of owning a home:

Yard Work: We have the best of both worlds here in the apartment. We have a grassy field out our back door for the girls to run around, but we don't have to mow it. We also have a little tucked away area between our patio and the air conditioning unit where I plan to put some plants next year. But if I don't get around to it, it's not a big deal, because landscaping isn't something I have to maintain while renting. So, if I want to, I can. If I don't, then I don't have to. Who can complain at that?

Cooling Off: We just got back from swimming in the complex's pool. It opened 2 weekends ago, and we've been making nearly daily trips to cool off for about an hour at a time. Not to mention that living on the bottom floor of an apartment building seems to keep us cooler than living in our one story house did. It's currently 92 degrees here, but it's quite comfortable in our apartment without the a/c on. In fact, the only times I've used the a/c so far has been while cooking dinner or working out. Those are times you tend to get extra hot, so I've needed the cool-down. Hopefully, this will reflect well on our bill this summer. (Of course, we'll have to see if this is still a good thing come winter, when our hot air rises!)

Size, location for our money: For the same amount of monthly payment, we could get a $100,000 home loan at the current rates (according to mortgage-calc.com). This is about what our last house was worth, and trust me, we are not wanting to go back into the kind of house you can get for $100,000. It will either be so old that we'll constantly do repairs, or so small that we'll literally trip over each other on the our way to the 1 bathroom (been there... trust me, I don't want to go back!), or in a location that is too busy for my tastes. So, here for a comparable cost, we gained 400 square feet, including one bathroom, and we have no responsibility for repairs, and we have a nice suburban feel with a lake to walk around.

Seriously, if renting this apartment, isn't a gift from God, I don't know what is.

Beautiful Day

I'm about to unveil the extent of my dorkiness. Mark this day on your calendars, it won't happen again. Billy will love this. He accuses me of always wanting to look cool and not doing fun things because I'll look like a dork. He's right. But here, in all my dorkdom, let me tell you about my beautiful day.

As you faithful readers know, I've been gearing up to be organized. With a new baby and selling a house, schedules flew out the window. But now that we're fairly settled in the new place, I've been aiming to get some structure back in our lives. Oh, my gosh! Is it ever glorious!

Last night, I spent some much-needed time planning my week. I use Google Cal, and I have 4 calendars that I keep. Here's what my week looked like online:


So, here, I have my green events, my red reminders (i.e. anything Billy doesn't need cluttering up his calendar view), my purple meal planning, and Eve's pink. Google rocks and e-mails me one agenda for the day to print out and reference.

The day was highly organized, highly productive, and highly full of scheduled fun (and delicious food, I might add).

Commenting on my brilliant rigidity may now commence.

June Goals

Here's how I did on goals for the month of May:

• Work out 3 times a week - eh...it was more like 2, but it was something, at least.

• Pick out photos for Ashlyn's first year baby book - we're up through 8 months on this one.
  

• Figure out a scheduling/calendar system that works for us - looking good...Billy and I use GoogleCal to coordinate between the two of us, and I have a separate calendar book for taking with me. It's a little cumbersome to have both, but since I don't have a way to carry Google around, I have to use both for now.

• Read a couple of non-fiction books - The Emerging Church and Why We're Not Emergent. I also read The Bridge to Terebithia.
  

• Change address on magazine subscriptions - I called mags to do this, and found out that the post office did this one for me! How sweet of them.

• Use the decluttering calendar a couple times a week - Ok...so I only used it a couple time this month. The result is a couple of very organized dresser drawers. Long overdue!

• Spending Fast Update - We did it! The only thing that we bought that was not a utility or food was a bathing suit for me. I know, I know...it doesn't seem like a necessity, but trust me... when your plan is to stay home as much as possible all summer in order to save gas, you have to take advantage of the complex pool. I thought about putting the purchase off until June, but I was at Wal-mart getting diapers (total necessity!) and I figured I should just go ahead and get the suit to save another trip.
  

June's Goals -
Continue "real" exercise 2x a week, but also add in mini-sessions 2 evenings
Find out about new car and drivers' licenses
Decrease auto fuel usage by 10% (in terms of dollars!)
Figure out some ways to eat healthy and cut the grocery bill
File all my crazy papers/shred unneeded ones
Finish choosing photos for the baby book

May Goals

Well, it seems like life has settled down again. It's good to be back together as a family, and we're pretty much settled in except for the stuff that never had a place in Indiana, and will take forever to get a place here in Alabama.

So, I'm looking for a bit more structure to our days, and I thought a good place to start would be in monthly goals. Sure the month's half over, but I've been working on these all along anyway. I just thought I'd share them with you.

Goals for the months of May:

Work out 3 times a week
Pick out photos for Ashlyn's first year baby book
Figure out a scheduling/calendar system that works for us
Read a couple of non-fiction books
Change address on magazine subscriptions
Use the decluttering calendar a couple times a week
Open a bank account down here

Spending Fast

Now that we're down here and getting settled, Billy and I have had a chance to look over our money stuff.

The move and related things (house repairs, organization needs [read: a kitchen trash can and such], bedding for Eve) have caused us to spend more than we normally do. Add to that an obnoxious bill for car repair, and we're downright tired of shelling out the cash.

So, we decided last night to participate in a "spending fast" for the month of May. This means that we won't be spending any unnecessary money.

"Necessary" will be categorized as anything that would make creditors come after us if we didn't pay. We will be paying rent. We will pay for power. We will pay for gas and groceries, although our efforts will go toward decreasing these expenditures.

"Superfluous" spending would include things like picture frames that I really want so I can hang up family pictures. These are only $2 each at Wal-mart. But $2 here and $2 there is what ends up adding up to big bucks in the long run.

I will be waiting to buy curriculum for next year until June. I'll also have to wait on getting Ashlyn's year-old pictures printed. (Heck! She's already 15 months, what's 30 more days???)

If we want, we can choose to write down things that we wanted to spend money on. Then, at the end of the month, we'll see what we really wanted by seeing if we still want it.

The idea for this came from My Simpler Life.

Are You Serious????

Apparently my husband forgot about this post.

Let the Journey Begin

Today was carefree.

Without jackets, we headed to the Ohio River in Newburgh.

It's been a long time since we've been down there, and it was great to walk along the river petting dogs and playing in fountains, looking at overpriced artwork and beat up used books.

We stayed there for about 90 minutes, doing everything that we won't get to do for much longer.

It's supposed to snow on Tuesday. And we'll be gone in a month.

As I walked around in Newburgh, I thought about how much I'm going to miss it. This is my town, you know? This is where I grew up, went to high school, came home to during college, bought my first house, got married, had children.

And through all that there was this quaint small-town remnant along the southern part of the Ohio, one state before it merges with the Mississippi.

This downtown where I marched in parades and went for countless walks with strollers. Where I have taken pictures year after year, even exposing photography students to the artistic possibilities all around us when we're only aware.

This is the downtown with the tree that withstood the tornado, where Billy and I made a point to go on our wedding day -- a symbol that our home will be strong through all kinds of storms.

There were so many reminders of good times and special memories. It could be easy to be upset right now. To be uncertain of the future, trying to hold on to the past.

But today was carefree. It wasn't the sadness of loss, so much as the joy in the moment. The happy remembrances of years gone by and the eager hopes for years to come.

Because more memories will be made, no matter where we are. Other places will earn my favor and become attached to the beauty of a memory. And there will be other times to mourn.

Today was a time for laughing.

Top 3 Sentiments that Made Me Fall in Love Over E-mail

With Valentine's Day coming up, I have been thinking about love. With Billy in Alabama, I've been revisiting our days of long distance dating.

Put those two together and you get a quick post to see what exactly I fell in love with 2 1/2 years ago.

These are 3 of my favorite sound bites from e-mails that Billy sent me during the summer of 2005.

#3

"I think we both kinda have the idea that you don't date someone with out it being a preparation for marriage. Like we'd be intentional about dating as to focus it to prepare in that way. It would mean respecting each other and not having sex and if we felt we didn't want to marry the other person to break off the dating. (I'm really sorry for talking about marriage I know that freaks you out.)"

#2

"So the end point of this is that you are 1500 times cooler than ever imagined a girl could be. You are intelligent and funny and your faith is amazingly dynamic. Through the stories you share I see that you are forgiving and caring and even in like the four pictures that I've seen of you, you are very beautiful. (I really mean that, I know there's an insecure girl inside of you that doesn't think so. She probably tells you that you don't look like the models on TV. I don't really go along with the world's definition of beauty. I've kinda got my own and I don't know how to describe it other than you are it.) "

And the #1 reason I fell in love with Billy over the internet was the following sentence that he wrote as he was debating when to move our relationship forward to a face-to-face meeting. It kept me laughing for literally months afterward.

#1

"The romantic kid would drive all night to come see you; unfortunately so would the creepy, obsessed internet guy. "

New Year, New Church, New Car

I realize that I've been conspicuously absent from the blogging world lately. But I have a good reason, really I do.

You may know that Billy's been looking for a new job for the last several months. It's been a trying process, but the dedication has paid off.

This weekend, we were busy traveling to Huntsville, Alabama, to visit our new church Chase Valley. Billy will be moving down soon, and I'll stay here for a bit longer to tie up some lose ends that need finishing with the house and my part-time job.

You can find out more about the situation on Billy's blog.

Because of this new development, we've also been busy buying a second car. We got a "new" minivan - it's a 2001 Grand Caravan in a lovely shade of shiny olive green. It has a few repairs that the dealership is working on, but we should be in possession of that this week. Unfortunately, Billy gets to take it with him to Huntsville so he can move things down with him.

Things are hectic, but good.

Hope you all had a happy new year.